Xbox 360 Games: Dec 30, 2009

Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 [Online Game Code] << more detail ::

By Tony (USA) - reviews

Man, I remember logging countless hours on Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in the arcades.

It was a lot of fun back then, so when I heard this was going to be released on the XBLA, I jumped on it. And it's only 1200 Microsoft Points(15 USD)!!!

The new features like online play make this game even better. Take on the world, but I'm warning you, some people are really, really good. The online play can be a bit laggy at some times, so its best to play with people that are pinging on the lower side.

This is an exact port of the absolutely perfect Dreamcast version of the game, so there aren't any gameplay revisions, so characters like Cable, Iron Man, and Magento are still incredibly unbalanced and overpowered, which show how true this port really is.

My only complaints about this game is that you cannot map one button to two actions, which makes it difficult to do attacks that require you to hit two buttons at once, considering you are using a Xbox 360 controller.

For fans of Capcom, Marvel, or any fighting fans, this is a definite buy, considering that USED copies of MvC 2 can run upwards of $50 dollars due to their short manufacturing run. So, MvC 2, gets a 5/5.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Street Fighter IV << more detail ::

By Bucky51 "Sean" (Orlando, FL USA) - reviews

This game looks great and plays well. I was a fan of the original arcade game, and used to play a ton on the old Sega genesis. SF4 does the best job yet of re-creating the feel of the original. Capcom really has added a good level of polish. The menus are crisp, the venues are detailed, and the fighters are responsive. There is a lot of depth, with tons of unlockables too.

Two warnings for casual street fighter fans. In Arcade Mode, even when set on Easiest, the game's last boss, Seth, is ridiculously hard. I'm not one of those guys who wants to learn every move and work for every victory. My interest was to basically just unlock the hidden characters so my friends and I could have a full slate of fighters to play with when they stop by. But this last boss makes getting the hidden characters a chore. The Easiest setting makes all the other fights pretty easy, but it doesn't seem to apply to Seth.

The other warning is the controls on the 360. For the most part, basic moves are pretty easy. But I've had a hard time pulling off some of the basic combos in the heat of battle. Even in Trial Mode, where you can try combos as often as you like, I can't seem to string some of them together. I have difficulty getting past level 3 for most characters. Maybe my age is catching up to me, but it seems like you need a joystick to pull these moves off with any kind of consistent frequency.

Soul Calibur IV << more detail :::

By Shann Yu "Go Rice Owls!!!" (Nashville, TN) - reviews

If you've played any of the other Soul Calibur games, this game plays pretty much the same way. The reason this series is so much better than the other series out there I feel is the ability to, blow-to-blow, attack your opponent with series of attacks that do not involve memorizing a long string of commands like in the Tekken series. That said, this game is basically Soul Calibur III plus some small enhancements (outside of HD graphics) that I personally don't notice that much.

This is a really simple fighting game to pick up for first-timers, and there is almost always a character and a fighting style to suit your desire. Really, the only two very similar characters in the game are Siegfried and Nightmare, apparently for a good reason if you know a bit about the forgettable story.

Some specific notes:

Gameplay: Single player - A- ; Multiplayer (local + online) - A

First off, I don't believe games like these aren't really meant to be bought for single player. Clearly, you'd expect to practice your game in your time so that you can lay down the law against your friends on multiplayer modes.

AI is reasonably intelligent in this game, outside of being very simple in the earlier levels on the Normal difficulty setting. Higher up in difficulty, the AI plays defense very well, and this can get really frustrating, sometimes even forcing you to abandon normal attacks and to go for grapples, which for some reason the AI is pretty bad at countering.

Otherwise, when playing your friends, this is not exactly one of those fighting games that you can button-mash and expect to win. Definitely some skill and practice is involved, and the smoothness of the fights and the transitions from blow to blow make this THE fighting game to get.

Online gameplay is smooth and overall as good as the local multiplayer experience. I have not experienced any issues with lag or skippy gameplay. My only complaint here is how selecting "Quick Match" in ranked has the tendency to just match you with someone who has an open game. As a game creator, you can select the level of players you intend to play against. As a level 1 trying out the online game, I got put into too many matches against level 60+ and got slaughtered.

Story: C

This is the the only reason I am giving this game four stars. For a game that seems to promote its story about the struggle between an evil sword and a cleansing sword (assuming I even understand it right), especially from the moment the trailers hit TV screens nationwide, this game does a terrible job of incorporating the story into the game. This said, most fighting games that even have storylines do terrible jobs at integrating the story into the game as well.

If you are looking for a fighting game with a pretty nicely integrated storyline, the best that I can think of are the WWE Smackdown series. In this game, the story consists of short cutscenes between fights that hint at the location of the next fight, and maybe short snide remarks that the characters say at each other right as the fight is about to begin (that in most cases don't even seem to make any logical sense together).

Overall, this is a great fighting game to have. It's purely that and nothing more. Expect to play single player mode quite a bit in order to unlock characters and items. The real fun of this game really comes from multiplayer modes. I think that fronting $60 may be a stretch for this game unless you're really into this series.

Fallout 3 <<< more detail ::

By Shuhao Cao - reviews

Maybe you would argue that this is just "Oblivion with guns", but this "Oblivion with guns" has more to offer than just "Oblivion with guns", it has a massive story(according the guide i received today, after you completed the game you got tons to do), also the SPECIAL is back! Pipboy is back, i cant help crying after i creating my character and seeing a whole new wasteland, which is far more detailed than the game I played 10 years ago. Maybe you would argue again, Bethesda is incapable of doing top-notch black humor like Black Isle, but the feels of exploring the wasteland is back, here I listed a few pros and cons

Pros

+ build of the whole wasteland

+ mission design

+ user interface

+ storytelling

+ Pipboy

+ tons of things to explore

Cons

- cant skip the VATS slow motion

- making choices wont affect the whole game too much, unlike Fallout1 &2, you have to pay for what you ve chosen

- no item description........(huge disappointment for some old fans maybe)

In general, I would recommend this game to those who love Oblivion

Update: the system is much more similar to Fallout 2 than to Oblivion, you have skills and perks, and at each leveling up you have 10-20 skill points(depends how much Intelligence you have) to distribute into a variety of skills, then you have perks like Lady Killer or Animal Friend; the system is deep and fun since you could be an agile and slick thief or a strong and stubborn warrior based on how you distribute your points and the initial attributes(S.P.E.C.I.A.L.)

Update 2: for those of you concerning CE, I got my CE from amazon on the releasing date, and this is the nicest CE I bought this year comparing to the Fable 2 CE and GTA 4 CE. The CE package has a neat looking lunch box, you could either put it somewhere as a decoration or use it as the storage for small stuff, that Pipboy figure is a fine-maded bubblehead; There is also an artbook of 100 pages featuring the concept art in Fallout3, and a DVD of making of the fallout 3; I think the CE is totally worth the price especially now amazon is offering the $10 giftcard.

Update 3: this game is not for you if you are looking for a first-person shooter like Far Cry 2 or Call of Duty!!!!! this is a role playing game

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 <<< more detail :::

By C. Peterson (Atlanta) - reviews

This game is excellent, it's way better than any other Smackdown Vs Raw game ever made, the possibilities are crazy!! There's so much you can do in this game that was impossible in the other games. It has a great amount of superstars past and present, and a big + is The Rock and Austin being in the game.

Graphics are great as always, on 1080p Cena actually looks real, the untrained eye can't tell the difference. Online is not that bad, sometimes you meet people who have slow internet connections which can put a damper on things, but as long as your speed is great, they'll lag on while you dominate.

The main thing of this game was "to have it your way" people online really take advantage of creating players this year, so much that it's rare to play someone online that isn't using a created player.

On a scale of 1 out of 100 the game gets 93%, it's almost close to being that perfect!!

Tekken 6 << more detail ::

By Deal Stealer "GPS Nav" - reviews

For me, I stopped playing since Tekken 3 Tag Tournament. It was so awesome then and it's still as good as before. Now, you must be wondering why I took 2 star off from this rating. That's because it's been about 10 yrs since Tekken 3 came out and it's relatively the same game. It does have better graphics and sounds and etc... but the new moves since Tekken 3 are very little but they make up w/ enormous player roster you can play with. 40 to be exact. So, I kind of consider this as Tekken 3 w/ 40 characters and that's why I still love it. Another start I took off is because online as of this review is almost unplayable. Probably, 4 out of 5 games you'll be disconnected during the match... If they can match online quality as BlazBlue/SF4/DoA then this will kick ass!!!! for now, I'm just frustrated w/ online game play...if it does improve I'll add 1 more star to this review.