Rise of Nightmares

Mad scientists often have the dangerous habit of combining things that don't naturally belong together, in an attempt to create new forms of life. So it is with Viktor, the disturbed doctor who fuses corpses and machines to create creatures that cause you no small amount of trouble in Rise of Nightmares. Rise of Nightmares itself is an uneasy combination of elements, awkwardly fusing grisly zombie-slashing gameplay with the Kinect's motion controls. The result is not unlike one of Viktor's shambling creations; it works, more or less, but it feels unnatural.


You’d have to be incredibly clumsy to walk into that wall of spikes. Luckily for the mad doctor, Josh is.
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You play as Josh, a young husband traveling with his wife, Kate, through Eastern Europe. Josh's drinking problem has long been a wedge between the couple, and Kate's frustration with Josh's behavior is boiling over. But the two soon have much bigger problems to deal with, when the train they're traveling on is derailed and Kate is abducted by the local mad scientist. As Josh, you must fight your way through legions of Viktor's combinations of flesh and metal in an attempt to save Kate and escape with your own life. The story is standard stuff, but Viktor's remorseless eagerness to butcher anyone who crosses his path makes him a villain you want to put a stop to. Rise of Nightmares is rarely scary, but the visuals create a convincingly creepy atmosphere; the dungeons you must travel through look so dank you can almost feel the foul moisture in the air, and the torture devices, human remains and bloodstains that decorate the halls create an unsettling sense of the horrors that have occurred there.

You use your body to navigate the corridors and courtyards of Viktor's estate. Turning your torso left and right makes Josh do the same, and walking is a simple matter of putting one foot forward. You feel more like you're steering a cumbersome vehicle than moving naturally through these places, but the controls are adequate in most environments, where precise movements aren't required. However, a few rooms and hallways of Viktor's mansion are outfitted with deadly spikes that shoot out of the floors, blades that periodically drop down from the ceiling, and other deadly traps. In moments like this, Rise of Nightmares' full body control is too limiting and too clumsy, making avoiding these hazards much harder than it should be. By putting your foot farther forward, you can make Josh move forward faster, but even in situations when running would be wise, you can't make him move faster than a brisk walk. And although you might want to look up to make sure you're not standing right underneath that guillotine-like blade above you, Josh's gaze is always fixed forward. If you don't feel like steering Josh around yourself, you can usually make him automatically head toward his current destination by holding your right hand up, but when environmental dangers are present, it's up to you to avoid them.


It's a well-known fact that the undead hate giant tongs.
It's also up to you to kill the countless creatures that stand between you and Kate, and here the controls fare better. By holding your arms up like a boxer, you automatically focus on the nearest enemy and guard against incoming attacks. You can use your bare fists to clobber these atrocities, but your creature-killing efforts are much more effective if you use the weapons scattered throughout the estate. These include mundane items like brass knuckles, hammers, and hatchets, as well as outlandish devices like shock knuckles, bone shears, and the mechanized arms of your fallen foes. Weapons degrade as you use them and eventually break, but there's always a new weapon nearby to pick up when one goes out on you.

To attack, you make a gesture that suits your current weapon, and although your attempts to target the weaker, fleshy parts of the creatures don't always work as well as they should, it doesn't matter much; a few solid strikes is enough to dispose of most enemies. A few enemy types force you to consider your surroundings and attack carefully, like the shriekers, whose sonic attacks require you to cover your ears, leaving you vulnerable to assaults from other enemies. But for the most part, combat is easy; you just guard when enemies attack and then you strike them down. It's fun to play with all the different weapons, and late in the game, you acquire a particularly satisfying combat ability, but there's just not enough depth or variety to the combat to keep it interesting throughout this adventure.

On occasion, you need to do battle with some of Viktor's more powerful and deadly creations. Fighting these bosses is a lot like fighting normal creatures, except that you must avoid their attacks by responding quickly to onscreen prompts. You might be prompted to sidestep an enemy's thrust or duck under an enemy's whirling slash. The more physical nature of these battles makes them stand out from the ho-hum combat of the rest of the game, but they don't offer much challenge, and they illuminate just how limited the controls are; you might wish you could backstep or crouch under the occasional attack from a standard creature, but apparently Josh is capable of making these moves only when a big prompt tells him to. Making the controls feel more unnatural still is that you can't just walk up to a door, a switch, or anything else and interact with it naturally; you must first hover your hand for a moment over a prompt that reads "Interact" before making your door-opening or switch-flicking gesture.


Rise of Nightmares is a great insect-swatting simulator.
Once in a while, Rise of Nightmares uses its Kinect controls to create tense moments. For instance, the hulking beast known as Ernst is sensitive to noise and movement, so when he passes by, you must stand very still to avoid alerting him. But aside from these occasional nail-biting situations, this is an ordinary journey whose motion controls too often just get in the way, rather than making the experience feel more real. Rise of Nightmares is far from an abomination, but its attempts to imitate life aren't going to fool anyone.

Resistance 3

If you finished the Resistance 2 campaign, then you're bound to remember a guy named Joseph Capelli. After getting dishonorably discharged from the military, Joe gets married, has a kid, and settles down in a lengthy network of tunnels underneath a bombed-out suburban neighborhood. Our protagonist's home is one of a few hidden communities that you encounter throughout the campaign, and they are all thoughtful and evocative glimpses of how humans might cling together in the midst of a catastrophe. Joe isn't what you'd call a strong leading man, but throughout the campaign, you meet some interesting characters who add some welcome flavor to Joe's bland personality. Supporting characters also comment on your battlefield prowess in a way that enhances the context (Joe was an actual soldier, they are civilians) and makes you feel like a force to be reckoned with. The environments add a lot of character as well. From Joe's dusty Oklahoma outpost and the foggy Mississippi River to an infested mountain village, each location is richly detailed and artfully rendered, creating an engrossing sense of place and mood.

Though everywhere you go is visually interesting, there are some abrupt leaps and odd detours that can make the campaign feel disjointed at times. Still, it moves along at a good clip. Small skirmishes build up to large firefights, which lead to some big boss encounters that draw on the franchise's knack for using a large sense of scale to create dramatic encounters. Enemies often explode in bloody chunks or lose limbs when killed, and taking down towering foes is very satisfying, though Resistance 3 doesn't go as big as its predecessor. You can complete the campaign in as few as six hours, and unfortunately, the pace falters toward the end, leaving you with a conclusion that is less climactic than you might expect. Though the ending isn't very satisfying, playing the entire campaign is, thanks largely to Resistance 3's tightly tuned action.

Your enemies are aggressive, numerous, and varied, so you must read the battlefield and maneuver smartly. Popping out from cover and shooting might be effective in a small-scale battle, but enemies that leap behind you, rapidly swarm you, or shoot right through your cover force you to adapt your tactics or die. You face a lot of foes, and ammunition isn't exactly plentiful, so you need to leverage your entire arsenal to survive. Fortunately, the guns of Resistance 3 are some of the best in the business. Tried-and-true favorites like the bullseye, auger, and magnum return early on, but as you progress, you get some new treats that can freeze, electrocute, and even mutate your enemies. Each weapon has a secondary fire that can be as simple as a grenade launcher or as sinister as a swirling electric vortex of death. Furthermore, every gun levels up as you use it, making it deadlier and sometimes granting auxiliary bonuses, like incendiary ammunition or a better scope. There is no limit to how many weapons you can carry with you, and Resistance 3 forces you to put them all to work. It's not uncommon to exhaust your ammunition for multiple weapons during an intense firefight, so you either have to make do with a less-than-optimal firearm or scavenge the battlefield under enemy fire in hopes of finding an ammo cache.


