Games that Suck and those that rules

[Faram]

I just got pissed of trying to find a honest review of a game, but searching for gamename and review just ends up with a crapload of sponsored links and online rags that accept money to say this shit rocks, yada yada.

So this is for all of us to savecash and leanr from our fellow SD.Neters what is worth having and what is not.

First off.

WII:
Far Cry, 2nd worst pice of crap ever, dont waste cash on this uggly and unplayable shit that brings shame to a great PC game.

Worst game Ever WII: Rampage, I feel dirty for getting this uncontrolleble horrible unuseble game, lyckely I bought it on release day and promptly returned it to the store.

Lets hear from the rest of you what you think.

[loomer]

Startopia. Great game, poorly advertised, sent Mucky Foot broke. Nothing beats the joy of slaughtering hundreds of aliens in a space-station based battle.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Yeah FarCry for Wii looks like a bad PS2 title.

[Singular Intellect]

Awesome games I've bought and played:

Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 2
Aliens Versus Predator 2
Star Wars Empire at War
Star Wars Empire at War (Forces of Corruption)
Jedi Knight Academy
Need for Speed Carbon
Age of Empires III
Bridge Commander (only played the demo, but love it, can't find a full version to buy )
Half Life 2

[General Zod]

Some games I've been playing recently:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Mixed feelings on this one. It has a few nice improvements over the other series, but the lack of the radar found in the previous games makes some parts unnecessarily hard in comparison. On the other hand fighting in jungle terrain is an interesting aspect, and the plotline makes a nice addition to the franchise, even if it explains things a bit too much. Metal Gear Solid 2 was much better in terms of taking the familiar MGS franchise and expanding on its setting greatly. MGS3: 8/10. MGS2: 9/10. Would receive a 10/10, but I felt it was too short.

Devil May Cry: Fun action game, but not much depth and a tad on the easy side. Camera needed to be worked out better as it made things unnecessarily frustrating. 7/10

Hit Man 1: Shoddy mechanics, and figuring out how to beat a stage is more trouble than it's really worth. 4/10.

Max Payne: Nice premise, but the controls make it less fun than it should be. Trying to navigate around the field using both analog sticks makes it far more cumbersome than it should. 5/10.

Tekken 4: Another excellent entry into the series, without a hideously broken character like Eddie Gordo. Being a Tekken fanboy I have to give this one an obligatory 10/10.

Half-Life 2: A must have if you want an FPS with an excellent plotline, manages to balance the action with the story quite well. Annoyingly I lost my original save file when I reinstalled a new OS to my pc, so I haven't been able to complete it. Otherwise I have to give it a 9/10.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney & Justice For All: Very charismatic games with excellent plotlines. The puzzles can become frustrating at times, but the way the characters are written makes it well worth playing through at least once. The second one feels like more of the same with extra mechanics, but again the character interaction and the writing make it worth playing through at least once, even if the replay value is somewhat low on each game. PW1: 8/10. PW2: 7/10.

[Count Dooku]

I got Forza 2 yesterday and I can't put it down. There is incredible diversity in the game. There are over 300 cars, and dozens of upgrades for each car. The car-type specific events (which in career mode, this is all there is) are absolutely awesome. Every race is different, and that really makes the game enjoyable. The online is a blast too.

[2000AD]

Recently I've been replaying Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. It's pretty much like his Civ games with 2 notable exceptions:

1- You can design your own units. You can tailor your unit to your strategy whether it's making the toughest meanest thing ever created or strapping the biggest gun you have onto a chassis and sending wave after wave of your own men at the enemy.

2- Social Engineering. The precursor for all the govenrment options in Civ4, except it works a lot better. Each choice has it's own posoitves and negatives and combined with the advantages and disadvantages of each faction, getting the most out of your social engineering is a game in itself.

The narrations for each building, techonology and secret project (wonder), simular to the ones Leonard Nimoy did for CIv4 are also fun and add a lot of character to the faction leaders.

Despite it not techncically being a Civ game I consider it the best of the Sid Meiers Civ style games.

