Pity developer Beenox for the decision to release their follow-up to the excellent Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions alongside the amazing Batman: Arkham City. The bat signal can’t help but put a dark shadow over a game that already has enough reasons to make Activision worry. Batman aside, Spider-Man: Edge of Time simply isn’t the game its forerunner was and while it’s not terrible, it’s hard to view this sequel as anything but a step backwards.

On the plus side, we absolutely applaud Beenox for focusing on not just the Amazing Spider-Man fans know and love, but Spider-Man 2099–one of the most intriguing characters in Spider-Man’s convoluted history. Created in the early 90’s by legendary comic book writer, Peter David, Spider-Man 2099 has the distinction of being a far better comic book than the awful main Spidey stories that Marvel was pumping out at the time.

When Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099, popped up in Shattered Dimensions last year, fans were instantly onboard and seeing him return in Edge of Time will likely make the game worth checking out for many. The plot this time around is still somewhere dimension shattering. The story opens in 2099, when an extremely zealous scientist named Walker Sloan decides to hasten his way up the corporate ladder of future mega-corporation, Alchemax, through time travel.

Sloan trips back to the 1970s with enough future tech to make Alchemax a mega power well before it was ever even started. After failing to stop Sloan in the future, O’Hara realizes that time must be set right or the consequences will be/are dire—including the death of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man. To that end, Miguel is able to contact Peter through, well, some bizarre means and tries to warn him.

Parker, being the do gooder he is, decides to put his own personal safety to the wind in order to stop a rampage by Anti-Venom—aka Eddie Brock… aka the original Venom now with polar opposite colors and powers. Confused yet? Well, that’s nothing compared to the inclusion of time distortion between the two spider-men. Somehow, the Spidey in the past can affect the situation of the Spidey in the future.

A good example of this is a cool sequence where Spider-Man 2099 is being pummeled by a giant robot, and Amazing Spider-man has a limited time to destroy the still-in-production robot in the present. Try not to think about it too much, as it raises more questions than the concept could ever answer. Suffice to say, Edge of Time has a terrific flare for the dramatic, especially during such sequences.

The screen will show the in-danger Spider-Man in a smaller view, so players can track his status, while being heroic on the rest of the screen. The problem is that the game hinges entirely on this single time-distortion concept. To make matters worse, the gameplay is entirely linear, so players have no option to just play with the environment to see what happens.

The other major failing here is the environment. Shattered Dimensions may have focused just as much on simple, beat ‘em up action, but it had enough diversity of characters and environments to feel more expansive than it actually was. In Edge of Time, both heroes are stuck in Alchemax’s giant skyscraper, and it’s just not a great place to do all the things a spider can do. The corridors are bland, the air vents are absurdly large (and bland), and enemies are horribly reused. Combat isn’t bad, but just feels repetitive as well.

Both heroes are relatively the same, which isn’t surprising, but the overall combat system and use of combos in particular could really use an overhaul. Each has a special ability—2099 is so fast that enemies keep attacking where he was just standing, while Amazing Spider-man can evade attacks thanks his Spidey sense. In reality, both abilities are almost identical, though they create a cool, multi-colored trailing effect.

As an interactive story-telling medium, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is certainly an appealing game for the heroes’ many fans—especially since Peter David had a strong hand in the writing, particularly the dialogue. Unfortunately, the actual game doesn’t fare quite as well. The combat and environments both feel by the numbers, and its time-tunnel gimmick gets old fast. More importantly, putting these two heroes into confined spaces with nothing to do but endlessly punch bad guys doesn’t do them justice.

Blast Factor: Ultimately, Edge of Time is a definitive step backwards from Shattered Dimensions. We hope this stumbling block doesn’t kill the series, as these characters really do deserve more. The game is still relatively entertaining as a simple brawler and a solid choice for younger players who aren’t quite mature enough for the incredibly dark and violent Batman games.

Spiderman: Edge of Time is available now for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP systems. An Xbox 360 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this review.

The apocalypse fascinates us. Tales of a grim future of desert wastelands, horrible mutations, and rampant violence have long proven to be a successful formula for movies, novels, and, especially, games. Id Software’s long-awaited Rage certainly seems to have been crafted with an exacting eye for wasteland standards. It’s a game that definitely succeeds on a technical level, but from a design and gameplay perspective might require players to lower their expectations.

Rage opens in a familiar manner. Just before a giant meteor strikes Earth, a select few are given a reprieve in the form of cryogenic status chambers in protective “Arks”. Fast forward a hundred years, and it’s clear this plan wasn’t bullet proof. The player awakes from cold storage to find themselves the only survivor of their ark, and is immediately thrust into a violent world of dusty landscapes, burned out structures, and well-armed buggies.

Comparisons between Rage and other wasteland games like Borderlands and Fallout 3 are inevitable. How Rage distinguishes itself however, is that it is undoubtedly an Id-made game. There are no role-playing elements here and no greater strategy beyond kill-or-be-killed.Anyone expecting another Fallout will be disappointed by the sheer shallowness of the gameplay.

Rage also lacks the deeper cooperative play experience of Borderlands and the sense of humor of either game. It seems to be a game that takes itself too seriously, even though players will be hard pressed to discern why. There’s no cliché left unturned and despite the initial appearance of an open world, even this is merely an illusion.

Players have no control over even the basics of character development. You can’t change the look, gender, or any physical aspect of the ark survivor, and the only real commodities in the game are money and race tickets. Both of these currencies are used to buy weapons, equipment, ammo, and vehicle parts.

Rage is divided between two distinct play styles. The standard first-person shooting elements will make veteran gamers feel right at home. The indoor levels have a distinct Doom feel to them, with tight corridors and much the same imagery and design techniques used in the developer’s past games. Even the horror elements are cribbed from so many other sci-fi horror games. Despite the apocalyptic mutant theme, the game throws in the whole growing biomass cliché that makes little sense in such an environment.
The driving portions will delight fans of arcade-style combat racing. The physics are over-the-top with an eye for fast action not realism. So, you can still steer in the air, for instance, and there’s a decided focus on making crazy jumps. There’s plenty of opportunity for extra points by destroying objects in mid-air and skillfully dispatching foes.

So long as you understand exactly what kind of game Rage is, however, there’s no denying that it’s fun to play. The whole game is just one errand run after another. Talking to the various non-combative denizens of the wasteland frequently leads to a new task (usually either a fetchin’ or killin’ mission), which you just go and do. It’s not deep, creative, or complex, but this formula provides plenty of action, which has always been Id’s design focus.

Enemies have decent AI and tactics, with excellent movement abilities. Bandits and mutants will use free-running skills to leap over things, run along walls, and be generally hard to hit—frequently too hard to hit, since the game’s auto-assist is suspect. There’s a wide array of bad things to shoot, including some impressively large boss creatures.  Bandits are divided into themed tribes. There are redneck cannibals, technologically-advanced soldiers, and British punk-rocker wannabes. Ultimately, their specific look and dialogue is irrelevant, since outside of the few “safe” towns, everyone is merely fodder for your guns.

Beyond bandits, there’s the so-called “authority” that make life in the wasteland a nightmare for anyone who crosses them. To go along with these tyrannical would-be rulers, there’s also the pre-requisite resistance for the player to join. The story is just there to service the shoot ‘em gameplay though, and it’s clear that the minimum amount of effort was put into the writing and non-shooting and driving mechanics.
Thankfully, as expected, the shooting and driving is satisfyingly entertaining. There are enough missions to occupy hours of violence and, for action lovers, that’s a fine reason to enjoy this romp through the wasteland. The other major draw is the multiplayer, which brings multiplayer car combat front and center.

Id definitely has a handle on great death matching and Rage’s vehicle-centric online play is terrific. Totally ignoring the first-person shooter elements, the competitive play is fast-paced and well-designed. There are a handful of entertaining game modes fought in superb and spacious arenas. The downside of the multiplayer is the four-player limit, which is too small given the expansive scope of the maps. There are also two-player cooperative “legend” missions, which are fun, if shallow, but not really a replacement being able to play the main single-player game with a friend.

Id Software has always been known for their technology, and the latest iteration of their graphics engine takes the core visual style of Doom 3 and expands it to vast open spaces. Despite some graphic glitches on the console versions, Rage is a beautiful game with a solid frame rate and nice variety of indoor levels. The audio is also superb, with powerful surround effects, solid voice acting, and a decent musical score.

Blast Factor: Ultimately, the best way to sum up Rage is shallow, but fun. There’s virtually nothing here that hasn’t been seen before with more depth. Even when the game threatens to evolve beyond its own shallowness, it just can’t make it. Taken as a straight-forward, mission-based shooter, there’s plenty to like. Yet, after so long in development, the game has an almost half-baked feel. The presentation, the environment, the combat… almost all the parts are in place to make Rage an epic post-apocalypse adventure, but the sum total is ultimately less than these pieces.

When the original Resistance was released alongside the PlayStation 3’s launch, it felt very much like a launch title. It was a good lucking, entertaining shooter, but certainly didn’t scream next-gen power. Full of linear paths, indestructible walls, and wide-open spaces purely used as massive arena battles, it served mostly to provide a pre-requisite sci-fi shooter and show off how many creatures the PS3 could shove on the screen at once.

Frankly, not a lot’s changed. The sequel was improved, but still suffered from a by-the-numbers design philosophy and felt like an endless string of gigantic set pieces, absurdly crowded battles, and gauntlet runs. With Resistance 3, Insomniac Games gotten off the leash just a little and while it would be easy to say the formula is fundamentally unchanged, the results are stunningly improved.

The third chapter picks up several years after the oppressively downbeat ending of Resistance 2. Players take the role of Joseph Capelli, the angry grunt from the second game whose actions lead to his dishonorable discharge. Joe has settled down, gotten married, and had a son.

Joe helps protect one of the rare “safe” towns with his family in Oklahoma, and the game does an amazing job of detailing just how dire the situation is for humanity. The chimera has overrun the United States and stopped capturing humans to replace their vast numbers. Now, they just kill any humans they find. To make matters worse, they’ve started reproducing in the wild somehow, leading to a feral breed of chimera that attack anything.

Through the game, Joseph will bear witness to all manner of horrors and wonder on this trip through the darklands of Americana. Vast wild herds of gigantic widow makers, hordes of zombie-like grims, and variations on other old favorites scour the landscape. The levels take you from Oklahoma to the Mississippi river, and through Pennsylvania, in order to reach the ultimate goal of destroying the worm hole generator in the heart of New York City.

To that end, Joe will fight through small towns, mine shafts, and burned out urban landscapes. He’ll defend a moving train and run rampant through a super max prison. Every environment feels new and different in comparison to the last, and the game’s oppressive portrait of a destroyed America makes the action feel all the more intense. Joseph, like Hale before him, isn’t a particularly personable protagonist, but the cinematic sequences and overall story do a good job of presenting him as the country’s last hope.

Resistance 3 throws in some surprisingly retro mechanics that actually make the game feel more innovative. The tired two-gun limit has been thrown out the window, allowing Insomniac to flex their creative penchant for destruction learned from Ratchet & Clank. Players now have access to all available guns all the time—provided they have ammo.

While old standbys like the shotgun, assault and sniper rifle, bullseye, auger, and magnum are all here, many of the new guns are ingenious. There’s a freeze gun, viral mutator, and lightning gun, all of which have very specific and entertaining uses. The secondary fire options are especially well-done. The mutator is a charge shot that can infect most enemies with a mutated chimera virus, leading to a truly awful death. The secondary fire, however, disperses a cloud of the virus to infect a group.

The magnum uses explosive shots that can be detonated at any time with the secondary fire. The lightning gun uses chain lightning normally, but also shoots a sucking vortex of death. The fights tend to be so overwhelming that using all the guns and constantly running low on ammo is common place.

The other change is Joe doesn’t regenerate, nor does he have a shield. Instead, he must find good ol’ health power-ups, which greatly changes up the tactics that most shooters have been relying on since the original Halo. It is somewhat annoying that Joe can’t actually hold med kits in his inventory, leading to somewhat unnecessary frustration during the harder battles.

Resistance 3 still relies heavily on a linear approach to design focusing on huge set pieces and vastly outnumbered battles. During some of these sequences, Joe has some minor help from AI allies, but mostly it’s just him against an army. The battles are well-paced, intense, and mostly incredibly entertaining.

Yet, there are times when it just feels canned. Why, for instance, would a lone human join a battle of militant chimera against a giant, feral widow maker instead of just sneaking around them? Another oddity is the final act, which bizarrely loses steam right when the game should be gearing up for a grand finale.

Just the same, Resistance 3 delivers an insane amount of over-the-top shooting carnage in an environment that feels amazingly compelling. Flaws be damned, this is a great single-player shooter. Multiplayer-centric players can opt to play cooperatively with a second player, or just battle each other with a solid array of online game modes. Some features are tweaked or missing from the earlier games and the multiplayer sessions have been downgraded (again) to 16 players, but it’s still an excellent example of online battling.

The Blast Factor: Add in excellent 3D and Move support, and Resistance 3 marks another great and much improved sequel exclusive to Sony. Insomniac has relaxed enough to tell a familiar story their way instead of simply making PlayStation alternative to Halo, and it shows.

With a name like Hole in the Wall, it’s easy to get the wrong idea. It’s probably not a phrase you’d want to Google at work, for instance. As it turns out, this downloadable Kinect title is a mostly innocent and goofy full-body motion game based off of a Japanese game show. So, expect weirdness to abound.

The basic premise is that a wall is coming toward you, with a shaped hole in it that you must fit through. Most of these shapes are poses—some standing, some sitting, kneeling, or even laying down—and a timer is running, so you have to be quick and flexible. If you don’t fill the hole within the time period, your avatar is shoved into a pool of water.

Hole in the Wall is pretty weird, but not entirely original even for American audiences. Nintendo released the far more bizarre Muscle March on the Wii’s online store a while ago, which was basically the same concept. Also, iPhone/iPad users might recognize all this wackiness from Tic Toc Body Pop, where you move a mannequin around to match the hole in the wall.

The first concern with any Kinect game is how accurately it uses the camera. From that perspective, Hole in the Wall is good with a few quirks. The game actually uses your avatar as the on-screen character, which mimics your body movements amazingly well. You’ll have to move all over the playing area to position your avatar in line with the hole, then adjust your limbs, head, and height accordingly.

There are occasions when you’d swear you were in the right place, but the game still doesn’t register success. There are more times when you’re barely in the spot and the score meter starts to rise. At first, it’s easy to assume the game only notices when you’re simply standing in the right spot, as that’s generally when the score meter starts moving. In reality, the game fills the score meter faster based on how much of the hole you’ve filled and if your various limbs are in basically the right spot.

When it all works right—which is most of the time—it’s bizarrely entertaining. This is especially true in the multiplayer mode, which dangerously supports two teams of two. While the teams do take turns, striking poses with your teammate at the same time will likely end up creating some hilarious, yet possibly tragic new Youtube videos. After all, isn’t that where all motion gameplay mishaps end up?

Packaged around a game-show theme, the main portion of Hole in the Wall contains ten different multi- stage rounds. Each round has a theme (sports, winter, etc…), but the gameplay seldom varies in the slightest. The final stage of each round throws in a quirk—the first, for instance, turns off the stage lights, while others just speed up the pace of the wall entirely. There’s also a survival mode, where the object is to pass through as many holes as possible without fail. Unfortunately, this mode rampantly reuses the same poses over and over.

