IT'S COMIN' RIGHT FOR US.

I guess it wasn't going to be that long before a relatively wtf-inspiring game came along. I swear, anyone checking out my gamercard this next week is going to wonder what the hell is wrong with me. Two games came today, so I'll do the rundown before I get on to XBLA sweetness.

Cabela's African Safari
Achievements: 30 (all offline for 1000 gs)

The fact that all the achievements are offline is of no surprise, given that if you are actually playing a hunting game for your own enjoyment, chances are you have few to no online friends to play with anyway.

That being said, it's not an entirely awful game, and is at the very least evidence that some turds can be polished with a modicum of success. There's a wide selection of unlockable areas and firearms as you progress through the game, and the game rewards and/or penalizes you based on what you're using for any given trophy; using an elephant gun on turtle doves is liable to get you yelled at, for instance. Of course, I imagine the ensuing spray of feathers is hilarious, so I will end up trying this eventually.

Still, it's just a hunting game. It basically comes down to a third person shooter against critters that don't have firearms to fuck up your shit. Things like lions aren't to be trifled with, however, as you learn as early on as the tutorial. Even with "Adrenaline Mode," which is basically just a panic button that slows down time so you can get a clear shot or two on something that's about to take your face off, chances are you're going to be heading back to the lodge to nurse your wounds.

As for the achievements, it seems they focused on unlocks and game mechanics here, as most of the gamerscore you recieve is obtained by playing all the different gametypes and killing things using your alternate fire modes, like the aforementioned adrenaline and "Hunter's Sense," which equates to popping pills before using the sniper rifle in Metal Gear Solid.

All in all, pretty fair and they keep you playing the game for a bit, so good on them.

Cabela's Alaskan Adventures
Achievements: 46 (all offline for 1000 gs)

Oh man. This, on the other hand... it's pretty much a port of the PS2 version of the game, and it's glaringly obvious. I've never even played the PS2 version, but daaaamn for a hi-def system, this shit is just pug-fugly. This would probably be a step up in realism, in all honesty:


Unlike the rains in Africa, this one's first person, giving you a lovely view of your fingerless man-claw grasping your rifley-looking thing most of the time. The HUD is a bit more rudimentary as well, which in some ways is a blessing (Dudes in the savannah get radar? What?), but is still bothersome at times. I still don't know what the green bar stretching across the compass is. I'm very confused.

That, and the game is a great deal more in-depth than its warmer, prettier brother. While there are once again firearms to collect, you also have to buy hunting outfits, and rations, and first aid kits, and license tags, and all sorts of crap. There are stats I presume you can boost, too, and on top of all the shooting there are three different kinds of fishing. Oh, and dogsledding. You think I'm joking?

Despite all this, the achievement list seems to have taken the route of nickel-and-diming you for finding new and tasty ways to piss off PETA. Achievements for every type of game shot or caught comprise a good portion of what you can acquire, with the rest being filled for beating challenges in the different difficulty levels. Shoot a polar bear (which is disgustingly easy)? 10 points! Catch some salmon? 5 points! Whee!

I have no idea how much I'm going to be able to milk either of these for, however, as something I've waited for quite some time now finally dropped in Arcade today. Oh, is it glorious.

Rez HD
Achievements: 12 (all offline, I think, for 200)

I'm not sure if the "local rankings" are online or for beating pre-set high scores yet; if they are, that makes the list 9 offline and 3 online. But whatever, screw the achievements. This game, man. This fucking game.

For those of you who never ran into Rez on the PS2 (or the Dreamcast, for that matter), its greatest notoriety is from it probably being the only console game to have ever come packaged with a vibrator.

Yes, a vibrator. Stop looking at me like that. There's a concept to all this, really.

The idea is, the game is supposed to be a synaesthetic experience. As you play the levels, which are tied in with the throbbing techno background music, your firing on the enemies and collecting items throughout this rails shooter affects the music. As you do better and progress, the feedback provided by the Trance Vibrator becomes more intense, thus immersing you more in the game through force feedback.

It's Tetsuya Mizuguchi. He's weird like that.

Anyway, they yanked the vibrator code from this release, so you can't plug it into the USB ports on your 360, but they may have done one better. You see, you can now vibrate up to three other controllers while you play, thus giving you triple the vibrator action.

