The Good:
Once again, the voice acting is superb. Of course, Jennifer Hale as FemShep was outstanding, but the other voice actors were also excellent. Even the background characters sounded real and fleshed out- something that is a rarity in most video games. I only played as a female Shepard, so I have no clue how the voice acting for male Shepard was. The only character whose voice acting I could not stand was the war reporter, Diana Allers (voiced by Jessica Chobot). It was very clear, especially in comparison to the other characters, that Jessica Chobot is not an actress. Her lines were stilted and not very convincing.

The characters themselves are also a high point. Old friends and enemies show up in various ways, and getting to talk to them (even briefly) made me very happy. The people who have been interacting with since Mass Effect 1, Kaiden, Ashley, Joker Wrex, Garrus, Tali, and Liara have grown and developed in a way that is realistic. Even the squadmate you did not save (in my case, Kaiden) is mentioned numerous times, making your relationships seem much more real. A few new characters appear, such as James Vega. At first I didn’t know what to think about him, but in the end I really enjoyed talking to him. He is pretty damn hilarious, and his conversations with other crew members on the Normandy were a high point. One of the best parts was hearing the characters interact with one another. As I ran from one part of the Normandy to another, I would walk in on shipmates talking with each other. Liara would be talking to Garrus, Joker and Edi would be mid conversation, etc. Stopping to listen to these conversations was fun and enlightening.

Shep is back and she's as badass as ever (or 'he' if you prefer).

The story itself was also great. You start off with Earth being attacked by the Reapers, and it just goes non-stop from there. It is up to you, as Commander Shepard, to reunite the races for the upcoming war. This is not an easy task, and centuries of mistrust and bad blood run through all of the races. Supporting the Krogan to help cure the genophage will result in the losing the support of the Salarians. The Quarian and Geth conflict also comes to a head. It is possible to get almost all of the factions on your side, but you have to play an almost perfect game.

The Average:
The combat system has improved even more from Mass Effect 2, but compared to most shooters it’s still average. There is a new cover system that is good in theory, but doesn’t always work in practice. Many times I found myself running to a point, only to suddenly find myself in cover, facing the wrong way and getting shot at. This was frustrating and made what could have been a really good combat system hard to work with at times. The best improvement was allowing all classes to carry any weapon they want. This is balanced out with a weight system- the heavier the weapons, the longer it takes your powers to cool down. I played as an infiltrator, and after I got an awesome sniper rifle, I only carried that. As a result of having only one weapon, my powers cooled down within seconds, allowing me to use them more often.

Bioware took the complaints of Mass Effect 2 leveling up system to heart and tweaked it for the third game. It has much more of an RPG feel to it, similar to the first game, without all the issues. You have many more choices when leveling up powers, and modifying your weapons is satisfying and shows actual changes. You still don’t have the depth that was available in Mass Effect 1, but I think Bioware found a good balance between RPG and Third Person Shooter.

Multiplayer is something that was added for the third game. It directly affects the single player game by helping your “galactic readiness.” You and three people can choose between the 6 classes and various races and have to hold off ten waves of either geth, reapers, or Cerberus troops and survive. Sprinkled in the 10 waves are different objectives, so you aren’t able to just camp out and shoot people. I played both with random people and with friends, and it is much more satisfying with friends. This is a game you need to communicate with your teammates, and it’s much easier to do that with friends. Plus, who hasn’t wanted to play as a Krogan?

Go ahead punk make my day

Kinect voice commands were also added to Mass Effect 3. I do not have a Kinect, so I was not able to test it myself, but I had a friend (and fellow Mass Effect junkie) test it out for me and give me her results. She said it took a while to get used to using it in combat, but once she got the hang of it she loved yelling out commands during battles and seeing squadmates react. She enjoyed it the most during conversations. She was able to put down the controller and get into the scene, and just speak the prompts and watch her Shepard react. Other people have told me they have trouble with the Kinect system, and there is not guide on what commands to use, so a lot of it is a guessing game on what you should exactly be yelling.

The Bad:
The scanning system is back. No, you aren’t scanning for minerals like in Mass Effect 2, or driving around planets on the Mako finding hunks of rocks, but it’s still just as irritating. Now you fly your Normandy around the galaxy map, and scan the systems for “war assets” that help you in your cause. That in itself is not a bad thing, but now if you scan too much, the Reapers fly in and you have to evade them. Essentially you are playing Pac-Man with the Reapers. I found this system to be jarring and it took me out of the game.

