Late Bird Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Originally posted December 2012

Strategy games (turn-based or otherwise) usually have their own niche market. Sure, there are the Blizzard strategy games that have a wide appeal and the franchises like Civilization that have been around for decades. With no new Starcraft experience till next year, and the popularity of the first-person shooter ever increasing, it was unlikely there were going to be any big strategy games in time for the holidays. Yet the people at Fireaxis were able to deliver the goods. It may not have been a new Civilization game, but XCOM: Enemy Unknown is still a true gem of this year along with a franchise name about as old as the Civilization games. But is this gem a perfect diamond, or do the cracks make the edges too sharp to hold?

Crawling back into the Dark…

(Originally posted on March 10)

With the impending release of Dark Souls II swiftly approaching (At the time of writing this), the urge to return to the kingdom of Lodran has quickly overtaken me. As perhaps a desire to ready myself for another run of torturous learning and quick deaths, I’ve jumped back into everything Dark Souls. I’ve revisited some of the wiki sites to see recent changes from the patches and review some of the lore deeply embedded within the game.

Late Bird Review: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Written June 2013

It’s only taken a few months to squeeze in the time for it, but Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witchhas finally been completed for a Late Bird Review. After having spent more than 40 hours on the grand adventure in Studio Ghibli’s epic, the residual feeling is a rather positive one. There are plenty of issues this game had that would keep it from being considered the best of its kind, but that doesn’t mean Ni No Kuni doesn’t have anything to offer. It’s time to analyze this game and see if it’s still worth picking up or if the hype painted a prettier picture when it was first released.

The Dark Knight Rises…and Falls

I recently watched the Dark Knight Rises for the first time since I saw it in theaters a few weeks after its initial release. Upon revisiting it, I realized why I hadn’t watched it more than once in a theater or had the unnerving hunger for watching it again as I waited for it to come out on blu-ray, like I did for The Dark Knight. Much like Prometheus, my initial viewing of it gave me the impression that the movie was indeed rather flawed with some significant plot holes and poorly written dialogue but I still enjoyed it overall, however, after watching again in the comfort of my own home, my personal appeal for the movie has gone down a little further, and yet, I still do not dislike the movie or think it’s actually “bad”. After considering it for a bit I considered I how downright hated both of the third X-Men and Spider-man movies of the last decade and wondered what it was of those two movies that did things differently than Batman in order to earn my disrespect when all of the third installments share some similar features, especially when the second installments never climbed as high on my list of personal favorites as The Dark Knight. With my expectations lifted so high from the second Nolan Batman movie, why then did the third not fall as far?

Initial Impressions of Dark Souls II

First and foremost, if you are on the fence about purchasing this game and have been a fan of the previous "Souls" games, do not wait to pick it up. Now is the best time to play it while people are putting guides and walkthroughs up on the internet and official word hasn't been spread far and wide to people. It also helps you when you're invaded because you actually have a fighting chance against your invaders while they're still just as new as you.

The only reason you might want to wait is if you are debating on getting the PC version of Dark Souls II. Right now, the PS3 has definitely the inferior version with an inconsistent frame-rate and long load times. If you only have consoles, get 360. If not, with the PC version allowing for easier access to data, some genius modder out there will be able to adjust frame-rates and load times on their own and make an unofficial patch if necessary.