Limbo (XBLA)

Limbo was the first title released in Xbox' 3rd annual Summer of Arcade and has already made a name for itself.  A finalist in the Independent Game Festival, Limbo is being regarded as this year's Braid.  Limbo hit the marketplace last week and has gotten incredible praise from all over the gaming community.  Is Limbo worthy of such high marks, or have gamers just allowed themselves to be blinded by it's beautiful style?

I immediately purchased Limbo after seeing comparisons to Braid.  Braid is an amazing arcade title and I truly recommend it to every and all gamers.  One thing I will try not to do, is directly compare Braid and Limbo because in all honesty, Braid is a better game.  That's not to say that I think Limbo is bad, in actuality I enjoyed my time with Limbo.  However, comparisons are bound to be made due to the fact that both Braid and Limbo are puzzle platformers with strange and unique art styles.  Limbo's style is unique and has quite possibly the most beautiful black and white visuals I've ever seen.  The amount of detail in each silhouette is amazing and is easily one of the best arcade titles visually.  The controls hold up pretty well too although you only use two buttons (one to jump and the other to engage) and an analog stick to move.  For fans of the Wii's A Boy and His Blob this game may seem pretty similar.  Limbo's boy kind of has the same shape and even controls similarly.  Learn the controls quick though because Limbo will begin to challenge your reflexes and platforming skills in no time.  Honestly it feels like everything is out to kill you.  This was kind of weird for me because Limbo has no story so I had no idea why everything was pretty much evil.  Apparently the developers themselves stated there is no definite meaning, but some gamers have their own opinions. 

Limbo shines not only in visuals and atmosphere, but also in it's puzzles.  Limbo is very creative in this sense and not too frustratingly hard like other platformers (sorry..referring to Braid again.)  This is very welcome because along with the puzzles, our hero must contend with all sorts of creatures trying to maim, shoot, and crush him.  The game is pretty gruesome in this regard with sound effects to match it's beheadings, amputations, and impalements.  I was pretty shocked at how gruesome some of the death animations were along with being surprised at some of the more surprising moments.  The violence isn't too dark though and just gives gamers more incentives to play better.  One of the major gripes I have with this game though is it's length.  Clocking in at under a couple hours (being very generous here) Limbo is definitely not a long experience.  Without speed runs and timers I don't see too many reasons for replay value neither. 

Pathetic

Short Length
Not much replay value
Some obstacles hard to see

Very Nice!

Great Gaming Experience
Clever Puzzles
Beautiful Visuals
Rich Atmosphere
Perfectly Underplayed Soundtrack

FINAL GRADE: B+

Limbo is a great gaming experience and I truly recommend people to try it out.  At $15 dollars though it may not be a lenghty enough title for some.  Not quite as good as Braid, but it's not trying to be.  Limbo is fun, sometimes scary, creative, stunning, and a well put together arcade title. 

Naughty Bear (Xbox 360)

When Naughty Bear was announced my friends and I were pretty excited.  The gameplay seemed reminiscent of Rockstar's Manhunt (fun game by the way) and the story was just corny enough to be enjoyable.  You play Naughty Bear in this mature title and your primary goal is to torture other stuffed bears by any means necessary.  Kids and those who can't handle violence (more fluff-based as opposed to blood) need not apply as Naughty Bear uses various tools to accomplish his goals.  Is Naughty Bear worthy of being uttered alongside Rockstar's Manhunt, or will we be seeing it lying in the bargain bin sooner then later?

There's a birthday party being thrown Naughty Bear!  Were you invited?  No?  Oh too bad.  You made a present too?  Why don't you go and give it to him anyways!  The other bears laughed at your gift?  That's very cruel Naughty Bear!  Perhaps you should teach them a thing or two!  This is the first story that Naughty Bear is on and there are six others that follow a similar path.  While the other six may be a little more creative, they still result in having you go around, either collecting or destroying various objects, and then scoring enough points on your way to punishing one specific bear.  While pretty simple in concept, Naughty Bear has a lot of interesting and fun ideas set here.  Along with various weapons (axes, guns, sticks, golf clubs) Naughty Bear has the ability to tamper with various items in the environment.  Naughty can sabotage items like telephones, tvs, juke boxes, arcades, and pretty much any electronics around.  By doing this, if another bear sees that the items were tampered with, they will proceed to begin fixing them, leaving them open to Naughty's will.  Naughty then has two choices: Kill them (resulting in an item based death depending on what they're doing or where they are) or Scare them.  Most would believe that killing them would be the more satisfying of the two, but scaring the bear causes it to become more and more frightened.  Doing so adds to your combo and can result in them becoming insane.  If a bear is insane, Naughty can leave the bear running around terrified, causing the other bears to grow more scared, or scare the insane bear one more time, pushing him to commit suicide. 

