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“Playing in a Fish Bowl” is how I heard Sea Life Safari reviewed on other podcasts and game sites. But not from us at XBLRadio.com we go in depth with our reviews for you the listener/reader. Check out full details “down under”…
Hey what is up everybody at PN and XBL Radio, it is Mr B4 here to give you the latest about what is going on in the gaming community. I do not have any nintendo news for you this week, what I do have is a written review for a game that I played recently. The game is called Hellboy: The Science of Evil, and it is available for the PS3, 360, and PSP. I will be reviewing the Xbox 360 version of the game.
Without further adieu, let us get right into the review:
With the release of the new Hellboy movie only days away, what better way to cash in on the movie franchise than to release a game that is loosely based on the movie in someway shape or form. Hellboy: The Science of Evil is a beat-em-up game that is tied in with the movie release. To be honest with you, this is a title that should have never been released, and I will tell you why.
Story (D-): This is by far the biggest dissapointment of this game. I am honestly going to tell all of you right now that I could not figure out what the story was in this game whatsoever. You basically move from one random location to another without being told why you are doing so. You go from being in a graveyard, to a forest, to somewhere in Japan, to a rainy abandoned town, to a desert, then to a castle. There are certain characters you meet along the way who will explain to you the reason as to why everything is going on, but honestly, it gets confusing and uninteresting very quickly. I would have just preferred the story from the movie, that way at least there would be some from of structure to it.
Sound(C-): There is nothing special in the game as far as sounds are concerned. When Hellboy beats down enemies, all you hear is a basic whooshing sound, which is kind of strange considering the size of his hand, you would think it make a more thunderous sound, but this is not the case. It is kind of cool to hear the sound of an entire wall crumbling when Hellboy beats it down with his fists. Enemies have no sounds other than grunts, which makes it easier for you to beat down on them, but really also gives them a lack of personality.
The voice acting is pretty good for the most part, with Ron Perlman’s sarcastic sense of humor being the highlight of most of the voice acting in the cutscenes. Other people that you encounter, such as the witch, and a few skeleton people, do an okay job of voice acting, but do not do enough to counteract the one liners from Ron Perlman.
The music is pretty bad as well, with literally the same background music repeating itself over and over again from level to level. When you first hear it, it does sound pretty cool, menacing, and scary, but after awhile you will grow tired of it. Different background music for each of the different levels would have been nice, but sadly they are non-existent.
Graphics(B-): Graphics are actually the high point of this game. Character models for the most part look next-gen, with Hellboy once again being the highlight of the graphics department. He looks very menacing, has piercing red eyes, and much detail has gone into the overall look of his body as far as muscles go. Environments are nothing special, there are a few nice lighting effects here and there, but much more could have been done to make the environments more inviting, such as more parts of the environment being available to destroy. As it stands, the environments look like they were taken from games on the original xbox.
Gameplay/Controls(C-): The game is a beat-em up, which basically comes down to mashing buttons to defeat your enemies, primarily in this case the X-button will end up being your button of choice. You can do other combos by mixing the X and Y buttons together, but they are not really neccesary or fun to do. There are also finishers that you can perform on both small and large enemies by grappling them with the RT button and by pressing the B button, but the only time that you will need to use them in order to progress through the game is during some boss fights, that is it.
Boss fights themselves are boring and unintersting, and really require no other strategy to them other than mashing on the X button until the enemy is stunned, then do a finishing move, then the fight ends. Even though the fighting is dull and repetitive, it is quite easy to understand. You can also use your gun by pressing the LB button to shoot at your enemies, and the RB button to select different types of ammo that you will find throughout the game. The different types of ammo include a spread shot, a power shot, a grenade shot, a flame shot, a crystal shot, etc. You really do not need to use your guns that much throughout the game, other than to shoot an object to open it, to break through a wall, etc.
You can also use Hellboy’s fists to break through walls, open up certain areas, light torches to burn down obstacles, but that is about it. All of these actions can be performed by locking onto something with the RT button, then pressing the X button to perform the action. These action promps do not occur that often throughout the game, leaving you wondering why they were put there in the first place.
