Deus Ex: The Conspiracy

I feel bad when I hate games that are generally regarded with found memories. It is worth mentioning that many games have weak openings and get better later on. If I am not in love with it in the first thirty minutes I am loath to give it any more time. That is a THIRD of a movie, it is as much time as it takes me to eat lunch, it is in my opinion quite long enough to come up with something redeeming.
I am of the opinion that all of the first person shooters before the xbox 360 / playstation 3 era kind of sucked. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of good ones for PC, I just mean all of the ones for consoles sucked. ALL OF THEM. I want to be proven wrong about this, but so far I have not been.

This game had a good opening video. It hit all the right notes, showing how evil the corporate villains with their shadowy mega-corp are, not getting too cartoony about it (like in RoboCop). Then it throws you into a menu with all the style and flair of a Dungeons and Dragons stat sheet where you decide what to invest your points in. On the PS2 they had the ability to give each of these a sexy little explanation video, however, they chose not to. This menu didn't even have cool looking icons. After reading the explanations for each skill I invested all my points in melee weapons skills and started the game. It Soon became readily apparent that there was no hand to hand combat, my character may be a futuristic special agent of some sort, but he is incapable of throwing a punch, he might have bio-engineered flashlights inside his freaking eyeballs, but he can't kick to save his life. Fine whatever I'll just use my cattle prod baton. What's that? I can only use it three times? Well I can still use it to bludgeon people with once it is out of batteries right? NO! OK, I'll use my pistol. six bullets you say? Now I have a baton (traditionally used for HITTING PEOPLE) which I cannot hit people with, a pistol that is out of bullets and cannot be used for pistol whipping, and a sniper rifle that ALSO only has one clip. One clip for each of my guns and a single battery for my stun baton. . . Apparently they did not anticipate me running into more than 12 people on this one man assault of a terrorist cell, and their budget did not allow for providing me with extra munitions just in case. I might be able to sneak past some of the guys I used up all my bullets on, but despite the fact that I am a secret agent for some sort of woefully underfunded police agency, and that I live in a future where people have flashlights implanted in their eyeballs, I have some sort of untreated, and debilitating, knee condition that prevents me from crouching or kneeling. I am in capable of ducking behind any of the crates for cover, but I can jump up and down if I wish, my knees can still do that.
Speaking of crates, I have to use up bullets to open them. I, having no ability to punch or kick, am dependent on my gun or stun baton to break open wooden crates, and am apparently incapable of opening the metal ones. I did not enjoy this game.

game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 2.5

Killer 7

I did not care for this game. I am not saying it is entirely without merit, there may be people who enjoyed it, and I would not respect them any less because of that, but I didn't like it at all. It has a cool cell shaded art style, it has a cool premise, and an interesting mechanic, it also has a painfully dull and poorly designed tutorial. Well designed games, games like portal, have a tutorial that is seamlessly melded with the game play so it is fun to do. Games with a mediocre to average level of designed have a tutorial you have to play through in the first level, or simply have the choice of doing if you want. Poorly designed games, like this game, have a menu you can go to where game mechanics are explained to you in dull text rather than demonstrated. Bonus points if this vital information is only accessible from a single point on the map instead of being in your pause menu. More bonus points if the long list of short explanations are poorly organized and take a LOOOONG time to go through. But wait there's more! Its not just a just a series of short articles on game play you can read through at your own pace, there is an obnoxious guy in a gimp suit who reads them to you. It is impossible to read them faster, or to skip past the intro lines he says EVERY TIME you open an article. There are like 30 different articles explaining different aspects of the woefully unintuitive game play, by the time you have read them all you have heard this same introductory phrase several dozen times.
I like a good disjointed, unnerving, dream sequence style surrealism, and this game has some of that, the problem is it also has the most annoying aspects of traditional narrative devices to let you know a character is insane. Why is it assumed that all crazy people perceive all written text in a bare legible, irregularly kerned, mixed caps, font? Why is it assumed the mentally ill see the world through a jittery blinking camera view? Why is it assumed that when ones brain is not functioning normally it also effects the function of their electronic devices? Schizophrenia does not intermittent static on televisions and radios.
Maybe there are people who would not be bothered by these myriad faults. Maybe the game play on the first level is just boring and the later levels are more interesting. Maybe the crazy and disjointed control style grows on you after a while. . . but I doubt it.

Game play video

in a five star ranking system
I give this game 1.5

Grimgrimoire

This game is made by the same people who did Odin Sphere so it is similarly pretty, but not quite as impressively so. The side scrolling RTS style game play means you are not zoomed in as close and thus less able to appreciate the detail of the character design, the levels are all indoors so the gorgeous landscapes and sunsets of Odin Sphere are replaced by stone walls, and the colors are not as bright and vibrant. The cut scenes are still great, but I didn't find the neo-victorian style of people at the magic university as visually arresting as the show girls and battle armor, quasi medieval fashions of Odin Sphere. Don't get me wrong this game is very pretty, its just not as pretty as Odin Sphere. I did find the story and the game play more engaging though. I am a fan of RTS games, and Harry Potter style story about a new student at a woefully unsafe school for which craft and wizardry is interesting.

