I'm 2 for 2 on America's Best Dance Crew with my pick SuperCr3w winning Season 2 (I also called JabbaWockeez on Season 1). It felt like vindication that millions of voters (39 million votes) did indeed choose the right crew to win (No respect to So Real Cru) as I feel like busting out the SuperCr3w sign now. B-boys finally got their respect they deserved with this season. Man, I'm so proud of Da Knock, Ronnie, Rockadile, Ben, Murda, and Vex as they busted their ass to win this title. Hopefully Season 3 will be good, but after these two seasons with Jabba and SC winning, who's left to bring the pain that these two crews unleashed on the dome.
No need to do the recap of the whole episode, but obviously the West Coast performance was banging crazy with SuperCr3w, Supreme Soul, and Fanny Pak doing an E-40 song. It was still nice to see the other crews do their thing, but West Coast still killed it and expect them to have another big showing next season.
Once again, congrats to SuperCr3w for winning and I need to buy one of those shirts soon since they sell out fast online. If anyone enjoyed those ABDC episode recaps throughout the season, I'll do them again next season since it is my favorite TV show despite all the BS and I think MTV needs to change it up again next time especially with the voting.
Namco Bandai has been a big supporter for Xbox Live Arcade ever since 2006 releasing their classic games as arcade ports on the service. The quality varied with those releases pending on how good they were during the golden era of arcades. Namco's breakthrough hit on Xbox Live Arcade was a remake with Pac-Man Championship Edition last year making Pac-Man cool again with competitions for high scores under time limits. Now Galaga is next on the remake trail with Galaga Legions, which resembles more of the later old school Galaga games than the original, but with redone graphics for the current generation. While it may feel like the weakest game out of the Summer of Arcade lineup, this new take on Galaga is worth checking out for fans of the original and shumps looking for another decent challenge.
Galaga Legions is split into two modes, which are Adventure and Championship. Adventure Mode is a standard run through the game's five areas of four stages trying to survive and blast through wave after wave of enemy ships. Gaining a 1up is different compared to other old school based games as you gain an extra life before the last stage of an area, which is helpful against the boss sets at the end of the area. Once you run out of lives, you have to start over from the beginning of the first area and try again because this Galaga can be difficult at times with the insane enemy movement patterns especially in the later areas. Championship Mode is basically the competitive mode for high scores as you can select either of the five areas separately and go for the highest score possible before losing all your lives. There is also a replay mode if you want to see your last game and a tutorial for beginners. Other than that, there's not enough variety in the modes compared to Pac-Man Championship Edition, but the ones available will keep players busy till they are beaten or going for high scores.
The core gameplay is still basically the same of shooting down enemy ships, but the new twists make the game more interesting and a little deep too. New to Legions is the ability to deploy satellites, the sides of your main ship, by flicking the right stick to a direction of your choice. These things can save you once you're about to die or trapped in a corner if used right. Especially when the game tells you the next wave of enemies' movements for a second or two, it is enough time to plot out satellites to take down numerous ships. The areas themselves usually start out slow with the number of enemies on screen, but the action ramps up pretty quickly after that and unexpected spawning of enemies can lead to frustrating deaths too. There are certain enemies you can take out that will cause a chain reaction destroying the whole set and the game's multiplier system factors in on that aspect of taking out the normal ships and then taking out the leader ship for more points. In addition, there are times you may be overwhelmed of a huge wave of enemies especially near the end of an area and moving to the wrong part of the map will also lead to another lost ship. With the insane numbers of enemies on screen, you can move freely throughout the map compared to moving left and right in the original Galaga even though your main ship only fires up, which means your satellites have to do some work too. Also appearing once a level is a black hole to shoot down to capture some of the enemy ships to your side, which are very beneficial in tight spots too, but they are lost if they are hit by an enemy ship. The gameplay mechanics introduced in Legions are fun to mess with and satisfying when used right trying to survive.
Graphically, Galaga Legions looks stunning with the style provided in the game. The action rarely slows down when hordes of enemies are trying to kill you. The graphical style does remind me also of Pac-Man Championship Edition with the look of your ship and enemies. There are also a number of skins you can play through other than the default skin like the Ancient one and the Vintage skin, which everything looks like the original Galaga with the new glow. The menus themselves are in the typical Namco XBLA tradition of the same font and I hope Namco changes up their menu design in future games because it is getting a little old for me, which seems nit picky for their presentation. The sound design is also fine in Legions with remixed themes that fit the space atmosphere, but nothing really memorable compared to Pac-Man C.E. unless you're a hardcore Galaga fan.
For 800 Microsoft Points (ten dollars), Galaga Legions is worth downloading if you ever liked Galaga and its sequels. This is actually a great take on one of the recognizable old school shooters with its new additions and great graphical style. The modes available are good enough to keep players busy racking up high scores and will provide a decent challenge trying to memorize enemy wave patterns while using your assisting satellites to your advantage. However, I would like to see more modes that spice up the gameplay a bit. Leaderboards and achievements, which are pretty straightforward of game progression, are present in Legions to push players to compete against others online. While it is not as amazing as Pac-Man Championship Edition, Galaga Legions is still a successful take on a classic game and I hope Namco continues to pump out new takes for their other classic games like this in the future.
Score = 8/10
Pros:
Great graphical style reminiscent of Pac-Man C.E.
Gameplay additions are worth it with the deployment of satellites and black holes.
A decent challenge for veterans of the series
Can be addicting with racking up high scores in Championship mode.
Cons:
More modes that spice up the gameplay would have been cool.
The menu design is getting a little old to me.
Players may be overwhelmed of the insanity of enemy waves cluttering up the screen.
Rare instances of slowdown (usually when your ship blows up).
In this special edition of the Music Game Corner, the Dragonforce DLC for Guitar Hero III is the highlight of this post and if you like hard songs while fun to play, you're in luck with this pack of three songs. Keep in mind someone may FC them in a week or a month.
Today, a demo came out for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Xbox Live Marketplace (later today on Playstation Network) as a taste of what is to come in a month since is the most anticipated Star Wars game on the current generation of consoles (After that, it is the KOTOR MMORPG). For almost a GB, you're in some Empire-like facility to hunt down a Master Jedi as Darth Vader's "secret" Apprentice, or just call him Starkiller. The demo itself seems like an early build because it is not as polished as it should be (Hopefully it is in the final game). There are technical issues if you're crazy about it from the cutscene stopping for a second or two to load up and others that people noticed. The camera is also something to worry about because it can be bad at times as you try to center it a lot with the right bumper (that's also the lock-on) or using the right sticks. Other than that, I enjoyed the demo after playing it twice on the Normal difficulty there, but it doesn't mean it is worth my purchase yet (I guess so since it is Star Wars).
The gameplay of Force Unleashed is pretty simple if you played any action games in the past few years and plays like recent ones too like God of War and Devil May Cry. Even on the normal difficulty, you can breeze through the demo without dying if you're not careless. After all, the game is called The Force Unleashed, which means you have to use Starkiller's force powers a lot. At least it does a good job of making you feel like a badass of using them and your lightsaber skills as well. The controls are also pick up and play with Force lifting being the right trigger and other powers like Force pushes and Force Lightning are on the face buttons. With the Force lift, things can get a little too complicated (likely for casual players) of using both analog sticks to manipulate an object's movement. Dodging is remiscient of the Devil May Cry games of using the lock-on and then using Force Dash (left bumper) or just jump around to avoid enemy fire. The demo wants you to test Starkiller's abilities and they delivered on that front as it concludes with an AT-ST battle (not an actual boss battle) that is finished by an quicktime event (Another staple of recent action games of buton presses and then magic happens).
Presentation-wise, it is typical Star Wars as everything you see and hear in the game is faithful to the series (even the soundtrack in which I don't know if John Williams cooked up original material just for this game). The Force Unleashed is out on September 16th and expected to a big sales hit because of Star Wars fans for all ages (the kids sure loved it when I saw it at Comic-Con last month). Who knows if the game will have critical success too (OXM already reviewed it and the new EGM out next week for subscribers has a review there too), but at least this will be better than The Clone Wars movie and also the prequels.
Tiger 09 is out next week and here's the commercial answering the question from last year's game whether or not the "Jesus Shot" can be done in real life. Looks like Tiger says yes in this clip.
Over at Europe, the Lepzig Games Convention is happening now and there's some new footage for the upcoming releases.
Since I'm still on a Bionic Commando mood (Rearmed is still amazing!!), here's the newest trailer for the 3D game now with old-school Capcom intro music (also in Street Fighter IV too), the orchestral BC theme, and new gameplay of single-player and multiplayer. Thanks to Rearmed, this game has crept to my top 10 Most Wanted list and I think it will be awesome.
The highly anticipated Heavy Rain makes another showing at Lepzig after its closed door appearance at E3. This new trailer is actually looking amazing as it demonstrates the quicktime events that the developers had used with their last game, Indigo Prophecy. Expect this one to be one of the big hits of 2009.
Another year and another Need for Speed game, but this time it might be good since the last good NFS game to me was Most Wanted. NFS Undercover comes out on November 18with more intense racing and great FMV looking cutscenes starring Maggie Q (Mission Impossible III, Balls of Fury, Live Free or Die Hard). Doesn't mean I'll buy it, but since EA Black Box said they had more time with this one compared to Carbon and ProStreet, Undercover might bring back the series to greatness.
Another EA game ramps up the talent of actors and actresses, this time with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. The cast is almost a who's who of actors we seen in TV shows and movies. Try to see who can you recognize from this trailer, its madness.
360 fan favorite Dead Rising (I liked this game too) is coming to the Wii with motion controls and graphics based on Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. Supposedly, the save system is fixed and other changes are there too. I won't mind playing Dead Rising again if the controls are good enough, and plus Wii has pretty much nothing I'm looking forward for except MadWorld.
Speaking of MadWorld, here's the newest trailer and yes, this game is almost the saving grace for Wii owners who were disappointed by the lack of Nintendo games for the upcoming year (Animal Crossing, Wii Music). Sure, this game is violent as hell with the Sin City-like style and lots of blood, but another game like this is needed on the Wii even though more controversy may spark.
A new level is shown for Mirror's Edge to prove the game is not all skyscraper jumping, where Fayth tries to escape a facility with snipers trying to take her out. Yesh, people will be skeptical of the first-person experience and the red path of here's the way to go thing, but this game could be something special and another of 2009's games to watch out for.
Fallout 3 is out on October 28, a week after Fable 2, which means RPG fans will be busy for the rest of the year, but I'm surprised how close those two are from each other release-wise which may cause fans of the genre to pick either or, but might as well get both since they are great RPGs. They might as well play the hell out of Fable 2 and then go crazy with Fallout 3.
The new Prince of Persia is looking good as always with this new seven minute clip of the same level seen at E3 and Comic-Con.
The big two music games are at Lepzig for the GC and new footage and previews have rolled out for Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2.
Maybe "Beat It" is going to make me buy GH World Tour after all (at least just the game). IGN has other videos with "Everlong," Coldplay's "Shiver," and Linkin Park's "What I've Done" (Yeah kind of a bad choice for a LP song for GH WT compared to RB2).
Rock Band 2 is out in less than a month for 360 (The game only) and the previews will roll out later in the week from Lepzig, but GameSpot has their preview already up with new footage.
I decided to skip this week's DLC for Rock Band with Duran Duran and Devo even though it seems to be a good week with "Girls on Film" for example.
Dragonforce DLC is out tomorrow for Guitar Hero III and I actually traded in my disc already since I don't think any upcoming DLC will make me play that game again and might as well wait till World Tour.
More Lepzig updates for the next couple of days and my Galaga Legions review maybe tomorrow (Yeah, it is the weakest of the Summer of XBLA bunch, but it is still a good game and a challenge as well).
