Boom Blox Review

I decided for one of the first games I play on my new Wii I should trust a name that I know. Since Stephen Spielburg is pretty much a household game I decided I'd try Boom Blox. Boom Blox is essentially a series of puzzle games that involve. There are at least 8 or 9 different types of puzzle games included with each one having multiple variations. There is both a single player porting and a multiplayer portion to the game. The single player is basically just working through each type of puzzle with increasing difficulties to unlock the next set of puzzles. I'm having fun with the single player, but not as much fun as I'm having with the multiplayer.

The mutiplayer has both a competitive and a cooperative section. The competitive section puts you against 1 to 3 of your friends to see who can do the best solving the puzzles and in some cases attacking each other's puzzles. The vs matches are mostly just paly until someone wins and then pick a new one type rounds. The cooperative game types are layed out similar to the single player where beating easier puzzles unlocks the harder ones. My wife and I have been playing almost every night for over a week now on the co-op puzzles and we've been having a lot of fun. Some of the co-op puzzles you take turns on and other you have to work at the same time to finish puzzles as quick as possible.

Overall I'd highly recommend hecking out Boom Blox. You may want to rent it because once you complete all the puzzles I don't see a ton of replay value in the vs modes, but it is still well worht playing through once.

Too Human Recap and Review

I've been playing Too Human for a few weeks now and I'm still really enjoying myself. It is a bit of a grind to get the higher level equipments, but I don't mind because there is always a ton enemies that need killed. I can see why some people find it frustrating because of the camera and slow in-game menus, but I can ignore these because the actual game play is fun. Sure, better camera position (especially indoors) would be nice, but I don't find it as big a deal as some people.

The game is based around combat, lots of combat, and that part is where the game excels. The combat controls are simple, but using them to make huge combos takes a lot of skill and practice. At first I had a lot of trouble with getting combos, but after a couple hours I really started to get the hang of it. Now, 24 hours of game time later, I can get combos over 100 if they send enough enemies my way.

The single player game is fun, but the co-op is even better. The co-op has more enemies and the enemies are more varied, but it also gives you better loot when you kill the enemies. Having finished the main story line ones I play the co-op pretty much all the time now even if I'm playing by myself.

The character creation process is really easy and you have 5 classes to choose from. I wish there was a little more variation in the skills between classes, but they are different enough that you can't play exactly the same with all the classes and still survive. You really do need to focus on that classes strengths.

The achievements are a nice mix of difficulty. Some of them will take 30 or more hours of play time to get while others you can get very quickly. I've got about 40 of the 50 and I'm looking forward to getting the last 10.

If you like dungeon crawler games, and looking for better weapons and armor all the time this is a game for you. Personally I'm loving it and I think a lot of people would if they just give it a chance.

Civilization Revolution Review

I rented Civilization Revolution from GameFly and I'm completely addicted to it. I've not played a Civ game in years, but I had forgotten how long the matches are. Some of the rounds I've played on the harder difficulties have taken 3 or 4 hours depending on what type of victory I'm going for. The only issue I have with CivRev is that I tend to loose track of time while playing. I guess that is not the games fault, but my own. I'll get to the point where I should save and go do something else, but instead I just keep telling myself "just one more turn."

Since Civilization Revolution is on the console and not the PC they have taken out a lot of the micro-managing from previous games. Personally I like it this way. Makes they game a little less taxing, but in easier difficulty settings you're pretty much going to dominate.

Civilization Revolution has some pretty fun graphics, but the music gets a little tiring. Personally, I tend to ignore it, but if I notice it after a couple hours I turn on the radio.
There is a really fun set of achievements ranging from pretty easy to really difficult. They will take quite a while because you have to win at least once match with each race and for each victory type.

If you;ve not tried the CivRev demo yet I would definitely recommend trying it out, but be warned that you'll loosehours of your live playing.

XBLA Ratings

Well, I've been working on a side project I thought I'd share withe everyone. It is not done yet, but it is getting there.

XBLA Ratings

I found myself frustrated a while back with the lack of Xbox Live Arcade reviews that talk about if the game is fun or not. To me XBLA games are not about the graphics, sound quality, achievements, etc. Yes, those things factor in, but really I just want to know if I spend $5 of $10 on a game if it will be fun. If it worth the cost of a movie ticket or a lunch out? So, since I could not find any sites that rate Arcade titles by how fun they are I figured I'd make one.

Like I said it is not done yet, but it is getting there. Feel free to post a quick rating of your favorite (or least favorite) games and let everyone else know how fun they are.

SoulCalibur IV Review

I've been playing SoulCalibur IV pretty frequently the last week. It is the first fighting game I've playing in years that I find myself enjoying both against the AI and against my friends (who are much better at fighting games than me). The controls are forgiving enough that button mashing can get you though the Story or Arcade mode on Normal. However, with a little time looking through the moves list, and a little practice, you can learn some cool combos and make it through on Hard pretty easily. In addition to the Story and Arcade modes they have a great mode called "Tower of Souls." Each level gets progressively harder as you work your way through it. I'm really enjoying it because it has forced me to learns some combos and vary my fighting style. Plus, you get a nice amount of gold and items as you play through the Tower of Souls.

The items and gold you win in the various game modes are used in the Character Customization. In the Customization section you can either edit current characters or make your own new one. It really helps in the Tower of Souls because you can take your favorite character and then give them better weapons and armor to make the fights easier on yourself. You can also customize your specials to fit your play style, but really the shave damage and autp impact specials are really the best ones. My customized character currently has 195% attack and 155% Hp. It makes fights go really fast as long as I land some strong attacks.

The achievements have a really nice range of difficulty. Most of them can be picked up pretty easily, but some of them require a lot of time and effort. For example, you get an achievemetn for customizing a character but also for completing the entire 60 levels in the Tower of Souls. Sure, I like easy achievements but it is nice to earn some by actually working at them for a while.

For anyone who even sort of likes fighting games I'd recomeng checking out SoulCalibur IV. It is a great fighting game to play with people who don't generally like fighting games because there are so many characters to choose from and the controls are really forgiving.

I Give Up On Supreme Commander

I tried playing it some more, but the crashing at the end of missions finally pissed me off to much. It takes too long to save and load to have to replay part of the level each time you complete a campaign mission. In addition to the freezing/crashing the camera issues have put me over the top. I'm sending it back to GameFly today. It is really to bad because the game was a lot of fun when it worked. If they patch it to fix these issues I'll rent it again, but for now I'm done with it.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review

I finished Guitar Hero: Aerosmith this weekend. I ended it like I started, annoyed. The game only has 42 songs on it including all the unlockable ones. Maybe it was just me but they did not seem to properly progress in difficulty. Some songs in the last couple tiers were very easy, but others were almost impossible for me. It seems like though have spent a little more time on putting the songs in a better order so they progressively getting more challenging.

The songs also feel very different from the Rock Band tracks I'm use to. In Rock Band the harder songs feel like the developers want them to be challenging, but still possible. In Guitar Hero: Aerosmith the harder songs feel like the developers made them trying to make it so you will fail. They do chord combinations that just don't feel natural. They have HO/PO sections that are ridiculously long and hard to complete. I really think they want me smash my guitar in anger so I have to go buy a new one and they make a little more money.

The one good thing about the game is that the achievements are easy for a Guitar Hero game. In past games you had to get all songs with 5 starts on expert to get all the achievements. In Guitar Hero: Aerosmith the hardest cheevoz are for beating Expert and playing a song prefectly on at least Medium.

Unless you are a huge Aerosmith fan and have a lot of spare cash I'd not recommend this game. If you're really wanting to play it then rent it for a weekend. You should be able to get through all the songs in a weekend if you want to. And, since all the Aerosmith songs feel the same when you play them you'll get your fill after getting through the career mode.

Iron Man Review

I decided to rent the Iron Man game for Xbox 360 since the movie was so good and the demo was pretty fun. If you tried the demo the game is more of the same. Lots of flying around and blowing up a large number of weapons and enemies. For the first couple levels it is pretty fun to blow stuff up and try different attacks, but after about 3 levels it gets old really fast. It is the same enemies and goals over and over again. Graphically the game looked pretty good and it controlled pretty well once I got use to switching between flying and hovering. Almost all of the achievements can be done playing on easy so I was played it on easy to just go through and try all the levels. I easily finished the whole game in a couple sittings. I really wish there was more I could say but if you play one level you've played them all. If you were thinking of checking out this game just play through the demo 4 or 5 times and you'll get the same experience. Sure, there are fun moments. Tearing apart tanks and grabbing planes out of the sky are fun, but after you've done it 50 or 60 times it looses its appeal. The plot line follows the movie with some levels thrown in the middle to make it a bit longer. I'm really disappointed because playing as Iron Man is fun. I just wish they had more things to do than fly through very similar levels and blow everything up.

Lego Indiana Jones Review

When I've not been playing Rock Band and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 I've been having a lot of fun with Lego Indiana Jones. If you've played the Lego Star Wars games you'll feel right at home playing as Indy. Sure, there are difference like you get a whip and no force powers, but the game feels really familiar. You're still playing as a lego guy and trying to solve pretty simple puzzles to play through each movie's main story line. I'm about 75% through the game currently, but I'm sure I'll play back through it a few times trying to unlock ever little thing. Some of the best parts of playing these lego games is that they are pretty long, they hide lots of little easter eggs throughout the game, and there are lots of things to unlock and find.

There are a few downfalls to the game. First, the load times are pretty long for a game that has pretty simple graphics. The levels are pretty big, but the load times are still longer than I expect on an Xbox 360 title. Additionally, the game doesn't always stick to the movies story line exactly. It is pretty close, but they take a few liberties. I personally did not mind this but I know a couple guys who are die hard Indy fans who did not like it. Finally, the biggest issue with the game in my opinion is that lack of co-op support over Xbox Live. The co-op on the same screen is pretty good although the camera could use some work at some points. I really don't understand the decision to not support co-op over Live when even simple XBLA titles have that kind of support.

Still, I'd recommend Lego Indiana Jones to anyone looking to play a game to just have some fun or to play with their kids. It is a lot of fun to play as Indy and play through the first 3 movies.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Review

I rented Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and have been playing for the last week when I get a chance. At first I found the speed of the game hard to get to use to but it is starting to grow on me. Since it a Quake game you move fast and as your character levels up you move even faster. The leveling is match specific so, unlike Call of Duty 4 where I came to the party late and was getting destroyed by people with guns I had not unlocked, each match starts off with a level playing field. While there is a single player campaign it is really the same as the multiplayer, but with everyone besides you being bots. The gameplay is all objective based, first person shooter, with 5 classes of characters to choose from. Each class has different strengths and special equipment. There is the standard soldier who shoots and blows stuff up. The medic who can go heal and revive people. The engineer that can put up automated turrets and mines. Field ops who can call in artillery and guided rockets. And finally, the covert ops that can disguise themselves as the enemy and sneak behind the enemy lines. Each class still has decent weapons to use for general attacking purposes but it is the unique equipment that sets them apart.

The game play style is similar to Frontlines: Fuel of War and Battlefield: Bad Company where your team tries to either defend or capture/destroy an objective. Once that objective is taken or destroyed then you move on to the next one. It leads to some great rock-paper-scissors battle strategies. For example, when attacking a point to destroy an objective I can take a tank in and try and blow the whole place to smithereens. The defending team then can use an engineer to counter this by setting up anti-vehicle turrets. In return the attacking team's field ops players can use an artillery strike to take out the turret. Or an EMP grenade can be used to disable it for 30 seconds. Or a covert ops can just sneak past them and try to destroy it from behind. As you can see pretty much every attack has a counter. In larger 8v8 rooms it makes things really fun and interesting.

The problem I had was that there is no way to see all available rooms to join. Instead you search for what game type you want (or leave it set to any) and it throws you in one. I found this frustrating because it seldom put me in a mostly full room. There is an option to fill the spots in a room with bots, but the bots on medium are pretty easy to kill and on hard they get headshots on you a lot. When I did find a room of 12 or 14 people it was fun; as most of the time as we were all trying to learn the ins and outs of that maps objectives and the nuances of each class.

I'll probably keep Enemy Territory: Quake Wars rented for a few more weeks and play some more matches to see if I can get a good feel for it but if there are not more people hosting large rooms in a week or two I'll send it back to gamefly and try something else. Still, if anyone else is playing it and hosting a large party or room feel free to send me an invite.

Turok Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I rented Turok last week and played through the campaign. I was going to check out the multiplayer as well, but i was never able to find a room with more than 3 other people in it . After a couple rounds of 2v2 I gave up on the multiplayer. I'm glad that I rented Turok for a couple reasons. First, if I had bought it I would be mad about the waste of my $60. It is not that the game is really bad, but it is not good enough to be worth buying. The game goes between some indoor and outdoor settings. The outdoor settings are all graphically very nice and tend do be fun because there are dinosaurs to lure into attacking your enemies. Apparently, dinos are like monkeys and chaise shiny objects like flares. It did not seem very probably, but it did not stop me from firing flares at my enemies so the dinos would attack them. The indoor areas all seemed to be very poorly lit and generally consisted of walking through tunnels/hallways killing everything until you reach the end.


The other reason I'm glad I rented it is because they put some really fun weapons into the game. The story line is very linear and when it is not extremely frustrating it is a lot of fun. There are points that drove me crazy because I would be forced to try them over and over. Most of these were in the middle of the game before I got the really powerful weapons, but after the stronger opponents start appearing. The flamethrower and rocket launcher were both well done and fun to use. Also, the bow and arrows were pretty fun to use once I got the hang of them.

The one weapon I found really annoying was the knife. When you approach any enemy who is not a main boss, with the knife, a right trigger indicator will pop up when they are in range letting you know you can get them with a one hit kill. I killed pretty much every dinosaur with the knife because it was easier and faster than using a gun. Very Unrealistic. Also, the knife was annoying at the parts where the developers want you to sneak through levels and get silent kills with it, but there is no cover system so the only way to hide is to crouch in tall grass or behind cover. But when you do this you cannot see anything. Then, when you stand up to look around the enemies see you anyway. I don't mind games that require you to use stealth, but when stealth is required there should be a way to achieve that action without getting spotted easily. Such as a solid cover system or active camouflage. My final annoyance with the knife occurs when you get attacked by a larger dino. If you get knocked down you then have to follow the on screen cues to use your knife to fight the dino off. Mostly this consists of hitting the tirggers repeatedly or wiggling the left thumb stick. These were always frustrating to me because it I am holding a gun when I get knocked down why don't I just shoot it instead of pulling out my knife to do some a random button pressing.

This leads to my other big frustration with the game. The final boss fight. After chasing down this guy for the whole game who is suppose to be this really great soldier instead of getting to fight him the final battle is a choreographed cut scene where you have to hit the button that comes up on screen to keep the fight going. Other than when you get knocked down by dinos this was the only time in the game like this. I found it really poorly done. I don't understand why you would end the game with a choreographed fight after letting every other fight occur naturally. It was lame.

Overall the game was alright. The graphics were good for the most part. The enemy and dino AI was fun to work with, and the sound was really well done. The voice acting was cheesy, but the sounds of where dinos/enemies were approaching from were really well done. My surround sound saved me from getting hit from behind multiple times. Most of the achievements are for multiplayer, but there are some decent ones in the campaign to get. So, if you were thinking of getting Turok I'd recommend renting it instead because it is not worth buying, but it is worth playing through once.

Universe at War: Earth Assault Review

I finally finished Universe at War: Earth Assault this weekend. The single player campaign was a lot longer than I anticipated, but it was a lot of fun. The game's graphics, especially during cut-scenes, are not that great, but they are not terrible. Since this is a real time strategy game the graphics don't have to be spectacular. They just need to make it easy to see which units are doing what, and that it does just fine. The sound gets a little irritating at times because you're units respond whenever you highlight them and they pretty much say the same thing every other time. This would not be such a big deal except the AI is iffy and aggressive at times, and needs your attention to not wonder off and attack passing troops. So, every few minutes you need to call them back if you don't want them half way across the amp chasing some enemy who moves faster than they do. These little things aside the game is a lot of fun. They really nailed the controls for playing an RTS with an Xbox 360 controller. Everything can be accessed quickly using the triggers and bumpers without highlighting specific units or buildings. This makes it nice because you can watch a fight and build more troops at the same time. Additionally, they let you move around the mini-map very quickly which makes it easy to jump between fights.

The campaign lets you play as each of the three races for quite a while to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. First, you play as Novus which is an all robotic race whose sole purpose is to protect planets from the Hierarchy. The move very quickly and while their individual attacks are not very strong, but when you get a lot of them together they are very effective. The Novus are the most traditional type of unit from the other RTS games I play where you build a base and then start training troops.

After Novus you get to play as the Hierarchy. Instead of the traditional base building the Hierarchy build giant walkers. They do have a few building they can make, but mostly you make walkers who generate troops. The walkers are essentially walking and attacking bases. There are different types of walkers who have different strengths, but all of them you can build weapons and upgrades onto. I found the Hierarchy to be a lot of fun to play as because they were so different. It was a blast to get a couple walkers built and leveled up and then walk them into an enemy base and just start leveling the place with their powerful weapons. Actually the most fun might have been the Science Walker because you can upgrade it to have mind control. Once you have that it will take over the enemy troops and make them attack each other.

The Masari are the final race. They are more traditional with building regular bases and then troops, but they can switch between light and dark modes. In each mode their units have different attacks and specials. While you can win with them by staying completely in light or dark mode it is by effectively switching between modes that they can be truly devastating. For example their planes can only fly in light mode, but in dark mode they become artillery units that have very powerful attacks. So, you can fly them quickly behind enemy lines in light mode and then switch to dark mode and pound on their base from behind in dark mode.

The achievements are mostly for multiplayer but there are a few for playing through the campaign. Plan on spending a lot of time playing multiplayer if you want to get all these achievements.

If you're a fan of RTS games I'd recommend giving Universe at War: Earth Assault a try. The controls work well for a console the three distinctly different races make for a lot of great strategies to try out.

The Bourne Conspiracy Demo Impressions

I finally got around to trying The Bourne Conspiracy demo last night. It was an utter disappointment. I'm a big fan of all three of the Bourne movies and I had high hopes for the game. I probably should have thought that through and I would have had more realistic expectations. The graphics for the game look pretty good and the sound is not bad, but the controls and the camera kill this one for me. There are three different types of levels: shooting, driving, and melee, and the demo has one of each. The driving level was actually pretty easy. It consisted of driving around until you can ditch the police following you and then drive through a tunnel to escape. However, if you drive down one of the smaller alleyways you pretty much loose all the police right away. As you approach the tunnel a button press sequence comes up that basically lets you control a cut scene as you finish the escape. This part is pretty easy as long as you're ready for it. If you're not paying attention then you can easily miss the first button causing you to have to replay from the last checkpoint.

The melee sections I found extremely frustrating because you can't control the camera and attack at the same time. So, once you finish one guy off then you may have a guy behind you that you can't see who will hit you in the back as you try to turn and find him. The fighting is pretty lame too. You have a quick hit, a heavy hit, and a block button. I don't think I ever blocked. I just went back and forth between the quick and hard hits until my adrenaline meter filled up and then I used the "take down" button to finish the guy off without any skill involved. It was a real waste. I'm not looking for all the fighting options something like Soul Caliber has, but at least 3 or 4 different attack buttons would be more realistic to a guy who is suppose to be a walking weapon.

The shooting level was even worse. When you're shooting you move slower and it is harder to aim precisely. The weapons feel really weak and take a lot of shots to kill a guy even if you're hitting them in the head. There is a cover system while you have a gun out, but it works really poorly. I pretty much never used it and would just stand behind the cover when I really needed it. Plus, they want you to take people out by blowing up barrels and card that they are hiding near. That is fun and all, but when every hiding place has an explosive barrel next to it I find it very unrealistic. For a game that is suppose to make you feel like you're in a movie the shooting sections did the opposite. I don't remember Bourne shooting barrels all over an airport to take people out. I'd think he would sneak around behind people and take the out quick and quiet.

I had been planning on playing The Bourne Conspiracy once it releases, but now I will most definitely not.

Kings of Babylon Impressions

I've been playing a new web based game. Unlike most of the online flash games I play this one actually is slow paced and rewards you for playing over time. Here is a brief synopsis of the game from their viewpoint "Kings of Babylon ("KoB"), is a team-based, empire building wargame where you will start as a peon with a single village and build your way up the ranks and to control multiple villages. All the while you'll be coordinating with other realm members to protect each other and to conquer your enemies." It reminds me a lot of Civilization but with hundreds of people playing. There are 12 Realms, or teams, in the game that work together to protect each other from the other Realms and to build their towns faster.

The game is very slow paced, but has a ton of depth and strategy that I'm really enjoying. The game keeps going while you're not there so you can start a new farm or mill building and then leave and come back to check in on the game the next day. Also, the game requires a lot of teamwork once you start to move up in the ranks and I've found at least in the Purple Realm that everyone works together to coordinate attacks and protect each other.

When you start the game you have a few resources and a very small town to build up. The best way to start is by building a farm and a market so you can make food and money. From there you train some farmers and merchants. Once you are making money and food then you can start towards other resources (iron, stone, & wood). After you're making decent bank and have some resources you can train one of the many types of soldiers. Then, take the soldiers and attack your neighbors. I'd recommend starting by attacking people in the 'Banished' Realm. These are people who no longer are actively playing so you can generally attack them and get a lot of resources without a fight. If your more aggressive you could also train a spy and use them to see what your active neighbors have. Then, if you have more troops than they do you can go and kills theirs and take their resources. Just be ready to defend yourself if their Realm decides to retaliate. Of course, your Realm will have your back as long as you're not being careless.

The game is free to play. They do offer a premium subscription, but it doesn't give you anything you can't earn without paying. It does however make build management a little easier.

If you're looking for a game where you can jump in and start fighting this is not the game for you, but if you want to slowly build a town and then an army KoB could be just what you're looking for.

If you're interested in playing Kings of Babylon join me in the Purple Realm and build your town in the South West section (it will ask when you join which you want to be in). That way I can help you get started. If you join send me a PM in game, my name is jigsawhc, and I'll send you a little "getting started" care package and answer any questions you might have.

Lost Cities Impressions

I also checked out Lost Cities today on Xbox Live Arcade. I generally don't play a lot of board and card games on XBLA. It is not that I don't like them, but there are just other types of games I prefer more. Lost Cities is pretty fun - not great, but still fun if you like this type of game.

The game is a strategy card game basically that is played with two people. You have to play your cards in a strategy that gets you more points than your opponents. There is an element of chance that effects the outcome because you draw cards from a random deck. So, if you partner just gets much better cards and has an ok strategy he could probably beat you even if you have a great strategy but get lousy cards. Fortunately the cards are randomly drawn so you'll most likely get pretty even cards. Then it is up to you to have a better strategy.

I played the trial a few times and was beating the AI pretty badly. It was actually kind of boring after about the second time. I think this game would be more fun in the multiplayer mode when you're playing against a friend and shooting the breeze.

Rock and Bullwinkle Impressions

I decided to check out Rock and Bullwinkle on Xbox Live Arcade today. What a waste of time. This game is garbage. It is designed to be a party game with a Rock and Bullwinkle theme. Basically you have a lot of little games all in a row, but the games are so ridiculously short and easy that it was annoying. Most of the mini-games you play using just a single button or thumb stick. I'd guess that somewhere around half of the mini-games that I tried I literally pushed one button and either won or lost. Most without even knowing what I just did. Going into it I did not know that it was a bunch of mini-games I thought it would be like playing through some episodes of the story in and adventure game mode. If you're looking for a party game try Rock Band or Scene It. Leave this piece of garbage alone.

Iron Man Demo Impressions

It has been a while since there was a demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace that I really cared to try. Normally games based on movies are not ones I'd bother checking out, but I'm a fan of the Iron Man comics and the new movie looks pretty good so I gave the demo a shot. Maybe it was intended to be that way sine it is a demo, but it seemed pretty easy to me. Since you pretty much auto lock-on to targets you only miss if you are to far away to get a lock. Still, I had fun flying around shooting stuff and punching things to blow them up.

The one aspect of the game that has me really intrigued is the options to upgrade your suit. The demo only gives you two upgrade options, but it looks like there will be a lot of available upgrades in the full game so you can really customer Iron Man's abilities to the situation. Additionally, you can reroute power to different parts of the suit so that if you want to fly faster or have more fire power for a while you can.

The entire demo pretty much comes down to killing everyone in the area and blowing up some weapons. I'm curious if the whole game is like that or if other levels will have different objectives. Guess I'll have to try and find some game play videos after it release and see.

This one falls into my "I'm renting this to play something that doesn't require thinking much" category, but still it was fun enough to rent at some point.

Lost: Via Domus Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I decided to play Lost: Via Domus because I'm a fan of the Lost and I thought it might give some cool back story stuff. I'm glad I only rented it because I beat the whole thing in around 4 hours without much effort. It is suppose to be a mystery style game where to try to remember your past and learn about the island but really your just walking through a story with very little mystery solving to do.

I'm pretty disappointed with the game. Besides being ridiculously short there was very little you do in the game besides walk from one area to another and talk to people. There are a few puzzles you have to solve to unlock areas, but mostly they are pretty simple. Additionally, there were only a few things you actually learn about the show. The first is that the shark that was seen during the episode where a few people try to escape the island on the raft turns out to be a mechanical shark. The other thing you find out is that the Swan Station, where Desmond was pushing the button all that time, did have a way to get behind the concrete sealed walls into the area where the electromagnetic fields come from. They show what is back there but I have no idea what it was suppose to be. It was some big metallic thing. They also show to get off the island by boat you have to temporarily disable the device so you can follow a compass setting like they told Michael and Walt to do without it interfering with the compass. Not really that big a deal.

The game leads you up to helping the others capture Jack and letting you off the island so you can prove that you did not kill your girlfriend (you have photos of the event as you;re a photographer). However, when you go to betray Jack Kate does the usual follow along and gets caught so you blow up some dynamite and help them both escape. You then run to the beach and get on the boat before the Others can stop you since you've already deactivate the electromagnetic field. As you get n the boat Locke helps cover your back and escape. He admits he doesn't want to leave the island but your path seems to be to head home. The game then cuts to the final cut scene and you're back on the beach again just like how the game starts, but this time your girlfriend comes running over to help you. What?! First off she was dead. Second, how did you go back in time and gt back to the plane crash again after escaping the island? The ending doesn't answer any of these things. It just ends with her coming over to help you up with the plane crashed in the background. This might be the worst game ending ever. I did not expect to get a lot an answers since Lost never gives any, but why not just end the game with getting on the boat?

If you're a fan of lost and have 4 or 5 hours to waste the game has a few little things you can enjoy about the back story of the show and it has really easy achievements. However, the ending sucks and some of the voice acting is not very good. Overall I'd not recommend playing this game unless you're a die hard Lost fan and a huge achievement whore.

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 Review

I've been playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 almost every day since it came out and I'm having a blast with it. I know a lot of people are calling it Rainbow Six: Vegas 1.5 in the same way that GRAW 2 was called a 1.5. However, I loved Rainbow Six: Vegas so the new additions in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 make it worth the purchase for me. First off, the biggest new addition is the ability to sprint. It took a little for me to get use to, but the sprint option is really nice for running from cover to cover and to get away from grenade throws. Now that I'm getting the hang of using sprint it has really come in handy. There are also about 10 new weapons in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. My favorite has to be the silenced sniper rifle. It is so much fun to snipe guys and not have them be able to figure out where the shot came from.

They also expanded the experience leveling from Rainbow Six: Vegas's multiplayer to all game modes in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I really like this because now I can rank up just by playing through the story on co-op with my friends. They also have a new ACES rankings that basically unlocks weapons by getting kills in ways other than the normal. Headshots, blind fire kills, and kills with explosions are just a few ways to get ACES points to unlock weapons. The new ACES rankings are fun because they pop up little indicators in the game letting you know when you got more points in one of the ACES categories. So not only can you rub in that you got a kill on your friend but you can add that he gave you some extra ACES points.

I beat the single player story on Normal and have started it on Realistic. I liked the story, it starts off giving you a little background on your character and then you play missions in Vegas that occur at the same time as the missions from Rainbow Six: Vegas. Then, you get one more mission at the end to wrap up the story. Overall, I really enjoyed the single player. There were a few sections that I found really challenging, but they were still fun and I did not mind when I died so much because even when you die you keep the experience points you earned.

The Terrorist Hunt mode is back and better then ever. I've beat every map on realistic now and there are a few that are almost impossible to get without having 4 people playing them together. However, Terrorist Hunt mode is the most fun when playing with 3 other people so I don't mind that some of the maps require a lot of team work. I'm looking forward to playing through more Terrorist Hunt levels and trying new tactics to clear the maps. One thing I noticed is that the enemy AI is a lot smarter now. If you shoot at an enemy and miss, and they take cover around a corner of a building and then you don't see then for a little but you better watch your flank because they are probably coming around behind you. The enemy AI also seems a but more aggressive. They will get in small groups and charge a doorway you're covering so that even if one or two go down the other guy will get you. As long as you're ready for a rush you can get them all but if they catch you in a reload you better have a teammate covering you.

The multiplayer is a blast again. I like the changes to Total Conquest where you now have to hold all 3 satellites to start the counter. The Attack and Defend modes are still a lot of fun, and the new Team Leader mode might be my favorite. It is a little like VIP from Rainbow Six: Vegas, but both teams have a VIP. You win by killing all of the other team or getting your VIP to an extraction point. There are unlimited respawns as long as your teams VIP is alive. If your VIP dies no more respawns. Also, getting killed by the other teams VIP knocks you out for the rest of the round. So, there are a lot of tactics and strategies to try. Do you keep the whole team together and try to get the VIP to the extraction point, or do you leave a few guys back to defend the extraction point and not have as many people protecting the VIP? Each round you can try something a little different and see if you can find the best way to take out enemy VIP without getting yours killed in the process.

I'd recommend anyone who likes shooters get Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. It has my vote for game of the year and it is only April!

TiQal Impressions

I played through the trial of TiQal last night and was not impressed. This Xbox Live Arcade title is a mix of Tetris and Luxor 2. Basically, you drop Tetris like pieces on the board and when you make a square of pieces that are the same color they form a cube and get ready to blow up. You then have a few more seconds to add to the cube to make it even larger. The larger the group of pieces the more points you get. When I started the trial I was liking it. The game play is simple and has a nice pace to it. Plus, it was fun to catch the power ups and take out big chucks at once. However, after a few levels I started to get frustrated. When you blow up a section it obscures your view of that area of the screen for a few seconds so you can't drop your next piece in that same area, but the blocks continue to come up from the bottom. Also, most of the power ups seem to take out random section of the board, but it may take out a part that you've been working on building a large chain in completely defeating what you've been working on. The game wants you to make chains and combos but makes it hard to do so and doesn't really reward you that much when you do. After playing the trial I decided not to buy the game. As much as I like puzzle games this one is just no that fun.

Battlefield: Bad Company Beta Impressions

I got in the Battlefield: Bad Company Beta on the Xbox 360. It started today and runs for a month. I spent a while playing the it this afternoon and thought I'd share my first impressions. Before getting to that though here are the basic details. "The beta has 2 maps, Oasis and Ascension. Oasis has all the available vehicles (heavy tank, light tank, armored car, attack helicopter, and artillery) to use in a flooded desert valley near a bustling city. Ascension drops players into a mountaintop village surrounding a monastery. The beta has a single game mode call Gold Rush. This game style tasks one team of defenders with holding off the attackers as they try to destroy a series of gold crates scattered throughout the map. If the attackers manage to destroy all of the crates, either by shooting them or planting charges, they win the round. For every set of crates they take, the attackers get a boost to their number of reinforcements and a new area of the map opens up to fight over."

So far I've only played matches on Oasis. The beta is having some issues right now with high loads which make for very long times searching for games to play in. I tried the option to join a quick match and waited over 10 minutes before it told me none were available. So, I then when to the custom match and basically left it to any and it found me a match in about 3 minutes. I'm hoping the full retail game doesn't have these issues and that they are specific to the beta.

There are a few other things that I've found to be annoying right off the bat. First, in the beta there is no way to get in a room with your friends. You can only join random rooms and there is no option to invite. The full retail game will have an option to invite your friends, but they did not get that into the beta. The other annoying thing is there is no way to chat with your whole team. This is less annoying since none of my friends are in the match, but it makes it hard to coordinate attacks. The in-game chat is squad based . It also seems to have a proximity based chat. However, there is no way in the beta to set who your squad mates are so you just have to hope the people on your squad actually have heat sets on and they don't have their voice setting set to friends only.

Once I was actually able to get in some matches the game is pretty fun if you ignore the fact it is virtually impossible to coordinate any kind of attack because no one is talking. However, if you can accept this and just run around on your own killing people it is pretty fun. There are tons of vehicles to use. I tried 4 or 5 different ones and the all handled pretty much like I though they would. The controls are a little different for some of the vehicles because you need to be able to shoot and accelerate, but once you take a look at how they lay it out under the Options menu it makes sense. The range of vehicles is staggering. Most of the vehicles will also allow you to take other teammates with you and have them man a gun. For the lighter vehicles like hummers having a second person is the only way to have the gun be used. For tanks the driver fires the primary gun and the rider fires the secondary guns.

In addition to all the vehicles there are a good number of weapons to use in the game as well. I find it hard to believe that anyone would not be able to find the type of weapon set they prefer. In addition to the vehicles and weapons there are also multiple types of turrets setup for the defending team to use. Sure, it a sniper gets behind you they'll pick you off the turret before you know they are there, but that is a risk well worth taking when multiple tanks are bearing down on your base.

Another option I liked that I've only seen in a few other games is that when you die you can choose to respawn at your base or with your squad mates. If you reswawn at your base you have access to any of the available vehicles, but you then may have to drive 3/4 of the way across the map to get back in the action. If you spawn with your squad you come in with one of your teammates. If they are driving a vehicle you will be put in the secondary seat so you can man a gun for them, but if they are on the ground walking you'll join in right beside them. Spawning with your squad gets you right in the action, but you don't have your own vehicle. The one thing I'm hoping they have that I just could not figure out was to be able to choose which squad mate to spawn with. It seems like something they would have an option for, but I could not figure out how to switch which squad mate I would spawn with. However, since I did not know anyone in the games it did not really matter. It would have been more annoying if my friends were playing and I could not spawn with them.

I'm planning to spend some more time with the Battlefield: Bad Company beta over the next month, but I'm torn between it and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. If I come across anything else noteworthy about the beta I'll post and let everyone know.

Army of Two Review

I spent the last week playing Army of Two. It is a pretty short game. I played the full campaign mode, which is only 6 missions, in about 5 or 6 hours on the normal difficulty. The main story of the game takes you from training to be an Army Ranger to being a paid mercenary. Even though it was pretty short the main story line is a lot of fun. The game is designed to be played with a partner in co-op mode, but the times I was playing I had trouble connecting with other co-op players so I played through the game using the AI as my teammate. The game gives you a nice set of options for controlling how your teammate acts. By the end of the first mission I was getting pretty good at using my teammate to draw fire or sneak around behind while I distract the enemies. The game would have been more fun playing it with another person, but I still had fun playing it alone. The co-op related things they built into the game work pretty well. When you get shot to much you go down to the ground and your partner has to drag you to cover and heal you while you provide them with covering fire. Also, you can co-op snipe and boost each other up to higher levels as a human step ladder.

The cover system is pretty nice. If you crouch behind cover you automatically use it and lean out when you shoot without having to hit any buttons to enter/exit cover. The controls were well tuned and the options to dive and roll into cover help keep you from getting shot quite a bit. Also, the range of weapons and upgrades for them was pretty nice as well. Once I found a gun I liked I could upgrade it to make it more accurate and do more damage.

As you progress through the game you make money for completing objective that you use to buy these new weapons and upgrade your existing ones. The developers clearly expect you to play through the campaign multiple times because you don't get nearly enough money to buy all the weapons and armor with one play through. Also, you can't play the hardest difficulty of the game without playing through it once on normal. Personally, I found this really annoying. I don't want to have to play through the game more than once to get all the cool weapons and armor. Plus, if I want to play of the hardest difficulty the first time through why shouldn't I be able it. To make it worse you can't skip any of the cut scenes. Even it you've alreayd played through that level once you still have to sit through the entire cut scene which could be up to 5 minutes in some cases.

While the actual game play was pretty fun there were some really annoying aspects. The load times were ridiculously long. At the start of each mission you're waiting a minute for it to load. Then, any time you go to buy new weapon that menu system takes a minute to load up. Once you're in the weapon's menu each of the sub-categories takes another 30 or 40 seconds to load up. It was pretty frustrating to have to wait to load up the weapons purchasing menu and then wait again once you pick the category of weapon. It is not a one time thing either. Once you're in the weapons menu each sub-category you go into takes time to load. Even if you were just in that sub-menu and switched to another one.

My other big complaint about Army of Two is that there is a lot of swearing in it. A lot of M rated shooters have some swearing as part of the dialog, but Army of Two has more than any other game I can remember playing. Not only is there some swearing being done by the main characters, but the enemies throughout the campaign swear a lot. Not just as part of the main story line of the game, but even the endless henchmen who are through the levels will swear like a drunken sailor. I ended up turning the volume really low and turning on subtitles because it was so bad. It would have been nice to be to turn off at least the swearing being done by the enemy AI.

I did not play a lot of the multiplayer because it took over 5 minutes to find a match. I chose for it to find me a quick match so it would put me in any game with an open spot. After 5 minutes it found me one. I can't imagine how long it would have taken if I had tried to pick a specific game type. A played a few games of multiplayer and each time it took 4 or 5 minutes to find a game. Once I finally got into a game the multiplayer was pretty fun. It is 2v2 multiplayer where you and a partner try to get the objectives on the map before the other team can. To make things interesting there are also a lot of AI controlled enemies on the map that shoot at both your team and the enemy team. You can kill the enemy team - forcing them to respawn and giving you a little time to get the next objective while they are dead, but if you only get one of the enemy teammates the other can run over and revive them. So, the multiplayer requires good team work to play effectively.

You can get about half of the achievements playing through the game once on the normal difficulty setting but the rest are going to take at least a few games of multiplayer and a complete second play through on the hardest difficulty.

For anyone looking for a shooter to rent for a week or two I'd recommend Army of Two. The game is too short to be worth buying, but it was fun to play and then return once I finished it.

Hash House Impressions

As I mentioned my in-laws were in town last week so we went down to downtown San Diego one afternoon. We ended up having lunch at this pace called Hash House. For those of you in the area it is just off 163 on 5th street. Normally I would not bother posing about a restaurant, but this place was so good. I got the pork tenderloin sandwich and it was magnificent. I've had a lot of good tenderloin sandwich through the years since I was raised in the mid-west and about ever fair and carnival has a tenderloin sandwich stand somewhere. Plus, I've been to the Tipton Pork Festival more times than I can remember. The sandwich I got a the Hash House put them all to shame. I'm considering driving the 30 to 40 minutes down to get one later this week. My father-in-law got the ribs. He is a big ribs fan and he said they were great. My wife got a stuffed hamburger. This thing was huge. Two patties with mashed potatoes in the middle. I thought it sounded odd when she ordered i but when it came out it looked great. She really enjoyed it. Plus, it was huge. She literally could only eat half of it. If you're in the San Diego areas swing by the Hash House. It is well worth it.

Commanders: Attack of the Genos Review

I've been playing a lot of Commanders: Attack of the Genos. Commanders is a turn based strategy game on Xbox Live Arcade. There are 15 levels to the basic campaign, another 15 levels of the advanced campaign, a battle mode, and online multiplayer. So far I've played a few battles and finished the basic campaign. The levels generally take between 60 and 90 minutes to complete for the standard campaign. And that is with the animations set to fast. It is not really a slow paced game though. You just have a lot to do each time it is your turn. You have to move, attack, build, and repair. The later in the level you are the more units you probably have making the turn take longer as you coordinate your attacks with all your units. In addition to your standard units like tanks, scouts, and artillery there are commander units. The commander unites have both a passive and active special ability. The passive abilities effect all the other units on the screen that are close the the commander. They do things like restore health and add more defense. The active specials abilities do things like rain missiles on all the enemy units. Personally I like the commander that has the passive ability the lets your artillery shoot one square further and the active ability to restore your action points. That way my artillery can shoot further than the enemies (so I can hit them but they can't hit me). The active abilities take a few turns to charge up so use them wisely. The commanders add a nice level of strategy to the game. Without them it would be a simple rock/paper/scissors battle but with the commanders it adds a great level of complexity to the strategies available.

If you like strategy games Commanders is a pretty good one and with a lot of hours of game play it is well worth the $10 price tag.