It’s good to be reminded not to judge a video game by its cover. At first glance Tornado: Outbreak is unappealing. Screenshots of the game are unflattering and forces me to ask, “Is a game where all I do is move a tornado around fun?” It is my friends… believe me, it is.

Thanks to games like Katamari Damacy, unusual titles like this are possible. At the beginning of each stage you start as a small tornado. You move around gathering up tiny things first: flowers, pebbles, and chicken feathers, gradually getting bigger until eventually you’re pulling up people, trucks, houses, and ocean liners. Exactly what you can pull is indicated with a childlike lucidity. If it wiggles, it’s yours.

Tornado Outbreak ADD Review >

Beyond the basic gameplay is a fresh and engaging story. You’re not just any tornado, you are Zephyr, an intergalactic whirlwind and member of the Wind Warriors, who are collecting power orbs for the anti-matter Omegaton. Omegaton’s power orbs have been stolen by a group of fire elementals called the Fire Fliers, who have hidden the orbs all over the Earth, and are concealing themselves in just about every object in the game. The story sounds complicated, but the basics are simple enough to follow: Wind Warriors good, Fire Fliers bad. Collect the orbs. Destroy the Earth to save it. Despite being hopelessly confused at first, I became deeply engaged in finding out what happened next in the story which was supported by some first-rate voice acting.

During the game’s tutorial, we learn that Fire Fliers hide in damn near everything. Zephyr’s goal in each stage is to collect 50 of the 100 Fire Fliers in each level. You can get the full 100 if you want, but once you have 50 you can advance to the next stage. Most areas are divided up into two or three levels, ending with two mini games: A wind tunnel race, and a Boss Battle. The race consists of a series of rings you must pass through successfully in order to continue. It’s extremely easy, but there’s something enjoyable in the fact that you go faster the more rings you enter, and the music grows louder and louder. The boss battle is where you approach as a large whirlwind avoiding obstacle to reach Fire Flier Totems. These big candlestick-shaped things protect the orb, and must be destroyed. Boss battles are little more than button-mashing event mixed with a little bit of timing, but that’s OK by me.

This is a one-button game. Sure, you learn two more techniques later, but you don’t need them. If you destroy an object that contains Fire Fliers, you press the RT button to gather them. If you hold the button and smash into other objects holding fire fliers, you can gather multiple Fliers. Gathering a long string of Fliers is solely for the game’s achievements, which add a whole new dimension of diversity to an otherwise simple game. That said, many of the achievements are fairly easy to get. If you’re interested in increasing the size of your gamerscore, this would be an easy set of achievement points. One achievement is playing the multiplayer. All you have to do is turn the second controller on, and you get twenty points. This is preposterous considering some games require five or six hours of gameplay for the same twenty points. Like most games with elementary achievements, you get big points for simple things, like finishing an area. Other achievements require a little strategizing and maybe a few attempts, like collecting 17 scientists before you grow four sizes. Though the first few areas may be easy peasy, if you focus on collecting achievements during them (like collecting all 100 fire fliers in succession) you may enjoy the added challenge to an otherwise paltry part of the game.

The game also features a timer for each level, where you must collect 50 fire fliers before it runs out, or restart the level. This is a good idea for increasing the difficulty, but the “danger music” that occurs with one minute to go is intolerable. You’ll find yourself quickly getting sick of this tune. Why developers add this to games is beyond me. They go to the trouble of making different, scenario-specific music for each level, but then force this repetitive balderdash on you. Since you have to be a certain size to get some fire fliers, some levels may require some replaying, which means plenty of danger music.

Even with the added difficulty of the achievements and the timer, you will find you can finish this game (and get a healthy number of the achievements) in about five to eight hours. There isn’t much incentive to go back to other areas except to get more achievements or acquire more bonus content. If I owned the game, this is one of the rare times I would play it to 100% completion. It’s the simple things that make this game good. Playing as a level twelve cyclone that can destroy everything it touches is fun. Hearing the sound of a level two twister that’s gathering and bursting a field of terrified chickens is glorious. In addition, the carefully timed triumph of calculating yourself to collect 50 Fire Fliers in a row is delightful.

The development team at Loose Cannon may be green, but that makes this game feel fresh. Don’t let the screenshots deceive you; it may be that this game is impossible to market with still images. You have to try it and see. Konami has been behind some great games: Castlevania, DDR, Metal Gear Solid, and the immortal Blades of Steel. This game should take its place as a proud and strong member of those ranks.

I was at Game stores this morning and was surprised they had the new PSP Go on sale. If they were as fast with bringing in titles that I have been requesting since February this year this world would be a better place. LOL. The PSP Go is a neat device. Its a redesign of your normal PSP. Its smaller, has a sliding display now and does not have the UMD tray where you would insert PSP games. To play games on the system, you must download them from the PSN Store. The PSP Go comes with a 16 GIG flash drive where you will store games that you have downloaded from the store.
But is the PSP Go a device you would like to get for someone or yourself living in Zambia? Well you must have two things in order to really enjoy the PSP Go.
First thing is a reliable internet connection. The PSP Go does not use the already existing UMD library of games that the old PSP uses. So you won’t have any games to play until you download some from the PSN Store. I think there are a number of places where you can connect to the internet via wireless connection in Zambia (there is a way to connect the PSP to a PC that has an internet connection using a USB, but it will require the PC to have a software called Media Go installed. Head to the official playstation website to get more info and download the software). Am sorry I can’t remember them right now. Off the top of my head, maybe Manda Hill. You pay for being able to connect to the net. Just ask at the information booth, they might be able to help with the place that offers the service. If your internet is sorted out then you will need to consider the one more thing.
The second thing you need are funds to buy all the goodies off the PSN Store. Goodies in this specific case are the games. Fine you have the money in Kwacha but you will need what are called PSN Cards to buy stuff in the Store. For our friends living in the UK and USA they simply go to a store/shop that is selling these PSN Cards. I believe there are $20 and $50 denominations of the PSN Cards. You can think of these like our air time scratch cards. The PSN Cards when scratched have a number which you input on your account/wallet screen on your PSP/PS3 (there is a store for the PS3 as well). This will add funds to your wallet and can be used to buy stuff from the PSN store. Well if you have got those two points down then I guess you are good to Go (pardon the pun). My take on the matter is that not many people in Zambia have ready access to the internet and so maybe the Go is something we can do without. Not to mention the fact that PSN cards are not available in Zambia. So before you shell out your hard earned Kwacha on the PSP Go do make sure you have the ability to download games. Otherwise you will basically have the PSP Go as a media player device only.

In a JRPG landscape filled with identikit teenage protagonists, indistinguishable blacker than black antagonists and drab, clinical futuristic cityscapes, Dragon Quest IV is a deep breath of fresh air. This is, after all, a game in which you begin by assuming the role of a blue-mustachioed soldier in his fifties, a man who speaks in a thick, near-indecipherable Scottish brogue.

Ragnar McRyan is in no way a character designed off the back of some intense Japanese schoolgirl demographic focus testing. He is not aspirational. He does not wear a fussy, frilly shirt, unbuttoned halfway to reveal an over-designed amulet nestled betwixt stony pecs. He will never be a poster boy for a Dragon Quest Mountain Dew ad campaign in downtown Shibuya. He has a blue moustache.
A man approaching retirement, Ragnar is all tufty grey hair and regional accent, on a mission to catch a peeping tom and track down some missing children. And my goodness, for a game that was first released 18 years ago onto the NES it’s a piece of anti-hero casting that feels braver and more interesting than pretty much any that’s happened in the genre since. Doesn’t that speak depressing volumes?
Better still, Ragnar is but one face in an ensemble cast that continues to buck expectation. The titular chapters exist beyond mere metaphor. This is a game literally divided into segments, each one focusing on a different character: the Russian tomboy and Tsarevna, Alena, the overweight trader Torneko, a man who decides late in life it’s time to make his fortune as the greatest merchant in all the world and the twin sisters Maya and Meena, out to avenge their father’s assassination.

Then, in the fifth and (almost) final chapter, each of these narrative threads string together as the chosen unite as a team behind you, the hero character. It’s an excellent conceit, one that no doubt contributed to the diversity of the protagonists. After all, if you have the luxury of telling five different tales in your game, you can afford for one of them to be about Ragnar McRyan and his blue moustache.

At an hour or three apiece, the first four chapters are relatively brief, but this again contributes to rich and interesting feel: nothing is protracted so far as to become tiresome. The story is smoothed over by another solid translation from Square-Enix, whose recent localisation work on the Dragon Quest series has been exemplary. The diversity in accents (there are 13 dialects represented) lends the game world a real sense of geography, something that many JRPGs fail to do with their all-American voiceover casts.

Mini Golf ISO
So you think you can putt? Minigolf includes 10 holes and 10 challenge holes made up of sand traps, water hazards and unusual twists and turns. Popular with golfers and non-golfers alike!

Contains…
~The popular game of ‘Minigolf’ that will challenge your putting skills.
~10 holes and 10 challenge holes- with no more than 7 strikes per hole.
~Sand traps, water hazards and unusual twists and turns.
~Three difficulty levels.
~Rated E-for everyone.
~An easy-to-use interface.

Download Links
http://rapidshare.com/files/79621592/miniglf-silk.part1.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/79622976/miniglf-silk.part2.rar

Only slightly less painful than getting your brain removed through your nose.
The Good

* Decent sound effects.

The Bad

* Plain graphics
* Barebones storytelling
* Frustrating gun combat
* Timed levels can be maddening
* Not enough variety.

The film Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, with its tomb-raiding, treasure-hunting action, seems ripe for adaptation into a video game. Unfortunately, the Nintendo DS game based on the latest in the series of adventure films starring Brendan Fraser fails to capture any of the movie’s spirit. You are cast as Rick and Alex O’Connell, father and son adventurers who must stop the evil Emperor Han from raising his Terracotta Army and conquering the world. That sounds like potentially thrilling stuff, but the storytelling is so thin that the tale it tells is barely even coherent, much less interesting. The game seems to assume that anyone playing it has seen the movie and therefore can fill in the gaps in the narrative. But even if you’ve seen the movie a dozen times, you’re better off staying away from this game.
The action is presented from a three-quarter view and has you navigate your way through ancient tombs and across hillsides, fighting terra-cotta soldiers and avoiding shots from idiotic snipers. The first level maintains a decent balance between light puzzle-solving, trap-evading, and combat. The puzzle-solving is all very easy, consisting of simple block-pushing and using the touch screen to write ancient runes, but despite its basic nature, it does lend a modicum of variety to the action. Unfortunately, after the first level, the traps and puzzles fall by the wayside and the focus shifts largely toward combat, which is much less enjoyable.

The combat consists of fisticuffs and firearms. Brawling is done by tapping the Y button to make your character pull off simple combos and hitting B to dodge your enemies’ attacks. More often than not, though, shooting is going to be your best option. That’s because the game has a tendency to surround you with enemies. The action sometimes forces you into these situations by making your character stand still while the bad guys make their entrance and circle you, which feels downright cheap. And once surrounded, if you stop to punch one dude in the face, another is likely to shoot you in the back.

So the best tactic then becomes to run around in circles like a crazy person, cutting down enemies with your weapon while trying to avoid enemy attacks. Gun combat is handled in an unusual way that doesn’t always work well. There’s a crosshair on the touch screen, and by touching the screen in relation to the crosshair, you control the direction in which your character shoots. Rick’s pistols lend themselves to this control scheme. They fire and reload quickly, and they have a nice, long range, conveniently leaving trace lines in the air so that you can easily determine if you need to adjust your aim to hit your target. Mowing down onslaughts of terra-cotta soldiers with Rick’s pistols can actually be fun for a little while. Alex’s shotgun is a different story. The gun fires slowly, and you’ll spend about as much time reloading it as you will firing it. Your aim needs to be as precise with the shotgun as it does with the pistols, and considering that all you get when you fire the shotgun is a burst of smoke, it can be more difficult to determine if you need to adjust a little to the left or a little to the right to hit your mark. It’s frustrating to seemingly unload a shotgun blast right in an enemy’s face and see it stand there unaffected.

Players take on the role of diving instructor and treasure hunter Jack Hard, who stumbles upon a secret Russian cold war research station deep underneath the ocean surface.

As he discovers, it is controlled by a terrorist organization – and before he knows it, he gets caught in their nefarious schemes.

The unique twist: players will deal with water in all 3 states of aggregation: in liquid form it not only enables you to approach enemies unnoticed by diving but can also conveniently drown a baddie. At sub-zero temperatures it quickly becomes a dangerously slippery surface, and hot steam is nothing to mess with either. Players will have to use their wits in order to defeat the terrorists and save the day.

Download Links
http://www.filefactory.com/file/47cc18
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New Super Mario Bros Wii borrows elements from just about every previous game
In many ways, Super Mario Bros Wii is a confusing release for Nintendo’s eponymous hero as he approaches middle age. For, although it borrows elements from just about every previous game, some may find its resolutely retro approach a missed opportunity for a character and console so obviously capable of more.
Indeed, at first glance it looks like a straight port from New Super Mario Bros for DS, so small and unassuming do the sprites and simple sideways-scrolling levels appear. For control, you have a choice of using just a sideways Wiimote (with movement uncomfortably mapped to the up/down D-pad) or a combination of Wiimote and Nunchuk. Analogue control is required when jerking the Wiimote for spin jumps or tilting it to navigate certain platforms – neither of which feel particularly natural. It’s surprising that no “classic” control option was included, as it seems natural for an otherwise doggedly retro game. Still, once you get used to the fact that analogue commands requires fractional compensatory timing, it all begins to make sense.
The game itself requires no introduction to fans of the series. There are coins hidden around each screen or trapped in blocks that must be tapped from below with a bouncing head. Mario has his familiar moves, such as being able to toss fireballs, pound the level below or hurl back enemies with his spin jump, but there are also new abilities such as ice flower, which has him throwing freezing snowballs, and propeller or penguin suits to enhance aerial and arctic performance. You’ll need them too, because although the levels look deceptively basic, they require expert control from the off and the intermittent boss battles will test even veteran players at first. Luckily, there’s a useful new feature for novices called “Super Guide” which lets an NPC-controlled Luigi take you through any level where you lose eight fights or more.

Another thing that makes this instalment different to the old 2D template is the ability to play competitively or cooperatively with up to three other players. “Free for all’” allows you to battle through the single-player levels together whereas “coin battle” lets you compete to gather the most coins per level. With inevitable laughs to be gained by bouncing other players off platforms, multiplayer Mario has never worked this well and it adds new appeal to an otherwise predictable game. Super Mario Bros Wii delivers just what it always did: pixel perfect gameplay, great design and Christmas retro-gaming of the highest order. However, 13 years after Nintendo’s last attempt to reinvent the franchise, what we really needed was a sequel to Super Mario 64.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. adalah game First-Person Shooter yang mengisahkan tentang situasi setelah ledakan reaktor nuklir di Chernobyl.
Dalam faktanya, reaktor Chernobyl memang pernah meledak betulan di tahun 1986, namun dalam S.T.A.L.K.E.R dikisahkan bahwa reaktor tersebut meledak lagi untuk yang kedua kalinya pada tahun 1989 dan menjadikan area dalam radius 30km disekitarnya tak hanya dipenuhi radiasi saja, namun juga energi-energi yang aneh, pasukan musuh, bandit, mutant, dan artifact yang berharga. Artifact tersebut tak lain adalah benda radioaktif yang memiliki manfaat khusus sehingga diminati oleh para trader dan ilmuwan.

Dalam game ini anda memainkan character yang dinamakan orang-orang sebagai “Marked One”, yaitu seorang tentara yang menderita amnesia setelah diselamatkan dari sebuah kecelakaan mobil dan kemudian dibawa ke seorang trader (pedagang).
Trader yang bernama Sidorovich ini akan memberikan misi yang nantinya dapat membantu untuk mengungkap siapa sebenarnya diri anda, kenapa ada tulisan “Kill Strelok” di tangan anda, dan apa yang sebenarnya terjadi di area Chernobyl.
Dari sanalah awal permainan dimulai dan setelah mengambil misi anda langsung memasuki bagian paling mencengangkan pada game ini, yaitu atmosfir environment yang tak ubahnya seperti dunia virtual yang benar-benar hidup dan areanya sangat luas seolah tak ada batasnya.
Developer game ini cukup sukses menciptakan dunia virtual dengan ekologi yang hidup dan menempatkan anda di dalamnya sebagai sebuah bagian kecil dari ekosistem raksasa.
Salah satu hal yang membuat dunia virtual tersebut terasa hidup adalah adanya berbagai kelompok manusia dan binatang yang masing-masing menjalankan kegiatan sehari-hari mereka. Mereka memiliki kepentingan sendiri dan melakukanya sendiri pula, agak mirip dengan AI pada game Oblivion.

Ada berbagai macam tipe manusia yang akan anda temui, mulai dari pengelana, pasukan militer, hingga kelompok/fraksi yang dapat dijadikan kawan maupun lawan. Selain itu juga ada mutant, mulai dari yang bentuknya binatang hingga makhluk setengah manusia, seperti orang yang dapat menyerang dengan pikirannya serta berbagai makhluk menyeramkan lainnya.

