Alien Swarm was released on Steam a couple days ago and what they gave us is quite a great game for fans of co-op gameplay.  While borrowing quite liberally from various sources, it makes up for its lack of originality with pure fun.  What you are getting is a 3rd person “twin stick” shooter, but with the usual PC mouse/keyboard controls instead (aka, more control).  Move with the typical WASD and aim with your mouse and kill aliens.  There is one campaign comprised of a handful of levels that has you complete various objectives like killing all the swarm eggs or bringing power back to make your escape.  To complete these objectives you need to work together well as a team with your 4 person squad each with their own class (officer, special weapons, medic, and tech). Each have their own roles and things they can and cannot do.  To mix things up a bit more there are two characters to pick for each class that may be better at one stat or have a different ability.  You have your main weapon, a secondary weapon, and an offhand weapon that can also be armor or boosts and some weapons are exclusive to certain classes.

So why did I mention Left 4 Dead?  Well, besides the objectives you’re still just running around a level and killing lots of enemies and also like our favorite co-op zombie game if you wait around too long or are moving too slowly the game will throw a nice big swarm at you (think a horde in L4D).  I mentioned Killing Floor too because it takes the L4D formula but added classes and abilities plus leveling up and Alien Swarm has this as well.  Unlike Killing Floor it is not per class/character but instead an overall level you have as a player.  The more you play (and the better you do) the more XP you get and each level brings you closer to more weapons, items, and armor.  While you may start with your basic machine guns and pistols you will quickly be getting tesla rifles, stronger armor, flamethrowers and lots more.  Your XP is carried over so it’s not just for that session and it is all saved to the Steam Cloud so if you want to play on multiple PCs you are all set and do not have to copy saves over.

I myself have put in over 5 hours into this game having finished the campaign already but there is high replay value.  If leveling up and earning all the weapons wasn’t enough, nor the massive amounts of achievements, there is also the fact that there are multiple difficulty levels to play and obviously you can always switch up what class you are playing.  This also came with the newly updated Source SDK and they are encouraging others to make mods, levels, and other add ons so I look forward to seeing what the community brings us.

This being a Source game you can pretty much know what to expect.  This is a game that will look and run great on most modern systems and has a bit of that grain filter as seen in Left 4 Dead.  On my laptop running a Radeon HD 2600 it ran around 30 fps at medium settings @ 1280×800 and on my desktop running a GeForce 9800 GT it ran at 45-50 fps at max settings @ 1920×1080.  Expect lots of bloom and some other nice lighting and weather effects.  I did not really experience any kind of slowdown except a couple of minor lag hits and the game’s slow motion segments.

So how much would you expect to pay for all this?  I mean, this is certainly a fully featured game that will keep you busy for hours and hours, you’d expect this to be a decent amount of money.  Maybe a bit less since it started off as a UT2004 mod like Killing Mod.  So is it a full price $50? A UT2004 mod turned Source price of $20?  Indie game price of $10?  How about FREE?  That’s right, all of this was released at no cost to us the gamers.  Sure, I could have started my review off by saying this was a free game but then as you read everything you would probably say “Well, he’s only saying that because it’s free” or “yeah, it’s good… for free” but I assure you this is not the case.  With all the various people that I played with they all agreed that they would have gladly paid for this game and are shocked that Valve would leave that kind of money sitting on the table.  The game being free ensures that this game has a very large community that will only grow as word gets out and as more is developed for it.  I had no problems finding people to play with and while the matchmaking could use a bit of work [UPDATED 7-23-2010: The game has been updated to now show if a game is "in progress" or if it is waiting in lobby which was a major issue with the matchmaking]if you want to play with randoms, playing with friends is extremely easy as it is with all Valve/Source games.  In my time playing I saw very few bugs and glitches and any shortcomings were definitely forgiven with it’s free price, but they were still very few and far between.  People keep mumbling that maybe they will charge for the add ons and were grumbling in the process but I say that I would gladly pay for any add ons to show my support for such a project.

In the end I still could go on about how it has unlockables for TF2, references to various other games and movies, but the bottom line is that you need to load Steam up right now and download this game!  I will gladly play with anyone who is ready and willing and expect me to update this review as the game is updated and added onto (if such a thing happens).  One last final word…  After decades of playing shooting games, FINALLY someone makes a game where you lose whatever ammo was left in the clip if you reload before spending all your ammo.  Kudos on this game Valve, keep up the good work.

