Thor: God of Thunder (PS3/x360, 2011)

I'm running out of time, as the Avengers movie is almost here and I've made it my mission to play Captain America: Super Soldier, Thor: God of Thunder and Iron Man 2 (and earn their platinum trophies) before this Thursday's midnight showing. The pinch is on as I've only just finished Thor: God of Thunder last night.

First up, I need to drop a disclaimer for this review. I can't lie. I have a huge man-crush on Chris Hemsworth. It's not sexual, but I would love to hang out, eat a burger and talk about his hammer....ahem. Anyway, for Odin!

Thor: God of War....or rather, that's the title they clearly wish they were going by, is a pretty weak knock-off of Santa Monica Studios' epic masterpiece God of War. Seriously, it even looks like the PS2 God of War games. Right away, you notice the graphics are terrible, but as I often try to advocate, as a gamer from the old age, graphics aren't everything. So let's move past that. This game is flawed in so many ways that it's pretty easy to bash.

The story honestly works with the 'movie Thor' universe, taking place before the movie, where Loki works out a plan to trick Thor into going on an epic journey and waking up a super powerful being called Mangog to attack Asgard. This all works out well and good, but when Mangog get's to Asgard, Loki's big plan to look like a hero and defeat him doesn't work out. Mangog is a badass, and a really tough one at that. Ultimately, he needs to get Thor and help guide him back from his mission to clean up the mess that he has made, while Odin is trying to stand toe to toe with the force that he created many years before. Overall, this story, while definitely not breathtaking, fits the characters well and brings me great joy!

While I like the story, there are very few good character moments, minus the loving but scolding talks that Thor gives to his brother Loki...who is a huge f**k up, but still family. Thankfully, Thor is voiced by Chris Hemsworth and Loki is Tom Hiddleston, so they both know what they are doing very well, and put a great effort forth.

Where this game falters however is the atrociously inaccurate controls. Oh man, I almost flipped out so many times when I would tap the jump button and forward in an effort to jump forward, but instead just walk off an edge. In fact, so much of this game consists of delays. I recall one battle where I was fighting the douchebag pictured below, when it cut to a cut scene of him jumping to the platform that I was on, when suddenly I just heard the sound of Thor die. Apparently, I took a hit before the cutscene started, but the game was too busy checking it's fantasy football to notice. Stuff like this happened a lot.

In fact, that was both the worst and the best thing about this game. The game is pretty easy, but like I said, I like to go for the Platinum trophy, which meant that I had to play through on Valhalla difficulty. Valhalla is the equivalent to VERY HARD mode, 'cause Hard mode is for sissies! The final boss, ol' Mangog on Valhalla is legendary for being so ungodly hard, it's amazing. The fight can last about 20 minutes and does not have any checkpoints despite consisting of 3 different phases. This means starting over from scratch over and over again. I tried several time before realizing I have a girlfriend and she didn't want to watch me fight a big glowing asshole in armor over and over again. Finally, I found some time to take him on and it took me 2.5 hours of trying and trying to take him down, but oh man, was it satisfying. This is why I love Demon's Souls so much. You will really have to push yourself to not give up, but when you do finally win, you feel damn good.

Above is a picture of Thor and Mangog, which actually ends up having both Odin and Loki helping you too, which makes it seem like that much more of a big deal.

Overall, this game is not very good, but in no way shape or form do I accept the claims that it is the "worst game ever" and that "no one should ever play it". If it's the worst game you've ever played, you haven't played many games, and you're very fortunate. I kind of enjoyed it despite it's flaws and recommend it, very cautiously, to people who like the Thor movie and God of War and understand that it's nowhere near as good as God of War. Sometimes, just playing as a character that you love makes you enjoy it. If that makes sense to you, you know whether or not this game is worth a play, otherwise don't bother.