[weemadando]

Hit Man 1: Shoddy mechanics, and figuring out how to beat a stage is more trouble than it's really worth. 4/10.

This I personally love - the controls were really excellent (giving me the ability to calmly walk past an open door and put rounds through it without even glancing in that direction, or sprinting while blind firing behind you at pursuers.

As for figuring out how to beat a stage, time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

[Stark]

I prefer Hitman1 to the other ones. Fucking led by the hand bullshit.

Space Rangers 2 is awesome: it's like Elite but holy shit things are happening. You can influence tech development and military operations... or you can sit in systems safe from the war and make billions using loans from Business Center Fatman. If you're into this sort of thing, it's fantastic.

Gizzawar - it really *is* good, unlike most other 'good' console games. Cover system is probably better in Vegas, and it's hell short, but for shooter action it pisses all over stuff like Lonely Planet (the attack of the 8bit gameplay). An actual must have.

Warhammer Mark of Chaos SUCKS BALLS. Not only is it shit, with horribly broken mechanics and hero fights you have to micro WHILE THERE'S A WAR ON, but it runs like absolute ass. Drivel.

And Zod, you should be able to finish HL2 in a day or two. The brilliant 'I'm being chased by the Evil Cops so I'll go straight to the Hidden Base' plot isn't that long.

[General Zod]

And Zod, you should be able to finish HL2 in a day or two. The brilliant 'I'm being chased by the Evil Cops so I'll go straight to the Hidden Base' plot isn't that long.

I could, but I really hate playing through the same sections of a game twice because I wound up losing the save file. Real pain in the ass even if it is relatively simple.

[CaptHawkeye]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl - A pretty good game on its own. Though it suffers from balance issues and a couple of random bugs. Best to get mods for it.

On its own: 3/5. With mods: 4/5

Red Orchestra - Kind of like what would happen if you crossed America's Army and Call of Duty. Gunplay is downright awesome if you like realism. Though at the times, the game concentrates too much on realism.

For instance, the game will make the player suffer an aiming penalty for having a full mag in his weapon because it is heavier. What the devs don't understand is that you aren't actually holding the weapon.

4/5

Xenosaga Episode 3 - Yes, it's a bit of the FF standard interactive storybook. Yes, Stark probably hates it. But in all honesty, I couldn't help but be hypnotized by Xenosaga's wonderful cast and decent, if convulted, story. The dual action system isn't half bad, and E.S. battles fucking own. Plus its got KOS MOS, who is only the most awesome video game character ever.

4/5

Ace Combat 4 Shattered Skies - A pick up and play action fest, the game is told from an interesting "from the enemy's eyes" narrative. A high number of flyable aircraft all with their own detailed cockpits and customizable weapon loadouts. Arguably one of the best games i've ever played.

5/5

Battlefield 2 - While the gameplay itself is fine, and the general atmosphere of the game is solid, BF2 suffers from an utterly RETARDED player community. Remember that "Worst Types of Gaming Assholes" topic in the OT forum? 98% of the assholes listed in that thread you will encounter in BF2 no questions asked. Only play this game if you find a reliable clan or a server with admins who play regularly.

2/5

Half Life 2 - Like Zod said, it balances action and story perfectly.

Though I hope your SoD is strong, many of the things the "Elite" forces of the Combine do in the game literally had me falling out of my chair laughing.

While Half Life 2 is worthy of a 5/5, the forced inclusion of Steam makes for a score drop of 1 point. Ask anyone who owns Half Life 2, Steam is unreliable, consumes lots of hard drive space, and generally makes your gaming life a pain in the ass.

4/5

Company of Heroes - An extremely clever RTS. Does away with the cliche'd "Who can climb the tech tree fastest" situations. Since gameplay is heavily based upon tactics and the general situation. Any tactic can be countered, any strategy can be used. Totally destrucable terrain and impressive graphics. Not to mention interesting levels.

