Halo Reach - 8.5/10

Bungie's farewell to the Halo universe (though certainly not Microsoft's), Reach feels like a bit more of a return to form for the franchise. After the rather bland Halo 3 and the completely underwhelming ODST, it's nice for Bungie to go out on a high note - not as high as Halo 2, but still, a good game.

The game almost feels somewhat stripped down. No duel wielding, crazy new vehicles or enemies. The objects from Halo 3, that I never felt really worked well, have been replaced with armour abilities. Some are tweaks of the familiar (active camo, bubble shields), and some are completely new (jet pack and armour lock). You also now pick your armour ability and starting weapons in the multiplayer loadout, giving a feel of different classes - a welcome addition. Overall, the system seems more balanced and useful.

You can see Bungie's affection for the franchise in the care that was put into the single player campaign. Though there is no character as memorable as some of the best characters of old, you do feel yourself being drawn into the story that never feels overburdened in the 15 to 20 hour campaign. Visually, the game looks even crisper and better, runs well, and still feels very much like a Halo game. I still found the multiplayer rather dull, but the addition of new game types like invasion, a much more robust forge mode, and a greatly improved firefight mode (much more fun than horde mode from GoW) really help the game along. Even the Halo gaming community seems more mature - likely a result of the uber-twerps migrating to Call of Duty.

Fans of the franchise can't go wrong here and even those, like myself, that have found the Halo gloss wearing some time ago may be surprised.

Immersion: 3
Interface: 5
Game Play: 4
Challenge: 4
Fun: 4

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero - 8.5/10

Dead Rising 2 is set to be released at the end of the month. Instead of releasing a free demo a 400 mp (~$5.00) prequel game was release (which, by the way, you can still play the demo of which for free like any other Xbox Arcade game). The prequel introduces you to Chuck Green and his daughter Katie. One the run from the zombie outbreak they find themselves in a small town outside Las Vegas when Chuck's truck ends up getting stolen. Moreover, Katie has been bitten and injections every 12 hours of a drug called Zombrex is the only thinking keeping her from turning. Chuck must now find more of the drug, and find a way out of the town before the military arrive to take Katie away.

If you played the first game at all, you will find that the formula has not be changed that much. As before, the clock is always ticking and tasks must be completed within a fixed period of time, but, as before, experience carries between play-throughs so you will find next time Chuck will be tougher (and yourself more experienced) to face the challenges the game provides. You will also find a variety of characters to interact with from survivors to be rescued to psychos that stand in your way. The game also maintains its RPG elements from the original Dead Rising.

What has changed has more to do with the presentation and the interface. The graphics have been improved and the zombie appearance and behaviour more varied. You will also find the survivor AI to be more helpful in that they actually will go where you tell them to. Controls are tighter and less cumbersome but are still, thankfully, challenging. Shooting and aiming is accomplished by left and right triggers now as in most shooters and you can now move and shoot at the same time.

As a bit of a fan of the first game, despite it's problems, I am very pleased to see the core gameplay has not changed and that many of the things that were frustrating before surround AI and controls has been dealt with. Case Zero itself was a heck of a lot of fun. I single play-through will take you about an hour and half, but you will likely find yourself going through it at least three or four times - will worth the $5.00 price tag. I also like the father/daughter aspect to the story line. It got me invested and really wanting to make sure the little girl remained safe.

If I were to have one complaint, it would be the ease at which I was able to get through this. Although Dead Rising may have been frustrating, I did appreciate the challenge it provided. Now, the ease of Case Zero could simply be a product of the length of the game not lending itself to developing a decent difficulty curve from intro tutorial to final boss (and the final boss is a bit tough). We will just have to see in Dead Rising 2.

Immersion: 4
Interface: 4
Game Play: 4
Challenge: 4
Fun: 5

Overall: 8.5/10

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game - 8.5/10

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that such a refreshing film could be tied in with such a refreshing game, but surprised I was. Instead of the usual movie tie-in, Scott Pilgrim went with a 16 bit, side scrolling, beat-em-up whose humour and feel is right in keeping with the movie. And you certainly can't beat the price of 800 Microsoft Points (about $10.00).

Though don't think that the style of presentation gave Ubisoft Montreal an opportunity to cheap out on what they were presenting. On the contrary, each sprite is lovingly rendered and levels and combat well designed. Layered beneath the fighting is a light RPG model where you can buy improvements for your characters as they level up, as well as unlock new moves and combinations. This is results in a game that is light hearted, but at the same time challenging and a hoot to play.

