Bioshock: Infinite – Burial at Sea Episode 2 Review

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Release Date: March 25, 2014

The first episode of Burial at Sea was a short, wet fart of an expansion that didn’t even come close to fulfilling its $15 price tag and squandered almost all hope for Episode 2 before it had even been released.

Episode 1’s ending paved the way for Episode 2 to at least begin with a bang, almost like a dying breath giving another some much-needed (and deserved) life. But Elizabeth is at the helm this time and she doesn’t make the same mistakes as Booker. Actually, her journey almost retroactively makes Burial at Sea a satisfying package.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Review

Platforms: PS3, PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox 360
Release Date: March 18, 2014

Calling Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes a demo would be easy… and incredibly dismissive.

The Phantom Pain, the actual Metal Gear Solid V, is, according to Kojima, at least a year or so from being completed. We’ve been waiting since 2008 to Metal Gear it up again. That’s a long fucking time to wait between releases. The patience needed to play a stealth game is different than the patience needed to actually wait for a stealth game, especially one in such a coveted franchise. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is sort of a half-priced prologue to The Phantom Pain. The Prologue Pain, if you will. Although it isn’t a full-priced game or a twenty-hour epic, Ground Zeroes isn’t as naked as the Snake that it stars.

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Review

Platforms: Playstation Vita (Reviewed), 3DS
Release Date: October 30, 2013

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate must have been one of the best pitches in its conceptual stage.

Everyone loves a good Metroidesque game, a hybridized genre focused on exploration, platforming, and finding new abilities. It’s basically a trifecta of what most gamers yearn for. And most people love Batman, especially after Arkham Asylum and Arkham City gave the name a better reputation after the years of shoddy comic book licensed games. Some of the folks at Armature Studio were responsible for the Metroid Prime games, so if any studio was going to tackle this endeavor, they would surely have the chops and experience to make the cut. It just seems like they followed the Arkham Origins approach to being generally underwhelming.

The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC Review

Platform: PS3
Release Date: February 14, 2014

Talented developers usually make bad downloadable add-ons.

Bioshock Infinite, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed III, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance… the list can really go on on the well-regarded games that release sub-par DLC or DLC that is crappier than the original game. The Last of Us, last year’s shining accomplishment, ended perfectly and needed no more explanation. Naughty Dog would be hard-pressed to find a way to actually improve their masterpiece and their lack of experience in single-player add-ons almost made Left Behind‘s mere existence worth questioning.

Left Behind shows that it’s really stupid to question Naughty Dog’s talents.

Beyond: Two Souls Review

Platform: PS3
Release Date: October 8, 2013

Heavy Rain was a hell of a game. “Game.” Game. Whatever.

Whether or not you’re going to argue the pedantic point of whether the word “game” should be in quotes, Heavy Rain‘s non-traditional approach to branching storytelling and interactive drama shook most players up. It filled a void that people didn’t know existed and became quite successful both critically and commercially. Such success naturally led to Beyond: Two Souls, a game with a similar mindset, set to flip norms just as much as Heavy Rain. It certainly tries but Beyond just isn’t nearly as good.

Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus Review

Platform: PS3
Release Date: November 12, 2013

Insomniac, you’ve sure got some stones. Or maybe you don’t. I can’t tell.

After running into a creative roadblock after the sublime Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, developer Insomniac made a few noteworthy attempts to move the series into new directions. These new directions were the gutter and the sewer respectively, with All 4 One and Full Frontal Assault both being soulless and middling at best. Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus marks a return to form, if you will. This is a regular Ratchet and Clank game through and through. Weapons, upgrades, and a wonderful art style greet you like sort of long-lost friend. After the initial metaphorical small talk, it’s easy to see that the franchise needs some sort of reboot. Or something else more drastic.

Assassin’s Creed IV Review

Platforms: PS3, PS4 (Reviewed), Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Wii U
Release Date: October 29, 2013 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U); November 15, 2013 (PS4); November 19, 2013 (PC); November 22, 2013 (Xbox One)

Pirates don’t get much love in video games. Outside of the Sid Meier’s games which, face it, you didn’t play, gaming hasn’t really seen its premiere swashbuckling, pirate adventure that it has rightfully deserved for so long. Oddly enough, it’s an Assassin’s Creed game that fills that void. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag takes the pirate atmosphere and lifestyle and injects its own signature formula in hopes to give players the pirate game they’ve always dreamed of along with breathing new life into this long-running franchise.

Batman: Arkham Origins Initiation DLC Review

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Release Date: December 3, 2013

Batman: Arkham Origins saved us the crap by not explicitly showing Batman’s actual origins. Thank Christ. But this first add-on for Arkham Origins does that in some sort of respect. While not just set of challenge rooms and not quite a story-based piece of content, Origins‘ Initiation DLC gives players a look at Bruce Wayne’s… well, initiation into becoming the Dark Knight. Initiation attempts to try something different, but just like the root game, it slips up far more often than it succeeds.

Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode One DLC Review

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Release Date: November 12, 2013

Trapped between being gorgeously beautiful and gorgeously twisted, Rapture was the idealistic landscape that inspired the player’s imagination in the original Bioshock all the way back in 2007. Although most ignorant people damned that same setting in Bioshock 2, Rapture has returned to Bioshock, a la the Burial at Sea downloadable chapter for Bioshock Infinite. Booker and Elizabeth’s journey is similar in more ways than one to the core venture in Infinite except in one area: quality.

Grand Theft Auto V Review

Platforms: PS3 (Reviewed), Xbox 360
Release Date: September 17, 2013

Jacking cars. Jacking cars never changes… or it kind of does. Grand Theft Auto IV‘s release way back in 2008 struck before there were really any big juggernauts in the open-world crime genre. Saints Row hadn’t come into its own yet and Sleeping Dogs wasn’t even Sleeping Dogs at that point. But we’re looking at this generation’s sunset and much has evolved in the way of the open-world genre in ways that Rockstar isn’t used to seeing. They’ve had actual competition at this point.

But Grand Theft Auto V is more than enough of a game to stand up to the ever-growing list of threats. Like a king looking down upon his people, GTAV has accepted this challenge, blowing out the doors in sheer scope and budget. This is the open-world game in many respects, but even the king makes some unpredictable mistakes from time to time.