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Review: Madcatz MLG Pro Circuit Controller

By
Don Parsons
– February 6, 2012Posted in: Hardware, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Meet Mad Catz Newest Controller

Note: This was tested on the Playstation 3. It is also available for the Xbox 360. 

We recently got our hands on the new Mad Catz MLG Pro Circuit controller for the Playstation 3, and from the moment it was unboxed, it was clear it trumped many aftermarket controllers. With any controller, really, you are stuck with whatever options you are given and have to hope for the best. For example, the PDP Afterglow controller is slightly smaller than the stock PS3 controller with the Xbox 360 analog stick layout. But the sticks were concave, so I trashed the controller. Mad Catz has an answer for that, but at a steep $99.99 US pricetag.

With a unique modular design, the Pro Circuit controller allows players a very customized experience. After you unbox this glorious controller and pick it up, you’ll immediately notice the extra weight and soft, velvety backing. The weight is added due to an interchangeable  weight cartridge with two 35 gram weights in it. You can remove one weight or replace the whole piece with a cover. Even without the weights, the controller is heavier than the standard Dualshock controller.

The back’s texture offers great grip during intense situations (ie. Major League Gaming), and when my hands started to sweat, there was no slipping off or re-gripping the controller, unlike my Dualshock. While the back surface can’t be replaced, the front can. The front plates can be swapped out between matte and gloss finishes. The middle, larger piece is easy to remove and attach, but also stays in place like it should thanks to small magnets. The small side pieces (the “legs” of the controller) were a little harder to swap off and on, but once you decide which finish you want, it shouldn’t be an issue. I preferred the matte finish just because it matched the rest of the controller, though the shiny finish didn’t actually feel any different during gameplay (as opposed to having the shiny finish on the back, which would have felt different).

Back to the modules, this is what truly sets this controller apart and puts it in the major leagues. The Pro Circuit controller comes with a pair of D-Pads, a pair of convex analog sticks and a pair of concave analog sticks. After lifting off the front plate, you turn the module counter-clockwise to unlock and remove it. The analog sticks (both styles) have little notches around the base, making the whole process a lot easier. The D-Pads, though, don’t, so you actually had to use the lifted button part to get a grip and lock/unlock it. I found that to be a small problem, and didn’t like switching D-Pads at all.

One of the D-Pads is a cross-style, while the other is button-style. I preferred the seperated, button-style as opposed to the other when playing shooters. But if I was using the button-style one to navigate menus, if I didn’t hit it just right it also moved in another direction. However, this could have been me not being used to the setup I was using (X360-style).

Both of the analog options have the same tension setting as the other. After going back and forth with the Dualshock and Pro Circuit controllers, the Mad Catz offering has a much stiffer analog stick. This is something that might be easier for X360 gamers to get used to, but someone who only plays on a PS3 might have some issues getting comfortable with the difference in tension.

The varying degrees of controller layout offer each individual player their own way to play. You can play with the standard Dualshock option, the standard X360 option, or any mix in between. For awhile, I played with a X360 layout that had a concave left stick, button-style D-Pad, and a convex right stick. But I eventually went back to my comfort zone of having dual convex sticks.

The controller is also considerably bulkier than my usual Dualshock controller. It has the X360 shape, and even the triggers resemble the X360. The Home, Start and Select buttons are all positioned towards the top of the controller which made certain things more difficult. I’m sure it keeps some people from accidentally hitting those buttons (I don’t run into that problem, myself), but when you are playing Battlefield 3, my shooter of choice, it made it much more difficult to spot people with the Select button.

If you are looking for a wireless option, look elsewhere. While the 9 foot cable has considerable length, certain home-gaming situations just don’t work well with me (and I’m sure some other people). That said, this is designed for competitive gamers, specifically MLG combatants. For those unfamiliar with their rules; you can’t take controllers that have a “turbo” or “macro” option, and controllers have to be wired if not stock controllers. Mad Catz was thoughtful and designed one sturdy cable that actually screws into place.

A last minute addition to the Pro Circuit controller is a “reverse trigger mode”. I saw this advertised and it wasn’t in the manual, though I have been told this will be fixed for future manual prints. Holding the Start and Select button (it should be noted this is a PS3-only feature) for around 5 seconds will reverse the L1/R1 and L2/R2 trigger functions. I played the first night with the standard setting and it just wasn’t comfortable at all. After enabling this mode, everything felt more natural with this particular controller.

