Age of Booty
Yarr! If ever t'was a game stumblin' up from the briny deep to make other online experiences walk the plank, this here be that game, matey!
No, but seriously, if this game can accomplish the same feat as Uno and Marble Blast Ultra and establish itself as "one of those Arcade games everyone gets when they buy an XBox," it would be in esteemed company. Or, more likely, Marble Blast and Uno would be in esteemed company. The multiplayer component of the game is seriously that great.
The basic idea is that, as a pirate, you need wood, gold and rum to continue to extend your piratey reach, and to that end you take over towns while other pirates, emanating from their own lairs on the other side of the hexagonal map, are doing the same. The art direction is great, not too cartoony, but still with flourishes (Cadillac fins appear on a fully-upgraded Speedy pirate ship) that remind you this is a game about sailing the high seas. Tilting the right stick up zooms the game in and drops the perspective from overhead to a gorgeous side view that really shows off the art direction. Sounds are sparse, but effective. Cannons boom deeply and resources fill up with a satisfying *ka-ching* or *glug-glug* depending on their type.
The singleplayer experience does have its faults. The friendly AI is worse that useless, and completely undirectable, so it becomes you versus the enemy fleet in most missions, which gets frustrating quickly, but this is a minor quibble, as there are only 21 total stages in the single-player game to complete before you're ready to either hop online with a crowd of scurvy sea-friends and tackle online, which is infintely more interesting as ships will coordinate attacks and defend appropriately (since they're helmed by humans who are working together), or start messing around with the all-but-forgotten in today's games Map Editor.
You heard me right: This game has a map editor, and the ability to take these maps online. That means, literally, infinite replayability as you challenge friends to conquor your own devious inventions. Yo ho ho, indeed.
Graphics: Colorful, creative and elegantly expressive. 4.
Sound: No catchy pirate songs, but clear audible cues for off-screen activity. 2.
Controls: The pathfinding is great, and most activities are automated. Minimalism at its best. 3.
Tilt: Avast, ye dogs! This be the greatest pirate-based game of 2008. 5.
Overall (not an average): 4
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Feeding Frenzy 2
Feeding Frenzy 2
Everything Feeding Frenzy did, Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown improves upon. The graphics are far more varied and interesting, and there are little touches everywhere, from the shimmering wakes your fish leaves in the water as he moves to the tiny wiggle animation of clamshells before they snap shut. Gameplay remains wholly unchanged; you still zip around a screen, eating up everything smaller than you until you grow big enough to devour everything on screen.
For some reason, there's a story in the main campaign mode, based around unravelling the mystery of the shadowy new fish in the cove, but it's as irrelevant as the first Feeding Frenzy's "Dethrone the Shark King" storyline. FF2, however, adds in twenty additional stages, several multiplayer modes and an "Easy" mode, though the main game is once again easy as pie for an experienced gamer.
If you never played the first, this game exceeds it in every way, and if you did, the new graphics, longer music score and new abilities (Jumping out of the water! Summoning Fishing Lures!) give you enough to justify this buy. Still no on-line co-op, but local co-op features a few simple minigames, nothing special but better than nothing. The game is so simple, though, that online co-op would basically be "Private Chat + Some Fish Game."
Graphics: Massive upgrade over the original. Fish are bright, colors are rich and the whole game exudes fun. Nothing next-gen, but points for improving over the original. 3.
Sound: More music, but still not too much going on. 2.
Controls: Crisp, but the simple controls aren't something that needs a lot of work. 3.
Tilt: Improves in every way on the original, this is the definitive "fish eating game" on the 360. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3
Everything Feeding Frenzy did, Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown improves upon. The graphics are far more varied and interesting, and there are little touches everywhere, from the shimmering wakes your fish leaves in the water as he moves to the tiny wiggle animation of clamshells before they snap shut. Gameplay remains wholly unchanged; you still zip around a screen, eating up everything smaller than you until you grow big enough to devour everything on screen.
For some reason, there's a story in the main campaign mode, based around unravelling the mystery of the shadowy new fish in the cove, but it's as irrelevant as the first Feeding Frenzy's "Dethrone the Shark King" storyline. FF2, however, adds in twenty additional stages, several multiplayer modes and an "Easy" mode, though the main game is once again easy as pie for an experienced gamer.
