I’ve been playing Full House Poker for almost two weeks now and I’m thoroughly hooked. I was able to get a review copy for XBLA Ratings (full review here) and I was not really expecting much from a poker game. I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun the Texas Heat game show portion is.  It plays really quick since it only lasts 30 minutes, but since playing well gets you better rewards people actually play mostly like it was for real money.  The leveling mechanic is pretty nicely done too since you get XP for playing you can tell how much a person plays more than how good they are based off their level. I do have some tips for leveling up quicker for those wanting to get ranked up higher. I’m looking forward to playing a lot more with my friends and taking all their chips.

Homefront released this week. Actually, 2 days ago. I’ve already finished the campaign. No, I did not spend all night playing either.  It was something like 5 hours long and that was with a lot of dying on a few missions.  That is pretty short.  I would not mind the length really if it was not for the fact the story was one of the big selling points of the game.  It was written by the guy behind Red Dawn so I was expecting something a bit longer.  Still, the story is the one good thing about the campaign, and even it was not told that well.   Between missions there are cut scenes telling what happened next because of the actions of the characters who the who the story follows, but right in the middle of the scene a giant “Press A to Skip” button comes up. So much for being immersed in the story.  Gamers are smart. We know how to skip a cut scene.  If you really need to tell us how to skip a cut scene then put it in the corner out of the way and make it small.

Even without the giant cut scene skip info the campaign is hard to get immersed in. The graphics are nothing special and the controls are pretty standard. Unfortunately the shooting is not very good. The guns require you to be extremely accurate to hit enemies.  This would be fine for sniping but when I’m using an assault rifle from 10 feet away I should not need to hit the middle of someone’s chest or head with half a clip to down them. Especially when the enemies are able to kill me with just a couple bullets.  I would not mind the low health or high damage per bullet if it was done evenly.

Even just walking around feels off.  You move slowly like you are walking through molasses and sprinting feels like a slow jog. They give you a large section of cities and suburbs to play in but don’t bother trying to flank enemies unless your team mates tell you to.  The game blocks off every where it does not want you to go with fences and broken cars so that you have to go down the very linear path they want you to.  It is really frustrating to have a while wide area out around you and not be able to use any of it tactically.  Some areas seem like you should be able to access them by jumping a low fence or crawling through a broken wall but the game has invisible walls in place to make sure you do not.  This is doubly frustrating because the objective markers are often not very clear.  When the objective is not currently visible you pretty much have no way of knowing which way to go other than to just wait for your team to eventually advance and follow them.  Try going off ahead of them to get a head start and most likely you will find yourself waiting for them to open a door or move an obstacle.  That is assuming you can even figure out the right path to take.

The AI is pretty weak throughout the campaign for both the enemies and your group or rebels. Everyone pretty much just stands in place and keeps shooting until their clip is empty and then goes into cover to reload.  Even though everyone else in the game can use cover there is no cover mechanic for the actual player.  You can crouch and go prone, but no using cover other than just getting behind it.  And, you better get behind it because the enemies pretty much shoot at you and only you.  Either that or your friends are bullet proof.

All of these frustrations and faults are really a shame because there are some awesome settings and set pieces throughout the campaign that could have been truly epic if the game just did not suck so much.  I did have a good time controlling the Goliath during those sequences. Of course shooting dozens of enemies with homing rockets fun in pretty much any game.  The only other times I really had fun was when I was sniping.  There are a few sections where you get to just sit back and pick off enemies with a sniper rifle and those were nice.

I have not played any multiplayer yet, but unless it is something really remarkable I would recommend skipping Homefront.  I guess if you wanted a few each achievements you could rent it and play through the campaign on a day or two, but I would say avoid Homefront if you were at all hoping for a good campaign.

I have almost caught up on my gaming backlog form last year and I wanted to splay something different. I enjoyed the demo when I played it at E3 last year so I decided to rent Vanquish. I’m glad I rented it for a could reasons.  First, it was really fun and different from most of the shooters I play.  Also though it was short.  I completed the campaign in under 6 hours. Each mission is broken into 10 or 15 minute segments that make it easy to play for a little while and then come back later.  The game is non-stop action for the whole campaign though. You are pretty much always surrounded by tons of enemies.

