RUST Review for PC

RUST:

Fending off Angry Cavemen Looters

is Actually Pretty Fun

From the creator of the smash hit indie game Garry's Mod come another wild success: RUST, a survival game similar to that of Minecraft or the extremely popular DayZ mod for Arma II, which now has a standalone release. In RUST, you are a caveman-like being out in the wild. Your goal is to survive. In doing so, you must build shelter and hunt, along with defending yourself from the creatures of the night. When you do not encounter severe amounts of lag, the game is quite enjoyable.

A Personal Experience from the Game

After a couple hours into the game, I found myself with a small shack in the middle of the dense forest. I figured that I would live out there, due to the fact that I did not want to be found by other players, because that runs the risk of "friends" who will steal your supplies. I worked my way up and acquired a bow, along with some other items. One day when I was out looking for supplies, though, I heard noises in the area in which my home was located. I walked around the area and everything seemed fine. I just brushed it off, convincing myself that it must have just been an animal running by. The next day, I went to go and find more supplies, and when I went back to my house, I was surprised to find another player waiting inside. I pulled my bow and asked what he was doing. He said that he had not seen anyone in the house the previous day or that day, so he claimed it. So, I decided to make a deal with him. I let him stay there, in exchange for him gathering supplies for me. We built a huge house with many rooms. And then we were looted. That is how RUST works. It is about surviving. The game is completely unpredictable, due to the thriving multiplayer community of all different kinds of players. Rust is an immersive experience best played with friends.

RUST Screenshot showcasing what a house looks like in the game (left)

My only issue with RUST is that at times, the game can be extremely laggy. Sometimes when I am in the middle of doing something very important, the game will just start to lag out on me. It ruins the experience, but since the game is still in Steam Early Access, I'd imagine that Garry Newman will fix it before its official launch.

The NERDict

+ Immersive Survival Experience

+ Extremely Enjoyable with Friends

+ Unpredictable "Story" Every Time You Go On

- Very Laggy (at times)

Rating: 8

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Review for the Xbox One

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
An Amazing Next-Gen Experience

Set sail for the high seas in Ubisoft's newest entry in the Assassin's Creed series. This game puts you in the role of Edward Kenway, a pirate seeking fame and fortune. In Assassin's Creed 4, you spend a good deal of your time out at sea exploring the vast open ocean and listening to the shanties sung by your crew as you go. You encounter many other ships that carry cargo, and you can pillage as you please. Kenway and his men can engage in naval battles with these ships, and plunder all the loot along with lowering notoriety or including the ship in your fleet. In my experience, I had the best time just sailing the ocean and being a pirate.

Black Flag is most definitely a cut above Ubisoft's last entry, Assassin's Creed III. I felt very limited in Assassin's Creed III, and felt like I never really left the game's tutorials. I felt more of a sense of freedom in Assassin's Creed 4, and never felt restricted as I ran the rooftops in Havana and explored the Caribbean sea. Also, the game looks amazing on my next-gen console. Everything runs smoothly and makes me feel even more like my $60 was well spent.

Blackbeard (pictured left) and Edward Kenway (right)

Assassin's Creed 4 also features both competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. I've thoroughly enjoyed every one I've tried so far. My personal favorite has to be the Wolfpack gamemode, in which you and 3 other players work together against AI targets. The multiplayer is a great experience, but I was more sold on the game's campaign.

Screenshot from the Wolfpack gamemode, in which the players have to
defend the chests from the enemies trying to open them

The NERDict

In my opinion, Assassin's Creed 4 is probably the best launch game for the Xbox One. It is an absolute must have for anyone who purchased a next-gen console. I've climbed many viewpoints, fought many battles, and sunk many ships and hours into Ubisoft's best game in the franchise since Assassin's Creed II. Black Flag does great things for the story, and I cannot wait to see where Ubisoft takes the franchise next.

+ Vast Open World

+ Intense Naval Combat

+ Amazing Multiplayer

- James Kidd: The Most Irritating Character in

any Assassin's Creed game so far

Rating: 9.5

Disney Infinity Review for the Xbox 360

Disney Infinity

If You Can Dream It, You Can Build It

NOTE: This review is only covering what is featured in the Main game before buying more content and

The Toy Box mode. This does not include reviews of the Pirates of the Caribbean set, the Incredibles set, and the Monsters University set.

