When I first heard of the FUNimation anime title Sands of Destruction, I thought to myself, “This will be an interesting series to watch.” Little did I know that the anime is based on a 2010 Nintendo DS role-playing game published by SEGA. Now, we’ve grown used to many movie adaptations of video games, and video game adaptations of movies, that almost always end up sucking. With that said, does this anime series turn out well? That’s for me to know, and you to soon discover in my review of FUNimation’s Sands of Destruction series. Read the full story

If Mortal Kombat is to be remembered for, and associated with, one thing for the rest of eternity, and one thing only, it should be this: bloody gore and incredibly violence. Okay, that’s two things. I find it easier to simply acknowledge the mistake and move on rather than edit my opening sentence. That being said, Mortal Kombat introduced a level of brutality and disturbing visuals that has become its trademark and calling card. The combat, characters, and story all came secondary to Mortal Kombat being the game in the arcade that was just badass. Read the full story

I’m not sure what happened between Peter Molyneux and one chicken whose viciousness and fowlness (heh, get it?) we can only assume were such that the world has never seen before. All I know is that it resulted in the common chicken being singled out and having one hell of a hard time in the Fable universe. From a player stat specifically urging the player to kick a chicken farther and farther each time to the poor chicken getting struck by lightning in the opening titles of Fable Heroes, Fable is not kind. Read the full story

I started playing Trials Evolution Tuesday afternoon, and I knew that I was going to have problems. Immediately, I became intently focused on the track leaderboards. I saw names…I saw targets. Success! I topped the leaderboard for Oil Crisis and sent a celebratory tweet to those hapless fools that had been humbled and shamed by my incredible skill and deft control. Twenty minutes later, my time was thoroughly squashed by a cruel knave. Thirty minutes of replaying Oil Crisis over and over, tweaking and adjusting my playthrough each time, I shaved a full second and a half from my total level completion…bringing me to one tenth of a second short of avenging my ignominious defeat. The next day at work, I kept replaying Oil Crisis in my head, trying to mentally work out how to get past the final set of hills and catch up. Read the full story

Pinball has never been high on my list of enjoyable gaming experiences. I rarely played physical pinball machines, and, aside from Sonic Spinball, the only virtual pinball game I ever played much of, or at all, was the 3D Pinball game bundled with Windows 95 forward. I still remember the space theme of the table, and I can still somewhat picture the table layout in my head. I never got into Pinball FX, or any of the other recent crazes, and that was fine by me. Then a code came my way for The Pinball Arcade on PS Vita, and I thought…why not? Read the full story

Vehicular combat has always been a mixed bag for me. I’ve dabbled with the likes of Twisted Metal, but never found it particularly satisfying. The most recent iteration, in fact, managed to keep my attention for about half an hour before I found myself feeling done. On the other hand, I absolutely LOVED Streets of Sim City, though that may have more to do with my adoration of Sim City than anything else. No, you know what? It was actually fun where Twisted Metal was not. There, I said it. All that now being said, Gelid Games’ Wheels of Destruction, releasing today as part of PSN’s Spring Fever, finds itself closer in my estimation to Twisted Metal than Streets of Sim City. Read the full story

My initial impressions for Sumioni: Demon Arts were mixed. I had been eagerly anticipating the title as a beautiful and interesting platformer since I first heard of it back in December. It seemed to be a title that would be a great showcase for the touch mechanics of the Vita with a unique and exotic style. I started my first playthrough at approximately 5:30pm Wednesday evening. I finished my first playthrough at approximately 6:15pm Wednesday evening (including credits). Read the full story

After completing Mass Effect 3 a total of four times on two platforms, countless hours of multiplayer, and numerous podcasts covering the story and controversies around it, I still don’t know if I’m ready to talk about the game. My career with Mass Effect as a series has meant completion of every game on both Xbox 360 and again on PS3, reading comic books and novels, and pulling everyone I could into the series with me. There is deep emotional attachment that I have to the characters and the world mythology, more than any other game, and more than most book series, so saying good bye to my crew, my friends, was difficult. Writing a review about the end of this journey is eerily similar to writing a eulogy. In the end, that’s really all you need to know about Mass Effect 3. It has managed to create such an emotional resonance that we are discussing the end as if we lost a loved one. There are precious few entries into any medium that can claim that type of personal involvement, and while nowhere near perfect, Bioware set out with a goal in mind, and brought it to stunning fruition that people will strive to recreate for decades. Read the full story

With each passing day, it seems that George Orwell’s vision for the future becomes more and more a reality. 1984? 2012. Monitoring systems are everywhere, and in certain cases they are celebrated. We are digitally connected in a way that is absolutely unprecedented, which provides us with the benefit of instant information retrieval and communication anywhere, any time, but also ties us into a massive network of personal information and data that can be mined for less than altruistic purposes. Read the full story

Most of you have played at least one bullet hell shoot’em up. Maybe it was Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun, or perhaps something like Metal Slug or Geometry Wars. “Bullet Hell” is one of the most appropriately coined terms any genre has ever received. Sine Mora, the latest title from Digital Reality, in collaboration with Grasshopper Studios, is another fine example of a bullet hell shoot’em up. This one, however, comes with a bit of a twist. Read the full story