A Cooperative Borderlands Review
Note: I enlisted the help of OXCGN’s Arthur Kotsopoulos in Australia to take a different look at the time sink that is Borderlands. This cooperative effort at reviewing the cooperative game also ran on OXCGN.com.
Borderlands [review]
First person shooter gamers and role playing gamers do not really mix that often. The former enjoys the thrill of a headshot and multiplayer melees while the later is hooked by personalizing their character and looting new gear from dungeons.
Borderlands takes a little from each genre and adds enough cooperative elements to create an addictive game best played with others. Whereas Fallout 3 was a role playing game first and a shooter second, Borderlands is the opposite.
A Boy and his Blob [review]
One of the best things about the Nintendo Wii has been how it has invigorated Nintendo’s massive catalogue of games. It has been 20 years–for those that remember–since we were first introduced to Blobert, the amorphous white goo ball who works for jellybeans.
Brütal Legend [review]
Perhaps no greater tribute has ever been offered at the temple of an entire genre of music than Brütal Legend. This game idolizes the power and energy of heavy metal, creating an entire world with metal as its central mythology. The world of Brütal Legend is steeped heavy metal symbolism; with every scenic vista looking like it belongs on an album cover.
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Darkest of Days creator Aaron Schurman of Phantom EFX on first IP
Darkest of Days is the project Phantom EFX CEO Aaron Schurman wanted to make when he and a group of investors first started the company ten years ago. The concept was born after Schurman played through the early levels of Medal of Honor, where players reenact the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Despite the technical limitations of the time, the awe of experiencing a fragment of that historic battle in an interactive format was powerful, he said.
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Darkest of Days [review]
If you could go back in time, would you attempt to change history for personal enrichment or to prevent atrocities? Or would to restrain yourself in order to preserve the causality that leads to your existence, or in fear of unleashing a worse future by preventing mankind from learning from its mistakes?
That is the question at the heart of Darkest of Days, a new game from Phantom EFX of Cedar Falls, Iowa. The game represents Phantom’s first entry in the first-person shooter genre and its first appearance on the Xbox 360.
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The Beatles: Rock Band [review]
The Beatles: Rock Band is nothing short of a masterpiece. Beatles fans span decades and this accessible yet challenging game bridges the generational divide. There is something for everybody to love in this game.
The band’s original fans will get a kick out of seeing The Beatles perform in the Cavern Club or on the Ed Sullivan Show. Younger fans will love finally seeing Beatles songs released on the interactive Rock Band format. Parents can play with children to expose them to their favorite band, and children can play with parents to expose them to video games.
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Wolfenstein [review]
Throughout the history of video games, few enemies have made more appearances or better targets than Nazis. It is not implausible to estimate at least a trillion digital Nazis have met bloody ends on gaming systems worldwide since Wolfenstein 3D kick started the first-person-shooter genre 17 years ago.
Wolfenstein-3DWolfenstein 3D blazed the trail for id Software’s 1993 release of Doom, which took the gaming world by storm and cemented the genre’s place as a pillar of video game design. While the latest reimagining of the franchise is nowhere near as revolutionary as the original, it sticks close to the proven formula and delivers a fun, adrenaline-filled Nazi extermination experience.
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Madden 10 [review]
The graphics are astounding. Stadiums come alive with location-unique cut scenes outside the stadium. Nearly 1,000 animations were removed and replaced while quarterbacks now have personalized stances and throwing styles. Referees measure first downs and debate touchdowns and coaches chew ass on the sidelines. Together it all adds up to one of the most realistic football experiences to date.
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Little King’s Story [review]
Don’t let the cutesy graphics put you off, Little King’s Story is deceptively deep and at times frustratingly challenging. There is nothing little about Little King’s Story.
Little King’s Story has a charming story with dark undertones. Your chief advisor, a knight who evokes Don Quixote, pushes you towards world domination. After a few days, a priest comes around and compels you to build a church. They both subversively discredit the astronomer who is investigating the cause of earthquakes that begin to shake the land. And it all begins with a little boy who stumbles across a magical crown while chasing some rats.
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Prototype [review]
Prototype is a brutal game, and Mercer is no hero. He does not care how many civilians are killed on his path to vengeance. In fact, the game rewards players for killing in the form of evolution points. This creates a disconnect between the Mercer you want to root for in the cut scenes, and the homicidal maniac you play in the game. This detachment is even more pronounced than in other games with this problem, such as Grand Theft Auto.
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Playing UFC Undisputed w/ Houston Alexander
Despite being prominently featured in the game, Omaha’s own mixed martial arts fighter Houston Alexander hadn’t played “UFC 2009 Undisputed” until we invited him to the City Weekly offices to check it out a couple weekends ago.
“It freaked me out when I saw my brother playing it,” Alexander said. “Wouldn’t it freak you out if you saw yourself up there?”
It probably would. Hell, I was a little unnerved just watching digital Houston on his back taking blows to the face.
“They’ve got everything pretty accurate,” Alexander said. “This game is pretty damn accurate.”
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An interview with NCAA Football 10 designer Ben Haumiller
Last week I had the opportunity to chat with NCAA Football 10 designer Ben Haumiller. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our discussion. Cornfed Gamer – You only have one year between releases of NCAA, how do you balance the time between adding new features and improving the core, on the field experience? Ben Haumiller – That’s a fun part about it, is that we do have such a tight time line every year that there really is no down time. We don’t ship for six days and I’m already working fully on next year’s title. Full Story »NCAA Football 10 has substantive improvements to trusted formula {review}
Budgets are tight, and this game comes out every year. You need to know if it’s worth it to drop the dough on the newest iteration.
Bottom line: yes it is. There’s so many improvements this year that I’m having a hard time squeezing them all in to this review. NCAA Football 10 has many substantive enhancements to both the on-the-field action and new gameplay modes.
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