Archive for category Video Game

2010 Video Game Awards

For the 2nd Annual Tancap Video Game Awards:

Best Action Game
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (XBox 360 / PS3)

Best Driving Game
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (XBox 360 / PS3)

Best Exercise Game
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (XBox 360)

Best Fighting Game
Super Street Fighter IV (XBox 360 / PS3)

Best Platformer
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

Best Puzzle Game
Tumble (PS3)

Best Rhythm/Music Game
Rock Band 3 (Multiplatform)

Best Role-Playing Game
Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (PS3)

Best Strategy Game
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC)

Best Multiplayer Game
Call of Duty: Black Ops (XBox 360 / PS3)

Best “Other” Category Game
Heavy Rain (PS3)

Game of the Year
Mass Effect 2 (XBox 360)

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Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I finally got around to publishing a few new reviews including:

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Microsoft Kinect First Thoughts

I’ve had a chance to play with the Kinect for a little over a week now.  Overall I’m actually fairly impressed.  While not quite as accurate as PlayStation’s Move, movement is overall tracked quite well for most of the titles I tried.  Even though the cost of entry is higher than the Move, when you figure in the cost of all the controllers necessary for two players it is actually quite competitive.  While there were some bad initial titles released, overall I feel the initial lineup for the Kinect is substantially better.  Some people have complained that many Kinect games are physically strenuous and can’t be played for long periods of times.  I would argue that those people are (with a couple of exceptions) missing the point.  Kinect is not about providing an better interface for playing hours of Halo.  For those type of FPS games, a controller (or better yet a mouse and keyboard) will always be a better choice.  Kinect is about providing a pickup and play experience, removing the intimidation factor that comes from dealing with traditional multiple XBox gamepad.  In this it is clearly successful, perhaps even more so than even the Wii.  What remains to be seen is how well third party developers (many of which have struggled with the Wii), will be able to utilize it.

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PlayStation Move

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to try out the PlayStation Move.  Overall, the hardware works well.  The controller accuracy was better than with the Wii MotionPlus.  The only glitch I encountered is that low light conditions caused problems for some of the demos I tried.

Sony’s biggest question mark is currently its demo titles.  In brief:
Sports Games:
Sports Champions: The best of the bunch, but very uneven AI hurts solo play and it doesn’t have the same variety as Wii Sports Resort.
Tiger Woods 11: The control works well, if implemented a bit awkwardly (must used a regular controller to navigate menus prior to starting a game)

Gun Games:
The Shoot and Time Crisis: Razing Storm: Both good, but are arcade gun games that don’t make much use of the Move hardware other than as a light gun.

Party Games:
Start the Party: Simple fun, but only 1 player at a time?
TV Superstars:  Only “Get Physical” and “FrockStar” included in the demo.  “Get Physical” was fairly good, but limited, but I can’t see why anyone would like “FrockStar” which consists primarily of mimicking movements shown on the screen with the Move controller.  The remaining modes sound promising, but depending on when the demo was built there is a lot of work left to do.  Also, single player has no AI competition.

Puzzle Games:
EchoChrome II and Tumble: Tumble is arguably the best exhibit for the Move.  Both games are done well, but being puzzle games will probably limit their audience.

Other:
Kung Fu Rider: Disappointingly unresponsive control, seems to be lacking content as well.
Eye Pet: It may have been lighting related, but I experience difficulty in getting even some of the basic motions recognized.

There really doesn’t seem to be a “system” seller in the bunch.  It appears once again, Sony has provided some very capable hardware with no compelling title to go with it.

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New Review Posted

I’ve posted a short review of “10 Minute Solution” for the Wii.  While it is value priced, I didn’t find enough content to recommend it.  Things should be much more interesting this winter with a number of exercise games coming for Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Move.

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My Fitness Coach 2 Review Posted

I’ve posted my review of My Fitness Coach 2.  It another in a growing line of disappointing exercise games from Ubisoft.  With new exercise titles coming out at the end of this year for the XBox 360 and PS3, hopefully we’ll start seeing more exercise games that take the quality of their presentation and accuracy of their controls seriously.

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Sony and Nintendo at E3

Sony took their turn at E3.  While Microsoft focused on Kinect, Sony focused more on promoting their game line up.  They showed a number of games with Move support including Heavy Rain.  It looks like Sony will be able to launch their motion controller with a more varied lineup than Microsoft.  Other announcements by Sony include a premium online version of their online service and titles with 3DTV support.  More information is also available via Playstation Home.

Nintendo showed off a few expected new titles based on its core franchise such as Legend of Zelda: Skyward Word, Metroid: Other M, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Mario Sports Mix.   Also featured were reboots of some old classics such as NBA Jam, and Golden Eye 007.  While it was nice to see a fairly solid lineup for some classic IP, it would have been nice to see something new for the console market.  With motion control looking to be on track for both Microsoft and Sony and 3rd party support lacking, Nintendo will have to depend much more heavily on its 1st party titles to do well than in the past.  Most of the interesting information at E3 from Nintendo came from the official reveal of the Nintendo 3DS.  Once again it looks like Nintendo is going to show everyone else how a portable gaming system should be designed.    More information is available on the web and via the Nintendo Channel on the Wii.

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Microsoft at E3

Today Microsoft was center stage at E3.  Microsoft announced a new slim version of the XBox 360 elite.  The official product name for Natal will be Kinect.  A whole slew of games using Kinect were featured including Dance Central, Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joy Ride, Kinect Adventures, Kinect: Star Wars, Your Shape Fitness Evolved, Deca Sports Freedom, Zumba Fitness and EA Sports Active 2.  There will be an ESPN 3 app for the 360 as well as video chat (VideoKinect), and Kinect integration for Zune.  Other games featured included Halo: Reach, Call of Duty Black Ops, Fable III, Kingdoms, Madden NFL 11, and Rock Band 3.  If you own a 360 you can get more details by checking out “XBOX @ E3″ in the Spotlight section.  You can see some of the Kinect games in action at the xbox.com website.

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Steam Client for Mac OS X Released

The Steam Client for Mac OS X is now available here.  When you are done installing be sure to pickup a free copy of Portal.

Thanks DailyTech

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The Biggest Loser Interactive Fitness Game Review Posted

I posted my review for this, after spending a frustrating and bug filled month with it.  A special thanks to X-Play for having no integrity during their recent mini-review of exercise games that caused me to give it a chance.

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