game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 4

Odin Sphere

This game is gorgeous. It might be the only game ever where the game play looks exactly like the box cover art. There are a lot of games that have a well developed esthetic. The high contrast black & white, moody shadows, and uncluttered visual field are all trademarks of film noir, which has a well developed esthetic, but nobody has ever accused it of being especially pretty.
This game has a bright, colorful, detailed, and engaging visual design. Imagine the prettiest 2D fighting game you ever played, but every level is a loop so if you move in either direction long enough you end up back where you started, also it has RPG elements. Its still a fighting game, but every time you beat someone you are leveling up.
Your character is an improbably attired worrior woman, but not in the traditional mostly naked but for an armored bikini kind. She looks less like a stripper and more like a show girl, a 1940's show girl. Really her only esposed skin is on her shoulders. She has a head dress made of bright azure feathers and a tutu skirt constructed of the same material. Or so it appears until you start learning her moves. She can glide along horizontally mid jump like Princess Peach in Super Mario Brothers 2, but when she does her tutu flares out to reveal it is actually two bright blue birds wings sprouting from her hips.
There are a variety of moves, one learns spells as they go along, and every time an enemy is vanquished you can gather the glowing orbs they drop to level up, or plant one of the seeds you have collected. All plants feast on the glow balls of fallen warriors, just like you, but will yeild different fruits.
The bosses are a monument to the forgotten tradition of the chunky sprite. Large segmented bodies taking up most of the screen and moving about menacingly. They are, like everything else in this game, a pleasure to look at.

Game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 4.5

Shadow of Destiny

Dammit, if the games I intend to keep playing continue to stack up like this I am not going to have time for much else. I will admit I was not looking forward to playing this game, because I literally judged it by its cover. The cover looks boring.
I was expecting a J-RPG but the game play is more akin to survival horror, except I found it more engaging that I usually find the denizens of that particular genera. The game begins with a young woman leaving a cafe, glancing significantly at her watch in a foreshadowing fashion, and walking down a cobblestone street in what looks to be a cute little German village before getting stabbed in the back by an unseen assailant. Our protaganist wakes up on a floating island with Lewis Carroll decorating scheme and is told by a disembodied voice that she can go back in time and prevent her own death. Our protagonist speaks for the first time, voicing her concerns, in a distinctly masculine voice. It appears the main character is actually a dude. . .   The funny thing is it actually took more work to give him a small and delicately rounded chin. A big rectangular block would have been much easier to render. Whatever, the sex of my character is irrelevant, the point is I have to travel through time to prevent my own death. Being use to video games where I can stab blood thirsty raptors to death with a hunting knife, I just assumed that I was to walk down the same cobble stone street again, but this time be prepared to fight my assailant. As it turns out, my interactions with the world are limited to having conversations, opening doors, and traveling through time. I must go back to before the attack and gather a group of people to stand next me when I am to be murdered, so that my would be killer will give up and try again later when there are no witnesses. This seems like a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. None the less I am intrigued. I will definitely be playing more of this game when I have time.

Game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 4

Okami

This game is fantastic. I sat down to do a quick 30 minute play through and write off a review and still have time for a snack before I head off to class. An hour and a half later I noticed how long I'd been playing and shoved a bag of trail mix into my pocket as I scrambled to get out the door on time. This reminded me of Zelda game in the way that you are a mute protagonist who still manages to have conversations with villagers in between going on quests.
The drawing mechanic works better than I would expect with a analogue stick and controls in general are just great. The cell shading and overall esthetic of the game is gorgeous and the game play has great flow. It is a game that sucks you in, and makes you want to ruin all of the beautiful environments by cutting everything in half with your slashing paintbrush maneuver. I also really appreciate that in every encounter with a village person you are given the opportunity to either speak to them, or bite them. If you decide to grab them in your jaws and drag them a short distance they are not overly perturbed and are perfectly to carry on the conversation after they have regained their footing.
The pause menu also keeps a list of all the enemies you have encountered, as well as all of the friendly wild life. This is another game I am going to have to play more of after I have worked my way through all of the games awaiting review.

Game play video

In a five star rating system
I give this game 5

Time Splitters

This is very much an old school first person shooter, complete with the mostly absent story line and the detached ice skating feeling of a camera that moves too fast over unnaturally smooth surfaces. It was rather startling to go from the long cinematic intro movies that I have had an my last few reviews to this. On the main screen I was given a choice between story mode and arcade. After selecting story mode I was given a choice between "1935 Tomb", "1970 Chinese", "2005 Cyberden". It is worth noting that 2005 was half a decade into the future when this game was released. I initially thought it might be an overly pretentious name for a internet cafe, which would make sense based off of the (date location) model established by the first option "1935 Tomb", but then there was the second option. . .   Is it possible Cyberden is a nationality? Only one way to find out. I select the "future" level with a date that is more than 8 years past and feel very old. Given a choice between two quasi futuristic garbed characters wearing clothes that look NOTHING like anythying people were wearing in 2005 I choose the female, Chastity Detroit, and begin the level. I start out in a dilapidated warehouse, no story, no nothing. Well, maybe if I check the pause menu.
"Get the Cyborg's plans and return to the ventilation ducts"
That's all I get? Why do I want these plans? What is at stake? Why is this worth dying for? And I do die, quickly and often. These Cyborgs are tough, I can't even make it past the first room. . .   Maybe its time to try a different level.
1935 Tomb, after fighting my way past a number of guards I make it to the room where I am suppose to steal the artifact, but it is guarded by walking skeletons with peaces of dry leathery skin stretched over their bones. Mummies, sans bandages, this is pretty cool. They fall before my Tommy gun just like all the guards and I am on my way, but now that I am trying to retrace my way through the labyrinthine catacombs through which I came, I find that they are crawling with mummies, some of them have Tommy guns just like mine. This is WAY cooler than the stupid cyber den. I still die a bunch of times and never make it through the level, but at least I always manage to make it to the macguffin, some times I almost make it out. This game could do with a bit more story and a bit less brutal difficulty.

Game play video (this guy liked it way more than I did, he is also better at it)

in a five star ranking system
I give this game 2.5