Culdcept Saga - Xbox 360 review

Just got one review this weekend, but it's a long one. Also of interest to me - all 3 of the primary consoles have been voted almost the same, so I'll just keep randomly tossing out reviews for whatever system seems relevant at the time. I may even have some PC games to add shortly to the mix due to my new cpu (once again - thanks hon!)

One of my recent revie4ws was for Magic: The Gathering for the Xbox Live. I have long been a fan of collectible card games, and though Culdcept Saga has been around for quite some time (it was on older gen systems apparently - did not know that until recently, and it has been out on the 360 for about 3 years) - I only somewhat recently happened upon it. I had played the demo on Xbox Live in the past, but it's one of those titles I just have not come across at Gamestop or other stores.

Well, one of my best friends got it awhile back, and told me I needed to pick it up because he figured I would really like it. I broke down, found it on Amazon for a bit more than I'd have liked, but decided to finally give this title a good going over. Before I get into the scores, I figure I'll touch on what the game is itself.

When my oldest daughter asked me to sum the game up, I said: It's sort of a mix between Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly.

The game takes place on a board of squares. At first, the squares are pretty simple - they come in one of four colors. Each one represents an element, and seems to fit a 'theme'. There are also neutral cards that are colorless. Cards come in a few varieties: creature, spell, enchantment, item and so on. You collect magic through certain spells and by meeting other criteria, and this magic is in turn both a goal and a currency. Your total magic value is what determines if you eventually win, and it serves as a pool of resources to draw on for casting your various cards. This is the Magic: The Gathering side of the coin.

On the flip side, you have the squares themselves. If your creature occupies a square, and someone else lands on it, one of two things happens. You either a) collect a toll or b) the person who landed on it can summon a creature and the two creatures duke it out. If the invader wins, the defending creature is destroyed and the invader takes over the land as theirs. If the land is successfully defended, then the attacking creature is destroyed and the person landing on the square still has to pay the toll. Land also comes in 'levels'. They all start at level 1, but you can invest in them to level them up a handful of times - much like buying houses or hotels in Monopoly increase the value. This can have two effects. The first is that the toll cost goes up. The second effect is that if the defending creature is the same color as the land they are on, they get a hit point boost when defending against attackers. Also, the more of a color you possess, the higher 'chain' you create - which basically increases their toll value (like having Boardwalk and Park Place increases the value of the territories).

That is not where the Monopoly comparison ends. The boards eventually wind up being somewhat circular in the end, as you have to touch 'towers' along the way. This helps you gain more magic to use, and once you have touched every tower (their locations and number vary from one map to the next) you then head back to the beginning castle to complete a 'lap' that helps restore creature health and give you a magic boost. You then proceed to begin another lap. Your progress along the map is propelled by generating a random number between 1 and 10. There are often branching paths and even changing routes in later maps to add some more strategy as you progress.

Sound complicated? It certainly can be. As there are more maps, there are newer kinds of squares introduced as you play through the game: like four color ones that do not count toward chains, neutral squares that have no color, empty squares that adopt to the color of the first creature to land on them, ones that cause the map layouts to change and more. And some of the creatures are very straight forward - like the Bunyip (a water dinosaur creature) that does 50 damage, and has 40 hit points and is blue. By contrast, I had vine like creature (I can't think of his name - maybe Unameable?) that had all sorts of effects: 40 damage, 10 hit points, always attacks last, has a 70% chance of instantly killing its opponent and any opponent creatures it destroys are pulled from the opponent's deck.

Rounds can vary in several ways. As mentioned before, the maps are all set up differently from one another. You can also wind up fighting one other person, two other people, or be part of a two against two team. Also the goal totals sometimes change. When you first start the game the winner only needs like 5,000 total magic/gold, and by the end you needed 15,000 to win the final map. Also, at the end of every match, you win some new cards. You win more for winning a given map, but you still get some even for a losing effort.

Graphics - 2:

Really hard to give it a better score than this. The art on the cards is decent in most instances, but there is no animation to them at all. Combat consists of showing two cards on screen side-by-side. There is then an animated 'attack'. For example if you use a knight, an oversized sword crosses the screen and slashes the opposing card, leaving a cut mark on it. If he was fighting a dragon, it may retaliate with a blast of fire that chars the card. If the charred card loses all of its hit points, the card is destroyed and turns to ash. The animations on the boards themselves are very simple. Colors represent squares and characters and monsters have stiff two step animations. The cut scenes are not completely awful, but they're nowhere near good. Even my son mocked how stiffly they walked, and how while ascending stairs their boots would clip through them. There was sometimes some adequate movement behind the boards themselves, with some sort of graphical backdrop that at least helped from a variety standpoint, but did little else.

Sound and Music - 2:

The voice acting for the cut scenes is pretty bad. My son kept making fun of the lead character's girl-like voice, though clearly a boy. The music was very repetitive and just seems to loop over and over again. There just is not much in the way of variety - and none of the tunes were particularly memorable - it's just that you hear them so often that they sort of burn into your mind. Sound effects are pretty basic, and do the job, but don't really add much to the experience. The voices that talk throughout the actual game play are super repetitive as well, as you'll hear the same things said several dozen times over the course of a single map.

Gameplay - 8:

The game holds up a lot better here. The menus are easy to navigate, and while there are a ton of rules to learn, they do a good job of explaining new elements each map they're introduced. One control quirk I had was that sometimes I would press to go in a direction, and it did not switch before I hit the button, causing me to head down the wrong path. Also, there are a ton of effects and powers that come from spells and are built into certain creatures. Some of them are pretty easy to figure out, others require you to look them up in the help files, which are easy to sort through and pretty helpful. Still, I found it pretty telling that I was on my last map and still having to look some effects up, just because I had not seen it for several maps and had forgotten exactly what they did. Sometimes it was tough to tell exactly what an effect would do, as well. You might be in a fight with a cloak that adds damage and health based on which round it is - but have no idea what the round is and no way of checking at that point. Another was an annoying card that might say: strength = number of green cards in play. It would have been really nice if they could calculate and display those values on the cards so you don't have to guess what you're values will be.

Thankfully they included a suspend game state, because some of these maps can take 2-4 hrs to complete. Also, the one-on-one and two-on-two maps were a lot more fun than the 3 person, every-man-for-himself ones, where it often felt like the computer was ganging up on me unfairly.

Speaking of 'unfairly', probably the biggest complaint I have seen online, including from some of the professional game review sites, is that there is this feeling that the computer cheats. I have to admit that I find a level of truth to that, though how much is hard to say. Obviously in a game like this, random luck is a huge part of the game, like almost any board game. That said, I did some testing and would work off of some of my save states. Some of my findings:

The random number generator does not reset, so if you save, play through a string of sequences, and then reload the match, and do the exact same string of events, the numbers play out the exact same, as do the computer decisions. I tested this several times, often to a depth of at least 6 or 7 turns. Now, varying up just one of your choices in there does change the string of events, but I found it a bit odd.

