Week in Review - 5/6/2012 - Win Real Big Sky!

It was a fairly decent week this week, with 12 reviews going up for a new total of 175. It seems like just yesterday I was doing review 100, and now we are almost to 200. How time flies.

I've got another contest this week, but this one's just for one game. I've decided that for the next month I'm going to raffle off one game a week, so if you follow the blog just comment and share and you'll get entries!

The game up this week is Really Big Sky, an indie PC duel-stick shooter slash shmup that I thought was pretty nifty. You'll get a Steam code if you are the winner and that includes a full copy of the game! Pretty rad, huh?

The rules are the same as last time with a few changes. First, leave a comment with one of two things: either a review I wrote you liked, or a request and why you want me to review it. Then, if you share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ than you will get an extra entry for each share. Just give me your handle for Twitter if you do it through there (I'll trust you for the other two).

At the end of the week I'll do a random drawing, and contact you either over twitter, email (if you post it) or GiantBomb's PMing system.

Good luck!

In unrelated news, I wrote a rather long article analyzing the Game of Thrones TV show on my writing blog, so if you like that TV show should you go read it!

And now, the reviews.

Zuma's Revenge - 4 / 5 Stars
Game Dev Story - 4 / 5 Stars
Medal of Honor - 2 / 5 Stars
The Maw - 4 / 5 Stars
Conan - 2 / 5 Stars
Hard Reset - 4 / 5 Stars
Alien Shooter - 1 / 5 Stars
Zombie Shooter - 3 / 5 Stars
Zombie Shooter 2 - 1 / 5 Stars
Alien Shooter 2 - 2 / 5 Stars
Dead Horde - 0 / 5 Stars
Really Big Sky - 3 / 5 Stars

See you next week, and don't forget to comment!

Week in Review for 4/29/2012 - Doublin' Up

First off, my apologies for missing last week's Week in Review. I totally spaced it! So that's my mistake. It wasn't that busy of a week, but I've been doing this pretty regularly so it was weird to miss. So now you get DOUBLE the week reviews!

The past week had some craziness. At first I was just going to do casual games, and then I decided to do a bunch of fish games because...why not. Then we went back to casual games but I somehow never got to Zuma's Revenge or Bejeweled, which is...a weird oversight. Maybe next week.

In good news, next week due to my work schedule I will actually be doing more reviews (which, coincidentally, only happens when I'm scheduled more. Don't ask why; it's complicated and involves a spouse's work schedule). But anyway, I'm hoping to be much more consistant and charge through a TON of reviews to make up for April being lazy-town. So see that.

Currently I'm playing Age of Empires Online (still), as well as the Silent Hill HD Collection (gotta get the Dog ending...) and finally Mass Effect 3. Once I beat it I'll review all three games in a row, and while I'm loving ME3 I'm worried about the ending because...yeah. You know why. Lastly, I'm finally playing through Sword and Sworcery EP on my iPhone, after owning it for a really, really long time. I'm digging it a lot! It seems to be quite short, but hopefully I'll beat it tonight or tomorrow and get a review up of that as well. I'd love to do an iPhone themed week; maybe it'll happen?

Anyway, 15 reviews of the last two weeks (which averages about one a day, so not bad despite it all) bringing the total to 163. BALLIN. Wet was review 150 (whoops?) but hey...it's under-appreciated. Also we'll be hitting numero 200 soon, so who knows what that review will be of? Something good? Something horrible? A request?

As a reminder: I'm always open to requests. I'll have to have played the game, of course, but I love reviewing what people ask. I might even do a "requests week" sometime if I can get enough feedback!

Lastly, this week doesn't have a theme, but I'm considering digging up my past and reviewing some really old PC games I loved as a child (like Odell Down Under was). This might make for some irrelevant reviews, but I'll enjoy myself so tough toasties. Also, my quest is to review every game I played ever, so...they'll have to get reviewed eventually.

Without further ado...the games of the last two weeks!

