February 2010 Archives

This article is a repost from the now defunct Kombo.com.

Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game’s About
Chime is the first release from One Big Game, “a videogames charity initiative… best compared to Live Aid,” with the goal of donating the proceeds from releases under their banner to children’s charities around the world. Chime is not, on the other hand, developer Zoë Mode’s first release. Zoë Mode is the developer behind a variety of music games, including some SingStar and SingIt games.

Chime takes inspiration from games like Tetris and Lumines to bring a surprisingly addictive music puzzle to Xbox Live Arcade. Placing various block shapes on the board to form 3x3 or larger blocks changes the music as the clock ticks down. Cover the board and keep your combo going to rack up more time and a higher multiplier.

What’s Hot
Chime is somewhat of a spiritual successor to Lumines. Even looking at the screenshots, it’s easy to see the influence. Don’t mistake that for saying it’s the same game, though. Where that game was a stress-infused race to keep the board clean and points high, Chime has you trying to fill the board. The goal is to surpass 100% coverage. There the two DO match is that horizontally scrolling wiper. Just like Lumines, that bar establishes the beat, and you use the blocks to create sound. The mechanic is a lot of fun, and it’s much less stressful. You pick a 3, 6, or 9 minute session (Hard, medium, and easy) and try to fill up.

At just $5 (or 400MS Points), the price is right for just about anyone to pick up. Even better, over half that money goes to charity. It’s a great idea that I’d love to see more of. I wouldn’t feel quite as bad paying some of the prices publishers expect if I knew some of that money was going somewhere useful.

The most memorable part of the game for most will be the music. While there are only five songs, the licenses and quality more than make up for it. The soundtrack includes Philip Glass, Moby, Markus Schulz, Paul Hartnoll from Orbital, and Fred Deakin from Lemon Jelly. All of the tracks are easy to listen to a few times through and stand up to repeat play.

What’s Not
The game is a lot like Lumines, and if you didn’t like that one you won’t like this one. It scratches most of the same itches, for better or for worse. More tracks would be nice, too. I can hardly complain considering the price, though hope remains for future DLC.

There also just isn’t a lot there. While the five levels do have different layouts, there isn’t much difference from level to level. If that sounds like it would lose appeal after a bit, try the demo first. Some sort of local multiplayer would’ve been nice as well, maybe competing to take the majority coverage of the board or something like that.

Final Word
Chime is an inexpensive, fun music game that results in helping someone in need; can you ask for something better? The value for the asking price is excellent even without the charity piled on top. Chime is definitely worth checking out.

Matthew Green of PressTheButtons and me of this website sat down to brainstorm up and discuss some of our favorite videogame soundtracks. Rez, Bionic Commando, Maniac Mansion, and Silent Hill 2 all make appearances. Check out the full feature!

What the Game's About
KrissX (Pronounced Criss Cross) is the first title from Regolith Games, a developer with the goal of "making nice games for everybody, where nobody gets shot." KrissX is a straightforward word-puzzle game that plays with letter scrambling and the crossword format. Unscramble words in quest mode or timed mode.

What's Hot
Indeed, no one in KrissX gets shot. It's a pleasant, simple game that anyone with reading skills could play. If you want something easy for a younger gamer to pick up, this is a good tool to help with reading and spelling. The graphics are clean and colorful, and the music is nice. The music is probably the best part of the game aesthetically.

What's Not
I'm not going to suggest that PopCap should have a monopoly on pleasant, colorful puzzle games with E ratings, but they are all but undisputed. KrissX feels a bit like a flimsy pretender to that throne. It attempts at all those qualities that make PopCap games addictive and accessible, but never quite gets there.

Check out the full review.

Chime is the first release from One Big Game, "a videogames charity initiative… best compared to Live Aid," with the goal of donating the proceeds from releases under their banner to children's charities around the world. Chime is not, on the other hand, developer Zoë Mode's first release. Zoë Mode is the developer behind a variety of music games, including some SingStar and SingIt games.

Chime takes inspiration from games like Tetris and Lumines to bring a surprisingly addictive music puzzle to Xbox Live Arcade. Placing various block shapes on the board to form 3x3 or larger blocks changes the music as the clock ticks down. Cover the board and keep your combo going to rack up more time and a higher multiplier.

Check out the full review.

I’ve finished Mass Effect 2 once, though I would like to go back and play again as a different class and make some different decisions. This should be spoiler free aside from a few very general game hints.

First and foremost, the game lives up to the hype. So often we’re told for months and months about all the features an upcoming game is going to sport, Peter Molyneux, only to actually play Fable the game and find it’s a fine game, but nothing mind-blowing.

From the beginning we were told our decisions in the first ME title would matter in the second. Most people, myself included, took that to mean a few major decisions – who lives and dies, which choice you make at the ending, which crew member you decide to bone, etc. Holy shit, Bioware. I think every decision I made in Mass Effect came out in the sequel in some way or another. Better yet, some were hinted at this time that won’t play a role until the next game. Bioware, you freaking RULE. You took a high end “next gen” concept and made it live up to our hopes.

Martin Sheen, the scariest motherfucker in space.

One thing that’s been driving me nuts is listening to every reviewer talk about the missing RPG elements. Guys, are you paying attention? Mass Effect is the purest RPG yet, in my opinion. All the fat has been cut off, leaving one of the purest roleplaying experiences ever created and definitely the best one this generation (so far!).

I will give the game this: There were some things I didn’t like at first that actually worked out later, though I think they could’ve been handled better. First is the mining minigame. I hated hated hated it at first. Then I figured out where to find everything. A clearer tutorial would’ve been nice. Maybe when your crew members give you the mining upgrades they could say something like “Remember that Element Zero seems to be related to the spark of life,” or “You won’t find a heavy metal on a gas giant!” There is rhyme and reason to the mining, and it’s actually pretty slick once you get used to it. By the time I was done I was spending maybe two or three minutes per planet, if that. Just move the cursor around in a relatively procedural way, and tap the scan button to squeeze some extra speed out. The bonus here is that you can be on the looking for anomalies while you’re doing this. Just ignore the gas giants and scan the rock planets.

I also thought I was going to hate my class at first. I chose the Vanguard, and it was confusing to start. The first shotgun doesn’t seem terribly useful, though the other ones later are mighty. I wasn’t making enough use of my class powers and it ended up with me dying quite a bit. Once I figured it out and leveled my powers up a bit, I found myself just wading through battles destroying guys. So my recommendation is give your class some time and really think about the intention of the powerset.

The fact that this guy looks like a green Ultraman is only a small part of his badassness. 

That said, I took issue with the weapons in the game. The original ME was a loot whore’s dream. Guns to your left, guns to your right. Too many guns to pick’em all up. And you could modify each gun to your satisfaction. In ME2 there are maybe four guns in each class, and once you pick up a gun, anyone who is able to equip it can. Now I will say, I didn’t spend much time in menus this time around. I was able to concentrate almost exclusively on the game itself, only going into menus to level and save.

Now onto the reason everyone plays Mass Effect: Hardcore Alien Sex Simuation. Or not. While ME and Bioware’s other games have been lauded for their complex characters, one area I’ve finally realized they fall short in is the smooth transition of a relationship. I’ll admit it is difficult to craft a complex, nuanced romantic relationship in an open-world game like this, but I think things go too far the other way. You go up to the different romance prospects and lead along a certain line of chat and eventually get an option that’s akin to a more PG version of “Hey, I’d like to rub my crotch against your crotch if you know what I mean!” Where is the longing, the kissing, the alone time? How about a real date? I feel like Shepard’s in it for the sex as much as most players are. I didn’t pursue a relationship in the game because I want to see how my relationship with Liara from the first game pans out. There are a couple interesting moments where it is referenced in this game, and I think it’ll be an important aspect of the third. I hope.

On the strictly sexual-preference side of things, I feel the game was a bit lacking. While I wasn’t surprised that there was only one lesbian love interest, it wasn’t at all who I thought it would be. In fact, it was none of the whos I thought it might be. If you’re going the hetero route, male or female, you can pretty much bone anyone on the other side of the fence. If you’re a man looking for a man, you’ll be sorely disappointed. No man-love has been included. Bioware, I know you’re capable of better stuff when it comes to relationships. There’s some awesome dialogue in the game, both plot-related and not. Just apply some more of that to the romance sections.

There, I managed to keep it spoiler free!

also darth vader is sheperd’s secret identity.

A truly evil villain is fun to watch for a while, but the really interesting bad guys are the ones you can sympathize with just a little bit. Often, they’re not so much a villain as they are an antagonist. That’s the perfect word to describe Granny Honi’den, marching relentlessly after Musashi and her son Matahachi on their separate paths. Just as long as Musashi has carried a sword, Granny’s been there to tell him exactly what she thinks of him, popping up in all sorts of unexpected places.

Unfortunately, though, Granny’s striking resemblance to Yoda isn’t just visual. She’s really old, and stomping angrily across the country has taken its toll, and she has fallen ill. The cleaned-up and newly sober Matahachi stays by her side, still battling with who he was even as he prays for her health. Finally deciding he’s out of time, Matahachi helps his mother onto his shoulders to carry her back to Miyamoto village. As the two walk, the dissipating anger and hatred comes off the page in waves as Matahachi has a mostly one-way conversation with her.

Check out the full review.

Real volume 7 feels a bit like a midseason game: Loud, fast, a fun ride – but it merely moves things forward. The Tigers practice for and then finally play their game against the Dreams. A recruiter goes after Kiyoharu, while the Tigers are encouraging a new player to join them. Tomomi tries to hold down a job and keep his frustration and desperation in check. It’s a filler volume, without the meaning or consequences of these actions being obvious quite yet.

The Tigers’ game against the Dreams takes most of the book, both the preparation for and the game itself. Despite the excitement inherent to an important game, it’s hard to match the power of watching someone relearn to live after an accident, or watching people come together to form a close-knit team. The best part of a basketball manga isn’t the basketball – it’s the people.

Check out the full review.

I racked my brain for two days to find something good to say about 0 Day Attack on Earth. Yeah, that doesn't bode well. I will say that the game is easy to jump into, with the familiar dual-analog control scheme also seen in games like Geometry Wars. A wide variety of unlockable craft and a four-player co-op mode ensure you won't get bored of the game anytime soon if you, for some reason, like it.

I really hope Square Enix didn't spend more than a couple days creating 0 Day. There's no shortage of twin-stick shooters and the only thing this one does in an attempt to separate itself from the crowd is use satellite photography of the cities of New York, Paris, and Tokyo as the backdrop for the game. Unfortunately, The Last Guy on PSN already beat 0 Day to the punch and did a better job of it, to boot. Here, it just comes off looking chintzy with a way-too-low resolution.

Check out the full article.