EL33TONLINE Reviews

Review: Kung Fu Panda The Game (PS3)

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Kung Fu Panda does something extraordinary in my opinion, it re-defines the movie tie-in game genre and issues a stern challenge that we can only hope future movie tie-in games will live up to. And all this before we even meet the very likeable, although somewhat unlikely hero, Kung Fu Panda Po.

Let me say straight up that there are probably some gamers that will not enjoy this title, simply because it is a movie tie-in and it is quite short too. However, if you are looking for a humourous adventure this may be just up your street. It will certainly appeal to kids and any gamers who want to spend a good couple of hours picking up some moves (kapow!) and laughing as you do so.

The story follows a panda named Po as he journeys to master the arts of Kung Fu to become the legendary Dragon Warrior and defeat the evil Tai Lung. The combat system is simple enough but players will be rewarded by perfecting different combos and learning new moves along the way. The left analog stick moves Po in whichever direction you choose while the right one controls the camera angle. Being able to move the camera angle is really helpful in most games, especially when you have to make jumps between different objects, and I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when I see it included in a game that has some elements of a platformer.

“Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose Kung Fu skills were the stuff of legend.”

When Po faces some enemies, especially bosses, being able to deploy a shield of sorts is really helpful – you can do so by pressing L2 but be warned that using it depletes your Chi. On this note you collect Chi from defeated enemies which you can use to perform different Panda Kung Fu moves. As the game progresses you will learn different combos and while these are relatively simple in the beginning they will become more challenging to master but do inflict more damage on enemies. The moves use the circle, triangle, square and X buttons in different combinations.

I must confess that whenever I play games like Tekken and Dead or Alive I inevitably resort to so-called ‘button-mashing.’ This is probably because I am not a big fan of fighting games and find the combos overwhelming to remember. When the first combo flashed on the screen I found that it was simple to remember and that I could soon perform multiple combos in a row. Although I did pick up quite a few combos and moves (Panda Quake being my firm favourite), I must admit that good ol’ button mashing also did the trick.

One thing I really enjoyed about this game is the variety of enemies that you will face. Ranging from simple wolves to ninja cats and TNT-throwing crocodiles, you will constantly have to change your attacks to overcome them, and just when you thought you had it all figured out, you will be caught out by a series of quick-time events. Now I know that the phrase quick-time events probably reminds you of repeating attacks again and again in Prince of Persia and God of War, but these quick-time events are manageable, although they may really challenge you once or twice.

"I just ate, so I'm still digesting, so my Kung Fu may not be as good as later on."

Speaking of difficulty, the games features three difficulty levels and as a result this game will appeal to first-time gamers, youngsters and the usual gaming crowd. Added to this is the option to finish the primary and secondary objectives in each level. While the primary objective may be relatively simple to complete, gamers can embark on the secondary objective to expand upon their Kung Fu journey. Also keep a look out for golden coins along the way which you can use to purchase upgrades and costumes. Collecting some of the golden coins is challenging and the green Rare Coins which unlock concept art, multiplayer games and even montage videoos will also keep you occupied.

You know those games where you stumble around, wondering where to go to next (Tomb Raider is one game guilty of this)…well, this is not one of those games. Each level has a clear objective and the levels are really not big enough to get lost in. In addition you can simply follow the golden coins to lead you in the right direction, which is particularly helpful if you are retracing your steps through a level. While some gamers might find this boring I found it refreshing to always know what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be going…it leaves more time for gaming in my opinion.

As touched upon earlier, the upgrades menu allows you to use the golden coins you have collected to upgrade Po’s abilities or purchase new outfits for Po. While I am sure a few gamers will breathe a sigh here, let me point out that Metal Gear Solid’s Snake has different outfits as does Ryu Hayabusa in Ninja Gaiden II. Case closed and buying a panda a costume is just plain cool. You might want to pay more attention to collecting those coins too since upgrading Po’s abilities does make his Kung Fu moves more powerful.

"You picking on my friends? Get ready to feel the thunder. Come out with the crazy feet. What you goin' to do about the crazy feet."

Add to this the fact that you also get to play as other characters including Master Shifu and the Furious Five and you are assured to be kept entertained learning new moves for different characters. Actually you are sure to be kept entertained throughout this game with non-stop humour and general fun and merriment with the big fat panda kicking ass. You can also look forward to tinkering with various multiplayer games and co-operative modes such as brawling, team survival and mini-games.

All in all Kung Fu Panda breathes new life into the movie tie-in genre, is visually stunning, fantastically engaging and quite honestly a bodacious time to spend a couple of hours.

Pros: Humour; music; great fun; good voice-overs; artwork.

Cons: Too short.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Lisa

Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox360)

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:00:00 +0000

After several delays the day has eventually dawned upon us where the most anticipated, hyped about game has been released. Rockstar North had the most difficult task ahead of them of having to outdo themselves as they had very few competitors who took them on in their own game – free roaming.

This is Grand Theft Auto with the nasty bits trimmed off, the rough parts smoothed over and fun squeezed into every possible nook and cranny. The bad bits are gone, the good bits are better, and it’s very rare that you will find yourself bored sitting on your sofa, staring at your TV.

You play a character by the name of Niko Bellic, an East European immigrant who has been lured to Liberty City (scaled to New York) by his cousin Roman. As soon as Niko sets his foot on American soil he finds out that all is not rosy as he has been misled. A variety of odd jobs are in the pipeline for bad men, there’s no turf war or property management (closer to the roots of GTA3) as Niko has unfinished business with past figures in his life. Niko is just one man in a massive city doing what he has to protect his people.

The city is alive

The city is alive with bankers’ yakking on their cell phones, drunks falling all over the place, beggars who irritate you, hookers who…you get the idea. Each area in the game feels different, as there are three different Islands (yet again, very similar to GTA3 – it is Liberty City you know!) There really is the feeling as if the town is going on with or without you. The radio stations are exceptional and in this game we also now have TV broadcasts that even have their own channels. It feels quite surreal watching a TV on your TV, if that makes any sense? If you’ve just completed a mission, get ready to hear about it or see it on the news! Feel like watching a cartoon? Reality show? Poker Match? There’s even an Internet Sitcom called WTF! It’s all there and it works. It had me watching all the filth of this town with a bag of popcorn in my hands. Hilarious? Please, find a better expression. This game oozes with it, but then it is aimed at adults.

Then on to other things like using your very own cell phone that you can buy ring tones for (like Old Lady Breaking Her Hip) or wallpapers. People can send you SMS’s, MMS’s or just call you. Everything is stored on your phone and you can tamper with the settings to make changes to those ring tones and wallpapers. Phone 911 and it takes you through to Liberty City’s emergency services. Need a cop car? Bob’s your uncle! I should also state that you access your multiplayer games from your cell phone.

Hacking, dating and going online

Then we have the Internet café. As soon as you login to your profile you can check your email and surf the web. That “web” being GTA’s custom web pages and I must tell you that it is some of the funniest things I’ve read in ages. There are so many web pages to visit that I think it might take me a lifetime to read each and every word on the site.

There are many other small additions like hacking the cops’ computer system to find suspects. Dating online. Everything about our normal civil society is in this game…but it has been twisted to work in this dire city.

Of course you’ll want to get with the mission eventually. This is where you’ll notice major improvements to the game mechanics. There’s a new cover system similar to Gears of War, which latches you to any nearby object by simply pressing the “RB” button. Once you’re in that mode you can blind fire over the top or pop out and shoot the enemies with a short burst of fire. Eventually we also now have a decent lock-on system which has plagued GTA forever now.

Out of sight, out of mind

The driving controls have improved as well with each and every car handling and controlling different from the last. It’s more forgiving too. It’s nearly impossible to flip your car on its roof as was the case (and problem) with previous GTA’s. You actually have a chance when taking curbs from now on! The radar mounted GPS has also had an overall with the route being sketched out for you instead of just having the destination point and getting lost in some industrial park. The new chase system has also been tampered with. No more stars to collect but rather a radius of activity that you need to get outside of. Once you are out the cops’ radius of sight you lose them a few seconds thereafter. The higher the wanted level - the bigger the radius. Works a charm!

There are other small touches like receiving a text message after failing a mission offering the chance to replay instantly. If you drive to a destination with a passenger in the car talking away, the dialogue will change if you failed and have to replay it. This means there is more time to concentrate on the main missions. On rail-chase and protect your friends mission have vanished, which is an amazing feeling, and you have been left with approximately 100 missions. Hibernation has a new meaning!

Easily worth the hype

Multiplayer is neither here nor there, but its good enough to mess around with and is most definitely much better than the options in the PSP version of the game and works much better as well.

So, is it the best game ever? GTA4 is so big with so mush to discover, so many things to do and so many ways of doing them that no game, in the same genre, can touch it. There’s love poured into every second of it, which results in a game that is easily worth the hype.

Pros: Improved game mechanics; TV stations are hilarious; you’ll care for Niko.

Cons: No planes to fly; feels a bit short in comparison to San Andreas.

Rating: 5 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (PS2)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Since I am a fan both of the Lego series and of Indiana Jones I was looking forward to combining the two, I mean its Lego and its Indiana Jones, how could it not be fun.

The game follows the adventures of Indy as he faces dangers and obstacles in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. As such if you have watched the first three Indiana Jones movies you will recognise many scenes made famous by the movies whereas if you are new to the series you will wonder why it has taken you so long to indulge in a little adventure or two.

Set out on an adventure

While there is no talking in the game, you will be swept away by the fantastic Indy music punctuated by grunts and actions from the cast of the game in certain situations. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming the theme tune for the next couple of days. It certainly is easy enough to follow the plot, especially if you have seen the movies.

Everything in the game is made of Lego and completely destructible. The attention to detail is amazing and you will find yourself spending longer than needed on each level to poke around, discover new treasures and collect the all important tokens. If you are playing this game with a friend this is bound to lead to confrontation since one player wants to proceed and the other to frollick around with the Lego flowers.

To elaborate on this let me explain that two players can play the game with a unique drop-in element, meaning that one player can drop-in or drop-out of the game at any stage. Obviously this is fantastic because you don’t have to exit the game if your friend wants to join or quit, simply connect the second controller and you’re in or select drop-out and you’re out.

Swing it!

The only proviso to this two player aspect is that one player cannot proceed much further in front of a second player. Sometimes if you venture too far ahead you will even meet an untimely death which will probably lead to you thumping your partner over the head with whatever weapon you currently have, in the game of course in case you were wondering. Of course with players poking around and destroying the environment you are bound to accidentally hit your partner with your spade or shoot them with your gun at least a couple of times, so be prepared for some serious retaliation but this just adds to the fun.

You will be armed with different tools depending on which character you are currently playing as. As you progress through the game you can also pick up different weapons including guns, spanners, chairs, bottles and spades. In addition each character has different skills which may be needed at different stages in the game. For instance Indy wields a whip which he can use to swing over ravines (or pull a lady closer to steal a kiss) while other characters come packing a spade, one jumps higher than others and one can squeeze into small spaces. If you are playing single player you will have to change between the different characters to make use of their different skills and advance in the game, but it is really is as simple as pushing one button to switch, provided you have the second controller plugged in that is. If you don’t you will have to rely on the AI to help you out which could prove to be a bit frustrating.

Puzzles and items

If you need a certain item to proceed in the game, you will only have to look around a bit to discover the key that unlocks the statue or the spanner that fixes the car. All the vehicles can be driven in the game and I must admit I could not contain my whoop of amazement when Marian popped a wheelie and rode over a menacing enemy in the process. Another memorable moment is when, after wondering if Indy could swim, he jumped into a lake, did a couple of laps and collected a hidden treasure in the process. Some areas are restricted and require you to defeat an enemy, pick up his hat and confuse the security guarding that area to gain entry. Again every detail on each level is well thought out and polished, there really is not that much that can be faulted in this respect. The cutscenes too are slick, funny and cannot be faulted.

Each level will have at least two playable characters but sometimes you start with more. The puzzles in each level are well thought out and will invariably require both characters to work together in order to solve them. After you have played the game for a while it really will be quite simple to figure out which character’s skill is required next. However, with this being said some puzzles really require you to think out the box and can be quite challenging.

Lego is cool

The game allows you to go back and replay any level at any time. You can do this by visiting Barnett College which also houses all the relics and treasures you have collected. Another good reason to collect those Lego tokens (other than bragging rights) is that if you miss out on the treasure pieces you can purchase them to assemble the whole treasure.

All in all you will not regret the time you spend playing this game. It is fun, challenging enough to make you scratch your head a few times and takes you back to a time in your youth when playing with Lego was cool, hell it still is cool!

Pros: Humour; replayability; great co-operative play (offline); awesome puzzles.

Cons: Not backwards compatible with PS3; minor glitches.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Lisa

Review: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:00:00 +0000

We’ve waited for ages for this game to be released. The PS3 has been slated as the console that gets all the dodgy ports and has not lived up to the hype. The console war has been tough for Sony thus far, but it seems “War Has Changed” – in Snakes words.

As soon as your PS3 sucks this disc in you’ll need to get ready for some of the best video gaming this industry has ever provided. What you have seen in previews is not even a drop in the ocean of what there is for you to experience in this game. I’m not going to discuss anything over and above the sections of what most would have seen in the previews, so NO SPOILERS.

First of all let’s clear things up – If you have never played MGS1, 2, 3 then you should not even consider buying this title. It would mean zip to you. It is an emotional ride from the word “go” but you need to know what has happened beforehand. The other option would be to search YouTube and watch videos depicting the previous storylines this far. I urge you to do that before playing this.

What we do know from the official previews so far is that Old Snake, Liquid Ocelot, Otagon, Colonel Cambell, Meryl, Naomi, Raiden and Vamp are all gonna be a part of the MGS4 story. We have several new characters introduced that I will leave to you to discover. If you played any of the previous titles those names should all jump out at you and you should also know that you have a serious ride coming your way when it comes to the plot.

As we all know this is set in the Middle East and Snake is yet again the man to save the world from Liquid Ocelot (for those yet to play this game, Liquid Ocelot is “Bowser” in Snake’s world, which is why you need to play the previous games to understand that theory). Liquid Ocelot reigns over the world’s five largest five PMC’s (Private Military Companies) and in the Middle East region it is embroiled in civil war between the current regime and local rebels. The soldiers in this day and age all have nano machines in their bodies that run them like puppets which Liquid Ocelot controls. Hell, if you had to pick up one of the soldiers guns you could not even use it, as even those are ID tagged to the user. There is a way to get around that, but hey, who am I to tell you how to do it.

Snake’s control method has been tampered with slightly but it makes it a little bit easier to control than before. To control Snake you use the left analog stick and to pan the camera to what you desire you use the right analog stick. To select an item press and hold the L2 button and scroll the item list with the D-Pad and release L2 to select it. Use the exact same procedure for the weapon selection but rather use R2. That is all very standard MGS methods so far, but the element they’ve perfected is action sections. Press and hold L1 and you are presented with a viewpoint similar to that of Resident Evil 4 where the camera shifts over your shoulder and your aim pops up helping you shoot the enemies with much more ease than previous MGSs. Also while holding the L1 button press “triangle” and you go into first person mode where you can actually move as you normally would in a first person game, albeit a bit slower.

There are so many new toys to play with in this that I’m is not quite sure where to start, but the one that stands out the most is the OctoCamo suit which Snake wears. Hideo got this idea from a real animal that is indeed an Octopus, which morphs itself in colour and shape (Here, watch this). This is an idea that works wonders in the MGS universe. If you played MGS3 and got tired of changing your clothes every four seconds then this is gonna make you one happy gamer. Stand up against a wall or lie on the floor and the colour changes accordingly. It even incorporates the shape or rather texture of whatever it is you’re blending with and works exceptionally well. This would not have been possible on previous generation consoles to this degree.

Secondly, we have something of a sub-character…even though it is really just an item in your inventory. The Metal Gear MKII, with its design based on Metal Gear Rex (the one you fought on the PlayStation 1 back in Shadow Moses Island), and seeing that Otagon built Rex and the MKII it makes quite a bit of sense. When equipping this little guy who is literally a 30 cm tall robot on wheels you have the opportunity to get right into the middle of the action-taking place and one-by-one dispose of the enemy. Yes, it has stealth built into it...better yet – you can shock the hell out of anyone without confronting them yourself! Obviously it also has several other uses like scouting before running off all guns blazing. Unfortunately it runs off a battery, which charges itself when not in use, so you can’t keep it running forever and a day. Over and above that it only has a 50m radius anyway.

Lastly (of what I’m discussing as there are others) is the Solid Eye. It’s a mechanical patch that is placed over Snakes eye that offers “infrared night vision” and “binocular mode” which are both vital throughout the game.

Everything else is intact with CQC making a welcome return and the options of hiding bodies (or youself) in a locker (or garbage bin in this case) are still there. You still alert enemies who in return contact headquarters to send more troops out to cap your ass. Make a loud sound and they’ll come charging in your direction. Hideo Kojima has kept with the basic fundamentals that have worked for this game over 20 years now. Don’t forget, it has been around since the NES days.

Graphically this game is something to witness. I can say with complete confidence that it is the best looking game I’ve ever seen running in my life. Bioshock and Uncharted Drakes Fortune can take some good lessons out of this game. You often forget after a cinematic sequence that it is ALL an in-game engine running. When the camera swoops down from a CG sequence behind your character you sit there for a while wondering if there is something wrong…“Did the game freeze? Oh, hang on… it’s actually in-game, I must start playing!” Yup, it’s that good and I can tell you that the bits that have been shown are nothing in comparison to what is to come (Oh, I so want to tell you all about it!).

Quite embarrassingly I have to admit that I literally shed a tear in a certain section of the game, as it just felt so moving. Harry Gregson-Williams needs to be given an award for the superb soundtrack. It has movie quality all over it. His use of pace is stunning and he plays the right strings at the right time to ensure that you grow even closer to those characters that you think you have known for ages. I stress again, if you have not played the previous three games, this paragraph is useless.

