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Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

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Unreal has been the staple for fast paced frag action on the PC for years. It captured the minds and hearts of gamers and critics alike with its intense shooting action and gameplay. As the years have rolled by, the game has made its way onto Macs, Playstations and our beloved Xbox. Unreal Championship was essentially a port of Unreal Tournament 2003, and whilst it played well enough and looked great at the time, it still felt like a PC port.

For Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (UC2 from here on in) rather than port Unreal Tournament 2004, the game was designed from the ground up to be played on Xbox – and it Midway and Epic have done a damn fine job in making this iteration of Unreal one of the best. Whilst the game is made for multiplayer mayhem, the single player side of things isn’t a mere add-on. The Ascension Rites single player story mode is a little clichéd and short, it does two important things – it demonstrates what has changed and prepares you for ownage.

Ascension Rites puts you in the role of Anubis, a member of the Nakhti race and shamed tournament player. He rejoins the tournament to prevent his ex-lover Selket from winning the throne and gaining dominance over the Nakhti. Anubis has to deal with the meddling Liandri Mining corporation as well, who seek to control the tournament for their own nefarious ends. Whilst not exactly a David or Goliath story – it’s clear from the start that Anubis can handle himself in battle – it is set up from the start that winning is something Anubis must do, or the world as he knows it is doomed.

Ascension Rites begins with a tutorial, where the new concepts set up in UC2 are introduced to the player. One of the most important differences in UC2 is that while you can play in first person view, you’re likely to play the whole game in third person view. Traditionalists may baulk at this idea, but there’s a good reason for it – melee combat. The bi-line of the game is “bring a knife to a gun fight”, but that understates the importance of the melee weapons. These aren’t just petty combat knives, these are melee weapons of such destruction that Saddam would be in trouble if Dubya found them in his possession. Just as a few rockets from the traditional RPG will send you to your maker, so too will a few good whacks from a melee weapon.

Some new moves have been added to make melee pleasurable. There’s the basic spinning attack, and continuing to hold the Right Trigger will turn you into a whirling dervish of destruction. The B button gives you a harder hit, but leaves you open at the end of your attack, so use it wisely. Jumping with the A button and pressing the Right Trigger does a devastating Matrix style Jump attack. Jumping and pressing the B button will tear your enemy a new a-hole, but likewise be wary of a counter attack or even a shield block.

Another new addition introduced to the UC2 gameplay is the “Freeze”. Hit an opponent with a melee weapon enough times, or using the alternative fire of the pistol, and you’ll freeze your opponent. In a nod to Mortal Kombat, if equipped with a melee weapon and locked on by clicking the left thumbstick, you’ll hear the familiar “Finish Him” and using a combination of button presses perform a “coup de grace” and splatter your foe across the level.

The melee weapons aren’t overpowered however. This isn’t like Halo2 where you’ll bolt at the sight of someone holding a sword. Although bullets and rockets can be deflected with melee weapons with a well-timed press of the L trigger, a well-placed rocket at their feet or sniper shot to the head can take out even the best melee combatant. Furthermore, a simple button press will change from melee to gun and back again, so often you’ll find yourself fighting in close, then jump away and switch to a projectile to do long range damage, then jump-attack to get up close again.

Adrenalin, which always seemed an afterthought for me playing on the original Unreal Championship (and probably the reason I was beat so often) is now at your command with a few simple button presses. Pressing X brings up an onscreen menu of the available Adrenalin moves available, and these are accessible with another button press. For example, “Nimble” which allows you to jump higher and control your movement better is X and A, whilst “Heal” is X + X + A. Each character has different moves, so it’s good to play each character and get a feel for what you like.

Throughout the single player campaign you’ll play through the different game modes available, and they haven’t changed too much from the Unreal staples. There’s the ol’ Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, as well as Capture The Flag and Survival. Two new additions are Nali Slaughter and Overdose. Nali Slaughter is just that – you run around a map and slaughter as many Nali – essentially non-combatant sheep people – as you can, aiming to beat your opponents total before the time runs out. Overdose is variation of Bombing Run, where you grab a ball and return it to a goal. The longer you hold a ball, the more irradiated you become, and when you score a goal when your radiation meter is full, and you get an overdose and gain extra benefits. Unfortunately Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag are the only team modes available, and I was a left a little disappointed – I loved team Bombing Run and felt that more co-operative play would have been more fun.

The Ascension Rites campaign is quite short, but it’s not easy. Whereas some games have less than intelligent bots, the AI in UC2 can only be described as vicious. The AI has an uncanny ability to appear almost human in some respects. If equipped with a sniper rifle, the AI will often camp and attack you from afar, then switch location when you discover them, or switch to melee and bring the battle to you. They use the terrain and cover brilliantly, dodging and weaving through the levels. They’ll use power-ups to devastating effect, which can be irritating especially if you don’t know the maps.

After Ascension Rites there’s Challenge mode, whose completion is required to unlock a certain character with a stormy disposition. If you found the Ascension Rites campaign to be nasty, this is downright evil. You’ll start each round at a disadvantage, and need to catch up and overtake your opponents at whatever game you’re playing – for example you might be two to nothing at capture the flag, and be playing in a team of slow moving characters against a team of fast moving characters. You will have tantrums, you will throw the controller, and you will sweat and cuss more than a footballer on a losing team, but when you succeed the sweetness is palatable.

Multiplayer is where the real action is at, and split screen or on Live! it’s fast and furious fun. Although there was initial scepticism at the 8-person limit, any more people and I don’t think the game would be as well balanced as it is. The melee combat is blazingly fast, and more people would ruin the enjoyment. As the amount of team modes has been reduced, there is no need for many players on one team. The range of characters to unlock, mutators to play with and over 40 maps mean that there are hours upon hours of fine fragging entertainment on offer.

All the new moves and characters wouldn’t be worth jack if they didn’t look good, but each character is brilliantly realised with their individual acrobatic moves and attacks. You no longer think that you’re playing the same character in a different skin, each character feels quite extraordinary to play, and you will most likely develop a liking for one or two characters in particular, depending on your way of playing. The maps are very well conceived for the smaller limits of players, but occasionally they’ll seem a bit large as you run around trying to find campers when playing one or two other people. The background graphics, special effects, shadowing and so forth are up there with the best of the current slew of Xbox games, and the cut scenes are really impressive. Sound wise the game is equally remarkable, with Dolby in game sound on offer and with plenty of cussing and splatting to hear you’ll enjoy the audio as much as the visual aspects.


Conclusion:
UC2 is an incredibly fun game to play. It looks slick and plays well in both multiplayer and single player alike. The melee combat adds such a difference it almost feels like you’re playing a new genre of game. The enormous number of levels, playable characters and challenging gameplay mean that you’re not going to get bored of it too soon. Even if you don’t have Live! the AI Bots in single player are enough of a challenge to keep you coming back.

Pros:
Excellent blend of melee fighting and shooting.
Intelligent and challenging AI in single player mode.
Fantastic fast paced online action.
Wonderful graphics and audio.

Cons:
Cooperative team play has been cut back.
AI can be a little too tough at times.
Some maps can seem a little too big with only a few players.

91/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams

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THQ has teamed up with Nickelodeon to bring us Tak 2, The Staff Of Dreams. Now before you groan about the fact that this is a sequel, or based on intellectual property which is made to sell kids toys, give the game a go – I was pleasantly surprised and discovered a great game for kids and grown ups alike. It’s got all the fun stuff that kids love doing, such as running, double jumping, floating, and of course fighting, as well as some very clever puzzles to solve which may stump even the brightest “kid”, but with perseverance and correct timing, can be solved.

