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MEMBER PROFILE FOR BIGHARV
Total Reviews: 28
Average Overall Score Given: 7.76429 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 103
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Reviews
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Spider-Man 3
Continuing in the tradition of Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 brings the film home by offering gamers a large-scale virtual recreation of New York City to explore. As players traverse the city, either on-foot or through Spider-Man's trademark web-swinging, they can participate in a number of missions that recreate the various events and fights of the film, including Spider-Man's acquisition of the symbiote Venom. This results not only in Spider-Man's new black suit, which enhances the hero's aggressiveness and power, but also his ensuing struggle with it, causing him to periodically switch between the two suits as the game progresses. The question is, with all these great features promised, can Spidey pull it off once again and meet our high expectations?
First off let’s talk about one of the new obvious elements in this game. Spidey's dark alter-ego; this more powerful Spidey builds up a rage effect which he can then unleash when it's time to open up an extra large can of whoop-ass. The combat animations are different for black suit Spidey as well, he is clearly doing the Rocky blunt force trauma gig as opposed to being cute and fast like Ali. Combat has been spiced up with a few neat tricks as well, with my personal favorite, having the ability to hang a thug from four lamp-posts at the same time. It's difficult to execute, but very rewarding.
The simple two-button combat system is back which allows players to easily perform all the fancy acrobatic kicks, punches and maneuvers that make Spiderman so entertaining to watch, the action depends on the order on which button you press between X and Y. Spidey also has a variety of special moves in his arsenal. One in particular, referred to as Pinball, proves extremely useful in close quarters as it sends the villain ricocheting from wall to wall in a high speed crisscross pattern, quite handy when facing off against a tightly-packed mob.
Elsewhere, you can usefully slow down time for a brief period by holding down LB, or throw in a super-powerful enemy-clearing attack (once your meter's charged up) by pressing RB and X, Y or B. But the real fun isn't so much in how the combat feels (it's pretty basic, to be frank) but how it translates the action onto the screen. Even more so than before, Treyarch has created a seemingly unending procession of jaw-dropping comedy combos that give Spidey the ability to humiliate his foes as much as possible.
Environments also factor into the fights, as seen in a brawl with Sandman in the depths of New York's subway system. It's set in a tall chamber filled with subway tracks running across at various heights, the players must take special care as Spidey and Sandman duke it out to avoid oncoming subway cars, which can knock the hero off the platform and provide Sandman the time to escape through a nearby vent. Luckily, players can also utilize that situation to their advantage.
Continuing with what we saw in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the boss fights are not just about mashing the buttons and surviving. Rather, the player engages in interactive cut-scenes where he has to hit the right button or direction on the d-pad at the appropriate time to execute the correct move. Failure doesn't mean the end of a mission or death, fortunately, you just have to re-start the sequence again. Some of these interactive sequences are brilliant and by Activision's own admission, at least the Sandman fight was lifted straight from the movie.
As for the difficulty of the game it’s admittedly tough at some parts. Half the missions won't trouble you, even the modestly skilled players so long as your wrists can handle a bit of button-mashing for extended periods, but there are some absolutely brutal challenges to overcome before you'll complete the game.
Now let’s talk about the downfalls of Spiderman 3. No doubt this game is a bigger game then any of the other Spiderman games in terms of missions but I don’t think that this is such a good thing. Let me explain, they are not all proper missions’ just fillers to try and convince people they're getting more value for their money; to put it bluntly. These boring fillers include the tiresome gang missions. You'll quickly find out that these missions have absolutely no substance at all. It's simply a case of the game spamming regenerating waves and waves of enemies at you until they eventually sod off. Pretty much every encounter is the same, requiring a diligent use of the "slo-mo" ability, hammering everyone senseless while they're all wading through treacle, and repeating the whole "shebang" for a few minutes. And in total, these identical missions represent probably a third of the game's content padding. All the button mashing does become very monotenous. This is the only problem I had with this game, other then that, it’s exactly what you would want in a Spidey game.
For example, Spider-Man 3 very is rich in detail thanks to the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 360 and the support for HDTVs, which it utilizes to display in 720p and 1080i. When Sandman conjures up a defensive barrier, for example, players can easily distinguish between the various bricks that apparently compose it. Specks of sand go flying into the air whenever Sandman takes a blow, complete with an explosion of particles if stuck by a subway car.
What stood out the most, however, was the immense view spectrum given to you while playing Spidey. Standing on top of a building, you could see to the edges of Manhattan and although the detail is obviously not crystal-clear, it's good enough to make it believable. The typical haze that obscures objects in the distance seems out of place in many games, but not in New York. Believability, the view is helped tremendously by the impressive lighting model. While the sun moves across the sky, not only do shadows move and the world grows brighter and dimmer, but the light changes to the appropriate color. Dusk and dawn are different from noon, with a redder tinge than the searing white of the high sun.
Another tidbit illustrating Treyarch's attention to detail involves the in-game cinematics. After the fact, that actors from the film, including star Tobey Maguire, recorded their lines for the game, the company hired additional actors to re-enact the various scenes and motion-captured them to help animators in their quest for smooth and realistic movements.
Suggestions: We've all come to know that Activision's Spider-Man titles are well renowned as some of the best movie-to-game conversions in recent times.
Spider-Man 3 certainly appears to continue that tradition.
Even something as simple as web-slinging provides a thrill, as players can delight in utilizing the speed of a swing to shoot Spidey forward before letting him freefall towards the streets below, only to anchor a nearby object with a web strand via the right trigger mere seconds before he goes splat. Combined with a two and a half year development time, a strong attention to detail, and an adventure that goes well beyond the movie, the Xbox 360 versions of Spider-Man 3 can very well be the best Spider-Man game yet.
With one foul exception of course the monotenous missions. If you think that all this button mashing won’t appeal to you; at least give it a rental. It may not be the game of the year, but I'm certain your Spidey sense are just itching to swing around, and take another crack at a fresh batch of bad guys. Enjoy!
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
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Earth Defense Force 2017
Remember those old Japanese sci-fi monster movies from the 1960s? The ones that were so bad and corny you couldn’t help but love them? Well thanks to D3 Publisher and Sandlot, you are now able to play in one of those classic flicks.
Earth Defense Force 2017 is a sequel to the PS2’s Chikyuu Boueigun “Simple” budget series of games released in 2003. These were fun old-school run-and-gun shooters that had you blasting giant insects and robots from outer space. EDF brings the series to the next gen with improved graphics and more frantic action, but the heart of the gameplay remains the same: blowing the tar out of insanely big alien bugs.
The story is pretty simple: you are a member of the EDF and must stop an alien invasion. Okay, so it’s not exactly original but with enemies that include swarms of giant ants, massive leaping tarantulas, lumbering dinosaur-like creatures, deadly spaceships and towering killer robots, chances are you probably won’t have time to ponder the literary merits of the story. The action looks frantically crazy, much like a Japanese version of Serious Sam, as your pathetically tiny character dodges and rolls between the legs of giant insects that literally fill the screen dozens at a time. Yikes.
Your character can carry two weapons and a handful of grenades at a time but you will eventually be able to select from hundreds of weapons split between a few different categories; with special upgrades, the weapon variations number must topple 400. New weapons are unlocked as you progress while upgrades (like faster reloads and increased power and range) and armor/health powerups are dropped by dead enemies. Weapons include your standard shooter fare like assault rifles and rocket launchers, along with cool ones like a water gun that squirts acid.
You are also able to pilot a wide variety of vehicles ranging from a Star Wars-like speeder bike to tanks, helicopters and even a huge mech. You don’t have to take on the bugs all by yourself, since helpful AI teammates are fighting by your side. Better yet, you are able to play co-operatively with a buddy via split-screen, but sadly, there is no online co-op or adversarial modes. Even so, with 53 levels, five difficulty modes (easy, normal, hard, hardest and inferno) and environments that are almost completely destructible, you should get more than your fill of frantic action.
As you might expect, the game looks like a classic Japanese sci-fi movie with monster, robot, spaceship and even uniform designs straight out of the campy 1960s. The graphics are decent but nothing special so don’t expect any jaw-dropping eye candy here. To be fair, though, the emphasis is on providing crazy action jam-packed with enemies, not dazzling you with pretty details. The models and environments when judged individually are slightly weak, and are arguably the games biggest weakness. However, EDF 2017 prescribes to the Dead Rising school of thought. Basically, it eschews the need for ultra high-res models, opting instead to just put hundreds of objects on screen at once. Like I said this isn’t to say that the graphics are bad, though, by any means. The graphics engine is capable of putting out some pretty nice particle effects and explosions look good as well. Where the graphics lack though, EDF’s wonderful art style picks up the slack. Everything simply looks wonderfully alien. The style does a great job of making everything seem like it came from across the universe. Having so many well rendered things on screen at once has its price though the framerates can become a problem when it all hits the fan.
There are few games on the market that can match up to Earth Defence Force 2017 in terms of sheer “cool factor.” If you like games (and I’m guessing you do, because you’re reading about them) then odds are you’re going to love everything about this game.
Like I said, EDF 2017 is all about completely insane over the top action. It’s like a really awesome dream that you never want to wake up from. Everything in the game contributes to the fact that this is the game 1950’s/1960’s science fiction geeks wet their pants over.
It amazes me that this game hasn’t received more coverage from the gaming press. I understand that it doesn’t necessarily fit into the mold of the average game on the market. There are no mages, spiky hair, or Nazi’s here, but there are guns and explosions…lots of explosions. It does possess a number of elements that are very common in games, like robots, and the destruction of said robots. But the setting and the scale of EDF set it apart from anything else on the market. Enemies in this game have to be seen to be believed as they tower above everything else in videogames, save for a couple of the colossi from Shadow of the Colossus.
Suggestions: All the technical jargon is a mere formality in this case as discounting EDF based on its technical shortcomings is to miss the point entirely. No one will play this game based on the fact that it has well mapped surfaces and no one will pass it up because it has a slow frame rate. Besides, when you factor in the enormously fun possibilities of cooperative play as well as EDF's discounted price there's few reasons I can think of to not pick this one up. Like I said earlier, if you enjoy blowing stuff up on a scale larger than you’ve ever imagined. Earth Defence Force 2017 has what you’re looking for. If this game had a bigger budget it would be one of the best sellers for the 360 for sure.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
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Def Jam: Icon
I love seeing a game franchise evolve from one title to the next. When the developer can take the game in bold new directions without discarding the meat of the game that originally made it fun, I more often than not applaud their efforts. With this in mind, EA deserves a standing ovation for the continued evolution of the Def Jam series.
Def Jam: Vendetta was an interesting, if not perfect, title on its own. Def Jam: Fight for New York took the concepts and formula (Hip-Hop stars like Ludacris, DMX, and others beating the snot out of each other with a mixture of fighting styles) and improved upon them immensely by removing the reliance on a wrestling theme, adding a slew of new characters and content, and providing interactive environments for the rappers to mix it up in. Now Def Jam Icon has refined the formula even further.
Even if you’ve never given half a rat’s booty about the Def Jam series, Icon is certainly a eyebrow-raiser: “Music is the weapon,” is the official line here, and so it is: Just as players always pick a particular fighter in fighting games, Icon players get to pick the songs to which they’ll be doling out the beatings.
Each environment/stage throbs to the ‘bass’ in any given track, making every fighting arena twitch and thrash with rhythmically-exploitable environmental hazards. The better you know your chosen beats, the better you’ll be able to manipulate both the environment and the opponent facing you within that environment.
Let’s say your chosen fighter is The Game, and your chosen beat is "It's Okay (One Blood)". Your battle-arena is the crappy, seedy yard of a broken-down house that looks like it might be in some really juicy part of Compton or Georgia, complete with a depressing porchfront and a knocked-up muscle car whose wheels are endlessly spinning. There’s a fire hydrant, ready to shoot a massive jet of water up into the air, should you lure your foe close enough to it at the opportune moment.
On your song’s first big downbeat—and on countless ones thereafter—BLAMM!, the whole frickin’ world freaks out: The fire hydrant blows its hydrodynamic load, throwing any nearby fighters across the yard; the wheel-spinning, muscle car suddenly swings wildly to one side, pluming smoke, a similar threat to any homeboys in proximity; in fact, the whole arena momentarily judders and flinches as if from a blow; you’ll swear you see foundational geometry changing. Even the clouds in the sky seem to turntable-scratch.
This happens over and over throughout the course of the battle. But it takes two to fight, right? In our continuing thought-experiment example, let’s assume you’re not The Game; you’re Ludacris instead, and you’d rather be fighting to “Move Bitch” in that case, you make your fighter literally ‘scratch’ the air (courtesy of the control sticks), as though laying your hands on invisible turntables, not only flipping the in-game vinyl back to your track, but further scratching the beat back and forth to set off the environmental hazards at your own pace.
The left and right sticks function as turntables, and players can scratch their way through their opponents’ defenses, juggling them from one environmental threat to the next—do a traditional punch-and-kick combo to manoeuvre the other guy next to a hazard, then set it off (then taunt him and hijack his beat while he’s struggling to get to his feet). Your enemy can do the same, of course, resulting in a virtual, by-proxy scratch-battle in the best tradition of beefing DJs. And as the battle rages on, even more environmental hazards open up, so there’s always something happening to the landscape.
Are you seeing the utter, in-your-face, adversarial possibilities here? Yes, it’s fun enough just to put da kibosh on an opponent’s beat, but there are wider implications here. Icon lets you pull tracks from any connected MP3 player, thus allowing any song into the environment-warping scheme.
Just imagine: It’s you and Ludacris stepping up to the ghetto plate, you’re facing your opponent’s scrubbed-up fighter and suddenly, he’s forcing you to endure some Hillary Duff, courtesy of his iPod Shuffle. That could throw your game off, couldn’t it? Even if you both decide to stay within the rap/hip-hop realm, just imagine the kinds of things that could go wrong.
Def Jam: ICON’s main gameplay mode is the Build a Label mode. In this mode, you can create a character using EA’s extremely deep facial customization features, and have him build his own hip-hop empire. You begin by busting heads for your boss and working as an enforcer. However, you soon will gain hip-hop artists and gaining control over the distribution of the songs that they release, budgeting the marketing, radio play and PR appearances for each track. Depending on how you handle them, they’ll garner you money and keep your artists happy. You’ll also have to distribute funds for handling certain damages that they make, greasing the proper palms to keep them out of trouble.
Obviously the biggest departure from the pervious Def Jam games is the control scheme. Characters have a few basic attacks: high and low kicks and punches which are delivered via basic button presses. If that was all they could do the game would be very limited. Instead of using a scheme that combines presses of the buttons and triggers, etc. to create moves (as in a game like Mortal Kombat or Tekken), EA has borrowed from its Fight Night series, mapping various attacks and defensive manuvers to the analog sticks. Once you familiarize yourself with the controls, the game gets cooler and cooler.
Graphically, Def Jam: ICON is a fantastic looking game. The fighters bear the official likenesses of their real-life counterparts, and look eerily realistic. The environments steal the show, though as they pulsate with the music, breaking down as the beats literally rip them up.
The game’s music system puts game audio in a brand new light, making it an integral part of the action. The whole game seems to course in line with the music in a synergy that hasn’t been done, but definitely should be replicated. The soundtrack consists of a veritable who’s who of hip-hop all-stars, with cuts from heavy-hitters like Ludacris, E-40 and T.I., and the voice acting is also very well done.
The line-up of fighters includes the likes of Big Boi, Ludacris, T.I., Redman, Method Man, The Game etc. A very impressive line up to say the least. On top of all that you can battle it out online in ranked and unranked matches if you truly want to put your skills to the test. The character creation mode is also very deep. You can map your face to a fighter and customize all of his body parts to make him look like you. You may purchase tonnes of accessories for your custom player as well…such as BLING BLING.
Suggestions: The notion of gamers fighting to their favourite music is simply brilliant, and the only thing funnier than watching your opponent get thrown across the screen by a scratch-triggered fire-hydrant is mugging for the game-camera as it happens. Def Jam: Icon is in stores right now, what are you waiting for?
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
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Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
It only feels like a few months ago that we were peaking our heads round corners and shooting up some Mexican rebels but yet the inevitable sequel is already upon us? The question is, can a sequel really be pumped out that fast and live up to its title. Read on to get the lowdown on GRAW 2, the new features and everything else that goes a long with this realistic shooter.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 takes place almost directly after the final events of the first game. There’s still a bit of a commotion in Mexico, but now the fight is getting closer to American shores. You’ll be tasked with leading your team of Ghosts, completing missions to try and stop the rebels from winning the day. Straight away the impression you’ll get from GRAW 2 is that this game is pushing many boundaries.
If you were a fan of Graw 1 you will definitely recognize Graw 2 as being very similar. Not much has changed in terms of the menus, loby, music. It seems to me that Graw 2 is really just an expansion of the first one. The area that has probably received the most attention has been the AI of your team mates. Think back to GRAW 1, at how many times your supposedly highly trained squad mates would do something stupid. Tell them to run to an area and a lot of the time they would simply make a mad dash for it, regardless of what popped up along the way, and generally giving you the feeling that you were actually babysitting.
That isn’t the case any more. Now your squad mates will actively seek cover. It may sound like a basic achievement but it couldn’t be underlined enough how important it is to the new GRAW 2 experience. The more complex friendly AI is also helped along by another rather large change to the way gameplay works.
As commander; you now face two options, two modes if you will, for how you wish to tackle a mission. The first mode, recon, is a stealthy option, whilst the second, assault, is for those who fancy all out gun-slinging. The mode that you set your team to (you can set individual team mates different modes too) completely alters their behavior. All is very well explained in the training “mission”.
