Gaming off the Beaten Path

Unfortunately, I just learned a few weeks ago that this game exists. I thought I was done with these two, I really did. I reviewed The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends in year one, and it was one of the few games from the early days that I had expectations for going in. And those expectations were very, very low. Every gaming content creator, big or small, blogger or YouTuber, retro or modern, seems to have "that game" that they absolutely hate. The Angry Video Gamee Nerd infamously despises Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde for the NES, for example. Well for me, Rocky and Bullwinkle for the NES is, was and always will be "that game." Simply put, that game made me realize that videogames could, in fact, suck. I had a lot of "bad" games, but most of them offered something, anything that would make you keep playing. Gaming is always better than not gaming, right? I used to think that way as a kid, at least before I played Rocky and Bullwinkle. I remembe...

Last time out, we started our look into XBox 360 action RPG Infinite Undiscovery, covering its story and characters. You should go back and take a look at part 1, whether its on the blog or the pod. But to summarize, IU was, to put it nicely, not great in those categories. Did the gameplay fair any better? Well, I guess I would answer that question with an emphatic "kind of." It may have had a nonsense story with lame characters, but IU definitely has a few bright spots in the gameplay department. A lot more of the experimentation hit here, though there were still plenty of mechanics that could have stood to be cut. Interestingly enough, many IU's gameplay pitfalls were caused by the same mindset as the story's problem. If I could use two words to describe the narrative, they would be "nonsensical" and "bloated." Fortunately, only the latter applied to the gameplay. But before I talk about the bad, I will give IU credit for a few things it did well...