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I recently had the opportunity to sit down and play a few Xbox 360 demos, including Bulletstorm, Breach, and Crysis 2. Each game is a different take on the First Person Shooter, and boy are they different!


Bulletstorm

The game’s motto is “Kill with Skill”, though I think it might be more accurately represented as, “Kill like a potty mouthed 12 year old”. Bulletstorm’s visuals were crisp and colorful, if not a bit oversaturated. I enjoyed them however, as it’s a nice change from the gritty, grey backdrops that you see in most shooters. The game’s mechanics were interesting – not a big deviation from the control schemes found in other games, aside from the use of your laser lasso (I’m not sure if it’s actually called a laser lasso, but we’ll stick with it). Grabbing enemies from across the screen and pulling them in my direction was a hoot – I loved blasting them back in the opposite direction only to grab them again and shoot them (or kick them) to their death. The use of the game’s environment in killing enemies is novel, and a nice approach, though it does rely heavily on the use of the aforementioned lasso.

What didn’t I like? Well, I felt like the game tried too hard to be gritty and sarcastic. Vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity is rarely funny, and that stands true in Bulletstorm. The character drops mild expletives left and right, and immediately after starting the game, you are lovingly referred to as “Dicktits”. Charming. You are later instructed to “guide my boot into his bean bag”.

Listen. I’m no prude. I enjoy an off color joke just as much as the next guy. However, the way that Bulletstorm crowbars the vulgarity in like a 12 year old that just learned a whole slew of new dirty words just isn’t funny. Never has been, never will be. I know it might age me, but I honestly prefer the subtle (but also toilet) humor of a game like “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” over something as blatantly crass as Bulletstorm. That’s just me.

Trite dialogue aside, the game definitely looks like one I’ll play through at least once.



Breach

I won’t lie – I’m a Call of Duty guy. I enjoy the franchise quite a bit, even though I only started playing when World at War was released. I’ll play some Halo and Battlefield now and again, but CoD is where it’s at for me. I enjoy multiplayer FPS games, and Breach sounded like a fantastic game right from the beginning. A shoot-em-up that forces you to use cover, has destructable environments, AND is released by an indie publisher? Sign me up!

That was my initial reaction. Then, I played the demo. Sigh.

Oh Breach, I had such high hopes. The game’s graphics were fine, I didn’t expect a professional art studio level of polish. The biggest problem I had with the game was lag. …problem I had with the game was lag. …problem I had with the game was lag.

You get the picture. Any time an enemy showed up, I would peek out from behind my cover and start shooting. He would disappear, re-enter my field of view, and I would start shooting again. This process repeated ad-naseum until I was shot by someone else on the opposing team. I quit that match and joined another – same problem. I eventually rebooted every network device in my house and tried again. No luck. Eventually, I just said forget it and switched to the Crysis demo – no problems there.

In my eyes this game had such potential. For me, the lag issues are a complete deal breaker. I also hated the audio, as it sounded like my M16 shot Airsoft pellets, but I can overlook that in the end. Lag however, I cannot.

Matt assures me that my experience is not indicative of what the majority of players have experienced. He also says that Atomic is working on a fix for my issues, at which point I will give it another shot. Until then, no MS points are leaving my hands.


Crysis 2

The phrase, “Can it run Crysis?” should tell you all you need to know about this franchise. This statement/challenge has been tossed out many times over whenever new computer hardware hits the streets. With that in mind, one would expect the next iteration of the series to be visually stunning, and that it is.

I played Crysis 2 for just a little while, and I really liked what I saw. I will be honest when I say I was absolutely terrible at the game, but that didn’t matter. The visuals were there, as you would expect, as were the game mechanics. It just didn’t work out for me, but that won’t stop me from giving it a go when it’s released.


So there you have it. I will definitely be giving Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm a try once they are officially released, but my decision on Breach sits in limbo for the time being.

Atomic Games first came to my attention when an open letter from Atomic’s current president Peter Tamte, former executive vice president of Bungie Studios, was posted on Kotatku calling out Activision’s President Bobby Kotick for a comment that was said during the 2010 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference.  Mr. Kotick is quoted saying “Bungie are a very unusual company. They’re probably the last remaining high quality independent developer.”  The response from Tamte was, “If this is true, you’re screwed.”  He said that simply because small independent studios like Atomic Games are what large third-party developers eat for breakfast in order for their games to be a little more regularly timed.  Tamte challenged Kotick to produce just the multi-player section of Call of Duty: Black Ops and place it for sale by consumers. Perhaps Tamte wanted Activision to provide direct one to one comparison of a solely multi-player based game such as Breach, which is made by an independent developer who doesn’t have large amounts of cash to throw into making a game.

To ease into introducing exactly what Breach is comprised of, it is necessary to take a step back and look at Atomic Games as a whole.  For over two decades, Atomic has been creating military based games Their most notable history came in 2003 when their title Close Combat Marine became the first commercial game to be Incorporated into the training of US Marines. In 2005, the investment firm of the CIA invested in Atomic Games.  Needless to say, besides creating military games for public enjoyment, Atomic has been creating simulations for actual military use.  However, one key distinction Tamte makes, is that they “…don’t make simulations for the public and [they] don’t make games for the government. “ To drive a point about Breach, it is a militaristic based game for consumers, but contains real world elements without completely being a military simulation.

By using technology originally invented for their title Six Days In Fallujah, which was pulled by Konami after strong objections to the sensitive nature of the content, Atomic was able to create a game more accessible and affordable to gamers.  A key point to this seems to be that it is a multi-player only game, much like what Peter Tamte challenged Activision to make.  A simple download on Xbox Live or PC is easy enough to do and, weighing in at a price of 1200 MSP for XBLA or $19.99 for PC, it seems to fit the bill.  However, to call Breach a simple arcade game would be a drastic understatement.  It instead does its best to show a realistic approach to a warfare game through the use of real weapons, real gadgets, destroyable active cover, and the fact that dying is just a very easy thing to do.

Visually speaking about Breach is difficult to do. The comparison of Breach to Battlefield: 1943 comes to mind.  Simple character models, trucks, buildings and etc are found everywhere.  While not stunning, do not detract from Breach’s sleek look.  The maps themselves appear shoddy at points, though are very expansive for this title.  At certain points, after running through an area and coming to a rest there seems to be a shift or lag in the surroundings whilst the game’s focus settles.  Not being prone to motion sickness, it was a surprise to feel some sickness from the visual effect.   This distortion is soon forgotten once commencing game-play and is easily forgivable as it may simply be the result of overwhelming texture and details.

Game-play itself is partially unique to the first person shooting world.  Currently dominated by large titles such as Call of Duty, Halo or Battlefield 2; Breach breaks the format of running and gunning by introducing active cover once found only in third person shooter titles such as Gears of War or Wanted: Weapons of Fate.  Forcing players to use cover is another thing but, while playing during review sessions, it was by a random developer that once people worked out how to use it the flow of game-play would shift drastically.  This was evident though personal acclimation to the cover system and through observation as the week spent playing Breach progressed.

When Atomic combined their Hydrogen engine with Nividia PhysX (easily identifiable as a physics engine), they created an interesting system.  Those lovely little boxes, bridges, buildings, windows, rocks, wall and everything else that can be use as cover can also be destroyed.  That is right, simply detonate floors away from enemy snipers or deny sandbags from being used as cover.    RPGs, grenades and other explosives will blow away bridges and walls leaving gaping holes where once a window used to be.  This is what Breach is all about, taking cover and taking cover away.  It is easy to see why they chose PhysX as handling little bits and pieces of everything flying everywhere cannot be an easy thing to handle.  Of course, any system can be flawed and occasionally a bit of wall, rock, or sandbag will be left floating in air.  Sometimes these pieces or even just normal pieces will cause you to be stuck and force you to move around them.  Digressing, though, little glitches happen even in AAA titles and game-play does not seem to be adversely affected once you get the hang of maneuvering around correctly.

As if that were not enough, Atomic has added in weapons never seen in games before, perks mostly based on real world expertise and, gadgets used in real military operations.  A word of advice is to quickly gain enough credits to spend on DragonSkin armor.  Everyone seems to have it and without it you are left very vulnerable.  Though if the DragonSkin armor works in real life as it does in Breach, every individual serving in our military should be outfitted with it.  Progression in leveling is slow, xp is mainly earned by scoring kills though capturing points and performing other objectives will earn xp as well.  Experience points are tallied both in a total amount and also per load-out you are using.   Earn enough in one load-out and you earn the next weapon available.  It is slightly disappointing that these load-outs cannot be changed while between matches but requires the player to back out to the main menu.

Matches are sorted into a few different modes, straying very slightly from modes seen before in other games.  There is team death-match which is completely self explanatory,  sole survivor aka no re-spawns, retrieval or one flag ctf, infiltration aka territories, and convoy.  The only slightly unique game mode is Convoy.  In convoy, one team escorts a two vehicle convoy (mounted with a turret and grenade launcher respectively), occasionally taking out barricades.  The opposing team simply has to keep the convoy from advancing within the time frame.  The only thing that is remotely close to this game mode that I can think of is payload in Team Fortress 2.  The only thing Team Fortress 2 is missing is the fact that in Breach, the payload has weapons mounted directly onto it. For those that would like their matches to be even more realistic, each match can be set to hardcore and friendly fire.  While friendly fire of course allows team killing, hardcore mode will turn off your hud and having both puts the player one step closer to reality.

Well all said in done, Breach simply packs itself full of quality maps, weapons, perks, gadgets and game-types, but still manages to be small to be called a Xbox Live Arcade game.  Make no mistake here, this is no arcade game.  For those out there disappointed in the lack of a single player game with no story line, just remember that there are full AAA titles out there that have done the same thing.  It may take some time to get used to how this game is supposed to be played, but with a little effort and patience, great enjoyment is to be found.   Still not convinced?  The demo is available via the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Indeed graphics have been improved and new features are implemented that affect both new and old users.  (Not your age, just how long you’ve been playing the game.)  The most important update to the series is the advancement in the physics of everything.  The new physics surpasses anything else currently available.  It is true too, so far this is the best pinball game I’ve played, not just from them but from anyone else currently making pinball games.

I downloaded the Pinball FX 2 platform and then proceeded to download the tables for it.  See the thing with number 2 is that the platform itself is free, but you have to provide the tables.  You can either download the new tables or load the tables you already have from the first Pinball FX game.  This way you can save a lot of dough by using what you already have and I think that is a pretty nice thing for Zen Studios to do.

The tables available in the Core Collection are Pasha, Rome, Biolab, Secrets of the Deep. These are the new Pinball FX 2 tables.  If you have never downloaded Pinball FX content to import, you can download the classic collection.  The classic collection contains Speed Machine, Extreme Agents and Buccaneer.  I downloaded both, but I’ll only mention the new tables for the sake of sticking to Pinball FX 2 items.

Loading up Pinball FX 2 for my first time actually came  week after release.  Boy was I surprised when the new feature of a live score comparison told me that not only did two friends of mine own the game, but I was at a big disadvantage for score.  You see there is a thing called superscore and it is a tally of all your scores across all your tables.  You can also see which of your friends holds the current high-score for each table.  I was rocking a big fat 0.  There is even a Wizard Score which is your score plus all your friends’ scores.  So score high and have lots of friends and the Wizard Score is sure to rise.  I slightly challenged myself to try and become the high-score holder on all the tables I had available to me.  (Of course if you don’t have the tables your friends have, they will easily out-rank you in superscore.)

