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

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.

Q-Games brought out their latest PixelJunk game in the week just past, PixelJunk Shooter 2. I really liked the first PixelJunk Shooter and I regard it as the best downloadable game I’ve played. So it’d make sense that I was really looking forward to this sequel ever since it was announced. Right now after finishing the single player campaign, I’m not so sure.

PixelJunk Shooter was great fun, I would have loved more of the same from Q, but they complicated it in much the same way that I didn’t get hooked on LittleBigPlanet 2 compared to LBP 1. If you ever played PixelJunk Shooter then you’d know it was all about flying around in your spaceship rescuing scientists and jumping into elemental suits to either combat the environment (Fire, Magnetic Oil, Water, Gas and Ice) or just have a load of fun, it was always challenging but never annoyingly difficult. PixelJunk Shooter 2 differs from that formula, adding Light, Dark, Purple Sludge, Green Sludge, Purple Gas, Green Swarms and probably more that I can’t remember. To me there wasn’t enough time to establish why these new elements were put in the game, it seems as if they were just there to make the game harder – and boy, was this game harder. I got more frustrated by the level of difficulty in the puzzles than I have ever been in a game before (FYI I am a lightweight, having not played Ninja Gaiden). In the first game the enemies would spawn before they were on the screen, in this game it seemed at times you had to be right in front of them before they would spawn, killing you instantly. Often it would happen at the end of a level you had just worked really hard figuring out. PixelJunk Shooter 2 was not poorly made, it was too short for what it was trying to achieve. The simplicity of the first game allowed whole levels dedicated to having fun with water and magma suits that you and your friends could fly around and try and burn each other in co-op. PixelJunk Shooter 2 only ever has one suit per level, which is no fun at all. There is no room for error like the first game, if you want to beat a level real fast you are bound to be cut down within the first few seconds (mainly by those surprise spawns I mentioned earlier or a particularly accurate lava turret). I’m not the sort of person who likes a situation where a really crazily easy enemy has beaten you down ten times in a row because I tend not to feel really great when I do finally beat the level. Also spending a quarter of an hour taking out a boss then dying while trying to figure out the finishing move = killjoy. The game is ok and all, but if you want to know which of the two PixelJunk Shooter games to pick up if you can only choose one, I’d suggest the first. Final note on the campaign, they introduced dummy scientists that look exactly like normal scientists and transform into bats for no reason that will kill you if you aren’t paying attention, Q-Games, that was a stupid stupid stupid idea.

PixelJunk Shooter 2 introduces Multiplayer that I can’t really comment much on as apparently the servers I am linked to in Australia are only playable with Japanese players, which are isn’t…urg who am I kidding, this game has made me soo frustrated, I don’t wanna talk about it anymore until I’m in a better mood. Buy it if you want, I’d wait until it’s dirt cheap if I was you. Sorry Q, but I’m sure you appreciate the constructive criticism

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.

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.

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.

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.

Split / Second is one of the few games I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. I watched all the trailers, the developer diaries and interviews, and video previews I could set my eyeballs upon in anxious anticipation of this game’s release. Now that its out, and I’ve sunk considerable time into it, I have to say–it has been worth the wait. What Disney and Black Rock Studios have created is–if not the best arcade racer to date–definately the most fun.

To begin, the game is set up like a seasonal show, or sports event. Race levels are broken up into episodes culminating in a season finale race against the Split Second elite drivers. Place in the top 4, and you have the option to move on. Placing well in races earns you season points, which unlock cars as your season point rises. Like any good arcade racer, this game has drafting, drifting, and collisions galore, but what truly sets the gameplay apart from the rest are the explosive events.

Explosive events are the meat of the game. As you drift, jump, and draft, you power up a three segmented bar displayed in a “heads up” style behind your car. When a segment is fully powered, you can set off an explosion to try and wreck opponents ahead of you when the explosion icon appears above their cars. Hold off on the pyrotechnics, and you can set off a “level two” event. If timed right, you can wipe out the entire roster of racers ahead of you. The beautiful thing about the Level 2 events (I call them L2s) is not only can they clear opponents, they also change the track for the duration of the race. Set off an L2 at the pier for example, and you’ll explode a huge cargo tanker, causing it to crash into the dock. It destroys a huge section of track, but the tanker itself becomes part of the race environment–forcing all racers to drive accross its chaotic deck, dodging storage containers and other debris. Freakin’ awesome!

Don’t think you can use explosive events without consequence however. Each event sets off a concussion wave–which causes control of your vehicle to deteriorate. The closer you are to the blast (without being caught in it of course), the greater the force exerted on your vehicle. Different cars react differently when hit by concussion waves, so it is wise to take that into consideration. It is this “concussion physics” system that makes this the deepest arcade racer hands down. A last second change in track position can have you taking the brunt of a wave sending you into a wall while your opponent gets away scott free. Simply memorizing where the explosions are on the tracks will do you no good if you aren’t constantly aware of where your vehicle is in relation to the other drivers. This all happens at Burnout level speed–so you’re going to have to depend on “split second” reaction time to win–get it? Split second reaction time in a game called Split Second–funny, right? Right? Anybody…?

There are several race types that you’ll encounter during season mode. There are traditional races where you compete against 7 other opponents. There are time attacks where you race against the clock and try to dodge all the explosive events that go off to impede your progress. Then there are the diesel and attack chopper challenges. The goal in the diesel challenge is to pass as many diesel rigs as you can before time runs out. When time runs out, its sudden death. The track is loaded with drone cars, and the rigs dump tons of exploding barrels. The blue ones are concussion charges, while the red ones blow you up on contact. It is racing chaos at its best. The attack chopper challenge pits you against a military type attack chopper that shoots missiles at you as you drive. You always know where the missiles will hit on the track, but your job is to dodge them, and compensate for the concussion waves they create. The more waves you dodge, and the faster you’re going when you dodge them, the more points you earn. Your car can withstand 3 hits from a missile before its junk heap time.

So, with this game being as great as I think it is, there are some problems that some folks might get a little frustrated with. The most glaring criticism of the game is the “rubber-banding” that goes on among your AI opponents–especially during the season ending races where you compete among the Split Second elite racers. In later seasons, its border line rediculous how hard it is to get into first place–let alone maintain first place. Another disappointment has nothing to do with the game, but what Disney/Black Rock did to the online. They offered the unlock code as payable DLC, so going online is an excercise in total frustration because some of those that play this game online have bought the fastest cars. If you haven’t earned them in game, or paid your digital dollars to get them, you’ll never win. You can create a private race to alleviate the problem, but–nobody on my PSN list is playing this game online, and I haven’t quite earned the fastest cars in the type that I use the most.

Another critique that some may have, is that Split Second throws everything it has to offer at you fairly early. Some may feel the game might get a little dull as you continue, as there aren’t very many tracks. Although I think the concussion system employed in the game addresses that issue whole-heartedly, I can see how some might get that “been there done that” feeling from the game.

To bottom line it: If you like arcade racers, this game is a definate buy. The original spirit of the Burnout series flows deep in this title. I know I can’t put my Dual Shock down. This game has pulled me away from Super Street Fighter 4–and for a fighting freak like me–that’s saying a lot for the presentation, gameplay, and polish this game exudes. If nothing else, give it a rent. If you have a pulse, you won’t be disappointed.

Opening day is finally here and I’ve put MLB 10: The Show through its spring training paces.  Is this the best baseball game ever or am I just happy it’s baseball season again?

The presentation and graphics of MLB 10 are some of the best the PS3 has to offer along with Uncharted 2 and God of War 3.  There’s not another sports game that comes close to the amount of detail found in this game.  All of the stadiums are beautifully rendered including the Twins new home, Target Field. Every scoreboard works as it should, you’ll see the current batter, his stats, and the pitchers pitch count up on the big screen in the stadium along with special animations when a significant play happens such as a homerun, walk, strikeout, etc.  In franchise or season mode, you’ll see the out of town scores updated as the game progresses.  They also have the details that make stadiums unique such as the Ivy at Wrigley doesn’t turn green until it gets warm, you can hit one out into McCovey Cove at AT&T Park which will update the splash counter in the stadium, and the Liberty Bell rings when the Phillies hit one out at Citizens Bank Park.  Last year’s big addition was the real time lighting transition when playing a game that started around dusk.  This year they’ve taken that idea a step further by having real time lighting in all games so that you’ll see the shadows creep across the field in a realistic manner as the game progresses and when it’s cloudy, you’ll see the shadows for those too.  The fans are really well done and while they still repeat, it’s not as apparent as it has been in years past.  You’ll see them stand to cheer, go for foul balls, and even lean over the rails for a ball if it comes close.  The authenticity of the ball parks and their unique quirks are only part of what make this game stand out. 

Player models, for the most part, look like their real life counterparts although it’s time for the MLB: The Show team to finally deliver the new player models that they’ve been working on the past couple of years.  The models haven’t had any significant upgrades since this series debuted on the PS3.  What makes the player models really stand out is the animation of the players since there is an absolute plethora of motion-captured animations for almost any situation.  You’ll see underhanded tosses to second to begin the double play, bare handed grab and throws, throws from the knees, outfielders round off realistically when approaching a ball on the ground, and also play balls off the wall fairly well.  You’ll see a great variety in batting stances and pitching motions as well.  There are some clipping issues on occasion, most notably on slides, where the player seems to go through a part of another player, and plays at the wall in certain stadiums where the collision detection is a bit off, but this is unfortunately a side effect of the old player models. 

Aurally, the game is pretty good at making you feel as if you’re at the ballpark.  The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, crowd noise, umpires, stadium specific sounds, music, etc… are all really well done.  The commentary is still some of the best in the business but is growing quite stale for those of us who’ve been playing the series for a while.  I want the commentators to talk more about how my players/teams are doing in the season overall, not just how they are performing for that particular game.  Sure they bring up hitting streaks, milestones, but I’d like them to comment on things like how player x has fared against pitcher x the last time the two faced each other.  The sounds of the game feature is great for those who want to customize their experience by putting their own batter walkup music, reliever entrance music, home run music, and even custom cheers and jeers for players (this requires a mic connected to the PS3).  The music editor is pretty straightforward, allowing you to pick any song on your PS3 hard drive and setting up to 3 marks of where you want to start the song when it’s played in game.  Then all you do is go to the player(s) of your choice and edit them.

All of the aesthetics would mean nothing if the game play wasn’t great but thankfully, it is.  The pitching/batting is the meat and potatoes of any baseball game.  If a baseball game fails at this, than it is virtually unplayable in my opinion.  The Show has the most realistic video game representation of this showdown that I’ve ever played.  On the surface, the mechanics of it are fairly simple.  On the pitcher’s side, you pick a pitch with the corresponding button, set the location you desire with the left stick, and then, by default, use a golf swing type meter to determine the power and accuracy of the pitch. (A classic pitch control is available which I believe all you have to do is pick the pitch, aim, and push the button to throw letting the pitcher’s attributes handle the rest.) On the batter’s side, you can guess the pitch and location (optional, for me I turn this off), if you guess right then it indicates it on the screen and you get a ratings boost for that pitch. Also before the pitch you can influence the type of hit that you want by using the right stick, for example, if you have a runner on 3^rdwith less than two outs, then you would push up on the right stick to try and get a fly ball, but it isn’t automatic.  After the pitch is thrown, you aim your swing with the left stick and either take a power (square) swing or a contact (X) swing.  This all sounds really simple right?  Wrong.  This is where The Show’s learning curve is the steepest, particularly on the batting side of things but once you learn the intricacies, is very rewarding.  Adjusting to the speed of the pitches, the different types, determining what’s a ball or a strike in seconds, and learning to be patient at the plate instead of hacking at anything that comes near the plate are all things that you will have to learn in order to become a successful hitter in The Show.  I recommend for new players, playing on rookie mode which only requires you to press the X button and time the swing properly then once you’ve become used to that, step up the difficulty.  There are several different views and sliders for both hitting and pitching so find a set that suits you best.  On the harder levels, pitchers will work the corners and will also continue to test you if you keep chasing pitches outside of the zone and hitters (especially Ryan Howard, ugh) will punish you for hanging one over the plate.  You’ll also want to make use of the pickoff while pitching to keep runners on base honest.  Umpires, by default, are variable meaning that they each have their own definition of the strike zone and will make the occasional bad call or consistently call border line calls strikes or balls. The only real negative is that there are far too many passed balls, wild pitches, beaned  batters, and dropped third strikes even with the sliders tweaked (though a lot better with the tweaks). 

Once the ball is put in play, it becomes pretty standard video baseball game fare, with visual cues to show who you are controlling, where the ball is going to land if it’s in the air, and the ability to make diving and leaping catches with the push of a button.  Throwing isn’t much more complicated either as the buttons are mapped to the corresponding bases depending on the game mode and the view you are facing.  Hold down the corresponding button to determine the strength of the throw before the ball is in the glove to “pre-load” the throw.  The harder the throw, the higher chance for an error, so be careful.  Base running is easy once you get acquainted with the controls.  Hold down L1 to advance all of the runners and R1 to retreat all or if you’re looking to control one runner, use the left stick to highlight that player’s yellow circle on the diamond overlay and push the corresponding base button to tell the player which base to advance or retreat to. The presentation and animations already mentioned are what makes this part of the game so fun to watch unfold.

Online play still has its share of lag issues but it’s noticeably better than last year.  I’ve played a few games and haven’t had one yet that I considered unplayable.  For best performance, use a wired connection.  I have yet to play in a league yet since everyone is waiting on opening day rosters so I will not be going into much detail about the online play.  Although, I’m hopeful that they can get the lag issues addressed and give us a fully functional online franchise next year instead of a glorified season mode where trading is pretty much meaningless since prospects are worthless in a single season league.

Offline, you have a few different modes to play with.  The main ones being Franchise, Road to the Show, and the Home Run Derby mini-game.

Home Run Derby is a fun, albeit easy diversion.  Its set up just like the major league all star version as in you get 10 outs per round and every swing that isn’t a homer is considered an out.  Hitting in this mode is very easy and just requires you to aim and press a button to swing.  I can see this mode being a lot of fun with a few friends over but alone it gets pretty monotonous after a couple of rounds.

Franchise mode will let you control one team or all teams.  If you control all teams than you can also opt to control all injuries and trades to mimic the real life regular season should you choose to.  You’ll have 40-man, MLB, AAA, AA, and single A rosters at your disposal though you won’t be have the option to play single A games.  You’ll be able to trade, draft, claim players off waivers, designate players for assignment, offer arbitration, and vie for free agents’ attention.  There’s also a handy transaction handbook within the game to help explain the rules of drafting, free agency, contracts, waivers, etc.  As you might’ve known, franchise let’s you play through several seasons while trying to build or keep your team as a world series contender year in and year out.  The All-Star break in franchise now includes the futures game and the home run derby.  If you’ve played franchise mode in other sports games then this will be familiar territory as you’re given certain goals by your owner to meet over a certain period of time and have to accomplish or sim all of the offseason stuff between seasons which includes spring training.

Road to the Show is where you make a player and customize him to your liking before either being drafted or choosing the team that you want to start off with.  You start off in AA and try to work your way up to The Show by meeting goals set by your manager.  This mode has some very basic RPG elements to it as you gain points by accomplishing things in game, such as getting hits, walks, driving in runs, or as a pitcher, strikeouts, ERA, and hits allowed.  You then spend the points on attributes to improve your players ratings.  You will also be given a chance to improve these attributes periodically through drills that are offered to you by the team.  New this year is that if you choose to be a catcher than you will call the whole game from behind the plate.  This works pretty much the same as pitching sans the meter.  You pick the pitch and the location you want it in, the cpu handles the rest.  I played as the catcher once and the game lasted a little too long for my tastes since as a catcher, you aren’t going to be making too many plays in the field aside from the occasional steal attempt or pop foul ball.  Also new this year is the ability to choose how much of the game you watch.  You can choose to only show the plays that you take part in or you can watch the whole game from a bench perspective if you so choose or anywhere in between.  RttS is very fun and very addictive, though as a hitter it can be very frustrating when you’re going through a slump since you only get a few opportunities to prove yourself, especially early on in your career.

If you’re a baseball fan and you already own a PS3, this is the only game you should consider.  If you don’t have a PS3 and you can afford one, get one and you won’t be disappointed.  If you must suffer with MLB 2k10, then I genuinely feel for you since you’ll be missing out on possibly the best baseball game ever made (that’s a debate for another time, and only MVP or High Heat should even be mentioned).

Epic. Its an adjective that has been as over-used in game reviews as red exploding barrels in first person shooters. Unfortunately, my vocabulary isn’t expansive enough to pick a word other than “epic” after playing to completion Sony’s God of War 3. From a visual perspective, this game is the latest title in the PS3′s exclusive arsenal that says, “Nope. Can’t do this on 360.” (Not being a fanboy by saying that folks…Its the truth) Gameplay is a challenging roller-coaster ride of adrenalin–literally from beginning to end…However, it was this trilogy’s end that made my jaw hit the floor, and utter, “WTF WAS THAT?!” Don’t worry. There are no spoilers in this review.

First and foremost, this game represents a refining in the gameplay from the first two games. Adventure game purists say that God of War 2 is the best in the series, but if your a hardened brutal combat junkie like me, GoW3 puts a fine polishing stone to the combat fundamentals put forth in the first two games, and refines them to near perfection.

Combat is still “pick up and play” easy. Square and triangle buttons pound out the beat-down, circle grabs, the right stick dodges, etc. Button mashers will be well at home here. Those who dig deeper into the combat system will notice greater refinements. Your sub-weapons like Apollo’s Bow have unlimited usage that is tied to a replenishable meter that is immediately below your magic. This allows you to build high combos on bosses, and keep stronger enemies off balance. In addition, Kratos has picked up a couple of new powerful combat moves. Grab a grunt enemy and press the square button, and you’ll use Zeus’ hapless minion as a battering ram that will allow Kratos to plow through entire phalanxes of undead soldiers. Another new maneuver is the ranged grapple. Hold R1 and hit the circle button and Kratos’ selected main weapon will fly out and grab an enemy, and send Kratos’ body plowing into the enemy with a defensive line crushing shoulder smash. The move can be done on the ground and in the air, and is an invaluable tool in keeping the pressure on tougher enemies and bosses–often setting them up for QTE high damage moves and kills. Remember those annoying Wraiths in the first two games that would phase underground and try to rush you from beneath? Just hold R1 and tap the circle to yank them from the ether, and slam them head first into the concrete.

Magic is far more intuitive in GoW3, because the magic is now tied to the main weapon. Switching magic powers only requires a tap on the coresponding digital pad to select the main weapon. My favorite combo: Starting with the Neman Lion Gauntlets, send the power wave to knock an enemy skyward, switch to Nemesis Whip for an electric blast, and finish–if your magic bar is long enough–with a Claws of Hades Cyclops soul attack. Its instant death for tougher enemies, and deals heavy damage to bosses. With all the combat tools this game offers to the player, its really up to you to decide how you play the game. No–it ain’t Ninja Gaiden deep (not even close), but combat sure is silky smooth, intuitive, and can be as flashy or simple as you choose–you’ll still get the job done.

GoW3 has got to have the greatest intro in the history of action games as far as I’m concerned. I’ll not spoil it (even though its been shown off by Sony at press events), because you really need to see it untainted by description. All I will say, is that while I was fighting alongside Kratos’ allies as they encroached upon Mount Olympus, I thought I was looking at a scene from Peter Jackson’s latest special effects laiden action blockbuster. No joke–and the game only gets more grand and breath taking from there. The set pieces used in this game create a sense of scale between Kratos, his environment, and his enemies that I have never experienced in an action game before. Again, to go into further detail would be a dis-service, so all I can say is, YOU HAVE TO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF.

Graphically, this game overloads your senses with real time shadows and real time lighting effects that make Uncharted 2 look like a Playstation 1 effort. This game’s graphics engine processes all of this visual goodness while throwing massive amounts (and massive in size) enemies at you without a single hic-up, glitch, pop-in, or screen tear to be seen. Unbelievable. Your weapons, magic–even the orbs that power up your weapons and magic are individual light sources that reflect light off of shiny surfaces, and can brighten a dark area…AGAIN, IN REAL TIME. Shoot a flame arrow in a pitch black cave, and it will light up the walls as it flies through. The line between cut-scene and game is non-existant. This game is just the latest arrow in Sony’s quiver that shoots the line of differential smack through the Xbox360′s core. GoW3 could not be identically reproduced polygon for polygon on Microsoft’s console. I’m not being a fanboy–just speaking the truth. The level of detail in this game is sick.

With all that this game does so exceedingly correct, I was literally stunned when I got to the end. When I say the end of the game, I mean the VERY END; as in final seconds in the ending cut scene. Maybe Santa Monica Studio had poured so much creative energy into this project, that collectively, there was nothing left in the tank. Maybe someone at the studio felt inspired by the way the Sopranos series ended. I don’t know. All I do know is, I haven’t been this disappointed in a game ending since I watched my best friend finish Final Fantasy VII; and that ending stunk (Yup–I went there). Again, going into detail would be spoiler-ific, but dayum–Santa Monica Studio didn’t even try to attempt a quality ending. I liken it to taking a 1st class flight to see a landfill. The journey is great, but the final destination–not so much.

So, to bottom line the game: This game is what you bought your Playstation 3 for, or this game will convince you to buy a Playstation 3. Just like KillZone 2, and Uncharted 2. It is–in my opinion–the best looking game available on consoles to date; hands down. The game play is smooth, and the soundtrack sets the tone for the action like no other. It also has a wealth of bonus “making of” videos and challenge stages that open up upon completion of the game. This game deserves your hard earned dollars. However, if you are one who expects a game’s developers to at least try to attempt a half-way decent ending you may be left wanting–especially with the final gameplay elements leading up to those final toxic closing seconds are so good. It is the journey to that toxic end that makes this game a must own.

At what point does style surpass substance? Can a great aesthetic make amends for faulty mechanics? Well–maybe Toyota owners would be best to answer those questions in general (just kidding–I’ve got a Prius). After playing Aliens vs Predator, I had to ask these questions, and my answers are a little different from the other opinions about the game you may have heard.

First, I have to put my biases regarding this game on the table. First, the Aliens and Predator IPs are my favorite sci-fi properties–ever. I like them more than Star Trek, more than Star Wars, more than Battlestar Galactica…All that. I have most of the AvP comic books, some of the Aliens and Predator novels–hell, I even paid theatre prices to see those below average AvP movies. Secondly, I’m a huge fan of Rebellion’s previous work with the AvP license on PC. I spent many hours at my best friend’s house playing through all the campaigns in AvP 1 and 2. Good times.

Rebellion’s newest effort harkens back to those PC classics, this time with a hi-res coat of HD goodness. Rebellion has a way of conveying the aesthetic of all three elements (Alien, Predator, and Colonial Marine) to such a degree, that you almost feel like you’re skulking down the dark steel hallways as a Marine, listening to your motion traker go off when anything in the environment moves. You feel dangerous playing as the Alien as you stalk some hapless scientist from a vent shaft, and see the shock spread accross his face as the tongue bite brings him to the afterworld. As the Predator, it’s awesome taking down an armed Marine from a long range plasma cast shot, or distracting a small patrol and taking them out one at a time. As the Marine–well–you feel like a reluctant victim; the way it should be.

There were some problems that affected gameplay in the early PC versions that have been addressed in this game. As the Alien, the ability to run up walls and ceilings was completely disorienting. This doesn’t happen in this version. A simple cursor design always points toward the ground, so you never feel lost, even as you scurry upside down on ceilings, or jump from wall to wall. The game does a good job of representing the tools available to a young Predator hunter on his first outing. Wrist claws, Combistick, Plasma Caster, sound distorter and Cloaker are in full effect, and all these tools are a blast to use. You can even jump into the trees if things get a little hot…Unless you’re being pursued by a pack of Aliens, that is. The Marine’s tools are very familiar. You start off with a semi-auto pistol with unlimited ammo, and shortly after acquire the all purpose Pulse Rifle. During the course of the game, you’ll have access to a sniper rifle, shotgun, and even the life saving Smart Gun, and the sentinal gun emplacements. While you aren’t exactly helpless, the pressure is heavy as you watch that ammo counter get lower and lower on that Pulse Rifle fending off a horde of Xenos.

Well, with everything Rebellion did right, there is quite a bit that was done wrong…Even though I understand why they did some things. To begin with, I have never seen worse AI in an FPS than this. I mean, they don’t even try. As the Alien, you can almost kill Marines with impunity. All they’ll do is spout one of the several canned statements they can say. “Don’t let your guard down”, or “Don’t relax now Marine”, or my favorite “Did you hear that?” I actually impaled one of those brain-dead AI goofs as he was saying that. Now, I can understand why they did things that way to a certain extent. On Rebellion’s earlier PC outings, using the Alien was almost impossible. If you were spotted by a Marine, it was game over. To compensate for this, they went to the extreme in the opposite direction by making all NPCs as dumb as a brick. I’ve laid waste to entire patrols by killing all the Marines in the same spot.

This could be overlooked if the AI improved in the Predator’s scenario, but its just as bad, if not worse. You can use the voice distorter to select a Marine, and the spot you want to have the distorted voice come from…Repeatedly. Have a patrol to get past? Simply send each Marine to the same spot, and run each run through with your wrist claws. The Marines don’t get any since until you activate the Plasma Caster. Even if they’re half way accross the map and facing the opposite direction, then they turn into Space Rambo–at least until you re-activate your cloaker, or jump onto a roof. They go back to dumb.

Control at times is clunky. Sometimes the Alien gets stuck transitioning from one surface to another. Movement with the Predator is the same. The Predator has a jump ability, where you highlight the area to jump to, but this interface isn’t smooth at all. When you’re trying to put space between you and a group of Aliens that movement interface isn’t consistant and simply doesn’t work. Mele combat is kind of a “simon says” mini-game. Press LB and RB to block, then hit RB to counter to knock the opponent to the ground and finish them off. This is acceptable as the Alien or Predator, but seeing the Marine knock a Predator on its butt simply doesn’t ring “true” to the license. The Marine is the best working scenario mechanically. Its not Halo smooth, but it works.

Honestly, the Marine scenario is the best, because the Aliens act like they should, and the Predators act like they should. Aliens come at you through vents, through floors, and come at you in mass waves. Your encounters with Predators are limited, but when they do happen, they crank the tension up considerably.

There is a multi-player component to the game, but I haven’t had the opportunity to play. Nobody on my friends list has the game, and, in this time of Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, its unlikely I’ll get the opportunity to. I don’t do random matches, so I apologize for the incomplete review. From what I know of the multiplayer, the real fun is the Marine co-op “horde mode” where you and two others stand against wave after wave of Aliens.

So, it boils down to style over substance. I’m a fan of Rebellion’s previous AvP games on PC, and of the Aliens/Predator licenses in general. Rebellion is able to draw heavy from their previous work, with the best set pieces that the license brings with it aesthetically. I can’t help but wonder how phenominal this game would have been if Rebellion’s environmental aesthetic prowess could have been paired with Bungie’s, Dice’s, or Infinity Ward’s mastery of FPS mechanics. Dare to dream, I guess…

So, in the end, I can only recommend this game to avid fans of the Alien/Predator license. The aesthetics are good enough to cover for the game’s poor play mechanics, but only to fanboys like me. Those who are used to the console standard FPSes from Bungie and others will be quickly turned off by how clunky this game works. Rebellion should have learned from what other developers have accomplished. The lame AI and the clunky gameplay mechanics are simply inexcusable in this day and age of console FPS gaming.

Get that gun out my face, don't you know I'm from Bosyorkatchewan?!?

Heavy Rain is one of the most engaging video games I’ve ever played.  To call it a video game doesn’t really do it justice.  Heavy Rain is about the story, first and foremost.  And the story is compelling.  Unlike so many titles where the story is an afterthought that seems tacked on to the game (Gears of War, anyone?); Heavy Rain feels like a rich, character driven story with a game added to it.

The game is not perfect, don’t get me wrong.  I’ll try and do this without spoilers, so feel safe to read on if you haven’t played it yet.  Heavy Rain is about a series of murders completed by the “Origami Killer”.  Named so because he leaves an origami figure with his victims.  You play as one of four characters, rotating between them as they all travel along separate – yet sometimes intermingling -paths to try and stop the killer.  There’s the good samaritan, the private investigator, the FBI agent, and the father trying to save his son.  Each one with their own vested interest in finding the murderer.  The story is well done, just what you would expect from a good mystery.  It starts off slow, and depressing (make sure you play the first couple hours on a sunny day).  Even with the slow start, the emotions that the main character was going through were palpable.  I was immersed and emotionally affected very early on in the story.  It picks up nicely a few hours in however, gradually building to the eventual set piece finale where the murderer is revealed.

That being said, the story does have some flaws.  Mainly when you finally learn who the killer is and start to recount what happened previously, there are several WTF?!? moments.  I won’t go into detail, but post in the Heavy Rain spoiler thread in the forums if you’re interested.  It almost feels as if it were a movie where some of the “set-up” scenes were cut for length.  For the most part, I think the story did a good job of keeping me engaged and moved at a good pace.  I think the game could have been a tad bit short, but the length of the game does lend itself to replayability.  Due to the myriad of possible endings, most are going to retry at least portions of the game.

The controls are….let’s see – interesting.  This is not an action game.  There are no “twitch” style controls here.  There are some new, innovative control mechanics.  I like the idea of what Quantic Dream was trying to do, which is keep the player immersed in the game.  Sure, you could hit X to punch, square to kick, circle to run, triangle to interact with items – but I think that would take you out of the story.  One of the early sequences (also in the demo) where we see the controls start to take shape is when the FBI agent, Norman Jayden, is investigating a murder scene.  There is a muddy hill that he needs to climb to check for clues.  In order to do this, you must hit a series of three buttons, holding down each one.  The idea being one button for his right leg, another for his right arm, another for his left leg, etc.  I don’t know about you, but it’s not often that I’m simultaneously holding down three or four buttons on my controller.  If you miss a button, you fail and must try again.  If the action requires you to be slow or deliberate, you may have to perform a quarter-turn on the right stick very slowly.  Put all this into a more tense situation – escaping a burning building let’s say – and your adrenaline does start to pump.  If you’re like me, and invested in these characters, you want to help them, so you pay attention and hit the right sequence of buttons.

There are some six axis controls as well, most of it nicely done.  Thrust your controller up to jump, or to the left to clear off a table, tilt the controller to steer a car, etc.  Shaking the controller up and down to brush your teeth was a little over the top, but it was during the beginning in-game tutorial, so I’ll let it slide.  The sensitivity was fine, I rarely had any issues.  In addition there are some standard quick time event controls, usually revolving around combat.  On the medium difficulty, I found these to be pretty easy.  Even if you do miss one or two prompts in a fight, you won’t necessarily fail the sequence – your character my have a bit more bumps and bruises however.

Another game mechanic I thought was well designed was the characters’ “thoughts”.  If you are interviewing someone, for instance, your character’s thoughts will circle around their head in one or two word phrases with a corresponding button.  Press the button and the character asks the pertaining question.   It’s much better than beating you over the head with a huge wall of text dialog box with 5 options, which lead to another dialog box with 4 options, which then leads back to the first list so you can try another option.    Heavy Rain does the same thing in a much less obtrusive style.  You read the three or four one word options and make a choice.  If you delay and don’t make a choice, the game makes one for you.  That’s right, no dilly dallying here, you have to think quickly.  Also, most of the time you won’t be able to go through every option.  You, as the player, must decide which of the options are pertinent and will produce the best leads.  If your character is agitated, or under duress, the options will appear shaky and difficult to read. All of this adds to the immersion.

Graphically the game is really good.  The loading screens, which focus in on the face of the character you are about to play, are particularly striking.  Some of the best graphics I can remember.  But, like most of the other aspects of the game, there are some nagging drawbacks.  Some of the voice animations are glitchy, and I did notice some weird motion capture issues that can take you out of the moment.  None of it game breaking, but could have used some more polish.

The main complaint, by far – that I have with this game is the voice over work.  Quantic Dream is a French studio.  I imagine good American (Heavy Rain is set in Philadelphia) voice actors are hard to come by in Europe.  My guess, and this is only a guess, is that they sub-contracted the voice over work to a French Canadian casting agency.  Some of the character voices are fine.  Scott Shelby, the PI, was ok.  Madison, the good samaritan, was good.  Norman Jayden however, I thought was borderline awful.  His accent fluctuated from Boston to New York City to Saskatchewan and everywhere in between.  I really had problems with him.  The children were another bad example.  They were obviously bi-lingual Canadian.  I half expected them to whip out a helmet and skates and say “How’s it goin there, eh?  You fellas see the new tuuk my mum got me there?”  (Apologies to Canadian readers.)  My point is these kids did not sound like they were from Philadelphia.  Far from it.  In addition, I noticed some “bean” instead of “been”, “oot” instead of “out”, etc.

In summary, I greatly enjoyed my experience with Heavy Rain.  I’ll take something new and innovative that needs a little polish over a perfectly executed re-tread space cowboy game any day of the week.  This game was well done, even with the flaws I mention above.  With a bit more money and time, I think all the problems could have been fixed.  This is a business however, and there are budgets and deadlines.  I applaud Quantic Dream for the effort and hope the next in this style of game can build on it.  It’s not for everybody, but I think Heavy Rain is something every well-rounded gamer should try if given the opportunity.

War. He speaks softly but carries a BIG SCYTHE.

One of the main things I like about Darksiders was how it really surprised me.  Surprised me by how good it was in a below the radar dark horse (pardon the pun) sort of way.  I feel this game stands up well against your triple-A high profile titles like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta.  That being said, this game is not simply a brawler.  It is a true adventure game in the style of the popular Zelda series.  Having read and heard a few reviews of the game while deciding if I should buy it or not, I heard the Zelda comparison often.  But the similarities are obvious and in-your-face – from the grappling hook, to the horse, to the boomerang.  All the other aspects are there as well – puzzle solving, exploration, collecting health boosts (not hearts :p ), and of course the combat.  I’m not a Zelda expert, but I do enjoy the series, most recently having played through Twilight Princess on the Wii.

In Darksiders, you play as one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, War.  The game starts off with War coming to Earth believing that the apocalypse is at hand, ready to crack some skulls.  He finds it odd that his three horsemen brethren aren’t there with him, and soon learns that he was duped into believing that the seventh seal was broken and that in fact there is no apocalypse.  Don’t tell that to the humans though, because they’re wiped out in the aftermath of the fighting between the demons and angels.  War gets called before the Charred Council, who the Horsemen work for to keep the peace.  War takes the heat for the screw-up but convinces the council to let him go back to Earth to clear his name.  The council reluctantly agrees, with limitations.  War must be followed by “The Watcher”, a demon who keeps a tight leash on War, making sure that he keeps the council’s best interests at heart.  The Watcher is voiced by Mark “The Joker” Hamill, who does a pretty good job with it.  Also, most of War’s powers and weapons/skills are stripped from him – which of course you regain as you play though the story.  So War goes back to Earth – and thus ends the first 15 minutes of the game.

The rest of the game proceeds similar to your standard Zelda game – go to dungeon, solve various puzzles, beat dungeon boss, collect object, get rewarded with item/skill that allows you to beat the next dungeon – rinse/repeat.  The game does vary a bit with some arena style battles- kill x number of enemies using this skill, etc.  Also, there is an in game economy – the currency being souls – which you can trade with a demon merchant for skill combos and powerups.

The combat is fun – not too difficult (I played on the medium difficulty).  You can get technical by using certain combos in order to keep enemies at bay, or you can get by with simple button mashing with the occasional dodge thrown in.  There is good variety in the combat as well, with three different primary weapons combining with a handful of secondary weapons.  The three main weapons – sword, scythe, and a gauntlet/fist weapon – each have a powerup slot that you can use to boost the weapons damage, soul collecting ability, etc.  The enemy variety is good, fighting angels (who think you started this whole mess) and all manners of demons.  The boss battles are fun and varied – one on horseback with your hand gun, Western style for example.

Graphically the game is good, the 360 version had obvious screen tearing and frame rate issues, but they seem to be fixed with the recent patch, and weren’t game breaking.  No complaints.  The voiceover work was another pleasant surprise, I enjoyed listening to War’s dialogues with the various characters he came across in the game.

The final boss battle was a bit on the easy side, maybe because I had the pimped out armor and legendary weapon mods, but it set up for a nice sequel if one gets made.  I surely hope it does.

All in all, I put about 20 hours into this game, spilled thousands of gallons of demon blood (it keeps track, there’s an achievement at 3000 gallons) and enjoyed every minute of it.  If you’re into the Zelda style adventure games with a twist, you can’t go wrong with Darksiders.  I’d recommend it to anybody.

Craftmanship. Its a word that 99.9% of the general public would never associate with a videogame. However, sometimes for a person like me, you come accross that ultra rare gem that meets that definition. In the world of brawlers, Ninja Gaiden stands out in a classroom of one, until now. The new star pupil is Bayonetta. It is without a doubt, the second best brawler I have ever played–but for different reasons than my fanatical fanboyism love for Ninja Gaiden.