The original Tak was never made available for Xbox, so I don’t really know the back story, but from what I can gather Tak is a “chosen one” type warrior of the Papanunu tribe, and he and his friends saved a Moon Goddess’ stones from the evil Tlaloc in the previous game. In this adventure, Tak starts off in the Dreamworld, and he’s asked by a Dream JuJu (JuJu’s are the gods of this world) to rescue a princess who’s locked in a distant and dark tower. Clichéd it may be, but it sets up the other game world action nicely, as you journey through the “real world” in order to see your shaman friend Jilboba’s brother, known as JB (gedit? Jilboba’s Brother… JB).

The Dreamworld is brightly coloured, and kind of soft and spongy. As you jump and glide through the world, you make plopping noises every time you land on a surface. It’s filled will all manner of nightmare creatures, but the JuJu, the mystical floating star thing guides you through the world, telling you how to combat the monsters. At the end of every dreamworld level there is usually some kind of boss that is easy enough to dispatch with your staff and bolas. But as well as find the princess, you have to figure out who or what the JuJu is and why they’re being so helpful.

The “Real World” is much like what you’ve seen in the updated version of Pitfall – lush green forest environments with streams and hazardous cliffs. The fauna residents of the real world, ranging from bears to skunks to boars and crocodiles all have a part to play in getting you to your goal, whether that is to help or hinder you. Tak is well equipped to fight with his staff and bola and JuJu magic. But in spots of real bother Jilboba’s flea form can help by throwing him at animals and either biting them to get them to do some action, or put them to sleep so they no longer bother you. In addition to fighting or avoiding animals, there are some puzzles that you have to solve with each type of animal. For example, with a bear, you’ve got to lead it to honey so you can use his belly as a trampoline.

On top of the animals are you’ve also got to deal with the evil inhabitants of the forests that the Papanunu people call home – the Woodies. These inhabitants will try to stop you from getting to JB’s by setting nefarious puzzle traps that you have to solve, as well as simply just pummel you. There are various types of Woody, from the foot soldiers that are easy to dispatch, to the Shaman that can bring other Woodies back to life, and the brutish soldiers wielding massive clubs.

The levels are varied enough to keep even the most ADD stricken child entertained, ranging from simple platform jumping and problem solving, to sailing down rivers in barrels. There’s even a nod to Donkey Kong as you have to avoid falling barrels in one section. To add spice to the game, some arena and vehicle scenarios have been thrown in. The arena combat is simple enough, but the vehicle combat involves doing jumps at speed, shooting and avoiding enemy fire all at once and is quite challenging. There are some rather nefarious puzzles that will tax your brain more so than other platform games, but it’s never too hard, keeping you hooked with a desire to beat the game just that little bit more.

Like most platformers, there is a stack of things to collect, and these can be used in the pause menu to unlock various minigames, which can be played one or two player, extending the fun after the fairly lengthy single player levels have been completed. To unlock the various minigames, you collect magic gold scrolls on your journey through both the Dream and Real worlds, plus you can simply mix ingredients and hope for the best.
The characters in Tak 2 are all very colourful and cartoony, and the levels are bright an expansive, although they’re very linear as like most other platform games there’s only one real path to completing your goals. The Xbox isn’t pushed to its limits with regards to the graphics, and at times it’s mutliplatform heritage does shine through, but it’s never glaringly ugly. There are issues with the camera not being able to show you what you need to see at times, although these are encountered with any platform game, so can be overlooked.

The music in the game is all original, and suits the action well, although it’s no where near the quality of Voodoo Vince for instance. The voice acting is superb however. One of the coolest things about Tak2 is its humour. Patrick Warburton (Seinfield, the Dish) wonderfully portrays Tak’s half-witted friend Lok, and the scenes with Lok are absolutely hilarious. There’s all manner of wacky silliness going on throughout the whole game, but it never devolves into being too childish or demeaning. Even such an obvious joke with the bad guys being called “Woodies” is not acted upon, and this restraint is refreshing as it shows the designers are aware that penis puns aren’t the only things that make people laugh.
The game is unapologetically aimed at kids, and some may find the hand holding a little tedious earlier in the game, but it does drop off towards the later stages. However, despite the handholding, there is something wrong in that the game doesn’t save at checkpoints or anything, so if you forget to save and then quite your game, you will lose all your progress! This oversight can lead to frustration if the game isn’t saved often.

Conclusion
All in all Tak2: Staff of Dreams is an enjoyable romp through a bright and colourful world with some really likable characters and enough variance in the gameplay to keep you playing for a good few days. It stands above the other platform based games by refusing to bow to the lowest common denominator – sure it’s made for kids, but the puzzles and levels are designed to give a challenge. Through the humour you grow to like the characters, and because of this the game feels a lot more solid than other titles aimed at the younger market.

Pros
– Funny and well conceived characters and game universe
– Challenging and varied gameplay to suit children and adults alike
– Lots of unlockables for multiplayer

Cons
– Doesn’t automatically save your progress
– Can have camera issues
– Handholding is a little too much in earlier levels

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Playboy: The Mansion

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SEX! Do I really need to say any more to get your attention? It's the PLAYBOY game – of course you're interested! But is it any good?

Hugh Hefner realised the importance of the Playboy rabbit logo himself when he first wrote his Playboy Philosophy in 1962. “We first became aware that Playboy was developing into something more than a magazine when readers began purchasing Playboy products in considerable quantities,” he wrote. “Everything from cufflinks, ties, sport shirts, tuxedoes and bar accessories to playing cards, personalized matches and stickers for their car windows –all with the Playboy Rabbit as the principal design and principal motivation for the purchase.”

This logic still seems to apply some 43 years later, as the Playboy logo has been plastered all over Playboy The Mansion (PTM from here on in) which is essentially a more risqué but less satisfying version of The Sims.

There are two modes of play – Mission and Freeform play, but they’re essentially the same game. Freeform play allows you to take your own pace in building up your magazine empire whilst Mission has little goals that you must achieve to proceed in the game. I found the Mission play to be a lot more interesting as you’re given a lot more to try and do, and you get a sense of satisfaction once you’ve completed the goals. The gameplay just isn’t deep enough to keep you satisfied in Freeform mode.

Unlike the Sims, you don’t get to create your own avatar in the game but rather are given the avatar of Hugh Hefner to guide through his loves and career. Thankfully this is the young Hef, at the age he was when he created his empire, and not the wrinkly viagra swilling old man he is now. Furthermore you don’t get to make your own house, but get the choice of two ‘Mansions’ – old and modern – and this is pretty much decorated for you. You start with a reasonable amount of money, so any you can proceed to make rather sweeping changes, plus buy rather good items right from the word go. Thus, some of the more enjoyable aspects of the Sims have been removed from the gameplay right off the bat.

Luckily the other aspects of PTM are reasonably well put together so that you’re kept interested. The main goal of PTM is to build a magazine empire, and to do this you’ve got to make a name for yourself by throwing the biggest parties and hiring the best staff. A magazine is only as good as those who contribute, and Hef needs help running his magazine – after all, he’s off socialising with all the playmates! So to get your first edition to the stands you need to hire a journalist, a photographer, and a Playboy Model. These can be found in the Roster Menu, accessed by pressing down on the D-Pad. This is essentially your little black book, where all the people you can meet at a given time are located, and is divided up into those you have in the Mansion, Available Staff, Celebrities and Inner Circle.

Under the Available Staff menu there is a list of people available for hire, and those with the most stars are the best; they’ll take the best pictures, they’ll pose well and write excellent articles and interviews, but are also the most expensive to hire per month. Once you’ve hired your staff, its time to put them to work. Each magazine needs six items of content – a cover shot, centrefold, pictorial, essay, interview and article. For the pictorial and article all you need to do is ask your photographer and journalist to do one, give them a wad of cash, and off they go. For a centrefold, you need to find your playmate and ask for a centrefold.

