Reviews Archives - Page 114 of 129

Wii Upscaler Review: Can The Wii Really Do High Definition?

When we first heard about VDIGI’s new VD-W3 Wii upscaler, a product that promised it could bring high definition graphics to the Wii, it sounded too good to be true. “Better review it, then” we thought. Just to be sure. The VD-W3 is hardly a new idea – standalone “upscalers” have been around for years,…

By Luke Plunkett Published March 30, 2010

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Cave Story Micro-Review: So This Is What The Excitement Was About

So how does the WiiWare version of Cave Story stand up to the original? I couldn’t tell you, as I’ve never played the PC version. For those of you who, like me, have been in the dark, Cave Story is a shooting platformer along the same lines as Nintendo’s Metroid. The player awakens in a…

By Mike Fahey Published March 26, 2010

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World Of Warcraft Wireless Headset Review: A Raid On Your Wallet

Is your allegiance to the Horde and Alliance so strong that you’d spend $159.99 on a World of Warcraft branded wireless headset from Creative Labs? Should it be? Ask any World of Warcraft raider and they’ll tell you; communication is key to being a successful raider. You have to listen to your raid leader. You…

By Mike Fahey Published March 24, 2010

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Red Steel 2 Review: If Only 2006 Was This Good

A skeptical world might not see video games as essential. But we can point to many games that feel worthy of this planet. Games about eating mushrooms, arranging falling blocks, saving the world. However: A first-person shooter with motion-based swordplay? You’d be right to be skeptical. More than three years after the release of the…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 23, 2010

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Perfect Dark Micro-review: Elvis Has Re-entered The Building

Rare’s Nintendo 64 shooter Perfect Dark gets a high-definition makeover for Xbox Live Arcade, the lovely and talented special agent Joanna Dark looking ten years better than she did in her first-person shooter debut. Is Dark still “perfect”? Perfect Dark for XBLA doesn’t attempt to modernize the decade-old original beyond improving its visual fidelity and…

By Michael McWhertor Published March 22, 2010

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Dante’s Inferno Dark Forest Micro-Review: Much Power, Little Point

For five bucks, a Dante’s Inferno player can have the most powerful Dante in video games. The Dark Forest add-on pack for Dante’s Inferno, released at the beginning of this month, is a an uncommon piece of single-player-oriented downloadable content. As aggressive as publishers have been to issue DLC for big console games lately, they…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 20, 2010

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Street Fighter IV iPhone Review: A Party For One

Street Fighter IV was an exuberant return to the days of classic arcade fighters. It was a game designed specifically to reel back in aging gamers who once dropped pounds of quarters on virtual tournament in arcades around the world. But, it turns out, many of those aging gamers don’t have consoles and aren’t planning…

By Brian Crecente Published March 19, 2010

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Max & The Magic Marker Micro-Review: What If The DS Was My TV?

Next week, Nintendo will release the largest Nintendo DS yet seen in America, the pocket-busting DSi XL. But I have played a DS game that no DS can display — on my TV with a giant, virtual stylus. Max & The Magic Marker is a downloadable game from Press Play, in development for a couple…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 18, 2010

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Yakuza 3: The Kotaku Review

It’s funny, for all the Japanese games you and I have ever played—and they number in the hundreds, if not thousands—few of them are Japanese in the way that Yakuza 3 is. Think about it. How many Japanese games have you played where the recorded dialogue is still in its native tongue? Or that are…

By Luke Plunkett Published March 17, 2010

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Greed Corp Micro-Review: Is Greed Good?

Running a corporation is hard. It’s even harder when your business is mining, and there’s less and less land to mine. Competition heats up. Time to bust out the cannons. Time to play Greed Corp. Developed by W!Games, Greed Corp is a turn-based strategy game that puts players in charge of a mining operation. Players…

By Brian Ashcraft Published March 17, 2010

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Scrap Metal Micro-Review: There’s a Difference Between Mindless and Pointless

All it took was seeing one demolition derby to hook me on car combat, but in video games we haven’t seen much in the way of this for awhile. Scrap Metal‘s here, and running unopposed. Is it still a winner? Loved Variety Car-crashin’ Land: In single-player, you get a campaign of eight tracks and more…

By Owen Good Published March 16, 2010

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Brother In Arms 2 Micro-Review: Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?

From the Pacific jungles to the streets of Europe, Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front battles it out on the iPhone. But that’s not where the real fight is in the game. Brother in Arms 2: Global Front is truly a global title and takes players through the different theaters of World War II, from…

By Brian Ashcraft Published March 16, 2010

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God of War III Review: Olympic Glory

Bombastic, titanic, brutally imaginative and even occasionally subtle, God of War III is the latest, best reason for a gamer to save money and skip action movies. The better thrills are on a disc on my PlayStation 3. Just five years since the first God of War comes God of War III, a game that…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 16, 2010

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Final Fantasy XIII Review: A New Paradigm For An Old Franchise

The role-playing series that launched a million bad attempts at cosplay is back, with a new group of colorful characters carrying the fate of the world on their shoulders in Final Fantasy XIII. Hovering above the surface of the planet Pulse, the shell-like city of Cocoon was once a haven for humanity, but fear of…

By Mike Fahey Published March 12, 2010

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Transformers: G1 Awakening Review: One Shall Stand

Take Advance Wars, replace tanks with Transformers, then release it on the iPhone. Sounds like a dream, but that’s exactly what Glu Mobile has done with Transformers: G1 Awakening. In what is actually an iPhone port of a mobile game from a year or two back, Awakening is a turn-based strategy game that puts you…

By Luke Plunkett Published March 11, 2010

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Napoleon: Total War Review: Ability Is Nothing Without Opportunity

In 1815, having come back for one last bite of the cherry, Waterloo was Napoleon’s, well, Waterloo. Could Creative Assembly be risking the same fate returning to the age of muskets and bright uniforms so soon after Empire: Total War? Napoleon: Total War takes Empire: Total War and applies a new coat of paint to…

By Luke Plunkett Published March 9, 2010

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MLB 10 The Show Review: The Game for All America

The game of baseball was brought to video game consoles long ago. The total experience – the Pastime – represents the next frontier of simulation, for a public delighted by every stat and detail, no matter how small. This is the direction in which MLB The Show now strives most noticeably. Having nailed the essential…

By Owen Good Published March 7, 2010

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Major League Baseball 2K10 Review: Pitching With Two Strikes

If MLB 2K9 had been an actual ballplayer, last year’s performance would have sent it to the minors, if not the waiver wire. After a soul-searching offseason, 2K Sports decided to focus on the fundamentals for MLB 2K10. This year’s game fixates on the batter-pitcher matchups that infuse every at-bat with suspense and dramatic potential.…

By Owen Good Published March 7, 2010

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review: Judging A Book By Its Cover Works

The quartet of military misfits introduced in the original Battlefield: Bad Company are back and taking a backseat to a revamped (and far more exciting) multiplayer mode in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. On the single-player side of things, Marlowe, Sweetwater, Haggard and Sarge find themselves embroiled in a military endeavor that feels way above their…

By Michael McWhertor Published March 5, 2010

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Alice In Wonderland Review: A Bitter Underland

Tim Burton once again treads on sacred fantasy ground in Alice in Wonderland, a twisted take on Lewis Carroll’s classic novels. How far down the rabbit hole does Burton go? Alice in Wonderland is a new movie from Tim Burton based on a classic work of literary fantasy, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp,…

By Mike Fahey Published March 5, 2010