It was bound to happen and it looks like the UK retailer Argos is the first one to break the Halo 3 street date. Forum members over at Eurogamer.net have reportedly nabbed their copies of Halo 3 today and have provided proof in the form of pictures and receipts. Looks like someone at Argos is going to be in hot water.
In a world of realistic PC flight sims, Attack on Pearl Harbor is definitely a stand out title. It’s not necessarily better than a more punishing and realistic dogfight experience, but it certainly is different. If you’re a casual flier, want to blow up ships, and wouldn’t mind winning World War II single-handedly then Attack on Pearl Harbor is just the game for you. If you genuinely care what the gauges read and what all those little switches in the cockpit do then you’ll need to look elsewhere because Attack on Pearl Harbor is aimed at a more casual audience.
There’s a story to be told, but unless you were sleeping through high school history class when the Pacific theater portion of WWII was covered you know the gist of it. Of note, however, is the manner in which the story is presented. Colorful comic book panels serve as bookends for each mission. They introduce your pilot, explain the mission, and and they’re a refreshing take on the same old A
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I like soccer. There, I said it. Every time a new soccer game or demo is out, I pounce on it and then eagerly wait until nobody is around so I can play it. You see, people in my family enjoy soccer, but they don’t want to watch digital soccer. I can even admit that it’s not all that thrilling to watch someone else play.
After the kids were asleep last night I finally got some time with the FIFA 08 demo. The demo is super short and has very limited options, but it’s a solid game. My wife happened to make the comment that it looked and seemed exactly like “that other soccer game we have”. She was referring to Pro Evo Soccer 2007.
Thinking back, it does in fact seem to be exactly like W112007. It feels and looks almost identical. In fact, I think I’ll go further in saying that W112007 has smoother animations and more softened models compared to this version of FIFA. With an extra few months of development over W11, I hope that EA really delivers a knock out, but after last night I didn’t see anything that really made me long to have another soccer game this year.
Am I missing something that should have me super excited for this new version of FIFA or am I experiencing what Madden fans have been complaining about all these years?
It’s sad to see a promising concept fall on its face and frustrate instead of invigorate a gamer, but Stranglehold does just that. Inspector Tequila’s second adventure starts out well–the romp through Hong Kong’s seedy marketplace features exploding propane tanks, signs falling on enemies’ heads, riding on conveniently placed roll carts, and entertaining movie-style shootouts. Unfortunately, Stranglehold then descends into a mess of terrible level design and overpowered boss characters (even on Casual difficulty).
The marketplace level was fun. Not only did it have explosions, gunplay, cart riding, and railing running, but it was difficult to get lost and there were no McGuffins to search and destroy. In the second level alone, Tequila destroys no fewer than 20 drug tables, and hitting them all is necessary to progress the story. After that he must sink four ships. Later still he needs to plant 14 C4 charges. These things aren’t fun, and they certainly aren’t cinematic. For a game that touts itself as an interactive John Woo movie I spent a lot of time shooting inanimate objects on purpose and searching for just one more table. And while I’m searching for that last drug table I’m constantly lost because of the poor level design. Every ramshackle hut looks the same, and their connections are so twisted as nonsensical that it’s nigh on impossible to get and maintain your bearings. More straight forward seeming levels aren’t immune either. One boss fight takes place in a penthouse with an open floor plan. Finally – a level in which I won’t get hopeless turned around. Wrong – there are laser traps everywhere creating a specific and linear path that must be followed if you hope to complete the level. And lasers – for no specific reason – explode on impact. They don’t trigger an explosion; the lasers themselves explode. Trip one in a set of five with a bit of the environment and it explodes leaving the other four intact.
Video games and movies are different things. With an arsenal of special moves at my disposal, completely destructible environments, and four difficultly levels I’d like some choice as to how I complete objectives. Yes, it is vitally important that the main character go from Hong Kong to Chicago, but does it really matter what path he takes through the marketplace? There is absolutely no reason for each level to contain only one route from A to B when many of the locales lend themselves to diverging paths. Why must I use the steps in the parking garage to up a flight when I could just as easily walk up the vehicle ramp? Why must I climb up to a zip line to board a ship when I know full well that Tequila can jump far enough to reach it from a platform?
When you have sufficient space Tequila does have an impressive set of special moves. Precision Aim is probably my favorite as it allows you to stop the action and snipe any opponent. Shoot him in the head and he’s instantly dead (unless he’s a boss which is inconsistent at best, people don’t just walk away from a headshot), but nick him in the arm and he’s just pissed off. Barrage allows the player to slow down time and unload on a crowded room while taking no damage, and the Spin Attack is a traditional John Woo bullet ballet in which Tequila spins in a circle, kills all his enemies, and goes on his way unharmed.
