Portal 2

OMG! Portal 2?! Yes please! =D Okay, so I've known about this for at least a couple of months now, so sorry if you guys are just now finding out. But, I need to gush. =3 Game Informer has a hub here: http://gameinformer.com/mag/portal2.aspx
(photo of Chell and Aperture Labs (c) Valve Corp.)
Anyway, I am so thrilled about this game, but I've gotten some really dumb questions from people such as: "How can there be a two? Chell died in the first."
Um... no, she didn't. There's a special ending to the game **SPOILER??** [highlight to see] were a robot drags you away, telling you "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."

Also, I'm really excited because I heard the ending of Portal 2 may lead up to, are you ready for this? Half-Life 3. I told someone this, and got another stupid question: "How? The games have nothing to do with each other." [Or something like that] I sighed, did a mental facepalm, and tried to be nice. My response: "What?! They're in the same universe!!!!!!!!! GLaDOS pretty much laughs at Black Mesa in the ending credits, and Gordon works for Black Mesa!"

-sigh- Some people. But yeah, Portal 2 is supposed to be coming out this holiday season, which probably explains Aperture Science's Christmas themed website, complete with the Companion Cube, a tree, a fire place with Chompski on the mantel [if you don't know who Chompski is, you have just made me very sad] THE CAKE, and orange-wrapped gifts... [hehehehe orange boxes]
But, Valve is going to get sixty or so of my dollars when this game comes out, because I love Valve. =3 In my opinion, they make the best FPS's out there.

[This cake is great. =D]

Yep, that is me, and I did make that cake. =3

UPDATE:: I heard a couple of days ago, Portal 2's release date is being pushed back to next year... -sigh- Oh well, I'm just still excited they're making it, and about the [possible] ending. OMG! <3 Haha
Not sure about that bit of information, because Aperture's Science's site is still very festive... =]

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Zombies Ate My Neighbors [renamed just "Zombies" due to -sigh- censorship issues in Europe and Australia] is an older game from Nintendo's golden years [as the game was released in 1993] and is an old-school run and gun developed by LucasArts, and published by Konami.
I'm a bit biased toward the game, because it was my first. [teehee] I remember playing it on the SNES when I was a kid, so to play it again has been awesome. Typically games from when you were a kid aren't as good as you remember them, trust me, Bloody Roar 2 wasn't. [haha] But this game has been as awesome as I remember it being when I was younger. <3
Anyway, I can't really think of anything I dislike about the game. Hmmmm... Well, there is an issue with the neighbors um not coming back, I suppose. Example - You begin with 10 neighbors in each level, and as things, whether they be zombies or giant babies [I'll explain], will kill them. If you lose a neighbor they don't come back. This does, however make it challenging. But I also discovered [or re-discovered, rather] that the codes you get at the end of certain levels put you with the same amount of neighbors that you died with, so if you only had like one neighbor to rescue and you died, you put in the code, and you can start out again... with one neighbor. Otherwise, [if that's even a "flaw"] this game is pretty awesome.

The level's names typically make fun of things from the late 80's and early 90's [and possibly the 50's too judging by the cover art and some monsters.] Speaking of monsters, this game does have its variety of them including vampires, werewolves, blob-creatures, aliens, pod-people, giant ants, "snakeoids," and enormous babies. [The last two being... "bosses" kind of]
Oh, and your choice of weapons and items in the game are pretty unique too. Sure, you get a gun, but this is no ordinary gun... It's a water gun. Yes, you can kill zombies with a water gun. =] You also get  soda cans [which are like grenades] popsicles, silverware, crucifixes, a bazooka, plates, etc. The items include, but are not limited to: various potions, one of which lets you turn into a monster, running shoes [to make you run faster, of course], toy clowns to distract enemies... etc.

Over all, Zombies Ate My Neighbors is just one of those old 16-bit classics that can be played for years and still be loved. [Unless you're growing up now and you don't know what a "Game Over" screen looks like because you lost all your lives, in which case... this makes me quite sad.] But you can buy this game and a SNES, if you don't have one, for somewhere around $50, or get it on the Wii's "Virtual Console" channel.

