Tag Archives: Xbox 360

The Adventures of Tea Lad and Coffee Boy

The current game on my Xbox 360 backlog hit list is Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost and Damned expansion. Wow, something semi-current?! Yep. I’m only about half way through with it at the moment so don’t expect a full review here but I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s definitely a much more interesting piece of content than I thought we’d end up with way back when I first found out that the 360 would be getting some extra GTA 4 content and it’s definitely worth the 20 bucks if you’re a fan of the series.

“Not at all conspicuous.”

As I’m sure almost everyone who is still reading by this second paragraph already knows TLAD is essentially a whole new game – a new cast of characters, a new story, a slight change in focus from GTA 4, and there are even some features of GTA 4 that have been removed from TLAD for various reasons. One of my favorite things about this new side story is that it isn’t very long. While some people might take issue with that for me it means the game’s story should resolve itself fairly quickly and hopefully by that time the repetition of playing the same typical GTA missions over and over again won’t have reached the point of tediousness yet as it occasionally had in past GTA games.

A small change but one well worth praising is that missions tend to have more check points. It’s now much more likely that if you’re doing a long, multipart mission and fail you won’t have to start over from the very beginning. This makes failing much less aggravating – something I complained about in past comments about GTA 4. In contrast I was doing some side missions (the optional missions Stubbs offers, for the record) which didn’t have this feature, in fact they didn’t even have the usual text message retry feature at all and failing those, even a few times, annoyed the hell out of me. These check points should be in every mission, even the ones that don’t feature any real story such as the collection and gang war missions. The number of times I’ve gotten smoked in a gang war is ridiculous (I’m a bit rusty at GTA 4’s combat system, I admit) and the ability to retry one, starting over just after collecting my gang members, would make them so much less painful.

Back to the important stuff though. I’m really enjoying the story and the new characters so far. The whole biker gang angle is something fairly new to GTA and feels pretty fresh. Johnny is probably a more fascinating character than a lot of people give Rockstar credit for – I’ve read a lot of comments accusing him of being a violent, bullying scum and all around low life but, while that might not be completely off base, it is clear from the power struggle between Johnny and Billy, amongst other things, that Johnny is in no way that one dimensional of a character. The same goes for some of the other Lost members as well.

“Riding off into the sunset…”

I also dig the bikes. I thought the motorcycles in GTA 4 were more fun and less of a liability than those in past GTA games and would often have Niko nab one for quick runs through the city. Sure, they still hurt like hell when you wipe out on one but it is generally easier to avoid collisions thanks to their small footprint and high degree of maneuverability. I’ve got to comment about the apparently improved physics of the bikes in TLAD though – I don’t see it. They feel more or less the same to me as they did in GTA 4 proper and there are still some physics oddities, maybe even more. While every single time it happens I find it damn hilarious when my bike hits a tiny bump and is suddenly catapulted 50 feet straight up in the air my amusement quickly turns to concern as I realize I’m probably going to take some significant damage as well as be knocked off my bike when I land. If this happens in the middle of a difficult mission you’ll be ready to throw your controller through your TV. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too frequently but it still occurs enough to mention.

On a final note I did make it to the infamous penis scene. I talked about it quite a bit on last week’s podcast. To clarify my level of interest and excitement about the subject I’m not any kind of cock enthusiast, rather I felt like it was somewhat of a milestone in gaming. Male full frontal nudity displayed in such a way in a mainstream game? I think some sort of new barrier has been broken.

Screenshots lifted from somewhere else since I can’t easily take HD console screenshots.

Overdone

I was able to finish up Overlord last weekend, thank goodness. Though I liked the game it felt a little too long to me and I was more than ready to move on.

A few notes about the last bit of the game:

First, whoever cast the voice actors for both the Jewel and Kahn characters needs to be smacked. Acting ability aside the voices don’t match either character to the point of ridiculousness.

I’ve also got to say that having the checkpoint right before the final boss fight require a few minutes of travel, combat, and other dicking around was a little annoying even if I did only die a few times in the attempt. Admittedly this might have been my fault for not taking better advantage of the save system, I’m not positive, but in any case a checkpoint upon entering the final boss battle might have been nice.

“Take their women and children first!”

The plot twist at the end threw me a bit of a curve ball – I didn’t really see it coming (even forgetting having it spoiled when the game was first released) and was pleasantly surprised by it. The issue of the heroes you go after not being all that “good” that I mentioned in my earlier entry about Overlord actually ended up being explained in the end though I can’t say much more than that without spoiling it.

I didn’t really go after the achievements after beating the game. I was going to go for a few but after finding out the hard way that I couldn’t get my 100% corruption achievement after beating the last boss the wind was a little knocked out of my sails. This was especially disappointing since the only reason for doing some of the more dickish things I did was to get that achievement and the one task I lacked was relatively minor and not even related to the story. Ah well…

I am much more curious about Overlord II now though. Will it be a continuation of the same story? They certainly left the door open at the end of the first game. Will the controls be refined? I could definitely use some tweaking when it comes to more precision arrangement of my minions. How about the adventure and RPG elements? Comparisons to Fable 2 are inevitable. We’ll have to see.

Well, that’s one more game in my Xbox 360 backlog crossed off the list. Next up I’m actually playing a relatively recent release. Who would have thought?

Screenshot lifted from somewhere else since I can’t easily take HD console screenshots.

Tanks o’ Death

I tried out the demo for the new XBLA game Death Tank after reading some Saturn fanboys gush about it on NeoGAF and I’m happy to say that I liked it a lot. I played a bit against the computer and even hopped online and played some match making games. The demo is very representative of what you get in the full game save, of course, for the additional weapons and upgrades that are unlocked.

The game itself is an “artillery” style game very similar to Gunbound, the Worms series, and the PC shareware classic Scorched Earth with one major difference – it is real time instead of turn based. This can change things quite a bit as you might imagine. Not only do you need to be quick in aiming your shots but also deciding who to target, what weapons to use, when to move, etc. comes into play like never before. Turns do, err, sort of exist though, in that reloading takes time, so it might not be quite as chaotic as it sounds.

“Ahh, warfare! What deserts were made for.”

I’ve read (and heard) a lot of criticism of the game, however.

One complaint was about how the Targeting Computer upgrade, which basically lets you see exactly where you’re aiming, is sort of the be-all end-all weapon. I definitely disagree – since it’s real time you can see exactly when and where your opponents using it are aiming and use it to their disadvantage by moving out of the way, preferably using your Jump Jets or Fuel to move quicker, or by activating your shield just before the moment of impact. It can be annoying but it really isn’t as big of a deal as people make it out to be.

One thing that I can’t totally disagree with though is the whole arms race factor: The better you do the more money you get to buy more weapons and upgrades while if you don’t get any kills you might not get any cash. This can sometimes lead to a situation where consistent winners ensure more and more victories through superior fire power where consistent losers simply feel cheated because they’re stuck with the basic artillery shell ammunition and none of the cool upgrades for almost the entire match. Pretty much all of these games work this way though – it’s part of the genre practically, but having been on both sides of that fence in other games I’d say that it is indeed a flaw.

“Sometimes haphazardly flinging nukes around is a lot easier than taking a more precise, measured approach. Global Diplomacy 101?”

The biggest one is probably the price though. The gameplay is pretty limited – you play the same randomly generated (I believe?) maps over and over again in more or less the same scenarios though they do occasionally mix it up with some theme rounds where you get free weapons and upgrades, or are locked to specific ones. Still, the game comes in at a 15 dollar price tag which seems pretty steep even with the game’s seemingly decent production values. As I’m sure most Worms players would agree these types of games make excellent party games though so if you’ve got the friends (locally or on Xbox Live) then it might indeed be worth it.

It should be noted that the original Sega Saturn version of the game (Death Tank Zwei) is included as a not-so-publicized (why?!) unlockable which does add a bit more value to the package.

As for me, well, I had pretty much decided not to drop the 15 bucks when I won a copy of it for free thanks to a drawing over at Evil Avatar. Woot!

Last weekend I had my parents over for dinner and ended up playing it with my dad who picked it up relatively quickly and seemed to be having fun with it which cemented the idea of it being a great pick up and party game. I intend to force it upon more visitors in the future to help test the theory and, more importantly, introduce some new people to the awesomeness of these kinds of games.

Screenshots lifted from somewhere else since I can’t easily take HD console screenshots.