With 2011 – 2012 the NBA season looking more and more unlikely every day, I felt I needed to get my basketball fix somehow.  If I can’t watch the best players in the world play, why not take control of them in a video game?  The NBA 2K series has recently set the standard for National Basketball Association (NBA) video games.  While EA dominates the hockey video game market, 2K is the absolute leader for basketball simulation.  Last year’s NBA 2k11 was absolutely phenomenal.  It brought Michael Jordan back into the equation, allowing players to use him in the game to bring back those dominant Bulls teams.   The graphics, controls, and overall experience were heads above the competition.  It was so good in fact, that EA didn’t even bother releasing their NBA Elite game.  2K keeps upping the ante with NBA 2K12.  It takes everything that made 11 so good, and improves upon it.

The graphics in this game are beautiful.  Each player clearly resembles their real life counterpart.  The arenas are all gorgeous, from the glean off the buffed floors, to the logos on the court floors, it all looks and feels real.   It looks so good, my dad walked in while I was playing the game and thought I was watching a real life basketball game.  He obviously wasn’t aware of the looming lockout.

The sound and music are equally incredible.  The announcing is some of the best I’ve heard in a video game.  In some cities, depending on who they have on the microphones, it may actually be an improvement over their real life announcers.  I liked the soundtrack a lot too, which is usually good in 2K games.

After the successful introduction of Michael Jordan last year, 2K has added a ton of other greats to the game this year.  You can use vintage Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, and more. There are 15 total “Legends” whose terrific careers can be recreated within the game in great detail.  Relive the Larry Bird – Magic Johnson rivalries and much more.

One of the most popular features in the 2K series is the ability to create your own player to see how they stack up in the big leagues.  2K sports has built upon this and made the “My Player” functionality that much better.  You can now hear Commissioner David Stern call your name on draft night for your favorite team.  Enter yourself into the rookie skills competition, earn huge endorsement deals, pad your stats, and ultimately get your name on a huge franchise player contract.

Most of the modes are back, my favorite being Association mode.  Take your team from worst to first and watch the fans pack your arena to cheer you on.  You can now even take your association mode online to play against your buddies and see how you stack up in the online community.  The Playstation Network integration is seamless and a lot of fun.

Overall, this game is fantastic.  It takes what made the old NBA 2K games and builds upon it in every way.  The graphics, sound, presentation and game play are all the best around for basketball video games, and set the bar extremely high.  If EA wants to reclaim the top spot in the basketball video game market, they certainly have their work cut out for them.

For more game reviews check out ubethecritic.com.

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It’s that time of year again, the start of the new hockey season and the launch of the newest version of the EA NHL Franchise. NHL 11 is the best one yet, and we can say this honestly as we had a chance to play it. To celebrate the debut, the good people at EA had a NHL 11 Tournament with top rookie prospects, including Taylor Hall, Tyler Sequin and Nazem Kadri.

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I’m going to get something off my chest right out of the gate: I haven’t been a fan of baseball nor baseball videogames for the last decade or so. Watching the game can be downright boring, and playing a virtual representation seems to result in little more than timing mini-games and a few button presses.

Then along comes Visual Concepts’ MLB 2K10. For the first time since I last held aloft a piece of lumber, here’s a video game that actually made me feel like I was playing the game again. Everything feels crisp, clean, and connected – as if you are actually on the mound dueling with the batter, desperately trying to keep the sweat out of your eyes as you look down another full count with the bases loaded.

The presentation of the 2K10 is spot on, from the commercial bumpers during the telecast, to the voiceovers calling the shots during the games themselves. Having spent enough time running bases and trying to make double plays, I have yet to hear a repeat canned soundbite, which was a great surprise and welcome change from previous years’ entries. You get the best of both worlds from Visual Concepts’ setup – all of the stats and random personal facts that hardcore hardball fans crave, but enough of the “seen on TV” presentation that it flows wonderfully into you actually stepping into the batter’s box to see just how far you can crank that sliding fastball.

Your options for gameplay seems to have improved significantly as well. You can play any MLB game currently being played, or set up to be played on a specific day through MLB Today. It’s always fun to see if you can do a better job than the big boys at there own game (or feel as humbled as they do when things don’t exactly work out the way you wanted them to). Home Run Derby is included, and is pretty much exactly what it claims to be: hit homers, anything else is an out, get the most points. My Player is the heart of the game, and you’ll definitely find yourself spending the majority of time grinding away through this mode. You create a rookie phenom, pick your favourite franchise to be drafted into, and then set off to try to become an MLB legend.

Skill points are awarded just about every time you hit the field. Hit a single, and you get points for hitting. Make an assist, and you get points for fielding. Cross home plate with a run, and you get points for baserunning. Strike out the side, and you get points for pitching. You can see where this is going. There are special objectives and clutch situations which provide extra points: you might be called upon to record an out in under five pitches, or work a hit-and-run when standing on first. You take part only in the plays that your player is involved in, which allows you to zip through entire seasons while still playing nearly every game on the schedule.

However, all the action you see depends on the position you choose, of course. If you play a pitcher, you’re right in there with every toss from the mound, and you can even get called up to the majors after making a measly five starts in AA. If you assume the role of a catcher (my personal choice, as that was my position back in the day), you just take your at-bats and step into the field every now and then to try to pick off steals for second, or bunts for easy outs at first. Unless you’re completely committed to your role, you will get tired of seeing the same few animations repeated over and over. Still, the role-playing aspect is superb, and you’ll find yourself feeling a real team vibe.

My Player is not only addictive – you can actually see your player working their way up with each improvement you give to their stats, adding a very nice RPG element to an otherwise good sports game – but very unforgiving at the same time. Especially if you choose anything other than a pitching role. The game becomes very tedious trying to fill out the criteria for being called up the majors. Want a power hitter but not too interested in a Willie Mays Hays? Good luck, because you need to get your baserunning speed up to 65 before a call will come down from any GM for you. This system needs a little tweaking, but overall there’s a lot of potential for something great over the next season. As long as the balancing act is polished up for next years’ release, My Player has the potential for drawing you in and keeping you there for a long, long time.

Visually, the game is beautiful. Player models are spot on, and facial expressions are not only visible this time around, but actually reflect what’s going on during the game. Pitcher has the bases loaded? Not only will you see a reaction on the player model, but you will feel the intensity as your controller vibrates to show how much pressure you’re actually feeling. This definitely makes controlling your pitches more difficult, but adds to the realism of the game – you have to line up where you want your pitch to end up while you’re setting up, then have to lock in your context-sensitive pitch. If you make a messy stick-move, or enter it too fast or too slow, you could throw it in the dirt or into the umpire’s face. This really adds to the dynamic of the pitcher-batter duel, and draws you even further into the game, allowing you to glimpse what it would actually be like to be out there on your own.

A few aspects of gameplay feel off though. At the default slider settings, everything in the field is too frantic when you’re out there, which comes as a bit of a shock when compared to the duel between pitchers and batters. Speed isn’t so extreme that you can’t make plays, but ball and player movements have been accelerated so that catches and throws often look unrealistic. Weird animations make this effect worse. It’s just about impossible to steal a base with anyone but the best runners in the MLB. You have to get off to a perfect jump: go a split-second early, you get picked off. A split-second late, and you’re gunned down by a throw that always seems to be dead. It’s immensely frustrating, particularly when you’re doing baserunning drills early on with a My Player prospect.

But these problems pale in comparison to issues with online multiplayer. The games are lag-filled, and seemingly impossible to get into, and if you do manage it, expect your opponent to quit out on you at the earliest opportunity.

MLB 2K10 is a very good baseball game but still needs to be refined in a number of areas, which keeps it from knocking the ball out of the park. Even still, the franchise has certainly taken a huge leap forward and sets the stage for next year’s game to make a legitimate run for the title.

Graphics: 4/5

Gameplay: 4/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay: 4/5

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God of War 3 is one of the most highly anticipated games ever. The game follows Kratos on his quest to avenge his family and take down the Gods of Olympus. It completes the God of War trilogy and provides a satisfying and bloody end to Kratos’ quest for revenge. The first two games set the standard for action adventure games and are both Playstation 2 classics. Needless to say, this game had very high standards to meet. God of War 3 lives up to expectations and sets THE standard for action adventure games.

Gameplay
The developers, Sony Computer Entertainment Santa Monica, took what was an already impressive gaming engine and refined it in every which way. The game play and controls from the first two games were already incredible and there was not much to be improved. As they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Sony polished all of the elements that made the first two games exceptional, and provided new weapons, abilities, and a gripping story to keep players glued to the screen.

While I have played the first two and am familiar with Kratos’ move set, the controls and combo system are simple enough that even a newcomer to the series can begin this game and within minutes be unleashing devastating combos with Kratos’ blades. Tight controls were a staple in the first two games and that remains intact here. Whether you are leaping over chasms, ripping medusa’s head off in a killing sequence, or swinging off a Titan’s back you always feel in complete control of Kratos.

Speaking of the Titans, who are your massive, condominium sized allies in the battle against Olympus, their presence alongside you provides a real grasp of size and sense of scale in the game. You are an insect on their gargantuan backs. You climb their fingers, battle enemies on their shoulders, and even navigate the inside of their bodies.

On your quest to Olympus you will face hordes of enemies and colossal bosses. You are equipped for battle with new weapon types, and magic specific to each weapon. There are several new features in combat. Kratos can now mount certain wounded enemies and use them to kill other enemies. However, this game is not a shallow hack and slasher. There are many puzzles and obstacles to overcome. Sony has added to the challenge by implementing new puzzle types. Taking a note from Guitar hero, there is even a music puzzle.

The camera is locked (unlike most third person action games) but this is not a problem, rather I believe Sony intentionally locked the camera to enhance the user’s experience. Whether it is a gorgeous view of Olympus with behemoth Titans climbing alongside you in the background, or strategically overhead while running up a staircase, the camera angles really add to the presentation and enhance the gaming experience.

Graphics
The first two chapters of the God of War trilogy set the standard for graphics on the Playstation 2. Sony triumphed again with God of War 3. It seems that they squeezed every bit of graphic processing out of the PS3’s cell processor. The results are graphics that are incredibly crisp, detailed, and in my opinion the best I’ve seen on the system.

Kratos is extremely detailed. From the scars he’s received in the previous games, to the blood that splatters all over his face during battle, the textures are so good that it is difficult to differentiate between the in game graphics and movie sequences.

The bosses and landscapes are equally gorgeous. Realistic water splashes down from Poseidon’s horse crab minions and the landscapes are each unique with their own ambiance. Mount Olympus is covered in snow and ice, with snowflakes falling onto Kratos, while the Underworld is a dark, brooding place with glowing lava pits and souls falling into the depths of Hades.

Sound
The sound effects, music and voice acting in the game are also top notch. TC Carson does an incredible job voicing Kratos. You can really hear and feel Kratos’ rage. Most of the characters benefit from great voice acting.

The music in the game is epic. It sets an appropriate mood for each unique level. You roam the Underworld and the music helps to create a creepy ambiance. The sound effects are extremely precise. Each step Kratos takes and each swing of Kratos’ blades results in a crisp, realistic sound. The graphics and the sound combine to provide an awesome overall experience.

Overall
God of War 3 seems to be perfect. Top of the line game play, graphics and sound. However, it is not without its faults. The game can be completed in around ten hours, and for me that was somewhat of a letdown because I kept wanting more! However, there are challenge modes, powerful upgrades, alternate costumes and difficulty settings that provide some replay value.

I am somewhat surprised that God of War 3 did not include online capabilities. Most of its competitors are providing online multiplayer these days. Maybe online death matches using the God of War 3 engine would be too chaotic for the internet to handle.

Another concern for people is that this game is EXTREMELY gory. Kratos shows no mercy to his adversaries and when he rips enemies apart he doesn’t hesitate to splatter their blood and guts everywhere. There are elaborate killing sequences for most foes and when completed they result in extremely gory kills. There are also several scenes which involve topless women and sexual references. Sex and violence did not negatively impact my experience, but for those who are sensitive to it, or for anyone buying the game for children, it is something to keep in mind.

Overall this game was absolutely incredible from start to finish. From climbing mount Olympus on a Titan’s back, to the final battle, I was awestruck and addicted. We can only hope that Sony provides us with another chapter of this incredible series or the fans and gamers will be the next ones seeking vengeance!

To read more reviews by Brandon, visit www.ubethecritic.com.

Gameplay: 5.0/5
Graphics: 5.0/5
Sound: 5.0/5
Replay: 4.0/5

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Like blood? No… I mean, do you REALLY like blood?

If you answered yes, and also have a fancy for dragons, fantasy, compelling story, in depth character evolution, complete voice acting, and a really really long story that I believe Bioware’s Edmonton office has created the perfect game for you.

Dragon Age: Origins developed by Bioware (the same fine folks who brought us Mass Effect) have taken the next evolutionary step in interactive story telling in both intensity, depth, and fantasy. Moving back to their Baulder’s Gate style roots and away from the sci-fi they recently gained fame for, Dragon Age: Origins has you starting out in one of six origin stories (as a noble human, peasant human, wood elf, city elf, noble dwarf, or casteless dwarf) but have you essentially fighting to save all races and creeds against the Archdemon and the Blight. However the story begins, it provides insight and a background to where you came from, how you became a Grey Warden (a group of soldiers whom can sense evil and are tasked with defeating the Blight) and sends you off on your merry adventure where you meet dozens of characters who with a little finesse can become invaluable allies in your battle (letting you control up to four characters at one time) or… with a little fast clicking can have you killing them on the spot (trust me, I’ve killed at least two potential allies so far).

He's right behind me... Isn't he?

The game is all about choices, much like other Bioware favourites, but for this one, they go deep in morality it goes beyond just deciding if you want to be greedy, evil, good, or psychotic. For example, a simple choice in the game is whether you want to call down a massively strong dragon to fight against you or just sneak by… easy enough. How about choosing a side between two equally capable and equally evil dwarfs to take the throne as dwarf king? How do you know you’re making the right choice, how will the story evolve if you make one decision over another? So far the hardest choice I made in Origins beyond deciding how to level up my characters was to kill a young innocent boy harbouring a demon inside him, or find a way to exorcise the demon and save the boy… unfortunately for the boy, I have been on a tight deadline to write this review… so he died. Speaking of tight deadlines, since getting my grubby little paws on this title I’ve pretty much done nothing but play, and with well over 24 hours under my belt, I still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of this massive game, which touts over 80 hours of gameplay.

Aside from decision making, gameplay within Origins can be utilized in two different ways. Players have the option of setting a basic set of guidelines their AI companions can follow much like the Gambit system in Final Fantasy 12. As your characters get stronger, more rules can be set for them (such as if an ally has 50% less health, use health potion on them), while the player controls the main character from an over the shoulder view in a more action type manner. Alternatively, players can change the view to a top down approach (like Baulder’s Gate), pause the game at any time and assign actions to all characters, unpause and watch the mayhem. Combinations of spells as well as elements also provide a deeper sense of customization (throw grease on a bad guy, then cast a fire spell and see what happens).

Graphically, Dragon Age: Origins uses a new engine called Eclipse, and while I’m not sure exactly what it does better than other engines, I do know this… it makes Origins pretty. With plenty of characters on the screen at once, all doing god knows what in the form of attacks, spells, and other abilities, I was amazed that the detail and effects that would be shown on screen without a lick of slowdown. As well, I was intrigued by the blood system. There is A LOT of blood in this game, and often after a battle, that blood will be left on you and your party until either your wardog cleans it up, or after a good rest. The character and location designs are all extremely unique from the DarkSpawn, to demons, to the dragons themselves; they’re all just as varied and detailed as the forests, cities, and caverns you visit along the way. The only instance where I felt a little cheated was in the Dwarven city that looked a heck of a lot like the Dwarven city in World of Warcraft.

I think my favourite thing about Dragon Age: Origins has to be the voice acting. With tons of dialogue between characters, and multiple decisions about what to respond with I was amazed with the amount of voice acting to be found in this game. Aside from your main character (most of the time) every peice of dialogue in the game is voice acted. Consider for a moment how long this game is, over 80 hours long, and with very busy cities and many people to talk to, the amount of voice acting is at such a high number that I cannot even wager a guess to how much hours of speech are included in the game. Music, slicing, and grunts are all included and play well within the game, however I find that the musical change right before battle takes away from the surprise element of it.

Equal rights.

In terms of lasting appeal, while Origins has no multiplayer, the game itself is ridiculously long, and addictive! In a time where I have Borderlands, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Left 4 Dead 2 sitting on my shelf; I find myself playing this title more than all four of those combined. That being said even if you do complete the story and all side quests, Bioware has guaranteed over 2 years of post launch content. They even tout that they will be providing more post-launch content than all other Bioware titles combined.

So overall, do I think Dragon Age: Origins is worth it? You bet I do! Especially now with gaming sales coming every which way, chances are you may be able to find this title for $40 in the very near future.

Gameplay:      4.5/5

Graphics:        4.5/5

Sound:             5.0/5

Replay:            4.0/5

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In yet another case of The Music vs. Acitivision, No Doubt are filing a lawsuit against the makers of Band Hero.

The suit contends the game “transformed No Doubt band members into a virtual karaoke circus act,” and the use of the band members’ avatars far exceeded anything agreed upon in the contract, according to the Los Angeles Times. One aspect of the game allows players to manipulate their characters into singing songs by other artists, for example having lead singer Gwen Stefani sing “Honky Tonk Woman” by the Rolling Stones.

“While No Doubt are avid fans of the Rolling Stones and even have performed in concerts with the Rolling Stones, the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes,” the complaint reads.

The complaint also claims Activision withheld information on the Character Manipulation Feature, and allegedly told the band after they had requested to the have the function disabled that it would be too expensive to do so.

Initially, No Doubt signed on to having their likenesses used for only three of their own songs in the game, but wound up appearing in more than 60 songs either as a band or solo. The lawsuit  asks for actual and punitive damages that are as yet unspecified, a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction stopping the distribution of Band Hero, as well as a recall of any existing copies.

The complaint argues the songs No Doubt appear on “include lyrics, contained in iconic songs, which are not appropriate for No Doubt and have not been chosen by No Doubt for recordings or public performances.”

“The band [members] are bitterly disappointed that their name and likeness was taken and used without their permission,” band manager Jim Guerinot told the Los Angeles Times. “They agreed to play three No Doubt songs as a band. . . . Activision then went and put them in 62 other songs and broke the band up [and] never even asked.”

As for Activision, they must be getting used to this sort of thing after coming under fire from both Dave Grohl and Courtney Love on behalf of Kurt Cobain when his likeness was used with the same Character Manipulation Feature.

Activision is claiming No Doubt’s suit is “without merit” and the company is now exploring its own legal options with respect to No Doubt’s obligations under the agreement.”

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The pig skin never looked so good

I’ve never been a huge fan of football (American football for those reading overseas). I never enjoyed playing it in the real world, I never enjoyed watching it. But playing it digitally was always a blast. My first Madden experience was on my original Gameboy in 1996, and would you believe it spoke? Like real audible words!

Now, before I dive into the game, I wanted to point something out. Madden 10 is not for someone who doesn’t understand the finer details of football. You can get by with basic knowledge, and with the help of the Madden quiz, practice, and the virtual trainer included in the title, you can pick it up very quickly. Just don’t expect to buy the game, read the manual and kick ass online.

As the game evolved with technological advances and thanks to EA’s talented abilities, the graphics grew astronomically. From legs jittering, yards moving by slowly and other players moving frame by frame towards you to full motion captured pretty movements from all over the field, Madden 10′s attention to detail were just astronomical. The fluid movement in each player as they hurl forward, deke in a hundred different ways, and look around for openings give players an eerie feeling that they are actually controlling real people in some alternate universe of god-like power. The texture of grass, fans chompin hotdogs and tossing towels, and even the detail of each stadium; from the biggest effects like weather to the smallest details like seat arrangement. Madden 10 raised the bar yet again for graphical quality in a football game. Just as long as you don’t mind seeing freakishly odd shaped facial features of the players up close. My favourite graphical aspect? The shakey cam as players run for a touchdown. What I didn’t like graphically? The sponsored replays, granted it does make things more realistic, but for the amount I’m paying for a game I don’t want sponsored ads in my face. What’s next to increase the realism, commercials in between plays?

Sound wise, while Madden 10 boasts Hammond and Collinsworth’s commentary. I understand it’s hard to have good commentary in a game people will play for hours on end, over and over again. I just wasn’t feeling it. They tried, I feel the effort is there, but otherwise it just seemed a little unpolished, especially compared to the graphics. Again, the commentary at times sounds like it was just random words pieced together after the fact, not smooth and realistic in the forms of speaking to say the least. While the commentary is varied and often times customized and useful, after a while you begin to hear the same phrases and comments time and time again. In terms of the sound track, I would have to admit that while I first expected many frat anthems, after playing through and taking a look at what the game had to offer, I think this may have very well been my favourite sound track in a sporting video game. Music from 2Pac, Alice in Chains,Beastie Boys, Mastodon, System of a Down, and Nirvana, just to give fans out there a feel for what’s available. As always otherwise the smashes, tackles, and whistles all sound realistic and well done. EA is good with these kinds of noises by now.

In terms of gameplay, there is just so much depth and detail to every aspect of Madden 10 that I would be here for months writing about it all, and you for weeks reading and soaking it all in.  For the sake of both time and sanity I’ll just provide you with a rundown of ALL the modes of play and the feel of gameplay itself, and trust me, there’s a lot to discuss. To start off, let’s talk about what’s new and all the talk about Madden 10 over Madden ’09; Online franchise mode allows up and coming NFL manager types to take the franchise mode they loved, and play it online, much in the same way one could play it offline in ’09, this is again souped up with things like The Extra Point a little segment that summarizes what had happened in the week before. As well, aspects throughout the game have been somewhat tweaked (some times well, sometimes not so well) as the passing system and feel have been improved to new levels as well as the tackle system which provides gamers with new and more innovative ways to bring the pain to their competition. Other aspects new to the game also include more realistic gameplay including pile-ons, fumbles, and a somewhat slower – less arcade like speed to simulate real life. My favourite new feature in Madden 10 may have to be the small details they added in, like Superbowl patches to the jerseys during, well… The Superbowl. Actually playing the game gives a lot of power to the player, being able to tweak nearly every aspect of Madden and having access to so many plays, variables, and being able to alter all of these gives fans nearly endless possibilities… That is, IF you know what you are doing, which takes time, research, and practice for those new to the Madden world. For those that are new to the game, again, there are methods to get you up to speed, but for those who are seasoned pros – the difficulty levels are there for them. Personally, I found Madden 10 to be challenging, hard even, on the easy difficulty… But then again, I found NHL 10 to be just as hard, and I’m a bigger hockey fan than football. The control layout for Madden 10 has been perfected year after year, and from what I can remember from last year’s title, they have remained the same, an aspect myself (and I hope many others) appreciate. The controls are set up perfectly for this football romp and from controlling the QB to audibles, the flick of a joystick or click of a button is all that is needed to score that hail mary touchdown. Like I said before, there are A LOT of game modes and options; for an overall feel, check out our Madden ’09 review which can be found here, otherwise just play the game and see for yourself, I think you’d like it – especially if your a football fan.

Overall like most sports titles, lasting appeal is never an issue. You can play against computers over and over again, play against your friends until you go blue in the face. If you get too good for the game you can always up the difficulty, choose teams with lower stats, or play with one hand tied behind your back. Beat everyone you know, all the computer settings and used every team out there? Madden 10 boasts one of the best online modes available from single games to leagues to online franchise mode. While I enjoyed playing (and getting beaten severely) playing online, I did experience quite some lag while playing my opponent, both of us located in Canada, and both with broadband connections.

Madden 10 is exactly what you would expect from the leading football developers who launch a new title every year. Some new features, some improvements, some aspects that still need work (but mostly all improvements in themselves). If you’re a football fan you owe it to yourself to pick up Madden 10, if however you are on a budget and can’t afford a new title, Madden ’09 can still do what you need it to do and enjoy on a regular basis. You just won’t get the best of what’s available without Madden 10.

Graphics: 4.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 4.0 / 5.0
Sound 3.5 / 5.0
Lasting appeal 4.5 / 5.0

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More. That’s the key word when discussing Naughty Dog’s PS3 exclusive hit sequel Uncharted: Among Thieves.

He definitely works hard for his money!

They have given us more of everything we loved from Uncharted: Drake’s fortune. More witty commentary, more weapons, more items, more actions, more explosions, more girls, more modes of play, more… well, you get the idea.

Recently, this writer had eye surgery, and as such, I have had a hard time staring at screens for long periods of time while my eyes healed. Let me tell you, this title was so much fun to play and so hard to put down, that I very well could have destined myself blind in the future from eye strain, especially at a time when my eyes are at their weakest.

Normally I would choose my Xbox 360 over the PS3 due to control preference and number of friends online, however, Sony comes out with amazing exclusive titles from time to time that bring me back to the PS3 powerhouse. Titles like Uncharted: Drake’s fortune, Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, and now, Uncharted: Among Thieves.

Among Thieves takes you behind the eyes of brilliant and ridiculously lucky treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he searches for the elusive lost fleet of Marco Polo and the Cintimani Stone, a giant sapphire said to be worth billions. Of course if you’ve played the first uncharted title, you know better to think this is all that is being searched for and all that you will find, but in order to not spoil the game for you all, I’ll leave it at that. Along the way you run into old friends like Victor Goddamned Sullivan and Elena Fisher as well as new characters who had a past with Nathan such as Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer. Before I go any further in this review, the reason I point out characters so quickly is that Among Thieves has something so many other games lack, extremely detailed and relevant character depth. By the end of the game, nay, within the first hour of play, you feel like you personally know each character and have a strong emotional connection with them. When one gets hurt or goes missing, you feel for them, you share the same emotion Drake does. I will even admit that my eyes teared up and I was actually worried for a specific character at one point in the game, heaving a large sigh of relief when the dust settled.

Yes, the game is that beautiful. Those are in game graphics here!

Before we dive into the technical aspects of this review, I wanted to continue on the line of character and emotion. Among Thieves has almost every basis covered for being both a great game AND a great movie. Just like Drake’s Fortune did for me in the past, while playing you get so enthralled in the story that you actually wish it were a movie, everything from the great story filled with countless plot twists, to the witty commentary between characters with intelligent use of vocabulary as ‘Jerkweed’ and ‘Asswipe’ slipping from Drake’s educated lips. He even says on many accounts what I would be thinking at that exact moment at points where he is climbing high mountains he might utter, ‘Oh man, I am so tired of climbing sh*t’, or while in a pool he would shout out, ‘Marco… fish out of the water?’, or at moments where I would think how lucky Drake is as he is about the be crushed by flying train debris only to be saved by the first and only tunnel you spot for hundreds of miles, a comment would be made about it. The story itself is bigger and more epic than any other somewhat realistic (as in, not space or fantasy) story I have ever played, read, or even saw in a movie, even the scene swipes remind me of Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

I could go on and on about the story and character design, but then we would never get into the meat of the game’s mechanics, so if you want to go beyond what I have discussed so far, my only recommendation is to just go out and try the game yourself, I don’t think you’d be disappointed.

Graphically this could very well be the most beautiful game I have ever played. Sure, I may have said that with the first Uncharted title, but like I said at the beginning of this review, Naughty Dog has given us more of everything! Detail has reached an all new high with hair movements, clothing wrinkles and the amount of detail found in the environments. Not only do run down streets of Nepal have the most minuscule detail present (pictures of families in buildings as they collapse) but the sheer size of these environments are just amazing. Huge Tibetan temples as far as the eye can see encrusted in jewels and scripture kept me playing the game for at least an extra hour or two just because I was so blown away by what I saw that I had to explore every corner of every space provided. Weapon and item detail have also been boosted as you can see every gear and bolt of every gun being used in the flash of an eye. It goes beyond detail for Among Thieves, the lighting effects in terms of shadows, sun, and explosions are also top notch. There are so many examples I would love to share right now, but I feel like anything I say will ruin the plot, something I would never want to do to fans of Uncharted. So again, I will cut off my critique of graphics here by saying, play the game. Your eyes will thank you.

Audibly this is arguably the best sounding game I have ever played as well. Not only do the scores match the environment and mood extremely well, but they have also been improved in terms of how they were implemented versus Drake’s Fortune (In the first title, you would know when a gun fight would be coming up due to the score change). Often a good game’s mood can be dampened by the choice of music, and rarely does this reviewer find there to not be a single hiccup in musical tastes as Among Thieves hits each point perfectly. It’s not only the music that brings you deeper into the title but also the voice acting. With multiple languages available for both subtitles and dubbing, each character looks like their voices were made for their in game counterparts. Even though there are many different accents and dialects being used throughout the game, none of them seem outlandish or unrealistic. Heck, even the Australian voices sound authentic! Beyond the voice acting we are also given such details in how we hear our fan favourites speak depending on the scenario: on a train, it sounds like they’re on a train; in a cavern, you hear a slight echo; my personal favourite is at one point when Drake is holding a pen cap in his mouth, the muffles and whistles sound as if you were doing the exact same thing, extremely detailed and realistic. When my eyes were hurting from playing too much, it didn’t faze me too much to have to close my eyes and relax a little because the audical experience was more than enough to keep me thinking about this title through and through.

Now THAT was a rockin' party.

An issue with the first Uncharted title was that it seemed much too planned out. You would climb a little, then walk into a much more open area with plenty of cover and ammo. Here you knew there was going to be a gun fight, rinse and repeat. In Among Thieves they did a much better job of not only making everything less obvious in terms of what would be happening next (they did a great job in this aspect), but they also changed up the types of gameplay as well, with more running scenarios (away from trucks, tanks, helicopters, falling buildings), boss fights, and now a very expanded stealth mode of play (hanging from ledges, hiding behind cover and so on). Add on new items such as shields and propane tanks, and you have a whole new level of gameplay to enjoy. Again, more of everything. If you though Drake’s Fortune had some epic battles, try fighting a helicopter from a building as it collapses… with you inside the building! More explosions, more near death experiences, more more more. Get the idea?

In terms of lasting appeal, Uncharted: Among Thieves has increased their offering drastically from the first title. With plenty of treasures to find in the oddest places (who leaves priceless artifacts on the back of a caboose?) and multiple difficulty levels, you already have more reasons to replay this great game. Add on the ability to buy special effects like sepia colour, fast forward mode, new skins, and special cheats and weapons give you even more replay value. Add on a nifty little Twitter feature to tell all your friends how good you are at this game and even more to play with. But after all this, I still feel like it’s all a little sliver of replay value compared to the newly introduced online multiplayer modes. oh, I didn’t mention that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves had a fully featured multiplayer option? And no, this isn’t just some slapped together death match mode we’re talking about here; Among Thieves provides a unique mash up of all the best multiplayer options in a set that will have you addicted to playing over and over again. The way character progression works in multiplayer is great, you earn money for each other player you kill, for each objective you accomplish, and for each award you are given (you get awards for killing people with your fists, throwing people off of ledges, killing people in a row, killing people who are killing people in a row, etc). and with this money, you can buy new skins, skills, taunts, and abilities – but only if your character is at a high enough level to unlock the ability to buy these options in the first place. So as a gamer you obviously want the best of the best (which can be abilities called boosts like better accuracy with a handgun, quicker reloads, extra grenades and so on); because of this, when you get to a certain level you want to play that little extra bit to get to the next milestone. This leads to MANY late nights playing online.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves provides two main forms of multiplayer action, competitive and cooperative. Competitive gives players 5 on 5 battles with game modes like your standard death match, elimination, plunder, turf war, king of the hill and chain reaction pitting heroes against villains. As well there are co-operative modes of play in which you work with a partner to play modes such as survival, gold rush, and standard co-op mode. Along with these online modes of play you have the choice and variety of 8 maps from the sanctuary, ice cave, lost city, train wreck, temple, village, plaza, and finally a blank stage mode to test out different aspects of the game. This multiplayer mode is definitely something that will bring you back to Uncharted time and time again.

Multiplayer mayhem, fast paced, high action, and not a lick of slow-down.

Overall Uncharted 2 was by far one of the best PlayStation 3 titles I have ever played, even one of the best video games I ever got to enjoy period, however there were a few negatives I had with the title. Nothing overly major, however they should be mentioned. First off a small annoyance is that random priceless treasures can be found in the most random places: The roof of a train, in the middle of a road, on the top ledge of a cavern that supposedly has never been seen by man before. Things like that just irk me. The second issue I had came with the multiplayer modes, yes I praised them continuously above, however, after playing for hours upon hours I grew stale with the few maps available; I figure this was done purposely so that new maps could be released in the future for further markup… or free! Finally the biggest problem I had throughout the game were glitches. While this was by far one of the most technical titles I have ever played and the vast majority of the game was glitch free; I did get frustrated when Drake would jump towards a ledge, glitch out and fall only to try again a moment later. Or getting stuck in a wall or snow bank while running for your life. While these only happened a few times throughout the game, I did notice them to occur more later on in the title as if the ending bit was rushed; more or less from the beginning of the Nepalese snowy mountains to right before the last area in the game is where I found most glitches. On a side note, not really a glitch but something I wish Naughty Dog and Sony included in Uncharted 2, a self play mode so that once you finished the game, you could just sit back and watch it as though it were a movie… because we all know it would be a fabulous movie!

Summary:

If you only buy one PS3 game this holiday season, I highly recommend you make it Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It has everything you could want, great controls, great gameplay, replay-ability, great story, great dialog, great sound, great graphics, a long lasting single player mode, an ever expanding and fantastic multiplayer mode… jeeze, I can’t think of any reason not to play such an amazing game. Go out and buy it. If you don’t have a PS3, go buy it for a friend that does… and move in with them. This has been one of the most polished and impressive games I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 5/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 5/5

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?  It’s something I ask of all my readers… I just like the sound of it.

And with that not-so-obscure reference, we begin our review of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is the best game of 2009.  Yes, I am saying that in October.

I have been drooling over this game for months now, and anxiously anticipating doing this review.  Now, as much as I would like to give an unbiased and honest review of Batman: Arkham Asylum, that is impossible.  I am a huge Batman fanboy (Batboy?) and although this will be a fair and balanced review, I am obviously biased in some respects.  I mean, I am literally wearing a Batman T-shirt right now, and not even for the purpose of this review.  Just ‘cause, suckers.

But I digress.  This game is set over the course of one night on Arkham Island.  Batman has apprehended the Joker, and hauls him back to the asylum.  Joker doesn’t really mind though, and proceeds to take over the asylum and release the inmates.  Great. Now Bats has to pick up all the pieces.

Quite possibly the coolest feature of this game is the nature of the gameplay itself.  You don’t just run into rooms to find a group of baddies and subsequently dispatch them.  Okay, you do – but not all the time.  You don’t just prowl from room to room in the shadows, sneaking up behind guys and taking them out without a sound.  Okay, you do – but not all the time.  You don’t just solve puzzles and riddles.  Okay, you get the point.

I'm totally going to win that giant stuffed gorilla.

The seamless transition from the gangbang combats to invisible predator rooms to the riddles and whatnot in between really make this game flow exceptionally well.  That’s actually the primary element of this game -flow. The combat is actually called Freeflow Combat – using your various attacks to open up a can of Bat-Whoop-Ass on the various miscreants you encounter throughout the game by seamlessly landing blow after blow on opponent after opponent rather than one at a time.   You can even mix in attacks from the various gadgets you acquire over the course of the game – the Batarang, Batclaw and Shark-Repellant Bat-Spray.  Okay, not that last one.

There are some games out there that have alternative modes of play that are not exactly the greatest thing to ever happen to gaming.  Arkham Asylum is not one of these games.  The challenge modes are amazing – each of which is basically one of the different combat rooms you will encounter throughout the game.  This allows you to pick up Arkham Asylum anytime, and run through as much or as little of the different facets of this game at your leisure – which I have done ad nauseum.  Even more awesome – there is downloadable content that allows you to go on a murderous rampage as none other than the one and only Clown Prince of Crime – the Joker, however, only on the PlayStation 3.  The lack of grappling hook and gliding is made up for with the awesomeness of walking around the challenge rooms dispatching guards with kicks to the nuts, exploding-chattering teeth, kicks to the nuts and a legit gun.  Yes, Joker straight-up murders people with a gun.  Also, he kicks them in the nuts – did I mention that?

In this reviewer’s not-so-humble opinion, the pinnacle of the gameplay is the Invisible Predator mode.  When I think of Batman, I think of moments like the scene in Batman Begins where the criminals are being picked off one by one, growing ever more terrified as their numbers dwindle.  This is the epitome of Batman and also the core element of the Invisible Predator style of gameplay.  For me, it just doesn’t get any better than grappling from gargoyle to gargoyle in the shadows, gliding down behind a gun-wielding psychopath and choking him into unconsciousness, then hanging upside-down in the shadows and grabbing his buddy when he comes to help.  If the criminals are terrified, then bonus – more on that later.

Hello, my name is Joker. And this is my friend, Obscenely Large Revolver.

The Detective Mode is more likely than not the mode you will view the majority of the game in. Although sacrificing the gorgeous graphics somewhat, you can see everything that is pertinent to the mission at hand and more, from vent covers that can be removed and entered, to lingering bad breath or tobacco traces in the air.  While reducing the challenging element of problem solving, it doesn’t really matter – the game remains moderately challenging puzzle-wise with the ever-narcissistic Riddler hitting you with clues to the hundreds of enigmas and brain-teasers throughout Arkham Island.  Detective Mode also allows you to view enemies through walls, and examine their armament and status – status meaning whether they are Calm, Nervous, Terrified or Crazed.  Try to keep the enemies Terrified – they start shooting at noises in the darkness, and basically turn into whiny 8-year old girls.

As I mentioned earlier, the graphics in Arkham Asylum are gorgeous.  Simply gorgeous.  The dark, gothic atmosphere of Gotham and Arkham (hey, did you ever notice those are spelled similarly?) are captured perfectly.   The environment almost has a personality – brooding, dark and malicious. The animations on the enemies are smooth and functional at worst, disturbing and frenetic at best – exactly what you would expect from the psychos and maniacs stalking the halls of the asylum.  However, they tend to fall limp in unrealistic ways when you knock them out, but it’s a minor issue. The animations on the main characters are even better.  By main characters of course, I mean Batman – and his cape.  The cloak is almost a character unto itself, flowing behind you when you run, snapping out into a wing-like profile when you glide, and gradually becoming more tattered and ripped as Batman’s night gets worse.

Where the hell did I park the car?

The sounds of Arkham are also very conducive to the mood – the only way the soundtrack could be better would be if it had a bit more variety to it – low strings and baritone throughout – or if Danny Elfman just did the score.  Speaking of nostalgia, the voice acting is superb, with the quintessential voices from the DC Animated universe coming on board – Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight, and the amazing Mark Hamill as the Joker.  Heath Ledger, step aside – for this incarnation of the Joker, the Force is strong with this one.

I thoroughly enjoyed Batman: Arkham Asylum.  It combines all the elements of an exceptional game – graphics, solid and intuitive gameplay that isn’t oversimplified or overly complex, and an atmosphere and story that draws in the gamer allowing them to fully appreciate all the other elements of the game.  All these elements come together to stomp more face than a professional face stomper – wearing stompin’ boots.

You didn’t think really I’d end my review of a Batman game without mentioning face-stomping, did you?

Cheers.

Gameplay – 5/5

Graphics – 5/5

Sound – 5/5

Replay Value – 5/5

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

There are two things I have never done. 1) I have never gotten so into a sporting event that I yelled for (or at) a team or player. 2) I have never gotten so into a video game that I jumped up, yelled at the screen, and swore. NHL 10 for the Xbox 360 made me do both, and I have to admit, I liked it.

I’ve never been an emotional gamer, and I’ve never been that much into sports (then again, as a Canadian, I feel there’s a default certain level of national pride we all share with hockey), but when playing as the Toronto Maple leafs and winning 2-1 on game seven against Ottawa for the Stanley Cup and with less than 1 minute left in the third period you can’t help but get a little into it when Ottawa scores the tying goal with seconds left on the clock. Yes, I jumped up, yes my voice got loud and shrill, and yes I did say some things that would make a sailor blush. I think this was the most rewarding aspect of NHL 10, that after 17 past NHL titles, EA still has what it takes to make a casual hockey fan into a raving sports fanatic, and I didn’t see it coming.

Basically what’s new from last year to this beyond some new features such as playing the boards, first person fighting, and last ditch attempts at shots is the focus of the game, which now has a much stronger scope on the intensity and fierceness of playoffs and winning the Stanley cup.

For those new to video games, NHL 10 is a hockey simulator (more so than a game as each year passes) in which you are presented with a myriad of gaming options beyond just playing a game of hockey (oh Blades of Steel, how I miss you). How many game modes you ask? well there’s: Battle for the Cup Now Mode in which you are sent straight to the finals of the playoffs, Playoff Mode where you can take part in any type of post-season play from any of the leagues available (NHL, OHL and more), Season Mode in which you choose a league type customize your season preferences and decide if you want to take part in a fantasy draft with all new full roster control mode. We are also given one of my favourite features, Be A Pro Mode in which you create your own character and control only that player as he is drafted, trained and even sent back to the minors based on your personal performance. I found this mode to be extremely interesting as it seemed to be the most realistic, heck, if you get a penalty you have to sit in the box and watch from the side as you feel shame (Slapshots reference anyone?). Performance Tracker Mode shows off your hockey cards (bonuses and achievements… kind of), stats, and milestones related to your profile career. Tournament mode allows for 8 or 16 teams in a world tournament to see what country is the best, and apparently the Montreal Canadiens Centennial team is the one to beat. Create a Play mode allows you too… well, create a play, Practice mode gives you a minimal tutorial (sure it shows you how to play, but no matter how much I practice, I still suck at the game). Online play mode allows for multiple online variations of the game including league play, My NHL 10 mode allows you to create your own custom player, manage rosters, deal with media via the media hub, and more. My Pro mode allows you to go into the hockey shop and buy new equipment, track your performance, and edit attributes. Finally my favourite mode in the game, Be a GM Mode.

Rock'em Sock'em Hockey!

Now, as you can see, there are ALOT of ways to play NHL 10, and as my favourite is the new Be a GM Mode I guess you can decipher that I’m just not that good at the actual hockey playing. I can hold my own (in rookie mode), but for the life of me I rarely ever score goals. In comparison to other sports GM modes however, I found NHL 10′s to be lacking, aside from making trades with your Blackberries (the higher your rank, the more Blackberries you get to use) and drafting there really isn’t much more else involved, you can increase your employee stats but from what I found in the 5 years of being a GM, it doesn’t really make a difference. The good news though, is that if I become the GM of the Maple Leafs, they will win the Stanley Cup in 2014!

We’re not here to read all about the different modes and what I thought of them though, we’re here for hockey! so lets talk about how it actually plays out. The default controls are intuitive, left stick controls your skates, right controls your stick for easy deking and aiming shots. If it gets a little complicated there are many other control schemes to choose from, my alternative favourite being NHL ’94 mode with the only buttons being B to shoot (or check) and A to pass (or switch players), simple. Now otherwise the only other control schemes I think worth talking about in this review would be the wall play and fighting. Wall play if you have the puck and are near the wall push Y and you brace yourself against the wall so that you may kick the puck to a teammate. Alternatively if you are near someone doing just that, you can force a player onto the walls and steal the puck from them. Now fighting is by far my favourite part of actually playing the hockey game, first person fighting, after the whistle action, instigation, it’s all improved in such a way that you can fight almost whenever you want. When fighting you’re brought into first person mode: left stick moves your body, right stick aims your fists of fury; as well you can tug on your opponent’s jersey, perform upper cuts and if you want to chicken out, you can pull both shoulder buttons and turtle.

Graphically NHL 10 is superior to NHL ’09, but then again, isn’t that always the case? Smooth animations, motion captured skaters, reflections and now especially crowd interactions (banging on the windows, swinging team colours around during playoffs and whatnot). This is EA Sports, the annual NHL title, it’s got to be the best of the best, the most polished out there and as such it has a lot to live up to. I’m here to tell you that it does live up to it’s expectations, amazing realistic graphics and not a single glitch to be found.

Dragon Force just screams hockey anthem, doesn't it?

Music is another story. While NHL 10 has a number of big songs from the likes of Green Day, CKY, and Dragon Force; and they’re all great songs, I found they didn’t really mesh with the game. Especially when playing in non-hockey modes like Be a GM the heavy strong songs just keep playing over and over and while I enjoy the tunes, songs that pump you up for a game, kind of confuse you when negotiating a trade. Grunts and whistles are standard fair but what I feel most players are interested in would be the voice commentary? Is it annoying? Does it repeat often? Luckily the answer to both is no. As Gary Thorne and Bill Clement come back from NHL ’09, NHL 10 has similar banter from great voices in hockey and there are enough specific commentary calls to keep players interested in what they have to say time and time again.

Overall if your a fan of hockey games, you probably already own NHL 10, however, if you’re like me and haven’t really gotten into a hockey title since NHL ’99, this year is as good as any to dive back in due to the many options in terms of difficulty and control. However, I have to warn you, there is quite a steep learning curve for those new to the title, trust me, I’ve been playing for a while now and I still suck (yes, I guess it could be that I just overall suck but… let’s not go there). With a plethora of options, game modes, and online play (I was just invited to an online team for online league play) this title will keep you busy for a long long time… or at least until NHL 11 comes out. Hopefully then the GM mode will expand to something more in depth, more in line with other GM modes like Madden and other GM specific titles.

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 5/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 5/5

P.S. I’ve never given a game Editor’s Choice before, congrats EA Sports!

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

PARTY ON!

In early 2006 Harmonix split ways with the Guitar Hero series and went off with MTV to create Rock Band leaving Activision to contract Neversoft to re-build the game that Harmonix arguably perfected. This move marked the day that split the plastic instrument community right down the middle.

While some people saw no problem with the direction that Guitar Hero went in there is a hardcore contingency of people that would like nothing more than to see Guitar Hero vanish into obscurity and let Harmonix’s Rock Band franchise rule supreme. It has been said that ever since Rock Band was released Guitar Hero has been scrambling to avoid doing just that by “ripping off” Rock Band any chance they get. Well if that’s the case then on September 1st, 2009 they finally caught up.

Guitar Hero 5 seems to have fixed everything “wrong” with Guitar Hero World Tour and thrown in all the improvements we have received from the side games that followed (Metallica, Smash Hits). What we have now is a sleek interface with incredible graphics which still retain the trademark over the top Guitar Hero style mixed with a bit of Rock Band’s low frame rate use to give the illusion of a music video. Guitar Hero 5 also boasts a different take on some of Rock Band’s innovations: the ability to “save” your band mate once they fail through maintaining a long enough streak of notes hit, individual star-power for each member of the band which if maxed out will overflow to other members, and band moments which work much like Rock Band’s “Unison Bonuses” however focused on band multipliers rather than added star-power/overdrive.

The really big feature however is Party Play mode which combined with the fact Guitar Hero 5 allows any instrument to join allows you to have just that- a party. As soon as the game loads up the music starts playing and all you need to do is press Yellow (Y Button on your controller) and you are able to join instantly! Pick your instrument (Guitar/Bass) your difficulty and off you go! Same thing applies to vocalists and people with drums, I especially liked how it remembered my hyper-speed settings dependent on the slot my instrument was connected to (Player 1, Player 2) and yes Hyper-speed is now in the options of quickplay- it’s no longer under cheats!

Another nifty feature in party play is making playlists of up to 125 songs and you don’t even need to play them you can just sit back and watch the animations and join at anytime! If your group of friends has a fondness for the music Guitar Hero licenses this will no doubt be a hit at parties- I mean come on… Who doesn’t like a bit of Rammstein followed by Stevie Wonder.

Contraversial digi-Kurt, an in-game character.

Track lists are of course subjective by nature but I really feel that the setlist for Guitar Hero 5 while not having the most insanely difficult “ow my hand hurts please make it stop mommy” songs it still has some fairly challenging Guitar songs (Scatterbrain by Jeff Beck, Done with Everything Die for Nothing by Children of Bodom) it does have a 14 minute song by Peter Frampton after all complete with Talkbox solo and an outro solo that may take you by surprise. If I had to guess though that as we go forward with these games the focus seems to becoming more about drummers and vocalists because with Guitar Hero 5 it surely delivers on that front. 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson and Brianstorm by Arctic Monkeys will give any expert drummer a run for their money- or hard difficulty drummer even. Another plus is that the Rock Band drum kit which is 4 pads as opposed to Guitar Hero’s which is 5 has been modified so that the orange crash note is now on green- which allows more a much better feel while playing the reduced charts.

As vocals are primarily my main instrument there are some real interesting picks here, who would’ve thought singing Bush’s 90s hit “Come Down” would be so fun! There’s quite the challenge in store for you as well if you play expert vocals as vocal phrases are now scored by how much of each phrase you hit. Singers with high lung capacities and accurate pitches are rewarded with higher scores and Neversoft has finally given us a visual feedback meter to help us determine how much of the phrase we are hitting akin to Rock Band’s pie meter.

Everyone should know by now that Kurt Cobain is in the game as a playable character and unlike Hendrix (in Guitar Hero: World Tour) you can play other songs with him! Of course if you choose to do that Kurt won’t be left handed anymore and you wouldn’t want to do that, now would you? It’s great to play Lithium and Smells Like Teen Spirit with his character however and it’s an experience only had in the career mode of the game, which can be played with any combination of instruments and online!

Use your Xbox Live avatar as an in game rock god? SCORE!

To add to the replay value each song in career mode has a challenge associated with it I won’t list them all but to get some of these diamond challenges you are either going to have become really good at expert guitar or find someone online to play with you and that goes for any challenge (vocals, drums, bass) as long as they are in your band you get the challenge unlocked.

Another great thing about Guitar Hero 5 is the ability to import my World Tour DLC into the game which feels brand new in comparison, and additionally a portion of songs (which is rumoured to expand eventually) from World Tour and Smash Hits for a small fee of $3.50 US for each game (approximately on Xbox Live). However you must actually have the manual from the game in your possession, and with the way people are I could see the code being copied at stores and people being unhappy when they buy it and have their code show up as invalid. It’s nice to see my song list up to 195 songs though.

The online mode has also been revamped with new competitive modes that while still are about hitting all the notes provide an added challenge through modes such as Momentum, Do or Die, Perfectionist, and Streakers. I’ve played them and they were a blast and a nice change from who can use starpower at the better opportunity while hitting every solo ever.

In short while Guitar Hero 5 doesn’t have the level of expert difficulty Dragonforce gives us or Guitar Hero: Metallica it’s still a great game with tons of replay value especially if you are willing to play different instruments. This game is great for parties I can’t stress it enough- being able to join instantly in the middle of a song may be the best idea ever for these games. Plus the game has King Crimson – 21st Century Schizoid Man if that won’t sell the copies I don’t know what will.

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 5/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 5/5

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Once again, we are presented with not only a movie tie-in game, but another reboot of a product from the 1980s – G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero. Except this time, the subtitle is The Rise of Cobra. Which is interesting, and a let down at the same time. What makes this interesting is that the writers of this particular adventure had the option of reworking characters many of us grew up with and expanding on their history and tenuous (at best) relationships which had been established within the G.I. Joe universe. The let down however, was that they chose to completely ignore that option, and instead push another lackluster, under-developed game out the door in time to coincide with a summer movie release, and pray that the name alone would trump up some sales numbers.

The basic gameplay of GI Joe is that of a third-person action adventure. And it really doesn’t expand from that point. You run, you shoot, you find some computer-controlled doors, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll even use a vehicle or two, if the controls don’t force you to hurl your controller at the screen within the first few minutes. GI Joe tries, albeit pathetically, to add shall we say, “unique” controls to the game – and by unique, I mean a cover system which is an obvious rip-off from Gears of War, although the developers didn’t seem to find the time to test whether the cover system worked, or if pressing the A button would simply result in your character doing rolling dives right into the path of an enemy tank. Repeatedly.

The game also borrows heavily from the Contra series, in that you are constantly working through each level with a partner character (of your choosing – there are a total of 18 playable characters, including 4 COBRA characters as well, if you can find the necessary items to unlock them), who is controlled for the most part by the computer. The benefit of this is that your partner is invincible; you can hide behind some cover and simply let them take the brunt of the damage as you wait agonizingly for your health to recover. Having this secondary character is also the gateway to the game’s Co-op mode, which allows for another human player to grab and controller and hit start, and immediately drop-in or drop-out of the game. And for the most part, they’ll be dropping out.

At least it looks nice...

The camera in this game is not only laughable, it’s an insult to everything that has been developed since Super Mario 64 was released. You have no control over the angle, height, distance or zoom of the camera, which means you will more than likely end up shooting at a wall, bunker, health container, or enemy at the other end of the map than at the turret/tank/ninja who is slashing your face. The manual even boasts that you can control the target lock-on system, but I have yet to find it successfully follow my instructions and stay locked on the target that is actually killing me. It will track for a few seconds, but if you’re moving around (and you will be – there are sometimes as many as ten enemies all shooting incredibly large missiles and laser bolts at you at any given time), and the camera will simply choose another enemy at random to lock on to.

The level design is just as simple as it was back when the original Contra was released – Jungle Level, Ice Level, Desert Level, Factory Level, etc. At least you know where you’re going, since you can move around the globe pretty easily after completing only a few missions in each zone.

The GI Joe we remember and love.

There are a few spots of light within the drab existence of GI Joe, and that mostly comes from the special features you can unlock by collecting dog tags, briefcases, and file cards scattered throughout the levels. Some unlock concept art for the game, others information on the new – and even the original – characters and vehicles, and others unlock old public service announcements and characters to be used in the game, should you want to go back to replay any of the missions. This is probably the best nod to the original series, since the only other indication that GI Joe is based on anything is when you activate the Accelerator Suits that were used in the film. Once you’ve beaten up or killed enough baddies, you can unleash your supersuit to cause more wanton destruction – and for the duration of this act of ridiculousness, you’re treating to a tiny, heavy metal version of the original G.I. Joe theme-song opening. The first time you hear it, you feel nostalgic and happy, and you want to see if there are any other hints at good things to come. By the second zone, you’re ready to unplug your speakers if you have to use the suit one more time.

I’m very tempted to say that GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is something that only a true, die-hard fan of the original series could really enjoy or appreciate. Unfortunately, even they will be disappointed with this sorry offering – there’s hardly anything more to be found here than on the recently released DVD of the original cartoon season, and the fact that you have to struggle through an incomplete game to try to find it is unacceptable. To borrow an overused and clichéd line, knowing is half the battle. The other half is never dropping this disc into your drive.

Graphics: 2/5

Gameplay: 2/5

Sound: 2/5

Replay Value: 1/5

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

wait.. that princess sure looks familiar

Let Them Eat Cake!

This has been the year of downloadable games/content.  With tons of gems available and consoles finally becoming more network and online oriented, I challenge you to find anyone who has either a 360 or PS3 (maybe even select Wii owners) who has not splurged on any sort of downloadable game.  With full fledged disc based games now coming to your PSN or Live store (look up Burnout Paradise, Warhawk, or 360 games on demand service) the future is definitely download friendly!
One of these gems that I will review today is Titan Studios, Fat Princess exclusively for the PlayStation Network. It takes aspects of Tower defense and capture the flag/zones and feeds it a big piece of cake.

Gameplay
I will be very upfront about this, Fat Princess is a PSN game designed with online multiplayer in mind. That is not to say the game cannot be enjoyed single player-wise but the actual mechanics make sense and shine online. You have selections from your standard grunt, mage, priest, worker, and scout. Now you are in full control of one person and once you die you are re-spawned. You can get AI buddies to follow you and help you but let me stress this: you’re in control of your character only and offline that means tons of AI NPC s going about their business. These guys are helpful but no way near as if you had your friends by your side.

Often times controling the choke points in a map are key

Becoming any class is handled by picking up any hat outside the respected class’s barrack. Want to be a mage after storming your enemy castle? Find a mage hat and put it on, it’s honestly that simple and thus a much faster paced game.

To start things off you can design your base characters avatar, unlocking more as you progress with single player and multiplayer matches. This base avatar is among many that can pick up any hat within your fortress and become a certain class of warrior. Each of these classes can be upgraded in the course of a match and once proper combinations are used can create the strategy you need to win the match. You have eight sprawling maps to wreak havoc in, each with its own theme and music, a gladiator area to practice your combat in and a decent single player adventure that serves the purpose of outlining each mode of the game and showcasing its depth in strategy.

There are plenty of game modes as well, ranging from the standard invasion, death match, capture the princess, and a variation of hold the briefcase. These modes are self explanatory and with the exception of death match and invasion revolve around your Princess and the enemy princess. The goal is simple: lock the enemy princess in the dungeon and rescue yours so she can take her throne. In the process you are collecting resources via workers and pouring them into your outposts so you can upgrade your classes and other items.  Death match and invasion take the same resource and class building systems but give away any princess objective. Instead you have a re-spawn counter for death match and a counter for outposts taken for invasion. An odd mode thrown into the mix is soccer, which is basically a game of soccer using your class characters. This mode seems like an afterthought and though it is fun to try out lost its charm after a couple of matches.

The Pirate theme might just be hinting at something..

In the end, it’s the small touches this game adds that make such a tremendous difference. A good example is the potion that sits within your fortress ready to be unleashed at a swarm of enemy soldiers and can have a tide changing effect. Then there are the small innovations your worker can build, stuff like catapults for you to skip over great distances, ladders to infiltrate the enemy fortress, and small trampolines to take you to higher ground. These small invention hotspots are scattered across the map and placed ideally to make things easier. And believe me that’s not a bad thing, often times consoles get shafted with these smart strategy games however I found that Fat Princess is a good take on strategy style games since Battalion Wars 2 for Wii. By utilizing and simplifying things such as resource management and building zones, we are given a more core focus on combat strategy and territorial control.

Of course not all of these innovations are offensive, some smart defensive aspects such as feeding cake that’s scattered around the land to your opponents Princess which results in having her gain weight and thus taking more people and effort to carry her out of your dungeon.  So suddenly a lone infiltration mission may result in a hasty death.

In terms of classes you can choose from, the worker I found was the most essential in the beginning of each respective match. Solely responsible for all of the games upgrades and building some cool inventions. This class is more important to the game than you believe. The other respective classes to pick from include the warrior- spartan esq character with short range powerful attacks and the ability to use a shield, the mage-a wizard who can conjure up elemental spells of fire and icewhich in turn can either freeze enemies in their tracks or send them running aflamed, the priest -a..priest who can heal your team mates or deal out a large radius of charged holy damage, and the scout – the archer who is best suited for long range attacks and essential for retreats. Each class has its alternative attack that can be switched with the triangle button and can attack with the square. The carrying of items is handled with the circle button and jumping is as easy as pressing X. Besides that, small lock-on opportunities (for the worker only) are handled via the bumpers. It’s all so simple yet believe me, overwhelming and time consuming to get the desired strategy and plan that fits you.
For example you can have a couple of archers clear the way and gain control of a map choke point then send in a couple of warriors and workers to the front lines. Now you can have your warrior buddies fight off the hoards while your workers create ladders and trampolines; send in the mages to do heavy damage at the enemy gates and with the help of the priests and scouts make for a hasty retreat with the princess in possession. There is essentially no limitations to the amount of tactical strategy that is created with these classes working in tandem.

My only gripe is that the tutorial has one too many chapters that don’t fully connect and explain the relative actions that are available to you. Since it’s a download only, there are no instruction manuals to refer to. Thus, you sadly have to really play all the tutorials to get a basic understanding.
This is not the type of game you can just jump into if you haven’t seen how its foundations work but I would say play a couple of the single player campaign missions and you should have a good grasp on things. Overall it’s a tried and true game play with variations that make things interesting and defiantly fresh.

Graphics
The game retains a cell shaded design with tons of vibrant colors popping at you. Surprisingly, this is a T rated game and that is evident, the second you attack someone you are treated to some blood. The blood is cartoony but does create a visceral look as it’s spattered realistically across the map. This cutesy design choice is somewhat reminiscent of cartoons like Happy Tree Friends only less gory. It’s charming enough to get the mature gamers attention. The game runs smoothly with little to no hiccups (though depending on your online connection that could vary) and you’re treated to a pleasurable visual treat of great weapon effects and tons of carnage on screen.
The stylistic choice was a good move for Titan Studios since having 30 plus people online and going on a full fledged cartoony war feels so right.

Small touches like having support barriers and bolts rise up to create upgrade barracks of each class are going to make you smile. Add in some subtle water and foliage effects that don’t distract from the overall design and you have a game that as a total package is at first simple but both fresh and visually pleasing.

Cute stills tell a silly yet funny story

Sound
The sound design is fairly well done, with some good narrative voice work that sounds like John Cleese. This narrator will inform you of things like your castle being raided, outpost being conquered and other important information. Sure hearing someone saying “upgrade complete” a couple of times may get on your nerves, but the voice isn’t annoying enough to be muted. Your characters sound like little chipmunks with a warrior’s heart; it has its charm and is very appropriate. The sound work may get repetitive but it isn’t poorly done.  The music for each map is very appropriate too and often time creates the perfect vibe for a match. It’s not intense nor is it laid back, but a good orchestral arrangement that compliments the maps theme. My only gripe is the title music, which for some reason sounds like a sad haunting ballad that I believed just was the wrong choice.  With sword slashes, gun blasting, and explosions really taking advantage of your sub woofer, you’ll love some of the more intense battles sounds.

Replay
This is a downloadable game and as such, its replay is going to be judged by how much content and support is available. For its price Fat Princess already serves as a fine multiplayer and okay single player action. With unlockable sets for your avatars and other small bonuses, you have something tangible to unlock and are always rewarded along the progression of your game.  Trophy sets add to the achievement hoarders dream and with recent rumors of more downloadable content in the form of levels and skins, things are looking good. In the end all this replay means nothing if you plan on playing the game alone, you need friends to fully experience this game.

Verdict
To summarize, we have a fine PSN game that should make any castle crasher fan envious. It’s a great game and tons of fun. One word of caution though, since PSN owners rarely have any headsets it’s best recommended you and your friends do. I mean at this point, playing online without a headset is ridiculous but it’s been a huge problem on the PSN, despite the fact that the freedom to choose your own headset and connect it seems like such a great option. With more people buying and playing this game online we hope to see more people take advantage of the strategy that can be executed when you all are communicating with each other. Despite some learning spikes and lackluster singleplayer it is a solid effort, don’t let this title pass you by.

Gameplay     4/5
Graphics       3/5
Sound            3/5
Replay          4/5

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I can’t sing.  Not well, anyway.  But I feel that puts me in the norm rather than outside of it.  With that in mind, I sat down last week with a couple of friends who can sing, to enjoy a little SingStar: Queen.

As a huge Queen fan, I felt I had the advantage going in to this impromptu karaoke competition, at least when it came to knowing the lyrics and general dynamic of the songs.  What I didn’t count on (and should have) is that my two fellow competitors were karaoke superstars. For convenience’s sake, let’s call them Brodie and his girlfriend, Chris.

Now, we set out to get a taste of everything this game had to offer.  Having already sung a song on my own before they arrived, I had an idea of the format of the game.  The lyrics appear onscreen along with a display that shows the notes you have to hit, and how long to hold them.  If you hit the note and hold it for the duration, the bar representing that note fills green.  If you don’t hit it, or only hit part of it, the bar doesn’t fill and an area outside of the bar fills red (above the bar for a sharp note, below for a flat note), indicating that you suck.  Let’s just say that I was mostly seeing red that night.

After going through a few solo songs, passing the mic between Brodie, Chris and myself; we decided to do a few duets.  Those went pretty well, and I found that the display for the duets was just as intuitive as the solo version.  After a few battles between two of us at a time (wherein both players sing the song simultaneously, higher score wins) we decided to take on the Pass the Mic feature, which divides players into teams and puts them through various types of challenges.  From Solos, to Battles, to Medleys (arguably the hardest kind of challenge, since you have to pick up the song for a couple of bars and then switch it up) we were laughing our way through the night with this game, from song to song.

To get the high score, you need to grow a Mercu-stache.

But in every case, we ran into the same problem.  We encountered huge delay on the mic track.  We checked out the options screen, under mic settings, to no avail.  We played through the pain, and later I found out that the calibration settings for making sure your mic track, the display and the Queen track are all in sync were under the Display settings.  Not misleading at all.

That is the major problem with Singstar: Queen, and now that it’s out of the way, let’s look at some of the more positive aspects of this game that is, at the end of the day, pretty enjoyable.  The songs are definitely more difficult than previous incarnations of the SingStar brand, due in no small part to Freddie Mercury’s unstoppable vocals, along with the rest of the band frequently providing backup in chorus.  But the fun and flavour of Queen is all over this game.  As you sing, the background video is overlaid with Queen music videos and concert footage, which really adds to the energy of the game – but if you are  confident not only in your singing but also your stage presence, as it were, you can opt to record yourself on video through  PlayStation Eye to get your own personal MTV style.

I suppose the fun is what matters most, but what put a downer on the evening was the awkwardness of getting the

Hot girls not included with game. They don't even show up later. I waited.

sound profile for the game to jive correctly. The playbacks were horrible, but laughably so – which means it was still fun.  All in all, I feel that this game is for karaoke addicts only, and even then it’s definitely on a party-game basis.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I got my ass handed to me by my fellow gamers… BRODIE!!

Graphics – 5 / 5 (For the Queen video playing while you sing)

Audio – 4 / 5 (Awesome song selection, but it’s definitely hard to sing over Mercury)

Controls – 2 / 5 (Controlling menus with the mic is easy, but the menus don’t lend themselves well to calibrating the mic)

Gameplay – 3 /5 (Party games, replay value is weak at best)

Cheers!

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

This review marks a number of firsts for andPOP. It’s the first time I’m reviewing a Disney title, it’s the first game I get to play and write about before the official launch date, and it’s the first game I’ve ever reviewed… in 3D! That’s right, today I’ll be reviewing, nay, PREVIEWING Disney’s G-Force video game on the PlayStation 3; talking about what I liked, what bugged me, and all the interesting cute little things guinea pigs do that now freak me out when I see them in real life. With the movie comes out this Wednesday on July 22^nd, and the game being released July 24, this is your first look into the inner workings of a super secret group of spy rodents.

Following (but expanding on) the story line of the movie, G-Force has you taking the roles of Darwin (guinea pig) the commander of G-Force and his infiltration comrade Mooch (house fly). Throughout the game you progress as the movie progresses, however, in this rendition, you take an active role in saving the world as you interact with other members of G-Force. Beginning with a training level to show you how to make best use of Darwin and Mooch, you are taken through a fairly basic tutorial that looks like it’s been ripped right out the pages of Portal, while the level design is simple and pretty, I feel like this short training session was not nearly enough to prepare you for world savings and robot fightings.

As an action / espionage / adventure title, you are presented with times where you must sneak by lumbering humans, utilize your partner mooch to by-pass defense system (you can access Mooch for a limited time whenever you like by pushing up on the D-pad), upgrade yourself and your weapons, and cause general havoc throughout different parts of the game. What I enjoyed most about G-Force was the variation in gameplay you got to deploy throughout, as different obstacles and objectives gave you new and interesting methods of progressing to your goal.

While you have many different styles of gameplay to enjoy in G-Force, I felt that in order to include all these variants made the controls way too complex, especially considering this game is intended for children, the target demographic of the movie. I think the main reason I find the controls confusing is because not only does every button do something, but as well, depending on the context you are in these buttons can do something else. The best example of this is the X button, while walking it will let you jump, push it again and you double jump, push it a third time and you hover, push jump again and you use your rocket boost. As well, if you push jump while targeting a bad guy, you dive and roll. There are a number of techniques like this that you acquire throughout the game. Beyond this every direction of the D-pad gives you access to a tool such as your hints radar, Mooch, or heat-sensor vision while every face button changes your weapon equipped. The shoulder buttons allow you to attack, target, or scurry across the floor; really there is a lot to do with your controller and in the heat of battle it can get a little flustering. On the flipside, the reason you have so many buttons do so many things is because you have that many weapons, gadgets, and tools at your disposal. Weapons and items such as Mooch, heat-sensor vision, hint PDA, Electro-whip, Plasma gun, scanner, Nanohacker, Saberlizer (That allows you to weaponize every day appliances yourself) and much much more. One thing to note as well when talking about the controls behind this game is that there is no motion sensitive gameplay utilizing the PS3 controller; I would take this as a good thing as a) the controls are confusing enough, and b) I have yet to play a PlayStation 3 game that made good use of such a feature.

The sound in G-force is as expected, but done well. Action packed generic music; zappers, snapping, and appliance related sound effects sound as realistic as I guess we could assume them to sound, as the ambient noise that comes from action and infiltration fill the air I feel that at least, they are appropriate as they are used in the game. The voice acting is decent as well, while I don’t really know what rodents mouths would look like when talking, I take it as them actually speaking in the game, spot on and when talking through their voice communications, the radio-ish distant sound works well. Voice acting is another story however, while Disney was able to keep some of the voice actors in the movie for the game (namely the main character Darwin played by Sam Rockwel, G-force friend Zach Galifanakis, and Saber himself Bill Nighy), a lot of the more unique voices are absent. I guess Will Arnett, Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi, and Tracy Morgan had conflicting schedules. Instead, similar sounding voice actors were used in their place but these I feel were hit and miss as I could not really tell the scope of these voice actors in the film based on trailers alone. For the most part I enjoyed the voices used but in some instances a faux Tracy Morgan just doesn’t do it for me.

Oh Mr. Pink, when are you going to make the leap into gaming?

Here’s the part I assume most of you are most interested in, the graphics. As a current generation game based on a movie which boasts it’s fantastic computer graphics, you would assume G-Force to look great, and it does! From little guinea pig hairs and whiskers, to Mooch buzzing around your head, the modeling of the rodents used in this game are extremely detailed. I wish the same could be said however for the humans roaming around the game as they seem to be a little less rendered than your average first year PlayStation 2 title. Luckily, you do not interact with humans very often as your main enemies are appliances that have been transformed into killing machines (almost exactly like the kitchen appliances at the beginning of the Transformers 2 movie). One thing I enjoyed about the Saber branded appliances however was that with each one introduced, their entire model name complete with number was shown (as if you could purchase these appliances in catalogues) as well, utilizing your scanner, you have the option of discovering each enemy’s weakness and exploiting them during your attack. Overall I think the graphics used in G-Force the video game weren’t exactly up to par with the movie (that took millions to produce) but were still pretty slick for a PlayStation 3 title with all the particle effects used and whatnot… what? That’s not the big thing you were interested in? Ohhhhh, you want to hear about the 3D? Well, let me tell you all about it, gather around children. As the first console 3D game, I was a little worried as to how it would work out because, to be honest, I always had a hard time seeing 3D in movies (like Monsters Vs. Aliens, Up, and Ice Age 3) but to my surprise G-Force came with two paper blue and red 3D glasses, like the old school ones instead of the new polarised technology. Now, the 3D-ness of G-Force can be turned on and off whenever you like in the options menu, which not only do I think is a fantastic idea for those who get headaches easily, but also extremely useful if you have more than two people in the room watching the game. I find the 3D welcome, but a mixed bag of usefulness from time to time. Mooch, your whip, and the jetpack will actually pop out and look amazing; but other times such as during some cutscenes and menus it is very hard to see what’s going on or what you are choosing. The most prominent example of this issue is if you are playing in 3D and your hint screen tells you to push a certain direction on the D-pad to activate a new ability, every direction looks the same in these 3D glasses and you cannot tell what direction the screen is telling you to push. Reading text in general while in 3D mode I find is also quite challenging. Overall however, the introduction of 3D into G-Force did not in any way make the game harder to play or control and in the end I think is quite amazing in short bursts, I don’t think I could play the entire span in 3D alone.

Now for the rest of the review that didn’t really fit in anywhere else. The instruction manual that came with G-Force was abysmal; I find more often as time goes on that companies stop using instruction manuals as well… manuals for instruction and rather as promotional pieces. I say this because I went through G-Force’s instruction manual a number of times looking for instruction on saving, controls, gameplay mechanics, screenshot explanations… anything that I would like to know before diving into the game and I could not find any. Instead there were just instructions on how to turn on the system and the rest of the manual was just an explanation of the characters, weapons, story, and levels. Playing through the game you collect health, ammo, chips, and silver and gold discs. Chips are a form of currency you use to purchase upgrades and new weapons, upgrades and weapons you unlock with gold and silver discs. In order to purchase these weapons and upgrades you must find a Saber branded vending machine. Two things about these vending machines, 1) you cannot see what you are selecting in the vending machine menu in 3-D mode, and 2) if these are machines… why aren’t they transforming and attacking you like every other machine in the game? Silver discs that provide upgrades are hidden (along with extra lives) throughout the game in strategically placed spots so for the completionist gamers out there, you have a little extra something to look out for while playing through G-Force. Maps showing the location of these silver discs can also be purchased at vending machines.

Overall I was impressed with G-Force, while it is not my type of game, I thoroughly enjoyed the graphics, control, gameplay, and innovations found within, and I know I’m not the only one that enjoyed it as you all will see soon enough when Jenn’s video interview and demo of G-force is published in the near future. One thing I have to ask though, is how vicious flesh tearing waffle irons get into the heating vents of an office building…

Gameplay: 4.5/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 2.5/5

Read more at andPOP. andPOP - POP Culture with Substance

Alright folks, this is the premier review by yours truly on andPOP.  This week I’m taking a look at iNFAMOUS, from Sucker Punch Productions.

inFAMOUS follows the story of Cole, a messenger given strange electricity-based powers from a devastating explosion that destroys a good chunk of Empire City and cripples the rest.  As Cole struggles to understand and control his new powers, he sets out to discover how the blast happened in the first place, and who’s responsible.  He may not like what he finds out.

I’ll start off by saying that inFAMOUS is a lot of fun.  This sandbox game is open-ended entertainment.  As you travel the length and breadth of Empire City, you can play through the game’s story missions or venture off on side missions and scavenge for extras.  But nothing is perfect, and inFAMOUS is not an exception to this rule.  There are glitches and oversights that, if corrected, could have made this a potential heir to the PS3 throne (the “throne” being the throne of Awesome).

The control scheme here is sort of a blend of Assassin’s Creed meets Force Unleashed.   It’s intuitive and very quick to master, even though you gain abilities throughout the game.  The biggest reason that these controls are so easy to pick up is that after you gain a new ability, you are put through a very brief sequence that involves situations relevant to your new power.  It’s not too obvious, and it works.  The most exciting feature is the freerunning, though.  Apparently our hero picked up some intense parkour skills in his life as a messenger/urban explorer, and puts them to use climbing anything and everything in Empire City with a handhold (except for chainlink fences and some stairs, apparently – yes, really).  Aside from some invisible walls here and there and Cole’s seemingly uncontrollable need to grab anything in his reach to hang on to when falling or jumping, this freedom of movement is above par for any game that’s come before.

OK buddy, that's one healing, you're fine. I'm gonna need that wallet.

The fundamental feature of this game that Sucker Punch is really hanging their hat on though is the Karma system.  Reminiscent of Fable or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, your actions and reactions throughout the game contribute Good or Evil Karma to an overall Karma Meter, which in turn determines whether you’re headed from Neutral rank to a Good ranking (Guardian to Champion to Hero), or an Evil one (Thug to Outlaw to Infamous).  This is handled in a couple of ways.  During missions, you may come to a crossroads (Karma Moment) that will have you choose between 2 courses of action.  These are all very black-and-white (or red-and-blue, as it were) and involve such conundrums as “Should I zap a couple of people and take all this food for myself, forcing others to starve, or share it with everyone?” or “Should I dress up as a clown and entertain the kids at this birthday party, or kick that puppy in the face?” (warning: game may not contain puppy kickage).  But as the game progresses, your policy of cutting a swathe of destruction across the city will have it’s consequences, as will healing every person lying around (apparently, no matter what your ailment, 10,000 volts will get you back up and running – or it could be that 34% of the population of Empire City are suffering from heart attacks at random).  If you choose the Good path Cole remains clean and charged with blue electricity, and gains upgrades to abilities (purchased with earned XP) that focus on subduing foes rather than killing them, and avoiding collateral damage.  Evil is another story – Cole becomes grungy and pale, and collateral damage seems to be the aim of the day (Like one grenade-like attack that splits into 7 grenadelets per push of the button – that’s called having a bad day).  I chose Good the first time around, and Evil the second.  I found that the Good abilities rack up as better than Evil in the long run, although the freedom of doing anything you want as an Evil character generally cranks the fun level up a bit during gameplay. All in all, the Karma system is, no pun intended, what keeps inFAMOUS in balance.  Without it, this would just be GTA IV with superpowers.

The missions of inFAMOUS are once again, reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed – although this time with a little Spider-Man 2 thrown in.  It’s fine to run through the story one mission after another, only doing side missions as necessary, but why?  There’s so much to be had within the city (Blast Shards that increase your electricity capacity, Dead Drops that expand on the plotline before the explosion) that it’s crazy not to run through each and every side mission.  Not to mention the fact that when you finish a side mission, that area of Empire City is now your turf.  No more getting-shot-in-the-back-of-the-head-while-trying-to-collect-that-Blast-Shard-on-the-side-of-the-building woes (yes, I just used 20 hyphens – deal with it).

The side missions are somewhat repetitive – protect this, destroy that, go here, stay there etc.  with a few exceptions.  I’m not bashing the side missions, mind you – there’s only so much you can do to keep the game original beyond the story missions.  At least it isn’t as painfully repetitive as Assassin’s Creed.  The story missions really do keep you guessing, and are not only entertaining but very engaging at a narrative level – and ironically, the in-game cutscenes pale in comparison  to the far more intense comic-book style cinematics.  Another feature of this game that really drives the tone and feel of the story is the score.  With a blend of orchestral and electronic composition, with a badass electric cello soloist (Martin Tillman) overtop, the music of this game can bring you into the dark and gritty feel of the Warren slums, or the intense firefights over the rooftops of the Neon district.

All in all, inFAMOUS is really a matter of choice.  If you choose the easy path (of mass destruction), you end up with a harder time later in the game; however, if you tough out the missions at the beginning and take one for the team now and again, it usually winds up in your favour later on. If you choose to take this game too seriously when playing, it will disappoint.  The glitches and oversights mentioned above will really grate on your nerves, and you’ll probably be yelling “Oh, come on!” before the first save.  But if you take this game at it’s cover – a good, solid sandbox with superpowers – then you shouldn’t have a problem taking the downside with the up.

Great Scott!

Gameplay – 3 gigawatts/5

Graphics- 3.5 gigawatts/5

Sound – 5 gigawatts/5

Replay Value – 3.5 gigawatts/5

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Logan, Weapon X, James, Jimmy, Wolverine. Whatever you want to call him, there’s no denying he’s one of the biggest names in super-hero history. Then why has he been so hard to franchise for? Could it be that it’s hard to market a children’s video game where the main character is a raging animal? Could it be that with such a deep story line a game could never encompass everything that wolverine is? Could it be that it’s hard to have a game where players can die, when the character himself has survived bullets in the brain, being ripped in half, AND walking directly into the sun? For these reasons and more I feel there has never been a video game that has done wolverine justice… that is, until now.

With the increasing level of quality connected to licensed games (Spiderman: Web of Shadows and Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Athena come to mind), X-Men: Origins: Wolverine raises the bar with this exceptional title. It could be because in the past only children played games, but as those children grew up, they required more adult oriented action. Enter Wolverine. This is by far one of the bloodiest, gruesome-ist, and most stylized carnage I have ever had the pleasure of controlling, and after the lack of blood found in the X-Men: Origins: Wolverine movie, I felt this was much needed.

Origins, like any other game based on a movie, follows the main character, Wolverine, as he progresses through the story, based on the movie, based on the comic. However, where the movie would zig, the game would zag, including much more action, fighting, character depth, super powered villains and dismemberment than the movie had. While I enjoyed the movie as both a comic geek and an action enthusiast, I feel it would have been a lot more enjoyable had it tied closer to what this game represented. As a single player story title, Origins is most comparable to the God of War franchise, same graphical style, same amount of gore (although I feel Origins wins out here a little), and same perspective. You control Wolverine, beginning in a jungle fighting off tribal locals you quickly understand why he’s ‘the best there is at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice’. Utilizing your fighting knowledge, claws, mutant powers such as berserker mode, feral sense and other manoeuvres (such as combos similar to God of War) you make your way through the game, more or less along the same path as the movie.

Now, there are a couple of mechanics I feel must be explained before we go into the graphical aspect, feral sense is a little odd, the screen will go black and white for a little while in which time you will see explosive objects in red, environmental objects in green, and other objects of interest in orange allowing you to see exactly what is around you easily. As well, feral sense can help you figure out where you need to head to progress through the game via a weird Donny Darko style wormhole coming out of you (or by following footprints during specific parts of the game). There are mutagens spread throughout the game as well that can be upgraded three levels and give you various bonuses such as increased health, increased reflex learning and so on, you can also unlock three separate mutagens to use at the same time to make your perfect killing machine. Continuing on with reflexes, based on the different types of bad guys you fight (robots, gunner, knife wielders, etc) you gain experience from killing these people and begin to learn how to kill them much more efficiently, through reflexes, after killing enough of them, you ‘gain a level’ against those specific bad guys and can improve this up to three levels as well. For those who have tried the older Punisher game from a few years back will also be reminiscent of environmental kills. Throughout the game Wolverine has the ability to perform gruesome one hit kills by impaling bad guys on tree stumps, throwing them into electric grids and so on. Horrific and efficient. You gain experience much like God of War, and throughout the game you find special soldier corpses that hold dog tags, collect these tags for extra experience and achievement bonuses as well.

Throughout the game you will also find, hidden (of course) a number of action figures, collect enough and you can unlock one of three extra costumes from Wolverine’s history. So to recap the collectables throughout the game, we have dog tags for experience, mutagens to increase abilities, action figures to unlock costumes, and as well, there are health increase items to find. Finally the last aspect unique to Wolverine is that he’s nearly indestructible, adamantium skeleton and mutant healing means he takes a beating and keeps on going. So how did they fix this issue in game? By introducing two different health bars, the first is kind of like Wolverine’s mutant healing, your standard health bar, but if you don’t get a hit for a while, it heals up fairly quickly. The second is a circle with a heart in it, this essentially shows his vital organ status. After taking enough damage and having the first bar depleted, Wolverine’s REAL health starts to lessen and takes a longer time to replenish. Once both health bars are gone, Wolverine is ‘captured’ or his mission ‘fails’ and you have to restart from the last checkpoint, never once do they ever say he died, because well… if he was able to die so quickly, chances are he would have long ago.

Graphically I truly enjoyed Origins, there was a high level of detail to be found in every varying level (from jungle, to snowy lake for example) and while some games go over the edge to a point where it’s hard to see anything, Wolverine’s feral sense takes care by simplifying your view. Blood splatters, grainy sand and destroyable environments (as well as destructive environments) means you’ll always be able to appreciate your surroundings when taking a break to heal or relax. Wolverine’s visualization was by far one of my favourite aspects of the game. Any damage he takes is shown on his person. Bullets hit him, bullet wounds appear, shotgun to the chest, hole in chest until it heals up. And his tank top keeps getting torn apart. As realistic as an X-Men game can be! Animation styling is also high up there, as Wolverine gets smashed into the ground by a big bad guy or thrown across the room by Sabretooth, you see limbs flail and even want to flinch at the pain inflicted upon him, but you don’t, instead you smile and keep on playing.

Wolverine sounds like Hugh Jackman in the game, and Liev Schrieber sounds like Victor Creed in the game. How could they get such good voice actors for a video game based on a movie? Well the answer is simple, because the voices you hear in game are in fact, Hugh Jackman and and Liev Schrieber! Unlike most other video game movies in the past, they hired on most of the same people to voice their virtual counterparts throughout the entire game, making the production value for this title that much more prestigious. As well, when Logan pops radio headsets into his ear and you hear the surrounding chatter, it gives a little bit of an edge, having a little knowledge of what will pop out based on what the bad guys are saying. Otherwise your standard fare of screams, growls, artillery and metal scraping on metal balance out the rest of the audio entertainment in this game.

Over all I was surprised by two things in this title. First, I was surprised that I actually found it good! After the Iron Man game, I feared the worst, but this title was actually full of value and entertaining! The second surprise was that since it seemed like a lot of repetitive slashing and maiming, I thought I would bore quickly of this game, but really, I played it for a good long time before beating it and even after that I wanted to play again on hard mode! Not many games make me want to do that. As well, apparently if you pre-ordered this title, you received a code to download the Origins arena which (I’m told) gives you access to hours of impaling bad guys or cutting off limbs… not sure what else it offers. As well, watch out which version you get for X-Men: Origins: Wolverine as the PS3 and Xbox 360 have the un-caged edition (meaning you fight humans and there is a lot of blood) vs. the normal edition for PS2, Wii, DS, and PSP. These versions lack blood or humans to chop up… and in the end, that’s what makes this title so much better!

Gameplay: 5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Sound: 4/5
Replay Value: 4/5

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After Guitar Hero: Aerosmith fell as a bust, I was extremely hesitant to pick and try a guitar hero title based on one of my favourite metal bands, but through my loyalty of both the game and the band, I figured I’d give it a shot, after all, Metallica would never sell out, right? (that was a joke). Guitar Hero: Metallica (GH:M) delivers everything it promised. Open for the band, play with the band, be the band. While presentation, music, graphics, and extras are all phenomenal (and all that are important to the Guitar Hero brand); I still felt a little off about GH: M, more the vibe I get from the band itself than anything else. GH:M promised us three things. A kick ass sound track, a real feel for what the band does almost nightly while on tour, and visuals that rival a live concert. In all three sections, GH:M meets expectations and does it with flair.

Visually I enjoyed GH: M not only as a video game but how closely it felt to a live concert. As I had attended a Metallica concert a couple of months ago, with the show fresh in my mind I decided to compare it to their virtual stage presence. Their signature moves were all there, stances, postures, actions and facial reactions were all accurate. In fact a couple of times it kind of weirded me out that they could nail down the motion capture so perfectly. Again however, this lead to an issue I’ve always had with Guitar Hero, that being that the stage presences during songs felt too scripted. If you were to play the same song three times in a row for example, all three times James would whip his guitar up in the exact same manner at the exact same point every time, an issue you witness less with their rival game, Rock Band. Otherwise when playing as the house band you’re in the same position as if you were playing any other Guitar Hero title, same characters and instruments present, which was expected comparing GH: M to their Aerosmith predecessor. While playing as Metallica however, up to the hair styles and facial blemishes you play and look like a much younger Metallica band… which I guess makes sense as if you were aging and greying, would you want to be immortalized in your prime or your later years? Lighting effects, virtual pyrotechnics, and all that fun stuff are included and work well with the songs they apply to, much like a planned concert yet again. Stage backgrounds almost all relate to a Metallica album or tour and as such, all these features combined provide the most realistic concert simulator to date.

This sound track is wicked. Not only do players get to enjoy a slew of Metallica songs (almost 30) from All Nightmare Long to Whiplash, but you also get some great tracks from bands that have, in one way or another, interacted with Metallica in the past. These tracks include Bob Seger’s Turn the Page, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesdays Gone, Slayer’s War Ensemble, and Toxicity by System of a Down to name a few. The only con to this amazing track list of approximately 50 songs is that not everyone might find it amazing. If you’re a fan of hard rock or metal, you will adore this list, if however, you’re a fan of country, pop, or easy listening… well then a) you would hate this track list… and b) why would you pick up Guitar Hero: Metallica in the first place? As well, players can access the Death Magnetic album DLC in GH:M, saving them from swapping the disc out for Guitar Hero: World Tour. It’s true however that Death Magnetic is the only DLC that will work on GH:M, I feel this may again have to do with the scripted stage presence found in this title.

Controlling Metallica has never been easier, players can drum, play the guitar or bass, or sing their favourite tunes as one of the most influential bands in history. The guitars are a-blazing, vocal chords burning, and drums pounding and this was in fact one of the reasons I felt Metallica was somewhat rubbing in the hardships of their jobs with this title. I will admit it must be really hard being Metallica, standing on stage rocking their asses off for hours on end, I don’t necessarily want to experience that pain when playing a leisurely game at home. Some of these songs are lightning fast from start to finish and some of them are extremely long. Players have three options: a) they can pause in the middle of songs for a rock-break to rest their rock-fingers, b) players can suffer and struggle through the rock-pain, or c) they can train day and night for months on end to be able to virtually rock as long and as well as Metallica. The drums have it especially bad, as Lars showboats in the game and virtually (and smugly) laughs at how you can’t do what he does on a plastic toy, it got a little annoying that every song took 5-10 minutes to play through. At certain points I felt the urge to just turn the title off and play something fun… or rest my hands in a bowl of cold water. To add insult to injury, since my Guitar Hero drum set was defective, I was using the Rockband drum set, meaning one less pad to play making the game that much easier… but still painful. Add on the extra hard plus mode for drums (not recommended unless you have the double bass pedal bundled with pre-ordered games) and you have one hell of a time ahead of you. Guitar and bass weren’t any easier, just as fast, just as long, just as painful. It’s not so much that the songs are hard to play, but rather they’re fast, furious, and long.

So what else is there to do beside play the game? Well, I’m glad you asked. Much like Guitar Hero 1 and 2, to progress through the ‘story’ mode, instead of having to beat certain songs, players only had to accumulate a certain number of stars to progress, meaning you could skip all the songs you found boring until a later point. The real fun however comes from all the added bonuses the game provides. Aside from the standards like quick play mode, online play, multiplayer band, and battle mode, there are characters to unlock such as Lemmy (of Motorhead fame) and King Diamond (from Mercyful Fate), instruments and costumes to unlock and other colour variations and videos to ‘purchase’ from the game store. New features in the battle mode include new power ups such as ‘fade to black’, ‘trapped under ice’, and ‘ride the lighting’ (which is essentially the same as amp overload). Another extra bonus is that every song in the game is available in quick play mode from the start, a welcomed tweak to this Guitar Hero fan. Players can also go backstage to practice the more challenging songs, view behind the scene videos and pictures, and read song lyrics. You also have the option of creating your own Rockstar in the aptly named Rockstar Creator mode, leader board, Rock rank, and community stats tracking fill out the extras. Oh, I may have neglected to mention two extra cool additions to the bonus mode, Drum over mode allows players to erase the drum track to any song and, depending on which song, the accompanying drum tracks are available to go wild and sound great doing it with any track in the game. The second bonus, again, I feel is Metallica tooting their own horn, but is still kind of neat. Metallifacts, after you finish a song you unlock the Metallifacts for it in which the song will be shown and played in the background, but throughout the song little fact pop-ups appear, kind of like a DVD-style text based commentary. While the concept is neat, I’m not sure I really care that the sound I’m currently hearing is a trumpet played in reverse. I’m sure it’s something different… but I just don’t care.

Overall if you’re a fan of Metallica, you should go out and get this title for whatever system you have, if you don’t have any systems available for this title but love Metallica, you should go get an Xbox or PS3 and rock the heck out! If you can’t stand stuck up, full of themselves rock stars (which by far Metallica is allowed to be) you might want to steer clear of this one. One thing’s for certain with Guitar Hero Metallica however, it will by far increase your finger stamina to a whole new level.

Gameplay: 4.5/5

Graphics: 4.5/5

Sound: 5/5

Replay Value: 4/5

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In a new age of video gaming, users get the complete picture when it comes to sports games. Gone are the days when exhibition and season game modes were all that were offered. These days, you the gamer get a grand variety of modes when it comes to sports games.

With PlayStation2′s NBA 09: The Inside, you get the opportunity to be a part of the logical progression of an up-and-coming NBA player with “The Life” feature. “The Life” is the primary game feature The Inside has to offer, along with your basic exhibition, season, and franchise gameplay modes. The Life lets you go through the logical progression of a young player coming up in the business. This feature is the game’s main attraction, but little else is available to whet the gamer’s appetite. If you’ve experienced some of the more in-depth games out there, you will find these basic modes are just that – basic.

Because basically gameplay controls can be tricky (for example, directional passing is hard to pick up on but is important to know how to use), I would suggest honing your skills in some of the drills the game offers, such as “Claim the Post” and “Slalom Run”. These are okay alternatives if you tire of the basic gameplay modes. Shooting is somewhat tedious in this game, far more so than in the EA Sports games of years past. The shooting meter must illuminate in green to guarantee a good shot or yellow to guarantee a chance. Defense, in addition, is also hard to work with, mainly because it is hard to transition from switching players to getting into proper defensive position. Transition defense is so critical in the game of basketball, so not being able to utilize the controls with ease is rather frustrating.

In addition, the players and announcers in this game are cookie-cutter at best. There are no classic quotes from the broadcasters, a la John Madden in the Madden franchise. Even instant replay is slow and a pain to use. Most basketball games will give the user not only the option of multiple replay looks after baskets (in some cases, games will force-feed the gamer too many replays), but also make it a luxury rather than a nuisance to utilize. The buttons needed to view a replay are as hard to work as the actual gameplay buttons. But alas, if you are one of those ultra-competitive gamers, you can never see enough replays of your wicked, 360 slam-dunk.

Another thing to note that is that if you are playing a game, and let’s say you are either getting blown out or simply bored and fed up playing that particular game, there is no option to simulate the remainder of the game, such as there is in MLB 08: The Show. You can only restart or quit. So tip to the user: if you can’t figure out how to play, you could be in for long games – literally.

The game is still a suitable choice for avid sports fans because it still has all of the bare necessities a true sports gamer needs. But the overall quality is still rather lacking in comparison to its competition.

If you have a grand choice of basketball games to choose from, the wise choice would be to shun NBA 09: The Inside.

Graphics: 2.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 2.5 / 5.0
Sound 3.0 / 5.0
Replay value 2.0 / 5.0

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AWWWW YEAH! Guitar Hero World Tour (GHWT) kicks ass! It seems Neversoft and Activision really got their act together after the disappointing release of Guitar Hero 3 for this Rockband competitor, with the release of GHWT in late October on the PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. This will be one tight review so I’ll get right to it with this Xbox 360 review. Because there are so many aspects to this game I’ll break it down as follows: I’ll talk about the instruments, the graphics, the music, the game options, and finally my overall feel of the title.

First off, GHWT is directly competing with Rockband 2 this time around by offering a full set of instruments, guitar drums and microphone. The Microphone is nearly exactly the same as the mic from Rockband 2, they both function just as well, both are wired USB microphones and both work on each game. The new Guitar Hero Guitar is by far my favourite video game controller I have ever touched, the look of the faux wood finish, the weight and balancing of the controller, the addition of a star power button (to avoid premature star power activation) the response and feel of the brightly colored Guitar Hero known buttons, strum bar and whammy bar all feel and look fantastic. There were no problems in terms of awkwardness or missed notes due to malfunction. The two main aspects that make this guitar better than the rest are as follows, first off, its 100% wireless, with an Xbox button and control system you don’t need another controller to set up from powering up the system to playing. The big feature for me however was the introduction of a slide bar! Much like Rockband had the mini-flushed buttons for solos and quick maneuvering, Activision took it one step further by introducing a single slide bar for the same purpose. With this bar you can slide your finger up and down the notes to connect fast tap-ons and pull-offs, tap the keys themselves or double finger for those hard to play songs. It feels amazing and while it takes some getting used to, the game is ultimately that much more fun to play if you feel like your rocking out that much harder. The Guitar Hero World Tour experience isn’t over until we discuss the brand new Guitar Hero drum set, designed and engineered with the help of top drum professionals such as Travis Barker of Blink 182 and Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame. This drum set, which is also wireless (aside from the wire going from the bass pedal to the drum set) features three QUIET (compared to RB’s loudness) pads, a bass pedal that only moves an inch to counter the breaking pedals of RB, and two cymbals to round out the 6 note drums of GHWT. Extra features include Velcro bottoms on the bass pedal (a simple innovation) so you can place it anywhere without it moving, a full controller set on the drum set itself, and my personal favourite advancement in terms of video game music-ology, touch sensitivity! If you hit the pads hard, they make a louder more distinct sound (and in some cases, a different sound all together) to make the drum experience that much more realistic.

Graphically, I think GHWT finally got their act together, I was thoroughly disappointed by the visual aspect of GH 3 but this time around I felt they finally let go of their obsession with characters such as Axle Steele and while they are still around, players have the ability to create their own custom avatars. This isn’t what got me excited however, it was the many surprise guest characters in the game I had no idea would show up. Superstars such as Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, Sting, and my personal favourite Zakk Wylde to name a few would join your band temporarily to give you the rock out sensation of a lifetime. Other graphics include the motion and fluidity of the characters, not just the band but the repetitive (but acceptable) audience as well. They all move realistically and I feel as though they are actually playing the songs! Even before the band starts if you mess around with the drums, the drummer more or less follows on screen. Motion captured celebrities do their trademark moves and look and feel as though you are watching them live in concert. Speaking of live concerts, a big improvement over the last Guitar Hero are the venues, rarely do we see inexcusable sponsorships (like AXE or Pontiac) and now we’re introduced to real rock venues such as Ozzfest and AT&T Park. Real sponsorships are provided and sometimes updated but the big difference to me is that this time around, the encores aren’t as lame as Guitar Hero 3’s change of scenery ever so slightly. Another cool aspect is the Tool inspired stage, made in collaboration with the band.

Now, this IS a music game so the audio is of course, key. GHWT did not fail by offering more songs than they ever have before, and it’s not just so-so tunes you’ve never heard of, we’re talking big hits! Songs like American woman, Are you gonna go my way, Purple Haze (live edition no less!), Stillborn, The middle, Hotel California, Dammit and much much more. In fact, that’s only a small sample of the whopping 86 songs that initially come with the game, not to mention the constant stream of downloadable songs in the future as well as future game releases like Guitar Hero: Metallica coming out soon. The soundtrack is amazing, the guitar drums and mic all sound responsive, and with the proper setup, you could experience the greatest musical feeling you’ve ever achieved in your basement.

GHWT has yet again expanded their modes of play in this one, aside from the expected single player experience (which was yet again revamped to have more of a path connection without forcing players to play what they don’t want to (like the first Rockband did), career mode can be played on any instrument as well as the ability to have friends join in on your career when they come over for a visit so you can keep unlocking songs without having to take turns, or even worse, make your friend wait on the couch while you unlock more on your own. Of course while you play songs in career mode, you earn cash and items which can then be used to update your custom avatar (if you made one). New to GHWT is the ability to play band career mode online, with them being anywhere in the world, new options such as no-fail mode and no bass pedal mode as well as differing difficulties between band mates lets you play with anyone anywhere at any time. Other options include quick play mode where you (solo or with friends) can play a set list of up to 6 songs of any of the songs you have already unlocked in career mode (or through codes). My favourite new mode gives players the ability to create their own music! In the Music studio, players can write and share their own custom created songs online. You create track over track utilizing different music styles chosen by you and can create lead, rhythm, bass, and drum tracks to be played back in game. You can also utilize the GHMix mode to create distortion and other nifty effects. These songs will be played back in expert mode and GHWT will automatically convert them to easier difficulties as you play on medium or hard mode. The best part, you can go online and download other people’s creations for free!

All in all I think Guitar Hero World Tour could be considered the best music game out there to date, they definitely take the ‘most improved’ award in my book. Overall every aspect of the game has been improved upon Guitar Hero 3 and even many aspects over Rockband 2! While some issues still linger (my Guitar Hero drum’s blue pad isn’t sensitive enough and the USB calibration tool they sent me did not fix my issues) This is definitely a step in the right direction and shows proof that with Harmonix going on to Rockband, Guitar Hero’s franchise is not done yet! If you’re a fan of Guitar Hero, Rockband or music in general, you owe it to yourself to at least pick up the software for this great title, if you’re fresh to the virtual music scene, pick up the entire kit today! Right now! Don’t wait another minute! Besides, what else are you going to play until the good stuff comes out in March?

Gameplay: 5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Sound: 5/5
Replay Value: 5/5

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