The Blast Factor: Much like the show it’s based on, Hole in the Wall is entirely hinged on a single gimmick. In short doses, the game is entertaining for a cheap thrill and certain to elicit laughter from bystanders. Whether this limited amount of value is worth 800 points is a personal decision, but for what it is, Hole in the Wall is an odd, amusing diversion from the norm.

Fruit Ninja is a game that, by all reasonable standards, has no right to be so idiotically entertaining. A sensation on the mobile scene to rival Angry Birds, the game’s absurdly simple concept of just slicing fruit works brilliantly with the Xbox 360’s Kinect. In fact, it works so well, Fruit Ninja may well be the best game yet to use Microsoft’s super camera.

The big screen version of Fruit Ninja is largely identical to the one on your phone. The interface has switched from your finger to your hand (or, really, your whole body), but otherwise this is exactly the same fruit-slashing action millions have come to know and love. Also, at 800 points (or about $10), it’s certainly more expensive than the mobile version. The reward for that extra cash is a game that’s as hilarious to watch as it is to play.

For the few who haven’t experienced the wonder that is Fruit Ninja, the concept is as simple as it gets. Fruit flies up onto the screen, and you swipe at it to cut it in half. If there’s a group of fruit, you’ll get bonus points for cutting multiple fruit in half at once. In the main game, bombs will fly up as well, and slashing them will end the game. Missing too many fruit also ends the game.

There’s the zen mode as well, for those that want to leisurely cut fruit for a minute or two. The Kinect version adds a party mode that allows two players to slash fruit together, although the potential for personal injury and the slapping of each other instead of fruit looms large. Achievements and high scores unlock new blades and dojos, which essentially means different colored slash marks against different backgrounds.

While the game itself is the same, the motion controls turn Fruit Ninja into an original experience. The game helps players relate to the screen by superimposing a ninja-like shadow image on the screen. This shadow figure mimics the player’s moves exactly, and helps immensely with creating a sense of connection to the screen. Admittedly, the shadow becomes background noise and there are some spots on the screen that are consistently hard to cover.

The lower corners of the screen are especially hard to reach no matter how the Kinect is set up, so expect some fast moves and kicks to catch all the fruit. As expected, how well Fruit Ninja functions depends on how well the Kinect works. The game is definitely one of the most user-friendly and responsive Kinect games available, but don’t expect miracles if the Kinect normally has issues with its location.

Blast Factor: Fruit Ninja isn’t deep or complex, but for a shallow good time, there are few games that virtually everyone—no matter their age or gaming prowess—can just start playing and have fun. The move to the Kinect is a natural one and the game is simply one of the best uses yet for the camera. Fruit Ninja is a cheap good time, and one that will likely burn a surprising amount of calories to boot.

Codemasters has been pumping out rally racers for years, first under the Colin McRae name and more recently the Dirt series. The original Dirt was a superb rally racer. Dirt 2 superseded the original in every way and was easily one of the best racers of the year. Dirt 3, however, builds on those successes and provides one of the finest and most entertaining racing games of the year.

Rally racing focuses largely on off-road competition that varies between standard racing against other cars and traditional rallies, where each driver takes a turn trying to make the best time on a given track. Dirt 3 expands well beyond these two styles of racing and provides an insane variety of challenges across an impressive amount of tracks and locales. The game is one of the most complete racing games on the market—providing an engaging and intense racing experience both on and offline for all skill levels.

Dirt 3 is an incredibly customizable racing. While even hardcore racers like Shift 2 and Gran Turismo offer scaling difficulty levels to accommodate varying skill levels, even on the easier levels they still feel less than welcoming to casual drivers and newcomers. Dirt 3 provides as much assistance as you need, or as little, making the gameplay fun for anyone, without sacrificing the gritty feel of the racing.

The career mode is the main meat of the game, and serves up over 100 different events to conquer. Dirt 3 offers a great array of locations to blast through, providing extremes at every turn. Races take place everywhere from African deserts and snowy roads in Aspen to LA and all over Europe. Some tracks are lap-based circuits, while others are just long stretches of road. Brand new to the series is the gymkhana mode. This is a trick-focused event where players are tasked with stringing together slick driving moves to earn big points.

The gymkhana mode is strangely reminiscent of skate boarding games like Tony Hawk, and adds a great new dimension to the otherwise more straight-laced racing action. More importantly, conquering this mode ensures that you’ll have the driving skills to ace any other track. No matter what type of event you’re racing, the controls are always spot on and, as with Dirt 2, if you really get into trouble, you can rewind time and try again without having to start the whole race over.

Perform well enough and you’ll earn new sponsors, which unlocks new vehicles and greater challenge. Of course, even a great single-player game can only get you so far, and Dirt 3 has pumped up its multiplayer game immensely. Beyond multiplayer versions of the various single-player modes, the game throws out some crazy game styles usually seen in first-person shooters. The Outbreak mode, for instance, is a game of vehicular tag where one player is “infected” and must spread the disease to the other cars. Transporter is a capture the flag-style game and Invasion focuses on smashing through alien robot cutouts while trying not to cause collateral damage to the movie-set-like buildings.

Dirt 3 brings all its racing greatness together thanks to a gorgeous presentation. The visuals are stunning, and easily on par with the competition. Cars are detailed with full damage modeling. The tracks and backdrops are varied, sharp, and realistic as well. The soundtrack is powerful, with great sound effects and voice work.

There’s very little to complain about in Dirt 3. For racing fans, this is a no-brainer. This is a great sequel, which improves on the previous game in every direction. The career mode is massive and the multiplayer is terrific. When it comes to rally racing, this series has always been the leader of the pack, and Dirt 3 is the best yet.

It would seem that Square Enix no longer has the lock on tactical, on-the-go battles. While Japanesetitles like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre have long been fan favorites for turn-based, tacticalcombat, Ubisoft brings the strategy into the near future with the surprisingly good revamp of TomClancy’s Ghost Recon franchise. Shadow Wars could have easily been a slap-dash release to cash in onthe dearth of Nintendo 3DS games, but is instead one of the best tactical combat games we’ve seen in awhile.

The storyline is a by-the-numbers affair about fighting militant terrorist factions, mostly in former USSRrepublics like the Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Your squad isn’t much more than stereotypicalarchetypes that you’ll get to know purely for their classification as sniper, recon, medic, engineer,gunner, and commando. Shadow Wars really spends too much time on its story, breaking up missionsfrequently with talking head interludes.

Even the graphics are a bit cheesy looking, as if Ubisoft intentionally made the overhead viewpointhigh enough to ensure a lack of detail in the various characters on the screen. On the other hand,the environments are actually quite attractive, and the use of 3D is some of the best we’ve seen onthe system. Since the maps are viewed from above, and the gameplay takes landscape elevation intoaccount, the added sense of depth is used to great effect.

Shadow Wars is a game of surprising tactical depth. Every aspect of the battlefield has some meaninghere. Obstacles, range, contours of the landscape, enemy and weapon types, line of sight, and a hordeof other elements combine to form a superb strategy game. Better yet, the gameplay is remarkablyaccessible thanks to an intelligent learning curve and plenty of in-game tutorials.

That said, you can still screw up an entire mission with one wrong move. Thankfully, Shadow Warsallows you to save at any time, which is a huge advantage when missions can take almost an hourto complete. The touch screen is used to display tactical information on your troops, their skills, andweapons. The D-pad is used to move a cursor around on the game screen, allowing you to select yoursoldier, which grid square to move them too, and what actions to perform. The analog stick moves thecamera around.

The interface is solid overall, although the game is crying out for a platform that is entirely touch-screenbased. The main single-player campaign is amazingly lengthy as well, so gamers can expect over 20hours of combat. In addition, there are unlockable, standalone skirmish missions. Finally, there’s alsomultiplayer, which only supports two players by having them takes turns on the same 3DS.

Blast Factor: Despite the disappointing multiplayer, the rest of Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is an exemplary exampleof turn-based, tactical gameplay. There are hours of gameplay here, and a tactical system that is bothsurprisingly deep and accessible. The 3D effect is also used impressively, making this one of the best and most distinctive games for the 3DS’s launch.

Like most of Gameloft’s releases, the Asphalt series never banked its success on being original. Startinglife off as a straight-up clone of console-style arcade racers for cell phones, the series moved to the DSfor that system’s launch back in 2004. As it turns out, not much has changed in the intervening years.

Asphalt 3D takes clear inspiration from EA’s Need for Speed and Burnout series. It comes packed with 17tracks and 42 licensed cars. Such numbers can’t compete with the PSP’s Gran Turismo, but still provideplenty of variety. Asphalt’s physics and controls are incredibly forgiving, although the opponent AI isgenerally fairly strong.

For a straight-up racing game, Asphalt 3D is certainly serviceable. The game has a generic look and feel,but can definitely be fun. The problems come when the gameplay tries to emulate more advancedaspects of AAA racers. The use of slow-motion, cinematic crash sequences from Burnout, for instance,is done incredibly badly. The physics are inconsistent, so taps on the rear bumper might cause a car tocareen into the air, while hard slams do nothing.

The crash sequences are just unnecessary and distracting, ruining the pacing of the game and oftencausing the framerate to take a dive. The inclusion of a cop and speeder element is also weak, as are thedrifting and cash challenges, which all just seem half-baked. Multiplayer supports up to six, but is localWi-Fi only, and Streetpass support is limited to sharing best times.

Asphalt 3D looks ok, but definitely old school. The 3D effects add an extra level of depth, but the visualsstill look a generation or two behind. There’s an over emphasis on neon trails and shininess, althoughthe car models look good and the various tracks offer a variety of scenery to absorb.

The Blast Factor: Asphalt 3D isn’t terrible, just incredibly generic and flawed. Where Ridge Racer 3D focuses on providinga very familiar, yet refined racing experience, Asphalt muddies its own waters with too many extras thatsimply aren’t done well.

With the launch of the Nintendo DS, Nintendo raised the ante for innovation thanks to the inclusionof both dual screens and a touch screen. Now, the company has created the first mainstream use ofglasses-free stereoscopic 3D. The question, of course, is does 3D actually enhance the experience ofplaying games on the go.

For gamers who appreciate what 3D offers, Nintendo has released an impressive piece of technologyin a tiny package. The handheld sports a 200 MHz GPU, which in comparison to the iPhone or averageAndroid-based device seems positively anemic. The 3D-capable top screen measures 3.53 inch andsupports a widescreen resolution of 800×240 pixels. The touch screen is 3 inches and sports a lowerresolution. Unlike the DS, that’s a wide difference between the two screens, so games that utilize bothscreens for gameplay (like Contra 4) seem unlikely.

Regardless, the main screen certainly produces excellent visuals. Without a doubt, Nintendo’stechnology works. The 3D effect is superb when used well. The 3DS can clearly provide images withan amazing sense of depth and dimension. The graphics are crisp and colorful, and on par with theGamecube and even the Wii. The 3D effect is a bit finicky though. You have to stare at the screenstraight on, and hold it still, or else the picture breaks up into a ghosted double image. There’s a handyslider bar to the right of the screen for adjusting the intensity of the 3D effect, or just turning it off.

The entire unit is actually smaller than the DSi, so it’s easy to slip into your pocket and take on the go.The 3DS supports 802.11 Wi-Fi and relies on its wireless abilities more than any other Nintendo gamesystem—even the Wii. Between the potential online gaming abilities, more streamlined friend codesystem, the new Streetpass mode, and, of course, the upcoming 3DS store, the 3DS should prove to be avery connected handheld.

Granted, the DSi had most of these features and could play games online, but it lacked a convenientway to create a friends list—the archaic friend code system Nintendo insists on using was actually gamespecific on the DS. The 3DS uses a system-specific code, so you only have to give your buddies a singlecode to connect with them.
The store, ability to browse the web, and the much-anticipated option to finally transfer DSi storepurchases to your 3DS will supposedly all be available in May. Right now, the online abilities of thesystem are nearly non-existent. Few of the launch games even support online play, but it’s clear that the3DS, once updated, will offer a level connectivity hitherto unseen from Nintendo.

The biggest feature of the 3DS next to actually being 3D is the Streetpass mode, though how useful thiswill be in actuality is up to speculation. When the system is in sleep mode, it can detect other sleeping3DS systems and connect to them. For games that utilize this functionality, this leads to data and bonusexchanges. In Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, for example, teams of character figurines you collect will actually fight AI battles with other 3DS teams. The winner will open their 3DS to reveal newly earnedbonuses, coins, and other goodies.

Streetpass is an intriguing attempt at essentially anonymous social gaming, and Nintendo at leastdeserves props for devising a creatively cool feature. How much use developers make of this abilityremains to be seen.
The inclusion of an analog nub is another improvement over the old DS. It’s a comfortable stick thatallows for more advanced controls, since movement is no longer confined to the D-pad. Other thanthat, the layout is identical to the DSi. The Wii-like graphic user interface is further refined as well. Thescrolling, icon-based menus are easy to navigate, although a few of the system options are somewhatburied.

The 3DS also sports an in-depth Mii creation system, just like the Wii. It can even create a Mii based on a head shot, which makes creating the little figures quick and easy. Wii owners will instantly recognize theMii Plaza as well for showing off collected Miis, though their use is still mostly a gimmick. The onboardcamera can take 2D or 3D shots, and, just like the DSi, has front- and back-facing cameras.

While the ability to take 3D photos is great, the resolution is painfully low, so you’ll likely only be viewingthem on the 3DS. The cameras are also used for Augmented Reality (AR) applications. The 3DS comesstandard with Face Raiders, a fun first-person shooter that creates floating heads based on photos, andthen requires players to move around the room while staring at the screen to find and shoot the heads.

The 3DS also includes a set of AR cards in the box. These cards mostly just create a 3D image of popularNintendo characters overlaid against your environment, though one of the cards also offers a few simpleAR games. It’s all a gimmick, but still amusing—especially for kids.

As great as the overall hardware is, there is one major flaw—the battery life. DS owners have long cometo expect insanely good battery life out of their systems. With the 3D and Wi-Fi on, the 3DS can maybeaverage four or five hours on a charge. To help minimize this inconvenience, a charger dock comesstandard.

The line-up of launch titles hasn’t exactly been met with unbridled enthusiasm. While the 3DS’sofferings aren’t terrible for the most part, they’re also not great. Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV 3DEdition is probably the all-around champ. It offers terrific graphics and gameplay, online multiplayer, andStreetpass support.

Namco’s Ridge Racer 3D and Asphalt 3D are both surprisingly good, if old school racers, and Nintendo’sPilot Wings Resort is a fun, if shallow casual flying experience. It’s just a shame that Nintendo didn’thave anything in the way of what players really want at launch. The 3D release of the N64 classic,Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is due this summer, but there’s no Mario, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, orMetroid. Worse, none of these beloved franchises are likely to appear any time soon.

As it is, early adopters will have to satisfy themselves with ports of Super Monkey Ball, Bust-a-Move,Nintendogs, and a few other popular regulars. Nintendo claims to have had the most successful hardware launch ever with the 3DS, but whether that will translate into improved support fromdevelopers remains to be seen. If developer are willing to invest in the potential of the 3DS over thesecurity and cheaper development costs of a regular DS game, future releases might just live up to thehardware’s bright potential.

