Mondaily Update

Hey all, today just seems to have gotten away from me. It's 10:30 pm as I write this and it seems like I haven't been able to find any time to play and Xbox or write this post since I woke up. This will have to be a quick one as I would like to squeeze in some Xbox and whatever else I find interesting on the web tonight.

Some of the challenges are quite Crazy! Ha!

Friday I talked about having just started Crazy Taxi and how quick and easy most of the achievements were. Well I managed to finish off the remaining 3 achievements after writing that entry with the help of some good Youtube videos. Someone a lot better then I swanned through the challenges like they were nothing, but after watching them I ended up beating them aswell, although with quite a bit more effort and profanities. Crazy Taxi was an enjoyable ride and a quick, although not exactly easy, 200 points. Look for a review sometime in the future.

After Crazy Taxi I found myself looking at True Achievements, an awesome site by the way, give it a look here, and noticed a friend asking if anyone wanted to do any Co-op in Iron Brigade. I had been wanting to start the game but had been putting it off due to the co-operative achievements so this seemed like the perfect chance to give it a whirl. I've played a whole bunch of it and it's really enjoyable and quite the challenge. I did a whole lot of co-opin and a lot by myself. Right now I'm working my way through the DLC, Rise of the Martian Bear, which takes the Mobile Trench Division straight to Mars.

Iron Brigade is fun and funny!

Apart from that I squeezed in a couple more iStunt 2 levels in some down time I had, and watched a couple of movies over the weekend. The first being Iron Man 3, which was quite good. I really enjoyed the first Iron Man but the second was very average I thought, so I didn't know what to expect. They really turned it back around with this movie, but not being much of a comic book fan I dunno what they would think about how the Mandarin was portrayed. I won't say much else, as it is still new and don't want to spoil anything. I know this is not a movie blog, but I also ended up watching Paranormal Activity 4, which was quite disappointing. Even not being the biggest fan of the series, this one seemed lazy and added nothing new or exciting. The Xbox 360 and Kinect do make an appearance. Did you know the Kinect can track ghosts?

That's all for today, time to squeeze in some gaming. Leave a comment and come back tomorrow for the long awaited review of Deep Black. I got a few reviews on the back burner now, so there will definitely be new content for a while. See you then.

Fridaily Update

Hope all my fellow Australians had a great ANZAC Day, I know I sure made good use of my time. I managed to finish up two games and most of a third I started last night.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter was the first to be wrapped up nicely with the help of a friend who knew exactly what he was doing. We made it through in record time with explosions and flowers flying everywhere. Flowers because I had Hippie blood turned on as the achievement Co-op Hippie asks you to complete the last stage with it, it was a colourful change after the three other solo runs I did with normal blood. Co-op was a blast and super easy as you can die as much as you want and constantly spawn back in exactly where you left off. Completing the campaign in co-op took just under two hours and resulted in the three achievements I needed to complete Serious Sam: TFE. It was a great start to the day.

Red Dead Redemption rides off into the sunset that is my DVD shelf

Next I couldn't really decide what I wanted to play next, and saw Red Dead Redemption was still sitting in my disc drive so instead of wasting time I thought why not just grind out some more levels for a while. I ended up doing that for most of the day but in the end I reached level 50 and passed into legend, sacrificing my rank for the last achievement I needed. It was a bitter sweet moment as I deleted the RDR install and DLC expansions from my hard drive, I was happy I had finally completed it but also sad as now I probably won't play any Red Dead Redemption for a long, long time.


Red Dead Redemption is up there as one of my favourite games I've ever played on the Xbox. Before deleting it I spent some more time in single player, roaming the country side and unlocking the last two outfits I needed by playing a whole bunch of Five-Finger Fillet, roaming around for ages looking for snakes to kill and skin and killing a cougar with a stick of dynamite amongst other things. After getting the Savvy Merchant and Expert Hunter outfits there was nothing more to do in my game and multiplayer, while fun, isn't what I really liked about RDR, so it has now retired from my Xbox almost a whole three years since I first played it.

After looking through my XBLA list one more time I decided on giving Crazy Taxi a whirl. It's been a bunch of stupid fun so far and I've managed to grab all the Arcade and Original mode achievements which leaves me with the Crazy Box. Crazy Box is a set of challenge missions that are a lot harder than any of the fares you drive around in the actual game, so this could end up becoming quite the challenge. I'm gonna see if I can wrap it up today, and get another completion under my belt this week.

That's all for this update, two more completed games to review, along with Deep Black, so look for those reviews in the upcoming weeks. As always leave a comment, and I'll be back Monday.

Wednesdaily Update

Wednesday rolls around just as I managed to finish up Serious Sam: TFE on Serious difficulty last night. I only just managed to squeak through the last boss battle, but a win is a win and my shiny new Serious Sam achievement proves it. I honestly thought this achievement would really put me through the wringer as my first play through on Normal had me in some tough spots but once I was half way done on Serious things just seemed to fall into place and the last half of the game seemed a lot easier than the first.

I was following a secrets guide so I also managed to get the Look, It's a Secret achievement for finding 50 secrets in a play through so I'm left with one single player achievement that I will hopefully grab tonight. It's looking like a hard one, but after some looking around there seems to be a couple of easier ways to go about it so I'm hoping Metropolis King won't take too long. Once I grab that, it's down to the last three multiplayer achievements and I have found a couple of guys that have said they'd be willing to give me a hand so it shouldn't be too long before this is all wrapped up and ready for review for you all!

Cut the Rope was a fun distraction, lets hope Experiments is more of the same

Other than Serious Sam not too much has been going on, I grabbed Cut the Rope: Experiments on my Windows Phone because they dropped it to 1 dollar and I enjoyed the original Cut the Rope. I haven't really been playing my Windows Phone much lately but I may get into some of that in the future. Tomorrow is a public holiday here, ANZAC Day, so I'm not sure if I'll post the review of Deep Black: Episode 1. Come back and have a look but I'm guessing you'll just have to wait until the Fridaily Update. Leave a comment and see you guys later.

Joy Ride Turbo XBLA Review

Joy Ride Turbo is a spin off
of the earlier Kinect Game

I'm back with another car game to review, this one much different to the last. Joy Ride Turbo is an XBLA spin off of the previous retail Kinect game; Kinect Joy Ride. Kinect Joy Ride worked for the most part but some people have accused it of having unresponsive Kinect controls which become a hindrance to the gameplay. Whether the release of Turbo acts as an acknowledgement of that fact or just giving players the option of experiencing the game with a controller is a decision for you. I have not played the original Kinect Joy Ride, other than experimenting with the demo for a couple of minutes, so I can't make any comments to it's playability or any other real comparisons between games, but I shouldn't have to. This is a review of Joy Ride Turbo and it should be judged by it's own merits.

Overview

Joy Ride Turbo is pretty much a kart racer, having you speed around different tracks, grabbing pick-ups and using them to try and ensure your victory. It doesn't offer anything noteworthy in the race mode, you'll earn money depending on how you place in each event and that money can be used to buy more cars and paint jobs. The AI are pretty average and there were only a handful of races, out of the over 100 I must have done to complete the game, where I didn't end up in first place.

The Stunt Park areas are littered with massive jumps and obstacles for you to fly over

GripShift is similar to the Stunt Park
sections in Joy Ride Turbo

There is also a Stunt Park game variant where you're left to your own devices in a big open area with jumps and pickups spread all over. This is actually the mode I ended up having the most fun in, as the game turns from brainless kart racer to somewhat of a puzzle/platformer, with you being tasked with trying to figure out how and from where are you able to reach the various trophies and car parts hidden throughout the level. This part brought back fond memories of playing GripShift, which I had a blast with years ago and if you enjoyed the stunt parts of this game I recommend you give GripShift a go.

Rational
Most of my time spent with Joy Ride Turbo was spent in the different races working my way through unlocking all events and then building up enough money to buy all the cars. This was pretty mindless for the most part, after racing on a tack a couple of times and finding your route you can blow away the AI for the most part. Only in a couple of the last race courses are the AI any problem at all, but they can be managed quite handily with the power-ups you pick up. The AI will also use power-ups on you but even still I managed to start overlapping some of the other racers in a couple of courses.

Starting dead last and finding yourself in first after one lap happens more than it should

Finding shortcuts and car parts throughout the race is fun the first few laps, but on return visits to the courses you end up barreling through them. You end up knowing which corners to drift around for a big nitro boost and find yourself in first place by the second lap. It makes the races less exciting for the most part, but also more relaxing. You don't have to be worried about winning all race only to have the AI rubber-band and hit you with a power-up five seconds from the finish line to cost you your well deserved win.

Car Parts grant you access to flashier vehicles

Once you've blasted through the Races you're left with the two Stunt Parks to play around in, which I felt was a lot of fun. After driving around and grabbing most of the easy trophies you start eyeing off the harder ones, looking at them from different angles and wondering what jump will bring you to them. There are also car parts littered throughout the stunt parks that when collected can open up other cars for you to buy, however I beat all the races and was able to get all the trophies with the cars available to me, never having to worry about getting a better car.

Summary
Joy Ride Turbo is a fun way to spend a while, you'll see all the game has to show in around 6 hours. It's not difficult or frustrating and is quite relaxing and pleasant to play. If you're looking to grab all the achievements in the game you'll spend another 4 hours or so grinding out wins in the race mode to give you enough money to unlock every car. This will make your last couple of hours a bit boring, but at least you're never pipped at the end and robbed of your winnings. Give Joy Ride Turbo a go if you want a bit of lighthearted racing fun.

Mondaily Update

Sometimes walking away from a huge firefight with
7 health is a win!

Monday is here, hope everyone made a bunch of progress in whatever they were playing. I had a fairly busy weekend, which included a couple of outings, some training, a little bit of boosting for the first time in ages and a lot of dying. Dying can be the most infuriating thing in the world, but also serves as incentive to get it right the next time. Maybe there's something wrong with me but I can't seem to walk away from a game when it's all going bad, I need to push through and show my Xbox who's boss.

Since last update I've been slowly working my way forward in Serious Sam TFE. The save system is a godsend in this game, with every encounter on Serious difficulty running the very real risk of being your last. I've been following a secrets walkthrough this run to make sure I grab that achievement when I finish and to make sure I get every health and armour pickup I can to make it just that bit easier. Except that it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I've made it to the back half of the game and things are only going to get harder but I'll do it, oh yes! It'll happen Xbox, you'll see.

Part 1 of 1 it seems...

Apart from Serious Sam, I took some time on Sunday to bust through Deep Black Episode 1. One of my regular boosting buddies grabbed the game and seeing as it had four online achievements that can be attained real quick, so we got them while the getting was good. After wrapping the multiplayer achievements up in 30 minutes I decided a break from Serious Sam could be good so I continued playing through Deep Black's campaign. It's surprisingly decent for a game everyone seemed to overlook completely and it's made me a bit sad because I doubt Deep Black Episode 2 will ever be developed. Just like Amy, Deep Black cuts off without wrapping up it's story and let's you know to keep an eye out for Deep Black Episode 2. If/when that happens I'll gladly go back in for another look, Deep Black isn't good, but it's interesting and has some new ideas.

I shouldn't get too reviewy here, look for a Deep Black review Thursday. Tomorrow the review for Joy Ride Turbo should go live so check that out too. Leave a comment below and I'll be back Wednesday, hopefully you will to?

Fridaily Update

Aaaannd it's Friday again. The weeks seem to be going by faster and faster since I started writing this blog. Last Update I filled you guys in on me beating Joy Ride Turbo, the review will go live Tuesday next week. Since then I tossed up between starting a number of games but ended up deciding to follow through and play Serious Sam The First Encounter.

Serious business!

I've had it sitting on my hard drive for years now, and I had a real quick look at it when I bought it but didn't click with it right away. I also hadn't popped any achievements yet so I thought I'd shelve it and play something else. Since starting it yesterday I've managed to run through it twice and grab the lions share of the available achievements. Coincidentally they are also all the easy ones, so I'm left staring down the harder ones. I've started another run through on Serious difficulty to try and grab the last couple of single player achievements I'm missing before I'll need to track down a co-op partner for the last three.

If you want to help a brother out leave a comment below and I'll get in touch. It has to be done in one sitting and will take about 2 to 3 hours. That's a lot to ask some random on the internet but you'll have my gratitude and a shout out on this blog. I know a couple other people that may help so I'm pretty sure I'll wrap Serious Sam TFE up sooner rather than later.

Seriously crazy!

That's all I got for today, hope everyone enjoys their weekend and gets plenty of gaming in. Leave a comment and I'll see you Monday.

Amy XBLA Review

She looks innocent enough.

Amy plunges you into a world where psychic powers are real, known and at least partially accepted by society. The game opens with Lana and Amy sitting on a train, making their way from a facility seemingly specifically set up to study people with psychic powers. They plan to get answers elsewhere as it's hinted at the scientists at the facility don't necessarily put much importance on the welfare of their subjects.

This has obviously rubbed Lana the wrong way and because she has a doctor friend, who she thinks will be able to give them insight into Amy's condition without the questionable ethics, they decide to escape and head there. However Amy is some sort of psychic wunderkind, so the higher ups are upset she has gone missing and all hell breaks loose. They end up besieging half a city, loosing a virus on an unsuspecting population, and killing nearly everyone just to try and recover her.


Overview
You play as Lana who has taken it upon herself to take care of, and protect, Amy. Amy isn't completely defenseless though, as she has a strong psychic affinity and gains a couple of different powers along the way. She is still a small child though and you will need to do most of the heavy lifting, attacking the monsters and figuring out how to make your way safely past the soldiers searching for you. You aren't as well equipped or prepared for the situation you've found yourself in so discretion is the better part of valor for now. You'll be required to sneak past, distract and hide from your pursuers through most of the stages in Amy. This is the better part of the game, leading to some tense moments, interspersed with some frantic combat.

The mutant has gotten a hold of Amy, bash his skull in while he's busy!

Lana isn't just protecting Amy however, it seems Amy's abilities can stop and reverse the spread of infection. Lana has been infected like just about everyone else, but Amy's aura is healing her and stopping the infection from taking hold. This is another cool idea, that leads to some tense moments where you need to send Amy away or hide her somewhere while you do something, knowing that the infection is creeping up and taking hold. If you don't make it back to Amy in time to heal it's game over.

Lana's appearance will change, and you will be able to see the infection taking hold.
Hurry back to Amy before it's too late!

Rational
The game opens with you on a train heading to a nearby hospital to meet up with Lana's friend, when it crashes at the next station. You discover things aren't entirely normal when people start turning and attacking you. You quickly find a 2x4 and get introduced into the combat mechanics. One button swings while another dodges. It's a nice mechanic when used in one on one fights, with properly timed dodges opening the enemy up to a devastating flurry.

Group combat seems to rely more on luck than skill

Where it all goes wrong is when you find yourself in a situation with more than one enemy. While you could argue you're better off running and hiding in these situations, it's not your combat abilities that make this group combat hard, but the way the camera locks on to an enemy. It gives you little to no combat awareness, and leaves you open for cheap hits you could have otherwise dodged. Couple this with sections in the game where they purposely throws you against waves of enemies and the combat becomes super frustrating  I didn't feel like I did any better in the combat the times I succeed than the times I failed, it just seemed like luck.

The game actually gives off a fairly good impression and I found myself enjoying the first two thirds of the game, but the last third completely destroys any and all good faith built by the previous two. The second last level resorts to complete stealth with being detected leading to an instant fail state, unlike the rest of the game. It also takes away your ability to dispatch any of the monsters in your way, which leaves you to trial and error your way through a level with only one exact way of completing it, which even if followed exactly still may see you retrying if one of the mutants decide to look in a place he shouldn't. After struggling your way through many, many reloads the level ends with you having to search out the key to opening the exit door while is sends an unending stream of mutants at you to deal with.