My quest started with Secrets of the Deep.  While the tables load, you are show the current scores of you and your friends, in case you needed extra encouragement.  The game itself operates exactly like how you would expect a pinball game from Zen Studios would.  (Except of course if you haven’t played any of their previous works.)  The controls are very simple and leave the gameplay all to your skill.  Left trigger controls the left flippers, the right trigger the right bumpers and a flick of the right thumbstick lets you cheat a little with tilt.  (Though since it’s built in it becomes more of a strategic method than actually cheating, until the system catches your tilt and ends your ball that is.)

Secrets of the Deep itself is very beautiful both visually and mechanically.  The theme of this one is, of course, the deep blue sea and your exploration of it.  I myself  have a hard time understanding the goals of any pinball game and my basic strategy is to just keep the balls going.  The trouble is, there are some extra mini-games played only in the score screen and sometimes they will catch you by surprise.  Be ready to control your left and right movements or up and down movements with the triggers.  Recently I went back to refresh my memory on this table only to discover that a friend had beaten my high score.  I readily corrected that injustice.

Biolab is very interesting.  The goal in this one is to modify genetic code to create an ultimate creation.  Of course, the proper order in which to do so eludes me still.  This table is zany and fun, though the directions you are able to shoot the ball seem to be cordoned off so you’ll have to figure out a different way to get your ball across the entire table.

Rome is quite possibly my favorite and if you read my last review of Zen Pinball and the Tesla table you would undoubtedly understand why.  The mere though of wood and metal from an era long gone working to make a pinball table exhilarates me.  At first play, I thought having a more animated soldier than what would be normally present on a real table was something that might be a faux pas.  Until I played the Lord of the Rings pinball table that had a demon bar me entry to the ring.  I figure now, what is wrong with doing the same in a virtual game, but giving it more umpf? Answer: Nothing!  Send your pinball into combat or load the treachery, your choice.

Pasha reminds me of another table in the Zen Studios world; Arabian Nights.  Pasha is instead Persian legends and a few seem very similar.  However, in full effect is it very much it’s own game.  This one is difficult to get into other parts of the board as well. For the most part you’ll be able to shoot straight and get yourself closer to the internal game.  When close to unlocking the mini-game/table, the table darkens and the area that is ready to open glows purple.  I really dislike when this happens as I cannot see where my ball for the most part.  Then, if you do get into the next part be ready as the internal table has more flippers and little guards for you to knock over like a fair game.  Frankly, tables that have tables built into them are awesome.  (I feel an internet meme coming on.)

Overall, these tables would be nothing without the system behind them making everything work, and I dearly love the fact that this is a close as a real table you can get without actually going out a finding tables to play.  There are even more features built in that I never had a chance explore.  You can play a few different methods of multiplayer.  Of course you can take compete against friends online, but you can video chat while you do so.  You take turns with a friend locally as well, though I don’t think you need the video chat to converse with them.  Now here is something new, split screen pinball playing.  Go head to head with your friend, though I think you need a nicer tv to fit them on the screen properly.  (Who doesn’t have one these days.)

So it’s an excellent game and if you’re looking to fill your pinball needs you should consider this, after all it’s only an arcade game that plays like the real thing.  Here’s a feature request Zen Studios, put in a horizontal mode so I can convert a wide screen tv into an actual pinball table.  Man that would be sweet!

There are so many wonderful pictures of these tables so here is a nice gallery to look at.

In case you hadn’t heard, the seventh Harry Potter film came out this past Friday to solid reviews, and several millions of devout fans. The Harry Potter series is so popular; it has so many fans that naturally, there are many companies trying to cash in on that collective consumer base. One such company is Electronic Arts who, in the past, has released all of the Harry Potter licensed video games. They are once again releasing a game to correspond with the new movie’s release.

Myself being a huge Harry Potter fan, I decided I would purchase the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 video game. Having played the previous entries in to the series (the most recent of which took place in an open world Hogwarts), I was certainly intrigued by the switch to a 3rd person cover based “shooter” to match the higher action of the last book of the series. Sadly, the moment I put the game disc inside my Xbox, I wanted to take it out. Make no mistake about it, this game is bad, it may even be the worst game I have ever played.

The game follows the plot of the movie (sort of) in that you follow Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they attempt to destroy the pieces of Lord Voldemort’s soul that he has stored inside objects (Horcruxes) in order to render himself immortal. Dumbledore is dead (spoiler alert), Voldemort’s henchmen (the Death Eaters) have taken over the ministry of magic, and Muggle-born (born of “non-magic” folk) witches and wizards are being rounded up and imprisoned or killed.

This all sounds like a pretty interesting premise for a game, but evidently, EA Bright Light didn’t get the memo. The opening sequence consists of harry fighting off Death Eaters as he rides shotgun in Hagrid’s flying motorcycle, which is almost fun for the first thirty seconds, until you realize the Death Eaters are using Hagrid’s enormous size as a way to shield themselves from your view. There’s also an inexplicable prompt on the screen for you to “talk” which does nothing except make Harry mutter things like “Hagrid! Go faster!” or “They’re getting closer!” The game then shows a couple cutscenes, awkwardly cutting out in what seems like the middle of them from what I assumed was budget cuts, since it seems like they didn’t have enough money to finish all the cinematics. Before you know it, you, Ron, and Hermione are on the run, hunting down Horcruxes and fighting Death Eaters.

The fighting part is almost as bad as the incomprehensible story here. As a cover shooter, there are lost of barrels, fences, corrugated steel walls and other things to take cover behind. The primary issue that arises, however, is that they might as well not be there in the first place, since it seems the Death Eaters are able to blast you through any surface you are taking refuge behind. 45 minutes in to the game I figured out that simply strafing was sufficient enough to confuse the piss-poor A.I. in to missing me entirely with their spells.

In between the missions that drive the story, you are tasked with performing 3 missions that are not connected to the plot in any way. The game gives you the freedom (shall we call it freedom?) to choose which order you would like to do these tasks in. Unfortunately, they all equally suck. Some of them involve moving from point A to point B in a level while freeing Muggle-borns from Death Eaters, some are survive-until-the-timer-runs-out levels, and then there are the invisibility cloak levels.

These levels have Harry sneaking around under his invisibility cloak, either trying to simply get past Death Eaters or to free Muggle-borns, since apparently Harry is morally obligated to take a break from saving the world to help these poor witches and wizards. This part of the game would have actually worked well, had they taken the time to test it for its basic enjoyment. Playing through these particular missions, it became apparent to me that this game had no business being a cover shooter with some stealth bits, and should have been the other way around. The final book in the series is not about huge action (at least until the final chapters) and neither was the movie. So it baffles me as to the direction that EA Bright Light took here.

Those concerns aside, neither of the game-play types work at all, the cloak sections being equally as bad as the combat. Several times I found myself several feet away from someone, only to have them miraculously notice me standing there, not moving at all. Other times, I’d be randomly slid across the room by an invisible force into a Death Eater. Every gameplay aspect in this game is broken to the point where I am not entirely sure the game was tested, especially considering there are innumerable glitches and problems (not the least of which is lip-synching that resembles a badly dubbed Japanese kung fu movie).

Perhaps the worst part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: The video game (that title gives Naruto games a run for their money) is the fact that it shows brief glimmers of hope that underneath this decrepit mass of awful gameplay and nonsensical story, there may have been a half-decent (and even playable) game. Using the patronus charm to fend off demetors is actually kind of fun, and some graphical elements are interesting, but all of those somewhat redeeming qualities cannot save this game from itself. It is a cheap cash-in that uses the love people have for this series as a way to manipulate them in to a few hours of wasted time, and sixty dollars out of their pocket. I’m going to let you in on a secret; I couldn’t finish this game. It’s not that it was too hard; it’s actually pretty easy. No, I couldn’t beat this game because I’m not a masochist. I looked at it Sunday evening after finally seeing the movie and thought to myself, “Do I really want to ruin my love for the movie by playing more of this game?” The answer is a resounding no, and neither should you.

Skip this game. In fact, try not to touch it, the suck might rub off, in which case, I need to go take a shower. From every angle, this game is atrocious. It panders to the emotional consumer and is manipulative at best, downright cruel at worst. Gaming should never feel like a chore, and playing this game was like cleaning the gunk out from under your fridge. This game was so bad; I started to not enjoy Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for a moment because I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad this game was. Do yourself a favor, and take the sixty dollars you would have spent on this game, and see the movie 4 times in IMAX. It’ll be well worth the money you pay.

1 out of 5 limes

ESPN on Xbox LIVE

• 3,500 Sporting Events A Year – Access more than 3,500 live and on-demand global sporting events from ESPN3.com a year, including college basketball, college football and college bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer and more.
• Out of Market Games – Catch your favorite college team games. Check out the huge catalog of out of market games and enjoy them on the big screen.
• The Best Ways to Watch – Enjoy HD programming, DVR controls, plus access to hundreds of clips from ESPN3.com, refreshed daily.
• Games at a Glance – Keep up on real-time score information using ESPN.com’s score feed without leaving the game you’re watching. View scores for leagues and games currently in the ESPN.com feed and select “Watch Live” or “Watch Replay” to jump straight into that game.
• Predict the Winner – Pick what team you think will win. While watching selected games in college football, college basketball, MLB, and NBA, you will be prompted to vote for your team of choice. You’ll also see the percentage of votes among the Xbox LIVE viewing community.
• Voice Chat – Voice chat with up to seven other friends while watching the big game.
• My Sports – To customize your ESPN on Xbox LIVE experience, click on the “Events, Highlights and More” slot on the homepage and browse by sport to pick a specific league that you want to follow for the season. The league that you select will now automatically display in your My Sports Channel.

Zune Music

• Zune Pass – Zune Pass is a monthly subscription service that gives you unlimited, on demand streaming of millions of songs at launch from all the major music labels and thousands of independent labels.
• Enhanced search – Search the broad library to find your favorite artists, albums, songs and playlists.
• Social – Connect with like-minded fans on the Zune online community and get new music recommendations. Zune Social also lets you see friend’s Avatars and listen to their recently played songs or check out their favorite artists.
• Smart DJ – Instantly create customized playlists by selecting an artist and have Smart DJ find songs that complement your selection.

Netflix Search – Experience a streamlined search function making it much easier to find the movies and TV shows you want to watch.

Improved voice chat quality – The audio codec is updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game or catch a big game with friends via ESPN3.

Improved Gamertag creation – Choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.

Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard – We’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard for example.

Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience – The Game Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the gaming and video content you want, reducing the number of steps to get to a download.

Easier to get on a wireless network – Trying to connect to a wireless network? Now you can see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings. From there, you can select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.

Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI – We’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.

New browse experience for 100% completed games – You spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.
Updated Family Settings – Xbox 360 continues to lead the industry in efforts to create tools that help parents and caregivers choose the right play and viewing settings for their families. We are enhancing the core Family Settings tools for all Xbox LIVE members:

Family Programming – When turned on, Family Programming disables display of all mature content on the dashboard and can be turned on or off with a protected password for individual members (per account). It also highlights all family-friendly entertainment.

Intelligent Default Settings – Your Xbox automatically customizes privacy and activity settings for each member, based on age (child, teen and adult). These settings can later be individually customized.

Title Exceptions – Allow your family members to play specific games above the console’s designated ESRB/PEGI (etc.) rating as you deem appropriate.

All in all, there’s not a ton to get excited about, but the improved chat quality, Netflix search, and the new sign-in UI are all welcome changes. Things look a bit cleaner and more polished as well, but it’s nothing groundbreaking.

You can also bet that there are some behind the scenes changes to the anti-piracy protections built in to the dashboard as well. Microsoft likes to up the ante just before a big game drops, so I am sure we will hear of large ban waves in no time, with the impending release of Call of Duty: Black Ops.

What are your thoughts on the new dashboard?

[via MajorNelson]

Gameplay is  simply done, as only one joystick on the 360′s controller is needed to control movement.  Also, one button firing is available in both the A and X button.  Need to dock your ship to refresh shields and health?  Hit the Y button to activate and deactivate docking procedures.  Backwards thrust is available and can be found by holding the left trigger.  Maneuver your ship correctly around the level, shooting your enemies while avoiding their return fire.  Be sure to keep an eye on your shields, even though they regenerate if they are lost your main health starts to fade.

So, in this case, is simple something that is easy or good?  Not quite in this case.  Since Starchon is a port of a PC title, it feels to me as though movement controls are better suited for a mouse than a controller.  This is readily evident in the backwards thrust control.  It is hard to navigate going backwards simply because it depends on the direction that the ship is facing.  I would much rather fire the reverse thruster and then use the joystick not to aim where the front of the ship is facing, but where I want to fly the ship to in reverse.  That said, I hardly used the feature as it became harder to navigate backwards and shoot than it was to simply maneuver going forwards.  I also wonder why there is a need to hold down the fire button as I have see no negative effects of continual fire.  An auto-fire feature would have been useful for this game.

Moving into the campaign of the game, you are trying to eradicate Pigia ships from the solar system using the Terran Armada.  Each level requires you defeat most, if not all, enemy ships.  Collect points to upgrade your personal ship and your lead ship.  Upgrades allow you to research better weapons, shields, drives and power plants.  My advice when beefing everything up is not to go with the best choice available at the time, but simply the next available choice.  If you end up researching some super awesome missile or a hard as rock shield, you may find that it is too heavy or power consuming for your ship to deal with.  You see, upgrade decisions must come wisely, as items consume power and take up weight on the ship.  A balanced selection is key here.

The docking procedure is this game confuses me.  Take note that no matter where you are or how fast you are going, if you press Y to activate the docking procedures your ship will float to a halt, turn and then make a few movements towards the docking port on the lead ship.  If you happen to be under attack during this, you will still lose shields and health.  Therefore docking should only be done while close to your ship and not under enemy fire.  If you find yourself in need of extra maneuvering time, press Y again to deactivate the procedure and regain manual control of your ship.  The docking seems to be taken control of by poor AI path finding skills.  If you are on the wrong side of the ship, it will try to put you through the ship and you will bounce off.  You will also bounce off the ship if it is slightly off.  The docking must be exact or it will take an excessive amount of time.  It would have been easier to have a docking port on both sides of the ship and to allow for it to be slightly off.  Perhaps even letting the player themselves put the ship in close of enough position and the press Y to “dock” without actually having the players ship be engulfed by the larger.

You might mistake me and think that I am saying the game is bad.  On the contrary, I merely felt the need to point out issues that could have been worked on.  The game itself is very enjoyable and addicting.  There are few better feelings that destroying fleets of enemy space ships, and this game certainly delivers plenty of them.  Freelance games has done a lot to make sure the game does not feel too entirely repetitive.  Levels will start you on a different part of the screen with enemies either warping in slowly or massively rushing you from the get go.

When it comes down to it all, Starchon is a great indie game that packs a wallop for it’s price.  For only 80 MSP, about $1, Starchon has 5 unlock-able game changing starships, over 39 ship components to select and 80+ sectors to do glorious battle in.  It is also certainly addicting and with one death bring you back to the last save point, you’ll find yourself furiously playing over and over again to master your piloting skills.  Just be careful, mind find yourself dreaming of Battlestar Galatica when you keep warping your ship into hordes of enemy craft and end up playing the whole day away.

Check out the video below of the game and find it available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The service has not seen a price increase since its inception in 2002, and with all of the additional content provided over the years, Microsoft decided it was time to change the price structure. The new pricing that goes into effect November 1st looks like this:

• 1 Month membership – $2 increase from $7.99 to $9.99
• 3 Month membership – $5 increase from $19.99 to $24.99
• 12 Month membership – $10 increase from $49.99 to $59.99

Overall, the price increases are not terrible, however it would be nice to see some better protection against game hackers and system abusers if we’re paying even more for the service. Better response and policing via user complaints would be a nice way to see this extra money spent.

That said, I cannot remember paying even close to $50 for a year’s worth of Gold membership as long as I have owned my Xbox. Truth be told, I have only spent around $39 for 12 or 13-month membership cards in the past, so I don’t see the new pricing scheme hurting me all that much. It really pays to shop around and look for specials – if you look hard enough, I think you will be able to find 12-month membership cards for around $49.99 or less once the new pricing scheme takes effect.

[Majornelson.com via Forbes.com]

[EDIT]

It seems that Microsoft is allowing people to “lock in” an additional year of Live! service for $39.99 if they renew now at Xbox.com. If I were really desperate to save money, I suppose I would just buy a handful of subscription codes for the same price at Amazon and then stash them away until I needed them.

Unfortunately, you have to head over to Hulu’s page to watch it, but I can pretty much tell you all you need to know.

Once you get past the fluff of them showing you other games, you get to the heart of the matter, the actual review of Crackdown 2.

Now I haven’t played the game myself, so obviously I cannot object to this gentleman claiming that he was bored by it.  What I do complain about is WHY he says it is boring.  He says, “Problem is you only have two main objectives, take out terrorist strongholds or light these energy beams to ignite beacons, and wipe out zombies.”  Now for those of you counting, that was THREE things he listed as objectives, not the TWO that he claimed at the beginning of his statement.

It doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to praise the fact that more people can be brought into liven things up.  However, when he says, “Luckily, you can play the entire campaign with up to four friends.”,  he must not have realized that you plus four people implies 5 individuals playing the 1-4 player co-op.

This shoddy game review just doesn’t have its facts straight.  More so, with the actual length of the “review” clocking in at just over two minutes, this pair of significant errors cannot simply be smoothed away.

Sorry Fox News, better luck next time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mike: That is pretty awesome!

Matt: Wow, that is incredibly huge.

Mike: That sort of map making and the ability to share is badass.

Matt: What’s up with the flying flock of mongeese?

Mike: I suppose my worry with a map that large is that 16 people will make for a pretty sparse game. I suppose you can build a large wall or structure to hold people in one area if you wanted.

Matt: Imagine maps with all the new loadouts and gametypes.  Invasion across a giant map!  I wonder if they’ll let us customize invasion maps, this one would be killer in so many different ways!

Mike: Well they said you can do all kinds of crazy stuff.  King of the hill where the hill is a vehicle and all that. It would be great to create a huge air-suspended tower in the middle of the map, with the new “fixed” feature, that spirals way into the sky, with the “hill” at the top.  Jet packs required, for sure!

Matt: Yeah, now imagine some “King of the Warthog” with nothing but fixed man-cannons!  Chasing it around mid-air!  This really, really makes me want to start forging.  I never really tried because I couldn’t get the hang of placing things, but the new system seems to make it really easy.

Mike
Outside of my conversation with Matt, I had some additional thoughts regarding Forge World. The effort the devs have put into this is clearly immense. It extends the replay value of Reach far beyond what any other game on the Xbox has even considered possible.

Any additional game content is always welcome. Free game content even more so. Additional, Free, user-generated game content is the crown jewel of replay value in my eyes. Sure Forge isn’t exactly new, but the level of accessibility now built in like the additional geometry “states” and geometry snapping makes it far more likely that we will see far more superbly executed maps and custom games in no time.

The only piece of the puzzle that I would say is missing would be the ability to play public games on Forge maps. I’m not suggesting that games on Forge maps should be ranked, but it would be awesome to see a public lobby that allows users to play matches against strangers. Bungie could allow users to vote on maps, and rotate through the top 10-15 user-generated maps to create an always-fluctuating playlist with years of replayability.

Regardless, this will no doubt be a game I pick up the day it is released.