Recent reviews by Echo|FX

Perfection. So good I bought it twice just so I could have it on my phone as well.

Rock and stone? Rock and stone.

Not perfect, but it scratches a lot of gaming itches.

I've been been playing imported G Generation games since the PS1 era - I never imagined that I'd get to play one natively on PC and with a full English translation no less.

Thus far, everything lives up to my expectations. The PC port is decent, with some caveats (a little bit of consolitis in the menu design, I haven't been able to get a resolution higher than 1920x1080 yet) but otherwise looks and runs great. The gameplay is everything I've come to expect from the series, and is exactly what I'm looking for in an SRPG.

Thanks Bandai Namco - keep these coming and I'll keep buying them.

Giant robots are always good in my books.

My initial impression of Watch_Dogs was that it would end up playing almost like a slightly futuristic Assassin's Creed. The more I played, though, the more it reminded me of another game - Far Cry 3. A lot of the exploration and combat mechanics feel straight out of FC3.

Really, the best parts of the game were the ones that reminded me most of Far Cry. Sadly, that means most of the stuff that was distinctly Watch_Dogs was quite underwhelming. The hacking mechanics are occasionally neat, but for the most part feel like they were never fully realized. This isn't a hacking game with some third person shooter tacked on, it's a third person shooter with some light hacking elements.

Worse, some other parts of the game were spectacularly un-fun. Generally, anything involving driving was an excercise in frustration as the controls feel incredibly loose. That compounds the worst part of the game - the police chases. Supposedly that should have been one of the best parts - using your environment to aid your escape, but the exact opposite is true. If you're trying to play a "good" vigilante, you are penalized for hurting civilians and police - both things that are all too easy to have happen during the chases. It leads to a real disconnect (especially in the game's finale) where the game feels more like the carnage encouraging Grand Theft Auto than a game with a heroic lead.

Watch_Dogs certainly wasn't worth the full retail price. Even when it eventually goes on sale I'd be hesitant to recommend it. There's a solid 25 to 30 hours of gameplay (maybe more if you're a completionist) but the actual game feels like it let down it's concept, and there were way too many missions where I was in no way having fun.