Results tagged “xbox 360” from Tech-Out

So it's another year of holiday gaming as parents try and figure out just what they should get their kids (or themselves), and I'm willing to bet that a console might be on the minds of those willing to camp out storefronts in Black Friday or battle each other for the last copy of Super Mario Bros. Wii left on the shelves.

With Sony's new pricing policy for their PS3, Xbox 360 bundles, and the Wii joining the moneymaking fracas, it's as if it were launch day all over again.

A few days ago while browsing, couple had asked me what kind of games they could get their thirteen-year old daughter on the Xbox 360 and told me what kind of titles she loved to play. They were buying an Xbox for her because her brothers were living elsewhere and wanted to keep her connected, but were wondering what she could play on her own.

After hearing them gush about Guitar Hero, I pointed out Beatles Rock Band. They said she already had it for another system. I asked if she liked to play first-person shooters or sports games and they said no.

I didn't know what to tell them, only that it was tough finding something for their daughter's tastes on the Xbox 360 that wasn't a first-person shooter or a sports game...both of which they said she was not interested in it, but her brothers were. In the end, they opted to get a flat screen TV instead. But if she had been a huge shoot 'em up fan like her brothers, she'd find more than enough to be happy about on the system.

Her particular needs were very specific, but the question remains the same for many parents and newcomers unfamiliar with all of the gaming jargon that kids, and perhaps as many adults, speak as a second language.

So here's a little help from Tech-Out on what to look for when you head out into the busy shopping season!

Hold on to your undergarments, Left 4 Dead 2 has you going for an adventurous romp through a variety of zombie wastelands. Four different survivors and five new campaigns, with one purpose - stay together stay alive.

Stranded in the swamps and townships the south, you control the fate of four survivors, Nick, Rochelle, Coach and Ellis. Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 has you battling your way through hordes of common zombies and special infected and only staying alive with the help of a surplus of weapons, ammunition and much needed health packs. Once again goal is the same - survive long enough to make it to the next safe house, or helicopter and move forward in the game.

Gamers rejoice, the much anticipated Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 game is finally out. Over 150 people waited out side the Best Buy store in San Bernardino for the Midnight release.

Dominic Diaz of Highland waits outside the San Bernardino Best Buy for the midnight release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Lines wrap around the Best Buy in San Bernardino during the Midnight release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

It seems as if Walmart is giving everyone a preview of holiday shopping deals. One day and one day only, in-store shopping specials which start at 8:00 am on Saturday November 7. Grab a 46" Panasonic Plasma HDTV for $788 or a Sony Blu-ray for $148 or even better a Xbox 360 Arcade Console with a $100 gift card. With that deal you can grab COD Modern Warfare 2 for free!! As usual, quantities are limited so good luck.

Editor note: There is no definitive shape, size or style of a game review, and this is proof. This piece from Derrick Hopkins not only reviews the game, but it also challenges it by comparing it to a very real, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Enjoy.

By Derrick Hopkins
Editor, deadpixellive.com/special contributor to Tech-Out

The Nurburgring is a 13-mile-long race track in located Nurburg, Germany. Nicknamed the "Green Hell", it was built in 1927, has 72 corners, constant elevation changes and is considered one of the most dangerous race tracks ever constructed. And for about $15, anyone can drive on it.

A lot of games have included the Nurburgring on their list of locales to simulate. The latest is "Forza Motorsport 3," which claims to be the most "realistic racing experience ever." "Forza 3" gives Xbox 360 owners the option of taking on the Nurburgring and dozens of other tracks in a collection of SUVs, exotic sportscars and purpose-built racers.

My brother and I had flown to Germany for the express purpose of driving on the legendary track. And we'd do it in a rented Mercedes C230 sedan.

Cool guns have become as much a part of gaming's fabric as health packs and life meters. Whether it's a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle or a machine gun that fires heat-seeking bullets, many gamers have their favorite brands of fire-spitting, death-spewing hardware. For some, it's even an obsession.

That's where the true power of Gearbox's Borderlands lies. It's the "Guns & Ammo" of gaming, appealing to our inner firearms enthusiast. Not only does it stroke our urge to search for, collect and play with new toys that go bang, it gives us the ultimate playground. Sure there's a plot and a story, but who cares when you have a high-powered rifle that shoots electric rounds?

Playing as the Master Chief in Halo has certain advantages: you have a regenerating shield, health, and are seen as a hero by many of your peers. So why would anyone want to play as a lowly, and somewhat nameless, ODST trooper?

Ever since the Wii appeared on the gaming scene it appears that the other 2 console giants are looking to emulate the success of Nintendo's oddly named white box with their own tentative forays into the world of motion control.

Sony showed more of it's light up, wand like controller at TGS, demonstrating that it wasn't just a dubiously shaped sword analogue, but that it could be used to manipulate environments in titles like Little Big Planet and thus add another level of play to such games. Whereas Microsoft is being slightly more adventurous with it's Project Natal which promises to open players up to a whole new dimension of gaming by doing away with the controller completely, allowing players to use there bodies to interact with the gaming world.