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse (PS3/iOS/PC/Mac, 2010)

I remember the show Sam & Max: Freelance Police being on TV when I was a kid. I honestly don't remember much about the tone or even what specifically happened on it, but I know I liked it. So, a while back, Sony's Playstation Plus membership gave out this game in 5 episodes for free, and I ended up with them sitting on my hard drive for about a year. Historically speaking, when Telltale Games makes a game, I don't bother with it, as my brain just doesn't usually work that way.

Basically, the method of these games is that you walk around, observe items, pick up things and talk to people. That's basically the entire game. The trick is, you need to use a twisted, borderline psychotic sense of logic to get around obstacles. For example, a giant is attacking the city. First thing you need to know is that this particular giant loves corn dogs, and after talking to people, you realize that if you get into his mouth, you may be able to stop him. Naturally, that means that you have to fill a giant pothole with water, by convincing the giant to throw a water tower at it, then have him throw your car into it too and then have him pick up a conveniently placed truck filled with corn dog mix and shake it over the mixture to turn your car into a giant corn dog.  It's nuts.

Where this game shines is by having one of the best senses of comedy that I have EVER seen. The characters are so funny and the gags are so clever. Sam is a pretty serious detective dog character who, I'm not gonna lie, is freaking cute! Max is a lunatic rabbit who truly embraces the art of madness and random thoughts. Max also somehow got super powers out of nowhere, which the game keeps making fun of how out of nowhere this is. These guys are the best!

I really like Telltale Games' release strategy. Basically, how it tends to work, is that you play $19.99 for the season. The seasons tend to be divided up into 5 episodes and every month you get a new one. They usually average in length at about 2-3 hours a piece and always end up with a brilliantly shocking and funny cliffhanger to make you need to play the next one. The sense of humor is ever present and the stories are some of the best that you can find. Since finishing this, I have gone on to download Back to the Future, which acts as a 4th back to the future movie. As of this writing, I have finished the first 2 of 5 episodes, and have become a fan of Telltale's methods.

Overall, I have tried many times to play Secret of Monkey Island (an old classic which is probably the best known example of this game type), but my brain just never worked that way, until Sam and Max trained me on how to think outside the box. I'm gonna go back for Monkey Island soon. Give this a shot. Even if you need to use a guide online while playing it, you won't regret it for the story and comedy within.

Captain America: Super Soldier (PS3/x360, 2011)

I am so super stoked for the Avengers movie, that it's a little bit unhealthy. The thought of seeing several of my favorite superheroes on screen together and fighting a villain that I can actually respect (Loki...not the stupid aliens) has me giddy with anticipation. To celebrate this absurd excitement, I have decided that I will play and write a review for 3 of the Avenger's solo games, consisting of Iron Man 2, Captain America: Super Soldier and Thor: God of Thunder. I am fully aware of how terrible this can turn out as most movie licensed games are beyond shit...but every now and again, a great game will sneak out (like X-men Origins: Wolverine, which was so awesome despite it's shitty movie).

First off, I decided to go with Captain America, cause playing as him sounded the most exciting to me. Here's how that went.

 For those of you who have seen the Captain America movie, this storyline seems to take place in the middle of the sequence where you see Cap kickin Hydra ass. The story is about Cap going in to a Hydra facility to stop the mad Dr. Zola and save several trapped soldiers of the good ol' U.S. of A. from his sinister experiments. Obviously, the plot isn't really the important part here as it's essentially your typical save A. from the evil B. The only really special thing about it is that even more-so than the movie, this game shows off how important Dumdum Dugan and Bucky are in the Captain America story. Both of whom help in their own ways, by saving the hostages. A great Captain America moment is when he goes into a specific battle, expecting to die and hoping to buy the others enough time to stop the enemy in a different way. Of course, he's Captain America, and selflessness is his thing.

