Limbo Review by MiraiLimbo is a triumph in so many ways it’s hard to believe. The game wraps up a bit short with no story to speak of, and many of the best moments never make a return appearance, but this is a XBL game that simply must be played. (5/5)
Sin and Punishment 2: Star Successor Review by MiraiSin and Punishment 2: Star Successor manages to be pretty much anything you could ask for in an action game, not just in a rail shooter. The shooting is balanced and dynamic, the game flows beautifully from scene to scene, and really some jagged pixels and the befuddling story are all that hold it back from brilliance, but it shines all the same. (4/5)
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Singularity Review by Mirai(Game) is a First-Person Shooter featuring Black Ops soldier (Rank) (Name), sent to investigate (Location) and discovers he’s the only one who can stop (Villain) from using (Magic Power) to (Motivation). Armed with the (Magic Power) you take control of (Name) and work to undo (Villain)’s evil. (2/5)
Transformers: War for Cybertron Review by MiraiWar for Cybertron has every single reason to be awful, yet it manages to be pretty awesome with slick shooting, great graphics, and fantastic boss fights. The campaign suffers from color problems and the health system is kinda backwards, but the multiplay even manages to be good and the whole thing is actually worth picking up. (4/5)
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Alan Wake Review by MiraiAlan Wake is not a bad game by any means. But it doesn’t do much that really stands out either, with repetitive combat, pointless narration and in-game manuscripts, a story that has the occasional pants-shittingly idiotic character action. There’s some fun times to be had with it but if it was up to me I’d say Alan Wake needed five more years of development. (3/5)
Metal Gear Solid 4 Review by MiraiMetal Gear Solid 4 improves on like everything gameplay-wise, but then steamrolls anything that I ever considered excellent about the series. The game has ten climaxes, the cutscenes outnumber the actual gameplay two-to-one, and the plot becomes a satire of itself in the name of plot twists and attempted closure. It has some nice graphics, cool features, and Metal Gear Online is nifty but compared to the might of MGS3 it collapses upon its own weight. (2/5)
Metal Gear Solid 3 Review by MiraiI speak for myself and Noncon when I say that MGS3 did just about everything right. Gameplay, characterization, direction, music, atmosphere, immersion, story, and thematics are all tightly wound together. While some of Kojima’s wordy tendencies, some ancient and frustrating controls, and the heavy cutscene-to-gameplay ratio weigh it down a bit, Snake Eater is an utterly excellent game and has yet to be toppled in all the things it did right, even six years later. (5/5)
Metal Gear Classic Review by MiraiMetal Gear MSX is the first of its kind and therefore has more than its share of problems, and while it isn’t terrible the inane backtracking, confusing objectives, and repetitive combat do lend themselves to grate on you, especially since nobody but the Japanese have played it during its original release. (2/5) Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is a far superior game to the first, with excellent music, graphics, and a surprisingly deep story but the heavy baggage of backtracking and overcomplexity returns to bog it down. (3/5) Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color is a surprisingly competent spinoff of the classic top-down Metal Gear games, shrugging off many of the series’ burdens to become the best of the retro lot, even if the console’s processor limitations and that frustrating C4 mission hold it back a bit. (4/5)
3D Dot Game Heroes Review by Mirai3d Dot Game Heroes really doesn’t need to exist – I would be all in favor of a classic Zelda game given a makeover, but picking the first NES Zelda game is probably the worst way to go about it, featuring frustrating difficulty and bullshit cheap shots that only the original NES era could bring about with a straight face. (1/5)
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review by MiraiPrince of Persia: Forgotten Sands is Ubisoft’s aim to try and make a movie-tie in, a sequel/prequel, and a standalone at the same time. It’s got an insipidly blundering story, a pointless redesign of the Prince, and the combat’s kind of wonky, but the platforming shines brightly original, the best it’s ever been, and really makes up for the rest of the admittedly lacking parts. (3/5)
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Lost Planet 2 Review by MiraiLost Planet 2 is a frustrating mess of a game, trying to ape four-person cooperative combat but failing to make any component of the third-person shooting action fun, with clumsy controls, stiff movement, lousy tutorial, and arduously long bosses. (0/5)
Earthbound Review by MiraiEarthbound is a game I basically talk about all the time, and even despite my affection for it, I acknowledge the flaws for what they are worth. But it still holds up to this day, even despite the towering beast of wonder that is its sequel. (4/5)
Dead to Rights: RetributionDead to Rights: Retribution is a completely pointless reboot of a franchise nobody really ever cared about, with muddled graphics, hilariously stupid story, buggy gameplay, and genericism pouring out of every bit. (0/5)
Folklore Review by MiraiFolklore doesn’t have much going for it other than a stiff and inefficient third person action game and some really pretty graphics and music. These don’t disguise the painfully bad writing and really it’s better off left be. (2/5)
Splinter Cell: Conviction Review by MiraiSplinter Cell: Conviction is my first foray into the series, and while it has many small nitpicks that nip at my heels incessantly that doesn’t disguise that it’s pretty excellent all around, like Arkham Asylum if Batman lost his hatred of guns. 4/5
Mirai vs EbertMirai has an essay about video games, art, story, and Roger Ebert’s being wrong.
Metro 2033 Review by MiraiMetro 2033 tries really, really hard to be something more than just another first person shooter, but it fails due to a poor understanding of the other genre it’s meshing with, survival horror, and the result is a boring game that has scant moments of clever horror. (1/5)
Resident Evil 4 Review by MiraiMirai’s on vacation this week, and in his absence he left us a tale of a Raccoon City cop, a president’s daughter, a slutty Chinese woman in a red dress, a Not Spanish cult leader, and the one thing that brings them all together… love… I mean zombies. (5/5)
Infinite Space Review by MiraiMirai tries to get into a jRPG and chooses Infinite Space. Unfortunately, jRPGs hate him almost as much as he hates them, and the difficulty jumps through the roof and trucks all the way on towards the moon, leaving him stranded with a basket of jRPG cliches and terrible pacing. (0/5)
God of War III Review by MiraiGod of War III is just as brutal as its predecessors, while being as fairly challenging, enjoyable, and interesting all at once. The strange thing is that, except for graphics and audio, it feels like a step backwards in the series as far as gameplay. (4/5)
