The stages throw a constantly changing stream of challenges at Sonic, from the most basic moving platform to robotic bugs that chase him along an interstellar energy highway and require fast reflexes to outwit. The sheer volume and variety of these new level "features" -- many of which are specific to only one of the game's worlds -- constantly surprised (and often delighted) me. Sometimes I found myself thinking that this was the Sonic game I'd always wanted in 3D, like its designers had transitioned straight from 16-bit to Wii and had all these amazing new tools at their disposal.
Pictionary is the first board game turned video game where I thought the virtual version was superior to the physical one. The most annoying thing about playing a game of Pictionary is the setup required, but by channeling the power of electronics, there's now no need to erase your crappy drawings by hand and no way to get high off Sharpie fumes (well, maybe that's not a good thing for some people). THQ did a nice job translating the popular party title into a video game that offers a little something for everyone.
Using THQ's uDraw tablet, Pictionary offers three different game modes: good old fashioned Pictionary, Free Draw (which is exactly what it sounds like) and Pictionary Mania, a brand new way to play the classic game. The uDraw tablet is easy to use and responsive, so all of the modes work the way they should.
Of the three, Free Draw is the least impressive mode, especially considering if you've purchased the uDraw tablet, you automatically receive uDraw Studio, which offers a much deeper drawing tool than Pictionary. Regardless, it's non-obtrusive and if your kid wants a simple way to muck around and scribble, it's a good alternative to having marker stains on your carpets.
Vanilla Pictionary plays just like the board game – you pick teams, how long of a game you want, roll the dice (in this case you "flick" the pen on the tablet) and away you go. A team member gets a card with an object, animal or phrase, and they attempt to draw it while the teammates guess what it is before time runs out. Most squares that you land on will be normal, but there are a few "All Play" areas that allow the opposing team to guess alongside yours and potentially steal the lead.
Worms is back, again. This time the candid series is in for its 18th taking, so really you could say it’s a little old, and you’d probably be correct – Worms isn’t the most recent addition to gaming IP but it’s hard to deny there isn’t a place in all of us for a bit of traditional turn-taking glory. The comical series hasn’t exactly gone all out in its past adaptations though, often showcasing its feeble colours with basic puzzles and nostalgic online. You have to accept however, that if any franchise deserves another addition to its already crowded collection then Worms is the primitive choice. Luckily for developers Team 17 the latest in the franchise; Worms: Battle Islands ditches the old restraints and introduces a fresh take with a host of creative extras showing us that any ageing series can make a come-back. And ultimately do it on top form.
Worms: Battle Islands doesn’t reinvent the traditional Worms formula (thank-goodness), that would be stupid, but it does a simple job, it takes what fans love and adds simple extras, vital additions that not only entice the fabulous gameplay but make it more enjoyable. Things like better AI, vaster environments and stronger online make Worms: Battle Islands a strong addition to the series. You can clearly see the difference between Worms 2: Armageddon and this, Worms: Battle Islands is perfect, it has everything you can wish for in a worms game, the single player campaign is superb. Worms: 2 Armageddon delivered for single player so chances are if you savoured that you’ll enjoy this. You’re now split into islands, and the game includes mini stories to go along with each sector and mission, offering a treat before you go to battle, then there are the weapons which sit along side the story, these are fundamental to achieving your goal of killing enemy worms. Battle Islands doesn’t have many new weapons but the currently existing Armageddon ones are present, although I found the weapon selection easier to use in this iteration, there may only be minimal differences in the user-interface, but you feel like using a bigger variety of weaponry as there displayed in front of you in a clearer way, split into 3 categories, ‘Weapons 1’, ‘Weapons 2’ and ‘Utilities’ making selection for specifics easier.
Previous Bomberman games have tried to force a single-player story down our throats, but Bomberman Live: Battlefest cuts the crap and just focuses what makes the franchise fun: competitive multiplayer. With a few new modes and avatar customization options, Battlefest brings nothing to the table that will shock longtime fans, but is fun and currently popular enough to warrant a purchase from anyone looking to blast away some online players. If you've played competitive multiplayer in a Bomberman title, then you'll understand the core mechanics of Battlefest. Up to eight players (or AI-controlled bots) are on a grid, planting explosives so that they can blast their way to their opponents and eventually kill them. Along the way, players gain power-ups by blasting away parts of the environment, and work with the unique conditions of the level – such as stages where bombs will slide around, or where the level layout changes on a whim -- to try and outsmart their opponents.
Sure, Battlefest doesn't do anything to change the basic gameplay – it's still all about strategic bomb placement and awesome timing – but the new modes actually keep it from becoming stale as fast as it used to. Team modes like VIP (each side has a specific player they have to kill to win), and Capture the Flag are good distractions from the basic deathmatch mode. I also really enjoyed Bankroll (use cash obtained by killing opponents or found during each round to buy power ups for the next), and Capture the Crown (players battle for who can hold onto a crown the longest, with points ticking up every few seconds that someone holds onto it). None of the new modes are better than classic deathmatch, though. The array of powers and customization allowed when creating a match makes this a game type that you can play for hours. You can choose which special powers you want to be unlocked, how many rounds have to be won to complete the match, whether or not you want players to have a chance to get revenge (read: firing bombs from the sidelines after an initial defeat). Most online matches also take only a few moments to play, and allow up to four local players to jump online if you're playing an unranked match, making Battlefest a great way to entertain a group of people for a few minutes when you're looking to kill some time.
As far as The Sims 3 expansion packs go, I never really know what to expect. I didn’t care much for the World Adventures concept and ended up loving that EP when I finally got to play it. I thought Ambitions was going to be really great and found myself losing interest in some of the bigger features in that EP not long after I’d discovered and mastered them. So I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Late Night would be amazing. Having spent hours following my Sim through the packed downtown area of Bridgeport, I feel my interest in the game renewed and am excited to explore the expansion pack further.