Taking the photos is real simple. You choose your location (The Mansion, Upper Floor, or Pool) and place your model. A Camera lens appears on the screen, and you can put the model in a wide variety of lingerie, both full body and topless. You can change the colours of the clothing, accessorise with jewellery, and then get them to pose by pressing the Y Key. In pose mode, they seek out any props – bed, couch, shower, etc and drape themselves in that suggestive playboy manner. And then you can proceed to take photos of the floor, and publish them.

Yes, the girls do not even have to be in the photo as it depends on the skill of the photographer and model as to whether it is a good photo, and nothing to do with the actual shot itself. This is very disappointing, as there is the whole rigmarole of buying props to pose on, and dressing your model up (or down) when in the end it means nothing to the overall quality of the shoot.

The cover shoot is done in the same way as the centrefold, but like the essay and interview, require you to be friends with Celebrities. This is where the party throwing comes into play. You have to invite certain celebrities to parties and get to know them well enough to ask them for a centrefold, essay or interview. Each person has 3 Drive Meters – Leisure, Entertainment, Professional – and 3 Relationship Meters – Casual, Professional and Romantic. The Drives are modified by the surroundings, and that’s why it’s important to buy things for the house, such as games, bars, bookshelves, food tables, stereos and so on. On the whole people will satisfy their own Drives, but you can also order a person to follow you and get them to use an item if you notice their drives are low. Certain items, such as the Trampoline or Staff Desk can also increase a celebrity’s star rating by increasing their various stats, although I found it better just to fire those with low stats and star ratings and hire new people, as there are no penalties for firing people – they don’t even dislike you!

The Relationships Meters are modified by the way you talk to people. When Hef meets someone, he can concentrate his conversation on the 3 relationship meters, and when one of these gets high enough, they become friends with him. Fortunately Hef is one very charismatic person, and he doesn’t have to try hard at all to get these meters filled. After a few chats, most people are very friendly with Hef and agree to do what is asked of them. It is here where you can invite people into the “inner circle”, which means celebrities will just come over for a visit and hang. This is good for getting essays and articles from a variety of people when you are low on money, because they don’t expect expensive parties or invitations.

Of particular note is the Romantic drive, which only females have. Get this high enough, and you get the option to have sex with the person Hef is chatting to. If only it were this simple in real life, as only after a few presses of the D-Pad you can be doing the horizontal boogie with people you just met minutes before. Sure, we all know that Hef is a ‘playa’ even today, but I’m confident enough to say he never found it this easy. There is no challenge here at all, and it lessens the experience. If it was difficult to pick people up and go for some rumpy pumpy, then it might actually be something worthwhile, but it seems vacuous and like taking photographs, is rather disappointingly implemented. At least the animations are funny.

Once you have your content, it’s time to put the magazine together. Pressing up on the D-pad opens the Magazine Menu, and here you choose your content, and choose your market. The Market is an interesting concept, as it forces you to examine your content a little more carefully as the game goes along. There are various sectors – political, musical, sport, and so on, and by having the right articles, you can win a higher market percentage and make more money. For example, if politics is of interest in a particular month, getting a scientist on the cover, interviewing a politician, and having a pictorial of national monuments will do better than an article focusing on sport.

As markets change over time, it’s good to have a wide range of celebrities with different interests around so you can focus on different markets and maximise your profit. You can also determine your ad content and cover price, which also affect profit. This part of the game gives a depth that are lacking in the relationship and photo taking sections, and if they were as well conceived as this section the game would be better for it. It’s still a little on the light side, as it would be nice to be able to manipulate the readership more, but as it stands it’s surprisingly deep, compared to the rest of the game.

Another disappointing aspect of PTM are the graphics, particularly the character models. The characters all look too similar, and it is difficult to discern one from another, especially when throwing the bigger parties. Any “real life” celebrity retains some semblance to their real life counterpart, but the sameness of the characters diminishes their impact. The rest of the art is fine however, and the mansion can look rather cool in photo shoots. The sound is all in Simmish – I would have loved to hear some of Hef’s pick up lines, or some of the Celebrity reactions rather than the muted nonsense that is there, but that’s a minor quibble. The music, on the other hand, is superb. There are 8 stations to choose from with a wide variety of styles and tunes featuring everything from hiphop to jazz to rock, plus you can add your own stations with Custom Soundtracks.

Conclusion:
Playboy The Mansion just doesn’t have the inches to penetrate the market it’s after. It’s too limp to be a real contender in the simulation market. Sure, it’s got boobs and sex, but they’re too easy to get these in this game. Much of the fun in getting into a sexual relationship comes from the thrill of the chase, and in PTM that chase is three or four clicks long and then your prey rolls over. If it were a little more difficult to get what you wanted the game would be much more alluring. The empire building aspect is quite engaging, but it doesn’t go deep enough to keep you stimulated for very long.

Pros:
Boobs and sex galore!
The magazine market aspect is surprisingly in depth.
Excellent music score

Cons:
Way too easy to get what you want.
Not enough depth in other areas of the game.
Character Models look too similar
Some bugs with navigation and animation.

70/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

The Punisher

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What would you do if you were an ex Vietnam Vet, and your entire family got wiped out in a Mob hit, and the police were unable or unwilling to help you? Would you sit back and allow the criminals to overrun your city, infesting the streets, hurting innocents and mocking you with their brazenness? Or would you put your years of training and fighting to the test, become a vigilante and start taking the law into your own hands?

In THQ and Violition’s The Punisher, you take on the role of Frank Castle, Ex-Marine turned vigilante in order to give pain back to the bad guys. No spandex tights and mask for this mean dude, he wants people to know who he is and know what he’s going to do to you if you get on the wrong side of him. He beefed up, found a really cool looking transfer to iron onto his t-shirts, and became the Punisher.

And there’s a whole lot of pain to be dealt. The Punisher is no ordinary superhero, fighting for justice, or truth, or the American Way. He’s a dark, brooding, gritty, mean and angry man, and wants revenge on the mob gangs who killed his family, and won’t let anyone get in the way of his revenge. This game is very much aimed at the mature gamer, and it shows from the very opening scene, as The Punisher brutally shoots his way out of the Takagi building before surrendering to police. Yes, The Punisher nods it’s head to the storytelling device made infamous by Tarantino, and, like a Tarantino story there is a great deal of violence and bloodshed, but this is backed up by an engaging storyline and strong lead character.

The story, from acclaimed Punisher comic book writers Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti, slowly unwraps itself as you move through the game. A cutscene plays before each level, showing an interrogation situation with two cops drilling The Punisher for information about what he has done – and what you are about to play out. This device works really well, making you want to play through the game to find out exactly what is happening, to find out why has The Punisher allowed himself to be captured, what he has done to be incarcerated, and who he’s going to kill next. But more than being a cheap plot device, the story is actually interesting and engaging as well.

The gameplay itself is really quite simple, but it is also quite a lot of fun. Each of the 16 levels sees the Punisher go from point A to point B shooting everything that moves. The controls are standard Shooter fare – Left Joystick moves, Right looks about, and the Right Trigger fires while the Left Trigger throws grenades. To assist you in this task is over 20 different weapons, although not all of these are available to you at first. There’s your usual fare of pistols and shotguns and automatic rifles, plus a couple of bigger weapons like flame throwers and anti-tank guns. To bring more pain to the bad guys, The Punisher can wield two weapons at once, but only two weapons of the same sort. He can also ‘precision aim’ (or use the sniper scope) by clicking the right joystick for all those important headshots. This is also handy when the bad guys have a human shield of their own, as the only thing you’re not allowed to shoot is an innocent.

To make the game deeper, you are given style points for being creative with your kills and avoiding being shot. To avoid being hit, you can dodge / dive with the B button, and crouch by depressing the left joystick. You can also grab nearby enemies with the A button, and used them as shields and toss them through closed doors. The more bad guys you kill without being hit, the higher your multiplier can go, and the more points you get. These points can be exchanged for better armour, health, scopes, attached grenade launchers, bigger ammo clips and so forth. They also grant you medals that unlock the extra content, which, if you’re a fan of the Punisher comics is a real treat.