5/5

Medal of Honor - Rising Sun

I don't know what in the name of FUCK happened here. The devs must have been surfing their MOHAA money piles for so long they literally thought they could just slap the name "Medal of Honor" on a game and it would sell. Bland graphics and enviornments, the most retarded AI I have ever seen. A story so god damn cliched up the ass you almost want to cry. I stopped playing about half way through and sold it after a month.

1/5

[Citizen Erased]

Lately I've been playing two games alot:
Need for Speed Most Wanted:
Despite hating underground and underground 2 I love this game. It's set in the daylight which makes it seem less chavy. It also doesn't have a respect metre which means you can keep cars looking stock instead of adding ridiculous spoilers and bodykits to cars.
Civilization 4:
I've played all the Civilization games and this is my favourite. I love the visual style compared to the old style and it's much quicker to get through all the game.

[Stark]

Oh I know what you mean, every time I pull out old Ultima 7 I get bored before I get to the place I got to when I was 17. Never did finish the damn thing.

But the end to HL2 is ... well... you'll either laugh till milk comes out your nose or think it's the best thing ever.

Actually, Halflife2. The game sold on the back of a free-form physics system that didn't exist. Scripted events sold as options the player had at all times. Retarded plot where Gordon basically ruins everything for everyone. Spawning armies of uniformed, rocket-armed resistance guys in the heart of the alien base. Levels built around the cardinal sin of impassable chain-link and hundreds of textured-on doors. An impassable spooky town one guy got through with a shotgun. A prison that isn't just a prison anymore, but is indeed just a prison.

I didn't play HL2 until like, 2005? 2006? And it SUCKED. I'd been playing UT2k4 and mods for years, and people kept saying how great HL2 was, how it looked better etc. All lies. And all the mods that moved from UE2.0 to Source due to 'awesome features' or whatever never finished. Hilarious.

Freedom Force - comicbook superhero business with huge flexbility. Make your own guys and throw them into the campaign! Rape the badguys with superspeed, laugh at their puny guns, drive them mad with Valentines day cards. Huge modbase with every comic character (including hundreds I'd never heard of). Even 30" tall Optimus Prime. Episdodic oldscore comic campaign, danger-room skirmishes, a bit of multiplay. Great stuff.

EDIT - Evil Genius. Such a great idea! Dungeon Keeper for the James Bond set. Sadly, not so great: retarded staff and super-powerful badguys meant constant vigilance. The hero with the rocket launcher should never be used, or he will LITERALLY destroy your base in one firefight. The 'need to find secret death' for the super agents mean they'll kill hundreds of your guys a few times until you work it out. Valets are the most important unit. Subpar, but good for a laugh.

[CaptHawkeye]

One of my favorite aspects about Half Life 2 is the fact that it is so absurd at times, their is no way in hell you can avoid treating like a comedy.

I love how entire squads of Combine soldiers will stand right next to the barrels clearly marked "Flammable", even as they are facing a man with a fucking telekinesis gun. Or all the times they will take cover beneath the dangerously overloaded balcony with cars on it, the countless times they will stand in the middle of the road your car is driving down at max speed.

And my personal favorite Combine "D'oh" moment. "Hey, let's try and shoot Freeman out of that magnetic lift with our sub machine guns and hope he doesn't notice the huge metal containers and steel beams right next to us."

These guys took over the world in 7 hours? This sounds strangely like Battlefield Earth.

[Stark]

One of my favorite aspects about Half Life 2 is the fact that it is so absurd at times, their is no way in hell you can avoid treating like a comedy.

I love how entire squads of Combine soldiers will stand right next to the barrels clearly marked "Flammable", even as they are facing a man with a fucking telekinesis gun. Or all the times they will stand beneath the dangerously overloaded balcony with cars on it, the countless times they will stand in the middle of the road your car is driving down at max speed.

And my personal favorite Combine "D'oh" moment. "Hey, let's try and shoot Freeman out of that magnetic lift with our sub machine guns and hope he doesn't notice the huge magnetic containers and steel beams right next to us."

These guys took over the world in 7 hours? This sounds strangely like Battlefield Earth.

It's the shit writing that get me. Oh noes, we've been found and attacked not five minutes after Freeman LED THEM TO OUR FRONT DOOR. There were badguys around the corner not 100m away when he went in. Great idea, idiot. Of course that led to the worst objective ever: 75% of the game was 'rescue useless NPC you don't care about when you should be trying to save the fucking world'.

It's *bad* that at the end when evil dude is saying 'why are you doing it Gordon you're dooming us all', I AGREED with him. Gordon didn't have a plan: Gordon smash! That's it. Good thing he had apparently the entire population in the resistance with rocket launchers! Great occupation there Combine.

Don't forget all the bad things you can do to badguys are all scripted. Go on, knock that FIXED stuff off the roof! I dare you! Oh wait, this one has a destroyable brick, Valve set it up for me! After years of having people say 'zomg hl2 is teh win', when it has a shit plot, shit level design and is scripted out the ass, well... I can honestly say 'FEAR was better'. That's pretty harsh.

Company of Heroes. If you want an RTS, this is a good place to start. Basically DoW with 80% less lame, it's conventional enough to have bases but innovative enough to actually be fun playing. Also, Shep sucks at it.

[Knife]

Hit Man 1: Shoddy mechanics, and figuring out how to beat a stage is more trouble than it's really worth. 4/10.

This I personally love - the controls were really excellent (giving me the ability to calmly walk past an open door and put rounds through it without even glancing in that direction, or sprinting while blind firing behind you at pursuers.

As for figuring out how to beat a stage, time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

Agreed. I thought the control layout was very natural and easy to use. As far as figuring out how to beat a level, the fun of Hitman I was that there was multiple ways to beat it, unlike the other two or three. With the exception of perhaps the hotel level, you could go phyco, or be a sneaky bastard. Snipe or strangle. Your choice.

I also liked the money based reward system better than the title based in II or III.

[weemadando]

Blood Money came VERY close to pipping no.1 as my favourite Hitman game. Massive variety of options in how you play, a return to cash based reward. Plus notoriety...

[Knife]

Blood Money came VERY close to pipping no.1 as my favourite Hitman game. Massive variety of options in how you play, a return to cash based reward. Plus notoriety...

Hmm, that's IV right? Never played that one, stopped at Contracts.

[Stark]

I hated Contracts, so I didn't play BM very much. It seemed to be back to basics sneaking/scouting with deadly gunfights, though. So long as you can drop your gun and pick up a dead guys gun in one motion I'm happy.

[Knife]

I hated Contracts, so I didn't play BM very much. It seemed to be back to basics sneaking/scouting with deadly gunfights, though. So long as you can drop your gun and pick up a dead guys gun in one motion I'm happy.

The sequels I played were fun, but not as good as the original. Something to be said about deciding for myself how the hit will go down. Kind of like the origianl Rainbow Six. I like that sort of freedom in my video games.

Kind of like how Total War kicks ass and SW Empire at War sucked balls.

[Covenant]

I don't have a lot of 2/5 and 1/5 games on my list, despite there's lots of 'em, since I don't play them long enough to remember. I could drag out a ShitList if I had a bit of time to think of it, but just thinking of stuff I have either played recently or thought was notable.

Evil Genius: 3/5
I like this too, it's a fun game. It's not great, as the game really boils down to "build the most impenetrable base you can, exploit the AI as best you can, survive the stupid and arbitrary superhero attacks and military strikes and never take it off Yellow Alert." I hate that last bit--yellow alert doesn't do anything except tell your men to not be fucking retarded, so you always want it on, but it constantly sends out the Klaxon, which is really aggrivating. If the game was less about traps (a constant flaw in basebuilder games) and more about building a functioning evil genius lair that can support your actions overseas (which are handled basically invisibly) then it'd be better. Still a fun game, but without multiplayer or any kind of motivation to actually let the computer beat on you, kept from being perfect.

Supreme Commander: 4/5
A good game that I ended up liking despite myself. I hate how bland the game feels, but it's solid mechanics make for a fun and strategic game if you have a year to waste on a single round. It's usually time well-invested and it's fairly balanced, though having another game to play that's faster is nice too. Not perfect because the immersion factor suffers a bit, the cost in time spent is high and not suitable to pickup gaming, and a variety of endgame dynamics that you'll either love or hate.

