[SamuelGordon]

Completed The Next Big Thing.

The only good thing was the syntax puzzle, everything just sucked. It tried too hard, uninteresting characters, unfunny, too easy puzzles (expect the syntax which was fun),too short (not a bad thing because it wasn't fun)

I give it a 2/5 because of the graphics, but oh boy what a stinker. I should've passed.

[Maria-Fritsche]

Back to the Future - Episode 4.
Hmm, I guess it'll be 3 stars. I really enjoyed the first episodes (although they're way too easy of course), but I think this episode kinda lacked something. I don't really know what specifically, but it just felt a tad dull this time.

[Crunchy in milk]

Finished Alpha Protocol, finally. Bought it on release but never really made time for it. Its not a bad game taken as a whole. It definitely deserves its 70s ratings though. It does enough right to look past its flaws and rather simple gameplay.

Feels like an awkward splinter cell with a great conversation system and story. I was incredibly bad at the game for the first missions, it wasn't until the end of Saudi Arabia that I got a feel for the game and had developed my character's skills enough to make a difference.

The hacking type mini games where varied enough that I hope Bioware paid attention for ME3. I'll never get through the finale of that series if the hacking games stay the same.

[zane]

just finished scratches and its a whirlwind of impressive atmosphere and huge potential. You play as an author who seeks inspiration by retreating to an old victorian manor. You then go about your business over a series of days in the old bizarre house, moving first person through still environments. The flow of the game is excellent, as you'll do some mundane things like taking phonecalls to setup tension for the odd occurances that start to unfold. Suspense is what this game does best and the music enhances that perfectly. One of my complaints however was there wasnt enough bizarre to go along with the suspense. Ultimately the game wasnt as scary as id like it to be despite the excellent build-up and unforgettable setting. The other problem with the game was the puzzles which sometimes ranged from frustrating to borderline illogical. But i cant say enough about the fascinating design of the manor and how enjoyable it is to explore it through the puzzles. Clearly a huge amount of work was put into replicating a victorian home on the brink of falling apart. I found myself wanting the house to be twice as big and there to be another week of events. Nevertheless, scratches felt like a complete and satisfying adventure game. I'd rate it 8/10

[JemyM]

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
The fourth of the Ace Attorney games and the first exclusive for Nintendo DS.

Story
Without giving too many spoilers the story in Apollo Justice is as deep (if not deeper) than the other Ace Attorney games, with plenty of twists and a complex overarching plot. As with earlier games there are five cases to solve, the first acts as a tutorial for the game and the fourth is much longer and ties it all together.

The game is set 7 years after the Phoenix Wright trilogy, with a new main character, the young lawyer Apollo Justice. Even if he is not the main character, Phoenix Wright still plays a (very) important role as Justices mentor. The flimsy Judge returns, looking as ancient as ever. Ema Skye from the 5th trial in the DS remake of Phoenix Wright 1 also makes her return, still dabbling in forensic science.

Among the new characters we see the magician Lucy Wright, Justices younger sidekick.
We are also introduced to a new loveable prosecutor, rock-artist by night, Klavier Gavin, who often respond to Justice with an airguitar.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Apollo Justice is not a port from Gameboy Advance but made for the DS. This can be seen in several elements in the game. The artwork for example uses alot more color. Character portraits have more frames than earlier games when they move and there are also alot more animated cutscenes. The music and sound is also better than the previous games thanks to the DS superior hardware. Finally most evidence have a 3d model that can be rotatated and searched for clues.

Gameplay
An older Ema Skye returns in Apollo Justice. That means forensics, and alot of it. This means dusting for prints and other new additions to Skyes toolbox. There are also a couple of crimescene reconstruction/reenactments although not as many as I would have liked.

Phoenix Wright had his ability to interrogate (unlock Psyche-Locks). Apollo Justice instead have the ability to "percieve". During cross-examination a character will display habits when they lie, habits Justice percieve with his almost supernatural percieving ability. While a witness is speaking you look around on a zoomed in portrait of the witness to see if they twitch, sweat, swallow or do something suspicious.

