I’ve been interested in Section 8 since I first saw this trailer during E3. The game play looks a little like Tribes 2 which I loved in college, but with updated graphics. I played 6 or 7 games this afternoon and had a good time with it.  The demo is multiplayer focused and they give you an instant action button to jump strait into the action.  However, if you do you’re really hurting yourself because there is a ton of character customization options to choose from.  I’d recommend going through each of the pre-configured loadouts and see how they are different.  Then, after playing around with them for a few matches you can setup your own custom loadout with whichever 2 weapons, 2 equipment, and passive abilities you want. You are not stuck with what you choose though because each time you die, or at any Resupply Points you team has captured, you can change any part of your loadout.  There are six or seven weapons in the demo (assault rifle, machine gun, sniper, pistol, shotgun, and rockets).  The equipment includes grenades, knife, repair tool, and motion sensor.  For your passive abilities you have 10 stat points you can assign to categories to improve accuracy, shield strength, boost power, etc.  Between all of these option you can really customize your character to suit your play style and the game type.  It looks like in addition to these ones that are available in the demo the full version will add even more.

Your character also wears an armor suit that provides both shielding and armor.  When the shields do down from enemy fire they will automatically recharge over time if you stay out of the fighting.  Once your armor has taken damage you will need to have it repaired or repair it yourself with the repair tool equipment. Your armor also lets you sprint very quickly to get around the battlefield but the trade off is that you put your gun away to do so.  The armor also has a thrust pack that will propel you a couple stories into the air. Unlike games like Tribes 2 it is not a jetpack.  I’ve seen some people in the PC beta saying they wish it was a jetpack instead, but I personally like the thrust pack.  You can still use it to get pretty high but only in limited bursts.  However, combining the thrust with the sprint and you can get to some really high and hard to reach areas.

As you play you earn points for killing enemies, meeting objectives, and repairing.  These points are then used to call in airdrops of turrets, heavy armor, tanks, and remote support depots.  I found that I could single handedly defend a base area as an Engineer by repairing anything that got damaged and using the points I earned to call in a remote supply depot to keep me stocked and a couple turrets clustered together to watch my back.  This freed up my squad mates to go on the offensive and try to beat the bonus objectives as well as take over the opposing base.

I really like the burn in feature that occurs after you die.  There is no respawn delay because you drop from an orbiting ship down to the planet.  You can choose land with your squad or pick the exact location to land.  I have not done it yet, but I’m really looking forward to burning in and landing on an enemy.

The graphics look pretty good. Not super outstanding but still very nice.  The work well for the style of first person shooter the developer seem to be going for.  Besides the graphics, the AI for the bots seems pretty good.  I saw AI repairing teammates and turrets as well as working together to attack the same target as their human teammates.  Sure, humans you can communicate with are better but the bots were not dumb like in a lot of shooters.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed the demo so far.  I noticed an option in the menu to invite friends to the match so hopefully this weekend I can get a large room going. I’ve not 100% decided to but it yet but I will rent it for sure. What is going to make that decision for me is the community of gamers who play it.  Since this is not one of the big three (Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War) it is likely that I would see a lot of the same gamers playing pretty regularly. For some games, like Red Faction Guerrilla, it is the great community of gamers that makes it so much fun to play.  However, if the gamers playing Section 8 are not good at working as a team and communicating the multiplayer will not be as fun.  So, I plan to rent it when it releases and if everyone playing seems cool I’ll buy it.

I was browsing the new Xbox Live Indie Games yesterday and noticed a Wacky Karts. From the screenshots I could tell right away it is a clone of the SNES era Mario Karts. Since arcade and kart racing games are the only ones I ever can play successfully I was pretty pumped.  So, I downloaded the trial and gave it a spin.  The first thing I noticed was that the AI, even on the easier levels, is nearly perfect.  I also quickly found out that if you leave the track, even a little, you are going to come in last.  After the trial ended I went on to playing other stuff (Lost Planet 2 Co-op Demo!) and nearly forgot about it.

