Indies Gone Wild: A Squirrel, a Ball, and a Voxel

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Mar 132013
 

Words cannot explain my current state of shock. I have found two, yes two, games that are worth your hard earned dollars this week. Right now is a pretty hectic time for releases as Tomb Raider and God of War Ascension spin around in peoples consoles, with Bioshock Infinite looming just around the corner. But in what little downtime you can manage, I’ve found a digestible chunk of pixels (and voxels) that could be enough to suit your fancy.

procrastinating squrrelProcrastinating Squirrel
Developer: Daivuk
Price: 80 Microsoft Points

Ah, the idea of a procrastinating squirrel. It’s that simple imaginative thought that made me purchase Procrastinating Squirrel and looking back, I regret nothing. In this overlong adventure, you play as a squirrel who is readying up for the forthcoming winter. Before winter comes along he must gather 300,000 nuts which he does by digging in all directions, picking up cashews, frozen cashews, strawberry nuts, acorns, and other assorted nuts. The idea of Procrastinating Squirrel is obviously very simple and widely used, but due to the price tag and likability of your poorly animated squirrel, I couldn’t help but enjoy my hour or so with the game.

The carrot on the stick that pushes you forward are the enticing upgrades you gain by spending your accumulated nuts. Those upgrades include a better shovel, a bridge, and larger storage space. After a while (and by while I mean around twenty minutes), however, digging up and down the map looking for nuts becomes a boring task to continue. Apart from the eventually tedious gameplay, Procrastinating Squirrel features some very distinct music. Sadly, distinct doesn’t always mean good. At first, the harmless chimes and hums are quite pleasing to the ear, but the more you play on, the more these repeating tracks begin to feel like nails grinding on your ear drums. Procrastinating Squirrel is the most fun I’ve ever had with a squirrel, take that for what it’s worth.

voxel runnerVoxel Runner
Developer: Dizzy Pixels Ltd.
Price: 80 Microsoft Points

Voxel Runner is a pretty well-known game around this crazy thing we call the internet. Thankfully, developer Dizzy Pixels decided it would be smart to place their product on the Indies marketplace, a move that made my job a bit more enjoyable. In Voxel Runner, you are a simple man running from left to right, making jumps and slides to eventually reach the next checkpoint and unlock whatever ability the game has under its increasingly larger sleeve.

Similar to Procrastinating Squirrel, Voxel has some very unique music that integrates into the gameplay very well. Similar to the recent release of Runner2, the jumps you are forced to make in Voxel are all set to the pulsing beat being pushed out of your television. Unlike Procrastinating Squirrel, though, Voxel Runner’s music only adds to the energetic adventure that you are forcefully pushed through. Voxel Runner isn’t something you can spend too much time with, you know, seizures and all, but it’s definitely something that provides a good deal of fun in condensed play sessions.

ballguyBall Guy
Developer: Kinekid
Price: 80 Microsoft Points

Look, I know at this point to never expect much heading into any indie game. But I’ll admit it, coming off these past two indie games, I had some excitement bubbling up that I may be able to write an article where I enjoyed all three games I purchased. Ball Guy was not having an inch of that positivity. In Ball Guy, your beloved protagonist is of the rounder shape and must venture into the forest to… Pick up scrolls or something? There’s a story, it has poorly written dialogue and even worse looking art. I’m sorry to disappoint, folks.

Ball Guy’s idea of a puzzle is simply battling the poor d-pad controls to navigate your way around the screen and collect scrolls. Navigation is performed by flying around on your jetpack, which relies on the aforementioned d-pad. The scrolls, obviously, contain interesting facts that we all desire. For example, the smallest and dirtiest man hasn’t bathed in 58 years. Oddly enough, these scrolls are the only interesting thing to be found within Ball Guy. I’ll admit that at times, I even worked a bit harder to see what the next irrelevant fact contained within the next scroll would be. I think that’s a positive?

Pick ‘em up: Procrastinating Squirrel (80 Points) and Voxel Runner (80 Microsoft Points)

Indies Gone Wild: Storage Units, Zombies, and Pure Gold

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Jan 182013
 

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these features but with no releases except Devil May Cry hitting for the next two weeks, and with the issue many are experiencing (including myself) of not having much money due to manic Christmas shopping, I figured it’s time for a cheap game bonanza. This time around I have a shockingly good game, a horrific zombie shooter, and a nice little Storage Wars clone. I was rather surprised this go around by the amount of games that managed to catch my eye. Hopefully that trend keeps up as the year goes on because actually having a decent selection makes this feature a tad more enjoyable. Then again, I have an odd affection for awful games so I’m happy either way.

Zombie Splatter
Developer: Matt Mitman
Price: 240 MS Points

Zombie Splatter is an aptly named first person shooter that revolves around you awkwardly sliding your way around a graveyard while killing all the spawning zombies that come into your line of sight. In between the waves of zombies you can buy ammo, purchase new weapons, or refill your health. Visually, Zombie Splatter is on par with what I imagine grabbing a handful of manure and slinging it onto a wall looks like. The controls however work just fine; it’s a first person shooter so messing up controls is more of an achievement than a worry.

Apart from that, there’s a King of the Hill mode that takes place in the same graveyard and forces you to move around into different circles and you guessed it, kill the attacking flesh eaters. One of the things that originally caught my eye about Splatter was the addition of a 3D mode, something I don’t remember ever seeing in an Indie game. The 3D seems to work but within the first ten minutes of using it, I felt like I was about to regurgitate my dinner. For a one dollar price tag, I would actually recommend Zombie Splatter just to experience the insanity that is the actual game but with a three dollar tag, there are multiple games out there that are much more deserving of your hard earned currency. Such as…

The Runner
Developer: Coda Panda
Price: 80 MS Points

I have struck gold, folks. This is my third Indies Gone Wild and about the thirtieth Indie game I’ve ever

played and finally I’ve hit a game that I would happily recommend to any breathing soul out there. The Runner is an incredibly simple concept that takes some cues from The Impossible Game, mainly in the fact that it is nut smashingly hard. You control two hedgehogs (?) as they constantly move forward and attempt to avoid pesky spikes. The hedgehogs (again, ?) are placed with one on top of the screen, one on bottom. To help avoid spikes you must press LB or RB, RB assigned to one animal and LB assigned to the other, just before they hit the spike. The combinations of moving them at the same time and keeping an eye on their landing and upcoming spikes is a difficult one that takes hours upon hours to get the grip of, while mastering it is a seemingly impossible task.

Also In this tight little package is a mode that lets you go through some of the crazier parts of the game the developer thought up in his menacing little mind. The situations you run through are only heightened by the insane level design that involves your two little monsters switching sides of the screen multiple times in the span of five seconds. I would also be insane to not mention the pulsing music that increasing in tension as the level goes on, something that also helps in the timing you need to achieve your movements perfectly. The Runner is expertly designed and one of the best Indie games on the marketplace. If you enjoy having fun while simultaneously wanting to chuck your controller at the television, I have a game for you

Storage Warfare
Developer: 24KT Studios
Price: 80 MS Points

I’ll start this out with the obvious; this is a game that is a straight up copy of the hit A&E television series Storage Wars, minus the unbelievably made up drama. I’ll also sadly admit that at one time I was, in fact, a Storage Wars addict; I watched the entire first season within the span of about a week. Here lately, I’ve fallen off of that addiction but have still always thought a Storage Wars game would be intriguing, and I refuse to play the Facebook game based on the show. Once I spotted Storage Warfare in the cluttered Indies marketplace, I knew it was made just for me.

Once you press start you’re greeted by one of the most annoying characters in the game, the man’s voice is as painful as nails on a chalkboard and his god awful, unrecognizable accent doesn’t help matters as he shrieks “Ah yeaaaa, Storage Warfare, yeahhh.” That is only the beginning as the annoying tidbits of dialogue come fast and heavy while at an auction. You start the game with $1500 and from there you choose what auction to attend and ultimately what units you want to go after. The items you collect turn into cash and are then transferred immediately into your bank account. The auction houses are split up into three separate places, one being the “expensive” auction house, one being the regular and one being the cheap house. The biggest issue arises when you find yourself with only $100 and purchasing a unit becomes rather impossible. Ultimately, Storage Warfare is an inoffensive piece of content that recreates the storage unit experience well enough to warrant the dollar it desires.

Pick ‘em up: Storage Warfare (80 Points) and The Runner (80 Points)

Wii U: The Gaming Irresponsibly Review

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Nov 282012
 

Okay, it’s been over a week and we have been putting in some significant quality time with our Wii U game consoles. With that being said, I’d like to address a few things and also detail the pros and cons of this new system.

Common Misconceptions

Holy hell! This is the actual console!

First off, the curse of E3 2011 is still leaning heavily on this system. It seems that a ton of people I have met don’t understand that the Wii U is a brand new console, not a new controller. It’s not a new fancy portable system either, the GamePad has roughly the same range as an Xbox 360 controller. The system doesn’t play bluray discs, dvds, Gamecube games or anything other than the Wii U and Wii discs. I feel that I have to clarify this as 4 out of 5 times I describe the Wii U to someone in person, their initial response is “Oh, isn’t that the new Wii controller?”.

What is different?

After downloading the SIZABLE update (about 2.5 hours) that I had to complete before playing any games on the system, I was greeted by Nintendo’s brand new social community. While not exactly Xbox Live but way more than the Playstation Network, it’s easiest to describe the Nintendo Network as a massive visual forum that automatically creates a new community for every single title and app available for the console. Users can discuss games, get advice, post pictures or just chat with each other. I expect that this will evolve and grow as time passes, since every other online service has made significant growth since their inceptions. While this is an improvement to the horrible system used by the Wii, it still has a little bit of a learning curve to get the most out of it. I don’t love the Nintendo Network, yet I certainly do not hate it.

Once I actually jumped into a game (holy crap, MORE UPDATES?!), I got to catch my first glimpse of HD gaming, Nintendo style. This was awesomely beautiful and while up to current par with both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, there was something worthg pointing out. On launch day, this system is up to par with the best offerings of the current generation, that means we can only expect progress from here! I experienced the entire launch day catalog and with the exception of a pair of games, was actually solidly impressed with what I saw. If you want a solid feel for some nice HD graphics, play Rayman Legends and Trine 2. If you want to get creative with the GamePad, play ZombiU or NintendoLand. Either way, there is a little something for everyone on launch day and an impressive library of AAA games to boot.

One thing to point out is that the Wii U GamePad doesn’t have a significant battery life, only lasting about 3.5 hours. This can be frustrating in certain games that can lead to extended periods of play. The charging cable is quite long, which helps alleviate some of this inconvenience but with as much movement that the GamePad requires, my patience wore thin pretty quick.

On the topic of the GamePad, it is a higly innovative controller, some of it’s uses are really unique and creative but a few others are quite lackluster. Understandably, I feel that most of the launch day titles really wanted to create a focus and awareness on the GamePad itself, rather than the ability and power of the new console. My concern with this is that a reliance on the GamePad’s touch screen seems to cheapen the overall experience. I am willing to give the mindset an early honeymoon-period pass, as devs likely wanted to play to the console’s strengths. I am pretty sure that most people will enjoy the ability to watch movies and play games from the GamePad, yet I find it a grand waste when I spend a majority of my time looking down at an 854×480 display, rather than my large HDTV that showcases the beauty of the new system.

Software

I’ve touched quite a bit on the launch day software, I don’t want to hold the system responsible either way for the quality or lack there of so we will be covering the Wii U titles on their own merit. With that being said, the launch titles feature something for everyone and NintendoLand, ZombiU, Scribblenauts Unlimited and Sonic & All‑stars Racing Transformed are all great starter games for the system. If you haven’t been able to get your hands on them previously; Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 are all worth getting checking out but get yourself a GamePad Pro asap, trust me!

