Metroid: Other M Review (Wii)
Developer: Project M Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo WiiSamus finds her voice, but does she have anything to say?Nintendo’s characters might be the most beloved in games, but it’d be a lie to call any of them great conversationalists. Some are only capable of introducing themselves in cartoonish accents, while the vocal skills of others are limited to repeatedly uttering an immutably pitched grunt. And although Donkey Kong’s wit is surprisingly biting, he’s no Dorothy Parker.... read more
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Review
(Xbox 360)
Developer: IO Interactive Publisher: Eidos, Square-Enix Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC The terrible twosome, as in bad-terrible, not fearsome-terrible The original Kane & Lynch was just one in a spate of third-person shooters that, in the wake of Gears Of War, let players duck for cover. But thanks to a myriad of problems, not the least of which was a wildly erratic difficulty, the game didn’t live up to its potential, and was instead just a series of solid but otherwise unremarkable gun battles. Now there’s Dog Days, a sequel that has our heroes shooting up the streets and... read more
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review (Xbox 360)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Nintendo DS, Wii, PSP Brilliant acrobatics go a surprisingly long way As the fifth entry in Ubisoft’s long-running Prince of Persia series, The Forgotten Sands marks a clear spiritual return to the franchise’s first chapter, 2003’s The Sands of Time. Gone is the gritty aesthetic of the series’ middle entries, as well as any vestige of 2008’s beautifully rendered but overly simplified next-gen reboot. By reincorporating The Sands of Time’s pacing, control scheme, level design and princely voice-actor Yuri Lowenthal, The Forgotten Sands feels like a deliberate return to... read more
DeathSpank Review
(Xbox 360)
Developer: Hothead Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: XBLA, PSN As punishing as its name implies Equipped with an insatiable appetite for justice, and a booming voice paired with comic timing that injects urgency into the most throwaway of lines (“Greetings, taco wench!”), DeathSpank stands as game-designer Ron Gilbert’s first original creation since the Monkey Island series. DeathSpank is also pretty much The Tick, only clad in stat-increasing armor. Unfortunately, the rest of DeathSpank is just as disappointingly familiar—a Diablo clone with snappy writing is still just a Diablo clone. The heroic DeathSpank is on a quest to retrieve a MacGuffin... read more
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Review (PC/Mac)
Developer/Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Platform: PC, Mac Nuclear launch, perfected... read more
Limbo Review (Xbox 360)
Developer: PlayDead Publisher: Xbox Live Arcade Platform: Xbox 360 Put away your childish things In the dark you open your eyes. As they adjust to the gloom, you try to make out your surroundings, but all you can see are shadows looming in the distance, masked as if by some sickly grey gauze. You hear flies buzzing, water dripping, and underneath a metallic, keening drone. You can’t recall how you arrived in this fetid place, nor why. ... read more
Start Press: Metal Foes & Metaphors
"A metal slime draws near." If you scrubbed off his goofy grin, he’d be indistinguishable from a silver foil-wrapped Hershey’s Kiss. His buggy round eyes gleam like a pair of tadpole eggs. As far as monsters go, he’s about as unthreatening as they come. But anybody who’s played an installment of Square-Enix's Dragon Quest RPG franchise, understands that the metal slime is not meant to inspire fear. The metal slime is purely an object of desire. Toppling one of these gelatinous buggers awards your band of adventurers a truckload of experience points, fast-tracking your stat boosting and potentially shaving hours off... read more
Singularity Review
(Xbox 360)
Developer: Raven Software Publisher: Activision Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Time-bending shooter works despite wearing influences on its uniformed sleeve Like some sort of time-traveling Frankenstein’s monster, Singularity is a game that seems cobbled and scraped together from the vestiges of the games that came before it. Rising from the corpse of Half-Life 2 and sewn together with bits of BioShock, chunks of Raven’s own Wolfenstein and even a dash of TimeShift, Singularity is far from the most original game out there. But it does actually have a few new tricks up its sleeve, the neatest of which is that... read more
Great Gatsby: The Videogame!
