Game Review: Mass Effect

DISCLAIMER: I should have put this up on all my game reviews. I am not a journalist. I have not desire to be a journalist. These are just regular reviews from a 30 year old gamer from the golden age of gaming.

I was re-reading the blog and realized we have a lot more entries criticizing games than we do praising games. Well, I wanted to alleviate all of five of our readers’ concerns that we might be some secret government conspiracy that hates games by posting a review that greatly praises a game. Therefore, I will give my review of a game I consider great, Mass Effect.

I consider this game great for one reason; I did not want to put the controller down when I played it. I forcefully had to tell myself to stop playing.

The game is set in the future. How far? Around 150 years. You play the role of Sheppard, a certified badass. I am not sure how else you could put it, but Sheppard kicks ass, even more so if you choose the “jerk” route.

Character customization is limited, yet fits nicely in the story. You select if you are a male or a female. You have a choice between six classes, Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. It is pretty much your basic Fighter (Solider), Wizard (Adept), and Tech/Rogue (Engineer). Plus, there are three classes that are a mixture of the two main classes.

Each class has its own skill-set. For example, I chose Vanguard. I was able to use pistols and shotguns as well as use some of the Adept abilities, like “fling the poor bastard in the air and watch him fly away while you shoot it with your pistol.” Good times!

A nice addition was the background of your character. You can choose between spacer, colonist, or earthborn as your place of origin. Each has its own background. In addition, you get to select a distinguishing background occurrence, sole survivor, ruthless soldier, or war hero. Again, this affects the story and gives it replay value.

The story is awesome, and very complex. I was surprised how the story appeals to the older game generation. It deals with subjects such as racism, imperialism, and good vs. evil, with all of the gray areas in-between.

The voice-acting is phenomenal, very nicely done. BIOWARE is known for this. Who am I kidding? BIOWARE is fantastic game developer. Of course, I am an RPG dork so I am expected to say this.
The dialogue in the game uses a “tree” formula which branches off into different dialogue options. Depending on your actions, it will also place you on the road to “Paragon” (good guy) or “Renegade” (sarcastic guy). However, you will find out that you can never be pure good or evil because some of the “Renegade” options are just too damned fun.

Good god, this sounds like an actual game review.

There is sex in the game!

The graphics are great.

Combat takes a little getting used to. If you are a COD4 fan or Halo3, you will want to play it as a first person shooter. Do yourself a favor and remember this is a role playing game. Something is to be said for strategy. With that said, the only frustrating thing in the game is the different menus during battles. You will become accustomed to it, but it does take time.

The development of the supporting cast is fantastic as well. BIOWARE put a lot of care into characters like Garrus, my main man Wrex, and Ashley Williams. I let Kaidan die because he needs to grow a set.

I could write more, but just take my word for it…buy this game. 5 out of 5 or 10 out of 10 or whatever. One of my favorite games of all time. I am looking forward to the next two.

Game Review: Super Smash Brothers Brawl (SSBB)

I am a Smash Brothers virgin. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know who the hell the Smash Brothers are. They sound like a local asphalt or demolition company. If I had my choice between fighting the Smash Brothers or the Mario Brothers, I would choose the Mario Brothers. Why? Because, I know what kind of has been I am getting with Mario and Luigi and have no idea what I would expect from the Smash Brothers.

There are 35 different playable characters in this game with such Nintendo staples as Marth (who?), Ness (who?), and of course, Mr. Game & Watch (what?). I would rather have seen the Smash Brothers make an appearance in this game.

This game also allows you to choose between several different control schemes. You can use the Wiimote, the Wiimote plus Nunchuck, the GameCube pad, the Classic Controller, a pad and pencil, an old Laser Tag unit, the Hubble Telescope, and of course, the WiiToilet (which is really quite innovative).

The game controls are extremely easy to use; One button to jump, one button to smash, one button for special smash, and one button for shield.

I look at this game as two games in one. You have the Subspace Emissary and the actual Brawl game.
The Subspace Emissary is a side-scrolling, button-mashing snorefest which left much to be desired. There is a story behind the Subspace Emissary which is told through several cut screens. I didn’t understand the damn story because there was no dialogue and I was too busy icing my swollen thumbs.

The parts with Diddy Kong were funny.

The other part of the game is what I really like, the Brawl. This resembles a StreetFighter II cluster(f dash dash dash)word. Four players are flying around the board, trying to knock each other off the edge. Each time you get hit, your percentage goes off. Each time your percentage goes off, the farther you fly when get hit.

The Brawl part of the game makes a fantastic party game. I get shear joy in my eyes when I knock Justin or Jamar off the boards knowing that I have 0% skill when playing this game. This is one of the few fighting games where you can compete with “good” players with little to no skill.

I really loved the innovative “boards” or what you would call the fighting stages. I thought they were extremely well thought out and colorful. The fact that there a stage that reflects the game origin of each character was a nice touch.

The music is terrific in this game because some famous video game composers wrote the score for SSBB. I don’t know who these famous composers are, but I am sure they make an awful lot of money.

There is also a “Vault.” In the Vault, you can view the trophies and stickers you collect from doing fancy things in the game. You can take your stickers and trophies on virtual backgrounds, take a snapshot of their virtual horde, and send the picture to their friends on Nintendo Wi-Fi….whoop de f’n do.

There are other minor options in this game which aren’t worth reviewing.

I give this game 4 out of 5 stars.

The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass Review.

Let me start by saying this game is incredible. It is a wonderful thing to have a great Zelda game in your pocket. This game looks almost as good as the gamecube game on which it's based.

A lot of people pissed and moaned about a cartoony Link when the Wind Waker came out. Yeah it was a little weird, but it still felt right.

(Nobody likes you)

Phantom Hourglass is no exception. All the great things one would expect from a great Zelda game are here...only smaller. There are a few new concepts that helps makes this game more unique, such as the new hookshot. Now it can be used as a tight rope, or used like a rubberband to fling Link onto another platform.

One of the more simple and fun things in the game is customizing your ship. There a bunch of different parts available, such as hulls, wheels, stacks, anchors, etc. I found myself spending a lot of time finding all of these. The game itself is not very long, but it is solid. Nintendo does a great job of making sure one can stop and save at anytime (very good to have when on the road with your DS).

There are a lot of wothless games out there for the DS, but Nintendo always makes sure to represent. This game is as good as it gets on the little duel screen.

Reviews

You will soon see game reviews on this here blog. There is a bit of a caveat. Team LXG is in their late 20’s to early 30’s. We all grew up with video games as one of our favorite hobbies. You could call us the Nintendo generation.

The reviews you will read are humorous, sarcastic, and brutally honest. Just because we see a game with the name Mario attached to it, doesn’t mean we will give it an automatic 10. We do not believe in that BS.

We all have our own review style. Please feel free to leave your hate comments.