Xbox Addict

One thing about Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 that makes it such a pleasure to play is the amazing graphics. There really isn't anything new and innovative to the graphical setup; it is a standard 3/4 overhead view which is becoming the set standard for games of this type. Where the greatness comes is the attention to detail. Beautiful textures, smooth framerate and fluid graphical effects give this game a smooth polished shine. There is a wide variety of levels from forests, to indoor mansions, pretty much anywhere you could ever think to swing an axe or cast a spell is in this game.

The actual stylings of the graphics themselves are quite akin to what we have seen in other 3/4 overhead games such as Hunter: The Reckoning. Since there is no scenery flying by you there was a lot more work put into the overall ambience of the atmosphere. Cool little nuances here and there, such as light filtering in through a window, water rippling as you step through it and more really give this game a splendid touch.

One other problem that was overcome is the fact that games like this can often have bad camera problems as items and enemies are obscured around corners until it is too late. It didn't take much to fix this, all they did was give full camera control to the player. The right analog stick now lets you swing the camera around to the desired position, allowing you to check every nook and cranny of a level for whatever you happen to need. The only minor complaint I have is that the zoom system is an all or nothing deal: either you are zoomed out for a bird's eye shot or you are zoomed and can only see about 15 ft. in front of you. There were many times where I was wishing there was a median as I wanted to see further, but still needed to be able to scope stuff out in detail.

The one aspect of the game that kind of let me down was the music. It definitely wasn't bad, but it didn't match up to the rest of the game. Now maybe I have been spoiled by movies and what not, but I was seriously hoping for some epic music that really set the monster bashing mood. Instead I received some mediocre, short orchestral pieces that were recycled over and over again. Now while music usually isn't enough to ruin a game for me, it will certainly add a lot to it... but unfortunately the music in Baldur's Gate didn't do that. Custom soundtracks might have helped by allowing me to play my Lord of the Rings soundtrack as I ravaged some orc looking creatures, but I didn't even get that much.

The voice acting thankfully made up for some of what the sound left out. While not as grand of an implementation as you would see in series such as Legacy of Kain, the voice acting was pulled off rather well and all of the voices fit the characters. The only voice that seemed to be a little off was your actual character's voice when you were in town and tried to do something you weren't supposed to, like kill a villager (I kahn't doo thaht here...) Aside from that the voice acting really helps to further the plot as you quest through Baldur's Gate.

All in all the game is rock solid. It is a blast to play through by yourself and even more fun when you team up with a friend to take down the evil around Baldur's Gate as a rampaging duo. The game is decently long as well, I've been playing it for close to 10 hours and have just completed the first of 4 acts which means there will be enough baddy slaying to keep you occupied for quite a while. If you are an RPG fan you need to pick this up. If you liked the gameplay in Hunter: The Reckoning you need to pick this up. If you like both of the prior then you DEFINATELY need to pick this up. Everyone else should probably pick this game up as well, as it is a solid addition to anyone's game library!


Overall Score: 9.4 / 10 Legacy of Kain: Defiance









Overall Score: 7.2 / 10 Counter-Strike









Suggestions:

Get your butts working on HL2! And don't forget about us Xbox owners who would gladly give select body parts to see it end up on our system... Most of us would likely give even more body parts to see it as an Xbox exclusive :) Of course we could just pay you money for it like most normal people do.

Now before I begin this review of the soon to be released blockbuster I should probably warn you that I am a flying junkie. Ever since the days of yore I have played any type of flight sim I could get my hands on from the olden days of Commodore64 Apache games to the latest and greatest F-22 flight sim. I was a bit skeptical of Crimson back in the day for the fact that it looked less like a flight sim and more like a glitzy arcade game. But then again, Sega's Afterburner was an arcade game and it rocked, so I made sure to keep an eye on Crimson. Then came the moment of truth when I played the demo at this years' E3 and to keep a long story short I was totally floored by it. Screw Halo 2, Rare, booth babes and anything else going on, Crimson Skies was definitely the highlight of my trip. Booth babes were definitely up there too, but Crimson ruled all. Ever since then I have been anxiously awaiting a chance to play the whole package and when the chance finally came I nearly crapped myself in happiness. Luckily I own 3 different pairs of underwear in case this happened!

So enough about my lack of clean underwear! Onto what you all are reading this for: the actual game! So here is the quick and dirty of Crimson Skies: You fly a plane (duh) in what Microsoft Gaming Studios calls an 'alternate reality where commerce took to the air after the depression'. This alternate reality looks more like the set from The Rocketeer, but that's fine because as far as I'm concerned that was a great movie. The very beginning of the game throws you into a fun movie sequence where your character (Nathan) wakes up in bed next to a naked woman (good) and notices a guy standing over him with a gun pointed to his head (bad). The man then informs you that you lost your plane and your zeppelin in a bet last night. So right off the bat we know the main character is a boozing, gambling, womanizing flyboy who is quite frankly someone high up on my list of people I would like to hang out with. assuming they were real. Of course it also turns out that you are someone who doesn't honor your bets, as you manage to steal your plane back, steal your zeppelin back and then steal the plane of the guy who had the audacity to call you on your bet! With a great main character like Nathan you know the plot is going to be great which means that for the first time ever we will have an Xbox Live game that is fun to play in single player mode.

The actual gameplay itself is a perfect mix of exploratory flying and linear missions. There are times when the game will push you into a direction and give you a certain task to accomplish. Other times you will just be flying around exploring and looking for stuff to do. Of course the exploration isn't just a boring 'fly around and look at the pretty scenery' situation; there are plenty of bonuses to be found from cash to upgrade tokens tucked away in spots that will test your abilities as a pilot. Once you are done exploring you can look for work to do to make money which range from people asking you to do escort missions to requests such as taking down groups of bandits which have been causing havoc in the area.

On top of this there are certain points in the game where you encounter 'boss characters' that need to be dealt with. These range from armor plated zeppelins to giant mechanical creatures a 'la Wild Wild West. At these points you will find that shooting down everything in site isn't going to get you any further and you actually have to start looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the target. This adds a little more depth to the single player game and really keeps it from becoming a monotonous shooter. Then you can also add to the list of goodness that this game is adequately long to be worth the purchase to someone who doesn't have Live. I've been playing crimson for a good 15 hours and have barely scratched the surface of what is available for the single player game.

Then we have the feature that many of us have been drooling for: Xbox Live gameplay. Crimson Skies will be our first aerial shooter available for online play and even before it is release I can assure you it is going to be a hit. It has everything going for it: 16 player support means there will be tons of action going on. There are 6 game modes including standard dogfighting, team dogfights, capture the flag, keep away, team keep away and a crazy spin off of capture the flag called 'chicken'. With a great game and all these game modes this will add unending replay value until we (hopefully) see Crimson Skies 2 grace our Xboxes.

Now here is the one part of the game that is going to either make people fall in love with it or turn away from it: the controls. For those of you who are looking for a true to life flight sim, look elsewhere. While this game does give you the ability to do control your pitch and roll, there is no yaw control and both pitch and roll are controlled by one stick. This means if you move your stick to the right your plane will automatically roll and pitch up to turn. There is no way to change it so the player is stuck with the more 'arcade' setup. Of course you still have the abilities to pull off true-to-live aerial maneuvers from immelmans to Cuban eights, but there is no point since there is a more 'arcade' way to do that as well. With the use of both analog stick you can cause your plane to automatically pull of precise maneuvers which happen much faster than just doing them manually. This means that anyone can play this game and effortlessly pull off split S's, barrel rolls, snap rolls and immelmans without having ever taken a flight class. Even with the arcade style setup, though, this game is a ton of fun to play once you get the hang of it.

Graphically Crimson Skies is a solid performer. It is by no means the prettiest game out there, but it is definitely one of the better looking games available for Xbox. The frame rate is constant, the movie sequences are well polished and presentable and the explosions are great. Nothing is quite as cool as watching a zeppelin explode into a huge fireball and fall out of the sky while you imagine the captain sitting there saying "I KNEW we shouldn't have filled this with hydrogen!" Then you get to watch the zeppelin crash into the beautiful landscape. No detail was missed when creating the different flying environments. You'll get to weave your plane through desert canyons, lush coastal regions, huge industrial cities and more. These levels are a bit exaggerated looking more like a real life rendition of comic book sets, they are still visually pleasing to the eye and offer plenty of nooks and crannies to navigate through and test out your elite piloting skills.


Even the subtle effects play quite nicely. For instance, you are flying close to the water and someone starts shooting at you from behind. You will not only see the bullet splashes in the water but some of the water will come up and hit your screen then bead off as you continue flying. It is things like that which let the gamer know that the developer cares about their game and took the time to tweak everything out!

There is one beef that I do have with this game, but it is a minor one. I am of the opinion that every game should have custom soundtracks, whether or not the in-game music is good. If you don't want to give us control over the in-game music, at least let us listen to our favorite tracks when we are gunning it out in multiplayer. But I suppose this is only a minor problem since the soundtrack really lends to the atmosphere of the game. Remember my reference earlier to the Rocketeer? Well this reference is still valid when it comes to the music. You will be subject to a lot of orchestrated 30's music which is far from what we like to call 'exciting'. but is good enough not to be a nuisance and doesn't interfere with the ability to enjoy Crimson Skies.

The rest of the sound department shines as well. Sounds is a place where most games tend to fail in as the music becomes repetitious, sound effects are monotonous and thrown and commentary is bland to say the least. Crimson doesn't suffer from these ailments. Your plane engine happens to sound like a plane engine, bullets whiz by in a realistic fashion and hearing people complain as you shoot them out of the sky never gets old. Nathan has a steady stream of one lines he will deliver every once in a while as you bag another kill as well.

So the final verdict on the whole project? Well, you have great graphics, great sound, 10 different planes which are almost all upgradeable, you have 6 different multiplayer modes, you have the ability to jump out of your plane and man anti-aircraft guns, there are explosions, vendettas, online play. This game has it all. Ladies and Gentlemen, say hello to the first game which has successfully pulled off an amazing online and offline game in the same package. Yeah, and you thought you would have to wait until Halo 2 for something like that! Needless to say I wish we had more 'total package' games like this and my hat is off to Microsoft for putting this game on the market. Crimson Skies was definitely worth the wait and on October 21st your wait is over. Go buy this game!


Suggestions: I do realize there was no such thing as radar in the 1930's, but a way to lock on to people would have been nice for tailing a target. Aside from that this game is immaculate and I am sure you will be hearing that comment for a long time to come! Now get to work on Crimson Skies 2!

Overall Score: 9.6 / 10 Otogi: Myth of Demons









Suggestions: Woohoo! Otogi 2 has been announced! Make sure we see this in the US, Sega. And possibly make it a little longer, as that seems to be the complaint heard the most on our site.

Overall Score: 9.0 / 10 Pro Cast Sports Fishing









Suggestions:

Excellent first entry Capcom! I think a lot of fishing fans will be wishing for a little more customization, but this is a solid title for the price it is being sold at.