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Hands-On: Halo: Reach Defiant Map Pack DLC (Xbox 360)

Words by

Steven Wright

Posted on April 13, 2011

Hands-On: Halo: Reach Defiant Map Pack DLC (Xbox 360)

The Defiant map pack’s main use, besides fragging and teabagging, is to build the faith in Halo fans that 343 Industries can do good things with the Halo franchise. Ex-Bungie staff litter the company as well as the company of the designers, Certain Affinity, who have already made a name for themselves designing maps for Halo 2. Chances are that a lot of players will think Bungie have developed these and you probably would not notice anything different as they all meet the creators high standard.

Instead of just shipping three straight multiplayer maps, 343 have shipped a Firefight map to keep the gamers who prefer the co-op side of life happy. The two multiplayer maps are almost exact opposites in style, the aptly named Containment favouring close quartered fire-fights in a crumbling space station and Highlands bringing the big team elements that I for one adore. Visually they bring refreshing colour and variety to the multiplayer experience, which often suffers from an over saturation green and grey thanks to the Forge World variants.

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Review: Bulletstorm (Xbox 360)

Words by

Thomas Mullin

Posted on April 7, 2011

FPSs have been running a little dry when it comes to the inspiration department as of late. It seems that there’s always a Russian mad man hell bent on destroying the world as we know it with a weapon of mass destruction, or you’ll play as an American soldier fighting in the streets of a nondescript Middle-Eastern city. Bulletstorm is neither of these things. It’s a roller coaster of violence, guns and sweary mouthed anti-heroes with over the top shoot-outs, but is it as fresh a breath of air as we’d all hoped?

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Review: Two Worlds II (Xbox 360)

Words by

Billy Withers

Posted on March 22, 2011

When you have a look at other gaming websites, magazines and all of those other review type places, you have to wonder just how they manage to get RPG games out so damned fast. I mean, everyone knows Oblivion will take nigh on an eternity to get through, but then you’ll see something up in time for launch. Now this can mean one of two things, either:

A: The reviewer gets the game about a year and a half in advance and is one lucky so and so…or

B: The same reviewer just isn’t giving the game enough of a chance to really get stuck into it.

The reason why we have taken such a long time to get this particular review out is simply because we needed the time to do so. Anyone who plays anything to do with role playing will no doubt know that these can sap your life in ways daytime TV and bingo just cannot compensate for. There is no way you can say that the first Two Worlds game set the world on fire, in fact I would probably say a few people set it on fire as an effigy. The guys at Topware Interactive had a lot to work on to improve what was a slightly sub-standard first game. That’s not to say it didn’t have its followers though.

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Review: The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout (Xbox 360)

Words by

Jennifer Allen

Posted on March 4, 2011

Review: The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout (Xbox 360)

It’d be immensely satisfying to start this review stating how The Biggest Loser has the perfect title because it’s a big loser. It’s not though. In fact, despite being less obviously excellent, The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout is the best of the fitness “games” currently available for Kinect, even if it does focus rather a lot on your arms.

It’s immediately obvious that this title intends to be less abstract than Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, using a backdrop of more realistic gym settings and animated characters of The Biggest Loser trainers. A 30 minute fitness test starts you off, assessing just what you’re able to withstand. If, like me, you’re in need of The Biggest Loser, it’ll happily stop after a while once you reach a point where it’s obvious that you’re beginning to struggle. The judging afterwards is pretty accurate too while not being too harsh. It determined that my weakest move was jogging (thanks to an old injury) but that I was pretty good at lunges.

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Review: Kinect Joy Ride (Xbox 360)

Words by

Thomas Mullin

Posted on February 21, 2011

When Joy Ride was announced as a release title for the Kinect motion controller there was a seething swarm of hatred for Microsoft, as it was originally intended as a free to play digital download. Now that the dust has settled, Joy Ride has actually proved to be quite a nifty little title.

The major concern when it comes to any motion controlled game is always does it work? The simple answer is yes. Accelerating and braking are taken care of by the computer, but from there it’s up to the player to hold their hands out and steer as if driving a real car. It’s a remarkably simple yet effective control system that allows the player to power-slide by leaning their body into the turns, like we’ve all done at some point or another in our lives, and twist and lean to perform stunts in mid-air. It’s a simple concept that anyone can pick up, but it’s too simplified to provide anything but a quick blast.

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