Tag Archive: video games


EGM Review: Spider-Man: Edge of Time

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October 14, 2011

One hell of a paradox

Trying to capitalize on their success with last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Beenox brings us now Spider-Man: Edge of Time. A new villain in the year 2099, Walker Sloan, is at the forefront of time-travel and finally cracking the fourth dimension. Working for Alchemax, Sloan uses the corporation’s mass resources for his own purposes though and constructs a time machine that propels him back into the 1970s. With over 100 years of future knowledge, Sloan pilfers many of the late 20th century’s great ideas years ahead of their conception in order to re-write history and the Alchemax company into his own image. Now, Spider-Men from two ages must work together across space and time in order to put things back the way they once were and close up the wormhole that Sloan has opened up with his time hopping.

There are a lot of good things that Beenox has done with the Spider-Man franchise to date and some of these things continue in Edge of Time. Unfortunately, they get away from two things that I feel are critical to any Spider-Man game dating back to Spider-Man for the N64/PS1: lots of web-slinging and lots of villains. With the entire game taking place inside a single building, you do a decent amount of wall-crawling, but there is not as much room as you’d like to swing and something that has been a staple I feel of all the great Spidey games of the past 10 years has been a fair amount of web-slinging. This lack of web-slinging makes Edge of Time feel more like a generic brawler whose heroes happen to occasionally walk on walls than a genuine Spider-Man game.

Also, Spidey’s Rogues Gallery is one of the most diverse in comics and is only trumped probably by Batman over at DC. So to see Beenox go from over a dozen classic villains in Shattered Dimensions to only a handful of low appeal ones in Edge of Time really felt like a punch to the gut that knocked the wind out of this game. Mind you, without giving anything away, fans of that old-school Spider-Man from the N64/PS1 will likely draw parallels to a new villain who appears in Edge of Time, but besides that fleeting moment of recognition, none of the villains featured in this game got me as excited as those from Shattered Dimensions.

Still, there is a lot of good in this game and fans of Spider-Man will likely walk away pleased with the overall experience. The story, written by original Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David, is one of the more compelling Spidey tales I’ve seen in a while and has so many twists and turns that you’ll find yourself willingly falling further down the wormhole just to find out what is going to happen next.

Another brilliant aspect of the game is how fresh each chapter feels compared to most other brawlers out there. Bouncing back and forth between Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 feels like a new experience each time as they level up because their fighting styles and special powers are so different from one another.

We also see a huge upgrade with the return of the free-falling levels with Spider-Man 2099 that were introduced in Shattered Dimensions. Although you won’t be fighting any villains this time in elevator shafts and various other vertical corridors, you’ll be dodging a lot more obstacles and a new targeting reticule has been introduced that lets you know exactly where you’ll land on your current path, which makes dodging all those obstacles that much easier. No villains though may make it feel like a mini-game for some, but for me it was one of the most fun mini-games then that I’ve played in a while and are the levels I would replay the most in both Shattered Dimensions and here again in Edge of Time.

Throw in hysterical mid-level dialogue between the two Spider-Men because of a psychic link they have through the wormhole and the relationship between the two becomes a fast growing bond that is enjoyable for the player on a lot of levels. The dialogue is also very strong because Spider-Man 2099 is played by Spider-Man: The Animated Series star and Spider-Man Noir in Shattered Dimensions, Christopher Daniel Barnes, and Amazing Spider-Man is played by Spectacular Spider-Man star and Ultimate Spider-Man in Shattered Dimensions, Josh Keaton, which only makes it feel all the more authentic for diehard Spidey fans.

All in all, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a good game with a couple of flaws that keep it from being elite. The game play would have been perfect if Beenox could have shoehorned in some web-slinging and some more villains, but everything else is up there with some of the better Spider-Man games of the past in terms of combat and plot. The game may also be a little short in the grand scheme of things, clocking in at just under 10 hours for me, but with a bevy of collectibles and costumes to unlock, there is enough reason to come back to this a couple more times if you’re a diehard Spidey fan and is worth checking out at least once for the more casual fan.

