If you like videogames, do not read this review. Do yourself a favor and go  buy this game right now!
That is the bottom line for this amazing game. For those of you who would like to know more, continue reading.

Arkham City is the best superhero game ever created.  You are in Batman’s playground. Anything and everything you could of hoped for to be in a Batman game is here. Batman has many gadgets at his disposal and makes traversing the city a joy.  Arkham City is an open world game that, in terms of game mechanics, plays out more like Zelda than GTA.  Arkham City is a hub world where each villain’s location is similar to a dungeon.  The storyline feels like it was taken straight from a comic book, which is good and bad.  I wanted the story element to be on par with the Dark Knight movie, but what we have here is still worthy of a good Batman story.  Almost all the classic villain’s play some form of role in this game.  I don’t want to give to much away, but I was surprised a lot.

Batman getting his groove on

Gameplay
Controlling Batman is a breeze and feels just right. Seeing as how I’ve never played Arkham Asylum, their was a slight learning curve.  After some time with the game, I wouldn’t want Batman to control any other way. Arkham City boosts the best combat system I have seen, and I don’t say that lightly.  Two buttons are mainly used; one for attack and one for countering.  You can string combos together for more experience points and all in all it looks awesome. Batman’s gadgets can also be used during a brawl, but I didn’t find them too useful.  As you fight and do side quests you’ll get enough experience to level up.  This will bring up a menu and you choose what you want to level up; Batman’s gadgetry, combat, and bat suit.

Batman is also equipped with a detective vision.  This allows you to see enemies through walls with detailed information on them.  It also helps you solve crimes by showing you bullet and blood trails.  It will also show you a bosses weak spot and give you clues for riddler trophies, basically its used a lot.  This was a problem in the Arkham Asylum because you could literally play the whole game with detective  vision turned on.  Arkham City rectifies this by automatically turning it off when entering a new area and by not allowing you to see your next objective with it turned on.

Early on, Batman can dispatch foes with ease and I was worried that the game was going to be too easy, but this is not the case, as the difficulty will ramp up pretty quickly.  Thugs will start carrying guns, shields, knives, electrified batons, and more.  Each weapon requires a different strategy.Let me paint you a picture: You come to a room inside a specific enemies lair, you turn on detective vision and notice their are 8 armed thugs patrolling the area. 4 have machine guns and thermal vision, 2 have shields, and 2 have electrified batons. You want to get to a good vantage point so you grapple to a stone gargoyle statue You have all of Batman’s gadgetry  , and you can get to any spot in this room with ease.  How do you take out every thug without alerting the other enemies around? This is why this game is so good.  You can approach a situation the way you want.  Do you drop a smoke bomb and take on everyone at once? You better be good at combat because Batman can only take a few bullets.  Do you drop proximity freeze mines? Disable an enemies weapon with the disruptor? – watch them try to use their gun and panic when it doesn’t work, this is always good for a laugh, or you could stealthily go around the room taking them out one at a time. The list is endless. This brings me to another point that i didn’t really expect, the enemy AI is good and all but what really drew me into the experience was the way the enemies react to batman.  You can smell their fear as they slowly creep around corners after finding an unconsious body from a nearby attack.  They question where Batman is because they swear that they saw him, and even in detective mode you can see what mental state they’re in.  Some enemies will taunt Batman and tell him he’s too scared to come face them, they will yell and tell other thugs to help look for him. It just feels like one big interactive experience.

The Riddler trophies are back and they are everywhere.  I don’t care for collecting specific items in open world games, it usually feels like a cheap excuse to extend the replay value, but here it’s great. Rocksteady actual took the time to make collecting the trophies creative and enjoyable and when you collect enough of them it starts opening up hostage rescue sequences reminisant of the Saw movies.  This leads me to the side missions. Their are a lot of them and they’re not just throw away either. The side missions are fully fleshed out mini stories that involve major characters. I don’t want to spoil too much, but one side mission involves you chasing ringing pay phones around the city. Another side mission invoves you seeking out and destroying titan containers. Catwoman also plays an interesting role. I would definitely recommend downloading the catwoman dlc before you start the story mode , as it lets you play out important story elements.  These little intermissions offer a nice change of pace from the rest of the story.  They don’t last very long and they’re not at all obtrusive, although, each time  you switch to Catwoman your left on a cliff hanger, and sometimes I would rather see what happens next.  Catwoman gets around the city with her whip and climbing ability and it doesn’t feel as intuitive as Batmans Grapple.  Nevertheless, its still highly operational and you can see the difference between a rich, highly trained professional and a poor slum dog woman.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Arkham City are excellent.  The city itself is the highlight here.  While not as big as a GTA city, it does its job.  It’s always night, but thats ok, thats what works for this type of game.  The city is highly detailed and every area you move into has character.  Every section of the city is designed specific to that character.  I don’t want to give too much away but ,you’ll know when your entering The Joker’s territory.  One of the best parts about the game is to climb to the top of one of the highest buildings and marvel at how beautiful it looks with all the action going on.  The character models are nearly perfect, you wouldn’t want them to look any different.  Even Batman shows some wear and tear as you progress through the game.  The animation is also great.  Watching Batman pummel 20 thugs is a sight to behold.

The music in the game is good and I seem to really only notice it when the action picks up or when an intense scene is unfolding, otherwise it plays quietly in the background.  The voice acting is on par with most big budget movies.  Mark Hamill is casted as The Joker once again.  He does an excellent job and makes The Joker sound as insane and crazy as he is.  The Penguin seems to have taken on a different accent, but I like the change as it gives him more of an edge. Batman’s voice is accurately depicted and sounds like a mix between the Dark Knight and The Animated Series.  One thing to mention though, their is a lot of chatter. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming, as you’ll here conversations from random thugs, the radio that picks up a lot of chatter, and then the major villains will have dialog over a loud speaker.  This is small though when compared to the big picture, as the production is of very high caliber.

Conclusion

When you’ve finished the main story mode, you unlock New Game Plus, which starts you at the beginning with all your gadgetry. The enemies are also harder and they won’t display the icon over head when they’re going to strike. Also, their are the challenge maps, which will have you choose from Batman or Catwoman your then faced with a room full of thugs and you have to take them out accordingly. Some challenge maps you’ll have to use stealth and others require quick reflexes to take out 20 to 30 enemies.  Arkham City really is one of my favorite games of all time. This game definitely lives up to the hype and then some.  That’s not to say this game is perfect, it does have its faults.  Not all the major villains are as fleshed out as they could be.  In fact, some of them are introduced early on and then forgotten about.  Their is also any overwhelming sense of objectives on your map at all times this can be considered good or bad really. Towards the end of the game their is some backtracking. These are all minor gripes when looking at the whole game. The bottom line is that this game makes you feel like your batman better than any other medium and that is something that has to be seen to be believed.

Before the Modern Warfare games even existed, Battlefield was the sheriff in town. With it’s multiplayer & co-op being the reason to play the game, first person shooter fans enjoyed a variety of maps that suited to even the most critical gamer. This time around, Battlefield 3 comes with the Frostbite 2 game engine and pretty much speaks for itself with it’s amazing graphics and even a single player campaign that’s actually quite good. With Battlefield it was always about the gamer and certainly not about limitations and you will see that if you get a chance to play it.

It’s really the only next-gen first person shooter out there that allows you to drive tanks, jeeps and fly jets & helicopters. The experience that this game has is one that will bring in that nostalgia that fans of the series were soo desperately waiting for.

If you are reading this review you probably want to know if it’s a game that you should buy, rent or simply stay away from. In our opinion you should buy this game, but only if you are a fan of the series. Battlefield as we know it has changed and it no longer feels like the game that we played a couple of years ago. You will see why once you read our critique section of the review.

The Single Player
With battlefield 1942, and 2 the single player was really bad and both of those previous games were all about multi-player. This changes of course with Battlefield 3 as it has an appealing story set in 2014. It starts things off with Staff sergeant, Blackburn that leads a squad of five men on a mission to locate, find and safely return a squad that’s investigating a possible improvised explosive device (IED). We do not want to spoil it for you, but in the single player campaign there’s a mission that will let you assist in a military jet operation, which you will see in the video below.

The Multiplayer
At the end of the day as gamers all that we want is the multi-player and the matching system is the feature that impressed us the most. With this system in Battelfield 3 you can choose which map to start playing on and once everything loads there is an option where players pick where to want to spawn. If you want to play in a squad that is possivke can do that and the system will spawn you in that specific squad that you picked. While playing the  on the multiplayer you get to pick one of four roles: Assault, Support, Engineer and Recon. This makes it easy for the player to pick and go and there are some customization of weapons.

