Beaten: Cthulhu Saves The World (360)

 Well of course after playing the prequel Cthulhu Saves Christmas last year on the Nintendo Switch, it wouldn’t be long before I dusted off the original Cthulhu Saves The World, still there on my XBox 360, downloaded shortly after its release in 2010.  Attracted to the weird title and finely-crafted gameplay and presentation, I barely played it then but knew it was great, deciding to save it for when the time was right. 

Sixteen years later, my XBox 360 still chugs along, its ring redded when Red Dead Redemption booted up, its hard drive upgraded with a magic one-use cable gifted by an old friend, its ethernet port destroyed by a power surge in the early 2010s, its disc drive door requiring a paper clip and some luck to open, and Cthulhu Saves The World still stored on its internal hard drive. Microsoft's store for the XBox 360 has long since closed and the game cannot be obtained anew (it survives and is available on PC), but there it sits among my sloppily-crafted small group of downloaded XBox 360 games that I am hoping to have there forever.

Microsoft scares me though. Cthulhu Saves The World is an XBox 360 Indie Game, with no achievements and not reviewed by their board of standards and practices, yet still in 2026 it has to check in on Microsoft's servers before I can start the game. A few times this actually failed, requiring reboots of the system and repeated attempts to resolve. It's not an online game and it has no achievements yet Microsoft maintains enough of a leash on it several console generations later to make playing it troublesome at times. At some point in the future these old downloaded games will either be free of that leash or unplayable I suspect, and that will be a tragedy.

Enough with the depressing crap, though, as Cthulhu Saves The World was a funny, grindy, old school top-down-traversal and random-combat-with sprites role-playing game that captures the magic of the genre while making a lot of quality-of-life improvements that lets up on the traditional frustrations often experienced with those types of games. A dark, evil entity like Cthulhu would seem an unlikely candidate for being a likeable hero, but the great writing and unfolding adventure take the player there.

One of the frustrations from those old RPGs that these Cthulhu games from Zeboyd Games has reduced is the issue of infinite combat as one explores. Traditionally, dungeon levels and overland areas present the danger of constant attack, hindering exploration as one's party of adventurers tries to explore every level meticulously in hopes of acquiring loot and experience. In the two Cthulhu games, there is a set number of random encounters in each area, and once those are done, the dungeon is open to unhindered exploration ahead of the final boss encounter.

While I played Cthulhu Saves Christmas, at first I just stood at the entrance and started the fights myself to wear down the counter. I would save after every battle and head back to town and recharge magic as needed; but it was a dry, grindy process that felt a little shallow. By the end of that game I was exploring a little while I was grinding down that counter to mix it up a little. I found, however, that the interruptions of battle would sometimes throw off my mental image of the map and I would emerge disoriented, so I generally did not complete the exploration of the dungeon before finishing the required number of fights.

It was always worth it, as a well-designed game balance meant that clearing out the dungeon also levelled my party of quirky characters to where they needed to be before facing the boss at the end. Each dungeons' monsters were also a joy to behold, with all sorts of cute variations of other themes, and occasional weird one-off monsters like "Horror Writer". Fighting them with various physical and magical attacks was also great fun, seeing what spells were effective. There are lots of combat options that also reduce the old school frustration, like 1-Ups to restart the battle after a defeat, and an Escape spell.

The player can save anywhere, and victory in battle usually revives and heals the party completely. The only diminishing resource the player has to deal with is magic points; those can only be recharged in towns at the Inn or by sparse pools found in dungeons. There was usually one of those pools ahead of boss fights, so even dealing with monitoring one's magic points is more that fair when balanced out against all the other things making the game easy.

Levelling is fast and frequent, with each character getting a choice between two upgrade options each time, from stat increases to new spells to new passive abilities. It's a simple but engaging levelling system that gets the player back into the game quick. Each player also upgrades armor and weapons, with items found in chests or at shops in town, not as loot from monsters. Each item is unique to a specific player and can only be used by that character.

I was once again in the mood for an old-school roleplaying game and Cthulhu Saves The World fit the bill. Between its offbeat premise, wacky enemies, and perfectly-sized campaign length there was a lot to love here. I also love that an indie game released in 2010 and stored on a nearly-broken old console of mine for sixteen years still works most of the time. Gameplay like that is forever; let's hope the downloads we made back then are as long-lived.

Beaten: Homefront (360)

 What, you think having the Commodore VIC 20 back and finally  having Steam on my PC would keep me from gaming on the XBox 360? Every era of gaming has a backlog for me, and the Xbox 360/PS3 era is one of the most bountiful backlogs there is. There are all kinds of videogames from that time that were fairly big budget, not all that original, but still fun to play.

When Homefront came out in 2011, the reviews were pretty average, and the only gimmick it seemed to have was thematic - the story takes place in a version of the USA that has fallen to and been occupied by Korean troops. It's an alternate history thing that when it came out seemed more of a stretch than it does now. For players it presents a gritty, well made first person shooter that wastes little time with characters and chit chat and gets right into the action.

Which is exactly what I was in the mood for, with or without the backdrop of American corpses being dumped into mass graves. The action is continuously intense as the player battles alongside some generic npc resistance fighters, and there are a few surprises. Remote-controlling an agile, unmanned vehicle was fun during the couple of times it showed up.

The helicopter level toward the end of the game was also highly enjoyable, leading into an intense final battle at the Golden Gate bridge. Remember that Homefront is a short game, though, so I’ll make this a short write-up. 

Homefront was what it was at release all those years ago and it is what it is today in 2025 - a quick, brutal first person campaign worth one’s time as long as those were the expectations one brings. 

Beaten: Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga (360)

 While I was smart enough to not have children in pre-apocalypse America, a lot of my friends and co-workers did, and they raised them on videogames so they could keep playing too. Starting around 2010, I heard from those friends how great the Lego games were, even for them as adults. While the Lego games covered a lot of pop culture (Star Wars, Marvel Comics, Harry Potter, etc), they never seemed like something I would enjoy.

The recommendations continued over the years, focused on how the games had humor and were easy to play co-op alongside your offspring. I pushed those endorsements aside as I had other games to play. My recent decision to throw a "palate cleanser" easy game into my mix, however, brought me to play Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga on the Xbox 360, via Gamepass on the Xbox One. I choose "The Complete Saga" over "The Skywalker Saga" because those last three movies were tragically bad.

So I had six movies, each broken down into six chapters, to play through and see if those old recommendations were valid or just another case of parents endorsing things to their childless friends because misery loves company. It turned out about as I expected. It was fun but only in small doses, and challenge existed mostly through environmental puzzles that needed solving to progress.

The story diverges from the movies here and there, the dialogue-less characters give puzzling expressions at times, and there’s a huge focus on collection quests and unlocking stuff.

Which makes sense. Keep the kids busy with those time-consuming tasks and you don’t have to get them the next big game yet. 

I probably won’t play any more Lego games but I’m glad I got through this one so that I have a better understanding of what my dad-friends were going through. I hope they made good memories of playing side by side with their sons and daughters with those Lego games.

Beaten: Rise of the Argonauts (360)

 Another XBox 360 game that has turned up in my hunt for games on the system I missed is Rise of the Argonauts, an action adventure depicting a story that, while not necessarily based in existing Greek mythology, was nonetheless an interesting and unique take on all of it.

The player is Jason, and he’s after the golden fleece as usual, assembling his crew of Argonauts on his ship the Argos. From there the story diverges as Jason’s crew features a lot of familiar names like Hercules, Achilles, and so forth, with the goal of getting the golden fleece per legend. In this telling though, Jason is really on a quest to resurrect his fiancé, by getting the golden fleece and using it on her corpse. He unravels a conspiracy of evil behind it all and sometimes does some hacking and slashing to get it done. 

The game unfolds in a linear fashion, with Jason and his crew of Argonauts expanding at each port. At one point the player has a choice of which part of the quest to take on next but after those sections of the game are completed, it’s linear again. 

While it appears this game is just another hack-and-slash, there really is not the same proportion of action to conversation as in other games. Conversations with people one meets and members of the crew are absolutely essential to getting through the game. In a unique twist, conversational choices align with various Greek gods, where Ares might prefer the confrontational approach, Apollo might prefer a more compassionate choice.

Greek mythology is ingrained not only in these conversations and their choices, but in an absolutely unique quest and challenge menu that consists of constellations that, with the completion of a quest or a challenge, add stars to show it. Upgrades to abilites take place in another menu where the various gods grant powers based on the player's actions and conversation choices. In addition to combat and conversation, stopping and praying to those attention-starved gods here and there also adds up. 

The combat is nothing noteworthy but there are a few decent boss fights along the way. No, this game is more about conversation and getting steeped in the mythology as a unique story unfolds, and that part of the game shines. I'd definitely classify this game as an XBox 360 hidden gem and recommend it to any player nostalgic for those simpler times.

Beaten: Two Worlds (360)

 The summer of 2024 has been bittersweet for fans of the Xbox 360 as Microsoft has pulled the plug on the online store for the console, ending a long era of support for the legendary system. It had to happen but it’s still a bitter pill to swallow.

The sweet part is a wave of nostalgia across the internet as many gamers post videos and social media posts recollecting the glory days of the console. I’ve never stopped playing on my old XBox 360, which has survived the red ring of death, a lightning strike/power surge which took out its ethernet connector, and a hard drive upgrade. As of this writing, the disc drive door is scting fussy.

In addition to a wave of last-minute downloaded games arriving on my 360, my physical disc collection is once again growing thanks to a local mom and pop video game store near my office. One game that has languished in my 360 backlog for too long is Two Worlds, a full action RPG released in 2007 by Polish studio Reality Pump.

Oddly enough, I had played and finished Two Worlds 2 on the Playstation 3 back in 2011 but at the time dismissed the idea of going back and playing the first game as the reviews were pretty mediocre. It was a good, solid RPG too, if not quirky and a little “off” in a delightful way indicative of a non traditional game studio.

That right there is the rub of my love of games from this era. For every Grand Theft Auto IV or Elder Scrolls Oblivion, there were dozens of full-effort, packed with loads of content and story games released by studios trying their best, and sometimes failing.

Two Words was surprisingly stable, with only a few crashes during my play through. It’s really a sprawling open world RPG with good combat, lots of NPCs with quests, factions, and everything one could want. The graphics are what one would expect from the early XBox 360 days, but I found them good enough.

The voice actor who voices the player’s character was thankfully in this one too, as his snarky comments here and there were a source of amusement. 

As usual, I did not dig too deeply into the complexities of character development. Nor did I scour the map for every scrap of content; but rather I completed enough side quests to level up my character enough that, when the path opened up to the endgame, I was ready.

Two Worlds is a different enough, functional enough, and fun enough game to recommend to those with a taste for a unique studio’s take on the action RPG. Even though this game was lost in the crowd of XBox 360 releases back then, it can certainly stand out as a hidden gem in one’s 360 library to this day.

Beaten: Dust-An Elysian Tail (360)

 Continuing my break from the latest, endless Zelda game over on the Switch, and seeking those Xbox 360 digital games that will be going away next year, I found an interesting and gorgeous game called Dust: An Elysian Tail to try. It's a 2D action-adventure Metroidvania-style game with some minor roleplaying and platforming, it was designed by one dude, and it really is a gem.

The player starts out with amnesia, and quickly finds an enchanted sword which comes with a small companion flying around to help the player out with advice, and thankfully, attack boosts. From there it's fighting the way to town, where other characters offer quests and help the story unfold. There are multiple areas to explore as the player develops their character and abilities.

Playing on normal setting, one will find the challenges tough but fair as well as rewarding enough to keep up with the purchases of new gear and healing items. Some areas are unreachable until the player finds a key item, so backtracking is required, but none of it seems tedious and the world map allows the player to return to explored areas easily.

I am not usually one for hack-and-slash games that light up the screen with effects, numbers, and other such chaos to the point where the action is so obscured that one can only hope they are doing the right thing (I'm looking at you, Dragon Crown for the PS Vita). Dust manages a good balance of all that while not holding back on the glorious and beautiful combat. 

The combat starts out hard, but with patience and thorough exploration the player can easily level and keep up. There are side quests and timed challenges that help fill out the game but never feel tacked-on. Loot comes at a generous pace and shops dot the land in case the player needs a few more things. 

Each screen is a magnificent display of color and design intent, and the fact that the game's creator, Dean Dodrill, created all that by himself is a testament to talent over whatever the hell it is most game companies are doing these days. Dust is not short, but not long either, and most importantly does not overstay its welcome.

The story is also really well done, although it starts out with the amnesia trope. Nonetheless, great points are made about topics like genocide in its telling. It's all done with cute animal characters too, so that juxtaposition stands out well as the player reveals the truth about their lost memories.

Fortunately, this masterpiece has been ported over to other platforms since its 2012 release on XBox Live, so players will be able to enjoy it long after the XBox 360 store closes next year. Everything about Dust: An Elysian Tail works well and the game stands as more proof that even one designer can craft a short epic of action and storytelling far superior to what the big guys normally create. 

Beaten: Arkadian Warriors (360)

 So I needed a break from the endless fun of The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, and I was looking for something simple, fun, and quick to beat. At the same time, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 store was going to close next year. This lead me to a search of XBox 360 digital-only games that were going to go away once the store closes.

Arkadian Warriors was on that list so I checked it out. It was released to the Xbox Live service in December of 2007 and got mediocre reviews, but it was exactly what I was looking for in a game.

It’s a top down dungeon hack and slash with randomly generated dungeons, three classes to play, lots of loot and levelling, and a mere 19 quests start-to-finish. There is a central hub in the form of a small town where the player receives quests, and starting one opens a portal to the randomly generated dungeon level.

Once there, the top-down action starts right away, as nearby monsters attack as soon as they see the player. However, it’s one of those top-down games where you can usually see the enemies sitting there until you get close enough to activate them, allowing the player to strategically and meticulously pick them apart.

Getting kills raises a bar that when filled allows the player to activate a beast mode and transform into a giant, rampaging form for a short period, tearing through enemies quickly. It’s definitely a fun part of the game.

