Blog de Dyer

Fist of the North Star’s narrative is fast paced to the point that it’s incomprehensible. Bad guys stole your mega hot doctor, and Kenshiro - protagonist and epitome of pure manliness - needs to utilize his ultra-secret-martial-art to blow up their heads in a messy, brain-filled explosion. There’s also something to do with water, the worlds one recyclable resource, being in critically scarce supply. A gripping narrative, however, is not why you watch Fist of the North Star.

While the show has become a compilation of clichés, Fist still remains entertaining in its newest rendition, from the aforementioned exploding heads to the combative climax. Fist fights and kung-fu kicks are aplenty, making the story and most of the characters completely forgettable, and the snoozefest story - though it progresses at lightspeed - will have you anxious to see some more craniums turn to TNT in this ultra-violent and crazy fun OVA DVD.

It’s a shallow series so far, but there are few things more enjoyable than watching gigantic muscle-men beat the living crap out of each other - well, there’s really one muscle-man crushing every idiot who looks his way -  for 60 minutes. The art isn’t wholly original and the post-apocalyptic world is the same stereotype you’ve known for decades, but the visual upgrade gives the ancient anime a lovable new style for its rabid fanbase to salivate over as a shirtless Kenshiro dominates raping-and-pillaging motorcycle gangs.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is the textbook example of how not to make a first person shooter. It utilizes the most basic of first-person-shooting while forcing players to deal with countless graphical and gameplay glitches, broken gun-play and randomly spawning, invincible enemies.

The one redeeming quality of the title is its interesting premise, throwing an alternate history World War II narrative on top of the nearly unplayable game underneath, but it’s not enough to cover up the cripplingly flawed FPS, which isn’t worth the time of the hardest-of-hardcore fans of the genre.

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After the short and sweet opening cinema detailing the you-whomp-‘em-Persian-guards objective, you’ll become immediately aware that the tried and true hack-‘n-slash formula is in full, familiar force in Ready At Dawn’s God of War: Chains of Olympus. Fortunately, that means loads of enemies on screen to catch the business end of Kratos’ blades in the neck, eyeballs or frequently bisected torso. In true God of War fashion, Chains of Olympus flows at a smooth pace as players progress through mythological Greece as a tormented and violently angered, hopping from one legendary location to another.

Unfortunately, the amount of backtracking required to progress to a new setting limits the amount of scenic routes to about a half dozen. Puzzle solving on COO, while equally satisfying and tedious, requires hiking it through entire temples or caves, which are shockingly huge and completely devoid of load times. Navigating Kratos from one end of a city to another, through buildings, over bridges and vertically towards rooftops, is seamless and without framerate drops.

The scope of this game is as impressive as its art style and visual design. Epic views of a crumbling town, complete with a look-out of your future path, compliment the great character models and beautiful textures. Facial and combat animations are spot on, and the dialogue – while irritatingly pretentious – is well delivered throughout the entirety of Kratos’ six hour, vengeful adventure, which will requre you to do nothing but rapidly beat the hell out of your square button to succeed.

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I found an older review I did for the 300 PSP game a while back. Ah, memories.

Frank Miller’s comic-to-film adaptation of 300 is my most recent infatuation. No, it’s not the washboard abs and little-to-no clothing… It’s the pure bad-ass-ery of the whole flick. Watching its visual flair, and sheer style of fighting makes you wonder “Why the hell isn’t this a game?”. Truth is, it is, but not many know about it.

A small developer called Collision Studios is responsible for bringing the gore-fest to life exclusively on the PSP, and with the hype of the movie that was built up, this company has a lot to live up to… It’s a shame their budget was so miniscule. Yes, Collision is a very small developer, and therefore, they don’t score a lot of cash for making their titles. They brought us a couple handheld games based off of some shows on Cartoon Network which likely had no right being a video game in the first place, but who am I to judge? If you’ve seen 300 you know how cool it is. If not, you’re truly missing out. Also, if you’ve not seen it, you should stop reading just in case of some spoilers that are likely to pop up, and the fact that you’ve probably got little interest in the game if you have yet to see the movie. Getting on with it….

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Time flies when you’re having fun, or whatever, and the Freelance Police have the evidence to make that case in Sam and Max: The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball - the third, funniest, and most brain-dead-easy of the Sam and Max season of point-and-click adventure games.

The mafia centric parody has our heroes in search of a mole within a mysterious mob, solving exceptionally simple brainteasers along the way. While the puzzles are clever and hilarious, they’re all instantly solvable.

You’ll never find yourself at a loss of what to do, which makes you feel extremely smart, even though you’re aware you just added two-and-two, or something equally as brainless.

It’s only appropriate to be gambling (and cheating, having hits put on comrades and to be making highly illegal deliveries, so our Freelance Policemen aren’t at a loss for entertaining things to do in this ironic twist of a story. Along the way they’ll take part in some seedy hypnotizing activities, and provide the most amounts of legitimate laughs in the season thus far.

Insult interrogations (Insultigations?), Yo-Momma jokes, and winning a hundred million dollar poker hand carry the comedy to a new level in the shortest, easiest, and most entertaining edition of Sam and Max yet.

Time is the lubricant in the cogs of TellTale Games’ funny-machine, and if there’s any indication as to what we can expect in the future, it’s higher quality comic, and fun-filled entertainment.

Just try and make the puzzles a little more difficult that “put the item you’re holding right now in the slot that’s in front of you right now”, and have the experience last longer than a couple hours – I was having too much fun, and it was over too soon.