This is the end boss, hopefully I spoiled it for you and
stopped you from wasting your time by playing this game.

Once you finally beat that level and you've made it into the hospital to find your friend, you're greeted with one of the worst end bosses I've seen. I'm not sure if there is even a legitimate way to beat this guy but after cheesing my way past him you get a quick wrap up, some more questions and the game just ends. There were clearly plans to give Amy more powers down the road because her power selection wheel is massive with a bunch of slots and only two are used throughout the game. There is no resolution to the story, you never get to interact with the doctor you spent all game trying to find and the guys with guns are still after you. This game is clearly unfinished, and I'm not sure if they were planning it to be some sort of episodic series, or to release a sequel but with the reception this game has gotten I doubt any of that will pan out. This leaves the story unfinished and the game feeling the same.

Summary
While the first half of the game gives off some interesting ideas, and sets up what might have been a cool story, none of it ends up paying off and the last half of the game is filled with frustration and feels like it was hastily wrapped up. There is no resolution to be had and you are left hanging wondering what happened. It's too bad because like I said the start is interesting and there are some cool mechanics to play with. As basically a huge escort mission the game could have been immensely worse and just for pulling that off it deserves some recognition. If you're bored and pick it up cheap, there are worse ways to spend your time, but I just con't recommend this game.

It's a shame Amy turned out the way it did, but some interesting mechanics
just can't overcome the feeling that the game is incomplete.

Wednesdaily Update

Last update I spent quite a while writing about Red Dead Redemption. This was partially because of the annoyance at my seemingly never-ending quest to Gold Medal all the Advanced Co-op missions, and also because Red Dead Redemption is up there as one of my favourite games of all time. I've always loved westerns and while other games have had a western setting, none have seen it so realistically realised and given you the freedom to experience everything you've seen in the movies, at pretty much any time.

I'm happy to report that my frustrations have come to an end after more than a year playing Red Dead Redemption off and on when I gold medaled The Escape last night with the help of two other players. The achievement has finally popped and all that I have left to do is grind up another 3 levels to reach level 50 and complete the game.

This is not Joy Ride Turbo

Other goings on include me wrapping up Joy Ride Turbo, which I will say is capable but nothing amazing. I did really enjoy the stunt park levels though, which reminded me quite a bit of GripShift. If you haven't had a look at GripShift I really recommend it, I had a lot of fun with that game. Joy Ride Turbo is nearly as good and maybe slightly more polished but GripShift is still the clear winner in this face off.

Yesterday the review for Renegade Ops went up so give that a look here. You can expect an Amy review tomorrow some time, so check that out and I'll see everyone next Friday, by which time I should hopefully have decided what game to play next and be halfway through it, leave a comment and I'll see you then.

Renegade Ops XBLA Review

Renegade Ops brings back fond
memories of Micro Machines V3

Renegade Ops is a top down driving game, reminiscent of the Micro Machines games I played the hell out of when I was a kid. Now take that top down slidey arcade style driving and combine it with a dual stick shooter, XP based leveling and obscene amounts of explosions and you have an addicting concoction of crazy.

Renegade Ops has you racing around spraying bullets at hundreds of foes all while dodging and causing destruction practically everywhere, it's great fun but can also be quite challenging on the harder difficulties.

Overview
Renegade Ops riffs off B-grade movie cheesyness. All the action is over the top and everything explodes. Inferno is trying to destroy the world and you're part of a renegade group of military tough guys that aren't going to back down to his demands. The weight of the world rests on your shoulders... it's killing time!

Certain levels give you access to a Helicopter, which lets you take the mayhem into the air. Nothing is safe!

You drive and skid around with the left analogue stick and can nitro boost with the A button. The right stick is mapped to shooting in the desired direction, right trigger will use a special weapon if you have one and left trigger engages your character specific special power. I played the whole game with Armand, whose special power is an impenetrable shield, which will protect you from any and all damage but while it's active you can't deal any of your own. This makes timing very important as engaging it at the right moment can save you from devastation especially at the higher difficulties.


Rational

Take that!