To say that the 3DS’s launch titles have been mostly disappointing is something of an understatement.Most of the games seem to have been shoved out just a tad too quickly, and been a bit lacking. So, Capcom deserves immense kudos for their portable rendition of Super Street Fighter IV. In short, it’s an amazing port of the console game, with very little compromise.

The 3D edition of SSFIV isn’t any kind of quick and dirty port just to get something out in time for launch. Capcom has made as few concessions as possible in fitting the game into the tiny 3DS, and it shows.Character models are well-animated and gorgeous, making them amazingly close to the 360 and PS3versions. The 3D effect adds a great level of depth to the visuals, and special effects have been pumped up to look even cooler. The backgrounds have been greatly simplified, which might annoy hardcore SF fans, but that’s a minor compromise.

More amazing is that the 3DS version boasts 35 playable characters—including two new additions—right from the start. The refined balance and moves list from the console versions is completely retained. So, while there’s a wide array of fighting styles available, the gameplay is so well balanced that no one character has a true advantage over any other. That said, the end boss is still amazingly cheap.

The single-player arcade mode has a vague storyline for each character, and the difficulty level settings can be adjusted to accommodate any level of player. On the medium and especially harder settings, the AI is remarkably adept at kicking butt. Of course, single play is merely the training ground for fighting game fans and multiplayer manages to take center stage here.

Capcom has taken their expertise in online fighting to heart and provided 3DS owners with a superb outlet for fighting players across the country and the world. Matches in general are completely smooth,with only occasional lag based on your connection. Games are easy to find and start, and this is one of the few 3DS games that shows off its online potential.

The game even uses the StreetPass mode. Playing the game earns you figurines of the fighters (or you can purchase them with StreetPass coins), which are used to form a fighting team. When a 3DS in sleep mode passes another unit using this mode, it will actually start an AI-controlled team fight, where the winner earns more goodies.

The one major complaint with any of the online functionality is the lack of a leaderboard where you can post bragging rights, or just check out the competition. Beyond that, the only real problem with Super Street Fighter IV on the 3DS is the obvious one: the controls. Capcom has made the game as playable as it could be. Unfortunately, neither the nubby analog stick, nor the D-pad is ideal for hardcore fighting and having to use the shoulder buttons to completely emulate the six-button arcade layout is problematic.

That said, the game still controls excellently overall. To compensate for difficulties with special moves, SSFIV uses the touch screen to allow players to instantly pull off special moves. It’s a good compromise.Expert players can use the touch screen to simply have instant access to combined button presses, while novice players can have the one-touch system pull off the whole move.

Blast Factor: Aside from the fact that the portable controls can never replace an arcade stick, there’s little to complain about here. Super Street Fighter IV 3D is a remarkable fighting game in its own right,but also the best portable fighter on the market. It looks great, and the 3D effects add a superb layer of depth to the visuals. The controls might not be ideal, but the game is still easily playable, and thanks to the great online play, you’ll likely be brawling on the go for some time to come.

If nothing else, 2011 will be marked as a great year for first person shooters. Killzone 2 and Bulletstorm have been burning virtual ammo with aplomb, but perhaps they were merely the opening act to the main attraction—Crysis 2. The original Crysis was a PC-only release known mostly for its hardware-crippling requirements. The focus of how much raw CPU and GPU power Crysis needed to run overshadowed just how great the game actually was.

Crysis never made it to console systems. So, it’s likely that most gamers who jump into Crysis 2 won’t have the experience of the first game to guide them. Thankfully, that’s not much of an issue. While the game certainly has historical ties to the original, you won’t feel like you’re missing anything substantial by not having experienced part one of what is apparently due to be a trilogy.

Going cross-platform has helped immensely to streamline the game mechanics. The original’s convoluted controls are gone, replaced with an elegant and intuitive method for using the super-human abilities of the protagonist’s nanosuit. Interface changes aside, the focus of Crysis remains on intense action in huge areas while utilizing different tactics to take on the enemy.

In the spirit of big budget action movies, Crysis 2 starts with a bang. Players take the role of Alcatraz, an otherwise-nameless grunt sent in with his squad to extract a scientist from New York City. Far from the bustling metropolis it used to be, New York is a burning husk. A rampant alien plague has wrecked havoc through the populace, killing thousands. An alien race called the ceph has invaded and entrenched themselves into the city’s underbelly. Finally, the heavily-armed internal security troops of the corporation behind the suit’s development are searching high and low for you.

This three-way fight dynamic plays a huge role through most the game. Although the environments aren’t as huge as those from Crytek’s previous games, Crysis 2’s rendition of NYC is stunning. The levels generally feel huge and offer an incredible variety of urban settings. You’ll fight on rooftops, ground levels, in buildings, and sewers. Almost every level offers a variety of ways to take on the combat.

The suit will inform you of specific tactical choices and their locations. Switching to the visor mode enables a HUD display that points out specific points you can use to approach a situation with stealth, sniping, flanking, and other tactics. Even without such promptings, the abilities of the suit enable players to utilize an incredible number of combat styles.

The main functions of the suit are armor and stealth modes. Armor mode lets you take heavy damage and high falls. Stealth mode turns on camouflage that makes you effectively invisible under most circumstances. The suit also lets you run and jump at a superhuman level, and see the world with thermal vision. All these abilities cost energy, so you have to use them strategically.

The suit recharges its energy fast, but frequently finding cover to duck behind and recharge is a necessity. This ability to use stealth or run and gun tactics at virtually anytime, in addition to the sheer mobility afforded by the suit, makes Crysis 2 feel different than any other shooter. As you progress, you’ll also earn points that can be used to modify the suit and your weapons.

The mod system is surprisingly simple to use, and allows the player to customize their abilities to accentuate stealth, power, speed, and other elements. There are a lot of guns to choose from as well, and while most are the usual fare, being able to modify them makes even a standard assault rifle seem much more original. Where the gameplay is terrific, however, certain other elements are merely stereotypical cliché.

The story is generally fine, but hardly original. Most of the side characters are two-dimensional, and the many suffering plague victims you encounter are completely non-interactive set pieces. The plot has some cool twists in it and the evolution of the suit is clever, but the writing never approaches the quality of the rest of the game. Also, the use of a hero who is just another nameless grunt taking orders from voices over the radio is really disappointing.

The single-player campaign is surprisingly long—easily 12 or more hours. When you’re done trampling through the streets of New York killing AI-controlled bad guys, there are endless more hours of killing to be done online. Adding the abilities of the nanosuit to a team game or standard deathmatch provides a fantastic alternative to standard multiplayer fare like Call of Duty or Halo.  Since there are even more suit modifications for multiplayer, the more you play, the more you can customize your gameplay experience.

Finally, it’s no surprise to say that Crysis 2 is simply gorgeous. The sharp, HD graphics are stunning and the stereoscopic-3D support is superb—adding an intense sense of depth to the visuals. The audio work is equally as impressive. The score is dramatic, the voice acting decent, and the surround mix is enthralling.

The Blast Factor: Crysis 2 is easily one of the best games of the year so far, and the best shooter on the market. The gameplay is truly distinctive, the action is intense and addicting, and the game provides a topnotch shooter experience in both single and multiplayer. Although there are certainly some disappointing holdovers of old school design, the game as a whole is absolutely worth having.

Killzone 2 was easily one of the best PS3 games of 2009, so expectations have been high for the sequel. Thankfully, developer Guerrilla Games has taken their time to construct a superb shooter, and the result is likely to be one of the best action games of the year. Fans of new technology will especially love Killzone 3’s terrific support of both Move controls and stereoscopic 3D.

Killzone 3 picks up the saga from the previous game mere moments after the death of Helghast dictator, Visari. The ISA troops are struggling to evacuate the Helghast homeworld, after the nazi-like red-eyed stormtroopers have actually nuked their own city. You take the role of Sev, who along with his best bud Rico, are near super-soldiers who must struggle to survive against the Helghan army and the harsh environments of the planet.

Killzone 3 streamlines the gameplay enough that the action feels less like Call of Duty and more like Halo this time around. You can carry three weapons, and move more quickly, but the core shooting gameplay remains intensely intact. Helghan feels like a world on fire, and through the entire game, Sev and his comrades are consistently outgunned and outnumbered. None of this is new for a first person shooter, of course, but the way Killzone 3 expertly creates an atmosphere of intense clandestine fighting is thoroughly remarkable.

The faster pace lends a slightly less realistic feel than the previous game, but the return is a more responsive feel to the gunplay. Being able to carry a pistol, main gun, and heavy weapon gives the player far more tactical choices. Since you can always carry a heavy weapon, this adds a whole new dimension to the combat zone. The game is generally generous about supplying ammo, so you can go crazy with the rockets, chain gun, and, later in the game, an awesome energy weapon that causes its victim to explode in a massive energy surge. All the guns have a great feel, which is a major facet to the success of the overall gameplay.

Adding to the variety is the exo suit (basically a small mech) and the jet pack. Both are used sparingly in the single player game, which is sort of a shame as they’re tremendously fun to stomp around in. The suit lets you fire off rockets and heavy machine gun fire with abandon, though it’s definitely not invulnerable—especially to tank and rocket launcher attacks.

The jet pack is really a jump pack. It launches you into the air, but can only provide lift for a few seconds. This leads to some obvious platformer-style sections, where you are leaping from one ledge to another, while fending off troopers. The sections that use these new toys are great though, and provide some of the most memorable fights in the game. There are a few on-rails sections as well, where Sev is a passenger on a vehicle and must man the weapons to mow down the enemy.

The AI of both enemy and allied troops is another impressive part of the package. For the most part, your allies are effective and useful. They’ll heal you if they can get to you in time, and actually use tactics to fight the enemy. Conversely, the enemy troops respond intelligently, use cover, and even seem to coordinate their attacks. That said, there are still times when they act like brain dead video game drones, but that’s the exception instead of the norm.

Of course, most players will want to battle it out against actual humans and Killzone 3 soars online. The main focus is still on the multifaceted warzone mode, which mixes up various game styles to create an intense online experience. There is also a more standard deathmatch mode and the new operations mode, which is a team-based attack-and-defend variation. The maps are expertly designed and the class selection is excellent. As you play, you earn experience that lets you advance your online character, earning new weapons and rank.

As expected, Killzone 3 looks and sounds amazing. The diverse landscapes look gorgeous, and the character models are realistic. The game supports both the Move controller and stereoscopic 3D visuals, and both are executed fantastically. The 3D visuals are particularly stunning, adding an amazing sense of depth to the game, although we encountered some ghosting during the cut scenes.

Move support is very well done. Far more responsive than similarly-controlled shooters on the Wii, Killzone 3 manages to make the Move a viable option for controlling the action—especially for fine-tuned aiming. That said, while you certainly could play through the whole game this way, most players will still likely opt for the standard controller, if only for comfort.

Killzone 3 certainly isn’t perfect. The main issue is the sheer volume of cinematic sequences in the single player game. The story is passable, if unoriginal and laughably melodramatic at times, but the too-frequent cut scenes break up the action far too much and hurt the pacing.

A few other old school design holdovers nag at the gameplay as well. The environments are mostly non-interactive. Not being able to use a well placed rocket to create a new path in a junk yard just seems silly. Also, splash damage is a bit wonky. Trying to hit enemies behind sandbags with a rocket is almost futile, as the rockets seem to do no damage unless you hit just the right spot.

Blast Factor: Killzone 3 succeeds despite its shortcomings. The insistence on using cut scenes to tell the overly dramatic, yet clichéd story hurts the single player game’s pacing, and there are some other outdated design decisions that keep the game from feeling truly innovative. That said, Killzone 3 works in the most important way. The gameplay is terrific, with intense, tough and thoroughly involving combat.

Isaac Clarke is back for another wacky adventure! If by “wacky” you mean dark, disturbing, grotesque, and ultra-violent. The original Dead Space was one of the best games of 2009 and certainly one of the best horror-themed games in years. The game’s take on science fiction terror took the typical survival-horror stereotype and revitalized it with a hefty dose of pure action, along with the ever-entertaining dismemberment-focused gunplay.

Isaac Clarke may have destroyed the bizarre alien-created marker that the Scientology-like cult, the unitologists, worship in the first game, but you can’t keep a good monster infestation down. Dead Space 2 doesn’t waste a second throwing Isaac into a new nightmare. He wakes up in a straightjacket, having horrible visions and questioning his own sanity, when the horrors he faced on the USG Ishimura are suddenly back.

Now aboard a giant space station city known as the Sprawl, Isaac finds deja vu all over again, but on a much larger scale. Where the Ishimura felt like a more intimate and claustrophobic environment for horror, the Sprawl lets the vile necromorphs wreck havoc through schools, churches, shopping districts, apartments,  and everywhere else that the creepy crawlers can reach. As a result, there’s some truly twisted stuff here.

Familiar monsters return, but with a broader environment come creatures that use the open space more effectively. Infected children have become pack-hunting creatures that use surprisingly effective tactics to trap Isaac. There are exploding babies, vomit-spewing pukers, spitters, and some truly foul and massive boss creatures. Thankfully for Isaac, pretty much all of them can be shot apart with a wide-array of fire power.

While the guns from the first game return, new toys include a spear shooting javelin gun and a mine layer. The javelin gun in particular seems a bit redundant since Isaac can telekinetically pick up any sharp object (of which there are a shocking amount, including the limbs of necromorphs) and shoot them at high velocity. Mines are a particularly good tactical choice, since the hunter creatures are exceedingly good at tracking you, so laying traps for them can help thin out their often overwhelming numbers.

Numbers is a big part of Dead Space 2. Everything feels bigger, even if it’s often merely the illusion of scope. Though a fair portion of the end game moves into the close quarters and corridors, most of the levels open up into huge rooms with massive windows. There are a lot of apartments to stalk through and unlike the first game, there’s no doubt that the Sprawl is someplace where civilians were living right up until the point where they died truly horrible deaths.

Gored bodies are everywhere and the game is full of indiscriminate carnage. The necromorphs spared no one, and the addition of the unitologist families who were so brained washed that they actually prepared for their last moments happily makes the gruesomeness even more effectively disturbing. So, there’s no doubt that Dead Space 2 works as a horror game.

Even though the pacing is frequently action-oriented, the nature of the enemies and how they attack makes the game the most effective monster game you’ll likely see all year. On the standard difficulty level, the levels can be brutal, but not unmanageable, and the superbly refined gameplay and atmosphere make Dead Space 2 insanely addicting.

Targeting is vitally important here, since dismemberment is key to quickly killing things, and controls are tight, intuitive, and effective. The camera is amazingly adept at keeping up with the action, while still keeping the view slightly claustrophobic. It seldom gets in the way, and you won’t have to adjust it in an unnatural way like so many third-person games.

That said, Dead Space 2 still sticks close to the formula of the first game and most similar games in general. Isaac is hardly his own man here. Missions are relayed from strangers via video or audio comms, and he is ultimately just an errand boy through the game. While this narrative-heavy method works in keeping the plot and action moving forward, it just feels amazingly cliched at times. Thankfully, Isaac actually speaks this time around, so he feels like an actual person this time around.

