Cars 2 Xbox 360 review

Cars 2 Xbox 360 review

Like Mario Kart but hate the Wii? Cars 2 might be for you





Amid the sea of mediocre or just plain awful licensed games, Disney and Avalanche Software surprised everyone with Toy Story 3 last year. By working closely with Pixar, Avalanche was able to take the essence of the property and turn it into a game that not only made sense, but was actually really good. When I heard the same amount of time and collaboration was going into Cars 2, I expected to see the same level quality. I'm pleased to say Cars 2 exceeded my expectations.

In Cars 2 (the film) Lightning McQueen travels around the globe to race in the World Grand Prix, while some agents from Command Headquarters for Recon Operations & Motorized Espionage (C.H.R.O.M.E) are trying to get to the bottom of an evil plot. The console versions of Cars 2 leave the story-telling to the masters at Pixar, and instead focus on making a game that's related to the story, but not bogged down by it. There really isn't a story in the Cars 2 game. You're taken behind the scenes to be trained as a C.H.R.O.M.E. agent by completing simulations of races and other driving tasks, and that's basically it.

Cars 2 is a kart racer that takes more than a little inspiration from Mario Kart and is just as fun. But instead of turtle shells and banana peels, you're using real weapons like machine guns and rocket launchers. You're also doing more than racing in Cars 2. Different modes have you hunting down enemies in a vast arena, or competing in teams in a capture the flag-style set-up. With easy drop-in and drop-out local multiplayer for up to four players, Cars 2 should have many a family having fun together.

But it's really not just for families. If you can look past the kiddie license, you'll find a racer that's super easy to pick up and play, but a bit more complicated to master. Besides using weapons, you can also perform tricks in Cars 2 to build up your turbo boost meter. These tricks include in-air flips and spins, driving on two wheels, and driving backwards (with the controls reversed appropriately.)You can also forcefully side-swipe opponents to force them off the track. I had a blast racing against some of my fellow editors or blowing them to bits in the deathmatch-style arena mode.

But that also brings me to the game's biggest fault. Racing by yourself just isn't as fun as with others. Thankfully, the game supports multiplayer in all modes, meaning you can unlock all the characters and tracks (of which there are many) by playing multiplayer. Another minor flaw is the lack of knowledge you have of your position in a race relative to the finish line and other players. You're told what place you're currently in, but it would have been nice to have a mini-map of sorts that showed you just how far behind or ahead you are.



Visually, Cars 2 is great. You can tell that Avalanche works closely with Pixar in the little details, like how the cars lift their tires to turn and move their entire bodies in expressions. Another nice touch is that during all of the modes, you can see your car's face in the upper left corner, so even though you're staring at their backside most of the time, you still get the feeling that you're playing as one of the characters from the film. This is helped along by the fact that many of the actors who voiced the characters on the big screen also voice the characters in the game. With the exception of Lightning and Finn McMissile, pretty much all of the other characters have their true voices, and each character has a collection of unique comments and taunts that help add to the atmosphere.

It's not surprising with Disney's kid-friendly focus that Cars 2 doesn't feature online play. This would have been cool for us older gamers, but I can understand where Disney is coming from in leaving it out.

Closing Comments
Cars 2 is a great multiplayer game that rivals Mario Kart. Playing alone isn’t quite as fun, but it’s still a solid solo experience. The fact that there’s little story doesn’t really matter because you won’t miss it, and don’t let the license scare you off. Under all the Pixar beauty is an extremely fun game.

F.E.A.R. 3 Xbox 360 Review

F.E.A.R. 3 Xbox 360 Review



The shooter market is definitely a saturated one, rife with derivative titles that rarely buck any trends. But every so often, a title comes along that does things a little bit differently. F.E.A.R. 3 is one such game. A horror and gore-inspired romp, F.E.A.R. 3 approaches the conventions of first-person shooters from a different perspective and successfully mixes together familiar gameplay elements with a unique and authentically chilling setting. F.E.A.R. 3 isn't without its problems, and these problems stop it from being a top echelon shooter. Still, its tendency to go off the beaten path is largely successful and will appeal to shooter fans and horror aficionados alike.

In F.E.A.R. 3, gamers are placed in the role of the genetically-enhanced Point Man, the protagonist from the original F.E.A.R. As you may remember from the end of F.E.A.R. 2, the mysterious female foil Alma forces herself upon that game's playable character -- Becket -- and becomes pregnant with his child. Alma is an evil psychic dynamo manipulated by Armacham, the same company responsible for Point Man's genetic enhancement, but her powers far outweigh his own. Thus, stopping Alma from having this kid is the name of the game in F.E.A.R. 3. Because after all, if Alma is so powerful, who knows what that kid is capable of?






Stopping Alma's pregnancy will be no easy task for Point Man, especially because he's accompanied continuously by the apparition of fellow Project Origin prototype Paxton Fettel, another character fans of the series will be familiar with. One of F.E.A.R. 3's great strengths is that you can actually play as Fettel through any level that Point Man already beaten, which gives a completely different feel for getting through the main campaign.

While Point Man is your typical gun-toting badass, Fettel is able to possess enemy soldiers and generally cause an insane amount of havoc. Better yet, you can play the campaign together with a friend locally or online, utilizing both characters' strengths simultaneously.

In terms of aesthetics, F.E.A.R. 3 provides passable graphics that look slightly dated but still get the job done. And the game runs fairly smoothly, with the exception of some stuttering when the game is loading and saving mid-play. Regardless, you won't mistake F.E.A.R. 3 for a top tier shooter in terms of its looks. On the other hand, F.E.A.R. 3 is a sonically appealing game. The voice-acting is at times over the top, but the sound effects and music add greatly to the scary feel of the game. There's audio nuance everywhere.

Both single player and co-op will require you to work your way through the same eight stages (known as Intervals). Playing through on co-op will allow you to blaze through the game significantly faster than playing on your own, but F.E.A.R. 3's campaign is best enjoyed as a solo affair. Though the game is much more difficult this way, playing on your own maximizes the frights and scares. Co-op is a fun experience in its own right, but should definitely be left for those who have already played through the campaign once before.

Mechanically, F.E.A.R. 3 will feel familiar to fans of the FPS genre. Your characters will have access to a number of firearms, explosives and more. Point Man and Fettel can also use their own psychic powers, primarily in the form of time slow-down and enemy possession respectively. The combination of the conventional and the supernatural isn't revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but it works well in F.E.A.R. 3. And though the stages are generally linear, there's reason for ancillary exploration, mostly to take in the sheer amount of ambiance present on most levels (not to mention to find collectibles).

If I have one major complaint about F.E.A.R. 3's core gameplay, it's in terms of grenade throwing. It's hard to use grenades in the game with any modicum of accuracy. Chucking grenades way over the intended target is more likely to happen than the perfect toss. Additionally, the AI glitched out on me once in a while, not reacting to my presence when I was clearly in view. None of this breaks the experience, but it certainly hampers it unnecessarily.

Child of Eden Xbox 360 review

Child of Eden Xbox 360 review

There's something about Child of Eden that makes people shut up and fixate on the screen. It could be because you're entranced by the colors bursting artfully in tandem with upbeat techno music or just the thought of, "Holy crap, am I tripping right now?" Either way, this is a title that people take notice of and for good reason. Child of Eden, a spiritual successor to Tetsuya Mizuguchi's cult sensation Rez, is an incredibly satisfying time, but it's one that can be over shortly after it begins



Child of Eden truly is an experience unlike any other this generation (save maybe Rez HD of course). The story doesn't really matter or make much sense, but basically you're saving a girl and the Internet, which is now known as Eden. Child of Eden is essentially a first-person, on-rails shooter. You're not actually killing anything; you're purifying databases full of corrupt information. It's just you, the reticle, the music and the visuals -- a simple, yet effective formula. It's difficult to explain why it's so cool, but once you get your hands on Child of Eden, everything will make sense.

Each level (or archive) outlines a specific part of life on Earth. Beauty is comprised of plants and butterflies, Evolution includes a whale transforming into a bird, and Passion is more of an industrial paradise filled with machinery. The neon art style alone is something to gawk at, but the incredible score ties each level together perfectly. This is one of those games where the songs got stuck in my head for days and I wanted to play the game just to hear the soundtrack again. The sights and sounds work together to place you in a sort of happy trance. I felt my troubles melt away and the only thing I had to do was explore Eden.

You eliminate impurities plaguing Eden by shooting in two main ways: rapid fire shots or a lock-on gun where you select targets and then release a button (flick your wrist if you're using Kinect) to exterminate them. There are multiple control schemes for both a regular controller and Kinect, so you can find what's most comfortable for you.

I've heard people dismiss Kinect as a viable control option because there's no vibration feedback. After trying both control options for Child of Eden, I found that I preferred Kinect's superior responsiveness. Yes, Kinect makes navigating Eden's databases far easier. In fact, the analog sticks seem clunky compared to swiftly moving your hand around the screen.

As for the lack of vibration, I ended up becoming my own feedback by swaying to the beat. I'm sure I looked ridiculous dancing back and forth and flinging my right arm about, but I was having a damn good time.