C&C3: 3/5
This is the 'faster' game. Faster even than DoW at times, which is damn speedy too. Three factions again, which is nice, and the Scrin are not overpowered as most 'new' factions are. It has a lot less strategic emphasis than SupCom, but it's variety of special abilities means that things can go fairly wacky. Active patching by EA should help to correct game imbalances, but it's pretty fun. You can hit the most 'advanced' levels of the tech tree and slog it out in grand fashion in less than ten minutes. Not very epic though, as your screen is murderously close in to the ground, despite the fact that it's a 3D camera and able (through modding) to pan out super far.

Battle for Middle Earth 2: 2/5, 3/5 after the expansion
This game is hilarious and awesome and so incredibly stupid. I love to play it because it's got so much glorious fluff in it. Dwarven armies? Hell yes. Sign me up. And once you get the Angmar expansion, the create-a-hero function is no longer as immensely overpowered. It has a tendency to lag, but it looks pretty nice when in combat. Armies feel too small, but that's easily changed in the in-game command limit modifier you set in map choice/setup. Basically, duke it out in Lord of the Rings inspired (loosely inspired at times) armies and layer on thick the special powers. There is indeed a potent strategic/tactical game there, but it is nearly completely masked by the incredible power of heroes and by some of the changes they made. Battle for Middle Earth 1 was a superior game in terms of design, and a lot of things in BFME2 are just arbitrary (none more obvious that the fact that horses take magical 'revenge' damage from trampling pikemen, even from behind, whereas in BFME1 you could safely trample them if they weren't facing the right way) but BFME2 has so many crazy factions that you'll have some fun with it for a while, and it's dripping with flavor. It scores low because of the dumb choices they made, and the utterly broken hero maker in stock BFME2.

Sword of the Stars: 3/5
SotS is a game I'm an active, or was active, modder of so I know it fairly well inside and out. My public sparring sessions with the lead game developer are also the stuff of legend! A big idea from a little company, it's a version of MOO stripped down to the combat basics and played out across a map of warp node connected planets. It's geared for multi, and does pretty well at it, and it's insanely easy to modify the game into something nearly entirely different. I did, and it is way far superior like that, and that's more or less the consensus I heard from others too. Because of that modability, it goes from being a meh 2/5 to a potentially great game, since it's only limited by your own creativity. The game would be a 4/5 if they had just stripped it of their own pointless plot and backstory and made the game specifically designed for customization, as it is way easier to mod than Homeworld 2 and comes with a great graphics editor that you can use to create all-new particle effects.

Space Empires V: 4/5
Like a MoO clone of the modern era, this game combines oldschool game theory with suprisingly slick 3D. Given that there's an active mod community for this and in-game ultra-open support for adding entirely new shipsets and pictures and modifying the game directly, you can take the boring shipsets and replace them with the Empire, or the Hiigarans (which I made!) or the Federation. It's always fun to see an ISD blow the shit out of a Federation ship in-game. And given that the modding is so stupidly easy, a STvSW game mod is something that this forum could probably bang out in a single week. It's a project I know I'd be interested in! Oh yeah, and the stock game is good too. Better than MoO 3.

Gunbound: 2/5-4/5, your mileage may vary wildly
Who hasn't played this? It's free, it's online, and it's basically worms with tanks. Oh yeah, and there's also a set of online wind-charts and power calculations to make the game far too easy. People at the top level are a perfect example of Korean gaming mechanics--you fail to achieve an optimal game, and you lose. But the painfully cute tanks, and the silly crud you buy with your in-game winnings, make the game potentially fun longterm for a group of friends. There's always going to be someone who wants to win more than you do and will either use one of the many cheats or out-of-game fire control guides, but it can either be a hilarious worms clone that's easy to play for 5 minutes and put down or the most inspid example of why playing to win can expose an underlying flaw in simplistic game design. It's saved from being a 1-3 stars because of it's uniformly pleasent art scheme, and can get up to a 4 because there is indeed a highly tactical team game potential there so long as nobody cheats.

