Conan - Xbox 360

Just got finished Conan. I gotta say, its not a bad game. It was alot more enjoyable than Dark Sector, not that "that" game was bad. I just enjoyed Conan alot better. I have a few gripes with the game, but overall, its not bad at all.

Yummies, (couldn't think of a word for pro's)

1. The gameplay is pretty fun, very god of war like, but without the polish. Very rough around the edges in regards to hit detection and the like.

2. Conan has 3 skill sets he can choose from, sword and shield, double weapons, and two-handed fuck you weapons. I went with the sword and shield. I like to play a little defense. Each skill set can be played on the fly. He can he caring a sword and shield and then pick up a two-handed weapon on the ground. Pretty simple, and of course each weapon has their own set of skills to learn. Kinda like ninja Gaiden, but no where near has involved.

3. There is enough variety with weapons and kills to keep the gameplay fun and feeling new.

Grips or Grips (Kinda like wind and wind, record and record)

1. Jumping. Conan I guess was never known for his jumping skills. LOOKOUT , CONAN IS JUMPING TOWARDS US!!!!! No worries, he will just misjudge the jump and fall to his death or just not jump at all and run of the ledge to his death. WoW, the game really captured that part of the comics. I soo remember reading all the times Conan jumped to his death, or tried too.


2. The loves cheap hits, not since streets of rage or double dragon have I come across a game where enemies will surround and punch you to death, no matter what button you press. You cannot move or dodge or run, nothing. You bounce around like a pinata from one sword to another.

3. The graphics arn't that great. ok, that's being nice. This looks more like a PS2 game, cut scenes and all. They really didn't pull their weight on this game.

4. The voice acting is some of the worse I've heard in a long while. Half the time I couldn't take it seriously and just chuckled through what was saying. Even the very last lines of the game when the woman was telling the last parts of teh story, I still don't know what she said. I wasn't listening, all I heard was a over the top,"NOW HEAR ME CONAN, blah blah, blah, blah!!
Through the whole game I am going, "I've heard Conan's voice before, AAHH, that's right, it's Ron Pearlman!".
God did he never not want to do this project. I like Ron Pearlman, but did he ever drop the ball on this gig. I think he phoned in the dialogue while he was taking a shit, its just plain BAD!!


With that, the games not half bad. I enjoyed it more than Dark Sector and I finished the game in little over 6 hrs. One thing I didn't like and this was Xbox related. During Quicktime events, they would flash, B,Y,A,X and I don't use the Xbox controller alot. So when the buttons would flash, I would quickly glance down to see where the buttons were. But of course you only get a split second to tap the correct button. And that second that it took me to look, made me die, ALOT!!!

I had the same thing with Kung-fu Panda, but that one was a little more forgiving because its a kids game. But this was hardcore, there were titties in this game, BOOBS!!


So with that, if and when a game does come out for both systems, I will probable stick with the PS3. I am just more familiar with the controller, dieing all the time cause I hit the red button and not the yellow button gets old fast.

So, Conan - Good - like boobies and toast.

Lego Indiana Jones the Original Adventures - XBox 360

So this was the last Lego game that was on my list to play. Really, I wouldn't have bought this game at all. But it came with the Xbox Christmas bundle, so what hell, I had it, I might has well play it.

Like all Lego titles, its fun to go around and smash stuff and build things. The Lego games are great for kids and non-gamers. You can't die (well you can, if your an idiot) there easy to learn and most of all, Fun!!

I really enjoyed the Starwars and Batman Lego games. I really have no complaint about the gameplay of this particular title. Its the content that does it for me. I'm just not a fan of Indiana Jones. Yes, I enjoyed the movies, great classics, but in video game form, not so much.

And a big draw of the games for me, are all the characters that you can play has. Starwars had a ton of awesome classic characters that you could play and one could recognize them all. Same goes for batman, all his sidekicks, and his great roster of villains. Then they filled it out with goons, but goons that had the classic Joker goon paint, or the penguin goons, or two face goons. They all looked like they should. It was a great selection and of course, each had its advantages.


The Indiana Jones selection is the worst one of the bunch. There is only a handful of classic characters from the series and even the ones we do know are pretty lame. The majority of the characters are just solders and native tribesmen or sailors. Just your typical goon, nothing spectacular about them. I mean for gods sake, there are characters in suits running around and punching shit.

When was the last time you thought, "This guy in the blue suit is so cool, look how he jumps and punches!!" ITS LAME. Its downright pathetic the selection of characters are. Even Indiana's different variations of him with his jacket off, or on, or in a goons costume, but with a whip, its just sadness. Unfortunately this is big part of the game for me.


The other thing, is the collection of Lego items that you get. In Starwars it was all the vehicles, and the same went for batman. Cool stuff that we all recognized. Indiana was artifacts, some are well know, others just some random piece of treasure.

So the replay value of going back and finding these, (for me) didn't interest me at all. Unlike the last two Lego games that I played until I got 100% complete. After one playthrough, I had my fill.


Don't get me wrong, it is a Lego game and has all the cool gameplay that one would expect from the series. It even has cool extras that involve Starwars characters that you can find. But for me, the biggest setback of this game, was its setting. I just don't find the Indiana universe that interesting, let alone have it converted to Lego gameplay. Its like making The Scarlet Letter Lego Game, what kind of scenarios and characters can one make from this?!!!

I heard that the next Lego game was( not including the guitar hero Lego) was going to be pirates. Not pirates of the Caribbean, just a Lego game based off pirates. This again, doesn't interest me, I could care less for this. But I guess actually people who buy those $200 pirate Lego sets would love this, I guess that's the people they are going after.



I would like one based of any superhero content, the x-men, back to the future, Startrek, the terminator series, transformers even. That be cool, giving all those little Lego men 2 modes. Anyway, maybe another superhero one may happen, but I doubt the rest well.

Its Lego fun, I just don't like the wrapping.
5/10

The Lego videos are always fun to watch. They do a great job legoing it up!

Kung Fu Panda - Xbox 360

Games based off of movies are generally bad, games based of of kids movies are usually unplayable and geared towards the parent who knows nothing about animation or video games but thought the Zebra was funny when he farted. So when they see the video game counter part at the store, I think its more the parent who goes,"Ohh, wouldn't it be cute to see the skunk running around and jumping on things?!" So has a rule, NORMALLY, I don't buy games based off of movies for myself or for my kid. I do believe in good game play for adults and kids, just because kids like everything, doesn't mean you should feed them shit on a stick and call it Candy!

So Kungfu Panda came with the holiday Xbox 360 bundle. So my expectations were where they normally are concerning these types of games and I wasn't disappointed..er surprised. Normally games like this follow 2 patterns. Either the game follows the movie storyline to the letter, so there are no surprises has to what you have to do next or the main idea of the story remains, but they changed the content to make the game more gamplay friendly. There hasn't been too many games that get it right, but if I had to choose one, I would say that Spiderman for PS2 was one of the few.


Rather than go over the finer points, the gist of this game is...MRRPHHHHHH?!? add a shrug of the shoulders and rolling the eyes and you have kungfu panda. It doesn't follow the story line like the movie and when they finally get to the whole point of the movie that the power comes from within and not in a scroll, the message is delivered with the subtlety of an Epileptic trying to performing brain surgery with a jack hammer.BAH!!

The game wasn't bad bad, but by no means would I call this good. I would call this a studios attempt to cash in on a summer movie to a bunch of no nothing about video game parents who think that this video game will be safe for my kid because it was rated G in the movie theatre. There are tons of better games out there for kids, and its unfortunate that people buy into these games. Some people would say that these are kid friendly games, well YES..they are. But at least give them a good game to play and not some re-ash shit product.



Anywho, enough rant. The game itself, you play has a panda and he does kungfu, the controls are super simple and you can sit and beat the game in one sitting. You can play has the fearsome five, but they aren't much fun. The levels are what you would expect, no surprised. They changed the story line quite a bit. Its like if kids saw the movie and then told the producers what they would like to see more of," I WANNA SEE A BIG ALLIGATOR CHASE THE PANDA DOWN A RIVER"..."I WANNA SEE HIM PUNCH A GIANT GORILLA"..."I WANNA SEE HIM MAKE THE TIGER POOP HIS PANTS MORE!!"""



And BANG, you have Kungfu Panda, written by and staring kids who fart. Play this if you are stuck at home, with no other games and someone left this next to your machine and both your legs are broken. Maybe it will pass the time faster..maybe not

3.5/10


Here is the last fight in the game next to the last fight in the actual movie.

Castle Crashers - XBox360

My First experience with the X-Box360 was with Castle Crashers. A game that I had heard alot about, seeing has it took 4 years to be made and the game is entirely designed in Flash. So it has a style that I really like, not the crappy symbol flash, but the big thick line fully animated flash.

It was one of the few games that I played entirely with a group of friends. So finishing a game with a group of friends is much different than finishing a game by oneself.

Premise of the game, you can choose between 4 knights, each with their own set of magic powers, fire, lighting, poison and ice, but you unlock more has you go through the game. You then hack and slash and magic and combo your way to the end where you have to fight insane bosses.

I gotta say that the game play with a a group of 4 people really is fun and adds alot to a gaming experience, but there are a few downfalls has well. But the good first. Like I said befor, I really like the look and style of the game. The story is simple and entertaining. The upgrading your characters is fun, finding all the different weapons and animal sidekicks are all great additions to a game.

The Bad, The backgrounds of the levels are very heavy on design elements, alot, and I mean alot of detail. So much so, that on certain levels, the flower field and the garbage level. When enemies and players meet on the battle field and all the FX start fo fly, I honestly don't have a clue where I am. Only until I am hit and shot across the room by a baddies do I go,"OH, there I am...dead on the ground"

Playing in the foreground, the game has it so you can control your guy like all the old arcade fighting games, ninja turtles, x-men, Simpson's etc. You can move in and out of the foreground, but holy hell does this ever make it hard to judge what level the bosses are on. Its a little easier with the smaller enemies, but alot of the time, I be jumping my head off and swinging my sword around and thinking I am beating the crap outta the boss, because I see hit FX, only to find out I was on the wrong plain and it was actually my team mates doing all the damage. While I looked like an idiot jumping and wailing my sword in the sky.



Those were my only 2 gripes with the game. It is kinda short, but you can go back and search for my animal side kicks, try and find all the weapons and unlock all the extra characters. And of course the achievements. But I don't like the achievements on the 360 too much. I don't like the idea of points. I rather a gold, silver trophy and yes I know that they are worth points too. I just like the trophy idea.

Overall, it was a decent game, I think the 14.99 is a little much, I would rather it be 9.99, but that's just being super picky. I guess they have to make money on something that took them 4 years to make. Give the demo a try, if you like that, then the rest of the game is pretty much the same, just with all the bells and whistles.

6.5/10

Dead Space- 360

You play as engineer Isaac Clarke as you're sent to investigate/repair the USG Ishimura- a large mining ship that has lost contact with earth after finding a giant alien marker of some sort. When you arrive all hell breaks loose and so begins Isaac's no good-very bad day as he has to battle through mutated people that want nothing more then to hack you apart and feast on whatever is left.

I just finished the game tonight, trying not to rush through it but take my time and really enjoy it. It does have a tendency to be a bit repetative (mini boss battles, random enemy moments etc) so taking my time was the best option. I think it made me enjoy the game a lot more as most of these encounters felt fresh and new not playing it all at once.

The first thing I liked was the lack of a HUD. All the important info you need to know is on the character himself. All the inventory/map screens don't pause the game but pop up as a hologram in front of Isaac. It's a very creative way of doing it and really does keep you in the game. Part of the creepiest moments were watching people contact you through video or listening to audio logs while walking around a great spooky atmosphere.

This also can be a bit of a pain in the ass when you're low on health and in a room full of enemies having to run to find a hiding spot to heal yourself. The first thing after hitting the select button should've been the inventory and not the map.


The weaponry is upgradable through "nodes" and really works well with the character. Instead of insane firepower you're left with engineering tools Isaac would use on the job. To take out the enemies you have to take off the limbs which is deliciously fun and very gory!




And OH the gore! The gore is really well done! Not as good or as "meaty" as Gears of War but very close. I had most of my fun using the "stomp" button on random dead bodies and dead enemies. Random encounters with "survivors" also make some really cool gore scenes.


The Necromorphs also looked very cool and there was a pretty good variety of different enemies (my favorite being a moaning wall monster that makes a alien shriek at you while fighting)

The overall sound and atmosphere were very creepy and well done, making all the "jump out of your seat" moments all that more terrifying and there are plenty of those!




My only complaint is they could've shaved off a bit of time taking out some of the repetative mini-boss fights. It felt copy/pasted in just to lengthen the game a bit and I'm a big fan of quality over quantity, but it's a minor complaint.


If you're looking for a great game to scare the pants off of you this Halloween then make Dead Space your pick!


9/10

Silent Hill Homecoming Review- 360/PS3

Silent Hill Homecomeing is one of my personal most anticipated games this year, and I wasn't dissappointed. I knew this one wasn't made by Team Silent but an American Team, Double Helix and the Japanese scense of dread and over-all doom wasn't there. This one truely feels "Americanized" which isn't that good of a thing but isn't all that bad either.

I miss all the weird scares of the old ones, such as the haunted house in Silent Hill 3 or the invisible monster of Silent Hill 2, and I had hoped this one wouldn't lose that. ah-wells.

I played this one with my friend Jacob and while we were going through the game I made a list of all the things I wanted to mention. I thought a long winded review would be too boring so here it is in point form:

THE GOOD

• great atmosphere
• fun solid controls, shooting/aiming
• nice background graphics
• fun/creepy boss fights
• wounds the show on enemies
• good weapon system
• It's fun to knock over chairs and lamps
• Pyramid Head makes a brief cameo and is unintentionally funny

THE BAD

• Can only carry limited ammo
• Not enough health! Holy crap where's the health?
• Cheap shots from enemies
• Really bad character animation/ lip syncs
• Weird Glitches (freezing, sounds/characters dissappearing, etc etc)
• Missing overall sense of dread and horror/feels more like an action game

The Whatever the hell this thing is:

• WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??!!!!!
  

final score: 7.5/10

New Xbox 360 Dashboard announced at E3

Microsoft has announced a new look to the 360's dashboard this fall/winter. The new look also has a bunch of new features including creating your character/avatar much like the Nintendo Wii's Mii.

Now I'm not a big fan of this idea as of yet, because I have no idea what this means about the dashboard backgrounds/ gamer pictures people have purchased over xbox live. Are they obsolete now? Will I be able to use the themes I downloaded? I hope so!

Another change will be new trivia games and easier access to joining/ inviting friends to play over Live...... using your little miis.... But you will be able to chat, share photos, and do other fun things like that.
The movie library will be getting better as well since microsoft has a deal with Netflicks.

One of the changes I think looks really good is the guide change. Just really nice and simple and easy to use. It gives a bit more access to everything you want to do quickly.


Overall it looks pretty good for now. I'm not a huge fan of the new dashboard look but then again I don't care as long as I can use my gamer pictures/themes and I really hope this update doesn't brick my 360.... that would really really suck.

To see the full video walkthrough of the new Xbox Dashboard click the link below.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36412.html

Grand Theft Auto 4- Things to do

Reviewing this game, right off the bat 10/10. It's just great! But I don't want to write a review for it. Instead I'm gonna tell you some things you can do in Liberty City.

1. Punch-a-thon- So in previous installments of the GTA series you could punch air while running. In this one though Niko (the main character) doesn't punch while running he pushes, so this may be a little more hard then previous games. Run down a populated section of Liberty City punching as many people as you can at least once just to see how many people you can get chasing you.

2. Whore Launcher- Pick up a prostitute but don't park anywhere. Instead drive as fast as you can towards a jump and just before the car hits said jump press the "y" button to exit the vehicle. The farther you launch your whore the better!

3. Angel of Death- Go inside the hospital to the patients in the beds. Walk up to each patient firing one bullet into their head playing the role of Death.

4. Drunken Suicide- See how far you can launch Niko from the windshield of your car while driving under the influence.

5. First Impression- Take some girl out on a first date to a Strip Club. While there spend all your money on other girls.

6. Second Impression- After a date get in a car and drive away from your date but just a little bit. Let her run to the car then drive a bit more away. Repeat until she made it home on foot. Then immediatly ask her if you can "Come inside with her."

7. (Online) Drunken Race- Name says all. Get drunk online with a friend and try to race somewhere across the map. Winner gets $5.

8. Stripper Pole Accident- Run into the strippers on stage knocking them off the pole. When the bouncers attack, run out of the bar and re-enter (after things have cooled down) and repeat the offence.

9. Enemy of the Poor- Find a bum and give him some change. Then walk a short distance away, get in a car, and run him down. It's like you paid to do it.

10. Leap of stupidness- Leap from the rooftop of a tall building trying to land on either the hood of a car or a pedestrian. The more pedestrians the better!

(Trailer-Everyone's a rat)

Custom Xbox 360 dashboard backgrounds

• Save your image to an external USB storage device (Camera, video Ipod, flashcard, PSP, etc)


• Go to the Media blade on your Xbox 360 and select pictures. Then select your storage device.


• Highlight the picture you want and press X. "Set as Background"

Here's a few Nintendo backgrounds I made. That's right Nintendo crap on your 360.

Assassin's Creed- Xbox 360

Darryl's review has a lot of good points about Assassin's Creed. The game looks great but overall can be very repetative. I found myself ignoring the story and just running around killing random people and killing myself by jumping off of buildings. Just by doing all this stupid stuff, the game got much more enjoyable.

I also went on a homeless person hunt where I'd kill/ beat on people begging for change. After awhile an achievement popped up on the screen and the game got more awesome:

So I made a list of Achevements I'd like to see in the game:

So because of the random tom-foolery of the game I'm gonna give it 7.5/10

But if you stick to doing nothing but the story and side missions 5.5/10

If you would like to see a full list of the achievements go here.