They will have a giant rumble.

Got my new car, with a little more work involved than I thought. No, the free Arcade game did not make me buy the Yaris I got, at least I don't think it did. Her name is SOPHIA, a la Blaster Master, because I am a handjob. Anyway, catchup time, more elaborate than last time.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Achievements: 22 (18 offline for 880gs, 4 online for 120gs)

RTS has never been done all that well on consoles, but I'd say this is one of the first times they sort of got it right. Sort of. I think the key here is decent cursor scroll speed, though the way they handled the pop-up menus makes sense once you get used to them and to not having a mouse.

The story isn't much to write home about, being standard sci-fi shlock. To summarize the previous games in the series, which were on the PC: comet or other celestial object hits Earth, leaves behind weird glowy rock that starts infesting the planet, called Tiberium. Terrorist/cult group thinks it's the future and tries to get its hands on it to accelerate things, what organized government is left thinks it's a menace and works to stop its spread. Stuff blows up, fast forward to present game day, after a little while aliens who love this crap show up and things get nuts.

What's remarkable about the series is how they handle the storyline. Like some amazing '90s throwback, C&C3 is chock full of FULL MOTION VIDEO. That's right, kids, real actors playing characters on real sets, delivered straight to you on your lightning box! This is made doubly amazing by the fact that they almost exclusively got B-list actors, all of whom I love, to portray all the parts. Not five minutes into the storyline and you'll be squeeing over Michael Ironsides (Jester from Top Gun, among many, many other things) and whatserface who played Boomer on BSG.

It's as if they have this hotline straight to the SciFi Channel that they call whenever they're about to go into production and ask, "So, who's not starring in one of your amazingly terrible original movies/series in the next four or five months?" I love it.

The in-game graphics are sweet, too. Things have come quite a ways since the days of 486 monitors and sprite animations, and a neat feature in this one is the camera zoom and rotation, so you can peer in on just what your little mans are up to at any given point in the battle. Just don't do it too long, or else you'll miss out on all the rape coming at you from every other direction.

If you dig real-time strategy games and have been waiting for a decent one in this console generation, dude you've been waiting too long this game's been out since last year go go go now. If you don't dig them, then you're probably not interested. Also, if you still haven't played this, you'd best hurry because the sequel's already out and probably due for a review here soon.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Achievements: 50 (all offline, 1000gs)

I haven't seen the movie and it's been forever since I read the book, so I can't really say how true a translation the game is of the story. As a game itself, though, it's okay. Not great, but not terrible.

Made by Traveller's Tales, the same crew who gave us the Lego [Insert Franchise Here] games, gameplay's pretty similar to those. Third person view of X number of dudes relative to a given story mission (varies from two to four, though only up to two players), all with different abilities you'll need for clearing different aspects of the maps. Chapters are built much like lobbies were in Lego Star Wars, with different side missions you enter from a larger main area and respawning goodies every time you come back.

Other familiar mechanics return as well. Instead of Lego studs, you're collecting these metal fragments or some such, of different colors reflecting different values. Instead of improving a rating in a given level or allowing you to buy anything, however, they accumulate and eventually increase the strength of your life bar. The minikits have been replaced by treasure chests scattered throughout the various areas, and given that there's nothing to build, really, some just give you a pile of those shards I mentioned, while others just give you nothing besides counting towards your chest count.

All in all, it's not a very compelling game, but the achievements are easy enough that, like the other Tt games, it's a simple but tedious grind if you're looking for an easy 1000gs. Rent it, give yourself a week tops.

Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2
Achievements: 46 (all offline, 1000gs)

To be honest, I was not expecting much. I remember, vaguely, playing the first DOAX on the Xbox, and it was a tedious grind-o-rama with a side of jigglefest and decent volleyball mechanic. Round two is much the same, with a couple of new characters, a funnier intro sequence, and Wave Race 64.

I tried to grind this one. I really did. All the achievements are just accumulation based. GET EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE. DO IT. Whatever. For some reason, I recall the suits available in the first one being much better designed than this batch, which just reduced my desire to go anywhere even more.

My breaking point was when, at one point where I'd left the game to idle, the eyecatch screen switched to a poolside video of Kasumi putzing around on this inflatable orca. At first she's just laying there in the sun, but then she starts moving around, eventually switching her position so she can ride the thing like a mechanical bull. Then things cut to this insipid crap with LeiFang prancing around on the beach while Hitomi was snapping away with a far-too-expensive camera. After about thirty shouts of, "Oh, come on!" I finally threw it back in the GameFly envelope and got it the hell out of my house.

In conclusion, you need to be really lonely or really drunk and have a lot of time to even bother with this tripe. Please kill me.

Def Jam: ICON
Achievements: 37 (29* offline for 685gs, 8 online for 315gs)
* - 15 of these are actually doable in online Ranked matches or Solo Hard matches.

Hoo man, I haven't played a Def Jam game since the first or second one. My, how things have changed. Summary? You're a rap producer who beats people up to get other people to sign to your label. I don't get it, either, but there've been worse fighting game premises out there. It's certainly a lot more clear cut than, say, Soul Calibur or Street Fighter.

One thing I really don't get is why the default setting for the HUD display is Off. No life bars, no other status indicators, just two dudes beating the crap out of each other on stylized backgrounds with clouds that roll through like a slideshow. Sure, the stages are kind of neat, but aren't that cool after the first or second time. What makes them even less memorable is that, rather than having different music for each stage, your character has a given "fight" song assigned to him, at least the characters you create, and that's all you hear EVERY DAMN TIME YOU FIGHT. Sure, you get more songs as you play through the Build A Label quest mode, but they're rather few and far between. Getting sick of the limited soundtrack is pretty much guaranteed. That might be why they give you an achievement for setting up your own playlist.

Gameplay itself isn't bad, though rather limited when it comes to movesets. There are four or five different combat styles, and there's a Mortal Kombat feel to the quick high, quick low, hard high, hard low button mapping, only without the abundance of specials, combos, and finishers. All the backgrounds have hazards, which get annoying at times as their hit recognition tends not to be the best.

There's also a button to activate turntables in a fight. I have no idea what this does, despite trying it every time I fought. Seems superfluous.

I'd say the worst part is that the gameplay is downright tedious. I had to go through nearly ten fights before I had any real money coming in and anything was actually happening in the story, and by then, I was pretty disinterested. All the fights were the same and I'd seen every stage at least three times, at least the stages they offered up to that point. Even playing a huge black dude with a fauxhawk and a crazy zig-zag chinstrap couldn't really redeem it for me.

Which reminds me, second place in the realm of failure goes to the character creation. There's a lot of customization available in the body type area, with stick-sliding and adjusting your build and even specific areas of your facial structure, but they really phoned in the hairstyles; all of them cut straight across the forehead, and there're maybe a dozen or so, and they all kind of suck. The clothing was all phoned in as well, as besides the wifebeaters, everything is a baggy sack with some logo mapped to identical, potato-sack models. Lame.

I liked this series better when it had actual rappers with distinct fighting styles just beating the crap out of each other. This turn is definitely one for the worse. Ugh.


Last week's XBLA offerings weren't bad, but they weren't remarkable for the most part, either. Here's that Pub Games nod I promised last time, too.

Shred Nebula
Achievements: 12 (11 offline for 175gs, 1 online for 25gs)
Cost: 800 MS Points

Semi-open shooter a la that Genesis game with the caves that I can't remember the name of, with a dash of Asteroids when it comes to ship control. Button layout could've made more sense, but it looks cool and the first demo level was pretty fun. Wish there was much anything remarkable to say, but it's just another okay game. Worse purchases could be made.

Gin Rummy
Achievements: 12 (9 offline for 140gs, 3 online for 60gs)
MS Points: 400

Yet another card game with something of a graphical overhaul, this time with a weird cameo silhouette aesthetic going on. Not bad, though, and thankfully only 400. Grab it if you're a casual card gamer, as it definitely tailors to its intended market.

Fable II Pub Games
Achievements: 12 (all offline* for 200gs)
MS Points: 800
* - I'm not sure if the two for playing/winning tournaments are online only. If they are, then there're 40 points between two online achievements.

In all honesty, I hated the first Fable and got really burned on Lionhead Studios because of Molyneux's bullshit factory leading up to it. If he'd said "This is what we'd like to do," rather than, "This is what we're going to do," things might have been different. But no, he had to be a shit, and thusly, fifty eggs were not eaten and the game was disappointingly narrow in scope. So, despite this being only loosely affiliated with the franchise, I was leery going in.

Let's just say I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not entirely sure if these games were all original, but if not, the veneer they spread on them to tie them in with the Fable II atmosphere is good enough that they may as well have been freshly created. I'm impressed, and both games I tried out were actually pretty fun. There seems to be a decent spread of both solitaire and competitive offerings, and while it's basically a glorified bar touchscreen, I dug this title.

Love that one of the achievements pretty much forces you to play Fable II (play a pub game with your Fable II character), too. Nice shameless tie-in, guys.

Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball
Achievements: 12 (8 offline for 95gs, 4 online for 105gs)
MS Points: 800

Hey, you remember when this game was announced, and the ninja/pirate rivalry was already fading into obscurity? Well, guess how little of a shit anyone gives about the two stereotypes now!

This game is way, way overdue in the relevance department, unless you're some weeaboo douchebag still clinging to the memes of 2003. Which is a shame, because it's a fun little dodgeball game. Instead of your standard set field, it's more freeform, with a set arena but no set sides to stay on, and thusly attacks can come from any direction and get intercepted by various environmental obstacles.

Oh, and just to infuriate me more, since I am still huddling in my All Your Base cave in the early '00s, the other two "races" offered? Robots and... zombies? I can kind of understand them as both being cultural obsessions, but where's the rivalry? Bugger zombies, where the hell are the Monkeys?



Way to drop the ball. I swear that wasn't a pun. I guess you should buy this, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

EA Sports Fantasy Football Live Score Tracker
Achievements: 12 (4 offline for 80gs, 8 online for 120gs)
MS Points: 80

I still don't understand Fantasy Football. My mind is kind of blown by the fact that all the achievements come from just logging in to the damn thing or tweaking some settings. I might grab this just for an easy 200.


Still need to do a writeup on Soul Calibur IV, but this batch took a lot out of me. I'll see what I can do tomorrow, since I have off from work.