Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Tarsier Studios

I remembered Rag Doll Kung-Fu being an awful fighting game before revisiting it for this website. After playing it again, for the first time since it was released, I completely stand by my memories this is not a good fighting game by any stretch of the imagination. The only real fun in Rag Doll Kung-Fu is when playing in multiplayer…and that’s because everyone has to deal with the same awful, awkward controls as everyone else, which can lead to some laughs. However, if you decide to play solo, the controls go from being comical to annoying…which is fine, I guess, because aside from tutorial mode, there isn’t really much to do if you’re playing by yourself. Tarsier Studios didn't really provide us with a lot of game modes. Maybe that's the purpose of the game, then? Play a broken game with friends so that you can toss out MST3K-style jokes making fun of how awful it is? Regardless, while it may provide a few laughs with friends the first time you play it, it’s likely not going to be one that is played more than once before everyone agrees that moving on to something more fun would be more ideal. These fists of plastic should be tossed in the recycle bin.

Review added: 04/21/2020

Red Dead Redemption

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Rockstar San Diego

If you're reading this and haven't played Red Dead Redemption yet, you need to...if for no other reason than to experience the world that Rockstar created. I don't think I have ever been sucked into an atmosphere like I did with this game. Playing through this title really helps you imagine that you were in the old west...There is never really a safe moment, either. Whether it be bandits, law enforcement, or even the various wildlife, you can think that you're doing great in the game, and then quickly find yourself pushing up daisies. The story is also very, very good. You really feel emotions towards the characters by the end...Whether you like them or hate them, the emotion is there, which is the key to a great story. To top it all off, the gameplay is on par with all of the stuff I mentioned above. And like the Grand Theft Auto series, it's just as fun wandering around, doing nothing, as it is playing the actual game...it's just a bit more dangerous to wander around in this game, as I mentioned earlier. I can't recommend Red Dead Redemption enough - it really is that good. The recent sequel improves on everything here to make an already great game even better, but the original is still very solid and well worth playing if the setting sounds even vaguely interesting to you.

Review added: 10/08/2020

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Rockstar San Diego

I was not a big fan of Undead Nightmare when it first came out. I thought that constantly having to travel from town to town to purge them from zombie attacks over and over was tedious and annoying. Playing through it again for the second time, now a decade after it originally released, I don’t really know why I was so annoyed…except maybe I didn’t fully understand that I could fast-travel from town to town instead of traveling by horse all the time. Either that or I've gotten more patient with age...or a combination of the two, perhaps. Anyway, I actually enjoyed my time with Undead Nightmare with this latest playthrough, from clearing towns of the undead to tracking down and breaking in the four horses of the apocalypse, to discovering all of the cryptid creatures that had been added into the game…like wandering in the woods and suddenly seeing a sasquatch lumbering around…it’s a fun, unique take on the original Red Dead Redemption formula. Especially if you’re looking for a non-traditional horror game to play during the Halloween season.

Review added: 10/08/2020

Resistance: Fall of Man

Also known as:  Resistance: Jinrui Botsuraku no Hi (Japan)

Developer: Insomniac Games

When the Playstation 3 first came out, I was pretty underwhelmed by the launch games. Oddly enough, though, the game that I wanted to play the most was part of a genre that I had yet to really find enjoyment in for the most part - a first-person shooter. Why did it catch my eye? Well, as a big fan of Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank, I was willing to assume that I'd also like a first-person shooter that Insomniac Games released….and I did, but not nearly as much as Insomniac's previous, more child-friendly games, in all honesty. I liked the unique variety of weapons, I liked the story of the single-player campaign, and for the most part I liked this game as a whole. I've also never been an online multiplayer person, but I've heard good things about the online multiplayer in this game, which allowed a whopping 40 players to play at once. That's not to say that this game is perfect, though. While I found it mostly enjoyable, I did get tired of the drab environments after a while - they're beautiful to a degree, but after a while I just found myself wishing for environments with more color…or even environments that were just a little more visually interesting…but the action is also often fast enough where you won't have a ton of time to sit and admire the world around you, in fairness. Gameplay-wise I also found the computer AI to feel cheap at times…not enough to make me want to quit, but enough to make me annoyed. Overall, though, Resistance was a really good launch title for the PS3 and it still holds up fairly well all these years later. I don't really consider it to be in the upper-tier of first-person shooter games, though.

Review added: 09/30/2022