SHOWNOTES
360/PS3 Review: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
DS Review: Chrono Trigger
Retro Review: Ridge Racer 64 (N64)
News: Home Update
Professor Layton Film
Left 4 Dead Movie Posters
Release List
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag
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While I doubt Jimi Hendrix was talking about the newest home entertainment UI from a major software company, by the sound of Microsoft’s PR firm and their now famous “Color TV” spin, they’d sure like you to think he was. While the hyperbole is thick and making me think of another favorite former videogame heavyweight, the question remains, what is the reality of the New Xbox Live Experience? Is this really the second coming of the videogame Christ? Is it simply a nice glossy paint job over what we’ve had for three years now? Is it even relevant to be talking about this? I’m sure your answers will vary but after having a few days to play around with Microsoft’s latest effort to change the entertainment landscape as we know it, here are our thoughts on the matter.
The Look
So, visually, the NXE is not a new era in terms of graphical quality. It does, however, do a pretty good job of changing the overall feel of the 360. What once was a very utilitarian interface that got you from point A to point B, now brings with it some personality. I’m not sure if I really need personality in my menus, but the necessity to compete in this Wii-dominated area of the market can’t be ignored. Where the cold lists of the Dashboard may have steered Mom and Pop away from such a “harcore” gaming device, those poor Arcade SKU bastards now have a glossy, friendly and more personal interface to greet them when they turn on their consoles.
It’s glossy, in that iMac/Apple kind of way. Everything has a candy coated shell on it and all the areas have a super clean, shiny quality. I can get behind that idea and if there’s one thing that this NXE did right, it’s the clean interface that seems far more inviting than the Dashboard. While we’ll be drawing some parallels to other consoles in the arena and what Microsoft may or may not have stolen from them, we can say that the look of the NXE does a good job of setting this console apart in terms of a visual “look” or feel. (more…)
Left 4 Dead, given to us by the good folks at Valve, may be one of the truest zombie games to come out in some time. For those not in the know, Left 4 Dead is a four player co-op battle of four survivors (you and three other online players) vs. a horde of undead zombies. The game is broken up into a variety of campaign style segments that play out over the course of 5 areas per campaign. Released for both PC and 360, the game features the use of the Source engine and folks accustomed to the feel of TF2′s first person shooter gameplay will be right at home.
We’re big zombie fans here at Robot Panic, as if you didn’t already know this. So we take our zombie stuff pretty seriously. As such, we applauded a game like Dead Rising for it’s adherence to George Romero’s zombie rules and setting far more than it’s gameplay. While it got the “killing zombies in a mall” idea down, the save system did it’s best to pull you out of the game. Not to mention getting calls every couple of minutes and always in the middle of a swarm of zombies.
The latest zombie outing on the PSN, The Last Guy, also fell short for it’s enemy creatures barely qualifiying as zombies at all. While the gameplay provided some intense moments, when the “zombies” have multiple heads and tentacles we weren’t exactly pulled into the world. In order for a zombie game to really work, not only does the setting and character designs have to live up to the movies, but the gameplay must as well. And that’s a much more difficult thing to attain.
So what makes Left 4 Dead stand out as a Zombie game worthy of the name? Here are a few of the many reasons.
(more…)
We’ve got a big show filled with reviews. We’re covering Korg DS-10, Thunderforce VI, Alien Crush, Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2! Not to mention a retro review and the news. We also have a new contest with Korg DS-10 as the prize. Check it out on this week’s episode!
SHOWNOTES
DS Review: Korg DS-10
PS2 Review: Thunderforce VI (Import)
Wii Review: Alien Crush Returns
PS3 Review: Resistance 2
360 Review: Gears of War 2
Retro Review: Kirby’s Avalanche (SNES)
News: New Watchmen Game Details
Burn Zombies Burn!
Ghostbusters Gets Publisher
Sega’s Wii Comments
Release List
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag
It’s the season of too many awesome games and we do our best to get to most of them this week. We’re talking Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Fallout 3 and an import Cave shooter masterpiece, Ketsui Death Label for the DS. All this plus gaming news and the usual fun on this week’s episode!
SHOWNOTES
DS Review: Ketsui Death Label (Import)
PS3 Review: Motorstorm-Pacific Rift
360 Review: Fallout 3
Retro Review: Cosmic Arc (2600),
News: Burnout Paradise Party Pack
LBP DLC Details
Harmonix Working on Beatles Game
Elder Scrolls in 2010
Wario Ware DSi
Release List
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag
It’s that time again, where Halloween calls to us and we turn to scary sounds….just because. We call it…SPOOKYVISION. Despite the fact that it’s all audio.
Anyway, we’re talking about Fable II and Little Big Planet and wondering why we have to play any other games this year. We’re also grabbing a couple of items from a very slow news week and hoping that Moe’s return means we can swear again.
SHOWNOTES
360 Review: Fable II
PS3 Review: Little Big Planet
Retro Review: Space Hawk (Intellivision)
News: Zombies Coming to Consoles
Molyneaux Gets Emotional
Ys Coming to US
Release List
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag
Article by: Tyler Durden84
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed unleashed its demo on Thursday and all I have to say is “Most Impressive”.
Being a HUGE Star Wars fan, I have clocked Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or for the sake of saving me time, SW:TFU, on my most wanted games list for this year, and as of the day of the demo release, it seems warranted.
Checking in at fairly hefty near 1 GB of size, 905 Mb to be exact, SW:TFU truly lets you feel like a Jedi, and a seemingly evil Jedi to boot. After sampling the demo’s Force Grip tutorial, where I learned how to pick up movie stock cargo boxes and hurl them into the backs of hapless Stormtroopers, I felt more than qualified to approach the demo’s story option. Thrust into a cut scene that foreshadows the hero or antihero’s background, a quick audio flashback of what seems to be the player’s family screaming and dying, the man himself, Darth Vader, appears and requests that I help dismantle an imperial fleet station in hopes of tracking down an elusive Jedi and then murdering him or her.
(Quick nerd trivia, Darth Vader, after Episode 3, soon started to hunt down all the remaining Jedi in the galaxy, and it seems that you, the Apprentice, are there to help him with his goal.)
Soul Calibur 4
Format: PS3/360
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Namco Bandai
DGTV Score: 9/10
Reviewed by Chris (El-Bobo Fernandez-Juarez Hoff) Nelson
Review by: Dale (Gruel) Kulas
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy is a unique approach to the typical movie licensed game. Instead of trying to cover the whole trilogy in one game, players guide Matt Bourne through missions of the first movie, The Bourne Identity. Around half of the missions are based on events in the Bourne Identity, including the insane car chase through Paris and the intense encounter with the assassin sent to hunt down Bourne. The other half of Conspiracy’s missions is flashbacks to chapters taken from the earlier books by Robert Ludlum when Bourne was a Treadstone agent, including the mission that led to Bourne’s amnesia.
It should be noted that fans of the films will be disappointed that Matt Damon’s voice and likeness is absent. Apparently Damon didn’t want to see himself portraying such graphic T-rated acts of violence in videogame form. For whatever it is worth, Sierra did an admirable job replacing him with the
closest Damon clone they could without going to court.
