Don’t be fooled. It may take independent game journalists longer to review the titles, because we are actually playing the game. Independents like this site, Geek Woman Speaks, have no monetary incentive to give a crappy game a good review, and you will get an honest evaluation before you blow your sixty bucks.

If there was an award for ‘most glitter in a video game’ then they would have that aspect cornered. But as with most gimmicks, they are there to cover up for problems with the game itself. It is a very pretty looking game. You can create a female playable avatar, so it deserved a review.

The character creation was limited. You pick race, but not a permanent class. Facial features are on presets. You can choose makeup and hair colors though. I chose a character whose race was more inclined to sorcery. She had unpleasantly long ears, which I couldn’t do anything about.

The clothing and armor were nothing special. They aren’t very detailed or rendered compared to other top of the line games. The hands and feet, and shoes are all indistinct and smudgy. On the surface it seems like a very girly game. Sure you could create a goblin-ish type or some other bad ass with character creation, but you still would have to play in the glitzy, shiny environments. The graphics resemble World of Warcraft, mashed up with the original 2005 version of Kameo. The story book style graphics are a matter of taste, you could love it or hate it.

Those were its good points. The combat ability points menu is over complicated and doesn’t make sense. The areas of Might, Sorcery and Finesse are on menus with icons that indicate various moves or spells. I found that trying to apply the points and how to use them to upgrade was confused and unclear. The twist in the story line is that your character is a “Fateless” hero. That gimmickry is supposed to help players shape their avatar based around play style. It doesn’t seem to work.

There are Fate Cards which are unlocked depending on points. Those also offer upgrades. Then the character can embark on Destinies such as Battlemage and Paragon. The system is at least creative, but it isn’t an improvement over what others have done, and there is a lack of instructions. It also has the radial dialog choices, and typically those don’t amount to much, and seem fine to skip over.

The fighting is pretty good. The spells are big flaming animations that look great. They are mapped easily to the right hand on the PS3. Items and potions can go on the left hand, and you are all set. This part they got right. The enemies are a weird looking assortment of things and goblins. You can equip two weapons at once. You can go with ranged and melee or any combination. Either with weapons or with spells. Eventually combat will fill up a “Fate” meter that triggers the Reckoning Mode. In that state your character can slow time and stuns enemies.

A huge problem is the map system. The terrain of the game is a bright neon lit span of nonsense. The map doesn’t indicate roads, bodies of water or mountains. It is perpetually unclear where to go. Completing missions is frustrating. A little circle may show where the quest receiver is, but it is nothing more than a compass point.

Without a decent map, the poor level design defeats the game. What good is all the glitter when you don’t know where to go? The issue is dealing with fantasy terrain. In a normal game where you can expect something like trails, trees, hills and woods. You have a general idea of how to proceed. In this game you have weird looking plant like things, and no clear directive. You can’t estimate where you are with common knowledge. Slopes normally lead down hill to a trail. At the foot of hills you’ll have rivers and so on. Well, not so here. The spacey looking environment leads no where making getting missions accomplished too annoying to bother with.

With big names like writer R. A. Salvatore character design by comic book artist Todd McFarlane one might be intrigued enough to to try the game out. But beyond that, it isn’t worth it. Over all the game play, story and character models are ridiculous. I don’t know what the developers were thinking when they released this game. It is goofy looking and childish. The level design is indecipherable. There is a crafting system which is too silly to be bothered with in this kiddie ride style of game.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a game I would recommend that you Pass on. At most you could try it on rental if you ally had to. I give Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 4 Black Cohosh plants out of 10.

so easy to use which was my main interest. With four animals running around and the mess I make while cooking, I hoped for something that would be convenient enough to use frequently. It has two small tanks on kit that are very simple to fill up. One for water and one for the cleaning solution. Which is expensive, but worth it. I thought that the tanks would make it heavy, but it isn’t much different in weight from a stick vac.

You need to wear shoes while using it, because of the steam heat. You can easily burn your feet with it. I know many people mop in their socks or with bare feet to avoid the foot prints, but you are going to need to work with something substantial on your feet. The floor does get warm, so I recommend sending your dogs to their room while you are using the steam mop.