There is loot to get, levels to raise and all that, but no grinding to do. If the player explores each level and kills every monster, they should level accordingly to keep up with the game’s difficulty. 

There is a co-op mode but I didn’t try it. The graphics are crisp but simple and met my expectations for a 2007 game. In spite of all of the reviews, Arkadian Warriors was the exact kind of fun I was looking for at the time I was looking for it. I’d certainly recommend picking it up before the Xbox 360 store closes next year.

Beaten: Fable II Pub Games (360)

 I don't usually play gambling games at all, but three months ahead of the release of Fable II in late 2008, Carbonated Games released Fable II Pub Games. There were a few compelling reasons to get it. One, it was free for those who had pre-ordered Fable II, and second, cash and prizes won in the game would transfer to one's Fable II character once the game came out.

I was at first put off by the unfamiliarity of the games and the complexity of their rules, so I only played it a little during the wait for Fable II. Recognizing the need to start the game with some money, though, I eventually dug in and earned a nice sum.

The three games are basically a card game, a dice game, and slots. The card game (Fortune's Tower) and the dice game (Keystone) required a little strategy and a lot of luck, whereas their slot game (Spinnerbox) was pure luck. So I dove in, gambled cautiously, and did well. I also picked up a few achievements along the way.

Fable II arrived and was a great game with a big scope, and by the time I had beaten it, I was pretty rich. There were a few DLC chapters added later, as well, adding to my fortune. Returning to Fable II Pub Games after beating the campaign allowed me to enter the pub with said fortune, as well as get a zero point achievement.

Over the years, I fired up the pub games a few more times, even getting another achievement in 2015. Recently, though, I was looking at my achievements and noticed that I only had four left to get for the game, and thought "Why not get them?" as in doing so would require unlocking everything, getting a jackpot in one of the games, and placing in the top five in every tournament, all of which for my campaign-oriented playstyle counts as beating the game.

So I looked up ancient guides that told me what I basically already knew - getting these achievements would take a lot more luck and tedium than skill. To unlock all the games, for example, just means getting points, which thanks to a loading screen tip, I knew I would acquire win or lose. With my in-game fortune this was just a matter of spending time and money grinding through them.

Next up was beating all 5 tournaments for each of the 3 games, for a total of 15 tournaments. One achievement dropped for beating just one tournament, so that was easy enough. Just as that achievement unlocked, my old ass XBox 360 decided it was no longer connected to the internet, resulting in the timestamp for the achievement being glitched when reviewed later over on the XBox One or in the app:

Strategies online recommended playing it safe in terms of betting in these tournaments and that seemed to work, as my computer opponents were more aggressive in their betting and would usually dig themselves a little hole, even if they would win big occasionally.

This worked for Fortune's Tower and Keystone pretty well, with only a few failures on the way to the top five. For Spinnerbox, though, it was a matter of luck and grinding since it is a slot machine type of game. In it, the player is up against 19 computer controlled gamblers to get the highest score in a hundred spins. On the second of the five tournaments I was very unlucky and failed to break the top five in about a dozen tries. After that, it only took a few tries for each one. In the last one, I got a huge jackpot halfway through which carried me to number one in that tournament, unlocking the achievement.

The final achievement required getting a jackpot in Keystone by either rolling three ones or three sixes in the very first turn. Failure meant cashing out, going back to the main menu, and starting the game over. I dug in and expected that to take weeks, but it took about fifteen minutes.

It was a fun diversion and something different to play, and the satisfaction in beating such a game after fifteen years is pretty strong. I may have to see if my old Fable II save is still there, so I can check out all the items I unlocked playing those tournaments. This was an "unfinished business" game that was fun to finish.

Beaten: Tenchu Z (360)

It's so damn cool to see From Software become one of the industry's giants over the last decade, as the prolific Japanese company had largely flown under the radar in the USA up until they created the Dark Souls series in the 2010s. I was way ahead of the curve in 1996 when I started playing their first US release, King's Field, on the Playstation, and have been trumpeting their amazing skill at gamecraft ever since.

Now that they are finally recognized by millions of fans after a decade of cranking out unique and amazing "Soulsborne" games (yes they created a subgenre of gaming on their own), everyone got excited when they announced a modern entry into one of their old franchises, Armored Core. They cranked out a lot of these games starting back in the late 90's and through the early 2010s, so when they announced a new Armored Core game, a lot of their fans were asking what that series was all about. It's armored mech combat. I got a taste of it when I played their other mech game, Chromehounds, a few years ago.

I've been sitting on Armored Core 4 (for the 360) for a long time so I went give it a try, caught up in the hype surrounding the release Armored Core 6 later this year. However, next to it on the shelf was Tenchu Z, a stealth ninja franchise they also were prolifically releasing during the same time frame as Armored Core.  Note that From Software was just the publisher for Tenchu games after 2004, not their creators. I decided to try that franchise instead, knowing that their 2019 release, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, was a spiritual successor to Tenchu. So much catching up to do!

Anyway, Tenchu Z.  A quick tutorial walks the player through the gameplay and introduces them to the game mechanics, and then it's off to complete 50 missions and a final boss fight. Stealth gameplay is encouraged but not required, as there is a seemingly deep combat system in the game as well. I went the stealth route, holding down the R1 button (no on/off toggle) for 95% of the time I was in the game.

The player is dropped into a fairly large area, usually a small town or a fortress, with one of several goals. Most of them are assassination assignments, some are find the package, and others say to kill everyone on the map. One difficult mission was to follow some guy through the town without being seen.

The camera is wonky, the controls sometimes fight the player (especially in aim mode by clicking the right stick), and the story is superfluous. However, the game was a lot of fun in spite of its shortfalls.  Standard stealth gameplay had me watching the patrol routes, sneaking up behind guards, and disappearing quickly once spotted.

Crouching, rolling, and use of a grappling hook were all essential to success in these missions. There are a lot of items the player can use, but some of them seem really useless for stealth. Many of them open up once you get to a certain part of the game, and once I unlocked the blow dart thing, that was all I used for the rest of the game. I stopped carrying healing items as they were not required for stealth gameplay.

Enemy AI is pretty standard. They see you or a body you left in the open and they freak out and attack, but if you run away and hide, they quickly forget that there is anything going on and go back to their route, never getting upset again regarding the visible corpses around them.

There are dogs that bark and chickens that cluck, alerting enemies, but I found delight in shutting them up with throwing stars. A few times, I unloaded several stars at what I thought was a dog in the distance, only to reveal that the creature was a cat, that was just background graphics, sitting there nonchalantly as cats do, unharmed by anything. Cute.

For a game that is stealth centric, I found it quite odd that there were two or three boss fights where the player could not sneak up on the boss for a stealth kill and had to face them head on. At least, the boss fights were not in an enclosed space, and the whole level I had cleared to get there was available to use hit and run tactics sucessfully.

Like all From Software (in this case as a publisher) games, there are strange design decisions but fun gameplay. With 50 levels, the assignments get repetitive, and many maps are reused frequently. For most of the game there are no enemies on the rooftops, which made things easier. I can recommend this game to stealth game fans, but only those who are ready for the usual From Software idiosyncrasies and patient enough to endure the graphical, control, and camera issues common in games from that time.