All of these goodies, and the controllers still give you more. How about a nice little carrying bag? It fits nice and snugly, so you can take the ownage with you anywhere you go.

If you want to replace your standard controller, and want something more customizable, the Pro Circuit controller from Mad Catz has you covered. In the future, different colored modules and plates are going to be available too, so you can not only own the battlefield, but do it in style.

However, if you are not into competitive gaming, and just need a new controller, the high price-tag may be a big factor in your decision on purchasing or not.

Pros:

  • Modular design offers multiple controller configurations
  • Soft, velvety backing gives great grip
  • Ease of swapping parts on the fly, and a carrying case to keep everything together

Cons:

  • High price-tag
  • Re-positioning the Home, Start and Select buttons
  • Difference in tension between the Pro Circuit and Dualshock analog sticks

Score: 4/5

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Microsoft & Sony: No Console Announcements at E3 2012

By
Kyle Baron
– January 31, 2012Posted in: News, PS3, Xbox 360

Announced at E3? Probably not. Also, this terrible name won't be used.

Don’t listen to all of the rumors about the next generation of Microsoft and Sony home consoles being announced at E3 2012.

Cedrick Delmax, director of marketing for Microsoft France, said in an interview with Le Point that “Xbox 360′s cycle is not at all finished. The proof is that we don’t see the logic in cutting the price this year.” Referencing the presence of the Nintendo Wii U at E3 2011 and 2012, he added that “we [Microsoft] are not here to counter Nintendo and they’re not here to fight the other manufacturers.”

Delmax also said that Microsoft isn’t concerned with Sony’s supposed decision not to showcase the next Playstation console this year.

Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony, has already said that there are no “plans” to announce another Playstation at E3 of this year. In another interview with Le Point, Philippe Cardon, president of Sony France, said that Sony was the last to release a console in the current generation and “will probably be the last to announce something.”

It’s important not to misinterpret the elusiveness of the responses from both console manufacturers. That caginess is likely to serve to cover the tracks of each company with respect to how their competitors and shareholders are closely monitering them. Delmax said it best when he pointed out that Xbox 360s are still selling. Playstation 3 units are still selling as well, so any announcement of a future console will undercut current sales for both consoles.

The abysmal software sales of Wii titles, combined with the continued decline of Wii sales after it hit its stride, certainly add to the reasons for Sony and Microsoft not to be intimidated. Add that to the fact that a lot of the announced titles for the Wii U are multiplatform titles available on existing consoles and you should feel happy with the console you already own for a good while longer.

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XBLA Review: Puddle

By
Jeff Derrickson
– January 30, 2012Posted in: Reviews, Xbox 360

Puddle could be titled after the tears you’ll shed playing it. It’s a clever physics based platformer in which you must guide various liquids from point A to B through increasingly devious levels. The game goes from challenging to frustratingly difficult within its first set of stages and never looks back. Most gamers will move onto something less painful before they beat the game, which is too bad because the concept is interesting and the fundamental gameplay is enjoyable. It had the potential to be better.

Ironically, Puddle has the simplest of control schemes. With the left and right trigger, you tilt the level and move the liquid. Those are the only two buttons you’ll ever use. The difficulty comes from punishing trial and error level design and the fact that you don’t have direct control over the liquid. If you tilt the level too much and the liquid goes off a ramp with too much momentum, it will fly into a conveniently placed patch of fire or something that will destroy the liquid. If you don’t tilt the level enough, most of the liquid won’t make it off the ramp. You have to get each step along the way just right in order to reach the exit. This involves lots of learning and memorization, as well as a bit of luck.

The goal is to reach the exit in the shortest time possible with the most amount of liquid still left over. Liquid is lost along the way due to hazards in the environment and the liquid getting split up and some getting left behind. A meter shows the minimum amount of liquid required to beat the level. Dip below that line and you have to start over from the beginning of the level. There are no checkpoints. At the end of the level, you receive a copper, silver, or gold medal based on speed and remaining liquid.

There is no story, nor does the game need one, but there should be some coherence and sense of what’s going on. The levels are tangentially linked by simple cutscenes and a general scientific theme, but none of it makes much sense. For instance, at the end of a set of stages titled Laboratory, you mix together a liquid and there is a brief cutscene that shows a silhouette of a human drinking it. The next set of stages takes place in the human body. The lack of a story is fine, but the game often forgets to relate essential information, such as what type of liquid you’re dealing with; I didn’t know I was working with nitroglycerine in the Laboratory levels until I was told in one of the all-too-frequent loading screens that nitroglycerine makes a sound when it’s about to explode. For that matter, does nitroglycerine make a sound as it’s about to explode? And why do Venus fly traps present a danger to lava???

But these odd quirks are forgivable. Again, Puddle’s biggest sin is extreme difficulty that is amplified by inexcusable technical shortcomings and design choices. The game knows it’s hard. If you fail a level, you’re given the option to “whine and skip” it. Unfortunately, you’re only allowed to skip a level twice throughout the entire game. To earn the privilege of skipping another level, you must first go back and beat one of the levels you previously skipped. A few more skips and checkpoints and perhaps the option to tackle levels out of order would have gone a long way toward making Puddle more approachable and less frustrating.

Worse, every time you fail a level, you’re forced to sit through a loading screen. Although these loading screens are brief, you are going to fail and see them a lot. I’m no programmer, but it doesn’t seem like Puddle is so complex a game that levels should have to be reloaded every time you fail. The levels are short enough and failure is so frequent that the loading screens become annoying and disrupt the flow of the game. And if you decide to restart a level before you officially fail, you’re inexplicably kicked out to the main menu and have to restart the game completely – with a loading screen in between, of course.

There are roughly 50 levels spread across eight sets of stages with different liquids and themes and very little to extend longevity. Only the truly bored and masochistic will go back to find hidden levels and earn gold medals and Achievements. Most people will give up long before even reaching the end. There are leaderboards, but no multiplayer or other online features. There is a mode actually titled Laboratory, which allows you to change the wallpaper of the main menu. Nobody will ever use it.

For something that started as a student project and evolved into an XBLA/PSN release, Puddle is impressive, but more frustrating than fun. The fundamental gameplay is a pretty cool idea, but the developers gleefully embraced sadistic level design and neglected to make simple choices that could help alleviate the pain. Puddle could be improved in a sequel with checkpoints, fewer loading screens, and a more gradual difficulty curve. This first effort is hard to recommend, even at $10. Listen to my whining and skip it.

Pros

• Simple control scheme means anyone can play.

• Interesting concept.

Cons

• Extreme difficulty means most people won’t want to play.

• Constant, inexcusable loading screens.

2/5

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XBLA Review: Quarrel

By
Tony Odett
– January 30, 2012Posted in: Reviews, Xbox 360

Dwayne may not be bright, but he makes up for it with... no, he doesn't make up for it.

I hate Risk.  As Vagary’s resident hardcore strategy gamer, you might think that this is because it’s too simple, but that’s not actually the reason. My objection is that too often, the battles come down to luck rather than skill. If I assemble an army of 20 to attack an army of three, I should win quickly and decisively. Thankfully, Quarrel has an elegant solution to this problem: instead of rolling dice, make the winner determined by a word game.

Quarrel consists of a map, on which you and up to three other players hold a bunch of territories. Each of your armies will consist of two to eight bouncing minions, be they ninjas, Vikings, soldiers, or what have you.  The cute aesthetic is one of the game’s best attributes. Defeated troops will cry, and final victory will get you a huge victory block party.  You attack adjacent territories, in an effort to conquer them all and win the game. Battles begin with a word scramble of eight letters. For each unit in your army, you can use one letter to make a word. Different letters have different values (like in Scrabble), and the highest value word wins.

You can play with a timer or without. I recommend playing with a countdown every time, though, as with infinite time, a larger army can take its time and win every single battle. The timer also makes the battles quite frantic, as you scroll back and forth, trying to get in your words, and come up with something before the time hits zero and you auto-lose. In addition, the case of word value ties, the quicker player wins, so speed counts. Typically, I spent most matches trying to build an army of 8 (the maximum), but you have to be quick: at the end of each turn, the game system will load reinforcements onto the map through a variety of methods. Wait too long, and your enemies will grow very powerful.

Vikings are expert words smiths.

The game includes multiplayer (though no local co-op, because you  could see each other’s words). I tried the multiplayer, but I found that since I was unwilling to cheat (word unscramblers are everywhere) and I had no chat pad (the game in chat pad compatible) I was destroyed. Sticking with single player, there were a couple of different modes, but all boiled down to the same game (conquer territory by making words).  Though I enjoyed the gameplay mechanic very much, I eventually grew bored from the repetitions. It would have been nice to have letters cycle through, or disappear as time went on (use the high value Z before it vanishes!). I can’t help but thinking that the concepts here are ripe for expansion with future releases. I know I was left wanting more, not simply in terms of more play, but also more depth and variety.

Quarrel’s biggest asset is its price point. In an era where even $10 releases are becoming few and far between, $5 US at release is an absolute steal.  This game is worth far more than that (though its previous release on iOS may have forced lower pricing), providing addicting gameplay and several different game modes. There aren’t enough brand bending word games on XBLA, and this one adds strategy and conquest to that equation.  For a few evenings of wordtastic fun, it’s tough to quarrel with Quarrel.

Pros

  • Interesting blend of strategy and puzzle solving
  • Frantic fun
  • XBL matches
  • $5 price

Cons

  • Occasional framerate hitches
  • Could use more gameplay variety

4 / 5

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Review: Scarygirl

By
Don Parsons
– January 30, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Scarygirl, meet dragon-machine-thing.

Note: This game was reviewed on the Playstation 3 platform. It is also available on the Xbox 360.

Scarygirl, originally a free-to-play web game, takes you on a journey through a vast set of environments and will make you remember just how much rage old-school platformers can cause.

Scarygirl, the protagonist, mixes platforming and combat with the use of her whip-arm. For transportation, the whip-arm is used to cross gaps by holding the jump button. This lets you to helicopter across and outside of this fundamental reason, it also serves as “jump correction”. The floaty physics of Scarygirl can be forgiven because you can just hold the jump button to perfect an otherwise awkward jump. 

The game relies heavily on its simple combat. That’s not a bad thing, but there are some frustrating parts later on in the game that are sure to provoke yelling and (possibly) throwing things. Sometimes i’s frustrating because of some moments that feel busted, but other times it’s a matter of design; Between a bad checkpoint system and trying to figure out what moves to use against what enemy, I was at wits-end during certain portions of the game.

One of the many pretty environments.

The 21 levels vary in length. Each level has enough of a varied design and theme to keep you intrigued as to what you will come across next. The few water stages, for example, were simply beautiful. The graphics in general are a little on the bland side and don’t pop as much as I had expected, but the neon seaweed was quite mesmerizing. Checkpoints, however, are a different story. Sometimes, they are well placed, but other times they are spread so far apart I wondered why they even bothered. Clearing four waves of incredibly difficult enemies time-after-time just to die on the fifth wave made me want to pull my hair out. Other times I’d be greeted by a checkpoint a few platform jumps later and I’d be greeted by a checkpoint.

The quirky level design, with fun little camera shifts, is something that immediately stood out.  Skipping along through a stage, the level will suddenly shift to a different angle and you just keep on skipping. It may or may not rotate back, but it was little additions like this that made the game different than others in its genre.

By collecting gems in the game, you occasionally come across a weird Octopus shopkeeper where you can buy new moves, equipment and vinyls. The latter is simply a collectible to get a trophy/achievement, and I spent most of my gems on the moves as they unlocked. Most of the equipment didn’t seem to affect gameplay in a significant way.

It's a scaryworld if owls are out during the day.

The single biggest fault Scarygirl has is its grappling mechanic. I am no stranger to whip-across-the-chasm gameplay, but it gets a little frustrating when you release from one point and can’t grasp the next point easily. Wall-climbing is the same; climbing across a wall, jumping over an obstacle, and hitting up on your controller’s d-pad should make you re-grapple the wall. It didn’t all the time, and it was inconsistent things like that which totally killed my joy of strong platforming sections that should otherwise be fun. You can also grapple onto rocks or stunned enemies in order to throw them at targets, but I had the same issue of it not aiming in the direction I had it pointed at.

Couch co-op fans will be pleased. While there is no online play available, you can partner up with a local friend and tackle the levels together. From the little bit of co-op that I played, it didn’t change anything drastically, but it can be fun if you have a significant-other or family member who enjoys platformers.

For people who enjoy a decent platforming experience (especially with an old-school frustration element), and are looking for something new, this game is a perfect addition to your digital library. But casual fans of the genre may steer clear; the grappling and difficulty of certain sections can be a little too much at times.

