 Ok now I don’t know about you guy but reading the press release for THQ’s FAMILY WRECKING…ahhem …. I mean Family Party Game called Truth OR Lies has me in two minds. There’s a total of 3000 built in questions which the game will throw you and not to mention something called a Hot Seat which will allow players to ask the victim.. oops sorry I meant the player any sort of question that comes to mind. I know that for a fact this is not going to end well. THQ are using a proprietary voice calibration system that works in conjuction with either the Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone or USB microphone and measures stress levels in a player’s voice. Now I don’t know about you guys buy I’m constantly stressed !! So does that mean I’m a LIAR !! … Well does it ??? Look I’m INNOCENT I TELL YA !!! INNOCENT !!! *Runs out the door* … silence …. *Voice Over* THQ’s TRUTH OR LIES will be available on the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3. It’ll be out in the Fall of this year. Stay tuned for more information in the days and weeks ahead. For more information please visit : www.thq.com
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THQ announces Truth or Lies
Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review
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Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platforms: Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PlayStation 3
Release Date: May 15th, 2010
Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands is the next chapter in the fan favourite Sands of Time universe. Visiting his brother’s kingdom following his adventure in Azad, the Prince finds the royal palace under siege from a mighty army bent on its destruction. When the decision is made to use the ancient power of the Sand in a desperate gamble to save the kingdom from total annihilation, they unleash an army of skeletons, sand demons and huge beasts. The Prince will embark on an epic adventure in which he will need to reunite the two pieces of the medallion used to unleash this evil and return them to where they came, but he will also learn to bear the mantle of true leadership, and discover that great power often comes with a great cost.
With the intro out of the way let’s dive in shall we. Prince Of Persia The Forgotten Sands has returned and is back with game-play mechanics that you’ve all grown to love about the franchise. Battling overwhelming amount of evil creatures and minions, using the elements to solve tricky puzzles and of course running along walls with the greatest of ease.
Continuing along the lines of the Princes’ wall running skills, his athletic abilities are truly amazing . The Prince clings onto anything and has the agility that will put a mountain goat to shame (it’s true mountain goats are very very agile) Jumping from pillar to pillar, leaping from one plank to the next, sliding along a ledge and leaping to the next and swinging from post to post better than any Olympic athlete is a complete pleasure to watch. Everything that Prince does looks very fluid and life like. The Prince also comes equipped with a handy little sword which will come in handy with the amount of enemies he will be facing. With the correct button combinations (which are not very complicated) you can perform some really powerful techniques and finishing moves whilst enemies are standing or on the ground. Unfortunately the Prince cannot block attacks which is a little disappointing but with his athletic ability he will be able to roll and dodge out of the way of incoming attacks.
The Prince will learn pretty much all of his magical abilities and supernatural skills early into the game (by early I mean a few hours). In a way it’s a good thing as then you can get stuck into a game and put these abilities to the test to complete puzzles and take down enemies. Making its triumphant return is the rewind feature, where you can use the Sands Of Time to wipe out and rewind any mistakes you’ve just made and let me tell you, you’ll be making a fair amount of them all thanks to platforms that dissolve into thin air, traps, swinging axes and everyone’s favourite the buzz saws on the wall.
The Prince can also freeze water, it’s one super cool ability and will be needed to accomplish many puzzles, by freezing water you turn an innocent trickle of water into horizontal poles which you can then swing from one to the other , also thick streams of water can be turned into columns which you can climb up or down on. The Prince will also have the ability to freeze and unfreeze water in mid-air so that you can over-come puzzles and or just simply make your way through the area. There will be times were you will need to freeze and re-freeze with pin point accuracy, it can be a little painful to get this right but when you pull it off you’ll feel like you’re the king of the world !!
Something that would have made things a little easier while pulling of these acrobatic stunts would have been the ability to move the camera around the way you like it. Sometimes the camera angle is fixed while other times it follows you around; this is something you will need to overcome especially when tasked with difficult puzzles or jumps.
Once you’ve taken the final boss to the cleaners, the challenge rooms appear. As the Prince is the master of agility, your first thought would be platforming action making your way from point A to B in the quickest way possible using all your acrobatic abilities with rewind and water freezing skills. However the focus of the challenge rooms is combat. There are a total of 8 waves of enemies that get difficult with each wave. Your goal is to smash your way through them in the quickest amount of time.
