Reviews

Shao-lin’s Road is a great-looking and sounding platforming beat ’em up that is considered the sequel to Yie Ar Kung Fu. Players will jump and kick their way to glory in five unique levels, each consisting of two stages.

In the first, you will face a set number of enemies and in the second stage you will be confronted by even more enemies and a tougher boss character to contend with.

Each level has a number of platforms to do battle on, which are accessed by pressing up and down on the control stick or d-pad.

Your character can kick on the ground, perform jump kicks and kick while transitioning between platforms, which creates a surprisingly versatile combat arsenal. You can also grab power-ups like a spinning shield and a spiked projectile.

You can withstand a total of four hits before losing a life and a distinct flashing will warn you when you are low on health. You can also lose life by falling off the edges of platforms without jumping. Bonus points are awarded for completing stages unscathed. Should you complete all ten stages, Shao-lin’s Road will start over again at a higher difficulty.

Even by today’s standards, I consider Shao-lin’s Road a great-looking game. The sprite-based graphics are crisp and the rich colour palette pops off of the screen.

The game never slows down, even with a large number of enemies on-screen. The soundtrack features intricate arrangements and catchy tunes with a audible Chinese influence.

Shao-lin’s Road is challenging without feeling cheap and an excellent example of an early beat-em-up. It provides plenty of fast-paced action that rewards both precision and quick reflexes.

Positives:

+ Fast-Paced Fighting Action
+ Boss Characters have Distinct Personalities and Attacks
+ Excellent Graphics
+ Intricate and Catchy Music
+ Smooth Performance with no Slowdown

Negatives:

– Only Five Unique Levels

A barebones presentation and somewhat thin event roster detract from an otherwise fun, and often intense experience. Developed by veteran studio Eurocom, Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games allows you to compete in 14 events spread across eight categories while representing one of 24 countries.

The button-mashing gameplay elements of older Olympic video games are generally replaced with fluid mechanics, though a rather high difficulty level and a number of control schemes to master could scare away the casual audience that this game is intended for.

When you first launch the game, you are greeted with an attractive menu system and several options to choose from.

Training mode allows you to repeatedly practice a single event while ranking your progress on the global leaderboards. In Training, you will also find several assists like highlighted gates in the skiing events and tips that will help you tweak your performance.

When you are ready, you can then dive into the Olympic Games mode, though there is very little “Olympic” to be found here. You can create a custom stack of events to play through or have the game randomize all 14 events for you. Unfortunately, there are no opening or closing ceremonies and very little fanfare in general, making the Olympic Games mode feel like a glorified quickplay session. Events are also limited to four computer or human-controlled competitors, so it never really feels like you are in competition with the world at all

The events themselves are broken down into eight categories: Alpine Skiing, Ski Jumping, Freestyle Skiing, Snowboard, Short Track Speed Skating, Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton.

Alpine Skiing features the Men’s Downhill and Super-G as well as Ladies’ Giant Slalom and a rather unrealistic Slalom event. The Alpine Skiing events are all controlled similarly, using the left analog stick to steer, the right trigger to tuck and the left trigger to carve. There are also some timing and button-mashing mechanics related to starting races.

Ski Jumping is a brief, but intense event that tasks you with calculating wind and launch angles before attempting to balance in mid-air using the triggers and land within a prescribed zone. Though most events allow you to toggle between first and third-person views, Ski Jumping is played in first-person only which can make balancing tough.

Ladies’ Ski Cross sees four competitors on the track at once and introduces a jump mechanic not present in the other skiing events. Missing the timing of a jump in Ski Cross or missing a gate in any skiing event will result in a fairly severe speed penalty.

The Aerials event is perhaps the most difficult of the bunch, but can also be the most rewarding to succeed at. After selecting a jump based on degree of difficulty, you then calculate push-off and launch angles. The core of the jump asks you to rotate the analog sticks in time with a preset pattern.

Jumps with a degree of difficulty under 4.000 can be handled with the left stick exclusively, but climbing the leader boards will require tougher jumps that ask you to rotate both sticks in sequence. This mechanic will be familiar to anyone that played the diving events in Beijing 2008.

Both of the Snowboard events are multi-competitor races that are controlled much like Skiing, though they feel quite different, like motorcycle racing compared to car racing. The game engine takes a rather noticeable frame rate hit during these events, likely because of snow in the air. Noticeably absent from the event lineup are half pipe and super pipe competitions, which are arguably the most popular Snowboard events with fans.

At first I was wondering why no Long Track Speed Skating events were included in addition to the Ladies’ 500m and 1500m Short Track events, then I quickly realized that any more time spent with the frustrating mechanics would likely result in a thrown controller. Button-mashing rears its ugly head in these events and steering is a bit to sensitive. The Short Track Speed Skating events are definitely the low point of this package.

The sliding events on the other hand are extremely visceral and intense fun. Both the Two-man bobsleigh and Men’s Skeleton  are controlled by steering with the analog sticks, while you steer the Luge sled with the triggers. The idea in sliding events is to get as high into the bank of a corner as possible to maximize your speed without hitting the top wall.

Your run can end in a split-second if you aren’t careful and I often found myself holding by breath as my athletes made their way down the course. A generous helping of blur, shaking camera and depth-of-field effects give the sliding and skiing events a real sense of speed.

Challenge mode gives the game some longevity. This mode is broken up into three mountains; easy, intermediate and advanced. Many of the challenges are fun and require you to do things like hit a certain speed in the Bobsleigh or make a clean run through a Slalom course. Others are not fun at all, like challenges that ask you to beat strict times using reversed controls.

Aside from a distinct lack of cowbell during the sliding events, the sound effects in Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games, including the rumble of skis or a sled and wind rushing past are quite good. The game also features a licensed soundtrack that includes quite a bit of Canadian content.

Graphically, the game holds up well considering it appears to use the same engine as Beijing 2008. Athlete models are large and feature good animation in most cases. Aside from the snowy Snowboard events, everything runs very well also and features a crisp, clean look in line with Olympic TV coverage.

No Olympic video game would be complete without multiplayer options. Vancouver 2010 offers a number of ways to play against your friends including local multiplayer, system link play and of course, quick and ranked matches via Xbox LIVE. It should be noted that when playing online only one person per console can play.

Also, during the first week of release I found it tough to find other Xbox LIVE players, rarely filling a 4 person match. There is however, no shortage of leaderboard competition and the community grew exponentially during the first week.

While I did enjoy most of the events, I can’t see myself or many others playing this game after Olympic hype dies down at all. Aside from some notable event omissions, including a complete lack of Nordic, Figure Skating and Curling events, there is very little to keep players interested for more than 30-60 minutes at a time.

In future Olympic video games, I’d love to see a mode that allows you to create and train an athlete leading up to an Olympic competition. I’d also like to see a more complete event lineup and a true Olympic-style progression through the 17 day festivities.

Positives:

+ Online Competition
+ Good Audio-Visual Presentation
+ Racing Events are Genuinely Intense

Negatives:

– Thin Event Roster
– Little Pageantry or Olympic-Style Festivities
– Lots of Controls to Remember, No Customization

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is a competent fitness title that provides a glimpse at the future of exercise-based gaming and a large amount of varied content. However, this personal trainer software is dragged down somewhat by a substandard presentation and some frustrating motion detection issues.

When starting Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for the first time, the software will ask you to stand on a virtual workout mat so it can begin measuring your body. It calculates your height, the length of your arms and legs, the width of your shoulders and more in order to calibrate the system.

The software also tailors the menu system to the size of your body, which adjusts dynamically should you move around, or even if you sit down to take a break. The calibration system is futuristic and impressive, though users must enter information such as their sex and weight using a menu system rather than the voice capabilities of the Kinect sensor.

Once you have calibrated the system and created a profile, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved presents you with your workout options. Gym Classes like Virtual Smash and Stack ‘em Up are minigame-style activities that test your reflexes, agility and balance.

Fitness Classes offer both high intensity Cardio Boxing sessions and a relaxing tai chi-Yoga hybrid simply called Zen. Completing classes will unlock higher difficulty levels and longer workout sessions.

The bulk of the content in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved comes by way of the Personal Training menu. After completing a quiz and an initial fitness evaluation, the software will recommend content tailored to the user, including content produced in association with Men‘s Health and Women‘s Health magazines.

Users can select from 15 different multi-session programs and the software will highlight which ones are recommended and how long a session will take. Most of the content here is geared towards women, including the Skinny Jeans Workout and a program called Perfect Legs and Butt.

Male-specific content includes the Sleeve Busting Arms workout and the Men’s Health Fat Loss workout. Of course, there are generic unisex programs like sculpting, toning and cardio as well. The software recommends using dumbbells to get the most out of your workouts, an option afforded by Kinect‘s controller-free interface.

In the Personal Training programs you are asked to make your on screen avatar follow along in rhythm with your virtual trainer and are scored on both your timing and movement accuracy.

Though Your Shape: Fitness Evolved tracks your actions consistently and accurately most of the time, in my experience it had trouble detecting me while performing lunges regardless of how well I was doing them or what distance I was standing from my Kinect sensor. In my case as far back as nine feet.

This misdetection can be extremely frustrating during a workout and tough nothing prevented me from completing the exercise, I noticed the software’s calorie counter would slow down and thus not provide a truly accurate statistic.

Attempting to switch users was also an annoyance due to a cumbersome sign-in process, but for the most part I was satisfied with the full-body tracking implemented in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and it is particularly impressive during Zen classes.

The software has a pleasant, futuristic aesthetic that includes some nice particle effects and touches like flower petals flowing in a breeze, however these flourishes come at the cost of performance. Even at the menu screen, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved struggles to reach 30 fps and slows to a crawl during activities like Virtual Smash.

The visual fidelity is low as well and there are jagged lines to be found everywhere, despite a lack of detail in character models and workout environments. In short, Your Shape: Fitness EvolvedYour Shape looks and runs like the Wii version of from which it was derived.

Another issue I have with the visual presentation of your shape fitness evolved is the onscreen menu system. The buttons are too small and too close together and scrolling menus are hyper-sensitive.  Almost every time I use the software I inadvertently make a frustrating mis-selection.  It should also be noted that the menus require use of both arms to navigate.

The audio presentation is rather barren aside from the narration of your virtual trainer that guides exercises and workout rhythm. I did not find any subtitle options anywhere, so users who are deaf or hard of hearing may have difficulty using Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.

Users with a UPlay account can track their workout progress or compare stats and issue challenges to friends on the web at Your Shape Center and Ubisoft has promised both iPhone and iPad apps in the future so you can track your progress on the go.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is certainly a passable product and offers a good amount of content, particularly for female users. However, its technical shortcomings and minor, but frustrating motion detection problems prevent it from being a true evolution in exercise-based gaming.

Positives:

+ Lots of content that can be tailored to the user
+ Controller-Free Exercise Allows for Use of Dumbbells

Negatives:

– Frustrating Motion Detection Issues
– Substandard Presentation and Performance
– Menu System is Cumbersome

Sudoku lovers have a new way to play their favourite game on the go. Sudoku for PSP minis is a very polished version of the popular puzzle game which will likely draw you into its peaceful atmosphere. The game also innovates by allowing users to create, edit or solve any Sudoku puzzle using the convenience of a digital platform.

Unlike most handheld versions released in recent years which make use of touch controls, Sudoku for PSP minis manages to get by without feeling awkward. Players simply use the d-pad and face buttons to select spaces on the Sudoku board and the numbers they want to insert, for a straightforward game play experience.

Sudoku for PSP minis offers three difficulty settings that are unlocked from the start. Sudoku Points are awarded after each completed puzzle and added up to unlock two tougher game modes.

Very Hard mode gets unlocked after collecting 300 Sudoku Points and the Insane difficulty at 600 Sudoku Points. The greater the difficulty of the puzzle selected, the greater its starting Sudoku Points value. Using hints will diminish your final score. The game does not score you on the amount of time it takes to solve a puzzle.

The game offers a hint system and other typical aides such as auto-fill and auto-check options, the ability to pencil in potential solutions using annotations and the option to highlight every occurrence of a specific number across the board.

What really sets Sudoku for PSP minis apart from any other Sudoku titles I have played in the past is Newspaper mode. Through this mode, you are free to play any of your favourite puzzles from books or newspapers by entering them into an empty grid and solving it with the game‘s engine instead of a pen. The mode can also be used to solve any puzzle automatically by entering a minimum number of cells.

Clean and attractive graphics create a perfect Sudoku playing environment. Accompanied by a nine-song traditional oriental soundtrack, the game absorbed me in no time. Sudoku for PSP minis is an enjoyable title. It does everything the a digital version of puzzle game should and more, for a thoroughly pleasant experience. I would recommend it without hesitation to any Sudoku fan looking for a solid version to play on the PSP and PSP Go.

Positives:

+ Relaxed Atmosphere
+ Pleasant Music
+ Newspaper Mode

Negatives:

– Limited Wallpaper/Background Options

Boom Brigade combines elements of real-time strategy, tower defense and route-tracing games to create a brief, but very fun and promising game that feels right at home on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. It looks and sounds great, controls well and can be genuinely addictive once you get the hang of it.

In Boom Brigade, you are tasked with defending your bunker from waves of alien attackers by drawing paths around the battlefield for your soldiers to follow. This unique mechanic sets Boom Brigade apart from other defense and strategy games and though there is plenty of room for improvement, there is also the potential for this game to spawn a whole sub-genre of its own.

You begin a game of Boom Brigade by selecting one of three unit types – Minigun, Shotgun and Bazooka – to deploy onto the battlefield. Each reinforcement has a unique attack range, health level, speed of movement and damage rating. Your first unit will have to survive several waves of enemies before receiving backup, so choosing the right one is important. I found the Minigun to be the most well-rounded unit to start with because of its high health rating.

At first, enemy waves will contain but a few attackers, making it easy to learn the route-tracing mechanic and general strategy employed in Boom Brigade. In most cases, encircling your enemies as they approach your bunker will get the job done. As the game progresses though, enemies will start to appear from all areas of the battlefield, making route choice more and more important.

After every few waves, you will be given a chance to add another unit to your brigade and are allowed a maximum of three at once. Once you have two or more units on the battlefield, the game gets much more tricky. Keeping your units moving, crossing their paths and giving them enough time to reload are all key elements to keeping your brigade alive and your bunker safe.

As enemies get dispatched, some will drop items like cash, health pick-ups and in extremely rare cases, a reinforcement. Cash can be used for upgrading your unit types or repairing the bunker after it takes damage. Grabbing the health pick-ups is very important, because it’s the only opportunity you have to “repair” your units. I’d have liked to have seen an option to spend cash on repairing units, but this may have taken away from the game’s difficulty somewhat.

Boom Brigade can be very difficult at first and even after spending several hours with it, my play sessions rarely last more than 15 minutes. By that point, the enemy waves are simply overpowering and keeping your entire brigade alive is a real challenge. It is difficult in a good way though and not frustrating. Almost every time my game ended, I wanted to restart immediately to try and make it further. I honestly don’t know how many enemy waves there are in the game, but every once in a while you will encounter a boss wave that will really test your mettle. After 15 minutes, I’ve usually seen four or five boss waves and have had three units on the battlefield at once.

Boom Brigade feels very much like a real-time strategy game once it gets going and the route-tracing mechanic seen in games like Harbour Master lends itself to careful and strategic planning amid chaos. Your units can be stopped mid-route by tapping on them and you can also target a specific enemy to target first by tapping on it. Combining the route-tracing, bunker defense and real-time action helps Boom Brigade to feel familiar and fresh at the same time and I can see its formula being copied by other developers in the future; it’s very fun and addictive.

The major drawback for me is the fact that there is only one battlefield and bunker layout in the game. The enemy waves are also the same every time you play, so it can feel repetitive. New maps and enemies, as well as randomized enemy patterns will add much to the longevity of Boom Brigade in future updates, as would online leader boards. Developer 10tons (Belowscape, Azkend) has also announced several new features planned for future updates like an expanded options in the bunker store, an in-game encyclopaedia and even a new Pyro unit that can be seen here.

At the time of this review, Boom Brigade is being offered at $1.99. When factoring in the already-announced updates and the massive potential that this game has for additional features like multiplayer matches, I’d consider this a must-have title despite its current lack of content.

The level of polish in Boom Brigade certainly sways my recommendation as well. Even though your units and the enemies are small on an iPhone/iPod Touch screen, everything looks fantastic and runs without a hitch. Details like the footprints of your units, smoke from your weapons and spilled alien blood really add to the level of immersion. The game’s art is cartoony in nature, similar to games like Team Fortress 2, Advance Wars or Metal Slug.

There isn’t much in the way of a soundtrack in Boom Brigade outside of the title screen, but the sound effects are quite good. Weapon fire sounds meaty, aliens make appropriate squishy sounds and reinforcements chatter a bit when you dispatch them. Unfortunately, the option to listen to your music library is not available at this time.

Boom Brigade’s novel approach to strategy and defense gaming is a success and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing copycat titles soon enough. What it lacks in content, it makes up for with presentation, attention to detail and genuine, addictive fun that is perfect for a commute. There’s plenty of room to improve, but also plenty to work with for future updates. If you want to see the future of iPhone/iPod Touch strategy gaming now, I suggest you try out Boom Brigade.

Positives:

+ Route-Tracing Mechanic
+ Great Graphics and Sound Effects
+ Challenging but not Frustrating

Negatives:

– Only One Map
– No Online Leaderboards

By incorporating real-time strategy and tower defense conventions, Battle Shock rises above other castle defense games on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. This flick-based title features 100 waves of increasingly tough enemies to thwart, multiple upgrades and an attractive presentation; all for less than the price of a candy bar.

The concept of Battle Shock sees players assuming the role of a young wizard whose mentor has recently passed away. Your castle’s enemies are using the opportunity to attack and it is up to you to defend it and save the townsfolk by unleashing powerful plasma balls, placing archers and managing your castle’s repairs.

The enemy onslaught begins with waves consisting of a few infantry rushing towards your castle from the top of the screen. These initial waves are easily dispatched by using the core mechanic of flicking plasma balls towards enemy soldiers. As you defeat soldiers you will score points, but more importantly you will gather resources which can be used to upgrade your magic attacks, purchase archers and make repairs to your castle.

As you upgrade your plasma ball, it will not only become more powerful, but it will split into smaller balls which makes clusters of enemies a little easier to deal with as Battle Shock ramps up in difficulty. A Shockwave attack can be also be purchased and is particularly effective against closely grouped foes. This attack is executed by simply holding your finger in the place you want the attack to be triggered.

The Last Resort can be used to electrify your castle walls and damage any invaders near it and becomes a necessary tool as knights, horsemen, battering rams and catapults begin to appear in the enemy waves. The flipside is that the castle also suffers damage when executing the Last Resort defense by touching your castle with two fingers.

Archers are an effective way to thin out enemy waves as well, though it should be noted that you receive no score for any enemies killed by your archers and only half the resources of those killed by plasma ball or shockwave attacks. Despite the drawbacks, archers also become necessary as the game progresses. They can be upgraded to have more strength, defense and a greater attack range, with the highest level reaching across the entire battlefield.

The battlefield itself presents a number of obstacles like trees and rock formations that can help or hinder you depending on their placement. Though the battlefield remains the same from wave to wave, it seems to be randomly generated every time you start a new game of Battle Shock, helping the title feel fresh after multiple plays and adding a layer of strategy normally absent in castle defense titles.

Another thing that really sets Battle Shock apart from competition like Defend Your Castle and StickWars is its top-down view. While I found the linear or isometric view in those games tended to make things frantic and chaotic, Battle Shock feels more familiar and manageable, like an older real-time strategy game.

The presentation of Battle Shock also evokes classics like Command & Conquer or Warcraft. Though small, all of the enemy types are richly detailed and easy to distinguish from each other. Each enemy unit also has a health bar and despite there sometimes being dozens of them on the screen at once, the game hardly ever stutters or slows down.

The music is cinematic in quality and suits the feeling of an epic battle, though it does loop frequently. As of version 1.1 there is no option to listen to your iPhone/iPod Touch music library while you play. The sound effects can become a bit grating, if only for the fact that there seems to be one enemy death sound and it is repeated all-too often.

At $0.99, Battle Shock is easy to recommend to fans of strategy and defense games or those looking for some fast-paced action. It feels different every time you play thanks to the robust upgrade system and randomly generated battlefields, creating a great value. There is also a lot of potential here and I’d love to see future updates or sequels include things like online leaderboards or a multiplayer mode in which you both defend a castle as well as launch attacks on your opponents’.

Positives:

+ Overhead View is Unique in the Genre
+ Upgrades and Random Battlefields Keep Things Fresh
+ Detailed Graphics

Negatives:

– No Multiplayer Modes