Game Reviews

Hey guys, I won't really be writing on this blog for the time being, as I'm busy helping out writing for ButtonMasher. Though I will keep this post at the top of the blog and keep it updated, showing all the reviews I've done (most recent at the top).

2010 Reviews
January 25 - Dark Void via ButtonMasher

2009 Reviews
December 1 - Encleverment Experiment via ButtonMasher
November 24 - Plants vs. Zombies via ButtonMasher User Blogs
November 4 - Tales of Monkey Island: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood via ButtonMasher
October 25 - South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! via ButtonMasher
October 22 - Lucidity via ButtonMasher
September 30 - Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan via ButtonMasher
September 27 - Dissidia: Final Fantasy via ButtonMasher
September 21 - Batman: Arkham Asylum via Salient
August 24 - Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay via ButtonMasher
August 11 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled via ButtonMasher
August 5 - Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures - Episode 4: The Boegy Man via ButtonMasher
July 9 - Tales of Monkey Island - Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal via ButtonMasher
June 24 - Lode Runner via Xbox Forums (Winner!)
March 30 - Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned via Salient

2008 Reviews
December 18 - Gears of War 2 via Xbox Forums (Winner!)
September 15 - Army of Two via Salient
September 1 - Guitar Hero III via Salient
August 4 - The Simpsons Game via Salient
July 8 - Everybody's Golf 2 via ButtonMasher
May 19 - Grand Theft Auto IV via Salient
May 12 - Stuntman: Ignition via Salient
April 7 - Burnout Paradise via Salient

Opinion
October 18 - The Digital Distribution Take Over via ButtonMasher User Blogs

Sam & Max next week on XBLA!

Well Telltale is really going at it this month! First they introduced the five-part Monkey Island season, and now they have announced their re-envisioning of Sam & Max for Xbox Live Arcade!

And such a good deal too; 1600 Microsoft points for the entire Season 1 collection, consisting of 6 episodes. That's around $24.75 (if you have 100 or so points already) versus $90 on Wii or $30 on PC.

A great deal for those into adventure gaming and who haven't already experienced it on the PC or Wii.


*The ButtonMasher link

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the GTA IV: Lost and Damned review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...


Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: Action Adventure
Developer: Rockstar North

Rockstar has produced some of the most incredible DLC to date (that’s downloadable content for you newcomers), or an expansion pack if you will. The Lost and Damned is an extension of GTA IV, and Microsoft paid Rockstar a lot of money to have it as an exclusive for their console.

You play as Johnny Klebitz, member of The Lost biker gang. You will get to meet up with Niko Bellic later on, the main character from GTA IV, as some of the missions will revolve around the story from the original game. The Lost gang are a tight group of folk. These characters are really fleshed out and captivating, especially Billy Grey, the gang’s arrogant president. Along with Niko you will come back into contact with Elizabeta, Playboy X and some other familiar faces.

For those of you who have never played a GTA game in your life, the basic premise of the series is that you have an open city to explore or destroy at your will—completing a grand array of deadly missions, involving drug dealing, murder, assassination, kidnapping, armed robbery, and of course grand theft auto—just things in general your mother wouldn’t be too proud of.

For most of the missions you will be riding with your gang, and it pays to stay in formation if you wanna converse with your biker mates. The Lost and Damned features new weapons, including a grenade launcher, pipe bombs, sawn-off and automatic shotguns. There is also new content for the virtual internet, radio and TV. The most important being the new songs for the radio, including that rocking track from the TV ad, Wild Side by Motley Crue. Between missions you can also partake in turf wars and races. These are both marked on the map in varying places. Turf Wars lets you and your gang go out and kill some dudes from rival gangs. Races are the same as in GTA IV, except now you’re on motorbikes, and you have baseball bats to knock the snot out of your opponents.

Johnny’s custom-built bike is just one of the new vehicles available. The bike physics have been drastically improved. It’s much harder to fall off now, less realistic of course, but it really helps when cruising the mean streets of Liberty City. New multiplayer modes have been thrown in for good measure—one pretty creative mode in particular is called Chopper vs. Chopper where the biker must escape a lethal helicopter.

There are some additions that might not be so noticeable at first glance but really pay off in spades; now mission checkpoints have been gracefully added in more convenient places. Driving back to the same location every time you fail a mission is long gone, and it makes it a lot quicker to get back into the action. Now Johnny’s friends finally stop calling you up on your virtual phone while you’re in the middle of fighting off some coppers. You can still call your friends out for air hockey if you wish, but more often than not you will only reach their answer phone. Getting denied in real life, fair enough, but in an action game where you’re the bad-ass hero, c’mon!

The missions overall are largely similar to the previous instalment. If you’re looking for something completely different, you’re not going to find it here. Some new gameplay would have been nice but Rockstar decided to stick to the tried and true. Of course there’s the whole new focus on motorcycle riding, we gotta give them that.

Thankfully in this update, the stuff that was taken out of our version of GTA IV because of Australia’s absurd rating system is now back in, even in the original game. Which means more blood, boo yah! Be warned though, this game also contains “full frontal male nudity”. Yes this is not a drill, in one of the cutscenes, Congressman Thomas Stubbs reveals all!

The Lost and Damned costs 1600 Microsoft points, or you can buy the code in a box from most gaming retailers, which is really a waste of cardboard for a game that you have to download! Remember: this isn’t a standalone expansion; you do need GTA IV in order to play it. All in all, The Lost and the Damned is a very meaty expansion. So if you’re still itching for some more missions and things to do in Liberty City it is well worth the purchase.

Michael Gray

Gears of War 2 Review

I wrote a review for Microsoft's game review contest and was a winner!

You can check out the Xbox Forums here for my Gears of War 2 review or read it below...


Gears of War 2 is described as the videogame equivalent of a ‘summer blockbuster’ by lead designer, Cliff Bleszinski. And that’s exactly what Epic Games pulled off, a high impact thrill ride, blood fest, through war torn settings and is something else altogether in the graphics department.

The story was criticized in the first Gears of War for being too shallow. In Gears 2 however things are a bit more deep and emotional, especially with Dom’s new search for his wife. All the major players are back from COG Delta Squad for this instalment including Dom, Cole, Baird and Marcus Fenix himself. Some new characters are introduced also; Benjamin Carmine, Dizzy, and the spiritual Tai. Even after their assault and activated lightmass bomb on the locust underground tunnels, the locust horde kept on fighting and the war raged on. Gears 2 is set six months later, and the COG are “taking the fight to the locust” by sending troops underground in grindlifts. I cannot reveal much more about the story without giving away too much but it has much improved since the original and is a real driving force to motivate you to finish the game and find out what happens in the end.

A new feature to the Gears of War series includes riding familiar enemies Brumaks and Reavers which gives some diversity to the gameplay. New weapons include the mulcher, mortar, ink grenade and flamethrower, and bring gunfights to a whole new level. Chainsaw duels now occur when two lancers come into contact, this has you rapidly tapping the B button fending for your life. In the first game, once you were killed you were stuck waiting for someone to revive you, now there is a small but ever so handy ability to crawl around, avoiding any executions and hopefully finding a teammate to revive you. The ‘meat shield’ is one of my favourite new features, letting you grab onto a downed enemy, providing pretty decent cover when moving about, using nothing but your pistol.

The multiplayer has been criticized by many with lag and match waiting times. Luckily a recent patch has improved gameplay for most people. Horde mode, a new addition to the franchise, has you with up to four other players on the regular maps fighting waves of locusts. Playing with just yourself or with a friend is extremely challenging but a completely different experience. There are 50 waves but fortunately you can resume from the highest wave you got up to. There are different waves of spawning enemies and the locust get stronger and tougher to beat. It’s surprising how much time you can actually sink into this mode. Who would’ve guessed that bots would be brought to the other multiplayer modes? There’s nothing like honing up your multiplayer skills within the safe constraints of offline play; no humiliation, and no guilt for heading your team’s downfall.

Gears of War 2 adds three new multiplayer modes to the mix, Guardian, Wingman and Submission. Guardian picks one person from both sides as the leader, everyone can respawn but when a guardian dies that team lose the ability to respawn. Wingman splits players into teams of two and everyone can only be killed through executions (killing the enemy up close when he is down). Keeping close to your partner in Wingman is critical to your team’s survival. Submission is like Capture the Flag, except the flag is a Stranded called Chaps, also known as the ‘meat flag’. His shotgun can catch you off guard in the best of times.

There are ten maps on the disc but with the purchase of a new copy of Gears of War 2 you get the code to the Flashback Map Pack with five maps from the first game spiced up and looking prettier (or is that dirtier?) than before. Three new maps just released in the Combustible Map Pack for 800 points. So with a maximum of 18 maps, there’s plenty of variety to wreak mayhem on.

As with the first game you can play with a buddy online or offline cooperatively throughout the entire campaign. A not so well known problem, which has happened to me, was when I finished the campaign, my ‘War Journal’ which saves all my collectables, unlocked characters, Horde, and Achievement progress, was entirely erased. Such bugs, when they do occur, make the game extremely hard to go back to. Why they couldn’t find these bugs in testing is completely beyond me.

If you enjoyed the first game, Gears of War 2 has plenty of new features to make you stick around. However after shooting through countless locust you may start to get tired of the repetitive gameplay. The multiplayer, especially Horde mode is a blast and the campaign is just really fun and exciting through every turn.

By Mriceguy

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Here...

http://www.mriceguy.webs.com

Half-Life 2 Essay

Here is an essay I did for my last Media Studies course (a 200 level paper) on immersion, play, narrative and Half-Life 2. Enjoy!

Half-Life 2

Video games, an ever popular form of new media, are often described as just mindless entertainment but there are games out there that let us experience emotions, immersion and extend ourselves in some way. Half-Life 2 (2004) developed by Valve is once such game. It is a first person shooter that feels truly immersive and toys with our emotions. Half-Life 2 as a game does extend our understanding of the self through narrative, identity of an avatar, play and as an immersive experience. The narrative tells a story to enrich and guide players through the experience. The avatar of Gordon Freeman is an embodiment of the self in as little characterization as possible. Through play the player can experience freedom and fun within the actual gameplay constraints. Immersion pulls players into the game, leaving their quiet lives on the sofa to a virtual world where the earth needs saving from alien destruction.

The story moves the player through Gordon Freeman's journey while the characters of Half-Life 2 really add the much needed contact. In the original Half-Life, Dr. Gordon Freeman was a scientist for a research facility named Black Mesa. This was until an experiment went horribly wrong and created a portal which allowed aliens to cross into our dimension and cause havoc on earth. Now set years later in Half-Life 2, Gordon must continue to fight The Combine and the alien threat. The other main ally character who accompanies you on some parts of your journey is Alyx Vance, of Black and Asian descent. Through well done facial animation and convincing voice acting I actually felt as if she really cared for my wellbeing. She is not a stereotypical video game female but brave and resourceful, although still getting nervous at times. If there was ever a video game character I could truly love, Alyx would be it. Over the next two Half-Life
2 episodes you will get to spend a lot more time with Alyx and her relationship with Gordon will become a whole lot clearer. The main antagonist of Half-Life 2 is Doctor Wallace Breen who works with the aliens against Gordon and the resistance. There is also the mysterious G-man who seems to pop up in random places over your journey watching over you and sometimes appearing as a vision. The story in Half-Life 2 is fixed but it does makes an excellent thrill ride. "In video games, when players both act the roles in the story and determine the outcome by their choices and actions, the story is at the same time working on them – changing their experience" (DeMaria, 2007:46). Although in the case of Half-Life 2, you do not really have an impact on the story unless you end it prematurely with the death of Gordon Freeman. Of course you can always restart from that checkpoint. How the narrative is delivered to the player in Half-Life 2 is all the more intriguing.

The narrative is interwoven nicely into the game itself. Narratology shows that the narrative plays its role in helping this game become what it is. Without it, players would get immediately disinterested in the world and might even consider not to carry on playing. In Half-Life 2 there are no levels, you live a continuous life although the game is divided into chapters. The narrative is really only unveiled through wherever Gordon is and through dialogue between other characters as they speak to you. There are no cut scenes chopping up the game at all, although at the start and end of the game there are parts you have no control over but it is still shown from Gordon's perspective. "Narrative material can also be provided by 'in-game' devices, more seamlessly integrated into the game-world". The original "Half-Life marked a notable development in this direction, avoiding cut-scenes or other information that has to be accessed outside the main game-space" (King and Krzywinska, 2006:45). The sequel improved on that greatly with amazing animation and facial expression, I really felt like I was inside scenes of a science fiction film. "Scenes important to the plot of Half-Life remain fully interactive, allowing the player to move around while information is relayed by non-player characters and other integrated devices" (King and Krzywinska, 2006:45). You still cannot affect the story in any way but sometimes you as a player can actually reach for more information. When you look at some props for long enough, characters like Alyx's father Eli will talk to you about a certain topic for example newspaper clippings will trigger Eli mentioning a Seven Hour War, a backstory to the Half-Life universe. Although it looks like you are free, the game is very linear made up mostly of a lot of scripted events. There are breaks where the game pauses and loads, a loading bar shown on the screen does takes away my immersion but only for a few seconds. Gordon Freeman is more than just another character; his success is your success, his pain is your pain.

You are Gordon Freeman. As Half-Life 2 is a first person shooter you never see your face in the game, only on the box. Also Gordon does not talk, at all. All these instances lead to it being easier to indentify with him as a character, you become him. Your personality is now his. First person shooters offer far more immersion than any other genre as you are looking through a second pair of eyes, the eyes of the avatar. You start off as a prisoner with no power, treated like scum by the Combine soldiers. As you escape and progress through the game you become stronger with better weapons, vehicles and a Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, easily known as the gravity gun, which allows you to grab and hurl large objects. In fact near the end of the game when your gravity gun gets supercharged you are easily able to fling Combine soldiers around like rag dolls. This is a huge narrative and play contrast to the start of the game. When I become Gordon Freeman I feel stronger, more powerful and also less fearful because I know there is life after death. I am still afraid of losing my life and having to restart from a checkpoint but if there was no such thing as reviving I would probably act a lot stealthier than I actually do and try to avoid danger. Even though trouble always manages to catch up with Gordon Freeman somehow. Gordon's main weapon of choice, the crowbar, is an everyman's weapon something that we could actually own in real life, which he can use to smash through obstacles and as a weapon against enemies. Not only is it an instantly recognizable trait of Dr. Freeman but the feeling of smashing boarded up doors to clear a pathway for myself, I have never experienced in any other game and yet it all feels so natural. Gordon is more often than not traveling on his own, allowing you to feel even more like a hero, able to change the world in a single day. "The figure of the individual hero, the player-character, faced with some kind of upheaval… [and] the hero is, typically, presented as a figure hyperbolically reduced to the status of lone individual assaulted from all sides, with the exception of the occasional ally" (King and Krzywinska, 2006: 173). This is akin to other media as well including films with many action heroes such as Sylvester Stallone as Rambo and Bruce Willis as John McClane, able to take on the world with their superhuman endurance. Of course the main reason people like I play games, is to interact and control the experience through the means of play.

An interactive video game allows a play-er to play and this is exactly what Half-Life 2 allows you to do. The main gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made up of shooting, driving and puzzle sequences. Ludology shows that you cannot have an interactive game without play. The term paidea is used to describe gaming moments that are unstructured and spontaneous. Half-Life 2 is "an example of a shooter in which widespread collateral damage can be caused for its own pleasure, as a mark of the player-character's agency in the on-screen environment" (King and Krzywinska, 2006:14). I often do get distracted sometimes while playing games, I might come up with a goal in mind that the game will probably not reward me for but I do it anyway for the joy of spontaneous fun. Like seeing the biggest explosion I can make if I stack enough explosive barrels on top of each other. Ludus is the term to describe game rules in which paidea is contained (King and Krzywinska, 2006:10). Which means that while I still have to follow the linear narrative I am still free at most stages to muck about essentially. In games such as Half-Life 2 "restriction predominates. The gamescape consists of seemingly endless sequences through which the player is encouraged to move in a primarily linear fashion. Some scope is given for paidea, primarily in the form of non-essential destruction of the environment, but relatively little in the way of freedom to explore" (King and Krzywinska, 2006: 81). Without worrying about where to go this restriction also aids in a little something I (and others I'm sure) like to call immersion.

