Anyone familiar with a previous GTA3 or 4 game will feel right at home in RDR. The interface, the waypoints, mapping, and mission structure is all very much in line with what we expect from Rockstar in a large open world game. That’s not a bad thing at all, it works, so keep doing it. That said, don’t be quick to dismiss RDR as “Grand Theft Horse” or just assume this has a new cowboy skin. One thing I found quite enjoyable was that Rockstar made a conscious effort to let RDR take itself more seriously. Sure, we still have the crazy array of characters, hodge-podged together to help you achieve some tasks to progress the story, and some of them are a bit silly, but nowhere near to the extent that people in previous GTA games were.

This world is big, open, sparsely inhabited, and about as far from the crowded streets of Liberty City as one can get for a setting. Rockstar has played with this space & scarcity in some amazing ways. First there’s the wildlife. This game rivals any other hunting game I’ve ever seen, and even does it with a touch of respect. The scarcity of people in the world helps dramatically improve the importance of the random encounter. A pedestrian having a run in with a thief in Liberty City seems like a “not my problem” kind of thing, while the same encounter in New Austin carries much more heft.

Another huge surprise to me was the morality play. Rockstar has been known as the developers who let you murder hookers for money. John Marston is not that kind of man. The game has an Honor and Fame meter, both of which change up as your actions play out through the story. Regardless, I found it incredibly difficult to really be a bad person in the game. I’ve thought about trying to go through the game again as a total bad-ass, but as with Mass Effect 2, I doubt I’d get all the way through my second run.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. Not so much for the poly count or the textures, but for the amazing atmosphere presented with the tech at hand. Most stills, especially while travelling, could easily feel like a painting of the southwest. The lighting, weather, and color palette really capture the beauty of that area of America, and portray it unspoiled, except for the few train tracks and telegraph poles. Likewise, the soundtrack is perfectly matched. It is restrained and beautifully adds to the game’s ambient sounds, without ever getting irritating. There are a few surprise full song appearances in the game, and when you get them, they really move you.

Red Dead Redemption is immensely fun to play, and this fun comes in many different packages, suited for many different moods and play styles. For those focused on the story, the main storyline is entirely progress-able at any time. For explorer types, the map unfolds along with the story in thirds. So only after a fair bit of story progress, you can unlock a nice chunk of new places to explore. Achievement junkies will love the ambient challenges like Marksman, Master Hunter, Survivalist, and Treasure Hunting. These all use a different bit of the gameplay mechanics to test you skills, and really create a feeling of John being a true badass of the west. The financial system is well curved, and really opens up by the end if you hunted a fair bit, and found most of the treasures. Real fans of gambling will get a huge kick out of the table games in RDR, and getting away with cheating at poker is a real thrill, especially since getting caught means having to duel in the streets. Shooting is a blast in this game, especially with the revisions to the Dead Eye mechanic. Finally, what I consider to be the real gem of this game, is the horse-riding. Not since Shadow of the Collosus has a game created such a memorable and enjoyable equine companion. That silent bond between cowboy and his horse is really crystallized as you occasionally are found without your horse, maybe find, break, and get to know a new one, and ultimately feel some loss when a cougar mauls your favorite buddy.

I’m trying to avoid any real spoliers because this game really deserves your time, but to dive a bit deeper into my opening topic, Red Dead Redemption is a game about freedom. It helps us reflect on freedom on multiple axes. Narratively, the setting and story are about more than John’s quest to save his family, it is truly a tale of a man attempting to redeem himself for his old ways. The freedom that the pioneer states had bred a certain type of life, and a certain type of man. As the sun sets on that way of life, John Marston must evolve to modernity & civilization, or disappear with all the wild horses he rides with. The game also is a meditation on freedom in gameplay. There are many times when I as the player didn’t agree with with John Marston was doing, but was forced to do them. There are other times when I was John Marston. This shift in and out of player vs. character tempts us to explore the nature of the game and it’s world. The game also leaves us the freedom to be a good guy or a bad guy, as John’s past always seems to loom over him. Sometimes the lines are blurred and it’s hard to tell what you should do, and while there’s no ultimate impact on the storyline regardless, it makes this tale from the wild west infinitely more enjoyable to watch unfold.

One Liner: The essential cowboy game, RDR is much more than GTAHorse.

Final Grade:[A+]

To any normal gamer looking over the shelves, Mass Effect 2 may look like any other sci-fi action sequel. Dudes with space armor and guns, big number 2 on the front, an EA logo slathered over the corner. You know, a big budget game. Hopefully, the marketing machine has given you all a little hint that this is a bit more special. Sci-fi video games rarely advertise around huge sports events, and for good reason. This however, is the exception to the rule. Every dork in the world already knew this was coming.. but every jock in the world may finally put down their copy of Modern Warfare 2, and give this epic game a spin.

