Score: 92%

In short:

Gears of War 2 is a third-person co-op action game for the Xbox 360. It’s mostly awesome and you should play it.

In slightly more detail:

Gears 2 picks up where the first game left off. If you didn’t play the first game, it won’t be much of a problem, although some story elements may seem confusing to you. I recommend playing the first game before this one for a couple of reasons: it’s great, and if you play it after this one, it won’t be so great. That’s because Gears 2 tops the first game in literally every way.

The core gameplay involves you (and a buddy over Live or split-screen, or an AI with very little I) taking on the Locust horde before they conquer the planet for their own mysterious reasons. You wield a pretty wide assortment of weapons this time, including newcomers like the mortar and flame thrower. Aside from the cooperative play, the real hook is the cover system. The game is structured so that unless you routinely take cover upon entering an encounter, you WILL die. You go in and out of cover by pressing the A button. I personally prefer the cover system of Rainbow Six Vegas, but this one works fine.

In addition to the regular fighting, there are short cinematics used to move the story along. These are usually entertaining, and if you’ve played the first game, you’ll catch a few references that will slip by newcomers. A minor complaint is that your character, Marcus Fenix, is always shown holding the Lancer rifle (the one with the chainsaw), regardless of what weapon you are actually holding.

The action is also changed up by “vehicle” segments. I put that in quotes for a couple of reasons. First, I’m using the term vehicle very broadly here, but won’t go into more detail due to spoilers. Also, in a couple of cases, you could call these “turret” segments; you aren’t actually driving, you are manning a turret. I found the turret sequences to be far more difficult than the rest of the game. Part of this is due to the turrets often not moving very quickly. Even when they weren’t hard, they weren’t very fun.

There are a couple of boss battles, but they definitely break out of the mold of what you might expect. There isn’t a lot of “shoot the eye when it opens” action. You also will probably feel cheated by the last boss, since the encounter is a complete push-over.

You may have heard about how this game’s story was going to be all dramatic and intense; while it is true that there is more emotion than the first game, it certainly didn’t have me in tears. There is a key emotional scene during the game, but I found it very strange that it really isn’t brought up again later, at least not in discussion. I know that’s vague, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Click the link below for the second page.

Pages: 1 2

Score: 80%

In short:

Take Diablo and add a hefty portion of Serious Sam… sound good? It is.

In slightly more detail:

The ‘Shooter’ series has been around for a while. Developer Sigma Team hasn’t been straying very far from the formula, either. In Alien Shooter – Vengeance, you are tasked with exterminating an alien threat. You do this from an isometric view similar to Diablo. The graphics are decent, and moderate PCs should be able to handle it. My 2-year old HP laptop choked during intense moments… and the game is 90% tense moments.

You start by choosing a character from a roster of men and women. Each one has slightly different stats in various physical attributes like strength or speed, or weapon proficiencies. As you complete tasks you will gain levels. Each time you level up, you get 5 points to spend on any attribute you like. Pro Tip: Focus on a couple areas in which you want to excel. More on that later.

As you progress through the game you will also acquire money. At various points you will have access to a shop in which you can purchase (or repair) armor, ammunition, weapons, cybernetic enhancements, medical gear and other equipment. I don’t remember exactly what the enhancements are called, but you can use up to three at a time. Each one imparts bonuses to one or more stats, and they can be quite useful. Sometimes they are even necessary, since access to more powerful weapons is reliant on you having a minimum weapon proficiency. Enhancements can help out a great deal in this regard.

Weapons come in 5 classes: pistols, shotguns, machine guns, explosives, and energy (power) weapons. You start out with a lowly pistol but can upgrade pretty quickly. You can carry one weapon for each category, which sounds great at first. In practice, however, you will probably not want to do this. Ammunition takes up precious inventory slots, and you will need a LOT of it. For this reason you will probably only carry 2 or 3 weapons. I went through the majority of the game carrying a shotgun, a machine gun, and a laser mini-gun. I almost never used the explosives, and quit using a pistol as soon as I could. There is also a flame thrower, but I found it to not be as practical as I’d hoped.

There are 15 levels in the game, each one taking about 25 minutes to traverse. You could spend longer if you wanted to find every secret. Yes, this game has Doom-style secrets, and many of them are not obvious. Another easter egg- if you play near Christmas, the title screen changes as well. A major complaint is that there is no quick save, or mid-level save of any kind. It’s all or nothing. You get a couple lives, and health kits automatically get used when needed. Playing on normal difficulty, I never died until level 8… at which point the game’s difficulty takes a steep incline. I’m not ashamed to admit it- I cheated my ass off to finish this game. Having played the entire thing (something I don’t do that often, so when I do it, you know the game is fun) I have to wonder how someone could play through it without cheating. Literal hordes of beasts attack you from all sides. The most challenging aspect, introduced in level 8, is  monster generators, ala Gauntlet. They have a lot of health, and essentially have built-in meat shields due to the fact that you have to wade through an ever-growing sea of monsters just to reach them. Explosives are helpful against these devices, but the early rocket launchers shoot so slow that I didn’t use them very often. As for the cheats, you can get money and skills, kill all the monsters, etc. But the most useful cheat is the ability to spawn a store whenever you need it: some levels do not contain a store. This is confounding because you’ll find yourself with a full inventory that you want to sell off, as well as needing to re-supply. If you do choose to cheat, I recommend that you do it in moderation; it’s easy to go too far, making yourself a walking God. That can be fun too, I suppose.

There is limited multiplayer, but I didn’t try it. A cooperative mode is simply one survival map where you just hold out as long as you can. If the campaign had co-op, it would have gotten a much higher score. I also knocked points off for general polish- voice overs (hilariously bad) often don’t match the on-screen text, for example. There’s also a major plot point that is left completely unresolved, not that it matters because this game does not require a plot. Let’s hope the upcoming Zombie Shooter 2 has full co-op.

Final Thoughts:

My first play-through lasted 5 hours and 4 minutes. I murdered 18, 374 creatures in that time. That’s just over 1 kill a second, and I don’t think there was ever a time that I wasn’t having fun. That’s pretty impressive for such a simple game. While a quick save would have been nice, the levels are short enough to load up when you have 30 minutes and want some simple, bloody fun.

If you want to buy this game, or check out a video:

Alien Shooter: Vengeance

Score: 85%

Version Reviewed: Xbox 360, also available for the Sony PS3

In short:

With over 40 games, this is the largest batch of Sega Genesis games ever thrown into a legal compilation. Don’t worry, I’ll separate the wheat from the chaff for you.

In a whole lot more detail:

Let’s get right to the point. In order to decide if you should spend $30 on this disc, you need to ask yourself a few questions.

1. Do I demand the latest in cutting edge graphics and gameplay? If your answer is yes, you can leave now.

2. Do I long for the gaming days of my youth, or do I love games so much that I want a history lesson? If yes, stick around.

3. Do I think that the sun rises and sets with Golden Axe? If yes, you rock. Stick around.

Marketing people…. they are idiots. How many people will instantly dismiss this collection, assuming it’s just a bunch of Sonic games? It’s SO much more. In fact, this collection is broad enough that, unless you only like sports games (of which there are curiously none), you are bound to find several games to enjoy.

When you load the disc, you are treated to an interface intended to replicate an actual Sega Genesis. You can sort the game list in a few ways, and can even apply your own ratings so that you can quickly find your favorites. One thing I didn’t like here: some of the games are unlockables, and do not appear in this list, even after you’ve unlocked them. You must always go to the bonus features section to play them. Speaking of the bonus features, you can also unlock video interviews with creators. Of the ones I’ve watched, they were less than entertaining, sadly.

You can also view very nice high resolution artwork for each game, as well as get a brief history lesson about each game.

I’ll run down the entire list of games in the collection later. First I’d like to touch on a few high and low points of the emulation system they’ve put together.

The audio, and maybe this was just my system, was LOUD. I had to reduce the volume on my receiver by half just so I wasn’t blown out of the room. Volume aside, some of these games feature very nice music (any time the splash screen says Yuzo Koshiro, you are in for a treat). Others have grating music and effects, but your mileage may vary.

On the video side, they made the appealing move to allow you to display games in 4:3 or 16:9 ratios. You can manually adjust the screen borders, which you will likely have to do when using wide-screen because the image just won’t fit properly. You can also turn on smoothing, which gives games a “painterly” look. Generally it looks nice, but it can make text look a bit weird. In particular I found Beyond Oasis to really benefit from the smoothing. Your display choices are saved on a per game basis and will be restored the next time you load a game. Sadly, there is no global video configuration. If you like smoothing and wide-screen, you will be applying it for every game the first time you load it. Speaking of loading, once you get to the game selection screen, there isn’t any. You can jump in and out of games very quickly, which is great.

One final note before I go over the games in the collection- you can now save at any time, in any game. Each game is given three save slots. This is an excellent move on Sega’s part, and makes working through these games all that more fun. I remember beating Shinobi III in one sitting years ago. I don’t remember how long it took, but that was not a short game.

On to the games list. I’ll be adding comments on each game, and keep in mind that I am not the platform genre’s biggest fan. It’s also worth noting that while you can use the analog stick for movement, I found the D-Pad to be preferable in almost every case. All the Genesis titles are unlocked from the start. There are a few Sega Master System and arcade titles that must be unlocked by completing certain objectives within the other games.

Click the page link below to go to the next page. To buy this game, or check out a video, click here.

Pages: 1 2 3

I watched the entire Microsoft keynote for E3. Lots of cool announcements, but only two that really interested me: Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. I’ve wanted more Crackdown ever since finishing the first one. I’m really looking forward to hearing more about that game.

Left 4 Dead 2 is very surprising to me…. usually Valve releases at the pace of Blizzard, i.e. hella slow. Also, they usually support their games with a hefty amount of post-release content. Will L4D2 mean that they are leaving L4D out in the cold? Time will tell. I can definitely say that I got my money’s worth out of the first one, but I’m not so sure I’d jump on the L4D2 bandwagon right at launch. I’ll have to find out more details.

Finally, I wrote a review for Plants vs. Zombies, if the million other such reviews weren’t enough for you.

UPDATE: According to this L4D 2 preview, the format of this release is not in stone. Hopefully we’ll see a discount for owners of the first game, or a possible inclusion in some sort of Orange Box 2. Valve has never screwed over its PC audience yet, so there’s no reason to think they will now.

I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum last night, and here’s what I thought about it. TLDR…. it’s great. Buy it.