Like Calamity Trigger before it, Continuum Shift is a drop-dead gorgeous game. The sprites are huge, absurdly detailed, and fluidly animated, though be prepared for some very bizarre character designs – such as Bang, the over the top ninja who carries a five foot long nail on his back. However, this just adds to the charm as there’s something endearing about these highly eccentric designs that only Arc System Works can pull off. The audio side is just as good, Ishiwatari’s unique heavy-metal rock-opera score being excellent in this game. Tunes like Hazama’s eerie, ominous Gluttony Fang and the ominous Mu-12’s Sword of Doom make for some awesome sounds to rock out to. Voice-acting is also good, with the actors seeming to really care for what they’re doing even if there are more than just a few instances of cheesy dialogue, though that’s more a problem with the script writing.

The only criticism I can level at the presentation is that there hasn’t been much improvement as many stages and music tracks seem lifted directly from Calamity Trigger. It isn’t that big of a deal though as Blazblue was already beautiful to start with and there isn’t a whole lot to improve on. Again, like its predecessor, Continuum Shift comes with a variety of options for everyone. Returning from the first game are the traditional Training, Arcade, and Story modes but there are some new ones to check. First up is Legion mode, a strategy boardgame of sorts where the player fights against members of the roster to win the game. Opponents are divided into categories by difficulty and when you win you get to keep a member of their team for your own army. It’s like the story mode in Soul Calibur 3, though far more stripped down. It was a neat little idea, but ultimately proved to be little more than a distraction for me. Maybe they can do something else with it in the next title, whenever it comes out.

Barriers have been changed, and can be used less frequently.

Next is Tutorial where Rachel (the series’ smug, gothic Lolita vampire) teaches the player about the intricacies of the game in great detail. You’ll definitely learn a lot, down to even the most advanced tactics of the game as well as some stuff about specific characters. Since we don’t get the strategy DVD like the first game this is a good way to teach people about Blazblue. Then we have Challenge where the player is made to perform increasingly complex series of combos in order to get to the next level. This is actually the best way to learn some of the more advanced combos of each character and makes for a very thorough tutorial. However, there’s no way to see what’s next in a combo sequence until getting to the later sequences which makes for some frustrations. Still, pretty good.

And of course we have Blazblue’s much-adored Story mode. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the first game though this time around you don’t have to intentionally die for every fight to get one-hundred percent completion, making it an improvement straight away. While Legion may be a disappointment, Challenge and Tutorial really help get people into Blazblue’s more intricate systems and make the game more newbie-friendly. Continuum Shift‘s core gameplay is essentially unchanged with its four-button control scheme and unique Drive System where every character has a unique attack property that no one else gets. Characters still have the broad “zoning, rushdown, etc” categories but every character plays very differently even within those categories. The Drive System  does this by making sure no character attacks the same way as anyone else, like: Jin who can freeze others at the drop of a hat, Rachel who can manipulate her projectiles with the wind, and Lambda-11 who can summon blades from thin air.

Now I’m going to talk tactics. First off Barrier Burst has been drastically altered. You no longer have to drain your entire barrier gauge to enable it, but you’re only allowed one at the start of a match and getting another one requires losing a round. There are also two different kinds of Barrier Burst: one offensive and one defensive. The Guard Libra is also gone, having been changed to a system where each character has a set amount of points that deplete whenever certain moves are blocked and regenerate over time. Each character has a different number of points, such as slowpoke Tager having ten while nimble guys like Hazama and Tao having a mere four. Get drained of all of them and prepare for a whooping as you’ll be stunned momentarily.

Three new-characters are playable, with one being unlocked via Story Mode.

Astral Heats are also modified, requiring an unused Burst and can now be initiated in the second round of a match by the current leader. They also require the opponent to be thirty-five percent health or lower and still need a full Heat Gauge to attack. This was obviously the making using the things more common, though considering how AWESOME they are I can hardly blame Arc System Works. And then we have the new characters that are the main point for this section. Whenever a fighting game sequel comes out new characters are a must though more important to that is that they add something new to the game in terms of play style. The three we have right off the bat are Tsubaki Yayoi, Hazama, and Mu-12 (though Mu has to be unlocked through Story Mode).

I can say without a doubt that they’re all unique and fun to play. Tsubaki for instance is an easy-to-play type who specializes in an aggressive melee style, her Drive allowing her to power up her attacks to different levels. Hazama is by far for more advanced players, his movement being tricky, and his Drive making zip around the battlefield though his quickness and close-range specialty make for a satisfying challenge. And then there’s Mu who is pretty much the big sister of Calamity Trigger’s Nu-13, being a killer robot girl with her Drive consisting of throwing out crystals that shoot lasers, making for some interesting zoning strategies and tactical play. Very good additions to the roster and that’s not even counting the upcoming DLC characters (more on that later).

And finally we have gameplay balancing. The three who had the most change were Rachel, Lambda, and Arakune, all three of them getting nerfed to the point where they can no longer dominate in competitive play though overall that just makes the game more diverse. We also have the usual additions to move sets and input changes. Nothing drastic, though it makes for more options in battle. Continuum Shift, overall, is more of a refinement than a drastic change for the series. There are some changes, but nothing extremely huge. A lot of these are small tweaks to the roster that amount to making the game more fun than trying to redefine it.

Stages are as gorgeous as ever.

One of the biggest splashes Continuum Shift has made is that it is the first fighting game to have downloadable characters. The one we have merely a week after the game’s initial release is Makoto, a squirrel girl in a skimpy outfit who specializes in extremely aggressive melee fighting. Her Drive is fairly simple, being a gauge that powers up certain attacks. Oh, and her Astral Heat involves her punching the moon so hard that it explodes. AWESOME. Arc System Works have definitely made a long-awaited first for the genre in making a downloadable character, though Makoto has had been accused of being a way to gouge people for cash. I for one welcome the DLC characters as the way online capabilities are now is a perfect way to refine and tune fighting games without needing to do an incremental re-release every few months. For seven bucks there are a lot worse things to spend money on, especially since Makoto comes with her Unlimited Form and Challenge Mode trials right off the bat. I definitely anticipate the next combatants.

Yes, it’s time for the most unique thing about Blazblue, it’s surprisingly awesome storyline and complex characters. The game starts almost immediately after Calamity Trigger with the criminal Ragna the Bloodedge being saved by Lieutenant Noel Vermillion. Ragna’s life being saved has suddenly caused all sorts of people to keep an eye on him and the plot has only gotten more complex and grim, especially when one of Noel’s best friends shows up saying she’s been ordered to kill her. Once again every character has an intertwining storyline, though this time around Blazblue is able to focus on actual character development rather than laying down groundwork for the universe and character motivations. A LOT of the cast this time around is significantly developed, even previous bit players like Bang, Tao, Litchi, and Carl. Everyone is now getting sucked in to Ragna’s journey in some way or another and we even get to see some other sides of the more established cast.

Jin is one example as while he suffers from obsessive psychosis over Ragna, he also finds himself growing to control that madness as well as having to deal with a close friend of his who is suffering from possible insanity herself. Another is Carl who was practically uninvolved in nearly everything last time having some major reveals and genuinely touching moments. Everyone definitely gets a chance to shine, though admittedly some threads are better than others. Blazblue is still stuck telling its story in a rather static way through talking heads and dialogue, though at the very least the performances are good and the writing solid. Some lines are hammy, but there’s a certain charm and heart to Blazblue that no other series has. Heck, if you don’t feel something during some of the more tearjerking moments then I am convinced that you have no soul. Oh yeah, and the story is worth playing just to see the gag endings. Oh my god, the GAG ENDINGS. You have not witnessed insanity until you have seen a robot farm girl pirate. No, I am not kidding.

Animations are slightly improved over the original.

Blazblue’s plot is definitely complex and bizarre, but don’t confuse that with it being bad. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found the characters to be intriguing and worth caring for and the twists and turns got me pumped for what happens in the next title. Heck, I’d go as far to say the story alone makes the game a true sequel to its predecessor and well worth anyone’s time. Though you might want to check out Calamity Trigger first if you want to make sense of things from the outset and know what’s going on. Continuum Shift is definitely a far better game than its predecessor, adding new content, refining old ideas, balancing characters, and making the game more accessible as well as taking risks by adding DLC characters. While still weird and eccentric, only a fool would pass up a chance to play a game this deep and involving as well as getting one of the better narratives I’ve seen in a game as of late.

This game was reviewed on Xbox 360.

Unlike the vast majority of tie-in games, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown is set after the film’s events. The narrative consists of a sudden crimewave led by The Doom Syndicate and their Doom Goons hitting the city which the hero of the day, Megamind, must stop, using his arsenal of weapons. Basically, your typical superhero story.

The game’s weapons are limited to three. In total. The De-Gun can be used to de-stroy and de-hydrate enemies and obstacles, the Blower Glove can be used to blow enemies and obstacles away and the Tesla Glove can be used as a close-range weapon, as well as to control electrical devices. Each weapon can be upgradaded by collecting B.I.N.K.E.Y.s – orbs scattered around levels and gained by breaking things – there are no real advantages to doing so. Players will spend most of the game mashing the attack button to fend off enemies, whilst the game’s auto-aim system removes any challenge.

Co-op seems as though it was added as an after-thought, as none of the enemies acknowledge the second player.

Enemies in Megamind: Ultimate Showdown come in the form of builders, rock band members, and cooks/chefs who use their appropriate weapons (i.e. guitars, rolling pins, etc) to prevent Megamind from progressing. Also spread throughout the game are a series of boss levels, but none of these are particularly difficult to overcome.

As players progress through story mode, mini-games are unlocked. There are four mini-games in total. Rampage sees players scoring as many destruction points as possible while in the special battle suit within the time limit. B.I.N.K.E.Y. Slalom consists of players collecting B.I.N.K.E.Ys. Sticky Boots consists of climbing a building in the midtown area, available on the easy, medium and hard difficulties. Lastly, Mega-Pod is a race through the streets of Downtown in the Mega-Pod with three tracks available all-in-all.

Controls are limited to mashing attack and moving.

As a package, the mini-games are quite poor. While they do provide a slight variation and increase the game’s length by half an hour at a push, they are more than likely to grab the player’s attention once and never again due to their lack of depth and replayability. The lack of depth and replayability is also evident in the single player adventure. The gameplay sees the player often repeating the same goals (such as placing a weight on a plank of wood and jumping on boxes) and even repeating identical parts of the level, with many portions of the game looking as if they were simply copied and pasted to expand the already short playtime.

Graphically, Megamind has not been made to a good standard. With the exception of the pre-rendered opening and ending sequence which are fantastic quality, matching what you’d see at the cinema, the remainder of the game’s graphics are quite poor, especially the lack of detail. As for the audio, the inclusion of Jonah Hill as a voice actor (from the film itself) makes up for the weak soundtrack.

Not only was this a bad game, but it was a bad movie too. Despicable Me was better, imho.

Multiplayer comes in the form of co-operative action in which the second player takes control of a robot that has the same abilities as Megamind. Oddly, enemies don’t take notice of the second player who can walk through every level untouched. While the implementation of multiplayer could have been a lot better, it’s still a welcome feature within the game.

It’s probably also worth mentioning the game’s achievements which, as you would expect, are easily obtainable. Arguably the hardest to unlock is for defeating the bosses without losing any health but even that isn’t difficult. The remaining achievements come with story progression and the collection of B.I.N.K.E.Y.

Graphics are bad. Multiplayer is bad. Game is bad.

Overall, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown is a poor game. The lack of anything innovative makes it just like all the other throw-away movie-based games currently on the market. This is only one to purchase if you’re an achievement junkie, or for your kid brother, and even then you should think twice.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Dune Buggies are a staple component of many solutions in Create.

The game starts with a lengthy loading screen which eventually leads to a tutorial. I found it to be unclear and muddled, and it didn’t do a good job of explaining the controls. Fortunately, after passing the tutorial by trial and error you can access the game’s Help Center at the push of a button. This screen allows you to review the control layout (not re-mappable) or receive a vague hint as to how to proceed. When I say vague, these hints would give Confucious a run for his money.

The game world consists of an interactive main hub, ofwhich the tutorial is the first level, hence the enormous first load. This hub is split into ten themed stages, such as Theme Park and Transportopia, and a bonus stage. In each stage there are ten challenges to conquer. Each challenge falls into a category depending on its objective. Each category involves the player using specific objects in several different modes to: reach a goal/target (Pickup Party), rack up a massive score by using several items at once (Scoretacular) or even building their own machine out of blocks, girders, wheels and hinges (Contraption-o-Matic).

Different stages unlock different items, dependent on theme.

Upon completing a challenge, the player will unlock ‘Creative Sparks’. Each Spark will reward the player with an item to use in challenges or to their own devices, props to place in their scenery, terrain paint schemes and even “sky stickers” (also known as clouds, to you and I). Challenges generally have three levels of completion, the usual Bronze, Silver or Gold, with increasingly difficult parameters to attain them. Achieving gold also unlocks silver and bronze, so no grinding is needed.

To access items, the player must open the main interface which comprises the four categories of tools (Game Objects,  Brush Tools, Environment and World Tools) as well as options to Reset or Save your creation. As benefits consoles, this interface is a wheel-type, with specific tools organised under and accessed via their category. During challenges the permitted items are accessed in a different selection menu which only needs one button-press to access.

Once you master the slippery controls, YOU TOO can produce something like this. Maybe.

Due to the pants tutorial I found myself referring to the Help Center frequently, and until I got to grips with them the controls felt unwieldy and unnatural. My biggest gripe is that, rather than have A (x for you Sony fans) as the selection button, B (o for PlayStation) has been set. This, for me, was almost game-breaking as I was often inadvertently cancelling item placement/adjustment. The fact that you cannot remap the controls is probably a good thing, given the open-ended gameplay, but this took me some time to get used to.

The challenges start off easy and slowly ramp up to fiendishly dfficult. Lateral thinking skills are a must as solutions are often convoluted and not always obvious. Challenges are unlocked in order by completeing earlier ones, but once unlocked can be completed in any order. If one particular sequence is giving you trouble, skip it and come back later. Experimenting with different combinations of available items is a must, and often produces humourous results. Seeing a torrent of dodgems pour off a cliff is just one of the moments which sticks in my mind.

Spielberg might have pioneered the flying BMX, but EA has the SURFING flying BMX.

The game doesnt push the graphics envelope in any dimension, but Create’s clean and uncluttered visual design really helps when you have many interacting items on-screen at once. The audio seems charming at first but over time can grate on the ears. The theme for the Fairground stage should come with a Public Health warning. The lack of any voice-acting means that the player is subjected to endless loops of tinny music whilst working through each challenge.

Create will appeal to a niche audience. If you don’t like physics puzzles, this game is not for you. Similarly, if you’re looking for a LittleBigPlanet replacement the lack of protagonist (no charming Sackboy shenanigans here) and narrator (no honeyed tones of Stephen Fry, only annoying music) may be a turn-off. Ultimately, the game is a good package but deserves its 7+ rating from PEGI. Definitely one to purchase to keep your kid brother or sister quiet whilst the grown-ups have ‘Tall-Time’.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Not the most visually-stunning, but a solid game experience.

“Unlimited” is a big claim to live up to. The lawyers of the world are no doubt getting the litigation-twitch after the revelation that, actually, Test Drive is not “unlimited” at all. However, when there are this many challenges, side missions, vehicles, things to buy, items to find, some 3000km of roads to explore and, no doubt, hours of downloadable extras yet to come, you can forgive a certain amount of hyperbole.

After the cult success of Test Drive Unlimited, the makers discovered that what people liked most about the game was its level of interactivity – the fact that it became an online social hub, where friends could hook up irrespective of real geography, go for a “drive”, listen to some music and have a chat. That aspect is here and has been tweaked to the nth degree: this time you can set up race clubs, compete in group challenges and hang out at each others’ virtual apartments – all of which adds many hours to an already deeply-involved game.

Sexy Cars in Sexy Locales… What more do you need?

That takes care of the 14-year-olds looking for a Facebook alternative, but what about the rest of us? Well, from a solo perspective there’s much to recommend TDU2. At the start of the game – after a dream sequence that gives you a little taste of the vehicles to come – you’re an Ibiza-based car valet with a dream and a bit of driving ability who gets a shot at the “big time” – a series of race events called Solar Crown. This throws you into various road races, time trials, speed tests – where you have to maintain a minimum speed for as long as possible to rack up points – and assorted other challenges.

There is a storyline for the player to follow. To progress through the game, the player has to earn experience points to level up through the 60 levels. These points can be earned via 4 categories:

• Competition (racing, completing challenges)
• Social (making friends in the game, race against other people, joining clubs)
• Discovery (discover all roads, take photographs of specific locations, find all car wrecks)
• Collection (buy cars, houses, furniture, clothing/basic needs)

Win those, collect cash, buy new cars, enter the next race… you know the drill. Here though there’s considerable variation, where you can ignore challenges and just cruise the island, discovering new shops, real estate agents, car dealerships, car washes, etc. Plus, in order to enter the next class of race, you’ll first need to perfect some new skills and obtain the relevant licence. And once you’ve finished Ibiza and have earned enough money to buy a yacht you can sail to Hawaii and start a whole new island full of challenges.

According to Eden Games there are 3000+ miles of driveable on-road and off-road routes

There are also an extra 10 Levels available to those who acquire the Casino Online DLC/Pre-order Bonus, these levels are achieved within the casino itself.