You Don't Know Jack - 4 / 5 Stars
Wet - 3 / 5 Stars
Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers - 2 / 5 Stars
Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 - 3 / 5 Stars
Kirby's Adventure - 5 / 5 Stars
Silent Hill HD Collection - 3 / 5 Stars
Luxor 2 - 2 / 5 Stars
Feeding Frenzy - 2 / 5 Stars
Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown - 3 / 5 Stars
Odell Down Under - ? (4) / 5 Stars
Shark! Shark! - 3 / 5 Stars
Insaniquarium! Deluxe - 3 / 5 Stars
Peggle - 4 / 5 Stars
Peggle Nights - 4 / 5 Stars
Zuma - 3 / 5 Stars

See you on the flip side! Feel free to post requests in comments, at me on Facebook or on Twitter (@TheUselessGod)!

Week in Review for 4/15/2012 - Half

A Wordle of the book I just finished writing. Bigger words indicate they were used more frequently.

Again, an apology is offered at the lack of content this week. I decided that, between last week and this week, I was going to try and write an entire novel in just that short span of time. Tonight, at 10:15, I finished Half, the ninth full length book I've written, clocking in at almost 80,000 words. For reference, the first Twilight book is about that long. Maybe it's a little shorter. I probably should have factchecked this.

Regardless, I promise I'll try and do better this week. I've been extremely busy with writing, studying for the GRE, work, and all that junk. But I'd like to get back on the two reviews a day train, so hopefully this week I'll pull it off. 

Got 5 reviews this week, totaling up to 148. 150th review this week? Absolutely. 

If you want to know more about the book I wrote, there are details on my writing blog. For now, review sum-up. 

DOTA 2 (Beta Impressions - 5 / 5 Stars

Age of Empires Online - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank - 4 / 5 Stars

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue - 2 / 5 Stars

Bubble Bobble Neo! - 2 / 5 Stars

Thanks for reading! See you all next week!

Week in Review for 4/8/2012 - Valve Time

It was a Valve-tacular week, though I did miss a few ones (the Dota 2 Beta preview/review is halfway done but won't get finished tonight). It's been another busy week for me, so I didn't churn out the usual high number, but hey...I still covered the most important ones.

Next week isn't planned to have a theme. I'm already going to be super busy, but I have a few lined up that I really want to review (Age of Empires Online in particular) so expect that to pop up. I'm also hoping to review more retro games, so here's hoping that pulls through too.

Here's this week's batch!

Portal - 5 / 5 Stars
Portal 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Left 4 Dead - 4 / 5 Stars
Left 4 Dead 2 - 4 / 5 Stars
Half-Life 2 - 3 / 5 Stars
Half-Life 2 Episode 1 - 3 / 5 Stars
Half-Life 2 Episode 2 - 4 / 5 Stars

See you next week!

Week in Review for 4/1/2012 - Contest Winners

First off, as you can guess I've been extremely ill all week, so I took a break from reviews. Don't worry; we'll be back to 1-2 a day (or more) as is usual this upcoming week. For now, however, we just had 3 reviews this week. Not great, but better than nothing I suppose.

Second off is the important stuff: the winners of last week's contest! I took all your registrations/shares and figured it out via a random number generator, and here are the winners:

1. divinemango
2. Xeiphyer (GiantBomb)
3. Cipher Peon

Congrats! I've already contacted divinemango over Twitter. Please note you have 48 hours to respond (until Tuesday, essentially) or I'm bumping #2 to #1 and redrawing a new person. So if you get a tweet or an IM, please respond! I'll let you know what games are available.

Here is this week's limited run of reviews.

Space Marine - 4 / 5 Stars
Kirby's Epic Yarn - 4 / 5 Stars
Fable - 5 / 5 Stars

The current best bet for next week with regard to theme is that I'm going to try and review all the Valve games on my list. I might tack some Blizzard on there since those two companies tend to go hand in hand in terms of fans loving them.

That's it from me. Expect a better next week! No foolin!

Week in Review for 3/25/2012 - Indie Game Bonanza and Contest!

First off: I have the plague. Ok, not the actual plague, but the flu punched me pretty hard all over yesterday and today. I still managed two reviews yesterday, but that ain't gonna happen today; I'm too braindead. The fact that this blogpost is going up alone is a miracle.

To help celebrate the fact that I want to be dead right now, as well as the fact that we got 19 indie games reviewed this week (bringing the total to 134), we are going to have a contest! For indie games! Yay!

Here is what you can win! All of these are Steam codes, so you have to have Steam to use 'em:

- A code for Post Apocalyptic Mayhem
- A code for Runespell: Overture
- A code for Greed: Black Border


I find it ironic that none of these games I actually reviewed this week, but whatever. PAM is a hybrid third person car game with a car shooter, Runespell is an RPG that uses poker elements (much like Sword And Poker on iOS), and Greed: Black Border is a space duel-stick shooter with a loot system much like Diablo.

In order to enter, here is what you have to do:

1. Comment on this blog (or my re-post on Giant Bomb) saying which of my reviews you liked the best!

2. If you Tweet a link to my blog (either the main page or this week in review) you'll get a second entry

3. If you post on Facebook with a link, you'll also get another entry

So you can get up to three total. The first place winner will get to pick from one of these three codes, second from the remaining two, and third gets whatever is left. Easy enough?

Just respond saying if you tweeted/facebooked it along with your entry; I'll believe you either way. Also include a method of contact (if it's on Giant Bomb I'll PM you, but if its on this blog an email or twitter account would be nice) in case you win.

And now, this week's reviews.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai - 4 / 5 Stars
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile - 5 / 5 Stars
VVVVVV - 5 / 5 Stars
Amnesia: The Dark Descent - 5 / 5 Stars
Hoard - 2 / 5 Stars
Jamestown - 4 / 5 Stars
Trauma - 2 / 5 Stars
Cogs - 4 / 5 Stars
Scoregasm - 3 / 5 Stars
The Ball - 3 / 5 Stars
Atom Zombie Smasher - 4 / 5 Stars
DEFCON - 3 / 5 Stars
Bit.Trip Runner - 4 / 5 Stars
Crayon Physics Deluxe - 2 / 5 Stars
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning - 3 / 5 Stars
Cthulhu Saves the World - 4 / 5 Stars
I Made A Game With Zombies In It - ? / 5 Stars
Miner Dig Deep - 3 / 5 Stars
Swords and Soldiers - 4 / 5 Stars

Be sure and comment so you can win MAD PRIZES! I'll announce the winners during next Week in Review!

Week in Review for 3/18/2012 - Indie Week

The bomb dot com

So for those not in the know, GiantBomb, my favorite gaming site, recently was purchased by CBS Interactive and is now a part of Gamespot. I was a little worried at first because, well, they kind of left Gamespot to make GiantBomb, and that sort of indie "we do whatever we want" mentality has been why the site has always been so great. That and Quick Looks. Quick Looks are eternally useful (and usually hilarious).

But it seems everything will end up alright, so I wish the very best to the Bombarders in their new offices. Keep the magic coming, guys. 

So this week I reviewed what I thought were overrated games and then did a Prince of Persia binge on Sunday because...why not? I didn't get all the overrated games I intended to, but I did hit the big three I really wanted to review, so we'll leave it at that.

It was 13 reviews this week, pushing us up to 115 grand total. Not as much as usual, but in personal life this week was pretty crap, so hopefully the next one will go better. 

I am uncertain what to do for next week's "theme." It was going to be "Underrated Games" (and still might be), but that theme can only go so far. So currently it's just going to be random slush that I review when I think of it (probably some JRPGs, retro PC games, and maybe some others). I am also considering booting up my windows and burning through my massive collection of PC Indie games and giving them reviews (as well as Xbox Live Indie Games), so we could have an Indie week. Maybe we'll do that this week anyway. Who knows.

Anyway, here's this week's batch. 

Heavy Rain - 1 / 5 Stars

Assassin's Creed - 2 / 5 Stars

Final Fantasy VII - 3 / 5 Stars

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - 2 / 5 Stars

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 3 / 5 Stars

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4 / 5 Stars

Secret of Mana - 2 / 5 Stars

Goldeneye 007 - 2 / 5 Stars

New Super Mario Bros Wii - 3 / 5 Stars

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - 4 / 5 Stars

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones - 4 / 5 Stars

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - 4 / 5 Stars

Prince of Persia - 5 / 5 Stars

You all have a great week.

EDIT: We decided on indie week. So enjoy reviews of lots of indie games!

Week in Review for 3/11/2012 - Overrated Games Week

We celebrated this week by reviewing a batch of my favorite games, and got through a decent amount of them with some atrociously long-winded reviews. I also caught up on my two longest-standing requests, so hooray for that.

10 reviews this week, with us crossing 100 to hit 102 total! Nice! For a month and a half of doing this, that ain't that bad. I hope you all have enjoyed reading my reviews as much as I've enjoyed writing them.

We are killing sacred cows this upcoming week, with the theme being Overrated Games week. Keep in mind: just because I say these games are overrated doesn't mean I hate them. It's just games I feel get way too much appreciation when they really are just average or above-average games. From the header picture you can probably guess who will be the star this week, but don't worry...I'm going to rip up some more favorites than you even know. I'm actually pretty excited about one of them.

Again, this is my blog, so keep in mind all my views are subjective. You've probably figured out my taste in games by this point (especially based on this last week being a lot of my favorite games, though I didn't get to the Portal games or Enslaved or Katamari Damacy or Resident Evil 4) so if you have a problem with a review please think it over before bashing me via email or in the comments. I'm more than willing to discuss views on games in a rational manner: I get that some games just don't click with me like they do with others. But we can at least be civil. No more hate mail, guys.

Now that I'm done complaining, let's give a rundown of this week's massive review-a-thon.

Nier - 5 / 5 Stars
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - 5 / 5 Stars
Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars - 5 / 5 Stars
Braid - 5 / 5 Stars
The Incredible Machine 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos - 4 / 5 Stars
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne - 5 / 5 Stars
Final Fantasy VI - 5 / 5 Stars (Review #100!)
Super Mario Bros 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Saints Row: The Third - 5 / 5 Stars

See all you cats this week!

Week in Review for 3/4/2012 - Favorite Games Ever Week

Pokeweek has come and gone, and it has left with us a buttload of reviews about the little pocket critters. If you hate Pokemon and stepped away from the blog for this week, then welcome back! I'm pretty much Pokemoned out, so you don't need to worry about that for a while.

I blew through a whopping 15 reviews this week, pushing the total up to 92. Which means we are dangerously close to 100, people! What will the 100th review be? Who knows? That's a lot of reviews for only having done this for a month and a half!

I'm going to do something different this week. It was originally going to be RPG Week, but I think I've changed my mind. I'm going to be doing a mix of two things: Requests (specifically Saints Row the Third, Super Mario Bros 2, and some others) and what I like to call Nathan's Favorite Games Ever. From this week's splash image you can probably guess what I consider to be the single greatest game ever made, but there are plenty more where it came from (including that long-owed Nier review).

Due to the fact that these are my favorites, the reviews will probably be stupid long, which means I'll commit to only one a day this week as my minimum. I probably won't get to all my favorite games, but I'll be sure and get the key ones. Who knows, you might learn something about what games I like.

Also, I've already done some games I'd consider "favorites ever" (Persona 4, Lords of the Realm 2, and Silent Hill 3 comes to mind), so they obviously won't be re-reviewed or an such nonsense. I think their reviews speak for themselves, so we'll leave them there.

Anyway, here is this week's gym-badge filled, pokeball caught roundup.

Pokemon Blue/Red - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Yellow - 4 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Gold/Silver - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Crystal - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Pinball - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen - 4 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Trading Card Game - 2 / 5 Stars
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver - 5 / 5 Stars
Hey You, Pikachu! - 1 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Dash - 0 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Black/White - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Puzzle League - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Snap - 4 / 5 Stars


Thanks for reading!

Week in Review for 2/25/2012 - Pokemon Week

Welcome back, dear reader, and hopefully you survived the horror that was "horror week." We got 10 creepy games reviewed, bumping our game total up to 77 overall. Of course I still have more to review, but we'll see if they pop up during later events.