Multiplayer is uninspired and just not fun. Tequila’s special moves just don’t provide the same advantage when everybody has access to them. You’ll find yourself engaging Tequila Time (Max Payne’s Bullet Time rebranded) to even the playing field instead of to give yourself the upper hand. And you’ll only get to do that if you can manage to find a game; for a title this recent the lobbies are suspiciously empty.
Stranglehold is short, suffers from poor level design, and it’s just not entertaining to play levels one way and one way only. There’s a right way to win, and if you stray from it then you’ll most likely end up dead. This works in movies, but gamers don’t want to be told what to do, how to do it, and when exactly to do it. That’s not fun. That’s work.
Carnival games in general are for suckers. They are as close to impossible as you can get without eliminating the game and having a person stand there just to take your money. Now Global Star Software has come along and brought that same level of frustration to the Wii, with the aptly named Carnival Games.
Carnival Games features over 25 perfect adaptations of everyone’s favorite midway games. Supporting up to 4 players, Carnival Games turns your Wii Remote into everything you can imagine, from a sledgehammer in the famous strength test to a skeeball.
Carnival Games has 2 game modes, single player and competition. Single player mode is where you will win tickets and prizes, while competition mode is the multi-player mode. You can play Head to Head in a single game, or a Competition of up to 4 players in 5 randomly selected games. At the conclusion of multi-player games, a leaderboard shows the winners and losers. Carnival Games doesn’t have any online features, but doesn’t really hurt for it, being designed around local gaming.
To store your progress in single player mode, you will need to create a character. Carnival Games has a pretty minimal character creation mode, but the game doesn’t need anything more. You can customize your face, hair, shirt, pants, and shoes. Later on you can return and add unlocked accessories such as hats, masks, and wacky shoes. Why they left out any type of Mii integration is beyond me.
Venturing into the midway, you are presented with 6 Alleys to select from: Fortune Way, Love Lane, Rodent Row, Claw Alley, Lucky Pass, and Prize Boulevard. As you play the games in each of the Alleys you will receive tickets and prizes, based on your performance. Tickets can be redeemed to play the Alley Arcade games or exchanged for the previously mentioned character accessories.
Prize Boulevard is different from the other Alleys in that it only tracks the collection of prizes you have won to date and doesn’t have any games to play. From here you may swap collections of smaller prizes for larger ones. Win 4 small prizes and you can exchange them for a medium. 3 mediums can be swapped for a large, and once you get 2 large prizes, you can go for the Grand prize. This is the only way to get the Grand prizes of the other Alleys. The name of the prizes is exactly as you would expect from a midway. Small prizes are physically very small, which doesn’t mean much as it’s a virtual prize. The prizes themselves run the full gamut of toys and stuffed animals and are altogether uninteresting. Only the most fervent completionists will care what the prizes are, let alone try to collect them all.
Each of the Alleys features a host of games, as well as a special Alley Arcade Game that requires tickets to play. Each also boasts 2 unlockable Super Games: souped-up versions of the games that are much more difficult than normal. Once you earn grand prizes on 2 of the games in that particular Alley, they’re unlocked for all characters. The Super Games are all over the map in terms of difficulty with some being off the wall crazy and others not being that difficult at all.
Some of my favorite midway games show up in Carnival Games, including the Dunk Tank, Balloon Darts, and even the Shooting Gallery. Conceptually, this real life-to-digital translation should be simple and unfortunately Global Star has hit the nail on the head a little too well. You see, by capturing the pure essence of these games, the developer has managed to package and sell a game that delivers an enjoyable experience, but also a mind blowing amount of frustration. Games like the Strength Test are virtually impossible to get perfect, due to the fact that your arm simply cannot move as fast as is required to get a perfect score. In most cases, the motion sensing controls do a great job of recreating the experience. So good, in fact, that your arms feel like they are going to fall off after you’ve been playing for a while. This is a case where “accurate” doesn’t always translate into “fun.”
Graphically, Carnival Games is pretty adequate. It’s nothing to write home about, but the team did a good job of recreating the games in a realistic way. The vantage point with which you stand also lends itself to a real experience. Carnivals typically have loud obnoxious music that rounds out the experience, but I tended to phase out any type of music or sounds while focusing on the game at hand.
Carnival Games ends up being quite an enjoyable game and won’t hurt the budget too much at $40. But the game, while meant to appeal to everyone, ends up being too difficult for a younger audience and for that reason falls down to the Bargain Bin. I have no doubts that Carnival Games is something that everyone could enjoy on some level, but for $40 you are better off waiting for a price drop or picking up something else. For all its high points, I promise you that at some point you will wonder why exactly you paid to endure some of these games over and over.
