Written by Micah Messer
As you may have heard, on April 4th 2012, Consumerist readers voted Electronic Arts the worst company in America. With the Golden Poo award under their belts, it seems as though EA might be trying to change their image. On April 10th 2012, the Resurgence multiplayer DLC pack for Mass Effect 3 was released for free, as well as the promise of additional free story-based DLC in the future. The Rebellion multiplayer DLC pack is also set to come out on May 29th for no charge. This is a massive change from EA’s standard policy on DLC releases. Whether this will be a permanent change in attitude or just a temporary “Look, we’re being nice!” remains to be seen, but my bet is on the latter.
Bioware and EA are notorious for their horrible DLC track record. The Legacy DLC for Dragon Age 2 is a perfect example of their average release. Of course, they do have their moments, but usually they try to get as much money for as little content as possible. Well, EA’s customers have voiced their opinion, and they’re sick of it. Signs point to EA listening, but there’s nothing stopping them from switching back to their old ways in a couple months. While it seems unlikely, it sure would be nice if EA turned into a company that actually gave a crap about their customers.
Written by Micah Messer
I never thought I’d see the day when an Uncharted game was released without the Playstation powerhouse developer, Naughty Dog, being the folks behind it. Well, that day has come. I went into Uncharted: Golden Abyss knowing full well that it just wouldn’t be able to compete with Naughty Dog’s level of polish. I was terrified that the new developer, Sony Bend, would tarnish the Uncharted name. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Although Uncharted: Golden Abyss doesn’t keep up with the console titles, Sony Bend does a respectable job of bringing Nathan Drake over to a portable system.
You just couldn’t have an Uncharted game without Nolan North as Nathan Drake. Most of the other key points to the Uncharted experience are here as well, so you can expect top-notch voice acting, entertaining characters, cut scenes recorded through motion capture, clever dialogue and beautiful graphics. Speaking of graphics, holy shit! This game looks absolutely incredible. Notice that I didn’t say “for a handheld game.” No, this game just looks great, period.
Don’t mind if I do.
Written by Micah Messer
Back in August 2009, comic book fans everywhere rejoiced. Batman: Arkham Asylum was released, and Batman fans finally had a high quality game that accurately portrayed the Dark Knight in all his glory. It was fun, innovative, and if you were a pre-existing batman fan, it was a dream come true. Many called Batman: Arkham Asylum the greatest comic book game to be released thus far. With Arkham Asylum being the critically acclaimed success that it was, naturally a sequel was immanent. Rocksteady games attempts to recreate their success with yet another adventure in the Batman universe.
The premise of Arkham City is a serious head scratcher.Quincy Sharp, former warden of Arkham Asylum, is now the mayor of Gotham City. Now, old Sharpy thought it would be a good idea to move all of the inmates from Arkham Aslyum and Blackgate Prison into a blocked-off area right in the middle of Gotham, and call it Arkham City. Brilliant plan, right? Sharp hands the reigns of this train wreck of an idea over to Dr. Hugo Strange. Bruce Wayne actually ends up getting arrested and thrown into Arkham City, thus starting another “I can’t leave Arkham until I find out what’s happening” adventure. The rest of the game’s story is actually pretty good, but the way that you’re eased into it is kind of silly, as the idea of an “Arkham City” is very obviously a fucking stupid one.
Written by Micah Messer
Written by Patrick Maginnis
Running at full-speed, I leap off a building, extend my hook-blade and catch myself on the ledge in front of me. I drop down to the ledge below and break my hip.
Welcome to Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Ezio Auditore da Firenze’s final story, which in my opinion, is about goddamn time. I love the Italian Renaissance, but the setting has gotten a little old, and so has Ezio. The game takes place in 1511, meaning that Ezio is 52 years old. As much fun as the game is, it’s sometimes hard to feel like a badass when your avatar is well past middle aged.
Try not to look so serious, bro.
Written by Nathan Love
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker is the dark horse of the Zelda console family. If the recent Zelda games were presidents, Ocarina of Time would be George Washington, Twilight Princess would be the evil twin of George Washington, and Wind Waker would be like, say, Zachary Taylor. Sure, Wind Waker is oft-maligned by fans, but it held the Union together against Southern separatists by force. Wait, no, I mean, it was a creative and inventive Zelda game at a time (one could argue that still continues today) when Nintendo realized it could make a whole lot of money by capitalizing on its legacies.
