Shadow Complex Review

We just posted a review of what could possibly be the retail game of the year, Batman, but now a review of the Xbox Live Arcade game of the year contender Shadow Complex? Amazing back to back reviews of potential games of the year.

Lets get to it. We will start with the graphics. This game will rival any full retail game when it comes to visuals. Shadow Complex is running on the Unreal Engine 3 and you can tell as soon as you load the game. Typically side scrolling games, which Shadow Complex definitely is, scrimp on the graphics. Not here, in this maze of rooms, full 3D sensations will get you to try and navigate your character up. No matter how many times you try, he will just not walk back to that kick ass looking robot, or brightly lit office. You can only move side to side. This game will win awards for its graphics. Moving side to side leads to the controls.

The controls are tight and responsive. Which is exactly what you need to navigate the tricky passages of the subterranean lair. Your character does level up throughout the campaign, which should make RPG players happy. No, you do not get to specifically level up attributes, but instead everything levels at the same time as you discover them. You can jump, and later in the game double jump. Running will also be upgraded to what can only be describes as screaming fast. You will run so fast, that Jesus will look twice. Yes you can run over water in Shadow Complex. As you progress your character will ultimately be able to go anywhere you wish, if your talented enough with the sticks. Slightly related to controls are the guns. Your main weapon will also be upgraded as you progress through the game. That is until you have a bad ass weapon capable of taking down the screen filling bosses. In the beginning all you have is a flashlight. The weapon you end up with is significantly more serious. That is if you devote the time to search down every upgrade hidden within the map.

The story line is loosely based upon a story penned by Mormon Sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card. The story is interesting and helps progress the game from beginning to end. If you chose to play through a second time in an attempt to locate every powerup, you can skip through the cut scenes. What helps the story is excellent voice over work, done by Nolan North, mostly known for his work in the Uncharted series. The over the top action of this game, just keeps you playing. The campaign will take a solid 6-8 hours to play through. Expect to double that time, if you chose to hunt down all those powerups. You will want to upgrade your health, armor, stamina, and weapon if you expect to take down the final boss. There are separate challenges that will take you another 2-4 hours to complete. With 4 different difficulty settings, you can also tailor the game to your playing style.

A single play through should yield you 170 of the 200 available G's. The achievements are perfect for this type of game. They are simple, and easily obtained without even knowing your working towards them. For the accumulation achievements, 100 screamers for example, are tracked both in the menu screen, and during game play with simple pop ups. This also helps drive you to keep exploring the map and finding hidden areas. There are a bunch of them, and if you are into 100% completion, this game will make you work for it.

Map borrowed from our friends at MTV Multiplayer.

If you tend to like side scrolling games of past system, think Metroid or Contra, you will love this game. With a price tag of $15, there is no reason not to buy this game. It was released just a few weeks ago, during Xbox's summer of fun. But do not think the game developers over at Chair have left this game behind. DLC is on the way!! While they are very hush, hush about what type of DLC it could be, I am very excited that they are still building upon this solid foundation.

Review by the numbers:

Graphics 10 out of 10

Controls 8 out of 10

Story 8 out of 10

Value for your money 10 out of 10

Achievement ease 9 out of 10

Overall 8.9 out of 10

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Achievements: 6/10
There are two ways that you can go about playing Batman and your decision will determine how successful you will be in unlocking the achievements. If you were to quickly play through the storyline you are inline to get about 400 G’s. However, there are 240 of Riddler’s Challenges that you will be given the option of solving. There are achievements associated with the challenges and if you are able to solve different percentages of them you will unlock achievements. Aside from the story Batman has combat challenges, such as beating a number of asylum inmates while scoring a predetermined amount of points. These challenges will earn a minimal amount of G’s depending on how successful you are.

Review: 9/10
Can I say game of the year? Alright, Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in August of 2009, which has been a relatively weak year for Xbox 360 releases (feel free to bash or agree with my opinion), so I don’t feel that my comment is outlandish. Even during a year of highly touted releases Batman would still be included in a ‘best of’ list. There are just too many positives in the game for it not to be considered a top game of 2009.

The story starts out with Batman personally escorting the Joker to Arkham Asylum. As always Joker is overly confident and Batman questions the ease in which Joker was apprehended. We learn before any real game play that Joker had an ace up his sleeve and quickly switches his role as the inmate to the warden. As a detective Batman has to figure out how Joker was able to escape, how to recapture him and ultimately what is the purpose of his scheme. Along the way we run into other super villains like Bain, Scarecrow, Killer Croc and Poison Ivy among others. It must have been a quiet time in Gotham with all these villains locked up.

The background and graphics looked amazing! The entire game is contained in Arkham Asylum, which is located on a small island, so the various buildings on the island house the main missions. The gothic architecture of the buildings is seen in great detail and while walking the halls within the buildings colors just pop catching your eye. Even small details made a lasting impression on me. For example, as the game went on Batman’s suit became more tattered or he grew a five o’clock shadow.

By now I imagine you are tired of hearing about the scenery and story and want to know about the actual game. Understandably, it is a game after all and it was glorious! Seriously, there was a good mix of action. While moving through the different levels you will come across different groups of inmates that you will have to battle. If the inmates are not armed you can rush in and just beat the snot out of them. In some ways this type of combat could be considered button mashing, but if you slow down and hit the buttons in a rhythm you are able to generate combat chains, making the fights more enjoyable and in the process unlock a couple achievements.

If the inmates are armed you will not be able to rush in and just fight. Let’s be real; Batman does wear armor, but it is not invulnerable. Combat with armed inmates was more of a challenge, but it was what I looked forward to, because you were able to use all of Batman’s wonderful toys. You had to take the inmates down while being stealthy, so you had to hide in the ceiling on gargoyles, in the air vents, or even just around corners to take down each inmate individually, since normal combat would make too much noise drawing the attention of the others. You could stun the inmates with your bat-a-rang, string them up with the grapple hook and even set a trap with explosive gel. I waited until I beat the story to participate in the combat challenges, but in hindsight I should have played them earlier to learn moves that I didn’t know even existed.

Even the Riddler challenges had variety to them with some of them being as simple as finding a question mark statue, or evening solving actual riddles related to Batman characters. There was a detective mode that allowed Batman to see structural weaknesses in the walls and take snap snots, which aided in solving the riddles. While in the detective mode you could easily see if the inmates were armed or not, so you knew how to approach the battle. There was one other type of Riddler challenge that I will not go into detail about; once I figured it out it was such an ‘eureka’ moment that I hope others are able to experience.

With the different combat techniques I never got a feeling of monotony during game play and to incorporate the Riddler’s challenges there was a constant mix of things I could do. Each battle and Riddler challenge completed earned Batman some experience points, which would be used to unlock new skills or attributes like better armor, an additional bat-a-rang, etc. If the combat vs. stealth is not enough of a difference there were a few encounters with the Scarecrow that will surely leave an impression. I can’t believe how scary the Scarecrow was in the game!

There was so much done right in Batman: Arkham Asylum that I really don’t have much to complain about; great story, great look and great controls. The encounter with Killer Croc was rather anti-climatic, but it by no means took anything away from the game. If you plan on attacking the game paying no heed to Riddler’s challenges then you should be able to beat Arkham Asylum within a rental period. However, if the Riddler & combat challenges sound interesting, purchasing Batman new or used is well worth the investment, especially with reports of free downloadable content coming soon.

Avatar Golf Review

Wanted to get the word out quick about this new Indie game. Just released on Saturday, Sept. 5th, Avatar Golf is a easy to play golf game. Simple controls allow anyone to play this game. Your online Avatar is your golfer of choice. You can edit the color, but not the attributes of the player. Think Tiger Woods, but your the main golfer. I played 2 rounds and it was very fun. You can customize the weather, time of day, and some physics. I don't want to spoil it for you. For the required 400 Microsoft Points, you get a local multiplayer mode, a online multiplayer mode, and a course editor. I have yet to check that feature out. So you get your money's worth on this title. The graphics are awesome, and surprising for the price. The game does have some Avatar expressions that are pretty standard. Overall there are 6 courses with 18 holes each. 8 player online capabilities.

So what is the catch? OK, no achievements. Take a deep breath. You will get no G's for playing this game. What the game does offer is unlockable "titles". They are titles you can assign to your avatar. They pop up just like achievements. The only other negative I thought was the music. Very repetitive and it got on my nerves by the third hole. However, they do have a custom music feature and you can stream music from your hard drive or network connected computer. That is a pretty awesome feature. Go download this game now, so I will have someone to play online.

Thanks for reading.

Rock Band Unwrapped

Ever wanted to know what the inside of a wireless Harmonix Rock Band 2 fender stratocaster guitar looked like? Yeah me to, so when I got my hands on a broken one, I went to work. I was surprised to find that all you needed was a simple Phillips head screw driver. Below in order is what I found. Enjoy.

I decided to attack the front plate first.

I quickly discovered a small dilemma. The tiny cone shaped feedback controller was holding the face plate on the front of the guitar. I decided to turn my attention to the back of the guitar.

Only 14 screws held the guitar together. After removing those screws, you were forced to pull a few glued wires for the inside of the case. At this point the guitar could still be put back together and used. If it actually worked.

And the back view.

After the main case was dismantled, I turned my attention to what would be the most difficult part to dissect. The long neck of the guitar had only 6 visible screws to simple undo.
Hidden in the head of the neck was this little sheet metal connector. It provided a very sturdy support system. At this point, I still believe I could put the guitar back together.
After I popped that sucker out, the neck still wouldn't come apart. Something was keeping it together and there was very little give in the plastic.
In the picture below you can see a broken screw. It was hidden under the blue or red neck key. I probably should have looked, but I finally had a point of no return. I was now obligated to finish the dismantling of the guitar. At this point the guitar is broken and can not be put back together.

Here is an before shot of the remaining wires and gizmo's still attached to the plastic.

A few more twists of the screwdriver and presto. A empty case.
Here are the final pictures of the process. A pretty big mess.

A final overall view of the remaining plastic. All screws will be recycled. Plastics will be disposed of properly.

Special thanks to AlmostFamous24 for providing the guitar. Stay tuned for an upcoming sequel......20 Gig hard drive unwrapped?

Thanks for reading.

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Rating: 6/10

Achievements: 9/10
If you are looking to boost your gamerscore I would suggest throwing Viking: Battle for Asgard in the Xbox. In the first three hours you should be able to earn approximately 350 G’s. Going forward the achievement’s are unlocked at a slower pace, but still come quickly enough. The majority of the achievements are unlocked simply by playing through the story. If you complete the story on the normal difficulty go back and complete it again on hard for a few more G’s.

Review:
What a mindless game and that’s no knock on Viking as this is a hack & slash title in its purest form. The story is serviceable enough to keep you interested and willing to pay attention to the cut scenes. We are introduced to the game with an army of demon warriors, led by the Goddess of Death Hel, attacking the Viking territory of Asgard. We initially see our main character, Skarin, crawl from the battlefield with fatal wounds, but is later resurrected by the Goddess of Light Freya, to free the Viking homeland and build an army large enough to take on Hel herself.There are three land masses that are unlocked as the story progresses, but all of the quests are basically the same. Free the lumber mill and rescue the prisoners. Repeat at the farm and the distillery, etc. There are a couple of side quests inserted along the way to lighten the monotony, but it is all pretty much the same for each region. Interesting enough for a game where you basically hack and slash all the enemies to death there are a couple of missions that stealth is stressed. I originally tried the stealth route, but bumbling Skarin always blew his cover, so I ended up just killing everybody in sight. I’m not going to lie; it was fun.

So now that we have the story down let’s get into the actual game play. The graphics are decent, but nothing special. However, when battling an enemy there is a finishing move that slows the action down and we see the bloodshed more clearly. During battle you can hit A for a weak quick attack, X for a strong slow attack. Each stage has a Battle Arena where you can unlock combination attacks; go there early an often. You can also press the Y button to dodge an attack, but you will most likely only need to take evasive action when fighting a Demon Champion or Giant, which is surprisingly rare. Oh, and that finishing move that I mentioned earlier…it’s the X button. Don’t worry; the controls aren’t as confusing as they sound. I hope you are picking up on the sarcasm. I almost forgot about the charged attack that can be used once you upgrade your sword. I forgot, because this option could have been much more exciting to use since it had some flaws. You have the choice between upgrading your sword by infusing it with lighting, fire & ice powers. As you massacre demon warriors some will leave red orbs that you can collect and charge a special attack meter. Once the desired amount of orbs have been collected the special attack can be initiated by hitting the right bumper (RB) and then either X, Y, or B. Again, real complicated, but here is where the special attack came up short. Once the special attack is initiated you can not turn it off until your attack meter runs dry even if all the enemies are now nothing but discarded limbs. Also, it takes longer to charge the meter than it should. My advice is to save the special attack until the final battle on each stage and once initiated your special attack will also power up your allies in battle as well. It was enjoyable & beneficial to use, but just couldn't be used enough.

The music is about as exciting as the controls, so you may want to turn on some background noise. Maybe a stereo, baseball game, or even a washer & dryer would work out well. Who says people who play video games aren’t productive? There were portions of Viking where I was roaming the countryside with no music at all and the sound effects of Skarin thumping through the grassy plains made me want to grab a pint of the delicious mead that Skarin would find while traversing the Viking lands. Oh wait; I wouldn’t know how the mead tasted, because our hero never got to drink any of it. We would find the stuff and then sell it to the local inn, but whenever we wanted some the Inn Keeper was conveniently sold out. Isn’t that a kick in the stones…

Even though the game did not require much brain power or have complex & exciting controls I still enjoyed myself. After I learned enough combination moves I even started talking trash to some of the demon warriors as I decapitated them, or chopped both their arms off. That may say something about me, but I am not going to dwell on it. Viking is a fairly short game, but it took me a bit longer than a rental period to beat the game, but what’s a dollar restocking fee for returning it late anyway? I also have seen this game at a local retailer that has a target for marketing purposes (figure it out) priced at $29.99. Both options are a fair price and worth checking out.