Oh Yeah, I Played Mass Effect 2 Back In January

In January, I took a week off of work to play Mass Effect 2. So when my co-workers were, in the weeks leading up to my vacation, asking me where I was going, I replied "All over the galaxy", and from most of them I got a weird look.
The other gamers there knew exactly what I meant.

The game itself was not only a great sci-fi game, it's just great sci-fi. The rugged space hero Shepherd once again assembles a crew to take on some great menace. Most of the game is his not only acquiring this crew, but winning their loyalty as well. There are other side missions, but not that many. Most of the planets are empty save for mineral resources, but checking out every one of them is a must in order to squeeze as much fun out of Mass Effect 2 as possible.

The creators of Mass Effect have said that it's a trilogy, which is usually a bad idea for game companies to do (did anyone ever see the last three Alternate Reality games?). However, the first chapter, the iPhone game, and Mass Effect 2 are so intertwined that for the first time in game history, it really feels like a larger tapestry is being painted here.

There are so many big and small things from the first game that carry over into the second that one can imagine the designers having a huge wall of post-it notes with strings connecting them to keep it all straight. Some minor characters return in small cameos that have a brief impact, and some of the major characters return with a huge emotional impact, giving the involved player a sense of regret that can only be experienced with the passage of time and the reality of old friends moving on.

The gameplay is less RPGish and more shooter-ish, and that's fine, because they've really refined all of those aspects and made them more fun than frustating. The cover mechanics are solid this time and the allies seem smarter. There are more variey to the ememies and the environments, and the graphics are breathtaking.

And the story is an epic of the grandest proportions, leaving the player ravenously hungry for the next installment. There's not much praise that I can heap on Mass Effect 2 that wasn't already said two months ago, but I will add that design-wise, it's another huge step forward in terms of episodic storytelling in videogames, and it's the kind of game I dreamed about playing back in the old days.

Hey, Wait, I Forgot To Review Assassin's Creed 2

I beat Assassin's Creed 2 back in January, and my lazy ass is just getting into gear to jot down a quick review. I mentioned the game briefly last fall, but feel a strong need to write a bit more about it.

Assassin's Creed 2 builds heftily on the solid foundation of the first game in the series, with improved mission variety, puzzles, and combat. Graphically gorgeous and featuring smooth controls, it's a testament to the successful business model in modern game design where a thousand people come together and spend countless milions of dollars to make a state-of-the-art, polished, and playable game product.

Combat reminds me a little bit of Demon's Souls, in that one must follow the onscreen movements of one's foes and counter them with the right move. AC2 is a lot easier, though, with a variety of options to counter, disarm, dodge, and even distract - with such items as smoke bombs and sneaky moves like throwing sand in an enemy's eyes. Where in the first game I could pretty much get by with just countering, this sequel makes the action more engaging.

The platforming action is still great, with the same rooftop running and great climbing action that at times reminds me of the arcade classic Crazy Climber. The cities and countryside of Renaissance Italy are breathtaking to behold and fun to explore. And the puzzles - oh the puzzles of Assassin's Creed 2 - how they harken back to the kind of brain workout that puzzles in all those Commodore 64 RPGs had back in the day. Absolute joy.

What's new from the first game is the addition of money that can be earned by completing missions and looting corpses. This cash is spent on upgrades, weapons, and a strange side-mission town simulation, where Ezio's contributions help rebuild a run-down town.

The first game was structurally monotonous, in that the missions played out in the exact same structure in the four cities. In AC2, more variety in the structure is achieved by having cinematic story elements occur, but there is still some repetitiveness. Assasssin missions, follow missions, and others do repeat to some extent, but as with the first game it's not a problem because it's so much fun.

Big improvement is made in the future-story part of Assassin's Creed, as a bigger overall story takes center stage and leaves the player very eager for the next installment, and left me at peace with how the first game ended. Downloadable chapters "The Battle of Forli" and The Bonfire of the Vanities" roundout the Assasin's Creed 2 package. Forli is an all-out battle for one of the cities, and Vanities is a series of advanced-level assassination missions. Good luck with the boat one.

Word has recently arrived that this fall Ezio will be back for more in a multiplayer spin-off called Assassin's Creed : Bloodlines, but hopefully Assassin's Creed 3 is in the works, because that's where I really want to go next.

Mass Effect 2 Initial Impressions - No More Moon Patrol RPG, And EA's Dumbass Code Redemption Rigamarole

So I picked up Mass Effect 2 the other night, at the Gamestop midnight sale. Of the sixty or so people there, including the staff, I was certainly the oldest, and also noteworthy was the fact that only one person (not I) was there to pick up the other big game releasing that day, the PS3 game MAG.

So I've spent a lot of time with Mass Effect 2 over the last few days, and boy is it great. Everything that's out there in the gaming press is basically true. The characters and the story are fantastic, the combat is fun, and there's lots of cool things to do.

The hugest disappointment, though, is the omission of the moon buggy that was so much fun to tool around in in the first game. As I stated in my review, the moon buggy was a clear nod to the arcade classic Moon Patrol. In Mass Effect 2, it's gone. Instead of having the buggy dropped on a huge square of a planet and driving around to discover minerals and other hidden goodies, in ME2 the player scans the planet from orbit, and only if an anomaly is detected can the player land - in a shuttle.

The scanning is at first really very cool - the player moves a cursor over a competely 3D and rotatable representation of the planet. The controller rumbles and a graph of jittery lines spike up if the scanner is detecting one of four minerals, and at that point the player launches a probe to claim them. It is a very stylish improvement over the previous game's planet scanning, but it quickly becmes very, very tedious.

I haven't decided yet whether to doggedly chart every planet and claim every mineral as I did in the first game. So far only one planet has yielded a surprise mission outside my regular mission itinerary, so I fear the rewards may not be worth the time.

Speaking of rewards, whew....let me compose myself before beginning the next part of this.

Okay.

Speaking of rewards, there are many rewards awaiting the Mass Effect fan who kept their save files from the first installment, who pre-ordered the new game, and even rewards for those who completed the iPhone game Mass Effect Galaxy. Such an amazing synergy has seldom been accomplished in the annals of gaming, and naturally EA is there to muck it up as much as possible.

The importing of my Mass Effect game save into Mass Effect 2 was simple enough, done right upon starting the game for the first time. The reward is a true connection between the two installments. Even minor decisions I made in the first game (and had since forgotten about) are turning up as having made an impact on characters I encounter in ME2. It's an astonishing weaving of story elements, nay, a skilled execution of storytelling engineering that deserves more praise than that of an isolated little blog like this one.

And the Mass Effect Galaxy bonus content for Mass Effect 2 - that the game's characters Jacob and Miranda mention the events of Galaxy in ME2 - was easy enough to figure out. Beat the game, touch "Extras" and then "Stay Informed", and then enter your EA account info. I had to talk to Jacob in ME2 a few times before he mentioned it, but it was still a neat thing to have.