There has been word of 90-minute cinematics, which is a load of crap. The longest piece I witnessed was about half of that and it was so intense that the time flew by. One thing that I would wish for (if Hideo ever attempted a game like this again) is that one could pause the game as I often got interrupted via a phone call while playing and thus missed out on some of the awesome action.

There is really just so much to talk about and I’d love to go into depth about all my experiences in the game, but it would really spoil it for those still looking at playing it. The bosses are amazing and yet again there are many ways to approach them. Hideo, as per usual, has hidden oodles of humour in it that mostly makes sense if you played the MGSs before this and…for nostalgia freaks (like myself) there is an awesome moment in this game that sealed the deal for me and I find it exceptionally hard to find real flaws in it. I’ve not even touched on the online side of things, which I’ve had a good go at and seem quite interesting. This game is about the single player experience and I would personally like it to be remembered for that.

If this happens to be Hideo Kojima’s last piece of work in the Metal Gear franchise it is indeed a sad day for video games, but it will be a great way to bow out. This game is brilliant and I find it difficult to believe that any game in the near future will be able to touch this brilliance.

The saying, “The most beautiful game in the world” does not reflect to football no more, it’s MGS4.

Pros: Perfection.

Cons: Nothing.

Rating: 5 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:00:00 +0000

What exactly is it that makes Mario Kart so much different than any other kart copycat out there? I mean, it’s quite simple in theory – you have a Nintendo character driving a kart trying to reach the finish line first and in doing so you have weapons to help you achieve this. We’ve seen Crash Bandicoot, Disney, Looney Tunes and other well known brands slap their characters into a kart game and achieve nothing more than a good dose of embarrassment. Nintendo are the Gods of kart racing (among other) and it does not seem as if they are planning on letting up anytime soon.

Mario Kart: Double Dash on the GameCube was a hit and miss situation where you had some gamers loving it and some totally hating it. It was when Mario Kart DS launched that everyone rejoiced…the racing felt as tight as it did back on the Super Nintendo when they introduced us to this new genre within a genre, but it was a handheld game.

Welcome back Mario Kart, console edition

Not just do you have a snazzy new Mario Kart game, but with it comes an official licensed Wii Wheel. Stick your Wiimote into the wheel and use the wheel to steer your kart, instead of looking a bit arb tilting a remote control left and right, oh, and it is bundled free. You got to love Nintendo! If by chance you do not agree with the idea of using motion controls for playing Mario Kart games, you have a wealth of options by using the Nunchuck & Wiimote, Classic or GameCube controller. I found the Wii Wheel to be the control method of choice.

The normal single player mode with the 50 - 150cc classes is all there with many characters (and hidden ones) and yet again, like the Mario Kart DS, we have 16 new tracks and 16 retro tracks to choose from. The new tracks are very complementary of this new game as you can see there has been some good thought put into the stages, but the retro stages feel exceptionally dull. Yes, we know they are retro tracks with its “old” design elements, but I’m sure some of the N64 tracks could have been given a little face-lift. Anyway, one can also find the Time Trial, VS and Battle modes within singleplayer mode, which is really nothing new. The offline multiplayer enables you and three other friends to battle it out “old school” style in front of your telly on a Saturday morning, which is great fun.

Something that is a bit disappointing is that there are no special weapons available for each character anymore and not that much new to the default list of weapons. Blue Shell, Green Shell, Maroon Shell, Bob-omb, Bananas, Mushrooms, Fake Item Box, Golden Mushroom, Bullet Bill, Blooper (spits ink on the screen like the DS version), Lightning and Star are all there. We have three new additions: Mega Mushroom – Increases the size of your vehicle and you pounce over all your enemies flattening them in the process; POW Block – When activated all the competitors on the track spin out and drop their weapons; and lastly, Lightning Cloud – Bad luck I’m afraid. This cloud hovers over your head and you need to bump into another character to rid yourself of the irritating cloud that leaves the desperation of finding another racer in time. If not it will zap that racer into a mini kart racer. Thing is, we could do everything mentioned above in the GameCube version (besides the three new weapons).

What is actually new?

Online baby! Eventually you have been granted your wish of racing 12 player races online! Yes, you need to enter your Mario Kart friend codes to play against your friends, but once registered it is a piece of cake to compete with them. When you login to your online account it notifies you if any of your friends are online as well as when finishing an online race against strangers it will notify you if a friend is online after the race ends – awesome stuff! There is also a message section with preloaded messages that you can use as a “chatting” service to ensure that everyone in your lobby is up to speed and it works quite well. A headset would have been better but beggars can’t be choosers…gosh, just imagine the swearing and yelling that would take place every time someone unleashes a bolt of lightning!

“Complete and total mayhem” sums this up quite well and the 150cc suddenly feels too much for your little brain to absorb. You will be 1st with 100 meters to the finish line only to end up last a second later. Luck? You make your own luck; you should know that by now. Online mode does not mean you have to stick with your friends, you can take on Worldwide and Regional modes where you start with 500 points and depending on where you finish in a race your points increase or decrease. The point system at hand is an indication of how good the racers are you’re competing with.

So, what else? It’s not exactly Mario KART anymore as you now have the choice of motorbikes as well. The handling works exceptionally well and when pulling back on your wheel your bike sets itself in a wheelie position that in returns speeds you up; something the karts can’t do. You also have the opportunity to drive as your Mii, but who wants to do that if you can use good old Yoshi to upset all those around you?

Lastly we have the Mario Kart Channel. Here you can view “Friends” to see what your track record is thus far; “Ghosts” allows you to download other ghosts or send ghosts to your friends to compete with; “Rankings” shows you where you rank in the world, region or friends; and a awesome addition, “Tournament.” Every week or two Nintendo provides you with a new challenge (or tournament) which has you doing a task and completing it in the quickest time. Yet again you can compare it to the World, Region and your friends.

The difference between this and previous Mario Kart games is that you really do feel part of the community. You see, Nintendo has awesome characters and have kept with their secret recipe and only improved on it with each installation. The online element in this game is a massive improvement. If you do not play this game online you might as well sell it when you’re done with the single player side of things, as this is probably one of the most frantically exciting online games to have been released in years.

If you own a Wii this game is essential and if you are yet to pick up the console then you now have a very good reason to do so.

Pros: Mario Kart Online – with friends; bikes; free Wii Wheel.

Cons: Speeds can feel a bit slow at times; sadly weapons seem to have gone a step backwards.

Rating: 5 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Big Brain Academy for Wii (Wii)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:00:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of puzzle games, so seeing as I skipped out on the DS version I was really keen to try out the Wii version of the hit handheld game. Now I’m keen to get the DS version, since despite the rather small amount of content in this game it’s kept me glued to my Remote for hours on end trying to get those platinum medals.

When you first enter the Big Brain Academy, Dr Lobe, a small white jelly-baby-like professor of infinite brain capacity and verbosity tries to explain his Academy’s goal of growing your brain size. It seems in the world of Dr Lobe your brain can actually grow in weight with a bit of exercise, with the biggest hypothetical weight being 3000g. I would be highly concerned about someone with a brain weight of 3000g – to get this in-game you would have to be a savant, and in real life you would be a small whale. But it is Dr Lobe’s earnest aim to help you achieve the biggest brain you can, and after a short enrolment process in which you choose your Mii (or I guess I should say your Mii’s face) and listen to a lecture on quite what you should be doing next, you’re given the run of the Academy.

Growing your brain Dr Lobe’s way

For all the impressiveness of the Academy’s name it doesn’t consist of anything more than a Hallway and four rooms – Test, Practice, Office (where you enroll and view your records) and Group (where you play multiplayer games). The first room to try is the Test room, since you want to set a standard from which to track your improvements. After a quick glance through the rules of the test types you’re thrown into a barrage of 15 different mini-games, 3 each in 5 different categories – Analyse, Identify, Memorise, Compute and Visualise (all happily spelt with s’s!). Once you’re finished this Dr Lobe tells you the size of your brain, and at this stage you’re probably only going to be comparable to a walrus in grey-matter bulk. But that’s ok; Dr Lobe will cheerfully give you a “D” grade and tell you to go train in the nicest possible way.

So the next step is to pop out of the Test room and into the Practice room and start trying to earn yourself some medals. You can choose any one of the 15 activities to play, and choose one of three difficulty levels. Now you’ll get a barrage of 10 consecutive questions of the same variety and at the end of this Dr Lobe will award you with a score, appropriately measured in grammes of brain weight. Score above 100g and he’ll give you a bronze medal, above 200g earns you silver and above 300g earns you gold and unlocks an expert level for this activity. The difficulty curve is very well structured – earning bronze on the easier levels should be possible for anyone to achieve, while earning gold on the higher levels is an exercise is speed, precision, and sheer perseverance. There is an even higher medal than gold (platinum, obviously) which requires a monster score and adds extra challenge if you feel you’ve mastered the game. No matter your score you will also be rewarded with a long diatribe from Dr Lobe – if there was a way to get him to speak a little less I would have been far less annoyed with myself for just missing gold for the 10th time in a row.

The quick and the small brained

In order for Dr Lobe to score you well you have to be quick. The quicker the better, as a quicker brain is obviously a bigger brain. Getting the questions right is only secondary – your primary objective is to answer quickly. If you’re a puzzler who enjoys a sedentary pace to your puzzling then Big Brain Academy is not the place to go. It requires a fast hand quick on the draw and quick on the trigger, with accurate aim and lightning fast reflexes. I guess like Wyatt Earp or Cool Hand Luke; they might have been quite good at this game. Don’t let this put you off – like I said there’s a well graded difficulty curve that makes it very accessible, but it’s important to point out that speed is what achieves the gold medals, not really puzzle-solving ability. What I mean is, you have to solve the puzzles correctly, but you also have to be quick or your score will be mediocre.

One thing I haven’t really explained is the activities themselves. The categories give away something of their nature, but they’re best represented by a description of a few. In Compute, one of the activities shows a bunch of balloons with numbers on them and asks you to pop them in order from lowest to highest. The balloons are all different angles and the pressure to perform quickly means you often pop the wrong one because you just didn’t see the correct one. In Identify one of the activities reveals a picture bit by bit and asks you to select the animal that is depicted. Here you can use a little logic too – if you can see some blue sky the animal is unlikely to be an insect or a small mammal unless it’s a tree-dwelling one like a monkey. Or if the blurry image is mostly black and white it’s likely a panda. In Memorise one activity shows you a group of cages, some with parrots in them. Then it covers them up and moves the cages around – it’s up to you to track where the cages with the parrots in them are at the end. In Visualise one activity shows four different animations on the screen at once and asks you to select the one that is different, the odd one out. Analyse shows a spinning 3-D image of a Rubik’s Cube with some blocks excluded, along with four choices all spinning in the opposite direction and asks you to select the one that matches. All the activities are controlled only with the Wii Remote, and only using the pointer, so no shaking and no waggling is required in order to grow your brain.

Fun for groups or families

While the activities sound fairly simplistic, the multiple difficulty levels do keep them interesting, and some have quite a bit of variety within them in terms of artwork. For once though, there are no unlockables to speak of, other than the expert level for each game. This means there is not a huge amount of content on offer, but what is available is incredibly polished and entertaining. I would suggest this game is playing the same way as Nintendo intend games like Brain Training, Wii Sports or Wii Fit to be played – in short bursts over many days, and preferably along with others. It’s not a multiplayer game really (although there is an enjoyable multiplayer component that pits players against each other in realtime or against each others’ records), but would be far more enjoyable with a group of people (say, a family) playing it a bit each day. You can send your record books to friends via the Nintendo WiFi Connection, so you don’t have to be in the same house as your co-players to compare your progress to theirs.

In short, Nintendo have put together a fun, albeit small, game that is best enjoyed with friends played in a mildly competitive manner. As a solo game it’s not likely to hold your attention for more than a week or two of extended play (unless you’re like me and really must get those platinum medals and an A+ grade – that might take a while), but in bite size chunks it’s a good, light-hearted puzzle game which makes for an entertaining diversion for all ages.

Rating: 3 stars
Contributor: Peter

Review: Wipeout Pulse (PSP)

Fri, 23 May 2008 07:00:00 +0000

The future, something that has endless possibilities and which we have no idea of, but if the Wipeout series is a glimpse of what is to come then we have something special coming our way…even if it is 2170, which means that in three generations our children’s children’s children will most probably have the chance to witness this in its true form. Hell, that’s if it actually becomes anything more than a video game. One can but dream!…Or you can go to your nearest store and virtually experience this right now!

Wipeout has been thrilling us with their franchise since 1995 on the PS1 and it was in fact the sequel “Wipeout 2097” (or Wipeout XL in NTSC territories) which grabbed the imagination of all racing fans worldwide. F-Zero on the Super Nintendo might have invented the idea of futuristic racing, but Wipeout added something essential – WEAPONS!

Weapons galore

Over the years we’ve seen several different weapons in the game from rockets to missiles and earth quakes. Now I introduce you to the new weapons: Shuriken – this weapon bounces off everything destroying everything in sight until the timer runs out; and secondly we have the Repulsor – a disturbance weapon which affects a large area around your ship, causing damage to any rivals and at times knocking them off course.

One thing that has not changed since day one is the difficulty of this game. I ended up setting it to easy to stand a chance (in the first race) to actually receive a gold medal. It’s insanely tough requiring Zen-like patience to learn every track’s hairpin bends, loops and chicanes. Once mastered I guess you can move up to “normal” difficulty, but then you need to understand that things are only gonna get tougher after the Venom and Flash race speed divisions. Oh yes, we have Rapier and Phantom to take care of adrenalin junkies.

The presentation of this game is excellent with “Race Campaign” being the option I see most players delving into. This provides you with a new take on this franchise where you are represented with a grid of races. Each hexagon consists of several events which can be races according to your preferance, but you need to acquire a certain number of points to progress to the next grid. Progress takes forever, but they gradually up the learning curve making sense of the earlier difficulty.

Wipeout online

With regards to multiplayer we, yet again like Wipeout Pure on the PSP, got the opportunity to race seven other participants via network or gamesharing. The new addition is something we’ve all be crying out for – Wipeout online. I had absolutely no problem joining (seeing that you have a PSN account). The races could at times be a bit laggy which is irritating at high speeds with corners approaching. If you do find players with decent connection speeds this game is great online and eventually you have eight players racing as running an eight player networked Wipeout Pulse tournament is unheard of and most likely impossible. Another nice feature, which involves being online, is that you can download new skins for your ships. I found an impressive “Captain Falcon” ship design and one or two other designs which I downloaded straight to the memory card. A very nice extra feature…even better, you can design your own skins on that same website!

But old problems persist. The too-strict collision detection means your craft can hug a rail for a few furlongs, destroying any chance of recovery, worse still it feels rather charmless.

Knuckle-whitening racing thrills

As a weapon based racer Wipeout: Pulse shares a lot in common with Mario Kart – but its lack of character means it’s not half as much fun to play. With a few more twists and tweaks this might have been superb; as it is only fans of the series will love this. It’s not for everyone, but if you love knuckle-whitening racing thrills, look no further.

Pros: Some of the best visuals produced on PSP; great sense of speed.

Cons: Downloadable content…but at a price (Wipeout Pure’s was free); collision detection problems.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Picross DS (DS)

Fri, 23 May 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Picross puzzles have been around for quite a while now. I remember trying to do them when I was young in some logic puzzle book or newspaper. In most papers or books they’re called Nonograms (after one of their creators, Non Ishida) and have been around since the 80’s. Nintendo’s name for them is better since it’s far more descriptive – Picture Crosswords are not quite what the puzzles are, but the name does at least give you a good idea of what you’re in for. On paper the puzzles never grabbed me, mainly due to the need to erase errors making this a little difficult when you rubbed a hole through the newspaper, but on the DS it works like a charm – if you’re one for puzzles this is all the game you need for a good many months.

Starting off easy

The game starts you off at a gentle pace with 5x5 puzzles. You are given a grid, and the idea is to fill in certain blocks and mark others as empty based on the clues you are given. The clues are simply numbers that indicate how many blocks on a line are filled in. For example, if a row has the clue (3, 1) next to it, you can immediately fill in the first three blocks, leave a gap of one and fill in the next one to make five. A clue like (1, 1, 1) also fully describes a row or column of 5 blocks. The harder part comes in when the clue only gives you a small indication of what is filled in, like (1, 1), meaning at some point in the row one block is filled in, followed by a gap of some length, followed by a filled in block. Without other clues you’ll never solve that one, but that’s where the Cross bit comes in. You’ve got clues next to each row and next to each column, and they feed into each other so that pretty soon you’re able to fill in all the correct blocks and reveal a picture (this is where the Pic comes in).

Picross DS may start you off easy, but it does get progressively more difficult as you finish more puzzles, and pretty soon you progress on to 10x10 puzzles, then 15x15, 20x20 and finally 25x20. In Normal Mode, if you try to fill in a block that shouldn’t be filled in you will be bleeped at and a time penalty will be added – the more mistakes you’ve made the bigger the time penalty. The idea is to finish all the puzzles within an hour each (with penalties included – the puzzles take far less than an hour to finish) in order to unlock some bonus puzzles with a particularly Nintendo-ish theme. The reward for finishing a puzzle is both the monochrome picture you have uncovered and a little colour animation of it.

Free mode, where the real challenge lies

After you’ve finished off Normal Mode, the next step is Free Mode, where the game lets you make mistakes without correcting you, much like those newspaper puzzles, except now you can erase without destroying the puzzle. They have cleverly put in a “try it out” mode which allows you to save the state of your puzzle and try a certain block out as filled (or unfilled) and see if it leads to a contradiction down the line (where one clue says a block should be filled and another says it shouldn’t). If this happens you can simply pop back to the state of the puzzle before you went down the errant path – another feature that just isn’t available in your friendly neighbourhood newsagent’s rack of puzzle books. The third feature is the use of a D-pad and buttons – yes you can use the stylus to do stuff, and in fact after I got used to it I preferred it, but when travelling, or when you just couldn’t be bothered to write, the D-pad works impressively well.

But what next, what happens after you’ve finished the massive number of puzzles in Normal and Free mode? Well, first you deserve a medal for that, and the game happily rewards you with yet more puzzles to solve! But when you’ve finished those there’s still more you can get by connecting to the internet with the Nintendo WiFi Connection. You can even make your own puzzles along with a little colour animation, should you be artistically minded, and upload them for others to try out. Then there’s also the Daily Picross mode, a set of five mini-games that hone your speed and test your Picross solving abilities with randomly generated puzzles to solve in various ways such as using your memory or finding the errors in a puzzle. I enjoyed doing my daily Picross, and did it most days of the week for a few months, trying to get A ranks in all the mini-games, since all it took was 5 minutes a day. The game happily graphs your progress, but you’ll find you quickly peak and thereafter your times depend more on the luck of the draw in terms of puzzle difficulty, and perhaps a little on the state of your brain.

The power of the internet

Other than a vast amount of content, the main thing of importance in a game like this is the interface. For the most part Jupiter has got it right. Unfortunately the big puzzles don’t fit on the bottom screen and you have to scroll around the puzzle. To solve this, you can switch from using the stylus to using the D-pad and buttons, in which case the whole puzzle will show at once. I guess this zooming in was to facilitate the use of the stylus as the blocks in zoomed out mode are too small to accurately choose in stylus mode. All told, the D-pad mode is probably the stronger mode, but it just feels right to be using my pen to do a puzzle, so I stuck with stylus mode, just scrolling around happily when I needed to. Fortunately, selecting whether to fill in a block or blank it out is as easy as holding down A or B and tapping the block. Filling in a range of blocks just requires you to swipe your stylus along while holding down one of the buttons. With no buttons pressed the puzzles scrolls around. Meanwhile the top screen always displays the entire puzzle if you really want to see the overview.

Picross DS is a simple, straightforward puzzle game based on a fairly mature concept, but its interface, options and sheer volume of puzzles (as well as the limitless possibilities of the Internet) means that it is a must-have title for puzzle game fans. Of course, those who balk at Sudoku or crossword puzzles should remain wary as always, and maybe try out a pen and paper version before choosing this to while away idle hours instead of Mario Kart.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Peter

Review: Ultimate Mortal Kombat (DS)

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:20:00 +0000

Ultimate Mortal Kombat, the name says it all. What was the best Mortal Kombat game in history? Some would argue that Mortal Kombat 2 was perfection but I would still say that Mortal Kombat 3 was the pinnacle of the franchise – as 3D environments obviously do not suit this franchise which was originally built around a 2D environment. If sweeps and uppercuts with the odd “TOASTY!” for good measure is something that appeals to you, then this is for you!

This is basically Mortal Kombat 3 scaled down for use on the DS. Seeing that the DS does not yet have any decent fighters, it’s an obvious move by Midway to cash in on something that just needs minor altering for the handheld as the game is already in existence.

Puzzle Kombat

Before continuing I should mention that there is a nice little extra add-on for this game – Puzzle Kombat is available for times when you are tired of fighting and need some puzzling in your life. A really nice addition to the game! For those that have never played this game before, it’s basically a Tetris clone with your chosen Mortal Kombat characters fighting each other on the bottom screen depending on how well you place those blocks.

Anyway, back to the heart of this game. If you at any point in your life played Mortal Kombat 3 at the arcades, on the Mega Drive or SNES then you will have a very good idea of what this is all about. Nothing has been tampered with and it is an exact arcade port. Even the hidden characters are still hidden and there are no extra characters available that you have not played with before (which is quite a shame), even the stages are the same. So one does find it quite hard to perceive a reason to buy this game as it is really a 16bit game emulated for modern technology.

Seeing that the DS does provide little functions to enhance game play, Midway did make use of one very important aspect – Fatalities. Do you remember sitting at the arcade or in front of your TV randomly pressing button combinations to pull off a fatality? Or printing the entire fatality moves list? It was hell I tell you! Well, the DS’s top screen has all the moves for your gaming pleasure, available to memorise at any point in the match if you see you have a chance of winning. Not just Fatalities but also Brutalities, Babalities, Animalalities and Friendship. It really just feels so awesome having all of the fatalities available just by casting your eyes to the top screen, barely missing anything at the bottom screen…it sure beats looking down at a printed piece of paper on the floor!

2D Mortal Kombat is back

Secondly, for the first time, we have 2D Mortal Kombat online. It is quite awesome but unfortunately my skillz were not up to scratch in this 3D day and age and some 2D Mortal Kombat veteran kicked my butt before I could blink an eye. It did, however, have no slow-down issues and things really worked well. It also gives you an option to download this game to a friends DS for some two player glory, but if he does not have the game you will only be presented with four characters to use.

The thing that does bug me about the game is not that it is set in a 2D environment, as 2D really does suit this franchise much better – nearly like Sonic the Hedgehog - but the fact that they only presented us with the characters of Mortal Kombat 3. Do you remember Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PS1? Now that would be perfect for the DS. That would be the ULTIMATE Mortal Kombat game to ever grace a handheld.

Your ticket to 2DMK-realm

The game play is as tight and entertaining as it was back then but the animations of the characters do seem a bit out of place in comparison to smooth 3D animations of the top fighters these days like Tekken, Dead or Alive or Virtua Fighter. Sound clips are also a straight conversion which really does sound terrible because of what we have come to expect from games these days.

This game will sit in your DS dependant on the online multiplayer factor. If you plan to play this alone you will have nice cinematics for each character, which is a bonus, at the end of the game and the quick pick-up-and-play mechanics work very well for it. The thing is this – if you are an avid old 2D Mortal Kombat fan who is dying to play this type of game on a handheld or online then this is possibly your only ticket to 2DMK-realm.

Pros: Fatality lists at your fingertips – literally; online 2D Mortal Kombat.

Cons: Not the full set of Mortal Kombat characters; outdated graphics and sound.

Rating: 3 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Space Ace (PS3)

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Just about every generation of consoles sees vast amounts of rereleases of old games as the publishers seek to bolster their revenues with catalogue sales. In fact, I reckon that if Nintendo were to stop making new games today, they would still make profits till kingdom come. The reason for this is clear: people new to video games, those who missed out the first time round, and those who remember the games of their youth with fondness. Add to this the fact that platforms become obsolete and formats change, and what once was easily available becomes hard to find.

Space Ace, a game first released on Laserdisc format in video arcades, shortly after Dragon’s Lair, has seen its share of formats, but hasn’t been officially released on a mainstream console in the last two generations (although it was released on DVD). The advent of HD and Blu-ray has made this a sensible time to rerelease it since the animation was originally done in film quality and scales perfectly to HD resolutions. This means the Blu-ray release of Space Ace is the best version of the game there has been simply due to the restoration work done on the film originals and the 1080P transfer.

Game play mechanics and multiple paths

The basic game mechanics are almost identical to Dragon’s Lair – a video sequence plays on screen, and you are required to press direction keys (on the D-pad of your Sixaxis, or on a Blu-ray remote) or possibly the action button (being the X button on the PS3) which triggers the use of Ace’s blaster, and at times allows him to energise. If you don’t press the right button at the right time Ace meets his end in one of a huge variety of death sequences, followed by a quick clip of Borf saying “You suck!” or some similar ridiculous statement befitting an insane villain with plans to take over the world. The animation is swift and you have to be on your toes or your game will be over as quick as you can say “You lose!” You can tell the game was made with video arcades in mind as it is supremely difficult to pass a stage until you’ve memorized the sequence of button presses needed. Even with the visual clues provided by on-screen flashes it takes twitch reflexes to be able to pass a section of animation without dying at least once. Fortunately, the death and Borf sequences are quick and you’re back in the action again.

Being the follow-up to Dragon’s Lair, Don Bluth did try to add to the game mechanics. For one he made the game even harder. He also made the sequences longer (which intensifies the difficulty because you have to start at the beginning of a sequence each time you die). But the biggest change is the multiple paths you can take. The game starts you as Dexter, a man that has been transformed into a child’s body by the Infanto Ray but at certain points in the animation sequences you can energise and transform into Ace (your real, adult form) for a period of time. This means that through most areas there are two paths – the easier, shorter one as Dexter and the longer, more difficult one as Ace. This has the effect of improving the replayability of the game, as it is possible to finish it without taking the more difficult road of transforming into Ace (except in some occasions where it is required).

Animation fans' delight

Space Ace, like Dragon’s Lair, has a mesmerizing quality. The animation is still uniformly excellent, and these really are the only interactive animated movie titles I know of, so if animation is something you consider yourself an appreciator of, the game is worth owning. However, as mentioned, it is very fast paced, and very difficult to pick up on the cues (although it doesn’t take more than an hour or two to complete), which means the game play is highly frustrating by today’s standards. It relies on simple repetition, trial and error, and memory to overcome the various scenarios, and although there are a multitude of death sequences they still become tiresome.

If you’re nostalgic about these Laserdisc games from the 80’s, there’s never been a better time to relive those memories, as the game is superbly reproduced here. If you’re an animation fan you will likely find value in just watching the scenes play through in near flawless HD and 5.1 surround sound, especially with the commentary and interviews added. For today’s gamer Space Ace is hard to recommend though as it can be punishing and frustrating while still not offering much in terms of game play.

Rating: 2 stars
Contributor: Peter

Review: Ghost Squad (Wii)

Mon, 05 May 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Start up Ghost Squad for the first time, play it through and gasp at how disappointed you are with the game. Levels are jagged-edged, reminiscent of the Dreamcast era, enemies are identical and hostages are box-headed monstrosities calling out for a mercy kill. Shooting is simple and the three levels to select from are all over too soon… Persevere, however, and Ghost Squad’s simplicity keeps unfolding, handing out more and more goodness of what lies deep inside this lightgun shooter.

The Wii seems, yet again, to be the perfect location for these lightgun games with Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Link's Crossbow Training and House of the Dead 2 & 3 cementing this genre on the Wii as something that we’re gonna see more of in the future (don’t be surprised if we see Namco Bandai porting Time Crises 4 to the Wii in the future).

Leveling up and different routes

Ghost Squad stretches back to the days when arcade gaming was the essence of gatherings of the uber-nerds fighting alongside each other to see who would be supreme with the highest score. That exact arcade game is what we have on the Wii, with some decent extras I may add. Yes, the game is still far too short – taking merely 20 minutes or so to go through all three levels, but what keeps dragging you back is the leveling up system and different routes to finish the game.

Slick play is rewarded with new weapons (which really all make a different impact) and new uniforms from Navy Seals to Gulf War to Panda…yes, Panda costumes. It’s SEGA and they still know that us gamers love messing about!

You may be attacking the opening Alpine Lodge for the 9th time, however, the enemies have been relocated in different positions and you have the option to tackle your objective by taking different routes. The more you complete the game the more routes open up to you which provides one with a feeling of ‘freshness’ and thus it lasts you much longer than 20 minutes. The Wiimote lends itself very well to the overall experience and the game does explain very sufficiently how to use it for each unique objective like disarming bombs or saving hostages over and above the wild shooting.

Multiplayer fun

This game really does shine in 2-player mode. Seeing that the three levels take you about 20 minutes to complete it’s perfect for a quick pick-up-and-play kind of game. In fact, I would say that you should strongly consider playing this with another player, as it feels quite lonely all on your own.

Later on when you play this game with your eyes closed you can also add your score to online leaderboards that is a nice addition. If you played this in the arcade (and think you were the bomb) it will be nice to see just how good you are in comparison to the rest of the world.

Resident Evil: UC may have the looks and Link's Crossbow Training has the quirky license, but this is the only TRUE lightgun game on the Wii. See past the rough edges and there is loads of Old School fun to be had with the game.

Pros: Good old fun game play; loads of unlockables.

Cons: You don’t show this game to a friend to show off the graphics.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: F1 Championship Edition (PS3)

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:10:00 +0000

Remember a time when F1 games were bigger than God? And now they seem little more than an afterthought? Can this title change that? I mean, it is on the super powerful PlayStation 3 and an exclusive at that.

This review is going to come from the viewpoint of an F1 purist who flew all the way from South Africa to Australia to watch a race in 2006 (which incidentally this game’s season is based on). If you have never liked F1 as a whole then the chances of you enjoying this is probably going to be a big fat ZERO. They made the tracks and cars much more realistic looking but the tracks still resemble the same thing and the drivers might have changed, but overall it’s just an update. If you are a fan, then stick around.

Let’s go back in history, way back to the PS1. F1’95 was the first game to really grab the imagination of F1 followers. It was developed by Bizarre (the team behind Project Gotham Racing on the 360) and we still had Murray Walker commentating to add to the (then) realism. F1’97 was the follow up to that, adding split screen multiplayer races and keeping with the formula (excuse the pun). F1’98 started losing the momentum as there were terrible bugs in the game, BUT, it was F1’99 that cemented its place as the best F1 to date…and guess what, it took eight years for the next F1 game to shine – yes, this one.

Most playable F1 game

Throughout the last generation we had F1 2001/2002/2003/2004/’05/’06/Career Challenge and one or two others who all got it wrong. The handling was terrible! F1 cars stick to the ground and grip at high speeds, those games were all way off track and it’s hard to believe that most of those came from the same team that brought us this awesome F1 racer.

In fact I actually do not know where to start with the beauty of this game, besides that it is the most playable F1 game that I have EVER played.
Before I get into all the good things I will touch on something that is going to bug us F1 purists – It’s based on the 2006 season and therefore you still have Kimi Raikkonen driving for McLaren and ironically the same man having a go at the great Michael Schumacher. It also does not have offline multiplayer, but the online makes up for that.

First thing I am going to mention is that this game hits an incredible 60fps (frames per second) with realistic rain, heat haze and speed blur effects. It’s a beautiful game, well, as beautiful as a Bahrain desert track could look I guess. The game play is second to none. It seems that they implemented a tad bit of arcade handling just to make it more enjoyable and it’s most definitely worth it.

Options for the race

You are inundated with options and I chose World Championship. Selected my team and driver (McLaren, for those interested) and then it was on to the options for the race. I kept it as realistic as possible – all rules, damage, fuel, tire wear, no traction, hardware malfunction…everything that would really happen in a race is there for you to toggle on or off and I opted for the real deal.

When entering the weekend you would go through tests so that the mechanics could adjust your car according to your driving style (a very nice and overlooked feature) by checking what tyre pressures/fuel efficiency/percentage down force, etc work for you. Then it’s off to practice session, qualifying and then race day with your team being with you all the way on the radio. They also perfected the pit stop. As soon as your car comes to a halt it presents a little mini-game by pressing a sequence of buttons as quick as you can. Obviously if you miss them your pit stop takes longer and thus you lose valuable seconds

The Sixaxis can be used to steer your F1 vehicle and most definitely works way better than Motorstorm did, but I would still recommend the analog setup as precision is needed in this game and the Sixaxis seems to lack that in racing games.

Online racing

As mentioned earlier, you can take this game online. I found the setup to be a bit confusing at first but once figured out it’s actually quite straight forward. Racing against another online opponent is just thrilling! The races are always close as there is a bit of catch-up and it seems that most of the people online are F1 enthusiasts who all know these tracks (in fact, it’s these kinds of things that always have me arguing that tracks are better than free-roam racing based games).

F1 Championship Edition is the best F1 game, ever. If you’re not into F1 then I guess you’ll be bored as you were before…if you’re a fan and have been heaping up Kleenex tissues after years of tears because of the terrible games then, like Murray Walker back in the day, I say “GO, GO, GO!” and buy the game now!

Pros: Best handling for a F1 car yet; astonishing frame rate achievement.

Cons: 2006 season; offline multiplayer.

Rating: 5 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii)

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Have you still got Resident Evil: Survivor stuck in your mind from the PS1 days? Do you still burst out with frantic cold sweats at night? Have you attempted a lightgun game since? If I were you my answers would be something like: “YES”, “YES” and “Hell NO!” If a Resident Evil franchise goes off the track (that being what it’s known for – survival horror) like these lightgun games or *cough* Resident Evil: Online *cough* one expects the worst. However, PS1 days are gone and it seems the terrible lightgun games, featuring this franchise, left with it. Yes, it’s a good news day son!

I’m personally a massive Resident Evil fan and have played RE: Zero, RE1 (Remake), RE:2, RE3: Nemesis, RE: Code Veronica and RE4 and loved every bit of each those games. If you missed out on several of those games I am glad to tell you that this game follows the history of the franchise. It might be told in haste (squeezing 40 hours into 10), but for those waiting for RE5 next year that have no idea who Chris is and why he’s in Africa; this will help explain many of those things, as there is an overabundance of secrets to discover in the game. It even gives us veterans more details on the horrific happenings in this story. It’s a completist’s dream!

Good ol' Zombies

This game features Resident Evil Zero, 1, 2 and 3 and has all the old baddies like Hunters, T-Virus and the good ol' Zombies. The bosses of old are also in the game and I found them relatively entertaining in this day and age.

Let’s get into the game play - the Wiimote is used as your gun and you point it straight at the TV as you would a lightgun game peripheral. The trigger button “B” is your shooting button (“duh”) and to reload your gun you flick it, like those in the arcades back in 1995. Keep “A” pressed and slash forward with the remote and you are replicating a stab with your handy knife. One can also plug in the nunchuk and use the analog stick to look other directions while the camera automatically guides you through the game. I must warn you that my wrist was literally quite painful near the end of the game from all the reloading – you have been warned! Just as a side note, you can use the Wii Zapper with this game, but I never got around to that.

Graphically this game is actually very impressive. So far Mario Galaxy and Zack and Wiki were two of the few games to really show off the system and RE: UC is actually very atmospheric because of this. All the locations are represented very well in full 3D. Keep in mind that the games that are represented here were all pre-rendered backgrounds (still pictures) to keep high detail on the PS1 and GameCube respectively back when they launched and this conversion has not lost an inch of the detail, well done Capcom! Capcom had to please their fans by keeping the soundtrack exactly the same and did so, so nothing special here if you’ve played it before, still creepy as always.

Something that was obviously thought of from the beginning was the co-op in the game, as it is well represented throughout and if you have a mate to play with it is the most important reason to play this game (Must say, I’m glad that co-op has really taken off this generation on all platforms!).

