Recent reviews by Robinson Drake

Soft no.

This game is essentially a modern day variant of the classic '90s 2.5D Arcade Action RPG Hack & Slashes (gee, that's a mouthful). If you ever cared for games like Golden Axe, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, or any Capcom brawler of the '90s, this game is right up your alley.

One feature that sets it apart from it's roots is that it introduces a town that you can go to between levels, an inventory and item system that lets you choose between weapons and spend the money you pick up.

In fact, with its given set of features, you'd think this game would stand a chance at being a better-than-average entry, standing above peer games like the revamped Chronicles of Mystara games or the classic XBLA hit Castle Crashers.

It's a pity then that it has outstanding issues and has been dropped from support by the developers.

1. You must set resolutions higher than 1600x900 by entering them into the initialisation file.

2. You may or may not be one of the lucky ones who can play online co-op; I so far have found no success in either seeing a public game or in hosting one. All my attempts to do anything with the online co-op has resulted in failure and frustration. My friends also experienced this, with no obvious solution in sight. Yes, I had my ports open (80 for the record).

3. Other issues may be odd to the players that aren't apparent at first; no drop in/out functionality, 3 player party limit even tho there are 4 PCs to choose from. Unlike other ARPGs that use a merchants, you cannot sell old items, not even eventually like Dark Souls. This leaves your inventory full of old and useless weapons that just add the dross of simple inventory management, tho it is fortunately offset; the dross does end up ever towards the bottom of the list like a gravity well of irrelevance.

4. Some attacks can be spammed for maximum exploitive effect.

This game is only recommended (in it's current state) for those who are interested in finding more games that suit local co-op gaming, as ultimately, this game is a simple Brawler with some extra features tacked on... some of which may fail to work, ala the online element. That it fails to cut far enough away from the cloth that it comes from in other areas and the lack of followup support from the devs within 2 months of release is a veritable early death for this game.

Resultingly, this game is fun but not deep enough to warrant much dedicated time.

Soft yes.

Both a move forward and a misstep for the series, this best-selling entry in the Saints Row IP is a mixed bag of improvements and rushed work. The work itself is not harmed by the rushed feeling but it is hindered in that it lacks gameplay content available in prior games; dynamic melee combat is reduced to weapon unique nutshots and posing opportunities as well as a more restricted selection of guns. It lacks variety of the city; there are no slum area of trailer parks or high mountain climbs and it can be hard to remember just where that jump was as the city looks too homogenous ultimately. You can't even pick up the mailboxes to throw them at innocents ala Saint's Row 2!

It does introduce many gameplay advances, like boduken, which is jumping straight into cars in a rush of that-broken-glass-be-damned-even-if-I-sit-on-it-for-hours-driving-this-car-at-high-speeds. More appropriately, it features far tighter vehicle physics than it's predecessors and slightly expanded scope to customisation of vehicles and guns. In addition, the spate of awesome flying vehicles is one of the game's main drawing cards. When it comes to your avatar as "The Boss", you can also design most any protagonist concept that comes to mind. I've made a grayscale Bruce Lee Noir Detective and a grown-up-Tintin-gone-bad.

All that being said, in spite of the mixed bag experience, this game is also an example of how porting to the PC can and should be done right. Unlike Saints Row 2, which deserves it's reputation as one of the worst PC ports of the 7th generation console era, this is the other end of that spectrum, with DX11 support and the bells and whistles that often entails.

The first four hours of this is pure fun; after that, it repeats itself and the story really feels strung out. The game unfortunately does feel like a beginning, a muddle, and an end. Pick it up cheap if you're in doubt and see for yourself just how off the mark this entry is ... and just how fun it can still be. If a fan of the series, go in with low expectations. All players be warned; the end-game element is really easy to ruin for yourself by using the game's levelling system to become virtually invulnerable (provided you don't stay in any about-to-explode vehicle).

I've personally been left with the odd feeling that this game is an odd metacommentary of the (then) current state of modern gaming industry, coming of age as a medium yet what really does any of this virtual 'enabling' stand for? Not bad for a game that was pushed out of a far too short and imposed development cycle!

