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Crackdown 2

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There are certain brands which, due to a number of factors such as quality of product and level of marketing, which step beyond their genres, they begin to define those genres. Take for example Coca Cola. Even if you don’t like Coke, I’ll bet when you order a Cola based mixer drink you say “Rum and Coke”. There are other brands too – Liquid Paper, Hoover, Google, iPod. It’s the same with videogames too. Certain games have come to define genres. Pacman, Puzzle Quest, Mario Cart, Doom, God Of War, Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto, for example.

Whilst the quality of those games could be argued until the end of time, saying “it’s like Mario Cart” instantly gives you a frame of reference to talk about another game. One of the best examples of this in recent times is XBW Shane’s review of Red Dead Redemption. In many ways it is superior to GTA, but in defining it as “GTA Deadwood” he nailed it in a simple and concise manner. You might have a different opinion to Shane about GTA and Deadwood, but even so your knowledge of those products will influence how you react to his review, and the game itself.

Crackdown could have been one of these genre defining games. It differed enough from GTA to make it stand out from any other GTA Clone you’ve played. Yes, it was a free roaming open world set in a city with cars and pedestrians you could kill, and the missions involved driving to places and destroying all the enemies in a given area, but the skill progression and the collection minigame were so distinctive they could have began to alter gaming landscape with gamers describing other games as “Crackdown Clones”, providing they made good use of what made Crackdown so good in the sequel.

Unfortunately, they’ve dropped the ball, and given us the first game only with less to do and less to see. Pacific City, itself quite a defining quality of the first game with its neon filled streets and high-rises, has undergone what I like to refer to as “next-gen browning”. The city has fallen into decay, and as such the art has lost the distinctive edge of a super city and in order to give the look of the city a “gritty edge” the art team simply made everything an uninspired rusty brown colour, something featured in every next-gen game since the PS3 and Xbox360 appeared on the market.

Moreover, the layout of the city is exactly the same. There’s nothing new to see or explore. There are new underground areas, but these are just big arena areas. Although other games have done similar in using the city over – GTA’s mini episodes spring to mind – there is still enough new stuff to see and do to make it worthwhile. They also have incredible stories which drive you play the game.

The story in Crackdown 2, what there is of one, is since you’ve visited in the first game, the place has become a mess. Although you brought down 5 gangs to bring peace to the city previously, that was all for naught as a new terrorist organisation has risen from the ashes to threaten the city’s Peacekeepers. On top of that the city is overrun by zombie mutant freaks at night time. The only way to stop it is to re-introduce the Agency’s most effective weapon against crime – the Agent.

Like the first Crackdown, your agent starts with middling powers and work your way up by using your skills to gain orbs. Shooting the enemy with guns builds up your weapons skills, unlocking more powerful weapons and making your firing more accurate. Doing hand break turns and J-Turns, drifting, and running down enemies in vehicles increases your driving skill, unlocking more vehicles and giving more control when driving. Using explosives like grenades unlocks better grenades and rocket launchers, and increases the impact of explosions. Punching and fighting makes you tougher, and unlocks ramming and ground punch abilities.

The most fun of the game is from agility orbs. Like the first game, these are dotted around the city, enticing you to explore by jumping from building to building, gaining the ability to jump higher and further as you gather more orbs. Unlike the first game though, their position isn’t as logical as before, and there’s a little bit more of hide and seek going on. To give this aspect of the game a bit of a twist, there are “rogue” orbs, orbs which have an avoidance field and are difficult to catch. At first, these orbs are great fun to chase either on foot or in a car, and you can spend a good half an hour running around trying to grab one. But eventually it gives way to frustration, because no matter how high your driving or agility score, they’re designed to move away from you, so if you had difficulty catching one at the start of the game, you’re going to have the same amount towards the end of the game.

They also haven’t fixed up some of the biggest frustrations of the first game. Some buildings look like they have ledges you can grab onto, so you’ll leap onto them and end up sliding all the way to the bottom. Or they have overhangs you can’t get past, so you jump and hit your head and fall. And this entire jumping agility thing means there’s almost no point to driving. There’s an amazing list of songs on the car radio which you’ll never hear because you’re rarely in the car for more than a few seconds. You’ll hit other cars, flip over or otherwise crash. Or you’ll be shot at by other vehicle, get out (as you can’t shoot from vehicles) and have your car destroyed.

The lack of multiple gangs means no bosses, and that was part of the fun of the last game. In the first crackdown, as you took down bosses, the enemy became less effective at fighting you. Now all you have to do is capture base points by killing all the enemies which appear on the map when you stand in a certain zone and press the back button. They’re also pretty stupid AI wise, and will mill around in groups just waiting for you to kill them. They’re only a problem if they’re armed with rockets or grenades, in which case they’ll just spam you. Otherwise, it’s simply a matter of jumping around and shooting them.

The Freaks are even more tedious. Every night, the streets become flooded with zombies. Like Dead Rising, there are so many on the screen you’re amazed at first. But they’re so dumb they pose hardly any challenge later in the game. Simply get in a car and drive though them. And if you stick to the rooftops you can pretty much avoid them altogether.

There are two basic scenarios you need to do to proceed the story and subsequently the game – capture a base which shoots a laser beam into the sky, and when you have 3 beam together you jump into the subterranean part of the city and kill all the zombies which attack a bomb device. That’s it.

Part of the reason the game is so simple is it’s designed for four players in mind. Obviously you can’t have too much of a complex GTA scenario like drive here, blow up this, drive to a next check point, and kill that, if the game is designed for more than one person. Although having said that Red Dead Redemption seems to do a pretty good job of doing precisely in its Multiplayer. So they’ve made the game as mindless as possible so you can have as much fun with other players.

And yes, it is fun with other players. It’s only a little more fun doing the missions still, as they don’t get any harder, but still the added fun of simply having another real live person with you makes it marginally more enjoyable. And doing things the designers probably had in mind, but didn’t make any use of. Like picking up a car when your friend is in it, and throwing it off a bridge. Like dropping a cluster grenade near an orb your friend is after. Like chasing each other around in choppers.

But what I can’t understand is why didn’t the designers utilise this more effectively? Surely in play testing they would have noticed people playing the game in this manner, so why not design co-operative missions around this – design chopper races; design timed missions where you’ve got to knock down as many freaks as possible, make the game co-operative in the mission design. I don’t want to call the designers lazy as it’s very hard to make a good game, but it’s clear the design is precisely that. Rather than identifying how players generate their own fun in a game and directing their design towards that, they’ve designed a game where it’s as open as possible but with so little to do, so players have to create their own fun.

Conclusion
Maybe I’m being a little hard on the game. The original Crackdown was flawed genius. It came out of practically nowhere, and was bought by the truckloads because of the Halo3 Multiplayer Beta offer. However, the game was unexpectedly compelling and fun, even if it felt a little rough and unfinished.

Crackdown 2 still feels rough and unfinished. In fact, it feels even more so than the first, especially when viewed as a single player experience. Multiplayer improves the game, but it still feels vacant and simple, and doesn’t develop a good story or good mission structure to encourage you to play the game, just a little incentive to tool around in the city for a few hours blowing shit up.

Pros:
Keeps the addictive agility orb collection game and spices the orb collection with “rogue orbs”
Heaps of things to blow up and kill.
Fun Multiplayer
Fantastic soundtrack

Cons:
You won’t hear the soundtrack because you’ll never be in the car long enough
Unconvincing story
Boring, repetitive missions
Stupid AI
Many of the problems of the first game not addressed

68/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Alan Wake

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World famous author Alan Wake has writers’ block, so he and his nyctophobic (scared of the dark) wife decide to holiday in Bright Falls, an idyllic ex-mining town in rural America. You’d think, he being a writer a fan of Stephen King and having written episodes of Twilight Zone rip off ‘Night Springs’, he’d be wary of holidaying in a rural town surrounded by tall mountains and deep forests. After all, nearly everyone knows they’re all full of some kind of unholy-and-ancient-darkness slash portal-to-the-other-side, or at least rednecks and bears. But no, he doesn’t even google the town, but heads there cluelessly, and of course something terrible happens. His wife gets abducted by this darkness, and it’s up to Alan to save her.

Alan Wake almost succeeds at creating a classic horror game. At first, the game is very creepy. The town has that disturbing Twin Peaks charm, full odd characters that you get to revisit throughout the game and discover more about. The surrounding forest and mountains, full of old mines and logging farms have that Stephen King vibe, as if the very elements are in league with nature to confound and upset Alan and in turn, the player. On top of this, the game itself creates the feeling that nothing is ever quite right, and you’re never sure what is dream, what is real, and what is psychosis.

Most of the time you’re on foot and the game encourages you to explore the wide playable areas looking for pages to the manuscript Alan is writing. The manuscript echoes the story of the game, and although I personally think reading text in a game is a cop out – videogames are a visual multimedia experience and reading pages of text on screen bores me – this works here because Alan is a writer and it does recreate the Stephen King self referential mentality of many of his finest books.

There are also environmental hazards to overcome in typical 3rd person adventure style, which are generally easy to figure out. There are weapon caches to find, and TVs and Radios to tell you more of the story. The TVs show episodes of the aforementioned Night Springs, which are quite long, whilst the radio informs the player of what’s happening in the world of Bright Falls. There are signs about the town and surrounds revealing a history of the town, all which create a very real sense of place for the game. And with a cheeky nod to Twin Peaks, you’ll find coffee thermoses scattered across the landscape.

The game uses light and dark to brilliant effect, and most of your time is spent in the dark, so you’re always under constant fear of attack, and this creates and excellent way to progress the story. As light is a source of healing and every light post is a checkpoint, you actually begin to fear being in the dark too long in the game.

The first level is a dream, and here you learn the basics of how to fight what are known as the Taken. The Taken creep from the shadows, and are imbued with unholy darkness. Equipped with a torch and a gun, fighting them involves a two phase attack. Shining your torch at them nullifies their dark power and stops them momentarily, and you can boost the torch’s power with a simple button press, although this depletes the battery power so you’ll need to stock up on batteries. Once their power is gone, you can pop a cap in their ass, as long as you have enough bullets. Dropping flares keeps them at bay, and bright light kills them outright, so flash bang grenades and flare guns become your most powerful weapons, as they light up the dark and vanquish foes at once, as does flashing car or spotlights onto them.

The Taken also manifest as poltergeists, and at various points in the game you’ll find objects imbued with darkness hover and fling themselves at you. These often take a bit more of time to take down, especially the larger vehicles you’ll encounter, although ducking behind posts and rocks can shield you a little whilst you shine your light onto them and drop flares and flash bangs.

There are also a few driving sections, and these are fun as well. Considering the game is a 3rd person action game, the car controls quite well. And as there’s nothing more fun than running people over in video games, it’s even better when they’re darkness imbued zombies, as you speed towards the Taken, turn your high beams on, and mow through them faster than Ash’s zombie killing machine from Evil Dead 3.
However, like many other horror games before it, the need t make Alan Wake a videogame ruins the overall vibe of the story eventually. Whenever there are enemies nearby, there is always a ‘tell’. Like in Doom 3, there’s always a sound to alert you to an enemy’s presence. In this case it’s music, and the game also takes control of the camera and zooms out or pans around to show you your enemy. At first, this is really cool and alarming, but eventually it becomes so much part and parcel of the game you forget to be scared about it.

Boss fights are signified by the game environment opening up into a wide area, with flares in emergency boxes lying about on the trail toward them, and as you near the “you’re about to be attacked” music plays. It happens so often in the middle part of the game the dread I felt wasn’t legitimate fear, but rather boredom at yet another fight where I had to point my torch at a bad guy/thing then shoot him when he stopped emanating darkness. Towards the end, I just wanted to advance the story, not face hordes of bad dudes just because the designers wanted to make the game an hour longer.

There is one exception to this occurs a little past midway in the game. I don’t want to give too much away, but the most fun I had in the game was at the Old Gods of Asgard’s farm. What seems like it would be a similar scenario to previous levels turns into something quite different and a hell of a lot of fun.

Also annoying is Alan keeps losing his equipment. You collect a shot gun, flare gun, flash bangs and a high powered torch during a level, and it’s likely to be gone after the next cutscene ,without any real reason for this occurring other than to annoy the player who likes to hoard things. Sure, “I lost my gun in the fall” is a perfectly legitimate reason, but losing them after going to a police station? Obviously the evidence cupboards need better locks in Bright Falls!