After Spending A Week With the Wii U

Wii U Graphics…

Are we all caught up? Hopefully! After a week of playing with the console for a week, here are my thoughts:

  • I welcome the change of pace that the Nintendo Network offers. However, I don’t feel like it really brings much to the table for a core gamer.
  • One of the weakest Wii U titles is absolutely New Super Mario Brothers U. If you are considering a Wii U, you may want to reconsider making this a day 1 pickup.
  • The Wii U absolutely has what it takes to appeal to the core gamer. Games look great, play great and don’t require stupid amounts of work to play online with friends.
  • The Wii U GamePad… It’s a cool gimmick; it works well with a majority of games, I’d like to see it used less as a crutch and more as a way to enhance gameplay. As of right now, it’s the same gimmick that the Nunchuck and Wii-mote were.
  • The limited battery on the Wii U GamePad is a bummer, it gives me an opportunity to do other things after a few hours of playing. That isn’t actually a good thing.
  • The Wii U has one of the largest launch day line-ups available. Oddly, it’s the 3rd party games that shine. NintendoLand is absolutely the exception to this.
  • I really liked using my Wii U for Netflix and Hulu. The ability to watch a show on my GamePad while my family watches something on the Xbox 360 was pretty cool. In fact, the ability to control my TV with the GamePad is pretty awesome, but not a selling point.
  • By no means does the Wii U reinvent the wheel, it doesn’t even revolutionize it. My biggest concern is that the Wii U catches a case of the 3DS and takes about a year to get going. We need a flagship title (Smash Bros, Metroid, Castlevania, Zelda etc) as soon as possible. Luigi’s Mansion 2 could be that game, as could Lego City Undercover or Pikmin 3…
  • The gaming experience is equal to Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Since those systems are pushing their limits right now, it’s going to be exciting to see what the Wii U does from here.
  • I hate the fact that the sensor bar is still an integral part of playing with a group of people. There was no other way around this?
  • UPDATES, UPDATES, UPDATES!!! It takes about 5-45 minutes for the Wii U to download updates for every single game the first time I played it!

So, here is the tl;dr – I think the Wii U is a good system at launch, but not great. It doesn’t do anything “better” than the its major competition, although it really doesn’t have to at this point.

 

 

 

Review – Serious Sam 3: BFE (Xbox 360)

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Oct 272012
 

Within seconds of starting Serious Sam 3: BFE’s Single Player campaign, you’ll have a face to face encounter with your first extraterrestrial enemy. You’re unarmed. The beast in question is a charging, snarling, muscluar cyclops with shoulders as wide as a truck. Within the next few seconds, you are plunging fists into the abomination’s face and tearing out it’s singular eye with your bare hands, the corpse collapsing to the floor in a bloody mess. This approach to getting the job done pretty much reflects Croteam’s approach to the whole game.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Serious Sam series, it has roots in PC gaming history as being chaotic, over-the-top FPS action. The gimmick has always been expansive and open level design which Croteam fills with incredible numbers of enemies who set about simultaneously charging and attacking you. Unlike any other FPS I’ve experienced, the Serious Sam games really do pit you as the centre of the action. There are no misconceptions, no stealth – everything is out to kill you as quicky and brutally as possible. Handily, Sam is a bit of a badass.

Just a normal day at the Office. Who says men can’t multi-task?

Flying in the face of pretty much the last decade of action games, the only cover Sam has is his T-Shirt. This is all about taking on insurmountable odds with a satisfying and powerful arsenal whilst keeping moving at all times. There’s no time to hide, no where to camp and no where to stop running to catch your breath – unlike some modern military shooters.

This third installment in the series, originally released on the PC at the end of last year and recently launched on the Xbox Live Arcade sees players once more take control of Sam and his T-Shirt to do battle and hopefully protect the Earth from complete alien domination. Sam seems to have stepped up to fill in some of the gaping chasms left in gaming by the polygonal abortion that calls itself ‘Duke Nukem Forever.’ Sam is the epitome of a steroid ridden, wisecracking, fearless headcase, always happy to punch evil straight in the balls.

For when you have to give them both barrels. Twice.

The opening levels prove frustrating, especially if you are aware of what you can expect from the weaponry later in the game. After the aformentioned eyeball ripping, you quickly find your starting kit of a sledgehammer, a pistol and a woeful shotgun (don’t worry, there’s a better one later) and you are stuck with these for a touch too long. They feel ineffective and lightweight which goes against the grain when the game’s core mechanic centres on going into action all-guns blazing.

The pace picks up eventually, as the enemy headcount rises dramatically and the weaponry improves to counter this. The weapons on offer are FPS stalwarts, shotguns, assault rifles, rocket launchers, with only the mystical leash offering anything fresh in terms of mechanics. Even the leash will feel familiar if you’ve played Bulletstorm but it’s implementation is slightly different, given the numbers of adversaries facing Sam.

So far, so Serious Sam. It’s more of the same essentially, but with a good level of graphical shine. The engine has to be capable of coping with the high number of attackers and long draw distances, which it does so admirably. This is presumeably possible as the AI is about as basic as it gets and although textures and enviroments look good, the level of effects is pretty average. To be fair to the AI, it doesn’t really need to be much more than ‘Head for Sam > Attack Sam’ to tick the right boxes.

Audio is nothing revolutionary either, but it is worth noting that the bestiary is very distinguishable through clear audio clues. The approaching suicide bombers’ incessant “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH” will haunt you, as will the boney, clattering gallop of the Kleer. These subconciously help you to switch to an appropriate weapon and aim in the right direction, all helping to tighten the experience

This may look like a tough situation, but what you can’t see here is the other 60 aliens.

Multiplayer has been well catered for, with the entire Single Player campaign being playable co-operatively, including local split-screen, with the number of enemies being increased exponentially. The highlight (with the right players) is the excellent Survival mode, which pits players against wave after wave of nasties, serving to really highlight the strengths of the game mechanics.

The core gameplay will fulfill but not exceed the expecations of the series’ fans. The increase in graphical finesse is welcome, but is also not going to set the world alight. Ultimately, for 1200 MS Points, Serious Sam 3: BFE represents solid value and a predictable, but very enjoyable, pure arcade FPS experience. Fans of the series are well catered for and will be pleased to see Sam has not gone the way of a certain Mr. Nukem. Newcomers to the series, well, you’re in for some sweaty palms and swearing, but also a grin.

XBox 360

Graphics

75
  

Audio

70
  

Gameplay

85

Creativity

70
  

Execution

85
  

Offset

75
    

7.7
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Review: Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit (PS3) – Over The Top Insanity

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Oct 062012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out that Hell Yeah! is over the top. A brief glimpse at a few screenshots will reveal that there is simply nothing like it. Fans of atmospheric, old-school, Metroidvania platformers/shooters shouldn’t even need to heed my words. Still, if you seek a little reassurance, here you go.

The story surrounds Ash, the prince of Hell. A compromising picture of him, naked in the tub with his rubber ducky, leaks on the Hell-ternet. (See, Hell isn’t that bad; they have internet… even if it is probably dial up.) To seek vengeance and reestablish his awesomeness, Ash must hunt down the person responsible for the leak and dispose of the em-bare-ass-ing evidence. Standing in his way are 100 other poor saps and locked doors impeding his progress, all which must be destroyed. But honestly, who really cares about the story for a goofy 2D platformer? What about the gameplay, you ask, even after I have already typed this?

For the majority of the game, Ash rides around in a wheel covered in destructive blades. This wheel of doom aids in traversal, helps destroy walls, and even acts as a jetpack. There are also sections where Ash abandons the wheel for some traditional platforming, or enters ships and submarines. In the beginning, enemies can be dismantled merely by grinding the wheel against their faces. As the story progresses, minions and bosses get tougher. Multiple guns are made available via the in-game store. These include a shotgun, bazooka, flamethrower, Gatling gun, Holy Water shooter, laser gun,  and various grenade launchers. While ammo is unlimited for everything accept the grenade launchers, each weapon has an ammo bar that is depleted when used too quickly. This gives each gun its own strategic advantages and disadvantages that will keep you trying multiple combinations.

Draining a foe’s life bar leads to a short, gore-filled, humorous, WarioWare-like mini-game. Completing these various mini-games, finishes off each challenger, while failing them hurts Ash,  forcing him to try again. There are dozens of these mini-games, which often contain humorous homages to classic games. Most of them contain some sort of quick time events, button mashing, or require proper timing. Some, like the one containing a Mortal Kombat reference, always made me giggle. Others wore out their welcome somewhat quickly, or were nebulously frustrating until the solution was figured out. I’m still not sure if there was a point to the ‘Quiz of Doom’ game which asked a question and gave wacky multiple choice answers. More often than not, even if they did get a bit repetitive, they were still fun to watch.

The controls were a bit loose. Button configuration was a bit weird too. On many occasions, I found myself watching the Megaman-esque death animation as I landed on one of the myriad of death spikes. Albeit a great nod, it did grow somewhat frustrating since it clearly wasn’t my fault since I am a gaming god. There were also some side missions which involved doing tricks with the wheel. Just because your mascot is a squid, doesn’t mean your consumers have more than two appendages they play games with, Arkedo. Still, these were optional, so you don’t have to torture yourself like I did.

There were a couple technical issues with the game. Loading screens were somewhat lengthy considering the game’s 2D simplicity. Clever tips and statements during loading try to make light of the situation, even referencing the long load times, but I’ve had sold my soul to the Devil himself to get in the game a bit quicker. The audio in game would tend to skip slightly in some situations, but it was almost unnoticeable thanks to the often frenetic soundtrack, which often just made it sound like a remix.

While the game did have a few faults, it had plenty of great attributes. The various weapons were fun to unlock and use. There were also dozens of hidden and unlockable collectibles to customize Ash’s head and his wheel. The ebb and flow of the varied gameplay and platforming elements kept the overall experience fresh.

Most of all, the environments were stunning. There’s quite a bit of variation in Hell. Ten zones offer plenty of sights to see. The Casino Zone is sure to be a hit with Sonic nuts – as is the retro Sega logo and audio that greets you as you boot up the game. The Psychedelic Zone also really impressed. But my personal favorite was “Happy Cute” Zone with its hearts, rainbows, and an infectiously hilarious song that was simultaneously insanely awesome and annoying, just as intended. In my eyes, a platformer is only ever as good as its environments, and Hell Yeah! delivers with some beautiful, unique zones.

From beginning to end, the game is  chock-full of quirky characters and imagery. It sprung from some really creative minds. Much like the classic platforming games of yesteryear, sheer joy comes from seeing what interesting environments wait just around the corner. The video game reference, spanning decades, also keep the humor flowing. Space Invaders, Duck Hunt, Sonic, Ocarina of Time, Guitar Hero – it’s all there in humorous fashion. These qualities more than make up for my few gripes, making Hell Yeah! a title worthy of the time of any platforming fan.

PC Game

Graphics

100
  

Audio

90
  

Gameplay

80

Creativity

100
  

Execution

70
  

Offset

80
    

8.7
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Pros:

  • Visuals and environments are unique.
  • Music is infectious.
  • Various video game references provide ample humor.

Cons:

  • Loading times are somewhat lengthy.
  • Loose controls can lead to some frustration.

P.C v.s Consoles and The Future of these Industries

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Sep 222012
 
(The oldest war known to mankind, or at least to our generation anyways :D , is the old P.C versus Console dispute.)

 

The two sides have their rightful points. P.C’s do whip any console’s butt when it comes to advanced graphics and load times. Not to mention the fact that P.C communities are usually much more powerful and are much more helpful in creating custom patches to P.C games that have gone astray. Console users have no ability to patch their games since they’re on static unchanging hard discs and have to wait for the developers to issue updates; sometimes waiting forever for updates that will never come out.

If you mention that to the opposite console fanboy they’ll simply laugh and ask about the price associated with buying a gaming P.C. He’ll mention that even when the PS3, the most expensive console, came out, it was still only $500 and less than half the price of a modern day Gaming Rig. They’ll also consider the fact that console gaming and Xbox live has gotten much more popular and outsold the P.C market, a market they say is dying.

Both are slightly extreme positions, possibly because they’re both said by fanboys, and especially because Skyrim completely removed the myth of the dying P.C genre. But the question remains if there can ever be peace between these two warring factions and what lies ahead for both industries.

 

The Futures of the P.C and Console Industries

 

I’d like to ask a very specific question that will steer our discussion about the future of these industries. That question is very simple:

Can a future Xbox Console ever run Microsoft Windows and would you want it to?

 

That singular question will have sent shock waves through most gamers minds, as it did mine when i thought of it. Imagine though, just for a second, hooking your console to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then… boom, there you go, you now have a gaming rig AND a console.

Don’t forget that modern PS3′s have 9 Processors and extremely expensive and fast Graphic cards, easily able to undertake the constraints of the Windows Platform.

Xbox may not be there yet with their 360 but the successor to the Xbox360 is said to be a huge step up and will definitely have to be better than modern day PS3s or else no one will buy them instead of just buying a PS3 alternative.

Also don’t forget, Microsoft owns Xbox. Why wouldn’t they want people to game and use Windows? That way they’d be killing three birds with one stone by selling us a console, a p.c, and a software license of Windows!!

That would get Microsoft in a BRAND new industry it’s not even in yet which is P.C manufacturing!! It makes perfect business sense and it would cost them NOTHING except to sell the consoles they were selling anyways. Once PS3 saw this they’d have to make an equal or GREATER product!

There was already a report released in July of 2011 about future plans for Windows 8 to let users play Xbox360 games natively!

Do you see what is inevitably happening? Since Consoles are just smaller sized P.C’s anyways, and hardware is becoming cheaper and faster, eventually a gaming rig will be cheap enough to be a console. Some argue, if you hack the PS3, we’re already there.

The future of the P.C and Console wars is a surprising harmony and truce that will blend the best elements of both into one singular hardware device. A console, beautifully constructed, with monitor outputs, and gaming inputs, that does everything you could ever dream of, all for $500 dollars or less.

Current gaming rigs are between $700-1,200, depending on whether you make it yourself or buy one pre-built. Regardless, we aren’t far away from a gaming rig that functions as a console too.

New Trend in P.C Market

 

I bought my Core-I7 in February of 2009 for $1,350 and 3 years later it’s still on top of the market because Hardware has surpassed software. Software makers are having a harder and harder time maxing hardware because it’s becoming faster and cheaper. A MUCH better rig today is selling for $900, that has twice as much HD space as mine did and nearly 3 times the ram. All this again for $450 dollars less.

Picture Source By phil_g

I mention my computer because I also bought gaming rig in 2006 and 2 in the early 2000′s, each time, top of the line, highly expensive, more than a thousand dollars. Each time they became obsolete in 2 years. That’s not the case anymore though. As you’ve seen, my current rig is pushing 3 years and it’s still reigning high.

This trend is why consoles will be able to afford gaming rigs and harmonize them together as one product. They will buy CPUs that are super fast and cost a fraction of what they used to, when consoles first came out.

A brand new future is looming where the P.C versus Console debate is about to be ended. A longstanding peace awaiting with glorious rewards for the gamers that waited patiently til that last victorious day. A day when the dispute will finally come to an end.

 

New Darksiders II DLC Coming September 25th

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Sep 192012
 

Though Darksiders 2 only released around a month ago, it’s already time for some DLC. Today Vigil announced their plans for their first little piece of DLC, entitled The Argul’s Tomb. It’s interesting to see where Death goes from the end of the second game because, without spoiling anything, he didn’t seem like he was in the best spot to continue along a journey.

In Argul’s Tomb, you will experience the following:

· Two icy new dungeons

· New legendary loot

· Challenging new boss battles

None of which are West Nile Virus symptoms, by the way. To simplify things down a bit, if you enjoyed you some Darksiders II, keep your eyes peeled for Argul’s Tomb. If not, keep calm and play more Borderlands 2. To be fair, that’s currently the solution to every problem I experience in my life.

Argul’s Tomb will release on September 25th and cost a solid 560 MS Points, or seven bucks in human terms.

Review – Mark of the Ninja (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Sep 122012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

Klei Entertainment’s past has been both a success and a tidal wave of mediocrity, depending on who you ask. I tend to fall on the mediocrity side but will happily admit to my love for N+, though I was very disappointed in the Shank series. That being said, I was afraid to heighten my hopes for their new release, Mark of the Ninja. On top of their spotty past, stealth games are hard to craft into an enjoyable product as the gameplay constantly devolves into trial and error situations that only make you want to lay down the controller and walk away. Klei Entertainment recognized that and promised to address the issue during development, stating their title would be different than any other stealth experience. They have succeeded.

Mark of the Ninja is a seemingly simple sidescrolling adventure that consists of a lot of two things: stabbing and sneaking. Klei Entertainment pulls off these two things very well, with sneaking around levels relying solely on the light mechanics to inform you of your enemy’s knowledge on your whereabouts. The lights also show a circular noise range for actions you perform throughout the game, allowing you to know if busting out a certain light will inform an enemy of your presence. If they do hear whatever action you take, they won’t know where you are immediately, but they’ll know you are in the area and become alert and possibly frightened.

The amount of ways you can torture your enemy’s psyche seems limitless at times as you do things such as stringing dead bodies up to a vantage point, throwing dead bodies at people, or even force one of them to witness their friend be devoured by flesh eating insects. You unlock this barrage of things by earing badges through completing a level and achieving goals set out before the level’s beginning. You don’t have to achieve the goals but the extra badges really pay off as the game progresses because the more upgrades you have, the simpler navigating your way through a level becomes.

The way Klei managed to avoid the trial and error issue is near impossible to explain but one of the main reasons is just how accessible the game is from beginning to end. Nothing ever feels out of the realm of possibility as you pick up more and more abilities along the way. There’s never a deep difficulty curve nor is there an incredibly easy scenario to blow through. It also helps that upon dying, the respawn time for your character is pretty much nonexistent. You can be impaled by spikes one second and then be hopping over said spikes the next.

Mark of the Ninja doesn’t have a hidden depth beyond that upgrade system however and that leads to one of its biggest issues which is that the final few levels in Mark of the Ninja tend to drag on a bit longer than suspected. I found myself feeling like the game was about to end multiple times only to find out that there was still around an hour left. It’s a small complaint but it could have really hurt the game had it not been for the engrossing story within the final chapters.

One nice little tidbit thrown into this experience are some really fun challenge rooms that taunt you with dastardly puzzles. The challenge rooms don’t do much for your overall upgrade system or experience but that doesn’t mean they aren’t well designed and quite a blast to blow through. The puzzles in them are incredibly well designed and truly mind boggling at times, which of course led me to consistently hunting around for that next challenge room. Mostly because I enjoy them but occasionally because I just need to yell at something.

Though Mark of the Ninja does plenty of things remarkably well, the art style may be the best thing within this fifteen dollar package. Klei pulls over a similar art style featured in Shank and pretty’s it all up for the shadowy design Mark of the Ninja needs. The visual flourishes and noise cue’s all fit perfectly in Mark of the Ninja and add a nice bit of eye candy to help you get through the more difficult sections. That isn’t all that impresses as so do the character models and the perfect animations. The aforementioned lighting mechanics only add to this incredibly beautiful and immaculately polished experience.

Speaking of beauty, in between gameplay sections you get some wonderfully animated cutscenes that feature your main character on his journey to help out his clan. At first, the narrative seems a bit irrelevant as the stealth is the forefront of the experience, but as time goes on you become more and more attached to your silent main character. Though it isn’t the deepest of stories, it tells a nice tale that has an exciting but also nerve wrecking last chapter.

Mark of the Ninja is one pleasant surprise; it’s beautiful and builds upon a stealth genre that is mostly filled with poor attempts at excitement. On top of that, Mark of the Ninja’s lifespan is longer than most arcade games. All this combined together shows off the hard work Klei put into their game and there’s no doubt that dedication is admirable. Thankfully, that dedication is paying off as Klei has made their best game yet, and one the best games on XBLA this year.

XBox 360

Graphics

95
  

Audio

90
  

Gameplay

90

Creativity

95
  

Execution

95
  

Offset

90
    

9.3
  

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Review – Rock Band Blitz (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Aug 272012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

Coming into Rock Band Blitz, I had the same feeling everyone else did: Music games are done, how could this be any good? But if we could track back to why music games are “done,” it’s because of sales. But not just because the product was bad, it was because people were tired of paying 200 dollars for more plastic instruments, there’s only so much space allotted in a closet. Harmonix knew this coming into Rock Band Blitz and wanted to fix the issue by making Blitz all about the controller, instead of cumbersome peripherals. But could they succeed on their daring quest? Well it’s Harmonix… So, yea.

The basic concept behind Rock Band Blitz dates back to a previous Harmonix franchise, consisting of their first music/rhythm games, Frequency and Amplitude. In Blitz you move forward on an upward note highway, and you play the incoming notes by swapping between five lanes with each lane corresponding to a certain instrument in the song (Guitar, Bass, Piano, etc.). This alone is a brilliant concept and is executed seamlessly with tight controls. You can swap between many different control options but I found the easiest to be using the triggers to swap lanes and the analog sticks to hit notes.

From just the tutorial, there’s a very likable presentation that begins to emerge as an awfully incredible parody of a song plays and Harmonix begins to slowly roll you into the features that lay within Rock Band Blitz. They quickly establish that this game is about one thing and that isn’t hitting all the notes, it’s the score you attain from playing the song.. From the multipliers that get higher by hitting notes then passing through checkpoints to the visually daunting Blitz mode that speeds up notes and time, but also gives you bonus points for however long you can keep it going, your desire to inch that score up one notch never ceases and is only encouraged by the insertion of your rivals (typically just your friend) score on the right side of your screen, pushing you to beat their score.

The twist throughout all of this is the implementation of multiple upgrade systems that you can take with you into a song. For example, there’s an upgrade that allows your “bandmate” to take over one certain instruments notes for a limited time, giving you time to swap to another lane and perform the other notes. The upgrades get crazier from there and eventually evolve into madness such as shooting a pinball out into the playing field and then having to keep it going by moving left to right to knock the ball back up, with it collecting bonus points on every note it hits. You unlock these abilities through earning Blitz Cred, which is basically a growing score that gets bigger after every successful performance on a song. The abilities are plentiful and will keep you hammering through songs for hours on end, just to see what the next crazy thing to unlock is. Although we all know you’re going to just keep going back to that pinball. Why would you not?

Something Rock Band Blitz does not do too differently however is the visuals. The scrolling note highway and bright color coded notes concept has become a staple of the music/rhythm genre and continues to be in this game. In an odd decision, your background is always taking place on a road, with traffic occasionally seeming like it’s going to hit you. It’s minor due to the fact that most of your attention is on the notes but these small touches really brighten the experience and make the game that much more appealing, even though overall, there’s not much change away from your normal Rock Band visuals.

One major issue that becomes very apparent from your desire to break open all the available abilities is the disappointing setlist that contains only 25 songs. It’s not exactly the quality as much as the quantity though as it features your standard pop hits (Fun, Pink, Foster the People) all the way through your favorite oldies (Jungle Boogie, anyone?). The fact of the matter is that 25 songs fly by very quickly and only shows that Harmonix is counting on you to either own previous Rock Band’s and have their music library or own DLC to fully enjoy the Rock Band Blitz experience. That may sound a bit crappy but with such a humungous variety of DLC available, you’re guaranteed to find something you want to download for yourself.

Apart from that, issues become very minimal as the only other one I ran into was occasionally there wouldn’t be enough notes in between checkpoints to level up my multiplier. But even that is meaningless in the grand scheme of things as it becomes near impossible to not enjoy the hyper stylized insanity that is Rock Band Blitz. If there’s one thing I would’ve bet against in 2012 it would be that Harmonix would release another Rock Band that is not only immaculately designed but also fun and innovative. I would’ve lost that bet as Rock Band Blitz is one hell of an experience that revitalized what seemed to be a dead genre. In the end though, it’s time to send the Rock Band brand off and Rock Band Blitz is the absolute perfect installment to do just that.

XBox 360

Graphics

90
  

Audio

90
  

Gameplay

95

Creativity

95
  

Execution

100
  

Offset

90
    

9.3
  

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Review – Dust: An Elysian Tail (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  2 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

In the past four years, the games that have closed out the Summer of Arcade go as follows: Castle Crashers (2008), Shadow Complex (2009), Lara Craft and the Guardian of Light (2010), and Toy Soldiers: Cold War (2011). So to say expectations for Humble Hearts’ (comprised of one sole heart, Dean Dodrill) first creation, Dust: An Elysian Tail, were high would be one of the biggest understatements of the year. Dodrill’s Dust, which is also a tie-in to Dodrill’s animated series he’s currently at work on, seemed none too afraid of those expectations by entering its way onto everyone’s radar by showing off bright, vibrant visuals and an insane Devil May Cry style combat system that encourages combos and pushes hit counts up higher than you could imagine.

Unsurprisingly, those are two of Dust’s best qualities. One thing that may be a bit unexpected is the interesting tale that Dust tells throughout its 10-12 hours lifespan. Featuring a broad world absolutely filled with lovable characters, Dust’s story and world are among some of the best I’ve seen in an Arcade game. The ongoing uncertainty with the identity of the main character, Dust, is one of the driving forces that control your emotions from beginning to end. While that is going on, an overarching story is taking place that involves a villain named General Gaius that is attempting to take out a whole race called the Moonbloods. Though he’s unsure who he really is, Dust is having none of that and does his best to stop Gaius in his plight. Apart from the main storylines, Dust has around ten or fifteen side quests spread across its beautiful world. Some of which are simple “receive X number of items” and some that go deeper than that and tell a story of their own.

Writing is at times a bit back and forth however. Most of the time, the writing is just fine, sometimes containing a bit of wit, but there are a few times where the Japanese influence is clear and characters become a bit annoying. Whether it be nagging or just being unfunny, the main offender is your partner Fidget. Fidget is similar to a fairy, flying around with you the whole time, though she’s actually very useful. She is queen to blame for my issues but overall, her character is supposed to act like a sort of little sister to Dust so maybe the annoyingness is expected. In the end, you learn to love Fidget, frustrating qualities and all.

While the story is undoubtedly fantastic, the visuals are where it’s at. The art and attention to detail put on every aspect of Dust is absolutely astonishing. The character designs are spot on and reflect their respective personality perfectly. The level design is no slouch either, showing off bright fire and drab graveyard environments that never cease to please your precious eyeballs. It’s clear there was no environment left unpolished in Dust’s development cycle as everything has that nice coat of paint that makes you stop the game and just stare. Dust is without a doubt one of the best looking games released in years.

My admiration for both the story arch and the visuals aside, the heart of Dust is the combat. Dust is your typical side scrolling brawler, enhanced by beautiful combos. These combos are easily accessible as achieving them is as simple as pressing B, X, then Y. From there, you will have your enemy in the air and be wailing on his flying body. Usually, the issue with simplistic combat is that it quickly becomes a bit of a bore to slog through. Thankfully, that issue is avoided in Dust. Maybe it’s how incredible everything looks, or maybe it’s just the fact that the combat is fun as hell to take part in but Dodrill achieves something most brawlers cannot in keeping his combat style fresh and full of jaw dropping moments.

That is, up until the final few hours of Dust, that’s when the excitement and admiration begins to slowly morph into anger. The final hour of Dust is one of the most shockingly disappointing hours of gaming I’ve played. As you enter your last chapter, the combat becomes relentless, throwing incredibly strong and armored enemies at you that are much more powerful that Dust. This wouldn’t be a problem if there were only a few to deal with, but instead you have to take on about fifteen at a time and it seems that immediately upon defeating that fifteen, twenty more show up behind them. Acquiring health is not an easy task either, as you must buy fairly expensive food for health. Again, this would be fine if money wasn’t a hard thing to come by but it is. It seemed like almost every bit of money I picked up along the way went right into food. Though it felt like three hours due to the amount I died, once you get past the thirty minute combat sequence, you’re greeted by an awful boss battle. The boss battle consists of performing the same aforementioned B, X, and Y combo repeatedly until his life bar is depleted but the game isn’t over yet, as they then combine the previously frustrating combat sequence and the boss battle into one, forcing you to contain the twenty enemies around you while simultaneously dealing with the boss that kills you in about two swipes of his sword. As you can guess, some controller tossing emerged from this situation.

My thoughts on Dust: An Elysian Tail are very hard to put into words, near everything about it was immaculate up until the final hour where everything became tarnished with an awful stench. The fact of the matter is, no game should be judged by one hour and instead should be judged by the whole experience. That being said, if you don’t mind a frustrating final hour, Dust is a truly special product to pick up. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, it’s interesting, and it’s frustrating as hell. It’s Dust: An Elysian Tail and it deserves your purchase.

XBox 360

Graphics

100
  

Audio

90
  

Gameplay

90

Creativity

95
  

Execution

90
  

Offset

90
    

9.3
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Review – Hybrid (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Aug 102012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

The reason 5th Cell’s Hybrid, the newest Summer of Arcade release, exists is a bit of a mind bender in and of itself. The multiplayer focused genre (in which Hybrid resides) has been something that hasn’t necessarily found the most success on Xbox Live or on PSN, unless of course your name is Battlefield 1943. Some of the bigger failures that come to mind thought are Breach and Blacklight: Tango Down. Both of which tried so hard to make an impact but ultimately fizzled out within a week of their release. Enter the creative geniuses behind the widely beloved Scribblenauts, 5th Cell, and you have a game that may just be able to break that mold. The one thing all shooters these days lack is a bit of creativity that seems impossible for most developers to achieve. 5th Cell finds a way to achieve that creativity and tack on more hours of fun to a multiplayer genre that seemed all but drained of imagination.

Creativity comes in the form of an all new way you get around your environment. Instead of traversing around with your feet, in Hybrid, you instead use your jetpack to fly from cover to cover. While flying you can do everything you would want through a simple button press. You can, of course, still shoot enemies with the right trigger but you can also select another cover to fly to while in the air by targeting it and pressing A. This adds a snappy feel to moving from cover to cover and can help you in establishing a certain strategy to navigating levels. Also available at your disposal is the ability to retreat to your last cover by pressing B, just in case you made a bad decision with what cover you wanted to jump to or unless you just want to bail out of your current situation.

 5th Cell really perfected the movement in Hybrid in almost every way possible. If I could bring up one issue, it would be that moving while attached to cover can be a bit awkward as the game sometimes doesn’t recognize where you should be and instead just pushes you a few inches away from cover. It’s an odd issue but doesn’t hurt you too bad in the grand scheme of things. That small issue aside, moving around in Hybrid is something entirely new yet it’s something you can get a handle of in minutes. It will feel like you’ve been gliding between cover for years in no time thanks to the simplistic controls.

Something that lends itself really well to the glide control scheme is the map design. Every map in Hybrid is small, something that is necessary since you only have 3 people on each time, and feels a bit similar to old school multiplayer maps as there is always a specific choke point located within it that both teams are fighting to take control over. This leads to some truly exciting battles that can keep you 100 percent focused until the winner or loser emerges. One problem I’ve found in a lot of multiplayer games is that most maps are designed with one game mode in mind, Team Deathmatch. Even if the game itself has multiple modes, they know Team Deathmatch will be the most popular so that’s all they have in mind. That’s not an issue in Hybrid however as, thanks to the choke points and variety of different areas to fight in, you never feel as If the mode you are playing is the 2nd tier mode.

The game modes found within Hybrid do not entirely reflect the creativity found within the game itself. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a load of modes to go through, though as Hybrid gives you six different modes to select from. The modes mostly boil down to your average VIP, Team Deathmatch, or King of the Hill selection. But in the end, the unique gameplay keeps you playing through any and every mode, even if you have seen it before.

I’ve went this entire time without mentioning arguably the most interesting thing about Hybrid and that is the ongoing battle. The idea behind Hybrid’s story is something that could have been explained a bit better than the 1 minute cutscene the game gives you at the beginning but from what I picked up on an unknown species landed on Earth and attempted a takeover. They mostly succeeded but certain humans fought back and eventually a war broke out between the two, and it’s now your choice to choose which species you want to fight with.

You then begin fighting with players who chose the opposite species in a certain area off of a world map. You can choose where you want to fight but throughout the course of the game, hotzone’s begin to emerge and you gain extra XP for fighting there. You capture an area (and take its Dark Matter) by filling up a percentage meter shown at the world map. That meter also shows the opposing teams percentage, which can fuel a fierce battle to take over a certain area, especially if the two percentages are close. This whole idea is a very interesting but very daunting task that doesn’t seem like it achieves its full potential. Even if the full potential isn’t achieved, it’s still exciting to keep track of and even more fun when you know you were an integral part of the takeover of a district.

Apart from the new things Hybrid brings to the table, one need of the multiplayer only genre is to have a solid upgrade and leveling system. Hybrid has that, but doesn’t blow you out of the water with it. The guns themselves never seem too different, unless you’re comparing a shotgun to an assault rifle of course. You unlock different guns by getting the ability to unlock a gun in a certain category (light machine gun, assault rifle, sniper, etc.) through leveling up. You can then use that ability to unlock whatever weapon within that category you desire. While the weapons may not all feel unique, they manage to have a solid kick to them that adds to the combat. But a slight negative comes in the fact that some weapons sound like pure trash. Most of them sound just fine but a select few sound like something I’ve never heard before, and definitely not something recognizable as a gun.

Another thing you achieve through leveling up and attaining upgrades is the capability to unlock more abilities. Abilities are basically strong perks you use in battle.  For example, one of the abilities can be used to instantly heal every one of your teammates health while another can be used to increase the amount of damage you must take before dying. The abilities aren’t limited to standard health buffs however, as they also range into attack and defense categories. Such as an ability that lets you use frag grenades (which are much more useful than you may think) and another that voids all nearby grenade effects. The amount of abilities and the variety between all of them can really add to the overall experience as you never know which ability your opponent will be using and no matter what it is, it can hurt you in its own special way.

I’m a guy that has a strong distaste for multiplayer games, such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, etc., and going into Hybrid I felt like I was destined to hate it. 5th Cell managed to prove me wrong in every second of their beautiful, fun, and slick creation that is Hybrid. Whether you’re flying around maps, fighting through battle, or just exploring the world map while checking out the slow Paladin takeover I’m leading, there’s no shortage of excitement to be had in Hybrid and for only fifteen dollars, you can’t do much better than that.

XBox 360

Graphics

90
  

Audio

80
  

Gameplay

90

Creativity

95
  

Execution

90
  

Offset

90
    

8.9
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Review – Deadlight (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Aug 012012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

2D action adventure games have not had the largest market in the past few years. Plenty of them are made but only a select few actually stand out and the Summer of Arcade has produced arguably the five best 2D games of this generation in titles such as Splosion Man, Shadow Complex, Limbo, Castle Crashers, and Braid. Deadlight developer, Tequila Works, saw the success of those, mainly Limbo and Shadow Complex, and like any other person with half a brain, hopped at the idea. They knew as well as anybody that if they could produce a good 2D action game and get it into the Summer of Arcade, it would explode in popularity. They’ve already achieved one of those things, what about the other?

You begin Deadlight in a ravaged world, your name being Randall (His friends call him Randy/Wayne), and your goal is clear from the beginning, find your damn daughter and wife! Randall is slowly being torn apart from the inside in pure depression that he cannot hold his family close and the fact that zombies have taken over isn’t helping his issues. While the story starts with you in a small pact, that pact gets torn apart in the opening cutscene as Randall must let the others go on without him, though he promises to meet back up with them eventually.

Most of Deadlight is spent being played all by your lonesome. In Part 2 and Part 3 of the story, major characters are introduced and worked into the gameplay in some fashion but that ultimately becomes more a nuisance than any kind of positive. In Part 2, you spend around one fourth the entire part performing “trials” in a man called The Rat’s underground sewers. This kills any kind of momentum the first part had worked up, forcing you to perform monotonous tasks one right after another, while seemingly never progressing the interesting overarching story.

These trials may have been much more tolerable, however, if the controls weren’t cumbersome to handle. It seems like near every jump you make doesn’t land where you suspect it to, leaving you not knowing where to predict your landing, which obviously can become very frustrating in times where it forces you to land in a certain spot. For example, you have to jump on a floating block in the water, but look out because if you miss, its instant death as Randall can’t swim. You may think you’re going to hit the spot but no, Randall slid a bit, and then fell right into the fiery pit of doom that is deep water. Precision is definitely not Deadlight’s forte.

The platforming isn’t the only feature that experiences some poor controls as so does the combat. While it’s nowhere near as frustrating as the platforming, the combat just feels clunky in every way. Gunplay is simply done aiming with the right stick and firing with the trigger, while you use your melee weapon with B. It sounds simple enough but once zombies get in close, it feels like the melee just doesn’t want to work correctly, hitching up when you press the button and sometimes having the weapon fade through the enemies all together, not even hurting them.

This does bring about one of the more unique and fun things to do in Deadlight which is strategizing how you can avoid the zombies. You can taunt them by using Y and if you use that intelligently, you can manage to get them all wrapped up in one pile and avoid them completely. This adds to an already tense atmosphere that Deadlight establishes early on and doesn’t relinquish until the credits roll.

The atmosphere and overall creepy vibe you feel throughout Deadlight is by far the best thing to be found within this fifteen dollar package. Even when the controls are bugging out a bit or you’re just getting impatient with enemies, you still have a slight bit of fear looming in the back of your head. The anchor of the atmosphere is the moody and dark look Deadlight features. Shadows and dark colors are prevalent in everything you see and whether it’s from flickering lights or not fully revealed enemies, Deadlight will have you squirming back and forth in your seat.

Deadlight features one of the more odd stories I’ve seen in the past few years. There’s nothing obscenely weird about it, it’s the execution and lead up to a mostly dry and disappointing ending that perplexes me. Part 1 establishes a very interesting, ravaged 1980’s world. Zombies have all but taken over everything and there’s nothing you can do about it except for move forward and hope for some positive to emerge. But like I previously mentioned, Act 2 halts that momentum and instead introduces characters that are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Half of Part 2 feels like a sidequest that should have been in a more fully realized Deadlight. Part 3 attempts to regain that excitement but mostly fails all the way up until the cringe worthy ending that will leave you more disappointed than satisfied.

While every game has some unrealized potential in it somewhere, Deadlight had so much that it really saddens me to see it turn out like it has. It never falls off the deep end and becomes terrible by any means, but it never realizes its full potential. While the atmosphere is there, nothing else is quite up to the lofty standards that are placed upon Summer of Arcade releases. Deadlight tried so hard, but failed even harder.

XBox 360

Graphics

75
  

Audio

65
  

Gameplay

50

Creativity

65
  

Execution

50
  

Offset

60
    

6.1
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition Update 1.7.3 Available NOW!!!

 Posted by  1 Response »
Jul 132012
 

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition Update

Minecraft for Xbox 360 has been very popular on Xbox Live Arcade and today has had a huge revamp. Update 1.7.3 is the second update sine the game was release in May this year and has quite a few new additions that bring it even closer to the PC version. That said there is still a lot to be added before then.
One huge feature now is the ability to change your charachers skins, you can choose between the 8 default skins one Minecraft Xbox 360 like Steve, Tennis Steve and so on. But the best thing is you can now download Skin Packs from Xbox Live. There is only one pack out at the moment but it holds a massive 40+ skins, from Halo’s Master Chief to the Trials Evolusion Guy and even Banjo from Banjo Kazooie. Each Skin Pack will Contain the 40+ skins for only 160 Microsoft Points…..BARGAIN

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition Skin Pack 1

These are the other new features added to 1.7.3:

  • Added pistons & sticky pistons
  • Added stackable fences.
  • Added shears – required to get wool from sheep, and to collect leaf blocks.
  • TNT needs flint and steel or redstone to detonate.
  • Redstone wire will now connect to a repeater.
  • New textures for cobblestone and brick.
  • Added lighting improvements (brought forward from 1.8.2 update) and snow & rain improvements.
  • Added a save file cache to improve the speed of displaying the saves list.
  • Added ban list functionality to allow players to self-ban from levels they feel contain offensive content.
  • Added a ban list section to the How To Play menus.
  • Added an option for the host to limit online games to only players in their friends list (no friends of friends).
  • Added a seed display to the level load screen (requires existing levels to be saved out again to add the display).
  • Changed the tooltip display setting to in-game tooltip display, so that tooltips always display in menus.
  • Added the crosshair to the list of things affected by the opacity slider.
  • On using the quickselect bar, the opacity of the quickselect, tooltips, splitscreen gamertag display, and crosshair will be set to 80, and will fade back down to the user opacity setting after 6 seconds of no quickselect bar use.
  • Added some more Tips & Trivia to the loading/saving screen display.
  • Added optional tutorial for pistons and redstone.
  • Added a self-building bridge to the castle using pistons.
  • Added some sugar cane, cactii and clay to the world.
  • Added a few other things for players to discover.


There has also been a few bug fixes but the duplication bug still lies in there somewhere

To download the new update just power up your console and play Minecraft and it’ll do all the hard work for you.

If you don’t own Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition you can purchase it from Xbox Live on your console by searching for Minecraft or you can go here

 

Review – NCAA Football 13 (Xbox 360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jul 112012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

The yearly franchise has returned once again in NCAA Football 13 and coming into this release, it was clear that this year’s installment was not going to be the best in the series. There was no real big feature, apart from the Heisman Challenge, and even that seemed to pretty much be Road to Glory mode but making you play as Barry Sanders or another Heisman favorite. Up to this point, NCAA Football has squeaked by with installments like this, with tiny differences from the previous game in the series, and ultimately made up for it with a hard-hitting, game-changing sequel coming after that. The squeaking by that EA Tiburon has become so skilled at achieving has finally stopped.

There were a few slight adjustments to the actual in-game experience this year, one of those being the ability to lead receivers with your throws. This does add a bit of realism and makes you feel much more in control than previous games did when you were at the QB position. The big problem is that you won’t be using it often, as most of the time it’ll go unnoticed and the time it is noticed is when you accidentally led your receiver into coverage and got a pass picked off because of that. While it’s a slight change, your defense now reads and reacts a bit better to the quarterback. This doesn’t lead to any huge changes, only smoother animations when a ball is picked off.

EA Sports also found it necessary to add an ESPN ticker that runs at the bottom of your screen as you play. During Dynasty mode, this can be helpful at times if you’re wondering how your rival school is doing, or if you just like to keep up with the goings on in the league. But they also added in a studio update that, like real life, sends you away from the game and to a box score of another game for a commentator to tell you how that other game is going.  This can become a bit of annoyance, especially if you’re playing at a time when only one game is going on, which then leads to them constantly cutting back to that box score after every touchdown they score. No, I don’t care that Notre Dame is beating Michigan State by 37 points, Rece Davis!

Speaking of Dynasty mode, possibly the best change of the game is to be found there. No it’s not the studio updates nor the fact that EA has given the Purdue Boilermakers a new run-out animation, it’s the changes to recruiting. I’m a recruiting junkie both in real life and in video games so I may be a bit bias in that assessment. Either way, changes to recruiting have been something NCAA fans have been clamoring for years for and while these new additions aren’t all we wanted, they’re a good start. First off, most of the recruiting interface has changed. While it isn’t much nicer by any accounts, it’s a bit easier to navigate and in a game where menu navigation is always awful, any positive is welcome. Second, you can now recruit any player, at any time. While it sounds simple and like it should have been there since the beginning (it should have), this hasn’t happened up until now. This doesn’t mean you start out as the Mean Green North Texans and immediately recruit a five star, but you can at least gain his consideration if you try hard enough. Lastly, you can now fully scout players before offering them a scholarship. In previous games you could always see letter grades in player’s specific stats but not until now could you use an allotted amount of time to scout them and actually see what their overall rating would be going into the season. This also opens up chances to recruit a 3 or 2 star player, scout them, and find out they’re a hidden gem. It adds some real excitement to an otherwise dull recruiting process for some.

Let’s get down to the big thing, the Heisman Challenge mode. This has been the big feature EA Sports has been touting since NCAA Football 13’s announcement. In it, you take control of a former Heisman winner and go through a season, attempting to match their season totals and eventually win the Heisman trophy just like they did. Along the way you can see videos from the player as they give insight to key aspects of their college career. The fact of the matter is that this mode is just not as special as EA Sports wants it to be. Unless you’re a fan of the team one of the athletes played for, your interest in playing through multiple Heisman winners’ seasons is probably rather slim. Even if you are a fan of one of the teams, you’ll only have about one season to play through and even then, why not just create yourself and play Road to the Show? It’s a much more in-depth experience than the Heisman Challenge.

The obvious counter to that would be the fact that you can change any player’s team that he played on in his Heisman run before starting the season. But again, the fact of the matter is, that’s not that interesting. I’m really not that interested in seeing Doug Flutie in a Tennessee Vols uniform, because it probably looks the same as when he is in a USC uniform. EA Tiburon tries to make Heisman Challenge have some variety by adding this in, but instead they fall on their face, just like they did with the mode itself. It’s never an offensive piece of trash, it’s just not fun, and ultimately makes you wonder why it even exists.

Something that was implemented mainly for the Heisman Challenge but also made its way to the Road to Glory mode was “Reaction Time.” If you’re unfamiliar with Road to Glory, it’s where you create your own character, play through some High School ball, get some scholarships, and ultimately land yourself at a college of your choice. From there you practice, practice, practice until ultimately you take over the starting job. This mode has remained mostly unchanged for a few years now and Reaction Time seems to be the biggest change since Road to Glory’s integration. That’s not really a positive, however, as all Reaction Time does is slow down time during the game to allow you to get a better site of the field in front of you. It’s occasionally useful but most of the time it’s the last thing on your mind as you’re attempting to bust through a hole on the offensive line or get that pass down the middle of the field to your receiver that’s probably only going to be open for a few more seconds.

There were a few changes to NCAA Football 13 this year, yes, but how many of them were significant to the overall experience is the question everyone will be asking and that answer is very clear: not many. I, personally, love the recruiting changes, but apart from that, there’s nothing to write home about in this year’s installment. This is the time when EA Tiburon has to step back and realize they need to do something drastically different next year or this franchise is going to fall apart.

XBox 360

Graphics

70
  

Audio

65
  

Gameplay

70

Creativity

60
  

Execution

60
  

Offset

65
    

6.5
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

 

Xbox Live Down, Microsoft Investigating Cause

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jul 062012
 

If you’re trying to download the newest Xbox Live Arcade release Spelunky, I have some bad news for you. Xbox Live is down and has been for a few hours. The worst part of this story is that it isn’t a scheduled maintenance, Microsoft has said they’re “investigating” the Xbox Live outage. In a world pre the PS3’s two month long death, you’ll have to forgive the gaming community for getting a little freaked out at this point.

At this point, what I previously posted is about all Microsoft has said. They’re looking in to the problem and, of course, “”We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.”

If it stops people from buying Spelunky for too long, you will not be forgiven, Microsoft.

Amazon Deals Strike Down Price of Witcher 2 and Max Payne 3

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jun 262012
 

Amazon has decided to spit out some rather impressive video game deals today. Though two are already expired (Spider Man: Edge of Time for 10 bucks and a Turtle Beach Ear Force X32 headset for 65 bucks) one that is still going and will be going until 4 o’ clock eastern time is the deal to pick up The Witcher 2 for 47 dollars. For the ridiculous amount of hours you could spend with that game, 47 dollars is far from a bad deal.

Another deal that will continue on until the end of the day is Max Payne 3 being sold for the low, low price of $39.99. Some could argue that with the mediocre multiplayer Max Payne 3’s eight hour campaign may not warrant a 40 dollar purchase but you can make that decision yourself.

 

Also appearing in the deals today appear to be multiple Playstation Vita accessories, the special edition of the Game of Thrones game, and another headset for PS3. If you only pick up one thing out of all this, though it isn’t a huge markdown, it’s hard to argue with The Witcher 2.

Ron Gilbert and Double Fine’s The Cave Announced

 Posted by  No Responses »
May 242012
 

Details have been slipping out over the past week about Ron Gilbert and Double Fine’s next, non-kickstarter-funded, game. Now there is a full trailer and a plethora of information.  The Cave will be a sidescrolling puzzle platformer featuring seven distinct characters: a monk, adventurer, hillbilly, scientist, set of twins, a knight, and a time traveler. (Apparently, a single person who is a twin only counts as half a person.) Each character will have unique abilities that aid them in finding the ambiguous “something” they are looking for. The player can go the journey alone, choosing three characters that can be switched on the fly, or play locally with two friends. The actual cave itself, which narrates the game, is a large seamless area. It also features player specific areas.

It’s like Psychonauts, Trine, and LittleBigPlanet had some weird threesome that resulted in a single baby with all their traits, which they then fed copious amounts of Red Bull and cocaine. From the look of things, it should be a creative, funny romp. I can’t wait to get my mitts on it in early 2013, when it’s downloadable on the PS3, 360, and PC. Until then, feast your eyes on the embedded trailer of greatness, check out the links in my sources, and stay tuned (or whatever the non-outdated, technologically-hip term is that’s equivalent to not adjusting your radio dial). This is Joey, signing off for station that informs you about tomorrow’s greatest hits, WGIR.

Sources:

Twitter, Facebook, and Kotaku

Can You Dig It? Free Game Friday: Minecraft Edition

 Posted by  38 Responses »
May 102012
 

One of the most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade games launched this week, did you know? Minecraft has been the indie darling for many PC gamers now for quite some time but as of last Wednesday, Xbox 360 gamers are now able to get in on the fun.

So, do you want a chance to win a free copy of the game? We happen to have a code that hasn’t been used… I mean, it’s just lying here. I think one of you out there would love to redeem it, right?

Well, this time we are giving you a chance to win 10 extra entries. All you have to do is follow us on our Raptr page. If you haven’t made an account, I totally recommend you do. It’s pretty awesome there. a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Review – Skullgirls (360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
May 032012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

Skullgirls has been floating around the internet for awhile now, the 2D fighter that is beautifully illustrated by Alex Ahad and designed by renowned tournament fighter Mike Z. As a huge fan of 2D fighters, I’ve been keeping an eye on Skullgirls since I first heard about it and when it launched on Xbox Live, I was all over it. While everything looked well and fine on paper, was Skullgirls going to be another download flop or a revolutionary competitive fighter? We’ll have to wait a bit to see if the game has staying power but I do have to say, Skullgirls is a balanced fighter, if nothing else.

The plot of Skullgirls is rather basic for a fighting game, there is an item that can grant the holder anything they desire but if they are not pure of heart they will become the Skullgirl. The Skullgirl is pretty much bad news, a typical harbinger of doom and a typical final boss character. Each character has a story that details their motivation for finding the Skull Heart and each story is beautifully illustrated in a comic-style storyboard. It doesn’t go above and beyond in any way but the plot compliments the gameplay rather well. characters seem to have a few unique dialogue lines in battle which really helps make the fights a bit more immersive.

One of the things that stood out the most in Skullgirls had to be the game’s presentation with both video and audio. The game offers one of the better soundtracks that I have encountered in a fighting game in quite awhile. It comes off as very Street Fighter-esque with each character having a very specific theme in their levels and accompanying soundtrack. The voice-overs are simply phenomenal, but with Christina Vee (best known as BlazBlue‘s Noel Vermillion and League of Legends‘ Riven The Exile) leading the charge as Voice Director, perfection is nothing short of the expectation. In other words: audio is one of the highlighting features of this fighting game, playing with headphones is one of the best parts of playing the game.

Each of the characters you can play as has their own unique story and move-set. Unfortunately, there are only 8 playable characters at this time (2 of which are unlockable), this means that you will have to find the character that fits your play style and stick with them. The fighting is well balanced with the way moves work, many times you will find that there is a risk/reward for performing certain special attacks or even utilizing a super move. Although it operates like a finely tuned engine, I did feel that there was a lack of… something. Perhaps it was a full assortment of characters or just the absolute specifics of move execution. Whatever it was, the game really did feel like a downloadable arcade title instead of a robust game.

So, is Skullgirls worth the cost of admission? The beautiful graphics and excellent audio would say “Hell yeah!” whereas the gameplay would kind of shrug. Of you are looking for a fresh fighting game since you are tired of Marvel vs Capcom 3, Skullgirls is certainly worth checking out. If you are looking for the next fighting game to sink your game playing time into, I don’t feel comfortable saying that this is the magic bullet. I will say though, it is tons of fun to play with friends, it just could use more characters.

Pros:

  • Beautiful hand drawn graphics
  • Great audio
  • A solid technical fighter
  • In depth training mode

Cons:

  • Very limited characters
  • Huge learning curve
  • Extremely precise controls
  • Leaves you wanting more
XBox 360

Graphics

90
  

Audio

95
  

Gameplay

65

Creativity

70
  

Execution

60
  

Offset

80
    

7.7
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

CISPA and You- What You Should Know

 Posted by  No Responses »
Apr 272012
 

You may, or may not be aware of a new little bit of legislation known as CISPA or The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. If you are In the know then you realise how terrible this act is and if you’re not, allow me to introduce it to you and to let you know why it is a very dangerous piece of legislation.

So what is CISPA?

CISPA is unlike any other piece of legislation that the US has ever seen, although the public outcry has not been dissimilar to what we saw around SOPA. The big difference however is that CISPA hasn’t only made it into the house of representatives, it was voted on and passed yesterday, the day before it was scheduled to be.

The main premise of the act seems to be in response to the massive increase in ‘hacktivist’ activity that we have seen in the recent months and years as well as the ever present threat of terrorism. On the whole, the Internet is a place where it is easy to communicate in private and anonymously, meaning that it has been used for much scrupulous behaviour, social media played a part in the riots over here in England last year and as a whole the Internet has been used for both cyber crime as well as by organisations with terrorist links. The aim of CISPA is to try and prevent this by granting the government the power to watch closely over everything a person discusses which could lead to them being considered a threat. It would be done thanks to the cooperation of major approved companies, giving the government access to information such as private email.

This Pretty Much Covers What Freedom Should Be

But what’s the problem?

While the stated aim of the act as a preventative measure in the fights against cyber crime and  terrorism makes perfect sense and is arguably necessary in the times that we live, the main problem with the act is not dissimilar to the problems which most people had with SOPA, mainly that it is poorly worded, with little definition as to what would give the government the right to go all ‘big brother’ on your private life. The act essentially has no real stated boundaries and while something does need to be done, generalisation isn’t the right way to do it, sometimes there will be a real reason that the powers that be would need to be able to get at this information covertly, but these situations should be clearly defined and acceptable.

This lack of definition should definitely set alarm bells ringing as it leads to the line being massively blurred as to what is and isn’t acceptable for the government to know about you and your personal life. At the end of the day that’s what it is, your life no one else’s, if you don’t want Uncle Sam going through your text messages, emails and even Xbox live conversations, then he should have to keep his nose out, unless he has a really serious reason to think that he needs to. Not to mention that the proposed Act will also over ride pre existing laws including laws on privacy and surveillance.

And how can this effect me and you?

As with SOPA, there is a lot of big companies backing the act, again it can be argued that they have an interest in national security, but at the same time why is it so unbelievable that they would not have their own agenda, all big business could benefit from having access to your personal information, which could include Facebook information and even Google searches, and while massive abuse of the system would be unlikely, without set boundaries it remains a real possibility.

This is after all a gaming site so primarily we should focus on what this could mean for you as a gamer. One of the biggest companies backing the act is Microsoft, a huge multinational company who make a lot of money from gaming, both Xbox and PC. they have access to a lot of your information and also a big interest in knowing what you get up to. Whether it be for financial reasons or just to know what you’re doing with your console, it is valuable information.

What can we do? Is there any hope?

With the act having been slyly rushed through the House of Representatives a day early and already having been approved there, no, what you can actually do is very limited but the power of people has got our point across before and we can do it again. Writing to your representative and pointing out that you are not pleased still gets the message across, as does campaigning across the Internet whether it be a hashtag or whatever you want, making the point that this kind of involvement from your government isn’t right, don’t forget that invasion of privacy is illegal, no matter who it is invading that privacy. As for hope? The President himself has already stated that no matter how far the act goes, he will veto it, the man either understands what the people want or right from wrong.

Review: FEZ (360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Apr 252012
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

Just last week, Fez, the super-hyped Xbox Live Arcade Game created by independent developer Polytron, was finally released into the world. The game had been in development for years, and few ever thought the game would actually see the light of day. The game was announced by Phil Fish, the games creator, back in 2007. It was then announced that the game would be released in the summer of 2010. When that didn’t happen, and the months piled up, not many people were too sure about its future. But is is April 2012, and Fez is a finished product, available to those who want it, for 800 Microsoft Points ($10).

You play through the world of Fez as a lovable white ‘thing’ named Gomez. You awaken in your home one day to learn that you have received a letter from an elderly man that lives at the top of your village. From there, you are treated to the always familiar 2D platforming basics, running and jumping your way to the top of the village, in order to see the old man as he requested in his correspondence. Along your short journey, you can explore others houses, and interact with the other villagers. You will begin to find out what everyone thinks of the village, Gomez and the fact that there are no such things as cubes, only squares. After you reach the top of the village, the old man then tells you all about cubes. They are real, you can live in them. Your mind will be surely blown at the events that immediately transpire.

Fez is an incredibly hard game to describe, because it contains so many elements. It is more or less a retro, 2D platforming game that features three dimensional shifts. You actually only play in the standard two dimensions, and shift your perspective between three dimensions. As you shift your perspective, you can then explore the new 2D territory, allowing you access to a newer part of the map that you were unable to see before. Think of it was a cube. You can only play on one face of the cube, going up and down, as well as, side to side. Now if you rotate that cube, you now have a new side to play on, while the side you were previously playing on is now in the background. The execution of this very difficult concept has been done really well, and the puzzles it creates are some of the most difficult in gaming to date. The game is definitely a challenge for even the most experienced puzzle solvers.

The game takes you on an ’8-bit’ journey through a expertly crafted world, puzzle by puzzle, in search for the ever important Cube. The more Cubes you get, the more places you can go, and the only way to get more cubes, is to find them by solving complex puzzles, searching hidden nooks and deciphering DaVinci Code-like encryptions. You will also discover the existence of the Anti-Cube. For every Cube, the must in fact be an Anti-Cube that keeps the balance. The Anti-Cubes are much harder to find, and require the solving of more difficult puzzles. The game is simple in concept, run around the world collecting Cubes and Anti-Cubes, not hard right? If it were only that easy.

The games mechanics are very simple. You can jump, move side-to-side and interact with the environment when prompted to do so, much like any other 2D platformer. Then there is the perspective shifts that require the pressing of the left or right bumpers/triggers. The gameplay is very fluid, and the shifts between perspectives seem smooth and natural.  The graphics are nothing spectacular to display, as the game purposely uses retro-styling to tel the story of Fez. It is a nice change of pace, and has a very Scott Pilgrim-like feel. The music is wonderfully crafted, and probably necessary, as the smooth tones of Fez seem to serenade you throughout what can be a very frustrating experience. What is the most surprising about this game, however, is the execution. It may have taken a while to finally see its release, and it may even be a bit buggy some of the time, but the way Fez has you interact with the world, constantly shifting your screen around in order to discover and experience new things is masterfully crafted. The puzzles, no matter how difficult they seem, work perfectly with the level design. The game is a gem, and everyone should really try and experience the wonder of Fez.

Pros:
  • Wonderfully designed levels
  • Great musical score
  • Challenging puzzles
  • Lots of replay value
  • Reminiscent graphics
Cons:
  • A bit buggy
  • Will make you feel stupid
Taking everything into consideration, Fez is a great game, and it was definitely worth its long awaited release. Phil Fish and the rest of the team at Polytron have really created something special here, and that is why we give Fez a final score of:
XBox 360

Graphics

70
  

Audio

92
  

Gameplay

97

Creativity

95
  

Execution

87
  

Offset

85
    

8.8
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

 

Indie Game of the Week: I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1

 Posted by  No Responses »
Apr 242012
 

This week for Gaming Irresponsibly’s Indie Game of the Week, we are going to take a trip in the ‘wayback’ machine a couple of years to 2009. Back in ’09, Ska Studios’ James Silva developed an indie smash hit that received tons of praise, I Made a Game With Zombies In It (or as the official title puts it, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1). The game debuted on Xbox Live’s Indie Game market and featured a hilarious soundtrack, smooth gameplay, and you guessed it, zombies! Ska Studious also developed hit arcade games such as The Dishwasher series, which were met with critic acclaim. The game won a slew of awards in 2009, and after playing through it one time, it is easy to see why. The experience of playing I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 is like nothing you will ever find on the Xbox Live Indie Game Market and you can get if for a buck.

The game mechanics are simple: one stuck moves your character directionally while the other stick fires the weapon you currently have equipped. Lots of games use this technique, but you would be hard pressed to find one as entertaining. As you make your way through hordes of zombies, green blobs and even some diamond shaped foes, you are treated to a musical composition that is nothing short of glorious. The beat and tempo shifts between periods of lighter and heavier mob waves and the lyrics during the chorus are hysterical. Tons of power-ups litter the screen as you grab speed boosts, protective shields and more health. There is also a vast array of weapon variants such as flamethrowers, machine guns, rocket launchers and more. The game also features a local multiplayer mode that features up to four players on one console. For those players that love high scores and proving your worth in the world, there is also a leader board available so you can gloat to your friends just how much better you are than them at killing waves of oncoming zombies.

As far as indie games go, James Silva makes some of the best around. Ska Studios develops some top notch products that fans of gaming can (and should) appreciate. The wonderful mix of an entertaining soundtrack, beautiful creativity and the always welcome zombie horde have pushed this game into a must play. The only downfall of this indie gem is that there isn’t more of it to go around. An online multiplayer would have been nice, and the game could benefit for more modes, and customization options. The game is available in the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace and you can score it right now for a measly 80 Microsoft Points (or about $1.00). It is definitely a must buy for fans of zombie games or those that love indie titles. You can’t go wrong with I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1, the game is just too much fun for such a small price. This quite possibly has to be the best bang for your buck when it comes to gaming experience and price. You most certainly will get your moneys worth ten fold. This is why I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 Is Gaming Irresponsibly’s Indie Game of the Week.

Every week, Indie Game of the Week will feature a popular, and entertaining Indie Game and share it with our community. Do you have a suggestion for next weeks game? Have you played an indie game lately that knocked your socks off and want to help tell the world? Then follow Ryan Hillis on Twitter @rchillis. You can also like us on Facebook, and leave us feedback on what titles you would like to see featured.

Indie Game of the Week: Ubergridder

 Posted by  1 Response »
Apr 162012
 

Sometimes, it is hard to find a decent XBLIG when browsing through the massive amount of titles, but nestled deep in the bottom of the Xbox Live Indie Game market lies an under appreciated title by BadgerPunch Games called Ubergridder. In Ubergridder, you play as Robert, a space robot that is trying his damnedest to repair his broken spaceship. If that wasn’t a problem in and of itself, there are also some, what can only be described by BadgerPunch Games as, “nasty, one-eyed, tentacle toting aliens”. The aliens objective, if you didn’t already figure it out, is to stop poor Robert from accomplishing his goal of total ship repair.

The object of Ubergridder is to get the ship repaired as quickly as possible. The way you do this is to control Robert on a non stop path across a grid-like level, completing full square panels and thus repairing the ship. After you have completely guided Robert across all four  sides of a particular, rectangular panel, the panel will be completed and you are free to move on to another panel to repair. The game has a Pac-Man style feel to it, in the sense that you cannot stop Robert. Robert is always moving, so you must steer him continuously throughout the level. The aliens that reside in each level act as the “ghosts” from the Pac-Man franchise, cleverly cornering you, forcing you to make a wrong turn that will seal Robert’s fate. There are also small objects to collect, that appear randomly and are worth more points the faster you can collect them, much like the fruit from Pac-Man. After you have completed all of the panels in a level and avoided the baddies, you will receive your round total and move on to the next. The first level is as easy as it is going to get, so enjoy it while it lasts, the grids become longer and more complicated as you progress through the levels and in the later rounds, you will be cursing those  ”nasty, one-eyed, tentacle toting aliens”.

The game play is an unique take on a familiar genre of puzzle games. When you begin the game, you already know how to play and what to expect. The controls are self explanatory, and after the first few seconds of playing Ubergridder, you will get the gist of it. The game is fast paced, and it is easy to lose time while playing it. The game is deceptively addictive in the fact that you can only drop in to play a level and end up spending an hour blazing through space and repairing broken spaceship panels. The leaderboard is where it will really get you. BadgerPunch did a fine job of taking something so simple and making it into a quality Xbox Live Indie Game title. Ubergridder is worthy of the eighty Microsoft Points that it is currently priced as, and a great buy for those Xbox Live gamers that have a fetish for independently developed games. If you are looking for something to spend those “leftover” points on, and want a fun little game to pass the time, the Ubergridder is definitely a must buy.

If you enjoyed playing Ubergridder and are curious to see what BadgerPunch Games is up to, you can swing on by their site at http://www.badgerpunch.com. Or if you prefer to give them some feedback or support, you can reach them on Twitter @BadgerPunch.

Every week, Indie Game of the Week will feature a popular, and entertaining Indie Game and share it with our community. Do you have a suggestion for next weeks game? Have you played an indie game lately that knocked your socks off and want to help tell the world? Then follow Ryan Hillis on Twitter @rchillis. You can also like us on Facebook, and leave us feedback on what titles you would like to see featured.

XBLIG of the Week: Trailer Park King

 Posted by  2 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

FreeLance Games has given us some games to give away! Click here to see how you can get a chance to win 1 of 12 games!

Welcome to the second installment of Xbox Live Indie Game of the Week, (or XBLIG of the Week for short). This week, we bring to you a redneck point and click adventure from FreeLance Games, Trailer Park King. Trailer Park King is available for download via the Xbox Live Indie Game section of the Marketplace for a measly 80 Microsoft Points.

"It's good to be King"

Trailer Park King uses a point and click format to take you through a white trash paradise as you attempt to clear your name from a recent murder accusation. The game begins with King (the main character) shooing a squirrel with his shotgun, and Zamboni (one of the many hotties you will encounter and share sexual references with) getting all hot and bothered by his shooting skills. King then invites her on a date, and Zamboni replies with a yes, telling him to pick her up at the local strip club, the T-Bar, after work.

"Oh, Canada!"

While having a romantic meal at the park’s diner, King and Zamboni are littered with condescending comments from their waitress, Vegas (also a hottie). It would seem as though Vegas is jealous of Zamboni by using multiple references about her appearance and continually mistaking the word ‘steak’ for skank, to insult a none-the-wiser Zamboni. During dinner, King declares that he must use the ‘little King’s room’ and makes his way to the diner’s restroom.

In the restroom, King is encountered by two abnormally redneck gentlemen by the names of Truck and Skinny. You see, Zamboni is Truck’s sister, and if you know anything about trailer park romance, you better not date a guy named Truck’s sister, especially when Truck’s dad owns the trailer park you live in. After a couple of threats, King gets in a brawl with the two, and you are given a choice to fight fair, or cheat (I cheated). After the brawl, King is kicked out of the diner for the night, and is forced to go back to his trailer, without Zamboni. As he arrives at his trailer, King discovers a dead body on his floor, and is given the choice to call the ‘po-lice’. I won’t spoil the hunt, or excitement of the story from their.

"Come here often?"

Trailer Park King makes good use of the point and click system. The game moves quickly and painlessly through a an entertaining story filled with humorous stereotypes, and outlandish artwork. The game does a great job of focusing on the typical view of trailer parks, and extrapolating them in a unique fashion. The game may seem a bit offensive to those of you actually playing it in a trailer park, but it is all in good fun. And great news for those of you that enjoy Trailer Park King, there is already a second installment available on the Marketplace, Trailer Park King Episode 2, giving you an extra dose of redneck goodness.

So, if you have the extra 80 Microsoft Points, and need a little laughter and adventure, then absolutely pick up Trailer Park King by FreeLance Games and help support indie development for the Xbox Live Marketplace. These guys are the future of gaming, and for a small amount of leftover points that you are probably going to spend on an Avatar Item or a crappy picture pack, you could help support indie games, and might just find an indie game that you love. You can follow  FreeLance Games on twitter here, for more news and updates regarding their games. See you next week.

Every Wednesday, Xbox Live Indie Game of the Week will feature a popular, and entertaining Xbox Live Indie Game. Do you have a suggestion for next weeks game? Have you played an indie game on Xbox Live that knocked your socks off and want to help tell the world? Then follow Ryan Hillis on Twitter @rchillis. You can also like us on Facebook, and leave us feedback on what titles you would like to see featured. 

HBO Go Service Announced for Xbox 360

 Posted by  No Responses »
Feb 282012
 

Since its launch in 2010, HBO Go is on a variety of streaming hardware, but now the popular video service will have one more device to add to its compatibility list, the Xbox 360.

HBO co-President Eric Kessler made the announcement at an event in San Francisco yesterday evening.  Kessler also revealed that the release date for the app will be on April 1, which is conveniently set on the same day as the season two premiere for Game of Thrones.

The application for the Xbox 360 will be exclusively for US console owners with no news of additional countries on the list at this time.

For those who don’t know, HBO Go is a premium video service that streams HBO content to various devices.  Movies and full/current original programming can be watched, but you must be subscribed to the channel through your cable provider.

It’s video apps like this that turn my Xbox 360 from a primary game console, to a video watching medium, but caaaan’t resist more HBO.

Source: Strategy Informer

Is Mass Effect 3 really “Better with Kinect”?

 Posted by  No Responses »
Feb 172012
 

 

Love is in the air this week but forget chocolate, flowers and a romantic meal for two, there’s no time for all that when the Reapers are coming. Mass Effect 3 is one of the most anticipated games of 2012 and there isn’t long to wait till you can all get your hands on it. If you can’t wait for March you can download a quite pleasurable demo of the game that was released on tuesday Feb 14th by Bioware. The Mass Effect series has followed the story of one ruthless hero that goes by the name of Commander Shepard and the war against the Reapers. The third instalment of Mass Effect is the Final of Shepard’s story and is set to be one hell of a finale. With an intense story, new characters, an all new levelling system that now hits level 60 and all new ways to play. The first two games were originally Xbox 360 Exclusives and now gamers with an Xbox and Kinect have a new exclusive feature.

When I first bought my Kinect over a year ago I used it to play a couple of games, after a few months it just became an ornament on my TV unit. There just wasn’t and to be honest still aren’t games for the more mature gamer. After finding out last year that ME3 was to have Kinect integration my heart stopped at the thought of one of my favourite titles may be ruined by this. But after a demonstration at E3 I was optimistic. The demo allows you to play two sections of the game and even customise Shepard, but i’m here to give you Gaming Irresponsibly’s opinion on whether Kinect is a good addition or not.

 

First of all Kinect only brings voice recognition, so you’ll be happy to know you won’t be waving your arms about in battle. The voice commands come in handy when in combat, with the ability to command your comrades to move up and take cover, use special abilities like Warp, Throw and Singularity. Not only that you can also use the commands to uses Shepard’s abilities. Changing your weapon and healing team mates is easier than ever too, simply say, “First Aid” or your weapon of choice eg. “Assault Rifle” or “Heavy Pistol”  and hey presto it does exactly as you say. Also when you approach a door, need to salvage items, examine something or activate a switch commands like “Open” “Salvage” “Examine” and “Activate” are available. The combat commands are awesome and come in very handy, great for multi tasking when under attack from numerous enemies. Yes, girls this game allows guys to multi task, you aren’t the only ones anymore. When it comes to the opening of doors and activating things though it just seems pointless. Yes it adds a futuristic feel to opening a door with your voice (I mean wouldn’t that be awesome)  but when playing ME3 pressing “A” is easier, especially when sometimes Kinect doesn’t respond to your command and you’re sat there shouting “Open” at your TV.

Which brings me to how well Kinect responds to your voice, well from what I witnessed in the demo I must say it works very well. There were some sketchy moments like I said with doors and sometimes didn’t respond to me when in combat (I then died). Compared to another game that wasn’t made just for Kinect like Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Mass Effect 3 triumphs. Halo CE was unbelievably buggy and very annoying when playing with friends over Xbox Live, I would say to him “oh crap, I only have one plasma grenade left” and all of a sudden he now has a plasma grenade stuck to his back and BOOM! DEAD! Very frustrating. But saying that I haven’t been able to test Kinect’s features on the multiplayer due to internet problems so I may be wrong and the same problems may occur on Mass Effect.

Finally the main greatest use for Kinect on ME3 is conversations. Wow, I have never been so laid back and relaxed when having a conversation with someone on the game. Before in previous Mass Effect games you had to sit there twiddling your thumb to the option you want and pressing “A” a number of times. Now you can just sit back with a drink, place your controller down and have the conversation as if you were Shepard. One of the best uses for Kinect to date in my opinion. You aren’t just controlling Shepard anymore, you ARE Shepard.

Over all this addition to the Mass Effect series is a good move by Bioware. Kinect now adds a more realistic and social feel to ME3 and I would love to see these features added to future games like; the Fallout Series, Elder Scrolls (FUS RO DAH!!!!) and other RPG’s. Anyone who owns a Kinect should try this out at least once and see how you feel about it, if you don’t you can always revert back to the good old controller functions. Also If you want to take the story and gameplay seriously I recommend only using Kinect when alone though because I had a friend round when playing and he thought it would be hilarious to change my weapon every few seconds and choose dialogue I didn’t want to use.

Mass Effect 3 will be available on:

March 6th (US)

March 9th (Europe)

The battle is over, now its time to win the war!

Top 10 Tuesdays: Most Wanted Features for Next Gen Consoles

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Jan 092012
 

With the Wii U coming out some time later this year, and rumors flying all over the internet about possible hardware announcements from Microsoft and Sony at this year’s E3, the next console generation is within sight. At this point, we don’t really know much at all about what these new consoles will be, with very little known even about the Wii U. So, instead of speculating about what these consoles may be, I am simply going to run down 10 features I’m hoping for with the next console generation.

10. Spectator Mode

Anyone who was following the Xbox 360 in the months leading up to its launch will be familiar with this one. I’m not sure if it was ever actually stated by Microsoft or if it was just a rumor, but leading up to the launch of the system, many people including myself were under the impression that the Xbox 360 was going to have a spectator feature. The general idea is that you could simply select anyone on your friends list and watch them play as long as they were signed onto Xbox Live, whether they were playing single player or online multiplayer. This seems like it would be a cool feature, and Onlive actually has something just like this. This feature is great if you want to see a game in action before you buy it, and it needs to be implemented into all future consoles.

9. A Hard Drive With Every System

This one is aimed primarily at Microsoft and Nintendo, since Sony already accomplished this in the current generation (but obviously they should continue this trend as well). Nintendo needs to actually put a hard drive in the Wii U, preferably one that is at least 100GB, but anything higher would also be great. The current hard drive shortage due to the Thailand flood notwithstanding, hard drives are not typically expensive, and every system should come with one of decent size. This also means Microsoft better not sell any systems without a hard drive next generation. The fact that there exists Xbox 360′s that do not have hard drives forces the patch size limits to be too small, causing serious problems. Just look at the disaster with Mortal Kombat’s patch issues. NetherRealm wanted to put the DLC characters in patches for those that didn’t buy them to make sure there was 100% comparability when playing online. This was made impossible due to patch limitations, making DLC characters nearly unplayable online unless the players that hadn’t bought the characters were bothered to download an optional compatibility pack. This issue wouldn’t exist if every system had a hard drive built in.

8. Larger Disk Format

Once again Sony gets a pass on this one because they already achieved it this generation. The bottom line is, having a game come on 2 or 3 discs in this day and age is ridiculous, and it needs to stop. Swapping discs isn’t a huge deal, but it would be nice if every game simply came on one disc. It would also be great if pre-recorded cutscenes could actually run in HD and audio could be of a higher quality. All these things would be possible with larger discs, and whether the answer is that Sony and Nintendo need to use Blu Ray or just use some propriety format of similar size doesn’t really matter to me. As long as we have games on discs of 30+ GB, I don’t care what you call it.