Also accessable immediately was a code for the Cerebrus Network, a built-into-the-starting-screen system for getting ME2 bonus content, one such free example of which was available on the first day, and another on the second day after release. So not only does Microsoft have a fantastic downloadable content system and code redemption system built into XBox Live, which I have used successfuly many times in the past, Mass Effect 2 has a way of getting DLC on it's start-up screen. The Cerebrus Network code came with the game, and worked within the game's startup screen.

Of course, that's because I have an EA Online account, which I've had for years, but only recently have connected it to my XBox Live account, having needed to do that when I started playing Dragon Age : Origins, another Bioware game that I'll fill you in on later (oh, there's so much to tell).

But my Gamestop pre-order bonus code, which grants me a set of armor without a removeable helmet, and a cool new gun, was quite difficult to redeem. Here's the instructions on the card that came with the code:

1. Go to masseffect.com
2. Follow the link to redeem your unique code
3. Enter your EA account info
4. Redeem your code
5. Download your item
6. Load up your copy of Mass Effect 2
7. Check Shepard's personal terminal in-game, located next to the galaxy map, for a message detailing how to obtain your pre-order item

Instead of using the built-into-the-game code redemption system, or the built-into-the-friggin-Xbox-Live-service code redemption system, this was what I had to do to get my armor and gun? Hey, whatever, let's try it!

Step 1 - Go to masseffect.com

I was immediately stopped here at a faulty "enter your birthdate" thingy. I entered my birthdate, hit enter, and the thing immediately reset back to "January 1 Year". I was stopped in my tracks by this villainous bit of age discrimination. Oddly enough, entering "January 1 2009" took me to the www.bioware.com site, but alas that was a dead end too. No code redemption to be found.

Disillusioned, I gave up and just played Mass Effect 2 without my pre-order goodies. Later, I realized what a bunch of bullshit it all was, and tried again. I changed my internet browser security, took down my firewall, and still no luck geting past Bioware's Age Guardian Monster.

But then, a Google search lead me to http://social.bioware.com/redeem/, which brought me to....

Step 2 - Follow the link to redeem your code

I saw no such link, but rather a Bioware social site of some sort that demanded I register. I started to, but then, to the right, I saw the login for my EA account. Which was really...

Step 3 - Enter your EA account info

I did. Amazingly, it worked. I rapidly proceeded to...

Step 4 - Redeem your code

I entered the code and it was accepted. Now comes the weird part. I was prompted to download my code - ONTO MY PC! For a moment, a flash of fear - had the Gamestop employee accidentaly given me a PC promo code? No, there was the XBOX Live logo right there, that couldn't be it. I nervously accepted the download...

Step 5 - Download your item

"What's happening?!?!" I screamed frantically, as downloadable content that was supposedly for the XBox 360 placed itself square on the desktop of my ancient computer. What mad world had I woken up in today? What was next? Would I have to turn on my PSP to get cable? Would my toaster be required to start my car? None of this made any sense to me and I whimpered pathetically when the download finished...

Step 6 - Load up your copy of Mass Effect 2

I already had it on. Okaaaay....

Step 7 - Check Shepard's personal terminal in-game, located next to the galaxy map, for a message detailing how to obtain your pre-order item

After you press start on the title screen, there's a display of two laptop computers. One is the aforementioned Cerebrus Network, and one is the game options (Resume, New Game, Load Game, and Extras). Under "Extras" it shows the DLC that I had already gotten, but the Terminus armor was not there. I wasn't sure if they really meant "Shepard's personal terminal in-game", so I started up my game and checked it. Nothing. Finally, I went to Shepard's personal quarters where his armor and clothing closet it, and it wasn't there either.

A little nervous still, I shut off the game and system and rebooted. Sure enough, when I restarted, there were my pre-order goodies, mentioned at both the title screen computer and the in-game one. I went to my quarters and put on the armor.

One last bit of stupidity with this armor - you can't wear it without the helmet on. Oh, it looks really cool in combat, but when you take a drink at the bar, or get a kiss on the cheek from a grateful girl whom you just helped out, it looks silly.

So that's it - my room-and-platform spanning adventure just to wear some sily bonus armor in a galaxy-spanning adventure. That DLC icon is still on my PC desktop. I'm afraid to remove it. Maybe after I've beaten the game. Plus, I'll unplug my microwave first just to be safe.

Fall 2009 Wrap - Up

Let's start out 2010 with another quick review of what I've been playing over the last few months. The fall of 2009 was a hectic gaming season, as usual, and my work schedule hasn't allowed me the time to write an in-depth review of each of these titles.

Mass Effect Galaxy (iPhone)
This top-down, singe-screen-at-a-time shooter from EA was a fun little diversion, introducing players to some new characters that are supposed to appear in the upcoming sequel. The battles are bookended by cut scenes and the same "choose your adventure" conversations that Mass Effect had.

While enjoyable, the adventure was short, and the gameplay suffered from drastic onscreen slowdown when the bullets were flying. While I was able to adjust my playing to the game's loss of speed during those moments, such issues are barely forgiveable in this day and age.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (XBox 360)
This little-known first-person shooter did a lot to recapture the intense action and over-the-top storytelling of its predecessor, and for the most part, it pulled it off. There was one mission, however, that was so over-the-top as to be nauseating, and seems so pointless in the story's bigger picture that it all feels gratuitous.

But everything else about the game, including the extremely accessable multiplayer and the gorgeous graphics, was stunning to behold. More gamers need to to be made aware of this fledgling game franchise, so get out there and tell every gamer you know about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2!

Assassin's Creed 2 (XBox 360)
Everything I complained about in the first Assassin's Creed game seven months ago seems to have been addressed in some manner in the sequel, which takes place in Renaissance Italy. Assasin's Creed The Next Generation's Ezio can swim, more of the background story in the future has been explained, and the missions seem less repetetive.

There are more combat options, more cinematic cut-scenes, an economic system with shops, the looting of corpses, Tomb Raider style tomb raiding, and some intense observational puzzles featuring classic and historic works of art. I've played about halfway through the game, and am once again having a fantastic time, in what is once again a unique videogame setting with great historic credibility.

Little Big Planet (PS3)
Did I mention that I picked up a PS3 back on Black Friday? Oh, I did, and it came bundled with this game and the next one I'l talk about. Little Big Planet came into my sights with not-so-little amounts of hype, and I've yet to delve deep enough into the game to say for certain whether or not the cutesy 2.5D platformer with questionable jumping lives up to it all.

I understand that it's supposed to be played online, with others, as puzzles start to show up where 2,3,or 4 players are required to solve them. There's a whole custom level design thing, and tools/items are acquired along the way for this, but I haven't the time or desire to get into that either. Nor do I really want to stop and put stickers on stuff in the game, or change my character's outfits every few minutes.

Little Big Planet is a game I may enjoy eventually - but right now the "game" seems like too much "work".

God of War Collection (PS3)
The other game bundled with my PS3 was this compilitation of the PS2 classics, the first of which I had tried a few years ago and found to be to frustrating. I tried again, felt the frustration building again, and haven't picked it up since. Maybe later.

This concludes my lazy half-assed wrap-up article. There was one more major game I've been playing, but it assuredly deserves its own write-up and will get one soon.

