It’s that time again, when we get the slightly remixed transcript of the latest episode submitted to Ciao. It’s the Kinect Sports text review and it includes some fresh remarks, such as the one you may find after the break:

It’s a little known, but well spread, disease in games journalism that launch titles get artificially inflated scores. This has inevitably happened with the Kinect‘s first crop of games, but it’s thankfully nowhere near as pronounced as say, the Xbox 360‘s. I’m not about to start analyzing this right now, I just want to point out and marvel at the fact that Perfect Dark Zero, one of the worst and most disappointing games of all time, currently has a Metacritic score of 81.

Fantastic.

It’s time to finally decipher what I was trying to say in my fast-talking Dance Central video review, with the text review version, alternatively titled “Dance Central Gets You Dancing“.

It’s mostly a remix of the video’s script, with some new insights thrown in, as you can see in the passage after the break:

There is a slight difference in tone between my text reviews and video scripts and I’ll admit this one reads more like the latter. It’s definitely easier for me to write the review properly then whip up the script, but thinking of the script first is much more fun! I’ll probably switch up the order a few times in 2011, for variety, but the next review is again script-first and should be up before Christmas.

One issue the title alludes to but I didn’t manage to explicitly address in either of the reviews, is that it kinda bothers me that Harmonix knew Dance Central was going to be one of the top selling Kinect titles, no matter what. It allowed them to nonchalantly cut features when, had this been a Wii title, it would have resulted in a certain critical & commercial failure.

Now, it is entirely plausible that had Harmonix gone for those extra features, they would have spread themselves too thin and the gameplay would have suffered. At the same time, it’s not that outlandish a possibly that they would have pulled through successfully, and deliver a clearly superior game, pretty much what we’ll inevitably get with Dance Central 2.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, pulling punches and playing it safe was the smart move, but I always liked the credo “no guts, no glory”.

In case you couldn’t get enough of my Metroid: Other M video review, or I was talking way too fast for your poor human ears, there’s a slightly remixed version of the transcript available over at Ciao.

It’s pretty much what you’d hear in the video, but it does contain some different takes and brand new comments, such as:

Some further comments:

• Writing the text review after the script is much weirder than the other way around.
• Despite having about six thousand words between them, I still didn’t manage to talk about how Other M actually raised my opinion of the Prime Trilogy and even Metal Gear Solid 4! I find that Other M and MGS4 fail for a lot of the same reasons, but even Hideo Kojima knew enough about story structure to resolve his plot-lines, albeit haphazardly, and get the hero to confront the villains, even if the showdowns sometimes were anticlimactic. And, he even makes most of his cutscenes skippable!
• Rewatching the video always cracks me up, if only because I find my efforts to talk slowly as hilarious as they are ineffective.

One of the hottest titles this holiday season and the biggest Shigeru Miyamoto release in a long while, I take a look at Nintendo‘s New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii.

As the seminal (PC) gaming connoisseurs over at RPS might put it, my analysis starts a bit like:

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three years since my review of the DS version. I think that my writing style has changed a bit, but I have an innate aversion to looking at my older pieces for too long, so I can’t say for sure.

Break-time is over and we return to reviews of considerable proportions, only fit for Ciao!, with my take on Assassin’s Creed II. If three thousand words feel a bit too much for you, and I can’t possibly blame you, show a little more patience and wait for the video version, already in the editing room!

Even though I did like the original and had high hopes for this one, Ubisoft still managed to surprise me positively with Assassin’s Creed II. More insight when the video review goes live, hopefully by the end of the week!

Little Mac’s polygonal update with the Punch-Out!! remake coincides with a fresh approach to my reviews; this is the first one written in conjunction with the storyboard for the video review.

It also pretty much served as the script for the video so, even though they still are quite different, the two versions are as close as they’re likely to get. It would certainly be very interesting to know which format you thought was best and I’ll investigate with polls, as soon as I get the rest of the site in working order.

During the research for this review, I couldn’t resist popping in the old Super Punch Out!! for the SNES. I remembered playing it of course, but I was shocked to find out that not only had I finished it, I had two separate save game profiles, both with some insanely fast time records!

I really hope some time traveling was involved because that was fifteen years ago and I am way too young to start feeling old!

One more piece that really had me appreciating the qualities of the video format, I tackle the poster child for PC gaming: Empire: Total War.

The Total War franchise has such massive games and I am such a stickler for detail that rainforests have to die when I write-up reviews like this.

Even when they are published online.

There are just so many things to show and although I do love describing them on paper, I understand there should be a less strenuous alternative for those that would like to keep the Amazon, as well as their eyesights, intact.

And, of course, since my OCD prevents me from writing a synopsis like “Empire is pretty good if you have a monster PC, monstrous patience and mostly nothing but free time.” and calling it a day, that alternative will just have to be video reviews!

Back to Ciao! to review a high-profile release, this time Fable 2 for the X360 and, later, the PC.

I always have fun with the Fable games, if only because of the irony that even though they feature fantastic realms, grotesque monsters and larger-than-life heroes & villains, I always think of them as the most generic stories ever. In a word-association psychology test, I’d always answer “fable” to “fantasy” and vice versa.

Anyway, allow me to disclose my open letter to developer Lionhead‘s spearhead, Peter Molyneux.

I’m still waiting on that, but, even with the “bug”, Fable 2 was pretty enjoyable.

My pivotal review of the PS3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Tactical Espionage Action.

Pivotal not because it features anything new itself, rather because, behind the scenes, I was solidly thinking “video-version” as I was writing it. There were so many sketches I wanted to do, so many things that would be easier to explain with footage! I couldn’t stop thinking about filming this project and sure enough, bam! One year later we have the video review/playthrough.

We’re talking lightning-fast response times here.

Anyway, between the hour+ of video and the 3500+ words of this text version, I probably don’t need to add any more insight on this one.

Starting off the year with a game that kept a low profile at the time but went on to start a blockbuster series: Assassin’s Creed for the X360, PS3 and, later, the PC.

Assassin’s Creed was a very divisive game that you could love as easily as you could hate and it was apparent which way the experience would go for you within the first hour of gameplay. I belonged to the former group and quite liked it… even though I vividly remember the ending making me furious.