Review: Pacific Rim - The Video Game (XBLA)

Many games based on a movie – simply made to try and take advantage of a movie's popularity – turn out rather predictable: bad-to-mediocre in quality, nothing more than a ill-conceived money grab, trying to gain some additional revenue out of the intellectual property. That's exactly the case with Pacific Rim on XBLA, a fighting title that takes its inspiration from the summer blockbuster.

While the movie did OK critically and in ticket sales, the videogame is a complete travesty that perpetuates the awfulness of many movie-based licensed titles. Even if this were a free-to-play title, Pacific Rim wouldn't have an excuse for its poor quality and total lack of enjoyment. And it has no shame in posing as a F2P game, with nearly every imaginable upgrade in weaponry and other elements available to purchase.

Review: Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (3DS)

From my 2010 Wii review of Donkey Kong Country Returns:

"Stop rolling into the pits!" 

This happened to me again and again. For some reason, to perform the ground attack a player has to quickly shake the Wii Remote. That's fine. However, if you happen to be moving forward at the time, you'll roll forward. That's good for attacking enemies and bashing things but it's also a very efficient way to send you wheeling into a hole. There are some really tricky platforming elements in the game and the inability to just press a button to perform this action makes some areas far more difficult than they needed to be.