Vehicles
One of the major features that distinguishes Battlefield is that there are playable Army vehicles in the game. You can hop in a M1 Abrams or T-90 if  you happen to be playing on the Russian team. There are APC’s such as the BPM-2, LAV 25 and 9K22 Tunguska. If flying Helicopters is your thing there is a bigger variety of them with AH-1 Super Cobra, Mi-28, Uh-1Y Super Huey, KA-60, AH-6J Little Bird, and the Z-11. For jets fans out there BF3 has some popular American, Chinese and Russian jets that should tickle your fancy. Some of these aircraft’s are the F/A 18 Super Hornet, A10 Thunderbolt, Sukhoi Su-35, Sukhoi Su-39 F35 and some more that will come in the Back to Karkland expansion pack.

Our Criticism
This is the part that we hate to do the most and the reason that we dislike doing the criticism is because we know that making a game requires a lot of work. While playing Battlefield 3 there were a few things that could of been tweaked and made better, but unfortunately weren’t. The first thing I didn’t like was that it was too much about realism and this made the game unpleasant due to the fact that while multi-player you can get killed very easily. The second negative thing that the game has is that it takes long for you to spawn and if you are a Call of Duty fan you will probably not like to wait. This wouldn’t be a problem if getting killed was harder, but it is very easy to die in this game. And last we disagree with EA and Dice for blocking modifications to the PC versions of the game. Battlefield was always about mods and one of the most popular was the Desert Combat mod by Trauma Studios, a mod that added a modern touch to Battlefield 1942.

Score
Battlefield 3 gets a 7 out of 10 as it had it’s fair amount of things that needed some tweaking. It’s a great game that fans of the franchise will have to get familiar with before they enjoy it. This doesn’t mean that the game is bad in any way, being it was a lot of fun to play, but it didn’t feel as enjoyable to play as MW3 or even Battlefield 2 and 1942.

What will they wreck this week on the new web episode of Wreckology by Machinima? Well it seems like the HTC Evo 3D might be a candidate, but we will leave that for you to find out. In the video below you will see a review of the HTC Evo as well as some funny and fancy wine tasting that should tickle your fancy.  Watch the full episode below.

An interesting game to play is Catherine, an anime puzzle/horror game from the folks over at Atlus. Originally an import from Japan, you have a game that starts things off with Vincent, a 32 year old that is having difficulties in moving forward in his relationship with his girlfriend Katherine.

The Storyline
One night while hanging out with his friends, Orlando, Johnny, and Toby at a bar called the “Stray Sheep”, our protagonist finds himself meeting a sexy lady by the name of Catherine spelled with a C.

Catherine has a very unique and complex story for a video game as it deals with people’s daily issues that come from being in a relationship and growing up. In one hand, Vincent wants to be a happy single guy without any serious commitments, but in the other hand, he has Katherine, spelled with a K, who wants to get married and raise a family.

Meeting Catherine is where the problem starts as he cheated on his girl Katherine with the new girl. As soon as that happens he starts to get nightmares that have him going into this other realm, where he is asked many questions that determine which side he wants to be. He only has two sides to pick from and those sides are his girl Katherine with a K or the girl he cheated on, Catherine with a C.

The Characters
The cast of this game is quite interesting and it seems like they all have something to bring to the table and that makes Catherine an unforgettable experience. In one hand, you have Toby, who happens to like Erica, which later on in the story you will find out something interesting about her. Then of course, you have Jonny, a regular at the “Stray Sheep” and he is still looking for his soul-mate. Jonny works for his father’s car dealership with hopes to inherit it someday. Of the group, the only one that’s ever been married is Orlando, but he got divorced and that brings the sardonic side out of him.

There are other characters in the game that help put the story together, but we don’t want to spoil it all for you. We already revealed enough by telling you that there’s something interesting that you will find out about Erica.

The Gameplay
While playing Catherine you will notice that it’s not as difficult as it seems, but the game can be challenging in certain missions. There are many things you can do in the game, particularly at the bar where you can find people that always have something interesting to say.

In theory, this game is more anime than gameplay, but where the puzzle end comes in is when Vincent has to climb these blocks that have to be moved a certain way to allow him to climb up and move to the next stage.

If Vincent fails to climb the blocks he could fall down and that means death.

The Negatives
If we had to criticize anything it would be the controls of this game as there were times in which accidentally you will pick and move the wrong block and in certain stages you have time limits and that can be kind of annoying.

