Reviews

Buzz: The Hollywood Quiz Review

Game shows are one of those things that no matter what the show uses as a gimmick, you always find yourself sitting down to answer the questions.  So having trivia games migrate to the consoles only seems natural, and the Buzz series has found a great home on the PS2.  This time around the Buzz franchise uses Holly wood as its backdrop, asking us to test our knowledge of the movies with our friends or by our lonesome in Buzz: The Hollywood Quiz.

The first thing you notice about Buzz: The Hollywood Quiz, is that it comes in a huge package, just like its competitors, including the game and the controllers, which allow up to four people to play right out of the box.  The game also supports another set of controllers if you have some from the previous games in the series, for a total of eight players.  Buzz also starts up with several modes of play, ranging from a simple one player game to a cavalcade of rounds for multiple players.

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Review: Battle of the Bands

What is it?

Battle of the Bands is a Wii-exclusive Planet Moon-developed THQ rhythm game. The game follows a template laid out by Guitar Hero in a lot of ways, but takes things in a bit of an interesting alternate direction. The game is played entirely as a duel, rather than a competition to just finish the song without screwing up too bad. The goal is to score more points than the opposing band by doing a better job matching the on-screen prompts and foil their gameplay with a variety of distracting attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

The Spiderwick Chronicles Review on the Xbox 360

The Spiderwick Chronicles takes the story from the movie and translates it into game form, but unless you are a younger gamer, you will find nothing more than an average movie to game cash grab.

The Spiderwick Chroinicles focuses on the three Grace children, Jared, Simon and Mallory.  They have moved to a new house out in the country that was owned by their Uncle, Arthur Spiderwick.  Not much is said about why they moved here, but it seemed to have something to do with the parents separating.  While staying at the house, the children, starting with Jared, are introduced to a new fantasy world that exists in their reality, invisible to those that do not have The Sight, or The Seeing Stone.  The only way to stop the creatures and save the world is to unlock the secrets of Arthur Spiderwick’s diary.

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Review: Cocoto Magic Circus

Let’s be honest. Mini-game collections on the Nintendo Wii tend to trigger the gag reflex in most traditional or hardcore gamers. But in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a casual market out there and it is MASSIVE. Enter Cocoto Magic Circus from Conspiracy Entertainment. An unapologetically casual, budget priced, mini-game collection that is absolutely not intended for the Call of Duty 4 player who stays up until 2:00 A.M. every night trying to max out his rank. If you are said COD 4 player, stop reading now. If, however, you have kids in the age 6 to 11 range that surf the Wii, read on.

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Aeropause Reviews the HP Voodoo Blackbird 002

For many years, when people heard the name Hewlett Packard, you think of proprietary hardware, lowest common denominator specs, and ridiculous tech support.  So when HP said that they wanted to get into the lucrative gaming PC marketplace, hardcore PC gamers had to laugh, because people felt there was no way HP would understand the demographic of the market they wanted to target.  A couple years later and with the acquisition of Voodoo PC under their belt, the HP Voodoo Blackbird 002 has come to fruition, and shows that HP can do a gaming PC, albeit, at a premium cost.

HP sent Aeropause a brand new HP Voodoo Blackbird 002 to test and run through its specs and to their credit, it is an amazing rig.  No matter what I threw at it, it ground through it, with great numbers and astounding speed.  The rig that they sent me came in a huge 2 x 3 foot box on wheels and it was really funny watching the FedEx guy having to bring it up the seven steps in front of my house.  I am not sure if they all ship out this way, but check out the box to see how protective HP was about this PC.

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Review: Insecticide

What is it?

Insecticide is the first game from developer Crackpot, published by Gamecock. Crackpot is made up of veterans of the PC adventure game genre, in my mind most notably from the fantastic Lucasarts title, Grim Fandango. In fact, Insecticide is coming to the PC in an episodic form, but more on that later, because this review is for the Nintendo DS version.

What isolates Insecticide from other adventure games is the action-shooter-platform portions of the game, which generally have you rushing through areas and fighting enemies, in a format very similar to Ratchet and Clank games. These sections of the game stand in contrast to the adventure portions, which follow a more standard format: wander through a small area collecting items and figuring out how to use those on each other and your environment to pass that area.

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Iron Man Demo Impressions

I should really be ashamed of myself. After seeing some gameplay footage of the upcoming Iron Man game I thought for sure that it would not be another sloppily put together movie based game, but after playing the demo I yet again feel the sting of movie game mediocrity.

Ok, Iron Man is not the worst demo I have ever played, but in terms of disappointment it’s definitely in my top 3. The biggest problem this game seems to have is the controls. I played through the demo several times, and even after I tweaked everything and got used to the controls the game still felt really unpolished. Add on the less then impressive graphics, the cheesy dialogue (bad cheesy, not good cheesy) and repetitive gameplay, and you have another movie game that is sure to garner plenty of 6 and 7’s in coming reviews. It may be better then a lot of other movie based games, but that really isn’t saying much. Let’s just hope the movie is better then the game.

What did you think of the Iron Man demo? Did you actually enjoy it? Let us know in the comments section.

Legendary Map Pack Review

It has been a long time since I have downloaded a map pack and felt like the money I spent was well worth it. When I downloaded the Call of Duty 4 map pack I was happy that at least one of the maps was worth it (Chinatown) while the others were riddled with balance issues and a lack of creativity. This however can not be said for the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack. After a 5 hour sessions playing the new maps I have to say that I cannot remember a better map pack in recent history.

Each and every map is well balanced and extremely fun no matter what game type you play. I actually enjoyed territories, something I thought was impossible. Of the three maps only one is completely new and that is Ghost Town. This map looks great and is best for slayer and assault. Of all three maps it’s the weakest, but that is like calling Batman the weakest superhero. The remake of Lockout, renamed Blackout, is even better and more balanced then its predecessor. These two maps alone would be worth the price of admission, but you still receive another awesome map.

That final map is by far my favorite in the pack. Avalanche is based after the Halo 1 map Sidewinder. It’s not a direct translation as was Blackout, but the changes they made really make this feel like a brand new map. It is loaded with every weapon and vehicle in the game, and if you love objective games then you will never want to leave the snowy confines of this canyon. Avalanche is by far the best map large scale map in Halo 3, maybe even the entire Halo series.

The maps will cost you 800 points and after playing them I would have paid twice that…they are that good! If you love Halo then don’t bother waiting till they are free because you are missing out on some really good maps.

Sam and Max Episode 5: What’s Up Beelzebub? Review

Sam and Max have come back to the PC to finish up their second season, and Telltale Games has pulled out all the stops with this episode to make it the best of all the new Sam and Max games released.

After being abducted, turned into zombies, meeting Santa and visiting Easter Island, lovable Sam and Max have ended up in the one place that they should have figured they would go at some point in their lives - Hell. Yep, our two favorite freelance police detectives have come to find themselves living above the entrance to Hell, and all the leads on Bosco lead them to the Prince of Darkness’ lair. Through twists and turns, you slowly start to unravel the true identity of the culprit behind everything that has happened over the last two seasons, and you will be shocked.

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Review: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

What is it?

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword is a portable episode in the classic Ninja Gaiden franchise which appeared most notably on the NES and Xbox platforms, with remakes and lesser-known appearances on other platforms. Dragon Sword is an action game that tells the story of series mainstay Ryu Hayabusa’s quest to defend his village from a malevolent plan by a group of monsters who call themselves fiends, who are collaborating with a group of ninja called the Black Spider Clan.

This is an action game, very heavy on combat, with significant RPG elements and unlockable elements.

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