I came across this article on National Geographic's website about a new XBox Live Kinect game being released by NASA called Mars Rover Landing. The game allows players to control the descent of a digital version of the real-life Curiosity Rover that is planned to land on Mars on August 5th at 10:30 pm Pacific Daylight Time.
The game itself is pretty short and pretty simple. It's a free, educational app intended for kids, so it's kind of hard for me to judge. I actually found myself more interested in the brief documentary materials that were included in the game. There's a few descriptions of the mission, the rover itself, and a video overviewing the mission as a whole. It's not anything too terribly detailed or technical, but again, it's intended for kids. So if you're a mechanical engineer and want to know about the inner workings of the rover, then you're going to have to look somewhere else. [More]
083893eb-141e-4b5a-919e-9bfad6286221|1|5.0
Tags:NASA, Mars, Mars Rover Landing, Curiosity, Odyssey, rover, Kinect, Microsoft, JPL, science, simulation, XBox Live, XBox 360
Much ado has already been made about the re-recorded dialogue that is to be used in the Silent Hill HD Collection. Critics like myself have already been accused of being “haters” and "unwilling to accept change". Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), Konami has given "haters" like me plenty of reason to hate the Silent Hill HD Collection.
Table of Contents:
I have extra copies of the original games. If you want to play them (and you know me personally), you can borrow them! [More]
9dc814aa-a1a1-4a9e-b864-3cb50f4bcaa1|8|4.9
Tags:Silent Hill, Silent Hill HD Collection, review, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Konami, Hijinx, PS3, PS2, Team Silent, KCET, James Sunderland, Heather Mason, Douglas Cartland, Claudia Wolf, Laura, survival, horror, survival horror, XBox 360, Eddie Dombrowski
As part of my review for this game's DLC (Artorias of the Abyss), I have decided to re-evaluate the score (using the new scoring system). My opinions about this game have changed a bit over the past couple years (in a positive way), and so I am including an updated score and several pieces of hindsight commentary to explain where my original criticisms may have been flawed or unjustified. Locations that include hindsight commentary have been notated in the Table of Contents.
If you had asked me in the middle of 2011 what my favorite games on the PS3 were, three of the games that I would have named would have been: Uncharted 2, Demon’s Souls, and Batman: Arkham Asylum. All three of these games received sequels or follow-ups in the fall of 2011, so it was a pretty exciting holiday season for me in terms of gaming. Batman: Arkham City and Uncharted 3 were both very good games, but didn’t quite live up to my (possibly unjustifiably) high expectations. Sadly, Dark Souls ended up suffering a similar fate Dark Souls disappointed me with its initial impressions, but in the years since, has proven itself to be almost every bit as good (although not as elegant in its gameplay) as Demon's Souls.
This review of Dark Souls is (like many of my reviews) considerably late. This is due to several factors:
- I wanted to try to finish the game’s story and play through large chunks with several different character classes before coming to a final verdict.
- I wanted to see what kind of post-release support the game received.
- I wanted to have several opportunities to engage in PvP encounters.
I still haven’t beaten the game (as of the time of original publication) with any characters (hey, it’s a hard game and pretty long!), but I did play with multiple characters and get my ass kicked in enough PvP encounters that I finally feel that I can give an honest and complete appraisal of the game. Even if it is six months after release…
But hey! A PC port is likely due out soon, so maybe people considering the PC version will still find this review useful!
Table of Contents:
[More]
945cb2ec-66a2-4f7f-a6ff-b78fcb5987c4|5|3.8
Tags:Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, From Software, Namco/Bandai, PS3, PSN, XBox 360, XBox Live, PvP, co-op, summon, invasion, invader, phantom, covenant, RPG, action, adventure, review, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Firelink Shrine, Lordran
I didn’t have high hopes for Silent Hill Downpour. As such, I didn’t buy it new. I waited two weeks, bought it used off ebay, and finished it over a weekend. Sadly, pretty much all of my pre-release expectations turned out to be true.
Upon booting up the game, I was immediately given mixed opinions about the game. There was a mandatory install, which fortunately only took a few minutes, but which is always an annoying thing to sit through (except for Metal Gear Solid 4, which managed to make it somewhat amusing). After the install though, I was treated to a stylish title screen with new composer Daniel Licht’s enjoyable title track.
Then the game starts, and the very first thing you do as the new main character, prison inmate Murphy Pendleton, is murder a defenseless fellow inmate during a combat tutorial that takes place in the prison showers. Murphy clearly has some beef with this fellow inmate (named Napier), and it seems like Napier probably deserved it, but murdering a defenseless person in cold blood is hardly what I’d expect from a Silent Hill game.
Table of Contents
[More]
a67ddc95-77b6-40e5-9a04-23f4912e6f2b|9|4.4
Tags:Silent Hill Downpour, Silent Hill, Silent Hill Homecoming, Konami, review, PS3, Achievement unlocked, Murphy Pendleton, survival, horror, survival horror, fan fiction, XBox 360, Vatra Games
In my previous blog, I discussed my experience with the 2002 XBox game Steel Battalion. At the end of that blog, I mentioned that I had read that Microsoft and Capcom are developing a new Steel Battalion game, and that I would give my opinions on such a game in a future blog.
Well, I didn't wait long to write that "future blog".
Here it is!
According to this Joystiq article, Capcom and Microsoft are developing a Kinect-enabled version of Steel Battalion for the Xbox 360. The game is titled Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor and looks more like a remake/reboot than a true sequel. [More]
4f912e27-6919-40e3-956c-c913296c7516|0|.0
Tags:Steel Battalion, Ring of Red, Microsoft, Capcom, Kinect, Guitar Hero, Activision, Rock Band, Mech, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Tony Hawk: Ride, XBox 360, XBox
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