[REVIEWS] Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (by Phantom Stranger)

 Reviews  Comments Off on [REVIEWS] Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (by Phantom Stranger)
Dec 262013
 

phantom_stranger_presents_header

From the desk of Phantom Stranger:

“Taking place in 18XX (What is this Mega Man?) The Belmont Family has been missing since 1797. But with the strong possibility of Dracula’s revival looming, several organizations have appeared in the Belmont Families absence to rid the world of Dracula.

At the forefront of these organizations is Ecclesia, headed by Barlowe who may have found a way to destroy Dracula using a type of spell called a Glyph. This particular Glyph set is made up of three different spells and when combined they form Dominus, and it is of immense power.

However, the Glyphs need a host body to unleash their power. The one chosen for this role is Shanoa, a member of Ecclesia and Barlowe’s personal disciple. But the ritual is interrupted by a fellow member of Eccleisa named Albus. Albus claims that Barlowe promised him and him alone the power of Dominus. Albus defies Barlowe’s orders, attacks him and steals the Glyphs for his self, but Albus is unable to properly absorb them.
During the scuffle, Shanoa was knocked unconscious and upon awaking has no memories, possibly taken by Albus along with Dominus. She must retrain her skills, find Albus and take Dominus back.

Storywise, I enjoyed this but there are some problems. Unlike PoR, we don’t have any connections here. We’re given a completely new cast with no connections to the Belmonts, or anyone else for the matter. We also finally get to see what was going on before the Morris family inherited the Whip and before the Lecarde family had the Spear. Leaving the year vague was also a good idea. We can assume this happens before the events told in Bram Stoker’s Novel, but we’re not too sure. Koji “IGA” Igarashi, has expressed a slight displeasure in using his revised timeline, stating:

“Because Dracula only appears every 100 years, we made the whole timeline and ran out of places to put in another game. I made the timeline, but I shouldn’t have actually released it, because now it’s all official. That was a bad decision.”-IGA in an interview with WIRED.“

Click the View/Discuss button below to read the rest of this VERY comprehensive review!

View_Discuss

Deadpool Pre-Order on STEAM! Game Available: June 25th, 2013

 Spotlight  No Responses »
May 232013
 

news movies television entertainment

Come on folks. We all love Deadpool and the most popular games play it here !

Playing through Deadpool feels about as schizophrenic as its main character. On the one hand, it’s zany, wacky, goofy, silly, sophomoric, and many more adjectives that Thesaurus.com suggests. This is a funny game – that is, if you’re into dick jokes and casual sexism. If not, then Deadpool – the character and the game – will grate on you like a buzzsaw on hard cheese.

On the other hand, much of the Deadpool gameplay experience is formulaic and safe…so safe you might think developer High Moon Studios is playing some sort of self-referential “hey, isn’t it ironic how normal this is?” meta-gag on you. But it’s not. No, Deadpool talks a big game but delivers a standard action experience that is the turducken of videogame parody: It is what it parodies what it is.

For those not familiar with the glory of the one and only “Merc with a Mouth,” the spandex-clad Deadpool is himself a parody of an anti-hero. A mainstay of Marvel Comics, he was given a healing factor by the Weapon X boys (the same ones who adamantium-ized Wolverine) in an experimental procedure that left him certifiably insane – and self-aware that he is in fact a comic book character. For that reason, Deadpool also knows he’s a videogame character. In fact, he starts the story – what little there is – by forcing High Moon to make a game about him and then throws out the script it sends over to him for approval. It’s a fittingly insane approach that’s true to Deadpool’s character, even if it doesn’t make for a strong story.

Armed with guns, katanas, and an unhealthy love for chimichangas, Deadpool pokes fun at videogame clichés and tropes almost as much as he pokes bad guys with sharp objects. It’s pretty obvious that Deadpool’s writers had a blast bringing this character into interactive 3D; he regularly has arguments with the voices in his head, and at one point can hop on word bubbles emanating from his diseased mind to cross a toxic river. At one point, you can even instigate a creepy stalker situation between a dialogue tree option and yourself. It’s pretty inventive, clever stuff that’s made even more enjoyable by Nolan North’s very enthusiastic delivery as the voice of Deadpool.

But then there’s the little matter of the repetitive gameplay. In pseudo Batman-style, you can chain together combos with a mix of melee and shooting combat that, while not exactly bad, starts off uninteresting and grows more stale the longer you play. It can be fun slicing into a henchman one second before finishing him off with a shotgun blast to the head, but there’s not enough variety in attacks and tougher enemies can seem unreasonably resistant to your relentless hacking.

[Click to view AFTER THE HUMP!]

[PRE-ORDER NOW!]

NECA’s Chell from Portal 2, Review (by georox)

 Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 222013
 

Limited edition figure, only 15,000 worldwide.  This lovely figure of Chell features everything you would expect. Wearing her Aperture Laboratories tanktop, with her orange and white jumpsuit tied around her waist and long fall boots, Chell is prepared to escape the testing facilities, with or without the help of a potato.

{Click here to see the full review and more photos from georox}