One of the biggest elements in the game is that you can use item or support cards on your monster. If you were playing against a person, you would not know if an item or spell was going to be used - the idea is you and your opponent are 'blind' to what the other one will do until after you have made your choice. And while that is true of a human player, the computer definitely knows when you are going to do this. I had several save states where I would fight, and use a sword object for example, and the computer would use an item to steal or destroy or counter it. I would reload the save state, and fight sans sword, and the computer would not counter it. I would reload the save state again, and once more use the sword, and the computer would again counter it.

Lastly, I would see the computer 'boost' one of say, four of their areas I might encounter on my next roll, and I would wind up rolling that value. That happened quite a bit and I've read a lot of people complaining about that online and I have to say it did seem to happen a fair amount.

Then again, a lot of the game is in fact luck. I seldom had to replay maps (if I did, it was always one of the 3 person ones where I sometimes felt ganged up on - and to be honest that drove me nuts more than any of the other above observations). Still, the overall combination of land ownership/Monopoly mixed with the addictive elements of card collection and deck editing/Magic: The Gathering way outweighed some of the problems I saw above.

Intangibles - 8:

I loved that I had full on deck editing. It had to be a deck of 50 cards, but otherwise you had all the flexibility you could want, unlike the Xbox Live version of Magic: The Gathering, which really restricted the player on this front. I logged at least 50 hrs of gameplay. There's plenty of maps and they have some good variety to them, offering up surprises as you go. The storyline was completely disposable, and did little to propel me forward, but getting new cards after each match was great motivation to push on. You could also save replay data if you wanted to (unless you used a save state) and you can unlock cosmetic gear for your character by doing certain things in-game, so they add a bit of depth to the proceedings as well. The game is deep and fun, though it takes some work to get all of the rules worked out in your head. There's a fantastic, detail-rich system here that works very well - but there's a lot to take in.

There is also an online mode, but I have now tried at least a dozen times and cannot find anyone to play with. To be honest, I'm not sure if it would work well as an online game - you would probably need 2-4 hrs to finish a map, and I don't know that suspend state would be an option then. For online matches like that, a simplified version of the game would probably have made more sense, but I could not find a single match to try it out with. I enjoyed making several decks, naming my 'books', choosing from various covers, but without anyone to play with or against you can't really show them off. It might have been a more robust community three years ago when the game first came out, but honestly I find it unlikely that this was one of the game's stronger points even upon release.

Overall - 5:

I don't know if the overall score is exactly how I feel about the game myself. I sunk at least 50 hours into it, and enjoyed it quite a bit. My buddy was right to recommend this one to me because he knew I would enjoy the core elements enough to overlook the other flaws. However, I don't know that this game will hold the same appeal for the average gamer who might find 3 hours too much to invest in a single map. And if you lose? You have to do it all over again. Online competition would extend the life of the game a lot, and there are a lot of online achievements for the game that I can't picture ever getting. But if you enjoy card strategy games the way I do, then this might make a good pickup - if you can find it, which can be a bit of a challenge in and of itself. Now that I've beaten it and can't find any online competition though, I suspect this game will make its way into my trade-in pile.

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Gaming News and Notes from 1-19-11

So, I'm hoping to try and find some sort of a pattern here. Like at least 1 review a weekend, maybe 2, and to try and do some sort of a news and notes post on Wednesdays. We'll see if I can stick to the schedule and make it 'work', but I'm hoping it keeps things on my page a bit more updated.

So, the big news today was Nintendo and their 3DS announcements. The big talking points were: European launch is 3/25/11 and US launch is 3/27/11. In the US the unit will price for $250, and in Europe the price will be set by retailers. IGN has had a huge amount of content about the various games such as Street Fighter and Kid Icarus.

In related 3DS news, a downer for some people - but the system will be region locked.

In slightly better 3DS news, DSi downloadables will be transferable to the 3DS.

Modern Warfare is apparently experiencing some problems on the Playstation 3 system due to the security breaches. This is only for the Infinity Ward games in the series. How bad is it? In the article Community Manager Robert Bowling suggested that players who are worried about this should only play online with trusted friends. Ouch.

A slightly misleading Gears of War triple pack has been announced. The content is solid for those who don't own the games, but it's more like a double pack (Gears 1 & 2) plus some bonus content.

Bethesda and Bioware are two of my favorite companies (both make excellent RPG games, which happen to be among my favorite genres), and the Elder Scrolls series is a favorite of mine. For those anxious to hear more about the upcoming installment of the series, there is a good interview here about Skyrim's new engine.

Killzone 3 will come with SOCOM 4 beta access as well.

The fairly well-received sequel to The Conduit is coming to the Wii March 22nd.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is coming to Japan this year. And IGN has some info on the release. Final Fantasy XIII was one of the more divisive releases in the series, and was a title that I myself played and enjoyed, but also had quite a few problems with. It'll be interesting to see how much of the original engine remains in tact for the sequel.

Last but not least, Valve has announced that their Portal 2 release will have cross platform play, and if you buy it for the PS3, you can get it for free on the computer via the Steam service.

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Mario Party 8 - Nintendo Wii review

Mario Party was a great game when it first came out. It has all of the trimmings of a great kid-oriented game, and it certainly appeals to that audience too. But I remember our neighbor and one of our other friends, back when I was in college and in my 20's, coming over to play until all hours when my wife and I were exhausted too. There were times Heather and I would go to bed and others would stay up playing it. The idea behind a video game that operated like a board game made for quick set up and tear down time, easy save options so you didn't have to worry about trying to put a board in a safe spot until later, and introduced minigames that made the experience more interactive and skillful than say, a game of Monopoly.

There have been a lot of different Mario Party games over the years - and we picked up number 8 not too long ago for our Wii. Our kids have always enjoyed the series, and while we haven't gotten every iteration of it, we've owned several. And let's be honest, the big kids (my wife and I), enjoy them too.

Graphics - 4:

Going to have to be brutal here. The Mario skin over top of it is cute in its own right, but the graphics themselves are underwhelming. Recently I reviewed a game called Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and complained about how the combat textures and graphics overall looked like they would be right at home on a Gamecube. Well, this game fails to even meet that standard. At least some of the art in Fire Emblem had some nice art, but really here everything feels a bit 'chunky' - almost like it was designed for the Gamecube and not a higher end system (and let's be honest, of the current gen systems, Wii is the weakling of the group, so when a game doesn't even live up to those standards? It's a problem). Another oddity is the game doesn't push widescreen - you get black bars along the left and right sides. The bright colors and familiar Mario themes help save this game from taking a dive to an even lower score, but all in all, a pretty disappointing effort here.

