PC

In a short period of time I have played three games that may not seem to be similar or related. The co-op shooter Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, the straight-up cover shooter Max Payne 3, and the thriller Heavy Rain share a third-person perspective, though, one that reflects their central cinematic aspirations. Although their critical reputations vary, each of these games is an interesting failure in the project of creating a playable movie.

Your Daughter is in Another Castle

HIGH Flinging an enemy high into the air and watching the varying gravity directions pull him back and forth.

LOW Pretty much every single line of dialogue. Or the boss fights. I can't pick between the two.

WTF Look man, I know you love your daughter, but do you really not lose sight of that while the world is getting taken over by aliens?

Not the Type that Shatters Glass

HIGH There are some rather tense and scary scenes to play through.

LOW Crashes to desktop whenever I skipped through dialogue too fast.

WTF How did the bad guy get out of a locked, sealed room? It's never explained.

The Extra Credits guys tackle how gamers can affect political change. They even get a game-playing Congressman—didn't know any actually existed—to offer some advice.

Last year's Seattle Indie Expo proved that the Pacific Northwest is a hotbed of up-and-coming games development talent, and if anyone needed further proof, then this year's SIX drove the point home.

A Spreadsheet with Great Music

HIGH The soundtrack easily lulled me into the one-more-turn mentality.

LOW The tooltips and tutorials leave much to be desired.

WTF That's how I control my fleet of galactic destruction?

Time Warp

HIGH Clearing a level with eight seconds to spare.

LOW Being stuck in one stage for more than 45 minutes.

WTF Going through time and "cleaning up" after the villain by lining up shapes...makes sense, actually.

In this episode we have a good old fashioned "What have you been playing?" Discussion. We then have a debate sparked by an email over Sniper Elite V2 and round it all out with some thumbs! With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard Naik and Dylan "I have no witty nicknames" Collins.

Download: Right click here and select "Save Target As..."
Subscribe: iTunes | Zune | RSS

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

A Joy from Afar

HIGH Blowing up an enemy capital ship as it tries to jump out of the system.

LOW Getting rocked by pirates right as I'm about to mount an attack on my main enemy's homeworld.

WTF Seriously, screw those pirates.

Welcome to the first installment of a brand-new semi-regular feature here at GameCritics.com: TouchTalk. While this series was inspired by one of my old features, the Bargain Basement, I've got an all-new focus for an all-new phase in gaming. Rather than highlighting discounted gems in the used section of a retail shop, I'll be reviewing downloadable mobile games and apps that you might want to check out… and maybe some that you'll want to avoid.