Borderlands - Polished, Playable, Perfect

Borderlands is a real gem in the bustling Fall 2009 videogame release schedule. It's a first-person shooter with some light role-playing elements, gorgeous cell-shaded graphics, and character and style in droves.

Players pick from one of four character classes, each with different skills and abilities to develop. Cast onto the desolate and largely abandoned world of Pandora, a long quest unfolds amid the carnage, character development, and showers of loot that the player experiences. The rocky, barren landscape is dotted with human settlements and scrapyards, inhabited with strange critters, bands of hostile rogues, and really cool robots called Claptraps.

The world is divided into many zones, most of them fairly large, but easily accessable vehicles and teleporters make travel a snap. There are plenty of side missions that take the player into these areas, and a crude map feature makes finding your quest's destination also hassle - free. Everything that is done floods the player with loot, loot, and more loot, and a lot of time has to be spent in sub-screens comparing weapons and other items. All of these screens are well designed and accessable, and in no time the player will be zipping in and out of them with deft navigation.

Graphically gorgeous and stylistic, Borderlands looks good and moves fast. The story is light, but the missions are varied and numerous, and the characters you meet along the way are wacky and good, clean fun. There are some great pop-culture references in there, too.

Polished and playable, Borderlands is a top-notch FPS with just the right amount of RPG tossed into the mix. There's lots of loot and exploration to complement the endless action. And the first downloadable expansion, The Island of Dr. Ned, offers even more fun. It's one of those games where the player is compelled to do every side quest just to keep it from ending. Yes, Borderlands is that damn good, and I suspect that a lot of us who enjoyed it are hoping it gets a sequel.

Brutal Legend - A Strange Mix With A Great Story

I haven't updated in awhile - great new games are coming out fast, I went to Dallas for a few weeks for work...you know, screw the excuses, let's just start catching up.

Brutal Legend is a heavy metal hybrid action/real time strategy game that tells the story of roadie Eddie Riggs, who finds himself cast into some bygone age where everything looks like an epic metal album cover. He starts out with an axe and a guitar, one for slashing enemies in melée, the other for rocking a few riffs from a distance, bringing bolts of lightning down on his target. The guitar also can play a few speciality riffs in a sort of sideways Guitar Hero-esque button sequence, with varying effects such as summoning Eddie's heavy metal hot rod.

The countryside opens up in stages, with plenty of side missions to explore, either on foot, by hot rod, or by riding around on the back of some of the wildlife. Most side missions are the same, but there are a few exceptions. The hack and slash action is a blast, as is the story that unfolds as you play. After awhile, the band of rebels you're traveling with goes on tour, and the gameplay changes to large real time strategy stage battles. Eddie, as a roadie should, manages these battles like a concert, creating and deploying units and managing things around the battlefield.

It's quite a shift in the gameplay tempo that works surprisingly well. It's frantic and challenging, and accessable even to someone like me who does not play those sort of games. Brutal Legend pulls this risky gameplay mishmash off seamlessly, and the player from this point out moves between the two genres as the genuinely brilliant heavy metal story unfolds.

The open world remains accessable as the main story plays out, and after the game is won. This allows the player to finish side missions and collection quests, including those that upgrade weapons and the hot rod, and most importantly add songs to the awesome metal soundtrack. The hot rod had a radio tuned into this soundtrack and I found myself taking the long way to my destination just so a classic song would finish.

Brutal Legend is a bold and refreshingly unique game that succeeds on a lot of levels. It's not perfect, but the fantastic story and the surprisingly fun gameplay brought a smile to this former headbanger's face.

What I've Been Playing, When I'm Not Working

Starting back in August, I worked an 11 day stretch, then was on vacation in San Antonio, Texas for six days. When I got back from that, I had a few days to play videogames before going back to work six days straight, then one day off, then six more. To summarize, I've had little time to play and less time to blog. So it's time for one of those quick-review wrap-up articles like I used to do.

Harvey Birdman : Attorney At Law (Wii)
I picked up this title (at last) when I saw it at a Half Price Books in San Antonio while on vacation. It lacks some of the depth of a Phoenix Wright title, but none of the difficulty. I'm stuck about halfway through it. It could be that I'm out of practice. The game looks just like the wacky cartoon and offers the same offbeat humor.

Mazes of Fate (Game Boy Advance)
This obscure GBA title was one I've been looking out for for awhile, and I got it at the same Half Price Books for less than ten dollars. I've only scratched the surface, but so far it's just as I'd hoped - and old school first-person dungeon crawler.

Retro Game Challenge (DS)
At a Gamestop in San Antonio, Monique and I each got ourselves a new DS game. Mine was this title, a mere twenty dollars. Retro Game Challenge is just was it says it is. Players play through challenges on old-school games. I've only unlocked two of the games, the first being a Galaga-style game that's better than Galaga, and the second an NES-era side-scrolling action platforming game.

The gameplay takes place on the top screen of the DS, while on the lower screen, you see yourself as a small child, sitting in front of the TV as you did so long ago, with your friend watching you play and offering encouragement. The whole experience is a nostalgic reminder of those simpler, more innocent gaming days. There are even videogame magazines lying around where you can read about the games you are playing and even get cheat codes and strategies. Awesome.

Space Bust-A-Move (DS)
Monique picked up Space Bust-A-Move for the DS, also for $20. In her words, it's great. It starts out easier than the other two versions we have (PS1 and Wii), but gets progressively harder, with boss battles and such. The space part comes from cosmic backgrounds and levels taking place on different planets. The stylus controls are also good, according to Monique. We have yet to try the single-card multiplayer, but I'm sure that it's fun too.

The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion : The Shivering Isles (Xbox 360)
The Shivering Isles expansion takes the already huge world of the main game and adds another vast area to explore. The Shivering Isles, a place divided between Mania and Dementia, are ruled by the charming and often hilarious Sheogorath, who rambles on in a Scottish accent as he tasks you with stopping the Greymarch. It's a great quest, more challenging at times than the main game, with new monsters and items a'plenty. I played it on and off for a few months after beating the main game, and finally finished it a few weeks ago at the end of my vacation.

Halo 3 : ODST (XBox 360)
Last week I picked up this spin-off adventure in the Halo universe, where players play a rookie Orbital Drop Shock Trooper during the attack on New Mombasa in Halo 2. I think. Regardless of my tenuous grasp of Halo continuity, I had a blast over the last few days playing through the game's campaign mode on Heroic. The ODST is no Spartan like Master Chief is, and thus the gameplay has a few differences. He heals through healthpacks rather than waiting for himself to regenerate. He can't jump as high or melee very well.

But all these differences make the game, which has the same enemies, weapons, and vehicles as Halo 3, really refreshing. Also new is the visor that helps the rookie see better at night, and adds a nice red outline to ememies. The setting is also great - the rookie walks around the battle-scarred city at night, ducking Covenant patrols (or fighting them), and looking for clues as to what happened with to the squadmates that he got seperated from at the start of the game.

When the rookie finds such a clue, the game shifts players into the role of that squadmate, and what happened to him during the six hours the rookie was out cold. It's a very good storytelling method that really got me interested in the characters, in a way that Halo 3 completely failed to do with Master Chief. Each character's adventures aren't all that new - there's a Warthog driving mission, a sniper mission, and so on - but they're still all good fun.

The multiplayer aspect of Halo 3 : ODST comes with every expansion to Halo 3 on a second disk, as well as the all-new Firefight mode (a survival mode, I think), none of which I've tried yet. Halo 3 : ODST is a great package and well worth the price for fans of the game.

Ultime Online (PC)
Yep, I'm back in UO during the current Return to Britannia program. I'm not staying. All I've done so far is sail around the changes they've made to Avatar Island in Trammel with the Stygian Abyss expansion. They basically raised a volcano on the northwestern edge of the island.

All I can say is, man, I'm glad I sold that beachfront villa I had placed there back during the Trammel Land Rush of 2000 when I had the chance. All of that pristine beach is gone, replaced by cooled lava. None of the Stygian Abyss stuff looks like anything that would bring me back to the game on a permanent basis, but as long as it's free, I can sail around for old time's sake.

Conclusion
Well, that wraps up what I've been playing lately. My work schedule doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon, sort of like the fall videogame release schedule, so I'm not sure if my next update will be like this one, or back to single-game reviews.

Batman : Arkham Asylum Committed To Design Excellence

I'm tired of all my reviews beginning with "Beaten". Looking back at my blog, almost every one of the reviews over the last year has started with that word. I'm going back to bad headline puns (wherever possible), and I'll just mention whether or not I've beaten the game in each review.

On to Batman : Arkham Asylum, then. The dark night of mediocre - to - good releases of 2009 is finally over with the arrival of this game, the best new game of 2009 so far, probably the best licensed superhero game ever made, and one helluva polished product. This game is great on every level, and yes, this morning I beat it.

Like Ghostbusters : The Video Game, the player gets to really feel like Batman in this game. Let's make these two games the watermark of how to make a licensed property work on that level. Arkham Asylum pits the Caped Crusader against the Joker and his sinister plot at the famed institution, where all the costumed villains go to get therapy (or just imprisoned). The story is fantastic - good enough to be its own movie or comic book - and unfolds with twists and turns throughout.

The gameplay has Batman walking, running, and grappling around the island and its various spooky environments in third-person view, normally, with the camera changing angles during fight scenes, and a few 2.5D side-scrolling gameplay sequences thrown in for good measure. Batman gains new gadgets, combat moves, and other upgrades throughout his adventure, and at almost all times has access to a "detective vision", sort of a tactical X-ray, night sight, and environmental analyzer rolled into one, that is so useful that I rarely turned it off.

The detective vision shows other people as skeletons, letting the player know if they are friend or foe, armed or unarmed, and dead or alive. It can be used to track wiring to security boxes, see weak points in walls, and so forth. It's a shame that it's so good at times, as the graphics of the game are also so well done that it's a shame to miss them. The voice-acting is also very good, and not to be missed.

Ah, combat. This game is the prime rib of action-brawlers, with the fighting moves that the Dark Knight has being fine-tuned to an exceptional degree. It has a simple button layout, but allows for the development of powerful combo attacks and free-flowing combat, leaving the player gleefully punching and kicking through hordes of henchmen like a whirlwind. Combat can also be honed in the optional challenge modes, short scenarios that are great for practice, as well as having XBox Live leaderboards so the player can see how poorly they fare against the million or so other players who've scored higher.

Stealth is the bat's best choice in many scenarios, and really the only way to take out rooms full of armed foes. Sneaking around in the rafters, taking out the henchmen one at a time - it never gets old. Watching their reactions, and hearing the Joker's comments to the over the loudspeakers is a joy.

While the main villain is the Joker, of course, there are appearances by other classic Batman foes, some as boss battles, and some as mere cameos of sorts. Of special mention is the Riddler, who has set up an amazing collection-quest set of challenges on the island. Batman's full arsenal of gadgets is required to get them all, and fortunately finishing the game does not prevent their acquisition.

Most of them are simple tasks like find the glowing question-mark trophies, or smash 20 of the chattering, wind-up Joker teeth laughing all around the grounds, but others require some thinking just to figure out what sort of puzzle is going on in the first place. It's by far the most satisfying collection quest I've seen in a game this generation, and I was proud to figure them all out on my own. Searching around for them is made easier by discovering the maps of where they all are in each section, but the map doesn't just hand the riddles to Batman.

Much of the collection quest opens character files and trophies, each adding to the lore of the cast of characters. The bios of each character explains their stories and abilities, and even lists their first comic book experience. Awesome.

There's also something that I can't spoil that occurs at one point in the game that filled me with absolute fear and then absolute glee. It was pure design brilliance, a totally insane moment where the developers mess with the players to a degree unprecedented in the history of videogames. Hats off to them for doing this thing. Players will know it when it occurs.

Everything about Batman : Arkham Asylum is design brilliance, though. There's great combat, a fantastic story with twists and turns, gorgeous graphics, tons of exploration in moody environments, lots of gameplay variety, files of lore to experience, and a sense that the player is really Batman for the entirety of this lengthy quest to stop the Joker.

Word is that some downloadable content is just s few weeks away, and with all the challenge modes I've unlocked, I can say that even though I've stopped the Joker's sinister plot, my time at Arkham Asylum is not quite through. The Fall 2009 videogame season has kicked off quite well with Batman : Arkham Asylum, a game that's polished and playable in every way.

Beaten : Crackdown

I finally picked up a cheap copy of Crackdown, an open-world third-person game that I tried out last year when a co-worker loaned it to me, and a few weeks ago I finished it. Crackdown is yet another game in the XBox 360's growing library of classics, and while its spot on that list is well-deserved, it's a game that gets so much right while missing some greater opportunities along the way.

Crackdown casts the player as a genetically enhanced super-cop in a vast city where three gangs - a Latino one, a Russian one, and an Asian one - have all but taken over their respective turfs. The player has five abilities - agility (jumping and running), strength, firearms, explosives, and driving - that raise through natural gameplay, increasing the amount of chaos the player can cause.

The player gets to enjoy the feeling of being super-powered in many ways - making unreal jumps off of towers, picking up trucks and throwing them at enemies, and so forth - and it's really a refreshing feeling of empowerment. There are standard weapons and grenades, and they all work well in combat, pretty much.

Driving takes some practice to get used to, as the sheer speed happening on the screen often leaves the player little time to react to oncoming traffic and terrain. To be honest, I spent most of my time running about, as the enhanced running and jumping was such fun that traversing rooftops seemed like a better way about. Your mileage may vary.

The action is chaotic at times, but absolutely fun. The targeting is very rough, though. The player must manually target enemies and then lock on, as just pressing the lock on button will usually lock onto a civilian car a block behind the enemy one is facing instead of the obvious choice.

The city is a masterpiece of design, not just large horizontally, but vertically as well. Almost everything is climbable, including the vast Agency Tower at the center of the map, rising to heights so dizzying that my real-world acrophobia was kicking in and my hands were shaking. There are lots of sights to see in Crackdown, and things to collect in its many nooks and crannies.