Banyaknya penghuni yang hidup di dunia S.T.A.L.K.E.R, membuat game ini tidak seperti game FPS lainnya yang umumnya hanya berkaitan dengan aksi solo menembaki apapun yang ditemui.
Pada game ini anda adalah bagian dari sebuah dunia yang benar-benar hidup, dimana anda dapat dengan mudah mencari teman dan juga musuh tentunya.
Ada sangat banyak kelompok-kelompok/fraksi yang hidup di dunia virtual S.T.A.L.K.E.R, namun berhati-hatilah dengan siapa anda bergabung, karena bergabung dengan satu kelompok bisa berarti menjadi musuh kelompok yang lain. Jadi jangan asal membunuh seseorang, karena temannya pasti akan menuntut balas kepada anda atau kelompok anda.
Orang-orang tersebut kadang bahkan tidak segan-segan mendatangi dan menyerbu markas kelompok anda.
Jadi sama seperti di dunia betulan, kita tidak dapat begitu saja berjalan tenang setelah membunuh seseorang.
Namun ini bukan berarti tidak ada tembak-tembakan seru dalam game ini, karena hampir semua misi mengharuskan anda bertempur entah itu sendiri ataupun bersama kelompok anda.

The last console exergame “harvest” of the year came out in the past couple of weeks, with EA Sports Active: More Workouts, Tony Hawk Ride, Just Dance, and Your Shape. Out of those, More Workouts is getting the most praise, with eight 5-star reviews at Amazon and even several glowing reviews from the tough crowd in the gaming press.  Just Dance, a shake-your-Wiimotes dance game, got a couple of favorable reviews on Amazon as well, although the professional gamers have yet to notice it.

Tony Hawk Ride, with its skateboard controller, was the only game to have Xbox 360 and PS3 versions in addition to Wii.  The Wii and PS3 versions got some poor reviews, but interestingly enough, several Amazon reviewers liked the 360 game very much.  Maybe some Xbox owners are starting to have an appetite for casual and fitness games.

Your Shape, the Wii fitness game featuring a camera peripheral, is not faring so well at Amazon.  A couple of buyers say it is just like My Fitness Coach, also made by Ubisoft, but with a camera tacked on.  They’re saying that if you already have My Fitness Coach (which got very good reviews) don’t bother with Your Shape.

Lastly, the ultimate challenge is finding a review of Ultimate Party Challenge, the DDR-mat Wii game that’s been out for nearly a month now.  Does it actually exist?  What if they gave a party and no one came?  Doesn’t anyone want to risk $30, or is everyone really waiting on reviews now?

July 22nd, 2009 – Pittsburgh, PA

The Pirates capped off a fantastic three game set the Brewers completing the sweep today in Pittsburgh. The Brewers sent GABA’s best and most effective pitcher to the mound and he would not disappoint. Webb pitched 6 shutout innings, with 5 punch outs. However the walks became problematic as he walked four and it drove up his pitch count up to a 109. The bullpen who let the Brewers down all series was pummeled for 6 runs in just three innings. New comer Alex Rios let the charge with two walks, two RBI on a two run bomb in the seventh inning all from the lead off spot. However the spotlight was on starting pitcher Ross Ohlendorf who pitched 7 shutout innings striking out six and walking only two. Ohlendorf picked up only his second win all season against arguably the best team in the National League. The Pirates proved that are not a team to be taken lightly even though their record is the worst in the majors. The Pirates three game series was led by the bat of Adam LaRoche who managed to drive in 7 runs with 2 home runs. After the three game set the Pirates were pleased to announce LaRoche’s resigning for three years averaging 4 million.

General Manager Thomas Jones was quoted in the press conference; “We are very pleased to tell you that today we have reached an agreement to keep Adam in Pittsburgh for at least another three years. Negotiations were difficult at times but we were able to meet on both ends and come up with a quality deal for us and Adam. Adam expressed that he was willing to stick around and loved it here in Pittsburgh. We were pleased to ab liege and deal was inked early this morning before the Brewers game. What could be better than capping off a three game sweep of the best team in baseball and resigning one of your star players?”

Adam LaRoche at the same conference; “You better believe I am happy to get this deal done and out of the way. Personally I hate dealing with these types of things, I just want to be on the field doing what I love… Playing baseball. I am pleased that I get to spend the next three years here in the city that I have grown to love. With all the young talent we have I think its only a short hop away before we are a winning team outta the basement of the league.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up is an abberration. It is a listless clone of the Smash Brothers series, and fails on every account upon which a video game can be judged. The game was developed by Game Arts and Toylogic inc., and released by Ubisoft. Game Arts Co. Ltd. was one of the companies that worked on the initial development for Smash Bros. Brawl, which is exactly what this game feels like: Unfinished. Ubisoft took developers who worked only on the basics of an intricate combat system, and produced something raw and rotten. As a child I was an enormous fan of the Ninja Turtles cartoon. As a young adult, I played an obscene amount of Super Smash Bros. for the N64, and played its incarnations at length as I got older. This game is an insult to the spirit of both franchises. Unless you love all things Ninja Turtles regardless of their quality, this game is so bad it makes the N64 Smash Bros. look good.

Read ADD Review

The controls for TMNT: Smash-Up are basically the same as Smash Brothers. There is a standing attack, three directional standing attacks (hold forward, hold up, or hold down), and four directional jumping attacks (in the air, hold forward, back, down, or up). These move sets exist for both the A button (regular attack) and the B button (special). In addition, you can throw, block, roll, do a double jump, and (new to Smash-Up) do leaping attacks off the walls. Smash Bros. is mellifluousness dance of fighting and movement. Power, speed, and recovery for each character has been calculated individually, as well as in relation to one another. Everyone feels special, and all movement is purposeful. TMNT: Smash-Up is hodgepodge of moves that feel disconnected. Somewhere, in its depest recesses, perhaps the developers and testers thought about harmony. But who would go looking? The journey would be boring, painful, and lonely.

The graphics are mediocre. Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo has more thoughtful and sharp graphics than this Wii game. The only impressive graphics are in the Arcade Mode, and not part of the gameplay. The Turtles are a long standing franchise in a variety of media, but started originally as a comic book by Kevin Eastman, and Peter Laird. The Arcade Mode is told through comic pages illustrated by Peter Laird. The camera scrolls over the frames to give the illusion of movement, and the drawings of Laird are a welcome addition. Sadly Eastman is not on board for the Arcade Mode story which couldn’t be more basic. Splinter is having a tournament. Everyone is invited. If you win, you get two prizes. The End.

One of the great things about the original cartoon was the music, so I was anxious to see the music in the game, and if you listen very carefully, you might even be able to hear it. In addition to being inaudible, than it is neither fun, engaging, nor remarkable.

The game offers some bonus modes similar to Smash Bros.: Battle Royal, Survival, Tournament, Mission Mode, and a handful of Smash Bros. mini games like “Time Trials” and “Break the Targets.” Except “Break the Targets” is now “Eat the Pizza.” The collision detection for the pizzas is a little off, which is sad and frustrating. There’s even an online mode which I gave a try. Not one person in the world was playing.

The key to these fighting games is to attack your enemy without waste. That this game’s highest level computer could beat me may be evidence there is skill to the game. But I doubt this game’s depth. For example, the most important aspect of Smash Bros. is recovering from an attack when hit. The recovery is system so refined you can recover at any time, and on any surface without interrupting the logical flow of movement. Like hitting the brakes on a car, stopping is a process that can change with speed. Recovery for TMNT is cumbersome, and lacks in-game physics. If Game Arts made a driving game, they would make hitting the brakes once a full stop, and congratulate each other on a job well done.

I give this game a 1.5/10. The game gets 1 for having some kind of content, and creating a game that will run when I power on my system. It gets a 0 for graphics, 0 for gameplay, 0 for music, and a 0 for fun. The 0.5 extra is because Ultrominator’s (Krang’s) standing up attack made me laugh. (For non-Ninja Turtles fans, Krang is a brain with a face, and tentacles for arms and legs. While completely exposed, he controls a big robot that looks like a tall, bald, fat man with Eskimo sunglasses. When you hold up and press regular attack, Krang bursts from his belly and thrusts up and down repeatedly while screaming. It’s pretty funny.)

To release this game on the Wii is nonsense. Smash Bros. Brawl is the fastest-selling video game in Nintendo of America’s history. Smash Bros. Melee was GameCube’s all-time best seller. It’s like sending a crayfish to attack a whale. Releasing the game on the Playstation 2 hints at Ubisofts motive: Dangle a malformed worm into an ocean of gamers and pray SOMEBODY will bite. Well don’t! Have some respect for yourself, and buy Smash Bros. Brawl.

One of the more recent in the Lego video game franchises, the game holds little surprise to veterans of the other games like Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, and Lego Harry Potter. The game play is simple, requiring you to cycle through various characters as you work your way through a series of scenes of lego violence and puzzles.

Unlike others in the Lego franchise, the Batman game doesn’t adhere to any of the movies or any truly cohesive storyline. Each of the three acts are independent of each other, and you can play as either the Dynamic Duo or their Rogue’s Gallery.

Once you get through the story mode, you can go through the free play to unlock the various hidden characters and other tasty bits that they keep hidden behind silhouette for exorbitant Lego nub fees.

The great part of the game is ultimately in being the Dark Knight and busting up the bad guys. All in all, it’s a great game in the Lego franchise that continues to capitalize on big money names. While this game in it self is not a bad game, if you don’t love Batman, pass this up.

Coming soon! Lego Rockband. Seriously, It’s out later this week.

Full Disclosure

First, I received a free copy of Dragon Age: Origins when the folks marketing the game for Bioware asked me to review it, but of course, this will not impact my review.

Second, the only Bioware game that I’ve played at any length is Neverwinter Nights.  (I’m not even talking NWN2 — I mean the original.)  We have copies of Baldur’s Gate and Knights of the Old Republic around, though I’ve never played them myself. (I believe my husband has.)  In anticipation of Dragon Age, I did pick up Mass Effect on Steam and played for several hours.  So, I can make some superficial comparisons there, but nothing more.  I certainly know of Bioware’s reputation for strong storytelling in their RPG’s.

Third, I am primarily an MMO player and my primary MMO is World of Warcraft.  I have played a few other MMO’s recently and dabbled in some puzzle games, but I have not put solid playtime into a single-player RPG in more than five years.  My thoughts will likely be most useful to those coming from a similar background. Below are my first impressions of the game and I’ll likely put together another review after I have played through it in its entirety.

The Grey Wardens and the Darkspawn

There is evil rising in your world, the history of which is nicely set up in the opening cinematic.  Standard hero story set-up, but it’s neatly delivered.  I liked the style and tone.  I still rewatch this as each of my new characters begins their journey.

Character Creation

In choosing your character, you first pick the gender and race (human, elf, or dwarf), and then an available class for the race you chose (warrior, mage, or rogue).  There are some limitations consistent within the game world.  Only humans and elves can be mages, for example.  There are a total of six backstories to play through, so in a few cases, you’ll have some say in your character’s origin.  Were they a commoner or a noble, for example?

After this, you choose your character’s appearance.  Dragon Age has a realistic art style, with customization that allows you to finely tune your character’s facial features right down to the width of her jawline. You can’t change the character’s body type at all, but if you like, you can give them a giant forehead, jutting chin, and beady eyes. Just scrolling through the preset appearances will give you an idea of the diversity possible.  For each of mine, I started with one of the presets and tweaked it to my liking.  (I didn’t go with the beady eyes, but one of my characters ended up with a prominent forehead and a bit of a chinbutt.)

A warning, too. You are selecting the shape and shading of all your character’s features by candlelight.  I chose what looked like a nice healthy skin tone for my elf rogue when I was creating her.  When she got out into the light of day, her skin was so light that it looked like she was running around in a white bodysuit.  Same with some of the makeup on the women. What looks subdued in the creator is often much brighter in the game itself.  My mage has some very unfortunate green eyeshadow.

You can preview the character creation experience by downloading the files linked here.

Story and Character Context

I have played through all the origin stories now and I think they’re pretty well done.  You immediately get a sense of who your character is through conversations with characters that already know them.  Right from the start, your character is interacting with friends, mentors, and/or adversaries.  I have heard some complaints about the originality of the stories themselves, but I thought they were fine. Fairly typical birth-of-a-hero stories, but each compelling in their own right.

As you meet new characters and learn about the world, information is collected in a Codex, accessible through your Journal where your quests are also kept.  There is a lot of collectible information.  I’ve found that in some cases, you can still get the info in your Codex even if you skip the conversation.  You do not have to have the same “What are the Darkspawn?” conversations with every new character, for example.  If you speak with the character that would have given you that info, very often you end up with the story in your Codex anyway.  In your Journal, there is also a conversation history if you want to go back and review all the choices you made in conversations.

From what I have heard, Bioware RPG’s are notorious for putting your character in situations where they are forced to make difficult choices.  Betrayal seems to be a common theme, sometimes with devastating consequences. I can’t say how much most of it effects the overall outcome, but I found myself caring about the NPC’s enough to get swept up in it, wondering who to trust and whether I was doing the right thing.

No Going Back

My husband and I made a character and played the game together for a few hours one evening.  Knowing I’d play quite a lot on my own, I let my husband “drive” and make decisions about what the character said and did. When one of the NPC’s asked for help, rather than go with the positive answer (as one does if one actually wants to do quests and gain xp), my husband chose the smartassed “Yeah, whatever… good luck with that” answer, blowing her off to see what would happen. She looked very sad and withdrew from the conversation, causing my husband and I to make frowny faces at one another.  So, of course, my husband approached her again after the encounter cinematic ended so he could offer to do the quest.  No dice.  She wouldn’t talk to us any more. 

I remember a point in my WoW career where I felt an emotional connection with the NPC’s.  I felt terribly guilty if I declined or abandoned a quest.  That feeling is long gone now.  The NPC’s never seem to remember you anyway.  (Heck, I’d think Thrall would remember me after Wrathgate, but I’m pretty sure if I popped by the throne room, he’d welcome me to Orgrimmar and ask if I’ve come to serve the Horde.)  I’d forgotten what it was like for there to be such consequences in my gameplay.  Sort of refreshing, actually.

(Later, when I was making another character, my husband told me I could delete the one we made together.  “She’s mean,” he said.)

“Realism,” Immersion, and Missing Voices

All of this sets the stage for a wonderfully immersive gameplay experience.  It is immersive, for the most part.  There are two things in particular that take me out of the story on a fairly regular basis, however.

The first is the blood splattered all over everything.  At first I thought, “Wow, that’s different.”  Aside from a few drippy raid bosses in WoW, there’s not a lot of blood squirting around.  In Dragon Age, sometimes the killing blow decapitates your enemy, causing blood to shoot out of their neck.  So, I suppose it’s natural that your character might become bloody if they’re in the fray.  The problem is that in the brief cinematics after a battles, your character continues to stand there with blood all over their armor, weapons, and their faces.  There are little specks of bright red blood on everything.  I suspect it’s intended as part of the “realism” of the game, but it’s just a bit over the top, in my opinion.

The second (and probably my biggest criticism of the game) is the lack of a speaking voice for you, as a main character.  When your character is deep in discussion with others and you choose what she says, she doesn’t actually say anything.  If everything were text, that would be one thing, but the cinematics are otherwise fleshed out with voice acting.  This may not have stood so much had I not played Mass Effect briefly.  In Mass Effect, you make conversation choices and then your character actually talks to the others.  She doesn’t say precisely the text you chose, but conveys the essence of it in a way consistent with her demeanor.  I realize this would have required many more hours of voice acting, but I absolutely loved this in Mass Effect.  I think it would have brought the Dragon Age play experience to the next level.  Not sure why it wasn’t done.  You choose a voice at the beginning, but it just determines what your character yells passively in battle.

Basic Controls , Tactics, and Navigation

One thing that took some getting used to was the combat system.  It may be second nature to those accustomed to recent single-player RPG’s, but I was having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to coordinate all my characters at first.  You choose the character central to the story, of course, but you’ll often be fighting side by side with characters of other classes that join your party and help you fight.  As part of this, you gear them and can control them.

There is AI, of course, and you can define elements of your party members’ fighting styles through the Tactics interface.  Until I figured this out, I died a lot. (In between dying a lot and figuring this out, I was pausing the game a lot.  Turns out that using the Tactics system is far superior. ) You can set your characters to heal themselves if they get too low, use certain attacks based on enemy proximity and health, and so forth.  Very handy.

Navigating the world is intuitive.  Your map features quest locations and the minimap has a pointer on it to lead you in the general direction of your quest objective. Another complaint I’ve heard from MMO players is that there are invisible walls.  This is true, there are.  You cannot always go to the places that you can see in the distance.  With a few exceptions, this hasn’t been too immersion-breaking for me.  As I’m moving through the world, I just try to stay on task.  The urgency with which the quests are usually assigned means I probably shouldn’t dally exploring the fields or romping in the rivers anyway, right?

As with WoW, I use a combo of WASD and the mouse to move myself around.  (There is click-to-move, but I don’t use it.)  It’s pretty smooth and the running animations look fairly natural.  There is, however…

No Jumping Allowed!

I don’t think I realized how much I jump around in WoW until I started playing Dragon Age.  There’s no jumping at all in this game.  (I suppose it would make you look uncivilized.)  In WoW, I am constantly moving and jumping in fights while I’m casting.  Part of this is because some of the raid encounters require constant repositioning and running around, and as part of this, I jump.  My priest almost always hops up in the air before slinging Prayer of Mending at the tank, too — it’s just a habit I picked up. (She looks like she’s having a great time when she’s healing.)  So, in DA:O this means that I hit the space bar and pause the game repeatedly.  I see a pile of rubble and want to jump over it. *pause* *grr*

(So, only rogues in Dragon Age.  No rouges.)

But, Pause is Your Friend

It turns out that pausing in battle can be really helpful, however.  This kept me alive before I figured out how to use the tactics properly and now I pause just when things get too chaotic.  My tactics are mostly set up to just let the AI do its thing, but occasionally some intervention is required.

I confess that it’s also refreshing to play a game that I can pause it all.  I can leave the game at a moment’s notice and nothing will happen without me.

And F5 is your BEST Friend

Save. Your. Game.  Do it often.  There is autosave, but nothing kills a play session like accidentally dying and then realizing you’re going to have to repeat your last 30 minutes of play.  If it were just fighting that would be one thing, but it sometimes means redoing conversations, watching cinematics, etc… aaargh.  Not that they’re bad to watch, it’s just frustrating when you want to move forward in the story.  So, right from the start, get yourself into the habit of saving the game regularly.

Overall

First impressions?  Dragon Age: Origins is excellent fun.  It’s reminding me of the old days when I looked forward to long, immersive play sessions with my games. I’d dim the lights, put on the headphones, and completely focus on the story being told to me, soaking in the experience.  It has made me realized that so much of what I do now is socializing and character maintenance rather than play.  It is fun, but it is definitely a different kind of play than a single-player RPG can offer.

Looking around the blogs, lots of MMO players (particularly in WoW) are bored or in a rut right now.  Looking for something fun to do before your next patch/expansion comes out? Consider joining the Grey Wardens.

An interesting departure from their Hitman series, Mini Ninjas (developed by IO Interactive/Eidos) is wholeheartedly simplistic and thoroughly wonderful. The opening reads like a bedtime legend. The Evil Samurai Warlord has risen once again, and started using powerful Kuji magic to transform animals into minions of his personal army. Sensing an imbalance in the world, The Ninja Master sent his best ninja in search of an answer. That ninja did not return. Determined, The Ninja Master sent another ninja, and another. None returned. With no one left, The Ninja Master was forced, reluctantly, to entrust the hope of our world to his last ninjas: Hiro and Futo.

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At initial glance, the gameplay seems quite limited. You mainly play as Hiro, and can switch off to Futo or other ninjas, whom you rescue as you progress. Hiro has a dashing attack, a standing triple attack, and a jump attack. However, this is simply the foundation. Hiro is the only ninja with the ability to use powerful Kuji magic, and he learns at least one new spell in each level. This disjoin is the gameplay’s underlying flaw. If you don’t have to learn the new spell, then you don’t need to use them. So why would you? The developers at IO Interactive set out to make a game they could play with their kids (hence the ESRB rating of E for Everyone 10+). However, the game only hints at moments to use new abilities, rather than forcing players to use them. This makes the gameplay somewhat simple, but it works.

There is a lot of hidden depth in the gameplay; if you bother to explore the rest of the characters and their magic attacks, you’ll gain much more choice. You could use camouflage to disguise yourself as a bush, and sneak undetected to the enemy’s castle. Then you could wall jump (as a bush) and scale the wall. From the enemy’s rooftops, you could cast down lightning storms on an unsuspecting group of enemies, leap down, free a bear, possess the bear, and chase the fleeing minions. Or you could pick Futo, and use his aggressive, sweeping hammer attacks and barge through the castle door.

The other ninjas can be fun too. There is Suzume, whose main weapon is the Iron Flute. She is supposed be the stealthiest ninja, though how much stealthier she is, is difficult to say. Then there is Tora, who fights with hand claws, and can’t jump very far. Kunoichi is a young agile girl and the only ninja who can easily dispatch spearmen. Finally, there’s the great Shun. Unlocking Shun is a defining point in the game. If he wasn’t so damn slow, you would use Shun all the time. He does not have a melee weapon – there is no need. With his bow you can charge and fire powerful sniper shots at enemies at a distance, or pelt them with weaker shots. Shun also has a limited number of exploding arrows that can easily be replenished. It is thoroughly satisfying to dispatch large groups of enemies with exploding arrows from afar. He can even hang from ledges or cliffs, which really isn’t practical, as much as it is NINJA.

At first, the game seems like a Zelda clone. It is an adventure game starring a hero with a sword. You even have three hearts for health, and a similar indicator sounds when health is almost gone (though thankfully, it is not as loud and irritating as the Zelda games). Yet the game feels different. In no Zelda game could you plausibly attack a group of eleven enemies at once, unless you were very good at the spin attack.

In addition to the main story and gameplay, Hiro can collect: Ingredients for his recipes, Jizu statues, and spells. At the end of each level is a report on what you have collected, and how many animals you have freed. Unfortunately, except for the beefy 100 achievement points for collecting every Jizu statue, the endeavor is superfluous. Sure, you can use flowers and oyster mushrooms to create a potion or a bomb, but there is no need.

The graphics are crisp and inviting. There’s an elegant and seamless way the objects in the game interact with the background. Many scenes are so beautiful it’s hard to believe there aren’t more desktop wallpapers out there. Any screenshot would suffice, like one of Hiro gliding along a sunset reflected river, showered in lavender cherry blossoms.

Like a lot of games, it’s a short one – five to eight hours at the most. However, this may be a plus for achievement whores: This is an easy 1000 points.

When I was a kid, I played a game where the evil Dr. Robotnik captured and transformed animals for his personal army. That game spawned a powerful and lasting franchise that I continued to enjoy as I got older. Though it is unlikely, I wish Eidos the same for the mini gem they have created.

With a nod to its predecessor World Tours, Activision/Neversoft’s Guitar Hero 5 raises a goblet of rock and proclaims in a thunderous roar: Best Guitar Hero Ever. From the moment you enter the game, you are a button away from playing one of 85 tracks already available. This new mode (aptly named “Party Play”) waits behind the soft music of the title screen which showcases the game’s song list. This could serve perfectly as a party’s background music until someone screams, “Oh my God, they have Ramstein – Du Hast!?” Then just plug in an instrument, and play. Players can join or leave Party Play at any time. There are no menus, and no selections; it’s so inviting it practically whispers, “play me.”

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Another great thing about GH5 is that a lead and bass guitar are no longer required. In fact, you could have four lead guitars, with no bass, no drums, and no singer! There is also an ingenious new multiplier called “Band Moment” that can raise your multiplier to x16. This new feature capitalizes on that moment just before the climax in a song. As the tempo builds, each member of the band must consecutively hit a section of fiery notes. If every member succeeds, their highways are endowed with flames as the crowd erupts. What makes this multiplier so clever is that it combines a reward for teamwork with the climax of a great rock song, mirroring the purpose of a song’s climax: to excite.

Just as games make the system, songs make the rhythm game, and in this respect, GH5 is quite the eclectic soup. A dash of Johnny Cash, a sprinkle of Duran Duran, a touch of My Morning Jacket, a smidgen of 3 Doors Down, and just enough Bowie. Such variety is a risky move on Neversoft’s part, but I think it’s a smart one. The mishmash ensures there is at least one song that someone has to play. And since the game allows much of the downloadable content from World Tours, as well as its own new DLC, Guitar Hero 5 fans will have plenty of songs at their disposal (just, not as many as Rock Band).

As you’d expect, the gameplay hasn’t changed much. But you will notice some additions: There is now an open fret for the guitar, which requires you to strum without pushing any buttons, and the game is more forgiving on timing, and failing. Gone are the days of one fail ruining an entire song, or a maximum of three fails. As long as the rest of the band is playing well, you can fail repeatedly and still achieve decent percentage, considering. There are even some nuances in the note patterns themselves, where double notes are tapered instead of being in unison. Overall, the note combinations are truly enjoyable.

There are new bonus achievements that are randomly assigned to band members in Career mode, but they are generally the same. You might as well read the majority as, “play good.” The achievements aren’t particularly inventive either, though some have hilarious titles. For Dragonball Z fans, one of the secret achievements is, “It’s over 9000!”

Graphically, Guitar Hero has always had something visually offensive: too flashy, too loud, too shitty. This time, however, the graphics in GH5 are soft and clean. Nothing overshadows – all compliments.

The character creation is impressive. Though essentially the same as World Tours it is improved, and ridiculously detailed. You can select everything from the color of a torn jean jacket to the fullness of a character’s cheekbones. The only trait alteration that doesn’t shine is the proportions for the women. Weight does not only go to a woman’s hips, and certainly not so drastically. In addition, why make a scale if it goes from average, to extreme skinny, then gradually heavier? People do not read middle, left to right. Even in China. For those who don’t like character creation, you can use play as rock legends Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana, and Kurt Cobain.

One thing Activision and MTV were wise to do was make hardware compatible with each other. Or did they? In the new Expert + mode, a second bass pedal is required for the drums. But you can’t take a Rock Band drum stand, plug in a second pedal and play. Nor can you activate star power without modifying the drum set. You have to have the Guitar Hero drum set – if you can find it. In addition to working to together, these companies should learn from each other – Rock Band allows players to use the Xbox headset in lieu of a mic. GH5 does not.

Shigeru Miyamoto once said, “Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock-n-roll.” Well Guitar Hero has been giving us both for years, and this is their best yet. Sin, and enjoy

Star Wars: Trench Run is finally here and this thing is utterly beautiful, packed with authentic audio and video from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and boasting impressive gameplay visuals.

Trench Run is based around the Rebel assault on the Death Star at the end of George Lucas’ classic 1977 movie. Piloting an X-Wing fighter, you begin the game high above the Empire’s dreaded Death Star in an aggressive dogfight with TIE fighters. Once you’ve dispatched them, it’s time to descend into that famous trench and make your approach to a small (two meter wide) thermal exhaust port, which, if memory serves, you’ll find right below the main port.

Oh, and, the shaft is ray-shielded so you’ll need to hit it directly with proton torpedoes. The doubting Dodonna’s amongst you might think that impossible — even for an iPhone — but, y’know, womp rats, T-16’s and all that.

The game starts with a fierce dogfight with TIE fighters above the dreaded Death Star…

…and culminates in the famous trench run.

Trench Run uses the iPhone’s accelerometers to great effect. I’m usually wary of extensive tilt-control. That might be because I’m just rubbish, or because developers sometimes use accelerometers unnecessarily. In Trench Run it’s not too bad, and there are options for adjusting pitch and sensitivity.

The on-screen controls are cleverly implemented; there are no virtual buttons cluttering the screen. Instead, the two main controls (Force Power for slow motion and, of course, Fire) are activated by pressing the left or right hand sides of the screen. Easy.

The few controls are activated by hitting large areas of the screen

Video sequences of the X-Wings approaching the Death Star (S-foils in attack position, naturally) and the spectacular explosion of the Death Star itself (the 1997 bang, by the way) really help set the scene. But it’s John Williams’ breathtaking score that puts you slap bang in the middle of the action.

All Wings report in…

One quibble; the difficulty levels are a bit… odd. The easiest level was selected for me at installation so I bumped it up a level (usually labeled “Normal” but Trench Run goes directly from Easy to Medium.) So, with Medium selected, I dove in… and failed. I’m normally good at this type of thing but after 15 minutes of failure I was starting to hate this game. So I tried again on “Easy.”

10 minutes later I had destroyed the Death Star and defeated the evil Empire. I had finished the whole game. See, once the dogfight’s over, the actual trench run is appallingly easy. THQ Wireless say the game has “tons of replay value” but when the difference between “Easy” and “Medium” is actually “Pointless” and “Practically Impossible” I don’t see myself playing this again any time soon. (Now in your best Yoda voice, croak “That is why you fail.”)

THQ also says there are hidden features in the game. You could always stretch out with your fingers and ask Google what they are, but that’s probably the path to the Dark Side.

If you love Star Wars, this is a game you should own. I doubt it’s worth the $4.99 asking price, but hey, there’s profit to be had, and Lucasfilm ain’t finished beating this Tauntaun just yet.

Star Wars Trench Run is out now. Go buy it – and may the Force be with you.

If a “Sim Farmer” is something you think you might be interested in, Harvest Moon: Magical Melody is the game for you. Magical Melody combines achievement-chasing and virtual life-living in a way that no other can… and did I mention farming?

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This game is not everyone. It takes a certain type of person to play a game where your tasks are: wake up, water plants, feed animals, eat, cut grass, flirt, fish, go to bed, repeat. What this game offers beyond simulated farming is an expansive world, with many choices. If you’re tired of finishing games in six hours, but fear the time commitment of MMOs, this game might provide a happy median for you.

While new to the Wii, Magical Melody is a port of the GameCube version. Not much has changed (including the graphics) except the addition of being able to use the Wiimote to control your tools, and the exemption of the option to play as a girl farmer. Using a Wiimote motion to use your tools makes sense, but is tiring. And eliminating the option to play as a girl is going to put off a lot of female gamers, and some male gamers too.

This is the sixth game in the Harvest Moon series. I haven’t played any since the original Super Nintendo version, and what made the series engrossing then, has been improved upon. You can still grow crops, raise livestock, get married, have pets, go to festivals, and run the farm based on the seasons, but now the choices you can apply to your character’s life have been multiplied. You can choose your furniture, starting location (close to town for better soil, or far away for more space), which mine to make money at, make friends, and collect musical notes to help revive the Harvest Goddess who has been turned to stone.

The Wii controls are a little finicky. For example, you can purchase an upgraded water pot that can water three plants at a time instead of one. In order to do so, you must be facing the middle plant directly. If you are slightly off, you might only water two plants or one. It sounds like a minor detail, but if you’ve chosen to grow crops and play for an hour, you could be spending as much as twenty minutes watering plants, so why spend more time than you have to?

It will take a couple of hours for newcomers to learn how to run an efficient farm. There are a number of things to learn: Planting crops in big squares is a no-no, make sure you eat or it’s going to be a short day of work, and don’t plant spring plants just before summer – they’ll all die. If this is your first Harvest Moon game then your first year as a farmer might not be as successful as you’d like. But if you enjoyed that first year, you can always improve on the next one.

I’ve read that this game is the best in the series, but I don’t have the mettle to play the other five to confirm that. As I recall, I finished the original game once in an unspectacular fashion, and never played it again. I find that for the average gamer, (who has played games like SimCity, The Sims, and Spore) eventually these games feel like work. What sets Harvest Moon apart is the RPG-like achievements. You are always working towards something whether it is a barn, a cow, a contest ribbon, a wife, or beating your rival farmer, Jaime.

Adding a rival to the game was a clever idea. Jaime’s score is displayed on your menu screen, and because she begins the game with far more resources and a well-established farm, her score is much higher than yours. This stings a little, and encourages you to play longer, and better.

Ultimately, I can’t quite figure out the reason for this “new” game on the Wii. As with most things, I assume “making money” was the intent. There are a lot of Wii’s out there, owned by new gamers looking for something to play. So why spend money making a new Harvest Moon when an unchanged port might sell as well? According Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume, the reason is that the GameCube version is so hard to find, and fans of the series wanted this Wii version. But for me, it’s just another shovel-full to the pile of Wii titles.

Former street racer, Dan Miles, has joined the group called Criminal Overturn Program or C.O.P. The story follows his missions in New York and uncovering the truth behind the arrest of his mentor, Detective Brad Winter.

Upon playing the game, you will instantly get the feeling of déjà vu. Gameplay is very similar to Grand Theft Auto wherein you can steal cars and race around the street, minus the police running after you. Despite the comparison, C.O.P. The Recruit delivers, giving a unique experience to all players who prefer gameplay like GTA.

The game takes place in New York and the player has the ability to traverse the six (6) square miles of roads by foot or by car, whichever you prefer. The graphics are quite blocky but the map is fairly accurate. The streets are littered with semi-intelligent pedestrians, fast-moving vehicles and destructible environment.

Music is impressive, effects for every police car and civilian who you “accidentally” try to run over are present. Even the screech of the brakes and the clash of metals when you crash into a car are realistic.

Wielding a gun is also a fun way to break the monotonous driving/running events. Controlling your weapon uses the D-Pad, stylus and the left trigger. At first you might find it frustrating but as the game progress, you will be able to want more gun fight.

Regrettably, the story suffers the lack of dialogue that might be a little confusing to players. The character’s background was not tackled which resulted to loss of memory in the character’s part.

C.O.P. The Recruit flaws are forgivable considering there are not a lot of games with this kind of gameplay. Despite the restrictions of the console, the creators proved that shoot and drive games can be created and be successful.

Don’t know why I bother, really.

But let’s do this, anyway.

Right. Welcome to the next instalment of everybody’s favourite wrestling series, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2010 – now with so many bells and whistles, that it feels suffocating, like a giant man’s armpit. The first thing that gets your attention is the HUGE amount of modes, options, configurations etc. They are EVERYWHERE and are this edition’s selling point. To quote:

“It’s your world now.” Nice.

Create your characters. Create finishing moves. Get this – you can now create – wait for it – finishing moves off the top rope! Create outfit designs, and stories to mimic those seen on TV, if you like. Having so many options may be an absolute dream for diehard fans out there. I get that. But oh my god – this is sick. This is serious.

I guess it’s nice that you can go online and upload your created stories, moves and what-not as well as downloading other people’s creations, but with the amount of time and effort put into these creations I felt I should be getting paid for it. To be honest I really couldn’t care less.

Anyway – let’s talk about the gameplay. Or rather, let’s not.

All your characters are here. Your Triple H, your Undertaker.. And many, many others, keeping fairly up-to-date with the actual roster in… ‘real life’. Fortunately, for those quick to point out that things aren’t what they should be, updates will be available in future on the Playstation Store.

This is no plug-‘n’-play business here. First off, would you like a one-on-one match? Tag team? Fatal Four-way? Okay – after that, what kind of match? Normal? Table? Hell in the Cell? Extreme Rules? You get the picture so let’s move on.

Here’s a tip: only ever play against human opponents as AI has NEVER  been the series’ strong point. Watch in amazement, as a CPU fighter will leave the ring – find a ladder – bring it back in the ring – walk around with it a bit – leave themselves open to having said ladder stolen from them – and then pretty much invite you to wrap it around their head. And man – I wish I could recover that quickly from being slammed through a burning table (yes fans – BURNING TABLES ARE BACK!!!).

Even having a ring full of CPU characters doesn’t compensate for their stupidity nor does cranking up the difficulty. You’ll need to be cool with this before even considering taking on the game’s preset ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ story modes, and the others included.

With AI this dumb, I defy you not to ask yourself, “Who’s the real dumbass here?”

Oh, how I miss WWE: No Mercy, on the N64.

To sum it up, this is for WWE fans ONLY. True WWE fans. The enormous amount of game modes on offer will keep them tinkering till the final bell and perhaps they will manage to overlook the major issues, no problem. Many will just be happy to see that Randy Orton’s neck looks lifelike, not that I’ve checked, or anything.

For everyone else, particularly those who enjoy a quick drop-in game every now and then, stay away. You will get lost in this stuff, and want to hit somebody around the head with a chair!

3/10.

In 1994 Capcom awoke an insatiable hunger for 2D fighting enthusiasts and Marvel fans alike with X-Men Children of Atom. Five iterations and fifteen years later, the re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on XBox Live Arcade indicates that initial hunger is far from satiated.

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The game features a whopping 56 characters which are available immediately, including Ryu, Mega Man, Resident Evil’s Jill, Morrigan, Cyclops, and two Wolverines. Though a bit excessive, each character has Capcom’s trademark balance and usefulness (even among joke characters like Anakaris). Yet, there is an irking feeling there are superior favourites. Storm, Magneto, and Sentinel, for example, may have advantages over Dan, Venom, and Sakura. A sacriligious notion – but you know you’re all thinking it.

This game is for the fallen arcade warriors, far removed from their dimly lit caves where they ruled machines by the skill of their hands alone. If you’re new to the game or a novice, you’ll want to practice before considering online play because there’s no way to avoid these troglodyte masters. If there was a way to name private rooms (like in Battle.net) the skill level deliniation would be less extreme (which is a problem for elites and n00bs alike). But there isn’t, and these elite warrior monks are everywhere.

The four button style of gameplay (two punches, two kicks) suit the Xbox controller perfectly. Unlike other 2D fighters this is a 3 on 3 battle where you can switch to your teammates at whim. There are also two additional buttons which call your teammate out to assist with a quick move.

But the focus Marvel vs. Capcom is combos. Chaining ground combos into air combos that finish in “hyper combos” is deeply satisfying. The game wisely features a training area where you can practice these combos on opponents that don’t block. And of course, there are plenty of howto YouTube videos.

There are three graphical options for the game. There is Classic (for those who can’t bear to look at something other than original arcade graphics), Crisp (which is the clearest version), and Smooth (which Crisp makes useless). Unlike HD Remix, which completely upgraded the graphics, all Capcom has done here is clean up the sprites a bit.

All in all the game is exactly what it should be: A second helping of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Now fans of the arcade game can relive the twilight of their arcade years, when they dominated challengers with their high-paced combos reminiscent of Marvel vs. Capcom 2’s motto: “Let’s go crazy.”

July 10th, 2009 – Philadelphia, PA

The Pirates came into Philadelphia riding a 5 game losing streak, enigmatic 26 year old Jeff Karstens took the mound against young Phillies lefty J.A. Happ. In what originally should have been a decent pitching match quickly turned into a runaway victory for the Bucs.

The Pirates scored two runs in the first, one off  Ty Wigginton who drove in Andrew McCutchen, after his lead off bunt for a hit, with a triple his fourth of the year. And the second off of an Adam LaRoches groundout to first scoring Wigginton. Karstens continued to shut down the Phillies through four innings when the Pirates tacked on three more runs being capped off by McCutchens solo shot his second in his major league career. The Pirates continued to tack on runs and eventually won 11-6.  Erik Hinske was named player of the game with his 3-4 day, 2 RBIs, 1 walk and a stolen base. Karstens also had a very good day pitching seven strong innings allowing four runs while striking out six.

When asked about his performance Erik had this to say: “I am just happy to contribute to the team. Each and every guy on this team goes out and practices 100%… Come game time we give it our all. The nice thing about this team is when one of us is struggling we can always count on somebody else to pick up the slack and bare some weight.”

Hinske was then asked about his chances of staying in Pittsburgh for at least another season: “Initially I had decided I wanted to test the free agent market and had no interest in resigning with any team, whether I was traded or not. Every players goal is to win a championship. With the recent moves to acquire all this youth and talent, I’d have to be crazy not to at least listen to any offers! General manager Jones and I have been in contact, all I can tell you is that there have been offers from both sides of the table but nothing has been finalized. Heck there is still a chance I could be traded, its not even the All-Star game yet!”

The game

This game released to much fanfare, record-breaking sales and glowing reviews from nearly every major gaming site out there. But does it really deserve all of this? Sure Infinity Ward and Activision have invested huge amounts of money into the development of this title but what does it all boil down to in the end.

Spoilers dead ahead!!

Lacklustre single player campaign

Once you’ve finished blowing through  the single player campaign, yes all five hours of it, what’s left is a story that simply doesn’t make sense and that is a sad contrast to the campaign of Modern Warfare 1 which was truly captivating . This time round however, I think it was a case of biting off more than they could chew.  The nuclear war scenario, war on US soil, evil terrorist and backstabbing general, all able to be perfectly good plot lines on their own but together they present a mangled heap of loose ends and a failed attempt at making a larger than life plot, at least this is the case when Modern Warfare 2 is concerned.

Infinity Ward did not do a good job of tying in all the acts into one cohesive single player campaign and left us with a few good scenarios but lacked a complete picture. My understanding is that all of the questions will probably be answered in the inevitable Modern Warfare 3 but it does seem like too many question marks were left at the end of the campaign which probably resulted in a few gamers scratching their heads.

The good - Varying gameplay styles and environments kept it interesting.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t a good shooter because it certainly is as I did find the  change in environments, and varying gameplay styles enjoyable. Jumping from sneaking around in the snow to all out war to a snowmobile race was definitely kept it fresh throughout the game. And the addition of Spec Ops, a series of challenging mini missions with objectives and time limits, can only serve to improve its standing.

At the end of the day the campaign definitely did not leave me with the same feelings that the original Modern Warfare did and to be honest it did not even come close. The new characters were hollow and forgettable, the plot has more holes than swiss cheese, more loose ends than a grass skirt and is so over the top it’s probably in orbit. If you were looking for an immersive and well-built story line you are likely to be disappointed but if you were looking for a five-hour thrill ride and an excuse to shoot at people, you’re in for a treat.

Crippled multiplayer experience

I was as surprised as the rest of you when I heard that Infinity Ward has decided to totally forgo dedicated server support in Modern Warfare 2 and at the time it did seem like a daft choice, and it still does. The reasons given by Robert Bowling (fourzerotwo, Infinity Ward community manager) did nothing to justify their action but what it did was to make their decision even more ridiculous than it already seemed.

Why a company would go to lengths to cripple their own game, we may never know. But the fact is with the introduction of IWNet they have done just that. They have managed to irritate, the everyday gamer, the competitive gamer, the clans, game modders and the GSP’s all in one fell swoop.

The bad - Infinity Wards actions has incited anger and disbelief from the PC community.

For those of you who have been living under the proverbial rock, IWNet is the new multiplayer system that Infinity Ward has put in place for a supposed better multiplayer gaming experience. The main gripe everyone has with it is that it takes away the tried and tested dedicated server system and replaced it with a clearly inferior P2P system where instead of having a high performance computer with a blazingly fast commercial internet connection we will have someones home computer hosting all the connections through his inadequate home internet connection.

According to Infinity Ward, IWNet will open the doors to:

• Matchmaking & Smoother Gameplay
• Playlists and Private Matches
• Party System and Friendslist
• Cheat / Hack Free Games

What it has done is make joining games a chore that can take as long as 10 minutes as a result of this so called matchmaking. If anything the gameplay is worse because of high ping caused by home internet connections. This also has other adverse effect especially in countries where the home users bandwidth is limited by their ISP’s. There is also the smaller issue of host advantage where the game host has the best ping out of everyone else and therefore has an unfair advantage. Another issue stemming from P2P hosting is the lower server caps, logically a home internet connection will not be able to support the amount of players a commercial internet connection can. So instead of the massive 64 player matches we had in Modern Warfare 1 we are now limited to a maximum of 18 players.

And the ugly - Horrible ping for everyone except the host, no prizes for spotting him!

With dedicated servers you could just choose the server that was playing the maps and game modes that you prefer so that pretty much makes the playlist point redundant. IWNet however does introduce private matches to the everyday gamer while with dedicated servers this option would only be available to server owners.

Party system and friendslist. I don’t see why this couldn’t be implemented without IWNet. Applications like Xfire and Steam already support inviting people from friends lists into the same server as you are without the need of the all-seeing eye of IWNet.

All this control over players, and yet hackers still run rampant in the game even more so than in the dedicated server supported Modern Warfare 1 and World at War. Without server administrators in IWNet hosted games they will have even more freedom than they did with dedicated servers, which in addition to server administrators had Punkbuster anti cheat systems and thus a two tiered protection against cheaters and hackers. While far from perfect, it is definitely better than the VAC (Valve anti-cheat) only protection that is in place now.

Why didn’t they implement a system that uses both P2P and dedicated servers like other games have done? Nearly all the features of IWNet can be matched or bettered by a dedicated server system so why IWNet? Draw your own conclusions.

2008 saw the release of Left 4 Dead, the hectic team based survival horror from Valve, the development team behind the Half-Life series. It had a way to make you rely on your team members for survival like no other game could. A year later the sequel is here, a quick turn around for any sequel in the gaming world, more-so surprising from a developer that is renowned for their lengthy development schedules.

While many fans cried out in a boycott, stating this was more of an expansion back than a full blown sequel, after a few hours with Left 4 Dead 2 it instantly proves itself worthy as a new addition to the franchise as opposed to a glorified expansion pack. Fixing and tweaking many of the first titles downfalls and adding in new components creates a title that is bursting at the seams with rich, zombie slaying gameplay.

For those of you who haven’t had an experience with the first game, Left 4 Dead 2 places you in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse. You fill the role of one of the four survivors who try to blast your way through hordes of “infected” in an attempt to get to the end of the map. This time round the game is set in the southeast regions of America, and the new cast of characters carry humor, charm and wit in spades. Hearing stories about particular Nascar drivers, and stories about hilarious accidents while hundreds of zombies are honing in on your position gives the characters more of the spotlight that the first title was lacking.

The improvements are so rich in-fact you will find going back to the original game is a pure disappointment. L4D2 features five new interesting campaigns, that have you fighting your way through far more invigorating environments than it’s predecessor. The situations you find yourself in simply give you more to do, which keeps things feeling fresh as opposed to run and gun to the safe house feeling the first game tended to have. All five campaigns can also be played in the Versus game mode right off the bat, no waiting around for Valve to release DLC to unlock that ability this time. As a result the game feels like a full package, where the first game tended to feel a little hollow.

L4D2 is team based gameplay at it’s finest. It is paramount to communicate and work together as a team to achieve success, more-so than any other game you’re likely to play this generation. You will need to rely on your team mates to keep you informed of where they are, when finding health, ammo or weapons, or when there is a world of hurt about to come raining down, and you will have to return the favour. The catch is that no level will play the same thanks to Valve’s AI which they call “The Director”. The Director changes up the location of enemies, weapons and difficulty each and every time you play. It manages to encourage repeat play as you will never know exactly how it will pan out, and manages to provide a challenge every time, regardless of your experience and skill.

Difficulty will play a big part in your experience with L4D2 which offers some of the most challenging gameplay you’re likely to see. Normal is a good entry point as you grasp the concept and learn what weapons work in what situations, while Expert requires the very best in reaction time, communication and overall skills. To make it even harder L4D2 introduces realism mode, removing hints and glows on items such as health and weapons from the HUD. This means your communication with your team member needs to be top notch, otherwise you are going to find yourself high and dry and left for dead.

If you are anti-social or just don’t feel like playing online there are Bots included who can go through the five campaigns with you. They also jump in on the action if a player drops out, and while they do make accurate shots and do their best to help out, it’s far more entertaining with with human players. The bots are largely unreliable. There were a few situations where I went down and needed to be revived, the bots came and took out the zombies and then ran away again without helping me up, leaving me there to die. It’s functional, but to play L4D2 as intended you really do need to play with fellow gamers.

If the campaigns aren’t challenging enough for you Versus mode is sure to get the blood pumping. Versus pits four players as “survivors” and another four players control special infected enemies such as Tanks, Boomers etc. With the addition of new Special Infected in Spitters, Jockeys and Chargers, the Versus gameplay is now far more interesting and fleshed out. Spitters have the ability to spit out acid, Jockeys ride the survivors controlling their movements and Chargers are like mini tanks, charging at their enemies and pummeling them. It keeps gameplay varied and with the 4v4 action things can become quite tense and unpredictable.

What makes L4D2 so successful is the tension and overall stress it will cause you. It get’s your heart racing, and you will find your attention fixated on the screen at all times, constantly reassessing the situation and making decisions you hope will pay off. Each campaign features pivotal moments that will stand out in your mind well and truly after you complete them, whether it be frantically filling a car full of gas in Dead Centre, or dealing with the storms and winds in Hard Rain. If you are a fan of the first game, you are going to go ga-ga for L4D2.

It’s not just the new characters, the fantastic and varied environments or gameplay situations that make L4D2 a far better package, it’s the little things that make the game so much more entertaining and varied. A bigger range of guns, the inclusion of explosive and incendiary ammo pickups but most importantly, and the most fun, the inclusion of melee weapons.

That’s right ladies and gents, you can now slice and dice, whack and smack and shred your way through each campaign with a delightful assortment of melee weapons. There are the conventional melee weapons for a horror film setting, there’s the machete and the katana and of course a chainsaw, but then there are some unexpected ones such as a cricket bat (paddle bat for the Yanks) electric guitar or a frying pan. In all there are a number to choose from and you will have a blast regardless of your choice. There is nothing quite like the feeling of facing off a bunch of infected and smashing their heads off with a well timed swing from the old cricket bat, you can’t help but have a smile come across you face, disturbing as that thought may be.

Along with new weapons come new perks as well. Along with your pain-pills and your medipacks you know have access to adrenalin shots which give you that little pick me up when the odds are against you, making you faster and stronger for a short period of time. Add this with the new defibrillator pack to bring slain survivors back from the dead, and you have some great new additions to the gameplay.

Now it’s time to address the heavy censorship applied to the Australian release of the game. Due to the fact that in Australia we don’t have an R18+ rating for video-games, the original cut that rest of the world received was refused classification by the OFLC board. While violence doesn’t make a game, in a game like L4D2 it certainly adds to the authenticity of the situation. The lack of blood, bodies on the floor or dismemberment makes the game really seem lacking. I’d highly advise you to get an uncut version of the game, if you want more info on how to do that, check out my article on this website.

THE FINAL VERDICT:

Despite the quick turn around between releases Left 4 Dead 2 is a far more complete, rich and rewarding gameplay experience, improving in almost every aspect it ventures. This is team based gameplay at it’s finest, and the amount of tension and stress this game can cause you is a true testament to Valve. They have created one thrilling and immersive game here. For those who enjoyed the first game then you will fall in love with the sequel, yet if the first Left 4 Dead didn’t rev your engine, chances are this game will do nothing to change that. Overall, one of the most thrilling games this year.

GAMEPLAY: 9.1/10 – Gameplay has been improved in each and every facet over the original.

GRAPHICS: 8.8/10 – The graphics are fairly decent but it isn’t the greatest looking game on the market. Enemies are detailed and animations are fluent. The daylight environments add a little something that the first game was lacking.

AUDIO: 9.0/10 – The weapons sound full and punchy, the voice acting is top notch, campy but it suits, and differentiating groans from different zombies comes together is a great sound package.

VALUE: 9.2/10 – The AI Director makes each campaign play different each time. Add this to the versus mode and the new scavenger mode and you have a pretty decent bang for buck. Hopes for further campaigns via DLC.

OVERALL: 9.2/10

I just bought Persona last night.

It rocks. how you walk around in dungeons is really interesting to me! (it’s first person)

And walking around first person is actually really fun because I’m used to seeing my character in most RPG’s  (it’s sort of challenging!)

Battles are pretty fun too. They can get tedious after a while though.

There are also these awesome 3D/anime cutscenes that ROCK. So far I’d give it a 7/10

That’s it for the first entry. Check back soon!