The Jury's Verdict
An adventuregame stands and falls on it's story. In the beginning I was a bit ticked off since I would rather like to find out more about Phoenix Wright than the new character. I also would have liked to see what happened to the other characters in the former games such as Maya and Pearl. In hintersight, the new story works well and one shouldn't worry too much about Phoenix missing, trust me.

With that said, if you enjoyed the first three games there is really no reason why you shouldn't grab this game already.

[Ninth]

Black Mirror 3.

So yeah, it's suitably creepy, the production values are ok, the length is above average and the puzzles are passable, but the story is too convoluted for my taste, the main character is totally bland, and it feels too much like Black Mirror 2, part 2.
Somehow I've lost the magic of the first Black Mirror in the two sequels.

It's often like this with adventure games these days, as far as I'm concernd : the trip is allright, but forgettable.

[JemyM]

Foreword on the state of gaming
A few years back I begun to see the decay of the gaming market. The artists wish to produce the "best game ever" was exchanged with the goal of making profit. With this new goal, games began to look more and more similar, always cloning what was seen as "sucessful", trying to feed the market with what the market want, which meant copying previous sucesses instead of trying something new. Instead of spawning new gamestyles, new approaches, genré upon genré fell to obscurity and was forgotten. My interest in games begun to fade. It was useless to look towards the horizon for something new, since all I could see was familiar land.

Instead I wen't back to look for games of the past that built up some reputation. Games that spawned both fans and sequels. Thats when I begun to play series like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil. Each of these turned to be a goldmines and I loved them. There was one more that I had in mind to play but did not have time for up to now, and that was the Phoenix Wright series. Today, I finished that one as well and I am happy I did. Now I just have to sit back and hope for the sixth game to get an american translation. What follows below is my verdict of the fifth and final game that was released on english.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
A Phoenix Wright spinoff and the fifth title of the "Ace Attorney" series interestingly have very little to do with attorneys at all. Instead it's a detectivegame that presents us with the prosecutors perspective. Can it hold up to the former titles of the series?

Story
Miles Edgeworth was one of the most important NPC's in the Phoenix Wright games, acting as the prosecutor that Phoenix Wright had to face over and over again. Incidently, he also quickly became my personal favorite character of the series. I was thus happy a game was dedicated to him alone. Unlike the first four titles, "Investigations" isn't about defending in court. Instead it's a detective game. Edgeworth keeps ending up in the middle of a crimescene over and over again and each time it happens it's up to him to use his number one weapon for his number one cause. His weapon: logic, his cause: finding the truth.

Miles is not the only character who returns in this game, so do the cop Dick Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma who hold important roles throughout the game. There are also several cameos of characters who appeared in previous titles as defendants or witnesses.

Among the new characters we see the young Kay Faraday who acts as Miles assistant throughout the game. Her virtual-reality device is used for crimescene recreations throughout the game. Then we have Agent Shi-Long Lang, an elite investigator from Interpol. He takes a role similar to the prosecutors of the old titles.

Like previous titles, the story is incredibly complex and take numerous twists and turns and as usual it's incredibly well written. It's also really long, taking several days to complete even if you sit non-stop.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
The previous Ace Attorney titles could only show one portrait at a time, so when multiple people spoke to eachother you saw a portrait of the currently speaking character in the middle, facing you. The same technique was used in all four of the first titles, therefore it was refreshing to see that Investigations take a new approach. During dialogue characters are seen in perspective and sometimes two characters are layered on top of eachother or facing eachother on the screen. In some cases there are even four people speaking to eachother, two on one screen facing right, then the game pans over to the right where there are another two facing left. This might sound trivial but I found it to be a better approach than the former rather confusing 1-character on screen at a time approach.

This is during dialogue. Investigations also add a zoomed out perspective that looks alot like old point-n-click adventures, where you can move a character (Miles) around and investigate the scene.

The music retains it's improvements from Ace Apollo with somewhat better audio than the old GBA titles could handle.

Gameplay
Ah, here's the news. While Investigations keep many basic elements of the former titles, it also packs more news in it than any of the previous sequels. Let's begin with the news.

For one who played plenty of adventuregames in the past, I am kinda surprised no one thought about this before. I am talking about Miles primary weapon; his logic. Logic is a gameplay-mechanic in which Edgeworth combines information to produce new information. For instance, Miles knows that there are a revolver with one bullet left in it. Miles also knows that there are two bulletholes on the crimescene. By using Logic, Miles combines these two facts and produce a new; a gun is missing. Usually in adventuregames we only see characters interacting with the scene by using items on items or items on the landscape, we never see the use of information like this.

The second "new" feature isn't really new. Rebuttals plays exactly the same as cross-examinations in the former games. While speaking to a witness, Miles press vague testimonies for more information or use his already found evidence to poke holes in the witness testimony. Since there are no courts in Investigations, rebuttals happens all the time when Edgeworth have to convince someone of something, extract more information out of flimsy witnesses, overthrow a competing investigator or expose the true murderer.

Then we have investigations. Like I mentioned under Engine above, there is now a zoomed out perspective in which you control Miles like in adventuregame. You walk up to things you wish to examine and examine it. Thus you may actually walk around in the scene, engage in NPC's in dialogue and walk between screens. Those who played old adventuregames should be familiar with how this play out.

Finally Edgeworths assistant Kay Faraday have a device that can display a virtual reality world that Miles can use to reconstruct the events during a crimescene. Long story short, this is how Crime Scene reconstruction/reenactments works in the game.

Deducing the truth
Truth is that I am happy to see a game like this released 2009. This game contains both a strong story and new ideas for what would otherwise just be an adventuregame with a really strong story. Those who have played the former titles shouldn't hesitate to check this one out. The story is great, there are plenty of reoccuring characters and you will learn more about the history of some of the more prominent NPC's of the former titles. But the game also adds a few new twists to the adventuregame formula that I hope to see in other titles.

[JemyM]

Mass Effect 2
Well. Yeah. I can probably say now honestly that I have did what ME2 had to offer and prepared a save to be used for ME3.
I have taken every badge, bought ever item, completed every assignment/mission/dlc on nightmare.
Time to finally erase the game from the harddrive.

[DustyShinigami]

Duke Nukem Forever

Positives:

+ Crude humor in typical Duke Nukem style
+ Quite liked the music, especially the hard rock piece that plays during the loading screens
+ I found one or two levels and action set pieces, during my first playthrough, cool; especially the sections where you're tiny. One in particular involves making your way around a trap infested kitchen
+ The majority of the achievements are quite easy to get

Negatives:

- The graphics are very dated, ugly, rough around the edges (loads of aliasing), has loads of texture pop-in, flat textures, poor physics, and poor lip syncing...
- Gameplay mechanics and level designs are very dated and boring - go from Point A to B and kill stuff then rinse and repeat. There are the odd puzzles and driving sections, but these are easy and not much fun; levels are usually split into 2-3 short parts instead of one big level and everything just feels linear and restricted; you have to take cover in order for your health (Ego) to replenish... And what the hell!? You can only carry two weapons at a time!!
- The crude humor wears thin very quickly
- The voice acting is poor - Duke's 2 bimbos are especially annoying
- The game suffers from heavy frame rate issues and screen tearing, which is baffling considering how dated the game is! It's not very well programmed or optimized at all.
- I felt the game's difficulty is a bit punishing at times, even on Normal! Because the balancing seems completely off, there were a lot of sections that were just infuriating and no fun at all
- Very little enemy variation and the A.I. is poor
- The levels (loading screens) take ages to load, which is very frustrating if you keep failing a certain part and have to keep redoing it!
- There's no story to speak of and the ending sucks!
- Encountered the odd graphical and audio glitch

Overall:



or...

3.5 out of 10

So far, this is the worst game I've played this year! I'm so glad I decided to cancel my pre-order when I did and rent it instead!

[DustyShinigami]

Broken Sword - The Smoking Mirror: Remastered

Positives:

+ Awesome, beautiful, classic and detailed graphics/artwork. The backgrounds have been cleaned up nicely and don't look as pixelated; nor is there any screen tearing present like in the original with ScummVM. There's also the odd new little special effect or animation in the cutscenes
+ Barrington Pheloung's music score is just as great, beautifully composed, and haunting as in Broken Sword 1
+ The voice acting is solid and well performed; especially Rolf Saxon as George
+ Puzzles are generally logical
+ The interface has been tweaked and cleaned up just like in the first Director's Cut, which includes a satchel for the inventory, a spanner for the options, a question mark for hints, and a notebook to keep you up-to-date with what's been happening
+ Character portrait's mouths now animate when they're talking
+ You can unlock a few goodies in the main menu, such as the comic...

Negatives:

- The story is inferior and not as well written as in The Shadow of the Templars. After my recent playthrough of BS2, I've come to the realization that the story in The Sleeping Dragon is MUCH better written!
- A number of familiar characters aren't voiced by the same actors as in the first game; they also sound poor in comparison
- The humor isn't as funny or witty as in The Shadow of the Templars
- Personally, I find the character portraits to be ugly and I wish there was an option to turn them off
- There's still dialogue and hotspots missing, and this time, the odd cutscene has been edited - little snippets of scenes have been cut and shortened down - and the lighting effect from George's torch when he's with Titipoco is missing
- I've noticed graphical/sprite glitches, which weren't in the original, whereby character sprites would disappear (when they should), but then reappeared again as the scene faded to black
- The new sound effects during the final cutscene just sound noisy and bad
- The credits song - 'Happiness is an Inside Job' - reloops twice instead of just playing the once, which is weird
- Again, in comparison to The Shadow of the Templars, the game is just too short and feels more linear

Overall:



or...

6.5 out of 10

Again, I'll just stick to the original

[kuze]

Originally Posted by JemyM

I have taken every badge, bought ever item, completed every assignment/mission/dlc on nightmare.

How... I don't even...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I'd put L.A. Noire here but I dunno; I'm going back into it to redo some cases for the perfect 5 star rating and the DLCs.

Right now I'm just starting the Nicholson Electroplating (video) DLC via Arson desk.

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by kuze

how... I don't even...

lol

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I'd put L.A. Noire here but I dunno; I'm going back into it to redo some cases for the perfect 5 star rating and the DLCs.

Right now I'm just starting the Nicholson Electroplating (video) DLC via Arson desk.

I've just finished the Nicholson Electroplating case and with a 5 star rating and all the achievements.

Apart from the last piece of DLC I have the whole game finished: 5 star ratings for every case, every achievement (1300), found all hidden cars, discovered all landmarks, found all the film reels, unlocked all the suits, driven every vehicle, completed all side missions, completed all main missions...

I still want more to do.

[Crunchy in milk]

Originally Posted by kuze

How... I don't

What? The sentinel class can finish nightmare difficulty one handed while eating a sandwhich, provided you max your tech armor first thing. Wear shield boosting armor, of which there is no shortage, and you can finish any enemy bar dual YMIR mechs with Shepard's elbow alone. Just keep reactivating tech armor.

Looking at screenshots and articles for ME3...

Spoiler:

optimum imports will be those sheps who knocked boots with Ash or Kaidan and/or Liara.

I dont think I have any Shep who "stayed true" to Ash. None that gave Kaidan the time of day, because i hated his Carth voice. Notinh against Ralph (VA), I just hate the character Carth from KOTOR.

[JemyM]

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Neither a World War 2 game, nor a sequel to the Modern Warfare series, but very much a Call of Duty game.

Story
You are Mason, a Black Op operative who wake up in a dark room filled with television screens that displays numbers. A voice urge you to tell them the secret of "the numbers". Your wtf response is replied by being shocked with electricity. Appearently they really want to know about those numbers. Faced with the situation, Mason begin to tell his story from the beginning to his unknown interrogators, played out by the player.

