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Left 4 Dead

Norman Chan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:00:00 -0600

We’ve relished the movies about it. We’ve daydreamed about it happening in our own lives. We’ve even drawn up detailed plans for how to survive the admittedly unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse (answer: barricade ourselves in the local Costco). There’s just something so tantalizingly thrilling about the prospect of fighting for survival in an undead-infested world.

Left 4 Dead, Valve Software’s new multiplayer first-person shooter, delivers that awesomely terrifying experience to us. Abandoned metropolises, a ragtag band of hapless strangers, and an endless horde of infected humans—all the staples of a nail-biting George A. Romero zombie epic—are present and accounted for in this ambitious cooperative adventure. But how does this game hold up to our obsessive zombie fantasies? We busted a few thousand undead skulls to find out.

Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization

Dan Stapleton — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:30:11 -0600

In contrast to the broad scope of past Civilization games, this beautiful remake of 1994’s Sid Meier’s Colonization focuses on a specific period of time in a specific part of the globe—namely the Colonial era (1492-1796) in the New World. As the leader of a European nation’s colonization effort, you must battle other European countries and Native Americans for control of the continent’s resources, build a trade empire, and eventually wage a war of independence against your home country to found a new nation.

More after the jump!

American McGee’s Grimm

Norman Chan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:35:14 -0500

Remember those happy-ending fairy tales your mother used to tell you? Well, your mama was feeding you sugar-coated rehashes of the original morbid tales. Grimm, the mischievous protagonist of this episodic platform game, wants to set the record straight—and he’s using his soot-spreading powers to do it.

Get the dirt on Grimm after the jump!

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Tom Edwards — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:05:27 -0500

Our help was needed—again. Such is the fate of a hero. In the world of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures all manner of fishermen, pirates, merchants, guards, beer wenches, and assorted ne’er-do wells require assistance. This motley cast of characters imbues the game with a vibrant sense of life; we just wish that they showed even a bit of initiative and took care of some of their own problems. We were tasked with passing along loads of messages in order to drive the story forward, but in truth, we quickly lost interest in the game’s narrative, as it simply took away from the game’s finest achievement: its fighting system.

The rest of our review, after the jump!

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Norman Chan — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:06:48 -0500

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 looks and plays like a rehash of last year’s original. Put both action shooters side by side and you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish between them. This doesn’t mean Vegas 2 is terrible—the first game was a righteous shoot-’em-up that melded quick pacing with exciting firefights. The follow-up fleshes out the story and completes the plot lines left unfinished in the last go-round, but it falters from the same tiresome action sequences that are more frustrating than challenging.

Mass Effect

Norman Chan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:23:06 -0500

Fans of Star Wars and Star Trek finally have a role-playing game that’s worthy of their love. Mass Effect takes the most compelling themes and ideas of both franchises and mind-melds them into one of the best science fiction games we’ve ever played.

The full review of this stellar science-fiction epic is after the jump!

Assassin's Creed

Norman Chan — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:24:31 -0500

The death-defying urban acrobatics of free running—seen recently on the
big screen in the Casino Royale remake, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Live
Free or Die Hard—are replicated to great effect in Assassin’s Creed, an
action-adventure console port that puts you in the nimble shoes of a
12th-century assassin. Light feet and tremendous upper-body strength,
rather than overwhelming firepower, are your greatest assets as you
scale walls and barrel across rooftops in one of the most refreshing
games we’ve played.

Click Read More for more.

Frontlines: Fuel of War

Norman Chan — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:04:41 -0500

With the price of oil surpassing $100 a barrel, the apocalypse imagined
in Frontlines: Fuel of War may not be so far away. In this vision of
the future, the world’s remaining superpowers—split between two
factions—clash in a winner-take-all war for Earth’s last oil reserves.
Lucky for us, this makes a great backdrop for some intense multiplayer
skirmishes.

Click Read More for more.