And although a minor annoyance, you can listen to all the radio and read the pages you’ve collected in the Extras menu, but you can’t watch any of the episodes of Night Springs outside of the game. This isn’t a game killer by any means, but I would have loved to watch the shows outside of the game in another menu, as they were quite entertaining.

Conclusion
It’s worth spending a few hours alone in the dark with Alan Wake and just the glow of a TV screen. It’s certainly better than most of Stephen King’s recent book to film outings. The game creates an excellent and believable sense of ‘reality’, as much as horror story can. You’ll suspend your disbelief for the most part, and there are some very cool and spooky moments early in the game that will really put you on edge.

It’s just a shame that because games cost so much to make and sell to the consumer, and game developers have an expectation to give players their money’s worth, extending the gameplay aspects of the game tend to ruin the vibe of the story later on. I guess it’s unavoidable as no game has really been able to create the legitimate scares of a horror story throughout its ten plus hours, although I’m pretty sure a ten hour long horror film would also be rather hackneyed by the end of it as well.

Pros:
Excellent use of light and dark both in fights and setting the scene
Great story development through the use of collectables
Very good sense of Bright Falls being a real place. Well, as real as a horror story town can be.
Lots of clever nods to the horror genre
Cool driving levels with solid controls even though it’s primarily an on foot 3rd person action game.

Cons
The creepiness of the game’s early levels gives way to a “been there, done that” feeling.
Player has all their cool weapons taken away and has to go get them all again every level.
Ending is not very satisfying and screams sequel.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Lips

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In the high echelons of internet and geek culture, 2008 has seen the biggest argument amongst gamers since the debate over whether games are art: Casual Gaming. This so-called “new” market seeks to capture those people who don’t play games all the time, unlike the rest of us ‘normal geeks’. It seeks to appeal to mums, sisters, grandmas and grandpas, and because of the incredible success of the Nintendo Wii and DS, along with download services like Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, casual gaming has seen a massive spike of interest by the big players in the market.

Along with slashing the price of the Xbox Arcade System, Microsoft has pitched its once hardcore system to the casual gamer. The New Xbox Experience makes the interface clearer and simpler and adds a gimmicky but cute Avatar system, which allows you to personalise a character to your tastes and then see that character appear in the casual games such as Uno and SceneIt: Box Office Smash.

Lips is another attempt by Microsoft to capture the casual market. Made by Japanese studio iNiS, creators of Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents, Lips is a Karoke game accompanied by two wireless microphones. Unlike Microsoft’s disastrous attempt to make a Karoke game for the original Xbox with the Xbox Music Mixer, the game functions as a very slick and cool Karoke simulator, but as a game, it falls a little flat.

The Microphones are striking and well crafted. They feel like a proper microphone in your hand, weighted properly for a sturdy and comfortable feel. The microphone itself is covered by a metal a foam spit guard, which is removed to access the batteries. When in action, LEDs strobe and change colour to the beat of the song, and they also contain motion detectors that interact with the game itself.

The first thing you notice when loading the game is the incredibly slick interface. It just oozes cool, and is insanely easy to use. Three button presses and you’re singing. It would have been nice to use the microphone in some way to navigate the menus, but unfortunately you need to have controllers connected, but it’s not a deal breaker. The first option is to sing, and pressing the button shows you your songs listed in alphabetical order. Selecting a song with the D-Pad plays a sample of the song, just in case you didn’t know it, and here you can also rate the songs and add it your playlists.

Another button press gets you into a staging area, where you can set up the options for the song. Here you can choose to sing the long or short versions of the songs, set up Versus or Cooperative modes, set the noise reduction to reduce the voice in the song, the effect of the microphone, and choose which background to sing along to – Music Video, Interactive Video, or one of 3 minigames. After adjusting your options, you start singing the song.

The singing section feels very similar to Rockband and Guitar Hero singing sections. A pitch line scrolls horizontally and you’re rewarded points for hitting the pitch and timing of the songs correctly. When you sing well enough, an icon appears on screen telling you to perform an action with the mic. Do this, and you activate Star power Star Stream. This gives you double points on all the notes you hit. This is where the motion detector comes into play, although simply shaking the mic rather than doing the exact move can set it off anyway. You can also shake the microphone to become a noise maker, acting as tambourine shakes or hand claps.

Music Video is exactly that – watch the music video as the song plays. Some songs are a little too old to have the original MTV video, or maybe it’s a clearance issue, but in those cases a custom video will play instead. Whilst videoclips are common to most Karoke set ups, I personally found this very distracting, especially during Beyonce’s clip where she’s strutting around in nothing much at all… it’s a bit hard to sing when your tongue is hanging out.

The interactive clip has motion captured dancers singing over a disco-esc flashy background, like those old rave music clips and amiga demos. (Gosh, I’m showing my age here!).You interact with the clip by swinging the microphone around. As you do certain moves, like spin around or move the mic up and down, the video responds in various ways. It’s kind of cool, especially with two people.

The minigames are a silly but fun distraction. Kiss has a cute 2D rendered scene, very reminiscent of Rub Rabbits, with two people running towards each other. Time the microphone movement right, and they’ll kiss. Vocal Fighters has two cartoon singers in spots of light. The better you sing, the brighter the light, forcing your opponent off stage. Time Bomb features a big bomb with a fuse, and by singing well you fill up a glass of water. Shake the microphone and put out the fuse.

There’s also a “jukebox” mode to the game, which allows you to set a playlist and play song after song after song – the ultimate party mode. If a person wants to sing, simply shaking the mic gets the person in the game. This is the same for any mode, but makes the most sense in this mode as you can have the game running as a video jukebox until your guests are drunk brave enough to start singing.

The biggest issue with all of these modes is there’s not really much point to singing well. Yes, you are scored on your progress, and are rewarded stars and medals which in turn give you more points, but there’s nothing to do with the points once you’ve earned them. You can’t fail a song, and moreover you don’t unlock more songs or higher difficulties, points are simply used for bragging rights. So, for a single player, you’ve scored 4 million points on Young MC’s Bust A Move, what’s the point in singing it again?

