Tag Archives: Xbox Live

Nov 10 2012

Giant Sparrow’s Swan Song

The Unfinished Swan

PSN Exclusive

Games for download only are quickly becoming popular but haven’t been taken very seriously. Often these run as episodes that aren’t released on time or are filled with bugs. But every so often a downloadable game shows that they are capable of unique premises and quality gaming.

The Unfinished Swan takes a peculiar concept and invents a twisting puzzle game. A young boy’s mother dies and all he is left of her is her unfinished paintings. One day his favorite one, a swan, comes alive and goes missing. In his search for the swan he is taken in the blank canvas with only his mother’s paint brush to survive with. The boy must move through the painting’s worlds to find out the true story about his family.

This puzzle game arms players with a paint brush or garden hose depending on the chapter. At some points you must paint the scene to finish building it or make vines in the garden grow to find a new path. The outside of the box thinking is reminiscent of Portal. Players must manipulate their surroundings to get to their destination. More than just splattering paint, players must navigate dark areas and house building to reach the missing swan. These challenges flex the game play of a game that could potentially be boring.

The Playstation version is programmed for a regular control as well as the Move Controller. But the mechanics of the Move are sloppy, and it is hard for players to aim the camera in functional manner. Switching to the regular control makes the game easier and manageable. Unlike many downloadables, I didn’t run into constant bugs or issues with game play.

The game is rather short, and I blew through the five chapters easily. While there are balloon collectables, replay values is not high after a completion. Like Portal, a player has to give themselves enough time to forget the solution in order to get that puzzle solving high.

While not high on story, the unique game play and thought put into the game is a refreshing foray in a world of shooters and survivor horrors games. Giant Sparrow proves that the public loves a game that makes them think outside the box.

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Oct 23 2012

Hell Has Never Been This Much Fun

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

PSN, Xbox Live, PC

I am not big of films or TV shows with comic violence. I hated the fake blood sprays in Kill Bill and hate the gratuitous gore in horror movies. I can’t watch operation scenes on TV shows and can’t stand when someone guts a zombie. But I have a fascination with entertainment that contains these aspects: The Walking Dead, Nip/Tuck, and House M.D. The latest of these? Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit.

I am in love with this side scrolling platforming video game. SEGA takes hell, comic violence, and twisted humor and wraps it in a player friendly package. Its animated cartoon look keeps the violence from being gore and keeps it from being at all realistic.

Players take control of the ruler of Hell, a dead rabbit with a fondness for rubber duckies. When pictures leak on-line of him and his buddy, he must destroy the photos and the creature behind the leak before the Netherworld is no longer afraid of him. Players go through 10 levels with a variety of abilities including jet packs, missiles, and a variety of guns. Players can dress their rabbit in a variety of costumes and complete challenges to unlock new goodies.

As a gamer who not good at platformers, I was surprised how much I liked this game. The game play was easy to handle and each death taught me something new about each situation. There were not instances of death because I couldn’t make a certain jump on time, and the battles were more than that just bounce and wack. To kill bosses and mini-bosses, players must complete a mini-game that tests the player’s mental and physical dexterity. The mini-games are not random, allowing players to learn the certain mini-game and easily defeat the creatures.

The biggest draw is the absurdity of the plot, scenery, and violence. Red paint blood spurts and pieces of creatures that look like steak are insane and frivolous making it hard to confuse real violence with the pixilated carnage. The skeletal rabbit and octopus with a monocle are just examples of the fantasy world this game operates in. While not for every gamer, Hell Yeah! Is very entertaining for those of us with a twisted humor.

Arkedo Studios continues to show that small, downloadable games can sparkle with pizzazz and fun. Making a very kitsch game, the French developer gives the Japanese side scrollers a run for their money. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is perfect for gamers with a sense of humor that is a little “off.”

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Oct 14 2012

The Walking Dead Episode 4: Around Every Corner

PSN, Xbox Live, PC

The newest episode of Tell Tale Games The Walking Dead comes with less bugs and a tuned up frightening system. In the penultimate installment, Lee and company finally make it to Savannah but find neither Clem’s parents nor a boat. Instead they find streets full of zombies, an underground group of cancer survivors and a mysterious sub-division free from zombies.

The group arrives in Savannah and the first order of business is to find a boat. But their plans are quickly waylaid by the town’s bell ringing brining in hordes of zombies. In the mad dash for shelter, they separated from Chuck, and the remaining survivors find a vacant, but fortified house. At the house they learn that animals don’t turn into zombies, and find a child zombie that really shakes Kenny up. His only concern is finding a boat and getting out. They run into another survivor named Molly (who had been ringing the bells so she could travel the town unperturbed) but get separated when geeks attack. While Lee is looking for safety he runs into Vernon, a doctor, and his cancer survivors support group. Vernon and support member Brie decided to help Lee break in Crawford so they can get medical supplies for Omen and the support group. The sub-division Crawford is zombie free but the survivors have radical ideals about surving. Children, elderly, and the sick are killed or kicked out of the compound. The group finds even more atrocities than they imagined when they break in for supplies.

The fourth installment has improved technically over the last two episodes. While some players have made complaints about saves not carrying over, I have had no issues. Some loading time are lengthy but with no disappearing Ducks or conversation cut offs, this is nothing. I was also excited to see that they made changes to the fighting system. My long complaint that you have to use the same finger to aim and shoot makes for difficult game play has been changed. For PS3 users the fire button is now R1 making the infrequent battles scenario much easier and less frustrating.

I do have one issue with the writing. When Lee finds Crawford full of zombies, an answer does seem fourth coming. But when they find a video of a pregnant woman killing the doctor forcing abortion, the group easily accepts this idea as the cause of the zombie outbreak. This issue with continuity bothers me because since this game is set before the events of the comics, how do they know that when you die you turn into a zombie and therefore an out break occurs? Are the makers assuming that viewers know this information and take for granted that the characters don’t? Or was this simply overlooked by the writers? Or do they know something we shouldn’t?

Overall Around Every Corner plays well and delivers emotional impact. As the characters brace for the final showdown, the conclusion becomes clear. Now if only the voice on the radio was just as clear.

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Sep 8 2012

The Walking Dead Episode Three: Long Road Ahead

PSN, X-Box Live, PC

Rated M

The latest installment of Telltale Game’s episodic video game based on The Walking Dead comic debuted to hungry fans with more deaths and more bugs. Once again, after downloading the add on, I was prompted to download a patch to correct some issues. But unfortunately this didn’t even fix all the bugs.

This is the latest string of games to release with known issues. Silent Hill HD collection was riff was with problems that have only been corrected for the PS3 version and any gamer knows the debacle with Fallout New Vegas. This is the second time this series has had an update on the first day. Episodic games, unlike TV shows and, now, movie franchises, are not created in a lump sum. This inevitability leads to release delays and apparently bug issues. The continued lateness of these games are a perpetual downfall for this series, and I don’t think the original goal of having all five episodes out before the TV version starts October 14 will not be met.

The second episode was action packed and kept you on your toes; now this episode slows down to really focus on the characters, their conflicts, and their choices. There is a lot of satisfaction for games to finally see our choices play out. The plot unfolds differently for players and their choices than it has in recent episodes making the player feel that their choices really do matter.

Lee must investigate the disappearance of supplies that Lily is not authorizing. Finding the culprit leads to a bandit raid, the troupe leaving the motel, and, ultimately, the death of a fan favorite. The issues between Lily and Kenny FINALLY come to a head, and Lee has to deal with the problem with only input from the player. The ensuing chaos leads the gang to an abandoned train and dealing with the side effects of one of their own being bit. There is plenty of zombie action, but the key to this episode is the character drama.

This has always been the biggest draw to TWD. TWD is a character driven comic, show, and game. It is our bonding with this character and the fear of loosing them that endures us to their plight in the zombie apocalypse. In this episode, we really see growth from the youngest of the crew. Ben must face complex feelings and deal with making adult choices. Clem herself matures though she has more growth to go before she’s really ready for this zombie world

The only drawback to this episode is the bugs. Early in the episode, when I made choices it cut off character conversations and there were times when Kat was holding an invisible Duck. But these were minor issues. I am still unhappy with the game play mechanism (aiming and attacking with the same hand) but I knew that wasn’t going to change. But these do not keep you from enjoying the well scripted game.

Emotionally moving and building up towards an explosive finally Long Road Ahead overcomes its bugs to provide a solid TWD tale.

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Jul 11 2012

The Walking Dead Episode Two: Starving for Help

PSN, X-Box Live, PC

Rated M

The eagerly anticipated second episode the Telltale Game The Walking Dead Series arrived on-line with a few issues for the Playstation 3. The errors were quickly corrected allowing PS3, X-Box and PC user to get deeper into the world of The Walking Dead. In this entry, the plot speeds up giving players more action and more gore.

Lee and crew have are approaching about trading with a local dairy farm. The farm needs gasoline to keep the electric fences running, and Lee’s crew is short on food. Lee and a small task force head out to check the safety of the farm in hopes of moving away from the motel. While the farm offers protection from the dead, it’s not so safe from the living. A band of raiders attacks Lee and the new character Mark while they are repairing the fence. The rest of the group arrives with promised of dinner from their hosts, and Lee and Kenny start checking out the barn to see if it holds secrets. Of course, it does.

The game starts three months after the last episode ended leaving a few open questions (who was the woman screaming in the last episode? What else is around their hotel) and bringing in new characters. Mark is already integrated into the group with the game starts and you constantly wonder if he is literally going to stab you in the back. But the episode quickly amps up the action (and the gore). With in minutes of starting this installment, you must to decide whether or not to cut a guy’s leg off.

Players finally get to see how their choices affect the game. Relationships strain or build based on actions you do or statements to make. Characters remember remarks from the first episode and make judgments from previous action as well as current ones.

The tension and tone are the best part of the game. The game captures the psychological and physical horror the comic series perfectly combining the thrill with a perfect mix of human and zombie violence. The thought provoking choices and the excitement of the action causes players to use their reflexes and their critical thinking skills.

The biggest downfall is that this episode is recycling material. The Walking Dead, whether comic book, TV show or novel versions, have always been fresh breaking new ground in zombie violence and pushing the human psyche to the limit. But this episode starts to repeat material the fans of the show and comic have seen before. Lily really starts to sound like Rick, and the aforementioned leg incident is straight out of Season2 of the show, albeit with the best option left out. In fact, fans of the comic will see the dairy farm’s secret twist miles away because we’ve read it before.

Telltale Game’s The Walking Dead Episode 2 Starved for Help continues the innovation of its predecessor and kicks up the action a notch. Though several of the ideas have used in other formats, the episode is enjoyable and keeps players on the edge of their seat.