Various Businees and Games Update

Euro Rally in Forex Trading

2011-12-03T05:03:00.001-08:00

Euro is rallying after some earlier weakness as positive sentiment returns to the Forex market. Hopes for ECB/IMF money, as well as good news out of the US, are helping the 17-nation currency.

Earlier, the euro weakened as sentiment turned a little negative. US dollar made some gains, but those are being erased as the euro rallies on the latest round of news. There are rumors that the ECB will lend money to embattled eurozone countries via the IMF. This news is prompting hopes that eurozone countries will be able to get themselves out of the current mess.

On top of that, Forex traders are responding favorably to the latest economic news out of the US. November nonfarm payrolls show that the 120,000 jobs were added to the economy in November. Between this uptick in jobs, and evidence that US consumers are ready to spend this holiday season, it appears that America’s economy is slowly recovering.

This news is prompting some risk appetite, and encouraging the euro to head higher in Forex trading. How long the current sentiment will last is up for debate, but, for now, the euro is doing well enough.

At 15:08 GMT EUR/USD is higher at 1.3474, up from the open at 1.3462. EUR/GBP is up to 0.8599 from the open at 0.8580. EUR/JPY is higher at 104.9885, up from the open at 104.6050.

If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Euro, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.

Canadian Dollar Erases Daily Gains

2011-12-03T05:02:00.001-08:00

The Canadian dollar retreated, losing its initial gains, after the report showed that the Canadian employment declined instead of rising as was predicted and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased.

The Canadian employment was expected to rise by 18,100 jobs, but instead it decline by almost the same amount (18,600 on the seasonally adjusted basis) in November. The unemployment rate edged up from 7.3 percent to 7.4 percent, while market participants hoped it to stay unchanged.

Earlier, the loonie (as Canada’s currency is nicknamed) gained on the rumors about the proposal of the European governments to channel loans for supporting the Euro-region through the International Monetary Fund. The European central banks are forbidden to directly finance the nations’ budget, but directing money to the most-indebted nations through the IMF would allow the banks to help the battle with the debt crisis without violating the rules. The rumors speak about as much as €200 billion that may be channeled through the IMF to the debt-laden European countries.

USD/CAD advanced from 1.0137 to close at 1.0191, following the earlier drop to 1.0078. CAD/JPY fell from 76.58 to the closing price of 76.40, while intraday it reached 77.33, the highest rate since November 4.

If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Canadian Dollar, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.

Swiss Franc Drops on Talks About Another Intervention

2011-12-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

The Swiss franc declined as Switzerland signaled that it’s may take steps to further weaken then nation’s currency, which is already subdued by its peg to the euro.

The Swiss National Bank set the ceiling for the franc at 1.20 francs per euro on September 6. The SNB was trying to weaken the Swiss currency for several years, but it was the first time when the central bank was able to contain Swissie’s gains for a prolonged time.

The SNB also suggested that it may boost the cap further in case it would view the strength of the franc as excessive. And the Swiss central bank was continuously stating that it considers the currency overvalued. It’s no surprise that the government decided to support the central bank and signaled that it’s going to ”examine the feasibility of supporting measures”. The SNB itself stated that it would sell “unlimited quantities” of the currency to trim the franc’s appreciation.

USD/CHF closed at 0.9209, rising from 0.9156, while EUR/CHF closed at 1.2334, slightly above its opening level of 1.2325. CHF/JPY was down from 84.80 to 84.54.

If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Swiss Franc, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.

Taxation of insurance premiums and benefits 101

2011-11-15T07:06:00.001-08:00

As tax season looms upon us yet again, I encourage you to verify with your accountant that your insurance premiums are being paid tax efficiently while optimizing the benefits you would receive if you made a claim. Most importantly, you want to ensure your method of paying premiums is onside with Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

If you are not incorporated, your insurance premiums are paid using your after-tax dollars. The benefits you receive are generally non-taxable and the premiums are not tax deductible, except for office overhead insurance, where premiums can be deducted on your personal T1 and benefits are taxable when received.

If you’re incorporated, insurance premium accounting becomes more complex. Incorporated physicians often use their company to pay for the majority of their expenses, including insurance premiums. Your company’s ability to pay for and deduct premiums from BCMA group and individual insurance plans depend on the type of product.

Taxation of benefits
Negotiated benefit payments (CME, CMPA, CPRSP, PLP and REAP) are considered taxable benefits and as such a T4A is issued for any amounts paid in the calendar year. Note that you are able to deduct the corresponding costs as an expense on your income tax return.

For example, for CPRSP your financial institution will forward the appropriate income tax contribution receipts directly to you and therefore the net effect of this benefit will be nil for tax purposes. For CME and CMPA, your cost to attend a course on liability insurance will usually exceed the amount of your benefit.

A T4A will not be issued if:
• CME, CMPA, REAP—the benefit is paid to your corporation.
• CPRSP—the contribution is deposited to a corporation for IPP holdings.

Life insurance
You can pay life premiums through the corporation if the beneficiary is the same corporation. If your beneficiary is not your corporation (perhaps it’s your spouse or child), your corporation should issue a taxable benefit to you personally for the premium or the death benefit may become taxable at time of claim.

Although the premiums can be paid by your corporation, the premiums are usually not a tax-deductible expense; premiums are added back to the net income of the company. Corporate-paid life premiums are tax deductible only if the insurance is assigned to a loan at the request of the lender.

Disability insurance
Your corporation can pay for disability insurance premiums and deduct them as an expense, but the benefit you receive would be taxable. If disability insurance premiums are employer paid, you can purchase a higher level of coverage to take into account the taxes payable when the benefits are received.

More commonly, you would receive a taxable shareholder or employee benefit for the disability premiums so that when you make a claim the benefit amount is non-taxable to you. An employee taxable benefit is a tax-deductible expense to the company, whereas a shareholder taxable benefit is not. Your accountant can differentiate if a taxable shareholder or employee benefit is appropriate for you.

Critical illness
Similar to disability insurance, if you do not receive a taxable benefit for critical illness premiums paid by the corporation, the benefit can be fully taxable as income when it is received. Since a critical illness benefit is paid as a lump sum, you definitely want to avoid giving almost half your benefit away to CRA.

Professional office overhead insurance
This type of insurance reimburses eligible office expenses like rent, employee salaries, and equipment leases. The premiums are paid by the corporation and are a tax-deductible expense. Although the benefits received are considered taxable income, the office expenses that the benefits reimbursed would be deductible, placing you in a neutral tax position.

Health and dental insurance
These premiums are a tax-deductible expense to your corporation, and the benefits you receive are tax free. If you belong to the BCMA Health Benefits Trust Fund (HBTF) Core-Plus Plan, your corporation can pay for the actual medical expense, which is then tax deductible. This ability to pay for and deduct health care expenses directly through the HBTF Core-Plus Plan can be more cost effective than partial reimbursements from traditional health and dental plans that may have high premiums.

You can see that it’s beneficial to take a closer look at how you pay premiums—the tax savings or loss can be substantial. If you find you’ve been paying premiums inefficiently, there are usually ways to correct past mistakes and implement optimal bookkeeping procedures going forward. The information we’ve provided is general guidance for you to assess if you’re on the right track. For your personal tax situation, please consult your accountant.
—Julie Kwan, BBA, CFP, CLU, GBA

October 9th earthquake – insurance update

2011-11-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

What does this new event mean for new insurance cover?

Sunday 9th October saw another significant aftershock, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5, hit Christchurch. As you may be aware, the October 9th event was the most significant earthquake since the 13 June. Fortunately this event did not cause anywhere near the level of damage the 13 June event did, although there are reports of damage.

So what does this new event mean for new insurance cover and does this mean another 28 day stand down period?

On the advice of the Insurance Council, it is worth contacting individual insurers directly regarding their intentions. However, indications from the councils members were that the October 9th event had not caused widespread damage. As a result, the situation for insurers had not really changed. The majority of insurers are declining new cover that will expose them to increased risk but they are prepared to work with existing customers on a case by case basis. For example; where an existing customer of an insurer buys a new property in another zone, most insurers are very keen to write new cover as soon as possible. The situation is being continuously reviewed by the insurance companies.

The Council said that the October 9th event may affect rebuilds to the extent that it would slow the rebuild process initially as rebuilds are more vulnerable to events of this magnitude.

The EQC also announced on Monday that the earthquake will be treated as a new event for insurance purposes.

China to control shadow banking and private lending

2011-10-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has said it is looking to curb the rise of shadow banking and private lending in the country.

Liu Mingkang, chairman of CBRC, said the commission was taking measures to ensure such activities do not put the financial system at risk.

There have been concerns that private loans are hurting the government's effort to control lending.

Some estimates put private loans at 4 trillion yuan ($627bn; £406bn).

Recent moves by Chinese authorities to slow credit growth in the country has given rise to shadow banking and private lending, where rich individuals and businesses lend money to individuals and other companies.

These loans come with exorbitant interest rates, ranging from 14% to as much as 70%.

Mr Liu said the commission was "strictly against shadow banks and the risks associated with private financing".

Asset bubbles

“Start Quote

Through unremitting efforts, the latest stress test results show that China's banking industry is in general control of real-estate risk”

End Quote Liu Mingkang CBRC

In recent years, as the global economy grappled with the financial crisis, Chinese banks lent out record sums of money to ensure the country's growth momentum was sustained.

In 2009 and 2010, banks in China issued a combined 17.5tn yuan of new loans.

However, the surge in lending was followed by a rise in property prices, raising concerns about the formation of assets bubbles in the country.

There have been fears that a fall in the real estate market may see a rise of bad debt amongst the Chinese banks and trigger a slowdown in the country's overall economic growth.

However, Mr Liu said that the ratio of non-performing real estate loans was less than 2%, and it continued to fall in many areas.

"Through unremitting efforts, the latest stress test results show that China's banking industry is in general control of real-estate risk," he said.

Government debt

The other big concern about China's financial sector has been the huge number of loans extended by the banks to local governments.

According to the CBRC, these loans totalled 10.7tn yuan in 2010, or 80% of bank lending.

In June, ratings agency Moody's warned that "economic non-performing loans could reach between 8% and 12% of total loans".

However, China's banking regulator said that the local governments were in a strong financial position and would be able to service their commitments.

"The overall stability of local revenue, through its own economic development and financial growth, and the medium and long term solvency of governments at all levels, continues to increase," Mr Liu said.

He added that revenues have increased by 21.3% last year.

Europe's bankers resisting bigger debt losses

2011-10-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Following yet another failed round of talks to head off a Greek debt default, it is increasingly clear that European bankers are about to get a big haircut.

And they’re embracing the idea about as well as a squirming 3-year-old.

European political and financial leaders have set an Oct. 23 deadline to come up with yet another set of proposals to resolve a debt crisis that threatens the send the continental into a deep and painful recession. After months of failed efforts to help the Greek government make good on those debts, Europe’s politicians have now finally accepted that avoiding default simply isn’t feasible, according to Paul De Grauwe, professor of international economics at Leuven University.

“Everyone agrees today that the Greek government will not be able to pay its debt,” he said. “And we had better face that fact and start that process of restructuring - and haircuts that will allow Greece to have a lighter debt burden”

That “haircut” for bankers and other holders of Greek debt means accepting less than 100 cents on the euro. The question European leaders are wrestling with is: How big a hair cut will it take to stabilize Greece’s budget?

European leaders thought they had reached a working solution in July, when the European Union agreed to a series of endlessly-debated proposals that include, among others, a “voluntary” swap of Greek debt for newly-issued bonds that would force bankers to take a loss of 20 percent. The hope was that a voluntary plan would dodge the legal definition of an outright default.

That distinction is critical. A legal default could reverberate through the financial markets because it would trigger a wave of claims on a debt loss insurance known as credit default swaps. Uncertainty about the size of swaps holdings, and which investors and banks held them, were a central cause of the global financial Panic of 2008.

Three months later, it appears the July plan doesn’t go far enough. Now, bankers who face much bigger losses are pushing back on proposals that they cut the value of their Greek debt holdings by as much as 50 percent. Many banks are believed to have too little capital in reserve to covers those losses, prompting calls by regulators to force bankers to raise more capital.

Without stronger capital cushions to withstand Greek debt losses, European governments fear they’ll have to step in to clean up the financial mess. Earlier this month, France and Belgium took over the failed bank Dexia after it’s investment losses burned through the last of its cash.

Faced with the prospect of seeing the value of their Greek bonds cut in half, European bankers are not going quietly. On Thursday, Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann warned that the combination of stricter capital requirements and deeper losses on bond holdings would force bankers to write fewer loans.

"A question remains over whether banks will be able to provide financing, or whether possible haircuts in the euro zone and the new regulatory environment will practically force them to be restrictive," Ackermann told a conference of corporate executives in Berlin. "We need to find the right balance between stricter regulation of the financial sector and the impacts these have on the economy as a whole."

A credit crunch couldn’t come at a worse time for the European economy, which is now teetering on the brink of another recession. That, in turn, is raising debt pressures on other countries with weak economies, including Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Unless those economies recover sharply, their governments will likely have to follow Greece down the path of debt restructuring, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff told a group of business reporters Friday.

While a Greek debt restructuring may now be unavoidable, it will represent the beginning of a long, difficult period of recovery as investors stop lending to the Greek government. Jittery lenders and investors may also have second thoughts about lending to countries now seen as being at risk of a future default, according to Roger Nightingale, economist at RDN Associates.

“It’s going to be pretty frightful,” he said. “There’ll be no private sector lending to Greece, and they’ll be no private sector lending to any at-risk country for years to come. I think this is no solution at all. This makes things very much worse.”

Health Insurance : What is it?

2011-10-05T00:29:00.001-07:00

The term health insurance is generally used to describe a form of insurance that pays for medical expenses. It is sometimes used more broadly to include insurance covering disability or long-term nursing or custodial care needs. It may be provided through a government-sponsored social insurance program, or from private insurance companies. It may be purchased on a group basis (e.g., by a firm to cover its employees) or purchased by individual consumers. In each case, the covered groups or individuals pay premiums or taxes to help protect themselves from high or unexpected healthcare expenses. Similar benefits paying for medical expenses may also be provided through social welfare programs funded by the government.

Health insurance works by estimating the overall risk of healthcare expenses and developing a routine finance structure (such as a monthly premium or annual tax) that will ensure that money is available to pay for the healthcare benefits specified in the insurance agreement. The benefit is administered by a central organization, most often either a government agency or a private or not-for-profit entity operating a health plan.

Cutting Out Uncovered Medical Expenses

2011-10-05T00:28:00.001-07:00

Although Medicare has proven to be a valuable service especially in terms of assisting in medical related expenses and has become an integral element in health planning for senior citizens, the fact remains that it was not designed as a one stop medical requirement coverage. Taking into account the rising healthcare costs, the number of expenses that are not shouldered by Medicare like outpatient hospital services, deductibles, physician’s professional fees and co-insurances are but some of the increasing expenses that a patient has to shoulder himself. Unless a patient is equipped with supplemental coverages for health insurance, the only place this payment is coming from would be from the patient’s pocket.

For this reason, the AFL-CIO was established for the welfare and interest of the retired worker’s groups for providing affordable insurance coverage in terms of Retiree Health which is described as a supplemental coverage of Medicare.

Equity Update

2011-09-25T08:31:00.001-07:00

Devil’s stocks outperform!, we now take a deeper look at the Casino/Gaming industry. As we highlighted in that article, Casino/Gaming stocks have underperformed versus the MSCI world index over the past five years, but there are great divergences within the industry.

Casino/gambling stocks can be divided into traditional casinos being: 1) actual casinos with related hotels and restaurants; and 2) online gambling, which are pure play online companies offering betting on sports, poker and casino.

In charts 1 and 2 we show the 1 year performance of the MSCI index and the share price development of online gambling companies and traditional casinos, respectively.

While all the traditional casino stocks in chart 2 have outperformed the MSCI world index, some of the online gambling companies have underperformed significantly (chart 1), namely Bwin and Sportingbet losing significant value (60 percent and 20 percent, respectively). Much of the online gambling underperformance stems from licensing rounds in Europe. The best performers within traditional casinos, on the other hand, are driven by emerging market growth (Macau).

Looking at risk (Net debt/EBITDA) and valuation (P/E) in chart 3, Online gambling companies stand out with negative net debt levels (positive cash holdings). Looking at chart 3 on a stand alone basis, bet-at-home appears most attractive, due to its low valuation and negative net debt. The more expensive traditional casinos, such as Wynn Resorts or Sands China, have higher growth expectations over the next three years, and therefore are traded at higher multiples.

So as an investor, the choice is either to go for cheaper online companies (with the licence round risk) or the traditional casinos riding the Macau growth wave.

Stong USD To Come, While Global Stocks Are Falling

2011-09-25T08:30:00.001-07:00

Global stock market extended losses during Asian hours after poor number in US jobs reported on Friday and continuing sovereign debt concerns. HSI is down more than 2.8%, NIKKEI -1.8% CHINA -1.9% and KOSPI more than 4% in red.
Based on he wave structure shown on S&P500, oil and Treasurys, we believe that risky assets are headed lower in this week. As such, we US dollar should strengthen in this week against the other major currencies.
Usd/Chf intra-day
Usd/Chf formed an extended wave v) within wave (a) about we warned you in the past intra-day update. well, price as we can see recovered quite sharply from 0.7710 so we think that an impulsive decline from the top is complete and that three-wave corrective bounce is underway, which will be a blue wave (b). we will be looking for another sell-off once we will be able to recognize end of a corrective recovery, which may find resistance somewhere around 0.80.
Aud/Usd intra-day
Aussie moved nicely lower from 1.0786 where pair shows evidence of a larger completed corrective recovery. In fact, even a sell-off from the pick appears impulsive, so we believe that this pair is headed even lower. As such, we favor higher US dollar while pair trades below 1.0768.
Forex Analysis by Gregor Horvat at ForexPros. com

What are games?

2011-08-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

What are games?

Games are a structured means of interacting with other people. (In some cases, a game player might be interacting with a computer or a deck of cards instead.) Games overlap with activities like puzzles. For example, is solitaire a game? What about a crossword puzzle? Or a jigsaw puzzle?

As far as we're concerned, the specific definition of "games" is pretty explicit. This site focus on some specific games types, mostly board games, card games, and roleplaying games right now, but we have plans to expand our coverage to include all types of games, including dice games, party games, trivia games, etc.

Here are some traits that we think all types of games have in common:

Players - All games have players, even solitaire games, which have on player.
Structure - Think of structure as a set of rules for a game. No rules? No game. Even the simplest types of games, like tic-tac-toe, have rules.
Goals - All games have some kind of goal. In Monopoly, a player's goal is to bankrupt the other players. In Scrabble, the goal is to score more points than your opponent.

Gaming Skills Become a College Course

2011-08-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

Problem-solving skills used in one of -- if not the most -- popular real-time strategy games of all time are not unlike those used in the 21st Century real world. At least that is the song that the University of Florida is singing.

The school, located in Gainesville, Florida, is offering a two-credit honors couse titled, "21st century Skills in Starcaft." The eight-week class "does not teach about Starcraft," but combines weekly gameplay, analysis of recorded matches and "synthesis of real/game-world concepts," to develop workplace skills.

Part of the course description for the interdisciplinary honors course reads:

"With society becoming increasingly technology-based and fast-paced, it is important for professionals to be highly proficient in skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making. These skills are fundamental in Starcraft and therefore make the game a highly effective environment for students to analyze and take action in complex situations."

The course is open to twenty students that have access to a Mac or PC, Internet access outside the school labs and experience playing the popular game. (No noobs allowed.)

The class is taught by Nathaniel Poling, a doctoral student in the school's department of education. He recently told the MIT Technology Review:

"In StarCraft you're managing a lot of different units and groups of different capacities. It's not a stretch to think of that in the business world or in the work of a healthcare administrator."

In other words, don't use a Dragoon to do the job of a Zealot.

Let's hope the curriculum includes other important tidbits, such as the tip that playing the game for 50 hours with little sleep or food can be bad for your health.

This isn't Blizzard Entertainment's first foray into the world of higher education. Last year, the University of California at Berkeley started offering a course in competitive Starcraft playing.

Child of Eden – Review (Xbox 360 / Kinect)

2011-07-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

Child of Eden is a prequel to Rez and is from Q Entertainment and designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Rez was title released in 2001 that garnered high scores from reviewers and even higher praise from its fans but since it was so unique and different, it was quickly relegated to niche status. Fan of the title feared that they would never get another title but a glimmer of hope in 2007 gave them Rez HD, which was an updated version of their beloved game. Finally now almost a decade after the launch of its predecessor, Child of Eden has been released. Can this match the expectations of the Rez fan base while bringing in a new audience?

Child of Eden refers to the birth of a person within a construct known as Eden. Eden is similar our internet but it contains all of human knowledge and the latest project is to recreate the personality of Lumi, the first human born in space, within it. As fate would have it, as the project starts reaching its final stages, a virus invades the system and threatens everything. It’s up to you to head in and purify the invaders and protect Lumi. It’s quite a simple premise that lasts little more than a paragraph in the intro sequence of the game but gives you enough reason to make it through the title.

Child of Eden is an on-rails shooter with a slight influence from the music game genre. The path through each level is largely the same but you have the freedom to control the first-person camera and look anywhere except directly behind you. There are two weapon types, an automatic weapon and a lock-on and fire weapon. The differences are conveyed by pink and blue cursors respectively. The former weapon is easier to use and is constantly firing. The latter can lock onto several enemies at once and unleash the attack all at once. If you match the beat of the music when you fire, you can build your multiplier and hence score more points. At the end of each level, you’re rated up to five stars and they are used to unlock subsequent levels so it’s in your best interest to do well. Thankfully, the prerequisites to unlock new levels are not that severe and will at most require you to replay a level once or twice. On the flip side, there are only five levels with a bonus challenge level unlocking at the end. While the hardcore may not have an issue with this and will duke it out on the leader boards, for the casual gamers, the game will feel short. Each level may take up to approximately 15 minutes, so run the math.

The advertised way to play this game is with the Xbox 360 Kinect camera but this system has been marred in controversy as to if it’s a good control method. In Child of Eden, you use your left arm to fire the automatic weapon and use your right to lock-on and with a push gesture, unleashes the missiles. There is a single type of power-up in this title and that’s a bomb. Occasionally through the title, you’ll have a special target that if you hit, will add it to your inventory. With Kinect, raising both hands unleashes it and devastates anything on screen. This all sounds nice but the question remains, does it work well. Yes. It does. To an extent though. There is a learning curve that takes about a half hour to get it down solid and you still get occasional issues. Sometimes it has issues switching from hand to hand. Sometimes it doesn’t take the lock-on fire push gesture on first pass. But the reticule is lag-free and fairly precise. You’ll still have the occasional issue hitting a specific target but overall the Kinect control style works really well and is quite immersive.

Now, if you want a traditional experience, you can use the normal Xbox 360 controller. This experience is much more predictable. There are no mistakes other than what the user does. No moments of frustrations that may mare the Kinect experience. This way to play feels good. The automatic weapon requires you to pull the trigger and you still control a reticule. Using the lock-on weapon feels much better and more predictable here. You can build your multiplier much easier. Making the switch from one to the other will be jarring. Kinect provides the better immersion and overall experience but if you’re going to delve deeper and start competing on the leaderboards, it feels like the controller will be better. There are different leaderboards for each control method though so you will not be penalized by using one over the other.

The graphics lie within the realm of abstract. At the beginning of this generation there was a little known Xbox Live Arcade title called Geometry Wars and the same amazement I had then translates here. The same bright colors and abstract shapes don the levels you visit. The camera can be used to freely look around so you can admire everything. Certain enemies are color coded for certain weapons but unless you’ve been playing the game, you’d never know. They blend right into the art style. At times, video will be played in the levels which drifts between cheesy and cool but taken within the context of everything, is easy to accept. Overall the visual style is excellent, keeps you engaged, and something different from all the grays and browns that dominate the palettes of today’s games.

Child of Eden is something that’s a bit different from the status quo. These types of games do not come often. It’s quite similar to Rez with tweaks of its own, which will please the fans but since it’s so different, Child of Eden will most likely be relegated to niche title status. On the upside, it’s the best Kinect title yet. The abstract graphics are mesmerizing, and the music is awesome. But with only 5 levels plus a challenge mode, the longevity is not there. You’ll definitely want to replay some of the levels but only the truly hardcore will keep coming back for more and more. When the price drops down the argument will be a lot easier to make that this game should be gotten. It’s unique, different, and very entertaining, just a bit costly at launch.

What is PEGI?

2011-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

What is PEGI?

The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was established to help European parents make informed decisions on buying computer games. It was launched in spring 2003 and replaced a number of national age rating systems with a single system now used throughout most of Europe, in 30 countries (Austria Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Cyprus, France, Israel, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom)

The system is supported by the major console manufacturers, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as by publishers and developers of interactive games throughout Europe. The age rating system was developed by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).

What are ratings?

2011-07-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

What are ratings?

Age ratings are systems used to ensure that entertainment content, such as films, videos, DVDs, and computer games, are clearly labelled by age according to the content they contain. Age ratings provide guidance to consumers (particularly parents) to help them decide whether or not to buy a particular product.

Computer and video games are now enjoyed by millions of players throughout Europe. In the UK, 37 % of the population aged between 16 and 49 describe themselves as ‘active gamers’ (defined as currently playing games on a console, handheld or PC). In comparison, in Spain and Finland 28% of the population aged 16 and 49 are defined as ‘active gamers’(Nielsen report 2008). While most games (49%) are suitable for players of all ages there are many that are only suitable for older children and young teenagers. There are also some games (4%) that are made for adults only (over the age of 18).

The rating on a game confirms that it is suitable for players over a certain age. Accordingly, a PEGI 7 game is only suitable for those aged seven and above and an PEGI 18 game is only suitable for adults aged eighteen and above. The PEGI rating considers the age suitability of a game, not the level of difficulty.

PEGI is used and recognised throughout Europe and has the enthusiastic support of the European Commission. It is considered to be a model of European harmonisation in the field of the protection of children.

How Team Fortress 2 Will Be Ruined By Going Free-To-Play

2011-07-05T21:33:00.001-07:00

Of all the groups that consume media, people who play video games are easily the most obnoxious, entitled, and dickish. When you think about it, this is probably a logical extension of the interactive nature of games. Other media is passive, but when you directly control some element of the end product it makes sense that you'd become more invested and therefore more likely to question the creator.

Players have proclaimed the ruination of Team Fortress 2 at every opportunity. First they hated the class updates. Then they claimed that hats killed the experience because, you see, there were hats in the game. Although the mechanics hadn't changed, the fact that people could randomly win or purchase hats meant that the entire game was crumbling. With all those hats, it was impossible to aim guns, run around levels, and shoot people. Team Fortress 2 had simply become a hat simulator.

Now that Team Fortress 2 has officially become the first good game to adapt a free-to-play model, it is COMPLETELY RUINED according to internet jerks. Here's why.