Not that it's the only way but today immersion is seen to be created of course with high quality graphics, of which Half-Life 2 does have. It must have looked amazing back in 2004 as it still looks great today. "Video games as screen media texts offer visual pleasures; the attractions of Halo, Half-Life 2, or The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker are inseparable from the beauty of their graphics." (Giddings and Kennedy, 2008:17). It is nothing close to realistic, but the continuous world, along with how you can play with physics, adds the depth needed for a player like myself to escape from reality. McMahan says that immersion is made up in two levels, the diegetic and the nondigetic (2003:68). Diegetic means that you are immersed in the world and story that the game creates, while nondiegetic is the strategy and how the player likes playing the game. You really can feel emotions while playing a game such as Half-Life 2, especially fear. In the small town of Ravenholm, alien headcrabs leached onto the villager's heads, turning them into zombies. Just my luck I had run out of ammo (a deliberate game design act I'm sure), reduced to using just the gravity gun and whatever object I could find as a weapon. And even when you set them on fire they would still come towards you groaning just like in your typical zombie horror flick. Tense music and limited lighting really added to the feeling of terror. In most first person games when you die it shifts into a third person perspective of your avatar, like in Halo 3. Yet in Half-Life 2 it
stays in first person, "the first-person perspective survives lethal encounters, creating the strange impression of being able to look around through the otherwise immobilized player-characters eyes" (King and Krzywinska, 2006: 109). A red filter covers the screen to confirm your demise but your guts are not splattered across the level like in the original Half-Life. The onscreen Heads-Up Display displays the value of your current health, shield, and ammo. This does detract from complete immersion but in the case of Half-Life 2 it could be considered as information from the HEV (Hazardous Environment) suit just like the female robotic voice announcing that you have entered a toxic area. In Halo 3 there is a similar graphical interface, but it is explained because the main character Master Chief is in a hi-tech suit with an information relaying helmet. Yet the character of Gordon Freeman is never shown wearing a helmet of any kind so the icons we see onscreen, Gordon would never actually see, if he was a real person. Plus while choosing a weapon, the weapon selection icons appear in the middle of the screen. Half-Life 2 is not as subtle as Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of The Movie which has no Heads-Up Display at all but sometimes ease of use does work a lot more in your favour than just plain realism. Half-Life 2 is not an easy game to sum up in just a single paragraph; it really must be played and experienced.

Half-Life 2 is my favourite video game of all time for a reason. A simple enough premise becomes an entangling narrative with backstabbing characters along with threats to the safety of your ally friends. The design of play is contained within linear walls while still leaving the player with enough freedom to discover and destroy at their will. When we identify with Gordon Freeman as a character we are actually becoming him, making his motives our own. Immersion is a huge concept in video games but with Half-Life 2 in particular it bottles right down to it being in first person and never-ending. Half-Life 2 extends our understanding of the self as a player, a person with the ability to play as somebody else within a new story and a different world. In the end that is why we play games, to escape from reality and its constraints on our lives.

By Michael Gray

References

King, Geoff and Krzywinska, Tanya. Tomb Raiders & Space Invaders: Videogame Forms & Contexts. I.B. Tauris & CO Ltd, 2006. pp. 45, 173, 14, 10, 81, 109.

DeMaria, Rusel. Reset. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, INC. 2007. pp. 46.

McMahan, A. "Immersion, Engagement, and Presence: A method for analysing 3-D video games". The Video Game Theory Reader. M.J.P Wolf & B. Perron (eds.). London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 68.

Giddings, Seth and Kennedy, Helen W. "Little Jesuses and *@#?-off Robots: On Cybernetics, Aesthetics, and Not Being Very Good at Lego Star Wars". The Pleasures of Computer Gaming: Essays on Cultural History, Theory and Aesthetics. M. Swalwell & J. Wilson (eds.). North Carolina: McFarland, 2008. pp. 17.

Army Of Two Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the Army of Two review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...

Army of Two
Genre: Third Person Shooter
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: EA Montreal
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Although it’s expected these days, Army of Two was designed for co-op play. You play as two best buddies, Rios and Salem, who are private contractors hired by the American military to exterminate power hungry military corporations. These two mercenaries are so hard that they can stomach a friendly fist pound after slaughtering hundreds of soldiers. Story-wise there doesn’t seem to be anything compelling; to me it felt like you were just gunning down terrorist after terrorist with a few tougher ones thrown in for good measure. But in some pretty nice places. The game’s missions occur in well known locations; Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, China and Miami.

The unique element of this shooter is called Aggro. This means that if one of you starts shooting up a storm, your Aggrometer will build up and you will start to glow red. This attracts enemy fire towards you while your partner turns slightly invisible and can sneak up behind the enemy. The same works in reverse if you order your partner to attract attention.

The gameplay is novel. When you get shot your buddy can come and drag you off to safety and magically heal you. Of course the AI (who are a sandwich short of a picnic) sometimes continue to drag you off hundreds of metres away even when there was adequate cover just near you. At times while you play, Rios and Salem stand back to back and shoot in a circle in slow-mo, just like in those action flicks! Sometimes you’ll come in gliding, have limited control over where you go, and have to shoot, which is fricken hard, especially with a rifle! Other nifty features are Overkill which occurs when you have the Agrrometer down on one side for long enough. If you’re glowing red you will continue at normal speed while everything else around you is slowed down. If you’re glowing blue you also go slow-motion but this helps with precision and you get 2x damage.

This is a third person shooter so you’ll be needing to find cover the majority of the time. Unlike Gears of War you won’t attach yourself to walls but instead only crouch down behind them. This has its advantages as you can easily move out from cover, but on occasion while it might look like you’re safe, bullets will spew out at you from the sides. Annoying. Until you get to China, the environments you’re in are pretty drab. After a while seeing grey concrete walls and buildings things do become a bit dull.

Several times during the story you will come across the hovercraft. Linear progression of the levels makes it not that entertaining but it does break up all the shooting sequences. Your GPS is a very handy tool with an arrow pointing out where you should go. It looks pretty cool too, like you’re walking through a blueprint. Weapon purchasing and customization is here in all its glory, although you will need quite a lot of money to pimp out your artillery. Guns including the M249 saw, and incredibly powerful M134 Gatling gun are a must for your arsenal. Also for a price the metal masks that hide the pair’s faces and can be painted with a few menacing patterns.

Army of Two does try a lame attempt at making co-op seem worthwhile by including doors that require two people to knock them down. Coop gameplay also makes sense when giving your friend a boost up on your shoulders to reach higher places. Online is two on two and unfortunately I couldn’t find an online match to try it out. Modes include Versus, Warzone, Extraction and Bounties. A huge downer is that Army of Two is bizarrely not cross-region compatible, so if you have a friend over in the States with an NTSC disc there’s no way you can play with them.

Army of Two is a pretty decent shooter but can get rather derivative at times. More fun split-screen with a friend at your side or online across the tubes. Sometimes the AI being recognizably artificial becomes more than apparent, your partner and enemies included. But you can’t go wrong with a good old terrorist hunting, blood spilling action game.

By Mriceguy

By the way the last issue of Salient has been published, so Army of Two is my last review for this year. However I may write a few reviews just for this blog before hopefully writing for Salient again next year.

If you can, please digg this article - I appreciate it! :)

The Simpsons Game Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for The Simpsons Game review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...

The Simpsons Game

Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Ps2 Wii, PC
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Genre: 3D Platformer

There have been many Simpsons’ games in the past but really they weren’t any good. So the aptly named The Simpsons Game was produced to change all that and make something that stands up to The Simpsons name. The game starts off when Bart discovers a manual for The Simpsons Game and realizes he is actually a video game character and discovers the unique abilities he and his family has.

You have the entire town of Springfield to explore, discover every unique nook and cranny which is quite a task with all the collectables on offer. Unless you’re extra careful on your first play through, you’re gonna have to go back to each level if you want the illustrious achievement of collecting every token in the game.

Each character you play has unique abilities; Homer can change into a large ball and easily smash through obstacles and roll with extreme speed. Bart turns into Bartman and can glide, rappel and climb walls. Lisa has the palm of Budda which she uses to pick up objects, squash enemies and solve puzzles. Marge has the power of nagging which she uses to recruit nearby people to her mob of flames and pitchforks. Maggie comes into play when Marge finds airducts she can climb into, so she can solve certain puzzles. As you progress through the game you gain extra abilities that add to or extend your current performance. Very humorous moments are when you come across common video game clichés, The Comic Book Guy pops up and tells you how wooden crates and your character not being able to swim is quite unoriginal. Hilarity. The Simpsons Game often breaks through the fourth wall with selfreferential dialogue; especially in the cut-scenes. Even Electronic Arts isn’t spared from the irony. A video game designer and other famous people make cameo appearances. You also come across other video game characters such as Mario, Sonic, Madden football players and Ryu from Street Fighter. In a nice touch many of the voice actors from the show lend their voices to the many colourful characters of Springfield.

Splitscreen co-op mode is pretty fun – apart from fighting over who wants to be Homer. A huge downside is that only one player can explore Springfield, player two is kicked out until they enter an episode. My guess being that the town is too large for players to go their separate ways.

The graphics are appealing. The game is presented in 2D so it looks like you’re actually in the Simpson’s cartoon world. But the game is a bit short and can probably be finished in a single weekend. The platforming aspects aren’t really amazing and nothing is exactly original but that is excused by the fact that the game is only trying to act like a typical video game. If you’re into The Simpsons at all, interested in a parody game, or are just looking for a simple platformer that passes the time, try this one out.

By Mriceguy

Guitar Hero III Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the Guitar Hero III review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PC
Genre: Music/Rhythm
Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision

Guitar Hero is a recognised brand globally, although it was really Konami that invented the music/rhythm genre with GuitarFreaks. Yet Guitar Hero, by porting to the console from the arcade, really capitalised the genre and brought it mainstream. This time around Harmonix have moved on to bigger and better things with Rockband, (still not released in NZ) so Neversoft of Tony Hawk fame have taken the reigns as developer and here we have Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Not much has changed since Guitar Hero II - a bit of a graphical overhaul with the user interface, but of course what more can you really do to Guitar Hero? The addition of Battle Mode is interesting and slightly amusing against friends but really, using power-ups against virtual reincarnations of Slash or Tom Morello is just embarrassing. Power-ups are used as weapons against your opponent by causing broken strings, breaking the whammy bar or increasing the difficulty. Winning Battle Mode is achieved by firing enough power-ups so your victim misses notes, and falls into the red.

