PixlBit

The game needs no introduction; but this review does, however.

As it so happened, the Game Boy was the perfect present, as my older brother found out when he graduated from middle school. After the party was over and everyone had gone home, mom and dad came downstairs with a just one more wrapped present. I still remember my brother opening the box and joyfully exclaiming “It’s a Game Boy”! Since Tetris came packaged with it, we wasted no time playing that Russian puzzle game for years to come. It was the perfect game to complement the perfect present.

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"I was hoping to come up with a question by slamming on my desk, Your Honor... I didn't."

I believe you can make a good game out of anything. Pulling off some concepts will be harder than others, but if the right approach is taken, then even the most boring or trite idea can be turned into something extraordinarily engaging and compelling. The reason I believe this is because of my strong love for the Ace Attorney franchise, video games where you play as a lawyer defending clients. Yet these are also games where just tapping “Present evidence” on a touch screen can have me shaking from anticipation and excitement.

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Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout history…

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

When the directors of PixlBit approached the staff with Operation: S----ty Game Review, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve been off the writing horse for a bit, and there’s something a bit refreshing about getting a chance to eviscerate critique a game that you know isn’t very good. If anything, it helps put things in perspective. So, when we got our games and did our unboxing videos, the general consensus amongst the PixlBit readers and staff was that I got off easy with HISTORY ™: Great Empires: Rome. Well, as someone who has absolutely no love for classic PC-style games (no, seriously), an old-school, turn-based strategy title ala Civilization is about as appealing as playing Barbie’s First Free Clinic Visit.

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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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A fun but frustrating experience, MLB 2K12 is more iteration than upgrade.

It's time once again to take gamers out to the ball game with the newest installment in 2K Sports' digital realization of our nation's pastime. Major League Baseball 2K12 has implemented an improved pitching mechanic and updated rosters, but it continues to fall behind Sony's MLB The Show series due to recurring technical problems and less-than-intricate mechanics. Most damaging of all however is that this is merely a slight upgrade from the last title and essentially the same game MLB 2K10 was two years ago.

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