Spore is a brilliant idea, although sometimes the execution is a bit off.  You start as a microscopic organism and must evolve into an entire civilization of space-traveling creatures. The beginning is incredibly simple and easy, but everything becomes more complicated at each stage of development. There are five stages: spore, creature, tribal, civilization, and space. Each stage is vastly different from the others. Although this provides quite a bit of variety, Spore could also be viewed as a collection of five games that couldn’t stand on their own.

In the beginning, you start with a single organism. You make the choice to be either a carnivore or herbivore. Shortly into the game, you can decide to stick with what you choose, or become an omnivore. As a carnivore, your only goal through the entire game is to eat or kill everyone. This is the easiest type to play, although it is also the most boring due to the simplistic goal. The herbivore must make everyone like them by socializing with them in a simple Simon Says type mini-game (which can get very repetitive). Omnivores are a combination of the two. No matter which you choose, completing your goals unlocks new additions to add to either your creature (in the first two stages) or structures and vehicles for your people (in the last three).

The first stage of development consist of simply swimming around eating food while avoiding the larger organisms that are trying to eat you. Once you eat enough food, you will be allowed to enter the creature stage. At the start of this stage, you slap some legs on your organism and walk out of the water. Shortly, you will have access to a incredibly detailed creature editor. There is basically an unlimited number of ways to create your creature, although you will be hard pressed to make one that doesn’t pass off as cute. This didn’t bother me any, but some people may not like cutesy games. Some of the tools used to make you creature can be a little confusing at first, but the game is paused while in the editor, so you are encouraged to take your time. The only other issue I had with the creator was that it allows you to make drastic changes in a single generation of animals. For example, a six-legged pig-like creature can give birth to a two-legged bird if you make enough changes in the editor, which doesn’t exactly make much sense. At this stage, you will also have other creatures in your herd. You will only control your own creature, but others can be ordered to follow you and help accomplish your goals. The next phase is the tribal stage. Here you must order your people to gather food that will provide you with the resources to build structures. Again, you goal here is to either kill everyone or make them like you. The Civilization stage is much like the tribal stage but on a larger scale. This time around you are supposed to be spreading your religion and unite the world, by either friendship or war. It’s also in this stage that you start to harvest the ’spice’ resource. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Dune here and it made the game feel less original. The final stage takes place across the entire galaxy and is the deepest phase of the game. The goals are the same, but there are more units and places to explore. This stage takes the longest and more closely resembles a typical strategy game than any other stage. Since you can begin the game immediately from any stage that you have previously reached, I have a feeling that most gamers will be starting from the space era instead of playing through the whole game every time.

Up to this point, I have been trying to describe Spore as a game. Even though that is exactly what it is, it may be more enjoyable if it isn’t looked at this way. Instead of trying to accomplish goals and beat the game, most people may have more fun if they just kick back and see what they can create by treating the game like a sandbox on a galactic scale. I can tell that the people who will really love this game are the ones that spend more time in the editor than in the main game mode. With enough patience, you can make not only any type of creature, but also craft any kind of building, car, boat, spaceship, and more. The more creative you are, the more you will get out of the game. If you don’t have the patience for building things from scratch, then this may not be the game for you.

The graphics fit perfectly. Everything is vibrant and pleasing to look at. Everything is meant to look cute and cartoony. The first stage has a really cool style about it, but the environments in the rest of the game aren’t as detailed as I would have liked. The creatures, on the other hand, look amazing. Especially when you consider that they weren’t pre-animated by the developer because they do not exist until the player makes them.

Spore was definitely made with casual gamers in mind. The more hardcore crowd may not like the simplicity. Parts of the game do feel as if the development was rushed a bit (EA + before Christmas release date = rushed game). If you ever wanted to get an idea of what evolution would be like on a less-than-serious scale, then Spore is worth a look. Just don’t expect a strategic challenge, but more of a relaxed and charming god simulation.

The developers of Gears of War weren’t content to simply shovel out a sequel that was basically the last game with new levels, even though they still would have made a ton of money doing so. Improvement was made on the original in just about every area. They addressed every complaint from the first game and almost doubled the length. It is probably the best action game available on the system today.

For the few of you that haven’t played the original, Gears of War 2 is a fairly straightforward shooter. The cover system works very well and must be mastered in order to be victorious. Much like Call of Duty, you don’t have a health bar. You simply have to hide and rest for a second of you take too much damage. The guns all have a good feel and every battle is intense and rewarding. The grenades still feel too weak. Unless your enemy is standing right on it (which doesn’t happen often, since they are smart enough to run away), they won’t get more than a scratch. Some may think the gore is a bit over the top, but it is part of the feel of the game. Sniper shots to limbs leave a stump spurting blood into the air. The main machine gun weapon has a chainsaw attached that can be used to cut an enemy in half which sprays blood everywhere, including onto the television screen. The action is basic, but never gets old.

The last game was great, but it had it’s share of issues. A clear effort was made to improve on the game where ever they could. The original was about six hours long, while this one took me around ten. The chainsaw is much more reliable this time around. In the last game, there were times when it just wouldn’t work when I pressed the button, but that never happened here. When an ally goes down in battle, they now crawl to you so you can rescue them, instead of just lying in one spot and waiting. There is much more variety to the levels this time and you will never get tired of looking around at the environment. More weapons were added, which is nice because I used the same gun almost the entire time in the original. The vehicle driving segment is a vast improvement over the last one and there is a second ‘vehicle’ driving part near the end that is even better. If I explained why I put quotes around that, I would ruin the scene. Lets just say that it is one of the best moments in the game.

If there was one thing that should have been improved and wasn’t, it would be your teammates’ AI. They are all complete morons. There almost always is at least one person with you, but you would be better off alone. They constantly run into your line of fire (then yell at you for shooting them). Rarely will they ever get a kill. On several different occasions, I was shot down and crawled to my nearest teammate’s feet, only to have them stand on my body and let me die. Any time they weren’t running into my line of fire, they could be found hiding in the back of the room behind some cover and not shooting at the enemy. Not exactly the kind of behavior you would expect from battle hardened marines. This problem can be eliminated by playing co-op with a friend (unless you friend is a moron too), but if you are playing alone, be ready for some pathetic behavior from your allies.