Bayonetta is a challenging game, but it isn’t hard. What makes this project stand out is the uncanny ability Platinum Games has in balancing substance and style. No action game–including Ninja Gaiden–has been able to do it better. Bayonetta’s moves are so flashy at times they make Dante’s (Devil May Cry’s Dante I mean) seem basic and simple by comparison. Yet, each move has a purpose for a given situation, which augments depending on what weapon Bayonetta is using, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Story is typical action game simple. In an attempt to prevent spoilers, I’ll keep it simple: Main character Bayonetta is an Umbram Witch, who is at war with the “angelic” forces of Jubileus and it’s Sages within the fictional European city of Vigrid.

Bayonetta has hand and feet mounted guns that can attack enemies at range, but her primary weapon is her hair. Known as Wicked Weave attacks, they are usually the final blow of a combo, and inflict the greatest amount of damages to enemies. Speaking of combos, they are simple to execute, and button mashers will find themselves struggling, but able to get through the game. Master the Witch Time technique though, and a whole other layer of gameplay is exposed. By dodging an attack at the last minute, all your enemies motions slow down, and enemy projectiles can be reflected back. Lesser enemies almost stop completely, while you move a little quicker than normal, and your attacks do more damage. Execute Witch Time against bosses, and you’ll cut them down to size in brutal style. Its fantastic.

I mentioned earlier about this game’s near perfect balance of substance and style. This gameplay equation consists of equal amounts of Witch Time, and Wicked Weave attacks. Here’s an example: When fighting an armoured Applaud, dodge–go into Witch time, hit Y,Y,B, Y. which will send the enemy skyward, continue with an air combo, then, when he’s sent crashing to the ground, execute Y, Y, B, B, B, B which will send a high-heeled leg of hair crashing down. If the Applaud isn’t a bloody stain by the time the combo is over, than it’s armor is gone, and it will be in a stunned state, making it ripe for a Torture Attack finisher. There are countless set ups like this within the combat structure of this game, and they augment depending on the weapon you’re using. Execute the same combo while using the sword (best weapon in the game in my opinion) and your sword may execute a crowd clearing strike, cleaving all in half. Do that same combo using the Umbra gauntlets, and a fire fist may pound your opponent to bloody ash. Half the fun in the combat is discovering how your combos change depending on the weapon you’re using. Digging into this will be a blast for me.

Speaking of the combat, I almost forgot to mention the Torture Attacks. These are active quick-time events that occur when enough meter has been built by going into Witch Time, or enough damage has been dealt to a strong enemy. Bayonetta will summon guillotines, stretch racks, gibbotting racks, and iron maidens to deal gruesome ends to your angelic assailants.

I could go on and on about this game, but I have to say that this game probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. For one, this game is very Japanese. The music is comprised of J-pop re-mixes of “In Other Words”, and dialogue is dripping with J-pop culture, sexual innuendo and references to old Capcom and Sega games. This touches almost every gaming nerve in my digital funny-bone, but a lot of western oriented gamers may find it a turn off. Another turnoff may be Bayonetta’s stipper-like moves in the game’s cut scenes, and her boss destroying “Climax Attacks”. Though she’s never totally nude, her Wicked Weaves leave her provacatively covered (her clothes are made up of her hair), and cut scene camara angles focus a lot on her torso and exaggeratted backside. All that wasn’t an issue for me, but I can see how it can be a turn off for some.

This review is based off of the Xbox version. For those who only have a Playstation3 will be dissappointed only if they have played the Xbox retail version. Platinum Games didn’t do the Playstation3 code duties. They passed them on to the publisher Sega, and Sega did a sub-par job in comparison. PS3 colors aren’t nearly as vibrant as the 360, and according to what I’ve read online, there are still the same issues of slowdown (even though the 360 version has just a tinge of slowdown on a specific level that had a lot of enemies and colors are on screen) that were present on the demo. This was dissappointing for me, because this type of game is one I prefer to play on the Playstation3′s controller.

Bottom line–if you like brawlers, buy this game. Even if you only have a Playstation3, its worth getting. Based on what I’ve played of the demos for God of War 3, and Dante’s Inferno, they won’t be able to touch Bayonetta on the gameplay front. The action is silky smooth and fast, and quite addicting. Unless Itagaki or Team Ninja have some uber projects unmentioned yet, I’m milimeters close to calling Bayonetta my brawler of the year. Its that good.

I wanted to wait until I played the last game in the list of what I considered to be game of the year candidates before I rendered my opinion of Assassin’s Creed II.  My list, by the way, in no particular order – Resident Evil 5, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman: Arkham Asylum, COD: MW2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed 2, L4D2, and The Saboteur.  Now back to Assassin’s Creed…

For those of you who have not played Assassin’s Creed 1 or 2 – first of all, shame on you.  Taking place in the near future, you play as Desmond Miles, a regular guy who happens to be a direct descendant of a group of ancient assassins.  Desmond is captured by the evil corporation Abstergo, run by the Knights Templar.  Through a device called the Animus, Desmond is forced to re-enact the memories of his assassin predecessors in order to find clues to the whereabouts of  mysterious technology called “Pieces of Eden”.  Assassins Creed 1 concentrates on the life and memories of Altair, an assassin from the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades.

Assassins Creed 2 picks up right where the first left off, with Desmond trying to escape from the evil Abstergo.  Desmond is aided by a group of modern day assassins, who are looking to thwart the efforts of the Knights Templar.  Once out of Abstergo, Desmond is taken to a hideout where a new and improved Animus 2.0 is set up, ready for him to relive the memories of another assassin, Ezio Auditore.  In addition, Desmond’s new modern assassin friends have learned of a “bleeding effect” that the Animus produces where the user can physically gain the skills and abilities of the ancient subject.  So – modern day Desmond can become as badass as his assassin relatives.

The vast majority of gameplay in the second game takes place while inside the Animus,  in Florence, Forli, and Venice Italy.  Creed 2 improves on nearly every aspect of Creed 1.  Combat – in addition to new weapons, Ezio has a new arsenal of moves he can use.  In Assassins Creed 1, combat became jokingly easy at the end of the game when all of your combat skills were learned.  All you needed to do was wait for someone to strike, counter, and they were done.  In this way, I was able to take on 15-20 enemies at a time, barley taking a hit, if at all.  In AC2 there are new enemy types, two of which are difficult to counter, forcing you to vary your moves by using disarms and evades along with counters.  When all said and done, combat is much improved, more difficult and fun.

Missions – if I had a nickel for every time I heard Assassins Creed was too repetitive, I’d be richer then Tiger Woods’ flower salesman.  Ok the first one was repetitive.  But it was fun, and what game nowadays isn’t repetitive?    New  types of side missions, along with the interesting story line involving the likes of Lorenzo de Medici, Leonardo DaVinci, and Machiavelli keep Creed 2 fresh.  In addition, new ways to “blend” with your environment to escape from enemies and the ability to swim gives you even more options.

Collectors and completionists will love this game as well, since there are symbols or “glyphs” spread throughout the game that take you through minor sub-story line, as well as feathers that can be collected in each area for various bonuses and a special Auditore family cape to wear.  Another new aspect of the game I loved was the assassin tombs.  Each city in the game and one or two tombs that were only accessible by assassins.  Each tomb involved a Tomb Raider style running/climbing/jumping puzzle to unlock the tomb treasure room.  Each treasure room contained a stone seal used to unlock a special outfit in your family villa.

Overall, there are very few reasons not to play this game.  If you played the first but didn’t quite like it, play this game, it’s much improved.  If you have never have played an Assassins Creed game, this is the one to try.  If you liked the first game, well then this is a no brainer.  I took about 25 hours to complete this game, doing only a handful of side missions.  I’m not the fastest game player, but this game definitely gives you your money’s worth.

I can’t recommend this game enough.  That’s why it’s my game of the year.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Its a familiar saying, and in the world of videogames and their sequels, it is practically a rule–for better or worse. From a developer’s perspective, history shows that people like what is familiar to them, and that comes out in sales figures. From a gaming enthusiast’s point of view, it can mean more of the same, with developers not being willing to stretch boundaries when it comes to gameplay.

Enter Tekken 6. From a game play perspective, Tekken has always been comfortably seated between the hard to master uber technical style of Virtua Fighter, and the gorgeous button mashiness of Soul Calibur (I’ll not even mention Dead or Alive). So, does Tekken’s latest entry break new ground, or re-run the same ‘ol same ‘ol? Click the jump to find out.

To get to the jist, Tekken 6 doesn’t change much from its previous iterations. What it does do however, is refine the hell out of what Tekken did right. For those who are unfamiliar, Tekken’s game play is all about keeping your opponent off balance with quick strikes, air juggles, and keeping the pressure on when your opponent is on the ground. Tekken pros can exploit this system to the fullest–depleting over 80% of your health meter by following up one well placed launcher. If you didn’t like that fighting system from previous versions, this game isn’t going to change your mind. The core elements of Tekken’s style of combat are refined, with some re-balancing done to staple top tier characters like Kazuya, and injecting a new mix of high-low, and launcher attack cross-ups with new fighters like Bob. Combat has never been better, if this style is to your liking.

As with all things man made, this is not perfect. Namco, for some crazy reason, decided to showcase the Campaign Mode above the other modes that focus on one on one combat. It’s the first option you can select on the menu. The campaign is a re-iteration of “Tekken Force”–a poorly put together 3-D Final Fight style beat-em-up, that started in Tekken 3 (if I’m not mistaken). I’ll not go into great detail about it, but just know that it’s horrible. It plays bad, looks bad, and tries to tell the hard to follow bad story behind the Tekken series, and how one of the new characters Lars fits in with the Tekken world as it stands in T6. It can be skipped, but if you’re interested in customizing your favorite characters, or if you’d like to see the ending scenarios for the fighters, you have to unlock them by doing a run through of this mode at least once. The lion’s share of fight money which you need to buy the avatar like accents for your favorite fighters is earned in this mode too, and why Namco tied the fighters’ end stories and fight money earning potential to this campaign crap and not the actual fighting game is beyond me.

I didn’t have any problems with playing online. Some reviews have stated problems with lag, but in my limited time online, I did not have any lag issues. Setting up a lobby and sending an invite is an easy process. The usual Player / Ranked Match and voice chat options are there. You can also check the leaderboards and download “ghost” characters from your friends list, and top ranked players. Basically, a “ghost” is the game’s interpretation of how a human player uses a certain character. Its not very accurate, but it can give you an insight into how an opponent plays a certain character for training purposes.

Speaking of training–the training mode in Tekken 6 is missing the ability to record an opponent attack string–sort of. For the hardcore, this is critical in working out counter strategies against certain attacks, and working on your defense. Instead, you have the option to select attacks from the character you’re using as your training dummy, and the computer will toss them at you at random. This is a poor substitute for a recording feature, as top players typically cancel one move to go into another to keep an opponent guessing on their defense, to set them up for an air juggle, or to keep the offensive pressure up while the opponent is on the ground. If you can’t record those exact custom pressure strings you may encounter while playing against a human opponent, you’ll have difficulty training against them, making it a little more difficult to get your game skill to the next level. You do have the option of having a second person playing as the practice dummy, but they’ll probably just want to play the game with you instead helping you figure out how to counter Bob’s gut crush. Hopefully that will be something that will be addressed in the upcoming patch.

To wrap up–if you are a Tekken fan, you’ll want to own this game. It has some minor problems (*cough* campaign mode *cough*), but the combat is excellent. Online is robust, with an actual lobby (take note Capcom) and invite system. As 3D fighters go, the Tekken series is my personal favorite. So yes, Tekken 6 is more of the same ‘ol same ‘ol, but that same ‘ol is so good.

Its been nearly 400 years since the last blight and the Grey Wardens are few in numbers because no one believes that another blight is coming and they think it is just legend. You however soon find out that the Archdemon will be here in a very short time. You are recruited at a young age by one of the Grey Wardens who has been around for a long time and seen many battles.

The first hour or so of the game can take place in several locations and have several different stories. This portion of the game is your origin story. You can be a man, elf, or dwarf and then you have a background as a warrior, mage, or rogue. Warriors are damage dealers, rogues are the stealthy type and can pick locks, and mages are, well, mages. I could go on for hours describing this aspect of the game but you get the idea that you have a ton of choices in the very beginning and as the game moves on, the choices keep piling up.

