Xbox 360

Stacking: The Lost Hobo King DLC Review

DLC in games can range from a brilliant add on to something completely unneeded, which can even occasionally tarnish a bit of the original games reputation. If you don’t believe me, just ask Mass Effect or Assassins Creed 2. In most of those cases, the DLC is released mere months or even weeks after the original’s release which seemingly means the developer was crafting the DLC while also doing some work on the full game, and that’s one warning sign that the upcoming DLC will not be up to snuff with its full game brethren. Stacking, the glorious Xbox Live Arcade Game released back in early February, has received its first piece of DLC, titled The Lost Hobo King. Can The Lost Hobo King avoid all the previous demerits I mentioned about early DLC? Or will it be just another forgotten piece of content left for dead on the Xbox Live Marketplace?

Dynasty Warriors 7 (Xbox 360) Review

Another year means another Dynasty Warriors game.  I have to admit I was kind of excited to see this coming out.  I was hoping that the team at Koei would be able to put together a great Dynasty Warriors package since they have had time to craft their in-game engine to take full support of the Xbox 360.  Were my expectations too high or did Koei hit it out of the park? 

The Dynasty Warriors 7 story takes place after the fall of the Han Dynasty where the Three Kingdoms are fighting against the Chinese Emperor.  This results in huge battles that span across countries in an attempt to overthrow the opposition.  The story gets confusing and is really hard to follow to a certain point.  If you are playing a Dynasty Warriors game, there is a good chance you are not playing it for the story.  You will probably end up skipping most of the little story to begin with.  The story seems to be just like another Dynasty Warriors game, so there is nothing new or interesting about it.

A Quick Look at Mortal Kombat Legacy

If that little short film didn’t peek your interest for the upcoming web series based on a reimagining of the MK fiction, then maybe this will. The portrayed characters are confirmed as Jaxx and Kano, who have had somewhat of a documented rivalry in the game story. While the video doesn’t reveal a great deal about the series, it’s clear that any supernatural elements regarding the fighting are gone, which is a good thing as that can only really be pulled off well in the video games. With MK9 only a couple of weeks away from release and MK: Legacy debuting on the 12th of April, this month seems to be the month for MK fans. I for one am extremely excited about both of these — it’s been a long time since Mortal Kombat made an impact and hopefully the combination of these two should do the trick. Check out the clip below and mark your calendar!

NBA Jam is On Fire This Year

EA Sports may not be delivering a roster update to NBA Jam on consoles, but they are planning a sequel. The publisher announced recently that they’re working on a new installment called NBA Jam: On Fire Edition.

The new Jam will include better AI, a co-op “Road Trip” mode, where you and a friend go up against legends and current stars from every NBA team, and some enhancements based on fan feedback. The other interesting part to this story is that it will be a downloadable release only on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

MVC3 Shadow Pack 02 Impressions

Marvel Vs Capcom 3 has been steadily updating and getting new additions since its release back in February. New characters, costumes, and modes of play have been keeping things fresh and exciting for those who really want to invest in the game. Recently, however, there’s been some rather unpopular decisions made by Capcom regarding their newest fighting sensation.

“Shadow Mode” is a gametype where you select your team of heroes and battle against AI opponents programmed with the playstyles and patterns of developers and producers. The first pack had you fighting producer Ryota Niitsuma and associate producer Akihito Kadowaki, as well as an unnamed QA Tester. The second pack has you fighting…the computer again. This is where the problem begins.

Franchise Recap: Resident Evil

Welcome to Franchise Recap, a new feature here on
Player Affinity where we take a look at the core instalments in a long running
series. For this first edition, I’m going to look at the Resident Evil series and
how it has changed over the years as well as its impact on the gaming industry
and where it could be heading for the future. 

Resident
Evil (1996) 

The first
entry in the series is widely recognised as the pioneer of the survival horror
genre for its time. The game inspired many developers to try and recreate the
same experience but there was simply nothing like Resident Evil back in 1996.
The atmosphere is still this games strongest aspect, it managed to inspire fear
in the player due to clever use of static camera angles showing you just enough
but at the same time concealing every corner. The structure went against everything
for the time, you had to conserve every item you had in order to survive and wandering
around the mansion when you were low on supplies created excellent tension. The
boss encounters were always the highlight of the act

Have Games Really Gotten Easier?

You really
don’t have to look very hard nowadays to find someone who will say games these
days are a lot easier compared to the days of the arcade. This is definitely a
point that needs a little clearing up, most of the time the notion that modern
games are easier is simply because the player has more health, frequent
checkpoints or (wait for it…) being able to save your game. While these
points are certainly valid, these things do make games easier, but more often
than not these points are thrown out with very little knowledge behind their
appearance in games.

The most
important aspect regarding this topic is also the most simple. It’s just a case
of storage space, modern games take up several gigabytes of space which is
literally thousands of times bigger than the games of yesteryear. Those lovely
cartridges back in the 80’s and early 90’s had anywhere between 8 and 64 MB to
store the entire game on, if you know anything about modelling or programming
then you know that is not much at all. Especially when you consider all the
technology that exists now which is designed to keep things as efficient as
possible didn’t exist back then.