So today I’m taking a look at the Xbox360 version of Divinity II Ego Draconis. I reviewed the PC version HERE last month so I’m not going to be as in-depth with this review as I was with the PC version, it’s primarily the same game just on a different platform, but there are glaring differences in the versions and I think it’s worth it to take a look at this version. Divinity II Ego Draconis is an example of how not to do a game port really, this game is much better on the PC from the interface to the graphics and down to the gameplay as well, the PC version is the one you want to be playing. The game itself is decent, there’s tons of stuff to do, it’s long and the fact that you can play as a dragon adds to the game, but that doesn’t make up for low framerates, tearing and other glitches in the game like having your character get stuck in places or the controller just not working correctly at times. I like the interface quite a bit in the PC version, but it’s been re-done for the Xbox36o and it’s a sort of stripped done version here. One glaring difference is that you don’t get to see your character in the interface, in the PC version you can see him or her and the appearance changes with what weapons you use, what armor you equip etc, I really liked that feature and it’s just not in the Xbox360 version. So read on to learn more..

Box shots first up:

Here’s screen shots of the interface, it’s really stripped down from the PC version, and it can actually be confusing and annoying to navigate and access it. It’s quite a bit different from the PC version.

In the stats section you can learn about your character and there’s cute descriptions of your abilities…

One of the things I do like about this game is that there really isn’t any classes, you can train yourself in all of the skills and not be limited to just one.

The logbook lets you access your quests, conversations, monster encyclopedia and achievements.

There’s a few options in the settings but not much there:

The map is pretty much the same as the PC version, just smaller..

Specifications:

Divinity II Ego Draconis

Divinity II – Ego Draconis brings you back to Rivellon, a timeless world of awe and magic, torn and scarred by successions of apocalyptic wars. Ever since the Great War ended, the Order of the Dragon Slayers has had eyes only for their number one enemy: the Dragon Knights who killed their Divine hero.

But all the while the true enemy  the Black Ring still festers beneath the surface, ready for its next move, poised to strike. For their leader Damian tirelessly plots silent schemes with utterly malign intent.

Then one day, an event takes place that will reshape the history of Rivellon: a dying Dragon Knight gives her powers to a member of the order that seeks to destroy her: you.

Perhaps you, blessed as you are with the powers of the Dragon, will be able to stop the black tides that threaten to engulf Rivellon. Many adventures await you, many mysteries yearn to be unravelled and all the world awaits the outcome of your new destiny.

Divinity 2: Ego Draconis brings you back to Rivellon, a timeless world of awe and magic, torn and scarred by successions of apocalyptic wars. What the peace-loving people of the land did to deserve such terrible calamity, not even the gods can tell, but as any of their warlords will snidely say, the time to wonder and question quickly vanishes when the Lord of Chaos is slaughtering your kin, burning your cities and sowing the onetime fertile soil with salt. Twice this incarnation of evil burst forth from its hellish dimension to wade in valiant blood against the blackened sky, and twice Rivellon’s defenders would not back down despite appalling losses. Still, victory brought no relief, for they knew that some day, the Demon would be back.

And back he’d be, sooner than anyone could have anticipated, because, as is so often the case, evil festered from within: humans, loyal to the Damned Hordes, sought not only to ensure the return of their dark master, but to give his Demonic form human semblance, so that rather than to destroy Rivellon, he would come to rule her. This group, known as the Black Ring, were close to achieving their goal and would doubtless have succeeded had it not been for both the tireless vigilance of the famed wizard Zandalor and the startling fate of an unsung adventurer named Lucian. This adventurer, guided as he was by the forces of good, exposed the Black Ring’s sinister schemes and when the time came willingly underwent a daring ritual that infused him with the powers of the gods. So the Divine was born.

Leaving but grim corpses in his wake, the avatar of light followed the enemy to its stronghold, nestled deep beneath the desert wastes of Yuthul Gor, where he stalked and killed every Black Ring elder until finally he and their diabolic leader, the Demon of Lies, stood snout to face. The fiend smiled and told the Divine he was too late: the transfer was complete and the Lord of Chaos would walk again. Indeed, behind him, on a large altar lay a newborn infant, a shell of innocence wrapped around a soul of utter corruption. The Divine’s sword saw the Demon dead, but despite being able to put an end to the vast plague that had almost brought Rivellon to her knees, he could not bring himself to kill the child.

The graphics are decent, there’s nice lighting and the worlds are vast, but the game suffers from frame rate stuttering and even tearing of the frames as you’re moving around. I played the PC version with a male character, this time I choose a female to mix it up a bit.

In the game one interesting this is the ability to mind read, this can serve you well as you can learn more from people that you normally wouldn’t just through a conversation. it does cost you experience points though to do this. While you’re conversing with someone the option appears to mind read them with ‘X’ button, you can go the entire game without doing this and still be able to finish it, it’s a unique feature but it doesn’t really add to the game. Conversations are multiple choice, and you’ll find they can be quite boring at times.

I do like the battle aspects of this game, I like RPG games where you are actually part of the action, you press the button and you swing your weapon or you can cast a spell. I don’t like the game where it’s turn based, or you do something and then just watch it happen on the screen. The issue I have here is that it doesn’t quite work all of the time, many times I’d push the button and nothing would happen, so you’ll find yourself mashing buttons to survive. Another issue I ran across and not just with combat is that you and the NPC characters can get stuck in places and not be able to move, you can jump but you just can’t jump over certain things. Like I got stuck near some barrels and sacks, they’re small you could easily jump over them but my character couldn’t I had to beat my way out.

Collection of items is also annoying, you can’t just be standing in front of something to collect it or open a chest, you’ve got to put the sight onto what you want to open or access, and it can’t be just anywhere on it it has to be precise placement. Once you find the right spot then you press the Left Button to open it, but it doesn’t always work so you’ll have to hit the button again. No it’s not my controller, I tried two different controllers and found the same issues.

The same thing happens with button mapping. You can map items, weapons and spells to the buttons or the directly pad. it works fine with the buttons, but when using the directional pad I found it took several times to get it to register to the correct place. Very annoying to say the least.

To finish this off here’s a game play video for you:

Conclusion:

The PC version was very enjoyable to play for me, I liked it, but the ending wasn’t the greatest, getting there though was fun and enjoyable. The Xbox360 version is just riddled with glitches and flaws, and just not as enjoyable overall as the PC version honestly.

If you want to play Divinity II Ego Draconis then get the PC version, avoid the Xbox version please.

Pros:
+Vast world
+Play as dragon
+Lots of side quests

Cons:
-Get stuck in spots
-Interface is much better on PC
-Low frame rates at times
-Frame tearing
-Controls don’t work correct all of the time
-No real replay value

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of Divinity II Ego Draconis for Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I’ve always been a fan of racing games, not a fanatic but someone who like them on occasion, they’re a great way to escape and well drive a car the way you can’t on the real road. Racing games also allow us the thrill of driving something that most likely we’ll never own, limited edition cars, classic cars, and of course super expensive ones. Most racing games out there are professional cars, but the Forza Motorsport series brings us real cars that you’ll see on the streets driving along side of your own. There are of course official racing cars as well that you can drive to help you live out your fantasies of being a race car driver, but that’s not what it’s all about. Forza Motorsport 3 offers a huge selection of cars and tracks, along with customization options like paint and decals along with all sort of upgrade options for the cars themselves.

Obligatory box shots for you here, and you’ll see that Forza Motorsport 3 is a two disc game, one of the game and the second disc is content.

The main menu offers three options, the main game, Free Play and access to Xbox live.

Free Play mode gives you three choices, Quick Race, Hot Lap and Split Screen.

There are more than 400 cars and over 100 different tracks in Forza Motorsport 3, it will take you a long time to get bored with this game.

As far as cars are concerned this is one of the best aspects of the game. You can choose by manufacturer and then you’ll be shown all of the cars available, depending which one you pick you might get a couple cars or you might get quite a few.

When you select each car you’ll get an animated close up 360 degree view of the car that’s very detailed, I spent quite a bit of time just checking out the cars. Some of the cars allow you to select the color as well and it will change for you immediately.

Here’s a quick video of the Doge Viper:

and here’s a quick video of the manufacturers, not all of them but you’ll get the idea.

Specifications:

Forza Motorsport 3

Live the most realistic racing experience ever as you take the wheel of more than 400 of the most-beloved cars on over 100 renowned real-world tracks and exotic road courses from around the globe. With breathtaking HD graphics and the most advanced vehicle performance modeling in a video game, “Forza Motorsport 3″ includes a host of driving assists and adjustable skill levels to make the game a gripping pick-up-and-play experience for audiences of all ages and skill levels.

Your escape into the world of car culture in “Forza Motorsport 3″ doesn’t stop at the track. Turn 10 is a proven leader in user-generated content creation in games. “Forza Motorsport 3″ further fuels the imaginations of its evergreen community of painters, tuners and photographers with improved customization tools and brand new ways to share creations with the world via Xbox LIVE*. Xbox LIVE makes your journey into the “Forza Motorsport” community and the world of user-generated content easy and fun.

A love of cars lives in all of us. “Forza Motorsport 3″ is the automotive playground we’ve all been waiting for.

World-Class Cars and Tracks

Featuring the latest and greatest production offerings as well as the world’s fastest and most exotic street cars, “Forza Motorsport 3″ offers more than 400 fully customizable and tunable cars from over 50 of the world’s leading manufacturers. Whether your passion is classic American muscle cars, European roadsters, purpose-built race cars or high-tech Asian imports, “Forza Motorsport 3″ puts you in the cockpit of the cars you love. In addition to the return of world-famous tracks from previous “Forza Motorsport” games, including Suzuka, Nürburgring Nordschleife and the Sebring International Raceway, “Forza Motorsport 3″ invites you to conquer the corners on more than 100 tracks, including some of the most beautiful road courses in the world. New environments like the gorgeous mountainous Montserrat region in Spain, the rugged Amalfi Coast in Italy and the American Southwest are presented in such majestic detail that you might find yourself pulling over just to take it all in.

Redefining the Modern Racing Game

“Forza Motorsport’s” appreciation of the automobile is due in large part to the team’s attention to detail. This is why automotive engineers from manufacturers like Audi and champion race teams like Peugeot as well as experienced computer graphics specialists from across Microsoft have all teamed up with Turn 10 to make “Forza Motorsport 3″ the most beautiful and realistic racing game ever made. All 400-plus cars in the game have been built with more than 10 times the amount of polygons as “Forza Motorsport 2.” This includes painstakingly researched cockpits and interiors for every vehicle. But realism isn’t just about pretty graphics. Turn 10 takes realism to new heights, leading the industry with the most advanced physics model, artificial intelligence and damage calculations.

Forza is for Everyone

It’s easy to go for a spin: “Forza Motorsport 3″ redefines the racing genre by blurring the definition of simulation and arcade. Simulation games can be too hard for some players. “Forza Motorsport 3″ rises above the distinction between simulation and arcade games by using a myriad of cutting-edge driving and gameplay assists such as auto-braking, gameplay rewind and auto-tuning. “Forza Motorsport 3″ delivers an experience where everyone can have fun behind the wheel, regardless of your skill and dexterity. Whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned racing game pro, “Forza Motorsport 3″ caters to how you drive and the game evolves with you over time as your skills develop.

Express Your Car Passion

Painters and tuners will once again be able to showcase creativity through the celebrated Livery Editor, Auction House and deep tuning garage in “Forza Motorsport 3.” The car is literally the artistic canvas as some of the world’s most creative car painters and designers find new layers of depth and freedom to create shocking visual masterpieces before sharing them with others over Xbox LIVE*. Each car in “Forza Motorsport 3″ is fully upgradable, allowing gear heads to take on the challenge of turning a Honda Civic into a supercar killer. New Xbox LIVE scoreboards celebrate not only the greatest racers but also the most prolific car tuners and painters in the community.

Play Your Way with All-New Game Modes

“Forza Motorsport 3″ is an epic racing game featuring more content and more ways to play than any racing title today. An innovative single-player season mode puts you through a completely personalized racing calendar that includes more than 200 different events, including Circuit, Oval, Drag, Drift and Timed Events. No two calendars are the same; they react to the cars you love and the races you enjoy most. In addition, the online multiplayer mode* gains an all-new game rules editor. This gives players a never-ending variety of ways to play with friends. Whether you’re a speedster, dragster, drifter, painter, tuner or just a lover of cars, “Forza Motorsport 3″ is the definitive racing game for you.

When you play career mode the races are calendar based, and once you get farther into the game you’ll be able to select different cars for each race. Some races though are only for certain cars, like American muscle cars or front wheel drive only, and numerous other conditions for the races as well.

Depending on which race you’re competing in you can go to your garage and select a car, but the car you choose might not be compatible with the race requirement, you may have to upgrade or even downgrade your car to be able to compete in the race.

Once you choose the race and car you want you can just jump right in or you can tune your car a bit. You’ll be given another menu before the race begins.

You can go into Tune Setup and adjust pretty much everything on your car like Suspension, Braking, Differential and much more:

You can also adjust the assists and difficulty settings, changing these will offer you more bonuses as well.

Before the race you’ll be greeted to a close up view of the your car then it’s off to race.

Racing is what you might expect driving around a track, on easy mode you’ll quickly learn that it’s very easy, you can place first pretty much every time just by being careful. There’s an assist mode that will actually brake the car for you when going into turns, and colored guide arrows on the road to follow.

After the race you’ll get the Post Race report where you’ll see how much money and how much experience points you’ve earned. As you earn XP you can progress in levels and you can earn new cars from companies that like your driving. You’ll also earn small Xbox Achievements for each level as well.

What would a racing game be without crashing right? Well I played around a bit to try and get my car to explode, but sadly it won’t, no matter how much damage or how fast I drove into another car it wouldn’t blow up. Your car will take damage that affects the performance that shows physically and on a damage meter off to the right side of the screen. I even went the wrong way on the track and drove head on into other cars to try and get something to happen, but only damage happened.

While you’re driving you can switch modes, the in-car or cockpit view is where you’re in the car. You’re also offered a behind the car view and a on the hood view as well.

Here’s another video of actual racing:

Forza Motorsport 3 can be a very long game, in career mode you can spend many, many hours playing to complete your career and unlock all of the cars. In the end it’s worth it as you’ll be unlocking tracks and amazing cars to race with and against.

The graphics are excellent overall, depending where you race the scenery will change and you’ll find yourself just admiring it as it flies by you. Lighting is great, the cars sparkle in the sunlight and when you drive into the sun you’ll be blinded by it’s brightness.

As I said easy mode is fairly easy, if you want a challenge though you’ll turn off the assists to jack up the difficulty, though be warned it can and will make the cars much more difficult to handle and control on the track.

I really like the idea of driving real cars that I can afford, and not just driving my dream cars. It’s great to be able to pick from classic muscle cars, to antique roadsters up to full blown racing cars and just go at it. In the Free Play mode you can pick most any car, some are still locked, but not many, pretty much every car is open to drive, you can easily spend days in just Free Play mode.

I didn’t spend much time with the customization mode, it’s not my thing really, but you can design decals and paint your cars, upgrade them and then share them with others on Xbox Live.

Conclusion:

Forza Motorsport 3 is a great way to get into the racing genre, it offers something for the beginner up to the hardcore racer. It offers racers a chance to jump right in and race or go full blown and invest a lot of time in career mode. It’s a game that even the casual racing fan will like, it’s got something for everyone really.

You’ll find more than enough cards and tracks to keep you very busy for many days and keep you coming back for more to try and unlock other cars and tracks.

Overall it’s an excellent game without many flaws, the cons really aren’t cons, just observations or things to be aware of.

Pros:
+Tons of options to customize and configure cars
+A lot of cars and tracks to choose from
+Community driven creation
+Excellent graphics
+Long career mode

Cons:
-Very easy on easy
-Can’t blow up cars…
-A lot of work to unlock cars

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Forza Motorsport 3 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

The Rock Band series and the other music style games are very popular, and for good reason they’re tons of fun. Rock Band has recently released a new version featuring everyone’s favorite toy Lego! Since it’s Lego you can obviously guess it’s aimed at children, the other Rock Band games are more for adults and older gamers, but Lego Rock Band is for the young little rockers out there. It’s colorful, quirky and all around fun, I very much enjoyed playing this game as do my children.

No box shots, you know what  box looks like right?

We’ll start off with the Menu:

There’s a few options to Lego Rock Band, they’re similar to what you find in other Rock Band games. The Free Play mode is just that, pick a song and play it. The story mode is actually quite long, and has lot of different features to it, but nothing really different from the other Rock Band games at heart. Really it’s just Rock Band two skinned over with Lego, but that’s not a bad thing.

In the training menu you’ll find Tutorials, Practice Mode and Drum trainer.

Under Options you’ll find the basic stuff like settings, and calibration. Under Extras you’ve only got two choices, Credits and Modify game. Then of course there’s the music store where you get to buy more songs for the game. The included track list is decent, some of them I questioned, but like any music game there’s bound to be songs you don’t like in it.

When you play Story Mode you’ll first be taken to a hub of sorts, or you home base, it’s like a big warehouse where your band lives. It’s broken into sections Continue Tour (which leads to the garage, more on that in a minute), The Office, Free Play, Practice Stage, Rock Shop, Rock Power Challenges and Watch TV.

In the game you’ll have these things called Rock Power Challenges that feature neat cinematic movies of the Legos, you can got the Watch Tv section to re-watch the ones you already visited.

The Office is where you can speak to your manager, basically just looking over your career stats, and you can also hire Entourage characters as they become available.  The Entourage characters are special characters like Music Video Producer, all of these characters, when in your entourage, will add bonuses to the final score like extra money and more fans.

In the warehouse you can also customize it, by playing you’ll unlock things like decorations, new drum kits and new speakers, and a lot more. You can purchase these things and add them to certain spots on the walls, floor and ceiling to give you a customized living space.

If you go to the Rock Shop you can customize all of your characters including the Road Crew and Entourage.

Moving to Continue Tour takes you to the garage and story mode. Each area is broken down into vehicles that you’ll need to buy, but they can only be unlocked when you complete the challenge. The idea of the vehicles is that they help you get places. here’s a few of the vehicles, not all of them.. didn’t want to spoil any surprises…

When you select the vehicle you’re greeted with the familiar venue and song selections.

As I mentioned to get to the next level or venue you’ll need to complete the Rock Power Challenge, this is a great part of the game that’s fun. You use your music to complete a task and the song is appropriate to the setting, like you’ll be playing Ghostbusters in a haunted house fighting off ghosts. You do have to have enough money though to purchase the next vehicle, but I found that I always had enough money, it’s easy to make money in Lego Rock Band.

Here’s one of the Rock Power Challenges with the opening cinematic and part of the song to give you an idea:

(Not sure what happened with the encoding here, it’s perfectly fine for me, apparently Viddler re-encoded it and messed it up a bit… I’ll re-upload it and insert the new video shortly)

Specifications:

Lego Rock Band

Build a band and rock out!

LEGO Rock Band delivers a unique family-friendly music experience that will take tweens, teens, families and gamers of all ages on a wild journey to rock stardom in order to “Build a Band and Rock the Universe.” Combining the authentic multiplayer music experience of Rock Band with the accessibility, customization and humor of LEGO games, LEGO Rock Band allows players to create their own unique rock star style and customize their own avatars, band members, roadies, and managers. As players successfully complete songs and rock challenges, they can collect LEGO studs, unlock additional content and collect amazing vehicles, which can take their band from local gigs at rock clubs to epic stadium shows and even fantasy settings on Earth and beyond.

* Songs you know and love: Rock out to everything from current radio hits to past favorites the whole family will enjoy.
* LEGO-themed rock challenges: Play killer riffs to destroy a giant robot, summon a storm, and demolish a skyscraper using the power of rock!
* Enhanced customizer: Don’t stop with your avatar, customize your whole entourage! Design the band, roadies, and manager just the way you want.
* Build fame LEGO-style: Collect LEGO bricks after each song to build cooler vehicles and move to new venues.
* LEGO rock den: Buy furniture, decorate the walls and customize your band’s hang-out as you climb the ladder to rock success.
* Fun for everyone: Turn down the difficulty with an easier skill set option for budding musicians.

Load times are long and frequent, everything you do requires a load, but between each on you’ll get a neat little fun fact about Legos and the game.

Game play is just like Rock Band, but with Lego..

At the end of each song you’ll get you’re score along with things that are unlocked, here’s where having the Entourage helps, you’ll get bonuses for having them.

Game play is simple, if you’re played Rock Band you’ll have no problem with Lego Rock Band.

The graphics are decent, they’re Lego so they’re cute and funny and Lego themed, but not everything is Lego…

Conclusion:

Lego Rock Band is good game overall, it’s aimed at children and that’s where it really shines. The characters and themes are fun and everything is nicely done and vey colorful. Children of all ages should love this game really, and it’s a great way to get young kids to play the Rock Band series.

At heart though it’s just Rock Band with a new look, game play is virtually the same, so there’s nothing new there really. The additions that were added like the Rock Power Challenges are fun and exciting really, I found myself looking forward to playing the next one to just see what was going to happen next.

Pros:
+Great kids game
+Fun and rather long story mode
+Good track list

Cons:
-Re-skinned Rock Band
-Long load times

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Lego Rock Band Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I think everyone knows who SpongBob is by now, he’s everywhere, that goofy little undersea animated sponge. What the appeal is to him I’m not sure though, I’ve never quite grasp the whole SpongeBob phenomenon, but he’s spawned a huge following among children and adults alike.

Today for review I’ve got another children’s game, this one is about everyone’s favorite sponge, the game is SpongeBob Truth or Square for theXbox360, and honestly I found it to be a goofy yet rather fun game to play. My kids love it, I played it and finished for this review, and they just couldn’t wait to get their hands on it. The game puts SpongeBob in one of his normal, goofy predicaments where he’s lost the Krabby Patty formula that he was entrusted with by Mr. Krabs.  The game continues on with the player playing as the beloved SpongeBob in single player mode where he’s reliving his fondest memories in an attempt to make him happy which will in turn help him to remember where he left the formula. Yeah I know the plot sounds wild and wacky and it is, the game features all the characters you’ll find in the TV series, and it even has a two-player cooperative mode so a friend can join in the fun with you.

Box Shots and a video for you:

The video is taken from a bit farther into the game, but you’ll see SpongeBob’s home where everything starts, or begins, it’s the central hub in the game. There’s a lot of cut-scenes in the game that help tell the story, and they’re done well.

Between each level is a bit of trivia about the world of SpongBob.

Specifications:

SpongeBob Truth or Square

Hold on to your SquarePants for the ULTIMATE SpongeBob game ever!

SpongeBob SquarePants has gotten himself into quite a predicament. After being entrusted by Mr. Krabs to keep the Krabby Patty formula safe, SpongeBob is overcome with grief for losing the recipe. He then relies on the help of the most unlikely companion, Plankton, who wants the secret Krabby Patty recipe for himself. With the help of his friends, SpongeBob must use Plankton’s memory machine to retrace the happiest moments of his life to find the Krabby Patty formula in time for the Krusty Krab’s Eleventy Seventh anniversary.

* New Wacky Morphing Abilities:
Turn SpongeBob into a Sledgehammer Smash to whack intruders, a WaterBob sponge to spew liquid and stun enemies, or even an Explosive Canon to aim and blast baddies.
* Relive Side-Splitting SpongeBob Moments:
Reminisce through fan’s favorite SpongeBob moments as the game draws upon ‘The 10 Happiest Moments of SpongeBob’s Life’ and hilarious story elements from the animated television series.
* Share in the Hilarity with Family and Friends:
Play as SpongeBob or with a friend playing as Plankton throughout the entire game on both the Wii and Xbox 360 platforms
* Experience Exciting New Levels:
Run, jump and spin through 10 challenging levels. Find familiar faces from the series as these transformed supersized bosses take quite a bit of over-the-top battling to bring them down.
* Go Deep into SpongeBob’s Universe:
Revisit SpongeBob’s most memorable locations, such as downtown Bikini Bottom, the Krusty Krab, Jellyfish Fields, or even Rock Bottom as players experience all of their favorite characters from previous SpongeBob games and the TV Series.

SpongeBob Truth or Square is basically a 3d platform style game, there’s lots of jumping and running involved along with solving puzzles as well. Most of the game is fairly easy but some part can be difficult even for a seasoned gamer like myself. On one level I went through 20 lives just getting past one of the bosses, luckily though you can accumulate lives very fast and easily.

While you’re playing you’ll also run across special areas, these will be open after you complete the level once though. In these areas you’ll usually fight a bunch of Plankton’s robots to get a prize that’s usually a piece of furniture or decoration for SpongeBob’s house.

SpongeBob has several special moves as well, and power-ups like becoming a muscular SpongeBob where his attacks are much more powerful. When he’s regular SpongeBob his main attack is turning into a spatula and flattening enemies and he has a spin attack that turns him into a bunch of spinning spatulas to quickly get several hits in. When’s he’s powered up the spatula attack turns into a large powerful hammer, and the spin attack looks like a propeller. He can also turn himself into a water balloon cannon, or soak up water and grow to 3-4 times his size to shoot water at his foes. There’s many secrets in the game as well that you’ll have to figure out as you play, at the end of each level you’ll get a score and it will let you know how much you’ve accomplished and if you’ve missed anything or not.

As you’re playing you’ll get hit and lose life as expected, the power ups for more life are underwear, you’ll need to collect them to regain life.

There are several types of puzzles in the game including many timed ones where you’ll have to get somewhere before time runs out. You’ll use all of SpongeBob’s abilities to complete the puzzles, and some you’ll need to be the muscular SpongeBob to complete. All of the levels vary quite a bit, they’re bright and colorful, and wild and zany. You’ll find things like wads of bubble gum that you’ll need to get into to get from one place to another, it’s interesting to say the least.

As you’re playing you’ll collect coins that can be used to buy things for your home that are missing or upgrade things already there. That part doesn’t have much to do with the actual game, but you can earn accomplishments for furnishing your home or pineapple, whatever it is…

It’s a kids game and my kids love it, but I had a lot of fun playing it actually. My kids love it, and the co-op mode as well, it’s definitely a game to get for any SpongeBob fan. My kids had no problem picking up on it and figuring out what to do, even my 4yr old was playing as well. There are some spots in the game that are fairly hard, and can be frustrating, like moving walkways that teeter-totter with steam pipes under them so you’ve got to have very good timing. Overall though my kids enjoy the game very much, and it’s well worth it for them.

Here’s another two minute video where you’ll see one of the other power ups, you can combine with the special characters to create super moves. You’ll also see one of the special areas as well.

Conclusion:

If you’re kids are SpongeBob fans then this is a must have game for them. It’s fun, comical, wild and colorful, and not exactly violent. Sure there’s cartoon violence but it’s done in a way that makes kids laugh. It’s a great, safe kids game really that adults might even enjoy as well.

Pros:
+It’s Spongebob!
+It really is a fun game
+Comical, colorful, kids should love it

Cons:
-Bad, bad camera
-Some areas can be very hard, especially for children
-Can be repetitive

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

SpongeBob Truth or Square Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Retro gaming on a next generation console is something a bit odd really, we played these games on our 8bit consoles years ago, but yet they’re bringing them back for us to fall in love with all over again and to introduce an entire new generation to the fun of these basic games. It’s odd in that it brings back a lot of memories and for that fact that they’re 8bit games being played in HD, yet XboxLive is bringing use these games relatively cheaply for us to enjoy again. This isn’t a bad thing, I’m sure most of us don’t even have our NES anymore and wish we could still play the games of our childhood, so it’s a good thing really.

Today for review I’ve got Bubble Bobble Neo, it’s available from Taito via XboxLive and it truly brings back a lot of memories. This game was one of my favorites actually, I can remember playing for hours with friends and this version keeps to the original but adds a bit more to it. Updated graphics of course, along with 4 player co-op play and competitive play as well. So read one to learn more about an old favorite come back to life…

Bubble Bobble Neo is from Taito as we know, when we start we’re greeted with the very familiar title screen:

From the main menu you’ve got several options including an in-depth help section that tells you pretty much everything there is to know about the game and to play it.

You’ve got Classic, Arcade and Vs Modes to play.

Depending which mode you select you can play with up to four players which can make for some good old fashioned 8bit fun.

Specifications:

BUBBLE BOBBLE Neo!

The action game classic Bubble Bobble returns as an XBLA game! Encase your enemies in bubbles with the bubble-spitting dragon Bub! Enjoy a full-on recreation of the arcade version of the original game in Classic Mode (100 rounds), as well as various new features such as offline co-op play for up to 4 players in Arrange Mode (100 rounds) and competitive play in VS Mode. Learn the various techniques of the game and clear all the rounds!

-Players 1-4
-Co-op 1-4
-HDTV 720p

Once you’re down selecting characters you again greeted with a familiar screen:

The music is similar to the original, just a bit updated, the graphics are as well of course for 720P play. There is no option to go an play the original version though. The play area of the screen doesn’t fill the screen, you’ve got borders on each side.

You’ll find game play is virtually identical to what you remember, you’re a dragon that blows bubble to trap the enemies or you can use the to jump on as well. Along the way there are many things to collect as well.

When you lose all of your lives you’re greeted with a ladder of sorts to let you know how far you’ve gotten to rescuing the damsel in distress:

Bubble Bobble Neo isn’t a bad game overall, but I would have liked to see an option to play the original game, and it would have been nice had the main play area taken up more of the screen.

To finish this off I’ve got a game play video for you:

Conclusion:
Bubble Bobble Neo doesn’t bring much new aside from being able to play with more people and the achievements as well. It’s not a bad way to get your retro gaming on and bring back some of your fond 8bit childhood memories. If you’ve got kids they’ll like it as well, and you can introduce them to the types of games you played as a child.

Pros:
+Good retro gaming fun
+It’s Bubble Bobble!

Cons:
-Could be better in several ways

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

BUBBLE BOBBLE Neo! is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Time travel, we’ve all thought about it, it’s a fantasy of most everyone really, what if we could go back and change history for the better, or for the worse.  A first person shooter based on that premise might be rather good right? It would have to be handled correctly though and done right to make it a good game. What if you could go back to the Civil War with a pulse cannon and kick some butt, or back to another part of history and change the tide of war, in the game I have for review today you can do that and more. Sounds like a great game right, well it is and it isn’t…

Today for review I’ve got Darkest of Days for the Xbox360, and it’s a game like no other really, it’s premise is time travel, it’s a first person shooter and one that allows you to fulfill your time traveling fantasies.  When I first heard about this game I was rather excited, it sounded like a great idea, the screen shots and trailers I saw looked fantastic, but once I started playing the game I quickly realized that it just wasn’t all I was hoping for. Though I can concede that usually when I look forward to something it’s normally a letdown, so I shouldn’t’ have been too surprised by this really… but the game isn’t all that bad, read on to check out a couple movies and screenshots and the rest of the review…

As usual we’ll start off with box shots.. not sure why I include these all of the time, just habit I guess, but sometimes the box art is worth it..

We’ll start with the idea behind the game, you work for Kronotek, the company is not really a company but an organization that polices time travel. In the future Kronotek has developed the ability to travel in time, but they found out they couldn’t actually do it, so they go throughout history and collect MIA people and soldiers to work for them. The idea behind this is that you’ll never be missed since you’re listed as MIA and no one knows just what happened to you. You start out the game at the Battle of Little Bighorn, there you’re fighting Indians, you get shot and then just in the knick of time a time agent pops in and saves you from your impending doom. You’re listed as MIA because of an apparent paperwork screw-up, imagine that right, that puts you somewhere else, so according to records you weren’t even there. Somebody lost the paperwork plain and simple…

Once you’re in the future you’re healed and put to work by Kronotek, and well, from what I gather, you don’t have much of a choice but to work for them, so you’re sort of a slave to the company. In the future you’ll meet Mother, supposedly she is just an assistant that has taken over for the head scientist that has went missing, and well you’ve got to fix a bit of history and find the scientist.  Mother is just a set of eyes on the viewing screen and a voice that tells you what’s going on and what you need to do next.

While you’re playing you’ll have access to many different types of weapons from the future and from the time period you’re in, but there’s a catch there, you don’t get to pick the weapons, you’re partner Dexter does that for you. There’s the first flaw in this game, I can understand keeping the time stream and keeping up the appearance of being there, but they even tell you in the game that you can use the futuristic weapons because it’s so frantic on the battlefield that no one will notice. So if no one will notice why can’t I just use them anytime I want?!

You’ll get points for completing missions, and there isn’t many of them really, but the points will vary on how well you complete the mission, and you can put those points toward upgrades. The upgrade idea is interesting in itself, but it’s generic, apparently you seem to be upgrading your skills with the weapons, but you’re not because one of the upgrades is for the clip capacity of the guns and another is for rate of fire. So, I guess in the future any upgrades you get carry over to any weapon you ever use…

Sometimes you can choose what mission you want to go on, towards the end of the game though it’s only one choice. Before each mission you’re brief by Dexter about what’s going on and what needs to be done.

Then off you go to travel through time in a time bubble..

The graphics in this game can be confusing at times, what I mean by that is that some things look great, and other look like something that was produced five years ago…

Specifications:

DARKEST OF DAYS

In DARKEST OF DAYS , you’ll get to experience some of the most varied gameplay ever released in one title.  Things will never get stale as you travel to distant times and fight alongside people from that time period.  Fighting in Antietam (the bloodiest day of the American Civil War) feels much different than fighting on the side of the Russians at Tannenberg (where the Russians withstood 140,000 casualties in WWI).

Fight in FIVE different Time Periods     
Whether its in Pompeii, Antietam, WWI, WWII,  or Little Big Horn you will fight with real weapons from the time period. You will battle against enemies that fight in different ways, all reflective of how fighting was done at the time.

- You will fight against the Confederates (and the Union at times), facing a staggering number of troops, all fighting in unison. Ready, aim…steady men…FIRE!

- You will jump from the trenches in WWI to lead an attack against the Huns.  You will fire artillery to hit distant targets.  You will defend to the last man!

- You will fight in Pompeii, while Mt. Vesuvius is spewing ash and fire into the atmosphere. You will fight amongst a frightened population, fleeing for their lives.

Play From Opposing Sides Of Conflicts    Nearly every time period offers game play from each side of the conflict. In trying to keep history pure, you have to undo mistakes you make, which may require fighting from the other perspective to "mend"

Unleash Hell With Futuristic WeaponryWhat could you have done with an automatic rifle during the Civil War, or some futuristic laser sighted pulse cannon in the trenches of WW I? There are times where you have no other choice but to bust out the big guns.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the ability to use more than just the weapons you carry, you’ll be able to use some things that are in the game like cannon, howitzers and mounted machine guns, they mix up the gameplay a bit.

You’ll notice for those shots above that the game is dark, a lot of the game is like that, I don’t think I saw any sunny days at all, but I guess that’s where the title comes in right?

Along with period weapons you’ll get to use futuristic ones as well, everyone loves a sniper rifle and sadly you only get to use it through one mission.

During the game you’ll run across people who cannot die, it’s called the Butterfly Effect, if one of those special people get killed then all of history will be changed. Luckily for us those people are lit up like Christmas Trees, or more specifically they glow a bright blue, an aura it’s called. These people cannot die, you can wound them to get t6hem out of the way, or you can use a special weapons, these little balls are attracted to the special people and you can knock them out with them. Cool concept and a good way to knock out a bunch of enemies at once.

Like any fighting game you’ve got to reload your weapon at times, in Darkest of Days a meter appears on your screen with a sweet spot in it, if you hit the sweet spot your reload will be faster, if you miss the gun will jam.

I mentioned Dexter is your partner, for many missions he’ll be there to help you, but he doesn’t help, not at all. You’ll get shot and killed and he’ll be standing there watching it happen, he does nothing but get on your nerves really. I tried to shoot him just to shut him up many times, sadly you can’t kill him… and Dexter is just like you, an MIA, but he’s from 2001, specifically 9-11, he was a fireman, but he wasn’t on duty, so he’s listed as MIA. For the most part this isn’t a bad thing, but for many people it still might hit a nerve and they won’t appreciate the reference at all. It’s a gamble…

The actual gameplay isn’t too bad once you get past the stuttering and frame ripping that goes on quite a bit. There are parts in the game where things just slow down a bit too much, and the you’ll see the frame just splitting, not good for continuity at all. Here’s an example of what I mean by frame rip, that would be part of the hand just plainly cut off:

Load times for Darkest of Days are horrid, I even transferred it over to my hard drive thinking that would fix it, and still the load times were just unbearably long.

One other thing that bugs me about this game is that there is no damage meter, you’ll know you’ve been shot by a red mark appearing on your HUD in the direction of the shot and as you get shot more the border of the screen turns a bloody messy red. It’s to the point sometimes that you might as well be dead because you can’t see anything anyway.

Darkest of Days is short, way to short for a single player game, and it doesn’t have much replay value either. Of course they leave the game opened ended as well, once you finish you’ll be left with you jaw open saying ‘what?’. Obviously they left it open for a second part, but it would have been much better had the entire storyline been included.

A saving grace for this game would have been a multiplayer option, I think it could have been done well and it could have saved the game truly. I know I would have loved to be able to be fighting other players on line in certain time periods, it could have been a great game really…

Back to shooting people, there’s going to be two videos below, watch them and see what happens when you shoot someone, there are times when I can blatantly miss the target and it’ll fall down. Things just miss when they shouldn’t and hit when they shouldn’t. The game can also be frustrating as well in regards to missing other things, there was one point where I had to run back across a log, I must have fell off and died 10 times before I finally made it across the log. I was blatantly on the log, but yet I fell off anyway… Oh well, check out the two videos below and that’s that…

I love the idea behind this game and it could have been awesome, but it just fell flat in too many areas

Conclusion:
Darkest of Days could have been an excellent game, they started with a brilliant idea, but they just implemented it badly in the end.

If there would have been a multiplayer part to the game then it might have been salvageable, but really it’s just not worthwhile.

I’ve also got the PC version of this as well for review, and I’ll be taking a look at that shortly to see if there are any differences between the two versions, so here’s hoping right!

Honestly I did have fun playing the game, I did want to continue playing to find out what was going to happen next even with all of the faults it was still a bit enjoyable…

Pros:
+Excellent idea and premise
+It is fun once you play it for a bit and get over the faults
+Graphics are decent when not stuttering and tearing

Cons:
-Terrible and useless AI
-Long load times, even from hard drive
-Frame rates drop all of the time, screen tearing as well
-Shot detection is way off
-Game is short
-No multiplayer
-Bad acting

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Darkest of Days Xbox360 Review is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

On September 9th 2009 a second coming will be happening, a second British Invasion if you will, The Beatles Rock Band will be officially released. I of course was one of the lucky ones to get a copy early for Xbox360 thanks to the gang at Harmonix. I’m very grateful to them for sending it over to me of course, and I had quite a lot of fun playing it for many hours to completion. I’m here to tell you that The Beatles Rock Band is all that and then some, it’s the best of the Rock Band series by far. I wasn’t too impressed by the last Rock Band game, kind of got boring actually, but The Beatles is totally different. The visuals are stunning and truly capture the spirit of The Beatles, and the track list includes many, many popular favorites and many more that are a little lesser known, at least those that don’t get much airplay these days.

Up on the review block tonight I’ve got one of the most anticipated games of 2009, The Beatles Rock band for the Xbox360. The Rock Band series has been well received overall but with this special version I believe they’ve taken the Rock Band experience to a whole new level.

I might be a bit biased here, I’m a Beatles fan myself, but I had a lot of fun playing this game, I found myself singing right along as I was playing on the guitar. I was eight years old when John Lennon was shot, and yes I remember it, it’s a shame the world lost a great musician that day. Personally I truly like the fact that this version of Rock Band was done, it’s going to introduce a whole new generation to some fabulous music in a way that I’m sure was never dreamt of by John or any of The Beatles.

We’ll start this off with box shots. Included with the game is some promo material including a coupon for a free Beatles T-Shirt for your Avatar..

Sadly I’m not allowed to actually take any screens from the game of my own for you to see, but of course I’ve got a bunch that they sent me over.  The following shots are all from separate songs.

While you’re playing The Beatles Rock Band you will almost feel as though you’re there. The game takes place in many of the popular venues that the Beatles played like Shea Stadium, Ed Sullivan Show, Cavern Club and Budokan. Since a lot of The Beatles music was done in studio, Harmonix wasn’t just going to let you star at studio walls while you’re playing. The art team did a spectacular job at reproducing the feeling of the music, and creating backgrounds and scenery that match the songs you’re playing. The game alone is worth playing just to see the amazing visuals that they’ve produced for this game. One of favorites has to be Yellow Submarine which features of course a Yellow Submarine and scenes with the band playing beneath the ocean. The art team over there certainly deserves and award for their truly wonderful work on this game, I was truly amazed, at times I found myself missing notes while playing because I was captivated by the background.

The artwork isn’t just during the songs either, between each level or venue you’ve got sort of a historical cut scene as well that gives you a look at the goings on, on the way for The Beatles. It’s all nicely done overall, I can’t stress enough how wonderfully perfect it all looks, and just how well it captures the spirit of The Beatles.

Playing the game though is similar to the other RB titles, but The Beatles adds a special part to the game, three part harmony, which of course requires the use of three microphones. The Beatles were and still are very much well known for their harmony, now you and your friends can recreate that experience for yourself. It does take a bit of practice though, but thankfully included is a trainer to help you train your voice actually to better sing the parts of the songs.

If you’re a drummer then you’ll very much appreciate the ‘Beatle Beats’ Training Mode where you can actually practice the drum beats that made Ringo one of the most famous drummers of his time.

Playing the game through story mode is fun really, a bit short but still very much a lot of fun. Story mode takes you on tour with The Beatles playing at their four most popular venues, then it takes you into the studio, but not really, as I mentioned Harmonix isn’t going to let you just stare at studio walls. The section in the studio is called Abbey Dreamscapes, and as I mentioned it’s just amazing the works that was done in terms of art. The last place you’ll play is the last place The Beatles played, the roof of the studio.

The first four venues are basically concerts complete with screaming, adoring fans, that was handled very nicely. As you’re playing you’ll see The Beatles on stage in what are half-decent renderings, all of the characters in the game are comical looking or almost resemble the Xbox avatar style, but when you see them there’s no mistaking who they are on stage.

As you’re playing and completing the stages you’ll unlock challenge modes that you can go back to and play from the menu. The challenge modes are simply re-visiting the venue and playing all the songs again, but without a break between them. The idea is to play your best of course.

There are many unlocks in the game, including several dozen actual photos related to The Beatles, some of which were previously not shown to the public. You’ll also get to hear actual in-studio talking between The Beatles that has never been released before, you’ll get to hear them, not just singing, but being themselves. So there’s a big piece of history and nostalgia that you’ll experience while playing the game.

Of course there are Achievements as well, and some are fairly easy to get, while others are harder. I would say to go and check out my gamertag on Xboxlive, but apparently they’re hidden as of now. I just checked Xboxlive.com and while it says I have them, they’re not detailed. One special one is Daytripper that you can get for competing the game within 24 hours of starting it, of course I got that one… The easy ones are like just play a song at each venue and earn 10pts for each one, you can get 2opts for getting 1,000,000 points for Guitar Career, you can get 5pts just for calibrating your guitar, 10pts for getting your first photo, a hard one might be 30 pts for five starring every song and there’s a lot more as well as one might expect. One of the interesting things about the achievements is that you can access them from the game menu and see where you stand in accomplishing each one.

If you’re accustomed to playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band games then this game will come as quite a change of pace for you. It’s slow, and the songs are rather short really, at least most of them are, but that’s how they were, back then you didn’t normally have five and six minute songs, so this will be very different from playing the songs of today. You’re not going to be mashing buttons frantically even on expert mode, the songs just aren’t like that, you will get a challenge yes, but not like you’ve experienced before. Playing it on easy is a cake walk, the pace of the notes if slow, and even on medium it is as well, and even on expert really it is slow as well, it’s just more notes to play. I’ve played most of the other games out there and it took me a few songs to get adjusted to the slow place of these ones, I found myself missing notes only because the pace was slow and not something I was accustomed to.  The Beatles aren’t about that, if you know The Beatles then you know that they’re quite laid back, and that’s very much shown here in the gameplay style.

I could not get into the online aspect of the game as it wasn’t ready yet, so I can’t comment on that, but seeing the game as is you can expect only good things from it.

For the Specifications section below, normally for our review we’ve just got the basics listed, but for this one I’ve got everything for you about the game including most of the track listing.

Specifications:

The Beatles Rock Band

• Dreamscapes– Highlighting the years in Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles revolutionized modern recording and created amazing masterpieces are inspired artistic visual expressions known as Dreamscapes. These imaginative environments capture the essence of The Beatles’ genre-busting musical and fashion transformations during their later years.

• Story Mode – Experience The Beatles career as you progress through five historic venues from The Cavern Club, to Abbey Road Studios and on to their final performance on the rooftop of Apple’s headquarters.

• Rewards System – As you progress through story mode unlock iconic images, audio and video of the Beatles– some that have never been released – and experience chapter challenges, which allow you to master the songs from a single chapter in the career of The Beatles with special rules.

• In-Studio Audio Chatter – Listen to never before released audio clips featuring conversations from The Beatles’ recording sessions.

• Three-Part Harmony & Vocal Training Mode – In an industry first, challenge your voice to master the three-part vocal harmonies perfected by The Beatles.

• Beatle Beats – Practice actual drumbeats made famous by Ringo Starr.

• Online Play – Play with up to five other people from across the globe in online Story Mode and Quickplay. (Internet connection required)

KEY FEATURES:

• The Music That Rocked The World – For the first time ever, play along with 45 legendary Beatles songs on the game-disc.

• Experiential Journey – Take an interactive journey through the legacy and evolution of The Beatles’ legendary career from the renowned venues to the clothing and instruments made famous by The Fab Four.

• Downloadable Songs and Albums – Keep the amazing experience alive with more music from The Beatles epic catalogue available as downloadable content from full albums to single tracks.

• Venues – Progress through five seminal venues in which The Beatles performed during their careers including: The Cavern Club, the set of the Ed Sullivan Show, Budokan, Shea Stadium and the rooftop of Apple Records.

• Dreamscapes and Abbey Road – Highlighting the years in Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles revolutionized modern recording and created amazing masterpieces are inspired artistic visual expressions known as Dreamscapes. These imaginative environments capture the essence of The Beatles’ genre-busting musical and fashion transformations during their later years.

• Never Before Released In-Studio Audio Chatter – Audio clips featuring conversations from The Beatles’ recording sessions, some of which have never before been heard, bookend the game play experience.

• Cut Scenes – Get whisked away through history as a montage of photos, audio and iconic Beatles moments transport you from historical venue to historical venue though the rapidly evolving look and sound of The Fab Four.

• Three-Part Harmony – For the first time ever, master the amazing three-part vocal harmonies perfected by The Beatles.

• Imagine All The People – Play with up to six bandmates… three mics for vocal harmonies, guitar, bass and drums! Plus, it is easier than ever to jump in and play as no-fail mode is automatically activated for players who select the “Easy” difficulty option.

• Connect Online – Play together in your living room or across the world! The Beatles Rock Band offers deep online functionality allowing you to connect and play together no matter where you are. (Internet connection required)

Game Modes

• Quickplay – Jump right into the game and experience the fabulous music of The Beatles as all songs will be unlocked in this easy to access mode. Quickplay also features familiar competitive Rock Band modes Tug of War and Score Duel!

• Story Mode – Set out on an experiential progression through The Beatles’ legendary career from The Cavern Club to Abbey Road Studios!

• Chapter Challenges – Master all of the songs from a single Chapter in the career of The Beatles with special challenges!

• Training Modes – Go beyond the basics and perfect your sound with training modes that includes Beatle Beats, Vocal Practice mode and more!

  • Beatle Beats – Take on the stylings of Ringo Starr with this training mode that lets you practice actual drum beats from a selection of The Beatles catalogue

  • Vocal Practice Mode – Train your ear and voice to master three part harmony! Use the guide pitch to help you sing hard to decipher parts perfectly in-tune!

Music

On Disc:

The Beatles: Rock Band will feature 45 spectacular songs on-disc pulled from The Beatles’ epic catalogue. Below is a list of the on-disc tracks that have been announced to date:

Cavern Club:

• I Saw Her Standing There

• Twist and Shout

• Do You Want to Know a Secret

• Boys

Ed Sullivan Theater:

• I Want To Hold Your Hand

• Can’t Buy Me Love

• A Hard Day’s Night

• I Wanna Be Your Man

Shea Stadium:

• I Feel Fine

• I’m Looking Through You

• Eight Days a Week

• If I Needed Someone

• Ticket to Ride

Budokan:

• Drive My Car

• Day Tripper

• Paperback Writer

• Taxman

• And Your Bird Can Sing

Abbey Road Dreamscapes:

• Yellow Submarine

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help from My Friends

• Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds

• Getting Better

• Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows

• Good Morning

• I Am The Walrus

• Hello, Goodbye

• Hey Bulldog

• Back in the USSR

• Dear Prudence

• While My Guitar Gently Weeps

• Helter Skelter

• Revolution

• Birthday

• Octopus’s Garden

• Something

• Come Together

• Here Comes the Sun

Rooftop Concert

• Dig a Pony

• Get Back

• Don’t Let Me Down

• I’ve Got a Feeling

• I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

• I Me Mine

Downloadable Content:

Additional music from The Beatles’ catalogue will be made available for download through The Beatles: Rock Band Music Store.

Downloadable content announced to date:

• Abbey Road (1969) album

  • Release Date: October 20, 2009

  • Pricing:

    • $16.98 (or 1360 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for album

    • $1.99 (or 160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for individual tracks

  • Tracks:

    • “Come Together”

    • “Something”

    • “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”

    • “Oh! Darling”

    • “Octopus’s Garden”

    • “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”

    • “Here Comes The Sun”

    • “Because”

    • “You Never Give Me Your Money”

    • “Sun King”

    • “Mean Mr. Mustard”

    • “Polythene Pam”

    • “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”

    • “Golden Slumbers”

    • “Carry That Weight”

    • “The End”

  • Purchasers of the full album download of Abbey Road will have the option to play the famous 16 minute B-side medley as a single continuous track

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) album

  • Release Date: November 2009

  • Pricing: To be announced

  • Tracks:

    • “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

    • “With A Little Help From My Friends”

    • “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”

    • “Getting Better”

    • “Fixing A Hole”

    • “She’s Leaving Home”

    • “Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite”

    • “Within You Without You

    • “When I’m Sixty Four”

    • “Lovely Rita”

    • “Good Morning Good Morning”

    • “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”

    • “A Day In The Life”

• Rubber Soul (1965) album

  • Release Date: December 2009

  • Pricing: To be announced

  • Tracks:

    • “Drive My Car”

    • “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”

    • “You Won’t See Me”

    • “Nowhere Man”

    • “Think For Yourself”

    • “The Word”

    • “Michelle”

    • “What Goes On”

    • “Girl”

    • “I’m Looking Through You”

    • “In My Life”

    • “Wait”

    • “If I Needed Someone”

    • “Run For Your Life”

• “All You Need Is Love”

  • Release Date: September 9, 2009

  • Pricing: $1.99 (or 160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360)

  • Track will be available exclusively on Xbox LIVE for a limited time

  • All proceeds from Apple Corps., MTV Games, Harmonix and Microsoft will benefit Doctors Without Borders

Instruments

The Beatles: Rock Band will be compatible with all Rock Band instrument controllers, as well as most Guitar Hero^® and other third party music video game peripherals and microphones. In addition, the game will also feature a new line of limited edition instrument controllers licensed and designed to replicate the instruments made famous by The Beatles.

• Höfner Violin Bass – This large-scale replica is modeled after the bass made famous by Sir Paul McCartney.

• Rickenbacker 325 Guitar – This guitar controller replica is hailed as one of the signature guitars famously used by John Lennon.

• Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar – This guitar controller replica is modeled after one of the most beloved guitars played by George Harrison during his career.

• Ludwig Pearl Finish Rock Band Drum Set – The Ringo Starr inspired and Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums, with a classic pearl finish and vintage replica Beatles kick drum head.

Pricing

• Limited Edition Premium Bundle for Xbox 360/PS3/Wii: US MSRP $249.99, continental Europe MSRP €199.00, UK MSRP £179.00

  • Includes: The Beatles: Rock Band software, Höfner Bass controller: Large scale replica of the Bass famously used by Sir Paul McCartney, Beatles-inspired and Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums with classic pearl finish and vintage replica Beatles kick drum head, Microphone, Microphone Stand, Additional special content

• Rickenbacker 325 Standalone Guitar for Xbox 360/PS3/Wii: US MSRP $99.99, continental Europe MSRP €99.99, UK MSRP £89.99

• Gretsch Duo Jet Standalone Guitar for Xbox 360/PS3/Wii: US MSRP $99.99, continental Europe MSRP €99.99, UK MSRP £89.99

• The Beatles: Rock Band Software for Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3: US MSRP $59.99, continental Europe MSRP €69.99, UK MSRP £49.99

• The Beatles: Rock Band Software for Wii: US MSRP $59.99, continental Europe MSRP €49.99, UK MSRP £39.99

Publisher: MTV Games

Developer: Harmonix

Distributor: Electronic Arts

Category: Music/Rhythm Game

One major complaint I could have about this game is the fact that there’s only 45 songs, you’re going to have to spend money to buy more if you want them. The songs that are included are popular, and some that aren’t so, which overall is not a bad thing. There are notable popular songs missing though, one such song is Rocky Raccoon, that’s one I was looking forward to playing. Looking at the upcoming track list I don’t see it there, but then they’ve promised to release more, so hopefully it will be there.

Another small complaint would be that you’re going to be spending some money with this game, not just for the songs, but if you want to purchase the band kit, and the additional accessories. The Beatles Rock Band, I think is the most expensive ones to date, and the one with the most additional accessories. First off you’re going to have to go and buy more microphones if you want to take part in the three part harmony feature, unless of course those who want to play the game with you have their own. Then if you want the special edition guitars and Bass. The Hofner bass is only available in the premium bundle which runs $250, then the other two guitars run $100 each, so that’s a nice chunk of change to spend on a video game really…

The final complaint would be that story mode is too short, at least it seemed that way to me, it might have taken me about 10 hours to complete, maybe less, because I wasn’t playing non-stop. The main reason it’s short is of course because there is only 45 songs to play, but there are the challenge modes as well, but those are just re-playing the same songs you just played.

The replay value is more for the multiplayer aspect of it all, either online or in your living room you can play with friends, which is part of the whole music game phenomenon.

I’ve played Rock Band2, and several of the Guitar Hero games, including GH5, and they all pale in comparison to this game. Honestly I wasn’t very impressed with GH5 at all, but that’s for another day. This game is what a music game should be, it captures the spirit and essence of the music, and especially that of The Beatles.

Conclusion:

The Beatles Rock Band is the epitome of perfection when it comes to the music genre of gaming, this game is one that will amaze and astound you truly.

Harmonix has done good with this game, there’s not much I can think of in terms of improving it really, maybe more songs, but other than that it’s a perfect tribute to one of the greatest musical bands of all time, and it’s a great game as well.

This is music gaming done right, plain and simple. It’s more than just a collection of songs to play, it’s a piece of history that you can be a part of, and learn about really. The Beatles were a musical force that took the world by storm, and I think this game will have a very similar effect as well.

If you purchase any music game, get this one, even if you aren’t a Beatles fan get it anyway, you’ll very much enjoy it. Of course if you are a Beatles fan then this is must-have game for you, I love The Beatles and always will, and this game truly shows and let’s you feel just what they were all about.

This game isn’t without minor faults though, but the good still very much overshadows the bad. I don’t hand out the Editor’s Choice Award lightly, but The Beatles Rock Band truly deserves it.

Pros:
+Stunning visuals
+Truly captures the spirit of The Beatles
+Fun to play by yourself or with many others
+Three part harmony
+Includes exclusive video, audio and pictures
+Quickplay all songs unlocked
+Lots of great songs included
+Training mode is actually rather fun

Cons:
-Limited number of songs
-You’re going to be spending money to complete The Beatles collection

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

The Beatles Rock Band Review Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

 

Reviewing games can be lots of fun and they can be tedious as well, I personally like to finish any game before I review it, and this requires a lot of time to be spent just sitting playing games. Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Not when you’ve got tons of other projects in the works… Adult or Teen games are much easier to review than a games aimed at children as well they’re childish and fairly boring and mostly easy. I reviewed Up for the Wii not long ago, now I’ve got Up for the Xbox360 for review. It’s the same as the Wii but then again it’s not, as expected the graphics are better, and really overall gameplay is batter as well than on the Wii. Sure it’s not interactive like the Wii is, but those interactions the Wii offered didn’t add much to the game really. With the Xbos360 version of the game, I finished it myself and then I let my kids have it to see what their impressions were. My boys are ages 7 & 8, even though it’s rated 10+ they still didn’t have many problems with it and they like it a lot, they play it often together now.

Obligatory box shots for you:

The menus in Up are basic stuff, here’s a video of the Intro and Menus:

Specifications:

Up The Videogame Xbox360

Gamers Set Off on an Exciting Adventure Into the Wild Jungles of South America to Encounter Exotic Animals, Battle Dangerous Creatures and Villains

The Up video game takes players on an exotic adventure with Carl Fredricksen and his young sidekick, Wilderness Explorer Russell, as they set off on a wild journey through the undiscovered jungles of South America. Players will be able to experience all four main characters from the movie—Carl, Russell, Dug the lovable dog or Kevin the prehistoric bird—while playing as a single-player or with a friend cooperatively throughout the entire game. Aided by Russell’s wilderness knowledge, the four characters must work together to navigate treacherous jungle terrain, combat exotic animals and avoid being captured by a villain and his loyal army of talking dogs. Players will also encounter collection adventures to earn merit badges for Russell that will unlock bonus content.

As we know the game is set in the Jungles of South America with the two mains stars being Carl and Russell, with Dug the Dog and Kevin the bird showing up as well in the game as playable characters to help you on your quest.

If you happen to have both consoles, the Wii and the Xbox360, you’ll immediately see a difference playing Up on the Xbox, it’s just a much more enjoyable experience, even if you can’t pretend to saw with it. The controls are jut much more sensitive, and I did not have any issues with them.

With the Wii I ran into several times where you’ would get stuck as well and just couldn’t move, on the Xbox360 I didn’t have that problem at all. Overall it’s just a much superior experience.

Most of the game is a platformer but you’ll also get to fly a plane as well as Dug the dog, flying is lots of fun once you get accustomed to the controls.

The platforming part of the game can get rather tedious with many of the puzzles repeated over and over again, like moving a rock, of sliding over a ledge to get where you need to go. At the end of most levels there is a boss to beat, and he can be tough, especially for kids.  My kids complained about the snake boss the most, they said that part is very hard. All in all though my children love the game and play it often, either by themselves or with each other in the co-operative mode, they’ll easily spend an our or so just playing, and having fun. They like the idea of collecting the bugs and other things to earn special prizes and collecting coins to level up. They especially like the fact that you’ve got to break things apart to find more coins.

As an adult gamer I found the game rather tedious and boring really, as you progress there’s really not much new to the game, it’s the same stuff just re-hashed over and over again. There is combat in the game, but it’s easy, though my kids found it to be a challenge at points.

Overall though they really like it, and I think that’s what matters most, it doesn’t matter too much what I say about the game as I’m an adult and it’s not aimed at adults. It’s cute and funny, and colorful, something that children will enjoy playing and watching. My four year old loves to watch his brothers play it, he thinks it’s great.

I try and review games like these with a mindset that it’s aimed at a younger crowd and usually it works, but I can’t totally see it as a child would. I got quite a bit of input from my kids on this game, and I think it helped quite a bit in how I reviewed it.

I think from now on that’s the way to do things really, play it, finish it and then let them have at it to see what they think of it.

I can tell you about the game itself, and how it plays, but they can tell you really how the game is and what’s fun or isn’t about it.

As for Up, well my kids thoroughly enjoy the game, they really didn’t have to ask me for any help, even though they do because they watched me play and finish it. I usually tell them no I won’t help them, and in a couple minutes they’ve figured out the problem all by themselves. So that right there says something about the game really, they can figure things out fairly easy, and they’re younger than the rated age for the game. As I mentioned they like it very much, and play it often. I actually got them their own Xbox360 so they wouldn’t use mine, and they’ve got their own games now as well to play whenever they wish to.

So in the end the game is well worth it for children, for adults not so much, but it’s not intended for adults either…

So I’ll leave you with a final video and some more captures:

Conclusion:
I thought about giving this game a 6 rating or maybe even a 7, but after giving it to my children and seeing how much they enjoyed playing it I can’t be that hard on it. It’s meant for children, and they like it. Kids don’t care as much about things as we adults to, things like the game being tedious or repetitions, in fact my kids didn’t even mention it or notice it I think. They actually enjoyed it, they liked having to push the rock over numerous times, or having to fight the wasps and dogs, they enjoyed it and that’s what counts here I think.

Other reviewers will tell you this game isn’t that good, well they as I was, are looking at it from an adults perspective, and well that’s wrong and I recognize that, what I think isn’t fun, is fun to them.

If you’ve got kids then you might want to think about grabbing this title for them, my children like it very much, and play it quite often.

Pros:
+Great for kids
+Good graphics
+Fairly easy for children
+Promotes teamwork

Cons:
-Tedious and boring at times

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Up The Videogame Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

There’s always been a trend where video game tie-ins to movies are just bad, sure there are some exceptions, but the norm is that the games are usually bad no matter how good the movie is. So what happens to a game when the movie is bad?  Taking a look over at Rotten Tomatoes we see that G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra garners a big 42% rating, that’s pretty bad. If we we were in school, that would be well below an ‘F’ or failing grade. Now I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t personally weigh in on that, but I have played and finished the game, and it’s just as bad as the movie I’m sure, at least I think it deserves a similar rating…

Read on if you wish, or not…. This was a game that I did not enjoy playing, it was a chore really, just plain bad. Some games that are bad are at least enjoyable and a bit fun, but there really are no redeeming elements to this game at all.

I might be a bit biased as I grew up watching G.I. Joe on television and this game is nothing like the G.I. Joe that I remember. It’s just bad, plain and simple….

This game isn’t worth the effort of taking a picture of the box for you…

So we’ll just jump right in.

Here’s the first video of the menus for you, I’ve completed the game and unlocked quite a bit of it:

When you start playing you start with only two characters, Duke and Scarlett, as you progress you have to either rescue or find the file cards of the other characters and then you’ve got to buy them with points. The characters look nothing like I remember them..

I’ve got two gameplay videos for you as well, here’s the first one:

The characters sort of have unique weapons but you’ll find they’re repeated with some of them. They also have special attacks as well that cause more damage, these attacks need to charge, and you charge them by shooting enemies. You also have unlimited ammo, so you’ll never need to reload. You also have the use of the Accelerator suit which also takes time to build up, you might get to use it three times in a level and then it only lasts a few moments.

Specifications:

G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Xbox360

As COBRA unleashes its deadliest plot yet, the G.I. JOE TEAM is counting on YOU to lead the counterattack. Every mission is critical – and so is every G.I. JOE. Your hand-picked team of heroes must battle COBRA organization’s deadliest bosses as you snake your way through enemy territory.

G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra picks up where the movie leaves off as the COBRA organization unfurls its deadliest plot to date.  Players must counter the COBRA team’s every move over the course of 20 levels spanning four different environments including the snowy arctic and balmy jungles.  As the high stakes battle begins to let loose, selecting the best-suited G.I. JOE characters and their accompanying gear and skillset becomes a pivotal strategic decision when facing the dark forces of COBRA such as STORM SHADOW, a soulless and powerful enemy.  It may be a job for DUKE, a well balanced combat soldier or perhaps the mission should be handed off to SNAKE EYES based on his lethal martial arts skills.  Better yet, co-op play lets players find the best combinations with any two characters for an over the top tag-team showdown.

When selecting a G.I. JOE team, players can handpick members from three units: Heavies, who can zero in and pick off specific targets from a distance; Commandos, who are Ninja-like and can eliminate the enemy at close range; and Combat Soldiers, who offer balanced skillsets at both distances.

Adding to the action, players are also challenged to find 75 file cards and various intelligence items that are buried deep within the game in order to unlock new characters, special missions, achievements and trophies. In addition, defeating each of the four COBRA bosses will earn the player the ability to unlock four of the classic 20-year old G.I. JOE Public Service Announcements (PSAs), other bonus content and the ability to play the game with the COBRA boss characters.

Wow… where to start..

The camera is just horrible, you’ll find yourself lost and you’ll have enemies shooting at you that you cannot see, and by the time you do find them they’ve done significant damage to you. As you’re walking or driving along the camera will just decide to move, at one moment you’re running away from the camera, then in an instant you’re running or driving towards it. It’s just horrible and of course there is no way to control it.

The vehicles are boring, they’re pretty much the same, just re-skinned to look different, and their controls are horrid.

The characters talk way to much, you can skip most of them but with some you’re stuck listening to pointless banter that is supposed to be witty.. at least I think it’s supposed to be.

Repetition can be interesting at times, but here it’s not, it’s the same old stuff over and over again. You’ll find yourself blowing up generators to shut down a force field pretty much every level. The enemies are the same as well, there’s not much new fight after the first couple missions, and the bosses are boring as well, and they’re repeated several times. Might be nice if they threw something else in from time to time.

The graphics don’t look like they came from an Xbox360, more like stuff I saw on my Sega Genesis, there’s nothing really that jumps out at you and you think ‘wow that looks cool’. The scenery is also all just repeated over and over again, the snow and desert look the same except for the ground color really. If you colored the sand white it could be an arctic level, these guys seem like they just weren’t into doing anything different with the game and just re-hashed stuff over and over just with a different color.

After the first couple of levels it gets very boring, you’re just repeating things over and over, it feels like you’re just playing the same mission over and over and over, with just a few things thrown in for variety.

The characters are horrible, the voices are horrible. From what I can recall of G.I. Joe Destro had a deep, almost menacing voice, here he sound like a homosexual Irishman ?! Now mind you I’ve got no problems with homosexuals or the Irish,  it’s just what he sounds like. Cobra Commander is just as bad, I didn’t like his voice in the series really, but I would have preferred it over the guy they’ve got doing his voice now. The voice acting is pretty bad as well, it’s like they’re just speaking the lines with no inflections in their voices. Even when they yell ‘Yo Joe’ they sound like they’re not really into it…

Controls are horrible, buttons are double and triple tasked meaning the Y button is for activating the accelerator suit, entering a vehicle or accessing a terminal. So I found several times that I activated my suit instead of entering the vehicle or accessing the computer terminal and wasting the built up use of the suit.

They took a cue from Gears of War using the cover system but it fails miserably as that button has two uses, one for rolling or dodging and then for entering cover. You’ll find yourself rolling when you wanted to be ducking and covering.

There are a couple good things, the achievements are easy, very easy in fact, and rather dumb. Play as two female characters and get 10 points, play as two commandos and get 10 points. One play through and you can easily get more than half of the available points. Playing though it also doesn’t take any time, maybe six hours total, and that’s trying to make sure you collect everything, if you just run and gun you’ll be through the game much quicker.

Speaking of collecting, there’s lot’s of unlockables, like Art, Movies and other information. Some are worth it, like watching the old PSAs, but you can find them on YouTube for free and not spend $50 for the game to see them.

There are three level of difficulty, but that’s not what I would call them, they’re more like three levels of frustration. On the Casual level you’ll be revived if you die instantly, on Advanced you’ll be revived at Checkpoints, and then on Hardcore you won’t be revived at all. Even though the AI is rather dumb, you need him to finish the game. And what I mean by dumb is that many times your partner will just stand there doing nothing while you’re getting blown away by several enemies.

Speaking of Checkpoints they’re pointless… they’re just a place to revive your characer if possible and find out your score, they’re really just load points in the game. Speaking of load times, they’re atrocious as well, I couldn’t stand it and installed it on my hard drive and that didn’t change much at all, even on the HDD load times were still fairly long.

and I’ll leave you with another movie:

Conclusion:
To quote one of my favorite movies": Run Away, Run Away”

Seriously this game is not worth the cost, I don’t even think this game is worth buying if it was in the bargin bin.

G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra is one of the most horrible games I’ve ever played, it is not worth your money, do not buy it, ever. Electronic Arts should be ashamed that they even decided to publish this piece of trash.

Pretty much every aspect of the game is bad, from the graphics to the gameplay and even to the special bonuses.

If you’re a G.I. Joe fan, don’t subject yourself to this, keep the good memories you have of the old G.I. Joe and don’t ruin them.

Pros:
+Lots of unlockables including PSAs
+Easy achievements

Cons:
-Repetitious
-Basically the same vehicles just re-skinned
-Boring
-Annoying at times
-Camera is horrible
-They talk way to much
-Controls are not very good
-Graphics just feel old
-Long load times
-Characters are nothing like the originals
-Cut scenes interfere with game play

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I love first person shooters and I love westerns… The wild west wasn’t really like we see in the movies, but what we see in the movies is much more interesting or romantic than real life was. So that’s kind of what we want to hear about, the good stuff, not the boring stuff.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the prequel to the first Call of Juarez videogame, so it’s not really a sequel is it? You don’t need to play the first one to understand what’s going on in this one basically, though you might want to grab it if you don’t own it, or maybe even play it again. CoJ:BiB is western FPS like no other really, it offers quite a bit of fun and excitement brought together by an intriguing storyline of three brothers just trying to get by in the wild west.

Here’s a couple box shots, standard stuff:

We’ll start off with a quick video of the menus etc:

Specifications:

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, is the prequel to the Wild West action shooter Call of Juarez. As the McCall brothers, players enter a doomed quest for the legendary Gold of Juarez leading them from a ravaged Georgia during the Civil War to the Aztec ruins of Mexico. They make their lawless trail into the wildest West ever depicted, using their gunslinging skills and killing all of those that stand before them. But when the brothers face lust, their bond of blood feels thinner than ever…

    * Become a Gunslinger – Harness a variety of weapons from various pistols to heavy-caliber cannons and machine guns. Every accurate shot increases your concentration, which allows you to unleash deadly shooting modes when outnumbered and even deadlier ones when the brothers work together.

    * Dual Collaborative Gameplay – Choose to embody Ray or Thomas, each with a distinctive gameplay style (close or long range), specific abilities (lasso, dynamite, etc.) and arsenal of deadly weapons (dual guns, long-range carbine, etc.). Take advantage of each of their strengths and join in the fiercest fights imaginable.

    * Uncharted Territory – Experience the iconic settings full of outlaws – the West before it was tamed. The McCall brothers face a renegade Apache Chief, a greedy Mexican bandit, and a vindictive Colonel, all driven by greed with moral disregard. Enjoy a wide variety of situations, using horses, canoes and wagons to explore the open natural landscapes of the mythical Wild West and its legendary period.

    * Innovative Western-Themed Multiplayer – Gunslingers, bandits and marshals struggle online for the bounty. Multiple characters are unlocked for team-based objective modes or the straightforward team deathmatch. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood introduces a Bounty system, which sees players increase the bounty on their head with more kills. Get rid of the deadliest among you to increase your bank roll!

CoJ:BiB is western themed and as one might expect you’ll come across duels where you’ve got to draw your gun and shoot faster than the other character. The system works for the most part, but takes a bit to get accustomed to, once you do it a few times you’ll be a pro at it in no time. The idea of course is to draw and shoot first, you’ll use the right stick to control you’re gun hand to keep it as close to your pistol as possible, while moving right and left to keep the enemy in focus, when the bell rings, grab your gun and fire.

A lot of the game has a dark setting to it, with the atmospheres reflecting it, from rain to haze to dusty trails to dimly lit saloons.

Depending on the character you pick to play you’ll have different weapons and abilities, like being able to handle two guns at once, use a rifle, use a lasso or throw dynamite, each brother has his own characteristics and abilities. One brother is sift and agile being able to move fast and climb obstacles, while the other is the stronger of the two, serving up a helping of brute force when required. To that effect when you go shopping at the local store you’ll have several choices as to armaments to purchase.

The graphics are decent overall, with a real western, dirty look to things, the guns look real, and you’ll have to reload them just as you would any other gun.

Switching between weapons is fairly easy, just hit the button and up pops the interface so you can select what you want to use.

Call of Juarez BiB features something like Bullet Time called concentration mode where everything slows down at certain points in the game so you can kill a bunch of bad buys before they get the drop on you. There are several times this can happen in the game automatically, but you can also initiate it yourself as well when you collect enough kills or accurate shots.

It’s a western themed games so expect to be riding on horses, and stage coaches and even in a canoe. There are also certain points in the game where teamwork is the only way to get through the game, one brother has to climb up to help the other brother get to where they need to go. These spots are highlighted by a red light.

I’m not really a fan a FPS using the Xbox controller, I’m more of a mouse/keyboard kind of guy, but the system works fairly well and the controls are responsive so you won’t die to often from missing a shot.

The game is fun to play really, you’re playing one of two brothers and you can switch between them at the change of chapters, so you can play the game through twice actually to get to different views of the game.

They’re brothers, so expect a lot of chatter between them, the dialogue can be foul mouthed, this isn’t a kids game after all, but it’s well done and believable.

The idea behind the game is that you are anti-heroes of sorts, and you’ll learn that the brothers value family above all else, that is until a woman gets involved and that’s where the brothers split against each other.

There is a multi-player online mode also that does add a bit to the replay value, but it’s a bit too much, in that there’s just too many choices, they tried to make it more interesting by adding lots of character classes and weapons but it would have been nice to maybe just play a good old game of ‘cowboys and Indians, or cowboys vs cowboys, whatever the case may be.

Most of the game is good, one major flaw is the cut scenes, they’re very long and it’s basically just listening to Willy give us a history lesson. It’s interesting the first couple times you sit through it, but it quickly becomes annoying as you just want to play the game.

We’ll finish this off with a final video of actual game play, there’s about 6 minutes or so in HD for you to check out:

Conclusion:
If you’re a fan a FPS games and westerns then I suggest you go grab this title as you won’t be disappointed, it’s a lot of fun and well worth it for a couple times through as the different brothers. Call Of Juarez Bound in Blood is what a western games should be like, too bad it’s a bit too short though, but there are hints that things like a DLC will be coming soon.

The multiplayer isn’t too bad, it’s fun and adds to the replay value of the game, though there’s only so many times you can play through the same scenery.

Pros:
+Intriguing and engaging storyline
+Great graphics
+Wild west fun!

Cons:
-Chatty, lengthy cut scenes
-Multiplayer is a bit too complicated
-Not much replay value in single player mode

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Remember Arkanoid? I do, it’s an old game that’s been around for quite some time, even though it’s old it’s still a bit of fun, breaking blocks by bouncing a ball around the screen is not a bad way to spend some time. Taito has recently released an updated version onto the Xbox360 console, specifically Xbox Live only. It’s a download only game that costs 800 points, and if you want to get in some old school gaming it’s quite worth it.  Arkanoid Live! is revamped for the Xbox360 console with better graphics, achievements and even a new boss for you to fight. This versions also features co-operative play and online multiplayer mode as well so you can compete against others. So continue on for a brief review that includes screenshots and a couple movies..

The main menu has several choices for you, the two main ones are Arcade Mode and VS Mode. You can also view Leaderboards, Achievements, Help & Options, and Download Content from here as well.

Under Help & Options you can configure your controls, learn how to play, change the settings and other miscellaneous stuff.

When you first start out you’ve only got access to Episode 1 and Episode 2

When you’re ready to play there are some adjustments you can make like number of players, how many live you have, difficulty setting and turning the enemies on or off.

There are 12 achievements total for Arkanoid Live! for a total of 200 Points, some are easy and some are hard to get, like just finish an episode to get 20 Points, or hard like clearing 30 rounds without using any continues for 25 points. You can hop over to Xbox360Achievements.org for the list and descriptions HERE to learn what they are exactly.

Specifications:

ARKANOID Live!
Developer: Taito Corporation
Publisher: Taito Corporation
800 Points

The classic ARKANOID comes back to life … in HD! Destroy every block on screen in ARKANOID Live! by bouncing an Energy Ball against them with your Vaus! It’s the all-time classic arcade game now with achievements and multiplayer co-op play over Xbox LIVE.

* Arcade classic: ARKANOID was one of the all-time classic arcade games that sparked a huge number of imitators. Now you can play the game in glorious high-def.

* Tons of gameplay: The full version contains 62 rounds divided into two episodes that can be played under either Lives Rules or Barrier Rules. A boss awaits you in the last round of each episode: DOH, as well as a new boss, SKULL.

* Multiplayer: Defeat the game with a friend in co-op play or compete online against other players over Xbox LIVE and aim for the top!

The Episodes are a bit different, in how they are configured and what types of blocks you’ll find there. Each one though has power ups like sticky pads, multiple balls or even the ability to shoot lasers. If you’ve ever played Araknoid then it will all be very familiar to you, just bounce the ball back to break the blocks.

Here’s the first episode screenshots and video:

and here’s the second episode screenshots and video as well:

That’s about it, there’s not much to Arkanoid, bouncing the ball around the screen, avoiding enemies and grabbing pickups. Sam old same old stuff just re-done to look a bit better on the Xbox360. it’s not a bad thing though, Arkanoid is a fun game to play, it’s fairly easy, and most anyone can jump right in to play. The music is upbeat and a funky techno, synthesizer type of stuff, not bad..

