[Fantasysci5]

Louie plays Fallout 3. He maxs himself out and easily kills everything, although I believe there's some fire ants that still get him in trouble.

I agree the color is quite drab, and I didn't get to see much in the way of the story, but Louie loves it.

[Hammerite]

The main story isn't up to that much, in my opinion.
What's impressive is the detail and effort put into the smaller, more seemingly insignificant things (imaginative side quests, notes you can read/listen to, some of the hilarious messages left on computers, etc.)

[Crunchy in milk]

RE:The fallout 3 gripes mentioned here...

There is an accuracy fix, in particular for the sniper rifle on Fallout3nexus.com. There is also a saturation fix for those that feel the need to raise the colour, from just a mild increase to 'my god I'm in a comic book' options.

I also particularly enjoy 'owned', which transfers property rights to you after you off most house owning npcs and max 10 hacking which drops the number of suggestions for a password to 10 so its not such a grind to guess all the time. Most important of all is Badass Super Mutants. For whatever reason in vanilla f3 the genetically modified super soldiers by in large are significantly weaker than your average raider human and use worse equipment, despite their origins in well stocked military facilities.

Colour fixes - be careful, a little goes a long way.

Max 10 - slightly easier hacking

Owned (the property option where you can buy/rent I don't recommend)

Badass Super Mutants - a must.

Auto Aim Fix It turns it off as well as some other bullet effects to make it more like a generic fps - also improves 3rd person accuracy if thats how you like to play.

[outcast]

The experiment (really good game!)

and Dead Reefs.

[JemyM]

Call of Juarez (2006)
One of very few westerngames in existence, Call of Juarez is a first person shooter that mix six-barelled shooters with stealthbased gameplay. Is it worth a shot, or better put six feet under?

Story
Call of Juarez tells the story about two men, with very little in common. Billy Candle, with a troubled childhood, returns home to his mother after failing to find the lost treasure of Juarez. He barely gets into the village before things go bad, and he's forced to flee, believed to have killed his own mother. The town priest, Ray McCall, who is also an ex gunfighter, goes after him in the belief that God have called upon him to be his "sword" that shall put the guilty to justice.

The story is decent. Most of it is told in cutscenes, and in the loadingscreen of each map you will hear the character you are going to play, speaking his toughts out loud. There are also a fair deal of twists to keep things interesting.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Call of Juarez was one of the games that was boosted for it's directx 10 support, and yeah, with the DX10 patch the game looks rather good. The best part of it is the nature that looks really good, ofcourse there are more recent games that might look better (CoJ2 for example). Character models also look fairly good most of the time. There are also parts that look rather poor. Despite the DX10 support, I found mountains looking very artificial for example, and horseback riding looks jerky and unnatural. There were other parts, some caves and buildings, that looked flat and artificial.

The music generally fit the map. Voiceacting was a mixture between good and bad. I found the voice of Billy to be rather poor, where Ray was much better done.

Gameplay
There are 15 levels in Call of Juarez, and you change character between almost every map. You begin as Billy Candle, and you will eventually get to play Ray McCall. Playing Ray is the part that makes CoJ a shooter. Ray duelwields revolvers and rely on killing everything in sight. Beyond dualwielding, he can also hammer a single revolver in a fast mode, and he have access to a bullettime mode that allows him to fire off a lot of bullets with both pistols before the opponents have the time to react. And that wasn't enough, he can actually use a bible in his second hand, and cite bible passages while shooting down his foes.

Having said that, I found the FPS mechanics to be rather poor. The revolvers doesn't feel natural and I found it odd just how resilent your opponents are. They can take up to four-five bullets before they go down (normal difficulty), if you hit them in the shoulders, unless you are lucky and hit someone in the head. I am saying this as someone who are used to scoring headshots in firstperson shooters. It's quite odd to see the blood from the bullet hole appear right in the chest, with the opponent reacting as if it was nothing.

Beyond access to revolvers, you can also find shotguns and rifles. I found the former to be terrible at long range, which make it useless in this game. I found the rifle to be the most reliable weapon in the game though, thanks to being accurate and deadly as long as you know as you have some basic FPS skills. Having said that, CoJ is trying to add more depth to the game by making weapons decay quickly. Use a weapon too much and it will eventually explode in your hand, forcing you to toss it away and find another one. Personally, i found that to be an useless design gimmick that doesn't really add anything to the game.

There's also a duel mode, in which you must drag your mouse down right to draw, then move it up quickly, firing at the opponent before he shoots you. You cannot strafe, but you can lean left or right while doing this. I found this to be rather easy and I rarely missed my opponent on the first try.

Playing Billy Candle is very different to Ray. Most of his maps is based on stealth. You are often forced to sneak past foes, even if you have an arsenal of weapons on you. This is perhaps the most frustrating parts about the game, and you might wish you could just skip his levels, or maybe you even skip the entire game due to the frustrating tutorial right at the start of the game, in which you must sneak past a farmer in order to steal his gun.

Billy can actually use all weapons Ray can, but doesn't start with them. Instead he get access to a bow, that can be really effective since it enables bullettime right before each shot. A neat feature. You can also pick up the arrows you have shot, and the bow doesn't break and it's ofcourse silent. If you learn how to use it, that is what you will use when playing Billy. He also have access to a whip that both works as an unlimited-ammo short range weapon (excellent for picking down animals with), but can also work as a rope, similar to Indiana Jones. That brings me to the second problem with the Billy's missions, jumping on platforms. You often have to jump on platforms, jump over chasms, sometimes with your whip, someimes not. This is both unforgiving and poorly implemented. You are likely to see him fall down quite a lot.

The levels of CoJ is mixed. Some of them take place in large landscapes with fixed goals, where as others are linear to the extreme, blocking you in with narrow mountainsides on each side of you, which you are forced to navigate, almost like a maze. Sometimes your only option is to stack up boxes to get up to a wall, and you can see that the physics in the game is terrible while doing so, it's not uncommon that a box will unnaturally sink into another when placing boxes on top of eachother.

There are other maps that simply doesn't make much sense, such as running across a huge landscape, jumping/climbing up a humongous mountain just to get a feather and then go back all the way again. Maybe that map was made specifically to showcase the engine.

Final Verdict
Call of Juarez is one of those games that have plenty of ideas but fails to make them work good enough to be fun. The stuff you must do is either unpolished, unfun or simply bad ideas alltogether. If you scream for a western-style FPS, you probably should check it out since it's the only one of few out there, but if you aren't eager to forgive all it's flaws, you better skip this one.

[booB]

Originally Posted by outcast

The experiment (really good game!)

and Dead Reefs.

I noticed that you didn't say Dead Reefs was a good game.

Mine was Ben There, Dan That. Hilarious! Possibly the funniest game I have ever played! Although I think I will sue them for making fun of Americans.

[Lucien21]

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Without a doubt the best comic book superhero game i've played in a long long time.

It takes the basic idea and name from the Grant Morrison comic, steeps it in a host of Batman mythos and a smattering of Bioshock and blends it all into a fun, addictive game.

Joker has taken over the mental asylum and it's up to Batman to stop his latest caper. Using the island as a hub you travel from building to building trying to outsmart Joker and along the way fight with such villians as Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

I haven't been this hooked by a game since I finished Dead Space playing the game constant since I bought it on Friday.

Deceptivly simple combat mechanics aside (it's more about the flow of combat rather than combo's. So with just a couple of buttons you can string together some impressive fighting moves) most things in this game are superb. I really loved the detective mode watching all the skeletons of the bad guys walking around, sneaking from place to place taking them down one at a time and listening to the rest panic until there was one left and then glide down from above and knock him out.

The voice acting (Mark Hamil as Joker ), the level design, the atmosphere, attention to detail for Batfans, the clever use of the Riddler to get you finding the 240 riddles and clues he has spread across the levels (unlike the stupid flags in assassins Creed you really want to find all the Riddler tokens and solve all the puzzles) it's all great.

So I finished the game on Normal difficulty, found all the riddlers puzzle stuff, solved the secret of Arkham, defeated most of my enemies in one night, crashed a party and kicked ass.

Superb.

9/10

[Trunkyo]

Outcry

This game was recommended highly by colpet, and now I know why!

