Xbox 360
This is a list of posts tagged with Xbox 360.
Dead Space – Xbox 360
There are no new ideas, just new ways of freshening the old ones up. At least, that’s how the old cliché goes. While it’s a tenet derived from narrative fiction, the same notion can be applied to videogames – a medium that continues to push the idea of interactive storytelling further with new and exciting ways of involving the player in the narrative, even if the stories never really evolve beyond the same yarns that have been spun before. But, as with fiction, old tales can be rendered new when enough care and polish is applied. Sometimes, it’s not just the story that matters most, but the storyteller. And that’s exactly the position EA finds itself in with the launch of their new IP, Dead Space, a new take on a somewhat creaky survival horror genre in desperate need of a fresh voice.
Dead Space... Continue reading »
Braid – Xbox 360
Braid is the single most important game released this year.
Ever since technology caught up with our hobby and evolved it from simple beeps and blips and tests of hand-eye coordination into a medium capable of spinning a decent yarn and taking the player away to awe-inspiring worlds of wonder, the argument of ‘Games as Art’ has gathered strength.
In the past year, the debate has raged with film critic Roger Ebert famously battling author Clive Barker over the topic. Ebert declared that no game can be considered art since the creator hands over control to the user to craft the experience. Barker countered that exact point – that art is truly defined by the experience we take from our own individual encounters with someone else’s creative endeavor. Ebert’s assertions seem rooted in the past; the N... Continue reading »
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway – Xbox 360
Some days I feel this war is never going to end. Every time I think my tour of duty is coming to its end, along comes another assignment to guide the Greatest Generation through another World War II game. While it has become cliché to rail against the proliferation of World War II themed first person shooters, clichés exist for a reason – born of repetitive thoughts and actions. So, at this stage in the game, each successive Axis and Allies adventure needs to bring something new to the forefront – or at the very least, offer a different perspective of the action. These are the marching orders that Gearbox, the developers behind the Brothers in Arms series, take as their lead in the creation of their latest title, Hell’s Highway.
Hell’s Highway positions your squad in the Northern European theater... Continue reading »
Pirates vs Ninja Dodgeball – Xbox 360
There’s a great line in Robert Altman’s 1992 Hollywood satire, The Player, where a desperate screenwriter pitches potential projects as mash-ups of established properties, “It’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets Psycho”, each more ludicrous than the last. The point being that audiences crave the familiar, rejecting anything new and innovative. The game industry isn’t immune to this Reese’s school of thought – where you take two great things to make one great taste – with sequel after sequel cannibalizing the innovations that have come before to seemingly build a better game (when Sonic is employing Bullet Time, you know we’ve got problems.) It’s a notion that developer Blazing Lizard has embraced heartily – looking to meld pirate chic with ninja cool in their recent XBLA release – Pirates vs. Ninjas... Continue reading »
Smash Court Tennis 3 – Xbox 360
For a sport that single-handedly grandfathered the entire video game bloodline following the release of Pong, tennis seems to get short shrift in gaming these days. Sure, there are a smattering of games released each year – usually timed to coincide with Wimbledon – but compared to the vast iterations of baseball, hockey and of course, football that are released almost monthly, tennis often languishes on the sidelines. It’s a void that Namco Bandai hopes to fill with the release of Smash Court Tennis 3.
Smash Court Tennis 3 is actually a port of a PSP title released in 2007. While it features the expected face lift one would expect in the transition to more powerful hardware, this is the exact same game released on Sony’s handheld. That said, the 360 version of Smas... Continue reading »
Hail to the Chimp – Xbox 360
For some, the Washington political scene can be as wild as the Amazon. Conniving snakes slither through the grass, looking to sidle up with equally loathsome lobbyists. Blowhard senator swine curry favor among their constituency while wallowing in the mud with the special interests. And when poor, defenseless votes are spotted in the great, wide open – all manner of predators crawl forth, attacking their opponents from the shadows (or in pack formation) in a bid to rip their teeth into every last dangling chad and claim the carrion for themselves. Yup, the world of politics is a jungle – a fact that the developers at Wideload Games hopes to exploit in their election year release, Hail to the Chimp.
In addition to its timeliness, Hail to the Chimp represents one of the few pure party games on the Xbox 360. Develop... Continue reading »
UEFA Euro 2008 – Xbox 360
Timed to coincide with the real world UEFA EURO 2008 competition in Austria and Switzerland, EA has released their latest entry in the soccer field, UEFA Euro. While EA is also the developer behind the venerable FIFA series, UEFA differs quite a bit and offers up its own compelling sports package even if it seems that we’re getting two soccer games from the same developer in the same year.
Where UEFA differs immediately from FIFA is in the stable of teams to choose from – with only those teams eligible for this real-world competition on display in the game. In UEFA, players are tasked with choosing their favorite team among the 52 member nations of the United European Football Association. What this means is you can choose to captain a perennial powerhouse like England or append a Cinderella story on Croatia.
<... Continue reading »Kung Fu Panda – Xbox 360
It used to be that licensed games were the bane of gamers. Once the mercury began to rise and the multiplex became dotted with a myriad of popcorn flicks, the companion software would follow suit, usually launching day and date of most high profile cinematic releases. And while you could often see every dollar spent up there on the silver screen, the accompanying game usually seemed like nothing more than a cash grab. Over the last few years, there has been a subtle shift to the norm, with some real surprises releasing alongside their celluloid sisters. Now, that’s not to say that all licensed games have taking a turn for the better, but titles like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and The Simpsons Game show there are diamonds in the rough out there. This summer, slicing his way through a crowde... Continue reading »
Iron Man – Xbox 360
Comic book games, like the movies these graphic novels have birthed, are in the midst of a continued renaissance. Where comic games once suffered on weaker consoles (the less said about Spider-Man vs. Carnage the better), the technology has advanced to the levels required to bring gamers the true flights of fancy their superhero fantasies require. And that’s the key to delivering a quality title – developers need to put players in the role of their favorite heroes. This is the formula that propelled the latter Spider-Man titles to their lofty heights and it’s what made Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and The Hulk: Ultimate Destruction such a smashing success. The game should key in on the mythos that has enchanted readers for so long; a mission that Iron Man now finds before him.
Iron Man is based on the Marvel com... Continue reading »
E3 2008 – The Top 5 Things I Learned from the Xbox 360 Press Conference
The E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) begins Wednesday in Los Angeles. This is the annual conference where video game developers, publishers and press converge to present the hot new titles they’ve got cooking – with the focus on those games prepped to hit during the lucrative holiday buying season.
As with last year, I plan to offer up a series of posts with my reactions. The way the conference works is the big three console developers (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony) launch with their pre-E3 press conferences and then the actual E3 event opens and we get to learn more from the game developers about their hot properties. Microsoft held their conference yesterday. Nintendo and Sony go today.
My plan is to provide a post on each press conference – essentially a Top 5 list of the big things I learned from... Continue reading »
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