Pads & Panels

Title: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

Platform: 360 (PS3, Wii, PC, Mac, 3DS, DS, PSP)

ESRB Rating: E10+

Publisher: Disney Interactive

Developer: Traveller’s Tales

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

The latest franchise to be stamped with the LEGO makeover is Pirates of the Caribbean, following the release of the fourth film in the series. Fans of previous LEGO titles (like Harry Potter, Star Wars and Indiana Jones) already know what to expect here, and the Pirates franchise proves a great fit for the zany LEGO characters and stories. Players can, as usual, go solo or play with join-in/drop-out co-op, working through 20 stages divided evenly between the four movies, with cutscenes done only the way LEGO can. Port Royal serves as sort of an expanding hub in this one, where players can accomplish more by earning characters of differing abilities, the most noteworthy of which is the addition of underwater elements. All in all, it’s a great addition to both franchises, and fans of the series will get a kick out of the game, even though the later films undeniably sucked. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Just Dance

Platform: Wii

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft

Rating:

Review by: Sarah Kumley

The Wii has yet another game in its repertoire that asks up to four players to get up off the couch and move. In Just Dance, over 30 tracks are available from many decades and genres of music. However, they are all designed to get a person shaking their groove thing. During the song, a coach dancer demonstrates the moves as they are to be performed. The players hold the Wii remote and follow along as if looking in a mirror. There are also stick figure prompts that appear at the bottom right side of the screen to show which moves are coming up. The players’ moves are rated as Bad (shown as an “X” on the screen), Okay and Great. Several Great moves in a row count as combos and earn the player more points. All songs can be danced to in either a quick version or the full song. There are also three game modes where players can challenge each other to a set number of rounds and goals for the dances. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Platform: PS3 (360, PC)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Criterion Games

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

The Need for Speed franchise. The developer of the Burnout series, Criterion Games. The result – a reinvigoration of the Hot Pursuit side of the franchise that takes some of the worlds fastest and most exotic cars, decks some of them out in black and white, and lets them hit the open roads in a world four times the size of Paradise City in Burnout Paradise, for fantastic and explosive chases between those with a need for speed and Seacrest County’s finest. This is Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Criterion Games’ development influence is seen right from the get go, and indeed is seen more in the menus and online interactions than in the gameplay itself. For all intents and purposes, Criterion has left Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit feeling a lot more like Need for Speed than Burnout. But their experience goes a long way in refining experience on the online front, where gamers will find most of the title’s replay value. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

Platform: DS

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Level-5

Rating:

Review by: Sarah Kumley

Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke, have found another mystery to solve, with plenty of puzzles and strange characters to meet along the way. In this new story, the Prime Minister disappears after Dr. Stahngun demonstrates his new time machine. Other scientists disappear over the next couple of weeks, and Luke and Professor Layton receive a strange letter that is dated 10 years in the future. They follow the directions to a local clock shop, where a portal transports them to London, 10 years from their present. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Marvel Super Hero Squad

Platform Wii (DS)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: THQ

Developer: Blue Tongue Entertainment

Rating:

Review by: Jason King

Where the Marvel Super Hero Squad Show works well (and it never even works all that well) for children, the game fails miserably for children. And where Super Hero Squad works well for adults…well, to be honest it never works well for adults.

The premise of the video game is very similar to the premise of the show – Dr. Doom wants to recreate, from Infinity Fractals, a sword through which he can rule the world. The role of the characters – because there are never less than two characters on the screen, even in a single-player game – is to stop this from happening. The means through which the characters will stop Dr. Doom is apparently by hitting one button over and over and exploiting painfully bad AI. The main methods Dr. Doom uses to stop the characters from succeeding is a nightmarishly horrible camera and crippling lag. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

Platform: 360 (Wii, PS3, DS, PC, PSP)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive

Developer: Traveller’s Tales

Rating:

Review by: Sarah Kumley

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 plays much the same as the other LEGO games, but with everyone’s favorite adolescent wizard. The game follows the stories of the books and movies featuring Harry and his young friends for the first four years they attend Hogwarts. The students attend classes to learn new spells and can switch between them for whatever tasks need to be performed. Players can also switch between characters as some spells are only available to certain ones. There are also parts of the environment that cannot be accessed from the beginning, but rather can be once certain spells are mastered. It is through the spell unlocks that puzzles and progression unfurl. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Risk: Factions

Platform: XBLA

ESRB: E10+

Publisher:  Electronic Arts

Developer: Stainless Games

Rating:

Review by: Dan Braun

As far as remakes are concerned, classic board game titles like Risk always run the gamble of straying too far from their tried-and-true formulas, or otherwise remaining too similar to the originals to justify new iterations. Risk: Factions does neither, and is a near-perfect update for this popular game. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Snoopy Flying Ace

Platform: XBLA

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: Smart Bomb Interactive

Rating:

Review by: Kevin Haverty

Take 2006′s Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron and Crimson Skies for the original Xbox, throw them in a blender and press “frappe.” What comes out is Snoopy Flying Ace for the Xbox Live Arcade. Charlie Brown and company take to the skies with the Red Baron in a World War I setting. The single-player portion acts as a tutorial to get gamers ready for online play. It’s to the point, boring, short, and can be played with a friend. Gamers pilot Snoopy through rings, follow Charlie Brown around or fight waves of enemies. Evasive maneuvers are pulled off with a simple flick of the right control stick, and a wide array of weapons helps players determine their play styles. But multiplayer is the reason to buy Snoopy Flying Ace, with 16-player online dogfights of varying modes, ranging from the typical deathmatch and capture the flag to pigskin, which is basically rugby with biplanes. Snoopy Flying Ace does the Peanuts licence justice, and delivers a great multiplayer dogfighting experience. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Rocket Knight

Platform: XBLA (PSN, PC)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Climax Studios

Rating:

Review by: Kevin Haverty

Rocket Knight Adventures and Sparkster for the Sega Genesis often get overlooked, so it was a pleasant surprise that Konami dusted the IP off for a new game. In Rocket Knight, the Sparkster dons the armor again to stop the invading wolf army. Rocket Knight might look like a typical 2.5D platformer, but its vibrant style and jetpack-based play mechanics set it apart. And a few side-scrolling shooting stages are thrown in to cut monotony. But the game is criminally short. It can easily be finished in an hour and a half. Rocket Knight has some replayability, though, as gamers can try to reach the top of the leaderboard for each stage. (more…)

 Print This Post

Title: Split/Second

Platform: 360 (PS3, PC)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Disney Interactive

Developer: Black Rock Studio

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Split/Second is another one of those games, much like the Burnout series, a racer that appeals to the crowd that doesn’t like traditional racing games. There’s no modding of brake tension or tweaking of horsepower necessary. Split/Second doesn’t even feature real life automobiles. But they sure look badass, the race tracks are solid, and ultimately Split/Second is about driving really fast, spectacular crashes and destruction so massive it actually alters the courses. (more…)

 Print This Post