OVERVIEW
Global Agenda is an MMO that takes place in 2155 after WW3 turns the entire world to rubble. In the ashes of the Earth an oppressive government called the Commonwealth arises, determined to take control of the new world by force. You (and all the other players) assume the role of an Agent, an advanced soldier part of a small group of rebels determined to wipe out the Commonwealth. Under the leadership of Dalton Bancroft, you have a small chance. In the game you’ll run through a plethora of missions in one outdoor area, then you’ll move to the instances which launch from a lobby. However, I’ll get to that in a moment. The story of the game sucks. I’ll be to the point. I don’t like it too much, but we all like different things. If worked correctly, it could be cool. For now, it lacks any depth whatsoever. But that’s not enough to turn me away.

GAMEPLAY
Since Global Agenda is an MMO, there’s going to be classes, levels, a talent system and raids. Upon making your character, you’re allowed to choose from four classes; Assault, Recon, Medic and Robotics. The Assault class is your general tank. He normally wields a minigun and has a massive health pool. The Recon class can go two ways; melee and sniping. Melee is more for PvP and sniping PvE. Either way, the Recon does a great deal of damage if played correctly, but since it’s the most popular class (that I’ve seen) most people just choose it because it looks cool. It does look cool and it’s a fun class to play as, but it’s not fun if you don’t know what you’re doing. The medic is well.. a medic. I think we all know what medics do. Now, the robotics is my personal favorite, and is the “engineer” class. A lot like the engineer from TF2, you build turrets, health stations, power stations, force fields and deploy drones. If you play it correctly you’re a one man army, and in my opinion this is the funnest class to play.

Global Agenda is a third person over-the-shoulder shooter, where you grab a gun and start playing. You have unlimited ammo, but you have a power pool that drains every time you fire your weapon or use your jetpack or special abilities. Oh yeah, the jetpacks are awesome. PvE in the game isn’t too great. You’re given a massive area with a string of quests, but that’s for lower levels. Once you’re done with the open world area you go to lobbies and do instances. That part gets boring fairly quickly, but the PvP is fun. It has gamemodes like point control and payload (seems TF2 inspired some stuff in this game) and is generally fun to play.

ENVIRONMENT
Since there isn’t much of a story, you’re either outside in a desert or inside “Dome City” and waiting to join an instance. Therefore, I can’t grade the environment too well.. but in reading my other sections you get a good idea of what things are like.

GRAPHICS
As far as MMOs go, the graphics for this game are actually pretty good. Effects are fun to look at and you have great character customization to make your own agent. The world textures are good quality and nothing is truly bland, except for some parts of the desert area. However, this game is resource intensive and even on the lowest graphics settings low-end computers will probably experience problems. The good news is, the game is free and you can just use canyourunit to see if you’re good to go.

WHAT’S GOOD
Global Agenda has a lot of things going for it. It’s free to play, offers a new take on MMOs, has good upper-level raids and is more simple than most other MMOs. The PvP is excellent and if you’re in a good Agency (guild) you will always have someone to play with.

WHAT’S CRAP
The same thing that makes Global Agenda fun also makes it not as fun. Free to play accounts level at half the speed of paid accounts, and receive half the loot. You do not get loot at the end of missions, you cannot use the auction house or the mail system, create agencies, and you get ads using in-game voice. In addition, I do not like the PvE, unless it’s a raid. It’s extremely repetitive and gets old fairly quickly, considering for the higher levels all you can do is run instances. But I’d suggest giving it a try, it’s free after all.

OVERVIEW
The Witcher 2 places you in the role of a man named Geralt. Geralt is a Witcher, a monster hunter. Although at the start of the game you don’t feel like a monster hunter, until it gets going. Be warned, I’m going to talk about the first 30 minutes of the game for a bit. You wake up in a prison cell, shackled to the ceiling and helpless while two guards take their turns beating you. You end up in a interrogation room and speak to a man named Roche, who questions you about certain events that transpired in the past few days. You have amnesia and can’t remember every detail, but manage to share what you know. Instead of Geralt simply just telling the story, you’re put in his place during the events. Personally, I thought that was cool and even though many games do that it fit the story very well. I won’t spoil it for you, but The Witcher 2 definitely doesn’t seem like other RPGs from the very start. It doesn’t start off with the traditional “build your way up”, instead opting to use power from the get-go. Although I will tell you that you do end up in a prison and you lose your items for a bit.