If you play the game without playing Mass Effect 1 and 2 first, you will have a perfectly fine game, but I don’t think you will be getting the full experience. As much as Bioware claims you can jump in without playing the first two, I think that is doing yourself a grave disservice. Part of my enjoyment of the game was seeing the loads of people from the first two games show up. Actions I did in the first two games directly affected my galactic readiness. Conversations that brought up past actions were common. I can’t imagine I would have any clue what was going on if I hadn’t played the first two games. I cried a few times during the game when certain characters died. I don’t know if the emotional impact would have been there if I hadn’t gotten to know the characters previously. This is truly the end of a trilogy. It would be like reading the last book in a trilogy without reading the first two. You will probably enjoy it, but miss a lot of the backstory and richness of the culture and world as a whole.

The Romance:
Bioware certainly stepped up the gay factor on this one, and I love it. Our gay brothers finally get same sex romance options. Yes, that’s plural. There are two males that can romanced by a male Shepard: Kaiden and Cortez, a shuttle pilot. For the ladies, there are three options. First, you can continue your romance with Liara, start a relationship with your com officer Samantha Traynor (lesbian only romancable by female Shepard), or hook up with war reporter Diana Allers. You can also continue your relationships from Mass Effect 2, with a few exceptions. I found my relationship with Liara to be the most in depth one of the three ladies. You have many conversations with her about the past, the future, and your relationship. I haven’t done that much processing since my last real life relationship. The romance with Samantha Traynor was sweet and definitely sexy (one word: shower.) I thought the relationship with Diana Allers was forced and not very realistic, and was my least favorite of all them, gay or straight.

Great game and then there was that ending we can't discuss due to spoilers.

I applaud Bioware for taking the time to add the same-sex relationships to Mass Effect 3. It made the universe seem much more realistic. You will randomly hear conversations from people of both sexes talk about their husbands and wives, and no one so much as bats an eye. The first time I talked to the shuttle pilot Cortez and he casually mentioned he lost his husband, I about dropped my controller in shock. My second thought was “That was so cool!” It takes a lot to shock me in a video game, and Bioware did it in a good way. My only complaint was that I was unable to romance Ashley Williams as a female Shepard. Kaiden is romanceable by both genders, but Ashley is not? I don’t understand why that was overlooked, Ashley really grew on me over three games and I would have loved have romanced her. That is, hoever, a small complaint in what is otherwise a great game.

The Ending:
No, I won’t spoil the ending for you. All I will say is that I thought the last 5 minutes were jarring and seemed very out of place in the Mass Effect Universe. The “optimal” ending (or what constitutes as one) is up for debate, and is very difficult to get if you do not play multiplayer. Not impossible, but difficult. If anyone wants to talk more about the ending privately, feel free to PM me on the forum (Name: Xan) or hit me up on the Lesbian Gamers Facebook page and I am willing to discuss the ending in depth. But it does bring closure to the end of a trilogy, and that is the important thing.

Overall, it’s a satisfying conclusion to 6 years, three games, and countless novels and comics. I love this universe, I love Commander Shepard, and I did love this game. It has some flaws, and there are a few things I wish was done different, but I felt like it was telling MY story of MY Shepard. In the end, I think that was what made the game great.

The multiplayer aspect works well because it operates a drop-in system whereby players can join and leave at will and it doesn’t overly affect the gameplay. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, though you really need to be into these cutesy, fixed camera multiplayer titles to find it. For me untimely death by being forced off a ledge was a real shame and certainly dented the overall experience.

Gameplay though is pretty cool, other than that annoying camera issue and untimely death thing, overall it works as a multiplayer experience. You can also upgrade weapons and of course team-up to dispatch enemies.

Graphically this is a “Ratchet & Clank” game, so environments and character models are as cute as ever, though there’s nothing really new here, not to say it’s bad, just don’t be expecting some sort of new dynamic, as there isn’t any. The sound is familiar to fans of the series, the only real negative that could be thrown at this title is slightly repetitive voice-acting lines. The story too has the usual humor interwoven, which is always welcome in this game series.

Overall “Ratchett & Clank: All 4 One” is a good, but not great game. There are better games in the series, though if you are a fan of multiplayer, this is probably going to be the one for you. If you’ve got a few youngsters in your family and you’re looking for something you can play with them, you could give this a try. Oh and for those of you with a 3D system, the game is 3D compatible.

Alice: Madness Returns – Has it really been 11 years since we were graced with the joy of American McGee’s Alice on PC? As someone who is more of a console gamer than a PC gamer, back then, American McGee’s Alice was just too good to resist. The game was creepy, gothic, funny and engaging, and by using the Quake 3 engine, it was a game that was definitely advanced for it’s time.

Story
Now here we are in 2011 and we have American McGee back, brining us more trippy gameplay from the dark and unnerving Alice, in Alice: Madness Returns on Xbox 360. The story kicks off with Alice as a teenager, under the watchful eye of Dr Bumby, a psychiatrist. For those who have played the first game, this probably isn’t too much of a surprise, since Alice’s mind and her adventures in wonderland have clearly taken their toll on her idea of reality. The story progresses from there, and it’s not long until Alice is thrown back into a world of gory, creepy, gothic horror.

