Success

Go on a terrible date... with justice!

HIGH Charmingly absurd writing hits the right notes.

LOW The simplistic gameplay wears out its welcome almost immediately.

WTF In a good way: every cut-scene featuring Lewis.

Have fun storming the castle

HIGH Surviving an onslaught of six or so enemies without having any characters die.

LOW Constantly having to create and level new characters because I couldn't afford to revive the ones who'd fallen in battle.

WTF I don't want a game that holds my hand through the experience, but a little explanation about how things work would have been nice...

Another peek into the inner workings of fan-pleasin' publisher, they were kind enough to send along some photos and information on their upcoming title Tokyo Beat Down for the Nintendo DS. Unless you're the type of player that regularly picks up golden oldies, I'm guessing that it's been a while since a side-scrolling beat'em-up has come your way.

So anyway, there's a mistake in my review of Operation Darkness. Well, that's not entirely accurate. The review is a perfectly honest accounting of my experiences with the game, and my analyses of them, both qualitative and quantitative. The problem is that I was playing the game incorrectly, and that mistake coloured my opinions about the experience, which led to me being unfairly harsh to the game in one important area, the difficulty level.

The fact that currently sits at a shameful ranking of 45 on MetaCritic is quasi-commentary on the state of games reviewing today. As if there was any doubt that graphics and flash are more important to the average reviewer than substance and creativity, the handling of this game confirms it.

Had I been asked, one year ago, what the absolute best premise I could imagine for a game would be, there's an 80% chance my answer would have been "A gothic-horror themed League of Extaordinary Gentlemen battle Hitler's undead army." So how can I possibly look at a game fairly when it seems to have been created for a market of me?

According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Violence