What we’ve got is a fairly straight forward racing title. You go fast and you try to win through a handful of different locales like snow covered mountains, logging camps, and Mediterranean sea-side escapes. All tracks feature tons of big jumps, alternate paths, and lots of danger waiting to NAIL you at every turn. Whenever you wipe out, the screen whites out and throws the game’s logo on the screen while you magically transport back to the track itself. You don’t ever see Lakitu, but you know he’s around there somewhere.

Standard modes, both multiplayer and single player events are present, with plenty of parts to unlock for your vehicle of choice and lots of color options. In an attempt to extend the life of the maps, they’ve added some other modes and a pair of mutators. Mutators will either give you full boost through the whole race, or turn off opponent collisions. While admirable in intent, they don’t deviate from the core enough to make them much more of a distraction from the race.

Take the ‘trick mode’ for example: You’re supposed to perform different actions, like a hit a perfect touchdown, max out your speed, pass through gates, or knock other racers into the wall. Each action will earn you points — and boost — but you really just want to beat everyone as finishing in first place will cause the score of your opponents to decrease over time. Yes, you still need points, but they’re generally easy enough to get without trying too hard. I personally would have liked to see more race mutators as the potential is there for plenty of mayhem.

You’ll experience all modes and mutations through the single player and be able to define whatever kind of race you want in the up-to-twelve-man multiplayer. Through my review process though, the most I ever got in a single race was four people. I attribute this to the unfortunate release window, but was happy to see people are still playing. There’s a potential here for a lot of fun with friends, specially when we’re talking about twelve players in a single race, but the single player runs a bit long in the tooth with multiple, multi-race events to pad out the end of the Nail’d Tournament.

This brings me to the jank. While the overall package is solid, the actual track definition seems to be wildly inconsistent. Despite the entire world appearing open, without actual side-walls, there’s a very specific path that you’ll need to remain on for fear of crashing and resetting. Sometimes you’ll hit a crazy jump and graze a fallen stone column with your rear tires on the way down, NAIL’D! Lightly tap a fallen tree the game didn’t want you to? NAIL’D! Alternatively, there are moments where you’ll get buried in a tree, stop completely, and be forced to press the vehicle reset button which flashes on the screen as if the game knows that it screwed up and wants you to know it as well.

In the end, Nail’d is an entertaining yet flawed experience. You won’t find much in terms of innovation here, but you will find plenty of mud, water, and breathtaking jumps through the spinning blades of giant windmills. Plus, there’s some Slipknot on the soundtrack. If that isn’t the definition of e’treme, I don’t know what is.

3.5 out of 5

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

To kick things off, lets talk about the primary game mode: Career. In Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit you’ve got two paths, both immediately accessible from the game’s world map. You’ll become a bad boy racer, driving through this speeder’s paradise, trying to beat your fellow outlaws and not get busted by the police; or you can play as the cop trying to bust those racers. What’s great about the setup here is that you can bounce back and forth between these careers, so if you tire of just racing around you can switch over and bust some nogoodniks instead.

There’s a decent amount of variation in the events, from straightforward races without police interference to preview rounds where you get to test drive a supercar before you’ve actually earned it. My least favorite type is the “Rapid Response” police event where you’re asked to respond to some crime scene and get time penalties for hitting walls or other cars on the road. I get what they were going for, but just didn’t care for them. Honestly, the cat and mouse gameplay is what sets this series apart from other racers. Each side has their own tools to try and either bust racers or evade cops. While it sometimes feels a bit too much like a cart racer (EMP? Really?), it’s never anything less than radical and exhilarating. Criterion once again proves they know how to make arcade driving games feel and look nearly perfect.

Progressing through the game is as easy, or difficult, as driving against the rubberband AI which at times can be absolutely ridiculous. Shortcuts become almost pointless unless you see your AI opponents take them first, due to the fact that they’ll just catch up to you no matter what. Making others crash is also completely fruitless. With just a mile left on one specific race during my career, I forced an opponent into a guardrail and received a ‘takedown’ notice. He outright crashed, but ended up passing me with ease to win the race at the last moment, even though I was nearly at top speed for the rest of the race. That’s controller throwing garbage right there. You’ll gain bounty (experience) for performing certain tasks during events and when hitting milestones, but the largest rewards come from getting gold medals, so a second place finish is far from optimal. Luckily, you’ll always be earning bounty in every event and mode, so even if you finish dead last your bad race won’t be for naught. Those points go towards unlocking enhanced equipment, new cars, and ‘leveling up’, but that’s about it. There’s no car customization to speak of, other than choosing a paint job, and the level progression really just serves as a dedication meter.

While missing the Burnout moniker, Hot Pursuit certainly borrows plenty from its two-years-older brother, making it impossible to avoid comparisons. Game engine, detailed crash slowdowns, even the way you earn boost is a carbon copy of Burnout Paradise. Things are a bit toned down this time though, grounded with reality instead of taking place in a fantastical racing world. While still an arcade-style racer, the fully licensed cars feel weightier and require more finesse than the twitchy generics of Paradise, and the game takes place in a much more realistic landscape. Cars even have drivers at the wheel, how’s that for realism?!

Environments are varied from long stretches of open road in sparse desert land and cliffside roads overlooking majestic waters, to thick redwood forests and snow covered mountain peaks. Full day night and weather systems are also in place and look great particularly during transition or a violent thunderstorm. The wide armada of vehicles all feature great reflection effects when seen up close, and certainly look like their real world counterparts. There are even nice little environmental touches every once in a while while racing, like an airplane flying overhead or fireworks going off in the distance. Everything in the game is wonderfully detailed and looks fantastic, but it comes at a price. No longer does the Paradise engine run at 60fps, locked instead to 30.

Other shortcomings of the engine also exist, like not being able to use manual transmissions on cars (I don’t think they make an automatic shifting Bugatti Veyron) and not being able to adjust video settings in-game. But at least the Paradise engine allows for some open world antics right? Kinda, but not really. Instead of granting the ability to drive around looking for events to partake in, Criterion went with a menu approach. You’ll see an overworld map, get to pick your event and go right into it in a more compartmentalized and linear approach. They still give you the option of just grabbing whatever car you’ve unlocked and drive it around the world unhindered, but it’s a completely pointless, throw-away feature. It would have been nice to have the Multiplayer based in this open world, but again, that just goes through a normal, menu based matchmaking system instead of the fully integrated approach, removing any chance of emergent gameplay. Without that true open world, exploration based aspect, there’s not much here really pushing you forward other than getting new cars and ranking up to level 20 in each career.

Instead, the newest competitive addition is the Autolog system which acts as a glorified, nagging leaderboard. Whenever a friend beats one of your times, a quick press of a button will post that achievement to their Autolog wall which is monitored by the game. If you’re in the menus, the game taunts you with a very calm, “Your friends have beaten you” vocalized message, and suggests you to pull the right trigger to attempt the event they just won over. It’s terribly effective as I spent way too much time trying to regain my top spots. The wall also acts as a place to share any quick in-game screenshots you take (click the right stick at any time), or any of your “Dream Shots” which are taken through the pause menu’s photo mode. Best of all, this Autolog information is integrated with EA’s NFSHS website, so you can check out what your friends have done while you’re at your desk at work. Overall statistics are strangely absent in-game, and the website claims they’re ‘coming soon’. Fun fact: the images in this review were taken, by me, in game on the 360.

The actual competitive multiplayer is a bit of a mixed bag at current time. You’ve only got three modes and while it’s awesome to go cops vs racers with 8 real people, 9 times out of 10, the racers win due to the cops not working together as a team, blowing their weapons arsenal too early. Also, I’ve experienced a plethora of connection related issues. I’m not entirely sure if that’s the case due to lack of connection strength indicators in the lobbies, but I’ve had spike strips appear directly in front of me with no cops or helicopters in sight, the mini map not updating to show that cops are nearby, getting t-boned when no one was around, cars blinking all over the road, and have seen cars drive right through other vehicles. Frustrating, but hopefully the issues will be resolved in the future.

Criterion Games certainly knows speed, so it made perfect sense for Electronic Arts to enlist their know-how with the slumping Need for Speed franchise. While they absolutely nailed the actual racing elements and created an extremely addictive competitive system with Autolog, the surrounding elements leave a lot to be desired and certainly could have used a bit of same streamlining that’s apparent on most of the exotic rides in the game. You won’t regret your purchase as the racing is truly fantastic, but you may get frustrated with the package as a whole.

4 out of 5

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

We all know how the basic mechanics work. You’re a pizza missing a slice, navigating mazes, eating regular and power pellets, all the while being chased by some ghosts. If you get hit by the ghosts, you’re a goner! Simple. Championship Edition separated the game board into two fluid halves. Instead of working on clearing off a full board, you’d normally take care of either the left or right of the maze. The other half would then morph slightly, and become populated by dots in a preset pattern. This alteration alone made Pac-Man feel totally new, but the additional timer placed a sense of urgency on everything. It was brilliant.

CE DX changes the formula further, building on the success of three years ago. Survival really isn’t much of a problem anymore thanks to some new abilities. When in harm’s way, the game screen will zoom in slightly and slow down, allowing you to make a move or drop a bomb. Yep, Pac now has bombs which send ghosts back to their central home, giving you breathing room but also slowing down the speed of the game. The slow down is actually a big detriment, as this game is now all about speed and score. The higher your score, the faster the game becomes and the more points you’ll potentially be able to nab.

To really rack up that score, Namco has brought the significant addition of sleeping ghosts into the mix. Sure, there’s still a few wandering spirits which are of little consequence, but these new ghosts appear throughout the maze in fixed positions. Passing by will wake them; piss them off and they’ll give chase in the same path you take. If you play your cards right, you’ll eventually build up a full train behind you and when you eat a power pellet, it’s game over for Inky and his friends in an orgasmic spectacle of point gathering dominance, complete with pitch perfect sound effects. Every single time I chomp a huge train, a big smile forms on my face.

If there’s anything Pac-Man CE DX could have done a bit better, it would be the leaderboard integration. Like many other Xbox Live Arcade titles, the leaderboard is buried within menus and swapping between views feels like a chore. You get a quick look at your global ranking, but it doesn’t go far enough. It would have been great to include some in-game hooks to show off who on your friends list is closest behind or ahead of you, or even an immediate display when the match was over. All the score info is there, but it’s just not as fluid or interesting as what more current titles like Pinball FX 2 have done.

Along with the primary game modes that come in five or ten minute flavors, you’ll be able to take part in numerous time trials and a ghost train mode where instead of a high score, you try to get the highest ghost combo you can. Me? I’m at ninety six as I write this. There are a bunch of different boards to do all this on, as well as several visual styles of both mazes and characters, some of which are pulled from the numerous iterations of The Man we’ve seen throughout the years.

I’m just as amazed as you are that in 2010 Pac-Man can be so compelling. What makes all this even sweeter is the low price point of $10 when most other XBLA and PSN titles now release at $15. It’s a fantastic arcade blast that can be played for an hour or in quick spurts and honestly, if you missed out on CE three years ago, you NEED to play this game. Fans of CE will feel more at home with the new style, but there’s plenty here to make it worth another purchase. This is still not your daddy’s Pac-Man.

5 out of 5

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

A few years passed and a little title by the name of Guitar Hero was released by that same small studio, capturing the attention of… well, everyone. It was a logical progression in their line of games. After they were purchased by MTV Games, Harmonix further extended the concept and brought about the band game, Rock Band. There was clear room for improvement which lead to the quick sequel, Rock Band 2, and now two years after that, we have Rock Band 3. The question now is, where does Harmonix go from here? With the exception of perhaps a band specific title or some other larger track pack, Rock Band 3 is possibly the last band music game you’ll ever need to purchase.

I’m completely serious here; they’ve gone and thrown everything possible onto a single disc, legitimately removing the need for a Rock Band 4. Where competitor Neversoft has floundered with a lack of creativity and focused on strange things like a story mode, Harmonix has had a mission from the very beginning with Rock Band: they didn’t just want to make a game, they wanted to make a platform–and they have done so. Mission accomplished!

When you first fire up Rock Band 3, you may feel like I did: a bit disoriented. Instead of having a clear, focused mode to just jump into and go, you’ve got menu items like “Play Now” and “Career”, which sound an awful lot like QuickPlay and Story Mode; but that isn’t exactly the case. Neither is unimportant or better than the other. “Play Now” houses both quick “jump in and play” modes, as well as your actual rock tour progression mode where you travel around the world playing gigs and working your way up to rock super stardom through a series of Road Tour challenges. The Career mode, however, is a bit different. Here you’ve got tracking for your Rock Band-itude with specific goals set out, helping you be as focused or as scattered as you like. When I say track, it visualizes these predetermined goals for you in a sort of achievement system, but also allows you to play songs to specifically meet the necessary criteria at the press of a button.

The goals are ever present in the background no matter what you’re doing, so you can be working towards them in whatever game mode you’re playing. They’re also interestingly adaptive depending on what you’ve imported on your system. Prior to kicking off RB3, I had not “exported” anything from previous titles, but during the course of my playtime grabbed the contents of both Green Day: Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Specific goals for each of them appeared magically in the career view, and disc specific playlists were added to the Road Tour challenges. Pretty rad. Of course, songs off of these discs were also available wherever you looked for use. The only Rock-Band-branded title you can’t bring into Rock Band 3 is The Beatles: Rock Band.

I actually started out in the career section, working on the goals for the newest instrumental addition–the Keyboard–then hopped over to form my band and hit the road when I was comfortable enough with the ebony and ivories. Well, really just the ivories as I’m not yet proficient enough for Pro Keys mode. The Normal Keys mode utilizes only 5 of the 25 keys present in a way very similar to what we’ve all become accustomed to with the standard guitar, but with zero strumming and requiring more finger strength and precision. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’d hit two keys at once because I was just a bit off. Thanks, Rock Band 3, for reminding me how difficult real music is to play! The standard Keyboard is by Mad Catz, feels quite solid, will act as a legit MIDI controller, and–most importantly–accepts a strap so you can rock it as a keytar. You’ll be able to play any instrument with it as well, just in case the initial offering of Key-infused tracks isn’t holding your interest. I haven’t gotten a chance to touch the new pro guitar or pro drums, but RB3 supports them in an effort to transcend the “game” stigma by requiring real musical proficiency.

There are two points that I need to slap Harmonix on the knuckles for. First and foremost is the dastardly inclusion of surreptitiously titled DLC within your list of songs. They’re highlighted, but instead of being labeled as “BUY ME,” they just say “RECOMMENDED.” Even if you don’t have a huge catalog, you may not know all the songs you do have, so having one recommended to you by the game sounds great. That is until you try to add it and realize they’re actually trying to sell you stuff. Second is the repetition of canned animation and intros throughout the Road Tour. I saw the same bro throwing up the horns and sticking out his tongue, outside the same bar, many times all over the world. I know it’s not super important, but it’s noticeable and annoying.

So here we are, back to the beginning. Rock Band 3 has everything you’ve ever wanted in a band game. It’s both awesome and at the same time a fairly hard, solid stop for the band genre. Track packs and band specific titles withstanding, Harmonix has effectively painted themselves into corner and will likely need to jump out a window for their next title. Maybe that’s why former Rock Band senior designer Dan Teasdale hit the road so close to the ship date, or why Viacom just announced they were selling off Harmonix? Either way, you should totally buy Rock Band 3 because it’s the quintessential band game, with or without the new hardware.

