Reviews

WWE All-Stars

April 21, 2011

Taking a departure from the more straightforward in-ring competition that previous WWE games have offered, WWE All-Stars is a more arcade-like presentation, with comically-exaggerated physiques on the superstars and moves that are even more outrageously over-the-top. The result is entertaining, but perhaps appropriate considering the current WWE corporate policy is not quite “wrestling” as most would recognize it. Given my rocky experiences with those previous games, this is actually for the best.

Each superstar is divided into one of four categories (Big Man, Brawler, Grappler, or Acrobat); each category has their own strengths and weaknesses, with a couple of unique control moves available only to them, but overall each superstar handles in mostly the same way. The game supports Classic Controller and GameCube control pads in addition to Remote + Nunchuk controls; I used the Classic Controller (Pro) and had very few issues. The controls are also customizable, if you wish to further tweak them to your liking. There are over thirty superstars available, with about half of them locked away initially. You can also create your own, but the options to do so are fairly limited.

The main attraction of WWE All-Stars (and the one in which you unlock all of the hidden superstars) is the Fantasy Matchup mode, which pits a current superstar with a somewhat analogous “legend” from the company’s past to determine, for instance, who is the best big man (Andre the Giant or Big Show?), the best innovative offense (Ricky “the Dragon” Steamboat or Kofi Kingston?), or the dirtiest snake (Jake “the Snake” Roberts or Randy “the Viper” Orton?); a few of these match-ups actually happened — usually ones involving more recent “legends” like The Rock, Eddy Guerrero, or Shawn Michaels — but the dozen or so remaining unique match-ups are fun “what if”s. The pre-match videos that play before each one of these matches are by far the best feature of the entire game, as the WWE’s top-notch production crew outdid themselves in assembling packages that would not be out of place on an actual pay-per-view featuring these match-ups.

The other primary solo mode is Championship, which pits your chosen superstar against a ten-match gauntlet for the right to face either the Undertaker, Randy Orton, or Degeneration X; completing this mode with any character unlocks alternate ring attire for that character (or one of the few hidden arenas if you use a created superstar). Exhibition mode is your basic catch-all versus option, allowing up to four players to chose one of about half a dozen different match types. Of course, the problem with more players (or participants in general) is the fact that there are at least four pre-match load screens per match: the introduction of the arena and stipulations, the individual introductions and (often abbreviated) entrances of each wrestler, and then the actual match itself. The load times are reasonably quick, but having to sit through so many in a row for almost no reason is a nuisance; you can skip past the intros using the + button, but there is no option to ignore them outright so you still have to suffer the loads. Commentary by JR and Jerry Lawler is fine, if monotonous at times, and Howard Finkel’s usual quality ring introductions are confusingly hampered by the complete lack of any emotion he put into the announcement for the winner of the match (which is, to my mind, more the fault of the game’s director than Mr. Finkel).

There is no online play (or downloadable content) on the Wii version. In fact, a lot of features present in the HD versions are missing from the Wii version. If you’ve seen the commercials for this game and seen all of the cool zoomed-in camera angles you might be disappointed when you realize that this version doesn’t have them. It also has some serious issues with sound quality, especially when you execute a finisher or signature move and the sound all but cuts out; it’s pretty obvious that this is where the other versions would cut to a close-up but this version is just left hanging with nothing to cut to. Apparently the Wii version is a port of the PSP/PS2 version, which is so lazy and inexcusable on so many levels at this stage in the console cycle that I’m actually grading this title slightly harsher than I would normally. The Wii has sold more units (in any market and/or worldwide) than both of its HD competitors (as of December 2010), and yet it is still being treated as a second-class console by many third-party developers in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

While it would be valid to say that WWE All-Stars is the best wrestling game I’ve played in a long time, it would be more accurate to say it is merely the least horrible one, and I say this as a lifetime fan. When I’m able to look past its numerous faults, I enjoy playing WWE All-Stars. For a little while, anyway. I’m never going to be bored enough to endure Championship Mode with all thirty-plus superstars in order to unlock everything, but it’s still fun in small doses. The real problem is that I can never really ignore the fact that, as a Wii owner, I’ve been given a clearly inferior product yet again.

Pros: Fast-paced play; unique roster; fantasy match-up videos

Cons: Someone keeps thinking porting the PS2/PSP version onto the Wii is a good idea

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance

April 20, 2011

PS3 / Reviews / by Graham Russell /

At this point, a co-op dungeon crawler seems like a relic of generations past. We don’t mean that in a bad way; the genre just hasn’t seen the flurry of releases on the latest consoles that it had in the PS2 days. (Is it the emergence of MMOs? Genre fatigue? Just an unfortunate sequence of studio closures? We don’t know.) There hasn’t been a Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, a Champions of Norrath or even a decent Gauntlet out in years. It’s in this environment that Gameloft, the cover band of the industry, has a real shot with Dungeon Hunter: Alliance.

The game’s based, as it always is with Gameloft, on a mobile title. You choose a class, enter dungeons, gather loot and complete objectives. Along the way you level up, gain skills and upgrade attributes. In other words, it’s Dark Alliance without the IP. This version adds multiplayer, and that’s the ingredient it really needed.

First, though, let’s go over the other features. This game has Move support. It is something you should ignore, since pointing with the Move to move and hitting the Move button for almost everything isn’t actually easier or more precise in any way. We get that it’s supposed to be less daunting, but this game’s demographic should really be okay with a Dual Shock at this point. There’s HD! Except not really. The areas are all somewhat recycled from iOS versions, and they have low polygon counts. Thankfully, things are zoomed out enough that it’s not a problem, and the menus have that Torchlight-style low-budget-but-still-slick look to them. Just don’t expect to be impressed, as we think our old Champions disc has comparable visuals. Also, don’t play this single-player. Just don’t! It’s not very fun, as it’s deep enough for a phone game but pales in comparison to other PS3 offerings. Finally, the story is painfully generic. This is fine to just skip conversations in multiplayer, but a better-written tale would have mitigated the monotony when playing alone.

Okay, so the important stuff: Alliance supports four-player co-op, both online and local. Online is seamless as usual, and local does a good job of screen management, allowing all four players to access pop-up menus at once, LittleBigPlanet-style. Loot is randomly assigned a player color and only that person can pick it up, which keeps things even, and you can drop items with similar restrictions to keep a greedy player from messing up exchanges. You can join a host anywhere during his game, and if your quests line up, you can also progress on your own file. (This seems to really only work if all start at once, as otherwise you have to complete the exact same quests on your own before joining up. Still, it’s a welcome addition.) There seems to be one big oversight, though: for a game with four players, it’s weird to have three character classes. Now each class can be customized with skills and such so that they don’t play identically, but the armor and weapon drops are clearly tailored for one class, and two players basically have to split the good stuff. With the occasional exception, though, the item curve is rather shallow, so one guy will get a Spectral Staff with bonus mana regeneration and HP regeneration, and the other will be stuck with… a Spectral Staff with the same attack and fewer bonuses.

The game could use a patch, though. Players occasionally get stuck for a few seconds on obstacles. Your inventory will glitch up and show that your HP-boosting ring is a two-handed mace with bonus fire damage. They’re small, but noticeable, issues, and you hope that a game with so little character could at least be polished. (There were reports of major online issues, but those seem to have been cleared up.)

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is the only declared candidate in the race these days, so in that respect it scores quite a few points. And the genre’s a reliable one that, with a group of friends, becomes fun even if it doesn’t have everything together. The progression, the boss battles and the gratifying feeling of acquiring levels and items that mobile and social games have captured so well lately make Alliance a blast to play, even if we can’t really say the game’s very good in any particular way.

Pros: Enjoyable multiplayer, addictive RPG elements

Cons: Almost soulless, needs some bug squashing

Magicka: Vietnam

April 19, 2011

PC / Reviews / by Graham Russell /

You’ve ventured across Midgard, slaying robe-hating goblins and taking down evil masterminds instead of talking out the issue. What’s a wizard to do now? Clearly the answer is head to Vietnam.

The joke DLC for a joke game, Magicka: Vietnam adds a story mission, an extra survival mode, a spell or two and an extra robe to wear. We won’t talk too much about the rest of the DLC, since there’s not much to say other than they’re amusing, but the main draw here is the Vietnam Rescue Mission.

In the mission, which takes less than an hour as long as you don’t keep dying, you run into Vietnam, take out towers, rescue prisoners, blow up weapons caches and escape on your helicopter. Yes, it’s really short for DLC, but it’s designed as a challenge map, where you complete as many objectives as possible and escape quickly for a higher score. To mitigate the length, you can play online with friends, and only one of you needs the DLC to play it. (It’s an honorable move. Kudos, Arrowhead.)

The mission plays a lot differently from the fantasy campaign. For starters, there are guns everywhere; in fact, unless you pick a base robe that includes a sword or something, there are only guns. They range from smaller guns to automatic rifles to rocket launchers, and many are more useful than the sword ever was. The Vietnam robe also includes a staff that throws grenades, which are useful for getting behind walls and cover. (You can use this robe in the base game, which does add some variety to that, but we wish there were more elements that could cross over.)

Of course, it wouldn’t be Magicka without pop culture references. It leans heavily on Rambo and Tropic Thunder, but you find the occasional other joke, and there are a few bonus “mea culpa” jokes poking fun at the base game’s glitch-filled launch. Fans of the original campaign will enjoy appearances by Vlad, who has somehow become a captain at some point.

Magicka: Vietnam isn’t the kind of DLC that feels like a whole extra game. For those who enjoyed Magicka and wanted more, though, Vietnam hits the spot. We look forward to the next release, and cross our fingers that we at least get a 3-level campaign or something in that one. For now, though, this is definitely five bucks worth of fun.

