Featured Reviews

Nostalgia does not a game make. Nostalgia is the stuff of memories, the stuff of impressions often from a time where taste is unrefined and based on “video games” versus reality (usually video games win, hopefully). Jet Set Radio feels really old. It’s rife with this strange mix of a great gameplay idea, nifty characters and a zany environment but it’s all bogged down with bad level design and flow. By no means is it “bad”, but it’s certainly not up to today’s standards of platforming games, and the proof is in a classic Xbox game: Jet Set Radio Future. There’s a reason they made it the same game but better.

For those of you out of the SEGA-centric loop, Jet Set Radio is an HD remake of the Dreamcast release of Jet Set Radio, a 3D action platformer involving crazy Japanese youth, graffiti and magnetized roller blades. The theme of a group of graffiti-wielding roller blade punks combattin an oppressive, insane private authority muscling in on the town of Tokyo-to (not to be confused with Tokyo) is the setup for Jet Set Radio. Players select from different characters from a group of rudies (the aforementioned punks) called the GGs. Tokyo-to is divided into three major areas each with three sub-areas where players must complete various story challenges to unlock more characters and get to the bottom of the recent craziness in the city. The idea works. It’s just the rest of the game that’s hit and miss.

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Plants vs. Zombies for the Pinball FX 2 platform was developed by Zen Studios. It was released on September 5, 2012 for 240 MSP. 

Plants vs. Zombies is the much anticipated collaboration between Pop Cap and Zen Studios. To our knowledge this is the first time a tower defense game has been converted into a pinball table. This table looks and feels relatively similar to Epic Quest. But it doesn’t nearly live up to that standard or really the Pinball FX 2 name. Despite being an interesting collaboration and a great idea this table just falls short.

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Mark of the Ninja was developed by Klei Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released Sept. 7, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Ninjas have a long and proud tradition in fiction in general and video games specifically. Since Ninja Gaiden, the stealthy Japanese warriors are behind perhaps only Nazis and zombies in gaming ubiquity. Continuing that proud tradition is new release Mark of the Ninja, a stealth platformer which sets you in the shoes of a ninja attempting to save his clan from extinction. Along the way, you’ll sneak, stab and hide your way through a solid adventure. Is it worth your time? Read on and find 0ut:

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The Walking Dead was developed and published by Telltale Games. It was released August 29, 2012 for 400 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Episode 3 of The Walking Dead is not fun, you will not enjoy the experience. You’ll walk away from it with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, and possibly tears in your eyes. It is a harrowing, depressing and almost hopeless tale, even more so than the two episodes preceding it.

The worst part of all that? It is an experience you absolute must take part in, this is a game that will make you feel and think things you’d never have considered a game could. In three short episodes Telltale Games have become masters of the zombie apocalypse, telling horribly believable, shocking stories through an interactive medium. Read More

Rock Band Blitz was developed and published by Harmonix. It will be released on August 29, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

With the emergence of online gaming, calling up friends to come over and play a video game seems like a distant memory. The most prominent party game a few years ago was Rock Band. Harmonix had struck gold with the be-all-end-all of party games. Hours passed as friends played the drums, keyboard, guitar, and of course the vocals. Everyone had “that friend” who tried to hit the falsetto on Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. While we all had fun with the “wannabe Freddie Mercury”, Harmonix has developed a new way to enjoy their rhythm-based game with the release of Rock Band Blitz on XBLA.

Rock Band Blitz is an entertaining music game utilizing controller-based play. Touting 25 songs, Harmonix channels their popular PS2 game Frequency; players control all of the tracks in a song and use power-ups to accumulate stars and points. An interesting twist is earning multipliers for each track, and players must get the maximum number of multipliers on all tracks to raise their level cap.  Another way to gain points is to enter Blitz Mode. While hitting every note is impossible, hitting many of them in a row will put players into this mode, where they’ll start earning additional points for every tenth note hit.
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Table Pack 1 and Table Pack 2 for The Pinball Arcade were developed by Farsight Studios and published by Crave Games. They were released August 2, 2012 for 400 MSP each.

The Pinball Arcade was very well received for its historical tables and accurate physics. But it would take more tables if it hoped to truly compete with Pinball FX 2 for the highly competitive XBLA pinball crown. Unfortunately the release of both table packs was delayed and fans were left wonderingif it was ever going to come. They’ve finally been released and we can say that Farsight has done a great job. Table Pack 1 consists of Bride of Pinbot and Medieval Madness. Table Pack 2 includes Funhouse and Cirqus Voltaire. Both packs are very different in their theme and content but both deliver an outstanding pinball experience that in many ways out does the base game.

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Dust: An Elysian Tail was developed by Humble Hearts and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on August 15, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Dust: An Elysian Tail opens with a lone figure awakening in a forest with no memory of his past. The mystical, obviously powerful blade he comes into possession of assumes the dual roles of death-dealer and imparter of wisdom; its cagey words imply that it knows more about the main character and the quest he is destined to embark upon than it is willing to reveal just yet. A cutesy and somewhat annoying sidekick flies alongside, providing help and occasionally pointing out the obvious. Once the opening scene closes, players move left to right and merrily hammer away at face buttons to dispatch beasties marching towards them on a 2D plane, all of it accomplished in stunning effect thanks to gorgeous hand-drawn art. There are peaceful villages besieged by overpowering forces and inhabited by locals in need of a hero to carry out various quests, and it’s not long before the environment betrays the fact that the completionist player will be revisiting areas later on to accumulate all of the hidden goodies once more skills have been unlocked.

It all sounds fun, right? Of course it does, but it’s probably also sounding a bit familiar at this point. Here’s the good news: there is much more to Humble Hearts’ Dust: An Elysian Tail than can be summed up in a handful of broad sentences about its action-adventure game tropes. Yes, it shares much with other throwback side-scrollers, and the sole member of the game’s development studio, Dean Dodrill, is unlikely to hear any complaints about that fact. But his studio’s debut effort also establishes an excellent identity all its own. Dust is a joy to play and the star of Microsoft’s 2012 Summer of Arcade lineup. There are some issues with pacing, voice work and the framerate hiccup, but wonderfully charming artwork, a wealth of content and a combat system that just feels right will allow gamers to look past the issues and enjoy Dust for many hours.

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Ever since the dawn of time man has dreamed of flight.

Okay well that might be a bit hyperbolic, but certainly the popularity of science fiction and the curious mind of one Leonardo Da Vinci are why we are so in love with jetpacks. Strapping a super-powered engine to your back and floating around the sky, all the while hoping your butt doesn’t get singed, this must indeed be the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements, should we ever arrive there. In the mean time, Hybrid‘s got all the jetpackin-est action we could hope for and more, and it’s one of the best implementations of a jetpack in gaming history. No, that’s not hyperbolic.

Hybrid is a simple game, when you strip away some of the superficiality. It’s a third person shooter that’s one part cover-camper and one part on-rails bullet hell. Sound strange? It should. This three versus three competitive multiplayer (only) game mixes the strategy of locking to cover with the skill and reflex-reliance of strafing and shooting while flying through the air.

The whole game centers around this mechanic, wherein you select a location to travel to, rather than manually moving there and directing your character. Once in the air, you can speed up, strafe in all directions with your jetpack, return to your previous cover or select a new location. When in cover, you can move along the walls or hop over them, but that’s it. The game is loadout-based with a dense armory system which grants you an unlock for any weapons or abilities you’d like from a specific category every time you level up (like Gotham City Impostors).

On top of the actual gameplay during matches, there is also this massive global war meta game to account for. Five continents divided into 20 districts each must be fought over to gain dark matter for your faction. The Variant and Paladin factions contest these zones, completing matches in a zone they select to progress its capture; the better the team does, the more progress they make. The first faction to 100 dark matter wins the season and is awarded with a special helmet and achievement. Read More

Deadlight was developed by Tequila Works and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on August 1, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Deadlight is a 2D platformer with a survival horror bent, at least in theory, but we’ll get to that shortly. You play as Randall Wayne, a survivor of some kind of apocalyptic event, which has caused the dead to rise. Though they act like zombies, these particular undead have been branded “Shadows”, represented in-game as silhouettes with glowing red or white eyes.

Randall is searching Seattle for his wife and daughter, who he’s been seperated from since the start of the disaster. When the game begins, Randall is with a group of survivors, but they quickly go their seperate ways as Randall begins the search for his family.
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Wreckateer was developed by Iron Galaxy Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on July 25, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Wreckateer made a surprise showing during this year’s Microsoft’s E3 briefing, arguably stealing the show in the name of XBLA, and looks to be one of the more promising Kinect titles released this year. Essentially it’s a physics-based destruction game for Kinect that comes suited and booted with the new 400 gamerscore standard, along with three avatar awards and is the first game to utilize the new Avatar Famestar App on release. It’s also the second game released during this year’s Summer of Arcade promotion, and the inclusion of a Kinect game inevitably draws more than a few groans. Thankfully the game’s tight controls and surprisingly addictive scoring, means that Wreckateer deservedly warrants it’s slot in this year’s line-up.

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