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.

There are only 2 differences on the hardware that I’ve found so far one being the knobs on the Renegade edition are metal compared to plastic on the regular edition. Secondly the turntable is black and gold compared to black and silver. My only real complaint regarding the turn table is the cross fading mechanism. It is has 3 positions left, center and right. When sliding from right to center or vice versa there isn’t enough of a click to ensure that it is centered. I’ve often lost note streaks because of it.  FreeStyleGames even thought of the lefties, you can detach the mixer and place it on the right.

One of the biggest complaints I have had with games Rock Band and Guitar Hero are the tracks. Being in my twenties the music in those games just didn’t appeal to me because I didn’t know 90 percent of the artists.  This is one of the single most important reasons I love DJ Hero the set list is fantastic. You have music from Eminem, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D, 2-Pac And 50 Cent mixed by the likes of DJ AM, DJ Grandmaster Flash and DJ Jazzy Jeff. This game is loaded with star power.

Another Hero game means another controller, so half of it is the record platter that contains 3 buttons green, red and blue. The other half is the mixer that includes the cross fader, effects knob , euphoria button (star power) and system control buttons .As the familiar red and blue and as notes come down on the screen you press the button. Scratches involve holding either the green or blue button while moving the platter back or forth, but on harder difficulty you’ll have to follow onscreen arrows that indicate whether to push it forward or pull it back.  When you get into the medium, hard and expert settings you add in the cross fader, which you’ll have to push left and right depending on what notes are being played during the song. Think of it this way, when the cross fader is in the middle position music from record 1 and record 2 are being blared through your speakers. Move it to the left and only record 1 is being played, move it to the right and it’s only record 2.

Beginner and easy mode are just like sound, lame and boring. For me this game started to take off once I switched to medium 5 starred all the songs and found my groove. Hard and expert is a challenge and some of the songs really do kick my ass but I’m ok with that since music in this game is incredible.  You can hook up a USB microphone and throw shout out’s to your TV, it’s lame but it could be fun at a party. Next time they tried to integrate a co-op mode by having 10 songs that can also be played using a guitar. The guitar and Turntable mode sounds but I really thought it was tacked on instead of being carefully thought out. One small annoyance I have is that you cannot fail a song regardless of how bad you suck, the music will keep playing. This is great if you wanted to just kick it at a party and listen to some great tunes but it’s hard to focus on where you need to improve your skills.

You can go on line, pick a set list and battle other people, I personally didn’t enjoy this mode at all as I could never seem to win a set list.

I hope Activision takes a cue from the fine folks at Harmonix and releases weekly downloadable mash up tracks for us to play. This is only way to prolong the life of this game.

Dj Hero makes a very good debut onto console platforms but FreeStyleGames needs to make a few improvements to the hardware, co-op and potentially a lower price as some people may find the current price tag a little high. At the end of the day this is one of the best music genre games I’ve played.

Halo Waypoint will also provide a new challenge for Halo gamers with a career system tied to in-game accomplishments across multiple Halo games. At launch, career tracking will include Halo 3: ODST, Halo 3, Halo Wars and all Game Add-on content for those titles. Available exclusively on Xbox LIVE, Halo Waypoint will provide a dynamic experience that will continue to grow and expand with new content updated regularly.

Previews of the highly anticipated anime anthology Halo Legends, will be available exclusively on Halo Waypoint starting Nov. 7. Halo Legends is just one of the Halo exclusives that won’t be found anywhere outside of Halo Waypoint.

Check out these screen shots of Halo Waypoint

[nggallery id=6]

The story ends with your squad members fly out of the city in a captured Phantom and have took an engineer aboard. Eventually Sergeant Johnson arrives and tells the engineer that he intends to ask questions regarding its knowledge of the Covenant.

ODST plays very different from any other Halo game from the way the story is told to the underlying game mechanics. ODST doesn’t feel like a complete game but more like an expansion which allows Bungie to experiment and try new things. There are only a few new weapon variants, 1 new alien race and everything you shoot comes from Halo 3. The health system works a bit different, the more you get shot the more you stamina goes down that leads to your health going down. Low on health? Find a health pack to regain your health.  The other big addition is your visor, see the streets of New Mombasa are very dark and in order to find your way you need to turn your visor on. This is a catch 22 as it allows the enemies to find where you are. Marty O’Donnell does a fantastic job with the soundtrack which really does set the mood for each level.

Another new mode in Halo ODST 3 is Firefight which allows you and up to 3 other friends take on waves of Covenant troops.  Out of the box it comes with 10 maps and each map has an achievement for amassing 200,000 in points on a map. This should keep things fun and exciting for a period of time before Bungie will need to release new maps to play on. The one negative about the firefight was that as a team you share 4 lives. So if you one douche on your team that is constantly dying, you will get annoyed very quickly.

There is a second disc included with both standard and limited editions that features Halo 3’s Multiplayer. There aren’t any real big updates from Halo 3’s Mutliplayer. The second disk comes with all 21 Halo 3 maps plus 3 new maps which are only available if you buy Halo ODST. The new maps are Hetertic a remake of the Halo 2 Midship map, Citadel and Longshore.

Overall Halo ODST is a solid game and will provide you with a great story and Halo combat we all love. Overall the game’s length is could be compared to as expansion pack. It really is short but packs in a load of fun either single player or co-op. The real winner in the Halo ODST package is firefight, fighting off wave after wave of Covenant with a limited number of lives is a blast with a group of friends. I really wish that ODST came out as a downloadable expansion instead of a full retail release. The retail price of $69.99 Canadian is a bit overpriced but if you a diehard Halo fan and need your fix Halo ODST is for you.

The game starts with Batman driving down to the Arkham Asylum with joker who is strapped into the passenger seat. Batmen along the Arkham Asylum security team escort joker down a long hall but wait the security systems is overridden by Harley Quinn and guess what Joker got away and takes control of the facility. The Joker enlists the help of all the prisoners and threatens to blow up bombs scattered across Gotham City should anyone come to Arkham. This leaves Batman with little choice but act alone however he can rely on Commissioner Gordon and any other loyal security guards he finds. Oracle is his trusty guide as she guides him through Asylum over the radio. Later in the game Batman heads to a Batcave he set up on Arkham years ago for situations like this one. Going to the Batcave was the smartest move for our trusty Bat by going their he finds out that the Joker is after the chemical called Titan which is produced in the asylum. Remember our friend Bane? Yes this is the chemical that makes him super strong powers however the Titan chemical is a beefed up on steroids version. Obviously Joker wants to use the chemical to create his own super army and then dump the waste into Gotham’s water supply. As you travel between buildings at the asylum you’ll notice all the plants have mutated and have started to take over the island.

Throughout the course of the game Batman fights and defeats several of his old archenemies and then is forced to return to the Batcave to create an antidote to the Titan Chemical and will use it to destroy the mutated plants. Towards the end of the game Batman is invited to Jokers party when you arrive to the party there are literally 20 or 30 prisoners who do not want to fight you but simply want to insure you are on the guest list for the party and guess what you’re the guest of honour. The Joker shows Gordon hanging in a corner and attempts to shoot him with a Titan filled dart but your boy wonder dashes in front of the dart and takes one for the team. Batman fights to resist the Titan chemical from taking over his body. The Joker feels defeated by this and then shoots himself with the chemical and heads to the roof top where he proudly displays his new figure to the news choppers flying around. Yes it’s that time, time for Joker and Batman to too battle where ultimately Batman defeats him. The joker transforms back to normal and is finally taken to his cell. The next thing you know Batman is flying off in the Batwig and Scarecrow rises from water and clutches a box that displays the word Titan on.

The overall story and game play just sucks you in from the opening cut scene until the final battle.  The simplicity of the combat, detective mode, Riddler clues and story truly make this game stand out from the rest of the licensed games on the market. The combat in this game is very simple however it still provides a bit of challenge because you need to think of what move to use on your enemy since they could be carrying a knife or stun rod. The more enemies you knock down the more experience points you earn which allows Batman to upgrade everything from his suit, to new combo’s and finally to upgraded batarang. I had a blast using firing the remote control batarang at unsuspecting villains. Throughout the course of the game when batman can rely on Gargoyles to get around rooms and remain unseen from the enemies as this allows batman to swoop down and slide kick is enemies or land just behind them and silently take them down.  Or batman could hang up himself upside down and swoop down grab the unsuspecting villain and disappear back up to the gargoyle with the now unconscious inmate. I don’t know how else to say it but the combat in this game just feels like batman but the only thing missing from the game where the bam! Poooow! That we were used to seeing in old Batman television show. One more important thing on combat, if you think you can enter a room of where several inmates are rocking guns and fight your way through. Think again, Batman has no chance to survive against guns in this game.

One of the first things you’ll notice in Batman in the outstanding voice acting, the cast features Mark Hamill as the Joker. Don’t get me wrong the rest of the characters have some great voice actor’s doing their parts, the Joker’s character just left me wondering who is doing voice acting because I loved it. Throughout the course of the game you will find audio logs that go into great detail explaining each of the characters.

So I didn’t follow or show any interest in Batman Arkham Asylum during the development cycle, I only started to gain interest when Walmart Canada advertised the game on the Xbox dashboard for 38.88 and so all other Canadian retailers followed suit.  I lined up outside at our local retailer and I am so glad I purchased the game. It was a great experience for $38.88 however I strongly need to point out that I would have not spent $60 plus on this game. Did lowering the price on this game for the first 3 days of launch increase sales? I think it did. Overall if you grew up watching or reading Batman comic’s you owe it to yourself to play this game. If you truly want to experience what it would be like to be Batman, Play Batman Arkham Asylum.

A Leader Hunter kidnaps Dana and that leads to Mercer tracking down the hive. This leads to a Greene vs. mercer showdown and Alex injects the formula into Greene. Later on in the game Alex is contacted by an unidentified contact who explains the how the virus came to be and about Elizabeth Greene. Back in the 1960’s the government tested the virus in Hope, Idaho which was designed to target predetermined races. Something went horribly wrong and Greene was the only survivor her genetic code was rewritten. Blackwatch took her son and then proceeded to nuke the town. Alex finds out he was a doctor at GENTEK and took the virus as insurance but Blackwatch caught him and he dropped the virus in Penn Station unleashing the virus on New York City. Blackwatch shoots Dr.Mercer but the virus consumes his body. Alex and his contact assist the military in putting the Bloodtox biological agent underground in order to drive the hive above ground for a fair fight. Elizabeth Greene emerges from the sewers as a big ugly monster. Alex defeats her and then consumers her. Alex than goes after Dr. Raymond McMullen for answers, he tells Alex about his history with GENTEK and then when asked about Hope, he commits suicide. The leader of Blackwatch Randall is ready to destroy Manhattan with a nuclear bomb. The contact and Alex meet, the contact turns out to be Cross.

Alex has to attack a military base and consumer Colonel Taggart and then he can in get access to the USS Ronald Regan where the nuclear bomb is being held. Once aboard the USS Ronald Reagan Cross reveals himself to the Supreme Hunter it’s time for him and Alex to battle for once and all. Alex than destroys the Supreme Hunter and then takes the bomb and fly’s it over the Atlantic Ocean where it donates. The blast radius hit’s Alex and his remains wash up on shore, he than consumes a bird and the game ends.

As you can tell there is a deep and confusing story going on, I thought I understood everything until the end when the details emerged about Alex.  The voice acting in the game is decent.  If I had to sum up Alex in a sentence it would be someone who seeks answers and vengeance and he does not care who he kills.

The combat in this game is very average at best, I couldn’t tell you the name of any of the attacks, I just pressed the buttons on my controller and people ended up dead. My favourite part of this was just walking into a crowd of people at Times Square and killing them all!. This game hands out experience points (XP) like McDonald’s hands out Big Macs, just too frequently. The reason for the abundance of experience points is that upgrades are oversaturated. There are far too many upgrades that are completely useless in this game. I would have preferred less XP points and fewer kick ass upgrades instead of 100 upgrade options.  We have a super human and a city full of people, how does he gain his health back? The answer is simply just consume any random New Yorker to regenerate your health bar and that gives Alex access to that persons memories. By consuming military personnel he gains access to their weapons, tanks and helicopters.

In the last quarter of the game the amount of mutants and military on screen becomes instantly stupid and frustrating. You die constantly wandering what retard level designer decided these final missions had to include the amount of AI on screen and because Alex became confused on what to do next because the user is too busy smashing buttons in order to try and stay alive.

I wasn’t bothered to play any of the side missions prototyped had to offer.

Overall the first three quarters of prototype was a good experience and the last quarter of the game is an utter frustrating experience which will surely cause you to curse a few times as you wander how you died. There are many points throughout the game where you go hell yeah that was fun and the next minute you are scratching your head. I don’t think Prototype is worth a purchase but if you have a gamefly, gameaccess or blockbuster account and you have nothing to play be sure to rent it.

Overall for $9.99 used game, I was happy I finished the game and will totally play Lost Planet 2. I’m not sure I’ll buy it but I will play it. If you happen to see this game in the bargain bin at your local game store, pick it up and give it a chance.

The Gears of War team at Epic, has been really busy lately. They have released title update number 3 as well as the new Snowblind Map Pack for 800 MS points. The 4 maps included are Underhill, Grindyard, Fuel Depot and Courtyard.

First up from Gears of War 1 remade and updated for Gears of War 2 is Fuel Depot. This is basically the same map from GoW with a few changes, right away you’ll notice the map is now covered in snow. Secondly, there are a few added cars throughout the map. I don’t remember there being a Mortar inside the garage, but it can be very useful weapon during certain game modes.

Underhill is a brand new map which features a hill with a mortar on top and either a sniper rifle or torque bow at the bottom. The map also contains various tunnels with a central garage point where a flamethrower is stationed and most importantly the garage door can be opened from the outside or the inside. I really do enjoy playing king of the hill or annex on this map but I find it doesn’t work so well for execution or warzone. I generally refer to this map as the weakest of the 4 maps because not a whole lot of the map is being fully used.

Courtyard is ported over from the Gears of War PC edition. Decisions, Decisions! Do you roddie run to the back of the map for a torque bow or boom shot? Do you run to the top of the courtyard and get the mortar? Or, do you race to under the main stairs and grab the grenades? This map is very well balanced and the epic fight for survival can happen on any part of the map.

Grindyard is a massive industrial area that has seen better days. Teams spawn on opposite sides of the map and roadie run towards the center tower to score the upper hand on their enemies and take control of the boomshot or the mulcher. The team below has a chance to grab the grenades and frag their opponents out of the tower. This is a smaller map but it provides a ton of challenges and hours of excitement.

Overall, out of the 3 map packs out for Gears of War 2, flashback map pack, the Combustible map pack, and Snowblind is by far the best of the bunch and easily worth the 10 dollars. You also need the new maps to earn some more achievements.

Jeff Rivait was on hand from Microsoft to give everyone a demo of Halo Wars. Unfortunately being very new to the RTS (Real Time Strategy games) I decided it was better off not to embarrass myself in front of everyone so I decided just to watch everyone play.

The new Halo 3 map packed call Mythic Maps will be available with the purchase of Halo Wars CE or you will need to wait until spring to get a hold of them. They will also ship with Halo: ODST this fall. The map pack contains 3 maps called Assembly, Orbital and Sandbox. Check out the pictures below of each of the maps. I really enjoyed orbital and driving around on the mongoose honking the horn!. The best moment of the event was playing oddball on Sandbox and killing DarthAlbert III with 1 second left until victory. I held the skull for 76 seconds to make it respectable but ended up losing. As far as for Assembly I just confused on where to go on this map but had some great matches.

Assembly:

Orbital:

Sandbox:

More photos can be found at IGN.com

Here is the launch trailer courtesy of 1up.com/Gamevideos

I know I am bit behind on posting about the map pack but I wanted to have sometime with the 3 new maps before posting about them.

Flood:

Flood is a smaller map that has Imulsion throughout the level, watch your step you don’t want to catch fire and die. I was a bit skeptical of this map at first because it is a smaller map but after playing with it extensively I find that I love the intense fire fights that this map offers.

An abandoned fuel station why not blow up the tanks and scare the enemy or head up the second level of station and control the map. There are only 2 ways upstairs plant those grenades on the stairs and then get ready to shotgun any enemy that decides to come up the evaluator. The team that usually controls the second level wins the game. This map is a fun map it really is but is not suited for all game modes and is probably the weakest map of the map pack.

Gold Rush:

Is a two level map that has a sniper on the second level and a mortar on the first level. Decisions, Decisions where do you go? Do you take the mortar and try and destroy the enemy on the second level or do you go after the sniper and blow off the enemy’s head on the lower level.

Conclusion

There was not hints dropped by Epic Games that DLC maps were coming and they came quick after launching the game. GoW2 was still suffering from matchmaking issues and adding more maps to the fold may have not been the best thing for it. The marketing campaign to have Cole come up on screen at the Spike Video game awards and announce the Conbustible Map Pack and that it