Madden NFL 12 review: Vacuum-sealed

Reviewing, let alone investing in an annual sports game series is difficult. In my experience, Madden fans are typically the reluctant type; they hope for vast improvements every year and expect a new game that will blow them away. Madden NFL 12 is not that game. It's not the kind of game that answers every problem players have with football games. But this year, EA Sports tackled some core issues that elevates this game as one of the best in the series.

One of the first things players will notice is a general improvement in all things related to presentation. Madden 12 mimics real NFL broadcasts this year with better-positioned camera angles and perfectly placed broadcast graphics that show game and season stats. The concept of "just like you're watching it on TV" shines through in the smallest of details, from the stickers and scuffs on helmets to the grass stains players earn on their jerseys. Laying out Jay Cutler and constantly seeing a reminder in the dirt on his shoulder was a badge of honor for me (and for my middle linebacker, while we're at it).

The main complaint I have with Madden 12's presentation, aside from the cardboard crowds, is the commentary, which is at near-disaster levels. Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth return this year, with recycled lines from Madden 11 in hand, calling each game fairly inaccurately, blandly, and with as much vagueness as possible. Besides hearing the same lines about safeties being on islands all the time, I'd heard one touchdown pass considered a "big gain" that kept the drive going. If you plan on playing Madden 12, plan on having something else to listen to.

Gameflow received a small upgrade, with a box that offers an option for players to scroll through plays based on aggressive, conservative, and gameplan-based play calling. What once was a single button option is actually worse in some ways, as gameflow doesn't provide you with any play art or even the formation for the plays you select. A cover 3 in a 3-4 set isn't the same as a cover 3 in a nickel 2-4-5 formation, which makes gameflow a sort of blind-leading-the-blind option for play calling. This is the worst for the amateur players that the system is meant for, as the opportunity is lost for players to learn how formations and plays work, and why they work in certain circumstances.

Blending together the game's mostly-improved presentation and gameplay are added animations. EA Sports boasts over a hundred new player animations in Madden 12, enough added variety to give you the necessary sense of uniqueness in each catch and hit. Player fluidity is impressive this year, to a degree that embarrasses previous versions. This year, you actually control players up until the moment they collide with another player. This means one of my biggest issues with Madden 11 can be left in last year's game: no more suction.

Past games had players warp and slide into place for blocks, tackles, catches, and nearly any player animation within the game. Unfortunately, this meant being near an incoming defender was just as good as being wrapped up by them. Instead, I've seen no instances in Madden 12 of players warping awkwardly into an animation, whether it's my fullback opening a running lane for me, or a receiver making an amazing catch. This player fluidity doesn't just make the game look better, but it makes the game play much better than Madden 11.

While some will be disappointed to see no changes to the online franchise mode, the offline franchise mode received the most work this year. Franchise mode's more noteworthy additions add excitement to the offseason general manager process, such as a new rookie scouting system and free agent bidding. Scouting a handful of players out of the upcoming draft class unlocks a few stats at a time, leading up to a more tense, exciting drafting period. Players have the option to allow the game to simulate any part of franchise mode but, as I've learned, some decisions are best left to the player. In my case, skipping the contract signing process for all the rookies I'd drafted my first time through led the game to actually not sign all but one of them to my team. It was a nightmare finding my future star quarterback's glowing ratings fully unlocked on another team's roster, with no plausible trade to bring them to my team.

I didn't necessarily need that quarterback, though. My offline franchise, where I was controlling the Cincinnati Bengals, saw Andy Dalton on a hot streak for the first few games of the season. This is possible through dynamic player performance and player traits, which accounts for each player's individual tendencies, skills, and fluctuating confidence and consistency. Now having Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady on your team (and especially on the opponent's team) doesn't feel essentially the same thanks to their ratings, as both play in a unique manner.

Likewise, the "be an NFL superstar" mode has been turned into a micro RPG. Superstar mode in Madden 12 is exactly as it should be: creating a player and participating in games and practices nets you skill points, which you use to boost your player's individual ratings. I started out by upgrading my strong safety, who was drafted by the Oakland Raiders, at his speed and acceleration ratings before working on his coverage ratings, as superstar mode limits you to controlling only your created player. Games go fast in superstar mode, and a few hours of diligence takes you through an entire season. Sadly, the disbursement of skill points is terribly imbalanced, and my strong safety went from his starting 66 overall rating to a 99 overall before the start of the second season. After that, there was far less incentive to continue his career, so I chose to force an early retirement for him.

Better yet is the addition of online communities. Past Madden games had players matching up online with others in a mostly random environment, without any certainty that the player they were about to clash with would play with class and sportsmanship. Online communities in Madden 12 allow you to join both private and public groups, each with an impressive amount of options that makes playing a game within the community a unique experience. Joining up with other Packers fans, or with my 4th String Madden league friends, or creating my own "2 Minute Drill" community, offers something fresh and reliable in the online front. Each community contains leaderboards for both head to head and team play games, which is wonderful for the 98 percent of Madden players that have no hopes of reaching the upper tier of the global online leaderboard.

Madden 12 is a good game despite itself. Amidst its major shortcomings is the price tag on much of the add-on content. In an era where NBA 2K11 provides an excellent example of how to offer players a new, arguably appropriate way to play with legendary players, Madden 12 charges players (albeit optionally) for the opportunity to play with football legends in Madden ultimate team. With all the fun to be had in superstar mode or Madden moments live, I'm disappointed that I can't create and share my own Madden moments with others online. As good as the game is, it is victimized by its own business model.

Madden 12 does not respond to every fans' frustrations. Every year, the series brings a balance of improvement and ongoing flaws. Considering this year's game as a whole, improvements like the new presentation style and lack of player suction heavily outweigh the more minuscule issues that remain. It's a good kind of frustration for players, the kind where this year's game is definitely better than last year's, which may actually be enough incentive to give it a shot.

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Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2 review

There's only one staunch barrier to entry with this game, and it's right on the front of the box. "Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2," with its awkward colon placement, speaks to fans of the serialized manga and its long-running anime adaptation so fluently, it sounds like gibberish to anyone else. Oh, and there's a "2" in the title, so now I can't follow because I don't know what happened in Gibberish 1.

If you manage to get past the cover (featuring Naruto and his friend-turned-rival Sasuke, by the way), you'll find an energetic and accessible adventure that respectfully harnesses its source material, without locking out newcomers. Fans tuned in to keywords like chakra, Rasengan and Orochimaru will be more invested in the story, and everyone else will find some way to survive a fighting game without being ensconced in the narrative. Just pretend it's called Ninja Tornado Fight.