The combat is fun because you can sit back in cover and snipe if you want or you can use jets in your suit to charge right up to an enemy and melee them.  There are a nice mix of weapons as well.  There are the standard assault rifle, machine gun, shotty, sniper and rocket launcher but there us also a lock-on laser and energy gun.  Both of these are a blast to use as the can decimate a ton of small enemies at once. You get a constant stream weapons to pick up so you never really run low on ammo and can swap out guns regularly to try them all out.

The graphics and animations look great in Vanquish.  I would slide around and melee guys just to see the different attacks that each weapon did. It was good all the other parts of the game were fun because the story was ridiculous.  I never did figure out what was going on or why I was fighting but I did not really care.  It was fun to use all weapons and suit’s slide to take out as many enemies as fast as I could.

Vanquish is one of those game that makes for a great weekend rental. It is fun, fast, nice to look at and short.

I finally got around to playing Dragon Age: Origins and the Awaking expansion over the last few weeks.  Frankly, by now everyone should have heard that it is an awesome game.  What made it so enjoyable for me was the story.  Sure, killing lots of enemies as my Human Mage was fun, but really what I liked was that my choices in the story carried weight through the rest of the game. Characters I chose to help came back later for better or worse. The dialog was funny at points and I could get the info I needed either through fear or gentle persuasion. The lack of any kind of good/evil meter was a nice change from other RPGs I’ve played recently.  If one character was annoying I could be rude to them without having to worry about the rest of the game being labeled as a “bad” guy.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the main Origins game as well as the Awaking expansion, but there was one frustration for me in there.  Towards the end of Awaking  one of my side-quests glitched and would not let me complete it.  Because of this I could not save everyone at the end of the game and had to choose between a couple different options on what to do.  Ultimately it did not end up being that hard of a choice, but I was annoyed that a bug in the game forced it on me when I had worked to complete the challenges leading up to it.

Still, if you have not played Dragon Age you really should check it out.  The Ultimate Edition is out now with all the DLC and since you can carry over your story arc into Dragon Age II (which comes out next week) there is good reason to play it before starting the sequel.

I enjoyed the previous Lego Star Wars games as well as Lego Batman and Indian Jones so I figured the new Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars demo should be pretty fun. Either I’ve gotten dumber or the puzzles are less obvious this time around.  More than once I had to walk around looking for the next thing I needed to do. I don’t remember ever having that issue before.  I found it a little annoying since I was just wanting to run around and break everything while playing through a new Lego game.  The second level in the demo I found this especially true since you;re flying most of the time and you have to keep jumping between areas to get missiles for your ship.  I’ll probably still rent it when it release to play through it once, but I’m not sure I’ll want to get all 100% like I did in the past games.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see how it goes after release.

I picked up Stacking when it release last week and have been having a good time with the mix of adventure and puzzle genres. The actual story can be finished in about 5 hours without too much trouble, but going back and finding every solution for each challenge is taking much longer.  So far no cheating and using a guide though. I’m hoping to get 100% of everything complete without any help. We’ll see if that happens. I’ve got a full review on XBLA Ratings but really you should just check out the demo for yourself.  I know a lot of folks are waiting to get it on sale sometime, and I can’t really blame anyone since $15 is a bit steep for a game you can complete so quickly.   I think I like Double Fine’s Costume Quest a little more that Stacking, but both are great and have me looking forward to whatever they do next.

I played both Fable and Fable II, and while neither was my favorite game ever I enjoyed playing through them. Fable III started off pretty similarly but the longer I played the more thing I found myself annoyed with. You play as the Prince of Albion. You are the son of the character you played in Fable II, and your older brother is currently king. The problem is your brother is a real jerk and forces you to decide between having you girlfriend or innocent people executed. At this point your servant and one of your Dad’s loyal friends leave the castle with you to start a rebellion against the king.  What I don’t get is why I’d ever leave the castle. The game constantly lets you pick between being good and evil, but the actual events are very scripted. Instead of spending all this time raising up a rebellion why can’t I sneak into my brothers room in his sleep and just assassinate him.  Saves everyone a lot of time and trouble.  Instead you play through a pretty generic story where you have to become friends with all of the King’s enemies to form a rebellion strong enough to beat him.

Even if I ignore the fact the story was stupid there are a lot of other things that are just lame.

