Dungeon Siege 3 PC Review

Dungeon Siege 3 PC Review

DS3 played on easy, around 20 hours.

Graphics: The most impressive graphics are the combat effects. I found the characters very well designed. The armors and weapons are also impressive, and you can see them on your characters. Overall the levels designs had a lot of details. I like the fact that the dungeons were not too complex. The only thing missing was real animated vegetation. Otherwise you have some snow storm effects, dust and wind. In terms of animation, the characters animations during cut scenes was the weakest, it felt really stiff. 8.5/10

Sound: The soundtrack was ok, some was great, others felt generic. The voice overs were great in all aspect. The sounds effects were well made for this game. 8/10

Gameplay: The interface is fine, as long as you play with an Xbox360 controller for PC. If you try to play with mouse/keyboard you will hate this game. In terms of action the interface sits well with the controller, leveling is smooth but a bit simple for my taste. You can get rid of extra loots by turning it to gold, which is nice. This makes buying things easier. It would have been nice to see the character with it's equipment, in the equipment screen. The fights are fast and rely on more actions then strategy. However you don't get to find many secrets or hidden dungeons, which could have help putting the characters with higher talents value. You have to choose the way your character will level, because it's impossible to bring it at 100% for everything. In a way it's fine too…The story was great. I like the simple politics and there are some ethical choices to make. It was a bit mysterious, magical, politic. Very little humor however…considering it's in a war period, that's ok. 8/10

Conclusion: Even if the game is shorter compare to the first two, I had a good period of fun with it. Not bugs, fast action, a decent story (for adolescents and higher). The game is nothing spectacular in a particular department, but it is still a well crafted action RPG that should be play. Just buy yourself a wireless Xbox360 connector for PC, and get a the controller too. It shouldn't be a surprise by now, that this is a port, with the control scheme that goes with it…Play this one.

(8/10)

The Witcher 2 PC review

The Witcher 2 PC review

I just finished the game, 24 hours of play, level easy…a bit short for a RPG. Never played the first opus.

Graphics: I have a PC that can play this game at High details. Overall the game is lovely. Amazing vegetation and forests. Great texture work on the characters and the levels. The animations can be odd at times. Very nice lights. The game is nothing short of spectacular and of good to great quality.
 9/10

Sounds: The strongest point of the game are the sounds. Great soundtrack and music. Amazing sounds effects for about everything you can possibly do in the game. The voice overs are really great. 9.5/10

Gameplay: There are some loading slow down here and there, but the most annoying is the one that slow the access to the inventory screen. Also the reaction time in the meditation screen is atrocious and sometimes painful. Overall the interface's design is left to be desire and lack intuitivity. The combat is fun, sometimes require more magic. I like the two swords switching. You can create your weapons, your potions and level Gerald. That said, the potion part is rather useless on easy level. I like most of the quest, but some side quest (monster contracts) are difficult, because they lack any indications on the map. The arm pulling is not interesting, and the dice mini game is just confusing and very hard to understand. There are some moral choices in the game, and it was interesting how they played out. The game is violent and contains nudity, only for a mature audience. The story is great but mention a lot of places and peoples that are not familiar. Most of it distract from the main story, but I like the fact that it establish a strong mythology.  8/10

Conclusion: A great game, full of details and attention. A game about war, politics and magic. The visual details are amazing just like Oblivion established at it's time. Although the interface isn't perfect in terms of performance, the rest of the game is hard to put down once you start to play. I recommend this game strongly if you are RPG fan and a player of a certain age.

(9.5/10)

Knight Contracts Review Xbox360

Knight Contracts Review Xbox360

Graphics: Outdated and ugly texturing. Although their is an effort that was put into the characters. The main vilain looks completely ridiculous…goodbye credibility!

Sounds: really decent, even the music is great.

Game: The game is fun when you fight ordinary foes, but the boss battle are a pain in the ass. This is when you can feel all the bad choices that were made in this game. An very obstructive camera, faulty AI for Gretchen, bad design fighting areas. Most of the time the heroes are too weak and their powers are almost useless against boss. The story seems very good, but don't badder playing this frustrating game, go see the ending on Youtube.

Conclusion: Horrible design and game, with a great story. But not enough to justify playing it.

(3/10)

Dragon Age 2 PC review

Dragon Age 2 PC review

Graphics: The graphics are smoother in this version. Mostly because the bad particle system is now gone, but also the levels are more confine to smaller areas. In general the quality of the design is still good, however a lots of characters animations are miscued. The presentation is really good. Good looking specials effects regarding magic powers.

Sounds: Great music, nice sounds effect. The voice overs are well done and always appropriate.

Gameplay: Fighting is easy enough, and exploring too. But you always fight the mouse/camera when you try to acquire a target. The pause helps to issue orders, but you can be often late since the fights are going fast. Tactics are still a pain…I went to the end of the game without using/configuring any of them. That doesn't mean the AI is smart, by any means, your teammates knows nothing about staying alive. The big deception is the backtracking. You only play in Kirkland (Main city), either during day or night…and you are given a mountain side with a coast, maybe out of pity. That's about it. No real fun of exploration here when you constantly revisit the same settings over and over again, with a slight variation. I was really annoyed by the fact I could acquire so much loot and never been able to use them because the XP was too low. Yah! the XP system is really too long to get to where you should be. Also the fact that only the main character can change it's armor was quite insulting! The runes was still there but you really have to wonder it's purpose. I guess the fighting is still good, but by the end even the lowest casual mode is still unbalanced, and you would have the grind your way through to get anything going forward. That, even if you do all the side quests.

Story: A dull political, religion drama that doesn't seems to bring anything of value…apart a series of hurdles between all the different factions. They completely lost me in half of the game. Too much factions, intrigues and redundancies that intersect. You just don't care in the end…It tells something when some side quests are much better then the main story!!!

