I’ve played my share of modern role-playing games, so I think I’ve got some credibility in the field. I obsess and constantly debate them. Having said that, it’s then safe to say that Final Fantasy VII is too difficult, and not just the turn-by-turn gameplay, which in itself is an acquired taste. The way developers build the games of today have a way of almost inebriating modern-day gamers with luxury and convenience, preventing them from enjoying the rich historical precursors to games of today.

Unclear Direction

One common argument is that modern games are too dumbed down for the average gamer to understand the relative complexities of older games, like Final Fantasy VII. You’re probably wondering where I come up with these friendly, biting accusations. Come on a journey with me, and you shall be enlightened to why FF7 isn’t as great as your childhood remembers.

What’s the first RPG that pops into your mind? Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? How about Dragon Age: Origins? Maybe an MMO, like World of Warcraft? Now, ask yourself, what do these kind of games have in common? A basic quest log; that wonderful little thing that tells you how many quests you have opened, discovered, and where you need to go. In my first (and last) attempt at Final Fantasy VII, I constantly struggled to keep track of what needed to be done, and where. There’s just so many distractions in the world of Midgar.. Even when I managed to keep my focus on the game, I was usually lost, but not just from unclear goals.

Going Slightly Mad

Similar to the problem of a missing quest log is the lack of a mini-map. If having a quest log is the first course of elder design, going with a mini-map is the second helping. If an absentee mini-map wasn’t bad enough, there’s also no form of fast travel, minus the airships and boats much later in the game. Reflecting, modern gamers really love to be babied. When working through a world this expansive, it seems natural that the creators would put in a mini map to orient the player. Such is not the case for Final Fantasy VII.

Most spaces are easy enough to navigate, but each area is arranged in a series, like a maze made of puzzle pieces. The problem though, is that while you’re getting lost in this puzzle made of mazes you lose your mind. One wrong turn and you’re trying to find your way back to where you started, and trying to remember where you were going in the first place.

Playing off getting lost, the enemies you encounter for battle are almost all ghosts. It’s like you are walking through a cemetery, singing a lovely little song to yourself, when BAM!… you’re ambushed by a weird ass, evil house. Dealing with insane enemies like this for hours on end would be enough to drive even the sanest gamers bonkers.

Being constantly assaulted by demented enemies combined with constantly getting lost and running around the same area for god knows how long leads to a terrible cycle of annoyance and frustration. Compared to modern games, it’s all slightly terrifying. At one point, when they add on a timer, you’re in for a hell of a time. The maze gets even more confusing because you are stressing about getting out in time, which leads to minor heart attacks every time you get attacked.

Basically, retro games are screwed. The longer a game has been out, the more likely it is there will be a group of people that will not be able to handle it. Imagine League of Legends in 30 years. Or the Halo series. Games are becoming easier and easier. So let’s blame everyone and hope for better.

That bad.

Dishonored’s ultimate disappointment would not have been such a sucker punch if the game hadn’t opened with such promise. Here’s the thing: One hour in, I expected to give Dishonored a 10. You start out in a Skyrim-style cart-ride. You’re on a boat, and you can peer into the inky haze of the distant city. That city, Dunwall, looks fabulous, and not just in its graphical fidelity. Wealthy estates soar upwards and cast their surroundings into gloom. Poorer locales recede into the shadows and seem to roil with sweat and sorrow. The whole of Dunwall seems to cry out “I am a breathing, embattled world; explore me and be rewarded.”

This exploration is where the game began to lose me. In truth, however, the first few missions simply set a pace that the rest of the game failed to match. If you’ve ever played Half-Life 2, you’ll find some familiarity in the “living world” of these early stages. Dunwall thrums with possibility, and the intrepid adventurer will always find some new trinket or bit of story. Arkane Studios, developer of Dishonored, loaded these first levels with a staggering bounty of sidequests, treasures, dialog and lore. It all seems too good to be true.

And it is. At last, the sad truth: Dishonored is terribly front-loaded. For all the intrigue in Dunwall, the biggest conspiracy might be the brain-drain ray pointed at your home base. Early on, characters gab and bicker with a robust array of dialog. As the game progresses, they’re gradually reduced to robots, repeatedly uttering the same one or two lines needed to advance the plot. Characters are not alone in this dumbing-down. At the start, in-game books hint at certain dark secrets — grim deities in conflict with the church, the city’s immoral power supply on the verge of failure — that never come to fruition. For all its early promises, Dunwall never quite makes good.

Of course, a game is more than its setting. Dishonored’s gameplay is a delight, and tarnishes only slightly by game’s end. You enter the world as an assassin very similar to the protagonist of the Thief series, able to move silently, slay enemies swiftly from behind, and fall back on an Assassin’s Creed inspired block-and-counter melee when engaged head-on. As you progress, you’ll pick up game-changing spells that set Dishonored apart from its stealth-game brothers. You might reach the second mission without falling for the game’s shadowy aesthetic or assassinations, but if you don’t love Blink, you simply aren’t human.

Blink is a medium-range teleport, and the feeling of learning Blink is equal to the green shell in Super Mario 64 or your first flying mount in World of Warcraft. It embodies the caterpillar-into-butterfly feeling of giving up the earth and suddenly becoming free. You’ll ask yourself, “How did I ever live without this?” In 2010, Avatar audiences saw the real world as suddenly drab and gray in contrast to Pandora. After Dishonored, moving in the real world suddenly seems so slow. And yet, simply by being so awesome, Blink creates a problem all its own. Blink makes the game easy.

Dishonored is a game about player empowerment. Everything, from your powers to your silence to your effect on NPCs, is designed to make you feel like a vengeful god unleashing hellfire on an unprepared world. Throughout, Dishonored shows how frightened it is of breaking the player empowerment cycle by being too timid to challenge the player. Every task feels constructed through the lens of “what if the player doesn’t have X spell,” and is put in easy reach of a player with only the default spell: Blink.

Dishonored stresses, through its tutorials and menus, that you can “play your way,” by selecting spells that suit your style. I can’t disagree: the hero you play may be very different from mine. This is true, but it simply doesn’t matter. Every part of the game, every objective, every treasure, and every side-quest can be achieved with only Blink. By a few hours in, I would not have been the charming protagonist the other characters love and admire. I would have been a tired and muttering Sisyphus, doomed to perform the same task – Blink behind guard, backstab, Blink to safety – again and again and again.

I came to Dishonored with enormous hope. I have loved everything Dishonored draws from: gameplay from Thief and Deus Ex and story from The Count of Monte Cristo and V for Vendetta. At first, my hopes seemed well founded, but, by about hour five, I felt like Dishonored and I were both just waiting for the end. Me due to boredom, and Dishonored because it had nothing left to give.

7 / 10

Painkiller: Hell and Damnation casts the player as Daniel Garner: a man dead from the beginning and trying to ascend to heaven…or bring his wife back from the dead. It’s never really clear which, and it doesn’t need to be. That’s the beauty of Painkiller; the writing, the acting, and the narrative blend the stupid and the insane like bananas and chocolate. The story exists solely to drive fantastical scenarios with interesting enemies. Why does Death want you to collect 7000 souls? Because killing 7000 monsters is fun. Why is Eve, a scantily clad woman, hanging out with Daniel? She doesn’t add much to the story, but it’s through her you get an excuse to kill Death. Every narrative element exists for the sake of framing increasingly impossible situations. If the game weren’t so much fun, I could fault the story.

Wacky story aside, Painkiller’s main draw is gibbing monsters. Each weapon feels unique and has a devious twist. Since shotguns are too normal, they have a secondary fire that can freeze enemies. Already insane weapons become crazier; a gun that fires massive, wooden stakes also fires a grenade; a gun that shoots five bolts of rebar also launches a dozen or so bouncing explosives. The shooting and general gameplay is a welcome departure from the military-FPS landscape. Sadly, most of the weapons feel like plastic props without any real weight or punch. Most of them slay in a single hit, but don’t feel powerful. Killing dozens should always be fun, but when you’re shooting confetti from a paper-mache gun it can only end in disappointment. It was only after hours of slaughter that the weapons started to feel like they’re made of foam. Regardless, murder should never be boring.

But, at some point, you get numb. For the first couple hours, nailing witches to walls and blowing up insane monks to the tune of screaming guitars is unique. After two or three hours of murder to metal though, slaying starts to feel like a chore. Compounding the fatigue is Painkiller’s AI, which normally wouldn’t be a concern. After all, the fun comes from killing hordes and staying mobile, not from dealing with complicated attack patterns. The AI is so basic that enemies may as well kill themselves. Enemies charge mindlessly at you. Those with ranged weapons stand in place waiting for a swift death. Evading melee attacks is as easy as hopping on anything elevated. Enemies feel like even less than fodder instead of being a focal point for your murderous creativity.

Which is a real shame. When the game works as it does for the first few hours, it works well. This is the general problem with Painkiller; it wears off quick. For example, the level design is straight out of Doom, complete with intricate-yet-open levels riddled with secret items and areas. For an hour or so, it’s great to find goodies and money that unlock more Tarot Cards, which alter how the game plays with things like bullet time, or higher damage resistance. However, after getting just a few powerful cards I stopped caring about secrets. Tarot Cards and personal achievement are really the only reasons to replay a level. Beating a level under a certain time or using a certain weapon unlocks more cards. I was content with just four.

If you don’t care about beating high scores or speed-runs, you won’t find much to Painkiller’s replayability. I’m sure some people find their blood excited at the prospect of secret areas and racing to the finish, but it’s not something I find compelling. After beating the campaign once, I don’t feel like the need to replay it. Considering I beat the campaign in less than four hours, this is something to keep in mind when thinking about your purchase. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

If enemies were more varied or the gunplay better, Painkiller: Hell and Damnation would be a strong recommendation. Don’t get me wrong; Painkiller is a great time, but one that runs out of steam unless you’ve got a vested interest in what Painkiller represents: a flashback to old design. That includes all the good, and the bad.

7.5 / 10

Let’s start with the good. The story is entertaining at first, even a little funny. Despite the fact I was rolling my eyes, I managed to chuckle every now and then. The game opens with you being told that your character, who, since it’s never specified, must be Oozi, is a “delivery alien”. Everything is going well, until nothing is. Oozi crashes on a planet, which I assume to be Earth, and loses his ship and equipment. For the rest of the game you’ll be hopping around like a rabbit on Red Bull in the search for all his lost goodies.

For that first bit of story, it’s mildly interesting. It isn’t until after the first stage that all the plot points and levels begin to run together. Level design, enemies, and all the palettes are identical, making the game awfully predictable. Every stage has the exact same set-up, with individual levels always the same. Level 1 is collecting stars, 2 is finding a piece of equipment that allows you to do something new yet not entirely new, levels 3-5 have you adjust to different enemies and new moves, and level 6 is just a boss fight. With so few differences between stages, the gameplay feels repetitive and boring.

As a way to acclimate the player to the mechanics of Oozi, the game makes liberal use of hints to the point of absurdity. For the first stage, the game pretends that its levels are well thought-out and features several well-placed hint signs. The charade of smart design falls apart when the exact same enemies have the exact same hints in every successive stage. What was once a helpful guide, turned into a boring, seemingly automatic generation. Related to the faulty hint system, when slightly different enemies start to pop up there is no hint if they’ll hurt when you jump on them, or if you same tactics of “crush it with your feet” still apply. Because of this, hints feel either unhelpful or used so often that they become an inconvenience and an all around annoyance.

The next problem I ran into was the difficulty, which stems mostly from the game’s inability to offer helpful advice or intuitive solutions for problems. The first stage feels exactly how it should; easy to the point of it being silly while still using basic challenges to teach the core gameplay, like figuring out the button combination to pass an obstacle. This was a fine way to start, but it goes down the tube as things progress. Specifically, the difficulty doesn’t really ramp up as the game progresses. The only major difference from level to level is their length, and even that doesn’t change much. Sometimes you can speed through a level without losing health or touching a single enemy, but other times you pound your head, stuck on one section. Since each level chunk and obstacle is an interchangeable block set up in almost the same way as every preceding level, gameplay never really gets more difficult, just different.

To make it even worse, the health system is entirely broken. When playing on easy, your health is replenished at every checkpoint, which is often enough to make health almost meaningless. Play on normal, though, and you gain a heart, up to three, for every 2,000 points you earn. This makes the game significantly more difficult, and this discrepancy between difficulties is deplorable due to the lack of middle ground. On normal, Oozi is so frustrating that it is near impossible to play more than one level at a time, but it’s a sleepwalk on easy. I can’t even imagine how frustrating hard would be; it’s a lose-lose situation.

On the plus side, the audio cues elicit child-like amusement. There is no way to convey how painfully stupid they are, but neither can you keep yourself from giving a short, joyful laugh when a new sound shows up. I don’t know how many times I caught myself bouncing around on bubbles just to hear them pop. Some of the fun does come out of rocketing into the air with next to no way to control Oozi’s movements, almost like the Sonic the Hedgehog games of yesteryear. The fun of this aside, when you lose sight of the ground you’re usually screwed. But, the noise he made when he landed right on a spike forced a smirk to creep across my face every time.

For the final note, we have the biggest ploy of all. I’ve alluded to it before, but stage to stage it’s nothing more than a repaint and re-skin of previous stages, rearranged. Level design doesn’t vary and the changes are slight inconveniences instead of added difficulty. It’s like they thought that adding a moving wall would make the entire sequence that much more complicated, when really it’s more annoying than fun. I’ve got to break it to Awesome Games Studios they did go out of their way to make obstacles too easy around or too complicated.

To put it simply this game is bad.

4.5 out of 10.

The problem with Big Sky Infinity is that the randomized pieces eventually repeat. The structure of the game feels built around reusing content. In the campaign, you kill to earn starbits that you spend on upgrades for more directional bullets, occasional explosives; pretty basic power-ups. In a different game, these persistent boosts could make the player feel empowered as time goes on, like an RPG. But, unlike an RPG, upgrades don’t accrue fast or in any obvious way. Instead, most upgrades seem inconsequential, like a tenth of a percent increase in power or an extra bullet every eight seconds. What could have been replaying for fun and XP feels like the worst kind of MMO grind. Environments are flashy and interesting, but it doesn’t modify gameplay. Bosses are interesting and play more like puzzles, but there’s only a handful. Big Sky Infinity has a habit of repeating itself.

There are twelve different modes, but almost all are identical to campaign, albeit with a slight tweak like a time limit, spawning with random power-ups, or no shooting. Some of these are interesting, but are mostly side distractions that can’t stand on their own. This wouldn’t be so damning if the campaign carried the fun, but no mode ensnared my attention for more than a few minutes. If genocide against BSI’s geometric enemies were more fun, I could excuse how repetitive the whole thing feels. After all, Tetris deals with four basic shapes and is one of the world’s most memorable. But, BSI couldn’t be further from this philosophy of simple variety.

Speaking of avoiding simple variety, there are many, many different types of enemies, which are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Each is meant to behave differently, attack differently, and look different but it’s typically a vague blob of indistinguishable enemies. If they were different, visually, it could be easier to tell them apart and give some a sense of meaning. As it is, none of the enemies have even half the personality as the green shapes in Geometry Wars 2.

That’s the thesis of Big Sky Infinity; flashy and interesting at first, which fades once you recognize that appeal is only skin deep. Big Sky Infinity is, at best, a distraction for a few days. Don’t expect to lose weeks to this middling shooter, but do expect to an excellent first impression.

5.5/10

Combat begins to truly shine with the introduction of the Zan-Datsu system. If you get an enemy’s health low enough, or you’re fighting a sufficiently weak one, you can slice them to bits at any angle and then pull out their “healing unit” (read: spine) to restore your health. Being able to cut enemies a dozen times, any direction, is immensely satisfying. The free-cutting Zan-Datsu system works very well, and feels like an extra neat little way to finish off enemies beyond a boring button press accompanied by a fancy animation.

Nowhere does Rising deviate further from its origins than in boss fights. Gone are the intricate, strategic designs. A few are good fun and give the player a taste of how absurdly strong Raiden is; lifting and throwing a huge robot, for example, feels appropriately epic. On the other hand, there are more frustrating bosses than fun ones. Instead of an interesting strategic quirk, most encounters are little more than “dodge, attack, Zan-Datsu” repeated three times and finished with a quick time event. Some fights feel special and interesting, but they’re an underwhelming minority. The closest thing I’ve found to a Kojima quirk is throwing a certain kind of grenade at a specific boss. Maybe there’s additional layers to some of these fights I never discovered, but if there’s anything deeper I certain couldn’t see it. That isn’t to say boss encounters are all awful, but there’s only one or two that were truly enjoyable. The rest were very “meh”.

