Depending on the type of person you are, you are either excited by or dreading the upcoming Watchmen movie. If you are in the latter group then you will probably want to stop reading now. However, if you are the type of person who believes a great piece of art cannot be diminished by subsequent adaptations (Star Wars anybody?) then you just might enjoy the upcoming Watchmen game.
With the launch of the NXE comes the launch of a new column here on Check Your HUD: Community Game of the Week. Each week, we’re going to highlight a community game from the XBLM that we feel really stands out from the crowd. Our first pick is a puzzle game called Lines. The concept is pretty simple to grasp, but hard to master. Each block that drops from above has a line segment on it. Your job is to connect those segments into five-block lines. Sound simple? Well it’s not. The white blocks can be turned, however, the orange ones can not. As the blocks speed up, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a line, and it becomes easier to permanently render parts of the playing field useless with broken lines. There’s also an online leaderboard. All you have to do is enter the code the game provides you with into the developer’s site, and your score will be entered into the leaderboard. I know, it’s not as fancy as having an in game leaderboard, but hey, what do you want for a game developed by one man?
If you’re a fan of puzzle games, I can’t recommend this game strongly enough. For 200 MS points ($2.50 in real people money) you won’t be disappointed.
-Mike Kurz
Let me throw two important facts about myself out there before I actually dive into this review. First, I loved Call of Duty 4. Second, I suffer from extreme World War II shooter fatigue—we’ve won the war more times than I can count. All things being what they are, I can honestly say that World at War uses the Call of Duty 4 game engine to overcome my WWII shooter fatigue quite effectively.
Every once in a while you find a game that feels like it was directly catered to your interests, almost as if the developers had peered into your brain and found the exact switches to trigger the anticipation. While I am still awaiting the release of Alan Wake, another one of those seemingly enigmatic games, Mirror’s Edge, was recently released for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.
When looking at a game like this from a critical standpoint and not from my seven-year-old self, there can be some discrepancies from my expectations and the final release, however, in the case of Mirror’s Edge, my expectations remained shattered. While fault can be found in certain gameplay quirks and the occasional and often frustrating combat sequences, Mirror’s Edge remains one of the most brilliant games I have played in the last year.
Game designer Cliff Bleszinski stated earlier this year at the Games Developer Conference that Gears of War 2 would be “bigger, better, and more badass,” leaving the question of how to improve on an already fantastic game and how they could up the badass level when you could already chainsaw through enemies at your own leisure? However after diving into all that Gears 2 has to offer, I can confirm that:
1. It is Bigger
2. It is Better
3. It is certainly more Badass
Quantum of Solace puts you in the shoes of super spy James Bond, and takes you through the plots of the two most recent Bond movies Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace, and it does it in style. There are enough action packed gun fights, and intense situations to make you feel like you’re playing a big screen blockbuster rather than a video game. Enemies even die with Hollywood flair, falling over railings, and firing off a few final rounds into the air as you put more holes in them than a pound of Swiss cheese. Throw in the likeness, and voice talents of Daniel Craig, who plays James Bond in the movie this game is named for, and you have a game just oozing with style. Unfortunately, style only gets you so far.
When I first heard Bethesda was taking on Fallout 3, I was terrified. Not because I thought they’d muck it up or anything like that, but because Oblivion took up over 240 hours of my life. It damaged my interpersonal relationships, brought my productivity to a crawl, and caused my skin to lighten by several shades due to a lack of sunshine. That scenario is likely to repeat itself now that Fallout 3 is here.
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Ahh Spiderman, you and I have gone on so many adventures together. From the comic books of my youth, to the AWESOME animated series in my teen years, to the three movies… well, the first two of the three anyway. Let’s not forget games. I’ve played every one of your games since the days of the PS1. The first Spiderman game on the PS1 was a triumph. It was a beautiful blend of comic book story telling, web slinging, and beat em up fights. Then came the game based on the first movie. It took all of the fine points of the PS1 classic, and polished the hell out of them. It was truly my favorite Spiderman game - until the second movie based game came out. Great efforts were made to make NYC as big and beautiful as possible. There were a lot of places to go and things to do. Those were the halcyon days. Only a short time later came Ultimate Spiderman, which, while still fun, lacked the depth of combat, and the size and scale of the world found in it’s predecessor. Let’s not forget the third movie game, which felt even further dumbed down from Ultimate Spiderman. By the release of Friend or Foe, I lost the rose colored glasses I had viewed Spiderman games through before that point. That game was easily the worst Spiderman game I’ve ever played, and one of the worst over all. Still, I felt a sense of excitement when I first held the Web of Shadows disc in my hands. The missteps the series had taken couldn’t erase the truly wonderful memories of the finer games in the series.
So, with a heart full of hope, I put the disc into my Xbox 360, and prepared to embark on another adventure with my favorite super hero of all time.
The very first major announcement I can remember hearing about Fable 2 was the inclusion of a dog. There may have been major announcements before that, but I have to confess, my brain works kinda like an etch-a-sketch - shake it up a little bit, and it gets wiped of all recently added information. When I heard about the dog, my reaction was sheer skepticism. I can’t name a single game off the top of my head where the main character had a pet I cared about. Before I get to the rest of this review, I want to take a minute and publicly eat some crow. Peter Molyneux promised that gamers everywhere would develop an emotional attachment to their dog, and he delivered. Pretty much right from the start of the game, I genuinely liked the dog - a lot. The dog behaves in a very organic manner. It runs around completely of it’s own volition, and always comes back to you. When you’re standing still, the dog will roll around on it’s back, or chase it’s tail, or any number of other things real dogs do. The dog will help out in combat, point you to treasures, and find spots in the ground where you can dig and uncover various items. It’s hard to explain exactly why the dog is so endearing - it’s really something you have to experience for yourself.
Peter Molyneux made good on his promise about the dog, but what about the rest of the game?
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With the recent news that Namco Bandai would be releasing DLC for SoulCalibur IV that would allow 360 owners to play as Darth Vader, and PS3 owners to play as Yoda, I thought it would be a good time to explore the topic of DLC that’s already on the retail disc - which is, in fact, the case with both vader and Yoda.
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