The biggest dissapointment in the gameplay department is the camera positioned on Hellboy. The camera places Hellboy in a fixed perspective point of view, making it hard for you to see where enemies are coming from, judge distances between certain gaps where you have to jump, where an enemy is during a boss fight, etc. The fact that you cannot adjust the view at all is very dissapointing and frustrating. By simply allowing players to adjust the view, alot more parts of this game could have been easier to complete.
Replay Value (D-) : Other than completing the maing quest, which only consists of six levels, there is not much else to do. You can play through the game again either alone or online with a friend to complete certain tasks in order to gain achievements, such as kill a certain amounts of enemies with a certain weapon, find artifacts, etc., but that is about it. Some unlockable costumes or new weapons might have given gamers a reason to play through the game one more time, but sadly they are nowhere to be found, a major dissapointment.
Overall (D): While the nostalgia of playing as Hellboy and smashing your way through enemies and obstacles can be fun for about an hour or so, the fun wears off pretty quickly. With bad camera angles, unintersting boss fights, decent dialogue, repetitive gameplay, and a disjointed story, this is a game that you should definitely pass on. The only reason I gave it a D instead of an F is because you do receive a free movie ticket to see the new Hellboy movie when you buy the game.
Give it a rent if you are looking for an easy way to gain achievement points, otherwise, just do not bother playing it at all.
Take care gamers, and I will see you next time.
Take Care,
Mr B4
What I, Mr B4, will be reviewing for you today is the Wi-fi USB Connector for both the Wii and DS. The MSRP on this item is $39.99, and can be purchased here or any major video game retailer.
Pluses
+ Provides good internet connection for both the DS and for the Wii
+ Easy to install and use on your computer
Minuses
- Cord to connect USB connector to computer is too short
- Only provides connection for a couple of hours
- Overheats way too easily
- Only compatible with computers that support Windows XP
- Too Expensive
- System needs to be a short distance away from connector in order to work
Just a quick reminder, XBL Radio is currently looking for a new picture to use for the video reviews. So be sure to send your best 640X480 pixel image to us at xblradio@platformnation.
The person who gets their picture chosen will be credited on future video reviews and also win a free copy of Ticket To Ride for the XBLA.
Other than that, take care gamers, see you next time, and good luck with the contest.
Take Care, Mr B4
Hosts:
Guests this week include:
Topics Include:
Microsoft’s License Transfer Tool Released!
Gears of War 2 MP Video Leaked!
Demo Talk!
Yah or Nah!
E3 Predictions - keep an eye on Platform Nation for all your E3 coverage!
All this and more!
Thanks for listening, Please leave us a comment on the show or send us an e-mail at: xblradio@platformnation.com
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What is up everybody at PN and XBL Radio, it is Mr B4 here bringing you the latest as to what is going on in the Nintendo gaming community. I just came across some news recently that I thought you Nintendo gamers might be interested in. What news you might ask?, read on to find out.
The latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine has revealed that Castlevania Judgement and Mega Man 9 have been confirmed for both the Wii console and WiiWare download service. Lets take a minute or two to look at the details that have been revealed so far for these games. I am going to tell you honestly that it is not much, but at the very least it is something. Here is some info about these games:
CastleVania Judgement
Castlevania Judgement is going to be a 3D style fighter featuring famous characters from the Castlevania series. So far, I have found out that Alucard, Simon Belmount, Maria Renard, and Dracula have been confirmed as playable characters for the game. It was also confirmed that there will be interactive environments (IE Mortal Kombat Armageddon) for you to fight in, as well as bosses from the series that will drop in from time to time during battles to add some variety and extra difficulty to the game, and also the ability to use subweapons and hearts. No release date or price have been given as of yet, but expect an announcement on that sometime soon.
Mega Man 9 (Wiiware)
Capcom has also made an announcement that they will be bringing Mega Man 9 to the Wii’s WiiWare game downloading service. Here are the details that I have on the game so far. It is being developed by Inti Creates, which is the team who worked on the first three Mega Man X titles. It will stick to the 8-bit graphics of the original Mega Man series that came out on the NES. It was also said that the game controls like Mega Men 3-6 by the Mega Man Network(not sure if that is good or bad, but still confimed nonetheless). Other than that, the only other details that I could find about this game were the names of the bosses that you will be fighting.
Here are the names of the bosses:
* Magma Man
* Galaxy Man
* Jewel Man
* Concrete Man
* Hornet Man
* Plug Man
* Tornado Man
* Splash Woman
No release date or price has been given as of yet for this Wiiware game, but expect it to fall somewhere between 800 ($5.00) and 1000($10.00) Wii points.
Here are some of my quick thoughts about these games. It is nice to see Mega Man 9 stick to its original roots that made the game great back in the NES days, with the same graphics, gameplay, and types of boss fights that we have all grown to know and love over the years. Castlevania Judgement on the other hand, is a little bit of a risky idea, especially since previous fighting titles that have come out for the Wii have seen lackluster reviews by most gaming sites (IE Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Soulcalibur Legends). I would have like to have seen a Castlevania game that sticks to the formula that made its other titles successful in the past, but I am guessing that only time will tell on this one.
The choice as to whether or not you should buy, rent, or ignore these games, I will leave up to you.
Until next time gamers, this is B4 signing off.
Take Care,
Mr B4
Link to Story:http://www.mywiinews.com/we-called-it-mega-man-and-castlevania-to-hit-wii/
***WARNING***
This show contains some…actually, a lot of EXPLICIT language.
Topics Include:
Call of Duty 5: World at War. Are they stuck in the past?
Spiderman: Web of Shadows. Will this one be any better?
EA Battlefield: Bad Company poking fun at Gears of War and Rainbow Six.
Sporn! There goes the spores!
This week’s movie review: Hulk! We also touch on other Marvel games coming out in the next few years.
Also, special guest KingL3pr3chaun!
All this and more!
Thanks for listening, Please leave us a comment on the show or send us an e-mail at: xblradio@platformnation.com
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So there is the first hour of gameplay (click for direct link to video) from the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Beta. As you would hear on AllGames “IT’S MAD BUGGY”. There is no ranked matches, it is not keeping stats in player matches, and everytime i tried a tournament it froze. Overall in an hour it froze my 360, I think, 7 times! But it was the FIRST HOUR of an eight week beta.
It looks very nice. There are numerous costume colors to choose from by selecting your character with different buttons. As some players mentioned, the shadows are a little dark on some of them.
As you will see by the video I let the other people win a lot. That was on purpose! Nite All!
In bringing Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 (WOTB: C3) to both the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, Backbone Entertainment (developer) and Capcom (publisher), have brought me back to the days of beating my dad at the local arcade on any machine and is going to expose the younger generation to the sequel of a couple of the all time greatest arcade shooters: Commando and Mercs! WOTB: Commando 3 maybe the third title in the series but it’s the first to carry in its title the direct translation of original Japanese game “Senjō no Ōkami” (Wolf of the Battlefield). Adding the original title is just one of the many tributes to the past WOTB: Commando 3 has in it.
In WOTB: Commando 3 you play as one of there characters: Wolf, Coyote, or Fox. Each character has different statistics for health, speed, and the number of grenades they can carry at one time. Depending on what type of gamer you are there is a male/female character to fit your style.
While the story and levels are linear there are multiple ways to accomplish the overall task of killing the boss at the end of the level. With decisions like: should I save the hostages? should I look for that secret area? Or should I just run-n-gun through the level, destroying everything in my path? Any combination of the three is an option, and the choice is yours! Throughout the levels are multiple weapons (shotgun, flamethrower, or the default assault rifle), upgrades for those weapons, grenades, badges (points), and plenty of health packs and trust me… You’ll need them!
