PixlBit

Time to trade in my beard for a tiara, let’s do this!

This review is part of the 2014 Sh*tty Game Review Fest - read about the event here.

Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure is a tough nut to crack. On one hand, I can see where the developers were going with this and aiming it for children. On the other hand however, they made this game incredibly difficult to talk about considering the fact that I’m a grown man reviewing a game meant to be played by adolescent children. While Disney Princess comes through as a boring and extremely monotonous for my mediocrely functioning adult brain, it could still conceivably be a solid title for kids everywhere, probably.

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Another year, another Skylanders game.

Three years later and the Skylanders craze is still in full swing. From kids to adults, it seems that everyone loves collecting and playing with these colorful characters. The latest iteration of the series brings a new wrinkle to the toys as well as to the game, but neither truly changes the tried-and-true formula. Platforming mechanics add a bit more depth to the traversal and combat mechanics, while the swap ability makes it a bit more fun to play with the physical toys by mixing and matching tops and bottoms. There’s no doubt that the whole kit is quite nifty, but as a game, Skylanders Swap Force still leaves something to be desired.

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Already own FIFA 13 on another platform? Think twice about picking up this version.

FIFA 13 for the Wii U isn’t really FIFA 13.  Sure, there’s a big “13” emblazoned right there on the box, and the rosters are all updated from last year, but those changes don’t really make it a new game.  The FIFA 13 that gamers have been enjoying on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is decidedly different from the game that has shown up on the Wii U; a game that is seemingly behind the times.  At its very core, this is FIFA 12 – a good game to be sure - but a step behind the other versions that have been out for months.

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Does the Wii’s last epic live up to expectations?

I’ve been excited for The Last Story since I heard about it a few years back. Being helmed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the original Final Fantasy titles, and with work from the brilliant Nobou Uematsu, it seemed like a title that was destined to be great. Previous to the game’s launch, I expected a content rich, traditional JRPG with an epic story and addictive gameplay. After completing the game, I can say that I enjoyed the game a lot, but it didn’t exactly live up to what I imagined it would be. 

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What happens when kids review a children’s title? You get surprisingly honest results.

Reviewing children’s titles is always tricky business. As adults, it really is impossible to mentally travel back to our developmental years and place the game in its proper perspective. The only way to truly get around these limitations would be to have a child perform the task. On the positive side, as long as there’s no motivation for them to lie, kids are usually brutally honest, even to the point of being impolite. On the other hand, children lack the perspective, critical reasoning, and linguistic skills necessary to create their own reviews. They also tend to be very polar in their opinions, meaning anything they like automatically gets 5 stars, while games they hate earn zero with no middle ground. Clearly this is a problem. The solution? Have daddy help.

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