In addition to revealing the anticipated sequel’s name and release window, the September issue of Game Informer features two different stylized covers featuring Batman: Arkham City. Seeing as how Catwoman appears on both, it is probably safe to assume that the character will have an important role in the game. Two-Face also appears on a poster in the background of one of the covers. Rocksteady Studios did a great job with the original game, and the announced release window implies that they are taking enough time to put the same amount of polish and detail into the sequel.

• Geoff Johns hints at a live action Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle TV series
• Mostly empty Game of Thrones teaser hits the web

• Christopher Mintz Plasse and David Tennant join the Marti Noxon penned remake of Fright Night
• The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made gets a release date of Christmas 2011
• Batman Year One animated adaptation in the works from the DC Universe Animation Studios
• Footage released for proposed Mortal Kombat reboot
• Harry Potter filming wraps
• Sam Raimi considering directing The Great and Powerful Oz, and delaying World of Warcraft. RDJ attached to star
• Green Lantern writing team hired to pen Green Lantern 2 and The Flash
• Aaron Johnson and Anton Yelchin added to Spider-Man “short”list; villain to be The Lizard?
• RUMOR: Joseph Gordon Levitt to play the Riddler in Batman 3?
• Transformers 3 – 3D and Shockwave confirmed as villain

• New Xbox 360 design is officially revealed
• Project Natal officially renamed “Kinect for Xbox 360″
• Rock Band 3 adds Keys and Harmonizing
• Telltale Games to develop episodic games based on Back to the Future and Jurassic Park
• Comic Jumper video
• Scott Pilgrim is timed PS3 exclusive

Geek Jerk Reaction: Toy Story 3, Jonah Hex

Before getting to the list proper, I’d like to mention a few caveats, a disclaimer if you will. I think it is only fair that I only include games that I have actually played on this list. Expectations rarely measure up to actuality, for good or bad. So while I am sure games such as Halo 3: ODST, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, The Beatles Rock Band, Infamous, Resident Evil 5, and Street Fighter 4 are all most excellent, none of them will be appearing on my list. Additionally, if a game didn’t come out this year, it won’t appear on the list even though this is the year in which I first played them. Otherwise you’d be seeing appearances by games such as Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, Civilization Revolution, and Battlefield: Bad Company.

You would think these things could go without saying, and you’re probably right. However, you wouldn’t want to deprive me of the fun of writing a disclaimer, would you? I didn’t think so. So without further ado, I bring you my picks for Game of the Year 2009.

Best Playstation 3 Game of 2009
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2 was the only new release that I played on the PS3 this year (due to buying the system so late in the year), so it kind of won by default. Regardless, I feel pretty good about this choice as Uncharted 2 is an amazing example of an adventure game at its cinematic best. The best thing about Uncharted 2 is the interplay between the extremely well-written characters. Incidental banter goes on even while you are playing, not just in the cutscenes, fleshing out character personalities and quirks in the process.

If you could choose only one game to show off what the PS3 can do, Uncharted 2 is definitely the game you want to pop in. The game is absolutely gorgeous, almost to the point of distraction. Getting killed during a firefight because you were admiring a beautiful waterfall or strange sculpture in the background is a problem every game wishes it could have. In a world full of “great looking” titles that think muddy browns are the ultimate in artistic expression, Uncharted 2 dares to use a vibrant palette of colors heavy in reds and greens.

The greatest looking digital scenery in the world doesn’t mean that much if it doesn’t feel alive. Uncharted 2 excels in this area thanks to the amazing quality of the animation. Character movements are smooth and realistic, vehicles bounce around on bumpy roads the way you expect them to, and guns look impressive and dangerous when you fire them. The sheer amount of quality animation in Uncharted 2 is breathtaking. There is definitely a good reason behind those commercials Sony put out where some guy’s girlfriend thinks this game is a movie. Uncharted 2 is almost as fun to watch as it is to play.

Best Nintendo Wii Game of 2009
Unplayed

Unlike the PS3, the only 2009 Wii game I played this year was a big disappointment. It was so disappointingly average that it kind of soured me on Wii games for the rest of the year, causing an apathy that led to skipping games such as WiiSports Resort, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Dead Space Extraction, and even New Super Mario Bros Wii. Despite all the evidence pointing towards those games being good at the very least, I just couldn’t bring myself to play any of them. For that reason, this category remains empty thanks to The Conduit.

Best Nintendo DS Game of 2009
Unplayed

Some of my apathy towards the Wii bled over to the DS this year. The first half of the year didn’t really have anything that grabbed my attention. However, E3 2009 caused Scribblenauts to leap onto my radar, and I was really excited to get my hands on the game. Unfortunately, Scribblenauts ended up being a great concept hampered by poor execution, especially in the controls department. It is fun for a while as a novelty but gets extremely frustrating very quickly. As a big Zelda fan, I am really looking forward to playing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but it hasn’t quite been released yet, so the DS category remains blank as well.

Best PC Game of 2009
Plants vs Zombies

Some people would probably place a different game into this category, but we’ll get back to that in a second. First we’ll get to my pick for the best PC game of the year, Plants vs Zombies. PopCap has figured out some sort of magic formula for creating addictive casual games. For example, Peggle can be a huge time waster, and Bejewled has been cloned about a billion times by now. Plants vs Zombies is a charming little tower defense game in which you have to defend your yard from a zombie onslaught with a variety of cartoony plants. There are several different modes in addition to the regular tower defense mode and plenty of things to unlock, keeping you playing “just one more round” until well after the sun goes down…and comes back up. On the surface, Plants vs Zombies may not seem like it belongs in a list with a bunch of “hardcore” games, but it is just as much fun and far more addictive than many of its bigger cousins.

Best XBox 360 Game of 2009
Batman: Arkham Asylum & Dragon Age: Origins

The Xbox 360 took a much bigger overall share of my play time this year. The number of good games I played on the system made narrowing things down to one game rather difficult. Should I choose the game that surprised me the most? Should I choose the game I spent the most time with? What to do?

In the end, I cheated and picked two: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age: Origins. While Assassin’s Creed II improves over the original in just about every way and Modern Warfare 2 is an excellent escalation of Infinity Ward’s first foray into modern day gun fights, I decided to give the edge to original titles. Red Faction Guerrilla almost made the cut as it easily dominated my playing time this summer. However, I settled on Batman: Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age: Origins for the same reason. Both games do an excellent job of creating an engrossing world and completely sucking you into it through story, characters, and gameplay.

Arkham Asylum is easily the best Batman game ever made, but you know it is special because it would be a really good game even if it didn’t star the Dark Knight. Rocksteady Studios made great use of the license in a way that turns a really good game into a great one. Sure, it’s a lot of fun to beat up henchmen no matter who you are, but doing it as the ruthlessly efficient Batman is even better. Arkham Asylum feels like a real place you are inhabiting and exploring rather than a set of video game levels. Also, enough can’t be said about including elements of Batman the Animated Series in this game. Arkham Asylum sometimes feels like a slightly darker version of that show, due in no small part to the writing of Paul Dini and the voices of Mark Hamill (The Joker), Kevin Conroy (Batman), and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn).

While Arkham Asylum brings the world of Batman to life, Dragon Age: Origins brings a completely original fantasy setting to life with incredible detail, inhabiting the RPG with interesting characters and difficult choices. Some people would list this in the PC category, and I am sure that it plays very well with a mouse and keyboard. Personally, I have spent well over 70 hours playing the game on the 360 so far, loving every single moment along the way. While Dragon Age isn’t the biggest visual powerhouse, it is still very impressive from an artistic design standpoint if not polygon count. Each place you discover feels like it has a history to it, and every area feels distinct due in large part to the different designs found in the architecture, objects, and creatures that you find.

The biggest strengths of the game, however, lie in the amount of flexibility in how you play your character and the impact of your choices on the world you are playing in. There are six completely unique origin stories to play through that influence and flavor the game differently as you play through it. The thing that impresses me the most about Dragon Age is that it manages to make the game equally fun to play, no matter what type of character you are playing as. Playing as a Warrior is just as much fun as playing as a Rogue or a Mage, even though each play style is quite different. Each character type has a lot of room for customization such as what types of magic you decide to use or if your warrior uses large two-handed weapons, a sword and shield combo, or dual weapons.

Excellent voice acting and a wealth of text-based “codex” entries about all the people and places you visit are just more evidence that Bioware certainly hasn’t lost their magic touch when it comes to creating fascinating RPG worlds to explore.

—

Overall Game of 2009
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

So of all the games released this year, which one stands out? Which one has that little something extra that takes it over the top? (As if you couldn’t guess by those pretty pictures on the left.) While all of the games I’ve mentioned are excellent, Uncharted 2 gets the edge for its sharply written character dialogue and eye-popping graphics. Naughty Dog has raised the bar for what we can expect from video game characters. I hope the studio can eclipse themselves again in Nathan Drake’s inevitable next adventure. Uncharted 3 can’t get here soon enough!

Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Alan Tudyk will all be lending their voices to Halo 3 in what appears to be a large portion of the game. you will play the main character of the game, a character called “The Rookie”, who has very little to say. However, the three whedonverse actors will make up the other members of your team. In the case of Nathan Fillion, you will not only hear the actor, but also see him. When the character removes his helmet, he has a striking resemblance to Nathan.

If you are looking for a sample of what the characters will sound like in the game, look no further than the recently released HALO ODST ViDoc. The “trailer” is narrated by Nathan Fillion’s character, and introduces each member of the team. It gives you a good opportunity to hear each of the other actors in turn. Check it out:

Microsoft certainly “dressed to impress” with their conference this year. Their presentation stages are usually pretty lavish, but the stage this year seemed to have a few more lights and gizmos than years past. If anyone was worried that Microsoft was compensating for something, it wouldn’t take too much time to calm their fears.

The show started with a long presentation of The Beatles Rock Band. The opening cinematic was shown, featuring some impressive animation. Several people then came on-stage to demo the game, playing through the entirety of Day Tripper. The screens of the game looked almost exactly like Rock Band, however there were three people harmonizing, and the instruments looked rather impressive. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr came on to much pomp and circumstance, but they pretty much said “We think the game is good” and left the stage.

After a long time spent on The Beatles Rock Band, Tony Hawk came out to show off his new skateboard controller for Tony Hawk Ride. The controller features several accelerometers and even something that lets you move your foot to the side of it to accelerate, just like a real skateboard. Honestly, he should have just said “It’s like a real skateboard, only without wheels.” It would have been much simpler.

At this point, I was hoping that Microsoft would show something more impressive. Luckily the next thing they had up their sleeve was a presentation for Modern Warfare 2. After a trailer, they did a live demo of the game onstage, and everything looked very impressive. The level shown was out in the snow, and the graphical detail was very high. Snow was stuck to the characters’ clothes and blowing in the air, and everything looked very “cold”. The demo began with a cliff climbing sequence, and then it skipped ahead to a sequence set on an enemy compound during a blizzard. The blizzard provides cover, but the enemy soon discovered the player’s presence and explosions and gunfire quickly broke out. The demo culminated in an exciting chase aboard snowmobiles. Yes, you can still fire a pistol while tearing through the snow-covered countryside.

After that, the games kept on flowing. Final Fantasy XIII was demoed on the Xbox, and it looked very good. Epic Games presented a brand new title for XBox Live Arcade called Shadow Complex that was apparently inspired by 2D Castlevania and Metroid games. Trailers were shown for Crackdown 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Splinter Cell Conviction before the latest of Sam Fisher’s adventures was demoed onstage. Splinter Cell Conviction’s live demo was very stunning in both graphics and gameplay. It looks like Sam Fisher is going to be more of a badass this time around, as a ton of bad guys were quickly dispatched during the demo. Microsoft then took some time to show off Forza 3 which wasn’t very impressive to me, but it looks like it will probably go over well with fans of the series.

Next up was Halo ODST, and it didn’t disappoint. The game will switch things up a bit, allowing you to “flash back” and play sections with different characters in different areas, piecing the story together bit by bit. Lots of things blew up, and it looked very pretty. The presentation from Bungie ended with the announcement of Halo Reach, promising to show you the beginning of the Halo story coming sometime in 2010. However, those who purchase ODST will get into the Reach multiplayer beta. Halo fans seem to have a lot to look forward to.

Next up was a game that most had assumed to be vaporware until now, Alan Wake. The game is now slated to come out in the spring of 2010, and the in-game demo of the Alan Wake looked very good. The game appears to feature a voice-over while you play like someone is telling a story, and title cards like “Previously on Alan Wake” seem to imply an episodic structure. The lighting and particle effects in the demo were particularly impressive. At one point, Alan Wake pulls out a typical flare, but when he sets it off, the flare spews out sparks and a ton of smoke, looking very realistic.

After showing off several games, Microsoft turned their attention to XBox Live. To that end, they announced that last.fm, Facebook, and Twitter will be coming to the XBox, and soon we will be able to add movies to our Netflix queues through the 360 interface. Bonus points go to Microsoft for getting Felicia Day to do the Facebook presentation. Also coming XBox Live is 1080p video content that will supposedly play instantly, and the previously announced Live Party will let you watch content with your friends over XBox Live.

Next Microsoft went on to announce their new motion control camera system, but not before a surprise appearance of Hideo Kojima to announce Metal Gear Solid Rising for the 360. The teaser trailer for the game proclaims that “Raiden is back”, implying that Solid Snake will not be in this game or at least not be the focus.

Now back to that camera. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that it didn’t seem to be that far along. Despite spending a lot of time focusing on the new “Project Natal”, everything seemed to be in the prototype stage. There was a lot of “this is what we hope to do” and “this is what we could do” rather than “this is what we’re doing”. It all seemed very hypothetical to me, and any mention of a price or release window was nowhere to be found.

Several videos were shown, talking about what the peripheral can do, including facial recognition, full body motion capture, moving menu pages with the wave of a hand, and other actions. One demo was for a game that looks very similar to the soccer minigame found in WiiFit, except in the XBox version, you are punching and kicking balls into a wall of bricks in an effort to break them down. Microsoft also showed a painting game that seemed like the equivalent of throwing cans of paint at a wall.

After that, Peter Molyneux came out to show a video of Lionhead Studios’ new tech demo, an interactive character named Milo that utilizes the Project Natal camera to interact with the player. In the video, the woman talks to Milo and he responds to her, but the whole thing felt very scripted and perhaps even staged. It didn’t help that Molyneux was in full-on hype mode, making some pretty far-fetched claims about what was going on.

Overall, I think that Microsoft had a pretty strong showing this year, despite the disappointing “what if” attitude while showing off the new camera peripheral. They showed some great looking games, and there were even a few surprises like the announcements of Left 4 Dead 2 and a new Metal Gear game for 360. They had a few stumbles during the presentation, but it never came to the point where they completely dropped the ball. It wasn’t quite the “revolutionizing of home entertainment” that was hyped before E3, but the Microsoft Conference still had quite a bit of news to share. The complete lack of sales charts was also a big plus in my book.

I’m not sure what Nintendo and Sony have in store for us on Tuesday, but I think that Microsoft left the door open for someone to completely blow us away this year. Will Nintendo or Sony be able to do that? I’m not sure, but I am definitely excited to find out. I will be back later this week to share my thoughts on each of their conferences.

Hope you guys enjoy the episode. Be sure to send Wayne emails telling him how much you want to hear him in future episodes so we can get back to cranking out GeekiN episodes.

Gone are the down on the streets chasing the bad guys as in Batman Begins and Rise of Sin Tzu. Gone are the frustrating controls of Dark Tomorrow. Instead Rocksteady has created a stealthy action game out of Arkham Asylum.

The story is simple: Batman is escorting The Joker into Arkham for what seems to be the last time. As they descend into the gloomy atmosphere, there is an explosion. The Joker breaks free and begins to release all of Batman’s previously captured foes. With no exit and countless enemies against him, Batman must enter the belly of Arkham to capture once and for all those who would destroy him.

The following is the gameplay footage of Arkham that shows off the new Splinter Cell-like gameplay.

The game is slated for release in June.

Source: Gamespot.com

Mirror’s Edge is set in a world of totalitarian rule, conspiracies, and underground organizations. The game’s protagonist, Faith, is a Runner, someone who uses the rooftops to travel “between the gloss and the reality”, delivering clandestine messages for clients who wish to remain under the radar. Early in the game, Faith’s sister on the police force (known as “Blues” in the Mirror’s Edge universe) is framed for murdering a promising candidate for mayor. Faith sets out to clear her sister’s name and track down the real killer, hassled by the Blues at every turn. Along the way, she discovers that the truth is much bigger than what she initially suspects.

Hey! Who put me in an E-Surance commercial?!

The story sounds much more interesting on paper than it comes across while playing the game. Most of the cutscenes are presented in a Flash animation style that fails to live up to the quality of the rest of the game’s visuals. These sequences pull you out of the action when the rest of the game seems focused on keeping you firmly inside Faith’s running shoes. The few scenes that unfold using the in-game engine are much more effective at helping you experience things from Faith’s point of view, making me wish the entire story was presented in this fashion.

The rest of the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Faith lives in a city that looks like something Apple would create if the company got into urban development. Glossy white surfaces are prevalent, accented by splashes of bright, saturated color. While this somewhat simplified visual style gives Mirror’s Edge a unique look, it is also functional in helping you navigate the environment. The “Runner Vision” system causes certain items such as ladders or pipes to become red as Faith nears them, identifying proper routes across the rooftops. Early on, Runner Vision is very abundant, showing you exactly where to go. However, the system backs away a few levels into the story becoming more of a confirmation that you are going the right way rather than outright showing you where to go. However, getting lost is rarely a problem as levels are usually fairly linear. There are usually only one or two correct ways to get to your destination.

On the surface, Mirror’s Edge appears to be a first-person shooter, but it has much more in common with a platformer. Throughout the game, you are running from one end of a level to the other with plenty of drop-offs, enemies, and other obstacles getting in your way. A majority of the time, Faith is required to navigate from one platform to another, oftentimes while being chased. However, sometimes getting up close and personal with your enemies is necessary.

Kick to the face? Yes, please!

Faith has the option to pick up dropped weapons, but the game actively encourages you to use non-lethal means to achieve your objectives. To this end, you have several options that allow you to disarm and incapacitate your enemies. When Faith gets close to someone, they will attempt to hit her with their weapon. For a split second, their gun will flash red, indicating when to attempt a disarming maneuver. A successful disarm results in impressive animations where Faith grabs the weapon and uses it to knock out her adversary. Different weapons result in different take-downs. For example, Faith disarms a shotgun-wielding enemy by kicking their gun into the air, catching it, and cracking them upside the head with it. The window for disarming enemies is pretty small, but Faith can also slow down time momentarily, provided that the ability is fully charged, giving you a bit more time to react properly.

Taking on multiple adversaries without a weapon is a big no-no and will quickly get you killed. However, sometimes you don’t have a choice, and you need to take out enemies quickly. Walking up to them and throwing a lot of punches will eventually get the job done, if you don’t get shot to death beforehand. It is much more effective to run up to an enemy and attack them from the air or from the ground. In general, the more momentum you have going, the more effective your attack will be. A few areas even lend themselves towards literally getting the drop on someone by jumping down from above and landing a well-placed kick to the head. The places where you are able to combine acrobatics with combat are much more enjoyable than taking on enemies in more open areas. For instance, running along a wall and jumping off to kick a guard, spinning them around in the process, never gets old.

Wheee!!

While Faith has many avenues available to her for engaging enemies, sometimes the best option is to run away. Running is what she does best, after all, and this is where Mirror’s Edge absolutely shines. The game does an excellent job of simulating movement to the point that it is a joy to navigate the environment, and it becomes a hassle when you have to slow down just to take out a couple of guys in your way. Unlike most games shown from a first person perspective, Mirror’s Edge does not merely feel like a floating camera. Faith’s arms and legs are visible when she is pulling off spectacular maneuvers, and the camera bobs and weaves to her every movement. The game even goes as far as flipping your view over when Faith performs a forward roll. At first, the immersive style can be a little disorienting, but the simple control scheme goes a long way towards making you feel comfortable in Faith’s shoes.

All of Faith’s acrobatic moves are divided into two simple categories: up and down. Upward moves are assigned to the top shoulder button on one side of your controller, and downward moves are triggered by the bottom shoulder button on the same side. The shoulder buttons opposite these trigger Faith’s melee attacks and a 180 degree spin. Placing all of the major functions completely on the shoulder buttons helps give Mirror’s Edge a unique feel while playing. There aren’t many games that allow you to almost ignore the face buttons. Using different combos of shoulder buttons allows you to perform different moves, creating a surprisingly deep system of movement.

In order to be successful in pulling off proper moves, you must keep up Faith’s momentum. For example, hurdling a medium-sized obstacle will give Faith a small boost while sliding under it will slow you down. It doesn’t take very long to get the hang of things, and keeping Faith at full speed becomes second nature. Part of maintaining your rhythm and momentum is learning to recognize different features of the environment and how to best take advantage of them.

See a couple of small boxes stacked next to each other? Use them to get a large boost in height when you jump off them. Need to climb to a platform above you that is too high to jump straight up? Run up the opposite wall, spin around, and jump to it with ease. Falling from a ledge slightly too high up? Trigger a forward roll just before you hit the ground to break your fall.

Neo said it best: Whoa.

Despite having plenty of moves available for almost any situation, you will find yourself missing plenty of jumps and falling to your death. Luckily Mirror’s Edge has a very good checkpoint system, so you will rarely have to replay large sections of the game over again. When you are running full tilt across rooftops, making death-defying leaps, or hitching a ride on a subway train, Mirror’s Edge is at it’s exhilarating best. The times when you are forced to stop and take out enemies are where the game can get somewhat frustrating, especially if you are attempting to play through the game without using any weapons. The game is made much easier when you actually use the guns taken from your enemies, even though they are only good for a few shots before becoming useless. There are no boxes of ammo lying around, so once the clip goes empty, you’ll have to acquire another weapon if you want to continue shooting. Holding a weapon also restricts Faith’s speed and her ability to climb, adding a little extra incentive to get rid of a weapon quickly.

Apart from the main story, there are several other modes to play through. Each story level has three hidden messenger bags to collect, and speed runs for every segment become available after your first play-through. Additionally, there are several videos, music, and pieces of concept artwork to unlock, but the meat of the extra content is found in the time trial mode. The time trials feature several courses running through bite-sized chunks of the different levels in the game. Depending on how fast you complete a course, you will earn a rating of one, two, or three stars. It is very likely that you will fail to meet the base time your first few times through a course until you discover the optimum route, something that isn’t always obvious from the get-go. To help with this, you can download and race against a ghost of any of the one hundred fastest times from the online leaderboards. Doing so will reveal the fancy moves and routes through a course that others have used, provided you can stay close enough to their ghost to see what it is doing. The good thing about the time trials is that you don’t have to worry about any enemies bringing your momentum to a screeching halt, but a lot of the courses can be fairly difficult to finish with even a one-star qualifying time, so expect to spend a lot of time trying to shave few seconds off your best time.

This should be easy...