I was grabbed immediately by the surreal atmosphere from the minute the game started at the professor's home. From there, the journey (if you can call it that ) became even more surreal and dream-like, as I followed in the professor's footsteps. The game had an interesting visual style, from the old film-like quality at the professor's apartment to the haziness of the Shimmering World.

Quite a few people thought the game was extremely difficult, but I enjoyed the mental challenge. At some points, the trial-and-error was quite tedious, especially when it involved walking back and forth from a switch or lever to see a new result, but once I figured out what happens, getting the desired result became easier. I only required one hint for a puzzle in the latter part of the game, the clue for one of the electrical settings seemed misleading, although I might have just misinterpreted it.

Anime fans will recognize the voice of the professor. David Lodge is probably best known as the actor who provided the English dub voices of Jiraiya from Naruto and Kenpachi Zaraki from Bleach!

And of course, the thought-provoking ending had me running off to check other adventure gaming forums to read other players' thoughts and theories about what was really happening in the game and what it all meant. (There seem to be at least two differing theories.)

[Crunchy in milk]

Mirror's Edge.

Seemed like I was thrust in front of guys with guns and the need to run from them rather suddenly. For a game that's quite visceral and immediate in its gameplay, the story and your motivation is delivered almost entirely in 3rd person animated cutscenes, off screen dialogue or 'just in passing' commentary. I would have preferred more time to grow attached to Faith, her fellow runners and their role in society before the start of project Icarus.

I felt like I was only going forwards because a voice in my ear told me to or there was guys with guns behind me. Little other reason. The 'twist' wasn't nearly as effective as it could have been as a result.

Breakdown is still the king of first person games, because it lets you discover the story via clues and conversation, all in first person and takes the time to let you do so.

Mirror's Edge was a good romp, and a red flag for all future first person platformers to charge at but I doubt anyone who's finished it doesn't think it could have done with better pacing. More scenes like the confrontation with your sister in Pope's office at the start for example.

Its past time Breakdown was dethroned, I've already replayed it far too often.

[Zack]

JADE EMPIRE

I found this game to basically be another version of Star Wars: The Knights of the old Republic, you once again follow a good or evil path. In this case, it's The Way of the Open Palm, or The Way of the Closed Fist. Your character also doesn't speak.

However, that's the only complaint I have about the game. The graphics were very artistic and beautiful. The combat was a little repetitive but very action-packed, the story was one of the most original stories I have ever seen in a game, and the voice acting was fantastic. John Cleese shows up in a splendid cameo, and I was really impressed with his voice acting. Finally, the setting was very original. It's China in ancient years, and it gives you the chance to become a Kung Fu Master, with magic powers, and I relished the opportunity.

It also had one of the most unexpected plot twists I had ever seen in a game, and I never saw it coming. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say it was quite shocking.

So, if you like Action-RPG Games, with a great story, and fun combat, then I recommend you try this one. I was able to play it on my X-Box 360, and it was surprisingly compatible, with this X-Box original game, which I didn't think was possible, because I'm not part of X-Box Live. So, play this game as soon as possible.

[reidsara]

There are many games that I play parallel.so list of the games that I have recently finished..

3 on 3 NHL Arcade (100% Trophies)
Alone In The Dark: Inferno (100% Trophies)
Assassin's Creed
Bejeweled 2 (100% Trophies)

[Fantasysci5]

Blackwell Legacy-
I started playing the first "Blackwell" game yesterday, when I saw all the games over at Wadget-Eye Games were half off. I had heard good things about it from people who had similar tastes as mine, and I'm always a softy for ghosts, ever since Jonathan Boakes' wonderful "Dark Fall" games. So I decided to give this a go.

I liked it. I'm not sure I would have payed the original $15 for it, but the $7 for the sale was worth it. The graphics were pixulated, but I don't mind that too much in independent endeavors. The different locations were nicely done, and I love the music in the background. I really became fond of the close ups of the characters faces when they talked...and it made me burst out laughing when they would pause and smile.

I liked how awkward Rosa is around people, she feels very real. Rosa's voice didn't portray much emotion, but it was fine for me. The scene in the game where she finds that Joey has been in her life all along, via the picture, was a wonderfully touching moment.

I really liked Joey. He would have to be my favorite. His sarcasticness, rough attitude, and using names such as "bright eyes" and "sweetheart" were really awesome. When he started talking to the teddy bear...priceless.

The rest of the characters were pretty flat to me, not having much personality, besides Kelly and the Deacon. I really liked Kelly's attitude, and the Deacon was so lovable for some reason. The sense of desperation really came out in his voice, and really made me care what happened to him. I really didn't find myself caring about the girls.

I was able to do most of the puzzles without a walkthrough, a rarity for me, except the one to get JoAnn's notebook, since I hadn't talked to Joey first. That phone conversation with Joey was really genius.

All in all, it was a decent game. I wasn't blown away by the characters or plot, which are the most important thigns for me. It did keep my attention, though, and parts of the gameplay and those two characters were a saving grace. So I do like this game. And I LOVE all of the extras put in. The bloopers and commentary are so awesome, and rare in games, that it's so surprising and refreshing that an "independent" developer put it in his games. I've bought the next two sequels, and are looking forward to playing them.

I would have to give it 3 and 1/2 stars, but that's good to me.

[AndreaDraco83]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

The rest of the characters were pretty flat to me, not having much personality [...]

Somehow, I really liked Nishanti. The thought of her being in the next apartment was very reassuring and her tender attitude toward Rosa and her neighbors was really endearing. My favorite supporting character has to be Alli though: the scene with her and the dog was so touching

[Fantasysci5]

I'm going to start the next game, "Unbound", and the 1st Gabriel Knight game very soon, probably right after I do this and give Louie a smooch for ignoring him for my computer games.

I just finished "Spooks", a charming little independent effort. It was very sarcastically funny. It takes place in the land of the dead, and has tons of wonderful puns that just make you chucle. The main character is a "ghoul", instead of a girl...get it? They almost sound the same. And an "inhabited house", instead of a "haunted house"? There are all kinds of little jabs that are just hilarious, and I found myself really liking this game and the characters. Well worth the, err, freeness, and the time to play it. You know I love all ghost stories/games, or at least, supernatural. This was an adorable effort, and I really loved it.

[JemyM]

F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn (DLC)
Monolith Interactive takes on the downloadable content craze, adding a five maps long sidestory to F.E.A.R. 2. Is it worth a few dollars to squeeze a few hours more out of F.E.A.R. 2, or is it better to wait for a sequel or longer expansion?

Storyline
In Reborn you take the role of Foxtrot 813 (a replica soldier) fighting opposing soldiers from Armacham Technology Operation (ATC). Soon after getting back to his team, reality warps around him. When all goes back to normal he's wanted by his own. Without allies, the only thing he can do is to follow the lead of a mysterious voice that calls out to him.

While incredibly short, fans of the earlier games will probably appreciate Reborn, as it address some of the unanswered questions that old fans might have had from playing the 2nd game. Already in the introduction of the game you will see a familiar face that fans of F.E.A.R. might have missed from F.E.A.R. 2 (I am not talking about Alma). The ending gives room for another DLC or another sequel, as the story goes on.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Reborn uses the same engine as it's prequel, so there's not much to say for those playing the earlier game in the series. Except for the return of a familiar voice ofcourse.

Gameplay
Reborn is a short sidestory, offering just 5 levels, and it reuses most content from Project Origin, compressed down. Like the earlier games, it's a straight first person shooter, with the ability to use "enhanced reflexes" (slow-motion) for a short time, and you will get the slowmotion in Reborn too. Unlike Project Origin, there are no collectables whatsoever, no reflex boosters, no health boosters, no logs.

Final Verdict
Anyone who finished the earlier games, and didn't hate Project Origin, would probably enjoy Reborn. It's very short, only an hour or two at max depending on skill, but it add a bit more to the story, almost like a teaser for future games.

[SoccerDude28]

Batman: Arkham Asylum
I went into this game thinking it was yet another over hyped comic licensed game, and boy was I mistaken. Arkham Asylum is one of the best comic games I have ever played (probably up there with the Freedom Force series). What stood out for me most while playing the game is the excellent game design. The game has maybe 4 or 5 playable mechanics, but it shuffles them around and adds twists and turns to them as you progress through the game so that none of them ever feel old. Even traversing the same environments changes as you play the game due to environmental changes or to new acquired abilities. The detective mode is the best part of the game for me. It feels like some kind of adventure game, trying to pick up Riddler clues and solving his weird conundrums.

