Play
Well, it is what it is. Microsoft's Game Room is a robust vintage arcade emulator, and it lets you pay for one session or for the whole game. It's an attempt to bring back the fun of playing arcade games from 25+ years ago. Obviously it's nowhere as fun as building your own arcade cabinet, but it doesn't seem like a bad experience on its own. It's bigget problem is that the games aren't very compelling at all; among the dozens of games available, none interested me. Maybe I'm too young, but I seriously don't even remember most of these titles.
Word to the wise, if you even just start the game it gives you a 5G achievement point. What this means is that you'll never be able to remove this game from the "Played Games" section of your profile. So if you plan on trying it out, you better be ready to let the world know about it.
Full launch game list after the break.
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I'm 10% of the way into one of the most disputed games of 2009; some (including esteemed Easy Mode contributor Steve) though it was the best game to be released last year, while others (like esteemed Easy Mode editor Tyler) sent it back to GameFly before finishing it.
There are a few things that immediately strike me about the game. First of all, there's this weird sheen to everything, and it feels like Joker ran through the game spraying baby oil all over Arkham like it was a bodybuilder's glistening chest. Secondly, some of the controls take a bit of adjustment. The crouch button is mapped to the right trigger, which I usually associate with some sort of action command. Lastly, I'm not a big fan of the game's "detective mode", which based on my experience so far with this game, is better termed "make everything easier mode". This mode lets you see hidden clues and easily spot bad guys, even through walls. It does one thing well, which is overwhelm you with the sense that Batman is totally in control at all times.
One thing I do like is the variety of enemies and characters - it's basically a comic fan's wet dream. I haven't read that many Batman comics, but I like the richness of the Batman universe and I'm glad there's so much to see in this game.
Steve mentioned to me during yesterday's podcast that many of Batman's abilities will unlock in time, and that I'll be able to re-traverse Arkham Asylum with new places to explore. As it stands now, I'm easily frustrated when I see a security door or vent that I can't reach just yet. It feels out of place in the game; shouldn't Batman have all of his skills by now? I'm planning on giving it the college try and seeing it through to the end, and I have a feeling that it'll be a much more rewarding experience for me soon. no comments
This review is a couple years old, but it still cracks us up. Mark wrote it. We thought it was about time we shared it with you.
Surprisingly, I finished Rainbow Six Vegas 2 last night. I say surprisingly because until I got there, I had no idea that I was nearing the end until I checked the cheevers list and noticed there was only one more of the "Complete Whatever Mission" variety as of yet unachieved. I even checked the IGN walkthrough to confirm that I wasn't about to finish prematurely. I heard that this game was actually much longer and harder than one might expect, which tuned out to be quite the opposite of my experience. Maybe this had to do with the fact that I played it on casual difficulty, and was therefore able to plow through the terrorist opposition with the ease of a well-lubed wrecking ball.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for shorter games. I think most people will agree with me when I say the length doesn't matter as much as the width. By that I mean that a richer, fuller eight-hour experience is more satisfying than a shallow, drawn out 20+ hour one. Similar to COD4, this game made the good choice to finish up before it got dry, repetitive, and meaningless.
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The title you see above came from Mr. Major Nelson, whose recent blog post lifted an eyebrow or two (well, one of mine at least). It's pretty bad when the first thing you say to people in order to get them to buy the latest Xbox 360 Game on Demand is that it offers easy achievement points. Shouldn't he be focusing on the game's merits instead?
Then again, the game was Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth, so maybe it needs all the help it can get. no comments
Since one of my absolute favorite free-ware games has been made available for the Wii (it costs money now, YAY!) I figured it would be appropriate to repost this video I made reviewing the original PC/Mac version. I'm sure there have been some upgrades to the game for the console release besides the revamped art style, but even if there hasn't pretty much everything in this video should hold true.
Enjoy my hard work. no comments
It isn't often that we here at Easy Towers feel compelled to give advice, but occasionally we come across some useful information, and being the benevolent types that we are, decide to share it with you.
With this in mind, I have decided to pass on some of the tips I learned for dealing with those frustrating chase sequences in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Hopefully, these should make these sections easier -- and by extension, more fun -- for you. Enjoy!
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This week looks to be a slow week for downloadable titles, as the only thing looks to be Microsoft's Game Room, which isn't a game, but rather a virtual arcade for your avatar to hang out and play arcade games in.
The virtual arcade itself is free to download, and does admittedly look fairly neat. However, you won't be able to play any games unless you buy those separately – the prices for which are outlined below:
400MSP gives you a dual-platform license for any game (Xbox 360 and PC).
240MSP gives you a single-platform license for any game.
40MSP gives you two quarters worth of play time on any arcade cabinet.
If you are interested, check out the slightly cheesy video below:
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Russ:
This is my first time playing a Splinter Cell game. In previous years I had been intimidated by the complexity its gameplay. Hell, even in the Metal Gear Solid games I usually just run into a room guns blazing. But now that I write for a big bad gaming website, I decided to slow down a bit and really give this demo the proper treatment. My first impression is that the control scheme has a large learning curve; I don't know if this is how all the games are controlled, but it took me the entire length of this (unfortunately brief) demo until I felt somewhat comfortable with my character. The controls themselves are tight and responsive, but I had trouble using the camera exactly as I'd like to. Luckily, the sonic goggles let me see things that the limited game camera couldn't.
I was initially hesitant about the "execution" gameplay function, but in practice it's a lot of fun. You have to store up the ability to perform an execution by killing someone else with your bare hands. In other words, you can string combos - jump onto a guy and kill him from above and execute his two partners in one fell swoop - and it's very exciting. Hopefully, the retail game will set these encounters up in a unique way every time, because although it was fun to do in the demo, if the execution setups are the same every time I may get bored with it. Overall, this was a great demo and I'm much more excited to play the game than before.
Steve:
Much like the survival horror genre, the stealth genre has become extremely crowded in recent years, to the point where it has become difficult to take it seriously in the face of all of the sequels, iterations and copies. It's fair to say then, that a stealth game needs to do something extraordinary to get people to take notice these days. From the outset, it's clear that Splinter Cell Conviction aims to do for the stealth genre what Resident Evil 4 did for the survival horror genre; that is to say, it aims to reinvigorate the genre by stripping out all of the cumbersome elements, and turning the game into a faster, slicker, more action-oriented experience. After playing the demo, it's apparent that Ubisoft have succeeded in doing just that.
From playing the demo, the main new feature seems to be the “mark and execute” system; successfully performing stealthy hand-to-hand takedowns allows you to mark enemies for execution. After enemies have been marked, they can be executed at any time (in an uncontrollable cut-scene) with a simple button press. Whilst this system may seem like it's robbing you of the best moments from the game, it's actually quite empowering, as it allows you to quickly and quietly clear out entire rooms full of enemies in mere seconds.
As rewarding as this new system may seem though, you can't help but wonder if it may be the games biggest flaw; a good stealth game is like a puzzle game – the goal is to solve the problem of how to get from one point to another without being detected, using the environment/gadgets to your advantage. However, with the mark and execute system, it seems like every puzzle in Splinter Cell Conviction will be solved using the same mechanic. Whilst it is definitely a fun mechanic, it remains to be seen as to whether it can sustain an entire game. no comments
This is just a friendly reminder that a demo of Splinter Cell Conviction will be hitting the Xbox Live Marketplace on March 18th (that's today!). The demo is said to be taken from the solo campaign, and should give fans a taste of this next, long awaited, instalment in the Splinter Cell series.
The full game is set to hit retail shelves on April 13th in North America, and on April 16th in the UK. no comments