Sounds and music - 4:

The melodies are not so bad I guess, but the music quality seems really low-end. It just feels like the music should be a lot better than this. Another problem - the sound effects. They are really, really repetitive. The board ones are a bit worse than the mini game ones, but they are pretty underwhelming to begin with, and when you mix them up so seldom, they grate just a bit more.

Gameplay - 6:

There's a wide variety of minigames, but the control schemes are actually quite a bit more limited. This is actually not a bad thing, it helps keep the games from getting too confusing, and they generally make good use of the Wii control's movement support. You'll be waggling away on a lot of them, though there's several games where you hold it like a regular controller and use the directional pad and the 1/2 buttons (usually the more combat oriented mini games). I did not have many problems with the controls, but I play more games than any of my other family members. Even my wife commented on several occasions that she felt like the controls were not responding very well. Menus navigate easily enough and the boards have some interesting variety to them not found in older versions of the game, so that helps. Some people whine that there's too much luck involved, but it's supposed to emulate a board game, and those often rely on little more than luck. So, with that in mind, the minigames provide a level of skill to the proceedings that negate the 'too much random luck' argument, in my mind.

Intangibles - 8:

Pretty much the one thing the got right. The game has a nice, solid Mario theme going on. That's always a good place to start. There are a ton of minigames, and they do a good job (most of the time) of integrating the Wii motion controls. There's quite a few modes and you can customize your game settings a fair amount. Also, as a multiplayer game, it works so much better than a single player game in my opinion. It would benefit from some online play, but honestly I doubt that there are that many people who are online and playing this game anyway, so the option (or lack thereof) might be a relatively moot point.

Overall - 5.5:

Now, a lot of points are lost on the technical side of things. There's a good chance that the audience won't mind - so that makes a huge difference here. I've got 3 kids. Every time I've proposed we sit down and play the game as a family activity, at least 2 and my wife quickly volunteer. Of course, that's when you notice things like questionable controls or the odd graphics. It's a flawed game with a great premise and the potential to charm an audience like my household provides. This of course helps, but it does not completely mask the shortcomings of the game itself. It's almost more of a teaser of what could have been, than what was.

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Dead Space - Xbox 360 review

I have a soft spot for horror. Horror movies, horror stories and yes - horror games. Horror obviously comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes, whether it's a 'killer car' in a Stephen King novel, or a chainsaw wielding movie maniac or battling the zombie hordes in a video game. Probably my favorite horror series from the video game world was Tecmo's amazingly atmospheric Fatal Frame series. I have played plenty of other games that find ways to build tension as well - Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clocktower - and my recently purchased Amnesia for the computer. One that I bought some time ago and only recently played through was Dead Space. It got uniformly excellent reviews from both critics and gamers.

This is certainly more 'Aliens' horror than 'Texas Chainsaw' - you wind up as part of a spaceship crew that lands on a space station. What starts as a fairly routine maintenance run turns into a quest for survival against an unknown horror. In some ways, the backdrop sort of reminded me of Doom - the science fiction setting and sense of isolation oozes throughout the game, though instead of a hardened marine with automatic weapons, you're a repairman with a suit that helps keep you alive, and a plasma cutter that's going to do more than slice pipes.

You get separated from your crew early on, and find yourself surviving different horrors throughout this ransacked space station. There are bits of audio and video evidence everywhere, helping you to piece together what happened during the station's final hours. In some places the electrical is fine, in others you wind up moving through dark passages with just your suit's flashlight to guide the way. With part 2 coming out soon, it was past time I gave the original a play-through, and here's what I found:

Graphics - 9:

Almost a 10. I'm just stingy on 10's, and there were some moments of slowdown/stutter during a few of the more frantic moments. But so close to a 10. Where to begin - for starters, I loved the hud and overall layout. Seeing your health represented by bars on the back of your suit's spine, and your ammo on your weapon were slick design choices that kept me immersed in the game instead of looking off to the corners of my screen for other data. The lighting is fantastic throughout. In some places you're bathed in light, giving the scenery an appropriately science fiction feel, but most of the time lighting works against you, hiding enemies and making you wonder (sometimes aloud): was there something moving over there?

The antagonistic necromorphs look cool - and often gruesome. They move toward you in varied fashion, using unique attacks that are well represented (and often grotesquely so) onscreen. If you blow one's leg off (more on that in a bit), it crawls toward you along the floor. There are also some really cool scenes where you are outside of the space station that I want to take a moment to give special mention to. Several of them were strikingly beautiful, and I found myself pausing (which is something of a mistake because you're on a timer) and really appreciating the view that looked like it was pulled from a great movie.

Sound and Music - 10:

Going with a 10 here. Bits of music compliment the scenes beautifully. There is also a lot of voice acting that's very well done and helps to advance the story, both through audio files or interactions with other characters. The story is good, but this really goes the extra mile in helping to sell it. The sound effects however, are the best part of the overall presentation. This game delivered a lot of genuine scares, and while the lighting and the unique monsters certainly did their part, it was the sound effects that had me nearly jumping off of the couch (who am I kidding? There were times I did startle quite a bit physically). Whether it's electric buzzing, monsters scraping along nearby, conversations cut short by an attack - the atmosphere was incredible and the sound track was one of the primary reasons for this.

Gameplay - 8:

Aiming works well, the puzzles in the game work well within the context of the story and environment. Combat feels a bit unique because in most games - you're looking for the headshot. Here? Sure, that's going to work on some creatures - but the fact that you can blow off limbs to alter their movement and attacks as well as maybe finding other more vulnerable spots on them than the head, really adds a nice layer of depth to the combat mechanics. There were some mini games that added variety to the gameplay, but they never felt quite as polished as the primary game. Puzzles work well within the context of the game. There's also a currency system, which is cool for purchasing ammo, weapons and suit upgrades. Beyond that, you can modify equipment and armor at work benches, using nodes to customize it a bit - do you want more power, higher ammo capacity, better rate of fire? Up to you. There is a lot of fetch quests and backtracking, which works within the storyline but does sometimes feel a bit repetitive. There are a couple of neat environmental situations built into the primary objects as well as you find yourself walking outside of the airlocks to reach sections of the station maybe not otherwise accessible. You have limited oxygen and there's a neat sort of vacuum of sound while you do so. It also exposes you to some beautiful space backdrops in the game Anti-gravity sections provided some nice change of pace, but felt a bit clumsy at times and the objectives were not always obvious to me in there as my perspective would prone to change based on which surface I was walking on. I was not a big fan of those sections, and felt like they could have been more fun.

