Xbox 360 - Ironman

Ironman by Sega

Normally, I don't buy into games based off of a film franchise (with the exception of Harry Potter). I decided to take a chance on Ironman. Well, it's absolute trash to say the least. That is, unless you like games that are repetitive, uninspired, are rip-offs of previous games and overall get way too tough too fast, but at the same time manage to be extremely boring.

Story

You play as Tony Stark. It kind of follows the progression of the movie, but gives a different view of that same universe. The idea is the same and what you do is the same. Unfortunately, these games tend to try to be too much of a movie and not enough of a quality game. So, you're basically flying around in the Ironman suit (first the old one, then the new one) locating the 'bad guys' and taking them out. You take out men on the ground, you take out choppers in the air, you take out tanks, you take out... you get the idea. Anyway, there are a few goals in order to get to the end of a level, but overall, B O R I N G.

Gameplay

You fly around and blow things up. That about sums it up.

Controls

The controls are odd. It takes too long for Tony/Ironman to get into various flying positions. So, instead of flying around, you're dawdling getting into position. It's difficult to actually try to target things while flying around (the markers are way too small).

Audio

What you would expect from this game. Reasonable sounding. Probably the best thing about this game.

Graphics

Reasonably decent, but not the quality of Halo 3 or even Oblivion for that matter.

Overall

An uninspired flying shooter that's difficult to control at times. It's based on a movie and that should sum up everything about this title. As a side note, every game I've ever played based a movie has been trash (with the exception of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). The Harry Potter game actually managed to have a decent free roaming style gaming that came close to being an RPG. Ironman doesn't manage this at all. In fact, this game so closely resembles a Superman game that was released several years back, I could swear they just stole the code and updated the graphics for Ironman.

Score

• Graphics: 7/10 (uninspired)
  
• Sound: 9/10
  
• Controls: 5/10 (sluggish and difficult to control)
• Bang-2-Buck: 3/10 (buy it on clearance or don't buy it at all)
• Replay value: 1/10 (Definitely won't play it again)
• Overall: 4/10 (poor, uninspired)

Xbox 360 - Turok

Turok by Touchstone

A long time ago, well not really that long, but for technology it's a long time... I played Turok on N64. That game was superb (at the time). Note, I'd write a review on it here, but it's kind of not relevent. I digress. Anyway, I was anxious to see a new Turok for the Xbox 360 and preordered it. I picked it up the day it was released, but I hadn't had time to sit down and actually review it until now. Better late...

Style: First person shooter
Online Capabilities: Untested

Story

Turok (and company) are stranded on a planet with Dinosaurs (and bad guys). So, it's pretty obvious what you need to do. The subtext is that you get stranded there because the ship crashes. So, you must look for survivors and things from the crash while avoiding the dinosaurs and bad guys. There's plenty of in-game cinematics to explain what's going on. The gaming problem, though, is that it just seems to take forever to get from point A to point B (lots of subchapters to get there). The story, overall, was contrived, trite and already been done before. You really didn't care about the characters and the bosses were just thrown in, not as a story element that actually makes any sense, but because they could. The game was overly hard, but without any real reason to be.

Graphics

The one thing I will say about this game is that the graphics are amazing. They are equally as amazing as Halo 3 or Uncharted (PS3). But, as with many games, sometimes the fluid and excellent high res graphics are about the extent of it. Not so much in Turok.

The environments are lush, the jungles are teaming with plants (probably too many actually). The interiors are as equally well done. Turok's animated movements are quite well done as well. The only real problem is the skin tone, skin surface maps and skin colorings. They seem a bit too video gamey. I would have prefered a more realistic approach to the skin textures. However, I can overlook this if the gameplay works well.

Gameplay

The Gameplay in Turok is reasonably well done, but... (and there's always a but), the controls sometimes lack. Switching between weapons has a lag time that's entirely unbearable. So, if you're in a crunch and you need your knife now, you end up fumbling trying to get to it. So, Turok ends up dying and you restart the level. Picking up weapons is equally annoying. When you walk over a weapon that you want, it pops up a graphic asking which slot you want the weapon in (using the X or Y button). This means you need to remember which weapon is in which slot or you have to review your weapon slots first. I guess they were trying to be flexible, but again, in a crunch you really can't worry about what's what.

Checkpoints

Unfortunately, the game creators chose to use checkpoints as saving places. The problem, however, isn't that it has checkpoints, it that the game doesn't have nearly enough of them. So, you end up restarting levels over and over and over. This is extremely frustrating. I've been trying to get through this game as a result, but I just have to keep putting it down because it's so frustrating I want to throw the controller (not a good thing).

Weapon Fumbling

The other issue I have with the weapons is that you'll see an icon that tells you to press the right trigger. You press it and nothing happens. This is what I mean by sluggish. Like, for example, when you get close enough to a dinosaur, this icon will appear and, if the game accepts your input, you'll do a fatality move on the dinosaur. Unfortunately, when this icon appears, it's hit or miss (mostly miss). So, you press the right trigger and you don't do the move and the dinosaur hammers you and Turok falls down or, worse, dies.

No HUD

The lack of a scanner or some kind of enemy heads up display is extremely frustrating. So, you have no idea what direction a dinosaur or bad guy might come. There are times later into the game that I know the game generates one or more dinosaurs immediately behind you for the purpose of making the game hard. Assuming, however, they were living in a time where they had a craft capable of space travel, then they would damn well have life sign scanners.

Life display

The game designers chose not to give a life meter. Instead, you get this red halo around the screen which turns blurry. Well, unfortunately, while it might be a cool little effect, it's rather unrealistic. If you were simply knocked down, your eyes wouldn't turn blurry with a red halo. You might pass out or get the wind knocked out, but your eyes wouldn't be blurry in that way. The blur only serves to make the game even harder. Worse, when the blur appears, the game won't allow you to focus on or aim at the creatures around you. So, it just ends up a field day for them. Basically, Turok is going to die unless you can manage to get far enough away to get Turok's health back. Turok regenerates health over time, but it takes a few seconds to start. As with most other FPS games, I'd much rather have to go search for health packs than deal with this Turok system. Unfortunately, there are no health pickups or anything you can carry with you. You just have to wait it out for Turok's health to regenerate.

Weapons

As Turok progresses, he can get more and more types of weapons to use. I have personally found that the most effective weapon against the dinosaurs (when it works) is the knife. It can kill them with one move versus the guns that eat up much ammo. For the bad guys, the guns are really the only way unless you can sneak up on them. The sniper rifle is especially handy for long distance shots. It works well on dinosaurs too, but they move around too much and it's hard to take aim.

Audio

The audio and music of this game are well done. The musical themes are very cinematic and were very much in keeping with the mood being presented. I just found that the music was a bit repetitive in places. They could have varied the scores a bit more to keep it from repeating too much.

Game Design

The designers were not thinking of the gamer when they designed this game. Because of the checkpoint system and the lack of save points, you are forever starting over levels. Basically, this is the style of game where you progress a little at a time, but the main character dies over and over until you finally figure out the trick to the level.

Note to game designers, you should use Turok as the prime example of what not to do when creating a game. The when Turok dies, it takes up to 15-30 seconds for the level to reload. This is absolutely ridiculous. The level is already in memory, so they should just need rewind and restart it. This should take about 3 seconds at most. Taking 30 seconds or so is just a time waster. It interrupts the playing and it interrupts your train of strategy.

Also note that as the game progresses, the absurdity of the level difficulty increases. For example, in order to blow the generator (trite story element, BTW), you have avoid being spit acid on by flying bugs. I mean, come on. Why would there be flying bugs right at this moment in time? Also, these bugs have absolutely perfect aim. There is just no way that these stupid flying dinosaurish bugs have this perfect of acid spray aim. This is the absurdity that makes this game not anything like Turok on the N64. The N64 had room puzzles combined with dinosaur hunting. There was more to it than just being hunted continuously.

Overall

I enjoyed playing this game for the story (to a point), but it was nowhere near as fun as the N64 version. I wish they had attempted to recapture the fun of the N64 version with an updated play style, but with more puzzles. This game didn't capture that element and the lack of checkpoints made the game far too frustrating. If you like games containing few checkpoints (you find that challenging), then you might want to check out Turok. Otherwise, skip it. There are far better first person shooters available.

Score

• Graphics: 9/10 (only because nothing is perfect)
  
• Sound: 9/10
  
• Controls: 5/10 (sluggish, difficult to change weapons)
• Bang-2-Buck: 7/10 (it'll keep you playing for a while, but frustrating because of lack of checkpoints)
• Replay value: 1/10 (Definitely won't play it again)
• Overall: 6/10 (good, but could be better, loading times unbearable, not enough checkpoints)
  

Xbox 360 - Saint's Row

Saints Row by THQ

Note to parents: Like GTA IV, Saints Row (and this review) contain mature themes. I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone younger than 17.

This Xbox 360 game has got to be one of the single most underrated games out there. I've seen little buzz about this game and even the Gamestop clerks didn't have much to say about this game.

Well, here's my review of it. I decided to purchase this game and play it along side GTA IV. I knew that this game was primarily about 'Gangs', but what I didn't expect was that it is basically GTA without the name. So, let me tell you that while GTA IV is a welcome addition to Xbox 360, Saints Row (a 2 year old game) blows GTA IV away in many respects.

Premise

This game utilizes a similar style of mission based system to GTA IV. So, as you progress, different missions open up from different areas and from different people. Except, with GTA series, most of the missions are linear even if assigned by another person. This means that in order to get to the end of the game, you have to progress through GTA IV in a linear fashion.

With Saint's Row, your missions are not always related to one another and can be done simultaneous (once available). Even still, unlike GTA IV, Saint's Row has 'activities' that give you both cash and respect points. Respect points give you the ability to open more missions. Activities give you more things to do in the game. So, as you complete activities and chalk up cash and respect points, you can do more missions.

The overall premise of the game is to own the whole Saints Row territory by getting it back from rival gangs. You do this through a series of missions. Missions involve various types of things, but are usually in the GTA style (i.e., driving people around, blowing things up, snipering rival gangs, etc). So, the ultimate point is to get all of the territory to become owned by the 3rd street gang (Saints Row).

Activities

Some activities include:

• Finding cars for the chop shop to earn cash and respect
• Tagging certain areas with 'Saints' to earn respect
• Escorting prostitutes around with their johns (avoiding paparazzi)
• Gathering up prostitutes to give them back to their madams
• Hostage missions when you jack a car (to earn cash)
  

Money

With the money you earn, you can buy such things as clothes, jewelry, expensive cars, food, alcohol, drugs, weapons (of course) and plastic surgery.

GTA similarities

If you have played GTA III or GTA IV, then you have basically played Saints Row. The way THQ designed SR is almost identical to GTA in most respects. So, you can easily play SR if you've played any GTA III or newer game. For this reason, I won't go into too much detail on exactly how SR works because it's so similar to GTA.

Controls and Features

In most ways, Saints Row copied GTA's control system. And, just like GTA, you can jack cars, run people over, blow cars up, obtain weapons, buy weapons and and store your vehicles (basically using the same keys on the controller). However, THQ took this idea one step further. Now, you can store as many cars as you want in the garage. You can take vehicles to the mechanic and soup them up (paint them, add hydraulics, decals, racing fins, etc). You can save your game anywhere without having to be at your 'apartment' (or crib).

The controls respond better than the controls for GTA IV. I always felt that GTA IV's controls felt sluggish and lagged. Saints Row controls perform much better and respond much faster. So, it's easier to get out of a jam (in most cases) with the control system. The cars also seem to actually be running the correct speed. In GTA IV, the cars also seem sluggish and slow.

RPG-ish

The first thing you'll notice when you start up Saints Row is that it gives you the ability to customize your character right from the beginning (including race, face shape, etc). In this way, it has an almost RPG feel to it. The game doesn't quite live up to a full RPG, but it's a lot closer to an RPG than GTA has ever been. This is also what I was hoping GTA IV would have been, but wasn't.

Graphics

While the graphics don't completely stack up as nicely as GTA IV's (after all GTA IV is newer), the graphics are still quite well done. The cars break apart well when crashed up and blow up nicely. There are a lot of touches in Saints Row that I can see that Rockstar copied for GTA IV and improved upon.

Sound

The radio works almost identically to GTA and the voice overs are equally as impressive as GTA. So, when you're listening to the talk radio show in Saints Row, it's just like what you would expect in GTA.

Bugs

While I have found some bugs in this game, I have only found one lockup bug. I have found a few glitchy things (background disappears and reappears), character gets locked into a motion and can't get out, etc. Overall, these have been few and far between. Because you can save anywhere, you can easily restart and pretty much get back to where you were. However, I would prefer a save that starts you exactly where you left off instead of starting you back at the last save point (usually inside the crib).

Overall

Saints Row is completely underrated and ignored and overshadowed by the GTA series. However, this game is equally as good as GTA IV in many respects and even excells in areas where GTA fails. I'm definitely anxious to see Saints Row 2 (to be released in August 2008) and see how it stacks up to GTA IV.

Score

• Graphics: 8/10 (only because it's not as pretty as GTA IV and the 3D characters could use some work)
  
• Sound: 9/10 (you can pick your own tracks from the 360)
• Controls: 9/10 (driving) / 8/10 (walking)
• Bang-2-Buck: 9/10 (it'll keep you playing for a while, definitely worth the $20 or so that it costs now)
• Replay value: 4/10 (I'd play it again)
• Overall: 9/10 (a few bugs here and there)