Pros:

  • great level design and shifts in perspective
  • quite lengthy for a platformer
  • upgrades give you a sense of progression

Cons:

  • bad grapple mechanics (aiming, swinging, wall climbing) can add unneeded frustration
  • inconsistent checkpoint system

Score: 3/5

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Review: Amy

By
Kyle Baron
– January 25, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

You first

Note: The Playstation Network version was played for review. Amy is also available on Xbox Live Marketplace and, as of this writing, is scheduled for release on PC.

The crisp clip-clop of my character’s high heels were now a distant sound. Shambling through a crumbling subway station, my vision blurred and wavered blood red as the murmers of a mad voice whispered into my headphones. My skin was turning pale, eyes shot yellow, and the zombie-inflicted wound on my wrist was festering. I needed to get to Amy. Being near her kept me from fully turning into one of them.

I find Amy, the six year old with special powers who I’m charged with protecting, huddling in a locker. I comfort her as the infection from the sickly air evaporates off of my character with a hiss. Then, a monster bashes through a nearby door, the frame rate plummets, and I realize the textures on its face haven’t loaded in. It looks like I’m being attacked by a giant ogre with a shriveled apricot for a head, and now I’m just laughing.

My eight hour experience with Amy was just like that. Moments of tension and sparse touches of cleverly executed design were buried under technical problems and a messy narrative.

The game is set in the near future and you play as Lana, a woman who is the caretaker of a young girl who has special powers. A zombie virus mysteriously erupts at the start of the game and Lana barely escapes from a run in with one of the undead. Now wounded, you have to stave off the infection long with syringes and Amy’s powers so that you can get her to safety.

There’s a bond between you and Amy, as neither of you can survive for long without each other. Amy, being the subject of unexplained experiments by the game’s professorial antagonist, heals you and can use her telekinetic powers to solve puzzles. Being a small child, she can also fit through small gaps that you can’t. Lana is the only one that can use weapons, climb ladders, and shimmy along edges.

The infection also plays an interesting part in the game’s increasingly devious puzzles, as you can deliberately let the virus manifest in yourself long enough to disguise yourself as a zombie and sneak by; well, hopefully before you become fully infected and die, that is.

Syringes of the cure are the only way to survive when away from Amy

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t provide a clear indication of how infected you are. The light on Lana’s back shows how strong the virus is in the game’s environment, but only the subtle changes in her skin tone and your increasingly blurred vision show how infected you are and it takes a couple of failed stealth sequences to get the hang of just how many seconds it takes before zombies don’t notice you shambling by.

When the situation gets rough, so does the combat; it’s all timing based, using just a dodge and attack buttons, but the timing for dodging attacks is a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I stepped clear of an enemy’s attack and still got hit. Other times, while at the same distance, I deftly avoided the attack of two enemies at once and Lana went into a ducking animation. If the direction you face is even slightly off, the game bugs out and you and the enemy end up awkwardly circling around each other, flailing wildly, until one of you gets hit and dies.

Thankfully, the stealth sequences work just fine and have some good tension thanks to some crisp sound design.

Unfortunately, the voice acting of the game is awful. The main character is voiced by two different actors and it definitely shows; there are times when Lana will go from sounding American to European all in the same conversation. NPCs have stilted and forced dialogue if they talk at all, while the few story related characters have voicework that ranges from decent to comically amateur.

Seeing someone sneak around in high heels and a skirt makes me glad I'm a dude

When the handholding mechanic isn’t causing Amy’s hand to come loose when she brushes up against the environment, and when any of the above technical and narrative missteps aren’t getting in your way, there are some interesting moments in the game. One of the best sequences had me isolated from Amy while I frantically sneaked and fought my way through an infection-ridden subway station, stopping near dead soldiers to use their gas masks to stave off the infection; I felt tense and vulnerable the whole time, and it’s sad that those glimmers of brilliance are buried in such a mess of narrative and technical sloppiness.

The end cutscenes of Amy, coupled with a contrived story ending, allude to a lot of enemies and environments that didn’t make it into the game, but a lack of variety or challenge isn’t the game’s problem.The developer would have something worthy of the modest $9.99 US price if they took proper care of their existing ideas within the six chapters of the game. Sadly, Amy can’t be recommended on anything other than a discounted purchase .

