inFAMOUS
Sucker Punch/Sony Computer Entertainment

"All human beings are commingled out of good and evil."
-Robert Louis Stevenson

I've always had an affinity for Super Heroes®. And, with the rare exception (Batman: Arkham Asylum being the most recent exception), Super Hero® games have been pretty terrible. So when Sucker Punch and Sony announced a new Super Hero® game, I was pretty excited.

Many people seem to be infatuated with Dinosaurs.  Unfortunately, not many video games incorporate the dino-theme into the story with the exception of the Turok franchise and a few others scattered throughout the years.  Personally, I feel deprived of the prehistoric creatures and this is why games like Jurassic: The Hunted creates a bit of a buzz upon its release

Game accessory maker KontrolFreek has created 2 new controller accessories that are supposed to enhance your gaming skills. Do these products live up to the hype, or are they just a gimmick that will waste your hard-earned money?

Sigma is a character in the Greek Alphabet that means “Sum of all values”. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 for the Playstation 3 takes the title of “Sigma” and truly delivers on its meaning. This installment of Ninja Gaiden is truly a summation of the series.

As its title suggests the game is an enhanced port from the Xbox 360 version that was released in June 2008 amidst some heavy in-fighting and company strife at Tecmo.
While the first version version was fun it showed a lack of polish that is not common with Team Ninja titles.

Rise of the Argonauts is a PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 title released by Liquid Entertainment and Codemasters. This review is for the Xbox 360 version.

Story:

Rise of the Argonauts is based off of the mythological tale of Jason & The Argonauts. While Rise of Argonauts doesn’t follow closely to its source material, it does provide an epic and expansive tale that achieves that of the original.

You start out the story about to marry your childhood love, but fate has other plans in store, thus your thrust into an adventure that spans across an entire journey filled with intrigue and a great dialogue tree system to flesh out the world and the characters that inhabit it. I won’t go any deeper into the story as it’ll spoil what is actually a great story about love and redemption. This is one you must experience for yourself.

You’ll start out at Iolcus, but you’ll soon sail off to Delphi, Mycenae, Saria, Kythra, Tartarus, and more.

Gameplay:

Rise of the Argonauts combat is shallow. There’s not much to it. It’s of the hack and slash variety. You can block with your shield to defend from oncoming attacks, too.  That’s really all there is to it. It’s fun, though, so don’t get me wrong.

Throughout the story, you will gain new abilities from the gods. The way you gain these abilities is to dedicate deeds to them, which is achieved through your actions in the game. Much of this is earned from answering the dialogue trees in the way of one of the 4 gods. Depending on how you answer or approach a conversation, you can side with Ares, Hermes, Apollo, or Athena. This will allow you to upgrade certain abilities.

Also, throughout the game, you will gain new swords, shields, and armor. None of this is “loot”, though. All of the items you gain have a certain meaning to them. You have to earn them through making decisions and they will have an impact on the story.

You will also be able to choose which area you go to first and then then same for every single one after that. After you take of some things in Iolcus, you’ll set sail on the Argo. This is a beautiful ship with a certain steam punk-style design. It’s big and nice to explore. You’ll come across others throughout the journey and they will join you on the Argo. Anyways, once on the Argo, this is where you’re able to choose which area to visit and set sail to.

Now, the last part of the gameplay I must mention are the conversations. This game is very heavy on more talking, less action. So yes, if you’re into heavy action, then steer clear of Rise of the Argonauts. I’d say it’s about 60% conversations and 40% action. This is why the story is definitely the strongest aspect of Rise of the Argonauts.

Presentation:

Rise of the Argonauts looks decent. It won’t wow anyone, though. The art style and surroundings are something to behold. It’s all quite beautiful. But from a technical standpoint, there’s not much going on here. The game uses the tried and true Unreal 3 Engine. I didn’t notice much pop-in of the environment or textures, but the game is plagued with some weak textures, character models, and animations. Rise of the Argonauts doesn’t quite have the big production values of a Mass Effect, but with that said, it does well with what it has, but all is still not perfect.

Rise of the Argonauts has some major framerate issues at times, which can really bring the experience down overall. There’s also some clipping and weird glitch annoyances. There’s a real lack of polish, which is disappointing considering the game could’ve been top shelf. The story really is quite good. Sadly, the technical aspects don’t achieve greatness and hurt the overall experience.