If there is one part of the series that has been retained though, it’s the plot devices. Only in a Metal Gear game are you trekking across the globe to find cyborg brains held captive by a bloodthirsty Private Military Companies (PMCs). Only in Metal Gear is there a 10-year-old aerospace engineer. And, of course, only in Metal Gear do you fight a boss that looks like the hulk thanks to nanomachines. Usually the story of a Kojima game focuses on something important, like information control, or nuclear deterrence and proliferation. Rising doesn’t seem to have any real message besides “violence is bad.” The closest thing I can come up with is how it revisits and extends MGS4’s critical look at PMCs, but even there it doesn’t add much to the conversation. It has elements of a Metal Gear story, but without a new message beyond “war is bad” and “PMCs are probably too powerful.”

On a more personal level, much of Rising is dedicated to expressing Raiden’s internal struggle at the constant violence he’s inflicting, balanced against his wish to protect people. It’s great to see a game trying to deal with this, but the way they handle it doesn’t really pan out. He has an epiphany about the kind of person he is and instead of changing, he embraces the darkness in him. But, instead of this having any real bearing on the game or story, it leads to him doing the same things as before except now the player can activate “Jack Mode” where attacks are stronger.

There’s nothing particularly excellent about Metal Gear Rising: Revengence. The combat is fun enough, and the story is pretty interesting, but none of it excels beyond a baseline of “just alright”. Rising doesn’t feel like a Metal Gear game, but the absence of those elements isn’t what makes this so very middle of the road.

7.5/10

Overall, it is a lot more coherent than Revenge of the Fallen and with a more serious tone; there’s still plenty of laughs but less than the previous films. Does it suffer from pacing issues, Ehren Kruger (writer of The Ring, Scream 3) as the writer without Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (writers of Transformers & JJ Abrams’ Star Trek), and Michael Bay’s directing? Yes. While there is a lot more at stake here than in any other Transformers film, it was never truly suspenseful. Even with high amount of human and robot casualties, I was never gripped with suspense or genuine tension. This is due in no small part to the lack of character development or emotionally stirring moments.

Who watches a Michael Bay movie for emotion though? It’s all about the action, which Dark of the Moon has more than enough of. Slow-mo? Plenty. Hot girl standing with explosions in the background? Not till the end of the film, but it’s there. Bay’s directing conventions aside, the folks at Industrial Light & Magic have kept up and delivered. There are a few moments where it is hard to tell who exactly is fighting whom but for the most part, it was easy to tell from the camera angles used. Following just the action is a more effortless and rewarding experience. On top of that, the 3-D is amazing. James Cameron convinced Michael Bay to film in 3-D and allowed him to use the 3-D cameras used for Avatar. It definitely shows: there are a lot of moments where debris and robots are flying out at you, and there is added depth to big set pieces. Downtown Chicago during the final action-packed hour of the movie features superb combat and 3-D scenes. Many aerial shots feature soldiers gliding in real-life flying squirrel-inspired wingsuits, providing moments of 3-D induced vertigo. There is no post-production 3-D conversion rubbish. Bottom line: the 3-D is actually worth the ticket price and, in terms of quality, second only to Cameron’s Avatar.

Alright, so the 3-D and special effects are great, but how’s the acting? Victoria Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley plays the new love interest of Sam Witwicky. Her acting skills are roughly on par with previous female lead Megan Fox, but a lot less skanky. Her first few minutes of screen time have the camera focused on her lingerie-wearing butt walking up the stairs. Everyone else is about the same as we have come to expect.

Shia LeBeouf portrays Sam Witwicky as a frustrated young adult trying to find his place in the world, but is still willing to fight the good fight. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons and Kevin Dunn and Julie White as the Witwicky parents are a little toned down from Transformers 2, thankfully. Alan Tudyk (Firefly) stars as Simmons’ interesting Dutch butler and Ken Jeong (Hangover, Role Models) is as awkward as ever. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are back as robot-destroying US soldiers. Curiously, a number of A-list actors including John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and Patrick Dempsey are also in Dark of the Moon.

I think I also need to mention how unbelievably pro-America this movie is. American flags wave in many of the set piece shots. The Autobots speak of freedom and stand next to a battered yet still standing American flag. All branches of our military work together to assist defeating the Decepticons (even the Navy SEALS). One of Washington DC’s presidential memorials gets wrecked in a scene that left me, as a patriot, angered. Optimus Prime takes cover behind a statue of the Founding Fathers as they protect him from Decepticon fire. This is the perfect movie for 4th of July weekend and anyone who loves America like I do.

VERDICT: Transformers: Dark of the Moon is better than Transformers 2 with more coherent story and action. However, it does not break any new ground for the series so if you aren’t a fan of any of the Transformers movies or even action flicks in general, Transformers: Dark of the Moon won’t change your mind. For everyone else, you will probably have a good time. Battles are intense and feature sequences of ballet-esque slow motion chaos. If you go see this movie, see it in 3-D – I can’t stress it enough. Last of all, Transformers 3 is by no means a great or even a “good” film but I knew what to expect and got it.

Add 1 star if you love Transformers, sensory overload, or mindless action in movies. Minus 1 star if you are looking for good filmmaking like a critic, hate explosions, or 3-D.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon opened at 9PM June 28th in 3-D & IMAX and everywhere midnight June 29th.

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol is a true espionage game. You get a safehouse, you use fancy weapons, and you have all the suave of all the Bonds combined. The game starts with a pinch of exposition. You wake up in a hospital bed that is located in Alpha Protocol, the headquarters of a mysterious detective agency. You try to escape, neutralizing several guards in the process. You eventually find your way to your boss. After a bit of conversation ALA Mass Effect, you complete training missions and sent off to your first mission in Saudi Arabia. You are given three objectives. You can either choose to go in guns blazing or take the stealthy approach. I chose the latter. After killing a few baddies, I leveled up. When you level, you can choose to put points in any one of ten fields such as Guns, Electronics, Martial Arts, etc. and by putting points in a category you unlock new skills related to that category. Although I am not far in the game, it is very fun so far and has enough depth to satisfy hardcore RPG fans.

Darksiders

Darksiders is a hack-and-slash adventure game set in post-apocalyptic earth. In a battle between heaven and hell, you play War, one of the four horsemen, and your job is to stop the war. Destroyer, a gigantic lava demon, incapacitates you and you wake up 100 years later only to find that humans have been wiped out. You now have to seek help from anyone willing in order to defeat Destroyer. The gameplay is similar to God of War and is just as violent. For weapons and upgrades, you collect souls from vanquished enemies and you can buy powerful combos and weapons. With a solid story and smooth gameplay, this game is a must for action fans.

Terraria

Terraria is a unique game, but if I had to compare it to anything, it would be a side scrolling Minecraft with RPG elements. You play Terraria much like any other mining game: you start with basic tools, mine minerals and ore, and build structures, art, etc. The thing that sets Terraria apart from the competition its shallower learning curve. Minecraft is almost impossible to play without external help. Terraria, on the other hand, has all the recipes in-game and it gives you tutorials on everything else. Terraria also has zombies, flying eyeballs, bats, and more to battle against using simple RPG elements. You build armor, which helps you take less damage. You build a sword with more durable materials and you will do more damage. Overall it is nothing exceptional, but a worthy companion to Minecraft.

Torchlight

Torchlight is a top down dungeon crawler that takes after Diablo.There are 3 classes; Destroyer, Vanquisher, and Alchemist. Each class has their own abilities and tech tree. The Destroyer can be built to tank and stun enemies or maximize melee DPS. The Vanquisher uses ranged attacks and he has some AoE attacks. The Alchemist is a mage-like character capable of dealing out massive amounts of damage using spells. The dungeons are randomly generated and the game itself is just fun. Although there is no multi-player or co-op, this game will keep you busy for at least eight hours. If you like dungeoncrawlers, then you owe it to yourself to buy this game!

Trine

Trine is an action platformer that was released as part of a “pay your own price” pack for charity called the “Humble Bundle”. The game was well received has found a place on Steam. Trine is a very immersive, side scrolling, action platformer. The wonderful narrative ties you into the game’s events and provides a nice story. A knight, a theif, and a wizard, all come across the Trine, which binds their souls together. You play as any of the three characters and you can freely switch between them. The puzzles are unique and there are often many ways to solve them. The knight specializes in combat and can easily dispatch the many enemies you encounter. The thief has a bow for long range combat and she also has a grappling hook. The wizard can move objects around the world and create different platforming objects such as crates and walkways. Although incessant combat can be annoying and disrupt the platforming mood, the game is well put together and is currently my favorite game. I recommend this title to anyone, even if they have never played a platformer before.

