Friday, November 16, 2007
X360 ReviewsCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The FPS crowd these days is, well, crowded. To succeed, you have to take one aspect of the genre, whether it’s the tactical approach, like Rainbow Six, or the all-out frantic one-man-army style of the Halo games, and polish it to a high gloss. Since its inception, the Call of Duty series aimed for realism and intensity in its firefights, previously set in the often used WWII era. With Call of Duty 4, the series moves out of the era of your grandparents, and into the realm of today. Within the new setting, the same style of play shines, and the change gives a great deal of momentum for the franchise going into the future.
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Sunday, November 04, 2007
X360 ReviewsGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
There are few things that look more ridiculous to an outside observer than someone playing an air guitar. Do it in public, and you’ll likely face endless ridicule, and rightly so. It’s one of the dorkiest possible actions available to a human. In a stunning turn of events, the Guitar Hero games, which are essentially an enhanced, more expensive form of playing air guitar, have become a huge phenomenon over the past few years. For Guitar Hero III, the guys at Neversoft, best known for their work on the Tony Hawk series (yes, the skateboarding series that a couple years ago introduced RUNNING as a special move) have grabbed the reins from Harmonix, who have moved on to Rock Bandier pastures. The result is not unfamiliar, and introduces a few new mechanics to the gameplay.
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Monday, October 22, 2007
X360 ReviewsBeautiful Katamari
Beautiful Katamari, sequel to the popular and quirky Playstation 2 game, brings more of the same ball-rolling enjoyment to the Xbox 360. It also brings more of the frustrating camera angles (even worse this time!) and controls (if you can call them that) along with it for the ride. The premise is pyschedelically simple: your king has torn open a black hole because he is horrible at tennis and drove a ball through the sky, causing a rift that is swallowing the entire universe. It’s your job to grab a spiky ball and make that universe whole again by rolling over food, pets, children, and houses. For those of you not familiar with the series, no, I’m not joking about that last sentence.
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Saturday, October 20, 2007
News bits: The week before the week before Halloween
Rumor (and an anonymous Toshiba employee) has it, Microsoft may be announcing a new Xbox unit with a built-in HD-DVD drive, bigger hard drive, and possible HD tuner at either the end of 2008 or the CES show in 2009. In related news, Nintendo will show a new ridiculously named system, and Sony will also show a PS4 some time in the next 3 years.
More...Friday, October 12, 2007
Quick news bits from the second week of October
There were a handful of notable news items this week, so let’s go with a quick recap:
In not very surprising news, Smash Bros: Brawl has been delayed until February 2008. On the plus side, they announced a screenshot capture mode, and Sonic the Hedgehog has been confirmed as playable. Japan’s productivity can now be maintained throughout the end of January.
More...Wednesday, October 10, 2007
X360 ReviewsProject Gotham Racing 4
I have a storied past when it comes to my driving record. By the time I graduated high school, I was pretty much on a first name basis with all the cops in my home town. In the decade or so since then, I’ve tried my best to tone it down, and have been far less of a regular to the realm of the speeding ticket. However, every now and then there comes a phenomenon that really tests my resistance to driving like a madman again, and in the form of Project Gotham Racing 4, another of those has just hit the Xbox 360.
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Sunday, October 07, 2007
DS ReviewsSonic Rush Adventure
Sonic Rush Adventure, the second Sonic platformer on the DS, brings some old and some new to the Sonic franchise. Some of it succeeds and brings back the great memories of the first two Sonic games while other segments of the game make you want to put it down and never pick it up again.
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Friday, October 05, 2007
DS ReviewsLegend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
“Leevers! Moblins! Tektites! Octoroks! Zelda? Zelda?” That (very rough) approximation of words, in a very strange commercial, signaled the beginning of a dynasty back in the 80’s. The Legend of Zelda, since its NES debut, has become one of the premier flagship game franchises, and has made Link one of the more recognizable figures in gaming. True, many people do think that Link actually IS Zelda, but if you pointed him out to virtually any gamer, they would know what game he was from. Across a myriad of systems, Zelda has brought gaming goodness to the masses, and Link is finally making his DS debut in Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
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I love you, but I want to get my own place
Bungie has packed its bags and moved out of Microsoft’s house. Bungie fattened its own bank account and is getting it’s own appartment, but Microsoft still gets to come over. Halo 3 certainly was good grounds for Microsoft to want to keep the people at Bungie happy and not flee for greener pastures like Rare’s founders did. So, if you want more Halo, it is likely that you may see it again one day and made by the same Bungie. Before that, Bungie is going to be working on some new IP. Since Microsoft will have have first choice on whether to publish their games or not, you will still be seeing Bungie games only on 360 or the PC.
More...Saturday, September 29, 2007
Halo 3 Multiplayer Impressions
So, after somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 online matches, I think I am now qualified to give some rationally educated thoughts on the merits of the Halo 3 Live experience. As is the case with most games on Live, it’s a very mixed bag, ranging from the “this is so fun it’s scary” good, to “you have got to be shitting me” bad. If you’re willing to go through the painstaking process of finding a good group to play team games with, (or if you have an extensive network of friends to play with) it is, when everything comes together right, perhaps the best online experience you’ll find on the 360.
More...Thursday, September 27, 2007
X360 ReviewsHalo 3
Over the course of the past week, you may have heard a thing or two about some game called Halo 3 being released. Apparently there were two of these before, probably small indie releases on the PS2 or something. As it turns out, this new one is supposed to be pretty popular with the kids, so I ventured out at midnight on Monday evening, and procured myself a copy of it. Myself, the infamous Rocketpig, and the ever-surly Profcrab put the cooperative campaign portion of the game through its paces over Xbox Live, and it turns out that this Halo thing may just have what it takes to catch on in the mainstream.
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Friday, September 21, 2007
The Halo trilogy in review
In anticipation of the mega-launch in four days, IGN has written up a nice “History of Halo” article that details the origin of the series and a brief outline of the first two games for those of you that may not have played the game since 2004 or those of you that may not have played the games at all (referred to as “Heretics” in my circle of friends).
Hit the jump for the link.
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PGR4 video… Gameplay vs. Real Life
As Lord Vader would say, “Impressive. Most impressive.”
After playing Forza 2 for days on end and then watching this video, I have to say that I’m mildly disappointed with Turn 10. Every screen and video I have seen for PGR4 has blown Forza out of the water. Being a sim racer at heart, I would love to see this kind of graphical quality in the Forza series. Oh well, after watching this video, I think I’ll have a hard time passing up PGR4 after it drops on October 2nd… In a related note, could these developers slow down this flurry of great releases? I’m dying over here.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Nintendo still wants to make the Interweb difficult
The Smash Bros. Dojo website has given out the first few tidbits regarding the Super Smash Bros.: Brawl online play, and Nintendo has once again eschewed common sense and made Friend codes required to play online. Let me clarify, the Friend code is required to play the game and have it keep record of your wins, losses, etc. You can still jump into games with random folks from around the world, but it won’t be reflected in your user stats. Frankly, keeping track of the stats in a Smash Bros. match is a great deal of the fun of the whole experience. Perhaps Nintendo owns large quantities of stock in internet message boards, because that is where I’ve had to go to find Friend codes for previous games like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing for the DS.
More... PS3 ReviewsHeavenly Sword
Heavenly Sword is like a movie that features top-notch acting, beautiful visuals, and an intriguing story and characters. Then proceed to chop out half the movie and leave it on the cutting room floor for scheduling and budgetary reasons and you’re close to the feeling you get after playing Ninja Theory’s latest game for the PS3.
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