Wolfenstein-Xbox 360 Video Game Review

Title: Wolfenstein

Release Date: August 17, 2009

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Rating: M for Mature

Platform: XBox 360

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Raven Software and id Software

Website

Product Link

It’s hard to believe that the Wolfenstein series has been going on for so long – since 1981, according to Wikipedia, with its first FPS game, Wolfenstein 3D, being released in 1992. Now the latest chapter in the Nazi-killing saga, Wolfenstein, is out on the XBox 360. However, while Wolfenstein is a decent game, a bit of repetitiveness goes a long way in keeping the game from perfection.

In the game, you take on the role of secret agent B.J. Blazkowicz. After discovering a mystical medallion during a mission, B.J. is sent undercover to investigate a dig site near the town of Isenstadt, where the Nazis are mining crystals that power the medallion. The dig site turns out to be more than a hunt for some pretty gems, however – the Nazis are attempting to access a mystical parallel dimension, called the Black Sun, in an attempt to harness its supernatural power in their scheme for world domination. Hooking up with the Kreisau Circle (a rebel group) and The Golden Dawn (a mystical order), B.J. sets out to foil the Nazi plot.

Given that this is a first-person shooter, it won’t be too surprising to anyone that you get a lot of guns to shoot around in Wolfenstein. Most of them are real-life World War II weapons, but a few fictional weapons, like the Tesla Gun (a lightning gun) and a particle cannon (which looks and sounds like it would be more at home in Ghostbusters than a World War II game) help bring some sci-fi shooting action into the game. In addition, you can use that medallion I mentioned earlier to help you out, employing powers such as a mystical shield and the ability to slow down time. All of these things can be upgraded with money found throughout the game.

There’s no doubt that Wolfenstein is quite a fun game. The campaign mode is nicely done, providing a fair variety of enemies to face off against. The levels are also very well-created, with both the normal areas (a European city) and the outlandish ones (the alternate dimension) feeling very real somehow. The online multiplayer mode provides even more fun, and playing death matches and objective missions never seems to get old, though the class-based system is somewhat restrictive.

The major flaw of the game, however, is that things tend to get somewhat repetitive in single-player mode. To borrow a line from Aldo Raine, Brad Pitt’s character in Inglourious Basterds, for the most part, you do one thing and one thing only: killing Nazis. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a lot of fun, but when that’s pretty much all you do, it gets a bit dull after a while. And while there are several different types of enemies to kill, they just don’t have enough variety to keep you fully interested the whole way through. The multiplayer mode helps make up for this, though.

Ultimately, Wolfenstein isn’t a perfect game, or even a great one, but it’s a solid one that deserves a look from fans of the series and FPS fans in general.

Overall Rating:

Christopher Mastey-Muzikreviews.com Video Game Reviewer

October 31, 2009

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Gran Turismo-Sony PSP Video Game Review

Title: Gran Turismo
Release Date: October 1, 2009
Genre: Racing
Rating: E for Everyone
Platform: Sony PlayStation Portable
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: PolyPhony Digital

Product Link
Website

In 1997 Sony released one of the greatest simulation games ever, Gran Turismo for the original PlayStation. Over a decade and three console generations and multiple sequels later, this series is on the verge of releasing its 5^th edition for the PS3 tentatively on March 31^st, 2010. To keep their fans from rioting over the multiple delays that edition has encountered, Sony has released a stripped down version for the PSP simply titled Gran Turismo.

Upon starting it up, I cannot help but notice the extremely long load times and this is just to load up the menus. Next I am instructed to try out the challenge mode to learn the ins and outs of racing. After running a few of these challenges I realize they are nothing more then the old license tests from previous versions, however under a different name. In comparison, the challenges are marginally easier. I received bronze medals on most of them, which is a vast improvement over being unable to finish some of the license tests.

After completing a few levels of these challenges, I decided to begin the career mode, since I had a good grasp on how the game works. After waiting through even more extremely long load times, I got back to the main menu and discovered that this game has no career mode. That’s right, the simulation series that is synonymous with sucking months of your life away while you traverse through the extensive career mode, has removed that aspect from its portable version. What a huge letdown.

The game play is very good for a PSP game. The cars all behave a little differently depending on their performance level and their drive-train type. Controls are decent, using the direction-pad to steer made the cars handle tightly whereas using the analog made them feel loose. Graphically speaking, the game shows room for improvement. Environments and static objects look good but the cars almost look like they are made out of cardboard with car features painted onto it. The sound effects do their job, they blend into the background, not standing out or causing headaches.

Challenge mode is quite fun. The first round teaches you how to judge stopping distances in different types of cars. Then the next few rungs are time trials over a predetermined set of tracks that takes you through a few different types of corners, usually asking the player to find the best route. The advanced levels want you to pass opponents while driving similar sections of tracks, eventually working your way up to the best cars on one full lap.

Three total game modes are included, the above mentioned challenge mode, single player and ad-hoc mode. The single player mode consists of choosing a car, track and race type, race types are either a circuit race or a drift race. Ad-hoc mode is basically the same as single player mode except you ran race against people who are close enough to you for your systems to communicate. You can also trade cars through ad-hoc mode.

Challenge mode is where the load times really start to affect the gameplay. If there were a career mode and load times were the same, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with them since you would be racing for longer periods of time. When doing the challenges, the average one takes you less then 30 seconds to complete whereas the load times range from 50-60 seconds. This puts your ratio of game time to load time at about 1:2. If you there were a career mode and tracks took a couple minutes to complete one lap this ratio could easily be in the 10:1 range, which still isn’t good but is acceptable for a game of this caliber.

After completing challenges you are awarded credits based on its difficulty and your performance. These credits can be used to purchase cars from the dealership menu. With over 800 cars from nearly 80 manufacturers, you are only allowed to buy from 4 different manufacturers per “day.” I’m not even sure how this game determines a “day.” I completed over 70 of the challenges and a couple single player races and was only on day 18. Then I did one time trial and I was up to day 19. On any given day, depending on the available dealers, you only have about 20-30 cars available to purchase.

This version of Gran Turismo is only available for the PlayStation Portable. The actual racing element is probably the best this system has to offer and lives up to the great simulation that Gran Turismo games have portrayed for years. As for the rest of the game, it falls well short of expectations. The game is only really playable for about 10 hours, the time it takes you to complete the Challenge Mode. Unless you only own a PSP and are craving a simulation racing game, pass-over this title. There are a ton of better simulation racers available for the other consoles.

Overall Rating:

The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Review Staff Team Leader

10/24/2009

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For questions or comments on this review send an e-mail to rsmith@muzikreviews.com

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger-XBox Video Game Review

Title: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Release Date: July 2, 2009 Genre: 2D Fighter Rating: T for Teen Platform: XBox 360 Publisher: Aksys Games Developer: Arc System Works Website Product Link Two-dimensional fighting games are one genre that I’m glad has survived the upgrades in video game technology. Excellent games like Guilty Gear XX and Street Fighter IV have proven that these fighters can hold their own against 3D fighters like the Tekken and Soul Calibur series. Now, the developers behind Guilty Gear XX have made another 2D fighter, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, and while there are a couple of problems with the game, overall it is a solid entry in the 2D fighting genre. To be honest, I couldn’t make much sense of the overarching plot of this game by playing it, but then again, fighting games are rarely dependent on plot to be enjoyable. According to Aksys Games’ website, however, BlazBlue’s plot takes place in the future, in the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi. The story revolves around Ragna the Bloodedge, a vaguely Inuyasha-looking character who is rebelling against The Librarium, an organization that regulates the use of Armagus (fusions of technology and magic). Ragna, who already has a huge bounty on his head, has gotten his hands on some powerful piece of Armagus called the Azure Grimoire, making him target number one for just about everybody in the city. BlazBlue’s engine is very similar to Guilty Gear XX’s, so anyone familiar with that title should have very little trouble jumping right in. The action in this game is pretty straightforward – you’ve got the usual arsenal of special moves for each character, though there are some characters whose move lists seem too short for my tastes. In addition, you have a power gauge that regulates when you can use your super moves. You have a choice of 12 characters, which is sort of a disappointment after the large number seen in Guilty Gear XX, but there’s such an amazing diversity of fighting styles among the fighters, from speed demon to strategic combat that there’s still something for just about everyone here. This game is also XBox Live compatible, giving you a nice pool of opponents to fight against online. Be warned, though – if you’re new to the game, prepare to get thrashed your first few times out, because the competition online is ridiculously good. Learn from them, though – even if you lose, you’ll get a good idea of what your favorite character is capable of. While BlazBlue is a solid game, it’s not a perfect one. As I mentioned before, there aren’t as many characters as fighting game fans might be expecting, and as a result the game suffers from a comparative lack of depth, though the online competition keeps this from becoming too major a problem. Depth issues aside, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a solid fighting game and a welcome addition to any fighting game fan’s game library. Overall Rating: Christopher Mastey-Muzikreviews.com Video Game Reviewer October 23, 2009 © MuzikReviews.com

Batman: Arkham Asylum-Xbox 360 Video Game Review

Title: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Release: August 25, 2009
Genre: Action-Adventure
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: T (Teen)
Product Link
Website

Batman has had it pretty good these past few years. The stigma of the films Batman Forever and Batman and Robin washed away with the release of the expertly crafted reboot of the series with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Now, Rocksteady Studios has the opportunity to reboot Batman on the video game front. The results are shockingly one-sided for the DC hero who has appeared in nothing but gaming garbage for years.

Graphically, Arkham Asylum is a work horse that never sleeps. The game is rendered by the Unreal engine as well as a handful of other recognizable studios who are masters in their field. The animations are mesmerizing when fighting large groups of enemies. Batman links combos together fluidly as well as convincingly and sometimes leaves you asking yourself just how you incapacitated a room full of goons. As the game progresses, little details start to pop up such as the wear and damage of Batman’s suit and the graffiti scrawled across the landscape. The game also features The Riddler’s puzzles which is Arkham Asylum’s form of collectables. Not only is this a particularly clever way to tie in collectables but also a fantastic way to enhance the engrossing details which flood every inch of stage design. Little things like defaced statues and dead bodies posed by killers add a believable element of menace not done as effectively since Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Every single character in the game has gone through a re-imaging phase that pays off quickly. Villains such as The Scarecrow, Bane and Killer Croc have never looked better in comics or films.

The music is reminiscent of the newer Batman films as well as the animated TV show from the nineties.

Overall the score is subtle but during fight sequences it becomes outstandingly pronounced and links itself to the context of the fight whether you are taking enemies down stealthily or bashing in their ribs. The voice acting is exemplary in finding the right mix of smart dialogue and top talent. Mark Hamill reprises his role as the Joker and gives the clown prince of crime a definitive voice that taunts you throughout the game. The presentation as a whole is beyond expectations based on previous Batman video games. Arkham Asylum is to games what The Dark Knight is to films; a top tier artistic feat that represents the legendary Batman experience.

Arkham Asylum is an adventure game first and foremost, but fighting is never implemented as an afterthought. Fighting seems simple enough at first with a punch button, counter button and a “cape” button that dizzies some henchmen. In small groups, fighting is jamming on the attack button while occasionally hitting the counter button when a thug attacks—these attacks are indicated by blue lights flashing above an enemies’ head. The fight mechanics become incredibly deep as the enemy units become varied and armed. Eventually you will be able to fight off hordes of enemies by carefully watching for opportunities and correctly reading situations. Some instances will ask you to take down henchmen without being seen which requires extra planning and even quicker reflexes. Whether you jump in and clobber every enemy in the room or stealthily hang everyone by their feet one by one, combat always feels rewarding. After completing the single player campaign, you can test what you have learned in the challenge mode which has you beating up dozens of henchmen or eliminating them in the fastest time; all results are posted on the online leaderboard.

As an adventure title, the need for backtracking is inevitable. Locations evolve as the game progresses so even areas that you have been before are not exactly the way you left them. This gives the asylum that creepy “lived in” quality that will make you feel like you are being watched. More often than not you will have to back track and end up finding new enemies occupying old stages which can be confusing when trying to find out where you are supposed to be going. There are some moments when the next objective is not entirely clear, but these moments are few.

The Developers made every effort to create a game that not only fans would enjoy, but if you are a fan of the Batman universe you will adore Arkham Asylum. Rocksteady dug deep when selecting the villain roster and even if you don’t do battle with you favorite villain you can expect a cameo in some form or another; not one of these cameos is done poorly or mishandled. Batman: Arkham Asylum could launch Rocksteady into the elite category of developers today and is a surprising candidate for game of the year.

Overall Rating:

M. Michael Chwedyk-MuzikReviews.com Sr. Video Game Reviewer

October 22, 2009

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For Questions or Comments on This Review email me mchwedyk@muzikreviews.com

Dirt 2-Xbox 360 Video Game Review

Title: Dirt 2 Release Date: September 8, 2009 Genre: Racing Rating: T for Teen Platform: Xbox 360 Publisher: Warner Home Video Games Developer: Codemasters Website Product Link Fall of 2009 is a wonderful time for fans of the racing genre. At least four major racing games are being released for multiple consoles; Dirt 2, Need For Speed: Shift, Gran Turismo for PSP and Forza Motorsports 3. You could probably even throw Indianapolis 500 Evolution in there, though I don’t plan on reviewing that one. The first of this series of releases is Dirt 2, an off-road simulation racer and the sequel to the very popular Dirt, which was released in June of 2007. Dirt 2’s career mode is set up inside of a camper. You walk inside and look around to view different things you can do. A map lying on the table has different locations plotted out, each of which offers a number of races. There are about 10 different locations with a few courses at each. The vehicle collection is pretty big, with multiple categories and car selections inside that category. One thing that bothered me about career mode is your inability to skip the videos. Especially right when you first start the game, you have to set through a few minute long video that just shows cars driving around tracks, nothing you absolutely have to see are shown here, but you still cannot skip it.  Then there are short videos between races that just show and scan the area around your camper, as if you were standing and looking around. These also cannot be skipped. Dirt 2 is visually beautiful. The front end presentation is very good. The music is a fitting blend of contemporary. The cars are rendered nearly identical to their real life counterparts and environments are vast and breath-taking. There were a couple times when I was playing and the visuals would get very trippy on me. What happened is a lot of background surfaces, such as building walls, mountains and rocks, will all switch to the same advertisement graphic. It’s kind of hard to describe, but just imagine every surface in your house, besides the floor and ceiling, with a two foot by two foot Taco Bell logo covering them, it was very distracting. The controls are polished and tight, power-sliding around corners on gravel tracks feels exhilarating. The difficulty is interesting; there are multiple levels of difficulty that can be changed in between races.  This is quite fitting since I’ve found that the different vehicle categories often take different difficulty levels to be competitive. I also encountered a couple instances when the game would freeze up while loading, I only had this a few times though, so it’s something you have to worry about constantly happening, like in Madden 10. Tracks are mostly made of dirt and loose gravel and weave through hilly environments in between trees and rocks. There is a pretty cool effect where you will be able to see tire treads in the loose gravel.  Even though this is cool looking, the vehicles do not behave as if it were that absorbent. It looks like kitty-liter but your car handles as if it were a tightly packed dirt road. The track’s boundaries are often guardrails, plastic orange fencing and bails of hay. This is where the game really takes a dip in realism. I find it extremely hard to believe that a two-high stack of hay bails can stop a truck traveling at 75 mph as if it were made out of cardboard. This game has an awesome characteristic that all racing games should adapt, Flashbacks. Flashbacks are the ability to rewind a certain amount of time so you can retry an area you performed poorly on. No longer will you have to restart a long race just because you got distracted by something when entering the final corner. Their only problem comes when doing rally races, your co-pilot doesn’t rewind with everything else so you will have to rely on your memory for the last few corners you rewound through. Dirt 2 is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. This is a pretty good off-road racer. It’s a nice combination of simulation and arcade that would be easy for a newbie or an experienced racer to pick up and play.  It’s great as a rental, but you should wait for the price to go do down to around $40 before making the purchase. Overall Rating: The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Review Staff Team Leader October 26, 2009 ©MuzikReviews.com For questions or comments on this review send an e-mail to rsmith@muzikreviews.com

Blizzard-Kings of PC Gaming

I’ve always been a pretty big PC gamer. One company that has produced consistent quality games, in my opinion, is Blizzard. I seem to blow countless hours with a mouse and keyboard in my hands and my eyes fixated on one of their masterpieces. From their small collection of available games, to their wonderful online service and their three franchise games, everything they develop leaves me in awe over what they could possibly do next to impress me.

Blizzard’s outstanding gameplay can be attributed most notably to their small selection of available games. Most companies publish game after game and hope that maybe just one of them will achieve great success. Not Blizzard, they have 3 main series, both developed and published internally, all of which can be considered massively successful. I think this all comes down to their devotion to quality. Instead of putting out a so-so gaming experience, they’ll scrap the idea entirely. Case-in-point: Back in 2001, Blizzard wanted to build off the success of the Starcraft license and announced an action/shooter game for Xbox/PS2 generation called Starcraft: Ghost. After an entire console generation of delays, Blizzard decided to put this game on indefinite hold. In other words, instead of releasing a mediocre game, that would only hurt their reputation with hardcore fans, they decided to trash the idea and move on. An action more companies should adopt.

Another reason Blizzard has enjoyed great PC game success has to do with their online service: Battle.Net or b.net. The inclusion of free online multiplayer is something that turns an average game into a good game and a great game into a legendary one. Blizzard’s games need no assistance achieving legendary status, but this inclusion does expand upon the replay-ability. Not only is b.net a wonderful option but the servers are relatively reliable and offer minimal lag or latency issues. This is due to their devotion to quality. At leaset in the case of World of Warcraft, every Tuesday morning the servers are shutdown for repairs and routine maintenance. Even though these weekly downtimes sometimes last 6-8 hours, I’ll gladly take that as opposed to having a couple days worth of downtime if a catastrophic hardware failure happens, one that could be prevented by a few hours of weekly repairs.

This brings me to the games, three award-winning series head Blizzard’s lineup: Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans began the Warcraft series as a real-time strategy title and spawned two sequels: Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness and Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos as well as an expansion for each: Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Each one of these games saw great success building off the legacy paved by the previous. World of Warcraft (WoW) came along and turned the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) market upside-down. WoW has since become the most popular MMORPG with over 11.5 million subscribers worldwide. With two active expansions: WoW: The Burning Crusade and WoW: The Wrath of the Lich King and a third: WoW: Cataclysm which is still in production, Blizzard has insured they will continue to tighten their grasp on this very popular genre.

Diablo burst onto the scene in late 1996, winning GameSpot’s Game of the Year award. This action / hack & slash / role playing game is so widely praised for it’s replay-ability because of it’s multiple class selections and randomly generated environments. Even some quests only appear in the game half the time, ensuring no two games are exactly alike. Diablo 2 was released 4 years later, more class options were included but with fewer randomization options. Environments still change from game to game but the available quests are always the same. This however does not hinder its popularity. To this day gamers fill Diablo 2’s servers in pursuit of that next great piece of loot. Going back now, you can easily notice a lot of similarities between this and WoW, from the interface to the spells and class selections. Each of these Diablo games also spawned an expansion, Hellfire and Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. Now a third edition to the Diablo universe is in the making. Not very much is known about Diablo 3 but one thing remains certain, I will own it.

The final, and my favorite, Blizzard series is Starcraft. Essentially a spin-off of Warcraft, Starcraft is a real-time strategy game set in space and chronicles the three-way battle between the Tarren, a human race composed of heavy artillery and tactical warfare, the Zerg, a primitive band of animal like beings who use their own god-given abilities to grow and fight, and the Protoss, who are a highly technical and sophisticated race that used energetic and magical attacks. Starcraft is a game that’s easy to play but difficult to master. What made it unique was all the user created maps and missions that were shared online. My favorites were in the “Use Map Settings” category. They included the Tower Defense maps, which spawned a new video game genre and thousands of web-games, and the Evolves ones, which pitted 4-6 players armies against each other and after a predetermined amount of kills, the newly spawned soldiers from your endless supply would evolve into a stronger unit. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty is being developed right now and plans are for it to be released as a main game and two subsequent expansions. Each game will chronicle the storyline of one race, starting with Tarren, then Zerg and finally Protoss.

Recently Blizzard merged with Activision, so my fingers are crossed hoping that these series do not drop in quality. Activision has released some great games in the past but they’ve also been known to stick with things for far too long, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series is one good example of them beating a dead horse. Nevertheless each of these three Blizzard series would easily appear in my All-Time Top 10 Games list.

The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Sr. Review Staff

October 22, 2009

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For questions or comments on this article send an email to rsmith@muzikreviews.com

Halo 3: ODST-Xbox 360 Video Game Review

Title: Halo 3: ODST

Release: September 22, 2009

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Developer: Bungie Software

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studio

Platform: Xbox 360

Rating: M (Mature)

Product Link

Website

Ladies and gentlemen, Halo 3 mania has officially been milked to death. Halo 3: ODST will be the last Bungie-developed Halo game released until Halo: Reach drops sometime in 2010 so Microsoft has issued what was originally a small downloadable expansion pack as a premier sixty dollar title. This has outraged more than a few gamers and many will have to ask themselves—is the ODST package worth the full game price tag?

For starters, Master Chief is no where to be found. ODST concentrates exclusively on the events involving the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers whose stories parallel that of the events in the original Halo 3. The story is presented in an unorthodox approach that is different although not terribly interesting. You play as several different troopers whose individual story arcs begin to mesh together as the game progresses. “The Rookie” character is the silent type that acts as the framer of everyone else’s stories. His campaign involves traveling through an over-world which is present day New Mombasa, a post-invasion site riddled with destruction. As he travels from beacon to beacon, he stumbles upon items used by the other troopers which initiate the other characters’ game sequences. This works fine except for the fact that every other trooper is bland without any emotional connection to the player. Most people will forget the other troopers’ names by the end of the six hour campaign.

The graphics are identical to the original Halo 3 which is an uneven presentation of rendering prowess. The architectural structures are blocky and repetitive while human faces are unpleasant and unnatural. The Halo games seem to all share an overly eccentric, cartoon-like set of animations during cut scenes which have not aged well. Every character benefits from having a helmet on because revealing the faces will often remind you of how dated these graphics have become. Virtually everything else looks stunning especially the large scale explosions and enemy renderings. The new night vision sensor offers a sharp looking new effect that outlines enemies in red, items in blue and story items in yellow. This effect is not only eye catching but also invaluable in fighting large groups of Covenant forces at night.

The sound design is an overwhelming triumph of immersion and talent. The iconic Halo score is replaced by a somber jazz orchestral that complements the stealthy atmosphere and transitions players into a distinct world slightly removed from the original Halo series. Unfortunately, the music is the only feature that successfully conveys ODST as a full fledged game with its own unique feel.

Bungie has made it clear that the protagonists in ODST are human soldiers who are not super-powered cyborgs like Master Chief. The changes to the gameplay are subtle. You are no longer able to duel wield firearms while the shields are noticeably weaker than previous games. Since you are supposedly trained for stealth missions, you are granted a silenced pistol and a silenced machine gun, both function adequately until the beefier enemies arrive. ODST also introduces a new multiplayer mode called “firefight.” The new mode is similar to the “Horde” mode from Gears of War 2 which pits a group of players against waves of computer controlled enemies. In ODST, each wave becomes progressively more hostile and difficult to eradicate while certain battle conditions are altered to make victory even more elusive such as double health for enemies. The new mode is quickly becoming a staple of shooter multiplayer modes across the gaming industry. Although not a new idea, “Firefight” is an enjoyable experience with friends and is easily the most welcomed new feature in all of ODST. Just keep in mind that there is no online match-making service for “Firefight.” You can only invite people from your friends list.

Other than these little changes, the new night vision sensor and the “Firefight” mode, gameplay is almost identical to the Halo trilogy which is not a horrible fate by any means, it’s just a tad disappointing. Early screens and presentations of ODST at E3 2009 and other shows suggested an emphasis on stealthy maneuvers and squad tactics in order to take down the covenant. Instead, we are given what is essentially a glorified expansion pack that effectively expands the duration of Halo 3. The idea of stealth, although hinted at here and there, is never fully realized. People expecting a novel and fresh gameplay experience will be left feeling cheated by the single player campaign. ODST does come packaged with the complete Halo 3 multiplayer which includes every map pack released so far. This is a welcome sight for late adopters of the Halo franchise, but how many of these adopters can there be? The core audience for ODST will have most likely coughed up the money for these map packs already when they were released over the last few years. The multiplayer is certainly appreciated, but acts more like padding for a package that should not have been released for sixty dollars. For that amount, the game should have also included the complete soundtrack and maybe an art book.

If you are a fan of the Halo universe and know a few friends who will help you complete the firefight mode, then you probably already own Halo 3: ODST. But if you were one of the very few gamers that didn’t care for the Halo games or first-person shooters in general, ODST will not change your mind about the venerable franchise.

Overall Rating:

M. Michael Chwedyk-MuzikReviews.com Sr. Video Game Reviewer

October 10, 2009

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For Questions or Comments on This Review email me mchwedyk@muzikreviews.com

Scribblenauts-Nintendo DS Video Game Review

Title: Scribblenauts

Release: September 15, 2009

Genre: Puzzle

Developer: 5^th Cell

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Platform: DS

Rating: E (Everyone)

Product Link

Crushed under the weight of the triple “A” efforts and the blockbuster franchises was nestled a pebble of a game at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Scribblenauts became the little game with the grand vision; a puzzle game that allowed players to summon objects into the game world simply by scribbling its name with your DS stylus. Most attendees proclaimed Scribblenauts the best handheld game of E3 back in June of 2009. Today, the game is finally available to the masses and the proclamations seem to have turned into coughs and whispers.

You are Maxwell, the titular scribblenaut who has just graduated from the academy and must begin to…scribble stuff. The story is unclear, but the imaginative concept is served well by its upbeat presentation.The graphics help illustrate an abstract paper doll aesthetic. Any object written on screen will spring to life instantly in a strange toy version that can be interacted with depending on the context and functionality of what is written. The backgrounds are colorful while properly framing the chaos that comes with being able to summon just about any noun imaginable. The music sounds like a cross between Little Big Planet’s soundtrack and Sesame Street songs. The funky, light-hearted beats continue throughout the game’s two-hundred plus levels.

Scribblenauts presents ten worlds each filled with two sets of levels. These levels are broken into puzzle levels and action levels. Puzzle levels require the completion of a hidden objective that is only hinted at by what objects are shown on screen and a brief message at the beginning of each level. Completing the puzzle will grant you the “starite”, the one object that will officially end the level. Action levels challenge you to retrieve the “starite” through any means necessary and provide fuel for some of the crazier abominations you will find yourself creating in the game. All levels are timed and have a set par for how many objects are necessary to use in order to complete your mission. Beating a level will win you “ollars”, the game’s currency while beating a level with style, few objects and a quick time will award you bonus “ollars” which are used to buy your next world filled with new levels.

The game’s inventive and unique gameplay does begin to get repetitive after you have completed the first world; the novelty wears away revealing a typical puzzle game that suffers from more than a few mechanical issues. First of all, navigating Maxwell feels clumsy no matter how many hours you have logged playing. Movement is performed by touching the screen where you want Maxwell to go. He automatically jumps when directed near a cliff which often leads to inadvertent death plunges. Whenever he is holding an object in his hands Maxwell may end up tossing it across the stage instead of carrying it which also leads to death and frustration. Nothing in the game ever reacts smoothly one-hundred percent of the time. Weird anomalies will occur every so often that will make you second guess yourself when reusing proven methods of success.

Secondly, who decides what solutions have style? How can one solution have more style than another? What if you discover a solution that has so much style that the developers didn’t take it into account? It seems like a vague area that should not have been cemented into the overall gameplay structure. Other aspects like the timer and par system successfully spoil the spirit of what a game like Scribblenauts strives to embody. Scribblenauts is supposed to be about finding your own path to success, not being arbitrarily judged on criteria that cannot in any way be accurately measured.

Scribblenauts is an interesting take on the puzzle genre; so innovative and fresh that it probably should have been tested longer and refined to the point where it works one-hundred percent of the time. The game is a fun rent and anyone bored with conventional puzzlers should spend some quality time with Maxwell. And maybe after a few more iterations, Scribblenauts will become that amazing game from E3 2009.

Overall Rating:

M. Michael Chwedyk-MuzikReviews.com Sr. Video Game Reviewer

September 27, 2009

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For Questions or Comments on This Review email me mchwedyk@muzikreviews.com

Saint-Wii Video Game Review

Title: Saint

Release Date: July 22, 2009

Genre: Shooter

Rating: E10+ for Everyone 10+

Platform: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: UFO Interactive

Developer: Starfish

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Oh, Nintendo – why do you allow games like this on the Wii?

Remember when you first heard about the Wii? If you’re like me, the thought of that level of interactivity in a video game system was exciting, even if the system’s name made you chortle a bit. Even if the finished product ended up being a bit disappointing, it was still a nice step up in interactivity that had a lot of potential.

So can someone explain to me why the heck games like Saint are being released for this system? Saint might have passed muster were it released 15 years ago, but as a Wii release, it’s a complete waste of time and money for anyone unlucky enough to play it.

Saint is supposedly a retelling of the tale of the Monkey King in Chinese folklore. You take control of Songoku, the aforementioned Monkey King (and yes, that’s the name of Dragon Ball’s protagonist too; Dragon Ball was based off the same tale, according to Wikipedia). The game itself really doesn’t have much of a plot that I could discern, though, other than Songoku deciding to go out one day and fight a whole bunch of enemies.

The gameplay in Saint is basic side-scrolling shooter fare, for the most part. Songoku flies a pink cloud and shoots at hordes of enemies that fly in from all directions. You can pick up power-ups that upgrade your weapons and your cloud, and you can occasionally find special weapons that can cause some nice amounts of devastation to the enemy hordes. And of course, there’s an end boss to fight at the end of each stage.

Unfortunately, there’s not much more to the game than what I just laid out. The only real deviations from the above format are several 3D stages, but these aren’t that exciting. Filling the screen with firepower is the best survival tactic in this game, meaning there’s very little in the way of strategy. As for Wii motion controls, the 3D stages use them, but I found them so clunky that I decided to just go with the standard control pad setup used in the rest of the game.

Why on earth anyone would make a game like Saint in today’s video game market, let alone have the audacity to sell it as a full-fledged, $20 game rather than a $5 downloadable content package, is beyond me. I wish I could have unleashed the full fury of a negative review on this one for wasting my time, like I did in my last review with Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance, but there’s just not much in Saint to get truly riled up about – it’s just a sad, pathetic little title that tries to preserve a genre whose glory days are long over.

Overall Rating:

Christopher Mastey-Muzikreviews.com Video Game Reviewer

September 29, 2009

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Guitar Hero 5-Xbox 360 Video Game Review

Title: Guitar Hero 5

Release Date: August 25, 2009

Genre: Music

Rating: T for Teen

Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Activision, Red Octane

Developer: Neversoft

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Guitar Hero, the original successful, instrument controlled, rhythm based, music game has released its fifth edition on home consoles, Guitar Hero 5. Their past two editions, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: World Tour, have both started slowly tailing downward in quality, but will this version rekindle the immense success of the first two versions?

This time around I’ve noticed the songs included are less popular then the ones in previous versions. This can be considered a good or a bad thing. It’s good because not all popular songs are always the best ones to play on guitar or drums, but they are best when it comes to singing. I’ve found that I only really know, on average, one song per venue well enough to be able to sing it. I know you don’t have to know all the lyrics to sing along, but knowing them does make it easier. There is, however, the option to easily change which instrument you are playing, so if you want to change from lead guitar to bass or from guitar to singing between songs, you can easily do this.

Extra bonuses have been added to career-play that adds a little extra incentive for performing certain actions. For example, hammering the whammy-bar for 30, 60 or 90 seconds or hitting 100, 200 or 300 straight notes awards the player with different medals. If you can achieve the highest level you are given some unlockable item, like new clothing or instrument customization options for your character. These incentives add to the replayability for seasoned gamers or people whose skill level is between difficulties.

New to this edition is the ability to change you band members. I really like this addition since I’m not forced to play along side three random avatars that may or may not fit with my character. This also allows the player to recreate some of their favorite musicians, who do not appear in the game, and play in the same band with them. I’ve created glam-rock singers, metal-head bassists hot guitar-chicks and overweight pop-princesses, all of which I can swap out at my leisure based on which song I will be performing next.

Just like in past games, there are some celebrity cameos in Guitar Hero 5. Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana and Kurt Cobain are the most notable. There has been a lot of controversy around Kurt Cobain’s addition because each one of these people can become a playable character after they’re unlocked. The problem surfaces when the gamer chooses Kurt Cobain to sing a song with a lot of energy. Cobain was known as a sullen performer who never displayed a purely energetic performance. Personally, I do not see a problem with his inclusion in the game. Anyone who cares about Cobain being represented in a way that disparages his reputation, wouldn’t ever select him to sing a high energy song, and the people who don’t really care probably wouldn’t use him as an avatar anyways.

Another great addition is the ability to play songs from previous versions. At each venue you are given the option to impress a sponsor to unlock more stuff. It’s a lot easier to woo them when you are performing a song that is best suited for your instrument. This is where the previous version’s songs come in. Especially at the beginning, when you don’t have a lot of songs unlocked, it’s easier to get the sponsorship with a song from a past game. However, you have to own a copy of the older version in order to upload it’s songs into the new version.

Guitar Hero 5 is available for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 and can be purchased as a stand alone game or with a guitar controller. Even though Harmonix (the developer of the first two Guitar Hero games) has moved on, Activision still publishes great Guitar Hero games. With the added gameplay elements, this may be the best version since the jump to the current generation’s systems.

Overall Rating:

The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Review Staff Team Leader

October 4, 2009

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For questions or comments on this review send an e-mail to rsmith@muzikreviews.com