 

Pros:

  • Some fantastic moments of tension and vulnerability
  • Good sound effects
  • Progressively challenging puzzles that are well designed

Cons:

  • Bad voice work
  • Serious technical issues: Bad frame rate, combat glitches, texture pop-in, awkward targeting of Amy’s powers, collision with environment causes the handhold with Amy to break
  • Loading a save game causes you to lose your checkpoint and most of your inventory
  • Story ending is contrived and some elements, like infectious puddles of goo and giant monsters, are never explained

2/5

 

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Review: Crazy Machines Elements

By
Don Parsons
– January 25, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

 

Oh, we DID start the fire....

Note: This review is based on the Playstation Network version. The game is also available on Xbox Live Arcade.

Crafting a chain of events to cause one simple event to happen is a satisfying experience. Making a laser bounce off a mirror that is angled just right, cut a rope, which in turn drops a weight on a springboard that then catapults a bowling ball through a basketball hoop may seem a little over-thought-out, but it will put a smile on your face nonetheless.

This is how Crazy Machines Elements feels. Recently released on PSN (and on XBLA August of 2011) for $9.99, FAKT Software brings its PC series to consoles with a bundle of puzzles and challenges. These puzzles, while absurd (in typical Rube Goldberg fashion), have the ability to make you feel so smart for figuring them out. In essence, it’s a perfect puzzle game in that regard.

Crazy Machines Elements has three modes; Puzzle, Challenge and a custom puzzle designer. We’ll start with the latter, as I used it the least. Creating your own levels seemed to cater more to the creative audience (which isn’t me, in all honesty). You get access to everything in the game, and can go to town whipping up your own crazy machine. It works the same as other modes, as you open a menu to pick your piece and place it in a very simple manner. One of the perks of this game is the very easy to use interface.

Puzzle mode is a bulky piece of game, as it has a plethora of puzzles. They start off nice and easy, as they should, giving you semi-completed puzzles to plug pieces into. It slowly introduces you to new pieces and how they function in the game, scaling in difficulty at a steady rate. Each puzzle has so many gold nuts to collect as your typical “game-y” collectible which you can get around to clear the puzzle, but most seemed to come naturally.

Crazy-Contraptions-To-Do-Simple-Tasks 'R Us

After completing 60 puzzles (yes, 60), you will unlock the final mode, Challenge mode. These are far more creative as you have a goal, and more than just a few tools to help you. You also have a credit limit, so each piece you place will take away from your allowance. While you have a much broader selection of pieces to use, you still won’t have access to all of them (certain ones would make it too easy, mind you). The challenges, though, take a lot more brain power than most of the puzzles, and give you more creative ways to solve puzzles.

The music in the game is very simple, and incredibly repetitive. It’s a short loop that will get on your last nerve when you are stuck on a puzzle for half an hour. I turned it off after the first set of ten puzzles. Another minor complaint is the load time and excessive framerate drops. At times it seems to slowly chug along before the animations pick up steam and go full speed. It’s mostly directly after clearing a puzzle, but it was a little annoying nonetheless.

All-in-all, this was a fun (but enraging) experience. If you like puzzles in general, this is right up your alley. Offering an extensive range of crazy contraptions to build and amaze yourself with, its biggest flaw is the lack of replay value for people like me; people that want to be challenged, but don’t have any interest in creating your own puzzles. That said, it still has enough content to warrant a purchase for avid thinkers and tinkerers alike.

Pros:

  • Tons of puzzles to work through, and challenges to solve
  • Creative solutions that make you think
  • That satisfactory feeling of completing a puzzle

Cons:

  • Generic, repetitive music
  • Small technical problems (framedrops mostly)
  • Waiting to unlock Challenge mode (the most fun and open)  until solving 60 puzzles

Score: 3/5

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XBLA Review: Joe Danger: Special Edition

By
Magnus Risebro
– January 24, 2012Posted in: Reviews, Xbox 360

Joe Danger: Special Edition features vibrant and catchy music, however, the sound that will ring in your ears after playing is no melody, it’s the gut-wrenching “KERCHUNK” of failure. This sound near-constantly jabs at your ears during the 6 or so hours it takes to finish the career-mode. But whenever that horrible effect is played you’ll instantly punch the Back button to start your umpteenth attempt of the level because the one-more-go-factor shines with this one.

