SiliconEra has reported on some Tweets from Team Ninja regarding info on Ninja Gaiden 3 – specifically, the new role Ninpo will play, and how Ultimate Techniques are activated in the upcoming title.

In the past, Ninpo had more than one use. The fireball was a good way to lay heavy damage on a single enemy (I used it mostly during boss fights), while the electric Ninpo was good at zapping multiple enemies at close range. Also, Ninpo had another useful benefit–Ryu was invincible during the startup animations and execution of the magic; providing nifty method of bypassing a heavy damage boss attack.

Now, per Team Ninja’s tweets, Ninpo serves as the only means in which Ryu can regain health. No more elixir bottles or blue karma orbs. Instead, the Dragon Ninpo will devour enemies which will in turn give Ryu health. The more enemies consumed, the more health Ryu gets, so there is a “high risk, high return” element to Ryu’s health management. What isn’t mentioned is whether or not the Dragon Ninpo will be the only magic Ryu will have access to.

There’s a substantial change to the Ultimate Techniques as well. Before, you absorbed karma orbs into your weapon by pressing down hard attack, or held down hard attack long enough for your weapon to build enough energy. Now, Ryu’s arm glows red after a few enemies are slain, and when the strong attack button is held down, the Ultimate Technique is unleashed. Per the tweet, you can cancel out of a combo and go into a UT.

To be honest, this is really the first promising news that I’ve heard that the Ninja Gaiden I remember may not be totally lost to the dark abyss of mainstream mediocrity. I like the risk/reward with the Ninpo, and I like the change in how UTs can be used. I can see how combo canceling could be quite punishing in boss encounters. I just hope that these changes will rely on player skill to be used effectively instead of being a mainstream crutch to lure the casual on board.

Do you own a Kinect? Did you know that the Kinect sensor and the power supply cable that comes with the the sensor have two DIFFERENT warranties? That’s right. Unfortunately I found this out today while on the phone with XBOX Kinect support. About six months ago, I purchased a Kinect to give to me two sons as a birthday present. They absolutely loved it, and spent a lot of time playing the bundled Kinect Adventures.
About a week ago the boys fired up their XBOX to play, and got a message that the Kinect sensor was getting insufficient power. I checked it out and did some troubleshooting, but could not get it to work properly. I checked the XBOX support page for help, and also googled the issue. It seems like it is a moderately common issue for the AC power cable to go bad. I opened an online case with an agent (mistake), and after asking me a few troubleshooting questions was told that I should probably call the support line for additional help. I waited until today to call so I would have plenty of time to get this issue corrected. The first agent talked me through all of the usual troubleshooting, and we determined what I already knew. The power cable was bad and would need to be replaced. Then came the bad news…..”the cable is actually out-of-warranty, so it will cost you $39.95 for a replacement.”. I was a little surpirsed by this and asked him to repeat it to me. Evidently the sensor is covered by their hardware warranty which is one year. The power cable is considered an accessory, and as such only carries a 90 day warranty. He then asked if I would like him to charge the card that is on file, and I responded “absolutely not”. I ended the call rather frustrated to say the least. After stewing over it for a few minutes, I decided to call back and move up the chain. When I explained to the second agent the situation and what I was just told by the prior agent, he apologized and said that it was probably a misunderstanding. So we revisited the issue and he was getting an order set up to send me a replacement cable. Then came the kicker…..”Sir, can I put you on hold for a few minutes?”. When he returned to the line, he said that they would ship a replacement cable out right away. They just needed authorization to charge my credit card in the event that the warranty should turn out to be expired. I reminded him of what the other agent had told me about the warranty difference between the sensor and the power cable, and told him that I was not authorizing any charges whatsoever. He then said that they would not be able to send the cable out because I did not agree to pay the charge. So basically he was using a very underhanded tactic to try and charge me for a replacement cable. I asked to speak to his supervisor. The supervisor pretty much held the same line, that I would not be getting a replacement cable unless I paid $39.95 for it. And he even went as far as to tell me that if he had this issue, then he would have to pay the same $39.95 to replace his cable as well. Seriously?? Look dude, you can crap in a box and slap a Microsoft label on it and I will buy it. But don’t throw a load of BS my way and expect me to accept the situation because you say that you would be in the same boat if you were in my shoes. That kind of stuff is condescending to a customer.
The bottom line in this story is that it is completely asinine to have a peripheral that REQUIRES an external power supply for the XBOX360 Elite that I play on, and that the entire package would have pieces with different warranties. Granted, I can completely understand that an accessory like a controller may not deserve the same one year warranty as a new console. And I can completely understand that if you purchase the XBOX360 Slim bundled with Kinect, the power supply is not included (or necessary) and as such it would be an accessory if purchased separately. However you would think that a company as large as Microsoft, with their very well documented XBOX hardware issues, would want to make sure that hardware issues are handled correctly. A power supply that came included with a standalone Kinect package should be covered by the same warranty that the sensor has. An “accessory” power adapter that can be identified by serial number can be covered by their 90 day accessory warranty. What is really backwards is that support was quoting me $39.95 to replace the cable. The official Microsoft Store is listing the power supply for $34.99. Unfortunately Microsoft is more concerned about my money than taking care of a loyal customer that has an “8″ next to his gamer card on XBOX Live. If you have an older XBOX with a Kinect, be sure to baby your power cable. Evidently it is very fragile. If you don’t have a Kinect yet, don’t buy one unless you have the newer model console.

Capcom revealed some details regarding the party system for the upcoming Dragon’s Dogma. While there is no true co-op in the game, there is a “Pawn” system implemented that sounds pretty cool. The short story is, the main character (no word on whether this person is customizable or not) will have 3 “Pawns” with him. The player will get to customize 1 Pawn who will be at your side at all times. This Pawn will be fully customizable, can be shared online, and will affect the story of the game.

Instead of re-writing the details, I’ll point you to Destructoid’s in depth article on the Pawn system as it is now. Personally, I’m hyped about this game. Here’s hoping implementation is as good as it sounds.

What happens when you mix relationship pressures, infidelity, and supernatural nightmares? If you’re Vincent Brooks, you’re finding out the hard way, and it ain’t pretty. Your days are spent trying to keep your girlfriend Katherine from finding out about your mistress Catherine, while your figure out exactly what you want from a relationship. Your nights are spent simply trying to live to see another sunrise, as you and your fellow stray sheep struggle to not become another statistic of men being found dead in their sleep; their bodies reduced to shriveled hunks of flesh and bone beneath their sheets.

This is the world of Catherine, Atlus’ latest RPG adventure. Its a bizarre mix of anthropomorphic sheep, block towers, life sim, and ghastly supernatural foes. Is this a formula for success, or failure? If you’re so inclined, click the jump for the answer.

Before I get too far, let me make these 2 points. RPGs aren’t a genre I typically play. Valkarie Profile 1 & 2, Jade Empire, Odin Sphere, and Muramasa are the extent of my RPG experience. Point two is there will be no spoilers in this review, so read without worry.

That being said, its my opinion that Catherine may be the most revolutionary RPG I’ve ever played (my limited genre experience a given). Not so much for what the game does, but how it weaves together the key elements that are needed to make a top tier RPG, and presents them to the player.

Lets start with the subject matter. While there have been many RPGs that involve the building of romantic relationships between characters, Catherine is the first I’ve heard of (mainstream console based RPGs anyway) in which the relationship is the focus of the game; specifically the act of infidelity, and its consequences on a relationship make up every aspect of the game. Allow me to try to explain:

In a traditional RPG (Japanese or western), you are given a set of characters. Through the writing in the overarching story, and dialogue during character interaction, a connection is made between the main character, and the supporting cast that draws the player in. As you see bonds solidify or whither between these characters; either by story elements or dialogue choices made by the player, you become vested and involved with those characters. In effect, you come to care about them and how they interact with each other and the world and other characters around them while trying to accomplish whatever the common goal in the RPG is.

The genius behind what Atlus did with Catherine is that they extracted the romantic aspect; common to many modern RPGs–and successfully built an entire game around it. The presentation, writing, and camera work in this game is simply brilliant. The overall story is presented like a late night TV drama presented by the very Foxy Brown inspired Midnight Venus. Though you only really see her at the beginning intro and the end of the game, she has a classic cool 70s vibe that makes you remember her. As Vincent interacts with his friends Johnny, Orlando, Erica, Toby, and various other folks at the Stray Sheep bar (the game’s hub), you feel like a patron overhearing their conversations. Their discussions flow more organically than what I’ve experienced in other RPGs I’ve played. Responses sound like what you’d expect to hear if you were sitting with a group of your long time buddies bs’ing about your problems over a round of drinks.

Another thing about the supporting characters that I love is that they all aid Vincent in different ways emotionally as he deals with the decisions he makes, and their ramifications. Even Katherine and Catherine appeal to both sides of Vincent’s emotional coin; so to speak. Katherine is the attractive, rock-steady girlfriend appealing to Vincent’s desire for stability. Catherine (the woman he cheats with) on the other hand is the somewhat younger “smoking hot” chick. She appeals to Vincent’s emotional desire to be spontaneous, and free spirited. She lives life in a youthful care-free style Vincent emotionally wants to hold on to as he gets older; and she brings that vibrancy to Vincent’s libido as well. What the two have in common is that fidelity is of the utmost importance in a romantic relationship to both of them.

As Vincent chats it up with his buddies and fellow patrons, he’ll receive texts on his cell phone from Katherine and Catherine. As the player selects how Vincent responds to his buddies, and the texts from the women in his life, those responses affect his “morality” meter; for lack of a better description. Those responses (as well as those in the Nightmare world–more on that later) dictate how Vincent responds to Katherine, and Catherine, as he struggles to keep the two of them from finding out about each other and figure what he truly wants from a romantic relationship.

When Vince goes home and falls asleep, he’s sucked into the Nightmare world. All those around him appear as talking sheep. Only Vincent appears human; with sheep horns on his head (there is a reason for that which I won’t reveal). Vincent and his fellow nightmare victims are forced to climb the towers by a supernatural entity in order to earn the right to see another day.

The actual gameplay of Catherine are these Nightmare levels. The towers consist of blocks that Vincent must move in order to progress higher; eventually reaching the top, and escaping the round. As he climbs the blocks below drop to the abyss below so you’re forced to think on your feet. Your nightmare ends with a humongous boss biting at your heels as you climb the final tower for each level. Simply describing the bosses would give away key elements to Catherine’s story, so what I will say is they are some of the most aesthetically bizarre and creepy bosses I’ve ever seen in an RPG. The creativity in the design in some of them made my jaw drop. Bosses add another layer of intense urgency as you try to figure out the towers and escape the level. Their attacks have an area affect that can range from instant death to Vincent, to affecting the properties of the blocks he has to climb.

As Vincent completes each tower, he arrives at a landing. There, he can interact with his fellow Nightmare victims, purchase tower items that aid him as he climbs. Elixers allow Vince to leap 2 blocks at a time during duration. Spell books destroy obstacles in his way, etc. The landings are also where Vincent learns climbing techniques through talking with other sheep. As the towers become more and more complex, all the techniques you learn must be used in order to solve them. The landing is also where Vincent interacts with the supernatural entity responsible for these nightmares. Vincent’s responses to the entity account for a large portion of the affect on Vincent’s moral meter, and how he will respond to Katherine and Catherine in the cut scenes to come. Another cool aspect with this part, is as you answer questions from the entity, you get to see some meta-data pulled from other player responses through PSN (I’m sure it does the same thing on Xbox), and that data is represented as a pie chart as you begin the next level. It has no bearing on your game, but it’s another cool thing this game does.

