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[XBOX360] Lego Indiana Jones

Archbishop Xero — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:37:26 +0000

I have just completed my run through Lego Indiana Jones for the 360. I admit that I love the Lego series of games. The interpretations that they gave the Star Wars series was fantastic, so my expectations were high for the Indiana Jones treatment.

What I got in Indiana Jones was another solid entry for the Lego series. The cut-scene humor was exactly what I was expecting and was quite amusing. The gameplay was very much similar to the other Star Wars games (break stuff, collect studs, find secrets, and beat bosses).

My compliants are minimal. They deliberately strayed somewhat from the movies in the more graphic of details (no faces were melted or hearts ripped out during the game); however, there were frequent (though funny) decapitations. Curious. And no mention of the Nazis, though the blonde-haired, blue-eyed grunts were a dead giveaway.I will say that some of the levels ran a little longer than what I would have liked – sometimes taking as long as an hour to complete a single stage.

During my run through the game, I ran across the normal camera issues that have been commonplace in the Lego series. I found several of the boss fights to be extremely difficult to figure out without having to reference an online game guide. The Mola Ram battle glitched a few times be never sending me thuggies with swords… talk about frustrating. Finally, where was the online co-operative play?

All in all, I enjoyed this game. It didn’t deliver anything particularly innovative in advancing the Lego series, but it did provide a lot of fun gameplay, especially with the local co-op mode. I’d recommend playing this game, but make sure you have someone to enjoy the game with, as the multiplayer where I had the most fun.

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WiiWare: Lost Winds

xerocube — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:06:22 +0000

Let me start by saying I have not tried Lost Winds yet. I had little intention on trying it either. That is, until I read this writeup on Gamasutra.com. From there, I linked across to MetaCritic to see what they had compiled (an impressive 84 out of 100).

My initial impressions of WiiWare was that it was attempting to cash in on the success of the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network games. In conjunction with my general apathetic view towards most Wii titles, I figured I could just pass this one up.

However, the opening line of Gamasutra’s write-up has changed my mind.

…a $10 WiiWare launch title from UK developer Frontier (Thrillville) that critics describe as “better than a lot of $49.99 Wii games.”

I encourage you to jump over and read the rest of the article. This could be the start of a very good thing for the Wii.

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Wii Review: Ninjabread Man

xerocube — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:41:29 +0000

Candy Land is under attack by evil cakes, bees, and jellied monsters. This sounds like a job for Ninjabread Man! So goes the premise of the action platformer for the Wii.

The concept of the game, a gingerbread man with mad ninja skills, hooked me from the advertising. The game title alone warranted a rental. Sadly, in the 20 minutes I devoted to playing, this game has not lived up to my expectations.

Upon starting the game, I immediately note that the music does not fit with my Asian inspired expectations. I was greeted with some disco-pop soundtrack that kept my foot tapping while attempting to control the Ninjabread Man.

The graphics, while not outstanding, are decent for the Wii. They will not knock your socks off, nor be considered for any type of award. They could be much much worse. The level design is decidedly uninspired and looks like any other genero-platformer, only with a sweet candy coating.

What ruins this game for me is the control scheme. The nunchuk analog stick is a bit sensitive and the Wii remote is not senstive enough when attempting to swing the character’s sword. I found myself flailing around the living room trying to attack a bouncing chomping cake and died to my inability to actually swing the sword. Using the nunchuk to move the character led me to running 90 to nothing off the platforms on which I eventually jumped. This could be a great platformer for the young ones, especially with enough patience to get aruond the control scheme. Unfortunately, I couldn’t overcome it.

In the end, I wanted to like this game. I’m sure the developer’s worked hard to publish a great game, but this just fell flat. Perhaps it couldn’t live up to my much imagined hype revolving around all things ninja.

Score: 5.5/10

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The Simpsons Game: Impressions

xerocube — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:42:52 +0000

Last night, I downloaded The Simpsons Game Demo from Xbox Live Marketplace. Now, I’ve played many of the other Simpsons based games in the past (Hit and Run, the arcade game, Attack of the Space Mutants, etc.), so my expectations were kinda low.

Upon loading the game, you are greeted with the opportunity to play as Bart and Homer as they attempt to take down Lard Lad. The Lard Lad fight gives you a good feel for the game mechanics, graphics, and overall experience.

The graphics have the cartoonish feel of the television show, as you’d expect. It feels like you are watching the show as you play. The voice acting is impressive, which is a big selling point. I found myself truly enjoying rolling Homer around the level, crushing mini-Krustys as I went. A shining moment of nostalgia kicked in when Bart transformed into Bartman – I was overjoyed.

The writers, from the little taste I got, seem to have nailed it. From the running color commentation with Kent Brockman to the one-liners the characters spout off, it just works. Plus, they manage to tie-in a variety of lampoons of pop-culture icons.

I’d highly recommend trying the demo out. It has made me excited about the full version.

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Geon Emotions: Impressions

xerocube — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:56:55 +0000

During the Wednesday Game Night last night, whiteh0wler and I were playing through some of the many Xbox Live Arcade games. We downloaded and tried Geon Emotions. I was hopeful for a fun multiplayer gaming experience with great gameplay and music. He was significantly less thrilled about playing the game. So we played the game while discussing it’s pros and cons over pizza.

The demo allows you to play multiplayer via splitscreen, which is good. I’ve yet to try the single-player mode, so I’ve no impressions to give there. We fired up the multiplayer and we were allowed to choose from two “emotions”: passion and rage. Since they didn’t have my then current emotion of apathy to select from, I went with passion. h0wler went with rage.

We get into the first match and start rolling around the stages, which I admit are neat and somewhat mesmerizing. The maps reminded me of the graphs I used to make on my TI-82 calculator back in high school calculus, except more colorful and 3d-ish. The gameplay turn out to be something along the lines of Pac-man meets racing meets a TI-82 Graphing Calculator… and it ended up being as much fun as it sounds. Rolling around collecting dots and making it to a goal before your opponent.

All in all, I was not impressed with this title. It needs more interaction between the players. While powerballs exist to interfere with your opponents progress, you rarely seem to end up anywhere near them to use the power-ups. It was fun for 10 minutes or so, but I cannot see myself plopping down 800 points for this game.

Download the demo and see for yourself. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

~Archbishop Xero

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Review – Wii Play

xerocube — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:11:15 +0000

Yesterday, I purchased my third Wii game: Wii Play. It is packaged with a Wii Remote, so it’s worth it one way or the other. I have been excited about this game, since I heard it had a Billiards game included. Not only that, but table tennis! So here’s my thoughts: 9 mini-games, 1 remote control – both for $50. Heck, I needed an extra controller anyway, which at $40 MSRP, makes the game essentially $10. I convinced myself of the need to buy the game.

My initial impressions of the game were that of goofy fun. Brandy and I popped the game in, selected our Miis, and were greeted to a menu where our fellow Miis were frolicking in the background. Odd, but funny — to me. Then the game took us through the 9 games in succession, teaching us what we needed to do and how to play. This is when I realized that this game is not so much a full fledged game, but another “tech demo” of the Wii and it’s hardware capabilities. This is not a bad thing, but means that we are still educating the masses on what the Wii can mean to them. Either way, we still went on to have a blast playing with it.

Of the nine games, Laser Hockey, Cow Racing, and Billiards were our favorite games. Billiards being a little hard to get used to, due to the somewhat awkward position of trying to shoot pool with one hand and no pool cue. Overall, the complete package was enjoyable, though didn’t live up to my expectations. So, for this essentially $10 game, it is well worth it, in my opinion. For a full fledged $50… I’d wait for a price drop.

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Burger King Advergames

xerocube — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:15:46 +0000

I have been meaning to sit down for the past day or so to give my thoughts on the three new Burger King developed XBOX games. Then I stumbled upon the Wired article that pretty much sums up all of my thoughts. So, instead of echoing their opinions, I figured I’d just throw them a link (as if they needed it) and let you read their article as if it was my own.

Check it out: Wired’s Review of the Burger King games.

And, surprisingly enough, I have to agree — the creepy Sneak King game is actually the most fun to play. I certainly hope that doesn’t say anything about my moral character. :-/

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