Essentially, Joe Danger is a physics-based, more complicated Excitebike focusing on traversal rather than racing. As titular stuntman Joe Danger, you ride your motorbike through a series of side-scrolling obstacle-courses filled with platformer-style hazards. Interspersed with these standard levels are races, which ramp up the chaos a few notches. To progress, one performs level-specific challenges such as collecting items or finishing within a set time. By doing this, stars are earned and used to unlock new levels.

Great controls are largely responsible for how entertaining the game is: The bike-physics are tuned to a perfect sweet-spot between nimble and weighty, making it satisfying and simple – though not necessarily easy – to pull off jumps, flips and tricks. Contrary to certain other precision-based, platforming-style games, the controls in Joe Danger are never a hurdle between player and game, and instead manage to reach the ideal state of any control system – to feel nonexistent.

The second half of Joe Danger’s Yin-Yang of great gameplay is the level design. Early on, the game teaches you the simple key concepts; boosting, tilting the bike in the air, and jumping. Subsequently, your skills with these concepts are tested in an increasingly devilish fashion. Often, the game tricks you by repeatedly incentivizing a certain maneuver, only to throw out a situation where you must deliberately NOT perform that maneuver to succeed. The level design consistently forces you to keep an open mind and rethink your techniques, giving the game a slight puzzle-game feel.

As for the volume of content: Besides the 6-8 hour career mode there is an additional, Special Edition-exclusive, “The Lab” campaign featuring extra-challenging levels, as well as a level-editor similar to LittleBigPlanet (though not nearly as comprehensive, and sadly lacking the ability to share levels with anyone but your friends). Both of these provide more Joe Danger, an undeniably good thing, but are definitely complimentary rather than essential to the game. Finally, there is split-screen multiplayer, which I could not test, but imagine is solid.

Giving the game a pleasant vibe is the Pixar-like aesthetic. Cartoony and colorful backgrounds, hummable and upbeat music, and Joe’s regular shouts of “Wahoo! Yee-haw!” will glue a wide grin to your face, at least until the challenge becomes too much and you start Dragonborn-shouting cuss-words at the screen. Nonetheless, the jolly presentation is a nice element, and certainly improves the game’s experience.

Joe Danger is everything an Arcade game should be in the classic sense. It’s to-the-point, it’s easy to learn yet hard to master, and above all, it’s fun. Even with the “Kerchunk”-based ear-torture, it’s well worth 1200 Microsoft points.

Pros:

  • Satisfying, arcadey gameplay
  • Bonus modes provide a wealth of content
  • Charming presentation

Cons:

  • Can be hard. No-longer-fun-hard.

4/5

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Review: TNT Racers

By
Kyle Baron
– January 17, 2012Posted in: Nintendo Wii, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

No blue shells here, just balanced pickups like big car mode

Note: The Playstation Network version was played for review. TNT Racers is also available on Xbox Live Marketplace and the Wii Shop.

I stopped caring about casual racers that put an emphasis on in-game items when I realized that those games are made with quirky chaos in mind instead of refined and balanced fun. Developer Keen Games’ TNT Racers comes close to balancing both of these sides of the scale to make something special.

Rather than have players race from a traditional behind-the-car perspective, all four players in any given race view the game from the same overhead camera. TNT Racers makes this design choice significant by having anyone who falls behind out of the camera view eliminated from the race. This keeps the rounds in any given game mode short and hectic, and also encourages the racers at the head of the pack to cut tight corners around the track to move the camera that extra inch ahead. This is a big relief for players of other racing games where a few mistakes can lead to several minutes of being out-lapped in last place before the next race.

Cutting tight corners with precision, or even driving with precision at all, becomes a bit of a frustrating challenge later on in the game. Without any sort of drift function, the snappy handling can’t keep up with the turbo-speed single-player challenges, and neither can it keep up with multiplayer matches of the same speed. This leads to a lot of lost races because of accidental and all too easy collisions with the levels’ many walls, ramps, and obstacles. This can be remedied with a good deal of patient practice with subtle movements of the analog stick, but it’s a weak solution to such an obvious shortcoming of the controls.

Shadow Mode gives eliminated players a chance to grief racers

Being eliminated from a race doesn’t leave players behind. Eliminated racers take on the role of “shadows,” who are free to drive straight through other players and take their items in order to humiliate them. Ground shaking mallets, slowing tractor beams, and mini whirlwinds are uniquely available to shadow players, and are fun to use without being completely unavoidable and frustrating for the players still racing for the first place.

