The Digest

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: June 23rd, 2010
PUBLISHER:EA
DEVELOPER:EA Bright Light
ESRB RATING: E (Everyone)
GENRE: Family, Card & Board

PRODUCT OVERVIEW:

Play the classic game of physical and mental skill! Take turns removing a block and balancing it on top – without toppling the tower! The full version of JENGA lets you play the original Hasbro game as well as the new versions – Chance Blocks and custom modes! You’ll also have access to trophies, leaderboards, and achievements! This game requires the Xbox 360 hard drive or the 512MB Memory Unit for storage.

PRODUCT FEATURES:

• *Players 1-4
• *HDTV 720p
• *In-game Dolby Digital
• *Online Multiplayer 2-4
• *Content Downloads
• *Leaderboards
• *Voice

Review:

So it’s Hasbro Family Game Night with Mister Potato Head as your host, and I’m taking a look at Jenga.

When you start the game you’re greeted with four options for Play Original, Play Remix, Play Custom and How To Play.

We’ll take a look at the original version first as that’s how it’s listed. The Play Custom mode is just picking between Original and Remix.

The graphics are decent really, the games start out in what looks to be a living room or family room and the table opens up to reveal the game you’re playing. It’s only 720p resolution, but the graphics aren’t bad for this type of game.

The idea of Jenga us to pull the blocks out without knocking over the tower and then you place them on the top. It’s simple really, but it’s a lot of fun.  having kids I’ve got a couple real Jenga sets actually, but sadly don’t play much, just too busy really.

The interface allows you to rotate all around the stack so you can figure out your next move. The block slight up blue as you select them, then all you have to do is press the button to pull. While you’re pulling though you can use the stick to control the direction of the way you’re pulling the block. You have to be careful how you pull the block as you could pull the tower off and you’ll lose. As you’re pulling the tower will wiggle and move the way you’re pulling, basic physics 101 here really.

Here’s an assortment of screen shots for you to view:

and then how about a nice video:

..and yes I died on purpose or else this video would be a lot longer..

Then there’s Jenga Remix which is a unique twist on the original. The blocks are either red, yellow or blue this time.

The game is played with cards this time, cards are drawn for you and appear on the screen. Some of the cards are colored to correspond to the block you’ll need to remove, but then there are special cards as well. Here’s a few of them I ran across while playing:

The colored cards are self-explanatory. Then you have things like rainbow where you have to pick one of each, then wildcard where you can pick any color. There’s also special cards like Hammertime where random blocks start coming out and you’ve got to push them back in, or there’s Bomb cards where the blocks will explode and you have to remove them before they do.

I like Remix mode quite a bit really, it’s fun.

To finish this off here’s a video for you:

Conclusion:

Some people might say that this Jenga is not the same or it won’t replace the original ‘normal’ hands-on version. I don’t think it’s intended to really, those that say that don’t understand the point of it. It’s meant to be fun and it is. I played it and my kids remembered we had Jenga blocks, so they actually went and dug them out and played with them.

The Xbox 360 version of Jenga is fun to play really, I’ve played it a few times now and enjoyed it. It’s one of those games that you can play with your family or you can play it alone and still enjoy it. It’s the kind of game that is great for a few minutes of entertainment, for when you’re just not in the mood for some long drawn out game.

I like it a lot honestly, and so do my kids. It’s not a hard game at all, it’s actually easier than the real-world version. The Remix version adds a bit of spin to it, and it’s different. Jenga will set you back 800 points and I think it’s worth it. At this point I’m not sure which version I like better, I’m going to have to go and play some more to make up my mind….

Special Thanks to EA for providing us with a copy of this game.

Ubisoft has announced yet another up-coming title for the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace titled Outland. Outland is a brand new platformer inspired by epic adventures such as the Prince of Persia series and is being developed by Housemarque, the award-winning development team and creators of Super Stardust HD.

Outland shall put players into the middle of a world of balance and chaos, where their efforts allow them to resort the ancient dived or the doom the world to complete destruction. The adventure behind Outland shall place players between light and darkness, forcing players to adapt to the ever changing world around them. The Light/Dark core game play has been said to be inspired by the arcade classic Ikaruga. 

Within the beautiful world doomed by chaos, players will test their swordplay by running, jumping and climbing to dodge the deadly traps of a world on the brink of collapse. Outland will also feature unique high-definition graphics; clearly seen in the screenshots as well as a soundtrack composed by Ari Pulkkinen, acknowledged for his work on the award-winning Trine project.

Ubisoft has announced a new game that shall put a unique twist to the typical multiplayer shooter, thanks to the support of Valve’s Source engine; titled Bloody Good Time. Taking place on a large Hollywood set, players will get the opportunity to discover the unforgiving world of movie studios where anyone can star in a scary Hollywood blockbuster film.

In Bloody Good Time, up to eight players will get the chance to take each other on in various set locations; while trying to kill off all the other competitors in nasty and unexpected ways. Players will get to use an arsenal of wacky weapons including guns, a frying pan and even an exploding remote-controlled rat to transform the movie set into real mayhem. In addition, players will be able to choose from a variety of stereotypical B-movie characters, such as the Bikini Beach babe, The Stereotypical Outcast and The Super Jock.

Bloody Good Time is scheduled for a late Fall Release on the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, the prologue to its upcoming game Dead Rising 2, is now available exclusively on Xbox LIVE. Anyone who downloads Dead Rising 2: Case Zero will get their first glimpse into the world of Dead Riding 2, but also be introduced to the new protagonist in the series, Chuck Greene. Not only that, but players will get their first taste at the zombie-slaughtering fun of Dead Rising’s new combo weapons and ‘psycho’ boss fights. Finally all character attributes collected in Dead Rising 2: Case Zero will also carry over into the main game such as Player Level; to a maximum of five, Prestige Points alongside skills, Combo Cards and a number of alternate and unique outfits.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is available now on the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace for a mere 400 Points.

Microsoft has revealed that the Dreamcast platformer Sonic Adventure will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade next month, complete with achievements and online leaderboards. While Sega has plans to bring in various other Dreamcast titles to the Arcade such as Crazy Taxi, details on their release dates are unknown.

Sonic Adventure will be available on September 15th for 800 MS points.

Microsoft has announced “The Game Feast,” a new Summer of Arcade-like lineup featuring four new arcade games.

Included in The Game Feast is the following arcade titles:

September 29: Hydrophobia, 1200 Microsoft Points

October 6: Comic Jumper, 1200 Microsoft Points

October 13: Pinball FX 2, Tables purchased individually, free import from original Pinball FX

October 20: Super Meat Boy, Pricing TBD

http://uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2370

Amazon has discontinued selling of Xbox Live Arcade titles through their website.  While they’ll continue to sell Microsoft Points, Arcade titles have been removed.  Reasons for the stoppage have not been provided, but they could potentially be due to the changes in the pricing tiers.  It also comes at a rather curious time as Gamestop just recently opened up their DLC program.

We are no longer selling Xbox LIVE arcade game codes on Amazon.com. You can continue to purchase Xbox LIVE points on Amazon.com and those points can be redeemed through your Xbox 360 console to purchase any of the games that were previously available.

[via Amazon]

Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light has been getting a lot of attention as of late, thanks to vastly positive reviews, along side the somewhat unfortunate news that there will be a lack of online co-op at launch. Nevertheless, the guys at Crystal Dynamics have decided to sweeten the deal to everyone who buys the game by offering its first piece of DLC for free for the 30 days after release.

Within the press release, Darrell Gallagher, General Manager of Crystal Dynamics had this to say; “The launch of Guardian of Light is just the beginning, we have a lot of additional content planned and we will be offering the first DLC pack for the first 30 days for free, exclusively on the Xbox 360, so that gamers can get a taste of some of the exciting extras we have in store.”

The Digest:

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: August 11th, 2010
PUBLISHER: Xbox Live Arcade
DEVELOPER: Uber Entertainment
PRICE: 1200 Microsoft Points
GENRE: Action & Adventure, Shooter

PRODUCT OVERVIEW:
Monday Night Combat for Xbox LIVE Arcade is a class-based, third-person shooter…and the most lethal sport of the future! It blends combat, finishing moves, gameshow-like challenges and rewards. The game features grapple moves, upgradable skills and a deep meta-game. Blitz mode pits 1 to 2 players on a split screen or up to 4 players over Xbox LIVE against waves of robot armies. In Crossfire mode, players play competitively, 6 versus 6, to destroy the enemy’s Money Ball while protecting theirs aided by robots. Enjoy an extensive Career Mode that lets players to use their money to customize classes and show off their accomplishments with hundreds of new ProTags.

PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Two Game Modes: Blitz and Crossfire
• 6 Upgradeable Character Classes
• Persistent Stats
• Endorsements
• ProTags
  

Monday Night Combat combines the many loves of most gamers:  Guns, bacon, money, juice, robots, and mascots.  The idea of the game is a world where combat is a sport and the players have one goal – Defend the money ball.  In both game modes the object is to defend your money ball from the onslaught of incoming robots.  And to defend your money ball you are equipped with a heavy arsenal of weapons and special moves.  Also to aid you are turrets, juice, hazards, and the lovable mascot Bullseye.

When you first start up the game you are introduced to the gameplay with a simple to follow tutorial.  Your basic look this way, shoot this guy, and press this button.  Easy but effective at teaching the game basics.

The Blitz gameplay mode is either you or 3 friends over Xbox Live defending the money ball in rounds of robots attacking you.  You get about 30 seconds to setup your turrets before the robots start their attack towards your money ball.  Once the horn goes off the green lights show the direction the robots will be coming from.  One of the few drawbacks of this mode is the rounds are consistent on what type of robot will come so you can easily predict what level of robots were coming at you.

The variety of robots were done well.  You have everything from the weak slims to the giant and strong JackBots.  The robots are divided into two groups, one group called breach bots that will follow a set path to the money ball and the other are eliminator bots that will attack the player first, then attack turrets, and if nothing else is left they will attack the money ball.  Some of the robots even have unique abilities like stealth and long range missiles.

The defenses in the game add some strategy to protecting your money ball.  There are a four types of turrets: RockIt – High Cost, High Armor, and High Damage : Lazer Blazer – Low Cost, Low Armor, and Low Damage : SaveIce – Moderate Cost, High Armor, and Slow Auro : LongShot – Moderate Cost, Long Range, Low Armor, High Damage.  I really enjoyed how the turrets played in the strategy of defending your money ball.  I always found the best strategy is to build the turrets up front first and then work your way back to your money ball.  And a good combination of turrets was key to success.  Another form of defense are the hazards: The ejector and the annihilator.  These are both pretty self explanatory in what their functions do.  The ejectors I found pretty useless but the annihilator was very useful if you are overran and low on health.

The character classes offer something for everyone, and each character can carry two weapons and has four unique skills so most players can find their favorite and fine tune it with a custom class.  In Monday Night Combat you don’t earn EXP, you earn cold hard cash.  And as you get cash you can buy custom classes.  I found this to be one of my least favorite options in the game.  When you choose a custom class the only thing you can customize is your endorsements.  Endorsements are like little perks that help improve your character if you have ever played Modern Warfare you will be right at home using the Endorsements.  Maybe I just didn’t find the right combination of Endorsements to use with my character class to help me out but the Endorsements just didn’t seem to help me out much.

The online versus mode is called Crossfire.  In this mode its six on six with each team trying to destroy the other teams money ball.  The object is to guide your robots to the other teams money ball and bring down the defenses.  Once the defenses on the money ball are down then anyone and anything can cause damage to the money ball.  I found the matches went into overtime over half the time I played.  And I think the reason is that most people were either having more fun killing other players or they were trying to get multiplayer achievements.  I cannot count how many times an assassin did a grapple move on me while my robots walked right by and started destroying their money ball.  I figure as more people play and as time goes by more people will realize the true objective of the game.  But overall the online experience was fun and had little issues.

The visuals overall for this game are pretty stellar for an Arcade game.  But all the credit goes to the Unreal Engine that drives the game.  Sometimes there is a bit of frame rate issues when there are over 10 robots on the screen and lots of turrets firing at one time.  The arenas are all well done but there is not much variety.  I hope that they will eventually add some through an update but for an initial arcade release they get the job done.

The extras in this game are what really stands out for me.  One of the fun extras of this game is juice.  Yes that’s right, juice.  When you kill certain robots they drop juice boxes and when your juice meter fills up you click RB + LB and you are on the juice.  When you are on the juice your character moves faster regenerates his health and causes twice the damage.  You can also get juice from one of my other favorites in the game the mascot named Bullseye.  When Bullseye makes an appearance he prances around and you are encouraged by the announcer to shoot him.   What is even better is when you shoot him he gives you stuff.  He drops money, juice, and sometimes just sometimes even bacon… Wait. What? You just said bacon.  That is right, this game has bacon.  Why?  Well because bacon makes everything better.  I have only seen the bacon once and when you have bacon it does make everything better.  You are almost unstoppable while you are under bacon’s influence and if you can get on the juice while you have bacon I would say nothing could hurt you for those short few sweet seconds.

Conclusion: Monday Night Combat takes the first person shooter genre and makes it a whole lot of fun.  If you are tired of the same old Halo or Modern Warfare shooters than grab your juice and your bacon and let’s grab some cash and defend the money ball.

Single Player: 4/5 | Multi-Player: 4/5

Special thanks to Uber Entertainment for providing us with a copy of this game for review.