Borderlands: The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx (Xbox 360) Review
Brutal Gamer’s review of the third expansion pack for Borderlands. Full Story
» Xbox 360 Reviews
Bayonetta (Xbox 360) Review
Bayonetta (Xbox 360) Review
Brutal Gamer’s review of SEGA’s Bayonetta for Xbox 360.
Alien Breed Evolution – Episode 1 (Xbox 360) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
I loved me some Alien Breed back in the day. Full disclaimer here guys and girls – Alien Breed, Alien Breed – Tower Assault, Alien Breed 3d, Alien Breed 3D2: The Killing Grounds… all of them – LOVED THEM! That said I hated this update… naaah, only joking, it’s fucking awesome!
Team 17 first created Alien Breed back in the 90’s for the Amiga 500. This was a Gauntlet inspired top down shooter set aboard a dark, atmospheric space station where you fought for your survival. Well fans have begged Team 17’s Martyn Brown for a sequel for years and the announcement earlier in 2009 that this would finally happen was met with great frenzied excitement.
Alien Breed back on the Amiga 1200
There is a story of sorts that accompanies the game but it really is not that compelling and serves more as a gameplay mechanic to serve up your next set of objectives. Your ship has collided with another ancient space vessel just after coming out of hyperspace. The vessel appears to be full of hostile life forms and is now pulling you and itself towards a planet. You, as the chief engineer, must get the ship back working, stop the reactor leaks and bring the systems back on line before the whole place goes boom.
Graphically this game amazes me for a download title. Sure it’s not at the same level as Shadow Complex but man they have thrown a load of effects and lighting in to a little download game. Using the muscle of the Unreal 3 engine the effects and environments, although at stages a touch dark, are the games biggest asset. The corridors are moody and lit with busted strip lighting. The glow from your torch barely lights more than a few feet in front of you and the effect of unleashing the flamethrower in a dark corridor is most pleasing. Animation at times is a little stilted but still manages to be of a consistently good level. The action is viewed from one of several angles that you can rotate around using the two shoulder buttons. This allows you to view the full 3D world from whatever angle you deem best. It give the game that authentic top down/isometric look but puts it slap in teh middle of a modern 3D world. Honestly, apart from Shadow Complex and Battlefield 1943 I have not seen a better looking Xbox Live Arcade title.
Alien Breed Evolution uses a full 3D enviroment
Audio wise things are a little more mixed. The games score is well done and fits the mood and action perfectly. Where the game stumbles is the voice acting. Mia, the female quest giver character, vocals are seriously stilted and offer very little depth. Thankfully you only really deal with this at the start and end of levels. The gun fire is also mixed. The machine gun and flame thrower are great but the laser rifle lacks a little something.
Following firmly in the footsteps of the original games, Alien Breed Evolution doesn’t really evolve the original gameplay in any real manner. That said there are some noticeable differences that embrace the more modern method of making this type of Commando/Gauntlet style game. Namely using Dual-Stick shooting. In the original game you had eight way firing but it was dependant on the direction you faced. This is still possible in the update but you also have the ability to use the right stick to direct your aim. This makes the game even better than before offering you the ability to run like mad and try and cut down the alien horde approaching behind you. As with the first game exploration is the key factor. You really need to seek out each area of the ship to find all the weapons, health packs, grenades etc hidden in lockers or on dead crew members. This take an almost survival horror stance on ammo and game pace. If you just go wading in you will die pretty quickly – especially on one of later levels or if you play on Elite difficulty. Much like in Left4Dead you need to clear an area as best you can before moving on to the next as if you don’t aliens will come out of the floors or walls and take you down from behind whilst you are dealing with the next room of head-on creatures.
Nothing like raiding the dead for goodies eh!
There really is a sense of living from moment to moment as you progress to the later of the 5 levels. If you notch up the difficulty then the creatures come in waves, take more damage and display more cunning strategies to take you down. You will find yourself clinging on to the last few grains of life, frantically searching rooms for health packs and praying to your own person god that nothing attacks you. A real great selling point but also a source of some frustration as at times the game just seems to overrun you and before you know it your dead meat.
Longevity is pretty damn good. You might be thinking “Oh crap episodic content” but at around £6 (800MSP) for 5 hours gameplay on first play through you are doing damn well for the cash! Add to that 3 co-op play maps and you extend things once more by a couple of hours. You can also try your luck at racking up some of the top scores on the worldwide leaderboards. All in all you are getting a big chunk of game for your 800 points. Sure you will have to fork out another 1600 points over teh next year to pick up the second and third installments but you really get a lot for it.
Co-Op in full swing!
If I had to lay some issues at ABE’s door step it would be that the “collect A to unlock B – Oh no A is damaged goto C, then D to fix it before doing B” is a little old before it begins and by the time the credits roll you are done with that whole structure. Also at times the controls seems to just not respond fast enough, the use of the D pad for weapon toggles is frustratingly awkward as you frantically try and get the fun you need whilst being mawled by the alien horde. Oh and I got stuck in geometry at least five times – once so bad on the first level I had to restart after about thirty minutes of gameplay.
Ummmmm Flamethrower......
Final Thoughts:
Alien Breed is a great game. Damaged a little by sloppy voice work, the odd technical glitch & repetitive elements which are forgiveable now but I think might grate over a total 15+hrs of campaign when episodes 2 and 3 are released. If you ever liked Gauntlet or the original Alien Breed grab this now. If you like tense action shooters with a slight survival horror element then grab this game. Team 17 have updated a classic and made it relevant for the player of today. We can’t wait for the next one.
Lego Rock Band (Xbox 360) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
Ah Lego. You are the plastic pal of my youngsters days – as opposed to the plastic pal of my teenage days which I had to throw out due to irreparable punctures… ahem, anyway. You really can make pretty much anything better by making it out of Lego – with the possible exception of sanitary towels, suppositories, condoms and cake. So Warner have partnered with Lego studio extrodinaire Travellers Tales to license a more family friendly Rock Band title.
The issues I have with this game, and I want to deal with these upfront, are two fold. Firstly 45 songs – what the hell! Secondly, who is this game for? It is such a mixture of tracks that is struggles to find a sizeable chunk in any demographic to latch on to. I can appreciate they probably wanted to aim it at a broad family audience but many tracks are obscure for the average family member – who really would of thought about putting Counting Crows or The Coral in a mass appeal tween/family title? Now I can appreciate the tracks used and know 98% of them and like the general feel on a personal level – I just am not sure this will work on a larger demographic.
OK, now onward and upward. The game is basically Rock Band 2, re-skinned, 40% of the features removed and some features added to make it way easier. First what’s missing. The biggie? Online play – wow the crowd turned nasty in here fast! Now I know that was a large component of the other games but this is more truly about the family thing in your front room rather than playing drums for a group of 11 year olds in Utah. The career mode has been dumbed down, stripped of it;s globe trotting and rename Story Mode and the challanges from RB are gone as well.
So what has been added? Well you can now implement a Very Easy mode that renders it impossible to really mess up. If you are on drums you get auto-kick and only need to strike a pad at the right time. With guitar you strum at the correct time, no frets needed. With the mic the pitch meter is removed and you get a standard karaoke text line to follow. This is more an extension of the No Fail mode of other versions but works a treat for ham fisted oldies, tone deaf mates/partners and little kids. My son struggles with the guitar and drums at times but on Lego RB he was over the moon with his new found “skills”. Sure it dumbs things down to the point of “See light – Press button” but it pleases the audience it is intended for and empowers them to try the harder levels later on.
Graphically the came looks good. As mention this is really a re-skin of the RB2 game right down to the tentacles of Lego and Lego snarling tiger on the front screen. The Lego Freddie Mercury and Iggy Pop are great fun too! Everything is relevantly shiny and looks made of brick, including the note bars on the music tracks that tumble down the screen. It has a really solid, cute Lego vibe that brings the harsh tones of the Rock Band aesthetics down to a more family friendly level.
Musically the game is all over the place as I mentioned before. There are plenty of favourites to choose from Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jr), We are the Champions (Queen), Song 2 (Blur), Word Up (Korn version!), Monster (The Automatic), Crocodile Rock (Elton John), Summer of ‘69 (Brian Adams) and so on. As I say a real mixture! I mean do the kids playing these even know who Elton John, Korn, Bryan Adams, David Bowie or Spinal Tap really are? That said the tracks are well done and do offer something for everyone although some have been poorly translated to the game and make you appreciate the craftsmanship that Harmonix bring to these titles. Some titles have say no guitar for 40 seconds and then the same few chords or you will end up playing hand claps on the guitar or some such – it just feels badly scripted is all.
Longevity is a potential issue because at only 45 tracks, compared to Rock Band 2’s 80 or Band Hero’s 60+, you will end up playing the same tracks a lot! Unless that is you splurge on some DLC as Lego RB is compatible with the normal Rock Band store, increasing it’s life some what. You can also rip the songs from Lego Rock Band via a purchasable code like you did with the original Rock Band songs and then import them in to Rock Band 2. To be honest I personally had little issue with the limited track list as it scratched the itch for family based tunes as we spent a few hours belting out Ghostbuster, Kung Fu Fighting, We will rock you and many others. Like any other music game of this genre it comes down to your affinity with the tracks on the list.
The story mode is good as you make your way though various Lego themed sets all drawn from the back catalogue of items available on the Lego store. There are some fun “boss battle” situations in the game, similar to the ones in Guitar Hero 3, but it employs a weird play a little then watch a little strategy that feels a little jarring. At least during these times you get to watch the on screen action. Is it a cash in? Yes. Does it demonstrate that both franchises are in desperate need of a make over? Yes. Is it good fun – hell yes!
Final Thoughts:
Lego Rock Band is a great little package for a more family orientated approach to the genre. I prefer it over Band Hero for the tracks even though they are a little schizophrenic. My main grips here are that it lacks focus on who it’s target is, the price is a little steep for the content you get and several features are missing that would of been great. That said for the money you get 45 tracks, some memorable, some not and some are obscure. You get the cuteness of the Lego world through the on screen shenanigans of the Lego stars and you get a kid friendly version of Rock Band. This is an ideal game for your kiddies/tweens to play over the holiday season and a good place to draw in family members that might shy away from the complex stream of notes flowing down the screen of the bigger titles like Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero 5.
PS3/Xbox 360 track-list
- All American Rejects – “Swing, Swing”
- The Automatic – “Monster”
- Blink-182 – “Aliens Exist”
- Blur – “Song 2″
- Bon Jovi – “You Give Love a Bad Name”
- Boys like Girls – “Thunder”
- Bryan Adams – “Summer of 69″
- Carl Douglas – “Kung Fu Fighting”
- The Coral – “Dreaming of You”
- Counting Crows – “Accidentally in Love”
- David Bowie – “Let’s Dance”
- Elton John – “Crocodile Rock”
- Europe – “The Final Countdown”
- Everlife – “Real Wild Child”
- Foo Fighters – “Breakout”
- Good Charlotte – “Girls & Boys”
- The Hives – “Tick Tick Boom!”
- Iggy Pop – “The Passenger”
- Incubus – “Dig”
- Jackson 5 – “I Want You Back”
- Jimi Hendrix – “Fire”
- Kaiser Chiefs – “Ruby”
- Katrina & The Waves – “Walking on Sunshine”
- The Kooks – “Naïve”
- KoRn – “Word Up!”
- KT Tunstall – “Suddenly I See”
- Lostprophets – “Rooftops”
- P!NK – “So What”
- The Police – “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
- The Primitives – “Crash”
- Queen – “We Are The Champions”
- Queen – “We Will Rock You”
- Rascal Flatts – “Life is a Highway”
- Ray Parker Jr. – “Ghostbusters”
- Razorlight – “Stumble and Fall”
- Spin Doctors – “Two Princes”
- Spinal Tap – “Short & Sweet”
- Steve Harly – “Make Me Smile”
- Sum 41 – “In Too Deep”
- Supergrass – “Grace”
- Tom Petty – “Free Fallin”
- T-Rex – “Ride a White Swan”
- Vampire Weekend – “A-Punk”
- We the Kings – “Check Yes Juliet”
- The Zutons – “Valerie”
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 (Xbox 360) Review
Brutal Gamer laces it’s boots and gets ready for some wrasslin’.
