Category Archives: review

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Review

Saturday, December 13th, 2008
Posted by Eric Neigher from 1UP RSS feed.

The only reason that this didn’t get an “F” is the original music, which is very nice. Not excellent, mind you, but very nice — and the lone thing I latched on to for sanity while trying to review the otherwise completely putrescent Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods.

My friends, let me take you on a journey through a magical land where everything sucks. On our jaunt, the sights are ugly and outdated, the indigenous fauna’s incredibly annoying, the locals have the communication skills of Chewbacca’s illiterate, deaf-mute cousin, and the controls on our vehicle are archaic and unintuitive. Sounds great so far, right?

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Tony Hawk’s Motion Hue Pixel Painter Review

Friday, December 12th, 2008
Posted by Andrew Hayward from 1UP RSS feed.

Tony Hawk’s Motion isn’t your typical skateboarding sim, nor is it likely to represent the future of the franchise on the Nintendo DS. Rather, it seems to be a one-off attempt to introduce a new hardware option — the Motion Pack — to DS owners, and at least in that respect, the package succeeds. If only Activision had included a game worth playing with it.

Indeed, while its use is limited, the Motion Pack (which plugs into the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot) works as advertised, letting you guide your skater or snowboarder (a first for the franchise) left or right simply by moving the DS, as well as spin in midair, perform flips, and maintain balance during grinds and manuals.

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Theresia Review


Posted by Ray Barnholt from 1UP RSS feed.

Graphical adventure Theresia is an odd duck of a game, a very creepy and tense Mature-rated horror adventure on the small DS screen. But it’s not completely unsafe for kids under 17 — I’m not saying that they should play it, but anyone psychologically mature enough to enjoy a good, creepy story now and then might get something out of it. That is, provided they’re prepared for some clunky old-school mechanics that may sap their desire to see it through.

Theresia splits your time between walking through mazelike 3D dungeons in first-person and searching rooms for items and clues against a 2D backdrop.

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Rock Band Portable Drum Kit Review: The Beat Of A Different Drum [Review]

Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Posted by Mike Fahey from Kotaku.

Striking out against the inconvenience of lugging around a full-sized drum kit everywhere you go, Mad Catz has created the Rock Band Portable Drum Kit, which reduces the drum experience to it’s bare essentials.

Part of their innovative line of official Rock Band peripherals that includes the dual-strumming Fender Bass and the microphone with 360 controls built-in, the Mad Catz Portable Drum Kit for the Xbox 360 aims to deliver a solid drumming experience in a packages tiny enough to stuff into your average shopping bag. Have they drummed up a solid addition to your Rock Band arsenal, or has Mad Catz missed a beat?

Loved
Portability, Duh: With it’s four stackable drum platters, low-profile foot pedal, and ultra-thin control mechanism, the Mad Catz Portable Drum Kit certainly lives up to its name.

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Filed in Gaming, Mad Catz, Mad Catz Rock Band Portable Drum Kit, Original, XBox 360, review | | Link inside C.I.A.G. | Comments Off

Creative’s Vado HD 720p pocket camcorder reviewed: toe-to-toe with Mino HD


Posted by Darren Murph from Engadget.

First was the netbook craze — suddenly, everyone was cool with a miniaturized laptop. Now, the same sentiment has apparently bled over to the camcorder realm, with the Mino HD, Zi6 and Vado HD all vying for that precious space in your front left pocket. The latter, Creative’s latest, was recently reviewed over at CNET, and while it’d be wonderful to find a clear cut winner, critics simply couldn’t say that it was definitively superior in all ways to Flip’s formidable rival. In short, the Vado HD’s video quality was slightly less awesome than that of the Mino HD, but the feature set on the Creative was found to be far superior.

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Filed in 720p, 720p camcorder, 720pCamcorder, Computers, Flip video, FlipVideo, PocketCamcorder, VadoHd, camcorder, creative, flip, pocket camcorder, review, reviewed, vado, vado hd | | Link inside C.I.A.G. | Comments Off

Fusion-io’s ioDrive tested: world’s fastest storage confirmed


Posted by Thomas Ricker from Engadget.

See all those little Samsung squares? That’s NAND flash memory, 80 gigabytes worth on Fusion-io’s ioDrive. Tweaktown got an exclusive look at the PCIe storage card and came away mightily impressed by its “near nonexistent latency.” It’s faster than the best SATA II SSD or fastest 15,000RPM drive loaded in an 8 drive RAID config. Put simply, it’s the fastest storage device they’ve ever tested. Tweaktown was so impressed that they proclaim, “Fusion-io has raised the bar so high that once adopted, traditional solutions will be considered legacy products.” Mind you, this is enterprise class storage designed for data center servers requiring ultra-fast IO.

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Filed in Computers, FlashMemory, Fusion-io, PCIe, benchmark, flash memory, iodrive, nand, review | | Link inside C.I.A.G. | Comments Off

Sony’s 240Hz BRAVIA KDL-52XBR7 HDTV reviewed: extra Hz not worth the $

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
Posted by Darren Murph from Engadget.

Here it is, the review you’ve been waiting for. Are all those Hz worth all those dollars? If you believe CNET, the answer is “sadly, no.” The 52-inch KDL-52XBR7 was all the rage upon its arrival, promising slick visuals and a dejudder processor that would wow, stun and awe. Unfortunately, it seems the set hasn’t exactly lived up to expectations, as the deep black levels, accurate color temperature and color decoding, comprehensive complement of inputs and beautiful body weren’t enough to overcome the breathtaking $4,200 price tag. Furthermore, the 240Hz refresh rate was found to offer “only minor improvements to picture quality,” proving our fears of it being more about marketing than performance absolutely correct. Bottom line?

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Filed in 240hz, Computers, KDL-52XBR7, LcdHdtv, bravia, hdtv, lcd hdtv, review, reviewed, sony | | Link inside C.I.A.G. | Comments Off

Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes Micro-Review: A Touching Attempt [Review]


Posted by Brian Crecente from Kotaku.

More Brothers in Arms? Yes, please. On the iPhone? Beg pardon?

Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes looks to bring the fast-paced play of a World War II shooters to the iPhone, a device that is not only analog stick free, but button free. The only way to do this is to break out of the routine and invent a new control system. Never before has a game’s worth so hinged on a single control dynamic.

Loved
The Controls: While the game’s virtual analog sticks can take some getting used to, in the end they work. It also helps that there are three completely different types of controls for this iPhone shooter.

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Filed in Brothers in arms hour of heroes, Gameloft, Gaming, Micro review, Original, app store, apple, iPhone, ipod touch, review | | Link inside C.I.A.G. | Comments Off

Grand Theft Auto 4 Review

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
Posted by Tom Chick from 1UP RSS feed.

“If there’s one thing I have learned, it’s that we must obey the rules of the game. We can pick the game, Niko Bellic, but we must obey the rules.”

This closing comment from a character who’s just given Niko Bellic a mission is how Rockstar justifies one of Grand Theft Auto 4’s earliest moments of clumsy storytelling. From here, Niko (i.e., you) must do something that makes no sense in the context of the story and character development thus far. Rockstar provides a gorgeous open city, a fantastic driving model, and some spirited gunplay. Now they’re going to shove you forward with their graceless scripted moments.

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Grand Theft Auto 4 PC Review


Posted by Tom Chick from 1UP RSS feed.

“If there’s one thing I have learned, it’s that we must obey the rules of the game. We can pick the game, Niko Bellic, but we must obey the rules.”

This closing comment from a character who’s just given Niko Bellic a mission is how Rockstar justifies one of Grand Theft Auto 4’s earliest moments of clumsy storytelling. From here, Niko (i.e., you) must do something that makes no sense in the context of the story and character development thus far. Rockstar provides a gorgeous open city, a fantastic driving model, and some spirited gunplay. Now they’re going to shove you forward with their graceless scripted moments.

Click here to read more.

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