Resident Evil 5 is not the game I thought it would be. Whether the blame for this can be laid at my feet, or at the feet of Capcom, is difficult to say. It’s not that I didn’t understand that there would be zombies to kill. Or that the game would be set in Africa. Or that it would an exclusively co-op (AI or multiplayer) affair. Or any number of the dozens (hundreds?) of little things in the game that seemed just a tad bit… Off. If that’s the right word. The game is extremely well made and for the most part I was entertained throughout. As with most games in the franchise, you have to be able to meet Resident Evil 5 halfway.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the fact I was downloading the Wheelman demo. It seemed like a cool idea but then I learned it was being published by Midway. After I started warming up to it again, I learned Midway was declaring bankruptcy and selling the game off to Ubisoft. Did this mean the game was so terrible Midway was desperate to pawn it off and make back some money? After clearing these thoughts out of my mind so I could give the demo a fair chance, I was pleasantly surprised.

Oh, Ninja Blade. I didn't go into this demo with high hopes, but I wasn't ready to trash it without giving it a chance. I wasn't overly impressed. 

I’ll try to be nice. It won’t be easy.

I’ve played X-Blades for around thirty minutes in total. Enough to get through the first three levels, fight one boss, purchase two new character abilities and watch about two minutes of non-sensical cutscenes. In this time I could have watched an episode of “The Office” or cooked a meal or perhaps even just fooled around on the Internet. There’s a new cooking blog I’m interested in reading; they have about a month’s backlog of content to go through.

Is it fair to judge X-Blades after such a short amount of time? 

It’s always hard for me, at the end of year, to apply labels and numbers to my favorite games released in the last twelve months. I play far too many games across far too many genres to ever feel comfortable in putting one before the other or drawing a line in the sand and saying X is better than Y because of Z. I have a hard time putting together my all time, desert-island list of games for similar reasons.

Killzone 2 is a summer blockbuster of the lowest order. It is singularly focused on providing big, visceral thrills through the use of loud set pieces, unbelievable occurrences and stuff being blown up real good. There are hundreds explosions to be had and thousands of bullets to be fired and infinite enemies to kill. That the game manages to overcome its shallow structure and spotty execution to provide a sort of meager entertainment is not only surprising, but also a minor miracle.

I've been on a casual game kick lately in between time replaying Mass Effect, Saints Row 2 and Too Human. One of the games I decided to check out based on the cute description was Feel the Magic: XX/XY.  It's definitely quirky and gets points for that, but it was an exercise in frustration. Normally, I wouldn't review a game quite this old (it's from 2004), but I just felt the need to warn anyone who hadn't checked it out that this isn't fun for anyone just looking to kill some time with a cute game.

I will admit that I checked this game out because I have watched the show and was curious as to just how bad it would be. I was very pleasantly surprised and found myself playing through the whole career mode while promising myself, just one more level..

Saints Row 2 launched on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 14, 2008. It's been often referred to as a "GTA clone", but it has evolved into much more than that. Saints Row fixed so many things that were wrong with the GTA series, but unfortunately falls flat in other areas.

Saints Row 2 picked up where the first game left off. For those who haven't played the original, stop reading now as there will be spoilers. 

Ahh, 2008. It brought us some of the best games in recent history.  Some of us at VGWL hesitated to write a review about a 7-month old game (because, you know, that's ancient history in the video game industry). But I decided to write it anyway.