Crystal Defenders is a new release for the PS3 and Xbox 360. While it has the same base name as the Wii version it is a little different. For example they took away any and all of the story element from the game (not that it had much in the Wii version.) And it is mostly about difficulty selection. Even the monsters you fight level to level are the same most of the time.

The challenge of this game is all in map set-up, the re-balanced price of units, and how effective they are. To be perfectly honest, they made the game both a lot simpler and a lot harder. They do have strategy demos, though, so you can copy some professional strategies that quickly make you a much better player, ramping you up to the challenge, but it is still tough.

At first I felt overwhelmed by how much more challenging it was, but with some persistence you’ll learn it isn’t impossible. Even if some of the levels make all of your units useless, there is always a way. It technically contains 3 games (W1, W2, and W3) each one more of a challenge then the last. It doesn’t run as smooth as the Wii release, but you get used to the way it runs after giving it a chance.

Summing it all up, if you are looking for a light tower defense game that barely gets hard, I would buy R1 and R2. If you want to really concentrate and have a real challenge, you can’t beat the price of Crystal Defenders on the PS3, and Xbox 360, because you are actually getting 3 different difficulty settings for one price, and its quite fun, even if you just want to casually beat it without trying for the high scores.

What I like about both releases is that you can play for twenty minutes a week and eventually beat them, I think these are all good buys.

And even if I’m wrong, you’ve only wasted like ten bucks.

Managers Conference Inside report day 1

An inside friend at the Gamestop Managers conference 2009 has sent me an email with a load of information regarding the gaming industries hot and heavy titles and a quick coverage of everything they have experienced thus far.

HALO 3 ODST

Bungies long-awaited shooter was available for play, and for any Halo fan they will not be dissapointed, for anyone looking to see the series be revitalized and explode into a new frontier for the Halo genre, they will be. It’s a touched up Halo 3. The Firefight mode, sporting an impressive four player coop showed off a large amount of new weapons unnamed to us, and a great amount of cool units. Brutes with jet packs jumping obstacles, the shield runners moving in a Phalanx formation, and the snipers were DEADLY accurate, the game definitely requires more skill to hold up against the covenant waves then its predecessor.

Over-all I give the game an 8 from the experience, the visuals were good, gameplay flowed

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
All you marvel kids hold onto your hats, the game looks better than the first iteration of the series, and the character list is fantastic, the playable demo allowed control of Storm, Spider-man, The Human Torch, and the Cap, provided you pick the “rebellious side”, leading you to then battle and unlock a re-tooled dead-pool. If you pick the side of the pro-enlistment group you are given Iron Man, The Hulk, The Thing, and Wolverine. I assume the sides twist and writhe as you progress the story, and the twists take effect. SPOILER ALERT!! Upon further questioning of the Activision staff, tho the game is based upon and follows the civil war comic series, Captain America does not surrender as he does in the series, and he will not be killed. The only answers beyond that we could get is, “You will not see this ending coming.”

Marvel’s preview rating 7.5 for gameplay, and an 8 for story.

Forza Motor Sports 3

A great simulation racer for anyone who wants to drive the cars they’ll never own at incredible speeds through gorgeous scenery. The game looked and felt great. The one button driving for idiots like me made it super simple to just dive into the game and tear up the tracks. I also really liked the rewind feature, where simply pressing the back button will rewind to a check point about 15 yards back so that you can retake a turn you messed up, or avoid an accident you may have caused. And with stronger car customization support. This game will definitely out do Forza 2 by leaps and bounds.

Rating 9

Split Second

I don’t do racers, I dont even pretend to understand cars, and damn this game caught my eye. The HUD is all on the back of the car, your drift time, speed, gear, all cleanly integrated into the vehicle. The world is very well designed and looked gorgeous, and to keep the destruction junkies like myself interested you earn power plays. When you trigger the events, literally changing the entire track, whether you destroy the airports control tower, bring a plane crashing into the track, or roll a semi across the lanes to clear out the other racers, this game brings what I felt was the next step for Burnout-style destruction racing.
Reserving this game at GameStop will get you a limited edition die-cast car, and the code to download it in game when it releases.

Preview rating for Split Second 8.5

Modnation Racing

PS3 owners if you haven’t read up on this, do it! Fully customizeable worlds in the spirit of LBP, make your character look how you want, make your kart look how you want, unlock new items, pieces, clothing weapons by winning races. And in the loving theme of the play/create/share gaming an amazingly fluid track creator. Everything renders instantly in HD, you control lighting effects, path interruptions, ramps, weapons drops (mario kart much?). This game will be a must have for any gamer, the kart racing element was hilarious and the multiplayer aspects were genius.

The PSP Go

The system is sleek, shiny and launching October first with Gran Turismo five right on its heels, a good buy for any digital media focused gamer. The usual concerns come up with no UMD slot being present, and Sony did not comment on any plans to make the UMDs you may already own rippable. The 16 gig built in memory, and the expandable pro duo micro slot makes it a great value for those of us who hate carrying game carts/discs around.

COOL facts you may not have known
The PSP Go can sync with almost every blu-tooth device making your ps3 wireless headset a useable gaming piece for your go. Also most games will be developed in support of the DualShock 3 controller, which can also sync with your psp-go to control the games. The video output will still be built in so you can use your PSP Component cables to connect your go to your tv, sync your DualShock 3 and play PSP on your tv, not a bad deal at all. It will still support all other PSP features, and be sold along side the current PSP 3000.

Gran Turismo PSP

39.99 800 cars, 35 tracks, solid graphics great racing. This is a great psp title available October 1st.

Ghost Busters for the PSP
on NOV 3, 2009 the game will launch for PSP, AND, all other versions of Ghost Busters will see a price drop to coincide with the launch.

DJ HERO
was fanastic, rhythm game enthusiasts will love it, and enthusiasts of DJing will find it to be a fantastic translation of their art into a game. great mixes and a huge lineup of 100 songs. Buy this game

It will retail for 39.99 and ship very soon this holiday season, the graphics are re touched, and the game looks fantastic!!  Both redone games for 40 bucks? Hells yeah.

More info to come as the week rages on! Comment with any questions and I’ll get answers as fast as possible.

Just in case you needed more of a reason to check this game out:

Official Press Release from Warner Bros.:

Today the highly anticipated Batman: Arkham Asylum game has been awarded a Guinness World Record for the ‘Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever’.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has been given top scores across the board from National newspapers and specialist game reviewers. The game has broken the Guinness World Record in this category by achieving the highest average score of 91.67 from reviews around the world.*

Developed by Rocksteady Studios and based on DC Comics’ Batman license, Batman: Arkham Asylum offers players diverse gameplay that pushes the envelope for action, adventure and superhero games and exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure taking them to the depths of Arkham Asylum.

Gaz Deaves from Guinness World Records states, “We are so pleased to be awarding Batman: Arkham Asylum a Guinness World Record. It is a fantastic new game and due to the reaction of gaming experts we believe it has a well deserved place in the Guinness World Records book.”

In Batman: Arkham Asylum, BATMAN finds himself trapped inside the confines of Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, ARKHAM ASYLUM. THE JOKER has set a trap for the DARK KNIGHT and has conspired with the deranged inmates to eliminate BATMAN once and for all. Adding to the authenticity of the game are veteran animated Batman voice talents Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, who reprise their roles as The Joker and Batman respectively.

Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story by Paul Dini, Batman writer and five-time Emmy Award winner whose credits include Lost and Batman: The Animated Series. Gamers will move in the shadows, instill fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious villains, including HARLEY QUINN, BANE, KILLER CROC, POISON IVY and SCARECROW, who have taken over the asylum.

Batman: Arkham Asylum, co-published in North America by Eidos Inc. and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, is rated “T” for Teen and is available for PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360 for the suggested retail price of $59.99. It will also be available for Games for Windows LIVE at retail outlets for the suggested retail price of $49.99 on September 15, 2009. For more information, please visit www.batmanarkhamasylum.com.

For those of you that beat this game, you got one of two endings. Either you died and inspired the rebellion, or you killed Vader and took his place with the Emperor. These expansions will follow the latter of those two endings. You can download the Tatooine Expansion now.

This awesome Mario themed cake is brought to you by Femmebot3000. Kill-tacular-tron’s wife and one hell of a baker. Trust me on this one folks, she doesn’t just make awesome looking food, she also makes awesome tasting food.

[nggallery id=mario]

I’m not even really sure how to begin this game’s review.  It opens into a dark, beautiful, hi-resolution world that I didn’t believe Eidos could provide.    As you escort the captured Joker into Arkham Asylum after capturing him during one of his evil plots you are treated to the opening credits, and are allowed to soak in the gorgeous environments they’ve built for you.  The voice-overs are fantastic,  almost every voice actor being the original from the animated series.

Above:Batman teaching the Joker why being lippy is bad

The free-flow combat system is almost perfect, allowing you to switch gracefully between moves, and leap effortlessly from henchman to henchman. A spidey-sense like alert will go off above enemies heads to show you when countering is appropriate, and the higher your combos climb the more impressive your attacks, and achievements become.

The stealth take downs are another beautiful addition, whether sneaking up behind your opponents Splinter Cell style, or descending upon them from a gargoyle overhead, every moment in the game is exciting and feels dramatic. The game of course is full of bat-gadgets galore, and includes EVERY Batman villain I can remember except for Cat Woman, I don’t think she made the cut after her horrible video game.

Above: More henchman feel the batfist

If you’re a gamer, if you like super-heroes, if you like good games, this is your game. It has everything to offer, with a basic learning curve, and a gorgeous environment.
I tip my hat to Batman, and its developement staff
Summary

• graphics 10
• story 10
• controls/gameplay 10
• sound 10
• overall 10

I tried to find something to mark the game down on so that it didn’t clear perfect.. and I couldn’t Game Informer said this game had a shot at game of the year the same way that Bioshock did, and I agree. This game rocks. Go Buy It.

I went to my local Carmike Cinemas to see Quentin Tarentino’s latest opus, Inglourious Basterds, and I must say I was worried going in.  Reviews have been mixed, split right down the middle, but I was determined to see for myself what Tarentino was up to.  He’s easily one of my favorite filmmakers and any new offering from him is a welcome respite from the normal dreck I’m subjected to at the cinema.

Basterds is equal parts Dirty Dozen, Guns of Navarone and, perhaps The Young Lions as well as some French masterpiece about the love of cinema that I’ve never seen but am confident of its existence.   The film  is divided up into chapters that at times can seem disparate from each other, but all tie together nicely by the last couple of chapters of the movie.

The film is gory and fun, well-written and well-acted.  All in all this was a very, very solid entry into Tarentino’s filmography.

One particular aspect of the film that I loved more than most was how Tarentino seemed to pay homage to film projectionists, people who care about film, cinephiles and passionate people willing to battle the Nazi’s for what’s right.  There’s also a bit of a love-letter/history lesson about nitrate film and even the film itself is used in the plot to kill Hitler and his lieutenants.

Which is why it was so disappointing to me that I saw the film in a theatre that was projecting a 35mm print and the projectionists really didn’t seem to care.  From the get-go, the film was blurry at times, the print was scratched in a few key places, there were missplices at the reel changovers, there were missing frames, the credits burned out after 15 seconds and 3/4s of the film was slightly out of frame.  It was so frustrating to watch the film (which I enjoyed very much) run by a group of kids who obviously didn’t care enough about the film to play it properly.  But maybe that’s not fair, maybe Carmike Cinemas is to blame.  I worked as a projectionist for over 10 years and a lot of those were for Carmike Cinemas (I got laid off when they decided that four theatres in one building isn’t enough even though I think it’s two or three too man) and it’s a systemic problem they have.  They make the managers double as projectionists (which I did happily) but they give the management too many screens and things to take care of to truly make the projection top notch.

And as the credits started, the film began to burn, which is a shame, since I love watching credits and doubly so during Quentin Tarentino movies because the music is always so compelling.  (In fact the use of Ennio Morricone in this film made me very, very happy.) I went out in to the lobby to demand a refund for the poor projection and the breaking of the film, but, alas, I saw the last show of the night and the management was stretched so thin that there was literally no representative of the company there to even assuage my anger.

And so here I am, writing this.

If any representative of Carmike Cinemas manages to read this, I would be happy to accept a refund.  And I would also be happy to offer some suggestions to fix the problem.  Namely, hire dedicated projectionists that are cinephiles and actually care about film and make that their ONLY responsibility.  And don’t let them be in charge of more than 5 or 6 projectors at a time.  I know the company has a long history of tripping over dollars to pick up dimes (I saw it everyday as part of management there), but this is something that is too important to worry about the cost.

In the meantime, go find a digital projection version of Inglourious Basterds, or see it at an art house where the projectionists are far more likely to care that the film plays well.

The latest installment of the Nintendo Crystal Chronicle series hit the Wii a few weeks ago, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A Darklord. It offers players a shot at fighting on the wrong side of the law for once. You play as the defeated Darklord’s daughter, Princess Mira. Working her way to fame by defeating renowned heroes. Her aim is, of course, nothing short of world domination.

It has a unique tower defense type game play, where you build floors into a tower, and then place monsters on the floors to stop heroes from getting to the top, where the crystal containing the essence of your father lies.

It introduces five different monster and enemy types, each of them conflicting differently to opposites. So each type has a strength and a weakness. That’s where most of the strategy comes in, especially because heroes can skip floors if they’re already occupied.

The waves come actively, as you build floors (which come in a variety of types) simultaneously while you place monsters. The waves progressively get harder and harder through each assault, and they can also kill your monsters as they advance, or cause hazardous status effects, or even knock down a whole floor at once. On top of all this they have boss stages where they will throw a boss into one of the waves. Just another challenge to look forward to.

The game starts out a little slow, just to introduce you to the system, but it builds quickly, and is very expansive. Far more so than the Crystal Defender games (which are a lot simpler, but easily just as fun.) One of the elements I like about this game is it is a bit more like an RPG, as far as you go on optional side quests and collect different artifacts that power you up.

Even at some of the early stages I had some close calls, where a hero was on the top floor of my tower, but like a lot of tower defense games, the farther you get, the more complicated it gets, but also the more you can annihilate the enemies with ultimate fire power. What sets this one apart is how few chances you get. Death can happen very suddenly.

Unlike most tower defense games I’ve played, this one actually has a story. Although it isn’t very compelling it is pretty funny. It’s also brief enough, that it doesn’t drown out the gameplay in any way.

For 1000 Wii points, it has a lot of playability. It also has some expansions that seem like they might be worth checking out. On the downside, I have never been a fan of paying for additional content, and this game has almost $70 dollars worth of extra stuff you could buy. The nice thing is, you don’t need to, you get a really good game for $10.

To sum it all up. I think the greatest thing this game has going for it is its harder to get bored of a game when you are constantly killing heroes. (Or at least knocking them out of a tall tower.) Even though Mira is a pretty cute little girl, and her right hand man happens to be a stuffed animal named Tonbetty, just having it in the back of your head that everything you’re doing is a step towards deeper darker evil, keeps it sharp and fun.

PS3 Slim $299

The rumors are over as less than an hour ago at Gamescon Expo in Cologne, Germany, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai announced that the PS3 was getting a new model, the PS3 Slim.

The PS3 Slim boasts 120 gigs with a $299 price tag and a urgently needed redesign – sleeker, lighter and more compact than the original George Foreman Grill lookalike that was the original PS3.

Play Station has played second and third fiddle to the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s X-Box 360, largely due to price I would imagine as it’s specs and features like Blu Ray have never been in question.

All indications point to this price cut taking effect immediately for all 80 gig units in stores now to make way for the Slim’s which should begin shipping in early September.

I’m getting one…

(You can order the PlayStation 3 Slim on Amazon by clicking the link.)

From	To

It’s time to walk back to a younger robot, a me that is 8… sitting at grandma’s on her old pc rockin windows 3.1.  I see a button and think,  “What is this Wolfenstein? Should I click it?…. I think I will… ” Moments later (and by moments I mean about 8 minutes, its windows 3.1 for hell’s sake) I’m dragged into a world of Nazi’s, pixelated gore, confusing voice overs, and I love it. I could play Wolfenstein all day long!  And i’m pretty sure at that point I did.  Now lets fast foward to a teenage Zombietron, I’m browsing an independent pc store, and to show off the latest graphics cards.. Return to Castle Wolfenstein.. and at that moment, I wanted my own pc so bad i almost cried.  Let’s fast forward to now. Wolfenstein for xb360, ps3, pc.  I snuck my copy and began playing with enough excitement to make the girlfriend think I’ve lost my mind.  And… well its a shooter. I’m hoping I haven’t let the childhood dreams of the original Wolfenstein cloud  my judgement.  But as I began blasting through waves of Nazi soldiers, I slowly realized that Wolfenstein like most shooters, is simply that, a shooter.  With the nostalgia behind it of course I will always hold it in higher esteem than say..Call of Duty World at War, Jericho, Area 51, but in the simplicity that is Wolfenstein there are some fantastic qualities I greatly enjoyed.  If you shoot a soldier in the neck, blood begins spurting out of his neck,and he tries to stop the bleeding with his hands…. awesome.  The soldiers still seem to yell ridiculous things as you go after them, and sometimes I found my self sadistically shooting them in odd places if only to hear what theyd say or for the reaction.

The free upgrade money I received for getting achievements on WOLF3d from the Xbox Live arcade was well worth it too. In all Wolfenstein is a great shooter, It’s not a life-changer, or a miracle-maker.  But its a solid title for any shooter enthusiast.

Summary

• Graphics/Visuals 8/10
• Replay –    6/10
• Sound/ – 7/10
• Nostalgic Value and throwbacks – 10/10
• Keep my gaming ADD under wraps – 5/10
• Overall Review 7/10

PICK UP WOLF