Rec Room

Review: AMC's The Walking Dead

No guts, no glory
There's quite a lot to like about The Walking Dead . That is, if you can make it past the opening sequence.

By: RYAN STEWART | October 28, 2010

Review: Medal of Honor misses the target

Fog of war
Could this be, at long last, the video game that deals frankly with the morass of war? Don't kid yourself.

By: MITCH KRPATA | October 31, 2010

Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Shadow falls
I couldn't play Castlevania: Lords of Shadow for five minutes without wanting to punch somebody involved in its creation.

By: MITCH KRPATA | October 13, 2010

Do violent video games beget real violence?

By: MADDY MYERS | September 28, 2010

Review: Halo: Reach

A long goodbye
Throughout Halo: Reach 's campaign, you are haunted by the thought that, at the end, you will die — and that with your death, the Halo empire will come to an end.

By: MADDY MYERS | September 21, 2010

The actor looks back at Arrested Development and forward to Running Wilde
When it went off the air, in 2006, Arrested Development had already cemented its status as one of the great TV comedies of all time.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 14, 2010

Review: Metroid: Other M

Mutiny on the bounty hunter
The best in-game storytelling I’ve seen occurs at the climax of Super Metroid .

By: MITCH KRPATA | September 14, 2010

Fall Games Preview: Worlds in motion

Fall video games bust a move
This November marks the fifth anniversary of Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, and four years since the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. Yet there's no Xbox 720, PlayStation 4, or Super Wii anywhere in sight.

By: MITCH KRPATA | September 14, 2010

Fall TV Preview: No apologies

Too much good TV
Even the most curmudgeonly out there have to admit that television is on a roll.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 14, 2010

Review: Mafia II

Just when you think you're in, Mafia II pushes you back out
Thanks to Goodfellas , The Sopranos , and, oh yeah, The Godfather , the life of a wiseguy has been pretty well deromanticized in popular culture. Credit Mafia II , then, with the difficult task of deconstructing the genre even farther.

By: MITCH KRPATA | September 07, 2010

The Laser Orgy 500: the Phoenix's quest to crown the greatest video game of all time

Battle royal
It all began, as most of our ideas do, with a silly argument at the Phoenix office.

By: RYAN STEWART | September 07, 2010

Review: Hydro Thunder: Hurricane

Hurricane Force: riding a high tide
Another summer, another wave of critically acclaimed downloadable games.

By: MITCH KRPATA | September 01, 2010

Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game

This video game sticks to its niche
The Scott Pilgrim vs. the World franchise is a dork media triathlon encompassing the original graphic-novel series, the movie, and now the video game. Each piece of the Scott Pilgrim tri-force seems designed to persuade you to seek out the other two.

By: MADDY MYERS | August 29, 2010

Review: Starcraft II

It's not too late to join the party
Imagine a game of chess. Now, imagine playing five chess games at the same time, as fast as you can. That would only scratch the surface of the skills you need to play StarCraft .

By: MADDY MYERS | August 15, 2010

Review: Limbo

How low can you go?
"A masterpiece." "Close to perfect." "Genius." "Essential, must-play experience." All these quotes appear on the Metacritic page for a game called Limbo . I'd sure like to play that game. There must have been some kind of mix-up with what I downloaded.

By: MITCH KRPATA | August 04, 2010

Review: DeathSpank

Ron Gilbert flogs the funny bone
"I run into these contrived situations a lot," admits the eponymous hero of DeathSpank , shortly after accepting his zillionth bizarre task from a complete stranger.

By: MITCH KRPATA | July 27, 2010

More spooks

AMC crosses Rubicon
Two years ago, AMC made a deal to develop a series based on Francis Ford Coppola's classic 1974 film The Conversation . That show still hasn't materialized, but with Rubicon , AMC has now brought us a drama with a similar premise.

By: RYAN STEWART | July 27, 2010

Player betrayers

World of Warcraft's privacy-breach bummer
On July 6, Blizzard Entertainment announced that the forums on its immensely popular World of Warcraft would begin to show players' legal names instead of their character names. Blizzard's explanation? "Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment."

By: MADDY MYERS | July 28, 2010

Review: Crackdown 2

Power struggle
It's the curse of the sequel. Crackdown 2 isn't a radical departure from its predecessor. But it feels like a letdown.

By: MITCH KRPATA | July 13, 2010

Review: Singularity

If you haven't played any shooters for the past few years, Singularity will blow your mind. If you have, you probably won't be impressed — "formulaic" doesn't begin to cover it. Still, in spite of copycatting its competitors, Singularity has its charms.

By: MADDY MYERS | July 09, 2010