December 2009

Cook or be Cooked

December 11, 2009

Food Network has jumped aboard the Wii train with both feet, having quickly licensed out games based on a number of their top rated shows. Despite relatively good sales of a few of their games (mostly Iron Chef), most have been mediocre at best. Unfortunately, Cook or be Cooked is inferior to most of Food Network’s other offerings.

Cook or be Cooked tasks you with creating food using real recipes and judges you based on how well you mimic the specific movements required by each step and on your timing. You’ll also get bonus points for finishing multiple foods around the same time.

The controls are both too specific and too vague at the same time. If you try to do the specific movements requested by each step, you’ll likely fail to get full points. However, if you just waggle your Wii remote, you’ll almost always get the best score for each step.

The graphics quality is on par with most other games from Food Network, which is to say poor. The sound effects are good, with everything sounding as if you are truly in the kitchen. The voice acting needs work, but that may be more a result of a horrible script than bad voice acting, as the actors are actual Food Network hosts.

Additionally, Cook or be Cooked claims to have thirty recipes in it, but, in reality, it has a mere fourteen meals. It seems to be counting each individual food item in each meal as a separate recipe for that count.

If you enjoy any of the other Food Network cooking games, you’ll enjoy this one. However, it still doesn’t measure up to Cooking Mama in terms of actual gameplay.

ESRB: E for alcohol references

Plays Like: Cooking Mama, Iron Chef

Pros: Recipes are good

Cons: Controls are iffy-waggling counts as just about every movement required; Graphics are low quality; Claims to have 30 recipes, but really has just 14 meals

Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty CIty

December 10, 2009

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last /

Did you play Grand Theft Auto IV when it first came out? Did you like it? If you answered ‘yes’ to both of those questions, then Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City will be right up your alley – even if you’ve already traded in the GTA IV base game. Episodes is a stand-alone title that features every part of GTA IV except the story. This time around you’ll be playing as either Johnny Klebitz of the The Lost biker gang or Luis Lopez, right-hand man of Tony Prince – a prominent Liberty City night club owner.

The two protagonists couldn’t be more different. While Johnny rides his custom motorcycle around Liberty City struggling to stay in formation (it’s harder than it looks!) and fighting rival gangs, Luis finds himself visiting nicer places and, well, still stealing cars and shooting people, but that’s what the game is all about. It’s an outlet for our inner demon – we get to steal cars, run over pedestrians, and take part in cinematic shoot-outs without feeling bad the next morning or ever going to prison for it. Luis differentiates himself from Johnny and Niko even more by re-introducing base jumping from San Andreas as well.

So, what doesn’t shine quite as bright as the story? The mechanics. Grand Theft Auto IV is a year old, and it shows. Shooting, although still leagues better than GTA III and its two sequels, now feels a little antiquated when compared with contemporary cover-based shooters like Gears of War 2 and Uncharted 2. Granted, neither of those titles has a focus on vehicles, but it’s hard to ignore that voice saying that the shooting could be so much better. Never again do I want to pull a trigger halfway to free-aim at a guy. It’s awkward, and it gets in the way of the fun.

An unexpected right move, I think, is the way achievements are handled. As far as the 360 is concerned, you are playing the same copy of GTA IV whether you have the base game and DLC packs or the Episodes disc. This way you won’t have a bunch of DLC achievements left unobtained on your gamercard (a la Tomb Raider Legend with its Anniversary DLC / separate release).

For a scant $40 you are easily getting a similar amount of content in Episodes as you got in GTA IV. And there’s no feeling quite like jacking somebody’s car and then seeing how many stars you can rack up. As a bonus you now have new stories to play through in between rampages.

Pros: Great characters, achievements handled well, return of base jumping

Cons: Shooting feels dated, motorcycles are better but still difficult to drive – especially in formation

Plays Like: Grand Theft Auto IV

ESRB: Mature for blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs and alcohol

Spongebob: Truth or Square

December 10, 2009

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Chris Rasco /

It is the eleventy-seventh anniversary (117th for us normal people) of the Krusty Krab and Spongebob has been entrusted with the secret formula of the Krabby Patty. In typical Spongebob fashion, he loses the formula and must journey through his memories in hopes of finding the all important Krabby Patty formula.

Spongebob’s Truth or Square is based on the TV episode of the same name and is a pure action-adventure game. You take on the role of Spongebob as he makes his way through one of the more bizarre collections of levels that I can recall. Truth or Square is the first full release title in the franchise to land on the Xbox 360.

Truth or Square’s main hub is Spongebob’s pineapple where you can select a level to play, view bonus costumes available for purchase, view concept art, and change options or enter game cheats.

Story mode features a full 3D environment, complete with a lackluster camera that sometimes seems to be trying to intentionally irritate you. The camera is controlled by the right thumb stick, but has limitations that keep it from being optimal in certain areas.

Controls are what you would expect with jump, attack, etc. assigned to the face buttons. Combat is enhanced by the availability of special abilities such as the Patrick Pow Powerup that has Patrick appear with a large mallet that he continually smashes into the ground destroying everything and anyone in its path. Other powerups include Spongebuff, the Sandy Spin Powerup and many more. The end of each level features a boss battle that sometimes could be quite difficult, mostly because it was unclear how to actually defeat the boss. Luckily the game features pop-up hints to guide you.

As annoying as the camera is, Truth or Square is quite a fun game with a pretty long story. The graphics are pretty standard fare and looked good in HD. The sound got to be a little grating, although I would attribute that to Spongebob’s voice being annoying and not a real issue with the game.

Sadly, there isn’t really much more to say about this game. It’s a pretty generic adventure game that you’ve probably played before with different characters and different enemies. The game is budget-priced at $39.99, so fans of Spongebob are potentially getting a great deal. With that said, I don’t know that it’s worth the full price, so we recommend you wait until it drops a little. If you can’t wait for the price to drop, take comfort in knowing that it’s a least a fun game to play.

ESRB: E for Cartoon Violence and Comic Mischief

Pros: $40 pricetag.

Cons: Spongebob’s voice. The camera.

Plays Like: Every other 3D adventure game with camera issues

Armored Core 3 Portable

December 9, 2009

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last /

Have you played Armored Core 3 on PS2? Would you like the same experience with fewer buttons on the PSP? Then Armored Core 3 Portable is exactly what you need. Cumbersome controls, dated graphics, and ad-hoc only multiplayer are all Armored Core 3 Portable has to offer.

Controls are fully customizable, but even that can’t overcome two fewer shoulder buttons and one lost analog input between the Dual Shock 2 and the PSP. I like the PSP a lot. There are lots of fun games available on it. None of those games are straight PS2 ports of third-person shooters or platformers, though, because the PSP hardware just isn’t quite right for those games. Left analog is obviously movement which means that right analog – if it were available – would be camera control. As it is that gets relegated to the shoulder buttons. Now weapons fire should be on the shoulder buttons, but we’re already using that for the camera, so it goes on various face buttons and d-pad directions. Customizable controls are great (and every game should have them), but they can’t save Armored Core 3 Portable from feeling clunky. No matter how I set up, the controls it never felt right.

Through the story, you play the part of a Raven mercenary. You will pilot your big stompy mech on various missions and shoot at various enemies, all of whom are also in mechs, with different and interesting weapon loadouts. Your own mech is fully customizable, and this is my favorite part of the game. Every time I play a mech game (usually Front Mission 3 or 4) I get lost in the garage making sure everything is just right before moving out into battle, and AC3 Portable is no different. You will win new parts by completing missions or winning arena fights, so you should never be in short supply.

Mechanically, AC3 Portable neglects to auto-save after every mission which is problematic as you progress through the game and unlock harder and harder missions. It also doesn’t ask if you would like to save as you exit an editor, so you are prone to lose some work there as well.

If you need the fast-paced mech action that Armored Core provides on the go, then AC3 Portable will scratch that itch, but don’t expect anything more out of it than you already squeezed out of the PS2 version.

Pros: Customizable controls, customizable mechs

Cons: No auto-save, too many functions and not enough buttons

Plays Like: Armored Core 3 on the PS2 with a half-broken controller

ESRB: T for violence

Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

December 9, 2009

DS / Reviews / by Shawn Vermette /

The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a strange game. Essentially, it is what The Wizard of Oz would have been if it was told by the Japanese: an interesting premise. Unfortunately, it rarely lives up to its potential.

The story of The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road diverges from the movie almost instantly. Your characters, Dorothy and Toto, are sucked into Oz by a tornado, but upon arriving there are no munchkins to sing to you. Instead you are greeted by a large and sinister shadow proclaiming himself the Wizard of Oz. He asks you to visit him at his palace in Emerald City, and then leaves you to find out how to get there. On the way you meet and fight the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, all of whom join your party for no apparent reason after you defeat them. Upon arriving in Emerald City you’re greeted by the Wizard of Oz, who explains to you why he wanted to meet you. He proclaims himself the all-powerful King of Oz, but says there are some witches who don’t like him being the self-proclaimed ruler and are fighting against him. Thus, he wants to send you to kill these witches. Once you do so, he’ll return you home.

From this point on you basically run through completely linear levels, fighting a somewhat diverse array of creatures, all of whom will either be very easy to kill, or very difficult. This is a long game, but mainly because of the distance you have to run through each of the 40 levels. There really aren’t any choices in this game either. Every member of your party has one class of weapon and armor they can use, they have one type of enemy they are effective against. You can’t wander off the Yellow Brick Road even if you wanted to.

The best thing that can be said about the battle system is it is unique. You have four slots you can fill with attacks from any of your four members you want. However, the Tin Man and the Lion use more than one slot when they attack. Their attacks are more powerful, but it will always be a trade-off you’ll have to make- power or more attacks. Unfortunately, this decision is largely rendered pointless because of the other half of the battle system. The second half of the battle system is comprised of a series of advantages against enemies. Each party member is particularly strong against a certain enemy. This leads to completely disregarding the strategy of the four slots system because the Tin Man and the Lion are not powerful enough to make it worth ignoring each character’s bonus against enemies.

The control system is very distinctive, and actually made the game much more enjoyable. In order to move, you must roll a trackball on the screen with the stylus. With this method, you can run by moving the trackball faster, and you can turn or even stop yourself instantly by changing the angle of the trackball’s movement or by stopping your stylus on top of the trackball. It takes a little bit of practice, but eventually you’ll be running across Oz like a wild man on steroids.

The graphics of Beyond the Yellow Brick Road are reasonably good for the DS. Everything is 3D and the environments are vibrant and fitting for each area. The character models are fairly unremarkable as well as the soundtrack.

Some of the design decisions in Oz are just confusing, as you can only save in Emerald City. Additionally, all shopping for items, weapons, and armor can only be done in Emerald City. It is amazingly hard to buy anything, though, because gold coins are very scarce. This makes the game take longer, as you’ll have to backtrack anytime you want to upgrade or save your progress.

The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road could have been a resounding success, especially considering the unusual take on such a classic story. Unfortunately, it never cashes in on its potential.

ESRB: E for Mild Fantasy Violence-if you can watch the movie, you can play the game

Plays Like: Well…it is a generic RPG, but it has a control scheme unlike any other

Pros: Controls are intuitive and responsive; Has lots of potential

Cons: Never fulfills potential; Plot feels rehashed; Unique story and location undone by poor design decisions

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