Some other minor complaints would be the lack of boss fights and the lowered health of the enemies. You don’t even have your first traditional boss battle until five hours into the game. The final boss battle consists of nothing more than holding down the trigger and keeping the crosshair on the enemy. After some awesome bosses in the last game, I was quite disappointed to find only one memorable battle in this one. All enemies’ health has also been lowered in comparison to the last game. They are mostly the same enemies, but they take far less hits to kill than in the original. I recall being terrified every time I heard a Boomer approaching in the first game. This time around, all you have to do is empty a half of a clip into the general vicinity of their head and they will go down every time.

The game is hit and miss on replay value. There are many more hidden items to find and they are much harder to spot than in the last game. Each item also provides insight into the war in some way and every one adds a little more to the story. The vast majority of the game is based around scripted events. These are cool at first, but they loose their impact on the next playthrough. There are four difficulties (one of which has to be unlocked) that really help keep you coming back, though.

The story is told quite well, but isn’t original in any way. Basically, if you combine The Matrix and Resident Evil, you will get the exact plot of Gears of War 2. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, since the last game so blatantly ripped off Pitch Black in it’s middle section and the rest of it had almost no storyline. This game also jumps right into the plot a little too quickly. I would recommend at least renting the original game first if you haven’t played it, just to get caught up on what is going on. All of the characters are very likable and the game has more progression than the last one. There are a few emotional scenes, which connects you with each person more and is a key component that was missing from the last game. Gears of War doesn’t fall into the trap that many game and movie trilogies do, where the second title is just filler until the finale. In this one, there is a clear beginning and a strong closing. The story could end here and it isn’t until after the credits that a short audio clip plays that sets up the final game.

The graphics are still the best on the system. Everything looks photo realistic and there is plenty of dust and debris that really brings the world alive. There are practically no clipping problems and zero glitches that I found. The level of polish on this series is nearly unheard of among other titles that are out these days. The only down side would be the colors used in the levels. Everything is either some shade of gray or brown. On several occasions, I couldn’t find the door to the next room at first because it looked just like everything else. Although this was annoying, it actually meant the levels look more real because of it. For example, in a room that was burned by a fire, the door is going to look just like the wall at first in real life, so it should in the game also.

Other than the moronic AI, all of the problems I mentioned were minor. If it weren’t for the idiotic allies, this game would easily have made my ‘best games of all time’ list. Even so, it is still an awesome shooter that shouldn’t be missed, especially if you want something to play co-op with friends.

Fallout 3 is one of those titles that is so much more than a good story with some cool action. Like Fable 2, it is meant to simulate living the life of your character. If you just jump in and go straight from one story mission to the next, you will be missing the vast majority of it’s content. For this reason, it can be better described as an ‘experience’ rather than just a ‘game.’

While the spirit of the series remains intact, the gameplay itself has more in common with Oblivion. This is understandable since Bethesda made both games and didn’t have anything to do with the first two Fallout titles. The series switched to first person view and real-time combat. Although I did miss the top-down, turn-based strategy of the first games, the change is handled well. The focus is even more on combat this time around and plays much like a first person shooter. The one major difference is the use of V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). This system freezes time and zooms in on your target. Percentages appear on each part of your enemy that tell you your chance to hit each location. The expected areas can be shot, like the head, arms, torso, or legs. Other things can be targeted as well; my personal favorite being grenades in a raider’s hand. This system cannot be used constantly, but it recharges at a fairly quick rate. Running around will slow down the recharge while finding a spot to hide will make it come back in a few seconds. If gamers preferred the slow paced strategy of the previous games, they can rely entirely on the V.A.T.S system. Action junkies can completely ignore the system and play the game just like a shooter. It’s a brilliant setup that helps the game reach a much broader audience. One glitch that did bother me about V.A.T.S. occurred when an enemy got right up in my face and I tried to target them with a longer gun, such as a shotgun or rifle. Many times, the barrel of the gun would go through the enemies body and when fired, the shot would miss. Not only did this look dumb, it also left me open to attack from an enemy that should have most likely been killed. I also thought that the enemies in the game could use some more variety. The vast majority of your battles (especially during the main quest) will be against either raiders or super mutants. You are also thrown very quickly into fights with these enemies, so they aren’t as intimidating by the end of the game in comparison to the last two titles in the series.

The other aspect of the game would be the in town interaction with NPCs. This is where the game shows off it’s great writing and voice acting. In nearly every situation, I genuinely cared about what each person was talking about and never got tired of talking to random people. Conversation can play out completely differently depending on each player. For example, if your character has a high intelligence, there may be conversation options that are too technical for a character that isn’t as smart to be able to say. There will be other options that will allow you to attempt to talk your way out of a situation based on your speech skill. Some of my favorite moments where the ones where I know I was able to talk my way out of a fight with a skill check that had a chance to go either way. The series did lose some of it’s humor this time around. Most of these interactions felt a little too serious in comparison to the overall tone of the previous games.

Ammo is a bit more scarce than I would have liked. I didn’t mind having to scrounge for items to sell in order to make money, but the shops don’t seem to get resupplied as often as they should. Also, the ammo crates found while out exploring never had much in them either. These are the same crates that the military uses to store hundreds of bullets in, but I never really found more than ten in each. As the game progresses, ammo becomes easier to get a hold of, but the beginning seems far more difficult than it should have been because of this issue.

Leveling up is less like Oblivion and more like traditional RPGs. Every quest and enemy killed give you experience and leveling up is based solely on earned exp. At each level, you are given skill points (the exact number depends on several different things and can change throughout the game) to spend on whatever you wish. The skills are basically the same as in past games, but the max level is now one hundred instead of three hundred. The max character level is twenty. I don’t particularly like the idea of not having unlimited levels for the characters. It just doesn’t make sense that there is a point where I can’t get any better at my repair skill because earlier I spent too much time improving my small guns ability. I think if a player wants to put the time into the game to max out every skill, they should have that option.