With the sudden influx of new players, the game might become more popular than it had been in recent months. People who enjoyed the game as a quiet little cult favorite will now have to put up with all the riff raff as Team Fortress 2 sells out.
If people don't have to pay to get in, how will they know the value of a perfectly placed meatspin.gif tag?
More people means more hats. Hats totally ruin everything.
"Um, excuse me but I bought this game and enjoyed it. If everyone else is getting it for free I demand a refund!"
This is clearly a stunt to trick more people into installing Steam. Gaming as a whole will lose, as the Steam platform is terribly unfair to consumers and publishers, unlike EA's Origin, which offers download insurance at reasonable prices.
With so many additional players waiting to get into servers, it will be harder to get away with switching away from a losing team without being kicked.
New people can't play as well as experienced people. They should just go away so the community can become smaller and more impossible, rather than staying and becoming better like you did several years ago.
What's next, free Left 4 Dead and Portal content? Ugh.
There's only so much ammo in the Team Fortress universe. These new guys are going to hog it all, I just know it.
If Valve has to focus on all the free players, what are the chances we'll ever get a "Meet The Control Point" video?
The chances of us getting the long-rumored Play By Email option are now pretty much zilch.
Giving the game away for free sounds nice, but what if the new people want computers to play the game on? Won't they expect those to be free too? I'm not giving them my money. Fuck you, Valve.

Gemini Rue Review

2011-06-22T23:47:00.003-07:00

Gemini Rue is a look back to a bygone era. From its 2D pixel art to its point-and-click controls, this is a game cut from the cloth of Sierra's classic adventure games of the early '90s. Created almost entirely by UCLA student Joshua Nuernberger, Gemini Rue was picked up by indie publisher Wadjet Eye Games late in development. The final release is a gripping science fiction thriller that weaves an amazing tale across two storylines. Unfortunately, what you're doing in between these story segments isn't as inspired, but it's worth pressing on just to see what happens next.

Some problems have multiple solutions.

Like its name suggests, Gemini Rue divides your time between two protagonists. Half of the time is spent as Azriel Odin, an ex-assassin on an intergalactic hunt for his missing brother. His search has led him to the planet Barracus, which is locked in a seemingly permanent rainstorm. The other half is spent as the mysterious Delta-Six. After having his memory wiped at the game's outset, Delta-Six wakes to finds himself trapped in an unknown rehabilitation clinic. Little explanation is given, but if Delta-Six wants to eat, he'll have to complete his firearms training.

Gemini Rue's strongest asset is its story. What start as two seemingly unrelated plot threads gradually begin to overlap each other in ways you might not expect. The pace is masterfully balanced between the two protagonists, and you never feel lost in the middle. Just as you start to figure things out for one, the game switches perspectives to the other. Azriel might uncover a critical clue to his brother's whereabouts moments before the game cuts to Delta-Six who is listening to conflicting reports from his "friends" about what transpired before his memory wipe. Just as you're about to solve one mystery, another pops up to take its place.

Certain segments allow you to switch back and forth between your two characters at will.

This is essential because the actual gameplay of Gemini Rue is very simple. With a few exceptions, the solution to any puzzle is obvious and never impedes your progress. The puzzles simply guide you through the action of what is essentially an interactive novel. This means you're never saddled with frustrations, such as attempting obtuse, trial-and-error item combinations or pixel hunting for a tiny key hidden in a busy background. However, this also means that the game slips into monotony at times as you go through the motions of its clearly prescribed path to the next plot point.

The shooting segments are a similar situation. When a firefight starts, your character drops into cover. From here, you can lean out and fire on your attackers. Naturally, you'll want to stay behind cover when being shot at and lean out just as your enemy finishes shooting but before he ducks back down. Timing--that's all there is to it. Once you have the timing down, these segments--just like the puzzles--become a breeze. Overall, the shooting and puzzle-solving do the job of breaking up the story sections, but on their own, they can get tedious.

What does hold up is the game's atmosphere. Whether you're Azriel listening to the patter of the unending rainstorm or Delta-Six surrounded by the deep hum of an industrial air conditioner, the ambient sound design always conveys a sense of oppression and isolation in the unknown. The entire experience is underscored by soft jazz or piano tracks that emphasizes the sci-fi/noir hybrid at play in Gemini Rue. On top of all that is the voice acting. Though a bit dull in spots, the voice acting lends an extra bit of immersion that really brings this world to life. Brian Silliman's throat-of-gravel voice for Azriel Odin is especially fitting.

The shooting segments are little more than a distraction from the rest of the game.

Thankfully, this game doesn't overstay its welcome. Clocking in at about eight hours, the game maintains a consistent pace that tugs you from one plot hook to the next. And by the time you enter the game's final act, you won't be able to put it down. Developer commentary is added after your first play-through and provides a wonderful incentive for you to jump back into the game. Even with its basic puzzle and action sequences, Gemini Rue is an intriguing experience for adventure gamers young and old.

Trenched Review

2011-06-22T23:47:00.001-07:00

During the First World War, life in the trenches was anything but fun; rats, lice, heavy rainfall, and enemy snipers all did their bit to ensure misery. Developer Double Fine's take on trench warfare in which Trenches are mechlike war machines rather than muddy holes in the ground, on the other hand, is a blast. Somewhat reminiscent of Signal Studios' excellent Toy Soldiers, but with a greater emphasis on action, Trenched is a tower defense game that lets you take an active role on the battlefield as you defend strategically important locations from an unimaginable evil. You're afforded brief respites between the waves of enemies that are headed your way, but Trenched is played at a pleasingly frantic pace for the most part, and you need to be both smart with your tower placements and skilled with your chosen weapons to overcome the enemy. All 15 campaign missions are fun to tackle solo or alongside up to three friends, and replay value comes courtesy of leaderboards and a compelling loot system. This isn't the Great War that your ancestors might have fought in, but it's a great war nonetheless.

No, really, this is tower defense.

Trenched isn't a game that's going to keep you glued to your controller with its story, but its tale is at least good for a few chuckles. The events of the game transpire shortly after the aforementioned conflict, when two injured comrades serving at an Allied listening station intercept a mysterious signal that makes them supersmart. Frank Woodruff and Vladimir Farnsworth then take very different approaches to using their newfound intellect to aid other disabled veterans. Woodruff invents mechanical legs known as Trenches so that he and others like him might walk again, while Farnsworth invents television (referred to in-game as Monovision) so that veterans who are unable to move can still see the world. Woodruff's Trenches make him the toast of the town, while Farnsworth's broadcasts are considered a plague. Long story short, Farnsworth loses his marbles and, in an attempt to force his broadcasts upon humankind, fashions mechanical monsters (Tubes) and sends them into battle. And that's where you come in. As one of four marines with a customizable Trench at your disposal, your mission is to defend against Farnsworth's forces and to foil his dastardly plan to dominate the airwaves.

The first campaign mission, in which you must defend your battleship-with-legs base of operations, serves as a tutorial and does a great job of familiarizing you with the equipment at your disposal. Controlling your Trench and dropping defensive emplacements almost anywhere that you care to on the battlefield could hardly be easier. Emplacements, which initially include only mounted machine guns and shotguns, must be positioned a certain distance apart, but that's the only restriction. Typically, you start each mission with only enough of the game's scrap resource to place a couple of them, but since scrap is dropped anytime you kill a Tube, there's certainly no shortage of it. What's unfortunate, though, is that while most of your time is spent gleefully managing defenses or using Trench-mounted weapons to deal with enemies in a more hands-on manner, some of it must be spent wandering around the battlefield to collect scrap. Trenches are equipped with magnets that attract this valuable resource, but the magnets aren't nearly as powerful as they should be, and because Trenches move at a pretty sedate pace, this process quickly becomes a chore. Compounding this problem is that scrap disappears after a short time, so if you don't collect it quickly you don't get to collect it at all.

Both the missions you undertake and the enemies that you encounter are impressively varied.

Scrap collection is a minor but frequent irritation throughout Trenched's campaign. As you progress and unlock more customization options for your Trench, you might choose to equip legs that move more quickly or to carry emplacements that automatically collect nearby scrap for you, but these are imperfect solutions. Making your Trench a more effective scrap collector means compromising its abilities in other areas. Using legs with a sprint ability means not using legs with the ability to shorten your weapons' reload times, for example, and since no Trench can carry more than four different types of emplacements simultaneously, devoting one of those slots to a scrap collection pod means you have one less defensive option. It's a shame that scrap collection isn't handled more efficiently in Trenched, because customizing your Trench for each mission can be almost as much fun as the missions themselves. In addition to legs, each Trench incorporates a chassis with variable armor and speed ratings, and the chassis, in turn, incorporates one to six weapon slots and up to four emplacement slots. You'll inevitably have a favorite setup, but missions are varied enough and new equipment comes your way quickly enough that you're unlikely to use the same Trench for more than a couple of missions in succession.

F.E.A.R. 3 Review

2011-06-22T23:46:00.001-07:00

Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown. Unfortunately, F.E.A.R. 3 doesn't seem to grasp this, and it lays bare all the mysteries of this series of paranormal shooters, moving the story forward but stripping away its power to get inside your head and keep you up at night. But while F.E.A.R. 3 may disappoint as a horror game, it satisfies as a shooter. The campaign is good fun in single-player and especially enjoyable when played cooperatively with a friend. And the game's multiplayer modes present some thrills for those willing to work with others to survive.

Point Man will go to great lengths for a tasty cut of meat.

F.E.A.R. 3 follows hot on the heels of F.E.A.R. 2's startling conclusion, but returns us to the protagonist of the original F.E.A.R., the genetically designed supersoldier known as Point Man. The events at the end of F.E.A.R. 2 have triggered a paranormal catastrophe of biblical proportions in the city of Fairport, and Point Man is eager to make his way there and help out a former squadmate caught up in the chaos. Point Man's not alone, though. His homicidal brother, Paxton Fettel, is along for the ride. Point Man may have put a bullet in his brother's brain in F.E.A.R., but Fettel isn't about to let a little thing like being dead keep him down. The brothers form an uneasy alliance, but despite the tension between them, the story progresses predictably. There's a pleasant sense of closure that goes with seeing the brothers confront the painful reality of their shared past, but there aren't any surprises or scares that will stay with you once the story has run its course. The visuals also won't work their way into your subconscious. F.E.A.R. 3's graphics are plain and lag behind current standards. As a result, the creepy living rooms, city streets, and food courts you fight your way through aren't quite as creepy as they should be; the environments lack the convincing level of detail to fully pull you in. The sounds are more effective; the loud blasts of gunfire heighten the intensity of firefights, and the ethereal wails that accompany ghostly visions may unsettle you a bit, even if the sight of them doesn't.

Point Man and Paxton Fettel are both playable, but when tackling the campaign alone, you must first play each stage as Point Man to unlock the option to play it as Fettel. Regardless of which character you're playing as, F.E.A.R. 3 is, at its core, a corridor shooter that shuttles you from one small area to another and sees you constantly beset by groups of enemies. Although the core action doesn't evolve much over the course of the game, the firefights remain exciting. The assortment of pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and other weapons you can employ feel powerful, and the smooth controls make aiming and shooting a pleasure. And your melee attacks, which include a sliding kick that can send enemies flying like rag dolls, make it fun to sometimes forgo the use of guns and charge your enemies.

Most of your time is spent fighting soldiers in the private army of the evil Armacham corporation, and these enemies keep you on your toes by flanking your position, though they also occasionally do dumb things like get stuck while coming down stairs. All of the areas in which shoot-outs take place provide ample opportunities for cover, but a lot of cover is destructible, and it's a thrill to frantically dash from one position to another as your cover is blown to smithereens. F.E.A.R. 3 prevents the shoot-outs from growing tiresome by providing atmospheric periods between firefights. For instance, a few quiet minutes spent making your way through a defiled superstore build up the tension before the bullets start flying. And although Point Man and Paxton are figurative killing machines, the occasional opportunity to take control of a literal killing machine and make things very unpleasant for your adversaries is a lot of fun. At a few points during the campaign, you can commandeer two types of armored power suits. These powerful, lumbering contraptions make the assaults of Armacham soldiers laughable, and shooting helicopters out of the sky from inside one of these machines is a delicious taste of destructive power.

Point Man's heightened reflexes come in handy in moments like this.

As Point Man, you have an edge in battle courtesy of your unnaturally fast reflexes. These let you trigger slow motion for brief periods, making it much easier to line up that perfect headshot or deal with an overwhelming number of assailants. There's nothing novel about the ability to go into slow motion in shooters anymore, but it's still cool to see the air vibrate in the wake of a speeding bullet that whizzes past your head or to watch as what's left of an enemy explodes in a bloody mess. Paxton lacks his brother's heightened reflexes but makes up for it with other talents. As a specter, he can't pick up guns (though he's still vulnerable to bullets), but he can suspend enemies helplessly in the air and fire deadly blasts of energy from his hand. He can also take possession of soldiers even from significant distances, and it's liberating to zap into the body of an enemy from across the room. A meter drains while you inhabit a body, and if it runs out, you're returned to spectral form. But enemies you kill leave behind psychic energy that you can use to refill your meter and prolong your possession time, encouraging you to take risks and not hide behind cover for too long.

Shadows of the Damned Review

2011-06-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

Honestly, even if you forget about the demons constantly trying to kill you, hell is a pretty lousy place. Take, for instance, an ordinary act like turning on the lights. While residing on the earthly plane, you just flick a switch and your world is bathed in a fluorescent glow. But if you're stuck in hell, you have to find a goat head (listen for the bleats!) and shoot it with your flaming pistol. You do have a flaming pistol, right? There's a chance it's called a Boner. That's what Garcia Hotspur calls his gun. Make no mistake about it, Shadows of the Damned is a weird game, but it doesn't use its strangeness as a crutch to hold up sagging gameplay. There's a chance you may become immune to the reggae charm of the sushi lamp or just find vulgar jokes off-putting. But the beauty of the brilliantly crafted combat situations makes it so that you can't help but push on to see what devious traps lay before you. Shadows of the Damned turns the gloomy world of hell into a digital paradise.

Bring out your dead!

If you had to choose a prime candidate for hell's most-wanted list, a demon slayer would be a fine guess. Garcia Hotspur kills corrupt souls for giggles, so it's not surprising when his lovely girlfriend Paula is kidnapped by the vindictive lord of darkness. Unfortunately for the bad guys, there isn't anyone better equipped to win her back. Plot details don't get much deeper than a basic setup, but story is still a large part of this stygian adventure. Garcia pals around with a floating skull named Johnson that serves as your tour guide and moral compass, and which transforms into a gun or torch when the situation warrants. The demonic-hunting duo is unrelentingly crass, fixated on the male reproductive organ and its many useful functions. It's immature, to be sure, but it also comes across as genuine. There's a natural rapport between these characters that gives their raunchy dialogue a whiff of believability. There are times when Shadows is tiresome and there are times when it's laugh-out-loud funny, but it's usually amusing enough to add to the experience.

On the most rudimentary level, Shadows of the Damned is a third-person shooter. Victorian houses, farming villages, and other gloomy abodes confine you in mostly linear levels, and you dispatch pain to unruly demons with your trusty guns. Garcia moves with the troubling grace of an injured ballerina. Jerky animations and a zoomed-in camera combine to make navigation clunky, and there are times when enemies trap you in a corner, which obstructs your view. But, for the most part, the controls function admirably. When Sister Grim lashes out with her razor-sharp scythe, you can dive away like a frightened rabbit. Or when demons get too close, you can run, perform a quick turn, and fire to end their pathetic lives in one sure blast. Movement inconsistencies are a looming presence, but Garcia can still overcome this liability with practice.

Eye see you.

Flawed core mechanics have been known to derail lesser games, but there's no such problem in Shadows of the Damned. Garcia enters hell prepared to execute every demon in sight, and he has the firepower to pull off such a feat. Endearing names like Skullblaster, Hotboner, and Dentist are affixed to guns comparable to a shotgun, pistol, and machine gun, but they are a lot more versatile than their real-life counterparts. Upgrades let you increase carrying capacity, damage, and reload speed, but these tools of destruction let you go much further. At specific story moments, new powers are unlocked that make the already-delicious combat even more enticing. Your ordinary pistol gains the ability to shoot combustible mines that are just as handy for knocking down cracked walls as they are at blowing a wicked demon sky high. With a blast from your shotgun, you can blow off an arm or leg or initiate an instant-death decapitation, but why waste your time aiming? Homing bullets let you dispose of demons with lazy ease. Weapons are diverse and deadly in Damned, and it's sadistically satisfying to strike down your teeming enemies with them.

Combat is a lot more involved than just shooting any fool who wanders your way. Darkness is the creeping threat that lingers around you, and if you get caught in the gloomy veil, your health slowly depletes. To lift this fog, you must seek out a goat head positioned somewhere on a wall. It's a basic concept that is used in fascinating ways during the course of your heroic rescue mission. You may need to run through a hall of shadows, cognizant of your slowly draining health, to reach safety on the other side. Or a monster may confront you that fears the darkness above all else, and you have to figure out a way to quench flames without succumbing to death yourself. Puzzles force you to step in a darkened room to find the solution, and certain bosses require you to make the same sacrifice. How can you so readily kill if you're afraid to dance with death when the time arises? There's a constant balance to tempt fate without dying that makes these scenarios intoxicating.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

2011-06-16T21:26:00.002-07:00

Another Transformers movie means another Transformers game. For many longtime fans, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the other robots in disguise are special characters, and hope endures that someday, a Transformers game will come along that does them justice. Unfortunately, Dark of the Moon is not that game. The action in this third-person shooter isn't bad, but it also isn't anything remarkable. There aren't any surprises or standout moments during its brief campaign, and the shallow multiplayer isn't likely to keep you coming back for very long.

Ironhide enjoys a pleasant, uneventful drive through Detroit.

Dark of the Moon serves as a prologue to the upcoming film of the same name. There's a story here about the evil Decepticons desperately looking for something, but the game never makes it clear why we should care about the outcome, so it's hard to feel invested in what happens. And because you play as both Autobots and Decepticons, you're not rooting for either side to prevail. The ending is underwhelming; nothing is resolved, and there are no clear winners or losers. All we get is the setup of a situation that will play out at cineplexes later this summer. The visuals don't support a sense of global conflict, either. The South American villages, Mayan temples, and other locations don't have much detail, making them look more like playsets for toy robots than actual locations around the world. It's not uncommon to see robots pass through objects or get caught on corners, and destroyed enemies inexplicably evaporate into smoke and ash. The sounds do a better job of bringing the conflict to life. The various guns and other weapons you use throughout the game sound powerful. And Peter Cullen, the longtime voice of Optimus Prime, sounds as authoritative and benevolent as ever.

The campaign is spread across seven chapters, each one focusing on a different Transformer (or, in one case, two Transformers). When in robot form, you have a few different weapons and abilities available, and the unique abilities of each Transformer lend the action a bit of variety from chapter to chapter. Mirage, for instance, has a cloaking ability and a sniper rifle, and Megatron can drain health from nearby Autobots. But these abilities aren't significant enough to prevent the action from falling into a rut as a result of the repetitive and uninspired level design. You spend most of your time walking or rolling your way through levels, pausing frequently to blast generic robots of the opposing faction. On very rare occasions, you need to do things a bit differently, such as in one section as Mirage during which you have only the cloaking ability and melee attacks at your disposal. But for the most part, there's nothing that makes one battle significantly different from the next. You fight the same standard enemies in similar environments over and over.

Bumblebee likes to let loose once in a while.

So the game doesn't change things up much. But of course, this being a Transformers game, you can change things up a bit yourself at almost any time. In Dark of the Moon, Transformers have what's called a "stealth force" form, which looks like a tricked-out, heavily armed version of their vehicle form but lets them move in all directions. This mobility makes the stealth force forms fun to control, but their limited firepower means you'll probably spend more time in robot form. Each Transformer also has a vehicle form, which you can enter only by holding down a shoulder button that makes you speed forward. This form isn't always your most effective offensive weapon, but it is the most fun. Crashing into enemy robots sends them flying back through the air a ridiculous distance. It's an absurd and fun way to dispatch your foes, though this one-note goofiness can entertain for only so long.

Vehicle forms are also useful during specific sections of levels when you need to cover a lot of ground quickly. The controls for vehicle forms are awkward; cars and trucks are slippery and seem to pivot from a central point, as if their wheels aren't actually touching the ground. This awkwardness makes precise driving difficult, but this doesn't matter much. You can usually just drive ahead clumsily at full speed, bouncing off the sides of the road, and still not have any trouble reaching your destination. These sections are a breezy break from the third-person shooting that makes up most of the game, but the strange controls and slippery physics also make them one of the game's biggest disappointments. When Bumblebee transforms into vehicle form and speeds down the road, it feels like you're controlling a lightweight toy rather than putting the pedal to the metal in a Camaro. The flying sections are similarly disappointing; during one chapter, you pilot Starscream in jet form, but he flies through the air much too slowly to make this exciting.

Special abilities like Mirage's cloak technique differentiate the chapters a bit.

In addition to the campaign, Dark of the Moon has a multiplayer mode. Here, the Transformers are divided up into four classes. There are speedy scouts, airborne hunters, well-rounded commanders, and hard-hitting warriors. There are only three game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Conquest, in which teams earn points for controlling nodes. As in so many multiplayer games these days, you earn experience and level up, unlocking new perks (like faster speed on foot, or an automatic grenade drop when killed) and new abilities (like a healing ability, or a temporary boost to armor and damage for all nearby allies). Battles tend to be chaotic, with lots of players shooting and clobbering each other at close quarters. They're good for some quick and shallow Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots fun, but they lack the depth to keep you coming back for long. You level up very quickly and can earn every ability for every class in a handful of hours. With shallow action, just three basic modes of play, and five maps, this multiplayer quickly loses its appeal.

The same can be said of the entire game. The seven-chapter campaign is over quickly and leaves you feeling like nothing has been resolved. It's more of a commercial for the upcoming film than a story in its own right. Walking through levels blasting and crashing into robots offers some satisfaction, but the game doesn't have any memorable moments, and it certainly doesn't capture the Transformers magic that fans of the robots in disguise are hoping for. They say that Transformers offer more than meets the eye. But with Dark of the Moon, what you see is an ordinary and unattractive third-person action game, and what you see is exactly what you get.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls Review

2011-06-16T21:26:00.001-07:00

Get out the graph paper. You just might need it in Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, an old-fashioned dungeon crawler for the PlayStation Network so true to its roots that it lacks an automap feature and just about every other amenity of a modern role-playing game. This slavish attention to detail is both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of the game. Developer Acquire has stuck so closely to the RPG formula circa 1990 or thereabouts that you might love the game for its evocation of nostalgia, in spite of its archaic graphics, sound, and mechanics. You can't argue about Acquire meeting its goals here, however, because this game is so true to the RPG experience as it was two decades ago that you might as well be playing it on a Commodore Amiga instead of a PlayStation 3.

Odetta is clearly dressed for adventuring.

If you have ever played any classic dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master for the late, great Atari ST and the Eye of the Beholder series for the PC, or gotten into any of the modern revivals, such as The Dark Spire and the Etrian Odyssey franchise for the Nintendo DS, you will immediately know what you're in for here. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is a straight-up single-player dungeon trek. It pits a traditional six-member party of adventurers against all of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired horrors that can be found in an eerie underground maze of caverns, chambers, and catacombs. Everything is basic. You roll up a party by tweaking skill stats and choosing classes from a list of mostly traditional fighters and mages, with a couple of oddballs like the samurai and ninja thrown in for good measure. You access various adventurer-accommodating features in a city represented by simple menu choices that instantly port the party to an inn for resting, a temple for healing, a shop for buying and selling items, a guild for accepting quests, and so forth. And you venture into a couple of many-floored dungeons to kill monsters for fun and profit.

The two dungeons in the game are moved through step-by-step with the party en masse, with the dungeon before you shown via a first-person camera. Three fight-friendly adventurers are in the front row and three ranged- or magic-combat specialists are in the back row. When you push the D pad forward, the party moves one step forward; when you push the D pad backward, the party moves one step backward; when you push the D pad sideways you turn in the indicated direction. Dungeon levels are simple mazes laid out with brick-lined walls, rocky caverns, and the like. Every square looks pretty much the same, unless you encounter a door, a treasure chest, some kind of special creature like a ghost or non-player character, or are swept off into a fight with monsters. There is no automatic mapping function here, which makes finding your way around extremely challenging. You can buy maps and deal with this in various other ways, but at times, you need to either resort to graph paper or a really uncanny sense of direction. An automap that can be turned on and off would have been a better solution here, letting more casual players get into the game without the hassle of manual mapping and using the limited in-game maps.

When you run into bad guys, you generally have a choice of either fighting or fleeing. Battles are turn-based and extremely simple. Each party member fights or casts a spell each turn until the monsters go down or the entire party bites the dust. Fighting is rather unforgiving. In the early stages, you have garbage equipment and weapons like cloaks and daggers, so you are vulnerable to being smacked around by a gang of kobolds. Leveling up is a fairly measured process, and you need to do a lot of killing and exploring to scrounge up the gold needed to upgrade gear. Still, it's all strangely addictive. The whole game is a level grind, and quite repetitive in the style of old-time RPGs, but the grim nature of the surroundings and the extremely focused "see monster, kill monster, loot dungeon" nature of what you're doing keeps pushing you forward. Tough battles provide a good challenge to egg you on, as well. Even the lack of an automap feature helps immerse you in the game, because you need to really pay attention to what you're doing to even find your way in and out of the dungeons.

This is about as elaborate as the graphics get in the dungeons.

With all that said, it is hard to quantify the appeal of a retro game like this. Part of the reason you keep playing is the thrill of exploring ever-deeper dungeon levels and seeing what else there is out there to try and kill. Despite the minimalistic visuals, sticking around to see what lies around the next darkened corner is a big part of the attraction. The stark visuals are entirely in keeping with the retro theme, of course, although the backdrops are perhaps a little too dark, even when you have assistance in the form of a spell. Another issue has to do with the six character portraits that line both sides of the screen to provide a look at the party you're leading and to keep an eye on their overall health by tracking hit points. These big and brightly lit anime-flavored icons contrast so much with the darkened dungeons that it is hard to make out where you're going when adventuring underground. Being able to turn them off would have been welcome, so you could better immerse yourself in the spooky dungeon corridors. The anime character art is also a bit extreme in spots, with some of the big-eyed female heroes dressed in risque outfits that are wholly inappropriate for exploring a dungeon stocked with goblins and dragons. Creatures are more appropriately drawn, although they are represented by flat, mostly unmoving models that don't have a great deal of detail. There are a lot of different types of monsters, ranging from floating evil coins and orcs to dragons and demons, but all you see of them are simple little figures that don't have a great deal of visual impact.

Audio is also pretty rough and ready. The generic music could have been composed, if not recorded, during the 8-bit era. Battle effects are equally old school and made up of basic sword clashes and groans. All of the vocals seem to have been carried over intact from the Japanese version of the game that was released back in 2009. This works with the anime character art, but it isn't so pleasing to the ear. Most of the lines are high pitched and involve various squeals. The collective gasp when you navigate the party into a wall is hilarious, at least.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is one uncompromising game. To really appreciate this sort of RPG, you need to be either someone who fondly remembers the good old days or someone who has always wanted to take a trip back in time to the dungeon crawlers that dad used to play. As such, it's either a good game or an awful one depending on your perspective. But the developers have clearly succeeded in their efforts to turn back the clock for the nostalgia-minded, so you have to admire the effort and the end results, even if you can't fully get into its old-time atmosphere.

Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts Review

2011-06-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

In the Fallout universe, nuclear war has ravaged the country, but religious faith abides. In Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts, men of God struggle to find peace in a land where strife is inescapable--a powerful theme for a downloadable add-on. The story in Honest Hearts doesn't take advantage of this fertile premise, but that premise still enriches this formulaic yet enjoyable adventure into Utah's Zion National Park. As its name would suggest, some see this region as a promised land, and it's here that two religious leaders struggle to maintain control in the face of a warring tribe that would drive them out. Zion is a big and atmospheric setting for a new adventure, and there's enough new content here to keep you busy for four or five hours as you shoot up charging geckos and get to know the local tribes. That said, Honest Hearts doesn't make a lasting impression; none of its characters, places, or events stand up to those of the main game or even those of Fallout 3's better content packs. Yet, this enjoyable excursion gives you several welcome chances to exercise the power of choice, and it rewards you with new perks, new weapons, and an increased level cap.

These geckos are angry because they didn't get choice parts in a car insurance commercial.

The two men at the center of Honest Hearts are good, sincere blokes that nonetheless don't see eye to eye on how to deal with the White Legs, a violent tribe of nomads eager to scalp anyone that dares oppose them. One of these men is Daniel, a Mormon missionary with close ties to a tribe called The Sorrows. The other is Joshua Graham, otherwise known as The Burned Man. Joshua favors an aggressive approach toward the White Legs, which is no surprise given his violent past with Caesar's Legion. He is beloved by the Dead Horses tribe and preaches that mankind should shun the greed of the outside world. You stumble upon both men after the trading caravan you join falls victim to the White Legs, though neither makes a very strong impression. Joshua needs supplies like lunch boxes and walkie-talkies; Daniel sends you to find maps and disarm traps. These are nice men that nonetheless make you wonder how they managed to inspire the devotion of the locals. Joshua tells you that he was put on Earth to show people how to fight, yet he speaks in even tones, without an ounce of passion. For someone called The Burned Man, his personality lacks fire, and the tasks he needs performed are hardly extraordinary.

As mundane as the narrative is, you still get welcome opportunities to make decisions, though they would have more weight if you felt more invested in the consequences. Standard quests allow for a bit of flexibility. You might kill the gigantic Yao Guai creatures threatening the camp or collapse the cave in which they live. You could convince a tribesman to follow his heart and explore the "civilized" world or encourage him to stay with his people. The final series of decisions determine the future of several characters and their tribes, and these are outlined in an epilogue that closes the adventure in traditional Fallout fashion. Some of these characters include a few that join you as followers, and they, like Joshua and Daniel, are remarkably even tempered. It's nice to have their company, however--particularly that of Waking Cloud, a pious Sorrow tribeswoman indebted to Daniel for her saving her life. It's too bad that some of the quests these characters join you for are so routine. Find a key, open a cabinet, search for a compass: These are simple fetch quests that needed some dressing up with better context.

Hooked on Phonics doesn't work for everyone.

A few quests offer some variety, however, including one that pits you against a giant creature in Honest Hearts' best battle. The reward is an excellent melee weapon that nicely complements an intimidating helmet you might also grab before you head back to the Mojave. Other tangible goodies in this content include weapons (such as tomahawks) and new perks (extra damage when limbs are crippled). In addition, the level cap has been increased by five. Zion also serves as its own reward; its prickly cacti and red-orange plateaus provide a great backdrop to your travels. This graphics engine is showing its age, what with the bland textures, frequent pauses and jitters, and awkward animations. Yet campsites dotted with empty beer bottles and abandoned communal grills are an effective reminder of the civilization from which Joshua wants to shield his followers.

This being a Fallout game, it's no surprise that you could run into a number of bugs. These include some enemies you cannot damage or target in the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System because they are standing in water; VATS sequences that get stuck for 30 seconds or more before continuing on; and non-player characters sprinting through the air rather than across land. Don't let such typical bugs dissuade you from considering Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts, however. The story and related quests don't surprise, but this add-on gives you the opportunity to once again influence those you meet and accomplish your goals as you see fit. And, you do those things in a desert environment harboring enough creatures and caves to make it worth exploring.

Alice: Madness Returns Review

2011-06-14T09:48:00.001-07:00

In Alice: Madness Returns, the heroine of American McGee's Alice has not escaped the demons she worked so hard to banish. The Wonderland of her imagination has been mangled into a dark and demonic caricature, filled with even more torturous hallucinations than she last encountered. Alice's mind is a dark place indeed, and in this long-awaited sequel, we discover that the real world isn't any sunnier. Creative and creepy visuals give this action platformer a twisted and surreal vibe, drawing you into a land inhabited by fire-breathing doll babies and squirming leeches. The action doesn't display the same kind of creativity, unfortunately. The game recycles the same basic ideas over and again, and its failure to grow and challenge leads to occasional tedium. Nevertheless, leaping and floating through an eerie oversized dollhouse and a Japanese-inspired dreamland is a joy, and there are enough hidden secrets to make it worth inspecting Madness Returns' grotesque nooks. Alice: Madness Returns is a fun but thoroughly ordinary game that takes place in an extraordinary setting.

Porcelain makes for extravagant--if easily broken--headgear.

In American McGee's Alice, the titular dreamer had seemingly overcome her insanity. A fire at her home had killed her parents and sister, leaving both her mind and her imagined Wonderland in shambles. She eventually triumphed over the Red Queen and her own madness, but it seems that this victory was a temporary one. Alice is still under medical care, struggling to remember the circumstances that led to her family's horrific end. Her psychiatrist urges her to forget her past, insisting that doing so is the only way to wellness. Yet forgetting proves a formidable task, and soon Alice finds herself once again lost in her imagination, where Wonderland lies in ruin. To save herself, she must save Wonderland, and vice versa. But this is not the curioser and curioser world author Lewis Carroll dreamed up when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Rather, it is a place of nightmares, where the card guards that once protected the Red Queen are now undead monstrosities, and hobbyhorses are not playthings, but deadly weapons.

Wonderland itself is Madness Returns' finest attribute. Each chapter explores a different visual theme, some of them impossible to describe in a few simple words. Rusted platforms float against a cloudy yellow backdrop, next to clock towers from which giant forks and teapots dangle. Gnarled vines twist into an off-kilter heart above a giant castle whose spires lean in all directions. Alice's clothing changes from chapter to chapter, and her flowery prints and blood-red fabrics subtly match the level art. Wonderland is not the only place you explore, however. At the start of each chapter, you wander about an increasingly morose London. This vision of that city is more grubby and industrial than even Carroll's contemporary Charles Dickens conjured, drained of color and inhabited by impossibly wrinkled old crones and filthy fishermen. This world is not flawlessly rendered, however. Textures pop in frequently (and sometimes back out, and then in again), and the game pauses at bizarre times to load data. Audio is an occasional issue as well: characters might talk over their own lines and are sometimes drowned out by the ambient music. At least that music is evocative, if not as excellent as the original Alice's score. The occasional tinkling of a toy piano and the buzz of low double basses provide fine contrast to the pounding drumbeats that accompany battle.

Alice uses a pepper grinder for more than just seasoning her supper.

Alice is generally a dream to control due to the effortless way you can string multiple jumps together and float gently downward. When you drift or perform midair leaps, flower petals blossom in your wake, emphasizing Alice's grace in a graceless land. The smoothness of motion makes bouncing from springy mushrooms and catching drafts of air a delight, and rarely is timing or landing a leap a struggle. For a few hours, you get caught up in freewheeling around this unusual place, scanning for secrets and admiring the view. You can shrink yourself to minute size and enter keyholes, where you might find lost memories, Madness Returns' equivalent of audio logs. You come across floating pig snouts and can shoot them full of pepper from your pepper grinder to uncover new pathways. Hidden treasures are scattered all over, and hearing the telltale snort from a nearby snout elicits a pleasant Pavlovian response: you hear the oink and immediately move into scouting mode.

Every so often, Madness Returns' level layouts displays a glimmer of creativity, such as when playing cards flip and slide into view, extending your path. However, reaching your destination is a usually predictable affair. You spend a lot of time jumping onto floating surfaces and into gusts of air so that you can flip a switch that creates another set of surfaces and gusts. Sometimes you need to drop bombs to weigh down pressure plates, shrink to miniscule size to bring invisible platforms into view, or run under a spiked ceiling threatening to slam down on you. But Alice: Madness Returns has a limited bag of tricks, and so you frequently perform the same actions in the same context. Monotony too often results, particularly when your objectives are simple fetch quests. (Some residents of Wonderland are unwilling to divulge information unless you do them petty favors.) Levels have no sense of momentum: were it not for the unique environments, you could replace one sequence with any other and not even notice, and navigation is barely more challenging in the penultimate chapter than it is in the first.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge Review

2011-06-14T09:47:00.001-07:00

A game's success or failure often rests on the little things. An otherwise ordinary game can soar to great heights by nailing the details; conversely, a smattering of small flaws might cause fine ideas to flounder. Hunted: The Demon's Forge is the latter type of game: conceptually sound, yet clumsy as delivered. As a result, this cooperative action game feels like an ancient relic, in spite of its attempts to use modern gameplay elements popularized by Gears of War and co-opted by countless games since. It's a shame that a game with such promise feels so unfinished. Imagine this scenario: you take up your bow, and a buddy grabs his mace and shield. Together, you cut through swaths of maniacal monsters, seeking the most effective ways of ridding your fantasy kingdom of a rising menace. When Hunted comes together, it captures the essence of such a rambunctious adventure. But sloppy locomotion, technical glitches galore, and all sorts of basic flaws rise up to smite you. PC players also get a special problem to call their own: barely functioning online play. And that's a damning issue in a game designed to be played with another.

Bows are fine, but nothing beats a sharp steel edge.

In spite of its numerous foibles, Hunted: The Demon's Forge isn't devoid of fun, and it boasts a great concept: combine the best parts of fantasy hack-and-slash adventures and Gears-style cover shooting, and then throw in some loot. One player assumes the role of Caddoc, a bald-headed melee specialist. The other takes over the ample assets of E'lara, an archer with impossible curves and no desire to shield her backside from swords, arrows, or the stares of lascivious passersby. Together, you move through dungeons, flaming villages, and more dungeons, slicing away at the titular demons while occasionally casting spells, grabbing loot, and trading barbs about who killed the most meanies in that last battle. Caddoc and E'lara are in it for the cash and are hardly heroes worth remembering once your eight hours with Hunted's campaign come to a close. Yet they share an easygoing camaraderie that's appealing, if wholly unexplored.

Hunted's good aspects follow from that mishmash of gameplay elements. Both characters wield melee and ranged weapons, but E'lara is best when shooting from afar while Caddoc wades into the fray. When you're wielding a bow, Hunted plays like a cover shooter: you crouch behind a low barrier or press your back against a wall, lean out, and fire. With sword or axe in hand, you swing away at a limited variety of snarling savages, rolling and blocking when necessary. As either character, you cast spells that work well in tandem with your partner. E'lara freezes enemies, and Caddoc smashes them to pieces. Caddoc lifts monsters into the air and slams them into the ground, while E'lara fills them with arrows. Two brands of action plus varied magical skills make for some fun battles. That diversity goes a long way toward veiling just how linear Hunted's levels are, how mundane its infrequent puzzles are, and how few enemy types there are.

If you don't buddy up with another, the AI takes over and does a respectable job, if not an outstanding one. AI companions are there to distract enemies and soak up a lot of damage rather than to dish out the pain. They rarely need reviving on medium difficulty, and as a result, playing on your own is easier than joining a friend. And things get mighty challenging in co-op. Demons can combo five attacks together in succession; should you fail to block the first one, you've no choice but to be walloped, which means going from full health to practically none. The limited number of health potions and the inconsistent rate at which potions drop add to the occasional combat frustrations that develop. Should you like the challenge and want to explore it further, you can play around with Hunted's level creator, called the Crucible. It's easy to use, but the results are limited: player levels are simply a series of battle arenas separated by doors that open when you have defeated every spawning monster. The limitations don't end there, however. You unlock new enemies, items, and arena environments by accumulating gold during the campaign. To earn the most interesting playthings, you need to collect a lot of gold, which means playing lot of Hunted. This is a disappointing restriction in which the reward doesn't match the effort. And while you can allow others into your private realm, there is no way to share your creations or download others to explore at your own leisure.

Let's hope the duo stocks up on Irish Spring.

You stumble upon plenty of random equipment on your adventure, though looting isn't Hunted's best feature. You find equipment on the ground or smash weapon racks, but the loot that falls from a rack is only for the character who smashes it. Most of the time, what falls is useless, making you wonder whether the team might have earned something more valuable had the other player smashed it instead. You might also be annoyed by the lack of a damage-per-second stat on weapons. There are slow, medium, and fast bows, for example, but the base damage stats don't help you compare different types. This is a small gripe, but it is one of many senseless, clumsy elements that crop up time and again in Hunted. A list of such oversights could continue for pages. You automatically pick up potions by walking over them, but to collect gold, you have to press a button. Why not have you collect it automatically as you do other items? You can perform finishing kill moves at random times, and these slow-motion brutalities look cinematic enough. But performing one means leaving your partner without assistance for several crucial seconds. Sure, you don't have to perform the action if you don't want to--but the game encourages you to do so. It feels as though Hunted's creators chose to implement the mechanic because it looks cool, and because all the popular games do it, rather than because it belongs. In actuality, it doesn't belong: it interferes.

Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion Review

2011-06-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Punch Time Explosion doesn't just take inspiration from Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series. Rather, it's as if Dexter, Samurai Jack, and a bunch of their Cartoon Network buddies staged an invasion to oust Mario, Link, and the rest of the Smash Bros. gang from the land of zany multiplayer brawlers and claim the territory as their own. The Cartoon Network crew makes a spirited effort, and they give Punch Time Explosion plenty of personality. But beneath the superficial and short-lived pleasure of seeing Blossom and Ben Tennyson battle each other in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is a game that's shallow in multiplayer and frustrating when played alone.

After decades of peace, cartoon characters finally resort to violence to resolve their differences.

Like the games that it imitates, Punch Time Explosion is a fighting-focused party game in which up to four characters clobber each other on a 2D plane. There are a total of 18 playable characters, if you count duos like Billy and Mandy, which can only be played together, as a single character. As you take damage, a number displayed as a percentage increases, and the higher this number gets, the farther you're liable to go flying when hit. You lose a life when you're knocked from the stage or fall from it. Each character has standard attacks and a number of signature moves at his or her disposal, as well as a special attack that can be performed once a meter is full. A variety of weapons--wrenches, flyswatters, magic wands, and so forth--spawn frequently, and if you're quick enough to grab them before an opponent does, they can significantly increase your power. In addition, special items show up that, when collected, summon non-playable Cartoon Network characters like Johnny Bravo and Mandark to lend you a hand for a short time. The playable characters exude all the charm of their TV selves; Flapjack's absent-minded, goofy grin is infectious, and Buttercup's glare tells you she means business. But a small number of voice samples that repeat much too frequently make the game's sound design grate; hearing Ben Tennyson exclaim "I should have picked a flying alien!" for the umpteenth time as he's sent soaring off the field in defeat may push you to turn the voices off altogether.

The environments in which you do battle contribute to the craziness. One arena has you fighting on the rooftops of Townsville while a giant robot smashes the buildings under your feet. Another finds you in the mouth of a giant whale who sometimes belches huge amounts of water and dead fish into the sea, threatening to expunge you as well. The result of all this is a chaotic game in which the unpredictability and zaniness generate some short-term fun as you discover what happens on the various stages and what the various items and supporting characters do. But whether you're playing against CPU opponents or friends, this chaos also makes it difficult to take much satisfaction in victory; so much happens all the time that the ultimate outcome seems as dependent on chance as on skill. You can opt to play with fewer items or no items at all, but stripping away these distractions only makes it more clear that the underlying combat is shallow and that attacks have no sense of impact. Characters tend to come together and dish out their attacks willy-nilly until one is sent flying.

Punch Time Explosion is at its best in Story mode, but even here it has some serious problems. An evil force is corrupting the universes of numerous Cartoon Network characters, providing a fine excuse for the Powerpuff Girls, Numbuh One, Dexter, and a bunch of other CN stars to band together and battle evil. The enthusiastic and funny narration by a CN voice-over guy who just wanted to relax and enjoy some cartoons on his day off lends the story an authentic Cartoon Network soul and prevents the adventure from feeling like a hollow licensed cash-in. Platforming takes priority over punching here, and bounding across chasms and over hazards with each character's double jump is pleasant enough. Or at least it usually is; some sections crank up the challenge in ways that only result in frustration. For instance, at one point you must make your way across a series of floating barrels that have a tendency to spin when you land on them, making it overly difficult to get your footing and make the leap to the next barrel. What makes this and situations like it doubly irritating is that losing all of your lives often results in a significant setback, requiring you to repeat minutes of easy gameplay to get back to the tricky bit.

Dexter's creations claim another victim.

Your side-scrolling escapades are also frequently put on hold when you're required to defeat a number of small-time bad guys or a single, more powerful cartoon character. These turn out to be some of the worst moments of Punch Time Explosion's Story mode, since they can almost always be won by repeating a specific signature move over and over. On occasion, you're required to protect a character as you defeat 25 enemies, a situation that encourages you to rely on this tedious but effective approach to knock the bad guys away from the clueless and vulnerable character you must keep safe. Other diversions also crop up from time to time in the form of basic first-person on-rails shooting sequences, mine cart levels, and the like, and these are more welcome, preventing the platforming from growing stale.

Punch Time Explosion supports local wireless multiplayer for up to four players. Unfortunately, there's no online support, so unless you have a bunch of friends close by who own the game, your opportunities for full-featured four-player mayhem are limited. There is a download play option that lets up to four duke it out with a single cartridge, though this option limits the number of characters and has only one stage on which to do battle. Frustratingly, over half of the game's 18 playable characters and 20 battle stages are locked at the start, so there's a good chance you'll need to sink in some time before being able to beat up your friends with your favorite character or in your favorite Cartoon Network locale. Since the characters are the game's greatest asset, it's disappointing that so many of them are unavailable at the start. Punch Time Explosion has a host of cool characters, but without the support of exciting gameplay, their presence can only benefit the game so much. Unfortunately, like a cartoon starring your favorite superhero that doesn't make the most of his powers and personality, Punch Time Explosion leaves you disappointed.

DiRT 3 Review

2011-06-03T01:51:00.001-07:00

When DiRT 2 was released in 2009 it boasted a lengthy and varied career mode, numerous multiplayer options, and uniformly excellent presentation. Its sequel loses none of those things and also makes some great additions to the formula. Split-screen multiplayer with support for two controllers is now an option, there are more vehicle classes to choose from, gymkhana events and snowy conditions pose fresh challenges, and new multiplayer modes put interesting automotive spins on some first-person shooter favorites. Dirt 3 brings a lot of superb content to the table, and because it offers a plethora of customizable difficulty settings and assists, newcomers and veterans alike can enjoy its excellent off-road action.

Gymkhana events are a great addition to the Dirt formula.

Regardless of which difficulty level you play at and whether or not you take advantage of stability and braking assists, Dirt 3 handles like a dream. There are dozens of great-looking modern and vintage vehicles in the garage, and you race them on all manner of surfaces and in changing weather conditions, but getting behind the wheel of one that you haven't driven before is never a problem. The controls are responsive, and while it's certainly possible to mess up so spectacularly that your ride loses panels and becomes deformed to the point that it's unrecognizable, there are gameplay mechanics in place that ensure you don't feel the need to hold anything back. Even as you hurtle along narrow dirt trails and around icy hairpins, Dirt 3's cars, trucks, and buggies encourage you to push them harder by using excellent audio and rumble feedback to let you know that you're not quite on the edge yet.

Demanding new gymkhana events in which you're challenged to perform tricks in specially designed arenas reinforce how excellent Dirt 3's controls are. In these exciting sessions you score points for crashing through carefully positioned destructible blocks, and for performing donuts, spins, slides, and jumps. String different tricks together to get the crowd pumped, and you build up a score multiplier; display anything other than masterful control by colliding with something, and your multiplier goes down. It's not entirely dissimilar to performing combos in a skateboarding game, except that the tricks are significantly less complex. Stringing successful tricks together against the clock is still plenty challenging, though, and as a result, gymkhanas are great practice for other events. Once you can make a car dance around a cone and slide at speed through a gate or underneath a truck, getting it around a corner in a race doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Every event in Dirt 3, whether it be a point-to-point rally through a Kenyan desert, a head-to-head race in the Aspen snow, or a circuit-based rallycross event that weaves in and out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, demands precise driving. You can get away with a few collisions here and there, particularly if you take advantage of the five flashbacks at your disposal to correct your mistakes, and it's entirely possible that you might find finishing in first place too easy if you're an experienced player. Turn off some of the assists, crank up the difficulty, and switch from cosmetic damage to realistic damage, though, and you'll find that Dirt 3 is exactly as challenging as you want it to be. At the other end of the scale, if you're new to off-road racing and looking for a way into the genre, Dirt 3 has you covered. In addition to the aforementioned assists and other options, it's the first game in the series to offer a dynamic racing line like those seen in both the Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo series on consoles.

That racing line can be invaluable as you learn your way around Dirt 3's 100-plus circuits and stages; position yourself poorly as you take a turn or jump over a crest, and you might make a subsequent corner unnecessarily difficult. Also invaluable in the events where she's available is real-life co-driver Jen Horsey, who always delivers the information you need in a clear, concise, and timely fashion. (A male alternative is also available, as is an option to have either co-driver use more complex and detailed language.) If you listen to her carefully, rally stages that wind through the forests of Finland or around the lakes of Michigan don't seem nearly as daunting. You still won't have much time to admire the impressive scenery or to contemplate the foolhardy fans that occasionally run across the track ahead of you, but you're far less likely to wrap your car around a tree or crash through a barrier and into the crowd.

Replays afford you an opportunity to admire both the scenery and your skills behind the wheel.

Many of the events in Dirt 3's lengthy Dirt Tour career mode span multiple back-to-back races at the same location, but the game does an excellent job of keeping the action from feeling stale. After finishing the first of three rallycross events in dry conditions, for example, you might race the next during a grip-changing downpour and then the final in wet conditions after the rain clouds have passed and your visibility is improved. And in point-to-point rallies, racing the same stages in different directions can make for a very different experience, especially if you're under a desert sun one stage and having to use your headlights to cut through the black of night the next. Also lending variety to your career is that you invariably have several different events to choose from. The dozens of events that compose the Dirt Tour are organized into four seasons that must be completed in order, but your progress through each season is anything but linear, and you always have the option to return to events that you want to replay in an attempt to improve upon your position or best score/time.

Terraria Review

2011-06-03T01:47:00.000-07:00

"You feel an evil presence watching you." The warning message flashes on the bottom of the screen while you're busy chopping down trees in the forest. Night has fallen over the land of Terraria, a time for evil monsters to wake from their daylight slumber and assert their dominance. You need shelter if you're going to survive their deadly onslaught, but your time has run out. "The Eye of Cthulhu has awoken!" A roar from the darkness sends a chill down your spine. You equip your sword, ready your healing potions, and dig in for a fierce battle while a full moon gazes down. This colorful 2D adventure keeps you on guard by sending demons and monsters to kill you when you least expect it. You're never safe in Terraria. Surprises abound, both nefarious and empowering. In the dead of night, you may find your home invaded by a goblin army. But on the next night, you may find a treasure chest rich with helpful items. Terraria is a deeply rewarding adventure that continually urges you onward to see what lies ahead.

This fast-motion demonstration makes building a home a snap.

Your adventure begins in a colorful land populated by towering trees, glistening lakes, and flowering pastures as far as the eye can see. After creating a character and choosing which size randomly generated world you want to start in (small, medium, or large), you're thrust into the game with nary a hint to help you understand what you're supposed to do. A guide wanders nearby, and he doles out advice when you click on him, but it's a poor way of introducing you to the basics. His tips aren't descriptive enough to get you started, and persistent enemy slimes have a knack for distracting you while he's dishing out his vague advice. Terraria is a game about discovery and exploration, and the thrill of happening upon something completely unexpected is a huge part of the draw, but this is still a poor tutorial. You're better off glancing at online guides to get your bearings in the early going than blindly trying to figure out what you're supposed to do.

With a little research or experimentation, you figure out that your first order of business is to build a shelter. You begin the game with a copper pickaxe and axe, and you use these to chop down trees and gather resources. A clever crafting system gives you the power to construct almost anything you might need on your journey. All you need to do is enter your inventory screen, and every item you can currently create is listed in a sidebar. Once you cut down a few trees, you can build a workbench, and from there a world of possibilities opens up. A workbench lets you build more-complex items, such as a hammer and sword, and you use these items to venture out into the dangerous unknown. Eventually, you can craft guns, explosives, and even magical items, but you have to put in a lot of work to get to that level. In the early going, your focus is to find materials to construct basic weapons and armor. Your wooden sword works well enough against docile slimes, but if you want to take on ruthless skeletons, you should forge a weapon made of gold.

Don't forget a light source when you travel underground.

Terraria is an open-ended game that never sets clear goals. You decide how you want to play, and there's always a new territory for intrepid explorers to venture off to. The controls handle like a traditional platformer, allowing you to easily jump around the expansive environments. Melee weapons have a wide range, so you don't have to be precise with your swinging, and you aim your long-range attacks with your mouse for quick shots. But you're not going to make much progress if you just hang out on the surface. The worlds are gigantic (even the small maps), and most of that space is underground. That's where the most valuable minerals are located, and also the scariest monsters. You use your pickaxe to dig through underground mines, gather resources to forge better equipment, and then use your new tools to get deeper with each visit. It's a tantalizing reward system that continually pushes you along to see what else you can find. Small pleasures carry you through much of this adventure. You may find yourself chipping away at useless rock and dirt for minutes at a time, desperate to find something of value. And then, out of the corner of your eye, you see a sparkle amid the gloom and point your pickaxe in that direction. A small cache of silver awaits. It may not sound like much, but you need it to build the next set of tools, and the feeling of joy when you find such a treasure is hard to contain.

Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game Review

2011-05-27T22:43:00.002-07:00

As bipedal mammals, humans have a leg up on their animal counterparts when it comes to performing martial arts moves. It's a small miracle that a rotund panda would be able to punch and kick with the deadly grace of a kung fu master, and putting yourself in the shoes of such a nonathletic creature might be difficult to imagine. For all its failings, Kung Fu Panda 2 does a fine job of making you appreciate how difficult it would be to learn the combative arts if you're excessively clumsy. This tedious movie tie-in uses the power of the Kinect to transform ordinary you into a furry martial arts expert, which means every punch you throw in real life is translated in the game. Or at least that's how things are supposed to work. In practice, there's a noticeable delay from when you swing your fist in your living room to when Po responds onscreen, and that imprecision saps away your connection to this shallow fighter. But even if the controls functioned well, the other pieces are so underdeveloped and boring that they smothering any semblance of fun in Kung Fu Panda 2.

Even real pandas are better fighters.

Po proved his worth as a warrior in the action-packed conclusion to the first film, but once you climb the mountain, you can't just sit on the peak basking in your success. In the beginning of this adventure, Po's never-quite-peaceful village falls under attack by an evil group of crocodile mercenaries, and he needs to clear out those mouth-breathing reptiles before they cause the populace harm. The story is different from the accompanying movie, though it still captures the lovable charm and clever hijinks of the colorful franchise. It's mildly interesting, and it makes up a huge chunk of your experience. Cutscenes take up roughly half of the total length of the overall adventure, which is a kind way of shielding you from the painful action sequences and allows you to actually enjoy some of your time with this woeful game.

Unfortunately, you do need to play at some point, and that's when things become aggravating. Kung Fu Panda 2 is a one-on-one fighter that pits Po against a crew of motley warriors. Although punches, kicks, and dodges make their way into your duels, the fires of spontaneity have been drenched by buckets of boredom. Fights are broken down into offensive and defensive sequences, and you have to follow onscreen prompts to dole out punishment or avoid your enemy's angry lunges. For instance, when you stun your foe with a punch, you may need to jump kick to continue the combo. But if you try to throw a double punch instead, the game won't register your action. And if you don't perform a jump kick in time, the enemy recovers and you miss your chance to hurt him. It's incredibly boring following directions instead of attacking and dodging with the freedom of a real fighter. Kung Fu Panda 2 is essentially a turn-based fighting game, and it quickly becomes tiring as you dutifully perform the same few moves without any creativity to enliven things.

Po isn't ashamed of attacking someone when their back is turned.

On a conceptual level, Kung Fu Panda 2 is an insipid realization of Po's high-flying fury, and the execution is fraught with just as many problems. The controls are maddeningly inconsistent. In a best-case scenario, it takes a half-second for the game to recognize your actions, which makes you feel disconnected from what's happening onscreen. Even more disheartening, the game often fails to register your physical movements. You may have to leap in the air two or three times for the game to acknowledge that you want to perform a jump kick, and that tiring repetition further cements the tedium of combat. Other times, the game thinks you're doing one thing when in actuality, you're doing something quite different. You have to raise both arms above your head to block an airborne attack, but the game frequently registers only one raised arm and causes you to get hurt anyway. Or it may interpret your duck as a dodge, forcing you to take damage that you shouldn't have to bear. This is especially troubling later in the game when you have to fight many opponents in a row without checkpoints. It's not worth putting up with the grueling punishment to replay these extended sequences just because the game won't mirror your moves.

The fighting action is interspersed with three minigames with enough regularity to give you a temporary reprieve from the monotony. These involve ladling soup for the hungry denizens of your village, cruising down hills on top of a rickshaw, and tossing objects as if in a shooting gallery. Control problems persist in these diversions, and they are just as shallow as every other aspect of this game, but things aren't entirely bad. Zooming while on top of a rickety contraption is a fast departure from your fisticuff forays, and though it's aggravating when the cart doesn't respond to your movements, it's still entertaining for the brief time it lasts. And target practice captures the same enjoyment, letting you show off your power for a few minutes as you are freed from the cumbersome restrictions that dictate your moves in combat. Noodle shop is the weakest of these minigames because the imprecise controls make it tricky to serve up a hot meal in time, but the three minigames are still welcome additions to this disappointing package.

Po helps out in the soup kitchen when he's not punching rhinos.

When you think about what Kung Fu Panda 2 is trying to accomplish, it sounds like a really neat idea. Po's larger-than-life persona and martial arts expertise make him a forceful yet endearing character, and inhabiting his body with the power of the Kinect could have served as an interesting interactive complement to the blockbuster movie. But those exciting ideas quickly disintegrate once you start to play. Unresponsive controls are the beginning of the problems, and the Simon Says-inspired combat strips away any chance of feeling like a potent panda. The minigames are fun, but they function more as a counter to the drab fighting than a engaging experience on their own. Even the most determined Kung Fu Panda 2 fans will be annoyed by this lifeless adaptation.

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Review

2011-05-27T22:43:00.001-07:00

Charm. It's an elusive virtue, but developer Traveller's Tales loads its Lego games with so much of the stuff that it's as if it mines it from an endless source. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is yet another delightful take on cinematic subject matter, and it's bound to get even the most jaded players to guffaw at its adorable visual storytelling. Nevertheless, it's a rare game that survives on charm alone, and Lego Pirates unfortunately suffers from a fair bit of design sloppiness. Inconsistent visual cues all too often suck out the fun, bringing the swashbuckling to a standstill while you roam about figuring out what do to next. Meanwhile, inexact platforming and respawning enemies turn the easygoing merriment into a frustrating slog. Nevertheless, the joys of these games are still strong. Franchise fans expect lots of Lego bits to collect and extra goodies to unlock, and Lego Pirates doesn't disappoint in this regard. The game is as colorful as a tower of Lego bricks, but unfortunately, it's not much sturdier.

Life's a banquet, and Jack Sparrow refuses to starve to death!

At least, its heart is in the right place. Like previous games, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is a wordless retelling of (mostly) known entertainment. In this case, the Pirates of the Caribbean films are the inspiration, including the recent fourth installment, subtitled "On Stranger Tides." If you aren't familiar with the movies, you might feel somewhat lost from time to time, but the game does a fine enough job of giving you the gist. Besides, what happens isn't as important as how it happens. Lego Pirates eschews dialogue in favor of adorable details that are sure to put a smile on your face. When two characters walk the plank, they remain suspended in midair for a moment before plunging into the sea. A horse rows a boat across a lake while its human companion relaxes. When engaging enemies as flamboyant pirate Jack Sparrow, you may drop a banana peel for them to slip on or bonk them on the head with a bottle. Almost every cutscene has some silly surprise or another, and the breezy winks and nods are the most compelling reason to push through to the end. It's a good thing, too: the PC version of Lego Pirates doesn't allow you to skip cinematics.

The continuous supply of Lego studs that you accumulate as you break every brick in sight also offers another reason for pushing to the end. The series is at its best when these bits rain down on you as you smash, reassemble, and smash again. Once again, there is no online play: you either adventure alone, or with a friend in local cooperative play. (Either way, you should plug in a controller, given the somewhat fiddly keyboard controls.) However, you don't just have a single AI or human-controlled buddy in tow in many of the levels; rather, you might have a party of a half-dozen or even more, and you can switch among them by holding down a key or button and selecting a character from a wheel. You do this often to solve many of Lego Pirates' puzzles. Only certain characters can repair broken objects, while "ladies" (as the game calls its female characters) are the only ones who can double jump. Having all these characters to control at any given time is an interesting idea that lends some diversity, but it doesn't always work out all that well in practice. For one, the AI is still as dumb as a box of Lego bricks, and having an entire company of buffoons following you around can be aggravating. For instance, you might want to navigate a series of narrow ledges, only to have three companions crowd you off of it--possibly into a toxic swamp.

Looks like Will Turner is having a ball.

For another, you need to remember which party member has which special skill; this isn't always easy when dealing with lesser characters from the films. This issue is made all the more frustrating when the game leaves you to figure out those skills on your own. For instance, only one member of your party might be strong enough to pull a particular handle, but you only discover this through trial and error or possibly after wandering around for a few minutes wondering what to do next. This sort of event happens far too often in Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Sometimes, key objects are identified, indicating that you can interact with them. Other times, objects you don't need or have already used are highlighted, but important ones are not. Or, perhaps, an important location is revealed only when you take control of a particular character. These maddening inconsistencies cause you to roam around, jumping in beached canoes and picking up rocks, only to discover that you just needed to grab on to a nondescript rope. Busy foregrounds might also obscure interactive objects, which adds to the confusion. By only half-communicating its own rules and then frequently breaking them, Lego Pirates comes across as somewhat careless.

Other little things further drag the game down. You might want to solve the puzzle at hand, but endlessly respawning enemies end up getting in the way. Jumping on a lily pad propels you so far upward that the pad you must land on drops beneath the view of the camera, which makes landing three simple leaps unnecessarily aggravating. Yet, for all the frustrations, there are successes worth celebrating, too. A chapter in which you enter a cylindrical cage and roll over everything in your path is great fun, especially in co-op play. A boss fight on a giant wheel is equally enjoyable, and it is further accentuated by the gorgeous palm trees in the background that rush past your view. That scene is a great example of Lego Pirates' wonderful look, which contrasts its blocky characters and smashable objects with lush, semirealistic environments. This technique is put to particularly good use in the final adventure, in which you glimpse the streets of London from dizzying heights above. Some cutscenes break this visual mold by presenting 2D flashbacks with a touch of paper-craft styling. These look absolutely terrific as well.

Should the whole swashbuckling thing not work out, Mr. Gibbs can always fall back on his tightrope act.

Even Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean's hub world tarnishes its delights with unnecessary annoyances. To wit: you discover there a miraculous contraption that allows you to turn day into night, and vice versa. But such joys are dampened when you want to unlock a new character for free play. You see, you don't do this from a menu, but rather, you must wander around and hope to run into

Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts Review

2011-05-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

'Go blow them ram horns,' Joshua cried, 'for the battle is in my hand.'

The White Legs are no match for a plaid suit and jaunty hat.

A few quests offer some variety, however, including one that pits you against a giant creature in Honest Hearts' best battle. The reward is an excellent melee weapon that nicely complements an intimidating helmet you might also grab before you head back to the Mojave. Other tangible goodies in this content include weapons (such as tomahawks) and new perks (extra damage when limbs are crippled). In addition, the level cap has been increased by five. Zion also serves as its own reward; its prickly cacti and red-orange plateaus provide a great backdrop to your travels. This graphics engine is showing its age, what with the bland textures, inconsistent shadows, and awkward animations. Yet campsites dotted with empty beer bottles and abandoned communal grills are an effective reminder of the civilization from which Joshua wants to shield his followers.

This being a Fallout game, it's no surprise that you could run into a number of bugs. These include some enemies you cannot damage or target in the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System because they are standing in water; enemies hovering in midair or clipping into rocks; and non-player characters running around in circles as if their loincloths are on fire. Don't let such typical bugs dissuade you from considering Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts, however. The story and related quests don't surprise, but this add-on gives you the opportunity to once again influence those you meet and accomplish your goals as you see fit. And, you do those things in a desert environment harboring enough creatures and caves to make it worth exploring.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

2011-05-25T21:19:00.002-07:00

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a gift, gilded with moments that stay with you even after the curtains close on its dark tale of uncertain pasts and uncertain futures. Like the rare Roses of Remembrance you might find growing in this role-playing game's lush fields, these moments are carefully cultivated. They're meaningful not just because they are packed with excitement, but also because there are stakes--both personal and political. As Geralt of Rivia, your actions don't just bring you closer to the truths of your own murky history, but they also influence the tides of war. And just as you exert your power on this game's events, they work their power on you, drawing you further into a gorgeous world populated by quarrelling trolls and drunken, sex-crazed dwarves. Some bugs, combat quirks, and other foibles prove bothersome, but they don't greatly diminish the impact of exploring a dungeon whose walls ooze the agony you've just witnessed. This superb role-playing sequel offers a bold world woven together by tenuous alliances and closely guarded secrets.

Something doesn't smell right within these sewers.

The Witcher 2's phenomenal visual design isn't its defining characteristic, but it's an effective lure and makes for an immediate connection with the game's provocative tone. On the outskirts of a dwarven enclave, sunlight glistens upon a misty pond; a tower just beyond it bristles with potent magical properties; the underbrush surrounding you casts deep shadows, yet rays of golden sun coax you onward. In The Witcher 2, sights like these communicate so much. The delicate lace of a sorceress's collar gives her a regal air, yet dark makeup and dark brown eyes speak to mysteries beneath the surface. A red scar above a defiant elf's upper lip is not just a testament to past violence--it suggests a permanent scowl. Walls, cliffs, and meadows aren't just repeated textures. Look closely at the patterns carved into a stone column, and you notice how each one is slightly different. These may seem like unimportant details, but they're indicators of how much care went into every facet of this game's environments and character models.

The superlative art is rendered by equally superlative technology that ensures you can admire the rips on a mercenary's trousers, a harpy's individual feathers, and the buckles and seams on Geralt's clothing. Yet The Witcher 2 is as much about grand gestures as it is textural detail. You cross paths with a giant dragon and other grotesqueries, each of which moves with a sense of weight appropriate to the creature's proportions. Pungent colors, roaring flames, and shafts of glowing light make mainstay environments like sewers and caves a wonder to explore. Impressively, all of this beauty is rendered using DirectX 9 technology rather than the newer DirectX 11. The game is nevertheless demanding of your hardware, though it is attractive even at lower settings. A few imperfections stand out amidst all the graphical wizardry, such as mechanical facial animations, characters that pop in during cutscenes, and the occasional frame rate dip. But such quibbles are easily tolerated in this luxuriant digital world.

All that glitters is not gold.

And what a world it is, alive with activity yet tinged with violence and sorrow. The opening moments ready you for the game's brutal overtones, showing a captive Geralt of Rivia whipped and taunted by his jailers. Geralt's defaced flesh is not an easy sight to take in, but it's thematically relevant: The witcher is scarred by his past. Geralt, once thought dead, is still piecing together his memories of a savage battle and a beauty called Yennefer. The story takes its cue from these lost memories, juxtaposing violence and sex. It also presents both as inevitable and natural results of the human (and nonhuman) condition. You can still bed various women in The Witcher 2, as you could in the original game, though you no longer collect sex cards. Lovemaking (or ploughing, as so many characters call it) is a frequent subject of conversation, and it's one of Geralt's favorite pastimes. You can bed a few different women, and the game hardly shies from nudity, handily earning its mature rating. The lacerations on Geralt's back are a stark reminder, however, that this earthly pleasure is only a temporary respite for him.

But The Witcher 2 is not primarily about sex, nor violence. It's about the search for truth. Geralt seeks clues to his past, as well as the royal assassin that ended the life of King Foltest at the conclusion of The Witcher. This man's identity is not a secret for long, but then, this is not a murder mystery; rather, it's a chronicle of discovery, redemption, and political upheaval. Geralt is blamed for Foltest's murder, but as he gets closer to the true killer, he becomes more and more involved in the region's power struggles. Not including the prologue and epilogue, The Witcher 2 is split into three acts. The first is primarily concerned with following the killer's trail, while the second greatly expands the plot, introducing so many new characters and so much lore that you might be initially confused. Yet, the convoluted plot seems poised to explode in the final episode, only to fizzle at the end. The lack of closure intimates a sequel, and it makes the final act feel abrupt when compared to the robustness of the first two.

Harpies of a feather shriek together.

Characters new and old both assist and hinder Geralt's quest. These include the flamboyant bard Dandelion and the earthy Zoltan, a foul-mouthed dwarf who, like most of The Witcher 2's dwarves, loves women and drink. Dwarves are a rich source of humor in most role-playing games, and The Witcher 2's are no exception. Yet, the tone is different here. These are the raunchiest dwarves you've ever encountered, yet the comedy is undercut by underlying anguish. It's initially funny to learn that teetotaling dwarves are outcasts. But when a dwarf confides that he fears being ostracized because he doesn't drink, you understand his dread. You might admire a bearded character's enthusiasm for heading to battle for the first time, but when pressed, he admits his misgivings. Aside from the occasional expository speech, most of the dialogue sounds natural, including the asides spoken by random citizens. Most of the voice actors do a good job of bringing these characters to life, in spite of the occasional hollow note. (The actress playing Triss Merigold again sounds like a random meter maid rushed into the studio for some last-minute line readings.)

The Witcher 2 is not an open-world game in the way of The Elder Scrolls games; each area is relatively contained though expansive enough to encourage exploration. The rewards for doing so aren't just pretty vistas. You might uncover a chest that can be opened only by interpreting the clues on a nearby scroll or stumble upon a giant arachnid guarding treasure. However, the game's flexibility isn't a result of wide-open journeys; it is the extraordinary ways you can influence the story and fundamentally change the direction of your future travels. For example, choices you make at the end of Act 1 not only determine how immediate story events play out, but also have a dramatic impact on the entire game. The characters at your side, the enemies you face, the dialogue--they all differ based on a series of decisions that the game never forgets. And these aren't "good" or "bad" choices: these are ambiguous circumstances with ambiguous results, which is just as well. Geralt is not interested in heroism or villainy. He navigates turbulent waters seeking neither justice nor injustice, only answers.

NASCAR 2011: The Game Review

2011-05-25T21:19:00.001-07:00

Unless you count 2009's NASCAR Kart Racing (and why would you?), NASCAR 2011 is the first NASCAR game for the Wii. That doesn't mean, however, that it is a worthy one. This is circuit racing stripped to its bare essentials, held up only by a functional driving model that struggles to capture the tension of the real thing. Even on hard difficulty, you'll rarely feel challenged by the other 42 drivers on the track. Beginning a race in pole position is essentially a guarantee that you'll finish in first unless you crank the difficulty up to very hard. Off the track, Wii owners get few of the frills Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners enjoyed. There is no paint booth, no way to save races for sharing or later viewing, and no detailed vehicle customization. Invitational events give this sparse package some much-needed variety, but this halfhearted effort is a mere shadow of the great NASCAR games of years past.

Don't like the look of your vehicle? Oh well--you can't customize it.

Career mode drops you into the shoes of a known NASCAR driver or one of your own making and puts you through the paces, from Daytona to Homestead-Miami. You take to the circuits one at a time and make your way through a 36-race season, including the road course races on Watkins-Glen International and Infineon Raceway. The mode is functional, but it's also dry and straightforward--no substitute for the impressive and extensive Fight to the Top modes in older NASCAR games. Even victory celebrations are subdued. Your driver dances about and breaks out the champagne while surrounded by fist-pumping fans, but this canned display gets old, and the roar of the crowd sounds more like a mild sigh. The blandness of the visuals further emphasizes the lack of excitement. The frame rate holds up nicely on the track, but jagged edges, fuzzy crowds, and drab vehicles suck the life out of crash replays.

Outside of the career mode, you can take any car to any track for a one-off race, or compete in eliminator events in which you set the number of challengers. These modes hold no surprises, so it's up to NASCAR 2011's invitational events to provide some diversity, and they do a decent job of it. You unlock these as you progress through your career, and they come in a few varieties. Perhaps the most interesting are legends challenges, in which you must draft other drivers to unlock collectible coins. A satisfying whoosh makes it enjoyable to draft, so an event focused on this mechanic is a good addition. Time trials, elimination events, and two-part gauntlet races round out the invitationals.

Elimination events provide some of the only occasions in which you see drivers in front of you.

NASCAR 2011 makes it easy for newcomers to jump right in, and there are a number of driving assists to help you smoothly navigate the curves. Unfortunately, you can't tweak vehicle handling any further. While the other versions let you customize minutiae like brake bias and differential ratio, NASCAR 2011 on the Wii offers no such features. In fact, Wii owners don't get any number of features other iterations boasted--and those versions were lacking in content to begin with. There is no paint booth, so you can't modify your car with flags, flames, and fonts of your own choosing. There is no replay feature, so you can't save races for viewing at various camera angles, let alone share your favorite moments online. Nor is their any online racing, though you can join a friend in two-player split-screen races.

Any goodwill NASCAR 2011 earns quickly wears off when you discover that AI drivers are simply incapable of challenging you. You can smash into walls multiple times during qualification and still have no trouble taking pole, even on hard difficulty. And should you start the race in first place, you will almost always finish in first, often by an enormous margin should you play on medium difficulty. Perhaps this pitiful challenge is meant to compensate for the digital controls: if you use a classic controller or stick with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk, accelerating and braking are either/or actions. You either slam on the brake, or you stay off of it; you either accelerate at full speed, or you don't accelerate at all. A GameCube controller's analog triggers allow for more subtlety, though they're still too rigid to feel totally comfortable. As a result, NASCAR 2011 feels clunky, particularly on road courses. That's a real shame, given that steering is smooth and responsive regardless of your preferred control method.

Whoop. De. Doo.

On the hardest difficulty level and with assists at a minimum, races can still provide a modicum of excitement, rewarding you for sticking close to a proper racing line and requiring you to draft and pick up speed so that you might slingshot ahead. The game assigns you a rival in each race, and beating him (or her) gives you a little extra incentive to drive well, though this is a far cry from NASCAR Thunder 2004's involved rivalry/alliance system. In NASCAR 2011, the track is your greatest rival; scraping the wall might throw you out of your rhythm, while a misconceived attempt to slide into an opening might lead to disaster. Assuming you're racing more than a few laps and have turned on tire wear and damage, you also need to pay mind to your fuel gauge and vehicle condition. This affects your efficacy on the course, and in long races, you need to make a pit stop when necessary to replace tires and fuel up.

NASCAR 2011 is a gutted version of a game that was short on value to begin with, yet shockingly it sells at full price. This may be the only authentic NASCAR game in town, but Wii owners needing a Sprint Cup fix should avoid temptation and leave this problematic bare-bones racer on store shelves.

Faery: Legends of Avalon Review

2011-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

When you're a PC enthusiast, it can be frustrating to wait expectantly for a game console players have already enjoyed. There is a worse scenario, however: finally receiving a game that's as boring as it was on other platforms. Faery: Legends of Avalon, first released last year on Xbox Live and later on the PlayStation Network, is a dreadfully dull role-playing game that treats you more like an errand boy than a hero. As a fairy recently awakened from stasis, you flit about four different environments doing favors for random inhabitants that you care nothing about, sometimes stopping for a bit of turn-based combat that would have been considered primitive two decades ago. Faery makes a few efforts to rise above the tedium, providing a certain amount of flexibility in how you level up and giving quests an element of choice. There's also some initial pleasure in flying around the game's colorful world. But in spite of its visual vibrancy and sparkling music, Faery is a joyless series of odd jobs and banal battles without any semblance of a good story to give them proper context.

Sadly, the combat is this boring from beginning to end.

Legends of Avalon at least tries to brighten its tedium with some twinkling production values. It isn't beautiful, exactly, but the world is vivid. Characters and environmental features alike are cel-shaded, which highlights the bold colors of a looming tower and the severe facial features of a huge tree's aging inhabitants. As a winged fairy, you flutter around four different environments, starting with the island that functions as a hub world. The way in which some of these worlds are put together does exude a certain cleverness. A desert world is actually a giant scarab crossing the sand. A ghost ship floats in murky waters inhabited by vain, haughty mermaids. Quaint huts are tucked into the branches of the giant tree Yggdrasil. The accompanying music is boilerplate fantasy, but flute glissandos and celesta chords give it an enchanting air, as if a pageant of pixies may prance through at any moment.

Despite the game's attractive look, its utter lack of originality is soon wholly apparent. This is in part by design: the areas and characters are pulled directly from famous legends and stories. The Flying Dutchman, Arabian Nights, and Norse mythology are all pasted onto this world without so much as an ironic wink or a bit of sly charm. Many characters, such as a poetic troll and the squat residents of a pseudo-Arabian village, have a unique look to them. But for the most part, Legends of Avalon has no clear identity. There is not a word of voice acting that brings the dialogue to life, and while there are attempts to give characters a bit of flair (phonetic spelling meant to indicate a Cockney accent, for example), almost every line falls flat. Your own character, for example, can sometimes respond to characters with a generic "nice" or "mean" comment using a dialogue wheel ripped right out of Mass Effect. Most often, your reply is either totally saccharine or utterly cruel and delivered in a short sentence that grants no insight into your own persona--or anyone else's. Furthermore, grammar errors and misspellings present in the console versions weren't corrected, making it even harder to take this story seriously. In fact, this version of Faery hasn't made any notable fixes and improvements, and the sluggish mouselook makes using an Xbox 360 controller a more comfortable option than a mouse and keyboard.

Quests are so pedestrian, you wouldn't be surprised if a gnome asked you to pick up his dry cleaning.

Without good narrative context, Faery: Legends of Avalon quickly turns into one meaningless fetch quest after another. You make your way through its small worlds doing odd jobs like collecting water jugs, searching for a hairbrush, and locating an eccentric artist. At best, this simply means traveling from one location to the next and pressing a button. At worst, it means aimlessly flapping around until you happen on the proper trigger. This is frustrating in the interior of the dark ghost ship, which is poorly lit and cluttered with objects that make it difficult to find your way around and see the telltale sparkle that indicates an interactive object. Poor signposting and unclear dialogue make finding a key figure nestled in the dense branches of Yggdrasil an absolute chore. At least these quests come with a reward: experience points. Leveling up allows you to choose spells and skills, as well as improve ones you have already chosen. You can focus on certain elemental skills, such as air or fire; choose defensive spells, like heals; and put skill points in passive abilities, such as a boost to your hit point total. The equipment you find in treasure chests and earn as quest rewards further augments the effectiveness of your chosen abilities.

The game occasionally gives you choices on how to proceed, which usually means either finding a peaceful solution or doing battle, though neither option is that enjoyable. Peaceful solutions entail more random gofer work, while violent ones involve participating in Legends of Avalon's ridiculously easy turn-based battles. As you roam the lands, you happen upon potential team members, all of whom have different attacks and spells to choose from in combat. Battles are so easy that it's almost impossible to lose, but should you somehow find yourself struggling, you'll have more health potions than you could ever possibly need. You can position your three party members in the front or back, but you needn't give this option a second thought: just pelt your enemies with different attacks and spells from the front line until they fall over dead. Some enemies are more resistant to certain attacks than others, but there is no mana bar to manage, and there are precious few buffs and debuffs with which to concern yourself. It's all disappointingly threadbare.

This might be the most authentic-sounding bit of dialogue in the entire game.

After five or six hours, Faery: Legends of Avalon presents another all-black or all-white decision that makes no difference one way or another, because the game immediately ends the moment you make it. That sounds frustrating, but it's actually an appropriate conclusion to a game that ushers you from one insignificant decision to the next. Choice is good, but it rings hollow when you have no investment in the potential consequences. Thus, Legends of Avalon amounts to a bunch of bland missions separated by elementary turn-based battles that inspire only a few faint yawns. Pass on this particular fairy tale and you'll exponentially improve your odds of living happily ever after.

Star Raiders Review

2011-05-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

The original 1979 Star Raiders was a complex and ambitious space combat game that involved navigating across the galaxy via hyperspace, scanning for hostiles, and managing damage to weapons, engines, and other ship components. It also had a sense of humor; at the end of a game, heroic players might earn the rank of Star Commander, while less successful pilots might be designated Galactic Cooks. Now, following in the footsteps of last month's Yar's Revenge, which also took the title of an Atari classic, is a new game called Star Raiders. But it possesses none of the ambition or fun of its namesake. On the contrary, Star Raiders is an awful space combat game, with nothing to offer to newcomers and only anguish in store for those with fond memories of the original.

There's nothing quite as satisfying as destroying the last generator on a Zylon frigate. Wait, yes there is. There totally is!

As a crackerjack pilot in the Atar Academy, you're called upon to help defend humanity from the mysterious Zylons. (This isn't a reference to the Cylons of the recent Battlestar Galactica series. It's a reference to the original game's Zylons, who were themselves a reference to the Cylons of the original Battlestar Galactica series.) The story initially attempts to drum up a sense of camaraderie between your character, Ruiz, and his friends at the academy, but there's too little time spent on this for it to amount to anything, and the monotonous narrator imbues the tale with all the excitement of a legal document. The illustrations that tell the story look as if they were done quickly, and the attempts to bring a sense of movement to these drawings sometimes have unintentionally hilarious results. On the plus side, abbreviation enthusiasts will appreciate that the game has plenty of lines like, "It is the only ship capable of delivering the Mass Ordinance Plasma Bomb, or MOPB, which can destroy the SMCD."

Once you climb into the cockpit, the real problems begin. Star Raiders has a sorry excuse for a tutorial. Your ship can transform into three configurations: the slow but powerful turret mode, the balanced assault mode, and the speedy but vulnerable attack mode. The tutorial missions give you paragraphs of text to absorb about the best uses for each of these three modes, but this information isn't actively reinforced by the very basic tasks that follow. As a result, once you find yourself in real combat situations, it's tough to get a handle on when to switch from one form to the next, and on the different control schemes for different forms. (By default, the right stick controls pitch and yaw while in assault and turret modes, but in attack mode, the left stick controls pitch and roll.) The tutorials also offer no advice on how to evade locked-on enemy torpedoes or how to most effectively use the EMP and countermeasures your ship is equipped with. As for making sense of the gauges that surround your targeting reticle, you're shown a labeled diagram before tutorial missions, and that's it. Concepts like managing energy consumption would be far easier to grasp if the game took a moment to touch on these as you were playing, rather than expecting you to fully understand them just by reading about them once.

Getting hit with a giant cotton swab is far more fun than Star Raiders.

Sadly, putting in the time to get familiar with the game just isn't worth it. The Zylons may have fighters, frigates, and cruisers, but their most powerful weapon is boredom. Battling Zylon fighters has none of the cat-and-mouse thrills that good dogfighting should have; you can usually get them in your sights from a distance and take them out easily, making their feeble attempts to be elusive a frustrating postponement of the inevitable rather than a source of excitement. Far worse than dealing with these tiny fighters is the incredibly tedious process of taking down Zylon capital ships. Zylon cruisers and frigates have several small generators on their hulls that must be destroyed to take out the ships, and the most effective way to do that is to transform into assault mode and slowly move along the ship's surface from one generator to the next, pumping bullets into them until they explode.

It's an excruciatingly dull process, and after doing it for the umpteenth time, seeing that the next mission requires you to destroy still more frigates and cruisers may be enough to make you throw up your arms in surrender and let the Zylons win. Late in the game, when you finally get to take on one of the massive Zylon basestar vessels, it's almost comically disappointing that destroying one of these monstrosities boils down to flying inside it and taking out still more of those stupid little generators. And there's no sense of danger in any of this; when you die, you simply respawn a few seconds later, good as new.

If you choose to persevere through all of this crushing boredom and repetition, you're rewarded with a climactic mission in which you must fly through ventilation shafts into a Zylon structure deep beneath the surface of a planet. It's at least different from anything that comes before, but it culminates in a sequence in which you must escape from the structure before it gets blown to kingdom come. Infuriatingly, failing to do so sets you back to the start of the entire mission, forcing you to repeat a great deal of tedious gameplay before you can attempt the escape again.

Be thankful that you can't hear this screenshot.

The drab interstellar battlefields of Star Raiders are a fitting accompaniment to the dull gameplay, and the constant blaring of the alarm warning you of an enemy lock-on is a maddening incentive to turn the game off and do something else. It's a shame that there are now so few good games being made in the once-flourishing space combat genre, but no matter how desperate you are for some interstellar action, there's no reason to play Star Raiders. On the original game's rating scale, this game earns the particularly shameful rank of Garbage Scow Captain.

The First Templar Review

2011-05-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

Two thousand years ago, Jesus drank from a cup. Such a commonplace action may seem trivial, but it transformed an ordinary chalice into the Holy Grail. This sacred object has fueled the desire of countless historians through the years and has wormed its way into just as many fictional tellings of its supposed powers. The First Templar uses the unimaginable delights promised by the Holy Grail to push you through this action-focused role-playing game. The Knights Templar, sworn protectors of this coveted prize, prove they are as susceptible to temptation as every other person, and though the story provides enough twists to stay interesting, it's the varied gameplay and enchanting visuals that make this a journey worth taking. A dearth of items means you're stuck with only a few weapons and outfits for the whole game, and spotty collision detection can hound your progress at times. But The First Templar rises above these problems to create an enjoyable adventure through the turbulent 13th century.

Archers are particularly weak against swords.

The Holy Grail is a siren song that's difficult to get out of your head. Whether you want to steal this precious artifact for altruistic or selfish ends doesn't matter; it's worth dying for. And it's certainly worth killing for. You assume the role of the valiant knight Celian. The cross emblazoned on his chest is more than just a symbol; it's an outline for his way of life. Peace and well-being are his guiding ideals, though he isn't afraid to bloody his sword when evil presents itself. He is joined in this adventure by two other would-be heroes, though neither is as unrelentingly pure as the protagonist. Roland is a fellow Templar whose abrasive persona makes him a poor diplomat at best. Marie is loyal to her friends, but she rarely offers help for those in need. There's a believable repartee between these characters that makes them easy to grow attached to as you accompany them on their journey. Surprisingly, there are bits of humor sprinkled throughout your exploits. Non sequiturs such as "We will not negotiate with marauders" crop up at unexpected moments, and they provide levity to a mostly serious tale.

Combat is the focus of this roughly 12-hour-long adventure. Basic attacks are handled by clicking the mouse, though there is more complexity than just swinging your sword without a clear plan. Enemies are keen on slaying anyone who clicks without forethought, and it takes only a few solid hits in the early going to arrive at death's door. Because of this, you need to balance your offensive attacks and defensive maneuvers to stay alive. Blocking and dodging are an integral part of your repertoire, and smart use of these along with sure-handed sword strikes gives combat an enticing rhythm. If you time your swings correctly, your blows become more powerful, so it's important to keep your cool instead of clicking away as fast as possible. You unlock more attacks as you earn experience, and these help keep things varied. A shoulder charge or a spinning whirlwind gives you room when you're surrounded, and a two-handed strike can smash a shield in two. There isn't much challenge once you understand how to fight, but The First Templar stays interesting partly because of the flourish kills you perform at random intervals. Crashing your shield down onto someone's trachea or performing a karate kick of death provides enough thrills to keep things moving.

It may ruin the environment, but nothing is quite as beautiful as a burning forest.

There are two people in your party at all times, and you can switch between characters whenever you want. Because you have Celian for the entire game, he's usually stronger than the other two, with a more varied move list, so it's more fun to control him in combat. What isn't fun is the collision detection, which is woefully inconsistent. Running away from enemy attacks isn't always an option because you can get hit even when you're clearly out of range. This can be overcome by rolling or blocking, but it's annoying nonetheless, and this problem surfaces in other aspects of the game as well. A decent chunk of the adventure involves avoiding traps, and you can be burned by fire or stabbed by spikes even if you're a healthy distance away. Finicky collision detection is not a huge issue because you have enough health to avoid a few brushes with death, but it can lead to frustration.

Despite this technical problem, the forays into other activities do a good job of varying the pace. You run through decrepit caverns pulling switches and lighting torches, and the well-worn ground these actions cover conjures deja vu in the early going. But navigating these underground ruins is not always as straightforward as it seems, and figuring out where to go next can be eminently satisfying, especially in the later levels. You often need to split up your characters to get past obstacles, and going alone can be mighty stressful when your health is low and there are spiked columns closing in. Aside from these puzzle sections, there are sequences that emphasize stealth. Once you enter stealth mode, you can see your enemy's line of sight on your radar, and if you sneak up behind him, you can snap his neck. And you don't have to worry about failure if you're caught. The entire camp will most likely be awakened to your presence, but you can always fight your way out. Throwing pots to distract your foolish foes is the biggest twist to the standard formula, but it's not any surprising or innovative elements that make the stealth sections fun. Rather, it's the breezy and welcome change they offer from the hack-and-slash action that ensures your adventure never become stale.

Honestly, his marker-drawn beard is the least of his problems.

It's a shame that variety doesn't extend to your armaments. You unlock a handful of new weapons throughout the course of the game, but they don't have stat modifiers, so you have only slight visual differences to look forward to. The same rules apply to your armor. Each character has a few different outfits to unlock, but the only thing that changes is your outward appearance. It's disheartening that there aren't lots of items to hunt for because the sprawling levels urge you to explore every branching path you come across. There are hidden treasure chests (that usually contain attribute buffs) and bonus objectives in every area, and figuring out how to scour every inch of the level provides its own rewards, even if the tangible offerings aren't up to snuff. Most places can be discovered by straying from the most obvious path, but there's one investigative tool that is as useful as it is silly. In certain places, you can push a survey button that causes footprints to appear on the ground. Following glowing white shoe prints makes it feel like you're hunting down Casper the Friendly Ghost, and it's hard not to laugh when these prints appear even in a murky swamp. Exploration is a strong point in The First Templar that makes even slow moments engaging.

If you break down the individual pieces of this budget-priced RPG, there isn't much that hasn't been done before. The basic structure feels like many other games, and the combat hardly reinvents the wheel. But there's an enticing charm that makes it difficult to pull away once you begin your journey. Strong visual design certainly helps. You travel across Europe and the Middle East, through sun-drenched deserts and besieged towns, and every area has a unique look and is just begging to be explored. And you can even play through with a friend, though the execution is sadly lacking. There's no drop-in/drop-out option, so you need to start a new session if you want to investigate these lands with a buddy. There are small problems swirling around the periphery of this game, but none of these issues can completely derail your enjoyment. The First Templar is a fun and varied chase for one of the most sought-after items in existence.

Fable III Review

2011-05-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

Last October, Fable III was released for the Xbox 360. Comical characters and enchanting aesthetics overshadowed many of the game's problems, providing another magical trip through the world of Albion. For PC players eager to try their hand at being a hero, the wait is finally over. Fable III has arrived on the PC and brought with it the merriment and whimsy that make it such a pleasure to spend time in this mythical land. There are a few small changes from the console original, but this is essentially the same game that was released seven months ago. The combat has been rebalanced to provide more challenge and most of the graphical bugs have been ironed out, but don't expect any new content for your patience. In fact, previously released downloadable content, such as Traitor's Keep, isn't even included in the package; you need to shell out $7 to play it just like Xbox 360 owners. The lack of new content is disheartening, and problems such as weak moral choices and inconsequential gameplay diversions persist, but Fable III is still a delightful adventure that will make you laugh and smile while you're slicing up hollow men.

Monorails are known death traps.

The hero who saved Albion in Fable II went on to become a beloved monarch, siring two children who would eventually look over the kingdom when their time came. Not all members of royalty can be blessed with a strong vision of how to lead their people into peace and prosperity, though. The oldest son of the former ruler has a case of the evils, and he is using his power as the new king to oppress the poor peasants who fall under his rule. As the younger sibling (you can choose to be a prince or princess), you flee from the castle under off-putting circumstances and must build up your own army to overthrow your power-hungry brother. There's a stronger emphasis on the story in Fable III than in previous games in the series, and there is a certain charm in meeting the various leaders throughout the city to gain allies. But the quests are structured more for a good hero than one with evil leanings; you are forced to do all sorts of nice things during your rise to power, which limits your chances to be an uncaring meanie.

The lack of choice in how the main quest plays out is disappointing, although it's possible to excuse this story conceit when you consider how it matches reality. To gain power, you must make concessions and convince people you're truly on their side; it's only after you take the throne for yourself that you can turn your back on the nice folks who supported you. That may make sense, but the lack of consequences for the vast majority of your actions makes it difficult to become invested in your choices. For instance, you can slay an entire town, murdering every adult you can find if you feel a bit bloodthirsty. But mere moments after committing such an atrocity, you can continue on with the main quests where people trust you and consider you a good person. It doesn't make any sense. Even choosing the bad option in side quests has few repercussions. In one early mission, you can choose to either kill a brood of chickens or let them live. If you spare their lives, you can bet on chicken races later. But even if you kill them all, the races are still available. The game goes so far out of its way to make sure you don't paint yourself into a corner that you rarely suffer any setback for your choices.

Take a look, it's in a book.

This lack of emotional connection seeps throughout the rest of the story. Character interaction has actually been dumbed down even from the fart-or-dance options that defined Fable II. As in the previous game, you have the choice to perform a nice or nasty greeting to any character you meet. If you're courteous, you can befriend and eventually marry that character. If you're obnoxious, though, you create many enemies. But when conversations with your date just have you whistling a song or playing patty-cake until she gives you a gift, it's hard to care one iota when she accidentally gets torn to shreds by a pack of balverines. Expressing your emotions is one of many places in which simplified mechanics limit your potential for fun. Previously, you could perform any learned gesture at any time. Now? You're limited to a couple options, and you have to wait for the choices to cycle through after every move. This aspect of the game has the same emotional impact as what you would find in Fable II (read: none), but it's hard to even care about your dog this time around. There is never a bonding moment and you can't even heal him after battle (he never gets hurt), so he's more of a furry metal detector than a lovable friend.

It's a shame that Fable III can't conjure any deep feelings for its funny-though-forgettable characters, but that's not to say you won't be emotionally invested at all. This is a gorgeous game. Every place you travel to has its own unique look and feel, and it's an undeniable joy to scour the lands for no other reason than to take in the beautiful sights. It is the breathtaking vistas and enchanting forests that pull you in; the smog-filled sky in Bowerstone or the sandy dunes of Aurora keep you engaged. Though your heart may not twinge for the characters you meet, the stirring score does a great job of making it flutter in your chest. Fable III is happy or somber, scary or uplifting, and it pulls off these emotional changes through careful artistic design and empowering music. Walking through Albion is to walk through the pages of a fairy tale. This meticulously constructed world is so enticing to look at and so pleasing to the ear that it makes up for the lack of depth in the other areas.

It's Lute Hero! Get it?

Unfortunately, the technical aspects aren't as refined as the artistic side of things. The most glaring problem is the pathfinding. Your dog, helpful treasure hunter that he is, is awful at pointing you in the right direction. He gets stuck on rocks and trees, and sometimes he just stands near you barking instead of running off to show you where to dig. This busted pathfinding stretches to humans as well. When you hold a companion's hand, you would expect him to dutifully walk alongside you. But your companions also get stuck on any obstacle in their path, and these quirks can quickly pull you out of the experience. In the Xbox 360 version, these technical issues also extend to the visuals, but those bugs have been mostly ironed out in the PC version. Pop-in and slowdown have been largely eradicated like so many hobbes, which lets the game showcase the blissful aesthetics without distracting you with a bevy of minor issues. Sadly, there are still frame rate drops during certain combat sequences, even on PCs that exceed the recommended settings. The game chugs along like a snail caught in a pile of salt, and the only way to set things rightl is to briefly return to your sanctuary. Despite the odd frame rate quirk, Fable III is a beautiful game that is a pleasure to explore.

MX vs. ATV Alive Review

2011-05-21T08:40:00.001-07:00

Motocross racing gets physical in MX vs. ATV Alive; colliding with opponents is now a legitimate tactic rather than a cause of frustration and the action is significantly more exciting as a result. It's not all good news in this scant sequel to MX vs. ATV Reflex, though; there's no structured career mode, there are no vehicle types beyond those mentioned in the title, and there are only two event types: Race and Free Ride. Additional features are promised in the form of downloadable content, but right now, this off-road offering barely does enough to justify even its seemingly attractive $40 price tag.

Are four wheels better than two? You decide.

Climbing onto either a 125cc motocross bike or a 250cc quad in MX vs. ATV Alive as a level 1 rider can be daunting, particularly if you never played Reflex. Not only do you have to use both analog sticks to control your vehicle and rider independently of each other, but the game also makes no attempt to explain more advanced techniques: using the clutch to get off the start line quickly or to maintain speed through corners, or locking your seat bounce to preload for a jump, for example. Regardless, it shouldn't take you long to get a handle on the basics and start winning races.

There are four different difficulty settings to choose from, so you should have no problem finding appropriately challenging AI opposition. As you recklessly throw yourself into corners launch off of huge mounds of dirt, you have to contend with opponents who, while capable of making mistakes, are always fiercely competitive. Collisions are commonplace, but where in previous games these would often end badly, here they can work to your advantage because it's not uncommon to send an opponent to the dirt without taking a tumble yourself. Major mishaps aside, anytime you're in danger of falling off your ride, you're afforded an opportunity to recover by quickly flicking the right analog stick in the direction indicated onscreen to maintain your balance. It's the same system that was used in Reflex, and it works well; races are far less frustrating when you're not falling off after every mistake and you're not punished for riding aggressively.

At the end of every race, both you and your currently selected vehicle earn experience points and levels. Leveling up unlocks all manner of extra customization options. These include new paint jobs, performance-improving parts for your vehicles, and licensed rider gear. There are also rider abilities that, once equipped in the two available slots, can make it easier to prevent spills, knock opponents out of the way, or recover from falls, for example. There's even an ability that increases the number of experience points you receive after every race as well, which is very useful when you're eager to unlock the tracks that don't become available until you reach levels 10 and 25. (Alternatively, you can spend around $6 to unlock everything instantly.)

Using the right analog stick to control your body is important anytime you hit a jump.

On the disc, MX vs. ATV Alive offers a dozen different full-length tracks, plus four short tracks and a couple of modest free-ride environments. Annoyingly, the vast majority of this mostly good content isn't available from the outset, and unlocking it takes long enough that you inevitably end up having to replay the same handful of tracks over and over again while leveling up. A redeemable code included with new copies of the game can be used to download two additional tracks located in a third free-ride environment, but even taking those into account, the selection that's on offer for the first few hours of racing is woefully inadequate.

One way to lessen the repetition of racing against the same AI riders on the same tracks is to put your skills to the test against human opponents, which still earns you experience points for your persistent rider and vehicles. MX vs. ATV Alive supports two-player split-screen in a full field of 12 racers, as well as online play for up to 12 riders. Split-screen play works well enough, though there's some noticeable texture and object pop-in that's not present when playing solo. The mostly lag-free online play suffers no such distractions and is a lot of fun, especially if get into a racing session with similarly skilled opposition. After selecting which class you want to race in (there are three bike and two quad classes to choose from), you're placed into a lobby with other players, and between races, you get to vote on which track is raced next.

Whereas MX vs. ATV Reflex offered a number of different gameplay modes, Alive offers only races and a Free Ride mode in which you're encouraged to explore sand dunes and quarries while completing challenges. Experience can be earned in Free Ride for performing long jumps, catching a lot of air, locating a secret vehicle in each of the three locales, and performing tricks. Sadly, tricks aren't MX vs. ATV Alive's strong suit. You need to move an analog stick in three different directions while holding down a bumper to get a trick started, and many of the animations take so long to play out that you need a lot of air for them to be successful.

The visuals take a hit in split-screen mode, but multiplayer races are a lot of fun.

Whether performing tricks or waiting at the start gate, riders and vehicles are reasonably detailed, and though track surfaces occasionally appear pixilated, the environments also look good when you're racing through them at speed. The most impressive aspect of the visuals, which also has an impact on gameplay, is that tracks get increasingly deformed and believably torn up by the bikes and ATVs as races progress, sprinkling every lap with a little welcome unpredictability. MX vs. ATV Alive is a better racing game than its predecessor, but sadly, it's not nearly as good a value proposition. Even after you spend several hours unlocking all that it has to offer, this is a game that's sorely in need of more content. It's coming, but rather than adding to an already fully featured game, here, it's hard not to feel like DLC will merely bring it closer to being the game it should've been from day one.

Brink Review

2011-05-21T08:39:00.001-07:00

Greatness is rarely achieved without ambition. Jumping into the battlefields of Brink, you get the immediate sense that you are playing an ambitious first-person shooter. Four interdependent soldier classes and three distinct body types combine to create a diverse array of ways to kill your enemies, support your allies, and move around the battlefield. Brink's team-based skirmishes are rich with opportunities, but they are also hampered by design issues, including frustrating problems with the movement system and the artificial intelligence. Nagging visual shortcomings and online lag also hamper your immersion in this interesting world. There is definitely some fun to be had in these frenetic firefights, but for all its ambition, Brink falls well short of greatness.

If you don't finish your enemies off, they may come back to shoot you in the face.

Your Brink experience starts with a choice. As a citizen of the Ark, will you fight to impose order on the floating city that may be humanity's last refuge in the wake of global disaster? Or do you view the Ark as a prison, where authoritarian forces oppress your people and keep you isolated from the human societies that must still exist on dry land? It's a dramatic choice, but ultimately it's a meaningless one. You can play both sides of the campaign no matter which faction you choose, and your loadout, abilities, and stats are persistent regardless of which side you are fighting for. Brink's online integration means that with the exception of the four Challenge maps, every match you play takes place on one of the eight maps from the campaign. When you start up a match, you can determine what map you play, who can join your game (if anyone), which player ranks are allowed, and whether or not human players are allowed on the enemy team. Setting up a game in freeplay mode enables more customization options and increases the likelihood of joining a game with a lot of human players.

Before you get into a match, however, you have the option to watch extensive tutorial videos that familiarize you with the busy battlefields of Brink. Though they drag on for a while, they are full of good information that can help you get your bearings, especially if you are new to objective-focused, class-based combat. You must also create a character using Brink's stylish customization suite. After choosing from an all-male gallery of quasi-realistic faces, you don either the trim, tough look of the Security forces, or the grimy, ragtag look of the Resistance. You unlock a bunch of cool clothing, hairstyles, and face paint as you level up, and it's fun to play around with your character's look as you progress. (Just don't expect to switch up your tattoos--they're permanent.)

The lone aspect of character creation that actually affects how you play the game is your body type. Every character begins with a medium body and soon unlocks heavy and light types. Heavy characters have the most health and can carry the biggest guns, but they are also the slowest and least nimble. This makes them well suited to defending key areas or clearing out rooms, but you sometimes have to take the long way around to find a staircase. Light characters have the least health and can carry only small guns, but they are also the fastest and most nimble. They excel at running fluidly around the map and leaping to areas other players cannot reach, while peppering the enemy with gunfire. Medium characters are both nimble and durable, though not to the extent of the other types, and they function as a versatile blend of the other two.

Bad time to reload, hombre.

Creating diverse types of movement is one of Brink's main ambitions, and to a certain degree, it succeeds. Performing a speedy escape or a daring infiltration with a light character is exhilarating, while mowing down a whole enemy squad as a heavy is very satisfying. All characters can sprint, slide, and jump with varying proficiency, and this mobility helps make combat more lively. Slide into an enemy, and you knock him on his back, resulting in a close-quarters firefight that is a neat hybrid of melee combat and gunplay. Simply holding down the left trigger while running sends you automatically vaulting over obstacles and clambering up crates, but unfortunately, this movement system is hampered by imperfections. You may take an odd approach angle to a railing and end up running right into it instead of leaping over it. And because there is no clear system to indicate which ledges are surmountable and which aren't, you have to develop a sense of intuition through trial and error. Brink's attempt to infuse the action with this free-running movement is intriguing but problematic, delivering both invigoration and frustration.

L.A. Noire Review

2011-05-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

What awaits Cole Phelps at the next crime scene? Will it be a couple of hopheads who overdosed on morphine and are now on the midnight train to nowhere? Or maybe a young lady whose dreams of Hollywood stardom were chewed up and spit out by the studios and who now lies naked in a park, the victim of a brutal murder? L.A. Noire confronts you with these sad situations and many more. Inspired by film noir classics and hardboiled crime fiction, this tale of a complicated and troubled cop in postwar Los Angeles makes the business of detective work absorbing and rewarding, and it's drenched in so much authentic late-'40s style that you'll practically be able to smell the acrid mix of glamour and corruption in the air.

L.A.P.D.! You have the right to die!

The City of Angels is one of the stars of L.A. Noire, and it gets the red-carpet treatment here. The game re-creates a vast swath of the city circa 1947; though it's by no means accurate down to the tiniest detail, those who know Los Angeles will appreciate the tremendous amount of research that clearly went into designing this version of it. (You expect to see the historic Egyptian Theatre in its proper place on Hollywood Boulevard, for instance, but seeing the Pig 'N Whistle right next to it, which has been there since 1927, is impressive.) Your journey takes you from filthy flophouses and hobo camps to elegant mansions and the sleek, modern offices of a company that's shaping the development of postwar Los Angeles. The architecture, which includes cookie-cutter housing developments that are springing up in droves to capitalize on the return of soldiers from the war, as well as jazz clubs where cops and gangsters alike relax after night falls, is authentic and makes this Los Angeles an absorbing and immersive place.

And it's not just these big things that the game gets right. As a detective, your work investigating crime scenes is often about the smallest details, and the richness of these details in L.A. Noire makes rummaging around grisly crime scenes and perusing the personal effects of victims a compelling process. The homes of murder victims feel lived in as a result of pictures on the walls, notes pinned on refrigerators, and clothing tossed on the floor and forgotten. Pick up an official document while rummaging through some files and you'll see that it looks genuine right down to the fine print. This attention to detail makes the often unsavory business of being a detective deeply absorbing. On top of this, the period fashions, actual automobiles, and music of the era--along with a score that evokes the style of some of the great composers of film noir--weave an intoxicating spell that's sure to stir the heart of anyone with a fondness for 1940's style. The art direction that pervades every aspect of L.A. Noire is simply outstanding, and it's a huge part of what makes this game such a memorable experience. And if you want the game to look more like Out of the Past than Chinatown, there's an option to play in crystal-clear black and white.

Another poor sap meets a violent end in the City of Angels.

But all that attention to detail wouldn't amount to much if it weren't in the service of a game that was worthy of it. Thankfully, L.A. Noire is worthy. You play as Cole Phelps, a young veteran of World War II who enlists in the L.A.P.D. in 1947. Phelps is played by Aaron Staton, best known for his role on Mad Men, and thanks to L.A. Noire's use of a new technology called motion scanning, his performance goes far beyond voice acting. Phelps' face is Staton's face, and while motion scanning doesn't quite capture all the soul of an actor's performance, it nonetheless allows for a great deal of the subtlety of that performance to come through. It may take a bit of adjustment, seeing almost-but-not-quite-real faces on these characters, and there's sometimes a bit of a blurriness around the lips that can be distracting. But for the most part, it's very effective, allowing for rich and nuanced performances that seem to fully inhabit the world of the game. And this isn't just for show. The story of L.A. Noire hits harder because its characters look and sound so believable. Phelps' commanding officer Captain Donnelly has a passion for swift, merciless justice and a preacher's gift for oratory, while the weathered face of Herschel Biggs, one of many partners you have throughout the game, speaks volumes about his years on the force. The performances have a concrete impact on gameplay, too. When you're interrogating a suspect or questioning a witness, it's the facial expressions of a real person that you're reading when determining what approach to take.

You start out playing Phelps as a newly recruited uniformed officer. When a call comes in over the radio that a few homicide detectives need some assistance, you make your way to the crime scene and get your first crack at investigation. While investigating, you move Phelps around the environment and look for clues. Of course, not everything in any given location is going to be relevant to your investigation, and at first, the process can feel a bit silly. You might pick up empty beer bottles, hairbrushes, rolling pins, and other meaningless stuff, making Phelps move them around in his hand as if they might conceal vast significance while he mutters to himself (and to you) that these particular items have no bearing on the case. But as you progress, you develop a sharper eye for what things in an environment might be relevant. By default, the game indicates that you're near something you can examine with chimes and controller vibration, but with this option turned on, investigations often boil down to just walking Phelps over every inch of an area, waiting for those indicators to go off. Turning these off makes investigation far more involving and encourages you to carefully study the environment looking for anything that might give you insight into the case. You still know when you've found everything important in a given location because the investigation music fades out, though if you like, you can also turn this indicator off.

Phelps goes above and beyond the call of duty to close this first case himself, but it's not out of a selfless wish to protect and serve. He has a cold ambition to rise up the ranks in the department, and it's not long before his drive pays off politically. This determination also isolates him from his fellow cops and makes him a bit hard to root for initially, but this only makes him a better noir protagonist. He's a deeply flawed hero, and as the game progresses, you learn more about the experiences that turned him into the man he is today, and he develops in some fascinating ways as the narrative approaches its powerful conclusion. It takes quite a while for the story to build up steam, but the excitement of the later chapters makes the more deliberate pace of what came before well worth it. And you don't need to be a fan of film noir and hardboiled crime fiction to appreciate this tale, but if you are, you may take particular pleasure in the inspiration L.A. Noire takes from many terrific sources. (James Ellroy's bloody epic L.A. Confidential is a particularly clear influence.)

Some cool cucumbers can be tough to read.

As Phelps makes a name for himself in the department, he's called upon to start heading investigations himself, and that means questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects. During interrogations, you select something to question the witness or suspect about from a list in your notebook. (This is partly why thorough investigation of a crime scene is important; if you miss an important clue, you won't be able to ask people about it, which may prevent you from getting vital information.) Once the person responds to your question, you have three choices. If you believe the person is being honest and forthright with you, you can select Truth, which results in Phelps responding positively to the witness or suspect and coaxing more information out of him or her. If you think a person is being less than entirely honest, you can select Doubt, which often translates into "press the witness or suspect harder," and if your instincts are correct, this generally results in the suspect giving up something useful. But if your instincts are wrong and the person was cooperating, this approach results in him or her reacting negatively, which gives you nothing. Finally, if you think the person is lying to you and you have a piece of evidence that proves it, you can select Lie. In this case, you have to back up what you're saying with evidence. For instance, if you ask a suspect what shoe size he wears and he tells you he wears a size 9, you can use the size 8 work boots you found in his home to prove that he's lying.

Thor: God of Thunder Review

2011-05-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

An ordinary person might look at a hammer and see a blunt instrument that could be used to pound nails into a rocking horse or swing set. But if you're a Norse god, a hammer is far more useful as a bludgeoning device against your mortal enemies. In Thor: God of Thunder, you swing your mighty weapon with a gung-ho, everything-must-be-smashed attitude that only those of divine parentage can pull off without serious repercussions. Fire demons, ice giants, and even stalagmites crumble before your unbridled wrath, with the only reprieve from your hammering action coming when you summon bolts of lightning or gusts of wind to employ a dose of elemental chaos. This mash-happy game contains little diversity or strategy, focusing on Thor's maniacal destructive abilities as you swing your way through a seemingly never-ending horde of enemy forces. Thor: God of Thunder contains the turn-off-your-brain fun present in many brawlers, but tiring repetition drags even immortals back to Earth.

These trolls prove that the bigger hammer doesn't always win the fight.

Interspersed between your bouts of heedless carnage is a story that explains exactly what got stuck in Thor's craw. At the beginning of your journey, Thor's longtime companion Sif appears to die before his eyes. After quickly passing through denial and anger, Thor lands on the third stage of grief: bargaining. He rolls the dice in a big way to bring his fallen friend back to the land of the living. Of course, you can't just resurrect the dead without paying a heavy price, and the coin for this favor is total annihilation of all beings, from immortal gods to the common man. That's what you get for thinking with your hammer instead of your brain. Even though you want to grab Thor and shake him for his stupidity in the early going, he does eventually redeem himself, which makes him sympathetic enough to get invested in his tale. The cutscenes take advantage of Thor's comic book roots to present a story that is immediately striking. Lightly animated frames detail this world and characters in an eye-catching way, giving God of Thunder its own personality that separates it from similar games.

Sadly, the combat isn't as unique as the presentation. If you enjoy mindlessly smashing enemies and objects with a mythical hammer, you're in luck because there's little to do in this hack-and-slash adventure aside from mash the A button and watch things burst into tiny pieces. Levels comprise cavernous walls made from ice, buildings, and other such obstructions, and you make your way through these narrow confines by bashing the animate and inanimate alike. Cars and rocks can be blown to smithereens with one hearty swing of your crushing cudgel, but it's the swarming foes you need to contend with first. Thor has rattled the hornet's nest, and there seems to always be a new enemy just asking for you to swat it down. It's tiring tapping the same button repeatedly while your weak opponents fall before you, though you do have access to supermoves that inject some energy into conquests. Every hit you land raises the counter on your combo meter, and when you reach a certain level, you unleash flashy moves that can quickly clear the screen of evil. These range from sizzling electrical strikes to swirling tornado torments, and you unlock more moves as you progress through the game. Even though you still don't have to put much thought into your attacks, building your combo meter to unleash your godlike powers delivers a nice visual reward for your efforts.

Why are there so many burning school busses? What happened to the children!?

Aside from the standard hack-at-everything-in-sight action that makes up the majority of this adventure, there are flying sequences that present your relentless destruction in new ways. These forced-scrolling stages have you casting electrical blasts on your attackers while you gracefully dodge their attempts to fight back. The simple structure would be boring in long doses, but these soaring forays do a good job of mixing in some much needed diversity without overstaying their welcome. There are also colossal bosses to contend with, and though it's not difficult to bring down your oversized foes, it can be fun to topple these behemoths as if they were just another low-level grunt. Quick-time events are a key component of the various boss fights. After you whittle down their health with standard attacks, your powerful adversaries are left open for a screen-shaking attack. You grapple on to their imposing frames with the tap of a button and then deal out massive punishment by swinging the Wii Remote in the specified direction. God of Thunder gives you adequate time to perform these actions, and striking bosses into the next plane of existence may momentarily make you feel a god.

As you progress through the adventure, you gain access to new supermoves, along with runes that imbue you with helpful buffs and upgrades to your health and magic powers. These serve as small bonuses for finishing enemies with panache or discovering hidden collectibles buried beneath the many destructible elements, but they're not enough to give the game the depth it sorely lacks. God of Thunder captures the mindless joy of vanquishing enemies much weaker than you, but its appeal stretches no further. There's not enough diversity in the combat to keep this adventure entertaining for long, and the brief flying sequences and boss fights look fancy, but they're just as shallow as every other aspect. Thor: God of Thunder is a respectable digital representation of this angry god's plight for justice, but it's ultimately held back by its overly simple action.

Gatling Gears Review

2011-05-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

Twin-stick, top-down shooters on Xbox Live Arcade and the Indie Games service are a dime a dozen. Games like Geometry Wars have set the bar high, making it difficult for new games to stand out from the crowd. Entering this crowded arena is Gatling Gears, a solid shooter with enough firepower to land it in the upper echelons of the XBLA library.

Gatling Gears stars Max Brawley, an ace pilot who deserts a corrupt, war-hungry Empire with his high-powered battle mech in tow. Max can't hide out in peace forever, though, because eventually the Empire comes storming back in to ravage his peaceful hamlet, forcing him back into the cockpit to take down the Imperials once and for all. Players familiar with the developer's previous game, Greed Corp, will find many references to that game in both the story and the industrial-revolution-inspired world design of Gatling Gears. Unlike the turn-based warfare of Greed Corp., however, Gatling Gears is all action, all the time.

Two mechs are better than one.

Gatling Gears starts you off with a very brief tutorial to get you accustomed to the controls. The left stick moves Max's mech, while the right stick aims the direction of the machine's auto-firing Gatling gun. The left and right triggers are used to launch the more powerful (but restricted-usage) grenades and rockets, while the Y button detonates a single-use-per-stage smart bomb that destroys everything onscreen. The controls and the use of the weaponry at your disposal are very easy to grasp, and you'll be happily blasting buildings, stomping soldiers, and pumping opposing machinery full of bullets in no time.

Although you rely on your standard-issue Gatling gun most of the time, it quickly becomes apparent that mastery of the other weapons is also important; the tougher tanks and robust sub-bosses require rockets to put a real dent in their armor, and the big blast radius of grenades can easily take out an army of irritating foot soldiers. You also get weapon upgrades in two different forms: limited-time power-ups and purchasable upgrades. The power-ups are found by defeating certain enemies, and they temporarily grant either superstrong attacks to a specific weapon or complete damage invulnerability. Upgrades have no such time restrictions and can be purchased at the beginning of each area in exchange for gold ingots found scattered throughout the stages. These upgrades come in multiple strength levels for each weapon and can also be traded back for gold to buy other upgrades if, for example, you're in an area where you would prefer to have upgraded grenades rather than an upgraded Gatling gun.

The smooth controls and fun weaponry would be wasted if the stages themselves weren't enjoyable. Fortunately, Gatling Gears features great, action-driven stages and enemy pattern designs that keep you on your toes. A few areas, particularly toward the beginning of the game, have a tendency to drag, but by the later levels, Gatling Gears constantly launches challenging design curveballs at you. The levels look nice, too; you might associate military and mechanical themes with varying shades of brown and gray, but Gatling Gears frequently offers up colorful, nicely rendered environments that add welcome variety. The enemy swarms and routes through each area are carefully structured so that you have time to get used to new enemies and gameplay elements before encountering areas with large enemy waves. They also offer ample bonuses afterward so you can get your bearings before the next challenge gets thrown your way. You'll be thankful for this deliberate pacing when you reach the big boss enemies. Gatling Gears' bosses work beautifully, challenging you to use your weapons and pattern-recognition skills to take down mad machines with crazy, changing gimmicks.

The power-ups are a satisfying boon; it's impossible not to feel awesome mowing down foes to the sounds of slot machine clangs.

Gatling Gears also deserves commendation for its implementation of co-op play. With such intuitive controls and fun stages, it's easy to grab a buddy either locally or via Xbox Live and have a grand old time blowing things to bits. Xbox Live play is smooth and easy to jump into; it allows you to take all your weapon upgrades with you so if you have a less-skilled online buddy stuck earlier in the game, you can hop in with your superpowered mech and help him out. You still need to be careful, however: If one player goes out of commission, it's game over for the both of you. The two-player game is considerably easier (though still very hectic), particularly in the extra Survival mode levels, which turn the gameplay into an interesting twist on the tower-defense formula. It's not nearly as difficult to protect your buildings from enemy forces when you have double the firepower.

Gatling Gears isn't without a few dents in its shell, however. The length of some levels can start to grate at times, and the number of things happening onscreen can be very distracting, particularly when there are all manner of attacks and explosions flying about. It's easy to lose track of where things are, which can lead to taking damage you might have avoided otherwise. Some of the effects--such as the screen-filling explosion caused by the grenade power-ups--can blind the view of enemy projectiles coming at you. It's also worth noting that we experienced one game-stopping bug during our play sessions. After destroying the final form of the game's third boss, the game stalled, allowing us to move and fire but leaving the boss alive and nonfunctional with zero health, which prevented the stage from being cleared until we restarted. Nevertheless, Gatling Gears is a great experience. Well-designed stages, fun gameplay mechanics, and frantic co-op play combine to make a game that stands well above many of its peers in the genre. Though it may be a tad pricey at 1,200 Microsoft points ($15), your money will be well spent playing with these Gears.

AFL Live Review

2011-05-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Australian Rules Football video games have a long history of mediocrity, so it may not seem much to proclaim AFL Live as the best digital re-creation of the sport to come along in years. The praise may be faint, but it's still deserved, because AFL Live nails the basics of Aussie Rules much more so than other recent attempts, feeling and moving like an authentic re-creation of the fast-moving, bruising sport. It's a pity the rest of the package doesn't match the core gameplay; AFL Live features bugger-all game modes, mediocre looks, and at times dodgy AI. The game doesn't build on its promising foundations, making it fun to play with friends but merely passable at other times.

Collingwood and the Lions have at it in AFL Live.

AFL Live gets it right where it needs to the most: its gameplay is a convincing re-creation of Australia's homegrown version of football. On-field players move and act realistically--forwards lead into space the way you'd expect them to, midfielders jockey into position and run off rucks well, and defenders try to spoil every time the ball rockets into the 50. AFL Live also gets the speed of the modern game right. You have little time to dispose of the ball once you're in possession, and even at the lowest difficulty, quick handballs and kicks are positively mandatory, with defenders tackling early and often. Holes in defences close up as quickly as they open, and there's a great feeling of satisfaction when a string of moves work, such as landing the pill on the chest of a full forward after a hard-ball get and handpass from the bounce.

AFL Live's controls are mainly up to the task, letting you move as quickly as you need to in the game. Handballs and kicks can be performed in any direction using the left stick, while having a dedicated button to kick at goal means you can perform snaps at the sticks much more quickly. It's easy to get out a quick handball before a tackle, and with a bit of practice, it also becomes easier to kick to a player on the lead upfield. Spotting them, however, is problematic. AFL Live comes with several different views of the field, but none of them give you an ideal view that doesn't affect your perspective of either the play or what's happening further down the oval. The game's default side view is the best compromise, and even here you're forced to rely on the small mini-map to spot free players.

The way AFL Live handles rucks is its most interesting control feature, though. Instead of pressing buttons, to win bounces or throw-ins you need to move the right stick in the direction you want to tap when the bounced (or thrown) ball reaches its apex. Good timing is required to win the ball, and it is genuinely rewarding to win a tap, especially at higher difficulties or against human opponents.

While AFL Live gets the basics of the real-life sport right, there's little else goal-worthy in this title. There are quirks in player controls, with selected players often stopping for a second before running to collect the ball. This breaks the flow of this otherwise fast-moving game, and it's jarring every time it happens. Defensive controls also don't fare very well. Tackles are easy to perform, with selected players automatically running at the ball carrier if the tackle button is held down. But trying to get your defender to spoil a mark or get in front of a player who's about to receive a kick doesn't work that well, and he feels sluggish and unresponsive.

There's not much challenge in AFL Live. Your AI opponents are pushovers, and the only real test is at the game's highest difficulty setting (and even then, wins are easy to score). Gameplay modes are nonexistent; AFL Live's cupboard is as bare as the top of Leigh Matthews' shiny head. The game offers the 2011 season to play through, as well as the preseason NAB Cup and one-off matches, and that's it. None of the extras from previous AFL games are included, such as multiseason options, and there are no teams or guernseys to unlock and no classic matches or teams to relive. Even the game's training modes are stripped; you can play a training match, but there are no videos or other form of in-depth tutorial teaching you how to play the game (apart from a few still screens with control instructions). You can, however, create players, teams, and competitions, but the dearth of out-of-the-box content is disappointing.

AFL Live may not offer much for the solo player, but it fares well as a multiplayer experience. The speed of the game makes it a fun and fast-paced affair when playing with friends, and it supports four players in offline matches. That number moves up to eight online (four per side), and AFL Live has an interesting points system which gives scores based not only on win/loss, but on what's achieved during the matches played. You can earn points by making a set number of tackles or kicks, scoring goals, and even not quitting matches. Points, however, don't count for much other than positions on the game's online leaderboards. Matches ran smoothly during testing, and as you'd expect from a game based on an Aussie sport, there was no shortage of local competitors to be tackled.

Presentation is where AFL Live really comes up short. Players move well enough when viewed from a distance, running, marking, fending, and tackling realistically. Shifting to close-ups or any tighter views reveals plenty of rough patches, though, with player models looking little like their real-world counterparts and animations looking jerky and stilted. Commentary is handled by announcer stalwarts Dennis Cometti and Brian Taylor, but there's so little dialogue that you hear the same phrases repeated ad nauseam. The commentary also makes blatant mistakes (such as stating marks from outside 50 as "certain goals" whilst questioning whether kicks 10m straight in front will get the six points), so turning off commentary altogether is the only sensible option.

Brisbane on top. Unlike the real 2011 season.

Though AFL Live does feature significant drawbacks, at its core it's a decent AFL game that fans of the sport will have fun with. Playing as your favourite team is fast-paced, and taking on friends both offline and online is enjoyable and hectic. Some may think comparisons to sports franchises from gigantic publishers may not be fitting due to the homegrown nature of the title, but with AFL Live having the same asking price as those big-budget games, they're unavoidable. Despite the fact that AFL Live is the best Aussie Rules game in years, its lack of content and average presentation mean it's still a long way off from being world-class.

Virtua Tennis 4 Review

2011-05-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Considering Virtua Tennis was once the king of tennis games, its latest iteration is particularly disappointing, doing little to keep up with competition from 2K's excellent Top Spin 4. The graphical tweaks are nice, and the new minigames are fun, but at its core, Virtua Tennis 4's position-based shot mechanics are essentially identical to those in the 1999 arcade original. They're easy to pick up, but they feel dated and unrefined by today's standards, giving fans of the series a distinct feeling of deja vu and making you crave greater control over the ball. It’s not as if there's fun content to play through either. The career mode is inherently flawed, the online options limited, and the Kinect implementation is terrible.

Federer can't match the might of Murray’s game.

Most of your time in Virtua Tennis 4 is spent using the standard controls, which are very easy to pick up; so much so that there isn't an in-depth tutorial to teach them to you. There are three main shot types to learn--top spin, lob, and slice--each of which is mapped to the face buttons while the left analog stick directs your shot. Performing more skillful moves, like drop shots and power shots, depends on your position on the court and around the ball. If you get close to the net, you'll perform a volley. If you get right underneath a high ball as it drops, you'll perform a power shot. Too far away from the ball when you hit a shot button? Then, your return will be weak. It's an easy system to learn, but it lacks depth and is far too forgiving; if you make contact, the ball is all but guaranteed to land in play. This removes much of the excitement from the game, as well as any scope for advanced tactics, making it frustrating when you want to perform a risky drop shot from center court but can't simply because of your position.

Each hit you land fills up a meter at the top of the screen. Once it's full, you can unleash the only new addition to your shot repertoire: super shots. These vary depending on your chosen player, but all take the form of an exaggerated slow-motion hit where the camera pans out from its default view. They look impressive, but they ruin the flow of the game. They're also not any more powerful than a standard power shot, so they're not especially hard to return, making them a pretty yet pointless feature. Other tweaks to the core mechanics are subtler, including animation adjustments that reduce unnecessary dives by CPU opponents, and make swings of the racket look more realistic. Despite these improvements, there's still a lack of realism in the way your player moves. This is most noticeable as your player moves across the court, appearing to glide across it without reacting to the surface. It simply doesn't feel right, with your player lacking weight and moving too fast.

In Russia, tennis plays you.

A simple Exhibition mode lets you hone your tennis skills as one of many existing tennis stars, such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Maria Sharapova in quick matches against the CPU or with up to three other players in local multiplayer. There's also an Arcade mode where you can do the same, but you compete in four small tournaments instead. You can bring the action online too, competing in ranked matches, where you earn points for victories and a place on a worldwide leaderboard, or player matches, where you just play for fun. Online play is largely lag free, but on the odd occasion you get a bad connection, matches are reduced to almost unplayable slide shows. The main draw, though, is the World Tour mode, in which you create your own player and try to make your way from lowly amateur to all-star tennis pro. Along the way, you have to compete in tournaments, engage with your fans in publicity events, and play a variety of minigames scattered across the globe. A star rating keeps track of your progress, which increases as you play matches and interact with your fans. The more stars you have, the more tournaments you're able to compete in and the higher your ranking on the global leaderboard.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Updated Q&A - Sith Inquisitor Revealed

2011-05-15T22:11:00.003-07:00

Star Wars: The Old Republic is the massively multiplayer game everyone is wondering about. It will combine the years of role-playing expertise and the unique version of the Star Wars universe that debuted in Knights of the Old Republic with the traditional tenets of a massively multiplayer game. We've already covered much of the early game and have spent time with many of its professions, but this time around, writing director Daniel Erickson and principal lead combat designer George Zoeller have shared new details on the Sith inquisitor class with us. This powerful profession was originally based on the character of Emperor Palpatine, the decrepit and thoroughly evil Sith master from Return of the Jedi, but as the BioWare staffers explain, Sith inquisitors start in a very dark place, but they don't necessarily have to stay there throughout their adventuring careers.

Watch the Sith inquisitor in motion in this exclusive trailer.

GameSpot: Now that we've finally seen and played more of the Sith inquisitor, what can you tell us about the character's eventual career progression as an adventurer? The profession seems relatively frail, and when playing solo, for instance, wouldn't inquisitors most likely need to hide behind a tougher companion character who will "tank" for them?

Georg Zoeller: The inquisitor class allows for a pretty broad range of different gameplay styles, defined by the player's advanced class choice. (This has been covered in our blog update on advanced classes on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website.)

An inquisitor with the Sith sorcerer advanced class definitely benefits from having a tough companion around to take some hits, while a character with the Sith assassin advanced class may prefer a more damage-oriented companion.

Ultimately, this is a matter of gameplay style, and over time, we're giving each class several companions of different types to choose from.

GS: We've seen (and felt) the inquisitor's ability to blast enemies with lightning bolts and incapacitate foes with telekinetic whirlwinds. But at higher levels, what sort of a role do you see the Sith inquisitor playing in an adventuring party?

GZ: The inquisitor is a very versatile class. Through advanced class and skill selection, the player can mold this class to fill any of the traditional roles of characters in massively multiplayer games.

GS: We understand that at level 10, inquisitors, like all other characters in The Old Republic, can choose one of two advanced classes; in this case, the assassin or the sorcerer. How do the two classes differ?

GZ: All classes get to choose between two advanced classes after leaving their origin planet at level 10. Advanced classes let you specialize your character into one of several directions and add new abilities and skills to your arsenal. The two available to the inquisitor are the Sith assassin and the Sith sorcerer.

Characters with the assassin advanced class get to wield a double-bladed lightsaber like Darth Maul, and they can also cloak themselves with the Force and use various powerful lightsaber and Force attacks. Depending on the skills selected by players at each level, this advanced class can develop into a powerful damage dealer, a hybrid, or even a tank role.

Characters that choose the sorcerer class will find a strong array of Force-based abilities at their disposal. There are, of course, the ever-popular Force lightning attacks, such as lightning strike; overload (a powerful area-of-effect attack that throws enemies into a ballistic arc); or the powerful Force storm ability, which can blanket entire areas with deadly lightning strikes.

The deadly Sith assassin can be both a powerful warrior and a master of Force powers--not unlike the mighty Darth Maul.

Depending on skill selection, the sorcerers may also gain access to various manipulative and detrimental Force powers that can immobilize or debilitate their targets, the vicious ability to drain their companion of health to improve their own power, or even the ability to sustain and restore their allies in battle.

GS: At higher levels, what are the intended roles for assassins and sorcerers in competitive player versus player?

GZ: This is left up to how players choose to develop their character, since the inquisitor class is versatile enough to be specialized into any of the traditional roles.

GS: We understand that much of the character's design and story have been built around themes of treachery and manipulation. How will this come into play later in the character's career?

Daniel Erickson: The inquisitor is the thinking-person's Sith. They are looking at the larger picture and trying to discover what's really going on. It's perfectly possible to pound your way through the populace in your bid for power, but [it's] much more satisfying to pull the strings instead. Inquisitors can make their own alliances, turn allies against each other, and generally steeple their fingers together and declare that things are proceeding exactly as they had foreseen.

GS: We also understand that The Old Republic will attempt to embrace a "shades of gray" morality system (like in other BioWare games) that will be independent of your profession and faction. But given that the Sith inquisitor's original design was patterned after dastardly Emperor Palpatine--the corrupted, withered incarnation of evil from the original Star Wars trilogy whose sinister powers let him shoot excruciatingly painful lightning bolts from his fingertips--this idea of playing against alignment seems the least believable for this profession. How can a lightning bolt-shooting Sith inquisitor successfully join the path of the light side and stay there?

DE: The inquisitor does start in the darkest place of all our classes, but the path to redemption is always there. On their best behavior, inquisitors are what Palpatine appeared to be: powerful, charismatic, and willing to make the tough decisions to defend their people. As an inquisitor, you will find there is usually a diplomatic route to control, and once that control is achieved, it's up to you how to use your power.

GS: Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add about the inquisitor or about the game in general?

Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword Review

2011-05-15T22:11:00.001-07:00

The medieval world of Mount & Blade gets a little more modern in With Fire and Sword. This sequel from developer TaleWorlds adds guns to the cavalry charges and other derring-do to this growing franchise, altering the landscape just enough to provide series veterans with new challenges. When you toss in a new historical setting and a more orderly campaign with structured missions that play out similarly to those in traditional role-playing games, you have a sharp sequel that will hook you for many, many hours.

Muskets can be very useful in With Fire and Sword. But they take forever to load, so when you find yourself in a situation like this, you had better not miss.

A realistic campaign setting is the most immediately noticeable twist in With Fire and Sword. In contrast to the original Mount & Blade from 2009 and its 2010 follow-up Warband, the new game shifts the focus to Eastern Europe in the 17th century. Some of the plot and characters are based on historical events and people in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. But don't worry if you've never heard of that; you don't need a history degree to understand what's going on here. As with the first two Mount & Blade games, you play as a mercenary wandering the land, looking for fame, fortune, and some people to trample under the hooves of your fine Arab charger. The only real difference is that you're now dealing with the likes of Poles and Muscovites instead of the inhabitants of the fictional Calradia. Nothing looks more realistic, however. The game uses the same dated graphics engine of its two forebears, which means you're still stuck with chunky player models, a travel map that looks more like the greens at the local mini-putt than topography, and an awkward, text-heavy interface.

So most of the gameplay and interactions are similar if not identical to those found in the previous games. The plot is easier to grasp, however; the focus is on five familiar historical factions. Now, instead of wandering in a totally freeform style, you can head to the nearest hamlet or town on the main map and accept faction-specific jobs right away to deal with taxes, keep the peace between feuding lords, and so forth. This lets you get right to the point and build a mercenary career posthaste. Some adjustments have also been made to financial matters. You can now establish highly profitable caravans (also defensible by moving them into wagon forts for those times you're attacked by highwaymen) and stick money in banks to earn big interest. Grabbing that cash with both hands and making a stash is a snap because you can clear tens of thousands of the in-game thaler currency in just a single trip as long as you find the right place to market your furs, velvet, and so on. Generally, though, you just need to buy in the south and sell in the north, so you can make a fortune without too much trial and error.

This greater concentration comes at the cost of some of the sandbox feel that is a hallmark of the franchise. Whereas before, you could take a break from the more story-oriented quests and go off to try to win a noble's daughter or get into a tournament either on foot or atop your horse, now, you're generally stuck working for the man. Just about all you can do here for recreation is hit up taverns for bare-knuckled brawls, John L. Sullivan-style. This extracurricular activity is fitting given how this grittier world has been stripped down to the basics of survival, although such one-note scrapping gets dull after a few bouts. Sure, life was pretty rough and hardscrabble in the 1600s. But it would have been nice to have that lesson taught in more involved ways than smashing some drunk's teeth in over and over again.

Going to your tried-and-true sword is still the best option for many situations.

A big part of this grimmer atmosphere has to do with the presence of firearms. In addition to the standard swords, warhammers, and bows, you can now cut to the chase and whip out pistols, muskets, and even grenades. As expected, this changes combat. A lot. Before, you could mount a horse and make half-crazed charges into enemy mobs, slashing and sticking the bad guys at will. Now, you have to be more cautious before embarking on such assaults because most packs of foes tend to have a rifle-toting goon or three in the ranks who can turn out your lights with a single shot. This extra prudence can be something of a killjoy at times, especially for those who loved the freewheeling cavalry rushes you could launch into with little fear in Warband.

At the same time, this great danger adds more tension to battles, along with a tactical layer that makes you think before using those spurs. The period-specific smooth-bore weapons used here are quite inaccurate beyond a few paces, so it's not like you can sit back and play sniper. Stopping power isn't particularly strong, either. A good suit of armor worn by the standard cavalryman or a pikeman can absorb enough damage so that its wearer isn't even slowed down. Most of all, reloads take such a long time and require standing still during the process, which makes it very easy to readily take out a gunner with a pike or sword. All you have to do is survive long enough to close and skewer, which isn't really that much of a challenge given the inaccurate, wimpy guns. It's pretty easy to take out wannabe marksmen long before they can get through the priming and loading stage of getting off a fresh round.

Never turn your back on a countryman.

Multiplayer features an unusual new mode called Captain, which is a team deathmatch game where human players control squads of bots. The setup is pretty simplistic in that you take to the dozen or so maps and simply try to slaughter the bad guys, but the gameplay is more than the sum of its parts. Adding firearms lends combat a whole new dimension. Instead of just running or galloping around hacking and slashing, you now have to either keep an eye out for enemy gunners or fire and reload carefully if you're wielding a musket. In some ways, though, dealing with the hazards presented by enemy shooters is better than playing the likes of a musketeer. Reloading is so onerous in pitched melee battles that it's just about impossible to survive for long. Unless you shoot and then retreat far back to cover to reload, you're inevitably bumped by a horse, an action that requires restarting the loading process, or run through by some tough guy with a very long pike.

Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword is, like its predecessors, still a pretty rough-and-ready indie game. With that in mind, it is also one that comes with many flashes of brilliance, especially if you appreciate open worlds and intense, unique multiplayer. If you're OK with innovative gameplay taking a front seat to lower-end production values, this is one compelling sandbox-flavored sequel that comes with the extra spice of gunpowder.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 coming Nov. 8 - Report

2011-05-15T22:10:00.001-07:00

Expect Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on November 8?

According to the gaming blog, the game will begin shortly after Modern Warfare 2 ended, following a surprise attack on the United States by a reinvigorated Russia. The new game will apparently start with the outbreak of World War III, with set-piece battles in such cities as New York, Paris, London, and Dubai.

According to the report, the game's single-player campaign will be divided among several characters, including a British SAS Operative, AC-130 gunship gunner, a tank driver, and a member of the Russian Federal Security Service, known by its acronym of the FSB. It will apparently feature two new members of the US Army's supersecret Delta Force, called "Frost" and "Sandman." Kotaku believes these characters are being prepped as protagonists for future installments in the series.

In terms of multiplayer, the game will apparently have a variety of maps in addition to two Spec Ops modes: Survival and Mission.

Activision directed queries for comment to the Twitter feed of Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling. "A lot of hype & a lot of leaked info on #MW3, some still accurate, some not. To avoid spoiling the experience, I'd wait for the real reveal," he said.

According to unconfirmed reports, the game is being codeveloped by Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software, and the "reconstructed" Infinity Ward. Activision's newly constructed studio Beachhead is also working on an online platform for the game, the details of which have yet to be revealed.

Thor: God of Thunder Review

2011-05-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

These trolls prove that the bigger hammer doesn't always win the fight.

Why are there so many burning school busses? What happened to the children!?

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review

2011-05-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky marks the first game in this strategy role-playing series to see a stateside release. Plenty of tactical elements keep combat interesting and often challenge you to outmaneuver foes in unique ways, while a high difficulty level encourages you to stay one step ahead of your opponents. Though the gameplay of Trails in the Sky is rewarding, it's the twisting plot of love and deceit that really draws you in.

Estelle has some fierce competition for Joshua's affection.

The enthralling story launches one strange mystery after another, hooking you with rich characters and a romantic subplot. The game opens in the small town of Rolent in the kingdom of Liberl, where a hero's young daughter, Estelle, and her orphaned friend, Joshua, have just completed training to become bracers--civil servants that fight for the good of the people. When Estelle's father, an experienced bracer himself, suddenly disappears, the duo sets out on a quest to find him, unmasking a national conspiracy in the process. The dialogue is a little heavy, but memorable characters keep it lively with amusing banter; you meet a flirtatious bard, a dominatrix gypsy, and a spiky-haired kid with an attitude problem as big as his giant sword, as well as an interesting supportive cast with rich backstories. Estelle and Joshua are fairly complex as they hide their feelings--and true involvement in this political fiasco--from each other while a charming love story unfolds. There is more to this plot than meets the eye, and what begins as a simple quest to save Estelle's father grows into a tale of destiny.

Interesting bracer missions enrich exploration, which makes investigating the game's simple mazes much more fulfilling. Each town has its own unique scenario that advances the story, creatively blending plot elements with dungeons. In one job, you escort a clueless photographer through a monster-infested tower so she can snap the perfect photo; another has you staging an undercover rescue operation in a heavily guarded villa. You also trigger a decent variety of side quests, including monster-extermination jobs and treasure hunts. Though most of the game's dungeons amount to little more than mazes, their hidden corridors and optional bosses keep them enticing.

The turn-based battle system is a little slow but satisfying, and it frequently surprises you with its strong strategic elements. Battles occur on a large grid that limits your movement field, shifting the tactical focus from surrounding out-of-reach enemies to outmaneuvering--or just outpacing--them. To this end, a turn wheel that features battle bonuses comes into play, randomly granting gifts of health recovery and strength boosts that make all the difference in a close fight. You can monopolize most of these bonuses for your allies by delaying enemy turns, but your opponents don't make it easy because they often cast speed spells upon themselves to snag critical hit bonuses with surprising efficiency. Fortunately, devastating attacks, called S-breaks, give you the edge by interrupting the turn order, which lets you snatch an enemy's bonus right before it's used against you. Another good strategy is to quickly wipe out a foe marked with a turn bonus, which you can do by capitalizing on its elemental weaknesses via magic.

Flashy S-breaks interrupt the turn order to deal devestating damage.

An orbment system lets you strategically fine-tune characters to make up for their shortcomings. Orbments--mechanical devices that enable you to use magic--determine your spell variety, depending on the elemental quartz you pair with them. Inserting water quartz lets you cast heal magic; whereas activating wind quartz unleashes whirlwinds. The strength of these spells will depend on your quartz level, with advanced quartz unlocking your most devastating abilities. While collecting quartz and discovering new magic is fun, you can also take advantage of their stat bonuses and support abilities to strengthen your allies. If you want to increase Estelle's defense, for example, you can use an earth quartz to directly modify her defense stat while granting her access to a protective shield spell during battle.

Good enemy variety and clever bosses should keep you on alert. Monsters wield a diverse skill set that rivals your own, and they're crafty enough to adjust their tactics, depending on your actions. Enemies frequently surround your healers or inflict you with such status ailments as confusion if you get too close, which sends your dazed teammates after your mages. Bosses also cast strong area spells or use inventive tactics, calling for backup or exploding upon death to get the last laugh. Despite these numerous challenges, the game's difficulty remains very player friendly by automatically adjusting itself if you experience problems. This handy tweaking covers everything from standard battles to missions. For example, in one segment, you're required to sneak around a town while avoiding enemy soldiers. The game gradually reduces the number of patrolling guards if you're caught, limiting any potential frustration while still prompting you to think.

Detailed 3D environments highlight the game's charming atmosphere, spanning towering architecture and a lush wilderness that is thick with forests and meadows. Towns feature intricate buildings, cute sign posts, and tiny food stalls that add to the picturesque scenery. The game's short characters look a little strange at first, but their detailed outfits and cute portraits quickly grow on you while boosting their personality. A good soundtrack sets just the right tone, supplying a haunting harmonica melody for romantic scenes and peppy Celtic tunes for exploration. Battle effects look and sound good, with S-breaks and advanced spells adding enough flair to keep you interested, although the minimal voice acting is a disappointment.

Smart enemies use powerful area magic and slow spells against you to dominate the turn wheel.

Trails in the Sky is a 50-hour epic that boasts plenty of side quests to undertake. There isn't much in the way of bonus content once you finish the adventure, but there is a new game-plus mode that lets you experience it all again after selecting which goods you want to carry over, including money and character levels. You can also unlock both hard and nightmare modes, boosting the difficulty level for an even greater challenge.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky features a good strategic focus and a plethora of fierce opponents, but its riveting narrative is where it really shines. The transformation of a simple rescue mission into a vast conspiracy against the throne should put you on the edge of your seat, while Joshua and Estelle's budding romance steals the show. The result is a heartwarming adventure that marks a welcome North American debut for the series.

best funny quotes

2011-04-11T06:55:00.001-07:00

http://www.great-quotes.com/quotes/category/Funny

Total health and beauty at the Garden Pharmacy

2011-04-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

www.gembuild.co.uk is a website of Health and beauty care. This is a total health and beauty at the Garden Pharmacy. This is a leader in online health and beauty since 1993 This is a site from which you can buy any beauty products. To busy these products you can use the payment process such as PAYPAL, VISA, Master Card etc. There is also products for men and there is also gift vouchers. You can find here toiletries and sun care.

Best Toshiba Satellite

2011-03-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

Toshiba satellite is a Toshiba flagship line notebook computer. The "Satellite" name is a model and therefore the notebooks bear no technical association to terminologies used in "satphone" or any modes of data transfer via orbital satellites.

The earlier model did not have CD-Rom but this model has CD ROM and eventually come with mobile technology progress. This system also have some special features like ase USB, external CD ROM, Memory card etc. In spring 2000 model came with 15inch screen and a built in DVD drive a 6 GB HDD.

For more information you can visit please go to the link-

http://besttoshiba.com/

Joico haircare

2011-03-31T10:57:00.000-07:00

In this article, 'Hair care' is taken to is a term of hygiene and cosmetology which is involves with the hair of human being. Hair care is different from man to woman woman because all hair is not same.

In the article Hair care means is to take care of the hair but mention should be made of process and services which impact hair on other parts of the body. which may be dyed, plucked, washing, lessen, dandruff treatment. Here is new technique named laser hair treatment this works really good.

For better Hair treatment you can visit this website given bellow This site will help you to do it.

http://www.hairshop-online.de/shop/joico-haircare-c-1975.html

ARTROSE

2011-03-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

Artrose is the common form of Arthritis and which is one of the most common disease of human being. It affecting most of the people aged more than sixty years. Th frequency of osteoarthritis increases with the ages. It affects 20% of the population aged 45 and 100% at the age of 80.

http://www.artrose-blog.nl/

It is not a disease of civilization. Sometimes it is extended bye the adaptation of human species eill erect posture and the development of the profession as we face.

Chrome Adblock Plus

2011-03-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

Adblock plus is system that prevents the display of ads.
By doing this it will help the any browser to browse
frequently.It is a open source project. It is driven
by a community.Their main motto is to make the
internet very useful and easier for everybody.
It was first created for the Mozila firefox
browser and
after the success of this program
many other software have include this program
to their system.
And we are offering this program for the Google
chrome.
By using this program can block any ads whatever
you do not like.
For this please visit this link given below.
https://adblockplus.org/en/chrome

There is another software called Adblock
which is not related to this program- Adblock plus but this
program also works very nicely

Drug Test.

2011-02-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

A Drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen - for example urine,hari,blood,sweet, or oral fluid. To determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major uses of drug testing are to detect the presence of performance enhancing steroids in sport or for drug prohibited by laws.

marijuana test

The detection window depend upon multiple factors- drug class, amount, frequency of use for ease of use the detection of times of metabloites have been incoporated into each parent drug.

Valley Quotes

2011-02-25T09:23:00.000-08:00

Valley Quotes is wonderful website. Their main theme is all quotes around the world. It is a website of all the qutoes of the world. By the site you can find any quotes that was spoken by anyone in the world
See on the link-
Chakra Quotes

Here you kind find quotes about your favourite auther faviroute topic etc. Its such a wonderful site of quotes in the world. please visit it.

E-bay Inc

2011-02-23T22:58:00.000-08:00

E-Bay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages ebay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and business buy and sell a broad variety goods and services worldwide. Founded in1995, e-bay is one of the notable sucess stories of the dot-com bubble. it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.
making money on eBay

Ebay expanded from its original set -time auction format to include "Buy It is now standard shopping , shopping by UPC, ISBN or other kind of SKU, online stubhud, online money transfer.

how to start an eBay business

Millions of collectibles, decor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, vichles and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold dialy on E-Bay. It has launched its business braking category by doing surplus business.

Free MMORPG

2011-02-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

MMORPG means Massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It is agenre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interect with one another within virtual game world.

This is idel ideal link is - http://tinyurl.com/4q9qqmn

As in all RDPGs, players assume the role of a character and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are by the games's persistent world, usually hosted by the game publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

covered calls

2011-02-23T20:05:00.000-08:00

Covered calls is a website about the investment tools. By the website you can invest money and you can earn money and you can also maintain your portfolio by the site. In this site using the covered call segment you can earn extra income fro stocks. And you can also find new investment opportunity which are sold by the covered calls. You can also get tutorial by the site. It is a ideal site of invest information.

You can go the site= https://www.borntosell.com/

Seattle search engine optimization

2011-02-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

Search engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engine via the natural or unpaid search result. More frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search including image, search, local search, video search. This gives website a web process.

And the ideal exmaple on the lin please visit.
http://seattleseoconsultant.com

UK Mystery Shopper Employment Agency

2011-02-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

WANTED: Mystery Shoppers In Dhaka!

Earn up to £28/hr

Hiring only 23 more shoppers!
Registration Deadline: Saturday February 26, 2011

Here's your opportunity to shop & dine out, and get paid.
Your job is simple. There are currently over 105 department stores, restaurants, and service oriented companies eagerly seeking individuals to rate and evaluate their customer service at their local branches.

You get paid to submit your shopping experiences, and also get their meals, entertainment, products, and services completely free. These are just some of the perks of being employed as a mystery shopper.

High pay, work at your own pace & schedule, and most of all you'll love your work. No experience needed. Must be 18 years of age or older to apply.

Priority preference is given to those applicants who are in Dhaka , as there is a shortage of mystery shoppers here.

Want to get started? UK Mystery Shopper Employment Agency can connect you with companies that are looking to hire mystery shoppers all throughout Dhaka. Take a tour of our website to get more information on mystery shopping job specifics.

You can become a mystery shopper today! Take the Tour!

12 pack abs

2011-02-22T22:05:00.000-08:00

12 pack abs is a nice body structure. a man will be more handsome if he does this. the girls will be attracted with by that. you can find more information about this on the link.
http://www.12-pack-abs.com
That's dangerous and the right way to decrease your body fat is to have a good and balanced diet.

Reporting Software

2011-02-22T21:30:00.001-08:00

Reporting Software

A good enterprise reporting software system provides tools to easily design, generate, and distribute reports. Reporting software helps you make the most of your company's data. But what helps you make the most of your business reporting software?

If your data is in a SQL database such as IBM's DB2, My Sql, Oracle, or Microsoft's Sql Server, then you need a system that can provide killer SQL Reports. Learn how paying attention to six key features can turn your report from blah to wow!

If your data is in XML form, be it a file, XML extracted from a database, a REST datasource, or other, then you need a system that can provide kick-ass XML Reports. How can you make people care as much about your data as you do? How can you help them understand your report? The answer is in data representation.

For the output, many times you want Excel Reports which are created from your data. Excel is superior to banded reports. There are cases where banded reports are appropriate, but that is a very limited sub-set of where they are used.

Another useful output format is HTML Reports as they can be displayed easily in any browser. This is very useful for OEM Reporting systems as the best way to attract more customers – and keep them – is to upgrade your software's reporting component.

Document Generation Software

Document Generation Software is the most thorough and efficient means of automating documents. Sometimes called dynamic document composition, docgen, or document process automation, advanced Document Generation software should provide its users with a flexible, intelligent format.

And for additional information, we recomend Wikipedia - List of Reporting Software, Wikipedia - Document Generation, and DMOZ - List of Java Reporting Software.

Microworkers / MinuteWorkers / MyEasyTaskers / ShortTaskers - do NOT copy from here down:

If you are looking for screenwriting software go to www.page2stage.com

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Review

2010-11-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hot Pursuit is a Need for Speed game in name only. This blisteringly fast racer has more in common with developer Criterion Games' own Burnout series than it does with any previous Need for Speed offering, despite lacking a number of features that are commonly associated with Burnout games. This isn't a game in which you're rewarded for crashing spectacularly or for jumping through billboards, but it is a game that encourages you to drive dangerously and to take down your opponents by any means necessary. The option to play both as illegal racers and as the cops that are chasing them brings some much-needed variety to the action, while spike strips, road blocks, and other satisfying countermeasures ensure that Hot Pursuit doesn't feel quite like any racer that you've played before. Regardless of whether your interest in Hot Pursuit stems from a love of Need for Speed, Burnout, or neither, you won't be disappointed.

The SCPD, stopping illegal races one supercar at a time since 2010.

If you're familiar with the Burnout series, you'll immediately feel at home with the handling in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Licensed cars from the likes of Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Porsche can be made to slide around corners with only the briefest of touches on the brake, and you earn nitrous by driving dangerously close to other vehicles and into oncoming traffic. Furthermore, there are plenty of shortcuts available if you stray from the Seacrest County roads, and should you wreck your ride while attempting to take one, you're treated to a glorious slow-motion shot as panels buckle and debris starts to fly. A similar slow-motion treatment is used to alert you when additional cops show up to chase you down and when you successfully take out an opponent, which adds a welcome touch of Hollywood to these high-speed chases. Not that they need it.

Even in the Career mode's time trial and rapid response events where you have no cops or racers to worry about, the potential for disaster is ever present. Oncoming and slow-moving traffic, risky shortcuts, and sharp corners all conspire to keep you on the edge of your seat, and other event types add so many additional hazards for you to concern yourself with that your heart will likely still be racing long after you cross the finish line. As a racer, you find yourself being pursued by cops who can organize roadblocks, hit you with EMP blasts, drop spike strips in your path, and even call upon helicopters armed with spike strips to slow you down if you get too far ahead of them. And as a cop, you're expected to chase racers who have their own EMPs and spike strips, as well as powerful turbo systems and jammers that render all of your equipment useless for a short time. The good news is that as your opponents slowly gain access to more and better equipment in Career mode, so do you.

Hot Pursuit's cars are resilient enough to shunts that they get their own health bars.

Equipment is mapped to the D pad and is available only in limited quantities. This keeps events of the same type from feeling too similar because, for example, taking down racers by overtaking them and then dropping spike strips is very different from hitting them with EMP shots that take a few seconds to lock on after you position yourself directly behind the target. You always have the option to just bash into other vehicles in order to take them out, but these cars are much more resilient than their Burnout counterparts, and it generally takes several hard shunts to put them out of commission. Incidentally, as a racer you're free to run your opponents off the road or even to use countermeasures against them, but when there are cops in pursuit, it's best to save your aggression for your common enemy.

Cops and racers in Hot Pursuit benefit from impressive AI that makes them both formidable and occasionally unpredictable opponents. Both are smart about using their countermeasures effectively and are appropriately aggressive. But they're also fallible, which can make for some exciting moments when racers collide into each other directly in front of you, for example. Racers won't always take shortcuts, but it's not uncommon to see them doing so; impressively, when you're tailing them as a cop, they often wait until the last second to turn off the road, which makes attempting to follow them much more challenging. Cops will take shortcuts as well, but only when they're pursuing racers down them. Interestingly, not all of the alternate routes actually save you time, and how effective they are as shortcuts is in part determined by how well your car handles off-road. If you're in a four-wheel drive Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, loose surfaces don't slow you down much, but if you're in a low-slung exotic like the Koenigsegg Agera or Pagani Zonda, you're probably better off staying on the tarmac.

If cops all got to drive cars like this, who wouldn't want a job in law enforcement?

Predictably, though AI opponents do a great job of keeping things interesting, they're still no substitute for other players. Hot Pursuit doesn't support local multiplayer, but its three online modes are so much fun that it can be hard to tear yourself away once you start playing. Online races support up to eight players, and since they don't feature any weapons or cops, they are a test of your driving skill and nothing more. Hot pursuit events, on the other hand, are four-against-four races in which a team of cops with full arsenals must try to prevent equally well-equipped racers from reaching the finish line. These events never play out the same way twice, and therefore you're unlikely to tire of them anytime soon. Similarly, you never know what's going to happen next in online interceptor events, which pit just one cop against one racer. The difference here, other than numbers, is that you're free to drive anywhere on the map. As the cop, you obviously need to stick close to your target, but as the racer, it's extremely satisfying to outwit your pursuer by taking a shortcut, using countermeasures to gain an advantage, or just doing something as simple as performing a quick U-turn. The chase ends either when one of the cars gets wrecked or when the racer manages to outrun the cop, at which point you have the option to switch roles and start over.

Regardless of whether you're playing online or in Career mode, your performances earn you bounty points that increase your overall cop and racer ranks. These ranks aren't just about bragging rights; as your bounty increases you unlock additional cars and, just occasionally, upgrades for your countermeasures. Cars are sorted into five classes according to their performance, so you never gain an unreasonable advantage by having access to cars that other players don't, because everyone uses cars from the same class. Equipment upgrades do afford you a noticeable advantage, but it's not so significant that you're going to dominate as a high-level player in a room full of newcomers. Longer spike strips still need to be dropped at the right time to be effective, and even being able to drop two simultaneously doesn't change things much. EMPs that lock on more quickly are definitely easier to use, and high-level road blocks are tougher for targets to avoid, but nothing feels unbalanced or unfair. In fact, equipment upgrades are more likely to impact your results in Career mode than online, and unlocking them can be a good incentive to replay events that you've yet to achieve a gold medal time in.

With spike strips equipped you get to give the cops a taste of their own medicine.

Bronze, silver, and gold medals are up for grabs in all 70-plus Career mode events, and even after you've earned yourself gold in an event, there's a good chance that you're going to be replaying it at some point in the future. That's because Hot Pursuit's autolog system does a great job of constantly comparing you to your friends and compelling you to compete with them. Events in which you're losing to friends who have played recently are highlighted on the career map, and postings on your "speed wall" alert you when your best times are beaten. Furthermore, you can easily jump straight into events that autolog recommends to you via an option on the main menu, so if you hear that your time in an event has been beaten, you don't have to go looking for it on the map before attempting to reclaim your crown. It's a good system, and the option to post taunts on friends' walls after you beat their times is a nice touch. It's unfortunate that the autolog completely replaces rather than complements traditional leaderboards though, because there's no way to know how your times compare with the best in the world, and ultimately the autolog is only as good as your friends are competitive.

One of the few frustrating features of Hot Pursuit, especially when you're trying to shave seconds off a time to beat one of your friends, is that just occasionally the slow-motion shots used to show off crashes and such can mess with your driving. Most of the time, when the camera switches away from you to show an opponent hitting your spike strip or perhaps another cop entering your pursuit, control of your car is handed over to the AI, and it does a good job of keeping you moving. That's not always the case, though; you might regain control of your car just as it's about to slam into the back of another vehicle or a split-second too late for you to take a high-speed corner without straying from the tarmac. It doesn't happen often, but it's annoying when it does. On the flip side, you might also miraculously avoid spike strips or road blocks when the AI is in control, so it all evens out.

Road blocks will slow down your targets, but they rarely stop them.

Awkward camera switches aside, Hot Pursuit does very little wrong with its presentation. All of the licensed cars look superb, and the varied environments that they race through are far more detailed than you can appreciate at over 200 miles per hour. The frame rate is silky smooth even when your driving isn't, and the heads-up display, while busy, is never distracting. The audio is also impressive; the roar of engines, the wailing of police sirens, the whoosh of nitrous, and even the chatter on the police radio sound great. It's odd that the default audio levels place more importance on the loud and lively soundtrack than on the sound effects, but that's easily rectified in the options menu.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is one of the most thrilling racing games around. It doesn't matter which side of the law you prefer to play on; the unpredictable nature of these events and the sheer speed at which they're played make this a tough game to put down. If you're in the market for a ride with superb handling, great looks, an impressive top speed, and more than enough room for all of your friends, this is the one you want.

Monopoly Streets Review

2010-11-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

For the greater part of a century, Monopoly has done just fine for itself as a game of abstractions, skillfully avoiding any questions of how a thimble and a howitzer can lead to rubbing shoulders with John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Even its Atlantic City locales have long eluded easy recognition in its native country, and key names like Pacific Avenue and Ventnor Avenue regularly conjure images of yellow-and-green cards instead of key streets on New Jersey's Absecon Island. Monopoly Streets boldly backs away from this abstract tradition, allowing up to four contemporary players to see their properties develop in real time on a real city block. It's a logical and welcome step for today's consoles and a somewhat successful one, minus a few unfortunate flaws that spring from pacing, characterization, and a lack of choices among city-based boards.

Cruise the city in a giant boot and there's no telling where you'll end up.

For the few uninitiated, Monopoly challenges players to build monopolies by acquiring up to three properties of the same color, whether by lucky dice rolls or trades with fellow players. Once you've acquired every property of a certain color, you're free to improve the sites with houses and eventually hotels, forcing players who land on the spots to pay you rent. Eventually, your rent payments climb too high for other players to pay, which forces them into bankruptcy and hopefully leaves you the sole owner of the entire board.

Monopoly Streets takes this winning concept and places the familiar board spots on a gigantic block in Monopoly City, which features three-dimensional structures replacing the simple virtual boards of previous outings. None of the models are particularly memorable and all three consoles are harried by rough graphical edges in a few minor spots, but there are small surprises. For example, you encounter Monopoly's familiar austere railroads brought to life as elevated train stations, Free Parking as a multilevel parking garage (bearing an amusing resemblance to New York's Guggenheim Museum), and the dreary and decaying lots that signify mortgaged properties. Elsewhere, however, the concept fails to follow its own lead. Random non-player characters shamble through the streets, but they never acknowledge you or gawk at your property. New buildings lack any kind of staff, such as doormen at Park Place who could have taken your rent and turned up their noses. Thus, the charm is sporadic at best, and key structures, such as the prosaic income tax building, scream with untapped comedic potential.

Nothing visually defines Monopoly so well as Mr. Moneybags and his merry band of pewter game pieces, and happily, nine pieces make an appearance here. Mr. Moneybags serves as the host, offering wordy and mildly humorous commentary on every move that quickly grows tiring. When starting a game, Moneybags also leads players through the selection of their favorite tokens along with an unalterable accompanying character that complements each piece. (As a console-specific bonus, Xbox 360 players can play as their system avatars and fill cities with their friends. The same option is available on the Wii using Miis, but only after you unlock it, which requires very little effort.) The top hat, for instance, belongs to a kid magician who follows it as it tumbles down the sidewalk on each turn. The battleship belongs to an admiral who may as well have just stepped out of a Gilbert and Sullivan production. Sadly, this potentially strong idea is hit or miss at best, thanks to cloying voice emotes and time-consuming animations, and two characters in particular can quickly ruin your enjoyment. For one, there's the farmer, a ditzy female bumpkin in cutoff shorts who pushes the wheelbarrow token around the block to a stream of nonstop yuk-yuks and yee-haws. Elsewhere, the little girl associated with the thimble gratingly screeches and spins with glee during her entire turn. It's enough to make you turn off the voice-overs before your first match is complete. The music is only slightly better and ends up sounding like the soundtrack to a floor-wax commercial jammed on infinite loop.