The Sex Pistols got back together to do an exclusive rerecording of Anarchy in the UK, since their master recording mysteriously vanished. Many classic songs appear in the set list such as Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, Hit Me with Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns ‘N Roses. There are a couple of song packs available for download for consoles with the ability but the selection is really pathetic, plus there is no option to download songs singularly from song packs.

The new plastic guitar that comes with Guitar Hero III, if you’re that way inclined, is a black Gibson Les Paul. The first wireless Guitar Hero controller is a blessing. No more tripping over tangled wires as you jump off your couch! It also hosts a removable faceplate, and the neck can be disconnected for carrying round to mates’ places. You can’t do that with your electric guitar now can you?! However at $80 the peripheral bears a price tag that only the most extreme Guitar Hero fan could justify.

Guitar Hero III does little to improve upon its predecessors, and even removes some of the charm of the originals but if you’ve yet to own a Guitar Hero game, than this is as good a place as any to start. Otherwise sticking to what you already own will save you money and disappointment.

By Mriceguy

Grand Theft Auto IV Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the Grand Theft Auto IV review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...


Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Genre: Action Adventure
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar

Only once in a while do games really remind you of why you play video games in the first place. Grand Theft Auto IV is one such a game. On the surface it may seem like a mindless romp: running over pedestrians, firing on hotdog stands and soliciting in the service of prostitutes; it is that and oh so much more. Behind it is a gritty story of crime and alliances all encased in a virtual city, showcasing the irony behind American culture.

You play as Niko Bellic, a European immigrant arriving in Liberty City (based on New York City) to meet his cousin Roman who says he’s been living the American Dream. Niko soon finds out that it is anything but and Roman is heavily in debt. This is not a story from rags to riches but as Sam Houser, Rockstar President, puts it, “a story from rags to slightly better rags.” The plot has many twists and turns and Niko’s dark past will inevitably catch up with him. The characters are dynamic and engaging, and there was never the urge to skip a cutscene. Every cutscene is interesting and enjoyable to watch, from the comic relief of Brucie the oddball auto garage owner, to Little Jacob the Jamaican arms dealer who is near impossible to understand!

Liberty City is smaller than the state of San Andreas, but the developers have substantiated that it is better to put in greater detail than large areas of nothingness. In GTA style you have streets to run around in, cars to jack, shops to visit, pedestrians to bowl over. At the beginning you only have access to a section of the city, but once you have unlocked all parts of Liberty City the world is really yours for the taking. The scope is incredible, from surfing the web at an internet café, to listening to all eighteen radio stations and competing in darts at the local pub. The game pokes fun at TV shows such as CSI and 24, and brands like Sprite. Even the series itself is fair game, with the Xbox 360 achievement ‘Warm Coffee’ after taking your girlfriend inside, alluding to the controversial hot coffee mod in San Andreas. Even something as simple as a taxi ride is made satisfying as you sit back and look at Liberty City go on around you, while Niko chats to the cabbie.

In this GTA your mobile phone plays a crucial role. By pressing the up button, a virtual phone comes onscreen that you can call on or receive calls and texts from characters you have met in the game. Once you do enough missions for a character, the phone presents new options and you can go socialising with them in a number of activities such as bowling, dining out, or even visiting a strip club.

The mission structure is pretty similar to previous installments where you head out to a destination on your radar, a cut scene plays and the mission starts with the location mapped to your radar. Although there are variations, sometimes missions start as soon as you answer a call. This time around if you fail a mission you can easily restart it from your mobile phone, which is a godsend after getting fed up with travel time in San Andreas. One small nitpick however, the game does autosave after completing missions, but saving is still a pain as you have to travel all the way to your safe house and save there.

Using the powerful Euphoria animation technology, the animation plays smooth and believably well. For example, if you gently ram into a pedestrian they will lose balance and topple over, then carefully pick themselves up. After a long night at the pub, Niko will stumble around for a good while, falling over easily and using whatever he can to balance himself. Yes it is possible to go drink driving! Be prepared for real nausea as your screen is distorted and your eyes punished as a reward.

Multiplayer has arrived for the first in the GTA series. There is no main menu in GTA IV so like Burnout Paradise, multiplayer is accessed in-game through your mobile phone. It is definitely mayhem as you and up to fifteen others parade around Liberty City guns a-blazing and cars a-squealing. There are fifteen multiplayer modes comprised under team, cooperative, competitive, race and party focuses. Free Mode is the highlight where there are no rules, and you have free roam of the city alongside your mates.

Not only is Grand Theft Auto IV one of the best games ever created but it has got itself into the Guinness World Records for the biggest entertainment release of all time! Rockstar have really cornered themselves now. How can they possibly improve upon this? If you own an Xbox 360 or PS3, you owe it to yourself to buy this game.

By Mriceguy

Stuntman: Ignition Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the Stuntman: Ignition review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...

Shinigami, editor of the Games Reviews page also wrote a review for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

Game: Stuntman: Ignition
Genre: Action Racer
Developer: Paradigm Entertainment
Publisher: THQ

Stuntman: Ignition is the sequel to the stunt driving game, Stuntman released on the PS2. It does try to improve the formula but that still isn’t enough to save this title from being left alone on store shelves.