SUMMARY: A lack of web-slinging and villains knocks this worthy Spider-Man tale down a couple of pegs in terms of a game, but should appease many Spidey fans out there overall.

  • THE GOOD: Great plot, great action
  • THE BAD: Not enough villains or web-slinging
  • THE UGLY: My head exploding after trying to understand time-travel as explained by Spider-Man 2099

SCORE: 7.5

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EGM Review: X-Men: Destiny

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A new child of the atom

I think it’s every geek’s dream to develop superpowers in some way. And so like moths to flame we are drawn to games where we can not only play as our favorite heroes but can craft our own personal character in the universes we have come to enjoy through various forms of media. So as a diehard X-Men fan, I was particularly stoked about the release of ­­X-Men Destiny.

Based in the X-Men universe, this is an original story line inspired by, but having no direct tie-in to, the ongoing monthly comics from Marvel. You play as one of three new mutants attending a peace rally in San Francisco as the relationship between human and mutant grows more strained by the day. After an apparent attack on the crowd by Magneto causes panic to spread amongst the crowd, your powers manifest as you attempt to defend yourself. As you learn about your newfound abilities, you’ll uncover a conspiracy that will shake the mutant world to its very core, all the while you make and break alliances with both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The anticipation I had for this game’s release was soon replaced by disappointment. The best way I could describe how X-Men Destiny was that it felt incomplete. The game is riddled with glitches, has an inconsistent checkpoint save system that sometimes places saves right on top of one another or places them at opposite ends of levels and makes you replay the whole thing over if you die, and the plot, quite simply, is just too damn short for a proper X-Men game, no matter how well written it may be. I beat the entire thing, on the hardest difficulty, in less than eight hours.

I was also displeased with the three character stories and power choices we were forced into. Instead of letting the player truly craft a character they could relate to, you are forced into one of three outlandish protagonists and follow their story as it unfolds. Since many action/adventure games actually do this, it’s not the concept that bothers me, its the fact that the game tries to sell itself as an RPG that gives you a lot of choice and this is simply not the case. And to make matters worse, the few choices you are given are so spread out throughout the game that you never reach your full potential until the very final level of the game. And again, this goes back to the length of the game. Just when you seem to start hitting your stride with whatever powers you were pigeonholed into, it ends.

Mind you, there are some positives to X-Men Destiny. The plot, written by X-Men: Legacy writer Mike Carey, is worthy of the X-Men universe and features cameos or the chance to fight alongside many of your favorite characters while taking on classic X-Men threats. Whether you choose to be good and trade quips with Iceman against the Purifiers or be bad and burn stuff to the ground with Pyro in a U-Men bunker, when the game has you working with your favorite characters on the missions, you actually feel, albeit briefly most of the time, like an X-Man.

The audio was also very good as the music helped set a mood worthy of an action game and the voice acting was superb. Nolan North, better known as Deadpool in most other X-Media, came on to do Cyclops and surprised me as the stoic and steadfast leader of the X-Men. Include other voice over royalty like Phil LaMarr as Gambit and Forge, Yuri Lowenthal as Nightcrawler, Jason Marsden as Iceman, Fred Tatasciore as Juggernaut, and Steve Blum returning to reprise Wolverine and the voice over work in this game is as good as any other cast of X-characters represented in animation or other games.

Still, as good as it felt to fight alongside some of my favorite comic book heroes in this game, there are just too many shortcomings to make X-Men Destiny as special as many of the characters it features. My recommendation is that the game is worth a rental, but is only worthy of purchase by the most diehard of X-Men fans who will play through it several times, despite the glitches, and try to collect the several dozen collectibles featured in the game.

SUMMARY: Short, glitch-riddled, and lacking the choices of a true RPG, X-Men Destiny falls short of the high expectations of most X-Men fans and should only be checked out by the most forgiving of souls.