UBISOFT have started introducing a service called UPLAY. For people not familiar with this check out the article we did on it a while back.
https://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/2010/04/uplay-help-video/
UPLAY rewards gamers for completing certain task’s within the game, they are similar to achievements/trophies but once you earn them you can use the points to unlock cool little extras. The points can be redeemed on any UBISOFT title that supports UPLAY. With Prince Of Persia you can unlock a few extras, one of which is a playable EZIO from Assassin’s Creed II. UPLAUY is a cool little feature that will certainly get gamers hooked but only if the unlockables are worthwhile.
Graphically Prince Of Persia looks and feels very smooth, everything flows quite nicely, character models look good and the level designs are great. I certainly had a feeling of Déjà vu with some of the earlier levels in the game as it brought back some good memories.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands has improved in certain areas and stayed the same in others. The acrobatic gameplay with freezing and un-freezing water on the fly is great and is a little more complicated than the previous versions of the game making this far more challenging and fun. Combat has never been a strong point in the Prince Of Persia series, the inability to block would of been nice but instead a roll out of the way is your only way to avoid being smashed. The fixed camera angles also make you feel like you’re caged in as you can’t see what you’re doing in certain parts of the game. Forgotten Sands is great for newcomers to the Prince Of Persia Series. Trying out the game for the first time will really give them a great impression. For the hardcore fans they’ll be wondering when the franchise will hit higher ground.
Overall UBISOFT have made a solid effort.
MoonShine XBLIG Review
Publisher: Quimby RBG
Developer: Quimby RBG
Platforms: Xbox 360
Release Date: May 8th, 2010
The game is short and simple to complete, but to combat this, the developer offers a range of single-player modes, on top of the option of going back and trying to beat your high scores. There is also a single-player section in which you can create your own mode for extra entertainment. It only offers simple customisation features but it is still another way to extend the life of this title.
GIVEAWAY COMPETITION
Iron Man 2 Review
Iron Man 2
Publisher: SEGA
Developer: SEGA San Francisco
Platforms: Xbox 360
Release Date: May 4th, 2010
Story
“In Iron Man 2, play as Iron Man, or for the first time ever, War Machine in this brand-new story which thrusts you deep into the Iron Man comic world adding to the excitement of the upcoming Iron Man 2 movie. Battle epic enemies, like the classic Iron Man villain Crimson Dynamo, only featured in the game, and an incredible final boss of truly staggering, skyscraping style. In the end, the fate of the world will be left in Iron Man and War Machine’s powerful hands and they must battle to save it from destruction.” [via Xbox.com]
A whole new story was developed by the renowned MARVEL comic writer Matt Fraction to bring an entirely new story apart from the movie. It is a story full of peril, enemies, and friends. This is a classic comic book story in the skin of a badly put together game. The story revolves around the enemy trying to steal a copy of Tony Stark’s AI butler, Jarvis, and using it to create Ultimo which is a giant robot that can meld with humans and regenerate health.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Iron Man 2 consists of a hovering around and repeatedly pulling the trigger to shoot off a whole bunch of smaller shots. The reason the trigger is spammed for smaller shots is because the larger shots have a hi chance to miss and they need to be charged, the damage the stronger shots induce also doesn’t warrant an increased charge time with a chance to miss. Smaller shots get the job done much faster and give you some exercise.
I also said hovering and not flying, because a majority of the game you will be hovering. Flying around is both worthless and a headache. The flight controls are annoying and overly complicated with single buttons doing multiple things. The button to execute a simple dodge maneuver also makes you fly if you double tap it. So while you want to simply dodge an opponent you may dash towards your enemy and hit him head on causing your utter demise. Add on a control switch when entering the flying mode and you get a whole bunch of messed up launches.
General combat either consists of ranged attacks or close range melee. Ranged combat requires you to get pretty close for it to be effective and then you might as well initiate in melee combat because you are close enough and melee does more damage. Melee consists simple button mashing and just randomly pressing X with no sense of control. The character will automatically jump between characters without you knowing what is happening and when you finally stop the camera will be at some weird angle forcing you take control and figure out where you are at. Which brings me to the camera controls and aiming both of which seem to have a mind of their own. You’ll be focused on one guy and the camera will move because everyone is flying around you and then your target will change before you kill it, leaving you with a whole bunch of enemies all with minimal health.
Before every mission you can customize your weapons and armor based on field data you gain for completing missions. Once you get passed the overly complicated menu system and take the time to figure out what you are actually doing, this little feature becomes one of the best parts in the game. There are tons of different weapon types, ammo types, and upgrades you can research. Once you finish researching you can customize up to four loadouts per weapon and before starting a mission customize it accordingly. There is no distinct difference between parts besides price, but within game it is noticeable. This feature is very nice and pretty cool, but it isn’t necessary. You can beat the game without even touching this feature. The feature just makes it easier and by the time you finally get the perfect loadout you have already beaten the game.
There are a handful of missions that you will play while progressing through the story. The missions are all relatively the same, and either require you to turn off a switch or defend some form of AI. The AI can be a human or some form of machinery that you must keep from being destroyed. Almost every level consists of some form of objective that requires you to protect something. At first it is manageable, but it gets increasingly annoying as you progress through the game. The enemies get stronger, they focus heavily on the AI you are supposed to protect, and they use cheap moves to keep you from completing the objective. There is already minimal fun, and these repetitive objectives sucked the last little bit of fun out of the game. Half way through the game, it feels more like a chore rather than a fun piece of entertainment.
Audio & Graphics
The graphics in Iron Man 2 are below average and the textures are blurry. At times you would be amazed that it is even in 1080i. The cutscenes are choppy and the characters are both badly designed and badly lipsynced. The audio is also below average, with all the sounds seemingly muffled. Huge explosions aren’t awe inspiring, bullets and other shots seem pathetic. Even the soundtrack, which had many moments to shine and increase the tension of the game, fell short of amazing. A majority of the time, the soundtrack is barely audible. Voice acting was also poorly executed and the good voice actors were few and far between.
Achievements
The achievements in Iron Man 2 seem pretty straight forward at first. A majority of them will be unlocked just for playing the game on the hardest setting. There are a few that may require you to go back and finish certain miscellaneous tasks, such as passing the security grid without touching a laser or completing a certain task without being damaged or in a certain time frame. Once you get passed these achievements you will find out where the true annoyance is and that is found in the achievements where you have to kill so many enemies with a certain weapon or using certain abilities. There are so few levels and each with a small amount of bad guys that you will have to grind levels over and over again just to meet the quota. The game is bad enough the first play through, playing levels over and over again just to kill people is even worse. The achievements are easy in a general sense, but they simply aren’t fun to get. If the game was longer with more opportunities to get the achievements without grinding it may not have been bad, but no one likes excessive grinding and that is exactly what the achievements call for in this game. Not to mention the first achievement you unlock is a 3 point achievement which screws up any achievement hunters list. Luckily the counter achievement worth 7 points isn’t that hard to pull off.
To View the Achievements Click Here
Overview
Movie based games are stereotyped as being rushed works that don’t turn out as good as it could have. The game Iron Man 2 doesn’t help in the attempt to remove the stereotype. The story is different from the movie, while fitting in directly after the second movie it reveals no spoilers. With repetitive and dull gameplay, terrible aiming and camera controls, and one of the best parts of this action game is an overly complicated weapon upgrade system; Iron Man 2 takes all the fun out of flying around and being the invincible Iron Man.
I give Iron Man 2 The Game
Pros
- A bunch of different armors to unlock and use
- Customize weapons to help you play through the levels
- Play as iron man or war machine to match your play style
Cons
- Protecting AI on almost every level is a little excessive and annoying
- The controls and the Camera are annoying
- The game is short, and only lasts for about 4 hours
Iron Man 2 Achievements
This achievements list coincides with the review that can be found by clicking here.
The achievements in Iron Man 2 seem pretty straight forward at first. A majority of them will be unlocked just for playing the game on the hardest setting. There are a few that may require you to go back and finish certain miscellaneous tasks, such as passing the security grid without touching a laser or completing a certain task without being damaged or in a certain time frame. Once you get passed these achievements you will find out where the true annoyance is and that is found in the achievements where you have to kill so many enemies with a certain weapon or using certain abilities. There are so few levels and each with a small amount of bad guys that you will have to grind levels over and over again just to meet the quota. The game is bad enough the first play through, playing levels over and over again just to kill people is even worse. The achievements are easy in a general sense, but they simply aren’t fun to get. If the game was longer with more opportunities to get the achievements without grinding it may not have been bad, but no one likes excessive grinding and that is exactly what the achievements call for in this game. Not to mention the first achievement you unlock is a 3 point achievement which screws up any achievement hunters list. Luckily the counter achievement worth 7 points isn’t that hard to pull off.
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- Access Denied – 10
Prevent Roxxon from stealing the Stark Archives. - Deportation – 15
Prevent the Russian separatists from deploying Roxxon Armigers. - Power Outage – 15
Defeat the Crimson Dynamo. - Anti-PROTEAN – 20
Destroy Project PROTEAN. - Improvisation Under Fire – 20
Save Rhodey and the Stark mobile armory from the A.I.M. attack. - Operation Daybreak – 20
Defeat A.I.M. and save the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. - Stormbreaker – 20
Shut down the GREENGRID power transmitter. - The Bigger They Are – 30
Defeat ULTIMO. - Shake It Off – 3
Recover from the Roxxon EMP attack. - Not In My House – 15
Prevent the first wave of Roxxon dropships from deploying their drones. - Full Flight – 15
Only one S.H.I.E.L.D. transport lost in the canyon run. - Area Secured – 20
At least 10 S.H.I.E.L.D. units survive the battle for the docks. - Pulling The Plug – 15
Destroy all four Tesla reactor stabilizers in under 60 seconds. - Anger Management – 15
Destroy most of the structures in Shatalov’s base. - Entrapment – 15
Reach the bottom of the elevator shaft without touching a laser tripline. - Defensive Player Of The Year – 20
Save all four repulsor lifts and all four stabilizers on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. - Brute Force – 30
Destroy the A.I.M. Arc Armiger without using missile deflection. - Guardian – 25
Shut down GREENGRID without needing to repair the Arc Armiger. - Switchboard Operator – 20
Reposition all of the GREENGRID relays without being interrupted. - Not A Scratch – 40
Defeat ULTIMO with no armor damage. - Ultimatum – 15
Complete every mission on Easy difficulty. - Iron Man – 30
Complete every mission on Normal difficulty. - Invincible – 100
Complete every mission on Formidable difficulty. - Fists Of Iron – 20
Defeat 100 enemies in close combat. - Storm Of Lead – 20
Defeat 100 enemies with War Machine’s minigun. - Fire And Forget – 10
Defeat 100 enemies with homing missiles. - Subtle Like A Rocket – 15
Defeat 100 enemies with the rocket launcher. - Room Broom – 20
Defeat 100 enemies with War Machine’s shotgun. - Extra Crispy – 20
Defeat 100 enemies with Iron Man’s laser. - Pushback – 20
Defeat 100 enemies with Iron Man’s repulsor. - Up Close And Personal – 20
Defeat 100 enemies with Iron Man’s blaster. - Overkill – 25
Defeat 100 enemies with Iron Man’s unibeam. - Hall Of Armors – 35
Unlock all armor suits. - Technical Genius – 50
Invent every module, ammunition, and weapon upgrade. - Gonna Need Some More Bad Guys – 30
Defeat more than 1,000 enemies. - Unnecessary Force – 7
Defeat a soldier with Iron Man’s unibeam. - Bulletproof – 30
Defeat 50 enemies in melee as Iron Man while Invincible. - Ultimate Iron Man – 10
Unlock the Ultimate Iron Man armor. - Classic Iron Man – 10
Unlock the Classic Iron Man armor. - Classic Mark I – 10
Unlock the Classic Mark I Iron Man armor. - Extremis – 10
Unlock the Extremis Iron Man armor. - Mark III – 10
Unlock the Mark III Iron Man armor. - Mark II – 10
Unlock the Mark II Iron Man armor. - Mark VI – 10
Unlock the Mark VI Iron Man armor. - Silver Centurion – 10
Unlock the Silver Centurion armor. - Two Man Army – 10
Defeat the Russian separatists as both Iron Man and War Machine. - It Takes Two To Tangle – 10
Defeat Crimson Dynamo as both Iron Man and War Machine. - Man And Machine – 10
Destroy Project PROTEAN as both Iron Man and War Machine. - Bipolar – 10
Shut down the GREENGRID power transmitter as both Iron Man and War Machine. - Omega Man – 30
Defeat 100 enemies as War Machine while using the Omega System.
Risk: Factions – Zombie Faction trailer
So, if you haven’t been following along listen up. Risk: Factions is an upcoming downloadable game announced by EA in January 2010 that is heavily based on the famous board game risk.
So far we have the humans. The human’s dog attacked the cats. The humans then unleashed the robots to protect themselves from the cats but the robots went rogue. The robots then created the zombies in an attempt to protect themselves from the humans and the cats. Confused? Don’t be! Watch the zombie trailer below, look up the other 3 on youtube and you will understand all.
Sonic 4 Trailer
Below you will find a press release and a trailer for the upcoming Sega game, Sonic The Hedgehog™ 4 Episode I. Supposedly the first episode will include 12 acts, but I have no evidence for that so take it with a spoon of sugar (I think that’s the saying).
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SEGA is incredibly happy at the overwhelmingly positive response to Sonic The Hedgehog™ 4 Episode I from both press and fans around the world, and wants to ensure that we’re delivering the best Sonic experience possible.
With this dedication to quality and the Sonic experience in mind, SEGA has decided to extend the development of the game, and will now release Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode I in the latter half of 2010. The additional time will allow the Development Team to focus on ensuring overall high-quality throughout the game by continuing to tune, balance, and maintain the kind of polish that an important title like this demands, and ultimately providing fans with an unrivalled classic Sonic feel.
Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode I is developed specifically for the download market and will be available via Microsoft XBLA, Sony PSN, Nintendo WiiWare and the iTunes App Store in late 2010.
Blacklight: Tango Down Comic on its way
Ignition Entertainment recently announced that there will be a comic book for their upcoming downloadable shooter, Blacklight: Tango Down.
It will be a single comic book, and it is said to both tie into and further develop the plot of the game. It is supposed to expand the fiction with this single story and is being collaborated by the distributor, developer and Storm Lion Publishing.
Blacklight: Tango Down (The comic book) is written by Jared Gerritzen, Ian Stephens and Cullen Galagher with story by Jason Dean Hall and Eric Lieb, and art direction by Storm Lion’s Zid.
Supposedly the comic follows the events of a covert ops team who are attacked by crazed locals while attempting to rescue their officer from behind enemy lines. Mix this comic in with the upcoming game and the film that is currently in development, and you have a deliscous money cake being eaten by Ignition and Zombie. Hopefully the cake isn’t nasty tasting. (Translation: Hopefully the comic and the movie are as good as the game looks)
Backbreaker Demo breaks into the 360 Marketplace
The demo will be available tomorrow May 21st for all gold users of Xbox Live. While any silver members will instead have to wait until the 28th for access to the demo. The PS3 demo has no set date yet, but the makers of the game, Natural Motion, is hoping for it to be released next Tuesday the 25th. Seems that the PS3 users will only see this game a few days before the silver members.
The full release date of the game is on June 1st. Backbreaker is an alternative American football game which includes teams that no one has ever heard of before. However you can make literally any team you would want too and customize every little bit down to the color of the team’s wristbands. Also every single tackle and interaction will appear unique as no action has a pre-determined reaction. Instead there is a dynamic physics engine that will calculate everything as it occurs.
Looks like tomorrow we will see how this football game will stack up against the Madden powerhouse. Hopefully a new franchise instead of the standardized football game that Madden usually provides, or the over-the-top brutality of Blitz.
Source: (Operation Sports)
Game Room- Game Pack 004 Now Available
The latest release for ‘Game Room’ on the Xbox 360 is now available. Game Pack 004 contains Time Pilot, Asteroids, Stampede, Grand Prix, Demons to Diamonds, Shark! Shark! and Space Duel.
Overall, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly stand-out in this package, with the exception of Asteroids. This is especially the case with the release of Time Pilot, a game that has already been available on Xbox Live Arcade for a long time already. That said, if you want to build up your Game Room Arcade, and with the small amount on offer at the moment, this package gives a bit more choice of retro games to add to your library.