Let me start of saying that this game is actually pretty good.  I honestly expected to play a really bad shooter like Secret Service or Conflict Denied Ops.  This was not the case with Legendary, not only was the shooting not half bad, the graphics were good and the story line was entertaining as well.

The premise of the story is that you are hired to steal Pandora’s Box from a museum.  In the process of doing so-the box gets opened and a slew of mythological creatures are released to reap havok on the world.  Because you were the one to open the box, your hand also becomes embossed with a signet that gives you powers.  When you kill an enemy you are able to absorb their power into yourself.  You can use this power to either heal yourself, push enemies away or power up certain items. I was reminded of Bioshock in certain instances of using my hand.

Legendary is a shooter, with being a shooter you will get your hands on different weapons.  Though not all to varied you will get a shotgun, uzi, machine gun and a pistol.  You will also have the opportunites to use a heavy machine gun, a rocket launcher and a flame thrower.

There are a variety of enemies to face as well, from the human “Black Order” to Werewolves, firedrakes, griffons and more.  Once scene in particular you are to help take down a Golem which has been created through all of the destruction in the city.  You will see different parts of the Golem as a helicopter, cars and light poles.  The sheer massive scale of the Golem is awesome and will definitely immerse you in the game play. Each enemy has different attacks and you must watch them in order to defeat them.  The Werewolves must be decapitated in order to completely kill them.

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Before I get to the review, allow me to give a plug for our sponsor GameHQ. I purchased a Nintendo DS Lite for my wife for Christmas, and GameHQ was amazing. The bundle that they have is for a system, carrying case, extra stylus, free game, and screen protectors. All of that was well worth the price, and add the fact that I got it before Christmas, made the deal even better. Everyone should check them out for all of your gaming needs.

Now on to the review. This game is for all of you out there looking for that original Super Mario Bros. feel. Remember the side scrolling fun, remember powering up with mushrooms and flowers and stars. This game brings all of that back, and adds many features from later Mario titles. You venture from world to world just like in Super Mario Bros. 3, you can get power ups that make Mario as large as the screen or half the size that you are when you’re small. I’m not a Nintendo fan at all, but I genuinely had fun playing this game. It brought me back to my youth a little, reminding me of the first game in the series, and I enjoyed being able to play the versus by connecting to DS’s together. The ability to lay the pwn my wife made me feel good.

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Since us in the West got the cold shoulder from Capcom, acquiring the Resident Evil 5 demo was a bit of a difficult task. Fortunately I had said Demo land right in my lap recently and I thought I would offer up some impressions while we wait for it to hit us here in the West. The Demo offers two different levels for you to try out in the latest from Capcoms fabled Resident Evil series. Unfortunately the demo wasn’t online, so I was only able to play with the AI partner. I don’t pretend to be any sort of grizzled Resident Evil veteran, but I’m fairly familiar with the franchise and I’m sure I will pick most of it up. I’m not sure what version of the Demo this was in referring to the controls, so take my comments about them with a grain of salt.

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By my husband’s recommendation, I bought and played Hotel Dusk Room 215 for the Nintendo DS. Now, I’m not a huge gamer and don’t claim to be by any means. But I do enjoy getting into a nice plot and reading a good mystery.  And that’s why I ultimately enjoyed playing this game.

In Hotel Dusk, you play as Kyle Hyde, a down-and-out ex-detective turned salesman. His boss asks him to go and check into this old hotel for a job he’s hired to do. But alongside that, Hyde is also searching for his ex-partner, Brian Bradley, who disappeared three years prior. Bradley is assumed dead, but Hyde believes that he’s alive and on the run somewhere. He hopes to locate him so that the mystery surrounding his disappearance can finally be solved. At first glance, Hyde checking into this hotel and the events that will take place are not connected. But as you go through the game, Hyde begins to think that there are too many coincidences for there not be connections to his missing partner and the strange hotel occurrences. In the game, you must talk with different characters, asking them questions and finding out answers, solve different puzzles, look for clues, and put together evidence to solve the case at Hotel Dusk. Solving the case in the hotel helps Hyde solve the mystery involving his partner from 3 years ago.

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As an avid non-paintball-er I wasn’t sure where to begin with NPPL Paintball for the Xbox 360. On one hand I was excited to try out something new, on the other I was nervous because I was unsure how a game (simulation) that is about simulating war would pan out.

Right from the jump I could feel that this game was developed by some guys and gals that may not have had the largest budget for creating a game. The facial graphics are terrible (thankfully your guys wear masks) and the soundtrack including the voice clips get really repetitive really fast. This doesn’t seem to completely affect the game though and you can turn the music down.

The premise of the game is to play the speed-ball version of paintball. It’s fast paced, the rounds only last about 8 minutes and there aren’t more than 14 players out on the field at any given time. The primary objective in most of the tournaments is to capture the other teams flag and bring it back to your headquarters. If you eliminate a player he is out and if you eliminate all the opposing players then it’s a walk in the park to take the flag and place it at your base. You can plan before each match and route your team mates to different parts on the playing field.

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If I can say anything good about Need for Speed Undercover is that it has the feel and sound of a typical Need for Speed game.  When racing you can go fast and you truly experiance a sense of speed when you are traveling in excess of 150 mph.  The sound of the engines and the peeling out of the cars is awesome I really felt like I was in a Camaro or Shelby Cobra.

 The trouble with this game starts when you are given an open world to drive around in much like the last few Need for Speed games, but where it falls flat is at no time can I drive around and find races or secret areas. Instead you have to bring up your GPS and then automatically go into any race available to you or just drive around until the closest race will pop up on your GPS system.   Then you just press down, this proves a problem several times over when I would get done with a race I would sometimes automatically press down to hop into the next race but instead the closest thing to me was a car shop.

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Ubisoft Montreal has taken it upon itself to try and re-invent the Prince of Persia franchise once again for the current generation of consoles. The series had taken a turn for the emo and lost some of its steam, but we have left all that behind us to follow a new prince and his attractive female counterpart on a journey to save the land.. Now the first thing I am going to do is mention Assassins Creed in reference to this game and compare similar aspects. I am sure half of the people reading this will be saying something along the lines of “What, Assassins Creed? Who likes Assassins Creed?! Is Hollywood trying to defend Assassins Creed?! What an idiot!” Well settle down my hot headed friend, no one is going to force you to love any game, in fact it’s just the opposite. For those of us who played Assassins Creed it was obvious that a fantastic game was being ruined by repetitive missions and the crazy’s on the medieval street who push you, and only you, for no reason. Prince of Persia takes a lot of good things from Assassins Creed, and unfortunately a bad thing or two come along for the ride as well.

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This review comes from HCG member de Hollywood.

Every once and a while a game comes along that takes the boundaries set by traditional gaming, and throws them straight out a window. Mirrors Edge attempts to do this and succeeds in many ways.

Right off the bat you are throw into the shoes of “Faith”, a parkour expert and an information courier for hire. You leap, climb and slide your way through 9 levels of intense chase scenes and missions that can rival most films. However, unlike a movie, you get to decide how to approach the situation. A certain level of skill is required to enjoy the fluidity of the game, but practice makes perfect and you should be gliding across rooftops with ease after some time with the game.

Soon into the game Faith finds herself being hunted by the police, determined to find justice for her wrongly accused sister. The story line doesn’t stray too far in terms of creativity, but it works with the style of game.
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Strong Bad is here again.  This time he has created a movie called Dangeresque 3.  You have to play out each scene by figuring out how to make things happen in the scene by clicking on things.  On that note, the game play is the exact same as the previous episodes in the series.  There is nothing new there.

The story is probably the best one of the series so far.  You play as Strongbad playing an agent called Daneresque.  This game plays up the predictable nature of spy/action movies with all their predictable twists and turns.  The idea that it is a really bad attempt at making a movie makes it extremely funny.  Locations are used multiple times and props are forgotten so they are in scenes they are not supposed to be in.  It is really obvious when they use body doubles.

This is the most Christian friendly game of the series.  But that being said, Strong Bad is still overly rude to his friends and ends up cutting the movie to make himself look good and removes the scenes that the others wanted left in.

Buy/Skip/Rent

Buy.  This is the best game of the series and if you are a fan, you will love it.

Approaching a review of this game is almost as overwhelming as the game itself. Like the recently released Fable II, there is so much to cover, so much to see and do, so many things that can be easily missed or overlooked. I suppose the best thing to do is start with the basics and then move up to the bigger picture.

First off, this game is not “Oblivion with guns.” Moving on.

Fallout 3 begins with you literally being born, in the first person perspective, in the relatively safe confines of Vault 101. The year is 2277, 200 years after a cataclysmic nuclear war that saw most of the world reduced to an ashen wasteland. Thousands of people took shelter in giant underground vaults just before the bombs fell, and some eventually emerged to try to rebuild society. The first part of the game sees you growing up and creating your character as you go. It also introduces you to the controls and the general way in which the game will play out. Eventually, your father goes missing, and through a series of tragically violent events, you emerge, half blinded, from the vault and see the entirety of the post-nuclear Washington, D.C. wasteland below you.

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