Gameplay
Alice: Madness Returns, is a solid platformer which has its fair share of hack and slash goodness. The controls feel effortless and you can easily shrink Alice down to enable her access to smaller areas in the game. The weapons such as the Vorpal knife and the pepper-grinder, are sufficiently gruesome and weird that they fit perfectly into the overall feel of the game. At times there are plenty of enemies on screen and the AI is pretty good, so the controls and the weapons work perfectly well together to make hacking and slashing your way through levels quite enjoyable. You can lock on to target and kill them at long range, as well as hop around on different levels to avoid them if you need to. As well as Alice’s excellent fighting abilities, she’s also perfectly capable of jumping and floating effortlessly around the levels. The checkpoints are strategically placed so that it doesn’t become infuriating if you need to do part of a level again and the fact you can’t fall off ledges helps ensure you make it through many levels unscathed. There’s no multiplayer in Alice, which is probably how it should be, but there are cute rhythm mini-games in it, although you don’t need to play these if you don’t want to.

Graphics
One of the most impressive aspect of this title is the graphics. From the beginning, it has a very surreal feeling to it, reminiscent of the French animated classic “The Triplets of Bellville”. NPC’s are as full of character in their faces as the characters you can interact with and you feel that Alice’s madness pours out through the depiction of these characters beautifully. The backgrounds and levels of the game are also absolutely gorgeous to look at, accurately representing Alice’s troubled mind. The game grabs you with it’s aesthetics and although there are a few pop up issues here and there, the frame-rate is solid throughout.

Audio
As with the graphics, sound plays an important part of this title and the creepy score which accompanies the game is spot on. It adds to the overall experience and the dialogue from the characters is great. At times it becomes a little cliched, but there are some stand out characters, including of course the dryness of the Cheshire Cat. Alice herself sounds a lot like Lara Croft which is always a nice bonus.

Female Character Angle
Obviously the female character is the lead character in this title, so it’s always welcome to see that. Alice is a very interesting character and her background and decent to madness is quite gripping. Through the 15 hours or so it takes to play the game, you’ll find yourself becoming more and more intertwined in Alice’s psyche and she’s definitely a character that can hold her own on screen.

Overall
Alice: Madness Returns is a welcome return to gaming for American McGee. The game is eerie, interesting, gory, surreal and extremely dark. It’s a very close likeness to Lewis Carroll’s original vision for Alice and the levels and gameplay compliment this perfectly. If you haven’t played the original, you can still pick this up and will enjoy it as it’s a solid platformer with great aesthetic touches.

8/10

Hey guys welcome to my review of “Child of Eden”, if I sound excited to be reviewing this title, I am, because in a word, it is awesome. “Child of Eden” is a music game with a difference, for those gamers familiar with the likes of “Rez” you’re going to go one better here with “Child of Eden”. The game was created by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, best known for the aforementioned music game “Rez”, and was developed by Q Entertainment and published by Ubisoft.

It’s hard to explain, so I’ve included a lovely trailer. Essentially “Child of Eden” is an on-rails shooter that utilizes music in a powerful way. Q? and Ubisoft have worked wonders here, though having said that, “Child of Eden” is not going to appeal to every gamer.

The real magic of “Child of Eden” lay in its immersion, if you can lose yourself within the beats and the colorful graphics, you’re in for something really special. As you’ll see on the boxart, “Child of Eden” also features the “Better With Kinect” label, meaning you can play a slightly enhanced version if you have a Kinect Sensor. Personally I wouldn’t bother, the standard game itself was enough to keep me entertained for many hours, but if you have Kinect it’s good to get up off your butt and use your hands as the controller.

So how does it work? As stated “Child of Eden” is an on rails shooter, you ‘fly’ through levels locking onto various things and shooting the enemies before you take damage, a simple enough premise. As mentioned, if you have Kinect, you can up the stakes somewhat by using your hands to sweep across the enemies as you fire with your other hand. Simple yet engaging.

Now for the downsides, well as I kind of tried to cover, if you’re not into these types of games, “Child of Eden” may well leave you bored. If however you can let yourself become immersed in the colors and music, you’re in for a real treat, both audibly and visually. Length of play may put some off paying full price, given it won’t take you too long to play through (I think it took me about 6 hours), but the replay value is pretty high. A somewhat odd story also isn’t fantastic, but you know what, who cares, “Child of Eden” is a feel good game that works with Kinect. I say at the very least this is a rental, though I don’t feel in anyway guilty for telling you to just go out and buy it, you won’t be sorry.

Hooooo boy, where to begin. Okay positivity is good, so I’ll start this “PlayStation Move Ape Escape” game review by saying I liked “Ape Escape” on the PS2, when it was fun, fresh and a bit silly. The “Ape Escape” franchise has been bobbing along for over ten years and in that time we’ve seen a couple of great additions, sadly “PlayStation Move Ape Escape” is not one of them.

