Dark Void Review

I’ve been far too busy with several games this week, to the point that I almost missed reviewing this one, buried under a stack of discs and network cables. But after playing Dark Void for a couple of hours, I wanted to take the game disc and bury it in my back yard in the hopes that it might bloom into a sequel that would redeem Capcom from this truly disappointing game.

I will say this: Dark Void does offer its own sprinklings of fun every now and then, but it’s so short lived that as soon as you’re actually having any fun with it, the game does a complete 180 degree turn and slaps you in the face with an ironing board. This game just might be my contender for most-hyped game of the month, but we’ll have to wait and see if it wins it.

While I usually start a game review by briefly explaining the storyline, it’s almost hard to figure out what Dark Void’s story is. It’s the 1930s, and your brave character (a pilot) is flying around in his little airplane when lo and behold, he flies into the Bermuda triangle. So of course, he suddenly has engine trouble and goes plummeting to his doom. Fast forward a few cutscenes later, and you find that you’ve entered a parallel universe dominated by an alien race known as The Watchers, with an Aztec-esque human race living in complete submission. Seriously – the story here plays out as if it was cobbled together from the back of a cereal box. When you do recover from the almost brain-dead introduction to the story, the game transforms into a traditional FPS-style game, where you go running around on foot shooting at aliens while diving for cover to save your own hide. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, except that it’s all been done before and often much better than how things play out in Dark Void.

However if you think that the game is only about mindless shooting, think again – there’s also a jetpack! Ah, I can see your faces light up already…surely a jetpack would make things more interesting? Well the short answer is yes – when you finally are rewarded with the jetpack, the experience can be somewhat satisfying, even if the controls are somewhat buggy. It certainly beats going around on foot, and speeds up your exploration considerably. But once again, no sooner are you having the tiniest bit of fun with the jetpack, the game comes charging back to remind you that having fun here is illegal. Sure, you can fly around to your heart’s content in some areas, but there are plenty of annoying invisible borders, and if you fly into any of these borders, your character does an automatic turn and makes you fly back – hardly the freedom that comes with own a jetpack. But thankfully the jetpack does give you some benefits – it allows you to pull off some very versatile attacks on your enemies. You could be hiding under cover in one area, and then spontaneously lift off and fly over your enemies for some well-placed headshots. You can also use the jetpack to hover to nearby ledges or to cushion a fall, so you’re only really playing through the first part of the game just so that you can grab that jetpack.

Aside from the somewhat satisfying feeling of flying around shooting at things, there’s little in this game to keep you occupied for long. Sure, there are gigantic robotic aliens to beat up and some snazzy weapons you can wield, but the game quickly runs out of steam and starts showing some of its gaping flaws. For example, there is no connectivity with any parts of the story. Where did the alien race come from? Why has no one tried to defeat them? And why on earth is Nikola Tesla inventing jetpacks in a parallel universe? The game also has no proper continuity – as soon as you start the game, you’re thrust into an all-out dogfight that serves as a flight tutorial, playing a character that has no relation to who you play as later on. And once you get your jetpack in the story, you have to do a similar flight tutorial all over again.

While some of us may be able to look past the gigantic holes in the story, it’s the gameplay that truly threw me off. While you can traditionally hide behind objects to take cover from enemy fire, the jetpack allows you to also take cover vertically when hanging from a ledge. Initially this was a lot of fun to do, and quickly peeking out to shoot and alien and watch it fall to its doom was somewhat satisfying. But after a few instances of the same hanging-on-for-dear-life scenario, I couldn’t help but yawn every time I was left tethering off a ledge. And speaking of the aliens, you’d best stock up on plenty of ammo – apparently these aliens have titanium bodies or something, because I found myself shooting mercilessly at an alien gunner before it finally crumpled to the ground. But here’s the real fun – when in close quarters with an alien, you can simply tap a button to melee attack them. So after facing immense frustration with trying to shoot the aliens, I would simply fly over to an enemy and completely dismember him with just one melee attack. I’d then fly over to the next enemy and repeat the same, much like a tired game of Whack-a-mole.