Therein lies the second half of this game’s genius. Granted climbing and manipulating cubes isn’t anything new in videogames. Games like Q-bert and Intelligence Cube did the same thing in essence years earlier. The brilliance is how well this gameplay mechanic meshes with the subject of the game’s story so perfectly. Vincent spends his waking hours trying to juggle his excuses to hide his infidelity from the two women in his life in order to preserve his relationship, either with Katherine–his girlfriend, or Catherine–his mistress. At night, Vincent is forced to juggle blocks to draw closer to the goal of surviving another night. The symbiotic and analogous relationship between the game’s story and the gameplay is simply; I’ll say it again–brilliant.

Before you decide if Catherine is the game for you, there are a couple you’ll have to consider. At its core, this is a puzzle game with RPG elements, more so than an RPG. Climbing blocks IS the gameplay. You do nothing else but that. The other thing to consider, is that this game is hard. I made the mistake of playing on the normal level. I was able to solve the puzzles on my own up to the 5th level. From then on to the end of the game, I was on YouTube watching the solutions, and trying to copy the block moves verbatim.

If you don’t let those two facts daunt you, what you’ll find is that Catherine delivers a truly adult and mature story. Given the sexual nature of the subject matter, you’ll not find a single bare breast, or exposed butt cheek; contrary to some concerns about the game pre-release, and I think that adds to Atlus’ creative brilliance with this project. They could’ve taken the low road and “pushed the envelope” (a la Duke Nukem: Forever). Instead they put their creative juices to work creating a fantastic story that any adult; wether they’ve dealt with issues of fidelity or not, can relate to.

Give this game a shot. Atlus deserves your hard earned cash with a purchase, but even if you’re still reluctant, at least give it a rent. You’ll be rewarded with a story that will keep you wanting to know what happens next, mind bending gameplay, and a kick-ass soundtrack. “Yo” being my personal favorite. This is a GOTY contender big time.

Grade: A+

The more I see of this game, the more hyped I am for it. Capcom is handling the publishing rights, while the wizards at CyberConnect2 (creators of the fantastic Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series) bring this new IP to life. Awesome looking combat, planet sized bosses, and protagonist who makes Kratos look mild mannered–sign me up. Check out these video trailers from Siliconera.com’s site.

Image from Aeropause.com

Namco Bandai Games dropped a new trailer for their Project Aces developed game Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Seems Tom Clancey-ish, but looks great all the same. You’ll be able to take to the skies on your PS3 and XB360 on October 11th, 2011. Click the GameTrailers jump.

Publisher THQ unveiled a trailer for Relic developed Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Its a visceral 3rd person shooter/action game that looks pretty good. Release date is September 6th, 2011 for PC, PS3 and XB360. Click the GameTrailers link for all the troll giblet goodness.

With Microsoft’s conference, Kinect took center stage. Kinect voice and motion technology was showcased in some impressive games. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Mass Effect 3, and Forza 4 showed some interesting aspects as to how dialogue choices, squad commands, and driver viewpoints could increase immersion experiences in hardcore games with Kinect.

Microsoft wants your Xbox to be the center of your home entertainment as well. Features like LIVE TV will bring live television streaming through your console. One of the more interesting stage demos of LIVE programing was the interaction in UFC LIVE, where it seems like you can place friendly wagers on how a fight will conclude with LIVE friends. Two internet knowns YouTube and Bing are coming to LIVE’s feature set as well.

To satiate the traditional hardcore, an impressive stage demo of the co-op campaign was shown of Gears3, featuring Cliff and Ice-T.

The rest of the show revolved around a bunch of Kinect specific games. It ran the gauntlet from Minecraft to Star Wars; and Kinect Sports 2 to Fable: Journey. Toss in some Dance Central 2, Sesame Street, and Disneyland for good measure, and you have…Disappointment.

I can’t fake the funk. It is HARD to give a fair write-up for something you have little to no interest in. Its a weakness I have as a writer, and I freely admit it. At the risk of being called an Xbox hater, or a Sony fanboy, I’m referring to these posts of the E3 conference events as “impressions” for a reason. I’m using a tiny slice of internet real estate to express my unimportant opinion of what the big 3 are going to leave me with, with regard to desire for their product–and Microsoft left me very little to be desired.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is some serious tech behind the Kinect peripheral. That much is clear. However using it to turn licenses like Fable and Star Wars into little more than fancy rail shooters isn’t the way to showcase the strengths of this device. I don’t think Microsoft themselves know how to harness it yet. The stage demos of Kinect Funlabs points to a vast horizon of gameplay possibilities, but in my opinion, we’re going to have to wait until the next generation of Xbox before we see some truly immersive potentially game changing scenarios for gamers.

This press event showed Microsoft’s game plan clearly. All of the focus is being put toward Kinect, and they are leaving the games to the 3rd party developers. They are resting on their laurels when it comes to the hardcore in my opinion. Aside from Gears 3 and Forza 4, I didn’t see a single traditional core game that couldn’t be found on the Playstation3. Call of Duty is multi-platform. Tomb Raider is multi-platform. Ghost Recon is multi-platform. Mass Effect 3 is multi-platform. Set those 2 titles next to the virtual laundry list of PS3 exclusives coming and my point is made even more apparent.

Its been just about a year since I shed my Xbox360. And to be honest, deep down in my Sony fanboy gut, I was secretly hoping to see a reason to want to jump back on the Xbox juggernaut. While my 6 year old great nephew went crazy over seeing Kinect Disney and Sesame Street, his old, jaded, niche oriented great uncle (me) saw very little to be excited about. Gears 3 looks awesome. Call of Duty looks good too, if I cared about that series. Right now, the only reason for me to get another Xbox would be for Ninja Gaiden 3, and Guardian Heroes; but those will hit PS3 too, and Gears alone isn’t enough to warrant another 360 purchase for me.

I’ll bet that the next iteration of Xbox will yield something special with Kinect, but for right now, I’m looking at PS3, and Vita; with a hopeful interest in Nintendo’s Wii successor.

Grade C-

Well, its been a month and a bit since Portal 2 came out, so I was ready to be wowed again by the second game to drop on my most anticipated list for 2011. Firstly I forgive Rockstar for releasing the game in Australia two days after the US even though it was developed in Sydney, cos I’m just a nice guy, but as I sit here listening to the free Portal 2 soundtrack, it’s kinda apparent that LA Noire didn’t have much of an impact on me. It might be because I’m too dumb, I thought the game was well made, but nothing special. In this article I will go through the negatives I experienced in the game, if people think I’m hating on it then don’t, I’m just going through what I found was wrong. Correct me on it if you want, write your own fanboy article if you want, be my guest.

Before I properly start, this article will judge the game for game’s sake and not on the fact that Rockstar published it or Team Bondi developed it or SCEA originally funded it before Rockstar bought it. That’s just arbitrary, the game is what is actually important about LA Noire.

I played LA Noire on PS3. It took me 24 hrs of game time to get through the main story, play all the Street Crime side missions and achieve 45% trophies (unfortunately including trophies from DLC missions which I can’t get on PSN yet due to the Store still being down).

First up, if you haven’t bought the game and are worried that the game wont look like the screenshots and the trailers, then fear not because it looks just as pretty… Alright that should be enough being nice, time to go nasty.

This game will be great as a present if you know anyone who wants to spend most of the game failing. Even by the end of the game I’d be dished out with 2 stars out of 6 because I failed most interrogation questions. I even knew what I wanted to do in the questions, but picking ‘Lie’ instead of ‘Doubt’ because I misunderstood evidence. I think that happened wayyy too much for me to take it as an error on my part.

It was unclear whether some evidence would be relevant because they don’t note all the details of the pieces of evidence in Phelps’ journal. For example you will find a list of names and Phelps will note it in his journal in a very basic form so when the time comes to interrogate the suspects, it’s difficult which person the list would be relevant to or if it would be relevant to the case at all.

And speaking of names, Team Bondi assumed that my memory was immaculate. I have trouble remembering names in real life, so it doesn’t help that each case in LA Noire requires you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the suspects names, then after the case is over you have to forget them and remember a whole other set of names in the next case. Then they go and make references to previous cases (like during specific Street Crime side-missions) expecting you to remember who people they are out of a collection of at least 50 names and faces from past cases. I just ended up letting it skim over my head as there was no way in the world that seeing a former suspect for 5 seconds was adequate time to remember what he was accused for and which case(s) he was in.

They used ‘revolutionary’ facial capture technology (which everyone would know by now) and assumed that you’d be able to remember faces better that way. I don’t want to sit here and say that it was game that sold entirely on a gimmick alone but, aside from the excellent use of shadows/shadowplay, the facial capture technology was the most impressive part of the game. Plus, I personally don’t think it was a technology properly utilized in the game. To be honest I remember different faces in Final Fantasy 7 for the PS1 better than I can remember and distinguish faces in LA Noire. This probably could have been solved easily by just adding in more close ups of character’s faces which not only familiarize yourself with the character but also enable you to better emotionally relate to them. I suppose they could be excused by saying that their facial models weren’t detailed enough for shots that went any closer than shoulder-to-head, but I’m pretty sure they could have done it.

The hidden vehicles all look awesome and are fast but they aren’t practical because they don’t have a siren or a dispatch radio which, in a game that doesn’t encourage free-roam except for an impossible list of useless collectible film reels, means you wont spend more than a minute enjoying a fancy fast car before ditching it for the stock standard police vehicle. On the topic of sirens, in LA Noire they are pretty much useless if you’re trying to get anywhere fast because 1) traffic stopped at traffic lights will not pull over for you to pass them 2) Moving traffic wont move to the side until the last minute, especially if you are driving fast 3) If you are on the outside lane the moving traffic will still pull over to the side of the road, resulting in them crashing into you 4) cars coming across intersections wont stop or move out of the way also resulting in them crashing into you. In a game that judges you for vehicle damage among other things, that’s a long list of unrealistic elements within the game’s traffic mechanic which shouldn’t have been too hard to get right.

LA Noire claims to be made up of 90% historically accurate buildings. It’s great to see that they are also 90% historically accurately racist toward African Americans and sexist toward women, props to you LA Noire.

Flashbacks seemed like spoilers that dull the main storyline in an attempt to make the game shorter to fit on discs for consoles. They don’t really reveal anything important about the story and just serve as breaks between cases.

Every element in this game that they used just seemed to immerse me less and less emotionally in the story. The game went downhill in the Vice cases after a plot point which stumped me and many other players as to why it happened and what actually happened. For a game that explained everything to the dot, it definitely marked the rest of my experience of the game. I suggest playing the game on repeat during the Homicide missions, which I think is where the game really shined and should have climaxed. Some criticized Portal 2 for being too short, but in my opinion it is the opposite for LA Noire. It will be interesting to see if Rockstar will disown the game as a publisher after the DLC cycle like Bethesda will most probably do with Brink.

Let me know in the comments if you found the same issues as I did, if you think I’m wrong, if I saved you 60 bucks or if this article made you like the game even more because you wanted to decide what you thought about it yourself. Like I said, LA Noire was a decent game, I finished it and the side missions, but I’m just listing the holes I found in the otherwise smooth road. I didn’t mention anything about the graphics or the shooting mechanics because they were good… well the cover system was a little sticky… but the half of the game before you hit Vice was really darn good.

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

The details of Modern Warfare 3 have  been unofficially leaked, according to an article in Kotaku. Activision hasn’t even  released the name  of the upcoming successor in the Call of Duty franchise. The  name, Modern Warfare 3, was part of the leak.  In recent years, the Cod franchise has been the most important franchise in gaming history. Last year’s iteration, Call of Duty: Black Ops  grossed over 1 billion dollars in revenue.

