Roberto Nieves

Transformers One is a great film, one of the best Transformers movies, and just a great time. The movie reminded me a lot of the first LEGO movie with its presentation and comedy. I was a little skeptical at first but when the movie was over, my only wish is that it were longer. For starters, the casting was excellent. Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax/Optimus works very well but Brian Tyree Henry stole the show as Megatron. Scarjo as Elita One and Michael Keegan as Bumblebee all worked tremendously well. You could tell the team was having a blast making this and they weren't phoning it in. Visually, the movie was stunning. The character models are all fantastic and the landscapes were stunning. You felt like you were on an alien world that is constantly in motion. The music from Brian Tyler was a nice touch, being he composed the music for Transformers Prime. Everything else, the story, humor, and action was great! It's a surprisingly heartfelt and even tragic tale met with fantastic action piece and surprises. I really wanted to see more by the end but what we get is great! See it twice! All transformers fans, from G1 to Beast Wars to bayverse will love this one! Let's hope the planned trilogy happens!

A surprise release for 2024, Akimbot is awesome! It falls right into the ebb and flow of PS2 action platformers, such as Sly Cooper, Jak 2, and Ratchet and Clank. There is a ton of weaponry, satisfying action, and solid platforming in a universe entirely inhabited by robots. Main characters EXE and Shipset have plenty of personality also. I just wish there was a little bit more personality and character written into the overall game but the edgy attitudes and highflying action provided a wonderful time. Akimbot is a recommended pickup!

Fort Solis is an awesome horror sci-fi mystery. It's on the short side at 4-5 hours but it's an incredible thrill ride you won't soon forget! When I demo'd this game at PAX EAST in 2023, I knew we were in for something really unique. Having played and 100%'d the game, I can say it was close to brilliance but is still very much worth your time and energy. Fort Solis leans on good old-fashioned horror and thrills. You don't know where the threat is. You don't know what it is. The base is mysteriously empty. All that remains are the lights, some of them flickering, along with red adorning the walls. There are no guns or weapons. There are no crafts. There is exploring the base and searching for clues. Fort Solis plays like a cinematic movie but is still a game in some ways. On the gameplay side, things are limited. There are puzzles to solve and codes to crack, as well as items to collect. For completionists, there are 143 items to collect. Emails. audio, and video. Search absolutely everything and view everything to stitch together the bigger picture. For a game like this, the biggest strengths are the story and characters. Roger Clark, who was Arthur Morgan in RDR 2, gives a heck of a performance. He's just a 9-5 engineer investigating a mystery and react appropriately as he slowly sees he is in for a nightmare. He is incredibly likeable and cracks much humor. Julia Brown is a solid secondary lead with her own attributes. The script ahs the two banter and bounce of each other nicely. It's something we get plenty of and wish we had more of. The malevolent Wyatt is portrayed by Troy Baker. Without spoiling anything, I just really liked his own arc, even if it is a dark one. As for the rest of the story, I'm pleased to say it surprised me and doesn't lean heavily on tropes. I was surprised at the overall synopsis and how it strayed away from what I was expecting. That being said, the ending needed work but it's my hope we get a sequel. This was a great 4-5 hour thrill ride with strong performances and and interesting story. It's more of a cinematic experience then a game but it nonetheless demonstrates how powerful games can be in visual storytelling. It could have been longer and had more variety to gameplay but this was a thrill ride I won't soon forget. Great job to the developers. Highly recommended from me.

The year is 1999. You are about to play the fastest racing video game since F-Zero X. Over twenty years later, this game holds up. This takes one of the coolest part of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and turns it into a sublime racer. No weapons. No exploits. Just pure speed and skill. The nice thing about this new release is that it appears to be the Dreamcast or PC version, with pre-rendered cutscenes, a better soundtrack, better visuals, and so on. if anything, i don't remember it being so short. Only a couple of hours long. But man, is it euphoric! Even for those that didn't grow up with this game, it's still worth getting for the gameplay alone. This is another example of what games were and what they need to be. Take a concept and go for it. A game like this today would be laced with loot boxes and other anti-consumer nonsense. I'm glad this came back to remind us of what games were and what they need to be again. This is a big recommend from me. 2 players versus, a whole campaign, dozens of racers to choose from, this is a grand time in a galaxy far, far away. This is podracing!

This is a review of the rerelease. The only drawback I can give this game is the price point. $30 is a bit up there. Still, this is not only one of the very best Star Wars games ever made but one of the very best shooters. It's Star Wars X Rambo. You, Kyle Katarn, a one-man army, a cutting-edge weapon. It's you against the Galactic Empire's most dangerous. This is where the Dark Trooper was first introduced in the Star Wars universe. Before Andor, there was Kyle Katarn. Without Kyle, there would be no Andor. This is the part of Star Wars not explored. Beyond Jedi and Sith and the Force, there was a galactic Civil War and everything in between. We know more now but at the time, you had to use your imagination in discovering these unexplored places. This is the game that answered the question of who stole the Death Star Plans. While that may have been retconned in Rogue One, the Dark Troopers I'd like to believe are still canon. For those unfamiliar, this is a Doom clone. 3D levels and 2D assets with 2.5D enemies. It is euphoric taking the staple E-111 Blaster rifle from the movies and mowing down Imperials like a lawnmower cutting grass. The bevy of weapons you get to use are a blast and the levels themselves have a personality to them. While there is a wireframe map to use, it is easy to get lost in these labyrinth-focused levels. There is not auto healing or checkpoints but there is autosaving. Adding to this is Nightdive Studios restoration efforts. The game looks and plays like new. They didn't have to go that far but they made the game look remarkably good without sacrificing what made the original so good. Modern controls, a plethora of accessibility settings, vibration feedback, and for PS5 owners, the speaker making sounds in the controller for extra immersion. This is a huge recommend from me. This is not some relic that should have stayed in the past but a benchmark of what games were and what they need to return to. Make them fun, simple, and imaginative. Give the player a challenge and a reward and they'll come back. Star Wars fan or not, buy this! May the Force be with you!

Super Stardust Portable just made its way to PS5 with Trophy support and a platinum to earn. Having just earned it, it was a delightful return to an all-time great. Super Stardust Portable was released on the PSP. The handheld PSP felt like a device from the future with high-quality PS2 graphics with a PS3 interface. It was a golden era, and Super Stardust Portable was in that era. The game is an exciting twin-stick shooter that feels like a spiritual successor to asteroids. Different weapons, a pulsing soundtrack, cool graphics, and boss fights all make this one an endless barrel of fun! I really like the planets in particular, with the smaller details like giant craters and such. I just wish there were more enemies and planets. The bossfights could have used more work too. However, what you have is an incredibly fun and strong game and in the end, that's all you need. Definitely play it. the gameplay is strong and the journey to chase the platinum trophy isn't very long.

Without Berserk, Frenzy, and Robotron 2084, many video games of the present would not exist. This Recharged update as part of the Recharged line of Atari games is another fine example of how to do an update. The game is silky smooth with the right amount of heft and momentum. It'll put up a challenge but not be impossible. The music, presentation, and gameplay all work. Like all the other Recharged games, the focus is on the gameplay and the gameplay is awesome! Definitely recommended for players that want to play something quick and easy and those that have strong fond memories of the original Berserk.

It's a wonderful update to a classic game with polish that exceeds that of most big-budget games. It's filled with color and there's plenty of new additions to the gameplay. Singularity bombs, three-way lasers, long anime laser cannons. There's also two-player gameplay and a bevy of missions to complete. While it may not have a storyline like PSOne Asteroids, the focus on fun gameplay make this one a must-have, no matter what platform you have! It's only a few dollars. Buy it! This is fantastic for the older gamers and younger players. I can easily imagine parents that grew up on the original showing their kids this new one and teaching them a trick or two about good old-fashioned arcade fun!

What could have been the most amazing x-men movie became an absolute embarrassment to a legacy of solid films, even if X3 continues to remain polarizing to this day. The opening sequence with rescuing the astronauts was excellent, but its all downhill from here. Even when you don't look for flaws, the flaws, form the acting to the lines to the pacing, are awful. Even the little things get you guessing as to what went wrong and why. How is that Magneto went from being able to lift an entire baseball stadium effortlessly to barely being able to lift a New York City Subway train car? This could have bee the beginning of something amazing and it was such a gargantuan misfire. I kind of pretend this one doesn't exist. But, if you like it, good for you.