The production values here are top notch. From some of the best voice acting in a video game, to beautiful realization of Batman and all the twisted super villains, this game looks and sounds great. If there is one complaint I had it was

Spoiler:

The mystery of the spirit of Arkham was a downer for me. I was expecting something more twisted or clever.

If you have been looking for a good comic game for a long time, and have been screwed over many times before, fear not. The curse of bad comic based video games has been broken.

9.5/10

[Atombomb2097]

Kind of short, but it has a very well put together single-player campaign.
8.5/10

[Fantasysci5]

So, I went through and played "Blackwell Legacy" again, right after playing it the first time, with Dave Gilbert's commentary on. It made me love the game so much more. I've become attached to this game, when at first I was kind of like "Eh". Can't wait to start "Unbound"!

[Fantasysci5]

Sorry to double-post, but I've been flying through games lately, so I just have to write up what I thought about it.

I just finished "Emerald City Confidential", a gift I was "testing" for my mother. She loves the whole "Wizard of Oz" franchise, and we read all of the books when I was little. I'm a bit rusty on all of my Ozian lore, since I read it so long ago, but I know my mom really loves it, so as a present for her birthday, I decided to try it out-especially since I liked Dave Gilbert's first "Blackwell" game. And it was so worth it.

Being a gamer, I just had to try it out before I gave it to my mom. What? Don't look at me like that, it was a digital download. And it was great.

I started off being a bit doubtful at the beginning. First off, my mom is around 60 and doesn't really game, so I was hoping she would like this even though it was a game. Second, the beginning of the game seemed pretty simple, with the Quests telling me exactly what and almost how I needed to do something. I guess that's good for new players, and probably good to help out my mom. The plot kind of seemed a bit tame at the beginning, but the further I got into it, the more I liked it and the more I respected it!

Dave put such a wonderful and unique twist on a lot of the familiar Oz I knew in the books. It was great to see old characters in a new light. At first, I was a bit resentful what he had done to some of the characters, like Lion being a bad guy. But playing more into it, and seeing how time and the war had changed all of the characters we knew, I started to understand and even like it. It was great to see the characters in a weird and more adult way then in the books, like Jack smuggling with pumpkins, etc. There were tons of characters from the books, and all were just great. The Scarecrow was awesome, and I ended up liking most of the characters.

I barely needed any hints, which was awesome because I'm usually horrible with puzzles. The little details sprinkled through the game were awesome, like the busts in the University...that was hilarious. Besides the Quests always popping up, the only other real criticism I'd have were all of the pills you had to take. It was a cute idea, and I loved the puzzle of sneaking one out, but there were so many I had/wanted to take, I just kept getting a pill, take, go back to machine, repeat.

I really loved this game a lot. It was a lot longer than I thought it would be, with how long the "Blackwell" game was, but being longer was even more awesome! The different kind of "dark" takes on the characters were awesome.

A side question-do you know which actors voiced which characters? The credits only named the actors, not the parts they did. And I wish Dave had done a commentary with it like he did the "Blackwell" games. I know Playfirst wouldn't let him, but I wish he could release it himself as an extra for the game to download or something.

[DaveGilbert]

Thanks for the review, Fantasy! To answer your question, half of the voiceovers were done with my usual actors here in NYC and the other half was done with a studio near PlayFirst in San Francisco. I was asked not to list the actors for the game because a number of them are equity or something and they aren't allowed to get a credit for non-equity projects... or something. Whatever the reason was, they told me not to so I didn't.

However, I can safely tell you the actors I used in New York:

Daryl Lathon (who played Isaac/Cecil from Blackwell Unbound and Claude from Convergence) was Hank, the Rope and the Sawhorse

Abe Goldfarb (Joey from Blackwell) was Jack Pumpkinhead, the Wogglebug and Ruggedo

Shelly Shenoy (Harriet from Unbound and Josie from Convergence) played Glinda, Trot and the cafe barista

Nonie Craige (Madeline/Nishanthi from Convergence) played Nimee Amee, the mirror, and Mombi

and I played the Gump and Ugu!