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The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon
Viewing blogs tagged Xbox 360
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Simpsons Game
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 30/06/2008 18:57:57Last Exit to Springfield
There have been 21 other games in the long list of Simpsons-based video games, and it's fair to say that very few of them have been worth playing. The Simpsons Hit & Run was pretty good and Bart vs. The Space Mutants kept me entertained as a kid - but most of the games have run the gamut from totally shit to an occasionally enjoyable distraction.
It is with this in mind that when the last Simpson game was announced - with the original title of The Simpsons Game - I wasn't expecting much.
There's a different cover design for each version of the game
The Simpsons Game features an original storyline - it was initially assumed this game might be a movie tie-in with the recently released Simpsons Movie - in which Bart discovers that the family is part of a video game. You can control Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart and each member of the family has different skills and abilities. The game is broken up into 16 episodes - each with a different setting built around the two characters you will play as.
Developed by EA, poster boy for all that is wrong in the video game industry, this was a very tough game to keep playing. Deaths are far too frequent due to clunky gameplay and the camera seemingly intent on sabotage. If this game was on any other subject, I probably would have stopped playing it after a few hours. But this is where the story kicks in.
The game was written by three Simpsons writers and all in-game dialogue is delivered by the actual Simpsons actors. The story is very funny, and reminiscent of the golden age of Simpsons episodes (for me anyway). The town of Springfield is also pretty faithfully represented in digital form, including internal designs with the comic book store, police station, Kwik-E-Mart, Moe's Tavern and more.
Although there isn't much you can do there, running around the inside of places like the church is a nice touch
The funny, Simpsons-style story alone would make for a good game even considering the poor game play issues, but the most pleasantly surprising aspect of the game for me was the video game references. The game makes fun of past and current video games as well as the whole games industry including EA themselves. There's also many brief aspects of the game play included as homage to famous games in history, such as space invaders, all rendered in the regular in-game engine with a different camera angle (generally top-down).
Mmmm, chocolate
There's no online component to the game, and the achievements are uninspired. Apart from the "finish the game" type achievements, most of the points are handed out for collecting the various "collectibles" throughout the game. That being said, The Simpsons Game does give up one of the most amusing achievements I've "achieved" on the ol' 360. I won't give it away, but you'd see what I was talking about if you ever decided to give this game a go.
3.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
NHL 2K6
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/04/2008 22:59:06Updated by Joel Dixon at 18/04/2008 08:24:03
As I've mentioned I'm a huge fan of NHL video games, and have tried to collect one for each year. A little while ago I found a second-hand version of NHL 2K6 for the 360 so I snapped it up.
NHL 2K6 with Marty Turco on the cover
2K6 was the first NHL game released on the Xbox 360 - and it kinda shows. Buying a two-year-old game I didn't expect anything fantastic, but I can't image it would have been that special even when it was first released. It wouldn't run on PAL-60, so to play this game I needed to changed the cords I was using and alter the Xbox's display settings. There was also some freezing issues with the game, and the 2K Sports interface was getting very clunky by this stage.
I played a few games with my beloved Penguins, and it's always fun controlling Crosby around the ice - but there wasn't much reason to continue once I earned the 5 achievements. It will take it's place on the shelf next to the other NHL games, and the Tony Hawk series.
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
Ninety-Nine Nights
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 23/03/2008 01:33:33Updated by Joel Dixon at 17/09/2008 09:29:37
When I bought the Xbox from a workmate he included his 4 remaining games. I had already completed three of those games (Kameo, Oblivion and Enchanted Arms) after my first few weeks in Edmonton around 8 months ago. The fourth game, Ninety-Nine Nights - took considerably longer.
Ninety-Nine Nights cover
A joint effort between Q Entertainment and Phantagram, Ninety-Nine Nights (shortened to N3) is a hack-and-slash game with up to a few thousand enemies to vanquish in each level. You start the game as Inphyy, a 17-year-old leader of the Temple Knights fighting a holy war against a horde of goblins and other supposedly evil groups. Once you finish the main storyline with Inphyy you unlock two new characters and replay the same story with a different viewpoint. Each character you unlock tells a different part of the story and lets you play on both sides of dark and light, which changes the events of the story.