Silent Hill 3

Silent Hill 3 is the third game in the infamous "Silent Hill" series developed by Konami and Team Silent. Well, in Silent Hill 3, you are Heather/2 other people...  and as soon as gameplay begins, you're already in a nightmare which, ironically enough, is in the Lakeside Amusement Park [in Silent Hill] If you fall off one of the [many] ledges in this God-awful Park, the nightmare will end. I should know... I went through the gates, was attacked by two "Double Heads" [Grotesque dog-like creatures] and fell off a ledge I didn't even realize was there...
After you fall off a ledge/get to the end of the nightmare, Heather wakes up in a cafe. After leaving the cafe, and having a phone conversation with Heather's father, she is confronted by Detective Douglas Cartland. Douglas tells her he needs to talk to her about her birth and Heather [who is like... 18 at least, mind you]  aptly responds...like a 13 year old... "My daddy always told me not to talk to strangers." Really Konami? Really?! I have a general problem with Heather for that exact reason, her lines. Some of them are pretty awful, as can be seen by that previous remark.
I mean, the game itself is fairly decent... But some of the key aspects are messed up. One thing is some of the monsters do not make sense. I.e. the Pendulums, the Closers, and the Insane Cancers. This game is supposed the be psychological... Heather says [once, I think] that she's afraid of dogs so it makes sense for the Double Heads to be there, it even kind of makes sense for the Nurses to be in this game too... although the same can't be said for the new Silent Hill games... ANYWAY before I go off on a tangent...
Another problem I have with the game... Half [or maybe even most] of it's not even in the town of Silent Hill, though there are monsters crawling everywhere. You're in some other town until -someone- dies and Heather decides to partially trust Douglas, and they take a road trip to Silent Hill. it's like they decided later for this to be a Silent Hill game, and added in a few things and tacked the town to the end.
I had another slight problem with this game, the subway. Well, the problem was just a tiny portion of this level. You have to walk down the rails of the train, to go to a red door, that really doesn't have any importance to anything, and you must stay on the right side of the tracks, lest you get a lovely cut-scene of Heather's death via train.
But overall the game's at least decent, if you don't pay too much attention to the details. It's a survival horror from the glory days. Now the "survival horrors" are more or less "action horrors." *sigh*

-Tosha

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Okay, so if you really enjoy reading these critiques, show your support!! Go here if you have a facebook, and click "become a fan." This way, you don't have to e-mail me to give suggestions, you can just post it to the page. I'm sorry if I can't play/buy some games, I'm broke. XD But, I will try my best to borrow or rent the games you guys suggest if I don't already own the game. =] Thanks for your support.

The Orange Box: Portal

Well, this, in my opinion, is the best game ever, and if you don't already own this game, you should go get it now. No excuses, if you can't buy it, go see if a friend has it, and borrow it. If you don't have a console, go to Steam and buy it, it's only $19.00. But if you're too broke like the majority of us, you can play a flash version here. So there. No more excuses. In the game you are Chell, [her name's never really given, I'm pretty sure it's just what people call her] and you wake up as a test subject in Aperture Laboratories. You are greeted by GLaDOS, a messed-up AI who can be described as being a "friendly psychopath." It is a puzzle-type game with virtually no storyline whatsoever, but don't let that fool you. As stated earlier: "best game ever." Everything about the game is amazing, even the turrets. Yes, the things that try to kill you. I find them, and GLaDOS, quite comical. Let me give you an example of this: GLaDOS puts a scientific law, that is the law of conservation of momentum, (how momentum is conserved between portals) into layman's terms... "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out." Or much later on in the game when GLaDOS is talking about an "Aperture Science thing" and she says: "That thing is probably some kind of raw sewage container. Go ahead and rub your face all over it." and her "honesty" quote: "Have I lied to you? In this room, I mean." So I will end this now, to let you go play this game. Do it now.

-Tosha

Super Stacker 2 [FLASH SUNDAY]

So, I've decided, since I may not be able to post on an actual console game every week, I can review/critique some of the millions of Flash games on the internet. Here it goes...

So Super Stacker 2 is a really good puzzle game that can be found here. It is brilliantly put together, with several puzzles increasing in difficulty, and very clever names for each puzzle. I have only one complaint with this game, and it's that you can't turn the music or sound off. Eventually the music will go away, but you don't have the option to turn it off yourself, which would be nice, as I like to listen to my own music while playing games, especially the Flash games, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Other than that, this game is amazing, so if you love puzzle games, you'll love this one. It really becomes a challenge once you get higher up, too. I had some trouble with number 27, entitled "Waiter's Arms." But it's still great. =]

Psychonauts

So, in Pyschonauts, you are Rasputin, or Raz for sort, and Raz runs away from the circus (rather than to it) to a summer camp for training Pyschonauts, or psychic soldiers. In all honesty, I don't have many problems with this game at all, overall it is amazing. The only things that bothered me about the game was (1) it's really odd camera angles, which caused me to die several times, (2) it's pointless and way-too-often cut-scenes, although there weren't that many (so that's just nit-picking) and (3) it's really odd difficulty curve.

(1) Those camera angles... *sigh*  they can be awful, but there are only two instances in the game which caused me to die several times, and those were both fairly close to the ending. But it was still rather annoying.
(2) So, the cut-scenes... There were, yet again, only a few times this really bothered me... There's once in the beginning, and Raz is talking to a couple of his friends, and then, when I get to play again, I walk about five feet and BAM! Another cut scene. Neither one was vital to the story line, really, but oh well, it's still an amazing game.

(3) Wow... the difficulty curve... Well, in the beginning, you are running around doing tutorial-type missions, and just roaming around camp, but then the curve suddenly spikes like a character's hair from one of those cartoons when they put their finger in the light socket. Then it drops again, and then rises... again. As such -->

(yes, I drew that, shut-up)

But other than that, this game is perfect. It's different, comical, and most importantly fun. So, if you don't already have it, I recommend you go out and buy it... now. =]

Thanks for reading.

-Tosha