Want to play 360 games online, but haven’t ponied up the cash for a Gold account? This weekend, everyone has free Gold access, so take advantage of it!
It’s part of a promotion involving a Kinect Sports world record, details of which are available on Rare’s blog. We’re thinking most of you will just want to play some games, but you could also want a free Avatar shirt. It’s up to you!
Taking a departure from the more straightforward in-ring competition that previous WWE games have offered, WWE All-Stars is a more arcade-like presentation, with comically-exaggerated physiques on the superstars and moves that are even more outrageously over-the-top. The result is entertaining, but perhaps appropriate considering the current WWE corporate policy is not quite “wrestling” as most would recognize it. Given my rocky experiences with those previous games, this is actually for the best.
Each superstar is divided into one of four categories (Big Man, Brawler, Grappler, or Acrobat); each category has their own strengths and weaknesses, with a couple of unique control moves available only to them, but overall each superstar handles in mostly the same way. The game supports Classic Controller and GameCube control pads in addition to Remote + Nunchuk controls; I used the Classic Controller (Pro) and had very few issues. The controls are also customizable, if you wish to further tweak them to your liking. There are over thirty superstars available, with about half of them locked away initially. You can also create your own, but the options to do so are fairly limited.
The main attraction of WWE All-Stars (and the one in which you unlock all of the hidden superstars) is the Fantasy Matchup mode, which pits a current superstar with a somewhat analogous “legend” from the company’s past to determine, for instance, who is the best big man (Andre the Giant or Big Show?), the best innovative offense (Ricky “the Dragon” Steamboat or Kofi Kingston?), or the dirtiest snake (Jake “the Snake” Roberts or Randy “the Viper” Orton?); a few of these match-ups actually happened — usually ones involving more recent “legends” like The Rock, Eddy Guerrero, or Shawn Michaels — but the dozen or so remaining unique match-ups are fun “what if”s. The pre-match videos that play before each one of these matches are by far the best feature of the entire game, as the WWE’s top-notch production crew outdid themselves in assembling packages that would not be out of place on an actual pay-per-view featuring these match-ups.
The other primary solo mode is Championship, which pits your chosen superstar against a ten-match gauntlet for the right to face either the Undertaker, Randy Orton, or Degeneration X; completing this mode with any character unlocks alternate ring attire for that character (or one of the few hidden arenas if you use a created superstar). Exhibition mode is your basic catch-all versus option, allowing up to four players to chose one of about half a dozen different match types. Of course, the problem with more players (or participants in general) is the fact that there are at least four pre-match load screens per match: the introduction of the arena and stipulations, the individual introductions and (often abbreviated) entrances of each wrestler, and then the actual match itself. The load times are reasonably quick, but having to sit through so many in a row for almost no reason is a nuisance; you can skip past the intros using the + button, but there is no option to ignore them outright so you still have to suffer the loads. Commentary by JR and Jerry Lawler is fine, if monotonous at times, and Howard Finkel’s usual quality ring introductions are confusingly hampered by the complete lack of any emotion he put into the announcement for the winner of the match (which is, to my mind, more the fault of the game’s director than Mr. Finkel).
There is no online play (or downloadable content) on the Wii version. In fact, a lot of features present in the HD versions are missing from the Wii version. If you’ve seen the commercials for this game and seen all of the cool zoomed-in camera angles you might be disappointed when you realize that this version doesn’t have them. It also has some serious issues with sound quality, especially when you execute a finisher or signature move and the sound all but cuts out; it’s pretty obvious that this is where the other versions would cut to a close-up but this version is just left hanging with nothing to cut to. Apparently the Wii version is a port of the PSP/PS2 version, which is so lazy and inexcusable on so many levels at this stage in the console cycle that I’m actually grading this title slightly harsher than I would normally. The Wii has sold more units (in any market and/or worldwide) than both of its HD competitors (as of December 2010), and yet it is still being treated as a second-class console by many third-party developers in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
While it would be valid to say that WWE All-Stars is the best wrestling game I’ve played in a long time, it would be more accurate to say it is merely the least horrible one, and I say this as a lifetime fan. When I’m able to look past its numerous faults, I enjoy playing WWE All-Stars. For a little while, anyway. I’m never going to be bored enough to endure Championship Mode with all thirty-plus superstars in order to unlock everything, but it’s still fun in small doses. The real problem is that I can never really ignore the fact that, as a Wii owner, I’ve been given a clearly inferior product yet again.
Pros: Fast-paced play; unique roster; fantasy match-up videos
Cons: Someone keeps thinking porting the PS2/PSP version onto the Wii is a good idea
At this point, a co-op dungeon crawler seems like a relic of generations past. We don’t mean that in a bad way; the genre just hasn’t seen the flurry of releases on the latest consoles that it had in the PS2 days. (Is it the emergence of MMOs? Genre fatigue? Just an unfortunate sequence of studio closures? We don’t know.) There hasn’t been a Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, a Champions of Norrath or even a decent Gauntlet out in years. It’s in this environment that Gameloft, the cover band of the industry, has a real shot with Dungeon Hunter: Alliance.
The game’s based, as it always is with Gameloft, on a mobile title. You choose a class, enter dungeons, gather loot and complete objectives. Along the way you level up, gain skills and upgrade attributes. In other words, it’s Dark Alliance without the IP. This version adds multiplayer, and that’s the ingredient it really needed.
First, though, let’s go over the other features. This game has Move support. It is something you should ignore, since pointing with the Move to move and hitting the Move button for almost everything isn’t actually easier or more precise in any way. We get that it’s supposed to be less daunting, but this game’s demographic should really be okay with a Dual Shock at this point. There’s HD! Except not really. The areas are all somewhat recycled from iOS versions, and they have low polygon counts. Thankfully, things are zoomed out enough that it’s not a problem, and the menus have that Torchlight-style low-budget-but-still-slick look to them. Just don’t expect to be impressed, as we think our old Champions disc has comparable visuals. Also, don’t play this single-player. Just don’t! It’s not very fun, as it’s deep enough for a phone game but pales in comparison to other PS3 offerings. Finally, the story is painfully generic. This is fine to just skip conversations in multiplayer, but a better-written tale would have mitigated the monotony when playing alone.
Okay, so the important stuff: Alliance supports four-player co-op, both online and local. Online is seamless as usual, and local does a good job of screen management, allowing all four players to access pop-up menus at once, LittleBigPlanet-style. Loot is randomly assigned a player color and only that person can pick it up, which keeps things even, and you can drop items with similar restrictions to keep a greedy player from messing up exchanges. You can join a host anywhere during his game, and if your quests line up, you can also progress on your own file. (This seems to really only work if all start at once, as otherwise you have to complete the exact same quests on your own before joining up. Still, it’s a welcome addition.) There seems to be one big oversight, though: for a game with four players, it’s weird to have three character classes. Now each class can be customized with skills and such so that they don’t play identically, but the armor and weapon drops are clearly tailored for one class, and two players basically have to split the good stuff. With the occasional exception, though, the item curve is rather shallow, so one guy will get a Spectral Staff with bonus mana regeneration and HP regeneration, and the other will be stuck with… a Spectral Staff with the same attack and fewer bonuses.
The game could use a patch, though. Players occasionally get stuck for a few seconds on obstacles. Your inventory will glitch up and show that your HP-boosting ring is a two-handed mace with bonus fire damage. They’re small, but noticeable, issues, and you hope that a game with so little character could at least be polished. (There were reports of major online issues, but those seem to have been cleared up.)
Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is the only declared candidate in the race these days, so in that respect it scores quite a few points. And the genre’s a reliable one that, with a group of friends, becomes fun even if it doesn’t have everything together. The progression, the boss battles and the gratifying feeling of acquiring levels and items that mobile and social games have captured so well lately make Alliance a blast to play, even if we can’t really say the game’s very good in any particular way.
Pros: Enjoyable multiplayer, addictive RPG elements
Cons: Almost soulless, needs some bug squashing
This seems like a joke, but it’s apparently not: Atari just announced that they’re rebooting Centipede as a post-apocalyptic shooter for 3DS and Wii. They even sent out a trailer (after the break), so we think this is happening. Here’s the thing: since WayForward is developing the game, it’s probably going to be a lot of fun. Out this fall, Centipede: Infestation stars a guy named Max who meets a girl named Maisy and apparently saves both the world and the environment. It’s unclear, really. READ MORE
You’ve ventured across Midgard, slaying robe-hating goblins and taking down evil masterminds instead of talking out the issue. What’s a wizard to do now? Clearly the answer is head to Vietnam.
The joke DLC for a joke game, Magicka: Vietnam adds a story mission, an extra survival mode, a spell or two and an extra robe to wear. We won’t talk too much about the rest of the DLC, since there’s not much to say other than they’re amusing, but the main draw here is the Vietnam Rescue Mission.
In the mission, which takes less than an hour as long as you don’t keep dying, you run into Vietnam, take out towers, rescue prisoners, blow up weapons caches and escape on your helicopter. Yes, it’s really short for DLC, but it’s designed as a challenge map, where you complete as many objectives as possible and escape quickly for a higher score. To mitigate the length, you can play online with friends, and only one of you needs the DLC to play it. (It’s an honorable move. Kudos, Arrowhead.)
The mission plays a lot differently from the fantasy campaign. For starters, there are guns everywhere; in fact, unless you pick a base robe that includes a sword or something, there are only guns. They range from smaller guns to automatic rifles to rocket launchers, and many are more useful than the sword ever was. The Vietnam robe also includes a staff that throws grenades, which are useful for getting behind walls and cover. (You can use this robe in the base game, which does add some variety to that, but we wish there were more elements that could cross over.)
Of course, it wouldn’t be Magicka without pop culture references. It leans heavily on Rambo and Tropic Thunder, but you find the occasional other joke, and there are a few bonus “mea culpa” jokes poking fun at the base game’s glitch-filled launch. Fans of the original campaign will enjoy appearances by Vlad, who has somehow become a captain at some point.
Magicka: Vietnam isn’t the kind of DLC that feels like a whole extra game. For those who enjoyed Magicka and wanted more, though, Vietnam hits the spot. We look forward to the next release, and cross our fingers that we at least get a 3-level campaign or something in that one. For now, though, this is definitely five bucks worth of fun.
Pros: Fans will love it, which is the idea of DLC
Cons: Actual mission’s a bit short
