Bionic Commando - A harsh mechanic

RATING: 7/ 10
PLATFORM: XBox360 / PS3
GENRE: Adventure
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Only for the Serious Gamer

Good games don't always get good reviews:
So I was very shocked when I heard the initial reviews for Bionic Commando. A game that looked so cool and appeared to be a strong contender to get only sub par scoring. Well I put the reviews a side and decided to give Bionic Commando a swing before passing judgment. My finished results is a 7/10 (which for me means it is a decent game) and the only reason this game did not get a 7+ was cause Bionic Commando is freakin frustrating.

A Swinging good time:
Bionic Commando did a great job with the swinging game mechanic which is the bulk of the game. It was simply amazing flying through the beautiful levels grabbing on to piratically anything in your reach. The controls though complicated get the job done and make the game handle very well. Once you get over the learning curve you can really let loose in this game.

Water, Radiation and stun stick oh my:
To sum up this overall gigantic paragraph if a game makes a player frustrated so much that he or she is not enjoying the game your doing it wrong. More details keep reading:

What really killed Bionic Commando was its penalty for death combined with how easy it is to die. Now I am not saying all video games need to be easy but I do think there is a balance of how much you penalize the player for dieing. In Bionic Commando every time you die you are faced with a load screen that does nothing more then mocks you for 30 seconds. Bionic Commando had way to much loading time in general but the fact that every death meet more loading just added to the overall frustration meter. Now all of this would not nearly be that bad except for the fact that Bionic Commandos have some major weaknesses. If you so much as touch water you begin to drown which means you have about 10 seconds to figure out why you did not bring a floaty. Also no matter how clear the water is from the surface once you begin to drown it becomes muddy then the Hudson making it impossible to see. Radiation game mechanic though there to say this is not a Sandbox go away, is simply to quick to kill. I am sorry level designer I landed on a building i am not suppose to so do not freaking kill me before I can jump off the building. Lastly stun sticks seem to be the secret weapon to destroy all bionic commandos, I can take multiple shot gun rounds to the face but two taps with a stun stick and I am dead now that's retarded.

Story and Game progression no one cares about:
Bionic Commando is about a guy no one cares for trying to defeat an enemy no one cares about to save a world that once again no one cares about. Thank goodness the levels were lush a gorgeous because seeing new landscape is all I really that to look for in this game progress. From level one I had the plot figured out cause it was that much of a cookie cutter and even the little details I did not were basically pointless fluff. Really this a big budget game with a really interesting game mechanic how about spend some time on coming up with a unique story. Game progression is ok until the end when you qiuckly learned that the last two boss consist of a button mashing quick time event and a boring game of roll and then shoot. A rule of Game progression a Finial Boss should be the most challenging even in the game.

Yea for prettys:
Bionic Commando is B-E-A-Uitful. The eviornments cover a destroyed urban city, gigantic cayons and lush forest. Im really glad that my extra long loading time was going to good use because I never felt lag while playing the game. Unfotunatly the prettys are not number one for me so sorry bionic artist.

inFAMOUS: more then a funny spelled name

RATING: 7.5/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3
GENRE: Sandbox Adventure
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

So first thing first inFAMOUS is spelled in an odd format and people are going crazy over it. Who cares its a name and nothing more, if you play a video game only because of how it spells its name then it sucks to be you. So anyway Infamous (yes get use to seeing the name this way) at first disappointed me. I quickly learned I couldn't use guns or vehicles in the game and that my super powers were really not all that powerful. This was similar to what I felt about force unleashed, I am this super powered hero why am I getting stunned and killed by stupid minions. So Infamous combat basically consist of you shooting opponents with electricity (very similar to a infinite ammo pistol) and sporadically using a few power up attacks (electric grenades, an electric pulse attack to know over enemies, ect...). In Infamous you always feel like your at a disadvantage because you simply can't kill enemies fast enough. I have never seen your average gang member street thug take five bolts of electricity and still stand up like their in perfect physical conditions. In short don't make grunt characters with stand more then one direct hit, their grunts and are merely there to allow you to blast away countless enemies without breaking a sweat. Infamous does have some more powerful enemies from time to time to spice things up but all to often the grunts would get in the way of the fight. Now sense Infamous is a sandbox game it does provided more then enough side missions to keep you busy tell next year. I suggest ignoring these missions because they make a already very repetitive game slow down to a crawl and really provide very little purpose as far as growth in your character. Now what makes Infamous an enjoying game and somewhat addicting is a unique storyline placed in a very well design world. You could tell that this game was structure from the world up as the game world really makes the game. Also many of the story missions set you up in situation where you really get to have fun with your super powers and blowing things up. So overall Infamous is a game that can tend to drag its feet but in the end turns out to be a fun play.

Sonic And The Black Knight:: A dull but useable sword

RATING: 6 / 10
PLATFORM: Wii
GENRE: Action
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Pass up

So I rented this game from Gamefly because I hope that if I eventually rent enough new age sonic games that I might actually find one worth playing. Well Sonic and the Black Knight was almost worth playing. In short this is like every other new age Sonic game except Sonic is wielding a sword. The game play is really simple and fast pace, which is how a sonic game should be. You basically rush through the level slicing through enemies. Some levels do force you do other small task like giving goal to villagers, apparently someone got their Robin Hood and King Arthur stories mixed up. Sonic and the Black Knight does try to introduce RPG elements in to the game but fail miserably. It almost appears they design these features and then forgot to actually make them useful in gameplay. The reason why this game was actually bearable is because the extra RPG clutter could be quickly ignored and since I was not forced to deal with any idiotic features I was left content. Forced gameplay is one of the main things that ruined Sonic Unleashed. The King Arthur story very loosely interrupted really wanted me to press the mute button. I think the day sonic started talking in his video games was his doom. However over all gameplay was decent and at times even entertaining. I hope this game is a turning point for Sonic games and that the Sonic team will soon produce a game that I can actually recommend buying.