THQ's yearly release is finally upon us as millions of rabid WWE fans worldwide await the newest iteration of their beloved franchise. Whereas EA's Madden series of football sims are often ridiculed as "glorified roster updates," THQ has typically managed to make significant improvements and changes to keep fans happy. This year is no different as THQ and Yukes have brought together a smattering of large-scale changes, enhancements to existing features, and tweaks to long-time game mechanics and matches.
Gameplay is fundamentally the same as Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 outside of a few key changes. Different inputs for strong and weak grapples have been done away with in favor of a system that recognizes if your opponent is stunned or not. If he is wobbling on his feet your grapples will be strong and powerful, where they'll otherwise default to weaker grapples. While it's simpler, I found myself wishing for the system of years past with several strong and weak grapples available at any time. This year's move selection feels limited in comparison with fewer moves available per Superstar.
As far as match types are concerned, Royal Rumble is now available to play online and expanded to allow up to twelve players. Only six players are allowed in the ring at any one time, though, by way of the same elimination mini-games seen in last year's installation. Hell in a Cell has been improved to be more realistic; that means a larger cell, weapons under the ring, and new moves utilizing the cell's walls. The best addition, however, is the ability to create your own match type. If you've ever desired an inferno ring submission 2-out-of-3 falls match, you can create it now.
There was a time when, if you wanted to play a Dragon Ball Z game, your only choice was to import it from Japan, or play the horrific Dragon Ball GT Final Bout. Nowadays, you can almost tell the seasons by which Dragon Ball Z title has arrived. Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team brings the spiky haired cast to the PSP yet again, for another round of the same old story.
For those unfamiliar with Dragon Ball Z (if that’s even possible) and its outlandish story, there are seven mystical balls that grant any wish when they’re all collected. Obviously, this attracts the most evil of characters and aliens, and it’s up to Goku and his band of Z-Fighters to train and protect the planet and its inhabitants.
After the 50th time playing through the same thing over and over again, it almost makes sitting through the story sequences pointless. I understand the games have no other storylines to follow, since the series has long been finished, but at this point, I can re-tell the entire story from memory, down to every detail.
The main mode, Dragon Walker, lets you re-live all the major battles from the Saiyan Saga all the way to the Buu Saga. You take control of various main characters, shrunk down to tiny size with enlarged heads, and fly across a world map searching for enemies to bump fists with.Although the game boasts over 70 characters,
Shaun White made his video game debut nearly two years ago on the slopes with Shaun White Snowboarding, a game that wasn't exactly the second coming of SSX, but it wasn't a colossal disappointment either. Sadly the red-haired wonder's second outing, Shaun White Skateboarding, is a poorly focused game with plenty of errors in its design. Diehard Shaun White fans will be able to find a few moments of fun to cling to, but with the Flying Tomato staying on the sideline for most of the game's missions, those instances are few and very far between.
Shaun White Skateboarding presents a world totally devoid of color and emotion thanks to the evil totalitarian government regime known as The Ministry. Never mind how they came to be in power or who in their right minds would ever elect such a soul-sucking government party. It's best to just accept the game's premise and not put too much thought into what's actually going on. Just know that Shaun White has been imprisoned by this evil government, which means that you'll be playing nearly the entire game as your created skater. Because, you know, that's what everyone wants from a game called Shaun White Skateboarding, right? So while your main goal is freeing Shaun White from his captors, you spend most of your time bringing emotion and expression back into the game world with your skating. This is done by simply landing tricks, at which point an explosion of color erupts from beneath your feet and spreads to everything around you. It's a decently cool effect the first time you see it, but after the 6,000th instance, it gets a little stale. Not to mention the fact that bringing a lifeless world to life with skateboarding doesn't make much sense. The story is pushed along by a bunch of ancillary characters (more like caricatures) that provide a few laughs as you make your way through the campaign mode. Shaun White Skateboarding has one creative element to it that sets it apart from the rest of the skating crowd and that's shaping. Shaping allows you to extend certain rails and ramps any way you please, or so it seems. In reality just about every rail and ramp has a pre-defined endpoint that you'll need to hit to make your way to the next objective. If you don't hit that point your ramp or rail will likely lead to open air and you'll need to restart the shaping process. As it turns out, the creativity of shaping is sort of non-existent in single-player.
Say this for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II: there is no pull-the-Star-Destroyer-out-of-the-sky moment. The original game got a bum rap because of that Sisyphean boss fight and other missteps like it, not to mention an abundance of small technical glitches. The sequel was supposed to learn from those mistakes. And it does, somewhat.
Sadly, this follow-up fails to learn from the things that made its predecessor great in spite of the flaws. Star Wars has been called both a space western and a space opera, and in The Force Unleashed, writer/producer Haden Blackman managed to capture both sensibilities in one crackling game. Starkiller was the ultimate gunslinger, riding into town and taking names (even the ones unpronounceable by human tongues). Yet he also played the central part in an epic tale of Wagnerian proportions, one that brought depth to the pre-Luke portion of the Star Wars timeline – more so than George Lucas' prequels did.
The Force Unleashed II maintains some of the crazy cowboy mentality. It's still fun to wade into a posse of stormtroopers and unleash every Force stunt in Starkiller's repertoire: slamming the bad guys against the wall, flinging them into oblivion, stunning them with lightning, and of course, decapitation-by-lightsaber. The game is at its best in prosaic moments, when the screen isn't filled with some titanic mega-boss but rather with an array of smaller challenges to dispatch one by one.
I hope you'll pardon me as I wax nostalgic here for a minute. As someone who's been enjoying rhythm games since they were little more than an exotic novelty for importers of Japanese video game delights, it's been an interesting journey these past 10 years watching the genre evolve into a full-blown cultural phenomenon, doing its share to put video games into the hands of people who would otherwise have no interest in the pastime. Harmonix was one of the first--if not the very first--Western developer to take on the genre with its spacey, techno-driven Frequency and Amplitude titles, both of which I was a passionate fan of. But even when I bullied my way into a cramped E3 backroom for an early look at the first Guitar Hero game, as giddy as I was to see someone bring some proper rock-'n-roll sensibilities to what I recognized as an extension of what Konami had started with the GuitarFreaks series in Japan, I never imagined anyone without an already-established interest in this niche would see the appeal of picking up one of these bright-buttoned plastic guitars.
