From Dust Review

ign.com

Beautiful yet menacing, From Dust leaves a lasting impression.

God games 

are usually all about power. They give you omnipotence and the choice to do with it what you will – be good or evil, vengeful or merciful, kind or cruel. They give you power over your worshippers, the ability to command, help or destroy them. They court player fantasies.

From Dust 

is a god game in a different sense. You are not all-powerful; instead, you only have control over the land. You're able to shape and reshape it by scooping up the earth and water and magma in undulating orbs and depositing it elsewhere, creating bridges across channels, islands out of cooled lava and lakes in the middle of the desert. The people of the tribe under your care rely on you to make their harsh world habitable, but you have no influence over what they do.

Call of Juarez

We wanna go back in time.

The Call of Juarez franchise always interested me in the past because of its western themes. The previous titles told interesting enough stories, and had engaging enough characters, that they were appealing despite their lack of polish. Call of Juarez: The Cartel, however, doesn't even succeed in this regard. The characters are unlikeable and under developed, and the story is completely forgettable. Beyond that, The Cartel feels rushed, unpolished, and repetitive to the point of frustration.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel tells the story of three law enforcement officers put together on a special task force to take on the infamous Mexican drug cartels. Of course, they all come from different backgrounds, making each of the three playable characters a little different. Ben is a typical gunslinger, sticking out like a sore thumb with his predisposition to using old cowboy revolvers. Eddie and Kim, on the other hand, are sassy modern cops who've grown up in the streets, and come with all the clich�d dialogue and one liners you'd expect. Together they form a motley crew, one that has to fight against enemies on the outside and within.

The problem is that the story fails to be engaging. The characters are caricatures of American law enforcement officials, with laughable dialogue that makes them hard to take seriously. Moreover, all the intrigue and emotion that developer Techland attempts to seed in the story is pointless because they never create any good bonds or trust between the characters. You don't like them, you know they don't like each other, and you don't really care what happens to them.

Dirt 3 Review

The race for the genre's crown of best is always a very exciting occurrence. Last year Codemasters won the BAFTA award with an excellent re-introduction to F1 racing, a title that received high honours from this site among others. Now they're introducing Dirt 3, is it another potential winner? Let's find out.

Modes

This year's instalment of the rally series offers plenty of changes including a new menu scheme. The trailer sequence is gone and replaced by a simple menu structure that is highly inspired by the triangular shape. It definitely reminds me of the Need for Speed series for some reason, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Without the trailer I can't help feeling less immersed into the whole driver experience.

The now simplified menu gives access to a host of familiar modes including: Dirt tour, multiplayer and singleplayer. The last mode offers all the different types of racing and grants control over all the criteria.

Dirt Tour

As I mentioned earlier, the career mode in Dirt is no longer accompanied by a nice little trailer sequence that stitches it all together. Instead every year of racing is represented by an unwrapped triangle. You will earn points by participating in races and once you've earned enough, the grand final will open up.

The races offer plenty of variation and challenges for gamers of all backgrounds. All the previous types of off-roading are back, but to mix things up Codies added a few more into the mix including smash attack and Gymkhana. Both of them rely heavily on the art of doing tricks on wheels and moving about with absolute ease. While they definitely help cement Dirt 3 as the ultimate arcade racer, I'm not a huge fan of this type of racing. Luckily they can be skipped by excelling in other, more meaningful, events.

Great success comes with more privileges than just the option to skip. Podium finishes will earn points that go into Dirt's ranking system. By obtaining higher levels other teams will offer you a seat in their team. Most of the time these offers will be a trade off between having a faster car and earning more credits for the win, but luckily there're some exceptions to this rule.

Driving