Despite the warm weather fronts slowly moving across the continent, it's clear that winter is sticking around for a while. Bundle up and check out this week's Reviews Spotlight!
The realities of life and war
By Spencer Gregory
About a year ago, Spencer won a T-shirt and a signed copy of Call of Duty: World at War for the Wii from Bitmob. He promised to eventually review the title as an exercise in freelancing (minus the pay). Fast-forward 12 and a half months: Spencer's finally published that review.
Holding your breath for 365 days is tough, so breathe easy and check out this full, in-depth review. Oh, and Spencer…don't worry about the delay. You gotta build hype somehow!
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands review
By Kendell Cassidy
Sometime last May, the industry let out a collective sigh as the once-extolled Prince of Persia franchise prepared for a devastating one-two punch. The perpetrators: A Disney film adaptation starring Jake Gyllenhaal and a multi-platform video game — both scheduled for a mid-May release. Turns out the movie wasn't that bad; I would be remiss to ignore the few laughs and thrills I took from Gyllenhaal's acting.
But how about the game? This is where Kendell comes in. Having thoroughly examined the mechanics and features of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Kendell's ready to explain why this game may have gotten a bad shake and why you should give it a second chance.
Enslaved review: Journey to being underappreciated
By Isaiah Taylor
With such a grim forecast sitting plainly in the title, it'd be tough to overlook Isaiah's review. Though critics cheered and celebrated the game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West failed to meet Namco Bandai's sales projections. The publisher had hopes for their quirky adventure title to break a million sales, but Enslaved barely sold half of that.
Now, almost six months after launch, Isaiah prepares a eulogy for what could have been a great, great game. Oh, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, we barely knew ye.
A fascism simulator: CityVille review
By P. Rafael Mercado
You're probably aware of the Facebook game FarmVille, right? It does boast the largest player-base of any video game, after all. Well, how about FrontierVille? FishVille? PetVille? These may sound like made-up games, but in reality they're merely the result of Zynga's development philosophy: release a reskinned, almost identical game every week…forever.
CityVille challenges players to (you guessed it) build cities, buy items, and flaunt their cyber-wealth across your Facebook wall. Sounds innocent enough, but Rafael sees the evil beneath! Leave it to a Bitmobber to deconstruct the philosophical and technical merits of a browser game.
Beards ahoy! Delve Deeper Review
By Daav Puke
Harness the power of strong, bearded Dwarves in Delve Deeper to uncover treasure, mysteries, and even monsters!
Not convinced? Well, luckily, Delve Deeper isn't entirely about building a comprehensive canon — it's about strategy. Whichever team of mining Dwarves returns to their king with the most riches will be crowned the victor, so it's up to you to sniff out and dig out all the gold and diamonds beneath the soft soil.