Mass Effect 2
For: Xbox 360 and Windows PC
From: Bioware/EA
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, drug reference, sexual content, strong language, violence)

“Mass Effect” marked a bold venture for Bioware, which took the underpinnings of its superlatively deep role-playing games and crammed them into a tactical third-person shooter with combat as real-time as in any other sci-fi action game. Surprisingly, it worked: The combat was highly imperfect but easily sufficient, and the branching storylines, deep character progression and ridiculous interplanetary scope made for one of 2007’s best games.

How impressive, then, that “Mass Effect 2″ comes along and makes its predecessor look like a rough draft by comparison.

Principally, “ME2″ doesn’t mess excessively with what worked previously. In particular, the storytelling — and the absolutely amazing branching conversation trees that allow the player to mold the personality of chief protagonist Commander Shepard and, by proxy, the story and galaxies around him — retains its considerable polish. “ME2″ is as saturated with planets, alien races and mythology as “ME1,” but it also benefits from not having to introduce it all to the degree its predecessor did. The story takes a sharp turn straight away — a dramatic change of fortune and a pretty serious turning of some tables dictate the game’s first sequence — and while “ME2″ has hours’ worth of optional side missions in tow, pretty much everything operates in the name of barreling the story forward.

(Side note for those who missed “ME1:” While “ME2″ offers additional benefits to players who are already familiar with the characters and alliances, Bioware offers enough guidance to bring new players up to speed without boring those who need no introduction.)

Though “ME2″ is large enough to span two discs on the Xbox 360, Bioware has done a commendable job of cutting fat where it needed cutting. A slick mining mechanic allows players to explore barren planets from the ship instead of via a pointless ride in the Mako buggy, which has been excised completely. The side missions, by extension, have more consequence in the overall ecology, and a cleaner set of menu interfaces makes it easier to (among other things) jump from one mission to another with little downtime in between.

Speaking of saving time, the famously long load times from “ME1″ are considerably more tolerable (and more elegantly presented) this time around. Even more importantly, the wretched save system — which almost everyone learned, the hard way, didn’t autosave like it appeared to — has received a very user-friendly overhaul. (It works, in other words.)

But what truly is remarkable about “ME2″ is how profoundly Bioware transforms the weakest ingredient of “ME1″ into this game’s most jaw-dropping asset. The combat in “ME2″ is more than just sufficient: It’s completely indistinguishable — in terms of speed, control fluidity, explosiveness, and enemy/squad A.I. — from the best cover-based third-person shooters available today. A stunning visual presentation, led by perhaps the best camerawork the genre has yet seen, arguably puts it at the top of the heap.

Best of all, Bioware sacrificed exactly none of the role-playing underpinnings that carried the combat in “ME1.” Those systems worked together well enough back then, but they sing in perfect harmony this time around, putting “ME2″ in a class all its own when it comes to blending two traditionally disparate genres into one.

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Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars
For: Wii
From: Capcom
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, mild suggestive themes, violence)

Fans of Capcom’s lighthearted “Vs.” fighting games have felt understandable pangs of jealousy since the distinctively beautiful, meticulously polished but decidedly more serious “Street Fighter IV” raised the bar for fighting games nearly a full year ago.

Fortunately, “Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars” doesn’t simply end the near-decade-long “Vs.” game drought; it also closes the gap almost completely between Capcom’s 2D fighting past and the arguably perfect mix of two and three dimensions that made “SFIV” such a staggering treat for the eyes and thumbs.

This being a Wii game, “TvC” understandably cannot match the level of visual detail “SFIV” pulled off on more powerful hardware. But in borrowing that game’s approach — characters animating in full, fluid 3D but fighting on a 2D plane — it reaps the same benefits: The fighters pull off spectacular moves with abandon, but the removal of unnecessary 3D space whittles the fight down to the same psychological science that made “Street Fighter” so special in the first place. (“TvC,” to its credit, closes the graphical gap by opting for a cel-shaded visual style that really makes its infectiously outlandish style pop.)

Though the fighting shines under the guidance of the new engine, “TvC” is unmistakably a “Vs.” game at heart. The two-on-two matches represent a paring back from “Marvel Vs. Capcom’s” three-on-three insanity, but the speed and accessibility of the fighting remain several notches beyond “SFIV’s” more methodical leanings. Per brand tradition, “TvC” provides a generous arsenal for button-mashers while reserving the really good stuff for players who hunker down and learn each fighter’s respective intricacies.

Whether the roster is a boon or burden will come down to individual tastes. The Tatsunoko half of “TvC” consists of anime characters who are big in Japan but significantly lesser known here, but while the relative obscurity robs “TvC” of the dream fights “Marvel” had, it’s an arguable benefit to players intrigued by the multitude of surprises 13 brand-new (and often wildly designed) characters will afford them. Capcom’s 13 offerings should prove a bit more familiar, but the wide diversity of the cast — Ryu and Chun-Li are here, but so is Mega Man, “Dead Rising’s” Frank West and characters from “Lost Planet,” “Viewtiful Joe” and “Rival Schools” — means a bounty of quirks and highly divergent (but reasonably well-balanced) styles awaits discovery on both sides.

“TvC” complements its polished gameplay by offering enough control styles (remote/nunchuck, Classic controller, Gamecube controller) to suit everyone, and it provides plenty of longevity with a 26-ending single-player component and online multiplayer (two players) that worked without incident in pre-release testing. (Whether that holds up under the stress of thousands of players remains to be seen, but so far, so good.)

Just for fun, Capcom tosses in a “Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Shooters” mode, which is a bizarre but surprisingly filling top-down shooter that features the game’s cast and supports up to four players. The mode has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in terms of gameplay. But neither the freebie “Geometry Wars” mode that snuck its way onto “Project Gotham Racing 2,” and look how that one turned out.

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Dark Void Zero
For: Nintendo DSi via the Nintendo DSi Shop
From: Other Ocean Interactive/Capcom
ESRB Rating: Everyone (fantasy violence)
Price: $5

Capcom’s infatuation with making mock Nintendo Entertainment System games in the 21st century isn’t new (see “Mega Man 9″ and the upcoming “Mega Man 10″), but “Dark Void Zero” takes the trick to a new level of imagination. Like the new Xbox 360/PS3 game “Dark Void,” “Zero” is a standard shooter that sets itself apart by strapping a jet pack to the player’s back. In the case of “Zero,” though, that translates into a sidescrolling action game that looks, sounds and acts like a game from 1988. In a vacuum, “Zero” is perfect for the price: The controls are polished and responsive in spite of the retro presentation, and with three difficulty settings and a tough-but-fair continue system, it’s challenging without resorting to “MM9’s” level of punishment. But “Zero” is especially cool when viewed in context. The nostalgically sparse story sets “Void’s” table surprisingly well, and it successfully manages to imbue a sense of history into a franchise that doesn’t actually have any. The developers really run with the joke, too: “Zero’s” digital manual includes a mock story detailing why it didn’t come out in 1987 as originally intended, and the composer responsible for “Void’s” score also orchestrated an 8-bit facsimile for “Zero.” Other clever and funny touches await — including one right when the game boots — but they’re best left unspoiled.

Posted in Nintendo DSiWare, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360

Bayonetta
Reviewed for: Xbox 360
Also available for: Playstation 3
From: Platinum Games/Sega
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, suggestive themes)

The net worth of “Bayonetta’s” idiosyncrasies is game for debate until time ceases ticking. Some will marvel at the insane narrative theatrics and some will find the overt sexuality of the vixenish titular main character either genuinely titillating or so overt as to be farcical. Others will be repulsed or embarrassed by what they view as a sophomoric display of adolescent fantasy come bursting alive, while still others will find themselves unable to tolerate how little sense the story makes or how incomprehensibly noisy the whole production generally is. (If you’re on the fence, both systems offer a downloadable demo that should clear up any confusion.)

But “Bayonetta” is what it wants to be and probably wouldn’t dream of being something for everyone. And while what it is makes it impossible to blindly recommend or pan, how it goes about being what it is is almost inarguably impressive.

Themes and imagery aside, “Bayonetta” plays in the “Devil May Cry” and “God of War” school of action games, and it matches those games in terms of combat arsenal, control responsiveness and general visual and technical polish. Button mashers can wreak havoc on the easier difficulty settings, while a huge list of special attacks allows more skilled players to deal damage with a surprising degree of strategy for such a frantic game.

Most impressive about the combat is the emphasis placed on fighting defensively. Dodging enemy attacks the instant before they connect — and every enemy has tells — temporarily sends all but the player into slow-motion, allowing Bayonetta to unleash unspeakable damage before the enemy even knows what happened. Bull-rushing the enemy on normal or higher difficulty is a recipe for trouble —  like the best of these kind of games, every fight in “Bayonetta” has the potential to cost dearly — but using these defensive techniques is so much fun that no extra motivation is necessary to learn them.

Structurally, everything else falls in line. The polish and fearless design translates into labyrinthine levels and massive, multi-part boss fights that give “War” a run for its money, but “Bayonetta” complements these ruthless fights with a generous checkpoint system that lets players of all disciplines fight dangerously. Old-school pattern memorization comes in handy when taking on tougher enemies, but the controls are so fluid that it’s easy and entirely fun to wing it and take Bayonetta’s combat arsenal for a ride. All that zaniness will rub people different ways, but it does translate into a healthy variety of environments that keeps things interesting over the course of a satisfactorily lengthy single-player trip.

A review of “Bayonetta” would be incomplete without mentioning that Platinum Games, which developed the Xbox 360 version in its entirety, passed off some of the Playstation 3 version’s development load onto Sega’s internal studio. A review copy of the PS3 edition wasn’t available for evaluation, but while the games remain identical in terms of content, reports of performance issues in the PS3 version — in particular, some ugly slowdown and longer load times in spots — are commonplace enough to recommend picking up the 360 version if it’s an option.

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Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
For: Wii
From: Project Aces/XSEED
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, violence)

Those unfamiliar with Project Aces or the origins of its latest dogfighting game won’t know it just to look at it, but “Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces” comes courtesy of the same development shop behind the deservedly-beloved “Ace Combat” games. So while the $30 price tag and slightly out-of-left field release might make “Aces” look like just another budget flight sim on a console that’s already full of them, its pedigree suggests something else entirely.

Happily, pedigree beats perception, in large part because “Aces” soars and stumbles in much the same way the “Combat” games do.

The stumbling happens, albeit innocuously, when “Aces” tries to tell its story. Fans of the “Sky Crawler” novels (and eventual animated film) have more than enough guidance in the game to know exactly what’s going on, but those who come in cold won’t get as much from the narration as they might want. Like “Combat,” “Aces” sets the table with some nice cutscenes and some compelling mythology, but also like “Combat,” it leaves much of the storytelling to between-mission briefings that look and sound great but can do only so much in terms of character and environmental development.

Fortunately, a bare-bones understanding of the situation is enough to enjoy the game, and those bare bones (world at peace, greedy corporations disrupt peace, war erupts) aren’t terribly difficult to grasp.

Where “Aces” gets it right, as Project Aces always does, is in the air. Neither the air combat nor the art of banking and diving is mindlessly simple, but “Aces” places a premium on action over simulation and backs it up with fast, intense dogfights that are accessible to anyone in spite of the challenges they present.

Additionally, “Aces” lets players play their way within the confines of its tempo. Control schemes range from traditional (Gamecube/Classic controllers included) to a motion scheme (nunchuck emulates the yoke, Wii remote emulates the throttle) that works pretty well with practice. Per developer tradition, “Aces” also allows players to view the action from inside the cockpit or behind their plane. The former adds an extra layer of immersion and challenge while the latter allows less experienced players to play without handicapping the action.

“Aces’” more substantial misgivings arguably are more the fault of the system its on than the game itself. It looks great but obviously cannot touch what “Ace Combat 6″ did visually on the Xbox 360. That game’s online multiplayer functionality also doesn’t cross over — no surprise, given that the odds of an online community forming around a niche flight simulator on the Wii is basically nil.

But “Aces” also costs a full half of what “AC6″ cost when it first released, which more than compensates for some unavoidable graphical downgrades and the loss of a mode most people likely would ignore anyway. XSEED has done an admirable job of importing great Japanese Wii games, localizing them and selling them for a song, and if the Wii’s first notable game of 2010 is any indication, there’s more to come in that department.

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Polar Panic
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
From: Eiconic Games/Valcon Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence, tobacco reference)

Most puzzle games aren’t actually puzzles so much as color-matching reflex tests, but the charming “Polar Panic,” which stars players as a polar bear who has to get his paws dirty to keep trappers off his back, embodies the genre’s name quite nicely. “Panic” takes place in a series of top-down, maze-like levels, and the general objective is to eliminate the trappers by pushing ice blocks off maze walls and, eventually, straight into them. There’s an element of action to the challenge — the trappers don’t stand still — but pushing the ice blocks off the right sequence of walls in order to line up a direct shot at each trapper (or better yet, multiple trappers at once) requires a good degree of on-your-feet thinking once the game takes the kid gloves off and starts delivering harder levels. “Panic’s” 50-level Story mode is its arguable centerpiece, but the 50-level Puzzle mode (which ditches the trappers and tasks players simply with escaping the maze in as few moves as possible) and Survival mode (take out as many trappers as possible, ad infinitum) do wonders for giving a simple concept a ton of legs for the price.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
For: Wii
From: Square Enix
ESRB Rating: Teen (alcohol reference, crude humor, fantasy violence, mild language, suggestive themes)

For better or worse — and a trip through this game provides ample evidence of both — “Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers” is trying to do exactly what Wii games should be doing in the system’s fourth year of existence. Whether the result is good or not — and again, the pendulum swings both ways — “Bearers” does things that are unique, weird and physically impossible on other hardware.

“Bearers” certainly gets off to a fun start — first, by tossing players into a free-falling shootout in the sky, and then by putting them at the literal wheel of a humungous airship for a chase sequence through tight canyon corridors. The convoluted storytelling aside — and per “Crystal Chronicles” tradition, the tale of good, evil and crystals is a potpourri of incomprehensible mythology and bad dialogue — it’s clear almost immediately that “Bearers” is going for a much more action-oriented bent than its series predecessors.

The game’s primary means of action also steps far outside traditional “Final Fantasy” bounds: Using a cursor-centric aiming system, players point the Wii remote at people and objects on the screen and then lift them into the air, Darth Vader-style, to move or toss them around. Anyone who played “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” can grasp the combat and level-manipulation possibilities here, and while “Bearers’” control scheme and camerawork leave plenty to be desired, it nonetheless fulfills that promise.

The combination of this core mechanic, a sloppily passable story, “Final Fantasy” iconography and a consistent barrage of experimental diversions — from Chocobo races to a flawed but fun stealth challenge to a completely bizarre game involving girls, a beach and good balance — is enough to make “Bearers” fun when it works.

But “Bearers” often falls short, and when it does, it falls hard. Worse, the most offensive problems stem from lousy design decisions that would seem almost mandatorily avoidable in 2010.

Far and away the game’s biggest issue is the onscreen prompts it uses to instruct players on what to do during these one-off diversions. Too many of them are confusingly vague, while a few are cryptic to the point of misleading, throwing up meters without explanation and displaying controller animations that only barely resemble what a player is supposed to actually do. “Bearers” is generous with save checkpoints and many of these diversions are impossible to completely fail outright, but stumbling your way through a badly-designed challenge isn’t fun simply because it doesn’t halt your progress.

The problems are less acute during the main adventure, but they’re no aggravating. The opaque map and navigation system feel strikingly unfinished given Square-Enix’s experience with interface design in traditional “Final Fantasy” games, and getting lost or slogging from point to point is entirely too easy. That isn’t helped by the fact that during these slogs, there simply isn’t much to do. For every example of blinding ingenuity “Bearers” displays, there are two or three that feel perplexingly amateurish, and the ratio may prove too much for all but the most ardent and adventurous “Final Fantasy” fans to handle for very long.

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Borderlands: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
Requires: Borderlands
From: Gearbox Software/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, strong language)
Price: $10

Though entirely enjoyable as a solo first-person shooter experience, “Borderlands” relies on a story, quest and inventory structure that’s best enjoyed with teammates (four players online, two locally) via cooperative play. Happily, players who want it both ways have the flexibility to play parts of the game alone and bring in friends on the fly without starting over as a new character.

Good thing, too, because whether you’ve played “Borderlands” alone, with friends or both up to this point, there’s pretty much no point in playing the “Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot” downloadable expansion without help.

As its name somewhat implies, “Riot” ditches the typical exploratory nature of “Borderlands’” quests in favor of post-apocalyptic arena combat: Moxxi is the host, and her “sport” consists of a survivor or four shooting their way out of a labyrinth that’s parts shanty town, stadium and game show studio. Moxxi emcees the action, and between her amusing taunts and the general gaudy design of the three arenas, “Riot” is a fantastic demonstration of the audiovisual spectacle that makes “Borderlands” so unique in spite of its bleak setting and genre.

Just don’t bask in the spectacle alone unless you really enjoy punishment.