This game is barely about the story though. You only play this game because you want to play as Captain America, and this doesn't disappoint. The combat is very similar to Batman Arkham Asylum, in the respect that you are able to fight large crowds all at once, while countering from all directions. It's pretty fun. The shield comes into play too, in that you can bounce bullets back at snipers who are far away from you and take them down. It's impressive to see Cap taking on 6 guys at once and then turning to bounce a bullet at a sniper before effortlessly getting back to kicking the remaining guys around again. It is all very smooth and very enjoyable.

From a graphical point of view, the game is very nice to look at, but in a more stylistic way than a graphically strong way. I would say it's like a very impressive PS3 launch title. Which is satisfactory, but nothing to write home about. Really, the whole thing is very impressive for a movie tie in from Sega, who fails on a regular basis at these things.

It is also worth noting that the music, while a little bit generic at times has moments of brilliance. I actually was left wondering if it was the movie's score, which would make sense, but I really couldn't tell. Either way, the music works.

So lets rank this up... the music works, the story is good enough, the graphics are alright and the gameplay is pretty good. This is a good start to Avengers month. I expected apocalyptically awful. There is one problem that I feel must be addressed though. The game is way too easy. In a way I loved that, after Deus Ex, it was nice to have a game I could just chill out with and play effortlessly, but if you are looking for a challenging experience, it's not likely gonna be here. Perhaps it's because Captain America is a bad dude, but I don't know. I didn't try hard mode, so that may have been the perfect fix. I recommend it for people who love Cap and Arkham Asylum, and just want to play something that isn't stressful at all for about 8-10 odd hours.

Oh, and by the way...you totally can throw the shield and it's wonderful!!

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3/x360, 2011)

There are many games that do style well, then there are games that do substance well. It's a rare occurrence that you get both. Tron Legacy has a remarkably cool look and an amazing soundtrack, but it lacks in story and it rarely gets you thinking. Still, I love Tron Legacy, entirely because it gives you a feeling that is unique. I would call it my favorite music video, and in that respect it serves it's purpose. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is pure style, and it really connects you to the world that you are roaming in, and it comes very close to mastering the story part of it too. It has a lot of character development, and a lot of interesting thought provoking ideas, mixed with the look of Blade Runner and the music of Michael McCann (which puts you in mind of the Dark Knight score, except significantly better).

When you land in a new location, be it China, or Detroit, or Montreal, you feel the mood change from wherever you were before. You walk the city streets, and see billboards on the buildings above advertising unique things that kind of subconsciously tell you what that individual place is like. I can honestly say, I don't remember the last time a world was so fleshed out for me and in that respect, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a masterpiece.

I  need to mention that on a graphical scale, this game wasn't terribly impressive, but I am not taking that as a negative, so much as a positive, which is what I believe Eidos Montreal did when making it. They decided to not make everything look super realistic and instead stylize everything...and I mean extreme style. The cyberpunk setting has never looked so good, at least, not that my eyes have seen.

Anyway, while I could talk about the stylistic visuals all day, and the overwhelming commitment to the main character's coolness, this game is a storyline game, so how does it hold up? The story starts off with you playing as all around badass Adam Jensen, who is the head of Security for a company called Sarif Industries. He is going through the security details of a very important press conference that is going to be showing the world great new advances in the field of cybernetic implants, which are already taking place in this world, but they are far from perfect. Suddenly the labs are under attack and before anyone can figure out how, Adam rushes into action to try and stop them and to save the lead scientist, his ex, Megan. It's important to note that Adam is just a man, and if you are playing on the highest difficulty (awesomely called Give me Deus Ex), you will get the most engrossing experience out of this game, as you will be very stressed every time you see a guy with a gun (which you will a lot). When Adam finally finds Megan, he gets beaten badly by some heavily augmented mercenaries and ends up nearly dead. This is where the game starts. 

At this point, Adam is now rebuilt from head to toe, without his consent. He's disappointed in himself, because he wasn't able to save Megan and the scientists who died in the attack, and worst of all, the details just aren't adding up as to what happened that night. Even though he is on a much needed medical leave, he is called in to deal with a terrorist attack on one of Sarif Industries' factories. It is at this point that he get's involved with something that leads him to a global conspiracy. That's what this series is all about.

