Category: Review

Thursday Review: Prowlers and Paragons Core Rules

Prowlers and Paragons is a tabletop game that attempts to make everyone think it’s a D&D retro clone but is actually a superhero game with an original, if not terribly innovative, system that is more than worthy of standing on its own merits. As a superhero game, it does a good job of providing a framework for highly-narrative adventures and, while it may not have the boon of a major comics publisher’s licensing deal it is, in my opinion, still as good as any of the alternatives, if not better in certain ways.

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Emergency Review: Ender’s Game

So I just got back from the theater and watching Ender’s Game. I should likely preface this by stating that my review is perhaps a little informed by the fact that I didn’t really enjoy the book all that much; it had some good ideas and concepts, but my memory grew less fond of it as I’d sort of mulled it over and thought about it again and felt like it just felt less consistent and well-written. The movie, however, was somewhat different than I had expected.

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Thursday Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Enemy Unknown is a reboot to the X-COM series that attempts to modernize the gameplay and graphics but keep the things that made the series good. Being a modern recreation of an older game series serves it well, but also has some major flaws. All-in-all, the game’s pretty good, despite some noticeable differences and gripes. Continue reading “Thursday Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown”

Thursday Review: Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution is the most recent game in the venerable Hitman franchise, and it prides itself on offering a modern assassination game that is somewhat unbound by the rules of reality, the things that made the past games great, and the fact that it manages to succeed as a game in spite of these, then fall flat in the middle of the story for no good reason.

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Thursday Reviews: Rogue Legacy and Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook

Today I have two reviews for you all, mostly because I couldn’t help myself and bit off more than I could chew, but also to celebrate Packt’s Columbus Day sale (see details below). Rogue Legacy is a “roguelite” Metroidvania styled game, whilst the lengthier titled work that I am also reviewing is a cookbook for materials and textures within Blender 2.6 (still compatible up to 2.68, I am happy to point out).

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Thursday Review: Legends of Aethereus

Legends of Aethereus is an interesting game; I backed it on Kickstarter, despite my skepticism, in part out of interest and in part because my brother kept bothering me about it. And, to be honest, I really do enjoy it. It has a unique system, which comes with its benefits and pitfalls, but it’s a genuinely enjoyable game and I’ve spent a pretty hefty chunk of time with it. Continue reading “Thursday Review: Legends of Aethereus”

Thursday Review: Dungeon Siege 2 (Part 2)

Welcome to the second week of my Dungeon Siege 2 review; we’ll pick up where I left off last week and begin to look more at the things that Dungeon Siege 2 did that were really interesting and saw a lot of echoes in later games as well as things that would be cool if more people actually took up.

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Thursday Review: Dungeon Siege 2 (Part 1)

I’m doing something a little unusual this week because I don’t really have time, but I’m going to go back and review a game that’s pretty old that I just finally discovered, and actually do a case study on it as much as write a review of it. Normally I’d make this a game design thing, but that’s not going to happen right now.

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Thursday Review: Dishonored

I went into Dishonored with high expectations, and found them matched. However, I discovered quickly that while I truly enjoyed the game, it ran into some pretty major issues before too long in. Quite frankly, when I made it through the first three levels, I was thinking “This game reminds me a lot of Deus Ex, in a good way.” and by the time I got to the last my thoughts had been shifted to “Well, some of these textures do look like they’re from 2000″. Continue reading “Thursday Review: Dishonored”

Thursday Review: Tomb Raider (2013)

Tomb Raider is always one of those franchises I’ve avoided because of its perception; Lara Croft prior to recent developments had always been a video game sex symbol, but was handled in a way that I found somewhat offensive. She’d become an object of a brand rather than a living breathing character, and while she certainly wasn’t the worst example of how women are treated in video games, she wasn’t a character so much as an image. However, having heard good things about Lara’s new direction in character development, and the general gameplay of the series reboot, I picked it up and gave it a shot. Continue reading “Thursday Review: Tomb Raider (2013)”