Female gamer angle, right, well the overall story is built around an all female affair, with two girls trying to find their missing granny. The story isn’t going to keep you gripped, there’s little depth and sense, but then the “Ape Escape” games aren’t overly known for their in-depth character driven stories. Still at least there’s some female character goodness.

There’s two ways to play “PlayStation Move Ape Escape”, Story Mode and Mini Games. Unlike other “Ape Escape” titles, the idea here isn’t to catch mischievous monkeys, these monkeys sort of drop in via UFO’s, again, with little sense. Things are also now on rails, rather than running around an open level looking for the cheeky guys. So what we have is an on rails shooter that sees you shoot the monkeys and the UFO’s or use the net to catch them. The whole thing feels more than a little flat.

The PlayStation Move controller does the job, it just doesn’t help the game is a bit of a dog after the initial fun wears away. I hate writing such a short review, but fellow gamers, there really isn’t much more to say, this is an average video game aimed – one imagines – squarely at the kiddie market, with its bright colors, simple setup and naff story.

Given just how good the initial couple of “Ape Escape” titles were, this is a sad state of affairs, the addition of the PlayStation Move does little to add to the game, even though it does work accurately. The charm and fun of the original is lost in “PlayStation Move Ape Escape” which feels like a free demo as opposed to a full game. No monkey business here, just an unpolished, slightly below average title. Shame.

We lesbian geek types do love a little Apple love, so intrepid reporter Jayde (no not THAT Jade, but an awesome intrepid reporter none the less) has taken the time to check out this years World Wide Developers Conference, paying particular interest to the all important Apple Keynote. So if you’re an Apple fan, you probably want to check this out.

WWDC 2011 Apple Keynote – A Lesbian Geek Guide

This year at the world wide developers conference 2011 Apple rocked the stage as their keynote showed us their up and coming releases.

So what will we be getting, when and how much will it set us back? These are the main questions we want answers to.

OS X Lion
Lion is Apple’s new addition for Mac OS X but will it roar like a lion or just cough up
fur-balls like a pussy. With a staggering 250 new features lets have a look at the top 10 key features.

Multi touch gestures
With Apple incorporating multi touch track pads in all their latest notebooks this really is a cool feature. Although there are some multi touch gestures already in Snow leopard they always seemed temperamental and some a bit unnatural. With this new feature promising to be fluid and effortless as you just swipe through your photos in iPhoto and pinch to zoom. It also makes web browsing a treat as you no longer have to bother with scroll bars, you simply have to push through the web pages.

Full Screen Applications
Most of Apple’s applications will now have the full screen control in the upper right of the application window and you can run more than one application in full screen mode without ever having to leave full screen mode, just swipe gesture to get back to the desktop and then swipe back to your full screen application.

Mission Control
Combining dashboard, expose and spaces all working together and accessed by a three finger swipe up gesture. This feature – if your anything like me – will be the most useful, giving you an overall view of everything that is going on. It helps you organise your applications and documents into different spaces with ease and to be able to see the over all view of the desktop at the same time and don’t forget your widgets.

Mac App Store
No big whoop on this one, but the mac app store comes built in and ready to go with OS X Lion. Application updates will be delta updates so it will be quicker to download which is good if you don’t have a fast internet connection.

Launch pad
A quick gesture gets you into launch pad where you can see all your applications on your mac no matter where they are installed and you can organise your apps into iOS 4 looking containers which you can of course custom label. All new installed apps will populate automatically to the launch pad.

Resume
Pretty self explanatory, but resume gets you back to your work environment as you left it so you can get to back into your work quicker, not too sure if that’s a good thing or not but non the less still a very nifty little feature. No more having to arrange your windows again or setting up your spaces again just RESUME.

Auto Save
As I’m writing this I am constantly having to press cmd + s which = pain in my cute ass.
well no more as auto save takes away that burden and trauma when something goes wrong and you realised you have lost your work cause you didn’t save! So now at the title bar of a pages document there will be a drop down arrow with the option to lock the document, duplicate or revert to last opened.

Versions
Tied in with the auto save feature versions is constantly saving your work as your doing it with all the changes your making to it, all of these are saved as versions of a document you can also take a manual snap shot. If you’re thinking this is gonna take up a lot of disk space like I was, well don’t get the prozac out just yet as this feature is very efficient at using space, as only the differences between them are saved not the whole document. All these versions can be accessed through the drop down in the title bar under the option browse all version. When sharing a document only the current version is shared so they wont get all the previous stuff, happy days!

Air Drop
A peer to peer (Wi-Fi based network) file sharing feature. It’s easy to use as it is auto discoverable and setup with a nice graphical user interface which can be found in finder under air drop. Documents have to be confirmed at both ends by sender and recipient so no receiving pictures of strangers asses, unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case all documents are fully encrypted during transfer.