Overshadowing negatives

What I have not touched on yet is the negatives and unfortunately this game has them as well. To such an extent that some of the above positives are overshadowed by it. Lightgun games are known for being short pick-up-and-play games, not in this case. Seeing that you travel through all the locations in the Resi universe it does take some time and becomes a bit stretched out. Playing Ghost Squad is short but it is like a 100m sprint into Angelina Jolie’s arms and RE: UC is a slow train to the farm to visit your Gran.

The single player mode is exceptionally difficult, you actually require a friend to play this on co-op and easy is in fact NOT easy.

Unfortunately those two combinations really spoil the game as a long but difficult game is going to leave some never seeing all the greatness in the story that is Resident Evil. Although there is some nice scenery along the way, Chronicles is a journey you’ll be happy to take on just once, then pass it on. If you’re not the kind of person that handles challenges by yourself very well take a “rain check” and stick your “Umbrella” back in the cupboard.

Pros: Explains the Resident Evil franchise; graphically it’s very impressive; Wiimote suits the control scheme very well.

Cons: Far too long for a lightgun game; very difficult if you do not have a friend.

Rating: 3 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Assassin's Creed (Xbox360)

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:00:00 +0000

This feels like Hitman in the Holy Land, well sort of. Hopefully it’s not a major spoiler that this game is based in the future, that’s where it all begins; you’re a distant descendant of an ancient assassin. There you go. Sorry!

Abducted by a sinister organization and strapped to a machine called the Animus, the memories in your DNA are mined while you get to play along in a computer simulation – think Matrix, kind of. Cool? Not cool? Well, that is for you to decide as you dive into the past to relive nine assassinations, performed on the orders of a boss who seems every bit as dodgy as the people you are about to waste.

Keeping a low profile

Now, before we delve any deeper into Altair’s (your character’s name) life you might have read some dreadful reviews of this game. Here is the thing - this game needs you to use a bit of your imagination. If you are the kind of person that played Metal Gear Solid and found new inventive ways of tackling a mission/section then this is for you!...if you run in guns blazing then you might as well stop reading right now and go make yourself 2 minutes noodles, as imagination and careful planning opens a whole new world.

You still here? Well, then you are in for a treat. Altair has three cities he has to visit and the only way to get there is via a horseback ride. You being an Assassin, you are at all times trying to keep a low profile and therefore galloping with the horse would be a no, no. Rather trot from point A to B and observe the beautiful scenery (which is some of the most atmospheric landscapes yet witnessed in a game), as the guards are always on full alert and ready to take you down.

Once arriving in a city you need to report to the Assassins Bureau who will approve your hit. Once approved it is up to you to find out a bit more about the one you’re about to assassinate and therefore you need to get a good viewpoint of all happenings in the city. Find the tallest building, climb to the top and synchronize with everything below you. It will open several missions such as – beating up preachers, listening to conversations, picking-pockets or doing a race against the clock. You need to achieve a bare minimum of three missions before the assassination becomes available, but I normally opted for all six missions, which is the maximum. If you cannot see all the missions then you need to scale another building to find more, simple really.

Be on the lookout

Now, when attempting these missions it might sound much easier than it is. If you pick-pocket someone and your timing is out, the guards will be on full alert and come right after your ass! In these tricky situations it is the perfect time to climb up a ladder and jump over several roof tops, finishing it with a jump into a haystack from a three storey building to hide from the guards…oh yes, Altair is very nimble indeed!

I will agree that these missions can become very repetitive, but then we all know that it’s about the nine assassinations. Once you have all your information it’s off to the Assassins Bureau to get the go-ahead.

When entering the domain of the person you are about to assassinate you will be treated to some nice cinematics and it will be clear to you who your target is. When the cinematic ends, it’s time for you to assassinate your victim and this can be tricky, or not. You can run in and fight off every guard and kill the target with absolutely no stealth, or you can take your time to examine the area and decide on the best approach to kill him without anyone being aware of it. This ladies and gentleman is some of the best satisfaction I’ve ever felt when playing a game and it’s sad that so little gamers realised it.

A game that has perfection in it

I do have my complaints though, characters repeat the same dialogue repeatedly to such a point that you might just assassinate them to keep them quiet and then we have the beggars…oh my…the chance of me giving any beggar some money from now on is a big fat ZERO. At times when you are very stealthy and walking behind a person whom you are about to pick-pocket, a beggar will jump in the way and annoy you for eternity unless you run away or zap a blade in his/her neck, which means you need to restart the mission or must find your way back to the victim.
You might also get a bit bored of the same old-historic-city look and the lack of any colour over and above grey/brown…but then that is just nit picking.

The controls work exceptionally well and feel very responsive. Having played one or two other adventure games after this, it only enhanced what I believe this game to be – a game that has perfection in it, which very few will ever get to experience. Seeing that it does make it obvious that you need to use some imagination, it is a design flaw and one can only hope they fix it up with the sequel…if we ever see one.

So, at the end I will advise you to think about the purchase of this game. If you lack patience then this game is NOT for you.

Top stuff, even if Hitman remains the undisputed king of contract killer.

Pros: Climbing up walls and jumping over roofs; planning your attacks; climbing up a tower for the first time and viewing Jerusalem in all its glory.

Cons: In-between assassinations can be repetitive; beggars; repetitive dialogue.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Dawid

Review: Rocketmen: Axis of Evil (PS3)

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Remember the good old days when comic book heroes expressed themselves through the use of speech bubbles and actions in large font sizes like ‘Whoosh!’ or ‘Kaboom!’ flashed across the screen? Well them good old days are back in Rocketmen: Axis of Evil.

Customisation options and RPG elements

The aptly named Legion of Terra has taken control of the Solar System, forcing the Alliance of Free Planets to join together and fight for freedom. Players begin the game by customizing their character, the standard male/female option is accompanied by a choice of three races (Human, Mercurian or Venusian) and three classes (Warrior, Engineer or Outcast). For some gamers the customisation options will be sufficient payback for their bucks spent as one can tweak colour, skin and hair settings just to your liking. Think of it as a pre game mini-game that will frustrate the hell out of the other three players waiting to blow stuff up whilst you hone your bad ass hero look.

The game is a top-down arcade shooter that sees players navigating their way through ten levels, battling hordes of enemies and tackling boss battles in style. You can choose to play each level on easy, medium or hard. As you progress through the game and defeat enemies, you gain experience (XP) and loot, provided you spend the time picking it up. At the end of each level players can use their accumulated XP and loot to upgrade their characters stats and weapons.

In the unfortunate event of you dying during a mission, which you are bound to do when faced with a multitude of green rocket launcher touting aliens, you will have to wait a couple of seconds to respawn. This means no load screens and more time for action. Each time you die you lose 10% of the XP gained in that level and subsequently more deaths mean less upgrades at the end of the level.

Indiana Jones meets Spaceballs humour

One of the things that stood out for me about the game was the humour. The majority of the storyline was conveyed through cut-scenes and the dialogue deserves a special mention. It is probably not going to appeal to everyone and some might find themselves gagging at each cut scene. It is not the next blockbuster storyline ready to be made into a movie, but the corny Indiana Jones meets Spaceballs dialogue tickled my sense of humour.

Something about the game that just rubbed me the wrong way was the way in which the camera worked. Sometimes you would find yourself just outside of the action and with the camera moving so fast, you would find that you had missed something and could not retrace your steps to save that prisoner just outside the screen area or pick up a valuable weapon. Another thing was that despite a great variety of weapons, you only have each one for a limited time period so better make good use of them while you have them and always be on the lookout for more!

Players have the use of primary and secondary weapons. Primary weapons include your standard regulation issue laser rifle which is available in an exciting range of dispersion patterns. My favorite was the disc launcher which ricochets off walls to wrecks havoc and compensated for my lack of pixel perfect aim. Secondary weapons consist of mines, rockets and, to my delight, a deployable sentry gun. Ever since seeing the movie Aliens I have always wanted my very own deployable sentry gun to assist in my quest of saving the planet from marauding hordes. When the action gets a bit too hectic for your blast to handle, just toss one of these puppies into the room and clean up what is left.

Controls and multiplayer options

Control wise it is very simple to get to grips with the game after a couple of minutes. The left analogue stick controls your movement and the right stick fires your primary weapon in the direction you push it. So simple even Martians could use it! It gets a little bit trickier when interacting with objects…you need to press X button. Sometimes it is a single press and others times your need to mash it arcade style. Secondary weapons are accessible by the mirrored shoulder buttons. L1/R1 is used to cycle through your secondary weapon cache whilst the L2/R2 fire the secondary weapon you have selected. My only gripe with the controls is the “Loot Vacuum” which is activated by pressing the circle button. When pressed it sucks loot a little bit closer but then you need to press it again and again to suck the loot in. You end up just running around collecting the loot as the vacuum is just too slow and frustrating to use.

For those of you who are enthralled by score and besting your mate, Rocketmen tracks your score and you can compete both offline and online. The way to clock up uber high scores is to dodge enemy fire and doing so increases your score multiplier. This is easier said than done given the screen perspective and manner in which enemies start firing at you whilst they are still off screen.

A really great aspect of the game is that up to four players can join in the action, co-operatively battling to clear the level and minimising the boredom of friends watching from the sidelines. In the age of social enlightenment where console gaming is now socially acceptable the promise of an inclusive four players experience is appealing.

The game is not long, so you will probably finish it in one sitting. It took me about five hours to traverse and save the galaxy. Given that I did spend a fair about of time customizing my character and agonizing over which attributes to upgrade at the end of each level, you can complete it quicker.

Pros: Four player simultaneous co-op; great humour; decent price from PSN.

Cons: Not much replayability; camera; scrolling; weapon duration.

Rating: 3 stars
Contributor: Wayne

Review: Burnout Paradise (PS3)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:00:00 +0000

The difficulty Criterion have had since Burnout 3 is how to top what they’ve done before. For this, the first “build-from-the-ground-up” high definition Burnout, they at least had the power of the PS3 and Xbox to help in that regard. The differentiation they have achieved comes through four main features: no load times, a High Definition graphics engine, exploration and general fooling around as an important game mechanic, and lots of online features including exploration and general fooling around.

Did I mention that there are no load times?

You can finally consider loading screens in Burnout a thing of the past. In Paradise the only one you see is the one when you turn your console on and the game loads. The way they accomplished this is by taking a leaf out of GTA and Need for Speed Underground’s book – a streaming, persistent world. Criterion have designed a city from the ground up for you to drive in, and everywhere you go the game is constantly loading up buildings and roads in the distance, in the background so you never notice. This, combined with a much higher level of detail in the environments and cars and a commitment to 60 frames for second, explains why EA are not publishing the game on any platforms other than PS3 and Xbox 360.

The network of roads in Paradise City is great fun to explore – the city is meticulously constructed full of shortcuts, ramps, tunnels and hidden away areas. There are billboards to destroy by driving through them (120 of them), super jumps to find and ramp (50 of these) and gated off areas to smash (400 smashes!). The size and uniform inventiveness and quality of the city make exploration a constant joy and a welcome change of pace between the events.

To start with you are given a car, a basic Stunt car. You drive it out of the junk yard and must get it repaired before attempting any races, so you drive to the nearest Auto Repair. A quick drive through this building brings your car to pristine condition and you’re now ready to race. So, you find the nearest intersection, stop your car and hold accelerate and brake at the same time to start the event for that intersection. A quick description of the event follows and then you’re off in just a few seconds. When you finish that event you carry on driving from where the event ended and scout around for another intersection where an event starts from.

Huge Variety in every area

There are five different event types: Races require you to get to a destination first out of a number of cars; Road Rages require you to take down a target number of cars by ramming them into walls or other cars within a time limit; Marked Man events require you to reach a destination before your car is destroyed by a team of maniacs out for your blood; Stunt Run events require you to reach a set number of stunt points before the clock runs out by chaining together jumps, barrel rolls, flat spins, boosts, slides and whatever else you can conjure up. Finally there are Burning Laps – each of the base cars has a specific location where their Burning Lap starts from, and the goal is to reach a destination within a set time limit. The game play within these events is classic Burnout – there really isn’t anything new here except Marked Man, so it’s hard to say that the persistent world has helped the in-race mechanics at all. The biggest change since Revenge is going back to the Burnout 3 style mechanics without the constant traffic-checking – here if you hit traffic you almost always wreck your car.

There are three types of cars in Paradise, the main difference between them being how they earn boost. For those new to Burnout, boost is the staple resource in Burnout: using it makes you go faster and you can’t win races without it. To earn boost in any car you can generally drive dangerously. Stunt cars earn boost quickly by doing jumps or spins which makes them ideal for Stunt Runs where having a big supply of boost helps chain stunts together. Speed cars can only boost once the boost gauge is full, and if you use it all in one long boost you’ll get a refill (but only if you’ve earned some boost while boosting). You can chain these “Burnouts” endlessly as long as you don’t stop boosting and don’t crash. Aggression cars earn more boost by taking down rivals, and their boost bar is much bigger. Essentially, Speed cars are for Races, Aggression cars are for Road Rage and Marked Man events and Stunt cars are for Stunt runs – but generally you can use any car for any event without too many hassles, and you’re likely to find a personal preference between them. Each car also has speed, boost and strength stats, so the variety between the 75 cars is impressive.

The pros and cons of a persistent world

Although loading screens are a thing of the past, driving off to your intersection of choice to start the next event can take time. It can be quick if you finish a race in the downtown area of the map as there are a huge number of events that start in this area with its abundance of intersections, but if your race finishes up in the mountain you’ll face a long drive back down the mountain to find a new event to compete in. Criterion have very specifically designed Paradise City to feel like a real place, and they don’t let you skip a single section of the road if you need to get somewhere – you have to drive everywhere. Sometimes the city just feels like a complicated menu. Of course, it isn’t really a menu, it’s a living, breathing city with traffic, alternate routes and traffic lights, but sometime I just want to select an event and race without having to load the map, decide on an event and then drive off to the start of it.

By creating one single world to race in a massive exploration element has been added, but dropping into a race is more onerous. It’s swings and roundabouts – the immersion factor that is gained means a loss in structure and the simplicity of having a list of events to compete in, so whether you like “sandbox” environments is going to play a big factor in how much you take to Paradise. I do think that Criterion may have taken immersion slightly too far– there are two cases where I would dearly like to lose a bit of “realism” to save time and energy spent doing “work” as opposed to racing.

Firstly, if you want to change your car you will have to drive to the nearest junk yard. To start with only one is marked on your map (when you find locations like junk yards, gas stations and events while driving around they will get added to your map), so changing your car could mean driving all the way across town. Even when you’ve found all of them, with only five locations they’re normally a good minute or two away. At times in the game as you’re exploring a rival will appear, and taking him down will earn you his wreck. I’m happy to go to the junk yard to pick up the new wreck, but once I’ve had it fixed I would like to be able to change to using it at any time.

The second case where Criterion have been a bit too purist for my liking is the inability to restart an event. In most events if I was losing by a mile I would be happy to just give the event up and find a new one nearby, but when you’re trying to do the Burning Lap for a car that’s not an option because they start at a specific spot. So, miss your Burning Lap target time by 1 second and you have to drive yourself all the way back to the start to give it another go. It’s like a cruel joke played on drivers in the name of immersion.

In spite of these niggles, it’s impressive that there is no menu to speak of in Burnout Paradise. Everything you can do is directly accessible while you’re driving your car around. This brings its own problem – I kept playing hoping I would unlock the crash mode (called Showtime here) and the Road Rules mode (which involves attempting to beat set times in driving from the start of a road to its end), but it never happened. I looked in the manual for what these modes are or how to activate them and I got nothing. It’s rather strange that a significant portion of the game is not announced to the player in a conspicuous way, unless it was by the voiceover at some point and I missed it. I did try to listen attentively even when DJ Atomika was being annoying. In the end I had to search the Internet to find out what they were. Please developers, put stuff like this in the manual! Another early frustration for me was not knowing how to cancel an event – if I happened to take a wrong turn in a race, or worse, select an event I had already completed, I had no idea how to cancel the event and do another. I would duly drive to the destination and then go on my merry way looking for another event. It turns out you can cancel an event by stopping your car dead for about 5 seconds – another brilliant idea to enhance the immersion, but not one that is ever communicated to the player.

Paradise is in desperate need of a GPS, or Google Maps

I have to warn you, the potential player, about one more thing – when I first entered Paradise City I found myself having to look at my map all the time, often taking wrong turns that lead in the opposite direction to my destination. It took a little dedication and persistance, but things did improve as I came to understand the basic layout of Paradise City. I wish there was a better form of in game navigation than the rather undetailed map. Another level of zoom would help tremendously, and I would have liked the game to track locations I’ve found like the Quarry or the Parking Garages. For races, perhaps a GPS-like system that spoke to you while you’re driving would help more than street names appearing at the top of the screen. Having to navigate while you’re driving at high speed and at the same time avoid crashing is difficult, and will continue to be until I know Paradise City better than I know my home town. But while it makes Paradise more difficult to get in to, it also means that it rewards extended play. Those first few hours can be frustrating, but pass them and the depth of play becomes evident in the huge variety of things to do. There is always something to keep you occupied, and every little bit helps towards 100% completion – no mean feat in any Burnout game.

Burnout Racing is still oodles of fun

I haven’t mentioned the online modes which are comprehensive and available from directly in the game just by pressing right on the D-pad. There are co-operative challenges for groups of up to eight players which makes a very welcome change from competitive racing. Of course, the normal online racing types are there, but just exploring Paradise City with friends, finding those last few billboards you missed or attempting to all do a double barrel roll together offers something that isn’t found in most driving games.

Paradise is a truly worthy successor to the great PS2 Burnout games. You can’t help but admire the beautiful Paradise City and the developers for sticking to their vision of a highly immersive persistent world. The staple Burnout sense of speed is here in spades while the crashes are even more spectacular with impressive crumple physics on display. If the few frustrating facets of this overworld system can be mitigated with a bit of compromise from Criterion, I look forward to the next city they construct. And let’s pray they don’t go all underground on us. And let’s also hope that EA improves their Trax one day.

Rating: 4 stars
Contributor: Peter