Recent reviews by CorwiN

I originally played this game on the 360 before its PC release. I freely admit that I haven't played it thoroughly since I purchased it during the Halloween 2013 sale.

The actual game is fantastic. The gameplay is fairly unique, the graphics are acceptable for the era it came from, and the story/writing isn't too terribly appalling.

It is worth mentioning however that the game presents a lot of problems on my modern PC. Randomly dropping to 5fps after certain cutscenes, sudden crashes, things like that.

I also recognize now that the gameplay is, while enjoyable, quite clunky at times. The way the player moves feels a bit off compared to most FPS games, and the weapons ranges don't always seem to match their appearance. Neither do the enemy attacks, for that matter.

Additionally, the voiceacting and dialog are both terrible, which creates a sort of harmonic resonance that serves to make both even more grating. You know the way that the smell/sight of vomit or rotting eggs has a tendency to make a person want to throw up? Well, imagine if someone ate whole rotten eggs (shells still on) and then threw them up in some kind of frenzy of blood-filled chunks and nasty egg yolks -- it would be far more off-putting than either individual gross-out.

Still, it's an enjoyable game, and well worth it if you can get it cheap.

Recommended to anyone who likes something different from the usual, with the caveat that the performance might be a bit sketchy, and the polish is far from what we'd expect in a more recent game.

I didn't know exactly what to expect when I installed Costume Quest. I was a big fan of Tim Schafer games when I was a kid (Grim Fandango and Full Throttle are some of my favorite 90s video game memories), but found Double Fine ventures like the much-loved Psychonauts to be marred by either clunky gameplay or hideous art decisions. But Costume Quest proves that Tim Schafer's still got it, and within 20 minutes I was a fan again.

Sure, the game doesn't employ high-end graphical techniques, the traditional JRPG style combat moves can take too long, and the game is quite short. It doesn't have a "deep" story, and doesn't really try to say much, either. But the subtley perfect art, the cute-but-not-sickeningly-so character designs, and witty dialog overcome any shortcomings.

It's not complex, but it's one of the most "perfect" games I've played in years.

Recommended to anyone with good taste, and essential to any gamer who remembers what the 90s was like.

Artistically stunning. The only game even remotely like this. A bit short, but that just makes not playing and finishing this game inexcusible. Still looks amazing today.

Seriously underrated. If you don't live under the insane illusion that Sam Lake's writing in Max Payne 1 and 2 was far more fantastic than it really was, you'll enjoy this.

Archetypal three-out-of-five star game. Probably at least 100 hours to finish everything, but the constant re-use of dugneons and areas fosters a "why bother?" kind of attitude.

The writing and story fall dead center into the average of what you'd expect from a smaller-budget JRPG -- it poaches and steals from every trope you can imagine, leaving no stone unmolested. Even the moldiest old concept is trotted out a few dozen times throughout the storyline. So if you've seen and liked it in a JRPG before, you'll probably see it again in The Last Remnant, just this time in a worn-out-STD-infected-completely-trashy kind of way,

In some ways this game makes me want to hire a skywriter to tour Japan and paint the heavens with a simple message: "<Blank> did <insert bad thing> to my <blank> is NOT AN ACCEPTABLE STORY." Because somehow, even in 2008, Square Enix appeared to believe that their customers could be hoodwinked into giving hafl a damn about some characaracter whom we were just introduced to 2 seconds ago, and the bad thing that happened to her. If you find this kind of lazy writing to be offputting, I implore you: stop reading right now, back out of this game's store page, and never let its pixels illuminate your screen again.

The art direction is okay, and the graphcis are decent for a game first released fairly early in the Xbox 360's lifespan. It runs well on a modern PC. If you hate the way Unreal Engine 3 games look, you'll probably hate the way this game looks.

The combat system is fairly atrocious. It wants to look complex, but anyone with half a brain can figure the ins-and-outs within a short period of time and turn the game into a mindless slog from start to finish.

Also, 52353253242345 unwanted fights while backtracking. And believe me, there's some backtracking in this game.

I freely admit that I didn't beat this game. I actually enjoyed it a lot of the time, and might finish it one day. But that's just because I'm into this terrible-but-enjoyable kind of game.

Recommended to hardcore must-play-everything gamers, serious JRPG fans, and the mentally disturbed.

More "adventure simulator" than RPG. Absolutely fantastic. For people who like a world without fast travel and waypoints that take the joy out of exploring.