Blue Dragon

Blue Dragon

Rating: 6/10 (plus or minus 1…I’ll explain)

Achievements: 1/10
Why did I spend so much time on a measly 165 gamerpoints? You read that correctly, only 165 G’s were unlocked during my 50+ hours of game play. There is no rhyme or reason for what is considered an achievement in Blue Dragon. There are many bosses that you will encounter on your long journey, but no achievements will be gained by defeating the bosses, including the final boss. I am getting frustrated just thinking about the fact that I didn’t get any G’s for completing the game. However, I did earn 30 G’s for killing the rare Golden Poo Snake…that’s right Poo…I’ll explain. Let’s just move on; if you’re looking for achievements, don’t play this game.

Review:
I always seem to navigate towards RPG’s, whether it’s a turn based title such as Blue Dragon & Lost Odyssey, or what I guess are being called American RPG’s like Fallout 3 & Mass Effect. Blue Dragon was recommended to me (see previous post: Do You Have a Gamestop Story, 03/16/09), so I thought I would give it a shot.

If you are not familiar with the turn based RPG genre you may already be confused by what you are reading. These types of games are very technical and you have to be very diligent in managing your party. Usually there is a group of people who stay with the main character and everybody has a specific role, such as providing white magic for healing, black magic for powerful attacks and others who don’t utilize much magic, but have very powerful melee attacks. Each character needs to be equipped with different accessories that you find throughout the game, which should increase some aspect of their role like attack, magic, defense, etc. The battles may also take a little while to get used to, since each character attacks or heals in a designated order. This is a far departure from a hack & slash title where you just press a button and hope for the best; very numbers oriented.

This quick explanation was given, because if the above description sounds interesting to a person who has never played a turn based RPG then this game may be a good title to get introduced to the genre. Blue Dragon introduced new areas & controls slowly, giving a detailed description. At no point did I ever feel overwhelmed with the controls or menu options. The one item that was not explained very well was the different skill types each character could develop. I realized too late that the ‘generalist’ skill was the most powerful and versatile; suggest having the character Maromaru designated as the Generalist.

I have to believe that the developers created Blue Dragon with the intention of luring a new audience to RPG’s with the detailed tutorials. However, the story was very childish and would appeal to an audience who would be too young to play this type of game. An enemy that is encountered many times throughout the game is a Poo Snake, which is basically a snake that looks like a pile of poo. Besides the fecal matter the majority of the enemies fought throughout the game look like something you would see in a Japanese version of Toy Story, consisting of many windup robots. I guess the maturity of the story & its characters should have been expected as the main character is a young boy accompanied by his friends who are all trying to harness a magical power and in doing so the kids take on Nene, a powerful sorcerer who is trying to rule the world with ancient magical robots. Really...a robot that looks like a tin soldier? Come on…now Mega Maid, that was a real evil machine.

Completing the main story is fairly easy and straightforward, if you are willing to spend the time on it, but there are a few optional side quests, which have bosses of their own. Besides the terrible story the optional bosses frustrated me the most. It’s understood that these bosses are optional, but there is no reason that any enemy in a game should be more powerful than the final boss. In my saved game I beat the final boss with my main character at a level 80 out of a possible 99 levels and I am still not able to beat any of the five optional dragons that are hidden throughout the game. This set of dragons really doesn’t even have a purpose in the game and if they do it’s so insignificant that I have already forgotten. That may seem strange with the name being Blue Dragon.

Anyway, my original rating of this game was a 6, plus or minus 1. If you are a young child who has a desire to get into RPG’s this game & story may be perfect for you. However, if your reading this than you are probably too old for the game. Either way you look at it you should be able to find this game new or used for $10.00 – 20.00, so you will surely get your money worth with the amount of time needed to complete it.

Marvel or DC...which one are you?

No we are not talking comic books, not in this post at least. ComicCon 09 brings us a release date for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. UA2 is scheduled to hit the streets September 15th. Which puts the release only 2 weeks after Batman : Arkham Asylum. BAA is scheduled to be released August 25th. So this begs the question readers, are you going Marvel or DC? Batman offers a more single player experience, while UA2 offers a more team building effort.

Drop us a note in the comments to let us know how you swing, web or batwire?

Top 6 games from the first 6 months of 2009

Here are what I believe to be the top 6 games by release month of 2009. I did not included DLC or XBLA games in this list. Strictly XBOX 360 retail games were considered. Website review scores, number of sales to date, and my personal feeling for the games are what I took into account for judging these as the "top" games. So lets start it off with January, typically a great month to stay indoors and play all those great holiday release titles. Well a few did not make it in time. A very few.

January :
Top Game : Skate 2 runs away with this month. The only real competition was from Afro Samurai. High reviews and the months highest selling game made Skate 2 the top game of January. Personally have not played, but I know someone that has...does that count?

February :

Top Game : Street Fighter IV hands down. Amazing reviews and over a million units sold, make this fighter February's top game. February had some competition with the release of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection and Fear 2. The sales and reviews were just slightly lower for those 2 titles.

