Game Reviews May

Portal 2

Every bit as entertaining and funny as the first game, Portal 2 expands on everything that made Portal so great and makes every effort to feel like a true sequel and not just a cash in. There's more than just Portals at work here as you try and fight your way out of Aperture Science again, you'll get to interact with other characters, delve deeper into the facilities back story and play with new toys like the propulsion gel. If you liked the first game you'll love this one, aside from one or two puzzle-less sequences that drag a little, the rest of the game moves at a cracking pace and throws something new in just when things start feeling old. 9/10

Stranglehold

This is as basic as things get, John Woo takes his famous slow motion gunplay scenes from his films and makes an entire game out of them. The cut scenes handle all the exposition (which I still can't understand) while the gameplay is non stop action. It gets old pretty quickly as levels repeat the same dive-and-shoot mechanics over and over and over again, but it has a kind of clunky old school charm about it that makes you enjoy the carnage. 6/10

Left 4 Dead

Work together or die, those words perfectly sum up the play style of Valves Left 4 Dead games. What starts as another zombie game quickly becomes an exercise in team work as you discover you must rely on your friends selflessness to pull you out of every hairy situation that arises. It makes for a nerve wracking experience unlike any other and features so much replay value thanks to the ever changing zombie spawning that you'll want to play it every time you have 3 friends in the same room. 8/10

Left 4 Dead 2

It gets better though, everything that made the first game great has been made even better and then expanded on. The levels are much better, there are more special infected, more intense scenarios and the addition of melee combat which ads a more brutal feeling to the game. Due to the heightened violence the game was heavily censored in Australia, don't even think about buying a local version, import it if you can. The violence is what makes the atmosphere work, without it, it's kind of boring. 9/10

Splinter Cell Conviction

Forget the sneaking around and disposing of dead bodies that made up most of the previous Splinter Cell titles, this time Sam Fisher is his own man and doesn't mind making a mess. If you're okay with this fact you'll have a blast with Conviction. There is still plenty of sneaking to do but when you blow your cover you can simply try to take out everyone in sight, and blowing up half a building isn't really frowned upon. The story mode may be a tad short but there's a fantastic co-op story tacked on and plenty of other challenges to keep you coming back. 8/10

Mortal Kombat

Another title that didn't make the Australian Censorship Board very happy, Mortal Kombat (the series reboot covering the first 3 games) sets out to not only bring back the gore that made the series so famous but actually become a decent fighting game. While the gore is certainly front and center of the experience, I was surprised to find a competent and highly enjoyable fighter at its core. Don't be put off by this games childishly violent exterior, there's a deep and rewarding fighter hiding in here and it makes this quite possibly the greatest MK game to date. And yes, the bosses are still insanely cheap and frustrating but hey, that's Mortal Kombat. 9/10