Ninja Tornado Fight's appeal lies in its simplicity, though it could be seen as shallowness in comparison to more technical fighters. For instance, there's only one melee attack button, and pushing it repeatedly will deliver an impressive string of punches, kicks and fireballs with minimal mental expenditure. There's an interesting wrinkle in blocking, with a well-timed pull of the trigger allowing you to teleport out of your opponent's combo and follow up from behind, but the real challenge lies in interrupting the other player's rhythm.

In order to perform devastating special attacks, you need to charge up your chakra (magic) bar first -- but you need to stand still for that. There's a liberating freedom of movement in Ninja Tornado Fight's large arenas, and dodging projectiles and keeping your distance from your nemesis is vital while you build up chakra. Battles boil down to exciting surgical strikes, interrupting your opponent's charging while generating distance enough for you to build up your own meter. You can call up to two partner characters into battle, where they'll occupy your enemy or briefly defend you, or you can expend smaller amounts of chakra to enhance your projectiles or provide a burst of speed. It's not the deepest set of rules, but there's a good breadth of strategies (and, admittedly, some obvious points of imbalance) across the 40+ playable characters.

The frenzied battles revel in a disregard for realism, brought to life with some of the best cel-shaded art I've seen in a game. A lack of anti-aliasing hurts the character models, but the spirited animation and gorgeous, over-the-top anime effects make rewards out of even the weakest attacks. I'd be inclined to say the vibrant color and attention to detail makes Ninja Tornado Fight feel like an interactive cartoon, but I can't think of many cartoons that look quite this good. Naruto certainly doesn't.

The "interactive cartoon" label is especially apropos for many of the game's boss fights, most of which devolve into visually spectacular ... quick-time events. These are slavishly devoted to recreating critical encounters from the anime (Sakura's battle against Sasori's puppets is a real standout), but your perfunctory participation doesn't elevate them beyond the notoriously drawn-out show.

The single-player "Ultimate Adventure" mode does an acceptable job of compressing and retelling Naruto's Shippuden arc thus far, but fails to fill in the blanks between fights. I say "blanks," because as nice as the 2D, pre-rendered artwork is, there's nothing to do in Naruto's world. Aside from collecting ingredients and buying in-battle items, you're running a straightforward gauntlet of dialog boxes and go-there-and-fight-whatshisface directives. Unlike Ubisoft Montreal's pair of Naruto games, there's no platforming and no real exploration -- just laborious running between trigger points. If the developers at Cyberconnect 2 had more confidence in their fighting system, they might not have put it inside a bad JRPG from the '90s.

You're not likely to go back to the campaign once you've unlocked all the characters (a fairly quick process if you avoid the tedious sidequests), and the introduction of online play is most welcome, even if it's rudimentary and in desperate need of a proper lobby. The game is at its best with a friend, perhaps someone turned off by the long-term learning required by more complex fighting games. Its longevity isn't assured, but the immediacy and fluidity of Ninja Tornado Fight makes for an entertaining diversion in-between this season's more time-consuming endeavors.

And hey, if you spend enough time with it, maybe you'll even learn what a Shippuden is. (Answers on a postcard, please.)

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Rugby World Cup 2011 Review

Every now and then, Rugby fans crawl onto the rooftops and howl into the darkness, lamenting the lack of video games to suit their sporting preference. Darts fans have PDC World Championship Darts, football (soccer) fans have the annual choice of FIFA runescape gold or the Pro Evolution series, but Rugby fans are left scuffing their boots and playing the releases of yesteryear. Rugby '08 for the PlayStation 2 marked the sport's last major outing, and while RWC '11 is the sport's debut on current-generation consoles, it's a poor game whose hopeful swan dive towards the goal line lands well short--face first in the grass.

This is the gaming equivalent of Swiss cheese. While bearing the official Rugby World Cup 2011 logo on the box and emblazoned across menus, in tandem with the iconic "World in Union" tune, in reality only around half of the international teams taking part in the quadrennial tournament are officially represented in the game. Australia and New Zealand, the world's top two sides, the latter of which is also this year's host nation, are present--but not in any authorised capacity. There are no Tri-Nations, Six Nations, or Sevens World Series tournaments to be found, and where developer HB Studios' Rugby '08 allowed you to relive more than two dozen classic World Cup scenarios, in its place is now a forgettable goal-kicking mode.

Regardless of which of the handful of game modes you decide to take on, you'll fall victim to the inconsistent artificial intelligence. At the easiest settings, you can run straight through gaping holes left in the opposition's defensive line, run parallel to the other team without them taking the initiative to tackle, and watch as they forget what they were doing and give up chases early. The AI scales in difficulty as the tournament progresses, and teams do summon some enthusiasm rs gold on the way to the grand final, but expect a mostly unimpeded run for the silverware. At the easy and medium difficulty settings, rivals don't put up much of a fight, but cranking it up to hard provides significantly more challenge. At this highest setting, opposition players rush and lunge at you from a distance like over-caffeinated super cats as you attempt to clear from the ruck, and smother you before you can offload the ball after winning a line-out. Even when grossly outnumbered, the AI never attempts to hold you up in goal as you crash over the line. Fullbacks can be danced around with a late change in direction, and, once you've broken through, the opposition team follows you around like a pack of stray dogs chasing cars made out of steak.

Controls are overly complex and poorly handled, with shoulder buttons responsible for left and right passes, and differing functions depending on whether you're attacking or defending. Regardless of whether you're running the ball or protecting your turf, once a player has been tackled, you need to quickly tap either the A or the X button to fill a power meter, with the fastest fingers to do so gaining possession. The offensive team runescape money receives an advantage retaining the ball, but the mashing mini-game can take a moment to begin, and is mapped to the same face buttons used for offloading passes, kicking, and intensifying tackles in defence. The result is spilt possession, accidental kicks at inopportune moments, and the risk of drawing penalties for overzealous rough play.

With the exception of loading screen reminders and a multi-page button diagram in the options menu, controls are poorly explained, and there's no tutorial here to get new players up to speed with what to press and when. If you're considering picking up Rugby World Cup 2011, you probably have at least a passing interest in the sport. Non-sport followers will have a tougher time, since there's no explanation of some of the more esoteric rules, and video replays of penalties are seldom available. When to hook in scrums is never demystified, field goals become an exercise in trial and error, and line-outs are a guessing game as you roll the dice on intercepting either a short-, mid-, or long-range throw. Basic tutorials would have made the experience much simpler to get to grips with--but are alas, missing.

