[2 Minute Review] Gears Of War 2
Welcome to buttonmashing.com, a weblog were we talk about video games. If you're new here or you arrived from a Google search, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed and keep up with our site. Thanks for visiting! You can reach the homepage here.
Michael Bay, eat your heart out. This is the game you wish you had made.
Gears of War 2 does everything the first one did, only bigger, louder and better.
DO: Shoot, run, drive, fly and chainsaw your way through hundreds of the Locust Horde across a variety of awesome set piece battles.
TYPE: 3rd Person Cover-Based Shooter
PLATFORM: Xbox 360
MEAT: Gears of War 2 is the leaner, sleeker version of Gears of War. The cover system that defined the original game has been tweaked so that Marcus will stick to things he should stick to and jump/run/dive when the situation calls for it. The story has also been beefed up significantly in this installment. It won’t win any awards but it has enough meat to give a somewhat plausible justification as to why Marcus and his crew of thick-necked soldiers keep getting into the crazy situations they find themselves in. Gears 2 is the epitome of a summer action movie distilled into a game. Explosions abound, the stakes are high and only the hero and his giant chainsaw/gun can save the day. It works great as a way to relax your brain if you’re playing headier fare like Valkyria Chronicles or Fallout 3. Just point and shoot and wait for something to go BOOM.
PERKS: Chainsaw duels; riding a variety of ‘vehicles’; giant boss fights; a variety of multiplayer modes, including the awesome 5-man Horde co-op mode.
SCREAMS: For more chainsaw duels in the story campaign; a few less underground segments.
Verdict: Buy (esp. if you want the 5 classic Gears maps). As someone who got bored of Gears 1 about 2/3rds of the way through the singleplayer campaign, I went into Gears 2 with some trepidation. Suffice it to say, Gears 2 had me hooked from start to finish and wishing it wouldn’t end. The fantastic Horde mode helps to extend the life of the game significantly and the classic multiplayer modes are all fairly fun, at least for this gamer who doesn’t play a tonne of multiplayer things. Now hurry up and get Gears 3 out so we can see where the story goes from here!
[2 Minute Review] Hinterland
Note: with this review, we’ve moved from the “+” and “-” format in our VERDICT to Buy, Rent, or Pass.
Mix a little Diablo II, a little Dwarf Fortress, and a little Sim City and what do you get?
Hinterland—a surprisingly fun game, even without the professional polish.
DO: Build a little village all the while terrorizing the “hinterlands” with your villagers cum warriors at your side. Essentially make your tyrant of a king happy.
TYPE: clickfest hack and slash with a dose of micromanagement on top
PLATFORM: PC (Steam version reviewed here)
PRICE: $20 (via many different digital download vendors)
MEAT: You play a character (one of many typical fantasy classes with a few tongue in cheek classes as well) that’s been called by the king to establish a village and conquer the region for your liege. Travelers come to your village and you get them to stay and perform their special skill while possibly using and training them to raid the countryside with you. One caveat: when they are with you they don’t perform their skills in the village. Your village is raided as well and you can minimally defend it. The game session ends once you’ve conquered all the regions. The replay-ability comes from all the character classes and villager skill classes. Essentially, you play for high scores—and a dragon or two.
PERKS: easy to learn, lifetime to master; humorous; variable game sessions; excellent developer support; dragons; huge replay-ability; casual or hardcore; cheap;
SCREAMS: to be less ambiguous in some parts; online leaderboards; to have specific quests (the king’s requests can go to…); to have random map encounters; to have major weapons and characters (ie dragons) not be always so close to the endgame; to be able to reuse your characters; to have a little more polish; to have a screen zoom function; to be a little more reliable on some machines
VERDICT: Buy. The next game by TiltedMill—with a little more money put into by you owning this one—will be stellar. This is an excellent independent developer effort.
[2 Second Review] Fracture
When a game is much, much more entertaining in the tutorial than it is in the actual game, something is wrong.
Fracture is like the Force Unleashed only without the story to give you a reason to proceed. It’s a fun game until people start shooting at you. I love the concept with the world deformation and maybe it can be incorporated in a better way in some other kind of game, but as it stands in Fracture, it’s a flop. I knew it was time to pop the disc out when I spent most of the first level hitting enemies with the butt of my rifle than I did shooting them.
Recommendation: AVOID
[2 Minute Review] Marvel Trading Card Game
What’s better than a cross between the Marvel universe and Magic:The Gathering right?
DO: Use the stylus so much in the same spot that it scratches the surface of the touch screen on your DS. A game that probably has the most characters from the Marvel universe. Keeps you craving more cards.
TYPE: Card
PLATFORM: DS (and the PSP)
PRICE: About $20 or $30
MEAT: This game is a pretty straight forward card game. The battle system takes some getting used to and the tutorial doesn’t help out too much. If you put the time and effort into getting to know the system it’s well worth it. The game has all the main characters that you could want and even some that you wished they didn’t waste their time putting into the game. Then again you need to have some weak characters in the game, everyone can’t be the strongest card available. The actual powers/abilities, strength, and defense of the characters match up pretty well in the system as they do in the comics.
The story of the game isn’t the best and is kind of lacking yet the cut scenes are in the form of a comic which is cool. The artwork of the superheroes and super heroines on the cards and in the cut scenes are great, the characters have several cards each with different pictures on each one. Half of the fun of the game is getting new cards and seeing the new art on the cards. When you start a new single player game you pick either hero or villain and once you beat it as one, you play through the story of the other with all of your previously collected cards. The system to get new cards is the same setup as a store in the real world. You buy a booster pack of hero or villain cards and in each comic world like the X-men or Fantastic Four.
PERKS: Great gallery of all the main characters; smooth gameplay; online play; a good comic book based game; it’s great to beat a hard opponent that you’ve lost to multiple times.
SCREAMS: The need of a good story; no cancel button (if you hit the wrong button or choose the wrong card your stuck, I’ve lost a couple hands due to that missing feature); one boss was WAY harder than it needed to be; the tutorial/learning curve could be better.
VERDICT: Buy~ As a comic book related game it is a lot better then most of the ones out there. I enjoyed the game a lot. I recommend the game for anyone interested in it or knows enough about comics and needs a handheld gaming fix of them. Read more
[2 Minute Review] Time Hollow
What do you get if you lock Phoenix Wright, Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory in a room with a Barry White CD playing?
This kid will have a lot of questions when he’s older…
DO: A lot of reading, cause time paradoxes and get really confused… in a good way.
TYPE: Point & Click adventure game.
PLATFORM: DS
PRICE: $29.99
MEAT: If you’ve played an Ace Attorney game or Hotel Dusk: Room 215, you’ll be right at home with Time Hollow. The game plays like a combination of an interactive novel and an old Lucasarts/Sierra point & click adventure, with inventory management and conversation trees galore. Thankfully, it’s all done in a clean, simple way with minimal backtracking and plenty of hooks to move the story along.
Time Hollow deals with your character, Ethan Kairos, who wakes the day of his 17th birthday to find that everything in his life doesn’t seem right. His parents, who were just having dinner with him the night before, have now been missing for 12 years. Friends go missing for days despite Ethan having just talked to them moments earlier. Am I hurting your brain? Don’t worry. It all makes a lot more sense in the game proper and a large part of the game’s plot involves trying to unravel the cause of these paradoxes.
That’s where the Hollow Pen comes into play. Ethan uses this device to ‘dig’ into the past and find clues to the unraveling chronosphere around him.
PERKS: The production values on Time Hollow are VERY impressive for a DS game and that, plus the excellent translation from the original Japanese, make it a must-own game for fans of the waning point & click adventure genre. I was quite impressed with the number of animated (and fully voiced) cutscenes in the game as well.
VERDICT: Buy. If you’ve enjoyed the Ace Attorney games and want something with a little more actual gameplay and a more serious storyline (and time travel!) or are a fan of point & click adventure games in general, run, don’t walk, to the store to get this game. You won’t be sorry…
[2 Minute Review] Too Human
Can a game that a blogger was so adamant against getting because of low “professionally reviewed” scores be any good?
Surprisingly, the reviewers got it all wrong. However, most “professional” reviewers compared it to what they thought it should be (i.e. what was promised) and they did not review it for how it stood as a final product. However, this game can be summed up in two words: lost potential. Is it still fun?
DO: Cut down anything that moves using the left thumbstick to move and the right thumbstick to attack. Gamepad buttons confer bonuses and a dodge.
TYPE: Third-person action.
PLATFORM: 360
PRICE: $59.99
MEAT: You play as Baldur, a semi-god, who with his brothers protects the human race in the future. The plot loosley follows Norse mythology. Actually, the plot is convoluted unless you know a little bit of the mythology. Even then, don’t try to understand it. There is a surprising twist at the end that does make some sense in the narrative. However, unintentionally, this is a game for just playing. (Did Pac Man need a story to be fun?) Your character progresses by loot grinding through four worlds. (There’s an alternate world that basically offers nothing called Cyberspace–an exploration map that nets you armor perks but is probably there just to frustrate you by getting you lost.) Every item has its own look, perks, and can be color customized. This is a game for weapon and armor customization nuts. This is also a game for those who like to RPG farm. There’s a wonderful co-op mode that blends well with the core gameplay and skips the narrative altogether. It only supports two players, but four may be coming via update. There may be some new classes added to the included five (Berserker, Defender, Champion, Commando, and Bioengineer). The classes don’t change the style of play that much because the enemies pretty much all attack the same way.
PERKS: excellent visuals; satisfying combat (sliding especially); loads of items; replayable for grind nuts; wonderful finishing moves
SCREAMS: to use it’s potential: story, combat, enemy variety; better class distinction; change a couple of boss battles to be fun and not grinds; eliminate enemy ranged attacks for the sake of difficulty–maybe actually code some enemey AI other than “mob the player”; add a defensive move other than dodge; it wants to be epic and there’s glimpses of that, but the potential is lost
VERDICT: Rent. Buy it when it’s a budget title.
Proof being in the pudding. Here’s my gamercard to show I beat the thing.
[2 Minute Review] Bully: Scholarship Edition
Can an ape work his way to the top of the school social pyramid?
Yes, and the journey is satisfying.
DO: Crack heads, kiss girls and uh…well, attend classes, and run from authority figures to be the big man on campus
TYPE: Third-person sandbox
PLATFORM: 360 (reviewed here) and Wii
PRICE: $29.99
MEAT: You play as Jimmy Hopkins—misfit, intellectual, romantic, mascot, leader, and above all, bully. There are four cliques in the school and they all hate each other. Your job is to unite the geeks, preps, greasers, and jocks under one banner—Jimmy’s. All the while, you have to go to classes and perform mini-games for clothing and skills upgrades. You can skip them as well. However, skipping and not being in dress code will land you a beatdown by the school’s prefects if caught. You’ll eventually get to wander all over the town that surrounds the school and be able to perform numerous missions and side quests in order to be the guy in charge of it all. Of course, someone else has the same idea. This has all been done before in 2006 on the PS2. Yep, this is a port with a couple of additions, including new game stopping glitches.
PERKS: excellent style and presentation, well paced, some great achievements for the whores, 20+ hours of play; mini-games are not lame—well, most are not; stellar voice acting (best I’ve ever seen, er, heard), excellent motion capture; superb dialogue; numerous LOL moments
SCREAMS: to have been better tested—the second time around (360 version—there is a patch, thankfully); some achievements are silly repetitive time sinks that you would not do in the general order of play; to have better controls in the mini games—timing is brutal on some; to have had an online or, better yet, co-op component; the main villain is a downer; buttonmashing traverses Billy faster but it offers no benefit the faster you mash; to have an auto-save feature (don’t ask)
VERDICT: Buy. Get it if you’ve never played the PS2 version.
I find it funny most profesisonal reviewers don’t do this, but here’s my gamercard to show I completed the game.
[2 Minute Review] Top Spin 3
Should I break a sweat playing a sports game?
Well, I maybe didn’t break a sweat, but I did cramp my brain.
DO: Play possibly the most realistic tennis game ever. Overhand smashes, drop shots at the net and grunts that would make Maria Sharapova proud. (Okay, maybe that was just me)
TYPE: Tennis (hopefully that’s obvious).
PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (also available on everything else but the PC).
PRICE: $59.99
MEAT: On the surface, it’s another sports game. Where Top Spin 3 really shines is its complexity. At times it can be extremely difficult and hard to get used to, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly. The tutorials are very well done, and get deep fast. It may be a surprise, but I’m not a professional tennis player. So I can’t say if this “feels” right, but some of the shots definitely feel like they should.
There’s a career mode, of course, which I spent most of my time in. There’s nothing new here. Play some matches, get some points to get better skills, rinse, repeat. It’s fun, it’s addictive and I’ll be playing this much more. Oh, and the character creator? My daughter could have played with that for hours. Yay for electronic paper dolls!
PERKS: We’re getting dangerously close to the uncanny valley. Not sure if that’s a perk?
SCREAMS: Nothing new? Even though this is the first Top Spin game I’ve played, I’ve played enough sports games to know there’s only so much improvement can be made. It also can be insanely complex if you want it to.
VERDICT: Tennis fans and sports fans know what they’re getting. It’s a good buy for a specific group of gamers. You know whether you are in that group or not. If you’re not, you probably won’t be playing this.
[2 Minute Review] American McGee’s Grimm, Episode 1
Is a developer name able to carry the weight of a game?
Yes?…No. Well, maybe…
DO: Walk all over a candy-coated countryside and stink it up by your presence.
TYPE: Third person platformer.
PLATFORM: Windows PC via Gametap.
PRICE: A misnomer. Episodic. The episode reviewed is FREE via Gametap. Otherwise $3.99 an episode.
MEAT: You take all the good that is in fairy tales and make them evil. Gameplay consists of walking around all over and “butt-stomping” certain characters or items. The more you walk around the more stink power you have. Certain characters can clean up your act, but eventually you can over-stink them. Challenge? Getting the game to run. (Yeah, it’s buggy and they even admit it before you play). Oh wait, you mean a gameplay challenge? Not a single bit. The game has an interesting soundtrack but it’s full of fart sounds and high-pitched screams. For being an “Unreal Technology” game it looks like utter crap. The style is great, but it needs polished. Yes, that is a urine stream in the pic above.
PERKS: interesting premise; McGee’s warped style; timed leaderboards; tongue-in-cheek humor; less than 20 minutes total gameplay; a speed-run game
SCREAMS: premise gets old; to look better; to not be repetitive; tongue-in-cheek humor; crashes on dual core machines; make it a challenge
VERDICT: Pass. It…uh…stinks. However, the first episode is FREE. If all twenty-three (23!) episodes follow this formula—pass the gas.
[2 Minute Review] Space Invaders Extreme (PSP)
Can a thirty year old game that uses old gameplay be updated for the sound bite generation?
The fine folks at Taito (now a Square Enix company) have taken a classic formula—and made it extreme—with a few surprises.
DO: Uh, it’s Space Invaders. Invaders have come from space in tight formations and your ship moves left and right and pew! pews! the enemy.
TYPE: Classic arcade (from the late 1970s). In this day it’s called casual.
PLATFORM: PSP (reviewed here) and DS
PRICE: $19.99
MEAT: Quite possibly, Space Invaders was the first videogame I ever played. I could not pass up nostalgia. Taito has taken the old formula and improved it quite a bit—while keeping that same, familiar 30-year-old play. What’s new? Shooting different colored invaders in chains can net you bonus weapons. (The laser is a nice touch.) The catch is that the bonus weapons have a time limit. However, you can “lock” them in place by holding down a shoulder button. Your ship then fires its normal bullets. Let go of the lock and it’s back to the bonus weapon. The game has various levels and some challenging bosses. Yes, bosses.
PERKS: refreshing update to old gameplay; trippy, Lumines-like visuals and music; strategic bosses; bonus weapons; bonus levels; ability to shoot the invaders missiles; DS version has wi-fi play and rankings
SCREAMS: to be on Xbox Live like Pacman C.E.; to have online leaderboards; Uh…PSP online play? WTH? It’s not that complex.
VERDICT: Buy. Own it on PSP for shiny visuals or the DS for bragging rights. Young gamers should give it a try.
-
-
Subscribe to our Feed