The source of the leak is questionable and Activision is not excluded from the lists of culprits. In the era of the 24 hour news cycle, PR could be the life or death of a game. THQ’s Homefront moved over 1 million units its first week following a successful ad campaign. A great way to generate some  buzz is to unofficially release details of the most anticipated title for 2011. Many of the game’s locales and multiplayer maps have been exposed in a way reminiscent of an official release. Some of the details that were leaked include(don’t worry, I won’t spoil): The single player campaign being rumored to continue after the Russian invasion of America in Modern Warfare II andSpec Ops  receiving new modes. Players can also expect more perks and modes in the multiplayer dept. With the depth of details that were leaked, is this Activision’s way of releasing details and not having to field questions concerning the game? Since the leak was  “unofficial,” this protects IW from any responsibility.  Infinity Ward’s Creative Strategist Robert Bowling clears some of the confusion up on his twitter account.

“A lot of hype & a lot of leaked info on #MW3, some still accurate, some not. To avoid spoiling the experience, I’d wait for the real reveal.”

Or maybe not. But he does concede that some of the details are true.

November is now the month for confetti and party hats, because it is unofficially Call of Duty’s birthday and fans  will line up in droves to buy Modern Warfare 3. With Battlefield 3 stealing the spotlight, this leak seems like an unofficial attempt to turn the spotlight towards Soap MacTavish. EA, like Manny Pacquiao, is challenging MW3 to the ring, but the once great champion, Activision,  has been relegated to unofficially releasing details on how great its next fight is going to be.

Well everyone, Portal 2 was released early for everyone, after a lengthy and slightly unrewarding ARG campaign that all hardcore Valve fans would have had an ear on for a while. Portal 2 is of course the sequel to the Valve tech demo Portal, which ended up being massively successful, and rightly so, it was an ingenious blend of FPS (Except you never shoot a bullet or kill anyone) and puzzles topped off with an immersing story that keeps you on your toes until the very end.

I must say, if you are one of those ten or so people who didn’t like Portal then this isn’t the article for you because, ladies and gentlemen, Portal 2 is definitely worth the hype. I played on the PS3 and have completed the single player campaign that took me 8 or so hours, this article will not spoil any twists or important information that you will come across during the game.

I’ll start by telling you that if you are expecting a ‘jump in and understand’ approach like the first game that was mainly focused on puzzles and a reasonably simple to pick up but boldly portrayed storyline then you might be surprised by the different approach that the sequel takes. It’s very much a cinematic game, more so than I’ve ever played. Ask what I was looking forward to Portal 2 for was and I’d say to get to the bottom of Aperture Science and more tough puzzles – Valve has delivered both of those things, sacrificing very little in the process.

I worried for quite a while that Portal 2 might end up suffering from the same ‘syndrome’ as PixelJunk Shooter 2 or Little Big Planet 2, and just lose a lot of what made it fun to begin with. Let me explain, LBP was a great game for people of any ages, with simple and constant puzzle mechanics that was lots of fun and compelled you to play many times and work hard on getting trophies. LBP2 on the other hand was also fun but lacked the replayability, in my opinion, because it complicated puzzle mechanics beyond the what younger players could grasp. If you tried making games with the LBP2 creator mode, you’d understand what I mean. In LBP you could make levels no matter who you were, but in LPB2 you’d have to be a rocket scientist to work out what all the motherboards and microchips meant. Something that LBP2, PJS2 and Portal 2 shared was an increase in the number of puzzle mechanics which, in the first two games I mentioned, make gameplay very vague and don’t settle to recap what you had just learnt. Portal 2 does not make that mistake though, giving you the exact amount of time to learn about a new mechanic (like Gels that repel or propel or create portal surfaces). All new mechanics have a history that you may choose to learn if you so wish, and usually have three or four chambers or tests of increasing difficulty. Conversely, no mechanic lingers too long, everything is kept fresh and interesting. Also there’s a couple of real mind bending puzzles that you hardcore portalists will enjoy.

Aesthetically, Portal 2 looks brilliant. The opening sequence of the game is jaw-dropping, as the room around you falls apart (and none of the debris ‘fades out’ to compensate for MORE debris). The destruction all the way through the game that happens right before your eyes made me stop many times and have a ‘how did/could they do that?!’ moment. It was reminiscent of when I was younger and had triggered something to happen, I’d just sit back all slack-jawed and just watch hopelessly as the incredible events unfolded. The graphics draw you into the story, making it believable and cinematic. The use of shadows in some parts of the game is a fine drawcard for Portal 2 also. Later in the game the graphics began to look more and more like Portal, but I didn’t mind because the story picks you up and throws you a mile (in a good way).

The story is worthy of Valve’s Half-Life universe, everything is just the way it should be, Chell remains mute and can only be seen through portals and all new characters only add more wonderful layers to the game. I feel that I should reiterate though, the story is unlike Portal, there are a few plots throughout the game that are played separately, so dropping in as an outsider in a later level would be confusing. But that said, when played start to finish the story is possibly even better than the original, with plot twists left right and centre. First game in a few years to make me properly laugh and also properly cry (Not ashamed to admit, it did make me cry..at the end…for a little bit). One notable segment of the game is like a live-in history book where you learn everything you’ll ever need to know about Aperture Science, GLaDOS and the other characters of Portal 2 who shall remain nameless. If you are expecting to learn lots about other things like Black Mesa or Gordon Freeman or the Combine, squash those expectations because this game has the same amount of crossover as the first Portal game. Probably the best way to describe it without spoiling anything would be a good movie sequel of the original, it’s very cinematic. If you play Portal 2 and you aren’t a crazy fan like me and you feel a little dissapointed, trust me, at the end everything is all worth it. All I’ll say about the end is that it finishes one story and begins another that will leave you thinking, ‘thank you Valve for not doing like other games do and leave the ending open for another pocket-pinching trilogy’.

I would suggest playing the single player campaign first before the co-op if you are one to keep the story arc in tact (The multiplayer happens chronologically after the single player has finished), I haven’t played any coop yet so I’m not sure how much from the single player campaign will be revealed, if valve is sensible (which they usually are) then probably not much.

So save up your pennies/dollars/rupees and grab yourself a copy of Portal 2, this game will not disappoint. If you have a PS3 I suggest you get Portal 2 for it instead of the Xbox 360 (the old news that you can play using Steam on the PS3 against PC and Mac players and with the PS3 copy you get a code for a free PC and Mac copy). And make sure you play Portal before this because there’s a lot you wont understand if you play Portal 2 first. Watch out all-other-games-being-released-this-year, Portal 2 might just be the one that bowls you all over.

That’s all I’ll say for now, please feel free to comment on this article, let me and everyone at GamerHusbands Radio know what YOU think as well because, lets be honest, everyone has an opinion.

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Capcom’s Captivate 2011 kicked off in Miami today, and while all of information hasn’t come out as of this article’s writing, what has been revealed is extremely enticing. Capcom seems to be sticking to their strengths–namely fighting (the genre they pioneered as far as I’m concerned) and action games–specifically, brawlers. Yess!!! Click the jump to check out the luscious hype.

Street Fighter x Tekken: This game is looking really good. Gameplay showcases characters some additional characters to the roster, including Ken, Abel, and Guile from the SF camp, and Bob, Murdock, and King from camp Tekken. One of the stages shown seems to be from one of Dino Crysis games showing two Alosaurus observing the fight–practically cheering as Guile and Abel go heads up with King and Murdock. It would be reasonable to assume that this game will have a slightly less serious edge than SSF 4. Then again, SSF4 does have a stage where you fight in front Hippos and Merecats…so who’s to say. Regardless, the tab based gameplay looks sick, and I can’t wait to play it. No release date as of yet. Check out Gamepro for video.

SSF 4: Arcade Edition: Speaking of StreetFighter, some details regarding the home versions of SSF4: Arcade Edition were revealed. Aside from Yun, Yan, Evil Ryu, and Oni Akuma, you’ll get the re-balances (or nerfs–depending on how you view what they did to your character of choice) to the original roster. Also, they’ve tweaked the online features too. You’ll be able to upload and send your replays to your friends, and you’ll have access to something called “Elite Channel”. As described, its a Twitter-like feature that allows you to follow top tier online players who have accumulated over 3000 battle points, and will even update you when they update new replays. [Update: Destructoid has reported Arcade Edition’s release dates. For those who have SSF4, AE will be available as DLC on June 7th on PSN and XBLA for $14.99. A retail disc of AE will drop on June 24th, and a PC version will hit later this year. For those concerned, those who have the update will still be able to play online with those who don’t. Day 1 Confirmed.]

Dragon’s Dogma: A real slick looking new IP, that seems to be set in the middle ages, where dragons are taking over. Its a 3rd person action game where you, as a human warrior take on these humongous creatures. In the gameplay trailer, an archer, swordsman, and magic user are showcased. I don’t know if you can chose to play as multiple characters, or if you get to choose a class i.e. Dragon Age. Some of the enemies you’ll encounter look like they could have been pulled from the Monster Hunter series. A giant Griffin, and a village crushing multi-headed serpent were shown. A vague release date of “Early 2012” was given, so hopefully the end of the world will hold off long enough for this title to hit the shelves. This game has two individuals of note at it’s creative helm: Hiroyuki Kobayashi, the producer of Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 4, as well as Hideaki Itsuno, who directed Devil May Cry 3, and 4. Based on that pedigree, if anyone can pull the necessary gameplay elements together, its them. Gamepro has trailer video.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record: This DLC brings Frank West into the game as the main character with the focus being, what he would have done differently had he been in Fortune City when the zombie outbreak occurred. Based on the trailer Frank will have his hands full of zombie shenanigans; including in an extreme wrestling match. For some reason, I just could never get into the Dead Rising series, but Capcom deserves props for keeping the series fresh with DLC as opposed to annual retail releases. No release date was given.

Asura’s Wrath: I have a rule when it comes to new releases: Never get too hyped over CG trailers. It could be smoke and mirrors for a crappy game. However, Asura’s Wrath’s trailers makes this a really hard rule for me to adhere to. If the actual gameplay is just a fraction as good as the trailers shown, brawler fans are going to be in for a real treat. Some of your enemies are bigger than planet Earth–and–if the trailers are to be believed, you actually fight them. I have hypefaith because, while Capcom is publishing the game, it is the mighty studio of CyberConnect2 (creators of the woefully under rated Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series–if you haven’t played those games, you should) who did the code work. According to a GameTrailers interview with Producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, you play the role of Asura, a demigod who is betrayed by the pantheon of gods who protect the Earth when they take his daughter away from him, and banish him to Earth’s realm. According to Kazuhiro, gameplay and story will be the driving forces behind this brawler, and I can’t wait to get my hands on this game. Asura’s anger is an important element to the gameplay apparently. The angrier he gets, the more options are available to him to deal out violent revenge to minion and boss alike. Kinda’ like Hulk I guess…Asura smash!! No release date info on this one either.

I’ve always been a Capcom fan, but this company–more so than any other developer recently, has more games that tickle my niche brawler/fighter funnybone than any other. First was Super Streetfighter 4, Marvel vs Capcom3, and now this lineup…If Capcom can nail the gameplay elements (and it looks like they have the right folks involved to do it) they will have sure fire AAA titles for 2011-2012. If these games are top notch, I hope the west can pull itself away from the latest FPS du jour, long enough to give these games a shot. Hopefully more info will drop on these titles as E3 approaches, but until then Capcom, I’m officially on your hype-train.

Blog Image from Gamepro

For some reason unbeknown-st to the gaming community, 2k games decided not to run one of their adds featuring Serena Williams and an un-named actress. Now, to be fair, this stuff happens all of the time for various reason. Games cut out sections and re-release them later as downloadable content. Advertisers make multiple commercials-ads and targets specific demographics. Not all commercials make it to the public. People shouldn’t begin demanding a witch trial for 2 scantily clad women using the move controller. This is nothing more than a Victioria’s Secret commercial with a video game backdrop.

Its been about 11 years since since Marvel vs Capcom 2 first debuted on Sega’s Dreamcast. Now, Capcom has dropped the next game in the Vs series of fighters. Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds attempts to take what worked in MvC 2, tweak the combat system, and wrap it up in a modified Street Fighter IV graphics engine. Did it work? Will it attract new gamers to the franchise? Will you be doomed to endure Storm, Cable, and Sentinel matches online? Hit the jump to find out.

Let me get this part out of the way first. I’ll stack my knowledge base of brawler genre mechanics against anybody. Not so with fighting games. While fighting games are my second favorite genre, I am by no means a Shoryuken.com-like thesaurus on fighting genre mechanics. My tournament experience began and ended with local Street Fighter II arcade tourneys in the early 90s; an EVO contestant I am not–so keep that in mind for this review.

First, the basics: MvC3 involves 3 on 3 2D fighting like its predecessor. While your controlled character is on screen, you can summon your two team mates for assist attacks that can extend your combos, and set up your opponent Hyper combos. Each team has a Hyper meter that holds up to 5 bars. Once filled, you can execute your character’s Hyper combo moves to deal out heavy damage to your opponent. The combat system uses light, medium, and heavy attack buttons; 2 assist buttons, and one “special move” button which is basically a launcher that sends your foe into the air for aerial combo fun.

MvC3 has a roster of 33 characters (35 if you downloaded Jill Valentine and S. Gorath), and the one thing has become crystal clear after spending a considerable amount of time with the game. That being, all of the characters, in that the entire roster of fighters feel competent. While MvC2 had a ton of what I would consider throw away characters in its 50+ roster, every character in MvC3 has a move set that makes them more than a contender in the right hands. Granted, Sentinel is still an overpowered robot beast, and forums are filled with hate for Phoenix, but for the most part, I think every character has a shot at being a match winner. As far as I’m concerned there isn’t a throw-away in the bunch.

Once I settled on a button config for my arcade stick (I went on Youtube and found one that worked best for me), I found combat to be easy to grasp. Characters like Wolverine and X-23 are combo centric, while Thor and Hulk rely on strong normals linked to hyper combos to deal damage. The system works for me, and I was able to grasp some intricacies of it quickly. No FADCs here–its all about simple, quick inputs.

Speaking of getting a grasp on the game, the Mission Mode is a great way to get an idea of what a character is capable of. Mission Mode involves taking you through some basic moves of a character and quickly ramping up to multi hit air combos. You’ll probably want to pull your hair out trying to complete the more complex combos, but my focus was on observing how certain moves affect an opponent. For example: Wolverine (one of my mains) can follow up his Drill-claw with a dive kick which causes ground bounce. You can bring in a team assist for extra damage and hyper combo set up, or re-launch the opponent for a continued aerial assault. Mission Mode is filled with little nuggets of information that is applicable in real matches.

Where MvC3 falls a little short are the online assets. While Capcom raised the bar with Spectator Mode for SSFIV, you will find no such assets here. While two people do battle, the rest are left to chat in the lobby awaiting their turn. If you’re playing a friend online, you’re unable to do a quick rematch. Yet, when doing random online games, you have the option to do an immediate rematch. Right now, the best way to play online is to jump into training mode, and set fight request to on, set the parameters, and let the game put you in a match.

If you’re new to the Vs series, or new to fighting games in general, give Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds a shot. Combat mechanics are simple, yet deep–and the game is straight up fun. The hardcore vets from MvC2 may disagree. In my opinion, this is a better game than its predecessor simply because of the viability of the entire roster. The team variety encountered online, and observed in high level tournaments is proof of that. Online isn’t as robust as it should be, but it does work. I’ve had no lag issues. Bottom line: I’m giving this game an A-. Its a title definitely worth your time and money.

Thought I might share my 2011 (or as I like to call it ‘year of the games I really want’) list I want to place in my permanent ‘care’ this year, share a bit of my fanboy love of serieses (or is it serii?) and brand new innovations that really caught my eye.

Quick note: Some of these are PS3 exclusive, but the majority will please everyone

Resistance 3
Resistance 3 Trailer

Welcome back to Insomniac Games’ alternative history WWII game that introduced me personally, with a handshake and a Hedgehog Grenade, to online multiplayer. Slightly disappointing that they would decide to make their teaser trailers in live action (like the Halo franchise did once I believe), but the idea of this game is fresh. At the end of Resistance 2, something major happens which I shouldn’t really disclose that basically ends this World War, and Resistance 3 is essentially the aftermath of the battle. Judging by what it looks like, you are following the story of Joseph Capelli from Resistance 2 (my description of him if you don’t know who I’m talking about is “the guy who you don’t really care about but comes up and does something pretty badass at the end of R2″) something happens to his wife and he’s sad. He’s joined by the strange little Russian scientist Dr Malikov, and they do something that involves somehow killing Chimera even though you’ve already rendered them harmless by killing their leader in R2. Anyway, even if the “Half-Life 2″ inspired campaign bites, I’m still looking forward to the multiplayer with it because Resistance games are pretty much the best you can get for PS3 exclusives at the moment

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Cinematic Trailer

I’ve not played any of the previous games but from what I’ve read/watched/heard, it looks to be a graphically stunning, non-buggy version of Fallout 3/New Vegas

Portal 2
Portal 2 Gameplay Trailer

The puzzler and tech demo turned amazingly successful game finally returns with new puzzles and ways of solving them. The best way I can describe what I think Portal 2 will be like is the way LBP2 took away the child-achievable level of puzzles of LBP by complicating them. Since it’s not a kids game it should add up to being the hardest and most rewarding puzzle game you’ll gain access to this year, that’s why it’s a must-get for me. Well, that and PS3s are getting SteamCloud support and PC/PS3 crossplatform multiplayer

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath
Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath Original 2005 Trailer

I didn’t have an original Xbox so I missed the follow up games of Abe’s Exoddus and Abe’s Oddysee set in the Oddworld universe. Those games would be Munch’s Oddysee and Stranger’s Wrath. The latter would have to be one of the games I really wished I had the original Xbox for, but luckily for me Just Add Water are rejiggering and rereleasing on the PSN and maybe XBLA if Microsoft raise their size limit above 2GB. Also, Abe’s Exoddus is also being rereleased as a HD side-scroller copy of the original

Dead Island
Dead Island Trailer

The trailer was shown to me recently, and it was so emotive that if you think you wont want to buy this game after seeing it, then you are truly mad. Very pretty looking game originally set to be released in 2008, is now arriving this year. It apparently is a solely melee zombie game

L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire Facial Tech Demonstration

Seriously, when the facial recognition tech is put into operation in May with this game, I’d find it hard to believe many developers would be able to go without it. Gameplay-wise it sounds like Blue Toad Murder Files but not a piece of absolute scat

Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII Extended Trailer

Almost definitely not coming out this year, but it probably should if Square knows what’s good for them. It’s Final Fantasy, but not as you’ve ever known it

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Two Worlds II will grab a club and beat you over the head with it for the first couple hours, then it drops the club and starts hitting you with a pillow. Translation :: You will be completely lost for the first hour or so and say “This has to be the worst game ever made.” Then after you figure out what all the buttons do and how to read your map (there is no in-game legend), you have fun with the game play but the terrible character animations, poor voice acting and terrible user interface still grate on you. Read on to find out what I do and don’t like about the game.

Although there are a lot of bad things to be said about this game, let’s start with the good. It is very addictive and is a great loot gathering game. The story is not bad but I think they could have used a little prologue in the beginning to refresh people on what happened in the first game. Should you buy it? I would wait until it is cheaper, say around $30 or less, before buying it. I would recommend renting it or trying a friend’s copy before you buy it. Renting it will not allow you to play completely through the game however as I had about 25 hours of game play in it by the time I finished the single player story. I did do a lot of side quests as well so I would say there is probably about 30-40 hrs of game play at most not including multiplayer. Renting the game will allow you to get a feel for what it is like as long as you stick with it for a few hours. As far as multiplayer goes, I cannot speak to that as I did not play. I know you are probably thinking “how can he review a game when he doesn’t even play the complete game?” and I would totally agree. But I am not rating the game based on multiplayer, I am simply writing my review of the game from a single player standpoint.

One of the things I mentioned was the story. I think they should have done a little more in the way of a opening video or even some sort of text at the beginning of the game to refresh people’s minds on the first game. As this is a true sequel, the story somewhat hinges on what you did in the previous game. It takes place five years after the first game ended and you have been imprisoned by the emperor. A group of orcs help you escape and this is where the game really opens up. The first hour or two of the game is just like a giant tutorial on how combat works and all that good stuff. After you get done exploring the first small island you start on, you get access to the teleporter on one of the larger islands so you can start adventuring on your own. One nice thing about this game, you can teleport from anywhere you have a clear line of sight to the sky. Basically, anywhere that is not in a building or dungeon. Similar to Oblivion, after you get onto the bigger island, you are welcome to start exploring on your own or continue the quest. However, one MAJOR drawback to this is that enemies are not leveled to your character so you could wander across a giant ant that kills you in one hit when you were just looking to slay some ostriches. It is recommended that you follow the story or do a lot of side quests because it will keep you on par with the level you are supposed to be for the next area.

Now, about that loot gathering. This game has more loot than I have seen in a long time. If you walk into a Varn encampment and slay everything you see, you will end up with a bunch of weapons and shields that you can break down to upgrade your current equipment. There are also lots of chests and houses to be looted if you have the patience to sit through the cumbersome task that is lock picking. The lock picking mini game is not hard by any means but if you’re not quick with your fingers it can be frustrating. You have the option to try and hit the lock with your weapon to break the lock which is nice but it only works some of the time. Your character has to swing the weapon just right so it does not hit the wall behind the chest. It can take as much time trying to hit the lock as it does to just do the mini game Loot in the game is also randomized (I found out by accident) so if you want to roll the dice and reload your last save you can try to get something better. Another thing to remember is to always break down your armor and weapons that you aren’t going to use. Don’t sell them for money as you probably aren’t going to need a lot of money and you get enough from quests to cover what you will need. It is always better to break the loot down into components so you can upgrade your own weapons/armor.

And now we come to the bad parts of the game. I didn’t want to start off with this because I didn’t want to completely turn you off to the game before you saw some things you might like. The character animations in the first hour will have you trying to figure out what the person who made them was smoking at the time. They try to make the characters seem life like and not just stationary objects by making them shift their weight and move their arms but it makes them look really stupid. Your character will make a statement yet shrug his shoulders like he was asking a question. It’s very bizarre to see. The voice acting also doesn’t do much to help it either as the main character has a very stale and unemotional voice. Graphically speaking, the game is average at best. I have seen much sharper and cleaner looking images in other titles. The camera angles frustrated me at times but for the most part I did not have any issues with that aspect of the game. Sound in the game is hit and miss. Sometimes one person in the conversation will speak so softly you reach to turn up the stereo and then the next person talks and it just about blows the speakers. There are many areas in this game that just seem unfinished and unpolished for the most part and unfortunately it’s the areas that you see the most of like graphics and sound.

I figured I would save my biggest complaint for last and here it is. There is no in game manual or map legend of any kind. It took me several hours to figure out what the heck I was doing and how to access certain parts of combat. After you figure it out, it’s rather intuitive but it’s trying to figure it out that is the issue. As far as the map legend goes, there is one in the game manual that comes in the case but who wants to pull out the manual just to figure out what they are looking at in the game. It should be on the map itself or at least have a button that let’s you toggle the legend on and off. Also, the default setting for items and such is to have pictures next to it instead of text. For instance, let’s say you look at the stats for your sword. It will show a picture that looks like the tip of a sword with a number next to it, then below that, it will have several other pictures that you have no idea what they mean. After a while, you start guessing and figuring it out but it just seems to me that there should be a better way of handling it. About 15 hours into the game I found an option in the settings that allowed you to change those pictures to text and that helped tremendously because you were no longer guessing at what that particular picture might represent. One reason it is so confusing is because that same picture of a sword tip shows up in your armor stats as well and also on your bow and arrow. The picture in the sword stats and bow and arrow stood for “slash damage” but in the armor it meant “slash defense.” I know that sounds simple but that is just one example I could think of.

In conclusion, the game is OK but I would wait a while before picking it up as I don’t think that it has the level of quality that warrants a $60 game. I enjoyed my time with it after I got past the first few hours and it really did start to grow on me. If they make a third one they have several areas they need to improve on but I think they are headed in the right direction. Better voice acting, character animations and a few other changes would go a long way towards making this a good game. I also think there should be some sort of way to know what kind of enemy you are going up against because, as it stands, you don’t know if you can defeat an enemy until you hit it for the first time to see how much damage you do to it. By this time, you are already in its striking distance as well and it will probably kill you in one hit. I can’t stress enough how frustrating this game can be in the beginning though. It’s almost not worth trying to play through it but like I said, it does get entertaining after you figure everything out.

Some of you may be looking forward to playing Dead Space 2, some may be cuteing it up in Little Big Planet 2, some might be looking for some thrills in the Killzone 3 Beta, but me? I’m looking forward to next week’s release of the Double Fine downloadable game Stacking, a stealth/class based action adventure about a Russian Doll trying to rescue his family.
If you weren’t keeping tabs, this is the second of four planned downloadable games from Double Fine that was to be the alternative to a sequel to Brutal Legend, which I thought was a good game but didn’t definitely need a sequel. This series of new games has sated my need for Tim Schafer’s quirky comedy games while also putting a different designer at the helm of each of the four games to be released. I’ve been a fan of downloadable games since I got my PS3 and realised the online games were soo cheap. Right up my alley.

Now, this post is obviously not a review of Stacking, since it isn’t out yet, so what could you possibly read in this post? How about my opinion of the first of the four games (Costume Quest), and maybe chuck in a bit of a glimpse DeathSpank 1 & 2? Ok then, you’ve got yourself a deal!

Costume Quest was released Halloween last year which is an indication to the theme of the game. It’s a story about a cute brother and sister who aren’t too happy about being forced into each other’s company by their parents during the trick or treat festivities in the neighbourhood. The story unfolds as a cutesy but not too sweet tale of teenagers raiding stores and kidnapping whichever sibling you chose NOT to play as at the start of the game. They aren’t actually teenagers in the game, they are mystical trolls and crows, but it is assumed they are teenagers from the perspective of a child’s over-imagination and adventurisation (if that’s a real word) of the game.
The gameplay is in the form of a turn-based RPG with the mechanics pretty much like a Final Fantasy, you see the enemy on the screen and when approached a separate battle sequence is initiated. In Costume Quest when a battle is encountered, the child (and later when you find companions, children) transforms into an awesome version whatever costume they are wearing – which makes things more bearable for the men out there to keep their machismo in check. There are plenty of costumes to pick up and battles don’t get tedious. The combination of costumes and ‘battle stamps’ give your characters powers that would be best described as picking character classes in a more tweakable way. For example, if you dress up as the jack-o-lantern (high attack power) you’d be wise to pair it with a counter-attack battle stamp which would make battles much faster and more efficient. Strategy aside, when in battle you are required to press a corresponding button/buttons/stick rotation (depending on the costume) to deal the maximum damage or defend against the maximum damage dealt by the enemies. This is a fresh addition to the turn-based RPG genre and creates more of a challenge, less of a button mash, and more fun for the kids (That’s if you let them play, since you’ll be too busy playing it yourself)
I thought Costume Quest was a lot of fun for little money, would be good for kids or hardcore gamers wanting a little time playing a reasonably challenging game with a child-like quality and trick-or-treat nostalgia. It’s been bug free since day one like most DL games available which is a plus. Costume Quest has no voice acting, so if you were planning on spending a sleepy/inebriated night looking at pretty colours and following forgivable quicktime event battles you should be prepared to do a bit of reading, or a bit of skipping dialogue which is a viable alternative. The only concern I had was after I played it once there was no reason for me to ever boot it up again, which is something DL game developers still haven’t worked out a solution to yet.

DeathSpank! From the name you can tell you’re in for a wild ride, and with the brain of Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island (I’ll promise to stop talking about that LucasArts piece-of-wonder after this post) your bound for a funny and completely customisable Diablo alternative. For a bit of money and a bit of gigabyte you get plenty of jokes, charm, action, character and undergarments.
DeathSpank and Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue (essentially episode one and two of the same game) are two action adventure slasher stories about a knight who loves to kill things in the name of Justice, and with the guidance of the mysterious Sandy, he goes about making the world a better place, one town at a time. It’s a mildly open world game at times and the quest system is good until you run out of quests. The weapon selection system is reasonable in getting you to use a variety of ranged, melee and thrown weapons in combat. The variety of weapons is also tremendous, you’ll spend most of your time picking out your best gear and thwarting enemies until you are strong enough to wear that even better and interestingly-titled armour you have been eyeing off since you picked it up an hour ago. Other things to look forward to is two player co-op with a Steve the Wizard obsessed with his own name or Tanko the man-spider, the presence of voice acting (!), top shelf – usually toilet – humour and fun, balanced combat that won’t make you cringe with difficulty or pout from easiness.
I’ll stop there to keep this review short and sweet, you can all shuffle off and read some more about DeathSpank elsewhere if this has tickled your fancy. Heck, maybe you’ll even buy it, stranger things have happened.

Stacking IGN Trailer

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Firstly, hi! This is my first post on GHR, I’m still learning how to write gaming reviews, so I hope you find it a little interesting

During last year on the PSN (and other systems/see below), the classic point-and-click adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island was born again as a HD remake. I wasn’t born when it was first out, so this release was great for me. I played them as if it was a new game. Of course going online to work out solutions that stumped me isn’t the best idea of fun for most people (although try and tell me you didn’t when going for 100% on Arkham Asylum once or twice). The creators of Monkey Island, Ron Gilbert (DeathSpank & HotHead designer), Tim Schafer (Double Fine creator) and Dave Grossman (Telltale designer) made Monkey Island and other games like Manic Mansion which was the first computer game I had ever played. They were employed by LucasArts when they used to make good games that weren’t star wars related. Monkey Island indirectly gave birth to many games that I consider at the front of the ‘comedy’ video game genre

In this article I want to share my experience with the first HD remake I had played and the first of the emerging platform of ‘episodic’ downloadable games of companies Telltale and Relentless
Haven’t done my research but The Secret of MI might actually have been the first HD remake of any game, and if not it would have to be one of the first. The original trio were in on the remake, creating a genuine experience of the original. Hardcore fans might have been put off by the inclusion of voice acting, but at any time the option to switch to ‘classic mode’ (the original untouched game) was available at any time. I chose to play in the new mode, which included the original detailed concept artwork put into the game to replace the original 1990 blocky representation of that artwork. It’s a beautiful looking game, and for a PC conversion played on my PS3 the controls weren’t just ported, the control scheme was custom fitted to console. I could tell a lot of love went into this game as everything was completely remade graphically while remaining faithful to the original dialogue and storyline. When Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge was inevitably remade and released I got it day one. The game was even better looking (near 3D appearance of the upgraded 2D artwork) than The Secret of MI and the story and dialogue was the same as the original sequel. I happily completed the game three times, first for the first play, second for the developer commentary (with the original trio) and third for 100% trophies.

Some criticize HD remakes for being a money grabbing scheme, I criticize most games of this generation for being too short or too pricey or both. With remakes (20 years old or 5 year old, doesn’t matter) they are cheap as chips and are the original length of that game, which is longer than a brand new game, plus they usually come as the whole series. I’m looking forward to getting more HD remakes soon (sly collection, ISO collection, Stranger’s Wrath) because not only are they cheap from day one, the originals are highly rated and include all the original games, not just one.

Now, I’ll take a turn tell you about the new episodic style games emerging recently due to the internet being able to deliver full games to your house instantly, no fuss. Telltale would be the most prominent developer of this genre, with Sam & Max, Monkey Island, the current Back to the Future and the future Jurassic Park under it’s belt of game/movie inspired episodic games. I have played Tales from Monkey Island by Telltale Games on the PS3. My main criticism of episodic games overall is they cost too much for what they’re worth. I purchased Blue Toad Murder Files for the PS3 at the same time (which is a dog’s breakfast of a game for any price) and was surprised they passed that little bit of average content for the same price as a disc-based game that’s been out for the same time. Tales of Monkey Island was worth the pricetag though. I wasn’t going all Monkey fanboy on it unless the price was right, and during the PSN christmas sale, it was.
I began playing it not too long ago but it was around 6 or 7 months after I had played the HD remakes of MI. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a game made by a different company and with only one of the original creators. ToMI is a 3D adventure game in the style of Monkey Island, retaining it’s dialogue choices and interaction with people and items. If you are looking for a flashy Unreal Engine game you won’t find it here, the graphics are cheerily cartoony and reminiscent of the Monkey Island HD remakes. In fact at some points when playing ToMI I forgot the first two I’d played were 2D. I made sure to play each episode over different days to give me a break as if I were playing it during the first release.
My impressions of the game were at first a little underwhelming. The first episode set the scene and had simpler puzzles compared to the original games. It was like watching part 1 of the new Harry Potter. Upon the second episode though, I was engrossed in the story and the game, it’s puzzles picked up the original ‘check the internet when you get stuck’ difficulty. The third episode flowed on all the way to the fifth and final episode, the game full of twists and turns that didn’t make you feel annoyed that maybe Telltale were trying to push out another episode by adding an unnecessary obstacle. ToMI isn’t a game made for kids but it is kid friendly, there are dark elements streaked through the story like death and a tad of dismemberment. Of course I don’t mean that MI had gone for a God of War hack and slash, it still retained the original game’s quality of no combat all puzzles. Like truly great puzzle game should be, it didn’t make you feel like you were playing a game that heaps of people had solved before and the game doesn’t play exactly the same each time (the dialogue changes by your choosing) it feels like you are blazing your own trail and that feeling is what got me hooked on Adventure games and Manic Mansion all those years ago.

This has been my journey through DL HD remakes and episodic games…how appropriate, you fight like a cow

Games in this article:

Tales of Monkey Island (PSN, XBL, PC) 14.45 (AUS Christmas Pricing) check your PSN, XBL or Telltale website for your country pricing, Australian pricing is usually around 5 dollars more than US

The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition (PSN, XBL, PC, iOS), Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (PSN, XBL, PC, iOS) 23.95 bundle (AUS) check your PSN, XBL, Steam or iTunes Store for your country pricing
Blue Toad Murder Mystery Files (PS3, PC) 19.95 (AUS Christmas Pricing) Check your PSN or bluetoadmurderfiles.co.uk for your country pricing – although I suggest you don’t buy this game without researching about it first

More of my reviews/ideas/thoughts/bizarre at twitter.com/warmanator

Mankind has devastated itself in a nuclear holocaust. The large cities, and rural communities that once dotted the globe have been reduced to burnt husk ruins. Seas have evaporated, and cruel desert climates now cover most of the earth.

Though pushed to edge of self extinction, mankind has begun to reclaim the earth; struggling to find sources of food and water, and re-establish civilization. Out of the chaos, masters of secret and incredibly powerful martial arts –unknown to society before the war– have come to the forefront in this post-apocalyptic world. Some oppress the weak and force their demented will on others; while other masters use their power to help and defend their fellow human beings. This is the world Kenshiro – sole heir and master of the power martial art Hokuto Shinken finds himself; as he struggles against impossible odds to defend the oppressed, and those he loves in Koei’s brawler Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage.

In general, I’m not typically a fan of Koei’s versions of the brawler genre–which, in the light of the global appeal of the Dynasty Warriors series–has become a sub genre in its own right. I wasn’t expecting too much when I bought the game, but I love the Fist of the North Star license (anime and manga) and decided to take a chance. In short, I was–surprised with the title. To find out if its worth your time and money, click the jump.

For those who may not be familiar, a Koei brawler typically consists of the following elements: 1 overpowered player controlled character, accompanied by an army of useless computer controlled troops, going against an army of equally useless enemy forces, with a handful of overpowered bosses sprinkled around the battlefield for good measure. This is the basic formula for Dynasty Warriors / Devil Kings titles. Personally, I find the combat too simple and uninspired. The enemy AI is all but non-existent, and boss battles can be frustrating due to poor camera controls.

Koei addresses most of these issues in Ken’s Rage. It’s probably due to the fact that Koei merged with Tecmo back in 2009. While this game by no means a Ninja Gaiden, it is a substantial improvement in Koei’s traditional brawler formula. Enemies have slightly better AI, and will attempt to surround and overwhelm you. Enemies that attack with ranged weapons will often try to keep you at a distance. Sub-bosses require you to vary your combos, and boss enemies can be quite challenging.

Combat is still simple. Your combo tree doesn’t change at all during the game. You pretty much have access to all your offensive and defensive moves from the beginning. But as you power up your character via the Maridian Chart (I’ll get to that latter) those same combos become more powerful by adding additional moves, or increased Hokuto Shinken affects. For example: square, square, triangle is Kenshiro’s basic crowd control move. As you power up, a groin kick, and a more powerful Hokuto Shinken energy wave erupts killing lesser enemies, and putting stronger ones in a stunned state.

Battle points are earned on the battlefield. As you defeat enemies, you pick up points in the form of karma orbs. You have opportunities to earn bonus points by completing small sub-campaigns. It could be defending villagers caught on the battlefield, or preventing enemy forces from advancing to a certain way-point. Upon completing a mission, you have the opportunity to spend those points on the Maridian Chart. Basically, you can unlock passive and active abilities by linking them to your Harmonic Center. The more points you have, the more abilities you can link, thereby increasing your power. Everything from your health and spirit bar, to your boss destroying Aura Attacks are unlocked via Maridian.

Speaking of Aura Attacks, these are the game’s crowd killing and boss weakening attacks. Max out and activate you spirit gauge and press circle, and your character will devastate everything onscreen. Certain bosses are weaker against certain Aura Attacks than others. You notice this by seeing a pattern of seven stars that sometimes appears over a stunned boss. If you’ve unlocked that corresponding AA, you can really make quick work of a boss.

Playable characters are divided into three camps: Hokuto, Nanto, and Warrior. Characters like the main Kenshiro, use Hokuto, which focuses on setting your opponent up for strong devastating attacks. Nanto characters like Rei us Nanto which depend on timed quick attacks. Warriors like Mamiya depend on ranged weapons like bows and crossbows. While the difference in gameplay isn’t as varied as it sounds, I do appreciate some of the subtle differences. For example, when using Rei, timed strikes in the form of QTEs appear mid-combo. There is no penalty for missing it really, but in latter missions when enemies surround you more robustly, those QTEs are crucial for crowd control.

As you play through the story in Legend mode, you unlock characters to play in Dream mode (also where 2 player couch co-op is accessed), enemies and allies alike. In dream mode, you can play through certain levels and events not necessarily experienced by the main character. Its a cool feature and really adds to the re-playability of the game.

On the downside of things, graphics are a bit of a mixed bag. While main characters, enemies, NPC allies, and bosses are nicely rendered, the environment is bland. If it weren’t for the on screen battle map, it would be difficult to determine if you were headed in the right direction, as color palettes, and environmental objects repeat a lot. The camera is still a bit of an issue; especially when fighting in a confined space like a room or an alley–though not nearly as bad as Koei’s previous Dynasty Warriors efforts.

The one thing that can be a little frustrating is finishing off a boss. Once a boss’ energy is depleted, you have to finish him off with an Ultimate Aura Attack, by inputting the button strings that appear onscreen. That in and of itself isn’t so bad, but–the stronger the boss, the longer the UAE button string. Goof on the input, and the boss gains a certain amount of energy back, and you have to beat him down AGAIN. Some of those boss battles are tough, and there’s nothing worse than getting killed because you messed up on some Simon inspired QTE.

Another thing thats not so hot is the music soundtrack. It sounds like some ‘90s heavy metal guitar riff, and there’s only 2 or three songs that re-play to the point of noxiousness.

Bottom line: I’m giving this game a B+. If you are not a fan of traditional Koei brawlers like me, you’ll love the Tecmo inspired improvements to the combat (I hope Koei sticks to this improved formula for Dynasty Warriors 7). A good friend of mine who is also a rabid fan of the Dynasty Warriors series really liked the brawler tweaks made in this game, so this game should also sit well with Koei purists. If you’re unfamiliar with the Fist of the North Star license, but enjoy 3rd person brawlers give this game try. There’s just something satisfying about beating up a bunch of thugs to the point that their bodies explode.

Oh yeah–speaking of that, this one definitely not one for the kiddies. Enemies contort as they fill with Hokuto and Nanto aura energies as you attack until they explode like flesh balloons filled with red food coloring. Sometimes you can knock someone inside out, which is really fun. Its not as gross as it sounds, but it is rated M for a reason. Give the game a shot. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Just in case you were on the fence about pre-ordering Two Worlds II, this freshly released video might tip your scales. The stage shown on the video, is full of action, and gives another glance on what Two Worlds II has to offer. The Combat seems more responsive and fluid, and the game looks surprisingly good.

Two Worlds was the first game that we talked about on GamerHusbands Radio. Now, we’re on the heels of the sequel’s release date, and Two Worlds II  doesn’t invoke the same snicker it’s predecessor did. The GHR crew were treated to a behind the scenes look at Pax East 2010, and the interest has been growing since.

A lot of the interest can be attributed to the depth of customization options. Not only will players be able to craft their own spells using “spell cards,” but they will also be able to customize armor. All of these options raises the ears of this hardcore RPG fan. Infinite customization(dress-up), is something that never gets old.  This might be the game to satisfy our Dark Age appetites for a good while. Side quests are also a requirement in games of this magnitude, and that can also be a challenge. If the game has too many side quests, the player can become distracted and grow weary. If the quests are a nice dessert after some tough missions, they will be a welcomed addition. The graphics are jaw dropping, and it seems the extra time Topware Interactive had to work on this game has paid off. In the developer diary, Scott Cromie discusses the last-minute challenge of porting Two Worlds to the Xbox 360. Porting was an enormous challenge, since Two Worlds was originally developed for the PC.  Now that they’ve had time to flesh this game out we can’t wait to play the final product. Will Two Worlds II live up to the good hype surrounding it? You will be able to judge for yourself on, Tuesday January 25, 2010.

If you played the first game you might notice some changes in Dead Space 2. Isaac will talk this time. He hardly talked in the first game outside of the grunts he made as he was being attacked. In DS2 he will converse with others. This should add to the depth of the narrative. In theory, multiplayer is used to add more value to the game. Hopefully it’s more than the usual round of deathmatch and capture the flag variants. The DeadSpace faithful committ to this game, because of the suspense and narrative that it provides. If the multiplayer is tacked on, it could have the opposite effect and turn people off. it’s too early to tell. Multiplayer could be the hidden gem al la Assassins Creed:Brotherhood.

In 8 days, Isaac will traverse across our consoles in his effort to rid the universe of Necromorphs. Plasma Cutter…Check!

If you are looking for a wireless headset to use with your PS3, XBOX360, or Wii console, this is definitely one to consider. The wireless range is outstanding, easily reaching a distance of 30-50 feet including through walls. The earpieces completely conver the ears, and are sound-isolating. The boom mic can be raised up if you are not using voice chat, and is very adjustable as far as distance from your mouth. When the mic is in the upright position, it is automatically muted. On the left side of the headset there are independent controls for game and chat volume, as well as a mute button that toggles on and off. The earpieces and top piece of the unit are adequately padded for several hours of use. In my experience, battery life is in the 8-10 hour range. The unit is charged via a USB cable that connects into the base station.

There are only a few negatives that I have found with this headset. First of all, it is not 5.1 surround sound. For me this is not ‘huge, but I didn’t have to pay full retail for mine either. I previously used a Turtle Beach X1 headset, and I can tell you that the sound on this unit is better. Another small negative is that if the boom mic is too close, your voice is very loud on the other end (so I’ve been told). All in all, these small issues don’t detract much from the overall quality of the unit. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this headset at 8.

There is evil afoot. The sound of the werewolves is even more chilling than the cold rain. You stand firm. Your steely resolve is only matched by your skills with with the Combat Cross. As the creatures of the night begin to attack on you, and the handful of brave villagers who dare to make a stand, you are warmed by your thirst for revenge. That, and the hope of reuniting with your murdered love, Marie.

This is Caltlevania: Lords of Shadow, Konami’s 3rd person 3D reboot to their much beloved traditionally 2D action series. So, is it worthy of wearing the Castlevania name? Click the jump to find out.

The first thing you’ll notice about the game soon after loading, are the graphics and sound. This is one of the most gorgeous 3rd person action games out there–in some parts surpassing even God of War 3. The world of this game is rich and varied. You’ll journey from rain drenched villages to snow capped fortresses. The level of work Konami put into this game’s visuals is astounding.

Gorgeous eye candy alone does not a good game make, however. If it doesn’t have gameplay to match, its like dating a supermodel with chronic halitosis. Fortunately, C:LoS delivers in this department as well. Control is tight and on point. If you’ve played God of War, you’ll be at home with the combat system. As with most brawlers nowadays, the elementary combos will get you from beginning to end (at least on default level). Dig a little deeper though and you’ll find a pretty deep combat skill tree that is worth investigating.

Along with your Combat Cross, you have sub weapons, magic and relics. Castlevania vets will recognize the throwing dagger and holy water, but Konami threw in new ones like fairies and ground clearing summoning crystals. Relics–which are acquired by defeating certain bosses–have abilities that Gabriel will need to complete his quest. All of the above can be combined with light and shadow magic, augmenting the abilities of everything at Gabriel’s disposal. Most are benefits in combat, and some are needed to solve quest specific puzzles. Get familiar with the combat skill tree, and you’ll be laying waste to the forces of evil in grand style.

A lot of griping has been done about this game’s camera. While I don’t think its nearly as bad as some have made it out to be, there are some minor issues. First, the camera is stationary, and I believe I understand why the developers chose to set it this way. The developers went out of their own way to show you the gorgeous environment from unique points of view–especially during the platforming segments. The game presents gorgeous vistas, detailed mountain crevices, and ridiculously huge castles from perspectives that the player would never see if the camera were under player control. Unfortunately, at times, it can cause disorientation with regard to where you’re supposed to go; especially if you’re behind a bush or a rock when the scene changes. Its not a major issue, but it can be a bit of an annoyance.

A lot has also been said about how this game borrows heavily from God of War and Shadow of the Colossus. Battling the Titans (humongous stone or bone animated magical structures) is almost a direct homage to Colossus–down to holding R2 to maintain Gabriel’s grip as he scales them to attack the magic runes that give the Titans their power.

Gabriel’s actual melee skills are actually quite different’ from Kratos’. While God of War has light and heavy attacks that do damage single enemies and crowds equally (with the exception of certain combos with the chains) the Combat Cross has separate direct and area attacks. Square will attack the enemy you’re facing, while triangle sends the iron whip in a 360 area affect attack for crowd control. While the two can be combined in combos, there are specific moves that are geared to damaging a single enemy, or handling a crowd of foes. Granted, I’m a brawler fanboy, so some may say I’m splitting hairs with regard to the combat comparisons–but I stand by my point.

To bottom line the game: Buy it. This game is a serious contender for my personal game of the year. Graphics, control, and sound are top notch. While Gabriel is the “strong silent type” he’s voice acted quite well, making the character very personable. Round out the roster with voice work of Patrick Stewart as the story narrator and a major character, and you’ve got one heck of a good game. Yes, there are some minor quibbles with the camera, but this is an S-Rank brawler, worthy of being in your library. If you’ve got the option, go for the Playstation 3 version. PS3 was the lead skew for development, and there are video comparisons showing the 360 version of the game chugs a bit when multiple enemies are on screen, and–it’s on multiple discs on Xbox. Even if you only have the 360, I’d say it’s worth your while. Especially with some of the deals on this game–you’ve got no excuse. This one’s a keeper.

ShoNuff Grade: A

Raise your hands. Now wiggle for the camera.

Recently I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Kinect and so far it has been an absolute pleasure.  To state it simply, Kinect works.  It is an impressive piece of technology and it works well.  Kinect promises both audio voice recognition and more importantly, motion detection and it delivers.

It’s not flawless.  There are minor glitches.  It occasionally has trouble recognizing my daughter’s voice.  It sometimes doesn’t react to a player’s motion, or doesn’t react as quickly as expected.  The motion control isn’t 1:1, there is lag if you pay close attention. In some of the running games, the animation doesn’t sync to your leg movement.  That being said, none of this affects the gameplay, which is great fun.

The Basics

Kinect brings with it an Xbox dashboard update.  The dashboard update allows access to the Kinect hub.  The Kinect hub is where you can access your Kinect games and other Kinect enabled content.  Best way to get there is simply say “Xbox, Kinect”.  At this point, you can put down your controller, because your hands ARE the controller.  Think Minority Report where Tom Cruise is waving his hands in the air manipulating files on a projected image.  It’s like that.  You wave your hand, and the Kinect tracks your hand movement.  If your hand stops on a selectable item, it opens.  Easy.  The Zune marketplace is now Kinect enabled as well, so you can page through movies and previews sans controller.  Most of this can also be done using voice commands.  “Kinect Zune” takes you to the Zune marketplace,  You can say pause, play and stop when watching a movie.  “Kinect previous” takes you to the previous page, etc.

The Games

So far I have had experience with Kinect Sports, Joyride, and Kinect Adventures.  All three games use your avatar in game.  Rare has done a good job implementing the avatar support and having the avatar animations sync up with your movements.  Graphically, all of these games are similar.  Not bad, but nothing to make you say “wow”.  That’s not what Microsoft is going for here, lets face it.  These game are going to live or die based on gameplay and the ability of the Kinect controller.

Ride! With Joy!

I’ll start with Joy Ride.  It’s an arcadey cart racer, where you steer with your hands as if you were holding a steering wheel.  You also can perform tricks for bonus points while you car is in the air by contorting your body.  I did not spend a whole lot of time with this, but my kids definitely seemed to enjoy their time with it.

Kinect Adventures

Kinect Adventures is a group of Kinect mini games.  It consists of Rally Ball, River Rush, Reflex Ridge, 20,000 Leaks, Space Pop, and Living Statues.  Unfortunately, was not able to play all of the different mini games with this title, but it comes free with your Kinect.  Rally Ball and River Rush I did play, and both are fun.  Rally Ball is an intense version of pong, where there are multiple balls and your whole body is the paddle.  River Rush is similar to Joy Ride, except you’re in a boat!  Waterfalls, jumps, collecting items for bonuses are all there.  At the end of each game in Kinect Adventures, the Kinect will reply a video of you jumping around your living room looking like a fool.  It is almost always funny.

This is some good shtuff.

Kinect Sports is the jewel of the Kinect games I have played so far.  Again, a mini game compilation consisting of boxing, ping pong, bowling, beach volleyball, soccer, and track and field.  In my mind, this is what Wii Sports should have been.  And that’s saying a lot considering how much I loved Wii Sports.  I will admit I have not tried Wii Motion Plus, so take my comparison with a grain of salt.  This is the game that reminded me of why I bought a Wii.  It, for my purposes at least, turned my Xbox 360 into a family loving, jump up and down, smack your partner in the face accidentally, Wii.  Or as I like to call it, a WiiBox360.  The Track and Field part of Kinect Sports is made up of multiple running/jumping/throwing games.  I’m not into running in place, never have been.  So I wasn’t a fan of track and field.  I did have a ton of fun with bowling, soccer, volleyball, and my favorite, ping pong.  Bowling and ping pong in particular seem to show off the sensitivity of Kinect.  A simple twist of the wrist in your swing finish will impart spin on the bowling ball.  As it is in real bowling, I found it hard to duplicate the same results over and over.  This compared to Wii bowling where I bowled a 286 within days of first playing.  I see this as a good thing.

Ping pong, similarly, requires precise movements.  It compares to Wii Sports tennis in gameplay, only without the delay.  You can turn your body and use only forehand shots or turn the other way and do backhand.  Or stay parallel to the table and do both.  The Kinect recognizes everything.  If you simply flail away when the ball comes, you will miss.  You must align your actions with your hand on the screen.  Since the Kinect tracks your entire body, you need to adjust to get in the right position to return a volley.  If a ball is coming square at your chest and you don’t adjust, chances are you’re going to miss.

The Verdict

To wrap up, Kinect is great fun, but I don’t think it’s for your hard core COD or Halo only players.  Then again, maybe a Kinect version of Halo does come out in the future.  I think it’s pretty easy to determine that Microsoft is targeting the “casual” audience.  The launch lineup of games centers heavily around family fun.  If you’ve seen a Kinect advertisement, you know what I’m talking about.  So if you’re in the market for a Wii – are there people still thinking about buying a Wii?  Or maybe you’re like me – with some youngsters at home and own a Wii and Xbox but the Wii is collecting dust.  In any of these cases, the Kinect may be for you.

A two player PlayStation Move setup with navigation controllers is going to cost more than $200.  Kinect is $150.   Microsoft reportedly spent more than $8.7 billion in research and development in its last fiscal year.  A good chunk of that presumably on Kinect.  They’re spending $500 million to market Kinect.  They are expecting a huge hit this holiday season.  The price tag is steep, but who can blame Microsoft for trying to recoup their investment.  Bottom line, it’s expensive, but fun.  If you have $150 laying around, I can definitely think of worse things to spend it on.  If you have an Xbox and have been thinking about a Wii, give Kinect a try.  I don’t think you’ll regret it.

 Every July, NCAA comes out to wet our appetites for football and every August, Madden delivers the full featured thrill of the virtual gridiron.  In other words, NCAA is always the appetizer to the main course that is Madden.  Yet something strange has happened in 2010, NCAA ’11 stepped on the scene and was greeted with much praise from gamers and critics alike.  Everyone used the new NCAA game as a baseline for how great Madden would be this year, since for years NCAA has always been one step behind its big brother.   So it would’ve seemed to everyone that since NCAA was so good this year, that surely Madden would be the best iteration that we’ve had this generation.  Madden ’11 arrived a month later with a loud and thunderous…..thud.  What could have possibly gone wrong?  After all, the two games are both developed by Tiburon, albeit two different design teams, and sharing some of the same “new” technology/features (locomotion, run blocking, etc.) for the first time that I can remember.

NCAA ’11 is hands down the best NCAA game of this generation and possibly the best ever.  It’s not without its faults as with any game but what it does right more than makes up for the shortcomings.  First thing most people will notice is the new presentation from the opening menus all the way to the ESPN style presentation while in-game.  Everything has a professional look and doesn’t scream out that it’s a videogame immediately.  Brad Nessler and Kirk Herbstreit are again the commentators for the game but Lee Corso is missing in this year’s version, whether that’s a good or bad thing I’ll leave up to you.  If you’ve played the last couple of year’s games then don’t expect a lot in the way of new commentary because it’s pretty much the same although compared to Madden, it’s excellent.  The biggest change in the presentation is the ESPN overlays and screen wipes which makes it feel much more like a live telecast than a video game although the replays let you know that it’s a videogame from some of the weird angles shown.  There are a lot more cut scenes this year for pre-game, in game, and post game.  Fans celebrate a big play, players pout after a loss, and a number of teams even have their entrances in the game such as Notre Dame tapping the sign or Clemson rubbing their rock.  The college atmosphere is definitely brought to life this year even though the crowd noise still needs reworking.  (NBA 2k11 has set the bar high in this regard)

The on the field game play has vastly improved with every team running some semblance of the offense that they run in real life, from Georgia Tech’s triple option, Nevada’s pistol, to the spread offenses of Florida and Texas Tech.  Teams that run hurry up offenses will get to the line as quickly as possible after a play so you can’t change your defensive personnel.  The players will even line up and stop to look over at the sideline to get a play call.  All of this would be for naught if the AI wasn’t up to the task, thankfully it is.  The new locomotion along with the vastly improved run blocking makes the run game feel so much better than it has in previous games.  You can actually follow your blockers into holes or find a cut back lane if the D fills in the gaps.  Blockers will pull off of their block to get to the second level and receivers will also help pave the way downfield.  Taking an off tackle run to the house untouched is a thing of beauty.  There are still some quirks such as blockers occasionally missing their assignment or just letting a guy right by them but some of these things happen in real life too.  The passing game is very rewarding as well, after the title updates, since it’s now feasible to run curls, hooks, and outs without defensive backs magically running the route for the receiver.  Sideline catches are made more frequently with appropriate animations to match and the stupid flip in mid-air tackle when the defensive players battles with the receiver for the ball is thankfully absent this year.  Everything just seems to flow and seem more natural.  You’ll still see the occasional clairvoyant defensive player who makes a one handed INT with his back turned to the ball but it’s now few and far between.  The majority of the time you’ll be blaming yourself for making a poor throw or a bad read.   

The meat and potatoes of the game always has been Dynasty mode where you take your school of choice and try to build them into a perennial powerhouse or in some cases, maintain their success.  Recruiting has received an overhaul so that you are only able to commit up to an hour per recruit per week.   Each pitch takes up 10 minutes so you must choose wisely because every athlete has a different set of criteria that may or may not match up well with your school.  Also new this year is a difficulty setting for recruiting itself so that you make it as hard or as easy to build the next powerhouse as you want.  As coach you also have a contract with the school requiring you to meet certain criteria during the course of each season, succeed and you’ll be rewarding with a contract extension or offers from bigger, more prestigious schools.  You will also have opportunities to switch conferences if you so choose which will also be reflected on your field with the new conferences logo in your school’s colors.  The biggest update this year though is the online dynasty which is almost a carbon copy of the offline dynasty mode sans coaching contracts and conference invites.  The biggest difference between the two is being able to write stories online for your games as if you’re writing for the Associated Press following the game which is viewable by everyone along with photos and highlights you saved.   You’re also able to take care of recruiting through the web as well but it is buggy and sometimes you’ll lose some of your precious recruiting minutes due to an app error.  The dynasty player limit is still 12 so you’ll still be playing a majority of your games against CPU teams unless everyone plays in the same conference or the commish makes a fantasy league using custom conferences to put all of the human teams in to one conference.  This is one of the best offline and online career modes available in a sports game, which bring me to Madden. 

Madden ’10 showed lots of promise and it seemed that the development team was at least heading in the right direction but wow, what a difference a year makes or in this case, doesn’t make.  I normally defend yearly sports games as doing enough to not be called a glorified roster update whether it is great new features, new innovations to game play, or even complete graphical overhauls.  This year’s Madden had some new wrinkles for sure, but in the wake of NCAA’s makeover, it just seems like a step back.  Most of the game play changes are mirror images of NCAA so I’m not going to rehash those here as they work pretty much the same except out of the box; Madden’s difficulty levels are completely out of whack.   Playing as the Falcons in my first franchise game on All-Pro, I smoked the Pittsburgh Steelers 63-7.  Turner had over 200 yards rushing and Ryan had over 300 yards passing against the Steelers D.  It was big play after big play, horrible pursuit angles by the AI defense on run plays and in passing, specifically in zone coverage, there are times when the defender just stands there as the ball passes by.   Switch the difficulty to All-Madden and then the game just flat out cheats.  Defensive backs are running the routes BEFORE the receiver even makes the cut, defensive lineman can’t be blocked consistently, and linebackers make superhuman one handed interceptions.  I do have to say that if you’re going to play against human competition that unfortunately, All-Madden is the only way to go unless you just like playing shootout after shootout.

The presentation has largely been untouched this year with the exception of the commentary team which is now comprised of Gus Johnson and Cris Collinswoth.  Gus Johnson brings some much needed energy to the booth but is hampered by the script and the editing of the audio.  He gets excited when he doesn’t need to be and is rather mundane when he should be excited.  There isn’t any flow to the commentary and Collinsworth’s lines are the same as they were last year so there isn’t any sense that they are in the booth together.  Lines are broken up, “He catches the ball at…the…5…..yard line.”  I thought we were past that issue in the early 2000’s? Fans now have specific team chants but not all of them.  Every team does the same pregame chant using their team name.  The crowd still seems like it doesn’t change at all during the course of a game.  There is no difference between 4^th and goal at the 1 with a second left down by 6 or the same scenario up by 20.  It’s just so disappointing that they can’t improve this area of the game when other games, NBA 2k11 and MLB: The Show has shown that it can be done.

The most touted feature this year is Gameflow, or as I will call it the rest of this review, Ask Madden 2.0.  This seems like a great idea with the ability to be able to set up game plans so that you don’t have to scroll through play after play to find something to run.  It’s also a great idea for those of us who are strapped for time and just want to get through a game as quickly as possible before working on our honey to-do lists.  It’s a great idea, with bad execution.   You’ll find yourself with some puzzling play calls especially on the defensive side of the ball.  The game will call a 2-4-5 defense when the opponent is in a power run formation for instance.  Audibles are still limited to just a paltry selection of plays as well which makes checking out of bad call by the CPU much more frustrating than it should be. Ask Madden 2.0 also doesn’t take into account score differential which is a key element in any successful game plan.  If you have a headset, then you’ll have a “coordinator” tell you how to run the play but even that feels completely tacked on and just gets irritating after a while.  It’ll also work without the headset if you’re playing by yourself.  Ask Madden 2.0 is thankfully optional and can be turned off, unless you’re playing online franchise.

Online franchise is the same as it was last year and I mean exactly the same except you are able to scout players this year.  Apparently the development team had some stats and charts saying that the majority of players didn’t bother with the online franchise.  Did they ever stop to think that the reason that people didn’t use it is because it is broken?  Tie breakers aren’t done properly, so if you’re in a 3 way tie or more for a playoff spot, good luck. (Last year tie breakers went to the team in alphabetical order, I kid you not) You can’t use sliders in online franchise either so you’re stuck either playing the easy as pie All-Pro (which begs the question, how easy is beginner?) or the unforgiving All-Madden where almost every player plays like a superstar when the path finding AI isn’t falling flat on its face. There isn’t a free agent or trade system in place so commishes have to come up with their own ways to create free agency and implement fair trades since there isn’t a salary cap in place either.  It’s fun to play with a bunch of other people and for some this year, the camaraderie of playing with others is the only thing keeping them from selling the game.  For the life of me, I can’t figure out how the NCAA team was able to take their dynasty mode and make the online dynasty mode just like it but the Madden team can’t even do that even though they didn’t make any changes to the existing offline franchise mode either.  They’ve promised that the franchise mode would be their main focus for next year but only time will tell.

I really wish I had more nice things about Madden, I really do, but after the stellar NCAA game, I just can’t.  Madden can be enjoyable with some slider tweaks that fall somewhere in between All-Pro and All-Madden but it’s still riddled with head scratching AI even then.  Online, particularly online franchise, is only enjoyable when talking smack with others on the message board.

Madden Ultimate Team makes its return and is the same as last year, as is the Superstar mode.

If you only have one choice for a football game this year, go with NCAA unless you just absolutely have to play with NFL teams.

On September 14th, 2010 Halo Reach hit store shelves and sold $200 million dollars…. on it’s first day.  Sales remained impressive throughout the week as it passed Halo 3 for the highest total sales of an exclusive game title. It seems like Halo Reach is set to reach new heights  as it passes many of the records set by Halo 3. But is it worth the hype? I guess it depends on the player. But for a majority of gamers, and myself, the answer seems to be yes.

Lets get down to the basics. While the graphics of Reach are good and a slight step up from those of Halo 3, they aren’t going to make your jaw hit the floor. In others words, Maverick won’t be stopping to watch the grass sway in the breeze. With that being said, the only major complaint I have with the graphics is the frame rate. While many of the cut scenes have a nice sharp look to them, they also have a slight strobing effect to them, which was some what distracting at times. For those fans that love the previous soundtracks of the Halo series, Bungie did not disappoint in Reach. They continue to use the music throughout the game to enrich your experience as you take on everything from grunts and elites to brutes and hunters.

Now onto game play. Some may argue that Reach is just the same old Halo, but I beg to differ. While a few of the maps in Reach are inspired by previous maps in the Halo series, and many of the weapons are the same, Bungie has added many new features to raise game play to a new level. For example, by adding ‘Armor Abilities’ they have not only create a choice of different ‘classes’ of solider to be, it also eliminated the race to active camo, etc. The new voting system they implemented into multiplayer gives players more choices and a better variety of game play. New multiplayer game types like ‘Head Hunter’ and ‘Invasion’, along with all of the Halo fan favorites, means there is sure to be something in this game for everyone.

If you have even heard of Halo before, you know the replay value of the game. But just in case you haven’t, let me explain. Halo Reach not only has multiplayer replay value, but single player too. With 4 player coop you can battle through the world with 3 of your friends on Legendary and never have to restart at the begin of a level or a check point (as long as one person stays safe for respawns) and collect an achievement and then try and master it yourself for another hefty achievement. Then jump on over to the multiplayer side of the game where you can throw a party and play with as many as 15 of your friends on Xbox LIVE or play with the millions of other Halo fans. Microsoft has already been collecting data from the game votes and updated the multiplayer on October 6th, adding new game types like ‘King of the Hill’ and making SWAT a game play mode all of its own. Who knows what other game modes may come available as the game continues to grow.

Final Thoughts: If you are looking for a great multiplayer experience or just longing for those good old days of staying up late playing Halo, get Reach and enjoy.

Just as fair warning–this is a rant against Microsoft’s Xbox360. Now, on to my rage.

Well, good ‘ol Microsoft has struck me again. Xbox360 #4 has officially gone on to the digital great beyond. Cause of death–E68; or as many more commonly refer to it–Red Ring. I picked up Halo Reach on a bargain at Toys R Us ($49 with a trade in, plus a $20 gift card). This evening I decide to try out what the critics have been jonesing over, and my Xbox says “Nope. Not working today. I’m dead.” Maybe it was mad because the last game I played on it was Sega’s Golden Axe: Beast Rider. Maybe that’s what killed it.

Thinking back, it seems that each new chipset iteration was supposed to solve E68 and the other similar problems that cause the red ring. My system had the Jasper chipset. Before that, was Opus. Before that was Falcon. I’m sure there’s a Bill, Bob, Frank, and a Jean luc chipset in there too. I’ve lost count. All those iterations, and they still can’t get it right. I know–there are a ton of Youtube videos on how to fix the E68 problem. I’ve seen everything from stuffing tinfoil on the exposed HDD connector prong, to buying some sort of battery operated switch that jams in the exhaust vent. Thats not the point. The point is–THE DAMN THING SHOULD WORK AS IS FROM THE JUMP. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO WRAP IT IN A TOWEL, OR STICK IT IN A FREEZER, OR WHISPER SWEET NOTHINGS IN IT’S USB PORT TO MAKE THE PIECE OF SH%T SYSTEM WORK. IT SHOULD JUST WORK. SOMEHOW, I DON’T THINK THAT’S ASKING TOO MUCH, BUT M$ APPARENTLY THINKS IT IS.

Two things piss me off the most about this whole situation: First, the oodles of money I’ve spent on Xbox 360 peripherals. Arcade sticks, controllers, headsets, DLC content and LIVE subscriptions–over the course of 4 systems. I should have learned my lesson after the first two, but no–I just had to go back for more. I put that on me. I knew it was a crap system, but I still ponied up the cash. I guess I’m the stupid one. Number two thing that pisses me off is the fact that Microsoft–when it comes to the Xbox360 at least–has never heard of QUALITY CONTROL! I’m not going to re-hash ancient history, but all I’ll say is that just for kicks I dusted off my original hacked Xbox that has been dropped twice, and hasn’t been turned on in over a year, and it spun to life immediately. What the hell happened between the original Xbox and the 360?! If big and bulky was the only way Microsoft knew how to build a quality system, they should have stuck with what worked, or paid another company like Samsung or Panasonic to build it for them.

Some of you out there are on system #7 or more, and probably think I’m just belly-aching having just gone through 4 systems. I can understand and respect that point. Well you’ve got better fortitude than I do, because I think I’m done with Microsoft in this console generation. To the handful of people I have played online with–its been great. Had a blast. To the majority of folks on my friends list that I never played with, I regret that we didn’t. I’m sure you’re wonderful folks. The only way I will consider coming back to M$ is if Gears of War 3 is soooo unbelievably good, that I just have to have it. We’ll see on that, but for right now–Microsoft has gotten enough of my money. I’m done with them. So, gamertag PheonixGHOST signing off for the last time. However, GhostPHEONIX is doing great on PSN.

On the bright side, I’ll have some trade in capital to fund my soon coming Nintendo Wii purchase.

Image from Examiner.com

Hans Lo, the Senior Producer for Mortal Kombat 9 was on hand at PAX showcasing the tag-team mode of the game. GameTrailers.com has the feed. Based off the gameplay video, the tag aspects are somewhat similar to other games like Capcom’s VS series where you can swap team members out, or bring in a team member to assist with a special attack to continue a combo. Speaking of combos, Hans makes a point during his narrative to note that the “dial a combo” combat is gone in this game, which is a good thing. Those who played MK vs DC Universe know what I’m talking about.

I was never a fan of the MK games. The only one I ever really liked was Shaolin Monks–a well done MK themed brawler that came out on the PS2 and original Xbox. MK9 does have me intrigued, and I do hope the gameplay is as good as it looks.

Image from psthreeblog.com

Ah, yeah. More news that sets my old school 2D fighting heart a flutter. This news is kinda old, and I’m probably the only person in this community who cares about this game–let alone heard of the series of games. But, ‘yall know me. If it’s 2D, fighting, or a combination of the two, I’ve gotta mention it here.

Arcana Heart 3 is coming to Playstation3 and Xbox360 sometime this winter, and none other than Arc System Works is at the helm for coding duties for this project. Who is Arc System Works you might be asking? They are the creators of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger/Continuum Shift. If you haven’t played either of these games, you should. Not only is BlazBlue one of the best fighting games out there, it is one of the most gorgeous games around–period.

For those who don’t know, Arcana Heart is a series of AQ Interactive 2D arcade fighting games from Japan, that depict girls ranging from little kids, to college co-eds who beat the crap out of each other with super powered martial arts. Combat is fairly simple, but quite deep when you really start digging into it. I have the first two games released on Playstation 2 (in Japan) and they are a quirky blast to play (Arcana Heart 2 was a poor port of the arcade, and had a lot of gameplay issues–but it was still cool).

Now, Arc System Works is going to add their own special brand of digital magic to this series, and from the screens, its going to be awesome. Siliconera.com has some of the gameplay images, as well as art showcasing 3 of the new console only characters. Gameplay modes include 6 player vs online play, score attack, and arcade/story mode. The game is scheduled to be released in Japan sometime this winter, and there was no mention of a US release. Here’s hoping Arc System Works brings this game to the States. I have full confidence that the talented team at that company will take both graphics and gameplay of this series to new heights.

Read Siliconera’s write up and screen shots here.