WOTB: Commando 3 has four different difficulty levels and depending if playing in SP, Live or Local 1-3player co-op the enemies do ‘ramp’ up to match your playing configuration. Suicide Mission is the most difficult setting and, from my experience, should only be attempted in three player co-op with people you know & trust!
1080p! Enough said! WOTB: Commando 3 is a top down shooter so the characters don’t require a lot of detail to look good. But what is missing in character detail is more then made up for in the location details. Almost everything in the game is destructible! See a tree! Blow up tree! Even in a three player co-op match over Live, with voice chat, up to 30 enemies on the screen at one time, all shooting at us, us shooting at them, trees exploding, buildings blowing up, there was no lag! no texture popping! no frame rate issues that we have experience with full retail titles costing two to six times as much! WOTB: Commando 3 is drawn in a cartoon style ala Rocketmen which adds to the humor of the overall game.
WOTB: Commando 3 does use Dolby 5.1 but maybe not to its full advantage; and this is WOTB: Commando 3’s only issue. In WOTB: Commando 3 enemies will be coming at you from all directions, but there is not much warning which direction they are coming from. Utilizing the 5.1 surround sound could have help with this. In most shooters these days you can hear where the shots are coming from or if someone is creepy up behind you but in WOTB: Commando 3 this does not happen. There are a lot of visual items on the screen and a little better use of the sound could have helped in finding out where the next wave of enemies is coming from.
WOTB: Commando 3 is, in essence, a dual-stick shooter that we all should be accustomed to by now. Left Stick controls the players movements, Right Stick controls… wait for it… where your player shoots, Right Trigger launches your grenades, Left Trigger uses the M-Stat weapon (special power move that destroys all on the screen). The controls do exactly what is stated and do it pretty well.
I have played WOTB: Commando 3 all the way through multiple times. The multiple difficulties, the co-op, and the need to rescue all the hostages or find that last secret area all add to this replayability. Although, on the easiest difficulty, WOTB: Commando 3 is just about an hour long, with five levels. Getting three players together on your couch or on Live provides endless fun that will make WOTB: Commando 3 as enjoyable a year from now as it is today! Include in this that there are NO SAVES / NO CONTINUES will also add to WOTB: Commando 3’s replayability
We add all this up: 1080p graphics, 5.1 Dolby, on-line and off-line 1-3 player co-op and what you have is one of the best deals on XBLA right now and for just a mere 800 MS point ($10 USD). If your a old school gamer, like myself, and played Commando and Mercs this will take you back to those good ‘ole days of quarters and arcades. If you’re a newer gamer or just never experienced this style of classic arcade shooter, unlike other consoles, head over to the XBLArcade, download the FREE TRIAL, give WOTB: Commando 3 a test run and when you buy it send me a message over LIVE! and lets play some co-op!
Please leave a comment or send feedback to xblradio@platformnation.com
Hey everybody, it is X3R0 9 here giving you another review and hopefully better than the last one. This is the second one I have done, so bear with me if it is a little rough. The more of these I do, the better they should get. Just to let you all know I will be attending a journalism class to help myself out with some techniques so that I can share quality news and reviews with all of you. Enough of the chit-chat, how about we get to the good stuff, shall we?
As some of you gamers know, the PS3 world experienced a huge release a week and a half ago. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots released last Thursday (June 12, 2008). Of course, I was there to pick it up when the store opened. Some find this an awesome game, but to others it is completely unplayable. I am writing this review after I have completed the game so that you, the gamers, can understand why there is so much controversy and why it is considered a blockbuster hit. Without further adieu, let us get right into the review.
To me, this is almost the best Metal Gear Solid game in the series, just behind the first Metal Gear Solid (MGS). Hideo Kojima does it again as he brings two decades of Metal Gear history together while enthralling the audience in this epic and mysterious tale. Not only does he bring twenty years of Metal Gear into this game, but he also throws in a touch of his other works that Metal Gear fans have seen in past games. Many characters make repeat appearances, although some are only in flashback form.
Story (A-): Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots tells the story of Old Snake. Snake, the protagonist, is a covert agent that is prematurely aging and terminally ill from a virus he was injected with prior to the first MGS. Snake’s ultimate goal is to hunt down his twin brother and nemesis, Liquid Snake. Liquid’s goal is to destroy the ruling faction known as the Patriots and bring the world into chaos. Well that’s what we were told upfront.
The opening two acts are almost identical with a little bit of scenery change. In the first act you are in a war-torn Middle Eastern city that is being occupied by Liquid’s personal guards and bio-mechs. The second act…well, it’s pretty much the same except you are in South America. In addition to the Liquid’s army, you’re also a part of battle-zones with several factions waring with each other; which adds a terrific atmosphere to the Metal Gear experience. You have the choice to either help the rebels or be an enemy to both sides. There is a real shock at the end of act one, but act two also has a great twist to it.
MGS4 is basically your typical good versus evil stealth game, but that is only part of the plot. Any MGS fan will know that there is so much more to it than that. The subplots and locations add a lot to this game and they also add to Snake’s problem, disillusionment. Throughout the story Snake’s mind gets twisted and contorted and by the time you complete this game, you are left wondering “what just happened?” Which adds to the replay value, but I will get to that later.
The reason I gave it the score I did is because there is just so much information to gather in, they don’t give you the time to digest it. You are told so much through the lengthy cut scenes and codec calls you will need to pause it just to figure out what you were told. Roughly 90% of the story is told through the cut scenes that almost total up to eight hours long, if not longer.
Sound (A): As in any stealth game, sound plays a huge factor, not only for you but for the enemy. All the sound-effects sounded excellent. Everything almost sounds like it would in the real world. The major downfall that I noticed while playing the game was the sound variance on the cut scenes. I could play this game on a normal audio level for the playable parts, but when the cut scenes came on I had to crank up the volume just to hear what was being said. The downfall to cranking up the volume was when the action scenes came on, the explosions and gunfire would almost blow out the speakers. As far as the music score; it was great! The score adds just the right amount of excitement and drama to the situations that make them just that much more intense or emotional. Harry Gregson Williams did an excellent job with the soundtrack. His work is probably the best I’ve heard yet.
Graphics (A-): Metal Gear Solid 4 is hands down the best looking game yet on the PS3! The superb art quality and attention to detail makes this game awe-inspiring. The characters are excellent looking and move flawlessly. Anytime Snake gets a cut or burn, it stays with him throughout the game…and the burn looks like a burn with the melting of the flesh visible; not only in the cut scenes, but also in the game play. As stated before, this attention to detail makes the environment that much better. In act one, you feel you are in a Middle Eastern city. In act two, you feel like you are in a South American vista that has secret passage ways.
The cut scenes will take your breath away! The CGI makes you think you are watching an animated movie like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. You can see the time spent developing the scenes from a technical aspect because of the sheer quality of work. There are some rough edges, but for the most part, everything is crisp and clean.
Replay Value (C): If you just play this game for the story, then there is no real reason to replay the game. But if you are a gamer that likes to get all the secret badges, extra camo or just likes to take pictures during the game, then the replay value is there. During my first run through, I only got a few items and badges that were story related. There are a total of 40 badges in MGS4 to unlock. Granted the badges don’t do anything for you, but I look at them like achievements for the Xbox 360.
Overall (B+): This game was a blast to play, but the cut scenes will drive some away. The actual game play is short, so if you are looking to play a full game with little cut scenes this is not it. The Metal Gear series is based on story and not much on game play. The frame rate is a little low, but with all that is going on, you will have a hard time noticing it.
If you are looking for a great story, extras that are at times funny and an interactive movie, then Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will fill your craving. If you are a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, then you need to pick this up. If you are new to the series, then this is a rental to see if you like this type of game.
I bid you farewell, Solid Snake.
Please leave comment here or submit feedback to xblradio@platformnation.com
Until next time, this is X3R0 9 signing off, and I will see you on Live or PSN.
For your viewing pleasures, here is the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots trailer:
