I generally don’t play many flying games but the idea of a co-op helicopter game seems like it could be fun. One person flying and another manning the guns.  So, with that idea in mind I downloaded the demo for Apache: Air Assault on Xbox Live.  I did not even finish the demo before quitting and deleting it.  The controls were my concern before playing the demos since trying to fly in Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s helicopters has always ended with crashes for me.  I played the tutorial and found the controls were pretty strait forward.  I was able to fly around fairly successfully.  Unfortunately the flying also felt very slow. Like I was flying in first gear.  Even when I pushed both sticks forward which was suppose to be fast it did not feel that way. I was also really disappointed with the look of the game as I was flying.  The size of the helicopter on the screen seems way to large for the size of units on the ground.  It was like I was fighting toy cars.  Maybe there are ways to adjust things to deal with both of these but I just did not care enough to try and figure it out.  I was not having fun so I quit and that was the end of that.

Pinball FX 2 hit Xbox Live Arcade this week and while I don’t generally play pinball video games I decided to check it out.  I do like playing real pinball machines, but the video game counterparts have never held my interest. I was pleasantly surprised how much fun I had playing Pinball FX 2. The tables feel a little fast but once I got use to the speed of the game I was able to do pretty well.  There are 4 new tables plus all the ones from Pinball FX import as well.  The new tables have a lot going on, but after playing a few times I got the feel for each table.  There is a demo for each table available so I’d recommend checking it out.  I have a longer review on XBLA & XBLIG Ratings, here, but it basically comes down to they made a nice pinball game if you like that sort of thing.

Also, we’re giving a copy away on XBLA & XBLIG Ratings. Details here

A demo for Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit hit Xbox Live today so I took a little time away from Fallout New Vegas to check it out. I played a couple head to head races at E3 this past summer and enjoyed the game mode they had there.  In this demo there are a couple races available and it looks like more might unlock down the road.  All of the available races are in the career mode which is kind of lame because it is the multiplayer that I think will be fun.  But, I tried them out anyway.  The first race you start as a police officer and have to catch 4 racers before the end of the race and they escape.  You get 3 road blocks and 3 spike strips to use. I did pretty good at this race.  I got ahead of two of the racers right of the bat and used a spike strip on them.  It took a large chunk of their health so I was able to finish them off quickly.  For the other two racers I used the road blocks to slow them down and then rammed them repeatedly to finish them off. The second race was a 6 person one where you start in last have have to win. So, basically a normal career racing game mode.  I was able to get into 3rd pretty quick but it was not until the last corner of the race that I was able to make a lucky slide and pass into first.  Both races had a lot of side paths you can take to keep everyone off your tail.  However, they are narrow and I’m a bad driver so I stuck to the main course.  There are also challenges you can setup against your friends which seem similar to the ones in Blur.  Basically see if you can get a better score or time than your friends on the single player races. They are a fun add-on but not that big a deal to me.

I’m not that sold on NFS:HP.  I like the idea of the multiplayer head to head race mode but the cars feel really heavy and oversteering comes way to easily for me.  I’ll have to wait and see how many of my friends decide to get it.  Any maybe check back on the demo to see if there is a race that unlocks where I can be the one trying to get away from the cops.

I know I’m late to the party with this one, but I finally got around to playing Dawn of War II. DoW2 is a real time strategy game removes all of the base building and focuses solely on the fighting. Some people call it a tactical RPG, but to me it plays more like an RTS. Still, the mix of genres is there and it works beautifully.  I wish I had my new PC when the game release so I could have been playing this for months now. I’ve played all of the campaign and also a little of the Last Stand mode.  I really enjoyed playing through the campaign solo, and now I want to go back and try it on a harder difficulty co-op. Plus, I still have the Chaos Rising expansion to play through.  The way that you control 4 squads of troops, each with their own abilities and strengths, makes for a lot of fun strategies.   I’ve only played 2 matches of the Last Stand mode but I can see it getting really addicting.  It is sort of like Horde/Firefight with waves of enemies coming and you have to kill them all with two teammates.  I’m still getting the hang of how it works but I was doing OK for my first two tries.  I even died less than one of my teammates in the second match.  I’m looking forward to playing more Last Stand but I need a new headset first.  The one I have was not working at all, but hopefully in the next week I’ll get that sorted out.  I know a lot of PC gamers are not fans of Games for Windows, but as a mostly Xbox 360 gamer I like that DoW2 utilizes the same framework because it means there are achievements. Something like 79 of the including the ones with the Chaos Rising expansion.  I may not get all of them for a long time but I’m going to have a blast trying to. If you think you would like a real time strategy game but don’t like all the base building then Dawn of War II is right up your alley. It is all action and none of the base management.  Plus there are role playing style leveling elements that make pretty much any game better.

I purchased Costume Quest Wednesday evening and finished it last night with all of the achievements completed. It took me just under 5 hours to finish and while that does seem kind of short when I think about it now I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing the game. Double Fine has made fun, simple action role playing game.  So, even though it was short I feel like I got my moneys worth. Costume Quest is not very deep but that does not really take away from the fun.  The fighting is all based on quite time events. Normally I’m not a fan of QTEs but because they are short and simple in Costume Quest they work fine.   There is just enough exploration and collecting to keep things varied without being overly burdensome. The story was funny without being too cute. Frankly I don’t really have anything bad to say about the game.  I would recommend checking it out and if you have kids who game they should give it a try to.  It is rated E10 but when my son hits 6 or 7 I’d probably let him play it.

I’ve always been a sucker for Space Invader games.  I’m not that great at them but there is something about the simplicity and nostalgia that keeps me playing each new version. So, when  Space Invaders Infinity Gene hit Xbox Live Arcade I knew I’d be spending some time with it.  I’ve got my full review here on XBLA Ratings.  Here’s the quick breakdown.  Graphically the game is not that great. I actually really dislike some of the levels.  However, the game play it self is a lot of fun.  There are 10 different weapons to unlock so playing the levels with different ones is a nice change of pace.  Also, there are a lot of levels.  The achievements require a lot of playing to complete, but since this is the kind of game I’ll play for 15 or 20 minutes ever few days I’m sure I’ll get most of them eventually.  I’ll probably never complete it on Hard, Insane or Nightmare difficulty but the other 9 at least I should get some day.  I find the real time ranking quite addicting.  In the top left corner it tells you your current game’s ranking in the leaderboards.  It is fun to watch that number get lower as my score gets higher.  I’ve not gotten into the top 100 yet but I do regularly get in the top 200 scores.  For a $10 title there is a lot of game play in Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Sure, it is just variations of Space Invaders but it is fun in short bursts.

Lets face it, even without the demo I was going to play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. I enjoyed the first one and after seeing this same demo played by a Lucas Arts rep at E3 I knew this one would be fun too. The demo is the first level of the game which explains quickly why you are not dead even though you did not survive the first game.  The graphics look really nice and I’m surprised how great the animations look. The new dual lightsabers is a nice addition and makes fighting even more fun. The force powers are a lot of fun to use and are very effective against groups of enemies now. The new rage mode makes it even more fun because it amps up your attacks even more and can take down dozens of enemies at once. I did die a couple times in the demo while I was goofing around trying stuff out and was impressed with how well the checkpoint system worked. I never saw it saving or marking a checkpoint, but when I respawned I was always brought back right before the spot I died.  They added some small elements this time it seems because there was a point where I had to move a platform to get through a level.  We’ll see how that plays out in the full game. I don’t mind little stuff like this but I don’t want to be doing a lot of it. I just want to be using the awesome force powers and fighting style on a lot of enemies while working through the story. After playing the demo I’m looking forward to playing the full game even more and seeing where the story goes.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was not really on my radar before this week. I had seen the trailers and while they looked good graphically it seemed like a third person platformer which I’m not a fan of.  Things would probably have stayed that way if not for a large number of my friends talking about how much fun it is. So, when I saw there was a demo available for Enslaved on Xbox Live Marketplace I decided to check it out. The demo seems to be the first level of the game which gets the main story under way. I enjoyed how they just throw you into the game and then at the end of the level stop and explain what the goal for the rest of the game is going to be. Graphically it does look pretty good. There is a nice mix of colors throughout the game’s world – at least in the demo level.  The traversal and platforming part was actually much easier that I was afraid it would be.  You just aim in the direction of the next platform/handhold and press A. That is about the level of my platforming abilities so it worked well for me.  The fighting was pretty simple with just a few attack buttons but I prefer that to trying to remember dozens of combos. Maybe I just missed it but I did find myself wanting a way to lock on to the enemy I was fighting to keep the camera on him.  Not a huge deal but it would be nice.  After playing through the demo I went strait over to my computer and added it to my GameFly Q. I’m looking forward to playing through the rest of the game and seeing how the story plays out.

I intentionally waited to play Plants vs Zombies when it released on Xbox Live Arcade so I could get the achievements for it. I played the demo of the PC version quite a while back and never got around to buying it. Then the rumors it was coming to XBLA started and I decided to wait.  I’m glad I did because I’m hopelessly addicted.  If I had this game when it first came out who knows how many other games I’d have missed playing it.  Fortunately this season’s especially big releases are still a few weeks out and I can get my PvZ fix in before then. If you have not played PvZ you really should try the demo.  It is available on pretty much every platform imaginable so grab a copy on your platform of choice and check it out.

The Xbox Live Arcade version of Plants vs Zombies adds co-op and verses multiplayer modes which are fun but unfortunately no Xbox Live support for them.  Playing locally is fun and all but it would be so much better playing over Live with my friends.  I’m actually a little surprised by the lack of Live support when Peggle supported it so well. I don’t think PopCap has state why they did not add multiplayer support over Live but it is too bad that they did not.

Still, even without being able to play over Live PvZ is a great, addicting game.  Even though I’ve completed the adventure mode and most of the other side modes I still go back and play more pretty often to get my zen garden upgraded a little more and to improve my house.

I’m really enjoying playing Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution for Borderlands.  I’ve played through it once on playthrough 1 and completely enjoyed the story line.  It is truly funny to have 4 or 5 hours worth of Claptrap related shenanigans. The boss fights against old enemies who have been turned into Claptrap version of themselves were esthetically funny as were the different Claptrap version you face.  Seeing the Samaria Warrior Clatrap coming rolling at me cracked me up every time. It was not especially hard and not that long but I enjoyed it anyway. I fully intend to play through again on playthrough 2 after the next title update releases and I can level up my character further.  Also, there are a few achievements that will require me to go kill a lot more Claptraps to collect their parts.  I’m looking forward to working on those as well.

Overall I’d recommend getting Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution even if it is a tad short.  It is still extremely funny and more Borderlands is always a good thing.