In fact, all of the items in TNT Racers are balanced and are handed out according to how far you are in the lead. Even the heat-seeking missiles of the game can be avoided with some deft driving, while landmines can be removed with weapons fire and any item can be avoided with a shield pickup. Only being able to hold one item at a time makes for a lot of quick decisions of whether to hold on to that repair kit instead of trying your luck at getting a steam engine to fog up the paths of players and projectiles behind you.

This refined chaos makes multiplayer a ton of fun to play, and the game provides four-player on and offline play with bots. Unfortunately, I was only able to play a few online matches as there was only one room open during the weekend after the game’s release. Granted, that match was full of rowdy players intent on turbo speed matches, where everyone would end up laughing at the smoking wreck of whoever was lucky enough to survive long enough to get first place. I doubt those online lobbies will ever fill up again, but it speaks to how fun the game can be if you grabbed three other buddies around the television.

There’s also the ’30s soundtrack, but that’s best left  turned off. At first, it’s a funny juxtaposition to the psuedo-micro machines racing around a track and shooting candy at each other, but it gets tiring and abrasive after about half an hour.

Pros:

  • Balanced and creative array of items.
  • Simple controls and smart game design keep things approachable and bite sized.
  • Endearingly cute artistic design of vehicles and tracks.
  • Multiplayer is incredibly fun, but…

Cons:

  • No-one is playing multiplayer online.
  • Music gets irritating fast.
  • An e-brake would’ve made the quickly paced “turbo” matches more approachable.

4/5

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Review: NFL Blitz

By
Chris Scott
– January 16, 2012Posted in: PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Note: This review was done using the Xbox 360 version of the game. It is also available on the Playstation 3.

For many people NFL Blitz brings back memories of the last hurrah of arcades. For me though, when I think of NFL Blitz, I think of a dark basement and round robin tournaments between my friends on the original Sony Playstation. I think of playing as the Miami Dolphins and making Dan Marino into the most mobile quarterback to ever play football. I also remember angry opponents threatening to powerbomb me if I did not stop using cheap plays. Ah, those were the days.

When Electronic Arts announced that they would be re-launching the long dormant Midway football franchise, I wondered if they would be able to successfully recapture the magic of those many nights spent playing Blitz in a dark basement with my friends. They did not. This EA Sports’ iteration of NFL Blitz is not the same game fans of the original remember playing. It is something different.

On the surface NFL Blitz seems to hit the right beats that one would expect from the franchise. Seven on seven football, 30 yards for a first down, wrestling moves for tackles, turbo boosts, players igniting on fire, it is all there in the game. However, the more I played it the more it seemed like something about it all was off. At first I thought it was the lack of late hits, because that is the most obvious change to the original design. However, the more I thought about it the more I felt, that while late hits were a big atmospheric aspect in the original, their exclusion does not really affect the way the game is played. That is when it dawned on me that the game plays slow.

Plays take longer to develop, turbo boosting is hardly effective and catching on fire is nearly meaningless, in essence NFL Blitz now plays less like an arcade game and more like an actual football game. Some players may love this change, for me though, it sucks a lot of the fun out of it. This new NFL Blitz just does not have the same heart and soul that that the original had.

Despite the shift in focus, and my disappointment, the game can provide some fun. There are a number of different modes to play, including a single player campaign that plays out like an old-school fighting game and a pair of online modes that may keep some players invested in the game for a good chunk of time.

One of those online modes, the Elite League, utilizes the customizable card game format other EA Sports games have used, to mixed results. On one hand the Elite League succeeds in tapping into the innate desire of players to want to collect everything and build the best team possible. On the other it is highly unbalanced and may turn off some players because their teams are far outmatched. It is a shame that the collecting and team building could not have been in a hybrid style, offering players the opportunity to create their best team without ever having to go online if they did not want to.

However, single player gauntlets and online matches with fantasy rosters is not where NFL Blitz excels. That still firmly rests in the camp of playing with your friends. While the game may be slower and more sanitized than its forbearers nothing quite beats sitting on your couch and watching your friends face as you sack him for the third time in a row making it 4th down and 57 yards to go.

Pros

  • Looks like NFL Blitz should
  • Fun competitive couch play

Cons

  • More football game than arcade game
  • Online Elite League is fundamentally unbalanced

3 / 5

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