Overall:

Rise of the Argonauts is a game that suffers from shallow combat and a real lack of TLC. The glitches, framerate issues, and other drawbacks hurt an ambitious game with a compelling story. If you’re in love with Action/RPG’s like I am, then it may be worth your time to experience the story, but those who are looking for a AAA action-packed experience will be let down.

Final Score:
7/10

Darkest of Days is a sci-fi first-person shooter developed by 8monkey Labs for the PC and Xbox 360.

Story:
Darkest of Days is a game about traveling through time and saving key figures that should've never died. It's a fantastic premise. Early on you'll meet your partner in crime... errr, time (ha, get it? Yeah, not funny at all. :P), Dexter. He's quite the likable fellow. He has a foul mouth and is full of sarcasm. You'll also meet the woman who runs the show, Mother. The problem with Mother is that Darkest of Days completely fails with character development, except with Dexter, so you won't care about Mother or the people you're rescuing throughout history. It's enough to push the game along, but other than Dexter, the rest of the script and acting falls short of what's expected. The potential of an interesting tale is abandoned early on. There was a lot of potential in the POW camp scene, so it's all a shame.

No spoilers, but the ending is absolutely atrocious.

Gameplay:
The gameplay in Darkest of Days is about dropping the player into a huge battle on a massive amount of terrain. Sounds awesome, right? It should. Sadly, this is another section of the game where it drowns itself in its own mediocrity. No matter which system you play it on, PC or Xbox 360, the game runs like complete escrement. This game was not optimized well on PC, which made me run out and pick it up for 360 after being hassled with the screwjob that is the PC version.

So yes, I got it for 360, too. I started to play it and noticed immediately that the game cannot run on the Xbox 360. There are multiple parts in the game that the framerate will drop into the single digits. It's like watching a slideshow, which makes aiming a complete bitch. One perfect example of this is the Zeppelin mission. This mission has you and Dexter aboard a Zeppelin and tasked with defending it from multiple units on the ground. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. Sadly, though, the framerate in this section is horrid, like many parts in Darkest of Days, it really shows off the awful performance in this one section. You have to use a sniper rifle to take guys out on the ground, but due to the technical issues, this section can be incredibly laggy and jerky. It's a mess.

Now, I know I've been very negative thus far, but there is a bit to like here. The battles where you're on the ground and advancing with Union members to take on the opposition is breathtaking. There's many sections like this. I liked that the weapons were historically accurate, even if single shots can be a pain in the neck when facing a large amount of enemies.

Again, though, technical issues bring down the spectacle, and this is all really a shame, because the potential is clearly there, but they failed for the most part.

Darkest of Days is known for its twist, which means taking epic futuristic weapons back in time and blowing away sad tools with muskets. Very often, though, you have to use the muskets. You very rarely actually get to become the futuristic badass that 8monkey Labs sold their game on.

The aiming in the 360 version is fine (if it's not tanking in the framerate department), but the PC version has really laggy mouse controls for some reason.

Presentation:
Darkest of Days looks like a game from about 2003. It isn't the ugliest game I've seen, but it looks older than Half-Life 2, which actually looks quite nice still. I have to give 8monkey Labs some props for creating vast terrain with many units on-screen at once, but it runs badly. I don't know if the engine was a programming disaster or if this game just wasn't optimized well for both platforms. It seems like more time was needed, though. It looks great for everything that's going on, but it can't keep up with it, so is it really worth it? I'd rather have nice performance.

Overall:
Darkest of Days is a 7-8 hour game. It's a difficult FPS, though. You will die a lot, even on normal. Is it worth the frustration? That's really up to you and your expectations for a game. The graphics are decent at best, but they're good considering what they're pushing on-screen. The game runs like crap on both systems. The gameplay is lacking, but sometimes fun, when the framerate isn't chugging along, that is. As a whole, even though it was announced many years ago, and it had a ton of potential, Darkest of Days feels like a game that is uncooked. It needed a lot more time in the oven. The final product feels rushed, unpolished, and a mere shadow of its true potential.

I hate to say it, but I can't recommend Darkest of Days. If you're a historic buff like me, then it might be worth $10 or so in the bargain bin, but I'd say to steer clear to everyone else.

Final Verdict:
3.5/10

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC title developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Eidos.

Story:

The story of Batman: Arkham Asylum is rather simple. Joker baits Batman in with a crime and gets our beloved caped crusader into the madhouse that is Arkham Asylum. Once in Arkham, Joker makes an escape, which leaves Batman little choice, thus he must journey deep into the insanity and bring Joker to justice. And Batman becomes a little insane himself. But more on that later.

You’ll meet many of Batman’s foes along the way. Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Bane, and many more are included. You’ll get to fight every single one of one them in one way or another.

Now onto the “more on that later” part. You’ll have multiple encounters with a certain character that twists and turns Batman’s world, so much that he starts to lose it and imagine dark times in his life. These scenes bring more emotion into the story and allow the player to feel for the character.

The story in Batman: Arkham Asylum is satisfying due to the atmosphere and stunning presentation. This is what we’d expect from the mastermind Paul Dini, though. Add in top notch voice talent and the story delivers in every single way.

Gameplay:

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a third-person action/adventure, which has some Metroidvania inspiration in its overall design. You’ll gain new abilities throughout the 12 hours that the game lasts, which is filled with some of the best gaming moments you’ll have in 2009.

The pacing in Batman: Arkham Asylum is top notch. You will never be bored exploring Arkham Island. There’s always something new and interesting around nearly every corner.

Much of Arkham Asylum’s gameplay revolves around a very simplistic and intuitive “freeflow” combat system. The entire system works in such a seamless fashion and allows Batman to circle and flip around his enemies. The enemies you’ll encounter are pretty dumb inmates, which won’t put up much of a fight, but will become a danger in numbers. Thankfully, you can reverse their moves with ease and just a single button press, keeping the action hot and heavy. It never slows down. It’s always, fast, fun and seamless.  The more you chain a combo, the more XP you’ll be rewarded. Some may see this system as a negative due to the fact that it can be overly simple and very player friendly, thus there’s not much depth involved, because you can only  strike, reverse, stun, and jump, but it’s satisfying, and that’s what matters to me as a gamer.

Aside from the melee combat, there’s also many opportunities for stealth gameplay. Arkham is filled with vents, gargoyles, and other places where Batman can hide and wait for an unsuspecting foe. The great thing about the stealth is that you can  go into “invisible predator” mode, which is almost like a night vision mode, but “invisible predator” highlights the enemies guarding an environment, and this allows you to set up the perfect situation to bring them all down. It also provides some good humor, because once you take an enemy down in stealth and he’s found by other enemies, the other enemies will start to freak out. They’ll shoot at shadows, move around the environment in a very fearful manner, their heart rate will increase, etc. You feel like Batman, striking fear into the enemy. It’s entertaining and hilarious.

Now onto Arkham. You’re not stuck in Arkham Asylum the entire time, but only at the beginning. You get to freely explore Arkham Island early on. Granted, not all of it is open at first and missions do carry a linear structure, but you’ll gain access to each building throughout the story. And as you gain new abilities, you can backtrack to areas you had already explored and collect Riddler’s trophies and audio logs from all of Batman’s greatest foes.

The last bit I will talk about are the boss fights. I really enjoyed them overall, but most of them also use the melee method of gameplay, meaning you just keep punching until the boss is defeated. Every once in a while you’ll come across a boss that is more of a puzzle or has a few phases, like Killer Croc and Poison Ivy. But I’ll be honest, most of the boss fights are shallow.

Presentation:

Arkham Island feels like a living and breathing place. And all of it changes over time to fit with what’s happening in the story. The mood, the ambience, and everything about Arkham really stands out and makes you feel as if you’re an active participant in this hellish nightmare.

Rocksteady Studios did a fantastic job with the Unreal 3 Engine. Batman: Arkham Asylum is easily the most impressive game I’ve seen on the engine. All textures look glossy and detailed. The character models are quite strong and really bring some of our favorite characters to life. Some of the NPC character models look somewhat poor, though, and many are repeated.

Almost everything in Batman: Arkham Asylum animates nicely, especially Batman’s cape. It flows with the wind and moves around realistically during combat. There is little clipping in the animations, which is impressive.

The audio in Batman: Arkham Asylum is absolutely top shelf. The music really brings the adventure to life and it’s all memorable. But the real star here is the excellent voice talent on display. You have Mark Hamill as the Joker. You have Kevin Conroy as Batman. What more could you ask for? This is one hell of a production.

Overall:

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a dark journey through an absolutely insane universe. It takes the caped crusader and puts him in the best licensed title that gamers have ever had the chance to experience. With high production values, top notch gameplay, and a detailed world to explore, you’d have to be absolutely nuts to pass up this nominee for ‘Game of the Year’.

Final Score:
9.5/10