Rating of
2.5/5
LEGO The Hobbit
“LEGO: The Hobbit” (“LTH”) is one of many, many parody games blending the world of LEGO building toys with popular media. The studio behind this series is Traveler’s Tales, once a stand-alone publisher in its own right after its founding in 1987, but currently a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games, hence the ability to churn out endless spoofs of movies for which Warner Bros. already owns the IP rights. Released in 2014, shortly before the release of the third and final entry in Peter Jackson’s unnecessarily-bloated “The Hobbit” trilogy of films, “LTH” was supposed to deliver a fully-featured send-up of Jackson’s overly-pretentious adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s debut light novel (plus a butt-load of extraneous …
Rating of
3.5/5
The Outer Worlds
It's Not the Best Choice, It's The Outer Worlds
Obsidian Entertainment will forever and always be tied to Fallout: New Vegas - still the most ambitious and memorable of the series. But people looking at that through rose-colored glasses may forget the game was an even buggier mess than Fallout 3 when it was released. Obsidian has made other great games - I'm particularly a fan of South Park: The Stick of Truth (a fun and damn funny licensed game), along with solid early sequels in Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2. They also made Pillars of Eternity (and its sequel), Tyranny and Avowed - but as I haven't played those I have no opinion. What I have played here, is The Outer Worlds - a space exploration/FPS games about a long-distant Earth colony dominated by …
Rating of
4.5/5
Apotheon
Sing, O Muse, the tale of Nikandreos!
Apotheon, released in 2015, has been on my radar for years. It was highly recommended by a friend of mine who, like me, studied classics at the university. I have spent much of my life in the ancient world, majoring in it as an undergraduate, earning a master’s degree in the field, and teaching Latin for the past eighteen years. Just looking at the game, I was intrigued, given its unique visual style and inspiration. Its title, for those who know Greek, is a significant hint at the plot and apotheosis of its main character. It’s unfortunate that it has taken me so long to play it, but I am finally glad that I did, removing it from my backlog.
Story (5 out of 5)
Apotheon is set in ancient Greece in the village of Dion. You, the …
Rating of
3.5/5
DiRT Rally 2.0
I played Dirt Rally 2.0 using a racing wheel in first-person bumper cam mode. I didn’t play multiplayer, as it seemed very lacking, and I also didn’t enjoy rallycross, so I didn’t spend much time on it. Over the course of my playthrough, I completed three championships in career mode: Open (1st place), Clubman (1st place), and Pro (3rd place). I unlocked the Elite class but didn’t play it, so I didn’t progress to the final class of Master. In order to move up in career mode, you need to finish 3rd or better in the championship, and since I barely got 3rd in Pro class, I didn’t care to torture myself attempting to get to Master. However, the standout experience for me was playing the historic rallies, which were by far the most …
Rating of
3.5/5
Demon's Souls Remastered
Difficult, Frustrating, and also Rewarding
Demon's Souls is a remake of a game with the same name on PS3. It's a beautiful, difficult, and rewarding game that lacks when it comes to controls and explaining things.
I had never played a game in the "Souls" series before starting this so when I began I only knew a couple things. First, the series is pretty popular and second, that it's viewed as extremely difficult. By the time I finished I understood both of these things very well.
The story of this game isn't that intriguing. In a land called Boltearia an evil presence is taking over. A fog is enveloping the area and there are evil creatures and demons strung about. Once you're in there is no escape and it appears there's a evil being making people like you kill …
