If none of your co-workers or family members have girls in the Girl Scouts, you might find it a little tricky to track down Girl Scout Cookies.

Not if you have a smartphone.

There are a pair of apps — each available for iOS and Android — that allow you to search and find Girl Scout Cookie sales in your area.

One, from Kellogg’s, does a reasonable job of letting you know where the sales are by date and location.

The other, from the Girl Scouts themselves, is a little more robust.

Not only does it allow you to search for sales by day and location, it contains descriptions of all the cookies, includes cookie-buying etiquette (Number 4? ‘Please don’t call us cute’), outlines skills learned from cookie sales and showcases over two dozen videos.

Not only does it allow you to search for sales by day and location, it contains descriptions of all the cookies, includes cookie-buying etiquette (Number 4? ‘Please don’t call us cute’), outlines skills learned from cookie sales and showcases over two dozen videos.

Now you’ve got no excuse not to head on out, get some Thin Mints and support a worthy cause.

Download

Girl Scouts’ app: Android | iOS
Kellogg’s app: Android | iOS

By Beau Yarbrough

“Temple Run 2,” the sequel to the ubiquitous mobile game, is also the fastest mobile game to reach 50 million downloads,  doing so in just in 13 days since the sequel’s release on Jan. 18.

It’s not hard to see why. The original game has been downloaded more than 170 million times, according to franchise developers Imangi Studios. They’re free and, unlike many “free” games, the in-app purchases – extra coins in the original and coins and gems in the sequel – aren’t required to enjoy the game. I’d even argue that buying the extras probably makes the games a little less fun. (Don’t worry about Imangi making their money back: They’ve turned the brand into a franchise, leading to board games, card games and branded spin-offs like Temple Run: Brave along with the inevitable t-shirts and so on.)

The game – and its sequel – are simple. Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones has to run for his life, trying to escape a giant rolling stone ball trap? That’s the game, although Temple Run replaces the iconic stone ball with skull-faced gorillas (a pack of them in the original, a single gigantic one in the sequel).

Along the way, your hero – a red-headed Indiana Jones look-alike named Guy Dangerous – has to leap over and duck under obstacles or cling to precarious ledges. If he runs into too many obstacles or stumbles too many times, his pursuers will catch up to him and devour him. He always loses in the end, but the fun is in seeing if you can get just a bit further the next time, or if you can collect enough coins to unlock better or more frequent power-ups.

Temple Run 2 dramatically improves upon the original’s graphics and trades running through ruins in a tropical rain forest for gorgeous ruins seemingly based on Machu Picchu, high in the Peruvian Andes. (Machu Picchu has traps that shoot jets of flame and giant rolling cylinders covered in spikes, right?) The player will also have to help Guy leap over mountain streams and sheer drop-offs, run along narrow cliffs and duck under logs and chunks of fallen masonry. The sequel also adds ziplines for Guy to slide down and an occasional mine cart sequence that has been my downfall more often than not.

The game runs best on mobile devices released in the last year or two, but should run OK on all but the oldest devices. (And if it doesn’t run well, the original almost surely will.) This is a no-brainer of a download: It’s free, playable in quick 30-second bursts while waiting in line or for an appointment, but is addictive enough to swallow a whole Saturday afternoon if you let it.

The hero’s name may be Guy Dangerous, but this is easily the best Indiana Jones adventure since that business with the Holy Grail.

Temple Run 2
Imangi Studios
iOS/Android/Amazon (Reviewed iOS)
Rated 9+ 

Hitman: Absolution

By Neil Nisperos

The sight of silently creeping up on prey, hidden in the shadows, and pouncing on a sentry – a popular trope of the action genre – appeals to the hunter in all of us.

But unless you have a license to kill,  you can’t do this in real life. So it’s with great fun that in Io’s new Hitman: Absolution,  one can waste hours with garrote wire,  perfecting and honing the deadly craft of eliminating prey.

The game means the return of the bald-headed anti-hero Agent 47, who here gets a large toolbox to ply his trade through a number of villainous hideouts and sticky situations.

Absolution harkens back to the primordial instincts of our hunter ancestors. It’s just fun to creep in the shadows and wait for the right time to strike.

A feature in the game you’ll want to use a lot is instinct mode, which shows Agent 47 where all of the enemies are on the map. A key skill is to implement various electronic switches or to throw objects, which attract enemies and spread them out. Agent 47 can hide and they can get picked off one by one. Always remember to hide your dirty work in a nearby container or closet.

Level design and music are top-notch. The understated tension of low strings, brass notes, and the sudden plink of a piano key provided the appropriate mood as I took my hero past a bevy of enemy sentries, guards, and baddies. You know when you’re in the hit man zone when you find yourself taking deep meditative breaths as you creep through environments swarming with enemies.

Overall, Hitman is a beautifully rendered game of patience and strategy that doesn’t disappoint.  Infiltration was never more fun. Here’s hoping the developers behind Hitman: Absolution make a proper ninja game set in feudal Japan with the same great design.

Hitman: Absolution
Io Interactive/Square Enix
PC, PlayStation 3, XBox 360
Rated M for Mature 

Madden NFL 13, adds a new physics engine to the annual franchise, but the game’s improvements feel more incremental than groundbreaking.

By Jahmal Peters
Contributor

As the story goes, legendary NFL coach John Madden played a significant role in shaping the video game series that would assume his namesake for nearly a quarter century.

As reported in an IGN history of the “Madden NFL” series, the developers who worked on the first version of the game tried to adapt to the hardware limitations of the time by designing the game as a seven-on-seven version of football.

Madden, however, wanted nothing to do with a scaled-down representation of the game.

“If it isn’t 11 on 11, it isn’t real football,” Madden is quoted as saying in the article. “I’m not putting my name on it if it’s not real.”

One can only wonder what might have been had the Hall of Fame coach not exerted his authority over the creative direction of the product and forced it to be as authentic as possible.

This brings us to “Madden NFL 13,” a game that is enjoyable on its own merit but is the latest iteration of a series that has shown glaring signs of stagnation and has been devoid of any revolutionary features that once set the series apart in years past.

Connected Careers

One of EA Games’ most significant changes to Madden is “Connected Careers,” a feature that consolidates Online Franchise, Offline Franchise and Superstar modes of years past into a single play mode.

Connected Careers gives players the option of playing as their favorite NFL player or coach, creating a fictional NFL personalities or assuming the role of one of many NFL legends including Madden himself.

Depending on their choice, the player will then select a backstory (first round pedigree, undrafted free agent, scrub, etc …) of their created rookie player or assume the role of the player/legend they have chosen.

From there, it’s a matter of building a legacy for the player, coach or entire team.

Madden 13 does a great job of integrating the various modes into a united feature. Frustrated fans of prior versions’ Superstar mode should welcome Connected Careers. Playing the game from the point of view of a single player no longer feels like one is only getting a side dish while the main course is reserved for Franchise mode players.

Connected Careers does an admirable job of making the player care about fictitious rookies thanks to the inclusion of scouting and commentary similar to a previous EA Sports title, EA Head Coach.

EA Sports also added”Game Face” facial recognition software, which allows players to upload a picture of themselves and see themselves in the game.

A notable absence, however, is the inability to import draft classes from NCAA Football 13.

The Infinity Engine

For years, Madden players have clamored for the Euphoria Engine, the proprietary physics engine of Oxford, London-based NaturalMotion.

The engine has been used in many games including Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV.

But the engine’s most notable inclusion came in NaturalMotion’s own non-licensed football game, Backbreaker.

What the game lacked in authentic NFL teams, it more than made up for with realistic, bone crushing, NFL type hits.

When rumors circulated that Madden 13 would feature an all new physics engines, gamers were on the edge of their seat in anticipation.

Many diehard followers of the series knew it wouldn’t be the Euphoria Engine but they hoped the an in-house version, the Infinity Engine, would be just as satisfying.

It is not.

Where the Euphoria Engine delivered fluid and unique tackles on every play, the Infinity Engine still relies on a library of prerendered animations to determine the outcome of a hit.

And while new animations were added to the game, the player is still likely to see the same handful of animations play out in game after game.

The Infinity Engine includes a new balance system that features stumbling animations as a means to convey realism, but as with many features added to EA Sports games, the stumbling animations occur too frequently and at unrealistic times. This problem makes the game an even greater robotic feel than exhibited in previous versions.

Madden NFL 13 also features new tweaks to quarterback dropbacks, throwing animations and receiver awareness, but they all feel more like expected fine tuning instead of noteworthy additions.

Phillip Rivers working on his seven step drop in the offseason would never be newsworthy; Chargers fans would simply hope that it’s being done.

Similarly, writing about improved dropback animations feels more like grasping for straws than praising a welcome feature.

Commentary

The commentary team has once again been changed. Not so much for better or worse, but just changed.

The oft-excited and spontaneous Gus Johnson is long gone, as is his always recognizable partner in the broadcasting booth, Chris Collinsworth.

The “NFL on CBS” team of Jim Nantz and Phill Simms have taken their place, and Madden NFL features more than just their voices. Nantz and Simms are rendered in the game as character who provide pre-and post-game analysis.

But again, the change is not necessarily for the better.

Often, the duo will say the wrong things at the wrong times and remind players of announcing crews of years past.

The addition of the NFL on CBS overlays come along with the arrivals of Nantz and Simms. They benefit the game in the same way sizzle adds to the appeal of a tough steak – amazing right up until you bite into it.

Final Thoughts

Two major additions does not a new game make.

That is especially true when one feature is essentially a consolidation of existing play modes and the other is so poorly lacking it does not even feel like an addition at all.

As can be said about virtually any annual EA Sports title, if you haven’t played a game in the series before, it’s worth trying.

The same can be said for Madden 13.

On its own, this is a solid title that will yield long hours of enjoyment on par with any other major video game release.

Diehard followers won’t need this review as they will purchase the game every year religiously, even if it is literally the same game as last year’s version.

On the other hand, anyone expecting a landmark title worthy of being called the greatest video game football experience ever can remind themselves of the words spoken by fans of any struggling NFL franchise:

Maybe next year.

Republic Wireless, which offers its “members” a $19 unlimited talk, text and data plan, recently entered open beta.

That means anyone can join.

Of course, there’s gotta be a catch, and there is. The company wants you to connect to Wi-Fi for the majority of your calling, texting and Internet access.

That shouldn’t be a problem for those of us who have Wi-Fi access at work and at home, but for others, that could be a dealbreaker.

Of course, you still have service when you’re not connected to a hotspot. Calls, texts and Internet get routed through Sprint’s CDMA cell network when you’re out and about, and the company remains committed to unlimited access for everyone.

There are a few caveats, however.

For now, Republic offers only one phone, the Motorola Defy XT, which costs $259, plus tax. It’s an Android smartphone, running Gingerbread at 1 GHz. It’s definitely not in the same league as the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Google Nexus 4 or the iPhone 5, but it should get the job done.

The dual-band phone connects to Sprint’s 1900 and 800 MHz towers. You can check out the full spec sheet here.

The service is still in beta testing. Expect there to be a few bugs still to be worked out.

For instance, MMS is not available, and doesn’t appear to be a high priority for the company. If you live and die for sharing photos with your friends via MMS, this isn’t the service for you. Besides, isn’t that what Instagram is for?

International calling is not available, either. You can call to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada from anywhere in the world you have Wi-Fi access, but to call elsewhere, you’d have to use Skype or a similar service.

If you understand that you’re going to be a little ahead of the curve, Republic looks to be a decent way to get unlimited, contract-free service at a price the competition simply can’t match.

Republic offers a full 30-day money back guarantee, so if you’re not happy with the phone or the service, just send it back for a full refund.

For more information, visit the Republic website.

The new “Leviathan” DLC pack for “Mass Effect 3″ falls so far below this reviewer’s expectations that everyone at BioWare and EA Games who had a role in developing or marketing this add-on needs to pull out a dictionary and look up the word “promise.”

Webster’s New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition) defines a promise as “1. An oral or written agreement to do or not to something; vow. 2. Indication, as of a successful prospect or future; basis for expectation 3. Something promised.”

In a sentence: “The Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3 does not deliver what its advertising promised.”

Anyone who viewed Leviathan’s trailer could be forgiven for expecting to spend a significant portion of the game underwater while experiencing new game mechanics or fighting new enemies.

No such luck. No story spoilers here, but the underwater portion of Leviathan consists of about two minutes’ worth of walking around the ocean floor and then engaging in a long dialogue sequence with the DLC pack’s titular character. Leviathan fails to offer any new foes, new vehicles, new playable characters nor many compelling reasons to actually play it except for a bit more explanation of Mass Effect 3′s controversial ending sequence and the origin of the series’ villains, the Reapers.

What Leviathan does offer are two weapons that were previously available only to players who
pre-ordered Mass Effect 3, some serviceable combat sequences and more than a little padding. Players who resume their role as Mass Effect protagonist Commander Sheperd will spend about 30 minutes of game time looking around a lab before they actually get to shoot any bad guys. There are three sequences where players have to “investigate” that lab for clues or interview a key character, and the experience just gets to be repetitive.

Another knock on Leviathan is that the writers seem to have taken away some of Shepard’s smarts. Any Mass Effect player knows “indoctrination” (i.e. mind control) is a major plot element in the series, but Shepard and friends fail to notice obvious signs of indoctrination during Leviathan’s opening chapters. It’s baffling.

Leviathan is especially underwhelming when compared to the DLC offered for “Mass Effect 2,” which offered new characters, a new vehicle and a lot more challenge than Leviathan’s shoot-and-repeat style of gameplay. Leviathan’s combat sequences feel like a clone of Mass Effect 3′s narrative-free multiplayer battles. Leviathan offers about three hours of gameplay, but that gameplay lacks the character development and drama that made the Mass Effect series so successful.

Mass Effect 3: Leviathan
BioWare/EA Games
PC, PlayStation 3, XBox 360 (Reviewed on XBox 360)
Rated M for Mature

By Neil Nisperos

Staff Writer

For those who have ever dreamed of being in a Kung Fu movie or Hong Kong crime thriller, Square Enix’s new “Sleeping Dogs” offers that kind of experience, even if it is not a perfect sandbox game.

Sleeping Dogs allows players to explore the complex and labyrinthine environs of Hong Kong while assuming the role of Wei Shen. Shen is a fearless Hong Kong police officer who infiltrates a Hong Kong Triad criminal organization. Going undercover in the game’s version of Hong Kong means players enter a world of high-speed chases, shady business deals, shakedowns and bone-breaking beat downs.

Sleeping Dogs will probably appeal most to gamers who love Grand Theft Auto’s mix of open-world gaming and crime drama. It’s great fun playing through the both the underworld and cop-themed missions and the game’s running and control mechanics for Shen are visually engaging.

Fight mechanics in Sleeping Dogs, as other reviewers have noted, are similar to that of “Batman: Arkham Asylym” and it’s sequel, “Arkham City.” The fighting experience in Sleeping Dogs is not quite as fluid as within those influential games, but combo blocks, punches and kicks are fun to execute and there’s enough variety to prevent the brawling from feeling like a monotonous thumb buster.

My favorite aspect of the game are its driving missions. The design reminds me of other racing games and the Fast and the Furious movies. As an added bonus, players get a driving lesson for Asian and European streets, since drivers in Hong Kong use the left side of the road.

Sleeping Dog’s voice acting is top-notch, as Lucy Liu, Tom Wilkinson and Emma Stone all give their voices to engaging characters. This game is a great addition to your PS3 library if you like exotic locales, body-shattering action, and a compelling story that contributes to the video game form as terrific storytelling and fine visual art.

Sleeping Dogs

Square-Enix / United Front Games

PS3 / Xbox 360 / Windows (reviewed on the Xbox 360)

Rated M for Mature

Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, has died today at the age of 81 due to complications following heart surgery earlier this month.

Uttering the immortal words “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”, Neil Armstrong and his crew became heroes to more than just a nation but to the world.

Armstrong’s self-made accomplishments were many, even before reaching the Moon. He had served as a Navy pilot having paid for flight lessons with a clerk’s job and fought during the Korean War, earned his degree in aeronautical engineering with top marks (and went on after his astronaut days to earn a Masters degree in the same field), became a test pilot, and had even directed a musical for his fraternity. He also holds honorary doctorates from a number of institutions.

Cool under pressure, he demonstrated his knack for doing his best in any situation during a dramatic episode during the Gemini 8 mission when he saved the capsule from an out-of-control spin. Armstrong and his partner, David Scott, guided the Gemini safely back to Earth having survived the ordeal.

After his astronaut days, Armstrong would go on to become a professor at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio teaching for eight years up until 1979. Afterwards, he would be a spokesperson for several companies and would heed the call of his nation when they needed him again at NASA to help investigate the Challenger disaster in 1986.

He quietly took himself away from the public spectacle in the last few years, but the impact of his life and that of his contributions to science won’t be forgotten. He once said “”As a boy, because I was born and raised in Ohio, about 60 miles north of Dayton, the legends of the Wrights have been in my memories as long as I can remember.”

I’ve little doubt that many others will continue to go on in being inspired by his life, and those of his fellow astronauts, in much the same way. Thank you, and good journey, Mr. Armstrong.

Sleeping Dogs might never have come out if Square-Enix hadn’t snagged United Front Games’ latest project after Activision axed it. It was a bold move. The relatively young development house had only ModNation Racers to their name and they were working in territory urban sandbox specialists Rockstar and Volition called home. It wasn’t hard to see why Activision suddenly developed a case of cold feet over its prospects -  even when some of UFG’s members had cut their teeth within those same studios. But then again, no one thought that Rocksteady could pull off as legendary a take on the Dark Knight not once – but twice – with about as much on their resume, either.

UFG’s crime drama takes players to Hong Kong as Wei Chen, an undercover cop on loan from the States working to bring down the Sun On Yee triad. Having grown up along the city’s rough and tumble side streets before his family moved to America, his early education with the swagger and bark of its worst before graduating grade school make him a valuable weapon to his new HKPD boss. 

As Wei Chen dodges and weaves through his double life, the strain slowly builds as his true motivation for sticking it to the Sun On Yee make us wonder whether he will come back alive. Blood will soak his hands before he’s done, he’ll be asked to do some brutal things along the way, and his willingness to push the moral envelope of his role begin blurring the lines.

It’s not Donny Brasco, but Wei Chen and the rest of the cast around him voiced by veteran actors such as Will Yun Lee, Tzi Ma, James Hong, Tom Wilkinson, and Kelly Hu easily work the exotic colors of UFG’s well written crime drama. It’s hard not to appreciate Wei Chen’s dogged attitude in getting dirty to get things done or even find sympathy with his corrupt benefactors at unexpected moments. The line is constantly blurred between the facade of who he is and the reality of the murderous circle his new friends form around him all the way up to the final showdown.

And instead of lumping the triads together as a faceless mob of thugs, UFG seem to have done their homework on the centuries-old organizations. Terms such as “red pole”, “incense master”, and “dragon head” really exist. The names for the different triads even play off of existing ones, the separation between them being only the change in a number or word order. It’s not intended to be a primer for all things triad, but having this subtle level of detail only adds more to Sleeping Dogs’ world.

Hong Kong isn’t a corner-to-corner carbon copy but retains the neon lit urban canyons and familiar landmarks of the Special Administrative Region where many live in a world perched on the edge of both the old and the new. It’s as close as most will probably ever get to Hong Kong without hopping across the Pacific.

The skyline of the city, Hong Kong Island, the side stalls hawking their wares and the food vendors serving up everything from duck to pork buns are there along with the Cantonese spoken on the street and by the main characters, oftentimes as slang with optional English subtitles translating everything. Part of me wished that it went all in with Cantonese as Sega’s Yakuza series now does with Japanese, but what is here works well enough to impart the feeling of being in a very different place. If driving on the left side of the road and getting in on the right side instead to get behind the wheel of a car aren’t different enough, the lack of any weapons should be a wake up call for most urban warriors.

As on mainland China, guns are restricted in Hong Kong. So the next best thing is to use whatever is on hand, such as your own feet and fists to deal with angry triad thugs who want to use Wei Chen as a practice dummy. Melee takes some getting used to – this isn’t quite as fluid as being Batman in Rocksteady’s Arkham series, but it does share a few similarities.

Counters are done by just hitting Y as soon as enemies flash red near Wei. Otherwise, players are free to mix up combos of punches and kicks. He doesn’t have as many to string together at the start, but as he discovers special jade statues throughout the game and returns them to his master, he can add more devastating moves to his set such as stuns and bone-breaking grapples.

Things in the environment, such as speakers and air conditioning fans, can also be used as convenient places to cram the mug of a thug into. These flash red as soon as you grapple with a baddie making them easy to spot and even easier to use. Wei Chen doesn’t just toss these guys into these objects of opportunity – he drops engine blocks on their chests when they’re thrown into a car at a garage, electrified to death when he tries to plug them into a fuse box, or impaled on fish hooks because they just happen to be there. Having these around not only gives the player options, but sometimes, they might be all that can help survive some of the tougher fights ahead.

That’s because Wei isn’t the most durable guy. Part of the early frustration that some players may face is that he can’t take a lot of hits, but the game mitigates this with a number of valuable upgrades. Temporary power-ups in the form of food which allows you to regen your health outside of combat, drinks that add more hitting power, or tea that can toughen you up to take less damage, are found around Hong Kong in shops and street stalls.

Face, or respect, is also earned as a form of experience allowing him to access better clothes and cars from shops. Cop and Triad experience points are also awarded during key story missions allowing for upgrades along both of those paths such as giving your bullets better stopping power or making you tougher to hurt with melee weapons. There are even certain clothing combos that can help earn even more of these points, or make Wei tougher overall, if you can find and afford them.

Driving is also smooth across the board whether it’s on a bike or in a car. It’s not realistic, nor does it try to be, but it is a lot of fun and the AI doesn’t rubber band into your backside if you’re far ahead.. Every car has slightly different handling to it, and Wei can even leap from his car to take over another one as if he were coming in from Just Cause.

Since you’re playing a cop, you don’t get to do things like buy businesses, maintain palatial mansions in the city, or run your own crew, things that make Sleeping Dogs feel lightweight compared to its peers in Grand Theft Auto and Saint’s Row. There’s still a lot of things to do, however, ranging from random events when people on the street call out for help in catching a purse snatcher to aiding your fellow triads on a few errands, or taking part in street races while betting on cock fights afterwards. A medal award system and global leaderboards let you compare scores across tracked activities with friends or the rest of the world, so there is quite a bit to do outside of the main game.

Hidden throughout the city are health shrines that are the only ways to upgrade Wei Chen’s health bar, lock boxes with cash and occasionally a surprise item, and cameras to hack into to bust shady deals through. Or prank civilians with by having them arrested instead. Doing all of this, along with the main story, can easily take more than twenty to twenty five hours. More if your aiming for a better score by replaying the story missions or races.

When you do finally get guns, anything more than a pistol is temporary. Wei Chen doesn’t have a personal weapons locker in his pocket. Pistols can be hidden, but weapons like shotguns, giant cleavers, and assault rifles can’t be. The bright side is that Wei Chen’s trigger finger is about as adept as his martial arts making it easy to draw a bead on enemies who often make themselves out to be easy targets most of the time. A cover system also provides some help making it easy to have Wei slip behind crates, walls, and anything else big enough to provide protection. Though I preferred martial arts beat downs, the gunplay had also worked out to be just as fun.

On the road, taking aim slows time down for that dramatic, tire-popping shot that can send a car flying into the air or a motorcycle throwing its rider off like a bad case of the fleas. Ramming cars is also a trick that Wei Chen can use in his back of triad tricks, slamming into vehicles from the side or from behind with the X button. Breaking down enemies chasing you from behind with a few well placed never really gets old in this game as long as you have the bullets to do it with.

But it’s not all about green tea and silent moments of contemplation, either. A few issues mar the game, not the least of which is that if you restore to a checkpoint, any power ups you might have set Wei Chen up with just disappear. Even if you save a game after having our hero drink his fill of tea, Dragon Kick power pop, and chomp away on trays of pork buns, he won’t have any of their benefits when you come back, leaving you to run all over the place again. After so many hours, it just gets annoying to hit up all of the stores again just before heading out.

Other odd things, such as being able to swim but watching enemies instantly die when they hit the water, were just unusual to see. The cumbersome feel of the menus after accumulating so many clothes and cars, the quirkiness of the pathfinding feature of the map system were other rough spots. While not game breaking, little things like these can add up over the course of so many hours.

Sleeping Dogs also also doesn’t have much to do outside of what it brings to its own party as a solo experience. There’s no multiplayer, co-op or competitive, limiting its appeal outside of what it has as a solo experience. Players looking to tear up the streets as a pair of wannabe triads are probably going to have to wait for a sequel to address that, something which the ending leaves relatively open.

Much of what is seen in Sleeping Dogs has been seen elsewhere, but that isn’t so much of a flaw as it is an observation of UFG sticking to what works and then focusing all of that on making this a martial arts, face grating, car jumping, crime busting adventure. For players looking to add a little something exotic to their urban diet despite being a little light on the content, bruising knuckles against the pavement of faces staring back from the shadows of Hong Kong can make this a trip worth remembering.

Sleeping Dogs
Square-Enix / United Front Games
PS3 / Xbox 360 / Windows (reviewed on the Xbox 360)
Rated M for Mature

In 2010, the first thing that Darksiders did was to destroy the world. It brought on the Apocalypse reserving players a front row seat as one of the Four Horsemen. Humanity was dead, and War was on the march.

Fueled by the vision of comics industry veteran, Joe Madureira, and his team at Vigil Games, it took the charred building blocks of a Biblical end and gleefully twisted them into a vast adventure battling through the aftermath as angels and demons fought over the bones of what was left. But like any good story, there’s always more to tell. And like any good sequel, there’s always more than one way to improve on the original.


As a comic book alum, Madureira defined the look of the first game fleshing out its high-fantasy backdrop which mixes together angels, demons, and the Four Horsemen who act as enforcers of the balance between Light and Darkness with his distinctive art style. In the first game, players bore the huge shoulder pauldrons of the Horseman, War, who arrives on Earth inadvertently triggering the Apocalypse which wipes out humanity with a demonic invasion. That wasn’t supposed to happen, something which War later realizes when he discovers an the otherworldly conspiracy that has set him up as a cosmic patsy.

The sequel answers one of the questions as to what the other Horsemen were doing while War was trying to find out the truth. This time, it’s all about Death, voiced by Michael Wincott, whose gravelly delivery is focused on saving his brother by resurrecting humanity. Along the way, he’ll also be visiting his namesake on everything that doesn’t agree placing the somewhat thin story of this game as second fiddle to what he does best.

The biggest change from the first game is the introduction of an extensive loot system similar to something found in action RPGs like Diablo 3 or Dark Souls. Random drops from enemies, chests, and bosses will cram Death’s inventory with armor, weapons, and even special items that can be traded for especially interesting rewards ranging from cash to physical upgrades to Death’s stats. And there’s a lot to go around along with plenty of coin. To give you an idea of how much, I never bought a weapon or a piece of armor from any of the merchants in the game throughout the entire campaign because there was so much to find in this looter’s paradise. Beneficial potions, on the other hand, were my coin purse’s best friend.

Weapons are ranked in colors with plain white for boring, low stat items, to purples with high end attributes. But there are also the “possessed” weapons which can devour whatever you want to feed them whether it’s a piece of armor, another weapon, or a powerful talisman. Even other possessed weapons can be sacrificed to these. By doing this, these hungry items can be stacked with a variety of random effects from raising your chances for critical hits to healing you up a bit after every kill.

The better the weapon, the faster it can be upgraded, making it a pleasant diversion from simply dumping stuff out of your inventory to make space. The only downside is that these can only be upgraded so far, but the final results that I have gotten were also another reason why I never bothered to buy anything new. Now everything you find can potentially be used to make Death even deadlier.

His skill set puts everything to good use with an even larger pick of moves compared to the first game. Fueled by rage which builds up as he slashes, blasts, and tears his way through enemies, these, along with his limited supply of potions, can often be all that stands between Death and his own end. As Death goes up in level, or receives specific rewards, he earns skill points players can use to develop his skill set, one that is also layered with a lot of upgrades.

The powers are interesting if not as impressive as his regular melee moves, though, as the only power that I really liked was his teleporting slash move. But there are others such as one that turns him into a whirlwind of destruction, another that summons the dead to fight for him, and even temporary shields.

Combat is fast and brutal whose difficulty scales up on a gentle curve, though if you want a deeper challenge you can always kick it up in the options. Controls are, in general, simple to use although the meaty weight of so many skills and special abilities can make sorting through them on the fly more than a little clumsy. For example, switching between his arm-based abilities such as a ghostly grapple and a pistol often became a battle of context. Shortcuts can be assigned to other skills to ease through the clutter and when it comes down to it, I did a lot more button mashing than I did in using his collage of skills outside of the boss fights. The action driven fun of its combat, though, kept things exciting when the rest of the game began lagging behind.

Visually, Joe Madureira’s direction paints the epic setting with huge, hulking, stylized monuments to each realm, characters that make Death look like a small, action figure, standing next to them, and plenty of awe inspiring vistas. Fantastic vistas made me just want to pause and look around, not only to find a way around the next puzzle but to appreciate the kind of work that the artists and designers had put into each level, especially with Jesper Kyd’s vast soundtrack covering every scene with brilliant highs and lows.

This time, the world isn’t only filled with dungeons, crumbling ruins, and burning rivers of molten hate, but a legion of puzzles converting many of these lost places into twisted tests on seeing how well you can use Death’s growing arsenal of special abilities. Puzzles were also in the first game, but in the sequel, they’re almost everywhere testing every new power that Death manages to earn. Hidden items are also planted throughout the world, often as great prizes awarding goodies or in fulfilling a side quest or two, giving you another reason to explore every corner and wall run on through to unusual niches within each tomb. It’s also hard not to avoid feeling how this can sometimes feel like a repetitive chore.

Darksiders II wears its formulaic quest structure on a battered sleeve as if it were a badge of honor. By the time I made it to the final stretch to recover a particular relic, I knew I’d have to find “three” of it because, you guessed it, it was split up. Most of the major quests follow that same structure as if someone had come up with the idea on what to do next and then a committee thought of how to break it into three more epic dungeons. The game then kept repeating this theme, making more than a few of its areas feel as if they were filler material as opposed to meaningful points of reference. By the time I made it to the end, I had already grown numb to the gratuitous amounts of wall running, ledge hopping, and grapple swinging that was pummeled into me.

Glitches also graced my experience with random lock-ups and the occasional dropped sound effect or musical interlude. At one point, a boss had hit me so hard that I ended up beneath the map with no way to get back out. While cool to see things from behind the textured world, the only escape was to restart the fight.

Death’s climbing controls are also not exactly the smoothest thing when it comes to scaling walls, either, or in targeting the points for your grapple. Being off more than a few degrees in using his grapple, for example, or seeing him miss a grapple point because the dodgy camera obscures the angles was sometimes frustrating. Stretching it across several hours of adventuring made it aggravating. Jumping from ledge to ledge can also feel more than a bit rough around the edges, something that I never had to worry about with a few other games. Death may not be as nimble as Nathan Drake, but restarting from a checkpoint because of a missed jump thanks to a dodgy case of camera context can be frustrating.

It took me about 25 hours to peel through this campaign, though your mileage may vary depending on how much of a completionist you are. A New Game Plus mode will let you start a new game with everything Death had found and leveled up with, upgrading the monsters at the same time to keep the challenge consistent. If you don’t want to do this, you can always say no which might be a wise thing to do if you have some unfinished business. Darksiders II only uses one save slot so there’s no going back if you make the jump.

The disappointing, final battle, and the ending in general, were let downs compared to the epic struggle in getting there alongside a few of the other boss fights leading up to it. But when Darksiders II reveled in breaking away from its repetition by investing its wondrous places with greater variety whether it was flipping back and forth in time within the charred halls of Black Stone or simply in hunting one of the special, optional monsters in a side quest, that’s when it felt fun again.

And that’s the problem with Darksiders II. At moments away from its filler-grade three-way splits, it pushes at the bars to reach out and bring in the kind of adventuring feast that titles such as Onimusha, God of War, and Beyond Good & Evil had raised the bar on without feeling tired of their own material.

The loot system, weapon crafting, combat, and the mythic proportions of Madureira’s visually stunning world braced by Jesper Kyd’s music make its world a spectacular upgrade from its predecessor. Yet the size of its aspirations are deceptive. Piling on the content, the creative surge sells itself short by staying within the lines despite the occasional servings of daring, making Death’s errand seem too often like another series of chores.

Darksiders II
THQ / Vigil Games
PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii U / Windows (reviewed on the Xbox 360)
Rated M for Mature