GAMEPLAY
Be prepared to fight tough groups of enemies often. This game is not easy. Well, for me at least. I started off playing on normal and eventually had to switch to easy. Call me a wimp if you want. I guarantee you’ll be switching the difficulty too. I can only imagine what the game is like on the harder levels. With that said though, the combat is very fun. It gives you a “battlemage” feel with allowing you to use magic (called signs) and conventional weapons at the same time. One press of a button and you can use each. You can’t spam the crap out of the spells though, because a recharging use meter drains quickly. You’re strong, but not overpowered. The combat is entertaining, albeit frustrating at some points. The enemy AI often switches between being way too smart and being way too dumb. I won one fight by having the foe chase me around a pole until I healed and blasted him with spells. Although considering the difficulty of some points that’s more of a blessing. Regardless of those flaws, the game is centered around combat and it’s good at it. Animations are crisp and look lifelike. You won’t tire of the combat in this game.

ENVIRONMENT
The Witcher 2 environment is excellent. It changes constantly and I haven’t even played through a massive chunk of the game yet. One moment you’re fighting on castle walls, then in a small and confined prison. The world is nicely laid out and obvious time went into it. I’ve got no complaints about the environments being dull or clones of each other. Everything looks unique.

GRAPHICS
The Witcher 2 is a beautiful game. I’d go so far as to say the graphics rival Crysis and Crysis 2. The settings are breathtaking, from lush forests to incredibly detailed buildings and interiors. The characters look more real than any game I’ve ever seen. No joke. Each and every detail is worth looking at. From the streets to the buildings. It truly is a beautiful game. The few problems I have with it aren’t major but bug me a little. The lip sync on the characters seem more like their lips moving up and down and side to side. While that isn’t that noticeable and doesn’t take away from the beauty it does bother me a bit. Also, the game seems to stutter very slightly at points. When Geralt is walking and turning it isn’t a gradual turn, more like an instant turn to the left or right. Again, not that bad but kind of bothered me.

Sadly, the graphics come at a price. A big price. If your computer isn’t powerful, you might want to think about buying this game on the Xbox 360, although it’s never as pretty on consoles. Still, it’s well worth the price.

WHAT’S GOOD
The Witcher 2 is an RPG worthy of good players who will appreciate it. The story is complex and intriguing, and the combat is excellent, as are the graphics. To be honest, it’ll keep me busy for a while. Should you buy or rent it, be prepared to invest hours into it. You control many parts of the story, similar to Mass Effect but not as complex. A good character upgrade system will keep you from needlessly spending your talent points and makes you think about how you should move on.

WHAT’S CRAP
While it’s an amazing game, it has problems. The main ones being some characters trying too hard to be funny and forgettable. The lip syncing isn’t the greatest and some animations seem neglected. Combat is very difficult and infuriating at times. If you don’t save often be prepared to be thrown back a good fifteen minutes to the last autosave. There isn’t much of a stealth system and the user interface can be overwhelming if you don’t understand it quickly.

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods is an “enhanced” version of the classic 2006 RPG. It introduced a new combat system, new armor, etc. Everything you’d like to see in a revamp, along with a new engine to top it all off. For old fans of the series, it seems like it’d bee a good game to pick up to relive the moments of Gothic 3 again. For the new guy (like me) Gothic 3 was something that people spoke highly about. Gothic 3: FG tried to bring back the old Gothic gameplay without ruining the old style feel. Or so we think. From the start, the game seems cool. The nameless hero wakes up with one goal; reunite Myrtana from a war between the humans and the orcs. The land has been drenched in war for a while now and it’s up to you to stop it. Of course, you’re weak and barely escaped death a few days before. But hey, that’s how most RPGs start.

After about three minutes, the game gets confusing. The quest log interface sucks. Horribly. The quest log doesn’t tell you where you can find people, it only says vague things like “collect taxes from these people.” Well that’s fine, but could you tell me WHERE these people are? The quest log system sucks, to say the least. However, things aren’t always based off the quest log. And that’s where I go to next.

GAMEPLAY

The Gothic series has tried to replicate The Elder Scrolls since day one, without trying to look like too much like a copy. Now that’s fine, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But Gothic 3: FG just ruins everything it touches. The combat is smooth, I’ll give it that. The animations are excellent, (although because the impact sounds are virtually nonexistant I never figure out if I hit my target until I see his health go down) but the combat appeal stops there. This game is incredibly difficult. The combat is infuriating at times. So much so I quit playing at some points. The monster encounters on the road are so unbalanced that it made me furious. One guy (me) versus four dragonfly things that are faster and can poison you to death in a few seconds? No thanks.

The character development is interesting. You start off with basic skills such as swordsmanship, hunting (archery) and so on. As you progress, you learn from characters upgrades for each skill. It’s not that user friendly, but nothing about this game truly is.

GRAPHICS

The graphics engine is excellent. The textures and models are varied and work obviously went into them. The landscapes are beautiful and the world truly does come alive. At some points, the textures can get bland but that doesn’t happen very often, and when it does it’s hardly noticeable. The one downside to the graphics engine is the fact that every few minutes when walking into a new areas, it lags for a few seconds. This gets annoying, and even on my rig it lagged a little. If your computer sucks, you don’t want to bother with this game at all. It’ll just destroy the computer.

ENVIRONMENT

Like I said before, the landscape is varied and looks beautiful. Mountains, lakes, forests, caves. It’s all here and varied. Nothing appears to be a copy of anything. That’s always nice. However, the few towns in the extremely hostile world are small and void of life. The occasional person you see is a generic “Blacksmith” or “Miner” and you can’t interact with them. It’s sad, really.

WHAT’S GOOD

Interesting world, filled with random encounters that keep you on your toes, and a plethora of loot and weapons await you. It’s fun for people who like to pick up everything they see (considering you have unlimited inventory space) and sell it all. Combat is challenging, but at some parts too challenging. The graphics are excellent, and the towns are all unique. All in all, it’s more of an environment game than an RPG. If you must absolutely need an RPG, it’s your choice, but for most of us we need something more.

WHAT’S CRAP

The game tried to be something good, unfortunately it just didn’t get there. Frustrating combat, bad interfaces and an uninteresting story screw this game over. That’s probably why this review is my shortest ever. The game just isn’t fun to play. It sucks. Because it seems cool for a bit then just gets crappy.

OVERVIEW

In Portal 2, you resume the role of Chell once more. Many people may be asking, “What could this game be about if I beat the first one?” (For those who haven’t beaten the first one, I won’t spoil it for you, the rest of you know what I’m talking about.) Well, the game reveals that pretty quickly. NOTE: I’m going to be talking about the first 15 minutes or so of the game from here on, skip this section if you don’t want to see the very beginning.
BEGINNING OF FIRST 15 MINS You wake up as Chell in what appears to be a hotel room, which is dubbed a “Relaxation chamber.” After going through the basic movements, you go back to sleep.. and wake up about a hundred years later, to the sound of someone knocking on your door. That someone turns out to be Wheatley, a little robot who was the manager of the relaxation chambers. He wants to get out of Aperture Labratories, and you’re going to help him.
END OF FIRST 15 MINS. Throughout the game, you’ll encounter so many memorable parts that you’ll remember them for a long time to come. Great puzzles, great jokes (they actually made me laugh.. a lot.) and great characters show that this game truly wanted to be a worthy sequel. There’ll be a lot of great times in the game. A few frustrating times, but they’re insignificant and the great times make up for them in a big way.

GAMEPLAY

Portal’s original puzzle style gameplay combined with an ingenious portal gun turned out to be a game changer in the first game. Although it was limited to little boxes where you couldn’t see much from other than the white colored walls that kept you in as a lab rat. This time around, it’s been a long time since the first game, and the lab has changed. You’re no longer confined to one little box, and you’re moving around so much that it feels like you’re actually getting somewhere. It’s like towards the end of the first game, but a lot better. The portal gun concept didn’t change, but it didn’t need to. You can’t fix something that is near perfect.

ENVIRONMENT

Like I said, it’s been a long time since the first game, and the lab hasn’t fared so well. Years have taken its toll on the complex, and you’ll encounter foliage, crumbling walls, rusted metal and so on. It adds to the effect. This isn’t a pristine kept place anymore, and it shows. You’ll truly feel like you’re in this place, every little detail was meticulously hammered in. It’s amazing how much the change affects how you feel about the game.

GRAPHICS

The engine from the first game was impressive, and this game took the engine and tweaked it and updated it into 2011. The details are hammered in to a style that makes them pop, and the ever-changing landscape is really cool. You’ll be amongst run down places at one point and a better looking place at another. It truly is a beautiful game.

WHAT’S GOOD

Portal 2 is an excellent game. The puzzles are challenging, but not too hard. The humor is witty and well executed, and the gameplay and characters we all know and love come out swinging, with a few extra surprises that add onto the game. The multiplayer is hilarious when played with a friend, and you’ll be having a blast with it in many places, laughing and yelling at each other make it oh so sweet. Truly, this is a worthy sequel.

WHAT’S CRAP

There’s only one part of the game I didn’t like, and for the sake of not spoiling anything I won’t say much about it. It provided excellent looks into the story, and was well worth going through but I felt it was too long and drawn out. The multiplayer is only fun if you’re playing it for the first time with a friend who is playing it for the first time and doesn’t know what to do. I’m sure there will be DLC, but it’s not replayable once you beat it. The ending song wasn’t (in my opinion) as good as the first, but still a lot of work went into it.

All in all, Portal 2 is a great game, and it’s a giant leap forward in every direction from the first. Definitely worth a buy.

OVERVIEW
Mortal Kombat is one of those games that ignores what the conservatives say about how unbelievably violent it is. Suffice to say, the latest installment in the series is no different. With gut-turning fatalities and a special X-Ray camera to see how much internal damage you’re causing, the violence we all know and love is back in a big way.
The story of Mortal Kombat is something I’ve never truly found too intriguing. But I’m going to do my best to explain it. Apparently Earth realm is in danger (big surprise there eh?) from being consumed from some sort of evil realm. In order to give us humans a fighting chance, the Elder Gods started a tournament to produce the best fighter to save us all from the big bad guy. You work your way up the ladder in the normal MK style, at the bottom and getting progressively harder. However, I never feel like I’m climbing up a slow ladder.

GAMEPLAY
As with all fighting games, you’ve got the standard punch, kick, slide, etc. Unlike most fighting games, Mortal Kombat has the system down where you can do moves with ease, and a long memory isn’t required to remember each character’s special moves (i.e. Scorpion’s harpoon… GET OVER HERE.) I find that a plus, because me and my limited attention span would much rather blast the crap out my enemy than remember a bunch of button combos (I’m looking at you, Street Fighter IV.) Despite being easy enough for new guys to play, there’s still plenty of complex combos to really create your own fighting style, and when you land a nice combo with special attacks added in, you have a complete blast making sure you get the advantage over the enemy. The game also discourages button-mashing by making sure each character has some sort of counter to everything if used correctly. There’s no more of Scorpion’s teleport turning you into a ragdoll. You can counter everything. This gives the game a more strategic feel than just pressing X a million times. It’s one of those games where you had a bad day at work or school and you want to beat the crap out of something, you can pick up the game, start playing in the easy to use menus and take out your frustrations on the ever-annoying Johnny Cage.

ENVIRONMENT
Despite the focus of the game taking place in a tournament setting, I never feel like I’m forced to see the same background over and over again. Out of tournament fights, characters battle each other in all different places, from bridges that seem like they’re out of Lord of the Rings or the underworld with fire and lava spitting out of gigantic lava pools. The levels are nice and varied, without straying too far from the original “feel” of the game’s mood. All of the places in this game world are violent and itching to fight, and the game does a good job of making sure you feel this.

GRAPHICS
As I said before, the violence is purely satisfying. The new X-Ray special moves are unique for each character. For instance, Sub-Zero’s X-Ray is him ramming his hand into someone’s torso and freezing their stomach, before crushing it in his fist. He then proceeds to punch them in the face, and you see teeth and bones cracking. Suffice to say, that’s fun to do. They only thing I don’t like is that you have to fill up your little action meter at the bottom to do it, and the other player can block the attack, because these attacks do massive damage, visually and health-wise.
As the battle rages on, the character models (which, by the way are very crisp and clear) take visible damage, from bones showing to blood sprayed across their outfits. This little touch adds a nice effect, because you can actually see your progressive damage you’re adding to the other character. The special abilities look fantastic, from Noob’s cloning to Sub-Zero’s freeze attacks. Each one is visually impressive. The levels don’t fail on graphics either. You don’t feel like you’re playing on a picture, the backgrounds actually change as you play. You feel like you’re in a real world.

WHAT’S GOOD
Mortal Kombat lives up to its reputation with flying colors. The violence is back and bigger than ever, and the combat controls have been streamlined to near perfection. A sizable chunk of unique characters provide a good match for anyone. The fatalities are incredible. Nothing is more satisfying after a long battle than ripping someone in half, right? Thought so. Combat and multiplayer is excellent, and I highly suggest giving this game a try.

WHAT’S CRAP
There’s always a crap side to every game. Mortal Kombat is not perfect. Although it’s the best fighting game I’ve played to date, it has its fair share of problems. Some of the characters seem stronger and faster than others (try fighting Scorpion as Sub-Zero) which led me to some moments where I was like “WHAT.” The thing that got me really annoyed was the fact that in tag team battles, it’s you versus two NPCs who tag each other out often. As a result, you feel like you’re fighting against an enemy that will never die, and you die too much. This led me to some points where I simply quit the game because I felt so cheated. At least let us tag ourselves out with another NPC so we have a better chance. The story also is.. well.. sucky. I know it’s hard to implement a story into a fighting game, but it just doesn’t seem interesting and only takes away from the game’s shining point, fighting.

Despite some of the shortcomings, Mortal Kombat satisfied my need for a good fighting game, and it’s definitely worth a buy, or a very long rent.

OVERVIEW

Brink is a game that blends FPS Call of Duty style gunplay with Mirror’s Edge parkour to the best of its abilities. Brink takes place at humanity’s last safe haven from a global flood; “The Ark”. There are two factions vying for control. The Security Enforcers and the Resistance. The Resistance are determined to find life outside The Ark, while the Enforcers want to maintain order and isolation. Obviously, overcrowding on The Ark led to a war over control. The concept is actually pretty cool. The way the game implements it is well.. not amazing. The parkour is often hard to use. It’s not like Mirror’s Edge where you actually can do the amazing tricks, it’s more of where you can climb over objects realistically. However, I often find myself climbing over the objects I don’t want to and not being able to climb over the ones I need to. That kind of led me to die.. a lot. Oh, did I mention that the NPC enemies are like MLG Players all hopped up Monster? They’re so unbelievably difficult to kill I was thinking playing against other people would be easier. It also doesn’t help that the guns seem to be overpowered and weak at the same time, and the gun sways so wildly at times I can’t tell if I’m shooting at an enemy or some street lamp. The accuracy and power problems can be helped by adding attachments. The parkour problem can’t.

GAMEPLAY

Brink tries to stand out from the crows of other FPS giants out there. It does this by adding special character abilities and four classes. Soldier, Engineer, Medic and Operative, and each class has their own special ability, that have unlimited uses but need to recharge after a few rapid uses.. However, each class can use every gun (depending on your character build type) which is always a nice thing. Combined with what Bethesda calls “SMART” gameplay and a difference of gametypes, Brink seems like a good concept.

