Recent reviews by Trent

With Crysis 2, the series finally arrived where it was always meant to be. Crysis 2 is the equivalent of the loud, obnoxious blockbuster movie dazzling the audience with its fancy effects. Hell, they even got Hans Zimmer to do the soundtrack.

That being said, despite cutting down a lot on the open world aspect, Crysis 2 is probably a better game than the original. At least this one has something resembling proper pacing. The game does a far better job alternating between quiet moments, full-on shootouts and everything in-between. It also throws the player into a couple of memorable scenarios instead of making him infiltrate the same military base over and over again. The gunplay is also improved as it finally has some weight to it and the recoil doesn't seem that random anymore.

However, not all areas have been improved upon. The enemy design, for instance, is actually a step back since you're mostly fighting aliens who look like oversized (human) grunts with squishy heads - the predecessor's design definitely looked and felt more 'alien'.

The story is still completely irrelevant and only serves as an excuse to drag the player through different setpieces. And yet, the game feels the need pester you with radio chatter and cutscenes regularly even though it neither cares about the characters it introduces nor the story it was supposed to tell.

Despite some improvements, Crysis 2 is still lackluster. Although I did enjoy some parts of the game and the scenery of a war-torn New York does have a certain draw to it, a first person shooter that features subpar gunplay is simply not that enjoyable. It doesn't help that the opportunities to use various suit powers have been drastically reduced.

Even if it fails at everything else, the game is a competent benchmark to torture your GPU with.

I'm glad it's over.

A nice little brawler that probably would have turned out as mere license garbage if it hadn't been for Platinum Games. Their experience with the action genre shows and manifests itself by proven ingredients: fast-paced combat, counters, unlockable moves and, of course, the dreaded quick time events. Without them, however, some of Korra's flashier moves simply wouldn't be possible. If you have played games like Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising, you will feel right at home.

As engaging as kicking around hordes of faceless henchmen is, not even the game's cel-shading look can hide its low production values. Both environments and characters are severely lacking in details and the level structure is rather plain. Like the visuals, the story is barebone as well and hardly uses setting or characters from the series. Depending on your expectations, this could be a real downer.
The low budget is also reflected in the game's playtime. You can easily beat it within three to four hours, maybe even less if you're playing on the easiest difficulty. However, this doesn't have to be a negative.

The Legend of Korra is a small game that jumps right into the action and stays there until the end - straight up fisticuffs with little fluff. It's a nice breather, an ideal snack after one exceedingly long game or in-between two. Nothing wrong with that. However, if you expect strong tie-ins with the TV series or insist on stunning visuals, you may be setting yourself up for a disappointment.

It's common knowledge that games based on movies are usually subpar. Most of the time, they are a mere afterthought and treated like just another merchandise item. Like a t-shirt or an action figure, more often than not, the movie game is mass-produced without love or dedication, severely hindered by budget and time restraints, usually selling through name recognition alone. Good ones are hard to find.
It doesn't really help that creating a game based on a popular movie seems even more difficult than simply trying to make a good game. The movie game will not only be judged by how great it plays, but also by how true it stays to the source material. Luckily, Alien: Isolation excels in that regard, making it one of the rare games living up to its movie license. However, when it comes to its merits as a game, finding words of praise seems slightly more difficult.

Alien: Isolation follows the premise of pretty much every Alien movie in existence: A dimly lit space ship or space station, a female character named "Ripley" and an eyeless beast with a phallic-shaped head mercilessly hunting her, relying on its speed or the moment of surprise in order to kill.

Essentially, the player is as powerless as any human from the movie. Even though the game is first person, it is not necessarily a first person shooter. There are weapons, but even if ammo wasn't hard to come by, the guns either don't work on the alien or, in case of the flamethrower, they only scare it off momentarily. Outrunning the xenomorph is not an option since it is much faster than the player and running will attract its attention almost every time. Your best bet is to avoid the creature entirely or distract it so you can sneak by. Thankfully, Alien: Isolation's Ripley is an engineer with plenty of tools at her disposal. She can craft items that produce loud noises as a means of distraction, hack modules to use her environment to her advantage and even if worst comes to worst, she can always hide in a locker, provided that she's able to reach it unseen. When you break it down, Alien: Isolation is a glorified game of hide and seek.

An early concern was that the xenomorph would behave too forgiving, that its game counterpart wouldn't hunt as mercilessly as the source material suggests. To put that particular concern to rest: It is not the case. Quite the contrary, in fact. Even though the alien may appear sluggish sometimes, it's a formidable hunter and killer. Especially early in the game, attracting the xeno's attention is almost a guaranteed game over. The creature will spot you hidden under desks, in lockers, will pull you out of vent shafts or drop down on you from above. The flamethrower helps evening things out a bit, but you still have to be on your toes. There are very few brightly lit areas in the game and spotting the xeno in this constant near-darkness just in time is often difficult enough. The creature's in-game depiction does its movie counterpart justice. Maybe even a bit too much.

Alien: Isolation is a horror game that creates tension by keeping the player as helpless as possible while letting him face an enemy that plays on some of the most basic human fears. The alien is supposed to be powerful and frightening and certainly acts that way in the game, but it loses much of its scare after dying to it too many times. Even when it's not actively looking for you, the xenomorph is constantly stalking you. Making your way through the station's system of narrow corridors, you can hear it moving in the vent shafts above you, never knowing when it will drop down and come for you. Or the alien will turn around and check out the same area three times in a row. When you're expected to look for a specific item in a new area, there's simply no time to scout the place or even read a short e-mail because the creature might attack again any moment. Sometimes mere 10 seconds lie between each attack. Some reviewers have described the alien's behavior as "unpredictable". I would call it "erratic".
It's incredibly unnerving and while the effect may be desired to some degree, it gets in the way of the actual game. As a player, you will most likely have the urge to explore or to learn more about the game's setting. Unfortunately, that kind of pressure is applied to you with almost everything you do. The alien is absolutely relentless, constantly harassing you, always lurking only a few steps away, so you will often opt to not explore at all.

Which is a shame because the environments practically scream to be explored. The art design is fantastic and has the movie's retro-future look down to a tee. Everything looks blocky and plastic; thick cables, flickering lights as well as CRTs are everywhere. Any fan would be pleased.

That is exactly what the game boils down to. Alien: Isolation is a fan pleaser that replicates some of the most defining aspects of the movie, sometimes by blatantly revisiting a location or a situation depicted in the film. It's fan wank, but it's highly potent fan wank and most likely what you expect from a game bearing the name "Alien", for better or worse. There's also a good game in here that blends well mechanically with the atmosphere it aims to create, although it might leave you frustrated at several occasions.

Dark Souls has proven that even in an age when games tend to spoonfeed the player, a niche game can still attract a reasonable following. Its blend of simple yet engaging combat mechanics, fantastic visuals and unforgiving difficulty is a rarity in the industry nowadays that managed to wow players all over the globe, especially those longing for a challenge. Despite that, it was a bit rough around the edges - edges that the sequel smoothened out to some extent. Still, if you loved Dark Souls, you can't help but feel slightly disappointed about this one.

At its core, it's Dark Souls all over again: You roam bizarre fantasy environments, fight monsters and upgrade your gear in order to fight monsters more effectively, interrupted only by the occasional invader who is after your hard-earned souls. The differences are in the details.

Take the combat, for instance. Essentially, the mechanics remain unchanged, only now your character's moveset lacks Dark Souls' distinctive sluggishness. As a result, combat in Dark Souls 2 feels more fluid, slightly faster and more direct. Unfortunately, it also feels rather weightless. What I always liked about Dark Souls was that its sluggishness conveyed the feeling that the player character's gear actually weighed something. Watching the character struggle when swinging his greatsword gave the combat a certain grittiness - a grittiness that is mostly absent in the sequel.

The PC port of Dark Souls is notoriously bad and thankfully, From Software has taken steps to avoid another shoddy porting job. Dark Souls 2 features all the good stuff a spoiled PC gamer is used to. Still, the game manages to be somewhat underwhelming visually.
A lot of that comes from the inconsistent art design: Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's lackluster. And sometimes it's just plain awful. A giant castle decorated with spikes within a sea of lava? This is just a few steps above Super Mario World.
The environments in Dark Souls are wondrous places and mostly bizarre variations of established fantasy designs like "old castle" or "mysterious forest". And yet, they possess the quality of making the player stop whatever he's doing and simply enjoy the scenery for a moment. Dark Souls 2 has those environments as well, but they are more scarce.
Despite the higher resoultions, the texture work is surprisingly bland and makes repeating textures even more obvious. Many environments suffer from looking washed out and rather grayish. Better lighting and shadowing could have improved the atmosphere.
The enemies share a similar perceived blandness in design, in addition to some of them seeming like mere copy and paste jobs from the previous game.

Despite its unforgiving nature, Dark Souls rarely felt cheap. Now Dark Souls has turned into the posterboy for "the hardcore game" - something that even From Software acknowledges in their promotion material.
If you died, it was usually your fault for adapting poorly to the situation. However, much of the difficulty in Dark Souls 2 feels cheap and inflated. Most of the time, it seems that the team knew no other way of providing a challenge than pitting you against multiple enemies at the same time or turning enemies into damage sponges. This is especially painful considering that Dark Souls had quite imaginative and challenging boss fights. Not that the game wasn't guilty of taking a shortcut every now and then, but in Dark Souls 2 it's more of a bad habit.

Speaking of shortcuts: The areas aren't interconnected anymore, making Drangleic seem less of an "actual place" compared to Lordran. At the same time, it's getting rid of the sense of wonder when discovering a new route into a previously explored area.

All of this may sound pretty negative, but it's just nitpicking, really. Dark Souls 2 is weaker than its predecessor (even the soundtrack made by the same composer seems like a step back), but it's still a phenomenal game since the aspects that made the first one great are still present, although slightly fainter. In fact, you should have a blast with this game if PvP was your focus in the previous one. There are far more options that allow you to help other players, fight them or to flat-out turn the game into a glorified griefing engine.

Dark Souls 2 is an exceptional game and a good sequel, even though it's lacking in some areas that made the first one great.

