Halo 3 [360]

Arguably the most anticipated game ever, Halo fans finally get to "finish the fight" and find out if the world ends in this final installment of Bungie's shooter franchise. Picking up from the cliffhanger at the end of Halo 2, Master Chief's mission is to stop the Prophet from finding an artifact called "The Ark", and prevent him from using the Halo weapon to annihilate the planet. Unfortunately, you've crash-landed in the jungle and need to get yourself out of there first. As you progress through the game, you'll travel to various diverse locations along the way, occasionally taking control of several vehicles to break up the standard shooting action.

The missions themselves are fairly standard. You'll mostly be putting down the Covenant forces, but occasionally need to arm bombs or disable enemy defenses. There are also a few timed-escape levels as well to keep you moving. The levels are quite large, and have some generally good designs. There are a lot of missions that ask you to backtrack though, and this definitely makes some parts of the game feel like filler to bump up the play time. Your squad-mates aren't always dependable either, and you are often paired-up with the Arbiter, who seems to go Missing In Action quite a bit. The game allows for up to four-player co-op though, which is most welcome, especially at higher difficulty levels.

Visually, the game keeps the same general style as its predecessors, but definitely benefits from the Xbox 360's capabilities. Jungle levels feature plants that bend as you brush by and gorgeous water effects in the form of waterfalls, rivers and pools. More barren locales in the game are enhanced by smoke, dust and blowing snow effects. While it doesn't seem there was any facial mapping done, the character animations are top-notch. The game streams in level data during each mission and, while the frame rate hiccups a bit now and then, it's certainly better than watching a loading screen. The Head's-Up Display could have been better though, since objective locations aren't always shown, and players are often left guessing their way through levels that should be easy to navigate. The game's sound is mostly what you'd expect, with various vehicle and weapon sounds mixed in with friendly and enemy voices. The music is handled especially well, and fades in cinematically at key moments during the action.

Naturally, series fans are going to be interested in some multiplayer action as well, and on that score, the game doesn't disappoint. With support for up to sixteen players and some truly large levels, there's a lot here to keep fans busy for quite some time. Standard Slayer (death match) and Capture The Flag modes are joined by seven others, including Infection, where players kill Flood creatures or infect humans and Juggernaut, a kind of reverse tag where killing the Juggernaut player (the target) makes you the next Juggernaut. The game also has some added features, such as the ability to record gameplay and allow players to upload clips to share with friends. There's also a mode called Forge, which a basically a real-time level editor, allowing players to customize the levels as they play. Multiple players can take part via split-screen or over Xbox Live as well.

While this is certainly a comprehensive package, it does seem that all these extras come at a cost to the main Campaign mode, which is much shorter than expected. Most players will likely get through the game in eight to ten hours and, though the story's ending should satisfy most, it's unfortunate that the journey along the way isn't a bit more substantial.

8/10

SingStar Amped [PS2]

Fans of Sony's singing game that prefer their music to rock a bit harder than most should take a look at this release. If you haven't played SingStar before, it's basically a karaoke game where you sing along with music videos and get graded on your performance. As in previous versions, players can sing solo, duets, or battle it out by singing a song at the same time or passing the mic. The game also uses the EyeToy camera to take pictures of you during your performance.

The interface remains the same as before, so veterans will know what they're doing from the get-go. It's slick and easy to follow, offering up a jukebox-style rotisserie of album covers for you to select songs from. The tracklist (see below) spans a wide range of hard rock and heavy metal from the past few decades. Anthems such as Judas Priest's "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" and Quiet Riot's cover of "Cum on Feel the Noize" are offset by more mellow tracks like Nirvana's "Come As You Are" and Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper".

There aren't many tracks here that rock fans are going to pass over and the only additions that I would make would be almost any of Queen's hits and maybe Joan Jett's "I Love Rock N' Roll". It should be noted as well, that these songs are all sung by male vocalists, so guys who find too many "chick songs" in the other SingStar releases should have an easier time with this one. The high end of your voice will still get a workout during Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" though. This is the best Sony's done so far at sticking to a genre, and it's good to see a collection that's on the harder end of the rock spectrum.

9/10

Tracklist:

Alice in Chains "Would?"
Audioslave "Cochise"
Blink-182 "I Miss You"
Blue Öyster Cult "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"
Boston "More Than a Feeling"
Cheap Trick "I Want You to Want Me"
David Bowie "Changes"
Fall Out Boy "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race"
Foo Fighters "Best of You"
Free "Alright Now"
Iggy Pop "Real Wild Child (Wild One)"
Judas Priest "You've Got Another Thing Comin'"
The Killers "When You Were Young"
Motörhead "Ace of Spades"
Nickelback "Savin' Me"
Nirvana "Come As You Are"
O.A.R. "Love and Memories"
Pearl Jam "Alive"
Poison "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
Queens of the Stone Age "Go with the Flow"
Quiet Riot "Cum on Feel the Noize"
Radiohead "Creep"
Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"
Steppenwolf "Born to Be Wild"
Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
Sublime "Santeria"
Talking Heads "Burning Down the House"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Gold Lion"
Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
ZZ Top "Gimme All Your Lovin'"

SingStar '80s [PS2]

Sony's singing game takes on the MTV decade with this collection of songs from the eighties. If you haven't played SingStar before, it's basically a karaoke game where you sing along with music videos and get graded on your performance. As in previous versions, players can sing solo, duets, or battle it out by singing a song at the same time or passing the mic. The game also uses the EyeToy camera to take pictures of you during your performance.

The interface remains the same as before, so veterans will know what they're doing from the get-go. It's slick and easy to follow, offering up a jukebox-style rotisserie of album covers for you to select songs from. Naturally, the thirty tracks included here (see below) are all that really matter though, and there's a diverse selection of artists including MTV darlings Madonna and Tears for Fears. There are some glaring exceptions though, such as Michael Jackson and Prince. There's a bit of filler too, and songs like Starship's "We Built This City", would have been better left to the past.

While not a perfect set, most of the songs are classic hits and are well-suited to wanna-be stars having a go at them. The original videos are often funnier, and cheesier, than memory recalls as well, so they definitely add to the entertainment as players botch their performance by laughing at the on-screen action. This is a solid addition to the series, and while it's not for everyone, retro pop fans will have a blast.

8/10

Tracklist:

Billy Joel "Uptown Girl"
Billy Ocean "Caribbean Queen"
Blondie "Heart of Glass"
Culture Club "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"
Cyndi Lauper "Time After Time"
Dead or Alive "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"
Dexys Midnight Runners "Come on Eileen"
Duran Duran "Rio"
Erasure "A Little Respect"
Europe "The Final Countdown"
A Flock of Seagulls "I Ran"
Foreigner "I Want to Know What Love Is"
Kim Wilde "Kids in America"
Madness "Our House"
Madonna "Material Girl"
Men at Work "Who Can It Be Now?"
Nena "99 Red Balloons"
The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket"
R.E.M. "Stand"
Run D.M.C. "It's Tricky"
Simple Minds "Don't You (Forget About Me)"
Soft Cell "Tainted Love"
Squeeze "Tempted"
Starship "We Built This City"
Survivor "Eye of the Tiger"
Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"
Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now"
Tina Turner "Simply the Best"
Twisted Sister "We're Not Gonna Take It"
Wham! "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"

Skate [360]

Electronic Arts takes video game skating back to basics and gives Tony Hawk some much needed competition in the process.
While skateboarding games have been around for the better part of the last decade, none have posed a serious challenge to Tony Hawk's reign over the genre until now. The big difference here is in the controls, and players will immediately notice a difference. Using the analogue sticks to pull off basic tricks and spins gives the game a new feel, and even experienced virtual skaters will have to practice to get the timing right.

The game's career mode consists mainly of completing challenges scattered around the town, which is no surprise. A nice twist comes with the choice of two skate crews with differing styles to hang out with, one is more aggressive, and the other is more about precision. There's also a good number of skating pro cameos in the game, and a decent character creator adds some customization, allowing you to unlock more sponsor's gear as you progress through the game.

The challenges start off pretty easy, letting you get to grips with the basic controls before demanding anything too complicated. The controls feel natural as well, pulling off tricks by flicking the sticks in various directions and using the triggers to grab. The game looks good, and the town you skate around in is quite large, with four neighbourhoods to explore. The bail animations (which you will see a lot of) are varied, depending on what you hit, but don't have the blood effects you might have grown used to. Naturally, there's the requisite soundtrack to keep you moving, and the lineup is no disappointment here. Songs by the likes of Bad Brains, Eric B & Rakim, and The White Stripes highlight a diverse track list that should please most.

The game has Xbox Live support for multiplayer games of up to six players, or you can take turns battling your friends on the couch in a few rounds of S.K.A.T.E. and see who's best. You can also record, save, and upload clips of your best tricks online to show off and prove your skills. While the controls are the big draw here and do change up the action somewhat, there's still a very back-to-basics vibe here that works both for and against the game. It would have been nice to see a more substantial multiplayer game as well, with a few more modes that are different from the career challenges. It's a great start though for a new franchise, and real competition in the skating genre is certainly long overdue.

7/10

Lair [PS3]

Developer Factor 5 swaps X-wing fighters for dragons in this single-player game that combines dragon-riding combat with a story about religious and political conflict.

The story is based on a land divided by both the environmental effects of volcanic activity and the resulting theological rift between the now-called Asylians, who worship God, and the Mokai, who don't. Players take the role of Rohn, an Asylian dragon knight of the Sky Guard. The game tries for a cinematic presentation, and as the plot progresses, Rohn learns that the political situation is more complex than originally thought.

Rohn is sent out on a series of missions, ranging from air battles to attacks on enemy strongholds and escorting and defending other troops. Each mission has a main objective that must be completed in order to progress through the game, although players can earn medals for performing well. Things start out straightforward enough, as you are tasked with repelling an assault on your city or defending some grain barges from attack.

After a handful of missions though, things start to get over-complicated. You are often given conflicting objectives (one level tells you to destroy the enemy's ground weapons, and then chastises you for not attacking the enemy dragons that are defending them). The game's attempts at cinematic grandeur get in the way as well, with cut-scenes often meddling in your attacks, and at times completely disorienting the player by changing your position or location in the battle when they end.

The game looks good in general, though the fire effects and some of the lighting don't look nearly as good as expected. My biggest peeves with the visuals though, are that friendly and enemy dragons are indistinguishable aside from their blue or red flame attacks, causing much friendly fire and the fact that the objective indicator arrow often disappears for about half the time, making the player guess where their main target is. If one of the developer's aims was to recreate the confusion of battle, then they succeeded on that point. Most of the creatures fare well though, and the facial animation during cut scenes is quite good. The sound does pick up some of the slack here, and John Debney's (Sin City) score is one of the highlights of the game.

The controls are generally well laid-out, with steering handled by motion control. Many of the missions demand several types of action though, with each tweaking what the controls do slightly. This causes the player to have to think too much about what they're doing instead of just doing it. Add a target lock that only seems to work about half the time, and quite a bit of shaking the controller in various directions, and you end up with a system that's just too complicated and ever-changing to be much fun. As a bonus, the game is also the first to feature Remote Play via the PSP. Unfortunately, the game's reliance on motion controls and the L2 and R2 buttons means you can only effectively play a fraction of the levels this way.

It's unfortunate that this game didn't fare better, as you can tell the developers had high ambitions. The story is interesting and the game does do some new things, but the complex controls and disorienting gameplay will likely frustrate most players beyond their limit quite soon. Even hardcore players are going to want to rent this one before buying.

6/10

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption [Wii]

The third and final installment in Retro Studios' "First-Person Adventure" take on Metroid is finally here. This time, Dark Samus is corrupting whole planets with phazon, and Samus is ordered to stop the process.

While the story revolves around the corruption of planets, players will be more concerned with the corruption of Samus herself. After the first part of the story, Samus is outfitted with a Phazon Enhancement Device, which harnesses the phazon within her and enables Hypermode. This enables Samus to use more powerful weapons, but at a cost of life energy and the risk of coming under Dark Samus' control if it's used too much. Graphically, players will likely notice little difference from the earlier games, aside from perhaps some better lighting effects. This doesn't really work against the game though, since it gives the whole series a consistency that would have been lost. Same goes for the audio as well, and players will be familiar with the game's audio cues from the start.

The game uses the same type of challenge-based gameplay with bursts of shooting action as the previous incarnations and, as expected, uses the Wii remote to aim; Also giving several options for camera control. Players can choose to enable a lock-on system that also lets them freely aim for easier targeting without losing control. While this is a huge improvement over the GameCube controls of the first two games, it's still somewhat cumbersome to scan objects (holding the minus button brings up a visor-selection), and frustrating when objects, such as door switches, need to be scanned before you can operate them. It would have been nice to see Samus get an "upgrade" that allows her to scan objects on the fly. I also found that after switching out of Morph Ball mode, it occasionally took a few seconds to regain control of the camera. There are some other attempts to bring more interaction to the game through the controls, such as pulling and turning hatch controls, which are novel at first, but eventually feel like a nuisance. Probably the nicest surprise is using the Nunchuck like a fishing rod and "casting" the grapple beam onto objects, then pulling back to move the item. This can also be used on enemy shields to make them more vulnerable.

While this is a fun and challenging game that's a must-buy for fans of the series, it's definitely a big disappointment that there are no multiplayer options at all. After the stellar multiplayer modes Nintendo pulled off in Metroid Prime Hunters for the DS a year and a half ago, this would have been the perfect title to launch a more robust online service for the Wii and pay back the hardcore fans that kept the GameCube alive. Hopefully we'll see a downloadable multiplayer title at some point.

8/10

Blue Dragon [360]

When Microsoft announced that it had enlisted Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's new company, Mistwalker, to create games for them, Xbox 360 fans who were waiting for a Japanese RPG couldn't have asked for better news.

With a veritable dream team behind it, the game also features character designs by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Quest) and music by Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger). The story picks up when a boy named Shu and his friends try to rid their village of a menacing creature and find out that the situation is much more complicated than it first seemed.

Unfortunately, in many ways it feels as though this game is stuck in the past. From the stereotypical characters (including a male sidekick and token tag-along girl) to the general predictability of the story, there isn't much here that players haven't seen before. It often feels as though they went through Final Fantasy VII with a checklist, trying to duplicate its success as closely as possible. Even elements such as the battle victory music and items with names like "Phoenix Talon" are highly derivative and never really let the game have its own identity. There's some good news on the random battle front though, since players can avoid wandering creatures and pick their fights for the most part. You can also choose to fight multiple creatures at a time, which often pits them against each other, making your job easier.

The game also adds some training wheel style options that are on by default, seemingly making the assumption that since the Xbox 360 has been underserved by Japanese RPGs, somehow that must mean that the console's owners have never played one before. Graphically, Toriyama's designs work well, especially each character's shadow creature that they can use in battle. The creatures look good as well, and have a cartoonish look mixed with a touch of realism. The outdoor environments can be sparse though, and there doesn't really seem to be much going on that taxes the console's abilities. Musically, the score is competent, while suffering from the same "me-too" aspect as the rest of the game. The mini-boss battle music is laugh-out-loud bad though, with 80's hair metal blaring and screaming vocals that sound like a wanna-be Ozzy from the Black Sabbath days.

With the team behind it, this should have been a colossal event on the scale of a Final Fantasy release, but instead, comes off feeling dated. Hardcore RPG fans are likely going to want to give it a go anyway, and though the story is somewhat enjoyable in general, the game doesn't have the sense of scale or innovation that it should.

6/10