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Reviews
Final Fight: Double Impact Micro-Review: Take Two and Call It a Classic
Beat-em-ups of the ’80s were long on action and short on story. Like Capcom’s Final Fight, re-released this week for consoles. Just how ridiculous is the idea that a former pro rassler could be elected to high office in America? Final Fight: Double Impact, a downloadable title pairing the eponymous game (starring a mustachioed politician…
By Owen Good Published April 15, 2010 -
Reviews
Alienware M11x Review: Ultraportable Gaming
Gaming laptops are often an oxymoron, a device that either is too expensive or too big to really be a laptop or a computer too underpowered to play games. But Dell and Alienware have been for years trying to find the proper balance between these two seemingly opposing issues. Their XPS was a monstrously large,…
By Brian Crecente Published April 14, 2010 -
Reviews
Splinter Cell Conviction Review: The Best Lurks In Shadows
Several years in the making, and at least one false start later, a new Splinter Cell is finally upon us. Fittingly, the best part of it sneaks up on you. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction is a third-person stealth action game offered in four parts: single-player campaign, single-player challenges, two-player cooperative adventure and competitive multiplayer.…
By Stephen Totilo Published April 13, 2010 -
Reviews
Mass Effect 2: Kasumi – Stolen Memory Micro-Review: Boredom Amongst Thieves
Mass Effect 2’s first substantial piece of downloadable content since the game’s release, “Kasumi – Stolen Memory,” does a lot of things right as far as DLC goes. Problem is, it also does a lot of things wrong Presenting gamers with the chance to add another member to their crew of galactic misfits, Stolen Memory…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 9, 2010 -
Reviews
America’s Test Kitchen: Let’s Get Cooking Review: Top Chef
America’s Test Kitchen: Let’s Get Cooking isn’t just a game. It certainly isn’t just an interactive cook book jammed onto the DS. This is one of three games that Nintendo thinks will convince people to buy the big-screened DSi XL. With more than 300 recipes, tons of written tutorials and 15 video guides, America’s Test…
By Brian Crecente Published April 8, 2010 -
Reviews
Dead or Alive Paradise Review: A Bikini Toll
Dead or Alive Paradise brings the lovely ladies of Tecmo’s fighting game series back to the tropical getaway of Zack Island, a chance to collect and model increasingly revealing bikinis in-between playing an equally skimpy selection of mini-games. The PSP game is a pocket-sized port of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball originally released in…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 6, 2010 -
Reviews
Heavy Rain Chronicles: The Taxidermist Micro-Review: Let’s Try That again
Call it a missing chapter, an added short story or simply an extra sprinkling of Heavy Rain, but you may as well call for a do-over. The first downloadable episode of Heavy Rain, the acclaimed February serial killer drama for the PlayStation 3 from development studio Quantic Dream, offers a new chapter set early in…
By Stephen Totilo Published April 5, 2010 -
Reviews
iPad Review: Is This A Capable Gaming System?
Apple touts the newly-released iPad as a “magical and revolutionary device.” How much of that revolutionary magic was applied towards the gaming side of the spectrum? If you’re interested in the iPad as a video/MP3 player, eBooks reader, web-surfing, email-fetching device, then this might not be the review you are looking for. We aren’t going…
By Mike Fahey Published April 3, 2010 -
Reviews
Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening Micro-Review: Almost Going Number Two
The marauding Blight has scattered, but a new, more sinister evil rises in its wake, and once again the Grey Wardens rise to face a deadly foe in the Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening expansion pack. Forget your humble or not-so-humble origin. Whether pauper or prince, imported character or newly generated for the expansion, this…
By Mike Fahey Published April 2, 2010 -
Reviews
Mass Effect 2: Firewalker Micro-Review: Free Tanks, Enquire Within
Mass Effect 2’s “Firewalker”, the fourth piece of downloadable content for BioWare’s excellent sci-fi role-playing game, is the first to give you a bonafide land vehicle to play with. And it’s a tank, no less. The entire DLC revolves around the fate of the crew of a missing survey ship. You and your merry band…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 2, 2010 -
Reviews
Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Pack Review: Pricey Maps
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 remains the most popular game played on Xbox Live since its launch late last year, but that doesn’t mean that the fans of the fast-paced, first-person shooter couldn’t use some new ways to play. Enter the Stimulus Pack. The first Modern Warfare 2 map pack, coming to the Xbox…
By Brian Crecente Published March 31, 2010 -
Reviews
WarioWare: D.I.Y. Review: Homebrewed Improvement
After pumping out hundreds of lightning quick microgames for the WarioWare series, it’s up to you to design the next moneymaker for WarioWare Inc. Your tool? WarioWare: D.I.Y., the Nintendo DS game that lets you create games from scratch. What could me more perfect? The WarioWare series, famous for its lo-fidelity presentation and hasty game…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 31, 2010 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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 -
Reviews
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