PS3 Reviews

Dungeon Siege 3 PS3 Review

Dungeon Siege 3 is the latest release in the Dungeon Siege Franchise and it marks the first time the series has ever made an appearance on consoles. It follows the story of the 10^th Legionnaires as they seek to rebuild after the fallout of a civil war with the tyrant Jeyne Kessynder. Unfortunately, the story is largely uninteresting and dull. The game never does a good job of making you really want to get revenge on Jeyne. For the most part, it feels like a series of abstract events that reach a conclusion and very loosely gives you a purpose to move forward. The specific story elements and reasoning behind why you are doing what you are doing are not explained very well. It all feels rushed as area after area passes by with no real story development of any kind; just constant reminders that you must stop Jeyne Kessynder, a villain that is impossible to be opinionated on, as she is seldom encountered over the course of almost the entire game.

Alice Madness Returns PS3 Review

Alice
Madness Returns is a delightfully imaginative journey back to American McGee’s
take on the weird and often creepy fantasy world of Wonderland. Although
technically
a sequel, I found myself easily understanding what was going on
fairly quickly despite having never played the original game.  A free
copy of which comes with new purchases of Madness Returns.

Duke Nukem Forever PS3 Review

It’s been an extremely long and rocky road for Duke Nukem Forever but it is finally here. There has been a lot of excitement over it’s release, with people just craving to know what exactly has been produced after such a lengthy and troubled development. Unfortunately, Duke Nukem Forever is far from being a quality title, but it is in equal measure, far from being overly terrible. It is as much as anyone could expect from a project that took over 12 years to complete and went from engine to engine in order to keep current with industry standards. It is also very clear that the game Gearbox received when they bought the rights to the Duke Nukem franchise last year, was not fully finished and it remains that way upon release.

This is most obvious in its graphics,which by comparison with even early PS3 releases look downright awful. Scenes are littered with blurry, unfinished textures and at most times a noticeable harshness in the lighting effects. The result is a game devoid of any atmosphere at all, with uninteresting levels that meander on and on with nothing particularly interesting to look at. NPC models animate poorly with virtually no kind of lip sync, and movement and gestures akin to characters from GTA: San Andreas on PS2. Enemies animate quite a bit better but their transition from one animation to another can be stilted at times. The frame rate takes a massive dive during most sections of the game whenever there are multiple explosions or other particle effects happening close to the player, and load times are clearly not optimised ,with loads of 20-30 seconds and upwards being typical.

InFAMOUS 2 Review

“Explosive”
and “unrelenting” are two words that immediately come to mind
when trying to describe Sucker Punch’s electric sequel to the 2009
smash hit Infamous.
This year, Cole MacGrath returns in a follow up that is bigger, badder,
and far more intense than the original—and this time his enemies
are even deadlier. Retaining almost every gameplay element that made
up the first title, Infamous
2 builds upon the same
formula and adds a lot of new flavor and style to the game. New
Marais, while it resembles Empire City, offers some new features of
its own and sports some interesting new design schemes. At first
glance Infamous 2, save for some subtle visual enhancements, looks almost exactly like
its predecessor but has a unique atmosphere and a richer
blend of interesting and dynamic characters. The level of detail is
also noticeably improved and the visual effects are much more
impressive.

L.A. Noire Review

L.A. Noire is an incredibly ambitious hybrid of Rockstar’s typical
violent, open world action games and the kind of investigative puzzle
adventures that rarely get budgets that approach this level. It’s an
interesting experiment and for the most part a very entertaining
experience, though it does have a few issues that prevent it from being
counted among the best of both genres.

DiRT 3 (PS3) Review

Dirt
3
is the newest addition to Codemasters’ off-road racing series, and is
easily the most complete and accessible game in the Colin
McRae: Dirt
franchise. The latest title is a more mature driving experience which
is more subtle in terms of design and presentation. Having the heavy
action sports influence toned down quite a bit allows Dirt
3
to appeal to those who want to see more professional racing action.
The game retains just the right amount of new-school racing jargon to
remain fresh, but also uses more traditional methods to draw in old
fans of rally games—such as a more mild soundtrack and less
commentary. Comparing Dirt
3
to the previous games shows that the developers have found the
perfect mix of new and old, which makes for an all-around better
game.

Brink (PS3) Review

Online
gaming is becoming more and more popular, and as a result we now have
a lot of games that are almost exclusively designed for multiplayer
action. A lot of gamers state that this is just fine but others will
argue that it really cuts the value of a game in half and doesn’t
offer enough to those who want lengthy campaigns and well-written
stories. Splash Damage’s new first-person shooter, Brink, is
a perfect example of a game that is very one-sided when it comes to
core game play. The game offers a campaign, but sadly there is really
no story development and the chapters are just preset matches with
short introductions and endings. In fact, all of the actual games in
Brink are multiplayer bouts which are based around different
objectives. Whether you are playing solo with bots or online with
some friends, it’s all the same.

Portal 2 (PS3) Review

Portal
changed gaming. There is no way around it. It was imaginative, funny,
and just a hell of a lot of fun. However, when Valve announced Portal
2, I wasn’t too sure about it. But you will be happy to know that it
is easily better!

Portal
2 takes place after the end of the first game, and your failure to
get cake. You wake up many years after the first game and
you can obviously tell. It almost looks like someone took a wrecking
ball to the place. Though upon GlaDOS’s return it does change back to
the same Aperture Science building you remember. This time Chell is
not alone. She has the quirky personality core Wheatley
at her side, as well as other interesting sources that are there to
give you hints, and poke fun at you. The game takes many twists and
turns, and faster than you can say “potato” you find yourself in
many other locations unlike the first.

Mortal Kombat (PS3) Review

As a young boy, Mortal
Kombat was one of those games that all your friends loved, and all the
parents hated, as the first arcade fighting game of its kind to go for a deliriously
dark art direction, with outrageous violence and gore. Since its debut to the
arcade cabinets in 1992, it became the most popular Beat-em-up franchise since Street Fighter. And after numerous games
and spin-off’s throughout the years, developer NetherRealm Studios brings you
the newly rebooted Mortal Kombat, but does it maintain everything that made it
the genre-defining franchise that its heavily regarded as today?

Well, let’s get to the gory details.

Motorstorm: Apocalypse Review

The Apocalypse is nigh, and in reality, the last thing you
would think of doing is grabbing yourself the most powerful vehicle you can get
your oil-liquored mitts on and blast through the most devastated metropolis on
the planet. However, despite how outrageous this premise may seem, Motorstorm:
Apocalypse goes with it anyway, and with it, delivers some of the most intense
and chaotic racing to ever grace the Playstation 3.

Motorstorm: Apocalypse is the first in the series to pry
away from natural environments of the previous titles. With the first
Motorstorm in the large-scaled desert environments, and Pacific Rift on an
exotic island, Motorstorm: Apocalypse drops you into an urban location, whilst still
maintaining all the breathtaking beauty and visuals of a typical Motorstorm game.
However, with this beauty lies utter anarchy and jaw dropping destruction,
something that Motorstorm obviously takes a lot of pride in.