Review: Batman Arkham City bigger, not always better
"Batman: Arkham City" is every bit as good as 2009's excellent "Arkham Asylum." Still, it's not hard to be a little disappointed it doesn't surpass it's predecessor.
"Batman: Arkham City" is every bit as good as 2009's excellent "Arkham Asylum." Still, it's not hard to be a little disappointed it doesn't surpass it's predecessor.
"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" is a towering achievement of interactive, single-player fiction. At a time when the games industry is embracing online and social features, it digs in its heels and says, "Wait a minute."
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" delivers the same thing as its predecessors: a campaign full of ridiculous spectacle and a deep online multiplayer experience that features a robust, addictive leveling/unlocking system.
There aren't many four-player, online-enabled platform-jumping games, so that alone makes "Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One" worth a look. It's a fun little diversion, but it's hampered by a dated online architecture and occasionally frustrating controls.
With two super-addictive, well-polished multiplayer modes and a suite of fantastic maps, "Battlefield 3" does a couple of things really well while whiffing in a bunch of other areas, setting the game up for plenty of video gaming's tired review-score controversies.
From Software's action role-playing game can be punishingly difficult and occasionally unfun, but every small success feels like a massive triumph, making it one of this year's most engrossing games.
Activision Blizzard's closed beta is a great example of how to test software and be open with your fans.
Some players raged against "Battlefield 3's" recently completed public beta test, which used unpolished code. Here's a look at some hands-on time that I got with the game featuring code more representative of the final product.
The studio behind classic first-person shooters "Wolfenstein 3D," "Doom" and "Quake" has released its first new franchise in over a decade. While "Rage" is technical marvel and certainly a decent game, it's hard not to come away a little disappointed, given id Software's pedigree.
A recent PlayStation 3 compilation of two PS2-era games by Fumito Ueda gives many North American gamers their first shot at playing the previously out-of-print "Ico," a classic from 2001.