Where most games have solid boxes as their buildings, Crackdown often constructs them with intricate passageways leading to the rooftops, and the game's several collection quests will lead the player through many of these areas in search of power-enhancing orbs. It's a city of colorful design, and it all fits well with the game's cartoony-but-detailed cell-shaded look.

So Crackdown has fantastic gameplay, great graphics, and awesome level design. What it's lacking in is story and characters, really. Sure, it's got files of lore about the overall story of each gang and its bosses, but these people are just targets and their stories are background, not having much impact on the gameplay. It doesn't take much from the game not having that depth, but it would have been nice.

Crackdown is like cake without icing, still delicious and filling, but not as sweet. And there's a twist at the end - which I won't spoil - that lead me to think that a bigger battle was about to occur, but then - nothing. The game ends, leaving that unresolved twist to a sequel. Which is on the way, so maybe the sequel will pick up the ball and run with it. Crackdown does so much right, so it shouldn't be too hard for a sequel to really shine. We'll find out next year.

Beaten : Eat Lead : The Return of Matt Hazard

Released back in March of this year to mediocre reviews, Eat Lead - The Return of Matt Hazard was nonetheless a game I wanted to play very much. Trailers like this one, as well as the voice acting by Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris painted a picture of a game that didn't take itself too seriously, and was an artistic parody of much of the last two decades of videogaming.

At fifty dollars, though, I couldn't justify picking it up. It eventually dropped to thirty dollars a few months back, but it wasn't until last Saturday, when I saw it at Wal-Mart for twenty dollars, that I took the plunge. For that price, I can say the game was a very satisfying experience.

Eat Lead : The Return of Matt Hazard is a third person shooter at its core gameplay, with a few quicktime events thrown in here and there. Technically, it is below this generation's standards in gameplay, if not graphics, but neither is an unforgivable issue when taken into the context of the delivery of the game's content.

There's a great cover system, but sometimes it misses what surface you want to hide behind. Enemies throw grenades at you, but you can't do the same (Matt even jokes about this design omission). Levels are big, checkpoints are frequent enough, and loading times are rarely an issue. Boss battles are often intense repeated-death sessions where it takes a lot of time and luck to figure out what to do.

As a comedic effort the game succeeds quite well in its parody of the videogame scene. It's not the Airplane of parodies in that the laughs don't come a mile a minute, but after beating down waves of repeating foes, when they do come it's a welcome reward.

Enemies come in the form of everything from construction workers to cowboys, zombies, Wolfenstein 3D-style 2D sprite-Nazis, water-gun toting commandoes, space marines, and more, each packing their own kind of in-character weapons. Speaking of which, the weapons and ammo dropped are never too scarce, and in a few places they respawn.

The story of Matt Hazard, a washed up videogame character who gets set up by a bitter software mogul, is perfect for the task at hand. There are a lot of moments in the game worth mentioning, but they are best left revealed to the player during the gameplay, and not through spoilers revealed on some obscure blog like this one.

The game even mocks the achievement system, granting achievements for just starting the game for the first time, pausing for the first time, an watching the end credits. Their names are fun, too, like the Russian Attack achievement, granted for using the AK-47 for a certain number of kills, a clear shout-out to the arcade classic.

So here's where I'm at with Eat Lead : The Return of Matt Hazard: It was worth the twenty dollars I spent on it for a weekend of fun gameplay and a few great laughs. I personally value what the game's developers were trying to do here, and in great measure they have succeeded. I got all the jokes and the tongue-in-cheek look at not just gaming, but game development. In spite of the game's poor sales, I hope there's a sequel, and I hope that other developers won't shy away from such concepts in the future.

For the average gamer looking for just another shooting game, and not too interested in the parody of our hobby, I can't recommend it. Like me, anyone playing Eat Lead must be more into the message than the gameplay for the whole package to work. And work it does. Eat Lead : The Return of Matt Hazard was great fun and a refreshing change from so many games that take themselves too damned seriously.

Beaten : The Darkness

Two weeks ago I delved into my local Gamestop's bargain bin, and pulled out a ten dollar winner, The Darkness. Based on one of those Spawn-type, dark vigilante comic books, the Darkness is a first-person shooter with a very original twist, and a story that's one of the most emotionally engaging ones of this generation.

Players assume the role of young mob assassin Jackie Estacado, who on his 21st birthday finds out he has these inherited darkness powers. These powers are cool - there are tentalces that you can send out to scout and attack foes, another tentacle attack for close-range combat and moving objects, darkness guns, and a black hole you can summon to mess up enemies. Your darkenss powers are increased by devouring the hearts of downed foes.

The powers also allow him to summon four kinds of darklings - little demon followers each with a different function. One's a brawler, one's a gunner, one's a suicide bomber, and the other goes around zapping light sources. Oh yeah, these are darkness powers after all, so as the player explores areas they have to shoot out every light source they can. The powers will cut out at inopportune times until the player gets in the habit of shooting out light sources.

Back to the darklings for a moment. Yes, they're cute, they way they jabber to each other and make little daemonic comments about things, but man are they dumber than a sack of doorknobs. You can send them to places that you target by pressing X, but they rarely do what you want. I used them sparingly, usually as cannon fodder.

The story, as noted previously, has warm and compelling moments in spite of all the bad mojo going on. I won't give away any spoilers here, but it's a masterpiece of interactive storytelling. There are great and memorable characters to meet, from old mob family members to folks in the subway who give you side quests.

There is a really cool collection quest here, too. There are scraps of paper with phone numbers on them that can be gathered. When the player finds a pay phone, they can call all of them up. There are lots of silly, humorous answers on the other end of those phone numbers, and each one unlocks some sort of bonus content. There are letters, too, that can be found and later mailed when one comes across a mailbox. I barely found half of the 100 numbers and letters hidden in the game.

In terms of level design, it's almost an open-world game, in that there are many neighborhoods, all connected by two subway hubs. Some don't open up until later chapters, but many can and must be revisited as the game progresses. The game consists of five huge chapters, two of which take place in a hellish World War I battlefield that has to be seen to be believed. Graphically and technically, that area is a gamescape unlike any other I've seen.

There are all sorts of other design brilliances that make The Darkness stand out from other games. The loading screens are little vignettes of Jackie, sometimes talking about an area the player is about to enter, sometimes about the characters, and other times just fooling around with his guns.

The televisions the player sees here and there contain actual real-world content - an old Flash Gordon serial, old Max Fleisher cartoons, a few movies and music videos. Again, this is actual content, not a facsimile. I fell asleep with Flash Gordon on, and woke up a few minutes later to see it still playing, much further into the episode. I really think that the whole thing is in there, if one wanted to watch it all. An impressive technological feat.

It took me about a week of playing to beat the Darkness. It was challenging, and never unfair, with lots of twists and turns in the story to keep me interested. This is the total package - great gameplay coupled with a compellingly crafted tale. There's a sequel in the works, but Starbreeze Studios, the ones who created this incredible game, aren't the developers. Whoever is out there making a new Darkness game had better pay close attention to what Starbreeze did here, for anything less would be a travesty.