Pros: Fans will love it, which is the idea of DLC

Cons: Actual mission’s a bit short

Top Shot Arcade

April 18, 2011

Reviews / Wii / by Chris Rasco /

Activision caught my attention last year with the latest release of the Dangerous Hunts franchise, so I jumped at the chance to cover Top Shot Arcade, a hunting arcade title that is exclusive to the Nintendo Wii. Top Shot Arcade features 75 shooting galleries across 15 North American locales and features 6 primary trophy animals with a host of supporting trophies.

Top Shot Arcade is sold standalone or coupled with the fabulous Top Shot Elite peripheral. Gamers opting to pick up the game by itself will need to make use of the Wii Zapper in order to easily play the game. Having played both ways, I would spend the extra money for the Top Shot Elite.

Once you get started, there are 2 primary game modes available to play. First is your standard gallery shooting mode that features 1-4 player action in single and multi-gun varieties. This means you can enjoy multi-player without having to shell out for additional peripherals, but you’ll be taking turns. The second mode is called Rapid Hunt, which features a random set of shooting galleries from across the game. The standard gallery modes feature 6 primary trophy animals that each have 3 hunts that consist of 5 galleries and 1 bonus game. Most bonus games require rapid fire, which accentuates the annoyance that you must reload after every shot. The final bonus game is a nice surprise though.

Each individual shooting gallery features a mix of animals that run across the screen. Trophy animals feature a variable point value based on their size and proximity to you. The larger the animal the more points it is worth. The further away the animal is from you when the kill occurs, the more points you score. Small animals are worth 100 points and also refill your ammo. They are a valuable part of achieving high scores so don’t ignore them. Does also run across your screen and you’ll want to avoid shooting them unless you enjoy the penalty of being unable to fire for several seconds. At the end of each level your total points are calculated based on kills, accuracy, and hunting bonus and a medal is awarded.

Top Shot Arcade is made up of all my favorite parts of the latest Dangerous Hunts title, but also takes a few steps back. It is purely shooting galleries and none of the story mode, but the fact that you are limited to a single weapon (that must reload after every shot) really annoyed me. As I got closer to completing the game it became less of an issue and contributed more to the challenge. For some, it may be a dealbreaker. This is also why I preferred using the Top Shot Elite to the Wii Zapper.

In all, I quite enjoyed Top Shot Arcade. It’s on the Wii, so it doesn’t have jaw-dropping graphics and the commentator can get quite annoying at times, but it is a lot of fun. The standalone game comes in at under $30 so it’s really not a huge investment. Fans of hunting titles will definitely want to consider this a purchase, but others may find it shallow.

Pros: Fun, Optional peripheral, Inexpensive, Multi-player

Cons: Slight learning curve

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars

April 18, 2011

3DS / Reviews / by Graham Russell /

The Ghost Recon series is known for its use of stealth. After all, the games star these elite soldiers that infiltrate enemy lines and take on entire armies at once. With Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, though, it uses a type of stealth we weren’t expecting.

See, Shadow Wars is really a turn-based strategy game, in the vein of X-COM or Fire Emblem. While this makes sense to those who know that X-COM creator Julian Gollop was lead designer on the project, it’s probably not what most expect from a Ghost Recon game. You take a small squad of characters, each with their own abilities, weapons and roles, and move them across a grid-based map to complete objectives. There’s covering fire from allies, foliage and buildings to hide in, ammo pickups and other things, and each step has to be pondered carefully. Some maps require routing enemies, while others make you defend a position or reach specific targets. In fact, many maps have different consecutive parts, each with its own objective.

Those worrying it’ll be too hard (or too easy), don’t fret: the game has three different difficulties, and you can change these mission-to-mission. You get rewarded for higher difficulties with more points toward your rank, but you could go through the entire game at a casual level if you’d like. As you progress through the campaign, it slowly adds mechanics, characters and strategic elements, so in that way it eases you in. In addition, there are one-off battles to fight.

Shadow Wars started life as a DS game, and it has gotten criticism for its graphics. Honestly, we don’t see it. The units, while not very detailed, are small, and they move around with life and character. Sure, these base units could mostly be done on the DS, but, likely a matter of getting the game out quickly, the developers focused on world effects to layer on top. The ravines and rivers on the map look nice, and the fog and such make it seem much more advanced than it is. The result is a “living board game” look, and if you’ve ever played a tabletop miniatures game, after you see this you’ll want something exactly like it for whatever game you play.

The game supports hotseat multiplayer, a turn-based tradition and a welcome addition at launch of a new system. We wish there was full support for four players, but one-on-one matches are still fun. (Unlike Advance Wars, though, Shadow Wars has a bit of a learning curve, so you’ll need to explain various mechanics and control points to new players.)

At launch, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is the only game that looks to stay in your system for longer than a week or so. It’s unlikely to be easily replaced by more robust offerings like the rest of the launch titles, and we heartily recommend it.

Pros: Deep single-player mode, defined characters

Cons: Few 3DS features, not-as-robust multiplayer mode

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →