(Posted By: Alex Deckard)

L.A. Noire is out.  Having finished it, I can confidently say a few things.

1.  I have never played a game like this.

2.  Rockstar was not involved in this product from the start, and it shows.

3.  It’s my current front runner for game of the year.

4.  Red Dead Redemption was more fun.

Lets start with the first one.  Never before has a game approached detective work like this.  Even Arkham Asylum, where you play as the worlds greatest detective, Batman (suck it Sherlock Holmes!), your detective work is relegated to looking at things through goggles.  Also punching.  Punching is now detective work.

But I digress.  I will stop digressing after the break.

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

There seems to be a few games that I get excited for, and even fewer that I go to my friends and tell them that they need to get it so we can play together. The last time this happened, Medal of Honor let me down immensely but with Brink I hope this would change. The amount of customization in the characters and within the firefights had me intrigued beyond belief, but then I saw all the reviews it was getting. Hit the break to read the rest of my own Brink review.

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

People were more than a little upset that the end of Valve's beautifully run ARG (Alternate Reality Game) ended in the users having to buy $40 worth of indie games and play them, a lot, to unlock Portal 2 early. I am here to ask: is anyone really surprised coming from Valve? This is the company and the game that started the whole indie game genre. 

Most people know, but some may not, that Portal wasn't always the game that it is today. It started as a little game called Narbacular Drop. An interesting "puzzle" game that had a Princess that couldn't jump escaping from an elemental creature through a series of dungeons. The game was made as a senior project for the group of guys attending DigiPen, a technology institute in Washington. The game went on to impress many people and won a fair amount of awards for a project and then Valve got wind of it. Thinking that this could be a big game, they acquired the creators and what we have now is now known as Portal. 

The video game industry as a whole isn't that old and before this point, around 2005, the "indie" genre that we've come to know barely existed, if even at all. Valve, the creator of Steam which is a giant in the industry today, was taking a unprecedented risk by picking up some game designers still in college and helping them to produce their game. Until this point games had been developed by professional developers but this acquisition marked a turning point in the industry and spawned a whole genre of games and opened the door for amateur developers around the world. 

Without Portal we wouldn't have gems such as Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Minecraft or Amnesia. A small company named Rovio Mobile might not have been picked up by EA based on the sales of their little game called Angry Birds. Valve extending a hand to a few guys who developed a game with some promise gave life to all of these games so I found it not surprising in the least that Valve turned around and gave the games in The Potato Sack the same shot that they gave the guys from Narbacular Drop. Indie games are a legitimate genre in video games today and Valve was doing just doing business as usual, helping other games to flourish and leading the industry forward. Don't be mad that they pointed you out to a few games that are awesome and fun and suggested that you play them while you were waiting for Portal 2 to drop. People didn't have to buy it but I guarantee you that there are plenty people out there that loved the games as they played them and I also guarantee that the developers from the games in The Potato Sack thank you for it.

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

I tried for a while to come up with some witty and funny intro to draw you into my review of Portal 2 but then I figured that I should just come out and tell you that Portal 2 is one of the best games that I’ve ever played in my life. Now let me explain.

For those who have been living under a mountain, this game is the sequel to 2007 Game of the Year, Portal. And that game was voted Game of the Year by 30 different publications and award shows. How does one come back and provide after such a big reception? Valve did, and then some. Hit the break to read the rest of the review!

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

You'd be hard pressed to find a franchise that is over 12 years old and is still selling as well as the juggernaut Pokemon series is. With the release of Black and White, Gamefreak and Nintendo really sought to bring something new back to the series after cries that it was getting too repetitive for it's own good. Luckily for the franchise, and the gamers who love it, they have achieved just that.

Hit the break to "catch" the rest of the review!

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

Much to the anticipation of button mashers and arcade masters around the world, Capcom released the third iteration of their legendary fighting series, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.Long story short, this game doesn’t pull any punches.

This game had some big shoes to fill. Coming on the heels of MvC2, a game that spanned 3 generations of consoles and was one of the most sought after and played fighting games in the past decade, Capcom had to make this sequel a big one and boy did it deliver. MvC2 pioneered the fighting genre as it stands today and seeks to throw in a few crossups with it’s newest iteration of the game.

Hit the break to read the rest of this ass kicking review. 

(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

It has certainly been a great year for Nintendo platformers. The release and success of games such as Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M and Kirby’s Epic Yarn have all reminded many gamers why the platforming genre is still in full-force (even if it has taken a bit of a backseat to other genres like first-person shooters and RPGs). Now, in the midst of the conclusion of 2010, Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about one of its earliest icons: Donkey Kong. The great big ape hasn’t had a solid platforming experience since the final days of the Super Nintendo, so it seemed obvious to allow a developer such as Retro Studios tackle a daunting, yet nostalgic task.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is not a remake by any means, but a continuation of what Rare first established 16 years ago on the Super Nintendo. Diddy, Cranky, Rambi and even Squawks are popular characters from the Super NES original that return, yet you may ask, “What has Retro done to make this new Donkey Kong title stand out?” Well, simply put, Retro Studios may not give gamers and DK fans alike the same innovation that they did with Metroid Prime, but they have carefully weaved together a satisfying albeit challenging experience. 

Hit the jump to see what else Retro Studios has in store for DK. 

(Posted By: Harrison Milfeld)

[Editor's Note] This review is a shortened version from my recent take on the game at Talking About Games. Click the link for a more in-depth review.

Activision certainly took a huge gamble when they announced last May that they were remaking the classic N64 first-person shooter GoldenEye for the Wii. A GoldenEye purist like myself (both as a fan of the original and the film it was based on) was skeptical of the idea of remaking a game that is still played in some shape or form today. I assumed that this would be a quick cash-in for Activision and developer Eurocom, but after finally sitting down and playing through the campaign and richly-deep multiplayer, I'm glad I was wrong...dead wrong.

Hit the jump to see if this re-imagination has earned its license to kill. 

(Posted By: Eric Rees)

I couldn't have been more excited for the middle two weeks of October. Two sequels to two of my favorite games came out, one of which being Fallout New Vegas, and boy did Bethesda not disappoint with this one. 

The game starts just as Fallout 3 did, Ron Perlman coming out and waxing poetic on how war never changes. And I'm glad that it doesn't because we wouldn't have such good sequels like New Vegas if there wasn't any war. 

Hit the break for the rest of the review!

(Posted By: Eric Rees)

I think EA owes me a little money on the side for this game.

I can't tell you how many times I went around telling people to forget about the incumbent FPS franchise Call of Duty and pushed Medal of Honor on all of them. And now that the game is out, I see why Call of Duty is the incumbent. 

Hit the break to read more.