If you have played one game by Suda 51, chances are you've played them all. Take a standard third person action game, strip it down to the core and fill it up with over-the-top weirdness and cartoon violence shown through a cel-shaded lense. There is beauty in simplicity and even though Suda 51 is only credited for the story here, Killer Is Dead follows this formula down to a tee.

Killer Is Dead is your average fast-paced slash-athon. Where other hack & slash games attempt to keep things interesting by introducing new weapons, combos and abilities at a steady rate, Killer Is Dead keeps it simple: Mondo's sub weapons can all be acquired very early into the game and even though there are upgrades, they are few and far between. The game's main selling point is its ferocious combat, which feels as weightless as it feels fast. As a result, it flows quite nicely. I've lost count of how many times I got carried away and received a blow to the back simply because I wanted to keep the combo going for as long as possible. Apart from the mashing, the game also features dodge moves, counters and bloody finishers, which are all very typical for the genre.

In case you really need to spice things up, there are a couple of optional side missions waiting for you. They range from defeating enemies by counter moves exclusively to scavenger hunting. There's also a mini-game where you seduce women by staring at their goods for as long as possible. Just like in real life.

All of this wouldn't necessarily warrant a thumbs up if it wasn't for the presentation. Killer Is Dead oozes style like nothing else and keeps your attention up by showing you things you probably haven't seen before in a videogame, be it two guys in suits having a swordfight on the moon or a boss fight against a twisted version of Thomas the Tank Engine. The special brand of Suda 51 craziness is arguably lower compared to Killer7, for instance, and the overall mood is rather cold, but it's still present and unlike most things you see in videogames nowadays. For that alone, Killer Is Dead is worth the purchase.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't come without its share of problems, most of which are the result of shoddy porting. The PC version of Killer Is Dead certainly won't satisfy those who insist on high customizability, although it does look better than its console counterpart and even allows for bypassing its 30 FPS cap with little effort. Apart from the occasional crash, there is one particularly nasty bug that prevents players from progressing past mission 3 with no known workaround at this moment, so buying the game right now is a bit of a gamble.

Still, Killer Is Dead the weird, stylish maim-'em-all you wouldn't want to miss out on.

With Resident Evil 4, a video game series once known for survival horror and tank controls turned into a third person shooter with tank controls. Resident Evil 6 follows this direction even more consequently than previous installments. There's plenty to shoot, ammo is no longer scarce (true for every campaign save for Chris', for some reason), the characters are more agile than ever before and apart from Ada's campaign, every segment can be played cooperatively. Horror is only present in form of the various body horror moments, the monsters and the gore, of course. Little has changed in terms of mechanics and unless you were expecting survival horror to return, RE6 couldn't be better. In theory.

Unfortunately, the game is just littered with bad design decisions. For instance, the dreaded button mashing sequences have returned - with a vengeance. While they have been relatively few in-between before, in RE6 you stumble over them every few steps. Every time you think the game finally lets you play, it snatches control away from you in favor of another chase sequence. And even though the characters are as agile as they can get in a Resident Evil game, the zombies can now leap 4 meters (if you're American, convert it) and every time they get hold of you, you will engage in yet another QTE square dance.

In a series that has been known for zombies, you fight relatively few of those. For the most part, enemies consist of gun-toting humanoid mutants, placing RE6 even closer to a run-of-the-mill third person shooter. In addition to that, the railroading is insane, the setpieces are not as varied or interesting as they could be and the story, while absolutely ridiculous, takes itself way too seriously. If I didn't know better, I'd say RE6 is a parody of current-gen game design.

There are four campaigns in total, which offer different play styles: Leon's campaign is the closest to the more traditional RE games and the only one featuring zombies, Chris' campaign is a full-on third person shooter, Jake's campaign plays like a hybrid of both and Ada's campaign focuses on what Capcom perceives as stealth. RE6 tries to have its cake and eat it, but ends up doing nothing right. As a result, the game feels weirdly unfocused and makes it evident that Capcom doesn't know where to take the series.

Despite its glaring flaws, I can't bring myself to hate the game since the mechanics are rock-solid. The gunplay feels satisfying since zombies react properly to hits: A shot to the chest will throw them back or make them stagger; a shot to the leg will make them fall over, giving you enough time to line up additional shots or go for a melee finisher. Capcom even integrated a gore engine, which is always a nice touch in a game featuring the walking dead. RE6 is at its strongest when it's just pitting you against a horde of zombies and at its weakest when it's going for cinematic action. Unfortunately, moments like the latter are way too present. It almost seems like Capcom doesn't have any confidence in the game holding its own with all those other fancy third person shooters around.

There is a good game sleeping in here, mostly in the shape of the Mercenaries mode, which I enjoyed more than all four campaigns combined. Popping heads and body slamming zombies all day - this is what RE6 could have been: pure genocidal fun. It only takes a lot of digging to get there. If you like action games and have a high tolerance for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, check out RE6, but don't blame me if you want to fire it into the sun. In case you were expecting a return to the old days of survival horror: Don't even bother. Personally, I don't really care what you do with an established series as long as you do it right.

I for one am looking forward to Resident Evil Kart.