Mr. Moneybags doesn't care if the racer has places to go.

The turns themselves can drag on for ages if you leave the game to its own devices. A typical turn runs like so: You roll the dice (which takes two clicks) to the sound of your character's whoops or hollers. Once your character has exhausted his or her excitement and stopped dancing around, he or she then mounts or follows the giant pewter token one step at a time to the appropriate spot on the board. They look at the plot being considered in awe. If it's for sale, Mr. Moneybags slowly waddles up and eggs the character on to buy or auction the plot. By now, you've had your turn for more than a minute, to the likely impatience of your fellow players, and you haven't even bought the land yet. And your fellow players' turns can be equally as long--or longer--given the tendency of online players to abuse the build button. This is unforgivably damaging in a game that's infamous for its epic hours-long play sessions. So sure is the game that your attention will wander during all of this that all three consoles' controllers vibrate when it's finally your turn again. Thankfully, you can skip most animations and speed up gameplay considerably by turning off most animations on the options menu at the expense of losing the game's unique flavor.

Of course, the concept's main attraction is the opportunity to see your properties develop. Upon purchase, each property features a quaintly decorated garden until you can afford to buy houses and hotels, and these, in turn, are built according to the worth of the property. For instance, the ultracheap Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue plots end up with tacky motels dominated by gargantuan flamingos, whereas the breathtakingly expensive Park Place and Boardwalk hotels become towering skyscrapers with gold trim. If this approach has a flaw, it's that there's no variation for each set of plots. Connecticut, Vermont, and Oriental Avenue, for example, all feature the same kitschy crown-topped brownstones when three humorously different eyesores would have been much more appealing. For added visual entertainment, you can watch your towering "corporate headquarters" rise or fall in the middle of town according to your net worth at the end of each round.

At first glance, you could very easily get lost in Monopoly's streets because each move is viewed plot by plot. If you're not already familiar with the game board, in other words, it's easy to lose immediate awareness of where you stand in relation to other players with all of the graphical jumble around you. Fortunately, several nonintrusive identifying markers point the way, such as appropriately colored strips on the edges of sidewalks and banners outside of each property listing how many houses or hotels are on it. Other button options also allow you to see what lies ahead of you or to see the game's current state from above using a classic board.

Monopoly giveth and Monopoly taketh away.

You can also opt for a change of scenery once you amass enough Monopoly money from completing games in Landmark City, the game's only other virtual metropolis. True to its name, Landmark City features some of the world's most legendary tourist traps (such as London's Big Ben), but it's rather Disneyland-ish and lacks the visual coherence of Monopoly City. Although more cities are scheduled for release as downloadable content, it's a shame that more weren't included in the initial retail package. And if you still can't get used to the alleys and buildings of Monopoly City, you can always play on seven different versions of the trusty classic Monopoly board. These come complete with very basic jungle and winter themes but no building in sight.

Monopoly Streets is designed for four players, with most boards regrettably requiring that all four slots be filled. Fortunately, the game features a decidedly fair AI system that can be set to easy, medium, or hard, and you can add two AI players if you only have two or three human players in your game. At its heart, this is pure Monopoly, and there's virtually nothing wrong with the actual process of playing the game aside from the game's unrelenting insistence on four players. You start the game by tossing dice to see who goes first, you trade property and build houses in intuitive menus, and you buy with the click of a button. The auction process, in fact, is positively entertaining. Here, your opponents' bids are listed on a bar graph from left to right, and by tapping one of two buttons, you can raise or lower the bid dramatically during the course of 20 seconds. If you bid low at the very last second, it's possible to trap your opponents into paying an unnecessarily high price for a plot. Unfortunately, there's no option to turn auctions off if you want to avoid the minigame.

Otherwise, the gameplay is decently customizable, and if you're used to certain nonstandard rules (such as using Free Parking to grab all the money from income tax and the like), you can usually re-create them here. You can also play by standard Monopoly rules or take up some of the game's faster options. These include games like Speed Die, in which you play with an extra die and begin with an extra $1,000; and Short Game, in which all four players start with four random properties. Alternatively, you can play Bull Market, which limits play time to 20 rounds; or Fast Deal, which awards the first player who collects the most color groups; or Jackpot, which radically alters the rules and allows you to sell properties containing houses or hotels. Online multiplayer options for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 offer many of the same options as the offline mode while sticking to standard rules and the faster setups. This includes Bull Market and Short Game, in addition to ranked matches and the option to create custom rules. The ranked matches can be fun, but when your losing rival storms out at the sight of you adding yet another pile of deeds to your stash, the game shuts down and you receive no credit despite however many minutes you put in.

It's not Grand Theft Auto, but these streets can still destroy you.

Monopoly Streets's animations may drag at times and the character voices invite the tossing of heavy objects at your screen, but basic Monopoly hasn't felt so fresh in decades, and it's worth wondering what Monopoly Streets may have been like with a little more attention to detail. Sadly, it doesn't feel like a full package. With only two virtual cities in the new style in spite of a whopping seven versions of the classic board, Monopoly Streets seems to place an excessive focus on future downloadable content when it could have stunned its audiences with a packed release containing even one more city. Still, it's saved by its decent customization options, and diverse multiplayer options on the PS3 and Xbox 360. If you're looking for an engaging Monopoly game that doesn't require clearing the table and spending 15 minutes dealing the pieces, then Monopoly Streets may be the game for you. Just make sure you turn off those confounded character voices.

Dance Paradise Review

2010-11-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

UK REVIEW--There are already a number of takes on motion-controlled dance games, with the likes of Dance Central, DanceMasters, and Just Dance each putting their own unique stamp on the genre. Dance Paradise offers up yet another new way of presenting routines that is more complex, but still works well. A large tracklist includes a variety of pop, dance, and rock songs, while a full career mode and a two-player versus mode make it fun on your own or with friends. Though the dance routines are sometimes a little too advanced for those with two left feet, and the lack of advanced instruction can be confusing, the well implemented scoring system means you'll be able to have a good time regardless of your ability.

Fallout Boy’s aptly named Dance Dance is one of the trickiest songs to master.

The gameplay of Dance Paradise is more complicated than the likes of Dance Central and Just Dance, though a short tutorial teaches you the basics effectively. There are four colored lanes that stretch from the top to the bottom of the screen, on which animated dancers appear and move down the track. When a dancer reaches the bottom, you have to mimic his or her movements. This setup gives you time to see upcoming moves and start dancing before the game scores you on them, which makes mirroring the actions much easier. However, because the dancers are styled as flat blocks of color, it can sometimes be difficult to tell exactly what move they're performing, particularly when that move involves complex hand actions. Moves alternate between each of the lanes, which you must skip between with a quick sidestep. A vitality bar on the bottom left of the screen keeps track of your performance, with missed moves depleting the bar and good, great, or perfect moves filling it. If the bar is filled completely, you can jump to activate dance power, which gives you a score bonus. However, if the vitality bar is depleted completely, the game ends.

As long as you've got some good dance skills, you'll rarely see the "game over" screen, thanks to the well-implemented motion controls that accurately track your movements. You'll need to bring your A-game though. Some of the routines are very complex, requiring nimble limbs and good coordination. Though the tutorial runs you through the basics, it doesn't teach you any of the moves or offer a slower practice mode, so you initially spend much of your time stumbling through songs. Novices can still have a good time, but if you want to rack up some high scores, then you need to spend some time learning the harder moves. On the flip side, if you're finding it too easy, you can switch the difficulty over to hard, which increases the frequency of moves in a track, though the routines remain the same.

Your avatar appears everywhere, even in the menus.

In addition to the standard Free Play mode, where you can create a playlist of songs to groove to, Dance Paradise has a career mode. There are six levels to play through, each of which contains a number of challenges to complete before you can progress. These range from having to get seven perfects in a song to completing a song with at least 60 percent of your vitality bar remaining. The challenges are not only good fun, but completing some of them also unlocks new outfits and accessories for your avatar, as well as golden steps, 27 of which you need to unlock the final level, the VIP Club. Though some challenges are tricky, none are so hard that you'll find it impossible to reach the final level, and because there's a mix of them spread over different songs, they never outstay their welcome.

There are also three multiplayer modes that allow two players to battle head-to-head: Versus, Attack, and Synchro. Versus is the simplest of the three; each player must man two of the move tracks and attempt to get a better score than his or her opponent. Whoever has the most points at the end of the song wins. Attack introduces power-ups to the match, letting you hinder your opponent's dancing. By jumping with a full vitality bar, you unleash a random attack. These include track jump, which makes your opponent's dance instructions randomly skip across tracks and disappear, which gets rid of them altogether. This is easily the most fun of all the multiplayer modes, with matches getting heated as you launch streams of power-ups at each other. Sadly, the final mode, Synchro, isn't as exciting. You and your partner must perform the same moves, with the lowest of your scores counting toward the total. This mode can be particularly frustrating if you're dancing with someone less skilled, though less-competitive players may find it enjoyable.

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A!

Backing up the routines is a good tracklist, made up of 40 songs from the Universal Music label. These range from pop songs such as "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga and "We Are Golden" by Mika to "Celebration" by funk legends Kool and the Gang and "Dance Dance" by rockers Fallout Boy. Most genres are catered to, though you may find the tracklist errs too much on the side of pop. The visuals are also good and incorporate your avatar into the gameplay. While you attempt the moves, your avatar dances along at the side of the screen and not only looks cute but also gives you an opportunity to check out any outfits and accessories you may have unlocked. The cartoonlike style of the environments fit perfectly with the feel of the game, ranging from bright sunny beaches to light-filled nightclubs. One other nice touch is the music videos that play behind the action, giving any onlookers something to watch while you're playing.

Though the complex dances may sometimes be confusing--particularly for newcomers--Dance Paradise is still fun. The large tracklist, great use of avatars, and competitive multiplayer modes mean you'll have a good time playing with friends. And the challenging career mode, complete with unlockables, means you won't get bored on your own either. The unique lane system for presenting routines also works well, making it easy to line up moves and bust a groove. It might not offer the same levels of sophistication and graphical prowess as Dance Central, but if you fancy a different take on the genre, then it is well worth it to put on your dancing shoes for Dance Paradise.

MotionSports Review

2010-11-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Kinect owners looking for a sports-themed assortment of minigames will find that there's more than one game in town. MotionSports' more realistic visuals may suggest that it offers a more realistic and rewarding sports experience than Kinect Sports, but this isn't the case at all. On the contrary, infuriating controls, unreasonable difficulty, and a lack of clear instruction and feedback make going for the gold in most of these events only slightly more enjoyable than taking a jab to the face from a heavyweight champ.

Hang gliding lets you escape from your frustrations. Which is good, because the other events contribute to them.

Your goal in MotionSports is to take the world by storm by rising from local athlete to international superstar as you compete in minigames based on six sports. Throughout your career, the same commentator stalks you everywhere, covering your every event. His comments range from wildly enthusiastic ("That is just some freakin' fabulous stuff right there!") to just plain strange ("The kind of girl you can take out with your friends and she'll actually enjoy it"), but he does liven up the audio presentation a bit. Between your competitions, you see a city scene with photos of you plastered on billboards, but any sense you may get of being a superstar is sapped by the often hilarious placement of your image. One billboard might show just your torso; another may show part of your head but get cut off just above your chin. Clearly, your MotionSports athlete needs to hire a new agent.

The best sport among MotionSports' six offerings is hang gliding. It's set apart from the other five events by very simple, responsive controls that leave no room for ambiguity--you know exactly what you're supposed to do and how to do it. You hold out your arms as if grasping the glider bar, lowering your left arm to turn left and your right arm to turn right. Soaring through either a natural landscape with majestic rock formations or the concrete canyons of a quiet city, you must pass through rings on your way to the target landing zone, descending to maintain speed and using columns of rising air to lift you up. Finding the right balance between speed and altitude feels good, and it's rewarding to hit that sweet spot where you're gliding quickly and you approach the landing zone at an ideal trajectory to score a bull's-eye. The way the glider reacts to the subtle movements of your arms makes it feel like an extension of yourself, and the beautiful and peaceful locations make gliding a serene little escape.

But that's where the good news ends. Football is represented, but don't expect to play full games on the gridiron. Instead, you participate in a series of isolated training exercises. You start with vertical and lateral runs, where you're responsible for ducking, jumping, and sidestepping obstacles as the onscreen athlete runs up the field at a steady pace. Then, in a running back challenge, you use these same skills to evade attackers as you charge for the end zone. Succeed as a running back, and you may get a shot at being a quarterback. In these simple challenges, you look for a receiver--there's just one, and he's designated with an icon--and you make a throwing motion in his direction. That's all there is to being a star quarterback in MotionSports.

Dancing like a butterfly and stinging like a bee is not an option.

The movements you need to make in boxing are clear enough, but they often don't work like they should. You fight in first person, with your punches represented as colorful whooshes in the air. You can throw jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, but these don't happen in real-time response to your movements (there's no point in throwing a rapid flurry of jabs, for instance, because your fighter just isn't capable of doing so), and often they don't happen at all, either because your movements aren't recognized or because your opponent's canned animations don't allow him to be interrupted by a punch at such an inconvenient moment. In addition, boxing is unreasonably difficult. Even your second opponent is extremely tough to defeat, and with no suggestions on how to improve your performance in the squared circle, you'll quickly want to throw in the towel. You can box head-to-head with a friend, but the split-screen presentation makes what's happening during the bout unclear. It's difficult to tell who's hitting whom, and when punched, your boxer's head often flies back so that you can't see anything.

In soccer challenges, you play as either a penalty taker or a goalie. As a goalie, you move your arms in the direction you think the ball is going to go. The goalie's movement is delayed until the final instant, making these shots look dramatic but creating a sense of detachment between you and the action. Making matters worse, your movements are often misinterpreted. For instance, anticipating a low kick, you might move your arms down and to the left, only to see your goalie leap clean over the ball. This imprecision and the lack of anything resembling one-to-one responsiveness really take the fun out of goalkeeping. Kicking from close range works reasonably well when the only thing between you and victory is a goalie, but some challenges introduce special conditions. For example, a challenge in which you need to kick the ball into small moving targets demands remarkable accuracy if you're going to earn high marks, but the lack of clear communication from the game about how to kick high or low makes being that accurate more difficult than it should be.

According to MotionSports, being a running back is all about jumping over and ducking under chargers who telegraph their movements.

Horseback riding and skiing round out this collection. Horseback riding is somewhat broken. You shake the reins to make your horse gallop, but sometimes when the starting gate opens, your jockey is rapidly shaking the reins as you make the indicated movement, yet your horse just stands there, ignoring your commands. Even when your horse is responsive, moving your arms up and down quickly in a rein-shaking motion is tiresome. Skiing works better. You push with your ski poles to gain momentum, lean your weight from side to side to turn, and crouch to gain speed, but staying on course and maintaining a competitive speed is too difficult to make hitting the slopes enjoyable for all but the most dedicated players.

Most events can be played by up to four players, each taking turns, but this does nothing to improve the experience. In addition to all its other problems, MotionSports is hampered by frequent, sometimes staggeringly long load times, so you need to be patient as you wait for your next opportunity to get frustrated by control woes and difficulty issues. The subtle precision and soothing quiet of hang gliding offer some serene pleasure, but the other events are plagued with far too many flaws to make MotionSports tolerable. This isn't the sports-themed collection for the Kinect that you should be playing.

Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta Review

2010-09-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Mafia II featured great shooting and fun fisticuffs, but it was the story and set piece levels that gave it that extra punch. The game's first premium downloadable add-on, Jimmy's Vendetta, is a sizeable one, but it's a dim shadow of its big brother. An action-packed and chaotic opening gets your blood pumping, and some missions provide ample opportunity to blow up volatile vehicles. But overall, this mission-based romp through Empire City is a disappointment. Mission quality is all over the place, ranging from deadly boring, to fun and satisfying, to frustratingly cheap. There isn't much story to give your actions context, beyond a mission description and a couple of short but snazzy cinematics. Mafia II's core action remains solid, but it's stuffed into an uneven package without character or soul.

Hearing Nickelback over these convertibles' radios was more than Jimmy could take.

Your initial reaction to this downloadable content may very well be: "Who's Jimmy?" PlayStation 3 owners were given an introduction to this bald brigand in a free add-on called The Betrayal of Jimmy; everyone else will be hard pressed to wonder why they should care about this character beyond his frequent and amusing use of the f-word. Raspy voice acting and dark shades give Jimmy a barely veiled air of acrimony, but aside from the great-looking cutscenes that open and close this adventure, mission descriptions are the only source of context for his crimes. You may think that the exciting prison escape that thrusts you back into the atmospheric Empire City sets the stage for another thrilling and tightly scripted mob romp. Instead, Jimmy's Vendetta is more of an arcade take on Mafia II's mobster mayhem. You drive from one timed mission location to the next until you reach the inevitable final showdown, getting scored on your performance and a chance to see how well you did compared to other players on the online leaderboards.

Unfortunately, the lack of narrative really hurts Jimmy's escapades. A number of missions involve stealing a vehicle and driving it to a garage, often located a good distance from your starting location. Several of these vehicles, like a police transport and a giant tanker, are slow, cumbersome, and boring to drive. In Mafia II, longer driving sequences had context in the larger story, and the chatty and funny Joe Barbaro was usually there to provide a few laughs and groans. After all, a road trip is always more fun when you have someone along for the ride. Here, not only do you drive more sluggish vehicles, but you also have no company, and there's no attempt to elevate these missions beyond "drive truck from point A to point B." Action-based missions are thankfully more stimulating because they rely on Mafia II's strong combat mechanics. Several of them are quite good, and the manner in which you earn more points for stringing kills in quick succession has you pushing forward to get headshot after headshot. The best of these missions feature opportunities to blow up cars and trucks, which is always fun due to Mafia II's impressive explosions, which look and sound terrific and leave behind husks of flaming metal. A couple of missions in which you protect a vulnerable civilian are also enjoyable because they give you a chance to pick off incoming enemies from behind cover and rack up the points.

Jimmy's likes his beer cold, his TV loud, and his fuel stations flaming.

Other shooting missions are incredibly frustrating because they lack the clever cover and enemy placement of the main game. In many scenarios, you face legions of angry adversaries but are given few, if any, places for a respite. This is an unusual design choice, given that Mafia II's shooting mechanics are derived directly from modern-day cover shooters like Gears of War and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. All too often, you are stuck out in the open with only your wits and luck to save you, and Jimmy is remarkably fragile. And because you are usually in a hurry due to the ever-ticking timer, you will frequently deal with cops in addition to your main foes. As Mafia II fans know, Empire City is crawling with fuzz craving to chase a speeding vehicle, and because the timer encourages you to move at top speed, they're on your tail constantly here. These two elements--oversensitive police and a clock pushing you to rush--don't fit well together; some missions are already exasperating enough without throwing cops into the fray. The final operation is the most maddening; on top of these other annoyances, you engage enemies in the tight confines of a mansion. Remember how the camera pulled in extremely close to Vito whenever you entered apartments and hallways in Mafia II? Now, imagine trying to handle a shotgun or tommy gun at the same time. You can't see, you can't maneuver, and you can't wring any fun out of it.

The slapdash nature of this DLC is disappointing, considering Mafia II's outstanding sense of place and time. Empire City is a wonderful place, and the day/night cycle and weather effects make the world come alive. The game also comes alive when you get a chance to light the skies with flames and fury, taking down nearby enemies and racking up the points in the process. But these sparks are too often snuffed out by frustrating mission design and deadly boring driving sequences. It could take you five hours or so to gun your way through Jimmy's Vendetta, which at $9.99 sounds like a great value. But there's only so much value in an add-on this inconsistent, and even the most fanatical Mafia II players should give pause before devoting time and money to Jimmy's revenge tale.

R.U.S.E. Review

2010-09-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

R.U.S.E. is a fun and fascinating real-time strategy game, as long as you know which parts of it to invest in and which to skip entirely. In spite of some difficulties finding an online opponent, it prospers in the competitive arena, putting an intriguing use of bluffs and reconnaissance to good use on expansive maps that will test your ability to control the battlefield. Offline, you get some mileage out of its single-player skirmishes, but where R.U.S.E. falters is in its plodding, poorly paced campaign. Bizarre character models and bad writing prove distracting, while too-frequent story intrusions interrupt the flow of missions just as they start to get interesting. But the clumsy campaign aside, R.U.S.E.'s unique mechanics lead to tense and enjoyable standoffs in which, literally, things are not always what they seem.

Never underestimate the value of antiair units.

One of R.U.S.E.'s finer aspects is its ease of use, which makes it approachable for both newcomers and experts alike. When you zoom all the way out, you see the entire battlefield as if it's mapped on a general's strategy table, where units are depicted as stacks of chips. If you zoom in, you can watch and give orders to a single infantry squad or individual tank; if you zoom out, nearby units are grouped together into single stacks, which isn't just a neat effect because it enables you to command large groups of units with a single click. It's a smart and friendly way of keeping track of the entire map at once, while giving you precise control when you need it. There's a certain simplicity to it all that may at first turn veterans off; there are limitations to where certain structures can be built, tech upgrades are very elementary, and you can't set up patrols or assign units to guard others. But once you get wrapped up in the game's more unique attributes, you discover that R.U.S.E. isn't as simple as it first appears; rather, it plays by a different set of rules than you might be used to seeing in strategy games.

The most obvious way R.U.S.E. mixes up the standard real-time strategy model is by employing ruses, which are special skills that allow you to fool your opponent or reveal his or her secrets in a variety of interesting ways. Maps are divided into segments in which you can activate these ruses, and there are limitations to how often you can use them and how many can be active in a particular sector at a given time. Games are won and lost with these ruses. Perhaps you will send in a squad of decoy ground units so that you can distract your opponent's front lines while you attack from the rear. Or maybe you would rather send bombers to attack an oncoming prototype tank from the skies after activating the terror ruse, which causes enemy units to rout much more quickly than normal. There's a tremendous amount of satisfaction in seeing your plans come together or in foiling your adversary. Hide your buildings from view and spoil the opposition's attempt to destroy your airfield. Use radio silence to sneak antitank defenses and artillery into firing position and then use your spies to unveil their units. Ruses open up possibilities you've never seen in a strategy game before, and it's a blast to create new ways of playing on the fly just to see where they lead.

Faking a tank assault is a good way to distract your enemy while you levy an attack on a different front.

R.U.S.E. is at its best online, where you choose one of six nations and battle it out on maps that support up to eight players. Each nation is similar enough to make it comfortable to switch from one to the next but different enough to open up fun new ways of playing. Perhaps light tanks may be available to you even if you've just built a barracks, or perhaps you will have access to a flexible defensive emplacement that fires both antitank and antiair salvos. Regardless of which country you choose, reconnaissance is key to success: Your units will only automatically fire if the enemy's units are actively spotted by recon vehicles (or perhaps, revealed with the spy ruse). Environmental cover is another important factor. Certain units, such as elite infantry, can be placed in woods or in cities, where they are usually hidden from the enemy's view and will ambush units that happen upon them unexpectedly. Things often get intense because there are so many ways of playing but only so many resources flowing in at any given time. If you play smartly, you can capture enemy resource nodes with your infantry. But if you get careless, you might lose an entire battalion of tanks to a few infantry units hidden in a forest near a strategic road juncture.

hat said, there are some problems with online play. R.U.S.E. uses Steam to connect you with others, which is in some ways a convenience because it allows you to easily hook up with friends without using Ubisoft's own oft-problematic online service. However, there are apparently some restrictions that limit how many other players you might find via matchmaking, both for ranked and unranked games. You may spend countless minutes waiting for the game to match you with a similarly ranked player only to come up empty-handed or perhaps be matched with a player of a much higher level. Or you may have no success being assigned to an unranked game and find no games at all to join in the server browser. The community isn't barren, so patience will pay off, but a better online arrangement could have made for a more painless experience.

Story interruptions like these aren't exciting--just annoying.

You can play offline if you have trouble finding an opponent, of course, and one-off skirmishes and challenges do a fine job of keeping you entertained. It's too bad that R.U.S.E.'s mediocre campaign fails to employ the strengths of its core gameplay. Certainly, you shouldn't play it for its story: second-rate voice acting and weird-looking character models with crude facial creases make the poorly lit cutscenes almost uncomfortable to watch. Some of the dialogue is truly awful; a truth you come to hysterical grips with in a serious scene gone inadvertently campy that prominently features the word "nuts." The plot follows the rise of Major Joe Sheridan as he rises up the ranks of the US Army in World War II while struggling with the onslaught of German troops that always seem to be one step ahead of him. This isn't a gripping tale, yet it has a tendency to frequently and annoyingly intrude on your missions. Every few minutes, the game will yank control from you just as you are getting into the swing of things, swoop the camera around the battlefield while you hear another mission update, and reset the camera in a position other than the one in which it started. Other times, new units and story updates will be introduced in slide-in panels as you play, which also limits your view of the battlefield and slides the interface out of position. Not only do these constant amateur narrative invasions mess with the tempo, but they also temporarily mess with your view of the battlefield. Most every aspect of the storytelling is poorly conceived and inexpertly delivered.

The missions hold your hand well into the lengthy campaign, and at that point, you'll be longing for the game to trust in your ability to play it and let you take command of a full-fledged battle. A new ruse is introduced every few chapters and new units are fed to you at a slow pace. The upside is that you have time to come to grips with each new ruse and unit and can fully understand their best uses for deployment. The downside is that if you've played a strategy game before, you'll be itching for something more interesting than battles featuring a limited army and limited resource management. R.U.S.E.'s campaign is fairly easy and strategically simple until you reach the end, at least on standard difficulty. The final missions will test your strategic prowess, though a few of them don't test your flexibility and know-how as much as they test your ability to understand exactly what the game expects of you. In some cases, you are placed in tightly scripted scenarios with very specific counters. These missions play out more like puzzles than strategic tests of skill and aren't a whole lot of fun. All the flaws with the campaign undermine a clever and fun foundation that deserved a chance to excel, but it suffers from too many limits for too long a stretch.

Unarmed recon aircraft are incredibly vulnerable. Take care with their deployment.

The game performs well, letting you zoom in and out with ease without any noticeable slowdown, though it would seem that some compromises have been made to accommodate the overall scope. Neither the terrain nor the units are all that detailed when viewed at relatively close distances. The art design also doesn't make any statement beyond "generic World War II." Yet, it's still a fine-looking game that displays a lot of units doing a lot of things at once without a struggle, though you will notice some geometric pop-in. In the same way, the boilerplate wartime soundtrack sets the right tone, if not exactly excelling. But it isn't the presentation's strengths and weaknesses that will strike you as much as R.U.S.E.'s fascinating twist on a standard genre. It's unfortunate that the spiritless campaign and online peculiarities fail to elevate R.U.S.E. to the head of its class. And yet, when it's allowed to breathe--both online and in one-off skirmishes--it's a flexible strategy game that requires you to think differently. Every game follows a unique path, requiring lots of smart recon and using ruses to fool your enemy. If you can look past the foibles, you'll find R.U.S.E. to be a fun and occasionally intense real-time strategy game that's just unusual enough to catch your imagination.