by LepcisMagna 
Oh thank goodness – I’m not becoming a bitter old man. Shovel Knight is Tier One, and it feels good. The controls are tight, the fighting varied and clever, and the story just the right amount of cliché “save the world”. I should have more to say, but Shovel Knight is simply some good retro fun. It’s a 2D fighting platformer, but it’s a great 2D fighting platformer. And there’s a ridiculous amount of content – I can see why people love this game so much.
by LepcisMagna I thought Ubisoft had only been making the same game for 10 years. It turns out it is closer to 15. Originally, I gave a pass to the original Assassin’s Creed because it was a novel concept – a freerunning game set in an open world with climbing puzzles. It was pretty neat. The sequels were terrible since as Chezni just mentioned, they haven’t changed the game in years – just better graphics and a different story. It turns out I was mistaken for even giving the original a pass, since the mechanics were already present in another game series by Ubisoft: Prince of Persia.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
As I played my hour, I started giggling. Then laughing. Then crying a bit, because this is just Assassin’s Creed in a more primitive engine. Since this game, Ubisoft has just remade this exact game over and over again. It has freerunning. It has the exact same buggy “no, I didn’t want to run up that wall, I wanted to run through the door” problems that haven’t been fixed in any of the AC games. It has the exact same weird bars you swing around on. It has the exact same horrible, horrible action camera. It has the exact same dagger stun locks. The only improvement brought by the original Assassin’s Creed was the open world (which, granted, is fairly significant), but at the cost of wallrunning and reversing time (which was actually fun). This game is forever tainted because of my experience with Assassin’s Creed, which affects my tiering. I can’t play it because it just reminds me of all the things I hate about Assassin’s Creed and what that series stands for. I could almost see myself playing it at some point because the time reversal seems fun and the characters/story interesting – though the dramatic cutscenes every time you sheath your sword or drink water (no, I’m not kidding) is more hilariously bad than fun. To Tier Three it goes – play Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider Legend or Anniversary instead.
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
See above, only the composer played Doom in between. Add heavy metal, angst, sexism, and a worse camera…somehow.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Though the camera is still terrible, it’s less terrible than the previous two. The combat is more fluid, and the angst seems to be gone from the previous game. This one goes to Tier Two for me – I’m not sure I’ll play it soon, but it’s probably worth picking up at some point.
Prince of Persia
Ah, of course. The eighth game of the Prince of Persia series: Prince of Persia. Naming conventions are apparently no longer in vogue in the gaming industry. Ah well. At least it’s a fun game. The combat is a little simplistic and honestly a bit frustrating at times – they could really have used some sort of stamina mechanic – but overall the freerunning and attacking does feel more fluid. There does seem to be a bit of “collect all these things” leaking in, but the chemistry between the main characters keeps up a good level of patter. I can definitely see myself playing more of this – Tier One (Two Thrones might squeak in as well, now that I’m thinking about it).
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
This goes into my “Technical Issues” category because it would require that I install Uplay. I refuse. I’m a bit disappointed since not a single one of these games actually let me take screenshots and I had hopes for the most recent one. But Uplay isn’t worth the sacrifice.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a Tier Four developer. Between their ridiculous DRM, Uplay launcher, and rehashing of the exact same game over and over again, I have sworn off buying any of their future games (and playing any of their Uplay games). The soul of the company was slowly drained ever since the Sands of Time. I have considered doing an Assassin’s Creed series review, but there is too much pain (and the Uplay launcher, which is kinda the same thing) down that path. I have learned my lesson the hard way – they just don’t make good games any more.
by Chezni
“Remember that? Fun? That thing we used to have before gaming felt like a second job?” Enter the refreshing title of…
At its core, a good platformer is about getting to places. Not going to places or being in places, but getting to places. You can make the world pretty, you can make the world big and you can riddle the world with secrets but if getting to any of those things isn’t fun, then your platformer will fail. You see, the collectibles, world and settings were all just excuses for you to use the in-game mechanics in fun ways to get from point A to point B. Tiny and Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers was a breath of fresh air that reminded me of what it felt like to play a game that remembered this.
by Chezni
Some days I wonder if RPGs are dead. Sometimes I worry the future of RPGs are relegated to only ones with the words “Bioware” appearing on the screen as I turn them on. Apparently I just need to try more games, because either I’m an idiot, or the Divinity series is freaking awesome.
by Chezni
I’ve been looking forward to this one. In circles of fans of Deus Ex, E.Y.E. and similar titles I’ve always heard whispers of a game called…
Daikatana is another fast-paced FPS wrought in what some might consider the golden age of FPS’s. Quake, Unreal, Goldeneye, Heretic, Hexen, DOOM, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior–it was a time of exciting level design, frantic gunfights and weapons that ranged from realistic to ridiculous. Daikatana fits right in with this and potentially on a more brutal level. Daikatana is brutal. Expecting it to be about on par difficulty-wise with the aforementioned FPS’s, (and having beaten most of the aforementioned FPS’s) I didn’t anticipate much resistance from the game. I was wrong. After dying a few times on the second section of level 1, I decided I should probably start trying. So I did. And I kept dying. So I decided to try harder. I still kept dying. I decided to give the game my full attention, using every piece of information available to me in order to achieve success. I did not beat level 1.
by LepcisMagna 
In 2010, the question of “How gritty can we make every single voice actor sound?” was answered in the form of Darksiders. And sadly, from this inauspicious beginning, things only go downhill. The combat is horribly dull (though that may partially be the fault of Dark Souls’ existence), the levels are aggressively linear, and the story isn’t particularly compelling. Your first quest is to gather 500 souls. Great. Fantastic. Top score.
You play as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (War, in this case), who has been unjustly blamed for killing humanity and disrupting the all-important Balance. He wants to redeem himself by taking down the being that now rules over earth. In one of the many, many cinematics that played during my first hour, I learned that the Charred Council (who control the Four Horsemen) decided that any one force being too powerful would disrupt the Balance and…bring an end to existence or something. The trouble is, the Charred Council is a too-powerful force – so right off the bat we’re faced with plot holes.
Beyond that, it’s a pretty straightforward hack-n-slash. But there’s absolutely nothing interesting about combat (well, the camera control is certainly… interesting). The boss I encountered was boring and gave no indication if I was actually doing the right thing, and later I was immediately able to cheese all the enemies with a jumping attack. There really isn’t anything to recommend this game. Tier Three.
Darksiders II
Apparently someone liked the original Darksiders, because they made a second one. It is far, far better. There’s still a good helping of grittiness in the voice acting, but it’s not in every line. Even better, the plot hook is a whole lot more relatable. They seem to have learned their lesson from the distant intro from the first one: you play as Death in his attempt to redeem his brother from the crimes he is accused of from the first one (which I guess means War didn’t do so well). The cutscenes have been trimmed down and the characters have motivation, passion, and a slight sense of humor.
As far as combat, they removed the cheesing jump attack. Instead, they have a dodge that works – which makes combat interesting and fun. It’s still not terribly difficult (again, ruined by Dark Souls), but it is satisfying. The enemies telegraph nicely without spending a minute winding up; even better, they have health bars!
I waffled on putting this in Tier One, but I think it’s worth my time since it seems like a good winding-down game. As a warning, it sounds like people encounter bugs in this version (according to Steam), but I didn’t run into anything in my hour.
by LepcisMagna 
It’s like Sim City, only with prison! Actually, I suppose it is more like Rimworld, since it uses the same tileset (I think). I have to grudgingly put this into Tier One. There seem to be too many bugs for a fully released game (my prisoners went to the staff room for food and ignored the mess hall entirely) and the tone of the missions within the game is a lot more grim than the cute graphics imply. But…I really love sim/management games. There are plenty of interesting features and management aspects, so I think that once I get past the initial learning curve it will be a bunch more fun.
by Chezni
Did you play Darkstone as a kid? Shutup–no. Of course you didn’t. Why? Because get off my lawn and somethin-somethin’ kids these days and Darkstone is an ancient old forgotten piece of art that never got enough appreciation and was probably the best game ever made and… and… oh dear word. It’s on Steam. For a buck. Well if that don’t beat all. Everything’s on Steam these days, including my childhood apparently. *Ahem* Anyway, as I was saying… shutup.
We’re reviewing the Dungeon Siege series today. Sheesh. Stay on topic, will you?
DUNGEON SIEGE
by LepcisMagna 
It took me 45 minutes to finish my first round of DLC Quest. It’s a fun little game – reminiscent of Upgrade Complete, really. It’s a game where you must upgrade everything to save the princess, including buying a menu. I liked it, and I think it deserves a Tier One place. It knew its sense of humor and was short and sweet enough to not get boring. My only technical complaint would be that the key remapping didn’t quite work (the up arrow key wasn’t mapped to jump). It almost slips into Tier Two because it doesn’t really commit to the joke of DLC Quest, but it was still an enjoyable 45 minutes.
by Chezni Welcome to ERROR 404 GAME NOT FOUND.
Haha, just kidding. Welcome to Edge of Space.