The gameplay in Mass Effect 2 blurs many genres. It’s at one time, a very competent 3rd person shooter, with the Gears of War style pop-n-shot action we’ve all come to love (tnx Cliffy). It’s also a dialog based game with amazing facial animation & mood. Easily comparing to the strongest competitor in any other story driven adventure game. It also takes a swing at the western RPG genre, allowing for classes, parties, inventory management, skill tree upgrades, and the like. There’s even a *tiny* throwback to turn based role-playing through the radial menus, which pause the action so you can direct your party to use their abilities on specific enemies. Toss in the seldom used squad combat tactics, ala Rainbow Six, and you drop ME2 firmly into the “busts all genres” category. Of course you have the ever-persistent Bioware “good-vs-bad” meters, but this time, they’re non-exclusive! You can been a good guy, with the occasional bad-ass moment, with little penalty.

ME2 improves on ME1 in virtually every category. The graphics are improved in all aspects. Fidelity, lighting, reduced pop-up and texture loading, bump mapping is crisper across the board, blur & special effects are dropped in the right spots. It’s a huge upgrade. But graphics are not where it ends. The pacing, levels of engagement with the party members, even the side missions are all improved. Anyone familiar with ME1 will recall the listless hours spent roaming a planet in the disaster of a buggy. That’s all now replaced with a very nice landing shuttle, and 100% unique random missions. Not once, did I feel like I was repeating something I had done before. This is a massive upgrade, and one that must have taken the time & commitment of literally hundreds of people working tirelessly for months on end. Even the dreaded elevators have been perfectly replaced with (over 20 by my count) contextual loading screens that fit exactly into the portion of the game & story that you’re moving into at that time. Stunning.

Now, back to FUD. The one thing that struck me as completely essential to the Mass Effect 2 game was the clear and constant looming threat of the endgame. Early on in ME2 you are tasked with taking on what appears to be a suicide mission. You can build up your team, equipment, and insights to prepare.. but regardless, at a certain point you have to take a deep breath, and set off on a mission that you simply cannot turn back from. The story arc planners use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to let you know just how serious this end game will be. You will take losses, you may not make it yourself. No one knows what lies on the other side of the Omega relay, but once you’ve grown a pair, you will.

This struck me like few games before it ever have. I spent literally *hours* exploring, scanning, buying gear, leveling up.. all because I saw that endgame right in front of me, and I was too afraid to start it. I was seriously looking for any good reason to NOT go in there. This impresses me beyond belief. Bioware have managed to create an environment where I can see the end of the game coming a mile away, but still I delay. Still I look for reasons to not fire up the Omega relay and test myself. Genius.

Finally, after gaining the loyalty of my entire team, securing my romantic pursuits, and fortifying my ship beyond any other in the known galaxy, I took the plunge. While I’ll refrain from details of the endgame, rest assured, every decision you’ve made, every friend you’ve helped, and every single person you’ve convinced to help you in your cause comes into play in an important and valuable way. Rarely do we as gamers get to see the repercussions of our actions from the hours before play out so elegantly on the screen during the final moments of a epic like this.

One Liner: Amazing breadth of exploration, great characters and a gripping endgame. Pure epic gaming.

Final Grade: [A+]

The gameplay in Dragon Age: Origins has a solid anchor in the classic PC RPG’s of yester-year. Baldur’s Gate and Diablo both come to mind, as well as Betrayal at Krondor. DA:O nicely blends the dungeon crawl with the strategic party combat that makes all of those games fun in their own ways. At first, I thought the overworld map system felt like a cop-out, having already given 200+ hours of my life to Oblivion and Fallout, but in retrospect, I find it kept the focus at a consistent scale, always at the level of the hero and the party. This actually helps make the game’s climax feel that much more impressive. The missions are you standard “unite all the races to save this world” kind of thing, pushing you to the mages, elves, dwarves, and humans asking to support the Grey Warden’s cause. The fiction is well written and deep, and instantly reminds me of parallels from Tolkien and Martin (high praise!).

Graphically, DA:O disappoints a bit on the 360. From what I’ve read, this really should be enjoyed on a PC. The models & textures seem a bit behind what I came to expect from BioWare on 360, given what we saw with Mass Effect, and especially given what I’ve seen so far from Mass Effect 2. The removal of the PC’s “zoom out with scroll-wheel” feature also left me a bit deflated. Since I think that one feature enables the game to really feel like its moving from Diablo to a closer up feel like Mass Effect. That would have added another layer of dynamic scale that could have made the game a bit easier to control in the larger battles.

Let’s chat a bit about what makes Dragon Age fun. After I started my game, I felt almost the daily need to boot it up and continue along. Now, let’s be clear, this wasn’t a deep need to stop the blight, or save Ferelden, but mainly to dig for new loot and try to explore my party deeper. I found Morrigan to be especially pleasing to exchange with, as she’s such a different style of character, and reacts entertainingly to most exchanges. The loot system is very fun, albeit a bit slow to grind. Maybe Dragon Age and Borderlands combined will stop me from ever needing to take a dive in World of Warcraft (god knows that would be trouble). The second layer of fun here is the comparison with others who are playing it. It’s enjoyable to have water-cooler talk about the choices you made, versus the choices your friends made, and see how it all played out. Usually I found these changes to be subtle, but a few were very surprising indeed (*slight-spoiler* My wife ended up with an entirely different end game, with a different ruler, different final party, and different result of the Morrigan/Flemeth scenario that was a bit shocking to me!)

I’m a bit worried about the state of DLC these days, and DA:O brings that concern to a head. We all know EA is going to be the company to push the envelope of how & why DLC is included in a game. The prominent placement of the DLC markers in the overworld map, as well as the ability to add an entire extra character via download is a pretty major step. My biggest fear is that DLC will no longer be used to “sweeten the deal” on the long-game, but more to validate that people use download codes, and don’t buy pre-owned copies. My real hope is that interest in DLC and download-only games continues to grow on consoles, so I can stop buying physical media entirely.

Dragon Age: Origins continues to help BioWare carve out the special flavor of RPG. It’s a method of storytelling that’s equal part dialog-tree cinematics, choices of good vs evil, and a solid inventory, level, and skill management system. The one presented here is a bit dated compared to Mass Effect 2 (review coming shortly) but feels fairly equal to the first Mass Effect, and that’s a pretty good thing. I found many of the characters here decent, but only a few really shined. This is a shame because further exploring the relationship options between characters is the main highlight of the potential replay of the game, but one that I feel I don’t need to boot back up to explore.

One Liner: A solid BioWare tale with a handful of things that keep it from being really amazing.

Final Grade:[B-]

The graphics on this one are solid, but nothing that will make your jaw drop. The engine seems appropriate for this kind of world, where much is said by the tone of the dust & dirt, and draw distance says more than a high-poly building. The entire world ends up having a feeling like the inhabitants haven’t been there too long, and that the environment is harsh, regardless of the terraforming. The almost pop-up feel of the buildings, makes their easy destruction all the more realistic. One thing that did fall short was the jumping from in engine, to FMV sequences for the story bits. This change of resolution feels all the more jarring now, given how many games these days stay right in engine to tell the story. I used to love rendered FMV sequences.. but that was when poly count was really low, and usually it had something to do with Square’s ridiculous attention to detail.

Smashing stuff is fun. There is no doubt to that, and RFG really lets you enjoy smashing stuff. There is gun combat in the game, and while it’s not really perfected, it’s solid enough for how often it makes you get through it that way. You just as often can sneak in, or destroy stuff from a huge distance, or even run through in a truck. A huge hint here, play the game on Casual. You won’t get as frustrated with the combat, but the smashing is still all just as fun. The driving is a bit clunky, reminding me of the buggy sequences on Mass Effect (which is not a good thing). That said, with some patience and a bit of time, you’ll get the later upgraded items which are a real blast to tool around with. The new items end up giving just enough variety to the missions and methods to keep you entertained the whole time.

Since I was so late to this game, I didn’t end up bothering with the multiplayer, nor did I really want to commit the time to the collection quests, so not much metagame here for me. I always love a game with an economy, and making cash by collecting salvage was a pretty enjoyable bit of the game. I did however only upgrade the items I enjoyed using from the offset, so maybe I missed some advanced versions of some of the more obscure weapons and gear. Oh well.

One Liner: If you like to smash things, Red Faction Guerrilla doesn’t disappoint. Solid open world scifi action.

Final Grade:B-

Virtual Tennis 2009 still plays almost like the original. There’s the exhibition mode, which is the same as the arcade machine. Pick your major tennis pro, and go all out in a huge famous stadium. This is the core game at it’s best. Without a doubt, this is a solid core tennis game. The action is fast, fun, and really makes you feel like you are working hard for your points. The second major mode is the career mode. You get to design your custom character, and fly around the world working your way up the ranks. Sadly, this takes FAR too long for it to be very enjoyable. After winning 7 amateur tournaments with only letting 2 points get by me, I was still ranked 95th on the amateur leaderboard. Clearly you’ll need to devote an extraordinary amount of time training, practicing, and playing the silly tennis practice games to level your character up. It’s like a tennis RPG, but with ONLY the grind part. Ugh.

The graphics are pretty dated. Possibly this game is using some average middlewear, since the Wii version looks almost the same as the 360 version. That’s never good. Luckily the fluid motion capture helps you ignore the creepy looking character models.

Again, this game is a fun core tennis engine. That part is definitely fun. Sadly, many of the rough edges, the slow pace & progress in the career mode, and the pretty horrific load times, make me not want to turn it on again. Maybe I’ll give the original a spin on the Dreamcast again, and see what the differences really are.

One Liner: While the core tennis engine is still great, VT2009 feels dated and clunky.
Final Grade:[C]

ODST stands for Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, which is an awkward acronym that really just means “You’re Not A Spartan This Time”. You can’t jump as high, your can’t dual wield, you can’t fall 10 stories with just a “little sting”, and you can’t take hits like a spartan, but you CAN still flip over a warthog.. so don’t feel too bad. The name of the game here is teamwork, and Bungie has done everything in their power to work teamwork into the game. The campaign mode works flawlessly with up to 4 people, and works it into the game in every way except putting the other players into the cut scenes. I had a blast running through the story with friends, and look forward to trying to run through again on Legendary, and hunt for skulls (yep, they’re back!).

Graphically, ODST looks exactly like Halo 3, with one exception. The ODST guys all wear the handily named VISR helmets, that give them some data overlays, and help identify friend & foe (we can’t all have military AI girls injected into our brains now, can we..). The light enhancing comes in super handy because most of the overworld (and interiors) are quite dark in the now abandoned New Mombasa. The edge effects also are very well done, and give everything a New Tron smell that is very enjoyable. Mix that up with the Vangelis-touched overworld soundtrack, and you have blended enough pre-millennial sci-fi homage in to pique the interest of anyone who values the phrases “Nexus 6″ “Neo-Tokyo” or “Flynn’s Arcade”.

The E3 clip gives a solid overview of the story mode..

Onto the fun factor. I’d say overall that ODST is the best attempt by Bungie to tell a Halo story. It uses character to much greater effect, and the Rookie-flashback storytelling mechanic works very well to tie the story together. The New Mombasa overworld sections also give you a few minutes to cool off after each of the individual ODST’s hectic end segments. It’s brilliantly paced, but you only notice it as soon as you’re done, and mutter to yourself about how short it was, then realize it wasn’t short, it was just smoothly paced. Note to anyone with an ounce of FPS experience, you MUST play this game on Heroic or Legendary, as Normal is a joke (just like in Halo 3). The PvP is actually just Halo 3, so nothing to note there that hasn’t been said for a long while now. It’s awesome, fun, and hopefully you didn’t buy all the map packs, so you’ll get a giant burst of new content all at once.

All the Halo 3 metagaming is here, Legendary taunts you with it’s difficulty, there’s skulls to be found all through the story, and there’s a sub-plot (which is arguably better than the MAIN plot) that is hidden in the overworld through 30 audiofiles to be found around the massive map. ODST adds in the now trendy “progress bar of the mini-achievements” feature that I first loved in Shadow Complex. If they just added the bait of your nearest friend’s count as well, I’d probably be itching to get them faster than I am now. Now let’s talk about Firefight. Firefight is the only new multiplayer mode added with the ODST package, and it’s a doozy. Ok, so you know how in every Halo game, there’s this perfection of the heat of battle, where you struggle to fire off enough shots to drop a shield, and run in for a melee kill, or drop a frag into that nice pile of grunts, only to alert the brutes with them and start a big ol’ mess of combat that you eat up like the best bbq ribs on the planet? Right. So take that, and drop it into a closed environment, like Gears of War 2′s Horde mode, then string together those moments and slowly increase the difficulty by 1 notch every 3 minutes. THAT is Firefight, and it’s a wonderful thing to experience. For people new to Halo, it may feel like a bit too much all at once, but.. for those of you who play Halo like you drive a BMW, fully connected to the world and expressive beyond your own controller, it’s heavenly. Think of Firefight as that curvy mountainside road that you get to drive on very aggressively to test out your skills (and your teamwork skills as well!). Sweetness.