And yet here we are. Still, I think it's fair to say that the fierce competition between Activision and Harmonix these past four years has been good for the evolution of the genre, but has also left some folks feeling a certain sense of rhythmic fatigue. Today, even as an ardent fan of the genre, I have significant doubts about its continued longevity, never mind its role as a savior of the struggling music industry. I give this lengthy preamble here, not just for my personal nostalgia's sake, but to let you know what was swirling through my head as I first put Rock Band 3, Harmonix's latest and most heedlessly ambitious title, into my Xbox 360. This is still an iterative experience in a lot of significant ways,
When I was handed the office copy of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 however, there was no getting around it – I had to delve into Masashi Kishimoto's world of superhuman ninjas and Nine Tailed Demon Foxes. Turns out the story is pretty damn good, actually. Maybe a little overhyped in proportion to all the cosplayers, but still an entertaining and thought-provoking series.Even so, you don't need to be a Naruto expert to understand what's going on in the story, as the single-player Adventure mode works as an interactive adaptation of the manga's Shippuden universe. You quickly learn from the opening cutscene that the titular hero is a fiesty ninja-in-training who hopes to one day become the Hokage (leader) of his home, the Hidden Leaf Village. But a criminal organisation known as the Akatsuki has plans to destroy that village, using the power of legendary creatures to create forbidden spells – or ninjutsu.
The kicker here is that the capture of Naruto is part of the Akatsuki's plan, for he has within him one of those destructive beasts, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. His friend, Gaara, also has a powerful monster locked inside of him, and so the organisation targets him first. Thus begins a journey that sees Naruto torn apart by betrayal, rejection and all sorts.
Although Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is wrapped with a rather inoffensive third-person adventure, the game's core is in, as always, its beat'em up mechanics. The controls overwhelm at first – and understanding isn't helped by the fact that loading screens contain 30-odd pages of battle tips – but after a few matches you get used to the basics.
When you first start playing Fable III, you’ll be forgiven for suspecting that Peter Molyneux has finally gone mad. Throughout Lionhead's action RPG sequel, you’ll be bombarded with design decisions which seem to have been made just for the sake of changing something, or even worse, simply for the sake of being quirky. It will all feel very odd. But give it time. Stop thinking about why things are the way they are. Accept them and just get on with it.
Within a few hours you’ll find that Molyneux’s marvellous lunacy is all with definite purpose. The realisation will creep up on you slowly, but when it takes hold you’ll discover that Fable III is a subtly clever beast indeed, and one of the most infectious and affecting RPG experiences of recent years. Though certainly not a niggle-free one.
Following Fable II’s epic broad strokes, part three is a very much more streamlined, focused take on the franchise formula. In both central story and core gameplay mechanics, this is a no-nonsense, to-the-point Fable which nevertheless manages to plug into your intellectual and emotional faculties in an arguably more pervasive sense than its predecessor.
You’re dropped straight in at the deep end from the moment the fantastic opening cut-scene ends. You’re a fully-formed adult royal this time, the son or daughter of Fable II’s now-deceased hero. No childhood preamble this time around.
The Shoot represents another PlayStation Move title that lacks depth and proper utilization of the Move’s motion control technology. With that said, it’s still a fun game to pick up and play.
Essentially, The Shoot is an on-rails light gun shooter. You all know how this works; you use the PS Move motion controller to aim at your television with pinpoint accuracy and shoot all the bad guys that pop up on screen. That pretty much sums up the experience of playing The Shoot.Luckily, The Shoot has a lot of charm working in its favor to turn an otherwise simple premise into something fun and memorable. The game’s career mode is broken into five different chapters, each representing a different genre of film. You have your Old West shootout, your monster flick, your Sci-Fi film, and so on. This adds a much needed sense of variety to the levels, making it so The Shoot doesn’t feel like the same thing over and over again, even though it basically is.
The game also provides more challenge to the player than I originally anticipated. This challenge doesn’t come from the bad guys shooting bullets and throwing knifes at you. Instead, it’s appeasing the film’s director that provides the biggest hurdle for completing a film’s shoot. You need to make sure you rack up multipliers while looking good if you want to keep the director happy. If you fail to do so, he’ll pull the plug and yell “cut.” This is basically like using a continue, of which you have five. Using up all your continues will give you a “Game Over” and you’ll have to start the entire film shoot over again. It can make each level a nerve-racking experience.
I learned about Time Crisis years ago, in the same way that most other gamers stumbled upon it: while waiting for a movie to start at a local theater. Time Crisis is a recognizable "on-rails" shooter that has made its home in arcades around the world, and the series has also seen its fair share of console versions. The latest in the franchise, Time Crisis: Razing Storm, is a PS3 collection that bundles Time Crisis: Razing Storm with the arcade versions of Time Crisis 4 and Deadstorm Pirates.
The Razing Storm collection makes use of the PlayStation Move technology, and the Move implementation works well. Wherever you point on the screen, the cursor is sure to follow. Unfortunately, these three games that are built around this idea of "point and shoot" are all pretty awful. Although I occasionally had fun blasting away terrorists, mainly with a friend, Time Crisis: Razing Storm is not at all worth the asking price.
All three games in the collection have stories, but they're worthless. They generally involve high-tech soldiers, terrorists, overacting, and biological weapons known as "Terror Bites." In the case of Deadstorm Pirates, players will be hunting for some treasure with the help of their Golden Guns. In other words: don't look to Time Crisis: Razing Storm for a gripping narrative.
Getting a game like Just Dance 2 right is no easy matter. Although many would have us believe that casual games are easy to churn out - pile them high sell them cheap - the big sellers in this space are actually those games that have invested in both technical delivery and understanding of the market.
Last year, Just Dance took many of us by surprise because it sold so well. Revisiting the game, back for its second iteration, reminded me how many different aspects of intelligent design came together to create a perfect dance game.
The visuals set the tone for the game. They are clear and crisp, but interestingly shun the idea of including images of the original artists in favour of stock dancers. There is a double advantage here, not only do the developers save money on image rights, but they also have the ability to choose the exact look they want.With this in mind, it's interesting that they went for more realistic body shapes, compared to the model-like original singers. This, combined with the flash stylised visuals, creates a look that is strong for both old and young audiences. Parents in particular would be more likely to let their children dance the Just Dance 2 version of Toxic than watch the original video.The dance mechanic itself, which returns in Just Dance 2 pretty much unchanged, is simplicity itself. Players dance along in real time aiming to mirror the actions of the on-screen performer. One hand is coloured differently to signify how to hold the Wii-mote.Compared to more unforgiving and exacting dance games, Just Dance 2 lets players improvise around the required moves while scoring them accurately for each move they make at the right time.
There are hundreds and hundreds of variations on the idea of a platform game across every gaming medium that has ever existed. With a fire first ignited by Super Mario Bros., which many would claim is the perfect platformer, people have been trying to bring back that feeling of total control and gameplay perfection ever since. Here we are twenty-five years later where a little game called Super Meat Boy is about to hit Xbox Live Arcade that will no doubt be called one of the best games of its time...if not all time. Super Meat Boy exhibits a perfection in control and level design that both challenges, rewards and tests the might of any player willing to step up to its meaty plate.
Super Meat Boy is the creation of two designers: artist Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes. It's a true beacon of indie gaming and it's something you need to be aware of. Meat Boy was initially a flash game found on the website Newgrounds (you can play it right here, though Super Meat Boy is infinitely better) before evolving into what it is today. Run, jump and avoid death - that's the basic premise of Super Meat Boy. You play as the titular character who is literally a tiny square of meat that leaves a bloody trail on every surface he touches (especially the hundreds of saw blades that will no doubt kill your character time and time again). You have the added ability of sticking to walls - and if you are running, you have the ability to slide slightly up any wall you land against which is critical for navigating certain segments of the game. Your drive for subjecting yourself through such torturous levels is the love of your meaty life: Bandage Girl. She's a pink cube of bandages with a daisy in her hair that has been captured by the evil Dr. Fetus. Each level is a series of jumps that will lead you to the Bandage Girl in distress, and when you reach her she's captured by Dr. Fetus all over again. Each level follows this pattern though they're peppered with a variety of elements that aim to slice and dive the meaty protagonist. Without dialogue, the humorous cut scenes throughout the game are hilarious.
Costume Quest is a game that thinks Halloween is awesome. It's a celebration of the hyperactive imagination of children, the good-natured awkwardness of kiddie Halloween costumes, the all-consuming desire to acquire as much candy as humanly possible, and the need to slaughter dozens and dozens of candy-thieving monsters along the way. Alright, so that last part wasn't exactly an element in any of my trick-or-treating forays as a child, but that makes it no less fun to experience. Developed by Psychonauts and Brutal Legend makers Double Fine, Costume Quest delivers an adventure that is as cute as it is fun to play. Its breezy nature and brief length might be a bit of a turn-off for some players, but anyone else ought to be immediately charmed by this downloadable role-playing game.In the game, you play as either Reynold or Wren, bickering twin boy-and-girl siblings who seem none-too-pleased about their parents forcing them to stick together as they prepare to go out trick-or-treating. No sooner are they out of the house and knocking on neighbors' doors that one of them (the one you didn't choose to control at the beginning of the game) is kidnapped by a horrible, candy burgling goblin. He skitters off toward a mysterious black gate at the edge of the suburbs, and you're off on a quest to save your sibling, while ridding the world of candy grubbing beasts in the process.
That quest comes in the form of a game that feels a little bit like "My First RPG." In the game's overworld, you'll find yourself wandering around three distinct areas (the suburbs, a local mall, and a carnival village on the outskirts of town). These worlds are chock full of hidden stuff to find, not to mention a couple of additional children who are more than willing to tag along on your quest. Eventually you'll find yourself going door-to-door and trick-or-treating. Behind each door lies one of two things: A costumed adult, who usually has some pithy comment for you before they unload gobs and gobs of candy (the game's currency) on you, or a horrible monster of some fashion, who usually says something equally pithy before engaging you in battle.
Firstly, there's the difficulty: Vanquish, like Bayonetta, throws a bone at the casual gamer with an almost condescending 'Auto' setting, although it seems likely that the game's developers would laugh derisively at anybody who played it on anything less than Normal (which is pretty much the equivalent of Hard in most other games). Beyond this there's a God Hard setting that's unlocked when you complete Vanquish's campaign for the first time, similar to the 'Non-Stop Infinite Climax' mode in Bayonetta. Once again, Platinum Games is taking pride in the amount of pain it inflicts on gamers who dare to buy its product and long may this kind of unashamed sadism continue as far as we're concerned.
It's old-school Japanese design to the core: the focus is not so much on offering players a varied gameplay experience throughout the campaign as much as it's concerned with constantly repeating the same core experience while painfully ratcheting up the difficulty to egg you on. However, although Bayonetta always did enough to compel you more than it frustrated, Vanquish often falls short of this compelling desire to beat the game and can leave you feeling apathetic towards it instead. It's a shortfall that's epitomised in the Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS) worn by protagonist, Sam Gideon throughout the campaign.Effectively a device that allows Sam to initiate bullet-time, the ARS also has rockets attached to it that propel him along on his knees like a celebrating football player gone berserk.