Just to be clear, before we get into the details of the game, the expansion pack requires that you have The Sims 3 base game installed on your computer. Like the base game, Late Night is PC and Mac compatible.
I took more screenshots than I needed to illustrate the main points of the EP, however I thought you might appreciate a better look. You’ll find additional screenshots in the gallery below the review. Late Night comes with a new neighborhood. Bridgeport features a few clusters of suburban areas, which surround the bustling downtown city. Downtown includes the job locations, night clubs and bars, parks, restaurants and high-rise apartment buildings. Public transportation is a welcome addition as Sims now have the option to take the subway. Stations are set up around the city. The actual train ride isn’t shown, however it is an extremely fast way to commute (about as quick as teleporting if you don’t count the time it takes for your Sim to get to the actual station.)
In addition to plenty of new outfits (to suit all occasions, including some sexy new lingerie among the sleepwear), Create-A-Sim now features two new sliders. For those who wish they could control the chest-size of their females or the muscle-tone of their Sims, you’re all set! You now have more control over your Sim’s bodies, though it should be said that while the maximum level of muscle tone gives your Sim a sort of chiseled look, the maximum level of bust-size delves into ridiculously unnatural territory.
Evolution attempts to bridge the gap between the upcoming Tron: Legacy and the nearly 30-year-old original by putting you in the neon-striped shoes of a System Monitor program called Anon. You're initially sent by Kevin Flynn to investigate the suspicious derezzing of an ISO on the Game Grid, but that plot thread quickly evaporates when a violent coup and a viral outbreak strike Tron City almost simultaneously. Now, if that previous paragraph sounded like the ravings of a former Silicon Valley magnate turned blathering hobo, it's probably because I provided about as much context for the plot as the game does. Anyone who hasn't at least watched the first Tron won't have much luck deciphering Evolution's story, but it's also fairly easy for longtime fans like myself to wind up confused. The plot moves so quickly and the connections to the original film are so tenuous that I actually stopped playing to pop in the DVD -- just to make sure I hadn't simply forgotten a bunch of characters and concepts that appear in Evolution with little-to-no background or introduction. Poor storytelling aside, Tron: Evolution captures the iconic look and sound of the films. Though the game's set much closer to the original movie than its upcoming sequel, all of the environments, outfits, and vehicles in Evolution resemble the sleeker, darker aesthetics featured in Legacy. Also on loan from the second film are a pair of Daft Punk songs off the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, which, great as they sound, turn up a bit too often to remain interesting for long. 
Of all the campy sci-fi flicks from the '80s, few have more built-in potential for a videogame adaptation than Tron. With its (at-the-time) groundbreaking CG animation and game-developer-trapped-in-a-computer storyline, Disney's cult classic has plenty of hooks in place for a decent gaming crossover. Unfortunately, Tron: Evolution wastes most of that potential on sloppy, unimaginative third-person action and some seriously reprehensible vehicular segments.
Some games are unintentionally goofy, and some, like Kung-Fu Live, intentionally cultivate the goof. There's more in the way of geek-ified, off-the-wall humor in this game than you'd see in five years of going to PAX. From its 1970's chop-socky comic-book theme to its hilarious way of putting you, boxer shorts and all, directly into the game world, Kung-Fu Live is not for the serious of temperament.
Nor is it for the out of shape, or the small of living room. The game, which does not require any controllers and solely uses the PlayStation Eye (part of the PlayStation Move motion-controller kit) to track your movements, mandates a ton of space to move around in. It asks for players to stand at least seven to nine feet back from the TV to get good tracking, but that's nothing compared to the lateral space you'll need -- make sure you clear out furniture anywhere near the vicinity of your TV.
Gameplay consists primarily of one-against-many fights on a 2D plane a la Final Fight, with just about any motion you make counting as a "strike." Problem is, while the PS Eye is fine at tracking your striking motions, it's not so fine at tracking where you are in relation to the enemies. Closing the distance with a foe is often a matter of sidling two yards or more in one direction, even though the enemy is just a couple of pixels away on the screen. The designers built in a "power punch" move that allows you to quickly slide across the screen at enemies, but it's inelegant and hard to control. And, while it's not super strenuous, keep in mind that this game will get your blood pumping, as you jump, run from side to side, and flail your arms and legs wildly in an attempt to land shots on bad guys. Special moves can be very frustrating to pull off as well, as they require quick and accurate switching of poses on the fly -- by the time you finish, bad guys may no longer be where you were aiming.The game is premised on a tongue-in-cheek, throwback story: you've been sucked into a world of evil ninjas, and you're now forced to fight your way through an enemy fortress... and stuff. Not gonna win the Pulitzer here, but the story serves the theme well, especially in that the game guides you through a series of poses so it can properly insert pictures of you into its cutscenes.
Time travel is always an interesting point of discussion. Special relativity, wormholes, parallel universes, Hawking's chronology protection conjecture, flux capacitors – it's the kind of thing that fuels heated debates late at night, usually after watching something like Lost or Donnie Darko. It's accepted that the laws of physics permit time travel to the future - theoretically speaking, of course - but travel to the past is both technically and theoretically impossible (discounting the theory of travelling to the past of a parallel universe). The Raving Rabbids aren't concerned with such limitations, however – they have a time travelling washing machine and aren't bothered in the slightest about changing the course of history. They frequently do, in fact.