5 out of 5

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

Undead Nightmare, like other Rockstar downloadable episodes (The Lost and Damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony), is one serious chunk of content for an already established and well respected game. From the overall aesthetic and tone to the random encounters on the trail, from the bounty missions to even the interface, they’ve gone in and tweaked just about everything you can imagine here. Even the gameplay itself has undergone a change, though not mechanically. If you’ve played the original Red Dead Redemption, you’ll know that you can spend a ton of time hiding behind cover and popping out to shoot some outlaw in the face. Due to the new zombified menace though, if you enter cover, you gon’ DIE. It’s all about running away and getting headshots, many times while using the Dead Eye system.

In the original game, I honestly rarely used Dead Eye. I felt that the standard snap-to targeting was sufficient and was never in a position that really required me to slow things down. Now though, if you’re not using it? Dead. Sure you can snap off a couple skull cracking rifle shots from a distance. But when those undead start swarming and you’re on your heels, if you’re out of Dead Eye meter? Dead. Combine that with severely limited ammo and what seemed like a walk in the park before is now a very tense, and different feeling game.

The story presented is one of nonsense, and everyone seems to know it. There’s a slew of humorous tongue-in-cheek remarks, plenty of self aware dialog, and the same great voicework from John Marston you’ve come to expect. It takes place towards the end of the original game’s campaign in a sort of parallel timeline. From nearly the outset, you’ll see that Undead Nightmare clearly isn’t canon, nor does it end where all of the characters could just shrug it off like it didn’t happen. Basically it goes down like this: Something happens (you don’t know what), your wife and kid get infected as zombies, and instead of offing them you tie them up to go look for a cure. You’ll come across a bunch of familiar faces like Bonnie MacFarlane, Landon Ricketts and that crazy gravedigger Seth Briars while making your way through just about every town in the original game asking the same question: “What the hell is going on?”

Yeah, that’s one issue I had with Nightmare. Not only are you consistently asking the same question over and over, but you’re generally performing the same tasks too. Each town has been overrun by zombies and you roll in to clear them out. To do so, you’ll either approach some survivors and help them out, or just go in guns blazing till every last walker is dead–again. I never felt that the risk of running through a zombie horde just to assist some survivors was worth taking, so instead I used my limited ammo and took them all down from a distance. After suppressing the uprising, the gloomy funk over each locale will lift presenting a more “natural” and serene environment. Due to the stupid nature of zombies, each town encounter doesn’t really change much throughout with the exception of a few different kinds of undead and in different numbers. If you head out and don’t pay attention to towns enough, they’ll become overrun again, so you can never truly save them.

Pushing my complaints aside, the 7-or-so-hour campaign has some pretty interesting and thought provoking dialog in the final mission despite some weak segments during. As an overall package, there’s really quite a bit of content here. The most interesting addition are the mythical creatures, some of which you can tame and ride, and others that you hunt. There’s also a few new weapons to assist specifically against zombies, like the obliterating blunderbus which is loaded with zombie parts. Multiplayer has even been updated to allow for a new hoard mode game type, and a Land Grab mode in which you’ll be asked to protect a major town for a set amount of time.

For ten bucks, you’ve got more content added into Red Dead Redemption than you’ll find in some recently released full priced titles, and certainly more than a lot of the crap $15 XBLA titles out there. Sure, it isn’t all awesome; but Rockstar certainly knows how to handle downloadable episodes and I wish other developers would take a page from their book. Even if you’re not completely sold on the zombie motif, if you’re a fan of Red Dead at all, there’s little reason to avoid Undead Nightmare.

4 out of 5

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

While the developer accurately captured the basic motions of being a DJ in the original game, it was really missing one of the core elements of the art: customization. While DJ Hero 2 still presents players with predefined tracks, you are now able to do a significant amount of on-the-fly music alteration while playing. While this mechanic is limited to specific ‘freestyle’ sections, you’re able to cross-fade at-will and actually mess around with the two different musical tracks for a few beats. Additionally, you’re able to use the effects button in a much more fluent way as they’ve removed the “Internet Flash soundboard” style effects, opting instead to use context-appropriate effects from the current song instead. I’m glad I don’t have to hear Flavor Flav yell “Yeah boyyyyy” over and over just because I forgot to choose some new samples at the selection screen. Both of these changes really help add to the experience and make you feel like you’re doing something meaningful.

The rewind mechanic also has minor but extremely helpful updates. You’re still able to rewind the track after hitting a string of taps and scratches to get more points, but now instead of just doing an arbitrary and unknown reverse, there are actual markers on the track where the rewind will jump back to. If for some reason those markers take place during a cross fade, you’re also given time now to adjust instead of immediately losing out on your streak. Unfortunately, the crappy rewind sound effect is still there and feels as out of place as it did in the first title. The heads up display has also been reworked and fits better with the title, instead of looking like a Guitar Hero rip-off.

While most music titles rely on your familiarity with the songs that are included as a major selling point (yeah, congrats on being so cool for knowing the words to Snow’s “Informer”), it’s not a necessity to enjoy the tracks in DJ Hero. Instead, part of the awesomeness is hearing these mixes and mashups for the first time. Hey, you may even find a new-found interest in an artist you previously didn’t like (Lady Gaga?). If you’re going through Empire (career) mode, the soundtrack starts off strong and only gets better as you progress. Most of the mixes were created in-house at FreeStyle, but other DJs did lend their skills to a few key sets and some are even featured as playable characters.

The real stars are the Megamixes. FreeStyle took this mode (which almost seemed like an afterthought in the original game) and expanded upon it quite a bit, even granting them their own main menu item. Each venue within Empire mode has a Megamix associated with it hosted by big-name DJs like Deadmau5, David Guetta, and Tiësto. They’re at least three mixes long and flow together seamlessly to create one non-stop super track. If you’re into house, club, or trance music at all, this is pretty much what you’d expect to hear all the time instead of the hard stops you’ll experience through other sets. I honestly wish all the music from DJ Hero 2 was available outside of the game because it’s really one of the best soundtracks you’ll find in the genre.

As you may have gathered from the marketing, there has been some attention to the multiplayer components, which try to address complaints levied against the franchise’s solo-centric approach to music. The addition of a friend’s list-based score marker while playing solo is welcome, but most of the actual multiplayer modes aren’t terribly different from one another or all that interesting. Much like the first DJ Hero, they’re serviceable at best. The addition of vocals is kind of dumb considering you’ll need to jump from one track to the other often. To help, words are color coded to correspond with the tracks they’re a part of, but it’s an unnecessary feature in general. I understand the attempt at bringing DJ Hero into a par-tay setting, but it’s a weak area that still needs work.

All in all, DJ Hero 2 is one awesome game. Sure the multiplayer really isn’t anything special, but the soundtrack, mechanics, and gameplay updates make this a great musical package. Now, I just wish FreeStyle would release the soundtrack outside of the game so I can throw my own raves just by pressing play.

Score: 4.5 out of 5

The Good
The best soundtrack of any music game currently available.
Thoughtful and important improvements over the previous title.
Makes you wanna be a real DJ, maybe.
MEGAMIXES!

The Bad
Multiplayer and singing still isn’t great.
That stupid, generic rewind sound is a serious sore thumb.

The Ugly
When advertising says two turntables and a microphone, you need to have Beck on the soundtrack.

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

That pod actually crashes down inside a devastated, overgrown New York City and our protagonist blacks out. He wakes up with a sexy crown affixed to his skull by the same girl who didn’t want to help him out. This crown is actually a control device which Trip, the girl, has fashioned into one that’ll respond to her voice commands, enslaving Monkey (the dude). If her heart stops beating the crown will emit a charge that’ll also take you out so not only do you have to listen to her, you need to keep her safe. I kind of wish more games would use plot devices to explain game mechanics like this. Sure you’ve got a HUD and can always hear Trip’s voice, but Enslaved’s reasoning is that it’s all part of the crown’s influence on you. It’s a light touch, but helps keep you connected to the world.

The crown is basically a MacGuffin, providing just enough motivation to keep the plot moving along, but really being of little consequence at all. All Trip wants to do is get home to her colony which is about three hundred miles away from NYC, and Monkey makes it pretty clear that Trip’s gonna need to listen to him if she wants to survive the mech-covered landscape. Didn’t I mention that? No? Ok, yeah, the primary enemies throughout the game are robots that aim to take you down on sight. Why are they there? That’s explained through the plot, so I’m not telling.

In fact, the plot and characters are really what set this game apart from other character action titles. Ninja Theory’s attention to detail, combined with a script penned by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach), and the direction, mo-cap, and voice of Andy Serkis (Gollum from Lord of the Rings), really help define a believable and well constructed future world. Trip’s a young, naive girl with some tech skills while Monkey is the brute force, world weary traveller. Their interactions are right up there with the best in the business, providing some of the best banter and emotional conveyance you’ve seen in a video game. Think Nathan Drake and Elana Fischer from Uncharted 2. Yep, it’s that good. The biggest misstep in the campaign is the introduction of comedy relief mechanic, Pigsy. He’s gross, wants a piece of Trip, and tries to push sophomoric burp and fart humor way too much. At one point he actually says to Monkey, “Your hand is on my… penis,” and talks at length about “getting off” on mechs. It’s really unnecessary and honestly takes the game’s tone down a notch.

Parallels to Uncharted really don’t stop there though as you’ll spend plenty of time traversing the environment by climbing buildings and cliffs, interspersed with robot combat and mild exploration. The vistas presented throughout the story are beautiful and varied, full of vibrance and using a color palette that seems long forgotten in a world of brown and grey shooters. You’ll start off in an overgrown city, spend time in a mountain-top resort, and finally make your way to a barren wasteland. Here, the final battle culminates with awesome flair and an ending which, while being left open to some interpretation, is completely satisfying in ways I haven’t seen in a game be in quite some time.

Combat throughout the game is primarily melee focused with mild ranged mechanics thrown in for good measure. Your weapon is an extendo-staff that stores away nicely on one of your shield-producing gauntlets when not in use, and functions mostly like a hardened bo, capable of wide sweeps, hard bashing, and impalement. Your skills, health, and shields are all upgradable by finding tech orbs scattered around the landscape. Pro-Tip: Get the focus attack ability as soon as you can. Your staff can also be used as a gun of sorts, capable of firing damage or stun rounds towards enemies, but ammo is quite fairly limited so it should be used sparingly. Biggest problem with the combat is that while visceral, it’s fairly rote and doesn’t change much throughout the game. Trip’s primary purpose during some combat sections is to produce a decoy which will automatically draw ranged fire from the mechs for a set amount of time, giving you a window of time to take cover or dispatch them.

If there’s anything else Enslaved does incorrectly, it’s the blatant hand-holding and somewhat wonky camera. When entering a new area, Trip will usually unleash a dragonfly device, which flies around and outlines exactly what you need to do. Any piece of climbable landscape is extremely obvious, throbbing like a warning light attached to the wall, and 99% of the time there’s typically only one path to go without any danger of falling. Basically, just point the control stick at the glowy and hit the jump button. It looks great, but there’s usually no worry. The user control of the camera is touchy, and sometimes will get stuck in narrow spaces behind a piece of scenery on its own, obscuring your view of the action, or gets in too close so you can’t see what’s behind you. That’s particularly irritating when facing several mechs at once. It also falls into that old Resident Evil problem where it’ll change to a vantage point, forcing you to change direction on the controls.

Among a landscape peppered with generic fantasy and sci-fi, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West distances itself with a world full of interesting combinations of low- and hi-tech. Its compelling story told through strong delivery and acting from the characters provide a very Hollywood-esque feel absent from many games. If you’re into a focused, cool experience without fluff, Enslaved is for you.

Score: 4 out of 5

The Good
Dialog, character animation and interaction, and story are all at the top of the game.
Beautiful, vibrant, and varied world.
An ultimately satisfying finale.

The Bad
The camera can really get screwed up and never feels quite right.
Way too much hand-holding.

The Ugly
Pigsy humor.

Originally posted at Evil Avatar.

The whole point of the primary Quest mode is to free the Demigod of Rock who was imprisoned by The Beast, a laughably designed metal robot thing. To do so, you’ve got to recruit eight Warriors of rock by transforming them into their “true form” in order to free the Demigod’s special guitar from its prison. Each of the eight characters focuses on a specific genre of music, like Johnny Napalm’s primarily punk songs. The problem here is that if you don’t enjoy something like classic rock, there are large stretches of time where you’ll stop enjoying the game.

Wait, classic rock? I thought this game was metal? Yeah, not so much. Despite the very hard edged metal motif, I was extremely surprised and disappointed to find that only about a third of the game’s 93 songs could fit into that category. Instead, Neversoft went the safer route and included plenty of that deliberately vague genre called Alternative, as well as a large serving of Classic and Southern rock. Imagine my dismay when only three sets in, Judy Nails was playing a Nickelback song. Nickelback–the band that competitor Harmonix mocked by codenaming their Rock Band Network “Rock Band: Nickelback” just to make sure people wouldn’t ask about it. There’s also a bunch of weird choices for inclusion, like the pitiful 1997 version of “Free Ride” by Edgar Winter and the completely terrible live version of “Paranoid” by Metallica and Ozzy. Hey, remember that song? Me too… when it was good. In short, the soundtrack ain’t great.

To actually recruit people you need to play their songs and earn stars, after which they transform them into their true “Warrior”. After mutating into this bad Halloween costume version, they play a final song then join your army. Sound familiar? It should, because you’ve done this exact same thing since Guitar Hero 1. The names have changed, but it’s still just a setlist with an encore. The only real addition to this game aside from a new grouping of songs, is the character specific special abilities. Characters will let you earn star power by playing long strings of music, double star power from assigned phrases, or even extra multipliers. Once entering into Warrior mode, these abilities are boosted. Their only benefit is allowing you to earn more and more stars on songs, cumulating in a possible 40 stars once you’ve got a fully powered up band.

Difficulty progression through the quest is all over the place too. There are songs in the final Warrior’s setlist that are a cakewalk, while earlier characters have some pretty difficult fretwork that’ll need to be rocked. Don’t worry though; I didn’t drop below green on the rock meter despite missing plenty of HOPOs and chord progressions in some songs. Even during the game’s brutal Megadeth final battle where I finished with under 90% notes hit, I never fell out of the green. It’s as if the game is always in no fail mode, but doesn’t pretend. When you beat the game and the credits roll? Be prepared to do it all over again with your full eight man band to really beat it, as the quest progression percentage indicates that you’re only half way there.

Remember how last year there were all those real artists in the game? This year, likely due to litigation from Courtney Love et al, they’re all gone and all the venues are fictional. Well, all except for New York City’s now shuttered CBGB & OMFUG, which has been recreated beautifully. This particular inclusion is really weird; why bother including one real venue? It’s kind of a tease too, because they throw it right in the first Warrior’s set then you get nothing else. I also miss the character specific animations when Star Power is engaged, animations which are nowhere to be found in Warriors of Rock. Instead, the lighting just goes all blue and the crowd (if there is one) claps louder for a bit. Bring back fire-breathing Lars Umlaut!