The one aspect of the game that is completely new is the multiplayer. Like a more horrific take on Alien vs. Predator, these team-based games pit teams of necromorphs versus humans. The result is an amazingly distinct online game. Short of AvP, there’s no other multiplayer game that will let you play as a standard marine-type human or a scary, wall climbing monster. Humans inevitably will be trying to use switches to complete goals, while the necromorphs are simply trying to stop them.

Since the necromorphs can respawn anywhere on the level they want and see human skeletons through walls, devious players can effectively act like a monster and sneak up on unsuspecting prey. While the overall survival horror nature of the multiplayer might not distract players from Black Ops in droves, it’s the most creative take on deathmatches since Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.

There’s no doubt that you could nitpick Dead Space 2. The gameplay is hardly changed at all, and too much of the time, you’ll feel like little more than a badass errand boy. That said, the pacing, atmosphere, controls… well, nearly every other aspect of the game is refined, tense, and enthralling. Dead Space 2 is so addictive that it will suck your hours away well into the night. Just make sure you’re not too squeamish.

The PSN store is fast becoming the premiere testing ground for smaller indie games. For every Limbo that Microsoft throws into the spotlight, Sony usually has three other strange, yet lovable little games available that you should also be playing. Such is the case with Hoard, the latest to hit the PS3 download scene.

Essentially a cross between a strategic, dual-stick shooter and a board game, Hoard pits up to four dragons against each other over a medieval landscape in a contest of wealth and plunder. The gameplay is, at heart, pretty simple. You fly around an overhead map, attacking villages, caravans, castles, and other human constructions, pick up the gold left behind from the attack, and bring it back to your lair. The dragon with the most gold at the end of the game wins. Easy-peasy.

There are variations on the theme, of course. One game mode focuses on kidnapping and ransoming princess, for instance. Anytime you put a royal damsel in distress, the pesky humans will send out knights (aka, fried food) to rescue her. Hold on to the gal long enough and the humans give up and just provide the ransom instead. As it turns out, this is an incredibly lucrative career choice, as those princesses are worth lots of gold.

The interaction with towns is an area of particular creativity in Hoard. Sure, you can go around blindly burning everything to the ground, but as is so true in life, if you merely hurt them just enough, the humans will give up and start working for you. So long as you don’t destroy their town center, a conquered town will stop attacking you (while their archers will continue to attack your opponents) and send a steady stream of gold-laden caravans to your lair in what can only be presumed as a pre-Mafia, fantasy protection racket.

Letting towns prosper also makes the pay offs far more substantial. Caravans might start out carrying a few hundred gold, but as the game progresses, will end up containing three or four times as much. Beyond merely attacking towns, caravans, and princesses, the board offers several other creative obstacles. Wizard towers offer tons of gold and even special gems, but are absurdly well protected. One blast from a tower will send your dragon straight back to its lair to regenerate health.

Giants will often appear later in a game and start rampaging against both humans and dragon kind. If you attack one hard enough, it will get distracted and follow you instead of attacking a village. From there, you can potentially lead the idiotic brute to towns protected by other dragons, or just set it off to terrorize the hillsides. There are a lot of little touches like this that affect the gameplay in minor ways, but add up to a level of strategy that will please RTS-centric gamers without completely leaving casual players or newcomers behind.

While there are certainly some layers of depth to Hoard, the game is, at heart, built around the same sensibilities of a board game. There’s no persistent level building from game to game. You build up your dragons stats within a single game, but nothing remains past that. The maps vary in size, but are all fairly small and don’t change in any fashion beyond buildings falling and rising. The whole entertainment value of the game relies entirely on its pick-up-and-play design. Matches last about ten minutes, and then the game kicks you back out to the main menu.

The visuals are more utilitarian than beautiful. Hoard looks fine for what it offers, but the maps are rather bland looking, with simplistic representations of buildings and human units. The single player games consist purely of tutorials or bot-matches, so anyone expecting a story-driven campaign or anything beyond simple multiplayer will be out of luck.

For about $15, Hoard offers a distinctively fun and creative multiplayer game. It’s one of the few games that works equally well whether all players are in the same room or across the globe. Hoard is sure to draw in non-traditional gamers who want a game that mixes easy action with more strategic, slower pacing. That’s not to say Hoard is slow—it’s still all about gathering up as much gold as quickly as possible.

Blast Factor: Hoard is a pretty narrow game. It’s not epic or particularly deep, and is mostly just for players who want a quick match of something different. That said, the game goes about giving players a creatively fun multiplayer experience very well.

Despite the attention lavished on big name, AAA titles, indie games have had a pretty good run lately. The Unreal-engine-powered the Ball is about as indie as you can get. The game started as a runner-up mod for the “Make Something Unreal” contest a while back, and luckily the developers were given the chance to turn it into a full-fledged release. While the final result isn’t as refined as it could be, the Ball is still a creative take on familiar themes.

The story places the player as an archeologist in the 1940’s. While exploring an ancient Aztec dig, you find yourself trapped in a subterranean labyrinth beneath a volcano. Unarmed, confused, yet apparently with a super human ability to fall absurd heights, this Indiana Jones-wannabe trudges forth to discover the most bizarre discovery of ancient man… ever.

As the title implies, you soon discover a giant ball, apparently powered by alien technology. The ball is controlled by something that looks like a cross between a hand cannon and a jack hammer—allowing you to both fire the ball away and call it back. As expected, the game’s entire design revolves around manipulating the ball through a series of room-sized puzzles.

Puzzles usually boil down to using the ball to remotely trigger switch plates, often while you are busy triggering another in tandem. It’s a fun and clever mechanic, though nothing here feels particularly new or overly creative. This is also a mechanic used far too much over the course of the short (four or so hour) game.

The Ball finds some interesting ways to remix the task of hitting a switch, but it’s only later in the game when it really attempts to add much variety by giving the ball other properties. There are entertaining gravity-based puzzles once the ball gets a magnetic field, and some nice uses for fire. Yet, these examples should have been spread much more frequently throughout the entire adventure, instead of using level design that relies far too much on simple switch puzzles.

Just the same, the puzzle solving in the Ball is engaging enough to ride players through the sharp and attractive Central American motif. Levels look good, if a bit old school in their scope. The maps are designed to accommodate the puzzle mechanic, not any real world sensibilities. This leads to areas only reachable through falling, crazy jumps, and of course, conveniently having a giant magic ball in your possession.

Beyond puzzles, the Ball also throws combat into the mix. Here, the game really fumbles. Since the ball is your only weapon, there’s a lot of awkward ball rolling toward mindless mummies, then quickly calling the ball back to get the next wave. It all feels a bit like Aztec bowling, but the novelty of it runs out quickly. Boss battles spice things up, however, mixing the combat and puzzle solving elements more smoothly.

Once you’ve played the main story mode, the Ball also offers up a survival mode. Shipping with four stages specifically designed to task players with endless waves of enemies and one big ball to fight them, the survival mode makes the mistake of focusing on the weakest part of the game. Although fun for short bursts, these levels enunciate the flaws with the combat and are of limited use.

It would be easy to dismiss the Ball as a mostly failed experiment. Yet, this cheaply priced download is still worth checking out. It’s a clever concept that remains fun through the game, even if the developers didn’t take the design ideas nearly as far as they could have. The use of cooperative gameplay with a giant ball is great, the level design is solid, and this is a good looking game.

Blast Factor: While there’s not enough variety in the puzzles, the Ball still packs enough play value to make it a nice alternative to the much more serious first person shooters out there.

Ninja Theory, the developers behind the PS3-exclusive Heavenly Sword, is a developer seemingly obsessed with fusing movies and games. Heavenly Sword was semi-successful at making an interactive Asian-flavored saga, though bogged down by its own heavy-handed drama and gameplay flaws. With Enslaved, the developer has reached a far better middle ground. There’s nothing earth-shattering or innovative about any of the individual concepts and features in the game, yet the overall sum of Enslaved manages to be a good deal more than its mere parts.

What holds this third-person action/adventure together is its two protagonists—Monkey and Trip. Monkey is an amazingly acrobatic brute of a man who unleashes hell on heavily armored robotic adversaries with his armored hands and energy bo staff. When not battering down foes, his climbing skills are what really earn him his moniker, and while he’s not quite a superhuman, he’s certainly close.

Trip, on the other hand, is a beautifully demure, lithe young woman. She can climb well enough, but must rely on Monkey to, of all things, toss her up or across expanses she can’t reach, and she almost never engages in combat. She’s a decided step forward in the evolution of feminine heroines in video games. She’s lovely and wears tight-fitting clothing to be sure, but on the other hand, she’s not built like a porn star. She’s vulnerable and not particularly strong, but a whiz with hacking.

The relationship between the two starts on a slave ship where both are trapped. Trip hacks her way out, while Monkey uses his brawn. In an interesting twist, Trip has no interest in helping anyone but herself get off the plummeting ship. Indeed, she almost kills Monkey in the attempt, and when the poor bastard wakes up, he discovers that she has implanted a device on his head that forces him to follow her commands.

As it turns out, Trip wants to get back home, some 300 miles west, but knows she can’t make it on her own. So, she needs Monkey’s brawn. It’s through this remarkably adversarial start, that Enslaved manages to create one of the most intriguing, well-written, and—yes—romantic relationships you’ll find in gaming. Monkey acts and looks like a Neanderthal, but as it turns out, he’s one of most sensitive and understated male action leads ever.

The dialogue between the two is often subtle, and the animation from head to toe is so refined and detailed that much of the story, emotions, and communication between the two is carried through facial and body expressions. In a genre full of dialogue and events that hit players over the head and wooden, mannequin-like characters, this makes Enslaved surprisingly distinctive.

But enough about all the touchy-feely stuff. Enslaved might be completely story-driven, but it’s still an action game at heart. You take the role of Monkey through the entire game, and as far as bad-ass action heroes go, he’s got kicking robotic booty down. Combat in Enslaved isn’t complex—it’s the usual two-attack-button fare. Monkey can upgrade throughout the game by finding glowing “tech” orbs, which can then be used to purchase new abilities.

As you progress and upgrade Monkey, combat gets more interesting, but even right from the start bashing ‘bots is fun. The game manages to make the dismemberment of its blood-free foes feel as visceral and violent as your average God of War-style game. There’s a real heft to Monkey’s attacks that make it feel especially satisfying to perform a final brutal smash on the hulking metal masses. Boss fights aren’t particularly frequent or even varied, yet the combat remains consistently engaging for these larger battles as well.

Beyond battles, Monkey spends the bulk of his time climbing things. The game starts off in a New York City that has so long since been gutted and abandoned that’s it a bizarre mix of skeletal skyscraper remains and beautiful lush greenery. It’s a view of the apocalypse that has never been seen before, and aside from the sheer visual splendor, such landscapes provide ample opportunity for Monkey to act like his namesake. The game makes climbing easy enough—it highlights features that Monkey can use to negotiate his surroundings—though hardcore players will likely find too much hand holding. Monkey literally can’t miss or fall while climbing.

All the controls are intuitive, mostly because none of the gameplay is anything that gamers haven’t seen many times before. The levels are mostly linear, with only a modicum of exploration options, and there’s pretty much nothing in the way of branching paths. At times, the controls feel unresponsive as well—Monkey can get frustratingly stuck on small steps, and the game gets finicky at the worst times when letting you jump freely. The camera can also be frequently troublesome.

As mentioned, the game is a visual stunner. The levels are varied and gorgeous, with a color palette that defies the grim nature of the world. The voice acting is superb, and the musical score is amazing—evocative and subtle, while always suiting the action. It’s somewhat annoying that the story which builds the relationship of the two leads so well, manages to almost completely skirt around any explanation of what happened to the world. The ending, while satisfying, doesn’t quite mesh with logic either.

The Blast Factor: For single-player gamers, Enslaved is a surprising treat. Despite its flaws, the characters really make this an experience worth having. The relationship between Trip and Monkey is one of the deepest and involving you’re likely to find in a game. Combine that with the brutally fun combat and exploration of the beautiful levels, and Enslaved is one of the best games of its type since Uncharted 2.

It’s hard to believe a series about opposing teams of worms blowing the snot out of each other on destructible 2D landscapes has been around longer than almost any modern gaming franchise. Originally an Amiga game from British developer Team17, Worms has migrated to almost every platform since and even briefly bumped over to the realm of 3D. But Worms remains a true 2D experience at core, and Worms Reloaded is a perfect example of just why the game continues to endure.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of Worms, it’s pretty simple. Assault teams of four worms each are dropped onto a cartoony 2D battleground, where they simply take turns attacking each other in the hopes of destroying the other teams. The cavernous environments are entirely destructible islands offering opportunities to destroy a competing worm with direct hits or explosive blasts that can send them flying to a watery doom. Wind speed, elevation, and other physics-based variables often play a key role in aiming.

There are almost 50 different weapons and gadgets to make use of during these battles, and the sheer variety of tools at your disposal is both astounding and amusing. Standard weapons like grenades and the bazooka have long been mainstays of destruction. There are plenty of other guns — pistols, machine guns, the shotgun, rocket launcher, and more — but when Worms gets creative with its destruction, the game really takes off. While longtime fans might lament the omission of the exploding old woman and mad cow, the 14 new weapons like the sentry gun, seeking ferret, and other amusingly useful aids make up for any absences. Also, the super sheep and ninja rope remain firmly intact.

Granted, the added goodies are only new to the PC version. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players of Worms 2: Armageddon will find most of the enhancements here rather familiar. The gameplay is basically completely unchanged from previous versions, so if you’ve played any of the past Worms there’s not going to be any shocking changes or revelations here. That said, Worms Reloaded is certainly the most refined and sharpest looking addition to the series.

Like a bizarre, horribly violent, yet utterly cute cartoon, Worms Reloaded enacts it’s scenes of annelid destruction through amazingly sharp and colorful 2D visuals. Reloaded really isn’t a complete visual makeover, but the graphics are strikingly good. There’s an incredible array of scenery styles—ranging from different climates and far-out themes—and the battleground configuration is randomly generated each time. If you do get tired of the standard backdrops, you can easily create your own and trade them with friends.

At the start, you’ll be able to customize your team of worm warriors. You can give your little buddies a flag, a funny voice, and plenty of other customizations before sending into battle both online and off. The single-player game is tons of fun, with an impressive variety of different scenarios to hone your skills. Internet play is where the true value of the game comes in though, and as usual, Worms Reloaded works fantastically online.

The Blast Factor: If you’re new to the series, this is the perfect time to jump aboard. Yet, veteran players who intend to stick with the PC version will find Worms Reloaded absolutely worthwhile. The simple gameplay is immensely entertaining, yet mastering the game will still take hours of practice. Endless online games, randomly generated battlegrounds, and a plethora of crazy weapons and items all give the Worms incredible replay value.

Sony has had the lock on truly original and experimental downloadable titles on their PlayStation Store since the start. Microsoft, on the other hand, has tended to play things more traditional side with their releases. Limbo, however, is a distinctive step to the dark and nontraditional side for the 360. At heart, the game is a simple, challenging puzzle-based platformer—and a good one—but the execution is anything but traditional.

Fans of the genre might feel nostalgic tugs toward the original innovators of the genre—Out of this World, Flashback, Heart of Darkness… All games that mixed platformer gameplay with intelligent and often extremely difficult puzzles, amidst a menace atmosphere. Limbo is absolutely an exercise in style more than anything else. The game takes simple, familiar gameplay into a dark, amazingly disturbing environment.

There’s no real set-up. In fact, the description in the Live store is the only real bit of information you’ll get on the game’s story. You play a young boy whose sister has disappeared into, presumably, Limbo, or at least some dark, horrible place where gory death is a constant companion.

Limbo is distinctive entirely due to its minimalistic presentation. The game is completely black and white. There’s almost no music at all, no dialogue, and the sound effects are nearly completely ambient in nature. The landscape is dark and depressing, and the aural effects are perfectly tuned to convey the stark nature of the game’s world.

Although the visuals might be simple, Limbo is still gorgeously macabre. The character animations are fluid, the eerie forests and bizarrely, primitive structures have just enough detail to invoke an almost primal sense of dread. This dread is further compounded by the main character. The nameless little boy you control might not be completely helpless—he’s a hell of a jumper and climber—but he’s still a child completely lost in a hostile environment.

The boy has no weapons except his wits, and the gameplay boils down to jumping, climbing, and pulling or pushing objects to continue onward. There’s no attack mechanism here, and the design of the game makes no special allowances for the poor kid. Brutal death is everywhere, especially since your first time through with be almost entirely reliant on gruesome trial and error.

Huge bear traps will pop the boy’s head off, trap spikes impale him, a giant spider will make a lunch out him, along with other traps and the frequent danger of drowning. Limbo is absolutely not a game for children. In fact, if there’s a chance a kid might run through the room while playing, it’s recommended to have the parental controls on, which make the constant deaths less graphically brutal.

If such matters aren’t an issue, the only real complaint in Limbo is its short and sudden nature. Thorough explorers will probably get to the end in, at most, four or five hours. Future playthroughs will likely take little more than an hour. The lack of any narrative structure means little resolve or explanation of the how and whys of this boy’s terrible, therapy-inducing journey. For a cheap downloadable game, such shortcomings are acceptable. But given just how polished, deep, and beautifully disturbing Limbo is, most gamers will be left wanting something more than merely a short exercise in demented atmosphere and puzzle-solving.

The Blast Factor: It’s hardly a terrible thing to say that players will love the game so much that they’ll be left wanting more. Such is the case with Limbo. It’s artistic, challenging, and, despite its utter sense of minimalism, more emotionally involving than almost any game you’re likely to find.

There’s a general rule of thumb that suggests when making the sequel to a successful game, you want to keep what made the original great, while adding enough new ideas and features to make it all worth playing again. Crackdown 2 tries to follow this ideology. It definitely keeps closely to the design of the original. Indeed, it’s the epitome of more of the same. So, if you liked the goofy, open-world action of the original Crackdown, this could be just the gaming fix you crave.

In comparison to other open worlds (like GTAIV), the Crackdown series manages to feel distinctive because of its in-your-face simplicity. Crackdown 2 carries a bare bones plot about being a super law-enforcement agent fighting against terrorist cells and, of all things, a virus that turns the fair citizens of Pacific City into hulking, angry zombie-like creatures. Missions are about blowing up people, things, or (usually) both, and there’s not a shred of depth anywhere.

This focus on running around blowing things up gives Crackdown 2 a distinctly coin-op feel, further cemented by its cartoonish graphics, replete with a borderline-gaudy color scheme. Gameplay consists of plenty of gun play, sure, but also running, climbing, and jumping every where you can to find power-up orbs that increase your agent’s abilities. Orbs improve attack power, speed, jumping, driving skills, toughness, and more. There are even fleeing orbs that you must chase after and others only accessible through multiplayer sessions.

It’s not long before your run of the mill agent goes from merely strong to super hero-level badass. Without a doubt, there’s a real thrill in earning major jumping skill increases. Hopping from building to building is simple fun, and it’s the exploration aspect of Crackdown 2 that offers the most appeal in the single player game.

Admittedly, this might be because the rest of it just feels so behind the times. The oft-annoying camera causes plenty of problems aiming and, especially, climbing tall buildings. Aiming is simplistic and unrefined, making explosive weapons far more fun to use than normal guns. Melee combat has about as much depth as an old Double Dragon clone, and even the animation for such moves seems unfinished. Worse, the combat is so unvarying and lacking in depth that it becomes tiresome.

The enemy can flank and guard, but still act mechanically brain dead most of the time, and ally AI is just as useless. On the bright side, Pacific City is full of things to destroy—including parts of the landscape—and there are plenty of interesting battlegrounds to discover.

Ironically, the use of Pacific City for the sequel is a perfect metaphor for the entire design of the sequel. Crackdown 2 uses the same location as the original, and if you’ve stormed through the city before, you’ve pretty much seen all there is to see. Many of the weapons and vehicles are rehashed, the graphics are only moderately improved, and the gameplay seems to be stuck in a time warp.

Where Crackdown 2 is likely to truly draw players in is the addition of four-player cooperative multiplayer action. Up to four can take on the single-player campaign, and running rampant with other humans really jacks up both the old-school, coin-op feel and the entertainment value. Crackdown 2′s simplicity is actually a benefit in multiplayer, as it lets anyone jump right in to kill, blow stuff up, and jump around like a maniac. Pacific City offers a great open environment for players to just find entertaining things to do. Race on foot, or in cars; play chicken with each other; see who can throw objects and people the farthest… Things that would be mostly pointless when alone take on whole new levels of fun with more players, and Crackdown 2 is a game that almost uniquely caters to such activities.

Whether Crackdown 2 is a worthwhile purchase depends on a few factors: if you just want more Crackdown action; if you’re into violent, atypical multiplayer fun; or if you want a retro arcade experience in next-gen clothing. Beyond those checkmarks, however, the game is just woefully underwhelming.

The Blast Factor: Aside from the increase from two to four in coop play, Crackdown 2 hasn’t evolved at all. It’s arguably not even an improvement over the original. There are too many gameplay issues and retro trappings to let it compete with more recent open-world games like Red Faction, Saint’s Row 2, and especially Red Dead Redemption or GTAIV.

In his introduction the new Del Rey printing of the actual Inferno poem, Executive Producer and Creative Director of the Dante’s Inferno game, Jonathon Knight, clearly displays a great deal of knowledge and passion for the source material. Yet, after playing the game you’d be hard-pressed to find a love of literature within the game’s stylish and violent look at the Christian mythos of hell. That’s really the problem with taking something as historically and literally treasured as Dante’s work—its potential depth is merely squandered on the limited vision of EA Games and developer Visceral Games.

Visceral (and Knight) previously created the exceptional dark and involving Dead Space. What made Dead Space great was that it looked at survival horror and took it in a new environment (space), plus added the focus of tightly-paced, nerve-wracking shooting action. It wasn’t stunningly innovative, but still felt different. Dante’s Inferno, on the other hand, seems to serve one of two purposes—depending on your platform preferences.

If you’re a Sony gamer, the game is squarely aimed at giving you something to do until God of War III hits in March. For Xbox players, Dante’s Inferno is the absolute closest you’ll get to Kratos’ saga. As a game, Inferno seems hell bent on emulating Sony’s franchise in almost every way.

Dante’s poetic epic provides a suitable alternative setting to the Greek god locations. This view of hell comes with nine sin-themed circles, so it’s perfect for a video game setting. Instead of gods as bosses, we have historical and demonic figures that guard each circle and must be dispatched in gruesome, cinematic ways. Most bosses are epically huge as well, and combat is the exact same cross between hack and slash and Simon-says-level Quick-Time-Events (QTE).

You actually play as Dante, in his angry quest to free his beloved (and dead) fianc©e, Beatrice, from hell, which is somewhat nobler than Kratos’ psychotic narcissism. And yet, Dante is hardly more likable a character. He’s a self-centered, angry hypocrite, who has committed outrageous atrocities in the name of his god during the Crusades. Thankfully, he manages to gain some minor redemption through the game.

The action is remarkably solid. Instead of swinging blades, Dante wields Death’s Scythe. It’s a handy weapon of mass carnage with good reach and plenty of combo potential. More importantly, the weapon is fun to use against the poor, foul denizens of hell. Aside from light and heavy attacks and combos, you can "grab" enemies with the scythe by impaling them, then either punish or redeem them. Either choice results in experience points for your holy and unholy abilities. There is an easy to use skill tree where you spend these points, and as you build up one side or the other, new and more powerful abilities are opened up.

Although it might be possible to focus on either the holy or unholy sides of Dante exclusively, you’ll ideally build both up to gain the best of both worlds. Building Dante’s abilities makes him much hardier in battle and by the fourth or fifth circle, he’ll feel like a real Templar badass. Throughout the game, Dante will mount bizarre and gigantic creatures of hell, although the controls here are noticeably cumbersome.

From the perspectives of visual design, Dante’s Inferno is a mixed bag. The visuals are gorgeously grotesque when the game really stretches its creative muscles, but each circle is actually remarkably small and has an absurdly limited number of special enemies. The game also simply doesn’t get freaky enough in its design. Some of the bosses are hilariously macabre, but why is the only lust demon simply a topless harlot with a whip-like womb? Sure, it’s weird, but after the fifth fight with one, you’ll be wishing for some creepy and nightmarish variety.

Worse, after a while, the game just seems to give up on variety. You’ll fight endless hordes of faceless, pot-bellied damned souls, along with the other more powerful demons, but by the end you’re just fighting the same few types over and over. There’s little level exploration as well. Each circle has some secret treasures, but the levels aren’t big enough to make finding them much challenge.

When not killing endless hell spawn, Dante is usually double jumping, climbing, or swinging his way through death traps. Many of these sections, especially when he must swing quickly from one burning rope to another are incredibly intense and fun. On the flipside, other levels—especially the city of Dis—almost feel like cheap filler material.

Another weak area that could have been much more is the historical damned souls Dante encounters. These are figures from history that are usually hidden away and Dante can punish them further or absolve them. It adds some minor historical relevance to the overall story, but has so little effect on the gameplay that they seem like a wasted opportunity for adding meaty sub-quests and levels to the otherwise completely linear game.

Blast factor: How much you’ll get out of Dante’s Inferno depends on expectations. Download the demo first, or just play one of the God of War games. If either appeals to you, then Dante’s Inferno provide plenty of gory entertainment for the span of its nine or ten hours. But don’t expect a shred of any depth here. The game is purely surface country meant to emulate God of War with amazing precision. That’s not a bad thing, because Dante’s Inferno is easily the best example of this genre since God of War II. EA hardly had to mine classic literature for such a task though, and overall Dante’s Inferno really seems like a missed opportunity to create something truly interesting and bizarre.

A copy of the game was purchased for review purposes.

Return to Rapture once more, the home of one of the most highly regarded games of the last decade. Bioshock 2 was greeted by both cheers and worry when first announced. Cheers because, well, people wanted a sequel to the grand original. Worry because the sequel wasn’t being developed by Irrational—who made not only the first game, but some of the greatest PC games ever (Thief, System Shock 2, and many others).

The good news is that despite its maze-like development involving four different development studios, Bioshock 2 is excellent. Instead of playing the prodigal son as in the original, you’ll take on the huge diving boots of the first Big Daddy—known only as Delta. It’s 1968—ten years after the death of Rapture’s megalomaniac founder, Andrew Ryan—and Delta awakes to find a very different place than he might have remembered when first created.

The vacuum of power among the mostly insane, plasmid-addicted populace of Rapture has shifted to Dr. Sophia Lamb, a psychiatrist detractor of Ryan who emerges from prison after Ryan’s death to push a policy of socialism and equality for the remaining denizens of the undersea city. Lamb is so obsessed with the idea of community over the individual that she doesn’t care about individual life at all—even her own daughter.

For Delta, however, Lamb’s daughter has a much greater significance. She was his little sister, and he’s hardwired to protect her. As it turns out, she needs to be rescued and Lamb will try her damnedest to make sure Delta can’t get to her. It’s an intelligent and even poignant set-up for the sequel, and the story builds in the same way as the first Bioshock. Mysterious allies will aid you, voice recordings spread throughout the levels help flesh out what happened before you got there, and there’s always some new task to complete to continue onward.

Although Bioshock 2 is, on the whole, not far removed from Bioshock, there are several key differences. First of course is that you take the role of a Big Daddy. Granted, he’s not as massive and powerful as the mindless lunks roaming through Rapture. Delta is more maneuverable, but not nearly as tough as the garden variety Daddy. Add in new rumbler-type daddies, and Delta feels positively light weight.

Combat feels a lot more integral to the game as well. Although always a focal point in Rapture, Delta faces hordes of splicers at a time, most of them with firearms. As it turns out, guns hurt Delta nearly as much as a regular man, and even melee weapons seem to hurt him rather unduly. Granted, you’ll be upgrading yourself through the entire game, so Delta gets tougher.

Another seemingly minor, yet ultimately important difference is the ability to use plasmid powers with your left hand and weapons in your right. This makes one-two attacks like an electrical stun followed instantly with a well-placed shotgun blast or grisly drill easy and amazingly satisfying. Laying traps is another tactical element. You can set explosives, electric lines, and hack turrets and cameras, along with security bots.

Tactical thinking is often incredibly important here, especially in regards to the Little Sisters. There are two ways to handle Little Sisters. The first is heartlessly harvesting them for ADAM—the substance that enables everyone in Rapture to have super powers. The second way is to carry them to safety, thus saving them. Along the way though, these creepy, glowing-eyed girls can sniff out ADAM-loaded corpses. Once you set them to task of siphoning out the substance, however, the ADAM-addicted splicers start coming out of the woodwork.

You’ll have to fend off splicer attacks from all directions until your Little Sister is done, and preparation for the battle is key. Once you’ve rescued (or harvested) all the girls on a level, a so-called Big Sister hunts you down. Despite all the hype about these new creatures, Big Sisters are actually an incredible let down. Aside from there being no explanation about who (or even what) they are, they are amazingly cheap and over-powered. Flinging weapons and plasmid powers at a far faster rate than Delta can, you’ll inevitably have to rely on the regeneration chambers to enable you to continue to chip away at their health.

Depending on the location, there are occasions where even these battles shine—such as luring them into a pool of water and shocking the daylights out them, or hacking a camera and sentry gun. and then getting them in range for extra firepower. Big Sister problems aside, as long as frantic combat doesn’t bother you, there’s little to complain about. Bioshock 2 really doesn’t feel much different on the whole from Bioshock. In fact, it just feels like a beefed-up version of the original. Your character is bigger, enemy battles are more intense, and thanks to the occasional trip into the open waters Rapture feels more expansive too.

Finally, there’s the multiplayer. It seems extraneous on such a pitch-perfect single-player saga, but 2K has managed to add a remarkably interesting gimmick. Multiplayer matches are mechanically much like any other team and free-for-all game. The hook is that you can choose from a variety of characters, augment them with weapons and plasmids just like the single-player game, and engage in a setting that takes place before the fall of Rapture. It works well, and it’s fun, but time will tell if it catches on.

Beyond that, Rapture still looks beautiful and offers an incredibly immersive audio experience. In the end, the only real complaint is that this return to Rapture feels all too familiar. Delta offers only a marginal change in playability and the environments themselves are much the same as before. In a lesser game, this would be a real problem, but here the familiar is entirely welcome. So enjoy another stay in Rapture, soak in the surroundings, and cause plenty of carnage. You’ll be glad you did.

Blast Factor: Bioshock 2 is a welcome return trip under the sea. Gameplay refinements and a new character help make it feel fresh again, but Rapture itself is still the same den of insanity it has always been. Collecting an array of new and old plasmid powers, combined with newer, more powerful weapons gives combat more bite. The oppressive feeling that the entire world is against you adds even more great atmosphere. While Bioshock 2 doesn’t feel like an entirely new experience, it’s just what a good sequel should and well worth your time and money.

A copy of the game was purchased for review purposes.

Role-playing hasn’t been kind to science fiction. Whether it be table top or video game, there just haven’t been too many successful adventures into deep space for fans of all things sci-fi (or SyFy apparently). The original Mass Effect managed to change this with its deep storyline and heavy focus on both dialogue and moral choices. Although there was definitely a line of division between those who loved the interactive novel approach and people who just thought the game was too talky, it’s hard to deny that Mass Effect was simply the best interactive science fiction around.

Well, until the sequel. Mass Effect 2 is a direct sequel of course, but more than that, Bioware set out to refine the gameplay of the original—beefing up its strengths and, frequently, eliminating what didn’t work. The result is nothing short of stunning.  The continuing saga of Commander Shepard is proving to be one of the most rewarding and interesting experiences in all of gaming, particularly because the game makes you feel as if you’re actually part of something epic.

Importing your Commander Shepard from the first game and seeing the decisions you made affect the second part of the storyline is a superb gameplay mechanism. Further, the past and present decisions will eventually have significant consequences to the third part of the story—whenever Mass Effect 3 is released. It’s this sense of continuity that makes Mass Effect so damned engaging. Although the gameplay is as much shooting action as full-blown role-playing, the sheer amount of choices, characters, and situations to explore makes this series feel like a singular experience on your Xbox or PC.

Few titles bring together such a cohesive sense of action and actual role-playing in so seamless a fashion. Combat is much more intensive this time around, with simple, yet effective cover system and team mates that are more useful. You can easily adjust NPC situational behavior and use their special abilities on the fly, and both ally and enemy  AI react surprisingly well. This makes your computer-controlled cohorts far more useful allies during some of the harsh combat missions, and also makes the choice of team mates for individual missions a bit more important.

While action is a more focused effort this time, the RPG elements are very much in control. The stats and character developments have been streamlined, but you are always fully in control of how Shepard and his group advance. Dialogue choices in particular affect your morality, but the game allows you to be both a paragon (good) and a renegade (bad) in whatever measure you deem fit. Dialogue trees allow for both paths, and there are even chances to change the conversation mid-stream for a specific moral action that can have long-term consequences.

The set of characters that join Shepard are a motley bunch. You’ll track down some old friends, but mostly the cast is completely new. There’s  a surly, dangerous merc; a nearly psychotic biotic chick covered in tattoos and not much else; a hilarious alien scientist; a scarily sexy blue-skinned priestess of the law; a zen-like reptilian assassin, among others. Each has a distinct personality and personal mission that Shepard can complete to earn their trust.

Although a couple of them will likely grate on you, causing you to hardly ever use them, the group is fascinating to talk to, learn about, and fight beside. Just the same, it would have been nice had the selection of possible team mates been both larger and more pliable. There’s no real options here except simply not seeking them all out. You can’t ditch characters you don’t want, you can only ignore them. Another issue is that transitioning from the original game leaves some real gaps—particularly in the relationship department.

If Shepard found love in the original Mass Effect, don’t expect it to have much meaning this time around. This is especially strange given how important so many of your other choices turn out to be. The game clearly wants to foster Shepard into new relationship directions, but the option to be monogamous to your first love in some real way would have been nice. That said, it’s much harder to find romance in Mass Effect 2 than in the first game and especially in comparison to Dragon Age.

The other main complaint with the game is that it seems to go by much too quickly. Skilled players will blow through most of the side missions and the main story in around 30-35 hours. Gamers who take their time will likely make it to the 40 hour mark. It’s certainly a testament to the game’s addictiveness and expert design that 40 hours seems too short, but Mass Effect’s galaxy is a place that you’ll want to spend more time in.

While many chided Bioware’s Dragon Age for having middling graphics, that’s definitely not the case here. Mass Effect 2′s visuals are stunning. The level of detail of the characters is nearly movie quality, and the locations look much more varied and interesting this time around. The voice acting is universally excellent, the digital surround effects immersive, and the soundtrack is great.

Blast Factor: While Mass Effect 2 is an undeniably better game than the original, it’s important to stress that it’s the middle of a greater story. As such, it’s highly recommended that you play the original first and transfer that character over to the sequel. You’ll find a far richer and more rewarding experience that way. Either way, this is a truly great game. Epic, mature, and intelligent, Mass Effect 2 is just the sort of title that the industry needs to see more frequently. Where so many RPGs, especially those from Japan, are merely cookie-cutter copies of each other, this is a sci-fi adventure boldly going where few games have gone before.

Mass Effect 2 is available on the Xbox 360 for $59.99, and the PC for $49.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The big, gorgeous, and expansive nature of the Assassin’s Creed games doesn’t quite fit in the palm of your hand. While the PSP version—Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines—isn’t awful, it’s certainly not great. However, enough of the essential fun in Assassin’s Creed does come through to make the PSP version a worthwhile addition to the saga.

A direct continuation of the first game, Bloodlines tells the story of Altair’s quest to end the Templar presence on the island of Cyprus. Though starting off shakily, the story progresses well because Altair’s character is surprisingly developed. While the game gives Maria, the female Templar, a significant role, not enough time is spent on developing their relationship. When combined with very thin mission set-ups, this omission contributes to the feel of a downsized game.

Graphically, Bloodlines is impressive.

Story aside, the meat of an Assassin’s Creed game is running, climbing, and killing. Bloodlines gets the killing part right, but the few locations in the game are too small to truly show off the series’ signature free-running gameplay. Buildings are rarely more than a few stories tall, and even eagle viewpoints are  downsized. Furthermore, the fidgety camera makes running and long jumps an iffy prospect.

Such problems are compounded by the often-sticky controls. Unfortunately, this seems to be a direct holdover from the console versions. Altair gets frequently blocked while climbing and running by invisible obstacles.  By the time you’ve struggled to adjust his direction away from some mysterious block, his running has lost all momentum.

Air assassination's are still thrilling, even on the subway.

In addition, the locations are remarkably sparse when compared to the consoles. Aside from the lack of elevation, there just isn’t enough to do. Each map has barely a handful of side missions, with the focus clearly on the main storyline.

These missions, or the lack thereof, is where Bloodlines misses the boat. On a portable system, Altair’s exploits would have been a perfect fit for a wide array of bite-sized missions set at a rapid pace. Instead, players are left with precious little to do beyond move the story along.

Bloodlines’ presentation is remarkably well done. Although the island of Cyprus is rather bland, with simple stone structures, the character models and animation are very well done. Deserving of special notice, Altair’s voice acting is much improved. This time, Altair sounds like a local, giving him more personality. Even the music, sound effects, and other voices are worth noticing.

Happily, Assassin’s Creed’s combat actually translated perfectly. As before, combat is a waiting game, where Altair guards, and then counter attacks. The violence is still viscerally satisfying and Altair feels every bit the killer badass he was on the PS3.

Blast Factor: There were a lot of compromises made in bringing Assassin’s Creed to the PSP and not all of them were necessary. The visual downgrade and lessened scope are understandable, but the scarcity of missions is not. Despite an opportunity to improve them, the sketchy controls and camera are still issues. On the plus side, Bloodlines does a decent job expanding on Altair’s character in a meaningful way. Combat is engaging, and while the game is far from perfect, it is still worth a look for fans of cloaked assassins.

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines is available exclusively on the Playstation Portable, and retails for $39.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review.

Everyone loves lists, so here’s my personal Top Ten for 2009:

1. Assassin’s Creed 2 (multi)–Taking the grand original and expanding on it in every direction, Assassin’s Creed 2 is the epitome of a sequel done right. It trumps the original in every way without taking away from the groundwork laid by Altair’s fascinating adventures. Moving the location to renaissance Italy enables an amazing juxtaposition of fact and fiction, allowing for a truly enthralling plot and remarkably engaging characters. The game is so filled with things to do and see that getting bored is simply not an issue, and while the free-running and climbing mechanics are still a little sticky at times, the overall gameplay is brilliant. There’s very little that Assassin’s Creed 2 doesn’t get right and it’s proof-positive that even a monster company like Ubisoft is capable of listening to criticism and actually doing something about it.

2. Batman: Arkham Asylum (multi)–There’s little more to be said about the only truly great Batman game. Beautiful, expansive, polished, and simply a joy to play, this game has set the bar for super hero games and it’s hard to imagine too many other developers coming close to what was accomplished in Arkham Asylum.

3. inFamous (PS3)–The other great super hero game of the year, this new IP for the PS3 is dramatic, intense, and addictive take on the now overdone open world game genre. Visually stunning, with a mix of free-running, melee, and shooter gameplay, inFamous gave gamers a huge urban sprawl to conquer full of places to explore and secrets to find. It’s easily one of the best games on the system.

4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)–Nintendo made the right move bringing Mario back to 2D, and in grand form. For fans of true Mario gameplay and hardcore gamers in general, this is one of the few good reasons to own Nintendo’s otherwise casual, shovelware-addled system. The multiplayer is almost completely extraneous, but the solid, familiar gameplay is full of endless joy and charm.

5. Killzone 2 (PS3)–Killzone 2 started the year out with a bang for the PS3 and now that the year is over, there still wasn’t a first-person shooter released that could match it for it’s intense, sci-fi war torn experience. While the end boss was insanely aggravating, this was an otherwise thoroughly well-rounded shooter, and should have been a system seller for Sony.

6. DragonAge: Origins (multi)–Bioware seldom disappoints and while DragonAge isn’t a graphic wonder, it’s the most enthralling and deep fantasy RPG on the market. Providing far better characterizations and personality than Bethesda’s games, this epic adventure is a virtual world all its own. Taking familiar fantasy cliches and using them to great effect, any lover of true role-playing should own this one.

7. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (multi)–While SNK’s move to HD with their last King of Fighters was lackluster at best, Aksys Games gave old-school fighting fans a genuine love note with BlazBlue. The spiritual successor to their brilliantly bizarre Guilty Gear series, this is without a doubt the most impressive 2D fighter in years. The high-def hand-drawn characters are gorgeous, the backdrops creative and alive, and the controls are amazingly refined. BlazBlue reigns supreme for a fantastic presentation and wonderfully quirky gameplay.

8. Fight Night Round 4 (multi)–Already in the budget bins, EA Sports knockout punch outshined the already great Fight Night Round 3 in every way. Stunning visuals, strategic controls, and a shocking amount of depth make this the absolute, undisputed king of boxing.

9. Forza Motorsports 3 (360)–Neck and neck with Dirt 2, Forza wins out as the overall finest racing sim ever put on a console. While the Gran Turismo series has seen fit to rest on its aging laurels, Microsoft has made sure every iteration of Forza saw massive improvements, and the third time is a resounding success. Fast, gorgeous, playable, and just plain awesome, no racing fan should let Forza 3 pass them by.

10. Cryostasis: the Sleep of Reason (PC)–The one PC game on the list is also the most obscure. This moody first-person exploration of isolation and horror aboard an ice breaker ship trapped in the arctic might not be perfect, but its high points more than make up for any imperfections. Few games manage to convey such a sense of tension and outright loneliness as you struggle to figure out what kind of nightmare you’ve been trapped in. Clever use of flashbacks to solve puzzle and bizarre story elements add greatly to the chilling atmosphere, and for fans of slower-paced ambient thrillers, this is an easy recommendation.

If ever there were a nearly perfect example of a sequel done right, it’s Assassin’s Creed 2. The first game was a revelation of open world exploration and mobility, with an amazing historical setting and immense world to explore. Unfortunately, as riveting an experience as it was, there just wasn’t enough to do. The sequel takes care of this problem quite handily. While keeping the original idea of a well-developed, fascinating historical setting, the sequel improves on almost every other front.

The setting has changed to 15^th century Italy, and there’s a new assassin to go with the times. His name is Ezio Auditore de Firenze, and while the overall plot is still assassins versus Templars, Ezio is an incredibly different character than the original Altair. The main difference is that unlike Altair, Ezio isn’t a born assassin. In a plot twist reminiscent of the movie Wanted, Ezio discovers that his father was a master assassin in a covert war. After his father’s murder, Ezio must take up his father’s trade.

An improvement on the genetic memory story arc is also a welcome surprise. Although the future takes a distinct backseat, the kidnapped possessor of all these killer memories, Desmond Miles, has some fascinating, if clich©d, character development. It also ties in nicely with, and expands upon, Altair’s history.

Of course, Ezio is the focus of the masterful mix of history and fiction that creates a thriving, vibrant, and fascinating world. You’ll become best friends with Leonardo Da Vinci, get caught in famous family turf wars, and visit an amazing array of spectacular Renaissance cities, beautiful Italian country, and even small towns and villas. Moreover, Ezio will have his own villa and town to maintain—complete with a simple, yet engaging economic system completely new to the series.

Every location offers a slew of art, weapons, armor, and other upscale finery to purchase. Purchasing such things adds to the value (and wealth) of your villa, as does paying to upgrade the various stores and services. The more you spend on improvements, the more income you receive. What’s it all for? The core of the gameplay hasn’t changed. You are still a master assassin running, climbing, jumping, and killing for hours on end. But this time, you have friends. Or at least, employees.

Groups of courtesans, thieves, and mercenaries are readily available—for a price—to either draw attention away from you or to help you fight.  For instance, courtesans can work their wiles on a group of guards while Ezio sneaks into a restricted area. Alternatively, you could keep your money, kill the guards yourself, and then steal the treasure behind the door. Yet another option is to just ignore the guarded treasure altogether, and stick to the main storyline. Boredom is simply not an option with so many choices.

Happily, the entire world is ripe with hidden treasure chests, collectible feathers, and valuable codex pages, not to mention vigilante justice, timed rooftop races, and courier jobs. Feathers are the new flags, but this time with an actual purpose. Treasure chests both increase your wealth, and are simply fun to find—especially the well-hidden ones. Your local art dealer will be happy to supply you with treasure maps, should you need them. You could spend hours exploring and taking on side missions without touching the main story. Fortunately, the overall story is so well done that spending even more time on the central story is no chore. So, the biggest problem with the original game is solved in spades.

The actual gameplay, however, will be instantly familiar to fans of the first game. Free-running and the counter-based combat have been a bit refined. Ezio is a little better at finding purchase while climbing, though the controls still suffer from the same occasionally stilted feel and unresponsiveness. You can now taunt a slow opponent into attacking, instead of playing a waiting game. There are a lot of new counters. Ezio can fight with both of his wrist blades, and even steal opponents’ weapons and use them against them. New assassination moves also spice up the action, letting Ezio become a master of death from both above and below.

Blast Factor: All these small improvements improve the sequel. The increase in the physical world of the game, and in the variety of the gameplay add to the diverse refinements. The presentation is still stunning, the voice acting is much more authentic, and there’s just a lot more to the game. As great a game as the first Assassin’s Creed was, this sequel is better in every way. It’s easily recommendable and absolutely one of the best games of the year.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The Tekken series has had a long and illustrious history on Sony platforms and in dank, dark arcades the world over. The latest in the line is cross-platform, but doesn’t make too many other deviations from the strict formula the series has been sticking to for years. For fans of the fighting series, that’s not a bad thing, and as far as Tekken games go, the sixth time is certainly a charm.

The endless stream of fighters that hit during the 90′s have managed to either steadily evolve or perish. Tekken has long been a mainstay on Sony’s platforms, starting with a killer port of the original arcade hit on the PSOne. Tekken 6 was built to take advantage of the latest uber-hardware and as expected, it really does look great and the animation is stunning. That’s not to say it’s visually perfect. The game still has a few unwanted last-gen leftovers like slight jagging outlines of the character, bit overall, Tekken 6 is easily the best the series has looked and certainly competitive with the latest Virtua Fighter, DoA, and Street Fighter IV. The game sounds great as well, with some surprisingly powerful surround effects.

Beyond the presentation, however, there’s not a lot of major upgrades. Although many of the old characters have been tweaked in some fashion, there’s no earth-shattering changes. There are several new characters such as the beautiful Zalina who uses a bizarre style, crazy school-girl android Alisa, and Bob, an amazingly fast far guy. The new characters are surprisingly fleshed out and refined, and add more than just a few more headshots to the 41 character roster.

Veterans of the series and hardcore fighter fans will get more out the more subtle gameplay enhancements, yet Tekken remains a remarkably novice-friendly affair as well. There’s an in-depth training mode to learn the ropes, and the classic four-button layout still makes for fast, fluid combat. That said, like most Tekken titles, Tekken 6 has a couple amazingly cheap boss battles in the arcade mode, which will cause even advanced players frustration.

Tekken 6 also tries to alleviate a major problem in all the Namco fighters—one dimensional arenas. While the fighting zones are still flat planes, there’s some real creativity in their presentation including a parking garage covered in flames. New to the series are multi-level arenas. Set up your opponent right through the use of new juggle and ground pounding techniques, and you can smash them through some arena floors. Granted, Mortal Kombat 2 did this in the mid-90′s, but given how slow these games can be to evolve, it’s a welcome gimmick. Now they just need to learn how provide elevation and contours to their arenas like Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive…

Beyond mere one-on-one fighting, the Tekken Force mode makes a resurgence in the form of the scenerio campaign mode. This single-player, story-driven mode takes the classic side scrolling beat ‘em up gameplay of previous games in the next gen with sharp graphics and plenty of action. Unfortunately, the mode has a terrible camera and no way to manually adjust your view. The enemies and action are also incredibly repetitive, but the mode does allow fans to delve more into the nearly incomprehensible  storyline. More importantly, it lets you earn bonus objects to accessorize the fighters with. A real sore point with this mode is despite the fact that you always have an AI companion, there’s no actual cooperative play option.

Online action comes in two different forms. The first is standard online matches against live players. While Namco has announced patches, at this time the online play is noticeably spotty. Although not unplayable, it’s hard to imagine why this is still an issue for Namco given how smoothly Soul Caliber IV works online. The other net-based feature is the ability to download player ghosts, which gives the illusion of fighting a real player without actually having to deal with one.

Blast Factor: Tekken 6 is, without a doubt, a great fighting game. It’s the most expansive Tekken yet, with a great roster, impressive levels, and plenty of gameplay tweaks. That said, it’s hard to outright recommend it to casual players or newcomers to the series, since Tekken Dark Resurrection is a far cheaper download and still a remarkably solid fighter. The $60 price tag here seems a little steep for anyone other than a diehard fighter fan, but price aside it’s a worthy addition to any fighter’s collection.

Tekken 6 is available on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Activision is steadily making an industry out of their music Hero line, which have officially moved well beyond mere guitar rock emulation. Thanks to Band Hero and DJ Hero, fans of more than just rock can get their fake music fix. While Band Hero is catering to pop-loving casual gamers, DJ Hero boldly walks the musical line toward the hardcore.

That’s not to say anyone can’t play and enjoy being a virtual DJ here. The game caters to all skill levels, but to really get the most out of the mix table peripheral, you’ll need to master the higher skill settings. Regardless of which difficulty level, DJ Hero is amazingly fun.  Almost 100 mix tracks come with the game and it’s the first music game since Dance Dance Revolution to especially appeal to the techno crowd. The mixes cover the musical spectrum though—plenty of rap, hip hop, Motown, and pop from the last 30 years. But the magic is how the game mixes two tracks together to create something new.

Nowhere else could you hear Marvin Gaye crossed with the Gorillaz, the Beastie Boys and Queen, the Killers vs. Rihanna, David Bowie and 50 Cent, and an impressive and entertaining number of other great mixes. It’s not a stretch to say that this eclectic, dance-centric line-up is the best yet for a Hero game and it makes the color-coded button pressing gameplay feel more distinctive than ever.

The mix table controller is a cool new addition to any gamer’s stash. The main focus is on the turntable, which both spins and has three colored buttons. On the medium difficulty level and below, this is all you’ll really need, and the game plays just like any of the Hero/Rock Band games. Color-coded circles stream down three trails on the screen and the object is to hit the appropriate button at exactly the right time. At times, you’ll have to spin the turntable up or down based on the onscreen cues. The concept is simple, the execution is fun, and the presentation is bright, colorful, and quirky.

Once you get comfortable with the basic gameplay and switch to a higher level, the crossfader becomes a major part of the game. This slider bar is at home in the center, but at times, you’ll have to slide it right and left in time with the music trail, while keeping pace with the button presses and spins. The crossfade bar adds an interesting level of challenge in general, and adds some great variation to the music. On the downside, it can be a bit unruly. Despite have a bit of feedback, when the game is in high gear, paying attention to the current position of the bar without having to actually look at it can be frustrating.

There’s little in the way of onscreen prompts to keep track of the slider’s position as well, making the learning curve a bit steeper than it could have been. Another feature that is great in concept, but still in need of some work is the overlap with Guitar Hero. Some of the tracks allow for a guitarist, yet few of them felt particularly optimized for this feature. Usually the guitar tracks end up being painfully repetitive. Still, it’s a nice bonus feature that could use improvement in the sequel.

The overall presentation is much like other music game, with the moving gameplay tracks taking up most of the screen acreage, and stylized graphics of your on-stage DJ, the crowd, dancers—all reacting to how well you’re doing. The pumping soundtrack is especially awesome for home theater-equipped systems, but as expected, it sounds great in general.

Blast Factor: Without a doubt, DJ Hero is the most distinctive and original music game on the market. While the game is enjoyable for all skill levels, it takes on a whole new level coordination for the hardcore crowd. The packed soundtrack is phenomenal and mix table controller is responsive and fun to use. The  main problem for DJ Hero is the steep asking price. $119 is a lot to spend on one game with only a single controller. If you don’t mind the cover charge though, this is the coolest virtual rave in town.

Another Take — Bradley Ouellette

Activision’s latest Music game is an interesting new twist. They have taken the well-known style of the Guitar Hero franchise, and instead of playing a guitar, the player spins a record, and acts like a DJ mixing tunes. The Music in the game always consists of two pieces that the player has to mix together, fading between the two pieces and adding other effects including scratching, freestyling, and cross fading.

The game plays similar to any other Guitar Hero style game, moving the cross fader to select the track, scratching, or pressing the buttons to cause different effects to the music. When the player gets all of a lit up section correct the game gives a charge to the Euphoria button–this is the same as star power.

The scoring in DJ Hero feels different than the scoring in Guitar Hero also. The multipliers earned from rows of correct notes is very important since if you don’t hit 4x multiplier for a while in the game, you pretty much can’t score more than 3 stars. So hitting an extra note that isn’t there can kill your rating. Also if the player gets enough notes correct in a row, there is a rewind button that will show up in the display. This looks like the regular rewind button on a remote. When that’s on the screen, spinning the turntable back one full turn will rewind the song, and let the player replay a section to increase their score. This can be especially fun, if in Emode, when there is a bunch of cross fading back and forth, since it will allow the player to get a huge score with little effort. That being said, the rewind mode can also kill the score, since while it rewinds it’s easy to mess up a note and lose the multiplier.

Over all, I loved the game. I thought it was a neat new twist in the music genre; whereas the guitar band games haven’t had as much innovation lately, this was completely new. I found that game played smoothly, except for the cross fader. Even with the issues of the cross fader, loved the game, and will highly
recommend it if you generally like music games.

DJ Hero is available on the Wii, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, and retails for $119.99. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

It’s a fair bet that if you’ve already run out and bought the second Marvel Ultimate Alliance game, it’s because you knew exactly what to expect. As the sequel to what was probably the best super-hero beat ‘em up game ever, there aren’t any surprises here. Whether that’s good or bad is dependent on your opinion of the original and the genre in general.

Shiny, expansive, and fun, these aren’t tactical or intellectual games. They cut right to the core of what most people think about super hero comics–Crash! Bam! Bang! If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, here’s the skinny. Four super-heroes run through a variety of levels beating the crap out of anyone and anything in their way, eventually encountering a much tougher boss battle, before moving on to the next level to do it all over again. Repeat this for about ten or so hours and you have Marvel Ultimate Alliance… one and two.

These games are essentially Gauntlet for the next generation of hardware, but with a focus on up close and personal melee combat. You can eventually choose around 30 heroes and villains of the Marvel comics universe to play as, and thanks to the clever use of the Civil War storyline from last year, heroes will be fighting each other as well. Which side of the conflict you choose affects who you’ll have access to–at least to some extent–though the opening and the final levels has everyone a bit closer together to deal with a greater threat.

The storyline is generally fine, if not exceptional, but the real draw is simply the ability to use so many familiar and obscure comic book characters. For the single player, you can switch between team member at any time, heal others in your group, and even revive them with health power ups. Also, you can switch team members in and out entirely at will. Certain team combinations have bonuses as well, so if you want to play as the Fantastic Four, they get special team enhancements for instance.

Another improvement over the first game is the use of fusions. Essentially a fancy name for team-up super moves, every character can perform a specific combo super attack with any other member of their team. Some of these attacks are a wide radius explosive blast, while others must be targeted, and still more have characters rushing through hordes of enemies cutting down everything in their path. Although some of these moves are truly spectacular, most feel like cookie cutter retread after a while, since most fusions are re-used through most of the characters.

Still, given how many enemies clog the screen, any room destroying move is welcome. The action is often so chaotic that it becomes confusing and you’ll simply be left wildly mashing the buttons because you can’t even see your character through the clutter of endless enemy drones. Another problem is that the characters often don’t feel unique enough. While stronger characters can lift heavier objects, there isn’t enough difference between the impact of Daredevil hitting a thug and the Thing. Characters who should be immune to gunfire seem to take as much damage as anyone else, and unlike Batman: Arkham Asylum, the gameplay doesn’t convey enough sense of power to these characters as it should.

Thankfully, multiplayer action is what a game like this was really made for, and the game is much more fun when playing with others either in the same room or across the internet. You can run through the main story line as a group or take on the extra challenge levels, and playing Marvel Team-up with a real team adds a lot of value to the gameplay.

Finally, the overall presentation is excellent. The graphics are sharp and detailed, the character models look great for the most part, and while some of the voice acting and dialogue is really awful, the rest of the audio is good overall. Oddly, a lot of MUA2 is incredibly dark, which tends to make the already hectic action harder to follow.

Blast Factor: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 definitely takes a familiar path. There are no innovations here, and very few enhancements over the first game. It’s a straight-forward, meaty four-player beat ‘em up with plenty of great characters to choose from. Without a doubt, it won’t change anyone’s mind about the genre, and if you thought the first one was mindless and dull, there’s nothing to change your mind here. For fans of these games, however, it’s an impressive and expansive journey into mass destruction.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is available across all platforms; this review deals with the Playstation 3/Xbox 360 versions, and is available for $59.99

It’s been a long time coming, but finally Sony’s driving opus, Gran Turismo, fits in your hands. While it’s certainly appropriate to level complaints at the PS3 version for not pushing the series forward to compete with newer semi-simulations like Grid and Need for Speed Shift, fans of GT will discover a comfortably familiar racing groove on the PSP with impressive specs and beautiful graphics. Launching with the PSPGo (though fully compatible with the regular PSP), this downloadable racer shows off the power of the under-rated system remarkably well–though not without some caveats.

Fans of the console versions of Gran Turismo will love how you can just jump right into the action here. First and foremost, the controls, the physics, and the feel of the handling are done amazingly right. Even on the PSP, Gran Turismo still feels like a racing simulator. The sensation of speed mixed with great graphics further assures a true GT experience.

Beyond that, there are the cars and tracks. 35 tracks full of variety and challenge around the world make sure that you’ll have plenty of road to conquer. And you’ll need to learn them well to make enough money to buy even a fraction of the 800+ cars in the game. Like all Gran Turismo titles, every car is a real, licensed vehicle, ranging from familiar Toyotas and Mazdas, amazing and challenging supercars, and a huge variety of gorgeous exotic dream machines. The dealerships in the game offer a limited amount at a time, rotating models and styles at random, so there’s almost always something new to offer.

All the cars and tracks are modeled with remarkable accuracy as well, and GT is certainly one of the best looking racers (if not the best) on the PSP. Still, there’s regular, if slight texture tearing on the tracks, but the framerate is rock solid and there’s little else to complain about. The audio is pretty good as well. Certainly not as powerful as the console versions, the car engines and race sounds are still modeled with an ear for detail and realism.

If there’s a real problem with the portable GT, it’s in the lack of a true career mode. You can instead jump right into a single race with whatever cars and tracks you have access to at any time. Choose the number of laps, the car, the track and go. The only options are to race against a measly three other cars, or race yourself in a time trial or drift event. The latter is an interesting feature for diehard racers, as drifting in GT requires a good deal more skill than in more arcade-styled racers.

The closest thing the game has to a career mode is the challenge mode, which starts as a training ground for drivers. In this mode, you complete an wide array of driving tasks to build your track skills. There’s little actual bonus rewards for the challenges though, and while these events add some needed variety to the racing, a full-on career mode is still sorely lacking.

The other big problem with the game, especially as a Triple-A launch title for the PSPGo is the lack of online multiplayer. For a game meant to show off an entirely internet-centric gaming system, only having local wireless play is awfully anticlimactic. The multiplayer action is certainly rock solid, but this would have been a golden opportunity to evolve GT into an online community with leaderboards and tournaments much like the competition on the big consoles. On the upside however, you’ll actually be able to boost your garage in the upcoming PS3 version with the cars you unlock now.

Blast Factor: Gran Turismo has made an overall successful leap to the portable realm. The driving and variety of cars is still amazing, the graphics are excellent, and for lovers of serious racing, GT is still king. It’s a great racing game in need of evolution, but those are mostly complaints that are easier to level on the PS3 version. As far as portable racers go, GT is still the king.

Gran Turismo is available exclusively on the PSP and PSP Go, and retails for $39.99

PC gamers have had low-priced and free online, second-tier shooters for years now, so it’s not surprising to see such B-grade attempts hitting consoles. SouthPeak and developer TimeGate Studios’ Section 8 definitely fits the bill, except that it’s neither low-priced nor free. The game is basically a multiplayer-centric first person shooter that tries to throw a twist on the mainstays like Unreal Tournament and Halo 3 (or for older PC gamers, Starsiege Tribes).

The story has something to do with armored super soldiers who fight each other across a variety of huge, bland landscapes for very nearly indeterminate reasons. The soldiers look like a cross between Halo’s Master Chief and Warhammer 40k space marines… with less personality. In fact, the whole game manages to provide one of the most generic sci-fi universes you’re likely to see all year.

The single player campaign puts players in the shoes of one of the said generic, parachute jumping space marines, as he struggles against the evil forces of red. These levels task you with plowing through enemy soldiers with your fellow team, hacking computers, stealing data, shutting down planetary defense systems and other tried and true objectives of sci-fi action. The single player campaign actually uses the same maps as the multiplayer mode, though they unlock sections at a slower pace. In multiplayer, the whole area is open from the start.‚  This gives you an easy way to get used to the gameplay and the maps while burning through the otherwise short and throwaway story.

While the single player action is generally lackluster, the AI of both enemy and ally troops is truly awful. Don’t expect much help on the battlefield, but then again, there’s not much in the way of intelligent opposition either. If you do happen to die, you just respawn in the air again, which is one area of originality. At a certain altitude, you can apply air brakes that give you limited control over where you land. This makes it easier to get right back into the action or close to your current objective.

The multiplayer aspect of the game fares much better. The game has only one game mode, called Conquest, but the scope of the maps and support for 32 players makes for surprisingly hectic and charged battles. In Conquest, two teams earn points by not just killing your enemy, but capturing control points, and completing “dynamic combat missions”. There are six different, timed DCMs, and any given game can feel like a variety of play styles thanks to this design element.

Section 8 has six different weapons and seven gadgets to play with. The guns are entirely standard fodder–a sniper rifle, shotgun, machine guns, rocket launcher, etc–and you can, as usual, only carry two at a time. You can also change load-outs at certain stations, but this is far from ideal in the heat of combat. The gadgets allow you to repair vehicles, heal teammates, become invisible to radar, use remote control mines, and knife people.

Earning money by completing objectives enables you to purchase vehicles and turrets in Section 8. The turrets are a nice idea, and give the game a vague RTS nod since the stationary guns help defend a specific area. The vehicles, on the other, are amazingly bad. There is a tank and a mech up for grabs with enough cash, and both are executed so poorly that you’re better off avoiding them. On foot, your normal pace is sluggish, but your armor allows for super-powered sprints and rocket pack high jumps. At full speed, you can plow through an enemy killing them instantly, and the ability to jump several stories in the air makes navigating the huge maps a little easier.

Blast Factor: In every sense, Section 8 is a mediocre shooter, and had it been released at a budget price, this might have been just fine. PC gamers are used to plenty of cheap alternatives to big name releases, so why not consoles? Unfortunately, this isn’t a budget-priced game–though it’s almost a certainty that it soon will be. The single-player game is utterly forgettable, yet the multiplayer portion holds enough interesting concepts to make it worth a look once it hits the bargain bins.

Section 8 is available on the Xbox 360 and the PC, and retails for $59.99 and $49.99 respectively

There was a lot of anticipation and build up for the first official next-gen, HD release of SNK’s venerable team fighting game, the King of Fighters. The King of Fighters XII is finally upon us, but the results aren’t quite what all the hype built up to in the past year. With so many other recent choices in the 2D fighting genre, KoFXII has some stiff competition that it simply can’t match up to–especially as a full-priced release.

SNK, and especially their Neo Geo console system’s fighters, have always had a special place in the hearts of fighting games fans. Since the early 90′s, SNK’s fighters for their super-priced super system were the main competition to Capcom’s Street Fighter II reign as coin-op and home fighting champ. When SNK decided to create a game that combined a huge portion of their roster (and throw in new characters as well), the King of Fighters was born. It was and remains a team-based combat game, with three fighters on each side.

That legacy continues in KoFXII, but the game has finally made the jump to next gen, HD glory. This was no easy task for the developers, as it meant carefully re-drawing every single character and frame of animation to compensate for the new, much higher resolution. The results are, overall, good, but certainly not as exceptional as fans might have hoped. In direct comparison to BlazBlue and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix, the graphics are noticeably more jagged and less detailed. The animation is excellent though–better than the SF2 Remix–and the action itself is amazingly smooth.

The action is also incredibly retro. If you’ve played a 2D fighter in the last 15 years, you know how to play KoFXII. It’s the same half- and quarter circles, and a few other familiar motions, that have been making rounds in every fighter since the original Street Fighter 2. While most of the Grade-A competition have found ways to evolve, there’s very little here that feels at all different than any other KoF.

Indeed, there’s actually a lot less here than in past KoF games. Though previous iterations often had over 30 combatants, KoFXII offers a paltry 22, and several key favorites are completely absent (notably Fatal Fury 2 hottie ninja, Mai Shiranui), and the two new characters–two female brawlers named Mature and Elizabeth–just aren’t that interesting. It doesn’t help that there’s no story mode whatsoever to help flesh out who these characters are.

In fact, there’s really only one main single player mode–the arcade mode, which is simply a series of five timed bouts and no boss characters. Other than that, you have a training mode and on- and offline versus modes, which makes the game an incredibly hard sell for people who enjoy fighters alone. Online gameplay has its share of issues as well. Though Ignition and SNK have released a patch to smooth out the online play, it’s still not as smooth as other fighters, which is a serious problem for a game where timing and precision are important.

It’s true that KoFXII adds a few new wrinkles to its combat system. There’s a stronger focus on juggling your opponent in the air by stringing combos together. There’s also the new critical counter system that lets you stun an opponent with a perfectly-timed counterattack. A lot of the characters have been retooled for the game as well, and diehard fans might not like the results since some old favorites have actually been toned down.

Blast Factor: The biggest problem with the King of Fighters XII is that there simply isn’t enough of it. There’s a pitiful lack of meaty game modes, the arcade mode is poorly done, the character roster is light for this series, and the presentation isn’t great. For the price, it’s impossible to recommend a game that should and could have just as easily been a $15 download. KoFXII essentially feels like a half-done fighter, where the developers focused purely on the HD graphics and decided to leave the rest of the work for the inevitable sequel.

King of Fighters XII is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and retails for $59.99

The latest fighting game from the brilliant minds that brought us the Guilty Gear series is, in every way, a chip off the old block. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger might seem like more of the same old-school 2D fighting that arcade hounds have been playing since the early 90′s, but Aksys Game certainly hasn’t rested on their proverbial laurels. Sporting a mix of the very familiar with plenty of new tricks, this is easily one of the best fighters on the market.

Where BlazBlue excels, much like Guilty Gear XX before it, is diversity. There are only 12 characters, which might seem small compared to Street Fighter IV or the newest King of Fighters, but unlike most fighters, this cast covers the gamut of styles with no character copying another. Mastering one or two shouldn’t be a problem for most players, but all 12 will require countless hours of playtime.

As expected, all the characters are of decidedly Japanese design”"weird, anime-styled, with the occasional effeminate male thrown in. Combatants range from an uber-sexy, pole-staff-wielding lady doctor, a gun-toting military girl, a boastful ninja, and a huge tank of a man, to a slender samurai, giant-sword-wielding vigilante, a monstrous creation made of insects, a boy and his creepy mannequin, and even a vampire girl. Each character is completely different from the others and go far beyond normal fighting game stereotypes.

Some characters work with special moves that are essentially traps, where timing and strategy are key. Others are familiar brawlers that are easy to jump right into. All have specific super moves called drive attacks that further differentiate them from each other, and the result is one of the most entertainingly eclectic band of fighters ever.

Beyond the great cast, the game modes offer an incredibly in-depth and satisfying amount of play value. For single players, the main modes are the arcade and story modes. Both modes actually carry some semblance of a story line, though following the overarching and individual character threads will prove challenging for anyone. The polite thing to say about the writing in BlazBlue is that something was lost in the translation from Japan to the US. More realistically, the plot is just a muddled mess.

That’s not to say that none of the storytelling works. Some of the plot lines are interesting and reasonably easy to follow, though it would have been nice had Arksys put more emphasis on all the writing in the game. On the plus side, the whole game is structured for replayability. To unlock all the extra moves and character variations, you’ll need to play through both modes multiple times with each character. Even getting the complete story for each character will require multiple passes through their story mode. It’s a great system that continually rewards the players for just playing.

Of course, fighting games aren’t usually about playing with yourself, and BlazBlue delivers a solid multiplayer component as well. Like most multiplayer games, you can compete against the internet in ranked and unranked matches, congregate with like-minded players in six-player lobbies, and even watch matches being played. As you fight, you’ll earn experience points (called rebel points) that accumulate to increase your overall level. This lets you see how experienced opponents are and select matches with other players your level.

Rounding out the game modes is a training mode for practicing and the score attack mode that tasks players with surviving an onslaught of AI opponents purely for high score purposes. Beyond game modes and characters, the actual gameplay of BlazBlue is a great mix of old and new. Hardcore players will welcome the inclusion of new moves like counter assaults, instant blocks, barrier bursts and blocks, rapid cancels and other intricate maneuvers. Newbies, on the other hand, and more casual gamers will appreciate the easy playability of basic moves and the option to use the right analog stick to effortlessly perform special moves.

Finally, the presentation of the game is topnotch. The 2D, anime style of the characters is gorgeous and colorful, if not quite as sharp as the recent Super Street Fighter HD remix, and the 3D rendered backdrops are amazing active and attractive. The audio work is very good as well, with zippy, dramatic music and great fighting sound effects.

Blast Factor: There’s very little to find fault with in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Sure, the story is nearly incomprehensible, but beyond that this is simply a great fighting game. There’s tons of replayability, amazingly diverse characters, smooth and refined controls, and gorgeous graphics. If you like fighting games at all, BlazBlue is a must buy.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and retails for $59.99

Retro game revivals are nothing new, so it’s hardly surprising to see Square Enix milking Taito’s vast collection of 80′s-era arcade games. The latest is Arkanoid Live!, a downloadable revamp of the version that hit the DS a while back. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, Arkanoid was a supped-up version of Break Out. Break Out, in turn, was basically a one-player cross between Pong and Space Invaders.

Essentially, you control a paddle at the bottom of the screen, and use it to reflect a bouncing ball back up to destroy a pattern of destructible blocks at the top of the screen. Arkanoid added a sci-fi motif and power-ups to the simple gameplay. It was never a complicated game, but offered a surprising amount of challenge. Playing Arkanoid today, however, it’s hard to image too many people taking it seriously. Even with the addition of lasers, aliens, rocket-propelled balls, and bizarre techno backdrops, the game is still incredibly primitive and, frankly, boring.

Even the presentation is remarkably spare. Although the game sports a plethora of overly busy and sometimes intrusive backgrounds, the game screen is just colored blocks and a simple ball. Even the aliens are basic geometric shapes. Some of them are balls that break up into more balls, thus confusing the action further. And adding confusion to the playing field is never a good thing here. The speed of the ball deflecting off blocks can be harrowing, and the game tends to add challenge by forcing you to try to navigate around unbreakable blocks.

The developers wisely included the option to turn off most of the extraneous elements. You can toggle aliens and the backgrounds off if you like, giving the game a purist feel. It also makes the action easier to follow since there’s not as much eye candy on the screen.

Since the game is entirely based on simple physics, some of these levels can be absolutely maddening, and it’s a bizarre design choice that the Arkanoid doesn’t have any save functionality. There are four “episodes” in the single player story mode, each with 31 levels, and you have to finish all 31 in one sitting. This might have been fine in olden times when you were plugging quarter after quarter into an arcade machine, but is a ridiculous oversight now.

The inclusion of multiplayer is the shining part of the game. Basically offering a competitive puzzle game feel, two-players try to either clear all the blocks off their respective screen first, or just certain colors of blocks. There are multiplayer specific power-ups meant to thwart the other player, and a huge array of levels to compete in. In terms of casual multiplayer gaming, Arkanoid Live! isn’t a bad choice.

Blast Factor: At 800 points, Arkanoid Live! seems over-priced for what it offers. For fans of the arcade classic, it’s certainly a solid revamp, but the game simply hasn’t aged well since the 80′s. The multiplayer adds a definite value boost, but overall this one is strictly for the retro crowd.

Arkanoid Live! is available exclusively on the Xbox 360′s Xbox Live Arcade service for 800 Microsoft Points

Released episodically on the PC almost two years ago, Sam & Max Save the World should prove to be a great joy for old-school lovers of point and click adventure. How many of such gamers migrated to console machines since the early 90′s, however, is up to speculation. For newcomers to this classic genre, Sam & Max could prove to be either a blissful blast from the past or a perplexing taste that most will completely fail to acquire.

Containing six separate but related episodes, Save the World is a fairly meaty adventure. Each episode ranges from two to four hours, making this downloadable $20 title longer than most full-priced releases. That said, those 20 hours (give or take) only really work if you can buy into the gameplay style offered here.

For those not familiar with what most refer to as a LucasArts-style adventure (the original Sam & Max Hit the Road was one of the shining stars of the late 80′s/early-to-mid 90′s LucasArts adventure collection), here’s the rundown. Basically point and click item hunts, these adventures task the player with moving from location to location, hunting for items, checking out every interactable thing on the screen, and enjoying a plethora of snarky comments along the way. Sam & Max in particular is billed as an interactive sitcom, and these episodes certainly play out for absurdist humor.

All those collected items inevitably form the basis for solving the various puzzles in the game. You’ll find eclectic, often nonsensical use for tear gas, Swiss cheese, bowling balls, video tapes, and a wide array of other oddities. Combine objects or use them on the characters and environments to advance, thus providing fodder for new gags. And make no mistake, Sam & Max is really about the gags and the dialogue.

Sam is a big dog and your controllable character. He’s the straight man to the psychotic rabbit-thing Max. Together they’re a pair of freelance police (private dicks really) in a surreal cartoon landscape of brain-washed child actors, conspiracy-theorist inconvenience store clerks, crazy psychotherapists, cops, robbers, and other bizarre takes on noir stereotypes.

Save the World is essentially a direct port of the PC version “" only with all six episodes available right from the start “" and this is perhaps the biggest problem. You move Sam around by clicking the area of the screen you want him to go, which is a clunky control system on a console. The game doesn’t exactly scroll from location to location smoothly, and having to use a mouse cursor to interact with everything simply doesn’t work well with a game pad. The exception being the occasional mini-game, such as a really awful driving sequence that feels completely pointless and plays even worse.

The other issue is that the dialogue is mostly amusing, but often seems to be straining. It’s clear the writers were trying to be clever and take on not just private detective clichƒ©s, but also modern topics like the Internet, child stars, work-out videos, and apparently any random thoughts that crossed their minds. Unfortunately, the dialogue isn’t nearly as clever as it wants to be most of the time. The game is still fun, but after a while, the characters become a bit too predictable and clichƒ© in their own right.

Blast Factor: For classic adventure game lovers “" especially past fans of the series “" Sam & Max Save the World is a must-have addition to any gaming library, but most of those gamers probably already played the PC version two years ago. For console gamers, Sam & Max is a welcome opportunity to try something very un-console like, but it will certainly take some patience to put up with the out-of-date control scheme and hit or miss comedy. Still, it’s cheap, good looking, and charming, and there’s hours of bizarre item hunting awaiting the curious gamer.

Sam & Max Save the World is available on Xbox Live Arcade for 1600 Microsoft Points.