Archive - 2012

SNK PlayStation Minis: Chopper I And The Next Space Reviews (PSN)

2012/08/23

There is just something I really like about the SNK PlayStation Minis: yes they download to my PSP in less than 5 minutes and they also take up almost no space and give you a full game, but I really think it is the fact that it gives me a chance to relive the glory of the arcade days and giving a whole new generation who might have missed it a taste of gaming days gone by. They aren’t going to win any graphic contests anytime soon and some of them might remind you more of their popular “cousins” in from the arcade but the ones they pick still have the same addictive gameplay that got people shelling out quarters back in the day all for a couple bucks and all as portable or console as you want it to be.

Chopper I

I played this one first because I remembered the name. Many of these I don’t remember the name but the play style immediately makes me go “oh yeah this one plays just like ‘1943’!” which is a point that could be made with this one since it is similar to that arcade classic just with a chopper instead of a bomber and no flipping.

This game is a vertical scroller that allows full movement around the screen which is good because the enemies are maniacally all over the place. This game was a quarter chewer back in the day and those with the best reflexes tended to be the only ones with change left in their pockets for the prize claw machine in the corner. It was a great day when this came out on console simply because then you paid your one price and played as much as you wanted until exhausted.

This game is constant work, with enemies flying in from all directions, rail guns firing off constant rounds, anti-air placed on most bluffs and constant aerial attack by other helicopters. It even had those painful spawn moments where you spawn right in the middle of a barrage of enemy fire and die before you can make a single move.

Yet the game is STILL addictive, probably for all it’s challenge and probably more fun since you know how much your wallet is saving. Boss battles are outrageously hard but satisfying to complete and you have a never ending supply of credits. Definitely worth the couple bucks to purchase and you will find yourself playing it anywhere since its available on PSP and PS Vita and easy to pick up and just a bit harder to put back down.

The Next Space

There was a whole bunch of space fighter games that came out where the ship moved around the screen and enemy ships came flying down in formation, shooting streams of plasma shots then heading off the bottom of the screen. In some games they return until you take them down and others a new wave would move on after that wave past.

Galaga was a good example of this and The Next Space is another fine one. It is pretty straight forward, enemies fly down and you have to shoot them without being shot. You can pick up powerups as you go. The concept seems so simple that if you were to describe it to someone who wasn’t part of the arcade generation they probably would pause, look at you, and say “So?” because it truly is something you have to experience to fully understand.

With the PSP, Vita, or PS3 you really do experience it as close to the arcade as possible since the controls are set up to use the stick on the controller to move around and use one button, just like the old days. One of the particularly fun things about this title is that you can play two people on the screen at the same time instead of taking turns. Back in the day in video arcades taking turns tended to build a competitive nature whereas both playing on the screen created a co-operative atmosphere where you were both just trying to stay alive through the onslaught.

This brings back fond memories of playing such games back in college on older systems with my good buddy in his dorm room late into the night trying to finish one of the co-op games or at least get as far as the two of us could as a team.

Last Call:

These game are total nostalgia plays for just a couple of bucks. They get you hours of playtime or minutes and can be on the go played standing in line or with a buddy sitting on your couch. They have versions of these games or their cousins that you can get on the computer as well but they tend to lack the vital feel that you get playing these on a console or portable system and I have to say I like that these are so true to the originals that you are plunking in quarters and playing with a joystick and a button. It can be a reminder of when 3 buttons were considered confusing on a game and it can show that just because newer games require more controls doesn’t mean old school can’t be fun.

Gallery:

Risen 2: Dark Waters (Xbox 360) – A Review

2012/08/23

Judgeman

News, Reviews

Piranha Bytes and Deep Silver has brought us the latest game in the Risen franchise with Risen 2: Dark Waters. Instead of being a direct sequel to Risen, Risen 2 feels more like a re-imagining of the entire franchise, giving up on the high fantasy world of Risen for a more realistic pirate feel in the new game. The story of Risen 2 follows the same nameless hero from Risen, as he sets out on a fairly generic quest, to collect legendary artifacts to defeat an ancient evil in the form of a sea monster. Game play mechanics feel right and the world definitely gives you more then enough to do, but on the Xbox 360, the graphics just look horrible. I’m not sure what happened along the way here, but everything looks washed out, the animations are not finished, and characters will even stop mid sentence and just stare at the screen. What could have been a solid game, is brought down to mediocre even bad levels by unfinished animations and graphics.

Story:

The story for Risen 2 is a very generic piece of work. Risen 2 still follows the same nameless hero from Risen, who begins Risen 2 working for the Inquisition and being stationed on an island in the middle of the ocean. He is awakened to see a ship coming into harbor, that is completely destroyed by the Kraken, a huge sea monster that has been hunting down and destroying ships throughout the ocean. One of the survivors of the shipwreck tells a tale of her father and his legendary weapon that can be used to finally rid the world of not only the Kraken, but the other monsters that threaten humanity as well. The nameless hero is then charged by the Inquisition with the task of recovering this weapon from the pirates and to proceed in making the world safe again.

While very generic, the story line works well for the world that has been created for Risen 2. There is a reason that most RPGs use this type of story, and that is because it is an easy way to give the heroes the motivation to leave their homes and partake in the mission that is given to them. This gives Piranha Bytes the opportunity to fill the world with interesting creatures and side missions galore, which helps to flesh out the story line a bit more but never truly brings it into a great story. I have to give Piranha Bytes credit for changing up the theme from high fantasy that was the original Risen, but going to a pirate theme in Risen 2 just feels like they are trying to cash in on the Pirates of the Caribbean success. Unfortunately, Piranha Bytes and Risen 2 are even way to late to cash in on that success. In the end, the story works, as does the environments, but ultimately just feels a little generic, like we have played this game before.

Game Play:

Game play mechanics for Risen 2 are solid but generic as well. Your characters skills, in the beginning of the game, start out very rudimentary and boring, only being able to swing a sword. However, as the game goes on and you start to develop new skills, game play changed drastically. Sword play becomes more involved and not just mashing the X button, and you gain abilities like sneak or pick pocket. If learning to fight with a sword does not fit your character or play style, then you can focus on muskets or even learn voodoo spells. For me, the voodoo system felt very underwhelming and underdeveloped, as I was hoping for more here.

Voodoo had the potential to be really fun in Risen 2. I could imagine being a voodoo spell caster and creating zombies or directly hexing my opponents using voodoo dolls, but Risen 2 only lets you debuff enemies or mind control them, with no direct damage spells. Voodoo is used as a set of spells that you would cast prior to killing your enemies with either musket or sabre. Not saying that you will not find uses for these spells, but as an overall system, voodoo just feels like a complete letdown and far more underdeveloped then most other RPG magic systems on the market.

Some skills will give you different conversation choices as you go through the game, allowing you to intimidate or charm your way through the world. Some of these choices will give you funny conversations or change encounters to your favor, but feels just like any other chat system that has used this style before, like Vampire: The Masquerade. NPCs can be picked up too as you adventure through Risen 2. Like the NPCs in other RPGs, say like Skyrim, they work best as damage sponges and targets for the beasts and monsters of the world. Get the enemy to focus on your NPC so that you can move into position and blast away without taking damage, especially if the enemy is fairly cheap in its tactics by using stun locks.

Overall, what is here in Risen 2: Dark Waters is good but ultimately could have been so much better with a little more developmental time and energy. A complete spell casting system would have given us another viable choice to run through the world of Risen 2, and I feel that Piranha Bytes really missed the boat with that. I would have loved being able to summon a horde of zombies to do my bidding as I sat back and poked needles into a voodoo doll to damage my targets.

Aesthetics:

Ok, here is where Risen 2: Dark Waters unfortunately goes belly up for me, the aesthetics department. Let me reiterate a few points before I get into my little tirade. The use of aesthetics in a game is a funny thing, all games have aesthetics and a design framework to work in. Aesthetics and graphics are not the same thing. Some games out there have great aesthetics with non high resolution graphics, like Team Fortress 2 or Awesomenauts. The graphics of those games are not bad, just not on par with the top of the line games on the market, hence why I changed the title to this category to aesthetics, to allow games like Awesomenauts to shine.

With the case of Risen 2: Dark Waters, the design of the game is well done. I can see what the designers wanted to achieve and the world they wanted to portray. Unfortunately, on the Xbox 360, the graphics ruin any chance for the aesthetics to come through and shine. This game looks outright horrible on the 360. It would be a bad looking game on the Wii, that’s just how bad it is. Animations are not finished in the game. Characters would stop moving their mouths to match the voice over, like all of that work was making them tired. Characters would also turn without animations. I felt like I was watching a horror movie sometimes, the character would be facing someone, then suddenly would appear to be facing someone else. And who thought it would be a good idea for characters to stop and face the screen to continue their conversations? This felt like I was watching a bad elementary school production.

The voice overs were not all that great either, with everyone sporting a bad accent and giving over the top performances. The music was workable, but unremarkable. Unfortunately, the horror show that was the graphics really took me out of any immersion that I would feel for this game, and made it hard to focus on anything else when it came to the aesthetics of Risen 2: Dark Water. If you are going to buy this game, and have a PC that can run it, I strongly suggest you get it on that platform. The Xbox version just isn’t good at all in this category.

Final Thoughts:

What could have been a good game comes off as rather mediocre, even bad, due to some game killing issues. The horrid “last generation” graphics and missing animations coinciding with a lack luster voodoo system completely ruins a good but generic story line and solid game play mechanics. If you get the PC version of Risen 2, then you will get an graphics upgrade, but will still be suffering through the underdeveloped combat system. Even if you were a huge fan of Risen, Risen 2 does not give you enough to want to continue that story line, since this game feels nothing like the last game. If you need to get a pirate RPG right now, then this is your only choice, but seriously, get it for the PC. It’s still not great on the PC, but it looks a far sight better then it does on the Xbox, and in this case, that makes all the difference in the world. Risen 2: Dark Waters is available now.

Juan Of The Dead (Movie Review)

2012/08/22

Ripper71

Film Review, Halloween, Movie News, News, Reviews

When you think of Cuba and exports, it is almost always the illegal cigars supposedly rolled on the thighs of virgins (hey I am allergic to smoke, all I know about cigars I learned from TV and movies). Otherwise if you know your history the only other things that generally pop into one’s mind is the Cuban Missile Crisis and a guy name Fidel who, like Hitler, has ruined the use his name for all time. Oh and the Bay Of Pigs, that should really be in there somewhere I guess. What you don’t think of out of Cuba is one of the best down-to-cemetery-earth stories of the Cuban people uprising again the uprising dead.

The films starts by painting a Cuba that few American probably think of. Lower class Cubans who fish, drink and con the tourists. This may be stereotyping or this may be exactly how their lives are, once again we are products of our perception which is shaped by television and movies.

They aren’t rebels running around in the hillside, these are people who watch the sunset from their roof with their favorite bottle. They watch the goings on below because at least that generally isn’t state run propaganda like everything on TV. They stay alive as best they can under hard circumstances, which get harder when sick people start dying and getting sicker. With no education and most of their knowledge gleamed from state run television a commoner named Juan and his friends at first believe what we call “zombies” are what they call “dissidents,” enemies of the state bent on causing a downfall of the government.

Ok you might think they would catch on pretty quick, but Juan and his buddies, though pumped full of survival instinct, don’t know a zombie from a lobster (that is one of his guesses on what they are at one point) so the learning curve on killing and escaping is a little slower than average.

This makes for some very funny political humor and believing themselves patriots Juan and the others go about teaching others how to kill dissidents and charging others to put their loved ones down for them (sounds kinda Capitalistic to me). That last bit might have seemed like a spoiler but in scenes paying homages to just about every undead movie out there from vampires to zombies I really haven’t given away hardly anything yet alone spoiled the funniest parts.

The key to this movie is Alejandro Brugues, who wrote and produced this film, seemed to honestly care about the characters and bring that emotion to the audience. I can name a bunch of non-horror movies where this is done which often end in tragedy because the emotions come to a head. In this case, because it is tempered with horror and humor it slides from an emotional development of the characters into decapitating the undead.

It is just something you don’t see very often in horror movies, where tension, suspense, and gore are the key elements. There is a reason they chose to make their movie sound like Shaun Of The Dead because just like those were supposed to be the everyday slackers of England facing the undead, this is about the everyday slackers of Cuba doing the same and tries to foster that same feeling of attachment to the characters.

