Thankfully, Zeno Clash doesn’t fall into that category of overpriced shit. Available on Xbox Live for 1200MSP ($15), Zeno Clash could best be described as a First-Person Shooter, without a whole lot of “shooting” going on. In other words, it’s an FPS where you mainly attack enemies with “melee style” combat. So, along with being able to obviously punch the various odd looking creatures in the game, you also get to block, dodge, parry and sprint when you have to.

Understandably, you may not think this sound all that entertaining. Hey, Halo it’s not. However, Zeno Clash is worth your downloading dollars.

First off, Zeno Clash has a surprisingly well written and paced Story Mode. You’ll play as Ghat, a tribesman who’s outcast from his village and who then has to fend for himself in the odd world of Zenozoik. I realize that’s a very generic synopsis, but I don’t want to spoil the rest of the story for you. Just know that I felt like every scene in the game was well thought out and at times, surprisingly emotional. Not once was I bored, or did I feel like I was trying to complete it (which took about 6 hours total) just because I hate not finishing a game.

Zeno Clash’s level design and graphics are also some of the best I’ve experienced for a downloadable game on Xbox Live. The game moves smoothly, the characters and unique looking environments are all very well drawn, and I didn’t see many (if at all) rough looking edges, or anything that looked, well, rushed.

Also noteworthy are the impressive voice acting (why can’t I get one of those jobs?) and the well done (but, somewhat generic) soundtrack that fits perfectly with the game.

Bottom line is this, Zeno Clash is totally worth the $15, and even after you tear through the Story Mode like I did, there’s still a few more ways to play the game. There’s the “Zero Rush” mode, which is a “time-attack” style challenge mode where you must ascend/descend a tower or pit with waves of enemies coming at you, and there’s also a Co-Op mode where you get to do the previous mode, but with a much needed partner.

Unfortunately, online co-op doesn’t extend to the Story Mode, which actually would have made sense due to how there’s two main characters during most of the story. But hey, for $15, you can’t have everything.

That said, for the aforementioned $15 Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition is a solid purchase, and a damn good game. If I had to gripe, for the few weapons available to you in the game, there are some that are way too powerful. Other than that, I recommend that Xbox 360 owners give it a try. I think you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was with this cool little title by ACE Team.

The game is filled with all sorts of great features including a big section of definitions, helpful hints and techniques for everything that would be needed in any of the recipes. Unfortunately, it consists of mostly very basic recipes and techniques. I looked for a recipe for Chocolate Ganache and could not find it, yet I consider that to be a basic recipe for many confections. It also has videos of real chefs showing you how to perform basic techniques such as dicing a potato and cleaning a cutting board thoroughly.  I was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the recipes and saw real, excellent quality pictures of the food instead of computerized graphics. There is a wonderful option that allows you to exclude ingredients and seasonings you or a family member may be allergic to, or dislike. When you check the ingredient, it will mark it in the recipes so that when you are flipping through you will see a red X marking recipes you will wish to avoid.

When you first look at your recipe it gives you all the same information as a cookbook, how long it will take to prepare, how many calories it has, how many servings it makes, and it even gives you a place to make notes of your own so you can effectively bookmark favorites. You can select recipes by the pictures or you can search by recipes with certain ingredients, by difficulty and even by calories. Another nice touch to this program is that you can make a grocery list right in the program for the recipe you select. In the notepad feature I am planning on developing a pantry inventory list for staples, so that I can track items used and replenish them easily on shopping trips.

There is a “save” feature so that when you peruse the recipe section, you can basically “bookmark” recipes that you are interested in trying at a future date. All you need to do it enter the “Try It” section and you will find your recipes. You can even plan meals on specific dates using the calendaring feature. This would make budgetary meal planning much easier for a busy family.

Overall, I would choose to purchase this instead of a cookbook as I have space issues in my kitchen. It’s also very organized and has good ideas for special occasions and has full meals suggested for upcoming holidays.  For example, Father’s Day is coming up, so what better way to celebrate Dad than with an appetizer of Tomato and Mozzarella Tart, Grilled Steak, Twice Baked Potatoes, Spinach with Garlic and Lemon?  Then to top the meal off, a yummy perennial summertime favorite, Strawberry Shortcake.

I tried out  a few of the recipes and the directions are clear and are as fast as you set the speed, as well as being quite tasty. I personally recommend the Ranch Potato Salad.  So get your family together or try the recipes for yourself.  I hope to see a new, more advanced version of the program in the future.

Sam and Max are a 50-style cartoon detective crew (animals – mind you: a chubby, insecure dog and a twisted bunny) that seem to have gained most of their popularity through the consistent release of games they are featured in (3 seasons worth now), rather than through traditional comic book success. Previous games in this series have reviewed reasonably well, though this game was my first experience with the franchise.

The Penal Zone is the first in a 5-episode series of point and click adventures that relies heavily on nerdy bathroom humor to try to coerce you through a series of elaborate brain teasers. You walk around as Sam, the dog in a suit, and collect items of various consequence, after a suspicious space-gorilla has landed in the middle of your block. It’s up to your crack detective work to determine what to do with the items and when to use them. Some can be given to other characters in order to advance the story, some will be useful only through further analysis and others will be placed in the environment at appropriate spots to trigger puzzle solutions or advance plot points.

Sam’s sidekick Max serves as a wild card character that has been bestowed with a set of powerful psychic abilities. He is able to use the ‘Toys of Destruction’ that give him the power to see the future and teleport between phones, in addition to some other briefly used but notable abilities. One very interesting trick is the ability to teleport to a phone that you have on you. You can leave it in places or get separated and teleport back to it for clever solutions to several problems and puzzles in the game.

There are some fun elements to The Penal Zone – just saying it for one – and a number of wacky tools the game offers you to be used in a number of creative ways. The lead villain, General Skun’ka’pe, meaning skunk-ape, is for sure the best character in the game. He’s an overly articulate space gorilla with a a heavy penchant for BS-bravado and a bitchin’ ship that has been crafted to resemble his own likeness. With the general headlining the show, much of the voice acting is extremely good – even if the dialogue is mostly so-so.

Blast Factor: What you realize as you get into it is that The Penal Zone is really attempting to be a comedy vehicle more-so than it is a video game. The main problem for me was that I never quite felt like the comedy aspect of it ever got off of the ground. There is an onslaught of jokes, many of which are just not funny and yet very long-winded at the same time. This led to impatience for me, as I often just wanted to get to the point. The game does allow you to skip through all the jabber-jawwing, but it’s easy to miss important clues in doing so. You are faced with the painful choice of enduring bad dialogue or run the risk of severe frustration down the road.

Sam and Max will have to get a lot funnier to interest me in ‘The Devil’s Playhouse: Ep.2′.

In spite of all this, you do drive a really sweet car — a 1960 DeSoto Adventurer. Its usefulness is limited with the ability to teleport, however.

Between the Polk Audio Hitmaster, which my friend Big Jim Murray reviewed a few weeks back, and the Altec Lansing Stage-Gig, we have a few good ideas here that have come out several years after Guitar Hero and Rock Band (and about a year after the games hit their maximum popularity).

At its core, the Stage-Gig is a versatile, 40-watt speaker with strong bass response and clear highs. It plugs in via standard Red/White audio plugs, so it works with PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and anything else that, you know, makes sound.

It’s only about 1/2 as big as a “real” stage monitor. It’s meant to give you some more realism when you (and hopefully your friends) are making fake music in your living room. You can also string together multiple units for added audio power.

The problem is, and the problem was with the Polk product, is timing. This would have been a fantastic product to showcase at all the music game booths at E3 in 2008.

But as a bonus, both stage monitors we’ve tested are just $100. The Stage-Gig is a great speaker, which will sound fantastic at a party with your iPod or stereo. It even hooks up to your computer if you want it to.

If you already have a great home theater setup, you don’t need the Stage-Gig, but if you’re relying on your television’s speaker, this will make everything sound better.

Blast Factor: The Stage-Gig is a great speaker, if you need a great speaker. While it might be more practical for picnic music than for pretending to be the next great American band, the product does what it says it will do without costing much.

The Altec Lansing Stage-Gig is $99. A sample was given to us by the developer for reviewing purposes.

You also probably remember playing the graphically pretty (but ultimately you don’t control much of anything) games like Dragon’s Lair or Space Ace in the arcades. 

Now, if you enjoyed both of those things as much as I did when I was that age, then keep on reading, because you’ll love Heavy Rain.

If you didn’t, well, I suggest you check something else out on Blast.

Yes, graphically stunning, with a meaty, twisty story line, and featuring “quick time event” game play (It’s flashing “X” on the screen! MASH IT, QUICK!), Heavy Rain is just like those aforementioned novels and games. It’s part game, part movie and the game’s developer, Quantic Dream sums it up somewhat nicely with their marketing tag-line: “Interactive Drama.”

Throughout the game, you’ll take control four different characters in an American city that’s never named, and those characters are all tied together by the diabolical, child murdering actions of The Origami Killer (gasp!)

Sound heavy? (No pun intended) It is. And you get to make just about every call as to how harrowing the game plays out.

See, no matter what choice you make, you best be prepared to live with your decision, because in Heavy Rain, there’s no going back for a proverbial “do-over.”

As you play Heavy Rain, you’ll notice that you’re given more options than you know what to do with. You can choose to do anything from the mundane (making eggs! Turning on the stereo! Getting bitched at by your wife!) To the intense and super serious (accuse a coworker of murder! Chopping off your own finger! Shooting that guy because he seems sketchy!) Almost anything you do is optional, and performing these actions (or not) will affect how the story plays out. Some won’t have that much of an effect, where as others will have a huge impact on the game. (Wait. I just got that guy killed? Nooo!) 

Regardless, it definitely does feel like you’re guiding the story with your choices, rather than the developers guiding you along their predetermined path.

In regards to the story, well, it’s difficult for me to type too much about it without completely ruining most of the plot, but know this. It plays on some of the worst fears one could possibly have in life (child abduction! Gang rape! Being operated on without anesthesia! Hanging out in a nightclub geared towards Eurotrash!) and it’s actually quite gripping, despite a few minor plot holes.

And Heavy Rain isn’t without some other flaws. While the game mostly is controlled by “quick time events,” you do actually move your character around like any other action game. However, such movements can sometimes seem awkward and “tank-like,” much like any of the Resident Evil games. Also, for a game that supposedly takes place in an unnamed American city, you’ll notice that many of the game’s characters (Especially the children) talk with an odd accent. It’s odd, and somewhat confusing at first, but it’s not anything that takes away from the game.

Come to find out (once I watched the bonus content) it’s because Quantic Dream is a French game developer, and they used mostly European voiceover talent.

Well OK then.

Minor issues aside, I loved this game. It’s literally as close to playing a well written Hollywood thriller that I’ve experienced in all my years of gaming. The graphics are some of the best I’ve seen for this generation of consoles, the score is both haunting and beautiful, and the story, with the tension that’s almost always running in the red, kept me thinking about coming back for more even while I was supposed to be working.

Trust me, Heavy Rain will get under your skin, and it’ll have you clamoring to witness every possible ending, well after your first play through.

Oh, and do yourself a favor — Make sure you check out the bonus content to see the actress who did the motion capture for the character, “Madison.” It’ll make you feel like much less of a creep for thinking “Wow. That’s one tremendously hot video game chick.”

You know what a “Vectrex” is and you’ve actually bid on one on Ebay.

Well, yours truly IS old, and HAS bid on a Vectrex, and thankfully I didn’t end up winning one, because that would have been horrible.

That’s because the “retro, vector-style graphics” of a Vectrex (and now, Stick ‘Em Up) are awful, brightly colored stick like figures and shapes.

Look, I know that Stick ‘Em Up is a cheap indie game, but in 2010 not even the stoniest stoner gamer should put up with these kinds of graphics. Especially after being spoiled in recent years with the likes of Modern Warfare and say, Heavy Rain. (Oooh that Madison. SO hot!)

OK, so “retro, vector-style graphics” aside, is Stick ‘Em Up at least fun to play?

Well, um… no.

If this is a quality indie game, count me out. (In the game’s defense, it currently has a 3.5 star rating.) See, not only are the visuals “retro” but so is gameplay. Stick ‘em up is basically running and shooting your way through each level (there’s 12! At 3.99, that’s just .33 cents a level! W00T!) until you reach the end and move on to the next one.

Yup.

That’s it.

Just your run of the mill, “run n’ gun” platform shooter, with ancient 2d graphics.

I mean, I knew going in that this game wasn’t going to be the next BioShock, but when you’re lacking in every other basic gaming department, I’d figure the developers could have at least strung together SOME lame plot.

The thing about most of the quality “retro style” games, is that they took a concept from the past, and improved on what made the original work.

An obvious example of a game that got this concept right, is Geometry Wars. Unfortunately, Stick ‘Em Up looks and feels like some kid’s first programming project. Now, I realize that’s a bit harsh, but what can I say?

I want to play a kid’s first programming project about as much as I want to be an English teacher being forced to read some slacker teen’s attempt at literature.

Stick ‘Em Up, also offers co-op and local multiplayer, but I’ll be honest here — I didn’t try either while I gave this game a go, due to the fact that anyone I pinged didn’t want to play the game, and nobody was willing to come over to my apartment to play me. I don’t blame them.

In closing, Stick ‘em up is a steaming pile that’s too short, with horrendous a.i., iffy controls (have I mentioned you can’t even duck?!) and annoying, “vector-style graphics” that torture your retinas after about ten minutes.

About the only upside that this game has, is that the “helicopter” (and I use that term loosely) that you get to pilot, sort of looks like the Death Star with rotors.

If that’s enough to make you want to part with 240 MS points, you’re a better (or richer!) person than I am.

Awakening allows you to build a new character from scratch–an Orlesian Grey Warden commander come to aid Ferelden–or import one of your Origins characters with their equipment, statistics and abilities in place. Personally, I enjoyed taking charge of my previous character more than using the new one, as Awakening is a 15-20 hour expansion, and not a 40 hour epic–reacquainting yourself with former companions and others you met on your adventure has more meaning than if you meet them with a brand new face, but that’s a personal preference. The tie-ins are also stronger if you import a character, since some of your past information is used within the game as well as in the endings, though it’s not as strong a correlation as in say, Mass Effect 2.

You have new abilities that you unlock past level 20, which means your strategy from the previous title has the ability to adapt and change to meet your new needs and to keep things fresh for you. There’s also an (almost) entirely new cast for you to befriend (or aggravate–up to you really). The one returning character was a favorite of mine who I felt wasn’t fleshed out enough in Origins, so it’s good to see that Awakening rectifies that by cranking his/her personality up to 11 and letting him/her loose. Also, as a Grey Warden commander, you now have the right of conscription, so if you meet an angry individual that you would like to be in the Wardens, and they want no part of it, then their other option is death. Have fun toying with people’s lives!

The basis of the story is that you are now (SPOILERS if you haven’t played Origins, but if you haven’t, what are you doing here instead of waiting in line at the store to get it?) that you are now the Grey Warden commander in charge of the now deceased Arl Howe’s lands. You have to govern the people there (some of whom want you dead for your part in the death of Howe) as well as protect the citizenry in both the farmlands or the city–it’s up to you to distribute the troops to where you think they are needed most. You have an economic advisor who you can listen to or ignore as well–again, it’s up to you. If you upgrade Vigil’s Keep to its full potential though, you will see the effects of your handiwork when the time is right and appreciate what you have done. As for story-changing decisions, outside of choices you can make with individual characters there is really just one major moment, but for a very focused expansion that’s not much of a surprise, even for a BioWare title.

The Darkspawn have not fled for the Deep Roads, as they always do after a Blight, and they seem even more organized now than they were when an Archdemon was leading them. It turns out they do have a new leader pulling the strings, and this leader, like many of the Darkspawn you encounter, can now talk–picture an Orc with a working brain, and you would be on the right track. Since Darkspawn were enough of a threat already before they were capable of organization, sneak attacks and strategy, you need to get to the bottom of things before all of Ferelden is faced with something even worse than a Blight.

While the lack of major plot decisions isn’t a turn-off for Awakenings, the lack of conversation with your party members is. They only talk to you if they have something to say–you aren’t going to be exploring their psyche, poking and prodding at them like you did in Origins. While on the field they are all business, and don’t have time to talk to you. One of the characters even just groans and says you’re like a nagging child every time you try to speak to her. While back at camp, they talk to you, but again, only if they have something to say–you can’t just go up and explore the character through conversation like you could in Origins. It’s a shame, and kept me from feeling as connected to certain party members, whereas in Origins, conversations allowed me to take a liking to characters that, based on my first impressions, I would never have bothered to use in battle or on the field.

Because of the lack of plot twists though–meaning that, outside of completing or not completing sidequests, there isn’t much differentiation between playthroughs–Awakening also does not have the replayability of Origins. My best advice would be to use your favorite character from Origins, and maybe play through again as the Orlesian commander, but, if anything, you’ll just want to play Origins again after completing Awakening. As an expansion of the brand, it certainly succeeds, but it’s not as successful of a standalone product as Origins, despite being better than all of the DLC released for that title thus far.

Blast Factor: If you were a fan of Dragon Age: Origins, then this is a necessary purchase that expands the Dragon Age universe and gives you another reason to return to the lands you’ve defended once before. If you weren’t sold on the idea of Dragon Age before, this game will not change your mind. It doesn’t have the same replay value as Origins, but it’s definitely worth at least one playthrough for fans of the franchise.

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening is available on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, and retails for $39.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

That’s a bit unfair though, as Square has been very good about branching out with their flagship franchise. To kick off their popular Playstation 2 era, they released Final Fantasy X, which removed the world map and created a more linear adventure that was fueled by its story, the first voice acting in an FF title, and an excellent battle system that combined turned-based combat with some impressive summons, a new leveling system, and the ability to switch characters in and out of combat on the fly. Final Fantasy XI was an online MMORPG, which was clearly a step in a different direction, and FFXII combined elements of the two to create something completely different: a single-player game that felt like playing an MMO in many ways. While the opinions vary on just how successful XII was insofar as creating an excellent game, there is no doubt that it helped pave the way for XIII, which, in this reviewer’s opinion, is a far superior outing for the long-standing franchise.

The story in FFXIII is part of what will power you through the game–yes, this is a mostly linear adventure, but somewhere along the way people confused linearity for being bad. That’s not the case with this game, as the reason for its linear nature comes through as you play–it’s a story of escape and running for your life for about 15 hours, so it’s no wonder you don’t have the ability to go wherever you please. It’s not like the game doesn’t present you with plenty to do, even if it isn’t giving you much of an option to do it. If you skip out on this game due to its being more linear than you would expect from an FF game, then it’s your loss.

The main character is Lightning, though as far as a “main” goes, XIII has more in common with VI than any of the other games in the series, as each character will take the lead at some point in the adventure as you focus on their story and character development. I don’t want to delve too much into the story and give anything away, but Lightning is a former member of the military who is trying to save her sister, who happens to be the fiance of another character, Snow. Serah, the fiance and sister, is in danger for reasons you will learn, and both characters are separately out to save her. There are other people in the mix for various reasons, and everyone eventually comes together until tragedy befalls them and they have their own problems to escape from, starting you on your adventure. Apologies for being vague, but it’s the kind of adventure that’s best experienced for yourself so you can see how everything develops and turns out, from both a plot and character development standpoint.

In fact, as far as character development goes, this is the most successful Final Fantasy in a long while. There may be a few characters who rub you the wrong way long enough that you feel there is no hope for them, but everyone has their chance at redemption, and by the game’s conclusion you will like the character that has grown before your eyes over 60 hours. Hope starts out like the cliche whiny teenager, but if you think about it, he has a lot of reasons to complain, and will have his chance to move on. Vanille starts off as a goofy, fun-loving teenager that rubs some people the wrong way, but she also has her moment of transformation, and you learn why she acts the way she does. Lightning is the gruff, militaristic type, but even she has her moments of tenderness, and because of the way she acted all the time before, they mean something to you when they happen. It also helps that the voice acting for each character is superb–Vanille’s voice seems out of place on occasion, but otherwise, your ears won’t mind the loss of the Japanese voice actors.

The latest will feel very familiar to those hardcore RPG enthusiasts who played one of Atlus’ other series, Etrian Odyssey. That’s because Strange Journey is a dungeon crawler with a first-person viewpoint. It’s not as tough as Etrian Odyssey, thanks to far more save points as well as healing stations, and, in comparison, an abundance of money, but that doesn’t mean this is an easy game. It’s an SMT game, which means it comes with the kind of tough battles that requires a thorough understanding of the battle system.

At its most basic, Strange Journey is a dungeon crawler with turn-based battles. While seemingly random, battles occur after a set number of steps–you can see when one is imminent on your HUD thanks to a color gauge. You control one character that you can name, as well as up to three demons at a time in your party. You recruit these demons through conversations and negotiations — you have to answer a few of their questions in a way that will make them like you, and then give them money, items, or health in order to convince them it’s worth joining your party. Questions are sometimes tough to gauge, but you can figure it out easily — don’t make it sound like you want to kidnap barely legal fairies for  pedophilic pleasure, and you shouldn’t have any troubles recruiting those types of classes. Make big, tough demons respect you by showing how tough you are (or admitting how strong they are) and they’ll join up–you get the idea.

You fight by plugging attacks, skills or item commands into the menu for your entire team, and then a round plays out. You can summon new demons to the fight as well in order to replace either fallen ones or those you just don’t want in the battle anymore. If you don’t feel like fighting, you can select auto fight with the X button, which can be stopped in between rounds. This happens quickly, so make sure you do it if you know you’re going to win anyways. You wouldn’t want to lose a match against some tough demon because you were too lazy to go through a menu.

The first time you encounter demons, they appear as blue static on your screen. Once you have fought them and collected information on them–their name, weaknesses, etc.–they will show up in their true forms. You continue to collect information on them after this–after battles, you may notice that your Analyze level for a particular demon went up. You can reference that information to know their weaknesses or what they are strong against, which is useful knowledge not only for fighting, but when you’re building your own party for a region or boss.

You can carry up to 12 demons at a time, though that number is smaller at the start. Capturing demons won’t be enough though–you need to fuse demons together in order to make more powerful ones. You can’t fuse a demon more powerful, level-wise, than your main character, but there are still some excellent combinations to be had at all times in the game. After you have leveled a demon a certain amount, they will give you their “source”, which is basically some of their skills that you can apply to a demon fusion in order to customize a bit. There is also special fusion, which requires three demons rather than two, but this makes some of your better fighting companions who have much better skill-sets and base abilities than your standard fusion.

The story and presentation in Strange Journey are also worth discussing. Graphically and artistically, this game is appealing. Environments are varied, despite the fact they are mostly just walls and alleyways for you to traverse in a maze-like fashion, and character animations (and designs) are splendid, as is normally the case in SMT titles. Conversations are menu-based using statis animations, but you don’t do a whole lot of talking unless you are in between missions or a new story element pops up while you’re out in the field.

As for  the story, you are part of an elite strike team sent to accompany scientists and researchers to the Schwarzvelt, an odd distortion of time and space that appeared in Antarctica and is threatening to swallow the planet. In addition to completely satisfying the quantum physics nerd in me with constant references to advanced sciences and theories, the story remains entertaining throughout thanks to the dialogue that permeats the experience–the main conflict is between humans and demons, and although demons are considered evil and terrible (as well as dangerous) their behavior and the world they live in is simply a reflection of human activities and the selfish desires of humanity. Sure, the demons are bloodthirsty, and many of them want nothing besides your death (or at least a sandwich made from your corpse), but their existence is tied directly to humanity’s treatment of the planet during the absence of the demons. For once, you can stop to think about what a JRPG is trying to tell you on a philosophical level–and that level is something besides, “As long as you have friends, no goal is outside your reach!”(and a cliche cast of friends, at that).

Strange Journey is a lengthy experience as well–you don’t necessarily have to level grind to succeed, but you will have to spend time searching out demons and leveling up sufficiently. No worries though–dungeons are long enough, and with plenty of goals in them, so you won’t have to do much running around outside of what is required of you from the story and side missions you can take on. You may fly through the early portions of the game as the game teaches you about recruiting demons, fusing them and the like, but as time goes on and you need to make sure your party is loaded with enough firepower to take on the demon clan’s heavy hitters, things get a bit more difficult and time consuming.

Luckily there is plenty to do outside of just fighting while you roam the mazes. Forma can be found using an application in your suit–forma is basically a material that is used in the ship’s laboratory to make items, weapons, accessories, and additional apps. Once you have the app for locating forma, an indicator will go off on your map once you are within range–it’s worth finding every piece of forma you come across, because chances are good the ship’s labs can turn it into something you can use. This helps keep your searches for battles and demons from feeling grindy, which is welcome in a game like this that requires so much fighting.

Blast Factor: Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is a blast from the past in a lot of ways, but it’s a welcome one. The DS gets another lengthy RPG title to add to its collection, but it’s one time with. There’s an entertaining story, one that’s a little deeper than you would think from a handheld RPG, as well as the joy of fusing and creating new demons–and of course, it’s a challenge to complete, which is welcome news to those who follow the SMT games, or even those who can’t wait for Etrian Odyssey III.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is available exclusively on the Nintendo DS. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

While I do think a firm “no” as an answer to that question would be hyperbole, there’s no question that those games popularity is most definitely not what it was just a few short years ago. And look no further than the sales trending downward and trouble at Cambridge-based Harmonix for proof.

That said, I find it somewhat odd that Polk Audio has chosen now to release their new Hitmaster stage monitor.

Yes, you read that right. It’s a stage monitor.

Something normally reserved for REAL bands with REAL instruments, but, here’s one for use with Rock Band and or Guitar Hero.

First, you audiophiles should know the all important stats.

The Hitmaster comes in at roughly 14 inches wide and 9 inches tall, and is packed with a 6.5 inch sub-woofer and two 1-inch neodymium tweeters housed in 2.5-inch by 5.5-inch horns, and 80 watts of amplification.

Look, I’d be lying to you if I said I knew exactly what all of that exactly means, but I CAN tell you that the Hitmaster does “go to 11″ (no, literally!) and, it sounds pretty awesome.

Especially if you’re comparing that to the sound from your T.V. speakers.

For example, while playing Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” for Rock Band 2, I was pleasantly surprised by the big sound, in this relatively small speaker.

Lemmy’s baseline is immediately much more punchy and bottom heavy with the Hitmaster.

A sound you’re clearly not going to get through ANY t.v.’s speakers, no matter how fancy it may be.

Still though, as much as I enjoyed the obviously better aural experience of playing Rock Band 2 through the Hitmaster, I couldn’t help but feeling that much more…um, dorkier for doing so.

I mean, let’s be honest. It’s silly enough wailing out on the plastic guitar or drums at this point, but to then add a stage monitor to blast music into your face while you’re playing?

It just feels like overkill.

I guess if you were say, a bar owner who still held a Rock Band or Guitar Hero “night,” I’d recommend picking one or more of these up (they can be daisy chained) but I just can’t see blowing a hundred bucks on one for your home.

That is unless you’re without any kind of home theater system.

If that’s the case, well, then the Hitmaster ends up being an incredible bargain.

See, as long as it uses RCA stereo cables (T.V.’s, DVD/Blu-Ray players, your iPod, etc.), you can plug it into your Hitmaster, crank it up, and annoy your neighbors!

Obviously, Polk isn’t advertising this monitor for that kind of thing, but after using the Hitmaster with my iPod out on my porch while grilling delicious meats this past weekend, I came to this conclusion.

The Hitmaster for use with Rock Band and or Guitar Hero?

Kind of dumb.

The Hitmaster for use with outdoor bbq’s and or for people too fiscally conservative to blow money on a real home theater system?

Kind of awesome.

The Blast Factor:Based solely on the fact that you’re getting an all in one three speaker and amp for just 99 bucks, the HitMaster not only sounds better than expected, it’s also a pretty good bargain. The unit is incredibly easy to hookup, and thanks to this, you’re not forced to use it exclusively with your gaming console, solely for RockBand or Guitar Hero. Summer’s coming. So, if you’re the party hosting type who wants to blast their MP3 player outdoors and get things moving for relatively short money, I’d recommend picking one up.

If you played Perfect Dark Zero when it released for the Xbox 360, but haven’t played the original, please don’t judge the Nintendo 64 classic by its prequel’s attributes—this game is the reason Zero was such a letdown to many. Plus, for just 800 points, you’ll be picking up a game with more to do than many of today’s retail releases, never mind the fact that it towers over every single XBLA game—even Shadow Complex—in terms of depth and the hours you will sink into it.

Perfect Dark stars Joanna Dark, a British secret agent with gadgetry and weaponry at her disposal in a sci-fi themed future. She works for the Carrington Institute, who at present are investigating dataDyne, a wealthy corporation with their hands in some shady business. What starts as a simple romp through a near-future world turns into a race to save the president, shut down super weapons and end an alien threat in space. The voice acting is what you would expect from a game released originally in 2000, and the script is as corny (in an enjoyable way) as you would expect from a Rare release. Characters don’t open their hands, but flail fat looking fists around when they talk to let you know it’s their turn to speak—character’s lips don’t move with the words, so some kind of indicator was necessary.

That’s about the only thing that hasn’t aged well over the past 10 years though. The campaign is a bit short, but there are four difficulties—the first, Agent, is meant to familiarize you with the story and the levels. Special Agent adds additional enemies, moves some weaponry and shields around, and gives you more tasks to accomplish within each stage as well. This makes each playthrough a bit different, especially since the final difficulty does more of what Special Agent did, only harder. The game is also designed with speed runs in mind, thanks to some generous auto-aim, fast walking speeds and online leaderboards that can track your progress. Once you complete the game on Perfect Agent, a Perfect Dark difficulty unlocks as well, and you can unlock bonus levels through some of the other game’s modes in order to use previously non-playable characters.

Graphically, while not stunning by any means, Perfect Dark has cleaned up very well. The textures are highly detailed, the game was originally meant to run in 16:9 widescreen, meaning there is no weird transition issue, and the game’s art itself is also well done. This game was too ambitious for the system it was on—it required the expansion pack for the N64 just to play, and despite that still chugged along at an inconsistent 24 frames per second. Now it sits at not only 60 frames per second, but 1080p, full HD.

There are two areas where Perfect Dark shines as bright as any other first-person shooter on the Xbox 360, and that’s in the weaponry and the additional game modes. There are 32 weapons for you to choose from—the Carrington Institute weapons, which range from standard issue shotguns and pistols to sci-fi rifles, the dataDyne weapons, as well as an array of alien weapons from both the Maian and the Skedar. At their most basic, these are standard weapons, but each gun holds a nifty surprise—a secondary fire mode. Your AR34 assault rifle has a scope you can walk around with. Your Callisto NTG fires high impact shells rather than at an assault rifle rate. Your shotgun can have a double blast. The K7 Avenger becomes  a threat detector for locating mines, defense turrets and enemies. The Devastator, a grenade launcher, shoots sticky grenades. The Slayer rocket launcher has a camera-guided missile that you control to ram into targets. Most famously, the Laptop Gun becomes a turret that you can place anywhere, and it will fire until it runs out of bullets or enemies to kill. The thrill of experimenting with these guns will keep newcomers glued to their televisions, and veterans will do the same in order to excel with old friends and tactics.

As for game modes, there’s seemingly no end to them. You have multiplayer, which consists of six different game modes: Combat (death match), Hold the Briefcase, Hacker Central, Pop a Cap, King of the Hill, and Capture the Case. Capture the Case is basically capture the flag, Hold the Briefcase has you scoring points for holding onto a case the longest before losing it via a bullet to the head, Hacker Central has you invading enemy territory to hack into their computers, King of the Hill and Death Match are self-explanatory, and Pop a Cap has everyone targeting a specific person at a time. You can customize these matches to include stimulants (bots) as well, and these can be tailored to your preferences. Use the JudgeSim, whose only goal is to kill the current leader in order to keep the score even. The VengeSim wants nothing other than to attack the last person to kill them. The TurtleSim has a ridiculous shield to fire through. There are many others, and there are also difficulty levels for all of these sims—Meat, Easy, Normal, Hard, Perfect, and Dark. The Perfect and Dark sims are meant to move faster than you are capable of—you will find yourself shot at without ever seeing who did it, despite them being in front of you.

You can play these modes online now in eight-player multiplayer, but there is also four-player local, a godsend for those of us who want to revisit the days when we played nothing but Perfect Dark with friends at home. My one complaint in regards to multiplayer is that instead of eight simulants you can now use just four—this was most likely done to keep things streamlined so the game always maxed out at eight players, on or offline, but the original, despite its jarring frame rate issues in multiplayer, supported up to 12 players at a time thanks to the eight stimulants and four humans. [Edit: This is untrue--after completing the first eight Challenges, you unlock the ability to use eight bots in multiplayer  alongside up to four human players.]

The original game had maps from Goldeneye in addition to the Perfect Dark ones, as well as some unlockable Goldeneye weapons—these have returned, and are now available from the start. You can’t get Goldeneye on your 360 (or your Wii, for that matter), but you can play Goldeneye maps and use its weapons while playing the better game.

Perfect Dark also features 29 Challenges, which can be played with 1-4 players. These range from the simple (kill enemy bots with standard weaponry) to the slightly ridiculous (kill enemy Dark sims in a level without radar), but you unlock additional content for the game as well as a higher ranking for your profile by completing them. You can’t unlock things like the Dark sims in multiplayer until you have completed a certain number of challenges, so it’s worth your time to explore this portion of the game.

Additionally, there is a firing range for you to test out all of the game’s weaponry. There are bronze, silver and gold level challenges within the firing range, and you will find yourself sinking time in here in order to earn the best scores possible as well as unlock bonus levels. It’s also a great place to test out the secondary fire modes and capabilities of weapons without having to worry about someone trying to shoot back at you.

There’s still, amazingly, more to do: there is a co-operative campaign mode, as well as a counter-operative mode. Co-op is self-explanatory—I couldn’t care less that it doesn’t make sense from a story point of view to have two characters at once, because including co-op is a win. Counter-operative has one player take on the role of Agent Dark, while the second player uses a guard within the level—if the guard is killed, you simply take on the role of another guard until there aren’t any left.

One last thing—there are three control schemes. 4J Studios translated the N64 pad’s controls to the 360′s very well in the classic style. If you’ve played a lot of Perfect Dark, this is what you will want to use. If you’re more of a Halo guy, go with “Spartan”, and for Call of Duty fanatics, there’s “Duty Calls”.

Blast Factor: One of the most critically acclaimed shooters in gaming history is available once again with a new coat of paint, multiple control schemes, as well as all of the things that made the original great and then some. If you have played this before, go get it. If you have never played it, go get it. If the cartridge is sitting in your Nintendo 64 that’s kept in your bedroom on your other television (guilty), go get it.

Perfect Dark is available for 800 Perfect Dark is available for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Endless Ocean was something of an ocean sandbox where you generally spent time free of direction, free to do as you pleased. This did not sit well with many gamers though, as even open-world games have some sort of structure to them. Endless Ocean: Blue World, this year’s sequel from developer Arika, fixes that issue by focusing more on story and giving you more direction in your gameplay. They do this without sacrificing the things many folks loved from the original as well, which makes this sequel a better purchase for both fans of the original and the uninitiated.

All of the things you love from the original are intact—you can still take photos, the descriptions of sea life that you can read as you discover them, hidden locations that you must dive to discover, and the multiplayer, which allows you to dive with a friend online. This time around though, Wii Speak is supported, so you no longer have to quietly dive underwater, as calming an experience as that may have been. Now you can talk with a buddy, which makes things easier if you’re trying to direct someone towards an area or creature.

As for the story, your character, who you create with the very simple character creation, joins the R&R Diving Service in order to learn more about the Song of the Dragons, which is a song of legend that is said to be cursed. Conveniently enough, the diving company has ties to the song through pendants left to the owner’s granddaughter, a fellow diver. The story is entertaining, though mostly because it’s ridiculous and good for the occasional laugh. The highlight of the game remains the diving and exploration under the sea.

This time around you have some gadgets at your disposal. First is the Multi Sensor, which is a sonar device that helps you locate treasures and artifacts—you’ll find many of these just by swimming around fish and aquatic life, but the sensor is appreciated for making this easier. Second is the Pulsar, which magically heals fish simply by giving them a few jolts of energy. Realistic? Of course not, but it’s still fun when a tiger shark is about to bite you and you shock him in the face with a pulsar to settle him down and save your hide. For those who are concerned that Arika has put headshots into your calm, ocean exploration title, don’t be alarmed: these moments occur infrequently, as the game certainly isn’t all fighting off tiger sharks and the like.

Just because the game is structured more than the original doesn’t mean you can’t swim as long as you feel like, taking your time in order to discover treasures and interact with all of the life underwater. The game still encourages you to lazily make your way through the very deep and very much alive diving stages. In order to build a better sense of accomplishment though, there’s a leveling system in place for your oxygen—the more dives you complete, the longer you can stay in the depths of the ocean. It’s a good incentive to keep playing for those who need a push to keep playing.

Graphically, Blue World is superior to its predecessor—everything that is underwater is beautifully rendered and detailed, and the sea life animates very well. Even when the camera zooms in close on specific areas or creatures, the visuals hold up. This may be a budget title, but its production values, at least graphically, outshine plenty of games on the system.

The one thing I dislike about Endless Ocean is the control scheme—it’s entirely pointed based, as you point at the screen and then hold B to swim in that direction. Nunchuk support would have been helpful, especially with a relaxing title such as this—I just want to lay on the couch and use my thumbs for something like this, not hold the Wii Remote aloft in order to stay aligned with the sensor bar. This is more of a personal complaint than something that’s wrong with the game though—it’s not the developer’s fault I want to be lazy. I just hope that if there’s an Endless Ocean 3, they give you the option of more than one control scheme.

Blast Factor: Endless Ocean: Blue World takes everything you enjoyed about the original and tightens up the offering with a more direct storyline, new gadgets to change up the pace of ocean exploration, and even more areas and sea life for you to discover and explore. This is not a game for everyone, but it is a game everyone should try—you never know, even the most cynical of you may enjoy the beautifully rendered environments and the calming sense of atmosphere.

Endless Ocean: Blue World is available exclusively for the Endless Ocean: Blue World is available exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $29.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The newest addition to Capcom’s courtroom drama adventure series, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, gives gamers more of the same intriguing mysteries and logic solving gameplay. Made for the Nintendo DS, the game features Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth this time around, famous for being the unrelenting rival of the original Ace, Phoenix Wright. Unlike its predecessors, Ace Attorney features some new elements that spice up the series nicely, but the linear gameplay that fans are used to remains generally the same. You’ll miss Phoenix and the short-lived Apollo Justice at first, but Miles Edgeworth quickly gains your heart as you lead him through one strange case after another.

The main thing fans will notice in this game is the glaring absence of the courtroom. In its place, players explore crime scenes and use Miles Edgeworth’s logic ability to discover the truth. It’s actually just what the game title claims; an investigation-type game. There are many familiar faces that fans will recognize, and some really great new strange people to press in interrogations. Also, in addition to the amusing character motifs that are an Ace Attorney series staple, Capcom also uses 2D sprites that the player can mover during investigating crime scenes, which is actually a very nice addition. Gamers get to control Edgeworth through five different cases, each with a different crime with an intertwining common denominator that ties them together at the end.

Each episode works the same way; introduction, investigate, interrogate, repeat, solve. During the course of the episode, Edgeworth must make logic connections, present evidence to support his claims, and press and question witnesses and suspects. Some players may find the logic a little holey, and it most certainly is a trial-and-error process. Edgeworth is penalized for each wrong decision he presents, represented by a logic meter at the top of the screen. If the bar drains to empty, Edgeworth gets thrown off the case and the game is over. Often, much like the other games in the series, there are multiple pieces of information or evidence that would make sense to present, so the game gets frustrating at times as Edgeworth is continuously made a fool of as you choose the wrong thing. There are certainly times where the player will know right off the bat what to present and the logic is obvious, but sometimes the choice won’t even make sense until after you present it and the characters explain why it’s correct.

After playing through four other Ace Attorney games, unfortunately for Miles, this one seems a bit stale. Although the added elements certainly are fun at first, for the most part, the game is pretty much the same as the others. Quirky characters and interesting cases are still present, and the writing truly saves the game and makes you want to continue playing. However, the frustrating trial-and-error process might turn some people off, especially those who are new to the series. Naturally, we wouldn’t ask for it to be easy; discovery and figuring things out is what the game is all about, of course! But the fact remains that there are definitely some far-fetched conclusions that will throw even the most experienced Ace Attorney into a fit of rage as they continuously connect things incorrectly.

Blast factor: Capcom preserves the things that make the series great, and at least attempts to bring new life with the investigation aspects and logic meter. Needless to say, the things that make the original Ace Attorney frustrating are glaringly present in their latest offering as well. This is not to say that you won’t have a great time holding y and screaming “Objection!” as loud as you can into your DS in a crowd of people, but that players should be prepared to get a little flustered. Ace Attorney is a wonderful series, with a different style than any other games I’ve played. Give it a chance, and I’m sure most will not be disappointed.

Last week, Microsoft kicked off what it’s calling a month-long Block Party in which every Tuesday in March sees the release of a downloadable title. “Toy Soldiers,” a unique tower-defense game kicked things off, next week is the hotly-hyped “Perfect Dark,” but today it’s all about “Scrap Metal,” a racing game with a twist.

It’s not Mario Kart or Forza. It’s not even a hybrid of the two. It’s in its own league.

As much fun as a top-down racer can be.

“Scrap Metal” is first and foremost a top-down racer. You aren’t behind the wheel and it’s not first-person. The game plays like you’re controlling a remote control car, but with heavy firepower. This mechanic works extremely well and a camera system that effectively adjusts (and never hangs up), helps the experience stay smooth and keep frustration at bay.

Guns, guns, guns.

In “Scrap Metal” you do more than race for the fastest time; you barrage you enemies with a host of weaponry to make damn sure you finish before they do. Each car you unlock has its own special weapon. They range from a can-opener, machine-gun, shotgun, missile launcher and more and each is exciting, though you’ll enjoy more than others, in their own right. What’s more, when zipping around a course, you’ll encounter health packs, additional weapons and nitro to pick up. These powerups are integral to your success and should be a priority when racing around.

Variance keeps it fresh

“Scrap Metal” is a racer and a demolition derby game, but it’s also more. While the game has plenty of straight-up racing missions and violent derby sequences, it also has unique tasks like VIP challenges. In these missions you must fend off a host of combatants aiming to destroy your “VIP,” a truck filled with explosives. There are also “Target” missions in which you must race an entire fleet of cars but seek out and destroy one in particular. Additionally, the game progresses though unlocking different arenas to the tune of 60 single player missions and many boss battles. Needless to say, if you don’t like the course or game type you’re on, you have ample opportunity to mix it up.

Ease of controls

Like any good arcade racer, “Scrap Metal” has very intuitive and simple control mechanics, but as Mario Kart has taught us, honing these “basic” controls takes time to perfect. You have two options of control in “Scrap Metal;” Remote Control and Directional. The former allows control similar to an RC car where one button is assigned for gas, brakes and steering. The latter simply uses two buttons. You press the directional pad for direction and another for braking. These controls, coupled with the top-down view, are a tad disorienting at first, but definitely come into their own with time and effort.

Multiplayer works like a charm

Call me a traditionalist, but I think there’s nothing better than getting together with friends and playing the same game on the same screen and “Scrap Metal” shines in this department. Game-types like King of the Hill, the always brutal and hilariously fun Demolition Derby and Survivor, a mode where you must escape (survivor) waves of armored police and helicopters, extend the value of the game significantly and can be played both locally and over Xbox Live.

Blast Factor

At $15, it’s difficult to say you need to check out this title, but for those looking for a quick and violent racer with a bumping soundtracks, “Scrap Metal” is right up your alley. Engaging single-player, based on unlocking cars and weapons and upgrading those weapons, becomes addictive and putting this title down won’t be easy.

Look for our interview with developers Slick Entertainment later in the week and our review of “Perfect Dark” this time next week.

Scrap Metal was released on the Xbox Live Arcade March, 10 and retails for 1200 MS Points ($15). A copy of the game was provided to us for review purposes.

Best known for its online multiplayer PC efforts, the Swedish developer unleashed a fair rival to Infinity Ward’s “Modern Warfare” on Tuesday and is a must-play for first-person-shooter fans.

While the original was critically viewed as somewhat of a lighthearted affair, the sequel bubbles with fast-paced action, compelling narrative and of course, the best multiplayer available anywhere.

Clearly gunning for “Modern Warfare 2,” EA pulled it off with Bad Company 2, as in many ways, is a superior game.

It feels so good to take it down.

Bad Company 2 was built, like the original, employing DICE’s proprietary Frostbite game engine. This under-the-hood capability allows for anything and everything in your way to be eviscerated in the blink of an eye. While raiding a camp in South America you could, in theory, pick enemies off one by one by lurking around the perimeter, but you can also equip your grenade attachment and blow the bitch to smithereens. This game mechanic makes the game a highly dynamic and ultimately strategy-based affair. The game environment persistently changes as a firefight progresses. Cover is broken up and destroyed, leaving your enemies in plain sight, but it also works the other way.

Take it down!

I’m on a boat?

Often times throughout the game’s campaign you’ll pilot a boat, fight on foot and man a machine gun on the back of a speeding jeep, swapping from one to the other to the other in the course of mere minutes. This persistent variance allows the game to remain fresh and never dry or dull. In one particular level you’ll rip through a rural town with an Abrams tank, dismount, pop some bad guys in the dome, then pilot a UAV and rain fire down on rooftop RPG-wielders. It may sound schizophrenic and jumbled, but it actually works extremely well.

You put strong narrative in my FPS!

First-person-shooters are notorious for their lackluster and wholly unbelievable narratives, but Bad Company 2 doesn’t follow suit. The game opens with a very intriguing narrative approach (which I will not spoil) and it only gets better from there. Though the general plot is very predictable and consists of you and your burly squadmates stopping a Russian from launching a super weapon, you’ll grow attached to the characters because of DICE’s strong story-telling capability. Voice acting is phenomenal in Bad Co. 2. Every phrase feels genuine and this time when the guys joke around, it’s at appropriate times and is appropriately phrased. Cutscenes in the game are also well-executed. Whether it’s watching Marlowe sneak behind a sniper, slice his throat and watch the blood splatter or listening and watching the evil Kirilinko pace a room announcing his devilish plans, these scenes play out like film and are truly enjoyable to watch.

Just one piece of the vehicular puzzle.

Big guns, small guns, loud guns, quiet guns, rockets, knives and sniper rifles.

Bad Co. 2, as you’d expect, is full of weapons. Everything from the one-shot kill sniper rifle to silenced machine guns to the 12 inch jungle knife, proves the team at DICE know what’s what in the weapon department. As you traverse the game’s levels you’ll find weapons. When you pick up a foreign weapon, it’s added to your inventory which you access through the very useful “Crate” mechanic. At many places at many times during each level a crate will appear and accessing it will stop the game and allow you to resupply and change your primary and secondary weapon, based on what you’ve already collected. This is expressly useful when standing atop a hill looking down at a camp with a light machine gun. Access the Crate quickly and you’ve got a sniper rifle with devastating force.

Kill 'em All

You look so good I could eat you

Bad Company 2, for lack of better phrase, is one sexy bitch. Throughout the campaign you’ll travel across hemispheres finding yourself sometimes in lush forests with flowing water and other times storming a bitterly cold frozen encampment. The commonality among these varied locations is how gorgeously they are rendered. What’s even more compelling is the game’s draw distance, that is to say, how far the eye can see in the game. At times you’ll sit perched atop a hill and rain sniper fire down on infantry storming from east and west hundreds of meters away, and it’s easy and beautiful at the same time. Bad Company 2 is definitely one of the most graphically-stunning games on the market today. And to achieve such fidelity without a second of lag or drop-in, is quite a feat.

It really looks this good.

It’s really all about the multiplayer

As compelling and strong as Bad Company 2’s narrative and single player experience may be, it all deeply pales in comparison to the game’s multiplayer component, and this is no oddity. DICE has been making Battlefield games for over a decade and in that time proven itself to be a guru of multiplayer design and execution. Bad Company 2 offers a deep, engaging and fun multiplayer component, the type you don’t just play, you love.

Its use of vehicular combat is staggering in its excellence. Everything from pontoon boats to helicopters and even jet-skis are yours to use and are central to a team’s success or failure in any given match.

In terms of game-modes, it’s pretty straightforward. Here’s the breakdown.

Squad Deathmatch- This mode pits four squads of four players against each other in a battle to 50 kills. These games are (relatively) short, fast paced and resemble the multi-team playlist in Halo 3.  If you’re looking for something similar to Modern Warfare 2, Squad Deathmatch is as close as you’re going to get.

Rush- This is the game type found in the demo for both the PS3 and Xbox 360, so you’re likely already familiar, but if you aren’t, it’s simple. One team defends a series of Comm-stations, while the other attacks it.

Squad Rush- Obviously similar to Rush, this mode pits two squads (4 teammates) against each other in a frenzied head-to-head battle over two Comm stations.

Conquest- This is a flag capture game mode pitting two teams of up to 12 against each other in a battle to control flags by defending them and capturing others. Needless to say, this mode is extremely fun, engaging and so very addicting.

With a host of environments ranging from the cold, snowy and desolate to a hilly, jungle map where you can pilot boats, drive tanks and fight on foot, the game’s multiplayer will keep you engaged for countless hours. Furthermore, an unlock system and perk system, similar to that of Modern Warfare 2’s, allows you to unlock and collect more powerful, accurate and deadly weapons and attachments for both weapons and vehicles.

Modern Warfare 2 who?

A few times (many I likely missed) throughout the game’s campaign, DICE pokes fun at its rival in some hilariously performed cutscenes. These include a scene where characters say “snowmobiles are for pussies,” clearly making fun of MW2’s snowmobile sequence and a segment referencing how heartbeat sensors and special ops are silly. They are lighthearted, sure, but their intent is clear.

Lock and load

Blast Factor: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is better than Modern Warfare 2. Its story is richer, its scope larger, and its multiplayer far more compelling. DICE displays mastery in both vehicular combat and hot and heavy first-person-shooter goodness spanning both the campaign and multiplayer, a feat rivaled by none on the market today. Its campaign is short (about 7 hours), but it makes up for it in a multiplayer component you’ll likely log hundreds of hours in before you’re done. Bad Company 2 is a must-have for fans of first-person-shooters.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 was released March 2 by EA DICE. It’s available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Game was finished in its entirety on Xbox 360 on the normal difficulty setting. A copy of the game was purchased for review purposes. Kill ‘em all.

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) fiancée, 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.

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.

Although Glory of Heracles is by no means a bad game, it is by no means a good game either. In fact, while playing through the slow progression of the story, I felt rather indifferent about what happened to my party, especially because the battles were excruciatingly easy. In fact, if you ever get bored of tapping ‘attack’, the game features an auto-pilot mode that allows you to sit back and watch your party do all the work themselves. However, Glory of Heracles does a few interesting things to keep the player amused.

Like many other classic RPGs, almost everything is upgradeable; even the magic the party uses. Using the stylus, players can ‘boost’ their magic by playing a series of mini-games during battle, including touching the center of a circle or hitting buttons in the correct order. There’s a lot of equipment to be had, all of which can be upgraded, and the game even has the option to polish rusty equipment to raise its stats. The battle system is fairly easy to learn and the tutorials do a great job of showing you how it’s done… which is good because this game has a literal ton of random battles. We’re talking one every few steps. A few hours in, the party faces immortal enemies, which then makes your battles slow on top of plentiful. It’s a good thing battles are easy, right?

The dungeons and towns in this game are bland and repetitive, and although Heracles attempts to combine 3-D backdrops (which have some amazing camera-angles, by the way…) with their classic 2-D sprites, the Nintendo
DS’s limited graphic capabilities make it look rough and ragged. Glory of Heracles, although it can run a player 20+ hours, works its way through the story slowly. The pacing seems off, even making the dramatic climax of the epic less dramatic and more inevitable. Essentially, after the fourth or fifth ship ride to one of three continents, the player will most likely just want to end the story and get on with their lives.

Blast Factor: The gameplay is standard and will probably keep you entertained for a bit. Hard-core RPG fans will most likely enjoy this game more than the average gamer, but it still leaves the player with a sense of indifference. The setting of Ancient Greece is a nice change from most other RPGs, and the game uses many classic elements that are wonderfully nostalgic, but it still doesn’t save the game from still being just average. If you can stand the slow story progression and plentiful battles, the game is at least worth taking a look at.

Glory of Heracles is available exclusively for the Nintendo DS and DSi, and retails for $34.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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.

According to GUNNAR Optiks at PAX, sitting in front of a television for five or six hours straight will put a strain on the eyes. The eyes were designed to focus on things further away than a monitor or television set, yet many Americans spend more time looking at these than anything else. Most jobs require a significant amount of time staring at a computer screen. Then after work we come home and sit in front of another screen for entertainment, watching shows or playing video games.

GUNNAR Optiks found that the long-term viewing of digital information causes what they call “Digital Eye Fatigue” (DEF). They define DEF as blurred vision, eyestrain, dry eyes, light sensitivity or headaches. GUNNAR claims their performance eyewear will increase contrast, optical resolution and detail.

Like many people, most of my job requires sitting in front of a keyboard and monitor, so I decided to try the glasses they designed for computer monitors. My experience after wearing them off and on for a couple weeks was mixed. I have never worn corrective eyewear and rarely bother with sunglasses. This made the experience of wearing glasses all day particularly odd. When I first looked through them, I could very quickly see that they affected my vision. If I put them on and took them off the computer screen looked very visibly different. I noticed right away how they shift the color spectrum.

When I put the glasses on, the screen was definitely easier to look at—though it leads to my major complaint with the glasses. When I had them on it was fine looking at the screen but doing everything else was requiring me to take them off. GUNNAR claims that you should be able to multitask and do other things with the glasses on, but I found that it messed with my vision if I walked away from my desk. This may turn out to be more or less important for each person.

I do believe the glasses should help with dry eyes. The research GUNNAR used in designing the glasses showed that people looking at monitors tend to blink less. The glasses wrap around the user’s head, which should keep moisture present and trapped behind the glasses. I’ve personally never had a problem with dry eyes before but I did notice that my eyes would blink more rapidly for a short time because of the moisture.

My eyes did feel less strained at the end of the day, and I think that helped me throughout the week. On the other hand, when I took them off my eyes had trouble adjusting to everything else temporarily. I would recommend the performance glasses if your eyes are tired or feel dry at the end of the day. For me, they had about the same effect as taking a break from the screen to get a drink of water or to talk to co-workers.

GUNNAR Optiks digital eyewear retails between $79- $189. For more information, check out http://www.gunnars.com/gunnar_corporateinfo.php.

I’ll be honest and say I fit into the latter camp, the one that thinks the original is a flawed masterpiece of sorts, working as both a creative gameplay experience as well as a smart critique on the present day gaming landscape. The game has its problems, yes, ones even a fan such as myself cannot deny the existence of, but when No More Heroes 2 was announced, and things started to take shape, you could see that Grasshopper had done its best to answer the calls of the original’s critics in order to deliver a tighter, more enjoyable, and more intense thrill ride. For many reasons, Grasshopper and Suda were able to deliver with No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, giving the Wii an early contender for its game of the year category.

Revenge is the theme, right from the start

Here’s the deal: if you loved the first game, then you need the second one. It’s not that much of a leap forward for those of us who already enjoyed the sadistic tendencies of Travis Touchdown, but for those who took issue with the first one—the pacing, the sidejobs, the repetitive nature of combat—you will be happy to know that these items have been worked on and smoothed over for you, in order to produce a much tighter, fast-paced and enjoyable experience. For those people, Desperate Struggle is a giant leap forward, and gives the franchise the credibility that those of us already in love with it had, simply by trimming the fat and replacing it with high-quality awesome.

The gist of the story is that Travis has returned, no longer the #1 ranked assassin as he was at the conclusion of the previous title. There are those who want revenge on him, and in order to get his attention, they murder his friend Bishop in cold blood. Travis goes into a rage and vows to end the life of anyone involved—conveniently enough, the #1 ranked assassin is the corporate mastermind behind Bishop’s death. It works well, just like in the original, with cutscenes delivering humor, violence, and very likable—though odd—personalities throughout.

Travis, after ending the life of one of those personalities

Combat is largely unchanged, with the direction you angle the Wii Remote in (high or low) still making for high or low attacks, while the A button does all of the swinging. The B button is still for melee and initiating your wrestling moves—leave it to Suda to include both lightsaber type weaponry and a Tiger Driver fluidly in a combat system. The one major change is that the slot machine system from the original has been tweaked so that you can see your progress on an “Ecstasy Gauge”, which you can steal from at any time when there’s enough in order to deliver more powerful attacks. Also, if your gauge fills completely, you may turn into a tiger. Why a tiger? I asked the same, but then realized this allowed me to maul enemies in one hit as they crawled on the ground away from me, and decided not to ask any more questions and just get back to maulin’.  You also get a nice grindhouse sheen on the screen during these slot machine events, as everything looks grimy with that burnt-film quality to it.

The overworld, largely derided by critics, was scrapped in favor of a menu system that allows fast travel to any area you need to go to. No more driving across the city to retry missions over and over, and, for that matter, missions have been revamped as well. With the exception of one side job, you now play 2D, 8-bit NES style games in order to earn extra cash. This cash also no longer goes towards entry fees for fighting the next ranked assassin, and instead can be used for sword upgrades, new duds, and paying for training at the gym. You can do as much or as little of these as you want, but you will find yourself playing them not just to earn cash. They are a fun diversion after slicing heads off of countless anonymous thugs.

Dual beam katanas is enough of a reason to own this game

As for the gym, these workouts have also been given the old-school treatment , though with a little less success than the side jobs. The treadmill works fine, as you just need to be facing the correct direction while mashing the B and Z buttons alternatively, but the muscle exercise, which finds you pinching and kicking free weights thrown at you, requires too much perfection in order to pass—this is a good way to waste huge chunks of money as you advance, as the price climbs and climbs. You don’t make much money in main missions either, so all of that cash is going to have to come from side jobs. This is the closest thing to grinding for cash in the game though, which is a big improvement over the first title’s system.

There are two other non-story diversions for you, in the form of Revenge Missions and your cat, Jeane. The Revenge Missions find you slicing up a number of baddies before the clock runs out, and then you have to find the boss of those particular thugs in order to slice him up and clean up the streets. As for your cat, Jeane has put on quite a bit of weight in between titles, and now weighs 24 pounds. By playing with her, lifting her, massaging her, and feeding her well, you can get Jeane to lose weight—drop her far enough over the course of the game, and you will learn a very My useful and powerful technique that’s activated by the Nunchuk. It’s more than a worthwhile reward for what are actually well-designed mini-games.

Graphically, the game is superior to the original, and not just because the overworld has been removed. Everything looks a bit cleaner and more polished, and the animations and lip-synching are all improved.  The sound is also wonderful, with various genre remixes of the main theme spread out across all of the levels and missions. The bad guys do not have enough catchphrases to keep their last words from being annoying after awhile, but it gets so repetitive at times that it’s hard to tell if it was done on purpose in order to mock other games with the issue, or because they didn’t put the effort into this one area. Either way, it’s an annoyance, but nothing major.

My only complaint with the game worth anything is that the bosses are nowhere near as interesting as those in the original. They lack the fleshed out personalities of their predecessors in most cases, and do not verbally spar with Travis for anywhere near as long prior to the fights. The battles are still tests of your abilities and the best part of the gameplay, so not all is lost, but it’s just a little disappointing that I don’t feel like I knew my adversaries as well as I did in the first, when they were given such powerful, unforgettable personalities. I guess not every assassin can be a drunken school girl with a fetish for baseball and gimps, but a little more spIotlight on who they are would have been appreciated.

Blast Factor: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is superior in every other regard to the first game though, and is a must-own for anyone with a Wii, a sense of humor, and a penchant for lightsabers. In what looks to be an impressive year for Nintendo’s white box, Desperate Struggle has set the bar at the outset with its entertaining story, lovable and despicable cast, and improved, tight gameplay. Desperate Struggle is not to be overlooked, even if you could do without the original.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99. A copy of this game was purchased for reviewing purposes.

…How many will it take to save it?

The folks at Square Enix aim to creatively answer that question with their new release 0 Day Attack On Earth.  In this un-railed Raiden-esque title, players must defeat a horde of aliens in 3 different major cities around the globe before everything is left in rubble.  At your disposal: a large variety of customizable aircrafts including jets, planes and helicopters; each complete with their own unique strengths, weaknesses and power-ups.

Each level in 0 Day Attack On Earth is represented by a day in which the squid-like, seemingly half-organic half-machine aliens are attempting to take over one of the cities.  In these levels, players will not only have to take out the massive hostiles, but they will have to halt the destruction within a certain amount of time.  Along with the most dangerous of the enemies, which are complete with fire-fuel ammunition and uber-quick tentacles, are slightly small and slightly less hazardous foes.  While these enemies are considerably less treacherous, the loot they drop (in the form of translucent green cubes and balls) can help you regenerate health or gain powerful upgrades for your ship (including shields, heat-seeking missiles and multiple-stream blasts).  Players will have to decide how much time they will dedicate to upgrading their ship and how much they will spend actually trying to clear the level.

Visually, 0 Day Attack On Earth looks pretty dang good.  Similar to Raiden, which this game seems to draw a lot of inspiration, 0 Day Attack On Earth features both 2-demensional backdrops with 3-demensional character models.  However, unlike Raiden, 0 Day Attack On Earth is unrailed and contains fairly large maps (a detail that I loved).  Background settings are vast, but lackluster in aesthetics.  While indeed the background images are 2D, it seems that there was no major effort to make the buildings and parks pop out or look interesting.  Sure, they had a few buildings enter the 3D realm, but it was mostly a miss for me.  Conversely, the enemies look very good in the game with their accompanying tentacle motion, flame-based weaponry and postmortem explosions.   Furthermore, the gameplay in 0 Day Attack On Earth is pleasantly intense at peak moments of chaos.

Another thing that separates 0 Day Attack On Earth from Raiden is the level of camaraderie players will experience.  Instead of a simple two player co-op, 0 Day Attack On Earth players will be able to enjoy a 4 player co-op experience or even two different 8 person versus modes, which include Capture the Flag and Control Point.  Unfortunately, 0 Day Attack On Earth doesn’t have many players, so actually joining a “quick match” is pretty much impossible.  However, if you and a group of friends purchase the game together, getting one of these multiplayer matches started should be no problem.

Also, the camaraderie theme continues within the gameplay.  Certain enemies will attach to your ship during parts of the campaign that one will not be able to save themselves from.  Instead, players will need to rely on their friends shoot off these attached foes and continue the purging of the aliens.  In fact, the camaraderie is pushed so persistently that, when you save a teammate, two voice bubbles pop up from the ships that fall victim and perform the rescue that say “Welcome!” and “Thanks!”

The controls in 0 Day Attack On Earth are heavily focused on the two joysticks on the Xbox 360 controller.  The left stick is used primarily for steering and forward motion while the left stick, when pointed in an outward position, is used a firing control, replacing both of the triggers on the controller which would be the most intuitive for that function.  Needless to say, for those who are not well versed in these controls will have a bit of learning to do.  Luckily, even the most challenge gamers (myself included) will not take much time to adapt to these odd controls.

Blast Factor: Overall, 0 Day Attack On Earth is a solid game.  For the relatively low bar many XBLA titles have set, 0 Day Attack On Earth is one of the good ones.  This Square Enix title brings a classic style back for a reboot and it is quite exciting.  While the multiplayer is ambitious, I was a little disappointed with the inability to actually join a game and try them out.  Given a good enough following, I can see 0 Day Attack On Earth becoming a very good overall game.  However, until we can actually try out some of the multiplayer, were just going to have to be patient.

0 Day Attack on Earth is available on 0 Day Attack on Earth is available on XBox Live Arcade for 1,200 points ($15). A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Osmos is an indie game developed by Hemisphere Games, a startup development studio of six contributors. In Osmos, you control an organic “mote”, which is essentially a one-celled organism with hopes of one day devouring everything around it. There are two important laws of how things work in the world of Osmos. Firstly, bigger things consume (and thus gain the volume of) smaller things, but never the other way around. Secondly, in order to accelerate forward, an object must expel some of its own mass behind it; much like Newton’s third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

A mote.

With a few exceptions, the goal in Osmos is to “become the biggest”. In order to do this, you must hunt down smaller motes and dodge bigger ones. In order to hunt the smaller motes down, you must propel yourself by ejecting chunks of your own mass behind you. This dynamic alone is what can make the game so challenging, as an edible mote can quickly become your predator after you expel the mass necessary to chase it down in the first place. Even worse, perhaps you’ll see two tasty motes ahead, both a bit smaller than yourself; while on your way to snatch them both up, they collide and one devours the other entirely, suddenly you have no choice but to flee or die. Though most motes are just dummy organisms without the ability to think or move at will, if you wait too long to hunt down prey these dummy organisms will eat each other up and make it impossible for you to win. Things get a bit more complicated when you encounter more advanced organisms like the Biophobe. The Biophobe has the ability to sense danger, and will avoid being eaten by you at all costs. The more advanced organisms are skilled hunters, and will quickly become very large if the player does not act fast.

Every moment is Osmos is beautiful.

Once you pass the initial tutorial segment, you are given a choice of three paths to follow in the game. Following one path will have you facing off against other sentient organisms (like the Biophobe) and testing your instinctual survival skills. Ruthless consumption and hunting is the only way to survive this part of Osmos, bringing Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest to mind. The second path contains some of the most head-scratching portions of Osmos. Some of the levels on the second path put you into a big space with many other motes just floating around, like previously mentioned, these levels require speed and accuracy to win. Later on you will encounter “impasse” levels which are incredibly cramped with huge motes sitting in your way. These impasse levels require players to employ creative strategies, and will take a lot of thought and patience to win. Finally, there is the third path which focuses on physics. This third path introduces “attractors” and “repulsors”. Repulsors simply push away from any other mote, and can be tricky to hunt down. Attractors act as potent gravity wells which will suck in and devour any mote smaller than itself. Some levels will start off with you and hundreds of other motes orbiting one attractor; as usual, your goal will be to “become the biggest”, or possibly “absorb the attractor”, something which will destroy the gravitational balance and send the remaining motes into the distance. These orbiting levels become more advanced later on, and will require plenty of patience and skill to perfect.

If patience really isn’t your thing, Osmos features the ability to manipulate time. With the press of a button, you can instantly slow down or speed up time. This can make long trips from one side of an attractor to another fly by, while making precision movements in impasse levels much easier to pull off. Time manipulation even has the neat side effect of eerily speeding up or slowing down the game’s soundtrack.

Sentient motes are your prime target.

Osmos features ambient music from various artists. In most cases, the tunes match the gameplay perfectly. The music and sounds work together to make a very chilled-out environment, and will even dynamically change in certain levels. Occasionally, however, the calming music will directly contradict with the frantic competition between you and another mote. Graphically, Osmos is fantastic and minimalist. The color palette helps drive home the soothing essence of the game, while the swirling and glowing of the motes can be absolutely entrancing.

Blast Factor: Whether it’s relaxing meditation or challenging gameplay you seek, Osmos has you covered. Hemisphere Games has produced a zen gaming experience unmatched by any developer before it. For the price, Osmos is the perfect end to a long work day or stressful gaming session.

Osmos is available for PC, Mac, and Linux for $10.00, it can be downloaded directly from Hemisphere Games, Steam, Direct2Drive, or Games for Windows. A copy of this game was purchased for reviewing purposes.

For those who have played SCE Studios God of War, Darksiders will definitely have an air of familiarity to it. Combining button-combo, action style game play with classic ‘Legend-of-Zelda’-ish platforming, Darksiders is an impressive homage to gaming past and present. You start the game as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The stage of the game is Earth, where mankind live unaware of the ancient battle between Heaven and Hell that has been raging for centuries. The Horsemen are charged as keepers of the balance of the three worlds. In present day, Armageddon begins and angels and demons descend upon Earth to wage battle once more. Armed with your sword, Chaoseater and a badass attitude, you dive headfirst into the action, destroying both angel and demon alike.

The only setback is… well, the apocalypse wasn’t supposed to happen quite yet.  War is brought before the Charred Council to accept his punishment for supposedly starting the apocalypse. Instead, the Council agrees to let War attempt to seek his revenge on the real parties responsible. To make sure War keeps his end of the bargain, they assign to him The Watcher (voiced by none other than Mark Hamill!), a demon who has the ability to destroy War if he happens to be lead astray. Thus begins your quest to seek the Destroyer, main bad dude extraordinaire. Upon War’s return to Earth, he discovers that 100 years have now passed, and with the help of some unlikely allies, he begins his march on the Black Tower.

Not shown: Phil LaMarr exclamining, "My manwich!"

War is made for fighting, and has an arsenal of weapons to prove it. Along with your blade, you receive several amazing weapons throughout the course of the game, and as if that wasn’t enough, there are plenty more to be had at the store, run by a demon named Vugrim. Vulgrim also provides War with special abilities, new attacks, and general items that can level up his health, wrath meter, and his already obtained attacks. The combat system is fairly simple, and definitely easily learned. Button-combos and timing control turn War into a slashing, demon/angel-killing machine. After lowering enemies health to a certain point, a finisher attack becomes available, all of which are unique to the type of enemy you happen to be fighting.

Along with your normal attacks, War also has special attacks, and a Chaos form which turns him into an invincible god-like entity for a short time. War can even pick up objects in the environment and throw them at his enemies, causing major damage. Your reward for killing monsters are three types of orbs: health orbs, wrath orbs, and soul orbs. Wrath is the meter for War’s special attacks, soul orbs are bargaining chips at the local shop, and health orbs restore any damage that War takes during battle. If by some random chance War is killed in battle, Darksiders incorporates a check-point system that allows players to return to the game without too much of a hassle or back-tracking.

Get used to facing massive demon bosses

There is much to be discovered as you work your way through the game. Treasure chests are plentiful, most containing health, wrath, or soul orbs, but there are also other artifacts and weapons to be found. The level design creates a challenging puzzle to work though, mostly involving tools that War receives along the way, including a grappling tool, the ability to slow time, and even the creation of portals to get from one place to another. The levels go from being fairly easy to maneuver to a time-consuming challenge. The variety of ways War gets around is fairly impressive as well; you could be climbing up a wall and clinging to pipes and suddenly be underwater and swimming through underground tunnels. Sometimes, the level design gets to be a bit overwhelming, and in the later parts of the game, it is easy to get turned around. Fortunately, there is normally a way to get back to where you started, even if it may take a little while to find it.

Character design in this game is one of its best focus points. War himself is almost bland compared to some monsters that you will meet in this game, including an extremely devilish, huge winged demon, Samael. Visually appealing, the graphics are smooth and colorful creating some of the most interesting backgrounds to a game that have been seen in the next-gen console lineup. Monster design is diverse, and the game is rampant with zombies, demons, angels, and giant boss battles that put other bosses to shame. Darksiders is a violent, beat-em-up, bloody game that will delight gamers, treating them to a feast of gore.

Blast Factor: As a whole, Darksiders uses a lot of tried-and-true elements that we have seen before to create a new experience for gamers. Although nothing revolutionary happens mechanically in this game, it stands tall as a beautiful demonstration of great game play combined with gorgeous graphics and a likeable story. Unless you spend hours and hours gaining souls to use at the shop, your first-playthrough will probably not be enough to unlock everything the game has to offer, making Darksiders a fine example of a game with replay value. Although sadly the actual story doesn’t quite pop out during the game, the voice-acting, level design, and polished combat system make Darksiders a good show and definitely worth taking a closer look at.

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

Don’t be fooled by the simple name “Shooter”, as it’s anything but a typical shoot-em-up.  Though Shooter depends on standard “shmup” gameplay for survival, the game really shines as a shooter-platformer hybrid loaded with elemental puzzles and an excellent fluid dynamics engine.

Shooter, unlike previous PixelJunk games, starts off with a simple plot: contact with a lucrative mining complex on a distant planet has been lost, and you are sent to investigate the situation.  Right away your ship dives deep into beautiful caverns and mines, full of flowing water, boiling lava, deadly creatures, and survivors desperately needing your help.

Nice aiming there…

Your ship is equipped with omni-directional thrusters, a limitless supply of small rockets and homing missiles, and a grappling claw.  The controls are simple and tight, with R1/R2 firing weapons, L1/L2 releasing the grappling claw, the left stick controlling movement, and the right stick controlling aiming.

The goal of the game is simple enough:  get through every area of a level by saving all of the survivors in that area.  Collecting survivors gives you points, while allowing too many survivors in one level to die will force you to restart the level from scratch.  Get too hot, either by proximity to lava or by sustaining enemy fire, and you’ll have to restart from the last checkpoint.

Sadly, you can't flip the crab over for massive damage

The real thing that sets Shooter apart is its outstanding fluid dynamics engine.  Water, lava, and various other substances splash and flow realistically, and interact with one another in interesting ways.  For example, a pool of hot lava can be cooled with water to form soft rock, which can then be blown apart or carved through to form a path that previously did not exist.  Later on, you will encounter flammable gas, which can be ignited with lava to cause a wave of explosions to ripple through the caverns.  You will encounter other elements with which you can interact, but those are best left undisclosed until you discover them yourself.  Most of the puzzles you will encounter in Shooter will involve skillful manipulation of these elements to find a way through existing impasses.

To help you on your way, you will come across giant sponges, water bombs, lasers, mirrors, fountains, and more.  You’ll find special power suits that give you powerful new abilities that will completely change the way you play the game– again, these are best left undisclosed.  So while shooting things is the way to stay alive, mastering the elements is what you need to win.

It’s getting hot in here.

Among the most outstanding aspects of the game are the boss battles.  At the end of each act (there are three acts in total, with five levels each), you will come to a classic boss fight.  Each boss is completely different from the last, and will put your skills as a pilot to the test.  These bosses combine the old-school trial and error/dodge all the bullets mentality of past shooters with the new functionality of a fluid dynamics engine and a high-tech ship.  If there was any one thing that really surprised this reviewer about PixelJunk shooter, it was how fun and exciting the boss battles are.

Once you beat all three of the bosses, you’ll notice PixelJunk Shooter’s biggest shortcoming—its length. When you beat the game in the scant few hours it takes, you’ll be left wanting so much more.  For the PSN game’s cost, the length isn’t too awful. Most of your time playing the game is spent learning new concepts, so when the ending comes with a “To Be Continued”, you might just feel a bit ripped off.  Fortunately, there are still plenty of gems and survivors to collect in each level, so you may still want to go back and play through a second or even third time.  If high score hunting is for you, you can also enable a “score attack” mode which will show your cumulative score as you progress through each area. This adds a whole new level of competitiveness to the game, and with two players the added communication required makes the game that much more intense.

That highlights another important point—like all PixelJunk games to date, Shooter features fantastic offline multiplayer functionality.  Anywhere through the story, a second player can join in on the action to help with the challenges and enemies.  While the haunting quietness and steady discovery of the singleplayer mode can be very calming, two player mode brings a certain social, semi-casual fun unseen in most of modern gaming: just like PixelJunk Monsters and Eden, Shooter is a great couples game.

Two players can clear an area more effectively.

Q-Games always makes sure to use the features of the PS3 to their fullest extent. Like previous games, YouTube recording and custom soundtrack capabilities are built in.  Navigating to the Photos section of the XMB reveals built-in screenshot functionality (all the screenshots in this review were taken using it).  Online leaderboards let you compare your scores with friends and the rest of the world, and the game’s remote play functionality is unmatched, presenting a new control scheme perfect for the PSP.

Blast Factor: PixelJunk Shooter is presented beautifully with vibrant, elegant vector art and a haunting soundtrack that builds up at just the right moments.  Q-Games perfectly blends challenge and fun in its most epic PixelJunk game to date.  PixelJunk Shooter can really appeal to anybody, and is great for short and long sessions alike.  For the price, PixelJunk Shooter is a great deal.

PixelJunk Shooter is available exclusively on the Playstation Network for the Playstation 3 for $9.99. A copy of this game was purchased for reviewing purposes.

The premise of 40th Day is simple. You and your partner are guns-for-hire in the war-torn city of Shanghai. The entire game takes place over the course of one convoluted, action-packed, and bloody day and if you want to make it out alive you’ll need to work together.

What struck me first, and hardest, about 4th Day, was the game’s new and thought-provoking morality mechanic. This intriguing addition to the game allows you and your partner to decide what to do in a morally-ambiguous situation.

Has your skull met my bullet yet?

Do you allow a child (your mission is to protect him), to vault from cover and attempt to recover a sniper rifle for your benefit, knowing full well he may die in the attempt? Do you sit back and watch as another mercenary you encounter, rapes an already bruised and beaten woman, or do you kill him on the spot?

Help the little guy?

When you make a decision, the cutscene plays out, and you’re shown a detailed animated cinematic detailing the fate of the individual you saved, or what happened as a result of killing who you did.

These types of encounters happen in every chapter and their ramifications can be harsh or helpful later down the road. For example, the hospital patients I saved in an early chapter, came to my aid in the final chapter, clearly making my trudge through an onslaught of foes very much easier.

Shields...they protect you!

There are also fewer drastic moral choices littered throughout the story. Enter a room, scout a bad guy, and take him hostage. Now you can either tie him down or pop him in the crown and watch his brain-matter spew against the wall. Do mercenaries have morals and consciences? You decide!

Another strong point of 40th Day is its very solid third-person shooter level design, gun-play and cover system.

Cover can be so useful

Shanghai is a city besieged. The locale is constantly changing. Airplanes crash into buildings. Skyscrapers topple to the ground, and ceilings seem to be flawed in design, as they’re always crumbling! These often drastic changes to the world around you makes the level design seem that much more impressive.

However, as great as these destructive cinematic scenes may seem on paper, in the game they don’t work out terribly well. A game based on destruction should have an engine not only capable but powerful enough to handle all that’s going on, and in 40th Day, this sadly isn’t the case. When I think of games with destruction as a focal point only one game comes to mind, 2008′s Red Faction Guerilla. In that game destruction happened on the fly, not just in cutscenes and looked superb. In 40th Day, these scenes happen almost exclusively in cinematics and they still pale in comparison to Guerrilla. Ouch.

Enemies with snipers stand on high platforms; shotgun-wielding brutes trudge on foot, and shielded turrets make for some very challenging sequences.

Help me Rios!

Finding and using cover in 40^th Day is integral to surviving and thankfully the system on which it works, does a darn good job being not broken. Simply push the right stick toward any cover you’re near and you’ll duck into it and another click of the analog stick changes the over-the-shoulder perspective.

Tactical warfare is also stressed in 40^th Day. Many scenes require either Salem or Rios to draw the fire of enemy combatants with a very useful “Aggro” system, while the other flanks around a corner, down a staircase, or through a window, to rain fire down on the bad guys. This system works when playing with an AI-controlled partner, but is much more fun and effective with a human gun-toter, as strategy can be actually spoken, instead of by a click of the directional pad.

What’s more, the masks Salem and Rios wear are good for more than keeping hot lead from entering your eye sockets. These face-plates are also GPS devices that show a green-arrow pointing to your next target as well as enemy rank, so you know who to take out first. Does this mechanic work? Sure. But it just doesn’t feel important enough. Maybe with the third, EA will get it right.

The GPS mode is nice, but could be better

What is important though are weapons, and 40th Day has a cornucopia of them. You’d expect a bountiful offering of killing machines, but the deep level of customization 40th Day offers in this department is astounding.

A quick call up of the customization menu affords you the ability to purchase a multitude of weapons as well as deck them out with what must be thousands upon thousands of variations. Everything from gun stocks to barrels to scopes can be added to a purchased weapon. But it doesn’t stop there. You can purchase extra grenade slots, color schemes for your weapons including a Zebra loadout, and deeper ammo clips for extended rifling sessions. The money you earn from saving hostages, looting dead bodies and completing missions is used to buy these things, but my advice is to not save any cash. Spend it all as soon as it becomes available, because more powerful weapons equals easier run-throughs of difficult levels, and more money is always on the way.

Any way you want it, that's the way you need it

40th Day has a fairly robust multiplayer component. Complete with more than a few game modes including a basic co-op Deathmatch, Extraction (which is like Horde mode from Gears of War), and Warzone, you’ll definitely want to at least try these co-op themed attempts at multiplayer. Like the campaign, multiplayer is much more fun, or at least was for me, with a partner sitting next to you, instead of across the expanses of Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network.

I surrender, or do I?

A dark spot on the entire experience is length. There are only seven chapters in 40th Day and, unless you are exceedingly terrible at shooting a gun, will finish each episode in less than an hour, making the game clock in at a mere 6-7 hours. Ouch, especially with the multiplayer being not so much there.

Blast Factor: Army of Two: The 40^th Day is a very good third-person action game with huge emphasis on cooperative gameplay. From the excited onset to the oh so grisly end, Salem and Rios are brothers to the final shot. The game’s core mechanics including gunplay, the cover system, and weapon customization work so very well making 40th Day something action gamers and fans of the series will surely enjoy.

Army of Two: The 40th Day was developed by EA Montreal and published by Electronic Arts. It released January 12 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Played through entire campaign on PS3. Played about 75% by myself with an AI-controlled partner, other 25% with human partner. Tested all available multiplayer modes. Never found a competent partner. Handed out multiple high-fives, ass-slaps, and comical banter throughout the story. A copy of the game was provided to us by EA for reviewing purposes.

Much like its predecessor, Blood Bath does an excellent job of satirizing the gaming culture of the next-gen, poking fun at countless genres, even pointing out that you can find Eat Lead in the bargain bin at your local retail store. (“Budget cuts, bad reviews… but that’s besides the point.” claims your command buddy right at the beginning of the game.) While the writing is charming, there isn’t much story to be found; essentially you’re thrown into a side-scrolling shoot em’ up with the threat of having your past-self be deleted by your nemesis, Neutronov. D3 cuts out voice acting and replaces it with standard text boxes, so unfortunately, Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett won’t be repeating their performances from Eat Lead. Unfortunately Blood Bath never quite takes full advantage of the parodies that it creates throughout the game, and the player is left with one-liners that never actually go anywhere.

Graphically, Blood Bath is well-made for an arcade game. 3-D character design and levels make this game pop, and the gore that will amass on your screen as you plow down wave after wave of enemies is incredibly satisfying. You are rewarded for killing enemies with showers of blood. Smooth and polished, Blood Bath’s art style stands out from other 3-D and 2-D side-scrollers. D3 offers 8-levels of walking left to right while spraying bullets in random directions until you hit something. Eventually, the gameplay gets repetitive, but between levels there are different bosses that you will face to break the monotony. But once those battles are over… back to the horde. What D3 does do for this okay 1-player game is the addition of 2-player co-op, which is definitely one of its stronger selling points. Because lets admit it; blood baths are more fun with friends and 2-player has been around since Contra.

Here's Matt Hazard, accidentrally trapped in Wii's de Blob

Mechanically, the controls all work generally the way they should. However, there are tedious occurrences that happen far too often during play. Matt can jump, shoot, throw grenades, and even shoot into the background at approaching enemies, but what he can’t do is stop and shoot. A lot of the enemies you face are above you, and you have to jump and maneuver up and down obstacles to progress through the level. More often than naught, Matt would aim his gun up to attack… and then run into death water. Or cannon fire. Or a spiked wall. Or a piranha. Yeah, you get the drift. It gets almost impossible in the harder difficulties to actual control your fire, especially because of the amount of enemies that are thrown at you. But if facing a challenge is appealing to you, these harder modes will definitely present one.

[Editor's Note] You can stop to shoot if you hold down the right bumper, which allows you to fire at a 360 degree angle while stationary.

Blast Factor: Regular story mode lasts from 2-4 hours, but there is always second run-throughs with your friends waiting to happen. With a little more effort and focus, this game could have been a lot cooler, and ultimately a lot more fun to play. Unfortunately for Matt Hazard, his second appearance seems about as lack-luster as his first, but hey, he really is trying his hardest to stay alive.

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond is available for the XBLA and PSN at a cost of $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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.

Like many gamers I hold the Silent Hill series in high regard…kinda. The games have clearly suffered from adaptation decay since the acclaimed Silent Hill 2, moving away from carefully plotted psychological horror and slowly turning into a series of lengthy Pyramidhead cameos.  Hearing that the new one was supposed to be good was like hearing that someone had made a new Neverending Story worth seeing: so simultaneously implausible yet tempting that I had to see it.

Your flashlight is your best friend. Use it well.

You play as Harry Mason, a protagonist veteran players will find familiar. After crashing his car in a snowstorm in his hometown of Silent Hill, Harry wakes up to find his young daughter Cheryl missing from the wreckage. As he wanders through the eerily unpopulated town searching for her, it becomes clear that all is not well—especially clear when nightmare-fuel monsters start chasing you.

Now the most striking feature of the game (and the feature that gives it incredible replay value) is the personalized psychological tests you’re given throughout the game. They determine every aspect of your experience: how the monsters look, how the NPCs behave and treat you, what levels you’re given to explore…your whole game is literally customized to you. I had the good fortune of playing with a friend who had already completed one game, and a character who was polite and well-dressed for him was rude and dressed like a floozy for me.  And this was only the beginning: we solved different puzzles, went into different rooms, and basically played a completely different game. The intricacy is astonishing, and although the options are somewhat limited, it makes the game completely compelling for multiple play-throughs.

Some may call him Dirty Harry, but it's not because of his guns.

In this installment, it’s the small things that packed the biggest terrifying punch.  When your in-game psychiatrist hands you a coloring book image of a house and asks you to color it in, my friend Joe squiggled a pink house with a green car and a family dressed in red.  When the action picks up again, Harry is standing in front of his house: pink, with a green car in the driveway. But when he rings the doorbell he finds not his daughter, but a happy couple dressed in red… A happy couple who’ve lived there for twenty years and have never heard of him.

Harry is a refreshing protagonist in his completely normal reaction to danger. When horrible shambling monsters slither out of the darkness and start running, screaming, toward him, he RUNS like HELL. Yep, this game has no weapons. No guns, no baseball bats, no fists…Your choices are to run, hide, or die, and I strongly suggest running. I’ve overheard some griping about this feature, but when given the fight or flight options, gamers will always tend to pick a fight.  Forcing them to run for their lives not only provides for a new challenge, but also enhances the feeling of complete helplessness and panic you should be feeling. (And besides, when was the last time you REALLY enjoyed a complex control system on the Wii? That’s what I thought.)

Speaking of controls…Like most gamers, I can be easily frustrated by the Wii. Often the Wiimote would refuse to recognize this simple formula:

Frantic shaking = Oh god, oh god, get this monster off me

…but overall the controls are very effective. One sequence in particular comes to mind: you’re trying to escape from a car that’s slowly sinking underwater.  You need to jump into the front seat, roll down the windows to depressurize the cabin, lift the tab to unlock the door, then push it open.  The game won’t give you any handy clues either—like Harry, you’re on your own.

The functions of the game are so well integrated into the world that they are almost hidden.  Your only real tool is your cell phone, which allows you to navigate using a GSP, take pictures to expose paranormal activity, and receive text messages and voice mails that will guide you to the game’s conclusion. Silent Hill the Video Game takes a backseat to