Xbox 360 – Page 2

Halo 3 And Completing The Modern Shooter Combat Model

Guarding the outskirts of the anti-air gun early in Halo 3’s campaign is a quadrupedal Covenant tank called a Scarab. Stepping its spidery legs around a circular complex lined with missile pods, a large crane, and enough foot space to let half a dozen vehicles unload their artillery, the scarab is the largest working unit in the series. A far cry from Master Chief’s scripted encounter with it in Halo 2, this AI controlled enemy has a giant laser cannon and its own hit points, and is transporting a squad of Covenant sentries laying heavy fire. As you stare at it in awe, a question forms: how am I supposed to take that thing down? A couple ways. Focus all your fire on the hull and blow it away, or shoot its legs until they lower, fight your way to the power core, and set off a chain reaction. Both answers are possible in the arena littered with tools of mass destruction.

Continue reading “Halo 3 And Completing The Modern Shooter Combat Model”

Bayonetta’s High-Flying, Pistol-Stiletto Burlesque

Lights Down, Curtain’s Up

Bayonetta’s prologue starts conservatively, with a nun clad in white quietly praying over a grave. It primes the world’s Victorian aesthetics with a puritanical morality up front that wouldn’t fool anyone who had seen even the box art. That a flock of angels descend from heaven and cut off her clothes to reveal the scantily-clad Umbran Witch underneath who lithely dances around shooting them in the head is perhaps the proper way to open the show.

Continue reading “Bayonetta’s High-Flying, Pistol-Stiletto Burlesque”

The Disembodied Soul of Ground Zeroes

On my third infiltration into Ground Zeroes’ Camp Omega, I found an electrical panel that allowed me to cut the power to the surrounding facility, disabling all the lights and the several security cameras so I could quietly rescue the prisoner at its belly. It was the latest in dozens of exploitable gameplay options built into Omega that proved it was a dynamic, multi-faceted place that enabled and rewarded a variety of playstyles. The first game powered by the Fox Engine, GZ introduces players to the new levels of agency offered in the second part of the Metal Gear Solid V saga, The Phantom Pain; ideas that evolve the classic Metal Gear design. Continue reading “The Disembodied Soul of Ground Zeroes”

Asura’s Wrath: The New Anime

Asura’s Wrath contains one of the most brilliant player-directed narrative sequences in videogames; a fist fight. The two brawlers dance about the screen, one trying desperately to explain his actions to the other among a flurry of attacks. To evade them, the player must nail the timing for the increasingly frequent on-screen button prompts as any mistake is punished with a fist to the face, interrupting the dialogue and completely ending the conversation.

Continue reading “Asura’s Wrath: The New Anime”

The Saint’s Flow: Purple Stuff

The Japanese ad for The Saint’s Flow Energy Drink shows Pierce, the hip and youthful face of the Third Street Saints brand division, being mercilessly beaten on a basketball court by armed punks. The situation looks bleak, until an anthropomorphized purple can of Saints Flow descends from heaven and gives him the strength to throw off his attackers, unleash a savage volley of fists, kicks and a clothesline before shooting a Ryu-style fireball from his hands and closing out the performance by atomic dunking a basketball that appeared out of nowhere to a shower of neon stars. The Third Streets Saint’s lifestyle has been canned and is ready to be swallowed.

Continue reading “The Saint’s Flow: Purple Stuff”

Mega Man 9’s Speed Metal

Mega Man 9 fixed Mega Man by distilling the Blue Bomber’s staid gameplay to its essentials: moving and shooting. By striving to limit itself to the restrictions of twenty year old hardware, Inti Creates game highlights how bogged down with its own design the series core gameplay had become over its evolution. What they made is a long lost NES game.

The story immediately sets the tone in sprites full of personality. Having again been defeated by our blue hero, Dr. Wily swears off his evil ways. But its not long before the residents of Monsteropolis are in danger from a collection on renegade robots again. But its Wily that steps up to protect the city, claiming innocence and insisting the robots were created by the good-natured Dr. Light. To clear his name, Mega Man heads out.

Continue reading “Mega Man 9’s Speed Metal”

Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Dog

The first time we see Wei Shen is through the monitors of a Hong Kong PD drug sting as he tries to conduct a transaction. When the sale goes bad, we take control as he charges through a densely packed fish market chased by a squad of uniforms. Unable to elude arrest, he gets thrown into lock-up and reunites with his childhood friend Jackie, now a low-ranking member of the Sun On Yee, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the city. Jackie promises to make an introduction. When Wei’s pulled into interrogation, we learn the setup for the story, and the linchpin connecting the game’s mechanics, systems and narrative; Wei Shen is an undercover cop, just back from fifteen years in America, trying to take down the triads. Sleeping Dogs is a bloody saga of betrayal and loyalty as Wei Shen takes down the Yakuza from the bottom up.

Continue reading “Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Dog”

XCom: Enemy Unknown: Operation Burning Sunset

[JOURNAL ENTRY. APRIL 5.]

I decided to write down my stories, in case they become the last ones told.

My squad was taking a breather after a tough firefight when a giant green behemoth charged through the burnt out husk of a Japanese office building and battered the front door into splinters. I’d never seen this alien before. Several of my soldiers were completely unprepared for another engagement- their magazines down to their last bullets and vitals were starting to wane. They had been scattered about the map, rummaging through the crumpled bodies of the large-headed Sectoids and the businessman-impersonating Thinmen trying to scavenge whatever loot they could to take back to HQ before starting the search for the lone Thinman that had retreated out of sight. The brute ran for the cover of a nearby planter, trying to keep its head low and prepare for its attack.

Continue reading “XCom: Enemy Unknown: Operation Burning Sunset”

Spelunky

This review is for the XBLA version of Spelunky. There is an extremely similar free version online, but this critique pertains to the specific changes made for the console release.

Embrace Death and Rise Above It

Most great things are difficult to qualify in words. You can tell somebody that the Mona Lisa is a great painting of an ugly lady, or that Blade Runner is a great movie about robots, but that does nothing compared to watching Rutger Hauer deliver his final soliloquy while slowly deactivating in the rain. It’s not solely what something is objectively that’s important, its the lasting effects of experiencing something that make it impactful. With that said, Derek Yu’s long-worked-on Spelunky (there’s a free version online showing just how long it’s been tweaked) is not simply an indie platformer hell-bent on crushing your spirit, even if sometimes it’s hard to see past that.

Continue reading “Spelunky”

Mass Effect 3 ‘Omega’ dlc

Post-launch dlc has to be handled very carefully to succeed. Not only does every piece need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its core game, but needs to be created in relation to the pieces that have already been released. In the two story additions to Mass Effect 3, we were given missions that were designed for very specific purposes- they expanded the universe fiction. Problem is, even though they do so in different ways, they’re both filling in gaps to a story that is already closed. The third piece is Bioware’s opportunity to get away from Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending and flex its creative muscle on something different. ‘Omega’ reminds us why Bioware are among the best storytellers in the industry.

Continue reading “Mass Effect 3 ‘Omega’ dlc”