This is the basic set up for Ubisoft's latest Rabbids game, which sees the strange little creatures flitting through time and disrupting key moments from Earth's history along the way. Travel in Time is a return to the party game formula that defined earlier games in the series, an excuse to rally some chums together and merrily flail your limbs about in front of the TV. Yes, it's a mini-game collection, but it compiles its activities with such a refined mixture of absurdity and charm that even core players are likely to have a good time. Once gimmicky and annoying, the Rabbids have now come into their own as established video game characters –a symbol for silliness in otherwise serious times.A museum in 2012 acts as the game's anchor in time, or to use more gamer-friendly lingo, its hub world. At the start you'll choose a profile by walking into one of four toilets, of all things. After entering your name and preferences, your Rabid will emerge in the main hall of the museum, a roll of loo paper trailing behind him as he waddles about. As well as being quite humorous, this serves as a rather ingenious game mechanic: When playing multiplayer (which is of course how the game was designed to be played), each player will find themselves entangled with the roll of toilet paper. It ensures that everybody is kept on the same screen at the same time; you can only wander off as far as the bog roll will allow. It might be very silly, but it's also rather clever.
Dark Dawn does a great job of clearing up several of these issues from the outset. The original Golden Sun's pokey pacing is nowhere to be seen -- the story begins by throwing you immediately into the thick of action with a rescue mission. It's a softball mission to be sure; the heroes of the older games accompany their young protégés, alleviating any chance of failure. As mandatory tutorials go, though, it's excellent: not only does it make perfect sense for the old guard to walk the new generation through the rigors of adventuring, it also serves as a seamless passing of the torch for fans. It sets up the dynamics of the new cast, explains the basics of the backstory, fills in the 30-year gap between the end of the last game and this sequel, and explains the mechanics of both the combat system and the in-dungeon puzzle-solving. Also unlike the GBA games, Dark Dawn looks fantastic. In fact, it boasts some of the highest production values ever seen on DS. Its world is colorful and vibrant, crammed with detail throughout both towns and dungeons. Motoi Sakuraba's soundtrack is spot-on: Action themes are energetic but never shrill, while more sedate tracks manage to create an interesting atmosphere without being dull. The game particularly shines during combat, with vivid graphical effects that never grow tedious or overblown. The summon animations do run fairly long, but they work much better in Dark Dawn than they did in something like Final Fantasy VIII; the convoluted process of calling a summon makes them rare and valuable assets, so their over-the-top animations simply lend to their impact. Where Dark Dawn stumbles is...well, everywhere else. There's no single element of the game that's genuinely bad, but despite all the advances on display this is very much a Golden Sun game, for better or worse. Camelot clearly loves this series, and they've invested it with an elaborate mythos.
Nail'd is an arcade-style off-road racer with a focus on speed and chaos over realistic physics. Straight away, Nail'd seems a little dated. From the name to its style, it screams "X-Games circa 2003," when dudes were screaming about sick air while "DOING THE DEW BRO." But in reality, Nail'd actually goes further back from a design perspective, calling on memories of games like Off-road Thunder and other arcade rally racers in the late '80s and '90s. Those games eschewed complication in favor of immediate, in-your-face gratification because they had to; they were competing for your quarters 90 seconds at a time. However, it's 2010. Arcades are dead, consoles are king, depth is expected, and Nail'd just can't keep up with the pack. The setup is simple enough. The meat of the game is in its career mode, where you can race an ATV or MX bike through several leagues and courses in a quest to win the Nail'd championship. Most races require you to finish three laps around a course, though occasionally, Nail'd mixes things up, whether it's by adding "mutators" to races (which add quirks such as infinite boost or no collision with other drivers), or through stunt challenges, where you're judged on your completion time and the "tricks" you pull off. I put tricks in quotes because there isn't much in the way of finesse here. Something as simple as landing successfully from a jump can be a trick, as is passing through flaming gates or running other racers off the track. There's also multiplayer racing for up to 12 players online. Nail'd isn't about tight turn ratios or drifting or any other piece of racer jargon you've heard this year. The challenge in Nail'd is intended to come from finding the most insane, fastest route possible by boosting through busy courses while avoiding getting, well, nailed by other racers on ATVs or dirtbikes. There are times when it almost comes together too -- running off a ramp in the air at about a thousand miles an hour and weaving in between hot air balloons, or threading through giant wind turbines is admittedly cool.
Splatterhouse is a full-on reboot of the original series, taking us right back to the moment in which protagonist Rick Taylor meets his mysterious and deadly ally, the Terror Mask. Bleeding from a massive hole in his gut on the floor of a mansion, Rick's girlfriend Jennifer has been kidnapped by the nefarious Dr. West. He is rescued from certain death when he puts on the Mask, which just so happens to be alive and capable of turning him into a gigantic, musclebound freak. Gore ensues.
If you've played the original Splatterhouse, you'll most likely be surprised by just how faithful this game attempts to be. Rather than try to do anything too special and new, Namco has instead created a game that feels inherently retro despite its predominantly 3D graphics. This is a classic minded brawler at heart, and a damn hard one too.
Enemies are not only aggressive, they are more than capable of dealing huge amounts of damage. There are regular opponents in this game that can slice Rick to ribbons in three slashes. It's actually pretty damn fun once you get used to it, even if it causes much swearing at the television. Enemies don't rely on cheap shots, but when they hit, they hit hard. Despite being a mindless beat 'em up, there's a little strategy to be found under all the blood once you start meeting tougher enemies, as simply hammering the punch button just won't do.
Rick has access to various fast and heavy attacks that can be extended by collecting blood and spending it on unlockable abilities. Extra health, new attacks, and a crucial invincible dodge move are all on offer, and the blood flows so freely that you won't have any trouble stocking up on what you need.
Pac-Man is one of gaming’s oldest icons. He has survived 30 years by eating power pellets and chasing ghosts around various mazes. During the heyday of arcades he was featured in over 10 different cabinets and has since moved on as the mascot for Namco Bandai. To celebrate 3 decades of entertainment Namco has released an updated version of 2009’s Pac-Man Championship. Should you spend 800 Microsoft points to help them celebrate? Read on to find out.
The classic gameplay formula of Pac-Man has always been pretty simple. You control Pac-Man with the goal of eating dots and avoiding ghosts until you clear the entire board to advance to the next level. In the classic game in order to eat ghosts you would eat a “power pellet” that turned the ghosts an alternate color and they would avoid you. Namco has taken this tried and true formula and made several key changes to modernize Pac-Man. All of these additions make for an impressive retro inspired arcade title. In Championship DX Pac-Man’s goal is still to eat all of the power pellets on screen. Instead of advancing to a new board the game will spawn new pellets and ghosts once a fruit has been eaten. This means that Pac-Man has to always manage a large string of ghosts. Instead of limiting the number of ghosts per board, the baddies from the previous round will remain on the screen leading to a large snake like tail that will follow our yellow hero. There are several other enhancements to the gameplay that really add to the enjoyment of Pac-Man DX. Here is a brief breakdown:
Timed Gameplay - Rather than focusing on the clearing pre-set number of boards the gameplay in Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is based around timed gameplay. As the clock countdown in the main mode you’re in a race against time to collect the highest score possible.
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom immerses players into a land that has been devoured by darkness. No one in the kingdom survived except for one thief, Tepeu, who is determined to fight against the tide of darkness and save the kingdom. While searching for a lost treasure in a castle, the thief meets Majin, the guardian of the kingdom who has been isolated and forgotten for ages. Both characters will have to work together, finding ways to get through the kingdom and restore it to its former glory.When Tepeu finds Majin and wakes him from his slumber, he becomes the master of the creature. In Tepeu and Majin’s adventure, the player will have to command Majin throughout the game, from targeting and attacking enemies in combat to solving puzzles that require teamwork. This close relationship between Tepeu and Majin adds an element of strategy to the game, as the characters depend on one another throughout the game. For instance, whenever Tepeu dies in combat, Majin can revive him before he is taken over by the darkness. So as long as Majin is alive in battle, Tepeu can die a lot of times and Majin will always revive him. However, Majin is weak from his slumber and cannot take on all the enemies by himself, so Tepeu’s fighting skills and devastating finishing moves are essential in battle.The Kingdom in the game is very big and exploring it will take some time and patience. In order to get to the next area, players will first have to solve several puzzles. Around every corner, there are puzzles blocking the way that the player will have to overcome, most of which are relatively simple. However, the puzzles offer a lot of variety, such as turning on switches, destroying rocks, catapulting Tepeu to the next area, or even just finding the right path to the next area. Although the constant puzzles can get annoying after a while, their ease makes them manageable and keeps the player interested.
Consoles see few flight simulators; it's a genre that enjoyed its heyday on the PC years ago but has only managed a few standout titles since then on any platform. Even so, what games there were rarely included helicopters, much less featured them. As a dedicated helicopter flight sim, Apache: Air Assault enters virtually uncontested skies.
The game's developer, Gaijin Entertainment (not to be confused with Gaijin Games, developers of the WiiWare BIT.TRIP series), proved its talent for making flight sims work on consoles with the well-received IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey. Nevertheless, many potential problems stand in the way of making such a technical game accessible for a broad audience. One of the more difficult ones to avoid trips up Apache: Air Assault. The difficult to master controls mean the hardest part of the game isn't trying to take down rogue helicopters; it's making sure you don't barrel into a mountain.
Gaijin does everything right as far as trying to reach out to newer players. The main Campaign mode has three different difficulty settings, including a Training mode specifically crafted for new players. There is also a Free Flight mode which allows players the opportunity to refine their flight skills in an open world. All of that, however, isn't enough to overcome the punishing flight mechanic.Basic flight controls for the helicopter fall on the left and right analog sticks. Getting airborne may be the easiest part of the game, but once there, things spiral out of control quickly. Trying to aim the helicopter can be a messy affair.
The Deathly Hallows videogame likely represents EA Bright Light's final at bat with the Harry Potter movie series, which is set to end early next year. Bright Light has had a tough time settling on a formula in the past, so they went for what probably seemed like a safe bet: cover-based third-person shooter. And nicknames like "Wands of War" aside, it's not a completely terrible idea...just a poorly executed one. Most of the blame for this game's problems fall squarely on the shoulders of the designers who seem at a loss as to how to convert Harry Potter into a third-person shooter. Apart from the painfully limited cover mechanics -- no sliding into cover for instance -- the actual fighting is decent, if not particularly inspired. There are the standard rapid fire, charging, and explosive attacks; and one spell can be used to confuse enemies into attacking one another. It's when the game strays from this relatively simple formula that it starts to go off the rails. 
Like any conclusion to a long-running series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is, shall we say, controversial. Detractors have bemoaned the epilogue and derisively referred to it as "Harry Potter's Camping Adventure"; but I'm a fan, even if it's not my favorite of the bunch (that honor goes to Goblet of Fire, I think). I doubt the videogame based on the upcoming movie adaptation will provoke nearly as much argument though, mainly because it stinks.
How do you define Need for Speed? A perennial stocking filler for Electronic Arts' long-suffering investors? A neon love letter to Vin Diesel and Paul Walker's The Fast and The Furious? After last year's Shift, perhaps it's just the latest addition to a long line of challengers in a field previously dominated by Bizarre Creations?
Nonsense, says Criterion. It's about going really f***ing fast.
If Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is remembered for one thing, it will be for putting the "speed" back in Need for Speed. Even the lowliest cars (themselves things like RX-8s and Boxters) scorch the tarmac of fictional Seacrest County with their absurd velocity, but as you advance through the rankings either as a cop or a racer and start burning your way around in Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Ford GTs, the sense of raw pace is beyond anything we've seen since the Nürburgring sprints of Project Gotham Racing 3.