Good sci fi to me is all about presenting morally grey issues in a specialized setting where it can make the viewer really think about it. In this story people are divided on augmentations as some think it's an abomination, while others think it's amazing. There are a lot of comparisons in the storyline to Icarus from Greek mythology, which I think is really applicable here and gives a message, which very few games bother to do.

Earlier, I mentioned that it was almost perfect for story. Where is the flaw? There are a few things wrong with the game, but to me, the biggest one is the ending. I'm not going to spoil anything but I will say there are multiple endings and the execution of picking which ending you get and the endings themselves are the laziest things I've seen in modern gaming.

There are a few things that this game did that really felt fresh in today's gaming climate. First off, so many games go with a morality system, where if are good you get good points and if you are bad you get bad points, and those effect you in some way or another. In Deus Ex, you really don't get the sense of that. It feels like the game puts you into spots where you can do a good thing, or a bad thing, or choose between two bad things, or two good things, or any other combination of that. The game just throws it's hands up and says, it's your call, and to be honest, it makes making decisions a lot harder and meaningful. Another thing I would be crazy not to mention is the augmentation system. As you play you will occasionally acquire enough experience to upgrade your body parts, and unlike a lot of games where you upgrade things that you'll never use, you'll find yourself playing differently than you were up to that point. Enemies will kill you super fast on the highest difficulty, so you need to get enhancements to know where they are. You can see through walls, or walk quietly, or you can detect which way they are looking, and all of these things, make it so that you can strategically deal with situations, without ever making the game easy.

Seriously, this game made me feel more like Batman than Batman Arkham City did. In fact, this is Metal Gear Batman. I snuck through the whole game and killed no one, unlocking the Foxiest of the Hounds trophy. If you are a fan of Metal Gear Solid, you can see that the guys who made this game were too. This is a worthy successor to the original Deus Ex, and I couldn't be happier with it. Hopefully if another one comes out they will put a little more effort into the endings, and the boss fights (which ultimately are shoot em up bits after sneaking and killing no one for a few hours), but they have created something amazing and I want more of it!

Nintendo's at it again...

Recent details have been slipping out about Nintendo's new console, the Wii-U. As it seems, they put about as much effort into making it the most powerful system of this generation of console (7 years after it's started) as they did into naming the damn thing. At last years E3, Nintendo was talking big about how powerful the system would be compared to the PS3 and 360, even saying it would be more powerful than both, but recent leaks from developers working on games for it are setting the record straight. CVG's report says that games will look just as good as the two current generation consoles, but not better. The other big thing to note is that the processing power is actually lower than Sony and Microsoft's 6 and 7 year old machines. The anonymous developer says that the physics and AI would actually take a hit. This seems to be Nintendo's strategy in recent years, with the exception of the briefly impressive 3DS screen. Find exceptionally old technology to make a cheap system that you can sell cheaply and keep pumping out the same old nostalgia games so people will instantly be giving them a profit.

It just cracks me up honestly, especially since there are also rumblings of Sony and Microsoft's next grown up systems coming next year. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo ends up really successful off of this, because people keep eating up that gimmick bullshit.

Resident Evil 5 (PS3/X360, 2009)

With the recent announcement of Resident Evil 6, I finally had the pressure on to get the platinum trophy on Resident Evil 5. This game has been something I've played with friends off and on for 2 and a half years now. Sometimes when I go for the platinum, it's a grind, sometimes it's for the sake of getting a platinum, but for the greatest of games it's all about wanting the platinum, to say you have fully experienced a game you love. Now, for those of you who don't know what a platinum is, games have recently, started a system of hidden rewards for doing things you may not try to do. I believe the purpose of this has been to make games more replay-able, and for me it has worked very well. Xbox 360 started off with Achievements and later the Playstation modified the format into trophies, which I personally enjoy more based on small details. The platinum trophy, only comes when you get EVERY trophy in the game (with the exception of post released downloadable content, cause I don't want that crap). Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to squeeze every bit of life out of this game, and now I can say that I have.