One final thing to note. The Halo series is one of the few FPS games (especially being console based) that really nails the immersion factor. Way too many people think that “immersion” comes from a game’s perspective. There is nothing specific about the first-person camera view that makes a game more immersive. Immersion comes from the ability for a control system to disappear, a world to be reactive in a rock-solid way, and for game mechanics to be so reliable that you literally become expressive with them. To a seasoned player, the Halo universe feels like an extension of the real world, and that’s something that many other games, and generally no FPS’s, really attain. ODST is still Halo 3, and that’s a very good thing. I feel comfortable in Halo 3, I know exactly what box I can jump up onto, how many shotgun butts to the face that brute will take to drop, and if I’m feeling spunky, just what arc I need to toss the sticky grenade to drop it on that guys head over on the other side of that wall. Feels like home.

One Liner: ODST is the best Halo storytelling yet, and Firefight sweetens the deal.
Final Grade:[A]

Batman: Arhkam Asylum is an original story, which borrows from plenty of other older Batman stories. This one, by the end, feels like it could have been it’s own miniseries, or at least a graphic novel. It’s dark, brooding, and recalls most of what I enjoyed about the original Frank Miller “The Dark Knight”. It deals with the deeper mental issues of Batman/Bruce Wayne, but only for a little moment between ass beatings. Perfect. The gameplay is simple. You are Batman, doing Batman shit, all around Arkham Asylum, which is in a pretty crap situation. That’s it! You get to wield a wide array of Batman gadgets which are slowly added & unlocked (with fair reasoning) through the story. Plus, all the benefits of being a super well trained martial artist, billionaire vigilante, chemist, and superstar detective. Fun stuff.

The graphical style is great. The UI gives reference to the Frank Miller work I’ve already mentioned, and the game engine is DARK. Which, is ideal for Batman. If you’re put off by the extra blueness they seem to have added to the costume, fear not, as that is maybe the only reason you can even SEE him in the game engine. The character designers have taken some liberties with the costume & overall look of the character & villains, and this is good. You can tell that the Rocksteady team really wanted to get this to feel like it’s own Batman story, and it’s a huge success overall. Personally, I felt that the last 3 hours felt “a tad too long”, but anyone who plays this over more than two marathon sittings (as I did) will probably enjoy the pacing more.

Thirty minutes into the game, I get some nice recollections of Riddick: Butcher Bay (and that’s a good thing), hints of Metroid Prime, a touch of Assasin’s Creed, and a deep undercurrent of any recent Zelda game (Ocarina/Twilight) especially with hookshots and boomerangs all over the place. All of these are awesome things to borrow from, in my opinion. The game uses visual layers (dubbed Detective View), in engine narrative, and a hub-and-spoke world map system that has worked very well before, and it doesn’t fail this time. The game progress is very linear, and while it feels very natural, you pretty much know everyone else playing the game is having the exact same path & experience as you. Sorta like a comic book! Hey, look at that! Another thing I really enjoyed were the Scarecrow sequences, they usually sneak up on you in interesting ways, and remind me of the “fear effects” in Eternal Darkness or some of the trickery Kojima had Psycho Mantis try in MGS1.

The combat system is solid, I found the “Freeflow” combo system to be fun for the first half of the game, but get a bit tiring towards the end as the game dishes out tons of enemies at once, and there’s not that much variety in your capabilities. This feels quite similar to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Assasin’s Creed. Tolerable, but not ideal for the 10 hours or so I plopped into the game. There’s not too much of a unique metagame to be had here, as collectibles, all the Riddler’s lame puzzles, and the hidden trinkets end up unlocking some character statues, bios, but nothing of note that would advance or hold up the game beyond the normal progression. Batman never pushes beyond the well crafted story & execution that is it’s single player campaign, and I don’t really think it needs to. It’s a great story as it is, and the extras are there if you’re a completionist, or have way too much time on your hands.

As I began with, Batman: Arkham Asylum is a brilliant use of the Batman license. Over the years I’ve almost become conditioned to expect a licensed game to suck, and occasionally I’m pleasantly surprised by something slightly better than average. In this case, this game not only earns the respect that the Batman license deserves, but it hold solid with every other top tier action game of this year. This is a huge win for Eidos (who desparately needs some wins lately) and a great effort by Rocksteady Studios. Overall this is not just one of the best Batman and comic hero games ever made, in many ways this is the Bioshock of the superhero genre. It’s a refreshing mood, tone, and approach to experiencing the Batman world, and has enough unique moments in it to make you think back fondly of the time you spent with it.

One Liner: Not just a great Batman game, this is the Bioshock of the superhero genre.
Final Grade: [A]