This is quite different to the usual racer where you play as a vehicle stuntman in Hollywood. In the Career mode there are six fictional films where you take part in six fast action scenes. Each film is a take on an actual film or a stereotype of the genre: First starting off in Aftershock a volcano disaster movie, taking control of a variety of vehicles like a motorbike and fire truck among the rubble and flowing lava. Whoopin and a Hollerin’ II is a take on The Dukes of Hazard, the definite highlight is crushing cop cars with a monster truck! Strike Force Omega is a straight up action movie in the desert. Overdrive is a Starsky and Hutch clone, set in the 70’s. Never Kill Me Again is obvious even in the title that of the James Bond film Die Another Day. Night Avenger pretends to be Batman and lets you perform the craziest stunts in the game.

Stunts have to be achieved near perfectly, fail several and you have to restart. At the end you are given a score and a star rating out of five. It’s near impossible to get 5 stars as you need to link each stunt together to create a chain. The trial and error is the most frustrating part of Stuntman: Ignition. You will find yourself repeating scenes over and over to perfection, so depending on your patience will make or break this game for you.

The Stunt Constructor was a nice gesture but ends up being a bit messy and especially irritating when you need to unlock items in the Career to actually start building anything. Online Multiplayer doesn’t really suit a game of this type and is not even worth playing unless you’re an achievement whore, good luck finding a match though!

If you’re looking for something new in the driving action space it may be worth a rental but it’s safe to say you probably won’t miss this game. Earlier this year THQ have confirmed that there will not be any more sequels to Stuntman or THQ’s street racing game, Juiced, another indicator of the game’s failure to please the masses.

By Mriceguy

Burnout Paradise Review (360)

You can check out the Salient website here for the Burnout Paradise review, click on the printed version for a closeup, or read it below...

Burnout Paradise
Genre: Arcade Racer
Developer: Criterion Games
Publisher: EA Games

Burnout Paradise flat spins the Burnout franchise in an entirely new direction, creating a huge open world named Paradise City. Paradise City is a fictional American location consisting of mountain ranges, a beach and a harbour town. As soon as you start up the game, Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses blares from your speakers, you’re thrown into a junk yard, and you are free to chose a car, and roam the city. Criterion Games promised an open world to explore at your leisure, and that’s exactly what they delivered.

There are no boundaries or set paths, the beauty of this game is that you clear your own route through the streets to the finish. At each intersection marked by traffic lights, there is one of five different events on offer. Races involve you competing against the AI to a set landmark. Stunt Run has you performing outrageous stunts like a madman before your time runs out. The classic Road Rage mode is back, from previous titles with the aim to score the most takedowns (crashing into an opponent car and obliterating them from existence). Marked Man is a game of cat and mouse as you try to escape from your pursuers.

Showtime mode is the evolution of Crash mode. Crash mode was a feature in the previous Burnout games where you picked an intersection, and drove your way into traffic, trying to crash into as many vehicles as possible. In Paradise you can enter into Showtime mode at any time, which has you flipping over endlessly — steering your wreck left and right as you bounce along the streets, smashing into traffic to rack up the points.

The Online component of Burnout Paradise is absolutely seamless between offline and online. One moment you’re driving on your own, and the next racing or competing for challenges among your friends or other gamers. The Freeburn challenges are so different to what Burnout has been before and work perfectly with the open world of Paradise City. Some involve racking up jump distance, drift meters or performing a jump in a specific location like the airfield or the mines. Headset support is an added edition with players usually helping each other out when someone needs a hand.

I don’t own a Live Vision camera for the 360 (PlayStation Eye for the PS3), but every time you score a takedown, their camera snaps a picture and adds it to your collection, which is rather neat. Of course my collection is mostly made up of people with their middle finger outstretched!

If you loved the original Burnout series there is a good chance you will love this game too. If you haven’t played a Burnout game before, Burnout Paradise is the perfect open world racer. There is just so much to do in this game, and you can do it your way!

By Mriceguy

blu-ray wins over hd dvd

I've been vaguely following the whole next generation video format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. And Toshiba the creators have finally given up and are going to stop supporting HD DVD. (Surprising enough I found this news out from the News channel on my Nintendo Wii!)

Now this has definitely shifted to Sony's favour. With inbuilt Blu-ray player, the PlayStation 3 might actually make the comeback needed to surpass the Xbox 360. Microsoft have backed HD DVD from the start and although there is no inbuilt player, they released an external device that plays HD DVD's. Microsoft has previously stated that they might release a Blu-ray player add-on, revealing that they already knew HD DVD was doomed to fail.

Most people don't really care about Blu-ray at the moment because of the lack of high definition televisions in homes around the world. They are so expensive! But as the years go by and prices drop, and all future movie/television releases come out on Blu-ray, people will be more willing to purchase a high definition television and a Blu-ray player (PS3?). Bring on the BD's!





















*Michael*

burnout paradise preview

Burnout Paradise flat spins the Burnout franchise in an entirely new direction creating, a huge open world, Paradise City. Criterion Games, the developers, promised an open world to explore at your leisure and that's exactly what they delivered.

The Online component of Burnout Paradise is absolutely seamless between offline and on. One moment you're driving on your own, and the next racing or competing for challenges among your friends or other gamers.