Masons story spans across a long timespan and in very different landscapes. Most of it during the 60'ies and the Cold War.

Call of Duty had some really good storylines in the past and the storytelling in Black Ops is no exception. The story is very well told and the way its told is exceptional. Characters are built up as you go along, clues about what's really going on is picked up here and there and many times the most significant events in the overarching storyline happens with a very graphic scene.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
The presentation in Call of Duty: Black Ops is exceptional. This is a game that fully utilized my x2 480 GTX. The graphics is really good, using plenty of shaders where shaders should be used. Often I just took a moment to just look at how good the game looks.

But graphics isn't everything, the game is also artistically beautiful, with plenty of flashbulb scenes that you remember after finishing the game. The game jumps seemingly between gameplay and cutscenes and cutscenes might very well contain some gameplay element that must be carried out (which aren't the quickly-push-the-right-button-that-appear-on-the-screen kind of actions thankfully).

Sound is equally good. Voice acting is great. Sometimes the game uses music that can be very fitting for the scene. One level where you control a boat is almost like a music video because you are simply riding the boat, shoot and blasts everything in the path with little danger, while listening to the song.

Gameplay
The First Person Shooter is very optimized, but almost every level contains new gameplay elements that you might not see coming. Many of these is about controlling vehicles.

There are a lot of different weapons in Black Ops. Weapons can feel very different in your hands, and an insuperior assault rifle is really insuperior. The fun part is that the weapons are different depending on which conflict you are in. This is evident in a World War 2 level where you must use World War 2 weapons. Once you are used with the firerate, accuracy and sights of the modern weapons, WW2 weapons were crap.

There are few "silent maps". Most levels are about pushing on, shooting continously until you reach the end.

One thing that annoyed me is that you really cant expect to make progress just by blasting foes. You can't stay in a convenient spot, shoot the foes and make progress when it's safe, because opponents keep pouring in without end. Sometimes you must either push on before they stop coming, or fulfill some requirement before it happens.

One level this became very appearent. After trying many times I was forced to look up a gameplay video on youtube to find out what to do. Foes was just pushing in, and if you somehow managed to get to the waypoint, nothing happened. You could stand in the turret and kill hundreds and thousands of foes, more would just come. To make progress you had to use barrels. The cue for using the barrels is told through vague radiochatter and you see a friend using one, but both cues are very easy to miss since you are preoccupied fighting the excessive amount of hostile forces.

Final Conclusion
The Call of Duty series have really been top of the crop and Black Ops is no exception. It even challenges the Modern Warfare games in story, gameplay and visuals. Someone who truly hates shooters can probably skip it, but one can enjoy a shooter just a little and enjoy a good story to keep you going should check Black Ops out. It's 16 levels can certainly be played through in an evening or two, but it is an intense and packed experience.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by kuze

How... I don't even...

I started my Nightmare game way back in January/February and I have made slow progression since I had to focus on my studies. I used a Sentinel on the second playthrough, so I was already high-level to begin with. Two parts in particular was insanely difficult but I happen to have nerves of steel so I eventually pushed through.

[JemyM]

F.3.A.R.
The third game of this horror/scifi FPS.

Story
Major spoilers of earlier titles alert.

Spoiler:

In F.E.A.R. we played Point Man who had to face hordes of soldiers while in the meantime being followed by the ghosts of a young girl and a man. The events of the first game had the revelation that they were all related. The man (Fettel) his brother, the girl (Alma) his mother. When F.E.A.R. 2 was announced they pretty much threw the expansions of the first game out of the window. F.E.A.R 2 also felt like a sidestory in which you played Beckett with neither Fettel or Point Man to be seen (except if you played the expansion where Fettel came back). F.E.A.R. 2 ended with Beckett getting raped by Alma.

In F.3.A.R. we yet again play as Point Man and this time his brother is on his side. After Fettel helps Point Man to break out of prison they begin to chase down Beckett and Alma. The game go back to the roots to tell the story about the brothers and how they got to be the killers they are.

