Dj Hero 2 Review
wiki wiki wiki what! Scratch that, hold up, the batteries in my turn table died. That’s right I’m here to review DJ Hero 2. As you may remember just under a year ago Dj Hero was launched and I reviewed it here and I loved it because of the music. Nothing has changed this time around. The music is kick ass and there is already downloadable content on the market place. There is no secret that the DJ Hero franchise is my music genre game choice.
The track list in DJ Hero 2 is awesome and aims to attract and branch out to reach a different type of audience. Sure, Lady Gaga, Pitbull, Rhianna and Janet Jackson are stars but they’re not my thing. The first game featured a ton of Jay Z and Eminem and they don’t have many tracks in this game, however, my favorite tracks so far have been Eminems “Not Afraid” and Lil Wayne feat. Static Major “Lollipop.”
When I first played Guitar Hero 2 it was all about the music and that’s evident here in Dj Hero 2 as there is no world tour and story modes. Empire mode is where you begin DJ’ing house parties and you can make it all the way to an international sensation. The issue with this approach is that I never felt like I was progressing my career at all. Another problem is that all the characters are pre-defined and sometimes you get replaced a real life DJ. I can use my Avatar in the game but why they did not go the extra mile to incorporate that piece of functionality into the single player is beyond me. Along the way you have to battle fictional dj’s as well as David Guetta and Tiesto, but it never felt like it was a real challenge against these real life stars.
Once you’re done unlocking all 83 songs for quick play mode set up some play lists, rack up the high scores, and challenge your friends to beat it. Alsok from the main menu you can enable party mode which will randomly play songs so you can sit back and enjoy the remixes. The only downside to this mode is all the song selection is randomized.
One of the main complaints of the original DJ hero was that as the DJ you had no control of the mash ups. In each mash up there are freestyle sections where you can control the crossfading, scratching and trigger samples as you like. The best implemenation of this is crossfading where you can choose to play either track A or track B or mash up the two tracks how you like it. This is one of the best parts of the game for me, I wish I had more control of the mash ups. trigger samples are hard to keep in tempo with the song and scratching is fun but doesn’t sound as good as the recorded scratches.
DJ Hero allowed players to sync up a microphone and give shouts over the music, this has been taken a step further in DJ Hero 2 and allows players to sing along to the songs. Since the songs are mashed up this can make singing along to your favorite song very impossible since the lyrics to another song could pop up at any moment. I personally would have been happy with this portion of the game not being included.
The two-player battles have also seen a face lift. Now player 1 will perform a section of a song and then player 2 will have to perform the same section of the song and try to out perform the other DJ. A winner will be decided at each checkpoint and when a player reaches a certain number of checkpoints won there is a winner. This mode can be played locally or on Xbox Live/PSN against other players.
Also, from the main menu you can view your Rep, check how you are progressing on your Achievements/Trophies, compare your your scores on the leaderboards and you read the Hero Feed which provides all sorts of statistics from how many mixes you played to how many hours you’ve played.
Overall this DJ Hero 2 is a good improvement over the original game and it’s kept me entertained for hours and hopefully through DLC it will continue to provide many more hours of entertainment.
read moreTiger Woods PGA Tour 11 Review
2010 – 2011 has been an interesting year for the worlds number 1 ranked golfer Tiger Woods. Off course behavior cost him numerous sponsors and millions of dollars but Electronic Arts stuck by the man who has transformed golf to what is today and release this years annual edition of the franchise. You’ll notice right off the bat that Rory McIlroy is also on the cover. Is this a ploy to get positive attention to the game to also feature one of the upcoming European players or is it strictly to promote the Ryder Cup which is the best golf team event on the planet. Enough talk about that and let’s get back to regularly scheduled review.
Another year means minor visual upgrades to the game. It looks great but how far can you go to improve graphics in 12 months. There are a issues with the voice acting in this game. First of all, can we please get rid of Kelly Tilghman. Her voice is annoying and she isn’t funny at all. Further more, there have have many issues triggering the audio cues. By that I mean, how can the game tell me I’ve hit an awesome shot so close to the pin when in fact the ball is 20 yards from the pin and in the rough? Honestly it’s ultra annoying. EA we all know you have ultra huge QA department and these little annoying bugs should get squashed.
One of the big additions to Tiger Woods PGA tour 11 was adding the Ryder Cup which is in my honest opinion one of the best golf tournaments to watch. Sure we all love the masters but there is just something about the Ryder Cup. USA Vs Europe Team play sounds great? It sure does however there are some issues with the implementation of the concept. First of all, not all the players in the roster of PGA tour are not eligible to play in the Ryder Cup and thus should not be allowed to play. Sure I’m getting pretty technical here but I am golfer and a huge golf fan and I don’t think it’s too hard to follow the rules of the Ryder Cup. Also I found the fourball matches took far to long to play. I often found my self getting quite sleepy playing this portion of the Ryder Cup.
There has always been a fine line between enjoying Tiger Woods and getting your balls handed to you playing on the Ultra tough Tour Mode. This year the team over at EA has introduced True-Aim. This allows you to get up close and and see the hole and course from the golfers perspective. True-Aim removes the old accuracy circle we were use to in Tiger Tiger Woods games and forces you to aim your shot entirely from an over-the-shoulder camera. This is how Tiger and the rest of the PGA, LPGA, and European tour players play. This adds an interesting challenge on it’s own and I struggled with it at the very beginning. So after you pull the analog stick, the only indicator you get that your shot is good is by the noise the crowd makes and the commentators have to say.
The focus system is another effective tool at increasing the difficulty of your round without getting frustrating. The focus meter sits on the lower left of the screen where it normally does. You use it to add power to your swing, spin to your ball and finally to use to putt preview. Using the focus meter uses up it’s availability pretty quickly and generally I’ve found it adds a bit of a tactical element to the game. When do you use it? when do you not use it? those are the tough questions to answer during a round of golf. How do you gain focus back? simple, hit quality golf shots on each hole. No longer can you simply rely on putt preview for 18 holes you actually need to think and implement a bit of strategy into your round of golf.
Online modes haven’t really changed since the inception of the Tiger Woods franchise on next gen consoles. You still have your typical gamernet challenges, weekly, daily and play with the pro tournaments that we’ve all come to play hours of. The only real addition to the online mode is team play where you can join 23 other plays and play on Team USA or Team Europe. I’m really hoping for some improvements.
Career mode hasn’t seen a drastic change either you still have 48 skill challenges that pit you against some crazy shots, rounds of golf done by by the tour pros. The PGA season is firmly intact and the race to the Fedex cup is on. You’ll now notice you no longer earn cash but Experience Points (XP) based on your actions on the course. Make a birdie? It will yield you 25 XP points. There are 7 levels in all to get and you’ll need 100,000 XP points to get. XP can be really hard to earn in the early stages of the game but later on when you have your character maxed out XP comes by a lot easier. You can assign this XP points to your character growth or to buy new shinny clubs. Not happy with a decision you made? no problem you can reallocate those XP points if needed.
Another year means another annual edition of Tiger Woods, is it this year’s addition worth $69.99? Personally, I don’t think so but as you can tell I’m a sucker for golf games and keep buying them. I really wish I could avoid purchasing it. For those who are hardcore into their golf the new additions of True-Aim, Ryder Cup, and XP system are welcome changes that make the game a bit more challenging. I’ve yet to shot lower than a 61. If your like me and you love golf be sure to pick this up as I can’t wait to the play the pros tournament when the Ryder Cup does actually come around.
read moreModNation Racer’s Review
Ever since the launch of the PlayStation 3 and the inevitable delay of Gran Turismo 5 there has been a huge gaping hole in Sony’s first party line up for racing games. Now that’s all changed with the release this week of ModNation Racer’s which was developed in Vancouver, Canada by United Front Games.
We all remember Sackboy and Little Big Planet the flagship game that brought the whole family together to “Create” levels together, “Play” levels together and finally to “Share” where they tackled puzzles in one of the best platformers of all time. United Front games has updated kart racing to the 21st century as their motto is also Create, Play and Share while keeping with some of the traditions that we all grew up loving in the Mario Kart franchise. Don’t freak out fan boys I’m not saying this is here to replace Mario Kart, this is just a new take on kart racing and I’m absolutely loving it so far.
The game’s lobby is something we don’t see very often, long gone are the menus and say hello to the Mod Spot. The Mod Spot is little track you race around in to get from one place to the next. Want to check out the top karts, top tracks, hot laps drive on over to it. Another little feature is that or Mod’s can enter your track and race around. I’ve had plenty of good laughs playing king of the hill on this little jump in the middle of the spot where all the racers would pile on top. Who knew you could have so much fun before the game has even really started.
How much you want to customize your character is totally up to you, you get a factory pre-set character but you can spend hours tricking him out. You can essentially start with a blank character and design him or her however you want. From the colour of skin, the type of eyes or mouths and then there’s clothing options like shirts, pants, hats, horns and so much more. Then there are basic shape stickers along with layering them allows you create one of your kick ass logos or you know the logo from your favorite movie or game.
Don’t like the way your kart looks? No problem there is a zillion different options to customize it. The first day I looked at the top karts available for download it was a Ferrari F1 car. Honestly, how freaking cool is that? That I can pretend to be Michael Schumacher driving around the tracks like a mad man while dropping power ups on my fellow drivers
When you feel like you’re ready to make your track so you have everyone on Playstation network test out your design skills you’ll have 4 preset themes to choose from – alpine, desert, seaside and jungle. Pick one and get to work by using the right analog stick to control any elevation changes you want. Make it is as high as the sky or dip low into the ground and maybe a figure 8 to boot. When you’re done designing the track it’s time to lay down the asphalt and if you want throw some chickens on the track for good laughs or have the game auto-populate everything for you.
Once your done creating it’s time to move on to single player career which is essentially training for the online XP races or XP series. ModNation Racer’s is a kart racer racer that allows players to race there way around tracks collecting power ups to blow other racers to kingdom come, while hitting boost pads, with drifting and drafting. You need to place in the top 3 to move on and you do unlock items to be used in creation mode. There are a ton of different power ups that feature 3 levels and didn’t features across each level. Drifting and drafting are important as they allow the player to fill up their boost meter to provide them with a shot of turbo or allow them to use that power to block enemy attacks. Getting point’s is easy, blow up a fellow racer or drift. The drift mechanic is really well done and it makes the game a ton of fun. The only disappointment about the drifting mechanic is that if your drifting in to a left hand turn you cant switch that into a right hand drift for the next turn. You need to stop and restart your drifting. So once your power meter is filled up the big question is do you use it for boost or do you save and try to block attacks from fellow racers. The attacks are the typical rockets, lightning, etc and these attacks can be quiet devastating however they can be also be annoying. On many occasions I’ve found my self getting blown to pieces only to respawn and get blown up as soon as I respawn. I’ll talk more about that in the multi-player portion of this review. I also feel like I need to mention that during the progress of your career that AI get’s stupid difficult and can make it very tough for you to progress to the next race.
I need to mention that this game as some of the worse load times I’ve ever seen in a video game. I’m not sure how these got through certification. I’ve gotten so frustrated with the load times I’ve almost quit playing the game. I’ve literally had time to do the dishes in between races that maybe a bit of execration but you get the point.
The multi-player portion of this game consists of playing with friends or for XP. There are only 2 races types in the XP mode which are XP races or XP series. The XP races are fun if you don’t have much time to play but the real meat is the 5 race XP series. I haven’t experienced any issues with lag so that’s gotta mean United Front Games has developed some really solid net code for this game. I’ve had an absolute blast playing against a solid group of players for 5 racers. If you have the chance I highly recommend to hop online and play the game. Like I mentioned earlier you can get spammed by enemy weapons and it’s one of the most annoying parts about playing online.
ModNation Racer’s is a solid game with very easy but deep creation tools. The game mechanic’s are fairly solid and it’s just a ton of freaking fun. This game isn’t perfect it has it’s faults but definitely worth spending your money on. Oh yes I forgot to mention it does feature 4 player split-screen for you family gamers.
read moreReview :Heavy Rain Chronicles: The Taxidermist
The first piece of downloadable content for Heavy Rain has arrived for $4.99 USD. This puts back into the game as Madison Paige as she cruises on her motorcycle on her way to continue investigating the Origami Killer story. You arrive at the Taxidermist and low and behold he is not home and Madison needs to find a way in to the house so she can begin to investigate the situation and create an article for her paper. Madison ravages through the house and stumbles upon a room covered in blood, guts in a sink and a dead body in a bathtub. She stumbles out of the room. I won’t reveal what happens next as its pacing, background noises and following game play are some of the best in Heavy Rain. It’s unfortunate that this chapter was potentially cut from the game.
The issue I have is it’s only 15 minutes in length, very short piece of game play for $4.99 however if your like me and loved Heavy Rain this is something you should play.
read moreGod of War 3 Review
The Good
- Awe Yeah, the combat is just fun
- Stunning Visuals
- Boss Battles are Challenging
The Bad
- It ends
- No Help / Hint’s during puzzles
- No HUD/ on screen navigation
My first exposure to the God of War franchise was when Sony released the re-mastered God of War Collection (God of War 1 & God of War 2) on 1 blu-ray disc including trophies. It was a great first exposure to the characters, story and game play. We all remember the ending of God of War 2 where Kratos was on the back of the Titans while they scaled Mount Olympus in search of Zeus and looking for Revenge. This means one thing and one thing only it’s March and Kratos our beloved God of War is back making his debut on the PlayStation 3.
Obviously the game starts with Kratos standing on the shoulder of Gaia a titan, who urges her fellow titans to climb Mount Olympus and kill the gods for once and all ending the rein of all mighty god Zeus. The camera pans around and shows this mere molecule (Kratos) enjoying the ride. Kratos main job is here is to protect Gaia from the relentless attacks from Poseidon with most the battle taking place on the titan herself. A confrontation with Gaia ends up with Kratos arriving in the land of the dead where he must battle Hades and defeat him. I personally had such a hard time battling Hades the game recommended I switch difficulties.
Next up it was time for Kratos to make his way into the City of Olympia and track down Helios during the course of wandering through the city you poised to help a titan by shooting down Helios using a ballista. This was like target practice, quite challenging at first but shooting him down provided me with instant gratitude. Using the head of Helios to light the way it’s time to head down the path of EOS. Later on you’ll battle your bitter rival Hercules and after disposing of him it’s time to check out Poseidon’s chamber where you speak to the goddess herself Aphrodite. Next it’s time to make for the Pit of Tartarus and look for the Omphalos Stone. Remember Crono’s from God of War 2, he’s back and it’s time to rumble.
After that it’s Time to return to Daedalus’s workshop, escape Hera’s Garden, then head into the hidden passageway to find Pandora and to escape the Labyrinth before it’s too late. Finally you arrive at the Chain of Balance where you must break it and return to Pandora. It has arrived time to Battle the mighty Zeus.
There isn’t a whole lot changed in terms of combat, it’s the same formula just polished up from previous versions. Of course there is a bunch of new weapons like the blades of exile; the army of Sparta is one of my favorites. These Spartan Warriors surround Kratos with shields and spears, these warriors attack those who cross Kratos path. You also are immune from taking damage during the casting of this spell. The Claws of Hades are cool but you have the blades of Athena and I haven’t found much use for them. One of the favorite new items is the head of Helios this allows the Kratos to shine a light and kill enemies. The finishing moves are just over the top, gratuitous, fun to execute and enjoying to watch. One of the big things I’ve noticed over its predecessors is that the level design and the variety is quite noticeable and makes the game a lot more enjoyable. The boss battles are challenging, fun and cross between fighting the Gods and the Titans is a good mix up. I wish I could battled more titans.
Sony Santa Monica has developed a visual masterpiece, the sense of scale of is incredible, the way the camera pans out to show everything and you see Kratos this little spec on screen. One small noticeable improvement all game developers should take notice of is during quick time events placing the buttons on the side of the screen. This draws the player’s attention to focus on the quick time event so they can enjoy the action. The camera, I loved how the camera pans to show the incredible sense of scale, detail and just awe dropping moments throughout the game. However, I wish I had more control of the actual camera at times. I’d love to be able to look out the titans or gods from Kratos point of view.
One of the biggest dislikes in the franchise I’ve noticed and still isn’t rectified in God of War 3 is there is no HUD system on screen. This is more of a personal preference rather than a fault of the game. I am not a great puzzle solver at any game and the lack of “hint” system in place has caused me great frustration at different stages of the game. Sure when you get to a puzzle the camera pans around showing you where you start and where you end. If you half way through solving a puzzle and get stuck why not implement a “help” button similar to Uncharted 2? It’s simple, easy and if you don’t want to use it don’t press the button.
Honestly there isn’t much wrong with God of War 3, the things I mentioned above are small personal preferences I like in games. I understand why there not there. The facts are God of War 3 does what it does and does it better than the original 2 game’s. Isn’t that what sequels are for? Improving over the original games while sticking to the key successes of the franchise and God of War 3 does that well. If you like Kratos, the storyline, the button mashing and the gruesome finishing moves and oh yea did I mention an artistic masterpiece? God of War 3 will sell a ton of copies, hell it may even sell a few additional PlayStation 3 systems. Why would you miss out on potentially one the best games of this generation.
read moreDual Triggers for PS3
I came across these a few months back while browsing on amazon.com, by snapping onto your PS3 triggers they are suppose to replicate what the Xbox 360 controller triggers feel like. As someone who spends the majority of his time playing on his Xbox 360 the PlayStation 3 controller can feel like a foreign object in my hands. Thanks to the Dual Triggers for the PS3 designed by PDP using the PS3 controller feels more natural and has allowed me to spend more time playing games on my PlayStation 3.
If your interested in buying them check out Amazon.com or PDP’s website
