Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving

Game Title: Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving

Platform(s): PC

Stars (out of 5): 4

Content issues: There is no profane language, sex, or nudity in this game, but there is blood as well as guns and shooting. There is also consumption of alcohol.

Brief Summary: Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving are actually two separate games, but they are bundled together. Gravity Bone is supposedly the first game and Thirty Flights of Loving is the sequel. Gravity Bone is a game in which you star as Citizen Abel and you are essentially a man for hire. There are only two missions, neither of which involves shooting. Thirty Flights of Loving is different. This time you are not given any missions. You simply walk through the game, and then it ends. Although there are things that you can do and you are free to walk around, the game is essentially on rails, because none of your decisions can affect the outcome of the game in any way.

Like: The art-style is interesting and new. All of the characters in the game have huge square heads.

The world is fun to move around in and the missions in Gravity Bone are entertaining.

Dislike: Both games are extremely linear and extremely short. You can beat both of them within 30 minutes (tops). Gravity Bone also has a part where you have to make a ridiculous jump that doesn't seem possible, but just barely is.Thirty Flights of Loving could have removed the ability for the player to walk around and pick things up and just played as a movie and it would have barely changed anything, because all of the decisions that you make are on rails. As some have said, both of these games should probably have been free due to how short and simple they are. Finally, they are supposed to be short stories. Gravity Bone makes some sense, but Thirty Flights of Loving was totally lost on me.

Replayability: Because of the linearity of the games, I would say that replayability is extremely low. The only reason I would replay these games would be to see the art style again for inspiration or to try to figure out what the story is really about in Thirty Flights of Loving, which I am unlikely to do.

This was the best part of the game. Running on top of a table, breaking glasses and smashing food as you go.

Rage

Game Title: Rage

Platform(s): PC (also available on Xbox 360 and PS3)

Stars (out of 5): 4

Content issues: There is a lot of blood and gore in this game. Enemies can explode and their brains can come out if you shoot them in the head. They can be run over with a vehicles. There are levels where blood literally drips from the ceiling. There is also a game show that you have to participate in in order to progress in which you much go through a series of rounds where the sole goal is to kill mutants. Some of the missions that the player must undertake are also morally questionable. For example, in one city, you must perform tasks for the mayor, Redstone. He asks you to kill different groups of people and it is doubtful that he is in the right. Aside from violence, gore, and senseless killing, Rage contains profanity, including the F-word. Although the F-word is not used with great frequency throughout the game, there are some levels where it is used excessively. Finally, there are immodestly dressed women in the game, especially in the last city you go to.

Brief Summary: Rage is a story about the post-apocalyptic world which exists after a meteor nearly wipes out life on the planet. Several "arks" have been buried deep beneath the ground in order to preserve some of humanity, but there are other survivors and mutants who never went into an ark. You are an ark survivor and you help people through the wasteland, eventually joining a resistance group to help stop another group known as "the authority".

Like: True to form, id Software has delivered once again with the gunplay. All of the guns and other weapons are beautifully realized and are very satisfying to use. My favorite are the cross-bow, the wingsticks, and the sniper rifle, but you will find that most of the guns have specific times when they are particularly useful and particular enemies that they are useful against. Learning which gun to use, with which ammo type, against which enemy is where this game really gets fun.

Graphically, Rage is nice, but its main draw graphically are the animations of the enemies. The mutants especially have incredibly fluid animations. They can run and jump off of walls, do flips, roll, etc. I have never before seen enemies in a game that moved with so much fluidity and variety.

I also really love the racing and driving components of the game. The vehicles in the game are very fun to drive and feel powerful and maneuverable.

Dislike: There is far too much inappropriate language. It doesn't add anything to the game and it is very offensive to me. The gore is also excessive and unnecessary. The game would be just as fun if enemies just died. Finally, I like games where I feel like I am doing good in the world, even if doing so requires extreme means (like killing). When some of the killing done in the game is questionable on moral grounds, I don't like it. Also, if you don't have an Nvidia graphics card, this game may not work well for you. I got a new computer and graphics card and it runs great, but before I had an ATI video card and the game would not work at all for a long time. Eventually the drivers were fixed so the game did work, but after 30 minutes of play the game would freeze up and I'd have to quit. Also, the graphics, while nice, are fairly grainy and are already dated. The sky is even static.

Replayability: Because I moved from one computer to another in order to play this game, I ended up playing more than half of it twice. I don't think that I will play through it again, but I enjoyed both times through and in fact probably enjoyed the second attempt more. There are also multiplayer modes which should add longevity to the game, but I have not yet tried those.