As you may know by now (whether by talking to me or by reading my review of it), I'm a pretty big Galaga fan. When I first saw Galaga Legions being demonstrated at E3 '08, I was a bit skeptical. It instantly reminded me of Pac-Man Championship Edition, which, while it was an okay game, I didn't like it all that much (although I've never been a huge fan of Pac-Man, anyway. I like it, but it's nowhere near my favorite game). Since I'm such a big Galaga fan, all I was doing was praying that they didn't screw Legions up. Somehow, they changed a lot of the gameplay mechanics, but still made a pretty cool game, even by Galaga's standards.
Like I said, they changed a few things for Legions. The first is that you can move all around the screen, and not just left and right. Second, you have two turrets which can be placed anywhere on the screen, or you can just leave them attached to your ship for extra firepower. Third, the enemies and the way they act are way different. They can now come at you from any direction, and there are often very, very many of them. Since there are so many coming from all directions, the developers added a cool system that draws out the path of the enemies and shows you where they're coming from about a second before they do come. It's simple, helpful, and it looks really cool.
Speaking of looking cool, the graphics are a really neat-looking futuristic kind of thing. As I said before, the graphics really remind me of Pac-Man Championship Edition, so if you've seen it, just imagine a white spaceship and about a million green aliens, and you have Galaga. Another neat feature is you have three graphics style options to choose from, Original, Vintage, and Ancient. It's a little confusing, because they could all mean the same thing, but Original is the new, updated Legions graphics, and Vintage and Ancient are the 1981 sprites, but placed on the cool backgrounds and explosion effects.
The controls are much better than Galaga. You have two shooting modes to choose from, Manual and Automatic. You're only going to want to choose Manual if you're looking for a challenge, because you can have as many bullets as you want out at one time, as opposed to only being able to have two in Galaga. But, even if you do choose Manual, you can shoot with the Right Trigger, which feels a lot more natural than mashing the A button. You also use the Right Stick to place and position your turrets. I like the turrets because even though the eliminate the (need for a) double ship, they add a whole new dimension of strategy to the gameplay.
The sound has (obviously) been revamped, with techno/electronic music that, thankfully, stays in the background enough that your ears won't bleed. It also has a techno/electronic version of the little riff that I guess you consider the Galaga theme. The shooting also sounds really good, and the explosions sound pretty good.
There are a few flaws with Legions though, however small they may be. First is that there are only five areas. There are five levels in the five areas, but it's still not very many. Thankfully, the levels aren't that short, so it's not really a game that you can beat in twenty minutes. Second, sometimes there are too many enemies on the screen, and some of them may be shooting, so if you get caught up shooting aliens, you can forget to dodge bullets, resulting in some (seemingly) unfair deaths.
Overall, I really like Galaga Legions, and I think it's a worthy sequel/"enhanced remake" (it actually feels more like a sequel than an "enhanced remake", as the Wikipedia page insists) to the original Galaga, and it's way more than just pretty graphics, it's an entirely new game. 4 out of 5.
Showing posts with label Xbox 360. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xbox 360. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Review: Galaga (XBLA)
I was never a big fan of arcade machines. Hell, by the time I was old enough to really enjoy them, most of them were gone. Plus, I lived in a small town, so the only one I really ever played was this one in Pizza Hut, and it was a game I'd never even heard of (and unimportant enough that I don't remember the name). There were a few exceptions, though, and Galaga was one of the biggest, and remains one of my favorite games to this day. I first got interested in this type of game while watching my dad play this, and I thought it was so cool. Little did I know, the real thing was so much better, and the XBLA port/remake of the 1981 original is nearly as good.
The gameplay is the exact same as it was in the arcade. You fly around, moving your ship left and right, shooting aliens as they fly around and shoot back at you while they try and divebomb you kamikaze style. It's a basic idea, and it's done really well.
There were a few changes for the 360, however, like changing how many lives you start out with (up to 4), and changing how many points you have to get before being granted another life. The other major change is how you "Continue", if you can even call it that. Instead of having the choice to continue when you die, you're taken back to the menu, but you have the option to start from whatever stage you got to, but you start with no points. This is useful for getting some of the Achievements, but that almost makes the game feel a little too easy. Almost. One change that would have been more than welcome was a Co-op. I think that would have been pretty cool.
As I said before, the main game remains virtually unchanged, so it's got the same graphics and sounds. The controls, however, are a little different. The left thumbstick works well enough to move the ship, but mashing the "A" button to shoot is a little different. It works, but it might take some getting used to Thankfully, they added a Rapid Fire button, so you always have that option.
Galaga is a game that has stood the test of time. It was a great game over twenty-five years ago, and it still is today. It's been through several ports, and while I haven't played them all, I consider the XBLA version to be the best, and even though the graphics and sound are way outdated, it doesn't retract from the overall experience at all. 4 out of 5.
The gameplay is the exact same as it was in the arcade. You fly around, moving your ship left and right, shooting aliens as they fly around and shoot back at you while they try and divebomb you kamikaze style. It's a basic idea, and it's done really well.
There were a few changes for the 360, however, like changing how many lives you start out with (up to 4), and changing how many points you have to get before being granted another life. The other major change is how you "Continue", if you can even call it that. Instead of having the choice to continue when you die, you're taken back to the menu, but you have the option to start from whatever stage you got to, but you start with no points. This is useful for getting some of the Achievements, but that almost makes the game feel a little too easy. Almost. One change that would have been more than welcome was a Co-op. I think that would have been pretty cool.
As I said before, the main game remains virtually unchanged, so it's got the same graphics and sounds. The controls, however, are a little different. The left thumbstick works well enough to move the ship, but mashing the "A" button to shoot is a little different. It works, but it might take some getting used to Thankfully, they added a Rapid Fire button, so you always have that option.
Galaga is a game that has stood the test of time. It was a great game over twenty-five years ago, and it still is today. It's been through several ports, and while I haven't played them all, I consider the XBLA version to be the best, and even though the graphics and sound are way outdated, it doesn't retract from the overall experience at all. 4 out of 5.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Review: Portal: Still Alive (X360)
Back at E3 '08, VALVe surprised and excited many gamers by announcing Portal: Still Alive, and expansion for the award-winning Portal, which was one of the five fantastic games in The Orange Box. The day has finally come, and Portal: Still Alive is finally released.
First: Portal by itself was an absolutely fantastic game. It was fun, challenging and humorous all at the same time. The Portal Gun was something that hadn't been seen in games before. You played as Chell, a female Test Subject for Aperture Science. Throughout the game, you were guided by the often witty and sarcastic GLADoS, a talking supercomputer who would taunt, threaten and applaud you, sometimes all at once.
Portal: Still Alive is not a full-out sequel. It's an expansion of sorts. It adds 14 new Challenge Maps in the game, all of which amazingly creative and super fun to play. The maps are based off a fan-made map pack which was based on Portal: The Flash Version, so if you play through P:TFV, you not only get the general gist of Portal itself, but you also get a sneak-peek of sorts at P:SA.
Since it's based on the Flash version, which had several hazards that weren't in the original Portal, a few of those hazards are in P:SA. In turn, P:SA "feels" a lot different than Portal. P:SA requires an entirely different way of solving the puzzles, so you'll have to learn to "Think With Portals" all over again. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. The thing that I always liked about Portal was that it never seemed to get so frustrating that I would want to quit, and the same goes for P:SA. Even though it can get frustrating, it's never too much.
Now for the bad. For one, it's an Xbox Live exclusive, at least for a while. It's also the biggest XBLA game right now (it's about 630Mb). This isn't necessarily bad, but it can take up quite a bit of space if you don't have a very big Hard Drive. Next, since it's basically just a Map Pack, GLADoS isn't in any of the 14 new Challenge Maps. A lot of people will say that since it doesn't have GLADoS, then it's no good. That is not true. It's still amazingly fun, just not as humorous. The last thing is a problem that everyone had with the first: it's ridiculously short. Most people can beat Portal in about 3 hours. I beat P:SA in a little over two.
Portal: Still Alive is a fantastic game, and an even more fantastic deal. 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15) may seem a little steep, but it's well worth it. If you haven't played Portal then this is a definite buy, and if you have played it, then you should still buy this, as even though it contributes nothing to the storyline, it's still a fantastic game, and on top of that, the original Portal in it's entirety is also in there. 5 out of 5.
First: Portal by itself was an absolutely fantastic game. It was fun, challenging and humorous all at the same time. The Portal Gun was something that hadn't been seen in games before. You played as Chell, a female Test Subject for Aperture Science. Throughout the game, you were guided by the often witty and sarcastic GLADoS, a talking supercomputer who would taunt, threaten and applaud you, sometimes all at once.
Portal: Still Alive is not a full-out sequel. It's an expansion of sorts. It adds 14 new Challenge Maps in the game, all of which amazingly creative and super fun to play. The maps are based off a fan-made map pack which was based on Portal: The Flash Version, so if you play through P:TFV, you not only get the general gist of Portal itself, but you also get a sneak-peek of sorts at P:SA.
Since it's based on the Flash version, which had several hazards that weren't in the original Portal, a few of those hazards are in P:SA. In turn, P:SA "feels" a lot different than Portal. P:SA requires an entirely different way of solving the puzzles, so you'll have to learn to "Think With Portals" all over again. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. The thing that I always liked about Portal was that it never seemed to get so frustrating that I would want to quit, and the same goes for P:SA. Even though it can get frustrating, it's never too much.
Now for the bad. For one, it's an Xbox Live exclusive, at least for a while. It's also the biggest XBLA game right now (it's about 630Mb). This isn't necessarily bad, but it can take up quite a bit of space if you don't have a very big Hard Drive. Next, since it's basically just a Map Pack, GLADoS isn't in any of the 14 new Challenge Maps. A lot of people will say that since it doesn't have GLADoS, then it's no good. That is not true. It's still amazingly fun, just not as humorous. The last thing is a problem that everyone had with the first: it's ridiculously short. Most people can beat Portal in about 3 hours. I beat P:SA in a little over two.
Portal: Still Alive is a fantastic game, and an even more fantastic deal. 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15) may seem a little steep, but it's well worth it. If you haven't played Portal then this is a definite buy, and if you have played it, then you should still buy this, as even though it contributes nothing to the storyline, it's still a fantastic game, and on top of that, the original Portal in it's entirety is also in there. 5 out of 5.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Review: Sneak King (Xbox/X360)
Way back in November 2006, Burger King started selling actual videogames based on the Burger King (the creepy guy in the commercials) for the Xbox and the Xbox 360 for an extra $3.99 with any value meal. Sneak King was one of the three titles they sold (alongside Big Bumpin' and Pocketbike Racer), and it's my favorite out of the three. It borrows heavily from games like Metal Gear Solid, and does it fairly well, at least to some extent.
The basic premise is that you play as the King, and you run around the four levels, hiding in places like bushes, garbage cans, and piles of leaves, waiting for someone to walk by so you can jump out and give them a hamburger. Sounds fun, right? It is, for a while at least. As you can imagine, sneaking around handing out food gets a little repetitive after a while.
As I mentioned, there are only four levels (ranging from locales like a lumberyard to a Burger King parking lot), but there are twenty challenges per level, so there are 80 challenges in all, and each one only takes a few minutes to complete. You start out the levels in a sandbox-style, and from there, you run around the level looking for floating newspapers that represent the challenges in the level. After you finish a challenge, you are graded with a letter. The challenges are all pretty simple, just typical stuff like having to deliver so many hamburgers in so many minutes, that kind of stuff.
Now, you can't just run up to someone and give them a hamburger, you have to find hungry people (you can tell who they are because they have hamburger icons over their heads) and get food to them before they faint. The people all walk on a set path and have a Metal Gear Solid-style vision cone, and if you step in that cone, you're caught and they lose their appetite. If you do get the food to them in time, a meter pops up, and if you hit the "A" button at the right time, you get a Flourish score (depending on your button timing, and depending on your Flourish score, the King will do a little dance to celebrate, which is funny at first, but it gets a little annoying after a while), which multiplies your score for that particular delivery. If you deliver more than one burger without getting caught, you start building a chain, which also multiplies your score.
The graphics in the game are surprisingly decent. Don't get me wrong, it's no GTAIV, but they're decent. That being said, this is one of the creepiest looking games I think I've ever played. Think about it, you play as a giant-headed King (who already looks pretty creepy alone) jumping out of places giving people food. There are a few graphical glitches here and there, mainly with shadows, but nothing major. The sound is just...there. Nothing special, but nothing that will make you want to mute your TV right away.
All in all, this is a decent game...for about 3 hours, if that long. After that, it's pretty bland. This isn't exactly the deepest title out there, you know. You'll probably just play it for a weekend and then be done with it forever. This game is more for just sitting on your shelf and looking cool (which it does) than for playing. You do have to remember, though, that this was a budget-title, and basically just a big Burger King commercial, and on top of that, it was only $4. What can you get for $4, a hamburger?
I give this game a 3 out of 5.
The basic premise is that you play as the King, and you run around the four levels, hiding in places like bushes, garbage cans, and piles of leaves, waiting for someone to walk by so you can jump out and give them a hamburger. Sounds fun, right? It is, for a while at least. As you can imagine, sneaking around handing out food gets a little repetitive after a while.
As I mentioned, there are only four levels (ranging from locales like a lumberyard to a Burger King parking lot), but there are twenty challenges per level, so there are 80 challenges in all, and each one only takes a few minutes to complete. You start out the levels in a sandbox-style, and from there, you run around the level looking for floating newspapers that represent the challenges in the level. After you finish a challenge, you are graded with a letter. The challenges are all pretty simple, just typical stuff like having to deliver so many hamburgers in so many minutes, that kind of stuff.
Now, you can't just run up to someone and give them a hamburger, you have to find hungry people (you can tell who they are because they have hamburger icons over their heads) and get food to them before they faint. The people all walk on a set path and have a Metal Gear Solid-style vision cone, and if you step in that cone, you're caught and they lose their appetite. If you do get the food to them in time, a meter pops up, and if you hit the "A" button at the right time, you get a Flourish score (depending on your button timing, and depending on your Flourish score, the King will do a little dance to celebrate, which is funny at first, but it gets a little annoying after a while), which multiplies your score for that particular delivery. If you deliver more than one burger without getting caught, you start building a chain, which also multiplies your score.
The graphics in the game are surprisingly decent. Don't get me wrong, it's no GTAIV, but they're decent. That being said, this is one of the creepiest looking games I think I've ever played. Think about it, you play as a giant-headed King (who already looks pretty creepy alone) jumping out of places giving people food. There are a few graphical glitches here and there, mainly with shadows, but nothing major. The sound is just...there. Nothing special, but nothing that will make you want to mute your TV right away.
All in all, this is a decent game...for about 3 hours, if that long. After that, it's pretty bland. This isn't exactly the deepest title out there, you know. You'll probably just play it for a weekend and then be done with it forever. This game is more for just sitting on your shelf and looking cool (which it does) than for playing. You do have to remember, though, that this was a budget-title, and basically just a big Burger King commercial, and on top of that, it was only $4. What can you get for $4, a hamburger?
I give this game a 3 out of 5.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Review: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (X360)
Okay. I've never actually written a formal review of anything before, so you shouldn't expect a whole lot more than my regular dose of literary genius. Hopefully, if I think this review turns out okay (and if I get good feedback (wait, I need readers for that, right? Shit.)), then I might review other games (maybe Metal Gear Solid 4). Here goes:
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Review
Every once in a while, a game comes along that looks awesome in the previews, and deep down you really want it to be awesome, but when you actually play the game, you find out it's crap. Okay, so enough about Super Smash Bros. Brawl (yeah, I hated it), let's talk about Mercenaries 2.
There are three Mercenaries to choose from, but most everybody will probably pick Mattias Nillson - the Swedish dude on the cover of the game - because he regenerates health a little faster (one of the other characters can carry more ammo, and the other one can run a little faster), but no matter who you choose, the story is basically the same.
The story, albeit short and rather unimportant, is where you're in Venezuela to do a job for a dude named Ramon Solano, then instead of paying you, shoots you in the ass. In turn, you blow up half of his house, forcing him to GTFO. Now, you can't just let a half-good mansion go to waste can you? No, you take it and use it as your base. Actually, it's a base for the whole PMC (Private Millitary Company) which consists of:
The controls work very well. I especially liked the way helicopters controlled - much better than GTAIV, although maybe not as realistic. Speaking of helicopters, that's just one of the many, many vehicles you can hijack and/or have dropped to you by Ewan. Every time you try to hijack an attack vehicle (i.e. enemy tanks, helicopters, etc.), you go through a short hit-the-right-button-at-the-right-time minigame, similar to Time Gal or the arcade version of Dragon's Lair. Some people think that those add too many breaks in the action, but I think it's good to pause for a few seconds every once in a while. Plus, if you take long enough doing it, then you can possibly regain a few health points.
The gameplay is also quite excellent, although at times the AI can be a bit of a drag. There were times when some enemies would just stand around and not move, not shooting or anything. As bad as the enemy AI is, the allied AI is even worse. There was a mission where I had to fly into an enemy base, save two captured pilots, call an allied helicopter for extraction, and then continue with the mission. So, I flew in, released the pilots, called a chopper in, but nothing happened. The guys just stood there. The AI was too stupid to even realize that the extraction chopper had landed. Long story short, I died several times just because the AI was so stupid.
The graphics are also not quite up-to-par (although the explosions look pretty freaking awesome). They're decent and they get the job done, but I've run in to several graphical glitches (albeit nothing as bad as I saw in Alone in the Dark. Ugh.), but it wasn't anything major. There's also some bit of texture and object pop-in. When you're flying a helicopter, you can see land and water for several miles out, but at times it almost looks like crap because the textures don't get high-quality until you're pretty close (I would guess about 100 feet. It doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty noticable in a helicopter), and the same goes for objects, such as trees and buildings.
There is one huge thing that makes this game stand out from a lot of others, and that is all of the environments are completely destructible, and anything you destroy stays until you restart your system. Destroying things is probably 85% of the fun in the game, and you have plenty of options in how to destroy everything, the simplest being grenades, C4, and missiles from tanks and helicopters. My favorite, however are the airstrikes, and there are several to choose from.
My final complaint, although rather minor, is that the dialogue can get very, very repetitive. There's one line that Fiona repeats every time you leave the PMC when you're not in a mission that I've probably hear 200 times in my 25+ hours of gameplay, and I'm not exaggerating. There's also a few other lines that get old, but none like the one Fiona repeats over. And over. And over.
While this game has some ups and downs (and the way I see it, there are more downs than ups, although the ups are greater than the downs), there's definitely something to be said for a game as buggy and repetitive as this, and yet I still 100% recommend it to almost anyone. It's that good. 4 out of 5.
Note: I haven't even tried co-op yet, but from what I hear, it's even better.
EDIT: During my exploits on the internet, I've found an Official Mercenaries 2 Flash Game, the full version of the song from the commercial and a Making-Of video for the commercial.
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Review
Every once in a while, a game comes along that looks awesome in the previews, and deep down you really want it to be awesome, but when you actually play the game, you find out it's crap. Okay, so enough about Super Smash Bros. Brawl (yeah, I hated it), let's talk about Mercenaries 2.
There are three Mercenaries to choose from, but most everybody will probably pick Mattias Nillson - the Swedish dude on the cover of the game - because he regenerates health a little faster (one of the other characters can carry more ammo, and the other one can run a little faster), but no matter who you choose, the story is basically the same.
The story, albeit short and rather unimportant, is where you're in Venezuela to do a job for a dude named Ramon Solano, then instead of paying you, shoots you in the ass. In turn, you blow up half of his house, forcing him to GTFO. Now, you can't just let a half-good mansion go to waste can you? No, you take it and use it as your base. Actually, it's a base for the whole PMC (Private Millitary Company) which consists of:
- You (whatever mercenary you chose to play as)
- Fiona, your "boss"
- Ewan, your Scottish helicopter pilot, used to pick up oil and bring you supply drops
- Eva, your mechanic. If you find enough of the 100 Spare Parts scattered across Venezuela, then she can build you custom vehicles, like monster trucks with the ability to jump
- Then finally, Misha, the perpetually drunken Russian airplane pilot. You need him for airstrikes
The controls work very well. I especially liked the way helicopters controlled - much better than GTAIV, although maybe not as realistic. Speaking of helicopters, that's just one of the many, many vehicles you can hijack and/or have dropped to you by Ewan. Every time you try to hijack an attack vehicle (i.e. enemy tanks, helicopters, etc.), you go through a short hit-the-right-button-at-the-right-time minigame, similar to Time Gal or the arcade version of Dragon's Lair. Some people think that those add too many breaks in the action, but I think it's good to pause for a few seconds every once in a while. Plus, if you take long enough doing it, then you can possibly regain a few health points.
The gameplay is also quite excellent, although at times the AI can be a bit of a drag. There were times when some enemies would just stand around and not move, not shooting or anything. As bad as the enemy AI is, the allied AI is even worse. There was a mission where I had to fly into an enemy base, save two captured pilots, call an allied helicopter for extraction, and then continue with the mission. So, I flew in, released the pilots, called a chopper in, but nothing happened. The guys just stood there. The AI was too stupid to even realize that the extraction chopper had landed. Long story short, I died several times just because the AI was so stupid.
The graphics are also not quite up-to-par (although the explosions look pretty freaking awesome). They're decent and they get the job done, but I've run in to several graphical glitches (albeit nothing as bad as I saw in Alone in the Dark. Ugh.), but it wasn't anything major. There's also some bit of texture and object pop-in. When you're flying a helicopter, you can see land and water for several miles out, but at times it almost looks like crap because the textures don't get high-quality until you're pretty close (I would guess about 100 feet. It doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty noticable in a helicopter), and the same goes for objects, such as trees and buildings.
There is one huge thing that makes this game stand out from a lot of others, and that is all of the environments are completely destructible, and anything you destroy stays until you restart your system. Destroying things is probably 85% of the fun in the game, and you have plenty of options in how to destroy everything, the simplest being grenades, C4, and missiles from tanks and helicopters. My favorite, however are the airstrikes, and there are several to choose from.
My final complaint, although rather minor, is that the dialogue can get very, very repetitive. There's one line that Fiona repeats every time you leave the PMC when you're not in a mission that I've probably hear 200 times in my 25+ hours of gameplay, and I'm not exaggerating. There's also a few other lines that get old, but none like the one Fiona repeats over. And over. And over.
While this game has some ups and downs (and the way I see it, there are more downs than ups, although the ups are greater than the downs), there's definitely something to be said for a game as buggy and repetitive as this, and yet I still 100% recommend it to almost anyone. It's that good. 4 out of 5.
Note: I haven't even tried co-op yet, but from what I hear, it's even better.
EDIT: During my exploits on the internet, I've found an Official Mercenaries 2 Flash Game, the full version of the song from the commercial and a Making-Of video for the commercial.
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