Soulcalibur IV review
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Features,
Fighting,
Namco,
PlayStation 3,
PlayStation Network,
Reviews,
Xbox 360,
Xbox Live
Here I am, about seven weeks after the launch of Soul Calibur IV, finally getting to bring you guys our thoughts on the game. Before we jump in, a bit of background on Soul Calibur IV. The game hit Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on July 29 here in North America, followed by a release in Japan, Europe, and Australia on July 31, and then finally the UK on August 1.This is the fourth installment in the Soulcalibur series, and it features a Story mode, as well as Arcade, Training, Museum, and Tower of Lost Souls modes. That last one is new to the series, and rewards you, as the fighter, for winning special battles. Also new to the series is the inclusion of a few characters from the Star Wars universe - namely, Darth Vader, Yoda, and the Apprentice.
The game comes just about three years after the release of Soulcalibur III back in 2005, and is the first Soulcalibur title to feature online play. Now, on to our review.
Click to continue reading Soulcalibur IV review
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Too Human quick review
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Action,
Adventure,
Features,
Microsoft,
Reviews,
Xbox 360
Earlier this morning, our copy of Too Human finally arrived. You know, the one we’ve been waiting over a decade for? Well, Silicon Knights baby will finally be available for all to purchase tomorrow. We figured we would give you a glimpse into our initial impressions of the game. I’ve been playing Too Human for about three hours now, and feel like I am about halfway through the story. I’ve destroyed creatures, upgraded weaponry, and chosen my path. Hop on down to get our full thoughts on Too Human, the next big title for the Xbox 360.
Click to continue reading Too Human quick review
Live from Sony’s E3 2008 Media Briefing
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Action,
Adventure,
Corporate News,
Downloadable Content,
E3,
Features,
PlayStation 2,
PlayStation 3,
Portable/Mobile,
PSP,
Sony,
Sports
We’ve got notes galore for you as it pertains to the Sony E3 2008 Media Briefing, and we’ve also got a full gallery from the event for you as well. As if that weren’t enough, we’ve even got E3 2008 Sony Media Briefing video highlights as well. Anyhow, here’s the scoop, live from the Sony event.
Jack Tretton hits the stage after a montage of upcoming games for PS3, PS2, and PSP. He starts joking around and giving a brief history of the Shrine Auditorium. Playstation brand was seeded 15 years ago this week, where Sony decided to create it’s own videogame console. He talks about the long-term 10 year strategies employed into the Playstation and Playstation 2. Says there were marquee games for those titles, but they came out years after teh console debut. Same for the Playstation 3. He gives some props to PS3 as well, talking about Blu-ray and the Cell processor.
“We’re here to talk about genre-defining kick-ass games” - alright, let’s do it. That would be a big change from what Nintendo had to offer us. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 is the reason why you buy a Playstation 3. Over 75 titles are exclusive to the console. Today Sony has three successful platforms on the market at once. They start with PS3.
Click to continue reading Live from Sony’s E3 2008 Media Briefing
Gallery: Live from Sony’s E3 2008 Media Briefing
E3 2008: Nintendo Media Briefing photo gallery
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Accessories,
Action,
Adventure,
Features,
Music,
Nintendo,
Nintendo DS,
Party Games,
Portable/Mobile,
Screenshots,
Wii
We are hard at work on getting our Nintendo video wrap-up posted, but in the meantime, we figured we’d hook you up with a massive image gallery featuring the highlights of the presentation. Within the images you will find shots of Animal Crossing: Town Folk, Call of Duty: World at War, Wii Sports Resort, and more. We’ve also got images of the Wii MotionPlus and WiiSpeak accessories. All in all, we’ve got over 70 images for you to check out and enjoy, so head on over to our Nintendo E3 2008 gallery.
Read More 
| Nintendo E3 2008 briefing gallery
Gallery: E3 2008: Nintendo Media Briefing photo gallery
Okay, so we’ve been graced with a copy of Mario Kart Wii a few days early by Nintendo themselves. We’ve played the game a bit, and will be will be reporting back with our initial thoughts, but for now, we wanted to hit you with an unboxing gallery. We have a bunch of images of the Wii Wheel for you to take a gander at, as well as the box, game disc, and the like. Just a little something to tide you over until Sunday. Go ahead and click on over to our Mario Kart Wii gallery for the images.
Gallery: Mario Kart Wii unboxing gallery
Lost Odyssey Review
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Adventure,
Features,
Microsoft,
Reviews,
Role Playing Games,
Square Enix,
Xbox 360
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have a deep appreciation for games in quirky, niche, genres, and also intelligent stories. Frankly, it is rare that I get to find both of these needs met in a single game, but Lost Odyssey manages to do it.
But wait! I thought Lost Odyssey was a Japanese-RPG and thus not really niche? Sadly (in my opinion), the gaming landscape has changed so profoundly over the years that the once thriving JRPG is now increasingly a rarity; One with high-production values, so much the more. Several early reviews would have you believe that Lost Odyssey does something fundamentally wrong simply for being true to its genre. Mercifully, you are reading this review so at the very least let me try to paint a slightly different picture of Hironobu Sakaguchi’s latest opus.
Click to continue reading Lost Odyssey Review
Mass Effect Review: Bioware’s latest masterpiece
Posted by Sparky
Categories:
Adventure,
Features,
Microsoft,
Reviews,
Role Playing Games,
Xbox 360
Not to rest on the laurels provided by Baulders Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware has created another instant hit: Mass Effect. Mass Effect is in many ways the spiritual successor to the Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) series although it goes far beyond the capabilities and offerings of its predecessor.
Mass Effect is a third person shooter/space exploration game set in humanities future when alien discoveries have catapulted human technology ahead centuries and given our race a place among many in the galactic empire. Click through for our full thoughts on this stunning game.
Click to continue reading Mass Effect Review: Bioware’s latest masterpiece
Harmonix Co-Founder Answers Questions About Rock Band
Posted by Paul Hamilton
Categories:
Accessories,
Downloadable Content,
Features,
Hardware,
Microsoft,
Music,
PlayStation 3,
Wireless,
Xbox 360
The Official Xbox Magazine’s podcast has an interview this week with Harmonix co-founder and president Alex Rigopulos about their upcoming game Rock Band. In the interview he talks about the game bundles, although light on concrete details he does confirm a band-in-a-box bundle that will include a guitar, drum kit and microphone. However, he goes on to say that the PlayStation 3 version will include a wireless guitar controller while the Xbox 360 version will have to include a wired guitar because Microsoft’s wireless technology is too expensive to make the bundle reasonably priced. Since the 360 also has only two USB ports, the 360 Rock Band bundle will also be packed with a USB hub.
Rigopulos goes on to discuss the game’s career modes a little, saying there will be both solo career mode that progresses in a linear fashion similar to what Guitar Hero players are used to, but they are also including a less linear band career mode. In this mode you traverse to various venues trying to build up your fan base and in some cases return to previously played locations to maintain your fame there. Also it’s worth noting that the solo career mode will not include a bass career track so your options are vocals, guitar and drums in solo career mode. But Rigopulos did reveal that the finale songs for each career path (and therefore likely the difficulty distinctions throughout) will be different for each instrument, and he even said that at this point the drum finale will be The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Click to continue reading Harmonix Co-Founder Answers Questions About Rock Band
Read More | KOXM Podcast
Apparently That Xbox 360 Red Light of Doom Problem Hasn’t Been Fixed
Posted by Andru Edwards
Categories:
Editorial,
Features,
Hardware,
Microsoft,
Xbox 360
The image you see above isn’t some generic image we grabbed off the net - it’s my personal Xbox 360. I know what you might be thinking - another one? Yeah, another one - but there is a bit more to this story. This Xbox 360 you see above has been used for all of 20 minutes. You see, about three weeks ago my old box 360 crashed and was giving me the three Red Lights of Doom. I sent it in for repair, and today I finally got a replacement. This actually is a replacement - they didn’t fix the one I sent in, they just sent me a new one. This one happened to have been manufactured on 8/15/2007. Anyway, I got it in the mail, hooked everything up, went through the Dashboard configuration, and started playing a demo. Fatal Intertia. We got tired of that after about ten minutes, and decided to boot up the demo of Stranglehold. We got through the opening sequence when everything froze. Fair enough. I had to manually turn the Xbox 360 off because it wouldn’t even respond to the guide button. I turned it back on, and was presented with yes another Three Red Ring Circus.
Now, if that isn’t enough, this flies right in the face of something that Peter Moore told Engadget and Joystiq back at E3 - in mid-July:
I think that there is a lot of confusion with the consumer in exactly how this issue has been remedied. Not just with the extension of the warranty but with the hardware. Exactly what has had to go on to fix the problems that people have been having?
I’m not sure that the consumer needs to understand the complex technical fixes that we need to do for the multiple different problems that come together to create the three flashing red lights. I think the ability for us, all the consumer cares about is my console going to be ok? And if it isn’tm are they going to fix it and take care of it immediately? And if I [already] paid them to fix it, will I get my money back? And the answer is yes to those questions.
But are you guaranteeing or insuring that the systems that are rolling off the assembly lines now and the systems that will be returned to consumers will be fixed properly this time. It won’t be a situation where there are multiple replacements.
Yeah. I mean, nothing is perfect, guys. And the other two hardware companies have their problems as well. I can’t guarantee everyone in the world that we go fix one thing and then something else [won’t] happen. No I’d be stupid to make that guarantee. But I feel very, very good about the quality of hardware now. You guys know this, every day in the factories where we are building these and where we are learning more about it. Sony’s very good at it, Nintendo is very good at it, and we’re very good at it. You’re constantly tweaking, moving parts around, you’re renegotiating with suppliers because your goal is to continuously raise the quality of the box, and bring the price down. Because you have to get your costs down to be able to move your pricing to the level you want. If your costs never came down, then price would never change.
So yes, you can’t guarantee that something won’t go wrong - we get that. But at the very least, Microsoft, you should be able to guarantee that if something like this does happen, that you have some sort of expedited method for dealing with it so that your consumers who spend hundreds of dollars on your hardware aren’t sitting without it for 8-12 weeks because of your hardware problems. Also, I think it is a fair expectation that if you said everything would change in mid-July, that a console manufactured a month later would be clear of these issues.
UPDATE: As always, there are trolls who are claiming that this story must be made up, because a console manufactured over two weeks ago could in no way make the 8 hour plane trip from where it was made all the way over to here in Seattle in that timeframe. I must be some sort of Sony or Nintendo fanboy, just making up the story - they want images to prove I’m not lying. I grabbed a couple of shots of the back of the console, which you can check out after the break.
Click to continue reading Apparently That Xbox 360 Red Light of Doom Problem Hasn’t Been Fixed
Is BioShock a Perfect Game?
Posted by Paul Hamilton
Categories:
Features,
First Person Shooters,
PC,
Reviews,
Xbox 360
The reviews have been coming in for a week now, and they have been phenomenal. Consider that according to GameRankings.com, BioShock is the 4th best game of all time. On Metacritic, BioShock has received more perfect 100 scores than even The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, usually the game cited as the best of all time. Clearly, 2K’s Mature-rated, failed utopia FPS is a critical smash hit.
Perhaps then there is little need for another glowing review of the game. Except this is not a glowing review in the strictest sense, because BioShock is not exactly the masterpiece of perfection indicated by these scores. Instead, BioShock is a wonderful game that happens to draw to light the inadequacies of the way games are typically reviewed and the inherent inconsistencies of how games are judged.
Click to continue reading Is BioShock a Perfect Game?
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