I'm enjoying sticking to a theme every week, and in celebration to the announcement of the direct sequels to Pokemon Black/White coming out on the DS later this year, I'm going to declare this Pokemon week! I'm going to review every Pokemon generation, and even a few of the odd-balls (such as Crystal or Platinum). But that's not all! I'm also planning on doing all the spin-off games I've played (Pokemon Pinball, anyone?) which should provide some quality content. And before you ask: yes, I've played Hey You, Pikachu! So just keep that in mind.

If by some miracle I run out of Pokemon games before the year ends, I have a few more up my sleeve. Mario 2 (NES) has been in the backburner of requests, as well as Saints Row the Third (which I played religiously this last week), so those might pop up.

RPG week after Pokemon week? Maybe. Mass Effect 3 comes out soon, and that's technically an RPG. We'll see.

Here are these weeks' games, with scores!

Alan Wake - 3 / 5 Stars
Saw - 2 / 5 Stars
Clock Tower: The First Fear - 4 / 5 Stars
Dead Space 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Plants vs Zombies - 5 / 5 Stars
Silent Hill 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Silent Hill 3 - 5 / 5 Stars
Silent Hill Homecoming - 2 / 5 Stars
Condemned: Criminal Origins - 3 / 5 Stars
The Darkness II - 3 / 5 Stars

Expect some pocket monster mayhem this week! See you there!

Week in Review for 2/19/2012 - Horror Week

It's time for another week in review! This last week I burned through 10 terrible games, shoving the total up to 67. I didn't get through all my terrible games, though (I still have 9 up for grabs on the Xbox 360 alone) but I think I covered most of them. I have enough left for another terrible games week should I feel so inclined, but for now it's back to business as usual.

And business as usual is that this week will (probably) be Horror Games Week! Yes, I'm going to burn through all the horror (not horrible) games I can think of, including every Silent Hill game (except Origins, which I never played), the Saw game, Clock Tower, The Suffering, and more. I love horror games, so I have plenty to choose from, including ones that are just sort of horror (Left 4 Dead, Dead Island) but still could technically count.

I'm currently playing Saint's Row The Third pretty seriously on the modern gaming side, and I'm deciding what game I want to play through on the retro side. I'm considering doing yet another Super Mario RPG playthrough, but it's also been a very long time since I've beaten Final Fantasy II/IV, so maybe that will be worth some time. I also need to finish Final Fantasy XIII, where on the Xbox I got to the exact same spot I gave up on the PS3 version and then gave up again. I'm going to really try to push forward, though. It's starting to turn into a game, finally.

Anyway, here's this week's horrible games with their respective reviews.

Fable III - 1 / 5 Stars
CastleQuest - 1 / 5 Stars
Too Human - 1 / 5 Stars
Bad Dudes - 1 / 5 Stars
Crackdown 2 - 1 / 5 Stars
TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled - 0 / 5 Stars
Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley - 2 / 5 Stars
Dead Space Ignition - 0 / 5 Stars
Ninety-Nine Nights - 1 / 5 Stars
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - 2 / 5 Stars

That's it from me this week! Have a killer week!

Week in Review for 2/12/2012 - Terrible Games Week

It's been a slow week, and for that I apologize to my reader. I finished off the Kinect review-a-thon with Dance Central 2, and then changed it to "Dark" week, where I'd only review games with "Dark" somewhere in their title. I didn't get to the Dark Forces games, but maybe soon.

This week, to celebrate me playing Duke Nukem Forever for an (upcoming) review, I bring you "Terrible Games Week!" I'm going to dig through all the crap I've played over the years (of which there is a decent amount, but I also am smart and tend to avoid garbage games) and review as much trash as I can pull up. We started it off with Matt Hazard, which is pretty awful but not particularly horrendous. I guess. But I don't want to play it again. Ever.

Anyway, I reviewed 9 games, bumping the total to 57. I'll have you know, I attended a writers conference Thursday through Saturday and it would take up my entire day, but despite this I still both wrote for my novel (at least 600 words a day) and put up a review. So I'm dedicated or something. I'm certain all four of my readers appreciate that. :P

There will be more reviews next week. For now, here is this week's batch.

Dance Central 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Darksiders - 4 / 5 Stars
The Darkness - 4 / 5 Stars
Dark Sector - 3 / 5 Stars
Alone in the Dark - 1 / 5 Stars
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Bnet Edition) - 4 / 5 Stars
Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - 5 / 5 Stars
Perfect Dark - 3 / 5 Stars
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard - 2 / 5 Stars

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all this upcoming week for more review madness.

Week in Review for 2/5/2012 - "Dark" Week

Welcome back to week in review! It was a double dose of trends this week: I reviewed both every Rock Band game as well as every Kinect game I own except one (Dance Central 2; expect that shortly), meaning retro games got put into the backburner. Fear not, for I have more magical old-school for you reviews coming up soon. Maybe I'll even do a full week of them sometime! Who knows.
So I tackled 15 games this week, throwing the total up to 48. Not too bad. Considering I probably have hundreds to go, I suppose I should pick up the pace. But hey, this isn't that bad considering I'm currently also writing a novella, editing a novel, going to work, and doing an internship. So yeah, busy busy.

My thoughts for this week: comparing review scores. Here's something I want to point out with my reviews: while the star scores are helpful, they aren't the "end all" for these games. I also rate games based both on the experience, what system they are on, and generally if I feel they are worth looking into. For example, I gave Kinect Sports a four out of five, but also gave Persona 3: FES a four out of five. Do I think these are the same quality of games, since I gave them the same star rating? No way (Persona 3: FES is better), but given my experiences with these games, I'd say both were worth purchasing if you have the systems for them. I figure out scores when I finish writing out my thoughts; I rarely go into reviews with pre-conceived stars decided. So if, in my mind, the text I wrote indicates this is a four out of five star game...I give it to it. I also judge games differently based on what they are and what they are trying to do. Kinect Sports wanted to create a fun Kinect experience that worked, and for the most part it pulled it off. Persona 3: FES wanted to create a fusion of dating, pokemon, and JRPG grinding and for the most part, it pulled it off. One could argue Persona 3 is being judged on a more severe scale than Kinect Sports, but it's more of just a different scale. So keep that in mind if you are just looking over the stars; the text is all there for a reason.

That being said, here's this week's reviews.


Rock Band 2 - 5 / 5 Stars
Lego Rock Band - 2 / 5 Stars
The Beatles: Rock Band - 5 / 5 Stars
Green Day: Rock Band - 4 / 5 Stars
Rock Band 3 - 5 / 5 Stars
Terminator Salvation - 1 / 5 Stars
Ninja Blade - 2 / 5 Stars
Warhammer 40k: Kill Team - 3 / 5 Stars
Kinect Adventures - 2 / 5 Stars
The Gunstringer - 4 / 5 Stars
Dance Central - 4 / 5 Stars
Child of Eden - 3 / 5 Stars
YourShape: Fitness Evolved - 3 / 5 Stars
Kinect Sports - 4 / 5 Stars
Kinect Sports: Season 2 - 2 / 5 Stars

See you all next week!

Week in Review for 1/29/2012 - Rock Band / Kinect Week

Greetings blog readers, and welcome to the week in review for 1/22/2012. This week saw a boatload of reviews, 12 in fact, pushing the grand total thus far to 33 games. I reviewed a bunch of old PC games this week, particularly Sierra-On-Line games, but I'm not finished with those just yet! I have a bunch more in the pipeline, considering those were what I mostly grew up with, so prepare yourselves for more reviews of old PC games you played and then forgot existed.

I thought I'd also take a brief moment to explain how I review games, and specifically why I only give whole-star ratings. When I sit down to write a review, I have such a massively stupid amount of choices (from all the games I've played) I usually only write ones that I immediately can think of something to say about. I write them all in one sitting, with no planning in advance whatsoever, and I only go back and edit if I made specific errors or mistakes. Basically you are getting me saying what I can think of off the cuff, in one quick breath, and without me redacting anything I've said. I want these to be as completely honest as possible, and keep in mind they are just my opinion (though I do balance the score a little based on game quality, even if I didn't enjoy it, but that's for another post) so if you love a game I hate, I'm totally cool with that (or vice versa).

I give full star ratings rather than half ratings (Giant Bomb, where I am also posting these reviews, allows half-star ratings) because I feel limiting myself makes me both think more about how many stars I give a game, and gets rid of an easy out. In truth, the star rating is there as an afterthought; what I really want you to do is read the words of the review, figure out if you like what I'm saying, and make a judgement from that. There are a lot of games that I think are decent (Legend of Dragoon from this week comes to mind) but I really can't justify giving a high star rating. Hopefully I explain this well in my review (though I am considering putting the star rating just under the last part of "The Short" in reviews, for the especially lazy).

Well, that's it from me. I'm really enjoying this as both a writing exercise and a trip down memory lane, and I really hope you are enjoying reading them. My intentions are that, once we start getting more games on here, you might discover some games you haven't played yet that you'd like to try, or games you forgot about that you can dig back up again. The possibilities are endless! 


It is also worth noting most next-gen games were played on Xbox 360 unless otherwise noted. I'm not a fanboy or anything, it's just the system I bought first, so I tend to preference games on it (I like the controller better, too, and all my friends are on there).


Anyway, here is this week's reviews in blurb. And, as always, requests are welcome (and I promised a Super Mario Bros 2 for NES review this last week; sorry, I totally spaced it. I will do my best to get it out this week, though)

Earthworm Jim - 4 / 5
Halo 3: ODST - 3 / 5
Roller Coaster Tycoon - 5 / 5
Dead to Rights: Retribution - 2 / 5
Lords of the Realm 2 - 5 / 5
Torin's Passage - 4 / 5
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride - 3 / 5
Persona 3: FES - 4 / 5
The Legend of Dragoon - 2 / 5
Persona 4 - 5/ 5
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - 3 / 5
Rock Band - 4 / 5

Oh yes, I've also started my "Rock Band Review Fiasco," which will be combination reviews of every Rock Band game as well as personal side-notes by me regarding how much I've enjoyed playing this game with friends and family. The first game is up; I intended to do more tonight but I finished a novel instead, so expect the saga to continue tomorrow with Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3.

Have a great week!

Week in Review 1/22/2012 - It Starts

Welcome to "Week in Review," where I summarize what went down this last week on Nathan Vs. Video Games, my attempt to review every single game I've ever played. Yeah. It's gonna take a while (especially since I'm still playing games currently).

I started off by trying to just do one game a day, but soon realized that would mean I'd be somewhere around the age of 50 by the time I finished. So now I'm doing two a day, with the possibility of speeding it up once I finish with the current novel I'm writing. I'm going to try and do one retro game and one modern game a day, though I make no promises to me following this system with exactness.

This week I reviewed 16 games, putting the total reviewed at 21. Not a bad start, all things considered.

Here are the links to these reviews with my blurb scores following.

Viking: Battle for Asgard - 2 / 5 Stars
Rayman: Origins - 5 / 5 Stars
Limbo - 4 / 5 Stars
3-D World Runner - 4 / 5 Stars 
Lost Odyssey - 4 / 5 Stars
Legendary Wings - 4 / 5 Stars
The Binding of Isaac - 5 / 5 Stars
Parasite Eve - 4 / 5 Stars
Metro 2033 - 3 / 5 Stars
Protect Me Knight - 5 / 5 Stars
Resident Evil 5 - 3 / 5 Stars
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 1 / 5 Stars
PowerGig: Rise of the SixString - 0 / 5 Stars
The Rise of the Argonauts - 4 / 5 Stars
To The Moon - 3 / 5 Stars
Dead Space - 5 / 5 Stars

So far I've been mostly reviewing either Xbox 360 or PC games, which makes sense since those are probably the systems I've played the most on (except I should probably add the PS2 and SNES as close runners-up). This week I will try to get more SNES and PS2 reviews for you, with plans for Earthworm Jim, Persona 3: FES, and others already in the works.

Also expect a massive review of Nier one of these days, though it might get an entire day to itself considering how long it will end up being.

Thanks for reading, and please share! I might also try to compile a list of every game I plan to review for next week (hint: it'll be massive) so I can directly tick off reviews and you can watch my slow progress to the end.

Have a great week!