Game: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Rating: T
Platform: PS3/Xbox 360/Wii/DS
Developer: Beenox
Publisher: Activision
Released: September 2010

I'm not much of a believer in the idea that as people who play video games, we're "owed" a certain amount of gameplay time proportionate to the cost based on some magical unspoken measurement system.  A game can ( Read more... )

Game: Shank
Rating: M
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network/Steam/PC
Developer: Klei Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: August 2010

Everyone seems to be into the 'grindhouse' aesthetic nowadays, don't they?  It's like after Tarantino and Rodriguez teamed up in their three-hour double-feature satirization/homage to aggressively ( Read more... )

Game: Metroid: Other M
Rating: T
Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii
Released: August 2010

Regardless of her place in gaming history and the legacy of excellent games that have featured her, there's an unfortunate reality we have to face about Samus Aran, the First Female Playable Character: she's just not a character worth caring ( Read more... )

Game: Mafia II
Rating: M
Platform: PS3/Xbox 360/PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: 2K Czech
Released: August 2010

The moment at which I fell head-over-heels in love with "Mafia II" wasn't when I got my first drive-through of Empire Bay in all its Norman Rockwell-meets-Coppola glory, or heard the pitch-perfect period soundtrack.

It was after I had to load ( Read more... )

Game: Dead To Rights: Retribution
Rating: M
Developer: Vicious Games
Publisher: Namco
Platform: PS3/Xbox 360
Released: April 2010

I missed the original "Dead to Rights" back on the PS2/Xbox, so I'm not sure how closely series reboot "Retribution" sticks to its source material.  If it was this bananas though, then I have no idea how it survived long ( Read more... )

The full thing is under the cut, but the basics are these:

-Set one year after the first game, new Gotham City mayor Quincy Sharp (the warden of Arkham Asylum in game one) has bought out a bunch of slums and walled it in, Blackgate/Arkham prisoners now mixed together because neither is suitable to hold them all (put in a broader pop-cultural ( Read more... )

So with the 'leaked' setlist for "Rock Band 3" being pretty much confirmed in Harmonix's coy little video and me being a big RB lover, let's do a rundown, shall we?

For simplicity's sake I've included a handy color-coding chart to visualize my specific reactions!

Song - FUCK YEAR
Song - Hey, nice to see this one
Song - Good, but... why THAT one?
Song - ( Read more... )