Introduction / The Main Game

Disney has finally outdone itself with its newest game Disney Infinity, which I'm sure you've already heard of. Disney Infinity is a new sandbox game featuring characters from many Disney movies, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Monsters University, The Lone Ranger, and Cars all in toy form completing quests and exploring the world in which they come from. Each movie has a completely different storyline, with a 3-4 hour campaign each. Disney Infinity comes with 3 figurines to start off when you first purchase your game. You get Mr. Incredible (The Incredibles), Sulley (Monsters University), and Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean.) You also get an object that you place on the portal that unlocks the 3 worlds: The Incredibles, Monsters University, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Also, I would like to mention that the characters from one movie CAN NOT cross over to another movie's game. For example, Captain Jack Sparrow can not go and explore Monsters University, and Sulley cannot go and set sail for the high seas in Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, back to what the core game includes. The game also gives you one Power Disc, which is something added to the game such as new skins for the world blocks in Toy Box, or new items for Toy Box, such as the Mike Wazowski's Car or Cinderella's Stagecoach.

Disney Infinity Box

The Toy Box

If you are a fan of games like Scribblenauts, LittleBigPlanet, or Minecraft's "Creative Mode," you are sure to be a fan of the Toy Box mode on Disney Infinity. The Toy Box mode is where all of your characters can be used in the same place. You can play as any of them at any time while in the Toy Box. The Toy Box encourages you to build the craziest racetracks, or the most amazing battle arenas you could ever think of. With an abundance of objects to start off with and then more that you gather by playing each story mode, you can really create whatever your heart desires on this game. One of the best creations I've seen is the amazing re-creation of Star Wars' famous Trench Run. After playing a couple of the user-created maps, I felt inspired enough to create my own. I used the Lone Ranger Toy Box and built a gamemode in which the Ranger and Tonto ride into a canyon, only to be ambushed by a load of Butch Cavendish's men. I had it designed that the enemies would just keep spawning and jumping down for the Lone Ranger & Tonto to fight. It was awesome, and with a couple of tweaks here and there, it might be ready soon to get uploaded to the user-generated levels on Disney Infinity's Toy Box.

Final Thoughts
Disney Infinity, in a way similar to Skylanders, really changes what the genre of Children's Games really is. This is not just a game for little kids, and its not just a game for families to play together. Its a game for the fans of Racing Games, Fighting Games, Platformers, Sports Games, and Stealth Games. It is a game for truly anyone, and definitely not an experience to miss out on.

The NERDict

+ Creativity is Encouraged

+ Lots of Content (3-4 Hour Campaign per Character)

- Too Many Toy Box Exclusive Characters

- Characters from One World Cannot Play in Another

Rating: 8.0

Don't Starve Review for PC

Don't Starve

An Epic Tale of Survival

Scavenging for resources, struggling to stay alive, and of course, trying to not starve are the objectives of the amazing adventure known as Don't Starve. The game puts you into an unknown world full of mysterious creatures and savage creatures that attack during the pitch black night. You play as Wilson, a man who has dedicated his life to science. You wake up somewhere in the huge world, and that is where you start to realize that you are the only human there, and there is no civilization, unless you count the houses constructed by human-sized pigs that you will stumble upon during one of your many, many playthroughs. You begin to gather resources and chop down trees. After gathering things like berries, you set up camp and try to survive the night. Each night that you stay alive in a playthrough gives you experience, which levels you up and gives you new characters. Don't Starve does a great job of throwing you into a world of endless discovery.

From what I have seen so far, Don't Starve is a game with an endless amount of replay value. Every time I started a new game after dying, during that journey I would always discover something new, or something that I hadn't noticed in the world. The game's map comes in handy a lot when you get lost in the woods and the sun is going down, especially when you do not have a source of light or a weapon. The only thing I didn't like about Don't Starve was that if it was night and you weren't in the light, you would die within a matter of seconds, unlike in games like Minecraft and Terraria where you can fight the creatures of the night if you choose.

In the end, Don't Starve is a great game and worth the $15. It is not a game that grows stale after playing it over and over, but one that gets better and better every time. You become more experienced with the world and your surroundings, making survival much simpler every time you play. Don't Starve is an absolute blast, and definitely my favorite survival game on the market.

The NERDict:

+ Cartoon-Style Graphics

+ Feeling of Constant Danger

-No Way to Defend Yourself at Night

+ Exploration is Encouraged

Rating: 8.75

Doodle Jump for Kinect

Doodle Jump for Kinect

Jump Your Way to Victory!