Combat – You have a melee weapon, a gun and your magic abilities available for the combat on Fable III. Each of these is mapped to a button.  Hit it to attack or hold it down to charge it up. It very quickly gets repetitive as there is no real strategy or combos to the combat.  Just keep bashing your preferred button and rolling out of the way of the enemy attacks. Even more annoying is that you have to be fairly close to enemies to be able to target them with your gun or magic attacks.  If I see an enemy I should be able to target them, but not in Fable III. Why bother having ranged attacks it you have to be so close to the enemies to use them? I might as well just run over and hit them at that point.

Pacing & Travel– The story’s pacing is all over the place. Some parts take forever and others go too quickly. Most of the time I found it too slow. Making it worse is that your walking speed is pretty slow. They give you a “run” button if you hold down A, but it is not really much faster than just walking. This would not be so frustrating if the Fast Travel system did not suck so bad.  At any time you can go to the map and fast travel to a location near your current quest’s location.  Only most of the time the fast travel just drops you at the far edge of an area and you still have to run just about as far as you did before you fast traveled, and in some cases even further than if you have not used Fast Travel.

Repetition – A lot of the side quests are the exact same thing but for a new person. Go deliver a message.  Go kill all these enemies.  Escort me across the world (while holding hands). You can skip most of the side-quests if you want but then you will not get anywhere near all of your character upgrades unlocked. The interactions you have with all the NPCs in the world are also exactly the same each time.  I mean how many times an I really going to dance or hug a random stranger?

Money – Why is it the prince is flat broke? I mean why couldn’t I take any gold with me when I left the castle?  Can I take the money off the dead bodies of the enemies I kill?  Oh,they are all broke too.  Great I guess I work a job that is basically a 5 step quick time event until I have enough cash to buy some real estate.  Then use the rent money I make to buy more properties until I have all of them.  Yeah, just like Fable II until you about half the country you are going to be broke all the time. Then you have a good amount of rent money to cover buying potions, weapons and outfits. Assuming you remember to go back through all your rental properties every hour or so and repair them – one at a time. If you want me to pay for the upkeep and repair on all the properties that is fine, but at least let me do them all at once instead of having to do each one individually. This is not fun and is possibly the worst idea ever.

Achievements – First, there are a ton of lame collection achievements that will probably require you to use a guide to find them all. I don’t kind if there is one, maybe even 2, collection style achievements, but there are 6 or 7 in Fable III and none of them are fun to try and get.  Worse than that depending on the choices you make in the main story you can completely lock yourself out of certain areas of the world so that you then can’t go to them to get the items you need to collect.

I would highly recommend avoiding Fable III. From the story to the game play mechanics everything about it is frustrating, annoying or poorly designed.

It is not very often that I play four different demos in the same day, but that is how Tuesday panned out.  On the PC, Magicka released and I’ve been looking forward to it for quite a while now. I promised myself after all the holiday Steam sales I would not by any new games until I finished at least a few of those so I just played the demo for now.  So, if you don’t see on Xbox Live check Steam as I’m probably trying to finish stuff up there so I can get to Magicka.

A demo single player demo for Bulletstorm released today.  It struck me as odd that a game that they keep talking about co-op for does not have any co-op in the demo. Then I started playing the demo. It has a very Gears of War feel to me.  Not that feeling like Gears is bad thing but since the rest of the game was just not that fun I don’t see a reason to get it. I’m not a fan of playing the same levels over and over so I just can’s see enjoying it for any length of time.

I got a chance over the last week to demo Breach for XBLA Ratings.  You can see my full review on the site (here), but I will say that the more I play it the more I’m enjoying it.  It started a little slow and I almost wrote it off but I’m glad I did not because it has really grown on me. The Convoy game mode is really fun and the destructible environments never get old.

The final demo for the day was Crysis 2.  I played a couple matches on my lunch break and it was pretty decent.  Then, in the evening we got a full team of guys from AGErocks.com playing and it was a blast.  It is fast paced but not so fast it is all twitchy. The matchmaking did a nice job of getting our squad on the same team when we joined a match already in process when the next round started and it lest you customize your loadouts while it searches for a match.  These little touches are really nice and allow for more time playing and less time in the menus. There are quite a few customization options and upgrades for the weapons and armor abilities. It was nice that they start unlocking pretty quickly. Plus, as you use an ability it unlocks a stronger version of it.  Like getting 25 air stops unlocks the advanced air stomp.  It would be nice if there was a tutorial explaining all the armor abilities but after playing with them for a while they start to make sense.  All of the armor abilities are tied to your energy bar so you can use them all at once but only for a short time. Or, use one at a time for much longer.  I was not planning on picking up Crysis 2, but if there is a solid group of AGErs getting it I may as well because the demo is a lot of fun.

Every once in a while a game comes along that is so much fun that despite obvious flaws I would gladly recommend it to anyone.  For me Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is one of those games. The guys from AGErocks.com kept staying how great it was so decide to give it a try.  I initially kind of ignored it because the videos for it make it seem like a platformer which I’m not a big fan of.  However it definitely an action/adventure game that lets you traverse like a platformer.  You can’t accidentally jump the wrong way and fall to your death.  You can only jump to places where you can safely land.  There are few cases where you have to time your jumps to miss hazards like fire, but there are not too many of those.

When you’re not climbing and jumping there are a bunch of mechs to fight.  Most of the time this is done up close and personal with melee attacks, but your staff also has an option to fire shots. There is limited ammo for the staff but when you have the ammo using it to quickly down enemies is nice.  The camera takes getting used to, but once you get the hang of the the combat is not too hard.  However, as the camera angle always seems to be changing it takes a lot sometimes to get it where you want it.  Plus, your attacks always go the way your character is facing and not the camera.  These camera issues would have been nice to see worked out.  The game is not overly hard but it is not a breeze either. I just had to remeber to use the block option as I tend to always try and attack the whole time.

Enslaved is really about playing through this awesome story.  You play as Monkey, who gets a pretty raw deal at the start of the game, but you come to find that without the help of Trip (who has enslaved you so that you will help her get home) neither of you would have survived. The dynamic between these two main characters is awesome as it changes throughout the game. Monkey starts off, understandably, really mad at her, but by the end has come to understand and even respect Trip.  This dynamic is played out in the game not just through the dialog but in the fact that Monkey has to help Trip get through the levels.  For me it is the story and the great voice acting that made Enslaved so enjoyable.  Additionally, the games graphics are gorgeous.  The game takes place in the partially destroyed world that is starting to become overgrown. There is a lot of color throughout the world.  It is nice to see a game set in a post-apocalyptic setting that still uses the full color palette.

When I got to the end of Ensalved I was a little sad to see it end.  I’m really hoping for a sequel, but in the meantime I decided to buy the Pigsy’s Perfect 10 DLC and play it as well.  One of the first things I thought when you meet Pigsy in Enslaved was “I hope I get that grappling hook soon”.  While you never get it during the main game in the DLC you actually play as Pigsy. He is quite different from Monkey’s acrobatics and up close fighting.  With Pigsy it is all about the sniping, stealth and gadgets. He is not fast and he has no melee combat ability.  While I thoroughly enjoyed playing through the game as Monkey it was a lot of fun to play a completely different way in the same game world.  Pigsy’s Perfect 10 tells a side story to the main campaign that shows Pigsy in the days leading up to when Monkey and Trip meet him.  There are some really fun tie-ins that happened through the DLC that only would be noticed after playing the campaign. Even though the DLC is a little on the short side for $10 I completely enjoyed it and don’t regret the purchase at all.

If you have not played Enslaved yet you really should download the demo.  It is one of the best stories in a game that I’ve played in a very long time. Plus, the game world is beautiful while still looking war-torn, and the voice action is excellent. The camera controls do take a while to get a handle on, but even with that the game is way too great to miss.

For the last three weeks Microsoft has been running their “Games for the Holidays” on Xbox Live Arcade. The three games they released during this time were A World of Keflings, Raskulls and ilomilo. I really enjoyed all three and have reviews up for them on XBLA Ratings.  Just hit the links if you are interested. The thing that I really enjoyed is how they tied all three games together even though they are all from different developers.  In Keflings you can build a house for ilo and milo as well one for the Raskulls.  Once you build it they come and live in your Kefling’s world.  You can kick them around like and of the other Keflings. Then, in Raskulls you get Doug the Kefling and ilo as playable characters for multiplayer.  Finally in ilomilo you get Kefling and Raskulls costumes to wear.  None of these play a huge role in the games but it is really cool how they tie in together. Sure games in the past have costumes or characters you can unlock that are from other games, but this is the first one I know of that actually checks to see if you have achievements in it first.  Hopefully more developers can start doing little stuff like this.