Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on August 1st, 2009
To say I’m not a country music fan is a bit of an overstatement. I’m not even sure what exactly possessed me to go to NewEgg.com and order a copy of Rock Band Country Track Pack. Oh yes, now I remember it was my fiancée and future wife, Sarah who thought I should be a little more diversified in my music. Apparently, 80’s hair rock was only popular in the late 80’s. I must have missed the memo. But surely, I have heard this thing called country before. I mean I attended more karaoke clubs in Texas during the mid to late 90’s than I care to think about. Once they were done throwing tomatoes at me after I finished my rendition of “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, they usually threw on an old Garth Brooks or Clint Black tune.
The graphics are the same here as any other Rock Band game. My thinking is that they make the graphics look so generic that they almost want you to export them into your Rock Band or Rock Band 2 setup so you can actually customize things like your character. The “cowboy” graphics you see on the back of the cover are nowhere to be found in the actual track pack unless they come up in some random generator. Your best bet is to import this into Rock Band and then pick your attire accordingly. There isn’t even any country and western intro video or anything besides a static title screen.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on November 26th, 2007
Some of my most enjoyable gaming experiences have been with gaming compilations. "More bang for your buck" is the familiar slogan used to describe these games. Traditionally, these compilations show up late in console's life cycle in order to re-sell old titles that couldn't probably sell on their own. So needless to say the Orange Box surprised me on a couple of fronts. The 360 isn't an ancient or dying system by any means. Furthermore, by combining Half Life 2, the two sequels, Portal and Team Fortress 2 you bring together a package that from initial glance looks to be five great games in one. However, are these five games as vast as one would hope or instead are these five games that should have stayed on the pc to collect dust and be riddled about in debates about the best pc shooter to date?
Graphics
Half Life 2 is a pc first person shooter that was also found on the old Xbox and is backwards compatible with the 360. To be honest, it looked good then as did many Xbox titles that got the upconvert treatment. In bringing this to the 360, the visuals have received an upgrade. It's not perfect but it is very serviceable and on-line with many first person shooters on the Xbox 360. The two sequels get better with every turn and Episode 2 cranking out some impressive visuals to best the group. Portal while featuring similar graphics suffers from giving the player possible headaches due to the 360 degrees of interface. More on this later. Team Fortress 2 rounds out the group with a more cartoony style to its graphics design. TF2 is a case of either love it or hate it, it just so happens that it very much suits the game's overall style.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on May 6th, 2003
Someone once said that 90 percent of life is maintenance and nowhere is that more true than in the new Xbox title, The Sims. For anyone who has been living in a cave for the last two and a half years, The Sims is a game that allows you to create a character and then oversee every aspect of their life--from shopping to sleep--and has been a smash hit on the PC, garnering awards and spawning add-on expansions packs galore.
People are so taken with the ability to create either little demons or an...els, that Electronic Arts has released a new title this past month called The Sims for the Xbox that follows the exact same concept that its PC brethren pioneered. Players start out by choosing a basic model and with the help of several editing tools, can create the “Sim” of their dreams.