Review: Trine 2 (PS3) – A Mystical Gift from Joulupukki the Yule Goat

 Posted by  No Responses »
Dec 242011
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

Back in 2009, after receiving a couple PSN cards for Christmas, I decided to download an interesting game called Trine.  Initially, the $20 price tag seemed a bit steep for a downloadable title (although a hard copy was $40 on PC). Now, looking back two years later, it’s still probably the best $20 I’ve spent.  So, understandably, when news came out about a sequel, I was extremely excited.  It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here!

The Trine franchise is my first foray into the mind of the Finnish developer, Frozenbyte.  They embody the mentality of a small studio perfectly.  Sure, the wait for a sequel was a little longer than I had hoped, but the benefits are plentiful, and far outweigh the one minor inconvenience.  I’d much rather wait six months for a perfect game than be given an inferior game in July, and their attitude and effort mirrors that.

Upon first glance, you’ll notice the side scroller has gorgeous visuals, which are used to convey a great sense of depth.  The background seems as if it goes on for days, and the foreground, which doesn’t go unused, is often just as impressive.  The visuals are eclipse-like.  I’m actually afraid to stare directly at them; fearing I may go blind due to overstimulation.  It’s as if any second, the increased electrical burden coursing through my optic nerves will cause them to melt like an extension cord powering way too many Christmas lights.  Every inch of the lush, vibrant, fantasy world is alive.  I expected to see many shades of green, but I’ve never seen a game use so much pink, purple and orange.  Flora and fauna from diverse ecosystems are well represented.  Plus, all is presented with amazing lighting that accents the world perfectly in both day and night.  A lot can be done graphically with today’s technology, but without some good art direction, it can often fail to impress.  Just a quick look at some of the screen shots will reveal that the developer’s ideas and concepts were impeccably executed. The variation of environments and level of detail is absurd.  Many times I found myself just stopping to take it all in, especially at some of the environments toward the end, which varied drastically from the forest, cavern, and castle motif.  However, the game’s look isn’t the only thing going for it.

At its core the game is a puzzle platformer, relying heavily on its physics engine.  There’s also quite a bit of action to keep an excellent ebb and flow to the pace of the game.  On your journey though the mystical world, you’ll have access to three, awesomely named, characters:  Amadeus the Wizard, Zoya the Thief, and Pontius the Knight.  Bound by the mysterious artifact, the Trine, the three are forced to work together, making their way through a world laid out in storybook fashion, in an attempt to save their kingdom once more.

The characters each have their own personalities and distinct skillsets.  Plus, they have added a few new tricks to their repertoire in their two years of downtime.  Amadeus has the ability to conjure planks and boxes and can levitate objects.  Zoya is the agile archer, relying primarily on her bow, and a grappling hook that can attach to wooden surfaces.  Pontius, the brute, deals devastating damage with his sword and shield, or his more powerful hammer.  Hundreds of experience vials are scattered throughout the world and collecting them yields skill points that can be used to expand and evolve each characters abilities.  In single player mode, these characters can be swapped on the fly, while online and offline multiplayer offer completely different cooperative experiences.

Given all these choices, the player is free to approach puzzles or combat situations as they please.  There are always multiple ways, of varying efficiency or absurdity, to reach a solution.  I love Amadeus, so it’s hard for me to think ‘outside the box.’  Every obstacle is a blank canvas, encouraging experimentation, and ensuring that each playthrough is as unique as the crystalline structure of a snowflake.  This keeps the game fresh and prevents subsequent playthroughs from seeming like missed vial fetch quests.

Some may say 2D platformers are dying.  I hope not, but if that is to be the case, at least the Trine series isn’t going down without a loud, beautiful fight.  The realm of 3D is great, but there are some things that complex polygons just can’t do.  By creating a simplistic side scroller, Frozenbyte has been given the luxury of focusing on the subtle nuances of the visuals and physics, and it shows.  The result is a breathtaking masterpiece that comes one step closer to blurring the line between a game and its concept art.

Much like a Christmas tree, the game is a simple concept on paper.  When you initially throw the tree in your living room, it’s just a boring tree.  Throw some lights, garland, and an assortment of ornaments on it and you’ve created something amazing.  It’s not until you’re able to take a step back and take it all in that you really appreciate all its glory.

I could talk about the game until I’m blue in the face, but the pictures speak for themselves, which is why I’ve chosen to prominently feature them instead of my words.  You’d be hard-pressed to look at the smörgåsbord (or seisova pöytä as Sweden’s neighboring Finns would call it) of pictures here, and not come away impressed, so I’ll just let them do the talking.  Plus, although I planned to, I really can’t fit any more of them on here without this just looking like a gallery with small captions.

I’m not a man who can afford to get you a gift this year; I am but a veritable little drummer boy.  So all I have to offer you is a recommendation for a wonderful game that you may have never seen or considered.  It’s a wonder gift from the fabled Finnish Santa: Joulupukki the Yule Goat.  If it existed 2000 years ago, I’m fairly certain the baby Jesus would have happily traded his dumb frankincense and myrrh for it.  Probably even the gold; it’s just that good!  I hope you hark these tidings, give it a look, and find that it brings you just as much joy as it has me.

Plus, as one of the trailers states, it has 500% more rainbows, which is a breath of fresh air in a world of rainbow-phobic games.

Playstation 3

Graphics

100
  

Audio

95
  

Gameplay

100

Creativity

100
  

Execution

95
  

Offset

100
    

9.8
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Pros:

  • Amazing, polished visuals use the full color spectrum to form a rich fantasy world.
  • Open-ended puzzles encourage creativity and promote replayability.
  • New abilities, enemies, environments, and an improved storybook layout are all welcomed changes.

Cons:

  • There’s not much of a tutorial, so new players may not know how to use all the established tools.
  • The game eventually ends.
  • I now begin the long, arduous task of waiting for Trine 3.

 

My 2012 Industry Predictions

 Posted by  1 Response »
Dec 162011
 

As 2011 comes to close and 2012 welcomes gamers with open arms, I must say this year in general was kind of a bore for gaming.  We got a handful of sequels with only a few of them being quite notable, a new Nintendo system that still has gamers in confusion on what it really is, and Xbox Live getting a shitty new dashboard.  Every upcoming new year, I always get a hunch that the next year is going to be a landmark one for gaming.  Even though my record is pretty awful in that assumption,  I have a feeling (the good kind) 2012 will be one to remember in gaming.  Here are some of my bold predictions on what’s to come for the industry in 2012.

-Microsoft to Announce New Console:  This is one I truly believe will happen in 2012.  With the company rumored to be sending next gen developer kits to designers, this is a fairly good sign that that Microsoft has something in the works.  Nintendo announced their new system at E3 2011, so it would be in the company’s best interest to follow in Nintendo’s track to get their start in gaming’s next generation.  The real question here is what to expect from Microsoft concerning a new system.  With Xbox 360 steering away from a sole gaming device to a multimedia platform, will the next Microsoft console be a traditional game system or much more?

-Half Life 3:  When I say Half Life 3, I don’t mean the game being released.  What I mean here is, ANYTHING!  An announcement, a screenshot, a sentence about the much, much anticipated title; anything will do.  Gabe and the team over at Valve have been of course keeping their mouths’ closed about the title.   A few weeks ago,  one Valve employee was seen wearing a Half Life 3 t-shirt at some function.  Can this be the sign gamers have been waiting for, a new Half Life title?  Only 2012 has the answer to that burning question.

-More of the Same Games:  Every year, there seems to be the same old games being released to the public.  You have the first person military shooter in which players fight off against Russia or a Middle Eastern nation.  You have the horror game that instead of thrills and genuine scares come zombies, zombies, and more zombies.  To be frank, I’m tired of seeing the same old copy and paste titles being released by the gaming mill.  Unfortunately, these games sell and the general public enjoy them, and because of that I have a sense gamers will be seeing more of the same come 2012.

-Rise in Independent Games:  In 2011, independent developers launched truly impressive titles that stand as some of the best games of the year.  In 2012, I believe more gamers will come to realize the brilliance and creativity these games hold and begin to gain more of an interest in them.  As I mentioned before with AAA titles being similar depending on their respectable genre, more gamers will grow tired of playing the generic title month after month.  Players will seek a new type of experience in gaming, and I believe that independent games will guide them in doing that.

-Star Wars: The Old Republic Gives World of Warcraft Run for its Money:  My boldest and borderline insane prediction yet.  With the anticipation for the The Old Republic growing and the title being a step forward in the MMO genre in terms of the gameplay, customization, and conversational aspects, this MMO is expected to truly revolutionize the genre.  Based on the anticipation from gamers and the fact that it is Star Wars, I personally believe that The Old Republic will be the one MMO that brings a challenge in terms of fan base against World of Warcraft.  I’m not saying that the title will quickly surpass WoW, but at some point in 2012, The Old Republic will be in the same ranks.  Like I mentioned, it’s a bold prediction, and last time I made this kind of assumption was when Star Trek Online was in development, and look how that game turned out.  If The Old Republic can generate much interest from non-MMO players like myself, than the title will gain popularity unlike anyone had ever imagine it would.

-Microsoft and Nintendo Play the Old Switch-A-Roo: Nintendo has always aimed at the casual gamer audience while Microsoft tends to focus more on the core/hardcore gamer.  However, in 2011, gamers saw a slight movement between both ends of each company’s spectrum.  Now, Nintendo is looking to snag that core gamer audience with their Wii U and attempt to produce more mature titles in the near future.  Microsoft, on the other hand, still continues to reach the core market, but with a strong focus on Kinect and other “casual” gamer oriented applications through Xbox Live, the company is now looking to capture the recreational gamer.  Of course, the two will continue to do what they’re doing, so no worries there.

-Sony Focuses on Playstation 3, Continues to Apologize:  In 2012, I predict that Sony’s going to take a little vacation time after all the hiccups that happened in 2011.  Maybe next year, they’ll focus on optimizing the Playstation 3 with extra security measures, more applications that appeal to a wide range of audiences, etc.  Something tells me that the company is not yet ready to introduce a new system, at least not till the end of 2012.  With no real hint that Sony is in the process of creating a next generation system, don’t be surprised if the company takes time to more so focus on their current hardware than look towards the future of gaming.  Oh yeah, the countless apologies Sony issues every other week, they’ll keep coming.

-Apocalypse:  Not so much a gaming prediction, but it does affect gaming as a whole.  Yes, in 2012, the world will come to an end.  The Mayans prophesized it thousands of years ago that humanity would be wiped from the face of the Earth.  Fire will reign from the sky, oceans will engulf the earth, and dinosaurs will make a triumphant return for some odd reason.  Because of that, you best spend your time doing what you’ve always wanted to do with gaming before time runs out.  Get a 100% on Grand Theft Auto 4, pull out that Nintendo 64 and play some old school Goldeneye.  Hell, go out and finally buy that Virtual Boy you wanted as a kid.  Come December 2012, everything will be gone, including you.  Though, it’d be pretty embarrassing to go down while playing a Virtual Boy, just saying.

Review- LightFish (360)

 Posted by  No Responses »
Nov 282011
 

LightFish is a new game to hit the Xbox Live Indie Game Marketplace. When I first saw the title, read the description, and started installing the demo, I expected it to be something fresh and new. When I got into the game, I was a little surprised at what I saw.

LightFish is probably best categorized as a puzzle game. The idea behind it is this: You move your little glowing fish along the edges of a square, and must progressively cut out more sections of the square to fulfill the quota and complete the level. The gameplay is nothing new, but is certainly very rare. It is refreshing to see this sort of thing returning. The last time I saw a game like this, it was on a small arcade website I visited during Intro to CADD. I can’t remember the name of the game or website, but I would like to point out that this genre/gameplay style is nothing new; it just hasn’t been in the limelight.

The game’s description says “addictive”, and I’ll give it that, it is VERY addictive. From what I’ve seen, it looks like it has loads of challenging levels that will keep anyone busy for a long time. All the while you are cutting off chunks of the square; you have to dodge various enemy types that move in different ways and in different speeds. If an enemy runs into the line you are drawing, you explode and lose a life. The game also employs something new into this simple game mechanic: Impregnable walls. These solid blockades vary in size and shape depending on the level, and add another tier to the strategy involved.

Graphics wise, I was expecting something a little bit better. Maybe more colorful or vibrant, but it just wasn’t the case. I understand that there is little one can do with a game like this, but it was definitely not done as well as it COULD have been. The audio on the other hand is very impressive. Techno-esque tunes to jam to while you divide the board into the pieces and conquer.

-Corey

Follow me on Twitter: @Corey_McDAdd an Image

Follow us: @gamingirrspbly

XBox 360

Graphics

60
  

Audio

80
  

Gameplay

65

Creativity

70
  

Execution

70
  

Offset

70
    

6.9
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

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