The other day while I was on the Xbox Live Marketplace, I noticed something new in the Arcade tab. Standing out from the rest of the games was a new Kinect title, which was "Doodle Jump for Kinect." I was already familiar with Doodle Jump from being a huge fan of the mobile game, and I was more than delighted to see it hit the Xbox Live Arcade. I downloaded the game and got right to it, and a couple minutes into it, I realized that I was playing one of the best XBLA games I've played in a while.

Screenshot of Doodle Jump for Kinect in action

Doodle Jump for Kinect is very responsive. Where you step, your little adorable green character steps on the screen. Where you move your hand, he shoots and destroys the monsters who are terrorizing the land. The game is an absolute blast, and the Kinect really seals the deal on this game. It makes the experience even more amazing, and immerses you even more into the world of Doodle Jump. This game really shows how enjoyable it can be using your Kinect for a great gaming experience.

My whole family had a blast with this title. My brother, who is 22, had a great time, along with my 6-year-old sister. We all thought that the game was enjoyable and extremely fun. That shows that its a spectacular game because three people from different age groups thoroughly enjoyed the title. I feel that Doodle Jump for Kinect is one of the best Kinect games out there and is one of my favorite Xbox 360 games in a long time! I would highly recommend Doodle Jump for Kinect to any casual gamer or hardcore gamer, especially due to the fact that I am a hardcore gamer and loved the Kinect title. Doodle Jump for Kinect is a shining star in the Xbox Live Arcade.

The NERDict:

+ Responsive Controls

+ Superb Gameplay

+ Beautiful Environments

+ Fun for All Ages

Rating: 10

Don't Forget to Pick Up Doodle Jump for Kinect! 

Injustice: Gods Among Us Review for the Xbox 360

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Best Fighting Game of the Year

Heroes will clash with villains and themselves in NetherRealm's newest fighting game: Injustice: Gods Among Us. In Injustice, you fight your way through iconic DC locations such as Metropolis, Gotham City, and Arkham Asylum, along with some new locations like Insurgency. The game has a wide variety of characters, with familiar faces and some unknown to non-hardcore DC fans.

The game also keeps itself fresh by releasing DLC every now and then, featuring new characters and skins. If you are interested in buying the DLC though, I would recommend purchasing the season pass for $15. It includes 4 characters (Lobo, Batgirl, Scorpion, Zod) and the Flashpoint skins pack. It saves a couple bucks which you could put towards things like the Arkham City skins or the New 52 skins, which I already owned due to me having the Collector's Edition of the game.

Solomon Grundy using his Grab Attack on Wonder Woman

Injustice is awesome, with great combat and an awesome new feature known as "Stage Transitions" in which you pull your left stick back and press A, sending the character through a series of events inflicting tons of damage and bringing you to a new area in the course, along with your now weakened enemy. The game also has some brutal grab attacks and special moves. There is one downer to this game though, and that is the gimmick known as the Clash, in which you select how much of your meter you want to bet, but that doesn't matter if the enemy has more in their meter than you. The enemy can just win the clash, and regain health, along with draining your meter, and you can do the same to them. I really didn't see the need for this to be included in this game. But overall, Injustice stands out from other fighting games.

The NERDict:

+ Stage Transitions

+ Great Solo Campaign

+ S.T.A.R. Labs Missions

- Clashes

Rating: 9

One Finger Death Punch Review for the Xbox 360

One Finger Death Punch

KA-POW!

Master the art of Kung-Fu at the press of only two buttons in Silver Dollar Games' newest title "One Finger Death Punch" In this title, you fight thousands of stick people as your character uses different weapons that are long range, close range, and fists. The combat is simple, and the only buttons that you have to press are X and B. And even though the game is simple, whoever is watching you will be sure to be amazed, as you tear through countless forces of enemies. The game is awesome and is a real steal for the price of 80 Microsoft Points.

It's a must-have for any player of indie games, and a great title overall if you have some loose change that you're willing to sink into the indie games store. I have to take a lot of guesses when I purchase indie games, but I always know that I'm going to get an enjoyable experience from Silver Dollar Games. This game is phenomenal, and I hope to see more games like this from Silver Dollar Games in the near future. They are quickly rising to be my favorite indie developer.

The NERDict:

+ Great Combat System
+ Low Price

+ Simple Gameplay
+ A Special Easter Egg for Players of "No Luca No"

Rating: 10