  • THE GOOD: Fighting alongside many of your favorite heroes from the comics
  • THE BAD: A surprising lack of choice given to the player for an RPG
  • THE UGLY: A lack of polish shows up often considering how short the game is

SCORE: 6.0

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Hands-On: Ace Combat Assault Horizon

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Originally Published: 9/22/11 on EGMNOW.com

Stay on target…

The Ace Combat franchise has seen a lot of change in recent years and Assault Horizon looks to continue this necessary evolution of the series in order to keep it relevant in a market flooded by various kinds of wartime shooters. Where Joint Assault paved the way for the series to find roots in the real world, Assault Horizon looks to find a way to let the series flourish there by improving the A.I. and adding new mechanics that could increase the game’s accessibility to a whole new audience. Of course, being the first game in the series to be multi-platform doesn’t hurt either.

I had a chance to jump into the first few campaign missions for Assault Horizon and anyone who has played this franchise before is definitely in for a shock to their system. You’re immediately thrown into a fighter jet cockpit over a major metropolitan area in a sink or swim kind of tutorial where you’re very likely to get shot down if you don’t pick up on the controls quickly enough. The major purpose of this though is to introduce everyone to the new “Dogfight Mode”, an attempt at preventing the most effective way of shooting down enemies being a game of chicken like in some previous Ace Combat games, which had led to repetitive and dull game play at times. What Dogfight Mode does is when you get to optimal engaging distance, it allows you to lock in behind an enemy and assists the player in sticking to an enemy’s rear to try and get that perfect lock-on for a homing missile or to shred them apart with machine guns. Mind you, to prevent the game from being too easy, this also leaves you open for another enemy to settle in behind you for a missile lock as well if you fly too predictably.

With this new mode comes a drastic increase to enemy A.I. as well to prevent the ‘missile spamming’ also seen in previous games in the franchise as some of your tougher opponents will easily shake off your missile locks. This will force you into either surprising them with some special maneuvers like barrel rolls or using the Dogfight Mode and riding their tail. Of course, trying to get that close to these enemy aces will put you at risk of falling into their sights though and having them shoot you down before you can get into Dogfight Mode and that adds a new nuance of strategy.

Even with all these drastic improvements to air combat that should allow players of all skill levels to pick up and play this game though, the game play feels like it could get repetitive if you stayed in the cockpit of an F-18 for the whole game. To fight this, Assault Horizon finds a way to mix in a compelling story woven through some solid cinema scenes while also giving you tremendous mission variety. After only a handful of missions we were thrown into a Black Hawk helicopter as a door gunner, moved into the pilot seat of another copter, and cleared the path for some guys on the ground via an AC-130’s cannons. And of course a couple of traditional missions in fighter jets. With all of these different missions being set in real world locations in a possible near future. For the first time being able to fly helicopters and various other aircraft may provide just the twist and variety this series has needed for a long time to rejuvenate it and really grab the attention of arcade flight fans. I know I’m excited to grab my flight helmet and see just how far Ace Combat: Assault Horizon can go.

PARTING SHOTS: We were able to only get a few missions in and yet we had a larger variety of experiences than in probably all the previous Ace Combat games combined. The big question will be can the game keep up that variety over the course of the full campaign before the experiences we saw become repetitive in their own rights and can the story hold it all together.

Are you folks excited for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon? Are you fans of the new direction this game is taking or already missing the old-school mechanics? Is this something that can reach new heights or will it be crushed by the mid-October competition it will be up against? Let us know with comments below!

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EGM Review: Burnout Crash!

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September 22, 2011

Originally Published: Sept. 20, 2011, on EGMNOW.COM

Sunday drivers not allowed

It’s always a risky proposition to turn a minigame into its own standalone title—Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D springs to mind. These are intended to be side courses to the main menus of the games themselves. But what if you took that side course and really pumped it up so that next time we saw it, the game really could stand on its own? Well, with Burnout Crash!, that’s exactly what the folks at Criterion and EA have been able to accomplish.

The premise of the game has always been a simple one: You drive a car into oncoming traffic or a busy intersection and attempt to wreck as many other vehicles as you can with one well-placed T-bone or head-on collision. As other cars fail to swerve away from your magnificent display of twisted metal, glass, and plastic, your score increases—and, hopefully, you build up a traffic jam reminiscent of the end chase scene of The Blues Brothers. If too many cars continue on their way without crashing, though, you lose.

But so much more’s been added to this fleshed-out incarnation: Special features and score multipliers make this feel almost like an insane version of pinball, where you actually control the ball and the bumpers are crashing into you. By using your Crashbreaker power, which causes an explosion to emanate from your car after causing enough destruction, you can also break up a pile or carefully use other cars near you as projectiles to keep cars from escaping—and keep your score, represented by how much damage you’ve cost in terms of dollars, flying into the millions. Also, as your score increases and more and more cars become disabled, you can unlock special powers depending on the stage. Whether it’s a chaotic meteor shower that can wreak havoc or a flash blizzard that can really pump up your skid bonuses, the carnage-causing possibilities are certainly plentiful.

The big question, then, comes with whether Criterion keeps the game from getting repetitive. The fun factor’s evident from the second you grab the simple controls—the A button uses Crashbreaker, while left joystick moves the car, and that’s it. Burnout Crash! might not have all the answers, but Criterion certainly made a solid attempt, and plenty of players will probably find enough reason to come back for lots more. Six themed locations with three intersections each offer a lot of mayhem, but the game also includes three modes to keep the experience fresh: Road Trip, Rush Hour, and Pile-Up. Road Trip’s your standard game where you try to wreck a certain number of cars before five are able to escape your fiery, gasoline-fueled path of destruction. Rush Hour gives you a 90-second time limit to cause as much chaos as possible before one fantastic explosion at the end. Pile-Up sees you trying to build the biggest pile-up possible to maintain a massive multiplier that comes into effect when no other cars are coming. Then, your objective is to make as much of the world continuously burn as possible. The game also offers a feature called Autolog, where you can directly see the scores of friends who’ve played the game—and issue challenges to them to try to beat your high scores. This classic arcade feature may be just enough to get the adrenaline pumping for you competition junkies out there, and it could be the saving grace that makes this a downloadable title you keep coming back to.

Despite all this, I personally did find that the game got repetitive after some time, and it isn’t something I see myself playing for long stretches of time, even though it felt great to blow up so much stuff in short spurts. Also, the Kinect controls are completely unnecessary. For a game that relies on two buttons on a standard controller, jumping up and down to activate my Crashbreaker was irritating, and the five seconds of steering I needed in the beginning before my first crash didn’t give me the control I felt with a gamepad. Still, Burnout Crash! is a slick, easy-to-pick-up-and-play (with a controller), adrenaline-fueled funfest that, when combined with bright colors, a cheesy game-show-style announcer, and some kickin’ tunes, has enough to definitely be worth your 800 Microsoft points or $9.99 on PSN.

Summary: That rare, properly fleshed-out experience spawned from a minigame—and one that’s well worth your money.

  • The Good: Autolog adds a competitive factor not seen in many games like this.
  • The Bad: Finds a way to make unbridled mayhem repetitive at times.
  • The Ugly: Kinect controls on the XBLA version. So unnecessary.

SCORE: 8.5

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Shadow Complex 2 ‘Largely Designed’?

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Cliffy B talks Shadow Complex 2, ChAIR clarifies

THE BUZZ: Cliff Bleszinski let loose in an interview with Gamasutra that Shadow Complex 2, a sequel to the 2009 downloadable smash hit Shadow Complex, a side-scrolling action/adventure game akin to old-school Metroid with a conspiracy theory twist, “is sitting there, it’s actually largely designed, we just need to find a partner to help us finish it so we can bring it to market”. EGM spoke with ChAIR representative Laura Mustard in regards to Cliffy B’s statement and this was her response:

“Regarding the recent Shadow Complex 2 rumors, there’s nothing new to report. As ChAIR creative director Donald Mustard has said in the past, following the release of Shadow Complex, ChAIR did some really great design work on Shadow Complex 2 before shifting gears to develop Infinity Blade as the iOS market was quickly emerging. Given the tremendous popularity of Shadow Complex, there’s a ton of interest in a sequel and plenty more we’d like to do in that universe. We’re confident we’ll re-visit when the right opportunity presents itself.”

Epic president Mike Capps has also gone on record previously stating pretty much the same thing while also acknowledging how risky a business move it was to move ChAIR off of a proven franchise like Shadow Complex and into a new realm like iOS. Although it has clearly paid off with Infinity Blade being a huge grosser in the iOS market and as Bleszinski pointed out in the Gamasutra interview, they were looking for a flagship product in the iOS realm to begin with and thought it would have been more work to port the original Shadow Complex over.

EGM’S TAKE: Most of this may be old news, but the thing that catches your eye and has caused this maelstrom of buzz surrounding the statement is ‘largely designed’ and the fact that Epic is looking for a partner. Assuming Bleszinski means a publishing partner as clearly between ChAIR and Epic the development side of things shouldn’t be an issue, the real question is why hasn’t Microsoft, publisher of the first Shadow Complex, jumped all over it knowing how well the first did or why hasn’t Sony thrown their hat in the ring to try and steal a jewel away from Microsoft’s dominate Xbox Live Arcade? If the game is ‘largely designed’, how much longer must we wait before one of the two comes to their senses for Shadow Complex 2 to be available for download? Of course, and this is just speculation on my part, there must be other factors involved keeping this from moving forward. Or they could be holding off until just the right time to announce it, like since Gears 3 is now out of the way, maybe a Summer of Arcade 2012 slot?

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Gears of War 3 Epic Edition Detailed

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More gear for your Gears

It’s pretty common knowledge that I’m somewhat of a collector. I even admit as much in this month’s issue of EGM’s roundtable discussion (Issue #251, available now on newsstands). So when it was said that Gears of War 3 would be coming out with an Epic Edition, well, it was a no-brainer what version of the game I’d be getting, and fortunately, I was able to get mine a little early.

So incase you don’t know, or are still on the fence, here is a breakdown with a couple of pictures of what comes in the $149.99 Epic Edition of Gears of War 3.

  • A copy of Gears of War 3 (kind of obvious)
  • The Octus Service Medal of Adam Fenix, Marcus’s father (made of real metal)
  • A code for an Adam Fenix multiplayer skin (look on the actual Octus medal)
  • A code for five special weapon skins (Lancer, Retro Lancer, Hammerburst, Sawed-off Shotgun, and Gnasher Shotgun)
  • Several photos of Adam Fenix in his traditional Gears armor, his last will and testament, blueprints for the Hammer of Dawn, which he helped launch (and fans of the fiction will know later used to wipe out most of Sera with in an attempt to stop the Locust), a personal letter to Marcus, and a certificate for the Octus Medal
  • A COG flag
  • A special book detailing how Gears of War evolved into the powerhouse franchise it is today with foreword by Adam Sessler
  • A model of Marcus resting on some molten rock with imulsion leaking out and surrounded by a diorama featuring Dom, Anya, and several other Gears.

All in all, definitely a good bang for your buck if you are a true Gearhead (which I happen to be). What was especially enjoyable was all the references to the expanded universe novels by Karen Traviss (who also wrote Gears of War 3) in the collection of goodies, showing that this was targeted at the true diehards of this stellar franchise. So if you have the extra cash, as it is a purchase that is worth more than two full retail games to begin with, I’d strongly recommend this addition to any Gears fan’s collection.

So what do you all think of the Epic Edition? Is it worth your cash? Are you planning on getting one? Have you already pre-ordered it? Let us know with comments below!

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Deadshot Profile

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The Man Who (Almost) Never Misses

Deadshot first appeared back in June of 1950 in Batman #59 and was created by original Batman creator Bob Kane along with fellow writer David Vern Reed and artist Lew Sayre Schwartz. This powerhouse classic creative team makes it even more surprising that Deadshot never really caught on with fans considering he is one of Batman’s oldest villains, coming to life years before many other Batman Rogues Gallery mainstays like Mr. Freeze (1959), Poison Ivy (1966), or Ra’s Al Ghul (1971).

As his origin goes, Deadshot, real name Floyd Lawton, was the younger of two brothers and grew up in the shadow of his older brother, Edward. So as Edward walked around being the hero, Floyd decided to be the villain and was a problem child from an early age because of it. That is until one day the boys’ mother asks the pair of them to kill their father. Edward accepts this request but Floyd refuses to kill his own father and so Edward locks him in the shed behind the house. Floyd breaks out and to save his father, picks up a rifle (that is so conveniently lying around) and climbs a tree. He looks in the window of the house and sees Edward ready to shoot his father. Floyd attempts to shoot the gun out of his brother’s hand but at the last moment the branch upon which Floyd was perched, snaps, and he accidentally shoots and kills his own brother. Floyd has lived, as he sees it, a “meaningless” lifestyle from then on.

Deadshot’s lack of popularity, aside from a rather weak origin story, more often comes from being inconsistently written over the years. Originally created as a “mirror image” style villain, Deadshot posed as another Gotham crime-fighter alongside Batman, but really only had machinations to replace Batman so then no one would get in his way and he could do what he wanted with the city. When the illusion of him being on the side of good fell away, Deadshot turned to the underworld and attempted to become the top dog of Gotham’s underbelly, but he never had the leadership qualities needed to keep that many criminals in line and was easily brought to justice by Batman and Commissioner Gordon.

It wasn’t until his next story line that he took on the mantle of a hired gun, which is what he is best known for, where he joined Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad and the character developed a bit of a conscience, taking several hits that he failed to carry out including another confrontation with Batman who infuriated Lawton by insinuating that he pulls his shots around him. Unable to concentrate after being psychoanalyzed, Batman again defeated Deadshot, but he rejoined Waller’s squad after she pulled some of her many government contact strings.

His next character shift comes after he leaves the Suicide Squad and suddenly he has a family and the loner type who had been crafted for years was shattered, although Deadshot was still infamously precise with his pistol. This would in turn continue to develop Deadshot’s conscience, which would drive the character up to his most recent incarnations in the Secret Six comics.

So if he can’t keep an audience, what keeps causing writers to bring him back? He was even the centerpiece in one of the six animated shorts that were part of the Gotham Knight DVD that took place between Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight films. Probably the fact that he is one of Batman’s most realistic villains and when things get too crazy, as will be the case in Arkham City, Deadshot can give fans a heavy dose of reality. Simply armed with a boat load of guns, expert marksmanship, some sweet armor that makes him almost Boba Fett like in appearance, and a fearless attitude when going out on a hit, Deadshot has just enough appeal to serve as filler between more major arcs with Batman’s more traditionally insane rogues, or to be part of a much larger and over-the-top ensemble, again, like in Arkham City.

It should be interesting to see just how big of a piece of the Arkham City puzzle The World’s Finest Assassin will be. Will he be overshadowed by the other villains? And who will play his voice? What other villains do you hope can be jammed into Arkham City and how do you feel in general about Deadshot? Let us know by commenting below!

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EGM Preview: War of the Worlds

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It’s the end of the world as we know it

Based loosely on the 1898 novel and the 1953 movie (and definitely not on the 2005 piece of trash film), War of the Worlds takes place in 1953 London, where after monitoring the Earth for centuries, aliens have finally decided to attack. Panic quickly spreads as the English first think that somehow the Germans have begun to attack again, being only several years after the end of World War II. Soon though as bodies begin to be vaporized by weaponry beyond anything seen before, even greater panic sets in as this is an enemy not seen before by human eyes.

Moving away from the global scale of the attack, the game follows one man returning to London by train when the attack first starts. His personal quest is to save his family who were in London at the time the attack began and to find a way to get them out alive. Very cinematic in its visual style with many different layers of beautifully painted and rendered textures, the most striking thing about War of the Worlds may actually be the audio. Mood setting orchestrations along with the brilliant choice of the game’s narrator in Sir Patrick Stewart, recalling the levels of the game as he looks back on the invasion now as an older man, helps to give you this feeling of near helplessness as this common man is simply looking to reunite with his family in the midst of a disaster the likes had never been seen up to that point or since.

And the helpless feeling only will continue with the game play as you are truly nothing more than your average human. Set up almost like classic Pitfall, the game is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that centers more on puzzle solving and avoiding instant kill obstacles than on shooting or destroying things. Taking cover to avoid lasers, dodging alien mines, and using your surroundings to your full advantage is the extent of your abilities as the game will likely push your platforming skills to their limits while immersing you in this beautiful looking and near cinematic story-telling experience.

PARTING SHOT: Although the controls felt a little stiff in the early build we saw, if you are a fan of old-school platformers that revolve more around overcoming obstacles than just blowing them up or maybe just like the good ol’ fashioned alien invasion story set in another era than modern times, then you should keep an eye out for when this drops on XBLA and PSN sometime in October.

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EGM Review: NHL 12

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Will you hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup?

In many northern latitudes, folks are anticipating that first cool breeze in the fall—the one that signifies that the seasons have finally changed, and with it, the sports landscape. That feeling that tells you that, finally, it’s time for hockey again. But in case you can’t wait another month or so, EA Sports is looking to give you your hockey fix a little early with NHL 12.

As always, this season sees plenty of changes, but what’s interesting is that the little tweaks are probably just as big as the overall additions. Not to say that those should be taken lightly, either, though. New modes like NHL Legends—where you can draft a legendary player like Wayne Gretzky or Ray Bourque to your real-life favorite team and play as them like you would in Be a Pro—is a nice addition if you’ve got a childhood hero you want to take back out on the ice. Of course, it might be a little shocking at first to see someone like Jeremy Roenick on the New York Rangers or Chris Chelios on the Tampa Bay Lightning, but this is your chance to see what might’ve happened if your favorite player had donned your favorite team’s sweater.

And speaking of Be a Pro, that’s seen some additions as well. The inclusion of the Canadian Hockey League allows you to play in the CHL for four seasons if you wish, which adds a bit of an RPG feel as your coach assigns you tasks each game in order to progress through your respective organization. Of course, if you don’t want to put in the time and effort to work your way up the minor-league ranks, Be a Pro features a new wrinkle where you can select your favorite current player and play with them already on your big-league club. They still get tasks from the coach, though, and because they’re already in the pros, more’s expected from them—so doing poorly could get them sent to the minors!

Beyond these new modes, though, I didn’t know a hockey game could feel so good until I got my hands on NHL 12. The puck physics have become so realistic that you’d think you were watching an actual game as shots knuckle, deflect off players, or ricochet around the boards. And with the improved AI of all computer-controlled players, you’ll rarely see someone out of position—everyone plays their role, just like they do in the real game. On top of this, NHL 12 offers the ability to hit and interfere with goalies, giving you more influence in the crease than ever before. And you know what that means: goalie fights! Throw in breaking glass, checking guys into the bench, knocking off helmets after bone-crunching checks, or shrugging off checks from smaller players, retired numbers, and even the ability to stage the Winter Classic, and you can’t help but feel satisfied with most every aspect of NHL 12.

Aside from these tweaks to improve the offline modes, another fan favorite that’s been overhauled is the online Hockey Ultimate League. Multiple lineups, stars of the week based on live player stats, a versus mode featuring you and a buddy’s Hockey League teams, and much more have been added to make this month-by-month feature even more addictive for those wannabe GMs out there.

Really, my only complaints with NHL 12 arose in Season or Be a GM when the game didn’t recognize that the Rangers’ first two regular-season games were in Europe—and that the stats were so skewed that the Rangers’ offense was a 100. I love the Rangers, but even through the Broadway Blue–tinted glasses of a fan, I don’t see how adding Brad Richards and getting some guys healthy propels the team so far past last year’s squad.

When all’s said and done, though, EA Sports has gone above and beyond in this year’s effort to give us the best videogame hockey experience yet, and NHL 12 should be more than enough to keep hockey fans satiated all year round.

Summary: NHL 12 is the most complete hockey sim to date, and the effort shows from the smallest puck bounces to brand-new game modes.

  • The Good: Improved puck physics and AI
  • The Bad: Horribly inaccurate player ratings
  • The Ugly: NHL Legends in uniforms they don’t belong in

SCORE: 9.0

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EGM Review: The Gunstringer

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

Originally Published: Sept 13, 2011, on EGMNOW.COM

Your revenge on Wacky Inflatable Arm Tube Man awaits!

Marking Twisted Pixel’s first foray into the retail realm, The Gunstringer also serves as the company’s first Kinect title, as they find a way to incorporate their off-the-wall humor with Microsoft’s motion-control device in a way that’s both fun and engaging. The Gunstringer sees players leap into the shoes of the titular Gunstringer, an undead outlaw who’s risen from his grave to exact revenge on his former gang—the ones who put him six feet under to begin with. The kink in the plot, though—in vintage Twisted Pixel fashion—is that our hero’s actually just a marionette. The player’s the puppeteer in front of a “real” audience that applauds your successes and groans at your failures—all while you’re putting on a stage show, with stagehands running in and out of the screen and a “live” narrator. That last element’s similar to Bastion, as The Gunstringer’s disembodied voice reacts dynamically to everything you do—for example, explaining that the Gunstringer doesn’t know where these “mysterious forces” may come from, as long as they don’t get in the way of his main goal: vengeance!

The Gunstringer’s controls are simple and also mark the only Kinect game to date where you can actually play the entire game while seated—a landmark in and of itself. Your left hand controls the marionette strings that move the Gunstringer in its third-person shooter view, swinging him left to right across the screen (the entire adventure’s on rails, so you never have to worry about moving forward) and having him “leap” over obstacles by yanking your hand skyward. Your right hand controls the aiming reticule, where you automatically lock on to up six targets at once. Pulling your arm back like you’re firing a gun causes the Gunstringer to do the same, sending lead hurtling toward whatever his targets may be. And after a quick tutorial that ends with you taking revenge upon the first member of your former gang—the dastardly Wacky Inflatable Arm Tube Man—you should be a master of the controls.

The remarkable thing about these controls is that even though they’re beyond simple, they leave you feeling very satisfied and rewarded. The lock-on feature allows you to concentrate on the occasional platforming and dodging elements thrown in to give the action variety, and you’ll find that even as you blow through the game on normal in just a few hours, a smile won’t leave your face for most of the game. This is mostly a credit, of course, to the real driving force of the game: the humor-laden writing by the Twisted Pixel guys that propels you to keep going through the game’s levels just to see what absurdity they’ll throw at you next. Whether it’s power-ups that’ll make you flash back to old-school shooters like ­Contra or the corrupt sheriffs, ninjas, or buxom temptresses that will try to get in your way, The Gunstringer’s an adventure game that needs to be seen to be believed.

Still, the game does have a couple of shortcomings. It does feature local co-op where a second player can jump in and pick up a six-shooter, but aside from leaderboards, there’s very little competitive reason to come back to the game. And the action can become somewhat repetitive rather quickly, so once you’ve seen the story and all the cutscenes, you may not be that compelled to jump into the harder difficultly levels to replay the game.

The Gunstringer’s definitely head-and-shoulders above any other Kinect release, though. It’s hilarious, it’s easy to pick up and play, and with a $40 price tag that includes a code for day-one DLC that gives the origins of Wacky Inflatable Arm Tube Man and a token to download Fruit Ninja Kinect, this is probably the best bang for your buck on the device.

Summary: The simple-yet-satisfying controls combined with classic Twisted Pixel humor makes this easily the best Kinect game yet.

  • The Good: Classic Twisted Pixel humor mixed with simple-yet-satisfying controls
  • The Bad: Repetitive—and not as challenging—as other Twisted Pixel games
  • The Ugly: Undead zombie marionettes

 

SCORE: 8.5

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