Recent reviews by Dan

Great ARPG.

A fantastic open world game channeling GTA in Hong Kong. It gets it all right with a fantastic blend of combat, driving, mini-games, collectibles, everything.

In particular, the focus on the story and making us feel for them instead of the usual ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GTA protagnists. Some great voice acting in there. It hits the usual Hong Kong movie and Triad tropes but still manages to do well with them.

A really great racing game elevated by its unique mechanic. The story is pretty much Life on Mars and super cheesy but they manage to make some really cool missions from it.

A really awesome roguelike!

A great follow up to Assassin"s Creed 2. More of everything which is a little to its detriment and the main storyline isn"t fantastic but Ezio is enough of an awesome Italian stabbing dude that it doesn"t really matter.

A decent puzzle/ adventure game which is pretty cute. But (always a but) it"s way too short and the story is fairly non-existent.

Just as the puzzles start to ramp up their already fairly easy difficulty the game ends. Still, worth a couple of bucks. It"s already $5 so expect to see it for half that or less come the big sale time.

If you can get this cheap I"d recommend it. Nobody really does Grand Theft Auto like Rockstar (Saints Row 2, I guess, but that runs worse than a pile of ♥♥♥♥.)

The game was clunky as hell and the story starts to drag at the end but I still had fun. The driving and shooting mechanics were fun enough to keep me going. I think the Episodes from LIberty City have a better time of it - both being shorter games than this and amping up the fun in the missions.

I"m not one to ♥♥♥♥ around and just blow ♥♥♥♥ up like some people so it"s only really the story for me. Here, it"s kinda disjointed, barely held together by the usual GTA personalities. Nico himself is well, contradictory to say the least and a bit boring.

Oh, and I had to use FRAPS to slow down the framerate in the last mission so I could to a QTE to get into a helicopter. You heard that right. Because I had a better computer than when this was released I had to limit the framerate of the game otherwise it was impossible. Yay?

A really awesome MP shooter. It"ll be probably live a short life in terms of its community as downloadable MP shooters are want to do (see Monday Night Combat) so get in while you can. There"s your usual levelling up system and plenty of unlocks to work for and the game is pretty balanced weapons and items wise. Good players still wreck you but hey that happens in every game.

There"s a pretty bland SP campaign which I"ve played a bit of. It feels a bit tacked on but good enough for what is and trying to achieve (adding a bit more value to the $15.) The usual horde mode and variation on the main MP mode, too, which aren"t fantastic but worth a play through.

The only bad thing about this game is GfWL which actually runs pretty smoothly and I haven"t had any problems. It seems wholly unecessary and Steamworks would have been better. The server browser suffers as a result (though Quick Start works pretty well) but hey porting costs time and money and its been ported pretty well.

A decent expansion to Borderlands. The missions and gunplay are fun as ever. The new characters are well done and there"s plenty of Borderlands humour in there.

After finishing the vanilla and being disappointed by that ♥♥♥♥♥♥, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ending I really enjoyed this. There"s far too much needless travelling back and forth to pad out the length of it but overall worth $5 or under if you really like Borderlands.

Both of the games in here are pretty decent. The mechanics from vanilla GTA IV are much improved. Things like mid-mission checkpoints have been added and the game is much better off for it.

The way the both of the games cross over with GTA IV is awesome as well.

The only beef I have with TLaD is that it"s too short and the story isn"t that affecting. TBoGT is probably the most fun of the lot as it just goes ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy with the weapons and the missions and all the side bits (base jumping in particular.) All in all, if you haven"t gotten this I reckon get it instead of GTA IV. They"re standalone so need to worry about having the original.