A few hours later I got an email from the creator of the game offering me a copy of the game for to review for XBLA & XNA Ratings.  I agreed and will be posting a longer review over there once I’ve had a chance to play more of it.  However, the free copy got me to play it again when I otherwise might not have.  I’m glad it did to because I replayed a few of the same tracks and started to do a lot better.  Mostly because I started to learn the layouts and stay on the track more. One thing I found annoying at first, but quickly grew to like was that when you’re in the back half of the pack the power ups are almost always turbo.  The first few times I played this annoyed me because I wanted to try some of the other ones, but now I like it because the turbo can really help you make up lost time.

The graphics have a very SNES look to them that has really grown on me.  I tend to not notice the area around the map because I’m trying to focus on the race but these graphics stand out with their retro look.  The sound effects are a little generic but really I did not notice them that much so at least they were not annoying.

Wacky Karts definitely is game that is hurt by the 8 minute trial time limit. It took me at least 30 or 40 minutes to start winning some races.  Once I found the right kart for my racing style and got a feel for the tracks I was able to consistently be in the top 3 or 4. A couple hints I figured out that really helped me: as soon as the track loads up hit the gas. Unlike Mario Kart games where you would spin out for revving the engine too soon in Wacky Karts you will get the best start that way.  Second, as soon as you can get in front of an enemy block them off so they can not pass.  This will cause them to hit you from behind and give you a little speed boost.

The game does have its faults.  The menus are slow to respond to button presses at times, but in other cases you will hit the button once and it will register twice.  The learning curve is really steep and the karts do not seem to be very balanced.  However, if you play with some friends and use the faster karts it can be really fun.

As you can see I’m part way through moving from Blogger to WordPress.  Things are progressing pretty well but I’ve still got more stuff to do.  Over the next few days I should get everything finished…hopefully.

The main URL for my Rants and Reviews is now http://www.andymerrill.com/blog/ so update your bookmarks and RSS readers.

I took an early lunch to play the Lost Plant 2 demo that released today on the Xbox 360.The demo supports both playing solo as well as four player co-op over Xbox Live. You can setup the co-op room with 0 to 3 private slots for your friends and then fill in the remainder of the spots with people on Xbox Live if you want.

The entire demo consists of one huge boss fight in a large, but enclosed, valley area. The enemy is a giant six legged lizard with a spiked tail. You can take out the legs to slow it down or jump on its back to take out the large energy filled spikes on its back. Also, if you time it right you can get inside the lizard beast and shoot it from the inside. Assuming you can survive the ordeal it will shoot you out the back end.

There is a wide variety of weapons and grenades in the game to choose from. One thing I found really helpful is that the guns list next to them if they are a heavy weapon (plasma cannon, rocket launcher, or hand cannon) or a close range weapon (flamethrower). This came in handy as I was learning all the different weapons. I lost count of how many grenades there were but it was at least 5 or 6 different kinds. Additionally, there are also at least three different types of VS suits around the map you can climb into to attack it with. These mech suits have a gattling gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, and rocket pod that you can find and attach to them to fight with. Most of the VS suits have the ability to fly for short bursts using jets on their backs.

The boss lizard is pretty tough to take out. After taking out all of its legs you head inside it to take out the equivalent of the heart. There are some smaller enemies in there to slow you down and if you take too long it will grows its legs back. Also, while inside the beast you’re fighting the current of its digestive track. I learned the hard way to be extra careful with grenades while on the inside. It is a very confided space that makes it hard to throw them far enough not to hurt yourself too.

The one thing I found a little frustrating about the demo was the tips. They have tips and instructions scattered around the level that you can walk up and read. This can be hard to do with a giant lizard trying to stomp on you. I died more than once trying to read one of them.

The graphics and music in the demo were really sweet. I found the battle to be quite challenging but not to the point of frustration. In fact, I played through the demo 3 times before even getting to the point of taking the legs out and being able to go inside the lizard. It definitely helps to be playing cooperatively so that you can focus your fire on one or two of the legs at a time. Plus, you can get one person up on the back while another grabs a large VS and the remaining two provide coordinated fire. I was looking forward to Lost Planet 2 before playing the demo and it does not disappoint. I’m now really looking forward to its release.

My plan was to play Overlord II but apparently I was not pay attention and I rented Overlord Dark Legend for the Nintendo Wii instead. Fortunately a couple people pointed out that it has a different story line and I decided to check it out. I’m assuming that Overlord Dark Legend is the version for younger gamers because it was pretty easy and the whole game was maybe 8 hours long. However, it was pretty fun. They call you an evil overlord in the game but you don’t do really any evil stuff like you could in Overlord. Again, I figure this is because the game is aimed at younger gamers.

The story was pretty good. You play as a 16 year old Overlord who has his birthday and gets his magic abilities. You then go one to defeat your older sibling’s evil plans for the world and rule the realm yourself. As you progress through the game you get more and more abilities and minions to control. However, the most minions you ever get up to is 20. Whereas in Overlord I am pretty sure you got up to 40 or 50. The puzzles in Dark Legend are all very simple. They all wind up being kill person with the key or wheel piece and then use it to unlock the next area.

This game is the first one I’ve played on the Wii where it uses literally every button on the controller. However, the controls were never really confusing. There were just a lot of options available. Most of them I used once or twice but the main controls of moving yourself and the minions are very smooth and simple.

My one big complaint about the game is that the finally was weak. You get your siblings to fight each other and instead of having one final epic battle against both of them the game ends with a very lengthy cut scene of you making them both work to clean your castle. It is really a shame because you work to get all your minions leveled up and all your spells, health, and magic but then you never get to really put them to use.

Overall I had a good time playing Overlord Dark Legend and it got me excited to play Overlord II. It is simple and clean enough for younger gamers, but with enough Overlord style humor for adults to enjoy too.

I had a couple hours tonight with no serious plans so I decided to play some Xbox Live Indie Games. I started off playing some Horn Swaggle Island. If you missed my post about it before it is a pirate themed tower defense game. I wish it had an option to control the speed because at times it is slow as I wait for the enemies to work their way across. I figured out a solid strategy that I can adapt to pretty much all of the maps so I’ve been working through them pretty quickly. The only real difficulty is getting the turrets setup for the map layout. Then it is waiting for the waves to arrive and upgrading. I played 6 maps tonight and I probably should have stopped after 3 or 4 because the last couple I was having less fun. Mostly because it was starting to feel repetitive. I still plan to finish the last couple maps but I need a break from tower defense for a while.

Fortunately, after getting done with the 10th map I saw a lot of people posting on twitter about a newly released game called I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1. Yes, that is really the titles of the game. But, don’t let the name throw you off. It is a really fun game. It was made by Jamezila who also developed Dishwasher: Dead Samurai on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is a two-stick shooter (like Geometry Wars) where you are shooting at waves of zombies. I generally stink at these type of games, but I was doing pretty well. The song that plays is really funny and the game play was fun. There are a bunch of different weapons and power-ups. Personally, I like the flamethrower and shotgun. The waves of zombies, and the lights, tie in with the music and make it even better. The screenshot does not really do justice to how much fun this game is. It has 4 player local co-op and for a $1 I’m not going to complain that there is not co-op over Live. But Live co-op would have been really sweet. Even without it you should still check this game out. I’d pay $1 for just the song let alone a really fun game.

I played the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum over the weekend (twice) and really loved it.It has a great mix of fighting, stealth and puzzles all wrapped in a dark, gritty Batman story. The fighting is simple but there are some combos, blocking, and take-downs. Batman feels like you’d expect, super strong, but not invincible. A lot of the game seems stealth focused with you being able to get up in the rafters and move around quietly to get the drop on unexpected enemies. The puzzles come in when you use your ‘detective mode’ to see weak spots in the walls, loose grates, and grapple points. What makes it so great is that all of these parts work so seamlessly together. Plus, the graphics look really nice and the audio seemed well done. From the demo and the trailers it looks like all the classic Batman villains are in the game. I’m really looking forward to playing the full game when it releases.

I decided to rent Bionic Commando because the swing mechanic looked like it could be really fun. Wow, was I wrong. After thoroughly enjoying the swing mechanic in Spider-Man Friend or Foe I’m shocked at how much I hate it in Bionic Commando. You can only lock onto structures that are within a very short range. Then you have to time your swing release perfectly to land where you want or swing from the next point. Time it wrong and you call almost strait down. In addition there are a lot of areas in the game that you can see but can’t go to because they are covered with radiation. Yet, in a lot of cases you can’t tell the top of a building is covered in radiation until after you get up there and are dead. I’m about 40% of the way through the game and I’ll not be finishing it. I’m tired of dying and I’m not having fun. It is going back to GameFly today. Unless you are an absolute glutton for punishment don’t bother with Bionic Commando. It is not worth the frustration you’ll get from missing the perfect timing by a fraction of a second and then dying.

Since finishing Damnation I’ve been playing catch up on a lot of the recent Indie Games. You can see my recent ratings of them here. Nothing super outstanding but a few fun titles. I did get to try out an early release of Horn Swaggle Islands and I’m really enjoying it. I need to put more time into it before giving everyone a full review. Still, how can you go wrong with a pirate themed tower defense game?

I also have played through the new Gears of War 2 single player DLC Road to Ruin. It is not really that long but I had a surprisingly fun time. I had forgotten how much fun the single player is in Gears of War 2 and the DLC has really gotten me wanting to play through the main campaign on Insane with a friend in co-op.

I also got into the new Dashboard Updated Preview this week. A few quick thoughts on that.

• I have noticed that the Guide seems much faster and smoother now. I use to get a lot of hang ups and lag when in the guide if I opened it while in a multiplayer match. Since getting the updated I’ve not had that happen once.
• Also, the My Games list loads much quicker. It use to populate very slowly and it is much better now.
• User Ratings – The option to have user ratings for everything in the Xbox Live Marketplace is a nice touch, but should people really be able to rate games they have not played? How long until that is abused?
• Avatar Marketplace – I did not buy gamer pics and themes, and I’m not buying clothes for my Avatar. However, I am looking forward to unlocking Awards for my Avatar to wear just like unlocking achievements.

Despite the less than stellar reviews, the trailers for Damnation kept me interested and I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did because despite its flaws I had fun playing through the campaign. Damnation is a third person shooter with a steam punk theme. I really enjoyed the aesthetics of the game even though graphically it was not great. The character models looked really good, but the backgrounds and building look a little little generic and out dated. The bid feature of the game is the vertical scale of the environments. The levels pretty linear but they are huge both in height and square footage. I’m not sure exactly how long the single player campaign is but I would guess somewhere around 8 hours since I completed it in less than a week on Hardcore difficulty. The game only has Casual, Hardcore, and Insane modes, but no Normal difficulty setting. The Hardcore setting I played on was a bit rough at points because you can only take about 2 shots before you get killed. They did a good job of making steam punk styled weapons. There is the normal sniper, shotgun and assault rifles like most shooters have, but there were some really fun unique guns. My favorite was the arrow rifle that just decimates enemies.

The main gameplay focuses on getting around the vertical environments while taking out enemies. I actually played it a lot like a shooting gallery and them a platform puzzle because I would snipe every enemy I could and them work my way though the level until there were more enemies to snipe. It was actually a lot of fun to play like this because I could figure out the vertical platform puzzles without having to worry about enemies sneak up on me. Early in the game they give you the ability to see where enemies are through walls so this combined with the sniper was a lot of fun.

The gameplay mixes in some driving sections as well. You have a motorcycle with a turbo boost. The driving sections were frustrating at first because at times you have to make jumps and run up on the side walls, but once I realized that you don’t have to boost to stay on the side walls it was much easier. The driving sections are actually very forgiving because they give you a lot of checkpoints and you stick to the walls when you drive on them as long as you do not stop. My biggest complaint about the driving sections was that you can’t adjust the camera angle and it sits directly behind the bike making it hard to see what is right in front of you. This made it hard to time jumps properly.

I did like that you can use the cheat codes available to unlock power weapons and big head mode. Even with the cheats turned on you can still get achievements so I recommend turning the power weapons and custom weapon load-out as soon as you start the game.

The biggest complaint I had while playing was that the game would randomly pause and pop up a “Loading…” message. However, there is no progress indicator and the loading times seemed to occur randomly. I never know if I was going to have to wait 2 or 40 seconds for the loading to finish. Most of the loading was on the longer side and since it would just pop up randomly mid-level I never figured out how to tell if a load screen was coming or how long it would be.

I’m not saying this is a great game or anything. It has flaws. A lot of them. The graphics are date, the loading is long and random, and the achievements are really few and far between. But, I went into playing Damnation with low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised with the vertical platforming and shooting gallery sections. If they were to make a Damnation 2 that is up to the standards of games like Gears of War 2 and Assassing Creed it could be a really great game.