This whole recon mode would be far less useful if it weren’t for another new feature. As commander your now able to hook straight into a controllable camera of your squad mates’ helmets. Not only that but you can issue commands directly from the camera. Want your guy to move in the direction you're looking? Easy, simply right click, select the option and he’ll start heading there. You could actually play the game like an RTS and not even have to go around shooting people yourself, if you wanted.
The alternative to recon is assault. This is pretty much what you think it is, your soldiers will engage enemies when they see them, everything is hyper aggressive with the intention to kill and maim being primary. The choice between the two makes for some very interesting gameplay dynamics in both single and multiplayer.
All this is no good if the maps aren’t up to scratch par. Well I’m glad to tell you that the developer has done its utmost to come up with some new and interesting environments for you to fight it out in. Now the battle will take place in all kinds of areas, rural and urban, at both at day and night. Graw 2 also has new weapons, new multiplayer maps, better clan support on Xbox Live; an explosive expansion that will bring joy to most Ghost Recon Fans. The single player campaign has 3 levels of difficulties that you can experience first hand in 11 exciting new missions.
The game also features a great mix of sound work from the whining of the mortars and rolling of the Mule to the orchestral laden score that really drive home the level of excitement available during any given moment of combat. The game has also remained a beauty with character models being modeled really well, beautiful particles of dust kicking into the sky, lovely explosions of flame and smoke, and once again, as always from Ubisoft, some of the best lighting in the business.
If you were a fan of GRAW then you'll have a lot to love for GRAW 2. If you never gave the original a shot or even did and found faults with it, GRAW 2 spiced up enough things (both new and old) to convince you to give it a first or second shot.
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
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Bullet Witch
For those of you who don’t know, Bullet Witch supposes the year 2013 is going to be a Bummer!!! That’s right the near future isn’t looking so bright after all. Consecutive years of war and civil unrest, finally takes it toll on humankind, not to mention a devastating virus that wipes out all but a billion people on the planet. With the virus comes strange demon like people who seem hell bent on claiming people’s lives. These guys are wearing army fatigues but are missing their skin so they want everyone else’s. And it’s your job to stop them. Now how in the world are you going to stop a virus infected zombie army anyway? Easy, you are going to wipe them all out with a witch named Alicia. One bad !&%$@#* witch with a huge gun, broom, sword kind of thing called a Gun-Rod. Yup…a witch is going to save the world with a gun rod and some devastating magic. Atari hasn't exactly been pumping out hit after hit lately, but they're looking to turn their image around with Bullet Witch. Keep on reading to find out if this game is worthy of being called a next gen title.
Unlikely as it sounds, Alicia is a mystical witch that combines the power of firearms with the elegance of witchcraft to defeat her enemies in up close and personal battles. The game starts off in a city, which has been overrun by mutant zombie soldiers...something that's not going to do wonders for the property value.
Thankfully, Alicia comes packing a pretty hefty arsenal. Her staff (known as the Gun Rod) conceals nasty attacks that can be upgraded over the course of the game. You'll start off with a pretty standard machine gun, but over time you'll gain heavier arms like shotguns and grenade launchers.
But guns are only half of the fun. Magic obviously plays a big role (the game is called Bullet Witch, after all), and you'll unlock a series of magical attacks throughout your journey. One of the earliest spells you'll get is a massive lightning bolt attack. Casting spells is a little more complicated than gunplay, and you'll have to time your attacks just right to get high end damage, but if you're looking to kick ass, that's definitely the way to go.
Another important aspect is Alicia's agility, which allows her to pull of nifty leaps and dodges to avoid enemy attacks. She's able to regain health as long as she's not being attacked, so dodging bullets becomes a pretty important part of the game. As well as her melee attack which can come in handy at times.
The game plays out as a 3rd person shooter. You also have numerous spells and abilities at your disposal. Spells range from Willpower which allows you to force push cars and other objects to a meteor strike, lighting attack or even a feast of crows to unleash on your enemy. All spell effects are gorgeous to watch
So all this sounds well and good, but how does the game play? Unfortunately the controls are a mixed bag. The game is in desperate need of a lock on function, or at least a smoother aiming system. Instead the 3rd person aiming is jittery and slow. On the flip side the spell system is really well implemented with any of your spells 2 button presses away. Simply click the left or right bumper, and hit the corresponding face button of the spell you’d like to use.
After each level you are able to upgrade Alicia’s abilities and magic (a la RPG). You accumulate points based on your performance. After completing the game you are able to retain the skill levels and continue leveling up your character to aid you in the harder difficulty levels should you choose to go through the game again.
The game world itself features a huge expansive city and suburb. There are no loading times during the levels themselves. The graphics are impressive with nifty lighting effects and incredible explosions. There’s something very satisfying about using willpower to throw a handful of cars and gasoline trucks into a pile of enemies and watching it all explode in a blaze of glory. A lot of the environment in Bullet Witch is destructible.
Suggestions: In a nutshell Bullet Witch is very entertaining, but the overall pacing of the game and the frustrating controls bring it down. The basic game play involves a lot of backtracking as you take down barriers to unlock places you’ve previously been. There’s no real enemy variety with the exception of a few big, and I mean big, bosses and bad guys. And to round everything out, the game itself is short featuring only 6 levels. Most players can beat the game in 6-8 hours. With only leaderboards available for Xbox Live, the lack of any kind of co-op or competitive play kills the replay ability of this game. The few moments of brilliance in Bullet Witch are unfortunately brought down by the overall mediocrity of the game. I recommend a rental.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
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Battlestations: Midway
All right, who is up for some good old fashion 3rd person Naval combat. Eidos is ready to unleash its tactical driven WWII combat game to the world with their latest installment; Battlestation: Midway. The game is based in the Pacific Ocean during WWII. Players are able to take control of over 60 different vehicles such as planes, ships and submarines. You'll need to do some serious training on the abilities of each unit if you want to gain an advantage over the opposition. The game presents a deep campaign with 11 missions and tones of extra challenges. There are 5 different game modes you can pick from on the main menu. The first one is called US campaign which is really the heart of Battlestation. But first Eidos states in the game manual that they recommend doing the second mode on the main menu before attempting any of the other m modes which is rightfully called Naval Academy. While attending the Naval Academy you will go through 11 comprehensive tutorials (and I must agree with Eidos, it is a very good idea to do the tutorials before jumping into battle). Now the next three modes from the main menu are simply the Ship, Plane, and Submarine challenges which add great value to the game.
Now let’s talk about the gameplay Battlestations: Midway delivers. To be honest with you the range of options and the multi-tasking pressure of the mission goals initially felt a bit bewildering, but getting to grips with the game was actually reasonably intuitive. In any case, the structure of the single-player campaign provides a gentler introduction then the challenges. Players start out as new recruit Henry Walker on his first assignment as a gunner at Pearl Harbor before gradually building up to take responsibility for increasing numbers and types of units. Indeed it'll apparently be possible to take charge of up to 60 units by the end of the 11 campaign story missions.
By the time you're controlling that number of units you'll probably be spending a lot of your time on the strategic map, reached via the Back button, where it's possible to assign targets and waypoints, and keep an eye on the overall layout of allied and enemy units. But one of the key features of Battlestations is the opportunity to take direct control of your units - both in the air and in the sea. You can switch between them using the d-pad and then use the left and right Sticks to move and shoot, or you can simply tap the X button to bring up a quick menu to assign them simple tasks (such as attack an assigned target) before switching to the next unit. Meanwhile the right bumper brings up a context-sensitive menu to allow you to, for example, launch planes from an airfield or aircraft carrier, or build and launch ships from a shipyard. And the left bumper assigns repair crews on ships to repair different parts of the ship.
The friendly A.I. in Battlestations : Midway do exactly what you tell them to. Send a torpedo plane towards an enemy ship and command it to attack and it will get into position, flying just above the surface of the water, and launch a torpedo at just the right moment before heading for the relative safety of the skies. The enemy A.I. is also extremely sharp and change their tactics depending on how you play the game. For example, I sent out three B17 carpet bombers, a couple of Dauntless dive bombers and a couple of Destroyers (ships) onto the battlefield. I'd totally forgotten to defend my own base and I was soon sending our vehicles dashing back to rescue them. This is where the dynamic map system comes in extremely handy. It takes a second to switch back to the map at any time and you'll be able to see where the enemy are heading and thus be able to prevent such catastrophe.
It might all seem complicated when written down, but in practice it does a good job of hiding the game's considerable complexities - many of which are borne of a dutiful commitment to realism. It's obvious that shortcuts have been taken to make the game more playable and to fit it onto a console, such as the decision to feature unlimited ammo (although torpedoes are limited, so you'll need to factor in the time it takes to return to base and ngly, the focus shifts slightly when it comes to multiplayer games, which Eidos did on purpose to have a larger positive response to the game's overall appeal. It's capable of supporting up to eight players across two-teams controlling over 60 units. And it's possible for individual players to take control of just air units, or just sea units, or a mix of both. It certainly works very well, with players instinctively resorting to traditional RTS tactics such as turtling or tank rushing for some entertaining effect.
In a nutshell, the graphics may not be anything extraordinary but they defiantly get the job done. From the fine details of the crew to the extremely life-like Pacific ocean. Explosions are extremely satisfying as planes dive bomb into the ocean and ships sink spectacularly; the modeling of each vehicle has also been painstakingly crafted to represent their real-life counterparts. The in-game environments are as lush and lovely as you'd expect, with all sorts of weather effects and lots of detail, and visual flourishes include a camera that follows bombs and torpedoes after you've fired them, and crew members wandering about on ship decks.
Suggestions: Battlestations : Midway is a great deal of fun and can be played exactly how you wish. If you're a strategy fan you can play the whole game using the map system, but personally we much prefer jumping in the cockpit of the versatile dive bomber or launching torpedoes and depth charges from a Destroyer ship. My hat is off to Eidos mainly for expanding the variety of games on the 360. That is always a good thing.
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
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Crackdown
First thing’s first, let’s get the GTA comparison out of the way. Yes, Crackdown is a GTA inspired open-ended mission based third person action game chalk full of street violence goodness. The content is wicked bad on many levels and should not be played with children present. With that said, if you can put your morals aside you’ll probably have a blast with Crackdown. That and well you know Halo 3 beta.
Now what we have at the core of the storyline is really simple yet it’s a recipe for total mayhem. Basically normal police forces have given up hope, so this city has a new force set up called “The Agency”, which is kind of the last hope for the city. The city in question is Pacific City, and it’s over-run by heavily-armed gangs that run everything from transportation to your local kebab shop. Your job is simple clean up the city. Like I said this game has a strong foundation of ingredients for some extreme gameplay mayhem.
Like most GTA imitations you are up against gangs and no normal person is willing to take on that responsibility, but your superhuman, cloned for maximum law enforcement Agent is more then up for the challenge. A modern day Robocop if you will but with way more tricks up his sleeves then Robocop could ever hope to wield. Speaking of capabilities, your agent can learn new skills astoundingly rapid. If you handle firearms, drive, lift objects, fistfight, jump or whatever, you'll gradually get better at it, and this is physically represented in the character. So lift lots of things, and he'll get buffer as his arms grow in size, shoot things regularly and his aim will gradually steady. Now Crackdown is definitely going to be recognized for this impressive system. It really brings the game to life and gives the player a purpose to do certain things.
But remember practice makes perfect, so in order to take down these gangs you are going to have to fine tune your abilities for some maximum destructions. Three gangs run the city; the Volk, Los Muertos and the Shai-Gen Corporation. Each gang has kingpins that you'll need to take down to get at the lead kingpin. What is even more interesting is that each kingpin is totally accessible from the very second you start playing this game. Though, the accessibility is obviously not the problem it’s the fire power surrounding the kingpins that is challenging. But anyone can eventually build there agents up enough to take out any opponent in a matter of seconds, even your little sister could eventually brutally take back the city. Anyhow, it’s not all about power there is also another layer to this game that makes it even more malicious.
Let’s say the Volk’s are receiving an illegal shipment at the docks and you decide to open a couple cans of woop !&%$@#* on them. Then magically the gang’s lost becomes a bonus for you because their effectiveness with guns will be crippled. Before you go for that big boss, taking out his (or her) support network will make him a plausible take-down. You fancy this game yet? If not I’ve got one more feature to tell you about. Multiplayer is one of the main aspects of this game that totally sold me. Online co-op threw the whole game enough said. On top of all that, the achievements will also take a toll on your precious time, mainly because some of them are extremely original and fun to acquire.
Visually, Crackdown let’s you become the comic book character you've always wanted to be. I love the cell-shaded look of it; it's what makes the game so much more unique. Saying that it is because it looks cartoony is the wrong choice of words. Unique, different, awesome, are better words to describe it. It's the style and direction that the game takes that makes it "kid friendly" not the graphics. For example, both SpongeBob and South Park have thick outlines around the characters yet both shows are directed towards two entirely different demographics.
Crackdown consistently has far more people, far more cars, and far more movable objects on the screen at any given time then any other game of this genre. You may prefer the "style" of Saint's Row to the "style" of Crackdown, but there's no way I would let someone tell me that Saint's Row has better graphics they are both good in there own respective purpose. Saints Row is a lot more realistic, Crackdown is just wacked right out.
Crackdown controls quite well. There's nothing particularly special about the controls, but they are very precise and easy to use; important for rooftop jumping and driving, both of which features heavily in this game. Ranged combat uses a lock-on system, but still allows for reticle-aimed fire, like Saints Row. Driving has an excellent feel to it, and there are pronounced differences between the different car models. This pleases me greatly.
Sound wise I kinda like the music featured in this game, not the greatest but it gets the job done. The effects are clear and loud, the voice-acting is adequate, and the ambient sound really brings the city to life in Dolby 5.1.
Suggestions: Crackdown pushes the action-driving hybrid genre into the next generation with the first ever truly 3-D playground with some innovative Xbox Live capabilities. What’s not to like. I suggest you save your money for this game, not to mention you get a free Halo 3 beta. Now that is what I call a whole lotta bang for your buck.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
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Fuzion Frenzy 2
You need a pretty good reason to splash out on four controllers when you buy a system. You need a game that’s going to provide endless fun for you and your friends. You need a game that justifies the extra $150 you’re spending on hardware. Microsoft is hoping that Fuzion Frenzy 2 will do the trick. The results are in, and for all intents and purposes, I personally think Fuzion Frenzy 2 is a pretty solid party title. It mimics the first one; everything is very familiar but it is still a fairly solid party game for the 360. It’s got its fair share of faults, and it’s by no mean perfect, but given the lack of party games on the 360, Fuzion Frenzy 2 pulls through comparatively well. Now we all know that party games are not very complex and that their goal is to let someone (anyone) pick up a controller and immediately get into the spirit of the action alongside experienced players. That is what makes the genre so appealing. Oh and I want to announce right now that the Turbine Jumper game is back as well as Sumo, my two personal favorites from the first Fuzion Frenzy…OH YEAH!!!
The first thing you’ll notice is that the board game formula has been scrapped just like the first Fuzion Frenzy. It was often said that the Monopoly-style gameplay that tied minigames together in titles such as Mario Party detracted from the minigames, because it slowed the pace too much, and it factored in an irritating luck-of-the-draw result far too often. To remedy this, Fusion Frenzy developers have simply abandoned the idea altogether, instead they like to throw gamers head first into frenzied multiplayer mayhem.
Gamers can choose from either the tournament mode, minigames or custom tailored games. Tournament mode makes up the bulk of the game, and allows you to battle it out with two or three mates across seven planets; you are able to compete in 40 different mini-games which are randomly chosen and you must become the ultimate victor. The minigame mode lets you chose which game you want to play, which is great because there are plenty of boring minigames you won’t mind skipping. Now for the new stuff, Fuzion Frenzy 2 is Xbox Live enabled. Players are able to create their own unique tournaments that can be shared on Live while building achievement points. Which makes for some very fast paced head to head online action?
The minigames featured range is from really exciting to dead boring. Unfortunately, you’ll find that you become bored with otherwise exciting minigames because their formula is repeated and changed slightly across multiple minigames. For example, you may be required to be the last player holding a ball in one game, whereas in the next game, you must be the only player not holding the ball. Similarly, games will require you to dunk balls in colored holes on foot, and the next will require you to do it in small hovercraft. There is a decent selection, but you’ll find some to be far more mediocre than others. Some minigames are slightly modified versions of the first Fuzion Frenzy but are still a welcomed addition to the second installment because of their popularity (Turbine Jumper, Sumo). Thankfully, the minigame frenzy mode allows you to pick and choose a selection of minigames to play in succession with your mates, so you can eliminate the more tedious games manually.
Needless to say, as a single player game, Fuzion Frenzy 2 isn't very compelling. There are three AI settings, but 'easy' is little more than an excuse to explore the game types without any real competition. 'Medium' and 'hard' pit you against 'way too hard' and 'next to impossible' opponents, respectively. Without other players around, Fuzion Frenzy 2 is sure to spend a lot of time on your shelf. For the inexperienced players, before every minigame starts you can see all the controls for that specific game, and you can even practice the game before hand so you know exactly what to expect when it counts.
Fuzion Frenzy 2 takes little advantage of the Xbox 360's graphics capability. All of the games take place on a single screen, so the camera zooms in and out to keep everyone in view. This can lead to odd situations, like being unable to see powerups or the track in front of you. A lot of the game is bright and colorful, but some of the environments have a dark urban theme, relying on lighting effects to add a splash of color. The water effects are considerably better then the previous Fuzion Frenzy as well as the texture work of the ice.
When the camera zooms way out, this sometimes consists of watching small smears of color against dark backgrounds. The lack of interactive and dynamic elements in the environments is particularly disappointing. Some levels have buttons that can briefly change things around, or objects that you can throw at other players to stun them. Yet there are very few 'wow, look at that!' moments. The characters are not exactly what I like to call next gen but they get the job done, oh and by the way it’s the same 4 characters from the first game (I don’t know if that’s good or bad).
The music in the game is pretty suitable for a party game with its futuristic music, some of it being techno. You can always just listen to your own tunes from your 360’s hard drive instead of the game's music. As for characters, Zak sounds like he's going through puberty which is kind of annoying to listen to. All the characters in this game also have some sayings which are cool for like the first minute or so but later get rather annoying and don’t even get me started on the announcer; I think we’ve had enough of him from the first Fuzion Frenzy.
Suggestions: In a nutshell not much has changed with the general concept behind the series; Fuzion Frenzy 2 is still a collection of multiplayer mini-games, though graphically updated for the 360. I’ve noticed a few nice visual details, like the texture work on the ice surfaces, though on the whole the game does not look terribly stunning. But when it comes to sitting shoulder to shoulder with some of your friends, Fuzion Frenzy 2 is a passable alternative to having to teach a new player how all the buttons work in another game such as Gears of war. But since it doesn't have much long-term appeal, think of this as a brief mindless place to occasionally visit with friends.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
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Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Since the moment Capcom unveiled Lost Planet to the gaming world anticipation has been great, but does Lost Planet live up to the hype. Well I am glad to report that I think it has the strength to carry out our high expectations. It even goes beyond that, in some ways it defines how much action can actually be jam packed into a videogame. Remember how good Mechassault was when it first came out for Xbox, how the snowy environments actually gave you cold streaking chills, well Lost Planet has the same effect only it’s next gen which means bigger and better. Lost planet is a perfect example of what the Xbox 360 is capable of, visually and interactively. With a fair amount of levels to explore and some explosive multiplayer action, with stunning visuals and a good story line, Lost Planet is a well rounded 3rd person shooter game that is a must have for any xboxaddicts out there, but it is still a very fun game for casual gamers to pick up because the game play is very straight forward which compels you to keep kicking akrid ass. The story is very movie-like, which make the cut scenes very exciting to watch.
Now I know the multiplayer aspect of the game has created a lot of buzz since Capcom released its demo on Xbox Live Marketplace so I am going to talk about it first. The menu screen features ranked match, player match, voice masks, and select character. You can then set up a match that supports up to 16 players. The remaining categories let players pick the match type (elimination, team elimination, fugitive or post grab).
The multiplayer point system is incredibly innovative because the modes revolve around a battle gauge. Each team (or player in Elimination mode) has a battle gauge that has to be filled throughout the duration of the match. The wondrous aspect of the two modes is that there are multiple opportunities to obtain battle points other than firing like no tomorrow at any foe unlucky enough to stand in your path. Points are awarded to players for various achievements, such as: destroying Vital Suits and capturing data posts. However, points can also be deducted if you’re too reckless such as committing suicide or ending the life of a team member.
The mech-robot’s known as VS (Vital Suits) manoeuvring feels like you are walking with dumbbells tied to your feet, but at least it’s a commanding hunk of metal. Driving one will decrease your energy meter at a considerably steeper rate. So you’ll want to cut out any lollygagging. And that shouldn’t be too hard, as it’s awe-inspiring to watch the missiles put anything in their path up in smoke, flexing the game’s very impressive fire and smoke effects. It’s empowering to command a VS, but it’s just the beginning in terms of firepower.
All the maps are fun to play, each with enough ground levels and structures to let players sneak up on each other and find places to camp out. But the fact that your energy is forever stuck in a downward spiral eliminates long hide outs and encourages a steadfast level of action, since you gain big chunks of energy by amassing kills. And this shouldn’t be a problem considered there are guns and grenades everywhere you look. There are also these vibrant, robot-like apparatuses that grant energy by approaching one and rapidly tapping the B button. The whole process takes roughly 10 seconds, however, giving enemies ample time to off you in the process.
As good as the multiplayer portion of the game is, let’s move on to the single player missions. In a nutshell the story is very straight forward but is good enough to keep you interested. You will battle it out in a variety of environments (indoor / outdoor). In terms of weapons the grenades are incredibly fun to utilize in the heat of battle but the fire arms are what players are reliant on for the most part. The plasma rifle (my personal favourite) functions the same way the sniper rife does, except it has a faster rate of fire and pumps assailants full of plasma instead of lead from halfway across the map. You can zoom in and out with either the top or bottom button on the D-pad. There are quite a few weapons lying across every level some of which are used best when attached to a VS, such as a homing laser, rocket launcher, a plasma canon, etc. Of course, all can be wielded on foot with the trade off of slower movement in favour of immense power. Despite how large or small they are, every gun looks and feels flat out awesome to wield. I almost forgot to mention, the shotgun can also be part of your arsenal, OH YEAH.
Aside from a line-up of powerful weapons, one of the main reasons why experiencing Lost Planet is so fun, is using the grappling hook. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting to a desired location on foot, but zipping across from structure to structure, no matter what the height (given players are within range of an object that can be hooked onto) of it is.
Visually Capcom wasn’t kidding when they said Lost Planet would produce some of the best graphics on the Xbox 360. The explosions in this game are by far the best I’ve seen. The snow covered environment hasn’t really been done on this scale before in an action game. Lost Planet does a good job of making the planet, creatures and situation seem realistic. Even more jaw dropping is the amount of detail in the characters, creatures and weapons creation. From the concept of thermal energy to the detail and realistic design of the VS, Lost Planet does a great job creating an interesting virtual world.
The sound is also very well done. Sound effects for all of the weapons are good and pretty much what you would expect. Your VS makes a satisfying thud sound as you walk around, which is nice and lets you know this is a huge object weighing several tons and not some hot rod Lincoln you are driving around in. There is also a lot of voice acting for the single player campaign, and while it isn't all Oscar worthy, it gets the job done. The sound also connects very well with the atmosphere. It seems to me like the audio and design team worked closely together because the made up sounds of the Akrid creatures really have some validity and weight.
Suggestions: Now I don’t think this game will be considered the best to come out in 2007 but Capcom has certainly taken some commanding steps in that direction. The game is definably noteworthy but will it be able to hold it’s own during the course of the year, we’ll just have to wait and see what else the 360 has in store for us. But for now this game is worth every penny. So what are you waiting for?
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
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Bionicle Heroes
Usually most action figure, TV series or Movie adaptations of a game fail to deliver fun gameplay for the fans. The problem is that the developers do not take enough time to make the gameplay original and addictive. They make them simple because the game sells a lot of copies around the world because is based on something very popular. Then there is Lego that has made a few videogames. They have had many failures but some games ended up pretty good (Lego Star Wars). So now Lego tries their luck with these robot creations called Bionicle. First introduced in 2001, the Bionicle series of toys by Lego has captured the attention of the 7-15 year old male demographic, as well as the checking accounts of respective parents. Capitalizing on this success, Lego partnered with Disney to release an animated film based on the story behind the collectible characters a couple years back which was a great success but the game that followed was anything but entertaining. Now for the first time on the Xbox 360 hobbyists once again will be able to become their favorite characters from the Bionicle world. Does Bionicle Heroes published by Eidos, offer something original to establish a new franchise in the gaming world or does it end up in the trash like most adaptations? Read on and find out.
Bionicle is actually a Lego spin-off, and in the game you take control of six Bionicle Heroes in order to save the island of Voya Nui from the Piraka who have stolen the masks of life. Your character can switch between each hero by changing his mask, and each brings with it a unique power, as well as a gun of some sort. Nothing innovating here, anyway the premise of the game is very simple. There are six zones, in each zone there are four levels, the first three are run and gun until you reach the end. The fourth level you have to defeat a boss and claim its mask. That’s it. But it is packed full of action and it’s a pretty relentless shooter throughout the whole game.
Bionicle Heroes starts out simply enough and it never really gets complicated. In an effort to appease fans and keep kids interested in the game, Bionicle heroes never settles on one character or gameplay style for any extent of time. Instead, you're constantly switching environments, characters, and actions a delight for children. The variety is supposed to keep you from getting bored and it works quite well. You are constantly on the move figuring out which character to use next. You may have to walk across a patch of lava so at that instant you would select Jaller the fire hero. Oh ya to cycle threw your 6 characters all you have to do is either press the right or left bumper. Some obstacles won’t let you through until you build something, this is where Hewkii the constructer comes into play he can build certain mechanism to open doors ahead or to build a bridge buy using piles of Lego pieces found in the levels. Other characters can climb walls, jump far distances, snipe, cross water, etc. Throughout the levels you collect Lego pieces which are then used to upgrade you characters, armor and weapons. Lego pieces appear when you kill enemies or destroy objects in the world. It is not unusual to finish a level and have accumulated over 100 000 Legos.
The camera takes some time to get familiar with; it is over the shoulder….a la Gears of War. But it feels very stiff you can only really target enemies using the left thumbstick, the problem with that is that it is the same thumbstick you use to walk, so it can be very frustrating sometimes. Actually the right thumbstick is used to look around but it feel stiff and confined you don’t have very much mobility. Because of this sometimes it is hard to see some enemies. They will sometimes creep up on you and start attacking while draining your health and you won’t even realize.
Now one thing that you can distinctively tell was included for kids was that shots that are fired automatically home in on the nearest bad guy, you can just keep your finger on the A button and fire without discretion, also you have unlimited ammo. You have to move the camera around somewhat so you can at least see the enemy but other then that it’s pretty much just a run and gun sort of title. The obstacles are the only thing that gives this game a bit more depth. This isn’t so bad if you are an 11 year old kid mind you. But for the rest of us I think the achievement (gamerscore) factor will be the biggest incentive to play threw the game unless you are a huge fan of the Bionicle.
The levels themselves are very linear and encourage little, if any, exploration. Each level has a number of canisters (gold and silver) to find but instead of offering players a choice of pathways, Bionicle presents these items as a trail of breadcrumbs that lead every player on an identical journey to the end of the level. Even items off the path can easily be seen and require just a few seconds of work to reach.
The boss fights will become very uninspiring, mainly because you defeat every single one of them the same way. A quick analysis of the patterns of the first boss you encounter and you will have no problem facing any other boss in the game which is really boring and repetitive. But the levels pack enough excitement to get over the boring boss fights.
Like I mentioned earlier if you are not a kid or a fan of the Bionicle (like me) one of the main reasons why you’ll enjoy this game so much is going to be that after every level you earn yourself 20 gamer points. The game has over 20 levels; one level takes approximately 15-20 minutes to beat. To beat the entire game it’s about 5 hours of your life spent adventuring into the Bionicle world, which isn’t so bad for 1000 gamer points. The other achievements are also very easy to accomplish. Now not everybody is an achievement whore like I am so you may find another reason why you would purchase this game but I can’t think of any.
Bionicle does a fair job in the visuals department with the nicely different worlds to explore. Most of this beauty can be seen in the jungle and the lava levels. There are plenty of enemies to fight around the environments and they are all pretty unique. The characters are a great port of the toys, yet the animations make the robots look very stiff but I guess they are made of metal. The special effects are pretty decent with the mix colors and some nice big explosions. The camera is somewhat of a problem until you get used to it, since you cannot take complete control of it. The camera gets annoying mostly when trying to target enemies. The framerates doesn’t slow down even when having many enemies on the screen at the same time. You can see all the characters individual pieces that they're composed of, that really connects the heroes to their LEGO origin.
The score is full of platform trademark tunes that alter with environment and mood of the gameplay it can change from frantic boss music to airy ballads of the forest. However, the score isn't all that remarkable in its composition and simply serves as a way to drown out the sound effects. While you will hear blasts from your guns and appropriate effects when your character gets hit by a blast, nothing really stands out. Most of the time you will hear the sound of LEGO pieces being collected; and trust me they are everywhere. Also the voice acting is very good mainly because there is none. None of the heroes say a word in this game; grunts and moans are all you are going to get out of them.
Suggestions: For all the eleven-year-olds whose lives revolve around the popular LEGO franchise, a game of good versus evil has been carefully crafted just for you. If you aren't eleven, and are daring enough to look past the clumsiness of this title, then you'll unearth a short, fast passed, relentless shooter with easy achievements. I have nothing against this game, I played threw the entire thing and I did not walk away feeling empty, probably due to the fact that my gamerscore is looking a lot better now hahaha.
Overall Score: 6.8 / 10
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Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2
It’s horribly cold these days, especially since I live in the wonderful country of Canada where there is nothing but clouds spurting out snow. How I wish it was summer and I was driving to the beach in my car. Maybe that’s why those crazy guys over at Tecmo decided to bring the girls from the highly acclaimed Dead or Alive series into a beach volleyball game with some light casino action. With hundreds of swimsuits that you get to dress your very curvaceous women many people will understand why it has a mature rating. How can this get any better? As good as this game sounds I actually think the question we should be asking ourselves is how can this get any worse? Now you may be confused about my last statement but I am going to tell you straight up, this game is all about boobs. Boobs and the variety of ways they can be bouncing and jiggling in some of the most impossible, physics-defying ways; talk about eye candy. Now you are probably asking yourself why I asked how this game could get any worse, well from a visual point of view the game is very, VERY good but it’s a game not an adult film. Tecmo created this second instalment and just like the first DOA Extreme they forgot all about the gameplay. It’s nothing more than a virtual wankfest, and while that's perfectly fine for some, I want a real game to go along with it.
The storyline of the game goes a little bit like this. Zack, from the previous DOA games, which has an outrageous amount of money; takes that money and does what everybody with lots of money would do, that’s right folks! He ends up buying an exotic island and naming it Zack Island. Zack then invites the girls of DOA to the island. When the girls arrive to this exotic play land they realize that there is nothing to do for the next 2 weeks but to sit around lie in the sun, go shopping, gamble, and of course, play volleyball among other activities.
When you start the game you get to pick any girl from the DOA series. Each day in DOA is split up into sections, morning, afternoon, evening and night; during these sections you get to pick what you would like your character to do. You can pick to mingle with players, sit by the pool, and play volleyball and other various activities. You can also decide to check out the shops filled with items you can purchase such as suntan lotion, dozens of bikinis or accessories like sunglasses and hats. Once you purchase and item you can decide whether you would like to gift wrap it and send it to one of the other girls. Gifts are the key to the girls hearts if you want to win over there friendship. That is basically the point of the game “friendship”. All the achievements you will receive on the 360 are to make 2 friends with all the girls, Not very exciting if you ask me.
All right the volleyball portion of the game is actually not all that bad. The controls are smooth and precise. A gamer can simply pick up the game and start playing, although this doesn’t necessarily mean the game is simple. Certain things, like powerful spikes are a question of timing, but the game offers enough opportunities to perfect your spikes or your serves. You can position your player anywhere along the playing environment or let your partner take up the front and do most of the work. And, thanks to the smooth frame rate, the action doesn’t slow down one bit and this makes for quick matches.
Volleyball is not the only activity that goes on in Zack’s Island. You can lounge by the poolside if you like and work on your tan (characters can tan to a darker shade if you use suntan lotion or not tan at all by using sun block). To earn extra money, there’s a Hopping game that has you jumping across the pool by way of floating cushions . . . and, believes me; it’s not as simple as it sounds. Also Tecmo added a few new features, you can now race sea-doos but its nothing spectacular and butt battles were you try to bump another girl into the pool using only your butt. At night, you can go to bed or head out to the casino to play some classic games like poker, blackjack, roulette or even slot machines. Still this game makes me wish the gameplay had more substance and the camera was better. This game also supports Xbox live which can give the game a little more life span.
Graphics wise, the game is magnificent looking. One of the games that debuted with the Xbox 360 was DOA 4, a game that was used as an example of what the console was capable of visually. The result was a lot of dropped jaws and admiration for a game that featured highly detailed graphics with the smoothest textures ever seen on a game. DOA Xtreme 2, amazingly enough, improves the visuals. The character models, for example, are so detailed that you can witness every muscle at work when a character stretches or moves. Spend too long in the sun without sunscreen and your character will visibly get a bit darker every time. The backgrounds are also amazing and practically breathe with life. Yes, this is one beautiful looking game.
The sound could have been a lot better, but what’s featured here is really not that bad at all. The sound effects, for instance, are wonderfully detailed so that you can make out the sounds of the waves and tropical birds. Still, it’s the soundtrack that really could have used a better quality of tunes to the eclectic mix of soft pop songs as well as some reggae. You can always change the songs on the play list by visiting the Radio Station on the island. The voices found in the game are not all Japanese like previous DOA titles, which is a bonus.
Suggestions: This game is beautiful sure but is it worth your hard earned money; ummmm well lets see the volleyball part of the game is decent and racing sea-doos is fine for a whole 10 minutes but after that this game just gets repetitive. There is not enough depth to this game to actually motivate anyone to want to play threw it. Tecmo should have spent all those man hours creating this game into something a little bit more productive like a sequel to Ninja Giden. In a nutshell the gameplay is lacking, at the end I end up walking away feeling quite empty. The single player aspect of the game will dry up quite quickly and thus leaving the multiplayer game for party situations.
Overall Score: 4.6 / 10
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Tony Hawk's Project 8
Project 8, the newest and the first true next-gen Tony Hawk title. This time around instead of simply upgrading a couple modes, developer Neversoft has literally stripped the game down and rebuilt it from scratch with hope to push their product past anything players have ever seen before in terms of graphics and gameplay that will challenge even the most hard core Tony Hawk fans. I have played threw all the games in this series and I also skateboard myself and this is by far the most addicting and realistic Tony Hawk game to date.
