If the headline isn’t an indication, this Heavy Rain review is full of spoilers. The decisions you make in the game, and their consequences, deserve an open discussion. For a consumer report, go to Metacritic or Gamespot, or take my spoiler-free endorsement: Heavy Rain, despite its numerous flaws, gets into your head, if you let it. Players who look for cracks in the structure or plot will be disappointed with the finished product, while those who suspend their disbelief and invest themselves in their characters will be rewarded in ways that make most games seem childish and pointless. Spoilers begin in the next paragraph. You’ve been warned.

Continue Reading

There’s no question that Final Fantasy XIII is a beautiful, dramatic affair, but according to reviews of the game, released outside of Japan today for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, it’s also a departure for the series. The verdicts aren’t much different than we heard in December, when Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan: Open worlds, mini-games and exploration are hacked away in favor of eye-popping cutscenes and fast-moving narrative. Whether that appeals to you depends on personal preference.

Continue Reading

Forget a straightforward Battlefield: Bad Company 2 review; you’re probably wondering if the game’s better than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game was released today for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows, so let’s give in to temptation in this review roundup and get right to what the critics thought.

1UP’s Thierry Nguyen believes that developer DICE flaunts both its similarities and differences with Modern Warfare 2:

The daring comes from a mix of sly dialogue moments (disparaging remarks get made about snowmobiles and rifles-with-heartbeat-monitors), to copy-and-paste jobs of COD situations (using air support while cornering a villain in a safehouse, a vicious firefight aboard an airplane, providing support as either a sniper or a helicopter gunner). Though, for the latter, it seems to be … a “we’re not copying, we’re doing it better” moment.

Continue Reading

You’re going to love Aliens vs. Predator, or you’re going to hate it, say a handful of conflicting reviews of the game, released today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Aliens vs. Predator puts you in the role of both the eponymous creatures, plus an unfortunate human caught in the middle of their interstellar war. The result is a shooter that could cure your nostalgia for the original Alien and Predator films, but it could bore and frustrate you. PC Zone calls the game “deliciously gory, unwaveringly confident and spectacular fun,” and a “brilliantly authentic and cinematic experience.” But GameSpot says “three mediocre games are jammed into a single package,” and “the result is still mediocre.”

Continue Reading

Bioshock 2, released today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, is getting good-to-great reviews. I’ve kept the game at arm’s length because I have this thing about video game endings where I just want them to end, already, and Bioshock’s conclusion was poetic enough that it could’ve been a great send-off for the literary-minded first-person shooter. But once my current plate is cleared, Bioshock 2 seems worth a second look, still with a grain of skepticism. Here’s a change of heart from GamesRadar:

First, a confession. We thought BioShock 2 was a mistake. … While we desperately wished to revisit the haunting underwater dystopia of Rapture, we suspected that doing so would ruin, or at least diminish, the thematic significance of the initial trip. To us, BioShock was one-of-a-kind, not one-of-a-franchise.

Well, you know what? We were wrong. Somehow, with less than three years of development time and without the direct involvement of creator Ken Levine, the BioShock team has pulled off another masterpiece.

Continue Reading

Mass Effect 2 is out today, and if the reviews are spot-on, Xbox 360 owners and PC gamers would be doing themselves a disservice by not picking it up. We’re not even through January, and some critics reckon they’ve got a game of the year on their hands. “So, Mass Effect 2 is easily my favorite game on 360, probably my game of the year, and in my top 5. Yep. In January,” Mitch Dyer, who writes for GamePro and Official Xbox Magazine, wrote on Twitter. My buddy Eddie Inzauto, director of GamerNode, has been raving about the game for days. Formal reviews are just as bubbly.

Continue Reading

Chalk it up to the preview effect, but I had high hopes for Dark Void, out today for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. When checking the game out at a media day in Los Angeles and talking to executive producer Morgan Gray, there seemed to be great potential in combining the bygone era of aerial dogfighting with the Gears of War-style duck-and-cover combat that everyone wants a piece of these days. Alas, Dark Void’s jetpack-enabled adventure isn’t getting the love from critics. Almost uniformly, they acknowledge a good seed of an idea is dragged down by derivative design, a confusing plot the glaring omission of multiplayer.

Continue Reading

The first Heavy Rain review is in, and although the game’s not due out until February 23 in North America, we can breathe easy knowing the Playstation 3 exclusive won’t likely be a colossal critical failure. Official Playstation Magazine has given the “interactive drama,” which follows several protagonists as they track a serial killer, nine points out of 10.

Put gaming conventions aside, go in with no expectations other than this is something new and massively good-looking, and you’ll be rewarded with a unique experience that lurches between genius and madness, manages to be genuinely emotional, and that you’ll be bursting to talk about with your friends.

Continue Reading

It’s a good day to be Sony, with news that Final Fantasy XIII set sales records for the Playstation 3 in Japan. After day one, the game had moved a million units, and by week’s end, 1.501,964 units were sold, according to Media Create. Japan’s previous best-selling PS3 game, Metal Gear Solid 4, has moved less than half as many copies in its entire lifetime. The takeaway is that people are buying FFXIII, and by extension the Playstation 3, in droves. On the week, PS3 sales jumped to 237,086 units, from 75,086 units the week earlier. All of this bodes well for FFXIII’s March 9 release, both for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. But has the game been as successful critically?

Continue Reading