Why aren't you playing Abobo's Big Adventure? Seriously, after you finish this article, go to Newgrounds.com and play this game until your keyboard breaks. Then hook up your NES controller, and break that too. Abobo's Big Adventure is one of the best old school fan service games ever. There are more cameos from beloved (and obscure) characters than you can probably pick out, creative gameplay, and nostalgic 8-bit graphics that hug the line between “just as I remember them” and “jaw hits floor”. Oh, and there's blood. Lots of blood. Apparently, Abobo has quite the mean streak besides just punching Billy and Jimmy into a crumpled heap.
For the duration of this game you punch, kick, and annihilate just about every character you ever encountered during the 80's and early 90's. Characters from Super Mario Bros., The Legend or Zelda, Balloon Fight, Punch Out, Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more await having their faces rearranged by your angry fist. And the controls couldn't be easier: A, B, D pad, Start, and Select. Each level has its own button mapping (as each level is a parody of a different game), but the attack button will always be the attack button, so you don't have to relearn everything in between levels. Added to the game was a Rage meter that builds up as you lay the smack down on someone, and decreases as you take damage. Fill the meter up all the way, and you get a Rage attack, which upon unleashing kills just about everything on the screen.
The game is free to play or download, which only proves that it was really a labor of love. You should also cough up a few bucks for the additional content if you wish to support ABA. If you were looking really hard to find fault with this game (and you would have to look pretty hard) I guess you could say that it holds your hand a little too much as far as difficulty is concerned. One whole level is literally impossible to fail, and most of the rest have more opportunities to regain health than I remember from my childhood. This is not really a flaw, not is it even throughout the whole game. The Megaman and Contra levels are just as hard, if not harder, than their original counterparts.
If you are 25 or older, and owned a Nintendo, then this game will definitely resonate with you. If you just want to play a fun 8-bit adventure, full of violence and humor, then this game is for you. If you don't like fun, and spend your days polishing your New Kids on the Block or Justin Bieber shrines, then get the game, and then seek professional help.
Platform(s): Playstation 3, Xbox 360 Developer(s): CyberConnect 2, Capcom Publisher(s): Capcom Genre: Action Rating: T
Looking for a good action game? Then take a look at Asura’s Wrath. You are Asura, one of the Eight Guardian Generals, godly warriors who fight to protect Heaven and Earth from a destructive force known as the Gohma. Returning from an epic battle, Asura is summoned to the Emperor’s throne where he discovers the Emperor has been slain. He quickly finds himself being pursued by Imperial Guards after he blamed for the crime. Asura rushes home to protect his family only to find his wife dead and daughter, Mithra, kidnapped. His former ally, a god named Deus, reveals himself to be the Emperor’s assassin. Enraged, Asura attacks Deus for his betrayal, but Deus gains the upper hand and tosses the beaten Asura off the platform and falls to the Earth.
Twelve millennia pass and Asura finally escapes the underworld to discover that his former comrades have used his daughter’s power to amplify their godly abilities. Asura swears to rescue his child and nothing will stand in his way.
Right off the bat, you are thrown into an epic battle that takes place high above the Earth. Taking control after the opening cut-scene, you unleash Asura’s powers upon the enemy horde attacking the Imperial Armada. The target mechanic allows you to attack several enemies at once. Place several cursors across the screen and Asura will launch a powerful attack that will damage all his foes. The scene is something out of Star Wars with an armada of giant spaceships locked in an orbital dog fight with lasers blazing. Asura’s Wrath is a straight forward beat ‘em up action game that is on tier with other hack-and-slash titles like Devil May Cry and God of War. Your weapons are your fists and a lot of pent up rage. Combat in the game is done mostly through contact-sensitive sequences. Press the button at the right time for the best score. You’ll spend most of your time building up Asura’s Boost Meter that will grant him extra strength when activated. This is mostly used as a finishing move.
PRO: The action in Asura’s Wrath goes over the top especially in the boss battles. I was impressed with the game’s opening cinematic, wasting no time throwing me to the wolves during a climactic battle much like Bayonetta’s opener. And the larger-than-life Dragon Ball Z inspired boss battles are truly something. The first boss battle is against the weakest of the Seven Deities, Asura’s former comrades. Asura fights against this mountain sized titan until the god releases the power stolen from Mithra. The boss grows to planet-sized proportions. My immediate reaction, after making a Transformers-The Movie reference, was ‘I gotta fight that?!’ Imagine my surprise after witnessing a man-sized god defeat his planet-sized adversary by attacking his finger that covered an entire country. This scene truly sells the size this god has achieved. CyberConnect 2, the same company behind the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, left no attention to detail unchecked in the design of the characters and epic battle scales.
CON: However, the game’s strength is also its weakness. Though Asura’s Wrath is chock full of action, it wasn’t varied enough to truly satisfy. The enemy sets were minimal, maybe six to seven at one time on-screen, when compared to the aforementioned titles. If Asura was supposed to be in an all-out battle, it would’ve been more pleasing to see him take hordes of foes or several enemy sets. Granted that ending the scenario by activating the Boost Meter is an option and enemies continue to spawn if you don’t, I would’ve liked it to be a part of normal gameplay instead of putting spawning enemy sets on the back burner. Ok, we all know cut-scenes tell the story otherwise, you’ll have no idea what’s going on. Asura’s Wrath is no different except they use too many of them. I like how each chapter is set up as if you watching an anime but most of these chapters are told through cut-scenes. There’s a cut-scene followed by a bunch of fighting, another cut-scene, more fighting, rise and repeat until the epic boss battle. I can deal with the storytelling but I would’ve preferred the scenes to be a bit shorter; some run for nearly three minutes, a couple times the scene was almost four minutes, before you get back to the action.
OVERALL: Despite all that, Asura’s Wrath is still an enjoyable game with intense action, out-of-this-world battles against the gods and a raging avenger that will even make Kratos cower in his sandals. Asura’s Wrath gets 3 out of 5. See you on the next level, Brian M.
Well, week one is gone, and you
still can’t be sure that your loved ones have made the right gift decisions,
maximizing the awesome and limiting the suck. To improve your begging
effectiveness, part two of this article has five more awesome games, more great
honorable mentions, and another neat bit of kit for you to open, and then
scream over like an eight year old kid.
20.
Super
Mario 3D Land
Let it be known:
I am no big fan if the 3DS, it’s just not my thing yet. But more games like
Super Mario 3D Land are going to change my mind in a hurry. I think this might
be the first three dimensional Mario game that I like. Almost all the old
suits, neat camera angles, Shadow Mario. and more await you when you pop this
in your 3DS, and seeing as it’s the first new game just for the 3DS, it’s a
must have.
19.
Metal Gear
Solid HD Collection
If I have to
explain to you why more Metal Gear Solid is a good thing, then I’m not even
sure how you found this website. Computer glitch? Monkeys typing on your
keyboard? That’s how this is getting written: some Reese monkeys, a couple cans
of Four Loko, and some bananas. Bradjelina adopted all my child workers, so I
had to diversify.
All jokes aside,
this is a remake: you probably had great fun beating Solidus, Liquid, Boss, and
company already. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy doing it again with
shiny new graphics! Plus, if you didn’t get the PSP entry Peace Walker, then there’s
a whole new game waiting for you, complete with a brand new control scheme.
Plus, Snake Eater: Subsistence still comes with Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2:
Solid Snake. And a boss mode. And then there’s the online multiplayer to think
about. And it only costs $50.
18.
Halo:
Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition
I heard that
‘Chief shows his face in this edition. You just have to put in the special code
on your Game Genie. What, you can’t use a Game Genie on your 360? Well, no face
for you. But what you do get is a completely reskinned edition of the reason
that shooter games got hot on our current generation of consoles. Yes,
Goldeneye did it big, and Doom before them, but the reason why we are able to
enjoy the Battlefield, Call of Duty, or Gears of War franchises is because of
the innovation in the genre by Bungie.
So, what makes
this game special? Well, HD graphics for the first two games in the series are
a good start, and you can actually toggle between the old look and new in game
with a button press. Pretty neat. Second, achievements and online multiplayer
on the new XBL has been added, so if you’ve found yourself missing the three
shot pistol of death, or the green gun combo, then you’re in luck. Just don’t
expect them to add sword sniping back in.
17.
Resistance
3
If you have a
PS3, and only a PS3, you don’t have the new Halo. You don’t have Gears of War.
You almost didn’t get Half Life. But what you do have access to is a downright
silly roster of weapons, enemies, and game play options in Resistance. In Resistance,
it is normal to get attacked by a facehugger. Or an Invisodemon. Or a platoon
of zombified aliens. And to defend yourself you have a shotgun that lights
enemies on fire, a gun that shields and shoots through just about anything,
biological weapons, and everything gains perks over time. Plus, let’s not
forget that if there were a competition of whose game has humanity at the most
desperate position in any game ever, Resistance may well be a winner.
16.
Ultimate
Marvel vs Capcom 3
You could make a
reasonable fighting game from just the characters added in the new edition of
the Vs series. It doesn’t matter if you gravitate for traps, chainsaws, penance
stares, or objections, there’s probably a new character you have been looking
forward to fight as, or beat up. This game is literally mind blowing, every
match by similarly skilled players holds excitement and drama. Matches between
uneven competitors become combo expos, which hold their own entertainment value.
Don’t feel bad though: pwning builds character.
Honorable
Mentions
Bulletstorm
Get rewarded for violence. What’s better than that?
Yakuza 4
Tired of old, fat Italian gangsters eating pasta, and killing
each other with Tommy guns? Well prepare for young, tattooed gangsters drinking
sake, and killing each other with katanas!
Crysis 2
Pretty enough that if your wife sees you playing with it, she
might get jealous.
Fifa 12
Maa-den? Who ees Madden?
L. A. Noire
Use the lessons of sniffing out lies taught to you in this game
to figure which one of your friends is in fact the one that dealt it.
Hardware
The Playstation Vita isn’t out yet. It won’t be out by Christmas.
It won’t even be out by New Years. But in Febuary, we will finally get a chance
to see Sony’s view of the future of portable gaming. One of the major gripes
about the PSP, lack of killer games, seems to be a thing of the past, with AAA
titles like Bioshock, Uncharted, and Call of Duty developing games just for the
new system. With two touch screens, dual analog sticks, wifi and 3g, and by far
the best portable graphics ever, the Vita will be finding its way into many
happy pockets soon after all the Eggnog has been drunk.
Games to watch for:
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (w Cole from Infamous)
Platform(s): Playstation 3, Microsoft Windows, X-Box 360, Wii-U
Developer(s): Rocksteady Studios
Publisher(s): Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Genre(s): Action-Adventure
Rating: T for Teen
In 2009, we were introduced to what has been hailed as the "best superhero game ever made." Batman: Arkham Asylum gave gamers exactly what they wanted--a great comic hero game and, moreover, a great Batman game.Two years later, Rocksteady Games is looking to catch lightning twice.
The Story:
Batman: Arkham City picks one year after the events of Arkham Asylum.Taking credit for stopping the uprising at the asylym, Quincy Sharp has been elected mayor of Gotham City.His first act was to buy a large section of Gotham City's slums, which he converted into a massive prison and leaving it in the care of psychiatrist Hugo Strange.The criminals are allowed to run free with the exception of one rule.They are not allowed to escape.Batman, fearing the former warden's plan may go awry, has himself placed in Arkham City as his alter ego Bruce Wayne.After escaping and contacting Alfred, Bruce suits up and sets out to uncover the truth of Arkham City.