X3: Terran Conflict

The final game I will touch on is X3: Terran Conflict. This game is essentially a single player version of EVE online. You start out with a ship and a very minimalistic tutorial gets you on your way. Most of the game is bartering and trade, but there is combat. However, I am 3 hours in and haven’t even been able to test out my lasers. Most of my time in-game was spent wandering around not knowing what to do next. The fantastic visuals made up for it, though. The only reason I am still playing is just to explore the universe and see the different things it has to offer. X3 is a very complicated game and it takes a very long time to do anything. If you have the patience to barter before you shoot, then X3 might be the game for you.

At the end of the Steam Summer sale, I picked up 11 games for $52. I will be very busy the rest of the summer playing all of my new games! I hope everyone else was lucky and got the games they wanted!

Crazy, Stupid, Love follows a man named Cal Weaver (played by Steve Carrell) and his life following a divorce with his high school sweetheart and wife, Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore). The first ten minutes or so show the bored married couple and having dinner together at a fancy restaurant while other couples are having the time of their lives. Emily at last bursts out that she has been sleeping with another man and wants a divorce. Cal says goodbye to his wife and kids and moves out into an apartment. Bored with his life and lonely, Cal heads to an upscale bar every night after work. Cal’s depression catches the attention of a wealthy playboy named Jacob (Ryan Gosling). Jacob decides to make it his duty to make Cal recapture his youthful manhood and attract women.

While the brief intro synopsis above sounds like a generic romantic comedy, the story takes an unexpected but fun roller coaster ride and focuses well on character relationships. Throughout the film, there were moments ranging from shedding manly tears to laughing at a well-timed hilarity. Crazy, Stupid, Love achieves real substance by using, of course, love as a strong theme. It is a movie that explores all forms and aspects of affection from infatuation and falling in love for the first time to heart break and overcoming obstacles with a significant other. These are all examined through its cast of characters from Cal and Emily Weaver, their son Robbie, Jacob, and even the family babysitter Jessica.

I loved the cast, and it was a pleasure it was to see an ensemble have chemistry to work so well with each other. Steve Carrell has not lost any of his comedic zing since leaving The Office and further displays his capability for serious drama. He can still deliver his lines with either comical execution or in a way that makes you sympathize with his character. Julianne Moore plays another wife that cheats on her soul mate (the last time was in The Kids Are Alright), but you are never made to loathe her character. The Notebook’s Ryan Gosling was an actor I originally thought would be the weakest when it came to comedy for this film. Boy, could I have been any more wrong; he played Jacob as funny, charming, sincere, and likeable for someone that looked like a jerk. Jonah Bobo, who played the young son Robbie, is a skilled child actor and was the coolest thirteen-year old I’ve ever seen. I really wish my younger brother was as insightful and charismatic as he (hope he isn’t reading this). Emma Stone is a strong actress as usual, delivering a nice performance as Hannah, a girl who falls for Jacob. The other young actress Analeigh Tipton plays the family babysitter and is, I would have never guessed, a supermodel that puts the acting of Transformers 3’s Rosie Huntington to shame.

Sadly, Crazy, Stupid, Love looks to be a movie that audiences will ignore because of the large event blockbusters like the final Harry Potter, Captain America, and Cowboys and Aliens – unfortunate since it’s not great but very good. If you are looking for a film with a little more heart and substance or even a fun flick you can enjoy with a hot date, Crazy, Stupid, Love is an excellent choice.

Add half a star if you really love romantic comedies. Subtract 1 star if you really dislike them.

But a man like Suda51 can make me use my Kinect for something more than me lazily barking commands to Netflix, and has done so with his latest game Diabolical Pitch. In this recently released rail shooter style Kinect Arcade title comes to us from the same mind that gave us Killer 7 and No More Heroes, (possibly one of the best titles on the Wii, in my humble opinion) you must defeat animal headed demons with your super pitching arm in order to progress onward in the game. While your character remains stationary, there is plenty of movement from the player using the Kinect well within its capabilities but keeping it simple to play.