Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 | Review (PS3)

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Review.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is a PS3 exclusive re-imagining of Ninja Gaiden 2 which was released in 2008. Anybody who had played the first Ninja Gaiden Sigma will have a fairly complete idea of what Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 offers.  Super Ninja Ryu Hayabusa is back to save humanity by stopping the Black Spider Ninja Clan and the fiends from Resurrecting the Arch-Fiend.

What Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 offers is a refined and retuned experience which has undergone many alterations in bringing it from the 360 to the PS3. The biggest addition to Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 which was absent in the original Ninja Gaiden 2 on the 360 is Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2’s multiplayer mode.  Now you can team up with other wannabe ninjas around the world to complete missions. These missions usually consist of defeating waves upon waves of enemies whilst looking after your partner and reviving them when they lose all of their health. The missions span various environments, include different enemy groups and types and can are split into difficulty categories. The easier missions might just have you fighting waves of common enemies but the higher difficulties such as the infamously hard Master Ninja difficulty are extremely brutal with some pitting you against several bosses at once as well as hardened regular enemies. The multiplayer modes probably won’t keep you glued for months but if you’re a completionist and you have buddies who are good at the game then you’ll definitely have some fun. The only downsides to the multiplayer is that if you’re trying some of the harder missions and your partner isn’t quite up to snuff then the experience will be more irritating than fun with mission failure occurring should your co-op buddy die. The other problem is that the multiplayer co-op matches I played were very laggy – even when playing with a friend who didn’t live very far away. This can almost be game-breaking especially given the fact that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is a fast-paced game by its very nature and you don’t want lag hitting you in the middle of punching out a super complicated combo.

Doom 2 | Review (XBLA)

Time to come clean: I’ve only really played the first Doom on Nintendo 64, and Doom 3. Despite this, I do know that the Doom series is a cult classic as well as a historical landmark in First person shooters. However, I was still anxious to play Doom 2 in its new High Definition glory.

The music at times is simple, but sets the tone for the game. It has a creepy sort of feel to it, and at times will suddenly stop, making the player tense up. (At least I did). The sound effects are decent, though some of the weapons sound like they are being shot from the inside of a bag. I gotta say, when roaming the halls and hearing grunts and growls getting closer and closer, not being sure of when the enemies will show up has a delightful edge-of-your-seat factor.

Crysis | Review (PC)

Crysis Review.

It is not possible that there can be any PC section of any website without a review of Crysis. In some ways Crysis is one of the most modern embodiments of PC gaming in the class of other PC classics like Quake and Half Life. It’s a title which shows us the strength of what the PC can do as a platform.

Developed by Crytek, the developers which brought you the original Far Cry (on PC) have returned with Crysis.  This is Crytek’s second game featuring a beautiful paradise about to be torn apart and ravaged by warfare and conflict. The game has you assuming the role of Nomad, a member of an elite Delta Force unit clad in a skin-tight Nano Suit. You are sent to a remote island to intercept a distress call with the island being occupied by North Koreans along with something else entirely which I won’t spoil for anyone who’s not played or seen the game.

There is only one place you can really start when you talk about Crysis and that is the graphics. The graphics in this game give your eyes an erection. Crysis was released way back in 2007 yet it is still one of the best (arguably still THE best) looking video games in existence. Sure nowadays you could say that maybe a game like Metro 2033 looks better but not only is Metro 2033 three years younger than Crysis but it also uses DX11 technology giving it eye candy which didn’t even exist back in 2007. Don’t listen to anybody that tells you otherwise – Crysis looks damn good.

Remembering the PS2 | Shadow of the Colossus

Remembering the PS2: Shadow of the Colossus.

What is the most exciting part of your favorite game? When you look back, what do you remember most clearly? The graphics? The music? The story? How about the boss battles? Well a little game called Shadow of the Colossus is memorable for all these reasons. Oozing with atmosphere and polished to a brilliant sheen, SoTC manages to distinguish itself from everything else on the market and will remain a classic for many years to come. Let’s take a look at what made this game so unique.

SoTC is essentially a string of boss battles. Yes, that’s right. The developer has been kind enough to remove all the fluff and distill the game to its most exciting encounters. But what you come to realize after hours of playing is that nothing was cut. The story, while understated and subtle, is one of the most moving in the medium. The game mechanics we are familiar with: platforming, combat, exploration, etc, are all infused into the goal of the main character- to hunt and kill the colossi. The colossi themselves serve as the levels and the enemies at the same time.

So why are you fighting? The game opens with the main character, Wander, riding his horse along a mountain, through a forest and across a bridge. The tone of the world flows from the environment, a suffocating, somber tone. A feeling of desolation grips the player as Wander makes his way through the utterly empty landscape. But there is a semblance of beauty in the land. It’s easy to believe that life once bloomed all around, even as the world seems to lie in ruin now.

Bit.Trip Runner | Review (WiiWare)

Invading the bit factory.

Sequels in the video game industry too often are the kiss of death for what would have been an otherwise stellar intellectual property. Games like Tomb Raider and Sonic the Hedgehog have been consistently re-done and sequeled until they are mere shadows of the original game that brought them so much fame. The guys at Gaijin games decided to do something innovative by making a series of games with each one having such different mechanics than the one before it that each title could almost be a stand-alone game. The fourth and newest game, Bit.Trip Runner, holds true to this formula of innovation even more successfully than its predecessors.

Why do we play Online? Competitive Nature

As humans, we have always craved competition, from who could kill the biggest mammoth to who could control the most land. Eventually, sports were invented, as well as other various forms of games, including the ever-popular video game.

Artificial intelligence has come quite a long way in video games. Games used to merely be a series of patterns or random events with no ryhme or reason. Now, games can react to your input in smarter ways. Some have very basic learning capabilities, forcing you to think on your feet even more. However, sometimes that is just not enough. After all, it is still just a computer.

First Impression | EVE Online: Tyrannis

Released on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, Tyrannis marks the 13th expansion for the seven-year-old MMO Eve Online.

Developed by CCP Games of Iceland,, Tyrannis will push pilot-planet interactiontions to new heights as players set their sights on the stars for conquest of planetary resources soon to abundantly fill the over 60,000 planets in the galaxy New Eden.

Kicking off on June 8th, a treaty penned by CONCORD will allow players to scout planets via scanning equipment for materials before touching down to extract them for industrial and trade purposes.

Once a player has discovered their ideal planet, they can place a Planetary Command Center to begin the process of expanding a mining colony filled with processors and extractors networked by junction and storage nodes. Players can then ship resources off the planet, blast them off with cargo rockets, or hoisted them up with a space elevator.

This new game feature of planetary interaction comes with new skills to train for dominating the mining market while adding another facet to the player-driven economy.

CCP has also unveiled a web-based interactive “collaboration and networking portal” for EVE Online called EVE Gate.

Though more of a web-based management system, EVE Gate allows players to edit their contacts, manage their Watch and Block lists or alliance settings, while communicating with their team.

EVE Gate features an integrated mail system, called EVE Mail which emulates the in-game mail system, granting you the ability to check your mail without logging in.

EVE Gate also features an interactive calendar through which players can schedule appointments, meetings, events, or war while inviting whom ever they wish to join. The calendar is fully integrated into the game allowing players to access it whether logged in or out.

The graphics have received an overhaul.

Hundreds of new Event Landmarks further fill New Eden with the history of it’s past for players to visit.

Their browser is taking a fort night to download the game…

…more to come.

And a treat for EVE Acolytes who’ve been around for years, Live Events have returned with a Sansha Invasion.

Beyond Good & Evil Creator Leaves Ubisoft

French video game designer Michael Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, has cut ties with Ubisoft Montpellier in the pursuit of establishing his own development studio. This news comes as somewhat of a double-edged sword since on one hand, we may never have to endure another game starring some disjointed, neckless …..dog? Is he a dog? But on the other hand, it means that Beyond Good & Evil 2 may never see the light of day.

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City | Review (PS3)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know of the infamous deal between Microsoft and Rockstar in terms of Grand Theft Auto 4’s exclusive content. The downloadable content duo has remained exclusive to the Xbox 360 since they both launched in 2009, and hopes for a Playstation 3 version were becoming less likely as time went by. Upon entering spring of 2010, Rockstar has finally graced Playstation fans with the release of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City for purchase on both the Playstation Network and Disk. This action may be somewhat insulting to some Playstation owners since it arrived so late but if you put all that aside you’ll see that this pack was definitely worth the wait.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 | Review (Wii)

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review.

Super Mario Galaxy first took Mario into the final frontier back in 2007 and received critical acclaim — many heralded Mario’s third 3D adventure as one of the greatest video games ever made. The impact on players was high; the gravity based gameplay was incredibly unique, with many great ideas and level design coming around every turn. Running on the same engine and featuring the same art style, Nintendo has to go above and beyond with Super Mario Galaxy 2 in order to prove that the game isn’t a simple expansion — the sequel was originally planned as a Super Mario Galaxy 1.5. Does Super Mario Galaxy 2 add enough to the already established formula to make it feel fresh?