The game play has elements of RPGs such as level progression based on experience points and a number of weapons with status changing upgrades. The story also reminds me of RPGs like Final Fantasy - complete with world-saving teenagers, a predominant light-versus-dark theme and female characters that believe boobies are more effective against a sword than armour.
All protected from stabbings. Unless, of course, someone goes for the chest
Visually N3 is very impressive, and this was obviously an important goal of the development team. Hundreds of enemies and allies are onscreen at once set against purty backdrops of the desert, jungles or a snow field. Each enemy is given a different look with a random combination of various armor pieces, and act relatively believably when left on their own. Unfortunately it seems they pushed the poor Xbox too hard as the framerate is noticeably slowed when a large number of enemies are joined by the destruction of structures such as a sentry tower. While this doesn't affect the game play too often it does make the game look a little unpolished.
Bring it!
N3 is essentially a button masher with one button controlling a regular attack and the other a power attack. These buttons are combined to inflict powerful combo attacks, and you learn better attacks as you progress in level.
For each enemy you kill you are awarded a red orb. When you collect enough you can unleash an orb attack allowing you to cut through hundreds of enemies like partially set jelly. Enemies killed during an orb attack result in a blue orb. When you collect enough of the blue orbs an orb spark attack pretty much levels the playing field of foes.
The achievements in N3 are quite well implemented for such an early title. Awarding an achievement for completing the game with each character encourages you to uncover the complete story in the game. If I was playing this game on a system without achievement points I probably would have stopped playing after finishing Inphyy's quests and would have missed a lot of the story elements. The final achievement, progress each character to level nine, gets repetitive to the point of tedium - which explains why this game took so much longer to complete.
Ninety-Nine Nights isn't the most strategic game, but when you come home from work there's a certain level of fun to be had mowing through thousands of animated goblins.
3 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 24/02/2008 13:34:46Updated by Joel Dixon at 04/03/2008 17:03:18
Back in high school a couple of friends and I hired a game that was getting a little bit of hype amongst the kiddies - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for my PlayStation. Still to this day, I can remember how I felt when I started skating the first level - the Warehouse. The game did look awesome - but the real joy came from replicating the feeling of turning up at an unfamiliar place, and seeing what you could skate on. This is something my friends and I did frequently during our early high school days (on rollerblades), but in Tony Hawk - I could actually complete better tricks than "the jump".
The first level in the original Tony Hawk game
As I rolled through the levels like The School (another very familiar setting) and The Mall (I admit I did have a fantasy of blading through an empty Eastland) collecting the coveted tapes and uncovering amusing gap names I knew this was a special game. I am now a proud owner of every game in the Tony Hawk's series and while I definitely feel the quality of the series had peaked by the third installment - I still buy and enjoy each of the games, just to try out the new levels, if nothing else.
The last Tony Hawk game I bought for my PlayStation 2 was Tony Hawk's Underground 2 quite a few years ago - and it was fortunate that the next in the series, American Wasteland, was available for the Xbox 360 at the bargain price of $15.
Why pink?
As this is the fifth Tony Hawk game, game play changes were hardly genre re-defining. The big change was what they took out of this game - loading screens. There was, however, loading tunnels - 30 seconds of sparsely populated tunnels connecting each different section together. Even though the change was essentially turning the loading screen into a user-controlled animation, I must admit that it did help the flow of the game.
Continuing the trend that was introduced in Tony Hawk's Underground, American Wasteland's main content was uncovered in a "story mode" that tried to add a narrative to the game. I've never been a fan of "story mode" as it generally results in a lot of busy-task goals, and crap loads of unnecessary skating from point A to B. In my opinion the story mode succeeds only in making the game more disjointed.