I can't say the story is that great. There are no major twists and turns that you didn't see coming. I earned the good ending (see gameplay).

The game is told through eight intervals that can be quite long, but the full game can be played through in a day. There is a question whether or not F.3.A.R. is a horror game or a scifi shooter. I say it's a mix that leans on a scifi shooter with horror elements. Walking around in Mech-Suits and fighting with an insane amount of weapons against an insane amount of soldiers doesn't score high on the horror scale. That said, they seem to have added some horror elements I haven't seen before such as Zombies and a dog-like foe that reminds me about the Pinky Demon from DOOM 3.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
The Graphics in F.3.A.R. is nothing spectacular. The game is somewhat dated when it comes to using technology such as shaders and prepare to see yesterday weather effects and clean textures. That doesn't mean the game looks bad so unless you are an engine freak you will probably not care. It's still artistically pleasent to look at.

The sound is spectacular. This is really a game to play with your volume up as the sound really helps to set the atmosphere. Wheather effects create a moody feeling, noise from monsters keep you on your toes and you can even rely on your enemies radiochatter to decide your next action. I found that listening to the audio really allowed me to make tactical/strategical decisions in combat.

Gameplay
Ah, gameplay. Gameplay is where F.3.A.R. shines. F.3.A.R. is simply a fun game that is fun. Earlier titles were strict first-person shooters with Bullettime as it's gimmick. To increase your bullettime you used to collect injectors scattered around the levels. Miss a couple and you had a rough time towards the end of the game. F.3.A.R. takes a different approach. Here we have a point-system that will allow you to level up and get better the more points you got. The way to earn points is to beat challenges divided into four categories; Agressive, Tactical, Aptitude and Psychic.

Aggressive simply means killing stuff with challenges like kill 20 enemies with the shotgun.

Tactical means playing smart and is more interesting. Obvious tactical challenges involve doing headshots or firing from cover, but there are also challenges like killing a foe right after slidekicking him, shooting at explosive stuff to kill foes or simply collecting items.

Aptitude means spending time in slomo or kill foes in slomo.

Psychic is a treasure-hunt. Scattered around the levels are hidden bodies that can be collected. There is also a rare Alma Doll somewhere on the level. When doing replays I noticed that the placement of these vary so you cannot be sure you will find theese where you found them before.

Do enough challenges and you both get stronger and it will even affect your ending. I earned the good ending by having beaten alot of challenges. I found that this system really made me try more of the game, and there is quite alot of challenges to do in the game, more than you are probably going to find on your first playthrough. Note that the singleplayer and multiplayer scores are connected, so points earned in the singleplayergame empowers you in multiplayer vice versa.

Beating a level once allows you to replay the same level with Fettel. Fettel is somewhat different since he do not use weapons, instead he takes over enemies and use them to kill opponents. I actually haven't tried this yet.

One nuisance I had though is that the game tend to lock doors behind you all the time. Imagine you see two paths out of where you are. Behind one might be a body or a doll that you want for your Psychic Challenges. Enter the other and the game will lock the door behind you and you can't go back. This can be really frustrating if you been very thorough up to that point in checking every corner for the Alma Doll.

Another nuisance I had have to do with how to setup your keyboard. I remember F.E.A.R. 2 also having this. Like all games the keyboard config blocks you from having the same key for two different things. The problem is that this also blocks you from using keys tied to Point Man for Fettel or for Vehicles. For instance, let's say you use MOUSE2 for jumping with Point Man. A Mech Suit can't jump, so why not be able to set MOUSE2 to secondary fire in the Vehicle settings? It's kinda annoying when you must find new keys you haven't used before, because you can't reuse keys set to functions which are tied to another playmode.

Verdict
For those who can forgive an engine that doesn't utilize the latest ghee-whizz stuff of DirectX 11 (or 10 for that matter) and those who can forgive the identity-conflict between a scifi shooter and a horrorgame, F.3.A.R. is in the end a good FPS. This is one of those titles that comes on top just because it delivers excess gameplay mechanics that actually works as intended.

[JemyM]

Portal 2
If you haven't played Portal, do so now. Yes, do it, you fool.

The following I will only write in presumption that you have. The primary question is then whether or not Portal 2 equal or surpass Portal 1, skipping spoilers.

Story
Can the story in Portal 2 compete with the twists of Portal 1? I say it does. I actually didn't expect Portal 2 to challenge the first game but I say the new direction they have taken works and does include a couple of twists you didn't see coming. The story is good and it's fun in it's bizarre twisted humor.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
It seems the Source engine have been improved. Portal 2 have light and darkness which Half Life 2 did not. Also this is the first time I have seen fluids used in gameplay. Beyond that this is the Portal we are used to. Sure looks great.

Gameplay
Ah yes. Portal was great in it's gameplay as a first-person puzzlegame. The portal device naturally returns here, but this time around there are several new gameplay features from the first game. I did mention fluids and while there are other new gameplay features I think I will stick to explaining fluids.

The "gel" is often pumped out of pipes here and there. If you place a portal beneath it and another somewhere else you can cover surfaces with the gel, splashing it all over the place. Gels make surfaces bouncy so jumping on it makes you jump higher. Gels can make surfaces slippery so if you run on it you will run at an amazing speed. Or gels can simply allow you to place new portals wherever you splashed the gel. I found this to be a rather fun addition to the game, that yet again change the way we normally perceive the world. An impossible obstacle is suddenly doable once you splashed some gel on it. Cool.

Verdict
Well, I have been short beause if you have played Portal you have probably already played Portal 2. But if there are any reason you have hesitated in belief that it's not as good as the first one, you are wrong. Portal 2 surpasses the first one and is definitely recommended.

[zane]

just finished the witcher: enhanced edition and it far exceeded my initial impressions. What particularly impresses me about the game is how the setting makes information feel like a valuable asset. If you want to know how to pick a certain flower, or extract an ingredient from a monster, then you have to find a way to gain the knowledge to do so. Usually this means dropping alot of coin on a book that gives you the knowledge. This extends into the story, where dialogue choices always feel like they matter and i found myself thinking twice before sharing information with just anybody. This kindv stuff makes the atmosphere excellent, and hopelessly addicted me to playing this game for the past 2 weeks. The combat mechanics are not perfect, and at some points the ambiguity of quests feels a little overwhelming. But the very strong story and fun gameplay more than make up for it. Id rate the witcher 9/10

[terhardp]

Back to the Future - Episode 5: Outatime

Now when I've completed the whole season, to say a couple of words. Like with "The Tales of Monkey Island", maybe I'm not entirely thrilled, but I'm certainly not dissapointed either. Both seasons are top quality productions, even though they're probably "too light" for any sessioned adventurer. This mostly concerns the gameplay. Although there are few funny and cleverly thought up puzzles, most of the gameplay challenges are too obvious. But when combining this with witty dialogues, the thing works, especially if one looks at the game as the interactive movie that is an appendage of the movie series.

Sound is certainly the best part of the series. All of the actors, including the main stars from the film, were really "into thing". I was particulary delighted with the performance of AJ LoCasio (hope I spelled it right) in the main role. At times, even the biggest fans of the movie triology could easily mistake him for Michael J. Fox. BTW, the guest appearance by the actor himself is the icing on the cake. Although many years have passed since filming of the triology, both Fox and Loyd are instantly recognizable, with some charming "age factors". The usage of the excerpts from original movie soundtrack is also a strongpoint of the game and something that the game version of "Back to the Future" simply couldn't be without.

When you look at the "Back to the Future" game series like you should (not as "typical" adventure title), it's actually quite hard to find a serious complaint. I've encountered a few technical issues though. The game occasionaly performed horribly slow and sometimes even crashed during some of the longer cut scenes. Also I've found the navigation a bit cumbersome. Other than that, I have no other objections.

Verdict: 4,4 / 5