BombsOverBaghdad
2012
Has some cool stuff going on but the weightless combat and awkward movement just make it feel like a lesser Hulk Ultimate Destruction. I feel like I’m alone on this one, but I also cannot stand the way this game looks.
2008
This game fulfilled the two requirements middle school me had for a PC game: It was free, and it could run on my mom’s crappy Dell laptop. Back then, that was all I really needed.
2013
Fuse is the kind of game the word ‘mid’ was made for. It’s not bad and you can even have some fun with it, but it’s got nothing to get excited about and after you’re done with it you won’t think about it ever again.
Fuse’s main problem is how it’s boring in spite of itself. One of the playable characters has a weapon that turns enemies into wormholes, something straight out of a Ratchet & Clank game, and it gets old much, much faster than you’d think it would. The final boss features you fighting a giant mech on the outside of a space station, yet is somehow completely unremarkable. This game just has such a derivative energy to it, it’s like if you asked a computer to generate a 7th generation third-person shooter. You and your generic squad mates killing generic enemies in generic locations as part of a generic ‘save the world’ plot.
Insomniac Games was arguably the hardest working studio of the 6th and 7th gen and this is not a compliment. In the 17 years between the release of the studio’s first game, Disruptor, and that of Fuse, Insomniac pumped out 18 games. Their 19th, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, was released the same year as Fuse and on top of that, Insomniac was conceptualizing and pitching Sunset Overdrive while both games were in development. This short turnaround time between games meant Insomniac had to leave a ton of stuff on the cutting room floor simply because there just wasn’t time to implement it, and I can’t help but think of how this culture of crunch affected Fuse. Had it been given more time in the oven, would we have gotten something more fleshed out, more exciting? Perhaps, but this is the game we’re left with. One that has been completely forgotten and deserves to be.
Fuse’s main problem is how it’s boring in spite of itself. One of the playable characters has a weapon that turns enemies into wormholes, something straight out of a Ratchet & Clank game, and it gets old much, much faster than you’d think it would. The final boss features you fighting a giant mech on the outside of a space station, yet is somehow completely unremarkable. This game just has such a derivative energy to it, it’s like if you asked a computer to generate a 7th generation third-person shooter. You and your generic squad mates killing generic enemies in generic locations as part of a generic ‘save the world’ plot.
Insomniac Games was arguably the hardest working studio of the 6th and 7th gen and this is not a compliment. In the 17 years between the release of the studio’s first game, Disruptor, and that of Fuse, Insomniac pumped out 18 games. Their 19th, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, was released the same year as Fuse and on top of that, Insomniac was conceptualizing and pitching Sunset Overdrive while both games were in development. This short turnaround time between games meant Insomniac had to leave a ton of stuff on the cutting room floor simply because there just wasn’t time to implement it, and I can’t help but think of how this culture of crunch affected Fuse. Had it been given more time in the oven, would we have gotten something more fleshed out, more exciting? Perhaps, but this is the game we’re left with. One that has been completely forgotten and deserves to be.
2017
The publisher practically begging MatPat to make a Game Theory video on this game is somehow the least embarrassing thing about it.
I’d rate it a 3.5 but any game with giant spiders is a no go for me
2011
My only real experience playing Minecraft was when I was 14 and played a cracked version I had downloaded onto my grandmother’s laptop, and to this day it’s still some of the fondest memories I have of playing a video game.
2004
I’ll be real, I only bought this game because it included a copy of Colin McRae Rally 04, the best rally driving game ever made. This game’s pretty good too.
2003
Throughout my short time writing on Backloggd, I’ve often found that the more I like a game, the less I have to say about it. This is the end of the review.
2007
Rating based on the movie, the game is garbage
2007
Heavenly Sword was a project borne into a rough situation. Being one of the PlayStation 3’s headlining exclusives at the time meant it had the unenviable task of trying to sell the PS3 in 2007, which meant it had to convince people of two things: 1.That the PlayStation Triple Ballin’ was worth paying $599 US Dollars for and 2.That the SixAxis wasn’t a pile of shit. Unfortunately, this was not a task Heavenly Sword nor its developer Ninja Theory were up for.
Heavenly Sword certainly looks great. If there’s something Ninja Theory has always been good at, it’s the visual design of their games. There are some very good character designs here, the main character Nariko being the obvious standout, and your journey takes you through these lush locations inspired by both Eastern and Western fantasy (Ninja Theory named Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Lord of the Rings as inspirations) that keep the game still looking good despite the fact it’s rapidly approaching 20 years old. The game isn’t free from technical issues, however. There’s constant framerate drops and some absolutely vicious screen tearing, and inconsistent audio mixing where cutscenes will be much quieter than gameplay.
