I’ve got to be honest, I’m a Tekken, Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter fan from way back and fancy myself as a bit of a gun. Put me in front of any Street Fighter game however and I fail miserably. I just can’t get the hang of it to save myself.
After playing the long awaited Street Fighter IV, the first new iteration of the series on current-gen consoles, my mantle as possibly the worst Street Fighter player ever is quite safe.
My personal skills in the game aside, Street Fighter IV is everything fans have been waiting for. Accessibility without being dumbed down, technical depth if you wish to study it, faithful gameplay mechanics with welcome returns from past games, Street Fighter IV shows just how good a 2D fighter can be even in today’s 3D world.
The graphics are worthy of the SFIV arcade machines and the presentation is trademark Capcom. Street Fighter is a game that you have to play for months and even years to master, I just wish I had the time.
Released simultaneously with the movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine the game definitely fares better after reading some of the movie reviews. But let’s face it, how can you go too wrong making a game with a lead character who has the power to slice and dice his way through thousands of enemies. And that’s pretty much what you’ll be doing throughout the whole game – carving up wave after wave of drones interspersed with the occasional boss, shifting of crates, climbing, collecting and a little puzzle solving.
It all sounds very generic, but what makes Wolverine so very playable is the combat system. You only use two face buttons but combined with leaps, and various directional presses you can devise some inventive ways of dispatching enemies. Funnily enough it works so well that you just don’t get bored. It looks impressive and when you acquire a selection of Rage Attacks, the sparks (and body parts) really begin to fly.
The game doesn’t follow the movie exactly but offers an alternative plot without straying too far from the film.
For: PS3
Another year has passed and yet another Wrestlemania has ended. To celebrate Wrestlmania’s 25th Anniversary this year, THQ have released an homage to the legendary names of yesteryear who helped make the event the spectacular drawcard it is today.
Legends of Wrestlemania takes the superstars of the 80’s and 90’s and lets you throw yourself in the middle of their most famous Wrestlemania matches.
Before I get into the review any further, let’s take a look at the full roster of Superstars available – and it’s a very impressive list:
WWE LEGENDS
Andre The Giant Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka
Animal Junk Yard Dog
Arn Anderson Kamala
Bam Bam Bigelow King Kong Bundy
Big Bossman Koko B. Ware
Big John Studd Michael Hayes
Bret Hart Mr. Perfect
British Bulldog Nikolai Volkoff
Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake Ravishing Rick Rude
Dusty Rhodes Ric Flair
Greg “The Hammer” Valentine Rowdy Roddy Piper
Hacksaw Jim Duggan Sgt. Slaughter
Hawk Shawn Michaels
Honky Tonk Man Stone Cold Steve Austin
Hulk Hogan The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase
Hunter Hearst Helmsley The Rock
Iron Sheik Ultimate Warrior
Jake The Snake Undertaker
Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart Yokozuna
MANAGERS
Bobby “The Brain” Heenan Mr. Fuji
Jimmy Hart Paul Bearer
Now there’s a list of names that brings back a lot of fond memories, a handful of them are still dominating centre stage even today. The likes of Triple H, Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker are all main event wrestlers.
But, if you were an avid watcher of wrestling during the 80’s and 80’s like myself then there’s one huge name which is conspicuous by its absence… The Macho Man Randy Savage. I’m not sure why he would be omitted as World Wrestling Entertainment would no doubt own his character and likeness. Anyway, for whatever reason, it’s a shame we don’t get to hear his trademark “OOOOO YEEEEAH!”
THQ’s main wrestling franchise Smackdown vs Raw is widely accepted as the only game worth playing when it comes to wrestling simulations. So much so that only Midway dares to release any competition these days – and look where it’s gotten them. Let’s not go there. Smackdown vs Raw 2009 is easily the best we are going to get on the current generation of hardware, so THQ have taken a step back with Legends of Wrestlemania and simplified things, perhaps with younger gamers in mind but I personally think they had the 30-something occasional gamers in mind who will see all these huge names from their younger years and be keen to dive in.
The game is controlled by the D-Pad or Right stick and the 4 face buttons only. It works on a grapple-based fighting system which sees buttons allocated on screen. Press the correct button before your opponent does and you’ll deliver a specific move, a few more times and you will progress to a second level of moves and then a third after which your combo meter will be full allowing you to perform finishing moves. If your opponent begins to chain together moves then this can be broken by beating him to the correct button first. Each player has 5 different taunts which help to increase your stats throughout a match.
The usual game modes are all present here, including the Create-a-Legend mode as seen in the Smackdown series. But perhaps the best is called Wrestlemania Tour, which sees you recreating classic matches from throughout the years which are introduced by the actual WWE footage of the event. Wrestlemania Tour has three gameplay options: 1. Relive – In this you can play as the wrestler who won the classic match over a set opponent. 2. Rewrite – which has you playing as the loser of a specific match in an attempt to rewrite history. In this mode you get to view the history between the two wrestlers and recap their Wrestlemania match. You will also need to achieve certain objectives as well as win the match itself. 3. Redefine – Here you can chose any classic match and any wrestler, then change the match type completely.
The available match types are Single, Tag Team, Triple Threat, Steel Cage, Ladder, Submission, Iron Man, Handicap, Hell in a Cell, and Royal Rumble.
One more game mode is Legend Killer, in which there are 6 tiers. 4 of these have 10 Legends waiting to challenge you and the other 2 have all the Legends plus all the Superstars from Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (they are able to be imported from the SvR 09 game itself).
While the gameplay itself may have been “dumbed down” to cater for a broader market, the graphics most certainly haven’t. You can expect to see the same polished character models and fluid movement as there are in Smackdown.
While Legends of Wrestlemania may be a pleasant skip down memory lane for some, fans of its market dominating bigger sibling will not be impressed or bothered with the simplified control method. And as for attracting new fans into the genre, I just cant see many making the transition from what is essentially an arcade fighter to a simulation. Legends has it’s place, it’s nostalgic, solid fun, attractive to look at and doesn’t suffer from the targeting and collision problems that many before it have. Yet it strikes me as more of a weekend rental than one you’ll want to revisit again and again. It’s a game you’ll pick up once a year for a bit of a giggle and then put it back for another 12 months. OOOOO YEEEEAH! Ups: Fantastic roster of Superstars all looking superb. THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR! Excellent and relevant nostalgic WWE footage included.
Downs: No Macho Man! Just doesn’t have enough substance past the obvious nostalgic value to make you want to play it often.
Title: Wanted: Weapons of Fate
From: Grin
For: PS3
Even though Wanted is originally based on a comic book, it was the 2008 movie that brought the name into the general public eye. I hadn’t seen either when the game Wanted: Weapons of Fate arrived so I made a point of watching the movie first before the game went anywhere near my console. I‘m glad I did, in fact as it turns out, a knowledge of the movie could be seen as a prerequisite to playing the game – as the game doesn’t really explain the backstory to any degree.
For the record, I thought the movie Wanted was thoroughly entertaining in a switch-off-your-brain kind of way. While the story had more holes than a rusty colander, the action and special effects were first class and worth the cover price alone. Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman were boring, although their characters were supposed to be rather emotionless anyway. The star of the show is the lead actor James McAvoy and a couple of the auxiliary characters.
This third-person shooter game follows on from the events in the movie and has you playing as Wesley Gibson who has already been trained from an anxiety-ridden office worker into a lethal Fraternity Assassin and living amongst his deceased Father’s things (I have to be careful not to spoil any integral movie plots here, so forgive me if I am a little vague in places). Having eliminated most of one faction of the Fraternity ultimately causes other factions to come looking for you.
This sees you setting off to learn more about your origins on the way to kill your Father’s nemesis fighting wave upon wave of enemy, the occasional level boss and an eventual showdown. During the 9 missions (yes, only 9 – but I’ll get to that disappointment later), you mainly play as Wesley but occasionally the game goes back in time to give some insight into your Father’s legacy and therefore why you’re hell-bent of finishing things once and for all.
Much like Gears of War, Wanted relies heavily on a cover-system and an intuitive one at that – although the Easy difficulty, or “Pussy” as the game calls it, does allow latitude for some run & gun action or run & stab depending on your level of sadism. You can’t take cover behind just anything, but it’s very obvious what you can use as they have been deliberately placed. Peeking out from behind cover allows you to quickly move to the next available cover at the press of a button. This is an important part of the game as moving swiftly from cover to cover confuses the enemy as to your whereabouts and allows you to sneak up on them for a better angle. Getting close enough to an enemy brings the melee option into play. On your feet, this means a small selection of brutal finishing maneuvers with your hunting knife, but from behind cover it’s as simple as reaching over and slamming either blade through their skull. Either way, it’s deadly and impressive.
From cover you can blind fire, but you won’t hit anything, or be able to aim, the whole reason for blind fire here is to suppress the enemy back into cover so you can move without being spotted.
So far, Wanted: Weapons of Fate sounds like a stock standard, garden variety third-person shooter, but it does have a couple of stand-out features, one of which lifts the game to its better-than-average rating. Firstly is the use of ‘adrenaline’ which aids in your focus. This is nothing new – most games call it ‘bullet time’, but Wanted uses it well and as it’s relevant to the movie too, you know its inclusion wasn’t a “Hey, we might as well throw in a bullet-time feature. All the cool games are doing it” kind of decision. Using adrenaline while running between cover allows you to slow the action down enough to take out several enemies at once in much the same way as the excellent game Stranglehold did. Your adrenaline meter is limited however but can be refilled immediately by making a fresh kill. Occasionally you encounter a scripted adrenaline section in which the game offers you a rail-driven segment akin to Time Crisis where you have a few short seconds to kill a couple of enemies and maybe a static target before sliding onto another and so on. These sections are nicely done albeit very short.
The main point of difference is Wesley’s ability to bend bullets – again, an integral part of the movie action. When you earn this ability (the second level if I recall correctly), a press of a button will produce a red line from the muzzle of your gun. Moving the left stick curves this line to the intended target and it will turn white if you’re able to make a clean hit, releasing the button then fires off a bullet which will curve around any cover or obstacle and take them out. After using this a few times it becomes second nature and you can easily take out half a dozen enemies in as many seconds. If you release at the wrong time and miss then you immediately drain all your adrenaline, but keep scoring hits and your meter will remain full. Nail a headshot with a curved shot and you will be treated with a bullet’s eye view of the kill, which is always nice. While bending bullets is great fun, I would have preferred the feature to have had some strategic appeal rather than for almost every kill. Sure, you don’t have to use it, but I guarantee you’ll damn well want to.
Graphically, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a great looking game. The environments, textures and character models aren’t top-shelf, but are definitely hanging onto the edge of it. The cut-scenes are right up there with the best though. As a package, the presentation is slick, polished and faithful to the atmosphere of the movie.
So is there anything negative about the game? Yes. The whole shebang is over far too quickly to warrant the full price tag. Just as you seem to be getting into your groove and looking forward to some more challenging levels, it’s over. There’s 9 levels in all, ranging from short to medium length and the whole game can be finished in one short sitting. Unfortunately there’s not much there to make you want to pick it up and play it again unless you want to earn some melee/headshot trophies/achievements or you’re a “100% freak” and want all the collectables like concept art, pictures etc etc. The only other negative – there’s no Angelina Jolie in it (granted, some of you will see that as a positive).
Ultimately, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a short game, but excellent fun while it lasts. Taking things into consideration I guess the shine of its stand-out features would probably wear off if it were much longer anyway. So while it might not be worth parting with 100+ dollars for it’s well worth a rental or adding to your collection if and when you can pick it up on special.
Pros: The game looks great and the atmosphere is true to the movie. Bending bullets is brilliant fun and extremely satisfying if you get quick at it.
Cons: Too short to be worthy of a full-price title. A couple of camera issues, but nothing major.
UNO Rush is a different take on the traditional game, providing faster, edge of the seat gameplay where the original can often plod along depending on who you’re playing with.
The general idea remains the same as in matching the coloured/numbered cards in your hand to those on the discard pile. But this time around you are dealt 7 cards which are viewable to all other players. You need to sort them into a particular order so that when your turn comes around, your top card will be played and any consecutive cards in your hand can be placed down too. You only get a small amount of time to switch cards if you need to, so you need to be alert all the time in UNO Rush.
As usual there are cards which change colour, direction, +2, +4 and a new card which shuffles the order of other players’ cards.
UNO Rush is a little daunting at first, but with a little practice it’ll rekindle your love for the game if traditional UNO has gotten stale.
Title: The Godfather 2
From: Electronic Arts
For: Xbox 360 (Rated R18)
The whole world surrounding The Godfather series of films is a game developer’s dream come true. From the array of characters and storylines to the action and violence – it’s all there waiting for the right game to come along.
EA’s first effort, The Godfather, was an excellent game in its time and its sequel The Godfather 2 is more of the same thing except bigger and much more polished both graphically and in the flow of events.
The game follows the events of the second film and your character plays a part in all the key sequences. Your primary job is to take out rival gang members, take over their racketeering rings and extort money from businesses and individuals to fund your “business enterprises”. You can recruit your own band of thugs, each with specific talents to complete certain tasks. As your empire grows, so does the need to recruit, protect and fund it. The aim is to eventually have a stronghold over the whole city.
The game suffers from some glitches but nothing that proves fatal to the game. It’s well presented and is a solid mix of action and strategy.
Title: Street Fighter IV