Have you tired of jacking cars and mingling with drug lords in Grand Theft Auto? Had your fill of Orc and Troll slaughter in World of Warcraft? Why not try your hand at The Great Gatsby Game?... read more
Start Press: Dear Videogame Store at the Mall
Dear videogame store at the mall, Why do you suck so badly? Why do you positively revel in your antiseptic, soulless, funless, melted low-fat vanilla soft serve-ness? A set of newborn octuplets with eight bottles wedged in their tiny gluttonous gobs couldn't pull off as much sucking as you, videogame store at the mall. When a 31-year-old male finds himself at the mall and his pregnant wife is shopping for baby clothes, your job is simple: offer an oasis of time-killing euphoria to help pass the weary hours. When you are not providing this service, it means you are vigorously... read more
San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Programming Schedule Released
Hold on to your hats, geeks and geekettes: Recently, the enormous culture phenomenon that is Comic-Con International unveiled the 2010 schedule of programming for its biggest event, San Diego Comic-Con, which goes down July 22-25.... read more
Transformers War for Cybertron Review (Xbox 360)
Developer: High Moon Studios Publisher: Activision Blizzard Platforms: PC, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 A robot reboot that’s more than meets the eye There was a time when legions of prepubescent boys awoke each morning, gobbling down bowls of sugary cereal and basking in the cartoon glow of Transformers. And sure, the show was really nothing more than a 22-minute commercial designed to sell toys, but it was our show dammit, permeating the pop-cultural consciousness of the 1980s. Twenty years later, along comes Hollywood explosion monger Michael Bay with his ebonics-spouting Autobots, computer-generated special effects and the camera's eternal... read more
Start Press: The Coming Age of MMOARSNs! (Massively Multiplayer Online Augmented-Reality Social Networks)
Earlier this week, Twitter—the only news source on the planet whose “reporters” spend less time fact-checking than Fox News—lit up with discussion of Robert Zemeckis’ 1989 film Back to the Future II. The subject began trending after a UK-based film magazine and website called Total Film tweeted that July 5th, 2010, just so happened to be the once futuristic-sounding date that Marty and Doc Brown had punched into their DeLorean dashboard. This ‘fun fact’ proceeded to go viral, triggering a global Twitter dialogue about how our late 20th-century hopes for futuristic technology have panned out.... read more
Watch a Videogame Trailer From the Makers of Ponyo and Spirited Away
Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, co-founded in part by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, is known for creating lush landscapes, enchanting storylines and beautifully quirky characters. The studio gave birth to classics like Oscar-winning Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and, most recently, Ponyo. Ghibli recently partnered with video game developers Level-5 (behind a couple of the Dragon Quest games and Professor Layton) to produce a role-playing game for the Nintendo DS.... read more
Alpha Protocol Review (Xbox 360)
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Publisher: SEGA Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Saving the world, one decision at a time Choice is the watchword in Alpha Protocol; as undercover spy Michael Thorton, you can carry out missions in whatever style you’d like. You can flirt with that girl on the airplane or just brood and ignore her. You can barrel headfirst into a slum full of mobsters or silently sneak through the shadows, eliminating guards one headshot at a time. You can even tailor Thorton’s facial hair—shooting terrorists is especially fun when you look like Grizzly Adams.... read more
Slayer's iPhone App: Heavy Metal Fun-der
There’s no way a game that begins with a menacing voice promising “Balls of steeeeeeel!” could possibly be disappointing.... read more
Start Press: Daddy's Love, His Yoke
“Then he just sat there holding the binoculars and watching the ashen daylight congeal over the land. He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.” (Cormac McCarthy, The Road) *** This past Sunday was Father’s Day, an occasion that has historically compelled me to look outward. It’s a day on which I’ve grown accustomed to considering my own dad, actively muting my lingering nitpicks with his job performance and focusing instead on the ferocity of the man’s affection; his contagious, untidy laughter; his irrepressibility; his resolve... read more
Michael Jackson Karaoke/Dance Videogame Announced
“We’ve signed a legend,” said Ubisoft Entertainment CEO Yves Guillemot at the E3 games conference. He was referring to Michael Jackson, whose likeness will appear in an Ubisoft game that will be released in time for this year’s holiday season.... read more
Paste Goes to E3: Day 4
In my mind, I was silently saying “goodbye.” Bye Nintendo! Bye Capcom, sorry we didn’t get to talk this year. Bye Sony! Why didn’t you call back? Bye all the rest of you. E3 would be over in 20 minutes and I fought the urge to stick around until the announcement came: “We are sorry, but the expo floor is closing. Please head to the nearest exit.” It’s always sad to be asked to leave a place. So I headed for the door, for reality. And I got ready for what comes next, the return of the melancholy that goes... read more
Donkey Kong, Zelda, Kirby, More Nintendo Classics Coming to Wii
There are a few things—like, oh, say, blowing on those cartridges to get them to work—that we don’t miss about old-school Nintendo. But some of the old games and characters make us pine a little more. According to an announcement at the E3 gaming conference this week, there’s good news for those who find themselves in exactly this predicament: Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby and GoldenEye will all receive the Wii update, and another new Mario game will be released soon as well.... read more
The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Instant
The 25 Best Movies of 2012 (So…
The 50 Best Movies of 2011
The 30 Best TV Shows on Netflix…
The 50 Best Movies of the Decade…
