Okay, so the last month has been ridiculously busy, and papers are due in profusion this week. Also, finals are next week and work is insane. So I have definitely let the reviews slip. I know both of you that are faithfully reading the first paragraph of my reviews are crying every night that I don’t post, so I’ll throw you a bone.

     So here we have the first ever Triple Threat Video Game Review Super-Post!!! But seriously, I’m going to review three of the games that I promised review for, in a slightly abbreviated form perhaps, and give you the critical goodness you’ve all (by all I mean my mom and one random guy on the internets) been longing for.

   Review 1: Bioshock 2

   Developer: 2k Marin, Digital Extremes, etc.

   Publisher: 2k Games

   Genre: First Person Shooter/RPG/blahblahblah

   Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

   Score: Pretty Good

          I realize “pretty good” is not a very specific score, but you’ll get over it. I don’t feel like agonizing today over what score the game merits. So pretty good is what you get. And that’s really what Bioshock 2 is. Pretty Good. Now, if I had been asked to give the first Bioshock a similarly vague and meaningless rating, it probably would have been something like, “Ground Breaking”, or “Innovative”, or “Pretty Stinking Awesome”. That is, I would have said one of those things, If you could have peeled  my eyeballs from the awesomeness that was Bioshock long enough to get a quote. It was a really great game. It was truly atmospheric, and the story nearly made me crap myself more that once.

     So, that brings us to Bioshock 2. Pretty Good. You know, I really think that if Bioshock 1 had never been made, I would probably think that Bioshock 2 was one of the best games of last year. It still has the same great gameplay, the same awesome setting, the same plasmids. But that’s the big problem. It’s more of the same in most places, and a little less in others. Sure the gameplay is pretty much the same, but the whole thing just smacks of the countless cash in sequels that game developers and movie studios have been subjecting us to for years. It’s like the Matrix sequels. Sure, technically the production values are better, and there’s definitely been more money spent on it, but it just doesn’t have the same soul that the first one did. It didn’t really need a sequel. It doesn’t have the same newness.

      The story has some pretty serious holes in it, and it just feels like a retread. Rapture’s still around, it’s still falling apart, everybody is still crazy, and somebody with a very extreme socio-economic ideology is still trying to run everything. It’s hard for me to explain my dissatisfaction with Bioshock 2, and I’m not even saying you shouldn’t play it. You should. It’s still a good game, and it’s definitely worth a go. Just don’t expect to have your mind blown. Also, the multiplayer is pretty mediocre.

   Review 2: Castle Crashers

   Developer: The Behemoth

   Publisher: Microsoft, Sony

   Genre: Side Scrolling Multiplayer Online Action/RPG Madness, or SSMOARPGM

   Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network

   Rating: A Pile of Steaming Awesome

          For those of you who have been living in a hole in an asteroid in the Andromeda Galaxy for the last couple of years, or for my Mom and my Wife, who don’t know anything about games, but are probably the only people who read these things, Castle Crashers is a game by the in the developer The Behemoth, who are the guys behind the breakout flash hit Alien Hominid. The game is offered as a download on the Xbox Live Arcade, or as I like to call it, the XBLA. The gameplay is a mix of frantic sidescrolling beat-em-up action (tl;dr- lots of button mashing) with some RPG elements. The game is definitely best played with four player over Xbox Live, or all on one screen even, and with that many players the action gets positively bewildering. But in a good way.  The art style is quirky and funny, and the story (What little there is anyway) is told through genuinely hilarious cutscenes and in-game events. The game is addictive, with lots of extra characters, weapons, and animal orbs (little floating ball like animals that help in various ways, like boosting XP gains, stunning or damaging enemies, or Buffing player stats). Castle Crashers is everything that a pick up and play game should be, with character stats and unlockables carrying over from online to single player, and easy party and Xbox Live matchmaking. If you have some friends willing to play with you, Castle Crashers is a fun, hilarious game with surprisingly deep gameplay. So you should definitely play it. Seriously.

 

   Review 3: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

   Developer: DICE   Publisher: EA

   Genre: Modern Warfa…I mean, FPS.

   Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

   Rating: 3 out of 5 Modern Warfares

          Okay, so I’m probably gonna catch a lot of flak for this, but I don’t really like Bad Company 2. I played the first Bad Company a while after it came out and was really underwhelmed, but I had heard that BC2 had really improved on the formula. I had even heard that it was good enough to give Modern Warfare a run for its money. And it is. If the competition they’re in is a “Which game is more like Modern Warfare” competition. But as far as gameplay, or story especially, go there is no comparison. Now I’m not one of those guys that gets really bent out of shape when one game is similar to another, or when companies start using a concept or idea from a game to incorporate into their own. My problem comes when something is a rip-off and it is STILL inferior. That’s the feeling that I got from BC2.

          So, some of my concrete complaints about the game.

1. Enemies are invisible – Look, I understand the concept of “camouflage”, but there is such a thing as being too realistic. Then again, the maps are all so dang dusty that the enemies could all be wearing clown suits and I still wouldn’t be able to find them until they were shooting me.

2. Dust – Okay, I realize that the first two times a building collapses in a billow of smoke and dust, it looks cool. Then it’s just annoying. Add this to the consistently khaki colored landscapes and the khaki colored bad guys, and it’s a recipe for eyestrain and frustration. Also, there is dust, or smoke, or fog, or haze, or snow in nearly every level. Seriously, can’t at least on level be in a clean environment so that I can see more that ten feet in any direction?

3. Rocket Launchers – They’re annoying enough in MW2 when just a few guys have them, but it seems like every freaking dude in Bad Company 2 has a RPG in his back pocket. Combine this with the fact that you never know where anybody is until they’ve shot you, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Or at least, a recipe for repeated cheap deaths, until you finally figure out where every single enemy spawns.

4. Dust – Seriously, it’s really hard to see anybody. I think the protagonist of BC2 needs to get his eyes checked.

5. Story – Tries to be cheeky and light, and serious all at the same time. It succeeds at exactly none of them.

         I know people are probably going to say, “But what about the multiplayer!?!” Or at least, they would if they were reading this, but I’m going to say it for them. But what about the multiplayer!??

    It’s okay…

Not great though.

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