Right off the bat (pun intended), you get a majority of Batman's gadgets that were aquired in Arkham Asylum minus the Ultra Batclaw and Sonic Batarang.The game's open world gives it more depth than the confines of its predecessor.It truly depicts Batman's worst fear--a city where anarchy runs rampant; where values and sanctity are cast to the wind.It's one man against seemingly overwhelming odds.At the start of the game, the Dark Knight learns that Catwoman has been captured by Harvey Two-Face.He suspects there is some hidden agenda Dr. Strange has and that Catwoman might have useful information.After sneaking into an old courthouse, Batman finds Catwoman and Two-Face.Fighting Harvey's men, I immediately noticed that the freeflow combat has been tweaked.Batman glides smoothly from foe to foe, taking them out with a variety of moves.I discovered that I can take out two badguys at once in the midst of combat.I like how Batman immediately has a strong set of moves right away. The Pros:
When I got my first glimpse of Arkham City, I was awestruck by the sheer scale of Batman's new proving grounds.This city is massive.It is a vibrantly lit landscape with dark overtones.It is as if the city itself is a living entity.The graphics completely blew me away.Not one once of detail was spared.Everything from all the characters to the buildings to the TYGER helicopters flying overhead is intrigantly detailed to perfection.The game machincs are polished to a mirror finish.You have absolute control of everything with no hinges at all.And the cream of the crop--open world exploration.No longer restricted to the clastrophobic confines of Arkham Asylum, you are free to take Batman wherever you want in this massive, living, breathing landscape.With an enhanced Glide machanic, there are no restrictions.Plus, you get to play as Catwoman, whose combat machanic is just as sleek and beautiful as she is.
The Cons:
The only cons in this game are the ones you get to beat up. There is nothing bad to say about this.
OVERALL:
Epic.A beautiful dark symphony that will enthral all who listen.Rocksteady has not only struck lightning twice, they pulled it from the sky and tamed it to create this beast of a game.Arkham City is truly a masterpiece.The acting is phenominal.Kevin Conroy is awesome giving Batman his gritty voice and Mark Hamill is just electric portraying the best Joker ever.The action is intense and the boss battles are amazing.I love how each new villan is introduced as well as old ones.The inclusion of Catwoman as a playable character is a plus and just adds to the craziness of the action.The characters are beautifully detailed and the city is just majestic.While buying this game, the retailer told me that Arkham City makes the previous title look like toilet water.I can now go back to him and tell him that he was wrong.Arkham City makes the asylum look like a baby's crib.Rocksteady has brought one of the most beloved comic heroes into the spotlight of gaming.Batman: Arkham City is a game that should not be missed and a strong contender for "Game of the Year."
Final Score: Batman: Arkham City's rating is 5 out of 5. My only regret is that I can't go higher.
Platform(s): Playstation 3, X-BOX 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo WII Developer(s): Beenox (PS3, 360, WII), Griptonite Games (NDS) Genre(s): Action-Adventure/Platformer Rating: E for Everyone
Spider-man. He’s the amazing web-slinger with the never-ending witty comments and the spider-like abilities that makes him an icon in the Marvel universe. So will the wall-crawler leave a legendary mark in Beenox’s “Spider-man Shattered Dimensions” or not?
Story:
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions revolves around an artifact known as the "Tablet of Order and Chaos". When it is shattered into pieces during a skirmish between Spider-Man and Mysterio it causes problems with multiple Marvel Universe realities. Madame Web calls on four versions of Spider-Man from four realities to assist her in bringing the realities back into balance: the Amazing Spider-Man; Spider-Man Noir, a 1930s version of Spider-Man; Spider-Man 2099, the Spider-Man of a possible future; and Ultimate Spider-Man, the younger Spider-Man of an alternate present who is currently bonded with a symbiote.
Pros:
From the start, I’ll say that this is a fun game to play. The game play is reminiscent of the older Spider-man games (not including Web of Shadows), where it’s more linear with very little free-roaming. It’s a hit-or-miss factor but it fits this game. Combat is still simple button-combo commands and you get more when purchasing them in the Web of Destiny menu. The combat, however, is a good point to focus on because it differs with each dimension. While the commands stay the same, the attack styles are different with each Spider-man. Amazing Spider-man will use more web-based attacks while Ultimate Spider-man’s attacks are just the symbiote striking. Noir suit are more physical and 2099 is more aerial-based.
The dimensions are another favorite point in my book. It’s obvious to say that no two dimensions are alike, but I give credit to how Beenox approached it. Despite the slight repetitiveness in the games, you’ll be taking a slightly different approach in each world. Especially in the Noir world, where stealth is your primary objective. The Noir world gives it that Arkham Asylum style to it (and there’s a reason why I’m bringing up a DC game in a Marvel game review) because the bulk of your actions in that stage is taking down opponents under the cover of darkness. Meaning that you can’t just go in and wail on the opponents because you’ll end up looking at the death screen.
The audio in the game is something worthwhile to mention. We all know that Spider-man has a witty remark for almost anything that happens, but this game makes him run his mouth. And when you consider that there’s 4 Spider-men that you play with in the entire game, you get a lot of funny/sarcastic comments and remarks. Add to it that they put Deadpool in the game as a boss and you have a stage that’s rife with crazy commentary, even when you keep the game on pause for a while.
Cons:
Unfortunately, there are some major downsides in the game. First off, the game is short. How short, you ask? You get about 13 stages that can be completed in about 30 minutes on average, 15 if you do a speed run. So you don’t get much of the game to play. There’s also very little replay value to this game. After the first 4 stages, you get how to handle the game and well, you’ll probably get bored quick. So unless you’re doing an online walkthrough or you’re an achievement/trophy hunter, there’ll be no reason to play this game a second time.
Also, this game gets very glitchy at times. From enemy markers still on your screen when there are none there to parts of a mission where you’ve defeated the baddies and there’s no cut-scene or objective to do, you will encounter glitches even if you install the game to the hard drive. Thankfully, there are no major camera angle flaws. However, if you’re crawling on a wall and there happens to be a ledge…yeah, it’s like doing a DUI trying to crawl forward.
Overall:
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions is an alright game. It’s not worth its $60 for the purchase, but if you have a GameFly account, then it’s something to check out. And if you’re a fan of witty comments, then pause the game on Deadpool’s stage and count to 60.
As one of the pieces that make up J1 Studios, you will learn, experience, and become knowledgeable about the gaming world. If you don't succeed, press The Reset Button!
Abobo's Big Adventure is one of the best old school fan service games ever. There are more cameos from beloved (and obscure) characters than you can probably pick out, creative gameplay, and nostalgic 8-bit graphics that hug the line between “just as I remember them” and “jaw hits floor”. Oh, and there's blood. Lots of blood. Apparently, Abobo has quite the mean streak besides just punching Billy and Jimmy into a crumpled heap.
For the duration of this game you punch, kick, and annihilate just about every character you ever encountered during the 80's and early 90's. Characters from Super Mario Bros., The Legend or Zelda, Balloon Fight, Punch Out, Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more await having their faces rearranged by your angry fist. And the controls couldn't be easier: A, B, D pad, Start, and Select. Each level has its own button mapping (as each level is a parody of a different game), but the attack button will always be the attack button, so you don't have to relearn everything in between levels. Added to the game was a Rage meter that builds up as you lay the smack down on someone, and decreases as you take damage. Fill the meter up all the way, and you get a Rage attack, which upon unleashing kills just about everything on the screen.
The game is free to play or download, which only proves that it was really a labor of love. You should also cough up a few bucks for the additional content if you wish to support ABA. If you were looking really hard to find fault with this game (and you would have to look pretty hard) I guess you could say that it holds your hand a little too much as far as difficulty is concerned. One whole level is literally impossible to fail, and most of the rest have more opportunities to regain health than I remember from my childhood. This is not really a flaw, not is it even throughout the whole game. The Megaman and Contra levels are just as hard, if not harder, than their original counterparts.