Last year's 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa proved that offering a game built around a single event doesn't need to come at the sacrifice of innovation. Like FIFA's World Cup edition, Rugby World Cup 2011 forgoes domestic club teams to focus on international squads. This could be forgiven if its narrow appeal had managed to represent the bulk of the national sides runescape items faithfully alongside compelling gameplay in a range of modes, but this is not the case. Many of the 20 teams included are comprised of fictitious players, and once you've exhausted the short Full Tournament mode and taken your chosen team to victory, triumphantly raising the cup for a few poorly animated moments, there's only one-off and a series of friendly matches to take on. The International Tournament and Warm-Up Tour modes allow you to pick a side and take part in one-off matches, or two-, four-, or six-game competitions sewn together.

The International Tournament mode allows you to simulate matches, but fans hoping for some form of team management game will be sorely disappointed. Player details like height and preferred position can be altered sparingly, and characters can be manually renamed for those with the time and inclination to correct the details that have been omitted due to licensing. There's no option to adjust player appearance or attribute points. Character models show some realistic-looking muscle definition, but faces appear rubbery. Fortunately, camera angles frequently focus on the back of players' heads rather than on their bizarre mugs, even when the game reels off commentary lines such as "look at the disappointment on his face!" Character animations are reasonable, and small flourishes, like individual warm-up routines as players take to the field, stretching before matches, and smooth follow-through on conversion kicks and crunching spear tackles help add to the realism. A small amount of audio commentary is available from real sports commentators, but it isn't always in sync with happenings on the field, and begins to feel recycled after only a few games. Crowd support hovers at a polite but disinterested sound bite, but jumps to its feet anytime you break through the line, only to return to a murmuring lull when you're brought down in a tackle.

Rugby is a game of ground gain as much as possession, and Rugby World Cup 2011 does a good job of emulating the ebb and flow of the pace of the sport; slowing down the feed to regroup, kicking for touch, or selecting a play using the right stick. However, the tactical elements at your disposal are limited. Four set plays can be mapped to the up, down, left, and right directions on the right analog stick, from a total of eight, and include the Cross Kick, Dummy Switch, Loop, Miss, Pivot, and Pocket, but even veterans will struggle runescape accounts with which one to use, and the correct situation to do so, since the only explanation is a series of complicated animated diagrams buried deep inside the menus.

While single-player is an exercise in frustration at the hands of inept or jacked-up AI, multiplayer is the most enjoyable way to play. The game supports four players locally, and two players on the same console online. Online play is as functional and lacklustre as the single-player component of the game. It's still early days for the game's community, but it was a struggle to find matches online. Games, when found, ran well with minimal lag. The barebones theme carries over to internet play, with Quick Match pairing you with an anonymous online player. There's no voice chat, text communication, or settings selection beyond choosing your team. Rematch options aren't present once the game ends, forcing you back to the search screen. Custom matches are supported, and allow you to invite and play against a buddy on your friends list.

Rugby World Cup 2011 feels like a game rushed out the door to cash in on the popularity of its real-world namesake event. Broken AI and a limited number of single-player modes make this an irritating and short-lived affair with little replay value. While some fun can be had in local and online multiplayer, there are concerns about its long-term community support and the potential for finding competition. This is poor game that is hard to justify to even the most ardent of football fans who are willing to overlook its numerous flaws.

Madden NFL 12 review: Vacuum-sealed

Reviewing, let alone investing in an annual sports game series is difficult. In my experience, Madden fans are typically the reluctant type; they hope for vast improvements every year and expect a new game that will blow them away. Madden NFL 12 runescape gold is not that game. It's not the kind of game that answers every problem players have with football games. But this year, EA Sports tackled some core issues that elevates this game as one of the best in the series.

One of the first things players will notice is a general improvement in all things related to presentation. Madden 12 mimics real NFL broadcasts this year with better-positioned camera angles and perfectly placed broadcast graphics that show game and season stats. The concept of "just like you're watching it on TV" shines through in the smallest of details, from the stickers and scuffs on helmets to the grass stains players earn on their jerseys. Laying out Jay Cutler and constantly seeing a reminder in the dirt on his shoulder was a badge of honor for me (and for my middle linebacker, while we're at it).

The main complaint I have with Madden 12's presentation, aside from the cardboard crowds, is the commentary, which is at near-disaster levels. Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth return this year, with recycled lines from Madden 11 in hand, calling each game fairly inaccurately, blandly, and with as much vagueness as possible. Besides hearing the same lines rs gold about safeties being on islands all the time, I'd heard one touchdown pass considered a "big gain" that kept the drive going. If you plan on playing Madden 12, plan on having something else to listen to.

Gameflow received a small upgrade, with a box that offers an option for players to scroll through plays based on aggressive, conservative, and gameplan-based play calling. What once was a single button option is actually worse in some ways, as gameflow doesn't provide you with any play art or even the formation for the plays you select. A cover 3 in a 3-4 set isn't the same as a cover 3 in a nickel 2-4-5 formation, which makes gameflow a sort of blind-leading-the-blind option for play calling. This is the worst for the amateur players that the system is meant for, as the opportunity is lost for players to learn how formations and plays work, and why they work in certain circumstances.

Blending together the game's mostly-improved presentation and gameplay are added animations. EA Sports boasts over a hundred new player animations in Madden 12, enough added variety to give you the necessary sense of uniqueness in each catch and hit. Player fluidity is impressive this year, to a degree that embarrasses previous versions. This year, you actually control players up until the moment they collide with another player. This means one of my biggest issues with Madden 11 can be left in last year's game: no more suction.

Past games had players warp and slide into place for blocks, tackles, catches, and nearly any player animation within the game. Unfortunately, this meant being near an incoming defender was just as good as being wrapped up by them. Instead, I've seen no instances in Madden 12 runescape money of players warping awkwardly into an animation, whether it's my fullback opening a running lane for me, or a receiver making an amazing catch. This player fluidity doesn't just make the game look better, but it makes the game play much better than Madden 11.

While some will be disappointed to see no changes to the online franchise mode, the offline franchise mode received the most work this year. Franchise mode's more noteworthy additions add excitement to the offseason general manager process, such as a new rookie scouting system and free agent bidding. Scouting a handful of players runescape items out of the upcoming draft class unlocks a few stats at a time, leading up to a more tense, exciting drafting period. Players have the option to allow the game to simulate any part of franchise mode but, as I've learned, some decisions are best left to the player. In my case, skipping the contract signing process for all the rookies I'd drafted my first time through led the game to actually not sign all but one of them to my team. It was a nightmare finding my future star quarterback's glowing ratings fully unlocked on another team's roster, with no plausible trade to bring them to my team.

I didn't necessarily need that quarterback, though. My offline franchise, where I was controlling the Cincinnati Bengals, saw Andy Dalton on a hot streak for the first few games of the season. This is possible through dynamic player performance and player traits, which accounts for each player's individual tendencies, skills, and fluctuating confidence and consistency. Now having Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady on your team (and especially on the opponent's team) doesn't feel essentially the same thanks to their ratings, as both play in a unique manner.