The Positives
A game like Catherine has a lot to bring to the table because it has a great story and when it comes down to it, it’s fun to play. This game also can be a great way to introduce someone to anime as it is 50 percent story and 50 percent gameplay.

There is never a dull moment while playing Catherine and because of this we found it to be very entertaining.

Do we recommend this game?

Yes

Score

Playing the new Mortal Kombat game was quite an experience and most of you are going to agree that this is probably the best in the series. Developed by the folks over at NetherRealm Studios you have a game that feels good to play, but that also has a great storyline.

For me it was very different being that this was the first time that I have seen a storyline on a Mortal Kombat and that made things interesting. While playing the game you will get an experience that will probably change the way you look at fighting games for good and this is what makes MK stand out. The fighting system is unlike anything else out there and while fighting it’s going to feel very realistic, because the punches and the kicks speak for themselves.

The Storyline

Explaining the storyline is a bit difficult for us, because we haven’t really been following this franchise as much as we wanted to, but basically it takes places after the previous game (Mortal Kombat: Armageddon). In the previous game all of the characters except Raiden and Shao Khan are dead.

Being that Raiden felt defeated he decided to cast a spell on his already shattered amulet that would sort of contact the Raiden of that era and give him the message that says “He must win before he get’s killed”. The amulet shattered was a sigh of bad times and Raiden came to the conclusion that in order to save Earthrealm, Liu Kang had to win the tournament.

Liu Kang fights Shang Tsung and beats him, but his amulet shatters even more, which is another sign of future hard times. Very disappointed with being defeated Shao Kahn orders Shang Tsung’s execution, but changes his mind after being given the opportunity to host a second tournament and this time in Outworld.

We are not going to spoil it for you, but we do have to say that the story was awesome and it felt great to fight and get into this action once again.

Characters

About all of the other characters that we remember from the original series are in the game and watching them on the single player campaign really makes it worth it. It is obvious that the original casts is what makes the game, but we can’t forget the newer characters like Stryker, Quan Chi, Nightwolf and our personal favorite Cyber Sub-Zero.

Since we bought the Playstation 3 version we got to play with Kratos from God of War and he’s pretty good, but definitely feels different and that’s in a good way. See the full character list in the table below.

Gameplay
Most of you are probably wondering of the general features of the game and we first have to say that MK didn’t feel much like the other vesions of Mortal Kombat because of the options available in the game. You have many options and categories to play on for example you have a dedicated fight mode that lets you pick from Ladder, Tag Ladder, Test Your Luck, Test Your Might, Test Your Sitght, and Test Your Strike.

You then have your Story mode that takes you in the single player campaign and after that you have the challenge tower that give you that quick and fast fight that you enjoyed back in the days that MK didn’t have a storyline.

Training
Being this is such a new game a lot of people probably forgot the old Fatalities and therefore you get a chance to learn each fatality, which is good if you like to do them. In the training section there’s also your regular tutorial that shows you how to do your combos and stuff of that nature and that can be different experience in itself.

Once you finished doing your tutorials and have learned everything you needed you can then test your skills out by doing the Tag Team Practice and that lets you test your moves on using two different players.

Multiplayer
Part of the reason that we have this review up this late was because we bought the Playstation 3 version and being that the PSN was down for such a long time we simply didn’t play the mult-player and without playing that part of the game, just couldn’t’ do the review.

Anyways to continue on with the multiplayer part of the review; the online experience was amazing there are many options like Ranked Match, Player Match, Private Match. You can also simply just join a room and this feature is awesome for people that just want to fight someone online.

Then of course you have the option to create your own room, which is a great feature that let’s you host an online party that so that you you can invite your friends to join a fight.

Extras
An interesting feature is the extras section of the game and a place to get more out of Mortal Kombat. With the extras comes the Krypt a place where you spend your hard earned Kombat Cash. Each character unlocks certain things and by going to the Nekropolis section you get to check the status of each player to see what they have unlocked.

Because the game was really fun and the developers gave fans of the series more than expected Mortal Kombat get’s a 10 out of 10, which is our highest score. We recommend this game to anyone looking to play a good fighting game.

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Game Title: Mortal Kombat (2011) PS3/360
Twisted Junk Score: 10 out of 10
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Release Date: 04/19/2011
Pricing: $60.00
Review Copy Info
A review copy of Mortal Kombat was purchased by Twisted Junk for review purposes.