The 40 songs included are adequate, covering a range of songs and styles, although I feel it’s much more slanted to young females tastes compared to Rockband and Guitar Hero. I really appreciate the inclusion of some Australian greats – if you haven’t sang drunkenly to Khe Shan in a pub then you’re not really Australian to my mind, and now you can capture that feeling any time you want. But I really have to question to inclusion of Shannon Noll on the Australian disc at the expense of Duran Duran’s Hungry Like a Wolf. They could have at least made the songs of the other regions available as a free download.

You can import songs, but again the game misses a big opportunity here. Songs are simply imported – no lyrics can be included. Knowing that you can attach lyrics to music files using ID3 tags, I don’t understand why this ability wasn’t included. I do understand the licensing restrictions placed on content like this, but surely some kind of arrangement could be made with music publishers, even if it was some kind of proprietary file format that only LIPS could use.

Also, when you play your imported song, you’re still scored, although how exactly I can’t quite ascertain. It seems to work just as well if you make random noises into the microphone. And whilst it sends the details of the songs and artists back to Microsoft with the promise of including songs for download if they’re popular enough, for some reason I don’t think Kevin Bloody Wilson will be picked up any time soon.

Another minor issue with the songs is none of them are duets, so two people are in fact singing the same bits in each song. With two microphones, it seems like another missed opportunity to make the game more fun.

Another bigger problem is the lack of online play. You can challenge a person to beat your score on a song, but they’ve completely left out the ability to sing together online. There may be issues with voice and lag, but surely some kind of mode could have been incorporated. They could have also given people the ability to record themselves and upload it to youtube, ala SingStar, but alas that’s missing too. There’s an attempt at an online community, but like much of the rest of the game, it feels worthless. Sure, it’s nice knowing that 324,093 people have sung your favourite song, but it’s pretty unnecessary. I also think it’s a bit broken – it’s improbable that not one single person has attempted to sing Coldplay’s Yellow since the games release.

Conclusion:
Lips does a good job at being a Karoke simulator. It looks and sounds great, it’s simple to get started, and the party mode really is a great idea. The list of songs has something for everyone, and the ability to download more songs increases its appeal. It’s precisely the type of game you can put on at a party and have some fun with.

The problem is it’s not very good at being a game, especially compared to the other music games available. For a single player, there’s not really much incentive to play through all the songs. Yes, singing is fun, but you don’t unlock anything, you can’t change the difficulty. The lack of online modes is also very disappointing.

PROS:
Simple and intuitive and slick looking interface
Microphones feel very well crafted
Varied selection of tunes to suit a wide range of people
Great fun in a party atmosphere

CONS:
Not much of a game – no incentives or unlockables
Can’t import lyrics with imported songs
Scoring on imported songs doesn’t make sense
Severe lack of online play.

73/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Blinx 2: Master of Time and Space

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I have to fess up – I never played the first Blinx. When it came out, although the idea of the action being recorded onto the Xbox’s harddrive, thus allowing you to manipulate time in the game world intrigued me; I simply wasn’t a fan of platformers.

I had been a PC gamer for many years prior, and I couldn’t get my head around the 3rd person perspective introduced in Super Mario 64. However, since getting an Xbox, I have become a convert of platform games, and enjoy the problem solving puzzles so common to platformers, and even the dreaded double jump.

Most reviews of the previous Blinx game comment negatively on the way Blinx and his time sweeper operate. The camera control was very clumsy, the level of difficulty very high with an arbitrary 10-minute limit on each and every level. Blinx was said to be slower than grass growing, causing one reviewer to exclaim “Couldn’t there be a run button? Or heck, just make him move a bit quicker. That vacuum can’t become a jet pack or something? Anything?!” There was no aiming mechanism, making aiming to shoot at Time Monsters and Tom Tom gang members incredibly hard. Furthermore, you had to collect time crystals in order to use Blinx’s time controls, with some people becoming frustrated at repeating certain parts of the game over and over because they didn’t have the right powers on hand.

Thankfully most of this has been corrected in Blinx 2: Master of Time and Space (from now on simply Blinx 2). I found very little to annoy me about the camera, and whilst not perfect, it’s more than up to the task of being able to guide you around the 10 different worlds you’ll visit. Aiming, which was apparently dodgy due to the unwieldy camera movements, has been infinitely improved with the ability to lock on using the Left Trigger. This makes killing enemies much easier, although it takes a lot of the skill out of the game as well. The 10-minute limit has been removed completely, replaced by a money bonus if you complete the mission in a small amount of time. The time crystal gathering has also been simplified; now Time Monsters will drop a number of different time crystals, and you can collect them in any order.

The level of difficulty has been reduced too, but it has been replaced by a degree of oversimplification. Every time you encounter something remotely out of the ordinary, a pop up box will appear and tell you what you have to do. This is fine for the first level, and acceptable for the second level as things in the game change, but it is just ridiculous when you’re up to the world number 4 or 5. Even more annoying is this halts the action, requiring you to press the A button to continue.

The difficulty isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Instead of playing Blinx, you play as a Time Sweeper, and you can customise the look of your character to quite a high degree. Name, ears, colour, eyes, height, it’s all customisable. Whilst it’s fun to do this, it detracts from the continuity of the game. Another criticism of the first game was that Blinx had no personality, and thus you didn’t care for him. By making a character you have greater attachment to that character, but it’s a double-edged sword, because now there is no personality to the overall game. Imagine if Mario changed every game – if one game he was skinny, another time was dark in skin colour, and another time wore a suit like James Bond – would he be the icon he is today? Of course not! Furthermore, now instead of an identifiable hero, even if he was a dull one, you now have a generic character that is dull. At no time did I feel engaged by my character, or the story.

Your Time Sweeper can perform the same time control moves as in the first game, such as slow, pause, rewind, fast forward and record time. For example, if a bridge is blown up, your Time Sweeper can rewind to a time before the bridge blew up. You can use pause to freeze time monsters, to use falling rocks to jump to a higher part of the level, or to expose an underwater button to air. Fast forward is used to run really fast, and jump through gates which lead to different parts of the level. Record is used to record your movements. Record yourself standing on a button, and then play that back whilst you go stand on another button to unlock a door. Slow slows all that is around you, while you continue at normal speed. These mechanisms are an interesting way to play a platform game, but they don’t extend the gameplay. You still feel as though you are playing a generic platform game, running about to collect this that and the other.

Another change is that you get to play a member of the Tom Tom gang. As the Tom Tom pigs don’t have time controls, they use space controls instead. These are found in crates, or can be purchased at the Club shop, and include things like Warp Tunnel, which rip a hole in space and allow you to pop up elsewhere; The Hypercloak which makes you invisible, but you’re unable to jump or shoot; the Space Bubble which traps anything in it’s radius, and a number of other tools. The Tom Tom Gang parts are much more stealth based, and here the camera can become a bit more of a problem, especially when you are underground in a Warp Tunnel. Your Tom Tom Gang member is also very customisable in the same way as your Time Sweeper, but again, there’s no real sense of character to the game.

There’s a multiplayer component this time as well – you can play the game through with a friend in a co-operative mode, or play 4 player free for all battle. These are nice additions, but felt somewhat lacking. Co-operative mode is much more exciting than the deathmatch portion, although it is funny to use your time skills to reduce your enemy to a kitten or piglet. Maybe I’ve just been spoilt by Xbox live.

The art direction is pretty standard for a platformer – it’s very colourful and over the top. Things like explosion, water, smoke effects look great, and all the characters are animated well. There’s some weird goings on in the cut scenes though – it’s as if the cuts are in the wrong place at times, especially when it’s showing an item you just recovered. However, if you’ve played some of the other great platform games on the Xbox, such as Voodoo Vince or Dr Muto, you really see that Blinx lacks that element of style that makes other games in this genre stand out. The sound effects are adequate, and the cats are rather cute when they meow, but the repetitive music will drive you insane. As there’s no option to load your own music, go into the set up and turn it off, and shove something in your stereo.

Conclusion:
Blinx 2 suffers from a real distinctive lack of style. Nothing about it stands out, even the fancy hard disk recording Time Control mechanism. There’s nothing about the game that really grabs you and keeps you engaged. I can imagine that kids might like it for the cutesy characters and platforming elements, but I think that even then they might grow bored of it. There’s not much of a story, you can’t get attached to the characters, and the gameplay, even with time controls, is pretty generic.

Pros
Time controls are an interesting gameplay device
Many improvements over the last game
Ability to play as either Time Sweepers or Tom Toms

Cons
Generic gameplay across the board.
Annoying handholding throughout the game
Characters have no personality – and you don’t get to play as Blinx
Repetitive, infuriating music

70/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Halo 2: Bonus Map Pack

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From the hilarious Red Vs Blue (www.redvblue.com) to the pages upon pages of fanart that can be found on the net, the universe Bungie created in Halo and extended in Halo 2 has captured the hearts and minds of gamers around the globe.

This universe has both intrigued and infuriated; intrigued by introducing new worlds to visit, new aliens to menace humankind, and compelling and involving storylines, and on the other hand there’s nothing more infuriating than wandering around a new world, looking at the beauty of the awe inspiring and mysterious Halo that floats above, or examining the ancient and bizarre Forerunner installations, mentally mapping out the multiple paths through structures, than to suddenly find an iniquitous plasma grenade lodged in your chest armour, or a well placed sniper shot shatter the otherwise peaceful surrounds. For that is the danger of the Halo universe – beautiful one minute and deadly the next.

The new Halo 2 Maps have been lovingly crafted to extend the multiplayer aspect of the game, which is, it must be said, the games’ biggest strength. The original Halo engaged people with it’s story and action, but the sequel seemed to let quite a few people with it’s rather incomplete ending. However, it more than made up for this by providing one of the most solid multiplayer games available on a console, if not in any game, with an incredibly well developed online interface that intergraded with Bungie.com. The ability to track scores, form clans, and download extra content through Live has seen the Live service grow to over 2 Million users.

The new maps are either brand new, or a development of the maps found in Halo, and even one from Bungie’s original first shooter, Marathon. Each map has been made for a specific game type, although they work well in their other modes. For example, Terminal, set in Old Mombassa (one of the locations set on Earth) is great for Assault and CTF, but also great for Slayer matches in its tight urban environment. There are small maps like Backwash, set in a swamp reminiscent of 343 Guilty Spark in the first Halo game, to massive levels designed to present interesting vehicular combat in Containment. The manual presents a minimap of each of the maps provided, showing weapon and vehicle locations, as well as some informing of best tactics to use. In this case, it really does pay to RTM.

For those without Live but like to get together with friends for split screen or system link action, then the Bonus Maps are a godsend. Not only do they give you 9 new maps, they patch up glitches and eliminate exploits and cheating, and also give offline players a chance to hone their skills on levels where they previously couldn’t. Considering the disc isn’t required to play (although the original Halo2 game is), it’s great for people who play LANs – people can split the cost and pass the disc around. I don’t think Bungie would mind me saying that, especially considering the maps will be free for download at the end of August.

If you’re a Halo nut, and an Xbox Live subscriber, then the Map Pack is a must. You will find it patches Halo and eliminates cheaters, although I still had to download an extra live update even after installing. Furthermore, if you don’t have it, you may find it hard to find games of certain types using Optimatch, and there’s nothing worse than not being able to play with your friends because they have a map that you don’t. And if you do wait until they become free, everyone else will know the maps rather well and you’ll find yourself at distinct disadvantage. You’ll be stumbling around trying to find the rocket launcher that someone will tell you to get from “near the pillars” – not a good idea when you’re trying to keep your stats up!

The bonus, non-map material, whilst appealing, is only of minor interest. The Developer Video provides some useful tips, like being able to hide yourself on the moving platforms in Elongation by squatting. However, you’ll gain no massive advantage from watching it. The short movie is pretty cool, but for me it just reinforced the notion that the single player mission could have been much more developed. It shows an aspect of the Halo Universe that is never really expanded – urban squad combat. I’m not proposing that Bungie turn the game into Rainbow Six, but I really enjoyed the urban battles set on Earth, and wished there were more.

But if you’re simply a casual fan, then it’s probably best to wait until they become available for free at the end of August, because, well, they’re just extra maps. There’s absolutely nothing here for the single player, which is a little unfortunate really. Although the Xbox Live service has reached 2 million subscribers, and that’s only a small proportion of the 10 million plus units that Halo 2 has sold. When you look at it from that perspective, the Bonus Maps is a slight disappointment, especially that many think the single player of Halo 2 is severely lacking in many places.

Conclusion:
What the Map Pack does is show that Bungie really does care about the community it has helped foster through Halo 2. With one simple gesture, Bungie has offered to even the playing field between online and off line players, allowing patches and content that they could have offered to online customers as individual downloads, in one well presented package for a reasonable price. Being able to share the disc around counters the cynical notion that this is a money making scheme – I’m pretty sure Bungie are sitting pretty anyway – and reinforces the idea that Bungie really do understand the players of Halo2’s needs.

Pros:
Provides content for those without Live for a reasonable price.
Nine extra maps that have been researched and refined to perfection.
Updates Live and patches the game quicker than downloading.
Disc can be shared around friends.

Cons:
Absolutely nothing for the Single player.
Will be available free for download soon.

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

NHL Rivals 2004

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I’m the first to admit I don’t have a sporting bone in my body. Sure, I did PE at school, and I never excelled at anything mainly because I have two left feet and throw like a girl. Truth be known I’d rather have been reading or playing video games.

Having said this, I love sports games. I love sports games precisely because I’m not great at sports. There’s a twisted sense of triumphant justice knowing that even if you are the worlds most uncoordinated fool on the field, you can take your team to the top in a video game. One of my favourite games to play is (Ice) Hockey, mainly because it’s quite an enigma to me, being from Australia where the concept of ice-skating is a novelty, not a major pass time nor sport.

But a game has to be easy to pick up and play, and that is where NHL Rivals shines. Someone with little or no knowledge of the world of Hockey can pick this game up and play. Part of this could be that Microsoft has adopted the controls standard to other Hockey games, which are also quite common to sports games in general. When in control of the puck, the left joystick moves the player, shoot is the X and pass is the A button respectively. B does a deke (aka fake) move, and Y flips the puck into the air. When not in control of the puck, A switches player, B does a body check (a tackle), X does a stick check (a tackle using the stick) and Y does a dive or a block. In either mode the right trigger is a speed boost whilst the left is pivot. In a nice touch, the right Joystick is used to pass the puck in the direction chosen when in control of the puck.

Another nice addition to this game is the use of Roles. Various players have a little symbol next to their name, and this designates whether they are Enforcers, Agitators, Snipers or Balanced players. Each role has a different special move for when in control and not in control of the puck that’s accessed by holding the B button. Enforcers are the “big men” of the league, and preform the “Bump and Go” move which knocks opponents out the way whilst keeping control of the puck, on the “Can Opener” which pounds the opposition player. The Agitator are those who get in the face of the other team, with moves such as the “Protect the Puck” when in control, and “Face Wash” which lands their glove into the face of the opponent player. Snipers shoot for goals, and do a “Spin Around” move that disorientates the keeper, and “Stick Clip” which is used to whack the shots out of the opposing team out the way. Balanced players are simply all-rounders and use the move “protect the puck”.

The way face-offs are represented is quite novel. In hockey, whenever there’s a stop in play there’s a face-off, a chance for your team to gain possession. In other games, timing has represented this, but NHL Rivals presents a rock, paper, scissors type play where you press the X, B or A button to win the puck. The move the other player is often represented, so you can sometimes out-guess them. Whilst this adds an element of luck rather than skill, it seems totally fair compared to other games.

Another addition to the gameplay is the all-important fighting. Fighting is an integral part of hockey, and the old adage “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out” is beautifully represented in this game. Although the fighting engine is not exactly up to par with “Rocky” – it’s just two guys standing punching each other and reminiscent of old boxing games – it is rather fun. There’s not much to it, just hit the face buttons and use the triggers to block and stick to weave.

Along with these basic player controls, you have the D-pad that is used for On-the-Fly coaching. This allows you to alter the teams’ aggression, set up team plays, and allows the changing your lines. The AI can also control these coaching moves and it does a decent job at it, but it’s nice to have that extra degree of control at your fingertips. For the total control freak, Team Plays can be managed by through pausing the game, and selecting Team Options. This allows better control over the action, such as setting a 2 on 2 penalty kill. This lifts the action into simulation just a little, but not too much to make the game over complicated.

Although it seems like a lot to remember, it really flows together nicely. You’ll find yourself utilising most of the features second-naturedly, and become quite involved in the game quite easily. However, one disappointment in the game is the AI of your teammates is rather haphazard. When not in control they seem fine, checking opposition players and generally protecting the puck and goal. However, when in control and on a break, they tend to be a little less aggressive on the puck. I’ve had a player pass to an AI with an open shot at goal, and instead of simply shooting he’s held onto the puck until I’ve taken control of him, thus losing the advantage. If the AI is one-on-one with the keeper, it seems natural that it should take a shot. Having said that, the AI of the keepers, both of the player team and the opposing team, is excellent, and even with a team that far outmatches another scoring is difficult but not impossible.

The game modes are the standard fare; Open Ice allows you to practice against a goalie of another team. Single game and Instant Rivalry play once off games, the difference being Instant Rivalry pits two rival teams together and ensures an explosive game. There are also Season, Play Off and Tournament modes, where you can trade players and play through a year of hockey with one or more teams. Whilst the trading and making teams and players is OK, it’s not too in depth and may make the hardcore hockey fans a little disappointed, but it is fine for the average player who just wants to play a game of hockey. The addition of Live! makes this game truly come alive, and in the few games I’ve played I’ve had no lag and the gameplay is exactly the same as the single player experience. As far as sports titles go, I would say this is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of playing online, and it is certainly the better of the hockey games available. The use of XSN with seasons and tournaments gives it a greater edge over the other titles in creating a community of players.

Graphically this game looks fantastic. Player’s reflections can be seen in the ice and in the windows surrounding the stadiums, which are themselves beautifully rendered. Some of the angles in replays look like you’ve just switched to a game on TV they’re that realistic, although replays from within the net are a little pointless as you rarely see the 80mile-an-hour shots. The close ups on the players during fights are a little less than impressive, but it’s not that distracting. Crowd noise and music during the game recreates the ambience of a real match, and the commentary is very good, being humorous and rarely becoming repetitive.

Custom playlists can be played over the menu sections of the game, which replaces the hard rock score, but you’re seldom in the menus for more than a few minutes, so it’s really a much of a muchness. It would be nice if snippets of your playlist played during the game though, but again, this is no major gripe.

Conclusion:
Whilst this is Microsoft’s first venture onto the ice, it does quite a respectable job at recreating the action, speed and excitement of the game of hockey. It’s hard not to compare it to the other two NHL games, both of which have a few years of development over NHL Rivals, but for a first effort Microsoft have done themselves proud. It’s not a sim style game, and doesn’t have as much depth as the other Hockey offerings, but if you want to jump right in and play, especially online, then this is for you.

Pros
+ Great graphics, especially the players reflections in the ice
+ Xbox Live games are just like playing the computer.
+ Fairly intuitive with a reasonable level of difficulty and skill.
+ You can initiate and participate in fights

Cons
– Player animations sometimes a little off during fights.
– Team AI is lacking in some respects.
– Not great for those fully into Simulation type games

84/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Xbox Music Mixer

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Xbox Music Mixer is a strange combination of media player and karaoke machine, and while it’s main purpose seems to be karaoke with it’s included microphone, the terrible amount of songs available make it simply seem more of an attempt to provide Xbox users with a media player. Even in this respect it is rather lacking, as there are some features that should have been included but are completely overlooked.

The karaoke function has a total of 15 songs from all kinds of artists including the B-52’s, Madonna and the Village People, and a few typical party songs like For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow and Auld Lang Syne. The microphone, which has a cartridge that links to the controller with a standard 1 ¼ inch audio plug feels very light and plastic, mainly because it is, but it works well enough. If you really wanted to you could use a more professional microphone, and you can even hook up the Xbox Live! headset for duets.

Whilst the 15 songs are barely adequate, Live! functionality comes into play for downloading new visualisations and Xbox Karaoke packs. The packs cost about A$13 and are charged to the credit card you signed up with. Alternatively you can go to websites such as xboxkaraoke.com and pay for individual songs. You download these and use the PC to xbox transfer tool found on the Xbox.com website. There’s an advert when you start the included karaoke songs to visit chartbusterkaraoke.com and this implies you may be able to play normal karaoke discs as well, but I never got to try this out. There’s also a range of about 40 songs that you can use for the Music player side of the software, but they’re really quite average, and you won’t know the words to them.

However, you can put your own music CDs in and the Xbox to sing along to, utilising the inbuilt audio compression to tear out the vocals and sing along without lyrics. Whilst this is adequate, it’s no better than what can be done with computer programs such as Soundforge, and it’s not so good for more modern music that no longer uses the middle range to record vocals, and tends to deaden the overall sound. Obviously the words will not come up, but the Xbox will display album, artist and track information if it is hard encoded onto the disk. Now, here’s where the Music Mixer misses the boat – why not use the Live! service to look up track and title information? Given Microsoft’s Media Player 9 series for PC does this, surely the Xbox could.

The Music Player suffers the same problem as the karaoke in that it doesn’t look up the CD information. This is fine for some CDs that include the information, but keying in title and artist information via the xbox controller is a royal pain in the rear. The saving grace here is that if you have a PC that connects to your xbox, you can transfer files from your computer hard drive. On the PC you can name the tracks and artist using whichever ripping tool you use, and then transport the files using the aforementioned transfer tool available at Xbox.com. The downside to this is you need to have a PC running Windows XP, but I found the actual transfer to be rather painless. Even the router that screws up some Live! games for me didn’t have a problem recognising the Xbox and transferring the data across. However, the Xbox re-encodes the data, most likely to a WMA format, so for some MP3s downloaded off the internet there is a loss of quality in some cases.

The visualisations are as good as you’ll find with any PC media player, and include the usual strobing circles and fractals and even a 3D “rave” with different dancers. Many of these are interactive, and you can play around with the controller to get different effects. You can transfer photos from your PC using the transfer tool, and they can be shown as a slide show to music as well. An advanced music player comes in the form of “Rave” mode, where you can apply audiovisual effects in real time to CDs and audio already on the Xbox. Whilst fun for a while, as you can apply whacked out filters and scratches and so on to music, as well as becoming a virtual VJ, the fact that you can’t upload your own sound effects, scratches or video severely limits the fun you can have. Furthermore, the fact that you can’t transfer video at all is a serious oversight, as how cool would it be to watch all those game trailers and stuff like Red Vs Blue on a television via the Xbox!

Conclusion:
The Xbox Music Mixer seriously misses a great opportunity to turn the Xbox from a games console into a multi-media entertainment device. The ability to transfer music files from PC to Xbox easily is it’s only real saving grace, and is really worth the purchase if you have a large MP3 collection and dig listening to custom soundtracks, or if you listen to songs via your home audio-visual set up. It’s great to fire this up and whack it on for background music at a party. However, the lack of being able to transfer video, the inability of it to find title, artist and track information, and the lack of karaoke songs included on the disc sour it almost to lemon status.

Pros
+ Can transfer songs from your PC to Xbox easily
+ great for putting on in the background for parties
+ Karaoke is also great for parties
+ some really cool visualisations, with the ability to include your own pictures.

Cons
– only 15 Karioke songs included
– the other included songs for music player and rave mode are really average
– Can’t transfer videos for either visualisations or just simply watching
– doesn’t utilise Live! to look up artist, title and track information
– Need Windows XP to transfer files

Score: 60/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Grabbed by the Goulies

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When Microsoft acquired Rare for $375 Million last year, it caused quite a stir in the gaming community. Rare was well respected, and had titles like Golden Eye, Starfox Adventures, Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie out on Nintendo, and many people saw the acquisition as a nail in Nintendo’s coffin, and the end to a good string of quality titles. Others were very excited about the possibilities that Rare could offer Xbox owners. Finally, Rare’s first game for the Xbox console has arrived, and surprisingly it’s not an established franchise, but a whole new game – Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and the critics and fans can now see why Microsoft purchased the company.