Shoot faster! SHOOT FASTER!!
To deal with these diverse enemies, you must stretch your arsenal to the limits, and this creates an engaging sense of improvisation. This feeling is augmented by the fact that your health does not regenerate automatically. Health pickups are fairly plentiful, but there are still many times when the Chimera are bearing down on you and you are low on health, ammo, or both. The tension this creates makes blasting your way through the campaign all the more thrilling, though if you're taking a friend along for the ride, you should consider upping the difficulty level. Whether online or split-screen, having another gun by your side makes things a bit easier and creates some slack in the otherwise taut action. There is no cooperative matchmaking, however, so you have to find your own companion, and alas, the addictive eight-player cooperative mode from Resistance 2 is nowhere to be found. Campaign co-op is a welcome addition, however, especially when the campaign is as thrilling as it is here.

Crimson Alliance

At the start of Crimson Alliance, you're presented with a choice of three archetypal characters: the elderly wizard, the burly mercenary, or the nimble assassin. At first blush, these characters all feel distinct: the wizard conjures rolling waves of ice, the mercenary cleaves enemies in two with his sword, and the assassin can throw daggers. However, once you spend an hour with each, you find they all follow the same combat style of two normal attacks and one nonlethal technique that stuns foes. They also have special techniques that unlock after you collect a specific number of hidden items all designed to wipe the screen of enemies. Which character you play as is really just a choice between range and melee--or you could just pick the assassin who does a bit of both.

A lack of greater complexity is a recurring issue in Crimson Alliance. From level design to character customization, the game leaves you wanting in every category. The mission layout is a linear gauntlet of stages that repeatedly pit your heroes against the same basic enemy types: Those that run at you and those that shoot at you. Only in the final act does the game start mixing things up with traps and creative objectives, but by then it's too little, too late. In between these encounters, there are secret areas to discover that are filled with gold and treasure. You can also replay levels on a higher difficulty to compete for the high score on each stage's leaderboard.

For your troubles, you're awarded copious amounts of gold, the adventurer's delight. In lieu of experience points and levels, you spend gold on weapons and armor to advance your character. Item vendors open up after you complete specific missions with new wares for you to buy. And because all of the items are split up between vendors, it can make comparison shopping a pain. Items improve your character's four stats: three for your attacks and one for your health. Improving health lets you take more damage, while improving your attacks changes their properties slightly--such as creating a bigger ice wave.

The game's strongest feature is its four-player, online or local cooperative play. Mindless slaughter is always more enjoyable with a buddy or three, and there are even a few puzzles scattered throughout the game that require teamwork to surmount. It's a pity that the soundtrack is so forgettable. Crimson Alliance's light jazz accompaniment might be great for sneaking into a mansion or stealing a ruby necklace, but here, the music only further deflates the already-lackluster combat.


If you're in a jam, just grab an exploding red barrel and watch your troubles go up in flames.
Crimson Alliance simply does the bare minimum across the board. Its tale of an evil sorceress returning from the dead is accented with a bit of humor that should have been taken further. If the game followed through with its halfhearted attempts at comedy (a crate that serves as a familiar, for example), it might have produced a bit of sparkle. But Crimson Alliance doesn't go far enough in this respect, or in any other. It's a hollow game that offers little more than mindless monster slaying.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

What Space Marine does best is capture the spirit of its universe. The Ultramarines' weathered armor is so heavy and hardy, they don't so much wear it as it wears them. As you push through battle-worn trenches, the Orks' makeshift machinery erupts from the ground, shaking the earth. Roaring greenskins in rocket packs rush past, providing a touch of comedy amid all the carnage. And such carnage it is. Enemies erupt in soggy displays of goo, yet the waves continue, your foes' bloodthirst overcoming their sense of self-preservation. When you carve your chainsword through these forces, the buzz is so authentic that you can almost feel the green flesh being torn away from your foes' skeletons. The visuals and sound both work hard to promote this brutal atmosphere.

The story, on the other hand, is as dry as the battlefields are sodden. (To wit, the opening cutscene begins with a sequence featuring the ever-exciting storytelling device called "words displayed on a monitor.") As Captain Titus, your role is to mow down Orks and, later on, the forces of Chaos. You and your comrades speak in lofty, stentorian tones and act as mere pawns of the plot. The main players are voiced well but are as forgettable as can be, everyone filling their assigned roles but rarely giving you a reason to care about their destinies. The story is too simple for the plot "twists" to feel anything other than inevitable, and while the cliff-hanger ending sets up a sequel, you probably won't feel all that curious about what might happen next.


All the blood lets you know your enemies are good and dead.
Not that the promise of more Space Marine is a bad thing. The action is a fun mix of third-person shooting and melee. The sense of weight to the movement, the camera perspective, and the weapon selection interface might at first bring to mind Gears of War, but the similarities are superficial. You might be clad in weighty armor, but you aren't burdened by it. Aiming is swift and smooth, allowing you to gun down dozens of targets without breaking a sweat. When the crowd gets too close, you can swing your chainsword (or axe, or hammer) about with ease, the Orks spraying so much gore it's a wonder there aren't puddles of it to wade through. And unlike in Gears and its ilk, there is no cover system. Space Marine wants you to keep busy, not remove yourself from the action. The health regeneration system also complements the "kill, don't hide" mentality: to restore health, you perform a grotesque finishing kill. This doesn't mean that each enemy is a quick pick-me-up waiting to be harvested, mind you. You are vulnerable during these lengthy moves, so you must be careful not to leave yourself open to gunners or other attackers. Succumbing to death while executing a long fatality can be irksome, but a little tactical thinking should keep that from being a frequent occurrence. In any case, while the final acts have their challenging moments, Space Marine is not particularly hard, so frustration is uncommon.

And so you put an end to the masses of meanies threatening the Forge World you protect. And it's fun, due in large part to your arsenal. You always have your bolt pistol (or its plasma equivalent) and its unlimited ammo when necessary, but it's better to take aim with the bolter, an assault rifle with a good kick to it. It's effective at surprisingly long range, and strong sound effects and a good sense of impact make it fun to use. (You can see the blood spewing from enemies hundreds of feet away.) The scoped stalker bolter is a nice toy, too, best used to take out distant gunners before wading into a sea of daemons with a death wish. The melee action has bite to it as well, though Space Marine is more shooter than hack-and-slash. When you get to the hacking and slashing, you mostly just pound on buttons and perform the occasional brutal execution. Fury mode--in which you become a temporary tornado of carnage--breaks up the repetition with some snazzy slow-motion visuals and extra helpings of Ork intestines.

BloodRayne: Betrayal

If you're curious about Rayne's genetic makeup, wonder no more. Her father is the vampire (which makes her mother a mere human), and he has certainly gotten on the wrong side of his fair daughter. Accompanied by a small army of less-than-able troops, Rayne storms her papa's palace to finish him off for good. The skimpy plot plays out in brief dialogue exchanges between the characters, and though it's good for an occasional chuckle, it lacks a memorable comedic punch. Likewise, the strong foundation of the visuals eventually shows copious cracks. Grotesque creature designs give personality to every being you meet (and beat) along the way. Rayne's model is nicely detailed and takes up a large portion of the screen, and it's a pleasure to watch her slice demons to shreds. But as good as the characters look, the backgrounds are just bland. They repeat continually throughout each level and enemies often blend in to their surroundings.

The 2D action blends combat and platforming, with an emphasis on the former. Rayne has a healthy range of moves that can be strung together in deadly combinations. Forward stabs, rising uppercuts, and calf-cutting sweeps make up your standard move set, though you need more than these individual attacks to quell the rush of enemies that swarm the screen. You have one very handy trick to keep your relentless attackers at bay. Hitting an enemy momentarily stuns him in place, and once frozen, you can lock your lips on his neck to create a makeshift bomb. After he's stricken, your sickly foe carries a green hue and lumbers across the screen. With the tap of a button, you can detonate this foul beast, taking out a gang of monsters in one seismic blast. Conjuring an explosion at a key moment is an undeniable rush, and once you master this technique, you blow through enemies as if they were living tissue paper. Rayne also regains lost health by drinking delicious blood from stunned attackers, has a handy dash that gives her temporary invincibility, and can fire a gun when things get particularly heated.


Rayne enjoys a cool glass of blood during quiet moments.
At its best, combat is fast and violent in Betrayal, though awkward controls often hinder your chance of unrepentant bloodletting. Rayne has stiff animations that make each of your attacks feel clunky. This herky-jerky rhythm means Betrayal lacks the smooth grace that the best games in the genre so effortlessly enact, but that's far from its biggest issue. Rayne's animations are uninterruptible, so if you try to jump out of the way of an imminent blow while you're still swinging away, you can't do anything to avoid getting hit. There are also times when one mistake can thrust you into a string of unavoidable attacks because enemies continually whale on you when you're vulnerable. Furthermore, Rayne doesn't always perform the proper move. When you strike enemies low, you chop off their legs, and they continue to drag their wretched carcasses toward you even though they can't do any damage. You may run toward a healthy, gun-toting enemy in an attempt to end his life, but when you try to hit him, you might stomp the crawling beast on the ground instead. Other times, you reach out to grab a stunned enemy only to come up empty-handed or snatch a non-stunned one nearby. This may sound like a small issue, but when enemies flood the screen and you need to use every trick to survive, it leads to more than a few unfair deaths. With practice, you can avoid these pitfalls, but you never feel as if you're totally in control.

When the action shifts from combat to platforming, new problems arise. Although Rayne is nimble, she is not particularly accurate in where she lands. You have little control once airborne, which makes landing on small ledges aggravating. To reach higher ground, you perform a backflip, but this is too clunky to make for satisfying jumping. It's far too easy to overshoot your mark, and repeatedly trying to land on the same platform quickly becomes tedious. During certain sequences, you need to run as fast as possible while performing midair dashes to maintain your speed, and it's clear that Betrayal's controls are not up to the task. In some levels, you turn into a bird, and though you have more freedom than when you're restricted to the ground, it isn't more fun. Tapping a button keeps you afloat, but you're unwieldy in this form, so it's too easy to fly into spikes or other traps when you're just trying to stay alive.


Welcome to the third circle of hell.
Despite problems in combat and platforming, Betrayal isn't particularly difficult for most of the game. However, though you can easily triumph in individual battles, poorly placed checkpoints force you to replay large portions if you should falter. Furthermore, there are a few difficulty spikes that ramp up the challenge to a frustrating degree. Certain platforming sequences are guilty of this problem, but it's the boss fights who pose the most annoying threats. In one, you have to survive a veritable gauntlet of enemies while an evil lord laughs at you from above. When you reach this point, this is the hardest battle you've yet encountered, so just surviving the string of enemies is an achievement. But after you finish them all off, the real boss fight begins, and if you die, you have to start from the beginning. If the controls were perfect, this wouldn't be a huge problem. But mistakes are almost a given in this stilted adventure, and fighting through the same wave over and over again until you figure out how to destroy the boss is a rage-inducing experience.

With practice and determination, you can come to grips with the cumbersome controls. And once you overcome the handicaps, Betrayal can be a lot of fun. Each of the 15 levels tracks your score, and though you can squeak by with an F rating your first time through, going back to raise that to a respectable level gives the game plenty of replay value. But it's just not worth sinking hours into Betrayal to uncloak that saving light. There's a deep and varied combat system under the surface that's struggling to be dug out, but there are just too many swollen corpses weighing BloodRayne: Betrayal down.

Avadon: The Black Fortress

If you don't have any experience with Spiderweb's previous games, your first moments with Avadon are likely to come as a shock. The single-player-only game could almost have been developed in 1989. Crude isometric visuals and paltry sound recall the 286 era. By 2011 standards, the game is ugly. Characters and monsters are soft-focus multicolored blobs, and you can't zoom the camera in to get a better look. Dungeon furniture and architecture mainly consist of standard chests and wardrobes like the set dressing in summer stock theater. Outdoor locales are loaded with symmetrically arranged cacti, rocks, and other terrain features that make the landscape look surreal. Only some of the textures stand up to scrutiny: the gravel roads and stone walls look pretty good. There are virtually no audio effects. The game has no music or voice acting, and monsters share a handful of attack noises. Oddly, a near-constant wind seems to blow whether you're indoors or out.

Game options are sparse in the beginning. You start off with no real character customization options. You get to type in a name and pick from four set Dungeons & Dragons-inspired classes that touch on the standard fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief archetypes. The only difference is their names: the warrior is called a blademaster, the wizard a sorceress, the cleric a shaman, and the thief a shadowwalker. There are some variances, most notably in the way that the classes veer off into slightly innovative directions. Still, there is no way to roll up a custom character, so you're stuck with a quick choice before delving into the action.

Thankfully, Avadon has a lot of appeal beyond this admittedly off-putting surface. Some areas feature a considerable amount of detail when it comes to furnishings, with elaborate layouts in bedrooms, libraries, and other locales. You're given just enough for your mind's eye to work with, so suspending disbelief isn't a problem. Performance is also very good, making this a good choice for older machines or even netbooks. Some user interface flaws get in the way, however. Levels are typically massive and confusing, which isn't helped by the hit-and-miss minimap. Quests aren't noted on the minimap, and neither are some key characters and locales. Even vital spots like stairs up and down aren't given icons, which can be incredibly annoying given the mazelike nature of many of the levels. The developer has at least posted more-comprehensive maps in the official forums on its website, but they're hardly an acceptable substitute.


Redbeard is good, bad, or some blend of both.
Despite the flaws, you can't help but be drawn in once you go deeper into the game. Even though the graphics don't do a complete job of immersing you in this fantasy world, textual blurbs bridge the gap between what you see and what you're supposed to be envisioning. They tell a story and bring situations to life without being overly wordy. The generic medieval fantasy setting and plot are somewhat predictable, though. Events center on a fantasy land of magic and monsters dominated by the Midlands Pact, an alliance of five nations dedicated to protecting all that is good from evildoers. The heart of the Midlands Pact is Avadon, a fortress ruled by the ominous Redbeard, a hero who might be going a little too far when it comes to guarding the realm from the bad guys. You play as a newcomer to Avadon, one of Redbeard's warriors dedicated to helping the big guy keep the peace. The story keeps you interested, even though it offers few surprises--or at least few surprises that you don't see coming a mile away

Quests mix inventive tasks like playing PR man to an irritable dragon with typical go-fetch and locate-missing-people busywork. There is a lot of combat during these assignments, although you're never overwhelmed. Battles are not so numerous that you feel numbed by monotony. They actually fly past pretty quickly, with characters and foes moving as though they're under the influence of a haste spell augmented with liberal shots of Red Bull. Fighting is handled from a tactical perspective, in a way that hasn't changed much since the aforementioned Gold Box games of two decades ago. Whenever you spot a foe, the real-time exploration mode switches to a turn-based perspective, and grids pop up on the screen to show you how and where characters can move. It's an easy-to-learn and intuitive system for anyone with a background in RPGs. The main drawback is a lack of monster variety. There are a fair number of creeps in the game, drawn from fantasy archetypes such as giant spiders, lizards, wizards, orcs, and the like, but they mainly attack in straightforward melee styles. You don't need to get too fancy with combat strategies, save in some of the boss battles, which can be brutal on the regular difficulty and above. The visuals aren't detailed enough to make monsters distinctive, either, so you're often facing off against blurry groupings of pixels that need to be identified by the text blurbs beneath them.


There aren't any big surprises here, especially if you pay attention to what's going on with the average folks living in the Midlands Pact.
Character development also offers a fair number of options. Experience points are earned for combat and other tasks and are used to level up party members. Skill points are doled out for each level and are then spent on buffing core stats as well as special class abilities that boost attacks, defenses, spells, and so forth. Basically, this gives you extra goodies to employ during battle with the use of a vitality pool that sits alongside your hit points. These features lend an added dimension to combat strategies with souped-up attacks and healing spells or buffs to core functions like hit-point regeneration and the percentage chance to inflict a critical hit. There isn't anything dramatic or new here in the character skill trees, although there are enough options to give you the sense of growing and customizing your party.

