Welcome to a brand new edition of Beyond Co-Op Reviews. We've given the feature a bit of a facelift, and are going to continue to bring you great game reviews of games that don't necessarily have a co-op mode.
Need for Speed Shift.............................................................Page 2 by Nicholas Puleo
Darkest of Days.....................................................................Page 3 by Nicholas Puleo
Batman Arkham Asylum........................................................Page 4 by Mike Katsufrakis
Scribblenauts.........................................................................Page 5 by Jason Love
WET........................................................................................Page 6 by Katrina Pawlowski
Explanation of Scores:
- Golden Billy - This is a must buy title. Truly excellent in almost everyway.
- Silver Billy - A solid title with a few flaws.
- Bronze Billy - An ok title. You might not want to pay full price for this game
Amazon.com Widgets
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
MSRP: $59.99
by: Nicholas 'bapenguin' Puleo
Every now and again I get a hunkering for a good car game. Usually I'm lured in by the gorgeous visuals this generation of consoles have allowed for, and then I stick around for the tweaking and upgrading of my cars. The Need for Speed series has been around for a good 15 years now, and the latest entry, Need for Speed Shift is a return to the series' roots. EA wisely has gotten rid of the open world style of gameplay with a story and replaced it with a car racing sim that is playable by many different skill levels.
One question you'll probably be asking yourself while playing, especially if you are familiar with racing sims is - what sets this apart from the likes of Forza or Gran Turismo. The biggest thing EA has done is added a meta game to your racing that earns you agressive and skill style points. These upgrade your driver level and define your style, giving you little badges of honor. You'll earn badges for trading paint, having a clean take over, drafting, and a few dozen other maneuvers on the track. Before each race you are given a goals to complete, and in doing so you'll earn extra rewards and be able to move up the racing levels.
Like I said earlier, any good car game is visually appealing first, and Shift doesn't disappoint. There was great care in rendering the inside view of these cars, and with 65 cars available, that's quite a feat. The cars themselves look great as well, and the damaging modeling really shines. Controls are also key, and thankfully the game adjust and can be adjusted anytime between a more sim like experience or an arcade one. You'll be driving the cars on over a dozen tracks; some famous like Silverstone and Laguna Seca, and others modeled after areas in cities like London and Tokyo.
In the end Need for Speed Shift is a solid entry into the genre it helped define, and it does just enough to set itself apart from the competition. With Forza 3 right around the corner it'll be interesting to see how well it fairs. EA wisely got their game out the door first, and by the time Forza hits the shelves I might be bored with car games again.
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Publisher: Phantom EFX
Developer: 8 Monkey Labs
MSRP: $49.99
by: Nicholas 'bapenguin' Puleo
There comes a time in any young boys life when he plays Cowboys and Indians with his friends. And at sometime during your backyard games, some neighborhood kid comes by and ruins it by using his 6 barreled, battery operated, 200PSI super soaker. That's kinda like Darkest of Days, the latest first person shooter from Phantom EFX.
The game starts with your character in the battle of Little Big Horn, Custers's Last Stand. Suddenly you are whisked away into the future to find out you've been recruited as an agent of time, asked to do the same thing that just happened to you. From there it's off two World War 1 and World War 2, and even Ancient Pompei. Each time period has period specific weapons to use, though each can be upgraded with enhancements to make them better. While it's nice to see a great variety of weapons and types in the game, it's the futuristic weapons and their uses against the enemy that yields some interesting results.
One moment stands out in particular, as I overlooked a WWI battle field and was tasked with repelling back the oncoming German army. At my disposal was a rocket gun that shot a projectile into the sky with giant billowing smoke behind it, and then came crashing down like a meteor into the ground scattering enemies like toy soldiers. The PC version of the game is really gorgeous with PhysX support for extra smoke and environmental effects like blowing leaves and dirt.
In the end while the setting and concept of the game is interesting, the AI most times is fairly idiotic. I found a lot of immersion breaking moments as I saw the on screen character just do some blatantly aweful things...like shooting the wrong direction at a rock. If you fancy playing yourself a first person version of Civilization, give Darkest of Days a shot, just bring your futuristic super soaker and not a musket.
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Publisher: Eidos
Developer: Rocksteady
MSRP: $59.99
by: Mike 'Pheriannath' Katsufrakis
Batman: Arkham Asylum is quite an achievement. First off, it's a licensed superhero game and it has somehow managed to avoid nearly all of the pitfalls of such a thing. Second, it's the first *good* Batman game since the original NES was in vogue. Finally, it comes from a studio whose previous game was Urban Chaos. (Here's a hint: it wasn't great.)
Glib remarks aside, the reason you won't want to pass up on Arkham Asylum is the pseudo Batman: The Animated Series reunion. While not all of the major players return, the ones that count do: Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as The Joker and Paul Dini writing the dialogue. While the story isn't particularly amazing, the presentation drips atmosphere (and reeks of the developers being fans of System Shock 2/Bioshock) and yes, all of the hyperbole about Hamill's Joker performance in this is deserved.
Gameplay is very system-based. The "Freeflow" combat system is particularly fun, allowing you to string combos, reversals and finishing moves together with devastating effects. While button mashing in this system will get you adequate results, stringing attacks together with carefully-timed inputs is the way to go. Calculated and efficient, it makes you feel like, well, Batman.
Adding to the Batman feel are your ever expanding utility belt and the stealth system, which when combined by a skilled player allow some creative takedowns. Out-of-place, but strategically placed gargoyle heads allow you to perch and survey the landscape while plotting out elaborate ways to chain your wonderful toys together. My personal favorite is to take down a guard, then plant explosives nearby- once his buddies come to investigate, blow the charges and watch the excitement.
Batman also has the most high-tech cowl ever created, and it lets him shift into "detective mode", revealing weaknesses in walls, the location of any enemies and other threats, as well as allowing you to take snapshots of the environment to solve the 240 Riddler challenges strewn throughout Arkham. While these mostly end up being collectible hunts, there are some really interesting environments you can uncover only through following the Riddler's clues.
All in all, Arkham Asylum does exactly what it sets out to do; it creates the ultimate Batman simulator, and finally ends the Dark Knight's dearth of quality titles.
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Publisher: Warner Bros
Developer: 5th Cell
MSRP: $29.99
by: Jason 'OrigamiPanther' Love
Imagine that you are committing a bank heist to steal a floating star and you can use almost anything in the English vocabulary to help you get it. There’s just one catch: two cops stand between you and the star, and you can’t kill them to get it. So what do you do?
Scribblenauts, the latest DS title from 5th Cell, presents you with scenarios like this and countless others over the course of its hundred plus levels, and provides you with a vocabulary of tens of thousands of words to help you solve them. For example, enter “Pegasus” and the winged horse of myth will appear to fly you around. The possibilities for things to do and create are only limited by what you can think up; but even if you’re a walking Webster of words, not everything in the game reacts like you might think.
The hero of Scribblenauts, Maxwell, is controlled by tapping the screen to indicate where to go or with what object, animal, or person to interact. While this generally works, when things get a bit busy or crowded it would be nice to be able to pause the action and clean up the clutter. The items you create can also be a source of frustration. In the example above, you might want to put the cop in a cage. However, you cannot move the cop as you would the items you generate, and coaxing an irate cop into a steely prison isn’t as easy as putting a doughnut inside.
Even though the controls and item execution can be a bit off at times, Scribblenauts truly is a delightful and innovative game. No other game I’ve played is as open-ended, or embraces the idea of a “sandbox,” as much this title, and being able to equip a knight with an uzi never ceases to be fun. There are few enough games out there that allow players to create and shape their own kind of story. Being able to share that story with others, as Nick pointed out, makes for an uncommon co-operative experience.
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Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: Artificial Mind and Movement
MSRP: $59.99
by: Katrina 'Shadokat Regn' Pawlowski
WET: A messy job or task that involves ones hands becoming wet with blood. This isn't normally what one thinks of when it comes to the word wet, but the game makes sure that it's the first thing we see when starting up story mode. WET's hero is Rubi, a hardcore mercenary that doesn't take lightly to being used. The story revolves around Rubi's involvement with a certain family, the Ackers, who she helps, hurts, and avenges by the end. Her rough demeanor gives her a dimension most women in gaming don't even get; she'll finish off bosses by stabbing them through their special male place, she curses at doors, and she has no problem torturing, burning, and name-calling.
Visually, WET turned some heads with its sexy main character, film grain effect, and intriguing retro movie intermissions. But, is WET fun to play or is it all washed up?
The first battle in WET has Rubi infiltrate a "deal gone wrong" where an illegal organ trade leads to blood shed. While in combat, Rubi has a hard time aiming and dispatching enemies. She has a special John Woo approach to combat, where she flies gracefully through the air in a dive, runs along a wall to throw enemies off guard, or sliding across the floor unloading magazine after magazine into an unsuspecting foe. All of these moves are done very much in slow motion - which unfortunately got stale pretty quickly. Sword combat gave Rubi a cutting-edge chance to battle without slow-mo combat, but don't get too used to it. As the enemies grew stronger, Rubi's sword grew dull, and it became more of a baseball bat...and Rubi wound up dead.
She also has several types of gameplay modes in most of the stages. There's Rubi Rage mode, where the entire stage is a stylized red and black, and enemies disappear in a puff of white - this mode was easily my favorite, as it had the most enemies, and the most interesting visuals. Then the car chase mode, where Rubi is on a highway loaded with enemy cars. She has to jump from car, to truck, to car (almost The Matrix style) while shooting the enemies around her before they shoot her. Turret mode, which gave the player a first-person perspective while they dispatched a stage full of enemies and oil canisters. Finally, arena mode, which pits Rubi against an endless horde of enemies until she closes off the many entrances to the room.
Finally there was a strange, somewhat out of place platforming element to WET. When traveling to her target, Rubi often found herself having to scale buildings, jump across courtyards, and flipping on poles. While this type of platforming was cool to play, they were very broken in most of the game. You were given a "helpful guide" by holding the left trigger, and the possible destinations to jump, dive, or run-to were illuminated in red. This was helpful, but misleading on occasion. Inconsistencies in the distance that Rubi could actually jump made me question my own dives, sometimes she made it, sometimes she didn't - if she didn't, you got to start over, and potentially miss an entirely different jump.
Although the overall premise of the game was interesting; film grain, 1960's movie intermissions, stunts, and of course Eliza Dushku (as Rubi), the game just didn't feel as complete as expected. Broken platforming, frustration when Rubi's health got low the film grain got worse - guaranteeing death, coupled by redundant combat just didn't float well. Fun and mildly entertaining, but not quite fun enough to own.
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