In an attempt to fully immerse the player their character’s life, the game starts at the exact moment of your birth. You then play through key moment of the next nineteen years of your characters lifetime as you grow up inside the vault, safe from the harsh outside world. Not only does this set up the game perfectly, it is also a superbly disguised tutorial and character creator. Right after birth, you select your race and gender. As a toddler, you find a baby book outside of your playpen that explains each statistic in the exact manner that you would expect to find in a book written for children. There are several other things introduced in this segment that lay out the framework of your character and give you the feel for the game. Once you reach the end of this section, you have one last chance to edit your character before thing are permanently set. Once you exit the vault and enter the main game world, you are free to do as you wish. You can search for your father that has gone missing (played by Liam Neeson from Batman Begins and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) or just go out and live your life as you see fit.

I wasn’t completely sold on the size of the world and cities in the game. The last Fallout game covered the entire west coast of America, but this one only takes place in Washington D.C. and the surrounding area. While several of the locations in the last game really felt like large, bustling cities, nothing in Fallout 3 feels bigger than a small settlement. This can be good because it is easier to find shops and important people, but it made the game feel less epic in scale. It is understandable that the world is smaller since the entire environment is rendered in 3D; not like the last game that was only an overhead map that would randomly generate a small grid for encounters. I think one or two more large towns would have really helped. Traveling around is handled quite well. You must walk to each location once. Once reached, it becomes marked on your map and you can fast travel there any time you wish (provided you are outdoors and there are no enemies around). This forces you to see all of the land at least once, but eliminates the monotony of making the same trek over and over to commonly visited places.

The graphics are perfect for the game. There is always something new to see or find. I spent several different play sessions just randomly wandering around just to see what I could stumble across. The city of Washington D.C. looks just like you would expect after a nuclear war. Freeways are still in place, but mostly crumbled. All the major monuments can be found, but are broken and deteriorated. I did feel that most of the indoor areas were far too dark. It was easy to miss a container of supplies in the corner simply because it was impossible to spot without being right on top of it. While I understand caves and ruins being dark, many places that should have been well lit still weren’t. Operational vaults in the last two games were very brightly lit, whereas in Fallout 3, they still had dark corridors and dimly lit corners. All of the NPCs look great and there is a good number of character models, so you won’t be talking to people that look exactly the same over and over. I thought the gore was a bit too over the top. Early on, being able to blow extremities off simply by targeting them seems cool. When someone’s head gets blow off in nearly every single firefight, the experience starts to get a little stale. I don’t think that the enemies should have been any harder to kill, just that dismembering them should not have been so commonplace.

Even with my few complaints, Fallout 3 is still one of the best RPGs on the Xbox 360. The game easily has over thirty hours of game play, and much more if you search for all it has to offer. Since there are several endings and different experiences depending on whether you play as a good or bad person, this game will have you playing for a long time to come. As a fan of the Fallout games right from the beginning, I have to say that the second one is still a superior game, but this is a worthy addition to the series.

I have done the impossible. I have succeeded where many others have failed. I, Paul from GameFury, have defeated the hype machine. We were told this would be the deepest gaming experience we have ever encountered, but I resisted. We were told that this game would change our lives, but I remained firm. We were told this would be the most important title to video games since Pong, yet I did not give in. Now with the beaten and bloody hype monster lying dead at my feet, I could truly enjoy Fable 2 without being disappointed by it not living up to the impossible standards that started growing the moment it was announced.

Although the game is looked at as an RPG, it has just as much in common with Zelda as it does Oblivion. The entire development was done with casual gamers in mind. Most battles can be won with simple button mashing, but can be more complicated if you choose. Your character cannot die; they only fall unconscious for a moment and get back up with a new scar. There is no leveling up and only three separate skills under which to spend points to improve your abilities: Strength, Skill, and Will.

The combat is fairly basic at first but gets much deeper the more you play. Melee starts with simply pressing X over and over but more moves, like blocks or flourishes, are added later. Ranged weapons start the same way also. Press Y over and over to fire at the nearest enemy. Later, you can gain the ability to free aim, which allows you to pick off enemies before they spot you. I have yet to decide if I really like the magic setup yet. The basics are good. Each spell has two fire modes: targeted or area of effect. For example, if the lightning spell is selected, simply pressing B will hit every enemy in the immediate vicinity. Holding a direction while  pressing B will concentrate the spell on the nearest enemy to where you aimed. This works great, so stunning all enemies with an area attack then picking them off one by one before they can recover is great fun. As spells level up, holding the button longer will charge a meter on the side of the screen that builds up to the currently unlocked level. Even if a spell is maxed out, all other levels of it can still be used by releasing the button at the right point on the meter. The problem with this arose when I realized that you can only assign one spell to each level and switching back and forth isn’t easy. Since magic is handled with only one button, this means if you have multiple spells assigned, tapping B may fire your lightning, while holding it for one second will shoot fire, and holding it for two seconds will slow time. Many players may like the idea, but it lead me to only using one spell the whole game to avoid confusion.

Leveling up abilities take the same idea that many games are using since God of War. Colored orbs fall from your enemies during battle. Green orbs only appear once an enemy is killed and they supply you with experience that can be spent on any of the three statistics mentioned earlier. Doing significant damage with a specific attack type will supply you with orbs for it’s related statistic. Blue orbs come from melee attacks, yellow from Ranged attacks, and red from magic attacks. Most of your experience will come from the stat-specific orbs. You won’t get very many green orbs and these can be used to round out your character by improving abilities in areas that you don’t regularly use. I really like when games allow you to improve based on the skills you use most and always thought the idea of spending one pool of experience on any skill you want was kind of dumb, so this made me really enjoy playing Fable 2.

The main storyline is fairly simplistic. Basically, a super-evil bad guy wrongs you, so you need to get your revenge and in the process save the world from the aforementioned super-evil bad guy’s evil scheme. The simple story is part of the game’s charm. It’s easy to follow and all of your allies are very likable. Much of the game is fairly funny. You probably won’t laugh out loud too often, but it is still very entertaining. The biggest problem I had was that many important conversation begin without you realizing it. Several times, a quest would just appear on my list because I didn’t realize the two citizens that I heard murmuring in the corner were actually talking about my next quest and I missed what they were talking about. Since the story isn’t too complex, it wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t help but feel like I missed something.

While the story is good, the best parts of the games will occur when you aren’t doing anything related to the main quest. If you are short on cash, jobs are available to make money. You can work as a bartender, woodcutter, or blacksmith. The mini-games behind each are very simplistic but I never got tired of them. The monetary rewards are a bit unrealistic once you get good at them. At one point, I was earning over six hundred gold for every beer I poured in the tavern. If you are more of the type of person that doesn’t like doing the work for yourself, you can purchase nearly every building in the game. Every five minutes, you are given your share of the profits or rent money from all of the buildings you own. This money even continues to accumulate a bit more slowly when you aren’t playing. I didn’t play at all this weekend and came back Monday morning to a nice five thousand gold bonus. I only owned two buildings at this point, so you can imagine how much money will come pouring in later in the game when there are hundreds of building available for purchase. In shops, you can select the mark up (or down) of the items, but not much else. In houses, in addition to setting the rent or making it your own home, you can decorate it with better furniture to make it worth more money.

The social side of the game rivals The Sims in it’s complexity. Every single person in the game has their own personal opinion of you based on their observations and popular opinion in town. If you save a whole town from bandits, most people will like you for it, but there will always be a couple that don’t like you simply because everyone else does. Each person also has their own personal likes and dislikes. One man in the town square may think it is absolutely hilarious if you jump on a box and fart in front of a crowd, while another will be disgusted. You can even have a people fall in love with you. Since you can become somewhat of a celebrity, many people will love you even before you meet them. In a large town, you will find yourself being followed by a group of the opposite sex with hearts over their heads and a few yelling marriage proposals. Actually if you look closely at the crowd, you will see a few members of the same sex in that crowd, since NPCs are gay, straight, bisexual, or celibate. Once you decide that it is time to get married (either to a person you have been speaking to for a while in the game or just one pulled at random from your crowd of followers) you will need a wedding ring and a house. If you have sex with your spouse, you may have a child. Don’t worry if you are playing a female character, you don’t have to wait around for nine months before getting back to the adventure. Time jumps ahead for you. Not only do you have to send money back home to support your family, but you will also need to make regular visits back to spend time with them or you may end up divorced. The better you treat your family, the better the gifts they will give you in return when you do come visit them. Some spouses will be more needy while other will be understanding. Also, very early in the game you come across a stray dog that becomes your pet. From then on, he follows you everywhere and helps out however he can. If you knock an enemy on the ground, the dog will jump in and attack. Buried items or hidden treasure are no problem for your dog to sniff out. He also has a personality that always shows through. If he gets bored, he will start to chase his own tail. He will get scared when in dark dungeons until you reassure him. He will always react the way you would expect a real dog to. He may not be vital to success in the game, but I was always glad he was around. The entire social aspect is one of the deepest I have seen in a game. I have spent entire play sessions just wandering around town doing jobs and interacting with people.

Like many games are doing these days, Fable 2 give you the choice to be good or evil. Unlike most of these other games, your choices here have drastic effects on the rest of the world. Be nice to everyone and spend a lot of money in town, it’s economy will go up. Terrorizing the townsfolk, stealing items, and murdering shop keepers will cause the economy to drop. This shows the main reason to be evil in the game; low economy means low prices, whether it be items or the shops themselves. Of course, then everyone hates you, so the choice is yours. There are two long breaks in the game that last around ten years each and when it starts back up, you can really see your impact on the world. Help the shop keepers and the good people and, later on, the town will be prospering. Steal money and support the criminals and, several years later, the town will be overrun with thieves and beggars. Many of the choices in the game don’t really make you think and the results are fairly obvious. One is clearly good and one is clearly bad. Your choice will be based on what character you have already decided you wanted to be and not on what you would do in real life. Some of the choices don’t even have options that make logical sense. The worst was the ghost who asked me to get revenge on the woman that stood him up at the altar by making her fall in love with me and then doing the same thing to her. Your only two options are to do as the ghost says and leave her at the last minute (the evil choice) or marry her ( the good choice). This means if you want to keep your character good, you have to marry someone you don’t actually care about. No one in their right mind would marry someone they just met just because it’s the ‘right choice.’ Why can’t we just tell her what is going on and make her confront the ghost? Most of the other quests make sense, but this quest comes early in the game and put a bit of a sour note on the game very early on. I was a bit thrown back by the developer’s attempt at forcing their own morals on us. Eating any form of meat is considered not pure and you will gain corruption. I have no problem with people that are vegetarians, but I do have a problem with them when they try to convince me that I am a bad person for eating meat.

Now I come to my only major problem with the game; the map. In short, it’s crap. It only takes up about a quarter of the screen on the pause menu and has no zoom function. Not only that, but it only centers on your character and cannot be moved around. Exit’s are labeled on the map, but they do not tell you where they go, so learning your way around can be difficult. The map legend is fairly useless as well. Weapon shops are clearly labeled, but clothing shops, hair stylists, and tattoo artist all are labeled as Appearance Shops. If you need to find a potion shop, forget about it. That shop type falls under the category of everything else in Miscellaneous Shops. You can fast travel to any location that you have already visited, but good luck finding somewhere you haven’t been. I spent an entire hour wandering the world looking for a town that I had a job in before giving up. Several hours later, I realized that the town I needed to get to wasn’t unlocked yet. Add all of these problems together and you come up with the worst map system ever implemented in a game.

The graphics do an amazing job of creating a believable world. Everywhere you go, you will be treated to amazing scenery and impressive visuals. Unfortunately, a very low number of character models and tons of clipping issues mar these otherwise beautiful graphics. It is not uncommon to see three or four of the same person in a crowd and every time you come to a hill, your character’s feet will disappear into the ground. A countless number of time, my entire dog would disappear into a rock or wall. Also, when NPCs are traveling with you, they have a hell of a time walking through doors. They will make two or three circles in front of the door until actually walking through. Although these thing hurt the game, it doesn’t stop it from having one of the most pleasant worlds to walk around in that I have seen in a long time. Another cool detail is the way your character changes based on your decisions. If you run around as a goody two-shoes and only perform pure actions, you will have much brighter features and a halo over your head. Be an evil bastard and your skin will darken while horns will start to grow. If you gear your character toward melee, their muscles will get bigger and will start to look like professional wrestlers. Magic users will start to have bright blue designs appear on their skin. Even though everyone begins the game as one of the same two characters (a male or female), by the end their appearance will be fairly unique.

The story is good, but the economy and social aspects provide nearly endless fun. Not only is the game a decent length, there is also a ton of replay value since the game can play out differently depending on your actions. If it weren’t for the absolutely horrendous map, this could easily have been one of the greatest games of all time.

Three words best describe this title: shortest game ever. I was done with it in four hours and once complete, there isn’t a whole lot left to do. To the game’s credit, the action is awesome and intense, but this doesn’t even begin to make up for the short length.

The action is a solid mix between a brawler and a shooter. The fighting sequences are fun, but can get repetitive. There is a light and heavy attack and they can be combined into several different three-hit combos. The block button can be used to defend against every incoming melee attack, so it is possible to win nearly every fight on the first try with enough patience. Boss fights are a bit more difficult, but only because they block your attack more than other enemies do. Every time you connect an attack, an adrenaline meter on the bottom of the screen fills up. As this fills, you can perform up to three takedowns on enemies. Against a normal enemy, these are instant kills. Against bosses, they do significantly more damage than a normal attack. These takedowns can be performed near most objects in the environment to use them against your enemy, like smashing their head into a jukebox or throwing them through a coffee table. While the combos do get old after a while, it is always fun to find different items around the level to use against your foe. The shooting in the game isn’t much different than in other games, but the the ability to use your Bourne Instinct spices it up a bit. Pressing this button sends the world into black and white but anything of interest is left in color, including enemies, weapons, explosive objects that can be shot, or hidden items. It also highlights how to get to your objective on the mini-map in case you are lost. You have unlimited use of the Bourne Instinct and it can be used constantly. The only issue I had with it was that it would automatically zoom to the nearest target upon use. Sometimes it would spin me around to look at a propane tank behind me when I really wanted to see what was hiding in front of me. If your adrenaline meter has enough saved up, you can also perform shooting takedowns when enemies are present. All the takedowns, shooting or melee, are fairly cinematic and look very good. When performing one on more than one enemy at a time, there is a timed button press segment that keeps the intensity of the moment up. One other problem I had with the controls; the game wouldn’t let me take cover behind an object or open a door until the animation for moving was completed and this left me open to attack a few times. Other than this, the controls work very well. To mix things up a little more is the car chase scene. It’s a fun segment and the controls are decent, but it is immediately obvious that this isn’t a racing game.

The boss battles stand out as one of the games best parts. The scenes from the movie are recreated and extended perfectly. The hand to hand fight in Bourne’s apartment is awesome, all the way down to actually having the chance to stab your enemy in the hand with a pen. The fight against the sniper out at the country home is the best scene in the game. Just like the movie, all you have to work with is a shotgun and you must blow up different objects to provide cover for yourself while you make your way to the enemy. There is even a timed button press segment where you look at yourself through the sniper’s scope and must evade his shots. The high level of quality and fun behind all the boss battles makes the final one that much more disappointing. Not only was the fight itself lame, but it didn’t even fit in with the story. After the final action scene in the movie, another assassin kills the man that set Bourne up. In the game, Bourne goes after the killer for no apparent reason. At first he says it is to find out who sent him, but then you kill the assassin without talking to him and the game ends. The fight itself is actually easier than a shoot-out against a normal enemy. You shoot him once and he runs further away. Chase after him four times or so, shoot him once each time and you win.

The game takes place during the first movie, The Bourne Identity, but throws in a few flashbacks of past missions, including the entire assassination attempt against Wombosi that leads to his amnesia. None of the actors from the movie are in the game but the replacements are worthy and don’t hurt the flow of the story. It seems strange that the game only covers the first movie’s time frame since the three books and movies have been out for so long now. With the extreme short length of the game, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for us to expect the entire trilogy in one game. This would have made the final time clock in around ten hours, which is what I feel the minimum should be for an action game to be worth my money. While some scenes are shortened or skipped over, enough of the story is intact for the plot to flow well and you don’t really miss much.

The developer’s attempt at creating some replay value falls short. There are three difficulty levels, but I played the first two and didn’t notice much of a difference. There are passports hidden through each level, but the side rooms and secret niches where they are located are easily spotted on your mini-map, and it won’t really take more than one or two playthroughs to find them all if you are really looking. The awards and achievements don’t help much either. Every one of them can be earned during the course of two playthroughs. Anyway you look at it, there is nothing that you can do with this game that can’t be finished in half a rental period.

The in game graphics are very impressive. Everything looks great and most of the environment is destructible, both when being shot at or having an enemy thrown into it. The rain effects in some of the missions are the best I have seen in a game. The enemies look very good, but there is a very small number of character models. In the first level alone, you will fight the same guy nearly a dozen times. While the in game graphics look very good, the cutscenes look terrible. The CGI itself is good, but the scenes are intentionally made grainy for some unknown reason and just look bad.

I did very much enjoy the game. The action is honestly some of the best I have seen in a third person shooter in a long time and the game itself is incredibly polished and glitch free. My only major issue is the incredibly short length. You could buy the whole Bourne movie trilogy for half the price and get twice the time out of them. Four hours of gameplay is just not acceptable.

Very few racing games can combine arcade and simulation gameplay successfully, but this game pulls it off. It isn’t perfect and made a few questionable design decisions, but it is still one of the best racing games I have played in a long time. It starts off a bit generic, but as more time passed, it really grew on me.

Edge of Control is the perfect title for the game. The entire time, you are right on the brink of loosing it, but actually flying off the track doesn’t happen unless you make a mistake. The other racers in the beginning of the career are bad enough to ease you into the gameplay but it doesn’t take long before they really start to challenge you, even on the easy difficult setting. There is rarely a time when you can just keep the gas down and you must keep a fine balance between the regular brake and the handbrake. A technique that must be master in order to earn victory is the use of the clutch. When at low speeds, pressing the clutch will rev the engine up. Releasing it will give you a slight but effective speed boost. Naturally, this is very bad for the clutch and it will wear down after continuous use. Even in the rare event that I got a good lead on the rest of the pack, the game was still non-stop excitement because of how much you have to concentrate on keeping the truck on the track.

The AI is, hands down, the best I have ever seen in a racing game. I don’t mean the best drivers, but the most realistic. On their website, the developers make a point to say that they made sure all the rules that apply to you in the game also apply to your AI opposition, and it clearly shows. They make just as many mistakes as you will. They don’t drive better and faster when you get in first like many other games do, but they also are good enough that you won’t win by massive margins once you get good. Many other games will have that driver from time to time that cannot be beaten. I almost thought this game did that in one particular race. I fought as hard as I could the entire time to catch one particular racer. We were coming to the last turn and I was about to be annoyed when suddenly, he took the turn a bit too wide, over corrected, and slid to a stop in the middle of the track. Seeing the computer make colossal mistakes like this on occasion really makes the game much more fun.

There game strikes an awkward balance between simulation and arcade. The damage system is incredibly detailed: tires wear down, vehicles overheat, the clutch burns out, shocks go bad, and tires go flat. When these things happen, all that you need to do is pull into the repair area and wait a few seconds while your vehicle is automatically fixed. The vehicle physics are incredibly realistic, but if you leave the track, all you have to do is hit both top shoulder buttons to be reset onto the track without losing much time. After resetting, your car is a ghost for a few seconds that other cars can drive through. Even though the game is based on the real life Baja 1000, that race isn’t actually part of the career mode in it’s entirety. It is broken up into several different segments that are spread throughout your whole career. Most career events can be completed in less than fifteen minutes, which breaks the game into short, arcade-like gameplay segments. A full, three hour version of the Baja 1000 can be raced outside of the career mode, but it would have been nice to get some career rewards for doing it. While none of these things really hurt the game, I would have preferred if it leaned a little more away from the arcade racing. MotorStorm has that category cornered and there isn’t a good choice for a realistic off-road game in this genre. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a blast playing, though.

There is a vast number of licenced vehicles available to drive, ranging from an old Volkswagen Beetle to the trophy trucks that are seen on television. There are eight categories of vehicles. In the single race mode, all categories are open from the beginning, but not all the vehicles are available in each until they are unlocked through the career mode. In career mode, only the first category is open and experience must be earned to unlock more.

Progression through the career mode is probably the best aspect of the game. Many of the events are tournaments that consist of three or more tracks. Points are awarded depending on your place and the winner is the driver with the most at the end of the tournament. Like MarioKart, it is possible to win a tournament without ever getting first place in a race. The other type of event is a rally race. These are basically just a race against the clock with other racers on the track. The game tells you that although all categories of cars are on the track, you are only competing against those the same as you. I don’t really believe this because I have been passed by cars in the same class as me but remained in first. Even though the scoring isn’t entirely accurate, these were still my favorite events. These were races over large areas of the desert that were usually at least fifteen minutes or longer. There were no repair points in these races. If you damaged your vehicle, which is bound to happen in these longer events, you have to call in a repair helicopter that will land ahead of you to help you out. The higher you place in either race type, the more reward credits (i.e. money) you earn to buy new vehicles or upgrade your current one. There are different levels of each upgrade part, but the price difference is minimal, so there is no reason to buy anything but the best parts. Credits can also be earned from sponsors. As you gain notoriety, better and better sponsors will offer to put their decal on your vehicle and pay you for it. The amount they pay depends on if their the panel that the decal is attached to is still on the truck at the end of the race. This adds an interesting aspect to the game because if you drive conservatively and place second or third, you can actually make more money than if you beat the hell out of your vehicle in order to make first place. Since you still earn experience from a race even if you don’t get first place, the next category of events can still be unlocked without always getting first; it will just take longer.

Since the last off-road racing game I played was MotorStorm, I was a bit disappointed by this game’s graphics at first. As time went on, however, I grew to like them. During the rally races, you can literally see for miles and the view is amazing. The free roam mode covers nine square miles of completely unrepeated land. The trucks could have looked better, but still look good. While the tracks left in the dirt look nice, the mud flung up by the tires looks bad and the dust kicked up dissipates too quickly. The pieces that start flying off your vehicle as it gets damaged look great. As they start to fall off, they will flap in the wind and after they come loose, they will remain on the track for you to run over on the next lap. Collision detection between vehicle is a bit off. The collisions between bodies of the cars themselves is accurate but the tires will clip into each other regularly. Once you get into a race, these issues don’t really detract from the action.

Problems considered, I still can’t stop playing this game. The action never gets old and the game is always challenging. Since it seemed to have come out of nowhere, I didn’t expect much. I was pleasantly surprised by this title.

Before I get into the game, I would like to say how much I hate the idea of titles having one version on the Xbox 360 and PS3 while a second version is made for the PS2 and the Wii. I know the Wii’s hardware cannot compete with the other next gen systems, but it is far more capable than the PS2 and doesn’t deserve to have it’s games ‘dumbed down’ graphically just so they can be released on both systems. I don’t even consider this a next gen game when it looks virtually identical to the last gen’s version.

As for the game itself, other than the disappointing graphics, it actually has a couple of features not in the Xbox 360 and PS3 version. There is a new game mode and a huge amount of concept art to unlock. Of course, I also have to mention how much fun it is to swing your arms around like you are actually holding a lightsaber or using the Force instead of just pressing buttons.

Like many Wii games, the controls make the game. They are a bit more refined than other games, like Pirates of the Caribbean where you can win most fights just by waving your arm back and forth. While you can win earlier battles with random flailing, the harder difficulties require more finesse. Swinging to the left or right swings your saber left and right respectively. Swinging upward does an uppercut maneuver. Thrusting forward performs a quick stab attack. Many more moves can be unlocked by earning experience from killing enemies. Most moves can be linked together to form combos, of which more can be also unlocked. The timing of the combos takes some practice, but it is definitely possible to master. The nunchuck is used to perform most Force powers. The C button uses Force lightning. The Z button picks enemies up and the joystick can be used to fling them around. While they are held in the air, holding down A and swinging the remote will impale them with your lightsaber. Exclusive to this version is ability to grab a gun turret with the Force and it will hover next to you while shooting your enemies for a short time. Lightsaber moves and Force powers can be combined to make combos as well, such as swinging the remote left, then right, then thrusting the nunchuck forward. This does a two strike hit with the saber then a force push that throws the enemy backward. There are motion-based scripted events where you must perform the proper action in the time frame of a second or two. Some are as simple as moving the remote or nunchuck in any direction. The cooler ones require you to rotate either the remote or nunchuck to the proper angle then thrust it forward. The latter usually occurs during Force battles with other Jedi and really make you feel like part of the experience. The problem in the other version where it was difficult to select the enemy you wanted is lessened here, but it is still an issue from time to time. You can use the down button to lock onto an enemy, but it is still hard to actually select them to start with sometimes. There are far less items scattered around the level to accidentally grab than in the other version, which helps. The only serious issue I have with the controls is that they assume no one is left handed. The tutorial explains the moves only from a right handed persons perspective. When you are to use the remote for a scripted action, it shows up on the right side of the screen and the nunchuck shows on the left. Since I am left handed, this made me have to concentrate a bit harder than a righty would and caused me to fail on occassion because I used the wrong hand.

There are plenty of hidden items as well as an extra game mode. The game contains two hundred pieces of concept art hidden around the levels and plenty of hidden bonuses that give you experience to rank up your abilities. Unlockable costumes can be found and, while they don’t change the gameplay any, it’s still fun to try to get them all. The extra game mode is like a fighting game that allows you to choose to battle against heroes from across the Star Wars history, although many need to be unlocked. It isn’t good enough to be a stand alone game, but it’s a fun diversion if you want to try something different from the main story. One big downside is that it cannot be played alone since it only has a two player mode.

The game follows the same story as the other version, but all the levels are different and there are even a few extra stages. You are still Darth Vaders apprentice and everything plays out the same. A lot of the emotion is lost in the cutscenes because there aren’t as detailed of facial expression in this version as there are in the PS3 and Xbox 360 one, but it is still an amazing story that cannot be missed by Star Wars fans.

The graphics are the game’s biggest failing. They fit right in on the PS2, but the Wii can do much better. The levels aren’t bad, just bland and don’t begin to compare to the other version. Everything is much more blocky than is necessary. The first level where you play as Darth Vader is even worse. Everything looked so bad that I briefly considered giving up on the game. Luckily I forged on and things got better once I took over as his apprentice.

It’s a fun and exciting game that is over all to quickly; expect to finish in about six hours. It takes good advantage of the Wii controls and gives Star Wars fans a story to remember. Had it been longer and more than a copy of the PS2 version, I could have rated it better. As is, it has it’s problems but is still fun and I would have to say that it makes you feel more like an all powerful Jedi than the next gen version does.

You play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice. If this statement peaks your interest even slightly, then drop what you are doing and go get this game. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the best Jedi action in a game to date and the story helps fill in the gap between the new and old trilogies.

To best describe this title, you would need  to take the gameplay from the last Jedi Knight game and put it on crack. Nearly all the moves are the same, but far more extreme. Instead of picking guys up and tossing them around, you fling them across the level at a speed that kills them on impact. If you find the right angle, you can easily throw a guy over a half mile and much more if there is a cliff nearby. Instead of the Force push knocking down a couple of guys here and there, you can actually blow over an entire squad of storm troopers. At it’s most powerful, the Force lightning can hit every guy in the room and even take down a Rancor or an AT-ST. Even your character’s lightsaber technique is totally unique and over the top. The game starts you with some decent powers, but you must earn experience from fighting or finding hidden items to level them up and become truly devastating. Using the Force powers aren’t without their problems, though. The push and lightning will miss when you could have sworn you were looking right at the target and picking up enemies to throw them can be difficult in rooms with a lot of debris lying around. Many times the game will grab the closer item that is near your crosshair rather than the enemy in the distance that is directly in the crosshair. It’s not a big deal since the item you accidentally picked up can easily be tossed at the enemy you wanted to grab, but it’s still a little annoying.

The rest of the game may be awesome, but the story is the main reason to play. The Jedi Knight series, as well as most other Star Wars games, were content to simply be spin-offs with a few cameos from the major characters. This game is basically the reason why thing were the way they were at the beginning of the original trilogy. It leads up to and explains how the rebel alliance began, as well as shows what happened to many of the Jedi that survived Order 66. Since it only follows your character, the game doesn’t have the same epic feel as the movies. Imagine if the movies only followed Luke’s point of view. They would have still been great, but we would have missed many important events. Even considering this, the story has to be one of the best in a Star Wars game yet. It does have the light side and dark side ending, but it is simply a single choice made at the end of the game instead of a build up of all the decisions made throughout the way the Jedi Knight games did. The rest of the game plays the same whichever side you want to be on. Most of the time is spent fighting storm troopers since the emperor isn’t supposed to know about you or slaying natives to a planet that want you dead regardless of your allegiance to either side of the Force. The only downside would be that it is another short game and can be completed in around six hours. There are four difficulties and plenty of secondary objectives to complete that increase replay value, but I still wish the story was longer.

The graphics are amazing. The character models are some of the best I have seen, although your pilot unintentionally has a creepy Joker smile on her face most of the time. The voice acting is spot on and it’s not easy to tell that they aren’t being performed by the original actors and actresses. Each planet has it’s own feel that makes you believe it is a real place. Thanks to their new DMM technology, much of the environment reacts realistically. Trees bend like they would in real life. Metal doors contort just like you would expect when hit with a massive Force push. Wooden doors crack and break depending on where they get hit. It’s a blast trying to break stuff and see what happens. There are a bunch of objects that are unaffected by any kind of physics and cannot be damaged. This is probably due to hardware restrictions or level design, but when I throw an object at a tree and it bends in one level but a tree in the next doesn’t, it take me out of the experience a bit.

This title not only expands on the Star Wars mythology, but let’s you explore explore the dark side in a way that the movies and other games haven’t. Had the controls not been slightly annoying on occasion and the story longer, this could have been one of the greatest games in a long time. As is, I still love it and highly recommend it to any action fans. One more statement to help convince you. In the first level you get to play as Darth Vader; how can you beat that?

I really wanted to enjoy this game. It had a cool idea and plenty of potential. Unfortunately, it ended up being just another bland shooter that doesn’t do anything to set itself apart from the rest of the crowd.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the gameplay. If you have played most any other shooter, you will jump right into this one. Anything that is slightly different about the controls will have a pop-up before you have to perform the action to explain how. The game is simple enough that you won’t need a reminder of the controls the way some other titles require. The one unique aspect of the game is the use of the drug Nectar. You can inject this into yourself to increase your combat abilities, but you only have access to this for the first half of the game. After that point, it is replaced by the ability to play dead and, yes, that is as boring as it sounds.

The story was supposed to be the biggest drawn of the game, but ends up being it’s greatest failure. It is tagged as a ‘mature and compelling storyline’ but I had the entire plot figured out from the first one page ad I saw in the game magazines. Even if that wasn’t clear enough, the back of the game’s box basically ruins the entire first two to three hours. The game begins with your character working for Mantel, a private military corporation that takes jobs from governments to clean up hot spots (like rebel uprisings, in this case) around the world. They keep their troops morale up by giving them a drug called Nectar, which keeps them in good spirits and increases their combat abilities. Right from the start, you notice that everyone is way too happy to be there. Before you can say Sci-fi Channel original movie, you start to see weird occurrences: soldiers being overly brutal, not caring about fallen comrades, and the news stations broadcasting false information about the war. Like the back of the box states, after a few hours of gameplay, you turn your back on Mantel and join the rebels. This hurts the game by making the first part feel like a waste of time since you are killing the same people you already know you will be siding with later. The story may be predictable and unoriginal, but it is still told very well. The voice acting is great (yes, it really is meant to be that cheesy in the beginning) and although I always knew what was going to happen, I was still interested in seeing how. The entire game is seen from your first person perspective, including cutscenes. This can be both a good and bad thing. Good because it really puts you in the experience and makes you feel like part of the story. Bad because you see the big events from the perspective of a single person and the game doesn’t feel as epic as it would have with wider camera angles and aerial shots of the pivotal moments.

My favorite thing about the game in the beginning became the reason I didn’t like it in the end. Soldiers on Nectar don’t see blood or dead bodies because the drug is designed to protect them from the horrors of war. When you kill someone, there is a small impact flash and they disappear almost as soon as they hit the ground. As you continue on with the Mantel section of the game, your nectar wears off (at pre-scripted sections) and you begin to see the real world. An enemy you just killed is writhing around on the ground while screaming in pain, but instantly disappears when the Nectar kicks back in. In another area, you walk through a room where a battle occurred a few days earlier. At first, there is nothing in the room. When your drug wears off for a minute, there are bodies everywhere and blood all over the place. These moments are disturbing and really add to the atmosphere. Once you join the rebels and no longer have access to Nectar, the game loses this aspect. When you shoot someone, there is a small splash of blood, but the bodies still disappear after a bit. Enemies don’t stay alive and scream like they did earlier. The game plays almost exactly the same as the first part, just without the ability to use Nectar to improve your combat ability. This successfully removes the one unique aspect from the game and turns into ‘just another FPS’. It feels as if the game was designed to lead up to your eventual betrayal of Mantel and then the rest was just slapped together to close out the storyline.

The graphics continue the bland streak the rest of the game started. Nothing really looks bad, but the environments are sparsely decorated and everything is spotlessly clean. There are a couple of panels and barriers that move when you shoot them, but most everything else doesn’t react. Plants don’t move when you walk through them. Explosions occur just above the ground and don’t leave any lasting marks. There is a fade to black every time the game switches between a scripted conversation or event. I’ve never seen any other game do this and it really breaks up the overall flow. Although the game was relatively glitch free, it did lock up on me four different times. The checkpoints are frequent enough that it didn’t set me back too far, but it was still quite annoying. I recall the moment that I completely gave up on the game; a helicopter crash sequence that was incredibly poorly done. My character was inside the chopper and there is a explosion outside. I wasn’t even sure we had been hit because there were no windows or open doors. The screen went black and every few seconds I was shown a still shot from my characters point of view, but all the images looked almost identical. After Call of Duty 4 had such an amazing first person crash sequence, seeing this in a game was just pathetic.

There aren’t really any saving graces to this title. The gameplay can be seen anywhere else. The story isn’t worth more than one play through. The entire campaign can be completed in around five hours. There is some fun to be had here, but it can all be had in a rental period. I didn’t see any reason to own this game. Just another opportunity to take advantage of the PS3’s supposedly superior hardware blown.

I came to a realization recently while playing through the latest wave of shooters. Nearly all of these games, whether they be of the first-person or third-person variety, have the same two things in common. First is their incredibly short length. Most of these games can be completed in a long weekend afternoon. Second is a cliffhanger ending. If it is because they are trying set up a sequel or they just don’t know how to end a story, I can’t be certain.

There was a similar wave of games with these same exact characteristics around ten to fifteen years ago. They were called Shareware games and they were free. The short length didn’t bother us because we didn’t have to pay for them. The cliffhanger endings were expected, because the developer wanted us to purchase the non-Shareware sequels. Just about any old school gamer can remember getting Episode 1 of Doom or Wolfenstein 3D from a friend and playing it over and over. I couldn’t even tell you where the original disks came from because we were encouraged by the developer to give copies to everyone we knew. These games could be completed in about five hours and had endings that led directly into the next episode.

Aside from the better technology, nearly every shooter today can be directly compared to these Shareware titles of the past. We are now paying $60 for what we used to get for free. I know there isn’t anything we can do about this because people will always buy these games no matter how short they are, especially with the increasing number of casual gamers. It’s not that I don’t like causal gamers, they just aren’t as picky about the length of their games as the more hardcore crowd. I guess all I can really do is reminisce about the good old days. I think I’m going to go look for my Commander Keen disks in the attic now (look it up, kids; it’s a classic).