Castle Crashers - XBLA

Developer: The Behemoth
Publisher: The Behemoth
Release Date (US): 8/27/2008
System(s): Xbox 360
Modes: All You Can Quaff, Arena Mode, Story Mode
Rating: T (Teen)

What can I say about Castle Crashers? That game is SOOOOOO fun!!! So fun that it gets people who don't care for gaming at all to play. Think of this as an RPG version (characters can have 4 types of skills leveled up throughout the game: strength, magic, defense, agility/archery) of TMNT Arcade Game or X-Men the Arcade Game. It's really just a smash and grab game that pays homage to the classic 2D side scrolling action adventure genre. At first I thought the 1200 MS Points ($15 US) was a bit steep, but this game has a little more depth to it, as well as excellent HD graphics. It's one of the only games I can think of from the XBLA that employs widescreen and not a little 4:3 box.

• All you can Quaff is a single and multiplayer mode that is a basically a button masher. You press buttons alternately to make your player eat food. Whoever finishes all their food the fastest wins. This seems to go on forever ( never played more than 6 or 7 rounds at a time) with no apparent end.
• Arena - in single player mode, you fight an onslaught starting with one, then two, then three, etc. of one type of enemy. That enemy is usually whatever enemy dominates the nearby level close to the arena or stadium that you are in. The arena near the thieves' forest is filled with arrow-wielding thieves. After you beat all of them without dying, you unlock characters. In multiplayer everyone fights amongst themselves until one person is standing victorious.
• Story - I don't think I need an explanation here...

Each of the characters have a different magic power. The green soldier has a toxic green poison that continues to temporarily hurt the enemy for a small amount of time, the red soldier is lightning, the orange soldier is fire, and the blue soldier is ice. As you increase your stats in magic, your powers become stronger. At a certain point you can shoot your magic powers through the air and when you jump.

In all honesty, I am lazy, but that's not why I feel that I don't need to make a long review out of this game. For starters, I'm trying to catch up on games I've bought since doing the last few reviews. It's a lot to cover, but Castle Crashers should be downloaded immediately. I was wondering why there was so much hype about it, but it really is a great game.

9.5/10 for high replay value and universal appeal. Plus it's fun to try and get all of the characters maxed out on stats.

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2

Developer: Bizarre Creations Ltd.
Publisher: Activision
Release Date (US): 7/30/2008
System(s): Xbox 360
Modes: Deadline, Pacifism, King, Evolved, Waves, Sequence
Rating: E (Everyone)

Geometry Wars 2 is the follow up to the smash hit Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, available for download at the Xbox Live Arcade/Marketplace for 800 MS Points ($10 US). I was sucked in when I played the first version of this game, which is actually a game type in the second iteration as "Evolved."

The look and graphics are about the same as the first one, except it is a bit harder to see your ship at times on this version than others. The fact that it has 6 game modes as well as multiplayer (up to 4 local only) improves upon the original version. Too bad there wasn't a discount for those that owned the first Geo Wars.

If you enjoyed the first Geo Wars, you should DEFINITELY purchase this game. Don't even bother with a trial, just buy it and download it! You will NOT regret it. I honestly feel like this review does not require a whole lot of opinion writing because it's one of those games you will either be sold or not by playing it first hand. It's a good thing XBLA allows for free demos of all their games! One main difference is you collect green shards of gems called "Geoms" that up your multiplier rather than just get a string of kills without dying.

I might as well quickly go over the game modes of GW2, with most of the games having just one life:

• Deadline - Infinite number of lives but only 3 minutes to get as many points as you can.
• King - You can only shoot when your ship is inside a protective circle or "field" that shrinks once you enter it.
• Pacifism - Your ship cannot shoot but can travel through gates that will cause an explosion and destroy nearby enemies. If you hit the gate on the sides/edge, you die.
  
• Evolved - Start with 3 lives and 3 bombs, it plays like the last Geo Wars except your multiplier does not reset to 0 when you die.
• Sequence
• Waves - My personal favorite, you have to watch out for "waves" or lines of enemies that move in straight lines back and forth or top to bottom repeatedly until they are destroyed.
  

The game also "knows" when you are attempting an achievement and will give you a status of how close you are to that achievement at the bottom of the screen. All of the game modes can be played single player or multiplayer, versus or co-op.

GREAT GAME! Go BUY IT TODAY if you haven't already!
9/10

10,000 milestone and game deals

As of Saturday, August 30, 2008, Ask a Cynic and the other blogs I maintain have reached 10,000 unique visitors! This blog started on July 20, 2007, just over a year ago. I'm surprised that I have averaged about 30 unique visitors a day!

Anyways there aren't too many Xbox specials, just Unreal Tournament is $40 at Best Buy this week... there are some other specials but they ain't too great.

Burnout Paradise is Nice... DJ Automica Sucks Ass

Developer: Criterion Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date (US): January 22, 2008
System(s): Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PS3
Modes: Single player career, Online multiplayer
Rating: E10+

Pros: great graphics, fun game modes, a really long list of objectives to achieve in the single player, long track listing
Cons: no local multiplayer, DJ Automica/Atomica's commentary, use of "GPS"

I first wanted to try Burnout Paradise back when it was released at the beginning of 2008. Thank God I didn't - even though it's a really fun game, I just enjoy buying stuff for a lot less. I got this for $30 at GameStop in the middle of August. I had failed to buy a new game (not counting XBLA) since... hmmm what was my last game? I never did a Rock Band review... I suppose it's too late for that! Besides, a lot of people have probably written reviews on Rock Band, if not the general public has played or seen it before. OH!! It was GTA IV. Which I haven't played since May 30, 2008 according to Xbox.com. Yeah, it got kinda old fast, I haven't even beaten it. I need to get back on that, but definitely not writing a review since everyone knows about that game...

Anyways, back to Burnout Paradise. Here are the different single player game modes:

• Racing - this is just you versus everyone else. There are still cars in traffic that are not competing against you. If you run into them driving very fast you will wreck! Just get to the finish line before anyone else. You can still take down other cars in trying to win the race if you desire.
  
• "Road Rage's" objective is to crash a certain number of cars within a time limit. You receive more time for each car taken down, and the number of cars to take down increases after each successful Road Rage race completed.
• "Marked Man" is a race type that turns the player into the marked man. All the other cars are trying to take you down. Now you can crash on your own accord, but you can't keep doing that. You have to get from one point to another without getting taken down or wrecking too much. The faster the better, but it kinda sucks that you are always the marked man. If you had to take another car down, as in compete to wreck another car with other cars, I think that would be more fun.

Let's start with the bad for once. First of all, the "narrator," or guy who helps you out (I guess) is annoying as hell. He says some of the same phrases over and over which gets tiresome on your ears. I did a search online and some users said the further they got in the game, the less (if not at all) you hear from the DJ.

The GPS system in GTA IV makes more sense and is more practical than Burnout Paradise's map.

I'll admit, there are not too many complaints I have about this game. The achievements are not too difficult to obtain compared to some games (the first Geometry Wars Retro Evolved anyone?). My biggest complaint about Burnout Paradise is the lack of local co-op or head-to-head. As my good friend Chris (aka Cicero) once said, "Microsoft wants everyone's money. They want you to buy your own Xbox 360, get your own XBL account, and play by yourself at home, isolated from the outside world, except your other buddies sitting by themselves in the dark buying their own copy, own account, own Xbox, etc..." I think he's right. Or maybe it's not MS, maybe it's the game publisher/developer who wants people to buy their own copies versus sharing one on one Xbox 360...

Now onto the good things...

There are so many game types for single player. This should keep you occupied for awhile. There are also 92 tracks on the soundtrack ranging from little known musicians, to very successful bands, to classical composers. The graphics are beautiful. Enough said. This game is beautiful and fun to play. It just sucks you can't play with friends on one console.

I would have to rate this game around an 8.5/10. It's very fun, but last night I found myself wanting to play some more Madden instead of popping Burnout back in. A definitely buy since it's only $30 to anyone who enjoys racing games.

Coming soon (I hope): Reviews on Castle Crashers, Schizoid, Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, Madden 09, The Orange Box, Beautiful Katamari

Persepolis (2007) Review

I saw a trailer of this movie while watching this "Nothing But Trailers" show on HD Net. It looked interesting enough so I decided to check it out... by check it out I meant find a copy of it!

I was very impressed with this film. Originally in French, I normally would read the subtitles and listen in French, but since I was playing with my new MacBook, I decided to listen in English (which the subtitles and dubbed voice overs do not sync up).

This movie is about the life told by the narrator, a girl who grew up during the Iranian Revolution. She speaks of her life growing up both inside and outside of Iran.

This film is fairly educational (assuming the facts presented in the movie are true) and make learning about history and other cultures more interesting. I did not want to pause or stop this movie once. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who finds themselves enjoying foreign films, or history buffs and people who would like to understand the thinking of people different from him or herself.

WATCH THIS FILM.
8.3/10

2.4 Ghz Black MacBook Review

I recently sold my faithful HP Pavilion dv4000us to my uncle who needed a cheap laptop. I own an HP desktop and I wanted the smallest possible laptop that isn't a technological beast... so yeah I overpaid for a MacBook because I love Apple's style, and I used to use Apple products back in the days of the Power PC processors made by Motorola. And if I can install Windows XP on this machine, then why not get something lightweight and stylish if I can somehow afford it? Well here's my impression of it:

Under the hood:
2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3 MB L2 Cache, 2 GB 667 Mhz DDR2, 250 GB 5400 RPM HDD.

The trackpad is awesome. I didn't realize why Apple had a "widescreen" trackpad, but it makes sense since I don't have to pick my finger up to scroll all the way from one side to the other. You can also use two fingers to scroll up/down and left/right in larger windows such as IE/Mozilla/Safari/etc. Yes, those are my drawers in the background. My boxers are peeking out. Oh well.

The MagSafe AC power connector - clips on magnetically so it won't sending your computer flying if someone trips over the cord! As you can see the light is green when fully charged and is yellow/orange when it is charging. It does kind of suck that the cable is white and not black, much like the headphones/USB cable for the black iPod.Unfortunately the screen is not a backlit LED screen, but it still is very bright, vivid, and crisp. Built-in microphone and iSight camera for video chats and pictures. When you take a picture using Photo Booth, the screen flashes white to create a flash for the camera. Pretty good idea if you ask me! The iSight camera is pretty good, but it seems they could've made it a little bit clearer, seeing that the computer costs $1,500!!

Connections:

2 USB, 1 FireWire 400 (6 PIN), Mini-DVI, headphone, microphone, and a notebook lock. One thing that really annoys me is that Apple made a mini-DVI port. Of course they probably said it helped add in another USB port (which they are usually scheisty on with all their computers) but in reality, if you want to connect this to a projector for a presentation, you will more than likely need the separately sold $19 mini-DVI to VGA (or to DVI) cable. Every university classroom I've been in with a laptop hook up for presentations is VGA.Right side view of MacBook - slot loading CD/DVD+/-RW sounds like it's devouring your disc when you slide it in the side.

It is somewhat difficult to rate the battery. I have spent a lot of time typing on the notebook and putting it to sleep or shutting it down, so it's difficult to rate the actual length of battery time since I don't really have 4 or 5 hours to sit down and just use a laptop straight for that long. I'd rather be playing Xbox...

Overall I'm very pleased and impressed with my purchase, although it is somewhat bullshit that the black color costs $200 more. A friend of mine has the white version with the same hardware and it cost her $200 less. It would be nice if the speakers were better, but at least I have bluetooth to listen to the music wirelessly with my S9s! One thing I really wish it had was a built-in media card reader. It's somewhat annoying to have to USB photos to it constantly.