Since there’s no multiplayer option, there’s very little in Dark Void that will keep you playing for very long. The incredibly short campaign will leave you puzzled and disappointed, while the often repetitive gameplay won’t keep you entertained for too long. Dark Void sounded like it was going to be a great game, but it’s clear that the game was rushed through production, thus yielding this half-baked fly-and-shoot game. It’s a real pity, as Dark Void had the potential to be a decent enough game, but sadly not even Nolan North’s voice acting can save this game.

Blog: Lochal Archade Celebrates First Year Anniversary

I’m sitting with a group of gaming misfits all talking at once into a microphone, as laughter fills the air and steaming mugs of hot chocolate fuel our conversation. I’m sitting in on the 1^st year anniversary podcast of Lochal Archade, a website that loves games almost as much as I do. In between the roars of laughter and the sugar buzz from too many celebratory cupcakes, we actually do get a chance to talk about video games.

The man behind Lochal Archade (or Lokkkkhal Arkkkkkhade) is Mohommad Al Huraiz. His site covers gaming news and reviews, and of course features a very popular podcast to which he regularly invites members of the public to share their thoughts…in exchange for gigantic mugs of hot chocolate. As he educates us on how Lochal Archade came about (including where the name came from), he talks about how gaming has changed over the years and we each share our own slice of nostalgia as we sift through some of the beloved games of the years gone by.  We talk about everything from in-game advertising to over-hyped game sequels, to hot wax (I will leave it to the imagination to figure out where wax fits in all of this). As the evening draws to a close, I’m shocked to find that we’ve been babbling on for close to two hours, but I’m sure that after some heavy editing the podcast will fit into a healthy 45 minutes.

But before I wrap up, a very special thanks to Lochal Archade for inviting me to attend their anniversary podcast – congratulations on your first year anniversary, and here’s hoping that we have another memorable podcast soon!

For more info, check out the Lochal Archade website or follow @lochalarchade on Twitter.

Trine Review

I have to be quite honest here – I got a download code for this game quite a while back. I installed it, played around with it for a while, and then decided I would play it again later on, and of course forgot about it completely. Having got that off my chest, I now fail to remember why exactly I stopped playing this game, because frankly it’s just too well done to put down.

The game I’m talking about here is Trine, out for the PC and Playstation 3. I’m happy to toot that this game is yet another brilliant work from an independent game studio, firmly showing us that even small game studios can publish some great titles. The story is fairly simple – a thief, knight, and wizard are brought together one fateful night to stop the waves of undead that are marching towards their castle. Though each character has different motives for being in the castle, they must work together and use their unique strengths to fend off the advancing undead and save the castle. While the story is fairly simple, the game certainly shines out in several other areas as you progress through the levels. As mentioned before, each of the three characters has their own unique attributes. The knight is slightly tougher, and is excellent at charging down enemies, breaking down walls, and hurling objects around. The thief is more stealthy, and can fire off a barrage of arrows at enemies or grapple onto surfaces and swing to safety. Lastly, the wizard can levitate certain objects and also summon blocks or platforms to cross over large gaps and help his fellow adventurers. It goes without saying that it’s impossible to play through an entire level without swapping your characters, because you’ll find that some sections are just so much easier to get through with a particular character. As you venture forth the levels and gain more experience, you can level up each characters to discover new abilities or to improve upon current ones.

Since each character plays differently, there are always several ways to solve any of the obstacles you encounter on your travels. For example, there is one section of a level where a series of large boulders are rolling towards you – as a knight you can smash the ground and cause the boulders to jump over you; as the thief you can swing over them; and as the wizard you can levitate them away if you’re quick enough. The possibilities are endless, and while some sections of the level will only work with a particular character, most of the time you’re allowed free reign when it comes to which one you want to play with.

The game is earmarked as being physics-based, and it has this down to an absolute science. Bridges crumble away as you walk over them, boxes lean and fall over if piled too high, platforms swing slowly at first and then gain momentum – every single part of the game is affected by the laws of gravity and mass, and it’s pure poetry in motion (pun intended). And because the game pays so much attention to physics, you can use this as well to get across several areas –  for example, you can cut down a hanging block and then use it to swing across a gap as it falls down, The possibilities are seemingly endless in this game, and the physics engine often runs into overdrive when collisions and explosions come into the mix, delivering a truly authentic physics-driven game.

While the physics in the gameplay are executed well enough, its truly the graphics of the game that really stands out. For such a relatively simple game, the graphics are simple gorgeous. Regardless of whether it’s the middle of the night or the crack of dawn, the environments look fantastic at all times, and sport an immense level of detail in every single corner. The shadows and lighting used helped to echo the fairytale look and feel to the game, and some great narration and cutscenes help to gently move the story along. The ambient background score also adds to the game’s atmosphere, and you never feel that you need to rush through a level. There’s also a co-op mode available though gameplay gets slightly tricky when you have someone playing along who isn’t familiar with the characters and their abilities.

Trine is a pleasant game to play, and even better to gawk at. With some stellar visuals and some truly unique gameplay, Trine is a great game to get for either the PC or the PS3.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

There’s nothing more fun than watching superheroes battling it out against the forces of evil. Whether it’s Spiderman swinging from the rooftops, the Fantastic Four swooping in to save the day, or watching Storm conjuring up tornadoes, one thing is for sure – we all love the superhero who saves the day. But what if the superheroes were made to turn on each other? Who’d come to our rescue then? Well, this is the question being asked in Ultimate Alliance 2, the follow up to the 2006 game of the same name.

In the original Ultimate Alliance game, players took control of a team of four superheroes, and battled through countless levels of bad guys to save the earth from impending doom (or was that Doom?). While the same gameplay style has been carried over into Ultimate Alliance 2, a lot of things have been polished up to make the game a marked improvement over the last one. Even if you haven’t played the first game, you won’t miss out on anything as there is no continuing storyline, and the game smoothly introduces you to all the controls and moves you can pull off. Even though the first few missions are really just the training levels in disguise, you still get quite a lot of action thrown in. But once you’ve familiarized yourself with the game, the real storyline begins – a massive explosion triggered by two warring superheroes has cased the “Superhero Registration Act” to come into effect, which calls for all superheroes to be registered with the government, and therefore be of service to their country. Of course, this is met with mixed reactions from the superheroes, with some opting to register, while others rebel and right against their former allies. At a crucial point in the game you will have to make this decision as well – either side with the government and register yourself, or reject the act and have your team hunted down as vigilantes. While this decision not only affects the storyline of the game, it also narrows down the characters you get to choose from in the game – side with the government and you can choose to have the likes of Iron Man and Mr Fantastic on your team, or reject the act and pair up with Captain America and Luke Cage.

As mentioned before, you control a team of up to four characters, each with a basic melee attack, a more powerful charge attack, and the ability to (wait for it) throw things. Some characters also have the ability to teleport or fly, which surely beats plodding around on foot. You also get access to special attacks, which use up a portion of your energy – thankfully this recharges swiftly over time, rather than collecting orbs which you had to do in the first game. Initially you have access to only two powers, but as you progress through the game and level up your character, you can unlock a total of four powers, which can be executed by simply holding the R1 button and tapping one of the face buttons. New to this instalment of the game is Fusion Powers, which lets you team up with anyone in your party to pull off one of three special attacks. A Clearing attack will allow you to pull off a devastating move that will clear the room of your enemies, a Targeted attack will let you focus on one enemy, and a Guided attack will let you charge around an area with your buddy. To pull off one of these Fusion attacks, you have to whack around enough enemies (and there are plenty to run into) in order to charge up a bar – you can store up to two Fusion attacks, so use them wisely. The only downside to the Fusion attacks is that after a while you discover that some of them are just slight variations rather than being completely new attacks. For example, when Storm and Human Torch pair up, they create a fiery tornado, while Storm and Iceman create a freezing one – hardly much of a difference if you ask me. The one awkward omission is this version is that you can never figure out which special attack has been mapped to which face button – while the previous instalment had icons on screen for each special attack, you now have to memorize which button does what, which is very bizarre.

As you pound away at enemies and collect experience points, you also earn medals that can apply several buffs to your entire team, such as boosting your health, adding fire to your attacks, or bulking up your defence. But earning all that experience means that you’ll have to spend it at some time, and this is where the most improvement has been done. Previously when you wanted to upgrade a character, you had to hit the Start button to go into the character’s options, and then cycle through the various available powers to level them all up. This was not only utterly boring, but would be extremely frustrating during co-op mode, when you would have to twiddle your thumbs as your points-hogging co-player cycled through every single power and upgrade available. Now you can simply hit the Select button to access a mini-menu to quickly power up your character, or swap around your team medals, which is a true blessing. Another helpful addition to this game is the objective marker – if you get lost or are unsure of where to go, a simply tap of the R3 button and a helpful arrow will point you in the right direction.

If you tire of plodding through the game as a single player, you can have a friend jump in locally, or connect with a player online. Online playing is fairly solid, with trophy management and progress being handled smoothly. Graphically the game is a few notches better than the previous version, but by far it’s the cut scenes that steal the show, offering a much more dramatic telling of the story than plain dialogue. There is some great voice-acting present as well, and characters that talk to you can be replied with an aggressive, diplomatic, or defensive answer, thus also changing your stats and influence in the game.

Unfortunately, like the previous instalment this game has its fair share of issues. There are still countless issues with the camera, which often doesn’t do what you need it to do, so you end up losing your character on screen, or being unable to pan around an area to get a better handle on the action – this gets especially worse in areas where the camera is fixed to a side-scrolling level. There is also a ridiculous amount of clipping in the game, with enemies getting stuck in the roof after a tornado attack, or dying and disappearing halfway into the floor. Your team mates also tend to be quite thick when it comes to path-finding, and sometimes get stuck on another area or behind an obstacle.

Despite the occasional technical flaw, Ultimate Alliance 2 is a decent follow up, though it doesn’t sport much to make it a must-buy game. If you’ve played the first game you’re not going to find a lot of new content here, but if you’ve always wanted to rally your team of superheroes, this is the game to try.

Brutal Legend Review

There are very, very few games which truly make me sit back and go “wow”. Among the slew of games that I’ve reviewed this year, there are only a couple that I really enjoyed playing, and continue to do so. Brutal Legend is one such game – even though I aced my Public Speaking and English Literature classes, words only slur together when I try to describe this game. Truth be told, after spending a good amount of time with it, I was transformed from a mere gamer into a rocking, die-hard fan.

The fact that the title has Tim Schafer attached to it was enough to set the wheels in motion in the gamerverse. Having had plenty of gaming success at LucasArts helping to churn out such classics like Day of The Tentacle and Monkey Island, he founded his own games studio Double Fine Productions in 2000, and his latest creation is an absolute sight to behold. So where do I begin with this immaculate conception?

Let’s lay the basic groundwork first – the game centers around a character named Eddie Riggs, who works as a roadie for a wannabe heavy metal group. During a gig one night, a slip up with one of the band members causes the stage set to collapse on top of Eddie. When a few drops of Eddie’s blood falls on his skull-shaped belt buckle, it summons Ormagoden, a firey beast of the netherworld, who teleports Eddie to a world where humanity has been enslaved by demons. But rather than being a world painted with depressing scenery and brooding hellspawn, the setting is much more different. Discarded speakers, rusty engines, burning tires, and graffiti-strewn props lie scattered across the landscape, as if basking in the aftermath of one truly awesome rock concert. Once you’ve taken in the lovely scenery, you meet up with several other characters who are trying to fight the demons and free humanity. While this may sound like your run-of-the-mill rescue operation, it soon becomes evident just how deliciously crafty the game gets. For example, your very first mission is to build up an army by freeing your fellow rockers from the mines. The fun kicks in when you discover that your crew has been sentenced to a lifetime of breaking rocks with their heads (and in the process developing ridiculously thick necks from all the headbanging). The rocker humor starts very early, and carries on through every single aspect of the game.