Now, before you go shoving a pink wireless down your pants, let me point out that the most incredible experiences I had with the PS2 version involved placing the vibrator right on my spine, between the bottom of my shoulderblades. The pulsing goes up and down the spine and through a good part of the skeleton and... it's indescribable. Also, I should note I was pretty drunk both times I did this. But seriously, try it, it'll keep your controllers a little cleaner if nothing else.

Definitely a buy even at 800 points. I feel sorry for Chessmaster getting released today, too.

Down where it's wetter.

I would have updated on Wednesday if I'd realized sooner they'd just made Undertow free and not uploaded any new games. Kind of a dick move, if you ask me, especially since they didn't really announce it on the dashboard itself. If it was in that Inside Xbox thing, well, I never read/watch that, so shut up.

I'd been meaning to get it anyway, so I'm kind of glad they picked this as the freebie.

Undertow
Achievements: 12 (10 offline for 170 gs, 2 online for 30 gs)

Best way I can describe the game is a swimmy shooty strategy thing going on. Two teams on a given map have to try and take each others' command points and kill their doods as different types of undersea units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It's actually a really fun time, as simple as that sounds, and what little I've experienced of the story mode was kind of funny.

A lot of the offline achievements actually tie into the online ones, especially when it comes to the killcount achievements. Your kills are tracked across all modes, whether you win or lose, so getting 50,000 cumulative kills isn't nearly as terrifying as it sounds initially. Another one involves boosting every unit type to its third level, which again adds up between doing so in campaign and online, so it's more a payoff for exploring your options than something you feel compelled to do in one go.

Don't forget it's free, at least through 1/27, so go grab it now.

In a stroke of coincidence, given that I'm in love with its big brother Paradise, the latest game in the mail for me was Burnout Revenge. I rented this before so I've already got a bit of a save file established, but you get a retro review anyhow.

Burnout Revenge
Achievements: 36 (24 offline for 700 gs, 12 online for 300 gs)
Online play: Actually, I saw several friends of mine playing this while I was playing Burnout Paradise on release day, so who knows?

The game itself probably needs little explanation. You drive a car, you drive unsafely and mess up other cars to win events and get better cars. Mess up other cars in creative ways and with specific pieces of landscape and you get recognition for it. Very fun, very profanity-inducing.

I love the achievement list, but I hate the achievement list. Most of the offline ones are for full-perfecting different race levels and categories, which means a lot of work. However, that makes it feel like you actually DID achieve something, and helps you get better at the game. The online achievements are excellent for encouraging a sense of competition and community, but are also bound to hose anyone who's coming in late to the game. This was a release title or close to it, after all.

Still, it's not that hard to perfect-rank events, and I've found it's best to blow through what you can early on, then head back and start boosting your ratings in completed courses as soon as you hit a brick wall. Thusly, you improve and can go back to kick more ass. Everyone's a winner, especially when shit's blowing up.

Take me down to that GNR reference everyone else writing about this game has already made.

Burnout Paradise is pretty sweet.

Burnout Paradise
Achievements: 50 (35 offline for 715 gs, 15 online for 285 gs)
Online Play: Seems to be pretty healthy, expect it to be robust for a while since it's a fresh game.

I don't know where to start with this game. Take the Burnout series and have it make babies with GTA and you've got Paradise. The learning curve is simple, the exploration is great, and there's just waaaay too much to do.

I played for ninety minutes once I got it home and only cleared 7% of everything. There are places I've revisited four or five times and found new stuff each time. I love this freaking game.

One thing that threw me early on is how to save and back out (because I never read the manual); if you hit RB once after pausing the game, you'll find the save/load option, as well as the place you're supposed to enter promo codes for unlockable cars. GameStop gypped me on the promo card with the code for the Steel Wheels car, but you can find it on the GameFAQs board easily enough. There are at least three codes that work, just make sure you include the spaces and capitalize. The store codes (walmart, gamestop, circuitcity, bestbuy), however, can be lower case and unspaced.

There may be more codes forthcoming, so I'll keep an eye out. Please take note that the PAL version has different codes because Europe has different store chains, so be careful if you go googling yourself.

I love the Vision functionality, and it doesn't bug me that it prompts you for new license photos after each challenge, at least not yet. For those of you without the camera, I think it subs your gamerpic for the photo, as that's what the PS3 version of the demo did for a friend of mine.

Another nice touch was giving the different car classes different applications of boost. Aggro cars get more by smashing stuff up, Speed cars can refill theirs by using a bar up without letting go (called a Burnout, string them together for bonus action), and so forth.

Agh. Agh. I want to fawn over this for hours but I need to work tomorrow, nevermind get in a little more time with the rental games I'm working on. BulletWitch is starting to grow on me, but that could be because I've just been milking the first stage for upgrade points so I can max everything out and cruise this bitch in just a few tries. Not that it's all that hard; I almost laughed aloud on the second stage when the game was telling me the huge Gigas dudes should have a weak point while I was already shooting the painfully obvious pulsating bulge on their chests. Thanks, in-game help!

Bomberman still kind of sucks, though. Bleh. Blue Dragon will probably rule after I stop grinding the Monster Fight x100 achievement.

Odds, ends.

Internet radio on the PSP? Kind of neat. RSS Channel? Still pretty shitty. I know these are both old news, but I don't actually turn my PSP on much and figured I'd update for Wipeout Pulse coming out next month.

Apparently, you can grind the block breaking and bomb laying achievements offline in Bomberman: Act Zero, as I found last night. Might work for the kills, too, but I usually lose opponents to pressure blocks and I'm not actually that good, so I don't know.

Yeah, mission eight for Blazing Angels 2 is a bitch. I blew up pretty much everything doing damage to the Red Square, so why is it still taking damage?! Stupid game was supposed to go back today, but thanks to dead people, it ships back tomorrow.

Burnout Paradise drops this week and I'm shelling out for it, so expect a rundown on that in a couple of days, tops.

Let's talk about old friends.

Saw this coming, but the latest two titles in my mailbox are both titles I once owned. While it's nice to have a headstart, I wasn't exactly looking forward to playing either again. But first, time to catch up with XBLA Wednesday.

Boogie Bunnies
Achievements: 12 (11 offline for 170 gs, 1 online for 30 gs)
MS Points cost: 800

It's a polished Snood where you can shoot from the sides as well. And the bunnies (which have replaced the faces, or the bubbles a la Puzzle Bobble/Bust A Move) dance from time to time. Eh. I get sucked up in these sort of games so I bought it, but I wouldn't recommend it off hand. Not much to say here, really.

As for the two mystery games, I get to return to the realms of wonder presented in BulletWitch and Bomberman: Act Zero. Argh. Argh argh argh argh. I'll try to be objective, and brief.

BulletWitch
Achievements: 14 (all offline, 1000 points)

Decent character design completely wasted on an over-the-shoulder shooter that is SLOW AS HELL. Seriously, even jumping forward all the time only speeds things up a little bit. Bitch needs more practical shoes. A lot of neat ideas, and stuff I like such as weapons customization and skill boosting, totally flushed down the toilet. This game hurts.

Achievements are for playing the game through on every difficulty, basically, if you can stand to do so, and maxing out all your weapons and stats. I really don't want to comment much more because it hurts to think about it, but if you must play this, get yourself the Secretary outfit from Marketplace. I think it's free, and it makes the main character even easier on the eyes.

Trauma. Ow. Ow.

Bomberman: Act Zero
Achievements: 50 (I don't feel like breaking these down, but I'm pretty sure some are online-only)

You will never get all 1,000 gs in this game because a) breaking 1,000,000 blocks is impossible unless you lobotomize yourself and have no desire to spend time doing anything but playing this game for a few months and b) anyone who might still play this online has moved on to Bomberman Live! in the Arcade or has killed themselves long before now.

To summarize the game, Hudson felt they should make Bomberman a little more edgy for the 360 crowd, and while not completely hideous on its own, the move pissed off pretty much every Bomberman fan ever. Combine with the crazy achievements (1,000,000 effing blocks, wtf), and you have a pretty good formula for turning away potential players.

Granted, I'll admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the game. I can play a purple Bomberman (or Bomberwoman), which is always a plus in my book, and despite the visual overhaul, it's still just Bomberman, which is not bad. I kind of like the switchable camera angles, too, but on the whole the game was just half baked. Oh well. Maybe I can grind a few more points out of it by next Friday.

By the way, I popped in Guitar Hero II the other day, and recommend anyone else who still has it do the same. So much better than III. SO MUCH BETTER. I missed you, baby. And found a bunch of content I downloaded but never played. Whoops!

One day, I will get better at wrapping these articles. This is not that day. By the way, Undertow will be the free XBLA game they're giving away for all the Live troubles. Which is fantastic, since everyone in their right mind already paid for the thing since it's a pretty sweet game. Luckily, I was poor that week and never got around to it, so free for me! Hooray!

On the other hand, I totally paid for Catan and they dropped that for free not long after, so I guess I just broke even. Dammit.

Luftwaffle.

In some sort of divine karmic spite, the gods of gaming have decided to thrust upon me Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions Of WWII. Considering how thrilled I still am by the first game, you can tell I went in with lowered expectations.

Blazing Angels: Secret Missions Of WWII
Achievements: 50 (31 offline for 500 gs, 19 online for 500 gs)

Well, we all know how I looooove even splits of online/offline achievements. There's actually a pretty robust selection, from 270 points for a campaign clear to filling in all your little extra jooblies and exploring the game for the other 230. Online takes a similar approach by encouraging you to use multiple planes in different gametypes, and I like that.

As for the game itself... there was this LucasArts game on the PC and (eventually) Xbox that went by the name Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe. In case you don't remember this number, it basically involved flying a bunch of secret (made-up) and not-so-secret (based on real events) missions in all sorts of crazy planes, including a lot of experimental ones that never actually saw combat, if they even saw prototypes or otherwise flyable models.

Blazing Angels 2 is that game, minus the unlockable X-Wing and TIE Fighter, and with moderately better controls.

They cleaned up the control scheme quite a bit from the last one, having the sense to put the secondary fire button on the right bumper (which is right near the RIGHT TRIGGER AKA THE BUTTON THAT SHOOTS THINGS) as opposed to clicking the right stick, and shuffling a couple other things so that in general, the layout makes more sense without abandoning the essentials from the first game.

Things are prettier, of course, but not that much prettier, and the intermediate scenes between missions used to convey the story are pretty lame. As much as they were just scripted game footage in the first one, I kind of prefer it to the smeary comic book style retouched photos they used this time around.

Still, it feels like a more solid play this iteration, and dogfights are already a lot less frustrating. However, word on the street is that mission eight is already nigh-impossible, which is decidedly not a good sign when there are eighteen missions to clear. Or maybe nineteen, as I'm not sure if you get the War Hero achievement for clearing the game at the same time as the achievement for clearing mission eighteen, or if the last mission didn't get a numbered icon like the rest because of said War Hero.

We'll see how pissed off I get at it on Wednesday, since I have all day to foment my rage towards Ubisoft Romania given my day off.

Oh yeah, heads up for Rock Band people - Official Xbox Magazine's February '08 issue hits newsstands today (1/15), and the bonus disc comes with three exclusive tracks. The songs in question are Freezepop's "Sprode" (previously featured in Amplitude on the PS2), Bang Camaro's "Rock Revolution," and Count Zero's "Shake" (my personal favorite of the three). If nothing else, Sprode is a great money whore for you vocalists out there, since Liz Enthusiasm, as much as I love her, is not that hard to top in the singing department.

Sure, it'll set you back ten American dollars, but there's plenty of other content on the disc if you're interested, and it's not the worst bathroom reading I've had even if the magazine felt kind of crowded. To save you some time, the songs are in the Extra Content section, and I'm pretty sure you and your friends can pass the disc around like a common street whore if you all chip in your lunch money to buy it. And don't forget, more tracks on Xbox Live in the morning as well!

I really -am- sick und tired of tommies und yanks.

Earlier today, I was considering adjusting the playtime rules a bit, mostly to accomodate for some of the older games out there that have fewer achievements than you have fingers, because they give you one fat batch of gs for beating the story, and then the rest come from sidequests and replay stuff.