Conclusion: Is it better then the first ? No. Some areas were better done, like the graphics, the sounds,some side quest. But when you loose so much on the scope, the story, the exploration…on top of that you keep the bad unbalanced XP system. I found myself enjoying half of the game, and play the rest on my frustration levels.

(5.5/10)

Revised on March 2011

Death at Fairing Point A Dana Knightstone Novel CE Reviews

Death at Fairing Point A Dana Knightstone Novel CE

Nice graphics but a bit blurry on the HOG scenes. Some small objects. The sounds are good, the music quite adequate. The story starts slowly but gets very interesting. Some puzzles are frustrating but can be skip. Overall a great release that last around 3-4 hours with the bonus content. Game play is unequal, but most of the time really fun. Might be more for 13+ because of the murder theme, no graphic depiction. Recommended

(8.5/10)

Fable 3 Review Xbox360

Fable 3 Review Xbox360

Very nice graphics. A lot of details in the towns and levels in generals. The sounds is fantastic. Good soundtrack and effects. The story is the most interesting in the series. It does put you with difficult choices to make and you generally care about them.

The game plays fairly well. The combat is fast. Still there is a lag each time you want to switch in the opposite direction to attack a different enemy. There is very little protection from a costume to another, even an armor. They all seems to be cosmetic. So, everything rely on your weapon and parrying. Parrying is still a big problem and I never got it to work properly, especially in a crowd of enemies. The game is fairly short for a RPG, maybe 20 hours. It gets really fast when you become a king. Although I understand it was to simulate pressure, I wasn't very please with how short it was. I though that the lack of founds was enough to motivate the player. Why then accelerate time, when all the rest of the game doesn't ?? They say the game was supposed to have new quest after it ends…I played a while afterward and nothing new happened. I am not sure about this at all…

The interface change was a good one. I really like the way it felt more interactive and personal. Kind of like having a big closet full of stuff and well arranged with a butler. Nice touch.

Overall this was a nice Fable title. The strongest in terms of story, for sure. The "be a King" area is quite a deception, but it's only at the end. So much more could have been done with the same sheduled gameplay. Definitively a game to buy and play.

(8/10)

Season Match: Curse of the Witch Crow- Review

Very nice graphics all around, with fun fx. The music is annoying, kind of a misfit. The story is ok, but in the end I really didn't care for what was happening. At some points it become very repetitive and convenient in it's delivery. Great 3 matchs game but too easy for adult, doesn't pose any particular challenge. The HOG part of it, is quite useless. Overall I would say it's a nice kid game, but even they will get bored at the repetition and lack of challenge. Try it.

(6.5/10)

Mystery Age: The Dark Priests Review

Mystery Age: The Dark Priests

Good graphics in general. Average music, even annoying at times. The story is simple and end on a fast pace. The game has a lot of variety, with some nice interactions. Lots of backtracking. Overall a nice game for a young audience of 7 and more. Last a good 2 hours. But even if it has some nice elements into it, the story telling is barely compelling.

(7.5/10)

Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 Review

Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2

PC version, played on 3GB of ram, with 9800GT and e6600 Intel.

Graphics are very good in FU2 but there is a lot of tearing textures and various clipping glitch almost everywhere into the PC game. To the point where it's distracting and ruins part of the visual experience. Some scenes are amazing, especially the flying ones. Kamino looks good, but some areas feels empty. The raining on this planet is quite awesome.

The sounds are usually the best in SW titles. Again a good musical track. All the FX are quite appropriate. The story only focus on Starkiller, and it's a big mistake. You don't get the feelings of being attached to any other characters, and essentially the story is so simple and doesn't explain anything of value. A little bit upon the end gets interesting but it's a small reward too late.

The gameplay is fair, but very repetitive. They could have let us fly a ship, gives us more hidden things and more data into the story. Give us more interaction along the way. No, all you get around this game is kill on foot many storm troopers and such, over and over. There is a flagrant frame rate problem with this game. On many occasion the game hangs completely, whatever settings you choose. It feels like a rush port from the Xbox360 without any PC optimizations. You only get to play with Starkiller, and it would have been so much better to be able to play any other character at some point and brings some variety into the game, like the first release has done with Darth Vader. And you don't see many worlds in this one, only two in fact. Which makes the overall experience quite boring in terms of novelty. The game is short, maybe 6-7 hours.

Overall FU2 feels only like a shadow of the first release. What was so good in the first one was let go, and replace with generic hack and slash gameplay. The story is simplistic and brings very little into the SW universe. For all the great graphics and sounds, comes also an array of issue on the PC release. It's hard to recommend this one…

(5/10)

Amnesia: The dark Descent Review

Preview

The graphics of Amnesia are pretty good. Not the best, but in some areas very convincing. The was a good amount of work on the level designs. And even if you are 99% of the time inside a structure, the mood and the levels makes up for it. The music is great and the sounds are totally immersive. Sometimes you have to rely on where the sounds comes from to evade an enemy, and it's especially well done.

The story is quite gruesome and only for adults over 18+. A real horror story that deals with very dark subject matters of human behaviors. The story is great and transport the player into a real dark progressive world. The game plays like a first person exploration game with nice puzzles. It's kind of a detective game into a world of horrors. You have no weapons, so it's a game of hide and wait when you see an enemy. The mechanics of it is pretty good, not excellent since it doesn't have true stealth techniques. The fear and madness effects are quite convincing.

Overall, an excellent horror game with puzzles and exploration. The game last around 7 hours and it's worth the 19.99$ on Steam. You should buy this game since it's the best I have played in the horror genre since a good while.

(8.5/10)