We continue our analysis of Kinect launch titles and get on location to check the enjoyability, as well as the authenticity, of Rare’s Kinect Sports.

Featuring strikes, spikes & shocking swerves.

Just under 20 minutes, this review might seem needlessly lengthy, especially for a casual game, but there is a lot to be said about the Kinect, Rare and sports simulations in general. I hope we’ve managed to keep a refreshing pace throughout.

Taking a cue from Red Letter Media, I’ve also added background music pretty much everywhere and I think it worked out great. The narration sounds remarkably clean too, so, as far as the audio department is concerned, this just might be the best episode yet.

It is definitely the official season finalé, since we shot it in early December only to post-it mid-January, and I figure it kinda fits the erratic scheduling we had for season 1. Stay tuned for season 2, featuring a more traditional timetable, but starting with a more fourth dimensional episode!

We take on Harmonix‘s Dance Central, easily the hottest title for the newly-launched Kinect, and try to resist the urge to drop it like its hot.

Featuring robots, dance-offs and pirouettes.

There is certainly some sort of magic at work when it comes to Harmonix-made games and, like the best forms of magic, it only works when you believe in it. And, while most everyone wants to be a rock star, the question that will determine Dance Central’s commercial success is “What’s the percentage of people that want to be dancers?”.

Just Dance showed us that it’s probably quite big and Microsoft will certainly hope so since this is Kinect’s only hope for a passable first impression. Every single Kinect title so far had to cut corners, but Dance Central is the only one to do it cleverly enough to remain presentable. It’s certainly not the title that will make everyone instantly love the peripheral, but it might well be the only one that doesn’t instill a feeling of terrible disappointment.

Metroid switches development houses once again, as Team Ninja tries to provide some insight on Samus’ past and we wonder if they could have failed more epically.

Featuring monologues, monotones and many destruction sequences.

I really need to work on my ridiculously slow editing speed, not only because I’d like to get my opinions out to you guys faster, but also because I force myself into a media blackout until I get the review done. This, in turn, is bad, not only because I do enjoy my Zero Punctuations but also because I end up feeling guilty anyway if I make the same joke as someone else. And, it turns out, Yahtzee opens up with the same crack as I. Sorry!

Of course, by the time I get to that opening joke, Yahtzee’s review is already over, so maybe I also need to work on making these videos shorter?

Nah, I know you guys come here for the most impossibly detailed reviews this side of Alpha Centauri.

Speaking of games with Sid Meier‘s name in them, will I get to Civilization 5 before November? Time will tell!

It’s been a long time coming, but the video version is finally up: Join the JRT Show as I critique one of the holiday season’s heaviest hitters, Nintendo‘s return to its oldest franchise, New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii! Featuring dragons, mushrooms and pillow-fights.

This episode has been at 95% since early December, so there exist a couple of dated comments, but NSMB Wii is still going strong in the charts; I figure the review can still be helpful. The sound should be clearer than usual, but there are a couple of instances near the end where it fluctuates out of its own volition. You’d think it’d be easy to fix, but it only appears at the final encode and not while editing, so I suspect metaphysical shenanigans. Probably one of those damn Boos.

Next review will be of a much fresher release and it will be up… soon!

A remake to a game as universally beloved as this SCUMM™ classic can’t possibly leave a real nerd unmoved. Johnny Reviews Tonight The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition for the PC, Xbox Live Arcade & iPhone! Featuring pirates, carnivals and ambient sound effects.

Monkey Island SE was stealth-released amongst the flutter of countless monocles and spillage of gallons of tea by surprised gentlemen everywhere. I thought I could resist its siren call and focus on a concurrent title but, come release day, I knew I just had to play and review it properly. Whether it matched my expectations or tarnished cherished memories, it would definitely make for a good show. So, the other review I was working on was put on hold and I barely didn’t make posting this before leaving for holiday again.

But it’s a great way to start September!

This is my first “straight-to-video” review: the script was written solely for a video version, as approaching this from both the perspective of someone who has played the original and of someone who had not, wouldn’t work as well on paper. It also contains a few spoilers, but I believe you can only pick them out if you already know what’s going on.

Find out if “Punch-Out!!” is worth picking out by checking out the video review! I promise it doesn’t rhyme nearly as much as this teaser.

But it does have horrible puns!

Even though I had much less time to map it out, I was convinced that things would go much smoother than in the saga of the MGS4 playthrough. My optimism was duly greeted by a barrage of malfunctions and misunderstandings that delayed the review considerably, but, hey, better late than never.

There are a couple of gags that reference the MGS4 episodes, but they are quick enough not to bother anyone who hasn’t seen those. Think of the gags as a special treat for anyone who heroically sat through that viewing marathon.

Trailer:

All five parts of my feature-length review/playthrough of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PS3. Featuring sketches, guests, opinions, Life, the Universe and Everything.

The above player should play all of them in order and you can change between them using the guide. Direct links for mixing and matching at your leisure:

I’ve been wanting to do a video review since before my text review of MGS4 was published and Metal Gear seemed like the perfect foil. I’ve been planning out the scenes as I was writing the review and, as time passed without biting the bullet and going ahead with production, I kept story-boarding again and again.

This is probably why I originally envisioned the video as a normal fifteen-minutes-tops review and ended up with this personal epic. There were so many ideas I just couldn’t bear to cut, which inflated the project to five different parts, one for each of MGS’ acts.

Even when shooting started however, I thought I’d wrap the shoot, edit and publish the thing in less than a week.

Ha!

Anyway, there is a bit of drama surrounding my inaugural video review (that is actually a playthrough) but, long story short, we ended up with this gargantuan critique, that has a combined runtime of one hour, twenty minutes. I love it.

It’s still shorter than MGS4′s ending cutscene.

Trailer:

Behind the Scenes: