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Review – Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe [Xbox 360]

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Pure awesome? Or WHAT WHAT WHAT?!?

When the announcement was made about this game, the first thing that came to mind was that it was a complete hoax. There was no way that the brutal and sometimes comical violence that was everywhere in the Mortal Kombat series would be paired up with the DC Universe Characters.

After playing the game….you know what?

It actually works.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the DC characters actually out shine the MK roster. Now if that’s only because they are the new guys in the neighborhood or if they actually made a good game with comic book heroes in it, I don’t know(could be because I love comics too). All I do know is, I like what I’ve seen. So let us begin with the story shall we?

The story mode is the best part of the game for me. I was Impressed to hear that they actually hired a pair of comic book writers to develop a story for the game, it kind of needs a good story in order to merge two universes together. At the beginning you get to choose from which side’s perspective you want to see the story unfold. Then you play through the story of that universe with only the characters in the respective universe. There is a chapter per character but not all of the characters get their own chapter, but everyone shows up and plays a part in the main story of the game. From the very first cutscene I felt like I was watching a movie the whole time I was playing through it. Here’s a taste:

The only draw back is that I wish the story would have been longer than it was. Since after you’ve already beat both sides to the story mode there’s really not much of a reason to go back through it.

However, the story mode isn’t the only reason to play the game. The gameplay is great, it’s solid, and just feels like a Mortal Kombat game. I’ve felt that the recent additions to the Mortal Kombat titles have been different form the original concept of the series, the new games just felt too different than the earlier games that got me into the series. With this new addition of MK vs DC I feel that the gameplay has gone back to what it was somewhat. Sure, there are a few new fighting mechanics like
Free-Fall Kombat

Klose Kombat


but they feel apart of the same idea as “test your might” was. In the old games test your might was a clear cut stop in between the endless fights you went though, but now test your might is partly the same, it’s only in the middle of a fight. Whenever your close enough to the edge of a certain stage you can hit/kick/whatever your opponent through the wall and as you buttonmash all four buttons on the controller you smash him through wall after wall racking up the damage. Now your opponent can do the same thing in order to reduce the damage which can be reduced to zero if you don’t work for it or as much as 17% or more.

The other two mechanics actually make a big difference in a fight, especially the free-fall kombat. I have been on the losing end of a fight (online) a few times where a free-fall kombat was the thing I needed to swing the round in my favor. The free-fall kombat and klose kombat features are both pretty random in nature, you press one of the four face buttons and your opponent tries to guess which button you press and match that button press. If you match the button pressed you either switch places in free-fall combat and become the attacker or you counter an attack with your own in klose kombat and end it early while doing some damage in return.

A big part of the story mode is something called “The Rage,” which also is a new component in the actual game. After you’ve beat someone up enough or taken enough damage your rage meter builds up. There are two bars that need to be full in order to trigger rage mode.

Rage mode lets you fight without being stunned, some of your attacks break through blocks, and all of your attacks do more damage. I’ve found the best way to deal with someone in rage mode is to…..you guessed it…run away! When the person can really decimate you in rage mode you just need to dodge/jump/run away and soon enough the rage meter will have worn out and you can get back to the action without the threat of getting beat to a bloody pulp in a split second. But you can also choose to use one of the two bars you filled up as a combo breaker, basically when someone is just demolishing you with a 10-hit combo you can, at anytime, break the combo up by punching the other person back in the middle of their combo using one bar or half of the rage meter and save yourself a massive loss of health.

There are also pro-moves which I wrote about earlier.

The roster includes a decent amount of people from both universes totaling 22 fighters evenly split from both sides.

The MAJOR downside is there are only 2 unlockable characters, considering this is a Mortal Kombat game I expected more characters to be available. There is the possibility of downloadable content/characters which could add some more playability to the game. The characters that they did put in the game are definitely polished and you can tell there has been a lot of work done on them. Which speaking of the characters they look awesome(well most of them anyway)! You can see the fabric of their outfits man! The Unreal 3 engine is pretty sweet, there’s no doubting that.

Now for probably the biggest let down for Mortal Kombat fans…….the lack of real fatalities. I never understood why when your game is known for something, something special and unique, why would you go and mess it up? Now I realize that they wanted a T rating for the game, that’s fine, what I don’t get is the real lack of imagination for some of the fatalities. Take for example: Baraka the guy is a beast and the best thing they can come up with for a fatality is to have him slash someone two times stab them in the gut and throw them over his head to land on the floor behind him. ???? Seriously??? I’ve seen more brutal things on cartoons on T.V. probably for kids who are 7yrs old. Now that’s not to say that some of the others aren’t that bad. One of Superman’s is a pound the other guy into the ground heroic brutality (call it what it is, a fatality) is reminiscent of the old Superman movie.

Now, I’ve played a decent amount of matches online and it’s pretty fun. When you play a ranked match there’s no talking allowed, but for regular player matches there is, which can be cool to talk to someone while your playing it’s like you have a buddy right there playing with you. After you win or lose a player match you can choose to play again or not, it’s up to the both of you. There are also chat rooms where you can challenge someone to fight and they can politely decline or you load into a fight. It’s pretty basic and simple to get into. Playing online has made me seriously think about trying to get a 360 arcade stick controller because the D-pad on the 360 controller can be in-accurate at times. I’m proud to say I have a winning record in ranked matches which is all that matters right?

Over all, if your an MK fan I think you’ll like the throw back to the older style of gameplay with the addition of new mechanics. Most of the core characters are included so you should find someone that suits your style/tastes. For anyone who’s a DC fan I think you’ll love the game even more, this game is a great comic book game in my opinion. There is a decent spread of characters from the DC universe and they all have moves that are specific to that character which makes each character unique. So for anyone interested in the idea of being Scorpion harpooning Superman in the chest or Batman opening up a can-o-you-know-what on Sub-Zero then this is definitely the game to pick up. Absolutely a must buy for any fan.

(Plus Midway could use the $)

[2 Minute Review] Need for Speed Undercover

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Can a game make sounds other than what’s included on the disc?

Yes. It’s this: suck.

DO: You are an undercover cop looking to bring down all sorts of really unspecified “crimes” of street racers.

TYPE: Open world racer

PLATFORM: Pretty much everything (PS3 reviewed here)

PRICE: $60 (360 and PS3)

MEAT: You’re an undercover cop-street racer who can break the law in order to keep it. Basically it’s done by driving around in an open world that is pointless because it offers nothing in extra game play other than cop chases (which are good for some laughs). If you need to do a race, you just bring up the map and select it. (This game actually does a good job of validating Criterion’s decision to leave the races of Burnout Paradise truly open. Actually, it does a good job of validating a lot of Burnout Paradise. OK, all of it.) The graphics are well below the norm of current generation systems. A caveat: it’s 720p only. You have an HDTV that doesn’t support it, say 1080p or 1080i only, it scales the graphics down to 480p. the result is that games on the PS2 look better. It’s so bad, that you can barely read the text on screen. Oh, did I mention that the game almost comes to a stop when a pack of cars are in front of you. Fortunately, the game is easy. Super easy. You’ll win almost every event–every time. We ended up just driving around trying to set off the cops for chases. It’s was good for some laughs. There is a camera option, but no kudos for the PS3. Save the images to the hard drive? No. They go to EA’s website. Of course, even some of the images you take are out of proportion. Oh, and the cops are crazy…

PERKS: a good selection of cars; it’s over quick; fun for laughs

SCREAMS: to not get that good selection of cars so fast; to have built upon another EA game’s experience with open-world driving; to be made for the standard, accepted resolutions of HD (hint: there are only 2-3. Hitting the odd one doesn’t cut it. Maybe both?); to have an actual, procedural plot; to not, uh…suck

VERDICT: Pass. Come on down to Paradise City. It’s cheaper and better. Don’t even give this a rent. Having not played a Need for Speed game before this did not convince me to try others. I’m glad this game cost me nothing. I am ashamed.

I’d post my gamer card to show I finished the game, but you know, Sony is cutting edge with their stuff right now. Also, has anyone else noticed a trend with the PS3 side of multi-platform games being full of problems?

[2 Minute Review] Mirror’s Edge

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A game on the edge of pure brilliance and utter frustration.

Mirror’s Edge is 90% exuberant fun and 10% controller-smashing annoyance.

DO: Run through a stylized metropolis, pull off incredible jumps and try to outrun bullets.

TYPE: First Person Parkour

PLATFORM: PS3 & 360 (360 Reviewed)

PRICE: $59.99

MEAT: Mirror’s Edge places you in the red sneakers of Faith, a Runner in a sterile city set somewhere in the near future. Due to surveillence of nearly every form of communication, Runners are used to courier sensitive information from point to point in the city. Sadly, this is about as good as the story gets in Mirror’s Edge. There is a murder, someone gets framed and Faith has to save some people, but what passes for storytelling in Mirror’s Edge is basically there to give you context for why you’re running from point to point. The cutscenes are also rather underwhelming. As a traditional 2D animation afficionado, I don’t have a problem with 2D cutscenes in my 3D games. However, the ones in Mirror’s Edge don’t look very good and seem like something done in Flash.

Enough about the story. The real meat of Mirror’s Edge is the first person jumping/running mechanic. This is where the game succeeds brilliantly. The signature Runner Vision effect, which causes an optimal
route through the level to change colour, is a big help in the early
levels but is much reduced by the end of the game. There are times
where the route highlighted by Runner Vision is not the fastest
or safest, which encourages the player to experiment and find safer and
faster routes than the one suggested by the game. Each level will have you trying to get as high as you can and then progressing in a series of jumps, leaps and wallruns to the end of the level. At certain times, you are put in a room where you need to figure out the best way to reach an air vent or catwalk, but most of the game is spent leaping from roof to roof, which never gets old.

What DOES get old is the combat, specifically the guns and the cops shooting at you. This is where the game took a 180 degree turn from brilliance to frustration and landed flat on its back. Faith is not a super soldier who can soak up 300 rounds. 2 shots will usually put her down and a couple swats with the butt of a rifle will result in a quick trip to Runner Heaven. Unfortunately, Faith’s fragility doesn’t help when you’re trying to subdue a gaggle of cops in riot gear. Further aggravating the situation is the fact that while Faith has a solid punch and a few neat disarm moves, you’ll find yourself fighting the game engine itself instead of the enemies. If you punch a cop, you have to wait for him to stand up and then start the ‘swing-the-gun-at-Faith’ animation before you can attempt a disarm. This leads to many instances of either throwing off your timing or having one of his buddies shoot you while you wait for him to stand up.

Thankfully, these instances are not in the game very often but when they do pop up, they’ll often throw up a roadblock to success that will take many, MANY attempts to overcome. This is particularly egregious from Chapter 7-9 when the game starts to focus more on these combat rooms and shifts away from the platforming. In the interests of full disclosure, I did get the “By Faith Alone” achievement which means that I did not fire a shot for the entire game. Looking back, I think that striving for this achievement is probably what made the areas where the game goes into combat mode so annoying. The game is a lot less frustrating and a lot more fun when the guns are used and upon reflection, the 80 points I got for the achievement were not worth the frustration felt while trying to get it.

For those who just want to run, there are a plethora of time trials and speed runs to go through which pit you against the clock (and the times of other players) in a bullet-free obstacle course based on the levels in the game.

PERKS: An exhilarating sense of speed; awesome visual design; some very cool first person cinematics

SCREAMS: For no guns in the sequel; more first person cinematics; a better melee combat engine; more compelling characters and backstory.

VERDICT: Rent. The core gameplay is a great take on first person gaming and the brilliant presentation shows is a welcome change to the greys and browns that pervade the majority of ‘next-gen’ games. Unfortunately, the momentum that Mirror’s Edge builds as you hop from rooftop to rooftop slams into a brick wall due to the pervasive and infuriating gun-toting cops and the broken melee combat engine.

As always, you can check my Gamercard to see that I have finished the game.

[2 Minute Review] A Kingdom For Keflings

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How can a game that has absolutely zero conflict compete in today’s hyperviolent market?

Typical Screen

Welcome to the most relaxing game of 2008.

DO: Take a scrubby patch of land and transform it into a thriving kingdom.

TYPE: Building/Resource Management

PLATFORM: XBLA

PRICE: 800 MS Points

MEAT: You are a giant in the land of the Keflings, strange little people who want nothing more than to do your bidding. The entire game consists of you ordering the Keflings to harvest resources which can be used to construct a staggering variety buildings. The ultimate goal of the game is to build a castle but getting there can take anywhere from 8-12 hours. It’s one of those games where you can pop in for a few minutes to build one building or spend hours just chilling while you watch your kingdom flourish. This game was so addictive that I’d find myself pulled away from AAA titles like Mirror’s Edge or Left 4 Dead to get back to my kingdom. It is a perfect tonic for those times when you get frustrated and need a break from the more hectic gameplay of straight-up action games.

PERKS: An amazing guitar soundtrack; using your avatar; being able to kick the Keflings around the map (and get an achievement for it).

SCREAMS: For a camera that can be rotated 360 degrees; for a camera that will stay where you put it instead of snapping back into the default isometric view; for a better way to keep track of what building components have been used in a given blueprint so that you don’t make 30 reading rooms by accident.

VERDICT: Buy. This game may be a little TOO relaxing for every gamer, but take the demo for a spin to see if it is for you. In this day of hyperviolence and gore dripping from every corner of the screen, it is nice to see a game pride itself on its lack of conflict. Just make sure you aren’t tired when you play the game as the soundtrack will lull you to sleep.

[2 Minute Review] Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

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Note: This review is full of light spoilers but does not divulge the outcome or major points of the plot.

Can a game cause a person to embrace the dark side?

Yes, one feels the hatred flowing through them while playing this game. One also feels the elation of redemption once it’s all over.

DO: You are every Star Wars fan’s dream. Kill anything that moves using Force powers–with ultimate effect.

TYPE: 3rd person action platformer

PLATFORM: 360 and PS3 (in this iteration) (360 version reviewed here)

PRICE: $60

MEAT: Made an orphan by Darth Vader and impressed to become his adept in the Force the player is forced (heh) to become a double agent and start an uprising for the purpose of Vader wanting to overcome the Emperor and have you rule at his side. Premise aside the game is an ongoing trial of frustration. Storm Troopers can block Force powers and unwieldy camera angles make knowing where the action is rather difficult. The camera also helps in missing numerous jumps when it comes to certain levels. Throw in a useless save system and some broken save points and you tend to know what it’s like to experience the extreme power of the dark side. On more than one occasion I felt as if I could Force pull the disc from the 360 tray. The game looks and sounds great, and only during the endgame when you have most of your powers at their full potential does the game play tend to get exciting. Perhaps though the most squandered potential of any video game moment of all time is lost during the often advertised Star Destroyer scene. You’re tasked to use your Force powers to pull it down right out of the sky. Instead of being an epic moment, it becomes one of trial and error and then develops a sense of defecating relief once it’s over. The following cut scene barely manages to cover that guffaw. However that leads me to the game’s redeeming moment: the story. Let me finish by saying that it ranks in the top three of Star Wars stories grouped with The Empire Strikes Back and Knights of the Old Republic. I’ve only done this once before playing a video game, but I teared up during the final cut scene. Maybe my frustration of playing gave way to an empathy with the frustration that the apprentice felt?

PERKS: wielding the Force in its full glory is awesome; excellent graphic design, sound effects, and soundtrack; one of the greatest Star Wars stories–is it any wonder Lucas considers the game canon?

SCREAMS: to have been play tested–by people; to have better enemy awareness; to have an enemy AI other than throwing wave after wave of troopers at you; to display real lightsaber effects and not essentially be a lit wooden pole; to not have Quick Timed Events; to have a better Force power progression; to be made into a proper movie

VERDICT: Rent. This rating was really hard for me especially if you’ve read my previous frustrations. Rent it for the story alone. Otherwise watch the cut scenes on YouTube or read the book. If it wasn’t for the story I would have recommended that you Pass on the pain. They’ve sold over 1.5 million copies so will probably see a sequel with the same crappy game play.

Here’s my gamercard to show I completed the game.

[2 Minute Review] Gears Of War 2

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Michael Bay, eat your heart out. This is the game you wish you had made.

Gears of War 2 does everything the first one did, only bigger, louder and better.

DO: Shoot, run, drive, fly and chainsaw your way through hundreds of the Locust Horde across a variety of awesome set piece battles.

TYPE: 3rd Person Cover-Based Shooter

PLATFORM: Xbox 360

MEAT: Gears of War 2 is the leaner, sleeker version of Gears of War. The cover system that defined the original game has been tweaked so that Marcus will stick to things he should stick to and jump/run/dive when the situation calls for it. The story has also been beefed up significantly in this installment. It won’t win any awards but it has enough meat to give a somewhat plausible justification as to why Marcus and his crew of thick-necked soldiers keep getting into the crazy situations they find themselves in. Gears 2 is the epitome of a summer action movie distilled into a game. Explosions abound, the stakes are high and only the hero and his giant chainsaw/gun can save the day. It works great as a way to relax your brain if you’re playing headier fare like Valkyria Chronicles or Fallout 3. Just point and shoot and wait for something to go BOOM.

PERKS: Chainsaw duels; riding a variety of ‘vehicles’; giant boss fights; a variety of multiplayer modes, including the awesome 5-man Horde co-op mode.

SCREAMS: For more chainsaw duels in the story campaign; a few less underground segments.

Verdict: Buy (esp. if you want the 5 classic Gears maps). As someone who got bored of Gears 1 about 2/3rds of the way through the singleplayer campaign, I went into Gears 2 with some trepidation. Suffice it to say, Gears 2 had me hooked from start to finish and wishing it wouldn’t end. The fantastic Horde mode helps to extend the life of the game significantly and the classic multiplayer modes are all fairly fun, at least for this gamer who doesn’t play a tonne of multiplayer things. Now hurry up and get Gears 3 out so we can see where the story goes from here!

[2 Minute Review] Hinterland

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Note: with this review, we’ve moved from the “+” and “-” format in our VERDICT to Buy, Rent, or Pass.

Mix a little Diablo II, a little Dwarf Fortress, and a little Sim City and what do you get?

Hinterland—a surprisingly fun game, even without the professional polish.

DO: Build a little village all the while terrorizing the “hinterlands” with your villagers cum warriors at your side. Essentially make your tyrant of a king happy.

TYPE: clickfest hack and slash with a dose of micromanagement on top

PLATFORM: PC (Steam version reviewed here)

PRICE: $20 (via many different digital download vendors)

MEAT: You play a character (one of many typical fantasy classes with a few tongue in cheek classes as well) that’s been called by the king to establish a village and conquer the region for your liege. Travelers come to your village and you get them to stay and perform their special skill while possibly using and training them to raid the countryside with you. One caveat: when they are with you they don’t perform their skills in the village. Your village is raided as well and you can minimally defend it. The game session ends once you’ve conquered all the regions. The replay-ability comes from all the character classes and villager skill classes. Essentially, you play for high scores—and a dragon or two.

PERKS: easy to learn, lifetime to master; humorous; variable game sessions; excellent developer support; dragons; huge replay-ability; casual or hardcore; cheap;

SCREAMS: to be less ambiguous in some parts; online leaderboards; to have specific quests (the king’s requests can go to…); to have random map encounters; to have major weapons and characters (ie dragons) not be always so close to the endgame; to be able to reuse your characters; to have a little more polish; to have a screen zoom function; to be a little more reliable on some machines

VERDICT: Buy. The next game by TiltedMill—with a little more money put into by you owning this one—will be stellar. This is an excellent independent developer effort.

Game Review – Dead Space [Xbox 360]

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What can I say?

The people over at EA did a great job. This game shines with polish. From the writing on the walls to the dust particles in the air to lens flare when you look towards a light. From the opening cinematic I could tell that the game was going to have quality visuals. When you can see single fibers in the clothing of the main character it’s a good thing. ; )

You start the game as Issac Clarke who is sent to the ship Ishimura (“rock village” in Japanese) to fix a total communications blackout. Your assignment is to repair the ship and get gone. Sounds easy enough right? Well things start to go wrong as soon as you get there. No survivors, power is running low, and you’ve been cut off from everyone else. Great! And that’s when the aliens attack, which is where the fun actually begins.

The thing that is blatantly shoved down your throat at the beginning of the game is that you need to take off the limbs of the aliens in order to kill them quickly. Since your not a Master Chief or a Marine from Doom, you need to use whatever you got to do it. And what you have are mining tools. They pretty much work the same as a regular weapon and get the job done, all of the weapons have an alternate firing mode. Take for example the first weapon you get: it has a regular attack that is a vertical 3 shot and the alternate firing mode changes the gun to shoot horizontally. Of course making it easier to take the limbs off of certain types of aliens. My favorite weapon is the ripper >) ask me about it if you want to know more. The death animations for the main character are great, sometimes I catch myself dying just to check them out. Not to worry though the save points throughout the game are everywhere and the game saves surprisingly fast.

I love what they did with the HUD….there is none! Everything you need to know is visual on the character, how much health you have is shown by the tube on Issac’s back as well as other abilities described later. Another great thing is that your ammo is shown as a hologram projection off of the weapon that you are using as in the picture above. Along the same lines when you pull up your inventory or map screen it’s a projection as well but the game doesn’t pause while your looking through your items. The game is great at keeping the experience seamless.

When you get close to the monsters (which isn’t something you want to do) they usually grab you and do quite a bit of damage if of course you don’t get them off of you by hitting the A button repeatedly. I think that aspect of the game adds to the tension of the game. Your fighting one alien and then you get attacked from behind and have to fight the alien off of you while the the other is still approaching you. Once you get that alien off of you then you need to make sure he’s not going to get back up again. They added a melee attack and a boot stomp attack. Issac’s boot stomp seems to have a lot of umph behind it so when you stomp he really means it.

Another ability you get is Telekinesis: this lets you move bigger objects in the level so that you can continue further into a level. It handles like the Force Unleashed force grip, attaching to one object and you hold onto it until you drop it or throw it across the room or at some baddies. Fun fun fun. Some areas have no oxygen and you have to be quick about what your doing because you’ll run out of air. The more you upgrade your suit the more air you can have.

Speaking of upgrades!

You can upgrade your suit with more health, air, or inventory space via “power nodes” these little disc’s are the way you “level” up. Regarding weapons you can also upgrade the capacity of the weapon, the damage, or even reload speed. Once you have a node you can take it to a bench and upgrade your stuff there, again trying to actually put the player in Issac’s place. And on top of all that there is the zero-gravity areas in the game where you can aim across the room and do a zero-g jump across a big room to the other side of the room. The aliens will of course be able to attack you in the zero-g areas as well, fun stuff shooting at someone in zero-g, the body parts you knock off of the aliens just float along in limbo.

But enough of the game. What about the story?

The story is reminiscent of Doom 3, now if that’s just because it’s in space and your fighting monsters or what I’m not sure but it sure does feel along the same lines. The game does very well at keeping the player tense at all times. I always expect a monster around every corner but sometimes it’s not from around a corner that the aliens pop out but from the ceiling or from the floor even through a door. There is a lot of variety involved, when you backtrack through a level (you don’t backtrack much – fyi) there may be a monster that wasn’t there before. Keeps you on your toes. The No Known Survivors website that can fill you in on most of the story.

Dead Space has one of the better perks for a game that I’ve seen in a while. That is those who purchase the game at launch will get an exclusive in-game suit. You have to visit the Xbox LIVE Marketplace within two weeks of the game’s release in order to download the Xbox or PS3-themed Elite suit. Both suits will have advantages over regular armor and it will give you more inventory slots and better protection. They look cool to boot. Overall dead space is a winner in my book the visuals are great, the game mechanics are plentiful yet not overwhelming, and story isn’t half bad. Definitely pick this one up if your into the space horror genre.

Xbox LIVE Demo: Fracture

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As a word of warning: I only played around in the demo for a little so this won’t be a complete review of the demo.

I thought that the story didn’t seem very interesting from the beginning cinema. Nothing jumped out and grabbed me. They setup a good tutorial/newbie-type area that you could try out the basics of the different weapons and the control scheme. Now the meat and po-ta-toes, you have this pretty cool weapon that can either raise the ground up or down where you shoot it. The gun has the ability to re-charge (could have been a faster re-charge rate for my tastes, but alas) so you pretty much have unlimited ammo.

The game really didn’t stand out from any other 3rd-person shooter. The visuals are awesome of course, the Unreal Engine 3 is quite a piece of work. The only real difference in this game from the plethora of shooters that are out there is the terrain deformation. You have to think vertical more than just horizontal, you get shot from above and behind then you need figure out how to get up there and take care of business. Use your terrain altering gun and make a hill to get up to a broken stairway to get to the next level and take those punks out that shot you in the back.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: From what I’ve seen it’s mostly just another 3rd-person shooter, and the story hasn’t made me care for the world of Fracture at all. Now, if the multiplayer can utilize the terrain deformation aspect of the game in a fun and creative way, it might actually turn out to be something. But with all of the FPS/3rd-person shooter games that are coming out soon (Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War, etc.) I don’t see Fracture becoming a best seller this holiday season.

[2 Minute Review] Marvel Trading Card Game

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What’s better than a cross between the Marvel universe and Magic:The Gathering right?


DO: Use the stylus so much in the same spot that it scratches the surface of the touch screen on your DS. A game that probably has the most characters from the Marvel universe. Keeps you craving more cards.

TYPE: Card

PLATFORM: DS (and the PSP)

PRICE: About $20 or $30

MEAT: This game is a pretty straight forward card game. The battle system takes some getting used to and the tutorial doesn’t help out too much. If you put the time and effort into getting to know the system it’s well worth it. The game has all the main characters that you could want and even some that you wished they didn’t waste their time putting into the game. Then again you need to have some weak characters in the game, everyone can’t be the strongest card available. The actual powers/abilities, strength, and defense of the characters match up pretty well in the system as they do in the comics.

The story of the game isn’t the best and is kind of lacking yet the cut scenes are in the form of a comic which is cool. The artwork of the superheroes and super heroines on the cards and in the cut scenes are great, the characters have several cards each with different pictures on each one. Half of the fun of the game is getting new cards and seeing the new art on the cards. When you start a new single player game you pick either hero or villain and once you beat it as one, you play through the story of the other with all of your previously collected cards. The system to get new cards is the same setup as a store in the real world. You buy a booster pack of hero or villain cards and in each comic world like the X-men or Fantastic Four.

PERKS: Great gallery of all the main characters; smooth gameplay; online play; a good comic book based game; it’s great to beat a hard opponent that you’ve lost to multiple times.

SCREAMS: The need of a good story; no cancel button (if you hit the wrong button or choose the wrong card your stuck, I’ve lost a couple hands due to that missing feature); one boss was WAY harder than it needed to be; the tutorial/learning curve could be better.

VERDICT: Buy~ As a comic book related game it is a lot better then most of the ones out there. I enjoyed the game a lot. I recommend the game for anyone interested in it or knows enough about comics and needs a handheld gaming fix of them. [Read more…] about [2 Minute Review] Marvel Trading Card Game