Lastly, there has been an effective mod scene, assembled mostly from those that made Saints Row 2 work on the PC when it was abandoned by the porters and the devs, that can help break up replay monotony and address design oversights, like a lack of vanilla mission replay functionality.

Soft yes.

The bots won't help you accomplish hard tasks. The Heisters don't understand the concept of closing doors or bringing at least one flashbang/smokebomb/thermal vision set of their own.

The leveling is class-linear; while you can choose to level up any class, once it's done up, it'll give you the same package deal like eveyone else. You need to buy the Wolf Pack DLC to unlock the Technician class.

There is no mod support. It doesn't have a VS mode where you can play the cops. The engine isn't being used by anyone else these days. The models, while nice, could use some work to be prettier. Sometimes enemies can glitch around and pop through collision walls. The textures here and there could use some work. There are only nine maps, seven if you haven't bought the Wolf Pack (tho anyone with DLC can host the maps for anyone without them).

Normally... all this would make me wonder if this game is worth it.

It's totally worth it. It's addictive and requires far more sophisticated teamwork than something similar like the Left 4 Dead series (which this draws example from), even with the challenges that game poses in it's many game modes.

Perhaps most importantly, the game seems incredibly optimised for the net; I've played many games online with poor sync between the players but the Deisel Engine's netcode tends to run quite efficiently. In this game, it seems even bad ping is king and this certainly isn't some Saints Row 2 netcode nightmare!

So even with all of it's flagging qualities, this is a stellar entry into the 4-player Coop games that trumps many of it's contenders surprisingly and delivers on it's pricetag like few other games today.

Now if only Starbreeze can make the sequel superior...

Hard yes.

Fallout as continued (mostly) by the people who originally made the first games. NV is to F3 as F2 is to F1; the same engine is used but the ideas are expanded on, the range of gear is larger, the level cap is raised and followers become companions, actually interesting to have along for the ride.

While the game may not feel as immediately open-world as F3, the game still feels like it has more possibility. The main quest can be approached from four separate angles because of the factions involved; the bureaucratic NCR, the reclusive Mr. House, the dominating Caesar's Legion, and the varied peoples of New Vegas themselves. The choices move from simple moralism (good vs bad) to factional influences. Needless to say, the game becomes more about the role than just how nasty or nice your character is feeling at the time, thereby a richer CRPG experience. Some may not agree and prefer F3 for whatever reason, but arguably, NV is the real 3, and Bethesda's 3 is Fallout: Capital Wasteland.

Soft yes,

Who would have thought that a UT2004 engine game would have been this successful (1 million+ sales) in this age? It may come up shy graphically but on gameplay, it makes up for that with nice wave-based co-op Z-killing. Unlike Left 4 Dead, this is a leveled class-based shooter with a kill-bounty system. With clear roles defined through the classes, the nuance and dynamic of gameplay is both deep enough for thorough replay and relatively easy to grasp as a group from the get go. Levelling can create tiers of mismatched player groups, though.

Since release in 2009, not only has Tripwire rolled out updates with new weapons and tweaks, as well as keep the DLC simple optional content (player models) rather than gameplay critical, the community behind the game has cranked out a whole load of maps that can be (for the better part) included in the whitelist (maps recognised by KF so you can advance your class). Recommended to anyone who can look past the dated graphics and see the gameplay.

Hard yes.

Anyone looking here for story is fooling themselves. With the main hook gone from the first game, i.e. revenge, the story in Shank 2 is clearly as deep as the 2-dimensional graphics but no more or less poorly executed than it's predecessor. The story is a thin veneer but, if you want a modern beat'em up that opens up the mechanics of the previous entry in the series, then the game will provide. Controllers recommended for best experience.

Survival is challenging and a nice addition geared towards repeat playing but one hopes that there would be a custom level editor or future content to expand on it, as it only sports three maps. Blocking from Shank 1 is replaced with a rolldodge. 2 also lacks the prior's co-op campaign with its nice killsharing, but that's not so bad with the Survival mode in its place. Recommended for anyone who loves a grisly cartoon and can stomach thin plots in their games, ones that rips the jaws off of sharks gratuitously for your viewing pleasure.