While I primarily focused on Quest mode, that’s not the only trick in the bag. Other modes available are Quickplay+, Competitive, and Party Play. These will allow you to basically play the game however you want to, tackling different challenges in an unfocused fashion. Party Play is the most interesting returning feature allowing GH6 to turn into a music video, continuously playing songs while allowing anyone to just drop in at any time. It’s a slick mode that all music games should have. You can even drop into the GH Tracks store to download some free, user created piece of music but I honestly wouldn’t. My very first venture into the user store rendered Quickplay+ completely inoperable, locking up my system multiple times by just trying to start it up. The only cure was to drop to the Xbox 360′s dashboard and delete the single “custom tracks” file.

In a genre that has been completely over-saturated within the past few years, there’s pretty much no reason for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock to exist as a game at all. Aside from the new soundtrack which is more miss than hit, there’s just nothing here. This franchise has been beat into the ground and Neversoft has become an assembly line studio after once being the king of skateboarding. Time to take at least a year off and come up with some new ideas folks.

Score: 1.5 out of 5

The Good
Cheaper than buying 93 $DLC songs.
Visually, the best looking Guitar Hero yet.

The Bad
Creatively bankrupt series brings nothing new.
Despite the metal aesthetic, only about a third of the soundtrack is of the genre.
In-game features shouldn’t lock up your console.

The Ugly
Nickelback.

The campaign sent me through “48 hours of hell” in Shanghai with so many story twists that I came to expect people would shoot me in the back. The whole idea is that your buddy Kane has flown in for a final job which should result in enough cash to leave his criminal past behind forever and go live with his daughter. Of course like any crime tale, things go to hell pretty quickly for an unknown reason, Lynch’s love interest Xiu gets involved, and there’s several bits of “goddamn” moments that take place. IO certainly does a great job at making you feel like you don’t know what’s going on, as well as throwing some taboo topics at you. I’m willing to bet that there are scenes in this game you haven’t seen before in the interactive medium. The squeamish should not apply.

Probably the most uninteresting part of Kane and Lynch 2 is its gameplay. You’ve been here and done it many times in the past with standard third person cover mechanics, complete with online and offline cooperative play. You’ll be able to stick to bits of cover if the game decides to let you, then you can pop up or out with the left trigger with a light touch magnetic targeting. Sometimes you’ll get knocked down and be able to crawl your way to cover while shooting at your enemies. Levels consist of narrow hallways followed by big open areas full of shoulder height bits of cover. Thankfully, at least all of the areas are interesting and cool. You’ll be able to carry two weapons at any time with the option to grab and throw some environmental explosives like fire extinguishers. Certain guns like the MAC-10 feel particularly ineffectual due to their spray and weak power, while other shotgun style weapons are far too powerful and accurate (I shouldn’t be able to take out an enemy with one shot from across a room with them). Still, there’s plenty of different implements to deal your death and it just takes some experimentation to figure out what fits your fancy.

The entire game is presented like you’re watching some sort of underground snuff film. Instead of having some omniscient, free floating camera behind the player, IO has decided to make it seem like someone is following you with a crappy camcorder the whole time. There’s bad lens flair, blood on the lens, color separation, and plenty of additional movement as the “cameraman” gives chase behind Lynch. This style is pervasive, from the menu icons to the loading screens that seem like you’re just waiting for a buffer off the internet. The coolest effect they added with throwing a mosaic pixelization on top of things that are too hot for TV. Genitals will be blurred out, as well as those times you shoot someone in the face which gives the impression that it’s way more gruesome than what you’ve seen before. If the shaky camera is a bit too much intense for your intestines to handle, you can turn it off, but the other visual effects remain on all the time.

Unfortunately, with the mess that is Shanghai there’s a bunch of annoying niggles that really detract and take you out of the experience. You’re supposed to be able to take human shields at any time but it’s restricted to enemies and often straight up just doesn’t work. Certain bits of cover aren’t usable despite them looking perfectly valid. If you die multiple times and reload to the previous checkpoint, you’ll get to hear whatever piece of dialog was just spoken repeated again and again. Sometimes you’ll lose full animations when swapping weapons, or that awesome blood splatter on the wall will have a hard edge due to a stupid texture seam. All of these detract from the immersion quite a bit.

Once the fairly short campaign is taken care of and you hit the unfortunately lame conclusion, there are three multiplayer modes waiting for your attention. They’ve even added a training mode dubbed ‘Arcade’. With Fragile Alliance, you’ll join up to seven other players and be thrown into a scenario which tasks you with doing variations on a smash and grab heist: Get in, get the loot, get away. If you get gunned down you’ll may respawn as an opposing force or just have to wait till the round is over. Biggest thing here is that friendly fire is always on and at any time a teammate can turn into a greedy prick, stealing your piece of the pie and your life away. It creates a interesting dynamic as you’re never entirely sure if you’ll all work together nicely or not, but doing it to much will alter your persistant title letting people know you’re a backstabber. Between rounds you’ll be able to jump into a purchase menu, letting you grab some upgraded firepower options with the cash you earned in previous rounds.