As terrible (or great depending on your perspective) that sounds, the games execution is beyond broken.  The graphics seem more at home on a Xbox or PS2 and the camera is horrible (as seen here.)  The controls are pretty bad often resulting in Naughty Bear just yelling (seen in video) instead of going for his ultra scares.  What irritated me the most, however, was having to find specific items to destroy (presents, cameras, etc).  Paired with the terrible camera, you'll definitely be spending more time then needed on tracing these "collectibles."  Most of the death animations get old and while there is a decent collection of weapons here, they either bludgeon or shoot enemies and are near identical in execution.  It'd be easy to count this game out, but for some odd reason, I found myself enjoying the experience.  This is probably due to the arcadey feel of the title, pushing you to get a higher score, unlock new costumes, and unlock new challenges.  Some challenges require you to drive all the bears insane, while others force you to accomplish goals without being seen.  The costumes that you unlock too aren't just for asthetics either and each have their own strengths and weaknesses.  The zombie bear is slow and limps around, but has high health and incredible strength.  The ninja bear (my personal favorite) is ridiculously fast and has silent footsteps, but has very low health.  These costumes are then sometimes used for "ironic" achievements such as killing 4 cop bears in a zombie costume.  If you have a chance, check out the achievements list.  Some of them are pretty creative and funny in their references (resident evil!) 

Pathetic

Sub-Par Graphics
Gameplay tedious
Terrible Camera
Impossibly bad AI
Tacked on Multiplayer

Very Nice!

Surprisingly Addictive
Lots of Unlockables
Great Concept
Lots of Costumes

FINAL GRADE: D+

I wanted to give this game a decent score I truly did, but I couldn't excuse it's glaring faults.  I loved the concept and there are tons of ideas here that, if executed properly, could warrant a purchase.  As an Xbox Live Arcade title I'd say this game is worth a look, but as a full fledged store release, this game should definitely be avoided.  While not nearly as bad as some reviewers are trying to get you to believe (GamesRadar called it one of the worst games of 2010) it still is pretty bad and worth (at most) $20 and that's truly truly pushing it. 

Singularity Review (Xbox 360)

Singularity is probably a game that not too many of you have heard of.  It's a first-person shooter that involves futuristic weapons not unlike Half-Life 2.  Whereas Half-Life 2 came out 6 years ago and is considered a classic today, Singularity seems to be doomed to being overlooked in the already crowded FPS genre.  The question now is, should Singularity be overlooked?

To be honest, Singularity's story wasn't that appealing to me and seemed a little too wordy.  To sum things up, you are Captain Renko and are sent to a Russian island abandoned in the '50s.  You discover the TMD (Time Manipulation Device) and uncover the secrets as to what happened 60 years ago.  Along the way you fight various amounts of creatures and the Russian military on your way to discover what happened and..yadda yadda yadda.  The story is pretty standard fair and basically results in forcing the player to fight waves upon waves of enemies to push forward.  As for the gameplay itself, this is where the game shines.  The control set up is exactly like Call Of Duty (World of War was a carbon copy of Modern Warfare so why not again right Activision?)  The difference is that the grenade buttons are now used for your TMD.  For fans of Bioshock 2, the TMD looks like a complete ripoff of the Big Daddy's Plasmid, and seems to be even less useful, at least in the beginning.  The games main gimmick is that with the TMD, you can manipulate objects and enemies ages.  After giving it some thought, I feel it has potential, but still needs some work.  As the device stands, it's pretty effective but doesn't deliver the bigger picture like some fans may have hoped for (see Red Faction's destructible environments for reference).  I loved aging enemies and some environmental hazards, but overall it felt as if you were extremely limited to what you could manipulate (possibly addressed in a sequel?)