Don't get me wrong, you can't just dance around and expect to make it through Eden. Enemies will fire projectiles that can only be eliminated by using the rapid fire gun. The only trouble is with all the colors flying around, sometimes I didn't notice when enemies shot at me. In an effort to help players out, there's a incoming shot warning similar to grenade alerts in other shooters, but there's so much going on that it's not always helpful. If I ever was in trouble, I turned to my Euphoria bombs, which devastate enemies and made me feel like I was on a roller coaster ride. (I had to throw my arms up over my head to unleash it with Kinect.)

Trenched Xbox 360 Review

Trenched Xbox 360 Review

One of the things I sometimes dislike about reviewing a game is that I'm not given as much time as I'd like with it. Not that I don't get to finish it, just that I'm not allowed to play at my own pace. But with developer Double Fine's Trenched I just couldn't help myself; within two days I had completely blasted through the campaign, grinding levels over and over again to max out my level and collect that oh-so-precious loot. I'm just going to say it: I love this game.






Trenched takes place in a alternate world, where 1940s-esque soldiers pilot giant anthropomorphic machines called Trenches in an effort to fight a madman and his army of constructs. Part third-person shooter, part tower defense, Trenched challenges you to fight wave after wave of enemies in a variety of stages. Sometimes you're defending one position, other times you're defending multiple, but the goal is always the same: deploy turrets and use the guns on your mech to blast the holy hell out of anything you see. Collecting the "scrap" the enemies drop when they die allows you to deploy additional turrets (or emplacements), which look great as they fall from the sky before they drill into the ground.

A big part of the fun in Trenched is figuring out the right mech for the level at hand. Picking a chassis changes the amount of guns and emplacements you can bring, so once you've figure out your play style you have to decide what armaments suit the enemies ahead. If you want to play it like a shooter, pick a chassis that allows you to take a host of guns , supplementing your combat weaknesses with one or two emplacements. If you're more the sit back and watch type, you can take an engineer chassis with hardly any weapon slots and a bunch of emplacements, to create a network of turrets to hit your foes. Sometimes it's fun to bring an assault mech outfitted with six shotguns, while other times I felt like a badass when I'd manage to construct a mech that could fight long range, short range and everything in between. It makes for a lot of replayability, as you can play levels super aggressively one time, or more strategically later.

The best part about playing any stage, though, is collecting "loot boxes."There are simply few things better than the thrill of getting randomized loot that allows you to min-max your stats and damage output. I'm a nerd for constant tweaking and customization of my trench. It's downright addictive, and makes me replay stages over and over in hopes to get a shiny new gun or chassis.

Besides a couple of boss battles, all the levels boil down to the simple goal of staying alive and defending a point. The reason it never gets old is due to the sheer entertainment that comes from utilizing your mech against a variety of enemy types. One second I find myself firing an artillery round into a crowd of enemies at long range, the next I'd be swarmed by tiny enemies that forced me to utilize my machineguns while falling back. You can never sit on your laurels while playing Trench, because just when you think you're ready for anything you're forced to adapt to a new combination of enemies. Not only that, but unless you've brought the right emplacements, it's up to you to go out there and collect the scrap they drop. Every stage becomes a dance between shooting and looting, and the few seconds between waves become precious.

The gameplay is really well done, but what makes Trenched more than just another tower defense or shooter title is its well-developed atmosphere. The campaign story isn't that important to the levels themselves, but the writing is every bit as witty as I've come to expect from Double Fine. Between levels you return to a hub world on top of an aircraft carrier. Here you can inspect and customize your trench, choose your level, and invite friends to join you in your hub before taking to the field. The setting is just really well done, perfectly capturing the feeling of the alternate mid-20th century.

Inviting some other players to join you in your hub is worth it too, because multiplayer makes replaying levels even better. It's a little too easy to play through stages with four players (despite more enemies or tougher mini-bosses), but with two to three players you can really experiment. One player can take on the role of a tank, leaving the other players to use weaker engineers or exotic combinations of weapons they wouldn't normally take. The best part, though? You get loot every time.

Trenched is a pretty short game, but that doesn't really bother me since you can replay levels for more loot and experience. The things that do bother me are minor gameplay choices like the inability to destroy your own turrets. It sucks to take up a prime piece of real estate (turrets have to be placed a few feet apart) with the wrong type of turret cause you weren't paying attention. I could nitpick just about any game, but Trenched is fantastic despite any minor flaws it has.

Closing Comments
Trenched is the best downloadable game I’ve played all year. Its skillful blend of witty writing, fun shooting, and tactical tower defense makes for hours of replayable gameplay. Take into account the loot grind that Trenched inspires, and the online coop, and Double Fine’s created a title I hope turns into a franchise