Xbox 360

Battle High: San Bruno – Review

Sometimes the most difficult task to keep in mind when writing a review is to criticize the thing being reviewed for what it is and not for what it isn’t.  This is especially true when it comes to Indie games, as they’re always low budget and not meant to emulate or compete with blockbuster titles.  For a game like Battle High: San Bruno, comparing it to industry established fighters like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter IV is both pointless and unfair.  Battle High: San Bruno is a competent 2D fighter that has a distinctly classic feel both in terms of its visuals and sounds.

Train Frontier Express – Review

Here’s a quick disclaimer before this
review gets under way; I am not a train enthusiast, and a videogame train
simulation sounds like my personal idea of hell.  With expectations duly lowered, let’s take a
look at Train Frontier Express, which is available on Xbox Live as part
of the Indie Games Summer Uprising for
240 Microsoft points.

It’s difficult to call Train Frontier Express a
game when it doesn’t really present itself as one. Upon hitting “New Game,” you aren’t given any
kind of introduction to the game you’re about to play. No instructions, no intro cinematic, no
information of any kind to give you a clue about what you’re actually supposed
to do – just a big, green, empty map and a nagging feeling that you
need to do something train-related.

Cute Things Dying Violently – Review

Sometimes you discover a game which can be
summed up in just one sentence. Grand
Theft Auto is one popular example – it’s (fundamentally) about stealing
cars and committing crime. Grand
Theft Auto. Simple. Cute Things Dying Violently is a
good example of this kind of naming convention, except in this case it’s a
little more straightforward – the game is about cute things, dying violently.

Available on Xbox Live for a mere 80
Microsoft points, Cute Things Dying Violently sees you taking on the role of
omniscient god-being, shepherding and protecting hordes of small blue dots with
legs and arms (“critters”) through simple one-screen levels filled with traps
and hazards. The gameplay is simple: you
can flick critters by pulling back the right thumbstick and letting loose, or
drag them into position for a flicking by holding the left trigger. However, you can only move your crosshair
horizontally and not vertically, which adds a greater challenge and
stops you from dragging critters all over the level to make it easier for
yourself.

Modern Warfare 3-Themed Xbox 360 Console Will Hit Stores

Following in the
footsteps of Gears of War 3 and Kinect Star Wars, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
will also have its own special edition themed Xbox 360 console.  Microsoft and Activision announced that the
console will have a 320GB hard drive, which, along with the Gears of War 3 and
Star Wars console, will be the largest hard drive for an Xbox 360 to date.

Call of Duty Elite Premium Details Announced

During the keynote
speech at the Call of Duty XP fan convention, Activision Publishing CEO Eric
Hirshberg announced that the premium portion of the Call of Duty Elite
subscription service will cost $50 a year. Access to monthly DLC is the main
draw to this service, as Hirshberg noted that buying the DLC on its own would
cost $60. The DLC is planned to contain new modes and missions, along with
multiplayer maps, over a nine-month “DLC season.”

August Xbox Review Round-Up

The Xbox 360 had some big games drop this month, but also had a special promotion for indie titles as well that showed off some neglected games from smaller developers.  Not to mention the Summer of Arcade event which gave us several surprises in the form of downloadable arcade titles.  Let’s look back at the games our Xbox Department reviewed over the past month.

PAX Prime 2011: Mass Effect 3 Hands-On

The Penny Arcade Expo takes place twice yearly, in Seattle (PAX Prime) and Boston (PAX East). It’s a celebration of all things nerdy; video games are predominant, but PAX also caters to tabletop gamets, roleplayers, fans of the Penny Arcade webcomic and nerdcore music aficionados. In the words of Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, one of the founders of Penny Arcade, it’s the convention that he and his creative partner Mike “Gabe” Krahulik always wanted to go to.  I was able to get hands-on with a couple of games over at PAX this weekend. One of those was Mass Effect 3.