If I were to rate this game based on its single-player experience alone, it'd score a C+.  The story is kinda lame but interesting enough and the weapons and gun play are par for the course (although the bullet time is pretty cool.)  However, I can't deny that I am definitely enjoying it's multiplayer content.  You're given two game modes (hopefully more in a future update) including a basic team death match and another known as Extermination.  In multiplayer you either control the creatures or the military.  The military controls mimic the single player game and you have 4 different classes with their own unique special abilities.  The creatures on the other hand are seen from a 3rd person perspective and are each completely unique with their own set of specialties.  The military's abilities comprise of teleportation, healing, shielding, and pulsing.  Paired with their multiple guns and you can see how powerful the humans are.  The creatures have their own set of techniques and are completely varied.  I don't want to get into too many details but I actually have more fun being the creatures and manipulating their powers and abilities as opposed to the humans.  This is where the game gets interesting and shows the potential for a fun and varied squad based game.  Some characters are more rush-centric resulting in quick kills and instant results, but leave themselves open for attack.  Others are slower more defense oriented, but much stronger.  You must find a careful balance with your team to decide who will be a support character and who will be more in the heat of the action.  This is apparent in Extermination mode where the humans objective is to take over 3 beacons while the creatures attempt to defend.  The military must regenerate these beacons and then defend them for 20 seconds (see CoD Demolition mode).  The creatures must prevent the military from regenerating them, or destroy them so they become inactive.  Extermination is where I've spent most of my time with this game and I can tell you without a doubt that it's definitely a lot of fun.  The back and forth gameplay is enjoyable and I only wish that some of my other friends had the game so I can play with them. 

Pathetic

Single Player Mode offers little replay value; story gets kind of boring
Only two multiplayer modes can grow old quickly
Some segments are buggy and not fun at all
TMD has potential but still needs work
Near impossible to get a full multiplayer game
Multiplayer leveling system seems pointless

Very Nice!

Multiplayer is fun
Single Player is a fun ride while it lasts
Time Manipulation segments are interesting
Limb removing gunplay remains satisfying

FINAL GRADE: B

Singularity is a fun title that will most likely get looked over for other high caliber games released this summer.  While enjoyable, I can't say you should buy this game due to the sudden rush of grade A titles (Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, etc.)  If you're looking for a different FPS experience from Call of Duty, get Fallout 3 or Bioshock 2 instead.  Singularity is fun, but I don't recommend it unless you already have some of the other games I've mentioned. 

Toy Story 3

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since we've seen Woody and the gang and to be perfectly honest, I didn't really think this series needed to be a trilogy.  I saw the first movie as a child and loved it and while I enjoyed its sequel, I didn't really feel it was as strong as the first and felt that a third movie would lower the quality even further.  To my surprise, however, I really feel that Toy Story 3 is the best out of the trilogy.  I don't seem to be a minority here as it seems that most critics are giving this movie extremely high praise. 

First things first though, if you have yet to see the first two movies, do yourself a favor and watch them.  They are very enjoyable films and still hold up pretty nicely today (at the least, watch the first film).  If you didn't watch the first films when they were released then you may miss out on what some have called the movies strongest point: It's nostalgic factor.  I watched these films a long time ago and while I can't really say they're my favorite films, they still have a little place in my childhood memories and thus, only helped to increase the thirds appeal.  I've heard many people were truly close to tearing up during some of the movies more emotional moments (which I won't spoil here.)  Its amazing to see how Pixar can have the viewers feeling so emotionally attached to characters like stuffed animals, robots, grumpy old men, and even fish but thats truly just a testament to how much life these characters are given.  That's not to say that those who haven't seen the first two should stay away, I'm only stating that it enhances an already enjoyable experience.

I truly don't want to spoil any parts of the movie so let's just say that Andy is now going to college and his toys are feeling very distant from him.  Through some misunderstandings the gang gets donated and ends up at Sunnyside Daycare where things appear to be better then they could dream.  The sad reality is that the Sunnyside toys are run by a dark dictator named [jk I'm not spoiling it].  This is where the movies get a prison break vibe and the writing shines easily outdoing the previous two movies plots.  There's a lot of clever writing, witty dialogue, and gorgeous visuals here that don't even need the assistance of the 3D gimmick but I won't knock Pixar for its inclusion. 

SUMMARY

Watch Toy Story 3.  You'll laugh, get close to tears (or even cry) and thoroughly be hooked into the story.  I enjoyed the movie so much that I'd actually pay to watch it again (pretty rare). 

FINAL GRADE: A+