The soldier is your general all around gunfighter, who is equipped with a molotov cocktail and a weapon of your choosing, as well as being able to replenish your own ammo and ammo of teammates.

The engineer is as the name implies, the engineer. No, not the TF2 engineer. The engineer plays a combat-passive support role. He is needed for repair objectives, demolition objectives, etc. His class ability is giving weapon damage buffs to himself and other players.

The medic is.. well.. a medic. He can heal players and throw syringes at downed players. The syringes are actually pretty cool. Say I’m a downed soldier, and a medic throws a syringe at me if I choose not to respawn (you can switch back and forth between waiting for a medic to heal you or respawning.) However, there’s a huge firefight around me. I wait until the firefight dies down, use the syringe when I want to and pop back up and start giving the enemy a nasty surprise.

The operative is the equal to a spy. He hacks objectives and can disguise as a dead enemy by walking up to said enemy and holding his operative device at them (which looks like a big iPhone, but no Angry Birds) and can freely walk around as the enemy until someone sees through his disguise.

Unfortunately, multiplayer (the part of the game I was looking forward to) was so laggy that I couldn’t play it at all. Never in my entire life have I seen a 360 multiplayer game so laggy you can’t move, much less play. If this isn’t fixed, it will be a huge setback to the game’s marketing front, which was after all, multiplayer.

However! Character customization (for 360 standards) is purely awesome. There’s a plethora of ways to turn your Resistance fighter or Security Enforcer into a total rendition of yourself. You can change your hair, helmet, shirts, pants, etc. It’s all changeable. You want a guy who looks like a bomb technician? It’s possible. How about a remake of a superhero? I’m sure you could figure it out. The customization possibilities really shine.

ENVIRONMENT

Brink takes place on The Ark. One side of it looks like crap (the Resistance hangs out here) and the other side is a utopia (where the Security is.) Battles can take place at either area. I’ve found myself battling on what’s left of a cargo ship converted into a resistance hangout, pieced together with metal crates. I’ve also found myself fighting in a pristine part of the utopia over control of a nuclear reactor. Make no mistake, this place was designed to keep people in, and the game does a good job of showing us what it could be like. The levels are varied enough so that I feel like I have a little freedom. But there are still multiple points in levels that are too easy for some defending team to set up heavy defenses and give the attackers no chance.

GRAPHICS

I can’t tell if this is a cross between TF2 graphics and Call of Duty graphics, or its own thing. Textures are colorful but a tad bland. I dunno, maybe it’s just me but the game could refine its graphics a little better and make them 21st century. The character graphics are sharp though. When you play as your character, the guns are detailed and crisp from your first person perspective. The levels look like a bunch of oil pastels that from far away look nice, but when you get up close they look awful. For a 2011 game you’d expect more graphic quality.

WHAT’S GOOD

Brink really does try to stand out from the crowd with its unique concepts and customization aspects. If multiplayer gets working, the varied gametypes and customization sets will allow for some pretty epic moments in gaming, especially if you have friends that play. The whole Security-vs-Resistance thing makes you as a player think “That guy is a dumb rebel.” or “That guy is a dumb cop.” It makes you actually feel the story and the struggle your character would go through in his faction, and landing a kill that much more satisfying. If you can get past the clunky parkour, it can be a good tool for strategy, although that’s stretching it.

WHAT’S CRAP

Despite the innovation and effort put into this game, it’s overshadowed by a storyline that is pretty much nonexistant and for now at least, broken Xbox 360 multiplayer. The parkour system is more of a curse than a blessing and the complicated menu interfaces do not bode well for those who don’t want to read the instruction manual cover to cover. Brink had potential, and for some it may hold them over until the next big thing. For me, it’s not that incredible, but if you want to give it a shot I’d suggest renting it. Possibly a buy when the price goes down.