Resident Evil 5 has been judged by many for being too action oriented for a series that defined the term survival horror. Fundamentally, the way of the old Resident Evil games was that you would find hardly any ammo, and the controls were horrible, leaving you totally horrified and vulnerable whenever zombies came at you. It really worked well and allowed for a lot of strategic gameplay, but it makes it hard to play those games in this day and age, based on how smooth controls have come. Resident Evil 4 changed everything and added more action and removed a lot of the horror, where you found yourself fighting giants and sea monsters...seriously! However it was universally praised for being an amazing game. The best of 2005 in fact, according to many.

Resident Evil 5, improved the gameplay making it less stressful, but still slightly impaired leaving you feeling claustrophobic at times and made a crucial error in making this game entirely coop. So much so, that if you are playing without a friend, you have a terribly controlled computer partner. This kills all scares completely as you are no longer walking through terror all alone. Because of that complaint this is a genuinely hated game by many...except for me. I love playing games with coop. Especially when it is split screen couch coop. Sure, the horror atmosphere is gone, but this is one of the best coop experiences that I have ever played. It has individual characters who are actually important to the story and it is fully built for it. That is what has made me play through this game so many times. Seriously, I've probably gone through the whole game about 6 times, because various different friends would want to play it with me.

My favorite thing this game had going for it, however, was it's unforgiving, matrix knock-off lead villain. Albert Whiskers...

Errrr... Albert Wesker.

This guy is so cool it's kinda funny. He can kick your ass, and you really don't stand a chance against him, because he keeps injecting himself with viruses to make him half mutated but not fully mutated (cause he's special). This makes him absurdly powerful, and half of the time, from the moment he shows up, you are
 trying to figure out how you could ever beat him. It's amazing to me that Capcom went with the weakness that they did for him, and I think it's flat out comedic gold. See those sunglasses he's wearing? Just kill the lights in the room you fight him in at the end of the game, and he'll walk around looking for you. This gives you a chance to hit him with a rocket launcher from behind. Seriously funny stuff! Kahn's weakness was his thirst for revenge. Wesker's weakness was the need to look super cool.

At this point, it's impossible to talk about Resident Evil 5 without mentioning the whole racism scandal. Let me see if you can figure this out. The game takes place in Africa... where people are being infected with a zombie-like virus on a grand scale. You're a white guy who's the member of a special ops team, who was sent in to stop it... do you see where this is going? I ask you, how could anyone argue with the fact that most of the infected would be black? Especially since a lot of the time, you are stumbling onto infected pockets of them who are more tribal. Don't get me wrong, the other half of the zombies, look like Saddam Hussein stand ins, but no one complained about that.

I figure the only way to get around that is to have your main character be a black person too, and that's what they did. Her name is Sheva, and quite honestly, she's treated very well by the story. You are also helped by an agent named Josh who is a black man. He too is a bad dude who saves you at times. I think the talk of this game being racist, is mostly coming from people who are looking for something to fight about. This is NOT a black person killing simulator!!! There is a really fun and interesting narrative, and quite frankly, I like it a lot more than Resident Evil 4, which I find nearly unplayable because of the left joystick aiming. 

If you like playing games with friends, that feature a storyline, look no further, and try to overlook the fact that it barely feels like Resident Evil 1-3 anymore. It's still a good game, if you can overlook the lack of being able to move and shoot at the same time.

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 (PS3/X360/Wii, 2010)

DISCLAIMER: I go off track a lot on this one and rant about a lot of things that piss me off that you may not particularly agree with. Feel free to tell me how stupid I am in the comments below.

Ok, I really hate Harry Potter. It's really overblown when at the end of the day it's just a children's book that hit a lot of people at a young enough age to give them the nostalgia factor. A lot of things don't hold up under those circumstances when viewed by fresh eyes. Harry Potter is a fantastic example of that, the same can be said of a certain other franchise that Lego has also taken on (not Star Wars obviously). If one thing can be said of this, it is that I was able to play through this whole game, so Lego and Traveller's Tales were at least able to keep it from being as lame as the movies were.

Years back on the PS2 I tried out Lego Batman. If you know me, you know I love Batman, but I didn't love or even like Lego Batman. It is essentially, too much of the same thing over and over again. Jump, walk, regular attack, special attack and that is it, over and over again. These games were something I decided I wouldn't bother with because they were for beginners of the gaming front, and not to sound like a snob, I need a little bit more from my games. However, when my girlfriend mentioned that she would like to try it out, I saw the opportunity to get her playing video games with me. Since we started playing this, I've been jokingly saying that her and I support game marriage. Which is great, because I'm a huge gamelord and this proved to be a successful mission. She enjoyed herself to play other video games with me and because of that, I enjoyed it too, to an extent.

Something occurred to me while playing this. This game is made for young children to play, and yet to my surprise, this game is a glitchy mess. It was honestly offensive. To make a game that suddenly kicks us out to the PS3 main menu while we were in the middle of play, is something I honestly hadn't seen anywhere else. It wasn't uncommon to get stuck in textures and to have the game freeze up. The game was pretty short, and we could only stand to play it for a few hours before stopping. Because of this, for every 1-3 hour play time, we usually had 1-2 freezes or glitches that would make us have to play through a level again or something like that. If you've read my Dark Void review, you'll understand that I am a pretty forgiving person to glitches, because with games as advanced as they are today, it's bound to happen, but for a game that is essentially a PS2 game with barely HD graphics to have even more bugs than normal, it spoke volumes to me about Traveller's Tales just not giving a shit. They made this game for stupid kids who like Harry Potter, "cause they won't know better". That's bullshit, and this is not ok. If this is how they handle their games, I'm sorry I ever bought one, and won't be buying anymore (except for Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, which I have already purchased with this game). On principle, I am not ok with pumping out bullshit for kids, but then again I suppose that is the standard for Harry Potter, isn't it? Harry Potter has more than proven that any story to a kid can be interesting or exciting, and nostalgia can be forever.

A fun experiment for me was that Indiana Jones was a series I somehow never saw as a kid. So when I finally went to watch them for the first time a few years ago, with no nostalgia at all, I thought Raiders of the Lost Ark was amazing! I then watched Temple of Doom, and thought it was amazingly bad. Then The Last Crusade which I thought was, not too bad, but nothing to write home about. I won't even go into my opinions of the newest one that nuked the fridge. The result of the no nostalgia factor has lead me to thinking that there is one good Indiana Jones movie, and the rest I could do without. Star Wars has never seemed to have that problem. To be good despite nostalgia is a sign of greatness (and no one needs to explain to me that Power Rangers is not a great show as I am aware that it's total nostalgia for me, but I'm not so jaded that I think it's the best thing ever).

I keep getting side tracked on this, but couldn't be happier that HP is done, and hopefully won't be having any more milking done with it anytime soon. If it does find a way to return, I wouldn't be surprised if the hardcore nostalgic fans of HP don't like it at all, because the nostalgia won't be there. As for this game, it blows, it's not worth the glitches as the gameplay isn't good and the storyline only excels when it's making fun of the source material (which it seems to be doing often). It has inspired me to play better coop games with my friend. We love sitting around playing with our joysticks like the gamelords that we are!

If you disagree with what I've said, tell me I'm wrong. I want to know other people's thoughts. I'm aware that my opinions aren't popular, but if Michael Bay's Transformer movies keep being "popular", then that's the last thing I want to be.