360 Archive

Review: Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360)

Words by

Billy Withers

Posted on October 16, 2009

To say that Halo has been a huge hit for Microsoft is a bit of an understatement. The original Xbox title may well have started the ball rolling, but it was the sequel which propelled Bungie into a new stratosphere with a multiplayer engine to die for as well as a decent single player experience thrown in for good measure. The third had a lot to live up to and just about did the business 2 years ago, but the boundaries that Halo 2 had set before meant that it wasn’t as huge a leap forward as people expected.

O.D.S.T. has been welcomed with mixed reaction; with some saying it’s too small to be a full priced title, while the die-hard lovers of the series are up in arms in expectation over the new multiplayer maps and single player storyline. The story is about a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers who are assigned to the South African city of New Mombassa with their mission being to take back control of the now Covenant run area. You control a rookie soldier who, along with everyone else on the assignment, is blown off course during your drop. As night falls and you come to, you’re find yourself alone with only your wits and an intel system pointing out clues to establish just what happened.

As stories go, this one isn’t too bad at all. The rookie intervals act as a good diversion between the main acts of this futuristic interactive play. Each main mission is seen through the eyes of your other squad members who were spread out across the landscape and trying to survive by any means necessary. Dialogue is both well spoken and nicely written, with a lovely sprinkling of humour injected at just the right moment. This feels like a much more light-hearted look at the Halo universe instead of the usual gravel voiced Chief and his computer aid. You do find yourself engrossed in the world of Mickey, Dutch, Buck and the others as your job of reuniting them gets underway, although the lack of a voice for the rookie makes me think that either he IS the Master Chief and that he’s not reached the legal minimum requirement or it could just be another keep ‘em guessing technique to get the fan boys thinking.

The worlds in O.D.S.T. are quite expansive and provide enough difference to fend off any monotony which may be looming. Having said that, the full single player mission can be finished in one sitting if put on anything lower than heroic, so if you do wish to at least have a challenge with this then I’d suggest being a proper human being and to stop acting like a wuss. This was a big problem with Halo 3 in that the main campaign was solid enough when on your own, but was a different kettle of fish when it came to going through it with friends. Sadly it’s a similar problem here, with between 4 and 6 hours being a normal expectation time to get to the end when hitting legendary and battling with 3 of your mates over the 10 main mission sectors.

If there is anything that can be said about all the games in the Halo series it’s that the graphics engine has been a solid piece of kit. O.D.S.T. does provide a very well structured world, with just enough graphical touches to show it is a next gen title, but there is a little thought of some visual sacrifice to keep the fluidity and sharp control input. The daytime mission sections are nicely done and look decent enough, with the occasional “cinema” moment to make you feel impressed for at least a few seconds (the initial drop sequence being one of those). The rookie controlled night time trek through the town has some great colour and depth in places, but it’s so dark that you probably won’t see it due to the excessive use of the X button to bring up your visual aid. It is an extremely useful piece of kit, but your reliance on it becomes a bit worrying, as you’ll spend more time seeing red enemies and green allies, rather than the moody and atmospheric scenery.

One thing Bungie have always managed to achieve with their series is the impact of the musical accompaniment with each game, with the main Halo theme almost becoming as recognisable as the main tunes of Mario or Sonic. With this being on a slight tangent drawn away from the Mater Chief, there is no recognisable music from anything previously, but that does not mean it’s just filled with the cheap stuff. Martin O’Donnell has come up with a darker, more secretive selection of melody instead of all the pomp and circumstance that has come before. It does work very well and is a very impressive mix. The vocal elements are also smile inducing with those little bits of comedy interspersed with some of the more usual soldier talk. Other than that it’s business as usual with all the sounds pretty much the same as you’ve come to expect from the previous titles.

The multiplayer side of Halo does have its good points, as the Firefight mode is a decent addition (think Gears of War 2’s Horde mode, but with 3 rounds of multiple waves rather than 50 separate attack patterns). The good point about this new section is that, like the main game too, the skulls from 3 are all available to use here. What the AI does is select certain ones to give the enemies an advantage, but you never know what until you begin. Four players can take part and there are a decent selection of maps available once unlocked, but even though it does provide a good experience for a small party, it almost feels like this is trying to take the flak away from the almost cheeky move by Microsoft with regards to the rest of the online mode.

If you are one of the Halo faithful, you’ll pretty much have everything on disc 2 already, as it’s nothing more than the previous game’s multiplayer with 3 extra maps. Now, if you’ve NEVER played it and have managed to keep yourself locked up in a bubble for a good 4 or 5 years then you’re in for a treat, but for the entire population of the world (minus Captain Bubble of course) we’ll have had or still have this and start to think it’s just a cash-in on the franchise. Even with one of those extra maps being the return of the fan favourite, Midship from 2 (now called Heretic) you really find it hard to convince people to go for this when they’ve already spent the money on buying the previous title as well as all the add-on map packs to keep it up to date.

The problem we have here is that the single player game is a pretty good one, but the majority of the online section is old stuff we’ve already had before. Not even Firefight can hide the feeling of being conned into spending at least £35 on what is technically a quick to finish main game and a rehash of old code everywhere else. The other niggle is that for a franchise that started with the title of Halo: Combat Evolved, you have to say that the core gameplay hasn’t really done that. You look at Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Modern Warfare and look at things like the inclusion of sprint buttons, which this doesn’t have. The competitors also have the inclusion of different weaponry, whereas the main arsenal given to you is more of the same again with some key offence missing due to the timeline, like the plasma sword for example.

Even with these problems, you can’t take away from the fact that O.D.S.T. has a decent game buried amongst all the familiar content and it would be a shame if you avoid it because of the possible feeling of resentment with the way this product is made up. If you don’t have ANY of the content then I would go ahead and buy this and find yourself with the main components of the Halo Empire and all its multiplayer goodness. For those who already have over 50% of what is here then renting might well be your better choice and once the single player is done you can go back to putting sticky grenades on your mates in a custom slayer match, just like you’ve always done.

Overall, a cheaper price point (say £20 – £25) would have made this a necessity, but as it stands it just feels like an expansion pack gone mad and it won’t please the collective, I can tell you. Dangling the carrot of the Reach Beta just makes it even harder to take. Even so, I have to give some credit to a well written and nicely designed single player experience, which is worth playing, but it’s just a shame it’s trapped in a sea of re-released duplication. Let us hope they don’t do it again with the next instalment in the saga or else there will be a REAL uprising.

VideogameUK verdict: 7/10

Sky Player To Hit Xbox LIVE On 27th October!!

Words by

Russell Maher

Posted on October 15, 2009

Sky Player To Hit Xbox LIVE On 27th October!!

Following on from our recent story regarding the pricing for Sky Player on Xbox LIVE, Xbox Community Manager Graeme Boyd posted on his Twitter yesterday that it will finally arrive on 27th October.

Not only that Wonderwallweb are reporting that a retail bundle will be available which will include a wireless media remote, a months subscription to Sky Player, and a 3 month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription. No details of pricing as of yet.

Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening (Xbox 360)

Words by

Billy Withers

Posted on October 9, 2009

Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening (Xbox 360)

Strategy games have for a long period of time been one of the main stalwarts of the PC diet sheet. Along with being the original FPS platform, our love for the keyboard and mouse as an instrument to inflict carnage and fear into the virtual masses has been unconditional, with many still saying it’s a far better layout than the joypad when it comes to dishing out frags on a daily basis.

For the lateral thinkers this has also been their opinion, so with that the way we play the brain game has changed and we’re now starting to see a selection of Tower Defence games hit the 360, with Square Enix’s cartoon styled Crystal Defenders and the new South Park title allowing some famous names to bask in the limelight for a brief spell, but none of that matters when you begin to get to grips with Hidden Path’s Defense Grid: The Awakening.

The main difference is in this game’s origins, compared to most of the other Tower games on Live. Where most of the rest in this genre have been released primarily for the console, this has been out on PC for a good 9 months or so and has received fair praise since arriving in December 2008. Using the Gamebryo engine, which has powered the Bethesda classics Oblivion and Fallout 3, as well as being created by the lead designer of the cult classic Age of Empires II, Mark Terrano you can’t help but feel optimistic about it’s appearance on the 360. So just how does it fare?

For those of you who are a little unfamiliar to this style of game, here is a brief run-down of what you do. To start off with you must place towers or whatever your defences may be, varying from game to game of course, strategically to provide maximum cover from the onslaught of enemies, who are hell-bent on taking whatever precious commodity you have for them to steal. If you still have anything left after the waves of evil have passed then you’re deemed the victor.

Between you and total domination in Defense Grid are 20 levels of thought out placement and protection of your energy core, which your alien chums wish to take for themselves. These stages make up the Awakening part of the game, with a 4 level Borderlands section waiting for those who actually make it that far. To guide you on your way you have the computer mainframe, who sounds remarkably like a cybernetic version of Alfred from the original Tim Burton Batman movies. His dulcet tones help you get ready for the task at hand, as well as give out some handy tips from time to time, but then any game that can get away with using the word “buggers” has to be good in anyone’s book.

Your arsenal consists of a wide range of tower armaments, with each of them upgradeable by 3 stages. Each of the ten different turrets is varied and purposeful, not to mention needed rather badly as things get a bit tough. Standard guns are your basic fare, but soon enough you get napalm cannons, sniper guns and even a pulse generator to slow down the opposition, so as to get more shots in. The potential combinations once you add the upgrades into the equation are mind-boggling. Placement is key here; and a keen eye for shot range as well as maintaining clear sight between hunter and hunted is vital to gain success and from experience I can safely say you’ll be doing a few of these missions a couple of times. Thing is though, sometimes it won’t be because you failed, but for something more resembling an ego trip with a newly found vigour to pass your buddy on the leaderboard.

Having score tables in games like Defense Grid can be just as deadly as the weapons, mainly because the bragging rights seem to multiply when it comes to the grey cell thumpers in the gaming world. There isn’t an actual multiplayer, but when you take the leaderboard into account, as well as the huge number of different scenarios you can play each level in (including a 99 wave constant barrage nicknamed the ‘Grinder‘, should you be that way inclined) then you can see why you probably don’t need to have that here. Besides, it would only do what other competitive online modes have done to titles in the past; detract from what is already good and labelling it an afterthought or, as the magazines so often use “something that was bolted on at the last minute.”

The Gamebryo Engine does help to make this look good. Everything is solid and crisp and when viewed up close it loses none of its beauty or sharpness. There’s a feeling of versatility and functionality, with all the levels serving their purpose well and allowing for great access. The levels are nicely varied and don’t strain the eyes even after you’ve failed a mission AGAIN and have to go through the whole level for the umpteenth time. Cosmetically it delivers that fine balance between giving the graphic lovers and the strategy people what they want in equal measure, which can be a difficult thing to achieve, with the bar on both sides set so high.

The sound and music for Defense is adequate enough and never gets in the way of your thinking time by becoming distracting. As already mentioned, the computer vocal never gets too tired, which again is a good thing. Other than that you have your standard FX for weapons and the like, but you’re not really looking for one of Mozart’s classics when you’re planning the annihilation of a nasty alien race (unless you’ve been watching Apocalypse Now or something and you have that “Ride of the Valkyries” vibe going through your head.)

As strategy games go this is as good as anything the 360 has to offer, which seeing the competition out there really isn’t that much. Don’t let that take away from Defense Grid though. There’s loads of time just waiting to be spent on it and the many missions and variants lying within. The leaderboard is as much of an online mode as you’ll need and keeps things nicely contained while at the same time providing just enough constant competition to have “one more go” to beat your rival and that annoying high score of theirs.

I think this next sentence gives this game as much praise as any. I don’t normally like strategy games, but I find myself becoming hooked on it. A piece of software that allows newcomers and veterans to play it and feel equally pleased is one thing, but a game which can bring people who feel alienated by certain genres to actually play and ENJOY those foreign styles can only be a good thing. This is an essential for console strategists, but I suspect some who are not of the Tower Defence world could do worse than to at least try this, as you’d be surprised at just how much fun these can be when done right.

VideogameUK verdict: 8.5/10

Review: Zombie Apocalypse (Xbox 360)

Words by

Billy Withers

Posted on October 8, 2009

Gaming on the networks and marketplaces seem to bring about their own good or bad points within the confines of their own generic code. Take puzzle games for instance, with the old argument of too many similar control methods and ideals usually packaged within a different shell. The same can be said for shooters too. Geometry Wars really does have a lot to answer for, as since its launch within the dank, dark garages of PGR 3, we have seen many titles utilize the dual stick system that has served the original arcade neon lit blaster so well. Blast Factor, Ion Assault and even the indie hit I made a game with Zombies in it (I’m not going down the L33T route for the correct spelling thanks) opting for this easy to pick up method, usually with decent to good results.

The first impression you get with Zombie Apocalypse, Konami’s newest foray into the “download and enjoy” lifestyle of XBLA gives you a feeling of been here, done that with the left stick to move and right stick to shoot ethic of the already mentioned titles. By this time you’re thinking either:

A – This game had better be bloody good or it does just gonna be yet another slog.

Or….

B – My God.. This is a hell of a lot better than I imagined and this just never gets tiring.

The product itself is pretty much a halfway house between “I made…” and Left 4 Dead, almost a Dead Rising Lite, if you will. Developers Nihilistic have aimed for a Smash TV style arcade feel and added a few details of their own throughout the 50+ levels of undead bashing required to get through the whole thing. The main addition is the environmental kills, which is rather amusing, but as with most things you seem to lose that initial buzz once you’ve sliced a zombie with rotating helicopter blades for the 50th time. See, the problem is that even though there are a fair amount of levels, with the minions varying from stage to stage, there are only about 6 or 7 different locations, so you will get a bit of repetition. There are some tactics to hide this, like blackouts to isolate you from the rest of the scenery, which can be good for the killing side of things, but in the end, I’d have liked to have seen a few extra places to paint with mutant human blood.

To help you get through this traumatic situation, the powers-that-be have allowed you to receive special weapon pick ups that magically appear from on high. These vary from pretty much useless (sniper rifles and Molotov cocktails) to the rather handy (shotguns and dual pistols). As well as your conventional weapons, you also have a cuddly teddy bear, who just so happens to talk and be stuffed with C4 explosive. Quite WHY the legions of neck biting freaks are attracted to something so…. CUTE is quite a mystery to me, but then if you take it in the context that a bunch of spotty geeks can fancy silver screen siren, Megan Fox for example, then maybe there is some sense in this after all.

The bear and the rest of the weaponry do provide a bit of audio punch, not to mention the first few times you hear him it IS funny. Just don’t expect that to last long though. The characters also have some amusing end of level quips, but most of the time you’ll only hear screams, a few explosions or some background music which slips into generic zombie ambience. It’s not that the tunes themselves are bad; it’s just the underlying thought that you’ve heard it somewhere else, but you can’t put your finger on it, with some of the guitar laden rock ditties reeking of a CoD 5 Nazi Zombie homage. The result is good enough for what is needed, but a little more effort, as well as some more one liners could have made things more interesting.

The 4 characters you can choose from all have a small back story associated with them, almost like a meet-and-greet before you start blowing heads off. You can be a doctor, athlete, security guard or (somewhat ironically) a gamer who thinks this is just another piece of software, but with better guns. To be fair to Apocalypse, most Arcade games don’t really have major back stories. I mean, it’s not like Pac-man was a recurring drug addict who needed to keep taking pills to stay on the straight and narrow, so you can forgive it the lack of any major plot.

As shooting games of this type go, it’s a decent looking one. Each of the places has it’s own distinct look to it, as do the different classes of Zombie on offer, from your standard Resident Evil “uuuurrrrrgghhh….” types to hurl projecting pukers and grannies, who have this insatiable desire to throw sharp objects at you. It sits nicely in the halfway house in this respect because I’ve seen a lot worse, but there have also been a few better looking games showing up on the marketplace too. In general terms though you can’t really fault it for what it lays on the table, as it pleases the eye enough to keep things fun.

The multiplayer is the main plus point with Zombie Apocalypse. The offline killing fest is alright, but it can just feel like you’re heading through a checklist of things to do (grab weapon, kill zombies, end level and then repeat until done). Playing with other humans for some reason doesn’t make things as bad. In fact, you can have a damned good laugh with 4 people fending off the undead and amassing a combined score, which is accumulated from everyone’s kill bonuses and streaks. The enemies vary with each wave, but until the heroes turn into a zombie dinner you are dealing with survival and a good strategy can make all the difference.

I like this game. Whether it’s because I’m a retro gamer at heart and like the throwback to the older, more basic times of gaming is unknown, but it doesn’t try anything too fancy or extravagant. It is, at its core, a shooter, which although in the same style of Geo Wars doesn’t lose itself in amongst all the other clones out there. There are some problems with level design, in that you can stay in one area with your chainsaw and just cut away until the stage is over (totally defeating the purpose of moving around to stay alive) but as a complete package it does an ok job.

There is promise of downloadable content, so that should help keep the longevity going. If that adds some more spice to things and they sort out the almost cheat-like ways of finishing certain levels, I reckon there could be a space for these undead types on your hard drive yet… well, until Left 4 Dead 2 anyway.

VideogameUK verdict: 7.5/10

Review: The King Of Fighters XII (Xbox 360)

Words by

Russell Maher

Posted on October 6, 2009

Review: The King Of Fighters XII (Xbox 360)

SNK are know for their arcade fighters and this is no exception. The King of Fighters series dates back to 1994 when characters from previous SNK arcade games where thrown together for the ultimate battle. Also available in the arcades, this brings the series into your living room once again. Featuring a new “critical counter” counter system, allowing additional linked attacks which can lead to finishing moves, and “clash timing” that to me gives breathing room if both fighters connect with hits at the same time as it separates you. A welcome addition I can tell you!!

This is arcade fighting in it’s purest form with no back story to weigh it down. Using a 3-on-3 system, and with each match lasting up to 5 rounds, you have 5 matches with the aim to get the best overall win time. Like I said pure arcade goodness!! You can replay a match if you want to better your time along the way. Also included is a versus mode allows you to play the more traditional 1-on-1 way, as well as 3-on-3. A return to a four button layout takes this back to basics and furthers the arcade feel of the game.

The game itself has 22 characters, with 2 of those console exclusives and not available in the arcade version. Each character is hand-drawn, a time constraint that led to the limited amount of characters available, and gives the game a fluid fighting experience. The retro, or old-school if you will, look is combined with move-sets that are retained from previous incarnations of the characters. This will allow followers to pick up and play and get right into the action!!

Heading to Xbox LIVE really brings this game alive, allowing you to battle fans of the series worldwide. This was when I realised I’m not as good as I thought at this game. Getting my ass handed to me by Japanese players made sure of that!!

Talking of Japanese, it is possible in the options to change the language of the game, both the text and sound, to Japanese. This really made me smile and reminded me of playing import console games in the 90′s!!

The lack of a storyline doesn’t really take anything away from this. Stories tend to be the same for most arcade fighters anyway with revenge taken on the killer of your family member or friend and the need to beat up everyone who stands between you and the end boss. And with it all being 2D, and not opting for flashy 3D like other games, it concentrates on being a arcade fighter, with no bells or whistles. To me, this was good, but others may not agree.

VideogameUK verdict: 7.5/10