Xbox 360 - Darksiders

Darksiders by THQ / Vigil

Here's another throwback to the late-90's / early-00s. This is your standard third person shooter with semi-irritating boss battles. You probably would have even found this game in an arcade or two in the late 90s.

Controls

Nothing spectacular here. Typical controls for a third person shooter. There is one control, however, that was completely done wrong. When you finally get the chain to swing from floating hook areas, the chain controls are badly done. First, you target the item to chain. Then you press the fire chain control (right trigger). That's ok, so far. But, instead of releasing the RT button to release the chain, you have to press the A button. If you release the RT button, you stop swinging. It's like, huh? Who thought this controller design up? It's far more intuitive to release the RT button to release the chain itself. Duh.

Story

You're one of the four horsemen who are there to prevent heaven and hell from starting a battle on the Earth. Well, it happened anyway and they blame your character (one of the four horsemen). Ok, so the premise is weak, but it at least gets you motivation for what you're doing (or about to do).

So anyway, you'll find there's lots of hacking, slashing, chopping and stomping going on here. Not particularly exciting if you ask me. For a late 90s type game, it'd probably have been a hit back then. With gaming engines and stories that have long progressed beyond this level of hack and slash, it's really old hat at this point.

Level Ups & Combos

They did add the ability to level your weapons up by adding enhancements and obtaining upgrades. You can buy combos from Vulgrim (the local merchant). As you progress through the game, you find a Vulgrim merchant location in each of the map areas (with the exception of the Iron Canopy area). So, you can make your character somewhat stronger by finding (or paying for) new weapons, features and upgrades. You find items by digging through chests, but mainly by paying Vulgrim.

To pay Vulgrim, you obtain blue 'souls'. These souls pop out of things and enemies you destroy. There are blue souls (money), yellow souls (action points) and green souls (health) in various sizes. There are also healing spells that you can buy from Vulgrim when you can't find health on the level (and yes, there will be times).

Bosses

Most of the bosses are quite easy, with the exception of Silitha (a large teleporting spider). It appears that THQ made this specific battle extremely difficult to complete. Not sure why unless they just like raising frustration levels. Simply search at Google for 'Defeat Silitha' and you'll find many many gamers looking for the answer to this battle.

Irritation

As with many games of this style, the developers decided to add some quite irritating things to this game. When you're just about out of health, you have to listen to a heart beating until you find more health. Hello.. I can SEE the meter on the screen, I don't have to be reminded with an irritating heartbeat noise every second.

When you're trying to beat Silitha, about every 2 seconds she says, "Hold still little one" or some other such drivel. It became so irritating, I had to turn the voice volume all the way down.

Next, I play with Y inverted. Unfortunately, Darksiders doesn't remember that once you've restarted the game the next time. So, I have to constantly remember to go into the options and invert the Y setting. This should be saved to the game save.

The controls do not always respond well. So, when you're battling enemies, you seem to sometimes get stunned for no reason and that allows enemies to pound on you. It's almost like the game is doing this on purpose. In fact, it might actually be doing that.

Vulgrim Tunnel Travel

This part of the game was completely pointless. Yes, you do travel from one area to another reasonably fast. The part that is pointless is that you have to run around this track from point A to point B. There's no fighting, no quests and no treasures there. Frankly, I would have preferred to enter the portal and exit it with nothing in between. If you're going to make the gamer do something, then make it worth their while... here's another tip to go into the Game Design from a Gamer's Perspective manual. Although, it's really already there as 'Don't waste the gamer player's time'.

Overall

This is a tired, old and worn out gaming style. I understand a lot of gamers still like to play them, but for an RPG gamer, this play system just doesn't really work. If you're the kind of gamer that likes to roam through levels, figure out puzzles and battle silly creatures, then you might like this.

The best part of this game.. well, there is no real best part. This is an average/mediocre third person shooter with nothing overly special. If you simply must play everything on the Xbox 360, go for it. If you're looking for a quality, longer and more thought provoking game that's compelling, Darksiders isn't it.

Score

• Sound: 6/10 (irritating voices)
• Graphics: 6/10 (good, but missing too many details)
• Gameplay: 7/10 (mostly workable)
• Story: 7/10 (weak plot wrapped with lots of hacking and slashing)
• Bugginess: N/A
• Controls: 6/10 (bad chain control. otherwise workable)
• Bang-to-buck: 1/10 (definitely no replay value)
• Play Value: $5 (limited play value, repetitive, boring in places, rent)
• Overall: 5.5/10 (I definitely recommend renting this title. Not worth $60).

Xbox 360 - Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Wanted: Weapons of Fate from Grin/Warner/Universal

Game Type: Third Person Shooter
Rated M for Violence, Language

I purchased this game hoping it would be a reasonable shooter. Unfortunately, this game is relatively one tracked, repetitive and hard to control. But, it does have a few redeeming merits.

Story

The story is simple. Your character's mother was killed by an assassin and this has forced your character to become a killer in retaliation. So, now the character is a trained killer. Unfortunately, most of this game feels like a rip-off from Harry Potter. It kind of reminds me of Harry Potter with guns. The character even looks a little like Harry Potter. From Warner Brothers, I can understand why they might want to recapture that success with that formula. So, enter this game: Wanted.

Gameplay

This is where the game fails to work. Basically, you traverse each level by hiding behind cover and killing everything that moves. In between each level, there's a cinematic that tries to tell the simplistic story and then takes you right back into another level where you end up hiding behind cover and shooting everything that moves. As the game progresses, it expands your abilities with the weapons. So, you get to do creative things like curving bullets.

The repetitive nature of the game is really disappointing. You end up doing the same thing over and over. You don't really accomplish much during the level and there's no side quests to speak of. So, it's all one-tracked.

There are also times where you enter into certain situations, like Sniper or Gattling Gun where you can't exit. You must complete this part of the game in order to move on. The problem is, it's difficult because there may be 20 enemies in the play field who all have perfect aim. Bad bad bad!

Controls

The cover hiding gimmick is just not enticing. It's far too sticky when it doesn't need to be and you pop out of the stickiness when you least want to. It's difficult to get the game to recognize the next piece of cover so you can move there when you need to. So, I wasn't impressed by this gimmick. Worse, between this and the curving bullets, these are the real gimmicks in this game. Creating gimmicky controls is not the answer to producing an enticing shooter.

Overall

This game isn't really worth the money, so I'd recommend renting. I felt that it was way too gimmicky, but not in the way that matters. The curving bullet cinematics are kind of cool, but that's not enough. The game is not really that compelling to play. The characters aren't built up enough to care and overall the story is weak and ripped off.

Score:

• Sound: 6/10 (average)
• Graphics: 8/10 (textures are done well enough)
• Gameplay: 6/10 (a bit too gimmicky)
• Story: 6/10 (too much like Harry Potter)
• Bugginess: 10/10 (no crashes yet)
  
• Controls: 7/10 (game relies too much on hiding behind cover)
• Bang-to-buck: 2/10 (not enough game)
• Play Value: $5 (rent it)
• Overall: 4/10 (needs a lot more work)

Xbox 360 - Dead Space

Dead Space

My final review for 2008!

Parental Advisory: This game contains graphic violence and mature themes. Parental guidance is suggested.

As is expected from EA, this is standard third person shooter wrapped around an 'Alien' (movie) type story. What makes this one stand out? Nothing specific, but let's explore this game anyway.

Story

The story behind this shooter combines themes from Alien and Event Horizon to create this tale. You're a team sent to investigate what's happening on a floating scientific research station orbiting a planet. When you arrive at the station, bad things begin happening (expected). First, you almost crash into the station. Then, later, your ship explodes and you're stranded there.

As your character explores the station trying to bring the station back to life so you can leave, you find mutated Alien-esque creatures. Of course, you have to kill them.

Graphics

The 3D engine used here works quite well. The imagery and textures are very well done, if not a bit graphic. The lighting used is reminiscent of what's used in the Alien movies (lots of strobes, flashing lights, flourescent lights that flicker, etc).

Audio

The music and thematic elements swell when enemies arrive in the area. It is very cinematic in sound and the eerie sound effects add to the chill-factor. But, even as good as it sounds, it's not enough to save this mediocre title.

Gameplay & Controls

The controls work well enough through much of the game up until Chapter 4 (we'll get to that shortly) where the game completely breaks down.

The suit you are tasked to use has limited protection, but allows you to walk in zero gravity and has a small amount of air for vacuum space walks (nevermind the temperature issue in this game). Anyway, you start off with no guns and obtain them either as you find them (in containers) or you can buy them at the store.

Save Points

The save points are strewn throughout the levels attached to the wall (as if that makes any sense) and opens up to reveal a holographic save area. So, there are limited places where you can save. However, the save points do seem to be in convenient enough places that it's easy to save often. So, in this particular shooter, the save points aren't the issue.

Store

As you progress through killing aliens and opening containers, you will find various items including money, health, ammo and power nodes. Money allows you to buy things at the Stores in various places on the levels. The stores contain ammo, health, weapons, stasis replenishment and various other things. While you wander, you will also find schematics for new weapons and suits that you can buy. The idea that there is a store is ok, the way it's done sucks.

The problems with Dead Space

The problems with this game are many and varied. The primary problem with much of this game is that there is so little health on the levels that you're always one step away from dying. When you do find a store, the health is so expensive you have to practically give away all the money you've found just to get a small container of health. For example, you're lucky to have about 8000-9000 credits when you get to the store and a small container of health costs 1250. That price would be fine if there was abundant health on the levels, but there isn't.

Worse, as you progress through the levels, you end up finding more and more ammo and less and less health.... to the point at which, on level 4, that you don't find ANY health in any containers or after killing the aliens. This makes the game annoying at best.

Nodes

Again, here is another sore point. Nodes are used at work 'benches' throughout the various levels to upgrade your suit, weapons or abilities. The problem, again, is that there are so few nodes found on the levels, you really get no benefit out of the upgrades. Worse, at the workbench, the system forces you to waste nodes on useless node intersections just to get to an intersection that lets you upgrade. This is pointless and a waste. You find so few that you end up wasting over half of the nodes you find on worthless things.

Encounters

There are many times where the game continually throws alien after alien at you simply to use up your health and waste ammo. The encounters are not there to be a challenge because the weapons will eventually kill them. So, it's just a time, ammo and health waster. If the encounters were far less predictable and the weapons were far stronger, then I might feel less this way.

Map

The map is just plain annoying. At first, it seems like a cool idea to have this 3D holographic type map which shows your present level. Unfortunately, you can't leave it on while you walk as it prevents button presses. But, in order to find out where to go, you have to leave it on. So, you have to pray you don't get attacked while you have it open. You also end up having to waste time getting the map into the correct position so you can even see where you are and where you need to be.

Applying health

As you pick up containers of health, they are stored in your inventory. Your inventory is limited, so you will eventually run out of space, which is arbitrarily stupid. When you open your inventory to view it, the game continues to progress. So, the game does not pause and you continue to be attacked while the inventory is open and you try to apply more health.. which is, again, arbitrarily stupid. So, if you need to apply health during a battle, you do so at your own peril.

Level 4

Up until level 4, the game was pretty much a straight shooter with aliens jumping out at you from all over (at very predictable times). Through trial and error, you can work your way through the level by having the character die and then restarting the level. In fact, many sub-levels I had to do this just to try to figure out what the game wanted me to do.

However, after you traverse across the outside of the ship and make it across to the other side (without becoming asteroid smashed), you end up at a chair with a gun. Ok, so here's my BIGGEST gripe with this game. You're working your way through the levels as a typical shooter and here the game completely breaks that stride for a stupid chair based asteroid mini-game. Then, the mini-game starts you off with 85% hull integrity. Each asteroid reduces 8-10% hull integrity with each hit. So, you are tasked to blow up the asteroids and keep the hull safe while you wait for something to happen. That's fine, but the game starts throwing more and more and more (and even bigger) asteroids at you all over the screen. Not only do the big ones break up into smaller ones, like the old Asteroid game, they accelerate towards you faster and faster. In fact, it begins throwing so many at you so rapidly (while waiting), it's basically impossible to complete. All the while I'm thinking, "What the hell does it have to do with the game?".

To top that off, the gun has an 'overheat' mode that prevents you from firing 5-10 seconds at a time far too frequently. Ok, so what the point of this level is, I have no idea. It's not challenging, it's not fun. In fact, it's a stupid remake of an old Old OLD arcade game from the 70's which, in Dead Space, has no real point.

Worse, you've got your 'friend' chiming in saying 'Just hold them off for a little longer' or 'I'm almost done' or 'Keep it up for a little longer'. It's like, "Shut the eff up!" These little taunts are enough for me to take this game disk and run it through the shredder. There's nothing fun about being taunted while you're trying to concentrate on a near impossible task.

After all that, the gun controls don't perform well, there's no auto-targeting, you always way overshoot the mark and it seems to miss even when you actually are able to aim. Oh, and did I already ask.. What's the point to this Asteroid level?

Overall

This game has way too many problems to be fixable. Was this game even play tested? Did someone actually run this by human beings to find out if it was a passable game? These are the kinds of games that are throw-away commodities. This will be forgotten in less than a year and no one will want to play it. It will sit on Gamestop's used shelves and collect dust. Some random shmoe might buy one periodically to try it, but quickly return it in the 7 day grace for a full refund.

Score

• Sound: 9/10 (best part of this game, keeps the suspense up)
• Graphics: 9/10 (textures and figures are well done)
• Bugginess: 10/10 (no bugs or major glitches found)
• Controls: 6/10 (controls well enough until the Asteroids part)
• Play Value: $10
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10 (if you must play this, rent it or buy it used)
• Overall: 4/10 (inconsistent game play, tedious in places, predictable, not enough supplies)

Note, I would have given this game an even lower overall score, but the first 3 levels of the game were reasonably enjoyable. However, the Asteroids mini-game is so out-of-touch with the rest of this game, I no have no intention of finishing this game.

Happy New Year ... I'll see you in 2009.

Xbox 360 - Force Unleashed

Star Wars: Force Unleashed by Lucas Arts

This review will be short and sweet. The Force Unleashed is a straight forward third person shooter. If you've played Shadows of the Empire, Obi-Wan or Jedi Outcast, you're already familiar with this game. The problem, this game is worse than those aforementioned games.

Controls

Autoaiming is horrible. You end up shooting in all directions except where you wamted. This goes for force powers and the lightsaber. The controls are slow to respond... especially combo moves and force lightning.

Camera

The camera in this game is highly annoying. Sometimes it locks in very closely. So closely, in fact, that you can't even see what you're doing or where you should be. On the Star Destroyer level, the camera is fixed... ??

Levels

The levels work ok, to a point.

Music

Ripped off directly from the movies.

Overall

It's a reasonable game with the exception of the Pull-the-Star-Destroyer-From-The-Sky level where the game simply falls apart. This level is inconsistent with every previous level and doesn't progress the game story forward. It's simply there as a time waster. The final rest of the game after this level is mediocre and the story ends on a very predictable note (teetering on the edge of trite). LucasArts, if you're reading this, considering KOTOR, this one is half-baked.

Score:

• Sound: 7/10 (repetative)
  
• Graphics 8/10 (glitchy, camera problems)
  
• Controls: 5/10 (bad aiming, hard to control, slow to respond)
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10 (Buy it used)
  
• Overall: 5/10 (Lucasarts should have held it back and fixed it up)