I finally got around to trying the EndWar Demo I downloaded a few weeks back. I was in the EndWar Beta previously, but I was never able to actually do anything in it because I was so busy. I was a little concerned about using voice commands to control the game, bit it actually worked really well. There were only a couple times I had to repeat myself and most likely on those I was not very clear. I was also concerned it would be hard to keep up with everything going on but it was not at all. I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had playing through the demo levels. I’ve already added it to my GamFly Q and I’m looking forward to playing the full game at some point.

I played the Mirror’s Edge demo on the 360 a few times over the last couple days. I’m not even going to try and explain it to you all in detail. Instead just check out this video:

That should give you a little idea of how the game looks. Frankly, I’m quickly growing to love this game just from the demo. The controls are nice and smooth and the whole thing is new and unique. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, first person games, and pretty much gaming in general I’d recommend trying the demo out. In addition to the main story line there are time trials for each level where you can compete against your friends to see who can complete levels the fastest.

I came across World of Goo this last week when it released on WiiWare. Since the Wii does not give demos of their games I downloaded the demo on my PC to check it out. World of Goo is part puzzle game and part action/arcade game. It has a play style that reminds me a little of Eets: Chowdown (which I love) where you have to solve puzzles but also you have to get your timing right.

Here is a video showing a little more about the game:

Having played through the full demo I instantly was wanting more. I love the puzzle elements. They are unique and challenging, but without being furstrating. Plus, you can save all your high scores and compare them to everyone else playin the game. The graphic and music style is great. And, what really impresses me is that this game was completely made by two people. I would defintaley recommend checking it out. Now I just have to decide if I want it on the PC or Wii.

After finishing the main story line in The Incredible Hulk there were a few achievements I wanted to go back and get. The two primary ones were ‘Now Playing’ and ‘Trill-ionaire’ which are for Scoring 6,132,008 points and scoring 1,000,000 points while the Strike Teams were active.

I had roughly 2,000,000 points and about 400,000 with Strike Teams active at that point. After trying a few different methods for getting points quickly I came up with a pretty good strategy to rack them up quickly. Additionally, the method I’m about to describe also will get you ‘World War Hulk’ for Surviving at least 60 seconds at Threat Level 9.

Start by heading towards Central Park. Any side will do. Knock down a building or two and get your rage meter maxed out and get a few Army guys attacking you. Use your Thunder Clap special towards another building and it should take the whole thing down and increase your Threat Level by 1 or 2. Repeat this until your Thread Level is 8. Then head to the edge of Central Park. Start sprinting down the edge of the Park knocking down the light posts and waist high cement style fence as you go. Just keep doing laps around Central Park while sprinting and knocking down the fence. A couple of laps and you’ll should have all three achievements.

I’ve been doing some blogging over a The “Break It Down” Blog so I posted my review of The Incredible Hulk over there. Let me know what you think of the new format I tried for that review (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly format).

Link to the Review

When I’ve not been playing Rock Band 2 the last couple weeks I’ve been goofing around in We Ski. We Ski is just what the title says, as skiing game for the Wii. I picked it up because it supports 4 players as well as the Wii Balance Board. The graphics are pretty much what you expect from a Wii game…nothing to fancy, but not bad.

The game is pretty simple. You make a character and then ski down the mountain. You can either just ski wherever you want and relax or do various events that are scattered around the slopes. The events fall into a few categories: racing moguls, slalom, or freestyle, find missing people, deliver food, do trick, and others. While I don’t mind doing some of the events what I really enjoy about We Ski is just relaxing and skiing down the slopes. Each slope gives you a rating for speed, turning, and other categories, but it is very unobtrusive. I find it really relaxing to just start at the top of the mountain and ski all the way to the bottom hitting whatever jumps I can find.

I tried playing both with and without the balance board. I found that for the most part I prefer to play without the balance board. The game is much easier to control without the balance board. This is mostly because when you use the balance board you still have to use the Wiimote and Nunchuk. So, you’re trying to control your skiing direction with the board, but do all your tricks with the wiimote/nunchuk. Don’t get me wrong the balance board is fun for a while, but for playing more than 5 minutes I did not use it.

Overall I like We Ski. It is like $30 and is pretty fun and relaxing.

I finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed yesterday. Overall I’d recommend it as a rental. It is about 11 or 12 hours for a single play through and there is no multiplayer so I would not recommend buying it. However, it was fun enough to be worth playing through once. Plus it has a pretty cool story that you get to go through. I’ll not spoil the story for you, but it was worth it for me as a casual fan of Star Wars to go get to play through the story.

The game itself it pretty fun, but has some technical issues that are annoying. While jumping around and fighting is pretty fun I found the camera controls frustrating. The right stick controls the camera, but you have to use the A, B, X, and Y buttons to fight. In a lot of large open rooms this is frustrating because enemies are on all sides of you, but you can’t easily attack them and look around at the same time. After a while you just get use to the fact people will be behind you and there us nothing you can do but run away and then turn around.

In addition to the camera the game hiccups occasionally. I noticed it mostly when I’d send an enemy flying really far away and then when they’d hit a wall way off in the distance the game would pause for a second. Then it would just continue like nothing was wrong. The first couple times I thought my 360 was dying or the disk was scratched, but after a couple levels I realized it was the game. It also does the same pause for a second whenever you get an achievement and it pops up the little notification of the achievement. Not a huge deal, but a bit annoying.

Like I mentioned before I would recommend renting SW:TFU. It is too short to be worth buying, but the story is really good and the game is pretty fun.

I got a Beta Key today for the Call of Duty: World at War beta. So, I gave it a try this afternoon. I found it to be pretty much how I remembered Call of Duty 4. I did not play a lot of the multiplayer in Call of Duty 4. It is too run-n-gun for me. There are some little difference I noticed right away. For one, all the maps seem darker. They are mostly set at night and that makes it hard to see any real distance. For a run-n-gun game that is not really a big deal, but it makes the sniper I unlocked pretty much useless. Other than being set back in WWII there are not a lot of major differences between what I see here and Call of Duty 4. There are enough little things to make anyone who likes Call of Duty 4 happy with Call of Duty: World at War, but not enough to make me really want to play the full game.

I’ve been playing some Rock Band 2 the last few days which is why I’ve not been posting much here. It is a lot of fun and has some great additions to the original Rock Band. I’m also working on the last few achievements in Civilization Revolution.

If I ever put Rock Band 2 down I’ll play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Also, for those of you into Xbox Live Arcade titles I’m running another contest on XBLA Ratings.

I’m still playing a lot of Too Human and a little Civ Rev. I’m sure in the next few days I’ll get tired of one of them and move on to something else but for now they are both holding my interest.

Don’t forget there is a week left in the contest for 1600 Marketplace Points over at XBLA Ratings. So, get your ratings posted this week to increase your odds of winning.