If you never played the first, this game exceeds it in every way, and if you did, the new graphics, longer music score and new abilities (Jumping out of the water! Summoning Fishing Lures!) give you enough to justify this buy. Still no on-line co-op, but local co-op features a few simple minigames, nothing special but better than nothing. The game is so simple, though, that online co-op would basically be "Private Chat + Some Fish Game."
Graphics: Massive upgrade over the original. Fish are bright, colors are rich and the whole game exudes fun. Nothing next-gen, but points for improving over the original. 3.
Sound: More music, but still not too much going on. 2.
Controls: Crisp, but the simple controls aren't something that needs a lot of work. 3.
Tilt: Improves in every way on the original, this is the definitive "fish eating game" on the 360. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
There's a certain point where you totally zone out and no longer realize you're even engaging in inputting commands, simply reacting to the events on the screen. It's a rare state, one desired by combat fighter pilots, and comes effortlessly to those of us who slammed quarters and tokens into pressboard and plastic cabinets filled to the brim with bits and bytes of digital stimulus.
Feeding Frenzy taps into that, with a game that is completely primal, twitch-based gameplay. You play a small fish, eating smaller fish until you get bigger, and can now eat the fish that previously would have eaten you. That's it, and the game would be lessened by the inclusion of anything else.
This is classic, classic gaming. The modern-day graphics are colorful and expressive, and the music inoffensive, but in the transfer to a home console, minus the unstated purpose of drawing quarters out of your sweaty hand, the challenge scales way, way down. Without the danger of completely unfair enemies and cheating AI included solely to get you to put in more change, the game evolves beyond a mere twitch-game into some sort of Zen-like experience, where the goal shifts from "Win" or even "Get a High Score" to simply "relax and have a good time."
While the lowered challenge bar can make it an uninteresting interactive aquarium screen saver, the game does offer the high-end "keep your combo up" type gameplay that can entice the more competitive to grind through this game more than once to get higher on the leaderboards.
Graphics: No better or worse than a fancy screen saver - colorful but clearly done on the cheap. 3.
Sound: One short. relaxing riff that seamlessly replays, and simple sound effects do no wrong, but don't stand out either. 2.
Controls: Crisp response time makes this eat-em-up not a chore to play. 3.
Tilt: The game can meet whatever expectations you have, but it's doubtful that it will exceed them. 3.
Overall (not an average): 2
There's a certain point where you totally zone out and no longer realize you're even engaging in inputting commands, simply reacting to the events on the screen. It's a rare state, one desired by combat fighter pilots, and comes effortlessly to those of us who slammed quarters and tokens into pressboard and plastic cabinets filled to the brim with bits and bytes of digital stimulus.
Feeding Frenzy taps into that, with a game that is completely primal, twitch-based gameplay. You play a small fish, eating smaller fish until you get bigger, and can now eat the fish that previously would have eaten you. That's it, and the game would be lessened by the inclusion of anything else.
This is classic, classic gaming. The modern-day graphics are colorful and expressive, and the music inoffensive, but in the transfer to a home console, minus the unstated purpose of drawing quarters out of your sweaty hand, the challenge scales way, way down. Without the danger of completely unfair enemies and cheating AI included solely to get you to put in more change, the game evolves beyond a mere twitch-game into some sort of Zen-like experience, where the goal shifts from "Win" or even "Get a High Score" to simply "relax and have a good time."
While the lowered challenge bar can make it an uninteresting interactive aquarium screen saver, the game does offer the high-end "keep your combo up" type gameplay that can entice the more competitive to grind through this game more than once to get higher on the leaderboards.
Graphics: No better or worse than a fancy screen saver - colorful but clearly done on the cheap. 3.
Sound: One short. relaxing riff that seamlessly replays, and simple sound effects do no wrong, but don't stand out either. 2.
Controls: Crisp response time makes this eat-em-up not a chore to play. 3.
Tilt: The game can meet whatever expectations you have, but it's doubtful that it will exceed them. 3.
Overall (not an average): 2
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
BioShock
BioShock
It's hard to write a review of BioShock. Not because it is such a bad game that I couldn't make it through, or even because it is so good as to be flawless, just because so much ink has already been spilled on it. The limitations of writing about a game every single day while not being part of a media establishment that receives new games constantly has brought me to this.
BioShock is a first-person shooter, in the loosest sense, with several unique features, but most importantly is the story and writing, which are sharp, deep and much-discussed. But for me, it was the sound design and polish that totally drew me into the game.
The tiny visual cues, creaks and moans of a decaying undersea world really sold the game to me as almost a survival-horror experience, and even on Normal, when I rarely ran out of ammo or faced death, I found myself terrified to go around corners, listening to the inmates all around me running the asylum.
While much of the game is nonsensical (steam-powered chainguns with visual recognition devices in the 50's? Floating in midair while you hack cameras?), there's so many tiny little touches that completely immerse you in the game. It is far and away the game experience to have in 2007, so much so that we are still talking about it in 2008.
There are large swaths of the game that do not ever have to be explored to complete it, yet some of the most powerful moments are contained therein. In one section of Neptune's Bounty, we find a pair of near-mummified corpses on a bed, surrounded by open bottles of pills. A nearby audio recording details their grisly and tragic end, yet this section, full of original art assets and scripted events, is completely inacessible without working to find the unmarked secret entrance to the room. Why waste resources on this scene? Because BioShock is so wholly realized, so completely imagined it is more than the sum of its parts, which is why it rightly deserves the title of "Game of the Year."
Why much ballyhoo has been made of its relatively short length (less than ten hours from start to finish) and lack of multiplayer, I can't imagine it being any longer without beginning to drag, and multiplayer deathmatch would be an abomination, destroying the mystery and mystique of visiting Rapture by reducing it to specced loudouts and "nubby combo bxr" cries. Less is more, in this case.
Graphics: Perfect. Beautiful backgrounds and detailed effects, with fantastic water and finally real-looking fire. 5.
Sound: Eminently creepy. Disturbing and evocative, even without a real score. 5.
Controls: Nothing groundbreaking, but get the job done. Competency is the order of the day. 4.
Tilt: It's not Game of the Year for nothing. 5.
Overall (not an average): 5
It's hard to write a review of BioShock. Not because it is such a bad game that I couldn't make it through, or even because it is so good as to be flawless, just because so much ink has already been spilled on it. The limitations of writing about a game every single day while not being part of a media establishment that receives new games constantly has brought me to this.
BioShock is a first-person shooter, in the loosest sense, with several unique features, but most importantly is the story and writing, which are sharp, deep and much-discussed. But for me, it was the sound design and polish that totally drew me into the game.
The tiny visual cues, creaks and moans of a decaying undersea world really sold the game to me as almost a survival-horror experience, and even on Normal, when I rarely ran out of ammo or faced death, I found myself terrified to go around corners, listening to the inmates all around me running the asylum.
While much of the game is nonsensical (steam-powered chainguns with visual recognition devices in the 50's? Floating in midair while you hack cameras?), there's so many tiny little touches that completely immerse you in the game. It is far and away the game experience to have in 2007, so much so that we are still talking about it in 2008.
There are large swaths of the game that do not ever have to be explored to complete it, yet some of the most powerful moments are contained therein. In one section of Neptune's Bounty, we find a pair of near-mummified corpses on a bed, surrounded by open bottles of pills. A nearby audio recording details their grisly and tragic end, yet this section, full of original art assets and scripted events, is completely inacessible without working to find the unmarked secret entrance to the room. Why waste resources on this scene? Because BioShock is so wholly realized, so completely imagined it is more than the sum of its parts, which is why it rightly deserves the title of "Game of the Year."
Why much ballyhoo has been made of its relatively short length (less than ten hours from start to finish) and lack of multiplayer, I can't imagine it being any longer without beginning to drag, and multiplayer deathmatch would be an abomination, destroying the mystery and mystique of visiting Rapture by reducing it to specced loudouts and "nubby combo bxr" cries. Less is more, in this case.
Graphics: Perfect. Beautiful backgrounds and detailed effects, with fantastic water and finally real-looking fire. 5.
Sound: Eminently creepy. Disturbing and evocative, even without a real score. 5.
Controls: Nothing groundbreaking, but get the job done. Competency is the order of the day. 4.
Tilt: It's not Game of the Year for nothing. 5.
Overall (not an average): 5
Monday, March 8, 2010
Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride is one of those games that is just tailor-made for an online upgrade. The core mechanics are easy to translate to a few button presses, and the most annoying parts of the game - scorekeeping and setup - are taken care of. In Ticket to Ride, you play trains on various routes through the US, the goal being to have the most points, either through route length alone or by completing Destination tickets. But you need colored train cards to be able to claim routes, which you have to draw off the deck or from a public pool. When one player's trains are gone, the game ends and scores are tallied.
There's a ton of strategy to be had playing against humans, and the AI is sufficiently dastardly without being Madden-AI cheap. The graphics are not the best they could be, as they're maximized for HD televisions, making the 70% of us still playing on SD TVs have to strain our eyes to read the text on some of the smaller graphics and cards. There are a few animations of zeppelins coasting across the country and such, but nothing distracting, no bright colors or flashing anything.The sounds are clean and crisp, but there is no music whatsoever; you'll have to plug your iPod into the XBox during marathon TtR sessions to keep yourself aurally stimulated.
Perhaps most miraculously of all, Ticket to Ride has managed to hang on to its online community, despite its fractions paid Downloadable Content and atrocious lobby system that forces you to back almost out to the main menu to change the maps you're searching for. It really is a testament to the amount of fun to be had "playing trains with friends."
Controls are fairly intuitive, with just the right amount of redundancy controls- not too much to slow down play, not too few so that you accidentally do something wrong. Without a turn time limit, though, you're free to go your own pace and make sure everything's set up the way you like it. With 2 different DLC maps already released for this game and local multiplayer offered, it's a sure buy, since there's so many different ways to play- online, local and single-player. And if that doesn't convince you, consider this: The actual cardboard-map game, available in stores, runs $40. At 800 points, this game is the best steal of the year.
Graphics: Bare-bones and unobtrusive. Gets the job done with no frills. 2
Sound: Spare tinkling glasses on a diner car and player-piano tunes occasionally show up. 1.
Controls: Intuitive and exacting, no deep sub-menus, just crisp cursors and button selection. 4.
Tilt: The value of this game is in the fact that it is superior in every way to its tabletop ancestor, but a foreigner to the game might be daunted by the advanced strategy. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4
Ticket to Ride is one of those games that is just tailor-made for an online upgrade. The core mechanics are easy to translate to a few button presses, and the most annoying parts of the game - scorekeeping and setup - are taken care of. In Ticket to Ride, you play trains on various routes through the US, the goal being to have the most points, either through route length alone or by completing Destination tickets. But you need colored train cards to be able to claim routes, which you have to draw off the deck or from a public pool. When one player's trains are gone, the game ends and scores are tallied.
There's a ton of strategy to be had playing against humans, and the AI is sufficiently dastardly without being Madden-AI cheap. The graphics are not the best they could be, as they're maximized for HD televisions, making the 70% of us still playing on SD TVs have to strain our eyes to read the text on some of the smaller graphics and cards. There are a few animations of zeppelins coasting across the country and such, but nothing distracting, no bright colors or flashing anything.The sounds are clean and crisp, but there is no music whatsoever; you'll have to plug your iPod into the XBox during marathon TtR sessions to keep yourself aurally stimulated.
Perhaps most miraculously of all, Ticket to Ride has managed to hang on to its online community, despite its fractions paid Downloadable Content and atrocious lobby system that forces you to back almost out to the main menu to change the maps you're searching for. It really is a testament to the amount of fun to be had "playing trains with friends."
Controls are fairly intuitive, with just the right amount of redundancy controls- not too much to slow down play, not too few so that you accidentally do something wrong. Without a turn time limit, though, you're free to go your own pace and make sure everything's set up the way you like it. With 2 different DLC maps already released for this game and local multiplayer offered, it's a sure buy, since there's so many different ways to play- online, local and single-player. And if that doesn't convince you, consider this: The actual cardboard-map game, available in stores, runs $40. At 800 points, this game is the best steal of the year.
Graphics: Bare-bones and unobtrusive. Gets the job done with no frills. 2
Sound: Spare tinkling glasses on a diner car and player-piano tunes occasionally show up. 1.
Controls: Intuitive and exacting, no deep sub-menus, just crisp cursors and button selection. 4.
Tilt: The value of this game is in the fact that it is superior in every way to its tabletop ancestor, but a foreigner to the game might be daunted by the advanced strategy. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4
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