It has been a few weeks since the guys have gotten together to talk games. And it just so happens that community member, Pimp/Dark Method 10K, has come to take the whole WiR episode over. He had guns. Lots of em!

Topics include:

- Stoked: Big Air Edition
- Bittos+
- Drawn to life: The next chapter
- NBA 2K10
- Blood Bowl
- Army of Two: The 40th Day
- Mass Effect 2

Intro & Outro music selection performed by “A Wilhelm Scream” off their album “Ruiner”.

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We’re back from a week off. Topics include: Mass Effect 2, Darksiders, Vancouver 2010, Plucky’s 3D Adventure, Assassins Creed II: Discovery, and more..

Intro music selection performed by “A Wilhelm Scream” off their album “Mute Print”
Outro music selection performed by “Big L” off his album “The Big Picture”

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Comment, rate, review!

Strawdog Studios announce that its classically addictive Arcade game, Space Ark will be launched into orbit on Xbox LIVE Arcade in spring 2010. With your crack team of animal ‘arkonauts’, you have escaped your once peaceful solar system, which has been shattered by a wandering black hole, and are now looking for new places to live. [...]

Polar Panic is an Xbox Live and PlayStation Network game that puts you in the paws of Polar the polar bear. Polar must fight against a corporation ran by the evil Mr. Big who wants to drill for oil on Polar’s land. Mr. Big has his goons destroy Polar’s home and kidnap his family. Now it’s up to Polar to take back his home and family one stage at a time.

Polar Panic is a simple game. You move on a isometric grid-based area where you move from grid to grid avoiding enemies and pushing blocks of ice into baddies to knock them out. The whole point of each level is to defeat all enemies and get to the exit as fast as you can. There is a time limit to each stage and if you don’t make it there in time, you lose a life. You start with 3 lives. If you get hit by enemies or their projectiles, you lose a life. It’s simple as that.

Of course, the game does get a little more complicated with the addition of new enemy types and new scenarios. Pretty soon you’ll have to deal with Pyros that use a flamethrower that can reach halfway across the grid, and barracks that will continually respawn enemies until you shove an ice block into the entrance.

There’s 50 levels in all each with a different strategy for victory. Plus, because you’re timed, there is always room for improving your score after the mission is over. Boss battles also make an appearance, each with its own play style. The game also features a 2-4 local multiplayer mode which is actually quite fun with a couple of friends.

The only real gripes I have with the game are the collision detection is a bit off at times. As in I know I didn’t touch that trapper, but I died anyway, and vice versa. There is also a little stiffness when it comes to the controls, particularly when moving Polar. Sometimes you move the analog stick and Polar doesn’t move to the next block. Sometimes it works too well where I end up getting killed because I overshot my move. It’s not too bad, but it is there.

All in all, Polar Panic is a decent little puzzler that will keep you entertained for a good 5 hours or so. There are a few minor flaws, but the complete package is not bad at all. With a decently long story mode, puzzle mode, and multiplayer mode at hand, you’ll have a fair amount of fun shoving gigantic ice blocks at trappers.

The Good: Lots to do, Multiplayer is actually fun, A good amount of replayability.

The Bad: Controls are somewhat stiff, Hit detection is a little off, Although fun, only local multiplayer.

Bottom Line: For ten bucks, you can’t do too awful bad with the game. If you have some friends over, you can have a good 4 hours worth of fun with it. Despite the flaws it’s still a rather enjoyable game.

Final Grade: 7.4

I can’t help but imagine the Air Force actually creating something like this… way back in the day of course and then asking their would be Fighter Jocks to give this a go. Pilot Test has a very old school Military look an feel and then mixes in a story line about some Top Secret, Pilot Test Program, to see if you have the skills it takes to fly with the best of them; in this Indie game you have all the makings of something potentially very interesting to say the least.

Developer: Holographic Dreams
Publisher: Holographic Dreams
Genre: Other
Price: 80 MS Points ($1)
Rating: Unrated

Now the game has nothing to do with any flight simulations for Dog Fights or missions in launching a payload of Missiles at various targets. So what you have left is one of the very basic aspect of gaming, dealing in the area of collision detection. Your task is to attempt and safely move your Red Square around very limited flight area, as you avoid the Green Squares darting all around and at you. The longer you survive in the air, the better and higher your score will be in the end.

 Simple… only each time your Red Fighter (Square) collides with any Green Enemy (Square) on the screen, you’ll take on some damage and start to loose portions of your Jet powered Square. Take on to much damage or end up colliding head on with an Enemy, then its game over for that flight session. This game also tests out your memory, as the flight paths of Enemy Squares are the same every time and thus allows you to try and remember what happened the last time you were tested.

The game is easy to play from the control stand point, I mean you simply move the left or right analog sticks around to dart your Square like no other Pilot has ever flown before. When you first start the flying test, you’ll think its going to be easy and will quickly learn its not as easy as it looks. One thing for sure is this game is very challenging and it will push you to try and score higher on the list of Pilots.

For me it brought back memories of those very old school console games from those early days of Atari, only with some bumped up graphics in some areas of course. The game is priced at only at 80ms points and is worth that I feel. Holographic Dreams has really set a mood here and I feel Pilot Test has provided a challenge in such a basic game that uses Collision Detection.

Would it have been nice to see some other Test exercises in this Pilot program or at least some other flight paths perhaps? Sure it would have, but for what this game is, I think they did a pretty good job in setting the mood and creating a game that is a challenge. I’d say you should at least give it a try and see if you can come close to scoring higher on the charts. (B+)

Syndicated from IndieGameBlog - Robert Owens

Set to release in early 2010 on XBLA is the newest offering from EA in RISK: Factions. While never before having played the “Factions” variety of RISK I will for sure be playing the trial before purchasing. Have you played the “Factions” variety of RISK? Do you like it better the regular RISK? Happy that EA chose “Factions” to bring to XBLA? Let us and EA hear you opinions in the comments below.

Just another podcast. Topics include Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack in Time, Gerbil Physics, Veks & Silence: Gravebreakers, Bayonetta, Need for Speed: Nitro, DragonAge: Origins, Pilot Test,& NHL 10.

Intro music selection performed by “LostProphets” off their album “The Fake Sound of Progress”
Outro music selection performed by “Qualitybeats”

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Comment, rate, review!

Its Gerbil Physics and that pretty much says it all in this physics-based Gerbil demolition game from Pencel Games. Available on Xbox Live and for only 80 ms points, you get a great little physics puzzler to solve here, filled with a total of 24 fun packed and challenging levels of game-play physics fun.

Developer: Beringela
Publisher: Pencel Games
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 80 MS Points ($1)
Rating: Unrated

The game level settings are very pleasant to the eyes and finished out with very enjoyable soundtracks and sound effects. The controls are very simple and straight forward, making this a very easy game to pick up and enjoy for all. This game is suitable for all ages to play even with the very mild terror that is forced upon the games only captives, the Gerbils trapped in various blocks.

No one is really sure how or why these Gerbils have been placed in the variety of blocks and used to create any number of buildings for you to demolish later. Bringing down the houses takes place through the use of bombs, ropes and disintegrators, all depending on what is available for any of the 24 puzzle levels your currently playing.

The rest is then all up to you and the physics you will unleash upon the various Gerbil filled blocks. The more you play it the more this game will draw you in and drive you to reach that next level of game play. I think the physics here work really well and you can’t help but smile a little as you place a bomb next to one of the blocks or use a rope to bring down a section of wall and see the looks on the surrounding Gerbils.

If your looking for a nice change of pace from your normal gaming action or simply a title to play with the whole family or something to do while your chatting in a Party on Xbox Live, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with all of the fun explosive action Gerbil Physics delivers here. I recommend you buy Gerbil Physics and help support Indie Game development on Xbox Live. (A)

Syndicated from IndieGameBlog - Robert Owens

It’s 2010, and with that comes more episodes of Week in Review.  This week’s topics include: Spyborgs, Half-life 2, Little Big Planet PSP, Ikaruga, PulseMan, Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno, Tvshowking, & Space Invaders X2

Intro music performed by: Qualitybeats; Outro music performed by: Necro off 2002’s NonPhixion album “The Future is Now”.

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The second episode of the exclusive downloadable content for the Xbox 360 is here! While it is more varied and more crazy; it is still the same core GTAIV gameplay This is for the good and the bad but mainly the good; the very very good!

