DOXOreview: Medal of Honour: Vangaurd

Aesthetics 3/5

Graphically this game does deliver some crisp textures and some nice lighting , but overall falls flat due to the animation, cinematic follies, and horrendous special effects.

The game, in every regard looks better than Call of Duty 3 on the Wii, but it still doesn’t look that good. The soft lighting of outdoor environments creates a pretty realistic atmosphere and actually makes some of the blocky obstacles a bit easier on the eyes. There are some really nice moments of high contrast action when your gun fire actually illuminates a dark corridor, creating a strobe light effect that any dance aficionado could cut a rug too. But really, it looks good when you fire in the dark. If only the game could have held onto this same high contrast look the rest of it wouldn’t have looked so plain. The lighting sometimes washes out the character models making them look flat and highlighting some of their imperfections. Animation is rather unnatural in this game, and a lot of the time characters mouths won’t even move when their talking. Firearm technology has apparently come a long way since WWII seeing as being shot actually hurts a little these days. In the game Germans don’t always react to being shot, in most cases it isn’t until their dead that the next animation is triggered. The special effects are where the game really falls short though, explosions are usually handled by one shared animation which seems to be two or three white cloud images cycling through at 30fps. It makes for a very disappointing explosion, a rather stagnant effect. Another explosion animation is that of the tanks, this is a single orange puff that manages to crawl through the polygons of an unchanged tank model, followed by some bland black smoke. Ugly. The textures hold up pretty nicely though in some spots, but the overall simple modelling sort of makes the textures a moot point.

Hit the Jump for more disappointment!


Sound 2/5

The games soundtrack is pretty well orchestrated piece of music, which is suitable at most times, its too bad the ambience and voiceovers don’t match.

The voices of your squad members, like in most WWII shooters is over the top, loud, annoying, and about as helpful as John Madden’s commentary during opening kick off. The main problem with the voice acting in this game is that it’s just not convincing, and more often than not aggravating. I don’t know much about Billy Talent but I had no idea the lead vocalist was around during WWII. Honestly, one of your team members has the most cringe inducing voice I’ve heard in a while. It’s a high pitch scream-talk, much like that of the vocals in Billy Talent. The ambient noise in the game, at times is okay, but is usually non-existent. Sporadic gunfire, explosions, and passing planes can be heard regardless as to where you are. It really seems funny when a plane flies by audibly and yet visually there is no representation of anything flying by. The sound effects are sloppy, bottom line. Thankfully the music makes up for it. I felt it was always very inspiring and appropriate, if not a bit sporadic. By the way, I think it’s worth mentioning that EA, for some reason, still feels that they need to flex their knowledge of authentic WWII weaponry, even though the game is nothing new. So roughly every five seconds Billy, or other team mates will yell about an MG-42. “It’s an MG-42!”, “I need someone on that MG-42!”, “MG-42!”, “Kegan, get on the MG-42!”. Wow. Redundancy at it’s best.

Gameplay 2/5

Medal of Honour attempts to play as you would expect a FPS to play on the Wii, except it falls a bit flat. While I can appreciate the option to tweak certain aiming controls, I feel it’s just a control scheme that could have been more fleshed out. The default aiming settings give the player control reminiscent of Call of Duty 3 but not as polished. It’s somewhere between that and Red Steel. It’s a bit loose and the turning if far too slow. To combat this problem however, EA has implemented a quick fix inspired, perhaps, by Resident Evil 4. A Quick 180 degree turn is mapped to flicking the nunchuck to the left. While on paper this seems like a good fix, it isn’t. It just feels unnatural and I found that I actually NEVER used this mechanic. Not once, and when it did happen it was by accident. Another problem the game presents is that you seldom need to turn around. The enemies are never really behind you, and if they are they don’t present an immediate enough threat to warrant the quick turn as a necessity. Reloading was handled by flicking the nunchuck to the right. This felt better than the quick turn, but was overall not very use full. For some reason EA made one of the most common weapons in the game something that you cannot reload until your clip is emptied. I found myself shooting one or two shots into a crate every once in a while, just so I wouldn’t be caught reloading in the middle of a fight. Of course, I still did get caught reloading, many times. I’m not really an FPS gamer, per se, I appreciate a good one, but I’m not big on them. Hence, I’m not great at them, but I’m good enough. So yes, I got caught reloading standing up, running through a German trench, and you know what? It didn’t matter. The AI is pretty laughable, almost at the same level as Goldeneye 007 on the N64. Ya that’s right, I walked up to a German, looked at him while I reloaded for a while and then preceded to shoot him down without so much as a shot from my opponent. The rest of the controls are pretty standard fair for the Wii. Joystick moves your character, C is jump and Z is crouch. Tapping Z twice will get your guy down on his stomach, much like CoD3. I don’t know who did it first but the two games seem to share the same graphic representing the status of your position. Odd. Disappointingly one of the games most enticing elements failed to deliver. Being a paratrooper was none too exciting. While visually it was alright, and the controls were passable, I felt like I was dropped from twenty feet. It’s a totally pointless gameplay element. While you can, theoretically land anywhere, the short drop doesn’t ever really allow you to get to anywhere that is particularly advantageous.

Immersion 1/5

I never once felt attached to the others in my squad, and those who actually spoke never really seemed to ever be in danger, besides the colonel you take over for at the beginning, but its all very anti-climactic. Something that really detracts in the immersion of the game is the fact that, cinematically the game is a failure. EA makes little effort in creating any sort of drama, or suspense. There is nothing that really makes you want to finish the game. WWII is a complex part of our history, a very compelling story. Despite this fact EA is not able to take any of the available documentation and create a realistic, and compelling story. The worst part about the WWII genre (besides the fact that it actually warrants its own genre now…) is that despite its history there has still not been a game that truly explores any of the meatiest parts of it. We’ve been treated to generic shooters in drab settings and low production values. This game is not immersive at all, and is just another sad exploitation of a dark part of humanities past.

Bottom Line: 3/10

The game is lack-lustre in presentation and is an over all generic game that accomplishes nothing.




Recommendations:

If you liked this game, you should: 1. Raise your standards, and 2. Try out Call of Duty 3 on the Wii. It isn’t a great game, but its much better than Vangaurd. Maybe you should just take a break from the whole WWII genre, and wait for Metroid Prime 3 to get your FPS on.

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Nintendo getting serious about RPGs

Well, thats what we're led to believe anyways. Nintendo has purchased almost 80% of developer Monolith, creators of Xenosaga and Baiten Kaitos. NamcoBandai will be holding onto 16% of the studio, not sure what will come of that but its nice to see Nintendo expanding their 2nd parties.

Head to IGN for more

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Kojima plays Smash Bros. Loves it.

Kotaku is reporting that Kojima has played Super Smash Bros. Brawl over in Tokyo with Sakurai himself. Kojima has gone on record before saying he loved the series and he only had more good things to say about what he said.

The game already feels very complete, it's already a lot of fun and that you guys (Sakurai's studio) could put it out now, and it would sell millions of copies.

Check out Kotaku to see who he played as.

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DOXOfeature: Graphical Retardation

I think it’s fair to say that all companies exist solely to turn a profit. It is a bit pessimistic, but overall, a fair assumption, wouldn’t you agree? Good.

So of course, based on that notion, I can understand the urge to set up ports in Nintendo’s blue ocean. What I cannot stand for however, is cold hard capitalism latching it’s cold scaly hands over this beloved industry. I’m looking at you Ubisoft, you too EA, Even you Sega…for shame.

The Original Games

Various developers have exploited the Wii and it’s surprise success ever since launch, and it’s really starting to make me sick. I suppose it hit me hardest tonight when I watched a video for Alien Syndrome. Sega is doing this whole, ‘let’s see how many more of our old franchises we can destroy’ thing and has been hyping this game up quite a bit. Now, for the life of me I couldn’t understand why the Wii channel of IGN was showcasing a DS game. Of course then I came to the sad realization that this was, in fact, a game for the Wii. What’s worse is that the title is actually a Wii exclusive, built ground up for the new console. It is well known now, that the Wii only holds a fraction of the power that the 360 and PS3 boast, but there is no excuse for a game looking like it came out of the N64 era, cartridge limitations included. The game is insultingly ugly, drab environments, muddy textures, low polygons, and unnatural animation make it obvious that this game was probably funded by the income of a lemonade stand set up somewhere in Nunavut.

Hit the jump for more fun with critical analysis!

Red Steel was, in a word, disastrous. The controls seemed to be your toughest foe in the repetitive game, but it didn’t look that great either. Don’t get me wrong the environments weren’t bad, and the special effects were very nice, however when I enter a room, only to find that the bland character models are all 12 feet off the ground and convulsing like an epileptic at a night club I have to stop and wonder why I paid for a bad episode of Kriss Angel: Mindfreak. To say the least, the cut scenes in the game shouldn’t have been there. I’m sure that by the end of the first level nobody playing this game cares about the story, and the way it’s told is the main reason. Ubisoft seems to believe that power point presentations are very engaging. I’ve seen more dramatic video presentations in my high school math classes.

The Ports

The majority of Wii games out there right now, are ports. It is, as Al Gore would put it, an inconvenient truth. While some of these ports actually play surprisingly well, the graphics are most obviously not something the developers really invested in.
Tiger Woods 07, is a perfect example of good game-play, bad graphics. The game has some brilliant mechanics worked into it, and should be in any golf lovers collection, however Tiger, just like in real life, is a bit confused when it comes to his appearance (your black Tiger.) The game is very flat, and nothing really moves besides the golfer, it’s just really boring to watch. I guess EA really nailed the golf atmosphere then, but graphically the game is just laughable. Most notably, the deer seen in the woods on some holes. I’d be really impressed if those deer showed up on my NES, however here in 2007 we really frown upon anything animated at under three frames per second, call us spoiled.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance There were moments in this game that I just could not believe. I could not believe that I could play as so many of my favourite heroes, I could not believe the play mechanics went as deep as they did, I could not believe the length of the game. Of course I also couldn’t believe that my characters were all comprised of around 12 polygons. While the backgrounds are moderately good looking, the characters were blocky and the special effects were pathetic. I cannot begin to explain the flaws in the special effects. It was as if they had no art team working on it, none at all. The programmers sat around, and thought that since the event was actually triggered it was good enough.

Call of Duty 3 is, the best FPS on the Wii right now. It is intense WWII action, the controls work great, but its ugly as hell. The textures all suffer from whatever the hell the original DOOM suffered from. They’re terribly indistinguishable from close range, and it’s obvious that the game is a straight port from the PS2. Special effects are nice in some cases, but lack polish in others. Definitely PS2 quality graphics here.

While I don’t have much to say about Manhunt 2, I can say this; from what I saw in the trailer, it seems to be ripped straight off the PSP.

I know Nintendo has beaten us into submission about graphics not mattering, but I think that some developers are taking this slogan and running with it, all the way to the bank. Of course, Nintendo could be partly to blame here. After e306 Miyamoto told the press that the Wii was built as an extention of the Gamecube hardware to make it easier on those developers who had experience with the cube. He went on to actually encourage developers to bring their gamecube titles over to the Wii, and the term ‘Wii-make’ was born. Many feared the worst. Wii would see a bunch of lazy ports; The internet was right, AGAIN! Just like with that ‘Nintendo ON’ video. I can see how the ease of porting to Wii is enticing to developers but we as gamers have to put up a fight. They can port whatever they want, but unless they are willing to put in some effort, then we should not buy these games- AGAIN! So I guess what I’m saying is…

With the Death of the PS2, Wii owners will find redemption.

I know that could sound like the biggest fan boy flame bait out there, but think about it. I think the PS2, had an outstanding run, and deserves to be remembered as one of the best consoles ever, but I also think that while it is alive, Wii will suffer. When the PS2 is finally put to rest, there will be no more ‘last gen’ games being made, and thus, the Wii developers are going to have to pull up their socks, and start creating some original content on the system. Games that take advantage of the controls for more than mini-games, games which make use of the hardware and deliver visuals that look twice as good as the last generation. Games that will move us into the future of gaming, instead of holding us back in it’s past. Third parties need to move past the ports and tap the potential of the Wii. Graphically, there is no excuse for what we have seen thus far, and game-play mechanics are being tacked onto these old games. I can’t blame them for wanting to make money, but I won’t support them, and neither should you.

We were promised a revolution, I’m still waiting.

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God Of War on PSP

The teaser trailor to the new God Of War: Chains of Olympus game comming out this year on PSP!


oh yes! god of war on psp is just what that little hand held console needed. And since theres the price drop in the PSP only encourages more people to buy it! people like myself. i have never been a fan of portable gaming, i dunno i never got into it. but games such as metal gear solid: portable ops, and God OF War: chains of olympus probide back story to the games that are on the console. hmmm....i think i will eventually get me a psp....and yes eventally a ps3. WHEN! well i dunno!

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My Spider-senses are tingling!

I pulled myself from procrastinating for a minute, to check up on some gaming news. Surprisingly enough for me, I found that my two favourite things have joined forces and are looking to aid me in my fight against studying. The first Spider-Man 3 trailer for Wii has surfaced. I'm on dial up, and the only option IGN has for me is to stream it...Ya, so I haven't seen it yet, but I'll get back to you guys tomorrow, when it's loaded...hopefully.

Update: Apparently IGN has embedding features now?
Added trailer. Hit the jump for impressions

I've got to say that after reading Matt Cassamassina's impressions with the title I was a bit worried that this title was going to suffer the same fate as most others: Plays well, looks awful.
And you just don't mess with my Spider-Man. Luckily though, after watching the video I can say that its a big improvement over the previous Spider-man game. While not being comparable to the 360 and PS3 versions it is definitely looking better than I had originally thought it would.

Vicarious Visions is working on the title and that had me a bit worried for the visuals. Let's face it- Ultimate Alliance was just as fun to look at as Rosie O'Donnell on the beach, and I don't care if your with Green Peace, that is NOT FUN too look at. Surprisingly though Spider-Man looks pretty good, the high contrast lighting works well to define the character and atmosphere. While the buildings leave me wanting more, and the special effects are a bit forgetable (from what I can see in the trailer) I was expecting worse. I geuss what I'm trying to say is, with lowered expectations comes great respon- surprises...

While I think the Wii is capable of more, this will do for now. Oh ya, and the Bruce Campbell narration is a very nice touch.

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Blastacular Map Pack and more!

Gonna keep it short and sweet today. Available today for about $4 US ($4.50CDN) you can buy Halo 2's new map pack! That's right after a long wait, Bungie finally released 2 new maps. Are they going to be good enough to hold everyone until the beta comes along?

Along with this news there's been news on a XBLA title for this June published by Sierra.

Since these maps are original Xbox purchases you can not buy these maps with Microsoft Points and must be directly charged to your credit card. These maps are re-creations of 2 original Halo maps and are available now.

According to Bungie.net poster Frankie, the new maps should be incorperated in to the playlists shortly

A previously announced Sierra Online game Carcossonne has been dated with a June release. Awhile ago Microsoft showed some XBLA games based on board games. During the convention in Liepzig, Germany, they showed Catan, Carcossonne and Alhambra, none of which are released. Well earlier Microsoft has confirmed that Carcossonne will be avialable sometime in June.

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SNAKE vs ZOMBIE!

No no, this isn't a Resident Evil-Metal Gear cross over, this isn't confirmation about Leon appearing in Smash Bros. No. 1up reported on a special little lecture/seminar series (from what I gather, before reading it) featuring none other than Suda 51(no more heroes, killer7) and Hideo Kojima(Metal Gear Solid, 'nuff said.) The two, and guests, speak about various games and supposedly hint at some 'Snatcher' news. For those who don't know Snatcher was a game Kojima and Konami released on the Sega CD. Fans rave about the game, demanding a sequal and everybody else...well they have never heard of it. But the sequel has been long rumoured to be a Wii exclusive. Rumours started up around a year ago when Suda51 announced that he was, indeed collaborating with the father of Snake, on a secret Wii game only known to the masses as..."Project S"

1up says to look out for more news about the title in the next few days, we'll see if anything materializes.

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Guitar Hero Wii, playing with the big boys!

Sick of the Wii being on a list with the ps2 and the psp, while the 360 and ps3 are often depicted as the only 'next-gen' sysems. Well I am, and I've said on many occasions that I cannot wait for the ps2 to die- then we might start seeing some decent looking original content come to the wii. Well apparently Activision and Red Octane are looking to start that trend.

Guitar Hero III will be coming to all next gen consoles, all features intact. More details after the jump.


Kotaku is reporting that the Wii version of the game will feature everything from online play, to downloadable songs. This is huge for any wii owner, as it means that 'the hatches are open!' and we will finally be seeing 3rd parties bring the console online.

The game will be played with a similar guitar shaped controller, as one would assume. No further details have been released.

Personally, I'm hoping that the guitar will be a shell for the remote, lowering the cost, Mii integration, and I wouldn't mind a HDD either, even 10gb. I mean, with Nintendo giving the okay to developers who want to put downloadable content in their games, I'm assuming they have the foresight to realize our 512 of flash memory is being eaten up.

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Resident evil 4 INFO and funny AD

Resident evil 4 is one of the greatest games ever, and with an ad like this you can see why! (there is sarcasum in the sentence) what im getting at is the ad is terrible, but alteast its really funny :)
ALSO! thanks to ign.com it is rumored that REZ4 will have a lowerd price, 29.99 (thats the rumored price) it is not for sure what price it will be but...

if it is lowerd than this puts great pressure on other ports going on to WII. Are already released games that are remade for the WII worth 29.99? well its safe to say that prince of persia 3: Rival Sowrds is not worth 59.99! If REZ4 will be priced at 29.99 then this puts pressure on other WII ports, and then (this is my own specualtion) you MAY see that other ports will go down in price. Which is great for WII customers. A reminder nothing is for sure, and who knows there might not be a price drop, but hopefully there will be!
And here is the rest of it.

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Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles media impressions

Courtesy of 1up, snake boss battle-having deja vu yet?

I've been excited about this game since the Wii launch, before we knew anything about it. There was much speculation about it being a FPS - I ignored it. Needless to say when they announced it was going to be an on rails shooter I was a bit surprised, and disappointed. However, with every second that passes I can't help but get even more excited about blowing up the craniums of the undead on my Wii. Recently Capcom held their Sprind Gamers Day event, where the press was subject to a ton of Wii media, including a trailer for Treasure Island Z, Resident Evil 4, and Umbrella Cronicles. The big surprise though was the fact that all these games were playable, I've grabed a few screens, and compiled some of their impressions after the jump.

many familiar faces will be dropping in as you progress

Lets get the bad news out of the way. A man who is as controversial as he is immature, Robert Summa, over at Destructoid didn't seem to approve.

Matt Casamassina on the other hand, well, he liked what he saw.

Chris Kohler said he wore a 'perma-grin' the whole time

Looks like a soap opera intro doesn't it?

Gamespot doesn't really voice an opinion as much as they outline scenarios

1up didn't have much to say either

Got to Love those lighting effects.

Each site also has impressions of RE:4 Wii edition, but it plays out the same way, Casamassina and Kohler call it 'the definitive version' while Destructoid flat out hates it.


All in all the game looks fun, some may complain about the sensitivity of the aim, but many have stated that it simply aims where you point and that all the shakes and jumps translated from your hand through the Wii remote just add to the realism and really help immerse you.

I have to say that Capcom's work with the gamecube paid off as the game's visuals are gorgeous. Hands down the best looking Wii game out there, rivaled only by Mario Galaxy. All screen shots above are real time, in fact any screenshot on the net is rendered in real time. Capcom stated that nothing in this game is prerendered, which is quite a feat considering it looks just as good as the REmake on the cube (featured entirely pre-rendered backgrounds). Of course this also means that most of the environments are destructable.

Capcom said the game was 30% complete which is impressive considering the polish seen at Gamers Day. Keep this one on your radar.

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fixed the 'Read more' problem

We have had 'read more' working for a couple of days, but that just isn't good enough. The code I used had the post opening in a new window. That has been fixed! No need for a 'read more' here. Thats it!

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GTA IV Info Unveiled

The first legit information about Rockstar North's upcoming game in the GTA universe, Grand Theft Auto IV. Early copies of "Game Informer" show that our male character is Eastern European, multplayer is expected and we're back to Liberty City.

Alright, so we're back in Liberty City. I know what you're thinking...lame, I already played and beat Grand Theft Auto 3. Luckily this isn't the case according to the leaked scans, it's a different part of Liberty City. The "new" Liberty City will be modeled from 4 of the 5 boroughs from NYC and a bit of suburban New Jersey.

Unfortunatly the game's size is scaled down from the size of GTA: San Andreas, but according to the magazine there's no empty land to be seen, showing off how well they tried to remake New York City.

GI confirms that our male lead is indeed an Eastern European immigrant from an unnamed country. Niko Belic arrives in the US after talks to his cousin Roman, who has claimed to have cash, women and cars. This turns out to be untrue when Niko arrives, only to find out that his cousin is caught in Liberty City's crime ring.

In terms of gameplay GTA IV will have better NPC charcters then in other installments. After Rockstar aquired a lisence for NaturalMotion's Euphoria technology (also seen in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed). Which supports complex NPC behaviour and realistic movement. Rockstar is only using this engine for "next-gen" games only.

Other information hints that GTA IV is set in present day and the games soundtrack will accompany that. It will also allow your character to enter and exit buildings without the San Andreas-esk load. Certainly the last bit of good news, Grand Theft Auto IV will support some form of multiplayer, but not a massive multiplayer, as previously thought.

Since this game is set in a NYC replica city, Rockstar has decided to pull all aircrafts from the game, to avoid any 9/11 situations (supposedly). It will however feature motorcycles.

Grand Theft Auto IV is due out in October for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The May issue of Game Informer Magazine should be on shelves soon.

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"read more"

Hey guys, I know we all love having massive articles push everything else to the dark depths of this blog but I've finally found a solution via betabloggerfordummies we can hide the meat of our articles on a separate page. This makes the front page a lot more organized. Hit 'Read More' for the rest of the article

See! It works! When you go to post you need to hit the 'edit HTML' tab on the top right of the text field and follow the instructions given! it's very exciting time to be alive.

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Phantom Hourglass coming earlier than expected?

Not even link can believe it, but Kotaku is saying that DS gamers will be able to get their Zelda on this June. June 23 to be exact, and seeing as that is the day before my birthday I'm going to just go out and say that if anybody is trying to buy my love that this is probably going to be the way to go. The source of this story comes from Famitsu, so it can pretty much be confirmed right there.

Just look at that picture for a second...Zelda game early? I just don't know.

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DOXOfeature: We gots reviews!

Alright, you may have noticed a few make shift reviews lingering around the site; Pascuzzi's God of War 2 praise and my footnote of a Ghost Rider review.

We've moved on, we've come together and decided that in order to keep some consistency between editors we're going to need an outline or template for our reviews, previews, etc...
Here's what we're thinking, feel free to give us any feedback, good or bad.

Hit the jump for the in depth explanation.



We're going to be breaking games down into a few categories. The main ones being;

Aesthetics - pretty straight forward here, we'll be telling you what we think about the graphics comparable to other games on the same console, other consoles, and also other versions of the same game- if applicable. This will be an in depth review of strictly aesthetics: character models, special effects, cinematography, etc.

Sound - Again, this is pretty straight forward. We'll be judging everything from music to voice acting.

Game play - This is where is can get subjective. Not everybody will appreciate the same types of game play and that will be addressed here. We will outline the control schemes and whether or not they work, how they could have been improved, etc.

Immersion - This is where we will outline the story and how all of the above comes together to offer a totally immersive gaming experience.

All of the above categories will receive a score out of 5 (going up in increments of .5)

1 - inexcusable piece of garbage
2 - disappointing, sub-par
3 - the lower end of average
4 - the higher end of average
5 - Very satisfying, couldn't really be any better.

Recommendations - In order to fully get our points across we will be including this section which will list other games that the reviewed game plays like or reminds us of. Basically, if you like these games, you will like the game we just reviewed.

Bottom line- This is where we will sum up our impressions in one line and give the game an overall score out of 10 It will not be an average (going up in increments of .5).

A graphic will be accompanied by every review, because it's pretty.

Thought on reviews; Too often do websites use a scale from 7-10. What I mean by this is that the big websites will try to avoid biting the hand that feeds them (NIN!). If I were receiving free stuff and tons of money in advertising from certain companies I don't think I would want to piss them off. Unfortunately this creates bias in reviews and ultimately the gamers suffer.

Here at DOXOphobia we want to avoid game review inflation and to do that I will be outlining the point system, and every review will then link back to this post inorder for comparison.


1 - inexcusable piece of garbage. NEVER PLAY IT!
2 - hardley playable, frustrating, laughable.
3 - playable, but the amount of problems will make any good part of this game forgetable
4 - just under average, unless your a fan of this series you can pass on this game
5 - the lower end of average
6 - the higher end of average
7 - A good game worth playing through to the end
8 - A stand out game that delivers consistantly on all fronts
9 - An incredible game that fans of the genre should NOT MISS
10 - PERFECTION! (never going to happen)

We've got a lot of reviews coming in a few weeks so stay tuned!

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Xbox 360 Spring Update

Recently there's been some new details released about the 360's next dashboard update, due out this spring. On May 7th, users connected to Live will get the update on their console and Microsoft has revealed some new info on what the new update can do!

First off, is Messenger. According to Microsoft many users are rather lonely when Live is first setup. Adding messenger contacts to your Xbox 360 friends list will help their gamers get familiar with Live and it will also be able to show who on your friends list has a gamertag. People can now add up 600, count'em...600, messenger friends to their Live account. As of May 7th, Microsoft will only allow text-based chat with messenger accounts. Microsoft has hinted at new enhanced features for this in the latter part of the year, such being: audio and video. You'll be able to chat with 6 of your friends at once while playing games or watching a movie, little dialog boxes will pop up over anything your doing to allow the user to switch whenever they please. With this new addition of Messenger to your Live account, comes the updates on your Windows Live Messenger, when you're playing a game it will update and read "Xbox 360: [the game you are playing]: [your gamertag]." You will also be able to set your gamertag and Windows Live Messenger account status independently of each other, allowing you to appear on or offline to certain groups of users.

With that all being said, Microsoft has announced a new text input device for the 360. It connects via the headset input it lets you chat with your friends using a keyboard roughly the size of a Sidekick. No offical name or price has been announced.

The Marketplace will now have it's own seperate blade on the dashboard. The new blade will be themed independently from your own set of themes and will change looks constantly to cooperate with the season, holidays or special content!

Of all the announced additions to the spring update comes the most major tweak, but also very very minor. It's in the achievements, and now instead of it popping up and saying "Achievement Unlocked". Once an achievement in unlocked it will display the same message but with the Gamerpoint value and the name of the achievement! No longer will gamers have to switch to their guide to see what they just unlocked.

Finally for downloads, the console will receive an auto-shutdown feature and a low-power downloading mode. If you have an existing queue of downloads that you want to run overnight, you'll be able to shift the console into a low-power mode that turns off all the fans. Once the 360 finishes the last of the file transfers, the console will automatically turn off. The new download tools will also let you view partially downloaded video files. You'll even have access to the usual fast-forward, rewind, and pause functions. The video player will also allow for switchable aspect ratios (letterbox, zoom, stretch, native, and auto).

That's it for this round!

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Nintendo, willing to change?

Could this be a glimmer of hope, or just plain PR bull?



I actually took some time the other day to 'shout out' on Nintendo's website. My message was concerning friend codes and how detrimental they would be to the online experience. Now, one thing I can say is that Nintendo is very good at returning emails. I was pretty impressed the first time I contacted them this way and was greeted by yet another email days later, saying thank you. Anyways, here is their latest response concerning the dreaded friend code system...

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

We have heard from various others like you letting us know how they felt regarding Nintendo's implementation of Friend Codes in the Wi-Fi Connection service for Wii. I want you to know that we appreciate your passion and concern. Let me assure you that your concerns have been heard and will be forwarded along. As always, keep an eye on our website (www.nintendo.com) for the latest developments in Wi-Fi gaming as they are made available.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.
Super Mario*

Hmm...'forwarded along' eh? we'll see about that.



*The names have been changed to protect the innocent

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Lisen to Nine Inch Nails Year Zero

YES! the album is out! but no not in hard copy, you can lisen to it via the OFFICIAL Nine Inch Nails website. So theres no bullshit or worrying about people fuckin you over, and you cant download any of the songs anyways cause its a flash file. this will atleast tie me over still April 17th when the acutal album comes out!

HERES THE LINK
NOTE: all that is required is an email adress

In other music news:

the Vergin festival this year looks promising with lead acts such as bjork, the killers and the reunited smashing fuckin pumpkins it takes place sometime in septermber, so check it out!

ALSO
Velvet revolver is comming out with a new CD called libertad is scedualed to be released in June!

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Microsoft Expands It's Warranty

Hey hey people. Nothing huge today other than Microsoft has announced that they're expanding on their warranty service. Along side with their newly renewed 1 year warranty when you buy a new Xbox 360 console. Microsoft has heard the voices of it's people yet again and cleared up some major issues about the repair process. Let's get started shall we?

1) Microsoft is no longer charging the shipping costs to the end user and instead will be sending postage-paid containers for the broken 360s.

2) Customers will no longer get "replacement" units, they'll be gettin back their original console that they sent in, repaired. Some incidents may have Microsoft sending out replacements if the original can not be repaired

3) Repairs made on a console under warranty, Microsoft will cover the repaired system for the remainder of the warranty period or 90 days, pending which one is longer.

4) Repairs made on an out-of-warranty console will be returned with a 1 year "repair warranty".

5) On top of the new warranty on 360s, Microsoft has announced that they are hiring more customer care reps and supervisors, imroving training and hiring "customer care champions", for better support and quicker repair times.

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Resident Evil Wii -actually unveiled this time!

Famitsu is reporting that the rumoured Wii edition of Resident Evil 4 is on the way. It features all the additions of the PS2 version, and although they are adding a trailer for the upcoming Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles , there was no mention of any more additional content for the Wii. Players will be able to take aim thanks to the remotes IR functionality . Press B and you gun will come up - No run and gun as was previously speculated (Amen!). Pressing A, will presumably fire. Interestingly enough, it you swing the remote without pressing B Leon will swing his knife. Hope they nail this mechanic, sounds fun.

The big news though, is about Umbrella Chronicles. The game will, outline the fall of Umbrella which is enough to make any RE fanboy squeal- but theres a catch...

The game seems to be an on rails shooter. Much like House of the Dead, or Time Crisis. Good news for me since I love light gun games, but I'm not sure how well this will translate to the series. The fanbase is somewhat torn , but I believe for the most part they're pretty disappointed.

I'm probably going to pick up both of these titles seeing as I missed the Gamecube version of RE4 and I do have faith in Umbrella Chronicles.

via Destructoid (screens included!)

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God Of War II review *Spoiler Alert*

Hello, sorry you haven’t herd from me in a while but i was completely emerged in my last gen joy (also some essays and other shit dealing with school :S). It has been said that God Of War 2 is the "last great ps2 game", i guess that means it is the last exclusive title on the ps2, that has such a high popularity. All and all, this is very much true, anyone who is a veteran of the God Of War series knows what to expect, and GOW2 delivered in a huge way! It is all around a better game then the first, and if anyone has a ps2 or ps3 i very much suggest that you purchase this game. Before you over look it because it is a ps2 title, DONT! this game is worth very penny ($59.99CAD). you will not regret your purchase, and there is ALOT of content that comes with it. It is a 2 disc set disc 1 is the game along with the unlockable content such as: challenge of the titans, all the cousumes, the cut scene viewer and a new mode where you pick your enimies and kill them (havent ulocked that yet. Disc 2 is the DVD with loads of extra content, such as interviews, trailers, development video journals. Its very interesting to see how GOW2 has been made, and the people involved. the best part is this is a bonus, I wouldn’t of cared at all if the game did not come with this second disc, but its a nice treat!
*SPOILER STARTS NOW*
ANYWAYS lets get to the over all review of the game itself, it opens with kratos who is now the god of war living the lap of luxury on mount Olympus. Or so it seems. Shunned by his fellows gods he found his “escapism” in taking over cities in Greece. leading his very strong spartan army in concuring all of greece and pissing off other gods in doing so. And this leads to the first level Rhodes which is the greatest intro in game history! While your slaughtering hundreds of soldiers there is a gigantic metal statue in the back trying to kill you. The whole level is very much a boss battle, and the complete scale of the battle is amazing! This is my favorite part in the game, I have played it over and over. Eventually you completely dismantle the giant statue from the inside out, but it comes at a cost. Draining all your godly powers into the Blade of Olympus (Which is a fuckin sick weapon). From there the king of the gods, Zues betrays you, and actually kills you...yes Kratos did died again and this will be twice, maybe 3 times. But eventually you escape the underworld and ride on your Pegasus to the “island of fates”. This is where the game gets going! There is an incredible back story with the great war between the Titans and the Gods of Olympus, and I was constantly wondering well whos side is right? The gods or the titans, is Kratos just a pawn? And as of right know I don’t know where the series will go in regards to Kratos freedom. Is he being used by Giai or is she trying to help him. Is Kratos so blinded by his rage and his selfishness that he cant see what hes doing can completly fuck up the world! these questions constatly occured in my mind during the game, as Kratos with out any care defies the gods, the sisters of fate and changes his own destiny. Hopefully this will be explained in the 3rd game! :D.
I cant go into a lot of detail because this post is already long enough. I don’t want to take away the whole experience from you. All your god powers, all your weapons are upgradeable, I don’t use any other weapons besides my Blades of Athena, the spear of destiny is probably my favorite secondary weapon, but I find the blade of Olympus very powerful. The moves Kratos does with the spear is amazing and how he gets it is not very climactic as getting the barbarian hammer from the barbarian king (whom Kratos killed in the first game, when he had to sacrifice his soul to Aries, etc. pretty much that’s where the whole story began). The new moves are better than in the first, they seem more, fluent and “believable” (ill use that word very sparingly in regards to this game). But what I miss so much! Is the R1 change, and air attack. Which are all still in but it is put on the Square button, with all your other basic attacks. Also there are a bunch of new moves such as the icarus wings (glide), the amulet of time (stop time), and my favorit the golden fleece (which is a pain in the ass to get, fuckin 3 headed crature!) the golden fleece not only blocks projectily attacks but also throws them back and your enimies, EVEN THE GORGAN GAZE! (thank god!)
The story in god of war 2 is better than the first, Kratos is still a true badass, MORESO than in the first game. He has over come so many opsticals and is now planning a war against the gods themselves. He’s already killed 2 gods (no I didn’t make a mistake, PLAY THE GAME!) and nearly killed another. Kratos is unstoppable and I cant wait to wage an all out war against Mount. Olympus!
“Zues your son has returned and he brings the destruction of Olympus!”

PS3 2010 GOD OF WAR 3!.......is it worth the 600+ dollar system?....some will say yes! (im one of them)

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Don't Fret, Your 360 News is Here!

Hey hey everybody! I'm Pizzle, I'm new around here and I'm supposedly goin' to post some news regarding Microsoft's glorious new console the Xbox 360. I'm your 360 fanboy, so be expecting a lot of news regarding it cause we all know the P(l)aystation 3 (the 'l' is optional) has nothing goin' on :P. Now, on to my first piece of news...

Guitar Hero II hit stores today for the Xbox 360, offering an exciting new look for the guitar, a change from the Gibson SG to the Gibson Xplorer. The graphics are amped up on the 360 version and offerings of 1080i HDTV glory. There's also some subtle changes to the game, the set list is changed up in the 360 copy to help ease the progression of the game along with a total of 10 new songs not seen on the previous Playstation 2 version. Some new songs include Rancid's Salvation, Pearl Jam's Life Wasted and Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper. Along with these exclusive tracks Guitar hero 2 will also support the 360's Marketplace and will have some Download Content (DLC) on the way as early as next week! Other then that if achievement points are your heroin you'll be happy to know there's 50 achievements with a total of 1000 Gamerpoints! Happy trails.

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DOXOfeature: Journey to Silicon Knights

The day has finally come...and gone, but it was definitely a memorable experience and a really great look into the gaming industry. Today I visited Silicon Knights, the biggest game developer in Ontario (which is sad, according to Dyack, considering they are comprised of only 150 employees) and let me just say that they really know how to treat their guests.

An average looking building concealed Silicon Knights, a clever disguise I must say. The development studio is spread over three floors of the building, the rest allocated to other businesses. It's definitely cosy.

When the elevator doors opened we were greeted by a gorgeous wall mounted fountain sporting the studios logo. I took the above image as we left, it was the only I was allowed to take, for what we were shown is something that not many have seen. We were ushered into the private theatre that Dyack and Co. use to show off their games. I'm sure they have movie Fridays too, or atleast they should.

The Dyack addressed our group rather casually, he comes off as a very personable man, and very very passionate. His presentation was a rather interesting one. He explained to us, the vision of Silicon Knights; Expand the industry through innovation and heightened production values. They're all about overtaking Hollywood as a story telling and entertainment medium. Dyack enlightened us about research and how they have put 8 -10 years into Too Human research and 8 years alone into developing the smart camera system present in the game. Considering they've been around for 15 years that's a healthy chunk of time dedicated to this ambitious trilogy - I'm just thankful somebody in the game industry is finally taking story telling history, and authenticity seriously*. He also offered some insight on how the industry will fight piracy. Stating that when the Internet is fast enough all games will stream off of a central server which players subscribe too in order to play, thus eliminating the mod chip and bootleg games market, in theory... Then finally, the reason for us being in a theatre was revealed.

Dennis Dyack reminded us that no photography, of any kind, was permitted because what he was about to show us was not shown to many others. He then proceeded to boot up a 360 dev kit and opened up the latest build of Too Human. To say the least I was thrilled, just before leaving I made jokes to my friends that we would be shown things nobody has ever seen, and there we were...sort of.



The portion he played began in an incredibly cinematic cutscene. The 'Wolf troopers' were preparing to embark on a mission inside a transport vehicle being dropped at it's location. The scene was flawlessly directed, rivaling the likes of the Metal Gear series, Final Fantasy or Resident Evil 4. Graphically the game was great, focal blurring really added to the cinematic feel as well as the quality voice acting. Animation was also solid, as was the texturing. Dennis let us in on a little secret; The RAM required to render the main character in all his hi-res glory is more than there was in the Gamecube all together.

The transition from cutscene to gameplay was absoloutly flawless, infact the cutscenes take place within the gameplay...or is it the other way around? Due to the advanced camera system players are put into cut scenes simply by walking into the appropriate area, the catch is that the camera transitions flawlessly, there is no graphical seperation and the player retains control of their character at all times. Yes, you can jump around while somebody is trying to talk to you. The real beauty of this game comes from the camera work though, honestly I found it hard to believe the camera was not being controlled by Dyack, it seemed very intuitive. Needless to say all issues from e3 seemed to be ironed out.

Dyack played for a solid 10-15 minutes and the game held my attention the entire time. There is absoloutly no load time visible to the player. There was a playable flashback sequence at one point which seemed to be rendered instantaneously and ready for the gamer to play when they reached that point. The setting changed completely as if we were watching a film. Again - no visible loading. Dyack explained to us that this was important to them, he said it was key in recreating the same experience as watching a movie.

After the play session there was Q&A. A few questions regarding the film influence were asked, and then I dropped the bomb, here's a summary;

Me: How is it working with a liscenced engine as opposed to one that you've created? I know it caused some problems at e3 that were exploited.

Dyack: I'm not answering that question.

That garnered a few snickers from most of those in attendance, mostly employees though.

After the talk they gave us all some swag! the awesome shirt, pictured below.




While people were moving out the door I took the time to introduce myself to Dennis and just to chat a bit, I apologized about bringing up e3, we had a bit of a laugh. We continued to talk about the industry and how imitating film, both in product and in presentation (down with previews!) would better the industry. Of course by this time I had worked up enough courage to ask him to sign my copy of Eternal Darkness, which just so happened to be in my back pack.



I brought a Sharpie but he insisted that he sign with a silver pen, I had no gripes, so we talked a little more. I addressed the fact that Microsoft was publishing Too Human and just got clarification that in no way is Silicon Knights a second party to Microsoft. They are free to develop for who ever they want, Microsoft is simply publishing the trilogy. He furthered this point by letting me in on a little secret.

Silicon Knights is currently working with SEGA to develop a multi-platform game.

After telling me that he added "I probably shouldn't have said that." While I think it was a not-so-well-known fact that they were working with SEGA, the fact that it was multi-platform
has not yet been revealed to my knowledge. His exact wording was indeed "All platforms" But who knows what that means, I don't think we're going to see Silicon Knights creating a DS game anytime soon. As far as I know the studio has never developed for more than one console at a time, but Dyack did mention that they were growing at a rapid pace.

After this intimate presentation in the theatre we were shown to the studio which was comprised of many personalized cubicles- but not shabby coffee stained cubicles, we're talking small houses here. Each work station was decorated to the employee's personal tastes. There was concept art and action figures everywhere, and I couldn't help but notice a portion on the wall that was covered in a black cloth, a print out pinned to it read

CONFIDENTIAL
punishable by death

They've got class down there at Silicon Knights, everybody was a real pleasure, and just very welcoming. It was a great experience and a very satisfying look into the game industry

Keep looking forward to Too Human updates, the game seems to be incredibly well conceived. Believe not EGM because that build was obviously a fluke and the game looks beautiful, a note worthy part of the 'games as art' debate for sure.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I witnessed a brief miniboss battle. Nothing too special but, I thought you should all know that the name of that beast, was none other than "Matt Cassamassina" I hand it to the developers for spelling that right.

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Silicon Knights today

Just a reminder that I'll be heading to Silicon Knights this afternoon at 2pm. I hope I can get the King, good old Mr. Dyack himself, to sign my copy of Eternal Darkness- that is if he isn't to busy with his crusade against Gaming Previews.

I have to say that if you haven't read that blog entry that you should hit up the link, could he be the Martin Luthor King Jr. of the industry? Is this the future? Probably not but the man has my respect regardless.

colour me excited.

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