Dante's Inferno For Xbox360 and PS3

     Okay, imagine a HUGE museum. Alright, maybe a zoo... Okay, I really don't care what type of public display it is, just fill it with everything that's ever been compelling or interesting to you. It'd make this museum or zoo one you want to visit and spend hours everyday looking around at all the displays. Think of all the awesome things you could learn and see. Now imagine that the museum has a see-through floor and you're in the basement, looking through the floor at all of the displays. And then imagine that instead of trying to get the most out of your experience, you're running through the tight and dark corridors of the basement at such a speed Sonic the Hedgehog can't imagine. You turned your favorite place filled with hours upon hours of study into a 2 minute marathon. When you finish, you don't remember anything but running through the basement and some slight colors washing in from the displays above. That's what Dante's Inferno is like. This review is going to be short because I feel that there's so much that I didn't like, it'd be best I only stuck with the main points.

Gameplay

+ You're good at this. - I heard this somewhere before and I feel like it should be said again and again because it's true and it's actually the only positive I can think of. Visceral Games is really good at transplanting exact game mechanics from popular games and putting it into their own. Dead Space is just like Resident Evil 4, Dante's Inferno is just like God of War. You could easily jump from one of those games into one of Visceral's games and you'd feel right at home! Think of how many people try to make their games like popular ones to make some money and they normally fail and nailing the feel. Visceral hits the nail perfectly on the head.

= Fear me, I am the God of War! - I can and I will be making God of War comparisons all day long about Dante's Inferno. Why? Because that's exactly what Visceral was trying to do. They wanted to make a God of War game in sheep's clothing. What they did is copy God of War for everything that made it good and exactly what made it bad. And for me, that's really bad.

- Mortal Combat - After the release of Bayonetta, Dante's Inferno just doesn't feel as good as it could be when it comes to combat. It's slow and shallow. You get SOME combos if you choose to go down the unholy path except that you won't do that because Dante will have a hellish time getting through the game if you don't go down the holy path. Therefore, you just won't have any options to choose from and you'll get bored.  Also, the enemies have the ability to become your worst nightmare. If you get knocked down, you better start prayin' because these guys will attack you again and again before you can ever hope to start to get up. Why is Dante such an acrobat when he's fighting, whipping around and such, but then suddenly turns into a septuagenarian with the worst case of arthritis ever recorded in history? GET. UP. If you killed Death to get into Hell, then you can get the **** up!

- Holy war - There are two skill trees in Dante's Inferno; The holy and unholy skill trees. Holy powers will make your cross stronger and the unholy path will give you more combos for your scythe. I don't know how anyone is expected to beat the game if they don't dive really deep into the holy path. I don't see myself as bad at games. I have plenty of difficult gaming achievements including beating Devil May Cry 3 on Dante Must Die mode, but I can not for the life of me imagine how you beat the final boss if you did not get the high level powers of the holy path. What do the holy powers do exactly? They literally make you invincible. You can make it so no one can interrupt your cross combos, you can get powers and items that make it so that you only take damage from 30% of all hits you recieve, you can stun huge groups of enemies for 15 seconds pretty much whenever you want. And then, if you happen to take any damage, you just activate a healing spell that heals you for a damn long time and reduces the damage you take for a godly amount. So no one can stop you from attacking, you can't take any damage, and should a miraculous event occur where you do take damage, you can just heal it back. Add in a reduced use of magic to increase the number of times you can heal and the ability to make enemies heal a quarter of your health bar every time you kill something and you just sucked all the FUN out of your GAME.

- I am the Devil! - God, you must be because it takes a lot of effort to even put a dent into the health bar of the last boss. And then he does tons and tons of damage to you with every hit while he also attacks you WHILE YOU'RE DOWN. His difficulty lies in how cheap he is. The last time I got this frustrated was the broken boss battles in Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox360. Mind you I even went down the invincible holy path and he was still managing to bleed me for every drop of health I had. To anyone who ventures down the unholy path, good luck with your combos. I have a feeling you won't have too many uses for them.

- We are Legion! - Yes and you're all the same! I dunno if you've seen the trailers or the developer diaries where they show off special demons on each layer, it's better if you didn't because it's all a trick and a farce. Let's put it this way; Left 4 Dead 2 had more enemy variation than Dante's inferno. That is unless you count different colors as being different enemies. And you shouldn't. You really shouldn't.

- Please board the platform... PLEASE! - I hate God of War for it's platforming and puzzles. They're not clever. When it comes to puzzles, they just choose something mundane and stupid and then make it artificially harder by tossing in infinite enemies to halt and destroy your progress. Also, Kratos is slow, clunky and sucks at jumping. Mix that in with some terrible platform placement and you have a recipe for frustration. Dante's Inferno though God of War did a marvelous job on these points and copied it to the proverbial "t". Dante's Inferno is better for it's lack of frustrating "puzzles" and worse for it's worse use of platforming gameplay. 

- Humpty Dumpty was broken in my day - When you absolve a special character in hell, a small minigame starts when you have to time your button presses as "sins" glide closer to the corresponding button you need to press. It's broken. Sometimes it will accept your button press before the sin ever reaches a button, sometimes it will punish you for absolving sins in rapid succession or simply for just timing your button press correctly. It just depends on how much the game feels like messing with you at the time.

- Harry Potter, I am not. - But I am God of War. Remember the magic spell you spammed in God of War to save yourself from the evils around you? Sometimes it wasn't even necessary to use spells at all. I mean, really, they could be pretty useless too. Dante's Inferno is more useless than that. I didn't feel like my spells did damage for jack ****. The only one I ever truly used was the healing holy armor.

Story and Presentation

= It's a game about hell and... - Well they made it apparent through colors, words and advertising that it's about hell. And that's good enough I guess from this game. The Devil May Cry games were barely about hell and I think they gave a much better idea about what hell could be like. Even Silent Hill 2 was extremely more hellish and you came to the conclusion that you were in hell and they never even had to tell you that.

- Dante's action-adventure - I never read Dante's Inferno. I can't bring up specifics about what was different or the same. Let me say this. I don't care what they say about the game being so inspired by the book and how they kept everything close to the source material, they used the book as an excuse because it's easier to show that your game is going to be violent and that it will tap into the minds of the mainstream violent gamer so much easier than a new, unknown IP (intellectual property - a new series, premise or concept for a game) would.

- How could you go wrong? - You guys had ****ing WAYNE BARLOWE on your design team!!!! How is it possible that I don't feel like I'm in hell?!?! Seriously! Wayne Barlowe even has a book called Inferno and it's all about HELL! How could you not use those creatively disturbing ideas? I mean, even all of Dante's Inferno's monsters felt more disconnected from the source material than God of War's! Just because God of War opts out for boobs at every turn and makes it work doesn't mean you should try too. You're making a game about hell. The only thing that really made me feel like I was in hell were the unbaptized babies.

     Dante's Inferno also has a fixed camera that is supposed to act like God of War's to show these epic set pieces and it kills the experience. I can't look around hell. I can't observe all of the different things going on in each circle of hell. I guess that's fine enough though because there's really nothing to look at. Everything just feels cramped and small. It's like you're on a cave expedition and you see different colors of lava. Anything being tortured is either hobbled in a corner the same way as the last person who was hobbled in a corner, or is shown as a low-resolution picture of thousands of souls swirling together inside of a wall, repeating itself over and over. That's what you guys came up with? a scared person and a choppy image? 

     To be fair, it's easy to tell that Wayne Barlowe was utilized. And those designs that he worked on were cool enough. A good majority of them suffered however, due to the low amount of detail put into the game's aesthetics. Visceral essentially went with the same graphics as (2008) Prince of Persia's with the difference being that Prince's aesthetics soared with beauty and detail in the art. Visceral put only as little attention as needed into the number of creatures in their game.

- Real or Fake? - I never liked a lot of Sony's first person exclusives for visual reason but I could never figure out what it was. I do now and it's because when they do something realistic, they still make it look like a cartoon. Kratos in God of War doesn't look realistic yet everything else in the game seems to try to shoot for realism. Seeing a character from Jet Set Radio in Mirror's Edge will not look right unless you fit that character to Mirror's Edge's art style. It's why Sonic doesn't look right next to real people. Dante's Inferno does this. They push a lot of realism in this game, especially when it comes to the cinematic sequences that aren't cartoons. And then when you start playing, everything looks fake compared to Dante. 

- Go on... - If you want to know about Hell, Virgil will tell you about it. You'll just have to ask him about it after every sentence he finishes. I got an idea. What if he told me everything about it without me pressing a button 5 times?

Graphics

= Needs more... Hmm... - If you liked the way God of War 2 looked graphically, then you'll like these graphics. They look almost the same. They're nothing special and they looked like they could be pushed pretty easily on a PS2. Doesn't mean they can be, it just means they look like they could. So, yeah, it looks dated.

Sound

+ I'm in Hell! - Souls scream, people beg for your help, they confess secrets, they tempt you with deals, screaming, shrieking, agony! Imagine how Hell sounds and this game will really replicate that.

Should I buy it?

     Hell no. If you really need to, rent it. If you really like it after that, sure, buy it. But honestly, you could do so much more with your time. If you played a good game like Mass Effect or Bayonetta or anything else that just came out recently and then looked at Wayne Barlowe's illustrations, you would feel like you got a more full experience out of being in hell than playing Dante's Inferno. I actually wish I could get my 6 hours of gameplay back to put into my beloved Mass Effect 2. At least I can save you by telling you this is nothing to get hyped at. It's not even really something to play to say you played it. You're not going to talk about it really. Just play it when you really have nothing else to play. And there's plenty of great games out there before you get to Dante's Inferno.
     Otherwise, you're looking at 2 playthroughs at best, a survival mode like Devil May Cry 4's Circles of Hell where you just fight wave after wave of baddies. Eventually, they will add a co-op play mode where players can edit their own arenas and design their own enemy waves. Kinda like Castlevania on the DS (which also portrays Hell better than Dante's Inferno and is a ton of fun).
     If you're interested in Wayne Barlowe, check this out: Wayne Barlowe's Inferno. Any of his stuff could have easily fit into Hell.

Dante's Inferno was developed by Visceral Games and published by EA for the Xbox360 and PS3. Played through normal difficulty with a playtime of 6 hours. Review based on the PS3 version.

If you want another opinion on Dante's Inferno, check out Simon's review here.

Dante's Inferno Review for Xbox 360.

Dante Alighieri was born in the mid-1200's and is, without doubt, responsible for one of the finest pieces of literature ever written. The Divine Comedy was Dante's personal interpretation of hell. Or to be more precise, the differing levels of hell where the souls of the damned suffer. Anyone who hasn't read The Divine Comedy, I urge you to find a copy of this haunting masterpiece either before or after you've played Dante's Inferno.

Dante's Inferno is based upon Alighieri's masterpiece. Dante's Inferno (or DI for the sake of this review) is an action-adventure game with some platform and puzzle elements. You play as Dante (shocker), a crusader-knight (and not a very nice person to be honest) who has rushed home from the Holy War to protect his beloved wife: Beatrice. He returns home to find his wife and father dead. To make matters worse, after discovering Beatrice's body he then finds out that her soul now belongs to Lucifer. I won't say how or why here as it will spoil the game later on for you. Certain liberties have been taken in creating this game. In the book, Dante was a simple traveller, not a warrior. However, this is forgiveable given the context of the game.

PRESENTATION

+ We're not in Kansas anymore!! Wow! Just......wow! The scenery and presentation of this game are superb. The art team from Visceral Games have some really screwed up imaginations and I'm all the more thankful for it. Every circle of Hell you traverse through is stunningly grotesque. From rivers of molten gold, in the Circle of Greed, where the dead wade in constant agony to the River Styx where statues of the damned pose in intolerable suffering. This game drags you kicking and screaming through it all. Even the most basic of walls is a disturbing sight, with the souls of countless people trapped within, writhing to break free from their eternal suffering.

= This is on the 360 right? Although the presentation is spot-on, the in-game graphics are a slight let down. They look like high-end PS2 in the same vein as the God of War series. It's not game-breaking but it is a missed opportunity to really push the graphical power of the 360 and bring Hell to life even more.

+ Saturday night at the movies. CGI cut-scenes are pretty at the best of times, DI's CGI is nothing short of bloody breath-taking!! Never have I seen character emotions portrayed so well in Full Motion Video! Do you hear that Final Fantasy? This is how it should be done!!! Although the CGI scenes are few and far between, they are done so well it would be a crime not to give them the credit they deserve.

= Not one for the kiddies! DI is graphic in the extreme and is definitely not one for parents to buy their children. Nudity, language and violence.....oh, and more nudity. Parents, you have been advised! :-)

- You again?! Ah yes, DI falls into the same trap as many other games. There are only a handful of demonic designs to contend with. Considering you're travelling thorugh 9 circles of hell, you would've thought that their would be more variation. Apparently Satan doesn't like change!

- Where are we now? Although the 9 circles of Hell look fantastic, the transition between each one feels forced and un-necessary. There's no gentle flow between each circle and you'll know when you're descending to a different area.

SOUND

+ Rinse and repeat. Anyone who's read one of my reviews should know that I detest repeated voice and sound samples in games. It's just a bit lazy in my eyes. I'm now going to eat my own words and say that DI uses repeated sound loops to absolutely magnificent effect! The groans, tortured howls and pleading voices are both haunting, disturbing and upsetting in equal measure. It really is a perverse pleasure to listen to the agony of the damned until you release that if you fail in your mission within Hell, you'll be one more voice to the choir! ;-)

= You said what?! I'm really not sure what to feel about the voice acting in DI. Dante and Beatrice are okay while the Bosses in the game are defintely the strongest aspect. I can't put my finger on what's missing but it just feels like some of the scripting doesn't quite "click".

= Where's Beethoven when you need him? Same problem as the voices. There's nothing wrong with the music but it doesn't grab you like you would've hoped. Maybe it's just me! :-)

GAMEPLAY

- Are you sure that's right? Okay, minor spoiler here!! At the beginning of the game, you beat up and (kinda) kill Death. Yep, that's right.....DEATH!! You know, the man with a big scythe. One of the most powerful mythical entities EVER!! Just doesn't seem right. Visceral Games should've chosen another way for Dante to enter Hell.

- You're not the boss of me! Perhaps I've been spoilt by games such as Shadow of the Collosus but I really was expecting same amazing boss battles in this game (c'mon! I'm in Hell dammit). Alas, it was not to be. :-( Some of the bosses certainly look the part ie: Minos and Cleopatra but everyone else is a let-down. Attack patterns that even a blind monkey can see coming do not help matters either.

= Kratos is that you? I promised myself I wouldn't join the masses and compare this to God of War. Sadly there ARE a lot of similarities between DI's combat system and GOW's. It's not a bad thing as it works fairly well but at times it feels quite clunky compared to GOW. You have a standard light and heavy attack plus a grab button which will allow you to absolve or punish certain enemies. What does that mean? Read below!

+ I DECIDE YOUR FATE! One of the guilty pleasures of combat is grabbing an enemy and deciding whether to absolve them of their sins or punish them for trying to stick 3 metres of steel into your head! Initially it is very tempting to just punish but there is an upside to doing both. DI gives you 2 skill-trees. One Holy, one un-Holy. Each tree will give you different advantages and upgrades. The Holy tree is generally useful if you want to upgrade your Cross attacks whilst the un-Holy side is useful for making your scythe attacks more powerful.

- But I want them all! Sadly it takes 2 playthroughs to max out both sides of the skill tree. You will definitely want to max out Holy first as it makes achievement hunting easier. ;-) It's just a shame that the player cannot have the best of both worlds and is essentially made to choose.

+ A present? For me?! Throughout your adventure you will come across, and collect, Relics. These items can be equipped and levelled up to give you more of a chance of surviving the denizens of Hell. Abilities such as: more powerful attacks, unable to be interrupted during combos and even absorbing damage are here to make things that little bit more interesting for you. They work well without upsetting the balance of the game too much and are a welcome addition.

+ Abracadabra! It's GOW comparison time again but this time DI comes out on top with it's use of magic. I actually used the spells in this game!! I barely touched the magic in GOW so again Dante does something right. From magical shields to a smart-bomb style spell, there's something for everyone here but it is worth mentioning that there are only half-a-dozen or so spells in the game.

= Do you know War, perchance? What is it with this type of game and puzzles? They're almost insultingly simple and not necessary in this game type.

- Hop, skip and......bugger!!!!! The jump mechanics in this game are bloody awful. It's hard to gauge distancing which means you're gonna die a few times trying to do the most trivial of tasks. Sounds like a small gripe but when you've traipsed through a level only to make the tiniest of errors and re-start from the last save point........well, you can imagine how frustrating it becomes.

- Speaking of which. The save system in this game is horrible (as hinted at above). There is no checkpoint system as such. If you die, then it's back to a save point with you. This wouldn't be so much of a problem but any items you collected before dying will have to be re-collected! Saving is more of a relief than a necessary feature of any game!!

= Wait. That's it? DI is a short game. Plain and simple. It took me 10 hours to do everything this game had to offer although there is DLC coming in the future. That's little comfort for those who paid full-price for this though. I think Dante's Inferno is best summed up as: short but sweet.

Should I buy this?

No. Don't get me wrong, despite all its little faults, Dante's Inferno is a really good game and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it to the end. But when a game is 10 hours long with 2 playthroughs it is advisable to rent first.

Dante's Inferno was developed by Visceral Games and Published by EA Games. Hours played: 10+. Review is based upon the Xbox 360 version

If you're interested in reading another opinion, check out Ashton's review here

Mass Effect Review for Xbox 360

     Mass Effect 2 has been released a couple weeks ago, and keeping with the goals of Aegis Reviews, we're reviewing the first in the series to see if it's worth going through to get to the sequel. Mass Effect is an RPG with third-person shooter action. The developer, Bioware, is famous for their inclusions of choice in gameplay and epic storytelling with a vast and solid foundation for their story's environments, inhabitants and plot. Mass Effect acts almost as an ambassador though, utilizing familiar third-person shooting elements which opens up RPG storytelling to a much broader audience.
     In Mass Effect, you are able to create your own character and make your own choices so it's not really about one specific person, it's more about yourself. The plot has more to do with you and your ragtag group of space explorers solving the problems of the universe, more specifically a problem that has the potential to wipe out the existence of all living organisms.

Gameplay

+ Time to lock and load - In Mass Effect, you are able to utilize guns and/or "biotics" which are essentially force/telekinetic powers. What you're able to use depends on your class though. There's a class for every play style; all guns, all biotics, defensive biotics with ranged weapons and offensive bitotics with short-range power-house guns.

     The battles within the game are extremely short. Not in the way that there's not so much to kill but rather that the game seems to guide the battles down a more realistic path. Enemies don't really put up much resistance to your weapons and you don't either. At the very least, it's like that for the majority of the game especially at the beginning. When you first start playing, you're probably going to expect it to play out like Gears of War or some other third-person shooter where you're used to taking damage, shrugging it off and then moving into a more strategic location. This is not the case of Mass Effect. You need to make sure you know where the enemies are and you know where to go to take the least damage, for you and your teammates. Otherwise, you'll end up running into cover, aiming at someone and then you'll notice that for some reason, you're only one shot away from death. 

     That being said, it may be hard in the beginning to acclimate to the pace and style of firefights in Mass Effect but you'll get used to it and it'll help shape how you handle the rest of the game. Then every battle will be quick and decisive with all of the victories landing in your favor.

+ Hug a skill-tree - On to the RPG side of things. You got your basic skill trees. Every time you go up a level, you will be able to place points into a specific skill for your character. These skills range from hacking, biotic powers, being adept with specific weaponry, etc. As you raise in level, you are also given less points so you need to think about which skills to master and which skills to buffer. You can't have them all. On top of that, you can affect your character's stats with mods for your armor, weapons, etc.

= I can feel the power flowing through me... - Biotics are interesting. While there are even classes built around biotics, they can feel rather boring or useless. In the beginning of the game, as you will be putting your points into many other skills, biotics will come off as rather weak and ineffective compared to just killing the enemy as quickly as possible with your guns. They only become very useful when maxed out and by that time, you'll already be killing foes instantly with your insane weaponry. I forgot I even had biotics. If you choose to use them strategically though, they show a bit more use. You can use biotics to lift enemies from cover, push them away, cover yourself with kinetic shielding, and more. I only found a really good use for two of them and one of those only became useful at the very end of the game which would be the kinetic shield. It's a good thing I maxed it out or I would have been screwed. It's cool that they're there and it brings something different to the table but it just felt like it wasn't implemented very well. Unless you had more than one biotic user in your party. Then it's sheer chaos for all who oppose you! Except for when you're all waiting for a recharge on your biotics... Then you're screwed.

+ Make your choice - Mass Effect 2 is about choice and how your choices change and shape the future. Most of the game you'll be tasked with relatively small decisions such as if you want to bring so-and-so along with you on a certain quest, do you want be a jerk to this person, etc. As you progress though, you'll be tasked with larger and larger decisions; Do you want to let this person live? Do you want to wipe this race off the face of the universe? They gain much more weight and they tend to stray into the gray area. You will care a lot about the choices you make and what the outcome will be when you make that choice. The other side of your choices is that they are to stay with you as you move through the series. Mass Effect is supposed to be a trilogy and every choice you make determines what path you go down in the sequel and the finale. That's a lot of weight and pressure to put on someone. And from what it seems, they do carry a bit of weight. I guess we'll see in the review for the sequel but, wow, are the consequences of your actions heavy.


- Never have money when you need it... - Things are expensive in Mass Effect. And they're things that you REALLY need. When you see the prices at the start of the game, you are floored by how much armor and weapons cost. You have no idea how to get that much cash. Then you start to get large sums of money. And towards the end, you have ginormous amounts of cash. It was so unbalanced. You get shafted for the beginning of the game since you have to rely on your crappy skills and low-end armor and guns, then you automatically go straight to top-class and money becomes useless. It's a barrier that more casual players might have a hard time getting through, turning them off from the game early on.

- SAVE ME! - Most important advice you can get about playing this game: Save as often as you can. Remember that. Why that might be a hard thing to remember is because Mass Effect does have an auto-save feature. This will make you think that it's saving after every major event or so. It's not. It only saves when you go to a new world or other rare occurrences. Good job, you found new minerals and elements, you found 3 lost technologies, you fended off 2 ambushes that would have decimated any lesser being, you saved a planet and... Oh, you died? You say it took you an hour to do?... Oh, you didn't save... Have fun doing it again! 

     The other factor that makes saving often hard to do is the game's reluctance to let you save. It will choose the oddest places and times to not let you save. And it'll do it often. For an RPG where you could have a conversation with an NPC for 20 minutes and go up 2 levels while it advertises the fact that it has an auto-save feature, it better damn well be saving after every quest completed, every quest item collected and conversation completed. Or at least have the decency to let me save WHENEVER I want.

- I wanna hold your hand- Ew, it's sweaty! Nevermind.... - I don't necessarily like being held by the hand in a game meaning that I don't like it when the game makes everything I need to do so blatantly obvious that I don't need to think. In the case of Mass Effect, it just drops you in an entire universe filled with numerous galaxies with even more numerous solar systems filled with even more numerous planets. For them to tell me to go somewhere specific and then not even tell me that I made it to the correct location when I've arrived, you have no idea what the hell is going on when you first start the game. Eventually, you'll get used to navigating around the universe and finding your way around planets and such. It's just that when they finally turn you loose to all of these different destinations without guidance, it can almost halt your progress through the game if you can't persevere.

- You're boring and slow... - Mass Effect is work. I guess you could say that it falls into similar trappings of Assassin's Creed. Battles are exciting but it's hard to approach them differently each time so it begins to feel repetitive, not to mention that right when you start to enjoy the firefight, everyone's already dead and gone. Anytime you're given something to do, it could easily be finished within minute. Unfortunately, it's made longer just because everything is slow. Your walking speed is slow, your vehicle is slow, loading times take forever. The only reason why the game takes so many hours to beat is simply because everything just goes at such a slow pace and when you finally have something fun to do, it's done in the blink of an eye.

+ ...But man, do you know how to finish! - It needs to be said that the ending of Mass Effect is incredible. It's fun, it's fast paced, it's emotionally heavy, and then it sums up with a most awesome score at the credits. If Mass Effect had battles throughout the game like it did at the end, This would be one of those absolutely perfect games. I had so much fun, I felt so powerful, and I felt like everything and everyone was really relying on my success for their survival, it was such a rush! Here's to hoping Mass Effect 2 can capture this moment again. It makes for the most memorable of all gaming experiences.

Story and Presentation

+ While you were out... - Mass Effect takes place in 2165 I think? Pretty far in the future. In that 150+ years, a lot must happen right? Normally, you'd think that you'd never know about how things developed so much and you'd just put it aside. That's not Bioware's style. You've got question's, they have answers. There is so much information, you feel like you know about as much about what's gone on at this point and time as you do our own past and history. It goes into how we came into the current age, our relationships with other sentient beings and how we created those relationships, the history of those other alien races, wars that have gone on in the past, how certain technology was developed. They even go into detail about how weapons work. Not just who makes it and what it's used for but also why you don't need ammo and how the weapon legitimately functions. Even all of the planets you come across in these other galaxies, every planet has a description of what the planet is made of and what it's atmosphere is like down to the last scientific detail. Whenever someone briefly mentions the "First Contact War", you know exactly when it happened, where it occured and who was involved. The attention to detail is amazing.

+ Welcome to reality - The writing is so good in this game, almost every single person you come across, major or minor pertaining to plot relevance, feels like a legitimate person with their own background. They feel real when you talk to them. They're not some boring NPC that you only care about at the moment and forget later on. You care about them all the time. You care about the decisions you make and how others will view it. It adds to the weight of your decisions and the consequences of those decisions may wear down on you, make you feel like you made a legitimate sacrifice for the greater good or that you're a terrible person deserving of punishment. I know I felt it. 

     In the end, you don't play Mass Effect for the gameplay. If that's fun, it's just a plus. You play Mass Effect for it's story, background, characters and immersion. It's the real reason why you suffer out the slow pacing and load times. You want to continue your impact on this universe and you want to know more about these characters you interact with.

+ In the future... - Think of Star Trek, Star Wars, insert your favorite sci-fi series here and think for a second. What do you love about it? Have you ever wanted to be there? Have you ever wanted to go through a door that goes "whoosh?" How about walking around the ship and interacting with the crew? The graphics, the sound, the dialogue, the history, everything comes together in such a way that it brings your imagination to life. You are in the future. You are the captain of your own space crew and you have a personal relationship with each and every crew member. There's some wondrous design at work here and it's absolutely stunning.

Graphics

= It's all so beau-...Loading...-tiful! - The in game graphics are pretty and detailed. One of the best looking games I've played in a while. It's clear though that the engine's got some problems. You see a lot of textures popping in, there's lots of frame-rate slowdown. And then there's the fact that Bioware reuses a ton of their designs. They'll use the same rooms and buildings for everything. Same with planet layouts, they just color it differently and call it another name when it's exactly the same planet as another. There's also a lot of emptiness in the game so there's not much to look at. I'm hoping a good number of these things are fixed in the sequel.

Sound

+ Pew pew! Pew! - If you have a good setup for sound, you're in for a treat. Everything sounds just like it does in a sci-fi movie or series and it has the appropriate weight to it's sound; The weight of a door opening up, the blast of a gun, the explosion of a grenade. Nothing sounds like it's fake. Everything sounds tangible and real. It's attention to this level of detail that only makes immersion a more natural step. I suggest that if you're working off of normal TV speakers, go get a nice pair of headphones. It's just that worth it.

+  To be or not to be? - The acting in this game is nothing short of brilliant. Every character is teeming with life and history. The dialogue is so natural and feels consistent with any given character's behavior. Once again, it's just one less step to immersion when you want to talk to videogame character for 10 minutes and you are eating up every word they say. Attention to detail people, attention to detail. The only thing that was bad about the voice-acting was your character's voice. It was just so dead and without emotion at time. It rarely felt natural. Though, being that this character was made to fit for everyone who ever plays Mass Effect, and the fact that the main focus of the game is self expression and making personal choices, I can see why the voice is what it is. It's easy to overlook and accept so it rarely ever break your immersion with the game.

Should you buy it?

     Rent it. While there's plenty here to make for a special game worth purchase, you really need to be interested in the story and background of things. It's how you get the most out of the experience and it's a LOT of reading to do. In other words, to invest yourself in what this game has to offer, it's a lot of work, work that rewards greatly mind you. If you were wanting a game for it's gameplay, I just don't think this is what you'd be looking for. It's another one of those games that relies on the experience it offers and the story it has to tell. Given how much you need to invest and how monotonous some aspect can be, this game is definitely not for everyone. When you rent it, it gives you a chance to see what you're getting yourself into. Choose whether to buy it or not from there. Otherwise, it does have a new game plus mode where you can continue to raise your character to the level cap, you can replay the game and choose different dialogue choices or make different decisions to see all of the outcomes of your actions, and then there's a couple of DLC packs available for it. To anyone who takes gives the effort to complete this game and invests the time to dive into it's grand history, I hope you really enjoy the experience. I know I did.

Mass Effect was developed by BioWare Corp. and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Played through Normal as a Paragon Vanguard clocking in at about 30+ hours after doing every sidequest available. Review based on Xbox360 version.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle Review for Wii

     I've been procrastinating when it comes to putting out a review on No More Heroes 2 because I'm really just not sure what to say about it. After finishing the first one, though it was a sad feeling to imagine that it would be a LONG time before playing such an imaginative game again, I never really felt that it needed a sequel. Now we have one and I'm at a loss. It feels like the first No More Heroes if you took away it's soul. It's likely because Suda 51 (who wrote, directed, and designed the first one) was only the executive director in this game. He still has a lot of pull over the game but he's not as directly involved with it as he was with the first. I don't know.
     Travis Touchdown has been pulled back into his assassin ways after a tragic event has occurred in his life and Sylvia's back with a promise of more "meal courses" if he makes his way up the new ladder of assassin's. Yeah, not really much story to go over, heheh. Let's go over some points.

Gameplay

= Do It Again - The mechanics in No More Heroes 2 are just as they were in the first game with some slight changes. You still just mash A and B to win but the beam combos (when you hold the remote up for high attacks and down for low attacks) are smaller and felt pointless. Instead of streaming high and lows together seamlessly like you used to, now you have to time when you go from high to low and vice versa so that the combos deal the most damage. Yes, it takes more skill which can be fun, but instead it doesn't deliver as well as in the first game. In the first, you could use B to dole out a short melee attack to break defense, hold B to charge a dizzying attack, or mix a melee into your combo to make a dizzying finisher. Now you can't do any of those. You now have a low and a high punch combo that needs to be initiated on it's own meaning you can't interrupt your current combo to melee. You need to stop attacking and wait until Travis is done before you can melee. There wasn't much point to it since there's no true reward for using it to go through a block. Overall, the combat feels more technical but it doesn't feel like there's any reason for it.

+ Superpowers GO! - The jackpot powers are back but they just don't work like they used to. When you're attacking opponents, there's a tiger in the corner that gets more and more worked up as you pull off consecutive hits. It also gets lazier the more you get hit. Eventually after pulling off so many attacks, the tiger turns red and starts huffing and puffing. The slots will also start rolling after every kill with the chance of giving you some instant-kill techniques. You have two choices at this point; You can use the tiger energy at will to attack faster and harder for a set amount of time or you can wait until the slots bless you with dark-side powers. For me, they felt less powerful than they used to be but there's also some more useful and cool ones that you have the chance of winning so I guess it's a little bit of a trade-off.

= I'm The Boss of You - This is a game where the one thing you REALLY look forward to is the next boss. After the quality of the first game, I really expected some very interesting personalities. All I got was what came off as a bunch of fodder. First, almost every last one of them was barely given any depth into their character. Every battle felt like, "Here he/she is, kill'em". Then when you were fighting them, they seemed to only use 1-2 attacks that didn't really do much to you. However, there were times they would knock you down and keep you there through a string of cheap hits. Every last assassin was memorable in the first No More Heroes but now they just fade into the background. If it wasn't for their awesome designs, they'd be totally forgettable.

= Hey, I know you! You're... - There are two extra playable characters in this game but you only get to use one of them in 2 levels and the other in one very short and boring level. I wouldn't make it a complaint that I couldn't use these characters in the rest of the game. I would complain that they weren't implemented in a spectacular fashion and I would've preferred that I only use Travis. It was fun using them while the feeling lasted though. It was just interesting in general to see these two characters as something more than just background noise.

= I'll Be There In One Sec... - No more overworld hub for No More Heroes 2. Now you get an overhead map and you just choose where you want to go. I don't like it as much because I liked collecting things around Santa Destroy and riding his bike made me feel cool. I also kinda felt that if they were going to streamline travel so much, they should have just opened the areas into another menu instead of loading the whole area, finding out there was nothing for you at that destination and then having to load back out to the map. If it was more seamless, it could've been better.

= The More Weapons, The Merrier -  There are new beam-katanas to use. You can switch between them on the fly and they all have their own high and low combos. I ended up using only two of them though. It was just another case of great design and okay implementation.

+ Get a Job! - All of the jobs are now in 8-bit form with 8-bit sounds and 8-bit tunes. All of them feel like they're their own game within themselves as well. It was awesome to see so much effort go into these little games. I believe there are 8 of them and they range from the mundane, such as pizza delivery and coconut collecting, to the odd, like collecting trash in space. Unfortunately, there's not too much that you need money for so it causes these games to be almost obsolete.

- What To Do With My Time and Money... - There's almost no point in doing anything besides the main assassinations. You can perform a job, work-out to raise your strength and stamina, buy clothes, buy new beam-katanas, and complete revenge missions. It's just that you won't want or care to.
     I found the workout games to be slightly annoying. You play through the mini-games to raise your stats. They were fun the first couple times but it just sucked that if I didn't win the work-out mini-game, I'd have to pay more money just to give it another go.
     With most of the activities in this game, you're either rewarded with cash or nothing. And cash doesn't do much for you unless you like buying the clothes or still need to purchase the two available beam katanas. You no longer need cash to get to the next assassination and there's nothing else to spend the money on. What gives?


Story and Presentation

+ Where has the time gone? - No More Heroes 2 takes place in Santa Destroy but in the future. Apparently Santa Destroy is booming with corporations and new residents and it's portrayed well-enough. It was interesting, looking at how all of the old places you used to swing by in the first game had changed into new apartment complexes and company buildings. 

= What is this? I don't even... -  The story is standard fare for a No More Heroes game I guess. You really have no idea what's going on the majority of the time. It doesn't really take itself seriously either, often breaking the fourth wall referencing gamers and noobies that don't care about what happened in the first game. Unfortunately, it seems like there's less within this sequel. In the first, there was a hidden agenda within its plot. I can draw certain messages from this game however. It seems like they treat this game like a do-over. 

     Instead of making a sequel to please die-hard fans of the first, it seems like they want to dumb it down a bit for new comers, changing things that turned off the less hardcore. Certain bosses reflect ones from the first game, coming off as easier versions of their counterparts. In fact, Travis goes so far as to exclaim that one of the bosses at the end "was a true warrior" due to the battle being vigorous, challenging and fun, perhaps speaking from the hardcore gamer's perspective that challenge is good, that when you choose the easier path there's less for you to gain.

     They made the jobs less mundane to perform, went to a more conventional control scheme, took out the overworld, added "relevant" side missions instead of random assassination challenges, they even gave a purpose to playing with your cat which didn't have a point in the first game. 

     It seems like mainstream gamers look at No More Heroes and ask, "why?"; Why play with your cat when it doesn't do anything? Why buy clothes? Why kill these random people when it has nothing to do with the story? Why would anyone want to play a game this hard? I could go on and on about things that a lot of gamers thought was pointless and stupid in No More Heroes. The point is, besides the fact that the first was trying to make a statement, was that it was still fun. It didn't take itself seriously, and every aspect of that game showed it. It also showed that it was smarter than what there was to take at face value. It was simple touches like letting you interact with your cat that make you feel like you matter in that game. You gain an identity in that world.

     No More Heroes 2 looks at all those why's and and answers them with change. You didn't like riding around in an empty overworld, here's a hub. You wanted a point to interacting with Jeane, here it is. You wanted easier bosses, there you go. You don't like grinding and honing your skill to get better, well now you don't need to. All throughout the game, it feels like it forgot its core individuals that loved it so much until it recognizes them towards the end, challenges them with a REAL boss battle, and then proceeds to make a statement that THAT was what is special to the hardcore gamer; The eternal challenge, wanting to get better, wanting to be better than anyone else, wanting to share your experience and strength with others like you. That's what the first No More Heroes was about. That's what the hardcore play games for. 

     I guess you could sum up No More Heroes 2 as a statement about what games would be if everyone always made their game to pander to every complaint. The result is just something shallow and often dull, at least to those who like it when their games are challenging and don't necessarily come down to your level just so you can understand everything. 

Graphics

+ Don't you look sharp! - Everything looks to be overhauled in No More Heroes 2. The character models are more detailed, there's visually more life in every cutscene, and everything now has jiggle physics: Travis' hair, his clothes, pants, body fat, certain *ahem* body parts. An example would be to think about what things would look like if development studio Team Ninja applied their "special" physics to everything in a game. It doesn't look awkward though, in fact it actually looks quite good. It's just kinda funny when you notice it. The one thing I would complain about though is that some of the textures and pictures are blurred or of a very low resolution compared to how they used to pop in the first game. It tends to make the clothing a bit more boring than it used to be.

Sound

+ I LOVE THIS SONG!... WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! - That would be me if I wasn't living alone. The majority of the music in this game was just so damn good! I eventually just ended up turning all of the sound effects down so I could hear the music louder. I would kill for the soundtrack.

+ Bam! Pow! - All of the sound effects are consistent and clear. In the first game, you tended to have a lot of sound effects not come through. There isn't this problem here. Other than that, it's just standard fare. You wouldn't buy new speakers for these sounds. You would for the music though *wink*.

- Who said you could touch my radio? - Could have just been me, but on some of the levels the wonderful, beautiful, delicious rock music just cut out for no reason and it'd stay off for the rest of the level. POR QUE!?!?!

Should you buy this game?

     It depends. I'd split it down the middle for these two groups. If you've never played No More Heroes or didn't like it the first time around then yes, go and buy it now. You'll walk away with a game that's fresh and fun. I can't see you being disappointed with it. If you're like me who thoroughly loved the heck outta the first, rent this one. From what I've been seeing, there are those who like it and there are those that think it was just terrible. My advice would be to play it without expecting it to be like the first game. Adding on to that, there's also a hard mode and a boss rush mode to work through to extend your playtime. Overall, I completely agree that it's worth the full retail price should anyone choose to buy it.

     As a side note, I would like to apologize if this review was hard to read. No More Heroes was and still is a VERY important game to me personally. After playing the second one, I was so confused. I didn't know what to make of it. It made this review extremely hard to write. Writing this though was almost a therapy for me. I finally worked out the way that I perceived this game and I feel much better for it. I apologize for my digressions within this review and I vow to make a better review the next time.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Ubisoft. Played through "Mild" in under 10 hours using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk control setup.

Bioshock review for Xbox 360.

In 2007, the gaming world was whipped into a frenzy due to a game called Bioshock. I was lucky enough to completely miss all the hype on this game so I went in with no expectations. In hindsight, this was a good thing! Had I bought into the hype I would be even more dis-appointed than I am now. My gaming time has been fairly limited until recently which is why I'm reviewing this game now.

GRAPHICS AND PRESENTATION

+ Where's the Little Mermaid? The games graphics were pretty well done. The city of Rapture really exudes a mysterious aura that is hard to ignore. Why would someone build a city under the sea? What happenned to the people? These questions force the player to use their imagination and it works really well. Rooms and environments are a nice blend of sci-fi and 1930's art-deco. It sounds strange but it certainly looks the piece. Being a survival-horror game, the graphics are dark and oppressive with the occassional splash of brightness which is a nice psychological trick. Weaponry looks suitably old and rustic whilst the windows to the outside world give an even starker reminder that you're trapped here. I like!

+ Tell me a story! Given the originality of Bioshock's setting, it would be easy to give the game a generic narrative. 'Irrational Games' did not rest on their laurels though and put quite a lot of thought into telling the story of Rapture and its denizens, who have been turned into twisted images of their former selves. I don't want to give too much of the story away but you play as a survivor from a plane wreck who ends up on an island. As you descend into the City of Rapture, you are kept company by the voice of an Irishman who guides you through the twisted remains.

- Let me guess.....twins? What bemused me is that everyone seems to look the same in this game. There is very little variation in character model and design. Splicers, Big Daddies, Little Sisters all look the same......yawn! With such a vast expanse of gaming world, am I seriously expected to believe they couldn't fit in a few more character designs?

- This looks familiar! Bioshocks rooms and environments might look okay but when you're travelling through the same generic-looking corridors it definitely breaks the immersion of the game overall. It reminds you that you are definitely an outsider looking in. They try to hide it via pipes, boxes etc but if you take time to look around you'll see that there's very little effort that has gone into connecting the rooms together.

SOUND AND MUSIC

+ I hope this isn't Chris' blood!! This is, by far, Bioshocks strongest point! The music is the sort of thing they listened to on the wireless (pre-WW2). It is fantastic because it's in direct contrast to the environment around you. It really puts you, the player, off balance in a world that's gone mad. Voice acting is also of an extremely high standard and showcases some of the best in gaming! Pacing and tone are never exaggerated by any character and the strong scripting drags you ever forward.


- Yes, yes! You told me before! This is one of my biggest annoyances within gaming. Sadly, Bioshock is just as guilty. What am I on about? Repeated/looped voice samples. The enemies say the same damned things over and over and over......etc. Defend this how you will but to me this is just lazy in any game. This is a crack in the armour of Bioshocks audio armour.

GAMEPLAY

= I'll be a Jedi one day! You are able to purchase powers within Bioshock but to be honest you'll only use a couple of them. Anyone who's played a game that has purchaseable or levelling powers is gonna be dis-appointed here.

- Feel, don't think! Despite the fantastic audio and story, Bioshock feels quite empty and somewhat flat as a complete package. The guns you collect throughout your adventure do not feel like they should. Even Timesplitters 2 (Playstation 2) incorporated a decent physics engine for their weaponry so why can't 'Irrational Games' do that here? Every enemy reacts the same to gun-shots ie: they don't react at all until they fall down dead. Again, this breaks the immersion that the story has done so well to build up.


- Just keep running! As far as I'm aware, A.I stands for Artificial Intelligence. Here's the tactics that are employed against you: Run up and hit you or run/shoot then hit you up close..........you bored yet? I certainly was. The game doesn't punish you for dying but it doesn't really reward you for living either. A pat on the back or a kick up the a**e would be appreciated. Splicers throw themselves at you like an Englishman at a free bar whilst Big Daddies knock you into next week before you even know what's happenned. I unloaded god-knows-how-much-ammo at one of these things only to run out, die, get rejuvanted in a Vito-Chamber (a checkpoint by any other name), find the Daddy again and repeat this pattern until he/it died. Okay, bored of this now!!

- Get 'em off me! GET THEM OFF ME!! Yes ladies and gents, we come to Bioshocks greatest cock-up! BUGS!!! I was struggling to enjoy this game but was willing to see it through simply for the story. That is, until, I encountered a game-breaking glitch. **SPOILER ALERT** I was at a point in the game where you had to kill certain people, then photograph their bodies and hang them on a wall. I was on the 3rd (out of 4) mission of this particular task when disaster struck! I killed said person but was annihilated by a Big Daddy who snuck up behind me. "No problem" I thought. "I'll just go back to the room and photograph his body..............WHERE'S THE DAMNED BODY GONE?!!" That's right, the game decided I'd already photographed him and the body had vanished. I went to load my autosave only to find that the glitch had saved itself into that file too!! 3 hours gameplay down the pan!

Should I buy it?

If you're a fan of survival horror games then this review probably won't change your mind. Given the fact that you can find this game fairly cheap now it may be worth purchasing. I would honestly recommend renting it first though. Too much repetition gets boring and the bugs can screw things up if you're unfortunate enough to run into one like me.

Bioshock was developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games. Hours played = 12+. Review is based upon the Xbox 360 version

Tekken 6 Review for Xbox 360.

Many thanks to Ashton for allowing me to contribute this review. I hope you enjoy. :-)

Back in 1994 a little 3D fighting game called 'Tekken' was released in arcades worldwide. To cut a long story short, it was a massive success and was ported to the Playstation 1 in 1995. Although Virtua Fighter was officially the first 3D fighter, Tekken was the game that made everyone sit up and take notice. This was due to Namco's decision to include outlandish character design and a flashy move-list for all the characters. Throughout the years, Namco has sought to constantly improve their series. But how far, exactly, can you take a series that's now 16 years old? This review aims to answer that question.

Tekken 6's story (such as it is) revolves around the Mishima Corporation and their desire to take control of the Devil power which runs in the family blood. To be honest, the story is fairly convoluted and inconsistent but each character has their own reason for entering the tournament. Tekken 6 finds us thrust forward a few years since Tekken 5, Jin Kazama (usually depicted as the troubled hero) has now turned his face from humanity and seems determined to destroy......well, pretty much everything. Like I said, it's pretty sub-standard stuff. Onto the review!

Graphics and Presentation

- What hit me? Although Tekken 6 is the first of the series to grace the next-gen consoles, it's certainly taken its time getting here. Since then gamers have had the opportunity to play Street Fighter 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Blazblue etc. Basically, the graphics engine in this game is two years old now and it does show when you're playing. Occasional clipping, some strange character design and animation problems do nothing to soothe the problem that you're obviously playing a game that Japan has played, got bored of and moved onto the next big thing.

= Ooooooh! Look! A sheep! The backgrounds in Tekken 6 are kinda insubstantial. Again, I would like to remind readers that fighting games such as the Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive series both have interactive backgrounds that really look the part. Tekken doesn't seem to care too much about this. Yes, you can pin someone against the wall and rob them of their health bar before they even realise which character they've picked but the inclusion of this poor scenery does nothing to highten the mood of fights.

+ MMMMMMMM......shiny!! Okay, so the graphics are rough around the edges and some of the character design is suspect. That doesn't stop Tekken 6 from being a very nice looking game. Characters are instantly recognisable and character models are faithfully represented. Animation is awkward for some characters but, again, it's nice and fluid for rest of the cast. Kicks, punches and throws certainly look the part and have a nice flashy hit confirmation.

SOUND

+ THWOMP! CRUNCH! This is definitely one of Tekken's strongest areas. The soundtrack is pretty much what you'd expect from any fighting game and nothing changes here. A strong mish-mash of techno and rock is on the menu here and it works very well. Voice acting in the cut-scenes is decidedly cheesy but that's forgiveable in this series. ;-) What really impresses me is how "meaty" all the attacks sound. Hit someone, and connect, and it just sounds.....right. Punches, kicks and throws all have varying sounds and are very satisfying.


= SPEAK UP! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!! This might be me nit-picking here but I did feel, at times, like there was too much noise during fights. The music and the fight sounds seem to battle against each other as much as the characters do. This is easily sorted via the audio menu in-game, but still feels a bit intrusive to begin with.


GAMEPLAY (now we're talking)!!

+ WELCOME TO THE 'KING OF IRON FIST TOURNAMENT!' The sheer choice of characters in this game can actually be quite daunting when you first start the game of if you're new to the Tekken series. There are 40+ fighters to choose from and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. From Hwoarang's Tae-Kwon do, King's wrestling to Nina's Aikido. You will find someone you gravitate towards in the end. Just don't be afraid to try new people. Overall, there are enough characters for everyone including a few new faces to freshen things up for series' fans.

+ SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME! You definitely get a lot for your money in this game. Survival mode, Time Attack, Online Play, Practice, Arcade, Scenario Mode and Ghost Mode. It is the inclusion of Ghost Mode that excites me most. You can download the data of the world's top players and play against the virtual "them". This is such a clever feature and, although it's still a form of A.I, Namco have really tried something new and it does work really well. Imagine if other companies allow this in their fighting series. We could end up practicing against a virtual Daigo Umehara in SF4 or Chibita from the VF series. :-)

= SO IF I JUST PRESS THIS BUTTON......! The difficulty curve in Tekken 6 is a strange beast indeed. You'll steam through the first few fights quite easily on the default settings especially as the arcade mode only consists of 4 fights then the boss. Fights are a standard 2-3 round affair so nothing new there. It's only when you get to the bosses that the game decides to throw a curve-ball at you.
 
- ROUND 1, FIGHT.......YOU LOSE!! Namco! You've got some explaining to do!! There are 2 main bosses in this game. Azazel and Nancy.......no seriously......it's called Nancy......please don't ask! These bosses are beyond cheap and I was tempted to throw my joypad/fight-stick several times whilst fighting them. Allow me to explain further. Azazel is about 4 times bigger than the biggest character. He has an invisible shield around him which nullifies your attacks but it's never clear as to which attacks or when he'll nullify them. On top of that, he/she/it does hideous damage, can juggle you for about 3/4 of your health in one combo and has huge priority when he/she/it performs a move. Nancy is no better. Between doing ENORMOUS amounts of damage, an instant kill move (she cuts the floor away from under you) and, again, stupid priority, these bosses are not fun in the slightest!

- KICK, PUNCH! IT'S ALL IN THE MIND! Despite a huge cast of characters and martial-art styles, the movelist for each character feels quite limited. There are about 100 moves for each character which does sound a lot but you quickly find yourself using the same moves over and over simply because they will be 'safe on block' or give you 'frame advantage'. Tis a shame when, yet again, we compare to other fighters out there that avoid this repetition. Due to the lack of moves, Namco has deemed it fit to include a juggle system that would shame most circus performers. What do I mean by juggle system? Well, when you knock an opponent into the air you can keep him/her from hitting the ground by attacking them (hence the term, juggling). However, what is not acceptable is once you hit the ground, your opponent can hit you back into the air (even if your character is lying flat on the ground) to re-start another juggle!! This can end the fight so quickly it beggars belief

- THIS IS FUN?! Okay, so Tekken has some dodgy A.I etc. It's biggest crime (without a doubt) is its Scenario Mode. This, sadly, is where you'll unlock most characters and achievements. This would be fine if it were fun to play............it's not! It plays like a 3D Streets of Rage......only, not good. It's repetitive, un-inspiring and to be quite honest, it's bloody lazy! It didn't work in Tekken 3 so why put it back into a later next-gen version? Shame on you Namco!!

Should you buy it?

Honestly? No. Rent it and enjoy it that way. My favourite genre of game is the humble Beat-em up so it kinda pains me to say this. The game, despite its many faults, is still enjoyable but there is no escaping the fact that this should've been released a long time ago to compete with SF4 etc.

Tekken 6 was developed and published by Namco Bandai. Hours played = 20+. Review is based upon the Xbox 360 version