The classic board game Monopoly has been faithfully recreated to make an exciting, interactive experience for 1 to 4 players. You can play the classic game or play a number of great variations to speed the game up, make it more challenging or evenly matched.
The Richest Edition mode makes the game fun and evenly matched for the whole family. Each round you compete in a small minigame to determine the order of play for the round. There’s no money used and the luck of the draw can make you go from first place to last in the final round. It’s exciting and a popular game in our household.
Monopoly is well worth a look for fans of the game or just fans of board games in general.
Title: SingStar: Hottest Hits
From: Sony Computer Entertainment
For: PS2
With Christmas looming, it’s SingStar season once again and one of the latest is Hottest Hits. There’s been a few sterile SingStar releases in the last year or so but in all honesty, Hottest Hits is probably the best the franchise has seen in a long time. There are 30 tracks in all and very few questionable inclusions.
Highlights include: Lily Allen ‘LDN’, Nelly Furtado ‘All Good Things Come to an End’, Sam Sparro ‘Black & Gold’, Snow Patrol ‘Chasing Cars’, The Fray ‘How to Save a Life’, The Potbelleez ‘Don’t Hold Back’, Finger Eleven ‘Paralyzer’ and The Ting Tings ‘That’s Not My Name’.
Hottest Hits is a must have addition to any SingStar collection.
When I first got my PS3 I had an aging rear projection television which just didn’t do the console or its games justice. Having said that, I was still blown away by the opening scenes in the original MotorStorm. They were better than anything I’d ever seen in console gaming. Many months later, and dozens of other great looking games under my belt I upgraded to a nice new LCD screen. Upon its arrival home, and once everything was plugged in, the very first thing I put on was MotorStorm – it looked incredible.
So it was with much excitement that I slid Evolution Studios’ sequel MotorStorm: Pacific Rift into the slot and waited for the opening credits. Wow. Just…Wow.
I remember at that very moment, my son saying “Hey they’ve used actual video footage for this”, as the aerial camera panned around the island setting. But no, this was pure CGI and perhaps the finest I have seen on any platform (I can almost hear the PC-loving readers snickering as I write this). If anything it made me realise just how far we have come in such a short time. I remember dropping bold statements like “OMG that’s photorealistic!” back in the PSX days.
Pacific Rift’s in-game visuals themselves, as is always the case, don’t quite live up to the intro, but they are on a par with the original MotorStorm. In fact the whole game feels very familiar, which is by no means a bad thing.
Instead of the previous desert setting, Pacific Rift, as the title would suggest is based on an island and a racing festival that shows off more tracks, more vehicles and more game modes than the original. The courses are divided into four distinct themes: Earth, Fire, Water and Air. This overcomes the problem MotorStorm had with lack of variety in its tracks. The elemental themes to these tracks give them a very different feel to one another. Evolution Studios have done a great job of providing variety but the quality in some, in particular the Fire tracks leaves a bit to be desired.
Progression in Pacific Rift is via the ticket system once again, which means by achieving certain points in races you will unlock further tracks and events. If you attain specific achievements during a race though, such as not wiping out or beating a certain time, bonus events are unlocked. This gives the game longevity and provides a reason to pick it up at a later date.
One thing I like about MotorStorm is how you know that if you don’t nail certain corners, jumps or segments of track, then you’re simply not going to win. It reminds me of the original Need For Speed and listening for that tell-tale squeal of the tyres which told you that you’d lost traction on the corner and your opponent would soon be passing. It’s the same feeling in Pacific Rift. So many times I would restart a race due to taking a bad racing line as no amount of good driving was going to win the race. The driving model is unforgiving and the different vehicles, ranging from trail-bikes to big rigs carry genuine weight and react very differently in the varying conditions.
Just like the original, each track has a number of routes that can be taken, including hidden ones. The secret with driving the different vehicles is to pick the appropriate route to suit. Monster Trucks and Big Rigs plough through mud and water with ease, while the ATVs and buggies can take the high-road and traverse narrower pathways. Everybody will have their favourite, mine are the ATVs and Mudpluggers, but the full range isn’t available on every track which forces you to diversify a little.
While the single player Festival Mode will take a fair while to wade through, there are a number of excellent modes to try if you’re in need of a diversion. Firstly is Time Attack, which has downloadable ghosts, online leaderboards and even developer times to beat. Also, and with only a little degradation in visuals, there is a single-system multiplayer for up to 4 racers. This works brilliantly considering the scale of the environments.
The original MotorStorm’s online multiplayer was panned by many reviewers for being a last minute addition to the game. Personally, apart from a bit of lag, I didn’t mind it. But Evolution have made a polished job of the online racing in Pacific Rift. There are ranked and unranked races depending on your level of competitiveness and the human vs human racing will extend the life of the game well beyond the single player campaign.
While MotorStorm ranks as the best exclusive PS3 racing franchise (granted, there’s not a great deal of competition in the “exclusive” PS3 racing genre), it’s by no means perfect. Pacific Rift does suffer from some dodgy textures and varying frame-rates. The speed of the game would suggest an arcade racer, especially with the boost usage, but the driving models of the vehicles lean it towards a more serious kind of racer. Sometimes the two clash and can cause frustration when your vehicle doesn’t respond as quickly as the track requires it to.
The soundtrack is also similar to the original and the grinding rock riffs compliment the racing action nicely.
Ultimately, before shelling out for MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, I would recommend renting both it and Disney’s Pure to see which one clicks with you the most. Or better still, download the demo of each. Pacific Rift is more of the same that we originally saw in MotorStorm but bigger, better and with a more solid online experience. Even with some jitters here and there, it’s still one of the better looking PS3 games to date.
Pros: Spectacular intro visuals. Solid online mode. Achieves everything the original didn’t.
Cons: Seems like a ‘safe’ sequel. Framerate drops when the action is full on.
Title: Gears of War 2
From: Epic Games
For: Xbox 360
Perhaps the most anticipated game of 2008 has arrived in Gears of War 2. The original was a console seller and the sequel will no doubt do the same this Christmas season.
Marcus Fenix, Dom, Baird, Cole and the rest of the COGs are back to carry on the fight against the Locust Horde. Whole cities are sinking due to a new subterranean threat and the only option left is to attack the Horde from the inside.
Veterans of Gears of War will instantly feel familiar with the sequel. The controls and gameplay are almost identical with some very notable and welcome additions. New enemies, new weapons and new features like using bodies as shields and one-on-one chainsaw battles just to begin with. The scale of the game is grander and not as claustrophobic as the original and there are some huge battles with some gigantic beasts.
Multiplayer is as fantastic as it’s always been with new and old maps and great new modes to choose from including the excellent Horde.
Gears of War 2 is everything we wanted and more. A front-runner for Game of the Year.
Title: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Game Studios
For: Xbox 360
From the makers of Oblivion comes the latest go anywhere, do anything game, Fallout 3. The similarities to Oblivion are prominent throughout from the face to face conversations and story-defining decision making to the wide open roaming landscapes and in-depth RPG elements.
You have grown up in a secured vault, a city inside a mountain isolated from a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. When your Father suddenly escapes from the vault, you set off to find him out in the Wastelands which are littered with Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders and satellite towns full of people trying to survive.
You get a choice in everything you do – converse your way out of problems or let your weapons do all the talking. The choices you make define how the rest of the game takes shape as your reputation often precedes you.
While the general character movement is jerky and substandard, the game on a whole looks unbelievable in its detail. The combat is intuitive allowing your to pause time and specifically target body parts. Fallout 3 is an epic feat of game making and is yet another contender for the best of 2008.
It should be noted that to get any enjoyment out of NBA 2K9, you need to have a reasonable knowledge of the game of basketball itself. Having said that, if you have no interest in basketball then you’re probably not going to buy the game or even read this review for that matter – so I guess it’s a moot point.
This is not a game that will baby the newbies – you need to be on your game from the get-go.
Visually, NBA 2K9 is the clichéd game of two halves. The presentation of the menu system is downright horrible. Drab, sterile menus are complimented by an ill thought-out navigation method. Somebody at 2K Games (who, if there is an ounce of justice in this world, is currently looking for a new job) decided it would be an excellent idea to use the right stick and shoulder buttons to navigate around the menus. Erm, no, that’s a shit idea. Left stick or D-pad, X and O work just fine thanks – as proven by every other PlayStation game ever made. 2K games need to take a leaf out of EA Sports’ book when it comes to slick menu presentation.
On the other side of the coin though are the in-game graphics. Here, 2K have exceeded themselves and have pulled all the stops out, not skimping on the finest details. From the seemingly endless amount of player animations to the texture and reflections on the floor and the crowds who react to the on-court action in a relevant manner, waving towels and big foam fingers – the detail is top rate. That said, some of the movements taken by the user-controlled players are a little jerky and occasionally you can spot some jaggies around players – not enough to ruin the game though.
The gameplay too is polarised by brilliance and frustrations. The Adaptive AI is one of the best I’ve seen in any sports game. If you’re anything like me in sports games then you’ll find about 3 plays that tend to work and repeat them over and over – but in NBA 2K9 the AI will soon pick up on this and you’ll find that all of a sudden there’ll be an intercept or your preferred shooter will be double-teamed.
Although it takes some practice to master, the Shot Stick system of shooting baskets is a pleasure to use. Once you have the feel and the timing sorted then hitting three pointers is a regular occurrence. The beauty of the Shot Stick is that you can adjust the flight of the ball on the fly if a defender suddenly puts up a block. Just another touch that brings the realism a little closer.
We’ve all done our fair share of abusing referees right? Whether it be watching the footy or playing some [insert sport here] in the weekend. Well 2K bring this Kiwi pastime into the gaming world with some referees which have the amazing ability to travel into the future and see that you’re going to commit a foul before you actually do it. Kind of like Minority Report with stripy shirts. It doesn’t happen often, but when your player gets called for a reach-in foul when he’s not even near the ball carrier, or you get called for a blocking foul a split second before you press the block button, the profanities begin to flow rather freely.
Also, once an opposition player begins a charge to the basket, it seems you can either block his shot or foul him, there’s no getting in his way and making him rethink his actions. The animation seems too predetermined and will follow through with you in the way or not. You might, if you’re lucky draw an offensive foul, but they’re harder to come by than an Oscar in Rob Schneider’s trophy cabinet.
All too often, even if you do manage to gain a decent lead going into the 4th quarter, the computer AI seems to nonchalantly step up and whittle away that deficit with ease. More of your shots get blocked, your star players seem unable to hit a barn wall from point blank and the opposition appear to find three point shooting a doddle all of a sudden. The only way around this is to change your game strategy completely from the previous three quarters and basically waste as much time as possible.
There are a number of modes in NBA 2K, including online play for up to 10 gamers, 2K Share with which you can upload/download players and teams, as well as a feature similar to NBA Live’s Dynamic DNA called Living Rosters which 2K plans to update weekly. Franchise mode – or Association 2.0 as it’s called has NBA.com integration and keeps you up to date on the comings and goings in the actual 08/09 NBA season. If you’re into this side of the sports simulation game then NBA 2K does it well with customisable contracts, players refusing trades, a new letter-based grading system and a whole heap more.
All in all NBA 2K is worth a look if: a) You’re an avid basketball fan with pictures of players all over your bedroom wall, and b) You’ve got plenty of spare time to get good at it. Newcomers to the genre should steer well clear (try Sony’s NBA 08). With three basketball simulations out in recent months, I would personally rate them in this order: EA’s NBA Live for all round simulation and presentation, the aforementioned NBA 08 for its accessibility, and bringing up the rear is 2K Sports’ NBA 2K9.
If this franchise is going to keep its head above water then there’s a load of problems that need to be ironed out before NBA 2K10.
Title: Rock Band
From: Electronic Arts
For: Xbox 360
A whole year behind the American market, EA’s Rock Band has finally made it to our shores. The US has even had Rock Band 2 for quite some time.
Rock Band is a very similar game to Guitar Hero but includes not only a guitar controller, but a drum kit and microphone too. While it can be played solo (using one instrument at a time of course), Rock Band is at its best when you get some mates or the family together and each take charge of an instrument.
Gameplay is almost identical to Guitar Hero as you strike the correct notes as they scroll down the screen. Singing is similar to SingStar but has an arrow which moves above or below the pitch line as you stray from the note.
A clever feature in Rock Band is the ability for other band members to revive another if they completely fail. This is done by stringing some perfectly timed notes together, just like earning Star Power in Guitar Hero.
The whole game it terrific fun, but perhaps the best feature is the very reasonable price for the whole kit.
Title: Celebrity Sports Showdown
From: Electronic Arts
For: Nintendo Wii
I know what you’re thinking. A game with a name such as Celebrity Sports Showdown is bound to be full of cringe-worthy gameplay and dialogue – and you’d be right in that train of thought. But this light-hearted party game from EA’s Freestyle stable certainly doesn’t take itself seriously, allowing the gamer to enjoy the great fun on offer.
Up to 4 players can indulge in 12 outdoor “sports” with any one of 10 sporting or musician celebrities. Fergie, Avril Lavigne, LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban, Nellie Furtado, Sugar Ray Leonard and Kristi Yamaguchi are the most recognisable.
You can take part in anything from Beach Volleyball, Inner-Tubing, Badminton, Archery, Dodgeball, Curling and Slalom among others and all the sports rely on the Wii’s trademark motion control method.
The graphics are cartoonish which fits the game perfectly and the dialogue is certainly tacky as you’d expect. While there’s a heap of fun to be had, the novelty does wear off, so this isn’t a game you’ll be playing for weeks on end. Rather one you’ll pull out on the odd occasion for a laugh.
Title: Monopoly