In Grabbed by the Ghoulies, you are put in the role of Cooper, who is travelling with his girlfriend Amber on a dark and stormy night. Coopers map reading skills are a little hazy, and he discovers that they are lost. He sees shelter in a large mansion, but before he gets a chance to do anything, the Goulies of Ghoulhaven Hall, at the command of their twisted master, Baron Von Ghoul, abduct Amber. Cooper has to explore the mansion and find a way to save Amber. There are other captives as well, and, being the good guy he is, Cooper decided to help them too.

The first thing that grabs you is the simplicity of the controls. The left joystick moves Cooper about, and the right is used to attack. This easy to use control method is great – see a Ghoulish monster behind you, and just press back, and cooper turns to face it. There is a variety of moves Cooper performs, depending on where the enemy is, and there are, surprisingly given the simplicity of the attacks, quite a few moves to perform. Cooper can also pick up weapons such as chairs, sticks, plates and so on, and bash creatures with them. These items have limited strength, and break after a few whacks. There are also “permanent” weapons, such as torches and water pistols, and these stay in Coopers hand for certain missions, but have limited ammo. The gameplay is quite simplistic, and can become repetitive, but it is aimed at kids after all. Some puzzles, on the other hand, can be quite challenging, and hard to get through, although the game saves for you quite regularly, so there is not a lot of back tracking.

Another thing that will grab you about Grabbed by the Ghoulies are the graphics. Using wonderful, colourful cell-shaded graphics, the story of young Cooper and his girlfriend Amber is presented in a storybook format, moving frame to frame and then opening up in a larger screen when it’s time to do some ghost busting. The game is aimed squarely at the pre-teen market, and this can be seen in the very colourful backdrops, and cute, humorous animations of the monsters.

Although it’s set in a haunted mansion, the game is rarely scary, coming across as a Scooby Doo style adventure than something out of Halloween. The use of audio is also great, with spooky mansion sounds, although I was a bit disappointed that Cooper and other major characters don’t talk, but this allows your imagination to construct their voices from the audio clues you’re given – a very clever device that adds a depth to the characters without really trying.

The hype surrounding Rare’s acquisition by Microsoft makes it a little unfair on this title, as people were expecting something HUGE from them, but instead, what we have with [b]Grabbed by the Ghoulies[/b] is not the best game in the world, but rather a great game for kids, and shows off the talents of Rare at producing good, playable and fun games.

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Brute Force

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Brute Force was touted as being a “Halo killer” when it was announced. This is a real shame as it sets it up for a huge fall. Luckily Digital Anvil, creators of the also over-hyped Freelancer for PC have created a solid game with superb graphics, excellent sound and some unique gameplay ideas that will see this game get a big following, if not as big and hyped as Halo.

Begining the game as Tex, a no-nonsense muscle marine type guy, armed to the teeth with massive weapons, you proceed to blow everything to smithereens in your first few missions. As you progress, you get introduced to Brutus, a lizardman with huge strength and ability to detect nearby enemies, and in the next few missions you’re introduced to Hawk, the sneaky spy, and Flint, the eagle eyed sharp shooter. You control these characters one at a time in the intuitive style of Halo, but with extra functionality added to the controller to help team situations.

The D-Pad is used to change character. You may be controlling Tex and see an opportunity for Flint to take out a distant guard, so a simple press in the direction of Flint’s portrait will switch you seamlessly to her. Incredibly Tex will usually do something smart like duck and hold his position! If you hold the D-pad, you can issue commands to your squad. The game pauses, and using the coloured buttons you issue commands such as Hold Postion, Cover Me, Attack at Will, Move To, Heal and Use Special Ability.

This gives this game a tactical edge, as you can move your teammates into position and set up the next sequence of events. For example, you can send Hawk into an area invisible, and then move your squad around for the best angle of attack, or just become visible and lead the enemy back into an ambush.

All the characters have special abilities. Hawk’s is the ability to turn invisible for a short period of time. Tex’s is to wield two guns at once. Brutus’ is “Spirit of Vengar”, which allows him to heal himself and detect hidden enemies, and Flint’s is to Automatically target any enemy in her extended range of sight. These used in conjunction with the move orders, plus the ability to seamlessly move from one character to the next make this one of the most interesting FPS games on the Xbox.

Unfortunately the Campaign Missions let this down, as you can in most cases run in guns blazing and simply win the game. The single player missions comprise of going through checkpoints and doing various things along the way, such as retrieving objects, destroying objects and killing things. It gets repetitive. Whilst the landscapes are expansive and destructible, the missions are too linear and it is too easy to get through and find the objectives you need. Stealth and sniper shots are good tools, but seem wasted on the whole, as they aren’t really essential to winning any missions. Another let down to this is that they seem very disjointed. The story is a bit thin and seems strung together, especially compared to games like Halo and Half Life.

That’s only a minor irk though. Something really incredible about this game is the multiplayer function. You can have up to 4 people playing the single player Campaign Missions, controlling one of the four characters of the team. If someone has to leave, the game reverts to controlling the character. You can have one person playing the game, have another two join, and then the original person leave with another, and the game continues without skipping a beat. The AI of the computer-controlled players is pretty good, and because you’re always playing with a team of 4, the game isn’t thrown out of balance.

In some cases the AI goes a little silly – my team stood up in the middle of a fire fight to shoot at opposing forces and got their heads shot off, but on the whole it’s not too bad. The AI of the enemy isn’t too great, especially on the easiest level, but it’s not the dumbest either as they leap away from grenades and use teleport devices to devastating effect on some levels. Multi-player can also be head to head, with one on one deathmatch or squad-based deathmatch. As to not make it boring, scattered around the Campaign Missions are “DNA canisters” which unlock a variety of extra characters you can control in deathmatch, each with different strengths, weaknesses and special abilities. Unfortunately it’s not Xbox Live enabled, so you have to use system link or xboxconnect to play online.

The graphics are gorgeous. The backgrounds and the cut scenes are very reminiscent to Halo, and the lighting and character models are top notch. The weapons each have a different look and feel, having different firing effects that look great. The landscapes are generally good looking, but I found them to get just a little repetitive. The sounds are equally well done, with weapons sounding dangerous, and atmospherics that are just plain creepy. The voice acting is well done too, with some genuinely funny dialogue at times. All in all this is a fantastic game that’s well worth the purchase, especially if you’ve got a few friends to play with, but those who like in depth single player games may be a little disappointed.