The Freeburn challenges are so different to what Burnout has been before and works perfectly with the open world of Paradise City. Some involve racking up jump distance, drift metres or performing a jump in a specific location. Everyone needs to finish the challenge in order to complete the challenge. The beauty of headsets comes into play with players usually helping each other out when they are stuck.

I don't own a Live Vision camera for the 360, but every time you score a take down on someone, their camera snaps a pic of them and adds it to your collection which is rather neat. Of course my collection is mostly made up of people with their middle finger outstretched!


If you want to hear more about Burnout Paradise, check out Criterion's podcast, Crash FM for what goes on behind the scenes, and questions you've always wanted answering.


*Michael*

my xbox 360 has a blog

Now my Xbox 360 has its own blog!

http://www.360voice.com/tag/Michael%20Gray

Seriously, this is some weird stuff right here... your xbox blogs about you!

there's not much on my page right now, so check out Jeff Gerstmann's!

http://www.360voice.com/tag/Gamespotting



*Michael*

assassination

Assassin's Creed has been subject to much hype, and now controversy due to the wide array of game reviews.

So last Friday I picked up my pre-ordered copy of Assassin's Creed. To be honest, this is perhaps the only game I've ever bought on the day it came out. Looks like Ubisoft's hype train worked!

And the big secret that the Ubisoft team have teased us with all this time is really not what anyone was expecting , which I won't mention here. At first I was a little turned off, as what Ubisoft had been promising was completely different to what lay before me. However I soon caught on and now I'm really seeing it as it should be! On The Major Nelson podcast, E (the host alongside Major Nelson) said that at first he was playing Assassin's Creed as just another action title, but then he changed the way he played, acting stealthy like a real assassin. Which completely changed the game for him, and although it was taking longer, he was enjoying it more than ever before.

three red lights

I had just turned on my console, and was playing Geometry Wars for a couple of minutes when bam, the screen turned black and the whirring of the 360's fans stopped. And a hideous 3 red lights shone out from the console. I stared in disbelief, and quickly turned off the console. After waiting 10 seconds, I turned on the Xbox and it was working fine to my relief.

I now know the frustration of millions of gamers worldwide. And I can't believe people still support this system, its so buggy and unreliable. That was the real reason I bought a 360, because it was popular and had the most games released.

So surfing Wikipedia I found that there's also a lot of news about the 360 scratching discs (see my earlier post) including some people who decided to sue Microsoft earlier this year...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

review: geometry wars

Game: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: Arcade Shooter
Players: 1
Release: Nov 21, 2005
Rating: G (8 +)

Geometry Wars first appeared in Project Gotham Racing 2 as a bonus minigame. With basic graphics and addictive gameplay, players were really enjoying it. And so Bizarre Creations caught on with this and developed a better looking and overall, better experience.

The original graphics from the original minigame are also still there in the option, ‘Retro’. ‘Evolved’ is what you really want to play though. Evolved is a complete makeover of the original Geometry Wars game. The game is on a grid set in front of hundreds of stars. It doesn’t fit all on the screen, though if you move around a little you’ll see the sides. You start off with 3 lives and 3 bombs.

As in the title Geometry, the things you shoot are different shapes, which also have different movements and strategies. The most basic is the green

Control-wise its pretty simple. Left stick to control the ship, right stick to fire in the direction you push, and the triggers to set off a bomb.

Retro is also a lot harder than the Evolved option

Pros:
- Very affordable at only 400 points. Best value game on the Xbox Live Arcade.

- Graphics are very pretty, like a mini fireworks display on your tv set.

- Simple yet addictive gameplay.

Cons:
- Very hard! You need to maneuver your ship so tightly you’ll find yourself cursing aloud.

- Repetitive gameplay, but this is only an Arcade title after all.

By Michael Gray
Sunday 11 November 2007

(Screenshots coming soon, when I figure out how!)

xbox live arcade

So I paid for my first Xbox Live Arcade title, Geometry Wars. I have to admit that its really cool that you can try before you buy, with the trial versions. The only problem is that the file sizes are quite large and you might get carried away with your bandwidth. That's what we get for wanting HD!


Xbox Live Arcade games I might actually purchase down the track...

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 UPDATE: Got it!
Bomberman Live
Alien Hominid HD
Uno
Prince of Persia Classic UPDATE: Got it!
Worms
EXIT

welcome to the world of next-gen

By the way, misleading title, if you read on you will discover its true meaning.

So although other people have had similar problems with Halo 3 not loading maps, I now examined the disc to find a scratch on the outside, all the way around.

So I take it back to Dick Smith and the guy says that it was made by the Xbox 360 they sold to me, and that it was my fault. Just my luck, I talk to someone who actually owns the console. No replacement, no apologies. And I'm stuck with a mostly useless Halo 3 disc.

So be warned 360 owners, Microsoft advertise that the 360 can be moved vertical and horizontal. What they don't tell you is that if a disc is in the drive, it will get scratched and bad. And don't say, oh but its your own fault then. Because I payed money for a quality product, not one that will actually make your other purchases unusable. Look, they could have fixed all this mess with just a small piece of rubber foam!!
http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/Xbox-360-Game-Disc-Scratched.htm

And so I found out the hard way, with my first game, and most popular, Halo 3. There's nothing like wishing you payed a little extra for a PlayStation 3 huh.

UPDATE:
By the way, you may be noticing why the page looks the way it does. I'm trying to re-vamp the page, give it its own unique look. The posts will keep coming, just hang on while I try fiddle with some technical web stuff...