Tony’s back in town and he has a new skateboarding team and you will have to show what you’ve got if you want to make the cut, no cheesy story line this time around. Instead of a storyline format like THUG and THUG 2 presented, Project 8 will simply present fans with one large city to grind up. Most of the places you will be hitting up you would find in your average suburban neighborhood.
With all this open space and no storyline to follow, players may wonder what to do when they first start playing. Immediately after you create your character and start your career you can immediately put your skill to the test with some daring challenges; right off the bat baby! Some challenges, not all of them, such as a grind challenge, are initiated by talking to a person and getting instructions. Others must be discovered by the player as they play and explore the city.
Challenges are structured in the familiar labels of “am”-“pro”-“sick.” Players can choose to simply settle for “am,” if they want to move on, but if your like me and have played threw all the other games in the series you will strive to earn as many “sicks” as possible by attempting the challenge over and over again. For example you take up the challenge of “Nail the Trick”, where players have to try and earn points for multiple tricks done on a single jump. “Am” might be, say, 3,500 points earned, whereas “pro” may be 8,000 and “sick” may be 15,000. Some challenges also require a secondary feat of some sort on top of points to secure a “sick” rating.
Same great controls, but the new Control Sticks adds a brand new feel to the game. Sort of like the control stick format Fight Night 3 and NHL 07 used. In Project 8 you simply click down on both thumb sticks in mid air, to bring you in a bullet time mode where everything is slow motion. Once in slow motion you move the thumb sticks in any direction to do a move, or moves just make sure to land on the board when you are done your trick/tricks. When you land you can also keep the combo going by doing a manual or a grind then if you can catch enough air to do another sweet combo in bullet time then you are starting to master Project 8. This feature adds a whole new layer of skills to master if you want to be number 1. What do skaters do in real life... practice, practice, practice that is going to be like your experience with Project 8. Also the more you grind, manual, wallride, spin, etc... the more your stats go up. So all the hours you spend playing/practicing continually improve your stats.
Skating throughout the city is a very open, non linear experience within the areas that you have unlocked. You can attempt any challenge that you can reach at any time. There are grind challenges, trick challenges, and even “force bail” challenges, where you try to break as many bones on your rider as possible by bailing out during a jump (my personal favorite haha). In addition, you can also accept challenges from any of the pro skaters found throughout the game. There are plenty of challenges, most with three different levels to achieve (Am-Pro-Sick). You are going to be in for a solid 20 hours of gameplay to accomplish “Sick” on all of the games challenges, so players have plenty to look forward to when they drop into the game for the first time.
Let’s talk a little bit about the Xbox Live experience. Project 8 takes gamers to another level with highly integrated leader board systems for every individual challenge in the game. Say, for instance, you can score a Sick on any particular challenge. Your score will go against scores across the world in that specific objective. Players no longer have to settle for challenging themselves to improve. Instead, they can look to their fellow addicts for gaming inspiration, leading to a much more engrossing and addictive gameplay experience. Neversoft didn’t stop there, one new gameplay mode named “Walls” puts up to eight players in an area with little Snake-like trails behind them to trap opponents and eliminate them. Your tail grows longer as you perform tricks, so pulling off awesome moves while watching out for others, it’s a new and exciting experience that keep the game fresh for many hours. Other classic online modes are available to beat your friends in also.
The graphics are definitely next gen. Thank god Neversoft decided to strip the game and start from scratch, it really gives the game a fresh new look and feel. The game also has improved physics to make your gaming experience that much more realistic. Every trick, especially while using the Control Sticks, look extremely real with the toe flicks and heel spins. The city feels alive and is very well structured for skateboarders, if cities in real life where this accessible to skate then I don’t think I would be playing this game I would be ripping it up myself. Also all the character models of the pros skaters are very realistic, but hey that’s what we expect from a next gen title.
The sound is exceptionally real. Every different type of ground that you skate on has it’s own distinctive sound. You can actually hear every crack your wheels make contact with. Even if you had your eyes closed, you could picture the kind of ground you are skating on. While using the Control Sticks and you are in slow motion in midair, you hear your feet flick your board and catch it. The soundtrack is one of the best on any game, plenty of tunes to listen to while you are pulling mad combos. The voice acting is also spot on. The sound department has never been this series week point. Just remember to crank up the volume.
Suggestions: As the winter shopping season approaches and the console war is upon us, Tony Hawk is in top form in Project 8. The return of old-school goals instead of playing through a cheesy storyline was a very good decision. By far the best Tony Hawk title to date. Just keep thinking of innovative new features and concentrating on bringing the games to life.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
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Thrillville
Lucasarts has sent out a new game called Thrillville for the Xbox console. What makes it so unique? In a nutshell, Thrillville is unique because it sucks you in with its simplistic gameplay and focus on fun. Lucasarts developed this theme park based game to bring everything gamers love from party games mixed thoroughly with sim games to all Xbox owners. It is basically what the party-genre users are paying for: simple games, original/exciting gameplay, and a title in which the graphics take a back seat as the good old-fashioned gameplay takes control.
Thrillville is basically a theme park simulator and practically every activity you do is presented as a minigame. The main goal of the game is to build, maintain and manage theme parks; after your uncle decides to turn the park over to you. When you first start the game you will be presented by cut scenes followed by tutorials. Once you finish the tutorials you will be equipped with all the fundamentals you’ll need to manage your park. You will have learned the essentials of how to keep your parks business and financial side healthy as well as all the different things you will need to build such as restrooms, food and beverage stands, etc.
Your park will also have you create new roller coasters, rides and carnival games. You also can’t forget about your parks cleanliness and safety; that is why you will need to hire and train some staff to take care of these tasks such as cleaning up puke and garbage or fixing rides. When a ride breaks down; the technician you order to fix the ride will be presented with a simple connect the circuits minigame; which keeps the game fresh.
Thrillville then lets you walk through the park and interact with your guests, polling them on what's working, what's not and then altering your park accordingly. While roaming your park on foot you can introduce yourself to guest by simply pressing Y. A screen will pop up tell you about the overall status of this particular guest including there hunger, happiness, thirst etc… Get this you can even flirt with guests in your park but be weary as it will affect your friendliness rating. You can also ask them for opinions or suggests them to try a certain rollercoaster. Chatting with guest is the best way to figure out how to improve the park. The chat options are to my surprise very delightful and decently deep.
Now for the coaster-building portion of Thrillville. For a game with many different types of coaster and a whole butt load of different pieces and types of track, there's actually very little work involved in creating your ultimate puke-train. Once the ride is complete, you can hop in the front seat and take it for a spin, and you can edit the coaster on the fly if you find that a twist or a loop is not quite to your liking.
In terms of replay value, the carnival games offer the most. Anyone who has attended an amusement park in their life has probably spent a few dollars into the lightgun shooting ranges, crashed around in bumper cars or played a couple rounds of miniature golf. Well, Thrillville lets you include those games in your own themepark as well, and just like the roller-coasters, you can actually take them for a test ride. Really cool feature.
So, if you’re going to be creating a custom mini-putt course for your guests, you can play the course for yourself. Or if you create a bumper car arena or go-kart track, feel free to hop in the vehicle and take a ride. You can even design your own shooting range and play through it like a first-person shooter.
In Thrillville, customization is key, but not to the point where it’s overwhelming. LucasArts knows that console players don’t necessarily want to tweak every financial aspect. But the option is there if you want to go into details.
Now don’t get me wrong this is defiantly not going to be mistaken as a 360 game anytime soon but considering the amount of guest in your park at a time and the size of the park defiantly can be overwhelming sometimes. Yes the characters are a little blocky but if you can get passed the fact that this game was not created for the eye candy, and let yourself enjoy the simplistic thrill of being a park managager and playing the very addictive minigames then you will be able to recognize and appreciate what this game is trying to do.
Suggestions: Technically speaking, the game likely won’t blow you away. Like I said the character models are a little blocky and a little bit on the cartoony side; but they’re innocent looking and play their roles adequately, but the look of the game could have been smoothed out a bit. Sound wise the effects are very good, such as the background noise of peeps talking, screaming and shouting. The new age hippy music is suitable, not necessarily good listening but suitable for a theme park game.
In terms of gameplay, Thrillville could be one of the last Xbox releases that’s actually worth your hard earned money. Overall Thrillville is a decent game.
Overall Score: 7.4 / 10
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Marvel Ultimate Alliance
If you've played Activision's previous X-Men Legends titles and liked them, it's a safe bet you're going to like this action RPG as well. It looks good, features a decent roster of playable heroes, and has creative level design.
From the get go, Dr. Victor Von Doom is threatening the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. He’s heading up to destroy it with his group known as the Masters of Evil while Captain America regroups his team, which consist of Thor, Spider-man and Wolverine, to take out the cyborg-controlled assault ships attacking. After this first sterling cut scene, which nicely captures the personalities of the first team of fighters, you’ll work your way through the helicarrier, when you might realise that perhaps the foursome of Spidey, Captain America, Thor and Wolverine are not what is needed for this mission. No worries. Just find the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo within a level, portal down and pull up The Thing, or Ironman, or Black Panther, or … If this is sounding like an all-star roster of some of the best Marvel super-heroes of all time, you are absolutely right. But it gets even better. There is Daredevil, Deadpool, Dr. Strange, Elecktra, Ghost Rider, The Fantastic Four, etc…
While the game does feature a crazy amount of characters from the Marvel universe, the attention paid to detail is absolutely great, giving each character their own special abilities and attitudes, from Spider-Man’s joking attitude to Captain America’s leadership skills to Wolverine’s badass-ness.
The special abilities are also quite unique to the characters in the game. For example, Spider-Man’s web, being able to hang enemies from the ceiling and swing around the level with his web and so on. Ghost Rider can chuck enemies into the air and then use his chains to slam them down onto the ground, which is fun to see.
Those that have played the X-Men: Legends games will recognize the way this game plays out (great game to play with the wife or girlfriend, by the way). Too put it simple you manage a team of four threw a level that has many enemies standing between your team and its objective at the other end of the level. Each of the superheroes have unique abilities, the right mix will see you through each of the challenges that await you. As you fight, you get experience, which translates into levelling up to improve your skills. You can also let the game auto-assign the skill points if you are lazy, but the person that wants to manage the team will be able to disable the auto-assign feature and customize the characters the way he or she sees fit.
The game will take players through a variety of different areas from the Marvel universe, like Atlantis, and pits you against tons of super-villains. The choices that you make while playing through the missions have somewhat of a bearing on the outcome of the game. The story-arc will be different depending on how you play through a given situation, giving the game a very dynamic feel. On the other hand the puzzles in Ultimate Alliance are tending toward simple, pretty much the only puzzles you’ll be faced with are pushing and pulling objects into new locations.
As I stated earlier, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is an action/RPG game that plays out very similarly to the X-Men: Legends games. However, whereas the X-Men: Legends titles were pretty much all done as a top down games, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance gives you a bit more control over the camera, even being able to rotate it to the side of your team. The camera does get hung up once in a while but not enough to take away from the experience.
Almost every character can unlock three alternate costumes, unlocked only when you play as that character. The alternate costumes are absolutely fantastic but they aren't just for show this time around. Each has three upgradeable stats that affect how your character performs. One outfit may allow you to increase the Max Health and the rate of XP gained while another gives a bonus to a specific type of attack and increases defense. Ultimately, the type of upgrade proves far less important than dressing your hero the way you like him or her to look; old school or not old school that is the question?
As if that weren't enough customization, you also can create your own super team. After selecting the appropriate icon and name to represent your team, you choose four charter members. Anytime you play with at least three members you gain Team Experience. As the team levels up, you can add more roster spots and improve overall performance with enhanced damage and upgraded health. In some ways this defies the idea of having two-dozen playable characters. If anything, this will discourage play with a variety of heroes.
One of the main features in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is the online play, which offers competitive co-op and just normal co-op. Basically, the competitive co-op mode means that even though you and your online buddy are working together, you’re still fighting over things like experience points and kills and trying to get more than your team-mate; for bragging rights mainly.
Suggestions: Boasting the largest collection of Marvel heroes and villains in one title, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a terrific game for the die-hard fan of Marvel comics. Those that enjoyed X-Men: Legends will also find this game entertaining. There are some failing points, but overall, this game is a delight to have in my collection. More than 20 playable characters, 17 locations, and the ability to control the destiny of the world and Marvel Universe; this game has the elements superhero fans crave.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
In a nutshell Splinter Cell Double Agent has got to be the most fully featured stealth action game to date, so if you like the idea of high-tech espionage, it's certainly going to have plenty to offer you. This game, like all of the Splinter Cell games from the last generation offers; gorgeous visuals, especially the lighting effects and the environments; improved, more open-ended single-player campaign, and innovative multiplayer modes. The campaign game play is retouched but pretty similar to the previous games; the multiplayer doesn’t cater to the hardcore fans as much as Chaos Theory did, it's not as complicated and punishing to new players. This instalment of the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell stealth action franchise features the continuing adventures of Sam Fisher, a top secret agent who's sent in to accomplish the US government's dirty work when political situations go sour, very sour indeed. Sam is going deep undercover, in order to infiltrate a terrorist organization operating on American soil. Has Sam gone bad? No. But he'll be faced with very tough moral choices if he wants to accomplish his mission. Sort of like the moral system incorporated in Fable and Kotor but not as obvious as to which decision is the right one. The choices you make will determine how the game will end (3 possible endings).
Though the premise of the story is a techno-thriller that lives up to the Tom Clancy name, storytelling has never been Splinter Cell's strong suit, but Double Agent is the exception. Between-mission cut scenes sometimes set the stage for your next assignment, but a lot of your missions details are conveyed in premission monologues by your commanding officers and informants but the best parts of the story happen during the missions themselves, where you'll often hear Fisher exchanging banter with his off-site crew. Double Agent fuels your imagination with its plot, and lets you be creative with the gameplay. No other game does this well at making you feel like a deadly spy working behind enemy lines.
As the game begins, you’re babysitting a new agent through a routine recon mission, when things predictably go wrong. The rookie gets killed but then is immediately forgotten when you learn that your daughter has been hit by a car. This somehow leads to an undercover mission in a prison, and begins a spy story with about as many holes as the dead rookie. But just like always, the constant flow of well-written dialog within the missions keeps you interested and engaged in spite of the seemingly random twists.
Since you’re undercover, half of the missions take place in the terrorists’ compound. There, you’ll be given jobs fit for an extremist (craft some mines, dispose of a body) and objectives from Lambert (load a trojan into their servers, copy documents). A new trust system gives you more leeway in the regular missions. Since you’re working for the government and the terrorists, you need both of them to believe in you. This is represented by two meters, which, in a lot of cases, give you more room for error than you had in the previous games. If you mess up and stab a cop, for instance, Lambert won't freak out. If you mess up and stab five, well, maybe it's time to retire. The meters also play into the morally ambiguous decisions Double Agent places before you. The irony is that, in existing, they pretty much undermine any sense of morality. For example, at one point the terrorists ask you to kill a hostage. If you point the gun at him, you can see exactly how much of Lambert’s trust a kill will cost, and if you aim at the wall, how much less the terrorists will trust you should you decline. This causes you to weigh your choice pragmatically, not morally, and takes the suspense out of what’s supposed to be a life and death decision.
Multiplayer is also solid and continues on the Spy vs. Merc mould originally developed for Pandora Tomorrow. Spies sneak around in third person, attempting to steal items, while first person Mercs will do everything they can to stop them.
Co-op also returns, this time sporting considerably more levels than in Chaos Theory. They’ve been overly simplified this time around and lack the sense of awe the original levels inspired, but they’re still a blast to help and certainly add to the totally enjoyable playtime.
The only notable flaw with Double Agent is that loading eats up a lot of time. Granted, loads don’t occur very often, but they happen enough to be mildly annoying. It also takes forever to save a game because loading the list of previous saves takes, at the very least, 30 seconds.
Splinter Cell's famous good looks have always helped the series a great deal, and sure enough, they're once again a big part of the appeal of Double Agent. The game's incredible animations, meticulously detailed environments, and gorgeous lighting effects are exactly what you expect from a next-gen title. The slew of new moves and animations help make the experience feel like more than just a rehash of the previous Splinter Cells. However, the graphical enhancements made to the campaign mode make for a starker contrast with the multiplayer mode, which doesn't look quite as sharp. In all, Double Agent holds onto the Splinter Cell mantle of being one of the best-looking games out there. The over reliance on dark, claustrophobic confines that defined Chaos Theory has been replaced by an eclectic mix of outdoor and interior locations, embellished by a variety of weather effects and rich architecture and cultural influences.
It's also a great-sounding game, though at times you'll wish that the audio was implemented better. As in previous Splinter Cell games, the soundtrack's cues are actually a little haphazard. For example, you'll be skulking about without any background music for the most part, and then the beats suddenly kick in if you alert anyone to your presence or get in a fight. When the coast is clear, the music fades as quickly as it picks up, dampening some of the suspense you might otherwise experience if you weren't sure if other foes were nearby. The music sounds terrific, at any rate, as does the voice work from the game's main cast. Fearsomely loud gunfire and other well-done ambient effects help sell the whole experience, even though the game's international cast of characters still speaks in stereotypically accented English. You'll also hear some of the characters' voices noticeably change as they go from chattering with each other to taunting you in a fight. It's not that bad, it's just something that can undermine some of your suspension of disbelief in a game that works hard to be convincing.
