Video Game Reviews: Homefront, The Sugar Killerz, Fortune Cookies in Bed
7.0 out of 10
There are three things necessary for a first-person shooter
to be "good." Here they are, in no particular order:
- The enemies have to be smart. They can't wander in circles and they have to react to your character.
- The controls have to be crisp. When you pull the trigger button, your gun needs to fire. I know this may seem like a given, but unfortunately it's not.
- Things need to
happen when they're supposed to happen. That means your character
shouldn't be getting stuck in invisible walls and the other guys on your
side need to do what they're supposed to do.
Homefront has all these and one more special bonus: it has a
really interesting story. Heck, it was more or less written by the guy who did
"Red Dawn," so that should give you an idea of what you're in for. Korea has
invaded the United States—crazy, right? Well, a lot of effort has been put into
making this idea plausible, and on top of that, a lot of story-related
detail—labor camps, passing through a neighborhood where soldiers are shooting
U.S. civilians—has been added throughout. Awesome.
But beyond all that, there's one more thing needed for a
first-person shooter to transcend into greatness: something "more." Something
special that really makes the game its own and become something more than just
a first-person clone. Homefront is missing this, and
although you'll have fun playing it (both single-player and multiplayer), you
won't come crawling back in the middle of the night yearning for more.
The Sugar Killerz (Downloadable)
5.0 out of 10
Since there's no actual dialogue (or text) explaining the
story when I started the game, I'll try to interpret the pictures I saw:
- Everything is awesome!
- Whoops, some corporate guy wants higher profits
- This has a
profound effect on four multi-colored blobs of goo, who use their goo arms
to grab the nearest rifle so they can shoot at stuff.
From there, the game turns into a side-scrolling shooter,
kind of like those old Japanese jet games like R-Type. Only you're a blob with
a gun. Various things pop up on the screen and you shoot them, but none of the
guns has a continuous fire so it all comes out in bursts (incredibly annoying).
Add onto that the fact that the other three blobs are computer-controlled and
you have absolute chaos.
Fortune Cookies in Bed (Downloadable)
2.0 out of 10
This is not a "game," per se, unless something like "Super
Mario Brothers" is too complicated for you. And while the game suggested I
invite people over and enjoy Fortune Cookies while drinking, I most certainly
did not follow that advice for fear my friends would kick me out of my own
house.
The premise is simple: you "unlock" ancient fortune cookies
by pressing a different combination of four buttons. Then, you get the choice
of adding "in bed" or "while drunk" or "on drugs" or "when farting."
Here's a sample. I pushed some random buttons and this
ancient fortune came up: "He who falls in love with himself will have no
rivals." I then added "in bed." That was it. Time to choose another ancient
fortune to defile.
So in other words, this is about what you'd expect from the
company that made a game called "Try Not to Fart."



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