Reviews Xbox 360

Fully circular reviews for the newest Xbox.

Review – Soul Calibur IV

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Ever since Soul Calibur 2, it has been clear that Namco decided that their once experimental, more serious fighting game series could be another cash cow, if only they made a few tweaks. Thus we have been getting sequels that continuously emphasize style over substance, chock full of nerd bait for people on both shores.

True, the classic combat engine has always been there, but without any real dedication to the arcade scene it has become increasingly useless to the veteran fighting game fan. By the time Soul Calibur 4 was coming ’round the bend, the series was facing bugs, confused single player modes, and balance issues. When the early screenshots indicated an increasing focus on titillation, I was ready to write off the series.

But old habits die hard, and the allure of online play was strong. So here I am with yet another Soul Calibur, and I can safely say this is best one since SC1 (though that is a bit like saying Revenge of the Sith was the best of the Star Wars prequels). →  Show me the reading!

Review – Braid

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We can spend a lot of time talking about Braid, trying to interpret it and stamp out a definitive idea on what it is and what it says. There isn’t much of a point in it though. Braid, for all its flaws, is literature, something that has meaning. Anything I say about its message or its power may be quite different from what you would see on a playthrough. What we can do is look at it as a game.

Braid is a puzzle platformer. Some have called it “just a puzzle game with platforming elements.” We saw it with Portal, where people called it a puzzle game and forgot is was also in the first person. I’m not sure why that happened; Portal’s puzzles often thrive on how the player moves and positions himself, so the perspective (and the controls inherited from it) cannot be ignored.

The same is the case with Braid. Like any platformer it has laws of physics that govern the protagonist’s movement. →  Holy crap, show me more!

Review – Alone in the Dark

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Apparently, it is becoming the rule rather than the exception for games to be rushed to release, rather than given the time to properly simmer. There are a slew of factors causing this, such as soaring costs, tricky console hardware, and the fickle, tiny window of attention that the hype machine grants.

Of course, a rushed game can come in different flavors. In my last review, we saw how Army of Two lost most of its grand cooperative aspirations, but still managed to ship as a stable and competent action game. From a business perspective, this is acceptable as gamers will buy something derivative if it is polished well enough.

Another result is something like Alone in the Dark, where the grandiose ideas remain, but are held together by duct tape and the hope that bugs and glitches are not severe enough to cause the game to crash out from under the player’s feet. We here at videolamer appreciate new ideas enough that we try to give these games a fair chance, but Alone in the Dark reminds me of just how hard it is to assess a game that treads on the slippery slope between genius and basic playability. →  Guitar Hero III: Legends of Read

Review – Army of Two

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Army of Two is an attempt at many things, one of which is to capitalize on the recent enthusiasm for cooperative games. Co-op is arguably the number one most important bullet point a game can have in its press release. Even if it is hardly suitable for the game at hand, excluding it will cause many people not to buy your product.

In order to distinguish itself from the deluge of co-op titles, Army of Two attempts to integrate cooperative measures into every aspect of the game. It also tries to deliver some social commentary like so many hotshot developers and players crave in their desire to legitimize their hobby. Ultimately, the game shares the same major fault of so many of its competitors: it was rushed. The interesting ideas and promise shown in early previews are all missing, and the end product is the usual kind of worthless.

Yeah bra!

You can tell just how much the game wants to integrate co-op into everything that goes on, but most of these features are done only when the game allows, and others (like team snipe and weapon swap) are useless. →  PaReader the Reader

Review – Turok

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The first Turok: Dinosaur Hunter came out eleven years ago and grew into a franchise of four games. While the original was well received the sequels received increasingly more critical reviews and the series eventually died. Disney bought the rights, created Vancouver-based Propaganda Games to develop a new title, and basically wound up repeating the lackluster performance of the last go around.

Overall Turok is mired in sub-par design in almost every aspect of the game. It uses the ubiquitous Unreal Technology to run the game and the developers weren’t able to make it shine as nicely as other third party developers. The environments are dull, rather fake looking, and use a slim palette of colours. The character models and dinosaurs look pretty good but they are nothing new and therefore fail to impress.

They also didn’t get the shooting entirely right and in my bible this is the one sin thou shalt not do. A most excellent standard that good shooters adhere to is the ‘aim down the sites’ style of play. →  Today I consider myself the luckiest reader on the face of the earth.

Review – Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

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Say what you will of Activision and Neversoft’s handling of Guitar Hero, but the idea of themed games revolving around a particular band is a good one. Celebrating the history and catalog (as well as the conflicts) of a world famous band is a great honor. It allows young players to learn some rock history, and for their moms and dads to relive their younger years.

Say what you will about Aerosmith, but the band fits the above description, and have been a huge influence on the rock world for better or worse. Finally, I get to say that while I like Neversoft more than a lot of gamers, there are a few kinks they need to address if they wish to continue making these themed games. GH Aerosmith is better than I expected, featuring more care and new content than I anticipated. The game is in a strange middle ground, more substantial than the miserable GH 80’s, but priced like a full fledged sequel. →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Review – Dark Sector

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Ontario’s own Digital Extremes began development of the long delayed and often re-imagined Dark Sector in 2004, and it was released earlier this year by D3 Publisher for the X-Box 360 and the PS3. I remember the early period because the teaser trailer was one of the first to come out for this generation’s hardware. Dark Sector started out in space but by 2006 it was made over into a bleak secret agent story.

Four years is way, way too long a development cycle for a video game. A game takes that long only when there are serious problems afoot, and it’s been my experience that when the game is finally released those problems are still there. Sadly, Dark Sector is no exception.

I am still very keen on the premise of Dark Sector. Imagine, if you will, the fictional Eastern bloc nation of Lasria. This country is cut off from the rest of the world and left to develop advanced weapons technology and experiment with strange biological compounds. →  Read Danger!

Review – Ninja Gaiden II

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Ninja Gaiden 2 is not an earth-shattering masterpiece. As much as the fan in me wants to spout absurd levels of hyperbole that put recent GTA4 and MGS4 reviews to shame, and devote five paragraphs to how this game’s Oscar-worthy story made me regret having even existed before its release date, I feel it’s more relevant to discuss why games like this are so important in the current landscape of the video game industry.

The game represents what I consider to be the “Nintendo Legacy.” Back in the Sega & Nintendo days, games were short. A combination of small development groups, limited resources, and hardware abilities of the time meant that games of the era were around 2-5 hours long. So how do you give a player lasting value to justify the price tag for such a short experience? You make your game balls-to-the-wall punishing, and force them to master the game mechanics simply to see the next level or boss fight. →  Uncharted Waters: New Horeadin’s