When it comes to gameplay, that’s probably Heavenly Sword’s biggest stumble. In this game you block attacks automatically while you’re not attacking. If you press Triangle at the right time while blocking, you’ll counter their attack. Another wrinkle is added with your stances. You have three stances, and your stance has to match your attacker’s in order to block their attacks. In theory this discourages mindless button-mashing, in practice this and a crappy dodge roll just ends up with you constantly getting hit out of your combos, leading to a combat system that isn’t very fun, especially since you have to use the dreaded SixAxis to initiate air combos. Boss battles alleviate this a bit since you only have one enemy to worry about, but they’re extremely mediocre and one-note, which wouldn’t be such a problem if they didn’t take so goddamn long to get over with. They made 5-minute bosses that take 10+ minutes to beat.
The hack & slash gameplay isn’t all you’ll be doing here. At times you’ll be controlling Nariko’s friend Kai, whose weapon of choice is her trusty crossbow. Kai’s sections are the worst parts of the game. They move at a snail’s pace and you have to deal with aiming so bad you’ll struggle to hit enemies at point-blank range.
These days Heavenly Sword seems to have been almost entirely forgotten, and it’s no mystery as to why. Apart from its looks and cinematic presentation, there’s very little here to recommend. Doesn’t help that it released just two weeks before Halo 3. “Don’t buy an Xbox 360 and Halo 3, buy a PS3 and Heavenly Sword instead!” is an extremely hard sell. Really, I think the most interesting thing about Heavenly Sword is the context in which it was released. I have a fascination with early 7th gen releases. They have a special kind of jank that is different from that of the previous gen and also later in the generation. It’s a jank borne from developers still getting used to HD development being very excited to show off what they can do with the new hardware but whose reach still exceeded their grasp. That’s Heavenly Sword to a tee. As a game it’s not very good, but as a piece of PS3 history I’m genuinely enamored with it.
Heavenly Sword certainly looks great. If there’s something Ninja Theory has always been good at, it’s the visual design of their games. There are some very good character designs here, the main character Nariko being the obvious standout, and your journey takes you through these lush locations inspired by both Eastern and Western fantasy (Ninja Theory named Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Lord of the Rings as inspirations) that keep the game still looking good despite the fact it’s rapidly approaching 20 years old. The game isn’t free from technical issues, however. There’s constant framerate drops and some absolutely vicious screen tearing, and inconsistent audio mixing where cutscenes will be much quieter than gameplay.
When it comes to gameplay, that’s probably Heavenly Sword’s biggest stumble. In this game you block attacks automatically while you’re not attacking. If you press Triangle at the right time while blocking, you’ll counter their attack. Another wrinkle is added with your stances. You have three stances, and your stance has to match your attacker’s in order to block their attacks. In theory this discourages mindless button-mashing, in practice this and a crappy dodge roll just ends up with you constantly getting hit out of your combos, leading to a combat system that isn’t very fun, especially since you have to use the dreaded SixAxis to initiate air combos. Boss battles alleviate this a bit since you only have one enemy to worry about, but they’re extremely mediocre and one-note, which wouldn’t be such a problem if they didn’t take so goddamn long to get over with. They made 5-minute bosses that take 10+ minutes to beat.
The hack & slash gameplay isn’t all you’ll be doing here. At times you’ll be controlling Nariko’s friend Kai, whose weapon of choice is her trusty crossbow. Kai’s sections are the worst parts of the game. They move at a snail’s pace and you have to deal with aiming so bad you’ll struggle to hit enemies at point-blank range.
These days Heavenly Sword seems to have been almost entirely forgotten, and it’s no mystery as to why. Apart from its looks and cinematic presentation, there’s very little here to recommend. Doesn’t help that it released just two weeks before Halo 3. “Don’t buy an Xbox 360 and Halo 3, buy a PS3 and Heavenly Sword instead!” is an extremely hard sell. Really, I think the most interesting thing about Heavenly Sword is the context in which it was released. I have a fascination with early 7th gen releases. They have a special kind of jank that is different from that of the previous gen and also later in the generation. It’s a jank borne from developers still getting used to HD development being very excited to show off what they can do with the new hardware but whose reach still exceeded their grasp. That’s Heavenly Sword to a tee. As a game it’s not very good, but as a piece of PS3 history I’m genuinely enamored with it.
2012
I’m not glad Airtight Games shut down and they clearly had some talented people there, but between this, Dark Void, and Murdered: Soul Suspect, it’s clear that as a studio they just were not ready for primetime.
2004
-4 stars for being named Driv3r
Not the best superhero game ever, but it might be the coolest. Turning buses into skateboards, making boxing gloves out of cars, suplexing enemies off the top of skyscrapers, this game constantly has you doing the coolest shit imaginable. It’s a game made up entirely of the stuff kids would imagine doing whenever they would put on a pair of those big plastic Hulk hands toys. No superhero game has encapsulated the power fantasy of its titular character quite like this one.
A messy, janky game for a messy, janky franchise. There are so many interesting ideas here that are held back by 6th gen hardware, and that hardware is getting pushed to its absolute limit. Not a perfect game, but the perfect Matrix game.