Presentation:

The main theme of the game is the homosexsual orientation of your boss, Tony Prince. The colors are bright and different then in any other Grant Theft Auto. In general the story is focused on your boss while the character you are actually playing, Luis Lopez, is a Dominican body guard that was honed and developed by Tony Prince to become his business partner and his personal bodyguard. The main story is quite impressive script and voice overwise but there are a couple weird points that don’t go very well.

Visuals:

The Cut-scenes are well done on the direction and camera angels but the actual visuals looks really bland. It was always the bad point of the game since GTAIV and the first DLC “The Lost And Damned”. Some of the models looks really good and detailed but some look really terrible. The explosions appear to look more defined since GTAIV and the new weapons looks fantastic as well.

Sound:

The new and old characters always sounded good, and in this one it’s not different! Even though I don’t like the narrative to the character that we play as his mom, his closest friends and his co-workers, all the way up to his old rivals and new ones sound very well done. The soundtrack was handled pretty well sound wise and ramps up to coincide with some good key points in the story.

Gameplay:

Classic GTA game by all means. If its the “go to Y and Kill X” or “go to D and get me H” mission or driving\flying\boating; its all there! The game feels like GTAIV. Which is obviously based on the core engine. In one hand the game is really fun and varied but on the other hand all the driving and flying missions are frustrating. While the game builds in difficulty if you’ve never liked or was good at the driving\flying sections in the game you will have problems. I had a few missions where it was really unbalanced or designed poorly. For the most part the shooting is really good. With or without “Auto Aim” the new, and old, weapons feel good, sound good and they react well with on-screen recoil.

In this game you have two friends. Each one can help you in different ways. One friend of yours named Armando will provide you a ‘gun van’ which allows you to buy guns pretty much on the fly and at lower cost. Similar to what is offered in GTAIV and TLAD. This fits well with the narrative. Your other friend named Henrique will drive and give you any vehicles that is available through the narrative also like in TLAD. You also can interact with your friends by “having fun” with them either by playing Air Hockey (which is new), Bowling, or Darts and/or going out to getting something to eat. You also can meet women and have an “occasional relationship” with them, similar to your girlfriend in GTAIV, but in this game it is just for sex! Which in a way fits the narrative but I have some personal problem with that but that’s just me. The way you meet women is by going to a club and participating in a mini game of dancing. It’s basically pressing one direction with the left analog, having to hold it while performing a move with the LT and RT. The actual animations don’t seem to mind what are you pressing but as a narrative to actually get a sexual intercourse escaped from it is great!

Replay Value:

The game is around 10-13 hours. It took me on paper 8.5 but I restarted quite a few number of times and I did encountered some frustrating parts that added to the overall time I spent in the game. On top of the main story they added some new multi player modes but I donit think it will attract too many more people. They also added Fight Club (which is a three round elimination mode) and Sky Diving missions, similar to Prototype, where you have to jump and use the parachute to land in a specific place.

Conclusion:
GTAIV:TBOGT is a fantastic episode! It closes some story elements from both GTAIV and TLAD and adds quite a lot to the overall narrative that is GTAIV. Colorful characters and, for the most part, fun missions that are designed very well are the norm here. While the game is not perfect, narrative and character wise, the game is really good overall and if you love GTAIV or TLAD get this game through the marketplace for $20\1200 Microsoft points or pick up the standalone disc named: “Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City” for both of the episodes for $40, it is that good and it is that fun, for a GTA fan.

Scoring:
Presentation:
9.2 Some great new characters, some really bad written ones, the story can go to some really bad places, but overall it is a well written and designed game, despite going to the gay jokes way too much.
Visuals:
8.5 The visuals are good, but not great, the engine works well, but it will not blow you away, some of the cut-scenes look really bad.
Sound:
8.7 Some of the music is great, and the voice-overs are great.
Gameplay:
8 Some new vehicles, new weapons and new modes to fiddle with, overall it is the classic GTA game, for the good and the bad.
Replay Value:
6.5 The multiplayer isn’t really appealing anymore, the game is around 10 hours, and the new mini games are not enough to give it true replay value.

Final Score:
8.9