The player can earn extra money depending with how the player drives. Driving like a daredevil and performing stunts, drifting through turns at high speeds and evading crashes and the traffic will earn the player extra cash. Exploring the island lets the player find vehicle wrecks which will unlock exclusive vehicles at the dealerships on the island. The player can also walk out of the car in vehicle shops,player houses, clubs and the optional casino DLC.

Eden have “spent years” working on the physics model for TDU2 to give each car its own handling. Dynamic effects like weather, lighting and dirt/cosmetic damage have also been overhauled.

The player’s avatar can be altered by changing hair, clothes, physical appearance and their attitude and facial features, and they can also buy houses. Co-op will also make an appearance in the game including a Follow-the-Leader mode. In this mode, players will have to complete a route by driving through checkpoints. When a checkpoint is passed by the leader, the game promotes one of the other drivers as leader. Working together properly is made even more important as only the leader can see the route on his GPS display

Graphically, TDU2 isn’t the most elaborate thing you’ll ever see; the hardcore driving gamer will find it childish and unrealistic and yes, the car-handling isn’t as crisp and researched as, say, GT5. You’ll also probably find the odd glitch in animation and environment (particularly if you head off road) but in terms of depth of play and regular jaw-dropping moments (sunrise or a thunderstorm for example) this is a game that will keep you occupied for weeks. Thanks to three skill settings, it’s instantly accessible whatever your experience level, features tons of little touches for the completist and isn’t shy on humour either.

Now with Social Network connectivity, if that floats your boat.

I was particularly taken with the stoner who pays you just to drive fast and the way any changes you make to the look of your avatar require: a) the discovery of a plastic surgeon; b) a visit to said plastic surgeon; and c) an hour of post-op recovery during which your avatar will be wearing bandages. I think this game is great, but suffered from a low-key launch (I didn’t know a sequel had been made until it dropped through my door) and could really do with more exposure. The addition of Ibiza as a driveable location and the overhaul of Hawai’i means even if you bought TDU there’s no excuse for not buying this game too.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Ridiculous power-up sequences are included as standard.

Sadly, apart from a few exceptions (the Master System title released in the States as “Black Belt”, a Japanese-only PS1 game, and the more recent 2d Versus-Fighter by Arc Systems) most of the Hokuto no Ken games have been average at best and  many have done the license a disservice. Koei, long known for its role in keeping the beat ’em up genre alive with its expansive Dynasty/Samurai Warrior titles, not too long ago branched out to incorporate licensed properties (originally Gundam), and is now crafting another title to fit their mould of brawler gameplay. Hokuto no Ken was playing itself out as a beat ’em up even before the concept of ‘one powerful character fighting dozens of lesser enemies before squaring off against a stronger level boss’ was even invented back in 1984 . The legions of fans have had  high hopes for what could be done by this newest game and modern-day technology. As this review will show, some of these have been realised, while others need polishing, but I believe that it is a good thing that Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage came to be.

Some people reading this review will already be familiar with the Fist of the North Star universe, but I’ll briefly summarise it before talking about what it stands for. Nuclear war has blasted all of the Earth’s ecosystems into inhospitable desert and reduced humanity’s dense population to a few desperate pockets of survivors barely able to to live day-to-day. While the normal man hardly scrapes by, a violent new social order evolves: the strong roam the lands in raider tribes preying on the fragile remnants of peacefulsociety. To balance the scales against these cruel and murderous bandits, a handful of martial artists dedicate themselves to the duty of protecting the innocent with their ridiculously powerful fighting techniques – able to strip a man of his flesh in moments or turn nerve endings and pressure points into organic power-kegs ready to pop. The titular Ken  is one of these, and he wanders through the various enclaves of the ruined landscape, seeking purpose in a world often lacking justice and constantly in conflict with the powerful ego-maniacs that desire to rule over the huddled masses.

The vibe and atmosphere of Hokuto no Ken is the perfect storm of atom-age nuclear-apocalypse hysteria, blended with the look and mentality of the 1970s/1980s punk scene, and topped off with some Eastern religious mysticism. While the creators of the various Hokuto no Ken projects could have just as easily slapped together the influences for the Fist of the North Star universe (mainly Mad Max and Bruce Lee movies) and made a buck in an era where ultra-violent but often-shallow animated features were abundant, they instead opted to craft a respectable storyline and bring attention to the intricate nature of vigilantism and the concept of peace through war.

SAY THAT AGAIN. I DARE YOU.

While beat ’em ups usual take the route of having their stoic protagonists plow through the evil enemy hordes with absolute moral infallibility, you’re constantly called to question here whether the mean justifies the end. There’s a big difference in having defeated opponents slump over or crumple (like Dynasty/Samurai Warriors) or shatter in some sterile, bloodless manner (DW: Gundam) as opposed to them shuddering around you, their bodies rapidly tearing apart from the inside out while you hear the constant begging for mercy and sobs of bewilderment. You also have to take into consideration that while some of these “bad guys” are depraved scum, others may simply be fighting for their own survival or for the conquest of some other character’s concept of maintaining order through violence.

Fist of the North Star constantly features moments of selflessness and sacrificing ones self for the objective of peace or the protection of those who cannot defend themselves, and it is a bit moving to wax two opposing warriors wax philosophical idealism while plumes of blood still hover in the air around them. What I’ve always liked about the Hokuto no Ken universe is that while it is constantly featuring outlandish feats of strength (like knocking aside skyscrapers with a strike of the hand, or the fact that many of the characters are practically giants) it never cheapens the experience; whereas I find myself rolling my eyes during games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.

Enemies will attack with interesting and varied weapons.

Hokuto no Ken is also a pleasant reminder to us older games of a time (read: the 80s) when animation and movies in general weren’t afraid of alienating potential sales due to extreme violence because they knew that a well made R-rated film would always trump the watered-down PG-13 tripe in the long run (see: Robocop, The Thing, Aliens, Terminator, Golgo 13, etc). While not a perfect game, nor even the best beat ’em up I’ve played this year, its personality of the source material is absolutely magnetic and the title does quite a good job transferring that into the context of the game.

The visual department is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to the quality of graphics. The characters are faithfully rendered from their Manga origins, although sometimes the textures seems a bit fuzzy when the camera focuses on it at certain angles. After dealing with the typically sterile character models from Dynasty/Samurai Warriors I was pleased to notice that you take battle damage (in the form of torn away shirts, helmets getting knocked off, and broken mask guards); although I would have enjoyed having a bit of blood spatter or aural smoldering from extensively wounded characters. You’ll feel right at home with the post-apocalyptic environments riddled with rusted metal wrecks, skeletal building remnants, and unending scatterings of rubble that dot the unwelcoming desert landscape.

While this setting is a perfect depiction of the ruined world that remains following the nuclear apocalypse – it doesn’t quiet have the “lived-in” personality – meaning that some of the levels come off as a stiff series of obstacles instead of an organic environment as befitting  downtrodden masses. While only a few Koei games have made the battlefield feel less like a grid and more like an actual field of war – most of them didn’t have you wandering through areas like twisting sheet-metal corridors, patchwork expansions of sand and rock marked by the occasional oil drum, and confusing mazes of caved-in skyscrapers and endless chain-link fences. The repetitive layout of the levels (perhaps the worst Koei has ever created, although this is in regards to the “Legend Mode” variants and not the more traditional and open designs featured in “Dream Mode”) is made worse by a map that is hard to read on low-definition televisions at its default display and requires you to zoom in constantly to tell where you’re headed – often throwing your directional senses off track in the process.

While set design may have its problems – the violence and gore that you would expect from the source material is free of such hiccups. The various styles of assassin-arts leave a signature spasm of agony onto its victim – to the point of where someone used to just knocking aside defeated enemies like rag-dolls (Dynasty/Samurai Warriors) or having them blow up in a bloodless mechanical fashion (the Gundam games) may feel cruel and unnerved walking through a dozen crying and flailing bodies in the moments up to their climatic deaths. The Nanto users shred their prey – causing stylish claw streaks across the suspended bodies before they erupt into read mist or fall apart like someone thrown through a laser array. If you’ve ever seen that strange graphical glitch in any recent games that causes character models to shudder and stretch out in rubberized contortions in a manner not unlike Salvador Dali’s melting clock imagery, you can visualize Kenshiro’s technique that causes the body’s blood to rush to the surface and has these now-crimson, shaking people grotesquely flap about before tumor-like growths from their frenzied physiques swell and burst the entire person into a red cloud speckled with meat chunks.

My favorite manner of murder is that of Toki’s – his messianic strikes cause enemies to glow a vibrant white hue before their bodies bloat up in various areas (including the occasional hilarious crotch ballooning that has punks hopping about in terror before their manhood explodes along with the rest of them). Toki’s mortal-wounding skills also cause enemies to fall to their kneels with their hands clasped in a pleading prayer for mercy before they implode, or levitate into the air in surreal manner before their ravaged, glowing bodies erupt with a euphoric ray of light enveloping the carnage. I’ve seen a lot of video-game violence over the years – from the comical, over-the-top fatalities of Mortal Kombat to the stomach-churning savage killings featured in Manhunt, so my praise for Hokuto Musou’s art of death is an honour indeed. In addition to all this, the game has solid animation that has only stuttered a few times during the 12+ hours I sunk into it prior to this review – and when you fight huge crowds the transition from foe-to-foe is quite fluid.

Like the graphics department, the audio area of Hokuto Musou is a bit uneven. I’m surprised that, considering how the various adaptations of the franchise have included catchy songs like Heart of Madness and You Wa Shock, players are dealt a bunch of generic rock music that could have come from any Dynasty Warrior game in the last five years. The sound effects are pretty good, and you recognize some of the crunching and ripping noises from the movies/series – which gets me all nostalgic. As far as voice acting is concerned, Hokuto Musou hovers a few notches above average in terms of delivery (although the enemies could have used more than the half-dozen phrases they spam constantly). I do find myself missing the so-bad-its-good grungy English dub from the 1986 film.. as such quality was a staple during that era of Anime (watch some Youtube videos of it and try to keep yourself from smirking). You’re given the option of switching the language tracks between English and Japanese, depending on your preferences – which is a nice option to have.

My only real gripes about the game’s controls are with regards to the implementation of special moves. Many of them have limited reach around your character’s position, making them frustrating to use in large groups of enemies as you may have accustomed yourself to doing in past Koei beat ’em ups. While there are a few assigned to each character that allow you to draw about eight or so enemies into the killzone, these special moves typically cost two or three spirit icons and if you manage to botch the attack (which I’ll touch upon momentarily) it’s going to take several power-ups or about twenty cannon-fodder kills to replace what you ended up wasting. As I mentioned, it is very easy to bungle a special attack you were saving up for a critical moment – as there is a brief moment being the activation of the move and when the attack sets in.

I’ve suffered through dozens of incidents where after luring in a decent number of victims into the radius of my attack, they step out of the way while the move is being performed – or even worse, a barrel or hit and knocks away portions of the group with minimal damage while I’m stuck rapidly punching one or two guys or sometimes thin air. Since things can get pretty hectic when you have several commander-type enemies in the midst of the cannon-fodder, I wish they would have given you the option of “painting” targets during special attacks instead of relying upon the limited auto-aim that enacts instead. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to save up enough spirit to kill a difficult commander and when your hands are reaching out to issue the deadly strike.. some regular grunt steps into the path of your fists and gets killed instead. You would think a game concerning surgical precision-based combat (hitting of small but delicate pressure points and whatnot) would allow more flexibility in how you land your blows.

The game-play is primarily split into two portions – a “Dream Mode” that is largely along the lines of the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors Empires games in which you battle to secure enemy spawn points while facing off against powerful officers before taking on the boss – and a more traditional campaign called “Legend Mode”. The “Dream Mode” is my favorite portion of the game – allowing you to encounter over a dozen enemies at once (sometimes the entire screen is swamped when two factions converge onto your location), while sending a good number rivals to their body-bursting fates without any real kind of filler. The only real letdown for “Dream Mode” is that the story elements are kind of condensed to keep things at a brisk pace, so people wanting to get into all the Hokuto no Ken intricacies will have to go the route of “Legend Mode”.

Mortal Kombat eat your heart out.

Sadly, “Legend Mode” suffers from poor enemy flow (you often fight six or seven enemies, then have to run forward for 20-30 seconds before facing another cluster) that prevents you from setting up decent combat layers. Aside from breaking from the action on a regular basis, they decided to add a bunch of pointless platforming elements (walls you must climb that often have debris running down them, hopping over poisonous lakes, pushing boxes to climb up and jump from, throwing spears at draw-bridge levers, and finding switches you have to hit).  I found myself sticking mostly to “Dream Mode” to avoid most of the mechanics that “Legend Mode” entailed. Hokuto Musou plays similar to other Koei brawlers – with a branching flow of combos and special moves that often lead into massive shock-waves or instant-kill strikes. Most of the time I had a lot of fun with the combat – although there are two more flaws I must touch upon.

All health and spirit vials are kept in crates or vending machines – which is good for someone familiar with the level design but I hate having to depart from battle to run back 2 minutes to some aid I left behind for emergencies. Previous Koei games usually had health or power-up items dropped after defeating a certain amount of enemies or routing an officer – which encourages you to take risk that reward a skilled fighter and not have you end up in a situation where there’s no items left in the entire level even though there’s still dozens of minor enemies chasing you. My other gripe is that sometimes the enemies block too much or too long – even on the easiest difficulty, which leaves you pounding away at your controller trying to slowly build up another spirit for a technique while cannon fodder pecks away at your exposed back. While neither of these issues tarnish the game to the point you’re constantly frustrated, when you factor in the lackluster experience of “Legend Mode” – it chips away at the immensely satisfying brawling experience that the other portions of Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage amount to.

Due to the licensed nature of the game’s content, there aren’t too many characters in the story to play – whereas the Dynasty and Samurai Warrior titles have recently been pushing out upward of 50 playable people. While I’m glad they didn’t try to shoehorn in a bunch of original characters to pad out the numbers, you’ll notice that several members of the combat roster are limited to pre-order incentives or paid DLC – which wouldn’t be as bad if there were more than a dozen people to play as out of the box. As far as game-modes, there’s four to choose from – the “Legend Mode”, which follows the original Manga’s direction and is the most detailed portion of the game in regards to character and story development.

Transitions in crowd combat can be sketchy at times.

Then there’s the Empire-like strategic battles of “Dream Mode” which offer my favorite kind of divide and conquest brawler action, along with allowing you to fight alongside characters you’re normally enemies, which will tickle the fancy of a lot of people wondering “what if?” so and so could put aside their differences and fight a common foe. “Challenge Mode” is essentially a boss rush mode, for those of you who’d like to cut out the interactions with cannon fodder punks and raiders and just settle your score with the Hokuto and Nanto faction. Lastly, there’s a venue where you can grind points to levels up your characters and test out new abilities, dubbed “Free Mode”. Despite Koei featuring online co-op in some of their more recent titles, two player action can only be accessed here locally, in Dream-mode.

This is kind of a bummer since you constantly have allies in “Legend Mode”, which is the most difficult area of the game and would have benefited from having a buddy to assist you in. Achievements are a much brighter picture, however, as Koei’s games have usually fallen into the department of “too easy” or “too much grinding” – but Hokuto Musou falls into a respectable middle category.. taking about or week or two of play doing nothing annoying or out of the ordinary to accomplish. This game also has the benefit of breaking from the traditional cycle of old-school Chinese and Japanese warriors who you have fought as time and time again – not to mention the level of violence which no other game under the company’s banner can compare to. Overall, Hokuto Musou offers a fair amount of content to people unfamiliar with the game’s background, and I’m sure Fist of the North Star fanatics will enjoy themselves for at least a month.

I’m sure that the majority of hardcore Hokuto no Ken fans will be able to overlook the game’s flaws enough to appreciate that it is the best beat ’em up using the Fist of the North Star license released in English. Casual fans of the series or people just looking for a solid brawler might be put off a bit by the cumbersome “Legend Mode” mechanics and the lack of online co-op – but I would think that the game deserves your attention despite these blemishes, even if you want to take the rental route first. After suffering through so many fighting games released in the recent years based on less worth Anime licenses, I’m glad Koei took the time to reunite the Fist of the North Star universe with its rightful relationship to the beat ’em up genre. I look forward to a sequel or an expansion of content via DLC in the coming years.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

The arena’s are bigger and better than ever before!

The storyline is as follows: The Rockstar has been imprisoned by the Beast, and his Legendary Guitar is missing. So it is up to 6 characters from previous Guitar Hero games as well as 2 new ones to reclaim the guitar, free the Rockstar, and ultimately kill the Beast. The only slight niggle I found, is that the storyline seems a little “cartoony” at times. But then Guitar Hero has never been a serious, story-heavy franchise. We just want to rock! *Metallllllllllllllllll*

Each character has a specific power move – similar to the power-up’s in Versus Battles in previous games, such as Johnny Napalm’s minimum 2x multiplier, and Echo Tesla can generate Star Power for every 10-note streak. These moves are used to gain Power Stars that count toward that character’s transformation. Once enough stars are earned in a chapter, that character will transform into their Warrior form and their power will be upgraded. Then an encore will be played to complete the transformation. Once the first four characters have been transformed, it’s onwards to what is probably the best venue in the Guitar Hero series, Rush’s 2112 venue. Here you play through all 7 parts of Rush’s epic rock anthem “2112” in a row with all four characters’ powers combined and in several different locations that correspond to the story of the song, with the members of Rush providing narration in between each part. Once all 7 parts are completed, the Legendary Guitar is now yours, and it is now time to recruit the other warriors. You also get the right to play 2112 in Quickplay+.

Each character’s ‘Warrior’ incarnation presents a different side of them…

Once all 8 warriors have been transformed, it is time for the final battle with the Beast. It’s a three-song set, and you will be playing the three Megadeth songs in the game. The warriors are split up into 2 bands of four members, each band taking one of the first two songs. The first band will take the first song, which is “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due,” and the second band will take the second song, which is “This Day We Fight!” In each song, all the powers of the band members are combined, and it is up to you to score 20 power stars to charge up the Legendary Guitar and deliver a crushing blow to the Beast. When you score 20 stars on both songs (for a total of 40), the Rockstar will awaken and he will take over the final segment of the battle, combining all 8 powers at once on the brand-new Megadeth song recorded specifically for the game, “Sudden Death.” Afterwards, the beast will die and you are awarded with what is probably the cheesiest credit sequence in the series. Another very minor drawback of the Quest Mode is you don’t even get to play a song during the credits.

However, you do get a reward for killing the Beast. First of all, you unlock “Sudden Death” for play in Quickplay+, and you will also unlock the Rockstar setlist, which contains some of the single hardest songs in the game, and a few of the hardest songs in the Guitar Hero series, but more on that later. In addition, you will unlock Domination Mode, in which you go back and play each character’s chapters again with all 8 powers combined and try to score the maximum 40 stars on each song. Extra rewards will be unlocked for dominating a character’s chapter, as well as Achievements. That’s it for Quest Mode, now it’s on to the heart of the action in Quickplay+. Like in Guitar Hero 5, you can play with any combination of band members, whether it be 2 guitars and 2 drums, or 1 guitar, 2 basses, and 1 singer, or your normal standard band with a guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.

…as well as paying tribute to rock legends 😉

What puts the Plus in Quickplay+ is the added features. Each song has several challenges attached to it for each instrument, much like in GH5‘s career mode. Some examples include up-strumming an entire song on bass or hitting as many notes in a guitar solo as you can, or simply hitting as many notes in a row as you can. One challenge that is common for all songs on all instruments is the high score challenge, where you just go for as high a score as you can possibly get. You can get up to 3 stars per challenge (1 star for completing a challenge at Gold level, 2 stars for Platinum, and 3 stars for Diamond), and there are 12 challenges for each song (except for songs with missing parts), so you can get up to 42 stars in one song (3 stars x 12 challenges + 5 stars for a high score + 1 star for a Full Combo on any instrument). Not only do the on-disc songs have challenges attached to them, but so do all previous Downloadable Content and imports.

Each song also has a “Power Challenge” attached to it, where you combine two of the powers from Quest Mode and score as many stars as you can. I don’t think there is a limit to how many stars you can earn here (I’ve gotten as many as 21 on one song). These powers have been compared to the Perk system in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. Another parallel to Modern Warfare is the new experience system implemented into Quickplay+. Every 10 stars you earn increases your level and unlocks new stuff like instruments for the Character Creator, new venues, new photo galleries, and others. Like in Modern Warfare, the higher you level up, the more stars you need to progress. After level 20, you will need 20 stars to move to the next level instead of 10. All in all, these new additions add a whole new level of gameplay to the game, and I rather enjoyed them.

A cheesy plot, perhaps. But if Brütal Legend taught us anything it’s that Cheese and Awesome go hand-in-hand!

As in Guitar Hero 5, up to four people can play cooperatively online with any band configuration, including duplicate instruments. But that’s only the beginning. Improvements have also been made to the competitive play modes. For example, in Pro Face-Off mode, after certain “checkpoints” in a song, it will show you how far apart you are from the next-ranked player. This is an awesome addition, so you don’t have to look over to your opponent’s side to see how far ahead or behind you are. The additional “Rockfest” modes from Guitar Hero 5 are back in this game as well, including Streakers, Elimination, Perfectionist, Do Or Die, and Momentum. Each mode can be played free-for-all or in teams. There is also a new game called Momentum+, which is described simply as “a harder version of Momentum.” Basically, this version lets you attack your opponent by sending him back to Beginner difficulty with Star Power.

Probably the most important aspect of any music/rhythm game is the actual music that’s featured in the game. In the case of Guitar Hero, you would expect a list of songs that rock on guitar, and this game’s setlist delivers on that in spades! While Guitar Hero 5 kind of fell flat in the setlist department, Warriors of Rock returns the series to its roots with one of the most rock-oriented setlists in a full sequel since Guitar Hero 3, including songs from artists like Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Dragonforce, Steve Vai, Children of Bodom, and one of my favorite guitar shredders of all time, John 5. There are a few duds (Nickelback, Fall Out Boy), but what music game doesn’t have those? It’s impossible to please everyone, but overall the positives outweigh the negatives.

Multiplayer has been cleaned up, and is a crisper and better experience for it.

In the Quest Mode, each character’s chapter contains songs under a specific genre. For example, Johnny Napalm’s setlist is punk-rock oriented, Judy Nails is alternative, Axel Steel is metal, etc. So the Quest Mode is sorted more by genre than by difficulty, but the songs in each set do get harder as you go down the list. Another thing to note about this game’s setlist is that it is HARD, probably the hardest setlist since GH3. So for that reason, this game may not be the best for beginners to start, but it is definitely a welcome challenge for hardcore Guitar Hero veterans. In Quickplay+, you can see the intensity ratings for each song, and you will be surprised to see our first tier-10 songs for both guitar and bass.

Party Play is back, but it doesn’t jump right into it like it did in GH5. Another very minor drawback. But they did improve it by showing a player the intensity rating for the song on their instrument when they jump in. Another feature added is Downloadable Content recommendations where the game tracks which songs you play most often and recommends DLC to match. You can also keep track of all your unlockables through the Rewards Tracker, which also shows what you need to unlock the next item. This is a good way to keep track of your progress, and I rather like it. One more thing to note is that your stats from Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, including average multiplier, longest note streak, and even scores for DLC and imports carry over into Warriors of Rock. In your rock record, “Lifetime” stats include values from all 3 games. Another new addition is the option to share scores and achievements on Facebook and Twitter, which can be good or bad depending on how you use those services. If you use them mostly for connecting with other Guitar Hero players, this can be a good thing.

The new direction for the franchise is completed with an updated controller (with customisable inserts, no less)!

If you’ve found recent Guitar Hero games to be lacking a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’, or if you just want the opportunity to play more complex and more songs, look no further. Warriors of Rock will fill your appetite for epic rock and more. Definitely one to consider buying!

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Suddenly the thought occurs to you that maybe Spider-Man games are only going to get worse. Maybe they’re only going further downhill. Is this true? Is the once mighty and highly entertaining franchise in gaming finally throwing in the towel with quality, like Sonic The Hedgehog has? Then, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is announced, to the skepticism of many fans. As things progress further and further, it’s unveiled that the game doesn’t bring back the free roaming environment and realistic web swinging mechanics that made Spider-Man 2 so great – it’s back to linear levels and swinging through thin air for you, buddy. You think, “What the hell?!? They removed the only good parts of the last games!!!” But does this ruin things, or not?

Like any good game should, Shattered Dimensions (developed by Beenox/Griptonite Games & published by Activision) makes sure that it’s fun to play. Truth be told this is probably the strongest part of the game, but that’s not a bad thing. Some people may view it as mindlessly simple or too straightforward, but Shattered Dimensions makes it work. You’re basically progressing through levels fighting waves of enemies the same way you would playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine or Ghost Rider. There’s occasionally a puzzle, an obstacle course, or civilians needing rescuing, but aside from that there’s little else. The exception to this, is the Noir Dimension – which is primarily based on stealth.

Basically this game puts you in the shoes of four different versions of Spider-Man. They all feel unique while sharing the same basic Spider-Man abilities. Each has their own special perks that the others can’t duplicate and their own strengths and weaknesses. The default Amazing Spider-Man that we’re all so used to would be the bare bones template for the others, but to keep him from feeling like “Spider-Man Beta” in comparison Beenox have used his many years of superhero experience (compared to the others) to give him the use of his webbing in combat. Along with highly acrobatic maneuvers, Amazing Spider-Man will use his webbing to tear apart the environment and smack foes silly with it, and even create weapons out of his webbing.

Noir Spider-Man, as previously mentioned, is more focused on stealth. His incarnation isn’t nearly as durable as the others, so he is vulnerable to being mowed down by gunfire much more easily. He haunts his levels like a phantom, picking off foes one by one in the dark with brutal takedowns. Beenox have said, “[they] tried to make this portion of the game feel a little bit like Frank Miller’s Sin City”. I found the use of a newer, well-received incarnation of Spider-Man refreshing, and the effort Beenox have put into the game really shows. This was my favorite part of the game.

Spider-Man 2099 is focused on speed: he has quick, savage attacks using close combat claws; his accelerated vision (a technological spider-sense that appears to slow down time around him), and the free-fall gameplay mechanism where he controls his own speed in order to manoeuvre around obstacles and chase down the bad guy. Unfortunately 2099’s segments seem to be the least entertaining parts of the game, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth playing.

Ultimate Spider-Man brings back the fan-favorite black suit, and all the powers that come with it. The black suit acts as an extension of Ultimate’s own body, forming lashing tendrils and striking out at enemies from a distance, with some great crowd-control attacks (especially when used in Rage Mode) which will wipe the floor with waves of foes in seconds and make you feel tremendously powerful.

What I found interesting is that the game goes out of its way to take the player out of familiar areas that gamers have gotten so used to in the past 4 or 5 Spider-Man games. Noir and 2099 are strictly set in New York, but are vastly different from the version fans may be accustomed to. This is due to the time periods’ effect on the famous city. Amazing and Ultimate opt for more exotic locations, including a jungle, a desert, and a construction yard, to a power plant, a reality TV show gauntlet, and a parasite-infested S.H.I.E.L.D. base, respectively. The game possesses 13 levels (14 if you count the tutorial). This may sound short, but each level is extensive, and gives you room to explore to beat more challenges and help you  progress further. Each Spider-Man has 3 of their own levels, which are all set in their own reality. You are given a tutorial in the beginning to get you somewhat accustomed to each Spider-Man’s unique abilities, and then dropped into Amazing Spider-Man’s first level. Following that, you progress through three arcs. In each arc, you can complete one of every Spider-Man’s level in the order that you choose (with the exception of the first level, which isn’t even a big deal, really). This is a real refreshing change from being forced to jump between Spider-Man and Venom during parts of the game like Ultimate Spider-Man.

As much as I thought i’d miss free-roam and linear swinging, this game does okay. The swinging is a little bit different this time around, hearkening to a slightly more complicated version of the “swinging in thin air” last seen in Spider-Man (2002) for the GC/PS2/Xbox, but it doesn’t take long to get used to. Crawling is something else that takes some time getting used to, but isn’t too bad either. While the swinging and crawling may feel weird for some, it surprisingly doesn’t take away from the game too much. A feature completely new to Spider-Man games in this installment is a sequence during most of the boss battles that allows you to exchange fisticuffs with the villain in first person. I personally found this really enjoyable; it added a new thrilling element to the already well done boss fights and allowed you to better vent your loathing for the boss. The boss fights are probably the strongest part of the gameplay as a whole, and the lineup of villains is sure not to disappoint.

Sadly, the story fails to deliver in this game. Okay, I’ll be fair: superhero games in general are known for having plots as engaging as their comic book counterparts, but I really think they could have done a little better if they tried hard. It starts off with Amazing Spider-Man fighting Mysterio in a museum, where he accidentally shatters the Tablet of Order and Chaos: a mystical tablet that holds the threads of reality together. The fragments scatter across the dimensions, and the villains who find them gain more power just by holding it. Madame Web contacts each Spider-Man to explain the predicament, and they set off to get the fragments back and restore the tablet. That’s pretty much it. I was excited to see what the story for this game was going to do, since it’s the first time the whole alternate reality scenario so notoriously present in Marvel comics was toyed with in video game media, but it was pretty bland. I was hoping that they would at least show the four Spider-Men interacting with each other more often, but we barely see this at all. That would have made for some interesting conversations. Then again, this could have been difficult to execute, because many casual fans are unfamiliar with the alternate comics. To be fair to Beenox, they do make efforts to get you attached to the individual Spider-Men, with continuous character-driven story-lines for Noir and 2099; whereas Amazing and Ultimate’s stories are more sporadic and focusing solely on finding the tablet fragments.

One thing I did think was  cool is that the developers collaborated with Marvel to create new incarnations of Spidey ‘sopponents that have never previously appeared in certain continuities. Some of the earliest you see are Noir Hammerhead and 2099 Hobgoblin. While the game is mostly Spidey-centered, we do get some nice boss cameos from Juggernaut and Deadpool of Weapon-X fame. Seriously, who doesn’t love Deadpool?

Beenox went out of their way to put together four different teams for each Spider-Man’s dimension, giving each a completely unique graphics style. No universe looks the same. Noir melts between monochrome and dull colors, establishing a gritty tone and mood; whereas 2099 pulses with life, illuminated by endless neon. Amazing hearkens back to the art style found in older Spidey comics; whereas Ultimate Spider-Man mixes the distinct detail in Alex Ross’s work with the bold lines of manga.

The voice acting in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions really shines. Actors from recent adaptations going back to the 80’s have been brought in to reprise their roles as Spider-Man in his four incarnations, and other voices from the various tv shows have returned too. As for our hero(es), Neil Patrick Harris from MTV’s Spider-Man (~2000) returns to don the red and blues once again. In my opinion, he is good enough to be passable, but doesn’t give the best performance in the game. Christopher Daniel Barnes from the 90’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series returns to play Spider-Man Noir, letting his aging since the show add to the bitterness of his character, and it’s really awesome. He truly sounds menacing and jaded, but still like Spider-Man. Dan Gizelvan, from the 80’s Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, plays Spider-Man 2099. Harsh as it sounds, he gave probably the weakest performance in the game, but I respect the man for giving Spider-Man another shot after 30 years. Josh Keaton, from the only recently canceled Spectacular Spider-Man (best Spider-Man show ever – go check it out!) returns to play the teenage Ultimate Spider-Man. I think he has the best voice in the game, and the funniest lines; I never get tired of hearing him.

There is plenty of other awesome voice acting too; Jim Cummings (VA veteran), John DiMaggio (returning as Hammerhead from “Spectacular Spider-Man”), and Nolan North (returning as Deadpool from Hulk VS) just to name a few. The music is orchestral and dramatic, and the sound effects are fitting for the game. All around pretty decent, and tremendous fanservice in this department among other things. This game is not very long. It took me around 6-8 hours to beat, and that’s only because I sped through all the levels as fast as I could without doing much of the extra stuff. The challenges offer extended gameplay, and there’s some cool stuff to unlock – most of all the alternate costumes. They are really sweet this time around. All the levels are good enough to want to experience multiple times but can sometimes be confusing.

If you’re a Spider-Man fan, buy. This is the best Spider-Man game to come out in a long time, and as I said it’s worth full price. Other people may want to try it first to see if it’s their cup of tea – this game is made for serious Spider-Man fans, not casual gamers, and might turn them off. But I still really enjoyed it and found it a lot of fun.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

A Hack ‘N Slash game is all about in the game-play. Mash some buttons, watch a crazy string of attacks and send enemies flying. It’s what we play these games for and N3-II isn’t lacking at all. It’s extremely simple to get the hang of too: The X and Y Buttons are your main attack buttons, with X being Light Attack and Y being Heavy Attack. The B Button is your character-specific Ability. A Button is Jump. Right Trigger is used to roll in any direction using the Left Stick, and Left Trigger blocks attacks. Left Stick is used to move your character and Right Stick rotates the camera. You can even click the Right Stick to zoom the camera in or out. Left Bumper allows you to use an Active Skill and Right Bumper doesn’t do anything, so you don’t need to worry about that one. lol Pressing the Back Button zooms the map in to give a detailed display of your current location.

IT’S SO BRIGHT!

Active Skills (cast with the Left Bumper + either A, B, X or Y) are special attacks every character can do. They can be either melee or magic attacks, and once you find one, you can equip it to a slot (these are related to the button which triggers it) and you can use it in a mission as many times as you want  as long as you let it recharge between uses. You can equip up to four, and there are even some Skills that can be combined with others for devastating combos. Along with the four Active Skills you can have, you can equip four Passive Skills. These boost stats like total health or damage done, or can shorten the duration of status ailments. There are even some that allow you to use Active Skills faster.

The RPG elements of the game come in the form of a level up system. You can level up three things. Your characters level, which when increased gives you more health. Your characters weapon, which makes that particular weapon stronger, and all 8 Skills, the four Active and four Passive you can equip. You need Soul Points to level up anything and to get them, all you have to do is kill an enemy. Red orbs will appear and automatically fly towards you, giving you Soul Points. The harder the enemy is to kill, the more Soul Points you get. The platforming and puzzle elements come through in each level. Just like most Hack ‘N Slash games, characters share levels throughout the story. Certain areas in each level are inaccessible to certain characters the first time through. To get to them, you need to play as a different character and solve a simple puzzle like hitting a switch or destroying a wall, which will then allow the other character to access that area. It’s a simple way to give each level a sense of replay value.

N3-II has only 5 playable characters, compared to the first game’s 7.

The one thing I can say the gameplay lacks is character variety. The actual characters themselves are different enough, but each uses two weapons, and there’s only 5 characters, compared to the first game’s 7. Not much of a difference, but enough to leave you wanting more. The combination of simple game-play with the RPG and platforming/puzzle elements thrown in make this a unique take on Hack ‘N Slash games and fans of the genre will certainly enjoy this. But, despite how easy it is to pick the game up and play, it’s HARD in the later levels. Like, frustratingly so at times. You may find yourself angry enough to throw your controller if you aren’t patient enough and rush head first into some fights unprepared. As hard as the game can become, if you work at it and try different approaches, you’ll get through it. The story follows the same basics as the first one. There’s an Orb of Light, and an Orb of Darkness, with Elves protecting the Light and Goblins protecting the Dark. What’s different in the sequel is how the Orbs are used in the story. Rather than trying to stop the enemy from getting the Orb of Darkness and summoning the Lord of The Night, you’re trying to stop him from obtaining the Orb of Light and preventing himself from being sent back to his realm.

The main focus of the story centers around Galen as he tries to repel the Lord of The Night’s forces. Along the way he meets up with the 4 other playable characters, and while Galen’s story covers the main piece, to get the full story, you need to play through each character’s story. They all take place at the same time, but each gives a different perspective on the events and a nice look into the reason each character is fighting. The over-lapping stories give you both a different look on each level as well as details to the events outside of Galen’s story, which serves a great way to bring the whole thing together. But again, the lack of characters leaves more to be desired. One or two more characters could have easily expanded the story an extra few hours.

UNLIMITED POWAH!!1 /Palpatine

N3-II has definite improvements to graphics over the first one. There’s more detail in things like armor and weapons, as well as the level designs and textures. The enemies are simple cut and paste units of varying type, but while one foot solider looks just like the other, there’s enough detail there to make them not boring to look at as you cut them down. And there’s a nice effect of blood splatter on your screen when you do particularly extreme damage to a group of enemies. The effects on attacks are well done too. Melee and magic attacks are enjoyable to see over and over again. The level environments aren’t particularly diverse, but each one does have its own unique look to it, so it’s not bad to see them more than once. And due to the sheer scale of some of the levels, and the fact that no two characters play the same level the same way makes some of them seem like an entirely new level with a different character. And while the basic enemies may look the same, there are unique bosses each character fights throughout their own story and the designs on these more than make up for the cut and paste enemy designs.

The sounds fit nicely. A sword hitting metal sounds just like a sword hitting metal would. A shot from a crossbow sounds just like one. Lightning sounds like lightning, and an explosions sounds like an explosion. And the voice acting, something this genre isn’t praised for, is probably the biggest improvement N3-II has over N3. There’s actual tone and emotion behind the voices, and it’s made even better by the character animations during cut-scenes. The music has it’s highs and lows. The highs being when you can hear it while you go from one area to the next, it’s pretty good. The lows being when you’re in the middle of a large fight and doing nothing but hitting enemies and using Skills, those sound effects can overshadow the music.

Elf – Check. Pirate Outfit – Check. Magic Attacks – Check. Oh Japan, never change…

The improvements to the graphics and sounds of N3-II are certainly noticeable, and while the environments and enemies may not be entirely unique, the handful of bosses and character design on the major characters make up for that, as well as the nice effects for attacks. As a general rule, Hack ‘N Slash games are heavy on the action, light on the story, and this leads many of them to be somewhat short on the initial play-through, but the game-play is what brings us back for more. The same applies with N3-II, though to a lesser extent. A complete play-through for all 5 characters could run you anywhere from 15-25 hours, since some levels are so huge that they can take up to an hour or longer on your first run through them. Subsequent runs through these levels though are much faster, but it’s those sometimes hour long levels that add time to the game. And not in a bad way either since the game-play is certainly enjoyable. And since certain areas can only be accessed by a character AFTER playing as a different one, it pays to go back to each level at least once after playing with every character. There’s also a nice online co-op mode that can add to the overall time spent playing the game, and it offers good replay value since you can always try to bet your previous score and hit the top of the leaderboards.

You just know that one of them will not be walking away.

While there’s not much to do besides hacking and slashing, there’s enough to keep you busy for a few days and longer if you decide to play online. As mentioned, this game improves on practically everything the first one offered. It’s got solid gameplay, online co-op, overlapping stories and ONE MILLION ENEMY TROOPS. I’m sorry, I just had to get that in here somewhere. While the game doesn’t actually have that many enemies to cut down, it is on a very large scale for the genre. If you’re a fan of the first game, or just the genre itself, N3-II: Ninety-Nine Nights is a must play. And even if you aren’t a fan, how can mindlessly cutting up enemies be boring?

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

First on my gripe list is the single player. If you played the first game you will be retreading old ground. The storyline of Crackdown 2 is tenuous at best, as The Agency that makes the agents you play as is attacked by a terrorist group called Cell. On top of that mutants are running all around the city at night. To combat this, The Agency has deployed the first result of their new cloning program (you) who, as in the first game, will clean up Pacific City. The agency has a plan to take out the mutants/zombie (called Freaks) by destroying their homes using beacons which are powered by absorption units – which are guarded by Cell members. Observant players of the original may remember encountering the occasional frenzied enemy (again called ‘Freaks’); the series of free tie-in animations available on Xbox Live suggests that these were early versions of the mutant hordes you now face.

Raining explosive death from the sky remains an integral part of Crackdown 2

The gameplay is  too similar to the original for veteran players to find fresh. Like in the first you can level up your abilities by finding orbs scattered around the city as well as completing challenges: Agility, Firearms, Driving and Strength. One of the bad things about this is that at first the game can be a bit dull, especially when the vehicles, weapons and  explosive weapons first available at the agency load-out screen are rubbish. But for some reason even later missions require you to level up every ability to level 4 out of 6. This can be frustrating especially for the agility which requires lots of jumping and exploration. My preferred method of levelling was waiting until night for the streets to fill with Freaks (and killing them is fun, but not as fun as running them over in a sports car).

Many have criticised the graphics of Crackdown 2. I agree there has not been much improvement over the original, it’s far from being the ugliest game on the Xbox 360 (I’m looking at you, Condemned). While Pacific City in the first game was subdued (becoming brighter as you dismantled the gangs), the buildings and bridges in the sequel are all broken and partially destroyed due to mutant and terrorist attacks. This makes climbing or jumping up buildings a horrible chore instead of the joy it was in the first game. For starters not everything can be used for climbing, only window shelves and planks of metal sticking out of buildings. Things that look climbable aren’t but contradicting that are some objects which (would never be climbable in real life) are. The best example of this is the agent’s seemingly magical ability to cling, gecko-like, to the smooth curving sides of the various pipelines. The voice of the agency gets pretty annoying right after the tutorial missions. He is the same dry, condescending commmentator from the first game and many of his comments have been ported directly from Crackdown 1 and those which haven’t are just as annoying.

Pacific City remains the setting. Graphical upgrades are minimal.

As with the first game exploration is one of the highlights, but now especially with 500+ orbs to find. The main orbs you’ll be exploring for are the agility orbs, which are quite simple, find them in high or annoying-to-get-to places and nab them. Another type of orb is the Renegade Orb which can be collected to boost agility and vehicle skills. The Renegade Orbs require you to chase them until you touch, for agility you’ll be on foot and for vehicle of course you’ll have wheels. The Agility Renegade Orbs take forever to catch as they are faster than your running speed and they move around high places in circles. Many times you will be jumping for them but falling and failing miserably. For the vehicle Renegade Orbs all you need is a fast car – I recommend the Agency Supercar but you also need to know how to powerslide as many of them go around corners.

There are many weapons ranging from sniper rifles to rocket launchers to rubber duck-shaped bombs. All of which can be acquired from the Agency drop point (where you respawn or collect more ammo or a vehicle). The fighting is basic providing only a short combo hit unless you level up the strength. You can pick up massive objects but you cann’t do much with them and the throwing animations look awkward. With so many weapons you need a decent targeting system which this game gets all wrong. You cannot switch between targets which become a problem when fighting more than 20 Cell terrorists, and the most annoying feature is that each time each time you try to lock on an enemy it goes behind him or to the side to lock on a car or an explosive barrel – which gets you killed.

The Agent’s armour has been altered to resemble that of a Space Marine… FOR THE EMPEROR!

The missions are very repetitive: take out this Cell stronghold which has over 30 well-armed members swarming you – but its okay, help will be here after you have finished the job. The Freaks missions are the same: capture 20 absorption units surrounded by 6 enemies, then defend the beacon from freaks as it charges up over 5 minutes. While you are traveling around Pacific City you will run into cadres of Cell who fire at you in tens making sure you don’t survive. Night and day they shoot you with rifles, shotguns and even rocket launchers which follow you. All this makes the game much tougher and makes you cower behind a large object to heal. But the best part of single player is still blowing things up.

The big news is that the Multiplayer has new things to add over the original. First that Crackdown 2 can be played with 3 other friends in 4 player co-op. If you join a game everything you do there is kept in single player, except story missions. There are extra orbs to be found in co-op which is so much fun, either teaming up with your buddies or just kicking them about. In co-op the entire city is available to explore without tethers which lets you go around killing freaks, taking over Cell Strongholds or again just knocking each other out or playing explosive tag. The competitive side is less appealing with only 3 modes: the typical team/deathmatch and Capture the flag. With the inconsistent targeting the experience isn’t welcoming. The multiplayer is only fun for co-op, where nothing else matters, except orb collecting.

Gripping pipes – how do they work?

Overall Crackdown 2 is too much like its predecessor. The Co-op is only online but offers more fun and explosions; while competitive modes aren’t so great. Lacking a good soundtrack the same song is played over and over again at different tempos. Crackdown 2 will offer some fun with big explosions and fun Co-op but suffers multiple major setbacks.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Tiger has courted controversy this year with both poor personal conduct and poor golfing. Luckily, this does not extend to his gaming exploits. PGA Tour 11 introduces a number of new features which not only add further realism but also some much-needed challenge to the proceedings. You can still set the game up in such a way to make birdies and eagles easy to pull-off, but if you prefer a realistic putt you’ll find the new features (such as the focus system, variable wind, and optional true-aim control setup) more than have you covered. Not all of the changes and additions to this year’s game are as significant as these, but most of them are welcome, and given that PGA Tour 10 was so great it’s impressive that its successor can be so easily recommended.

Tiger is still the best Pro-Golfer on the game, but players may find more satisfaction in creating a Custom Golfer.

Players can choose from >25 professional golfers and several novelty characters in PGA Tour 11. While Tiger’s great ratings for power, accuracy, control, and putting make him the obvious best choice, it’s far more rewarding to play as a custom golfer. Not only because digital camera support makes it easy to get your face in the game, but also because custom golfers improve as you earn experience, whereas the stats for other golfers are fixed. You can accumulate EXP across several modes and purchase stat increases & better equipment. The only downside to playing as a custom character is that you have to choose one of 20 rubbish nicknames for spectators to cheer for. Nothing quite detracts from the sense of occasion as you sink a winner on the 18th hole at St. Andrews like hearing some moron cheering for Big Dog, Blammo, or Playa.

After creating your custom golfer, you’re encouraged to complete an eight-step program tutorial that does a great job of curing your addiction introducing you to some of this year’s bigger gameplay changes – while also rewarding you with a decent number of experience points. The most significant addition, which features a number of times during the tutorial, is the concept of player focus. This ingenious system adds a layer of strategy to every shot by limiting the use of player aids. You start each round with a limited amount of focus, and you expend a portion of it anytime you: hit a ball at more than 100 percent strength, apply spin to a ball while it’s in the air, temporarily reduce the size of your targeting circle with the new accuracy boost feature, or use the putt preview. The only way to replenish your focus, which doesn’t happen quickly, is to play shots without using any assists. It’s a superb setup, because it forces you to take advantage of these arguably overpowered aids only when you feel you really need them, rather than using them as crutches for every hole. This raises the question of why this limiter hasn’t been implemented before now.

The new Focus feature makes for a more challenging game.

The final tutorial encourages you to play a hole using the new true-aim control system, which makes the game even more difficult and realistic. The basic controls are unchanged, so you still swing the analog stick back and forth as if it were your club, but most of the aids disappear. A single arrow on the horizon shows where you’re aiming; scattered markers are the only indicators of range and elevation; and draw & fade are applied by changing where you strike the ball rather than using a secondary targeting circle. Another neat touch is that you watch your shots play out as if your head were following the ball. True aim isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great option nevertheless, and since you can use it while playing on any of the four difficulty settings and in almost any mode, there’s no reason not to try it.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 has so many different modes of play to choose from that the menu screens can seem overwhelming. For example, simply hitting “Play Now” takes you to a second menu where you can choose from a dozen traditional modes (including stroke play, match play, bingo bango bongo, four ball) and eight minigames (including capture the flag, target, closest to the pin, T-I-G-E-R). All of these modes are fun and are great for practicing different aspects of your game. Most are best enjoyed by 2-4 players, but there are a few that work just as well when you’re golfing solo.

The crowd will cheer for your golfer, using their name or 1 of 20 nicknames.

Depending on mode you choose, you may choose which of the game’s 17 real-world courses you want to play on before you can start. Alternatively, you can opt to play on a random course composed of holes from different courses, which is a great way to get a feel for just how varied the different locations are. Classics like St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass, and Pebble Beach are joined by five new courses this year (Celtic Manor Resort, The Greenbrier, Liberty National, TPC Scottsdale, and Whistling Straits). If you follow Golf you may notice a couple of these featured as the homes of tournaments in 2010. Extra real-world and fantasy courses are available to download via PSN or Xbox Live – the Wii port has a bumper selection of courses included on-disk instead.

Try online play and you have 10 different gameplay modes to choose from, but sadly none of the minigames are available. You can play against friends, pair up with randomers for ranked matches, and compete in daily, weekly, and play-the-pros tournaments that let you play alone and upload your scores to leaderboards. When playing in tournaments, you can see other players’ names and scores on the leaderboards next to every hole, and a news ticker lets you know when other players have done something significant, which is a nice touch.

Golf never looked so good.

New to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 is online team play; for between 4-24 players. Player’s can choose to represent either the East or West. When enough players have joined the session, everybody gets paired up with an opponent and tees-off at the same time. You can your opponent’s shots, and the shots from any other players who are on the same hole as you. These are shown as vectors tracing each shot. Online team-play is an interesting addition to the game, but getting enough players together at the same time can necessitate extreme patience – often it means that the first players to join have to wait for more to show up. Even if you skip the spurious options that let you choose to play in certain weather conditions or with certain green speeds, you’re much more likely to end up in a four-player team game than a 24-player one.

There are more gameplay options than you could shake a 5-iron at.

Whether you’re playing solo or split-screen on the same console, the new Ryder Cup mode is undoubtedly one of the best modes if you’re not playing as your custom golfer in Career mode. Although the default course to play on is Celtic Manor’s Twenty Ten Course – designed specifically for this year’s event – you can take the Ryder Cup to any course that you like, and before you start playing you can tweak your chosen team’s roster. Because there are barely enough real golfers in the game to fill both rosters, female players such as Paula Creamer and Suzann Pettersen make the cut by default, and if you want to swap them or any of the other players out, there are very few alternatives to choose from unless you dip into the opposing team. It’s possible to select European players for the US team and vice-versa, which is strange to say the least; especially since PGA Tour 11 will let a player represent both teams simultaneously. If you mess with the default rosters too much, the game can have a problem remembering who is playing for which country and when.

Look beyond the shenanigans with the roster and you’ll find that the mixture of foursomes and fourballs in Ryder Cup mode is made greater than the sum of its parts by the fact that when multiple matches are being played simultaneously, you have the option to play as a different team member every time you move to a new hole. As the tournament employs a match play system, it doesn’t matter how many shots you win a hole by – just that you win. So, if you manage to take a two- or three-hole lead as one golfer, it might make sense for you to lend your expertise to another. After every hole, you’re presented with a scoreboard that shows where every player is on the course and whether they’re winning, losing, or tied. Winning a round by one hole is worth as much to the team as winning a round by several holes, so playing through the whole tournament is an interesting balancing act.

Could the inclusion of another golfer on the cover (a first for the PGA Tour franchise) signal a move away from Tiger Woods?

Regardless of which mode and gameplay options you pick, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11’s visuals don’t disappoint. All of the pro players are instantly recognizable, and other than some occasionally odd movements while walking, they’re animated very well. Custom players can look every bit as good provided you don’t go crazy with the editing tools, and depending on your taste in golf gear, you can make them look even better when you start spending your experience points (or real currency, if you prefer) in the pro shop. The courses are even more impressive, with dynamic lighting for different times of day, good-looking weather effects, and grass which moves in the wind along with the trees and even your golfer’s clothing. The camera doesn’t always do a good job of showing you what’s going on when it tries to be clever on the putting green [as ever], but for the most part it does its job so well that you might wish the same coverage was available for the real thing. Sadly, your ears aren’t in for the same treat as your eyes, but at least last year’s appalling commentary has been improved enough that it doesn’t demand to be turned off.

That Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 improves on its predecessor is impressive. That it improves enough to be recommendable without hesitation (even if you own last year’s game) is remarkable. Even if you have little interest in the new Ryder Cup and online team modes, and don’t see yourself playing with the new true-aim system, the introduction of focus along with a host of other less significant improvements out on the course still make this the golf game to own.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.