The driving is fast and loose, tearing around like a maniac looks and feels cool.  Different terrain even affects the handling of your vehicle, giving you tight screeching skids on roads to wild barely controlled slides on dirt paths. You can even plow through most buildings and even smaller enemy vehicles with an upgrade causing more wanton destruction. Even if there were no shooting going on it would be fun just driving around and racing to the next mission marker.

But there is shooting going on almost constantly, which can be basically plowed through on Normal with only minor worries, or end up really challenging and pushing you to come up with new tactics on Hardcore. Your own tactics will change depending on the character you picked, and with the small time I put in to check everyone out, they all seem viable in different ways. I'm a bruiser though and always pick a character that reflects that in any game I can, so Armand was my guy.

Coldstrike DLC will add some snowy landscapes and
another 3 missions to go blasting through.

Armand is your basic tank, with shields that can get you out of a tough spot. With the right upgrade they will even bounce enemy fire back towards them. This is especially useful when facing off with a tank or SAM site. Enemies that attack slow but do a huge amount of damage can be taken down in seconds with some good timing and preparation. Mess up however, and you're left reeling and in need of life support, especially on Hardcore. Each level can be made easier or harder depending on your pre-mission choice of upgrades. You can pick up to four upgrades out of a range of about 18. Each does something different and while I had some go tos, swapping one out for another depending on the mission did make a noticeable difference where I had been stuck before.

Summary
Renegade Ops may be tempting to write off as just another dual joystick shooter, but doing so would be a disservice to yourself. This is some of the best fun I've had in a while, the graphics are amazing and the explosions don't hurt either. Add to that some decent tactical variety and considerations and some RPG light touches and you've got a game that will appeal to just about anyone. Give it a go, I would recommend this to everyone.

Mondaily Update

I've got a
Nokia Lumia 710

This weekend was a busy one, and most of Sunday was taken up with my brothers birthday. I did manage to squeeze in a lot of gaming in the time I had. I even managed to find 30 minutes of time at the birthday celebrations making a little bit of headway in iStunt 2 on my Windows Phone. I'm not too fond of the game, seeing as I'm already over the main gameplay gimmick before I've even completed the first world. This is compounded by the two achievements for collecting all the stars in 1 and 2 worlds, but I'm hoping that if I manage to eventually work my way through the first two worlds with all the starts then I can just bomb through the rest of it and be done. That's wishful thinking for the foreseeable future though, as progress is intermittent and slow.

I managed to finish up Renegade Ops not long after writing about it in the last Fridaily Update found here. Alien rank ended up not being too hard with the right level and change in tactics. I had Armand leveled up to max with all my upgrades in the Tactics category maximising my shield usage. Level 3 ended up being the easiest if you manage to hit the shield every time one of the tanks or SAM sites try to shoot you. The mini-bosses throughout the level can be beaten pretty easily just by driving around them in circles while shooting. That puts a lid on Renegade Ops and be sure to check back tomorrow for the review.

Amy is enjoyable for the first three levels, then descends into frustration.

After beating Renegade Ops I decided to give Amy a whirl. I'd heard a lot of bad things about it but found it to be surprisingly OK.... in the first 3 or 4 levels. Amy can be super annoying throughout the game, running off all the time if you forget to tell her to stay put. You'd think a little girl trying to make it through a world with all these infected-zombie things would stay close to the adult trying to help and protect her. The last 2 levels are a nightmare and pushed the boundaries of my patience. In the second last level they decide to go stealth for the first half and if you get seen it's restart at the last checkpoint, which the game isn't so liberal about handing out. Combined with Amy's penchant for running off and you're fast reaching my frustration limits. Amy turned out to be a short romp, which felt unfinished and the story is left without any conclusion. I think they were planning on making another, but with the way this has turned out I doubt they will. I'll have a review on Thursday.

Red Dead Redemption is an amazing game. One of the best I've played on my Xbox 360.

After beating Amy I decided to revisit Red Dead Redemption. I would say that Red Dead Redemption is one of my favourite games, if not the favourite, I've ever played on my 360. I love the western setting, the atmosphere is amazing. The gameplay is tight and varied, I think I must have played close to 100 hours just in single player exploring and hunting. This is one of the only games I've spent time in just enjoying the atmosphere instead of pushing for the next objective. I've done absolutely everything in single player, so this weekend I revisited the multiplayer side.