Blazing Angels shot that down very, very solidly. You see, you get to a certain point in the campaign, and you end up working on a mission called Top Secret. Top Secret is the first thing to have made me throw a controller in the span of a year, and the third or fourth thing to make me do it in my entire life.

The mission is as such. First, you have to kill a bunch of German planes and take out a couple of cruisers to make sure your buddy doesn't get sploded, so he can blow the entrance to a fjord. Then you have to fly the fjord.

Imagine, if you will, the Death Star trench run from Star Wars. Stationary guns firing at you, fighters dipping in behind you, or at least, behind your wingman. Now take the trench and twist it around a lot and throw in some blockage here and there, as well as the occasional small opening, not unlike a set of intestines. Congratulations, you have this fucking fjord. You're flying up the asshole of some ice giant and that asshole hates you very, very much.

Checkpoints are way too distantly spaced, the stationary guns might as well not be there for all the effect they have, and there's a fucking time limit so you have to fly obscenely fast and tight past walls that like to reach out and grab you (in other words, mediocre clipping settings). It's bad, I'm pissed, the one-week thing stays in effect.

Don't even get me started on Blitz: The League, either. My previous comments on the graphics? After watching a couple of the cinemas, I retract any positivity. Looks. Like. Ass. Tired of getting raped, I've decided to take a friend's suggestion (to someone else, but it's a good suggestion nonetheless) to go back and play some old (read: Genesis-era) Madden games to get a feel for how football actually works. Right now my understanding of the game is "passing rules, running drools," thanks to Tecmo Super Bowl.

On a nicer note, Blue Dragon. Hoo lawdy, Blue Dragon. I'm going to be honest, I played the demo when it hit Live, and I hated it. Well, it turns out it was just a terrible demo and a poor representation of the game, because Blue Dragon kind of rocks.

Blue Dragon
Achievements: 43 (all offline, duh - 1000 gs)

Seeing as how it's from Mr. Final Fantasy himself, Hironobu Sakaguchi, there are some ways in which you've played this game before. Bunch of rabblerousing youths set out to save their hometown from bad dudes, monsters, and robots. There's a girl tagging along. The music (by Mr. Final Fantasy Tunes, Nobuo Uematsu) is epic where required and fun where required. Been there, done that. But it's done so well that it's worth doing again.

My favorite aspect so far is that it's really brought back the TALK TO EVERYONE commandment of old-school RPGs in full force, even extending it to investigating every prominent inanimate feature on the screen. Why do this? Because in Blue Dragon, looking at random crap, even pebbles or dirt or broken machinery, can give you money, medals, or usable items. If you're like me, the guy who presses "A" against everything ever, this is your karmic reward.

I mentioned before that I was also considering tweaking the rules here for RPGs, since there are a lot of grinding and catch 'em all achievements in most of them. A month of playtime seems a good deal more reasonable than indefinite until finished, so I'm going with that instead. Cool? Cool. Gives one more time to enjoy a more expansive solo experience without having it fill a slot in the queue forever.

As I was saying.

Bionicle Heroes is 100% done, and it didn't hurt too bad at all. Despite my corrupted save issue, which I found out is not a unique occurance but is pretty rare, I managed to rally and destroy that game.

It turns out the thing I was doing when my save bugged, letting the game run in a certain place with the fire button rubberbanded to pile up kill counts and money, is totally unnecessary. I managed to bag all but one of the kill count achievements and both money collections (2.5 and 5 million studs, respectively) in just two playthroughs. Unlike the Lego Star Wars stud achievements (both II and TSC), the money collecting is cumulative and not counter-based, so you can still upgrade and buy secrets and it won't set you back.

The whole blitz all the levels, then upgrade abilities and clean up maneuver worked nicely, though I did stop to upgrade weapons and armor frequently, as it saves so much trouble and boosts our finish ratings since you won't lose masks as much, if at all.

If there was a tricky part, I'd have to say it was getting a Gold completion rating on the third bonus level, and even then it only took a half dozen tries, tops. 56 kills is an easy mark to reach with Nuparu, the black dude with the grenades, once his weapon's upgraded. Another delay came up when I forgot to get two of the gold canisters I needed from... Avak? The brown boss, down in the dungeon/dynamo/et cetera area; when he went to pull his switches, no enemies felt like coming out. A quick trip to the Dashboard and back into the game fixed that, though, so it seems like a minor bug.

Anyway, two new releases this past Wednesday, so let's get to it. No game availability for now since Live's being schizotypal and I really need to get to bed anyway.

Omega Five
Achievements: 12 (all offline, 200 gs)

I love shmups. I suck at dodging bullets. You'd think these two would cancel one another out, but no, I am a sucker and threw down money for this little number. Not disappointed at all, even though I haven't found time to even clear the first stage yet.

Achievements are run of the mill for this sort of thing; beat the missions, beat the game without dying with each character, do something (or do nothing) with the different characters' special moves. Simple. If you're good at this sort of thing, you could probably bang them all out in a couple of hours. I might be able to at least get the special move ones and the basic level clears. We'll see.

TRON
Achievements: 12 (10 offline for 185 gs, 2 online for 15 gs)

One of these days, I will sit down and train myself to play these old two-stick arcade ports on a controller. It's just not the same, and while it's more reasonable for, say, Smash TV (I played that back on the SNES anyway), I'm never going to get anywhere in TRON or Robotron if I stay this bad.

That being said, it's a true port. No "evolved" modes or any of that crap, which is pretty refreshing. The only thing that's new would probably be the online multiplayer.

Your two online achievements are one for scoring high in co-op, and one for winning three versus games. The rest is just clearing all the levels, and a few skill-based ones like dodging grid bugs or getting to the MCP in six shots. I can't play that level without muttering, "End of line," whenever I finish/die. Sorry.

Worth it if you like the classics and can deal with them on a controller, since it's only 400 points. I'm going to wait a bit, myself.

I've probably said it before, but where the hell is Rez?

Oh yeah, since I had to pound away at Bionicle due to the save game snafu, I'm giving Blitz and Blazing Angels an extra day or two to make up for time lost playing catchup. On its way is Blue Dragon, which is mostly grind-based achievements, and that has me wondering something: should I suspend the one week rule for RPGs because of the tendency towards grinding? I mean, a lot of them are an easy 1,000, it just takes time to pound away at them. I got a solid finish in Enchanted Arms that way, and that was totally Gamefly'd.

Chances are I'll do it, at least until the unlikely event arises where I'm working on four RPGs at once and things are getting stale here, fast. Are there even four RPGs for the 360?

Briefs.

Full 1K'd Bionicle Heroes. Omega Five is rad, you should probably buy it. More forthcoming when I have some sleep in me and some time to write.

Murderdeathkill

Corrupted save in Bionicle? Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Dammit. I was 38% done, too. At least I have the whole week and most of the achievements already. I wonder if they'll repop if I start a new game. If not, I'll just blow through the story first and then worry about upgrading or whatever.

How a save corrupts from just playing the game is beyond me, though. It wasn't even being accessed at any time. Thanks, Eidos!

Double date.

So of course, Blitz: The League and Blazing Angels: Squadrons Of WWII were probably sitting in my mailbox while I was making the last post, so you get two today.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons Of WWII
Achievements: 7 (all offline, 1000 gs)
Players Online: I saw one player match with a couple dudes sitting in it around 6:47 PM EST. No Ranked matches.

There's no reason for me to explain WWII to you. In this umpteenth iteration of the event, you're an American pilot helping out Britain, who joins up with some other American pilots because America, fuck yeah. One guy will distract fire from you, one guy helps you repair your plane, and one seems to throw extra attacks around or something. Whoopee.

It's not a bad little dogfighter, though. The bombing indicator took a little making sense of for me, but I appreciate the controls and love that there's a lock-on feature where you can keep your eyes on one opponent and move the plane around rather than trying to guess where the bastards are.

As you can guess from the small number, the achievements are ones you need to work for, with big payouts. One's for finishing the game, two you get for going back in and clearing everything perfectly, and there's some other stuff like getting every plane and rocking arcade mode with all of them once you have them all.

Seems labor intensive, we'll see how this week runs.

Blitz: The League
Achievements: 47 (38 offline for 811 gs, 9 online for 189 gs)
Players Online: None, as of 8:49 PM EST. I think she's dead, Jim. Find someone else to rent it to boost onliners.

Midway, king of arcadey sports games, responded to EA snatching up the NFL license by going a more imaginary route than 2K Games. In Blitz, you field a football team in a more brutal version of the game, where the language is fouler and damage is how things are done.

Am I wrong in thinking this was also released for the original Xbox and PS2? Not that it's ugly, it's just not all that pretty. The little "x-ray" shots of broken bones and torn tendons for injuries seem really campy, but the game itself is pretty average for early 360 games.

Unlike other football games I've had issues with, the controls for this are a lot more stripped-down to allow maximum carnage, and this helps the game move a bit faster as well, which I like.

However, I'm already a little pissed at the AI, just from playing through the tutorial stages. It's not that it's bad, it's just good when I don't need it to be. There are a couple of tasks that require specific results, like beating the crap out of a ball carrier or uber-sacking the QB, and things ended up taking a lot longer because my teammates would sack the QB before he could pass in the case of the former, and get to the QB before me in the latter. Very frustrating, especially when the game's taunting you with the same four voice clips in between every attempt.

Legodent Evil 4

Lagging behind a bit, I know. Been a little under the weather lately. First, let's recap Xbox Live Wednesday.

Metal Slug 3
Achievements: 12 (all offline, 200 points)

For the handful of you who have no idea what Metal Slug is, it's essentially a spiritual successor to Contra. If you don't know what Contra is, I'm not sure you should be holding a controller. Ever. The Metal Slug series has always involved side-scrolling, mostly on-foot shooter action, and it's tough as balls, but also hilarious and fun, even moreso with a buddy along for the ride.

Engrishy as they may be, the achievements are pretty simple. Not easy, mind you, but simple. Just clear levels with "no miss" (not sure if that means saving all the hostages, not dying, or killing everything or what), a few things that seem story-related, grabbing 3,000,000 points (I have a bad feeling this may only be doable in Hard) and beating a boss as a zombie. Nothing mindbending or easter-eggy, which is good because you're going to need all the focus you can get to stay alive.

I say they're all offline, but there's one I definitely think would be easier with a second player, Live or otherwise; if you have one guy to pick up all the weapon upgrades, getting the No More Weapon achievement (10 gs) is probably cake. If the "no miss" counts for both players if you team up as well, definitely find a buddy to rock this with.


Mail call yesterday brought Bionicle Heroes into the fray, hence the title of today's post. Let me elaborate.

Bionicle Heroes
Achievements: 49 (all offline, 1000 points)

Traveler's Tales decided to milk their Lego license outside the realm of movie take-offs, blending a moderately confusing story-driven toy line (Bionicle - seriously, I just do not get it at all) with the play style of Resident Evil 4 (over the shoulder shooty, but with easier lock-on for the kids), and thus Bionicle Heroes was born.

Story, for what it matters, is that you crashland on some planet being over-run by evil critters, and the civilians think (perhaps correctly) that you're their savior. Commence rocking the planet.

Those of you familiar with the Lego Star Wars games should notice some familiar elements. Once again, you're collecting Lego bits from destroyed items and fallen foes as a form of currency and to charge a bar at the top of the screen. Rather than just being a ranking for when you clear the level, however, this bar needs to be full for you to activate certain constructions in order to progress.

You have six different heads with different weapons and abilities, amongst which you can freely switch during missions, though you only start off with one. Essentially, it boils down to missiles, shotgun, sniper, grenades, flamethrower, and water "flame"thrower or something. Each character is also upgradable in a shop similar to the Cantina bar in the LSW games, which has hints and bonus material for sale along with the ubgrades that have replaced the new character purchase area.

Just finishing all the levels will get you half the achievements (four levels each in six elemental-themed territories, plus final level), and the rest is just killing certain numbers of enemies, collecting a certain amount of cash, and eventually clearing everything 100%.

As with the other TT Lego games, this seems pretty well thought-out. Even the idle animations are funny, like when your character dozes off, unscrews his head to bump it around like a hackey sack or soccer ball, or yanks off his leg to scratch his back. The point of view is still a little jarring and not my favorite aspect, but the decent auto-aim kind of makes up for it, so it's not too bothersome in the end.

Good title for a fairly easy, if somewhat grindy, 1000 points. Hopefully I can actually find time to get them all in a week's time.

Rabbit, rabbit.

Happy new year, brochitches. I'm ringing mine in with a game that's more or less two years old! Battlestations: Midway showed up on the 31st, and I found a few minutes to at least get started. Also, I remembered another feature for reviews I was going to implement, so it's in.

Battlestations: Midway
Achievements: 22 (16 single player for 740 points, 6 multiplayer for 260 points)

Online Match Availability: Scant, but existent. It only took about thirty seconds each to find a list of six player matches and two ranked matches at 7:20 PM EST. I assume this is something of a  prime time for XBLers, at least on the east coast, since it's after dinner and homework might be done by then. A couple of the player matches even happened to be almost full! Looks like there're at least a handful of people still playing the game, even if you can't find someone you know to play.

Oh look, WWII. There's not a glut of these games or anything. In all honesty, though, I do like what Eidos was trying to do here, giving you the chance to control the primary vehicle types in a mainly naval battle. Definitely cool, I love naval tactics.

The execution, however? All of the controls for everything feel weird. They make some sense, but not enough. Whoever chose where to map buttons should be shot, because there is nothing intuitive about the layout, and only so much you can do to fix it in the options.

The graphics are all right, for early run 360 games, but fairly generic. Not wowed, not too disappointed. The soundtrack is appropriately military in nature and fits well enough, I guess.

After playing through the tutorials (free 40 points right there) and the first campaign mission, I can't say it's too terribly engaging a game. There's a bit of bollocks patriotism to it that bugs me, even though the game supposedly rolled out of Eidos' Hungary studio, and it's just not that interesting. The main character, whom I guess is supposed to be you, is just another meathead to me, and the game itself just doesn't scream "Play me!"

Sure, the training sessions showed me all this neat stuff I can do with tactical maps and hands-on control and all this other nonsense, but the first mission, at least, pretty much just yanked me from a PT boat to a dogfight without implementing even the slightest bit of that, save for a weapons change to take out a sub with said boat, so I'm left sitting there saying, "Uh, thanks for the help, then?"

I've got some hope things improve and get more hands-on as the game progresses, but I don't know if it's very well-founded hope at all. That dogfighting I mentioned? IT SUCKS. Coming out of Ace Combat 6 may have spoiled me, sure, but dammit, I died more times crashing into the ocean than I did any other way so far. And I didn't die at all in the PT boat. Argh.

Anyway, I'm still willing put in some effort, since who knows when anything else will get here given the holidays delaying mail again, and a lot of the achievements are fairly straightforward, like campaign completion, challeng completion, completion on certain difficulties, kill counts, and using certain vehicles. I honestly would have liked a little ground pounding just to round things out, but que sera.

Oh yeah, Spongebob is DONE. 200/200, bitches. The most difficult achievement would have to be the "complete quest mode with every character" one, since they don't make it clear that you have to finish every level with every character. There's an achievement for "completing quest mode" that you get after clearing one level, which is where the confusion lies.

My suggestion is just plow through with one character first for all the bronze medals (which you need on your path to the All Gold Medals achievement), then another for silvers, and finally one for golds, so you just have two characters left and no medal worries. Those last two will also help you prep for the time trials, after doing all the quest mode stuff, the only time trial I had any trouble with was Atlantis 3, and even that trouble was just stupid luck or poor judgment on my part. Licked it on the third or fourth try, regardless. And it's off my HD already, to make room for good things.

Good things like the new Rock Band content! Three songs, individually priced this week. They managed to cough up the only Skynyrd song I actually enjoy, a solid Rush tune, and Hard To Handle. MUCHAS GRACIAS. It's still no Jawbreaker, but I'll probably be campaigning for that even after they've moved on to things like Synthpop Band, Hard Listening Band, and Funk Band. The latter, of course, featuring a 72-port USB hub, peripherals for an entire brass section, and the house from PCU as an unlockable gig. Even naked guy shows up! Nice butt!

Hope anyone reading this starts off 2008 well enough, and is ready for when nothing else matters in three weeks, since Burnout Paradise is on the way.