Crysis 2

2011-05-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

You can take Crysis out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of Crysis. For those worried that Crysis 2’s city-slicking setting would turn it into a cramped corridor crawl, go ahead and activate strength mode, grab your fears, and ragdoll them 30 feet in the air. Crysis 2—while not quite as open as its predecessor—is subtly complex, brilliantly paced, and morbidly satisfying from start to finish. Sure, it’s far from revolutionary, but sometimes, you just want to put on a talking suit and shoot squid monsters, you know?

2011-05-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

As you might expect from Peter Molyneux's Lionhead, Fable 3 was always going to be a polished but flawed gem.

It tells the story of a Prince trying to liberate his kingdom from an evil brother and is basically a game of two parts. The first and longest part involves building a team of heroes capable of staging the rebellion. This is achieved by slowly building your wealth and powers, solving fetch & carry quests and interacting with the local townspeople.

In play, it's like a combination of Dungeon Siege and the Sega Dreamcast's Shen Mue. So, although there's plenty of repetitive hack-and-slash action, there's also the ability to earn money or invest in property to keep your coffers constantly ticking over.

Complete the main quests and the game switches dramatically to being one of moral or world-shaping choices rather than questing. It's a shift you will either love or feel strangely annoyed about – something fairly typical of Molyneux's maverick, slightly twisted approach to game design.
Some of the puzzles are intriguing. Early on, for instance, you have to act out a lost play before its ghostly author will release you and the treasure they hold. It's highly inventive stuff which makes the more formulaic quests (retrieve an item, beat a monster, etc) seem increasingly lazy.

In fact, Fable's greatest problem is that it sets such high standards in some areas that the gaps elsewhere seem all the more noticeable. The social interactions start off promisingly, but soon pale when you realise that you must belch, dance or whistle your way through almost every encounter. It's also a shame that your three main trades (blacksmith, pie-making or lute-playing) are basically the same mini-game with different animations.

Other niggles seem to have been ported over from previous console versions. Having to hold a key down until a little green circle fills up may be fine for Kinect users trying to avoid making accidental choices, but PC owners will find it an annoying two-second delay between almost every interaction. It's also irritating that you need to click to confirm adding any treasure to your infinite inventory – surely having to dig the damn thing up is confirmation enough.

Despite all this, Fable 3 aspires to greatness and finds it surprisingly often. There's a superb music score, deep (if formulaic) gameplay and literally hours of inventive storytelling played out by likes of John Cleese and Stephen Fry. If the series continues to develop at this pace, it will one day rival the mighty Final Fantasy ... just not quite yet.

Dungeons and Dragons: Online

2011-05-19T16:23:00.000-07:00

Decent game, easy to get lost in if you don't know what your doing. Quite a few class choices, some of them are cash only though. Mechanics are nice, but I don't really like it myself.

Grand Chase

2011-05-18T06:29:00.001-07:00

Interesting little game, composed of 3d fighting and rpg elements, it brings out a little bit of cute in it as well. 12 classes to play from with 1 unreleased class in development from korea. If you want to have fun with up to 3 of your friends in a rpg side scrolling 3d basher, this is the game for you!

Gaming Report

Crysis 2

Dungeons and Dragons: Online

Grand Chase