Recent reviews by Porkfist

There isn't a whole lot here, but what is here is pretty darn good.

It reminds me of playing Ivan Iron Man Stewart's Super Off-Road, but with way better physics and more interesting cars.

I'm hopeful that sales spike the online players a bit, because I'd like to play more of this game against real people. There is nothing wrong with the AI, but there is alot to be said for playing against real opponents.

Oh Motral Kombat, where have you been all these years?

I'm not a fighting game person, but I've got a soft spot for Mortal Kombat. Probably has something to do with all those quarters I sunk into that arcade cabinet years ago.

This game is everything Mortal Kombat ever was... violent, gorey and brutally satisfying. While I've been departed from the series for quite sometime it would seem to me that they have dumbed down the special moves, which is just fine with me; keeps the action riding high at all times. There are a few characters missing, so if you've got a particular favorite you might want to double check the roster before you purchase.

If you plan to play this by your lonesome, get ready for a ludicrous story and choppy cut scenes that you can't skip. While the cut scenes can be painful it's a small price to pay for the high gloss polished fighting action. Although the game does stack the deck against you heavily at times, it is still beatable.

The online fighting community is as dead as a door nail, but this game does support up to 4 player local coop. You can divide off into 2 man tag teams and beat the snot out of each other. You'd be hard pressed to find a better gaming value for your couch coop dollar.

This game started out to be alot of fun. General platforming and some good quality toilet humor along the way to overthrowing the penguin dictator.

It has some good things going for it, like lots of chicken on penguin violence and lots of penguin on penguin violence. I like that you can exercise mind control on enemy penguins and make them commit fratricide. After you've used them up like a spent prophylactic you can throw them away by making them commit suicide. It's quite entertaining.

The animation is top notch and the controls are a bit clunky but it rarely gets in the way. There are a few levels where you strap on a jetpack and do some dogfighting, which breaks up the platforming nicely.

There are a few things that drag this game down though.

Artificial difficulty. At points in the game they just throw enemies at you from both directions (it's 2D). Therefore to execute your attack, turn around and execute another attack in time is darn near impossible before those guys just surround you and spam you with gunfire so you can't do anything but sit there and flop around getting shot until they drain all your health. It gets very annoying.

The puzzles never change, you must find this keycard to open that door and advance in the level. The further you get through the story the less intuitive the keycard quests become. Here is the formula to figure out the path; if you kill a penguin standing somewhere and he is immediately replaced by another you're suppose to take control of him to do your dirty work, ie open a door or move a platform and take out a few of his teammates in the process. However to do this you have to throw a....lets call it a "mind control grenade".... so as the story goes on they crowbar in more artificial difficulty by making you throw it through smaller windows, bank it off a wall, or make the guy pace around etc.

Overall it's a decent game, however I'm about 2/3 through it and I believe I've reached the point of diminishing returns regarding entertainment vs frustration due to ramping artificial difficulty.

This is alot of fun. It's a simple concept which makes for a fun puzzle game. Some of the puzzles you are presented with are very difficult, but they are never impossible.

There are two types of puzzles; ones which force you to think and act fast. The other requires plenty of thought and lots of trial and error. Fortunately the game provides you with skip tokens, which allow you to bypass puzzles you may not be able to solve at the time. As you can imagine this alleviates frustration and keeps the game fun.

This game shines in local coop. Gasp! Did I just say Local Coop on the PC? I did! A Virus Named Tom does it so well, it might be some of the most fun I've had during a local coop session. It forces you to work together to solve the puzzles and fend off the antivirus. This game will spur lots of comradery and arguments to boot as you accidentally work against each other.

If you have some extra controllers and some friends (up to 4) you can invite over, definitely buy this game. The learning curve is quite easy, so that even non gamers can enjoy it.

Stacking is an interesting puzzle game where you have to stack yourself inside of other Matryoshka dolls and use their special abilities to solve the problems.

Let me give you an example, you need to clear out a party in a nearby room, so you find the doll that cuts nasty farts, and lay a stinker right into the vent that supplies that room with air; puzzle solved.

The game maintains that humor style throughout. The visual style of the cut scenes is done in a style similiar to a silent movie and it works for this game. The level design is very polished and everything meshes for this particular art style.

The only drawback of this game, is that each problem has multiple solutions. It's good from the aspect that the game never forces you to solve a problem in any particular way; you're free to choose your solution. However the game encourages you to solve the problem by exploring every solution. This was fun for awhile, but the levels are massive and movement around them is not very fast. So you figure out the second solution, and remember that the doll you need is all the way across the level. Many puzzles have four or five soutions. After you make this trek a few times it gets monotonous, even if the cut scenes are funny. I got part way through this game and then let it sit for awhile exactly for this reason. However I picked it back up and played it out to the end, just solving each puzzle once, and I'm glad I did as the ending was enjoyable with a quite a few hearty laughs on the way.

A good game for adults and kids alike, even though it delves into toilet humor territory, it still keeps it clean.

Shank is a great side scrolling beat em' up game, much like the olden days of Double Dragon, Final Fight or Streets of Rage except no 3rd dimension.

The game is over the top violent, which makes it oh so wonderful. I found myself mashing buttons together just to see what crazy combo he would pull off next. Some but not all of the environments are interactive, for example while on a train you can throw bad guys off of it. I found that incredibly entertaining.

The game is a side scroller which means at some point you're going to have to jump through obstacle courses. The developers did this step right though, for instance if you're sliding down a slope and you need to make a life or death decision in the next few seconds, the game will go into slow motion until you make that decision. It's an excellent system, but this feature goes away in the final levels, which is a bummer because then you have to memorize the next few steps, or die and restart from the last checkpoint.

Boss battles are actually fun, as each one has a tick, similiar to Punchout, and no two boss battles are the same.

Overall a very good game that deserves a play through if you enjoy side scrolling beat em' ups.

I had a great time with this game. The steampunk style puzzles are fun and eventually ramp up to incredibly difficult. Many of the more advanced puzzles required you to tie different solutions together, for example a puzzle which is two sided and the moves on one side affect the other.

The visuals are really good, the controls work exactly like you would expect.

A steampunk rubix cube which taxes your brain, in a fun way.

I'm not entirely certian what is going on in this game.

It does present a very excellently crafted landscape to explore. I have read some people believe this to be an amazing story, but it's lost on me. I have a hard time appreciating figurative works. I understand the main story branch, but all the symbolism makes no sense to me. It was like I was in high school english all over again. I wonder if there are Dear Esther Cliff Notes?

If you enjoy figurative works and have an hour to invest, pick this up. Otherwise stay away.

Interesting story. A whole lot of grit, just like a war game should have. I enjoyed it.

I haven't touched a single player war game in years, it just seems to me that every single one has a story line about how some group gets their hands on a nuke, and you've got to stop them. It's refreshing that this game went in a different direction all together. The story is somewhat dark, and gave me a sinking feeling more than once, it's nice to get some emotional feedback from a video game.

Ammo is scarce so it adds some stress to the fire fights.

Two gripes:

1.) The console like controls, where 1 button handles multiple functions depending upon the situation, but once you get in the groove it works.

2.) Sometimes incoming grenades seem like they should have gone far past you, when in the game they are still close enough to kill you. Reloaded more checkpoints than I care to think about due to this.

Look else where for entertainment. The story starts out well, and has some potential, but it just starts to fall apart, and the game becomes less about the story and more about if you've mastered the control system. It becomes quite frustrating when you're trying to make it through an obstacle course while being chased. This might have been fun if the control system wasn't so clunky.