Intangibles - 8:

Great game. Very spooky. It was really well-made. I've heard a lot of mixed opinions about multiplayer, and I'm on the fence there. I think it's great when a game offers online multiplayer, because once you have done everything you can with a solo campaign, there's not much more reason to hold onto the game if you can't go online and play it with friends in some way. I've heard that's a big part of what EA is doing with part 2. Then again, a bit part of what makes Dead Space so effective is that sense of isolation. I get the feeling that multiplayer may be fun, it just won't feel like 'Dead Space'. Either way, this game doesn't have it, and while you can play through a few times, and look for things you may have missed initially, the game does not change a great deal on subsequent playthroughs. You get carry over of currency and enhancements, and this access to new gear is cool, though I didn't find the next playthrough nearly as intense. Maybe because I was overpowered from the new game plus, or just because I knew my way through the levels, but I blew through my second round pretty fast compared to the first.

Overall - 8.75:

Simply put - this game was amazing. I remember reading about it in Game Informer well before it was released, and there were things that caught my eye, but I was far from sold. If you enjoy third person action games, science fiction storylines or strong horror elements, this game is definitely worth a look. Especially since it can be found fairly cheaply now. I'm glad I tried it out, and am now very anxiously awaiting the release of Dead Space 2.

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Tomb Raider: Underworld - Playstation 3 review

Lara Croft has been a gaming icon for years now - sometimes for the right reasons (puzzling, adventure-filled gameplay) and the wrong ones (perhaps a bit too much attention on her physique and not enough on making some of the sequels actually worth playing). Thankfully she's seen some progress over her last few releases, making the Tomb Raider game playable again - but are they worth playing? Probably once, but I'm not sure about replaying. Luckily I got my hands on this game while it was relatively inexpensive and gave it a shot, and here's what I found:

Graphics - 8:

This is sort of a mixed bag. Lara animates much better than ever, with some convincing acrobatics to compliment all of the climbing and gunplay. There are some nicely varied vistas in the game now too, from being in impressively dusty old tombs, to underwater sequences and lush jungles. It is not a perfect score though, due to some peculiar clipping issues. On several occasions I wound up being able to see through solid walls I was pressed right up against. The camera is also built in such a way that it tries to lend a dramatic, sweeping view of your surroundings. It works more often than not, but there were plenty of times the camera was driving me nuts as well, giving me a great view of my landscape and a horrible view of what I was trying to do with Lara. Cutscenes looked really sharp, it should be noted.

Sound and Music - 9:

Lots of sound effects to be had here, and they worked well with my surround system. Bullets flying by don't ring quite as true as those found in more action-intense games like Modern Warfare, but they do the job nicely. Drips of water can be heard in some passages, and it should be mentioned that there was plenty of good voice work too. The music was particularly good in my opinion. It fit the set pieces, added necessary tension. All in all, I thought this was probably the strongest aspect of the game.

Gameplay - 7:

The combat and movement works well - this is probably the mot fluid Lara Croft I've played to date. The menus took me a bit of getting used to, but they were effective once I was used to how they worked. As much as I liked the idea of the underwater sequences, I found them to be a bit annoying at times. In particular the first one had me feeling lost until I got the feel for the game. The puzzles were solid more often than not, but there were still some odd control issues when trying to control Lara within the context of her environment. The camera, as mentioned before in graphics, was also a bit of a chore. I found it to be perhaps my most challenging opponent at times. That said, I liked that I did not have to go back very far most of the times I died.

Intangibles - 6:

There's hidden stuff to find throughout the game - treasures if you will. There's some customization you can do along the way as well that helps add some variety should you play it through again. Neither one was motivation for me to not trade it in. There is also some downloadable content that can be purchased for it, though it's nearly as expensive as buying the game used itself. The story's alright if a bit predictable. The voice acting and cut scenes make it a bit more entertaining, but it doesn't do much more than move the action along - I never got particularly invested in it.

Overall - 7.5

All in all - it's a Tomb Raider game, right down to the exploration, Lara Croft, buggy camera and decent if clipping visuals. I enjoy Lara and her games enough that I recently picked up the Xbox Live Lara Croft game, and I'm curious about this prequel of sorts that is on the way in the coming year. Maybe they will breath some new life into this series that while solid, is starting to feel a bit like one of those relics Lara is always in search of.

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Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers Xbox Live review

I've been a big fan of collectible card games since late high school. It was right about the same time I got into tabletop Dungeons & Dragons - but some friends introduced me to a few different collectible card games: Marvel Overpower, Legend of the Five Rings and Magic: The Gathering. Now, I mostly watched others play at first, I did not start buying actual packs and decks until right around the release of Ice Age. I was immediately hooked. For starters, I've always been a bit of a completionist, whether it was getting characters to level 99 in Final Fantasy (3 I believe - I spent a lot of time walking around this forest island fighting dinosaurs as I recall...), collecting sports cards and comics (I had some early Shaq, Magic Johnson and Barkley cards that I rather miss now) or my need to read entire book series in order, and in a short period of time - the idea begin collecting cards you could use in a game really struck a positive note in me. And I spent a lot of money on those cards in college (who needs beer and pizza money?).

There was a lot to like about Magic: The Gathering, if you were not put off by the need to purchase cards or by the somewhat 'nerdy' source material. Theme decks a specific way (angel or vampire decks anyone?), or try to come up with that perfect combo of cards that would make someone just pause and say 'wow', or just really like certain types of cards (my one buddy Brian worked almost all of his decks around the fast damage of Red spells) - there were nearly unlimited possibilities. Some decks worked better than others, but overall it was a lot of fun for people like me who really dove into strategy type games.

Games like this don't work by yourself though. You can count your cards, set up specific mana-to-critter-to-spell ratio all day and night, but without people to play against, it's all for naught. Without a variety of people to play against, it can get repetitive as well. I played several of the older Magic: The Gathering video games in the past, and had fun with it, so when I saw Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planewalkers come out on the Xbox Live, I picked it up and played it pretty heavily for about a week. I then did not touch it again until recently when a couple of other card-based games like this came my way. I wanted to give it a second chance and see how I felt about it again.

Graphics - 4:

The artwork of the cards is well-represented. They added some basic effects to events during combat. But that's pretty much it. What's there looks perfectly nice, and some of the backdrops look pretty - but they're static cards. There's no animation within the cards, and while I did not really expect anything amazing, it doesn't hurt to be surprised. If you are playing the game in person, obviously the cards don't hop up and attack one another either, but it is a video game nonetheless - it might have been nice to see a bit more animation taking place in the video part of the game.

Sound and Music - 4:

The sound effects are nothing special. They get the job done, but they are as basic as the animations found in the game itself. The music was actually nice - but there was not a ton of variety in it. It fits the overall theme and sets a nice mood, but with so little other activity on the screen, I found myself realizing I had heard the same tune over and over again, so the repetition got to me just a bit more than it does in other games.

