Reviews

Anime style story-driven tactical RPG about courageous Squad 7 of militia fighting a hostile nation that invaded beautiful and peaceful country of Galia.

PROS:

• Beautiful comic book style graphics.

• The game uses fictional countries and nations, but definitely has a WW2 feel. If you like WW2 themes (I do), the game is great.

• Fine character development and touching story.

• Good voice acting.

• Good music.

• Lots of tactical options. Every unit serves its purpose. Multiple options to win every battle.

• Some levels are challenging, but as a person that sometimes has to refer to tutorials and FAQs, I was able to complete all by myself.

MEH:

• AI moves might be better. There are times when enemy is able to ruin you, but instead of destroying one tank, delivers equal number of attacks on both your tanks. So you have a feeling that AI goes easy on you. There is no difficulty setting.

• Japanese dev had to squeeze a cute winged piglet there. It serves no purpose at all.

• There are times where it is sort of naive, but it's still good.

CONS:

• Controls are sort of clunky, definitely prepared for gamepad, not a mouse.

• Your tanks get stuck.

• Some parts are unskippable, which may be painful, because sometimes you know you royally screwed up after enemy's first move and you'll need to reload from save for sure, but surprise surprise, you have to wait for enemy's all moves to do anything (it can take 2-5 minutes).

As you can see, important stuff in the game is really good. There are some nuisance bugs and glitches, but it's all within norms. I recommend Valkyria Chronicles wholeheartedly.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

GRAPHICS 9/10

AUDIO 9/10

STORY 9/10

Small dungeon crawler with roguelike elements. You play as a small child Isaac in nightmarish semi-random basement levels fighting some really disturbing monsters. You can develop Isaac's speed, health and damage by finding various power-ups (there is A LOT of these).

Beware, the game is difficult, but very addictive. A full playthrough takes about 30-45 minutes, but usually you get killed before you reach the final level. It took me almost 10 hours to complete the game for the first time.

Side note: game features child abuse and a lot of disturbing gore/violence including blood, intestines, urine, feces.

But to sum up, it's really worth playing (especially at sale prices below $0.99). It's addictive, has a spooky atmosphere and completing the game is rewarding.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

AUDIO: 8/10

GAMEPLAY: 7/10

STORY: 8/10

FBI agent Kate (Emily Blunt) is talked into assisting with CIA operation against Cartel led by Matt (Josh Brolin) in cooperation with foreign consultant (Benicio Del Toro).

After promising opening scene "Sicario" becomes a dull moral ambiguity story with very good performance by Del Toro and marvelous cinematography by Roger Deakins who never fails to amaze me.

I was expecting a "brilliant action thriller" and I agree there are some thrilling action sequences (SUV escort, operation in the tunnel), but unfortunately, the story is far from brilliant. The main plot device is "it's better not to ask questions" and "you'll understand it later". Kate asks some questions, but usually they go unanswered without sensible reasons. The CIA specialist Matt jeopardizes his own operations by not providing ANY background on what the team is about to do, whether there will be firefights, what are the risks and what are the objectives.

Despite brilliant camera-work and good cast, film's lazy writing and unreasonably slow pace outside action scenes makes watching "Sicario" tedious.

Direction: 4/10, Screenplay: 2/10, Cinematography: 10/10, Acting: 7/10, Music: 6/10

Overall: 3/10

Half-Life: Opposing Force is an expansion for the original Half-Life. This time you are Corporal Shepard, a soldier tasked with hunting down Gordon Freeman while fending of aliens at the same time. It soon turns out that in general chaos everyone fights everyone, including new alien species and black ops soldiers.

There are a few new weapons (alien lightning gun, Desert Eagle) and some new features. You get to lead other soldiers with various specialties: engineer who can cut doors, medic who can heal you. You learn to climb ropes and at one point you can use alien technology of grappling gun.

Graphics is not great, but it's cool enough and the level design with brilliant color schemes and lighting styles makes up for it.

Music sets the mood nicely, especially dynamic themes when something serious is going down.

It's 2015 and I definitely enjoyed playing Half-Life: Opposing Force! GAMEPLAY 8/10 GRAPHICS 7/10 AUDIO 8/10 STORY 9/10

Steampunk style point-and-click with really nice graphics (just remember it was made in 2002) and fantastic voice acting (one of best I've ever heard in an adventure game).

Village mysteries, steampunk factories, amazing airships and intricate automatons - all this explored by young New York lawyer, Kate Walker.

"Syberia" has some shortcomings, namely some annoying unskippable animations (like stair or ladder climbing) and it is quite linear, but the story is so great I would definitely recommend it anyway!

