Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance - Retro Reflections

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance introduced me to console action role playing games. It must have been a memorable experience to play this game back in 2001, when the PS2 was still young· I bought it later but still was impressed by its appealing graphics, epic music and highly addictive action.

Despite its name the game is not connected with the monumental Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 on the pc. The plot, dialogue and characters are not nearly as developed, the combat system is less deep, you control only one character, the world is smaller and your progress is linear. As in all action role playing games the story is mostly an excuse to leave the safety of town, wander in the wilderness and kill hundreds of monsters to gain experience and become stronger.

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 16 different DLC's... all for free

DLC is a controversial point for a lot of gamers. When it first began, it was seen as a great chance to extend an experience with a particular game. Early on titles like Fallout and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion gave us a chance to hang with favorite titles just a little longer. However, oftentimes now DLC is seen as an almost dirty word. Some feel that the developers are holding back content they might have initially published if they were not instead trying to nickle and dime gamers. So this latest announcement by CD Projeckt Red is pretty cool in that they will have a variety of content without restrictions.

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Randal's Monday - PC Review

Randall’s Monday, by Nexus Game Studio, is a point and click adventure game that channels Sam & Max, Clerks, and about a thousand pop culture references to movies, gaming and all things geek.  It tries very hard to convince you of certain things, such as that it is a great game that is outright hilarious at points, but in the end it becomes an exercise in repetition and attempting to try every item in combination with every other item to progress.

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Cube World - Better With a Partner

Cube World is something that I've had my eye on for a good while now. So when we got Fight the Dragon I figured why not get this at the same time? They are similar in the sense that they are both hack and slash RPGs but that is about where the similarities end. Instead of diving into maps, players explore randomly generated procedural open worlds. Whether attacking this alone, or with a friend, its one hell of a world to see.

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You have a date with Dragon Ball Xenoverse - including some screens

This is not the first time we have covered a Dragon Ball title, or even talked about the upcoming Xenoverse title for the current gen systems. This is however, the first time we have been given a specific date - now with some new images as well!

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Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers + Garruk's Revenge - Xbox One Review

Magic: The Gathering is one of those hobbies of mine that dates back quite a few years. Most of our nights playing Dungeons & Dragons started (or ended) with some hands of Magic being played among us (when we were not playing rounds of Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye). I have started and stopped over the years, adding cards and selling some along the way. The fundamental game remains the same, despite some rules clarifications (goodbye Interrupts) and new mechanics (hello Planeswalkers). Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers is a mostly faithful recreation of the game that does several things right over prior years, but also stumbles in a few places as well.

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Fight the Dragon - Better With a Partner

We are kicking off a new feature like our Retro Reflections or Memorable Music that we hope to expand on over time. Better With a Partner focuses on games that are fun to play, but more entertaining if you have someone to play them with. Fight the Dragon, which is currently in Early Access, is our first such title. This is a less formal style of review/preview. If you have suggestions or feedback, we more than welcome them in the comments.

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Alone in the Dark: Illumination trailer

While the spooks and ghosts of Halloween are over for 2014, that does not mean we won't be seeing more in the future. I for one was pretty excited to hear about Alone in the Dark: Illumination and this trailer does nothing to diminish that interest on my part.

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Power Rangers Super Megaforce - 3DS Review

Games based on existing IPs are always a gamble. Sometimes they have such great backstory or characters that development teams are then able to run with successfully (Batman, some of the Transformers games immediately come to mind). Others are absolutely horrid, broken, buggy titles that feel incredibly rushed (just about every non-Spider-man and Batman superhero game). Most tend to fall into a middle range where they feel slightly undercooked. Playable, fun if you check your brain at the door, but hardly qualify as good use of their license. Power Rangers Super Megaforce falls squarely into this category as it fails to do anything terribly new with the source material or innovate gaming in any particular way - but it is not a bad game either and can actually serve to help kill several hours of time on your 3DS.

Probably the biggest disappointment to be had here is that there was actually quite a bit of potential to be had. A handful of systems were put into place to help make Power Rangers Super Megaforce slightly more than just a simple brawling game. If just a bit more time and care had gone into these systems, the end result could have been an addictive title worth coming back to repeatedly. As it stands, it is basically fun filler in small bursts. Kids will probably get more out of the experience than teens or adults who would like a bit more to sink their teeth into. Brawlers are a somewhat simple genre by nature, and the team at 7th Chord seems to understand the need for a bit more substance, it just is not quite there yet. Still, this is latest iteration in the series and a more enjoyable experience than the earlier games, so it feels like the franchise is actually moving in the right direction.

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New Features! Special Edition Post

Good Morning Everyone!

This is PY and I would like to wish Nick a happy 5th year of Chalgyr’s Game Room! <- I swear that I am not post hijacking… this is a 10am Special Edition ;)

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Chalgyr's Game Room turns... 5 today.

That's right - your 8am, Monday morning post is me talking about how far this site has come in 5 years. For a bit of perspective, I finally started this as just a blog on November 10th, 2009. I titled my first post: Let's get this first post out of the way, shall we? Yup, that was a thing. The next two articles that week were a small news item and then our first ever review. What was that game?

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Elite: Dangerous gest a release date

Elite: Dangerous has been a title that has drawn a lot of attention since it was first announced. We even had a chance to preview the beta. Well, now bigger news - in that Elite: Dangerous has a release date.

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X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge - Retro Reflections

Despite its title, X-Men 2: Wolverine’s Revenge has very little to do with the X-Men 2 movie. The only connection is the conflict with Lady Deathstrike and the return to the Weapon X base. The hero learns he is infected by a lethal virus and must find an antidote urgently. Well known characters such as Professor Xavier appear in cut-scenes but do not participate in the action.

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