Jigsaw's Rants & Reviews

Red Faction Guerrilla Hints,Tips, and Strategies

2009-06-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

I've notice a lot of new players joining the Red Faction Guerrilla matches over the last few days and getting frustrated trying to get a hang of all the maps, weapons, and backpacks. So, I've put together some hints and tips for new players that I've picked up over the last few weeks.

You can check them out here:

Red Faction Guerrilla Multiplayer Tips and Hints

Trying Some New Stuff

2009-06-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

I've been playing and absolutely loving Red Faction: Guerrilla this week. I also started playing some Guitar Hero: Metallica but I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the guitar career. Hopefully you'll be seeing a review (or rant) about it next week.

Today though I was checking out Droplitz and Scallywags. Droplitz was pretty fun but not as addicting as some other puzzle games on Xbox Live Arcade. Scallywags not that good. I've got longer reviews of both on XBLA Ratings.

Also, I see there is an add-on pack for Yosumin Live for $1 on Xbox Live Arcade that I want to check out ... just as soon as I sit down and buy Yosumin Live. I loved the demo but just never went back to buy it. Maybe tomorrow or this weekend I'll get a chance for that.

My First Podcast

2009-06-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

That title might be a bit misleading. I'm not starting my own podcast. I was on a podcast for the first time this last week. It was the AGErocks.com Podcast. We discussed video games and the events going on at AGErocks.com. You can go here to download and listen to the mp3 (59.2 MB).

Or I've embed it below.

Top 5 Xbox 360 Games of the Summer

2009-06-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

With summer upon us I thought it would be a good time to take a look at 5 of the best games that just came out or are coming out this summer. I'll give you a hint. I just reviewed one of them. To see all five you can check out the article here:

Top 5 Summer 2009 Xbox 360 Games

Red Faction Guerrilla Review

2009-06-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I've come across a game that I truly enjoy as much as Red Faction Guerrilla. When they released the single player and multiplayer demos on Xbox Live I had a good time with them but normally a demo just gives you a feel for the best part of a game. When you actually play the full release there end up being little annoyances that you do not find in the demo because it is so short. However, with Red Faction Guerrilla that has not been the case for me. I'm not saying the same is perfect or anything but that I've yet to find any major things that bother me about it. The destructible environments are not just a gimmick, but a core part of the game that fit well with the story and the setting. Every structure, building, and bridge in the game can be destroyed. Some easily with just a few swings of your sledgehammer and others only with large amounts of explosives. The destructible environment is what makes the game so fun. Deciding if you want to just run in and hit a few key pillars, drive a truck through, or use some rockets to level a building never gets old.

Starting off with the single player I really love that the game opens up the world of Mars and lets you choose how you want to play. There are some missions that are required to advance the main story line but you can do those whenever you want. In addition to the main missions there are dozens of different side missions you can complete for moral and money. These side missions can also be completed at any time and vary from escort and driving missions to defending and area or destroying a certain amount of property. Later in the game these side missions would be tedious if you had to do them all, but you don't. You can play the ones that are fun to you and ignore all the rest. For me, that means playing all the missions where I blow stuff up and skipping all the escort and driving bits. The main story missions are also really fun to play. They vary quite a bit in length and structure, but it seemed to me that the later in the game you are the more fun the main story missions were. Once you complete the main story arc of the game it does not just end. You are back on mars with all of the side missions available for you to complete if you want. The overall world is quite large and there are tons of hidden things to find. Some which will get you achievements, like radio tags, and others that are just funny, like NASA's Mars Rover. Overall, I really enjoyed the story of the game as well as the openness of how the world is laid out.

The multiplayer is a little different than the campaign because there are no vehicles but there are a lot of different packs you can use. Effectively combining the packs with a complimentary weapon and then getting a team of friends who are doing the same is great fun. The different packs really lend well to good team working winning matches. For example, one person on your team might grab a sniper and a jet pack and head up high to provide covering fire while someone with a fleetfoot pack goes in full speed to try and capture the enemies flag. The game has the normal deathmatch and capture the flag modes which are fun, but the modes specific to destroying stuff are some of the most fun I've had in multiplayer in years. Siege mode is possibly my favorite game mode. In it one team defends a building or set of buildings while the other attacking team tries to knock them down. Then, after a set amount of time the teams switch. It requires good teamwork and communication to win as Siege because you need to figure out where enemies are attacking from. If anyone already repairing a building or should you stop trying to kill enemies and repair it. Or, does one of the buildings have a structural weakness you can exploit. There are a ton of maps to play through and even more customization options that keep things fresh and interesting even if you play the same map all night long.

In addition to the single player and multiplayer there is also a pass the controller verse mode called Wrecking Crew. In Wrecking Crew you play against up to three friends and try to destroy a level with a set amount of time or ammo. Then, the level resets and your friends try to beat your score. It really is a fun mode that I think gamers might overlook because you have to play it locally and not over Xbox Live. However, it is well worth having a couple friends over to play because the face paced destruction focused game play is fun over and over again.

As you can tell by now I love Red Faction Guerrilla and I would highly recommend people try the demos if they are even remotely interested in it. Once you see the real physics based destruction you will be hooked.

Boom Blox Bash Party Impressions

2009-06-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

Not long after I got my Wii I picked up Boom Blox and really had a pretty good time playing it with my wife. So, when Boom Blox Bash Party released I decided to grab it to add to the small set of games that I can get my wife to play. Bash Party has a lot of the same game modes that the original has, but they also added a bunch of new modes including slingshots, paint balls, cannons, and virus balls. The game mechanics are pretty much the same with a lot of throwing balls block towers, blowing up bombs to get the most points, and variations of Jenga towers to take apart carefully.

The new modes are fun for the most part and seem like a natural extension of Boom Blox. The mode with the pant balls was probably the most different because it was much more puzzle and strategy heavy than the other modes are. The ability to create your won levels is still there as well as the co-op and verses play, which my wife and I have been enjoying. Bash Party has less levels than I remember from the original, but they have added a quick button to each game mode section to download more user created levels. I really like this option because for the game modes that I like I can quickly go out and grab more of them from the Most Downloaded and Highest Rated lists they provide.

If you enjoyed Boom Blox you will like Bash Party as well since it is more of the same with some improvements. If you have not tried Boom Blox yet I'd recommend going strait for Bash Party since it has all the original game modes and the new ones plus the option to download more levels for free.

1 vs 100 Beta Impressions

2009-06-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

I was planning on playing Red Faction: Guerrilla all weekend and while I did play it some I got side tracked playing the 1 vs 100 Beta on the Xbox 360 Primetime Channel a lot. I play first during the 2 hour play on Friday night by myself. Well, my wife was sitting there with me but she was not as much help as I had hoped (don't tell her I said that). I really had a lot of fun trying to get into the Mob or to be the One. I spent the whole night in the Crowd but it still was really fun to try and get a high score and keep a streak of correct answers going. The pace of the game was ok, but it could be a little bit faster. Still, with almost 100,000 people playing at the same time over Xbox Live in the beta it ran remarkable smooth.

After that I joined an Xbox Live party with a couple friends and played in the E3 Questions Extended Play. In the Extended Play there is no One or Crowd. Everyone is in the Mob trying to get high scores. The Extended Play was a lot of fun trying to keep my score higher than my friends. Also, it is much faster paced since there is no One to wait on. In 30 minutes of Extended Play there were 37 questions that got progressively harder. I also liked that if you get a streak going in Extended Play you can earn the ability to skip a question you don't know to keep your streak going. I also played in the General Questions Extended Play Sunday afternoon with a party of 6 to 8 friends over Live. It was a blast playing with a group of friends who where helping each other but also trying to throw in a few false answers to mess up each other.

I'm not sure that I'll be playing this every time it is on or anything but when the full game launches I'm sure I will play it at least occasionally with some friends. The lure of prizes is to strong and the game is too fun. The only thing keeping me from playing it regularly will be when they have the shows scheduled. Since you only win prizes in Live shows it will depend on my schedule if I can play frequently or not.