The line between brilliant, beautiful speed and epic, catastrophic head-on collisions is measured in milliseconds, and every extra pixel of clarity is vital – we haven't strained this intently to decipher the vanishing point since F-Zero GX on the GameCube. Are those headlights on the horizon? Is that a spike strip? In fact, sometimes Hot Pursuit is so fast that, even though you know the game's physics-defying drifts will catch you as you dive into a hairpin at close to 200mph, you're slightly scared to put your foot back on the gas. Hot Pursuit is unlikely to be remembered for only one thing though, because it has plenty of memorable tricks up its sleeve. The Career mode, in which you play as both racers and the cops that chase them, seems a relatively standard affair – a series of events spread around Seacrest County that gradually etch memorable routes out of interconnected highways in the desert, on the coast and through the icy mountains, over a variety of event types – but it has numerous supporting struts that give the lie to its simplicity.
I'm a big fan of Monopoly. The love I have for the game stretches back to my early childhood, playing with neighborhood friends on the back porch during sunny summer days and with my father at the kitchen table rounding out some evenings. In fact, I was so obsessed with Monopoly that I would even create fictional NES Monopoly leagues complete with hand-kept statistics, playing my own games against computer opponents and watching AI-controlled games do the rest. Needless to say, Monopoly strikes a chord with me, so it should come as no surprise that I was drawn to Monopoly Streets as the game grew closer to its release. Being able to play the classic property trading game on a current-generation console both on my own and with others around the world sounded great to a fan like me. Everyone knows how a basic game of Monopoly is played. Players roll dice and work their piece around a board, buying properties as they go in attempts to create monopolies with like properties. Other players who land on properties another player owns must pay rent, which varies depending on the value of the property and whether players have opted to build houses and/or hotels on properties that are part of monopolies. As players begin to go bankrupt due to rent and fees they can't afford to pay to other players, the last player standing wins.
Monopoly Streets successfully manages to both stay true to how the game is supposed to be played in its classic form and give gamers some options to keep their rounds fresh and unique. It certainly has its flaws and I question some of the design choices the developer made, but overall, Monopoly Streets proves to be a functional version of video game Monopoly that will appeal to those looking for a new home console version to play on their own or, better yet, with folks online.
Believe me, I'm as surprised about this as you are.
Sega has shoved its mascot character into so many wretched games over the past dozen or so years that the phrase "good Sonic
The stages throw a constantly changing stream of challenges at Sonic, from the most basic moving platform to robotic bugs that chase him along an interstellar energy highway and require fast reflexes to outwit. The sheer volume and variety of these new level "features" -- many of which are specific to only one of the game's worlds -- constantly surprised (and often delighted) me. Sometimes I found myself thinking that this was the Sonic game I'd always wanted in 3D, like its designers had transitioned straight from 16-bit to Wii and had all these amazing new tools at their disposal.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! is one of the best DS games I’ve ever played. There, I said it. I put it all out on the table. It’s got great puzzles, a fun soundtrack, and it’s so cute it actually hurt me a little. The only thing that could be cuter would be if it came with a box of kittens. Adorable mewing aside, this is the game I wished Scribblenauts had been – puzzles that are fun yet challenging, music that is nostalgic yet different enough to feel new, and with a main character I actually cared about – despite the fact that he’s a tiny, wind-up version of Mario. The storyline is a simple one – Mario is opening an amusement park called “Super Mini-Mario World,” and the first 100 customers get a free mini-Pauline doll. Donkey Kong comes running, tossing Toads out of the way, but arrives too late: all of the dolls have been given away. Furious, Donkey Kong grabs Pauline and takes off into the amusement park. Mario, probably tired of saving girls all the time, again sends in his trusty wind-up minis to save the day – and the dame.
And that is where the fun begins. There are eight different attractions, and each one has eight levels, a Donkey Kong showdown, and an unlockable minigame. At the end, there’s also a special boss battle against Donkey Kong. Each level has coins, a special Mario coin, and a card. Collecting all the cards spells out “MINIMARIO” and unlocks the minigame. Beating the “goal” points on each level also gives you a trophy. These are important because the Mario coins unlock “Special Levels,” of which there are 20, and the trophies unlock “Expert Levels,” of which there are 10. Beating the main game also unlocks “Plus Mode,” which is all of the levels from the story mode...just more difficult. In case you were wondering and/or are bad at math, this is A LOT of content. I made it through the entire game and have unlocked maybe half of the special and expert levels, and I’ve barely had a chance to scratch the surface of Plus Mode...and I still can't put it down.
Motion gaming has never been exclusively casual centric, and all the major options have their share of games aimed at the hardcore gamer. For Kinect's launch, that game comes from Ubisoft, and developer AMA Studios. Fighters Uncaged takes a swing at the core market, but misses terribly and winds up face down in the dirt.
Fighters Uncaged is a motion controlled fighting game for Kinect, where you use your body to beat the living hell out of your opponents. You play as Simon, who has to win an illegal fighting tournament to get his father out of hot water with a kingpin. Unfortunately this game never tells you this, so until I read it in the booklet I just thought I was some a-hole that goes around picking fights with dudes in the middle of parks in broad daylight.
The tutorial, which takes forever, tricks you into thinking the game works, though even in an ideal situation you can see that the controls are barely functional. You can do a series of short and long punches, and kicks, as well as blocks, dodges and headbutts. When the fights actually start, pulling off moves becomes a series of desperate flails, trying to get the game to recognize your actions. The types of moves you can do are limited based on where your opponent is. So the game often requires very specific moves to be pulled off in order to land hits. But the motion controls are so bad that I could only pull off the right moves half the time.
Football Manager 2011 (FM) is released this Friday in Europe and tentatively dated the 16 of November in the US. A Football Management ‘simulator’ you are put in charge of basically any club of your choice in a ridiculously realistic setting. Playing Football Manager can often be like taking a degree in football, you learn the rules of each league, the transfer rules regarding ‘Bosman’s’ and the compensation clauses in signing youth players and also you will learn to love, hate and covet players you may never have heard of.
For the uninitiated playing FM can be a daunting task, the sheer level of depth in the game could easily turn someone off, it is not a ‘pick-up-and-play’ game. However, if you are a fan of football it will reward you for those first tough hours as your team get’s demolished by all and sundry because you haven’t prepared accurately. Your players may not develop because you haven’t the right coaches. Players will become disaffected because they aren’t getting playing time and you told them they were indispensable and the board may sack you because you’ve led the club on the road to financial ruin. It is the level of depth though that makes the game so rewarding.
For football lovers it is the ultimate in fantasy football, you can take charge of one of the European greats and tinker with systems and tactics to your heart’s content or you can scrimp and save and try to turn your local team into world beaters. It is all possible but it takes a lot of hard work. Yes, work, the game takes on the role of a second job, one where your mistakes will cause you to squirm in your seat and your successes feel euphoric. It may sound that I’m eulogising but that’s because I am, Football Manager is one of the greatest games in the world about the greatest game in the world.
Go out and get in your car. Start the engine and stand up, so that your head is sticking out of the sunroof.
Recruit a stumpy helper to kneel at your feet. He or she will be accelerating and braking for you as you steam down the motorway - completely out of your control.
For a nice final twist, remove the steering wheel and get a boffin friend to replace it with an imperceptible camera to track your movements instead.
The calibration of the steering is very important, so make sure your chosen boffin is diligent: It needs to be impossibly sensitive. Shift your imaginary wheel an inch to the left, and the car should screech a full 45 degrees, usually smashing you into a rock face.Enjoy the drive!
Don't do any of that, obviously. You'll be arrested. And rightly so. You'll also probably die.
More to the point, it won't exactly be much of a thrill. You can sort of understand why criminals get an adrenalin rush from speeding away from a bank heist, or a daring smash and grab - and, therefore, why it's fun to play at doing so on a games console.
But the sunroof-stumpy-boffin-imaginary-wheel combo? That just sounds like hassle.
Astonishingly, some people at Microsoft thought this could be the basis for a fantastic Kinect launch game. A racing title in which you have to stand up while your avatar sits down? Who gave the rubber stamp to that? Even the boxart shows a smiley man driving whilst resting on his arse.
Sonic and his crew of woodland creatures have had a mixed history with recent games like Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) being poorly received while Sonic 4 was a surprise hit. The blue hedgehog hops on to his “Air Gear” hoverboard for another race around the track. The third game in the Riders franchise ditches the traditional controller in favor for a skateboard inspired Kinect experience.
Sonic Free Riders gives players the ability to step into the air-riding shoes of many of the classic Sonic characters. Like the adventure games before it the characters are divided between “Team Heroes” and “Team Villains”. Taking sides with the heroes align you with the likes of Sonic, Tails and Amy while the villains include Jet the Hawk, Rouge the Bat and other baddies. Dr.Robotnick serves as the ring leader for the Air Boarding Championship. For the most part the story in Free Riders is a throwaway and is told through voice acted still images. Gameplay in Free Riders uses the classic Kart racing formula we have seen in other mascot themed titles. Up to ten participants race through predefined courses picking up power-ups as you go. Most of the power-ups are Sonic themed but a few new additions are a bit of a surprise. During one of my first races I found myself in last place and ended up picking up a soda can as a power up. Once my character had shaken up the can I was propelled forward to first place. Aside from the typical racing fare Sonic Free Riders also offers competitive multiplayer over Xbox live and a story based mission mode. These missions range from placement requirements to collecting a set amount of rings. The graphics in Sonic Free Riders are decent but the presentation affects the overall package. While racing on the course the game provides an adequate sense of speed provided you are not stopped by your character running into a wall.
We've been doing this videogame reviewer racket for quite some time now, so we figure that makes us pretty qualified… as psychologists. And Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2, well, it's having an identity crisis if we've ever seen one. (We haven't). On one hand, it's undeniably Dragon Ball. You've got big men, bigger hair, and high-flying fisticuffs that make wire-fu films look downright plausible. However – probably in response to the super saiyan beating the first Raging Blast took from critics – Raging Blast 2 has opted to tone down its cutscene-heavy fan service, resulting in a game that's neither a perfume-scented love letter to fans nor a balanced, responsive option for fighting game nuts.
This time around, the game's single-player story – known as Galaxy Mode – cuts out cutscenes altogether, essentially reducing the plot down to “Man/robot/alien 1 is angry. So is man/robot/alien 2. Punching ensues.” And no, we're not asking for a tear-jerking, thought-provoking masterwork from friggin' Dragon Ball, but the series has always thrived as much on build up as it has face-smashing, and without that, fights lose the epic, climactic feel that inspired so much rabid fandom in the first place. Instead of an actual plot, all Raging Blast 2 gives us is pre and post-fight trash talk, much of which doesn't even make any sense (Super Saiyan Trunks: “Hah! I didn't even need to go super saiyan to beat you!”).In the end, Galaxy Mode boils down to a series of challenges – for instance, smash this guy until his body is composed of over 9000 bone fragments in under 60 seconds
Bloody Good Time is the deep story of a troubled director, who is forced from his homeland to be able to produce dramatic movies featuring real, emotional performances in an accepting society. Shunned by his peers and going under the pseudonym of Director X it’s up to you to help take his art form to a new level. Okay, that’s all bollocks. The twisted Director X just flat out likes to have his actors murder each other to make his movies look as realistic and gruesome as possible.
You step in to help as one of eight Hollywood hopefuls, taking part in four different game modes to shoot, slash and burn your way to stardom. It’s not your typical FPS either; players are required to maintain their well being as well as keeping an eye out for the other aspiring actors. Hunger, exhaustion and the need to relieve oneself all play a part over the course of a game and have significant impacts on your character’s abilities.
