James Stephanie Sterling

It’s hard to divorce David Cage, the public figure, from the games Quantic Dream makes. He is, after all, a man who put himself in Indigo Prophecy‘s tutorial, immortalized as the movie director he’s always dreamed of being. The self-styled auteur fiercely believes in being the one man with the one vision, and gladly takes credit for his games’ success in doing so.

Writing an introduction to a Grand Theft Auto review seems unnecessary. If you know videogames, you know Grand Theft Auto. Hell, even if you don’t know videogames, there’s a better than low chance you know Grand Theft Auto. The “bad boy” of the games industry for many years, few titles have generated as much controversy — and sold as many copies — as Rockstar’s premier crime series.

In the past five years, the notion of a zombie apocalypse has grown from cult horror amusement to worldwide mainstream fascination. The videogame industry latched onto it with eagerness, and this generation has drowned us in undead adventures. Dead Rising, The Walking Dead, Plants vs. Zombies, Dead Island. It’s been all about the zombies this generation.

A game of exceptional quality is exceptionally rare, rarer than generous review scores and excited praise in the high profile videogame market may indicate. There are games of unquestionable caliber that, while few in number, become games that define a generation. BioShock was one such game.

A game of exceptional quality is exceptionally rare, rarer than generous review scores and excited praise in the high profile videogame market may indicate. There are games of unquestionable caliber that, while few in number, become games that define a generation. BioShock was one such game.

It seems that once or twice a year we get some new intellectual property demolishing the idea that only sequels perform well, shaking up the market in some exciting way. Despite having no big franchise name attached, it catches the eyes of gamers based on the sheer merit.

How does one describe Journey, exactly? It’s a videogame unlike any other, to the point where calling it a videogame doesn’t quite feel right. One could call it an art game, but that would draw comparisons with infinitely less distinguished pieces of software. Whatever label you want to affix to thatgamecompany’s latest creation, there’s one description that absolutely everybody should be able to agree on.

Preparing for a new Elder Scrolls game is like preparing to die. One must ensure they get all their worldly affairs in order, speak with the people who mean everything to them, and have a final meal. After all, once that disc goes in, the user may as well have departed from our mortal world.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was something of a revelation when it released in 2009. Until that time, games based on comic books had a history of being mediocre at best, but Rocksteady took a beloved superhero and let that love influence the development from beginning to end.

08:57 – Default review scheduled to finish in 71:23:18 08:58 – Activating emergency distributed computing grid… 09:00 – GLaDOS@home starting… 09:01 – Recruiting cpus to force faster review publication… 21:26 – Calculations complete for Portal 2. Recalculating a new launch projection… 21:29 – Boot sequence complete 21:29 – Commence reviewing

08:57 – Default review scheduled to finish in 71:23:18 08:58 – Activating emergency distributed computing grid… 09:00 – GLaDOS@home starting… 09:01 – Recruiting cpus to force faster review publication… 21:26 – Calculations complete for Portal 2. Recalculating a new launch projection… 21:29 – Boot sequence complete 21:29 – Commence reviewing

L.A. Noire (PlayStation 3 [reviewed], Xbox 360)Developer: Team Bondi / Rockstar GamesPublisher: Rockstar GamesTo be released: May 17, 2011MSRP: $59.99

New Vegas is better written, better paced and (most importantly) far more amusing than Fallout 3.