Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Expect more got less

RATING: 7/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360
GENRE: Arcade Style Adventure Game
RATED: Teen
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

SUMMARY: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 was suppose to be the sequel that allowed you to play all your favorite heroes and villains. Well they lied if anything Marvel Alliance 2 makes you mad by all the in game characters you can't play as. Marvel Alliance 2 also "slims" down on move selection and the fusions attacks are less then advertised. However putting that all aside Marvel Alliance 2 has a lot of the original game's enjoyments and a handful of cool new characters.

GAMEPLAY: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 gameplay is pretty much the same as the original with the addition of the fusion attacks. You and your team of super hero friends run around the map clearing swarms of enemies with button mashing combos. While you kill enemies you build up your fusion attack. Fusion attacks are superpower attacks that any two heroes can join up for. Fusion attacks are in abundance and should be used often as they reward you with bonus revive tokens. Unfortunately many character just combine for a generic fusion attack which though effective is really boring and lame. You really have to build your team around fusion attacks in order to get everyone involved. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 has so many characters you will interact with on both sides but can not play. Marvel Alliance 2 why do you tease us so you did all the work to make these characters except making them playable. Marvel Alliance 2 is also very buggy to the point that is not acceptable. Falling through ramps and getting stuck on the games art assets is to common and annoying. Marvel Alliance 2 also slims down the game in ways not need. Customizing your attacks were nonexistent and characters costume were limited to only two each. Why features like these got cut I do not know.

STORY: So the main advertisement of this game was what side would you choose. Would you be a prick and go pro registration or would you be a rebel and fight registration. This game was advertised as two games in one and again they miss lead us all. Without spoiling the story, in actuality the game really only splits for the middle third the beginning and the end are the exact game no matter which side you choose. As for the middle both sides are cookie cutters of the other so if you have played you basically have played both sides. This all an all added to the I was expecting more and got less frustration of the game. On the bright side you do get to fight against some of your favorite heroes which can definitely be rewarding.

CONTENT: So to make it simple paying extra money for download content that should of came with the original game is simple robbery. Do not expect me to pay $50 for your game to then pay another $20-$40 to really get the full game. Marvel Alliance 2 from the get go fell short on promises of a large playable character list and then now charge extra per additional character to make up for it.

Mini Ninjas: Fun in bite sizes

RATING: 6.5/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, PC
GENRE: Adventure Game
RATED: Everyone
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent for small kids

SUMMARY: Mini Ninjas is a cute kids version of the classic Adventure game. Mini Ninjas does not really do anything amazing or unique but it also does very little wrong. However Mini Ninjas does not do anything exciting or challenging it is the vanilla ice cream. Kids like vanilla ice cream and kids will enjoy Mini Ninjas.

GAMEPLAY: In Mini Ninjas you must defeat the evil samurai that have invaded the land using a crew Ninjas. Every Ninja has certain benefits and personal traits for example the Big Ninja of the crew is slow but does the best physical damage. This gameplay of switching Ninjas however takes to long and is not nearly as stratgeic as it should it be. Of course this is a kids game so the easy gameplay encourages that aduience.

STORY: My first impression of this game is that the story and theme would carry the game. Mini Ninjas has a great theme but does not use it. There is little interaction between the variety of ninja characters. I expected more and overall that lead me to my disappointment.

Batman: The Dark Night done right.

RATING: 9.5/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360
GENRE: Movie based Adventure Game
RATED: Teen
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Buy / Rent (only cause its a short game)

SUMMARY: May I say best video game ever made based of a Movie franchise. Batman Arkham Asylum does everything right making a fun, entertaining, and all around flawless performance. I don't care who you are pick us this game and play it. Only reason this game does not get a perfect score is because the game is really short.

STORY: Batman Arkham Asylum story is the perfect example of how to tell a story through a video game. I am not going to talk about story plotlines in particular because you need to play this game and experience in yourself but what I am going to do is explain what Batman did right. This is what I call the 5 golden rules of gaming story:

1.) Thou shall not take control away from the player.

Too many games get stuck on story telling and not entertaining. If your player is force to listen to dialogue or read instead of playing your doing it wrong. Batman from the opening credits tell story through the world of Arkham. Never is a player unable to move around you are constantly playing the game as the story is told to you. This is how you immerse a player into a world and make a great story.

2.) Thou shall not force story on the player.

Yes some people love lore and a novel of story to go with their game but many don’t. Forcing too much story down someone throat is just going to piss them off and bore them. This also almost always occurs while violating rule 1. So how do you please both sides, you use selective reading. Selective reading is where the player can choose to enjoy or pass up on the extra back story / lore. Batman does this through little goodies you find throughout the world. These goodies are not required to beat the game and can be completely ignored. At the same time a player can choose to collect all these and get the entire story. See everyone wins.

3.) Thou shall only show awesome cinema scenes.

The age of how many cinema scene my game has bragging is over. Technology now allows normally gameplay to look like the movies. With that said only a truly awesome cinema scene should be in your game because a cinema scene violates rules 1 and 2. Also less is more in this category as cinema scenes should be intermission breaks for your fingers. Batman had a few cinema scenes and they were amazing not only in quality but in story.

4.) Thou shall be unpredictable.

Like any good story you shouldn’t be able to predict what is going to happen next. The moment a player realizes your using a cookie cutter story line and how it is going to end the interest is gone. Keep the player guessing excited and on their toes. Batman story was filled with enough mystery that you did not know what is going to happen next.

5.) Thou character shall be meaningful.

Players do not want to baby sit characters they could less about. If the player is not attached to a character that character better be a standard grunt. If your character has a unique image they better have unique story and personality. Villains we must hate Heroes we must love and comrades we better want to protect. Batman characters were not only classic but each of them served a purpose. Even some of the scientist and security guards who were important had names, faces and story.

GAMEPLAY: Batman Arkham Asylum designed a fluent gameplay experience around being Batman. Gameplay can be broken up into three categories, combat, exploration and investigation. Combat is the bulk of game as you must fight your way through the Asylums many goons and villains. Combat in this game is not about direct contact but stealth Batman style. You quickly learn that Batman can take a beating but will not run in to a room full of guards armed with machine guns. Batman is smarter then that and so must you your wide range of gadgets to grapple, climb, and crawl your way to ambush your opponents. After all you are the dark knight and your specialty his taking out enemies before they know what hit them. There is really no one way to take out an enemy be it an inverted takedown or an explosive mine the world is your play ground. When Batman does encounter some foes in hand to hand combat you can't help but to fell if you are really Batman. Batman combos his way threw enemies keeping them off balanced and eating Bat-a-rangs for breakfast. Exploration is also tided directly into combat as you must explore your surroundings for points of exploit. Gargoyles, ledges, and vents will help batman avoid many obstacles in the world and add a very unique feel to level exploration. Batman doesn’t need doors. Arkham Island is a great world to explore and is littered with extra goodies for the completist. Investigation is a much smaller gameplay aspect of the game but still serves an important role. A few times during your journey will you need to play Sherlock Holmes and find clues to track people down. This investigation gameplay is a good addition and provides a tribute to Batman's detective qualities. I really only have two complaints about gameplay. One Batman’s detective view, can see through wall and important things highlighted, is obviously better then a normal view so from a strategic point the game gives no reason to turn it off. The only reason a player turns it off is because they want to enjoy the games artistic beauty. Second though the boss battles were good and fun they were not climax points in difficulty or combat. Your final boss should be the pinnacle of combat gameplay.

CONTENT: Batman’s only weak point is that the game is very short. Now having a short game is not bad but it helps to get more bang for your buck. Batman is loaded with lots of extra content that helps make up for its short length. The many collectible items give you a scavenger hunt replay value and if you are into lore and story they are very rewarding. Batman also has a series of challenge modes that can be very addicting. These challenge modes are short scenarios they capture the best part of the gameplay.

Ghostbusters: Making a game work out of a movie

RATING: 7/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, Wii
GENRE: Movie based Adventure Game
RATED: Teen
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

SUMMARY: Ghostbusters is a successful Movie franchise that has been made into a successful game. Gameplay though slow at first does pick up to an entertaining paced half way through the game. If you have never seen the movies you probably will not know whats going on but the game's story is really not that important. Capture ghost and save the day is basically all you need to know. Ghostbusters had some flaws in it but the very cool looking characters and environments (sorry wii players you miss out on this) make up for a lot.

GAMEPLAY: Ghostbusters takes a small portion of the movie, the actual use of the guns, and creates a whole gameplay around it which is very impressive. At the beginning you only have one option for your type of gun stream which leads to very slow pace gaming (Its like fishing action is slow). However the gameplay grows on you as you have encounter more enemies and earn different choices for attacks. At the end though the game designer just punted and you quickly learn only two of the four types of gun streams are really necessary. Also the clue searching tool, basically a hot and cold game for finding stuff, often leads to you missing the action or getting ambushed by a ghost. Why use a tool that makes life more annoying and harder to reach your goal. To sum it up overall decent success but much room for improvement.

STORY: So Ghostbusters brilliantly does not try to redo any of the movies but simply continues on with the same IP. All the important characters are their and you as the new recruit makes sense. Ghostbuster however makes two major mistakes with the story. First a lot of the story is done in boring talking cut scenes where you have lost all game control. Second the plot is never really explained there are names, people and places your suppose to know about but really have no clue and just go along on the ride. In short your unattached. The dialogue all tends to drag the game down more character interaction is needed.

CONTENT: Ghostbusters does the now traditional amount of content (Story mode, Achievements, online play, video footage and gallery). Story mode is what it is and is the expected length of about 15 hours. Achievements are your standard group with a few chuckles here and there. Online play is entertaining for friends but lacks the competition on competitiveness to really shine on its own. Video footage is a given as this game has about 12 cut scenes you might want to replay. Gallery is probably the most interesting as it gives hardcore fan lots of collectible to find and funny haha moments.

Bigs 2: The modern NBA JAM of baseball

RATING: 8/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, Wii
GENRE: Arcade Baseball
RATED: Everyone
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Buy / Rent

SUMMARY: Bigs 2 is a fun Arcade style baseball game that focus on gameplay fun more then realism. Bigs 2 has a fun engaging Career mode and fun multiplayer quick play. Bigs 2 only has a few balance and feature holes that hopefully will get filled with Bigs 3 and for now can be over looked. In short Bigs 2 keeps the game simple and fun. Definitely recommend buying or renting this game.

Bigs 2 is the first ever sports video game I have enjoyed because Bigs 2 finally did a baseball game right. So most sports games try to recreate a perfectly realistic simulation of the actual sports. This is not fun with I want to play a sports for real I will go outside with my friends and play. Also for the sport of Baseball (my favorite sport) the realistic complexity makes for clunky/sloppy game mechanics that lead to crappy game play. Bigs 2 rights this ship by being an Arcade style Baseball game aka its a game not reality. All the rules and normal baseball gameplay is there but it is wrapped in action pack power ups and quick time events.

Bigs 2 has two major game modes the career mode and the exhibition game mode. The career mode you get to create your own customize player and play as him from rookie year to the hall of fame. The customization of your player is well put together and you get to choose cool things like your batting stance and your victory posse. The biggest downfall of this feature is you can only be a position player which is a major downfall. I really wanted to play as a pitcher and not being able to took a lot away from the game. Your player would also grow stronger through out the game making it really feel like your creating a star. Exhibition game mode is just like it sounds it a way to quickly play a game with your favorite players against a friend or AI opponent. The only downfall of this is that Bis 2 failed to provide up to date rosters which was annoying as many players where missing or inaccurately rated.

Like the classic NBA JAM Bigs 2 rewards players with unnatural power up abilities to make the game more action pack and entertaining. Bigs 2 could use some more player vs player quick time competition but that's just the nature of baseball vs basketball. Bigs 2 also only reward these power ups to characters that have high stats in that category. So don't expect to make a magnificent catch with a character that has low fielding stats. The two major batting power ups in the game are the Big Slam and the Grand Slam. Both or deadly power ups that can evaporate what felt like a decent lead. Pitching has a similar power ups pitch mode which I rarely used cause when it cam down to it is was almost always a better move to save power ups for hitting.

When Batting the player has two type of swings a contact swing and a power swing which is all you really need. You can also angle your swing to aim where you would like to hit the ball. Batting is all about timing and the better your timing the better the hit. Also like the real sport players have power areas in which they can hit the ball better from. So if your batter is an inside powerhouse balls on the inside of the plate will be hit harder. Players will also be able to use their power up meter to get focus hits.

Pitching has a little more you can do with it. Based on your pitcher you will have a collection of up to four pitches they can pitch. The best strategy is to mix up the type of pitches plus location to keep the hitters off balanced. Throwing pitches on the corners is normally your best bet but it dose come at the risk of giving the batter a power up for throwing a ball. Their is no complex process to pitching an accurate pitch you simply have one meter that fills up and you try to stop it right at the top. If your perfect you throw a perfect pitch if you screw up your pitch will miss its target. Also pitchers will lose pitches and get tired if batter gets lots of hit off them.

Fielding is where most of the quick time arcade style of game play comes in. A normal hit require you to simply get your player to the ball to make a play. For hard hits or skilled attempts at the ball the player will be prompt with a quick time event that will test your reflexive skills. These events are self explanatory and effective in keeping the game interesting.

Prototype: Unstable Fun

RATING: 7.5/ 10
PLATFORM: Xbox 360 / PS3
GENRE: Action Adventure
RATED: MATURE
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

So Prototype is hyper active ADHD brother of Infamous. Where Infamous had its steadily paced combat and storyline Prototype is simply about ripping the city apart in high speed combat. Prototype though similar to Infamous in many ways takes a completely different style of gameplay. Infamous is like a latin jazz piece where Prototype is your heavy metal rock, it comes down to your gameing style. In Prototype you play as a super human/mutant that can be describe as a Superman vampire zombie. Your not necessarily a villain but then you do kill countless people to regain health and steal identities. Combat in Prototype is mass chaos where you get to use your massively overpowered abilities to take on countless enemies. When things get to crazy you flee for your life regaining life and then return to the battle fresh. The mass chaos works for this type of game because of its ADHD flow but the mass chaos does take away any depth in gameplay. Also your power ups can make the game one sided. When you have a super powerful long range weapon that makes u pretty much invincible game balance is destroyed and the challenge is gone. Overall though I scored this game well because my little bro simply loved it and prove the point that prototype is a 10 out of 10 for the right audience. For me however I give it 7.5 out of 10 and I suggest you at least renting it.

A Wii Knock Out

RATING: 8/ 10
PLATFORM: Wii
GENRE: Arcade style Boxing
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Buy / Rent

Punch-Out is one of the better classic remakes for the Nintendo Wii. Punch-Out keeps true to the original but adjusts to the modern powers of the Wii. I was truly impressed that finally there is a Nintendo Wii game that I could stay up to the wii hours in the morning playing with my friends (yeah for puns). However hardcore gamer should be warned this is much more of an Arcade game than a Boxing game. The game play of Punch-out focuses on dodging your opponents moves and then countering. There is very little time when you get to go on the offense. As the game progress to the harder AI opponents it really becomes a game of reflexes and endurance then over all skill. If you want to experience a real life boxing game I would avoid this game. Of course Punch-Out never really trys to disguise itself as a boxing game, straight from the get go you learn that strategy is not needed. I'm sure many younger kids will enjoy this game but parents beware they might get frustrated by the later difficulty of the game. Punch-Out also optionally uses the Wii fit board but unfortunately it is only a disadvantage to using it so why bother. The stylized art and characters are a perfect match for the Wii and the games type as you battle stereotypical character from around the globe. In short however Punch-Out like many Wii games is just way to short. It is literally like a 4-5 hours story mode with a couple other option like training, online and multiplayer. The multiplayer did make a much better game play experience as it felt a lot more like a boxing game than a reflex challenge. Punch-Out had so much potentially to have a wide variety of minigames, playable character and customization that all just got left out for no reason. I was generous to give this game and 8 out of 10 cause of Punch-Out only reaches the bar and does not pass it. My hopes is that the game developers will make a sequel that will add the much needed depth to the game play and overall experience.