The suit's bullet-time powers have obvious similarities to Bayonetta's 'witch time' - not least for their stunning slow-mo visuals and luscious magenta colour scheme - while the rocket propulsion stuff is all-new. It's a welcome feature for the most part as well,
So far the PlayStation Move controller has been impressive in what it can do, even if the majority of games don't really take full advantage of it. As with any good motion-controlled launch a solid golf game is almost a no-brainer. Tiger Woods patched their latest version to work with Sony's wand, but the results left something to be desired. In comes John Daly's ProStroke Golf and we get our first taste of just how accurate this new waggle device actually is. The true one-to-one motion that Gusto Games has managed to achieve here is impressive; it's just a shame the rest of the title lacks that same amount of polish.
Let's get right to the heart of what you want to know first though, how does it play? Well being the first game designed from the ground-up for the Move controller it feels fantastic. The fluid motion of swinging a golf club is nearly perfect here. The game offers you the ability to tweak your shots much like you would in real life. You can twist your wrist and adjust pitch to pull off the perfect drive down the fairway. The motion is so realistic that I spent most of my time in the beginning slicing shots and sending them straight into sandtraps. The one problem I did have with the Move controls though was the navigation. It seemed far too touchy at times which made lining up some shots more difficult than it should have been, not to mention fighting with the menus.You have to respect what the team at Gusto Games has managed to accomplish here though. Every single shot felt natural and whenever a mistake is made you know it was by your hand and not inaccurate game mechanics. It is worth noting that this is not the golf you have become accustomed to. There are no power shots or special moves you can perform. This is you, the club and the course no-holds-barred. If you are one of those guys that tend to hit the greens occasionally you will likely derive more enjoyment out of this game than your average armchair Tiger Woods.
There’s no question that the UFC is the star of the MMA world. It has the most recognizable stars, the biggest pay-per-view events, and a solid video game franchise in THQ’s Undisputed. It’s all too easy to forget that there are other organizations with world class fighters out there. With EA Sports MMA, EA draws the task to show that MMA doesn’t need the UFC label to be noticed.
Tackling the control scheme in a sport as complicated as MMA is a daunting task and it’s the aspect that intrigues me the most. There are three discrete “phases” of an MMA bout—standing, clinching, and ground—and getting each right, along with the transition from one to the next and back, is key. The Undisputed series has what is arguably the best control scheme yet devised but it isn’t without its flaws and suffers from a steep learning curve. EA Sports MMA has gone the opposite route by simplifying everything as much as possible, and for the most part it works.
Striking is accomplished via the “Total Strike Control” system, essentially a modified version of the Fight Night series controls. A flick of the right analog dishes out jabs, hooks, and uppercuts in seamless fashion. The left trigger modifies the strikes to kicks while the right bumper adjusts the height. Familiarity with Fight Night makes the controls easy to pick up although things get confusing when stringing together combos with kick and height modifiers thrown in. The analog striking is a more natural and involved control system when compared button pressing, and I personally hope it becomes the genre norm.
To suggest that Sengoku Basara is a Dynasty Warriors clone would be unfair, inaccurate and just plain wrong. It’s clearly a Samurai Warriors clone.
Seriously, it even has most of the same characters. This is because they’re loosely based on the same real-life historical figures but still, some of the character designs seem to be sailing dangerously close to Samurai Warriors’ copyright wind. It seems to be, in many ways, more of a spoof than a clone though. It takes what is already a pretty silly template and makes it notably sillier.
Our character of choice, Magoichi Saika – same name as in Samurai Warriors, different gender – is armed not just with a single musket, but with several pistols, a pump-action shotgun, hand grenades, two machine guns and a multi-shot bazooka. You can tell this game shares a producer with Devil May Cry 4.
This silliness isn’t just for the sake of poking fun though, it does make Sengoku Basara a more fun and more varied game than most of the Koei titles it apes.
The combat is still pretty repetitive, but in a slightly less button-bashy, more thoughtful way. Plus, each character does have a genuinely different gameplay style, so you get twelve that are all worth trying out rather than over a hundred that are all essentially the same.The downside, when compared to the Warriors games,
When Bethesda released Fallout 3 in the fall of 2008, it was lauded as one of the greatest open-world role-playing games of the time. Now, two years later the juggernaut of a franchise has another addition to its repertoire with Fallout: New Vegas. It appears that Obsidian didn't feel the need to change much about the successful formula, as the similarities to its predecessor are so significant I often want to call it Fallout 3: New Vegas. Since the first game was so widely loved, that's certainly not a bad thing, but New Vegas does feel like a giant, awesome expansion.
The Fallout series takes place after a nuclear war and the U.S. is desecrated, a shell of its former glory. Humanity emerges from the tragedy as selfish and power-hungry as ever. Despite the bombardment of numerous nukes, the city of Vegas managed to survive the war mostly untouched. In the aftermath, a group of people formed touting the values of the old governmental system and called themselves the New California Republic, or NCR. Thanks to the Hoover Dam, the NCR and citizens of New Vegas have access to clean water and power, something most areas lack. At odds with the NCR is the Legion, a dictatorship lead by a man who renamed himself Caesar. Based on the Roman methodology of conquering other civilizations, the Legion absorbs nearby tribes and enslaves a portion of their population. The NCR and Caesar's Legion butt heads over control of the area, and tensions are high. You're a courier in these troubled times with no defined background. Just a seemingly regular guy or gal, you're tasked with delivering a package to the New Vegas strip, but let's just say complications arise. Though the story provides pops of color and a few necessary minor twists to keep things interesting, it's predictable just the same. There are three possible endings to the main quest, and similar to Fallout 3 at launch, once you complete it you won't be able to continue your journey through the wastelands unless you re-load an old save. This is a bummer, especially since that was a major complaint with Fallout 3 and Bethesda later fixed it with downloadable content.