Last Call:

This film is a weird combination of a look at Cuba’s lower class and their survivalist pride and a humorous gorefest based around zombies. Juan Of the Dead is Cuba’s first foray into splatter comedy I believe. It works for the most part, on rare occasion a character acts more for the humor factor than what would seem true to their form, overall though right up until the credit scene Juan’s character in life is a testament in a time of death.

Trailer:

Giada Announces The A51 Mini PC

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News

August 21, 2012, San Francisco, California – Giada, a brand of Jehe Technology Inc., is pleased to announce the new A51 mini PC series with an AMD T56N processor. This book-sized PC is quiet and unobtrusive, but offers remarkable power, performance and style. The A51 series is powerful enough to use as your main home computer, and it’s small size, low power consumption, and portability also make it the perfect choice for a second home PC.

This mini PC has all the features you need for the ultimate home entertainment, including 1080p Full High Definition graphics and vivid 5.1 surround sound. There’s full Windows 7 support out-of-the-box, and 320 Gigabytes of hard drive space to store your favorite music and movies. Accessories include a wireless remote with remote boot-up for comfortable viewing and listening. The A51 series is the ideal Home Theater PC (HTPC) and media server.

The A51’s AMD T56N processor provides more than enough computing power for your needs while just consuming 35W. Thanks to Giada’s advanced heat control technology, the A51 runs cool and quiet. When enjoying movies and music, you do not have to worry about loud fans spoiling your favorite scene or part of a song.

Available in black or white, the A51 series looks great in any living room, bedroom or home office, thanks to its stylish and slim design that help it fit neatly into even the smallest available space. It can blend into the background, but it’s always there to provide instant computing power whenever you need it. The A51 series may be small, but it still offers plenty of connectivity options with its five USB connectors (1 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0), a gigabit network socket, high speed 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, plus HDMI and VGA video outputs. And there’s a memory card slot so you can instantly transfer your video, photos and music to or from mobile phones, cameras, and mp3 players. The USB connectors also allow you add huge external storage capacity for movies, music, photos and data.

Specifications

CPU	AMD® T56N
Chipset	AMD® A50M FCH
GPU	CPU embedded graphics
System Memory	4G DDR3-800/1066 (1 x SO-DIMM slot)
Storage	320G 2.5″HDD
I/O	1 x USB3.0 4 x USB2.0 1 x Card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO) 1 x HDMI 1 x VGA 1 x S/PDIF-out
LAN	Gigabit LAN + Wi-Fi 802.11n + Bluetooth
Audio	AUDIO-out/MIC-in
Power Consumption	35W
Size	192 x 155 x 26 mm
Color	Black & White
OS	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (Optional)

SNK Minis Chopper I And The Next Space Released

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News

SNK PLAYMORE USA CORPORATION (Corporate HQ: Suita-city, Osaka, Japan, Company President: Ryo Mizufune) is proud to announce the North & South American release of 2 more nostalgic SNK Arcade Classics (“CHOPPER I” and “THE NEXT SPACE” as PlayStation Minis titles on PSP (also compatible with PS3), via the “New Releases” category and the “SNK NEOGEO” Featured Publishers page available on the PlayStation Store.

The SNK minis titles are a commemorative “retro-arcade emulation” project that allows players to enjoy a grand collection of action, shooting, platform, and action/puzzle titles. Many of these nostalgic, highly innovative arcade classics released during SNK’s Golden Age of action-shooting, etc. during the 80’s, are now exclusively available on PSP (PlayStation Portable) and compatible on the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system as well for even greater enjoyment!

CHOPPER I

Infiltrate the enemy territory and take down enemy choppers, tanks and boats in this vertically scrolling helicopter shooting game released by SNK in 1988.

THE NEXT SPACE

Pilot a spaceship, collect various speed and weapon items to take down a multitude of enemies, and restore peace to the galaxy in this vertical scrolling shooter released by SNK in 1989.

The previous sets of titles included some of SNK’s arcade masterpieces such as “ATHENA”, “IKARI WARRIORS”, “GUERRILLA WAR”, “STREET SMART”, and “VANGUARD”, along with a number of other lesser known, yet revolutionary titles to be enjoyed by both retro gamers and younger generations of players alike.

“As we will continue to follow up in releasing more nostalgic arcade classics via PS minis on PlayStation®Network, make sure to stay tuned by becoming a member of our frequently updated official Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/NeoGeoStation for more info!”

Hotel Transylvania Coming To Nintendo DS And 3DS

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News

Minneapolis, MN – GameMill Entertainment, an independent publisher of entertaining mass-market video games, announced today Hotel Transylvania for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS hand-held systems launches September 18, 2012, based on Sony Pictures Animation’s upcoming animated comedy Hotel Transylvania releasing in theaters nationwide on September 28, 2012.

Welcome to Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monsters they are — without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of his best friends — Frankenstein and his wife, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Werewolf family, and more — to celebrate his beloved daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem — but everything could change for the overprotective dad when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis.

Featuring a wide variety of locations, puzzles, and boss battles galore, the game creates an imaginative and fun way to interact with the movie characters. Developed by Way Forward, Hotel Transylvania for Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS is rated “E10+” for Everyone 10 and up by the ESRB. For additional information about GameMill’s line of products, please visit: www.game-mill.com.

Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron Release Trailer

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News

With Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron releasing today, here is the launch trailer to get your head in the game!

Trailer:

NVIDIA Announces the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News

Introducing the weapon of choice for gamers – the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti. It adds a new dimension to the NVIDIA Kepler-powered family of graphics cards by delivering the ideal fusion of power, performance, and affordability. Experience faster, smoother, richer gaming with innovative NVIDIA technologies like TXAA antialiasing, Adaptive Vertical Sync, and PhysX.

EVGA is offering a full lineup of GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics cards, including Superclocked, FTW and 3GB models:
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked 2GB
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti FTW 2GB
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti+ 3GB
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked+ 3GB
· EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti FTW+ 3GB

The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics card features many new and key features:

* NVIDIA SMX Engine – Brand new processing engine which delivers twice the performance/watt compared to previous generations.
* NVIDIA GPU Boost Technology – Dynamically maximizes clockspeeds to push performance to new levels and brings out the best in every game.
* NVIDIA FXAA – Lightning fast anti-aliasing in a huge variety of games with the simple click of a mouse.
* NVIDIA TXAA – Next generation anti-aliasing algorithm that delivers the image quality of 8x MSAA, with the performance hit of only 2x MSAA.
* Adaptive Vertical Sync – Dynamically adjusts VSync to your monitor’s native refresh rate for the smoothest gameplay possible.
* Frame Rate Target – Set a target Frame Rate with EVGA Precision X and your card will automatically adjust the power/performance to meet that target.
* NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround – Supporting up to three gaming monitors plus one accessory display!
* PCI Express 3.0 – Offers double the bandwidth of PCI Express 2.0, for highest data transfer speeds. Also backwards compatible with all existing PCI Express motherboards.

Also, EVGA is offering an exclusive EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Precision X skin that can be downloaded at the official EVGA Precision X website.<http://www.evga.com/precision> EVGA Precision X is the ultimate GeForce overclocking/monitoring software which allows you to fine tune your EVGA graphics card, including GPU clock speeds, Memory clock speeds, Fan speeds and more!

EVGA Precision X Key Features:

· Brand new GUI – Built from the ground up for the next generation of graphics accelerators.

· Advanced Hardware Monitoring – See GPU vitals in real time.

· In Game Monitoring – See your GPU vitals, without leaving your game!

· Frame Rate Target – GeForce GTX 660 Ti will adjust power/clock dynamically to mach set framerate.

· Fan Curve – Set up an advanced fan profile.

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise (XBLA) – A Review

2012/08/21

Judgeman

News, Reviews

Qooc Soft and 7sixty brings us an old school arcade beat-em-up style video game with Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise on the XBLA. While Kung Fu Strike will not win any awards for game play or story telling this year, the game ultimately succeeds where many have failed before, it is fun to play. The story is basic and told through dialogue loading screens before each map, and can even be skippable in the options menu, so that should tell you how much the developers believed in their story. Game play is old school brawler, fighting a screen full of enemies on your way to the boss for that section. Aesthetics remind me a lot of Street Fighter 4, with the ink outlining and dripping as you pull of major moves, to reproduce the look of Chinese art. That is Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise summed up, now let’s look at the details of what made this game.

Story:

Whenever a developer makes the story to a game optional, I have some concerns. The story is usually what draws the player into the surroundings of the game and immerses us into the world that the developer wants us to be in. A story gives you that connection and when you make it skippable, like Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise does, then you are just solely relying on your game play to save the game. That means your game play has to be so good that people will want to continue playing your game without ever becoming invested in the characters. That is a bold move, and it works here for Kung Fu Strike: A Warrior’s Rise, sort of.

The story follows you as General Loh, a general of the current ruling faction of China, who is both searching for his father’s murderer and is trying to save his ruler from a rebellion. The game follows Loh as he searches for answers in a secluded monastery, searching for the master. Unwanted at the monastery, Loh must fight his way passed everyone, just to have a talk with the master. To make matters worse, members of the rebellion have traced Loh to this monastery and are trying to kill him to help further the cause of the revolution.

The story is told through graphic novel pages, a la Max Payne, but without any type of voice acting. If we had cared more about the story and the characters, I truly believe this could have raised Kung Fu Strike: A Warrior’s Rise to a higher level of excitement and enjoyment. However, since the developers had absolutely no faith in their story and chose not to develop it further, it only serves as background knowledge and the entire game has to rely on it’s game play to make it through this review.

Game Play:

The good news here for Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise is that it’s game play is enough to make this game good, though not great. The game is set up to have you fight your opponents within sections of the monastery, like the front gate, the courtyard, or the “Zen Room of Emptiness”. Within these sections, you will defeat soldiers and monks in groups, battling your way to the mini boss of that section. While fighting these waves are fairly straight forward for this type of game, the action can be frantic if you are not paying attention enough to get yourself overrun, and the boss fights are a pain to play. Each boss has a set pattern to their attacks, so it is up to you to quickly learn the tells from the boss in order to counter act or dodge these attacks. I felt like I was playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out again, staring into his eyes to see what move he was going to make next. The bosses can also complete moves that are completely unblockable, and must be dodged. These are truly what drove me up the wall, for I would have the block and counter punch pattern down, only to forget that the next move needed to be dodged.

The moves list plays out like any other brawler, you have some combinations that are all performed by hitting certain buttons in certain order that goes along with a block button that most will forget about until you fight the boss. In Kung Fu Strike: the Warrior’s Rise, timing is everything. Your blocks, parries, deflections, and moves will all depend on how quick your reflexes are on whether or not you are successful in pulling of the move. Your biggest enemy here, however, is the camera. The camera has a tendency to do it’s own thing during some fights, not all. It will behave for most of the game, then decided that it’s been good long enough, and misbehave just in time for you to miss a critical move or block. While not a deal breaker, the camera was annoying enough to make a mention of it in this review.

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise can be played co-op on the same screen, which is great. Two people beating up wave after wave of monks and soldiers reminded me of the hours I put into Double Dragon as a kid at the local arcade. What did frustrate me with this game play mechanic, is that essentially you and your partner share the same life. If one of you is cornered and defeated, then the game is over. For the minion fights, that isn’t such a big deal unless one of you just isn’t paying attention, but for the boss fights it can become annoying quickly. Again, like many of the flaws of Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise, annoying not game breaking.

Aesthetics:

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise is done in a very similar art style to that done in Street Fighter 4. The artists used heavy black lines to represent the ink in a Chinese painting to outline the world, and to highlight the moves of General Loh. Ink blots will appear on your screen as you pull off major moves and spin through the air. The visuals of the game look good, if not great and would be quite unique if it had not been for Street Fighter 4. Still, overall, the game has a nice feel and look to it and utilizes the graphics well enough to give us a nice visually pleasing world to play through. Level design is very basic and relies on the background textures to be interesting, and are all taken out of your typical Chinese kung fu design schemes.

Voice acting for Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise is non existent. The only voice work you will hear will be the typical grunts and yells of the stereotypical kung fu practitioner. Sound effects are exactly what you would expect from this type of game; punches, kicks and other impact sound effects. None of this detracts from the overall aesthetic of Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise, but none of this adds to it either.

Final Thoughts:

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise knows what it does and does not do well. The game is very self aware that the only reason people will play it is because of the game play and the old school brawler mechanics, not because of the story line or voice acting. The game plays well and is fun, but truly lacks the polish and care that is shown in some other higher budget games. The aesthetics, though borrowed from other games, are used well here and make the game look good. Only a few issues made the game feel unpolished, like a camera that would misbehave every once in a while, and bosses that felt rather cheap sometimes. These negatives, while annoying, don’t detract too much from the overall feel of Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise. Overall, this is a very solid throwback to the arcade beat-em-up game mechanic, playable from the comfort of your couch. Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior’s Rise is available now for the XBLA.

Trailer:

The Dark Knight Manual (Book Review)

2012/08/21

Ripper71

News, Reviews

Occasionally we at GamingShogun.com read more than just game manuals (who am I kidding? We NEVER read game manuals!) and on those occasions it usually has to do with something video game related. In this case it was actually based off of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Universe but it is at least a manual! The Dark Knight Manual: Tools, Weapons, Vehicles & Documents From The Batcave is comprehensive collection of information for those who will never be satisfied for what they glimpsed on the big screen.

The manual is written under the premise that after the destruction of Wayne Manor Bruce Wayne started collecting all files, documents, sketches, and pretty much everything that is needed to become Batman and entrusted the collection to Alfred. The manual opens to the case file of his parents murder and by saying it opens to the case file it literally opens to a case file, made of old cardboard filing sleeve which opens and shows crime scene reports as well as glued together photos from the crime scene. The cover of the file has the name of every officer who checked it out, the date and its return date and pages you can flip through. This sets the mood for the whole book which it follows through with, this truly feels like it was taken straight out of that world, that these are the actual documents, schematics and details that made Batman who he is. Many parts are written on post-it notes or scraps of paper while other parts are in architectural document sleeves that contain blue prints on how to theoretically create the devices. There are newspaper clippings that don’t just have a headline with scribbles for a story but actually have a fully written story taken right out of a scene either from the movie or would have happened between the scenes.

I’m sure the Dark Knight Notebook wouldn’t have carried the same weight and technically it is a manual on creating Batman from the Batarang to his mental state and fighting style, but it feels like a notebook in the sense that it is composed of scraps of information compiled together, sometimes literally on a scrap of paper that as the owner of the book you could take out and stick on your wall. It kind of reminds me of what someone obsessed with a subject might make, there is a degree of obsession that comes through in the book, as if Bruce Wayne knew that someday something might happen and someone else might need to take up the mantle and this is everything needed. It also has the feel that originally all this might have been tacked to a wall as it was organized and re-organized to eventually fit into categories. This isn’t a sterile bunch of facts, there is emotion in here, personalities come through and it truly feels like an extension of the movies.

Any big fan of the Batman franchise will love the breakdown of his toys, the blueprints, concepts sketches and photographic details of their completion. The Batsuit is displayed in transparent increasing layers starting with Bruce Wayne without the suit at the bottom and building up, piece by transparent papered piece until you see him in the full suit. It even has details of the presuit, which “was an Applied Sciences creation: strong and stiff and originally designed for advanced infantry use.” There is a post-it attached to this that says “Master Wayne, I’ve replaced the base layer, if you’ll kindly be more careful putting it on the next time? Even with your bank account, $300,000 per suit warrants some caution. -A” This is the beauty of the book, it really brings across the details of the objects but also the character of those who populate Batman’s life because in the end the whole book revolves around making Batman.

I have only one point of slight disappointment and it is fairly slight. Most of the items that can be pulled out of the book have small print on it somewhere noting that it is trademarked and copyrighted by DC Comics. In an otherwise very well detailed immersion which uses so many aspects to sell the feel that this came right out of that universe, DC Comics has to put it’s stamp on things completely reminding you that this is a fictitious universe based on a comic book. I understand since there items could literally be pulled out of the book that you might want to note intellectual property but since technically any page could be taken out of a book it seemed unfair to all the work done to make this seem so real to have the “DC Comics” splashed all through it.

Last Call:

I had high hopes for this book when it arrived but it was even better than I had expected. There was a lot of love and detail put into this, it was truly made to feel right out of the Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight universe. I was like a kid pointing out the details in the book that made it seem so authentic, like it was stolen right off of Alfred’s desk. The little DC Comics trademark everywhere took away from it but not enough to spoil it, not enough to ruin all the detail and touches that were put into this amazing book. If you are a Batman fan, a fan of the movies or just a book reader who wants to read a story told in such a unique way this is the book for you.