Dirt 2

Title: Dirt 2
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Date Played: July 2010
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Dirt 2 took everything established by its predecessor Dirt 1(2007) and polished the hell out of it.  This is one of the most gorgeous racing games I have ever played, and I guess it has to be that way to stay on par with Forza, Need For Speed and Gran Turismo franchises.

The first game had flaws, and every single one of them was addressed in this iteration. First of, the tracks were clearly a big focus of the development process. There is a wide variety of tracks from lush mountainous forests to beach resorts and Death Valley tracks, each with interesting and intricate details in the background. Not only is it fun to race it is sometimes hard to keep your eyes on the road, because you want to see all the cool stuff that is going on off in the distance. Speaking of the tracks, even though there are quite a lot of loop tracks, they manage to stay interesting as they feature natural terrain obstacles like water, dirt, and ramps, and as soon as you start getting bored of one area, the game takes you to a completely different environment.

Dirt 2 is a perfect rally racer in every regard, from its great selection of incredibly detailed cars to extremely good looking environments and fun tracks. I would recommend Dirt 2 to racing fans and even those that aren't into racing games.  It doesn't matter what your gaming background is like... Making a sharp turn with a realistic car with dirt particles flying everywhere is an exhilaration experience.  This is a great game that is definitely worth checking out.

The Game Looks Incredible

Elite Beat Agents

Title: Elite Beat Agents
Platform Played On: Nintendo DS
Release Date: November 6, 2006
Date Played: Fall 2008
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): No (80%)
Score: 4/5

Opinion:
Elite Beat Agents sprung up during the music/rhythm game hysteria of the later two thousands.

All rhythm games rely on the player following a pattern with pre-set rules and EBA is no different. You have to use the stylus and follow pre-determined patterns by tapping or sliding it across the screen with the beats. While you play through the songs there is usually some semi-related funny partially animated comic going on in the upper part of the screen, and you have 3 goofy black suited agents dancing as you hit the beats on the lower screen.

I must say Elite Beat Agents has a great sense of style and polish. The soundtrack is picked well and all songs are a pleasure to listen and play to. The soundtrack features artists such as David Bowie, Sum 41, Madonna, Chicago and about a dozen others.

Overall Elite Beat Agents is a very fun game and was actually one of the very first games I ever played on my DSlite, and nothing like it has come since.  The only reason it received a 4/5 and not a 5/5 is because you are basically doing the same thing every song, and after a while it gets pretty repetitive. I ended up stopping about 80% through the game simply because I didn't want to keep doing the same thing over and over again, but I guess that's kind of true for all rhythm games. If you have a DS and a sudden itch to play an entertaining rhythm game then I give you two thumbs up for Elite Beat Agents.

Burnout: Revenge

Title: Burnout: Revenge
Platform Played On: PlayStation 2
Release Date: September 13, 2005
Date Played: June 2006 - June 2007
Time Played: 40+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
I associate Burnout Revenge with gaming during my senior year at UCI. Me and my friend Jeff would take turns beating races and getting best scores in crash mode. It was an absolutely blast of a time.

I've always wanted to play Burnout games; however I didn't have a PS2 and EA was not releasing Burnout games on PC. So when I did finally manage to get a PS2, Burnout: Revenge was one of the first games I popped in.

Burnout Revenge improved quite a bit from its predecessor (Burnout 3: Takedown) on all fronts (Crash mode is better, cars handle and look better, tracks are more diverse and interesting) and overall is an amazing package. The races are laid out in a fun and interesting way, the soundtrack sets the perfect mood, and the graphics are stunning. All of these combined create an unforgettable experience.

I still visualize rushing in between buildings, taking shortcuts and spinning out the opposition as Incubus' Anna Molly track is playing in the background. Speaking of music, dear EA my hat is off to you for putting together the absolutely perfect soundtrack for this game.

Since Burnout Revenge we have seen Burnout Paradise, a next generation version of Burnout; however, Burnout Revenge is still worth checking out for its incredibly fun Crash mode, which was taken out of Paradise. If you like it when cars and explosions appear in the same sentence definitely check out Burnout Revenge, it is available on current generation of consoles (360/PS3) with improved graphics. Sure it will not look nearly as good as Paradise, but it still looks pretty good, and if you can look past that I think you will have a lot of fun crashing cars and 0wning n00bs in Burnout Revenge.

CSI: Hard Evidence

Title: CSI: Hard Evidence
Platform Played On: e
Release Date: September 26, 2007
Date Played: August 2008
Time Played:  6 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
CSI: Hard Evidence is a modern point and click adventure that bases its plot on a popular TV show.

The game features 5 cases, each taking about an hour to complete. Being a CSI agent and dealing with CSI things it is not surprising that all of the crimes involve either murder or assault with intention of murder. This means one thing... CSI being CSI has a set of procedures which need to be followed every time. Look around the room, collect DNA samples and fingerprints, run them against the database etc etc... basically each case ends up being very similar as you engage in repetitive tasks throughout them.

The game was clearly made to be on current and last gen consoles, as the graphics are not impressive and the in game "cinematics" are FMV clips from the show.

Overall CSI: Hard Evidence is an OK point and click game, each case plays out like an episode of the show. Someone gets murdered or attacked, you go in and investigate, get the evidence together and in the end make an accusation. If you take into account that there are basically no other contenders in the point and click genre Hard Evidence may be worth a look if you are jonesing for solving a CSI case.

Darkest of Days

Title: Darkest of Days
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Date Played: September 2009
Time Played: 8 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 2/5


Opinion:
Deep inside I knew Darkest of Days was going to be an abomination, yet I still hoped it would turn out well... who am I kidding... I hoped it would turn out playable.

I think Darkest of Days has one of the best premises. You are a soldier with time travel technology, and you get to travel to different points in time and alter history. Or to be more precise, prevent history from being altered. Its kind of like Back to The Future, except with shooting dudes. You get to fight in the American Civil War, World War 1, and even Ancient Rome (Pompeii)

See why I was excited for this game? Great concept right? Imagine taking a machine gun to the Civil War!!! Or taking a grenade launcher against spear wielding warriors of Pompeii!!! For the most part you do get to do exactly that, until the game designers made THE biggest mistake, and that is to have other time travelers who have advanced weapons show up. When that happens for the first time its a b0n3r to zero in 0.6 seconds. All of a sudden, the excitement of having centuries of technological progress is swooshed away and you are fighting guys that have similar guns to you.


The campaign (although featuring real location layouts and battles) ends up feeling rather boring most of the time, with nothing exciting happening, and you moving 10 feet, shooting some guys, moving 10 feet shooting some guys, over and over again. The act of traveling to different time periods and shooting up guys with modern tech is fun, but the actual campaign story is rather meaningless.

The levels look rather dull and brown, and textures are not of the resolution you would expect from a 2009 game. There are also a ton of bugs that range from funny to frustrating. One of the funnier bugs I've encountered was in the Civil War era, where a group of guys (20 or so) were supposed to advance at me from behind cover, but I guess the trigger is missing. So they just stand in a row with hands at their sides, and I can run up to them and stand shoulder to shoulder to them. They will not move unless I actually shoot one of them.

Darkest of days feels like it needed more time. Perhaps if the release date was pushed back another 6 months the developers would have time to polish and pretty-up the game.  But in its current state it is largely passable. The only reason it gets a 2/5 instead of a 1/5 is its premise. It is very original, and exciting, I just wish it took the idea and ran with it, instead of taking it and stumbling.

Doom

Title: Doom
Platform Played On: PC/Xbox 360
Release Date: December 10 ,1993
Date Played: 1993-1995, September, 2007
Time Played: 200+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes (many times)
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Ah Doom, the game that started it all. When doom came out I was 8 years old, and it so happened that it was one of the first PC games I have ever played.

Doom was something amazing, it was a window into another world and to an 8 year old the ultimate way to spend a night.

Doom is responsible for the state of the video game industry today. It defined the First Person Shooter genre (sure there was Wolfenstein before it), but compared to Doom it seemed like a boring proof of concept rather than a game.

Although it looks rather terrible by today's standards, back then Doom featured the highest fidelity graphics, with an amazing atmosphere, and kick-ass midi music. It controlled great and the guns were versatile, yet very well balanced and fun to use. It raised the bar on graphic violence, you could literally liquefy guys with explosions. If you were cool, you played Doom.

With nothing else coming even close to Doom in its atmosphere and design it was THE game to play for years after its release. I have easily spent over 200 hours completing it over and over again. By the time Doom 2 came out, I knew every nook and cranny of Doom 1. And I mean literally, I knew where every single secret was and the best way to make it through the levels. All derived from playing it by myself. There were no F.A.Qs or internet forums to socialize about video games at that time, and being one of very few people with a computer and most likely the only person to play Doom in my whole city of Ussuriysk there was noone to get help from.

Graphic Violence

This lack of other players prevented me from playing multiplayer, which was up to 4 player co-op or deathmatch. Entirety of my Doom experience was solo campaigns, until 1999 when I was able to set up a multiplayer game with my friend David via a serial cable between a Pentium II (350mhz) and Pentium I (100mhz) computers. But at that time games like StarCraft, Blood, and Duke3d were available so after a few sessions we went back to those.

Over the (almost 2) decades Doom was ported and released on a ton of platforms other than PC, and in March 2006 it came to Xbox Live Arcade. At that point I havent played doom in over 7 years, and so I decided to pick it up and play through it. Surprisingly it was a lot of fun, I would still remember an occasional fake wall and some secrets. It was great to have a walk down the Doom memory lane.

It would probably be petty hard for anyone that didnt play it back then to play it now. It would be nearly impossible to understand its impact with the complexity of the first person shooters on the marker today. However if you did play it back in the day, or would like to see what started the FPS revolution I would recommend picking up Doom from Xbox Live Arcade, it is really cheap, yet pretty long game featuring multiple campaigns and difficulty levels.

Modern Warfare 2

Title: Modern Warfare 2
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 10, 2009
Date Played: November 2009 - May 2010
Time Played: 100+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5

 
Opinion:
Call of Duty 4's modern setting and amazing multiplayer took the gaming world by storm. Naturally I was extremely excited for Modern Warfare 2.

Modern Warfare 2 went on to be the best selling game of all time on consoles. It improved on everything that COD4 did. New perks, more kill streaks, and of course new maps made it the best and most popular online shooter to date. MW2's multiplayer was so good that a large majority of players bought it just for the multiplayer and would never even touch the campaign.

Speaking of Single Player. Modern Warfare 2 did not disappoint with its sharp looking, smooth running, and tuned for exciting action sequences and insane story twists single player. Although typically short (at 6 hours or so) it is so action packed that it is easy to forgive it for its length. And to be honest on Veteran (highest difficulty level) it takes well over 10 hours to beat the single player campaign, so by the time you are done, you don't really want to see more. Until of course a year later when the new COD games with new campaign comes out.

Spec Ops mode made its debut in Modern Warfare 2. It allows you to team up with a friend in a co-op or work your way solo through bite sized missions and accomplish pre-set objectives. Playing this mode all the way through with a friend of mine (Roger) was one of the most memorable co-op experiences in a shooter Ive ever had, at least this generation.

Modern Warfare 2 took everything COD4 did so excellently and turned it up to 11. Ultimately creating a perfect multiplayer/co-op and single player experience on the PC and consoles alike. This is the game that is still played daily by hundreds of thousands of people nearly 2 years after its release and I dont see it going anywhere. For multiplayer you have two newer options available, Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 3 (due to release in a month), so you may want to jump into those if you are interested in nothing but multiplayer, although a lot of people still like MW2's multiplayer the best. As far as Modern Warfare 2's single player and co-op Spec Ops modes are concerned,  they are still holding their ground as excellent. The campaign still stands among the best in the FPS genre and everyone should check it out.

Dirt

Title: Dirt
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: June 19 2007
Date Played: August 2010
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
I am not a big racing game fan, I much rather go play an RPG or a shooter. But when I do allow myself to pick up a racer I tend to gravitate towards rally or extremely arcady  racing  (i.e. Burnout). To put it simply, I absolutely can not stand loop tracks.

One mistake I made was playing Dirt after playing Dirt 2. The sequel improved on so many things that while driving a Mitsubishi Evo (my car of choice) in Dirt 1 I kept wishing for Dirt 3.

Overall it is an enjoyable rally racer with 46 cars and a ton of customization. The AI is not incredibly tough, as it is not very hard to come in 1st in every race.

It is very apparent that 90% of the development focus was spent on the cars. They look great and control great. However the rest of the game suffered a little bit.

The levels generally look very similar to each other and are almost all extremely yellowish/brown with very little scenery variety. So even though there is a decent amount of tracks you end up feeling like you are driving on the same 3 tracks over and over again. Which gets fairly boring after a few dozen races.

Colin McRae: Dirt paved the way for a much improved Dirt 2 so for anyone interested in rally and/or off-road racing, I would just go straight to Dirt 2.

UP

Title: UP
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: May 26, 2009
Date Played: November 2009
Time Played: 6 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:

Click to Zoom

Pixar's UP the movie is great, in fact I would say it is an excellent movie for all ages. UP the game lives up to the movie with its fun platformy/action-adventure gameplay.

The game follows the basic plot of the movie and hits all of the major notes in the story.

UP does not do anything out of the ordinary, but unlike most movie tie-ins it is not broken and is completely competent, and I would even say, polished.

There arent any innovations or deep mechanics to talk about, UP is a fun action adventure game with pretty diverse levels. But I will say that I had a great time with it, and I would recommend it to anyone who liked the movie and would like to participate in the story as opposed to just watching it.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War

Title: Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Platform Played On: Xbox 3
Release Date: August 17, 2011
Date Played: September 2011
Time Played: 6 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:

Ever since Plants vs Zombies success the market has been flooded with hundreds of tower defense games, and very few of them are any good. Toy Soldiers: Cold War is one of those good ones.

I didn't play last years Toy Soldiers, which was set in the World War I era, but I did hear that it was great. With this second iteration which is set during the Rambo era I simply had to check out this series.

Split Screen

The setup is simple, you have 6 types of turrets (Machine Gun, Anti-Tank, Mortar, Artillery, Infantry slowing, and Anti-Air) and you have pre-set locations where you can build these turrets. Each turret can be upgraded 3 times to make it stronger and faster. Enemies come in waves and try to get into your toy box (your base).

Sounds pretty similar to other tower defense games right? Well this is where Toy Soldiers starts getting interesting. You can jump in to any of the turrets and control them manually, this serves a few purposes. One is that if you have a good kill-streak going you can get infinite ammo and then unlock a special ability, a C-130 (Call of Duty 4 style) or artillery or bombing run or even a nuke, and most notably you can unleash Rambo. Yep, you can summon and control Rambo, you control him from 3rd person over the shoulder perspective and he is dual wielding a rocket launcher and a machine gun and says lines from the movies.

In addition to turrets and kill-streaks you have battery powered units that can be used while the battery is charged, these range from tanks to helicopters to planes, and are extremely powerful and satisfying to use.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War has incredible visuals with very detailed backdrops and the animations/models are done extremely well, they truly look and behave like toy soldiers would. While playing you can see outside of the toybox that you are in and the intricate backdrops look like something straight out of Toy Story.

The game features split screen mode, and on a 47 inch wide screen this mode worked perfectly, and I must note that it is one of the very few split screens that I found easy to use and fun to play in (Toy Story 3 is another example I can think of), in most other games split screen is a cumbersome and at times frustrating experience. Not here, they did a really good job tweaking the field of view and designing the UI to make it feel natural. You can play either co-op or versus in split screen, great for couch co-op. 

Overall Toy Soldiers:Cold War has a fairly short campaign (4-5 hours or so), but each mission has mini achievement goals, and multiple difficulty levels to conquer. Co-op, and versus modes are a ton of fun and add hours and hours to the time you would spend in the campaign.

I feel that this is the best and most in depth tower defense game I have ever played, it has an incredible amount of variety and strategy, as well as really cool setting and stellar graphics. I would definitely recommend this game to everyone, even those that generally do not like tower defense games. Toy Soldiers is a ton of fun for anyone that likes action games, as you can just sit in a turret and at that point it becomes a 3rd person shooter.

Anti Air Turret

Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis

Title: Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: June 22, 2001
Date Played: June-August 2001
Time Played: 30 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Operation Flashpoint, I heard about this game through the video game message boards. Everyone was raving about how it was one of the first games to require a beast of a video card, GeForce2 with at least 16mb of video memory.  Luckily for me I just acquired myself a GeForce 2.

Beyond the amazing polygonal graphics with extremely realistic faces Operation Flashpoint was something new and ambitions. It was a military simulator, where you have to worry about bullet drop off, tracer rounds, positioning and cover and any stray bullet could kill you.

One thing for sure, Operation Flashpoint was not an easy game to get into. Having mainly played arcady shooters where you can take hundreds of bullets and pop med-kits at will it was a whole new ball game.  Nevertheless it was a new and interesting experience which encouraged utilization of tactics and picking your battles. You could not simply walts into the enemy camp and spray and pray. You needed to use the iron signs, and if you have just sprinted and are breathing hard it would be nearly impossible to aim down the barrel. All motions and animations were mapped to the real life counterparts. For example to switch from a rifle to a pistol or binoculars you would first have to shoulder the rifle. Its not like you would just drop it on the ground. Then you have to reach for the other thing and pull it out. This was a new concept in video games, and I personally liked it.

All of these aspects of realism created an exhilarating experience, you really felt like a soldier on the battlefield, where any poorly made decision could result in instant death.

Another thing that was great about Operation Flashpoint is the fact that the entirety of the game was set in an open world, on a huge island, and it was up to you which route you would take. You could scale mountains, from which you could see for miles, or you could take a route through the forest thereby hiding from any helicopters and planes. With unscripted AI you never knew where you would encounter an enemy patrol. It may be the first game ever (it at least is the first game that I've played) to allow you to use dozens of vehicles (not sure exactly but I think its over 40), from tanks to cars to helicopters and planes.

I think it is clear that Operation Flashpoint was a very ambitious game providing the player with a unique experience. While very hard it was also rewarding, and to put it simply just "cool". The story was interesting as well, where the Russians have invaded this island and the world is on the verge of World War 3. And I guess depending how you look at it, the game is a hypothetical World War 3.

I loved every moment I had with Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis; however at this point it is extremely dated and probably hard to play. But if not for Cold War Crisis we would not hvae Operation Flashpoint 2:Dragon Rising, and Operation Flashpoint 2: Red River, as well as the ARMA and ARMA2 series, with probably ARMA3 and a new Operation Flashpoint coming in the next couple of years. Those games exist because of this game.

I would definitely recommend the ARMA and OF2 series to anyone interested in simulation, or realisting comabt. They are spiritual successors to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, the game that started it all.

PS - Original Operation Flashpoint was developed by the same people as ARMA series. Operation Falshpoint 2 is developed by different people. So ARMA series is much closer to being the true Operation Flashpoint:Cold War Crisis sequel. I should also note that this game was ported to the ARMA engine and re-released in 2011 as ARMA: Cold War Assault and is available on Steam for $5.99. If you are not turned off by dated graphics I would suggest you check it out.

Ironman

Title: Ironman
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: May 2, 2008
Date Played: June 2008
Time Played: 6 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, I am by no means a comic book fan, but I still really like the Iron Man movies.

Ironman the game follows the basic plot line of the movie, and actually is a decent movie tie-in. You get to play as Tony Stark and develop (unlock) new Ironman suits as you progress through the story.

There is really nothing exceptional about this game, and it mostly boils down to having fun blasting the bad guys and flying around as Ironman.

If you were to remove the Ironman layer it would be a pretty mediocre shooter, a fairly short one at that. But being Ironman is a good excuse to have a flying human with rockets and laser beams.  And unsurprisingly it is a lot of fun flying around as an extremely maneuverable and extremely destructive killing machine.

That being said I had a good time stepping in the shoes of Tony Stark and would say that if you like Ironman, or even if you just like robots you should check this game out.

Doritos: Dash of Destruction

Title: Doritos: Dash of Destruction
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: December 17, 2008
Date Played: December 2008
Time Played: 3 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
Dash of Destruction is a free Indie game published by Doritos, and is an extremely glorified commercial tool.

In Dash of Destruction, there are two modes of gameplay, both occurring on the same city maps. In one mode you play as a Doritos delivery truck. You race around town delivering Doritos. This is achieved by driving over Doritos bags. However, the player is doing this while a Tyrannosaurus Rex is chasing them, attempting to eat the truck. It is a race to see if the player can make a certain number of deliveries before the T-Rex can eat a certain number of trucks. In some levels, there is an additional truck, named the Rogue Delivery Truck, who attempts to steal your deliveries.

In the second mode, the player takes the role of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and must eat a certain number of delivery trucks before the trucks make a certain number of deliveries. In some levels, an additional T-Rex is present on the map that attempts to eat the trucks before the player can eat them.

Overall Dash of Destruction is a decent little game to jump into for a change of pace. As expected it does not do anything special, and the game mechanics are extremely basic.  Its free, so hey, why not check it out? But if you have plenty of other things to play then you wont miss anything by skipping it. I will note that it is extremely easy to get Achievement points in.

Darksiders

Title: Darksiders
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: January 5, 2010
Date Played: January 2010
Time Played: 25 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Have you ever played Zelda? If not, then stop reading and go play Link to the Past (SNES/Emulator) or Ocarina of Time (N64/GameCube/Wii/Emulator), then come back and continue reading....

Ok now... Have you ever played Zelda? (I expect a nod at this point). Ok, so have you ever wished that Zelda would step away from it's kiddish motifs and took place in a bloody, gritty and brutal world? Woooala.. I present to you Darksiders.

You play as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Basically the humanity is wiped out and you, the horseman (War), is summoned to restore balance, and end the battle between the good and evil. However, you realize that the other 3 horsemen did not arrive and you were summoned prematurely. Your goal is to figure out who summoned you, and for what reason.

The reason why I brought up Zelda at first is because this game uses a lot of the same game mechanics as a Zelda game, it is a 3rd person perspective similar to Ocarina of Time, it has the same basic dungeon setup and the same basic puzzles with grappling hooks and boomerangs. Except it is set in modern times among half destroyed skyscrapers and burned cars.

Darksiders looks and plays great, it has a cool (World of Warcraftesque) art style to it, which fits it very well.

Darksiders came out of nowhere, there was no hype around it or flashy announcements, it just came and conquered, like a true horseman of the apocalypse.  I can not recommend this game enough to everyone out there. It is a pretty unique experience, great atmosphere, and I would say a much more unique and interesting premise/story than Zelda games. I had a ton of fun with it and will be picking up the sequel (when that is announced) on day one.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

Title: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 11, 2008
Date Played: August 2011
Time Played: 40 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
I am pretty new to the Banjo-Kazooie characters, I never owned an N64, therefore I have zero nostalgic factors going into Nuts and Bolts. I tried getting into this game when it was first released, but I simply could not. I dont know what it was, but it seemed boring. In August 2011 I decided to give it another try, and this time I took the time to read and watch all of the tutorials, and after grasping the basics and unlocking some building parts I was sucked right in.

From what I understand Nuts and Bolts (3rd game in the series) is completely different from the first two. It is in essence a 2008 version of Mario 64, set in Banjo's universe. You start in a hub world, from which you open doors to other worlds, and while in those worlds you collect Jiggies (basically Mario Stars), which open up new levels. Each level has a certain number of these Jiggies, which you acquire through doing fetch quests, races or whatever else the characters in the particular world want you to do. Sounds boring and repetitive so far?

That's because I didn't mention the best part yet. 99% of the game is vehicle based. Whaaaaat? Yep, and the best part is, you can build your own vehicles, and I am not talking about change out wheels, and choose a paint-job. I am talking about building one block by block, putting engines, fuel tanks, ammo tanks, guns everything on it. You can make absolutely anything that comes to your mind. Want a Batmobile that can fly, shoot homing missiles, and even turn into a boat when needed? No problem, in fact that was one of my go-to race cars that I built, and yep that's what it was called. Want a helicopter with jet engines and passenger seats? Go for it, plane? sure... basically this is what is fun about the game. Rare (developer) made a great design decision by allowing you to use your own vehicles for almost every mission (some require you to use pre-made vehicles), but it means that for the most part you can beat a mission because of your creativity and ingenuity, and not simply because you are quick on the controls.

Nuts and Bolts is a fairly long game, with many differently themed worlds and sub-worlds. Although I do feel that the first 3 or 4 worlds are the best of the bunch. Later worlds get pretty crazy and visually uninspired. Overall I spent upwards of 40 hours playing around, building my own vehicles and beating the game.

Speaking of beautiful, Nuts & Bolts has some really interesting and great looking levels. Rare even put in a whole world which is full of homages to the first two games.

One major issue with Nuts and Bolts is that it features no spoken dialog, but instead a ton of text and simlish style voices. Even StarFox 64 had full voice over option (from what I hear), there is no excuse for a 2008 game to forgo it. Especially if you are going to have so much dialogue. Toward the end of the game, I knew the basics of what each conversation is about, it is either take me to X spot, or get me something from X spot, or race me, or something along those lines, so by the end I would outright skip the dialogue, since reading it was becoming quite boring (although I must note that they tried and in spots even successfully to have funny dialogue).

I also feel that Rare should have given you more building materials quicker, as the game does not start to show its greatest parts until at least a few hours in, and it is easy to get discouraged and stop playing before then.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a unique experience, and therefore should be experienced by everyone. It is a bit hard to get into at first, but once you grasp all of the mechanics the worlds and car building turn out to be a great deal of fun.

Bastion

Title: Bastion
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: July 20, 2011
Date Played: July 2011
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Disclaimer - This game was developed by my friend, so take what I write about it as you will. But I encourage everyone to visit some review sites and check out their opinion on Bastion.

Bastion is an isometric hack and slash game set in a destroyed world of Caelondia.

The basic plot is as follows: in case of a major disaster everyone in the world of Caelondia knows to run to the Bastion (think of it as a bomb shelter). Well, guess what? The world is completely destroyed, and you (also known as The Kid), head for the Bastion.  Once there you are told that in order to get the Bastion functioning you need to collect its scattered pieces. And that is where your adventure starts, you go from level to level in order to recover these shards of the world.

Basion's world looks great, everything is hand drawn, from crates, to monsters you fight to incredibly epic looking backgrounds.

One thing that stands out the most is Bastion's sound design, not only does it feature some of the best music among Xbox Live Arcade titles, it also sets the plank a few notches higher with its narration for downloadable and full retail disc games alike.

Basically a lot of the actions that you perform within the game have triggers, to which the narrator makes comments to.  It is definitely an interesting mechanic and feels rewarding when the narrator comments on that cool thing you just did.

Click to Zoom

Bastion features plethora of weapons, from melee to ranged, from fast low damage to slow high damage, each being upgradable in more than one way and all being extremely fun to wield. You unlock new weapons as you progress through the game, and can always switch between them in the hub world (and occasionally during the levels).  You can carry up to 2 weapons with you at any time plus a special ability (which you can choose from a couple dozen options). My personal weapons of choice were the fully upgraded Hammer to negate armored enemies, and a fully upgraded heat seeking repeater (basically a dart gun). That being said each weapon feels unique and fun to use.

My only complaint is the fact that at times the game forces you to use other weapons, which could be frustrating if all you want to do is use your chosen weapons (especially in New Game+). But at the same time I see the design decision behind that, they want you to at least try these different weapons.

In addition to being a 6-8 hour game (which is pretty long for a downloadable title), Bastion features New Game+ mode, where you get to keep some of the things from the first playthrough, and the narrator makes a few different remarks on the second run through. Subsequent playthroughs can be customized by turning on idols, which work similar to Halo's skulls making the game harder, and reward the player for turning them on.

Overall Bastion is a very fun hack and slash adventure. The story is interesting and features two endings. The worlds are lush and enjoyable to run through. I would definitely recommend this game to everyone, and not because I am friends with the developer, but because it really is a good game.

Tinker

Title: Tinker
Platform Played On: Windows
Release Date: December 15, 2009
Date Played: January 2010
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): No
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
Tinker is a simple puzzle game released with Games for Windows Live as a carrot on a stick for people to grab and install a copy of GFWL service.

You control a little robot who has to overcome obstacles in order to reach the end of this environmental puzzler.  In addition to the obstacles you also have only a limited number of moves before you fail the stage.

Tinker is an alright puzzler (maybe even great, considering its free). But the missions do not change up enough and the animations/stages look very generic (although sharp and clean). So I found myself bored of Tinker pretty quickly.

This is not a type of game you play for hours straight, Tinker is definitely better approached in small bite size sessions. It does have achievements that apply to your GFWL and Xbox profiles, and if someone wants a quick puzzler they can jump into once in a while Tinker is not a bad choice. Just don't expect to be WOWed by anything.

Dead Rising: Case Zero

Title: Dead Rising: Case Zero
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 31, 2010
Date Played: September 2010
Time Played: 6 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Case Zero is Capcom's attempt to get people excited for Dead Rising 2, and at the same time to offer a bite sized taste of the experience to newcomers to the series.

This downloadable title became available about a month before Dead Rising 2's release and is set up as a prequel to it. You can look at it as a vertical slice, a little taste of the game's mechanics.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with Dead Rising: Case Zero.  The story was interesting, and I knew that I could later import my character's levels into Dead Rising 2.

The story is a self contained side story for the main characters in DR2 and features multiple endings with multiple ways to approach it. You get to play with Dead Rising 2's new features, such as item crafting and the exploding fly. It looks great, with a good variety of melee weapons and guns at your disposal. The one and only complaint about this game is the fact that there is a time limit, I would love to have unlimited time to roam the small town and explore its nooks and crannies.

I found Dead Rising: Case Zero to be a lot of fun and would recommend it to everyone. And for $5 it is a great way to see what the series is about before dropping $60 on Dead Rising 2. It also works great for those who simply dont want a 40 hour Dead Rising experience, and would be satisfied by jumping in for a few hours and be done with it.