"It kind of looks like Little Big Planet." I get the first-glance comparison. Maybe it's because ever since the PS3 platformer drew our eyes with its arts and crafts-y aesthetic full of cleverly arranged bric-a-brac, we've yet to see another title pull off that style of carefully constructed simplicity. So when you see Kirby's Epic Yarn's fantastically vibrant visuals -- also featuring a yarn-spun protagonist -- well, it's human nature to categorize and relate the new to the old.
Despite any "Kirby formula" preconceptions you might hold, Epic Yarn should still surprise you. Throwing most of an established series' playbook out the window can be risky, but here it's paid off. Rather than focusing on the adorable pink icon's ability to consume and replicate enemy powers, the game is crafted around the titular yarn motif, and the ingenuity with which Nintendo explores that theme had me positively beaming my first time through the game.
Interestingly enough, Epic Yarn's cut-scenes -- narrated storybook style -- pleasantly remind me of Little King's Story. But let's be honest: for an adult, it's all terribly cheesy. The basic premise of the game is that the evil Yin Yarn has gotten his hands on a magical sock (not a joke), which he's using to turn everything into yarn-creatures under his command. In his quest for world domination and other such sinister endeavors, he manages to rip asunder Prince Fluff's kingdom.
Konami’s sing-along games haven’t exactly been the greatest as of late. Karaoke Revolution left a lot to be desired (particularly the American Idol entries), and we aren’t exactly thrilled that a Glee-themed game is on the way. Well, some of us, anyway. That’s where Def Jam Rapstar provides a breath of fresh air. It’s like Karaoke Revolution, but with the goofiness replaced by a genuine rap vibe that makes the game undeniably fun. Furthermore, there’s a community angle that really expands it in ways we didn’t think possible.
Like Revolution, Def Jam Rapstar features a diverse selection of songs from the 80’s, 90’s and today’s best artists. These include performers such as Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Ice Cube, Public Enemy and more. In addition, you can add even more songs to the roster through DLC, such as “Rapper’s Delight” and the always upbeat “Party Up In Here”, with DMX insisting that y’all gonna make him lose his mind. Up in here, up in here. The DLC is optional, however, and there are more than enough tunes to go around.
The trouble is, some of the raps are easier to perform that others. Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey”, for example, is easy to follow and perform along with. The same can’t be said for more complex stuff like Young Jeezy’s “Put On”, or others that move at a frenzied pace. Also, since the game’s rated T for Teen, you won’t find any hardcore lyrics here, though you can certainly fill in the words of your choice if you choose, without suffering a point penalty as a result. Regardless of editing and pace the song selection is excellent and it’s great running across such old-schoolers as Slick Rick and 2Pac again. Plus, “Gin and Juice” never gets old. Laid back!
I honestly and truly pried my brain open to accept that one of the best strategy/RPG franchises in history had gone full-on action. I accepted that Square-Enix clearly wanted to overhaul their series so as to cater to the Western crowd, which apparently isn’t interested in strategy, intelligence, or taking one’s time and planning and executing a specific plan. I pushed my many hours of involving time with Front Mission 3 behind me. I turned on Front Mission Evolved with a hopeful expression, expecting to have some fun with giant, relatively fast-moving wanzers and with the intention of becoming a mech master. And yes, I had fun. But this dumbing down of a particular formula is continually obvious throughout the experience and while the mechanics are decent and the game can be intense, it doesn’t reach third-person action nirvana. Not really close, in fact.
As usual, Square-Enix can produce some finely polished, technically proficient, and even memorable cut-scenes. But unfortunately, the gameplay visuals don’t pass muster, as the characters are mostly bland and uninteresting, and the levels are filled with forgettable city buildings and structures. Most of the time, you don’t even notice your surroundings because there’s a lot going on – and that’s almost a good thing – but when you really pause to look around, the drab, unappealing backgrounds prove to be a detriment. The special effects are pretty cool, though, because high-impact shocks and explosions are really brought to the forefront, and that helps. It just needed another level of flash and panache that would’ve allowed the action to leap off the screen; instead, it looks a lot like most other mech games- dark and kinda boring. It can also be difficult to spot your enemies amidst the backdrops; the foes can blend into cityscapes.
Game designers have described the process of designing game flow as “30 seconds of excitement repeated over and over again for 4 – 6 hours”. If this is true then Quantum Theory is 30 seconds of wasted time repeated over and over again. If you are interested in the theory behind bad game design Quantum Theory is a real world example of how things can go wrong.
Quantum Theory takes place in a world ravaged by war. As the rough and tough soldier Syd the player is tasked with taking down “towers” placed throughout the ruined earth. The preceding sentence contains more plot information than the opening hour and a half of Quantum Theory. If you want to grasp this game’s story keeping the manual handy is a must. Even with it in hand full understanding of the plot is never guaranteed. Quantum Theory is a third person action title centered around cover based combat. Within seconds of the opening tutorial you can’t help but think of Gears of War, a much better cover based shooter. Like his COG counterparts Syd is able to hold up to three weapons during his battle with the enemy hordes. In order to move on from one area to the next you must obliterate all the enemies in your path using the standard arsenal of weapons including shotguns, pistols and heavy bolter weapons. Oddly in a world filled with hostile forces grenades do not seem to exist. They would have helped clear out the hordes of generic repeating enemies. Clunky cover and shooting mechanics aren’t the only problems plaguing Quantum Theories gameplay. During your travels through the ruined cities of Quantum Theory you will come across invisible walls in front of piles of debris that could have made serviceable obstacles to keep Syd within bounds. Other odd environment behaviors include barricades such as fences that will not open until the rest of the game environment has loaded. As a final nail in the coffin to the gameplay department this game includes several cheap deaths from enemies positioned behind your cover and questionable weapon placements such as giving Syd a shotgun during what is essentially a long range firefight.
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light isn’t really a Final Fantasy game. Don’t let the name fool you. Granted, the sizable series has had its share of evolutions and regressions over the last two decades, but 4 Heroes, more often than not, strikes out its own path in ways the main series never has before.
These tweaks run the gamut from the small and welcome changes like the adorable storybook visuals and the cutesy way villagers talk about questing and leveling up (one kid early on beams about how psyched up he gets when monsters attack his party) to bigger ones that must be finessed and addressed until the very end like the overhauled battle and item-management system. The latter two are where the Final Fantasy doctrine is completely disregarded, and could easily turn purists off expecting a faithful Final Fantasy experience. Both in combat and using health items during battle, you aren’t allowed to manually pinpoint the intended recipient of your wrath or rescue. You choose one option or the other, and pray the game follows your will. Another wrinkle comes via 4 Heroes’ doing away with magic points, instead making item use, spells, and physical attacks all draw from the same well of slowly regenerating action points.
Without a tutorial, this all takes some adjustment, but it goes hand in hand with the emphasis on strategy with item management and questing in general. Also new to the series is a strict 15-item limit for each character, which is more like a 10-item limit after you’ve loaded every party member down with weapons, accessories, and spells. Gone are the days of loading up on 99 cabins: You actually have to plan out what you’ll need for each quest and stock up accordingly. Fortunately, players are thrown a bone with it being impossible to get a game-over screen: You’ll just be spat back out to your last save point when you die.
With that in mind, I hoped the game would cash in that bold opportunity to bring some gravitas to the situation, and make players examine the controversial post-9/11 war from conflicting perspectives -- or hell, even feel uncomfortable shooting Taliban soldiers. But aside from some heartfelt (but ultimately peripheral) notes about the game's dedication to our country's fallen soldiers, Medal of Honor rarely rises above the "ooh-rah, kill the 'bad guys'" approach seen in most other modern military campaigns. It's a missed opportunity, no doubt, but not one that will kill or even derail the experience for many shooter fans. Like EA's Dante's Inferno, Medal of Honor is built in the mold of another, immensely popular game -- in this case, Call of Duty -- but it largely succeeds in its imitation, putting equal emphasis on the Danger Close-created campaign and the multiplayer modes, which come from Battlefield developer DICE. Medal of Honor's campaign spans nine missions split between three playable characters, and when the adventure is really on its game, it's a crackling affair. One standout mission starts with your squad dropped into a desert battlefield and immediately ambushed, forcing you to run through dusty paths as allies drop and the screen shakes from constant explosions. By the end of that lengthy excursion, your depleted squad is holed up near a dilapidated building, with Taliban soldiers descending from nearby mountains. As your squad's ammo depletes and the enemy continues advancing, the game produces an incredible sense of creeping, seemingly inevitable death, with lightly swelling music accentuating the increasing sense of paranoia. 
Major game publishers still seem unwilling to fully tackle the events, interpretations, and consequences of America's most recent set of military conflicts, but while EA bowed to mounting pressure and removed the word "Taliban" from Medal of Honor's multiplayer suite, the terminology remains an integral part of the campaign, which bears a more realistic tone than most other modern shooters. Unlike the ill-defined locations and allegiances in some other genre entries, Medal of Honor's intense firefights take place in Afghani cities you've likely heard of, and indeed, your battle is waged against the clearly-indicated Taliban.
Critics of WRC ace Sebastien Loeb – who has just won his seventh consecutive world title – will point out that the Frenchman has dominated an era that has seen the sport regress, with a competitive field somewhat lacking in the greatness of the past: no Vatanens, Mikkolas, Kankkunens, Sainzs or Mäkinens, say.
Those silly enough to doubt Loeb's genius will presumably also assume that an official WRC game arriving half a decade after the last one will find itself similarly able to impress with less effort.
The reality is very different, of course. You don't become a seven-time world champion of anything without an abundance of talent, unless you're somehow involved in an international Big Brother competition. The same applies to any rally game these days, regardless of licence.
First impressions aren't encouraging. Even before you're faced with the available play options – The Road to the WRC, WRC Academy, Single Player (with Single Stage, Single Rally, Championship, Time Attack), Hot Seat (Single Stage, Single Rally, Championship for up to four players) or Xbox Live – the welcome screen leaves little doubt that the general level of presentation is going to be functional. In reality, it's worse than functional, given that some of the menu progression is irritatingly awkward.
While most folks would likely agree that Scribblenauts' innovative approach of using words to spawn puzzling-solving items was nothing short of fantastic, the execution of last year's Nintendo DS hit sharply divided players. Some critics, like GamePro's own Tae K. Kim, embraced the overall vision of the game and saw past its technical flaws, while others (myself included) were too frazzled by poor controls and other qualms to give it enough time to properly sink in.
Thankfully, Super Scribblenauts lives up to its name with an enhanced second effort that finally delivers the series' charming potential. One might argue that adjectives are the biggest addition here -- the "Super" in Super Scribblenauts, if you will -- but for me and assuredly many others, the most notable change is the ability to control Maxwell in a meaningful way. In the first game, your only option was to tap the screen to move the hero, who would then shamble several steps in that direction, regardless of what hazards lay in his path. Not only was it frustrating to be bound to haphazard stylus controls, but many puzzles also required precise movements, and it was far too easy to unintentionally lead Maxwell into a pit or off a ledge.Thankfully, Super Scribblenauts rectifies this mistake with the ability to control Maxwell with the d-pad or stylus (you can swap between the two at will from the pause menu), plus his movements are now minute, letting you control him as you would a character in a traditional side-scrolling platformer. It's a night-and-day kind of difference, and one that lets you fully focus on conjuring up splendiferous pairings of nouns and adjectives.
As with many other consumer products, branding in gaming is obviously a huge consideration for publishers. As gamers, we can rely on annual installments of Tiger Woods, Madden, and Call of Duty, and by and large, the content of such games doesn’t see much change from entry to entry. With the 
Unlike past MySims games, customization and creation isn’t the focus of MySims SkyHeroes. Sure, you can mack out your plane and dress up your MySims, but the gameplay actually takes center stage here. That’s a good thing, too.