But this would all be humdrum if it wasn’t for quick kills and interrogations. Pressing the X button when near or when holding a bad guy will result in a quick kill. For these, Violition pulls out a massive number of animations, from execution style pistol to the head, to knife through the skull, to shoving a grenade in their mouth and watching their heads explode. They’re all violent, and all look very slick and cool, and it is fun to run through a level and see how many you can do. There’s also a “Slaughter” Mode, engaged by the Y button, which is kind of a Max Payne style bullettime where The Punisher pulls out his knife and simply runs amuck. Like Max Payne, this time is limited, and you refill the meter in the same way you get Style points.

At anytime you have hold of an enemy, you can press the A button to interrogate them. There are four different types of interrogation – Choke, Face Smash, Punch and Gun Stress, corresponding to the direction of the joystick, and when you activate this mode a stress meter appears. By moving the joystick up and down, you move the meter into the yellow stress zone, and keeping it in this zone will cause the bad guy to break. The average bad guy will tell you generic things like “Jigsaw will kill you”, or will set of a memory which unlocks a still from the comic books. Then there are those with the White Skull above their heads, who will divulge better information, like how to get out of a room, or where certain things or people are, and so on.

In addition to this, there are also special interrogation areas around the map. These are located with a White Skull, and these areas are where the gruesome interrogations come in. They can only be used once, but they are mighty fun. There are things such as bandsaws, deep fryers, ledges over shark-infested waters, wood chippers, and a whole host of other deadly spots where The Punisher can extract information. Once you’ve extracted the information, you’re meant to let the bad guy go, but it is far more fun to simply let them have it and kill them, and watch their animated death. If you do this, you lose style points, and the screen turns black and white in order to maintain it’s MA15+ rating. Some people see this form of censorship as wrong, but I think it adds to the overall feel of the game. There’s also Special Kill area, marked with a Gold Skull, and these grisly places of death offer no punishment to you for utilising them.

The Punisher looks good too. As mentioned, the mood of the game is dark, and this is reflected in the gritty set design in all the levels. Even the bright neon in some levels have a drabness to them. There are a wide variety in the levels, from the close quarters of a Russian frigate and downtown crackhouse to the openness of an outdoor military compound, allowing a bit of variety and strategy to come into play – do you take your assault rifle or shotgun? There is also a lot of nice set dressing, especially later in the game, and whilst not being fully interactive, there are some props and glass walls that can be shot and blown about the place. The Punisher himself is very well modelled, and looks mean in his leather jacket. The bad guys look a little stiff at times, but when you face the bosses all of them are well conceptualised.

Sound wise the game is good too. The Punisher, voiced by Tom Jane who played the lead role in the 2004 Punisher movie, is deep voiced, reflective and almost philosophical at times. He narrates over the action much in the same way Max Payne did, and there are quite a few amusing lines thrown in here and there. The screams and pleadings of the bad guys can be funny too, especially during interrogations as you get closer to breaking them. The music in the game is suitably comic book action style – it reminds me of the Batman movies and Max Payne games, and suits the action in the game very well, when you notice it over the gunfire of course. The gunfire is perhaps not intense as it should be, considering the amount that happens, and at times it is difficult to know when you are being hit by bullets because there are so many flying about.

Conclusion:
The Punisher is an enjoyable, if somewhat short (about 10 hours), action shoot ’em up. It’s relatively easy too, but incorporates some interesting, if somewhat violent, gameplay ideas that work really well. The violence in The Punisher game is over the top, like the comic it is based on. It never seems overly disturbing like in the game Manhunt, and you never feel that you are playing anything other than a comic based game. The censorship that has come into the game actually adds to the overall feel, but I can see this game grabbing the attention of those who think violent games are a the end of civilisation as we know it, so expect this to go the way of Manhunt in a few months.

Pros:
– Simple yet fun run and gun style gameplay, with an engaging storyline
– The interrogations are and interesting gameplay device, and fun to execute
– The Style Points and Medals offer incentive to play through again
– Lots of unlockables, in-jokes and references to the Marvel Universe for the comic freaks

Cons
– Quite violent, so don’t let the kids play it
– Quite easy to get through on the default setting, and pretty short
– The Boss fights are very easy.

81/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Robotech Invasion

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I used to love Robotech as a kid. I never truly understood it, partly because the story lines continued over a few weeks and I’d miss them as I used to play soccer on Saturdays, but more so because they were edited and dumbed down for a western audience. Characters loved, lusted, romanced, deceived, cross-dressed and even died, and most of this was watered down in order to make the series presentable to western kids used to Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. I’ve never properly revisited the Robotech universe, but after playing the game, it’s on my to-do list.

Robotech Invasion takes place in the 3rd series of the Robotech Saga, known as the New Generation. The Robotech Expeditionary force is on the other side of the galaxy when the aliens known as the Invid invade Earth to harvest protoculture from a flower only found on our home planet. Resistance forces rise up, and the Robotech Expeditionary force returns. You are part of that force, found unconscious on Earth and given a new identity, and new tools to fight the alien invaders.

It all sounds pretty exciting, but pretty quickly you realise that there’s not much to this game. Like the original series, it is dumbed down quite a degree, from the story to the gameplay. The story is more clichéd and contrived than anything the series could manage, even after the western censors took their axes to it. Although this maybe intentional, giving a nod to the series, it doesn’t quite work like that, leaving you feeling lost and confused on the whole.

The gameplay is pretty much your standard shooter fare. Point at this and shoot at that. It’s not too bad, but there’s nothing special here that hasn’t been done a million times before. When you get the upgrade to your armour that allows you to transform into a Cyclone, a two wheeled battle machine, things start looking up – until you try to control the thing. The Cyclone feels too light and floaty, and you can’t operate the thing indoors, even though the indoor areas are often bigger and less treacherous than the outdoor areas. Its weapons are a bunch of the cool squiggly rockets that have become a staple of Anime and Manga, but unfortunately they are too ineffective against the Invid and even human opponents.

Staying in human form is the best way to play this game, as you have better control and better guns. You can hold the left trigger and lock onto targets, which is a great little device, although it makes gun battles a little easier than they should be. Not that any of it is overly hard, the AI of the enemy is average – it focuses on you and simply shoots, and your teammates is even worse – they can’t seem to hit anything, but seem to get hit by everything.

The level design is probably the best aspect of the game. There’s enough variety in the game world to keep you interested for a few good hours. There are protection, search and rescue, and fetch and retrieve style missions, as well as blow up everything you see missions. There are a few ‘on rails’ missions to break up the action, which are also quite fun. The environments you fight in are quite varied too, but lack a certain level of detail that really shows after a while.

The graphics of the game are a let down too. There’s nothing shockingly bad about them, but again, there’s nothing great about them. The transformation from human to Cyclone is pretty cool, but other animations, such as explosions, gunfire and particle effects are fairly lack lustre. The sound is also just average, with the voice acting sounding like bad dubbing – which is perhaps intentional, but again, it doesn’t really work. Not even Jesper Kyd’s composition overly helps the game, unlike his compositions in the Hitman and Freedom Fighters games.

There is an online component, but every time I went online there were no players at all. This is getting to be quite a common thing for the lesser titles with Xbox Live! compatibility. Everyone plays the big release titles at release, and no one seems to want to play the smaller titles. In this case that’s probably not a bad thing, as the standard deathmatch, capture the flag, and capture & hold style games on offer nothing new to any seasoned gamer.

Overall, Robotech Invasion fails to impress on any level. Its lacklustre storyline, its been-there-done-that gameplay, its disappointing vehicle physics, and average graphics and sound all add up to an OK game, but one you couldn’t recommend over other titles that have been released recently. This is a shame, because the Robotech Universe is a very interesting universe, and has a lot of potential for greatness. The one good thing this game has made me want to do is revisit the cartoon, so I would only recommend this to devout fans of the series.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Powerdrome

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What is the best part of Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace? If you said Jar Jar Binks or C3PO naked, then I suggest you see the film again, and then if that feeling persists, see a therapist.!

The best part of that movie was the Pod racing. It was a fantastic sequence that captured the essence of Grand Prix racing but notched the speed up tenfold, and placed it in a canyon with more dangerous curves than Natalie Portman. The sequence also spawned a few game licences, namely Star Wars Racer (why didn’t they just call it Pod Racer?) and Star Wars Racer Revenge, which were well received at the time, as they offered the Pod racing experience from the movie on your home computer.

Powerdrome is very similar to Pod Racer, but without the Starwars license. So there are no pods – the vehicles in this are called “Blades”, no Anakin, and thankfully no lame story featuring mitichlorians. In fact, there is no story here at all. The game, unlike so many other racing titles, makes no pretence – this is all about racing at ultrahigh speeds. You aren’t made aware of the universe around you, you are not filled in on the drivers’ relationship with one another, and you’re not even made aware of the reason you’re racing, apart from the desire to become the Powerdrome Champion. On the one hand this is great, as there are no boring cut scenes to watch, no needless filler to bore you to tears, but on the other hand a good story can keep you returning to a game you wouldn’t otherwise think about too much.

As soon as you start the game in Championship mode, you choose your driver and choose your track. There’s only one track and two drivers / Blades to begin with, but you unlock more as you win races. The controls are quite intuitive for a racing title. The right trigger accelerates, the left trigger breaks, and the left joystick steers. Like Pod Racer, there is a boost that builds up the better you race activated by the X button, and a repair button activated by the Y button. Repair is used when you crash into walls and other racers. In an interesting addition, you can choose race manual or automatically, and in typical racing fashion, manual gears can give you an edge if you can use them well enough.

There are no weapons in this game, so winning races is all up to the way you pilot your blade, and the use of your boost and drifting. You can crash into other opponents using a well timed boost and severely injure their chances of winning, but this in turn damages you and can slow you down greatly if not executed properly. The tracks are well laid out, but you won’t find anything too new here if you’re a fan of the genre. Whilst not exactly a Wipeout clone – it is based on a game that came out for Amiga in the late 80s – you can’t help but feel that the tracks are, well, typical for a game of this sort. I also found the tracks to be slightly difficult at first, but there is a time trial option where you can race without having to worry about other competitors, and it is best to race these through a few times to get used to the tracks. However, once used to the tracks, the game is challenging but not unbeatable.

However, the look of the tracks is anything but typical. In fact, the graphics on this title are on par with some of the better racing games available on the Xbox. The feel of speed is accentuated both a camera shake and blur effect. You really feel as though you are going really fast, touching the edges of human and technological endurance, ready to crash and burn at any moment. Yet at the same time the responsiveness of the blade makes you feel like you’ve still got control. Adding to the visual excitement is great lighting. When you emerge from a darkened underground passage, there is an effect as if your eyes are refocussing to the light. As you race across the water the sun glares blindingly. And each world has a distinctive theme, with lots going on in the background. One being a water world, water drops splash onto your windshield. There’s another being a fire based industrial world, and even a pastoral world surrounded by a halo like structure – I kept waiting for the MasterChief to drop in! In the background spaceships zoom overhead and dinosaur like creatures cantor away as you speed by.

Sound is adequately done, with a typical futuristic engine sound of spinning turbines and electronic whirrs. Your opponents curse you as you zoom past, and you curse in return when overtaken, or when you crash. You can use the D-Pad to say a few choice words too. The music is typical of futuristic racers, being mostly ‘techno”, in the loosest sense of the word, but unlike Wipeout, which had artists such as Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Leftfield used as in-game music, this music in Powerdrome is generic and samey throughout the game. And unfortunately, there’s no option to play your own playlists.

The multiplayer aspect of the game comes in the form of splitscreen, which is always a lot of fun, and via system link and Xbox Live! However, every single time I tried to log on to Live! there were no games available. And I’m not the only one who found this, as the Gamespot reviewer had the same issue. Sure, everyone is playing Halo 2, but there must be someone, somewhere out there in the big wide world who is playing this!

Conclusion:
I’ve used the word typical in this review quite a few times, and I think that this is one of Powerdrome’s biggest problems. The game doesn’t take any chances, and delivers a good game that is quite fun. However, there are a lot of games that are quite fun, and this doesn’t improve on the genre at all. I began this review by mentioning Pod Racer, and have also mentioned Wipeout, and basically that’s what this game is – a graphically updated version of those games. If you’re into story like I am, then there’s nothing here to entice you back apart from the thrill of the race. And frankly, that isn’t that great a thrill, especially if you still play the older futuristic racers.

Pros:
No nonsense, intense high speed racing
Excellent graphics, especially the lighting and blur effects

Cons
No one plays it on live
No story to keep you interested
Doesn’t push the envelope for the genre
Generic ‘techno’ music soundtrack

67/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

The Urbz: Sims in the City

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Without hyperbole, the Sims is the biggest computer game ever. It crosses every arbitrary marketing category you can think of – Age, Sex, Country, Income, and appeals to both the hardcore and casual gamer in a way that no other game can begin to touch. The move to consoles with essentially the same gameplay as to the PC version was a gutsy move, but it just didn’t sell as well as it did on the PC. EA and Maxis have decided to take a different route and rather than opting to simply port it’s the inventively named sequel The Sims 2 to consoles, they’ve invented a whole new game.

Enter the Urbz: Sims in the City. Taking its cue from the exclusive ‘Get a Life’ mode featured in the original Sims for consoles, the Urbz presents a much more goal-orientated gameplay than the Sims. The open style gameplay, the non-story focus that has defined the Sims franchise has been hamstrung, but that’s not a bad thing.

Like the previous Sims, you get to make your sim from a range of templates, which are quite mutable and customisable. The Sims have always has a “simness” about them, but this time they seem a little funkier, and more like a caricature akin to those Bratz dolls. Unlike the other games, you don’t get any clothes apart from the ones you’re given when you start. Furthermore, instead of choosing a neighbourhood, you and up to four other user controlled sims move into an 98th Ave, 3rd Floor Apartment, provided by your friend will.i.am. Yes, the will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas. Real Urban. It’s a very small apartment, and you have a few items in your inventory and $300 to spend.

The focus in the Urbz all about building your reputation throughout the city in order to become a big “playa”. To gain rep, you meet urbz and talk to them. The more urbz you talk to and the more often you talk to them, the more your rep builds. It’s the same principle as the “social need” in the Sims 2. To meet people you move a cursor with the left and when an urb is highlighted, press A to interact with them. You can move the camera around to get a better angle using the right stick. In fact, this is the way you interact with all objects in the game, and hasn’t changed much from the previous consol version. It’s relatively easy to use, although sometimes you can feel a little lost. In addition to this, there is a new interface tool in the form of the XAM. It’s an in-game PDA Phone that is used to display messages, to call other Urbz, and to keep track of your inventory, goals and relationships. Pressing the X button pauses the game and brings this device up.

When talking to any urb, you get a range of options that appear green, yellow or red, and this tells you how successful the option will be. This makes the game rather easy. It takes all the guesswork out, and you can build your reputation really fast just by choosing the green option all the time. Certain urbz will have skills to teach you, or tasks for you, and you have to be on friendlier terms with them to unlock the social moves or the tasks. One such task requires you to change another urbz’ appearance. To do this, you have to get friendly enough with the urb to invite him to join your “crew”, and you can then control them when you’re in the same district, or invite them to a new district. The higher your rep goes, the more things are unlocked – new social moods to show off to your friends or to gain new ones, new equipment used to boost your skills for working (more on that later) and new districts of the city.

But you’ve got to be able to walk the walk to talk the talk, and you’ve got to look stylish when doing it. At the start you don’t choose personality or starsign, but your social group. There’s a whole range of stereotypic “urban” groups here: There’s the ravers, with their glowsticks and neon that hang in Japan-inspired Neon East. There’s Kicktail Park where all the skater dudes hang out and grind the scenery. The Foundry is where all the arty types read Kafka and make Sculptures. The punks hang out at the Central Station train station, whilst the bikers like to hang at Gasoline Row. The hiphop and R&B lovers live on the rooftops of Skyline Beach, whilst it’s a lot more chilled over on Cozmo Street. The high rollers gather at the South Side Bridge, whilst the rich and gorgeous like the dizzying Diamond Heights. At first, only the district belonging to the crew you want to hang with is open.

Each district has own unique feel, and to get anywhere you need to fit in by buying new clothes and accessories to match the look of the locals. Each district has a bouncer guarding a VIP club that everyone who’s anyone hangs out at, and to progress through the game you have to get by that bouncer by being popular enough with a high rep, and also have to be dressed to impress. Clothes in the style of the district can be bought in each area in easy to find shops. But to buy the clothes, you need money, and luckily each district has a specific job for you. For example, at Kicktail Park, there’s a skate ramp you perform tricks on. At the Foundry you make sculptures. At Cozmo Street you’ll be working in will.i.am’s bar, whilst Diamond Heights offers modelling. All these jobs are completed in the same fashion – by following a sequence of button pushes on screen. These are really quite simple, even on the higher stages of the job. There’s three stages to each job, and to progress in a job you need to build up one of 3 skills – Artistic, Mental and Strength. These are built up with devices that are unlocked and can be purchased at cash registers throughout the city.

Unlike the other Sims games, building and object acquisition is no longer that important. Your apartment is more of a place where you build skills with the special items, sleep and shower. You can decorate it with items purchased from cash registers in each district of the city, including wallpapers and so forth, but you spend so little time there it doesn’t seem worth it. Your urbz’ needs, which like previous games need to be satisfied, are really easy to satisfy. Sleeping is quick – a few hours will fully recharge you, and your hunger and fun quotients deplete slowly and replenish quickly. Furthermore, in each district there’s a bed and wardrobe and sink anyway, so you can pretty much spend your whole time in an area without needing to go home.

The graphics of the game as mentioned before are quite stylised. The locations aren’t huge, but they are bright and colourful, even in the Artsy and punk areas. The Urbz look different from each other, but sometimes it is hard remembering who is whom, especially when they’re all partying in the VIP rooms. The interaction between the Urbz is often cute and humorous in that way only sims are. When as social move is activated, the camera zooms in and looks quite cool, and the animations are fun if somewhat a little cliché, like the ‘techno’ move which suits the ravers to a tee! There’s a little bit of slowdown when there’s a lot of urbz on screen, and the camera can sometimes get stuck looking at odd things when it’s zoomed in on a social, but it’s nothing too extreme. There are loading screen when ever you change location, clothes (either via a wardrobe or shop) that take almost too long however.

Sound wise the game is really good. Each district has it’s atmospheric sound – the Foundry sounds industrial, Central Station has trains and a tannoy, and so on. The Urbz speak in simmish of course, but in an interesting move EA has licensed music from popular artists the Black Eyed Peas, who re-recorded nine of their songs in simmis!. Will.i.am also recorded the other music in the game, which touches on popular existing tunes but gives them simmish lyrics – you’ll recognise quite a few tunes and find yourself humming along. There’s a range of music to suit each District

Conclusion:
The re-focussing of the gameplay makes it easy to pick up and play, and you can spend an hour or two with it without getting bored or feeling too involved. The mini-games, whilst repetitive, are fun, and it beats clicking the mouse button and waiting for a skill to increase. You won’t be sitting there for hours waiting for your urb to sleep, or get home from work, or shower, and so forth. The goal oriented gameplay may put off hardcore fans of the original games, having the Sims and all the add ons, as well as Sims 2 on PC, and I find the concept refreshing.

I would have liked the building and object acquisition to be a little more worthwhile than it is, as that is a big aspect of the original and brings out the interior decorator and architect in all gamers. The game does hold your hand a little too much, making it rather easy to play and to succeed, but all in all this is a game that is well suited to console gamers, as well as those who like the Sims franchise.

Pros
Much more goal orientated gameplay, but still has The Sims feel.
Oozes a unique and cool style in all aspects of the game
The music is a crack up

Cons
Building and Object collecting have been greatly devalued in terms of gameplay.
Can be a little too easy
The loading times seem a little long

83/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tony Hawk’s Underground 2

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Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (THUG2 from here in) is the second in the “underground” series, and 6th in the Tony Hawk Skater series. The original THUG was a great departure from the tradition of the Tony Hawk games, by placing you as the central character going across the world in a cohesive storyline, rather than choosing your favourite Pro-Skater and haphazardly moving from park to park. It introduced two new modes of transport for your skater – off the board walking and vehicles. The THUG2 doesn’t offer too much different apart from a wacky new story, and comes across feeling as an update rather than a fully-fledged sequel.

This time the series has gone totally MTV, featuring Bam Margera and the loons from the TV series “Jackass”. The story sees you join Team Hawk with other pro skaters in a race around the world on the World Destruction Tour. Your goal is to smash and break as much as humanly possible in each city that you travel to, beating Team Bam’s score. The story is, as you would expect if you’ve seen the TV show, puerile, immature and at times gross, but it has it’s moments of laugh out loud hilarity, especially if you’re a fan of this unique blend of humour. Some people may be put off by this, but remember – skating is first and foremost an activity of fun. Tony, Bam, Steveo, Bob Burnquist, and all those guys are great mates who really do crazy stuff both on and off the camera. To make it into some kind of serious endeavour, especially in a computer game, totally misses the point.

In Story mode, you build up your skaters stats by performing tricks. Following the formula of the previous THUG game, the more tricks you perform the better your skater becomes. For example, if you do a double kick flip your kick trick meter goes up, and to go up again you need to pull off a triple kick flip. It’s a nice way of building up your character, but if you’re patient enough you can max out the stats on the first level, making the other levels just a little more easier. Throughout each level there are many light posts and glass windows to smash through, and this is where the destruction part comes into play. Each level has some kind of structure which can be deformed by tricking in a particular place. For example, on the first level grinding the cannons whilst your board is on fire shoots a building under construction allowing you access to more places to skate.

There are no mindblowing new stunts this time around. All the tricks from series are here, and the new tricks are simply cherry on an already scrumptious apple pie. There’s the ‘freakout’ where hitting the Y button causes your skater to flip out and kick or smash the board, and this can be the starting point to linked combos. There’s a sticker slap which replaces the wall plant, and you can get off the board and tag graffiti on walls. Vehicles have been made a little better – you won’t be racing cars around this time, but be using smaller motorised vehicles. They handle much like the skateboard, but are far more ‘extreme’. This lack of new moves may well be the first indication that Neversoft may finally be clutching at straws with the franchise.

For those who didn’t like the direction THUG took the series, the game also ships with a “classic mode”. This takes it back to the old school and instead of the outrageous antics of Story mode, you’re presented with the classic THPS challenges, such as collect the letters S K A T and E, and timed trick modes. This mode is far more satisfying, as you feel compelled to explore the maps a lot more in the effort to get greater scores. You can also unlock some of the most popular maps from the series, although if you’re a fan of the series you would have skated these to death already.

