I’ve just posted up reviews of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 for the Xbox Live Arcade.

The All Encompassing review at Evil Avatar

The Co-Op review at Co-Optimus.

The bottom line is, you shouldn’t be reading this post right now, you should be playing GW2!

Some of the machines offer free play, but others will be asking for your virtual quarters.  How do you fill your fantasy pockets with these coins?  By completing goals on the tables and competing in the Williams Tournament.  These tasks can range from successfully unlocking multi-ball on a table to achieving a certain score or hitting a specific marker.  The Williams Tournament will have you competing in successive tables to achieve certain scores.  The tournament isn’t for the weary either, while the first 2 tables or so the scores are fairly easy – the last bunch will have you pounding on flippers for hours.

Pinball is the original button masher, with many people simply content to keeping the ball out of the bottom of the machine.  Truly skilled players know there are certain targets and goals used to achieve maximum score.  Every table in the game offers a detailed walk through of every scoring location and goal to help get the most out of your pinball experience.  This is a very welcome addition to the game as I know I never have any idea what to do in a pinball game.

With 10 tables and up to 4 players you’ll have plenty to keep you busy in the virtual arcade.  A game of pinball is something that never gets old, it’s something you can always go back to.  I found Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection strangely addictive, almost entrancing and  it’s hard to argue with a $30 price tag for something with mostly infinite replay ability.  Just don’t tilt the table.

Score:  4 out of 5

Front Lines: Fuel of War wastes no time dropping you into the middle of the action.  Firefights are intense and enemies are brutal.  Much like the multiplayer game, you need to progress through the maps capturing crucial choke points or destroying enemy objectives.  In certain missions this offers something rarely seen in a story based game, the enemy can actually recapture an area you already captured.  This creates a back and forth battle, or the shifting of the front lines. (see what I did there?)  On top of the standard weapons that you can pick up, you’ll also find yourself getting gadgets and vehicles.  How about a drone that you can steer into battle guns blazing?  Perhaps a remote controlled helicopter that can even fire missiles?  Or my personal favorite, a little RC car that you drive underneath a tank to self destruct…taking the tank with it.  Of course controlling these little drones has its disadvantage…namely your player sits exposed while controlling it.  There’s a handful of vehicles available to drive, anything from tanks to jeeps and helicopters.

From a presentation perspective the game’s story is moved along by a reporter that is tagging along to cover the war.  It’s worth commending the developers for really trying to put a decent story with emotion behind the game.  Every mission is broken up into sub sections, and at times key events are played out in some pretty intense cut scenes.   The game looks decent enough, being built on the Unreal Engine 3, but there are times when certain textures look low resolution.  The frame rate is solid though, so I guess that makes up for it.  Front Lines makes excellent use of positional audio, which really helps create the sense of being on the battle field.

Some people might find the controls a little floaty, and there is a lack of in depth customization options, but overall I never felt like I was fighting the controller. If there’s a downside to the single player, its that the game is incredibly short, taking between 5 and 6 hours to complete.

Front Lines multiplayer on the Xbox 360 allows up to 32 players to play on dedicated servers.  Yes…the game has dedicated servers.  The main game mode is called Front lines, and it plays out like a Battlefield match in which players must capture strategy points to help move and hold the front line.  Your character is divided up into a class and subclass.  The main class defines your weapons while the subclass defines your tools and gadgets.  As you complete objectives and kill the enemy you’ll level up your subclass, unlocking more items to use in battle.  After you die you can redeploy with the same load out, or choose a new one.  Your upgraded subclass is available for you through the entire match, but resets from game to game.  This helps keep the playing field level, while still encouraging good play.    Front Lines strongly encourages team play, in fact, you can’t even chat with anyone unless you join a squad.

Of course an online game is only as good as its community, and unfortunately right now things are a mixed bag.  At times matches can be great, with players working together and a pretty even battle.  At other times it’s a disjointed mess with spawn campers ahoy.   The other problem is reliability, I had random disconnection problems and some lag issues in matches – even on the dedicated servers.

All in all I really enjoyed the single player of Front Lines.  I dare say it rivaled Call of Duty 4 in terms of intensity.   With a solid but short single player campaign and a multiplayer mode that has a lot of potential this game is on the cusp of being great.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Like I said before, there are several scenes and moments in the game that will simply put a smile on your face. Sneaking up behind enemy soldiers and knifing them in the back is one. Launching explosive arrows into groups of unsuspecting enemies is another. But there are times in the game where things are simply so unbalanced that it’s just downright frustrating. Part of the problem is the screen shake in the game. When you take hits from gunfire your viewport is skewed a bit. The bigger problem is when an explosion goes off near you and knocks you off your feet. You become disoriented, and can’t shoot or move for a few seconds. The even bigger problem here is most times an enemy will be able to get off another rocket or grenade before you even get back to your feet, thereby knocking you back down before you really get back up. Before you know it your screen is a blurry red mess and suddenly you are dead.
The single player campaign was mildly entertaining, as was the story. There’s a solid voice acting cast with the likes of Ron Perlman as the cynical sidekick Slade. The game features a pretty indepth multiplayer mode complete with dinosaurs that roam the playing field. There’s also a small co-op campaign online which consists of 3 short missions. It would have been nice if the actual campaign was co-op, but what we get is pretty solid.

Turok is a game that many people will overlook, and while it’s not something everyone should play, fans of shooters or the previous titles will enjoy what the game has to offer.

Score: 3 out of 5

The Controls on the DS allow for a few options. The first has the game displaying on the top screen while you use the d-pad (or buttons for us lefties) to move and the stylus on the bottom screen to aim. There’s a small ship icon which corresponds to your ship up top, and moving the stylus around it shoots in the appropriate direction. The second method has the game screen at the bottom and has you using the stylus directly on the game board. The problem I found with this is it can be difficult to see the action on the screen. The final method allows you to have the screen on either top or bottom and you use the d-pad and buttons in a familiar dual analog stick type fashion. I actually found this method to be the best once I go the hang of rolling my thumb along the buttons to aim.

Besides a bit of slowdown the only flaw I found with the game is the sound. While it does an accurate job of recreating the effects, there seems to be a limit as to how many sound cues the DS can play at once. This causes you to miss critical cues of different types of enemies spawning. The Nintendo DS and Wii version of Galaxies allow you to connect the two to unlock an additional galaxy. The galaxy has one of the greatest levels in it which has a giant black hole in the middle that can’t be killed along with constantly spawning enemies. It’s an interesting and hectic challenge.

For Geometry Wars addicts this is the version of the game you need to have. The pick up and play nature of the game is perfect for the DS. On top of that you get online leader boards via the Nintendo WiFi connection to feed your competitive side. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some isosceles triangles to blast apart.

Score: 4 out of 5

Buy it @ Amazon.

The basic premise of the game to cook fast, and to cook accurately. The idea is you are presented with a bunch of recipes, and each recipe is broken down into a step. Each step is basically a mini-game. Does the recipe call for diced onions? There’s a little dicing mini game to play. Does the recipe require skewered eel? Then there’s a little eel skewering mini game. Perhaps you need to blend corn? You get the idea. With 80 some recipes in the game, there are over 150 different mini games. And while the variety of the mini-games follow a few basic patterns, there seems to be enough variety to keep you interested for quite some time. From dicing, stirring, chopping, tossing, spreading, and combining ingredients each mini-game has a unique hook to it that is strangely addicting. Some games require a memory type mechanism, others require your ability to recognize blurry pictures while most of them are basically using the stylus to mimic some sort of motion. Cooking Mama 2 has you cooking not only with Mama, but Mama’s friends for a variety of different recipes. Each step in a recipe has a set time it needs to be completed in, and the faster and more accurate you complete the step the higher your rating is. Eventually you’ll earn medals and unlock content to help customize your kitchen and cook new recipes. Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends also has the ability to have a cooking contest with friends using just 1 cartridge. Just think, you can have your very own Iron Chef Cook-off without the mess!

While the game is strangely addictive, there are a few quirks. In some of the mini-games it isn’t very apparent what the game wants you to do. I also would have loved to see the actual recipes for the dishes so you can actually cook the food (in real life). And while Cooking Mama 2 is a solid title on it’s own, but from what I hear it’s not all that different from the original.

Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends is your quintessential Nintendo DS game. It’s quick pickup and play design, combined with some inventive uses for the stylus make it strangely addicting and fun. If you are looking for a game that’s a great distraction, and to fill those few minutes while you nuke a pizza in the microwave, look no further than Cooking Mama 2. And who knows…soon you might be cooking “Even better than mama!”

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Buy it at Amazon!

Galaxies is broken up into, surprise, galaxies! Each galaxy offers different planets to unlock and each planet has it’s own point total goals, enemies, and layouts. The layouts of the levels can vary between your normal square to one of many non standard shapes, both big and small. There’s lots of neat little things that happen on levels. Some levels have moving geometry which you have to work around. Others have enemies that lay down mines which you can trigger to set off chain reactions. And of course, there’s just the tried and true GW formula of shoot everything and never stop moving.

The one main problem with Galaxies is the game is a dual analog shooter without dual analog sticks. The developers made an admirable attempt to utilize the Wii controls to kind of use a point and shoot hybrid type control scheme. Unfortunately the Wii controller simply can’t provide a smoother circular motion and feels like a constant battle to aim and shoot where you want to. The Classic Controller becomes a necessity, but even then, I find the analog sticks and the hard corners of it detrimental to the fast pace of Geometry Wars.

Despite the controller flaws, the game is still Geometry Wars at heart, and that’s a good thing. The planets are very intuitive, and the unlocking nature of seeing what happens next is incredibly addictive. Add in co-op and versus play and the ability to link the game up to the DS and you’ve got a full value package at $39.99. The bottom line is this… if you are an arcade shooter fan – you need this game.

Score:
4 out of 5

After the first round, incorrect answers will cost you a penalty in points. What’s interesting here is there’s a constant strategy going on. There’s a risk/reward scenario with answering fast. If you are 100% confident in an answer, and answer quickly you’ll get max points, of course if you are wrong you’ll lose max points. On the other hand perhaps you are on the fence between two answers, just let the timer ride out a bit and answer. Sure you won’t gain as many points if you are right, but if you are wrong you won’t lose as many either.

As for the games themselves there seems to be a decent variety. In the screening mini game you’ll watch a 2 or 3 minute clip of a famous movie and then are asked a series of questions regarding the movie and the clip specifically. Other mini games have you unscrambling words to make movie titles or filling in the blanks to finish off famous quotes. Some of my favorite games start with a blank sheet and then being to fill in details that describe some movie. There’s a few different varieties here. In one game it starts with a blank sheet and begins to draw a cartoon sketch that somehow represents a movie. In another, it starts with the base of a movie poster and begins to fill in objects to create the official one. There are numerous other games as well with everything from naming an actor/actress from their high school picture to games that give you word clues about a movie.

Scene It utilizes a save system so that it will limit the same questions/clips that come up in play sessions which should help the longevity of the title. The game itself is a great party game and can easily be enjoyed by anyone, in fact, my non-gamer wife handily beat me in the few matches we played together. The game has an MSRP of $60 which is about $20 more than the retail version of the board game. While it might seem high, the fact that it comes with 4 controllers and contains hi-def material makes it an overall pretty good deal. There’s no word on whether there will be download packs to expand the game, but with the popularity of Marketplace, and the video marketplace it seems like a no brainer. For those of you looking for the next great party game, look no further than Scene It.

Score: 4 out of 5

The PC version of Gears of War supports Microsoft’s Games for Windows Live platform. Unfortunately, much like Halo 2 for Vista, it doesn’t support any cross platform play to extend the community. This is also the first title that allows for GFWL on XP machines. This was a huge complaint with the original GFWL titles as a lot of gamers didn’t want to install Vista. The game does support DX10, though I can’t really tell the difference between that and the DX9 mode visually. The real draw of the new version of Gears is the new chapters of content. Many noticed that there wasn’t exactly a smooth transition between Act IV and Act V, and these chapters help fill that void.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve played any Gears, in fact it’s probably been a good 8 or 9 months since I touched single player. I forgot just how beautiful the game looks and how well it plays. Running the game at 1600×1200 with all the details on high shows off some really impressive visuals, and while the core of the game looks the same as its 360 counterpart, it looks to have a few extra layers of polish and smoothness on the PC.

