I played the demo for Mortal Kombat 9, and I was really not hyped up to play the game. There are several reasons for this, one of which isn’t the game’s fault. Most people have seen the Mortal Kombat Rebirth trailer by now, which really does portray the Mortal Kombat series as a movie, in a very serious light. Compared to that the new game is very silly by comparism.  

Don’t get me wrong-Mortal Kombat has always been silly throughout the years, but lately it is getting even more ridiculous, and it was really noticable in Armageddon (too many people fighting at once will destroy the world-seriously?) but I’m sure the storyline in this game will be very gritty and realistic *cough Raiden goes travelling back in time cough revisting the first tournament has already been done before cough cough*.

Still, part of me really likes Mortal Kombat. If I was a game designer, I could see so much potential for the games and the characters. In Mortal Kombat 3, for example, Earth had been taken over by Shao Kahn and most of human population had lost thier souls-now that would be a great story to expand upon. However whatever development gained from the characters is usually lost or reset by the next game. Lui Kang was a zombie, now he's not. Raiden was evil, now he's not. Johnny Cage dies and comes back to life so many times it might as well be his signature move.

So we’re going back in time for this one, and back to basics. Is it any better?

The good: Of course the game has a graphical upgrade and the fighting style is grittier and gorier. But at the same time, I feel like they are trying to overcompensate for something. Maybe they are running out of ideas?

The mediocre: They switched from a 3-D environment back to a 2-D background, but in all honesty, it doesn’t seem to have much impact on me either way. The 2-D environment is long enough that the players won’t feel too enclosed.

Oh boy, where do I start?

First of all, Johnny and Milenna are my two favourite characters in mortal kombat. At first I loved how in the opening fight they have a cheesy line they give to their opponent. However, when they have the same cheesy line every single match, it starts to grate against the nerves. And worse, when you fight a clone of yourself...yeah, it gets annoying really fast.

And speaking of Milenna, I swear they are trying to remove as many articles of clothing from her as possible. I’m all for making her character sexy, but when I get distracted in the fight because I am watching certain body parts um...jiggle, it starts to cross a line.

One of the new features of mortal kombat is the internal damage you are able to inflict upon the player. Interesting in concept, laughable in execution. I mean, if someone stomps on your chest and literally breaks all of your ribs, are you really going to stand up and win the match?

  

You can inflict this move by a ‘special move’ meter, which requires you to...uh, do absolutely nothing. I’m serious, this fills up when you do special moves and combos, but it doesn’t seem to like basic punches or anything else. Honestly, I think this meter has a mind of its own. I simply waited out the match without doing any moves at all, getting my character literally beaten to death, and the special-move meter filled up twice. 

I obviously have a lot of bad points for this demo, but I did read they are emphasizing story more so than actual gameplay. Will it be worth it? Hopefully. I would make a joke about Raiden going out into space next time, but they actually already did that in the last game.

 I've never played Mass Effect 1, mostly because I don't have an XBOX 360 and asking me to inport a character from that console to my PS3 is a little bit silly. Luckily this is a very minor issue and doesn't cause too much confusion in the plot.

The player stars as Commander Sheperd, who dies shortly after an alien attack. Fortunately he is resurrected by Cerebrus, who want him to investigate a string of missing colonies. Unfortunately, Cerebrus is also an alien-hating human-supremesist group.

And this is why Mass Effect 2 works on so many levels-almost every mission involves a serious moral choice. While some are clear-cut on what is the right choice, others are not. To make it more fun, all the choices made in Mass Effect will be saved and change the upcoming events Mass Effect 3. All of this is directly influenced, of course, by whether or not the player wants Commander Sheppard to be good or evil. 

Not to imply that Sheppard spends most of his time bogged down with serious moral problems-he can also spend his time getting drunk in bars, getting discounts in stores by creating commercials, and has some truly funny and entertaining moments (especially when he’s evil).

Gameplay-wise, Mass Effect 2 consistently divides its time between first-person shooter and storytelling mode. I would say that that the constant pointing and shooting can be repetitive, but not overly so-fortunately there are enough cinematic cuts to not have it become mindless. There is also an upgrade system which is relatively quick and painless.

My one and really only gripe about the game is the loading time, especially while on the main spaceship. Still, it’s a big game, so that's not really surprising.

FINAL GRADE: 5 stars out of 5. Impressive storytelling and creative missions. And it’s got Martin Sheen. Here’s hoping the third game will be just as awesome!

The Dead Space series is really good at doing one of two things-either making a really good product, or making a really bad one.

Dead Space Severed is the more-or-less sequel to Dead Space Extraction. You know, that game I really loved and raved about. In this game you play as Gabriel Walker (I guess the main character in Dead Space Extraction, Nathan, really did turn into a monster in the end) who is trying to get his now-pregnant wife Lexine out of the sprawl. Lexine for the most part does what she normally does, which is stand around looking horrified.

This game is a failure in so many ways. First of all, it’s relatively short (a whole grand two levels) and annoyingly enough most of those two levels are a straight copy and paste from Dead Space 2. And since my character was somehow imported from Dead Space 2 I am also ridiculously overpowered against enemies-and no, I don’t think there’s any way you can create a new character. Is it scary? Hell no.  What’s kept the Dead Space series somewhat decent is the madness factor for the main characters. A madness factor which is unfortunately absent. So with that taking a holiday, I only have swarms of monsters to keep me occupied, and since I was overpowered, I started to feel a little sorry for them. Especially the baby monsters.

I can’t get over how lazy this game is. The intro to Dead Space 2 was one of the best intros for a game I had ever seen. Isaac Clarke wakes up in a straight jacket, in an insane asylum just as a monster is about to eat him. Dead Space Severed starts with Gabe telling Lexine, ‘Um, the monsters are here again. Guess we better hide or something.’

I spent the whole time thinking about many ways this game could have been improved. First of all, they could have brought back Nathan and introduced him in the madness segments. Okay, so the studio was too cheap to get the voice actor back. How about just having him stand around in the background looking menacing? Or how about Isaac Clarke? The guy’s finally gotten a little bit of personality and at least it would have been a fan service. The only thing noteworthy was the ending to this game, which only served to tick me off. 

Final Grade: 0 stars out of 5. I want my money back, and I want to forget this game ever existed. 

Then again, it was only seven bucks so I guess it's not the end of the world....