Michael Ironside returns once again to voice series hero Sam Fisher. As always, his voice work is top notch. In fact, it’s so good you have to wonder if Michael Ironside really is just as bitter and crotchety as Sam is. Dennis Haysbert also returns to voice the little angel sitting on Sam’s shoulder, Lambert.
Suggestions: Splinter Cell Double Agent fulfills a lot of the previously untapped potential of its predecessors' single-player portions, while successfully extending the impressive multiplayer offerings of Chaos Theory. It's got to be the most fully featured stealth action game to date, so if you like the idea of high-tech espionage, it's certainly going to have plenty to offer you.
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
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FIFA 07
The FIFA Football games have been with us from what seems like the start of time (1994 to be exact) and most of these games have been highly successful and worthy of any football fan's time. The first and arguably only real rival for the FIFA series is Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer which has gone from strength to strength in recent years.
It's no secret that EA have a reputation for only making minor modifications to sequels and FIFA has received much criticism in the past for that very reason. This time around; let’s just say Pro Evo's gotten a bit cocky, and FIFA 07 is ready to ruffle a few of its feathers.
As always, pinpointing why a football game feels right isn't easy, but in FIFA 07's case it's a combination of ball physics and player AI. It's by no means a complete overhaul from 06, but in 07 you'll notice that the ball moves more realistically, with everything from passes to saves by the goalies looking right, and team-mates will actually make smart runs off the ball - something that can't be praised highly enough. When playing as a team with good chemistry, team-mates will make overlapping runs down the wing, and your strikers will make darting runs through the centre of defense. FIFA has always been a fun game to play, but this year it feels serious at the same time.
The rather excellent first-touch system returns, once again highlighting the leaps FIFA has made when compared to PES. If you're new to FIFA the right analogue stick on your controller is basically what differentiates the game from other football titles, especially this year where the basic controls and feel of the game are remarkably similar to PES. Upon receiving the ball you simply push the right analogue stick in the direction you want to take the ball - it's that simple. It works brilliantly, and allows you to move the ball with a fluidity that is lacking in other games, fooling defenders or taking the ball from the air and delivering a blistering half volley shot.
Tricks and skills are also handled with the right stick, but rather than simply being gimmicky moves, they actually add to the gameplay. At times it's hard to believe this is the same series that regularly received a good kicking from the video game press, never matching the greatness of PES. Shooting, an area which has been open to abuse in the past, has been refined too, with timing and player skill far more important than in previous games. Apart from goalies exhibiting a weakness against free-kicks (I'm not just talking about Cristiano Ronaldo's fluky blasts), it's another area where it feels just right.
Game modes certainly aren't lacking, either. You get the usual bunch, along with the FIFA Lounge, which lets you and a few mates play together; an addictive Management mode complete with a number of sim-like options, such as transfers and the ability to watch or play as your team; team creation, multiple official tournaments, such as the Premier League and FA Cup; and online play including online leagues. The online leagues are brand new to FIFA 07, and have been heavily promoted by EA, but aren't really as innovative as they seem.
Online play is by far the biggest draw for players looking to get the most out of the game, but EA has crammed in a number of tricky and not so tricky challenges, which when completed earn you points. These can be spent in the fan shop, giving you access to bonus kits, new balls and a small selection of game 'enhancements', such as an overhead camera view and a selection of silly noises.
Sound thankfully has seen some major advances since last years FIFA game. Clive Tydsley is this season's commentators. The commentary is overall a lot more convincing and can often be mistaken for commentary off the TV. Each team appears to have there own chant which is a nice touch but that same chant happening for the duration of matches tends to get a little frustrating after a while. In the menus the ever trusty EA trax return with songs from various artists around the world. Some menus even have famous commentary from real life footballing events. FIFA games have always been good at capturing the essence of 'the beautiful game' usually not through first class gameplay but mainly through presentation’ but this year EA has a good balance of both.
Suggestions: So, time for the big question. Is FIFA 07 the new king of football? To put it bluntly, no - but its !&%$@#* close. It's something I've thought long and hard about, but when the question is asked, PES still reigns supreme. FIFA 07 most definitely beats PES in a few areas, most notably in presentation and the brilliant first-touch control, but it's still not PES. While PES ambles along though, FIFA is making huge strides, so while in the end this might not be "the season," Pro Evolution Soccer's fall from the top might not be too far away. Still, FIFA 07 is a great game in its own right, and the best alternative players have had to PES in years.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
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Just Cause
Hola senoritas and senors, welcome to the luxurious island of San Esperito. Sure, the government is a total dictatorship and is corrupt as could be, but come on down anyways and enjoy the lush scenery. However, be mindful of men in parachutes, cause someone is looking to bring down the government and initiate change that is sure to rock the isle.
Of all the unlikely superheroes, Just Cause seems to have nailed the unlikeliest - a suave Latino hero (black ops operative) by the name of Rico Rodriguez. Being a black ops operative and all, Rico wears a tight black outfit, has greasy hair and a cross on his neck chain. Rico is a killer with the ladies and has one serious (and I do mean serious) parachuting fetish. I can already picture this guy freefalling from the sky and onto a toilet seat when he needs to take a dump. The extra gel in his hair is by no means a stereotype of some Antonio Banderas wannabe - it's a neat little trick to make Rico more aerodynamic. After all, it's not easy to parachute off a mountain, use a grapple hook gun to hook onto a helicopter in mid air and then hurl yourself somehow onto a flying helicopter (with a spinning rotor and everything), jumping into the pilot seat in the process.
Rico can do all that and more as he wreaks havoc on the stunning island of South America’s San Esperito. I’ve been hi-jacking helicopters, parasailing on the back of speedboats, liberating provinces, delivering drug packages for local cartels and generally causing as much mayhem as I can muster. If size does matter than Just Cause is the new ‘daddy’ of videogames, but as someone once told me, size isn’t everything…it’s what you do with it that counts. Just Cause doesn’t have to‘willy wave’ to prove its credentials it does have plenty more to offer in terms of excitement, sheer fun and new game play ideas.
Hopefully, my introduction made it quite clear that Just Cause is an over-the-top action game favoring, well, over-the-top stuff. It has a flimsy, clichéd storyline which borders on B movie/soap opera "quality," with characters that are exaggerated and cartoon-ish in almost every way. Just Cause delivers a free-roaming, sandbox type of gameplay experience. The island nation is pretty huge and the idea is for the player to have one main story line and then a number of side missions that will allow for the unlocking of new weapons, vehicles and such. The territory of San Esperito is exceptionally large (250,000 acres of mountains, jungles, beaches, cities, and villages to explore), and the landscapes look great. With volumetric clouds and full 3D backgrounds, the landscapes are very much reminiscent of Far Cry's paradise island. Gameplay-wise Just Cause takes some cues from GTA, minus the actually engaging story and characters.
The great thing about the action itself is that you can take over all sorts of vehicles and really take Rico wherever your little heart desires. During the "liberation missions," the combat can heat up nicely with massive fire fights, and once you get the hang of the stunts, they will occasionally provide some good few minutes of fun. The bad side to the game is that the main story is really unappealing, mostly because it's so trite and clichéd. The same can be said about Rico who has the action appeal of Roberto Rodriguez' anti-hero gone terribly wrong. In other words, Rico is not as appealing as Avalanche hoped he would be.
On top of that, the vehicle handling is off (oh, and sound terrible too), and the AI and animation of the bad guys are far from what you'd call good. Especially the death animation. To be fair to the game, the way that Just Cause works, this is hardly intended to be its strong point (the AI that is), so this doesn't take away from the gameplay as much as one might expect. Yet there are many glitches in the game that take away immensely from the experience. If Just Cause was polished up a little, it could be up to par with other games on the 360. But it’s not.
Now for the visual…the game is a lush beauty, as the corral underneath the ocean, the sandy beaches, thick and green trees and other fauna all made the island feel like a real exotic place that you'd pay to go visit (that is, if it wasn't overrun with a power hungry government). Explosions and more natural man made environmental features like factories and mansions were also rendered expertly well.
Ideally, the game allows for such neat stuff as province control where you get to change the balance of power in the game world by building alliances with the local guerrillas and drug cartel. Generaly, this should ensure for quite a bit of replayability. Sadly, this is not the case, as once you've finished the main story and unlocked some of the most powerful choppers and weapons; there isn't really much of an incentive for the player to keep playing. Just Cause had plenty of potential, and in terms of the engine and the technology behind it, it delivers quite nicely. In addition, just looking at the crazy aerial stunts that Rico performs, the game comes off as looking rather spectacular.
Suggestions: Unfortunately, these fun elements simply don't gel well together, so the end product seems rather flat. That's the best way to describe it really. For a game that tries hard to create a flamboyant image for itself, Just Cause simply lacks the punch and the personality to truly deliver on that front. On the bright side, Avalanche does show a lot of potential. Hopefully, they will learn from their mistakes and come back with a stronger contender next time.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
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Enchanted Arms
If you've played any other Japanese role-playing game recently, you'd immediately recognize Enchanted Arms as one of them. You can tell the game's visual style takes cues from the Final Fantasy series, especially parts VII and VIII. Similarly to Final Fantasy VIII, the game begins in sort of a futuristic school, and things start pleasantly enough as the game's main character, Atsuma, makes small talk with his professor, friends, and fellow students. Atsuma isn't just a wise-cracking, headstrong kid, though. He's got special power in his right arm, which lets him drain away enchantments and more (I don’t want to ruin it for you) but it has something to do with golems (Devil Golem to be exact). Between the game's strong story line and its unusual turn-based combat system, Enchanted Arms is a very addicting game that makes you play deeper and deeper into the experience. On average about 40 hours to make it threw this game.
One thing that's rather off-putting about the game is the English voice acting. While not necessarily bad, it's delivered in the over-the-top fashion typical of a lot of anime, and at least one character in particular comes across as a little too much. He's Makoto, one of Atsuma's companions, and he's very clearly infatuated with Atsuma's intelligent, handsome friend Toya. Makoto is probably the most flamboyant video game character I've ever seen, if his flowing blonde hair and midriff-bearing doublet weren't enough, his voice and dialogue are about as stereotypically fitting as you might possibly imagine.
The game is quite chatty overall, at least in the beginning, and a lot of the dialogue is delivered in full speech. You get a pretty good sense for Atsuma and his friends early on, and while our hero seems a bit dopey at first, we know going in that he's going to have to undergo some transformative experience that takes him from zero to hero. Oh, and if the English voice acting does rub you the wrong way, rest assured there's a Japanese-language option available as well. It's great to have the option to play games like this with English subtitles but Japanese speech.
Only part of the game's early sequence involves hearing Makoto complain about how Atsuma ate all the delicious lunch he lovingly prepared for Toya. There is also, in fact, combat. The combat system in Enchanted Arms follows a turn-based structure that can be likened to Final Fantasy or other Japanese RPGs, but unlike in most such games, your characters' turns aren't dictated by their speed ratings; it's yours to decide who moves in which order. The battlefield is divided up into a chess-like grid, but many characters' attacks will affect a number of different spaces on the grid, which makes positioning important. Even the very first attacks you have access to will ravage your foes with explosive elemental attacks; some of the later attacks in the game fills the screen with spectacular effects. Since this is going to be a lengthy game that has you seeing lots of combat, Enchanted Arms does offer a "fast forward" feature in case you want to see a battle resolve more quickly. You can also make your characters auto-attack, but where's the fun in that, right? Enchanted Arms' combat seems to revolve around using your characters' attacks in wise combination, while also using different golems' powers to aid you. There are over 100 different golems waiting to be discovered in this game.
So, what are the possible outcomes of combat? There are only two options, victory or defeat. Ok, that is a bit simplistic, why don’t I explain in a little more detail what happens in both of these situations.
Why don’t we start out with the not so happy one… defeat. When your hit points reach zero you do not immediately die, you have three turns to revive the character, if not done so in that time then they will be removed from the game. Even if your entire team succumbs to the enemy forces, all is not lost. Falling in combat is not the end of all life as we know it; you can select to “Retry” the battle you have just lost. Of course, you can also get frustrated, throw the controller across the room, turn off the system and try again later from your last save, but it just seems so much easier and less dangerous to bystanders of your anger to retry the single battle.
I mentioned that one of your options if you fell in combat was to simply start over from your last save. Well how far back that is will be completely up to you. The game lets you save whenever and wherever you please… so if you lose a lot of ground for a power outage, a brother tripping over the power cord or whatever, you have no one to blame but yourself.
That’s enough of that depressing stuff; let’s talk about the happy joy feelings you get from victory. When you successfully emerge from battle not only will you be rewarded with all kinds of points that will help you not only gain levels for your characters (the staple of any RPG), but points that can help you enhance your character on the spot as well. There is vitality, special skill, experience, hit points and more.
Finally, one of the things that distinguish this game the most is the fact that Enchanted Arms is an ONLINE RPG! Yep, I said online! If you are the type of person that likes to brag that you are the greatest gamer in the world now it is time for you to put up or shut up. Log onto the Xbox Live online gaming system and challenge others to Versus battles. Choose your best characters, because how well you do will affect your online ranking. Fight party to party and see who has the best Golems.
The designs of the main characters are pretty poor, but the Golems all have a unique look to them and a very distinct anime/manga style to them. The environments are also really spectacular, as some cities like Kyoto look just like feudal Japan, with water stepping stones and beautiful cherry blossom trees. The lighting in the game is the most impressive part of the art. There are different light sources all over the world; and the shadows casts from them are very impressive. That is not the best part about the lighting in the game though. The skills you unleash in the game have some great visual effects with them. The best part has to be the EX skills. Here you will be presented with a spectacular visual display, along with the devastating attack. However beautiful the lighting may be, it does not make up for the lackluster artwork during conversations in the game. Conversations are still framed images of the two people talking to each other… no animation at all. The cut scenes that present the story to you do have some fantastic design though. In the end, the graphics are decent, but I did expect more on my Xbox 360.
Atrocious! The music is okay and the sounds are very pedestrian, but the voice acting is horrendous. A word of advice: play it long enough to see how bad it is, then switch to the Japanese voice acting to make your play through a bit more tolerable. I'm not usually a stickler for bad voice acting, but here it simply cannot be helped – it is bad! And for the replay value… due to the linear nature of the game, the reapply suffers. However, because there are no character classes in the game, you can customize each character however you like. You have an army of Golems to choose from. Each time you play the game, it could be a very different experience. When you add on the ability to challenge other gamers online, this game has some decent replay value.
Suggestions: As the first Japanese role-playing game for the Xbox 360, Enchanted Arms automatically fills a BIG void. From the very first seconds of the game, you'll know you're not going to be in for anything at all like Oblivion. The apparently complex combat system and intriguing game world set up some solid groundwork for Enchanted Arms to continue to keep you entertained for a long time.
Overall Score: 8.6 / 10
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Saints Row
It's easy to label something as a Grand Theft Auto clone, and there is usually only one requirement for it; the game tries to be GTA but it sucks. A fair number have come out in recent years, but none have managed to touch the success of that particular franchise. With Saint's Row, the formula is being tested again, but there is something about the game that puts it on the same level as the heralded GTA series.
Saints Row starts pretty abruptly; you play as a new member of the 3rd Street Saints, one of four gangs that are fighting for territory in the fictional city of Stilwater. After a rather uneasy beginning, complete with overdone speech and character introductions that seem rather forced, things settle down into a surprisingly entertaining and well written story. The goal is to take over the city, taking control of areas that are currently run by other gangs. Each gang has its own distinct look and favored vehicles, and the main characters are pretty believable.
Much like Grand Theft Auto, Saint's Row has many of the same trappings: you've got your store where you can buy your different weapons, a store to change up your appearance, the ability to jack cars, rough up people on the streets, plastic surgery, etc. Though the games share many of the same elements, Saint's Row features a few new tricks, such as being able to recruit your fellow gang members to join you on a mission and the obvious one the ability to play on Xbox Live.
Saint's Row will follow you and your posse as you rise up the ranks, earning respect by doing activities across the city or taking down rival gangs. Respect is actually the name of the game, because without respect, you can't advance through the story. Told through in-game cinematics, the cutscenes feature a whole array of characters.
The missions of Saint's Row range in variety; gathering prostitutes from other pimps to bring to another one, taking out rival gang members, heading to the local hideout to take down a crime boss, smuggling drugs, robbing liquor stores, etc. Beyond the missions, since the game is built as a giant urban sandbox, you can make your own fun in the game. If you want to jump on the hood of a car and go surfing, you can do it. If you want to mug people off the street for money, you can do it. If you want to practice running from the police, you can do it. If you want to take pipe bombs and watch the lovely explosions…well you get the idea.
The most impressive inclusion, and something that GTA doesn't feature, is the map. Ok, so GTA has a map, but not like the map in Saints Row. By setting a waypoint on the map you not only get a general direction of where to go, but a dynamically changing route. This is shown on the mini-map in the corner of the screen and makes high-speed chases far more manageable than in other games. It might be a little odd that the cops, S.W.A.T, police helicopters and more seemingly forget about your sins when you cross into a blue target circle, but finding it is never an issue. You can easily find shops, activity locations, and save points, too, not that you need to find a save point as the game lets you save your progress wherever you are.
What game would be complete these days without a fully featured character creation tool, and Saints Row's lets you tweak all manner of different facial and body features. You can also buy new clothes - which actually have an impact on the game - and your cars can be 'pimped' out to look 'sweet' and perform better too. Your garage also doubles as a handy store for your better cars, and your crib holds stashes of cash and weapons. Rounding off a rather complete and lengthy 20 hours + single-player campaign are an awful lot of achievements that really make you work for the points, and like many Xbox 360 games, dish out a fair number through the online portion of the game.
Volition have included support for up to twelve players over Xbox Live or System Link, and while it feels a little tacked on, the multiplayer component can be a lot of fun. Unsurprisingly, all the game modes are distinctly gang themed, so you get modes that ask you to escort a pimp, take other players' chains, and upgrade cars as quickly as possible, all while under fire from the enemy. Of course, there's also a standard deathmatch and team deathmatch mode. Sadly, these online games are played in enclosed areas, and don't make use of the same free-roaming city seen in the single-player game. An unexpected bonus, though, comes in the form of co-op missions. Two players can get together to fend off rival gang members, and these point towards what a true online gang warfare game could deliver.
Saint's Row features some gorgeous explosive effects; go to the local gun store, load up on pipe bombs, then find the nearest car and let the good times roll, or more accurately blow up into the air and come crashing down to the street. The explosion itself is a sight to see itself, but the really nice touch is watching the car rip apart and watching debris as it flies by; if you stay too close to the carnage, there is a good chance a hunk of debris or a flying tire just might head your way and knock you down (trust me…I know). When several cars explode side by side, and you slowly walk away, only to have the whole chassis fall from the sky just inches away from you, then you know you've found a pretty special game.
The world feels very alive as you watch things unfold naturally. If you aren't jacking a car, there is a good chance someone else is doing it instead. People will be buying weapons right beside you, customers will be trying to score taxis, and police will walk the beat. A lot of the realism comes from the dialogue, which is absolutely hilarious; much of it can't be said here should a younger gamer come strolling by, but rest assured if you aren't laughing out loud, then your funny bone must be broken.
Suggestions: Compared directly to the Grand Theft Auto series, and in particular to the scope of San Andreas, Saints Row comes off as second best, but it's far from a second rate product. In fact, it's one of the few next-gen games that truly warrants a next-gen price tag, with a lengthy single-player campaign and a fun online component to extend the experience. Originality is great, but with that illusive new idea becoming harder and harder to find, well made imitators (especially in a genre that rarely gets it right) can't be sniffed at. Saints Row even manages to show GTA a thing or two, and deserves a place in the collection of anyone old enough to play it.
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
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Ninety Nine Nights
While Japanese releases for the Xbox 360 have been slim so far, this month seems to be bringing a veritable torrent of them. At the front of the pack is N3: Ninety-Nine Nights, the latest from Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment, as a new take on the popular epic hack-and-slash battle genre with a high fantasy twist. The game features seven playable heroes, each with his own campaign, presenting his own perspective on the same main storyline. Their paths cross occasionally and encountering one of these hero characters will unlock them to play for yourself, and that’s the only time that the story is of great importance because it does little more than bookend each campaign and attempt to give some context to the carnage.
The story, however, is mainly an excuse to partake in colossal battles that borrow heavily from both the Dynasty Warriors series and developer Phantagram’s own Kingdom Under Fire games. The extra horsepower of the Xbox 360 is put to work by allowing a purported 5,000 enemies on-screen for you to mercilessly cut down, giving the skirmishes an unprecedented sense of scale.
The first thing to note is that your average enemy orc is going to be no match for you, equipped as you are with weapons and combos capable of taking out whole battalions. It’s in sheer weight of opposition numbers that the game will try to overwhelm players, but as you can also command your own, admittedly fairly useless, troops to give your hero some backup, laying waste to the enemy hordes becomes simple but gratifying fun.
Command over your troops is a much smaller element than in Kingdom Under Fire and thanks to some poor AI risks becoming more of an annoyance. The interface is thankfully fairly transparent but still comes off as unnecessary, as allies will sometimes be so inept as to be unable to kill a single enemy in the middle of their ranks or hit an enemy from a distance that it’s often easier to do it yourself - especially when you’re overpowered to such an extent.
Mashing of the attack buttons is often enough as to launch your character into some fairly spectacular combos, complete with lightning trails, aerial attacks, and energy balls fired into crowds of opponents. The characters level up as you fight with them, which increases their strength and adds new attacks to the repertoire, and also red orbs from the bodies of fallen enemies can be harvested and used to unleash super attacks. During this time it becomes even easier to decimate the enemy forces as you cut huge swathes through their ranks, especially as enemies killed by these orb attacks will in turn drop blue orbs to power up ultimate attacks that should certainly mop up anyone who survived the initial blitz.
In the early stages enemy groups are limited to around fifty troops, which don’t take long to balloon to over hundreds of enemies, and the engine handles it gracefully with a decent frame rate. Although most enemies look alike, character models are reasonably detailed and seeing hundreds of them come over the brow of a hill towards you really looks impressive, not to mention imposing.The scale is what really qualifies Ninety-Nine Nights as a next-generation game, although individual character models don’t look like a huge leap beyond the best-looking Xbox titles.
That extra processing power is used to deliver things on a much greater magnitude and all in high definition. Hundreds of enemies storm across the battlefield towards you; archers fill the air with arrows to an extent that we haven’t seen since Braveheart; and your attacks send them flying as if they were nothing. Fans of the genre who were disappointed with the quick and dirty port that Dynasty Warriors 5 recently received may find that this is more of the spectacle they expe Nights is a fun game, for sure, but it’s not without problems. The levels can be fairly long with no ability to save halfway through, meaning that death near the end of a stage can lead to playing the last half-hour all over again. It’s a silly thing to overlook but when it happens to you it can be immensely annoying.
Suggestions: Ninety-Nine Nights is a break from the usual Q Entertainment oeuvre and looks like some good mindless fun. The main problem is the ‘mindless’ part; like so many of these games there’s not a lot to it beyond slashing through crowds of anonymous enemies while getting incrementally more powerful the more you do it.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
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Warpath
Since the introduction of the Xbox Live service, Xbox gamers have been banding together online to battle it out on the virtual battlefield for glory and bragging rights. Thankfully, the big black box has seen a number of great Xbox Live enabled multiplayer games from the ones included in the Halo or Splinter Cell series to games made specifically for the service itself like Counter-Strike. Yes, Xbox fans have seen some great games in the multiplayer department and now Groove Games hopes to join their ranks with Warpath.
The story behind Warpath isn’t told through cutscenes in the game’s single-player campaign but rather the instruction manual. It seems that a planet on the Kaladi system of the galaxy is a paradise rich in natural resources as well as great beauty, and because of this reason three alien races wage war over it.
The mighty biomechanical Ohm wish to suck the planet dry of its resources while The Kovos wish to protect the planet since it is a Holy land to them. Finally, there is the Human Coalition who simply just wishes to live there in peace and since they have already settled in, they will be a witness as well as a participant in a war for control of the planet.
The problem, however, is that nothing really distinguishes these three races apart in the way Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict does with their cast of character classes. The only real difference between these races is that they wear different armor and use very specific weapons. The Human Coalition, for example, is partial to their Wolverine (a machine gun) and the Judge (a powerful rocket launcher). Each race has the same type of melee weapon like the Vibro Blade as well as well as an explosive charge. If you are expecting a special power for each character class you will be quite disappointed. What you do get is weapon specific upgrades that do change the manner in which your weapon will fire. For example, you can upgrade your Violator (the game’s version of a shotgun) with Smart Shells that embed fragments in wall that explode when enemy get too close.
The game, you will find out quickly, is best played with others but much like games like Counter-Strike the game offers a single player game with computer-controlled bots filling in as both your allies and your enemies. With no story or cutscenes, you basically embark on a series of matches you must win in order for your chosen side to dominate the Conflict Zones map. You move along a hexagonal grid and selecting a match that only includes four game types. There is Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF (capture the flag) and Front Line Assault (where you attempt to capture the enemy base before they capture your base). The good news is that there are plenty of different maps and some even include three different vehicles like the Razorback (a jeep with a gun emplacement), Hornet (a one-man vehicle) and the Maverick (a sort of hovercraft). The bad news is that despite the many maps you will be seeing the same ones often and the vehicles are pale imitations of those found in the two Halo games. You can’t even run over an enemy with your Razorback!
Another negative aspect of the game’s single-player experience is the fact that the computer-controlled bots aren’t smart at all. Many of them don’t even try to duck for cover when you’re shooting at them. The worse part is that even your allies aren’t smart enough to get out of the way of a grenade. This, of course, is remedied playing the game with friends online or offline. Warpath supports an up to a 16-player multiplayer game using a System Link setup or play online through Xbox Live. The multiplayer mode’s ability to support up to 16 players makes up for the three-on-three matches of the single-player game and online the game moves at a steady framerate. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to find a match with more than five players. Still, the various maps have a nice assortment of power up items and you can always go against your own race’s arsenal and unlock and use weapons used by the enemy.
My final gripe is a major one because even if the game is limited in game modes or it’s not even a beautiful-looking game; the controls should at least make the game fun to play. Sadly, Warpath is not fun to play thanks to the awful controls. While the controls are quite basic for a first-person shooter, the controls make it difficult to gracefully turn and even aiming can become a chore. Melee combat is not recommended. I won’t even mention how hard it is to control a vehicle without being stuck between two crates.
Visually, Warpath is not a pretty game nor will it dazzle you with great visual effects. There aren’t even any cutscenes in the game’s single-player campaign mode so all you will be treated to when you win are screenshots of your chosen race celebrating their victory. Even the environments don’t look particularly pleasing to the eye but at least the terrain differs from level to level - althought many times you’ll be playing on the same map often. The enviroment is not very lively either it just feels plain and dull.
As for the game’s sound, the game’s music isn’t that bad but the sound effects could have used more punch seeing as there is no voice acting in the game … that is if you count screams, groans and grunts as voice acting. Just about the only thing that really stands out is the game’s musical score that is not amazing but does a great job of making each battle sound exciting. The rest of the game’s sound effects don’t really stand out and there are no voices in the game so just expect to hear more screams of pain.
Suggestions: Sadly, Warpath just does not rise above its awkward controls, poor character classes and mediocre gameplay nor does it offer anything that comes close to rivaling the collection of excellent multiplayer first-person shooters already available on the original Xbox. While there are some fun moments in the game, they really aren’t enough to warrant a purchase. Do yourself a favor and skip this one or find a copy of Counter-Strike or Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict instead.
Overall Score: 6.2 / 10
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MotoGP '06
Moto GP debuted on Xbox 4 years ago with a stunning burst of speed in a successful attempt to do for simulation motorcycle racing what Gran Turismo did for car racing. A little less than a year later, THQ released Moto GP 2. Continuing their reputation for a game based off of real world racers and tracks, is it possible for Moto GP 06 to expand and improve upon the first two installmentl? Well I've got some good news for all of you gear heads, in a nutshell yes. We are talking about the Xbox 360 after all.
The secret to the Moto GP franchise is that you are allowed to customize essentially every part of your racing experience to fit your desires. If you want simulation racing, play the career Grand Prix mode. Are you more comfortable with arcade action? You can compete in stunt mode where you move through the ranks by knocking other riders off their bikes, performing wheelies, burnouts, and powerslides.
For single player racing, you have the option of many different modes. The standard Quick Race (everyone knows what that is), Stunt Mode lets you rack up points through both stunts and clearing track sections under predetermined times. High scores will unlock other tracks and highlight videos. Time Trial lets you try to break your previous fastest laps without having to deal with bots. The final single player, simulation portion of Moto GP 06, is the Career Mode that is a complete simulation of a Grand Prix.
When you first start Career mode, you are responsible for creating a racer. Choose from many different bikes and different leathers (those cute one-piece jump suits), customizable color combinations, logos, and numbers to create the rider that defines the ultimate champion. Along with the physical appearance of the bike and rider, you are given attribute points to be distributed among categories.
Once your racer is created, you have the option of entering the training mode, which teaches you the basics of motorcycle racing. This is an opportunity to practice your hairpin turns, wheelies, endos, powerslides, slalom skills, cornering, and other abilities. If you feel you have a good handle on how to control your bike, or don't want to pick up extra points, you can head straight to the first circuit. At the beginning of each circuit, you will hear a brief description of the area and the history of the race course accompanied by visuals. Once you "arrive to any locations, you have the choice of fulfilling challenges (each are track specific and will give you attribute points), practicing the course, qualifying for the race (determining your starting position), or racing the circuit. Finishing a circuit in third or less gives you one attribute point, second gives you two, and first gives you three. After you finish an entire season, you have the opportunity to race a second season with the same racer, and if you've finished an entire series you can increase the difficulty level.
Since Moto GP 06 is a simulation, it is no surprise that the bikes have an ultra real physics system. There is no way to succeed by manhandling your bike around a course (unless you time your turns correctly so that you can force a racer on the outside of you to bring you through a turn). Instead, you must rely on finesse and timing to stay on the track. Aiding you in complete mastery of the bike is a control scheme (the same as in Moto GP) that gives you complete control. The left analog stick steers your bike. You can accelerate with A or use the right analog stick (up is forward, down is reverse). Braking, which is the neat part of the Moto GP series, is mapped to the two triggers. The right trigger controls the front wheel and the left trigger the back wheel. This braking scheme not only aids in performing wheelies and endos, but lets you decide if you want to skid around corners or have tighter turns. If you can't handle operating the front and rear wheel brakes individually than you can use the auto-brake system with the B button. The white and black buttons handle manual shifting, and the Y button switches between first and third person views.
But what good would a realistic physics engine be if it didn't create some spectacular crashes? If you fail to anticipate a turn, which causes you to hit a dirt patch, your front wheel will stop and send you and your bike onto the ground. Also, slamming into other racers or cutting them off can cause them to crash, occasionally taking you with them. So, unless you want to end up with severe road rash, it is best to maintain control of your bike at all times (going off road also significantly slows you down).
Bike handling is also affected by weather conditions. When the track is slick with rain, steering and cornering becomes much easier as you slide across the road surface, but this also leaves you vulnerable to spinouts and it takes a lot less force to send you onto the ground.
What good would any racing game be if you could easily smoke the AI and all your friends and neighbors? If you crave an extra outlet for competition, Moto GP 06, like the originals, is fully compatible with Xbox Live. That means you can take on the best racers (fifteen besides you at a time) in the world in any of the multiplayer modes.
Live features all the standard options such as Quick Match, Optimatch, and Create a Match. In Optimatch and Create a Match, you can choose the difficulty level you compete in to make sure you're racing in your own league.
Moto GP 06 is one of the prettiest games on Xbox 360. The motorcycles and racers are all beautifully animated and modeled, which makes the whole experience seem like a real life simulation. Your rider shifts in his seat as he takes turns and leans forward at your command. If you bump into another rider, your opponent will shake his fist at you in anger.
The most stunning visuals are the crashes. Watch in horror as your racer contorts in all sorts of ways by somersaulting, flying through the air, or rolling across the ground. It truly looks like a form of painful acrobatics. When you once again mount your bike, you'll notice parts where your paint has scratched.
Detail wasn't just given to your focal point, the racer, but also to the environments. Granted that there isn't usually much besides road, grass, and the occasional tree, backgrounds never seem flat. Everything from the clouds in the sky to the tire marks burned into the pavement creates the illusion that you're on a real course. To further the illusion, your tires will leave black streaks when you skid around a turn that will stay there throughout the race. When you head off-road, your tires will cut a line through the grass or kick up gravel or sand.
Even the rain is incredibly real. Droplets form on the screen when you follow too closely behind other racers. The wet surface causes water vapor to trail behind your bike, and the sky is reflected on the road. Overall, Moto GP 06's visuals are unbelievably stunning.
With all the effort put into the gameplay and graphics of Moto GP 06, the sound stands out as being its weakest attribute. Yes, there are the sounds of revving engines, squealing tires, and crashing bikes, but it doesn't do enough to make it sound like you're on the track.
Your aural experience is also hindered by a generic rock soundtrack that does little to aid the game's atmosphere. Fortunately, that’s why custom soundtracks were invented, so you at least can find something appealing to listen to compensate for the comparatively weak sound effects.
Suggestions: Moto GP 06 is a game that will satisfy anyone's crotch rocket or simulation fantasies. The detail paid to both the physics engine and the graphics is remarkable and worth seeing if you crave realism. If you failed to pick up Moto GP or Moto GP 2 for the original Xbox Moto GP 06 is a worthy addition to any racing fan's library. Even if you own the original games you must own this one too, after all it is the 360 we’re talking about.
Overall Score: 8.4 / 10
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Urban Chaos: Riot Response
Right, the original Xbox then. A big black box packing a relative amount of heat put to the test by many FPS’s. Urban Chaos Riot Response follows the trend of great shooters with a few exceptions. In this game you play as the good guys, busting up gangs and other criminal low life. Despite the incredibly good gameplay, Urban Chaos doesn’t offer much in the way of production values. It’s on the right track but it’s more like a steaming locomotive rather than a magnetically levitated super train. As a first-person shooter Urban Chaos does not disappoint. It’s a solid game with plenty of interesting elements. It takes you on an adventure but it doesn’t hold your hand. There is a general lack of background information as well as a very basic storyline that does little to endear us to the main character. The non-playable characters are reduced to stereotypes that do little more than fill the predictable void. The graphics have a dated look to them with boring textures and minimal detail. But if you can get past the lame presentation, the gameplay is definitely a lot of fun.
In the single player game, you take the role of Nick Mason, an elite copper of “Unit T-Zero”, which is apparently “the last line of law enforcement”. This seems slightly challenging, as they have seemed to forget the A-Team amongst all this drama. Yeah, so you are Nick, and you need to kill thugs that have taken your city. With guns. However, this isn’t the traditional run; fun and gun, there are many other elements too.
These other elements are that you can control medics and firemen with the D-Pad to get them to help you on your quest to save the city. Some of these people will show up all the way through the game, such as the medic Nick silently fancies and the firemen he has to escort to safety or a civilian in a burning building. These obviously help you along missions by doing specific actions such as putting out fires, chopping wood in your way, carrying civilians on their backs or simply reviving someone. No FPS is complete without a decent set of weaponry. Urban Chaos is no exception, as it contains the usual staples such as the humble pistol and the double barrelled shotgun to the delightful taser to arrest the thugs or burn them to ashes along with fun weaponry such as the chainsaw, for when you feel demonic and just want to relieve some stress after a hard days work. Your best weapon is defense - in the form of a riot shield. It’s virtually indestructible as it will protect you against everything from knives to a hail of machinegun fire. You can move it up or down to defend yourself from attack above or below. It really adds a good deal of depth to the gameplay as you can reload your weapon or select a different one from your inventory while using the shield for protection. The gameplay is rather fun but incredibly dramatic. People shouting all around you make you feel vulnerable at all times, like you are really in a warzone.
Online you can play with as many as seven other gamers. You can look forward to new missions with more of an approach to teamwork. The single-player mission includes plenty of teamwork situations where you can use other government agencies and even civilians to give you a hand with certain tasks. But the online mode really takes this to the next level. It’s a lot of fun and while it may have limited replay value it’s definitely a great bonus feature.
Furthermore, the game controls perfectly, with easy to reach controls and intuitive use of the D-Pad to select actions with your helping character. To keep things simple, duel wielding weapons are assigned to only the normal trigger so you have your other hand free to frantically keep moving and covering to avoid being taken out.
Moving on, the graphics are of a high standard for the Xbox 1, and have that lovely Half Life 2 chunky feel to them. Enemies bleed the red stuff, fire looks like fire and the people look relatively like people so all is well in the looks department. The game is powered by the Havok engine, which, coincidentally, was also used in Halo 2. The physics is fun and works well, as rocket blown vehicles fly up into the air with profound force and enemies recoil after getting shot in the face. There is also another fancy visual effect when you headshot or take out a head gang member, as the action goes into bullet time as his body flies backwards and crashes into a hazard or to the ground. However, the enemies all look like extras from Manhunt, which are Eminem wannabes with a bizarre mask and obsession with swarming you in obscene numbers.
Additionally, the audio isn’t too bad either. Everything sounds as it should do and listening out for people’s voices becomes an integral part of proceeding through the various missions, as you learn when a friend is in trouble and needs your help or where a civilian is inside a burning building, and so sound can be very important at times. However, for the most part, the sound will go unnoticed as there is so much action in this game, it is hard to stop and think about things such as sound. Every weapon (from the shotgun to the pistol) also have a very realistic sound, nothing extraordinary but good.
Suggestions: Urban Chaos is presented like a cheap arcade game. It even features a disembodied, over zealous announcer that shouts out what you’ve been awarded. The graphics are blasé but they do tend to fit in with the whole urban decay premise. The tunes are rocking and are appropriate choices for the soundtrack as they tend to underscore the situation. The characters have a generic look to them and thanks to the hockey masks the gang members all look like clones. At least they have some nice death animations and bleed profusely when shot in the head.
Urban Chaos is definitely worth a rental. If you’re good, there’s no reason that you can’t complete it in a weekend. There are plenty of side missions that will extend the replay value if you purchase the game and want to wring every second of enjoyment out of it, but you don’t have to take on these side missions if you just want to blast your way through it.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
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Jaws Unleashed
No matter how hard developers try, they can’t make the adventures of fish enjoyable, except perhaps Ecco the dolphin back in the day. Indicating the fact that aquatic creatures serve two purposes, to die and be delicious. There’s one underwater force, however, that has yet to be reckoned with. Here’s a clue it’s the second biggest reason people stay out of the water besides a fear of others laughing at their freakishly hairy chest. That’s right, after almost two decades since his last film and video game, Jaws makes a return in the oddly titled Jaws: Unleashed. Sharks wear leashes? Anyway let’s just put it this way, this game is about a giant shark that eats people only after he laboriously searches for a key card to open a door. Giving players control of a shark and asking them to do anything but cause destruction would be as stupid as giving players control of Superman and making them fly through rings. Oh wait, someone did that too.
Now this game had potential because unlike the previous videogame versions of Jaws, which, oddly enough, focused on destroying the killer shark, Unleashed allows you to finally take control of the film legend. Your objective? Dig those sharp, sharp teeth into anything that bleeds. It sounds a lot better in theory but when you actually play the game, well lets just say it’s not what its cracked up to be.
To be fair, the first couple missions of the game are the worst. Sadly, it's these missions of the game that set the tone for the rest of the game, which obviously isn't a very positive one. Mission structure is only the beginnings of countless issues to pour from this game. Credit is due for opening the game up to let players pick their missions around the tortured island of Amity. This is a free-roaming title after the opening moments. Sadly, figuring out what it is you're supposed to be doing is futile. Mission directions are vague, and many solutions illogical (like finding a keycard when you're a man-eating 25-foot shark) or impossible to decipher.
While a game like Jaws could easily subsist on two buttons (“swim” and “bite”), the controls in Jaws: Unleashed are fairly complex. Besides the previously mentioned staples of shark life, there’s also a chargeable tail swipe, a lock on button, enhanced chewing controls (eww…) and shark vision, or as I have affectionately dubbed it, “bullet time for fish”. Shark vision, in theory, is supposed to enhance targeting of potential victims, allowing for limb-specific lock-on. Another problem is the !&%$@#* camera system that feels like it's controlling itself. Divers, other fish, and various other hazards are nearly impossible to see on a regular basis. This makes Jaws sluggishness more apparent as life is sapped with little idea as to why. You'll be able to curb that somewhat as you can level up Jaws with points, and earn new moves you'll rarely use.
Making it worst are countless glitches and game crashing bugs. It's not that the movie gave an accurate depiction of a great white shark, but sending the players onto land to perform objectives is flat out stupid. These brief trips onto the world of humans are nearly impossible since it's so easy to get stuck on objects. During the review process, I seen Jaws get his head plunged deep inside a solid rock, have spasms when caught on the wall of a ship containing a bonus power-up, had the game freeze entirely, or end up stuck on land to suffocate.
The plot is lifted from the films in various ways. The ever tormented Brody's make an appearance, this time with Michael, the oldest of the kids. The mayor is once again dumb enough to believe the shark isn't a threat, and yet again, an attempt is made to capture it alive (because they apparently think that turned out ok in Jaws 3).
The lack of variation in enemies in the game is a bit disappointing. There are really only three types of enemies- fish, turtles, and humans- particularly scuba divers. Apparently, there’s only one surf shop in the area near Jaws’ hideout, because every human character model looked exactly the same. As fun as it is to thrash about a poor swimmer in Jaws’ massive choppers, the lack of enemy variety could get tedious mighty fast. Another danger of boring players in this game could come from the lack of environmental variety.
Suggestions: Even with a total lack of original story, abysmal camera, and hilariously funny (until you have to do them) missions, it is fun to be shark. There are a number of gruesome ways to dismember people, from shredding them, to chomping on them, down to tail whipping them to death. Blood is completely over-the-top, while the repetitive screams add to the drama.
That's the only highlight, and even this becomes an aggravating test of your endurance for awful games. Jaws Unleashed is on par with its classic and memorably terrible 1987 NES counterpart. The only thing going for Unleashed as opposed to the 8-bit rendition is that you finally control the shark.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
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Hitman: Blood Money
Agent 47 is back in Eidos 4th installment of the Hitman series called Hitman: Blood Money. Before I go into details lets just think what has compelled people to play the Hitman series anyway. I think it’s the fact that this series forces you to think, to plan, to find a viable way to do your mission. This is what makes an assassin different from a serial killer. And there’s always the fact that there is a reason behind a kill. Blood Money hasn’t changed much since the last game in terms of the way the game plays. You still will enjoy the storyline and yes you can still strangle enemies with your handy fiber wire. Also this game is not a game where you can happily blast your way through any opposition without fear of consequences, Blood Money has put the emphasis right back on melting into the shadows again.
It's achieved this via the clever use of the titular blood money and the notoriety system. While each hit grants you a fee, if you should manage to complete it without anyone noticing your presence, this cash sum will be increased. However, get your bald mug on camera, leave corpses out in the open or just leave plenty of witnesses in your wake and you'll soon find your notoriety rising. Finish a level and the next day's papers will report on the deaths (featuring such information as your favorite weapon, number of people killed, accuracy and more), and may even feature an appropriately accurate photofit of who the police are now looking for. It's a novel way to present the information and one that works extremely well, allowing you to review your mission progress by way of something that's easy to digest and fun to read. Should your notoriety level get too high, you can choose to spend some of your hard-earned cash on bribes to lower it. Don't do this and your face becomes increasingly recognisable, thus making further levels even harder to pull off without everyone running screaming from you at first sight. Money can also be spent on a series of weapons upgrades, which give yet another incentive to keep your head down. It's a streamlined system that once again places the emphasis exactly where it needs to be: on stealth.
Now that sneakiness is again a priority, Eidos has introduced 'accidental' deaths to help you fulfill your contracts without a trace. These unfailingly inventive and often hilarious ways to bump off your targets range from rigging someone's barbecue with lighter fluid, to dropping a suspended piano on their heads - but by far our favourite 'accident' is rigging a pyrotechnics display used by a dancer in a club. When the dancer comes out, the flames set her on fire and she rolls over until dropping straight into the shark tank below, where one of the oversized fishes promptly gobbles up its impromptu meal. It's completely twisted yet utterly brilliant and brings a whole new dimension to the game. Finding out just how to pull a complicated accident off effectively can take hours of observation, but once you've seen one target pop their clogs without anyone even suspecting you, it soon becomes quite addictive and you'll find yourself resorting to weapons less and less.
Hitman: Blood Money looks great on all platforms. Whether you're playing the game on Xbox or Xbox 360, you get the same supreme style and well modeled environments. The Xbox versions clearly can't quite compete with the Xbox 360 and PC versions, in terms of resolution, frame rate and subtlety of lighting, but on their respective systems they're quite an achievement. In truth, while the Xbox 360 version looks nicely polished, it's not all that much of a leap, particularly if you're not running the game on a High Definition TV. The visuals are accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack that really hits the mark, and while the voice acting sounds a tad unnatural at times, on the whole this is the sleekest Hitman title to date. Xbox 360 owners can also attempt to unlock the 24 Achievements the game has to offer, which is far from an easy task.
The save system will undoubtedly cause a little unrest amongst players, with various options available depending on the difficulty you're playing the game on. The number of mid-mission saves you can use ranges from infinite to none, but these are purely mid-mission saves and they're lost when you quit the game or restart the system. This actually sounds worse than it is, as most missions can be completed in a relatively short amount of time once you know what you're doing. Still, if you have to unexpectedly stop playing and you're doing well, you'll have to start over next time or leave the game on until you return.
Where Blood Money really shines is in the amazingly inventive level design. Gone are the drab confines of Contract's levels, to be replaced with gaudy and flamboyant levels bursting with colour and activity, from casinos through heaven and hell-themed nightclubs to Mardi Gras festivals. The latter two levels deserve a special mention as both feature literally hundreds upon hundreds of extras, giving 47 a potential wardrobe choice equal to Paris Hilton.
It may not be the most graphically intense game on the 360, but the very locations themselves still have a definite wow factor. Each level is well laid out with many different areas, checkpoints and guards that should keep your killer instinct in good shape working out how to avoid being spotted. Playing the role of hired killer is now more joy than chore thanks to the new moves that 47's picked up. He can turn weapons upon their owners, use human shields, push people over ledges and stash bodies to make them harder to find. Put together, these new features cause the game to flow more naturally than its predecessors and really make it a joy to play.
The only problem I find are that of the traditional but unwieldy inventory, and the context-based button presses which can often find you swapping outfits when you really wanted to haul the dead body away. They're minor complaints, but right in the thick of things, choosing the wrong option can mean the difference between life and death. Enemy AI has also received a boost and with guards following blood trails, talking on their radios and searching you for weapons when entering restricted areas, it's harder than ever to get away with murder.
The music is moody, dark and surreal. It's often not really a song at all, just eerie waves of sound, and electronic drums slowly pounding. Each level provides a different style or music, since each takes place at a different time or place, so don't expect to hear the standard classical orchestrated music from the previous games. This one is different. Also, oftentimes, there is simple silence, and as I play more games, I find that sometimes silence truly is golden. Another interesting note is that Agent 47 talks in this one. He doesn't talk a lot, but you hear his voice enough to get a better sense of his uh, personality. It works, too. The voice actor who plays Agent 47 is a deep-voiced man with a clear, distinct tone and he speaks the way I would have expected him to sound.
Suggestions: While the training level in an abandoned funfair is a fantastic introduction, there's still a pretty steep learning curve to be crossed when you head over to the first proper level. We reckon it's one of the most unforgiving in the game, but don't let that put you off, as you'll soon settle into your assumed assassin role. With its amazing sets, inventive ways of killing, solid storyline with a great twist at the end and more emphasis on stealth, 47's latest is not only the most accomplished Hitman title ever, but a serious contender in the world of stealth gaming.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
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Commandos: Strike Force
By now, everyone has played a World War II first-person shooter. Surprisingly, there are as many good games in this sub-genre as there are healthy soldiers lined up for physicals. And while it's true that their shaved heads and crew cuts may all look similar, each one still offers a little something different. Eidos's Commandos series is no longer the star soldier it once was though. Sad as it may be, Eidos has done as much to hurt its series as it has to help it. For all of you that have been following the Commandos series let me start by telling you this Commandos Strike Force doesn't quite deliver on the strategic legacy of its predecessors. If you were attracted to the series for its uniquely tactical approach to the crowded WWII genre then you are going to be sad to hear that the newest episode wildly departs from this. The games evolution, or mutation, into a first-person shooter has crippled the strategic aspects that originally attracted gamers to the series. Limiting the number of playable soldier classes down to a mere three (cut in half from the original six), Commandos: Strike Force focuses on stealth with Bill the sniper, O'Brien the green beret and Colonel Brown the spy. Each class has their own set of special abilities: the sniper can hold his breath to squeeze off flawless headshots or use knives at close range, the green beret wields dual automatic rifles and grenades; and the spy disguises himself in order to penetrate Nazi defenses without firing a shot. Unfortunately, the spy and sniper play remarkably similarly as both employ sneaking around as their primary weapon, while the green beret remains your basic shoot first and ask questions later guy.
It won’t take you long to realize how restricted you are when playing this game. The first thing you’ll notice is instead of six possible soldiers, you'll have only three: a sniper, an espionage expert, and a green beret. Much like previous entries in the series, Strike Force drops players into a hostile environment. In this case, Nazi-occupied France. Through a combination of stealth, disguise, and brute strength, the three-man strike force will complete a grab bag of missions and bring freedom to at least a small corner of the world. Players have a choice between characters at almost any time, and between the order of mission completion as well. There's some degree of strategy to the mission order, though in the end it really didn't seem to make much difference. And within each mission there's a sad lack of flexibility compared to what the series used to offer. Commandos has always been a game of stealth and planning. I wouldn't usually make a move without examining attentively how the guards move and the overall area layout. Here, too often it seemed that just walking forward with your finger on the trigger was enough to move forward. At times, the AI required a bit of quick thinking, especially when an SS officer saw through the spy's physical disguise. But more often than not I had no trouble with enemies at all, especially when we pulled out the sniper rifle for one-shot kills. Many of the missions allow the player to complete them however they best see fit, but in almost all situations it boils down to a decision between sneaking in and strangling the guards or just shooting them all. Sometimes one course through a mission is clearly better than another, though it's not always immediately obvious at the outset. There can be a lot of trial and error involved, especially on higher difficulties. Commandos is not an original concept, nor does it do much that other first-person shooters haven't done before. In fact, everything here has been done. But Eidos's development team handles each aspect fairly well. The combination of mediocre mechanics, a few well organized choice levels, and a somewhat graduation of enemy AI gel together and force you to think, strategize, and manage your team and weaponry. But again it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. An example of something that has been done before but still able to be entertaining is the stealth killings, that help to keep alarms from ringing and guards in the vicinity from being alerted. The three-tier enemy soldier awareness system keeps Commandos Strike Force strategic and methodical, as you’ll really want to think before you spray hot lead into an Axis encampment. Another way to keep guards occupied, and therefore at a low threat level is to distract them. Throw a coin in order to send a guard on a wild goose chase, or put a cigarette on the floor to pique their interest just long enough to slip by. Another major area where Commandos fails to deliver is on the multiplayer side of things. While there are plenty of cool gametypes, from old standards like Deathmatch to some interesting objective-based games, the mechanics just don’t deliver. There is online action but it's not going to be a fan favorite. I have played and experienced a lot of lag and it took forever to find a game. A shame, really, as there are enough gametypes and customizable options to keep players entertained for a while.
One thing I was a little bit disappointed with was the uneven graphics in Commandos. On the positive side, the levels and environments are all laid out quite nicely, the cutscenes look pretty good, and frame rates hold up well during battles. The main disappointment is with the character models, which look rather blocky and lack detail. In a nutshell the graphics still leave a little something to be desired. Very generic, cookie cutter, and impersonal. You cannot tell one soldier from another. Sure there's occasionally a captain or commander that starts off an in-game cutscene who usually looks relatively believable, but that's as far as the variety goes. There are boxy, generic tanks that lack detail and obvious rubble and broken down buildings that look like they could have come from any WWII FPS. The graphics aren't all bad, however. Guns are more detailed than most other objects and come complete with the appropriate animations, while the environments (carefully lit by spare usage of bloom lighting) look pretty good too but explosions don't rattle your cage or put the fear of God in you. Instead, your grenades offer about as much impact as a Fourth of July bottle-rocket.
The sound in Commandos is the best thing about it. There are numerous instances of genuine audio that literally digs into your consciousness with convincing realism. The delayed echo of a sniper shot in an open field; the click and clack of metal and weaponry as you run across a field; the crunch of your boots in deep snow; the whir of a tank turret's gears as it turns toward you; the hollers of angry Nazi soldiers as you encroach into their territory. The voice acting is high quality and accurate for the most part too.
Suggestions: Commandos was once a rigorously demanding strategy war title with intriguing rendered locations and a half-dozen character classes. Commandos: Strike Force for the most part is an entirely different beast, a limp first-person shooter that forgets strategy and adaptability for linear play. The voice acting may be great, but that doesn't disguise that there are half as many characters, and half as much fun.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
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Tomb Raider: Legend
One of the most successful video game series of all time returns from the dead with Tomb Raider: Legend. This is the latest adventure starring modern day adventuress Lara Croft (Oh and by the way, Lara has recently been awarded a Guinness World Record for “Most Successful Human Videogame Heroine”). Brains, Beauty and Smoking Guns; Tomb Raider has always been more about deliberately paced brain teasing adventure than run n gun action, and Tomb Raider Legend is definitely no exception, you'll have quite a fine time solving the game's many intricate puzzles. If I were to describe this game I would say (and I know this may sound a little weird) but if Prince of Persia we’re to get down a dirty and have a baby with Splinter Cell the baby’s name would be Tomb Raider Legend. It’s basically all the cool maneuvers from PoP but with guns, hence the splinter cell factor. Now it’s been about three years since the last installment, the dust has been left to settle and gamers are once again intrigued to see what the new creators have in store for all of us 360 owners. This time around, Lara has more personality and abilities, all blended with a darker and more in depth story than before, far more enthralling than the same old “find this and discover that” gimmick from all the previous games. Eidos has worked hard on re creating Tomb Raider in the manner it was originally supposed to be handled: Lara Croft is a beautiful, athletic female Indiana Jones with the uncanny knack of surviving the most amazing potential catastrophes. Only, under the helm of Crystal Dynamics, Lara is growing out of the cardboard shell of the past with a deeper, more involving story incorporating a ghost from the past.
Right off the bat Tomb Raider: Legend feels drastically different to its predecessors (in a good way). Crystal Dynamics appear to have taken a simpler, more traditional approach to this 3rd person action-adventure. Yet they were not shy to add a handful of subtle innovations such as rhythmically tapping a button to climb and swing across ledges quicker and with more momentum. Camera control still has the customary loose feeling at present, often requiring a lot of effort to maintain a correct angle; however generally Tomb Raider: Legend looks likely to put the series back to where it belongs: Lara back to doing what she does best while letting gamers observe her every jiggle (Hey what can I say, these next gen graphics are VERY realistic). The opening section provides the chance to reacquaint yourself with the basics. Jumping across gaps now has Lara making a swaying motion and requires players to jump while she's swaying forward to achieve the safest jump. Conversely if you miss a jump slightly a button appears on screen (“Y”) that you have to tap and attempt to grab a more secure hold on near by ledges. Combat appears to be a little bit too basic, but fits the fluid nature of the game, leaping into areas and laying down the fire with dual handguns. It’s just what you want from Tomb Raider.
Not only has Lara learnt a handful of new tricks and techniques, but also has a new belt of gadgets that would make even Sam Fisher a little jealous. A magnetic grappling hook is the most significant addition, which enables Lara to interact with the environment and swing across huge canyon-like holes. A personal light provides illumination in the many dark situations Lara finds herself in, along with a waterproof PDA that provides essential mission info and inventory information.
Scattered across levels are environment sensitive actions that can be performed, such as pushing a group of boulders to create a landslide on unsuspecting victims below or making a pillar collapse to the ground. This is rather handy and provides a good sense of interaction with the environment. Tomb Raider: Legend continues the resurgence of the series, with the reappearance of classic traps. These range from swinging over a chasm full of spikes to pushing a crate between crushing wall, etc. If you're a fan of the series it's exactly what you're after from a Tomb Raider title but with sweet, sweet 360 graphics. You also can’t forget the thrill of accomplishing substantial amounts of thought provoking puzzles and the satisfying moments when their solutions become clear.
Now on to the stress test! On the default difficulty setting, I’ve played the first five levels and nothing really posed much of a challenge, though that's certainly not a criticism. The first two are basically just action packed tutorials which are pretty useful if your not a fan of the series. The most obvious explanation for the ease with which I was able to get through the first five levels is the large number of first aid kits that I found, combined with the fact that Lara is able to carry three of them simultaneously for use later. Again, this isn't a criticism, because given that the game's gymnastics and puzzles are unlikely to change according to your chosen difficulty level, it stands to reason that the main differences between the easiest and hardest settings is the strength of enemies and the number of first aid and ammo pickups available. The game also becomes progressively more difficult as you get further into it (obviously!). Now for something new: Can you say vehicles? This is one component of the game that proves that Eidos is trying to mix it up a bit. Early on in the game you will have the opportunity to test some of these babies out in the wide open desert. Mechanics for the vehicles are nice and tight, and the models are beautiful. Missions incorporating them are not necessarily hard, all the missions do is change the pace of the puzzle monotone of the game and for people who know and love Tomb Raider I think you will accept it with open arms. Also for all of you that love gamer points on the 360 Tomb Raider Legend has 23 achievements with 1000 points to be collected. These range from typical stuff like time trials throughout levels to beating the game on the hardest difficulty and to collecting medals.
I don’t know what intrigues me the most with TR:L’s visuals. Perhaps it’s the excellent level structure, architecture, or artworks in each of the Tomb Raider levels. Eidos did actually examine real archeological digs and modeled the level structure and design after them. That shows you that Eidos was really serious about Tomb Raider this time around. They put in the time, and did the research, to make a great product and it certainly paid off. Or maybe it’s the amazing level of attention paid to the small stuff that intrigues my eyes. For example when Lara is under water the motions look flawlessly real and then once she gets out you can see drops of water dripping from her hair. The majority of this game will amaze you. Quite often, the various scenery looks more like a static computer render than a fully interactive 3D environment. The texture work and use of bump mapping reaches new heights, with a very wet, organic feel. You’ll almost feel hot and sticky just by making your way through the lush temple areas. Light beams cast realistically on the terrain, providing a beautiful feel. Obviously this is due to the Xbox 360's high def capabilities. When combined with the excellent animations, the game feels incredibly cinematic. Each level is a grand set piece in which players stylishly accomplish their goals. The entertainment industry loves to speculate on the convergence of video games and film and visually, TR:L is a very good example. The coolest part of the game is the graphics when Lara is swimming. You actually feel like you have jumped in the water with her and are swimming inside her polygon body. From pulling yourself up a wall to jumping across a broken bridge, just snagging the ledge on the other side and hoisting yourself to safety, Tomb Raider goes the extra mile (or two) to make all animations look as a real person would. There were times when I was so caught up in the game that it was almost like watching a movie. It takes some real kick !&%$@#* graphics to pull me that far into a game. There is, however, a problem with break up when you get too close to a wall. There were a number of times that the camera angle was not pointing in a helpful direction, allowing enemies to attack unopposed. Overall, the graphics are well above average though.
The tracks set the mood for the dangers that await around the corners, and then dynamically change to forewarn of approaching enemies. Sure, it’s nothing new to games, but the music arrangement provides the extra ambiance of a movie like feel. The sound effects receive similar praise. The environmental effects are incredibly detailed and include radio chatter, raindrops, wind, and mechanical hums. With the exception of the frequent and annoying grunting from Lara, the sounds and music are simply amazing. The deep soundtrack compliments the overall dark mood of the game. And the voice-overs are awesome, too! There is no delay in the speech and animation which is to be expected with next gen video games. Lara’s dialogue is as strong as her character, in game motions are aggressive, and together they make for an acceptable offering. Fans of the series will not be disappointed. And Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that this game features the voice of Spooks actress Keeley Hawes as Lara.
Suggestions: Tomb Raider is a challenging game that takes a lot of mental ability. It can be frustrating at times, but is always engrossing. I found that I could not wait to see what secret was lurking behind the door I'd just opened. If you ever want to unlock all the secrets of this game, I suggest you go out and get yourself a good strategy guide. Don't look at it unless you are really stuck. After playing Tomb Raider, you will quickly realize what felt like ten minutes was actually an hour and a half. The tedious maneuvers required in some areas are quite frustrating. It really makes me mad when it takes me 10 minutes to climb up a wall, just to step off the edge at the top while trying to line Lara up to make a jump, or to jump and have her fall a fingernail short. Oh well, I guess it is worth another 10 minutes to climb the wall again, because I am dying to know what is on the other side! Intense is the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Tomb Raider Legend. A definite thrill ride from beginning to end that relies heavily on its Hollywood style presentation but equally true gameplay. Hindered ever so slightly by repetitive enemies and puzzles, Tomb Raider Legend still provides plenty of bang for your buck. I don’t really have any suggestions. I’m not saying it’s a perfect game that has no quirks but it’s everything you can ask for in a next-gen Tomb Raider game!
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
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Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The
Alright let’s just put it this way, this is coming from a hardcore first person shooter fan and not your general RPG fan (don’t get me wrong though I have had the privilege of enjoying the in depth experience of Morrowind). What can I say I just really love these next gen shooters. But if any game can break my addiction to GRAW, the shooter of the year, in my eyes (well so far I guess), then that game most definitely has to be Oblivion and without a doubt it deserves your hard earned cash. The 360 now has two early front runners for game of the year, it’s as simple as that. I’ve been playing Oblivion for the past 5 days straight and I am about 30 hours into the plot and from what I can gather it is only beginning. Anyone familiar with Bethesda’s previous work will know exactly what I am talking about. Right where the majority of games in stores nowadays would be rapping it up, I am just starting to really seize my character and the story line. It literally does have a hold on me. I recommend this game to any RPG fan but if you don’t have the time to sit on your couch to the point that you have an !&%$@#* groove imprinted where you were sitting when you get up then I’m not quite sure if this is the game for you! The game should have a warning label stating “Danger, this game is highly time consuming” rated A for Addicting. For all of you that worship the 360's achievement scheme Oblivion is a game with tones of riches. It has about 50 achievements to earn starting with simple things like escaping from the sewers to more compelling ones like having to complete the fighters guild quest line. The world of Oblivion is enormous to say the least and packed with things to do! The use based character development and skill system is insanely rich and full of choices, and there are more core quests, side quests, mini-quests, and simple oddball things to do than in any 10 games combined. So, while I've only begun to get an inkling of what the overarching plot of the game is, I'm already knee deep in involving missions in the Dark Brotherhood 's Guild. I've discovered dangerous networks of caverns filled with treasure and murderous goblins, I've righted numerous wrongs in the day to day lives of the citizens of multiple towns, and I've custom created gallons of potions and poisons and am about to start creating my own spells. It just never stops. Bethesdas motto is “Live another life in another world” and I think this game is true to that motto. Now for the plot this is basically it: the game takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the dead emperors son, to take the throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true Emperor, the gates to Oblivion (the equivalent of hell in the world of Tamriel) open, and demons begin to invade Cyrodiil and attack its people and towns. It's up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.
Now the most important thing I thought Oblivion needed was to give the gamer a little bit more of a sense of direction then Morrowind did. Yes we all love the fact that this is an open ended game and that you don’t really need to follow the story because of all the other things you can do in the game but a little bit of a sense of direction isn’t bad especially to lure in some casual gamers that don’t have the time to join all these guilds, etc. To my great relief Bethesda came through once again and delivered on what the fans of Morrowind were asking for. It is amazingly easy to manage what's going on in the game, practically dummy proof if you are a fan of the series. The quest journal is nowhere near as unwieldy as before, and the menu system neatly organizes all the important stuff, character stats, spells, inventory, and so on, for about as much ease of use as you could expect in a game this enormous. Travel is also a lot friendlier this time around; instead of being forced to walk repeatedly back and forth across the continent, you can zip to locales on your world map with a simple click. However, you'll miss out on the numerous roadside attractions if you do that; so, in order to make these medieval road trips more appealing, a horse is made available to you early in the game. Once you reach your destination, the towns are laid out in a much more navigable way than Morrowind, and the game map helps make sure you're never unsure where to go next. There's even a handy pointer on the compass directing you to the next objective in your currently active quest. One thing that I have noticed that gets on my nerves a little bit is the frame rate. At some occurrences, fighting among foes slows down the actual gameplay, making the normal time of defending or simply running away from the battle somewhat frustrating. Also players all around the world have found all kinds of glitches and problems with the game already and have submitted the info to Bethesda, but hey who hasn’t heard of an RPG without this problem. It is bound to happen with a game this complex but hopefully in the near future there will be an update on xbox live to fix all of these minor issues.
Quite like Morrowind, on your nature walks you will also meet animals and creatures of all descriptions, some very pleasant others not so pleasant. Oh and let's not forget the dungeons, 200 of them! All shapes, sizes colors and textures. Now for the fun part; if you have played Morrowind you know that you can’t write a review about this game without mentioning the heart and soul of the whole experience, the guilds. Well maybe it’s not everyone that enjoys these side quests but personally I love the longevity it adds to the experience. Now if you think the guilds in Morrowind kept you busy, you haven’t seen anything yet!! Oblivion has the Fighters guild, the Mages guild, the Thieve guild and the Dark Brotherhood underground guild. Faction quests (Guild quests) take up most of my time I love earning my accomplishments on the 360. This is how it works basically the same as before; if you have a gift for beating up bad people then you should join the fighters guild, if you feel like assisting in a little bit of research then you should join the Mages guild, if you feel like being all sneaky and stuff then you should obviously join the thieves guild and if you just feel like killing any random innocent civilian then you should pick the Dark Brotherhood guild. Me being the upstanding guy that I am joined, well the Dark Brotherhood guild (I couldn’t resist). Although nothing in the future is stopping me from joining another guild, unless I don’t meet the requirement necessary to join a certain guild. For example if I have a bounty of over a 100 then I would not be able to join the Fighters guild because of my criminal records.
Now for the graphics, this is definitely a next gen title. The game's visuals resembles almost realism, the grass blowing in the wind, the smog of the oblivion gates, and the wonderful expressions of almost real characters really flexes the 360's muscles. Although some people may argue that the PC version of the game is bar none better then the console version but they are painfully oblivious to the power behind the 360. Riding a horse through all the different towns and exploring the map must be one of my favorite things to do (can you say eye candy). The environment and how it changes is definitely the most impressive I’ve seen; some times it will be foggy, snowy, and even shimmer the dark with lightning, the weather is always different on the different days. Taking your first steps into Oblivion's outside world, which you'll do about half an hour into the game, you’ll be amazed at the level of details. Screenshots don't do this engine justice, seeing it in motion will impress the most jaded of gamers. Like I said insanely detailed and full of vivid, rich color, it puts even the most graphically detailed of FPSs to shame. Even after many hours of play, you'll still find yourself looking around in awe at a particularly dramatic view. Although it's a staggering looking game, nothing's perfect. Oblivion is a little heavy handed on the bloom effect, which tends to underline the fact that the game's faces are decidedly on the ugly side; if you're really picky that is. You'll also notice characters can't always move around each other and end up nudging each other with an unrealistic sliding motion. But out of the doors it's nothing short of stunning. Oblivion shows off the 360's potential in a way that no other game has done. Another minor issue is as scenery comes into view, it tends to "pop" into existence rather than fade in smoothly. It is simple things like that, which can easily be forgiven.
Where the sound impresses me the most is in its coherent sense of place. Stroll into a bar in the evening, and you'll be greeted by the hustle and bustle of the townsfolk relaxing. Bottom line is that Bethesda has created just about the most engrossing video game to date. The addition of voice overs for each and every character (even if many of them are done by the same actors) is a huge step up for this genre. It literally draws you into the world of Tamriel and doesn't let go. Now for the soundtrack it's been a long time since a soundtrack has been this good. Jeremy Soule really captures the essence of fantasy in this masterpiece! The dialogue is both spoken and written out. There's no need to read the explanation unless you're deaf because the enunciation is perfect. Everything is very clear. The dialogue is sometimes corny, but reflects common human like personalities. People complain about headaches often, and they are not afraid to tell you what they think of you. The environment is alive with bird calls, chirping crickets, animal noises and footsteps. At certain times, thunder can be heard and it will start to rain. When you take into consideration all of the elements that create this game (sound fx, music, graphics, gameplay, story) it really feels as if you are staring in your own role in one of todays Hollywood top flick. Roger and Ebert would be proud of giving this game a two thumbs WAY up if they were game critics.
Suggestions: In a nutshell, there's very little to dislike about Oblivion. Some minor graphical glitches occur and sure, it's essentially a polished version of Morrowind with a better graphics engine and a different plot. But the amazing level of attention payed to details and inspired AI make it a huge improvement. And if I haven’t convinced you yet that this game deserves your attention and perhaps your hard earned money then do yourself a favor and just rent it, that’s the least you could do if you have never tried it before. Remember this is coming from a Halo 2/GRAW addict. I love multiplayer games (Xbox Live all the way BABY!!! ) and it is weird playing a single player RPG for a change but if you do like I did and just give it a shot then you will know exactly why you spent all that money on your Xbox 360. And for all of you that know what this game is all about but just don’t have the cash to fork out right now, I suggest skipping rent this month, trust me you won’t regret it.
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10
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