Of course with a PC version comes the mouse and keyboard controls, and while you can still plug in your 360 controller to play, the KB/M do feel completely natural. There is a trade off of course, and the lack of rumble with a KB/M setup is definitley missed, especially in such a visceral game. I thought that perhaps the KB/M would make the game too easy, but I still found myself restarting at those difficult parts over and over. The only advantage I really found with the KB/M was that it was easier to hit moving targets while sniping.

Gears of War for Windows is virtually identical from the 360 version up until Act V. The beginning of the Act starts with Marcus and the crew needing to restore power to a bridge to get the APC across to the train. There’s some great dialog here that really fills in some plot holes, and of course the grand finale is a battle with the big ass Brumback monster. The new content should take you a little under 2 hours to complete, and I dare say its some of the most polished and well designed levels in the game.

Gears of War for windows does have some technical problems. There are some frame rate jitters and drops here and there, it’s not consistent and it’s not often, but it is annoying. I also hit a few glitches with audio being dropped with dialog, and I hit a spot or two where I got stuck in walls. All of these things were pretty minor though, and didn’t necessarily take away from the gameplay experience.

The multiplayer now has an additional game mode, as well as 3 news maps and a level editor. The Games for Windows Live stuff sort of complicates things. With player matches, ranked matches, and a server browser it can kind of be confusing to figure out just where to start in multiplayer. On top of all that, only certain sections are available depending upon your [i]subscription level[/i]. You can play direct matches, co-op, and server browsing matches with any Silver or Gold account. Matchmaking and ranked matches can only be played with Gold accounts though. Because of this all multiplayer achievements can be earned in non ranked player matches. I know this was a big complaint on 360 version, and it really brings in to question just what the hell is going on with GFWL, especially in the face of what Valve has done with the Steam Community.

Technical glitches aside, this really feels like a complete Gears of War game. The additional chapters really fit well into the overall story, and almost feel like they were cut from the original game due to time constraints. It’s an absolute crime that these won’t be available to 360 owners as DLC. This was my 4th time through the game now and it’s still a solid and fun experience. And while I think some core PC Gamers will complain the game is too “console-y”, this is one title that shouldn’t be missed.

Score:
4 out of 5

Buy @ Amazon $49.99

The first of these elements is color. Scattered throughout the levels are various doors and switches which require your blob to be a certain color to activate. To change the color of your blob simply roll through a red, green or blue color sprayer. The strategy comes in when you need to create colors like yellow, purple, or sky blue to reach a goal. How do you create these colors? You’ll need to split your mercury blob by running into a corner and take each piece into one of the color painters. Roll your mercury pieces back together and voila! A new color. Color isn’t the only way to change your mercury. You can heat it up with steam to go faster, or slow it down by chilling it. Overall these elements all get combined in some way shape or form to create some interesting puzzles in the levels.

Speaking of levels, the game contains almost 150 of them spread across a handful of themed labs. There’s plenty of content here to keep you busy, though if you’ve played the original I’ve heard that all the content isn’t unique to this version.

The controls are top notch with the Wii-Mote. While holding the controller classic style you simply tilt and rotate it to tilt and rotate the board and move your mercury blob. It works well, it feels natural and it seems like exactly the kind of game the Wii-mote was designed for.

Graphically the game is simple, but it looks decent enough with a sort of pseudo-cell shaded look. There are some nice effects, and the game does support 480p 16:9.

For $19.99 you get a very full valued package. Above and beyond the single player there are multiplayer party games like a paint territory game, races and even some puzzles. The game allows you to save ghosts and replays of your best runs and features local leaderboards. Honestly I really can’t find a fault in this game, perhaps it gets a little repetitive during long play sessions, but other than that I’m really enjoying the title. In the age of $60 games a $20 title like this is a steal. It’s a game that anyone can enjoy, and one that truly uses the Wii-mote well.

Score:4.5 out of 5