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New Super Mario Bros. U Review

November 22, 2012 by

New Super Mario Bros. U Box ArtNew Super Mario Bros. U finally brings back the Super Mario World style of play.  And for the first time ever, Mario is available in glorious HD — and he looks dang good!

If you’re familiar with any of the ‘New’ Super Mario Bros. games, or any of the side-scrolling Mario games of the past, there isn’t a whole lot to tell you about.  A few new power ups like Balloon Yoshi and Flying Squirrel Suit give the game some new strategies, but the real meat of the same is simply taking Mario on a new adventure.

World

The ‘World’ style of play means you get a big over-world map of levels that you unlock in sequence, with only a few alternative paths giving a couple of options of which way to go first.  Around the map will be shortcuts, secret level/path unlocks, Toad huts, Baby Yoshi’s (with their own types of power ups), and new challenges to beat.

Read our full review of New Super Mario Bros. U after the break. Continue reading “New Super Mario Bros. U Review” »

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Starhawk Review

May 8, 2012 by


Starhawk released today exclusively for the Playstation 3!  Starhawk is a third-person shooter with a setting that reminds us of Firefly — that wild west in space vibe.  It’s the future, and Humans have colonized other planets. The game takes place in a colony aptly named ‘Frontier’ where miners have been affected by a powerful substance known as rift energy.  This energy has transformed some of the miners into mutants who are protective of the rift energy, and the natural conflict for game is established.

Unlike its predecessor Warhawk, Starhawk has a single-player campaign.  We’ll update this with our impressions once we’ve finished the campaign, but for now we’ll say that the single-player feels very similar to multiplayer in that the player is given multiple ways to tackle a problem.

Multiplayer is the heart and soul of Starhawk.  Players can compete in 16v16 matches of CTF, zone control, and other common multiplayer modes.  These maps are ginormous to accommodate Hawks, the mechwarrior/transformer/Warhawk machines that define the gameplay in Starhawk.  The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the Warhawk days; Players fly around in highly maneuverable Hawks, on the ground in tanks and vehicles, or on foot with a very familiar multiplayer shooter feel.

Build & Battle is what makes Starhawk unique.   As you play you earn rift energy that you can spend like currency to call in drops from the radial Build & Battle menu.  You can call in walls, turrets, supply depots, vehicle bays, and change the course of battle through strategically utilizing rift energy to give you and your team the advantage.

Gameplay is chaotic, unpredictable, and crazy polished.  Flight feels amazing, gunplay is solid, and the Build & Battle system makes each map feel different because players may defend their flag differently or build up their base differently every match.  There’s so much being done in Starhawk that we wish would be brought to the rest of the shooters on all platforms.  (Part of me dies thinking about how awesome this would be on PC. -Keen)

Read on for more of our review! Continue reading “Starhawk Review” »

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Kid Icarus Uprising Review

March 29, 2012 by

I remember seeing Kid Icarus Uprising around the time the 3DS was first announced. It looked totally awesome and I was really excited to get my hands on it. Unfortunately it seems to have taken pretty much a year into the 3DS’s life cycle before it actually came out, but I would say that it was worth the wait.

I never had the opportunity to play the original Kid Icarus until recently; about a week ago. Prior to that my only experience with Pit (The main character of the series) had been in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Apparently there was also a GameBoy game, but I’ve never played it. From my understanding, Uprising takes place 25 years after the events of the first game. Medusa has risen again and is causing trouble and what not, so Pit has to battle the forces of evil with the help of his deity/leader Lay Palutena. The story is presented pretty simply and is easy to get into. So far it seems ever line of dialogue has voice work, which is nice, and the back and forth between Pit and Palutena is enjoyable and often funny, with several references back to the original game and even some that break the 4th wall. It’s the kind of stuff that really amuses me, so I enjoy it quite a bit. The game looks fantastic, too. It’s hard to believe that the 3DS can pull off visuals like this. It’s hard to say whether or not it’s the best visuals, though. Resident Evil Revelations still might take that title, but Kid Icarus Uprising is right up there.

Descent into Battle (flight)

The game is laid out into a specific format that slightly resembles that of the original. Each chapter begins with a flight stage, where Pit flies through the air in an “on rails” fashion. The player has control over his movements and attacks, but no real control over where he goes. The second phase is on land and sees pit battling against enemies, finding chests, and making his way towards the boss. These tend to be fairly linear with a few secret areas here and there. The final phase is where you face off against the chapter boss. The game also has an really interesting Intensity feature. Before each match you can spend hearts (the game’s currency) to increase or decrease the game’s difficulty, or “Intensity” as they call it. With higher intensity comes more monsters, but also better rewards. If you die during a chapter your intensity level drops and you lose a portion of the hearts you wagered. It’s a really fun and interesting mechanic that can offer a good amount of replay value, especially when some levels feature side areas that require a certain Intensity level to even access.

Continue reading “Kid Icarus Uprising Review” »

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Firefall’s Debut: The Good and the Bad

September 3, 2010 by

Red 5 Studios has finally revealed what they have been working on:  Firefall.  It’s a “ team-based action shooter combining deep character progression with an open-world cooperative campaign that can be shared with hundreds of other players.” That really doesn’t say much though in today’s industry. That’s why I’m very pleased that they have provided a significant amount of gameplay in a trailer comprised entirely of actual contiguous in-game footage (there’s also a cg trailer if that’s your thing).

The first few minutes almost had me closing my browser out of boredom. It appeared so generic that it could have been any game like Halo. I kept watching and then the part where they took off in the flying vehicle piqued my interest. It showed a lush world inhabited by creatures with lots of room to move around. They flew over a couple of outposts and landed in a city and then the realization of what they’re trying to accomplish with the game set in, even before I read the FAQ.

It appears to be a Borderlands meets ‘what Global Agenda should have been’. There’s clearly a campaign/story that I’m betting is linear but, according to their FAQ and the general ease of which a game like this can be designed, they can easily make room for a few dynamic gameplay elements.

How they plan to accomodate hundreds of players playing together on a mini-server could go several ways.  It could be Cryptic’s lobby based server method or Guild Wars’ style.  We might see a simple Borderlands method where a game is created and people join.  Through the use of a solid front end platform they could do great things.

There will even be PvP, which is where my impression that we’ll see a tad bit of what I expected from Global Agenda come in.  If they keep the PvP in the open world and do not segregate it with instancing then it might be interesting.  Perhaps allow players to join servers with PvP enabled fully.

HOWEVER

A knife pierced my heart when I read this….

How much will Firefall cost to play?
We are so excited about Firefall that we want to make sure everyone can play it and join their friends in the game. When Firefall releases, it will be available online for download and play for absolutely free.

Will there be a subscription fee?
Absolutely not. We do not feel that a subscription fee best suits the style of game we are creating.

How do you plan to make money?
We plan to offer a marketplace for Firefall that will offer players items to enhance their gaming experience. We are adamantly against selling anything that might compromise the skill-based aspect of the game

*facepalm*

Why? Why not just sell the box? Guild Wars did it. Why this need to be all ‘cool’ and come off like ‘hey our game is free, ohhh yeahhh’.  Good games are worth buying!

Ugh.  I can cross my fingers and hope for a cash shop that won’t impact gameplay or “compromise the skill-based aspect of the game” at all.  Hahahaha… who am I kidding?

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