It is not quite the “60-80 hour minimum” game that everyone promised but it is still very long by today’s standards. I got through it in about 40-50 hrs I think. I haven’t checked my hr counter in a while but it was somewhere around 38 the last time I looked.

Overall the game is very well done in my opinion. It offers everything an RPG fan could want. You’ve got loot gathering, magic, a small amount of weapon customization and a crapload of well written and acted dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, don’t buy this game if you don’t like reading or listening to people talk because you will be doing a LOT of that during your time with this game.

Gameplay is solid for the most part but there are things that frustrate me about it. The collision detection in this game is a little too touchy. I was always getting stuck on other characters or dead bodies while in combat and if they enemy you are attacking happens to move just a little bit, your character must also readjust. Once you take the swing though, it hits the enemy no matter how far away you are from them. This might sound like a good idea but it works the other way also. Say you are fighting a huge ogre and he goes to take a swing at you so you move out of his way so you don’t get hit, well you still get hit even if you are 20 feet from him. I’m starting to realize as I’m writing this that this review is going to sound very negative but I really loved the game.

Dialogue is one of the huge draws of RPGs but in this game it takes it to a whole new level. I guess I should be accustomed to it with games like Mass Effect and Fallout but it was getting tiring by the end of the game. Through the dialogue options though you can make the story your own and the choices you make do have real consequences or benefits at times. Other times, you think you are making a choice that will change the outcome but it doesn’t. In those instances it usually boils down to “do you want to fight this person now or wait through 20 minutes of dialogue and then fight them.” There are game altering choices though and unlike most RPGs, your party members are not set in stone and you don’t necessarily have to get all of them. One of the characters you actually wont get unless you are able to persuade someone to let them out of jail. Everything you do in the game also has an impact on how your party members feel about you and if they disapprove of you too much, they will leave(note: I did not have anyone leave because I was good for the most part but I know they can leave). It was funny in one part where you have a choice to fight your way out or negotiate and I chose negotiate. Well, one of my more aggressive part members took a huge disliking to that because I chose to negotiate. Also, you can ask your party members to leave if you want to but again, I never did. On the flipside, the more that a certain character likes you, the more it helps you out in that they get bonuses to things like attack, defense, magic power and so on.

Now to the obvious flaws and dislikes of the game. I ran into several glitches that in my opinion are not something that should be there. Numerous times the game glitched right after a battle and I would have to do it over again. It seems the game does not like you advancing too quickly. On a couple occasions I had to actually fight the same boss twice because I talked to a certain character before the game registered the battle as being over and they initiated it again. I was locked in a room once for the same reason and had to reload my last save. The one nice feature is that you can save anytime, anywhere except in battle and I highly recommend it because you never know what you are going to run into. Another is that if you advance the dialogue too quickly, the game wont recognize that the dialogue occurred and wont give you the item you were supposed to get. My dog went looking for treats one time and I read the dialogue and got the items. Soon after, I realized I missed something so I reloaded my last save. The next time, I just rushed through the dialogue but the items did not show up. That is the easiest example to explain but there were many other times that things like that happened. Sometimes, it affected the quest I was trying to complete and I couldn’t complete the quest.

I would recommend this game to RPG lovers but only to people who don’t mind a lot, and I mean a LOT, of dialogue(read: Teetocks, stay away). Like was previously stated, you cant always rush through it either so its almost like they are forcing the game to be longer than it needs to be. It was very rich and well done dialogue but by the end I found myself not wanting to listen to anymore. The story is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time and you do make choices that actually affect the endgame. Something I havent seen in a while. mass Effect was different in that the choices you made only affected the next ten minutes of gameplay but they didnt really present themselves later in the game. Dragon Age, however, takes the choices you make and integrates them into future dialogue sessions with other characters.

One last thing, as much as I hate to admit it, I actually had to change the difficulty to casual for the final battle.  After dying ten times in a row and not being able to do anything about it, I just gave up and changed it to casual.  I had been playing the rest of the game on normal but I had to change it for my sanity’s sake.  I was so close to the end of the game but I couldn’t get there because they made it so insanely hard.

Ninja Gaiden is the definitive action brawler series. While new-comers like the recent Wolverine, and the long standing God of War and Devil May Cry series bring eye-popping visuals, no brawler can touch Ninja Gaiden’s level of game play. It demands everything you have as a player to beat it, and it grinds you into the dirt mercilessly with it’s obscene difficulty. I love it.
Now, Team Ninja has brought out a remixed version of Ninja Gaiden II to the Playstation 3–this time without the series’ controversal creator, Itagaki. Click the jump to see if Ryu’s katana is still as sharp as ever.

Aside from an extra coat of graphical polish, the first thing you’ll notice about Sigma 2 is that it is the easiest Ninja Gaiden to date. I’ve finished the game on Warrior, and I’m over a third through the Mentor level, without dying much at all. I’ve put in many hours into the original Ninja Gaiden 2, and some might think that I’m just used to the game, but the visceral difficulty in this game has been drastically tuned down from the original–at least on the first three difficulty levels.

The remaining differences between NG 2 and Sigma 2 regard the elements of the game. Some good–some, probably should have been left on the planning board. To help make up for Ninja Gaiden’s always quirky camera, Ryu can auto target with projectile weapons like his compound bow. This feature comes in handy–especially when boarding Genshin’s airship. However, it kills the challenge on some bosses–like the sewer fiend, and the Arch Fiend’s first form. Beating them now is as easy as taking a picture with a digital camera–just click and shoot. Another difference is the way you power up your weapons with Muramasa. Instead of paying in essence orbs, you can only power them up at shop stations with a blue lantern. You can only power up one weapon one level at each blue-light station. This helps in that you always have enough essence to buy health items.

The additional campaign content is interesting, but it isn’t original. If you played the demo, you’ve fought the “okay” hand-sign statue. In the retail version of Sigma 2, you fight the statue again, immediately after defeating the Spider Ninja atop the heliport on the Sky Tokyo level. Basically, this boss (and another one I won’t spoil) are like Tecmo’s interpretation of the Rhodes Statue battle from God of War 2–minus the quick time events.

Another change–one I didn’t care much for–are the changes they made to the enemies. For example, enemies like the Spider-Ninjas give visual clues to their attack patterns. Their claws glow red just before they execute their unblockable grab attack. Thats too much telegraphing for my tastes.

Playing as the overly buxumed characters Rachel, Ayane, and Momiji is fun. They are competent characters with varied move sets, but the levels–especially Rachel’s–have a tacked on feel to them, and their end bosses are either re-hashed from NG Black/Sigma 1, or they are new, but have the boss appeal of static cling. Not a whole lot of thought went into them, and it shows. Momiji’s boss is a complete joke.

Bonus modes include a chapter challange, and a Mission Mode that includes online play. All weapons, characters, and costumes accessed in Mission Mode are acquired through completing levels in the campaign. The only way to play Mission Mode is online. Most of my matches have been lag free, but when it is present, its like playing the game through a View Master. It usually clears up though. When you play them solo, you’re hampered with an AI partner who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper sack. Unfortunately if you or your partner dies, the mission ends, so you’ll spend most of your time babysitting them, than slicing enemy ninjas and fiends. I was hoping the rediculously addictive Weapon Master mode would be on the disc; hopefully it will be available as DLC sometime soon, as it was for NG 2. For those who don’t know, Weapon Master allowed you to select a level, and begin with Acolyte class enemies, and battle up through Master Ninja class enemies, using only your selected main weapon and shurikens. It was a great way to get better at a given weapon for harder levels, and its nice to see how your score stacks agains the worlds best.

So, at the end of the day, I do like the game. For those who were turned off with NG Black/Sigma/NG 2′s difficulty should give Sigma 2 a try. It’s a fun game that will remain in my collection like every other Ninja Gaiden release. It will be most interesting to see what direction Team Ninja will take the house that Itagaki built. If you have a Playstation 3, give it a rent at least. Even with its short commings, its still fun to play, but not as thumb bust challenging as I like it.

The median age of a gamer is in his/her mid 30′s, and those statistics show that the average gamer grew up in the golden age of electronic entertainment, the 80′s. If the names like Galaga, Life Force, Dragon Warrior, and Bad Dudes causes a grin from ear to ear, then make sure and give Retro Game Challenge a try. Click on the jump for the full review!

Evil Game Master(Fanboy), Arino sends the heroine back to the past to play these Retro games. Most of the Retro Games are knock-off’s of their actual counterparts. Cosmic Zone, is actually Galaga. Arino has a set of 4 challenges for each game. Some of the are easy and are points oriented, while others require research. Don’t write the game off, because of research. Each game comes with a manual, and some of the challeges require a quick glance at the manual to learn certain tricks. This part of the game is done very well. Our heroine also has game magazines he can read for further knowledge, about the game loaded with tips and tricks. The magazines rekindle that old school EGM spark, and even feature some editors that you might recognize. After each of the four challenges are completed, a new game is opened.

Some might find the grind of the game annoying, but this is gaming  before achievements. Finding portals in Cosmic Zone, or trying to pass the 200,000 point barrier was the ultimate bragging right. Rally King is similar to RC Pro Am, while Phantasy Zone is similar to,( insert generic 80′s RPG here). This game sat around in the pile of shame for months, and now it had made a home in the DS. The game magazines are a great homage to the days when waiting for the mailman to bring a new EGM was norm, and the first section you looked at were the, Tips N’ tricks. RGC has a more to offer instead fancy graphics and short quest. It reminds us why we fell in love with games 25 years ago.

Pros: Great Spinoffs of 80′s era games, like: Galaga, RC Pro Am, Dragon Quest(Dragon Warrior). challenges are fun and not too hard. Hours and hours of retro gameplay. The games have a lot of content. the magazines are funny to read and provide with hints and cheats for the games.

Cons: The grind might prove to be to tedious for modern gamers. Graphics show their date. Some of the challenges  require a lot of replay.

Score: 9/10

Quick Notes:

Developer: indieszero
Publisher: Xseed Games
Platform: Nintendo DS
Release date: February 2009
Rating: Everyone

Review By GamerHusbands Staff: Joe(JDsBlackBox), Bob(FullTil101), and Alfred(GHR Maverick)

We’re trying a different approach to the Madden 10 review. We all have different opinions and different likes and dis-likes. Make sure and leave a comment telling us what you think about this format. Click on the jump to read the full review.

-The GamerHusbands

Joe(JD) – Madden 10 is another improvement over it’s predecessor.  This year’s version is the best looking to date, as it should be.  Gameplay is vastly improved by having the game speed default to “slow”, compared to “normal” in previous versions.  The slower speed makes it easier to hit the hole, juke, etc.  It also means your WR’s take a little longer to develop their pass pattern, leaving you feel like your QB is about to get flattened.  (I’ve had three QB injuries in the 10 or so games I’ve played vs actual people.)  Another improvement I’ve noticed is in the ambience.  After you throw a pick, or miss a 3^rd down conversion, you’ll see you QB or coach yelling at another player, etc.  Crowd chatter is much improved, too.

Chatter that hasn’t improved however comes from the booth.  Collinsworth an his forgettable partner are just as nonsensical as ever, telling you how awesome you’re running game has been all game after only one carry.  I also noticed some graphical ‘screen tearing’ issues in certain stadiums that make it look like it’s raining at quick glance.  Some other minor nit-picks are no more “tournament’” style leagues where you only play against friends.  If there is a way to do that with the current online franchises, I haven’t found it.  And my biggest problem, once again, is NO SPECTATOR MODE.  How easy would it be?  Sure the replays and video sharing/website integration are nice, but sometimes I want to watch Tilt get demolished first hand. Get it in the game already, cause it ain’t.

Overall – the game is an improvement, but could have been much more.  Score - 7.8 / 10

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Bob(FullTilt) – This year is no different, I picked it up on Day 1 and started playing some games.  The thing I noticed first was how rusty I was.  I couldn’t throw down field without an incompletion or a pick.  After a bit I realized they completely changed the throwing mechanic.  If you listen to the experts of the game you’ll find out how much the game has really changed.  The throwing mechanic is different, the running backs are controlled off the right stick, a slew of things are different but it’s not as noticeable as you might think.  Madden is Madden and you can hop right back in and start playing with some friends.  That’s where Madden really shines, it is great competition between you and your friends.  It’s bragging rights and arguments.  It’s fun!

The graphics are better than 2009, the players have more detail to them and the animations are nicer on a whole.  They’ve improved the tackling mechanic and it looks more real than previous years.  Every year they seem to implement just enough to make a noticeable difference and once again I’m happy with the changes.

The one part of the game that is broken are the online leagues.  I had great hopes for this but EA let me down.  The biggest disappointment is that they make you play the NFL schedule.  You can’t have a league with just you and your 10 friends without playing mostly computer matchups.  That is not fun.  Last year they had leagues where only a few teams had to play.  This was a huge oversight and gives them something simple to add for next year.

I think the lack of competition has hurt Madden since they secured the NFL License.  The NFL 2K series pushed the boundaries every year and Madden was forced to stay on top of their game.  Now that they are the only game in town it’s easy for them to add a few things each year and pump out a less than perfect offering.  This was a great effort with lots of changes but the oversights make me think they hold back things (tournaments in addition to leagues is one glaring example) so they can list it as a new feature the following year.

Overall this is another great year with Madden.

Score: 9/10

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It’s prom time. At the last minute, you get the gumption up to ask the prettiest girl in school–and she said yes. This chick is smokin’ hot, and you figure its time to step it up a level, and go for the trophy.

On prom night however, you realize that the grass isn’t always greener. This hot babe is as dumb as a lugnut, has bad breath, and is only going to the prom with YOU to make her ‘roid raging football star linebacker boyfriend jealous–and he’s seconds from clasping his hands around your throat. All of a sudden, all that cash you spent for the limo, tickets, and corsage doesn’t show much of a return on your investment–and you didn’t even get lucky. This little story is kind of a parable with my time with SNK Playmore/Ignition’s King of Fighters XII.

For those who are unfamiliar, the King of Fighters is a series that has a long legacy, and is well respected among 2D fight fans. Since 1994, SNK has been bringing out a new game roughly every year. The concept is that two teams of three members square off in 1 on 1 fights, until all the members of the opposing team are KO’ed. Basically, its been the same gameplay since 1994 with character roster and moveset updates for each year. The character rosters have consisted of folks from other successful SNK properties. Fatal Fury, Psycho Soldier, Art of Fighting, and even Ikari Warriors have joined the KOF specific characters since the introduction of the series. Believe it or not, there are “stories” involved with most of the games. Run a Wiki search for more info.

The latest in the series is KOF XII marks a complete reboot of the series. On the positive side of the ledger, the first thing you’ll notice are the gorgeous graphics. So called professional reviewers from big money sites and mags have refered to these graphics as being runny, or blurry (particularly when compared to BlazBlue). That is rediculous. It’s the art style. What SNK has done with this game is render the sprites using a soft edged pastel pallette. Seeing the game in motion in contrast to the busy backgrounds, and bright impact animations make the game look like a moving pastel painting. These moving paintings–so to speak–are the result of a 4 year long process SNK Playmore did on every character on the roster. As I understand it, each character was designed as a 3D model, and converted back to 2D. Then, every clothing ripple, muscle flex, and impact grimmace for every motion for all 21 characters was re-drawn and animated by hand. Combine this with lushly animated backgrounds (one even has shading) and you’ve got one good looking game.

The actual gameplay hasn’t changed much at all. KoFXII introduces the “Critical Counter”, which is kind of SNK’s version of the X-Ism specials from Street Fighter Alpha 3. Critical Counter takes place when you counter attack with strong punch or strong kick at close range. This allows you to string any punches, kicks, and special moves together in a combo. Being in this mode also allows you to execute your character’s Super Special attack for flashy pyrotechnics and heavy damage.

Now that I’ve covered the good, its time to go negative on this “hot babe” of a game. Lets begin with the single player modes. You have a choice of the 3-on-3 team, or 1-on-1 fights. Since there is no story, there is no history between the characters in the game like in previous KoFs. Part of KoF’s charm was seeing those opening match interactions between certain characters. Even in versions such as KoF 98 and KoF 2001 where there was no actual “story”, the characters still had interaction from being enemies or allies based on elements from the series’ storylines. Not so with KoF XII, and that takes away considerably from the series’ charm. Also, the single player is nothing but a time trial that only lasts 5 fights. Not fun.

There are only three backgrounds, and the character roster is limited to 22. While that sounds like a lot of characters by other fighting game standards, you have to keep in mind that more recent KoF entries usually have upwards of 30 characters. KoF 2002 Unlimited Match has 52 characters on the roster. Speaking of the roster, some of the re-imagining of the characters in KoF XII are a little weird. Ralf and Clark are so beefed up with muscles, they look like they could go toe to toe with the Hulk and maybe win. J-Pop fighter Athena looks kind of goofy now–looking like she borrowed Chun-Li’s Theigh Master to get her oversized legs.

The unforgivable however is the online. Its absolutely horrible. Matches are so laggy, they are for the most part unplayable–even after the patch that was supposed to “fix” the problem. Fights animate like they’re being viewed through a View Master flip book. Though I’m playing on the Playstation3, the problems with lag don’t fall on PSN’s shoulders. Its the same story on LIVE from what I’ve read on other sites. Online options are pretty varied. Arcade mode gives you ranked matches, and custom matches allow you to set voice and time options (among others). You and two other online buds can set up your own clan, and duke it out with others. I haven’t tried the clan and ranked online options because–frankly, with the lag being as bad as it is, playing this game online is pointless.

So, the bottom line is that KoFXII’s flaws outweigh it’s positives. This game was one of my most anticipated of games this year, and I thought it would continue the re-birth of fighters as the releases of Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue did earlier this year. Unfortunately, this game turns out to be barely worth renting, and not at all worth buying. Yet, I am excited for what this title represents. This game’s engine represents a boatload of effort, and is going to be used by SNK Playmore for a long time. The prossiblilty of another Mark of the Wolves, Art of Fighting, Samurai Showdown, Fatal Fury or a new IP entry using this game’s engine assets is very exciting. Its also fair to say that the inevitable KoFXIII should be superior. Hopefully it will have a larger roster, a story, and a more varied moveset–in line with previous KoF entries, since all the hard foundation work was done in KoF XII. They MUST get the net code right in future projects.

Just like the hot prom date in this review’s parable, this game has a lot of show, but not so much go. Rent if you must, but skip this one. Like a raincloud with a silver lining, the crop of fighters that will hopefully use this game’s assets makes me hopeful for SNK Playmore’s future titles.

When Guitar hero came out in 2005 for the play-station 2, it was a revolutionary move by combining the experiences of; Guitar Freaks, DrumMania, and Dance Dance Revolution. By bringing these popular eastern gaming experiences to the West, Harmonix gave western gamers something unseen; a rhythm game with popular music and a new peripheral that was very stylized.

Overall: 6.5
Presentation: 8.5
Graphics: 5
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 6
Replay Value: 6

The heritage of Guitar hero could be one of the most impressive in sales and brand recognition even while being compared with popular series’ such as Halo and Mario.

Now, Activision and Red Octane has released some of the most popular songs that made Guitar Hero a household name. Many believe that the Rhythm Game Genre is an over-saturated market, but Nostalgia should not be underestimated.

Most of the songs in the original games were covers, and now Activision released them as master tracks. Also, there is the band play functionality, so older Guitar Hero Songs are compatible with the drums and microphone. Songs like “Smoke on the Water” and “Bark at the Moon,” delivers a nostalgic admiration for players who desire to imitate their favorite band.

The song list, like most Guitar Hero games, could be very obtrusive. Most players will enjoy certain songs, and not others. This is my main gripe, since some songs will appease some families, but not another. The mixture of Metal, Classic Rock, and Pop can seem cluttered.

Smash Hits is a great addition for those who haven’t played a previous iteration of GH, and the addition of the instruments will lure veterans of the series. Unfortunately, these additions we’re enough to keep my interest.

Presentation:

Great and charming venues and special outfits for each venue, with sharper visual style from World tour (models, guitars etc), and over-all the good known graphics from the Guitar hero series. There is even a nice reference for Guitar hero 2 and 3.

Technicality:

Even though there is no problem on the technical part of the game, the noting charts aren’t impressive and the new developer for the series, Beenox Studios, has no relation to any guitar hero games before. Extremely obscure note charts uncover rookie mistakes and the volume is quieter overall.

Sound:

Over-all a solid soundtrack with 48 tracks from 4 different games. One notable bad song choice. “The cowboy from hell” performed by Pantera. The sound quality is really bad.

Gameplay:

Weird note charts can be a real factor for this type of game and from its fun factor.

Replay value:

Good soundtrack over-all but no DLC support for Smash Hits, which is disappointing, and I don’t think the online component is a motivating factor.

Conclusion:

Guitar hero: Smash hits may seem like a song pack for the old games, that’s not an entirely false statement, but a great soundtrack, good visuals, and the ability to play as a band aren’t enough for most people. But the song list is good enough to bring fans of different genres to the game, although they might not enjoy every song.

The game is rated T for teens, meaning its alright for most teenagers to listen and or to play the game, there are some heavy metal songs with more violent songs, but if your kid/nephew/family member ever played a guitar hero game before, it should be fine. If you are concerned with the lyrics, then I suggest checking the set list although there is a censorship for swear words.

• Pantera – “Cowboys From Hell (Live)”
• Franz Ferdinand – “Take Me Out”
• Queens Of The Stone Age – “No One Knows”
• Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – “I Love Rock N’ Roll”
• Boston – “More Than A Feeling”
• White Zombie – “Thunder Kiss ’65″
• Blue Oyster Cult – “Godzilla”
• Helmet – “Unsung (Live)”
• Queen – “Killer Queen”
• Incubus – “Stellar”
• Ozzy Osbourne – “Bark At The Moon”
• Deep Purple – “Smoke On The Water”
• The Donnas – “Take It Off”
• The Exies – “Hey You”
• Avenged Sevenfold – “Beast And The Harlot”
• Rage Against The Machine – “Killing In The Name”
• Rush – “YYZ”
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Free Bird”
• Foo Fighters – “Monkey Wrench”
• Iron Maiden – “The Trooper”
• Nirvana – “Heart-Shaped Box”
• Lamb of God – “Laid To Rest”
• The Police – “Message In A Bottle”
• Wolfmother – “Woman”
• Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son”
• Stone Temple Pilots – “Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart”
• Warrant – “Cherry Pie”
• Alice in Chains – “Them Bones”
• Danzig – “Mother”
• Jane’s Addiction – “Stop!”
• Reverend Horton Heat – “Psychobilly Freakout”
• The Sword – “Freya”
• Mötley Crüe- “Shout At The Devil”
• Pat Benatar – “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”
• Living Colour – “Cult Of Personality”
• Heart – “Barracuda”
• Kiss – “Rock And Roll All Nite”
• AFI – “Miss Murder”
• DragonForce – “Through The Fire And Flames”
• Slayer – “Raining Blood”
• Anthrax – “Caught In A Mosh”
• Extreme – “Play With Me”
• Judas Priest – “Electric Eye”
• Poison – “Nothin’ But A Good Time”
• Ratt – “Round and Round”
• Twisted Sister – “I Wanna Rock”
• Aerosmith – “Back In The Saddle”

The fighting genre re-birth continues with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger by Ark System Works. Its gorgeous, plays like a dream, and has online features that rival those of a first person shooter. Click the jump to learn more about the game that kicks Street Fighter IV’s butt.
Overall: 9.8
Presentation: 9.7
Graphics: 9.8
Sound: 9.8
Gameplay: 9.9
Replay Value: 9.9

Before I go any further with this review, let me state this right off the bat: BlazBlue deserves to be purchased by everyone who has a Playstation 3 or an Xbox360. I know it won’t be, but it deserves to be. I hope Arc System Works makes tons of money on this game. Oh, and the game industry as a whole should take some notes on how to produce a decent “Limited Edition” package.

I’m not going to spend too much time talking about the story–after all, this is a fighting game. The story to it’s own merit is somewhat interesting, but don’t expect a Final Fantasy quality story. In a nutshell, “The Beast”–a creature that nearly destroyed the world generations ago, has re-incarnated as a warrior named Ragna “The Blood Edge.” His goal is to destroy the oppressive governing body called the Novus Orbis Librarium. The other 11 characters in the game seek Ragna for their own reasons–which range from the bounty on Ragna’s head, to mere curiosity.

The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up BlazBlue are the jaw-dropping graphics. All of the 12 characters in the fight roster have that distinctive “anime” look to them with sharp, crisp colors. The 3D backgrounds have a “steam-punk” motif to them, with just enough activity in them to make them intrigueing without distracting you during the fight. Whether you’re fighting in Rachel’s intricately detailed castle rose garden, or duking it out on Taokaka’s village street as the young ones chase after chickens for the village stew, you can’t help but be impressed by the visuals. This is Final Fantasy level stuff here–no joke.

Control is typical, but on point as a 2D fighter should be. Basically, there are only 4 buttons to concern yourself with: Weak attack, mid-attack, strong attack, and Drive. Drive activates, or powers each character’s special abilities. For example, for Noel, Drive allows her to chain her phisical attacks into hard hitting combos. Drive powers Ragna’s “Beast” abilities for high damage attacks and health regeneration, and Drive powers Jin’s ice-based offense. Special moves are done in typical “Street Fighter-ish” methods–meaning a lot of quarter-circle, half circle, and 360 degree movements. This means that very little well feel unfamiliar in regards to playing the different characters. You also have access to a barrier for advanced blocking techniques that allows for quicker recovery from attacks.

One of the many ways this game separates itself from the competition (aside from the stunning visuals) are the control options it offers the player. While using a high end arcade fight stick (like a Hori Real Arcade Pro, or a MadCatz TE) is the ideal solution, the game allows you to map some special attacks to the right stick of your DualShock 3. Flicking up, down, left, right, and pushing down on the right stick will execute your character’s special moves, so you don’t have to worry about splitting your thumb open on your digital pad trying to execute a fireball motion. Again, its not the ideal, but the option is appreciated for those who want a simplified fighting experience without having to invest in expensive genre specific controllers that fighting games typically require to be playable.

Gameplay is fast, with an emphasis on aggressive style play, and combos. The game encourages, you to be creative in your attack style–and you’ll need to be, especially if you expect to build up your win column online. At the upper center of the screen is a bar called the Guard Libra, which monitors the two fighters’ guard condition. Let the Guard Libra max out on your side, and your guard will be crushed–opening you up to more punishing attacks. “Turtlers” (fight slang for overly defensive players) need not apply. The fight system in this game is deep, without being overly complex. Often, adding a joystick motion to a button press will produce a different attack all together. Experimenting with these subtle differences will aid greatly in moving from noob to master.

The online features of BlazBlue are the new benchmark for fighting games. The game allows you to create a lobby for up to 6 players. You can set the number of spectators, reserve slots for friends, and set rotation options (winner plays / loser plays / random rotation). If players agree on it, the last round of ranked matches can be saved and uploaded through the games theatre feature. This is a great tool for reviewing how you played, and figuring on new strategies for that opponent should you face that opponent again. Using these online features not only makes this game shine all the more, but also shows how woefully inept the online features in Street Fighter IV actually are.

Finally, the overall package Arc System Works did on this game is amazing. For the same price as a typical retail game, you get 2 CDs of the haunting melodies of music from the game, and a BluRay disc containing tutorials from top BlazBlue players from Shoryuken.com and Dustloop.com (well worth viewing if you want to take your skill to a higher level).

While Street Fighter IV may carry the name recognition and the history, BlazBlue surpasses SFIV in every way–feature for feature. As of this writing King of Fighters XII hasn’t released yet, but as of right now, BlazBlue is the definitive fighter on any system right now, and is well worth your money.

What do you get when you have a virus catching up on New York City? And you’re the one that has stop it all, even though you are one of the first advanced subjects, well you kill, crush, blow up, tear up and fight against yourself, your family and the government, well, at least for the most part.

Prototype is an open world third person action game that features super-powers, gore, violence and over-the-top action segments, along with those lines, some really good mechanics but also some disappointing unpolished visuals.

Overall: 7.4
Presentation: 8
Graphics: 7
Sound: 6.5
Gameplay: 9
Replay Value: 6.5

The story involves Alex mercer, Codename: Zeus. Throughout the game you will find out what happened to your lovely city, family, and yourself. Although the mechanics to get the information are intriguing and technically great, the content, sadly, isn’t as interesting. The story is well paced and it features some interesting theories, but you wont be playing this game for the story.
The cut-scenes are not persistent enough. On one hand, there are some really impressive action followed by great dialogue, but other sequences look really uninspired and un-impressive.Subsequently, the inconsistencies with the sound and visuals follow. Some of the landmarks look fantastic, but rough edges are easily noticeable. The voice-overs could be a lot better. Granted, some of the sound mishaps are due to the less-than-stellar story, but its not an excuse for conveying Alex’s story so poorly. I believe the story is mediocre, but has it’s moments. The main props to the game are the gameplay and high level of violence. Some of the presentation offers shining moments, but it’s substance is the prevailing factor. So, delving into the gameplay itself; Prototype’s gore adds to the immersion aspect. It has multiple enemies with different weaknesses and powers. The quantity of power is over-whelming for a while, and the action becomes more constant as you progress.

Powers/abilities/upgrading system:

The main powers in the game (after the prologue) are basic yet impressive. While getting into the game early you will feel compelled to learn and adjust to the new mechanics that you will earn throughout the game and the ones that you will purchase on your own. By doing more missions, side-missions and killing everything in your way, you will get EP(experience points) that will provide you, for the most part, quite a handful of upgrades even after an hour or so.

The main mechanics that you are using in the game are so:

Running fast is the main part of the transition between getting to mission areas and to running away from the military. On top of that there is a mechanic in the game where you steal/consume an enemy, a soldier, a civilian and even a monster that will give you information about the story, what happened to you or to the state of the condition to the city. You also get a disguise that is essential sometimes to be inside military bases, clean areas that have genetic creatures in it and more. The main part for the disguise ability is to look like a soldier or a commander and basically to be that person. At least on the visual side, with that, you can and will have to fool and manipulate the military to get access to areas, vehicles and a lot more. its essential to learn how to be careful and not be recognized in order to finish missions, or just having fun blasting enemies and/or choppers etc. Since I don’t want to spoil or ruin the fantastic gameplay, I’ll leave the rest of the powers for your judgment since it has a lot of cool stuff and a great amount of variety to it.
The other main mechanic is the consuming people for information. This is the best part of the game on the presentation side of it, because you grab enemies with the B button and consume them with the Y button. It’s a fantastic approach to tell and show narrative and give something excellent to the gameplay, and I would love to see that mechanic come to fruition in other games.

Getting back to the upgrades system, there are several branches to evolve and these are the types:

Powers:

Improving your unlocked powers are a great way to upgrade and really nail some of the more impressive animations and moves that are, in certain areas, essential to keep up with the game. Whether its the claws that you use or a special shield, every power has its own upgrades and solutions for better damage, longevity etc.

Movement:

Improving your jumping skills, sprinting skills and even wall jump upgrades really help you, when needed, running away or relaxing.

Survivability:

This is for my view, an important section, getting regenerated health increased is super important when you have a massive army if you will that will be against you, and not just health evolution there are also extra powers that may arise when the time is appropriate to unlock and purchase.

Combat:

A solid amount of combat upgrades, whether its for your basic kicks, or putting a earthquake with spikes in it, slashing it to the ground, one of the best depth for its genre.

Disguise:

When you unlock the disguise ability, you will be able to sneak past enemies, and a lot more than that, having the ability to even get more health, and just being more effective, could be a critical ability over the enemies.

Vehicle:

Jacking vehicles are fun and satisfying to use, especially against the bigger enemies out there. Getting some extra ways to do it is always good.

Weaponry:

Purchasing and using weapons could be a good and a fast way to eliminate some more tough and persistent enemies lurking you.

The core gamplay is hack’n'slashing enemies, shooting them if you want to, and just pounce everything in sight. With that being said, there is a good variety of powers that you can use after a while, which will give you the strategic advantage over you enemies. Though it may seem easy at first, the game is challenging even on the medium (since the hard difficulty is locked at first), but after realizing and adjusting to what are your enemies weaknesses, you’ll do fine for the most part. There are missions where its more intense which could lead to some frustration, especially since there are a number of the “loved” escort missions, but at least they are varied enough and open for you to decide what to do with it and how to approach it.

Side-missions:

There are a handful of side-missions scattered through the game whether it’s the most standard racing through checkpoints (with the powers that you have it does feel fun), gliding to a specific point in the map with precision is fun and challenging, or consuming soldiers and doctors to find out about the story. While time is a factor, fighting against or with the genetic creatures or military for medals is fun. Having to kill X amount of people, areas for time is challenging but fun as well, most of the side-missions are fun but its more a personal taste than anything.

Pros and cons:

Pros:

Fantastic gameplay, great powers and excellent gore and violence. Superb consuming and disguising mechanics.

Cons:

Somewhat a boring story and characters, rough visuals and overall bad voice-acting.

Conclusion:

Prototype is a really satisfying to play. Gore, blood and splatters of limbs are just going everywhere, violence with weapons and cool powers give you the feel of a super hero, even though Alex is not by any means a super hero. Some rough edges, and un-inspired story could turn you off for this game, but the gameplay is superb. Fun missions, great side-missions and fun evolution to your powers is a great way to give you tough decision on what should I buy and use next. Overall, Prototype is a great game with decent story and really good atmosphere to who are you, what are you doing, and why.

Presentation:

The main problem is that the main characters are not that interesting. The story isn’t the best and the graphical aspect at some points isn’t that good either. But the idea of consuming random soldiers, genetic creatures and civilians to get information is brilliant, and I think if the content itself was more compelling, the presentation could have been a lot better.

Technicality:

The game works very good on the technical side, there are no frame drops and for such a busy and packed world, its impressive, there are no bugs, glitches or loading problems.

Sound and Visuals:

Some decent voice-acting segments, and some good graphic representation of what the world should have looked like, but for the most part, it seems a little un-polished and perhaps even un-inspired by the majority of the world.

Gameplay:

Having such a good amount of variety, really good feel and true powers are awesome. Impressive line of different enemies with different weaknesses and abilities is something quite unique to its genre. A really fun and satisfying game.

Replay value:

The game is about 10-9.5 hours of gameplay, it seems pretty straight forward with its content, but doing side-missions are fun is definitely gives the game some legs. Not too much, but better than nothing right?

Ratings: M (this is not even a teen game to give to nephews, its super gory and very violent and its defiantly not for kids in any form.)

We all know the history record of licensed movie games….In short, they suck. There have been very few exceptions to that rule. Then, along comes X-Men Origins: Wolverine published by Activision, and coded by the folks at Raven. Is this just another typical lazy movie license rush job, or maybe something a little bit more substantial? Click here to read the official GHR review and find out if this game is razor sharp, or butterknife dull.

Overall: 8.2
Presentation: 8
Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 9
Gameplay: 7.5
Replay Value: 7.75

First, I have to say, that I’ve never been interested in the X-Men flicks. To me, it would have been far better if those were high end animated features. Unfortunately, animated features don’t do all that well in America unless its got Disney, or Pixar attached, so I know why they did those movies that way. But really– who are you going to get to play the roles of the X-Men? As fine as Halle Berry is, she ain’t built like Storm. Hugh Jackman doesn’t look like Wolverine either-no matter how much they flush out that reverse mullet. The only actor that could do Wolverine any justice as far as I’m concerned is Clint Eastwood-and I don’t mean Grand Torino Clint, either. I’m thinking more along the lines of Pale Rider Clint.

But, this is a game review, not a movie critique. To that end, having the likeness of Jackman as Wolverine is the worst thing about this game. It’s a solid title, that pretty much rips off God of War at every turn-but that’s okay…X-Men Origins: Wolverine has a decent bite.

A good chunk of the game is done through flashback. Sure, its been done before, but these flashback levels do a good enough job of introducing you to Wolverine’s move sets, and abilities. The game follows the movie, so I’ll leave names and places out of the game review at the risk of spoilers. One of Wolverine’s abilities that you’re introduced to early on via flashback-and one that I think is just as useful and unique as Spidey’s Web Line attack from Web of Shadows-is the lunge. With it, you can target enemies from great distances away, making this attack ideal for dealing with enemies sniping from a distance. The targeting is done by pressing L1, and the lunge is done by pressing R1. Not only does this move work great with dealing with enemies that use ranged weapons like assault rifles and rocket launchers, the lunge is a great way to deal with off-screen enemies. You can combo off the lunge too.

The lunge also sets the opponent up for quick disposal. You can repeatedly impale them from a mount position, set them up for a flashy impalement finisher, or a lunge throw, in which Wolverine flings the hapless grunt victim to any number of gruesome deaths. Impalement on tree branches, ground spikes, fork lifts, or simply tossing them from a high ledge and listening to their death scream is quite satisfying. Oh, and another thing-this game has an M-rating for a reason. This one ain’t for the kids, regardless of the PG-13 rating of the movie its based on.

Combat is a simple affair. This is a button masher after all, and just about every press of the square and triangle buttons will yield a combo of some sort. Some enemies will weaken, and you’ll finish them off Ninja Gaiden 2 style, leaving assorted soldiers limbless and headless. You start the game with the only combo you’ll ever actually need-square, square, triangle. If that sounds familiar to you, it should-it’s the only combo you needed in the God of War series. Wolverine fights like Kratos, climbs vines and scalable surfaces like Kratos, he parries melee attacks, and deflects projectiles like Kratos . He even solves lame puzzles like Kratos by grabbing large stone blocks or vehicles, and moving them into position-just like the ‘Ol Ghost of Sparda himself. Pretty much the only thing Wolverine does that Kratos doesn’t is the lunge. I guess if you’re going to rip a game, rip one of the most entertaining series out there, right?

Where they don’t jock GoW is the area of the quick time event. Aside from having to press the circle button repeatedly to do something, there are no QTEs, and I’m thankful for it. You actually have to fight large enemies to take them down-not finish them off with a cheap kill.

Graphically, the game is impressive. As Wolverine takes battle damage, his body turns into Ragu sauce, showing off his adamantium laced bone structure. Sometimes, he looks more akin to a Terminator-especially with half the skin blasted off his skull. A brief respite from the carnage will allow his healing factor to kick in, and the affect is in real time. You can also boost Wolvie’s active and passive abilities by picking up mutagens strewn across the levels. You can keep up to three activated simultaneously, and affect his ability to earn combat points, and how quickly his healing factor kicks in. As you eviscerate enemies, you’ll earn combat points which you can use to unlock a number of combos, increase damage and length of special attacks, etc.

Boss battles are fun in this game too. One in particular-fighting the Sentinel-is especially fun. The game does a good job in showcasing why Wolverine is “the best there is at what he does.” It’s a blast to use Wolverine to break down a 30 story tall Sentinel robot on the ground, and continue the battle to an impressive conclusion in the air.

All things are not good with this game however. Most glaringly, there are some game breaking glitches. On several occasions I’ve been caught in walls (environmental traps) and not been able to get out of them. I was forced to re-load from a previous save point. That wasn’t a big deal, as the save points are fairly spaced, but something like that should have been caught and addressed during testing. That is just being lazy. Another thing I didn’t like were the puzzles. A lot of them seemed thrown in just “because” and really have no place in a game like this. I thought a lot of the puzzle elements in GoW were unnecessary, but at least they were placed well. Wolverine’s puzzles show a great lack of planning, and don’t make a whole lot of sense given the flow of the game.

So, in the end I think Wolverine is a solid game. Yes, it copies GoW heavily, and NG2 to a lesser extent, has very little originality going for it, and has glitches-oh, and Hugh Jackman’s likeness (though you can unlock Wolverines yellow and black, and tan and black classic costumes). At the end of the day though, it’s a decent title, and should at least be rented. If you’ve got the scratch, stimulate the economy and pick it up used. However with AAA action titles like Prototype and InFamous coming out in weeks, don’t even think about paying full price. Save your “Day-One-Confirmed” action game budget for those, but X-Men Origins: Wolverine will entertain.

How many games let you fight the elderly? How many fighters use passing gas as a fighting style? Oh, and how many fighting games embraces the long lost art of racial stereo types? Well, Power Instinct lets you do all of that, and more! In anticipation for those great fighters looming on the horizon, I thought I’d share this gem from my collection….

Overall: 8.2
Presentation: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 8
Replay Value: 8

The Power Instinct series have been some of the most unique 2-D fighters around. In my opinion, the series has never been one of the more technically sound fighters–I’ve found them to be woefully unbalanced, with fighters that have almost zero recovery time between special moves. Otane, Thin-Nen, and Keith Wayne come to mind as characters who were so overpowered that they almost broke the series early on.

So why do I continue to find myself drawn to these games? The answer lies in the zany cast of fighters. Some of the moves they do are guiltily hilarious. Want to play as an 80 year old woman who can throw her dentures, and transform into a young version of herself by kissing her opponent? This is your series. How about playing as a native-American warrior who can shoot out chi-buffalos from his feet by doing the stereo-typical rain dance? Yeah–a few of the characters are eye-deep in ethnic stereotypes.

With this in mind, let me introduce the latest chapter in the Power Instinct series to be released on home consoles. Shin Goketsuji Ichizoku: Bonno Kaiho (Liberation of Lusts)-for purposes of brevity I’ll refer to this game LoL–released on the Playstation2 in 2006 in Japan. It was developed by Noise Factory, and jointly published by Noise Factory and Excite.

The game consists of 20 fighters who vary from an 8 year old boy named Taro who can transform into man dressed in a dog suit, to an old man whose special combo includes turning into a Japanese half crippled version of Randy Savage, and farting in his opponents, to a ‘roided up female wrestler / dominatrix who sets her opponents aflame with a crack of her whip, and dang near everything else in between.

The “story”–for lack of a better word–behind this tournament, is that a young girl named Princess has a magic box that will grant the wish of the winner. The funny thing about Princess is that her clothing bears an odd resemblance to the Pope, so I just call her Pope-girl. I tell ya, I couldn’t make up a cast like this for a game on my best day.

Gameplay is standard Street Fighter-ish 2D fare, with a lot of quarter-circle, half circle, and “Shoryuken” joystick movements to execute special moves. As your character attacks, and is attacked, you build up stress in your tension meter, which powers your super special attacks, and specials for your transformations (for some characters). Unlike the earlier games in the Power Instinct series, this one feels a lot more balanced. Granted, that’s not saying much when compared to the first two games. However, regardless of what character I use, whether fighting the computer or a human opponent, I never felt overpowered–except with the boss characters, but that is standard recipe with every fighting game.

Whether you use a fighting stick like the Hori Real Arcade Pro2, or one of those fantastic Saturn PS2 controllers, you’ll find that you’ll be able to pull off every move you attempt to execute, with the exception of Taro’s transformation super, which is moving the stick or pad left and right 8 times. The move is a pain to execute, and I really don’t see how it can be utilized against a human opponent. There is depth in the combat overall, but only the most dedicated will ever pull that from the game–it isn’t bad, but there are a lot of other 2D fighters that do it better.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that this game isn’t afraid of using racial stereotypes? Well, you don’t get too much worse than the end boss in this game. In the end, you face Bobby Strong.

Who is Bobby you ask? Well, he’s the likeness of Nigerian born mixed martial artist turned comedy buffoon Bobby Ologun. Apparently, he’s become quite the celeb in Japan, by playing up old stereotypes about Black men for some TV show. He rolls and bugs out his eyes, juts out his lips, and feigns stupidity like some modern day blackface minstrel. If you think those Shakka Zulu rejects from RE5 are racist, you ain’t seen nothing ’till Bobby Strong hits you with his booty power attack. Words simply cannot describe….

So, if you would like a nice slice of Japanese gaming culture, with some of the weirdest cast of characters around, and you have the ability to play import PS2 games, give LoL a shot. Its something else….

I’ve tried to include a link to a combo video I pulled from youtube. The last fight featuring Bobby Strong. Enjoy.

Gameloft has released a new updated version of everyone’s favorite elementary school classic, The Oregon Trail. I remember getting to play this game on the Apple IIe as a reward for doing good in class.

Overall: 9.3

Presentation: 9.5

The presentation is superb and very true to the original game. It is hard to beat an updated classic, and this one was done right.

Graphics: 9.4

The graphics are a big update from the days of playing on a monochrome green monitor. The game has a nice “cartooney” look to it that is sure to appeal to anyone.

Sound: 9

Sound is sound. I didn’t hear any audio glitches while playing, and the music and speech are clear and at a good volume.

Gameplay: 9.7

This game is just plain fun, especially if you remember the old game. Your goal, of course, is to travel the Oregon Trail to Oregon, avoiding obstacles and sickness on the way. You have to remember to watch your food and wagon strength, and rest along the way from time to time. As you travel the path, there are minigames that you will encounter. The minigames are there just like old times, though with updated looks. In the fishing minigame, you drag your finger down to drop your line, and then tap the man to make him reel the fish in. In the hunting minigame, you tap the animals to shoot, which seems simple but can become tricky if you get swarmed by a herd of animals. The minigame that I enjoyed the most was the “float across the river” game. This game utilized the device’s accelerometer to have you “steer” your wagon around odstacles in the river while picking up coins and boxes.

Replay Value: 9

This game has a lot of different paths that you could take, so it definitely has replay value. There are several side quests athat are available, which I only did a few of my first time through. I plan to be playing this game for quite a while, and also teaching my kids how to play it.

Would you spend $150 for a controller? Better yet–would you spend $150 on a controller designed with your favorite genre in mind?

Well, I did–with the help of some in store credit. So, was this money well spent, or am I just an idiot–perhaps a little of both? Click the jump to find out.

Overall: 10
Presentation: 10
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Gameplay: 10
Replay Value: 10

This year has been a great year to be a gamer–and we’re only in March as of this writing. I’m especially joyful as a fighting game fanatic. Capcom’s Street Fighter 4 has re-defined the genre that they have created. With the announcements of King of Fighters XII, and BlazBlue being brought out here in America (YESSS!!), I can see what I honestly hope will be the re-birth of the fighting genre.

Fighting fans are a unique breed of gamer. Many of us are more than willing to fork out the cash for quality, high end fighting sticks in order to get the most out of our games. I was fortunate enough to acquire the Mad Catz SFIV Tournament Stick at retail, and after paying almost double the price for this stick as I paid for my Hori Real Arcade Pro (with the help of some in store credit), I can honestly say that if you are willing to pay the high cost of entry, you’ll have the best fight stick around.

The first thing you’ll notice about the controller, once you’ve pried it from the gorgeous box it ships in, will be the shape of the controller. It has a sleeker, lower profile than the Hori Real Arcade Pro, even though I noticed no significant difference in weight. The Mad Catz stick feels more comfortable in my lap. Button placement is superb. Just like the HRAP, there are 8 buttons on the layout, but MadCatz put the start and select buttons on the front of the controller. This keeps accidental pressing of those buttons a non-issue. The LIVE button and turbo controlls are tucked away in the upper left hand corner of the faceplate, and there is even a lock-out feature for the guide button, so you won’t throw your mojo off in the heat of battle by interrupting your game. There is a headset jack, and even a storage compartment for the extra long USB chord.

The truly beautiful thing about this controller is that it is the first arcade stick available in America with all Sanwa parts. What that mean is, that the same buttons and stick assembly inside the MadCatz are the exact same buttons and stick assembly used in the arcade cabinets in Japan. Control is on point. While playing Street Fighter IV, I was able to pull off every attempted special move and begin to grasp the new focus, and dash-cancel mechanics of the game. Even characters with 360 degree stick motion moves like Zangief were a breeze to use.

While the controller works great with SFIV, I needed to know how well it worked with other fighters. I cranked up Samurai Showdown II, and the stick worked flawlessly. With 4 buttons on both rows, this controller was also built to play SNK games. After running through the game with Galford and Genjuro, I booted up Street Fighter HD Remix. I found the same level of control in this game too, with the exception of Zangief. While I was able to pull off his pile-driver a little more often than I could using the Hori RAP, I couldn’t pull off the move nearly as often as I could in SF IV. No doubt this is due to the more approachable gameplay Capcom put into IV. I had no issues at all with my other favorite characters either. This stick is butter smooth.

So, in the end, is the MadCatz Tournament Stick worth $150? Well, that depends on your level of devotion to the fight. If you are a casual fighting game fan, the answer is no. The cost of entry is just too high–especially when re-sellers are selling the PS3 and XB360 versions of this stick for upwards of $350–and getting their asking prices. The Hori RAP EX would be an excellent choice, but they are sold out at retailers too, and re-sellers are pushing for $220 and up. My advice would be to opt for the SFIV MadCatz Pad. Its readily available, and is a solid fight pad that will allow you to perform all of the moves. Advanced tactics like the focus-dash cancel are a little harder to do without the use of a good stick.

However, if you are devoted to the fight like me, and you want a stick with arcade exact parts and the versatility to play the the great upcoming fighting games on the horizon–then look no further. Keep a close eye on Amazon or your local game retailer of choice, as the 2nd shipments of these awesome controllers are starting to hit the market. Get them quick, because it is unlikely that there will be enough quantity to meet demand. This stick is well worth the investment.