Gameplay - 8:

The menus are pretty easy to navigate, the controls are intuitive for what it is. We are not talking about tight turns in a racing game here or trying to nail the perfect headshot, but I have played games before where you repeatedly make the wrong move because of a poorly laid out option or menu item - and that never happened to me here. There is a lot of strategy to be had here. For those uninitiated to the concept - you start with 20 life points, and you have cards in a deck. You draw cards, and there are land cards that come in 5 basic types. Spells and creatures in your hand correspond to these basic types and you can cast them when you have the right kinds and enough lands at your disposal. It's a wonderful system that finds a spectacular balance between luck, deck building and the ability to respond to in-game elements and adjust accordingly. There is also a fun little 'challenges' section where you are working within specific sets of conditions to take your opponent out in a specific way. I really liked these, and will admit to having set some sample ones up myself in similar fashion back when I used to play, just to see what was possible in odd situations.

Intangibles - 4:

The good is this - it is Magic: The Gathering. If you're a fan of the game and mechanics, then you get that exact gameplay here. They also added online play, which is huge because I grew a bit bored of walloping on the computer controlled characters pretty quickly. I ran the entire list through in a day. Luckily given the random nature of the card draws, there is definitely some variety to be had here.

Now for the bad - and in my mind there was quite a bit of it. The online play really aggravated me. Not because it was not fun, but because I got tired of pulling the plug. I would guess I was winning more than half my matches - yet I don't have a single win to my credit technically. That is because there was no penalty (I admit - I did not try this part again recently, but I tried it several months ago at least 2 or 3 dozen times. I guess it's possible they patched it, but I could not bring myself to try again) for dropping out of a match. As a result every-single-match I was about to win, they dropped. I even did some larger group matches - and both times they dropped out as well. One of the guys who dropped out took the time to send me a message apologizing that his 360 kicked him offline - but I'll be honest when I say I didn't believe him. I haven't had the urge to hop online and play again.

The next fatal flaw - you choose a basic deck type to play. Then, you can win several more cards to supplement that deck, and some of those cards are pretty cool. You don't have to use them, but you can. The thing is - they're pre-made decks. The deck building was arguably my favorite part of Magic: The Gathering, and it was not available to me. I tried to justify it by saying there were plenty of good cards and I did not need deck building... but I was fooling myself. I'd see a new card and immediately think how nicely it would work with some other card from another color type and... then realize there was no chance I would ever see this idea realized on the game.

Last but not least? The game itself is short. I beat the entire campaign mode on a day off of work. I knocked off the challenges the next morning. That was it. I was left then to play against the computer controlled opponents or hop online and play, which leads me back to a couple paragraphs ago. Since then, they have released some expansions which add some new cards and opponents. When I picked it up again recently, I thought about picking one or two of the expansions up, but I decided against it. They would add some length to what I was doing, but they really were not going to change those core things I had problems with before, and as such I decided against it.

Overall - 5:

I understand why they did the limited decks. Giving you a full deck editing option would have been a ton of work. It would require more cards be added so it felt like you had a robust set of options, and there would have to be all sorts of validation and checking to make sure you had a legal deck (no more than 4 of a kind, meeting minimum requirements, etc). It could potentially lead to imbalance online I suppose too, if one person had earned/won/lucked into substantially better cards - but you know what? I've seen that in real life plenty of times. Sometimes I was the one with the superior cards, sometimes I wasn't. It was still fun - especially if I was the underdog and I won. In the end, it feels like this is a good introduction to Magic: The Gathering for people who have not played it before, but I don't know that it's enough for a veteran fan of the series to stay invested in it. I love the idea behind it - my friends have moved away, I don't have to spend money on actual packs, and having a computer controlled opponent are all great aspects of the game, but it left me wishing for just a bit more than it delivered.

More Magic: The Gathering -- Duels of the Planeswalkers Videos

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Red Steel 2 - Nintendo Wii review

Happy New Year!

Hope you are all in for a very nice evening, whether it's going out with friends, having family visit, or just hiding indoors and playing some video games - here's to a great if all-too-fast 2010 and what we hope will be an even better 2011. With that out of the way, I wanted to slip in my last game review of the year.

Red Steel 2 was one of those games that I think slipped under the radar a bit. It got pretty good overall scores from professional game sites, and overall players seemed to enjoy it, but I'm sure Ubisoft had been hoping for better overall sales. There were a few things probably working against the game though - from the Teen rating, to its requirement of Wii Motion Plus to the underwhelming public opinion of the first game. Now however, might be a good idea to pick this one up if you have had any interest in it. I've been seeing this game relatively cheaply on a variety of sites now, most Wiimotes come with Motion Plus, and many people now already have the Motion Plus, due in part to Wii Sports Resort. And don't let the name fool you - this game may share some principle ideas from Red Steel, but it's not a sequel and the quality is much, much higher.

Graphics - 10:

The game oozes style with its unique visuals - combining the Old West with Eastern/samurai influences. There's a flat, cartoonish look to the graphics that is not my personal favorite, but it works for the game and runs at a beautiful clip. I've read that it runs at 60 frames per second, and I don't doubt that. The engine used works well, never showing pop-in or tearing of any kind. The colors used are also vibrant most of the time. I would have to say overall, this is probably one of, if not the best-looking Wii game I have had the pleasure of playing to date.

Sound & Music - 7:

This was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, the sound effects got the job done without ever being overwhelming - or terribly memorable. The music was quite good however, as I found myself on several occasions pausing and thinking how cool/atmospheric it was Like the graphics, the music was among the best I've enjoyed for the Wii to date. So why not a higher score? Well, the voice acting. It was bad - almost to the point of irritating me at times. I've heard some people say that it was an intentional choice to make it campy in order to compliment the cartoony graphics, but if that's the case then I think it was a poor design choice. In a game where your actions are so immersive, having voice work that takes you out of that feeling of 'being there' hurts a lot in my opinion. I'm usually a huge fan of voice work in games as much as possible, but here it was more detraction than advantageous.

Gameplay: - 8:

There is a lot of positive to take away from this part of the game. The Motion Plus is beautifully realized here. The sword motions are well-represented on the screen. This is no Wii Sports Baseball where clever animations hide the fact that controls are not precise - here your sword stabs and slashes all respond very nicely. There are times the motions are misread, and it can be somewhat frustrating when it happens, but I can't even say for certain that the game was misreading it - or if I was just being a bit too frantic in my handling of my weapons during some of the more chaotic combat scenes. I will admit I enjoyed the swordplay a lot more than the gun mechanics. Pointing and aiming is fine, if a bit too touchy at times, but swinging, blocking and counterstriking were a lot more fun for me personally. It should also be noted - this is not a game for sitting on the sofa. A lot of Wii games can be done sitting down - do not count this among them. I'm sure you could, but you'd be cheating yourself in doing so. You should be moving your arms about as you square off with a group of thugs. That being said, some people really rebel at the 'get up off of the sofa' ideal, even if they have a Wii - one of my buddies at work is like that. The controls do not work nearly as well from a seated position in my opinion - you have been warned.