It makes quick heated steam that they say kills 99% of bacteria and germs. It was such a pleasant and rewarding feeling going over spots that had ground in dirt, and even rust. It took up things that were stuck to the floor as well. What a terrific little bot.

They claim that the Hoover® SteamPlus™ Cleaning is 100% biodegradable and non-toxic, so it’s safe to use to kill germs and bacteria while still insuring a non-toxic environment for your children and pets.

The mop seems like a steam iron and a vac hooked up. Ok Hoover, when do I get my cleaning robot that will vacuum the rugs, and steam the floors all by itself?

Until a bit later in the game when the Goal became inflexibly a marriage and nuclear family. In order to complete goals between levels twenty and twenty four, you have to proceed with at least one couple fulfilling a Judeo – Christian based ideal. The couple must Date and become Engaged prior to moving in together. In that order, otherwise the game will become stuck, on the “Have Two Engaged Sims Move In Together”, Goal. Then they need to Propose Marriage, with a large diamond ring, using Life Style Points or LP given by the game at that moment. Don’t use those points on anything else or it will again become stuck.

There are many issues and glitches with the marriage and child parts of the game which have gamers up in arms all over the message boards. The update that arrived on May 10 is called, (face-palm) Toddler Time, and it has done nothing to alleviate these issues. There are several ways to dead end in the game. All of them occur when a player deviates from the strictly defined Goals of the Sims invisible dictatorship.
The main issue being the problem of the Baby. There does not seem to be a way to skip the damn thing. Not everyone is interested in playing around with little babies. There should be an option to skip over this inconvenient and annoying mission. It is not appropriate for all ages and is certainly not a metaphorical E for everyone decision. There are those who are too young, too old, or too hardcore for playing with baby dolls. The Sims needs birth control.

Things have improved for the Dog in the game. A food dish and water bowl can be obtained. However they go for around 15 thousand simeoleans for the two of them. The bone, frisbee and dog house cost astronomical amounts of Life Points which would take months to gather by normal means, other than making in App purchase from the store with real money. After the food and water bowl were filled the first time. The dog dug up LP’s twice consecutively, making a huge three LP.

There is supposedly a Wedding Dress and Groom Suit offered in the Update, which I have not found yet either in the character customization area or at the in game purchase portal, which is now indicated with a purple shopping cart. The wedding itself takes place privately, so there is no opportunity for a wedding party. The Update generally does not address the major issues, add flexibility or fix the problems that gamers have been asking for.

In fact once you get to twenty five or so, the goals become nearly impossible to finish without paying. The game does allow you to play for quite some time, for free but it does not go on forever as is claimed in their advertising. It would be more fun if it was an open world. A wider variety of interests should be offered for items. Animal Crossing on DS had more items than this iPad game.

Gamers who get to around level 30 have said that there is nothing left to do in the game, or by then one goal or another becomes glitched and the game is broken. The game requires politicians, but none of the laws can be changed or customized, that’s a fatal error in a god-game.

Tedious! Some folks speculated that perhaps some of the Goals could be skipped by paying out LP points to get past some of the more unreasonable missions. Looking at that dreaded Plus One over the crib, no amount of tapping around the user interface will make it go away!

EDIT: The wedding dress and groom suit are now in the store. The in App purchase is 4.99. A total rip off for something the characters would use for a twenty second ceremony.

It has many emotional and rational social puzzles to it. It was one thing in Skyrim, which is a fantasy universe, to marry the woman of my choice. But in the Sims it felt quite different, and more realistic somehow. Is this my own alternate life? Do I create my partner, and remain monogamous in the alternate world? I feel guilty about flirting with my Sim  creations of legendary beauties, Lindsey Bleuth from Arrested Development, and Playboy Playmate of the year Sara Jean Underwood. Does my Sim stay home watching movies and cuddling with my partner per usual, or does she stray? And would she give my Sim partner free reign to do the same?

In a perfect world I would be a paid theoretical physicist, and work as a scientist in the game along with Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hoffstader. Howard Wolowitz is my younger brother, and Amy, Raj and Bernadette all work at the centrally located science building with us too. Lunch hours would be epic.

Now I see why this game has been appealing. It has several good elements. I focus it through the lens of previous tiny computer people games. The gardening and the landscaping, as well as the interior decorating are bringing back nostalgic feelings from Animal Crossing on the original phat NDS. It wasn’t surprising to read in the Wiki that this version of The Sims game originated for DS.

There are pets and a pet shop, but it is no Nintendogs. The dog I was given originally brings in a good income through digging up stuff in the yard, he is the ultimate picker and never takes a cut, except for some praise and hand shaking. Why don’t we have to feed and groom these animals?

There are no food dishes for them, or supplies for their care. Occasionally the dog gets hidden in a corner of the house and is difficult to find. The Pet Shop, worth ten thousand hard earned simoleans, was a let down. There isn’t an interior. It is a rotating menu with a limited amount of dogs. No toy dogs are available either, a major sin.

The game takes place in annoying adherence to real time. The usual clock tricks that are used to exploit other iOS games, don’t seem to work here. The Sims are always on a race against time. The missions of the game are called goals. By completing them you gain Life Points which are your basic skill or ability points. With those you can buy additional properties or if in a jam, you can use them to finalize a work day or a building going up, in no time. At times, you are told to hurry up and get five Sims together for a party, to bake cookies or watch a movie. But not all of the Sims may be out of work yet.

They live a workhouse life style. The main house where Harriet and Rainbow Wolowitz live has several garden plots for mass gardening. The Sims who are unemployed work there around the clock. No deep sleeps. When I chill out for the night they have expresso and plant onions which take ten hours. Those that have to go to work in the morning grow tomatoes which are six hour plants. Then they get more expresso, a turbo snack, a power nap and a quick rinse shower. There are two coffee makers at the work house which really speeds things up. If there is time they raise carrots or bell peppers until it is time to go to work. The peppers turn around every thirty seconds, so by the time you harvest and replant one end of the row the first ones will be ready to pick. The carrots take five minutes and gives the goddess Sou-sou, of their world more time to breathe. Generally between them and the dog they make about $1500.00 per hour for three Sims and the dog, gardening at the same time. The work is slow and requires determination. In order to advance the game without real money, you must have no life, or the type of job where you are waiting for phone calls to come in.

Adding Sims that you intend to be Partners at the beginning will save hard earned simoleans. Once they cohabitate, the house goes up for sale again, at an increased price. Every-time you build a business, buy a house, or add a Sim the costs of everything inflates exponentially. The Sims lives march at their own pace. It may take a day to afford a bathtub or a stereo that you need to complete a Goal. Though the relationships operate at full speed. You can have two Sims either same or opposite sex, fall in love and move in together in just a few minutes. They are down right eager to get down to their underwear and WooHoo! for you at the drop of a hat. Or a garden trowel.

The is often debate about the adult nature of the Sims. Although body parts are blurred out, the characters do spin around and end up in underwear before bathing, or woohoo-ing. One of the Goals is to take a shower with Rich Lather, and then “go seduce another Sim.” the game is not age gated, and seems to be intended for older teens and adults, not kids.

There wasn’t a ceremony, or even much of a prompt from the game. They just became partners after a few Be Romantic minutes and a few Kiss on the Cheek which were only ten seconds. Once they were Partners the offering of Ask to Move In became an option for one of the partners. They looked at both houses, and suddenly they had the same name. The first couple took the last name of my original character, and the hetero couple turned out the name Amy Cooper Phd.

My scenario is Big Bang Theory meets Arrested Development, Parks and Rec and The Girls Next Door, with the addition of myself and a partner. Sort of. Making the characters is the most fun in the game. I wish there was a way to macro somethings like all the trips to the toilet, and complete daily necessities. Sheldon seems to need to pee constantly, and Rainbow is always getting tired.

There are some things about the Sims world that are from backwards day. The corn grows upside down like tomatoes, instead of up stalks like real corn. Pink onions take ten hours to grow, and sell presumably wholesale, for three hundred a bunch.

Then there is the “language” of The Sims the famous “simlish”. It is a non language. Made up from gibberish and nonsensical phrases, a bit like scientology. The written language are wingding fonts and astrological symbols. Probably originating on the old PC computer that the first Sims we created on. Further work has been done in attempts to quantify the language by fans. As well as many recording artists who have provided simlish lyrics versions of their hits for previous games. Including: The Black Eyed Peas, Lily Allen, BareNaked Ladies, Aly & AJ, Drew Carey, Depeche Mode, The Flaming Lips, Pussycat Dolls, Natasha Bedingfield, Paramore, Neon Trees, Katy Perry, and Pixie Lott.

The Sims is all about the management of minutiae, and multiple multi tasking. You do the math, you get results. The environment is tiny and static. Nothing moves except for tiny cars milling around tracks aimlessly going no where. You can’t do any exploration, or walk your Sim very far from its territory. It isn’t as deep as many other games which have capitalized on its software and improved upon the formula. Putting it up against the MMO’s, RPG’s, RTS for iPad, it doesn’t stand against the competition. As a free game, it is perfectly fine. Unless you succumb to impatience, you aren’t inhibited from playing or completing the game without paying anything in real money.

What is with the disagreeable trend to have games that you play outside of Facebook, wanting you to log in to it? I despise Facebook. However to test the Cloud Save function for the review, I created accounts for my character. It took several tries over several days to get the process to Login and upload. I may not have the game on my iPads much longer anyways since the review is done. The information supposedly only stays in the Cloud for seven days.

It is perhaps the ultimate time waster, an alternate reality where a solid days work farming brings in a steady, consistent income. Rain or shine, in the Sims world there is no excitement, other than having the ability to live vicariously in a version of earth without tornadoes, disease, and war. The Sims is the opposite of extreme gaming. It is the game which sits across from Grand Theft Auto on the color wheel. It is the cool blues of gaming, posed against the hot reds of conflict. I give The Sims Freeplay 6 watermelons out of 10. Nevash Naluka!

There are numerous “courses” which are varied layouts of the cards. Each one is referred to a a hole, and your solitaire moves are shots. A golf bag provided will hold utility “clubs” which are spare cards that you can employ when there is nothing on the table that you can match your drawn cards with. When you clear the board of all cards your score may be an Eagle or a double eagle, or a perfect. If one or more cards are left behind then you may get a birdie or just make par. If not there are bogeys.

Then the gophers show up. They laugh at your bad moves, as does the sound effects of a disappointed crowd… The gophers also attempt to distract you when concentrating. You can whack them, and obtain some points as revenge though.

The game is simple, and unique. In that goofy way that only golf can be. It’s addictive, and infuriating. It redoes an old standard, and somehow managed to snare me in. One night until 2:30 am. Or it could have been the iced tea. Either way, you can place a good deal of it for free, and if you get caught up in it, the full version is inexpensive.

The trend of releasing a zombie version of a game was fun and interesting way back when Red Dead Redemption and COD BlOps did it. By now most gamers are ho – humming at the thought of yet another franchise dipping development into another infected pool of blood. The Yakuza zombie version of the game hasn’t added anything to the genre, and in fact has trouble pulling it off at all within the limitations of the game’s engine.

The first problem is the hand holding. You have more menus, and indicators and pop ups coming at you than you would ever need. To start off the game began with about an hour of loading, explanations, descriptions, and non game play. The reading material consists of run ons stating the obvious. It would have been so much more fun if there weren’t so many useless windows to navigate through. It isn’t an RPG either.

If they were worried about localization, I think it is doubtful that many gamers would pick up this game if they were not all ready fans of the series. It is still set in the same place, Kamurocho, making all the information overload unnecessary. The switch from fist fighting and whacking thugs with whatever street debris is handy, now additionally has guns. Other than the setting there isn’t anything to distinguish it from any third-person shooter with zombies, any gamer would be able to figure out how to play it. In fact the over complicated instructions actually inhibit you from just getting into it, and interfere with enjoyment.

The control system is counter intuitive. Aiming is awkward. Why they mapped it to the left joystick, who knows. In five Yakuza games so far they still have not made an effective method of having the characters get out of their own way. They still lag when attempting to turn around and face enemies. I’ve said this in every review in this franchise, characters should automatically turn to face an enemy. They added a strafe button, and a jump back button. They don’t really help at all. The Yakuza will turn away from targets and fire into walls, or throw kicks at nothing, or flail impotently anywhere else but at the intended target. It is 2012 not 1992, it is long past time for them to have turned the intellectual property over to a development studio that can produce a quality, cutting edge game based on the source material.

