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Enter the shoes of El Presidente as you try and turn the island nation of Tropico into a beacon for the world!… or something. Loads of humour, a ridiculous plot mixed with over-the-top steroetypes and great SimCity-like gameplay had me hooked right from the beginning.

The game follows the plot of El Presidente as he (you) try and make the best island paradise possible. Along the way you need to balance the needs of the Capitalists, Communists, Intellectuals, Nationalists, Loyalists, Militarists and more, or else!, all while making sure you hide enough money away in your Swiss bank account. The game is full of great humour and better gameplay spanning 20 missions (+ DLC) that makes for a lot of fun packed into one game.

With 20 missions, each of which took me 1-2 hours to beat, this game is well worth your money. I also opted for the expansion pack (Modern Times) which added an additional bunch of mission. This is definitely one of the best PC to console ports of this genre ever made – the controls usually work great (with the exception of  paging through menu items with the D-pad, which can be sucky sometimes). Overall I highly recommend picking this game up if you are at all interested in this type of genre.

My review: Great
Pick it up for: Any Price
GameRankings.com score: 78.91%
Metacritic score: 77 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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Dead Space is an action horror game in the vein of Resident Evil or Silent Hill. I can honestly say that very few games have scared me, Dead Space however had me jumping more than once.

This game is not only gory, gruesome and violent but it is also quite often shocking as well. Things jump out at you, loud frightening music comes out of nowhere and all the while you are forced to dismember your enemies in order to defeat them. This means that while you are jumping back in your seat and trying to run away from the monsters on screen you also have to have almost perfect aim to take down the bad guys. It all adds up to one of, if not the, most intense games I have ever played. The kind of game that keeps your heart beating strong and loud long after you’ve turned it off.

Cut off the limbs to survive

Usually I’m not a major fan of horror games but Dead Space is so well done that it is easily as much of a AAA title as anything else on the market. I highly recommend this game to anyone who can stand being scared for the length of this game’s excellent plot. Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t sleep at night.

My review: Great
Pick it up for: Any Price
GameRankings.com score: 88.96%
Metacritic score: 89 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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Fight Night Round 4 is a very realistic boxing game that is somehow both a simulation and a gritty fighting game. You can literally feel the blows as your fighter takes on the best of the best the sport has to offer.

The game has also done something interesting where it has decided to not use a heads up display (H.U.D.) at all. So rather than having a health bar you have to instead rely on the subtle vibration in the controller and the look of exhaustion on your fighter’s face. The career mode is also interesting, allowing you to train up your various skills using classical boxing training techniques and equipment like a punching bag or speed bag. Flight Night also has a unique way of controlling the game. Instead of mashing buttons, you use both of the controller’s sticks: one for movement and one for punching.

Ouch!

I’m not even a huge fan of boxing and I found this game quite entertaining. Not only that but it is in a class of its own graphically. Good looking, fun and with a rather in-depth career mode it’s easy to see why Fight Night is so popular.

My review: Surprisingly Good
Pick it up for: Cheap
GameRankings.com score: 87.25%
Metacritic score: 87 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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Virtua Tennis 3 brings fun pseudo-realistic (but really more arcade style) tennis game play to the Xbox. It has all of the usual features including playing as the various tennis stars, picking different courts and a custom character career builder. The bulk of the game exists within this custom character career where you’ll need to balance a training / tournament / resting life balance in order to succeed. Some of the training levels are quite funny and completely unrealistic. Whether it is the tennis bowling or the tennis bingo there is quite a bit of variety to be had.

Multiplayer is also a lot of fun. Up to four players can play simultaneously in a 2 vs. 2 partners match or compete in the various training modes. And that’s about it. There really isn’t much more to this game. And that’s really my only complaint. Once you play a couple of matches and mess around in the training modes there isn’t much left. Not that I expected there to be but it still somehow feels… lacking.

The ball will return in the direction of the arrow

My review: Surprisingly Good
Pick it up for: Cheap
GameRankings.com score: 80.19%
Metacritic score: 80 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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Half real-time strategy (RTS) and half hands on naval/air-combat, Battlestations: Midway straddles the line between a wartime simulation and a flight to the death action game.

Throughout the course of the game you’ll get to command and control everything from destroyers and aircraft carriers to submarines and airplanes all while re-enacting famous historical battles. And while it is really neat to be able to control all of these different vehicles, the combat sadly just becomes so routine that after a couple of missions I ended up playing the game almost exclusively from the tactical map screen (i.e. RTS mode). Battlestations: Midway also has you micromanaging fleet formations and ship repairs. If you are like me and forget to keep checking on your ships, you may find that they are sinking very quickly because you simply forgot to issue them repair commands. That kind of sucks. The game’s campaign is also very cookie cutter with the only difference between the various missions being the starting intro movie and the locale.

Battlestations: Midway isn’t a bad game… it just isn’t a great one either. If you’re looking for something a little different or something to fill the Xbox 360 simulation/strategy void than this might be it. Otherwise, maybe not so much.

You sunk my battleship!

My review: Mediocre
Pick it up for: Cheap
GameRankings.com score: 73.74%
Metacritic score: 73 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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Mafia II is a cinematic take on the traditional mobster video game that I found extremely fun to play. One part Grand Theft Auto and one part Goodfellas this game really did feel like you were playing through a movie.

Great music, surprising twists, awesome action and plot so well done that I never wanted the game to end. Sure it has some faults here and there but nothing that bothered me too much.

The game looks pretty nice too

My review: Great
Pick it up for: Any Price
GameRankings.com score: 75.61%
Metacritic score: 74 / 100
Wikipedia Link

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