Rescuing your fellow rockers is what introduces you to a new angle of the game – a scaled down RTS element, if you like. As you build up a sizeable ‘rock force’, you gain access to several basic yet crucial squad commands. You can order your posse to attack a location, follow you, defend an area, or go to a spot. These orders come in handy at almost any given time, and keen management of your fellow rockers is what will aid you in the harder levels. At first it’s almost strange to see an RTS element in what’s predominately an adventure game, but it just works so well that you can’t help but rock on with glee.

To help you out on your noble quest, you have two mighty weapons at your disposal – an appropriately large axe that you can swing around to dice your enemies up, and an electric guitar that can send shockwaves through your enemies. Both weapons can be used to mix up your attacks, resulting in some fairly powerful combos that can completely obliterate your enemies. Of course you can always earn upgrades for more powerful attacks, but we’ll talk about that later. The other show-stopping part of the game is the guitar itself. At any point in the game, you can whip out your guitar and play a quick guitar solo, which has a number of effects. Some solos can be used to raise hidden relics for new guitar solos or summon troops to you, while some guitar solos can buff up your troops or cause harm to your enemies. Activating a guitar solo is as easy as tapping the right face buttons in time to the screen prompts, and in a blinding flash of light and fog, Eddie pulls off the solo with ease – this is certainly going to get the Guitar Hero boys to jump onto the bandwagon too. If jamming on your guitar doesn’t give you kicks, you can always team up with an ally on-screen to pull off a number of unique combo attacks.

As mentioned before, powering up your attacks (and your guitar) is crucial in the game, and here’s where the fun begins – you get to meet the one and only Ozzy Osbourne, who coyly fills you in on the history of the land and its inhabitants while offering you advice on guitar upgrades and special attacks. Ozzy Osbourne is probably the last person you’d expect to see in this game, but his character and fantastic voice acting just works so well that you can’t help but grin stupidly at the screen. Of course, other rock legends do make their cameo appearances, but I’ll let you find them all for yourself. You can even upgrade your car – a hotrod hearse – and scoot across the landscape in a matter of minutes (while running over demons of course). Earning the upgrades is a matter of completing some of the many side missions, or unlocking some of the many secret shrines hidden around the maps

One thing I certainly didn’t think I would see in a game like this was a multiplayer mode. The online multiplayer is slightly different from the single player mode, and puts more emphasis on the RTS side of things. The premise is simple – select from three factions, Iron Heade, Drowning Doom, or Tainted Coil, and gather up enough troops to destroy your enemy’s stage. In the place of resources, players have to gather ‘fans’ by building merchandise towers around the battlefield. The more fans you gather, the more units you can summon. All the regular squad commands feature here, and you can even command your champion to take to the skies and command the action from afar. The game soon becomes a frantic battle to gather the most fans and completely obliterate your opponents from the map. Though it may take you a few practice matches to get into the full swing of things, it’s still hugely enjoyable to see your opponent’s stage burn to the ground.

Presentation wise, the game wins every time. While Brutal Legends doesn’t feature mind-blowing textures and three billion polygons per frame, it does have an absolutely fantastic art direction going for it. The almost cartoonish presentation is easy on the eyes and doesn’t distract from the gorgeous lighting effects that come into play during different times of the day. Every detail of the game has been painfully crafted to echo the heavy metal theme – from the character outfits to the level designs, the game is every rocker’s ultimate playground. And if that wasn’t enough, there are over a hundred rock and metal tracks that feature in the game, from the gods of rock such as Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Sanctuary, Testament, and many, many others, making the game’s soundtrack and absolute bliss to listen to. To top if all off, there is some fantastic voiceovers in the game (and plenty of swearing), with an equally witty script. Did I mention that Jack Black voices Eddie Riggs? Oh and Jack also does the very cool game-intro, which shows him walking into a record store to pick out a Brutal Legend LP, which then becomes the main menu – top points for creativity there.

There were only a few occasional times where the game played up a bit, either stuttering during a cutscene or not properly aligning the camera, but these are mere blemishes on what is otherwise a must-play game. The side missions may give you extra points, but they don’t always offer much originality, so you can give them a skip if you like. But that aside, Brutal Legend is just too good a game to not get a great reception from gamers. The combination of adventure, RTS, and guitar ripping solos make this an absolute must buy when it comes out.

GAMES 09: Interview with Sarah Rogers, NCSoft

At GAMES 09, we caught up with Sarah Rogers, Sales Director, Europe for NCsoft, the publishers of MMOs such as Guild Wars and the impressive Aion. We chat to her about MMOs and the Middle East gaming market.

MEGamers: Tell our readers a little bit about yourself and your role at NCSoft

Sarah Rogers: I’m the sales director for NCSoft – my role is to ensure our products get to the consumers, either by box or digital distribution. This is a very retail-focused area for us, and is a really good growth area for us.

Yesterday at the trade show someone mentioned that World Of Warcraft was going to be pushed to this region to increase subscribership – is this something you’re looking to do with your latest project, Aion?

The game is now present in all retail stores, and we’re really focusing on pushing it to this area. The sales and feedback so far have been great, and we’re really excited about that.

Your company has been at the forefront of MMO games, with successes such as Guild Wars and Lineage – what can players expect to see from Aion?

Aion is a really exciting and dynamic game, with some really dazzling presentation. It will be familiar to players who’ve played games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, but it’s also easy to adapt to for new players. It’s a Korean-developed game, and as you know Korean players are some of the most demanding in the world, so we’ve had to work hard to make a game that would meet much of the expectation. Casual players will be able to familiarize themselves with Aion quite easily because of the extensive tutorial campaigns.

What do you think has made MMOs so popular in recent years?

I guess people like playing together;  the interaction with playing within a guild or playing against each other, so that ‘real-world combat’ feeling has massive appeal. In Aion for example, we’re supporting in-game chat, so players can really feel connected as one team while they play.

At GAMES09 you’ve ready to really push Aion out to consumers – what are you expecting to hear from gamers as they try the game out?

I think it will be a mix of reactions – retails have told us that shoppers are coming into stores asking when the game will be arriving, so there is a fair bit of excitement surrounding it. Hopefully people who are attending GAMES09 who are unfamiliar with Aion will be a bit curious as to what it’s about, and give the game a try.

So spill the beans – what are you playing now?

I’m playing Aion – I really am! That’s my focus until some of the bigger console titles come out for Christmas.

What is your take on the Middle East gaming market?

I’ve been working with this market for the past three or four years and I’ve seen massive growth. PC gaming isn’t so big here, but console gaming certainly is – as broadband improves and becomes better, online gaming will certainly begin to kick off here. There is still tremendous growth to be had, and hopefully in the coming years we will see more and more developers taking an interest in the region.

The King of Fighters XII Review

One of my favourite gaming genres are fighting games. There’s nothing better than grabbing your controller and mashing away at the buttons to pulverize your opponent into the ground. Recently SNK Playmore released a new version of their much played franchise, The King of Fighters (the game where men look like women who fight like men who like women who are men). Possibly taking hints from the very successful revamp of Street Fighter, SNK decided to try to bring one of their best games to next-gen consoles, in the shape of The King of Fighters XII. Unfortunately this game turns out to be a complete disappointment, which will certainly tempt hardcore fans to use their game discs as coasters.

Unlike traditional fighting games where you play one-on-one against an opponent, KOF assigns teams of three characters each against each other in a ‘last man standing’ fashion. You can’t change characters during battle or pull off any special team combos, so you only get to play with a difference character when your previous character is beaten to a bloody pulp. You have quite a good selection of characters to choose from, and the roster seems fairly well balanced. The fighting schematics are very simple here – each character has a both a light and heavy punch and kick, and a combination of these will pull off certain special moves, throws, and block attacks. The controls are quite tight, so experienced players will be able to string together a series of attacks without too much difficulty – for new players there is a ‘simple’ mode that you can select which as the name suggests, simplifies the process of pulling off combos. New in this instalment is the introduction of a ‘critical counter’ system, which lets you build up a bar and then counter your opponent’s attack with a flurry of moves.

This all sounds fine and dandy, but there’s only so much you can stand of playing against the AI. You can grab a buddy and go head to head, but after that there’s nothing else to do. Seriously. No survival mode, no additional story modes, or any of the sort. This makes the game feel ridiculously short after you’ve finished it with a character, and there’s very little to convince you to trawl through the whole game again. But it appears that SNK have considered the short lifespan of the game, and decided to counter our boredom with the introduction of an online multiplayer mode. Now I’m all for playing fighting games online, but playing KOF online was as much fun as tooth extraction. The amount of lag that I experienced in-game made me feel like I was playing over a dial-up connection. After several failed attempts at the player matching screen, I was finally able to do battle against someone, and thanks to the ridiculous lag in the game I was able to pummel away at them with fireballs before they could even blink. It’s completely pointless to put a multiplayer option in a game and then have the worst possible experience with it.

KOF XII’s presentation is another debate – while the game stays true to its 2D fighting system, no work appears to have been done on the characters themselves, who appear terribly pixellated on screen. It’s really puzzling as to why SNK would go through so much trouble to bring KOF to the next-gen consoles without doing any work on the character design. Though the various stages are colourful and go in well with the anime theme, there’s only six stages to choose from, so you’ll soon see the same backgrounds over and over again as you play through the game. The game’s iconic background music thankfully returns, so at least something is true to the original game.

The King of Fighters XII is a real let down, and fans of the series will be disappointed at the somewhat lack of effort that has gone into this game. Moreover, the game feels like it should have been released as a download on the Playstation Network, rather than coming out as a retail game. I honestly can’t think of a good enough reason why you’d want to pick up KOF when there are more exciting games in the genre available.

Mini Ninja Review

When I see the word ‘ninja’ in a game’s title, I instantly think of flying blades, shadowy figures, and potent amounts of decapitation. I mean, what fun is a ninja game if you don’t get to run around slicing things up the way you would a zucchini? Well, Mini Ninja takes a traditional hack n slash genre and tones it down, keeping much of the gameplay intact while making it much more kid friendly.

Mini Ninja starts off like most other ninja games – an evil Samurai Warlord has returned to the world, and a ninja master has been sending his students out into the world to find the Warlord and defeat it. You play as the young ninja Hiro, one of the last students to venture out on this mission. Accompanied by your best friend Futo (a rather large chap with an equally large hammer), you set out on your mission to free your fellow ninjas and put and end to this evil. And here’s where the game takes it’s first turn – the Warlord’s mindless army of samurai warriors are actually adorable forest creatures that have been turned into warriors thanks to the Warlord’s misuse of Kuji magic (more on that later). So any time you defeat any of the Warlord’s minions, a cute forest animal emerges from a blue puff of smoke, scampering back into the wilderness.

While Hiro and his comrades all play somewhat the same with the exception of their weapons, Hiro is the only ninja who can use Kuji magic. Scattered around the various levels are Kuji shrines, which Hiro can meditate at and get new powers. In fact, the very first spell you learn will help you detect the hidden shrines in a level. You later gain better abilities such as fireball, lightning storm, tornado, and even the ability to possess larger animals to attack the enemy with. Cycling between each spell is a breeze with a nudge of the right shoulder button and a swift rotation of the anlog stick, so even in the heat of battle you’ll be able to comfortably keep your enemies in check. In addition to magic attacks, Hiro can perform a special ‘red orb’ attack, which again is executed differently based on which ninja you are playing with.