Intangibles - 5:

The game takes a sizeable hit here for me. For all of the things done right above (except the voice work) - the game is just too short. I think I beat it in about thirteen or fourteen hours. There's some challenge stuff to add to it, but not much and with a lack of online modes, once you're through the story - there's just not much to do beyond that. I also enjoyed the early part of the game more than the latter quarter or so. The progression system is nice, allowing you to improve in a variety of ways such as new techniques, but by the last quarter of the game or so I felt too strong. I do not recall many fights at all that challenged me - I was just mopping the floor with all of the bad guys by that point. Lastly, the storyline of the game itself was somewhat lacking - I was completely into the gameplay and the combat, but it felt like the mechanics deserved a better game around them. I was doing a lot of contracts and side adventures more for the sake of the combat than any sense of story or game progression. If the experience could be slightly refined and dropped into a much longer, deeper storyline, I think we'd have an all-time title here.

Overall - 7.5:

I really wanted to give this game a higher overall score. I bought it shortly after it released, and it was one of those games that sat on my game shelf several months longer than anticipated. Once I gave Red Steel 2 a chance, I thoroughly enjoyed it - but with its lack of replay value, it's now in my stack of games to be traded in sometime in the next couple of weeks. It's one of those titles that if you can pick it up cheaply, it's worth a play and will give you a couple days of solid, entertaining action. It's not one that you'll put away and forget - in fact I'll likely recall Red Steel 2 fondly for some time to come. However, I can say right now that I have little interest in picking it up for a second round of adventure, diminishing the title's long term value when I have plenty of other games to play still. For those considering this title for kids, there' a bit of language and there's plenty of violence to be had - though this may be where the cartoon style is a boon. It doesn't strike me as visually 'worse' than some of the more action-oriented cartoons you find on TV nowadays.

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Hope you all had a great holiday!

I certainly did. I got a few days off from a very busy recent work schedule, and I have a few more incoming this weekend. So, for the holidays? I must have been a really good boy this year, becuase Santa did ridiculously well by me. Aside from the new computer my wife got me (thank you hon!) - I got a ton of new games. Now, the computer's been amazing (pretty sure the old one was hamster powered, and the poor little critter was on is last legs), but the setup for all of my files and programs has been a fairly lengthy process. On top of that, I have a bunch of games I've been collecting over the last few years, but that my old cpu could never seem to manage without fear of smoke billowing out of the backside. So, I may have some older cpu games to comment on soon (got Neverwinter Nights 2, The Witcher, a bunch of older games from Good old Games at GoG.com) - so that'll be fun.

What do we have to look forward to on the console side of things? Well - a ton of newer and older games, ranging from Culdcept Saga on the 360, to the Uncharted games and Mod Nation Racers for the PS3, to Kirby's Epic Yarn and Metroid: Other M for the Wii - not to mention the Sony Move we won for our PS3 we're just now dusting off too (Eyepet has been a ridiculous hit with my younger 2. I may ask them to write me up their thoughts in a paragraph or two as well when I review that one).

So, I'm definitely around, just 'suffering' through the amazing good luck of games and computer for now. I do have a handful of other games to toss up reviews on that I'm about done formulating thoughts and taking notes on as well, and if all goes well, I'll have a lot more content to toss out there over the next month or two. I hope you had a great 2010 and I look forward to 2011 with those of you out there who read this blog of mine!

Take care!

Nick / Chalgyr

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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Nintendo Wii review

I’ve long been a fan of turn-based strategy/rpg games. I’ve written in the past about some of the older ones I played, like the Shining in the Darkness series, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I played Warsong on my Sega Genesis. To this day, Dragonforce is easily my most fondly remembered Sega Saturn game (I’ve thought about getting a Saturn again just to play that particular disc, and have long lamented that the sequel never made it to North America). More recently, I’ve played and reviewed some games that were fun, but left me a bit disappointed in places (like Record of Agarest War and Vandal Hearts: Fires of Judgment).

Somehow over the years, I’ve missed the Fire Emblem series. I did some research on it recently and realized it’s been around for quite a few years, on systems I had and just never picked up on it. I remember first discovering the Marth character in an early Super Smash Brother’s game. So, a couple of months ago when I stumbled onto Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii, I decided to take it for a spin and see if I liked it.

The short answer is that yes – I liked it quite a bit. The game’s characters were interesting, and it led me to research the prior games. It’s then I realized that this particular title is a direct sequel to the Fire Emblem game for the Gamecube that I recall getting great scores when it came out.

The game itself is pretty straight forward. You follow a band of characters through some storyline elements that lead to set piece turn-based combat. There’s units that vary in weapon use and skill, and you try to take advantage of their strengths while masking their weaknesses against computer controlled units. There’s level progression, stat increases, a large variety of weapons and skills and quite a bit more.

The pros were pretty numerous for me. The game had quality built-in tutorials, several very deep systems (like the support system where if you have two characters who spend some time around one another and supporting one another in combat, then before their next map deployment you might get to pair them up, offering some bonuses when they are close to one another on the map. Have them converse on the battlefield and support one another and you may get an option to strengthen their support then later – and this is a process you can do a couple of times until they reach “A” level support). There’s a weapon forging system, lots of spells, a skill allocation system and more.

Overall, I felt like the graphics were better than Vandal Hearts, and the depth far more impressive than what Agarest War provided. That said, it is not all roses. The game is tough. I’m not new to strategy games, but like the old Warsong game, if a key character dies, you have to restart the level. If a non-key character dies, they are gone forever. This is a far cry from Agarest War, which almost requires that some of your characters die in bigger fights, so you can bring them back to life and chain ridiculous super moves. Not the case here. If you support character dies, there is no bringing them back on that map – or ever again. And you will have characters who die in just 1 hit if you don’t protect them adequately. There are times the combat just feels cheap, and you may have to go entire maps without making any mistakes, or risk having to start the map over or progressing without a supporting character anymore.

Let’s break down the gaming components and render a verdict now, shall we?