Can't we all just get along?

Red Dead Redemption multiplayer is a different experience than that of single player, due to the insistence of everybody playing to just randomly kill everyone and everything in free-roam, instead of playing some death match, can be frustrating. Spawning into any multiplayer game only to be gunned down seconds later is frustrating at the best of times, but when it's completely pointless and it seems the only real reason is to troll people it gets plain annoying. Especially because when you die you drop out of any menu you were in, even if you were trying to jump to an actual game mode, to respawn. It makes it a race against the clock, to try and get to where you want to go before someone decides you deserve a bullet. You don't get anything from killing in free roam, why not play Deathmatch? Team Deathmatch? Or any of the other multiple multiplayer modes that reward you with XP and unlockables for doing what you are doing for nothing in Free Roam.

That's what you get for looking in them there menus!

I'm just trying to enter Co-op Mode,
leave me alone!

The last thing I've got to do in Red Dead is complete the Advanced Coop Missions with a Gold Medal
ranking. I could have sworn I'd already done so, but it never unlocked and I wasn't keeping track properly. Maybe an update or patch wiped my progress? Since then I've kept track and every time I've gold medaled a stage I've written it down. I'm down to one last mission, and if it doesn't unlock I'll be furious. This mode is probably my favourite out of all the multiplayer, which sucks because it seems like I'm in the minority. Either most people have moved on from this game or everyone just wants to run around killing for no reason in Free Roam. Most of the times I've tried to play barely anyone is on, and whoever is on always seems to be impatient and bad at the game. A lot of the Coop Missions require 3 or 4 people to stand a good chance of beating it. It can be done with 2 if you're both on point and really work together, but whenever I pair up with someone they don't want to wait around for another person and they don't want to work together so we end up dead within minutes. It's annoying and factor in the fact that people like or dislike certain missions and flat out refuse to play the ones they don't like and I have one mission left which just may be one they refuse to play and it's almost impossible to get the one you want to play. I hope I complete this someday soon, as I love the game, but relying on selfish randoms to get your last mission done is akin to pissing into the wind.

This updates getting rather long, but I've got one more game to touch on. I started playing through Joy Ride Turbo yesterday. It seems rather short and I have already placed 1st in all the races available. All that's left to do is grind for a bunch of coins and collect all the upgrades and trophies scattered across the freeroam/stunt park sections of the game. I'll write a bit more about Joy Ride Turbo next time because this is getting long.

Renegade Ops review coming tomorrow, check back for that. Leave a comment below and I'll see you Wednesday with another update!

Fridaily Update

This week wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped, with the only game I've played being Renegade Ops. Hopefully over the weekend I'll manage to cram in a bunch of game time and have a lot to write about next week. Speaking of Renegade Ops though, I've managed to creep forward and make some more progress. Since last update I finished Hardcore, cleaned up some secondary objectives I missed and banged my head against the achievement for hitting a fifty plus kill streak combo, finally pulling it off yesterday.

Explosions!

This has left me with one last achievement that I'm hoping to complete today. I need to achieve a skill level rank of Alien upon the completion of the level. The game doesn't really tell you what exactly is needed beyond a tool tip saying to do a bunch of damage without taking much. Yeah thanks, that's what I've been trying to do. I will say that I've been severely under-utilising my special power, which is a damage saving shield, so hopefully I can get my tactics in check and finish it with-out too many repeats.

Apart from that there's nothing much more to report on, maybe I'll flesh out these updates a bit with some non Xbox related entertainment. If you're not interested then skip the last paragraph or two of these updates from now on I guess. I decided to watch a horror movie called Sinister last night which was pretty good. If you're into horror movies I suggest you check it out if you haven't. It's about a true crime writer who moves into a house where murders have taken place and a child has gone missing to try and write a book about it. As you can imagine things don't go smoothly. It really succeeds in manufacturing a creepy atmosphere, and has a good bunch of scares in it.

That's it for this week, leave a comment below, have a good weekend and I'll see you Monday!

Swarm XBLA Review

Look at those idiots, they
have no idea the horrors
about to befall them.

Swarm is a cute but surprisingly gory strategy-action game where you're tasked with getting as many of your minions from the start of a level to the end. Along the way you dodge all manner of death and will lose untold hundreds of Swarmites but they'll give their lives happily for the good of Mama, their queen/colony. Eventually you'll take over the planet and the game ends, it is short but felt like a good length with plenty of variety and challenge throughout.

Completing the games 12 missions isn't the end for the Swarmites though, their existence is entirely predicated on their individual extinction. One of the most fun things in the game is watching the Swarmites meet their grisly demise, and the game encourages this with the inclusion of Death Medals, an ingenious inclusion that makes those attempts where you fail not frustrating at all as all those deaths have just helped you make progress somewhere else. I was never once frustrated playing this game, which is not something that happens often!

Overview

Swarm must have taken some
inspiration from the earlier Lemmings

Mama appears on a nameless planet and starts sending out Swarmites to harvest points, DNA and whatever else it can use to grow and spread across the planet. The Swarmites themselves seem to have no fear of death and bumble around with a dimwitted expression doing what they must for the good of Mama. They sort of remind me of the Lemmings games where it is up to the player to look after them as best as they can, but ultimately some (or a lot) will die for the rest to succeed. The gameplay is a lot different with you having direct control over your Swarmites but the idea of trying to help a group of bumbling idiots across a map as best you can is the same.

Each level has a points goal you need to meet to help Mama grow and reach the next level. Even the higher points goals are never out of reach and are easily obtained after trying the level out once or twice. I only ever needed to retry a level a couple of times because I didn't reach the points goal. There are also hidden collectible DNA strands on most levels that you need a number of to unlock the boss stages, but these are easily found and you will almost certainly have enough to unlock them without backtracking to get more.

The lucky surviving Swarmites returning to Mama

Rational
The game is actually a relaxing play as very early on you realise death is barely a setback. Even dying propels you forward, making progress on a variety of Death Medals. The game has struck a clever balance between wanting to protect your Swarmites to make further progress in the level and not minding when a bunch of them have just been picked off by traps. There are eggs throughout the levels which will restock the Swarmites you lost previously can keep you going, only to have your group decimated again later down the road. It's practically impossible to get your whole group through the various traps and platforming without losing a few here and there and the game knows it.

Deaths are inevitable

You can control your group in two main ways, moving them with the left stick and spreading them out or clustering them together with the triggers. Both have benefits in different situations. Spreading your Swarmites out over a large area will mean less deaths from traps and explosion damage but makes platforming and dodging things like fire and electricity difficult. If you cluster everyone together, it's easier to platform and dodge geysers of fire, but one trap or explosion in the right place will devastate your group.

Eventually your Swarmites get the ability to stack on top of each other by holding the cluster trigger and jumping at the same time. You get the impression they aren't planning on it happening they've just been told to cluster and jump by some invisible hand. You can create a fairly impressive tower of Swarmites, all looking at you with a blank stare, this way. This tower will help you reach higher areas or manipulate your way through really tight pathways, but the Swarmites don't have the best balance so you'll have to take your time. Throughout the game you're tasked with using the different mechanics to get through the levels and make it back to Mama, and I had fun the whole way through.

I love the smell of burning Swarmites in the morning

Summary
The game could be viewed as a little masochistic, with you being responsible for thousands of dead Swarmites, but they seem to have no cognition or sense of self-awareness and show no emotion. They press on worrying about nothing other than what is good for the swarm and in that they are doing right by their Mama. You are far enough removed from the violence that you don't really see it and the Swarmites seem to be filled with nothing but a blue ooze so it is never that gory.

I would happily advocate this game to just about anyone. It's a fun time, not frustrating and long enough to be worth it's asking price. The levels are varied and you encounter different traps and trials along the way and figuring out what combination of abilities will get you through with the least (or most) deaths remain interesting the whole way through.