It is a majorly bad port of the game. Skinning the new gun fighting mechanics into the old game code made YDS clunky and unmanageable. Your character can run into invisible walls, and barriers. There is no explanation for when he is going to be able to climb over something or not. The Yakuza dudes are generally inflexible, when compared to present day coded characters such as Nathan Drake. When you look at sequels where the developers have clearly busted ass in attempt to improve and perfect their character’s movement and design, and compare them to Yakuza 4 and YDS the Yakuza games are sadly lacking. As a fan of the series who has played all the American releasses of the games it is especially disappointing, and embarrassing.

The familiar four Yakuza 4 characters are there. If you are a gamer who also has developed a connection with them as a collector of the series, this game may feel like a parody. The playable characters are Shun Akiyama, Kazuma Kiryu, Goro Majima, the and Ryuji Goda. The partitioned gameplay is back too. You don’t retain the same character and build upon his abilities through a complete game. In fact by the time you get used to him, and find a way to overcome all his flaws and idiosyncrasies, you have to switch to the next guy. You can’t choose between characters. There is no character creation. And of course no playable female avatars in the single player game.

There is little to no female presence in the game as I’ve said. The yakuza series has always been one where you expect the sexism to be there as part of the authenticity of treatment of women in the story lines. Not to disappoint, even in a game that doesn’t have hostesses, a female image is stereotypical. A maddened zombie female type is called a Crybaby, when wounded they summon zombie hordes with their screams. Thanks for that Sega.

There is somewhat of a good time in the shooting portions of the game. It does take it’s derivation from Dead Rising. You can still pick up objects to whack the zombies with. There is often melee combat where you are surrounded claustrophobically by zombies. A sign or a bicycle – which you still can’t ride – can be used to smack down a bunch of Them and clear your way.

There is something called a Heat meter. Basically if you score a few hits, you will get a bonus bullet time type of shot. It will zero in on an object such as a gas tank, and the pay off would be a big explosion, that takes out a number of the zombies.

Some of the hostess clubs, baseball, karaoke, table tennis mini games are still accessible. But it is more tempting to just fire up Yakuza 4 and play it without all the annoyances. The zombies aren’t that terrific of an attraction. Their addition did not make any improvement upon the game.

Unfortunately this time around the Yakuza game was even more disappointing and clumsy than usual. I would not waste your time or money on it. Unless you have played Yakuza 4 to the point of completion, and you are an uber fan, this game probably isn’t for you. I give Yakuza : Dead Souls 5 flavorless, lukewarm bowls of ramen out of 10.

It’s a feminist paradox. On one hand the premise of the game, using diamonds to pay for dates with men, so that they will buy you gifts, is disgusting. The guy characters are basically male whores. The female role that you play is superficial, materialistic and detached. If we ever have artificial intelligence with software written like this, the robots will take over the planet without compunction, if they are thinking like the characters in this game.

Everything is based in a numeric evaluation. Style points get you into clubs and on dates. Energy points allow you to work and earn cash. You need to have the right amount of style points to be allowed into work, or on a date. It makes acceptance unambiguous, but it’s blatant sexism. So much so that it may be an over the top send up.

On the other hand, it has fun character generator with hair style and color, and skin tones. Dress up games are fun and this one has enough shops and clothes to keep you happy. Once you run out of any of the stats such as Energy, or Diamonds, you are immediately offered a new batch and are taken to the App Store to spend real money. It isn’t cheap either.

You can get free energy though by tricking your iPad or iPhone. What you do is to go into Settings, and then Date and Time and change it from automatic to manual. Then adjust the time two hours into the future. Go back and open the game app, close it, and then go to Settings and return the clock to the correct time. When you open Modern Girl, the energy bar will be full.

The energy can be used to earn more cash that your character can spend on her dates, clothes and accessories. The dating aspect of the game is very simplified, and almost nonexistent. It isn’t very interesting and the dates are the same. The same dialog boxes repeat over and over for the dates.

Unless you are really into dress up games, you might want to skip this one since it could get very expensive to play, if you are impatient.

It began with problems in dealing with the choice to advance time in the story an entire generation. Where it begins seventeen years after the last volume, has made for uncomfortable choices. A two year time span in the story would have avoided many of the character issues. First is the troubling absence of many of the best female characters Sophitia, Taki and Seong Mi-na. Their replacements such as Natsu and Viola, and Xianghua’s daughter Yan Leixia, don’t measure up.

