Forrest's Epic Rants: Bugs

     Now, I've worked as a game tester for almost 4 years, across 4 different companies and have put my skills to use over a myriad of games over that time. Generally our job in quality assurance is to act as, essentially, a last line of defense between product and consumer; or, to put it more literally, we work to make sure that the game that you've spent your hard earned dollars on actually works the way it is intended to. There was a time that games would have to be nearly impeccable to be released (no game can be 100% bug free, but they can come pretty damned close). However, in this age of universal online connectivity, it seems that gaming companies are simply allowing more bugs to fall through the cracks when submitting a game for release, with the safeguard that they can simply come out with a patch to fix them at a later time. I'm about to tell you why this lazy, money grubbing practice absolutely, positively sucks.

Review: Portal 2

Developer: Valve Corporation

Publisher: Valve Corporation

Platform: PS3/X360/PC

Game Completion: 8-10 hrs

     There are games in which you can assume the role of a mighty warrior, saving the universe from a dark evil; epic sagas that see you spanning a fantastical realm. There are games that allow you to get in touch with your devious side, shooting cops, running down pedestrians and rising up the ranks in the criminal world. There are games that can make you feel like a rock star by clicking buttons on clunky plastic instruments. Then, there is a first person shooter/puzzle hybrid which finds you attempting to escape a facility run by a revenge obsessed, homicidal computer who is inherently compelled to force you to repeatedly place a box onto a button in a succession of ever more complex situations until you die. I'll let you guess which of those Portal 2 falls into.

You guessed incorrectly...

Review: Dead Space

Developer: Visceral Games

Publisher: EA

Platform: PS3

Game Completion: ~11hrs

     Here's a game I had been avoiding for some time. To me, everything I had seen about it seemed to scream "GENERIC ACTION/HORROR SPACE SHOOTER" and thusly I treated it with a fair amount of indifference. That is, until a co-worker showed up with it one day, basically thrust it into my hands and said "play this, you won't regret it". For anyone who has played Dead Space, needless to say, he was totally right.  

You tend to listen to video game suggestions when you work in a place like this....

Review: Uncharted 2 Among Thieves

     Back in the good old Playstation one days, I remember watching the prerendered cg cut scenes for certain games and thinking "man, wouldn't it be fucking amazing, if one day, games actually looked this good while you were actively playing them, like playing a movie?". Obviously, with the advancement of video game technology, this has been achieved by a fair amount of games at this point. The main difference between those games and Uncharted 2, however, is that many of those games only allow the player to pull of those amazing movie-like action scenes through some sort of trick, where the player, while technically controlling the game, is really only following a pattern of pre-set button prompts that appear on the screen (otherwise known as "quick time events"). Somehow, Uncharted 2 found a way to deliver that same level of blockbuster movie style action almost perfectly, all while allowing the player full control. 

Yeah, see that there, that's actual game play...actual. fucking. game play.

Review: Castlevania Lords of Shadow

     For the last two decades, the Castlevania franchise has seen numerous iterations. The series' most popular (and most critically lauded) titles have followed an evolution of its 2D roots, boasting what many consider to be the finest among them on the Nintendo DS and GBA. Castlevania's initial forays into 3D on the N64 and subsequent follow ups on the PS2 were received with lukewarm consideration, at best. Was the collaboration of game production phenom Hideo Kojima enough to elevate Lords of Shadow to becoming the first 3D game in the series to truly compete with its 2D brethren?

Aww...c'mon, at least gimme a chance...

Review: God of War III

Title: God of War III

Developer: SCEA Santa Monica Studios

Platform: PS3

Throughout the God of War series, players have been tasked with guiding Kratos through his rage fueled tale of vengeance, destroying any of the gods of Greek mythology who stand in his path. In God of War 3, the supposed true "end" to the main series, director Stig Asmussen has upped the ante over the previous games in almost every department. The graphics, brutality, boss battles, gore, fighting mechanics and action have all been raised to near-perfection and really show off what the PS3 is truly capable of.

Never before have throat danglies looked so beautiful in a video game.