Mirror’s Edge is difficult to pin down. It does so many things right that should add up to something great. In particular, the freedom of movement in Mirror’s Edge is unparalleled by any other first person game out there. Despite several aspects of the game bogging it down from being the free-flowing experience it should be, the game is still a lot of fun to play and well worth checking out.

Final Grade: B-

The Facebook Factor

XBox Live already has several social aspects to it, most of them revolving around your Friends List. You can see when your friends are online, and you can see what they are currently playing when they are. You can browse through achievement lists and send messages. All of these things are nice, but there is room for more depth here.

I’m always checking to see what my friends are playing when they are online, but it would be even better if I could see the amount of time my friends spend on each game. Heck, it might be nice to see it for my own games, especially the ones that don’t tell you in-game. Live could then take this data and compile a chart or graph of player stats, tracking the type of gamer you are. You could quickly look at your friends and see that they spend a majority of their time playing RPGs or the amount of time spent playing multiplayer vs single player games.

Another addition to the social aspect of Live would be the ability to gift Marketplace points and/or content to your friends. Did you just download and play a really cool Arcade game, and you want to play it with your buddies? Rather than begging them to purchase it from the Marketplace themselves, it would be nice to be able to just send the game to them. Of course should this gifting feature ever be implemented, it should also come with the ability to create a wish list so your friends know what you want.

There are other possibilities as well. What if XBox Live allowed every user to create a homepage similar to those found on Facebook or MySpace? What if you could create specific challenges for your friends, similar to existing achievements? What if you could post tips, tricks, and random discoveries on games you’ve played for your friends to read if they wanted some help? What if you could sort your friends list into different groups such as “family” or “halo people”? There are dozens and dozens of small things that could be added to enhance the social aspects of XBox Live.

Notifications

I spend a lot of time browsing gaming related websites, but there are a lot of people who don’t. I am able to keep track of new content for the games I own fairly well, but it’s still easy for me to miss things that fly a little under the radar. If you don’t spend very much time online reading about games, you probably won’t know about very much of the new content available for your games. Currently, your XBox will notify you of title updates when you boot up a game, but it doesn’t really tell you about content that isn’t required to run the game.

What if your XBox would send you a message every time new content for the games you own is added to the Marketplace, whether you boot up the game or not? The system already keeps track of all the games you play for achievements. It shouldn’t be that difficult to send out a message about new DLC to all Live members who have save data for that particular title on their system. If more people knew about new content for their games, Microsoft might sell a few more content packs to customers who don’t actively seek out new game content.

Netflix

The capability to stream Netflix Instant View titles was arguably the best addition that came with the dashboard overhaul last fall. The feature has proven to be great for both Netflix and Microsoft, but it could be improved a bit. I understand that the two companies want a simple interface for this new content, so adding all the features from the Netflix website is out of the question. I’m not sure that I would want to search for titles without a keyboard anyway. However, I would like to be able to re-sort my queue list within the XBox interface. There have been several times that I have wished I could bump a title up to the top of my list (especially TV series) so that I don’t have to scroll through the list so much. By the time I go to the Netflix website, I have forgotten all about it until the next time I go to my queue on my XBox. Microsoft could easily add a couple sorting functions without sacrificing the streamlined interface.

Patching

Do you own The Orange Box for the 360? If so, have you noticed that the PC version of the game has received a ton of updates since it was released? Are you wondering where that content is for the 360? Restrictions on how they can patch their titles causes some developers to not even bother to update the 360 version of their games. If they do update a game, it can sometimes be delayed for a lengthy period of time. Developers will sometimes package a bunch of updates into one large package which means that the update will come long after the smaller updates on other versions of a game. If developers were more easily able to create multiple small patches for their games, they might be more willing to put the effort into doing so.

Some of the more popular titles to come out could also use dedicated servers for playing online. This could help ease stress on the network and prevent possible crashes of Live during a large influx of players. After a certain amount of time (or relative lack of use), the games could revert back to the normal servers.

Small Potatoes

A slight thing that will probably never happen is to be able to choose your startup menu panel, sort of like a home page. Would you rather your system show the games or video marketplace when your system starts up instead of the spotlight? It doesn’t really matter all that much, but some people, including myself, would probably enjoy having the option.

Gold subscriptions could be linked to your system instead of a gamertag. That way, any profile on the system can use the online features without having to use the specific profile registered on Live. They could even keep things the way they are now but add a “My Circle” type of function where you can link several other profiles on your system to the XBox Live account. Having to switch to another profile to access Live content can be a little annoying at times, so it would be nice if you didn’t have to.

The ability to straight-up purchase items in the marketplace rather than being forced to buy a certain amount of points would be a nice change. Making sure you have enough points in your account to buy content can get to be a hassle. Sometimes I just haven’t bothered with getting something because I don’t want to add a ton more points than what the content actually costs. If I could have purchased the content without adding a ton of extra points, I probably would have done so.

While we’re at it, I say Microsoft should get rid of the points system altogether in favor of listing normal prices. Nintendo’s online store also uses a points system, but at least their points easily translate into the corresponding dollar amount. Five dollars equals five hundred points on Nintendo’s system, but Microsoft points are a bit more convoluted where five hundred points actually equals $6.25. Microsoft’s points system seems a bit misleading as it is now, and I think it could use some revamping.

Written by PolygonWizard and SaberJ

I don’t recommend watching the trailer if you haven’t played the first game. The only spoiler comes in the form of in-between stuff, but still. Anyway, enjoy!

]]> http://www.geekshow.us/content/video-games-content/video-game-news/mass-effect-2-debut-trailer/feed/ 4 http://www.geekshow.us/content/video-games-content/game-reviews/review-burnout-paradise/ http://www.geekshow.us/content/video-games-content/game-reviews/review-burnout-paradise/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:23:21 +0000 Polygon_Wizard http://www.geekshow.us/?p=4056 Welcome to Paradise City, home of blistering speed, insane stunts, and bone-crunching wrecks…

I tend to gravitate towards arcade-style racing games. If I wanted to experience reality, I’d just go drive my own car. I like playing games where I can crash into things and generally drive like a maniac without having to worry about tinkering with my virtual ride to improve performance. Burnout Paradise fulfills these inclinations in spades. If you aren’t burning through traffic, flying off ramps, and crashing through billboards, you aren’t experiencing all of the addictive fun that Paradise City has to offer.

Multiple Cars + High Speeds = Car-Flipping Fun!

It’s a good thing that the collisions in Burnout Paradise look really great because crashing into buildings, trees, signs, fences, and other vehicles is a frequent occurrence. The physics system in place assures that every single crash looks completely different, so it never gets old seeing the carcass of your former vehicle bounce and hurtle down the street. The game achieves a great sense of speed as you race down the street, making collisions that much more thrilling when they occur and avoiding crashes just as nail-biting. You will often find yourself flying through traffic, jockeying for position among a group of cars racing for the finish line, and having a blast doing so.

The entirety of Paradise City is there to explore from the beginning of the game, and it takes a long time to find every single nook, cranny, and shortcut. The city is a very large and varied place containing many different areas including downtown high-rises, beach front property, curvy country roads, railroad tracks, and a packed freeway. Some areas of Paradise City seem to be perpetually under construction, providing many ramps, drop-offs, and shortcuts to take advantage of.

There are many ways to experience Paradise City. Each stoplight hosts one of five different types of events to participate in, should you choose to activate it. The Race event is fairly self-explanatory, although there aren’t any set routes. Instead, each race ends at one of eight different landmarks throughout the city. How you get there is up to you as long as you cross the finish line first. Marked Man events are a variation on a normal race in which several cars are trying to take you down before you can reach the finish line. The goal of a Road Rage event is to take down a certain number of cars within a set time limit without totaling your car in the process. Complete as many tricks and jumps as you can for big points in Stunt Runs, and race against the clock using a specific car for each Burning Route.

Discount airlines can be a little scary at times.

The open world design of Burnout Paradise lends itself towards cruising around the place looking for things to do. Paradise City is chock full of events and challenges to complete, but the game is still fun to play even if you are just speeding around from street to street. Burnout Paradise encourages this by letting you “own” every individual street in the game in two ways. It will keep track of your fastest times racing down a road and your highest scores in Showtime mode on each street. In Showtime mode, your car is sent careening down the road, and the object is to cause as much damage as possible to other cars and the environment before your car comes to a rest. Using your boost will keep your car twisting and flipping down the road, making it possible to crash for several minutes at a time. Once you have the fastest time and the highest Showtime score on a road, you “own” it. This feature of the game is especially fun when you have several friends that also own the game because all of your scores are uploaded to Burnout’s online servers. This means you will get a fast time on a street only to find that one of your friends has beaten it the next time you boot up the game. Every time you turn onto a new street, the game displays who owns the road, setting up competition with your friends, even when you are technically playing offline.

If you don’t want to participate in any events or compete against your friends’ best times, there is still plenty of fun to be had in Paradise City. There are 400 gates to smash down, 120 billboards to crash through, and 50 Super Jumps to discover. These things are hidden all around Paradise City, oftentimes in places that lie off the beaten path. Finding all the gates, billboards, and jumps is an especially good way to learn the ins and outs of Paradise City, giving you more of an edge during events. There are also about a dozen parking garages throughout the city that provide several opportunities for catching big air.

Sometimes a single wheel is all you need.

At any point while driving around the city, you can bring up the online menu with a quick tap on the right of the D-pad. Regardless of what mode you choose, you seamlessly jump into an online game wherever you are on the map. You can choose to join a specific type of event such as a race, but the real fun comes from Freeburn Challenges. As the name implies, Freeburn allows a group of players to cruise around Paradise City doing whatever they like. The mode includes a long list of challenges for everyone to attempt based on the number of players available. Some challenges are competitive, pitting everyone against each other in a race to be the first to perform a task such as taking down a number of other cars or drifting for a particular distance. Other challenges are cooperative, tasking the entire group with completing objectives. All of the online features in Burnout Paradise are well-implemented and fun to play.

There are three different classes of cars in Paradise City that cater towards different types of driving. Speed cars are good for getting somewhere fast, but they also crash much more easily than the other two types. The boost for this type of car cannot be used until it is filled entirely, but boosts can be chained together by holding the boost button down. Aggression cars are tough vehicles that are good for knocking other cars around, but their top speeds aren’t as fast and they generally don’t handle as well. This type of car gains boost by taking out other cars and knocking things down, usable as long as there is boost left in the tank. Stunt cars lie somewhere in the middle, traveling faster than aggression cars and taking a bit more of a beating than speed cars. As the name implies, flying off ramps and performing other stunts will gain you boost to use whenever you like. Each car in your junkyard is rated according to its speed, boost, and strength abilities. As you progress through the game, you will unlock better and better cars, soon finding a few favorites that you will rely on for most of the heavy lifting.

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour...

If the original game wasn’t packed enough for you, Criterion Games is raising the bar for studios supporting their game after it hits retail. After it was released early in January 2008, Criterion released several free updates for Burnout Paradise throughout last year that added a ton of content to the game. The Bogart update fixed several early bugs with the game. The Cagney update added several new online challenges and made Stunt Run, Road Rage, and Marked Man events available to play online, along with several other tweaks to the game. Later in the year, Criterion released the Bikes pack which added a dynamic weather system and a customizable day-to-night cycle to Paradise City in addition to adding four motorcycles available to ride and several new challenges based around the new vehicle type. Soon after, trophy support was added to the PS3 version of the game. Recently, Criterion released another free update that further tweaks the game, including the ability to restart events, the most requested feature since the game was released.

This year, Criterion is beginning to release premium content for Burnout Paradise, continuing their support of the game. The Party Pack has already been released, featuring a “pass-the-controller” party mode for people playing the game together on the same console. The Legendary Cars pack will be released soon, making four different vehicles based on famous cars available to drive. These new cars were based on the DeLorean from Back to the Future, Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, KITT from Knight Rider, and The General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. Criterion has already announced several other premium content packs planned for release throughout 2009 including Toy Cars (another car pack), Big Surf Island (a new playable area added to the game), and Cops and Robbers (presumably a new event type).

It’s hard to find another game that offers a better value than Burnout Paradise. The original game was packed with features, and Criterion Games continues to support their game long after it hit shelves by providing a ton of new downloadable content. Paradise City is a fun place to play, and it should continue to be so for a long time to come.

Final Grade: A

Soon after acquiring said trinket, the pair are whisked away in the middle of the night to Fairfax Castle, home of Lord Lucien. He is very interested to learn that the children were able to activate the music box, a sign that the two are part of a heroic bloodline. Upon learning this, the Lord pulls out a pistol and fires it at Rose, killing her instantly. He then shoots the younger child, the force of which knocks little Sparrow backwards through a stained-glass window to the ground several stories below.

Luckily for you, the child survives the fall (thanks to that heroic ancestry) and is hidden away by a mysterious woman named Theresa. Many years pass until an older Sparrow begins the quest to avenge his (or her) sister and save Albion itself from the plans of Lord Lucien.

I hear he's got some good deals on used video games.

“And so our story begins…”

Fable II is all about choices, and allowing you to play the game how you want to. You are first faced with the choice of playing as a male or a female. This doesn’t really affect how the game plays out, but it is a welcome character customization option. You begin the game in childhood, accompanied by your sister. In order to get the music box, you must earn five gold pieces by completing a few small requests from some of the people around the “Old Town” section of Bowerstone.

How you complete these tasks has a lasting impact on how you will find the town later on in the game. Clear some beetles out of a local warehouse and find a few lost warrants for the town guard, and you will return to find that Old Town has prospered during your years away. However, if you smash all the stock in the warehouse and give the lost warrants to the local thug instead, you will later find that your childhood home has turned into a retched hive full of scum and villainy. This is just one early example of how your actions can influence the world of Albion.

Fable II is not a difficult game. You will very rarely find yourself on the brink of death, and even then death only means being knocked out for a few seconds. You’ll quickly be back on your feet to continue the fight with only a few scars to remind you that you were momentarily defeated in battle. Most of the enemies in the game are easily overcome, and even when you run across a more difficult battle, you will most likely possess several potions and food items to keep your health up. The main storyline can be plowed through in a fairly short amount of time, but then you would be missing the point of the game (not to mention a large amount of content). You will find the world of Albion much more alive and compelling by letting yourself get sucked in to the various things outside the main quest.

9.8 out of 10 for Style - 7.6 out of 10 for Execution

Fable II allows you to really embrace the “role-playing” part of an RPG and make yourself a part of Albion, if you choose to do so. It is possible to get married, have a family, find a job, and buy a house. You can do this in whatever order you choose, although everything becomes much easier when you have a ton of cash lying around. The streets of Albion are full of greedy individuals, so throwing expensive gifts around is the easiest way to get people to like you. You can also perform several different “Expressions” to influence how everyone reacts to you. Dancing a jig or farting has a much different effect on the populace than performing pelvic thrusts, growling, or flipping the bird. Some of these expressions can be done for an extended amount of time, but there can be unintended, and sometimes hilarious, consequences if you mess them up. Depending on what kind of a character you are playing as (and how famous you are), the townsfolk will react to you differently. They will definitely let you know what they think about your outfit or your recent murder spree.

There are several ways to make money in Albion. First of all, you can earn gold from completing certain quests, but usually not very much and not every quest will net you income. There is also a lot of treasure scattered about the world. Finding it is made slightly easier by your trusty Treasure Detector 3000, also known as man’s best friend. Your faithful canine companion follows you around wherever you go. It will bark whenever treasure is nearby, whether buried in the ground or in a rusty chest that you are already in the process of opening. Most likely, you will also need to take on a few odd jobs to earn yourself some gold. I found bartending to be the easiest job to earn gold quickly while working at the blacksmith was fairly time-consuming for a relatively small reward. Extorting money from local shopkeepers and stealing from the homes of law-abiding citizens is also a money-making option.

Fun awaits beneath Albion's crypts...

This is all well and good, however jobs, thieving, quests, and treasure hunting will only get you so far. The real way to make money in Albion is real estate. Almost every shop, stall, house, and inn that you come across is up for sale. Once you have purchased a building, you earn gold from your store’s profits or rent payments from tenants. You can leave prices as they are, or you can choose to raise or lower them to affect your bottom line. Raise prices too high, and the citizens of Albion will start to complain. Slash prices at the local pub, and they will love you for it. However you decide to set your prices, the game will award you with your profits every five minutes, and your character will even amass gold while the console is powered off.

Now that I’ve spent all this time describing a lot of the ancillary things in Fable II, let’s move on to the actual questing and character development in the game. Fighting in battles and completing quests will earn you experience points, similar to most other RPGs. Aside from general experience, your character will gain knowledge in three combat-related areas: Strength, Skill, and Will. Strength is earned by fighting with melee weapons such as a sword. Skill is amassed by using a crossbow or a gun, and Will is learned through the use of various magic spells. There are many aspects of your character to upgrade from increasing your total amount of health to the amount of damage done with melee weapons to learning new combat skills. You are also able to learn many different spells such as Raise Dead, Shock, and the insanely useful Time Control.

Combat can initially be fairly simple, although the magic system allows for a fair amount of strategy and depth. Mashing the X button will swing your melee weapon around while the Y button is used for ranged attacks. Holding a button down will use a more powerful, charged attack. Magic is handled a bit differently from the other types of combat. Each spell that you learn can be upgraded up to five times. Once unlocked, spells can be assigned to one of five increasingly powerful casting slots. All of the spells you have learned can be switched around at any time to suit whatever situation you find yourself in.

The Creepy Graveyard Shooting Range would like to remind its patrons that rifle safety is of the utmost importance.

Holding the B button will begin powering up your spells, eventually charging up to the highest level. Releasing the button will cast whatever spell you have assigned to the slot that you charged up to. The ability to cast spells on an area (more powerful spells cover more space) or to target a specific enemy adds another level of depth to the use of Will. Except in very rare instances, you cannot be interrupted while charging a spell. This creates a tradeoff between trying to cast a high-level spell before taking too much damage from enemy attacks while doing so. Personally, I found that using a second level Time Control spell to slow down time before trying to cast a higher-level spell could be a very useful strategy.

Completing different quests in the game will net you renown, making you more and more famous throughout Albion. Certain missions will unlock as you become more well-known or as you complete undertakings related to the main story. Once you complete the main narrative, you can still run around Albion completing tasks, searching for treasure, or taking on jobs. In fact, there are a few missions that only open up after you have finished the central tale.

Fable II is comprised of many different ingredients. It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but it does so many things well, making the whole experience become more than the sum of its parts. Albion is a living, breathing place (with a cheeky sense of humor) that is shaped by the decisions you make, and that world kept compelling me to come back for more.

Final Grade: A-

Knothole Island DLC (800 MS Points):

The downloadable Knothole Island add-on puts a few more entries on the list of things to do in Albion. It seems that the people on Knothole Island are having a little trouble with their weather, and they require a hero to fix things for them. The island has a few new stores, including a “mystery box” store in which you have to trade specific items from the mainland for each box. The shops include a ton of new items only found on Knothole Island such as height-changing potions, unique weapon augments and several goofy new outfits.

Knothole Island is good if you want just a little bit more to enjoy in Fable II. The quests unlock as you finish the major story missions, meshing seamlessly into the game for new characters. However, the island experience doesn’t last very long if you go there after completing the main game as the quests are very easily completed using a fully-upgraded character.

Final Grade (Knothole Island): B-

The new Prince, who is really just a glorified thief instead of actual royalty, finds himself lost in a desert searching for his gold-laden donkey. He soon runs into a princess named Elika and becomes entangled in her plight. Long ago the god of light, Ormazd, was forced to trap the god of darkness, Ahriman, and his corrupting influence inside a sacred tree. Thousands of years later, Ormazd is long gone, and Ahriman is trying to escape from his prison.

Freddy ain't got nothing on me!

The Prince follows Elika to the temple in the middle of the desert that houses the sacred tree. However, when they get there, Elika’s father chops the glowing tree in half with his sword, releasing Ahriman’s corruption and darkness upon the land. The dark god is still trapped inside the tree, but his prison is weakening. Elika and the Prince set out to cleanse the land of corruption in order to keep that catastrophe from happening.

To pull off this monumental task, the Prince and Elika must find several “fertile grounds” and purge the corruption from each area by unleashing Elika’s magic. Once all of the fertile grounds have been cleansed of evil, their combined power will allow the pair to go back to the temple and reseal Ahriman inside his prison.

Prince of Persia’s story is fairly simple but well-told. There are several cutscenes during the game that explain what is going on, but the tale especially comes to life if you take advantage of the “on demand” dialogue system. At any point during the game, you can hit a button to talk to Elika. She will describe the history of the land, convey points of interest from the area you are in, or reveal information on your enemies. Sometimes the dialogue has nothing to do with what you are doing, and the Prince and Elika will get into a sparring match. It is all completely optional, but it goes a long way towards developing the two characters and their relationship.

Standing in the Prince’s way are four of Ahriman’s henchmen, each with certain strengths and weaknesses that you need to exploit in order to defeat them. Rather than throwing you into battles with multiple enemies at a time, Prince of Persia focuses on head to head duels. You are able to trigger several different attacks with simple button presses, combining them into impressive combos that cause more damage than a single attack. You can use the Prince’s sword, gauntlet, and Elika’s magical powers to attack your foes as well as taking advantage of your acrobatics to lengthen combos. You will have several encounters with each of the henchmen throughout the game.

Cool kids use an underhanded grip.

Making your way to all the fertile grounds requires some fancy moves on the Prince’s part. Running and jumping through the environment has always been the strength of the Prince of Persia games, and this one is no different. You are able to run along and up walls, climb cliffs using special rings mounted to the wall, jump between giant columns, and use your gauntlet to slowly slide down vertical surfaces. Elika can even help you to leap across longer distances by giving you a magical boost, effectively giving you a double jump.

Elika will rescue you any time you are about to fall to your death by pulling you back to the last stable surface you were on. This is a clever way to handle a checkpoint system, and it effectively keeps you in the action and prevents things from getting too frustrating. Moving through an area can become very rhythmic once you get used to how the Prince moves and start to recognize the visual clues in the environment that tell you where to go. You will have the most success when pressing the right button at the right time.

Each time you cleanse one of the fertile grounds, glowing orbs called “light seeds” are scattered throughout the area. Collecting these seeds causes Elika’s power to grow, eventually unlocking four different special powers. These powers help you reach previously unreachable places in specific areas. Each power is tied to a specially-colored plate. Triggering Elika’s magic on one of these plates will allow you to soar through the air or run long distances up walls. You can unlock these powers in any order that you choose, somewhat giving you the ability to pick your path through the game.

After you unlock the last of Elika’s powers, you will find that there are still a few hundred light seeds left lying around. Collecting these can be a lot of fun, especially because doing so takes you to many different nooks and crannies that you might not have bothered to find otherwise. Collecting every single orb isn’t necessary, but it is great to have if you like to compulsively collect things in video games.

I'll take the Express to the ground floor please.

Prince of Persia has a slick art style that the developer describes as illustrative cel-shading. I would describe it as more of a living watercolor painting. Regardless of what you call it, the art style is beautiful and unique. There are many places in the game where I paused for several moments to admire the scenery. Everything looks very good in its corrupted state. However, after an area has been cleansed, the colors become really vibrant and the world seems to pop off the screen. I found many of these places to be rather breathtaking.

The Prince’s new adventure is a worthy one. Unfortunately it comes to an end far too quickly. Prince of Persia isn’t very long, even if you take the time to track down every single light seed before finishing the game. It can be a good thing to leave your audience wanting more, but not when it detracts from the experience at hand. When the journey was over, it felt like it had only just begun.

Final Grade: B+

Never having played the original N64 games, I was only vaguely familiar with the Banjo Kazooie universe. Even if you are unfamiliar with Jiggies, Mumbo Jumbo, and Jinjos before booting up the game, Nuts & Bolts does a very good job of setting up the world, even incorporating some footage from the original N64 games into the opening cinematic.

Grunty and the Gruntbots....future metal band?

At the beginning of the game, Banjo and Kazooie are plopped down in the middle of Showdown Town by the Lord of Games, or L.O.G. for short. They are tasked with defeating the evil witch, Gruntilda, and her robotic minions. To do so, the pair will have to complete many vehicle-based challenges to reach the final confrontation with the witch. The winner will inherit Spiral Mountain, Banjo’s home.

Nuts & Bolts has a distinctive sense of humor that gives the game a lot of charm. Despite the lack of voiceovers, all of the characters have engaging personalities and quirks (such as Gruntilda always speaking in rhymes) that transcend the text-based dialogue boxes. Vibrant colors and cartoony sound effects also contribute to a unique look and feel that is refreshing among all the dingy shooters that make up a large portion of the Xbox 360’s game library.

The way you progress through Nuts & Bolts is by collecting many different types of items. Collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces, known as Jiggies in the game, will unlock the many doors spread throughout Showdown Town that lead to the different challenge worlds. The more Jiggies that you put in the bank, the more doors you can open. Also scattered about Showdown Town are more than a few musical notes, the game’s currency of choice, and several different crates. Bringing these crates back to Mumbo Jumbo’s garage in the middle of town will unlock new vehicle parts for you to use. You can also buy new parts and vehicle blueprints at the store in town.

A significant portion of your time playing Nuts & Bolts will be spent in Mumbo Jumbo’s garage creating different vehicles. There are many blueprints to be found in the game, but just like playing with Legos, it is much more fun to build your own from scratch. You build a vehicle by attaching different pieces together from your available parts. Each vehicle must have certain basic parts in order to function properly. Forgetting to put an engine on your car or omitting the driver’s seat makes for a pretty boring, inoperable ride. The garage includes a track to test your vehicles as you build them, letting you iron out the kinks before using them in actual challenges.

The ACME Flying Home makes moving easy!

Nuts & Bolts has a wide variety of vehicle parts to discover. These pieces come in several different categories like power, fuel, wheels, weapons, and gadgets. Parts found early on are pretty basic, but eventually you will find rarer items such as monster truck tires, homing missiles, foldable wings, and an ejection seat. Nuts & Bolts makes it pretty easy to let your imagination run wild building all sorts of fast cars, attack planes, cargo helicopters, or any other wild contraption your imagination can come up with. Each new part that you unlock provides you with another creative option that might help you improve that flying house you’ve been working on.

Slapping a bunch of parts together won’t necessarily get you a vehicle that runs smoothly. Placing a lot of heavy parts on only one side of a car will affects its balance, resulting in a lopsided vehicle that will fall over at the slightest touch. Also, using a lot of heavy parts requires more power in order to get moving any faster than a snail. The creation system and relationship between all the parts has a very cartoony feel to it. Want your plane to go faster? Put a couple more engines on it. Two small engines are faster than using just one. Want to make your car jump into the air? Add a couple springs to the bottom of it.

The challenges in Nuts & Bolts aren’t quite as diverse as the parts list, but they are almost always loads of fun. Different levels will assign tasks such as competing in races, delivering cargo, defending an object or area from invading enemies, knocking down giant dominoes, or shooting a ball into a goal. Some challenges are pretty straight forward, but others will require some lateral thinking to successfully complete. Completing normal challenges will net you up to three different rewards, depending on how successful you were. Barely meeting the requirements will land you some musical notes. Do a little better and you also get a Jiggy to put in the bank. Excel during the challenge and you will earn a trophy, every four of which can be traded in for extra Jiggies. There are also some hidden challenges which allow you to win tokens for use at the Bingo parlor in Showdown town.

Banjo's latest vehicle left something to be desired.

If a fairly lengthy single-player experience isn’t quite enough for you, Nuts & Bolts also has a multiplayer component. You can compete in several races and challenge events over Xbox Live. The only inherent problem with how the game handles multiplayer is that it is much more fun once you have built a bunch of your own vehicles. The default blueprints work to a point, but custom-built vehicles tend to be more successful. Luckily the game allows you to share your creations by swapping blueprints with other players.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a unique amalgam of user-created content, racing games, goofy cartoon sensibilities, and a platformer all rolled into one. The intuitive vehicle creation system provides a ton of options for assembling unique contraptions, and there are plenty of challenges in the game to keep you busy trying to collect every last Jiggy. If you ever spent a ton of time with Lego sets or if you enjoy games that engage your creativity, Nuts & Bolts will keep you busy for quite a while.

Final Grade: B+

Final Fantasy XIII is released in 2009 for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

• George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is getting it’s pilot television episode made by HBO. The result of that will determine whether or not the first season gets the greenlight. We discuss the “If We Ran HBO” article from the website.
  
• Tron 2, Originally titled Tr2n was renamed TRZ and the confusion begins
• Bruce Wayne killed off in the comics by Simon Hurt, claiming to be Bruce’s not so dead father. Will we see similarities with the next Batman movie?
• Bolt has fantastic Pixar-like quality. Wayne thinks it may share too much in common with Pixar movies.
• Xbox 360 Jasper Motherboard includes 256mb onboard storage, less heat, less power consumption.

Box Office Standings Nov 28-30

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The Day the Earth Stood Still
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• Black Friday
• NXE Launch & Impressions
• Xbox 360 sales
• Google Android Phones
• iPhone new update and podcasts
• WoW Expansion
• Star Trek & Race to Witch Mountain Trailers
• New Doctor
• “New” Television Season – Chuck, Heroes, Terminator, Etc
• Fable II and Fallout 3 DLC
• Geekshow.us is looking for writers for the site.

Lots of content, lots of discussion, and it helps set us up to a return to form for next week. We’ll return to covering the new news. Make sure you guys give us some more questions to answer on the GeekiNbox.

Included in the Fallout 3 content, is the following:

• Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.
  
• The Pitt. Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.
  
• Broken Steel. Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.

Also, new content was announced for Fable II as well. Obviously, being an Xbox 360 exclusive game, this will also be limited to the Xbox 360. There will be two DLC packs released in mid-december. One of them will be free, but beyond news that you will need to download the DLC in order to continue playing co-op with someone that has the paid DLC, not much else was announced. The other DLC will run 800 microsoft points ($10 USD), is titled “Knothole Island” and will include to following content:

• Embark on 3 unique quests set in 3 unique dungeons.
  
• Unravel the mystical secrets of the resurrection shrine.
  
• Try on a whole new range of outfits and look like an armoured knight, an assassin, a barbarian or a leather-clad biker, among many others.
  
• Brandish 6 new weapons.
  
• Dozens of unique potions that will drastically alter your appearance.
  
• Customise your weapons the way you want with the new augment tool and a whole new array of augments.
  
• +50 additional leaderboards.

Is the content worth the additional cost? Will it add a significant chunk of time to the already arguably long experiences? Will gamers shy away from DLC announced a mere month after the game is released? There are still many questions left unanswered. Hopefully in time, they will find promising answers. But in the meantime, I’ll use this space for an excuse to post the nice looking but slightly unfulfilling new trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum:

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten anyone at Microsoft to care that we have nearly a thousand listeners, and over ten-thousand unique visitors a month at Geekshow.us. So, I didn’t get an early invite as a member of the press. As such, this was my chance to get in and take a peak around. This comes 5 days before the actual rollout occurs. So when you wake up on the 19th of November, chances are you will have a dashboard update waiting for you. Go ahead and install that, and then walk through the process of creating an avatar to represent yourself. No really, do it. I’m tired of looking at a friends list void of Avatars.

Anyway, besides the addition of Avatars (Mine can be seen there on the left), the NXE offers several other changes to your dashboard usage experience. I’ve tried to run through as many of them as I could today. I’ve probably missed a few. But I wanted to give you guys my impressions, and give you a chance to ask any questions. Keep reading to see what I think about the NXE. If you have questions, be sure to post them in the comments section.

Avatars: The Avatar system is very versatile. As I continue to say, this system is much better in most ways to the Mii system. Being able to cycle through the different body sizes alone is worth the price of admission. However. And this is a big “however”…the selection really sucks currently. Is this a preview limitation or will the full version belike that as well? No idea. But be prepared for this guys. Look forward to picking from 1 of 4 glasses and 1 of 4 sunglasses. 3 pairs of jeans, and weird alternatives. And you can not change the color of anything that is not hair/eyes/eyebrows/lips/makeup. So if you want a pair of black sneakers, you are out of luck. Want a Blue T-shirt? Out of luck. You get green or black.

I understand that they want to make money off the Avatar store, but there has got to be a better selection of default items than there currently is. Things they sale should be like outfits. Master Chief suit, Police Uniform, Army Camo, etc. Not things like single color T-shirts and shoes.

Netflix: Now granted, I haven’t watched anything all the way through yet. And the first thing I picked was Heroes, which is presented in “HD”. However, I thought that the quality was damn good. Definitely better than the quality I get on my PC, which was also damn good, IMO. It’s still streaming, so anyone expecting Blu-Ray quality is going to be disappointed. But when you consider that you don’t have to buy it or wait for it to download, I don’t think there is room for complaint. Unless you are just a total videophile. Also, Installation and synching with your Netflix account couldn’t be easier. Download a small file, and when it gets done, you use like a 5 digit code at netflix.com/activate. Plug that in while at your PC, and it took like 1 min for the 360 to realize it was synched. My list popped up immediately. Very nice.

Game Installs: I didn’t play any, yet. However, I installed Gears of War 2. It took probably 10 mins to install. But I was able to use the guide button menu while doing that. Sent out some messages, checked my game history, etc. The only improvement I would make would be the ability to go use the dashboard while it installs. No games, or anything. But at least use the full dashboard.

Friends List: For anyone wondering why you are forced to pick an Avatar, look no further than the new friends list. If you have people on your list that don’t have Avatars, they are just the shadow of a unisex avatar. It’s retarded. And since this is nearly everyone on my friends list except the one person I gave a heads up about the NXE signup that got in, this is pretty annoying. You probably have already seen it before, but if a player with an Avatar is offline, then their head is bent over, and they are snoozing.

The only complaints I have here is that it’s sometimes hard to see what it is they are doing from the list. The one friend I had with the NXE installed was playing the L4D demo. But there was no indication of that. The friend I had without it was on the dashboard, and it showed a blank game case with the green circles. Also, adding new friends is a bit difficult from this screen, but not too bad. Left/Right button moves you a full screen rather than scrolling through each individual menu item. So you can fly through the friends list by tap-tap-taping the right button. No lag at all here.

Community Games: I had heard that there was only 2 community games available when the first wave went out. I was surprised to see that number had already grown to about 8 or so. There is a Head-banging rhythm game, a Culture from the preview of the community games, the god awful Word Soup “game” that I still haven’t seen anyone figure out, etc. Nothing that looked all that appealing yet. But that will continue to grow.

Delete Achievements: As most of you know, you can now delete 0 point achievements. You go through your game history, and when you highlight a 0 point achievement game, you hit “X” to delete it. This means you have to go through your whole list and delete them one at a time. But this should be a one time annoyance. Usually you won’t need to delete 20 at one time. Finally, I am rid of Yaris.

Marketplace Navigation: Still not perfect, but much better. Initially, it looks somewhat limited. You can sort by letter, genre, etc. But then you figure out that when you sort by Genre, you can also still go in and sort by letter. So you can find Games that start with “H” to find Halo. Or you can find Shooters that start with “H” to find it from a shorter list. Pretty slick. Takes a while to get used to the new navigation. I’m still not sure it is as user friendly as they were aiming for. BUT, it definitely is easier once you get used to it.

Party System: Haven’t touched this one yet, but I did note how easy it is to invite people. I can finally turn my voice options back to “Everyone”. I had it set to “Friends Only” so that when I play with friends, I don’t have to talk to them along with everyone else.

Themes: You can FINALLY preview a theme when you are setting it from the dashboard. As you move through the list, it changes the background to match the theme. No more trying to remember the name of the one you want. I’m still not sure if you can preview before buying, though. Old themes work fine, but I would’ve preferred the option to seat pan them, zoom them, etc to fit within the new limited space. As it is, they often get cut off in weird ways.

I’ll post anything else I can think of as it comes to me.

Tuesday (Nov. 11)
Call of Duty: World at War (DS, PC, PS3, Wii, 360)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (360)
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)
Mirror’s Edge (PS3, 360)

Thursday (Nov. 13)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Mac, PC)

Saturday (Nov. 16)
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (PS3, 360)
Shaun White Snowboarding (DS, PS2, PS3, 360, PSP)
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (Wii)
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack (Wii)
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades (DS)

Wednesday (Nov. 5)
Vigilante 8: Arcade (XBLA)

Friday (Nov. 7)
Gears of War 2 (360)

Sunday (Nov. 9)
WWE SmackDown! Vs Raw 2009 (DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, 360)

Next week sees the release of Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Quantum of Solace, and Tom Clancy’s End War. Hope you have you wallet’s primed for use. Keep reading:

This weeks releases of note are:

Sunday (Oct. 26)
Guitar Hero World Tour (PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)

Monday (Oct. 27)
Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands (Wii, PC)

Tuesday (Oct. 28)
Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, 360)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC)
FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play (Wii)
SingStar: Vol. 2 (PS3)
MotoGP 08 (PC, PS2, PS3, 360)
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (PS3)
Scene It? Box Office Smash (360)

Wednesday (Oct. 29)
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two (Steam, PSN, XBLA)

Thursday (Oct. 30)
Meteos Wars (360)

Sunday (Nov. 2)
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack (PS2, PS3, 360)

What have you bought so far, and what are you looking forward to?

Monday (Oct. 20)
Dead Space (PC)
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (PS3, 360)
Wii Music (Wii)

Tuesday (Oct. 21)
Fable II (360)
Far Cry 2 (PC, PS3, 360)
BioShock (PS3)
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, 360)
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (PSP)
Eternal Sonata (PS3)
Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP)
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (DS, PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)

I can tell you that I’m already well on my way to falling in love with Fable II. Also, for those of you with only a PS3 to game on, be sure to give some consideration to BioShock and Eternal Sonata. Both of which have shown up on the 360, and I vouch for them. Good times to be had there.

Sorry to those of you that was hoping to see the sequel to the smash hit Barbie’s Horse Adventures show up on the list, but I had to cut it off somewhere. Still, that’s out there if you are interested in seeing Barbie have adventures with her horse. Apparently, they are having a riding camp this time. I’m sure that will be a Game of The Year contender for sure.

It only get crazier from here out, too. Next week will see LittleBigPlanet, and the week after is Gears of War 2. But let’s take it one week at a time. What have you picked up, or plan on picking up?