Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on January 26th, 2004
Links has been the most successful golf game on the PC, now Microsoft has ported it over the X-Box with tremendous success.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on January 3rd, 2004
X-Box’s first venture into the racing genre gave us Project Gotham. A great looking title with its own unique charms but also had a fair number of shortcomings. Would the sequel address these shortcomings and live up to the hype? In a word: YES.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2003
NHL Rivals is Microsoft's first effort into the hockey market, and you can easily tell this once you start to play this game. NHL Rivals had to battle with three other hockey titles (Ea Sport's NHL 2004, ESPN's NHL 2k4, and NHL hitz pro) and Rivals was also the last of the games to be released. Hockey fans are very pick about there hockey games, with most fans either going with EA's effort and ESPN's game. Microsoft would have to do something real different to win over the hockey gamer. Unfortunately they faile... in this area and hockey gamers are better to look elsewhere this season for their hockey gaming.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on December 12th, 2003
While out on a romantic walk with your girlfriend, she's grabbed by a group of ghoulies. Now you've got to rescue her, not the most original storyline out there but it works for the type of game that this is. On your search-and-rescue mission, you take the role of a young boy named Cooper who needs to go to Ghoulhaven Hall, a haunted house to rescue the fair damsel. Pretty simple stuff.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on November 24th, 2003
The X-Box Music Mixer is undoubtedly one of the most innovative ideas that has come out in the last few years. The emphasis is to turn your X-Box into a multimedia machine that will allow you to turn your living room into a dance club, karaoke bar or a homey environment in which flipping through traditional photo albums is passé because you can display all of your digital photos on your TV accompanied with music of your choosing to set the mood.
It comes packaged with a microphone to allow you to have a tr...e Karaoke experience. The disc itself has 15 Karaoke tracks that range from standard Karaoke fare – Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York to current classics – Lifehouse’s Hanging By A Moment and Len’s Steal My Sunshine. The microphone takes some getting used to as you have to hold it quite close to your mouth to get any sound out of it. That being said, once you get the hang of it, it works really well. The lyrics are displayed on the screen and light up in time to indicate when you are to start demonstrating your vocal expertise. To make the experience better, you can ever record your performances and share them with your fans. You can also import your favorite songs and remove the vocals so that you can improve on the original – but you have to provide your own lyrics. The problem is the vocals really aren’t removed but rather some of the dynamic range is removed to tone down the vocals. However, this also changes the sound of the song itself. To get the true Karaoke experience you can download new songs, at a price, from the Internet. I tried to browse what was offered through X-Box live but consistently got a message that stated “No new content available.” That might be because I’m in Canada and there may be copyright laws or something which precludes me from downloading from the Internet (this is apparently the reason why one can’t download songs from the popular iTunes store from Apple). So I checked out the website – www.xboxkaraoke.com and found to my surprise a huge amount of songs to download. However, be aware that it will cost $2 per song download. As far as karaoke goes despite these setbacks it is still pretty fun.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on November 23rd, 2003
Crimson Skies had a previous incarnation as a cult favorite PC game of the same name and was in development for a port to the X-Box that was being rushed for release 1 year ago. Thank goodness that they waited because you know what they say…”Good things come to those who wait.” And man, was this game worth the wait! The original version was a toned down, arcade style shooter that would have no lasting appeal. This final version is anything but toned down.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on June 15th, 2003
Take me out to the ballgame! Buy me peanuts, and popcorn, and…ah, maybe not. But, you should probably check out Inside Pitch 2003 out now for the Xbox console.
Players can do a bevy of gameplay options with Inside Pitch 2003 such as Season, Single Game, Network Play, and Championship Challenges. On top of all that, players with the LIVE service hooked up to their consoles can enjoy some downloadable content from the MS servers and invite a friend for some action out on the diamo...d.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on June 12th, 2003
Sometimes when a game is delayed and put out a little later than planned, the anticipation surrounding the title can help it with the fan base that had been waiting for it. However, that anticipation can cut both ways with folks who had been waiting for a game to release and end up just losing interest altogether.
In the case of Brute Force, the game was featured prominently at the Xbox Press Event during the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Indeed, it seemed the title was only a few short months ...way during the press activities at the show. Now, nearly a year after it was showcased during the Press Event, Microsoft has unleashed Brute Force onto the Xbox console--a game some have wondered may be the next HALO, and will have many thinking it most definitely is not.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on June 1st, 2003
During the 1970’s, Kung Fu and martial arts films were the in thing. Bruce Lee and the cheap Hong Kong action film were leading the wave of popularity of the Far Eastern martial arts. Even music of the time reflected America’s love of the Kung Fu culture with a hit song entitled Kung Fu Fighting.
Now Microsoft has brought all of the fun and campy nature of those old 35 mm films to life here on the Xbox. Kung Fu Chaos is a colorful, tongue-in-cheek fighter that is influenced by the Hong ...ong action films of the mid 70’s. Players can choose from eight unique looking fighters and take them on in a trash talking, knock down brawl.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2003
Rumblin’ time is here for the Xbox videogame console and Tao Feng from Microsoft may have just have you whooping it up with great combos, slick graphics, and interesting game characters. New this month, Tao Feng is Microsoft’s answer to the Tekken series which calls the PS2 home.
Developed by the guys that brought you Mortal Kombat, players can select fighters from one of two factions in the game: the Pale Lotus and the Black Mantis. Each of these sects has strong ...ighters which use several different fighting techniques to get the job done. You, as the player, will spend time discovering new moves and honing the skills you have acquired in battle to smash, break, and tear down all who come before you.
