If you are not old enough to remember those games then you are both lucky and unlucky.  You see, people were so amazed by a game having realistic video vs. cartoony hand drawn sprites that they would play these “games” that were barely interactive.  I know I was included in this group, I loved them, but I really couldn’t tell you why.  Bloody Death reminded me of why I did.  While it may not be very interactive, the acting is so piss poor it’s like getting a choose your own adventure made-for-SyFy movie.  If you enjoy watching crappy movies and laughing at them you owe it to yourself to check this out, but don’t expect a good game.

So the story is that of a killer on the loose that is going after a particular girl after she escaped from him 3 years prior (you will get that “backstory” in the game’s first chapter which acts as the tutorial).  Why was she chased 3 years ago?  Who knows.  What you will get is a killer trying to kill this girl and her friends and it is your job as the “player” to try and do a series of QTEs to stop him.  There are three kinds of QTEs in this game: hit the correct button in time (it shows on screen), mash the on screen button repeatedly until it says “Success,” and hit the series of buttons that show up on screen.  Do them correctly and you move the story ahead as you survive a bit longer until you hopefully get through until the end.   Fail and you die.  That is as far as the game goes to be interactive and there are definitely times where you could be sitting for 5 minutes just watching without ever having to press a single button.

Ok, I can’t take it anymore, I have to tell you why this game is even more awesome to sit back and watch and laugh at with friends.  English is clearly not the first language of those “Acting” in this movie.  You will end up having to replay the game a few times to hear the dialogue as you will be laughing too hard to hear most of it.  If you are like my friends and I, you will be quoting it for days as well.  You can even see that they provide really poor screen shots (Seen in this review) to try and promote this game.  At the bottom watch the trailer and you will sort of see what the game is like in motion but you owe it to yourself to try the trial version and hear the dialogue.

The screen is setup with a smaller “window” that is the video footage with the chapter number up top and then who is alive and who is dead on the right hand side.  I have found that there is one guy who you cannot save no matter what, but there are other times that someone can die and you can still go on.  Oh, sorry, did I just post a semi-spoiler?  Yeah, i don’t think it will matter since you aren’t really playing/watching this game for the story.  The game also has a “Warning” of gore and nudity.  Just so you know, you will see blood, but there is no nudity so I’m sure that was just to get more people to try and download it.

So with FMV games the issue was always replay value – or lack thereof, and this game continues that “tradition.”  You could obviously try to fail at the various points to see what the death scenes are, and try to see what will happen if you let one person die and then continue through the rest of the game, but that is about it.  The game is finished in about 20 minutes and really you will only play through again to laugh with your friends, but don’t expect branching paths and multiple endings outside of the “good” ending and then the “Game Over” ending.

4/5 Stars – Yes this is a very high score, but that is because I was literally in tears laughing so hard at this game making it well worth the $3 that was asked for it.  This is horrible game and would make a horrible movie, but damn if my friends and I were not entertained while we played it.  If you are like minded I cannot stress enough how you need to see this, but if you cannot find the humor in it then I say to stay FAR FAR AWAY.  Click here for the official Xbox.com listing and to add it to your download queue.

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?

Without giving too much away in Alan Wake, the basic idea of the story is that you are a famous writer named Alan Wake that is suffering from writer’s block and goes away on vacation with his wife.  After they have a fight when she tries to get him to write on their vacation some strange things start happening, she falls into the water and you black out.  When you wake up you realize that a full week has passed and you remember nothing of it despite finding a manuscript for a novel you don’t remember writing that week.  Things written in the manuscript start coming true and you have to try and find out what happened and save your wife.  The game takes on a very Twilight Zone/Twin Peaks/Silent Hill vibe from that point on and you even watch episodes of a TV show in the game that are like a Twilight Zone episode.  It is setup in episodes and even runs credits at the end and the next episode starts with a “previously on…” bit which is a nice touch.

Narration aside the game plays very similar to a Silent Hill game in the sense that it’s a 3rd person game with exploration being more of the focus than combat.  Shattered Memories had a flashlight as a main part of the gameplay as does Alan Wake.  Everything wrong going on in Alan Wake is caused by “The Darkness” and it will possess people and make them come after you.  To defeat those trying to kill you a flashlight is your beginning weapon by shining light on them to “remove” the darkness.  Once The Darkness is removed you may then shoot them with whatever weapon you have.

Sadly, that is pretty much all there is to the game as there is little variety in enemies and you’re just killing things while you’re trying to get to the next safe area that is filled with light.  You get from point A to point B will this very repetitive combat seeming to just be there to slow you down instead of build any kind of suspense.  The aiming has no crosshair or reticule, it’s just wherever your flashlight is shining, which is a nice change and creative, but not the most accurate.  The view is also off to the side a bit which those playing Red Dead Redemption, GRAW, etc will be familiar with but it was the opposite of what I would have preferred it to be.  This can be switched by clicking in the right analog stick but I found that it constantly would go back to the original orientation and I had to constantly switch it throughout playing which was very annoying.  For those that like your character more on the right side of the screen than the left you will be fine.  Running is another issue with the game as Wake runs like he’s an asthmatic without an inhaler.  I understand the man is a writer by trade and not a professional athlete, but when you run from one room in a house to another you should not be winded.  I know if I were being chased and my life depended on it I wouldn’t stop running to take a breather after running about 10 feet.  Most reviews mention the outdated models in the game so I guess I can throw that in there as well.  My last gripe is that there are the usual fetch quest/scavenger hunt type achievements/missions that are obviously there just to pad the game time and add nothing to the game whatsoever in the form of looking for COFFEE THERMOSES.  That’s right, coffee.  WTF.

So what you end up with is a game that had a semi-decent story that would be better off as just a movie or mini-series and not so much a game because it just gets boring quickly.  I found that playing the game one episode at a time was definitely the way to go – marathon sessions of the game will definitely prove to be even more annoying due to all the “sameness” the game has.  There are 6 episodes total with most beaten in an hour to an hour and a half including time looking around to find the darn coffee.  The ending leaves it open for the DLC that will be coming in a few weeks which thankfully is free to those that bought it new, but those buying used may feel a bit ripped off.  I am aware this game is getting lots of praise, and I was ready to praise it myself after playing the first episode or two, but once I realized that it felt like a game that needed some more development time (and let’s face it, it had plenty so there’s no excuse for that) I was ready to question why all the love for this game.  I really wanted to like this game, and the story kept me playing, but just barely.  Even with the DLC costing extra I say to hold off and wait for it to drop in price if you really are interested in the story, but don’t expect great gameplay to keep you glued.  Another disappointing Microsoft exclusive.

3/5 Stars – Felt like it wasn’t finished, yet took years to make.  Fighting the same enemies over and over while wandering around areas that could be breezed through if you avoid stupid scavenger hunt achievements.  I’m going to play Silent Hill now.

Polaris Game Studios aka Luis Gomez (he did pretty much everything) have set out to make a 2 player co-op game that pits you in the control of a submarine off the coast of Antarctica in 1945 looking for oil.  The story is told by word bubbles coming from your “radio”  and this is also how it handles the tutorials.  When starting a game it asks if you want to play Slightly Weird, Weird, Insane, or Insanely Weird.  I’m guessing this is difficulty, but I hadn’t seen too much of a different in the few times I tried mixing it up a bit.  What I did find was an enjoyable game though.

The right stick is used to move your searchlight.  The light “travels in a special electromagnetic frequency, this will allow you to detect things that might not be visible under normal light.”  What this means it that your time will be spent looking for artifacts and as long as it’s visible the sub will pick it up and absorb it.  The trick is that you aren’t just wandering around underwater in dark areas looking for artifacts, but you’re also trying to survive as various creatures start to appear in large numbers and come  after you.  You have a saw on your ship for close range combat that is activated by the X button as well as torpedoes that you can charge up and shoot by holding the right trigger.  The tutorial did not mention these torpedoes, but they are key to know as the enemies will start coming in larger and larger groups and can drain health rather quickly.  Another challenge is if you use up too much energy you might shut down.  Also the Left trigger is a boost, but boost too much and overheat. All of this is piled onto the fact that you have to find your way out before you run out of air.  You can also find artifacts for air, health, temporary power, and an upgrade.  In case of emergency you can press and hold Y to convert health to air, but I think it would have been nice to be able to convert air to health too.

The graphics in this game have a great cartoony style to it that some aspects are almost like castle crashers.  There are also some cool water effects and nice parallax scrolling, but no animation of your sub other than some blinking lights.  I only mention that because sometimes things feel a bit odd just moving a sprite around with nothing really animating.  A very minor issue though as for the most part you will be spending your time searching for keys and artifacts or just plain trying to stay alive.  The Shadows in the Underworld finishes up the package with nice eerie music that fit the mood perfectly and nice crisp sound effects.  The music is sometimes a bit too short though and loops too soon, but one may be hard pressed to really notice until they leave the game paused for an extended period of time to write a review for it.

3.5/5 Stars – A solid two player co-op game that deals with exploration, survival, and killing things all for the low price of 80 MS Points ($1).  While a little slow going at times, it picks up and can be a lot of fun, and you can’t beat the price.  Click here to add it to your download queue.

For those that aren’t familiar, N+ was a puzzle/platform game where the puzzles came in the form of “how the heck do I get to the exit without dying?”  It had simple graphics and tight controls and even allowed for trying for better time and score in each level.  Experiment 12 came to Xbox Live Indie Games and played almost identical.  What Silver Dollar Games has decided to do instead is make something more like the jump/duck game from Fuzion Frenzy.  Your character automatically moves forward and your control comes in the form of you timing your jumps/vaulting and ducking to make it through the obstacles in a level.  You are chasing another “freerunner” and if you get through all the obstacles in the level you catch him.  Move onto next level, it will get slightly harder or add a new element, repeat.  What kind of obstacles you ask?  Well besides objects/pits to jump over and duck sometimes the ground will fall away or build up and will happen right in front of you so you don’t see until the last second that you need to jump or duck. The A button is to jump or vault and the B button is to duck.  That is it.  Oh and you get unlimited lives too so it’s just keep playing until you get bored or finish.  I can’t tell you how many levels there are because, well, I got bored after only a few levels.

The graphics are rather simplistic too, which is another reason I thought it would be like N+ (N+ using stick figures for graphics).  Both you and the freerunner you are chasing are just dark silhouettes running through levels that consist of basic blocks to make up the obstacles and a basic building graphic looped in the background to be the “city.”   The sound is just the generic electronic/rock music looped over and over, some bad “footstep” sound effects that sound like someone hitting a mic, and the same bad voice clips you will hear over and over.  What are the voices talking about?  Well, you see, there is actually a story behind all this.  The guy you are chasing is the brother of the girl you want to go out with.  I guess him running away from you means you can’t date her, so you have to catch him.  Um, yeah.  So anyway, the voices are the girl doing the tutorial or “don’t let my brother beat you” if you lose, or the brother taunting you.

2/5 Stars – At first I wanted to like it and think that its simplicity could lead to addictive gameplay that would make you want to say “one more level, one more level” and trying to beat your personal best, but sadly that was not the case.  At first you want to beat the challenges and improve your timing, but then you just realize that something like N+ that requires more skill is just more gratifying.  I’d say pass but click here to go to the official Xbox.com page and add it to your queue.  Your masochism will set you back 80 MS Points ($1)

For those that don’t know (Which means you are too young, because if you lived through it, you’d know it!) Contra was an arcade game made by Konami in 1987.  As with most arcade hits, Contra was released to various platforms for home gaming including the NES.  This is where the game found even more fame and became the classic that it is today.  It is a 2D side-scrolling run-n-gun game.  It has some platform elements (ie, you have to be able to make jumps to avoid death) but you’re mostly shooting at enemies all around you that become more and more difficult.  Along the way you can pick up power-ups in the forms of different kinds you can use such as a machine gun, laser, and the infamous “spreader.”  The challenge comes in the fact that one hit and you’re dead.  You do not have a shield or armor, you do not have a life bar.  You are hit, you die, and you only have 3 lives per continue. 

Now this was done back in the days of arcades where if you can make people die frequently then they will keep pumping in more quarters to keep playing, but over 20 years later games are very different and people may not be used to that.  Games now have life bars and/or regenerating health, save points, unlimited continues, etc.  Back in 1987 the only way to have unlimited continues was to have unlimited quarters in your pocket.  The NES version had the Konami code as I mentioned before to 30 lives, and the game was still a challenge.  Now with the XBLA release you have a set number of lives (3, as I said, no codes) and a set number of continues to try and still keep it a challenge since you are not paying quarters this time around.  This makes the game still quite a challenge today, although sometimes a bit too much if you aren’t used to these older style games.  I grew up playing them, so it was great to play again.  Even better is the fact that you can play 2 player co-op with a friend to try and beat it together (and no stealing lives in this version!).

There is also an option for an Xbox Live Game, but don’t expect to ever really use that option.  When the game was first released on XBLA it was slammed in many reviews for the online play being broken.  If you even connected at all you usually would have lag or even have it so that people would be seeing two different things happening in the game.  Your friend would be playing just fine but on your screen it looks like they were jumping around like idiots.  It was later on patched but the damage was done and no one was trying to play online anymore.  It’s been a few years and it is totally dead now and I did not have anyone else to try it with to see how it would run, but I do remember still having lag issues after the patch was released.  If getting this game for a fun co-op experience, expect to really do it local only.

A nice new feature with the XBLA version is the addition of leaderboards.  I have been a fan of these in games lately since we no longer have arcades to go to and try to beat scores, and also because now we can see how we compare to those around the world.  This version also has the usual 200 points worth of achievements to earn that have various requirement such as beating certain areas in a certain amount of time, getting a certain number of points co-op, beating the game with only 1 credit, and more.  I don’t even have half of them and it will be quite sometime before I get them so that is keeping me playing for some time still as well on top of the usual “just plain fun to play” style of game it is.  There is an option to play with the original arcade graphics or to play “enhanced” graphics which is basically just a smoothing filter.  The smoothing is ok, basically what you see with a lot of these XBLA arcade ports and the SEGA Classics.

4/5 Stars – This is a classic game that is still just as fun and challenging as it was back in 1987.  For only 400 MS points ($5) you will get to play without needing a pocketful of quarters and with friends on your couch or (maybe) online.  Well worth the money.  Click here to go to the official Xbox.com listing and add it to your download queue.

So it’s the future.  The year is 1999… wait, what?  Yeah, gotta love that stuff.  Anyway, you’re on a game show where you have you fight through enemies to collect your cash and prizes.  As I said, it’s a twin stick shooter with the left stick controlling where you move and the right stick aiming.  Now since this is from the early 90s it is digital control so your movement speed is always the same and you can only aim in 8 directions, but you’ll do just fine.  Run around, shoot, dodge bullets and enemies, pick up prizes.  Rinse, wash, and repeat.  The odd sense of humor helps the game out and the ability to pick different paths to take makes it slightly less repetitive.  There are also powerups you can collect such as shields and various weapons to use.  After going through a few sections you will then fight a boss, then move onto the next area.

Where this game really shines though is playing some 2 player co-op.  You and a friend can work together to try and compete in this game show and work together to take the enemies down.  The game is tough single player, and doesn’t get much easier playing 2 player, but it’s just more fun when someone is there to back you up.  This is where the XBLA version will shine over the Midway Arcade Treasures since it has Xbox Live online play.  Sadly this is a benefit to those who have already purchased it since it is no longer available for purchase.  If you get the Midway Arcade Treasures you can still enjoy co-op, but local play only.  The XBLA version also has slightly smoothed out graphics for HDTVs, but nothing major.

There isn’t much more to say about this game.  It’s an older game so may not be as “pretty” as games like Geometry Wars or or Super Stardust HD, but the gameplay is still there.  Online play is nice, but only for those that already knew how enjoyable this game was.  If you get the Midway Arcade Treasures edition you can get it for not much more than the XBLA version was and get 19 other games, so it is a better value overall.  Grab a friend and enjoy.  The XBLA version also has online leaderboards which are obviously not available in the Midway Arcade Treasures.  The PS2 version is playable on PS3’s with PS2 support so PS3 owners can enjoy, and Wii owners can play the GameCube collection.  Unfortunately the Xbox version is not backwards compatible on the Xbox 360.

3.5/5 Stars – Another shame to be missing on XBLA, but hopefully WB or whoever holds the rights now will re-release it in the future.  It was one of the first XBLA games (it was there on launch day) so it is not super polished in presentation, but what more did you want from Smash TV without it being a full remake or sequel?  The collection is perfection emulated if you go that route and is exactly the same on Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube.  Old school twin-stick at its finest.

Quick history lesson: Root Beer Tapper started as Tapper with a sponsorship by Budweiser and was placed in bars to get drunk people to sink lots of money into.  The arcade cabinet had a “beer tap” type controller plus the joystick.  While this was great, Midway wanted to make more money and therefore made a “kid friendly” version that was just “Root Beer” instead of Bud and put that in arcades.  Why do I mention this?  Because outside of hunting down an old arcade machine or downloading illegal ROMs, you will never see Tapper again, but always “Root Beer Tapper.”  Midway wants to keep it safe for kiddies still (and I’m sure that the Bud license had long expired).  Does this matter for gameplay? Nope, but hey, I have to fill some space.

The game itself is simple, you are a bartender that has to deal with his customers.  You have to fill the glass up all the way and then sling it down the bar to the customers.  The challenge comes in the fact that as the customers are waiting they walk closer and closer to the end of the bar, if they get there they will toss you down and you lose a “life.”  Also, after they drink they will send the glass back down to you.  If you don’t catch it, it breaks and again you lose a life.  Finally the last way to lose in this game is if you send a glass down with no one to catch it, it will break and spill.  As the game progresses you have to handle more and more customers that come at a faster rate and more bars that you have to hop between.  The only “power up” to speak of is you can collect tips which you use to make dancers appear that distract customers to help you catch your breath.  This is a gameplay style that has had a recent resurgence with the casual game series Diner Dash, as well as it’s spin offs and other games like it.  There is a reason they copied the gameplay: It’s still addictive to this day.  I first played this game back on the Commadore 64 and played it on Midway Arcade Treasures and XBLA and I will still come back again and again to try to do better and beat high scores.  It’s simple and fun and if you like Diner Dash I would strongly suggest you see where it all began.

The graphics and sound are typical of the time (that is, simplistic, but oh well, the gameplay is great).  If you play on Midway Arcade Treasures it will be a straight port of the arcade game while the XBLA version will have slightly enhanced graphics that look a bit better on an HDTV.  Some other differences between the versions are that Midway Arcade Treasures only has local leaderboards (the Xbox version has Xbox Live leaderboards but those will be shut down come April) while the XBLA version has online leaderboards as well as local.  The Midway Arcade Treasures is local play only while the XBLA version has online play over Xbox Live.  Other than that it is still the same game those that remember it love.  Unfortunately due to Midway going out of business it has been pulled from XBLA so if you did not purchase it you are out of luck for now (unless some new rights holder decides to publish it again) so you will have to stick with the Midway Arcade Treasures edition which is the same no matter whether you get it for PS2, Xbox, or GameCube.  Now since the controllers of today do not have a “tap” like in the arcades it is merely holding a button and letting go, and it works just as well.  The PS2 version will obviously play in PS3s with PS2 support as well as the Gamecube version working on the Wii, but unfortunately the Xbox version will not play in an Xbox 360.

4/5 Stars – A classic game that is just as addictive now as it was when it came out.  Sad to see the XBLA no longer be available (if you’ve already purchased it then you’re safe and can keep playing) but at least if you missed out you can still get a great collection with 19 other games.