City Life: 4/5
Ever hear of this? Probably not. It's like if Will Wright called in sick and they sent in a sociology department instead to help make a SimCity game. The basic premise is that you're in control of less micro-management functions, such as not needing to lay powerlines or water ways, but that your role is to propagate a massive city functionally by trying to minimize socioeconomic stress. The main split is at the second-to-lowest tier, between trendy 'fringe' types and standard 'blue collar' workers. These people have wildly different needs in terms of entertainment, occupation, the living spaces they like, so you end up trying to create self-sufficent ethnic neighborhoods in your towns, but also need to appeal to a wide range of people. People also want a chance to socially elevat themselves, from blue collar workers to suits, to CEOs and other social elite. The game itself has much less you need to worry about than modern iterations of SimCity, so it's more approachable. However, needing to deal hands-on with all these social groups makes it a refreshingly different type of experience. It's pretty fun to try to build a city socially for a change. 4/5 for being a more-or-less satisfactorially average citymaker sim with some nice additions and a cool new focus. Being able to zoom down to street level is always fun.

Splinter Cell Wii: 1/5
Godawful. Not only did they shit out the worst graphics ever for a Wii title where the Splinter Cell game itself is normally quite nice to look at, but they must have had badly trained intern set up the control scheme while stoned and suffering from bouts of mental illness. It's so mind-numbingly bad that even if you can get the hang of it the controls will never even approach 'adequate' and there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it since they won't let you remap. The Splinter Cell folks had been pissing on their nintedo ports for a while out of sheer laziness, and this one is just inexcusable. Seeing how nice the graphics are in several other games, and how finely tuned the controls can be in remarkably similar situations (like Twilight Princess, same basic type of requirements), it's obvious that they just got lazy. How retarded.

Zelda: Twilight Princess: 5/5
Okay, let me just say, I hate Zelda games. I really do. From top to bottom there are things I hate, but this one was really worth the time I put into it, and I can't say I really saw anything I felt like changing. I really was surprised it was as fun as it was, and I played it on the Wii, so it was even that little bit extra fun from the new controls. It was a great demonstration of how easy and intuitive it could be to use the Wiimote, but it was also just a really fun game. Pretty moronically easy as usual, but there were so many extra things you could do that I can't imagine anyone would go through the whole thing without finding a minigame they like doing a few times to make money. The 5/5 is for sheer completeness of design. Another one of these 'your mileage may vary' games, but I can't really say I ever felt frustrated with the game for lacking something necessary. For people who like this kind of thing, this is what they like.

ExciteTruck: 3/5
You drive trucks on a crazy course using the Wiimote. Excited yet? If you're not thrilled by the concept of blasting across surprisingly nice looking terrain in a truck you control by actually tilting the remote like you would a wheel then you might as well pass on this. I thought it was a lot of fun, but most racing games tend to attract people with online modes and slick, photoreal cars and lots of shit like that. ExciteTruck has none of those things. You unlock trucks, but you can't do more than choose color and optional decals once you unlock them. Racing is important but you can honestly win more often by scoring points than just zooming along, which isn't a bad thing, as it adds strategy. Sadly it'd multiplayer is incredibly limited, which drags this otherwise fun game down to a 3/5. It's totally a party game except for the fact that you can't play it with a party. If there was ever a game that should have been delayed until Wii online gaming mode was put in, it's fucking ExciteTruck.

Manhunt: 5/5
I love Manhunt. I want a Manhunt movie, or TV show. It should star the big dude from Prison Break. And it would be awesome. I love this game because it is itself a pretty solid sneak game that adds in the extra visceral twist that the game is known for, and a packaging/story that was compelling enough to make it more than just a Jack Thompson 'murder sim'. The ultraviolence really starts to weigh on you after a while, and I felt they coordinated it well with the pacing of the plot, so that just as you're starting to be a little unnerved by the gore, you get a shot at the guy forcing you to do this, and are quite happy to do so. Well made for it's genre and pretty fun from beginning to end. Satisfying all around! I played the PC version, which was lots of fun, and I did one level a night, like a sweet reward for my day's labor.

Man, normally I'm so hard to please, and so hard on games. I really feel like coming back with a list of all the games I absolutely hate, just to prove I'm not Mr. McEasilyamused.

[Flagg]

The game I absolutely despise is Mafia. It had great gameplay, and an awesome world, it just had the most retarded and pussified story ever. Basically, you're a mobster, but "one of the good ones". You never kill anyone that doesn't deserve it, and even let fucking rats live, because other than being a rat, they're innocent. You get no fucking choice in the matter at all. The ONLY redeeming quality of the story is the end, which may actually be one of the best.

[weemadando]

I hated Contracts, so I didn't play BM very much. It seemed to be back to basics sneaking/scouting with deadly gunfights, though. So long as you can drop your gun and pick up a dead guys gun in one motion I'm happy. :)

Screw guns. Remotely triggered explosives in lunchboxes, cars, toolboxes, elevators, attached to sections of suspended (not for much longer) structures are the way to go.

[Resinence]

I hated Contracts, so I didn't play BM very much. It seemed to be back to basics sneaking/scouting with deadly gunfights, though. So long as you can drop your gun and pick up a dead guys gun in one motion I'm happy.

Screw guns. Remotely triggered explosives in lunchboxes, cars, toolboxes, elevators, attached to sections of suspended (not for much longer) structures are the way to go.

Don't forget poisoned cakes and drinks, food etc. You can even poison an entire party in blood money

[Nephtys]

Short reviews! Because I can't be bothered for more!

Far Cry: 3.5/5 - Fun early on, it gets real bad once you meet radioactive monkeys. You heard me.

FEAR: 3.0/5 - More like 'abuse bullet time' to me. And what's with Dooku's Clone Army teaming up with the girl from Ringu?

CNC3: 4/5 - Enjoy Cinematics? Here's Boomer, Six, Lando, the villain from Total Recall and Kane. Wait, there's a game? Oh yeah. And it looks better than Starcraft 2 already.

SupCom: 4/5 - It's like TA, but with half the style, and twice the units. Though the big units get fun! And ships are always a blast.

Battle For Middle Earth 2/Ex-Pack: 3/5 - Like Rome Total War, only strategy doesn't matter. No matter how awesome your knights are, a bunch of goblins carrying sticks slaughter them like if they run into a brick wall. Be sure to have rock troops (swords/spears) backing up scissors troops (spears) incase paper(Calvary) attacks!

Silent Storm 2 or 3: 2.5/5 - Awesome turn-based engine... but, buggy as hell AI, takes way too long to process an enemy turn, and have fun surviving the second mission.

STALKER: 3/5 - You there, Stalker! Have be good the Czech translation. Shoot head from The Soldier, in the name of The Freedom. Stuff gets less of creepy after you find how limit things are. Darth Vader tell you: Do not want!!!!

UFO Extraterrestrials: 0/5 if stock, 3/5 if modded. - Like X-COM? This isn't it. It's awful as hell until you mod it, when it becomes close to orignal X-COM. That's right, I went there. It's no 5/5, since it still is ugly as hell when modded, has some weapon balance/upgrading issues, and geoscape is a little limited. Good enough for the fix though! But for the love of god, mod it before you play.

UFO Afterlight: 2.5/5 - Better than Aftermath and Aftermath, it's still pitifully flawed. Enjoy having only 8 soldiers, and no replacements if any get killed. Also, the aliens can mentally sense, target, and kill your solders through walls, mountains or anything. And they also all pack rocket launchers. Humanity is screwed.

Rainbow Six Vegas: 3.5/5 - Imagine that, an FPS about taking cover. It's really easy to fire a gun around a corner, over a table counter, or while hanging upside down like some sort of weird ninja. Fun!

Sword of the Stars: 3.5/5 - Play Covenant's mod or die. With my music pack

Left Behind: Who am I kidding? I want to play this for the awesome factor.