Video Game Reviews & Ratings

Eschalon: Book I Review

A retro RPG essentially created by a single developer, Eschalon: Book I is nothing if not impressive thanks to a combination of stylish graphics, competent dungeon design, effective interface, and simple but good combat system. Sure, its writing is quite poor, classes are unbalanced, gameplay can get repetitive, and containers are way too randomized. But at the end of the day, it's both fun and functional.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer Review

A quality expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer has more of everything, improves the game's interface, and offers a solid campaign featuring roughly 20 hours of high-level RPG action. Although keep in mind that it can feel a bit too easy, its companions are nothing short of stodgy, and it still exhibits a complete lack of secret doors.

The Witcher Review

Despite some minor issues like excessive loading screens, awkward dialogue and quests that could use more variety, The Witcher is a thoroughly enjoyable CRPG with an intriguing story, distinct art style, interesting characters, and some unique character development options. It may fall short of something like Baldur's Gate II in terms of scope, but that's a high bar to clear and shouldn't prevent you from enjoying The Witcher.

The Chosen: Well of Souls Review

A budget action role-playing game, The Chosen: Well of Souls works well-enough and will probably satisfy someone who likes games that closely follow in the footsteps of Diablo and can tolerate a lack of the signature Blizzard polish, poor voice acting, and nothing to go along with the combat. On the positive end, the game is stable, its followers are fun and economy works well.

BioShock Review

BioShock may be more of a shooter than an RPG, and an easy one at that, but that doesn't stop it from being a solid gaming experience that stands out due to its amazing visuals, superb voice acting, fantastic atmosphere, and its unique and interesting setting. Still, it ends up being disappointing when compared to System Shock 2 in terms of raw gameplay. It's also very linear and all the moral choices have little effect.

Two Worlds Review

A good-looking but clumsy game, Two Worlds is balanced in that each of its good features seems to be negated by another one that falls more on the annoying or poorly thought out side. All of its satisfying moments are brought down by its poor balance, awkward controls and a heavy reliance on side quests. As a result, it's far from awful, but it's not great either.

Dungeon Siege II: Broken World Review

Above everything else, the Broken World expansion pack for Dungeon Siege II feels superfluous. It mostly exists because games are supposed to have expansion packs and merely offers more stuff to kill and more stuff to find. Nothing about it is particularly terrible, it's just not very interesting or creative, and very easy to beat.

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne Review

A great expansion for an okay game, Immortal Throne takes Titan Quest to the next level with its mechanical additions, lots of new stuff, and a better use of heroes and legends. However, at the end of the day, it's still just more Titan Quest, so if you didn't enjoy the grinding gameplay of the base game, the expansion won't change that. But if you did, you simply owe it to yourself to get Immortal Throne.