The chick you try to doink in the story mode (the one without pigtails)
Some of the new story mode levels are pretty cool (such as a finished Skate Park) as are some of the NPCs that are introduced - but on the whole I was unimpressed. A very small feature of story mode is the ability to get off your board and hop onto a bike to ride around. This was one of the better inclusions of the game in my opinion, especially since the BMX controls were much better than the controls of Activision's Mat Hoffman series of games. It feels great to pull off a flare or tailwhip with this style of controls!
No tuffs on this bike, unfortunately
Once I finally slogged my way though the story mode I gave classic mode a shot - and was happy again. The sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me as soon as I begun the first classic level. You see - all of the classic levels are remakes of levels from earlier games in the series (like my beloved Mall level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater). I'm sure some people view this as a cop out - but I was happy as it's been so long since I've played these levels, and they take on new life with the inclusion of moves such as the manual and revert.
I guess the other new feature that would have wowed people when this game was released was the ability to play against others online with Xbox Live. I played a few games online over Live - and it was definitely fun - but there really isn't many other games playing this game now days. Still - the online experience was quite well implemented - considering the time this game was released.
Achievements in this game weren't too bad, but pretty basic. Once completing story mode and classic mode most of the achievements were dolled out, leaving only 10 points to skate each level over Live (with or without another person) and 100 points to "complete" the game (basically get all of the gaps). Once again, considering the release date of this title, the achievements weren't too poorly implemented.
Overall - American Wasteland is pretty much as you would expect for yet another game in the Tony Hawk series. A fun game, some new levels and the ability to play over Live (while the game is still popular).
2.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
This is the 3rd in the My Video Gaming History series
Part I - My Video Gaming History - Part I: The Commodore 64Part II - My Video Gaming History - Part II: The Sega Master SystemPart III - Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
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Monday, January 28, 2008
Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 28/01/2008 10:46:27Updated by Joel Dixon at 02/02/2008 09:05:54
The last PlayStation 2 game we bought was Buzz! The Music Quiz, the first game in the somewhat popular Buzz! video game series. We had played it at my parents house and found it enjoyable enough to purchase our own copy. Belinda is pretty good with music trivia, especially newer music, and we were pretty evenly matched which made the game fun even after playing it repetitively.
The Buzz! series continued with The Big Quiz and The Sports Quiz - but I was hoping they would come out with a movie trivia game. Since then I bought an Xbox 360 and the DVD-based game Scene It? was adapted into a video game. Fun for everyone.
Scene It? is a Xbox 360 exclusive title
The four "big button pads" that come with the game are designed quite well. Firstly, they're wireless and come with an infrared receiver that you place on top of the television. It takes a little bit to remember that you need to point the buzzer at the TV - but it's much better than using wired controllers. They have a proper guide button and all the other buttons of a regular controller except for the triggers. The big button also doubled as a directional pad, which makes navigating the Dashboard screen much easier. And, batteries were included - bargain.
That's not a big button pad, is a big button pad
The narrative of the game is tedious at best, but basically involves three rounds of games, with 3 or 4 games each round depending on whether you're playing a short or long game. After the three rounds is "The Final Cut" which will potentially award a lot of points. There is a "Movie Clip" game each round in which a short movie clip is proceeded by five questions. The game does remember which questions you have seen and tries not to show you those questions again - but as there are only 40 or so different movie clips and they start repeating quickly.
The 20 other game types is where I found the most fun. These games include guessing the movie title from it's poster as the elements are slowly added to the canvas, or guessing the movie that a sound byte has been taken from. The game types are creative and a lot of fun, but unfortunately there's no way to select which game types you will playing. I feel the "Sequentials" game pops up far too often (you are presented with four similar movie titles, and you need to order them according to release date).
The Pictogram game type - see it and say it
The game types are generally fun, and the mechanics of awarding extra points for early answers is good to see - but with only 1,500 questions in the game it starts repeating far too quickly. When I started playing the game 60,000 points was a pretty good for me - but it didn't take long at all until 90 to 100k was coming easily. I didn't find Buzz to be as bad in this regard at all as they have a pool of 1,000 music clips to choose from (and 5,000 questions). I guess it's easier for Buzz! as they use cover bands - you can't really have a movie clips or screen shots with cover actors.
This is where the Scene It? should be using the power of downloadable content to prolong the lifespan of their game, and make use of the inventive game designs by providing downloadable question sets. I believe this is their plan, there's already a "Downloads" menu items that sends the user into the Marketplace area for this game - but there's currently nothing to download there. I would assume there are more questions coming - probably in different theme packs like we've already seen with the DVD game (like the Disney, James Bond or Marvel Comics editions). I'll certainly be downloading any theme packs that are released.
Speaking of Live integration - initially I felt it was a little disappointing that there is no online multiplayer game mode - but it didn't take me too long to realise that multi-player wouldn't work with the limited question set. For example, in most of the game types I can answer all of the questions immediately just by looking at the four available answers - and it's not like I've been studying the game at great length. Eventually most good multiplayers would be competing very close to the maximum score allowed each game.
The achievements were handed out very quickly, but again, I think this was a result of the limited question set more than any design flaw. The 30 and 60 questions correct without an incorrect answer were tricky and time-consuming - but all of the others were pretty straight forward to achieve, the first 600 points coming in the first three games. Then again - any trivia game that allows you to pause after a question has been asked is going to have most people getting all achievements when combined with IMDb.
In summary, a fun game - great for small gatherings - and something that will hopefully have downloadable content! 3.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Xbox 360 Achievements Lead to Increased Sales
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/10/2007 09:32:10Updated by Joel Dixon at 18/10/2007 12:31:06
An interesting article came through my handy feed reader this afternoon - "Xbox 360 Achievements Lead to Higher Scores and Sales". I've made public my love for achievements before, so I actually read this item. Apart from referring to Achievements as "Accomplishments" (which shits me a little), the article did make a few interesting points:
I agree with this to a point - but it's important to remember correlation doesn't imply causation. Just because higher selling and higher rated games have a depth in Achievements - doesn't necessarily mean the Achievements the high sales and rating. I think if a game developer puts effort and planning into the achievements of a game - it's not the only factor that they're trying to get right.
Then again, if I had two next-gen systems and a game came out on all systems - I would probably buy it on the Xbox for the achievement points.
I completely agree with this point - as mentioned for Enchanted Arms - completion achievements can be a huge cop-out. I'd be happy if this research convinced a few more developers to put extra thought into the achievements they use.
But it depends on how they are counting this one (the actual source article is available for purchase, so I didn't check). If they mean 29% of games use only completion achievements - then that's no good. Put if 29% of total achievement points across all games are based on completion of a section of the game - it's a little lower than I would have thought. It's always good to receive a small chunk of achievement points for finishing a level, or game. It's when you get all of your points in this way that annoys me.
This is another interesting thought - though not true in my case. I have 5 completely unplayed Xbox 360 games, and I have taken steps to ensure I don't know what the achievements are until I start playing the game. In some cases I have a basic idea of what they'll be - but I much prefer to find out while playing the game as it makes that "achievement unlocked" much more sweeter when you're not expecting it. Like now:
sweet!
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Monday, October 08, 2007
Enchanted Arms
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 08/10/2007 13:54:09After completing Oblivion I decided to move on to the Japanese Role Playing Game of Enchanted Arms.
Boxart for the Enchanted Arms game
You take on the role of Atsuma, an "enchanter" at school with his friends, with a mysterious and powerful arm. Bad things happen, and you need to fix them (basically). As with most games in this genre, storyline is very important, and I found this story to be engaging and actually very funny in parts. Character development is a strong point (sometimes a little too strong for some, like with the un-ashamedly homosexual character Mokoto and his undying love for a school mate) and the visuals are satisfactory for a game in this era.
The in-game visuals didn't blow me away - but were more than good enough to keep me engaged in the story
A large part of the game is your fight against golems, which are essentially robot warriors. You can find or buy different types of golems and have them fight for you as well. This was a high point for me, as the different strengths and general variety of golems kept the game interesting. Of course, there were a unsurprisingly high number of robot "warriors" made in the image of a school girl, nurse, maid etc
Another important aspect of RPGs is the battle system employed, and Enchanted Arms gains points in this respect as well. You make your 4-member party up from a mix of characters and golems and battles take place in a 6 x 4 grid in which you cannot pass the halfway line. Different attack ranges, elemental attacks and the fact that hiding behind another character lessens damaged made this system fun and challenging. The biggest problem I had with battles was that there was very rarely a warning that a difficult battle was going to take place, and when you lost a battle you could either retry or quit. What's the point of having a range of golems at the ready when you can't edit your party after you've seen the type of battle you're about to have? You could runaway from a battle (but not all the time, especially with bosses) but this would cause a big health hit.
Another negative for me was the end of the game, and the achievements rewarded. Firstly, when you finish the game you can no longer progress through the world (and find extra golems) with your current party. You can save your game and use your characters for online play - but there were no more games being hosted when I looked - and multi-player seemed to be an afterthought. Basically, if you didn't save the game before you reached a particular point in the story, you are unable to go back through the game collecting golems.
This leads to another negative - all 1,000 achievement points are awarded over the course of finishing the main storyline (with a "happy ending"). Even though the game tracks the number of golems you've found - there's no achievement for finding all of the robot warriors. I feel this is a place where the developer could have provided so much more replayability to the game, but instead left the audience wanting. I guess poor achievements can be excused for release titles, and the fact the game was originally delayed a month probably explains why these kinds of things were lacking. But the biggest place where they fell down was by using a generic icon (a yellow symbol) for every achievement. This is something that would have taken a graphical artist no more than a day to fix, had achievements not been a complete afterthought.
The generic achievement icon - From Software could have done much better here with little cost
Overall, I definitely enjoyed the game - but it's a shame they didn't have enough time to finish it and polish it up a little. 3.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Friday, September 28, 2007
XBLA: Texas Hold'em
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 28/09/2007 09:29:00Updated by Joel Dixon at 28/01/2008 14:51:21
My latest game review has been a month in the making because of a stupid developer's decision on the definition of a "hand type" - but more on that later.
Attempting to cash in on the huge popularity of poker, and specifically the Texas Hold'em variety, Tik Games have created this Xbox Live Arcade game.
An extremely bare bones, basic game with very little in terms of frills or features, Texas Hold'em is probably best described as a good game. When compared with other poker games on the 360 (such as World Championship Poker or World Series of Poker), this game will only match up when comparing price.
Gameplay is very basic - you have all of the essential elements of poker, but nothing more. After playing a little bit of real online poker before, I quickly missed features such as hand histories or an option to make your decision before your turn. Although gameplay is very basic, it's solid in the implementation - and also boasts connectivity with the Xbox Live Vision camera, which is pretty neat.
The single player game is next to useless, providing a place for complete novices to learn the game, as well as a few achievement points. Computer AI is very lame, and it doesn't take long to work out a system that will beat them every time.
The multi player game mode is where most serious players of this game will find their time - and the aforementioned camera as well as headset support really make the game a little extra fun. Online games exacerbates the issues with gameplay, as well a lot of waiting for people to act - but at least the opponents are not predictable. They will, occasionally, be complete knob-jockeys - but I've come to expect that.
Most of the achievements were simple to get and well thought out (like one for winning a pot with high-card, or winning an All-In bet), and the first 190 achievement points came pretty quickly. The last 10 points took me over a month to earn.
The last achievement is to be dealt one of each hand type of poker. That would have been fine, as in my 3,000 or so hands it took to complete the first 11 achievements, I had had at least one of each poker hand types: high card, pair, two pair, trips, straight, flush, full house, quads and a straight flush. The problem was, the developer stupidly decided that a royal flush is a separate hand type to a straight flush.
Now a royal flush is simply an Ace high straight flush, and not a separate type of hand. By adding this requirement for the achievement - the developer had significantly upped the difficulty. Apparently the odds of a straight flush are 1 in 72,000 - not too bad. The odds of a royal flush are 1 in 649,739 (much worse). And there's also the possibility that you may never receive a royal flush.
I'm a bit of a completion-ist - I spent a full day playing Prince of Persia to get the last achievement, and I spent a good week of solidly playing Kameo to get all of the A rankings. I ended up finding something heavy to place on my controller's A button - and let it play hands for me as I slept. 40,000 hands later - I had my royal flush and those last 10 points. Probably not worth the time, electricity, or fact that my Xbox will now die a hundred hours earlier than it would have - but once I completed 20,000 I couldn't turn back!
Overall Texas Hold'em is not a great game, it's barely above average, but it's OK if you just want a basic poker game. All considered - I don't think it's worth the money. 2.5 out of 5.
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Monday, September 17, 2007
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/09/2007 09:54:40Oblivion is the fourth game in Bethesda Softworks popular video game series The Elder Scrolls. Probably best described as a first-person role playing game, Oblivion puts you in control of a lowly prisoner that is in the middle of an epic set of circumstances.
The graphics and storyline of Oblivion are great, but what really hooked me was the free-flowing, open-ended gameplay. After the first little tutorial you are left to your own devices. You are given a goal to complete which follows the main story line, but you are free to completely ignore it. You can talk to locals to uncover smaller quests, join one of the four guilds and rise up the ranks or just walk around the towns pickpocketing people by day and breaking into homes by night.
An example of this is when I was teetering along, saving the world, when I noticed two computer characters having chat. I walked over and overheard their conversation, about a problem they were having. After initiating conversation with one of them, I was asked to help them out of their little problem. I agreed, busted a few heads, and came back to the guys and received a reward. Once finished this small side-quest I was back to saving the world (with a little extra cash).
The depth really is spectacular (I've put over 60 hours into the game, and never bothered with all of the small side quests), the storyline is engaging and amusing at times - Oblivion really deserved the "game of the year" award it was given by various publications.
About a year after it's debut, an expansion pack was released entitled "Shivering Isles". The expansion is straight-forward and can be finished in around 10 - 15 hours. Personally, I found it extremely funny, much more amusing than the base game of Oblivion (which does have its humor moments). The environment of the Shivering Isles is much different to Oblivion, which I didn't enjoy nearly as much. I preferred the regular feel of normal small towns, and probably won't go back into the Isles after earning the extra 250 achievement points it carried.
Speaking of achievements, the 1000 points are given out in a well thought out way. Some are given for the main story quest, and some for rising through the ranks of various guilds or the battle arena. This is good because you are exposed to all parts of the game. For example, I never really used much magic in my progress until I started the Mages Guild quests.
Overall, a very enjoyable game. It's also one that I would play extra hours in finishing side quests and leveling up my stats - if I didn't have a stack of 7 un-played Xbox 360 games waiting for me! 4.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
XBLA: Uno
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 28/07/2007 12:46:47I recently bought a wireless headset and Xbox Live Vision Camera for my Xbox 360 - mainly because they double as a webcam for my laptop for when I leave for Canada. The Xbox Live Arcade game of Uno came free with the camera - and it's quite a nifty little game.
Uno
The card game of Uno was a favourite of mine as a youngster - even though the deck of cards was larger than my head. That popular card game is re-created excellently as an Xbox Live Arcade game, allowing 4-player online play, chat with an Xbox headset and video through the Vision camera (it'd be silly to include it with the camera if it didn't).
The graphics are un-important (although there are some nice downloadable custom decks), the music gets monotonous (but you should be listening to all of the Live teenagers bragging about pwning you) and replayability depends on how much you like playing Uno.
But if you enjoy the occasional game of Uno, the multiplayer lobby is very slick, there's room for heaps of customisation in terms of game rules, and the camera / headset support fosters an enjoyable online experience (as long as your opponents aren't all buttmunches). 4 out of 5.
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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