MySims SkyHeroes is a tight, little package, but it’s also a fairly basic affair. As you might have guessed from the title, this is a game all about air combat. Similar to Snoopy Flying Ace (XBLA), you’ll spend most of your time in dogfights, and Mario Kart-style racing makes up the other half of what’s on offer here.
With that in mind, what MySims SkyHeroes sets out to do, it does quite well. The story mode is mostly a means of acquainting the player with the particulars of gameplay, but it’s still a nice addition when you’re forced to go it alone. The single-player game is mission-based, and based on your performance at the end of each mission, you’ll earn various plane parts and accessories, as well as unlock additional MySims for use in Quickplay.
Sid Meier probably didn't have a whole lot to do with it (hint: Firaxis bought the rights to Civilization from Atari for $15 million), but Sid Meier's Pirates!: Live the Life is just as good as the original ever was. In fact, if you've played the first game, you'll be perfectly at home with this one.
Pirates casts the player in the role of a young man who's lost his family to the evil Marquis Montalban and his equally evil side-kick, Baron Raymondo. If you wish, however, you can completely ignore the storyline and simply go on pirating, trading and sacking towns. There are changes to the gameplay, but nothing overly dramatic. Firaxis merely brought the game up to date, rather than re-working the whole idea.
The action continues from a third-person isometric perspective, similar to Diablo. The game is similar in artistic style to WarCraft III or World of WarCraft, emphasizing simple yet attractive cartoon-style graphics. It's not cel-shaded, but does make use of pixel shaders for water effects, though little else.Pirates forces the player to start on the easiest difficulty level in the easiest period the first time around, but after completing that game, you can switch to any difficulty and any time period. Sadly, the original 1560: The Silver Age setting has been removed.
Aliens have attacked Earth, killing millions in mere seconds. In a desperate attempt to retaliate, world leaders defended themselves with nuclear weapons. Now the aliens populate the planet, the world is a wasteland and the few remaining human survivors are relegated to dwelling in sewers, subways and basements to plot their revenge.
An action-packed third-person shooter, MorphX drops players into the middle of the fallout in Moscow, Russia. As part of the new resistance, players awaken in an alien laboratory with the option to enhance their stamina and health with Alien DNA, but at the cost of gradually turning into a monster. In an effort to fight the aliens and find an antidote to the mutation, players can choose to either use the Alien DNA to their advantage, or reject it and focus solely on collecting a variety of weapons to take down their enemies.
The centerpiece of this NBA Jam is the Classic Campaign mode, the traditional gauntlet of all of the NBA's teams -- beat one, and it's right on to the next. There's little else to it, but it's there where you'll get the best of what the game has to offer: violent shoves and steals, the bombastic (and repetitive) announcer, the showboating slam dunks, and of course, the players' cut-out-style heads that never stop looking goofy on their polygonal (and well-animated) bodies. But that more than works, and it's a genuine wonder why no previous Jam developers tried such a head-slappingly obvious approach after the original arcade game. If Jam only included the campaign like the original, that might have been enough, but the Remix Tour mode is where Jam goes in a different direction. Like Campaign, Remix Tour has you battling the entire league, but in groups of three minigames selected among Remix 2V2 (a flashier exhibition game with power-ups),
Arcades have had their share of successful sports games, but before the heyday of Golden Tee or Big Buck Hunter, there was NBA Jam, the ultimate in simplified, friendship-jeopardizing gameplay. EA's new NBA Jam wrests itself from the hands of developers who tried too hard to make the franchise "modern," when that's the least that needed to happen. What we get now is a nearly pitch-perfect refresh of Jam that connects with how a generation remembered it: a two-on-two basketball game that barely played by league rules.
Whoever writes the back-of-the-box blurb for Guitar Hero games must have the hardest job in the games industry. Having to make a checklist of the microscopic changes in this sequel has been hard enough while writing the review, but to then make them sound exciting enough to shell out £50 for is well beyond our ability.
Not for the first time this new Guitar Hero has gotten a little nervous about its age and refused to put a number at the end of its name, but everyone knows it's number six. Music games have always found it difficult to justify news sequels, beyond just a new set list, but what makes this one so disappointing is that it all seems to have been inspired by a lawsuit.
Activision got into terrible trouble for letting Guitar Hero 5's celebrity avatar of Kurt Cobain be used with any song, thereby allowing the spectacle of the king of grunge singing along to Stevie Wonder's Superstition. Courtney Love tried to sue, as did No Doubt for similar transgressions against their image in Band Hero, and the end result has been no more celebrities in Activision music games.
All that has led to this sequel refocusing on the original line-up of characters, such as punk Johnny Napalm and head banger Axel Steel. To welcome them back properly the game now has a peculiar new story mode about rescuing the Demigod of Rock from 'The Beast'. It's narrated by Kiss frontman Gene Simmons, but just comes across as a poor man's Brütal Legend - with none of the style or wit that made that game so enjoyable despite its questionable gameplay.
Dark Energy Digital's new third-person shooter Hydrophobia hits Xbox Live on Wednesday, September 29th for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), kicking of the fall's promotion called “Game Feast.” Featuring a unique new water-physics engine called HydroEngine, it aims to bring a new kind of quality to the Xbox Live Marketplace. The developers have also created a super-compact game design program called InfiniteWorlds that helps bring the game to the downloadable space. Does it succeed in its pursuits or are we left with another forgettable attempt at creating something unique on XBLA?
There are a lot of third-persons shooters on this generation of consoles, but few are completely downloadable experiences. Hydrophobia crams a lot of features in a small package and is definitely worth a look for action-adventure fans. It's procedurally-generated water is a sight to behold, but the game feels small because it's only the first part of a planned trilogy. But let's get into the specifics.
Hydrophobia features the unassuming Security Engineer Kate Wilson as its protagonist. On board the Queen of the World, the world's largest cruise ship, she is thrust into a fight for her life when terrorists attack the boat during its tenth year anniversary party. She's in radio communication with the Systems Engineering Chief named Scoot, and he leads her from one part of the boat to another trying to boat thwart the terrorists and keep her alive. Because the two of them are in charge of security, they know a lot about the boat's systems and have no trouble hacking their way through the system to get where they're needed.
That sentiment fades fast as a boss monster drops my spiky-haired swordsman with a single, unexpected strike -- my fourth such failure in the last fifteen minutes. The game pauses to load as I curse under my breath, respawn in the game's hub city, stroll unenthusiastically to my ship, and, finally, reload the encounter for a fifth time. Once again, my three-hit combos barely put a dent in the towering hellbeast before I'm snuffed. And, at this precise moment, "the future" starts feeling a lot more like a gussied-up 2001. Come to think of it, almost everything about Phantasy Star Portable 2 reeks of the past. Many of the game's environments, monsters, and boss fights have been outright regurgitated from previous games in the action-RPG series (including an entire chapter lifted from the original Phantasy Star Online). Furthermore, the simple, rhythm-based combat system pioneered by the first PSO remains largely unchanged in this iteration -- meaning every weapon type still has its own learning curve, and most are limited to just three or four basic attack animations each. 
I try my best not to smear grease on my PSP as I balance Phantasy Star Portable 2 in one hand and a Mc-something-or-other in the other at the local fast-food trough. Suddenly, I'm struck with a brief sense of wonderment as I realize how impressed my sixteen-year-old self would be with this whole scenario; the latest Phantasy Star -- a franchise I worshipped as a youth -- playable online and on-demand with a device that (almost) fits in my pocket. "Screw hoverboards," I think. "This is the future."
The release of Wii Party is a rather ironic event. The party game genre is one of the most abundant on Nintendo's system, and it's a genre that Nintendo helped make popular thanks to the likes of Wii Sports and Wii Play. Now we have Wii Party, a game that is seemingly following the trends made by the company years ago rather than re-inventing it. But after hours of gameplay I now understand what Wii Party was trying to do, and the end result is stunning.
Wii Party is in many ways a spiritual successor to Mario Party. If you are a fan of that series then you are bound to recognize several elements, such as the board gameplay and many multiplayer modes that house hundreds of mini-games. The big difference is that Wii Party strips the concept down to its bare essentials in order to make it more accessible towards the casual gaming audience. This works as a double-edged sword. On one hand, players that grew up with Mario Party will feel as if Wii Party lacks the depth and character that made the franchise so popular among many fans.
But on the other, the pacing in Wii Party is great. A common complaint about Mario Party is that it has too many things that slow gameplay down to a near halt, such as multiple traps on one game board and waiting for the player to finish his or her turn. Wii Party avoids this by speeding up gameplay. Many players feel as if Mario Party is more about luck than skill. While Wii Party also has moments when luck is needed to be successful, the overall game rewards players for their skill, and at the end of a game it is likely that the winner was indeed the best player. This creates a far more satisfying party experience where no one feels cheated. It may make the game look shallower than it really is, but considering that the Wii series has always been about inviting everyone to play and have fun, this works wonderfully.
If you are anything like us, you probably kept FIFA 10 close to your PlayStation 3 for the seasonal lulls in the video game release schedule. Whenever we faced a grueling month-long freeze in quality games, we booted up our PS3 with FIFA 10 for an online match, continued to progress our team in Manager Mode (often with great frustration), or just do a quick tournament to knock out our rival teams. Even the non-soccer fans (football everywhere else but here in the US) had plenty of reason to enjoy the game with the World Cup. Heck, you could even buy EA Sports’ 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa if you wanted to play-along as your country (although if you were England, France or Italy, you probably wanted to prove you could take your country further than the actual team could go). As such, there is little doubt that footie fanatics are anxious to see what this venerable franchise has to offer this time around with FIFA 11.
It’s fair to say there was a lot of hype surrounding this latest entry, more so than in years past, and it’s hard to say all that excitement was warranted, or even necessary. Developer EA Canada promised a more authentic soccer experience through Personality +, a system that more accurately represents real-players' attributes and movement on the pitch, even specific and notable celebrations. For the first time in the FIFA history, you can play as the goalie and compete in 11-on-11 online matches. A new passing system promised greater user-control. All of these new features or tweaks to FIFA 10 work fairly well, but there isn’t really that “wow” factor we hoped for. Sure, this is a solid game, and despite some typical FIFA-inspired visual hiccups, there’s not too much to fault in the actual gameplay or presentation. There isn’t, however, much to say about new game modes (since they are virtually absent this go), and while we get more of the same, we can’t help but lap it up regardless.
That was all I knew about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West about a week ago. But as I do before most review assignments I read up on the game from our previews section and learned that Enslaved is loosely based on the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West," features the talented team from Ninja Theory (who previously created Heavenly Sword and who will be creating the next Devil May Cry), and Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) stars as the main character, Monkey -- Serkis also serves as a cut-scene director and lends his motion capture talents to the project. There, now you're all caught up as well. Enslaved takes the standard, post-apocalyptic videogame setting and mixes in a batch of steam punk and heavy science fiction for its stylized world. But as gorgeous as the levels look, it's the characters, dialog, and story (co-written by Alex Garland, who wrote 28 Days Later, The Beach and Sunshine) that pull it all together...even when portions of the game become repetitious. Monkey, after a daring escape from a crashing slave ship, finds himself irrevocably attached to Trip, his companion for Enslaved's journey. She's able to control Monkey via a headband through which the two are bound -- if she dies, he dies, so he must follow her commands. Her motives for enslaving Monkey are simple: she needs help and protection to traverse the wasteland back to her homeland. The story becomes more complex as the game goes on, though, and it includes one of the more thought-provoking endings I've experienced in recent memory. 
"Your main character is named Monkey and he doesn't wear a shirt."