4.5/5 – A solid game free or not, but the price makes it that much more appealing.  I may have finished the campaign already but I will be playing this for a long time to come and my friends are still talking about what we can do differently, what we’ll do next time, etc.  Click here to download the game and enjoy this 3rd person “Twin stick” shooter.

Avatar Rockets

[UPDATE 7-22 @ 2:36 AM] So I have been checking the last few days and whenever I load the game up it does not say anything about an update so I am curious if I had bad information or if the update process is not working.  Anyone out there have any info?

[UPDATE 7-20-2010 @ 12:16 AM] Game is SUPER fun with a lot of different possibilities.  Reminds me a lot of Killing Floor but with aliens and as a twin stick shooter (although with mouse/keyboard obviously).  Will post more impressions and a review soon.

As I mentioned, I had a nice talk with the main designer of the game and he was more than happy to tell me all about the history of the game, the process of making it, and eventually why it became an Old Spice game.  They originally wanted to make it for XBLA but the costs were too high.  The next step was to go Indie as they did and enter it into Dream Build Play, but unfortunately they missed the deadline so then they heard about Old Spice being willing to let anyone use their brand in a game and have a nice competition to see who makes the best game.  I mention this because I want people to know that Old Spice isn’t making these games, they aren’t paying anyone to make them (although whoever wins the competition gets money, but that’s a different story) so don’t think that it’s just some shovelware thrown out there by the corporate giants.  What you get are a single player challenge mode, both local and online multiplayer, and even a build-a-circuit mode.

Let’s start with the Challenge Mode.  This is the single player component of the game which is mostly for practice, learning the courses, and showing off some scores, but won’t really let you know what the game is truly about.  Yes, you pick your character (with characters such as furries, evil French Canadian monkeys, and Emo Toads among others) and go on a circuit of 5 races on tracks with various loops, jumps, and hazards, but you will be doing them alone and for time and points.  There is sadly no AI in the game to have opponents when playing on your own.  I asked why there was no AI in the game and they said that they tried to do so, but sadly it had to be cut to get the game out in time for the competition.  If this does well enough, maybe we can hope for a sequel with it?  As with many other racings games you will find that each course will have a bronze, silver, and gold medal for specific times on the course and you can try to keep improving your times/scores.  As I said this was good to get used to the courses and learn the controls, especially since the loops can be a bit tricky to control at first (more on that later), but that’s about it.  It gets kind of old quickly and it is made obvious that the multiplayer was the focus, as it should be though.  Sadly, I can see many people trying the single player and not really getting into it since they are alone and they won’t even want to bother trying the multiplayer, which is a shame.

The multiplayer really is the bread and butter of this game though.  Sadly, you will not get a chance to try the online in the trial, local is still a possibility.  I urge anyone just doing the trial to do so as it will be so much more fun than the challenge/single player mode.  When racing against a friend it gets much more hectic than just trying to beat your time.  Before each match you pick which power-up you want to use against your opponents.  There is “Spicy Speed” which is a speed burst, “Slow Denali” which slows your opponents down, “Fiji Reverse” which makes your opponents controls backwards, “Matterhorn Bounce” which adds extra bounce to your opponents making it hard for them to keep speed or do tricks, and “Invisible Cyprus” which makes the track invisible.  Every other lap this power up will recharge.  Two players is great, but to really enjoy the game to its full potential you need to play online.  Old Spice Racers supports up to 8 players online.  I was lucky enough to get a session going with the designer, programmers, and some game testers and we had a blast.  It gets very competitive when you start getting a good lead and then power-ups are getting used left and right.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any other sessions on my own as it doesn’t seem there are too many others out there playing online right now.  This seems to be a common issue with Indie games, and with a lot of people potentially turned off by the trial and single player mode this could be a further issue.  Thankfully you can add MonkeyTrapGames to your buddy list and they are online a lot and will gladly play anytime.  I will gladly play anytime as well, but until that community builds you may be looking at just coordinating with other friends.  The developers were also very smart in including 2 players per console while still going online so you and a friend can play and matchup with others online.  The last “mode” is Build-a-Circuit which allows you can make your own circuit of 5 course from any of the 45 in the game.  Thankfully this can be used in both local and online multiplayer.

I mentioned before the tricky loops and that is one of the hot issues with the game at this time.  One of the main parts of many of the courses will be loops that you have to navigate, and hopefully navigate well, to get to the next part of the course, keep your speed, etc.  By default the controls will have you continue to hold the direction you were going before the loop and only change directions once you at the bottom of the loop.  It is a bit confusing at first because you will be upside down and even facing another direction and you need to keep holding the original direction you wanted to go otherwise you will fall.  Most people may want to go into the options and switch to the “Advanced” control settings which have you change directions while on the loops.  I had some trouble getting used to both but eventually got the hang of them and have yet to figure out which I prefer.  I will play further to investigate   Unfortunately I can see this being another issue for people not truly giving the game a chance and another reason that the game is at only 2 1/2 stars from most users on the Xbox. 

A nice design choice though (and another taken from Uniracers) are the colors of the track.  This will let you know if it’s safe, if there’s an upcoming hazard, there is another area/track to jump to, etc.  I was told that there are times that they will mess with you though, and even if you can jump to another area it may or may not be a shortcut.  This leads to some experimentation to find the best path as I mentioned before when practicing in single player.  Knowing what’s coming up is important in figuring out how to race, but it may take a bit of time to remember which color means what.  This aspect is also why the game is only 2 player local and not 4 player, as the smaller screen would not give you as much of a heads up on what is coming up.

Controls are laid out rather simply, especially for those that have played Uniracers before.  The A button jumps, B activates your power, X does a twist (to do a trick for points), and the Left and Right triggers are for roll and flip in those directions.  The right bumper is also what they call “Believable Science"" (B.S.) which basically is just used to hold when you want to prevent your racer from bouncing when hitting the track on a landing.  Finally there is also the “quick flip” function when pressing the Y button which lets the player quickly flip their racer upside down.  I didn’t find myself using this feature but according to the in-game manual “this is helpful to avoid crashing in certain situations or to get to secret areas using B.S.).  When changing controls from beginner to advanced the button layout stays the same, it only refers to how it handles loops.

The graphics are another high point of this release.  The game is 100% 2D hand drawn graphics and they look great.  Not only do the characters have a nice cartoony look to them, but the backgrounds have some nice twisted designs that had me chuckling a bit.

3.5/5 Stars – Sadly an uneventful single player mode may turn off many to what is a great multiplayer game.  Those people being turned off means that not many people are playing online.  If you can get a big group of friends (well, 8 people total anyway) that will be able to play with you then bump that score up to a 4 because it’s a ton of fun.  A great first game from MonkeyTrapGames and I wish them the best of luck in this competition.  Hey, if they win maybe more people will buy the game and that online community can grow   Click here to add it to your download queue and don’t forget to vote.  This game will set you back 240 MS points ($3).

I’ll start with the same thing that everyone seems to say about Demon’s Souls: This game is HARD.  Now, instead of some games being extremely difficult because of things being cheap or bad cameras and cheap deaths, this game just is tough because you have to play a bit more cautious.  One little mistake can kill you, but if you learn from your mistakes you will continue to make progress and really get far in the game.  It is an action/RPG with a 3rd person camera view similar to Dragon Age but with fully real time combat that is sword based (with the option to get a crossbow or bow and arrow).  There are a few different classes to pick from, but as you level up you can change the stats as you see fit if you don’t like a particular weakness of that class.  I chose to play as the Barbarian so I have no magic abilities at all, so I cannot comment on that.  I really feel like I’m missing a big part of the game by doing so and thinking of restarting with another character.

Now I mentioned leveling up and this brings up a major part of the game, Souls.  There are lots of RPGs out there and they almost all deal with gold and XP, but not very many deal with them like in this game.  In Demon’s Souls the souls that you collect after killing someone are BOTH gold and XP.  This means that on top of dealing with the already challenging game difficulty you have to decide if you want to use your souls to buy weapons, armor, or items, or do you want to level up your guy.  This game is very difficult with one little mistake costing you your life and when you die you lose all the souls that you have collected.  You can try to run back to where you died to reclaim those souls but if you die on your quest to get them they will be lost forever and you’re stuck trying to just regain the souls from your last trek.  I truly believe that part of how I have already played over 10 hours is just me just trying to regain souls and losing them forever, as I have barely progressed in the game itself.  I have 1 trophy and it was from killing the first boss, I have yet to get to the 2nd.

The controls in the game are great and not at all a factor into the game’s difficulty.  It plays very similar to the old PC games Rune and Blade of Darkness if anyone out there remembers those.  You move/strafe with the left stick and aim/look around with the right stick with the shoulder buttons setups as your left and right hands.  L1/R1 will be your light/regular attacks (or blocks in the case of shields) and L2/R2 will be the stronger (but slower) attacks/blocks.  The X button is to jump, Square is to use whatever item you have selected (can cycle through with the D-pad), Triangle will switch from holding a sword one handed to two handed, and Circle is to dodge or hold to run.  Whenever using attacks or running you use up stamina which refills over time (slower if you’re in a defensive stance) which adds another bit of difficulty and strategy to the gameplay.

The game does have an online component as well, but it is not something you will be used to.  At first it is just limited to leaving messages for others.  You can’t type whatever you want but there are a bunch of pre-made messages that you can leave in various places to try and help others playing out.  For example you can put “use caution ahead” in an area where an enemy is hiding, or “treasure ahead” in an area that may be somewhat hidden.  Other people playing on the same server as you will see the message left and you can see what they leave as well.  If someone likes something you’ve written they can rate it as such and you will get a bonus in your game as well.  As you progress you will gain items that actually allow you to join other people playing and help them out in their quests.  If you successfully help someone you can bring yourself back to life (most of the game you will be playing as a lost soul) or make the game a bit easier (every time you die the game will actually get harder instead of easier).  I have heard of some people joining another’s game just to kill them and bring themselves back, but have yet to witness it or try myself.  Unfortunately you cannot choose who you play with or even which server you are on so playing with your friends will have to be purely by chance and there is no voice chat support at all.

Finally the graphics are something many people talk about in this game and usually in a positive light, but I will have to respectfully disagree.  While the game doesn’t necessarily have horrible graphics, I don’t think they are all that great either.  They get the job done but there are a lot of times the detail just isn’t there with some textures looking very muddy and times that the game has a weird glow that is due to you being a soul but it washes out the game’s graphics even more.  I’ve seen worse in games so I’m not totally down on them, just I think the system can do so much better and people are wrongfully praising what it does.

In the end I would give the game a solid 4/5 due to having a ton of fun with it despite my lack of progress and the high difficulty.  The game is tough, but you can learn from your mistakes and it feels very rewarding when you finally get through a certain section.  I will not make this an official score yet until I play more.  I do highly recommend it to any action/RPG fan especially if you’re looking for a challenge, but don’t play for a great multiplayer experience.

So we all know the rules of Uno (and if not, click here and here for my reviews which explains it a bit) so what makes Rush different?  Uno Rush is different because now everyone has all their cards showing at the same time and if you can play more than one card, you can.  This leads to you constantly shuffling your hand to be in the best “order” that it can be so that you can get chains of cards being put down and be the first one out.  Cards are played automatically and if you do not have a card that can be played at the end of your hand in time for it to move on, you will draw a card.  Confused?  Expect to feel that way for at least your first few games, but once you learn the way the game really works you will be hooked, guaranteed.  Also, now that it’s based on having the right order there is a new card that is the “Shuffle” card which shuffles the next person’s hand randomly.

You may have also noticed that I said in the last paragraph that everyone’s hand is showing.  This makes it very different from regular Uno in which you don’t know what cards someone has and you have to plan a strategy around that.  This simple fact changes the game completely because it will change how you rearrange your hand when it is not your turn and since it is part of the game to begin with it doesn’t feel like cheating like with the PS3 version of Uno.  This also means that unlike the XBLA version of Uno, you can play it 4 player all local on the same console (but it does still support online play).

There are all kinds of variations to play as well such as partner and elimination modes, plus changing the amount of points needed to win, if you have to call Uno, and more.  This leads to a lot of variety in a game that is already very addictive with local and online play (and any mixture of a number of players per console when playing online).  People that do not normally play video games have been shown this game at my place and they have all loved it after those initial first few confusing rounds.

So in the end I’d say that this is very much worth the 800 MS Points ($10) that they ask for since it truly feels like a whole new game and not just a new mode, although I don’t think anyone would have complained had it been released as a $5 add-on for Uno.  This does mean that you do not have to buy the original if you do not care (Say you are looking to only play local, which Uno doesn’t let you) and it also allows for better Avatar support in the game (as cosmetic as it may be).  I highly recommend this game to anyone that’s a fan and you can always check out the demo to see if it’s for you.  Click here to go to the official Xbox.com web site and add it to your download queue.

4.5/5 Stars – This is a very addictive card game that wouldn’t really be as easy to play with real cards making it seem less “silly” to purchase a digital version of it.  Lots of fun will be had playing this either local or online making it well worth the 800 MS Points ($10) asking price.  The only downside is the lack of different decks like in the original Uno on XBLA.  PS3 owners are once again missing out.

Before getting into the differences between versions, let’s come down to what they all game in common: the game itself.  As I mentioned this is a side scrolling run and gun shooter like Contra or Metal Slug.  You’re going to run, and shoot, a lot.  A lot of people will say “hey, you’ve played one, you’ve played them all” and while mostly true, there are some nice aspects to this game to set it apart.  The first thing is that the first thing you do before anything else in the game is choose if you want to do Free Shot or Fixed Shot.  The difference is in how you shoot.  With Free Shot you can shoot while moving while Fixed Shot your character stops moving when shooting (but has easier control over aiming).  While it may not seem major, it greatly changes how the game is played and can be seen as another way to add challenge to the game (therefore adding to replay value).  You then pick which gun you want: The rapid “regular” shot, the laser, the homing shot, or the flame shot.  Once you pick a weapon you can then pick which level you’d like to start out with, almost like the Mega Man series.  You can pick from 4 levels, and after you complete those 4 the game is linear, but it’s nice to have a choice at first.

Once the game starts you will see that on top of the usual run, gun, and jump you can also do slide attacks, an air dive attack, a throw, and when doing a half circle “yoga flame” motion with attack you can do an even more powerful slide attack.  Power ups can be collected so you can have two different weapons to choose from or a weapon that combines the two powers.  Trying out all the different combinations to find out what works best for you is part of what made the game so fun to me.

The levels have a nice variety to them as well where you have your standard move left to right, but also some vertical movement (sometimes forced) and other levels that have you ride on mine carts and even a level that’s a space shooter like Gradius.  The variety makes for a nice change of pace to games like this that can usually get a bit repetitive by the end.  There are some cool faux 3D effects used in the game that were quite special to see back during its release on the older Sega Genesis hardware (nothing special at all today, but impressive looking back).  Graphics, music,and sound are top notch for a 16-bit Genesis game and the control is very responsive.   In all, a great game that is perfect for fans of the genre and worthy of all its hype and praise all these years later.

Although this is a top Genesis game it has never been included on any of the Genesis collections including the recently released “Ultimate Sega Genesis Collection.”  It is available on the Wii’s Virtual Console, Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade, as well as the Playstation 3’s PSN downloads.  If you only have a Wii then enjoy the $6 spent getting the game, you will enjoy it and it’s even playable with the regular wiimote without needing to get the classic controller.   Unfortunately though, it’s just like all other Virtual Console releases where it is just a straight up ROM of the game with no extra features.  The XBLA and PSN versions are virtual identical and add online play and leaderboards plus some smoothing effects for the graphics (which I personally don’t like, but they are there for those that care) and is only $5.  Pay less to get more makes it a no brainer.  The online play is a great addition but unfortunately I was never able to get it to work on the PSN version.  I tried many times with multiple friends and it would never connect us, but the XBLA version worked no issues.  The XBLA/PSN versions also have achievements/trophies that are very easy to get for those that care.

4/5 Stars – A classic game re-released at a bargain for $5/6, just a shame the $6 version isn’t as good as the cheaper alternative.  Run and gun at its best, everyone should check it out if they are a fan.

Avatar Rockets is a simple game in many senses of the word.  The graphics are just basic outlined shapes with solid colors and a “sketch” look to it with some minor shading.  The sound is of a rocket engine and some music.  The controls are the right trigger and pressing left and right on the analog stick.  And the goal?  Well, it’s to get as high as you can before running out of fuel.  Despite all this simplicity, this game just “works.”

After you load the game up you can launch right into the game using 1 of 12 premade rockets or you can use the in game “Rocket Paint” mode to create your own rocket design.  After that it’s 3…2…1… BLAST OFF, pull the right trigger for some rocket throttle and start going upward.  It uses the right trigger so you can ease up off of it and not have to go full blast all the time and you’re going to want to do this because the trick to a high score is making sure you do not waste fuel.  As you get to a certain point you will find more fuel to collect in the sky but you have to maneuver around to get them.  It’s a rocket after all so don’t expect to just hit left and you go right do it, you’re going to to be steering with thrust in mind.  It will definitely take a few tries to get used to it, but once you do then you will be playing round after round trying to be more fuel efficient and grabbing all those power ups to get higher and higher.  As you get higher up you will also run into monkeys that will fly at you.  If they latch onto your rocket they will make the controls backwards and therefore harder to hit the fuel power up.  Also, if you miss a fuel power up you have to go back, the next one does not appear until you collect the previous so you can’t just keep going and hope to get the next.  It may not sound like much fun, but this is a leaderboard driven game.

That’s right, I said leaderboards.  Despite this game being an XBLI game, it has online leaderboards which I did not even think was possible.  The game should be commended for this fact alone, especially for a game that’s so score based (When is the last time you played I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES?), but they went multiple steps ahead to keep the game an even better experience.  You see, instead of just having you see your score afterwards and then seeing a leaderboard, you will actually see the name and rank of someone as you are flying by their height in game much like in Trials HD.  You will have an immediately knowledge of beating someone’s score or just how close you were to beating it making you want to play again to try and get passed that score (and the next, and the next…).  This is genius for any game, let alone one that is made in a category of games that never have leaderboards.  If you have friends with the game they have a separate leaderboard for that and you will even have your top friend score always on screen so you have a goal to shoot for.

Not satisfied with just leaderboards the makers of Avatar Rockets also added Xbox Live Party play.  You select whether you would like to do a Best of Five mode where players have 5 attempts to post their highest score, To the Moon where the player with the highest combined score after 5 attempts wins, or 54 Stars mode where the players have unlimited fuel and it’s a race to see who can be the first to collect 54 stars before anyone else.  Once picking a mode you can then choose to find a game or create a private game.  I have not had any success just finding a random game in this, but that is to be expected for something also niche as this, but I was able to coordinate with a friend.  While it supports up to 8 players, we just did the two of us in all 3 modes and had a lot of fun.  You do not see your friend(s) playing, you just do what your goal is while they are doing it and you can see their score on your screen while you play.  If you crash and burn before they are done you will be told to wait and still see their score go up.  Even in this instance you still do not see them playing, just their score.  While fun for a short time, I found that the game’s strong point was to just play single player and shoot for a higher score, and I’m sure others feel the same way and that is why you’ll never really find anyone to play online.

The music in the game is rather well done too.  It’s a piano driven rock song that is high quality and not repetitive enough to get annoying which is good since you’ll be hearing it a lot while playing over and over.  Sure it may get to you after a while, but you can always just throw another tune on from your hard drive or network.  Considering the small file size it’s more than other games give.  The graphics as I mentioned before are a sketch style and it works great for the game.  Your Avatar is in fact piloting the ship, but most of the time you’ll barely see him or her since they are so small and it’s really not much of a factor, but as I said, I’m sure it gained more curiosity downloads that way.

3.5/5 Stars – A simple and fun Indie game with some features not found in other indie games that will keep you playing round after round, if even only in short bursts.  Only 80 points ($1) so a great value and highly recommended.  Click here to go to the official Xbox.com page for it and add it to your download queue.

Launched in June of ‘02, Sony put out a new music game called Frequency that they felt would be popular due to the popularity of the DDR franchise.  While they were wrong about its popularity, the game did spawn a sequel (the also unsuccessful Amplitude) and got Harmonix out there and working.  The game itself is great, I just think that it was ahead of its time.

While the game is more of the electronic/dance genre than rock, I still had a lot of fun with it due to the unique gameplay.  You will see the track with gems that need to be hit much like with their later Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, but this time it is just one track whether it’s guitar, bass, drums, synth, etc.  So you will play a section of a song and once you do it without missing a note that section will be “cleared” and you will then use the D-Pad to switch to another track.  You hit the notes with either Square or L1 for the left note, Triangle or R1 for the center note, and Circle or R2 for the right note.  It may seem simplified for what we are used to by only being 3 possible “notes” but they come at you fast and you will have to switch tracks constantly throughout a run so you’ll be happy with the lesser notes.  Once you get through all the sections of a song and clear a certain percentage, you will complete the song.  It sounds more complicated than it is and you will get the hang of it after a couple play-throughs.If all of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because Harmonix went ahead and tweaked this a bit to make their PSP game Rock Band Unplugged.  The reviews are great on that game just as the reviews for Frequency were, but I have a feeling that Rock Band Unplugged will do better even with it being on the PSP.

The game is setup like Guitar Hero was in terms of progression where you will have to complete a certain number of songs in a group before moving onto the next.  You can play them in any order within that group except for the last song which can only be played once you’ve completed all the previous songs.  There are also multiple difficulty levels to complete.  You will always have just 3 notes to work with no matter what difficulty but you will be dealing with more complex patters and more notes total when playing on the harder difficulty levels.

On top of the single player experience which will definitely keep you busy for a while (you can always go back and try to beat high scores) there is a multiplayer component as well.  You can play up to 4 player (using split screen) with everyone either competing against each other (complete with the ability to pick up power-ups and items to mess with your opponent) or to work together to create a remix of a song.  This was something that I would have loved to have played more of, but just could never find enough friends that could enjoy it at the time it came out.  Now that people play music games more they seem interested and they check it out, but still want to get back to a game that has them use a fake plastic instrument instead of the regular controller.  When the Playstation Network Adaptor was released for the PS2 it included a demo of this game that had online play and could let you swap in the full game disc to play the other songs online, but I am unsure if those servers are still up to this day.  I used to play online a lot but when I sold my PS2 to get my PS3 I did not keep the disc to try.

The graphics to the game consist of the tracks and notes with trippy background animations going on.  As you progress through the game you will also unlock more of these backgrounds which was cool, although pointless since you’re going to be paying attention to the actual game anyway.  The sounds are all going to go along with the music which is of high quality and great to play through a good sound system.

This game is easy to find and dirt cheap now.  If you have interest in music games that don’t involve specialty controllers I highly recommend you check it out.  You will definitely get your money’s worth in the end.

4/5 Stars – The beginning of a music game company’s dynasty.  Great to see where they started and what ideas spawned from this game.  Can still be played with 4 people so if you can get your friends to play too you’re still having a music party.

The TMNT arcade game holds many records in terms of money made by an arcade game and it’s easy to see why.  What you have is a 4 player co-op game (4x the money coming in at once) in the popular (at the time) beat-em-up/brawler genre based on a super popular license.  Add in the fact that the game is actually GOOD and FUN (licensed games makers of today take note) while still having very easy ways to die that make you want to keep pumping quarters in, and you have yourself a hit.

Konami made lots of games like this back in the day including the equally great Simpsons arcade game and one of my all-time favorites X-Men arcade game (the one based on Pryde of the X-Men, not the Capcom fighter).  The gameplay is simple: move from left to right (with the faux 3D ability of moving up and down as well) with two buttons – attack and jump.  You can do limited combos by repeatedly pressing the attack button plus you can do jumping attacks and if you hit both buttons at the same time you do your special (Although that will use up a bit of your health).  Arcade games needed to be simple enough to be able to pick up and play with minimal instruction, but not too basic that it wasn’t fun to play.  While this style is not as engaging as it was back in 1989 with some people looking for more depth, it’s a great way to go through a game with some friends that you can beat in 25 minutes.

The graphics are bright and detailed for a game from the late 80s and match the cartoon very well.  The sound is also great because it uses the voice actors from the animated series as well.  They did a great job mimicking the style of the cartoon series and even have a story that plays out like an episode where April is kidnapped and you’re trying to save her.  The XBLA version retains these graphics and sounds just as they were in 1989 and even keeps the game 4×3 with some borders on the sides for those of you allergic to black bars on your TV screen.  They also added some online co-op for up to 4 players with any combination of plays and consoles (ie, 2 on one console+1 on two other systems or whatever the case may be) and with this being such a well selling game you can still expect to find people playing this game online to this day.  Since co-op is the way to go with this game, this is a great addition and it’s great to hear that people still enjoy it.

While this may not be enough for everyone to warrant a purchase, for those that loved the original and still dig these kinds of games it is a great deal at only 400 MS points ($5) and I highly recommend it.  I was hoping that Turtles in Time would get the same treatment, but instead we got the strange remake, so old-school purists will especially appreciate this.  Click here to go to the official Xbox.com listing and add it to your download queue.

4/5 Stars – I still have a blast loading this game up every few week and doing a runthrough with friends trying to beat our high scores and get the rest of the achievements.  This is one of the best selling XBLA games of all time with good reason and you will still find plenty of people playing online if you don’t have friends interested.  Kudos to Konami and Ubisoft for coming up with an agreement to get this game out and at a great price.