20 Things That Made You Feel Like A Total B.A.M.F. In Elementary School

Your coolness peaked in grades K-6. Here's a look back at your finest moments.

Mom packing you pizza Lunchables instead of the usual smushed PB&J.

All the kids with the cracker stackers Lunchables looked like chumps next to you, because there was something indescribably cool about uncooked pizza in grade school.

Via: dionlabel.com

Wearing your light-up shoes to school.

You begged your mom to buy them for you because you thought they'd help you run faster, but all they really did was ruin your chances of ever winning a game of manhunt.

Via: peteneems

Passing the handwriting test and getting to write in pen.

Except you couldn't handle the responsibility of the most permanent writing utensil so you bought a pack of erasable pens (or smearable pens, as they should have been called).

Via: ebay.com

The teacher using your name in a test example.

And you looking around the room to see if anyone else noticed. They did.

Via: tinypic.com

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Rapid Racing iPad App

My name is Paul, I am 15 years old, and I made an app! I've been learning how to build games for the iPhone and iPad for about 3 years and just published my first iPad game to the AppStore. Check it out, its free! http://www.appstore.com/rapidracing My answers to the Make-To-Learn contest: What I ...
By: Gerome42

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Crimson Alliance

At the start of Crimson Alliance, you're presented with a choice of three archetypal characters: the elderly wizard, the burly mercenary, or the nimble assassin. At first blush, these characters all feel distinct: the wizard conjures rolling waves of ice, the mercenary cleaves enemies in two with his sword, and the assassin can throw daggers. However, once you spend an hour with each, you find they all follow the same combat style of two normal attacks and one nonlethal technique that stuns foes. They also have special techniques that unlock after you collect a specific number of hidden items all designed to wipe the screen of enemies. Which character you play as is really just a choice between range and melee--or you could just pick the assassin who does a bit of both.

A lack of greater complexity is a recurring issue in Crimson Alliance. From level design to character customization, the game leaves you wanting in every category. The mission layout is a linear gauntlet of stages that repeatedly pit your heroes against the same basic enemy types: Those that run at you and those that shoot at you. Only in the final act does the game start mixing things up with traps and creative objectives, but by then it's too little, too late. In between these encounters, there are secret areas to discover that are filled with gold and treasure. You can also replay levels on a higher difficulty to compete for the high score on each stage's leaderboard.

For your troubles, you're awarded copious amounts of gold, the adventurer's delight. In lieu of experience points and levels, you spend gold on weapons and armor to advance your character. Item vendors open up after you complete specific missions with new wares for you to buy. And because all of the items are split up between vendors, it can make comparison shopping a pain. Items improve your character's four stats: three for your attacks and one for your health. Improving health lets you take more damage, while improving your attacks changes their properties slightly--such as creating a bigger ice wave.

The game's strongest feature is its four-player, online or local cooperative play. Mindless slaughter is always more enjoyable with a buddy or three, and there are even a few puzzles scattered throughout the game that require teamwork to surmount. It's a pity that the soundtrack is so forgettable. Crimson Alliance's light jazz accompaniment might be great for sneaking into a mansion or stealing a ruby necklace, but here, the music only further deflates the already-lackluster combat.


If you're in a jam, just grab an exploding red barrel and watch your troubles go up in flames.
Crimson Alliance simply does the bare minimum across the board. Its tale of an evil sorceress returning from the dead is accented with a bit of humor that should have been taken further. If the game followed through with its halfhearted attempts at comedy (a crate that serves as a familiar, for example), it might have produced a bit of sparkle. But Crimson Alliance doesn't go far enough in this respect, or in any other. It's a hollow game that offers little more than mindless monster slaying.

Driver: Renegade

You play as series mainstay John Tanner, an ex-cop who's hired by one of New York's big political figures to rid the city's streets of crime. Doing so requires you to mercilessly drive your car around like a lunatic and bash into any enemy vehicles that try to stop you--and that's pretty much the extent of what Driver: Renegade 3DS has to offer. For the most part, the driving is solid but completely unremarkable. Individual cars (which are unlocked after completing missions) handle according to their relative stats, and also make use of a "rage bar." The bar recharges during drifts and stunts, giving you access to a temporary speed boost and the ability to destroy assailants using shunts.

Not only do the game's run-of-the-mill racing objectives fail to capitalize on the solid driving mechanics, but it also makes it easy to cheat the system and truncate the running time of an otherwise prolonged mission to much shorter periods. For instance, instead of becoming embroiled in a captivating car chase through the city streets, merely trapping an opposing car against a nearby wall and then ramming into it a few times is more than enough to meet the requirements of your objective. Boxing in an opponent may sound like a valid tactic to some, but in reality, it's just not fun; and you may even find yourself causing such incidents to happen without even trying. Even worse, similar frustrations can also befall you. Spinning out and knocking against other cars or parts of the environment rapidly drains the stability of your car, meaning that deaths are often unfair and unpredictable.

The Story mode is light on interesting exposition, and the incredibly hammy dialogue and voice acting are executed with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. Brief motion comics highlight the paper-thin narrative, and its justifications for throwing you into missions are poorly conceived. Tanner himself, who has been relatively stoic in the past, is inexplicably transformed into an archetypal tough guy who shamefully spouts a small selection of bad one-liners and puns ad nauseam. The game desperately tries to appear edgy with gratuitous swearing; and there are embarrassing attempts at titillation via the introduction of a sultry female character, but all of its efforts are awkwardly juvenile. It also takes no more than three hours to get through the story's 20 missions, although the game actually runs out of tricks by about half that length. There's a separate Career mode as well, which allows you to compete in specific events pulled from the main game, including time trials and eliminator races. However, it's essentially the same content without the shoddy narrative in between, so you won't feel much desire to carry on playing past the fleeting Story mode. While you can use StreetPass to exchange scores and records, multiplayer of any kind is a no-show--not even local play is included.


While they're nice to look at, the motion comics illustrate a poorly conceived story.
The polygonal city you ride and smash around in is a hollow and vaguely open-world map with a noticeable lack of life on the surrounding streets. Every inch of the city feels empty on a drastic scale: Traffic is extremely light and the absence of everyday citizens galloping from the path of your speeding car seems strangely at odds with the conventions of the series. It also doesn't help that everything looks so washed out and jagged. Plus, the shoddy use of stereoscopic 3D adds nothing to the visuals--it's much more comfortable to play with the slider turned all the way down. On the plus side, the soundtrack is tolerable and the menus are generally well produced; in fact, they are arguably the most impressive aspect of the entire game.

From its overwhelming repetition to its tepid attempts to be cool and irreverent, Driver: Renegade 3D is a game that fails to create an action-driving hybrid that is even remotely engaging. Its solid driving mechanics have been squandered on a game that is far too boring, and the end result is a product that feels consistently rough and flawed in every way.

SkyDrift

At the heart of SkyDrift are three race modes: Power is standard racing with both offensive and defensive power-ups enabled; Survivor is an elimination-based variation on Power that removes whoever is in last place at timed intervals; and Speed replaces power-ups with glowing rings that provide your plane with a brief boost. These modes are scattered across the main single-player campaign, which places you in stages that get progressively harder as you advance, with new planes and paint jobs awarded along the way. All of the modes are enjoyable, but they become fairly repetitious before too long--the game would certainly benefit from having a few more race types to add to the variety. There are six tracks (plus reversed versions of each) set in different locations. The surrounding environments for each track range from the mountainous to the glacial, and they're all visually striking, with impressive levels of detail. Annoyingly, though, SkyDrift's overly saturated lighting effects can sometimes be overbearing on the visuals, making power-ups and obstacles difficult to discern against the harshly lit backdrop.

Power-ups include the usual suspects, such as mines, heat-seeking missiles, and shields. Picking up two power-ups of the same kind upgrades their effectiveness, and it's also possible to trade in stored power-ups for small doses of boost. To a similar end, you can drift behind other planes and ride lower to the ground to gain even more boost. You can also use the right stick to "knife edge" the plane so that you can weave through tight crevices and gaps that would otherwise cause you to crash instantly. Even when you do crash, though, respawns are quick enough that you don't lose much time. Because tracks are awash in sharp corners and sudden hairpin turns, the high-speed nature of the game ensures that you're considerate of your every action--when you mess up, it's usually your fault and not the game's. SkyDrift's tight controls and multitude of power-ups let you approach mid-race situations with the kind of sudden tactical initiative that can either help or hinder you, depending on the decisions you make. That said, it's a shame that none of the power-ups are particularly creative--it would have been nice to see more-expressive weaponry beyond generic rocket launchers and machine guns.


Environments range from the mountainous to the glacial.
Beyond the single-player races is lag-free online multiplayer, which is really the shining jewel of SkyDrift. While the multiplayer cannot be played locally, all of the aforementioned modes and tracks can be played with up to eight players online, and the host retains complete control over map settings and the choice of planes before races begin. Despite the competency of the AI in the single-player portion, the game becomes infinitely more enjoyable when real people are thrown into the mix. Power-ups are well balanced, and no one plane is more likely to dominate than any other, meaning that every competitor is treated fairly, regardless of skill level. A host of criteria-based badges and medals can also be earned throughout both single-player and online matches, which is a nice touch that neatly ties in to the game's achievements and trophies.

If you've ever played an arcade or kart racer before, then you have a good idea of what to expect from SkyDrift. It does nothing that hasn't been done in the past, nor does it outperform any of its contemporaries in any meaningful way. Thankfully, solid controls and a strong dependency on tactics mean that SkyDrift still manages to offer up a good amount of fun in spite of its derivative makeup, especially when played online.

TrackMania 2 Canyon

Getting into TrackMania 2 is a simple affair. Solo play consists of 65 tracks, the majority of which are unlocked by obtaining medals. You load up a track, start your engine, and then keep playing until you set a time you're happy with. It's great if you're interested only in score chasing, although it's far from a shallow game. Each track has been expertly designed with the leaderboards in mind. Nailing the perfect racing line to achieve the best time takes practice and experimentation as you figure out how to cut corners and start drifts earlier.

Learning the best routes around stages is never a chore. The majority of tracks last anywhere from 18 to 40 seconds; they're short A-to-B sprints that take you around hairpin bends and over dizzying jumps. Frequently you find yourself driving up walls or drifting vertically around a quarter pipe. These stages are short, but the desire to stay on a given track, chasing the best time you can, is encouraged at every point. Each track offers up a bronze, silver, and gold medal to obtain, as well as an official time to set. These times can be challenged every five minutes, with a timer in the bottom right corner counting down until your next attempt. Setting an official time awards you with skill points based on how well you performed overall and contributes to your online leaderboard ranking.

Racing around the tracks is fun and breezy, thanks in part to the superb handling and easy learning curve when it comes to drifting. There's only one car type, so the focus is on learning the tracks rather than worrying about which vehicle to use. This gives TrackMania 2 Canyon the feel of a puzzle game as much as a racer, and it's great that when a friend beats your time you know that he's driving the same car that you do. Keyboard controls are tight, with subtle manoeuvring and wide drifts being easy to pull off with the arrow keys. Using a gamepad is even better, because the full analogue controls lend themselves well to the game. You frequently make twitch adjustments to your racing line, and either control method is conducive to this.


It takes real skill to crash this well.
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Trying to set the best time can be frustrating, but usually in a "just one more go" way. A few of the tracks are just plain annoying, though, as some of the longer ones end with a jump or a turn that can easily blindside you. But the immediacy of restarting (hit a button and you're instantly back on the starting grid) makes even the most irritating tracks seem reasonable. Less fun are the lap races, which occur every fifth track. These five-lap affairs are decent enough, but if you're going for gold, then they can feel like a bit of a slog when you mess up towards the end of the fifth lap. The variety and length of the A-to-B tracks make them far more entertaining.

There are no physical opponents on the track. You can choose a ghost to race against from either the preset AI ghosts, your own favourite replay, or the replay of someone on your buddies list who has set a better official time than you. Usually there are three vehicles on the track: you, the ghost you chose to race against, and the ghost of your last attempt. Multiplayer is similar, in that while you can see other cars, they take the form of ghosts. The main mode is Time Attack, in which you and various opponents race on a series of tracks, with five minutes to set the best time you can. It serves as a fun competition as well as a learning tool, being able to see the racing line that a car ahead of you is taking without having to worry about overtaking it yourself. There are other modes, like Laps and Cup, which see you racing directly against opponents, but finding a server doing anything other than Time Attack is currently nigh on impossible. Luckily there's the option to create your own and invite friends. These multiplayer options are also available to play locally, either in turns or in split-screen

Rotastic

Vikings are not the only individuals who crave a life spent gliding through the sky. A ragtag group comprising an elf, boar, and reanimated skeleton join the party, though the only difference between these cartoon characters is their appearance. No matter which you choose, your goal is the same: swing from suspended points in the sky collecting gems, destroying barriers, and performing other odd jobs. Each level takes place on a single screen, and you have to complete your objective against the clock to move on to the next level with as high of a score as possible. Based on how effective you were in completing your task, you're given bronze, silver, gold, or platinum helmets, and when you unlock enough, you open up harder levels. It's an elegant system that is hounded by problems; chief among them is inconsistent controls that make unlocking the later levels a grueling, arduous plight that usually ends in aggravation.

Rotastic uses just two buttons. By holding A, you grab on to hook points, and you continually swing around them in a circle until you let go. If you want to change direction, just tap a bumper button. Grapple points dot the sky at strategic places, and you have to swing from one to another and then back again to collect gems hovering around you. For the first few levels, things run smoothly, and the easy-to-grasp control scheme makes it possible to forget what your hands are doing as you leap impressively from one hook to another without a care in the world. Bonus points are given if you pull off a trick--such as forming a figure 8 or other specific shapes--and there's simple pleasure to be found in the balletic manner you move. Without obstacles to get in your way or intense objectives forcing you to move in specific ways, the tutorial portion exhibits the surreal freedom of flight.


Like martial artists, Vikings wear different colors based on their talents. Clearly, he's a neophyte.
However, everything comes crashing down once the difficulty ramps up. The controls perform admirably when neither time nor precision are working against you, but this only lasts for so long. Once you have to hit switches, avoid buzzsaw blades, and break blocks, it's apparent that you don't have the proper tools to progress. The trick to successfully moving from one place to another comes from mastering your trajectory. By figuring out where you're going to land based on your angle of movement and speed, you can fling from one point to the next without many problems. But this is much easier said than done. There's no margin of error in Rotastic, so if you aren't a master of geometry, prepare to be frustrated frequently. In instances where you just have to land on a flat plane, it can take two or three attempts before you release at the right point. And even after getting where you want, you're liable to bounce right past your objective or miss it by the slimmest of margins. In later levels, you have to get past buzzsaw blades moving in asynchronous patterns or rush through closing gates against a timer, and there's little fun in repeatedly trying these grueling challenges only to come up short.

Every difficult level has the same problems because the controls are not up to the task. Levels require ultraspecific movement, and it's incredibly difficult to consistently pull off these exacting requests. Because of this, you often complete a stage by the skin of your teeth, which means you earn a mere bronze helmet. Without getting a high enough score for silver or gold, you can't unlock the later levels, so you're left replaying earlier stages with the desperate hope that you luck into a better ranking. And success does feel like luck in Rotastic. To get a high score, you have to pull off a string of almost-perfect moves in quick succession, and admittedly, it is a rush when you nail everything just as you should. But it's a rare moment when everything comes together, and you can only marvel at the implausibility of your landings. Did you really bounce off of two adjacent walls to nab that purple gem? How did you find room to squeak past that spiked log to hit the switch? The answers always come up the same: dumb luck. You never feel like a superstar because replicating these feats of brilliance is nearly impossible.


Boars don't fear death because they don't have souls.
The roughly 70 single-player levels should keep dedicated players busy for a few hours, and if you crave more swinging action once you've gone through the gauntlet, there's a four-player, offline-only multiplayer mode as well. There are two different ways to play. Deathmatch involves slamming into your friends or trying to cut their rope so they fall into a bottomless void. Collect is the same thing, except the winner is determined by how many gems you nab, though it's still more entertaining to send your friends plummeting. Multiplayer is more fun than the single-player counterparts because everyone is plagued by the same handicap: imprecise controls. Because of this, slinging yourself willy-nilly through the world is goofy fun, given that there's no real punishment for failure. Sure, you may fall into a pit or miss out on collecting coins, but who cares? You're just challenging friends in some good-natured competition. Still, there isn't a draw to hook you long term. After playing two or three matches, the shallowness of the experience is overwhelming, so even if you enjoy multiplayer, you'll be hard pressed to find someone to join you.

Rotastic ultimately feels like it could have been released on a mobile device for one-tenth of the price. It doesn't take advantage of any of the Xbox 360's technical wizardry, and the simple control scheme combined with the shallow gameplay would be ideal in five-minute bursts while waiting for your train to arrive. Sadly, Rotastic exists only on a console that's tethered to a television, and it's hard to justify shelling out 800 Microsoft points ($10) for this forgettable experience. With better level design and controls that allowed you to move with precision, Rotastic could have offered a quiet respite from the spectacle of most big-budget retail releases. But there are too many frustrations for it to slide into that role. Rotastic briefly soars through the air, but it quickly plummets back to the earth with a dull thud.

Naval Warfare

Last year, Aqua: Naval Warfare launched on Xbox Live Arcade to below average critical reception. The game featured a highly intriguing steampunk story that took place at sea, and the gameplay premise—a twin-stick shooter set on water—was incredibly promising. Unfortunately, the game failed to deliver on practically every front. One year later, developer Games Distillery is re-releasing the game on Steam (this time simply titled Naval Warfare) and not surprisingly, it remains a big disappointment.
The world has been flooded, and various groups have been formed by the survivors. These groups are battling on the sea for total control of various territory, and this is where you come in. As part of one of these factions, it is up to you to take on enemies and engage in escort missions. Though the story is interesting on paper, the execution is rather lackluster. In between chapters you’re treated to stylish hand-drawn cutscenes. As cool as these look, it’s hard to really care about the story due to some weak characters and uninspired voice acting.

Storytelling isn’t the only area where Naval Warfare falls short. Oftentimes, games with weak narratives can easily be forgiven as long as they provide a compelling adventure. But even in its gameplay, Naval Warfare is an utter failure. Rest assured, the ideas are most certainly interesting. A twin-stick shooter at sea could have been really awesome, but a number of gameplay hindrances keep this game from being as fun as possible.
The first thing that really sticks out about Naval Warfare is its lack of direction. As you play, you’re tasked with certain objectives, but the game never puts much emphasis on them. You end up waiting for an on-screen arrow prompt to guide you to whatever destination the game chooses. Naval Warfare should have been a much more linear experience, but due to the large stages, which often feel devoid of life, you’ll constantly stray off course and hit barriers. You then realize that all of the enemies you’re supposed to eliminate or the ships you’re supposed to protect are on the other side of the map, so you have to backtrack before you can complete a mission.
You can obtain upgrades or play in two additional ships, but doing so doesn’t yield anything in the way of impressive results. Instead, the mild customization options make you wish there was more to do. This aspect of the game could have delivered some deep options, but with a lack of content, it’s just another failed aspect of Naval Warfare.

Naval Warfare feels so misguided, and the campaign ultimately gets too boring to sit through. You can team up with a buddy and take on waves of enemies as a team, and it’s certainly more fun than messing with the single-player game on your own. You can even play Skirmish mode, which pits you against hordes of enemies and tests your twin-stick shooting mettle. As decent as these modes may be, they get repetitive and only hold your attention for so long. Naval Warfare was supposed to offer a great story mode, and the disappointment will stay with you the entire time you play, regardless of what mode you’re tackling.
At the very least, Naval Warfare manages to do one thing right, and it happens to be the least important aspect of any game: the graphics are pretty damn awesome. Water effects look great, ships and enemy fighters are richly detailed, and the whole ocean atmosphere looks spectacular. Explosions are a bit weak, but other than this minor gripe, everything in-game is remarkable. As previously mentioned, the hand-drawn cutscenes are great, and they really give the steampunk story a unique appearance.

Fable III DLC Quest

Not long after the game itself made the transition to the PC, Fable III’s DLC Quest Packs were released. The full game is not the strongest in the series, but it’s biggest flaw is the glaring lack of quests. Will these Quest Packs give the game some much needed extra life, or are they a waste of money?
Understone Quest Pack (400MSP)
The first and cheapest pack is also, not surprisingly, the shortest. The premise is simple: a factory owner in Bowerstone Industrial is hearing voices in his factory, and he enlists you, the King (or Queen), to investigate. The search immediately leads underground to a hidden city called Understone.
Understone is governed by one very paranoid man, however, so getting in will be tough. Gaining entrance is more tedious than challenging. Endless groups of Hobbes attack, providing lengthy and repetitive combat scenarios. You’ll be funneled through various small arenas, forced to defeat all the Hobbes to progress.

For a game with an incredibly limited combat system, this is probably the worst approach to quests there is. While it’s good to have more quests to undertake as ruler of Albion, this particular questline has virtually no redeeming qualities beyond the usual Fable polish and humor.
The quest will take little more than half an hour to complete, though it has a few extras. The Wheel of Misfortune in Reaver’s Mansion makes a return but is as boring as it was before. Plus, the Mercenary Camp now has a shooting gallery, which also offers little in the way of excitement.
Traitor’s Keep Quest Pack (560MSP)
This second Quest Pack is significantly longer than the first but is just as dull. It begins with an assassination on your life, which leads you to Ravenscar, a Prison Island where Logan banished his most threatening political adversaries. There’s been a major escape, and rumors tell of a revolutionary inmate who will stop at nothing to overthrow the crown. This questline teams you up with Commander Milton and sends you on a journey to several exciting new areas to hunt down the threat to your domain.
In terms of scope, Traitor’s Keep is much more impressive. One new area in particular, Clockwork Island, has some nice visuals. Unfortunately, the gameplay here is identical to the previous quest pack: frequent, repetitive encounters with various creatures. Commander Milton opines at one point, “I’m not sure how many more of these encounters I can take.” After a couple, I agreed with him. Too bad there are dozens here.

The quest has a neat story and a good twist. The effectiveness of your revolution is put into question—interesting, but there’s little depth to it. Ultimately, anything good here is suffocated by the overwhelming inanity of it all. The level design demonstrates virtually no creativity: as Milton himself puts it, “I’m noticing a pattern: we walk in, and things try to kill us.”
Despite one of the criticisms of Fable III (the rinse-and-repeat bosses), the bosses here are again identikit fights. The designs are good, particularly for the boss who distinctly resembles Iron Man, but there’s no gameplay innovation or creativity at all. A few side quests have been added, but these are little more than fetch or seek-and-destroy quests to use up a little more time.
The two questlines both show promise, but neither maximizes on its potential. Fable III wasn’t great, but it deserves far better than this. Unless you think you’ll enjoy several hours of extremely repetitive combat, these are two DLCs to avoid.

Dungeon Siege III

If there’s one thing that Obsidian Entertainment and Square Enix are not afraid to, it’s bringing the popular Dungeon Siege series to the 360 and PS3.  Well, that and sending waves of formidable bosses your way.  Don’t worry, the mounds of loot you’ll retrieve will help you immensely.
If you’re looking for an enjoyable, dungeon-crawling, hack-and-slash, action role-playing game that two people can play on the same screen, then this game is right up your alley.  To be honest, it’s the most fun I’ve had with a game of its genre in quite some time.  The game takes place in the same lands as the other Dungeon Siege games, but aside from some references and evolved environments, you would never know.  The story stands completely independent from the other games.
Up to four players—two on the same console—can play together taking on the roles of Lucas Montbarron, the sword-wielding warrior; Anjali, who can shift between human form and an incarnation of elemental fire; Reinhart Manx, a scholar of arcane magic; and Katarina, who solves her problems with firearms.  Combat is fast and furious.  You will be mashing the “A” button a lot, doing your normal attacks, and will have your special attacks assigned to the “X,Y,Z” buttons.  The left and right triggers bring up other abilities that your character has.  Defensively, I have found that dodging takes care of all of your problems.  Each character also has two different offensive stances to switch between.  For example, Katarina uses her rifle to take care of foes from afar, but up close she can dual-wield shotguns and pistols, as well as wielding curses.
 
The combat is fun, but it’s not without its faults.  The camera does some quirky things when playing on one screen with two players.  The camera will over-rotate, and sometimes during attacks you won’t be able to see who you are fighting, or where one of the players are.  It never led to a death for me, but it led to annoyance.
Each character is customizable—to a degree.  When you level up you receive points to assign into a combat ability, a proficiency (which allows you to add special effects to your combat ability), and talents (which give you passive improvements).

While the game can be challenging, especially some of the bosses, it does not promote competition between teammates.  There’s not the feeling of added stress by having to get to an item drop before your teammate;  all players share whatever gold and loot is picked up.  Players even share the health and focus orbs that enemies drop.  It’s the friendliest co-op action-rpg that you’ll ever play.  Other in-game actions are easy as well.  Obsidian Entertainment made sure that the player could access multiple menus or actions with the click of a button.  You can access all of your quests and items, as well as breadcrumbs (a line of gold orbs that guide you toward your destination for a short period of time) all through the d-pad.
To expand on the loot, since that is what drives action-rpg games like this, I want you to know that there’s plenty of it.  You will always be picking up new items.  The nice thing about the loot is that you don’t have to fight over it with your teammates.  Each item only usable by a certain character, since none of them use the same armor and/or weapons.  When I played with other people, there wasn’t any “I need that more than you.”  Instead, there was, “Wow, that’s an awesome gun.  Grats.”  Much nicer, don’t you think?  There is also tons of attributes on the items, such as doom, warding, bloodletting, vampirism, etc.

All of the different attributes on the loot lets the player choose the items that match their playstyle the most.  Unfortunately, none of the loot really causes any aesthetic pleasure.  The difference in looks is barely noticeable.  If you are playing with two people on the same screen, you won’t notice any difference at all since you can’t zoom in at all.  Sometimes you can notice a faint glow on a weapon, but that’s about all.
Graphics-wise, the game holds its own.  The environment glows a little bit too much for my liking, but it’s not bad by any means.  Character and enemies have some modest detail to them, but nothing makes you want to say “wow.”
The story is also satisfactory;  there’s nothing great about it, but you won’t be lulled to sleep.  However, conversations are frustrating.  You can, of course, speed them up by skipping the voice acting, but it just feels like there’s way to much fluff to get to the point.  Each player can vote on which dialogue option they think should be said, but only one person gets the final say.  Depending on how often you agree/disagree on dialogue, you earn achievements and deeds (gives your party a passive buff).  In the end, the story is going to play itself out no matter what you say.

Dungeon Siege III is a game worthy of your attention if you like the hack-and-slash, dungeon crawl, action-rpg type of game.  There’s no fighting over the massive amount of loot you’ll come across, and most of all, IT’S FUN!  Minus story fluff, inconsequential dialogue, and an unruly, this game gets a lot of things right, or is on the right path with a lot of things.

Duke Nukem Forever

The saying goes, “Better late than never.” I wish this was the case for Duke Nukem Forever. Unfortunately, stale gameplay and clumsy mechanics make me wish Forever was left as an idea, rather than made into an actual game. I wanted to like it. I really did. I tried to overlook its shortcomings and enjoy a story and character that brought me back to my childhood.
As far as character is concerned, nothing has changed. Duke is still the same testosterone-raging, foul-mouthed booby-slapper that he was in the 90s. He is a gun-toting badass who treats women as objects, mocks our society, and gets off on squashing aliens. The humor in the game is great. It brought me back to my adolescent days, when I got a rush out of doing things in the game that I wasn’t supposed to do in real life—-like looking at dirty magazines. Boy, did pixelated women ever look so good.

You’d think that after 12 years in the making, the women would look a little better. OK, so the game may have been an idea for 10 of those years, and the other two were development, but the point is that a game for consoles like Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 should look somewhat better than Duke Nukem Forever does. I thought blocky graphics and choppy movements were gone with the original Xbox. I would think the “King” would get the pleasure of a graphical overhaul, but maybe they purposely left us with these graphics for a nostalgia’s sake.
I wouldn’t be so hard on the graphics if the gameplay made up for it. The simple fact is that the gameplay is stale. There is nothing quite as adrenaline-pumping as running into a room full of aliens, guns blazing, and blasting the hell out of anything in sight. It was fun in the first Duke Nukem. It was fun for the first couple of levels in Duke Nukem Forever. Then it got repetitive. I can only get so much enjoyment out of shotgunning an alien and giving it the finger afterwards. Maybe today’s shooters have spoiled me into wanting more out of a game, and maybe the hype of Duke Nukem Forever made me expect more out of the game’s action. But there wasn’t more. All you do is run in and shoot up the place, often dying in the process because of “cheap” deaths. When I say “cheap” deaths, I don’t mean any time I die I’m labeling it as cheap. I admit, some of the deaths were results of careless play on my behalf, but when I am shrunken and nowhere near an enemy yet still die when he stomps his foot on the ground, I consider that a “cheap,” poorly programmed death.

Normally, I don’t complain about dying in a video game. I enjoy the challenge. However, when it takes five minutes to reload the level, it gets a little frustrating. No, I am not exaggerating. Each load screen takes about four to five minutes, and it happens quite frequently.
Duke Nukem takes gameplay elements from the very FPS games that it mocks. It has a regenerative health bar, called ego, and the constraint of only holding 2 weapons at once. Honestly, who can only carry two weapons these days? Especially when the hero is someone as badass as Duke. Duke’s levels are fairly straightforward—-linear maps filled with charging humanoid pigs and jetpack-wearing aliens. Some of the weapons are fun, as you can find shrink rays and freeze guns or use your blunt fists to pulverize enemies. After blasting your way around a level, you occasionally encounter some small puzzles. Although small and simplistic in nature, some of them can be quite difficult to figure out and can lead to frustration. The majority of them involve finding which crate to jump on next. Once you complete the acts in each chapter, you come face-to-face with a boss of some sort. These boss fights usually require patience, as you are forced to repetitively fire rockets at it until its health depletes.

The ideas behind some of Duke’s elements are there. It could’ve been fun shrinking into miniature size and driving miniature trucks around a room. However, its clumsy handling leaves you wanting more. “Jump on this crate and climb this ladder ... Jump on the hamburger buns to avoid being burned.” The puzzles are so dull that they are annoying. What should have been considered fun breaks in action sequences seem more like hindrances that only piss you off when you die because you can’t make the jump required to reach the next platform. Have fun waiting another five minutes to reload the level.  But hey, what is five minutes of waiting when we’ve waited 12 years for this game?
I enjoy the Duke character. I love flicking off aliens and cursing them out as I blow their heads off. I love chugging beer and cracking skulls with my fists. I love getting virtual lap dances in strip clubs and admiring myself in the mirror. The story, as hokey as it is, is still entertaining and filled with crude humor. I just don’t love anything else about the game. The graphics are dated, and the gameplay is pedestrian at best. I found myself begging for the game to end, playing it only for the sake of beating it rather than enjoying it. It seemed like a chore instead of a game. If you enjoy repetitive levels and corny one-liners, then you will find enjoyment in this game. The game will definitely bring you back to the 90s, but I wish it would have left 90s gameplay and graphics.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge

Sometimes the best way to distinguish your game among others is to incorporate elements across genres into a single, coherent gameplay experience. On paper, this gets people very excited—-think about Halo, which gives players shooting, driving, and flying all in one beautiful package. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to get every component working properly, and if one malfunctions even a bit, the entire experience can be ruined. Enter Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.
Hunted was designed as a “dungeon crawler” of sorts, but with typical RPG elements blended with cooperative combat. There’s Caddoc, the gruff sword-swinger, and E’Lara, the nimble elf archer. There are no other choices—-by maintaining these two characters, each one can undergo a unique story arc and personal crises can be… oh, who are we kidding? These are just silly archetypes that we understand immediately, and they actually work well enough within the context of co-op battles. Don’t expect anything epic, but the lighthearted jibes and exchanges between them provide some nice relief as the game plods along.

Although either character can technically be used across a variety of combat scenarios, their specializations in ranged or close warfare form the core of the game. This is particularly nice in multiplayer because it’s strangely more consistent than the single-player campaign. This is mainly due to your assignment to a character, rather than having to constantly worry about switching back between them—-which can only be done in specific contexts, mind you. Why the game couldn’t allow players to freely switch characters at any time is a mystery; even Donkey Kong Country managed this trick, after all.
Unfortunately, the melding of slashing and shooting doesn’t work out quite as smoothly as one might hope. It’s easy to get turned on by this premise, but Hunted simply doesn’t deliver on its primary design. By the time you’re an hour into the game, very little novelty awaits you. In the past, many games have spruced things up by adding new abilities or significant rewards to keep things fresh. Instead, Hunted feels drab and stretched thin as you go along. The combat is awkward and repetitive, and the AI is terrible. This is often forgivable among foes, but in any game with friendly AI, the problems become a major headache. Your companion often behaves erratically, lagging behind or charging ahead when they shouldn’t and generally making a mess of things. It’s a bit like the stress of bringing a date to a formal event, only without having to leave the comfort of your living room. Somehow I doubt that was the intended selling point for the game.


Another disappointment lies in the narrative itself. While technically you could produce any game with a “fantasy” flair, a product from Bethesda is held to a higher standard. If a fantasy story isn’t rich enough to make the player feel utterly submerged in the world, everything tends to turn rather silly after a while. The intrinsic intrigue of an investigative mercenary duo will die down if clues are not offered along the way—-even little bits of tasty substance to keep curiosities piqued. A lot of people might have been able to overlook this, but this area feels very lackluster and lends the impression of a rushed product.


All told, Hunted offers a modicum of playing pleasure on a slow weekend, but a rental would be safer than a purchase. The visuals seem dated in a few spots, and in fact, the game sounds better in most areas than it looks. The music is particularly strong, probably one of the few things that Hunted gets right, but scarcely enough to warrant a purchase. Irksome gameplay and unpolished graphics keep Hunted grounded in the realm of “decent at best.” With so much potential, it seems a more serious execution could offer better things in the future.

From Dust

We’ve been looking forward to Ubisoft’s From Dust for some time.  Not only is the concept unique compared to other games, but the art style is better than most downloadable games.  The focus that Ubisoft Montpellier has given to the visuals is ridiculously unreal; you’ll find yourself getting lost in the majesty as stuff you pick up settles into the terrain in real time.  That brings up an interesting question—is From Dust more than just a flashy presentation?  Is there actual depth when it comes to playing as a god?
Well, there is, but it would be in your best interest to pack some patience when you start this game.  Not only is being a god tricky when it comes to completing each part of the story (and the additional challenges), but the ineptitude of your tribesmen is equally as tricky.  They summoned you—a god known only as The Breath—to help them reach totem poles and expand their civilization.  Easier said than done, since they’re pretty helpless.  Each one has a description, but they come to a halt when it seems like anything gets in their way.  They’re even afraid to approach a body of water.
While it’s a slight letdown that these tribe-folk don’t help you over the course of each mission (even when you send them off, they can get lost or stuck), From Dust’s control scheme isn’t so bad.  You’ll manipulate pieces of a land in each stage, building bridges and guiding these lost souls to their next totem marker.  It takes a little getting used to at first (Actraiser this ain’t), but the controls work moderately well as you pick up objects and use them to interact with the earth. They aren’t the most precise in the world (and this may frustrate those with agile hands in later stages), but they’re functional enough with a game controller.
Now, about that real-time morphing effect we discussed earlier—it’s beautiful.  Not only does From Dust feature some crafty level design, but it also has some weather effects that shift into each one almost seamlessly.  Desert globs flow into the sand, right down to the tiniest of particles; water shifts when wet land forms beneath it; volcanoes explode with great ferocity.  Watching this as it happens is almost like taking in a terrific nature special, except that you get to play around with it.  Granted, you shouldn’t forget about your objectives, but being able to terraform these worlds as you see fit is a welcome delight.  If you ever built a sand castle as a kid, you may just say, “Screw the tribe,” and try your luck again here.
Along with From Dust’s main story mode, there are also 30 additional challenges in which to complete.  These range from downright infuriating (the most precise of controls are needed to keep your tribe from perishing) to cakewalks, particularly with the opening stages.  Still, the progression set-up is a welcome one, and the ability to record your best times on Xbox Live—through interactive leaderboards—works just fine by us.
Again, though, From Dust won’t be everyone’s speed.  There’s a steep learning curve here, and you’ll have to put up with some really stupid tribesmen in order to get the most mileage out of it; seriously—they’re afraid of frickin’ water!  Some might be abundantly bored within the first hour, but those who stick with it will be rewarded with some interesting challenges and even more beautiful terrain.  It’s up to you to decide if you’re up for the journey.
We do like how Ubisoft tried something different with From Dust, though.  It’s not often you see a major publisher take a flying leap like this with something really “out there”, if you will.  While the little flaws may have you wondering if it’s worth the trip, you at least owe it to yourself to try it—even if it’s only to see the terraforming effects.  Seriously, can you imagine how good these would look in a typical action game?  Ubisoft Montpellier should keep this on hand for their next project.a

Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers

f you’ve read my review of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, you’ll know I’m more or less pleased with its slick digital take on my favorite card game. DOTP 2012 does an excellent job of both teaching new and intermediate players the finer points of Magic the Gathering, while also acting as a fine time-waster for ‘pros’ like myself. That being said, though the core game did its job quite well, this minor expansion is really only worth picking up if you’re one of the few people who hasn’t moved onto playing the actual card game yet.

The real disappointment is that the expansion focuses almost entirely on the Archenemy format, which unfortunately does not lend itself well to this game’s lacking A.I. and underpowered deck options. In Archenemy, three players work to take out the titular archenemy, a player commanding a doubled life total and a deck of extremely powerful scheme cards. At the beginning of the archenemy’s turn the top card of the scheme deck is “put into motion,” causing untold devastation to the three allied players. Though Archenemy battles were available in the original game, players now get to play the part of the final boss, and its honestly pretty fun the first time you decimate your three opponents. But once you realize how hard it is to actually lose a game, the excitement quickly fades.
The probem is that DOTP 2012 does not offer specific decks tuned for playing Archenemy, forcing you to use the exact same decks as in the one vs. one campaign. This means that the archenemy seems to have an almost overbearing advantage, facing off against three decks meant for single-player games, all while gleefully ripping ridiculously powerful effects from the top of the scheme deck. The scheme cards were designed to be so powerful to give the archenemy a chance against three overpowered opponents. Using these game-breaking effects in order to blast such ridiculously terrible cards as Suntail Hawk is really just a downright bore.

Another major concern is that this expansion does nothing to tune up the enemy A.I., which continues to make some rather routine mistakes. I watched one computer opponent suicide rush his bears towards my much larger creatures for no reason other than to watch them die, while another opponent wasted a card to return a skeleton from their graveyard to hand, ignoring the fact that the skeleton could’ve simply reanimated itself.
Perhaps the most notable error came during one game, where I found myself in control of a gigantic elf army and moved to put their commander onto the battlefield, a creature who would turn my entire lot of forest-dwelling pretty boys into a swift-footed clan of unstoppable forest-walking death. Luckily my opponent, the dreaded vampire lord Sorin Markov, cast his Disfigure spell… killing one of my little pieces of elf cannon-fodder, for some reason ignoring the commander entirely. I slammed in with my long-eared brothers and won that game quite handily, wondering what line of code told this feared vampire to kill my most irrelevant creature and ignore the elf lord of impending doom.

Anyhow, though I see this expansion as a bit of a design mistake, I’m sure there are those for whom the few new multiplayer extras are enough of a selling point. Three new decks are available for play,  and there’s even new cards to be unlocked for the original decks. It’s also a fun sneak peek at some upcoming cards and new planeswalkers. Basically, the new single player campaign is useless, but if you’ve been having a blast playing online then sure, pick this one up. Though I still think you’d be more satisfied heading down to your local game store and enjoying the game the way it was meant to be played.

Angry Birds

Destructive physics help make this a very charming puzzle game, and the great level variety seals the deal.

The Good

• Extremely fun physics   
• Easy to pick up and play   
• 200-plus levels.

The Bad

• Limited strategy   
• Winning often requires luck.

Most casual news watchers are familiar with explosives that have names like "bunker busters" and "daisy cutters." However, in Rovio Mobile's popular game, Angry Birds, multicolored chickens can take on the properties of these same bombs when pushed to the limits by egg-stealing green pigs.

In Angry Birds, you have to use birds as missiles.

Explosive chickens, adorable as they are, would be pointless without big buildings to topple, and Angry Birds provides more than 200 of them, with more added all the time. You can thoroughly demolish anything from stone castles to glass houses as you punish those evil, egg-stealing pigs.

To play, you simply load up a chicken in your slingshot, pull back while setting your angle, and let go to start the destruction. Angry Birds' gameplay is incredibly easy to understand, and the visual payoff for blowing stuff up is consistently impressive. Blue chickens split up in midair for a spread effect; heavy bomb chickens explode and send structures flying; and egg-laying hens let you deliver a yolky payload directly below.

You always receive the chickens in a particular order, which diminishes some of the strategy. Even though some chickens can be used to set up chain reactions, like using a burrowing hen to soften up a building's stone exterior and then following up with a ticking explosive chicken to blast out the walls--you don't get to do this if you don't get the chickens in this order.

Angry Birds has more than 200 levels, with more added all the time.

Although you might fling your chickens in the same spot each time, the game's sensitive physics system usually gives different results. It's generally impossible to re-create specific trajectories and reactions, so there's some luck involved where obtaining a high score (and a full three-star rating) is concerned. There aren't really any tangible benefits to completing every mission with a three-star score, besides boasting about your score on the online leaderboards, anyway. Angry Birds has some minor issues, but most of the time, you won't notice because you'll be too busy trying to squish pigs and make full use of your chicken arsenal. The game's weapons, physics, and varied levels are really quite excellent, and they make this military-farm-complex a whole lot of fun.

This review was provided by GameSpot mobile content partner SlideToPlay.com.

By Andrew Podolsky/SlideToPlay.com, GameSpot