Graphics – 5:

I have always felt that some games benefit more from graphics and sound than others. If you’re playing a first person shooter or an atmospheric survival/horror game, then you need graphics and sound to help immerse you in the experience. RPG and strategy games don’t need these elements to be successful because they pull you in with other convesions like their story-telling and character progression systems. That said, it doesn’t hurt to have nice graphics, and this game does – in the cut scenes. The occasional full video gets played before chapters and key events, and they have a neat ‘events to come’ prelude that really worked for me in the context of the game, but honestly the in-game visuals looked like something that would have been right at home on the Gamecube or DS. Even my son at one point got that mixed feeling. He watched a round of combat, and said that the characters looked silly, but then a screen popped up showing the experience gained and showed a nicely illustrated portrait and my son immediately said, “His armor looks a lot cooler here.” The overall graphics just look muddled and relatively lacking in detail. One thing I did like is that the backgrounds were a notch above most other strategy games of this ilk, at least in art direction if not technical execution. They actually reflected some of the background scenery nicely and I recall one area where I was fighting in a swamp that characters were standing knee-deep splashing around in the water as they fought, which was cool.

Sound & Music – 7:

The music is okay, but again just has a last-gen feel to it. Nothing I can put a finger on, but nothing terribly memorable either. Except later in the game – I got to a chapter and suddenly I noticed the fight music was different. This made me wonder if the entire game’s fight music to that point had been pretty much the same or not – and I found I could not recall. The combat sounds are pretty minimal as well. The voice work is not bad, but you seldom get any. Between chapters there’s sometimes a narrator voicing over a map about the story’s broader events, but those sections are usually lacking in character and did little to really pull me into the story. The cut scenes had some decent voice overs, but they were too lacking in number to help bring the score up much.

Gameplay – 8:

Some people picked on this game for not making use of the Wii remote’s capabilities – I personally have no problem with that design choice. Like a sports game or a shooter, the aiming mechanic draws you into the game. I don’t see waggling a remote at the screen to march my units around as a terribly immerse component. The menu’s are good, there’s no slowdown, and I never had trouble operating my units, so to me the game succeeded in what it was trying to do.

Intangibles – 8:

When you gain levels, the stats improved are random. There are class evolutions your characters can experience too. The battle maps felt so much more organic than anything I saw in Agarest War, where I felt like my 6 guys were dumped into a small, level battle field. Here there were houses, roads, paths, terrain elements, varying win conditions and unit allotments – it felt much more in-line with the actual story that was being presented. That said, the story was a bit odd – it was not the best story ever, but there are chapters where you change parties and perspectives, and that lends itself to seeing what could have been a horribly cliché storyline into something a bit more interesting due to the varied vantage points experienced. There’s no online or multiplayer to be had, though to be honest I would not expect those things from a game like this. You can save mid-battle too, which is not only a huge time saver, but a sanity one too since there are times you will lose someone to some unforeseen circumstance, and you’d otherwise be faced with the decision to start the level over, or press on without the lost character. I’ve read that you can import saved data from the Gamecube version – Path of Radiance. I didn’t get to test this myself, but if so that is a cool feature for fans of the series. There’s also a new game plus that lets you slightly alter the storyline at one point and enlist the help of a few more characters from what I read. There’s also slight variations to the end storyline depending on which characters have formed support bonds and if their score is an “A” or not.

Overall – 7:

The ending was pretty cool – it was nearly a 20 minute affair if you, like me, sit through the credits after a long, hard fought game. I dropped about 55 hours into it, according to the save data, though I’d guess I spent an extra 10 over that on replays from last save due to the annoying death of a character. I games like Shining Force or Vandal Hearts, you lose a character for a round – not the game. To me that’s always been a slightly harsh game mechanic and one that definitely caused me some frustration here. It’s a tough game, but deep and it rewards you for time, patience and forethought. It’s an older game, but one that I enjoyed more than most of the recent ones I’ve played from the genre.

More Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Videos

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Gaming News and Notes from 12-20-10

If you are, like me, anxiously awaiting news on the Nintendo 3DS (I have a stack of games awaiting trade-in), then you will be excited for the news… that is unfortunately not coming until Jan 19th. I wish I was kidding. Is it going to keep the ridiculous price tag they are going to pay in Japan? ($299) – wait 3 weeks and find out…

The Black Ops First Strike DLC comes to Xbox 360 first, and it hits Feb 1st. And yes, it's $15.

Dragon Quest VI is coming as a remake to the DS on Valentine's Day.

There's a ps3 remastering of the last few Tomb Raider games coming out in the future Don't knwo about this one myself. I'm pretty excited for the Ico collection, and thought the God of War collection was a solid idea. Still mixed on the Prince of Persia one - but these games are not that old and were released on these consoles already this generation. Feels almost like a double dip to me, but if it has a discount price, it might be worth a peek.

Does any MMO stand a chance to unseat World of Warcraft? Well, if there is - it might just be Titan - which Blizzard has announced as their next MMO project.

Fan of discounted Xbox Live games? I am - and Microsoft is hoping you are too as they listed a slate of discounted games starting tomorrow for an 11 day sale.

Super Meat Boy (800 MSP, normally 1,200)
Comic Jumper (800 MSP, normally 1,200)
Toy Soldiers (800 MSP, normally 1,200)
Banjo Tooie (600 MSP, normally 1,200)
Castle Crashers (600 MSP, normally 1,200)
The UnderGarden (400 MSP, normally 800)
Risk Factions (400 MSP, normally 800)
After Burner Climax (400 MSP, normally 800)
Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution (400 MSP, normally 800)
Carcassonne (400 MSP, normally 800)

Several of these games have had good reviews, and I lucked out and snagged Carcassonne a couple years ago for free, but some games like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy in particular have been quite popular for awhile now and might be good buys.

Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 is looking good, and running on the Mass Effect 3 engine it seems.

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Monday Night Combat - Xbox Live review

Monday Night Combat was an Xbox Live game I picked up with Limbo and the latest Lara Croft game some months ago. I played through Limbo a couple of times and posted a review on that, and still have to put some meaningful time into the Lara Croft game, but now that I’ve played some Monday Night Combat, let’s talk a bit more about it.

I thought I would try and preface my reviews a bit more talking about the modes and the overall game, and then break down into the actual scores at the end and see how I like the slight modification to format. Monday Night Combat is an over the top shooter where the objective in the protection of or taking out of a Moneyball, a target that is a glorified piñata with tons of cash in it. This is no Call of Duty or Halo, and you have a simplified objective that is more important than rattling off some headshots.

The Blitz mode is a cooperative mode where you (and some friends if you want them to hop in) fight off wave after wave of incoming bots. There’s defense guns you can set up and improve upon as well as your own powers you can upgrade, giving the game a sort of tower defense and 3rd person shooter feel at the same time. The better you do, the more money you earn. The more money you earn, the more turrets and upgrades you can afford.

Crossfire is an online versus mode that is a blast, but loaded with chaos too. Once again you have turrets and you can upgrade yourself as you attempt to take out the other team’s moneyball. Both games require that you be fast with your upgrade decisions while being a quick, accurate aim too. There’s a fair amount to do between matches too. You can make customized classes that have various ‘sponsorships’ or perks that give you some small bonuses while playing. The better you do, the more between-match cash you accrue. There’s also a ‘leveling’ system as well, which is kind of a fun addition.

Graphics – 8:

There’s a graphical style here that’s wonderfully cartoony. This game was not meant to compete with Modern Warfare or Battlefield, and the graphics help to give it a unique feeling that really works for the game. If they tried to be ultra realistic it might have come across as a weak, lightweight attempt, but by making things a bit more comically over-the-top it feels fresh. Animations are solid and the overall team color schemes are good, though I did see some slowdown during frantic online activity and the zones themselves do lack some visual variation.

Sound and Music – 6:

I’m going to hit this one a bit. Music’s okay I guess, not memorable but it doesn’t get in the way. The game’s sound effects are okay as well, though I never really noticed it feeling as immersive as those found in higher end shooters that make outstanding use of my surround sound. The announcer’s voice kind of grated on my nerves and he was really repetitive.

Gameplay – 8:
The menus are easy to navigate, and once you know what you want to do with your upgrades, it’s pretty easy to do them quickly. The actual combat mechanics are not as precise as some of the top shelf games, but they don’t quite have to be to function well. The classes all feel unique as well, which helps lend some variety to the action. Some of my online games, as I mentioned in graphics, can slow down a bit when the action really heats up, and that can be rather annoying. It can also take a long time to connect to matches, but I never had issues with having to drop out of a match once one started.

Intangibles – 7:

The leveling system is nice, and I liked the customization options. The different classes add some variety to the game and give you a reason to try different things. The online play helps out a ton, since the single player offline mode is okay, but not nearly as fun as the more chaotic co-op and competitive modes. The lack of maps and additional modes really hurt though, and the lack of variety in sounds and arenas do give a sort of ‘been there, done that’ vibe after awhile.

Overall – 7.5:

I enjoyed the game overall. It was fun, and there were goals that kept me coming back for more and tweaking my contestant. I mentally found myself thinking this was Smash TV for the current consoles, or at least a lightweight version of what a fleshed out modern Smash TV could be (I loved that game in the arcade). I came in to this game with modest expectations at the time, having decided to take part of an Xbox promotion at the time to buy 3 games. I picked up Lara Croft and Limbo and then waffled between Monday Night Combat and Castlevania for awhile, but finally opted for Monday Night Combat and definitely did not regret it. It lacks serious depth, but it fits my occasional need for a quick sit down and shoot something fix.

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EA Sports MMA - Xbox 360/PS3 game review

Been a bit since I had any new reviews. Between the holidays and getting lost in a handful of very cool games, I haven't been at my cpu quite as much, but here's one that I've spent a couple of weeks on:

EA Sports MMA is a very different kind of fighting game. THQ’s generally well-received UFC game has been the sole occupant of the MMA space, and though I haven’t had a chance to play that game, I went more than a few rounds with EA’s MMA game and here’s my general thoughts on it.

Graphics – 8:

The overall motions look pretty smooth, and while I’d like to see a bit more variety in the styles overall, cosmetically there’s a lot you can do to give your fighter a unique look. The graphics and controls both reminded me of EA’s excellent Fight Night series as well. The replays look awesome and can be fun to save and watch later. The overall menus are nothing special, and the venues look okay at a glance but also don’t do much beyond that to impress. You can get bit hits in that have a nice disconcerting effect on the visuals and sound, which is nice. It might have been interesting to see physical development for your character, like a higher grade of muscle tone as they improve in certain areas, just to give the fighter a slightly more dynamic appearance over the 40 matches of your career mode.

Sound & Music – 8:

Plenty of good tunes make up the sound track, and the commentary and crowd sounds are pretty nice – though often repetitive. It’s a common trend with sports games – the commentary is very cool early on, but after awhile you’ve heard pretty much all of it. There’s not a lot of ring sound in and of itself, though. It seems like there could be some more in-ring sound effects to help vary things up, and I would love to see an extended commentary.

Gameplay – 7:

This was a tough one for me. I liked the overall scheme. The stick system was very reminiscent of the Fight Night games where you use variations of right-analog stick movement to make your strikes. Unfortunately sometimes it is just about impossible to pull off a specific move, no matter how many times you’ve tried. Most of the time the controls are good, but when they’re not responding the way you feel like they should, it can be very frustrating. The layout and pass system on the ground is pretty cool too. That said, the computer can be frustrating beyond belief during some of the training exercises, and it feels like people and the computer can somehow just button mash during the ground game. What’s disappointing is this game is not meant to be a button masher. The game is at its best when it’s experienced as a game with give and take, the fighting having a sort of ebb and flow – especially the wrestling components. The online connectivity was good – I almost never experienced any significant lag from it. Matches of al kinds seem short – it seems like either I win quickly or lose quickly, and the game does have a ton of load times. They could use some more load screens and dialogs, because you do spend a good chunk of your time staring at them.

Intangibles – 8:

The career mode was my favorite. They did a great job of making the training exercises something that once you get them perfected, or as close as you think you will be on one, you can then simulate them to get the full effect. In other similar titles, like Fight Night, you have to do the same repetitive training motions every time, and if you sim it you only get half credit, which is frustrating. This speeds up the affair a ton, which helps to compensate for the painfully long and frequent load times. The online mode has quite a few options to keep things fresh and the stable of fighters included is pretty solid as well. The accomplishments are by and large pretty easy to get overall, if that’s something of particular interest to you.

Overall – 7.75:

It’s a good game, but it could be better. For a first effort it’s definitely a series to keep an eye on, and with some additional polish to the career mode in particular, it will be a series that could gain popularity, just like the sport it is based on. The graphics, sound and commentary could use some touch up, and the presentation could use a bit more depth in the career mode (there’s a blogger of sorts who chronicles your progress with these big written posts. Not bad, but it feels like it could be a bit deeper on all fronts). I enjoyed it quite a bit and played it heavily for a couple of weeks, though the career mode and free fight did start to wear thin after that. The online mode helped to sustain the game’s value as well.

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I'm still here :)

But, with the holiday stuff going on, and some extra business with work and all of that fun stuff - I haven't had quite as much game time of late, plus I've sunk in on a few games that are taking a good chunk of time to complete, like Fire Emblem. Older tactical strategy game, but I'm enjoying it so far. Anyway - I should have some reviews up this weekend, at least a couple of so. And well - then for Christmas? A whole lot more, so be patient and I should have plenty incoming soon. :)

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