Everyone knows Wind Waker gets a lot of hate. Before it even came out, when screen caps were released, fans began mocking referring to it as “Cel-da” and “That damn cartoon Link crap”. People were hungering for the epic sequel to Ocarina of Time that Majora’s Mask came so tantalizingly close to offering, and Wind Waker definitely did not provide that. It was Twilight Princess, three years later, that would give the fandom what it had been clamoring for, and bafflingly enough, would be a far less interesting game than Wind Waker.
Written by Micah Messer
It’s quite difficult to accurately describe in words how good this game actually is, but I’ll do my very best. BUY THIS GAME!
Playstation game developer Naughty Dog has dug itself into quite the hole with their critically and commercially successful Uncharted series. Uncharted and Playstation 3 pretty much go hand and hand; If you buy a PS3, you’re gonna get Uncharted. The game’s sequel, Uncharted 2, has also received dozens and dozens of perfect scores and game of the year awards. Because of this, everybody’s expectations (including my own) for the next installment in the series were through the roof. I’m very happy to say that Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception delivers in almost every way possible. It’s an absolutely fantastic experience that simply must be played by anyone who owns a PS3. It’s really no surprise though. Naughty Dog’s developers are some of the most talented in the business.
The graphics of Uncharted 3 are absolutely mind-blowing. It’s by far the best looking game on the console to date. Naughty Dog should be commemorated for the amount of detail shoved into this game. Nathan Drake, (the game’s protagonist) reacts exactly how you would expect a human to react in any given situation. His animations are absolutely top-notch. If you walk around a corner, he puts his hand on the wall and drags it across. If you come near fire, he will shield is face from the light. The game exudes polish. While the story might not be as tight as the yarn spun in Uncharted 2, the locations that it takes you to are much more impressive; Yemen, London, Syria, and France to name a few.
Well, guess I better start walking…
Today we’ve got a speed run of Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo. While it’s not a perfect speed run, it’s still the best I’ve done to date. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed playing it.
-Thomas Read
Written by Micah Messer
Sorry for the delay folks, I was distracted by Orcs Must Die and Infamous: Festival of Blood. Bastards! In any case, here’s the review for Ratchet and Clank All 4 One!
Insomniac has been very busy recently. With the freshly released Resistance 3, and the still-in development Overstrike; perhaps the title getting the least amount of attention is Ratchet and Clank All 4 One. The long-running Sony-exclusive series has been around for almost ten years now. That’s right, your favorite Lombax and sentient robot duo have appeared in over ten different titles over that amount of time. Seven of them being official releases developed by Insomniac themselves for Sony’s home consoles (PS2/PS3), with Ratchet and Clank All 4 One marking number eight for that group. The Ratchet and Clank series has always been a blast; but after that many games, it’s understandable that the formula could start to become a bit stale. Insomniac attempts to mix it up a bit by adding 4 player co-op into the series for the first time in All 4 One. We’ve seen co-op before in Ratchet: Deadlocked, but not like this.
I’m a big Ratchet fan. I’ve played all of the official Insomniac releases to completion except A Crack in Time(which I hear is great.) I was very sceptical watching gameplay previews for All 4 One throughout it’s development, but also fairly intrigued to see how well they’d pull off 4 player co-op gameplay. I’m pleased to report that Insomniac has done a great job of implementing co-op into the Ratchet and Clank series, though the formula had to be tweaked a bit to do so. Things like the new shared camera angle make for some chaotic fights where you can lose track of your character at times. While it’s not the deepest experience ever, you’re definitely not wasting your money buying it. It can be a hell of a lot of fun, especially with friends.
Written by Micah Messer
I know that here at IPGR, we’ve been doing a lot of DLC reviews recently, and I apologize for bringing you yet another one; but I swear, the developers tricked me! Even though Sucker Punch claims it’s a standalone game, and you don’t have to own Infamous 2 to play it, Infamous: Festival Blood is basically DLC, and it will be scored as such.
The concept of Infamous: Festival of Blood is pretty ridiculous, but the thought of running around town as Vampire Cole was an exciting one. I was able to look past the ludicrous setting in the hope of some fantastic vampiric abilities. Even though I didn’t get the full set of blood-sucking skills I was hoping for, turning into a flock of bats and flying around New Marais is still pretty awesome. Festival of Blood introduces a couple of fun tweaks to Infamous, but ultimately it’s hard to say whether it gets more things right than wrong.
Thankfully, Infamous: Festival of Blood is not canon. Cole doesn’t actually turn into a vampire. It’s all just part of a crazy story being told by Cole’s friend, Zeke, to impress a lady friend. This set up may seem a bit cliche, but it’s definitely preferable to these events actually transpiring within the Infamous universe. I have to say, every time Zeke referred to the one of the vampires as a “fanger” (one who fangs?) I just got a bit annoyed.