“Riot” divides each match into five rounds, and those rounds split into five themed waves. Completing each wave consists of mowing down every enemy in the arena, and the reward for doing so is a brief supply drop of ammo and health. When all five waves of a round are wiped out, Moxxi drops a few items of actual value beneath the stage. Complete all 25 waves, and the match ends. Easy, right?

Not so much — and definitely not if you’re playing alone. Players who succumb to the enemy can continue to assist in the fight, but are confined to a penalty box until the next wave. If all players get sent to the box, gameplay halts and the round starts over from the first wave.

The task of conquering the harder waves and rounds is daunting enough, particularly when Moxxi alters the rules to remove gravity, nullify certain weapons useless or even strip away players’ shields. The challenge amplifies when fighting alone, and it’s made arguably unfair by the fact that if you get banished to the penalty box, the round automatically starts over by virtue of your having no teammates on the ground. Because “Riot” puzzlingly awards no experience points for killing enemies in the arena, it amounts to a lot of effort for no reward.

Though the continued emphasis on teamwork in “Borderlands” is admirable, it would’ve been nice, just this one time and only because the pool of “Borderlands” players has understandably shrunk since October, if Gearbox backed down a little and allowed solo players to enlist an A.I.-controlled teammate or two. “Riot” offers players a mountain of content and perhaps the stiffest challenge so far, but unless you make a pact with friends to take it on together, proceed with caution.

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Piyo Blocks
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Big Pixel Studios
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $2

Turnabout appears to be fair play to “Piyo Blocks,” which borrows some unmistakable design points from a game, “Zoo Keeper,” that itself was a pretty transparent knock-off of “Bejeweled.” If you’ve played “Bejeweled” — and pretty much everyone in the world has at this point — the core gameplay in “Blocks” offers little surprise: A grid of colored blocks fills the screen, and players switch two blocks to create as many rows of three or more as possible before time runs out. Creating rows clears the blocks and adds some time to the clock, and meeting certain quotas (as defined by “Blocks’” three separate modes) advances the action to new levels with trickier (albeit randomly-generated) starting patterns. Though it doesn’t have “Keeper’s” charming animal characters, “Blocks” still pretty faithfully mimics that game’s cheerful, intentionally blocky good looks. More importantly, it gets the basic mechanics of “Keeper’s” controls — including the ability to string combos together while the game clears other blocks away — down perfectly. For a game that costs less than a bag of chips, the level of polish, if not the originality of the concept, is most impressive. For good measure, Big Pixel includes support for the OpenFeint network, which provides online leaderboards, friends support, chat functionality and achievements.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 Downloadable Content, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content, iPhone/iPod Touch

Where the Wild Things Are
Reviewed for: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
Also available for: Nintendo DS
From: Griptonite Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (comic mischief, fantasy violence)

Invariably, once Christmas wraps and the annual holiday onslaught of megablockbusters eases up, there remain a few games that bear the scars of coming out at precisely the wrong time and being completely overlooked for doing so.

In 2009, that dubious distinction belongs to “Where the Wild Things Are,” a not-necessarily-for-kids’ game hopelessly tied to the release date of a not-necessarily-for-kids’ movie and subsequently overlooked for coming out smack in the middle of a tidal wave of bigger releases. A long history of lousy games based on kids’ movies, and the perception that creates for this game, didn’t help matters.

But “WTWTA” borrows heavily from the Playstation 2 classic “Ico” and, surprisingly, succeeds where other like-minded games failed. Players control Max, the mischievous little boy who washes up uninvited on the island of the Wild Things, and most of the game’s action consists of the same mix of light combat and ledge jumping, rock climbing, and environmental puzzles that “Ico” did so masterfully well. Max is easy to control, and the semi-fixed camera angle — also borrowed from “Ico” — presents each environment in a manner that’s intuitive without making traversing it a complete cakewalk. The Wild Things add a wrinkle to the challenges by lending a hand and further altering the landscape whenever they can.

As should be expected from a game based on a movie that itself is based on what practically is a picture book, “WTWTA’s” story isn’t exactly a narrative barnburner. But Griptonite makes good on with what it has to work with: The game looks pretty good and animates nicely, and the Wild Things emerge as really likable characters in spite of their secondary role throughout most of the game.

Like so many other family games, “WTWTA” pads the main story content by dropping various collectables in each level. Unlike as with most games, though, rounding them up is something a worthy pursuit. The game doesn’t overload the environments with hundreds of useless objects to round up, nor does it hide items in places players would never bother to look. There’s a challenge in finding everything, but it isn’t so obtuse as to be a waste of time, and finding them pays off in the form of rewards — some of them leading to fun new optional challenges — in the hub level that doubles as the Wild Things’ home base.

The sum of this content (there’s nothing to do beyond the single-player adventure) doesn’t quite justify the full price the game commanded back at launch, but a quick price drop means finding “WTWTA” brand-new for upwards of $20 less already is a feasible proposition. At that price, it’s hard not to recommend it: Younger players will appreciate a game made for them that doesn’t insult their gaming intelligence, and their parents — or really, anyone in need of an “Ico”-style fix — might come away surprised by just how much this innocuous piece of tie-in merchandising gets right.

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Guitar Hero: Van Halen
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation 2
From: Neversoft/Activision
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild lyrics, mild suggestive themes)

“Guitar Hero’s” previous single-band releases, devoted to Aerosmith and Metallica, were already of questionable quality before “Rock Band” kicked the bar out of the atmosphere with “The Beatles: Rock Band.”

Though a perfectly tenable game for reasons to be detailed later, “Guitar Hero: Van Halen” doesn’t brighten the picture. Depending on your opinion of Val Halen’s present-day relevance and your tolerance for “Guitar Hero” releases in the span of a single year, it might even constitute a leap backward.

Per convention, Van Halen’s visual fingerprints are all over the box and interface, and the band’s likenesses come to life in typical semi-cartoony fashion. This time, though, politics and squabbling have left former bassist Michael Anthony and former lead singers Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone off the bill. Consequently, none of the band’s Hagar- and Cherone-fronted catalog appears, either. Whether the loss of that music and iconography is a big deal will vary from fan to fan, but there’s no arguing it doesn’t splinter whatever hope “GH:VH” had for documenting its subject matter the way “Beatles” did.

Then again, Neversoft’s inability to learn from “Beatles” — or the failings of its own single-band games — torpedoed that hope without the band’s help.

“GH:VH’s” 47-song track list is, like those other games, significantly smaller than the numbered (but same-priced) “Guitar Hero” game. Bbut the real issue comes from 19 of those songs being either Eddie Van Halen guitar solos or the product of bands other than Van Halen. The game claims the other music has some stylistic connection to Van Halen’s music, but one look at the track list (Fountains of Wayne? Third Eye Blind? Weezer?) suggests otherwise. Whatever effort would have been necessary to kiss and make up with Hagar, if not everyone from Van Halen’s past, would more than have been worth it if it resulted in a coherent, complete tribute to the band’s catalog. This, by contrast, feels like a track pack tucked inside a full-priced game with some extra filler to justify the price.

On that note, it comes down to whether the tracks, which would cost nearly $80 if totaled up as downloadable content for “Guitar Hero 5,” justify the purchase. “GH:VH” at least does things — namely, a new career mode and a new suite of achievements/trophies in the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions — a track pack alone cannot.

But do you want to buy something Activision seems reluctant to sell? The company gave the game away to anyone who purchased “GH5″ earlier in the year, and it waited two months to sneak it onto shelves after most people’s holiday shopping had concluded. Pushing the game out the door at full price after previously giving it away seems like a move made for the half-hearted heck of it, which seems to have been “GH:VH’s” artistic approach as well. Watching a publisher practically wash its hand of a product doesn’t affect the quality of the product itself, but it’s hard to get excited about a game when the people who made it seem not to care.

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LittleBigPlanet: Pirates of the Caribbean Premium Level Kit
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
Requires: LittleBigPlanet
From: Media Molecule/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief, mild cartoon violence)
Price: $6

Media Molecule has made more than good on its promise to consistently support “LittleBigPlanet” long after its late 2008 release, so the appearance of a “Pirates of the Caribbean” level kit would superficially seem no more interesting than the numerous other costumes and packs that preceded it. But with this level kit comes a new element — water — whose significance needs no real  explanation for those already familiar with “LittleBigPlanet’s” modus operandi as a physics-heavy 2D platformer. And beyond the clumsy introduction — the Playstation Store’s description of the pack doesn’t even mention water, much less its significance — the new content works just as one would hope it would. Media Molecule’s attention to physics detail has gone a long way toward establishing “LittleBigPlanet’s” identity, and its year-in-the-making take on water enjoys the same level of care. Implementing it in new and existing level designs is as easy as adding any other ingredient via the game’s level creation tool, and the tool’s extreme flexibility allows players to utilize and control water in a multitude of imaginative ways. That, in turn, gives a game with near-endless legs even more staying power going into 2010. Not bad for six dollars. (For those who care, the rest of the pack, which includes “Caribbean” character costumes, five new single-player levels, new PSN trophies and new music/objects/stickers/materials with which to further modify levels, is pretty hearty as well.)

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 3 Downloadable Content, Xbox 360

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Climax/Konami
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, drug reference, language, sexual themes, violence)

It’s always exciting when a game like “Silent Hill: Shattered Memories” takes complete liberty not only with the franchise that bore it, but also the system on which it runs.

It’s also a downer when problems that have regularly haunted the franchise creep in yet again and debilitate the mood to a potentially eject button-pressing degree.

“Memories” purports to re-imagine the original “Silent Hill” game by resurrecting its main character and introductory plot. Harry Mason has once again awoken in a snowbound town after a car accident knocked him unconscious, and once again, his daughter has mysteriously disappeared.

From there, though, most everything changes. For starters, “Memories” is combat-free: It controls like a third-person shooter, but the only aiming Harry does is with his flashlight, and encountering a monster triggers a pursuit sequence in which players’ only options are to escape or die trying.

The precise flashlight control is the tip of an iceberg’s worth of clever uses “Memories” devises for the Wii remote. An early puzzle, for instance, has players picking up cans and overturning them until a key falls out of one. “Memories” never tells players what to do: It places the cans prominently, and real-world curiosity and motion take over from there. It’s a perfect mix of obtuse and intuitive, and similar tricks permeate “Memories’” puzzles in numerous simple but inspired ways.

“Memories” also crams the bulk of its user interface — camera, GPS, some storytelling — into a virtual cell phone, and whenever Harry makes or receives a call, the game uses the Wii remote’s speaker as a cell phone speaker players actually hold up to their ear. The gesture looks predictably silly, but as an immersion tactic, it’s pretty great.

“Memories’” best trick, though, is its attempt to mentally profile players through a series of psychological evaluations that take place after the events of the storyline but are intercut throughout the game. How players complete these evaluations partly dictates what they see, what they can access and how Harry behaves when “Memories” resumes the action. Regardless of the game’s ability to read players, it’s an awfully clever way to mix up the scenery and engender a second playthrough.

Unfortunately, “Memories” fumbles some classic conventions en route to devising so many new ones.

Per series tradition, navigation is needlessly laborious, with visibly open paths from A to B getting arbitrarily walled off for no believable reason. Getting lost among arbitrary blockades would mean something if there was danger in doing so, but “Memories” strictly relegates monster encounters to alternate-dimension portions of the game, and if you’re not in one of those zones, you’re in no peril whatsoever.

Not only does this make “Memories” a frightfully unscary game, but it turns getting lost into a dull session of backtracking, trial and error that will frustrate some into losing interest completely. Lots of amazing little reasons exist to keep pushing ahead, but it’s hard to think about those when you’re wandering fruitlessly with no way out in sight and no reason to be alarmed by that fact.

—–

Buzz! Quiz World
For: Playstation Portable via Playstation Network (No UMD version available)
From: Relentless Software/Sony
ESRB Rating: Teen (drug reference, mild language, mild suggestive themes, violent references)
Price: $20

You lose some but win plenty with “Buzz! Quiz World,” which can’t match the presentational pizazz of its Playstation 3 counterpart but more than compensates in other departments.

The biggest loss “World” suffers, obviously, is that of the Buzz! buzzer controllers, which are chiefly responsible for transforming “Buzz’s” PS3 iteration into the best game show emulator ever crammed into a $60 package. The $20 “World” controls just fine using the PSP’s face buttons to represent the four multiple-choice answers to a question, and it’d be absurd for Relentless Software to conceive a scenario in which players are crowding around a tiny PSP screen with buzzer controllers as big as the screen, but the loss is felt all the same.

“World” compounds the loss of buzzer controller functionality by turning the game’s interface into something more representative of an emceed quiz than a full-featured game show. Buzz still plays the part of gabby quizmaster, but the sets and studio audience are stripped away in favor of a sparser interface that trains its focus on Buzz and the quiz information and keeps it there. The presentation remains slick for what it’s attempting to convey, but it’s definitely less flashy than its PS3 counterpart.

The more intimate approach almost certainly is due to Relentless smartly presenting “World” as a game players are more likely to play alone on a train than with friends on a couch, and “World’s” significantly meatier single-player component would speak to this as well. Where the PS3 game offered some bare-bones solo challenges with no real progression, this edition presents four multi-tiered challenge trees — each containing numerous quick-play challenges that themselves are replayable thanks to high score tables and medal rewards. Though they don’t register as official Playstation Network trophies, “World” also offers a large handful of unlockable trophies for players to collect throughout the entirety of the game.

“World” features the requisite support for wireless multiplayer (four players locally running on one copy of the game, four players online), but Relentless again plays the realistic expectations card by including a suite of six-player modes in which players pass a single PSP around the room. In a cool touch that’s far more inspired in practice than it appears on paper, “World” also includes a Quiz Host mode in which a player plays the role of host and manages the questions, answers and scores on the PSP. The mode essentially turns a video game into a board game, and it absolutely works in spite of its no-frills approach.

Elsewhere, “World” retains all the trappings of recent “Buzz” games. The roster of questions, at 4,500 deep, is plenty sufficient, and players can download the same bonus and free user-made question packs the PS3 game supports. And while the game show feel isn’t quite as apparent as in the PS3 version, “World” still throws out enough special modes, gimmicks and rule variants to give the action significantly more variety than its quiz game peers can muster.

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PixelJunk Shooter
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
From: Q-Games/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (lyrics, mild fantasy violence)
Price: $10

The inadequately-named “PixelJunk Shooter” is, technically, a shooter — superficially, a 2D space shooter in the vein of “Geometry Wars” and its ilk. But while there are enemies to shoot in “Shooter’s” subterranean caverns, the real objective centers around rescuing workers trapped deep within. Blasting through dilapidated cave walls is all it takes to rescue some, but a majority of the rescue effort revolves around using one element — magma, water, ice — to nullify another. Cracking a wall to unleash a tidal wave, for instance, will cool a lava pool into rock, which then can be shot away to create an opening for civilian rescue. “Shooter’s” physics-laden elemental riddles begin as simple cause/effect puzzles, but the challenge ramps up nicely as the enemies grow more dangerous and the elements, environments and available tools increase in number. Executing adequate rescues and taking down the screen-sized boss enemies isn’t a lengthy or difficult exercise, but engineering perfect rescues and mining the caves for every hidden valuable is. For players bent on doing exactly that, “Shooter’s” core action (playable solo or with a friend via local co-op) and terrific audiovisual presentation are more than inviting enough to inspire the repeat playthroughs likely needed to master it inside out.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, PSP, Playstation Network

LittleBigPlanet
For: Playstation Portable
From: Studio Cambridge/Media Molecule/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

Despite what the name implies, “LittleBigPlanet” isn’t a straight port of the 2008 Playstation 3 game of the same name, but a legitimate followup with an entirely new suite of single-player levels.

Better still, despite what common sense and a knowledge of that PS3 game’s sky-is-limit scope might imply, the PSP incarnation of “LBP” also isn’t a watered-down tribute to its predecessor, but a full-featured game that matches it in terms of ambition and possibility.

The overriding style, of course, remains the same. For those unfamiliar, “LBP” is a 2D platformer that incorporates real-world physics to an exponentially deeper degree than, for instance, “Super Mario Bros.” Objects slide, swing and topple according to their real-world properties, and even your playable character — the obnoxiously adorable, highly customizable Sackboy — runs and jumps according to the rules of inertia and gravity.

These physics, combined with the use of multiple planes on a 2D playing field and a reward system built around discovery more than mere survival, allows “LBP” to present levels that simply aren’t possible in other games. The generous checkpoint system and modest penalty for failure also frees the game to challenge players far more than its charming exterior would imply. Mining each level for its every last secret is a dicey endeavor, and Studio Cambridge really lets its cruel flag fly during some brutally tough side levels that, fortunately, are there for fun and don’t prohibit player advancement.

All of this extends to the game’s level creation engine, which sacrificed almost nothing during its migration from the PS3. Some additional controller gymnastics are necessary to overcome the PSP’s button and joystick deficiencies, and the graphics and physics calculations obviously aren’t as refined. Two-player level creation isn’t possible — there’s no wireless multiplayer of any kind in the PSP version — and levels designed in one game aren’t playable in the other, which is to be expected but nonetheless is worth noting for those who might hope for the impossible.

Elsewhere, though, “LBP” has everything it needs to develop a community on the level of its PS3 counterpart. Learning to harness the level creator’s insane power isn’t a blink-and-you’ll-get-it affair, but the game’s exceptional presentation coaxes newbies in and makes it fun to learn and make mistakes. The toolbox responsible for the single-player levels lies completely at players’ disposal, and sharing levels online and downloading others players’ creations is as simple here as it is on the big screen. As always, “LBP” has an online leaderboard for every created level, so there’s always a record waiting to be broken.

“LBP’s” true value will become apparent in the coming weeks, but some inspired levels have already appeared online, and things look promising. The PS3 game continues to pay dividends a year later even for those who ignore the creation tool altogether and simply download other players’ designs, and having a similarly bottomless well of gameplay on the go is just about the best thing this series could have done for a second act.

—–

Tony Hawk Ride
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
From: Robomodo/Activision
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (Lyrics, mild suggestive themes, animated blood)

Without being behind the scenes, it’s impossible to discern whether “Tony Hawk Ride” is a case of hardware failing software or software not properly utilizing hardware.

At least on appearance, it isn’t due to shoddy hardware workmanship. To the contrary, the board controller that ships with “Ride”  — picture a wireless skateboard deck sans wheels — feels durable enough to easily outlast the mountain of iffy plastic musical instruments that paved its way. It looks good, too — like a sophisticated piece of electronics instead of just another one-trick toy.

Most importantly, in fleeting bits and pieces, it also works. The board rocks from side to side and nose to tail without demanding too much effort, yet it isn’t so malleable as to make it easy to spill out of control. Performing basic flip tricks is simple enough, and it’s fun to let loose, take one foot off the board, place the other on the far nose or tail, and perform a 360 spin while your onscreen skater does some facsimile of the same. Small sensors located on all sides allow for grab tricks, and between the lower body acrobatics and the fight to maintain optimum balance, “Ride” sneakily provides a good workout for muscles you may not otherwise work.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the game designed around the board fails to cater to what makes the board fun to use.

In stark contrast to the string of recent open-ended “Tony Hawk” games that let players ride freely and take on objectives at will, “Ride” is stiflingly straightforward: Each city breaks into a few small levels, and each level offers a handful of objectives — typically a time trial, trick session, collection of five mini-challenges and half-pipe trick session — that require a few minutes each to experience. “Ride” offers a free skate option, but the levels aren’t built with that in mind and there’s nothing to do during these sessions. A multiplayer component (eight players locally sharing one board, four online on the 360 and PS3) consists of the same events recycled under party play rules.

The abrupt, linear nature of “Ride’s” trick and race sessions makes it hard for players to just let loose and have a creative good time on the board, and the precise demands in the challenges create needless aggravation because the board simply isn’t smart or precise enough to consistently discern different flip tricks from one another. Instances of nailing a trick, only for the game to claim you didn’t, are aggravatingly common here, and there’s little reward for getting it right thanks to a bare-bones presentation that just trots out more of the same.

Ultimately, “Ride” feels like a half-finished game hastily designed to complement a board that maybe took longer than planned to complete. Maybe the board’s true calling will be as a snowboarding game controller or something else entirely. The potential is there. Right now, though, “Ride” adds up to an experience that, in its current state and at its current $120 price, just isn’t worth the investment.

—–

Backbreaker Football
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: NaturalMotion Games
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $1 (free demo available)

NaturalMotion’s Backbreaker football physics engine has sparked lingering curiosity since its 2007 unveiling, and if its first playable appearance in the wild is any indication, it’s no mystery why. “Backbreaker Football” isn’t a complete football game by any stretch, but a low-concept arcade game in which you, as the ballcarrier, must evade oncoming would-be tacklers and reach the end zone. Tilting the iPhone controls your directional movement, and some onscreen buttons allow you to juke, spin, sprint and, if the end zone is in sight, showboat. Evading defenders in style nets you points, stringing moves together results in bountiful combos, and the more times you can reach the end zone without being tackled and losing all your turns, the better your placement on the game’s leaderboards. “Backbreaker” backs the simple concept with a series of challenge levels, an endurance mode and multiple difficulty settings, but it’s the technological underpinnings that elevate it from a decent time-waster to bona fide addiction. Even on the underpowered iPhone, the tackle and running animations look fantastically authentic, and reading a would-be tackler’s body momentum — and countering it with perfectly-timed, perfectly-placed evasion — is a skillful undertaking rather than a matter of guesswork. Seeing this tech in motion on more powerful hardware can’t happen soon enough.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, PSP, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, iPhone/iPod Touch

Rabbids Go Home
For: Wii
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (cartoon violence, crude humor, mild language, mild suggestive themes, tobacco reference)

Dreary though it generally has been, 2009 at least has been rich with funny video games, and with “Rabbids Go Home,” it has saved perhaps the most deranged for last.

“Home” also finally provides a full-fledged, story-driven game for the Rabbids, an anthropomorphic species of deranged not-quite bunnies who stole the show as the supporting cast for one of the Wii’s first mini-game compilations. They’re as bullheaded and insane as ever, and in this instance, the goal is to help them return to their presumed home on the moon by — how else? — loading everything that isn’t bolted down into a stray shopping cart and forming it all into a makeshift ladder that extends from Earth to the moon.

Absurd though that premise is, it’s right at home in “Home,” which catapults the Rabbids to their complete crazed potential — a mix of nefarious egomania, stupidly dogged determination and the kind of joy and hilarity only a caffeinated child could manufacture — and unleashes it on an pleasantly cartoony semi-open world of unsuspecting humans and dogs. Everything about what the Rabbids do is reckless at best and borderline malevolent at worst, but because all the havoc they wreak is fairly harmless — the most damage they can do to a human, for instance, is to spook them out of their overgarments — it’s not exactly a crisis of conscience to enjoy how stupidly silly the whole thing is.

The Rabbids, for their part, take as good as they give: A brilliant interface mechanic allows players to virtually peek inside the innards of their Wii remotes, where they’ll find a stray Rabbid bouncing around wildly (and seemingly enjoying it) as they shake the remote. A character editor allows players to deform the Rabbids in all manner of ways, and this, too, only seems to please them immensely.

In terms of actual gameplay, “Home” keeps it arcadey and simple: Players move the Rabbids (and their shopping cart) through standalone and hub levels, each of which contains hundreds of visible and hidden items to hoard and add to the moon pile. The object is to grab as much stuff as possible while also fulfilling whatever objectives any given stretch of any given level might toss out, including time trial challenges and puzzle-like instances where the Rabbids must fulfill a quota or activate a trigger to push forward.

It sounds pretty plain on paper, but “Home” pulls it off by doing all the little things distinctively right. The levels are smartly designed and sprinkled with enough variety to make uncovering every last secret and hidden pathway a legitimately fun challenge. The simple act of movement — from the unwieldily sensation of swinging a shopping cart around a corner at a high speed to the similar satisfaction that comes from maneuvering other (unspoiled) contraptions later on — is dead on. And should all else fail, the game’s manic, hilariously infectious energy makes it impossibly hard not to stick with it, if only to see what the Rabbids will do next.

—–

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Cavia, inc./Capcom
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, language)

Two years ago, Capcom’s relentless milking of “Resident Evil” lore took an inspired turn in the form of “Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles,” which presented old series storylines through the fresh eyes of an intense, arcadey light gun-style shooter that proved a great fit both for the franchise and the Wii remote’s particular capabilities.

Where that game didn’t go, “Darkside Chronicles” does, revisiting the events of “Resident Evil 2″ and “Resident Evil: Code Veronica” through basically the same setup, albeit with the kind of tinkering one would expect from a sequel with two years’ worth of learned lessons in its corner.

Most welcome is the new default assignment for the nunchuck attachment’s joystick, which now allows players to quickly switch between different firearms with a quick flick in any corresponding direction. The stick’s former task — a limited manual control over the camera — is no longer, but considering how useless that control was in “Umbrella” and what a time-saver this new trick is here, it isn’t missed at all here. “Chronicles” still supports playing the game with just the Wii remote, but the extra functionality the nunchuck provides — combined with the game’s allowance for reassigning one-button melee attacks and healing to any button on either controller — is pretty invaluable.

Elsewhere, “Darkside” doesn’t mess with what made “Umbrella” work, though it also doesn’t overcome all of that game’s aggravations. Most exasperating is the inability to switch to a new weapon once a reload animation kicks in: When a monster is clawing at your face and you’re helpless to do anything about it because your character is slowly reloading the shotgun, you’ll find out just how annoying it can be. The camera once again falls prone to bouts of unnecessary shakey-cam-itis, but it shows restraint more than not.

Tallied up, the formula still works. A little creative liberty is needed to transform what was a solitary horror adventure into a mindless arcade romp that accommodates two characters at all times — like “Umbrella,” “Darkside” supports two-player local co-op — but the stories ultimately survive the transition and arguably benefit along their journey. The action is as crazed as one expects from a light gun-style game, but the storytelling does get its due, and a brand-new storyline does a nice job of filling in some gaps the old games never addressed.

As has become an extremely welcome tradition in more modern “RE” games, “Darkside” offers a ton of replayability for players who want it. A long, winding weapon upgrade system allows players to max out weapons and carry their arsenal from one completed game into a brand-new game, and players who invest the many hours needed to max out their weapons can parlay that firepower into higher end-level scores and rankings. “Darkside” lacks any sort of online multiplayer component, but for the right crowd, the game’s online leaderboard system provides a much more valuable utility.

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God of War Collection
For: Playstation 3
From: Sony/Bluepoint Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language)

One could argue that releasing a value-priced double dose of “God of War” will backfire on Sony, which will try to sell the all-new “God of War III” to the same crowd not even four months later.

On the other hand: Who cares? And why don’t publishers do stuff like this more often? “God of War Collection” rounds up two of the Playstation 2’s best pure action games, drops them onto a single Blu-Ray disc, gives them a high-definition graphical upgrade, adds in the modern amenities (Playstation Network trophies, PS3 firmware integration) expected from a Playstation 3 release, and sells the package for less — $40 — than each game originally fetched by itself on the PS2.

Though the inclusion of PSN trophies might be the biggest selling point for players who finished both games on the PS2 but can’t resist the allure of a new reward for doing so again, “Collection’s” defining feature is, with good reason, the graphical upgrade. Portions of both games’ interfaces remain ostensibly designed with standard-definition televisions in mind, but the overall visual presentation receives a dramatic resolution bump that brings the series into true high definition — 720p, for those familiar with the metrics — for the first time. The games previously had some limited upscaling options in their PS2 incarnations, but nothing that compares to the facelift they receive here.

The upgrade isn’t without its oddities. Some of those interface assets look out of place in HD, and both games occasionally trot out a graphical element that appears to have been overlooked to a jarring degree during the transformation. Hardest hit are some of the cutscenes, which used in-game assets but were pre-rendered and presented as videos. They looked better than the in-game action on PS2, but now, in their unchanged state, they actually look worse — not dramatically, but enough for it to be noticeable.

Fortunately, “Collection” looks strikingly good where it counts most. Both games look worlds better in action than their PS2 origins would imply they would, and “GOW2″ in particular looks right at home on the PS3. Both games also animate at a rocksteady 60 frames per second, which wasn’t always the case on the PS2.

In terms of additional content, “Collection’s” one bonus — a voucher good toward downloading a “GOW3″ demo before the rest of the world gets a taste in 2010 — is pretty apt. The behind-the-scenes video content that shipped with “GOW2″ also is on the disc, and in a nice touch, all of it is accessible through the PS3 firmware’s video player instead of just within the game. That’s for the best, too: If “Collection” has one seemingly avoidable annoyance, it’s that once you’ve booted up “GOW1″ or “GOW2,” the only way to access the rest of the game’s content is to quit to the cross media bar and boot it back up.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3

Assassin’s Creed II
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, sexual content, strong language)

Most games, broken down, are simply collections of similar actions and commands repeated over and over. But most hide it better than 2007’s “Assassin’s Creed,” which combined majestic core gameplay with an oppressively patterned quest structure that neutered its inventive storyline and instilled some serious déjà vu in many players.

Almost from the start, though, “Assassin’s Creed II” demonstrates that it has learned its lesson. The storyline, now set in 15th century Italy as well as present day, receives the narrative justice it deserves: The present-day cast accrues some essential dimension, the characters in Italy are exponentially more likable than the first game’s humorless cast, and the game lets the story breathe by staying in place over multiple missions instead of continually jumping back and forth in time.

“Creed’s” timeline liberally and cleverly mixes factual and fictional history to reconstruct the legend of its characters’ lineage, and witnessing this reconstruction is miles more rewarding this time around. An optional collection of puzzle-oriented missions unlocks even more doors, connecting everything from Adam and Eve to John F. Kennedy to engineer some wild possibilities for future series installments.

The anatomic improvements extend to “AC2’s” gameplay, which reaps the reward of a quest structure that no longer requires players to complete X number of side missions before assassinating subject Y, jumping through time and repeating. The side missions return, but they’re significantly more diverse and more savvily ingrained into whatever else is happening in the landscape, which feels more alive thanks to some sharper A.I., the introduction of an economy and some great (albeit gamey, so relax your sense of disbelief) new mechanics for managing notoriety and seeking cover from guards while in a crowd.

The main storyline missions integrate themselves better as well: “AC2″ makes it easy to start a new storyline mission almost the instant the previous one concludes, and the game tells much of its story while the player directs the action. Players who skip all that markedly improved optional content to beeline through the main story will do themselves a disservice, but “AC2″ at least leaves that decision up to you. However you approach it, there’s always something to do, and there exists no lingering sense of familiarity haunting the game despite the 15 to 30 hours of gameplay it has in store.

Elsewhere, “AC2″ doesn’t mess with what made its predecessor so great in spite of its unmistakable shortcomings.

The simple act of getting around Italy as Ezio is as fun as it was traversing the Holy Land as Altaïr: The cities are meticulously designed, and Ezio’s freerunning capabilities — combined with a control scheme that’s fantastically intuitive in spite of the demands it puts on a gamepad’s button real estate — make it tremendously fun to scale buildings, leap rooftops and position yourself for the perfect takedown.

“AC2,” for its part, offers a larger repertoire of weapons and techniques to wield, and thanks to the presence of Ezio’s good buddy Leonardo Da Vinci, the inventions — including a flying machine that practically doubles the fun all by itself — pour in throughout the entirety of the adventure.

—–

New Super Mario Bros. Wii
For: Wii
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

The worst thing about “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” besides its abysmally uninspired title, is the way Nintendo itself has misrepresented it as a shell of Super Mario games past that requires four players in order for fun to be had.

Fun indeed is had by turning what traditionally has been a solo endeavor into a two-, three- or four-player free-for-all, with all active players running through the game simultaneously as Mario, Luigi and two Toads. (The princess, per usual, has been kidnapped.) Nintendo doesn’t change one iota of the levels regardless of whether one or four players are running through them, and the results are predictably and often hilariously chaotic.

Players can cooperate and spring off one another to perform amazing stunts and reach impossible heights. But they also can antagonize one another, going so far as to pick other players up and toss them to their demise. It’s a riotously fun time, but those who want to ace the game — finish every level, find all three special coins in each level, discover every hidden pathway and, of course, rescue the princess — will be impossibly hard-pressed to do it with the “help” of friends.

Fortunately, wonderfully and despite implications to the contrary, “NSMBW” is an equally amazing game as a solo experience, meeting and arguably exceeding the bar set by “Super Mario Bros. 3″ and “Super Mario World” some 20 years ago. Ideas introduced in those games return fearlessly reinvented here, and “NSMBW” continually surprises with new platforming contraptions, level designs and power-ups. The new penguin suit is possibly the most versatile Mario upgrade ever, while the propeller suit ranks with the best of the best on the fun scale.

Classic characters and level archetypes also return, but 20 years of technological and graphical advancements allow them to do things that simply weren’t possible before. Happily, beyond the new suits, the same doesn’t apply to Mario and friends: Nintendo keeps the control scheme classically simple, and instances of motion control in “NSMBW” are infrequent enough to be novel and surprisingly fun in how they function in conjunction with the levels in which they appear.

Totaled up, “NSMBW” is, to perhaps an unprecedented degree, that rare game that is as magnificently enjoyable for long-suffering 2D Mario fans as it is for those who have never played one and had no idea a 19-year drought even existed. It’s an enormous value simply by being a full-featured game that offers two diametrically different experiences that can be cherished on wholly separate levels.

The only bug in the pancake batter is the lack of an online co-op option. Four-player “NSMBW” is a farcical mess in person, and Nintendo is dead right in assessing that the mood wouldn’t translate nearly as well online. But for those who lack the means to set up a local game, having an online consolation prize still trumps not having it.

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WireWay
For: Nintendo DS
From: Konami
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

Given the myriad of fun possibilities, it’s somewhat amazing only one game — “Bust-a-Move DS” — has prominently leaned on a control mechanic built around using the Nintendo DS’ touch screen as a virtual slingshot.

That changes rather dramatically — albeit imperfectly — with “WireWay,” which builds an entire adventure game around the idea.

“WireWay” stars you as a strange little alien named Wiley, and the completely weird storyline — which deliberately is silly to the point of genuine amusement — has Wiley on a quest to gather valuable stars that are useless to Earthlings but extremely valuable to Wiley and his strange kind.

But the game isn’t about controlling Wiley so much as the areas through which he must navigate. Each level starts with Wiley grabbing onto the lowest-hanging wire, and you propel him forward by pulling back on the wire, picking your angle and launching him at stars, special items, enemies and other wires. “WireWay” introduces new contraptions as the game soldiers ahead, but the primary mode of transport involves firing Wiley around the level like a rock in a slingshot.

It isn’t a perfect science. The action takes place on both screens, and the space between screens translates into a blind spot that can complicate your shot selection. A nice touch allows you to shift the camera using the D-pad, but doing so also limits how far back you can pull the wire in certain directions. Practice makes near-perfect and it’s never a game-breaking problem, but it would’ve been preferable if “WireWay” let you zoom in and out rather than simply shift the viewpoint.

Other than that, though, the mechanic makes for a fun trick around which to build a game, and “WireWay” helps itself by regularly introducing variety to the levels and making them challenging to complete. For those who enjoy perfecting games, a grading mechanic that scores your ability to grab all the stars, find the special items and get to the ship as quickly as possible should induce a nice amount of replayabilty. Acing the game is no easy feat.

“WireWay” complements its goofy storyline with a two great challenge modes. Flick Trials limits how many moves you can make to send Wiley to the ship, while Strategery — the jewel of the game both in name and concept — forces you to pause the action and draw in the wires and contraptions yourself. Both modes use the same scoring system as the story levels, so they offer the same level of replayabilty for perfectionists.

All those calls for perfection make “WireWay’s” multiplayer mode, which turns the action into an anything-goes race to the ship, a pleasantly mindless change of pace. Four players can compete locally using one copy of the game, but only two courses are available unless everyone has their own copy. Online play isn’t available, but it’s hard to imagine a niche game arriving smack in the middle of the holiday blockbuster season accruing a major online following anyway.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360

Half-Minute Hero
For: Playstation Portable
From: Marvelous Entertainment/XSEED Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (animated blood, language, mild fantasy violence, mild suggestive themes)

If you’re one of those poor souls who enjoys the trappings of a good role-playing, real-time strategy and/or tower defense game, then boy, does “Half-Minute Hero” have a wholly unique and brilliantly original deal for you.

“Hero” arrives divided into three (and, after a little unlocking, six) pieces, with each piece representing an era in the game’s storytelling legend. Additionally, four of them represent a separate popular (and, in three cases, traditionally complex) gaming genre. The “Hero 30″ chapter is “Hero’s” answer to role-playing games, while “Evil Lord 30,” “Princess 30″ and “Knight 30″ respectively take on tactical strategy, overhead 2D arcade shooting and tower defense.

“Hero’s” willingness to cover all four of these bases is potentially remarkable in its own respect, but it’s how the game does it — and where it gets the “Half-Minute” part of its name — that elevates it to a world all its own.

In a nutshell? Each level must be completed in 30 seconds. In the case of the Evil Lord, Princess and Knight chapters, that means completely wrapping up a battle and meeting any necessary objectives in the time it takes a commercial to air. In the Hero mode, that means completing an entire role-playing game — complete with title card and end credits for each “sequel” — in that same span of time. You don’t have a choice: The world ends if you fail.

“Hero” predictably skirts this time mechanic to some degree: You can pray for more time in the role-playing game and purchase it in the tactical games. The shooter levels feature special red carpets that, if traversed, add seconds back to the clock.

But even with those limited-use workarounds, you never have more than 30 seconds to spare at any point in “Hero,” which brilliantly bucks the conventions of the genres it mimics by turning them into frantic sprints against always-ticking clocks. RPG battles began and end in a second or two. Full-scale wars against enemy armies take 15 seconds. The gameplay is far more manageable than it sounds on paper, but the speed at which is soars by is nonetheless truly remarkable, and the whole experiment is a shocking success given all the conventional polarities in play. (“Hero’s” fifth and sixth mode, bend the RPG mode by putting 300 and three seconds, respectively on the clock. That ladder mode is as ludicrous as it sounds.)

“Hero’s” spirit is similarly buoyant on the outside thanks to an inspired audiovisual style that harkens back to 16-bit gaming’s early-1990s glory days. The game’s dialogue reads like the work of a junior high school kid writing fan fiction, but it does so deliberately and with a dry wit. What “Hero” lacks in sweeping storylines, it more than makes up for in funny characters and absolutely hilarious throwaway lines that come out of nowhere.

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Need For Speed Nitro
For: Nintendo Wii
From: EA Montreal
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild lyrics, mild violence)

At first blush, it’s easy to mistake “Need for Speed Nitro” — which takes a proper “Need for Speed” game, strips it of its simulative leanings and whittles it down to a streamlined racer with a very heavy arcade bent — as something of a raw deal.

But “Nitro’s” arcadey disposition isn’t just a case of subtracting and oversimplifying for a more casual audience. Rather, because it isn’t constrained by the same parameters, “Nitro” does things a traditional “NFS” game cannot. Depending on how you choose to play and how extensively you wish to succeed, it also poses a more satisfying challenge than its more well-rounded cousins.

Speed rules everything in “Nitro,” which gets its name from the two tanks of nitrous oxide equipped on all 30 of its licensed vehicles. Driving with style replenishes your nitrous bars, and from there you can activate one for a significant speed boost or both for something not of this world.

“Nitro’s” low camera placement and overall visual presentation convey a nice sensation of speed all by themselves, and the brake button exists more as a means to drift around corners at high speeds than as a tool for cautious driving. Master the drift, enable a double nitrous boost and weave between cop cars bent on shutting your race down, and the action moves at an exhilarating clip more straight-faced racing games can’t feasibly deliver.

The arcadey approach, thankfully, doesn’t translate into a powderpuff challenge. “Nitro” offers steering assistance for those who want it, and the control schemes that only require the Wii remote are forgiving enough for “Mario Kart” graduates. For more experienced players, though, the traditional schemes and assist-free physics complement a surprisingly ruthless A.I. to make “Nitro” a legitimately (but never unfairly) challenging game. Completely cleaning up in the career mode — winning events, beating par lap times and accruing style points across a variety of event styles — is tougher here than in a traditional “NFS” game.

Similar design decisions course through the entirety of “Nitro,” which counters most of what it lacks with something of its own that traditional “NFS” either couldn’t do or couldn’t get away with. The stylized, spirited graphical presentation — which uses graffiti art in a brilliant way that’s best unspoiled — nullifies the Wii’s technical shortcomings to a startling degree. Similarly, while you can’t tune cars to nearly the same extent that you can in other “NFS” games, you can paint them however you please using the Wii remote as a freeform paintbrush, which arguably is better as far as personalization is concerned.

The only gap “Nitro” can’t close, though, is a big one. The game’s local multiplayer support — four players and drop-in/drop-out capabilities even in the career mode — is terrific, but its online component is nonexistent. Painting cars would be that much more satisfying if you could show them off online, and that’s to say nothing of the extra longevity online competitions and record-keeping would provide.

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Lego Rock Band
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS
From: Harmonix/TT Games/MTV/Warner Bros. Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (comic mischief, mild cartoon violence, mild lyrics)

Band Hero
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS
From: Neversoft/RedOctane/Activision
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (lyrics, mild suggestive themes)

The grudge match between “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” rages on, and because “Lego Rock Band” and “Band Hero” exist primarily to lure in families put off by the parent games’ more mature set lists, even the children no longer are safe.

If you’re a cynic, “Band Hero” probably merits a dirty first look: The name will positively terrify parents already confused by the two franchises’ shrinking discrepancies, and the game itself is basically a cloned “Guitar Hero 5″ with a pop theme and a family-friendly, 65-track setlist that’s 20 songs poorer than “GH5″ despite matching it in price.

But if you don’t have “GH5″ and prefer “Hero’s” family-friendly disposition, that’s actually perfectly good news. “Hero” doesn’t dumb the gameplay down in any respect, and outside of the setlist size, it matches its parent product in terms of features — career mode, support for any configuration of up to 4 (local multiplayer, online co-op) or eight (online competitive) drums, guitars and mics, even the imposingly robust studio mode that lets you create and share your own instrumentals.

“Lego Rock Band” can’t make quite the same claim, in large part due to the puzzling omission of any online play whatsoever. If the idea wad to protect the children, an option to disable online functionality would have more than sufficed. The 45-song setlist also presents an even bigger drop-off from “Rock Band 2’s” 84 tracks.

Presentationally speaking, though, “LRB” is a brilliant realization of what should happen when Harmonix’s airtight gameplay mixes it up with TT Games’ masterful use of the Lego license. “LRB’s” storyline is as cleverly funny as TT’s “Star Wars” and “Batman” send-ups, and the Lego setting allows it to explore storytelling frontiers — monster-infested mansions, outer space, a drumming octopus seeking vengeance — traditional “Rock Band” games could never visit. Players who play through the storyline also unlock furniture, instruments and body parts, which they can use to customize their characters and rock den.

Additionally, while “LRB’s” setlist is smaller than it should be and home to its fair share of flavor-of-the-month hits, it also brings along the likes (and in a few spectacular cases, playable Lego facsimiles) of Queen, Spinal Tap, David Bowie, T-Rex, Elton John and Iggy Pop. For parents who want to instill some reverence and good taste in their kids at an early age, this — along with a new Super Easy difficulty setting that’s extremely accommodating to entry-level players — makes “LRB” a pretty powerful ally.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, PSP, Playstation 3, Xbox 360

A Boy and His Blob
For: Nintendo Wii
From: WayForward Technologies/Majesco
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence)

David Crane’s “A Boy and His Blob” was, at least in terms of concept, ingeniously ahead of its time back in 1989. Everywhere else, though, it was right on schedule: The graphics didn’t live up to the premise’s charm, and the game’s difficulty level regularly reached kick-you-in-the-mouth heights due to some slippery controls, steep demands and rigid artificial intelligence.

The time is beyond right to give the concept another go, and developer WayForward gets it almost perfectly right, gifting a great idea a control scheme, personality and visual presentation that simply weren’t possible 20 years ago.

Though the new “Blob” isn’t a remake, the overriding concept is the same: You control the boy, and you get around each 2D level by running, jumping and feeding your trusty friend Blob different colored jellybeans that turn him into different forms. Black jellybeans turn Blob into a ladder, for instance, while white turns him into a bowling ball and lime green turns him into a deployable parachute. Different forms allow the boy to access otherwise unreachable areas, and while there’s a storyline to explain the means and reasons, the overriding goal is to reach the exit of each level (and, if you’re really good, find and collect three treasure chests along the way).

The system for feeding Blob back in 1989 was logistically messy, but the new “Blob” fixes everything that plagued the old system. Picking a specific jellybean color is as simple as calling up a radial menu on the fly and flicking the joystick in the right direction. An aiming mechanism allows you to toss the jellybean at the optimum angle rather than just hope for the best, and while Blob occasionally suffers a temporary brain freeze and ignores your commands, he now is smart enough to go after dropped jellybeans rather than simply hope you toss it straight at him.

The added flexibility extends to the levels, which can accommodate richer puzzles that are challenging for the right reasons. Reaching the end of a level often means solving a cause-and-effect puzzle that has Blob using multiple forms in sequence, and figuring this stuff out is a ton of fun thanks to how little the game gets in your way.  (This goes double for the treasure chests hunts, which are optional but reward your efforts by unlocking some great bonus levels.)

Even when an idea fails miserably, “Blob’s” extremely generous checkpoint system almost always puts you right where you want to be without so much as a load screen preventing you from trying again immediately. As such, “Blob” never becomes unnecessarily frustrating, nor does it ever need to resort to hand-holding to pull players through a particularly tricky puzzle.

The good vibes easily extend to the game’s presentation, which is graced with a startlingly minimalist menu interface, a beautiful soundtrack and some truly magnificent artwork and animation that may as well be lifted straight out of a big-budget animated movie. If you’re having a conversation about the best-looking games of 2009, “Blob” absolutely belongs in the thick of it.

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DJ Hero
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Playstation 2, Nintendo Wii
From: Freestyle Games/Activision
ESRB Rating: Teen (lyrics, mild suggestive themes)

It’s been only four years since “Guitar Hero” first took the planet by storm, but an oversaturation of incremental sequels, offshoots and competitors’ products has made it feel at least twice as long.

How nice, then, that “DJ Hero” has the gall not only to freshen up the landscape, but do so with greater concern for achieving its vision than trying to please everybody the way its spiritual predecessors so often have.

“Hero” shares structural similarities to its guitar-based cousins, and during the first tutorial lesson, it appears to be the same old game with a new controller and soundtrack. Notes slide toward you down a track, and you need to press the correct buttons in time with those notes. Been there, right?

But then different tracks call for you to scratch the vinyl on the controller — sometimes indiscriminately, but other times quickly and precisely in very specific directions. Then the path of track bends, and you need to slide the crossfader dial to follow the track — sometimes for a bridge, other times for a single beat and back. An effects dial allows for some freestyling, a euphoria button activates the game’s version of star power, and certain portions of songs have you banging the red button at will to spice up the track with a sample of your choosing.

When “Hero” is cruising at full speed — tossing different arrangements of notes and tracks your way while you scramble to quickly but precisely manage all the different buttons and dials during a frantic four-song set with no break between tracks — it’s an exhilarating, exciting challenge that transcends “Guitar Hero’s” simpler casual leanings. The game ships with five difficulty settings, and the easier ones make “Hero” as much of a casual party game as any of its rhythmic contemporaries, but you’ll want to play it on at least medium difficulty — which tests your turntable mettle without feeling unfair — if you want to see it really sing.

Whether the turntable justifies “Hero’s” inflated price is a matter of personal taste, but for whatever it’s worth, it’s a sturdy and elegant piece of hardware. Lefties can rearrange the button layout to suit their orientation, and all the parts feel made to last. Some will find the crossfade slider looser than they’d like, but that looseness comes in handy once you’ve made acquaintance with the layout and need to navigate it without hesitation. “Hero” includes support for two-player, two-turntable local and online play, and in a nice nod to interoperability, also allows a second player to jam along with a guitar controller.

Considering it was produced specially for the game, “Hero’s” 93-mix soundtrack — each track mashing together two popular songs from all over the radio dial — is as impressive an achievement as the game itself. The soundtrack draws its material from 102 songs, which means some songs are used multiple times, but the sheer technique employed in constructing these mixes makes that mostly a non-issue.

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Tekken 6
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Namco Bandai
ESRB Rating: Teen (alcohol reference, crude humor, mild language, suggestive themes, violence)

“Tekken 6’s” scenario campaign mode — a multithreaded, story-driven brawler featuring the series’ mountainous cast — is a fun but troubled mode. The camera struggles mightily with the full 3D range of the action, and that, along with some questionable hit detection and schizophrenic enemy intelligence, adds up to cheap deaths made worse by the omission of mid-mission checkpoints in all but a few levels. The series’ iconic characters make appearances in novel ways, but the storyline is, as always seems to happen in fighting games, a narrative mess.

What makes this all forgivable, besides the fact that it’s good dumb fun in spite of its issues, is that the scenario campaign will be a complete surprise to most people who pick up “Tekken 6,” which remains an accessibly fun one-on-one fighter first and whatever else it feels like second.

Little feels surprising about “Tekken 6’s” fighting engine, which retains its arcade-friendly sensibilities both in how it plays and how it presents itself. The visual leap over “Tekken 5″ is satisfactory but completely in line with what one would expect. The game’s roster, at 42 fighters (40 fully playable, eight new) deep, hasn’t taken a hit the way some other fighting game lineups have while transitioning to new hardware.

In terms of the main course, the available modes aren’t any great surprise either. There’s the base arcade mode, which sees you picking a fighter and fighting your way up the ladder, and the usual variants (time attack, four-on-four tag team fights, a single-round survival mode, one-on-one offline multiplayer, a practice arena for the hopelessly inexperienced) also arrive on schedule.

Online multiplayer makes its first appearance in a proper “Tekken” game, but it’s exactly what’s expected of a fighting game in 2009: ranked/unranked matches, support for ghost fighter downloads and leaderboard support. “Tekken 6’s” online interface takes no chances, but it works, and while lag ran rampant during the game’s first days in the wild, performance has improved markedly in a hurry.

Where things take a turn for the pleasantly surprising is in how well the game ties all this stuff together and opens the door for obsessive players to keep coming back. Playing any of the game’s modes earns fight money, which can be spent toward customizing any of the playable fighters’ respective visual appearances in flashy and funny ways. The makeovers carry over to the online arena, and some of the items have special effects in the scenario campaign, which rewards you with yet more stuff when you complete levels and find treasure chests.

Additionally, each fighter has a separate leveling metric that increases by playing and winning fights as that character, and it’s long climb to the top of the hill for each character. Multiply that climb by 40 — and throw in the fun of mastering all 40 movesets and possibly dominating the online area along the way — and that adds up to a lot of gameplay time for those crazy and gifted enough to wring “Tekken 6″ completely dry.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360