BioWare has finally announced the release date for the piece of DLC for Mass Effect 2. Titled, “The Arrival”, this added storyline is due on March 29, 2011 for 560 MS Points on XBLM, $6.99 on PSN or 560 BioWare Points on the PC. READ MORE
March 2011
Gun Loco, a demented third-person shooter slated for release on Xbox Live Arcade, was officially canceled today. In a rather brief release, Square Enix gave no reasons for the cancellation, but the game looked to be mostly finished.
The game, which had an aesthetic reminiscent of Twisted Metal and a focus on free-running multiplayer modes, was largely based on characters by toy designer Kenny Wong.
Slam Bolt Scrappers is a tough game to explain. Fire Hose Games’ PSN effort is part-puzzle game, part-brawler, part-tower defense and all-crazy. We think, though, that it’s worth checking out.
In Slam Bolt Scrappers, you’re a fighter. Well, you could be a welder-looking guy, a construction worker, a demon or a girl with dyed hair, among other things. You fly around an area. (How do you fly? It’s not clear, but it’s best that you give up on trying to apply logic to this game before we get any further.) Baddies pop up, and you punch them with the X and Square buttons to defeat them. Why are you doing this? Well, when you beat up an enemy, it drops a Tetris-like block that you can drop in a set area to form squares of the same color. Your opponent is doing the same thing, punching enemies, dropping blocks, and occasionally coming over to beat you down too.
Okay, hold tight. We’re only about halfway through.
Back to those squares. Those form towers, such as laser towers, rocket towers, shield towers or drill towers. These towers attack your opponent’s towers. The larger the square gets, the exponentially more powerful the tower is. It’s easy to form little 2-by-2 towers, but if you can manage to construct a 5-by-5 or 6-by-6 one, you’re a formidable threat.
When a player loses all towers, it’s game over for them. Fighters respawn with a time delay, and hitting buttons as prompted speeds up that process, so things stay frantic. Add to all this the ability to use invisible blocks to pick up parts of the tower and move them around, the addition of ninja enemies that drop power-ups and special levels with gameplay variations, and Slam Bolt Scrappers is the game version of an energy drink.
There are two main modes: Campaign and Battle. Battle allows for four players to take each other on, be it in teams or free-for-all. (The options here are very similar to Smash Bros., as is the menu interface. Everything is very familiar-feeling.) The game has seven different block types, and creating a battle match includes picking which to use. The game allows all seven, but it recommends three or four, and we agree that it’s the sweet spot.
Campaign allows one to four players to take on increasingly-powerful enemies in various scenarios. The campaign mode is rather short, but each level scales to one of four difficulty levels and one to four players, and it keeps track of best times for each one. The lower levels let players learn the basic strategies, and the Expert difficulty is simply brutal. If you want to play this multiple times, it’s definitely possible.
Technically, the game doesn’t impress, but we’re not sure the developers care that much about pushing graphical capabilities or making an awe-inspiring score. This game is bizarre, and it’s going to be bizarre even with those things. Another point that may disappoint some: there’s no online multiplayer. We don’t mind it, since the best way to play games like this is with everyone in the same room, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt things to include it.
Slam Bolt Scrappers retails for $15, which may not be everyone’s favorite price, but there’s legitimately innovative gameplay here, and we say it’s worth it. Not everyone’s as crazy as we are, though, and it takes a little bit of crazy to like this one.
Having played the PC version of Torchlight, it is difficult not to draw comparisons between the two products. So I won’t. Torchlight on XBLA is in direct competition with Torchlight on PC. The game is best described as Diablo II with no multiplayer and a WoW-like aesthetic. With that in mind, Torchlight does some things that really set it apart from its predecessors, and it’s a better experience for it.
First, Torchlight heroes all have a pet. Not only does this make combat better, but it makes the entire game more convenient. My dog fights along my side like any good dog in a fantasy world would. He can also take quite a beating. Where my dog beats the ever-loving crap out of the warhound from Dragon Age: Origins, however, is his magical ability. Fido (because I am a creative namer of dogs) can heal himself when he needs it. Also he can summon skeletons to fight alongside us. Not bad for an animal that can’t talk. It’s best not to question the skeleton-summoning dog anyhow. Fido also lets me obsessively pick up everything without penalizing me for doing so. Even if Fido couldn’t summon horrible undead armies to do his bidding, he’d still be the best polygonal dog ever because he’s willing to run up 30+ dungeon floors (I assume he slaughters everything along the way, like any good boy would) sell the detritus from my recent troll genocide, run back down (more assumed slaughter) and give me the money. And he’s quick about it. A better AI-controlled companion I could not ask for.
Second, there are only a few classes. Some people might see this and think it’s a bad thing, but the classes are different enough from one another that there is very little overlap in play styles between them, and each class can be customized through gear loadout to create different play experiences. I don’t need or want to choose between three different kinds of casters. One is enough. Similarly, I only need one guy whose sole ambition in life is to lift heavy clubs and bring them crashing down upon the heads of his enemies, and one kind of lady who is better with a bow and arrow than anybody else. It’s nice to have choices, but it’s even nicer when the choices are both meaningful and easy to make.
Third, dungeon floors are randomly generated. Boss floors are the same from trip to trip, but the Torchlight mine is otherwise a wonderfully amorphous place. If you delve deep enough, you will even find that floors are configured differently on your trip up than they were on the trip down. And after you’ve completed the main story, a random dungeon is unlocked, so your character won’t be forced into early retirement.
Torchlight on XBLA differs from the PC release in two key ways. First, you have direct control over your character. I absolutely love this. I move the stick, and my dispenser of death moves in that direction. I press the attack button and he beats the snot out of whatever monster is unfortunate enough to be situated in front of him. This direct control is better than the Diablo-style controls found in Torchlight PC. I never accidentally keep running when I mean to beat up a goblin. Never. This happened to me all the time on the PC, and I’m not sorry to see it gone.
Torchlight XBLA falls short of its PC counterpart in the mod department. I’m sure that this is inherent in the platform and not in Runic’s treatment of the console audience, but it makes me sad that I can’t alter my play experience in the same ways on the 360 as I can on the PC. I miss my summoned skeletons with no dissolve timer and the ability to craft with no chance of ruining my favorite weapon. Torchlight on XBLA is a great game, and I love playing it. I miss my mods, but I don’t miss them enough to give up direct control.
Pros: Tons of randomly-created content, great and useful pet, direct character control works really well
Cons: None of the mods you’re used to playing with on the PC are available on the 360
With just over a week left until the release of the 3DS and Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Capcom has decided to release a gameplay video that covers pretty much every aspect of the game, including new features such as the StreetPass and touch screen controls. The trailer is after the break. READ MORE
