November 2010

Kinect Adventures!

November 9, 2010

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Graham Russell Make a comment! / Tweet it!

This is the pack-in game, so it’s a bit silly to write a review on it, but how good Kinect Adventures is could very well determine whether you pick up the system at all. Let’s get to the point, shall we? It’s a fine showpiece, but it doesn’t have legs to keep you interested.

The whole thing has a nice feel to it, though: think Indiana Jones. The premise, as if the game needed one, is that you are part of a group of adventurers, doing adventurous things like river rafting, obstacle-dodging, leak-plugging and Breakout-paddling. So it’s a tenuous connection for a bunch of minigames.

River rafting has you standing in a raft, moving around and jumping to steer it through rapids to collect badges strewn across it. No, this doesn’t make sense, and you should stop trying to make anything in this game come close to logic. This is the iconic part of the game, and it’s a fun thing to get people playing. The obstacle course has you moving to avoid bars and walls in an attempt to gain speed on your moving platform. It’s a bit tough to maneuver when a light graze of a shoulder counts as a hit and you live somewhere smaller than an open warehouse or a field of some sort. The most fun is becoming a paddle for a game of Breakout, with all sorts of multi-ball action keeping you moving arms and legs to bounce the balls back toward the bricks. 

Collecting badges in all these events gives you bronze, silver or gold medals, and this does allow for a bit of replay to earn that gold rank, but the real reward for completing a challenge is unlocking a living statue. It’s a little trophy of some sort that you get to bring to life with your movements and speech. The first is some sort of furry creature, and from there you get dancing groups, a shark eating your avatar and much more. It’s just a little diversion, but you didn’t buy a Kinect for the next BioWare epic, did you?

So that’s it. Kinect Adventures. You will own it. You will be mildly amused. You will move on to the game you actually wanted to play.

 

Sonic Free Riders

November 9, 2010

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Graham Russell Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The Kinect launched with three racing games in its lineup: Microsoft’s Kinect Joy Ride, Konami’s Adrenalin Misfits and Sega’s Sonic Free Riders. While the three are different in many ways and none are the showpiece of the system, the best of them would obviously benefit from sales and success this holiday season.

Sonic Free Riders wins this battle. Barely.

The game, a sequel to the Sonic Riders games, has you leaning back and forth on an imaginary board to control your character and steer through tracks full of items, rings and boosts. Here’s where it earns the respect it does. The control scheme feels much like playing the old Top Skater arcade games, with steering feeling very similar and jumps off ramps graded in the same way. Leaning forward to speed up feels right, and causes the necessary difficulty in turning that should come from wanting to go faster. It’s a visceral experience, and it’s clearly better than Adrenalin Misfits‘ implementation of a similar scheme and Microsoft’s “pretend you’re holding a steering wheel” approach.

Unfortunately, Sega did more things. 

Because it apparently wouldn’t be a racer without items, Sega put in soda can rockets you shake up to activate, bombs you set off by pushing your hands together and bowling balls to, well, bowl at other racers. It’s all very distracting and adds little to the strategy.

The challenges of the single-player campaign are silly and don’t have much staying power to them, and we have been unable to, throughout the launch week, connect with anyone for an online race. And it’s understandable, since it’s a game best played locally and on a system with new, hot titles with many fewer flaws. 

Also, be prepared for the least functional menu navigation system we’ve seen. You have to swipe your hand diagonally across the screen at a specific angle to change menu items and swipe the other way to accept. There’s theoretically a voice control available as well, but we haven’t gotten it to work. It’s at times like this when we really wish standard controller support would be patched in for menus. Playing a game with your body is fun, and it doesn’t become less fun if you’re able to more easily navigate to the mode you want.

Free Riders wins the battle for table scraps, but if someone comes through with a cleaner, smoother racing title, it’ll be knocked off the podium.

 

Mass Effect 2 on PS3 detailed

November 9, 2010

News / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Following rumors that the PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2 might include PlayStation-exclusive content, EA stifled any complaints by detailing what exactly would be coming to the PlayStation 3 with Mass Effect 2, namely, everything that is available on the Xbox 360 and PC, but nothing new. READ MORE

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

November 8, 2010

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is a game made specifically with the Naruto fan in mind. That said, it does a very good job of catering to those fans. Everything about the game is very faithful to the anime, both in story and in intense action sequences.

There’s not a lot to say about the story in Naruto: UNS2, most of it is incomprehensible to those not versed in at least the basic premise of Naruto, other than that it is told with a great deal of drama and flair. A great deal of work and care seems to have gone into making it feel like part of the anime, and it really pays off. The basic premise of this game is that Naruto and his friends are fighting to protect Hidden Leaf Village against an evil group of ninjas. This is a vast oversimplification, but about the only way to describe it without resorting to using terms those unfamiliar with Naruto wouldn’t understand.

The story is split into 7 chapters, all of them filled with drama and intense fighting and action scenes. Unfortunately, there’s way too much mindless travel and collection quests padding out the story mode. The backdrops and art for the game are very well done, but it gets tiring going back and forth through the streets of Hidden Leaf village multiple times every chapter. You can search for materials along every road and path in the game to use in making more powerful battle items, but the benefit of creating them is outweighed by the sheer amount of time all this travel and backtracking takes. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was some action, or some story or character development along the way, but it seems to simply there to make the world, and playtime, longer. It’s a shame that it breaks up the story and action so much because when you are experiencing the game instead of traveling from one place to another it is a blast.

The controls are simpler than a fighting game, and every character has the same control setup, making it easy to adapt to each different character you’ll fight as. The different types of chakra (special) attacks that you can do also amp up the action and enjoyment in the fights as you go through the story. Unfortunately, this same simplicity means that it doesn’t play as well as a fighting game, the other mode included in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Additionally, throughout the game you’ll be faced with numerous boss battles, complete with quick-time events that you’ll have to score well on to win. QTEs are old news by now, but UNS2 uses them well to draw you into some very epic encounters that wouldn’t feel quite so epic if they were simply cutscenes. Whether you are simply hitting a button before a timer runs out or you are mashing a button over and over again to fill up a meter, it all adds up to a frenetic boss battle that feels epic in scale and power. There’s also an added bonus of a secret scene you’ll get to see if you did well enough on the quick-time events.

All the intangibles are here for Naruto. The voice acting is what you’d expect out of an anime, not an anime game, the soundtrack fits the moods and battles just right, and the visuals are exactly what you’d expect from a game based on an anime. Everything is vibrant and looks almost hand-drawn and painted, making it look much better than the typical cel-shaded animation. 

A standalone fight mode and an online fight mode round out the game, but as mentioned above, the controls don’t really lend themselves to a competitive fighting game. Sure, it’ll be fun to match up against others with your favorite Naruto character, but you’ll likely find these modes to be a simple distraction compared to the story mode.

All in all, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is a great game for fans of the series, or of anime in general. Just be prepared to spend a long time traveling in order to enjoy the actual gameplay.

Pros: Graphics are great; Voice acting is exactly what you’d want from this type of game; Soundtrack is fitting; Boss battles are suitably epic; Story is great, for those who are familiar with the series

Cons: Lots of backtracking and traveling from place to place; Fighting is somewhat simpler than you’d expect from a game about fighting; Load times are too numerous; Did I mention the traveling?

Naughty Bear

November 8, 2010

iPhone / Reviews / by Chris Rasco Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Naughty Bear is the story of a bear out for revenge. After being left out while the other bears had a party, Naughty Bear decided it was time for revenge. Never again will you envision a teddy bear as just a cute and cuddly children’s toy.

Naughty Bear has 2 game modes, story and challenge. Story mode has 27 levels each featuring a different goal needed to pass the level. The goal varies from a target number of Naughty Points, Cupcakes, or total bear kills. Challenge mode features the same 27 levels only it’s a race against the clock to rack up as many Naughty Points as possible.

Through the levels you’ll be introduced to a variety of enemies from standard bears all the way up to ninja bears. Each type has its own special traits that make them more and more difficult to kill. Each level is littered with objects including cupcakes, weapons, and sabotage stations. Cupcakes are worth Naughty Points so you’ll want to collect those while avoiding other bears until you come across a weapon since you can’t kill a bear unless you have a weapon equipped. Weapons are time limited and the screen will flash red when your weapon is about to disappear. Sabotage stations are various places like bbq grills or campfires that you can “set-up” that will attract bears while you hide in the bushes nearby. While a bear is distracted by the trap you’ve set, you can jump out and attack them from behind. Every kill triggers mini-cut scene that shows exactly how you are taking out the enemy. Kills also give you a point multiplier, which can be stacked with several rapid kills in a short time.

Naughty Bear is quite an entertaining title once you get over the shock that you are using children’s stuffed animals in an ultra-violent game. This isn’t surprising given the fact that it borrows a formula from one of gaming’s most recognizable titles, Pac-Man. At $2.99, Naughty Bear may be one of the higher priced titles that I’ve checked out, but it’s a very well made game that will keep you challenged as you work your way through all of the levels.

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