Mail
Not only will mail be more beautiful than Angelina Jolie’s breasts resting in two golden chalices, it also packs some really great new features such as the search functionality where you can create unlimited search filters called tokens to let you narrow it down to a single email. No more colour coded replies as this is replaced by conversation view individual sections, in one message view, containing all original clips and attachments.

So there you have it 10 top features briefly outlined for your general pleasure.

When is it out: Sometime in July unless you’re a developer. Apple’s website has a cool notify me service if you’re an eager beaver.

Where: Mac OS X Lion will only be available to download from the App Store.

How much: UK £20.99 U.S $29.99 Aus $31.99

How Big: Around 4 Gig in size

TTFN
Jayde Draeger

It’s finally here, “Portal 2″ is with us. When “Portal” released back in late 2007 as part of “The Orange Box” compilation we were impressed. As our reviewer at the time stated “If you want to play something that’s a little different from the norm, you should definitely check out Portal”. Check it out many of us did and we fell in love with its innovative game mechanic and some of the best faceless characters (antagonist and protagonist alike) to invade our gaming.

It’s now 2011 and “Portal 2″ has hit shelves, I of course grabbed my Portal gun, headed to the game store, picked up the game, fired an orange portal into the wall to tie to the blue portal hole I had left in my office. I stepped through and the magic commenced.

“Portal 2″ picks up a century after the events of the first game (which I will brush over on the off chance you did not play it!). Our hero Chell is brought to by Wheatley, a personality sphere (a ball shaped robot) voiced by Stephen Merchant to great comedic affect. Fear not “Portal” fans, GLaDOS is also back, setting up a multitude of tests for you. For those who have not played the previous game, here’s a brief rundown on just what those tests involve. “Portal 2″ is – like its predecessor – a puzzle game. As female protagonist Chell, you must solve tests, the end objective of which is to get safely to the exit of a room / rooms. Chell uses a ‘portal gun’ as her main means of escape, the device fires portals (doors essentially) into flat surfaces, one orange and one blue. Stepping into one or the other sees Chell exit through the other. This innovative form of gameplay essentially bends the reality of a given room, with Chell able to fall from ceilings, appear in distant areas or utilize the portals to reach the all important exit.

The portal mechanic goes from fun and simple to the truly insane, with the introduction of gels, white that can be splashed on non portal surfaces to make them portal ready, orange to make surface super slippery and therefore fast and blue to make the surface bouncy. Though nothing is insurmountable, there were a couple of spots I found went from challenging to frustrating. This by no means ruined the experience however.

Along with its hugely clever gameplay mechanic, what makes “Portal 2″ brilliant is the characterisations. Though the game features essentially faceless characters, they are some of the most memorable, witty, charming characters in videogames.

Female Gamer Angle
Chell is the female protagonist in the game. She doesn’t speak and given the game is first person, you will rarely see her, only mere glimpses of her / you as you skip through portals. Despite her non vocal nature, she’s a great character and it was cool of Valve not to take the usual route and give us a male protagonist. The antagonist in “Portal 2″ is also female, if GLaDOS, a Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System can be said to have a gender. GLaDOS is superb, she is the Alexis Carrington of the game world, she’s bitchy, self absorbed and truly unforgettable. I’ll leave it at that given I don’t want to spoil any of the story in game, which is brilliant and ties Chell and GLaDOS together even further than the previous “Portal”.

The voice acting in “Portal 2″ needs to get a shout out, it is just superb. Ellen McLain as GLaDOS is just wonderful as the sarcastic bitch and charismatic antagonist. Stephen Merchant aka Ricky Gervais best mate plays Wheatley, an AI in the game who lends himself heavily to the story… and we’ll say no more about that. Finally there is J.K.Simmons who voices Aperture Laboratories CEO Cave Johnson, he is truly wonderful in the role as he imparts his wisdom and wit upon the player through soundbites in various levels, again though, you truly must discover it for yourself.

Overall “Portal 2″ is a wonderful game. Refined from the already innovative “Portal”, “Portal 2″ offers the player puzzles aplenty, wonderfully developed characters, great level design and some of the most comical in-game dialogue you’re likely to hear. The addition of the gels. those incredible physics based conundrums and a story that imparts a lot of history to the player means “Portal 2″ is a must buy for players of the previous game. For those who never purchased “The Orange Box”, naughty naughty! Go get it, then you can purchase “Portal 2″ and enjoy it in its entirety… oh one last thing, when you finish it, stay for the credits.

“Portal 2″ gets the Tina Kennard L word Rating. There were points when Tina didn’t know where the hell she was, she’d jump through the lesbian portal and come out the straight portal, then back through the straight one, to pop out of the lesbian one. She was also surrounded by cool characters, including those she shared a love / hate relationship.

“Portal 2″ features multi-player elements. This review covers the single-player aspects.
Images courtesy our sister site ThumbBandits.com

Dragon Age 2 was not at all what I expected. Of course, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I knew the game wasn’t a true sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, and I vaguely knew it was going to be about the same time frame, but other than that, I went into the game with little knowledge, but high expectations of a good story. For the most part, Bioware has once again crafted a great game with compelling characters and a decent storyline. You play as Hawke, a refugee from Lothering who makes their way to Kirkwall, where you will eventually become The Champion. You can play as either a male or female, with the basic Mage/Warrior/Rogue classes. For this review I played through as a female warrior, and am currently on my second play-through as a female rogue. As with most of my reviews, I break it down to the Good, The Average, The Bad, and the Romance. This review is for the Xbox 360 version, and I will keep it as spoiler-free as possible, although expect some minor ones.

The Good: Some of the best parts of Dragon Age 2 are the characters and their interactions. Once again, Bioware has done a great job of creating characters that you not only care about, but are more than one dimensional. Some of the background dialogue was hilarious, and there were times when I stopped moving just to hear them finish out a conversation. The writing was so good I found myself bringing different characters to different missions just to hear the banter between them. Each character has a unique personality, and learning how to interact with them to get their friendship or rivalry up was a challenge. The rivalry/friendship aspect was also fascinating. Making someone a rival wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as competition is good. Someone with 100% rivalry unlocked different skills and still made them loyal to you, though in a different way.

The graphics and the voice acting were also excellent. Without giving away any spoilers, some of the characters from Dragon Age: Origins return at different times, depending on if you imported a save from Dragon Age: Origins or went with a set background of your choice. The graphics and visual style were given an overhaul, for the better. The art direction was excellent, and some of the areas were gorgeous. Your main character has a voice this time around, and the dialogue tree is styled similar to the Mass Effect games. Icons show you how your response is going to sound. You can tailor your responses to 3 overarching types: the helpful, peaceful personality, the smartass who jokes around, and the hardass who is slightly arrogant. The more you use a certain personality type, the more your character begins to spout lines in cut scenes that match how you have been playing. So if you have been playing as the joker, during a random cut scene your character automatically jokes around. This system makes you feel invested in your character as a whole, and makes you feel like you created someone that is true to you and your style.

The Average: The combat system has been changed since the original story. I have heard mixed reviews of it, but overall I enjoyed the combat system. For those players who enjoy a true RPG experience where you micromanage every movement of your party, you will be disappointed. It’s still possible, but takes a lot of work. I was happy to set up some tactics for my party members (for some reason none of them had any healing tactics set automatically- and it took me forever to figure out why they all kept dying,) and then letting them go about their business. The combat was much smoother- you press a button and your character just flies into action. At the beginning, there is a little of button mashing and hitting the “A” button, but after you level up a few times, you can map your talents to different buttons. I found myself increasingly using different tactics for different bad guys, and the button mapping helped.

The inventory system has also been streamlined. The good part about that is all the junk you pick up is literally put in a slot called “trash can.” There is no secret trick- if an item you pick up shows up in this part of your inventory, you can safely sell it. The not great part of the inventory system is that most items don’t have a name anymore. For example, all rings are just called “ring” and have a different number of stars next to it. The higher the stars, the better the ring is. Once again, for someone who loves a pure RPG, this will not be a welcome change. For the casual player though, this is a welcome relief.

I personally loved the story, but I know there are many people who weren’t as fond of it. And since this review isn’t just all about me, I will look at the different aspects. The story is a break from Dragon Age: Origins. There is no real “ending goal” that you know of at the beginning. The story is told in a framing narrative, with one of your companions, Varric, telling the story of The Champion of Kirkwall (you) to a Chantry Seeker named Cassandra and the fight between the Templars and the Mages. You know something big happens, but not exactly what that thing is. It is truly a story of your life over 10 years. The story is broken up into a prologue and three acts, with a few main quests in each act, but a ton of side and companion quests too. People have lamented that there are too many side quests, but side quests do play an important role. They shape how people in the city look upon you, and slowly you begin to take a side:- Templar or Mage. I found this storyline to be fascinating, and watching someone you helped (or didn’t help) show up 3 or 4 years later could either be an awesome thing, or bite you in the ass. That mage you helped in act 1? They could come back as a blood mage in act 3 and try to kill you. Your decisions have consequences, and all the choices are morally grey – very few are black and white.

The Bad: The only really bad element to me was the lack of dungeon/mansion maps. They reused the same 5 or 6 maps for every dungeon or mansion you went into. This got to be boring and repetitive over time. Would it have killed them to create a few more different maps?

The Romance: Bioware really outdid themselves with the romance options this time around. There are four romance options, two men and two women, and they are all able to be romanced by either a male or a female protagonist. Well played, Bioware. It’s so rare to see bisexuality in a video game, that this pretty much blew me away. The two male romance options are Anders and Fenris, and the female options are Merrill and Isabella. In my first playthrough I thought for sure I was going for the rogue sea captain Isabella…. and then Merrill opened her mouth. Merrill is played by Torchwood actress Eve Myles, and I had no clue she was doing a voice in the game. In about two hot seconds I had changed my mind and went after Merrill. It takes awhile to be able to romance anyone (think in terms of years) but it was worth it. I did have a good laugh that you can ask her to move in with you the day after you sleep with her. I had about a thousand lesbian U-Haul jokes running through my head, but I’ll refrain from putting them in this review. Merrill was pretty easy to romance, and in my current game I am going after Isabella, and it is much trickier to win her heart.

If you have bought the DLC The Exiled Prince, you have the option of a fifth romance with Sebastian. Only women can romance him, and from what I hear it’s a very chaste romance with no option of “closing the deal.” Not really my thing, but some people might enjoy going for that.
I enjoyed that the romance wasn’t just a one-time thing. If you visit your home at night, your love interest might be there and start up a unique conversation. If you bring them along on a quest, there might be some hilarious dialogue between them and the other companions about your relationship. During one quest a NPC (non playable character) was flirting with me and Merrill got jealous. Her comments made me laugh out loud. In general, the romance aspect was well written, well acted, and well thought out.

Overall, I thought the game was fun, the storyline compelling, and the ending made me scream “there better be a third game!” They ended the story on a cliffhanger that will make me storm the Bioware offices if they don’t make another game to answer the burning questions they left the players with. The gameplay was decent, the graphics excellent, and the chances of you playing this game multiple times to see different scenarios is quite high. As a lesbian gamer, the romances were just the icing on the cake, albeit a very tasty rainbow-uhaul-gay cake. I would recommend picking up this game, but be prepared to have 50+ hours of your life sucked away…. in a good way.

Review by: Dany, aka Xan

“Dragon Age II” gets the L Word group scene rating. That is to say some of the greatest parts of The L Word were always when the gang got together, the banter, the adventure, the friendship and loves. “Dragon Age II is brilliant fun and will keep you busy for many many hours.

Our hero Isaac Clarke is back for another round with the creepy necromorphs. We’ll try not to give away any major spoilers (who wants spoilers in their review! No way, it’s far more fun to have the story unfold for you). You may recall we kind of loved “Dead Space”, let’s see if “Dead Space 2″ can match it.

Visceral games and EA once more bring us a horror game that is very special indeed. Isaac Clarke somehow managed to survive the horrors aboard the Ishimura and finds himself on Sprawl, a habitat on one of the moons of Saturn and so the game throws you right in.

As with its predecessor “Dead Space”, you play Isaac Clarke in this third-person shooter. Problem is Isaac has a few psych issues and his dead girlfriend Nicole keeps popping up to throw him off his game (no pun intended). Add to this the environment you’re in is running wild with psychotic necromorphs, who basically want to rip your face and limbs off and things aren’t what you might call peachy.

Necromorphs come in a range of ugly, from the small fast ones, to the large regenerating ones, to all the ugly in-between. The trick with most of them is, shoot their limbs and if they’re a bit on the big side, shoot anything that looks like it might be glowing yellow (weak spot!).

This being “Dead Space 2″ you have a multitude of weapons, including your favourites from “Dead Space”. A smart cookie will choose a weapon and upgrade that sucker whenever you get the chance to do so, this will aid you no end in the later levels. Speaking of the levels, there’s 15 in the game, some long, some seem to fly by. All in all though you’re probably looking at around 10-12 hours play time to finish it. You will also get some cool armour upgrades if you choose to purchase them. Credits can be found laying around, or on bodies and in boxes, collect as many as you can to buy things in the shop. Nodes also exist as they did in “Dead Space” and you can collect and use these to upgrade your suit and weapons on the handy upgrade benches dotted around the levels (sparingly)

The story in “Dead Space 2″ is great, it’s compelling, interesting and keeps you on your toes. Characters are great and you never quite know what you’re in for, at least for the most part. Graphically things look similar, yet more polished. It even seems there may well be more than the odd nod in the direction of “BioShock” with some of the environments. The ambiance of the entire thing is smart, with movie touches throughout, steam vents gush at you when you least expect it, lights flicker, shadows jump and it all feels quite movie-like in its execution. The sound too is superb, adding more than a few scares in aural manner alone. The deaf or hard of hearing gamer should still be able to plow their way through without issue.

Female gamer angle
Although you play Isaac Clarke, there are some cool female characters in “Dead Space 2″. We won’t give away any spoilers here, we’ll just cover them briefly. Firstly there is your dead girlfriend Nicole Brennan, she is one creepy chick who just wants you to see the light… in her eyes and you will, oh yes, you will. Next up there’s Daina Le Guin (nice sci-fi shootout there we think), Daina is the first female character you meet in your travels aside from the aforementioned dead girlfriend Nicole. Daina sounds Australian, probably because she is voiced by Aussie actress Tahyna Tozzi. Lastly there’s Ellie Langford, a heavy equipment pilot, you’re probably going to like her the most, again, she sounds Australian, but it’s actually British actress Sonita Henry who does the voice. Not bad, three female characters, sadly all peripheral as usual, but at the very least you’re going to love one of them, so we’ll forgive that because the one in question is fairly awesome.

Overall “Dead Space 2″ is a fantastic game, I can barely think of a bad thing to say. I suppose the worst that could be said about it is, it’s linear, but then that is to be expected with this type of title. Environments are great and varied enough for you to really feel the sprawling nature of them. The developers have managed to craft a wonderful horror story, with a real human core. There’s mayhem, panic, a few fairly simple puzzles, zero-G environments and more, all packed into a finely crafted third person gore-fest. This is a truly great sequel to another fantastic game. If you missed “Dead Space” get it cheap, finish it, all so you can play this one. Wonderful and with a kick ass female character in the story to boot.

“Dead Space 2″ has to get the ‘Angry Unraveling Bette L Word rating. This is what “Dead Space” got and the same rule applies here. When Bette Porter unraveled she was one scary bitch, she was also gorgeous and all alone, but for her demons. This sums up Dead Space 1 and 2 for us, it is scary, beautiful and you’re all alone. Dead Space 2 brings more of the same, with some awesome new polish, like Angry Bette in a really nice suit.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit – Full Written Game Review

When you hear that EA are teaming up with Criterion Games for a Need for Speed title, it’s time to get excited. Criterion are of course the guys and gals behind the multi-platform “Burnout” games, including “Burnout”, “Burnout 2: Point of Impact”, “Burnout 3: Taken”, “Burnout Revenge” and “Burnout: Paradise”. Now Criterion bring us the latest game in the “Need for Speed” franchise, that of “Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit”.

If the name sounds familiar you’re clearly a veteran gamer with a game titled “Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit” releasing way back in September 1998. Criterion have taken the franchise back to its roots in more than name only, with more exotic cars and of course awesome police chases.

“Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit” takes place in Seacrest County, an open world with a single player mode of around 14 hours length. Needless to say, most of the gameplay is based around the cat-and-mouse shenanigans of police chases, some of which you are the cat (chasing the mouse) and some vice versa. “Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit” features some of the sweetest vehicles you’re likely to see in a racing title, tricked out police cars with EMP pulse weapons and spike strips to make any hoons night more of a nightmare.

Chasing down an assailant in a tricked out cop car is awesome and the detail in the vehicle models is great, right down to the rims. Of course running from the cops in a tricked out sports car is also a lot of fun, both of these ‘careers’ are accessed via a map system in which you choose the next event to take part in. Progression is simple enough, do things in a certain time and it will of course unlock new vehicles and modes of play.

A cool addition to “Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit” is the “Autolog” which sees your friends times appearing after each race, telling you who of your friends you beat, or if their time was better than yours. This addition was likened to being Facebook for Need for Speed, given it’s essentially a social feature that shows you how your friends are doing on the same events. This means you can compete with your friends without actually ever racing against them online, though that is always an option too with multi-player.

This being a Criterion title there is oodles of replayability. Events you have already done can be revisited at any time and you can try and better the score / medal gained and this will be updated on the Autolog.

Graphics and sound in “Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit” is superb, the navigation and map system works a treat, though lacking the panache of say “Midnight Club: LA”. The environment of Seacrest County is huge (allegedly 4 times the size of “Burnout Paradise”). Locations feature some truly stunning detail, from the distance vistas, to the forests and coasts, everything is polished to within an inch of its virtual life. Audio too features a 5.1 soundtrack featuring great music and sound effects, with police banter adding to proceedings.

Female Gamer Angle on Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit:

Given this is a racing title, there’s little female input, all the artwork for the game seems to suggest you’re male, as does the ingame cues. However, as this is a racing game, there could be anyone in the hot seat tearing up the road, so it’s really a double edged sword. Given the cars are the playable characters as it were, there’s no point in whining there’s no playable female, anyway aren’t most cars named after women.

Anything negative to add? Well, not much, controls can feel a little skittish until you get used to the art of drifting around bends, it also would have been nice to have the “takedown” feature since sideswiping other vehicles will generally see you lose control as they carry on their merry way as though it were a small nudge. There also isn’t much in the way of vehicle upgrades, so people who enjoy tweaking their cars to the enth degree will probably be disappointed, for me though this didn’t affect the game too much. Overall though “”Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit” is a sweet ride and a great example of how to do an arcade racer the right way.

Format reviewed: Xbox 360 (cross format title)