The other two modes are mild variations of Fragile Alliance. Undercover Cop is exactly the same as Fragile Alliance, however one of the criminals will always be chosen to play as… you guessed it, an undercover police man guy, tasked with stopping the heist in progress. Lastly, there’s a more competitive mode called Cops and Robbers which throws two teams of six against each other. While the core is completely solid and a ton of fun, the limited number of maps and complete lack of customization options feels like it may be a short lived affair. It’s obvious that we’ll see more maps in the future considering there’s three of them visible right now with a fat “You are missing required downloadable content” message. Also, some of the weapons you have the option of buying mid-round are locked out due to that pesky DLC virus.

Kane and Lynch 2 isn’t a perfect game by any stretch but I’d totally be lying if I said I didn’t have a ton of fun playing both the campaign and multiplayer modes. The camcorder approach to the in-game camera really gives it a unique look that never gets old and thankfully didn’t throw my in knots or make me dizzy. If you’re looking for a brutal, visceral experience with solid cover based shooting mechanics then this should certainly tide you over until Gears of War 3. Just be sure to put the kids to bed first.

Score: 4 out of 5

The Good
Camcorder visual presentation adds a needed and awesome layer of interest to the standard gameplay mechanics.
Brutal and unapologetic, but in a good way.
Fragile Alliance is pretty awesome.

The Bad
Fairly weak ending to a generally exciting story.
Plenty of spots could have used another coat of paint or polish.

The Ugly
DLC based multiplayer maps are already in the menus… That angers me.

Originally posted on Evil Avatar.

Deathsmiles was originally released for Japanese Arcades in 2007 and has undergone several different revisions. Instead of just picking one version and going with it, Cave was kind enough to separate each one and include them on the disc. This allows you to experience each change to the formula going back to the original Arcade version, up to the most recent Mega Black Label. Within each version of the game, you’ll also get to select a difficulty level on a per-stage basis (with the exception of the final two stages). While they certainly could have just picked one version and released it as an Xbox Live Arcade title, I’m glad they went the full package route.

At the start of your game, you’ll get to choose one of four different teenage “witches” (five if you’re playing the Mega Black Label version) each with a familiar and a different attack style. The differences between them mostly cosmetic and related to the story. You get a button that will fire to the right, a button that will fire to the left, and a bomb button that’ll unleash a screen clearing attack. Holding down both right and left attacks will create a circle around you and you’ll auto target specific enemies within that radius. While holding down any attack button, your movement speed will be slowed slightly, so it’s in your best interest to let off on the firing once in a while. Lastly, while you’re fighting baddies, you’ll collect items which eventually allow you to turn on a sustained power attack until your item count drains out.

Playing the game is simple in concept but extremely tough to master. You choose your stage and difficulty, then fly from left to right blowing away a ton of creatures who all unleash a plethora of projectiles at you to the point where if you’re fighting each stage’s end boss, the screen is almost filled with them. If any bullets hit the core of your body, you’ll lose one of your three life units while running into an enemy will make you lose a half unit. Dropping all three units will force you to continue which resets your score. So, while you can get to the end of the game while continuing over and over, your score will be terrible. To assist in avoiding projectiles your familiar can absorb them granting you safe passage, but unless you’re playing v1.1 or above you don’t have direct control over them. Despite being a bullet hell title Deathsmiles really has a great “pick up and play” feel to it.

There’s a story here as well although it’s ancillary for sure. If I understand it correctly (which is difficult to do), the girls have been drawn into this other-world dimension and have been given special powers to fight demons, of which you do for nine or ten levels depending on your path. You’ll eventually meet Sakura who informs you that her dad is the cause of all the problems and you’re off to defeat him. While you can ‘beat’ the game in about a half hour, the main draw is to constantly improve yourself and score, hopefully at one point being able to get through all the levels, on MBL 999, without continuing. Other features include score attack mode with full Xbox Live Leaderboards to show of just how terrible you are against the rest of the world and Xbox Live Player Matches (even though I could never get into a game).

Graphically, Deathsmiles is presented in the same aspect ratio as the arcade which by default is not widescreen. However, Cave has included the option to stretch the image to fit your display which doesn’t decrease the playability or quality of the graphics. There’s usually a lot of stuff happening on the screen but sometimes you’ll experience a bit of slowdown that seems to emulate what could happen on certain arcade hardware. Due to that fact when playing on MBL 999 there’s more going on and the slowdown doesn’t happen nearly as much, it appears to be intentional and is pretty awesome anyway. Once you quit out of a game you’ll even have the option to save an entire replay of your session to watch at a later time with full VCR controls.

Manic shooters really have a niche audience and generally I’m not one of the people who plays them but Deathsmiles is one hell of a game. The amount of modes included really helps make it a more accessible experience for players of all skill levels. If games like Ikaruga piqued your interest but turned out to be just too hard to get anywhere in or even if you loved something like Geometry Wars, Deathsmiles will certainly offer the stepping stone you’ll need, as well as the required difficulty for seasoned players.

Score: 4 out of 5

The Good
Fast, frantic, and most importantly, fun.
Adjustable difficulty makes it a very accessible bullet hell shooter.
Options, options, options!

The Bad
Menu interface is a bit clunky and unintuitive.
Not a large community online for multiplayer games.

The Ugly
Tyrannosatan

Originally posted on Evil Avatar