Brutal legends strength definitely lies in its storytelling. The key scene for me is just before one of the final battles, and Eddie drifts into a dream of him and ophelia on a sunset beach with "holiday" playing in the background, just before they kiss a wall of industrial metal sound hits and it jumps back to eddie, in the hellish sea of black tears, he raises his head and as he shudders his skin turns deep red and his eyes yellow as he becomes demon eddie. Thats one of the only times I can remember seeing such a synergy of visuals, emotions and licensed music in a game, and what ran through my head is "my god, look what this guy has been through" I've never felt so steeled for the final fight.

"If you’re worried about domestic militias creeping around in your back yard, playing Shadow Complex will take your fears, make them ridiculous, and purge them."

It seems a little odd to assume that playing a game that suggests conspirators against the U.S. exist would dispel conspiracy paranoia. As odd as it would be to assume that playing a modern warfare videogame that uses the current political terms like war on terror, involves Western military operations on foreign soil, and mostly ignores the concept of civilians does not encourage support for the governments operations. Some of the users commenting on this post seem to want a conspiracy theory, they should try the military entertainment complex.

The scariest thing about being brought up on war games, and spy/action films is that they justify military spending on weapons that we think are cool (mostly because we used them to kill some bad guys) operations in other countries (ever played conflict desert storm? a three word review: Iraq without Civilians) and teach us the most base level absolutist morality (the aforementioned bad guys)

This is why you won't catch me playing any game with modern warfare in its title, there's a conspiracy theory for you.

After all this debate it seems the problem is simple (outside rapant fanboyisim). Most people come to Edge, including me, for a precise critical eye on everything from small indie offerings to the biggest blockbusters. Unfortunately this review seems to sidestep issues that other games have been rightfully marked down on, and I'm not talking about length. Lack of innovation and underdevelopment of ideas are things that ODST is clearly guilty of. Let alone other nagging issues, like the lack of matchmaking in firefight, or the only new enemy being a inconseqeuncial floating blob. Its not that the reviewers opinion is wrong, it just seems that he is only touching the surface, and thats something that can usually be found in reviews from everywhere BUT Edge...

It is a fairly complex system, as often difficulty can be based on poor mechanics, and what is supposed to be a "I am awesome moment" is just relief at finally getting past a particularily boring stamina excersise. I find most difficult games nowadays falling into the catergories of cheap design, and it is certainly hard to find the well balanced mammoth boss battles of games like metroid prime 1 and 2.

What is an interesting proposition is Assassins Creed 2s difficulty setting, where when entering a mission you can choose the level of synchronisation to attempt. The idea being that more requirements appear the higher the level you choose, and the rewards increase equally. This would allow you to adapt your difficulty as you move through the game, but also encourages you to attempt challenging situations, such as remaining undetected, or completing the mission in a time limit. This of course requires the developer to put things worth spending your hard earned gold in the game, and It will be interesting to see how this kind of challenge mechanic works in a story based game, but if its successful I wouldnt be suprised to see it turn up in the next GTA...

Prince of Persia Sands of Time is a wonderful game, and surely deserves a better time extend than this. This article is mostly narrative, avoiding discussing mechanics or concepts in any depth and oddly comparing it to Warrior Within, a game created without the creative director that gave the original its unique personality, Patrice Desilets. Would talking about Assassins Creed, the true spiritual sequel to the game, not be more appropriate? How Assassins Creed carried the idea of pared down storyline and mechanics, non traditional setting, and non conventional storytelling into the next generation is far more interesting than showing how Warrior Within, widely acknowledged as an average game, is average.