Each facet is represented by a slowly depleting gauge, your character starts getting slower when tired, more open to attack when nature calls and loses vital attacking strength when gripped by the munchies. Scattered around the themed levels are places to rest, eat and take some alone time. Doing so not only refills the meter, leaving you raring to go but also imbues you with a short lived boost to each trait. The downside to all this is that your enemies can literally catch you with your pants down for an instant bonus kill. Just as the movie Zombieland taught us, it always pays to be careful when visiting the lavatory.There are more bonus points to be had for taunting opponents, humiliating them after death or even stealing their weapons when they’re not looking.
I've barely started playing Sony's gritty Move-enabled beat-'em-up and Danny Trejo is already shouting at me. "YOU'LL BREAK THE GAME IF YOU MOVE AROUND" he barks, his grizzled face looming at the screen like an angry testicle with a moustache.
As a way of defining the limitations of the hardware, it certainly guarantees your attention, even if it rather undermines the "Move" brand.
To be fair, Señor Trejo is talking about your feet. You need to stay in one spot for The Fight to work, but the rest of your body is free to move as much as you like. In fact, it's an absolute requirement – this is a genuinely punishing experience, forcing you to throw real weighty punches rather than the feeble Wii-flicks you may be used to from other motion sensing games.
In construction, it's basically Fight Night but with actual arm-flinging in place of thumbstick twizzles. You create a lumpy, cheap-looking digital mannequin and then try to elevate him through the ranks of underground bare-knuckle boxing, from crude scuffles under railway arches and freeway underpasses all the way up to the heady glamour of rusty cages and loosely organised bear-pit brawls. Expect to see it compared to Fight Club by people who don't understand Fight Club. Combat itself is, well, interesting. Just as digital imagery has been hampered the "uncanny valley" of human characters that are just inhuman enough to distract, so motion games are faced with their own awkward disconnect. There's just no getting away from the fact that too many motion games ask you to interact with intangible things, and the lack of sensory feedback feels weird and off-putting. It's no surprise that the motion games that generally work best are the ones where hitting or grabbing things isn't part of the gameplay.
Many gamers have fond memories of the four-player split-screen deathmatches of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, one of the most acclaimed games of its generation. I'm not one of them; I never played it. However, without any predisposition as to how the franchise should be revived on the Wii, it's clear that this year's GoldenEye 007 is a remarkably competent first-person shooter, marred by a handful of snags in execution. And before you ask, I don't count substituting Daniel Craig for Pierce Brosnan as a snag.
GoldenEye 007 doesn't just ape the name of its N64 predecessor; it rehashes the plot from 1995's GoldenEye film, while leaving some holes in the plot exposition and swapping in a completely different Bond. With 15 years of dust on that storyline, I forgive you if you don't remember it -- playing this game probably won't jog your memory all that much, either. But at least the character models, voice acting (including Daniel Craig and Judi Dench), and music are of high enough quality to provide a decent cinematic experience.In the single-player campaign, GoldenEye excels in its "creep 'n' pop" play style. Whenever you fire at an enemy with a silenced weapon such as Bond's standard-issue Walther P99, or whenever enemies notice you, the game plays a dramatic sound cue, followed by Bond's heartbeat. You have about two seconds to eliminate any enemy that you've alerted to your presence -- generally only one or two at a time -- or reinforcements will flood your location. At that point, you either have to do a run-and-gun massacre or quickly avoid them on the way to the next checkpoint. A few more action-heavy missions notwithstanding, it's clear that those firefights are meant to be the exceptions rather than the rule. But it's just plain exhilarating to silently crouch-walk around a room full of fools, leaving silent reminders of your visit in each of their heads.The game isn't all action, though; aside from shooting,
For some reason, it feels odd to be reviewing a pinball video game. It’s not that a pinball game is far-fetched or even unexpected (there are farming simulators for God’s sake), but pinball was once the most popular in coin operated arcade machines long before video games ever existed. Yet even in gaming’s early days developers have tried to replicate the look and feel of playing an actual game of pinball. Even though I’m sure some of you will be quick to defend your copy of Crüe Ball, so far developers have failed to grasp the essence of an authentic pinball table. However, this hasn’t stopped Zen Studios whose last game, Pinball FX, ended up being a pretty decent pinball game. With their newest release, Pinball FX 2, has Zen finally mastered the art of realistic pinball in video game form?
[SPOILER]: Yes. Well, close enough.
I hope I don’t downplay this review early but, Pinball FX 2 holds no surprises. It is a pinball video game, nothing more. Of course, don’t think that smacking balls with paddles is all you’re going to end up doing. Pinball FX 2 has upped the ante on the previous game by providing more features and upgrades than you can hit a plunger with (ouch, bad pinball joke. I should keep those to a minimum).Pinball FX 2 looks nearly identical to the previous game except for two key components: graphics and physics. Along with a graphics upgrade, which provides richer colors and better special effects, Zen Studios has created a completely new physics engine. Among the hardest things to replicate when making a pinball game is the physics for the ball. As a person who has owned a pinball machine before, I have a pretty decent idea about how the ball should behave on the table. I have played several pinball games in the past where the movement of the ball can be noticeably unrealistic even to people who never play pinball. The ball physics for PFX 2 are actually quite impressive. While they aren’t perfect, thus far, this is the best physics engine for any pinball game I’ve played. The ball has noticeable weight and reacts convincingly when being hit by the pads or bouncing off the bumpers.
Once the king of core, Rare's latest incarnation in a turbulent existence is as standard-bearer for the Xbox casual revolution Microsoft hopes will be ignited by the arrival of Kinect.
The British studio's first offering for the device is a game that owes not just its existence but many of its ideas to the release that defined motion-control gaming four years ago: Wii Sports.
Making no attempt to disguise its influences, Kinect Sports features six main activities: Football, Bowling, Track & Field, Boxing, Volleyball and Table Tennis.
If you're looking for something to illustrate 'the Kinect difference', Football is a good place to start and a highlight of the game: here, unlike with rivals' tech, you use your feet.
