Since I enjoyed Shaun White Snowboarding for a while I decided to rent Stoked as well. Unfortunately, the controls are terrible. I almost quit playing before the end of the tutorial because of how poorly the controls are setup, and they are not at all customizable. Whereas Shaun White Snowboarding has controls similar to Tony Hawk games it initially seems like Stoked has controls like Skate/Skate II. However, that is not the case. The controls to ollie are like Skate where you use the thumb stick, but then you control the tricks by hitting triggers and moving the thumb stick in a direction. Since I rented it I made myself finish the tutorial and play the actual game for about an hour. The layout is pretty much like Shaun White in that there are events you can ride up to and compete in or you can just ignore them and ride the mountains. It is really disapointing how bad the controls are because the game physincs and graphics were pretty decent. Maybe it is just me, but I can’t recommend even renting Stoked based on how much I hated the controls.

I finally finished playing Fable II this weekend. I enjoyed the game for the most part, but it does have its flaws. Fable II is an Action RPG that is pretty light on the RPG elements. You do level up your character but there is not a tech/skill tree. Plus the loot grinding from a real RPGs is minimal. Still, there are a lot of great things in Fable II that make it worth playing even for the most hardcore RPG fan. Just be aware that it is more of an action game than an RPG. There are tons of reviews of Fable II already out so I’m just going to run down the things I like and did not like real quick for those of you who have not had a chance to play it yet.

The Good

• The Story – I really enjoyed the overall story line of the game. It was fun with some interesting and unexpected twists. Plus, the final payoff gives you three choices on how you want to finish the game which really made me think about how I wanted the Fable world to remember me.
• Simple RPG Elements – Since the game has only about 10 to 12 hours of story line gamed game play (so not counting achievement hunting collection quests) it is nice that you are not grinding through hours of fights to level up and get better weapons. The game really focus in on the work well which are focused on continuing the story and become the greatest Hero in the land.
• Breadcrumb Trail & Your Dog- I don’t have anything against a mini-map, but the option to have a trail leading you to your next quest is great. You don’t have to continually be looking at a little map in the corner and you can explore the world looking for hidden treasure with your trusty dog pointing them all out for you.
• Funny Character Interactions – The little things like people falling in love with you and offering discounts at their stores works really well. Towards the end of the game when half the world is fallowing you around because of how famous you are it is a little over the top but even then it is really funny. Unlike many games I’ve played where you hear the same NPC lines over and over I don’t recall hearing any so many times that they became memorable.

The Bad

• Load Times – While I like having the option to teleport to any area I’ve already been instead of having to run all the way there the load times seemed really long. And I even installed it to my hard disk to help speed that up. What makes it worse is that you’ll get a quest in one town and then have to go to another area of the world to complete the 2 minute quest of killing some bandits and then go back to the person who gave you the quest. The two loads times going there and back are longer than the time it takes actually complete the fighting portion of the quest.
• The Economics – The methods of making gold in the game are very lopsided towards buying a lot of building and then raking in money slowly over time. I would this frustrating because it promotes playing the game for a short time, and then coming back later so you’ll have more gold stored up again. I like to play RPGs for large blocks of time and I found myself regularly not having enough gold. Sure, I could have taken a job in the game to make some, but those mini-games are ridiculously boring.

Even with these annoyances I really enjoyed Fable II. Not enough to grind out the collection quests after the game completes, but enough that I’d play Fable III if there ever is one. For fans of RPGs and those people who like a good action-adventure title I’d recommend playing Fable II.

I’m still playing Fable II and a lot of Peggle. Man it is addiction to a completionist like me.
To help the rest of you with your Peggle additions I put together a short guide for how to get the achievements and some general tips.

Peggle (Xbox Live Arcade) Hints, Tips, and Achievement Details

I played the Guitar Hero: Metallica demo this weekend and I was not overly impressed. If it pretty much like Guitar Hero: World Tour, which I was not really fond of, but with a Metallica skin on it. It plays pretty much like World Tour in terms of most chart structure. The one thing I noticed that was a nice addition is now in GH Metallica there is an indicator of how many stars you’ve up to as you play. They use a little bar below the number to show how close you are to the next start which takes works ok, but is a little harder to judge than the circles that Rock Band 2 uses. Still, it is nice they added that the star level indicator at all.

I’m still not a fan of the Guitar Hero graphical style or note chart structures when compared to Rock Band’s, but I’ll probably rent Guitar Hero: Metallica to play through all the songs a time or two and to check out the Expert + Drum Mode.

I’ve been meaning to play Pure since the demo was released last September. I finally got around to playing the full game these last couple weeks and I’m really glad I did. I know I’ve mentioned it before but I’m not very good at simulation style racing games, but Pure is clearly not a simulation racer. It has arcade style controls and extremely unrealistic tricks and jumps. However, it is because of these that it is so much fun to play. As you race you do tricks over the jumps on the track to build up your boost meter. It adds a little strategy to the game. You have to decide if you want to take big jumps for large tricks and more boost, which takes more time. Or, do you take the small jumps to keep your speed up and get less boost.

Even with the arcade style racing you still have to be somewhat careful to land strait and not take corners to fast or you will crash and pretty much loose any chance of winning the race. Like most racing games on the harder tracks you will need to run a nearly perfect race to get first place, but it they do give you options to practice and restart the race as needed. You can run a single even with opponents to practice or run time trails to have the track for yourself and work out the best lines for each race type.

The race and sprint modes are pretty strait forward. In race mode you have a track that will be about 2 minutes per lap and it is a three lap race. In sprint mode you have a short track that takes under 30 seconds per lap and it is 5 laps. The race mode has a little give room where you can make up a few positions if you have a bad lap, but in spring mode if you have a bad lap you are pretty much out of luck. Fortunately those are really fast so it is not like you spent 10 minutes only to loose on the last lap.

Both race and sprint mode are pretty fun, but freestyle mode quickly became my favorite. It starts like any other race, but instead of trying to get first you want to get the most points for your tricks. Plus, freestyle is the only mode where you have to watch your fuel level. As you race around the track your fuel is used up, but as you do tricks you get some of it back. If you run out of fuel you’re out of the race, but your score still counts. So, it is completely possible to win without finishing the race. They also have power-ups scattered across the track that give you extra boost, more fuel, instant special trick, and score multipliers. It is such a unique take on racing and for me is less stressful because even if I have a bad lap I can still have a shot at winning if I can sting together some great tricks.

The game looks gorgeous. It has some of the best graphics of any game I’ve played. The sound track is nicely put together. It has a nice range of modern songs from rock to metal and hip-hop. Plus, they get the little details done well. As you race if you run through mud you slide and it sprays mud everywhere. Each different surface you race on feels different and you can tell if you are on dirt, grass, sand, mud, or ice. I also like that you unlock upgradeable parts for your ATV as you complete races, and that you can choose which performance parts to get first. This really helped me build an ATV that suits my racing style.

I’m probably 85% of the way through the single player World Tour and while it is challenging it is not so hard that I find it frustrating…so far. The last few races look like they will be pretty hard, but I’m looking forward to trying to get first in all of them. If you’re even a little into racing games I’d recommend trying Pure. It is a fun racing game that looks great but does not take itself too seriously. I put some tips and hints together after looking for some online and not finding any. Hopefully, they help people just starting to play Pure.

I know you’ve noticed that there have not been a lot of posts recently. That would be because of Peggle. Or more specifically Peggle on Xbox Live Arcade. I’ve completed the Adventure Mode and started on the Challenge Mode. When I’m not feeding my Peggle addiction I’m playing Fable II as well so you can see why I’ve been sidetracked. I’m working on a review of Pure but I keep getting sidetracked. Hopefully I’ll get it finished in the next day or so.

I watched Transporter 3 this weekend. If you’ve seen the first two then let me assure you that it was more like the first one than the second. I liked it. Jason Statham does fighting in a suit really well and there were a couple fun fights where he takes on a big group of guys. The car chase scenes were ok, but not as good as the could be. The movie was pretty much what I expected it to be. Lot so driving and fighting with a very shallow plot…which works for me.

It has been a while since I’ve played an extreme sports game that I really liked. I was always a fan of the Tony Hawk and Amped series of games as well as SSX, but there have not been a lot of these type games released in the last couple years. Sure, there is Skate and Skate II, but I prefer more arcade and less simulation in my extreme sports games. So, when I saw that Ubisoft was making a snowboarding game I was pretty excited. Shaun White Snowboarding was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released on November 14, 2008.

The game has four mountains available to snowboard on the disc and a fifth you can get via DLC. Each mountain has sections for back country snowboarding, park riding, and peak sections. At the start of the game all four mountains are available to ride. You start with some generic clothes and snowboard and as you complete competitions you make money to buy better clothing and snowboards. There are no stats to level up and the only thing that affects your riding is which board you use. Fortunately, it does not take very long to buy a couple of the best boards in the game in the game.

There are only four requited missions in the game that Shaun White gives you. Each one is to go around all four mountains and collect 12 coins. The first one you complete unlocks a special ability to charge through fences that you need to use to complete the next mission of coin collecting. These repeats until you have completed all four missions and get the ability to boost your speed, break through fences, and jump extra high. After that you unlock these abilities you then get to compete against Shaun in a competition. Beating him is hard, but manageable if you have a full focus meter when you start. Other than these four missions and the contest with Shaun White all of the competitions scattered around the mountains are completely optional.

I found the missions from Shaun a little annoying because I they do not explain why you would want to collect these coins, but the actual jumps and stuff to get them are pretty fun. If it were not for going to get the coins I may have never found some of these great jumps and tick lines.

Graphically the game looks good and the sound track is great. It is a nice mix of current and classic rock songs. The tricks you pull are all real snowboarding tricks. You can do them way beyond normal human ability but I like that they are all real tricks I recognize from watching real snowboarding events. They make it easy to pull both air and rail tricks. Also, they make it fun and strait forward to string tricks together.

My only real issue with the game is that after about two weeks of playing I got bored with it. Since all of the side contests are optional I did not really see a need to do them once I purchased the best boards in the game. So, after completing the missions for Shaun it becomes just going down the mountains over and over. Which is fun, but not so much fun that I’m still playing it. The other minor annoyance I had was that a lot of the achievements are only possible after you play a lot of hours online and finish all of Shaun’s missions.

If you are looking for an action sports game along the Tony Hawk style I’d recommend renting Shaun White Snowboarding. Unless you have a lot of friends playing it that you can join online and mess around with I do not think it is worth buying.

I decided to check out the Wanted: Weapons of Fate demo today even though I really did not like the movie. The idea of being able to curve the bullets I shoot was just too much for me to pass up. I played through the tutorials and the actual playable level in about 10 minutes. It was not very hard but it was only playable on the easiest difficulty setting. Overall, I was disappointed because there are some glaring issues here. The curving of bullets is gimmicky and way to easy to pull off. You just hold down the right bumper and it puts a line of the bullet trajectory on the screen. Move it around until it goes from red to white and then release the bumper and it shoots the bullet. As long as the trajectory line is white then the bullet hits. They do limit how often you can curve bullets by making you build up an “adrenaline” meter. Still, it is kind of fun to curve bullets to hit people behind cover and then seem them come staggering out.

If the bullet curving being just a little gimmicky was the only issue I might still think this was pretty decent, but there are other issues too. They have a lot of needless swearing. It is one thing to have your character or AI characters swear when they get shot or almost get killed, but there is no need to have characters swearing mid-conversation for no reason. The tutorials alone have a lot of swearing even when you are just shooting at targets.

In addition to the gun fighting if enemies get close you can hit the ‘B’ button and you perform a one hit kill with a knife or knee attack. It is cool to see your character perform these moves, but when you do it splashes blood all over the screen locking your view for a couple seconds. I found this really annoying for a couple reasons. First, this is the only time I came across when blood splatters across the screen, and it does it every time you use a melee attack. Second, after you do a melee attack you cannot see to do anything else for a couple seconds so you are wide open to getting shot from other enemies.

The one thing I really did like was the cover system. You hit ‘A’ to go into cover. Once you are in cover you can lean out shoot or hit ‘A’ again and it moves you quickly to the next cover. You can string together the move from cover to cover and as you do so you move faster and faster. If you have adrenaline stored up you can also hit ‘Y’ to move to the next area of cover. When you do, instead of moving quickly everything goes into a slow motion, bullet time where you can shoot a lot of shots off at enemies as you slide across the gap between pieces of cover. It seemed like you can go into cover behind pretty much everything, and if the object you are taking cover behind is movable you can hold down ‘A’ and push it forward to move your cover with you.

Like the movie, the demo for Wanted has a lot of potential, but it is very poorly executed. Hopefully they clean up some of these issues in the full game because the cover system has a lot of potential, but the gimmicky one hit kill melee attacks and pointless cursing are a huge let down.

Miner Dig Deep released on Xbox Live Community Games on February 4th 2009. You play as a miner whose sole responsibility is to excavate the local mine. The deeper you dig the more valuable the gems and ore you will find. For $2.50 (200 Microsoft Points) you would expect a quick little game, but Miner Dig Deep can easily take you ten or more hours to fully explore your mine in just a single game.

What makes Miner Dig Deep so much fun is that there are no enemies to worry, no preset goals, and no permanent deaths. Yes, you can fall to your death, but when you do you just restart back at the top of the mine without any of the resources that you were carrying. So, the key to playing Miner Dig Deep is planning a good strategy for how you want to progressively dig deeper and unlocking additional tools. As you dig through the mine you collect ore and gems that you then sell back on the surface. The money you make from these resources is used to buy stronger digging tools, oil for your lamp, ladders, and elevators.

Other than being careful to not drop into deep holes the only real worry you have is the rocks scattered thorough out the mine. If a heavy rock falls on your head you also get killed, but as long as you careful not to dig strait up above you without seeing what is their first you should not have a problem with rocks falling on you.

The mine is three screen widths wide and ridiculously deep. However, the pace of the game is set really well. Just as you’re getting to the point where it seems like you are spending more time traveling to the bottom of the mine you’ll get a stronger axe of a larger lantern to help you progress more quickly. There is no pressure to rush through the mine as quickly as possible so playing Mine Dig Deep is a nice relaxing experience.

The graphics are simple but nicely clean and colored. A lot better than most of the other Xbox Live Community Games and probably the best for the games priced at $2.50.

My only complaint is the sound and music. There are only two background songs, one for above ground and one for below, that repeat while you play. After about 15 minutes these songs get old, but you can play your own music through the 360 while you are playing Miner Dig Deep. You should plan on doing this if you’re going to play for more than half an hour.

Even with the repetitive music I would recommend everyone check out Miner Dig Deep. It is a great price and fun for all ages.