The not-so-spectacular-or-amazing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

article was originally featured on sleeperhit.net

The idea behind the Marvel Ultimate Alliance franchise is great on paper: Take your favorite Marvel superheroes and make your own team to fight the forces of evil. To a comic book nerd this idea is a dream come true. But the franchise has let us down before, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, by Vicarious Visions, is only so much of an improvement.

The premise of MUA2 is based around Marvel’s 2006-2007 series, Civil War. The Civil War is sparked by the reckless behavior of a naïve super team that plunges the entire Marvel Universe into chaos and pitts friend against friend and Avenger against Avenger.

In this war of ideologies the super hero community was split in two, each side lead by a strong leader, and backed by certainty of righteousness. Iron Man backed the pro-registration act, a bill that would have all superheroes become government workers and essentially a super police force, while Captain America stood for the individual rights of all heroes and lead the anti-registration movement.

The anti-registration movement eventually lost after Captain America’s surrender and his realization that heroes were no longer fighting for the common good of the people they swore to protect. In the comics, the events of the Marvel Civil War eventually lead to the assassination of Captain America, the downfall of Iron Man, and the rise of Norman Osborn, Spider-man’s long time foe the Green Goblin.

The problem with MUA2 is it’s only loosely based on the comics. The first half of the game follows the story set in the seven-book series, down to every panel and dialogue box. The second half goes off on an odd tangent that isn’t anywhere near as compelling as the comics it’s supposed to be based on.

If you’ve read the comics this is a huge disappointment, because the events of the civil war had a profound impact on the Marvel Universe. If you’re oblivious to the original storyline then it’s just another mediocre story with superheroes that happens to look pretty.

The graphics are a huge improvement over the first game. The 24 playable characters look great and are fantastic interpretations of the print superheroes. The powers are impressive to look at, while the levels are colorful and highly detailed. Later in the game when you’ll explore the Black Panther’s techno-jungle home of Wakanda, which is a delight to behold.

The camera is another improvement and easily the most notable change from the first Marvel Ultimate. The camera is now closer to the action and gives a better perspective of the gameplay, making it more fun overall. But it does occasionally revert to being too far away.

Control wise, the game hasn’t evolved much from the original. The one addition to the control scheme is the fusion powers that mix-and-match two heroes’ powers for devastating effects. If you add Thor’s control over lightning to Captain America’s star-spangled shield you get arcs of electricity bouncing off the shield and frying the enemies who are unlucky enough to stand in the way.

The problem is there are only three fusion match-ups: clearing, guided and targeted. This drastically limits the effectiveness of certain teams if they lack specific powers like energy or elemental. This can force players to select heroes they don’t care about for the sake of one fusion power. And when you can’t have the team you want, be as effective as one that fits the mold it defeats the purpose of the Ultimate Alliance games

The targeted fusion power – which has two characters perform some variation of the fastball special made famous by Wolverine and Colossus–is the only real efficient way of taking down bosses and ultimately makes the boss’ fights less of a challenge and more of an inconvenience, since gamers will have to mash buttons to charge up for another fusion attack.

Another simplified aspect is the character customization. Vicarious Vision gutted the majority of the features from the two X-Men Legends games and the first MUA, leaving gamers with very few options and a lack-luster customization tool set.

Gamers won’t be able to equip items with the wide variety of attributes seen before, like poisoning strike or increased critical hit percentage. Players now have to pick three attributes which the entire team will share. It doesn’t seem like much but it greatly limits the combinations available.

Like other action games, as the heroes level up gamers will be able to spend points on both passive and active skills. The problem here is that the game doesn’t broadcast when characters level up. This left me checking my character stats to see if there were more points to spend. And if you go too long without checking the character sheet the game will automatically spend the points. The changes can be undone but it’s insulting to have a game auto spend experience points for you.

The last details that seals MUA2’s fate are the things taken away from the first game that made it a memorable comic book experience. This time around, there are no specific missions for heroes and fewer alternate costumes. This disappoints because of the amount of history characters like Captain America, Iron Man and the fantastic Four have. After all Marvel did just celebrate their 75th anniversary. This is ultimately a disservice to comic book fans and gamers.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a game of give and take. Every time something new is given or fixed, something that wasn’t broken is taken away. The game is fun to play but when compared to a great comic book game that holds true to its roots—say, Batman: Arkham Asylum—MUA2 can’t compare and ends up feeling quite mediocre.

DJ Hero Preview

article was originally featured on sleeperhit.net

When the flood of music games hit, from Guitar Hero to Rock Revolution to everything in between, we all knew a DJ game had to be coming our way at some point. On Oct, 27 Activision will release DJ Hero for the home consoles, and it’s something gamers should be looking forward to if they’re not already.

Compared to DJ Max, the Konami predecessor commonly found in arcades, DJ Hero has an easier learning curve–like Guitar Hero compared to Guitar Freaks. But DJ Hero isn’t a rehash of the Guitar Hero formula that gamers will be able to jump into right away.

The first thing that’ll jump out is the amount of multitasking needed to play. Like other music games, DJ Hero has notes that scroll down on different colored paths asking gamers to press the corresponding button. What breaks the norm is the addition of the cross fade, which mixes the left and right tracks, and the scratching elements that create an interplay between the turntable and the three colored buttons.

This is where the multitasking element comes in. As players tap to the beat, they’ll have to flick the slider to the correct track while scratching in the correct direction on the turntable. Then players will have to adjust an effects knob that affects their multiplier on certain notes (the equivalent of the guitar’s whammy bar), all while maintaining accuracy to build up “euphoria” and a score multiplier.

It sounds simple in concept, but it’s hard to execute at first–especially on the higher difficulties.

Another feature that’s specific to DJ Hero is the rewind ability that’s gained after holding an x4 multiplier. The rewind is activated by spinning the turntable backwards 360 degrees and it causes the track to rewind so players can perfect a prior section for more points. When this seemingly small feature is combined with euphoria, DJ Hero’s version of star power, it adds a unique, new level of engagement.

The demo offers three mixes on one setlist: (I Heard It Through the) Grapevine/Da Funk, Hollaback Girl/Give It To Me Baby, and Boom Pow/Satisfaction. There’s a short break between mixes, which keeps players involved until the end of the three songs–much like how a real DJ wouldn’t stop the music between songs. Each mix has a different gameplay style: tap-, mixing- or scratch-heavy. The three tracks are a lot of fun, and if the full game lives up to these songs then wannabe DJs should have plenty to look forward to.

A fourth song is available, a Beastie Boys/Foo Fighters mix, but was on the demo’s guitar-and-turntable option. This mode wasn’t playable with a guitar, but it showed how the two instruments are compatible by converting the other half of the song into a standard Guitar Hero track. This feature will be worth its weight in proverbial gold if there’s one turntable and plenty of guitars lying around.

The accompanying visuals are what you’d expect from the Hero line of games, with lots of colored backdrops and trendy camera angles. The demo only offers one generic club setting, but Activision boasts that the full game will have iconic nightclubs along with house parties set in the Hollywood Hills to spin tracks in.

On the hardware side is the turntable. The worst possible scenario that could happen would be if the turntable were like the first generation of Guitar Hero controllers: small, cheap, and not much to look at. Fortunately, that’s not the case with the DJ Hero turntable. Its buttons, knobs, and sliders are laid out intuitively, and it isn’t nearly as cheap as it looks in the photos.

One problem with the controller is the cross fade slider. In the middle of a game, it’s hard to tell whether or not the slider is centered or slightly off to one side. This can cause a missed transition to the other track when you unexpectedly have to push harder to overcompensate for the center notch. It’s something that won’t ruin the game, but it will take time to adjust to.

Defense Grid: The Awakening Review

article was originally featured on sleeperhit.net

Tower defense games are all the rage now, just like those furry UGG boots and the TapOut clothing line. With the flood of TD titles on the market, a lot of them are going to look similar to the one sitting next to them. Unfortunately Defense Grid: The Awakening doesn’t do anything to stand out from the rest.

The premise of Defense Grid is simple: build defensive towers to hold back endless waves of aliens who are hell bent on taking all your shiny energy blocks. The game makes a meager attempt to spice up its story by adding a cliché British-voiced computer AI that serves as the narrator for what’s happening on screen. As the game continues players are told about the computer’s past life as a human a millennia ago. Players will soon bear witness to the computer’s emotional train wreck as he recounts how the aliens destroyed his world. I’m guessing this is the awakening part of Defense Grid: The Awakening.

Admittedly, it is nice to see a developer try and pump a story into a game that doesn’t necessarily need one. But any goodwill the story generates is erased by the game’s plot holes, like the nameless aliens you’re slaughtering, and the dry attempts at humor.

It may make a terrible attempt at a story, but Defense Grid is a solid Live Arcade game and a solid example of the tower defense subgenre. The game is takes place over 24 levels and two campaigns, which is a lot for a Live Arcade game. Each level comes with different modes, like endless waves with basic towers that add to the replay value of the game. Levels vary from one-track paths that the aliens follow and the bread-and-butter style maze levels where players will build paths the aliens follow as they’re slowly slaughtered. The different modes and levels also come with online leader boards so gamers can see how the rest of the Xbox Live community compares.

Visually the game is mediocre. The game is presented using a traditional god’s-eye-view that gives players a good perspective of the attacking horde. The downside of this is that the level of detail in the aliens, even when zoomed in on the action, is lackluster. To be honest though, this is more a failing of the tower-defense genre of games than Defense Grid’s specifically. More times than not, the aliens resemble bugs scurrying along a colorful background, as opposed to anything remotely sci-fi.

Luckily, the art design for each level is easy on the eyes. The environments are quite varied, ranging from tundra to decaying urban settings. Things get really interesting when aliens cross multiple horizontal areas, making for challenging vertical puzzles. The multiple layers don’t add much to the gameplay but it’s nice to not stare at a flat surface for the whole game.

The towers are the most interesting part of the game. Players can choose from ten different types of towers, like the standard machine gun tower, or the flamethrower and Tesla coil, all with different attributes and properties. Each tower can be upgraded twice, granting improved abilities and range.

The controls for the game are simplistic and easy to master. The left analogue stick controls the cursor, the “A” button selects which tiles to build on and the right stick controls the zoom of camera. Interestingly, the triggers control a satellite AOE attack.
Defense Grid: The Awakening isn’t a bad game by any means. But it is boring. Everything presented in it has a been-there-done-that feel. This is probably due to the fact that tower defense games have been around as long as people have been able to play custom games, thanks to Blizzard’s Battle.net.

If the game had some sort of personality other than its emotionally unstable computer narrator it would be worth playing. That being said, playing Defense Grid is like eating saltine crackers. It’s completely doable but there are other things that are more interesting and more satisfying to do.

NHL 2k10 Preview

article was originally featured on sleeperhit.net

If there’s one thing sports fans love more than paying for an overpriced beer at the game it’s wearing their team’s jersey. NHL 2K10 by 2K Sports will debut on September 15 and aims to bring a true-as-possible hockey experience to gamers across all three home consoles. The development team for 2K10 sat down with a group of journalists on a conference call to discuss the direction of this installment in the NHL 2K franchise.

Looking back at 2008’s NHL 2K9 development, Ben Bishop, producer for both NHL 2K9 and 2K10, described the experience as challenging. It’s the first time the development team has worked with the game’s new code base and their first venture, and hockey’s first venture, on the Wii.

When it was time to start on NHL 2K10 Bishop said “We [the development team] were really excited right from the beginning to see what we could do. I think we’re all really happy with the final product.” Since the majority of sports game releases are annual it’s a constant struggle to improve upon the last game. The development team made it apparent the focus for NHL 2K10 were the graphics, fine tuning the control scheme and updating the online multiplayer.

Bishop says gamers can expect a big improvement in the graphics over last year’s NHL 2K9. “We have a brand new player model. The player’s proportions, uniforms and smaller details look a lot better” Bishop says, “We redid all of our player likenesses. I think there are so many players in the game that look spot on.”

These graphical improvements aren’t solely limited to the player models. 2K also redid the introductions for the teams that take place before each game. These introductions show off the detail that has been put into the venues and give gamers a genuine “ live game” experience, as if they’re at the hockey ring, ready to watch the away team get slammed.

Then of course there’s the tweaked gameplay. NHL 2K10’s gameplay will slower, compared to previous years. Abe Navarro, lead gameplay producer, explains that “when we say we’re slowing down the pace, we’re not slowing down the game by any means. Hockey is a really fast sport. What we’re doing is slowly taking back the up and down gameplay.” This adjustment will have players and their opponents, both physical and artificial, cycle the puck and play the appropriate positions more, making for a better overall game of hockey.

Another issue of 2K9’s that’s been addressed is the advantage given to AI defenders, which let them move faster than a gamer-controlled skater. The development team changed this flaw by making the AI smarter. AI controlled skaters will now, reportedly, have more options like stick lifts, checks and positioning.

Gamers will see an improvement in the way the controls handle, most notably on the Wii. NHL 2K10 is compatible with the Motion Plus attachment, so gamers can expect to see a 1-1 ratio in the puck handling for both shooting and passing. When gamers shoot for a goal the choice of shot they make will depend on the amount of movement used. A flick of the wrist gives players wrist shots while larger movements will have the virtual athlete correspond with a harder-hitting slap shot; even corresponding transitional movements will relate appropriately. Passing has been changed to work similarly, players will now need to press the “A” button as they flick and pass. Still, this year’s motion controls are a step back from 2K9’s motion-heavy configuration, which the development team thought to be overpowering. Retro controls are also available for gamers who’d rather not flail around when passing the puck.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, which the development team says are almost identical across all fronts, will use the right analogue stick for improved passing and defense mechanics. When playing defense, gamers can push the right stick in any direction making blocks more accurate. The development team simplified the passing mechanics that many considered clumsy in 2K9. Instead of the timing-sensitive button presses, gamers hold the pass button down until their player has possession of the puck, only to release it, passing the puck in the process.

Like the sports they represent, sports video games are competitive and it’s essential to have a good, if not great, online component. 2K10 will deliver its multiplayer options along with an interface that allows gamers to invite friends to a game with a few simple button presses. NHL 2K10 will bring the franchise mode online, where players can play a season with friends. Along with franchise mode, the development team has added a create-team mode allowing players to take their fantasy team online.

Personalized teams allow gamers to invite up to 15 friends to participate in matches. Out of these 15, whoever is online will then play the match against other user-created teams. At the end of the match the results are tracked so players can see how their team ranks against the rest of the NHL 2K10 community. Bishop says “this is a real cool way to have a persistent identity with a unique team, logo and uniform setup that you created and then see how you and your friends stack up.”

When gamers are making a team, they won’t be able to import logos of their own, but the development team assured us that there will be plenty of logos and uniforms, ranging from classic NHL logos to contemporary ones that have yet to be seen in the league. Bishop says that they’re able to add these new logos and uniforms before they’ve been made public because of the good relationship 2K sports keeps with the NHL. In keeping with the realism of the NHL, Bishop and the development team will work to keep the game up to date with roster updates.

She’s not too fat for me: Fat Princess Review

article was originally featured on sleeperhit.net

For too long video game developers have pushed the twig-sized princess down gamers’ throats reinforcing that the super-skinny-princess-peach size is beautiful. These games perpetuate the idea that a young adventurer will rescue a princess using drastic measures like Link saving Hyrul’s diet-pill-popping Zelda. Gamers are finally exposed to a princess worth saving because of her charm, wit and shapely curves instead of a size-zero-featherweight figure, in Titan Studios’ Fat Princess.

Fat Princess is a top-down ‘capture the flag’, or in this case, capture-a-hefty-member-of-the-royal-family, game. Players take up the mantle of a villager turned army recruit who fights to save their princess from the other team. Players are able to choose from five different classes, mage, warrior, ranger, priest and worker; each of which is upgradable with different abilities. The game offers the expected capture the flag along with control point and team deathmatch maps that are available in both single and multiplayer. A twist to this style of game is in addition to fighting; players will need to bring back pieces of cake from the battlefield to throw down the food hole of their captive princess to make her harder to carry away, which is one of the game’s few defense measures.

The game mechanics for the characters are basic. Either you hold the attack button for an area-effect spell or tap for normal assaults. Once a team collects enough materials upgrades and siege weapons can be purchased to give your team the edge in battle. Although there are few upgrades and siege weapons, roughly nine in all, they play differently from each other and add a level of variety and strategy to the game.

The single player tells the legend of the fat princess. The story is a short seven chapters that explains how beloved lady of the kingdom became so large. Each chapter is a different style of level and serves as a decent tutorial of how the game and maps work. The single-player mode, being what it is, takes about an hour to two to beat but is worth the time to play because the story is pretty entertaining and gets you ready for multiplayer.

The multiplayer is where the meat of the game lies. Up to 32 players can be in a single game. A plus for Fat Princess is bots will fill player-vacant spots so players will never be in a game with less than a full team. But Fat Princess is not without its flaws. The two most prominent are the lag and the connection problems. Connecting to an online match can take longer than it does to actually play a round. And once you connect you may experience some major lag problems or a game that is filled with more bots, which aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, than actual players. Titan Studios has already issued a patch regarding the connection and lag problems to Sony for testing that will hopefully fix these annoying issues.

Once players connect to a match they will find a game that is thick with internet humor. From the moment players boot-up the game players will be bombarded with tips sporting the G.I. Joe catch phrase “knowing is half the battle” and the game announcer shouting that the other team is in your base killing your dudes or that you’re being ganked while your character shouts things like “noob” and “it’s a good day to die.” These small touches add a lot of humorous atmosphere the game making it a laugh to play.

Overall, Fat Princess is an entertaining experience. It’s not groundbreaking like Team Fortress 2, but it’s close. Think of it like Chili’s or TGI Fridays. You go for the atmosphere, the cheap drinks and to hang out with friends.The food, or in this case the actual game, is just a plus.

Video games that are More Lego Than Lego

LEGOs have been a staple of childhood’s creative playtime in the US since their arrival from Sweden in 1962. Now kids and adults are re-exposed to the brand in a digital form through Traveler’s Tales numerous LEGO inspired games.

LEGO Star Wars started the trend in 2005. And roughly every year after, the video game industry has seen a steady flow of LEGO games based off movies like Indiana Jones and Batman. The LEGO craze continues with a new “LEGO Indiana Jones 2” and “Harry Potter: Years 1-4” that are slated to be in stores this fall and 2010 respectively. And let’s not forget the new musical venture appropriately called LEGO Rock band due out this fall.

What TT Games hasn’t done over all these versions of the same basic game is make a LEGO game that allows players to freely build structures and contraptions. Something one children’s advocacy group says is just as damaging to young consumers—whom the games are marketed for—as the commercialization of the LEGO brand.

The Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood, or CCFC, is a group of healthcare providers, educators and parents who argue that the over commercialization of a child’s playtime will hinder their ability to develop critical thinking skills and their budding imagination. The CCFC calls out the LEGO brand and Traveler Tales’ LEGO Batman specifically. Arguing that the brand once promoted creative play and self expression but now don’t. Instead the LEGO brand now settles for a partnership with successful movie franchises.

LEGO Batman was even nominated for the CCFC’s “TOADY” award (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young children) which is a spoof of the Toy Industry Association’s toy of the year award. The reasons against the caped crusader’s LEGO game aren’t your usual “it’s too violent” talking points. It’s that the game came out to promote Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” and had spin-off prizes that were given away with happy meals from McDonalds. The CCFC argues LEGO batman “simultaneously promoted the video game, junk food, and the violent “Dark Knight” movie series to preschoolers.”

Parental intervention of what kids buy and the lack of knowledge of the ESRB rating system aside, the only real argument left is that LEGO games keep the building to a minimum–something that would seem like an obvious fit for the series. For those who don’t know, the “building” elements of the LEGO series are rarely used outside of solving simple puzzles where players hold down a single button and watch the LEGO blocks jump together by themselves. To the CCFC’s point, it’s clear how this doesn’t promote free thinking or creativity.

There are games however, that are essentially more LEGO than LEGO games. An example is Rare’s “Banjo-Kazooie’s: Nuts and Bolts” for the Xbox 360.In Nuts and Bolts, the Nintendo 64 heroes return to video game stardom where players build vehicles to compete in a series of events that unlock more parts so they can construct more complex machines for our bear and bird heroes to use. This adaptation to the Banjo and Kazooie series brings out a level of creativity and out-of the-box thinking that is enjoyable and accessible for gamers regardless of age.

Banjo and the bird aren’t alone in the endeavor to develop a build-and-play style of game. Sony’s “Little Big Planet” is hailed for its simple-to-use-yet-difficult-to-master stage building experience and its ability to share user-created worlds via the Playstation Network. This new franchise and style of gameplay is so successful that it spawned a spinoff version for the PSP and a probable sequel and downloadable content much later down the road for the Playstation 3

Sony went a step farther at this year’s E3 conference when they announced “ModNation Racer” for the PS3. Like its cousin, Little Big Planet, ModNation lets players build racetracks, avatars and carts all while sharing them with the friends over the web. Sony unveiled the simplistic building engine for the game when they had ModNation’s developers build a racetrack in front of the audience at the expo, which is something to my knowledge that hasn’t been done before.

However, the LEGO brand is gearing up to bring out a build-and-play game in 2010 with NetDevil developing “LEGO Universe.” LEGO Universe is said to play out much like Nuts and Bolts, where players complete tasks using the contraptions they’ve made to gain more building components. The difference is, like other MMO style games, the world will be open and continuingly running for all players.

This is a step in the right direction for LEGO inspired video games but there are doubts about how successful this venture will be. It’s hard to imagine gamers who enjoy the MMO community atmosphere and style of game leaving “World of Warcraft” or “City of Heroes” to build things in LEGO Universe. It’s harder to believe that parents will fork out the dough for their kids to play with LEGO bricks online when they could easily play with them in the living rooms of their own homes.

Nothing can replace the physical interaction with a set of LEGO blocks and the benefit of letting a child’s imagination run wild of what to build next. For the past forty years legions of kids have done exactly that. With games like Banjo and Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Little Big Planet already out and Sony’s Mod Nation Racer on the release-date horizon show is creative experiences have a place within the video game industry. It’s just time LEGO and Traveler’s Tales got involved.

Gangland on your PC

It was only a matter of time before a crime-inspired massively multiplayer online game was made and released to the masses. That game is CrimeCraft by Vogster Entertainment. CrimeCraft sets players in the world of Sunrise City, a high-rise metropolis serving as penal colony for the world’s criminals where the gang lifestyle and lawlessness rule.

Players start off as a lowly thug soon to have a gun thrust into their hand and are forced to fight in the meat of CrimeCraft’s competitive game play. Outside the city lie battle zones that run the expected death match and control point style matches. By playing the player-versus-player chunk of the game, players receive experience, loot and cash that are used inside the city.

These spoils of war are then traded or crafted into useful items. While in Sunrise, players engage in numerous crafting trades like weapon creation and drugs development and engineering. All of which power the game’s economy through an auction-house environment.

Players gain levels like any other MMO, through the unrelenting grind of quest objectives–which MMO-style games are known for–inside and out of Sunrise City. Quests in the city run along the lines of retrieve and delivery quests. While in the warzones outside the city, quests take on a more violent tone. Here players are rewarded for disposing their foes in specific ways like only using a pistol or killing 20 people who are using shotguns.

Once players have some cash and experience in hand, both can be spent on upgrades for their virtual gangster. Experience is spent on skills like invisibility and improved accuracy while cash is used to buy the weapons of urban warfare. The game has an impressive amount of upgrades and weapons to be found in Sunrise City ranging from the trusty pistol to grenade and rocket launchers. Each weapon classes can be decked out with the latest accessories like scopes and barrels giving improvements like penetration, power and accuracy while running.

Gangs come into play as the game’s guilds or clan system, much like in World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online. Once players are involved in a virtual gang, they can challenge other crews to skirmishes which will earn them a spot on the game’s leader boards. And if their gang does well enough in a season of combat they will receive cash rewards among other prizes.

CrimeCraft is currently in beta testing and is scheduled to release on August 25 of this year exclusively at Best Buy.

Video Games That Salute America

Battle Grounds, a Half-life 1 and 2 mod
Video game developers love making products about war, the most popular being World War 2. Battle Grounds isn’t the standard American war game simply because it’s based of the war that started it all: The Revolutionary War. Battle Grounds gives you a real 1776 feel. Complete with muskets taking up to seven seconds to reload, which gives you a rate of fire at two to three rounds a minute, and the Napoleonic style of warfare, Which means you’ll be lining up while the other team shoots at you from across the map. Finally you’ll have a chance to give those damn redcoats what they’ve been asking for.

Oregon Trail
What’s more American than the expansion west? Killing buffalo because they’re ridiculously slow is what. Oregon Trail is a game of western expansion where players gather supplies, hunt for food and eventually stake a claim on the Western seaboard with complete disregard for the people that were there before them. Oregon Trail is Manifest destiny at its best.

Medal of Honor: Frontline
World War 2 has had countless games made about it and is a gaming genre that will live in infamy. Medal of Honor: Frontline is memorable due to its first level which dropped players right into the storming of Normandy Beach on D-Day. This made for a great first level and gave a little understanding of why grandpa didn’t talk much.

Mario Super Sluggers
It’s impossible to have a 4th of July list without mentioning baseball. But why Mario? After all he’s made Japanese company. Where else can you have a working-class hero relax with his friends while playing America’s favorite pastime? Not to mention the corporate marketing and advertising plan that plasters a lovable character onto every product to boost sales. Baseball and corporate marketing, that’s as American as apple pie.

The Political Machine 2008
What can be said about that hasn’t already about the 2008 Presidential Election? The change invoking win for President Obama that will bring about change for this ever-changing nation of ours, it all just seems so epic, video game epic. Now players can relive the trials and tribulations of the election in this political strategy game that let’s them take the reigns of their own run for the Oval Office. This is done by controling of tide-turning factors like good public relations, successful fundraising and celebrity support—Obama girl?.

An interesting note on the Political Machine’s website says the 2004 edition of the game was accurate enough to predict that Ohio, not Florida, was going to decide the outcome.

More man hugging than wrestling, UFC 2009: Undisputed Review

If you don’t know what mixed martial arts is then you must have been living under a rock or on a desert island for the last couple of years. UFC 2009: Undisputed is one of the rare MMA games on the market and the only one for the next-gen consoles. If you’re a fan of the sport then prepare to dig in.

First the bad news, UFC 2009 isn’t the most graphically pleasing game out there. In the career mode the opening cut scene looks like it’s something that should be on the playstation 2 and not your 1080p, next-gen console. In fact, everything but the fighters has a grainy look with bad animations and voiceover. But you’re not really playing UFC 2009 for that.

The fighters on the other hand, show an impressive amount of damage when you pummel them repeatedly. fighters will have gaping wounds open on the face as blood splatters the floor of the octagon. Close ups of the damage are given during the rest period between matches so you can enjoy the bloody mess you’ve made.

Like most sports games, the controls of UFC 2009 are going to favor those who enjoy watching the sport. If you don’t know the differences between a fighter using boxing and Judo and one using Muy thai and Brazilian Jui jujitsu then you’re going have to spend a lot of time playing catch-up while being knocked around. After you learn how to play the game, the amount of control you’re given is impressive due to the versatility in each of the types of fighting and the transitions between the different positions.

Another problem is the computer controlled fighters. The difficulty seems to be at polar opposites, meaning that an opponent will be ridiculously difficult or absurdly easy. In one fight, I exploited Shogun Rua’s kicks to take out Chuck Lidell in the first round before he even had a chance to block. In another, I was put into a submission hold right after the round started. These balancing issues can leave you wondering what exactly went wrong when one moment you’re winning and the next you’re face down on the floor.

The best feature of UFC 2009 is the career mode where you take a greenhorn fighter through the ranks. The character development is surprisingly deep, allowing for you to customize every aspect of your fighter from standing defense to takedown offense. This is done by training in the gym where you hone your skills and boost various attributes.

Included in the game is the Classic Fights mode where you can relive some of the sports most memorable fights. Didn’t like the outcome of the Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell fight? UFC 2009 will challenge you to see if you can do any better.

Of course, there is the multiplayer. This is where the game starts to fall apart again. Online matches have a terrible lag problem and the victor is usually the one who has the better connection instead of more skill.

UFC 2009 Undisputed is an authentic mixed martial arts experience right out of Spike TV. If you’re a fan of the sport, then your choice is already made up and you probably already own the game and it should be a good series to look forward to. If you’re not a fan, it’s interesting to see what all the hype is about.

Possible price drop for the Playstation 3 and xbox 360

The rumor mill is still churning with talks of the long elusive Playstation 3 price-cut but Sony still holds firm to their long used standby that it’s not going to happen. However, ARS Technica has reports from an undisclosed source saying both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will drop their price by late summer or early fall.

ARS Technica’s informant also says that the both companies will have new hardware developments for this year’s holiday season. Sony is expected to debut, along with their price drop, the long rumored PS3 slim. This is after Sony sent a round of letters asking various websites to pull the photos of the slim system’s box and then commenting that there were no plans to develop and sell a redesigned PS3.

On the other side of the playground, Microsoft will reportedly drop the xbox 360 pro consoles by midsummer and replace it with the elite console which will have a price drop by early September. The elites are currently bundled with Halo 3 and Fable 2 but will be replaced with other games by October for the holiday season.

With the economy still in a slump it’s plausible that both companies would drop the price as we move towards the holiday season to boost their sales. Sony, especially, has room for improvement since they were expected to make an announcement at this year’s E3 about a PS3 price drop.