From the start, the opening credits are too gaudy with highly lit reds and blues. They blew too much space with the idiotic introduction. Overdone lighting effects that glare off the screen don’t impress anyone. It looks like an entirely different art style than the rest of the game. In fact it resembles some other RPG franchise… As does the spirit of Soul Calibur Elysium, who is a blonde with wings, and she also has wings on her head too for good measure. She is wearing a skimpy diaphanous costume where you can see her butt. She looks amazingly hot, but also inappropriately dressed for fighting, and fragile. The two main characters look like they just stepped right out of Final Fantasy.

They have a Team Pyrrha and team Patroklos going on here. It is a show down between a brother and sister. These two are supposed to be the children of Sophitia. The lead male character is her son Patroklos. His sister Pyrrha is the focus of typical video game cliche writing. Although this time the have both the save-the-princess, and the ‘women are all mad/evil’ stereo types going at the same time. Following through the story line was worth it to see how appallingly the female characters were portrayed.

It takes place as the boy journeys around Europe trying to find the kidnapped Pyrrha. It turns out that she is in the possession of Tira the circle blade fighter. Here again another female villain is portrayed as both insane and inexplicably interested in abducting the girl, but she requests no ransom. Tira’s role is as a kidnapping malicious nutcase in an all too typical male dominated video game story line. Sadly it is the return of old school sexism. Portraying female characters either as simpering and weak, or insane.

Pyrrha looks exactly like Cassandra from SC3. Who I hated then for her sanctimonious comments. Worse, we now get Pyrrha who we see as this weeping, whining, hot mess of a girl who incidentally has more power than the brother and is a better fighter. Was all the crying, apologizing and groveling by her character really necessary? SC4 had strong positive female role models. Pyrrha and the treatment of her character is disgustingly sexist, especially coming from this franchise. Which might have something to do with the fact that they outsourced the story.

The story itself is told in mixed media. Having the sepia toned quickly sketched graphics and the subtitles in a modern game today is dated and out of place. Sometimes they got it right. A simple pan above the scene of the next stage, with a bit of narration would have been enough to express the story. Instead of the multitude of story boards, just narration would have been fine enough to do the same job. It’s a fighting game, it doesn’t need more than a premise, it isn’t the type of game that gamers who are preoccupied with lore would play. Towards the end they did put in real cutscenes.

Patroklos turned out to be a lameo guy to play with in story mode. His persona is that of an arrogant blonde haired upper class entitled bastard. With a poor dead saber toothed cat wrapped around his neck. What an idiot he looks like trying to fight against Ivy. His sword is too short. I despise him. But story mode does unlock stuff so I suffer for my review.

I loathe Voldo equally, why do we have to see his ass? He is wearing chaps and is sauntering around like LMAFO doing their “wiggle off”. They speak of Pyrrha as a little girl then they have her fighting the lewd character Voldo with his shiny ass hanging out and the huge gross codpiece. I killed him immediately, scoring Perfect. This game is raising my blood pressure. Not in the happy way. More like rage.

Stupid short sword-ed Patroklos goes up against Siegfried who has a giant claymore great-sword which is as long as idiot Patroklos is tall, it’s hard to contain how much disdain I experience with being forced to play as this dumb ass character. Why did they make the Soul Calibur sword such a weak piece of crap?

The story line deals with the competition between a brother and sister. So why isn’t she offered as a playable avatar choice for Story Mode? Or what about the character that I spent over an hour customizing the previous night? I would have loved to play her through Story Mode. Some things never change. They certainly possessed the ability to make female avatars, but they wasted so much effort on unnecessary things that they wasted the opportunity. Developers always say something like it would be too hard. Well, other games have done it, and this snafu is going to be a deduction of a full point because in this game where they have the know how, it is inexcusable. Even the story line itself makes a plausible arc where you should be able to start with the sister or the brother.

In spite of the tragic story mode, it has many good features. When fighting weapons are very detailed and look like jewelry. The stage settings for fighting are breathtaking. The graphics are very showy. There are wooded themes with moss and brooks. There are temples with falling blossoms. Gorgeous environments fully rendered, excellent lighting effects during battles. Unfortunately you can’t explore anyplace. Which is why when SC5 came out in January I never looked up from Skyrim long enough to try it. It was a good decision. You’ll see lovely brooks and streams, painted over with falling leaves. Cliff-sides that drop off to passing rivers and sandy deserts with dry winds. You can over balance a bulky character and make them Ring Out off an escarpment.

There are twenty-eight playable characters. Ten are new to the series. Some of your old favorites are there. If you have never played the games before, you won’t be disappointed. It does remind me of Saint’s Row the Third and Bleach Soul Resurection, where the previous installments of the game were better than the present ones. You might be better off with a used version of a prior game, than spending the full cost for the new ones. Neither had any worth while improvements.

If Soul Calibur 5 has any problems it is for over doing things. Still tedious is the way that the Move List is done. A PS3 has Triangle, Circle, X and Square buttons. The move list, and Training Mode is given out with what seem to be random alphabet letters, K,G, A,B. I have never seen the logic behind making learning the moves over complicated by adding this step. I suppose there are people who have the patience to interpret it. Basically you can just mash buttons until you win. That is pretty much it. With the Move List being indecipherable at a glance, I didn’t bother with it. There is always too much junk on the interface, and the captions are covered up by a status notification box.

The music is over dramatic. There are too many horns, it is self important and arrogant like the characters. Game music should be ambient and not up in your ears, it should evoke an atmosphere, not pump out marching themes. If you turn down the music volume then the voice overs disappear.

Bad unconvincing voice acting should have just been skipped. Voice actors sound like they are reading story time for children instead of acting. Except for the one voice which stands out. The impeccable voice acting of Lani Minella who plays Ivy who I recognized instantly as the fabulous video game voice of Jenassa in Skyrim, and as Eve in Mass Effect 3.

During the three treasures, where he sees his ‘mother’ they discuss how to make Pyrrha human again. This certainly should have been a real cutscene since it was so important to the story line. After a while it does go to a real cutscene after chapter 18.

Pyrrha is a better fighter throughout the game. She gets painted as evil and then her brother has to tame her somehow. What was interesting and cool is that a girl now had Soul Edge the super powerful evil sword. Her outfit turned from white to black. She grows up all of a sudden and the groveling is over. She is victorious. But she is evil… There is no way for her to triumph. And she destroys the sword. The treatment of her character is a no win situation for her. She has a bigger stronger sword and is quicker and more powerful than her brother, but somehow the story is predispositioned for him to win.

Soul Calibur 5 is a nostalgic look back to a franchise that was good when the next gen consoles were new. Now not only is the PS3 an old appliance, but the games like this one which have been coming out for it over the past year or so are passé. It is rare to find an enjoyable video game these days on a console or a PC, mobile gaming on iPad are where the most creative people are developing.

I give Soul Calibur V, a commonplace 6 incompetent short swords out of 10.

They have said that starting April 10, players who pre-purchase the Guild Wars 2 Collector’s, Digital Deluxe, or Standard Editions will receive guaranteed entry into all beta weekend events and a three-day headstart prior to launch, giving them the opportunity to be among the first to secure their character and guild names. As a bonus, players who pre-purchase any edition will also receive an exclusive Hero’s Band, which will provide their characters with a broad range of power boosts and other goodies

as they venture into the world of Tyria in Guild Wars 2.

The Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition offers fans an unparalleled collection of physical content that goes beyond the game. The centerpiece of the Collector’s Edition is a detailed, hand-painted 10-inch statue of the bestial warrior Rytlock Brimstone wielding his signature flaming sword. Along with the Rytlock statue, players will receive a custom frame along with five stunning Guild Wars 2 art prints from world-renowned artists, a 112-page Making of Guild Wars 2 hardback book, a Best of Guild Wars 2 Soundtrack CD by award-winning composer Jeremy Soule, and five in-game items, including a Mistfire Wolf that will fight alongside players and a miniature Rytlock who will accompany them on their travels through Tyria.
The Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition will retail at $149.99 MSRP, the Digital Deluxe at $79.99 MSRP and the Standard Edition at $59.99 MSRP. Players may also pre-order Guild Wars 2 at select retailers, allowing them to reserve their copy of the game at launch. Players who pre-order Guild Wars 2 will receive a one-day headstart prior to launch.

For additional information on the pre-purchase program or Guild Wars 2, visit www.GuildWars2.com.