The Finest Hour : Review for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World the game

Everyone is all caught up in the mania that is Scott Pilgrim’s precious little life. Ubisoft is one of many at the forefront leading the march with the release of the game Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. PS3 gamers got a 2 week head start since their version release coincided with the release of the movie. The game only just dropped on the Xbox Live Arcade and I’ve been dying to give it a go to witness the magic for myself.



The game loosely follows the story of the comic and puts you in the shoes of Scott, Ramona Flowers, the object of his affection and Sex Bob-omb band mates Stephen Stills and Kim Pine. The game features 4 player co-op. In the comic, Scott has to fight for Ramona’s love against the league of her evil exes. Each fight brings forward a new opponent and challenge for you to take down!



The game falls under the classic side-scrolling action beat ‘em up formula. Each character features their own list of moves which you unlock as you level that character. You gain experience by (you guessed it) taking fools to school. In true beat ‘em up fashion, the players have to fight their way through legions of baddies to reach the next big fight. The combat is deep enough that it keeps you on your toes and forces you to vary your attacks to keep defeating enemies.

Each character also gets two special attacks, one featuring Knives Chau, Scott’s high school aged ex-girlfriend where her actions differ by which character summons her. Every enemy you fight and defeat drops money, which can be used to purchase items from one of the many stores in the game. There you can purchase food, specialty items to boost your stats or even lend some dough to a friend in need.

The game is a super stylish old-school wonderland. The colors are super vibrant and in your face. The levels are packed to the brim with tiny details, including weapons ranging from bricks to bamboo branches, barstools to broomsticks and swords to skateboards. Basically, if isn’t tied down to something, it’s fair game. If you’re familiar with the comic, you’ll see tons of familiar faces and in-jokes plastered all over the place and it shows a nice attention to detail by the people responsible for making the game.



To add the old school allure, the game features sounds straight out of some older titles to add authenticity. The soundtrack is done by NYC chippunk band Anamanaguchi. The music is hyperactive, wild and above all emanates nostalgic It fits like a frighteningly tight glove and gives the game style for miles.



The game especially shines when more players are brought into the picture. It’s a true co-op experience that rewards you for playing with friends with team up attacks and bonus damage. The game, however, is local multiplayer only. It takes zero advantage of Xbox Live, which is the biggest con of the entire game. Other than the lack of online multiplayer on a console which practically begs for the online experience, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a very fun, challenging and stylish game. It looks great, features fantastic gameplay and is a total treat for game enthusiasts and fans of the graphic novels alike. Check it out today, it’s totally worth the 800 Microsoft points.

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Demo Rundown August '09 : Wet

I could always go for the obvious "Wet" joke, but I've heard it a lot already. I'll pass.

Wet (Wetwork) : A euphemism alluding to hands literally wet with blood.


Wet is an interesting piece. The Demo has a very Tarantino/70's exploitation charm, about half a ton of old school film grain and crazy saturated colors to help set the tone. The graphics themselves aren't the greatest, but the game is sort of cartoon-y, so it works.




You play as Rubi, some badass chick with an unknown [likely generic] backstory
trying to retrieve a case from a man named Simmons, who just ripped someone off in a cliche crimeworld deal. The demo has you chase after Simmons to take the case for yourself.



It plays like a common hack & slash/action shooter. You run around, shoot/stab/acrofuck all the bad guys with style. After a tiny tutorial in which they teach you to to shoot while doing different actions, you're thrown into the game with a slew of enemies. One of the scenarios include enemies coming out of three doors in a huge courtyard. You are to kill the enemies and make your way to the gate mechanisms over each door to destroy them. What's the fun in that? Stab, slash, slide and shoot to your heart's content, then close the gates.



A scene came up which I didn't expect to see involves a cutscene shows a guy charging Rubi and her shooting him in the face with her face becomes drenched in his blood. With an insane look in her eye, a mad rush of red engulfs the screen and you're right back on the attack. Now you're tearing through enemies with sub machine guns and faster sword attacks. puddles and streaks of white represent their blood amongst the red backdrop and no less than a shit ton of enemies come run at you in this corridor.



The next section has you running about trying to reach Simmon's once more, which leads into a huge car chase scene. You will shoot enemies from their cars as a QTE sequence takes you from car roof to car roof as Rubi gets closer to her target.



the demo also continues the trend of East meets West themes in pop culture. The environments are really very Asian inspired while still having a Western feel throughout. The music stands out as well, blasting all kinds of Rock music over the action scenes.


Overall I thought the demo was pretty fun. It's a very Kill Bill meets Stranglehold meets Shoot 'em up experience. The shooting could use some work, the crosshairs were a bit small for the screen and I kind of have a problem with games where crosshairs are just a marker for a general direction of where your bullets are flying. That aside, the game is about style. The demo doesnt demonstrate any groundbreaking aspects in any sense, it merely takes a tried and true genre and gives it a fresh, new and pretty coat of paint

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Demo Rundown August '09

Mini Ninjas


Mini Ninjas is a flowery, fun for everyone type game which follows the story of young Ninja Hiro as he tries to save his ninja clan friends from some generic evil. I didn't really pay attention to all that.

the aesthetic of the game is such that they make the dirty, violent job of being a ninja cute by over inflating everyone's heads and making them about 2 feet tall. The colors are vibrant and lush. Also, instead of copious amounts of blood which spills from dying enemies, they instead morph into cute little animals.


the game features simple hack'n'slash combat mixed with pick up items and magic ninja spells . There's one power in which hiro can possess animals, which stands out because I thought it was cool. everything else is your standard ninja equipment : Shurikens, smoke bombs, etc. it also seems that as hiro saves his friends, the player gains the ability to play as them on the fly and use their abilities. the two included in the demo are Futo, a Hulking Hammer wielding brute and Suzume, generic Kunoichi.


Overall I couldn't really get into it. It's cute, it has ninjas, but I just didn't very much enjoy it. I didn't see any incredible amount of depth within the porduct




Batman Arkham Asylum



When i first heard about Arkham Asylum, I thought "oh, another batman game. that can be cool". Little did I know that it would be the best Batman game I've played to date. the game has a great, dark aesthetic which fits the world of Gotham City extremely well.


The demo starts with Batman Hauling the joker into Arhkam and the chaos starts from there. The demo throws you immediately into hand to hand combat with generic inmates 1,2 and 3 to get you acquainted with the beating the utter shit out of people. the feel of combat is great. When you hit someone, the impact is massive, great attention to detail.

Afterwards you are introduced to other aspects of the game such as detective mode and stealth gameplay. Detective Mode (reminiscent of detective tools in Condemned) allow batman to assess the environment and the things you can do in said environment. Stealth is the essence of Batman's power and integrates well with the combat. All of these aspects blend well and improve the experience as you work your way through various enemies and situations.


The demo is painfully short, about 25 minutes average. It keeps you begging for more. One thing I find cool is that 2 voice actors from Batman the Animated Series Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return to their roles as Batman and The Joker respectively. Overall it looks like a fantastic experience and i can't wait to get ahold of it.







Lost Planet 2



Truth be told, I didn't like the first Lost Planet. It was rigid, stiff and incredibly difficult with little to no reward. The co-op demo for the sequel isn't much different. The scenario is that you can team up with 3 friends and wreak havoc on a giant monster (from the inside and out). the map contains a slew of weapons, VS robots and those spawn nodes from the first. Basic gameplay remains the same and they give you everything you need to try and take the monster down.


It didn't change my perspective on the series personally, but i did find a lot more fun in playing with a friend, which can be a selling point for any group of gamers.

Personally, I'll pass.



I would talk about section 8 as well, but I absolutely disliked that game. It was like an incoherent, lame version of Tribes, Halo, F.E.A.R. 2, MoH Airborne and Call of Duty. In a phrase, it's blown.

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Some Have Their Machinima... I got this

Currently Listening to:
Julia Nunes
Odd



How's it going fools? Hope people who actually read this blog are well. This previous Saturday Night, a couple of friends and I went to go see Julia Nunes aka the youtube ukulele girl. She's a lot of fun and talented.



Good tidings Julia Nunes. Her music and other stuff can be found on her youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/jaaaaaaa

Now, onto the game stuff. As the title says, some people enjoy making or watching machinima (animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3D environment - mostly using video games technology, for any the rest of y'all). I have been talking about messing around with the idea of a skate skateboard video ever since the first came out. Thanks to EA's new and improved skate.reel, it was very easy to gather all the footage I uploaded (other than the fact that FLV files dont like to work with anything). The best part was putting it all together and the entire editing prcoess. I love getting technical that way. Here is the final product of my little venture. Enjoy!

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Demo Rundown March '09 Part 2

Currently listening to
Rage Against the Machine
Microphone Fiend
Album : Renagades



Ninja Blade



Oh Ninja Blade, how you've pained me since I started your demo up on my xbox. There is no redeeming value in this game for me. My first thought was: "Ooh From Software, they made some OK Tenchu games, maybe this will be pretty good. I was sadly disappointed. The demo starts out in 2015 Neo-Tokyo with a chopper full of Ryu Hayabusa clones. When your character hops out, he is thrusted into a lame Quick Time Event (the first of many) and takes out what looks like a bunch of giant eagles. Once you hit the ground, you're thrusted into a broken down building full of generic monster baddies. You start out with 4 different weapons. One being a shuriken like weapon, which you throw with terrible accuracy. The Crosshairs are slow and the weapon itself is almost useless to the point where you don't even want to use it.

The Demo is full of ideas that have already been seen and done to create an overall mediocre experience. There is a lackluster and long boss battle with a spider which starts in yet another QTE sequence, which by this point outnumbers the amount I've seen in any game in such a small amount of time. The controls are horribly average, the characters are generic and it feels like nothing more than sluggish Ninja Gaiden Clone. This one hits American Shores April 7th.

Guitar Hero : Metallica



This Demo gives you the chance to try your plastic instrument skills on 4 different songs.

• No Excuses - Alice in Chains
  
• Stone Cold Crazy - Queen
  
• Seek and Destroy - Metallica
  
• Sad But True - Metallica
  

Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of Metallica, but the demo contained two of their better songs. The demo also features the insultingly easy Beginner difficulty. As if easy weren't enough? I do understand it's probably for 5 year olds, but what Neo-yuppie scumbag wants their kid listening to Metallica in the first place.

The graphics look great and the band members look spot on, as they did in Guitar Hero Aerosmith. I'm not really sure what else I can say about a Guitar Hero demo. Anywhich way you slice it, it's Guitar Hero. It hits street March 29

The Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena



It amazes me to see how a mediocre character from a bad movie franchise can go as far as to make a good looking set of games. I like that the game is very stealth based and they definitely let you know that by throwing at you in a ship with a huge crew. When Riddick kills, you can see the fresh blood on his hands, which is nice attention to detail. Also, the kill animations themselves are impressive.

There is a neat section in the demo who you take over a bike-esque control node to guide drones equipped with arm blasters through heavily populated corridors to pick off some baddies before they reach you. I don't really buy the allure behind Riddick as a character so I found things relating to the story to be a bit silly. Vin Diesel's voice acting doesn't make that fact any better. I guess you're better off sticking to what you know. He does his thing well, it just doesn't do anything for me. Assault on Dark Athena is set to release April 7.

And with this concludes my first ever Demo Rundown. I hope to do this more, But I guess that is dependant on the way Xbox Live releases demos. Perhaps I oughta look into OXM as well. Thoughts?

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Demo Rundown March '09 part 1

Currently Listening to:
Sex Pistols
Holidays in the Sun
Album: Never Mind the Bollocks

March 2009 has been a big month for demos on Xbox Live. Games from all different kinds of genres have been released this month and i'm gonna take a look at them.

WWE : Legends of Wrestlemania



As the name implies, Legends of Wrestlemania features wrestlers who have been in infamous matches for Wrestlemania, the industry's biggest event of the year. Wrestling fans will appreciate the "Re-live the moment" match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. The Demo Also features a match which mirrors the Wrestlemania 3 bout between Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. The demo itself features arcade style gameplay, which seemed dumbed down more than anything. Personally, I'm not a big wrestling fan, but I found a lot of fun in Smackdown vs Raw '06 and '07. Ever since I've wanted nothing to do with wrestling games and this demo really didn't change that for me.

On-screen buttons take up most of the display for QTE like button press sequences and really take you out of the game. Also, god forbid you leave the ring. The camera switches to a behind the audience angle which is awful and extremely distracting. Previous titles were intuitive and were bursting with variety. This, however, stank of rotten fish and sweaty old men. Legends of Wrestlemania hits the Streets March 24th.


Wheelman



Okay, So I'll only be reviewing one Vin Diesel related game this blog, I went the easy route and decided it would be Wheelman. The demo looks impressive. The game is fun enough. Driving is pretty straight forward, combat functions such as ramming have to added to help take cops and other enemies out easier. while shooting, its very reminiscent of the 10 dollar Starsky and Hutch game that came out on the PS2. The special moves are neat such as concentrated shots and the "cyclone" (handbrake 180 turn to shoot enemies behind you) don't seem like they'll be repeated to death in the real game. the Air Jacking feature shown in the demo's side mission is also a neat, albeit impossible trick.

The game is very Hollywood, as seen in random explosions and the numerous slo-mo's throughout. While the fluff is fun for awhile, I dont think it'll make for a toally substantial game. Midway really knows how to pay homage to their classic titles. Many of the license plates feature names of class games "MRTL KMBT" (Mortal Kombat) "RMP 8GE" (Rampage)
"DF3 NDR" (Defender) and "ROBO TRN" (Robotron). Wheelman comes out March 24th

Wanted : Weapons of Fate



I heard news of this movie based game a while ago, then absolutely nothing between then and the release of the demo. I wasn't a fan, so I didn't expect anything from this game. The first thing you'll notice is their attempt at quirky (and slightly referential) difficulty names : "Pussy ", "Assassin" and "The Killer". The demo itself was painfully mediocre. The settings was an airplane, so it was extremely claustrophobic. It gives me the feeling a lot of the game will be this way.

The shooting is not at all accurate, you just sort of shoot in the general direction of your crosshairs. The cover system is very sticky, making it not very functional. The specials aren't very helpful. One is an extremely slow motion dash for the next cover spot, leaving you enough time to take out one, maybe two enemies. The other is bullet curving, which is just a tacked on gimmick. It takes forever to aim a proper shot, and useless if the enemy doesn't die in one hit because you'll he to wait for him to poke out of cover to finish him off. I also feel the need to point out that the Tutorial is far more interesting than the demo level... That's just awfully sad.

I'll be posting part 2 before the end of march which will feature: Guitar Hero: Metallica, Ninja Blade and The Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena. Look out for that!

ERRR

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Low Alititude Inverted Fun (LAIF?)

Currently Listening To:
Rancid:
Life Wont Wait
Corazon De Oro

Recently, I acquired a copy of Ubisoft's newest game in the Tom Clancy line, HAWX. I completed a challenge laid out by the Frag Dolls. The Frag Doll Valkyrie posted a video blog of her completing the Demo Mission of HAWX, upside down posted these rules for a small contest:

*Film yourself completing the demo or any level of H.A.W.X upside down.
*Submit your video link in the comment section of this [FD forum] blog.
*The first three submissions will win.

Here is the video which sparked the contest.



Here are 2 videos, one from Myself and the other from a friend and contest winner, SeductivPancakes (he filmed his challenge at my place).





In the end, we both won copies of the game. Props to Ubisoft and the Frag Dolls for putting the contest on and sending the games so quickly!

As Always,
ERRRskate151

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