I did come across one problem though, it seems to me the controls are a bit sluggish, no matter if I used the pad or the stick to control the pad it just seems like it wasn’t as responsive as it should be. These sluggish controls can make the game rather frustrating.

There are some other things that need pointed out as well, it’s small, if you noticed from the screenshots and videos the main play area is only half of the screen, there’s a whole lot of empty space going on that could have been used for the game or who knows what else.

Everything is just really small, the blocks are small and the ball is very small, it’s very easy to miss the ball, don’t even think of playing this game on an standard definition TV, you’ll never figure out where the ball is, it’ll just be a little blur blob on the screen.

It’s supposed to be HD, but it doesn’t really feel or look like it, not to knock the Wii but this looks like something that you would see on the Wii… Just sub-par graphics for a higher end console like the Xbox360.

Conclusion:

For what it is, Arkanoid Live! isn’t a bad game, sure it’s just a re-done version of an old game, but it’s a nice way to spend some time reliving memories of old school style gaming, call it retro-gaming maybe. It’s not a bad way to spend 800 points, and have a game that everyone in the family can play, but it’s debatable if it’s actually worth 800 points. If you really, really like Arkanoid, then it’s worth the 800 points, if you don’t care to much for it then you can find better ways to spend your hard earned cash or points…

Arkanoid Live! has got a lot of bad things going on as well, the game feels rushed or incomplete, it’s just basically an upgraded version of the game and not even upgraded really in terms of graphics. In the end there’s not much new or original going on here in Arkanoid Live!, I think they should have spent a bit more time on it, especially the graphics…

Pros:
+Retro gaming now in HD
+Nice graphics and features
+Fun little waste of time
+Brings back memories

Cons:
-Controls feel a bit sluggish to me
-Only half of the screen is used for the game
-Very small ball
-Kind of ugly overall, not what I expected for an HD game
-Very small blocks

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

ARKANOID Live! is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Videogames based on movies are usually not that great, but what happens when you release a game based on a movie that came out 25 years ago? You might think they’d have had more than enough time to get it right and give us a game that’s true to the movie. Ghostbusters that movie came out in 1984, and now 2009 they give us Ghostbusters the videogame, sure there have been others, but this is new, on newer, more powerful consoles.

Today I’m taking a look at Ghostbusters the videogame for the Xbox360. The game picks up a few years later after the events in the movies, at first we find our good friend Gozer, think Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, is back to cause some more havoc, and the Ghostbusters have to save the city once again, but as the game progresses you find that there’s someone, or something, more sinister behind the appearance of Gozer .

You start the game as a new, unnamed recruit to the team and are thrown into the thick of things, learning on the job. You first mission is to capture our old friend slimer. Everyone from the original movies is here, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, Janine Melnitz and even Winston Zeddmore, and the actors have all come on to do voice overs for the characters to add a bit more realism to the game. The original Ghostbusters movie was one that will be remembered for it’s great special effects, and of course the comic stylings of Bill Murray, it’s still a great movie, even 25 years later. My kids are off for the summer of course, and watched me play Ghostbusters, they of course wanted to see the movie, so I qued it up on Netflix and we watched it via Xbox Live, and yes it’s still a great movie. Ghostbusters the videogame will bring back many fond memories for a lot of us and will introduce a whole new generation to the thrill of ghostbusting. It’s a great game overall, though it’s not without it’s faults.

As mentioned you start the game as an unnamed new recruit, and Gozer has come back to try once again to take over the world, and the Ghostbusters of course have to step in and foil his plans. You’re thrown into the thick of things to go and catch our good friend slimer who escaped, so you’re getting on the job training.

Here’s a video of the intro, and the first couple minutes of gameplay, and I believe I got our HD video problems fixed, so the video is done in 1080p, so it looks good now…

Here’s just a bunch of screenshots of gameplay:

Specifications:
Ghostbusters

The Ghostbusters are back in Ghostbusters: The Video Game! With Manhattan overrun once more by ghosts and other supernatural creatures, gamers take the role of a new recruit joining the famous Ghostbusters team. Equipped with a variety of unique weapons and gadgets, you will hunt, fight and capture a wide range of uncanny phantasms and demons in an all-new, funny and frightening battle to save New York City from its latest paranormal plague.
The real Ghostbusters return in this videogame sequel to the Ghostbusters movies. Stars Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray reunite to reprise their roles as Spengler, Stantz, Zeddmore and Venkman. Supporting the ghost busting crew are the talents of Annie Potts, Brian Doyle Murray and William Atherton.

Features:
* The Authentic Ghostbusters Experience – Delivering a distinctive, definitive gaming experience to worldwide Ghostbusters fans, Ghostbusters™: The Video Game features the original cast from Columbia Pictures’ classic Ghostbusters films, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson – together again for the first time in over 20 years. Supporting the original Ghostbusters crew are the talents of Annie Potts, Brian Doyle Murray and William Atherton.
* The Supernatural Spectacular Meets Unrivaled Ghost Busting – Like the films before it, Ghostbusters™: The Video Game is allnew classic adventure with Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis returning to helm the script and creating a new storyline that leads gamers through the trials and tribulations of the world’s leading paranormal ghost busting team. Players experience a variety of frightening new ghosts, even some based on ideas from Aykroyd and Ramis that never made it into the original feature films..
* Cool Tech, Extraordinary Equipment & Fearsome Enemies – Ghostbusters™: The Video Game features ghost hunting, wrangling and trapping game mechanics with upgradeable gadgets. Gamers can wear ghosts down into a weakened state with the Proton Pack’s Blast Stream and use the Capture Stream to wrangle them into the trap, execute different strategic tactics with the new Slime Tether and scan and analyze targets using like the P.K.E. Meter and Paragoggles.
* Ghostbusters – Jump on the PLAYSTATION Network or Xbox Live and play as the original Ghostbusters with up to three other players in a variety of different game modes set in iconic movie locations, including the Museum, Library and Times Square, in a competitive co-op mode where players work as a team to bust ghosts but compete with one another for the highest score. Further, the Wii version offers split-screen co-op mode allowing two players to suit up and play through the entire single player story.

After trying to catch slimer and have him slip through your fingers at Ghostbusters HQ, you’ll end up revisiting a familiar location, the Sedgewick Hotel to capture slimer, this is essentially a re-enacting of the original movie where they capture slimer and destroy the ballroom all the way down to Peter getting slimed. I’m guessing this was put in to give players a familiar location to train in, during your time at the Sedgewick you’ll get to learn the basics about your PKE meter as well and how to use it to scan for ghosts, capture scan of them and even find hidden haunted artifacts. Collecting things is a rather large part of the game, you’ll collect scans or ghosts and artifacts.

Here’s the next video of going to the Sedgewick:

During the game the PKE meter will be used a lot, and I mean a lot, on screen will be cues to tell you to pull out the PKE meter to find the ghost, and the cues will also tell you to pull out the PKE meter if there’s something of interest nearby. Many times during the game you’ll have to use the PKE meter to navigate with, you’ll use it to find the ghost you’re chasing, it can get annoying at times and you’ll find yourself going in circles as well.

The Proton pack features prominently of course in the game, but as you progress you get upgrades to the pack like a Meson Collider or Slime pack, each of the different types have two shooting modes as well. While playing you can also purchase upgrades for your pack, the PKE meter and your traps, like fast trapping or a better cooling system for your proton pack.

Ghostbusters is a lot of fun and whether you’re a fan or not I think you’ll enjoy the game, but it’s not without it’s drawbacks. It can be repetitious, you’ll find yourself running up and down hallways many times, sort of roaming around aimlessly, but a lot of the game is spent walking through hallways and corridors tracking down ghosts.

The A.I. can be rather stupid at times, you’re supposed to be a team, and work together but there are times when you’ve got to wonder where they are and why they aren’t helping you.

One, I guess, good thing about the game is that you basically cannot die, I played all the way through and truly died only once, this is because of reviving, your teammates can come and revive you if you are down. This can be a good thing and a bad thing as it works both ways, you’ll need to revive them when they’re down as well, they might not be the brightest teammates but you’ll need them to complete the game, and even on casual you’ll spend a bit of time reviving them. When you move up to a harder difficulty level expect to spend a lot more time reviving your teammates, it can get annoying at how often they fall down.

There’s not too much replay value to the single player part of the game, unless you want to go back and try and collect everything, but there is a an online part as well that can add a bit to the overall value.

We put up an article over the weekend about Xbox Live achievements, and the ones in Ghostbusters are fairly easy, one pass through the game, without even collecting everything, will net you about half of them easily. You can get 5 points for just sliding down the pole in the Ghostbusters HQ, but I’m sure this was put in the game as a tribute to the original movie, and it’s fun of course…

Conclusion:
Ghostbusters is an above average game that is fun to play and will bring back a lot of memories for many of us, while it’s not perfect it’s still a good game that I can recommend you picking up. Whether you’re a fan or not it’s worth a play through a time or two. It does have it’s bad moments of course but the good outweighs the bad really.

Pros:
+Funny and fun to play
+Fairly easy achievements
+Gives a feeling of being a Ghostbuster
+True to the series of movies

Cons:
-Can get annoying at times
-Not much single player replay value
-A.I. isn’t the smartest
-Lots of repetition

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Ghostbusters Review Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Role playing or RPG games have always been one of my favorite types of games, all the way back to my Commodore days. One of the things I like about them was the time it took to finish them, you could easily spend 40, 50 or more hours just playing one game. It’s games like this that really feel like you get value for your money if they’re done right. Today for review I’ve got Star Ocean The Last Hope, an excellent role playing from the folks over at Square Enix and tri-Ace.

First up here’s the box shots, when I first opened the case for this game I was pleasantly surprised to see three discs in the box, I knew I was in for a long adventure here.

We’ll start this off with movies, first up is the three minute intro to the game, a great cinematic showing the events leading up to the game, essentially world war 3.

Next up I’ve got a quick video of the menus, you’ll find the basic stuff here with controller settings etc. Included on the main menu is the battle simulator, here you can learn the basic fighting techniques to defeat your foes, and basically how to fight.

Specifications:

Star Ocean The Last Hope

The year is A.D. 2087. In the aftermath of World War III, Earth has been ravaged and the population decimated by a deteriorating environment. The countries that survived have joined together to form the Greater Unified Nations and turned their eyes skyward… to space.

Edge Maverick and his childhood friend Reimi Saionji are chosen as pioneer members of the Space Reconnaissance Force, which was created to seek out new worlds beyond the stars. Their ship, the Calnus, takes its place on the lunar launch pad along with four other starships of the first reconnaissance fleet. These ships – humanity’s last hope – blast off one-by-one and sail into the awaiting wormhole that leads to the vast star ocean.

And so, Edge and his crew begin their voyage in search of a new haven for humanity… and a second chance.

FEATURES:
– Combines sci-fi and fantasy elements, spanning multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the STAR OCEAN universe
– Item creation and Private Actions, two hallmarks of the STAR OCEAN franchise, also make their return, allowing for players to enjoy upgraded versions of both systems
– Exhilarating combat expands upon the franchise’s dynamic real-time battle system, now featuring amazing graphics and visual effects only possible on Xbox 360
– Up to four characters can take part in battles simultaneously and party members can be switched mid-battle
– New Blindside battle system fuses evasion and offense, enabling players to confuse and ambush enemies by quickly moving out of their line of sight when targeted
– Freely pilot the Calnus spaceship for the first time in the series and journey to various planets of the STAR OCEAN universe
– Features breathtaking CG movies by Visual Works, the cutting-edge studio whose previous work includes cutscenes for the acclaimed FINAL FANTASY series

Star Ocean The Last Hope takes you across several worlds in your quest to save the universe.

Battle can be frantic at times with everything becoming a blur at points with all of the magic in use, there is an in battle menu as well where you have access to potions for healing etc if need be. (don’t go full screen with the video, not sure what happened to it, Viddler’s encoding did something to the quality)

The fighting system is an active style, where you can control any of the characters yourself, it works much better than telling them to do something and sitting back to watch the outcome. It really makes the game much more fun and exciting.

Once you get farther into the game you’ll acquire more characters that you can swap out if you wish, you can only have four in the main fighting party at the same time. Each one of course has their specialities, strengths and weaknesses which can help of hinder the party.

Each character has the ability to use certain types of magic, and you’ll learn more as you level up. You can also combine certain types of magic to create chaining combos for a higher amount of damage.

You characters can also ‘blindside’ opponents, this is essentially hitting them when they’re not looking, doing this at the right time can produce devastating amounts of damage, and for some bosses you’ll have to do this to defeat them, so it’s a must that you learn how to do it correctly.

When battling as well you have a bonus board that can fill up to allow large amounts of various bonus points for your characters, but this bonus board can be broken while fighting and you’ll have to start all over.

You can only control one character at a time while fighting, through the menu though you can go in and set the battle skills and tactics of the other characters to make sure their fighting to their fullest. This can work well for many thing, you can have three of them fighting all out and have one just healing your characters, for boss battles at times this is a must.

At the end of each battle you’ll get experience points,  money and maybe even find something special as well and possibly even level up.

I found one of the reasons for having three discs is that there are tons of cutscenes, some of which are several minutes long, while they are interesting, and you learn about what’s going on, they can get tedious, and the acting is pretty bad at times. The characters and their voices can be annoying.

Star Ocean The last Hope took me a little over 50 hours to complete, and that was on the first or easy level. Once you complete the game you can play through again on the harder level, but I don’t se any point to it as you’ve seen it all before, it would have ben nice to be able to select the difficulty levels from the beginning.

Like any other RPG game the main goal to succeed is to get your characters level and attributes higher so you can continue on. I found myself fighting a boss and being beaten very quickly, only having to go back to the last saved point and roam around the world to get my characters levels higher so I could defeat the boss.

Speaking of save points, there are not many spread across the game really, you’ll find yourself re-doing large sections at times if you died before finding the save point.

One of the interesting things about Star Ocean is the item creation system, here you can create new things, just the name suggests. You can invent things or find recipes for items in your travels. The ingredients though can be hard to find, you can mine for them or just find them as a treasure after a battle and you can just buy them as well.

Items at times can be expensive in Star Ocean, though I never really found myself without enough money to buy what I needed, once you get playing you’ll find you collect money very quickly.

Overall Star Ocean is a great game that can provide hours and hours of RPG fun.

Conclusion:

Like all RPG type games, Star Ocean can take a long time to finish and that’s part of its charm really. While it’s not perfect, its an excellent addition to you Xbox collection of games, that is if you like these types of games and have the time to commit to them. The graphics are great, and the fighting system works well, it really makes you fell like you’re in the game, I like the active style system instead of sitting there and watching what happens after you tell the characters to do something.

Pros:
+Great graphics
+Good story
+Long game
+Fun to play

Cons:
-Too much to do at times
-Goofy dialogue at times
-Annoying characters

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Star Ocean The Last Hope Xbox360 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I’m a metal head, a head banger, and I’m a geek… there was a time that combination was something to be frowned upon and we were made fun of, but not anymore. In this technological age we’re in now, geeks rule, there’s no doubt about it. If it wasn’t for us geeks we wouldn’t have the things we have now, we make the world go around. Geeks have become the new jocks, the new stars, the in-thing, people now are proud to wear the moniker of geek.

The Guitar Hero series is wildly popular, there’s no doubting that, it gives the user a chance to be a guitar god, or hero. The main reasons for the success of this series is because it’s fun and the of course the music, everyone loves music. Guitar Hero has evolved into something that everyone can enjoy, young and old alike, I’m old and I love it, there’s nothing like turning up the volume and jamming on the plastic axe. Sure it’s not a real guitar, it’s a game plain and simple, but it’s something that is immensely fun and enjoyable, a way of escaping the stress and rigors of daily life, a way to get away and relax.

The Guitar Hero series has spun off to feature music from specific bands, the first being Aerosmith, and now we have Metallica, arguably one of the greatest metal bands of all time. I find it amazing that they have become so popular, I remember a time when listening to music like this wasn’t the ‘in’ thing to do, if you listened to metal you were something of an outcast. Now though it’s basically mainstream, it’s become something that everyone listens to, it’s out in the open as it were.

Guitar Hero Metallica is the latest entry in the Guitar Hero series, and the best in my opinion, but I’m a bit biased as I’ve always been a Metallica fan. In fact as I write this I’ve got my Zune program open listening to Ride the Lightning. GH Metallica is an excellent game that really feels like Metallica had a hand in creating it, from the track list, the the graphics, it’s metal all around. The backgrounds are just awesome, in true metal style, and the music is a collection of tracks handpicked by Metallica, their own and music from other bands that they like and have influenced them.

The packaging for GH Metallica isn’t bad, though I would have went another way with it… The back does have a track list of the Metallica tracks and the others that are included.

For the most part I like the track list, though a few I might have not included, and I would have included more Metallica. It was nice to see Suicidal Tendencies on there though, that brings back quite a few memories of my errant youth.. it would have been nice to see more hardcore metal stuff on there though, I was expecting a bit more of a metal theme all over, but as is it works well.

There is a small story in the game as well, you’re ‘tallica Jr a metal band that’s trying to make it big time, but it doesn’t really get much involved with that.

Here’s the intro video for you to check out:

I love the graphics and features, you’ll find some cool stuff in the game including videos, lyrics and quite a few extras. You can go head to head on Xbox live, play around in the music studio, there’s a career mode and quickplay option as well. You can also select the backstage option to see all of the extras and of course you can customize or create your own character like other GH games. Backstage and concert footage is very cool to watch, and there’s many stills as well to be found in the extras.

Here’s a brief video of the menus:

Specifications:

Guitar Hero Metallica

Guitar Hero Metallica brings you 49 explosive hits from Metallica’s illustrious career and a wide variety of other legendary artists personally selected by the band.

Experience full on Metallica by playing as the band with their actual motion captured moves and likeness, representing the full presence and intensity of James, Lars, Kirk, and Robert. Take the stage in some of the world’s most amazing and epic venues featuring famous Metallica stages and iconic imagery. Of course, all tracks and content are “Metallica approved”. Featuring over 20 bands personally chosen by Metallica including Queen, Alice in Chains, Slayer, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Foo Fighters, Guitar Hero Metallica lets you jam to a wide variety of high energy rock for Guitar Hero. Go beyond the music of Metallica to bands they have collaborated with, as well, as music that inspires them

and here’s another video for you, it’s just gameplay, and yes it’s on easy, I don’t have time to practice for hours and hours to get to expert..

The point of the video is to show the gameplay, and the graphics. The renderings of Metallica are decent, they’re done is a comical style of course, but they’re not bad overall. The background vary from place to place, and most are very much Metallica themed and look cool

Playing GH Metallica is basically the same as the other Guitar Hero games, you’ve got the meter, star power, and stars to gauge your performance. As you play you unlock more venues, songs, features and characters, so no real surprises there. GH Metallica doesn’t bring anything new to the Guitar Hero franchise in terms of gameplay, the basis is the same. It’s basically just a re-skinned version of the other Guitar Hero games, but that’s not a bad thing, it brings something new and refreshing to the series. It’s a nice addition to the series, and it’s nice to see Metallica getting some good publicity here, overall it does have the Metallica feeling to it.

It does seem short though, there doesn’t seem to be as many songs as World Tour has, but it’s focused on Metallica so that’s the way it should be.

Conclusion:
Overall Guitar Hero Metallica is all that and more really, sure it’s just Guitar Hero, but it’s also Metallica, if you’re a metalhead you’ll love this version of Guitar Hero more than others I’m sure.

GH Metallica is a worthy addition to your collection of games.

Pros:
+Metallica
+Great graphics
+Lots of cool extras
+Good track list

Cons:
-Just a reskinned Guitar Hero game
-Brings nothing new to gameplay

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Guitar Hero Metallica Xbox360 – Bang your head! is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

"Cute chick kills monsters while wearing a thong" – That about sums up this game. Seriously though X-Blades is a hack and slash style game that brings back memories of games from my youth, which isn’t a bad thing, though some are bad memories. Hack and slash style games are really few and far between these days, most games involve a deep story with character development and the creators want you to be immersed in the story, but not X-Blades. This game is fun, plain and simple and it gets us back to the basics. Don’t expect some involved, complex storyline here, just expect to hack you way through thousands of monsters using dual gunblades, magic and wearing not much but a thong.

The main character in X-Blades is Ayumi, a cute petite blond, that’s essentially a female Indiana Jones or Lara Croft style character. She’s a treasure hunter or grave robber, whichever the case may be and whichever nets her the most money.

X-Blades is done in true anime style, so Ayumi is cute, bubbly, kinda goofy and not wearing much in terms of clothing. Her character shows as much skin as possible, her armor is virtually non-existent, which I still have yet to figure out why female fighters wear next to nothing but yet survive attacks from creatures ten times their size. Scratch that, I know why, cause sex sells…

Don’t get me wrong, X-Blades might not sound that great, but it is fun, in a mindless hack and slash kind of way. Sometimes simple is better and can be lots of fun. In reality though, X-Blades is a pretty bad game, it’s an idea that might have worked well had a little bit more thought went into creating it, it seems like an attempt to copy several other games and combine their good parts into one game. Gunblades anyone, where do we know that from? Cute, shapely, female adventurer wearing not much clothing, where’s that from? X-Blades is just bland, plain and simple.

Here’s the box shots:

Specifications:

X-Blades

Long, long ago, in an age that only the gods can now remember, the universe was ruled by two powerful beings that were revered and worshipped by all races – but the ‘brotherly’ relationship between these two creatures was always in question from the beginning of time, simply because no one knew who the real number 1 was. While the Enlightened was on the side of good, helping his people how and when he could, the Dark One was quite the opposite, full of hate and devilish works – and so the never-ending battle between the Enlightened and the Dark One persisted for centuries. Humans suffered terribly thanks to this constant combat between the two – combat which shook the universe to its very core. Finally, thanks to a trick, the Enlightened succeeded in banishing the divine power of the Dark One, imprisoning it in an Artifact – but in doing so, the Enlightened lost his own divine powers, because the two divine beings were inseparably linked to one another. This is how two Artifacts came to be hidden in a huge Temple – and how the Enlightened prevented the downfall of the entire universe. However, these two artifacts contain total, absolute power – both good and evil. Any human being who comes in contact with the powerful stones will be horribly cursed – and the power of darkness will once again be awakened.

The game begins when a map which has been lost for countless years suddenly turns up – and it shows the location of the artifacts. The adventurer Ayumi starts searching for the immensely valuable stones. Powerful forces against which she is helpless threaten to awake in her body. Now it’s up to her to discover what the secret of the curse is – and at last defeat the darkness.

GAME FEATURES:
* Absorbing fantasy story with spectacular landscapes and figures
* Attractive heroine in Anime style
* Learn to play easily – wide range of development possibilities
* Special mode for a heroine with demonic forces
* Innovative Blade Gun for firing projectiles and for close combat
* Role-playing elements to improve skills and enhance weapons
* Over 20 types of magic in different classes
* Around 40 different scenarios (Indoor and Outdoor)
* Alternative endings, depending on player’s actions
* Hidden Power-ups hook players to explore levels
* Over 30 different classes of opponent
* Powerful Boss opponents with fantastic design
* Cinematic stylistic devices like Bullet-Time
* Various difficulty levels – from Beginner to Pro

For the majority of X-Blades you spend the game staring at Ayumi from behind, sure the view is ‘interesting’ at first but it gets old quickly. I’m thinking that’s the only reason this game really got the ‘M’ rating, other than that it’s basically killing fictional monsters which I can’t see deserving that rating. I’m thinking Gaijin and SouthPeak were going for controversy or the ’sex sells’ angle here with this game. Personally I would have opted for more clothing in favor of a better storyline, and gameplay. X-Blades is your basic good vs. evil, and in that aspect it works, but still it’s the premise of many games out there today.

One of the many complaints I have is that X-Blades is a keep moving forward style game, it might have ben a bit more interesting with open worlds. Another would be that most of the time if you re-visit and area you already completed, the enemies are back, including the bosses, so you’ve got to fight them all over again, gets annoying quickly. It’s very repetitive and that can get old very quickly.

The camera, for the most part works, but at times it gets stuck at odd angles and behind things so you can’t see your character and you end up getting killed because of it.

Actual gameplay consists of basic hack and slash, just keep shooting with your gunblades, or Blade Guns as they call them, and slashing away at anything that moves and hope for the best. Eventually you end up with the ability to use magic, and the effects aren’t bad for the spells, but eye-candy does not make a good game.

While playing you’ll learn that only certain spells work against certain bosses, or mini-bosses, luckily though the game tells you what you need to defeat the monster. The system basically works on the elements, ice based monsters can be defeated by fire, light against dark etc

In the end X-Blades is worth playing to kill some time and not really have to think about doing much, but I wouldn’t pay full price for it, get it used or in the bargain bin or rent it.

To finish this off, and for what it’s worth, I’ve got a few movies for you as well

Here’s the intro that sort of tells you the story behind the game, but not really..

and here’s the menus:

and finally here’s just some gameplay:

Seems like a lot of stuff to do with all these screenshots and videos for a less than mediocre game, but oh well, it’s part of the job…

Conclusion:
To quote Monty Python: "Run Away!"

Seriously though X-Blades isn’t worth your money at full cost, might be worth a rental for some mindless hack and slash fun, but that’s about it.

X-Blades just can’t compete with the games it tried to copy, it seems to try to be creative but fails miserably at it, especially when you blatantly copy things from other games.

Pros:
+Cute girl running around in a thong

Cons:
-Seems to copy many other games
-Repetitiveness that gets old quickly
-Gameplay is not that great
-Funky camera angles that can results in death
-Game just gets old quickly
-Mindless and continuous hack and slash

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

X-Blades Xbox360 Review – Cute chick kills monsters while wearing a thong is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog