Reviews – Page 87 – Games Asylum

Section 8

In the world of videogames timing is crucial. Not just attacking an opponent at the right time to cause maximum damage but also where releasing games is concerned. SouthPeak managed to get this out of the door barely two weeks before Halo 3: ODST – the sequel to the most played games on the Xbox 360. Had it come after, I doubt it would have even managed to get into the top 40 chart at all.

The plot and setting is your typical sci-fi affair involving two factions waging war on distant planets. What this really boils down to is two teams of up to sixteen players competing to reach a score of 1000. How you contribute to a victory though up to you. A kill is only worth 5 points whereas capturing bases and destroying gun turrets will earn you twice as much. The real big earners are gained from completing the missions that randomly commence such as escorting convoys, killing (or protecting) VIPs and the like.

Disney Pixar’s Up

Reviews

This movie tie-in isn’t the first videogame to feature an OAP as a playable character (I’m guessing that Supergran on the Spectrum has that honour) but it’s quite possibly the first Xbox 360 game to do so. Worry not – this isn’t about shuffling down the shops to buy a new pair of slippers and a bag of Werther’s Originals. It’s actually about a retired balloon salesman who ties thousands of balloons to his house and sails off to a tropical island, unknowingly taking a boy scout along for the ride.

What we have here is ten levels of Lego Star Wars inspired platform adventuring with a couple of â€œMy First Flight Simâ€ airborne combat battles. For 90% of the game you play as Carl and Russell, swapping between the two at the press of a button to use their skills accordingly to progress. Carl can use his cane to push heavy objects and scare off bats with his faulty hearing aid; Russell can shimmy along ledges and cut through vines and spider webs with his keys. The third playable character is Dug the dog who can crawl through small gaps. And pilot a bi-plane.

Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled

Reviews

The scrolling beat’em genre hasn’t evolved much over the last 15 years. At least not as much as platformers or adventure games have. With this in mind it’s unsurprising to find that Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled feels rather retro, although this should be expected seeing it’s a re-make (or re-shelling) of Konami’s 1991 SNES brawler. …

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT!1

Reviews

Microsoft has been keen to hide the Indie Games (formerly Community Games) section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, as if it were some horridly disfigured child. This was at least the case until a couple of months ago. As well as the name change the pricing structure has since been altered (games now start at …

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Reviews

Sometimes it’s a good idea to let somebody else give their perspective on something. The first Transformers game was by Traveller’s Tales and ending up being the gaming equivalent of a rusty old banger. For this globe-trotting sequel Activision have let Luxoflux have a stab at the Transformers license, which makes perfect sense considering that they developed the car-combat series Vigilante 8 and also the admittedly quite good Kung Fu Panda tie-in.

The good news is that it’s a better game than the first. Not greatly so, but there’s a definite improvement. Combat has a lot more depth with each robot having their own skill (helicopter Grindor can drop automated gun turrets; Bumblebee can emit an EMP blast to stun foes, etc) and each kill is scored depending on style. Missions objectives are generally more interesting – there’s a couple of escort and protect missions, a battle against the colossal Devastator and some against the clock checkpoint races. There are still a few too many mindless â€œgo and find some Decepticons and bash â€˜em upâ€ missions though. Each mission has bonus objectives too, like having to kill 10 enemies in a certain way. Completing these will give you bonus points to upgrade weapons and the like and also unlock full cartoons from the 80s TV series.

Ghostbusters: The Videogame

Reviews

Essentially an unofficial third movie of sorts – which cleverly uses characters and locations from the two films – you’re cast not into the slime covered boots of Ray, Peter, Egon or Winston but rather a nameless rookie. Egon doesn’t let the poor chap say his name with his reason being that as soon as you name something you’ll get attached to it. Becoming a Ghostbuster may not be safe career to take, but if this game is to anything to go by then it’s certainly a fun one.

The tutorial is nicely done, giving you a chance to learn the controls and explore the Ghostbuster HQ at your own leisure. Hint: slide down the fireman pole and you’ll earn yourself a few easy gamerpoints. You’re soon then whisked off to sort out a monstrous problem with the fellow Ghostbusters acting as AI controlled team-mates. They’re actually quite helpful, not only able to give you a hand off the floor but capable of busting ghosts on their own accord.

Wolfenstein 3D

Reviews

If you’re thinking that releasing Wolfenstein 3D on Xbox Live Arcade after both Doom and Duke Nuke’em 3D is a backwards way of doing things then you’d be right. Activision haven’t even bothered to tidy up the visuals, which is a bit of a cheek seeing that both the 3DO and Atari Jaguar versions had …

Namco Museum Virtual Arcade

Retro, Reviews

No matter how much horsepower a console has you can guarantee on two things – somebody will release Tetris on it and Namco will bring out a collection of their ancient arcade hits. There are already been three Tetris games on Xbox 360 – Tetris Plus, Tetris Splash and Tetris Evolution – so if my assumption is to go by then Namco Museum Virtual Arcade is long overdue.

This is a very peculiar collection and for a good number of reasons. Fore mostly it’s the first Xbox 360 game to have a total of 1800 GamerPoints straight out of the box, with reason being that in addition to 25 arcade games there’s nine Xbox Live Arcade games present each with 200 points a piece. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, New Rally X, Xevious and Dig Dug are just simple arcade ports while Pac-Man: CE, Galaga Legions and Mr. Driller Online are jazzed up re-makes.

UFC 2009: Undisputed

Reviews

The ultimate part of Ultimate Fighting Championship rings true – it takes the best parts of wrestling, kickboxing, muay thai and judo and does away with most of their rules. In fact, the only real rule is that you can’t fight like a sissy, punching below the belt, biting, scratching and pulling hair. That’ll be me out of the octagon ring in less than 10 seconds, then.

It’s in a gamer’s nature to skip past tutorials but it’s worth playing through the one that appears at the start. Success depends on knowing how to reverse attacks, get out of grapples and perform takedowns and submissions. Getting out of a submission involves wildly rotating the right analogue stick – I’m sure that a lot of joypads are going to have a few years knocked off their life expectancy because of this.

Ninja Blade

Reviews

Japanese developer FromSoftware made a smart move by deciding to make this Xbox 360 ninja-based brawler. The simple reason being that ninja games are popular on both sides of the world. But let’s face it, any game that lets you smack a giant spider in the gob with a wrecking ball, or crush a mutated woman who has snakes for arms with a steam roller, is bound to sell better than the likes of Ninety Nine Nights and A-Train HX.

Comparisons with Ninja Gaiden II are to be expected. It’s so incredibly similar to Tecmo’s slightly lacking slasher though that with a few nips and tucks it could easily be passed off for a third Ninja Gaiden instalment. Lead character Ken (who Capcom had a hand in designing) has a near identical skill set to Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu, capable of running up and along walls, casting Ninjutsu magic spells and dodging attacks. Other similarities – enemies leave orbs behind that can be used to upgrade swords, the levels are the same length (around an hour each) and Ken can carry weapons the size of small countries without hassle.

Trivial Pursuit

Reviews

I don’t know about you, but I usually associate Trivial Pursuit with either snobby dinner parties or dull Christmas Day afternoons. Amazingly, then, EA has managed to change my stance by delivering this surprisingly stylish and fun to play console iteration. The commentator is pleasingly random too: â€œYou got that question wrong, no goldfish flavoured ice lolly for you this time!â€

The main reason it’s entertaining is because the questions are up to date and relevant to us Brits. There’s stuff about UK bands, TV shows and football teams while modern questions consist of events in last year’s Olympics and films released in the last few months. Some questions give you pictures to choose from, others ask you to stick a pin on a map or point to a country. The majority though are multiple choice, so even if you don’t know the answer there’s still a 25% chance of getting it right.

Peggle

Reviews

Popcap’s newest edition to Xbox Live Arcade is akin to a cheese sandwich – simple but pleasing. With a cannon and ten shiny balls at your disposal, simply destroy sixteen orange pegs that have been randomly placed on the screen. With bonuses, power-ups and extra balls available for proficient pegglers (as Shakespeare once didn’t write) it’s just as satisfying as a cheese sandwich too.

Lux-Pain

Reviews

With a name like Lux-Pain, Rising Star’s latest DS endeavour could entail just about anything. Well, you wouldn’t be able to get away with calling a kid’s game Lux-Pain but it’s a name that would definitely suffice for a beat’em up or a shoot’em up. It’s neither of those though – it’s an incredibly text heavy anime-influenced adventure game, not dissimilar to the Phoenix Wright series.

Lead character Atsuki is a telepathy-blessed detective out to find the source of a parasitic virus infecting Japanese citizens. It kicks off with an investigation on a crime scene where a man who tortures animals has been laying dead for weeks, before moving onto a Japanese high school where the kids have been committing suicide. Grim stuff, then.

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

Reviews

Activision dropped this after merging with Vivendi on the grounds that they only wanted games in their portfolio that they could make sequels out of. What’s ironic about saying this is that Box Office Bust is the 11th game in the Leisure Suit Larry series. Not that it actually bares any resemblance to Larry’s original 2D point-and-click adventure games. In fact, it doesn’t actually bare any resemblances to any decent game you care to think of.

House of the Dead: Overkill

Reviews

It’s hard to imagine a more successful game, if you judge success by the extent to which the developers achieved what they set out to do. I am of course assuming that I know what the developers set out to do. But in this case I think that’s safe: make an unreasonably entertaining light gun game.

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