The extreme customisation is back once again, and as well as creating the perfect skater, graffiti tag, tricks and skate parks, you can now make your own goals. It’s a little bit fiddly, but then again you’re basically given the tools to make your own version of the game! However, the only way these can be shared is via memory card swapping – again Xbox Live! is totally overlooked and not only can we not play against another person online, we can’t even share user created goodies. Multiplayer is limited to two people on one console – this time around not even system link play is included. The multiplayer modes are as numerous as in the previous title, but yet again the lack of innovation here suggests that Neversoft are running out of ideas.

The Tony Hawk series has never been a great looking series, and THUG2 is no exception. It’s not an ugly game, it’s just no Halo. However, the massive environments and rock solid framerate more than make up for this, and this time around there is an over-the-top sensibility, almost cartoonish in feel, and it works really well with the outrageous activities in Story mode. The Soundtrack on the other hand has always been a big stand out for the series, and again THUG2 has an outstanding number of tracks. This time there is the usual suspects – EMO, Rap, Old school hiphop and punk – but there are also some quite surprising tunes in the form of songs by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Joy Division. And, if you like graffing and grinding to the classy sounds of Mozart, you always have to option of importing your own playlists stored on your Xbox.

Conclusion:
THUG2 shows signs of the franchise weakening. There is no real improvement to the gameplay – you essentially have THUG with a few nips and tucks here, more whistles and bells there, but nothing in the way of a major upgrade. This can be seen as a good or bad thing – the gameplay is still as solid and exciting as it always has been, and if it ain’t broke… But the question has to be asked – how much longer can THQ and Neversoft carry this beast in this form? After 5 years the gameplay is getting a little stale, and whilst the game isn’t ho-hum, it’s not exactly mindblowing either. The lack of multiplayer online play is a serious oversight and would give the game greater longevity. Even 4 player split screen would have been nice.

Pros:
Funny story if you’re into the whole “Jackass” thing
Inclusion of “Classic Mode” in case you don’t.
Massive amounts of hiddens and unlockables
Great level of detail in customisations

Cons:
No real improvements over the previous game
No online or system link multiplayer

82/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Wings Of War

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Lets clear this up right now – Wings Of War is NOT an aircraft simulation game. There’s no 600-page manual telling you how to fly into head winds, or explaining how the sun heats up swamp gas making it hazardous to fly over. You don’t need to be a semi-trained pilot to enjoy a good dogfight. No, Wings of War is a simplistic representation of WWI fighter planes, and a pretty good one at that.

The main mode of the game is Campaign Mode, which puts you in the flying seat as Benjamin, or ‘Butch’ as his flying mates prefer to call him, flying for the Allies in WWI. Each mission will see you tasked with performing a number of objectives, over the course of a 10 or so missions. Missions start off with a static briefing read with the most English accent you’ve ever heard. “Right O, chaps, this one’s going to be a blighter, Tally Ho and whatnot!”… Which is rather campy and predictable, but this is a WWI flying game, so it’s to be expected. The briefing has an aerial map, and your objectives are shown on it. The briefings are quite long and involved, daunting even, but once you get flying you’ll find that things seem to be quite straightforward.

The first mission you’re invited to do is the obligatory training mission. Pulling the right trigger increases your throttle, while the left decreases it, leaving the face buttons for binoculars/zoom, firing machine guns and using secondary fire. Pulling the throttle, and then pulling back on the joystick achieves take off, and once airborne you fly around at your set throttle speed. Landing takes a little getting used to, as you’ve got to drop the throttle and reduce your speed, and land whilst keeping your nose up. You can also do crash landings if you lose your landing gear by enemy fire or hitting trees or buildings. Tricks can be done by dropping the throttle and moving the joystick around, although this doesn’t give you nearly enough manoeuvrability as Crimson Skies.

Firing machine guns is done with the A button, and it pays to control your bursts as guns can overheat, and although this can be switched off in the options, that takes away from the strategic use of your ammunition. You must plan your weapon usage, as secondary ammunition can become scarce. Secondary fire comes in the form of bombs and rockets, which is controlled by the B button. Yes, we’re all aware that rockets weren’t used on planes in WWI, but it makes the game FUN. You want a sim; get a PC and a MS’s Flight Sim. You want a rollicking good old time sending the Huns to hell, get Wings of War. Bombs can also be more precisely dropped using the BACK button, which puts the plane into auto pilot mode and gives a top down view of the terrain below you, but it makes you more vulnerable to enemy fire.

The range of variety in the missions is outstanding, and it never feels boring. Whilst most are simply destroy this or protect that, the way you go about it is entirely in your hands. If you have a ground-based objective you have to destroy, you can fly in low and shoot; fly in low and haphazardly drop bombs, or use precision using the back button. All the while there are ground and air attacks coming at you, enemy and allied planes to avoid, buildings, bridges and farms to dodge and destroy. Air based missions can be finished by you holding back and using rockets, or getting amongst it, good old dog fighting style. To aid you in your fight many planes, balloons, ground troops (tanks, armoured trucks, trains), boats and buildings have pick ups attached to them, and destroying them rewards you with these, and you can also pick them up through good old barnstorming, but this is tricky and dangerous.

Not only is there airplane action, you can also find yourself at the gun of a train or AA gun of a transport as it drives along, and have to shoot the enemy from the skies before they bomb you to smithereens. Other missions will have you taking photographs of enemy positions or factories, avoiding enemy fire snapping a picture much in the same way a bomb is dropped using the back button. Then there are side missions, which generally need to be completed within a certain amount of time. These take on a similar form of the main missions, and reward in the way of extra weapons, health, shields, faster engines and points. Some side missions require you to land and steal another aircraft, which then becomes unlocked in the Instant Action mode, and there are also race missions, where you have to beat another flyer to the checkpoint, whilst being engaged by other enemy.

Instant Action mode is a dogfight or team dogfight deathmatch. Choosing either Allies or the Germans, you battle it out with one another to see who is king of the skies. Unfortunately, this mode can’t be played multiplayer. No split screen, no LAN or Xbox Live, which makes it pretty much obsolete. It’s nice to include it as a distraction from the main mode, but considering that Xbox’s strength is its multiplayer functions, and considering how fun the dogfighting is in the game, it seems like a horrendous oversight. Being a budget title, it can be forgiven, but if some kind of multiplayer was included this could have been a sleeper hit.

Graphic wise the game isn’t too great. The planes look good, although at a distance they all tend to look the same. There’s a stupid cut scene when you change planes that shows you leaping from one plane to another, and it looks rather silly, especially when the plane you’re changing into is above you. When you fly close to the ground things really get ugly. There are messy textures and a general “sameness” over each and every landscape. The weather effects are quite average, and the game lacks the polish the xbox gamers have come to expect. However, each map is absolutely massive and very open. You won’t have to worry about knowing which way is up or down; blue is up and green/grey is down. The landscapes are dotted with tress and buildings, rivers and roads, and whilst they are undulated in places, it’s a far more realistic representation than the caverns and gullies of Crimson Skies.

Sound wise the game is pretty good, with the aforementioned campy voices speaking throughout the game. If you think of the WWI war movies, made in the 50s and 60s, you’ll get the general idea. I often found it hard to distinguish between the allied voices in intense plane battles, unsure if it was Benjamin or another allied pilot talking. The screams of the Germans as you shoot them out of the skies is pretty funny, but the German fighter ace, called Max no less, belongs back in Hogans Heroes. The planes and guns are slightly over exaggerated, but still realistically so, but there is no 5.1 surround sound support so you never feel as though you’re “really there” as the bullets zip past you.

Conclusion:
The disappointing visuals and complete lack of multiplayer do hurt Wings Of War, but to put it simply if you’ve got $30 to spare you could do a lot worse. It is a fun game that features a lot of depth for a budget title. The Campaign mode offers solid gameplay, and the open-ended nature of the main and side missions does allow for a little more replayability than one would first think from looking at the box. There isn’t any other game in the Xbox library to have the WWI fighter ace experience, and even at a higher price Wings Of War would be worth it.

Pros:
+ Excellently conceived Main and Side Missions that take thought and skill to get through
+ Wide, open maps and open ended gameplay dynamic
+ An incredible amount of planes to fly
+ The only WWI flight game on Xbox

Cons:
– Overall lack of polish screams that this is a budget game.
– No multiplayer what so ever.
– Really average looking graphics and environments

70/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Driv3r

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All those involved in game making and playing know that games have bugs in them, with some flaws that are glaringly obvious to anyone, and others that even a top rate Games Tester will miss. Generally these bugs don’t impact on the gameplay too much, usually being minor art flaws and the like and these are acceptable to most game players. Furthermore if there are too many ‘showstopper’ bugs, the developer and publisher always have the option of delaying the release (a regular event in the games industry) or cancelling the project.

So how can a game which has been in development for over 4 years, had millions of dollars spent on it, come out and be so buggy that even in the opening scene the flaws are so glaringly obvious that my techno phobic, game-hating girlfriend can spot them? Because right from the moment I loaded Driv3r and started the main story mode “Undercover”, I was confronted by a jerking cinematic that was so bad I took the disk out and checked for scratches.

Not finding any I started again and got the same “effect”. Now, this is unacceptable in any game really, but when the game boasts of being a cinematic experience, yet they are thusly flawed, it totally breaks any suspension of disbelief that the game is trying to create. This is a real shame because the cinematic feel is such an integral part of this game and this immediately puts you off. In Reflections defence, there can be problems in the manufacturing process with bad media (CDs) and once it’s gone into manufacture there’s not much that can be done.

The sad truth however is that there’s much to get involved in through the cinematic story anyway. It is trite and bland with the voice acting so stiff that you aren’t involved in the story anyway. The whole feel of the game is lifeless. There’s a lack of colour throughout the game and everything seems muted and dull. There’s a real lack of polish and refinement that shows through the bad looking textures to the characters which all look alike with little emotion portrayed in the faces and gestures.

There is simply no ‘life’ portrayed in the game at all. If it’s meant to be a gritty cop action film then you need to care for someone and nothing is developed narratively beyond the minimum needed to set up the next mission. The voice acting is kind of ok, but with such an average story and generic characters anyone could have supplied the voices and the money they have used to secure names such as Mickey Rourke, Michelle Rodriguez, Ving Rhames and Iggy Pop seems wasted.

Furthermore, as soon as the actual game starts for real, you get the sense that something has gone horribly amiss. Tanner, the carry over character, moves like an overweight 50 year old. His jump, performed by the A Button, is a laughable hop of about a foot high, meaning he can’t jump over anything. The aiming is so laborious that if he was in a shoot out with a 3-toed sloth that he’d be dead 3 times over by the time you get to pull the Right Trigger. Pressing the Back button switches you to 1st Person, and it’s a little better, but still awful slow. With something this bad a working auto aim feature would be nice, but I found no difference between “On” and “Off”.

The worst control is getting into and out of the car, performed by the X button. It is so slow that if you are being shot, health will be reduced to quarter from the time you press the button to actually entering or exiting the vehicle. Tanner can swim, but again this is cumbersome, and getting out of the water takes forever, again leaving you open. Seeing that the game is called Driv3r, they could have left this on foot part out, but no, they obviously wanted a ‘GTA Killer’. I think they may have killed it by making it laugh so hard it’s sides split open and its guts gushed onto the pavement.

Luckily the on foot AI is so damn stupid it would have trouble against an anaesthetised 3-toed sloth. This is best described by example. On a boss level, you chase the boss in a boat, and he jumps onto a little shack on the water. Once in the shack I stood back from an open door with two of the boss’ guards on the other side, the boss below me on another level, but I could see his head. I repeatedly shot the top of the boss’ head until he died and mission success. He ducked a couple of times, but then kept standing up into my line of fire. The guards didn’t budge. Didn’t run in the door to shoot me, didn’t move to protect the boss, didn’t even try to fire at me through the wall, which was another “tactic” other enemies tried.

Another time I was on foot, in a windowless building, and a cop car passed by. I must have been within its detection range because it came after me, by directly driving into the wall, until I heard it explode. This is just not acceptable in games anymore, and especially not AAA rated multimillion-dollar productions.

The driving sections are kind of fun. The exaggerated physics of the cars suits the “action film” feel they were attempting, and you get a real sense of speed as you race through the streets of Miami, Nice and Istanbul. There are cars, boats and bikes to ride, and they all handle pretty well, and the use of the standard Xbox driving controls (Right Trigger to Accelerate, Left to break, B to burnout/handbreak) means it’s easy to pick up. The damage models are pretty good too, and crashing into things and shooting up the other cars looks mighty fine. This is a good thing, because you will crash into things… and quite often. And this isn’t because of bad handling, but because there are some things that you can drive through, and some things that you can’t and it’s never clear which is which. In one part of a city you can drive through the fences, and in another you can’t. Not only is there that, but the spawning distance of cars and obstacles is so ridiculously small that things will pop up as you are right on top of them.

Given that the maps are open and huge, every one of the missions is so linear that it seems a total waste. In games like GTA and True Crime the level design is such that you are always encouraged to explore. Not so in Driv3r, which follows one linear mission after another and offers no way to really explore within the main game. There are some missions that require you to reach a destination point without a timer, and you can explore on your way, but immediately after that there are timed or checkpoint missions so if you want to go back to something you saw, you generally can’t. You can cruise around in “Take a Ride” mode, and complete the races in the Driving Games Section, and these are ok (unless you leave your vehicle), but dividing the game into 3 different modes doesn’t give a sense of a cohesive world, unlike the games that Driv3r seems to emulate.

Furthermore, the missions range from ridiculously easy to controller-smashingly hard. I would not have the slightest problem if I wasn’t able to complete the mission because of lack of skill, but the annoying pop ups, bad collision detection and even often the idiocy of the A.I turn most of the missions into exercises of frustration rather than skilful manipulation of human over machine.

The best bit of this game is the music, which is done incredibly well, and puts the score up a few notches. You can have your own soundtrack, but the game soundtrack suits the action, especially the car chases. The loading screen is in the format “Previously in Driver…” much like an action series, and is something done really well. As mentioned before, the voice acting is stiff but still kind of OK, given the generic story and script, and the cars do sound pretty fast. A few extra points come from the ability to record and direct replays, which you can share on Xbox live and a bit of fun can be had watching, and giving feedback to the countless replays already available to watch.

If you were expecting ‘the next big thing’ from Driv3r (which considering the pre-release hype you had every reason to) and you’re a fan of this style of game expecting something new and exciting, you will be extremely disappointed. If you are a long time fan of the Driver series of games there may be something of interest for you here but the bugs and general dullness of the game kills any excitement that you would be looking for.

Conclusion:
The shoddy on foot action and the terrible AI, the bugs, including bad pop up, bad collision detection and glitches in animation both in cut scenes and in game, the terrible mission design and trite story add up to a really average game. If it was a budget priced game made on the cheap it may be acceptable, but this is a AAA title with a massive budget and long development time and it is simply unacceptable. What’s worse is it seems the only thing that was done right was the marketing, as Driv3r has topped the sales charts. This might indicate to game publishers that they can get away with shoddy game making as long as they market it well, and for such a classic game franchise to be handled as poorly as it has here is a real shame. If you’re a Driver fan, give it a rent, if you’re only curious we recommend you give this game a miss.

Pros
+ excellent marketing and production values
+ ‘take a ride’ mode is fun for a while
+ the driving bits are kind of fun, with good vehicle physics
+ making the replays is also fun and you can share them online

Cons
– stiff and awkward on foot action, of which there’s too much
– annoying bugs which should just not be in retail code
– incredibly linear mission design
– terrible pop up for both textures and objects
– dull, lifeless game world.
– some of the worst AI ever encountered in an Xbox game

49/100