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Review
Country Dance 2

There are a lot of sexy cowboys and cowgirls in this game.

Kat has been on an understandable hiatus for a while and decided to place dibs on this particular title. I could tell you what she has been up to and what she thought; but given her method of direct and entertaining communication, I figured I would just let her tell you herself…

I haven’t written a review in a long time because I had a kid; and seriously, it’s hard to hold a controller and a baby. I also really don’t want to drop the controller, because I’m sure as hell not letting go of my kid. However, now that my kid is getting bigger (and mostly sleeps and gives me some free time), I thought it would be a fun to review Game Mill Entertainment’s Country Dance 2 for Wii.

Oh brother.

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Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, Wii | No Comments »

Reviews
The Black Eyed Peas Experience

Let’s get it started.

Earlier in the year, the gaming community was treated to The Michael Jackson Experience, a great dancing game chock full of fantastic music and a style of presentation that fit MJ. Both the Kinect and Wii versions were a lot of fun to play. Now, Ubisoft has released the next title in the “Experience” series: The Black Eyed Peas Experience. We take a look at the Kinect and Wii versions to see if they have the Boom Boom Pow that one would expect from a series where the bar has been set high from the get-go*.

• Introduction
• Wii Version
• Kinect version

Posted in Kinect, Reviews, Wii, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure

Hey look! It’s Lara Croft! Oh no, wait. It’s Jillian Michaels.

As the Kinect gets “older”, more exercise games are created. Some of them, like the Your Shape franchise, improve with each iteration. Others, whose names not need be mentioned, are obvious attempts to cash in on the concept, and usually end up being nothing more than exercise videos that happen to implement weak motion capture. Then there is the line of games from Our Lady of the Strained Smile, Jillian Michaels.

Jillian has her name in a few Wii titles already, so her presence in the realm of video games is nothing new. However, this is the first title “from her” that really intrigued me. While not necessarily the pinnacle of exercise experiences, N-Space’s Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure for the Kinect is certainly not a bad one.

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Posted in Kinect, Reviews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Mario Kart 7

All pics in this article are 2D representations of 3D images.

A group of colourful characters, some good and some not-so-good, fight it out to establish their supremacy; MK7 is here! Of course, I’m not talking about Mortal Kombat; I am referring to the newest title in the other MK franchise: Mario Kart 7. In light of the awesomeness that is Super Mario 3D Land, does this latest foray manage to stay ahead of the pack? Or is it the pits?

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Posted in 3DS, Reviews | No Comments »

Review
The Adventures of Tintin: The Game

Wouldn’t it be funny if Tintin was responding to a booty call of another kind?

The Adventures of Tintin: The Game is a Ubisoft-made movie tie-in based on the impressive looking Spielberg film. I would consider this game to be a relatively fun platformer with sprinkles of action and a dash of puzzles. Aside from a distinct lack of variety that shackles the one of game’s legs to a cannon ball (causing it to stumble slightly at times), Tintin can actually be a lot of fun if you have the right mindset.

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Posted in Move, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Dungeons: The Dark Lord

It may seem like such a simple thing, but for me, seeing a new game – even one that treads in almost-but-not-quite as familiar a groove as its genre equivalents – is cause enough for celebration. From Dust, for example, grabbed my attention immediately following its showing at E3 just for being so unlike anything else around it. Even the games it was considered closest to (Black & White and Populous), were themselves such unique ideas that simply being in their company provides interest by association. Sure enough, the game was such a joy in its uniqueness that its flaws were by and large overlooked (Ubisoft’s DRM debacle notwithstanding*).

It was in that vein that I was looking forward to reviewing Realmforge’s Dungeons: The Dark Lord, the standalone sequel to Dungeons**. With the odds of Dungeon Keeper 3 being somewhere between “infintessimal” and “none”, this was about as close as I was going to get to some quality “being evil” time this side of Evil Genius. Sure enough, the uniqueness of Dark Lord does provide its own fun but there are some serious problems with the game that prevent it from capitalizing on its strengths.

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Posted in PC, Reviews | No Comments »

Reviews
Worth iTrying – iOS Titles You Might Like

I can’t believe that it is so close to Christmas! Where did the time go? Really – tell me. While you are coming up with theories, I will break down four neat little iOS titles that you might be interested in.

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Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch | 1 Comment »

Review
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

There are words -words of power- that can bring the strongest and most capable reviewer to their knees. Uttering certain phrases can experienced, battle-hardened warriors into quivering piles of flesh. One such phrase would be: “Oh hey, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked has arrived for you to talk about!” Once I regained consciousness, I found out that Behaviour Interactive’s Chipwrecked for Kinect was not really a horrible experience – buggy perhaps; but not horrible.

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Posted in Kinect, Reviews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Battlefield 3

My exposure to the Battlefield franchise before this year was limited to brief encounters with Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2; I’m not sure why neither of them really spoke to me. Until my discovery of Team Fortress 2, I didn’t really enjoy playing online multi-player FPS’s; shortly after TF2, Modern Warfare made its way into the rotation.

Eventually, both of these were replaced by a suggestion from our own Mike Jackson: Battlefield: Bad Company 2. BFBC2 became my go-to FPS, eclipsing anything else in the stable. Multi-player was great: quick games; smart games; fun games. Months after I started, the Battlefield 3 footage started finding its way around the internet, causing keyboards to short circuit thanks to the drool-inducing Frostbite 2 engine from DICE. I even got to spend some time participating in the multi-player alpha; I was blown away – the holidays promised to be awesome – all because of this one game.

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Posted in PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment »

Review
Skyrim

I apologize to our readers (and to the author) for posting this late. Between internet shenanigans (ie: cable modem malfunction) and other factors that shall not be named, this seemed to have escaped the grasp of punctuality. It is still a great read, though; make sure you check it out! – ed.

Where were you on Friday, November 11, 2011? I spent that night in line at my local game retailer anxiously waiting for the clock to strike midnight – just to get my hands on Bethesda’s fifth entry in the Elder Scrolls saga – a little-known fantasy epic called Skyrim.

While there’s no denying the radicalness that was the Modern Warfare 3 launch (that also took place earlier that week), I will say that Skyrim’s release was one of the best midnight launches I have ever had the pleasure of attending. It felt like everyone was getting into the spirit of things. There were game stories of old and even new strategies being planned that night. Gamers both young and old were discussing everything from what kind of character to play, what faction to ally with, and what skills are best to specialize in. The only thing was missing was a group of Dragonborn cosplayers armed with foam swords and a 1:1 scale dragon piñata.

Candy-less, I began my odyssey through the lands of Skyrim less than an hour later that night.

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Posted in PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment »