PS3 Reviews

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – The Da Vinci Disappearance Review

Released almost a month go, the first paid DLC for Assassin’s Creed:
Brotherhood kind of snuck under the radar. It’s a substantial addition
to the game, adding a significant new memory sequence and a couple tombs
to the campaign as well as modes, maps, and characters for the online
multiplayer. If you’re only interested in one of those components you
might not think The Da Vinci Disappearance is worth your ten dollars,
but I found it to be a good way to spend a few hours.

Mass Effect 2: Arrival Review

Arrival is supposed to be the final piece of content for
Mass Effect 2, the one that will bridge the gap between it and the third game
in the trilogy, which will be released later this year. And it more or less
does so, though not without a couple hiccups along the way.

MLB ’11 The Show Review

Spring Training may be in full swing, but you can jump right into games that matter as MLB 11 The Show is here! How does it stack up to previous iterations of what has become the premiere baseball franchise on the market though? 

Quite simply, this is the biggest and best version of The Show yet. It’s hard to one-up yourself every year with a sports franchise, but even if all of them don’t quite work as well as Sony’s San Diego studio would like, it’ll give them something to work on perfecting then for next year.

Bulletstorm Review

There hasn’t been a game this immature since Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64. Bulletstorm is a balls to the wall first-person shooter that’s a mixture of Duke Nukem 3D and Gears of War.
It doesn’t shoot for a story that you’re going to golf clap afterwards,
and it doesn’t try to revolutionize the genre. What it does bring to
the shooter genre is something the genre long forgot this generation:
how to just have fun.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds Review

The new age of heroes are here to kick butt and take
names, and after a decade of wondering if this game would ever come
into being, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is finally here. If you’ve
never played the series before, let me just inform you this is not your
typical fighting game. This is more of an action fighting game, in the
sense that the first few matches are going to be chaotic looking.
There’s characters popping in and out of the screen. There’s combos
popping up all over the screen. Before you know it, you’re dead without
even getting a hit in. But with much practice comes great benefits.

Mass Effect 2 Review

After a few years of sighing wistfully at the series from afar,
Playstation 3 owners finally get to try out Mass Effect for themselves
with this upgraded if imperfect port. They’ll probably never get to play
the first game on a Playstation thanks to Microsoft publishing it on
the 360, but with EA now controlling the series, part two is finally
available, and only about a year late. This release raises two questions
though, not only whether the game is worth playing at all, but also
whether it’s worth a shot on the PS3. The answer to the first is
definitely in the affirmative, but the second is closer to “only if it’s
the only system you can play it on”.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 Review

If you’ve played the original Test Drive Unlimited, you are probably aware of the game’s triumphs and shortcomings. On one hand you get a relatively solid racer, a huge game world with miles of open road, and plenty of flashy rides to drool over. Unfortunately, this was offset by very generic graphics, a rather lifeless world, vapid dialogue and some of the most aridly mundane driving tasks to date. The sequel to this average racer, Test Drive Unlimited 2, aims to correct the first game’s flaws and for the most part succeeds in doing so. Not surprisingly though, there are some reoccurring disappointments and a lot of little caveats that prevent the game from showing its true potential.

LittleBigPlanet 2 Review

Sony and Media Molecule have delivered a sequel to a game that, by all logic, should not need one. Do the improvements justify plopping down another sixty dollars? From the moment it was announced, Sony’s DIY-platformer Littlebigplanet was a shining beacon of hope for the games industry.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam PS3 Review

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is widely considered to be one of the best multiplayer experiences on the current set of consoles. With crisp graphics, a deep set of customization options, destructible environments, and gameplay that actually encouraged teamwork, B Company’s second outing was no slouch. Unfortunately, with developer DICE’s current status as EA’s workhorse, there was not much time in their schedule between Medal of Honor and Battlefield 3 to actually expand upon the juggernaut they had created. Finally, after months of waiting, the first significant expansion to the game has been released. Is it worth the wait?

Dead Nation Review

Dead Nation was one hell of a roller coaster ride from start to finish. Gorgeous graphics and disgustingly detailed audio contribute heavily to the hopeless atmosphere of the game, and the constant swarms of enemies will leave you gasping for breath after each encounter. Despite the game’s excellent production values and taught pacing, I could not shake a certain feeling the entire time I played the game. At first, I could not quite put a finger on it. But as waves of zombies and special infected bombarded my co-op partner and I, and we were really pushed back against the wall, I realized why I realized that this feeling was deja-vu. To put it bluntly, Dead Nation is Left 4 Dead, only from a top down perspective.

Being a PS3-exclusive game, it is entirely possible that you will pick up Dead Nation having never experienced any of the 360 and PC exclusive Left 4 Dead games. If this is the case, and a top down zombie survival game sounds appealing to you, Dead Nation is a safe purchase. The game mechanics are largely high quality and your fifteen dollars will get you a surprisingly long and intense campaign. But anyone who has played one of Valve’s seminal zombie games will notice exactly how derivative Dead Nation really is. Perhaps this should not be a huge surprise, given that Housemarque’s last game, Super Stardust HD, was essentially Geometry Wars on a sphere. However, in the case of Super Stardust, Housemarque added power-ups and new modes of play that were not present in the competition at the time, elevating the game to classic status. In this case, innovations are few and far between. Sure, you can purchase new upgrades for your weapons in the safe rooms, but that is about the only thing aside from the perspective separating Dead Nation from Left 4 Dead. As much as I enjoyed this game, the similarities often proved too much to overlook.