If you crave up-to-the-minute 3D visuals and bombastic sound, Avadon: The Black Fortress is not for you. But if you want to immerse yourself in a fantasy adventure and don't mind letting your imagination take over where the graphics end, this RPG can be involving and satisfying. You might get the feeling that you've played this game before, but in this case, that is sort of the point, and one of the big positives to this retro treat.

The Gunstringer

When familiarizing yourself with The Gunstringer's controls, it helps if you can think like a 6-year-old child. In this forced-scrolling shoot-'em-up, your skeletal protagonist automatically sprints through a variety of Western-themed locales, and you just have to worry about gunning down foes while avoiding their attacks. Shooting couldn't be easier. Paint up to six enemies at a time by sweeping your right hand (there's a left option also) across the screen, and then snap your wrist to pepper them with bullets. Forming a makeshift gun with your fingers isn't required, but it sure feels a lot more natural than firing at your pesky foes with an open palm. And if you want to shout "pew pew pew," there's nothing stopping you. There are times when you have to thrust your arm two or three times before it registers, but it's ultimately a small problem because there's little punishment for being a second late. While your right hand is acting as a gun, your left is in charge of movement. Imagine you're holding the crossbar of a marionette. Pull up to jump, swing to the side to dodge, and marvel at how your every action works just like it should. The controls in The Gunstringer feel fantastic and set a great foundation for this goofy adventure.

For the majority of the game, you run through streets lined with cardboard constructions that resemble cacti, saloons, and all manner of Old West props. Enemies leap from buildings and onto the road in front of you, and you gun them down without ever breaking your stride. The Gunstringer is at its best during these free-flowing portions. There isn't quite as much dynamism in the enemy placement as you would find in the best games in the genre, but it's still a joy to gun everyone down with a gunslinger's relish. During predetermined segments, you pop behind conveniently placed cover. Your left hand lets you poke your bold head out from its protective hiding place, allowing you to strike down the swarming baddies with your right hand. Popping in and out of cover feels so smooth that these brief respites are always welcome. At other times, you put your gun away for a spell and focus on jumping. Platforming culled straight from the original Donkey Kong sees you climbing girders while avoiding traps, but this is the weakest portion of the game. It's so easy that you can lazily move your arms without much thought, so you go through the motions until you whip out your gun a few minutes later.


Watch out for the runaway cannons!
There are other gameplay diversions along the way--including a few surprising and memorable boss encounters--but The Gunstringer doesn't rely on variety to propel you forward. You experience most of the different action sequences within the first few levels, and after that, it's just variations of the same themes. This could be seen as a detriment to your long-term engagement, but The Gunstringer's emphasis on ensuring that most of what you do is fun propels it beyond any potential stumbles it could have encountered. There is not one dull moment in the course of this roughly five-hour adventure. You effortlessly move from gunning to platforming to skydiving without any downtime, and every interlude injects something new to keep things interesting. Whether it's a shotgun that lets you gun down a horde of foes in one deadly blast or cantankerous ghosts who desperately try to steal your soul, you never know what to expect around the bend.

Presentation also goes a long way toward pushing you forward. A surly narrator tells the story while you're playing, and this adds a lot to the experience. Although his words don't always line up with your actions, he delivers his pronouncements in a terrifically deadpan manner that makes them incredibly funny. When he says, "Six targets, six bullets--the way God and nature intended," you might nod along with the truth of the statement if it were uttered in a more serious situation. But The Gunstringer presents this as a parody of Old West cliches, so it comes across as a great joke that easily brings a smile to your face. While the narrator skirts the line between funny and somber, the full motion video footage of people watching your exploits is knee-slapping goofy. Real-life actors were brought into a theater and react to what you're doing in hilariously exaggerated displays of emotion. One man does a triple take during one shocking moment, and it's hard to stifle a laugh at his wide-eyed, incredulous expression.a

Driver: Renegade

You play as series mainstay John Tanner, an ex-cop who's hired by one of New York's big political figures to rid the city's streets of crime. Doing so requires you to mercilessly drive your car around like a lunatic and bash into any enemy vehicles that try to stop you--and that's pretty much the extent of what Driver: Renegade 3DS has to offer. For the most part, the driving is solid but completely unremarkable. Individual cars (which are unlocked after completing missions) handle according to their relative stats, and also make use of a "rage bar." The bar recharges during drifts and stunts, giving you access to a temporary speed boost and the ability to destroy assailants using shunts.

Not only do the game's run-of-the-mill racing objectives fail to capitalize on the solid driving mechanics, but it also makes it easy to cheat the system and truncate the running time of an otherwise prolonged mission to much shorter periods. For instance, instead of becoming embroiled in a captivating car chase through the city streets, merely trapping an opposing car against a nearby wall and then ramming into it a few times is more than enough to meet the requirements of your objective. Boxing in an opponent may sound like a valid tactic to some, but in reality, it's just not fun; and you may even find yourself causing such incidents to happen without even trying. Even worse, similar frustrations can also befall you. Spinning out and knocking against other cars or parts of the environment rapidly drains the stability of your car, meaning that deaths are often unfair and unpredictable.

The Story mode is light on interesting exposition, and the incredibly hammy dialogue and voice acting are executed with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. Brief motion comics highlight the paper-thin narrative, and its justifications for throwing you into missions are poorly conceived. Tanner himself, who has been relatively stoic in the past, is inexplicably transformed into an archetypal tough guy who shamefully spouts a small selection of bad one-liners and puns ad nauseam. The game desperately tries to appear edgy with gratuitous swearing; and there are embarrassing attempts at titillation via the introduction of a sultry female character, but all of its efforts are awkwardly juvenile. It also takes no more than three hours to get through the story's 20 missions, although the game actually runs out of tricks by about half that length. There's a separate Career mode as well, which allows you to compete in specific events pulled from the main game, including time trials and eliminator races. However, it's essentially the same content without the shoddy narrative in between, so you won't feel much desire to carry on playing past the fleeting Story mode. While you can use StreetPass to exchange scores and records, multiplayer of any kind is a no-show--not even local play is included.


While they're nice to look at, the motion comics illustrate a poorly conceived story.
The polygonal city you ride and smash around in is a hollow and vaguely open-world map with a noticeable lack of life on the surrounding streets. Every inch of the city feels empty on a drastic scale: Traffic is extremely light and the absence of everyday citizens galloping from the path of your speeding car seems strangely at odds with the conventions of the series. It also doesn't help that everything looks so washed out and jagged. Plus, the shoddy use of stereoscopic 3D adds nothing to the visuals--it's much more comfortable to play with the slider turned all the way down. On the plus side, the soundtrack is tolerable and the menus are generally well produced; in fact, they are arguably the most impressive aspect of the entire game.

From its overwhelming repetition to its tepid attempts to be cool and irreverent, Driver: Renegade 3D is a game that fails to create an action-driving hybrid that is even remotely engaging. Its solid driving mechanics have been squandered on a game that is far too boring, and the end result is a product that feels consistently rough and flawed in every way.

SkyDrift

At the heart of SkyDrift are three race modes: Power is standard racing with both offensive and defensive power-ups enabled; Survivor is an elimination-based variation on Power that removes whoever is in last place at timed intervals; and Speed replaces power-ups with glowing rings that provide your plane with a brief boost. These modes are scattered across the main single-player campaign, which places you in stages that get progressively harder as you advance, with new planes and paint jobs awarded along the way. All of the modes are enjoyable, but they become fairly repetitious before too long--the game would certainly benefit from having a few more race types to add to the variety. There are six tracks (plus reversed versions of each) set in different locations. The surrounding environments for each track range from the mountainous to the glacial, and they're all visually striking, with impressive levels of detail. Annoyingly, though, SkyDrift's overly saturated lighting effects can sometimes be overbearing on the visuals, making power-ups and obstacles difficult to discern against the harshly lit backdrop.

Power-ups include the usual suspects, such as mines, heat-seeking missiles, and shields. Picking up two power-ups of the same kind upgrades their effectiveness, and it's also possible to trade in stored power-ups for small doses of boost. To a similar end, you can drift behind other planes and ride lower to the ground to gain even more boost. You can also use the right stick to "knife edge" the plane so that you can weave through tight crevices and gaps that would otherwise cause you to crash instantly. Even when you do crash, though, respawns are quick enough that you don't lose much time. Because tracks are awash in sharp corners and sudden hairpin turns, the high-speed nature of the game ensures that you're considerate of your every action--when you mess up, it's usually your fault and not the game's. SkyDrift's tight controls and multitude of power-ups let you approach mid-race situations with the kind of sudden tactical initiative that can either help or hinder you, depending on the decisions you make. That said, it's a shame that none of the power-ups are particularly creative--it would have been nice to see more-expressive weaponry beyond generic rocket launchers and machine guns.


Environments range from the mountainous to the glacial.
Beyond the single-player races is lag-free online multiplayer, which is really the shining jewel of SkyDrift. While the multiplayer cannot be played locally, all of the aforementioned modes and tracks can be played with up to eight players online, and the host retains complete control over map settings and the choice of planes before races begin. Despite the competency of the AI in the single-player portion, the game becomes infinitely more enjoyable when real people are thrown into the mix. Power-ups are well balanced, and no one plane is more likely to dominate than any other, meaning that every competitor is treated fairly, regardless of skill level. A host of criteria-based badges and medals can also be earned throughout both single-player and online matches, which is a nice touch that neatly ties in to the game's achievements and trophies.

If you've ever played an arcade or kart racer before, then you have a good idea of what to expect from SkyDrift. It does nothing that hasn't been done in the past, nor does it outperform any of its contemporaries in any meaningful way. Thankfully, solid controls and a strong dependency on tactics mean that SkyDrift still manages to offer up a good amount of fun in spite of its derivative makeup, especially when played online.

Men of War: Vietnam

At least Men of War: Vietnam is honest up front. The very first mission tosses you into the deep end without any life preservers. Denied even the benefit of a brief tutorial or some tips on how to handle the first few enemy encounters, you're thrown into the midst of a battle between the US and a small group of Russian advisors and Vietcong soldiers. A Huey incinerates your convoy in the scripted opening seconds and then returns to obliterate the paltry four survivors in your squad within moments. Either you get your guys off the road and under cover in less time than it took you to read the start of this paragraph, or everybody dies. It's an abysmal introduction. It's hard to imagine anyone new to the Men of War series sticking around for very long after this greeting. Even series veterans can't help but be taken aback by how brutally the game begins. Playing on easy helps a bit by reducing enemy numbers, but the game remains incredibly punishing.

The two-part campaign that sees the first five missions focusing on Russian and Vietcong troops and the second five missions swinging over to the US is unforgiving all the way through. You go into missions with tiny squads ranging from just four guys to around a dozen or so, and you have to fight and/or sneak your way through huge maps crawling with countless enemy patrols and dotted with umpteen goals. The playing field is so tilted against you that you're at risk of it falling on your head at any moment. Enemies can spot you from long distances, hear you even when you're firing silenced rounds, and shoot you with unerring accuracy even when you're hunkered down behind brush. The entire squad can be wiped out in mere moments, at almost any time. You need to creep forward very cautiously, experiment with a lot of trial and error, and save every time you do anything even remotely good. Kill a bad guy? Save. Find a great cover spot? Save. And so on. At least the game helps out by autosaving at smart, frequent intervals.

There are a couple of saving graces. Mission maps are extremely detailed and come with multiple options to get past every enemy troop position. Granted, sometimes none of them are pleasant, but at least you have many choices, ranging from open assaults to flanking maneuvers to firing locations and weapon selection. Enemy artificial intelligence is lacking, too, though at least the stupidity of your foes makes it easier to complete scenarios against the incredible odds. Foes typically respond to attacks by going back to standard patrol routes, oblivious to the corpses of their comrades and the burning wreckage around them, or by walking mindlessly into the jungle until your lads shoot them to bits. When you're beaten, you're beaten through sheer force of numbers or by superior enemy positions like bunkers, but never from being outsmarted.


Zoom in close for all the glorious battle detail, like your men being overrun enemies.
Unfortunately, your own troops aren't very smart, either. They often switch weapons for no apparent reason in mid-battle and ignore enemies gleefully murdering the whole squad from a few feet away. Maybe it's the cover itself, or maybe it's dumb soldiers not standing in the right spots, but your boys often seem to think they're hidden when they're exposed enough to take a bullet to the head. Targeting isn't very accurate, unless you micromanage troops with direct control, which is hard to do in the middle of a big scrap. You can order your squad to assault a lone VC hiding behind a truck, for example, and watch in horror as your lads line up behind the bumper and fill it full of holes…while your enemy pops out of cover and slaughters everyone.

Special abilities and weapons offer some chance at survival. There is something of a role-playing flavor here with named squadmates who come equipped with gear and combat skills. At times, the game resembles the Commandos series. Troops with silenced SMGs, sniper rifles, and big M60s provide you with a shot at whittling down enemy numbers. That said, the small size of your squads makes it devastating when just one man is killed. Lose your sniper, and it's pretty much game over unless you're in the home stretch.

Jungle terrain is both an ally and an enemy. The engine does a great job rendering the foliage of Southeast Asia, and it isn't just for show. It's so thick that you can ably stage hit-and-run raids where you blitz enemy positions and then fade back into the green. Bad guys take advantage of the green stuff as well, though, and it's so voluminous that you often can't see anything. Events develop so fast that your men might be slaughtered before you can get the camera properly into position. You expect a lot of jungle in a Vietnam game, of course, but it seems like you wind up with a big frond in your face every time you adjust the camera the slightest bit to better view a firefight.


The plan: Kill, or be killed.
All of the campaign missions can also be run through cooperatively with up to four other players. This is the best way to play the game, as it mitigates the extreme difficulty of going solo. It also lets you tackle objectives more efficiently via coordinated attacks. Some missions seem to have been designed with co-op in mind. The first mission, in fact, features a section where you must detonate three US Hueys before they take off. This is hard to achieve playing solo without sacrificing at least one man during the assault, because the choppers head to the skies almost as soon as you open fire. But when you're playing with a buddy, you can divvy up the targets to blow them all up before the pilots can get the rotors spinning. Unfortunately, there are some technical problems with online play. Connection errors frequently pop up on the server screen, making it impossible to join many matches. This may be because of conflicts between various versions of the game sold by different retailers or conflicts between those who purchased the DLC pack released alongside the main game and those who did not. Either way, a patch is desperately needed. Even when you can get into games, the play is a bit laggy, and synchronization issues frequently arise.

As frustrating as Men of War: Vietnam is, it still provides some satisfying moments. Emerging hale and hearty at the end of a mission is always cause for celebration, seeing how the odds are so slanted against you, and the opposing forces are made up of what seems to be the entire US Army or Vietcong. Still, the extreme challenge is a tough sell, and it makes it so difficult to get past the first mission that you might never get to the point where you can get hooked.

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten

Some promises are harder to keep than others, but for Valvatorez, a promise is a sacred thing, to be honored no matter the personal sacrifice it requires. For reasons that aren't immediately clear, Valvatorez has sworn to no longer drink the blood of humans. He was once fearfully referred to as "The Blood-Soaked Valvatorez of Absolute Evil" and "The King of Carnage and Atrocity," but his power has diminished tremendously since he made his vow and forswore the empowering delights of drinking human blood. Now, he works as a prinny instructor, just another cog in the wheel of the vast netherworld bureaucracy. But he doesn't let the lowering of his station dampen his spirits, and he has even found a new culinary treat to adore: sardines. Valvatorez sings their praises at every opportunity, going so far as to interrupt story sequences to shower you with facts you didn't care to know about sardines. He's a great central character for this tale, and the large cast of friends and foes is composed of similarly strange and delightful characters. Valvatorez's sycophantic werewolf servant Fenrich manages to convince himself that his master's most glaring mistakes are actually acts of incomprehensible virtue and brilliance. Former middle-schooler Fuka can't accept that she has died and been sent to the netherworld, so she maintains that everything that happens is just part of an elaborate dream she's having.

Disillusioned by the corruption that exists at the highest levels of the netherworld's government, Valvatorez builds a team and sets out to overthrow that government and usher in a new era of evil. Concerns about government corruption, labor exploitation, freedom of speech, and other weighty issues abound, but they're woven seamlessly into Disgaea 4's slyly humorous tale. The cutscenes are unimpressive, with character portraits that make the occasional dramatic gesture but mostly stand still. However, the writing sparkles throughout, and lively voice acting conveys the character's emotions even when the visuals don't.

Feel my wrath, Hi My Honey!

Redrawn, high-definition sprites make this the sharpest-looking Disgaea yet, but the series' style hasn't evolved at all, and this is still a visually simple game. However, what it lacks in technical prowess, it makes up for to some degree in charm. Although these battles involve vampires, werewolves, demons, and other denizens of the netherworld, cute designs make the action lighthearted and the characters endearing; it's a delight to see these little sprites perform elaborate attacks that appear to rend the fabric of space.

The core of Disgaea 4 is in the turn-based strategic battles that have defined the series. Viewing the action from an isometric perspective, you move your characters to tiles on the field of battle and strive to vanquish your enemies with physical attacks and magic. You need to consider your characters' movements carefully to maximize the amount of damage they can do on each turn. For instance, by placing teammates on adjacent tiles prior to an attack, you create the possibility for them to join forces and perform a more powerful team attack. You can exploit this system by maneuvering squad members into positions to maximize team attacks, then retracting their moves to have them act elsewhere, thus expanding your tactical possibilities.

These sprites may look harmless, but get a few of 'em together and they can really pack a wallop.

The geo blocks introduced in Disgaea 3 return here; these cubes convey special properties onto specific tiles across the battlefield, often making your struggles much more challenging. They might create clones of an enemy with each passing turn, for instance, or make enemies on certain tiles invincible. These force you to consider whether to focus each character's efforts on fighting the enemy monsters or on eliminating the troublesome blocks.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2

You assume the role of the game's nameless protagonist, a young ruffian and would-be monster scout (a person with the ability to subdue and command monsters) who stows away on a flying vessel headed toward a major monster-scout tournament. As fate would have it, the ship encounters a patch of turbulence and crash-lands on an uncharted island seemingly devoid of human life. It's up to you to develop your monster-scouting skills to command the beasts that rule this island and find the ship's missing passengers. But there's more to this strange island than meets the eye, and you soon discover secret tomes and treasures of legendary monster scouts of yore. Perhaps you were sent to this place for a reason. It's not a particularly interesting or original story, but Joker 2's saga still manages to charm thanks to superb localization. Dialogue is consistently amusing, laden with silly puns and odd little speech tics that make the various characters and critters you meet during your quest a memorable bunch. The visual element of the game is also strong, with surprisingly detailed environments and amusing character and enemy animations that help bring the island and its denizens to life.

Dragon Quest is known for its staunch adherence to traditional RPG elements, and while Joker 2 maintains the old-school feel of its forefathers, it also takes the formula in some different directions. Instead of progressing on an overworld map from hub town to dungeon to point of interest, you move from one monster-riddled area to another via a simplified map menu, with new places to explore opening as you complete various story goals. You won't find much in the way of towns, either. Instead, the wrecked ship acts as a hub, with functions like a vending machine, an automated bank, and a monster holding pen becoming available as the game progresses and more shipwrecked non-player characters are rescued.

Combat in Joker 2, as in its sibling games, is old-fashioned. Commands are given to your party through text menu selections, and your crew and the enemy take turns bashing each other until someone emerges victorious. The big difference this time is that instead of a crew of armored warriors, you're commanding a monster squad that you have personally recruited and trained. Your party consists of up to six monsters at a time: three in combat, three in reserve (though bigger beasties require multiple spaces in your roster). You can switch your monsters in and out of combat at any time, even replacing fallen fauna with a full-health unit from your reserve crew if need be. Each monster breed has numerous distinct characteristics, and as they gain levels from fighting, you earn skill points that you can use to give them new attack skills and stat boosts from a species-specific selection. You also have the ability to attempt to scout almost any foe you encounter, which involves having your on-field team show its strength by attacking a monster as a group (but not dealing any damage). If you hit hard enough, you might get a new teammate, but if you fail, you could lose a turn--or worse, make your foe even more aggressive.


Monster mashing: it's not just for mad scientists anymore!
Capturing and building your monster posse is a lot of fun, but what makes things even more interesting is the monster synthesis feature, which opens a few hours into the game. You can fuse two monsters of a high-enough level into a brand-new beast, complete with otherwise unobtainable skills inherited from its "parents." Not only do these fused monsters have access to a wider skillset, but they also gain levels more quickly and have better stat sets than creatures captured on the field. While synthesis itself is great fun, the preparation and aftermath are considerably less exciting. You often need to build up one or both of the monsters for your desired fusion to a certain level--and possibly well beyond that if you want their offspring to come into the world with a huge pool of skill points off the bat. Fused monsters also start at a very low level, requiring you to fight and grind for experience points to make them as strong as the rest of your crew. Since combat can be a bit slow, this can become a source of some irritation. At least you have the option to let the monsters in your party use their own AI instead of giving them direct commands, but even so, you still have to watch combat animations and dialogue play out every single turn. Making things worse is that several nuances to combat and fusion aren't explained well in-game--you need to consult your easy-to-overlook Scout Guide to figure out that maybe you need to run away from that giant flying lynx that can kill you instantly instead of trying to fight it.

It may not be an all-time classic like some of the other Dragon Quest installments, but Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 is still a solid entry in one of the most storied RPG franchises around. It's challenging, endearing, not overly complicated, and plenty of fun, and and a good bet for RPG fans looking for a new beast to tame.a

Radiant Silvergun

For the uninitiated, Radiant Silvergun is absolutely daunting the first time you start things up. The right side of the screen displays all of the weapons you currently have access to, as well as the buttons that they're mapped to. Your eyes stare at the screen, trying to comprehend how you're going to manage seven separate guns at once. Do you unlock them as you go? Maybe grab power-ups from destroyed enemies? Nope! The weapons you begin Radiant Silvergun with are the ones you keep for the entire game. There are three base weapons that continually upgrade as you use them. Homing missiles, explosive diagonal blasts, and a deadly frontal ray offer good diversity in your killing powers. The four secondary weapons have more specific uses. Lock-on missiles, a sweeping laser, and rear assault fit right in with what you'd expect, but the final weapon is quite different from the norm. A short-range sword can be used to defeat enemies, as well as gobble up certain attacks, and figuring out how to use this bad boy is the key to mastering the game.

There are many shoot-'em-ups where enemies flood the screen with so many bullets that the games have become known as "bullet hell." Radiant Silvergun is not one of those games. Challenge comes from managing your guns so you can efficiently dispose of the vast assortment of enemies you encounter. The radar strike, for instance, is the only weapon that can pass through barriers, so using it to clear out foes in front of you is a great way to win a battle before your life is even threatened. At other times, your best bet is to fly toward the top of the screen and use your rear cannon, so you're safely out of harm's way while your enemies fire their worthless guns toward the bottom. But you have to play levels many times before you understand these methods. Furthermore, your guns are so weak in the early going that it takes an awfully long time to take down simple enemies. Because of these two elements, you have to spend hours upgrading your weapons and learning patterns before you're adept enough to triumph.


Those happy pink balls spell your doom.
There's no use sugar coating the experience of playing Radiant Silvergun during its first few hours. Unless you're an expert in this genre, you will die repeatedly, and you will be forced to replay the first level over and over again. It's exhausting. If you aren't prepared for this onslaught, it's easy to lose faith and move on to a less demanding game. And because Radiant Silvergun is so challenging, there's no reason to feel bad for admitting you're just not good enough. But if you have the dedication to see things through, Radiant Silvergun is richly rewarding. Every minute you spend playing makes you that much stronger, and it's empowering to cleave through enemies that stoically stood in your path when you were weaker. Every hour you spend fighting waves of enemies adds another life onto your total, so even those who aren't proficient in shoot-'em-ups should be able to amass a large enough collection to succeed.

Radiant Silvergun is never cheap. When you die, it's because you messed up. You misjudged an enemy's attack pattern or flew too close to a barrier. This knowledge gives you the strength to push on because if you stay attentive, you won't make careless mistakes that cost you dearly. Precise controls ensure you're completely in command of your craft. Whether you're weaving in and out of bullets, circling bosses to find their weak points, or wielding your sword like a dragon slayer, everything feels just as it should. Age has been extremely kind to Radiant Silvergun because the core mechanics are so well implemented. The visuals have been updated slightly from the Saturn original, and though it's clear this is a game that was first released more than a decade ago, it still looks sharp. It's easy to discern the background from the foreground, as well as identify enemies, and that instant communication is the most vital aspect of a shoot-em-up's visual design.


This boss demands an artistic style all its own.
The persistent Story mode is the most interesting way to play Radiant Silvergun, but if steep difficulty is too much to handle, you can dive into Arcade mode for a breather. Here, you can tweak how many lives you have, and that cushion gives you a chance to experiment without the fear that constantly hounds you in Story mode. If you're still stuck, Practice mode gives you a chance to test out the best strategy in a specific portion before you make a legitimate run for it. Here, you can tweak the speed settings, which gives you a chance to understand everything unfolding before you crank things up full blast. There's also a cooperative mode (online or offline) if you crave help from a more adept player or want to take a novice under your wing. Finally, you can tweak the difficulty, even in Story mode, so beginners have a chance to succeed. Turning things down to easy lowers the hit points of your enemies, so you can spend less time focusing on leveling up and more time having fun.

Radiant Silvergun has stood the test of time. The core mechanics are so well implemented that you can never blame the game for your mistakes, which goes a long way toward lessening the frustration. But it's impossible to completely eliminate the feeling of helplessness in a game this difficult. You will need to sink in many hours before you're strong enough to expertly gun down enemies, and it's hard to deny the tedium of repeatedly playing the first levels until things finally click. Those easily intimidated need not apply, but anyone craving a serious challenge should look no further, and the novel persistent upgrade system offers a healthy change from other shoot-'em-ups. When you throw in modern amenities, such as leaderboards and downloadable replays, this turns into an addictive challenge for anyone who loves chasing high scores. Radiant Silvergun is unkind to beginners but offers a satisfying experience to those who are willing to invest themselves in it.

Kirby Mass Attack

The game's effervescent plot thickens when Kirby's latest nemesis, the evil skull-lord Necrodeus, blasts the poor fellow into 10 tiny versions of himself in hopes of eradicating the pink hero once and for all. His plan almost works, but one remaining wayward Kirby manages to escape. Setting out to rally the troops and defeat Necrodeus by piecing himself back together, the last Kirby must rely on his mini-pals for support. This cute story gimmick translates into some excellent strategic platforming and puzzle-solving. Beefing up and maintaining your small pink army is integral to the gameplay, and the unique ways that you have to put the little guys to use from one level to the next keep the adventure from stagnating. The numerous stages across Mass Attack's five worlds also require you to have a certain number of Kirbys in your group to proceed--secret areas within every stage are accessed in much the same way. You gain more of your comrades as you go by collecting fruit to fill a score meter, but your herd can be whittled down if any perish permanently within a given stage. It's a cool dynamic that encourages backtracking and exploring because any Kirbys you collect will stay with you within a given world as long as you don't let them die off.

Mass Attack's intuitive touch-centric controls are fun to use and make the challenging task of micromanaging a herd of energetic little blobs easier than you might expect. You can move your group by tapping and dragging it around the screen; it's also possible to grab them all and float them along a drawn path in short bursts as in Kirby: Canvas Curse. Double-tapping foes sends your mob charging forward to dog pile onto them, or you can fling individual Kirbys around to grab items, latch onto foes, and hit switches. It's a comfortable system that works surprisingly well once you've had a little practice, and you won't find yourself missing traditional button controls much. That's not to say things don't go awry at times. Some Kirbys occasionally wander away from the pack and get into trouble, but this can be overcome with a touch of vigilance. If one of your pals perishes, there's still some hope. Members of your gang can be hit once, which turns them blue. If they're hit again, they turn into fluttering ghosts that can be recollected and saved if you grab them with another living Kirby before they get away.

Though Kirby's ability-copying powers are absent in this adventure, there's a still a ton of variety in the gameplay and puzzles. Mob mechanics are put to good use: You have to split up your Kirbys at times to take branching paths, use them to weigh down platforms, divert them to multiple foes, and put them through obstacles that require some elbow grease. Charming stage designs change up the pace at regular intervals. At various points, you may pile into a thundering tank and shoot your pals as ammo, use your collective weight to steer a hot-air balloon through dangerous obstacles, and climb through a tipsy tree trunk perched precariously by your shifting weight. That's not even considering the crazy boss battles scattered through the bubbly landscape. Each fresh encounter is wildly different from the last. Mass Attack rarely settles on a single routine for long, yet it never feels disjointed. That's a big part of what keeps the fun flowing.


Teetering trees: one of many cool new stage designs.
Collecting items and unlocking goodies have always been a staple in the Kirby series, and Mass Attack is bursting at the seams with these extras. Progressing through the main game offers a reasonable difficulty level, but completionists will relish the added challenge and replay value of going back to earn neat in-game achievements and tracking down all of the coins. A few of the many unlockable Kirby-themed minigames also offer nice surprises because they are so complete. Strato Patrol EOS is a fun, competent shooter; the pinball game is solid; and the role-playing game battler yields a pleasant diversion.

Mass Attack doesn't stray from the colorful, kid-friendly presentation and syrupy sweet platforming that the Kirby franchise is known for, but substantial innovation in the way you play it sets the game apart from its predecessors. The stylus-only controls are a welcome addition, and a terrific balance of familiarity and freshness is what makes this buoyant experience so addictive.

Leedmees

Besides the obvious "your body is the controller" twist, Leedmees throws in a number of other challenges that make this more than just another Lemmings-style puzzle game. Every level has a time limit, usually no more than a couple of minutes, so the pace is much faster than what the methodical march of the Leedmees implies. Each level is sprinkled with bonus stars that you can have the Leedmees collect to earn you a higher performance ranking. There are environmental dangers too, like spikes, ghosts, button-activated platforms, and more. New challenges and gameplay twists are introduced every couple of levels; a late-game twist that switches your gestures to mirrored movement is especially devilish. After 40 or more levels with regular movement, something as simple as a mirrored switch can completely melt your mind.

The time limit, plus the never-ending march of the Leedmees, adds a sense of urgency to each level that works both for and against the game. On the plus side, you blow through levels quickly, and you're constantly scooping, hopping, and leaning to transport Leedmees--you rarely hold a pose longer than a few seconds. Because challenges come at you fast and frequently, you don't get the "this is starting to get old" feeling that you get with many motion-based games. On the downside, some levels have you moving too fast, and the Leedmees are exceptionally fragile. A quick arm swing can send them flying to their deaths, and a misplaced foot could result in LeedMee homicide. The threshold for level completion is generous--you need to save only half of the Leedmees to pass--but hitting that threshold on some of the later levels can be a pain, literally.

The relentless pace is fun for a while, but things start to break down when you need to make precise moves. Broad gestures, like spreading your arms to make a lazy bridge, or holding your hands up to create an impromptu transport cage, work great. But some challenges, particularly the levels that require you to hold down buttons, create more frustration than fun. Watching your Leedmees march to their deaths because the game failed to pick up your subtle movement can be infuriating, especially when your muscles are attempting to revolt against the unnatural contortion you're forcing them into. The further you get, the more you feel like you and the game are just barely keeping up with each other. The sense of accomplishment you feel when beating the early levels is replaced with a feeling of relief by the end.


In this level you need to press accordion buttons, wave away ghosts, and transport Leedmees. The real challenge is to do all that without falling or cursing.
Getting past the completion threshold for the 50 single-player levels can be done in two or three hours. The extremely flexible and overly patient can stretch this out longer, since most of the achievements are locked behind "S" Rank requirements. The co-op multiplayer is fun for a few levels but is ultimately too sloppy to play for long. You're often forced to stand very close to, or touch, your co-op partner. The Kinect isn't so hot at determining whose limb is whose when all it can see is one amorphous blob. The dreamy art style and generic music are bland, but at least the characters, obstacles, and enemies are all easily identifiable, which is helpful later in the game when you're keeping mental tabs on way too many things at once.

Leedmees is a game that's good for casual play; attempting 100 percent completion in this game is a great way to make you hate it. Using your body to solve puzzles can be fun, but pulling a muscle because you're trying to get that last impossible star is not. Leedmees sports the same $10 price tag as other Kinect games available on Xbox Live, while offering a decent amount of content and replay value. It's worth a look if you want unique Kinect content that doesn't involve minigames.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters

Tiger Woods 12 is essentially a differently packaged version of Tiger Woods Online. All this game does is add the core modes of Masters play where you strive to take a shot at the coveted green jacket at The Masters and play through historic moments with or without Tiger at the legendary Augusta tourney. In some ways, it's more of an expansion pack for the Net version of Tiger than it is any kind of stand-alone game. Some vital gameplay options from the console release are not included here. The Caddy Experience feature where you access assistance from an onscreen caddy is not available, even though it was advertised as being part of the PC version of the game. Creating a pro for the Masters career mode has been knocked back so that you can only select from a handful of faces that cannot be edited. Multiplayer has been scaled back; instead of the usual suite of online matches, tournaments, and the like, you get three free months of online support before you have to pay a monthly subscription fee for Tiger Woods Online. Otherwise, you're stuck with a solo-only game after you hit the 90-day mark.

Gameplay is also not what you would expect. Control options have been dialled back to a simple--if effective and easy-to-use--three-click meter. There's also the TrueSwing option where you take cuts by sliding the mouse, but there is no gamepad support. Both options are easy to handle, especially the three-click meter because the needle moves so slowly that you can hammer balls dead straight down the fairway with pretty much every single swing that you take. Much of the game is also inextricably tied to online play. You have to be online and logged in earn the cash and experience needed to level up your golfer. Everything here is geared to getting you online and keeping you online. Of course, then you're constantly exposed to the lure of buying new accoutrements like clubs, balls, and other gear through micropayments in the online store (points needed to buy this stuff are accumulated slowly through regular gameplay). And, of course, you have to pay a monthly fee for the simple privilege of being online in the game after three months.

Online performance is far from perfect, too. Connections are dropped at times; you can be right in the middle of a match and get the message that the game has lost its connection to the servers. At that point, you're given the choice of continuing with lost access to all of the features noted above or bailing out to the menu and logging an error with EA. Neither option is particularly attractive.


Get used to paying real money for clubs and goodies here, as the cash and points roll in awfully slowly.
As with its online-only cousin, this game has stripped-down visuals with dated player models, along with nearly nonexistent sound. Gallery crowds have been excised, player faces look like something from five or six years ago, and there is no commentary in the game at all. Only the gallery crowd deletion might be seen by some as a positive because the zombielike clap-in-unison spectators from the console Tiger Woods 12 were creepy. But the total absence of people by greens in pro tournaments, as well as the lack of Jim Nantz and David Fetherly cutting up your putts, screams that this is a low-end production. With all that said, it isn't an ugly game. It supports some higher resolutions, background muzak is relaxing, and course graphics aren't hard on the eyes with the bells and whistles cranked to the "super" setting, although even then, the game's frame rate tends to chug when confronted with heavily treed areas. But when you pay $40 for a game like this bearing a well-regarded name, you expect more from the presentation.

In short, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters for the PC has been marketed under dubious pretenses as something that it clearly is not. This is more of a Masters-oriented expansion to Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online than any sort of independent golf game. Although it is not an awful golf sim, it is a very limited one when compared to the console games sold under the same name. It has also been crippled to the extent that it all but forces buyers to subscribe to Tiger Woods Online. It's a nice gesture that EA is offering refunds to dissatisfied customers, but it's hard to believe that anyone gave the OK for the release of this game in the first place.

Burnout Crash!

Burnout Crash is divided into 18 intersections, and each intersection offers three challenges: Road Trip, Rush Hour, and Pile Up. Regardless of which game type you're playing, you start each one the same way: by steering a car into traffic. (Don't worry, these cartoony cars are free of occupants; this is bloodless, casualty-free crashing.) Once you've impacted another vehicle, the crashbreaker meter appears. It fills up slowly on its own but fills much more quickly when cars are crashing, and each time it's full, you can push a button to explode. This explosion launches you into the air, at which point you can control the direction in which the flaming husk of what was once your car travels.

What you want to do with that flying piece of metal changes depending on the game type you've chosen. When you play an intersection for the first time, you're limited to Road Trip. In Road Trip, you get a strike each time a vehicle escapes from the intersection unscathed, and if you get five strikes, the game ends, so one of your concerns is trying to make sure that cars that enter the intersection do not leave it. To that end, you can use your crashbreaker explosion, which knocks any cars within a certain range out of commission. You can also use the force of your explosion to try to position wreckage in such a way that it blocks lanes of traffic (buses are especially handy for this). The cars that enter the intersection might make a modest attempt to swerve around obstructions, but they're incapable of stopping or turning around, and it's amusing to watch them plow right into a massive pileup, which they should have seen from miles away.

So Road Trip has a bit of a puzzle element to it. How can you use your crashbreakers in such a way as to prevent cars from escaping? In addition to worrying about that, you also want to cause as much destruction as possible because everything you destroy adds to your score. The streets are lined with houses, shops, boats, airplanes, and other destructible objects, and you want to raze as many of these things as you can. Of course, straying from the streets to destroy these tempting big-ticket items is a risk; if you haven't completely blocked the intersection, cars might slip through while you're trying to take down city hall. This element of risk adds some excitement to your destructive efforts, and the more effectively you've blocked an intersection, the less you need to worry. Some intersections make effectively blocking traffic trickier by adding more roads or having a traffic circle, which keeps things from feeling too predictable as you advance.


Multiple roads can make blocking traffic trickier.
You also increase your score by doing things like triggering explosion chains and by making skill shots in which your explosion sends cars into pools of water or down holes in the ground. These occurrences are celebrated with flashing numbers and slot-machine sound effects, making the entire experience whimsical and your explosive triumphs rewarding. Contributing to the chaos are special events that occur periodically. These include cops who form a roadblock at one exit and an ambulance that removes a strike if it gets through the intersection safely, which gives you incentive to clear the road rather than obstruct it. And if you manage to wreck the intersection's entire allotment of cars without earning five strikes, you trigger that intersection's super feature. This is a tornado, a tidal wave, or some other destructive force that lays waste to anything left in the area, giving you points in the process. It's a cool reward for your success and a satisfying way to cap off the chaos.