Likewise, the "be an NFL superstar" mode has been turned into a micro RPG. Superstar mode in Madden 12 is exactly as it should be: creating a player and participating in games and practices nets you skill points, which you use to boost your player's individual ratings. I started out by upgrading my strong safety, who was drafted by the Oakland Raiders, at his speed and acceleration ratings before working on his coverage ratings, as superstar mode limits you to controlling only your created player. Games go fast in superstar mode, and a few hours of diligence takes you through an entire season. Sadly, the disbursement of skill runescape accounts points is terribly imbalanced, and my strong safety went from his starting 66 overall rating to a 99 overall before the start of the second season. After that, there was far less incentive to continue his career, so I chose to force an early retirement for him.

Better yet is the addition of online communities. Past Madden games had players matching up online with others in a mostly random environment, without any certainty that the player they were about to clash with would play with class and sportsmanship. Online communities in Madden 12 allow you to join both private and public groups, each with an impressive amount of options that makes playing a game within the community a unique experience. Joining up with other Packers fans, or with my 4th String Madden league friends, or creating my own "2 Minute Drill" community, offers something fresh and reliable in the online front. Each community contains leaderboards for both head to head and team play games, which is wonderful for the 98 percent of Madden players that have no hopes of reaching the upper tier of the global online leaderboard.

Madden 12 is a good game despite itself. Amidst its major shortcomings is the price tag on much of the add-on content. In an era where NBA 2K11 provides an excellent example of how to offer players a new, arguably appropriate way to play with legendary players, Madden 12 charges players (albeit optionally) for the opportunity to play with football legends in Madden ultimate team. With all the fun to be had in superstar mode or Madden moments live, I'm disappointed that I can't create and share my own Madden moments with others online. As good as the game is, it is victimized by its own business model.

Madden 12 does not respond to every fans' frustrations. Every year, the series brings a balance of improvement and ongoing flaws. Considering this year's game as a whole, improvements like the new presentation style and lack of player suction heavily outweigh the more minuscule issues that remain. It's a good kind of frustration for players, the kind where this year's game is definitely better than last year's, which may actually be enough incentive to give it a shot.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

Released on X-Box Live Arcade, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is a mostly linear side-scrolling adventure designed with artist Michel Gagne, that mixes puzzle-solving and a gathering quest in with the action. When your planet is attacked by a dark, creeping force, you and your UFO are the only things left to stop the onslaught. Traveling through a seven-level map marked by ice, water and mechanical bits, among other settings, you battle an assortment of creatures and obstacles while building your arsenal and collecting items that help you along your path.

Gameplay:
As you fly around the map, batting off waves of enemies and obstacles, here's a smoothness to the play here, thanks largely to the fact that you're controlling a floating spaceship, so you're free to move on whatever direction. You'll find yourself under constant attack, but thankfully the game offers up plenty of health pellets to keep you going, plus anytime you hit one of the game's many checkpoints, your health is fully replenished. It also gives you plenty of ways to battle the baddies, with nine weapons add-ons you'll discover by beating level-end bosses and exploring. These weapons are pretty fun, including a tractor beam (that's reversible), a claw that lets you manipulate your surroundings and enemies, and remote control rockets. You'll hit points where you need a certain weapon to advance (a fact you can learn by using your on-ship scanner), so when you later earn that tool, you get to experience that giddy feeling of knowing you can finally go back and see what awaits the UFO that wields a forcefield. Fans of Metroid will find a lot to like here, as the experience is very similar, but not a direct copy.

While you're exploring, you'll get to tackle a few different kinds of challenges, including downing the annoying waves of tiny foes who follow your every move, but the puzzles are the most enjoyable part. There's not a lot of explanation as to what you need to do, but that's what makes it so satisfying once you figure it out. For instance, you'll find yourself in a cavern full of crystals and an obvious target you can't reach in another room. So... what to do.... With a little imagination and a little trial and error, it becomes clear and you can enjoy a sense of accomplishment. I'd be lying if I said there weren't parts that had me frustrated, to the point where I would just shut the game down to get some air, and come back to tackle it later on with a clear head. Oddly though, I found that certain areas that seemed to be total dead ends were suddenly clear upon my return. I'm not certain if this was a bug or if I would have reset the location with further exploration. I didn't run into many of these issues, but they always seemed to occur when I was utterly flummoxed. That may just have been a coincidence.

Moving around the game's seven levels can be a bit frustrating at times, especially when you're backtracking to take advantage of new tools. For some reason, the levels have two "ends" to them, but one one is an entrance, and usually that entrance is attached to another level you have to traverse first. I can understand keeping the exits one-way to get players to complete other levels first, but once you beat them (and their associated boss), which not turn that exit into a two-lane path, making it easier to move around. That would have been a good move, because your backtracking will frequently result in disappointment. Sure, you can collect the various weapons and pieces of concept art (which really do look great) but when you have the patience to make your way across the entire map and are greeted with part, yes, PART, of an artifact, it can be annoying. However, if you have any interest in actually completing the game (and why wouldn't you) you will want to make a complete sweep of the map and get all the upgrades, as the final boss would be extremely difficult to defeat without them.

That's part of why some of the biggest challenges, aside from some of the puzzles, depending on your personal ability to solve such troubles, are the boss battles, which are mainly exercises in how to utilize your arsenal and manage your efforts over the time it takes to earn a win. They aren't the hardest fights to compete, once you figure out how it's done, but they are mostly multi-part efforts, and you can find yourself able to beat the first parts, only to run out of health before the task is done. It's all about learning the steps, maximizing your attack and honing your skill when it comes to overcoming these cleverly designed foes. Unfortunately, when all is said and done, the payoff just isn't enough. Part of it is probably the lack of overall story in the game (the fate of your planet plays out in very short video clips you find scattered about) but part of it is the way the game just kind of comes to an end. I honestly wasn't sure what was happening until it was over. But I had fun while it lasted.

Online Play
Aside from leaderboards, the online play takes the form of "Lantern Run," a race against time that can be played by up to four players, locally or online. It's a stressful competition, as you're evading the menacing tentacles of an oncoming monster, carrying a lantern with you, until the last light burns out. You're racing, but you're also working as a team, as you need to battle enemies along the way, and when your lantern is gone, you have to help your fellow racers keep moving. It's a nice adaptation of the main game, adding some additional gameplay to the title, while adding a new twist to the action. Everything moves nice and clean, with no problems with lag. There also seem to be quite a few players around to team up with.

Controls
The controls are well-designed here, with your ship controlled with the left stick and your weapons controlled by the right stick, triggered by your right trigger. You can earn nine different weapon add-ons and the game uses a neat mapping system to let you tag four of them to your face buttons, which keeps things easily manageable. The use of the stick to control the weapon gives you 360 degrees of smooth aiming, which is key when you're surrounded. Things move smoothly throughout, though there are some sticking points, mostly involving small pathways, where it seems like you should be able to travel without a problems, but have to waggle your way through. The only real issue, and one you can adapt to, is the control scheme for your remote control rockets. It doesn't work the way you'd expect it to, and when you're winding your way through tight, twisty tunnels, surprises are the last thing you want to deal with. After struggling with this tool, which is the only way to advance through several sections, it became somewhat easy to control.

Achievements
An XBLA title, you're getting just a small handful of achievements to earn in this one, with 12 awards worth a total of 200 points. They are nearly all completion awards, including earning all add-ons, finishing the game and completing levels. The only non-completion award is for earning a million points in the multiplayer mode.

Graphics
If you like a good-looking game, look no further than ITSP, which, thanks to its graphically astounding style, offers some of the best visuals seen in a long time. The levels are beautifully rendered, with tons of unique detail, while the enemies you face feature a wide variety of designs, including some of the creepiest bad guys this side of Silent Hill. Even the health-bar, which is represented by your ship's visual condition, is well-designed. Taking full advantage of zooming and perspective, the game makes boss battles epic while also adding intense depth to the proceedings, as you can see action behind everything, adding to the feeling of confinement the tunnels can provide.

Sound
As gorgeous as the game's visuals are, the sound is hugely impressive, thanks to a measured use of ambient sound and effects. The game builds a huge sense of dread throughout, with bass-heavy tones and creepy noises. Understated, but powerful because of it, the audio is a great element of the game.

And in the End...
ITSP is undoubtedly a work of art, even if you only based that evaluation on its unique and beautiful visuals. But the rest of the package more than carries its own weight, especially the design and variation amongst the bad guys and some of the level design. While a touch short and not overwhelmingly difficult to complete, it's perfectly satisfying for a Live Arcade game and will be an experience you fondly remember (while pining for a sequel.) It's starting to become a reality that downloadable games are more consistent a source for fun games than retail releases.

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Goldeneye 007 review: For England, James

Activision had an interesting balancing act on its hands with Goldeneye. It knew that this was a nostalgia title for the Nintendo 64 crowd, yet it had to be wary of "copying" anything from the Rare-developed 1997 title of the same name for legal reasons. So the company goes back to the source material (the film, that is), replaces Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig, and builds an entirely new game -- yet all the while hoping it rides its name recognition right off the shelves. "Somebody's remaking Goldeneye! Remember Goldeneye? Goldeneye!"

This isn't a remake. It's a new Bond game based on an older film. Remember when EA made a video game version of From Russia With Love in 2005? It's like that, but if they replaced Sean Connery with Daniel Craig. And gave him a smartphone.

As the world's most famous secret agent, you've been betrayed by your fellow spy and old colleague Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (spoiler, I guess, if you've somehow missed every game trailer, the N64 game, and the movie). It follows the structure of the film with a keen eye to detail. In fact, pro tip: If you want to avoid being killed again and again when Trevelyan traps you in the helicopter that's about to explode, watch the scene from the movie and do what Pierce Brosnan does.

Even though many of the locations are the same, there was never a moment where I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, I remember this!" thanks to the entirely original level designs. And the addition of stealth as a tactic lets players decide to be trigger happy or a real secret agent, which feels truer to the character in a sense. As in the N64 classic, you're encouraged to use the silencer on your PP9 to pick off security cameras and isolated guards (though newly-added stealth takedowns work on the latter just as well). Of course, I tend to sprint in the middle of the room with a shotgun, shoot a round in the air, and get ready for the army to rain down on me. To each his own.

You can pick any control scheme you want -- the Wiimote/Nunchuk combo, the Wii Zapper, the Classic Controller, or the GameCube Controller. With the traditional Wiimote/Nunchuk set-up, you point the remote to look and use the Nunchuk to move. It's a mostly fluid system, but poor James was killed far too often because I couldn't face a threat behind me -- a move that requires steadily pointing to the left until you eventually are facing the opposite direction. The GameCube controller is intuitive for anyone familiar with typical first person shooters, but ultimately, aiming and moving is a bit jerkier than with the Wiimote.

The "50 dudes vs. James Bond" shoot-outs are the meat of the game, and unfortunately, that's where things get inconsistent. Occasionally, I'd be forced to shoot at the floor under an enemy or the just to the right of him for a kill. There are a few factors you can play with to try for a better result, like switching control schemes, finding a weapon with a reflexive sight or changing the placement of your Wii sensor. When things work smoothly, the feeling is quintessential Bond. When the controls start bugging out, it's infuriating -- I mean, you were pointing the gun right there.

Activision's also taken the time to update the game aesthetically. Bond and Trevelyan's clothes are pointedly more "2010" (sweet hat, Alec!), there's an as-of-now-not-that-dated club scene and there's an entire level that takes place during an arms trade in Dubai. Of course, you've still got the old Bond standbys, like Judi Dench's always superb voice work and the always-awesome tank chase sequence.

While story mode is brand new, the split-screen multiplayer is unabashedly taking a page out of Rare's 1997 playbook. It makes sense, considering the high regard in which many gamers still hold the N64 cart's multiplayer mode.

Aside from the exclusion of "remote control mines as an on-hand weapon," it feels like every other aspect of the split-screen multiplayer game is back. You can play as a variety of classic Bond villains (but really, stop kidding yourself and pick Oddjob -- he's tiny and throws hats), secondary in-game characters and, of course, Bond himself. Remember zany-but-useless paintball mode? It's here. The one-hit kill Golden Gun mode is back. It's pretty much exactly how you remember it, just with different levels, updated graphics, and a different control scheme.

Sometimes, "exactly how you remember it" can be underwhelming, but multiplayer Goldeneye hits all the right notes. Activision smartly avoids poaching game modes from Modern Warfare or Halo in an attempt to keep with the times. No, this is classic Goldeneye: Getting killed in the secret hiding spot after your friend looked at your screen, ridiculous no-gun punch fights and laughing until you can't breathe when your first-timer friend runs around in a circle with his face to the ground in an effort to avoid being killed. Activision didn't add too many extras and came away with an excellent party game.

So 2010 Goldeneye gets to have it both ways -- it has a solid new story mode while really milking the nostalgia factor with its local multiplayer. Plus, the addition of an online multiplayer mode (and yes, smartphones) brings it into the 21st century. The biggest pitfall with the game is in the occasionally cumbersome control system, but with so many options, players are bound to find one that suits them.

So invite your friends over, buy some Cheetos and Tab, and get ready to call out your friend for "screen-looking" and killing you in a secret corner. And seriously, just pick Oddjob. Did I mention that he throws hats?

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Review: Sanctum (PC)

This first-person tower defense title is a fun, frenzied experience that presents a novel take on a tired genre.

The tower defense game in which you play an active role (which no-one seems to have come up with a snappy acronym for yet) is an increasingly popular genre, with upcoming titles like Orcs Must Die! and Dungeon Defenders each putting their own interesting spin on how it's played.

Sanctum takes a futuristic approach, and blends the strategy of tower defense with cooperative multiplayer first-person shooter gameplay. It's a blend that works extremely well: a simple interface between waves of enemies allows players to spend their limited resources on building towers, upgrading towers, or upgrading their own personal arsenal, then the enemy assault can be triggered at any time. Once the wave of enemies begins, players can navigate around and shoot the bad guys with a rapid-fire assault rifle, a high-powered but slow to reload sniper rifle, or a freeze cannon while their towers take care of the rest. Rather than having to run from one end of a level to the other, players also have access to an overview map, allowing them to easily teleport to various points in order to get the best vantage point on the advancing hordes. This also helps with planning tower placement, as players are free to block off certain routes when several are available.

Sanctum doesn't waste any time with storytelling -- it knows it's a fast-paced arcade action title and it plays to its strengths with a big, bold, clear interface, meaty sound effects, and an excellent trance soundtrack. But despite its arcade-y nature, it's a game that will take you a while to beat, too. Each of the four levels in single-player takes at least 45 minutes to clear, and then there's alternative difficulty levels, Endless mode (which features an extra map over the campaign) and the ludicrously challenging Turbo mode to take on -- not to mention the 4 player cooperative multiplayer mode.

Sanctum does a lot of things right and this keeps its gameplay flowing smoothly. Prior to a wave of enemies appearing, for example, it's possible to look them up in the in-game encyclopedia to remind yourselves of their capabilities and weaknesses -- and enemies maintain a coherent visual style while looking distinct to one another, making them easy to identify in combat. The overview map facility helps what could have been a cumbersome building interface be highly strategic -- and in multiplayer, a whole new angle is put on this, as it's effectively possible for one player to play the game as a "commander" and order their teammates to put towers in specific places before taking up arms in the action phase.

In short, it's a very good, highly flexible game marred only slightly by an occasionally inconsistent difficulty curve -- and for some people, the lack of narrative progression might put them off progressing through the single-player campaign. Despite these minor issues, however, Sanctum remains a high quality game which the developer remains committed to -- and at the price, it's a complete bargain.

PROS: Excellent tower defense/FPS gameplay; arcade style friendly to both lengthy play sessions and short bursts; gorgeous presentation.
CONS: Occasionally inconsistent difficulty; lack of narrative "rewards" to spur progress.

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James Bond: Blood Stone review: Sonic the James Bond

In a month where, after almost a two-year hiatus, we see two new Bond games thrown at us, PS3 and Xbox owners can't help but feel a little jaded when they see the re-vamped GoldenEye headed solely to the Wii.

"They got the new GoldenEye with a fancy new controller and all we got was another rip-off 3rd person shooter!" the masses say, clutching their well-worn N64 controller, wracked with guilt over not playing Quantum of Solace in 2008 or, worse, having played GoldenEye: Rogue Agent in 2004.

Allow me to squelch your rage with four simple words, angry mob: Blood Stone is fun.

Blood Stone begins with a terrorist attack at the G20 summit and we jump straight into the action, with Dame Judi Dench as M contacting Daniel Craig's Bond to stop the nefarious plot before a group photo can be taken of the world leaders. That's right ... a group photo. Let that go. Bond is dispatched, things get crazy, there's a boat chase and soon we launch into the pivotal opening credit sequence, complete with a song by long-forgotten singer-turned-Tudors-actress Joss Stone (who also co-stars as the female lead), naked shadows and Bond busting people into sprays of diamonds. Diamonds! Blood Stones! Hokey smokes, it all makes sense now! As far as I can tell, those diamonds are the only reference to anything remotely blood stone-ish in the entire game. Maybe I just missed them.

You'll travel from Greece to Istanbul to Siberia to Bangkok and beyond to try to track down a faceless villain who is either trying to kill a lot of people with WMDs ... or trying to get a bunch of diamonds. I'm not terribly sure, because nearly every mission is a variation on "We've got to get this guy" only to find out it's not the right guy. It's like watching an episode of House, only the 45 minutes of mistaken diagnoses are exchanged for killing a bad guy that isn't the really bad guy.

Gadgets are not high on this Bond's agenda, save for an annoying smart phone that handles most all things tech. It can scan various objects (nabbing all of the scans in a given level gets you a trophy). It can turn off cameras or hack computers, all with a fairly simple button mashing mini-game. But that's all you get. If you're looking for poison pens and watches with lasers, you're out of luck. This is Daniel Craig's James Bond. He relies on his hands, feet, one pistol and one machine gun at a time. To this light-traveling Bond, even backpacks are gadgets.

The running and shooting is broken up with some driving of boats and several ridiculously fast cars. And by "ridiculously fast", I mean, that even set on Easy, the handling is completely unforgiving. You're tempted to think you shouldn't drive at full speed, only to find that if you don't, the person you're chasing will get away or the helicopter behind you will catch you and blow you into meat sauce. So what do you do to fix this problem? You drive as fast as possible – and die. A lot. You die over and over until you memorize the correct path for the chase. You make it muscle memory to hang left for four seconds and then right for six seconds. It's just like Sonic, if Sonic drove a car and when he hit the wrong thing he died a horrible, grisly death instead of losing a few rings and starting over. He's Sonic the James Bond. Double-O-Tails. True story.

Many previous Bond games that have tried to introduce driving have been so bad that one would think Blofeld was running the game companies just to see Bond flounder and fail. (007 Racing, anyone?) While Bizarre Creations doesn't necessarily take the franchise in any bold new directions, they don't screw up too badly, which is notable, considering the history.

Blood Stone has everything you want out of a James Bond adventure video game. You get the explosive opening sequence, some great stealth hand-to-hand moves that build up "Focus Aim" which allows you to be absolutely devastating in a fast-paced run-and-gun manner. You might ask if "Focus Aim" steals directly from Splinter Cell, and yes, sure it does. But it was cool in Splinter Cell and it's cool here, too. If games didn't borrow stuff that worked, Halo wouldn't exist. Snap!

It's not tied to a film, but think of this as more of a Bond adventure when he's on vacation; a fun, action-packed ride, but not necessarily cool or clever enough to warrant a cinematic adventure. Allow yourself to epically crash fast cars and boats for a few hours. Duck and cover while shooting bad guys in the head in bullet time. Wrap your legs around the throats of some Russians and snap their necks before they alert their friends. What more could you ask of Bond?

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Fruit Ninja Kinect review: The joy of chopping

It is good to chop fruit with your hands. That's likely to be my very dumbest thesis for the remainder of my games-reviewing career, but let's face it: Fruit Ninja Kinect is an astonishingly dumb game. Its unswerving singlemindedness sets a new standard for simplicity: The game oscillates between binary states of chopping fruit and waiting to chop runescape gold more fruit, with little extraneous cruft to pad the two. There is fruit, and then you chop it, and then the fruit -- in a burst of citrus and points -- is gone!

Such a single-faceted premise would be a mark of death for any game, even a budget-priced downloadable title. Luckily for Halfbrick, it is good to chop fruit with your hands.

If you're familiar of the mobile version of the produce-hostile casual title, you already know everything there is to know about this winning formula. As fruit is launched upward by an unseen assailant, players must slash each foodstuff before it falls out of sight. Bonus points are earned for destroying multiple vittles in a single slash, requiring a certain level of quiet contemplation as you flail about like the world's worst ground air traffic controller.

Oh, the flailing you'll do. The substitution of swift flicks of your fingertips with decisive thrusts of your entire upper body easily justifies the ten-times-more-expensive price of the XBLA title over the app. There is a level rs gold of satisfaction one achieves when performing a rising uppercut on a cluster of tightly-grouped watermelons that cannot be matched -- or even approached -- by a game that only requires you to move half of one percent of your body.

You'll execute these precise cuts across a myriad of game modes, most of which were imported from the smartphone-based original. Classic Mode tasks you with scoring as many points as possible before you drop three fruit, or chop one of the frequently launched, game-ending bombs. Arcade is set to a timer, and throws special bonuses into the mix, like fruit-freezing and score-multiplying bananas. Zen mode offers a much more straightforward, 90-second free-for-all.

New to the assortment is a two-player mode, which can either be played competitively -- fruits are highlighted red or blue, and can only be chopped by the corresponding player -- or cooperatively. The Kinect hasn't provided too many moments of raw happiness runescape money more pure than when I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow fruit chopper, slicing through panic-inducing swarms of produce, all the while trying not to deliver a fatal hatchet blow directly to my companion's real-life face.

There's also a Challenge mode that shows up on the very front menu of the game, which allows you to immediately go after the higher score of one of your Xbox Live Friends. This was, invariably, the first thing I did every time I booted up Fruit Ninja Kinect -- to think that someone, somewhere, had bested my score on Classic mode was always an unacceptable truth, and one that required instant remedy.

There are some really great ideas in here for other Kinect developers to study: For instance, getting yourself into prime fruit-cutting position runescape items is a breeze by merit of the fact that your shadow is constantly displayed on screen. Also, if you walk too close or too far from the sensor, the game automatically calibrates within seconds, centering the game's field of view at the optimal slicing height. There is no reason why every game on the platform shouldn't do these two things.

The only bit of clunk which surfaces as a result of the new hands-free control scheme is the menu UI, which sees your every movement as an eager chop towards whatever menu option runescape accounts your hand is closest to. You can eventually learn to temper your movements to cut back on these false positives -- though attempting to swipe through the game's lengthy list of unlockable blades, backgrounds and shadows is an exercise in blinding frustration.

Perhaps it was unfair to call Fruit Ninja Kinect dumb. Its premise is as barbaric and unsophisticated as premises come, and yet its so chock-full of clever ideas and satisfyingly tight controls that it very nearly circles back around to pure genius. It doesn't just set a high bar for the flock of touch-based apps which will almost certainly follow in its footsteps to the Kinect platform -- it sets a pretty intimidating precedent for the platform altogether.

Pirates of Black Cove Review

Q: What do little pirates want to be when they grow up? A: A carrrrrrgh salesman. No, this is not a good joke, but it's a silly one, and Pirates of Black Cove uses such gags to make a charming first impression. But peg leg puns can get a game only so far, and your grins turn to groans when you discover how simple, easy, and boring this action/strategy hybrid is. On the ground, you select all of your units at once and click on an enemy until it dies. And that's all. At sea, you circle your vessel around other ships and shoot them until they die. And that's all. In addition to their cargo of rum and surplus eye patches, these pirates carry with them an inordinate number of bugs, ranging from the pace-killing (error windows) to the game-stopping (crashes to desktop). Pirates of Black Cove is strategy gaming's class clown, masking its deep-seated problems with campy quips and a boisterous attitude.

Pirates of Black Cove's colorful vibe is apparent right off the bat. You select one of a few different heroes and set off to defeat the mean ol' pirates of the game's title by uniting the three factions of the Caribbean isles. Along the way, you meet a voodoo priestess, a gap-toothed witch, a fraidy-cat governor, and other delightfully exaggerated caricatures. They are all voiced with campy glee, emitting plenty of "arrrrrrs" and raspy chuckles. The visuals and soundtrack nicely complement the silliness. The light dances brightly across the ocean, and steel drums give your travels a fun island atmosphere--though the few repeated tunes can get old in time. The lightness of being continues amid the waves, where you sail about collecting bottles containing awful-in-the-good-way pirate jokes. Jokes like this: "Two pirates on a ship. One says Yarrrrrgh! The other says, I was just thinking the same thing, matey!" The game tells you there are 1,000 of these jokes to collect. What it doesn't tell you is that there are only a limited number of them repeated over and over again.

Pirates of Black Cove is full of character. It's just not full of fun. The three swashbuckling factions send you off on various missions, most of which involve sailing the sea and firing your cannons at enemy ships, or cruising to various isles and engaging meanies on land. Either way, what seems at first like simple fun turns sour when you realize just how easy and glitchy both aspects of the game are. Take, for example, the typical land mission. Such missions take the guise of a real-time strategy game. You recruit different types of units back at the faction bases--swordsmen, marksmen, and so on--and then assign them to a hero unit. You begin with one such hero (the player character) but eventually add three more to the roster. What starts as a small crowd of units eventually becomes a large one. But whether you're in the game's first hour or the 10th, battle is always the same: select all of your units and click on enemies until they die. It doesn't matter which units you recruit back at base. It doesn't matter whether you activate a hero unit's special power. To win, you select all of your swaggering swashbucklers and click.

If you want to really steamroll the opposition, recruit a unit that throws a stink bomb, which paralyzes your foes (and friendlies, for that matter). It's like having a win button; you aren't likely to lose a single unit, or even take much damage, with one of these guys on your side. Given how simple this "strategizing" is, you'd at least expect the basics to be solid. Lower your expectations. Even the basics of an RTS aren't realized here. The pathfinding is a disaster. Units get caught up on rocks, have trouble navigating around turns, and sometimes run around in circles. Meanwhile, friendly and enemy units alike can clip directly into various objects, including ones that you are meant to attack, like cannons. When your scowling rivals wander into the geometry like this, you can't click on them. This sloppy defect may not have been so bad if you could rely on your buccaneers to fend for themselves. But much of the time, they just stand around, refusing to engage unless you give them the direct order. You might overlook this shoddiness given how easy it is to win, though there's no escaping the frequent boredom. Extended stretches of nothing can occur between battles as you lead your meandering pirates around. One mission involves directing the rum-guzzling crowd from one side of an island to the other, and then back again, without any action at all. It's five minutes' worth of clicking on land. And waiting.

Seafaring also brings about its fair share of nothing. You can quicktravel back to pirate bases, but getting to mission objectives involves sailing your ship across oceanic expanses with little to break up the monotony. There are battles out here, but they suffer from the same problem that infiltrates the ground missions: they are much too easy. It's nice that you can improve your ships with new equipment (Sail faster! Do more damage!) or buy new boats, but it doesn't take much to stay alive: just circle around the bad guy, pressing the Q and E keys to fire your cannons until the ship is sunk. There is at least some visual interest as your cannonballs tear through sails and you set your enemy's hull aflame. There are some noteworthy attempts at mission variety too. You set free a whale so large you expect Jonah to come leaping out of its mouth; do battle with a kraken (or more specifically, its waving tentacles); and capture vessels by shooting crew members out of your man-catapult. None of these activities are challenging, however--particularly if you equip the mortar cannon. But at least this superpowerful weapon brings these boring battles to a quicker end.

The seafaring suffers from sloppy execution, too. AI and pathfinding are again a problem. Enemy ships can't always figure out how to navigate reefs or even how to get around each other. And so they ram into shore over and over again, or perhaps clip halfway into it. This issue can be downright hysterical in escort missions involving multiple ships banging against each other and getting caught between landmasses. It's not so hysterical if the ship you're escorting can't move into proper position so that you can continue the mission. But none of these issues are as frustrating as the bugs infesting the game at large. These include crashes to desktop; missing texture errors that require you to close the error window before you can return to the game; the game getting stuck in widescreen mode as if a cutscene were about to occur--but not responding to your commands; and the entire game slowing everything to a crawl except your mouse pointer.

Perhaps some gameplay depth could have helped veil the basic problems. You collect objects like octopus eyes and sea plants while sailing around. At a faction base, you can have these combined into items that make you turn invisible, or make your ship go faster, among other effects. The problem? You don't need that stuff: the action is far too easy for any of it to be useful. Not that "easy" is necessarily a dirty word when "entertainment" also comes along for the ride. But Pirates of Black Cove betrays its kooky character with mind-numbing action and too many bugs for a game with so little to it. Even if you absolutely must know how much it costs a pirate to get his ears pierced, you should chart a course away from this game.

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Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet review: Black Hole Sun

In some indeterminate galaxy, a giant black mass pulsates. The mass ripples, and a piece of it launches into space, splashing onto a distant sun. In an instant, a dark transformation begins as tendrils erupt from the surface and engulf the star in blackness.

In the same instant, fragments of the eruption collide with a nearby planet, setting a similar transmogrification in motion. An alien, observer to all this chaos, leaps into his flying saucer, determined to save his home world and stop those who have turned the sun into a writhing, evil thing.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet begins stupendously, kicking things off with a visually stunning, orchestral bang. Its first moments are truly captivating, introducing a planet that is both hostile and inviting -- a world that begs to be explored.

It may be gauche to discuss graphics before gameplay these days but, considering that Shadow Planet's visuals spring from the mind of animator runescape gold Michel Gagne, it seems an appropriate place to start. The Shadow Planet and all of its habitants -- our UFO-flying protagonist included -- move with grace and a sense of artistry. The UFO wobbles and spins as it floats through the air, passing by wriggling tentacles and undulating cilia.

Compared to its surroundings (objects painted primarily in black, the background in pastels) the UFO is relatively small, lending a sense of scale and isolation to the proceedings. Our hero is hardly alone, however, as the Shadow Planet is home to any number of hostile rs gold creatures. These too are well-animated, often springing to life as our hero approaches.

This living world -- and I mean that literally, nearly every surface moves -- serves both as our hero's antagonist and as the player's motivation for moving forward. Doing so will uncover vital upgrades and unlockable bonuses. As in many exploration-based action titles, the map is large and, yes, you do receive an Achievement for uncovering every corner of it.

The environment is littered with obstacles and blockades that can only be overcome by utilizing an abundance of gadgets. It's all the kind of stuff runescape money you'd expect to pop out of a flying saucer: A ray gun, laser, tractor beam, giant saw and, my personal favorite, a huge articulated claw.

Tasks for these gadgets range from simple things, like picking apart a pile of stones with the claw, to more complicated fare such as manipulating objects on the opposite side of a wall, using the tractor beam. One of my favorite activities involves guiding a rocket through a narrow corridor in order to ignite a hidden switch. Once launched, a rocket runescape items can be steered with the right analog stick, sending it careening through a twisted tunnel rife with sharp, tricky angles. Bounce the rocket off of the walls too many times, and it explodes.

None of the tasks are particularly taxing, save for the final section that requires players to tow an energy cell through a pitch black series of corridors. The energy cell serves as a key to restore power to generators and remove blockades. It also serves as the only light source and wards off mysterious floating anemones. They're nasty things that can destroy the UFO very quickly. Apparently, the cell is also irresistible to alien squids, as just such a creature constantly tries to steal the damned thing. As you might imagine, it can get fairly annoying. Beyond this one section, however, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is brimming with clever contraptions and obstacles.

And therein lies my only other concern. The world, beautifully realized though it may be, occasionally feels at odds with the brilliant cinematic used to introduce it. The culprit, I think, is a nearly complete lack of music. While the cinematics employ a grand orchestral score borrowed from black metal band Dimmu Borgir (if you can believe it), the actual game relies solely on a sparse, ambient soundscape.

Some of the boss encounters, at the very least, could do with some more lavish tunes. Shadow Planet's enormous monstrosities are worthy of equally enormous accompaniment, though most only benefit from moderately enhanced percussion.

But that's only a minor issue among Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet's otherwise glowing qualities. Having completed my little alien's adventure, I have tunneled through rock, encountered masses of strange and wonderful creatures, delved the deeps of an underground sea runescape accounts and literally turned the world upside down. Having done this, I want more. I say this not because I am unsatisfied but because, like one of its own bottom-dwelling denizens, I am hungry for everything Shadow Planet has to offer.