Simply advancing to the next generation of hardware doesn't necessarily mean that everything else will improve alongside it. Terrible movies made with megabucks still get out to theaters, anyone without two notes to rub together can still market themselves on MySpace in the hopes of landing a contract, and awful games occasionally land on shelves before the eyes of an unsuspecting audience.

Raven Squad's ideas sound good on the back of its box in blending both FPS and RTS elements together to create what could be a solid take on mercenary-led firepower in a hot zone. After all, that's one of the things that made Rainbow Six such fun on the PC for many would-be commanders. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter would also get into the act with its Cross Com tactical overview and squad command system which made anyone feel like an operator sitting somewhere deep within Langley before switching into the head of one of their own in the field.

With that kind of history already out there, Raven Squad seemed like it would be built atop the shoulders of giants. The bad news is that Raven Squad would manage to break that formula on every level.

If you took Nathan Drake from Uncharted and threw him into a more earthbound version of Metroid, you essentially get Chair's Shadow Complex, a joyful reminder that fun action doesn't always have to come in three dimensions. It's a game that makes you wonder why you spent $60 on another game that's either collecting dust or sitting under a choice beverage.

As an unsuspecting but extremely well-trained hiker who stumbles onto a terror group housing mechs and other world-bending weaponry, you'll find yourself crawling, swimming and running through a large base, slowly piecing together the story while trying to stay alive. If you remember Metroid from the NES days, you'll be right at home with the game's constant demand for exploration. You'll use a map that helps paint a path to your next objective, but you're also free to search every 2D nook and cranny of the base -- elevator shafts, ventilation shafts, large and small rooms filled with an assortment of bad guys, and of course, machines that fire missiles at you.

Perhaps my favorite part of the game is how you fight back. Jason (that's the name of the aw-shucks, who-me protagonist of the game) scrambles around the base finding any weapon he can. First, it's a pistol and his considerable melee skills (with the B button serving as all-purpose pain-bringer). Eventually, he stumbles onto pieces of the ultimate battle armor with features that include: boots that make you run like the Flash and enable you to charge through breakable objects, a Batman-like grappling claw, and thrusters.

You also have weapons that serve certain purposes, like breaking open the right doors. There are no keys in this game, only the right kind of firepower, which could be applicable to real life in some countries. The game tells you what the right kind of weapon for the job is via a color-coded system that hinges on the use of Jason's flashlight. You can turn the light on, shine it around, and eventually find a passage, panel or door that turns purple, red, yellow or green.

Enter the weapons, another part of the game I enjoyed. You've got your typical firearms, but you've also got grenades, missiles and foam charges. Yes, foam -- as in you fire a projectile, it hits, and expansive foam emerges. It's extremely useful and creative. Most of the time, you use it to gum up machinery so it breaks. However, you can also use this foam of the gods as an adhesive for the otherwise bouncy grenades you launch. Very handy against irritable, railgun-bearing machines of death.

There's also an whimsical, puzzle-like quality to the game as you figure out how each tool and weapon works, how one passage leads to another part of the base, how access is gained with the right combination of weaponry and skill. The visuals aren't bad either, giving the impression of a much larger world but managing to keep you focused going left to right. The only time the 2D plane is really broken is when Jason fires at enemies in the background.

I didn't find too much to pick at in this game, other than Jason almost seems a little too good at what he does. He's got Jack Bauer-like accuracy with any gun he has, and he also wins all of his melee battles. In other words, the game seems a bit on the easy side for the most part, the battles with choppers and mechs notwithstanding. While there's a map and plenty of enemies to play with, some might find the game's penchant for backtracking annoying. The game also sometimes magically replaces doors, panels, fallen objects or enemies in some rooms just for the hell of it -- I call it the magic maintenance crew, who was extremely popular in 2D gaming days of yore.

Overall, Shadow Complex is the most enjoyable Xbox Live Arcade experience I've had to date. It's simple, smart and slightly addicting - all the qualities an arcade game should have. Plus, it's the most fun you'll have with foam that won't get you in trouble with the law.

I just caught this browsing around on the 'net for news and can only think that 2009 is turning out to be the Year of the Leaked Game.

Halo ODST is a standalone expansion to the Halo series casting the player as an ODST trooper sent in to back up Master Chief with their own mission. The leak was already reported earlier as having come from France with Microsoft making the magnanimous decision NOT to ban early recruits, especially when they claimed that only about a hundred copies had actually gone out.

You can catch some of the footage below (which is all in French with English subs). It probably goes without saying that if you don't want to be spoiled before the September 22nd release date, don't watch it.

But now it looks like there's an actual distro out on the 'net as reported by several sites such as fan-based halo.bungie.org. It was only a matter of time before this happened, but you can bet that Microsoft won't be looking at this particular incident in the same way as the accidental release of legit copies above.

With the G.I. Joe movie out, the inevitable, action packed, tie-in was almost expected. It isn't the first time that the Joes have seen themselves in the hands of gamers, either, as their adventures have taken them to the Atari 2600, the Commodore 64, and even into the arcade with blistering, four player co-op against the nefarious plans of Cobra. The new game takes place right after the film finishes up and introduces a number of nostalgic pieces to tug on the memories of its fans from the 80s. Unfortunately, even for this fan, there seem to be a few accessories missing from this blister pack.

8monkeylabs and Phantom EFX have released a demo for Darkest of Days, a time traveling FPS which casts you as a survivor plucked from certain death in order to serve as an anonymous guardian of history thanks to advanced technology. Although history remembers you as a dead man making you prime material for recruitment, you'll soon be on the front lines in defending the timestream from someone else's idea of history.

The demo knows how to get things started with a bang and the engine wasn't kidding about boasting about filling the screen with lots and lots of soldiers (i.e. targets) for you to fend off. It includes the intro battle in which you relive your final moments at Custer's Last Stand, a training level, and a jump to the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War to save someone who shouldn't be in the fight.

And because you're working for a highly advanced group of time travelers, you might also have to take care of things the old fashioned way: with superior firepower...such as an assault rifle for breaking through Confederate lines...

Oh yes.

By the way, that circle thing that winds up around the reticle and the green block? That's the game's version of "active reload". By hitting the reload button as the bar passes through the green area, you finish reloading your weapon much faster. It varies depending on what you have, but in the case of the Springfield rifle, it cut roughly 2/3s of the time needed to get it ready for another shot.

But along with that awesome moment, the demo also has a few iffy things...some of the voice acting is a little bland and there are some invisible walls that are a bit too obvious...but the overall atmosphere in staging a big battle piece if great stuff. That, and this is only a small piece of a game that will take you from Antietam to Pompeii to WW2. The game is due out for both the PC and the Xbox 360 in September.

Polish developer Techland's Call of Juarez was a western-styled shooter filled with plenty of spaghetti-styled trappings and action that told of a story between outlaw-turned-preacher, Reverend McCall, and Billy Candle whose mixed Native American ancestry had made him something of an outsider on both sides of the fence in the Wild West. Centering around the legend of the treasure ransom paid by the Aztec Empire in the sixteenth century for Montezuma to Cortez, everyone was convinced that they would find it first...as long as they survived the standard curse that accompanies such vast amounts of loose change.

Bound in Blood is the prequel to the first game, telling the story of the three McCall brothers and how a crack shot and vicious bastard like Ray had turned to religion, although you needn't have played the first to get an idea of what is going on here. Putting you in Ray's shoes as a Confederate sergeant in 1864 defending a series of trenches against the Union army, it's clear that Techland will be spinning as much of a western yarn as it will put six shooters and rifles into the player's hands.

Being bad is often good fun, but when gameplay problems plague would-be conquerors with issues keeping their pawns from their appointed rounds, it quickly becomes a case of where if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

A few teaser videos have led up to an official announcement and interview on IGN that Piranha Games are developing a new Mechwarrior, unleashing howls of cautious joy among the FASA faithful. Jordan Weisman, one of the original co-founders of the Mechwarrior franchise and FASA's RPG workshop, will be teaming up with Piranha on rebooting the mechanized series for newcomers. With over twenty five years of lore, Weisman and Piranha's president, Russ Bullock, hope to ease players back into the world without having to rewrite it.

From Weisman's take on the idea, you won't have to know what the Third Succession War was, who the Clans are, or why the game takes place in 3015 to enjoy the feeling of piloting a walking war machine several stories high. Instead, the game takes place during a crisis point in Mechwarrior's long and storied history at just the right time for new arrivals to get a crash course on how to survive the world around it. Sounds like fantastic stuff and to read the interview, Weisman sounds just as dedicated to keeping Mechwarrior exciting for both veterans and the current-gen of players who may have never picked up any of the series' sourcebooks.

Anyway, here's the trailer courtesy of Youtube. The wait is almost over.

Here's Damnation, pressed onto a plastic platter for easier consumption.

Don't cross the streams. Go get her, Ray! Back off man ... I'm a scientist.

If you remember those lines, then you might be ready to believe "Ghostbusters: The Video Game" is the perfect title for you. But if not ... the experience will haunt you.

I shouldn't have been surprised at the treatment of the film after the first Godfather game from EA, but in playing through Godfather 2, I found myself impressed yet again with how they have continued to pillage the venerable film for ideas. If you're a fan of the films, I'd advise you to stay away, but if you're remotely curious about the game and are willing to stomach what it does to the franchise, then read on. This isn't going to be pretty.

If you have played an FPS, then you know how often that you have had to deal with that annoying little baddie dug in behind a column, corner, or wall while taking potshots at you with impunity. So you can imagine how satisfying it was to blow away the obstacle along with the trooper for a change in Red Faction: Guerrilla.