Player movement is not controlled directly: as an attacker you kick the ball either to pass or shoot; as a defender you shimmy from side-to-side trying to block passes; in goal you need to use your full body to block shots. It's so successful and so much fun because it's such an intensely physical experience, and the lack of a controller really does add to the sense of immersion. Whether kicking, heading or diving, it all plays to the unique strengths of Microsoft's hardware.
Based on the Atari 2600 adventure game of the same name, Haunted House tasks the player with exploring and unraveling the secrets of—you guessed it—a haunted mansion. Actually, it’s not so much a mansion as it is a redundant maze of the same annoying rooms filled with a ridiculous amount of fireplaces. Seriously, just buy a central heating system! There are four different areas of the house, each with a handful of levels and a climaxing in a boss battle, but the real challenge is forcing yourself to play beyond the first stage. Why? I’m glad you asked. Read on.
As in the original, darkness and light plays a vital role best described as a clunky combination of Alan Wake and Luigi’s Mansion. You’ll need to have a steady supply of light sources (such as matches, torches, and hundreds of cellphones which have somehow been locked away in this very old mansion….) to constantly find your way. And that’s not something the developers seem to want you to do, as they completely missed the past 30 years of progression in adventure games; you’ll be perpetually hindered by the environments which don’t turn transparent when they’re blocking the view of your character or nearby dangers, and even when a mandatory text window pops up you are stopped in your tracks but can still be attacked by enemies. Unacceptable. It’s actually a good thing you can barely see anything at all because Haunted House has some of the worst character designs and kindergarten cutscenes since the 3D0. Various obnoxious enemies such as rats, bats, and ghosts will chase you down and attack you while you search cabinets and chests for keys. For the entire first area you have no method of combating these enemies other than lighting a fireplace and drawing them into the light. You have torches that cast even greater light than the fireplaces, but they inexplicably don’t have any effect on the magical rats.
We have lately seen a lot of Bond games from the home of EA, which have been based on unique storylines. But now, Activision and Bizarre creations have come up with an innovative launch of a Bond video game, which is their first attempt in this genre of video games. The game has been recently revealed worldwide in London, and has been called the James Bond
The game is based on the original Bond storyline, but has been given a heavily cinematic take. The game’s opening sequence is based in Athens, Greece where Bond is on the trail of a guy called Grecko, who is actually the principal villain of this game. Bearing similarity to most Bond movies, the opening sequence is filled with loads of action and acts as a preface of sorts, before the opening credits and title track are introduced.
Once Dame Judi Dench’s ‘M’ facilitates for the initial intel to Daniel Craig’s Bond, he swiftly jumps off a plane at low altitude and pulls a parachute at the last moment to swoop down onto a frigate where Grecko is known to be preparing despicable plans. This intro plunges from one profligately created cut-scene into a custom-made gameplay sequence, which is a trick used a lot during the level by Bizarre. At times one may almost forget that the cut-scenes aren’t gameplay until the HUD and third-person camera angle put the sections into context.
As wrestling fans wait for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 to arrive next week, we do have an alternative to turn to; one that opens the door to the fascinating history of Lucha Libre wrestling. Some well-known superstars of the US ring grew up with Lucha Libre in their blood, including WWE’s own Rey Mysterio and several other superstars, such as La Parka and Vampiro. Made by the Mexico-based team at Slang, Lucha Libre AAA can’t take WWE head-on, but
You have eight Lucha Libre superstars to start with. There are several familiar types here, but the ones you’ll probably want to start with are La Parka and Vampiro, although you’re welcome to choose whoever As you proceed, you can unlock additional characters and other bonus goodies. The more the roster opens up, the more variety you have available.
Heroes del Ring features a number of matches, all based on traditional Lucha Libre set-ups. Mask vs. Hair is always a favorite, and you can even set up your own referee, either as a face (good guy) or heel (bad guy) to keep the crowd at bay. Other types are also available, including Fatal Four Way, Triple Threat, and the option to go into a Handicapped Match – though you’d be crazy to do so.
The main draw is the Story mode, where you learn the ropes (literally) as you work your way to Lucha Libre stardom. A word of warning – the difficulty ramps up in this mode, and the last few matches will put you in a world of hurt if you’re not ready. Thankfully, there’s a tutorial function that teaches you the basics, along with the quick matches for practice. You can also challenge your friends as well, either locally or online through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
Small as they are, the shadows of the little Pokemon loom large over Sony's new camera-based creature-capture game. As in the evergreen adventures of Pikachu and pals, you discover and catch critters, level them up through combat and then battle your friends to see who has amassed the toughest collection. The twist here is that you're not seeking the creatures out in some whimsical top-down fantasy land, but in real life, using the PSP camera to coax invisible monsters out of hiding.
This is all established through the stodgy single-player Story Mode, which explains how Kenichi, an enthusiastic worker in Sony's R&D department, has discovered that the PSP camera can detect lifeforms invisible to the human eye - Invizimals. Luckily, you have the sort of aura that attracts these mini beasts, and so you're roped in to help his studies. This involves hopping around a world map, undertaking various missions to capture specific Invizimals, and learning the intricacies of combat from Professor Dawson, played with surprising restraint by Brian Bloody Blessed.The Invizimals themselves are a well-designed and varied bunch, with some groan-inducing pun names such as Porcupain or Bearserker [those are awesome! - Ed]. Combat is built around a familiar rock-paper-scissors set up, with each creature falling into a distinct elemental category - Ice, Fire, Ocean, Desert and so on. You have three types of attack - strong, medium and fast - and combat is real time, rather than turn-based, and mastering the timing required for blocking is essential.Everything you do uses stamina, and managing this resource is a vital skill to develop. Stronger attacks use it up quickly, leaving you to wait while it recharges, potentially with no way of blocking or attacking. Success in a fight earns watts, the game's XP, which trigger a level-up once predefined totals are reached. Every five levels, your Invizimal evolves into a larger, more powerful form.
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,
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