Most of the gameplay in Mini Ninjas is the same frantic running around and slicing away at enemies, but from time to time the PS3’s motion controls are put to use. For example, you can grab a tree and shake the controller to drop apples to replenish your health, or grab a door and try to shake it open. Occasionally you’re also asked to press or bash away at certain buttons to match the on screen prompts – this is more evident during the boss battles, and in all fairness helps to break up any monotony.

Where the game truly does excel is in its phenomenal presentation. The graphics are very carefully styled so that the levels appear cartoonish, but still feature a vast amount of detail – grass moves gently as you sneak through it, flowers fall gently from the trees, and rivers flow noisily downhill. It’s simply beautiful to look at, and the serene atmosphere is only punctured when the samurais spot you and yell “Ninja ninja ninja!” The music is also very fitting and changes dynamically between soft flutes while you trek through the level to loud drums when you come across an enemy. The game strikes a perfect marriage between the presentation and the background score, so that both ultimately deliver an exquisite feeling of harmony.

Mini Ninjas might not appeal to fans of hard-core ninja games, but there is still plenty to enjoy here, and it’s a game that can be easily recommended for younger gamers, thanks to its almost non-existent violence. While some gameplay parts and puzzles may take a bit longer to figure out, there is still a fair amount of fun to be had in this game.

G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra Review

Guns, explosions, testosterone, and bad guys – these are the only things that come to mind when I think of the cartoon “G.I.Joe”. Having watched that show during my younger years, I was excited when a movie based on the franchise came to cinemas this year. Sadly, the movie turned out to be a complete waste of time and an over-the-top production of a much cherished show. So naturally when the video game was released, I wasn’t expecting anything great either, and sure enough I had little joy playing this title.

Without revisiting the mediocre plot of the movie, the game has you assembling your team of Joes and heading out to defeat COBRA’s ruthless plan to take over the world. Though you start off with a small selection of Joes for your team, you can rescue other Joes to add to your mini-army. Once you’ve picked your posse, you simple amble through the various 3D environments shooting everything in sight. While this may sound like a lot of fun for action lovers, it soon becomes a monotonous trek. You certainly get a few precious moments of exhilaration from your first few explosions, you’ll find that the game is nothing but mindless shooting at anything that moves. What makes it frustrating is that the targeting system is a complete joke – the game will automatically lock on to the nearest enemy, but if you cycle through to other targets, you will almost always lock onto something other than an enemy, or some random object in the distance. Did I mention that you can shoot at things even if they’re a million miles away from you?

When you’re not fighting the absurd target system, you’ll be battling with the crippling fixed camera. You’re not allowed any camera adjustments, which makes it very difficult sometimes to see what you’re shooting at, especially when you’re going down slopes or trying to round a corner. The camera angles get even worse when you hop into one of the available vehicles – often the direction you press on the left stick won’t map up with the direction you’re facing on the screen, so you can spend a good portion of your time driving around like you’re trying to get your learner’s permit.

If you still want a bit more excitement, you’ll get to activate the accelerator suits from time to time which were featured so prominently in the film. Apart from making you invincible temporarily and giving you increased firepower, you’re also treated to a blaring 15 second audio clip of the G.I.Joe theme which is truly the only joy to be had in this game. If you’re tired of running around with an AI team member, you can bribe a friend to pick up a second controller and jump in, but with no online play available, there’s not much else that you can do with this game. The graphics in the game are nothing to get excited about – the opening scene itself  of a snowstorm stutters halfway through, and there are plenty of instances of vehicles clipping into fences and powerups floating in mid air. The soundtrack to the levels aren’t too great either, but what really kills your mood is the awful and robotic voice acting.

G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra is just simply awful to play, and the torture should have stopped at the movie itself. This game will only appeal to very young gamers, as fans of the show will certainly not want to see their precious Joes in such a badly planned game.

GAMES 09: Day 3 Pictures

Did you get snapped by the MEGamers Paparazzi? Check out the pics below.

Next Page »