And if the single player is a hoot, wait until you try the four-player local coop. I played this with my kids and it was an absolute scream. Really, the only thing that is keeping this game from being almost perfect is the lack of an on-line multiplayer feature. What's up with that?

In short, if you enjoyed the movie and enjoy video games (actually, I can't see how someone who enjoys video games can't enjoy this movie), then the game should be right up your alley.

Immersion: 4
Interface: 4
Game Play: 4
Challenge: 4
Fun: 5

Overall: 8.5/10

Deadly Premonition - 7.0/10

This is one of those games that is so difficult to attach a rating to. I'll stick with my 7.0, but I should add, I have a tremendous amount of affection for this game.

First off, there are certainly things wrong with it. The graphics are at early PS2 levels, the controls are awkward and clunky, and the enemies don't vary much and are repetitive. The game is guilty of some things that I usually hate in games. It has an over dependence on cut scenes to tell the story and it uses them a lot. Another thing it uses a lot are quick time events, something I normally hate.

So why do I like this game. Well you are guaranteed that you haven't played anything quite like this. It is quirky, disturbing, and irrational in a way that only the Japanese seem to be able to pull of in their games. You play federal agent Francis York Morgan investigating a bizarre, ritualistic murder, in a sleepy northwestern town. The town is populated by an exceedingly strange collection of citizens from the zombie like grave digger, to a convenience store owner who looks like he walked off the set of Grease - from the harlot gas station attendant to the roaming old lady who talks to her pot. In fact, the environment is so much like David Lynch's Twin Peaks that it's hard to imagine that it wasn't at least partially inspired by the television series.

And Agent Morgan (but everyone calls him York) isn't quite right either. He spends the entire game talking to his invisible companion, Zack - mostly about 80's movies and punk rock. The missions usually involve you driving from location to location (the driving can get tedious), and either interviewing citizens for clues, or fighting zombie like spirits which suddenly start rising out of the ground. The thing is, I actually became invested in the story and characters of this strange little town, as well as the story of York and Zack - indeed, much more so than in a typical, bigger budget, game. In the end, I wanted to know what was happening here and how it was going to play out. In fact, the ghost shooting was a disappointing diversion from getting more cut scenes telling the story.

If you are the type of person to be put off by quirky story telling, poor graphics, and uneven game-play, then I would have to recommend giving this a pass, but if you can get past that, you may find a lot here that is refreshingly different.

Immersion: 4
Interface: 2
Game Play: 3
Challenge: 4
Fun: 4

Overall: 7.0/10

Red Dead Redemption - 9.5/10

Okay, calling it Grand Theft Horse isn't entirely inaccurate, but is that really a bad thing? My answer would be, no.

You play John Marston, a simple rancher with a mysterious past just trying to eek out a living in what's left of the old West during the early part of the 20th century. For reasons to be revealed, you are compelled to help federal marshals hunt down an elusive criminal that you have had some dealings with. This is a very classic western tale set in a classic western environment, and Rockstar does its utmost to make the player feel like you feel like you've just walked into a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. And guess what, they succeeded.

Like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption is a sprawling sandbox game giving you a large world in which to explore. Though not as teaming with detail and life as Liberty City, the south-west US and norther Mexico are still rendered with stunning fidelity. Weather and atmospheric effects are second only to Far Cry 2 from a couple of years ago. Yes, this is a game where you will stop to admire the sunsets.

The missions give you a lot do: from capturing banditos to herding cattle to playing poker. Though perhaps not quite as diverse as GTA4, the missions in the single player do start to grind a bit towards the end, and the characters don't shine quite like they do in GTA either. That said, it's still a rich and rewarding ride.

It's in the multiplayer that this game really shines. I don't think the multiplayer in GTA ever worked as well as it could have, but RDR makes up for that. The multiplayer experience starts in a 16 player Free Roam. From there you can posse up and participate in a variety of multiplayer activities: attacking NPC gang hideouts, working through coop missions, are participating in the usual fair of player versus player type games in both free for all and team modes. It's the shear variety that makes this work. Bored with PVP, then do a gang hideout or coop mission. Tired of that, maybe go hunting in Free Roam either for wild game or other players. The Free Roam also acts as a lobby of sorts, allowing players to feel each other out before deciding to play together. When you form posses, you can carry that posse with you as a team into the other multiplayer modes. It works exceedingly well.

All and all, Red Dead Redemption is the full package that everyone should check out. Easily, it is one of the best games of 2010.

Immersion: 4
Interface: 4
Game Play: 5
Challenge: 5
Fun: 5

Overall: 9.5/10

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 8.5/10

Okay, let's see. Single player worse than the original, multi-player better. Since almost everyone who buys this game will do so for the multi-player, can I go home now? Hmm, guess not.

Alright then, let's start with the good. First off, I'm not a big multi-player guy, but the Battlefield games definitely are up there as an exception. I like the objective based games, huge detailed maps, and class based combat. Like the first Bad Company, the game place you in squads and most of the game times are objective based. What's more, the game rewards you for accomplishing those objectives. For example, the player that spends his time capturing and defending flags will gain far more experience then the one sniping from the rooftops collecting kills. For me, this is very satisfying, especially when you find players that realize that the classes provided in the game actually complement each other and sticking with, and helping, your squad mates improves the experience overall. This creates a player community that actually, more or less, supports each other in game as opposed to simply running around trying to humiliate as many people as you can (I'm looking at you CoD).

But all this was in the first game too, what's the improvements? Well everything you got in Bad Company you get more of in BC2. The destructible environments play even more into game play, with many buildings being completely capable of being raised to the ground, stirring of clouds of swirling dust obscuring the battlefield. There are more, and better balanced, weapons and gadgets, as well as vehicle variety. The maps are more detailed and much bigger, the perfect playground for great battles.

Now for the bad, this single player. I enjoyed the simple characters and story of the first game, but here it seems they felt they need to amp it up. The result in a nonsensical, loosely connected, sequence of missions which is presented in such a confusing fog of attempted story telling and find it hard that anyone can make sense of it. Hey, if just giving you an excuse to go shoot Russians and blow up the next objective is good enough for you, that's fine, but it seems very little thought went into the campaign here, either in story or in level design.

But like I said, you're likely here for the multi-player and when it comes to fun modern combat, this game is second to none.

Immersion: 3
Interface: 5
Game Play: 4
Challenge: 4
Fun: 4

Overall: 8.5/10

Left 4 Dead 2: 9.0/10

This game took quite a bit of heat, coming out a mere year after the first Left 4 Dead, and this from a developer known for it's long production cycles. Perhaps the complaints are justified, but once you get the product in your machine, one can't deny how fun this game is.

Valve did not change the overall formula of the game. Once again, four survivors in a zombie apocalypse must work together through various campaigns in order to reach the rescue vehicle on at the end. As before, on-line co-op is what this game is all about with emphasis on the co-op. Players who don't work with their teammates are destined to be punished cruelly, either by opposing players in the case of versus, or by the AI director, that sadistic bit of coding that decides how enemies, weapons and gear will spawn. If anything, this games demands even more of its players with new special infected specifically designed to try and split players up. Valve definitely watched how players played the first game and designed this game to combat their tactics. For example, once again alarms and loud machinery will generate what Valve calls crescendo events where waves of infected rush the players, but instead of the normal digging in that players did to survive these events before, many of them can only be stopped by travelling to another location - evil indeed.

But the survivors are better armed now too. The variety of guns has about tripled. Also added are powerful melee weapons (who doesn't enjoy conking zombies with a frying pan?). The amount of gear is also increased from speed inducing adrenalin, defibrillator kits for bringing back dead teammates, to incendiary and explosive ammunition. The thing is, the number of inventory slots has not changed. Carry a melee weapon, then no pistols. Carry special ammo, then no med pack. No one can carry it all, so once again team work is what is emphasized.

The environments are better detailed now and there is more variety to the campaigns than before. Instead of everything being at night, the time of day changes as does the weather. Indeed, the storm effects become a factor in the game in more than one campaign. The campaigns link together better now too, with each beginning where the previous one ended. Some might miss the four survivors from L4D1, but the four new ones should get them over it pretty quick. Once again, the characters are unique, well written and voiced, and enjoyable to listen to. As in the first game, dialogue is generated differently each time through. The variability in play-throughs not only extends to placement of enemies and gear, but some maps even change pathways through them now. The new game type, scavenge, is also a lot of fun.

Overall, L4D2 doesn't feel like a replacement to L4D1 but rather a complement to it. Although both follow the same essential formula, there is enough differences between the two that I suspect the community of players will more bouncing back and forth between them rather than leave L4D1 on the shelf. If I have any knock against this franchise, it would be that it is already feeling a bit old. I for one do not wish for a L4D3 and, I hope, there are no immediately plans to develop one. Despite that, if Valve continues to support the community that has developed around these two games, this is a franchise that will have people still playing it years from now.

Story: 4
Interface: 5
Game Play: 4
Challenge: 4
Fun: 5