Overlord II Demo Impressions

2009-06-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

A demo for Overlord II went up on Xbox Live this morning. It has been almost 2 years since Overlord released and it still ranks up there as one of the funniest games I've played. The demo seems to be the first level of the game. Because of this you are not very strong yet and you only have brown minions. But, it is still really funny and dark. I had a blast running my minions around beating down people and furry little animals. They have added mounts for the minions to ride which are really fun because they let them move around quicker and jump across gaps. They brown minions get wolves to ride. The graphics look better than in the first game. There was just the one level in the demo so I don't know about the full game but that level looked really nice. The first Overlord you were "evil" but ended up helping people. It seems like this time around they are going to let you be really evil. No accidentally helping people in the demo. Just a lot of slaughtering. The controls are pretty similar to the first Overlord so I had to get use to them again, but by the end I was running my minions all over like a pro. I would really recommend people check out the Overlord II demo because it is really dark and humorous.

Download the Demo to your Xbox 360 download queue here.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Impressions

2009-06-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

I watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans the other night and I was really disappointed. I like the first Underworld because of the cool gun fights, but since Underworld 3 is set in as time period before guns they only have swords and crossbows. The crossbows did hold 3 bolts at a time but really it is not the same. The sword fights were mostly just a couple people hacking Lycans apart, but there were a couple decent sword fights. Really thought it is just not that great of a movie. The story was not that good and there was not enough good action scenes to make up for it. I would not recommend even renting it. Just watch the first Underworld again. It is a much better movie.

Project Natal Thoughts & Videos

2009-06-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

The more I see about Project Natal the more I'm excited to see some of the great developers who make Xbox 360 games get their hands on it and make some games.

If you're not familiar with Project Natal there is a recap here and below are some trailers.

Mass Effect: Revelation Impressions

2009-06-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to reading Mass Effect: Revelation last week. With all the potential Mass Effect 2 news coming this week with E3 I decided I should be ready. The book is a prequel to the game and I'm actually glad I read it after completing Mass Effect. There are not any huge spoilers in the book but there is a lot of foreshadowing that would have made the big reveals in the game less fun for me. Overall, I enjoyed the book but it could have used a little more action in it. Still, it has me pumped for reading Mass Effect: Ascension and playing Mass Effect 2.

XBLA & XBLCG Day

2009-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Today was my catch up day for all the interesting looking Xbox Live Arcade and Community Games that I've been downloading for the last two weeks. So far I've checked out Gel, Yosumin Live, Blazing Birds, SQONG, Pellmell, and Hexy Trench. I've started posting ratings for them on XBLA & XNA Ratings and I'll be posting more throughout the afternoon as I have time to write them up. In between playing more Dock'em and Yosumin! LIVE. I need to spend more time with Hexy Trench too because the tutorial is so long I did not get through it all before the demo ended.

You can find my ratings for them here.

Xbox Live Community Massage

2009-05-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

When XNA games were announced originally it was marketed as the "Youtube of games" because anyone can make a game and post it on Xbox Live Community Games. Much like Youtube there is a lot of stuff that you're probably not interested in up there but mixed are a few great gems that are worth telling your friends about. Stuff like Miner Dig Deep, CarneyVale: Showtime, and Classicard are games that are well worth playing. On the other hand there are tons of games that I do not even bother downloading the trial for. And this is coming from someone who is a big fan of Xbox Live Arcade and Community Games.

I guess I should not find it surprising that, again, like Youtube there are lot of people copying each others ideas and trying to one up each other. It seems that for Community Games the place to try and best each other is with massage "games" that vibrate the controller. First there was Rumble Massage that allowed 1 player to have their controllers vibrate at the speed of their choosing. The graphics are not great, but for this type of thing does it really matter? About a month later Remote Masseuse release and expanded to include vibrating your friend's controllers over Xbox Live. While I still think both of these are kind of lame I can see where there is some advancement here. However, today A Perfect Massage released, and it does pretty much the same thing as Rumble Massage but with possibly better graphics. However, it does not include support for controlling over Xbox Live. It seems to me that it was released simply to cash in as both of the previous massage titles popularity as they have regularly been in the top 10 Xbox Live Community Games each week. I'm fine with our people trying to make money but if you're going to release an obvious clone of an existing product at least improve on the original's features. On Youtube it is stuff like this that keeps me from browsing videos randomly. The only Youtube videos I watch are the ones my friends send me links to, and it is junk like this that keeps me from downloading the demo for all of the released XBLCGs.

It has been a while since I had something to really rant about but the prevalence of stupid and lame titles on Community Games is increasingly annoying. Microsoft does not allow a Community Game to be rejected because it is a clone or even if because it is bad game, but if they did I think the service would be a much. Out of all the Community Games games released less than 30% have a rating of over 6 on XNA Ratings. That does not seem that good to me so I started doing some more digging. Over on XBLCG.info they have an option to specify if oyu would recommend a game or not. Less 20% of all Community Games are recommended by over half of the people who tried the title. That means somewhere between 70 and 80% of the Community Games are not being very well recieved by gamers.

I realize I'm not offering much of a solution here, but I'm hoping there is one. Xbox Live Community Games has so much potential and I'd hate to see the service ignored by the average gamer because they don't want to deal with all the junk on there.

Space Invaders Extreme Impressions

2009-05-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

I've been playing a lot of Space Invaders Extreme since it released. It is the first Xbox Live Arcade game I purchased for quite a while. I'm really enjoying what all they've added to one of the few classic arcade games I'd still throw my quarters in. The graphics in Extreme look great. They have the feel of the original but in nicely done HD. I really like the bonus levels you can unlock as well as the weapon power ups. If you use them right, and remeber to conserve the power ups by hitting the Right Bumper, you can take out entire waves of enemies in seconds with a couple shots. I also like that you can earn power ups any time just by killing four enemies of the same color in a row. Follow that up by four of another color and you get a "Break" bonus level that you can then get the even better Fever power up unlocked. The levels get more and more challenging, but never to the point where I felt like it was impossible. The levels are short enough too that you can play for ten or twenty minutes and have a blast. Between the various power ups, bonus levels, and bosses the game never slows down and never gives you a break. It is all non-stop action from start to finish. I would recommend it to any fans of vertical shooters because it is well made and lots of fun.

Fallout 3 and Broken Steel DLC Impressions

2009-05-22T06:11:00.001-07:00

As some of you have noticed it has been a while since I’ve posted anything around these parts. Fallout 3 is to blame for that. Between the main game and the Broken Steel DLC my save game is around 60 hours currently. With the announcement that there are 2 more DLC packs coming plus I still have not played Operation Anchorage or The Pitt I can see my game easily getting up over 70 or 75 hours. However, I think I’m going to take a break until the release a Game of the Year edition with all of the DLC included to play the rest of the DLC. I normally would have waited to play Broken Steel, but since it included the ability to go from level 20 to 30 I just could not pass it up.

Overall I really enjoyed Fallout 3 and Broken Steel. I did mostly all of the side-quest first, found all the bobble heads, and schematics to build weapons. Then, I went and played the main story and the entire Broken Steel story without any other side quests in between. I’m glad I did it this way because the last 1/3 of the main game’s quests and the Broken Steel were a blast and I really enjoyed doing all of it without interruption. Plus, by that point I was leveled into the upper 20s, had some of the best weapons and armor in the game, and was virtually unstoppable. It made that last 10 to 15 hours of game play a riot as I was wrecking shop. After all that I went hunting for all of the Super Mutant Behemoths. The first ones I had run into earlier in the game were hard to take down but the last three when I was level 30 and shooting them with mini-nukes were just fun.

I’m not going to bother with a full lengthy review since Fallout 3 has been out so long, but I will say that if you have not played Fallout 3 that you should! There is a reason it was game of the year last year. One word of warning however, when you start playing Fallout 3 plan to not see the outside world for a couple weeks … maybe longer if you are the type of player who likes to search every square inch of a game. Also, if you decide to get the Broken Steel DLC keep your eyes out for Albino Scorpios. They are a real pain to deal with.

Wolverine!

2009-05-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for a few days but Fallout 3 keeps calling me. However, my tv is otherwise occupied currently so I've got a few minutes finally get this post finished. I saw the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine move and played the demo for the game on Xbox 360 this last weekend. I enjoyed both, but I think I am going to like the game better than the movie. The movie was pretty good and it was fun to see some Marvel characters that were not in the previous X-Men movies. Lots of action, but a good telling of Wolverine's story.

While the movie is PG-13 the game is rated M (Mature), and it is a very heavy M. There is a lo of blood, gore, dismemberment, and vilence. But, it is the first Wolverine game where you really get a feel for what it is like to be Wolverine. The demo is not very long, but it had enough there to get a feel fo the controls and a level up a couple times. It looks really nice and the controls are strait forward but well balanced. After playing the demo I immediately went over to GameFly and put the game on the top of my Q.

Bionic Commando Demo Impressions

2009-05-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to check out the Bionic Commando multiplayer demo yesterday and I found it really disappointing. First, there is no tutorial of any kind which is really needed. The bionic arm controls are very unique to Bionic Command and even after playing for 30 minutes I still was not sure how to properly swing and climb with it. I think a tutorial or single player demo would have helped with this. The demo was also disappointing because it is for a single multiplayer map with 8 players in a free for all death match. So, no playing with your friends and they don't even tell you what all game types the full game will have. Graphically the multiplayer does not look nearly as good as what the trailer shows for the single player game play. Also, the map design is really generic and unimpressive. It is just a could tall towers and a railing so you can swing around on (assuming you can figure out how to do that) on top of a building. The weapons were all generic as well...pistol, machine gun, sniper, shotgun, and grenade launcher. The one thing that I found pretty fun was that when you are in the air you can hit the Y button to drop on someone and kill them. Since you are suppose to be swinging around this could be a lot of fun to get kills by dropping on your enemies...assuming that I can ever figure out how to swing around effectively.

Add the Bionic Commando Multiplayer Demo to your Xbox 360 download queue

Load Runner and Red Faction: Guerrilla Impressions

2009-04-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

I tore myself away from Fallout 3 for a few hours today to checkout some new stuff on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I started things off with the new Load Runner on Xbox Live Arcade and was surprised by how much there is included for $15. It is a shame they accidentally priced it at $10 for a couple hours and now the community is up in arms about the pricing because for fans of action puzzlers there is a ton of depth in the new iteration of Load Runner. There are tons of game modes and levels as well as a level editor and that lets you download and play levels other people create. With the level editor and a growing community of people interested in playing Load Runner I think there will be tons of great new levels for a long time to come.

If you have not seen it here is the Load Runner trailer:

After that I spent the rest of my lunch break playing the newly released Red Faction: Guerrilla demo. I'm new to the Red Faction series so I don't know much of the back story or anything, but I really dig the graphical style and game play. They give you an objective and a time frame to complete it in, but other than that you can go about completing it any way you want. The first time through I worked my way slowly across the level picking off enemies as I came to them. The second time through I grabbed a big truck and just drove over anyone in my way until I got to the objective. Then I grabbed it and worked my way to the back to the extraction point smashing everything in my way. I love how all of the buildings can be destroyed without too much effort when you have a big enough weapon or vehicle. After you get to the extraction truck you then ride on the back and man the turret. That part of the level was a lot of fun too. You're just blowing up everything that tries to get close enough to stop you. If I had more time I might have played it again to check out other methods for completing the level, but I did not have enough time right now so that will have to wait. I would really recommend trying out the demo. From the looks of it and the trailer the game has a huge open world with a ton of missions. It has been a long time since I played a demo more than one time through, but I can see myself playing the Red Faction: Guerrilla demo a few more times.

Follow this link to add it to your Xbox 360 Download Queue

Here is the trailer for anyone not familiar with Red Faction:

Halo Wars Impressions

2009-04-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

I finished off Halo Wars campaign last weekend. I really enjoyed the game yet for some reason I've not yet put my finger on I just did not feel like playing much of the multiplayer or skirmish modes. As a fan of the Halo universe as a whole (yes I read the books) I really like how Halo War's story fills in some back info. I'm also a fan of Real Time Strategy games so it was really fun to play one with a Halo theme.

Ensemble really made the controls simple and basic but they worked. Especially the option to select all units of all the units on the screen with one button. Since that is what I generally want to do with my army anyway it was nice they made that easy. I also liked the D-Pad options to jump to the bases, leaders, and troops. The game has the standard Rock-Paper-Scissors of unit strengths, but with the technology levels to make units more powerful. One of the other great things about Halo Wars is the cut scenes. They are absolutely GORGEOUS. Other developers need to take note of them; if you are planning to put cut scenes into your upcoming game they need to looks this good.

There were two things disappointing about Halo Wars. First, there is no Covenant or Flood campaigns, but you can play as Covenant in the other game modes. I'd gladly pay to buy additional campaigns for these other classes are DLC. The other annoyance was that I complete the whole campaign and got only 9 of 50 achievements. Not even 1/5th of them. Guess they really wanted to push the other game modes by encouraging you to play them to get the achievements.

If you like Halo or RTS games I recommend checking out Halo Wars. It is a lot of fun and really nice looking.

Crystal Defenders Completed!

2009-04-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Crystal Defenders for weeks now and I finally got the last achievement. I have a few levels left to try and get perfect runs without loosing any lives, but I'm close. It has been a while since I got all the achievements for any game and it feels good to have them all for Crystal Defender. Especially since it was pretty challenging.

The last achievement I got was Four-Star Strategist: Accumulated a total score of 100,000 points. That one took me a lot of work since there are only 12 levels I had to get an average score of over 9000 per map.

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout (Nintendo Wii) Review

2009-04-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I've said before I'm always looking for ways to get more value out of my neglected Nintendo Wii. Really, Wii Fit is the only thing that gets regular use with my Wii. So, when I saw that Ubisoft was releasing Gold's Gym Cardio Workout I knew I wanted to check out out since I already have a balance board.I have been pleasantly surprised with GGCW after being disappointed with most of the other Wii workout games besides Wii Fit. GGCW is mostly focused on Shape Boxing. There are other exercises like squats, leg lifts, jump rope, and others. The Shape Boxing activities don't use the balance board, but most of the others do. The game also lets you decide if you want it to create a workout for you or if you just want to choose which activities to do.

The Good

More Intense Workout - I like Wii Fit, but it is not really a very intense workout. I find Gold's Gym Cardio Workout to be a much more intense workout. I rarely ever break a sweat with WiiFit, but 10 minutes into GGCW I'm already sweating.
Custom and Created Workouts - I like that when you start the game after completing the training it asks you if you want have it setup an exercise regiment for you for that day or if you want to just choose your own activities. If you choose to have it create a workout program for you it then asks how long and how intense of a workout you want. It is a really nice setup and makes it easier to fit a workout into my schedule.
Balance Board Optional - I actually like that the balance board is optional for the exercises that support it. With past games that had optional balance board support when you chose to use it then wiimotes then are not really used. However, in GGCW it balances the use of the balance board and wiimotes really well. For the shape boxing exercises the balance board is not used because you are moving around but for most of the other activities is can be used.
Shape Boxing - I am actually really liking Shape Boxing. I can't really put my finger on why, but it feels good to get a complete an expert combo of hits as you progress through the levels.
Non-Shape Boxing Exercise - Shape boxing is the core of GGCW, but the other activities are really good too. They start up slowly but progresses at a nice pace. Also, they are a nice mix of working out all of the different muscle groups.

The Bad

Lack of Music Variety - For many of the shape boxing exercises you get to pick the song you want to play while you exercise. However, they all have a very similar sound and beat to them. I'm glad I can choose which one I want, but I would really like more variety in the songs.
Jump rope - Maybe it is just me but I can't get the jump rope exercise to work. All you have to do is jump in place and swing your arms, while holding 2 wiimotes, like you are jumping rope. Yet, no matter what I do it does not register correctly and my character jumps the rope once and then gets tangled up. I've tried various speeds and arm circle sizes and it just will not work for me. I just skip that activity now it it comes up.

Conclusion
I'm really enjoying using Gold's Gym Cardio Workout about every other day alternating with Wii Fit. If I did it every day I think I would quickly get tired of Shape Boxing, but so far that has not happened with doing it a few days a week. If you're looking for a Wii exercise game that has a more intense cardio workout than Wii Fit then I would recommend checking trying GGCW. Especially if you don't have a balance board since all of the exercises can be done just fine without one.

Playing Misc Stuff

2009-04-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

I know I've been quiet around here lately, but I've been busy with XBLA & XNA Ratings as well as playing a little of a lot of games. This last week I've played Crystal Defenders, Peggle, Gears of War 2 (Horde mode is so addicting), Rock Band 2, Halo Wars, and Gold's Gym on the Wii. Once I spend some more time with Hao Wars and Gold's Gym I'll get posts up about them, but apparently I'm a little gaming ADD right now. I'll get it under control and get back to some regular posts next week.

In the meantime I'm giving away a copy of Uno Rush on XBLA Ratings. There are a couple days left in the contest so you still have time to enter. Good Luck!

Crystal Defenders Impressions

2009-04-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Crystal Defenders for the last week or so and I'm loving it. Yes, it is another tower defense game, but it is pretty different from the ones I normally play. Every level requires a different strategy. In most tower defense games you find a strategy and you stick with it for every map and level. In Crystal Defenders you will loose quickly with that strategy. There are 3 different grouping of maps and each group has 4 levels. All 12 of these levels requires different strategies and units to win. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the maps and the fun and challenge for me has been finding a strategy that works and then trying to improve it complete a level perfectly. On some of the maps I played through well over a dozen times before I worked out a strategy that works well. If you like tower defense games you should check out Crystal Defenders. It is a very different type of tower defense game that is very challenging but very rewarding at the same time.

If you're interested in Crystal Defenders Square Enix has a great site with a lot of information about the characters.

NextWar: The Quest for Earth Quick Impressions

2009-04-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

I got a chance today to try out the XNA Community Game NextWar: The Quest for Earth. It is a tower defense style game which I find highly addicting. It has a unique graphical style that I'm not sure I like yet, but the overall mechanics work great. If you're into Tower Defense games I would recommend checking it out. I'm quickly getting addicted because there is a nice variety in tower types and each has an easy to remember upgrade path.

Here is the trailer if you're interested:
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:650da6b8-a6bd-4157-9b92-795d12483ff2&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="NextWar: The Quest for Earth"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Video: NextWar: The Quest for Earth&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Stoked Impressions

2009-03-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

Since I enjoyed Shaun White Snowboarding for a while I decided to rent Stoked as well. Unfortunately, the controls are terrible. I almost quit playing before the end of the tutorial because of how poorly the controls are setup, and they are not at all customizable. Whereas Shaun White Snowboarding has controls similar to Tony Hawk games it initially seems like Stoked has controls like Skate/Skate II. However, that is not the case. The controls to ollie are like Skate where you use the thumb stick, but then you control the tricks by hitting triggers and moving the thumb stick in a direction. Since I rented it I made myself finish the tutorial and play the actual game for about an hour. The layout is pretty much like Shaun White in that there are events you can ride up to and compete in or you can just ignore them and ride the mountains. It is really disapointing how bad the controls are because the game physincs and graphics were pretty decent. Maybe it is just me, but I can't recommend even renting Stoked based on how much I hated the controls.