Online Games » xbox game reviews

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard Review

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 05:29:58 +0000

Not since Bad Day L.A. has a game disappointed me as much as Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard did. Eat Lead isn’t even in the same ballpark of suck that Bad Day L.A. was, but both games were built on a really funny concept that I hoped would be fertile ground for the writers to satirize videogames themselves, and neither came anywhere close to delivering on that promise. Unlike Bad Day L.A., Eat Lead isn’t a complete waste of time. In fact, there are some very likable elements to the gameplay, namely the cover system which is well designed if slightly buggy in implementation (aren’t most cover systems?). The game is very challenging, imploring you to use the cover effectively, especially in boss fights that are more complex than just simple hammering away on a larger enemy. As shooters go it’s definitely B-list. By no means a must-experience, but not a completely worthless affair that will make you break out in hives. The fact that the game plays in a mostly competent manner was a bit of a surprise. Not that my expectations were low – they were actually rather quite high. But mostly for the story, which promised to be a biting satire of videogames and the cliché’s within the medium that are so ripe for skewering. A sharp, witty game that does this is something our industry needs more of. Unfortunately Eat Lead is not one of them. The concept is great. Pseudo aging video game hero comes back for one last payday only to find out that the game he’s starring in has gone corrupt at the hands of a hacker, probably someone inside the faux publisher Marathon Games. That person is trying to kill him, and keeps inserting enemies from Matt Hazard’s made-up catalog of past titles. Cast the gravelly-voiced Will Arnett (Arrested Development’s Gob) as Hazard, Neil Patrick Harris as the weasel-y bad guy and you seem to have a recipe for hilarity. Or one would think. The humor in Eat Lead largely stops with the concept. The writing throughout the game, from the dialogue to the little jokes that pepper the loading pages just isn’t up to the task of making you laugh. You’ll smirk a few times at best, but the unevenness of the approach results in a game that’s more of a broad and unrefined parody rather than a cutting satire. It’s more like the terrible Friedberg-Seltzer movies (Epic Movie, Scary Movie 1-4, etc.) but with less “jokes”. Can’t really blame Arnett or NPH here – they’re two very funny guys who aren’t given much decent material to work with. It’s just sort of amazing that a game with such a blatantly comic premise. The jokes don’t really fall flat because their aren’t that many jokes. Just instances of tired recognition. Oh, I get it, this level boss is from a JRPG and when he talks, it’s all in text boxes that take forever to read. Unfortunately nothing he or Hazard says in their exchange is really funny or witty. It just is. Again, the concept is good, the delivery is almost non-existent. It’s hard to criticize a game that sets itself up as being ironic in the first place. If I say the level design is crappy, or the shooting sucks or the enemies are stupid, all someone who made the game has to say is: “it’s supposed to be, that’s the joke”. I for one won’t be fooled. At heart, Eat Lead is the completely anathema of satire: it’s earnest. It’s actually trying to be a decent shooter. And maddeningly, it sort of is. The cover system, an ubiquitous feature in shooters nowadays, is surprisingly well-designed. Cover is not just about getting behind the closest obstacle, it’s also about chaining your moves between different cover opportunities and doing different quick moves like vaulting over your present blockade. Eat Lead also lets you change hands with your weapon to find different angles from which to shoot enemies while still in cover. It’s a little buggy, not always putting you exactly into cover where you wanted to. But most cover systems like that are. With a little polish, it could stand out over other systems like it, including the granddaddy of the concept, Gears of War. Beyond that the action can get really irritating. Exploding barrels barely explode. You have no grenades even though your enemies do and use them liberally. The weapons are fairly boring, even if squirt guns are a rather inspired choice. The special abilities you can use, fire and ice shot, add some depth to the gameplay but only about a millimeter’s worth. In essence, Eat Lead commits its biggest sin by not being all that much fun. It’s a bummer to see a game with such a great idea at its core turn into such a middling shooter that doesn’t deliver on its creative promise. Eat Lead ends up being a satire of a parody which doesn’t work. For satire, you need to have some connection to real things to make the joke. For instance, the continual jokes about his catchphrase: “It’s Hazard time.” Funny catchphrase in its own right, mainly for its intentional cheesiness, but the jokes that stem off of him using it don’t hit home because we only learned that was his catchphrase at the beginning of the game. The movie this game reminds me the most of is The Last Action Hero. In that movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger parodies himself and his roles as a cheesy action star. Matt Hazard is trying to do much the same thing in Eat Lead, the only problem is, we don’t know who Matt Hazard is, he’s made up. No offense to Will Arnett, but maybe they should have got Arnie to play the role himself. Or perhaps Duke Nukem. Just sayin’. What would have been really cool is if the game kept changing into its older iterations. Enemies from past games should look like they did in those games. The Wafferthin soldiers are straight out of an old 2D FPS, but why do the Russian soldiers from Hazard’s 64-bit era You Only Live 1317 Times look like current-gen technology? Stuff like this sort of erases the interest that you summoned for the original idea and turn the whole experience into just another middle of the road shooter. Maybe the joke is on us.

Source: TeamXbox

Golden Axe: Beast Rider Review

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:50:33 +0000

By Chris Watters Posted Oct 24, 2008 6:36 pm PT This half-hearted revival attempt leaves Golden Axe lifeless and dull. A flashy hero with formidable combat skills sets off on an epic adventure through fantastical environments. Sound familiar? These basic elements are the framework upon which countless action adventure games have been constructed. While many games seem to expand and embellish far beyond this rudimentary foundation, Golden Axe: Beast Rider does not. All of these elements are functional at best, and even the one stab at originality, the eponymous beast riding, is merely average. The result is a disappointing game that, while not broken per se, is so thick with in-your-face mediocrity that the only thing you’ll take away from it is the strong desire to play something else. The face of Golden Axe is Tyris Flare, a woman who, reprising her role from the original Golden Axe, wears an outfit is every bit as fantastical and cliched as the adventure she embarks on. On her journey to avenge the slaughter of her people and slay the archfiend Death Adder (or Death=Adder, if you prefer the erratically used alternate spelling), Tyris will travel through rocky mountains and dry wastelands peppered with enemy strongholds. The limited color palette gives most of the levels a similar feel, though the ancient ruins and massive scenic elements (like the bones of giant beasts) add a bit of variety. Any immersion the setting might engender is negated when you realize that Beast Rider has more invisible walls than a mime convention. At best, these barriers will put a disappointing end to your exploration; at worst, they will shunt you off cliffs or into environmental hazards. So, your adventure ends up being very linear, and the occasionally interesting scenery you’ll see really doesn’t do much to help. Most of your attention will be focused on the myriad enemies you’ll be hacking apart. Gory deaths are the order of the day in Golden Axe, and when you land a death blow you’ll often chop off arms, legs, heads and torsos and be rewarded with geysers of blood. This can be quite satisfying, but the limbs pop off with an incongruously muted clipping sound, and the blood and bodies soon disappear, leaving no evidence of your passing. Once the dust has settled, your only reward is tribute (points, essentially) that goes towards unlocking a few spell upgrades, as well as new swords that can be used when replaying levels. You can increase the tribute you earn by fighting flawlessly, but saying this is difficult would be an understatement. Beast Rider is not an easy game. Many enemies can be dispatched with a flurry of quick and strong attacks, but you’ll need to work in blocks and parries if you hope to survive tougher encounters. When enemies attack you, their weapons flash with a colored light. Blue strikes must be blocked, while orange strikes must be parried. These evasion moves are not interchangeable, so parrying a blue attack will get you a face full of sword. Attacking directly after a successful evasion will do much more damage, and it’s the ebb and flow of evade and strike that makes combat initially engaging. These maneuvers can also trigger particularly brutal counters, though the unclear timing and precision requirements make these a frustrating rarity. Against more difficult foes, post-evasion strikes are the only effective way to deal damage. Tough foes will be armored, which means your attacks will not interrupt theirs until you manage to chop away their protection. To weaken them, you’ll want to attack, but while straight-on assaults may work with lazier enemies, they are tantamount to suicide when facing vigorous foes. It’s like this: Though you can theoretically interrupt your own combos with evasions to avoid your enemy’s strikes, you can’t reliably interrupt your own attack animations, so you’re sure to get slammed if you go in swinging. This means you are better off just waiting for your enemy to attack you and then evading and countering. What kind of action game rewards running up to your opponents and standing still? To make matters worse, the spotty enemy AI will sometimes wait for you to attack first, so you can find yourself hanging around with a bunch of murderous goons waiting for someone to make the first move. There’s certainly a challenge in restraining yourself, perfecting your evasion timing, and trying for high tribute bonuses, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s fun. Magic is also a reliable way to dispatch foes, but mana refills are rare enough that you won’t be able to use your spells too often. Thankfully, beasts are more prevalent, and you’ll spend a good amount of time clomping around on the backs of these hulking monsters. Each can be easily mounted with the press of a button, but you’ll often have to unseat enemy riders first. Your best bet here is a jump kick; attacking the beast directly can force it to throw its rider, but then you’ll be mounting a weakened animal who is closer to gory, blood-spouting death. Setting your enemies alight with the fire-breathing Abrax or tearing through a large group of unsuspecting enemies with the Lynth can be quite satisfying, but using some of the beasts’ special attacks will drain their health. Still, these powerful maneuvers are helpful in a pinch, and using a berserk Mirigore to rend everyone limb from limb is some of the best fun Beast Rider has to offer. Unfortunately, these thrills are tempered by the fact that every beast sounds and handles like a giant, clunky robot. This awkwardness forces you to attack in very specific and limited ways, especially when confronting the aforementioned armored foes whose attacks will still proceed unblocked even when five tons of Krommath comes crashing down on their heads. Though these bungling beasts offer a few moments of fun, they ultimately add to the feeling that the whole game was a missed opportunity. At the very least, the campaign is fairly lengthy and will likely take you upward of 10 hours to complete. There are level-by-level replays and combat arenas if you want still more action, but these bonus modes only highlight the conspicuous absence of the cooperative play that put Golden Axe on the map back in 1989. This baffling omission is par for the course in Beast Rider, a game with lofty potential that ends up wallowing in mediocrity.

Saints Row 2 Review

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:36:01 +0000

By Tom Mc Shea Posted Oct 14, 2008 12:03 am PT Saints Row 2 is crass, immature, and really fun. When the original Saints Row came out two years ago, it served to placate fans until Grand Theft Auto made its next-generation debut. Saints Row’s deviant destruction didn’t push the boundaries of what to expect from a free-roaming urban assault game, but it did provide an enjoyable outlet for consequence-free chaos while never taking itself too seriously. Since then, Grand Theft Auto IV has injected a dose of maturity into its typical sandbox fare, removing many of its outlandish behaviors to create a more grounded portrayal of the gangster lifestyle. Saints Row 2 is not concerned with growing up. It is a morality-free alternative to GTAIV, an unremorseful descent into mindless mayhem. The lack of any major advancement in gameplay or storytelling may elicit a few flashes of deja vu, but the unrepentant joy of terrorizing this humble metropolis makes this a viable palate-cleanser for anyone willing to embrace the role of amoral dirtbag. The story begins in a jail hospital, where you’ve been in a coma ever since a gigantic explosion at the end of the first Saints Row nearly ended your criminal actions permanently. After easily escaping from this lightly guarded compound, you set off to recruit more people to your gang and retake the city of Stilwater. The overarching story is derivative and not easily relatable, but there are some interesting episodes contained within. The Brotherhood missions in particular are quite dark, documenting a tale of vengeance that is sickly satisfying. After putting nuclear waste in their leader’s tattoo ink, you find yourself in a constant battle of one-upmanship. Deaths are taken lightly, propelling you to even more outrageous behavior, but it fits within the context of this over-the-top gameworld. The story never reaches beyond the barbaric needs of its protagonist, but the missions do contain a few worthwhile cinematic payoffs. While you may not be able to affect the outcome of your story, you can design your conqueror in whatever image you desire. The character creation tool is quite extensive. You can drastically change the weight and age of your character, pick from four different races, mold facial features in whatever manner you desire, and even choose if you want a male or female protagonist. With only six different voices to choose from, it can be difficult to accurately match one to whatever look you happen upon, but it’s a small price to pay for the wealth of creative options. You can visit a plastic surgeon at any time to tweak your features, but the process is so in-depth, it’s easier just to choose a look at the beginning and stay with it. The missions are predominantly of the drive-and-shoot variety that has become commonplace in the genre. Though there are three different gangs opposing you, as well as various law enforcement agencies, the only difference between them are the colors they wear and the scumbags who lead them. The majority of missions boil down to raiding a building and killing everyone who moves. While these excursions are usually entertaining, taking place in a variety of locations against increasingly ridiculous odds, the repetition of the actions is undeniable. Some objectives do provide an opportunity to do something a little different, though. For instance, when asked to rob a bank, you find out your prize is not a vault of money, but an even more valuable hostage. This leads to a strong detour in both the story and gameplay, and serves to keep things fresh. And since most missions have a midway checkpoint, you’ll rarely have to start at the very beginning if you make a mistake. Fortunately, the tight controls keep the missions thrilling, even when they exhibit the same objectives. Combat feels especially gratifying in Saints Row 2. Targeting people is quick and precise, so it’s easy to hit someone in the body part of your choosing or whip around to nail an attacker who sneaked up behind you. Without a lock-on ability, the firefights are fast and frantic, relying on your quick fingers to mow down the opposition. The lack of any sort of cover mechanic is disappointing, but its absence places the emphasis on aggression. Though your melee attacks are fairly limited, you do have one extremely handy move in your repertoire. You can grab enemies and use them as a human shield if fights are getting too hectic and just toss them away when you’re done. The exaggerated physics here are hilarious, letting you hurl people 20 feet in the air, watching their rag-doll bodies wildly overreact to every collision. Another reason the missions are fun throughout is the unrestrained freedom in how you can complete them. Enemies can be killed at any time, using any weapon in your arsenal. For instance, the bosses in the game are all just normal human beings. You can choose to pepper them with your pistol if you choose, slowly witling down their life bar as you carefully dodge their attacks. Or you can just ignore typical video game logic and kill them with a few glorious shots from your rocket launcher. This freedom extends to every element in the game, letting you mow down enemies in whatever manner you see fit. Saints Row 2 fully embraces its sandbox moniker, letting you carve your own path of destruction without any arbitrary strings tying you down. Aside from the main missions, there are a bevy of side quests to take part in. These are much more original than the standard missions, so it’s easy to get distracted by these for a while and forget about the story. These activities are where Saints Row 2 completely ignores reality and just lets you have some ridiculous fun. Trail Blazer is probably the most chaotic. Here, you’ll ride an ATV wearing a flaming, fireproof suit. You get a time bonus for lighting cars and people on fire, so you just set out to cause as much destruction as possible. There’s little challenge here (who would oppose a man wearing a flame-drenched suit?), but lighting the world on fire is utterly satisfying. There are a few other tasks that aren’t as fun, but overall, the minigames in Saints Row 2 are excellent and imaginative additions that go a long way toward extending your gameplay. The best diversion is the terrifying zombie uprising. You can access this on the big-screen TV in any of your cribs, and it provides some of the most exciting moments in Saints Row 2. As opposed to an emulation of a 2D arcade game from years past, this is a 3D adventure to save your soul from bloodsucking zombies. It takes place in the dilapidated hotel that serves as your headquarters, and you have to mow down wave after wave of these undead creatures. With a limited number of guns and melee weapons that break after a few hits, you’ll have to constantly run around to evade the threat of these relentless demons. The slow-moving zombies may not seem too scary at first, but as more fill the screen, this becomes an intense and oftentimes exhilarating experience. Being surrounded by a group of zombies as you try to push them away to resurrect your fallen pals is an awesome divergence from the typical inner city mayhem. If killing zombies alone sounds too frightening, you can play through Saints Row 2 with a friend. The co-op is extremely well implemented here. You can hop in or out at any time ,and there aren’t even any chains tethering you to each other. The entire city is open to your crime-wave whims. You can partake in missions and minigames together, or, if you’re not feeling very cooperative, one person can tackle missions while the other drives aimlessly around town buying gas stations. There is a little bit of lag and some problems with cars and pedestrians popping in directly in front of you, but the experience of teaming up with a friend makes these slight hiccups easy to ignore. Just make sure you have an understanding with your cooperative pal; one person’s violent actions will set cops loose on both players, so it’s easy to ruin your buddy’s fun if you set the police on him while he’s peacefully trying to spray-paint walls. Regardless of your friend’s penchant for attracting unwanted attention, it’s preferable to the atrocious friendly AI you have to put up with. These morons get stuck on doors and benches, can’t figure out how to get in your car, and lag far behind you in firefights. Teaming up with a friend makes the already great campaign even better. Competitive multiplayer isn’t quite as engaging as the cooperative portions, but it does provide some excitement in brief bursts. The main mode here is Strong Arm, a team-based affair that pits people in a variety of events. You’ll randomly be assigned to many of the activities found in the campaign mode and you have a few minutes to best the other team before you move on to another event. The racing and capture-the-flag variants are fairly standard, but there are unique events that add some life to these matches. Insurance Fraud is quite chaotic. Here, each team tries to get into the most horrific car accident. The best way to play defense is to simply shoot them dead, so it’s a matter of quickly getting hit by cars before you’re unceremoniously dispatched by your competitors. Strong Arm also utilizes the spray paint mechanic in a novel way. If you successful tag a wall while everyone else is worried about killing each other, you grant bonuses to your team such as more health or causing smoke to pour out of your enemies, making them easier to see. The only other mode is deathmatch, which is just too hectic to offer long-term appeal. The visuals in Saints Row are far from cutting-edge, but at least the experience is smooth both online and off. The frame rate is steady throughout, even in the most frantic firefights. There are also no load times when you enter buildings or drive to a new area, which keeps the game moving at a brisk pace. The physics are as over-the-top as the activities you’ll compete in. Characters fly around as if they’re on the moon, and they flop about like a fish out of water long after you’ve killed them. Unfortunately, the radio stations that provide the background music throughout your quest are quite limited. With only a handful of stations, you’ll be hearing the same songs over and over again. To make matters worse, there aren’t any talk stations, so a part of the comedic appeal is lost. At least the dying screams of your countless victims rings true. Saints Row 2 may not offer a sizable leap in the sandbox genre, but that doesn’t diminish its fun. From beginning to end, this is one of the most fun urban chaos games out there. The controls are so tight and the combat so satisfying, you’ll frequently find yourself getting distracted from the campaign as you cause terror all over the city. With great cooperative integration, tons of unique activities, and a super cool zombie mode, Saints Row 2 will keep you happily creating havoc for a long time.

Infinite Undiscovery Review

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:12:21 +0000

By Bethany Massimilla Posted Sep 2, 2008 6:40 pm PT Infinite Undiscovery feeds your need for narrative, but it’s ultimately a shallow, flawed experience. Role-playing games strike a tricky balance between gameplay and narrative that is easy to take for granted when everything goes together correctly. Infinite Undiscovery is sadly an example of how flawed design and myriad imperfections can mar an otherwise enjoyable adventure. Square Enix manages to provide the frame of a role-playing game epic that falls short on execution. The world of Infinite Undiscovery is influenced heavily by the moon, which is home to a god who is revered as a source of magical blessing. Humans who are born under auspicious moon phases are tattooed with sigils known as Lunaglyphs, which grant power and the ability to cast spells. Everything’s in disarray because a group called the Order of the Chains has shackled the moon to the earth, disrupting the normal flow of power and bringing the two heavenly bodies on a collision course. The people’s only hope is Sigmund the Liberator, a man with the ability to cut the chains and restore the world to normal. Capell, the protagonist, is a cowardly musician who mysteriously is a twin to Sigmund in appearance, which gets him unwillingly wrapped up in the troubles of nations. All of the characters are well defined, and it’s easy to come to know and grow fond of them through the game’s preponderance of narrative cutscenes (some silly dialogue notwithstanding). Whether it’s Capell getting thoroughly browbeaten by the idealistic princess Aya, the adorable scamps Rico and Rucha chatting in excitement, or the serene priest Eugene offering some sage insight while adjusting his glasses, you’re always learning something new about the characters and their motivations. You’ll have close to 20 playable characters by the end, and though some are better fleshed out than others, many are likable. The narrative itself is engaging but at the same time feels a little light on depth, some of which is due to the gameworld. Wedged between all of the storytelling mania is the gameplay, which sees you roaming the world in search of chains to smash and people to aid. One of the problems with both the world zones and many of the dungeons in the game is that you’re often given very loose guidance about where to travel (such as “south”), and the areas themselves are huge and can be lengthy. Combine winding paths that have multiple nooks and crannies with a mapping system that relies on you discovering areas in very narrow swaths, and the whole thing feels less like exploring a world and more like a way to make you wander around and cut through enemies. With such huge outdoor zones, there are a surprisingly small number of towns to visit, which makes the lands that you wander through feel empty and lonely. You’ll also have to retrace your steps quite a bit, which will get tiresome around the fifth time that you’ve had to cross the same desert. Battle is completely real-time and action-oriented. You’ll always be controlling Capell, and you have a few simple AI settings for your party members that you can cycle through using the D pad. Once you’re in range, you’ll target the nearest enemy–but it’s not an autolock for attack purposes, so you’ll have to continually move around to try to score hits on mobile foes. This is somewhat of a pain if you’re trying to connect with an ability that involves a lengthy animation. Capell can execute quick attacks and strong slashes, and you can bind two special skills that will be activated when you hold down the A or B button. Attacking an enemy in succession will start a combo meter that you can build through your own hits and those of your friends. Using the connect feature, you can issue orders on the fly to a specific ally to use his or her special attacks, which is good for combo-building or solving some of the game’s dungeon puzzles. The X button will play your flute, which lets you perform various tunes that will reveal hidden passages or enemies, or shield your party from harmful magic. The action is fast-paced and can be quite satisfying when you’re unleashing large combo strings, but there are some problems. One is the camera, which is zoomed in so close that you can’t see a lot of your field of action without panning around regularly, particularly if you’re hemmed into a corner. Your view is also often obscured by an orgy of sword slices and light effects from special attacks, which can trigger some graphical slowdown. You can use the Y button to call for your party members to use healing spells or items, but occasionally they’ll take their own sweet time getting it done, leading to their deaths. If you take matters into your own hands and have to open the menu during battle, you have to run to a hopefully safe location because the menu doesn’t pause the game while you’re sorting through and trying to find your favorite restorative. Another fun twist is that if you die, you have to just lie there and hope that one of your party members is able to cast a resurrection spell or use an item at some point while your timer ticks down, otherwise it’s game over. Once Capell goes down, you cannot issue orders, access the menu, or do anything else until you come back to life, no matter how many of your party members are still up and running around. In addition to normal fights, there are a few timed events in which you’ll have to complete an objective while simultaneously fighting against the clock. Frustratingly, these events can be nested in other battles that are already a good distance from a save point, and if you fail then you’ll have to restart from your last save. The same is true of boss battles, an archaic bit of punishment that really saps your momentum while you painstakingly retrace your steps. Despite all of the loopy paths and redundant dungeons, as well as the sudden-fail conditions and game-over screens that force you to slog onward and repeat content, and cutscenes that like to cascade over one another every few steps, this game is short by RPG standards. At about 20 hours, it’s just not that meaty, even with multiple difficulty settings and a sprinkling of side quests and item creation to tinker with. Visually, there’s some nice architecture in the world’s castles and fortresses, gleaming marble floors and statuary, and metalworking detail on gates. Outdoor, natural-type environments are a little muddy and bland. Spell details look very nice for your own abilities and those of your foes, with lots of powerful slashes, explosions, swirling shadows, and such. Character models are detailed in armor and appearance, and every so often characters will narrow their eyes and tilt their heads and there’s a sense of very natural movement and expression. Much of the time, however, the characters’ lips seem to move independently of the rest of their faces in a very odd way; lip-synching is also almost nonexistent. In fact, there are sometimes whole sentences of conversation that go by without the speaker moving his or her lips at all. The voice acting holds up very well on the whole; each of the main characters has a voice that fits him or her very well, and aside from some emotionally overwrought moments, they manage to hit the proper tone for their scenes. Some of the secondary roles fall a little flat and wooden, and some of the dialogue is positively dopey. The orchestral score is mostly lovely, with rousing battle themes and background music that does its job of setting tone and otherwise not bothering you. Infinite Undiscovery has all the trappings of a mighty adventure, but it lacks the true soul. Some of that energy is siphoned off by a largely empty and repetitious world, some of it is drained by faulty scenario design, and much of it isn’t allowed real depth because of the relatively short length. It’s easy to grow fond of the characters and become involved in their plight, but the narrative is only one part of the whole.