GRAPHICS: 8/10

AUDIO: 9/10

GAMEPLAY: 7/10

STORY: 10/10

PROS:

• Geralt's character development (with quite original method of talents) - potion making (includes picking of herbs, harvesting jaws of vampires etc.) - moral choices reflecting in changing attitudes of other characters - multitude of quests - some parts are really intense - deep, immersive story - nice music, beautiful landscapes, amazing architecture - seducing women is kind of fun - becoming master of dice poker and fist fighting is also kind of fun - original monsters

MEH:

• somewhere midgame you get a lot of bothersome "run here, talk, run there, talk" quests - you need to adjust to game's combat system - first 30-90 minutes of the game are kind of boring

CONS:

• you don't get to use many weapons or armors, because other weapons than swords are not usable in witcher battle styles making them ineffective especially later in the game - after you start feeling which skills are important and focus on developing them, fighting becomes quite easy

Overall: you need to bite the bullet and endure the first hour of the game. After that you get a really good, immersive RPG with damn good story and lots of locations.

I finally played and finished this great cyberpunk themed FPS-RPG-stealth hybrid genre classic. You are JC Denton, international United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO) peace force agent fighting NFS terrorist organization in dystopian 2052 New York. New, unknown virus ("the grey death"), widespread zyme drug addiction, police curfew are the reality. You aren't just a regular person, you are nano-augmented. This means you have bionic upgrades giving you almost superhuman capabilities in some fields.

The game has some first person shooter qualities. There are multiple types of firearms including pistols, shotguns, sniper and assault rifles, experimental plasma guns, tranquilizer darts and various melee weapons including swords, batons, crowbars and knives. You can also use various grenades and explosives. But here come the RPG qualities: you are initially inexperienced with all of these weapons and as the game progresses you need to choose skills to upgrade. How about some stealth? You don't have to upgrade your fighting skills. You can upgrade swimming, lockpicking and hacking. Deus Ex is not-so-linear and usually you have more than one way to finish a level. Fighting is one option, but usually you can also crawl into ventilation ducts, climb some ladders, jump some containers and find yourself on the other side without having killed a single person (or bot).

Along with upgrading your skills, you choose and upgrade your bionic augmentations. Your game tactics will depend on implants you choose. There are 18 types of implants, but you only have 9 slots. You get to decide whether you prefer to install Speed Enhancement or Run Silent implant. Will you need Ballistic Protection (reduced bullet damage) or EMP Shield (protection from electrocution which is used by some bots)? To use your augmentations you need to use bioelectrical energy and you need to plan carefully, because it has limits.

JC Denton will discover conspiracy, traitors, surprising allies in many locations, all of them with neo-noir feel. New York City, Hong Kong (think Blade Runner), Paris, Area 51, ships, hotels, underwater labs. The plot is really long, has many surprise twists and gives you multiple choices, including three quite different endings. Music is quite cool and fits the atmosphere of the locations. Graphics... well, the game was released in 2000, so it's a little disappointing as of 2014, but if you can get over average graphics, Deus Ex is amazingly immersing.

I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett novels. I've read about thirty of them and I love them. "Going Postal" was among my favorites.

The film renders the plot quite faithfully most of the time. Most of the characters are very similar to their novel counterparts. Richard Coyle (whom you may know from TV comedy show "Coupling") does a very good performance as Moist von Lipwig, the new postmaster and Charles Dance (the doctor from "Alien 3") is fantastic as lord Havelock Vetinari.

You haven't read the book? You get a decent comedy with many funny quips and one liners. There is some fantasy (fantastic creatures like werewolf, banshee and golems) and some magic, but most of the plot revolves around humans and their emotions: love, hate, greed, vengeance. The story is about the Post Office of Ankh Morpork. People have forgotten about Post Office in times of "Clacks" (something like telegraphy). But there are some who want Post Office running again and a lifelong conman Moist von Lipwig is conned into trying to run it.

Of course the movie misses many of the novels subtle humorous details, but is fun enough to watch.

Marilyn is just herself and this is enough to put the episode plot in motion! She decides to go for a vacation in Seattle. It it the first time she's going to leave Alaska. "I just want an adventure", she says to Fleischman who produces never ending advice on how-to-survive-in-the-city.

At the same time Holling starts to go to school with a group of children, to finish high school. He encounters some hardships, but fortunately, Shelly is always there, with her usual beauty contest related advice.

Expect many funny dialogues in this episode: Fleischman vs Ed, Fleischman vs Maurice Minniefield, Fleischman vs Marilyn and Fleischman trying to describe Marilyn to another person.

Good one!