With a name like Bang Bang Racing, right out of the box (well, download in this case), you’d likely be expecting something along the lines of a Twisted Metal-style racing with guns and such, or even something like Mario Kart where you shoot items at one another trying to over take one another in an extreme struggle to stay in first. Instead, it’s a Micro Machines-like racing game that doesn’t use any of those items at all. While that may be a surprise, it doesn’t make it any less of a decent game. READ MORE
Batman: Arkham City was among my favorite games of 2011. Everything that worked in Batman: Arkham Asylum was added to, and that’s all I really wanted. The combat is more satisfying, the explorable sandbox is larger, the challenge rooms are more varied, and there are more villains and mooks for Batman to punch in the throat. Anybody else considering developing a superhero game needs to play both of Rocksteady’s Batman titles, take notes, and hope to deliver as good a product. READ MORE
Virtua Fighter 5 has lived a long, fruitful life through this generation. First making its appearance on the PS3 early on in its life, it was later ported to the Xbox 360 with added online play. For years, the game would stay quiet up until the Final Showdown update for the arcades in 2010. With the addition of new characters and rebalancing the game over the last console release, it would finally reach consoles in 2012 as a downloadable title. This would mark the first “new” Virtua Fighter game that would not be released through physical distribution. READ MORE
The Atelier series has always been an oddball in the JRPG genre. While most games focus on saving the world from the likes of egotistical madmen, Atelier games focus on more personal stories. In that vein, Atelier Meruru follows in the footsteps of Rorona and Totori by focusing on the story of a single alchemist; in this case, Merurulince Rede Arls, Princess of Arls. READ MORE
Capcom is attempting something entirely different with Dragon’s Dogma. Similar in some respects to their popular Monster Hunter franchise, this fantasy RPG seems to be Capcom’s take on popular western RPGs such as the Elder Scrolls series. It features an expansive, open world and an interesting take on RPG combat. This is one of the strangest games I have ever played, leading me to wonder if I can actually call this a huge success or a complete failure. Maybe it’s a bit of both. READ MORE