March :

Top game : Legends of WrestleMania. March was the first tough month. A group of very good games were released. Resident Evil 5 was the blockbuster game with mega sales of over 2 million. MLB2K9, TC Hawx, GH: Metallica, and Trivial pursuit were all highly reviewed. I played WWE and loved it. I also played RE5 and hated it. Seriously you still can't move AND shoot. I had to give it to WWE.

April :

Top Game: The Chronicles of Riddick, Assault on Dark Athena. Yet another top game of the month I have yet to play. This title was highly reviewed, but suffered from poor sales. The really only other title to consider was Godfather 2. It got poor reviews and its sales were not much better than CRADA. Velvet Assassin and Ninja Blade round out the bottom of the list of April releases.

May :

Top Game : May was a surprise for me. UFC 2009 Undisputed was this months clear winner. Very high reviews and over a million units sold put yet another fighting game over the top. This month was heavy with Movie tie in titles such as Wolverine and Terminator. While Wolverine was a solid game and Terminator was a joke, they both lacked sales. Bionic Commando and Battlestations Pacific round out this month's releases. A pretty good month overall.

June :

Top Game : Ghostbusters The Video Game takes June. June had fair share of highly reviewed big selling games. Ghostbusters, received middle of the road reviews and sales numbers. The top selling games were simply this years editions. Tiger Woods 10, Overlord 2, Virtua Tennis, Red Faction, and Fight Night are all new editions. I felt Ghostbusters brought some originality to the table and that is why it got the top spot of June. The previously mentioned games are all solid titles, that sold really well, but for a new experience try Ghostbusters. Call of Juarez, Prototype, and Fuel round out Junes releases.

So there you have the top 6 games so far this year. I have yet to play a lot of them, and this list will help decide the rest of my summer plans. Reviews were taken from the following sites : Teamxbox.com, Gamezone.com, and Xbox360achievements.org. Sales data was pulled from VGchartz.com.

Thanks for reading.

Game Diary.......finale...

Well here it is the series finale for the semi-daily game diary. The year long streak is complete. 360voice.com updated today and now officially shows 365 straight days. A year straight of powering on the xbox 360 night after night. So lets give a nod to Microsoft for sending me a pretty good quality refurbished machine after my first one got the red rings of death. Comcast also gets a thank you for providing me a high speed Internet connection for a year straight. Finally it all could not have been possible for 360voice.com and of course my friends.

The streak was celebrated with a late Friday night playing of 1 vs. 100. A sprinkle of drunken Rock Band 2 was also attempted. Saturday and Sunday both had me playing NBA2K9 and Fallout 3. I felt they got me this far, the least I could do was play them today.



This brings to a close the diary. The blog will return to it's normally unscheduled posts as usual. There might be a new feature up our sleeves. Stay tuned.. and as always thanks for reading.

Game Diary, Thursday's game play

Streak is sitting at 363 straight days. I extended tonight with a heavy dose of Arkadian Warriors. Actually Darth Slagus and myself finished the game and score ourselves 75 G's!! Arkadian warriors ranks up there with one of the best values for a XBLA game. I put a ton of hours into the game. Something like 10 different levels, but it felt like more. A huge selection of magic and weapons. A story line that is cheezy enough to make you laugh, but serious enough to make you want to finish it. Just a great game.

I also played some more Bully and 1 vs. 100. Starting this weekend, prizes will begin to roll out of 1 vs. 1oo. Yes I know they are still in Beta, but it clearly says Beta : Now with prizes, on the dashboard.

A year straight is now within my grasp, I still can't believe it. It sure doesn't feel like a year straight. I wonder what I have missed in the last year? Check back the next 2 days to see what I play to finish out my year. I am not going to lie to you...there will be some Fallout3 being played.

Thanks for reading

Game Diary, Wednesday's game play

To keep the streak alive, I dedicated most of Wednesday to Bully. I was able to get 95 G's out it. I am starting to like this game again. I guess what I most like about sandbox type games is the freedom to do whatever I like, whenever I like. During work today I listened to a podcast from 1-UP and they mentioned Bully and how the sound track was put together quite well. The in game music helps set the tone and mood for the scene. Tonight I did notice Bully excels at this, and in general ALL of Rockstar's games do this. GTA is a very heavily musically driven game. From the in car radio, to the back round music at the strip club, it is all well thought out.

I should mention this little blog I stumbled upon. http://trailerpark-boys.blogspot.com/ Check it out...you will like what you see.

Streak lives on at 362.

Thanks for reading.

Game Diary, catch up edition.

We are back with another check up addition. The holidays wreak havoc upon my Diary schedule. Well folks we are in the home stretch. 361 straight days. 4 more for a full year. I am getting nervously excited.

A recent influx of new games has kept the drive alive. AlmoustFamous24 has generously donated a handful of games. Halo Wars and RockStar Table Tennis are new. Fellow contributor Darth Slagus lent me Ghostbusters, so needless to say my plate is full. I am making a new push on a few fronts. First I need to finish Fallout3 so I can shake this addiction. I am also pushing for the Sandbox badge over at 360voice.com. For this badge, I have Bully to work through. It has been ever so slowly, slipping G's out. Finally I am involved in a 2 week challenge also at 360voice.com. I am currently in first, by a few hundred G's. I am not letting my guard down, as this weekend will have me away from the Xbox for extended periods of time.

I had the unfortunate displeasure of renting Overlord, which I mention previously. I grew tired of it and Overlord sits on the shelf. I should just take it back. I should be posting every night for these last 4 nights until I reach a year straight.

Question for the readers, "Do I stop my streak at 365 days exactly, or do I push to just see how long it will last?" Drop a note in the comments and help me decide!!

Thanks for reading

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Rating: 6/10

Achievements: 7/10
By completing the main story and checking out the online play you should be able to walk away with 450 – 550 gamerpoints. For each mission completed you receive 20 G’s with additional G’s coming from scanning artifacts & ghosts with your PKE meter…you do remember the PKE don’t you? Trapping ghosts with the various versions of the proton pack will also net you a few more achievements.

Review:
I don’t know anybody who was around during the eighties, child or adult, who was not a fan of the Ghostbusters. I had the Ghostbusters lunch box that obviously had the Hi-C Ecto Cooler. Heck, I even had the slimmer grape toothpaste…it sure tasted great, but not sure how well it cleaned the teeth. So you can imagine my excitement when I first heard that there was going to be a video game; that was three years ago. What made this even more intriguing was that the story was written by Harold Ramis & Dan Akroyd with all the original cast members coming back to lend their voices. Sorry all you Rick Moranis fans, he must have been too busy blowing up his kids.

I get the game home and throw it in the Xbox and instantly I have a big smile on my face when I hear the theme music. Bobby Brown tried, but just couldn’t beat the original. So I start my career as a rookie Ghostbuster tagging along with the original crew and the story starts off superbly. The characters are cracking jokes and the cut scenes look fantastic. Get used to the cut scenes, because there are a bunch of them. I haven’t tried, but you can go back and view all the scenes that you have unlocked in chronological order. This story could have been the third movie.

The game play looks sharp as well from the different characters, ghosts to the backgrounds. The proton pack and its various streams look as good as they did in the movies if not better. Speaking of the proton packs; you have three additional experimental streams that can be switched back & forth pretty easily. Well…that’s about it…Thanks for reading.

What, you say my praise of this magnificent franchise was short winded? Alright, alright, so I am a little biased since I was such a fan of the movies. I wanted this game to be so good, but in the end was disappointed. Watching the many cut scenes was entertaining, but I had to play the game to unlock each scene. The game play quickly became monotonous.

You start each level and walk a very linear path to the boss encounter. That doesn’t sound that bad, but the problem is there weren’t enough ghosts. The story can be completed in seven to nine hours and there is an achievement for capturing 20 ghosts and retrieving the traps…seriously, that’s all? The majority of the enemies that are encountered are small and weak, which can be killed easily with a charged proton shot. Don’t give me levels full of filler…I want to battle some ghosts and reel them into the trap like a giant marlin.

However, if the developers did include some additional ghosts to fight this would be a whole different complaint. During the boss battles your ghost busting partners were too busy lying on the ground waiting to be rescued to be of any assistance. I was so furious with the final boss, because I actually thought that I was doing more running around playing doctor than fighting. I seemed to finish each level more frustrated than having that sense of accomplishment.

As you are running through the levels be sure to blow up everything in your path as this is an effective way to earn cash that can be used to upgrade your different proton pack streams & PKE meter. This function made the levels entertaining and a great way to earn some G’s.

Once I completed the story I no longer have a desire to go back and play it through again on a harder difficulty…maybe just to clean up some achievements that I missed. The online play is where it’s at. Since you are not playing with the terrible AI the online players are actually helpful. And get this…you do nothing but capture ghosts.

Game Diary, Wednesday's game play

Quick one tonight. Streak lives on. Forged ahead in a little more Overlord. Finished the night up with Fallout3. Just about to launch Point Lookout. It should hold me over the long holiday weekend.

Thanks for reading

Game Diary, Tuesday's game play

Well Tuesday brought a new game to the table. Overlord, the first one, was rented and weakly played for about 30 minutes. A quick 30 G's kept me interested. It has a quirky funny dialogue that has me engaged for now. An interesting control scheme, is still giving me a little trouble. A particularly interesting health relationship with the minions you control. You can sacrifice them, for more health to you. A neat sort of risk and reward.

I found a strangely familiar destruction sequence, that reminded me an awful lot of Red Faction. Now Red Faction is supposed to be know for the physics tied to the destruction of the buildings in Red Faction. I tell you what, the physics that control the building destruction in Overlord, looked very very similar. Overlord is 2 years old. I just find it very strange. I did a quick search and could not find any connection with the games. They were developed by 2 different companies. With Code Masters and Triumph Studios handling Overlord and Volition with THQ handling Red Faction. I just find it odd. I will research more and report back if I find out why. Expect a full review later next week, after I log some more hours with the game.

I also played some Fallout 3, Arkadian Warriors, and 1 Vs. 100. Streak lives on at 353 straight days. We are getting close people!!

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Game Diary, catch up edition.

short catch up edition. First the streak lives on and we are currently sitting at 353 straight days. I have been playing a little more Red Faction, and have grown tired of it. So tired, I refuse to return it blockbuster. Fallout 3 has been consuming the majority of my time. Some new DLC was released and should hold me for the long haul. I will play Fallout3 until the year streak is obtained. I will sprinkle in some NBA2K9 and Tiger Woods 09 for some variety.
The diary should be back in full force tomorrow.

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Game Diary, Tuesday's game play

Quick one tonight. I played some more of this Red Faction. Starting to grow tired of the game already. It is basically Saints Row on Mars. I am disappointed. Sure the destruction thing is a cool new tweak, but it can't carry the whole game. Same old song and dance, drive to yellow marker, complete mission, jack car, drive to new yellow marker. Yawn.

So I fell back on a classic. Yup, played more Fallout3. A new DLC was released today, so you know I had to get it. Not quite ready to play it though. Looks really good. Creepy, dark, and a mysterious stranger with an Ax????

NBA2K9 got a spin as well. Still trying to get the Bulls the championship. The games knows they are not suppose to have it.

The streak lives on.

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Red Faction : Guerrilla

In place of the game diary, you get this post.

Want to know the best game you missed so far this year? Read on suckers. While you busy re-hashing old 80's movie into a semi playable video game, the good people over at THQ and Volition bring you a great re-make of a 90's video game. Originally released on the Ps2 Red Faction pops on the 360. But what is it? I was thinking the same thing until I read about 15 different blogs and magazine articles on how everyone was going to over look this game. I got tired of reading it, so I rented it.

At first glance of the cover, your thinking a Russian game. Wrong. Your probably thinking FPS, wrong again. RFG maroons you on Mars. That is where the Red comes in......you team up with you brother to fight the government within a small Faction. I have yet to see how guerrilla's tie in. Mars is presented to you in a open world, highly destructible, environment. What I was first surprised at was the vehicles. They are awesome. Some fun is to be had, by blazing wildly across Mars, and jump a huge crater to land your mining 6-wheeler squarely in a government building. Total destruction, for the building at least.

With Volition at the developing helm, you get a good taste of Saints Row in this game. These open world games are starting to get repetitive. Get in car. Drive to mission. Play mission. Drive to something else. While RFG does have this aspect, the destructible environment over shadows any similarities you will find in other sandbox type games. Oh, and you will find similarities. This should not scare you away.

A wide array of weapons, vehicles, and NPC's keep the action flowing. That bad ass sledge hammer you see in the title plays a pretty big part in the game. It is fun smashing down a huge building, then turning around and smashing someone's head in. Good times. I played about 2 hours of the main campaign and liked what I saw. If I had to compare this game to some others, I would lump it into a category of the following : Bully, Saints Row, GTA, Assassins Creed. I hope the missions do not get repetitive. The first "level" had me destroy a few key government buildings, rescue a few hostages, and 3 mission type scenarios. All very fun, but could get old very quickly. Time will tell. I usually do not like to post any comments until logging some serious hours, but tonight's game play was really fun, and I needed a break from the diary. If your concerned the streak lives on at 345 straight days.

So the blogs and magazines are about 65% right on this one. Definatley a great game to rent, but not something you will be kicking yourself over missing. Keep in mind, I have not played any of the online modes, but those are usually not deal breakers for me. The G's have been trickling out at 10 per level. It would appear you can achieve 500 G's from the single player and 500 G's for completely ridiculous online play. Seriously? When will they just give up on the online G's?

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Game Diary, Thursday's game play

Streak lives on. Thursday's game play was almost identical to Wednesday's. I caught some more crab while playing Alaskan Storm. I also scored another 20 G's by making some considerable progress on Fallout3. DLC The Pitt is awesome. Just stunning graphics, and a wild story that will have you making a very big moral choice about half way through. No 1 vs 100 tonight, I was tempted, but passed.

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Game Diary, Wednesday's game play

With the return of Live service, I found myself in yet another 1 vs 100 beta. I finally cracked a million points with my career score. That has got to get me some attention and possibly a seat in the mob? I hope so. I got some first hand comments about the new Ghostbusters game. Sounds frustratlingly fun. Sounds like it is shaping up to be a rental.

I pulled in a few hundred pods of crab in Deadliest Catch as well. That game is fun in small doses.

I finished up the night with some Fallout3. I located all 100 steel ingots for 20 G's!! It took about a hour, and yes I used a walk through.

341 straight. This is getting interesting.

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Game Diary, Tuesday's game play

With the Xbox Live service being down Tuesday, it was a free streak day on 360Voice.com. So did I take the day off as well? Heck no, I played some Arkadian Warriors. I was able to level my Character up to a 13. Darth Slagus and myself have been co-oping through the main campaign together. It has been very enjoyable for a Arcade game. In the past I usually would throw in a reference to Gauntlet here, but instead I am going to start comparing this game to Castle Crashers. It really is more of a hack and slash game than a RPG.

No 1 vs. 100 tonight and with Live service out, I actually flipped on the TV. I caught a few minutes of a Discovery channel program featuring crab fishermen. I thought to myself, can't I play this instead? Sure enough I popped in Alaskan Storm, Deadliest Catch. I am right at the point in this game that the controls become second nature. No more awkward button pushes just to see what they do. I know what they do, crab beware. I finished up the first fishing season, and scored 15 G's. To bad they don't count towards a challenge. They do count towards my "Great Outdoors" and "Tv Games" badges.

Overall a good night for no live service. At time of this writing (11:00pm) service was still not back. 340 straight. We are under a month.

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Game Diary, Monday's game play

The weekend came and went way too fast. The streak was preserved and we now sit at 338 straight days. This post will focus on Monday's game play. I was able to sneak in some Fallout3. Enjoying a waste ridden Pittsburgh, collecting some billets, and hack some raiders to pieces with my new axe. It was great. I also got sucked into yet another beta session of 1 vs. 100.

More importantly I was finally able to finish up Wolverine : Origins. This wolverine game is a solid game. I would rate it a high 7 or low 8 if I would officially review the game. The single player campaign was ton of fun to play through. The controls were awesome. A few wolverine moves really stood out. A few stand out moments really make this movie game stand out. I can confidently say that this one of the best comic book character, Hollywood movie, tie in games out there right now. I highly suggest giving this game a spin. I have not played the DLC that was recently released, not sure if is worth it or not. There was some "bonus" stages that consisted of 1 on 1 match up against another AI wolverine. Not sure what the purpose really was of these arena stages. They were boring. Games at least worth a rental.

Check back tomorrow as I push farther into The Pitt.

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$5 Xbox 360 Arcade Games

According to Major Nelson, the following games are $5 or less. Achievement Unlocked found many errors and omissions during Major's 1 minute rundown. This is the most comprehensive list on the web. Please let us know if anything is left out.

Aegis Wing - FREE
Altered Beast
Assault Heroes
Asteroids & Deluxe
Battlezone
Blazing Birds
Bliss Island
Centipede & Millipede
Comix Zone
Contra
CrazyMouse
Crystal Quest
Cyberball 2072
Dash of Destruction - FREE
Defender
DIG DUG
Discs Of Tron
DOOM
Double Dragon – NOT AVAILABLE
Ecco the Dolphin
Fatal Fury Special
Feeding Frenzy
Frogger
GALAGA
Gauntlet
Geometry Wars Evolved
Gin Rummy
Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
Gyruss
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Hearts
Hardwood Spades
Hexic HD - FREE
Jetpac Refuelled
Joust
Marble Blast Ultra
Minesweeper Flags
Missile Command
MS. PAC-MAN
NEW RALLY-X
PAC-MAN
Paperboy
Phantasy Star II
Robotron: 2084
Root Beer Tapper
Rush’n Attack
Scramble
Shinobi
Small Arms
Smash TV
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Space Giraffe
Spyglass Board Games
Streets of Rage 2
Super Contra
Tempest
Tetris Splash – THIS IS $10
Time Pilot
TMNT 1989 Arcade
TotemBall - FREE (Vision Camera Required)
Track and Field
TRON
Ultimate MK3
Uno
Warlords
Wolfenstein 3D
Worms
XEVIOUS
Yie AR Kung-Fu
Zuma
1 vs 100 - FREE

Game Diary, Thursday's game play

I stayed up way too late playing Fallout 3. Finally got my character to level 30 while maintaining a "good" status. 30 G's Yooooo!!! Now I just need to get him evil and score another 30 G's. I finished the first DLC. I played it before so nothing new to me. Just some more shooting.

Side note, have you examined the selection of video game magazines at your local bookstore lately? I discovered this horrible magazine tonight while browsing. It was basically a review of the summer games based on movies? What a specific, stereotypically sub par, genre to focus your periodical on. Especially when over 90% of what is in the magazine could be found on the Internet. Worse of all, right on the cover plastered big and bright, "Brought to you by the editors of The Official Xbox Magazine." Like that was suppose to add some credibility to it? Ugh. I did pick up a sweet little UK publication called Games TM. I picked it up mostly for the Bioshock 2 story and a awesome interview with the developers of Fallout 3.

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