What do we have in store for you today? Best XBLA/PSN title, best music game, and best multiplayer game. Bet you’ll be surprised who wins that one!

Best XBLA/PSN Game of 2010

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Limbo [winner]
Comic Jumper
Super Meat Boy
Joe Danger

I have a soft spot for small, downloadable titles. For one thing, they’re cheap. But more importantly, they offer small, compact experiences that often end up feeling more valuable. Finally, I really love downloadable titles because their smaller budgets allow developers to get more creative and risky in their design. I thought this year was not as exciting as years past, but there still were some great titles released.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer in the spirit of Braid. Like most downloadable titles, it has a great sense of style, it’s presentation as a silent film really sticks with the player. Like all puzzle platformers, the game has a great physics engine, and it’s based on a task anyone could love – gathering pies!

Like Misadventures, Limbo exhibits a strong sense of style and utilizes a black and white color scheme that is absolutely stunning. Limbo is a dark, kind of messed up game that will stick with you after the end. It’s a puzzle platformer as well, but is more timing and physics based. The result if you mess up a puzzle? A gruesome death. The game is fun, and the world created is amazing. Like most downloadable titles, the “story” takes a less is more approach – with great success.

Frankly, Comic Jumper was a bit of a disappointment after Twisted Pixel’s awesome game ‘Splosion Man. Comic Jumper is a good game, but mostly because of its funny dialogue and story. The gameplay ends up getting repetitive, but if you or someone you know likes a good laugh, Comic Jumper can fit the bill.

If you want to harken back to the good ol’ days of excruciatingly painful platformers, Super Meat Boy is the way to go. Each of the 200+ levels in the game only takes 15 seconds to finish – if you get everything right. In reality, you won’t finish every level, and some of them might take you an hour to complete. But if you get all the achievements in this game, you will feel AWESOME.

IGN has called Joe Danger the marriage of Excitebike and Trials HD. That is pretty high praise! It’s a motorcycle game where you perform various stunts – the premise is that you are an injured stuntman who needs to get back in the game by doing all your old stunts. The game is presented in a happy go lucky way that disguises how difficult it actually is. If you’re up for some stunt related challenges, Joe Danger is for you!

Best Music Game of 2010

Green Day: Rock Band

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

DJ Hero 2

Rock Band 3 [winner]
Dance Central (Xbox 360 Kinect)

If you’re not sick of music games yet, this was actually a pretty good year. Despite their financial troubles, Harmonix released another band specific game, Green Day: Rock Band. As a huge Green Day fan, I really enjoyed it. Basically, if you like Green Day, this is a no brainer.

Guitar Hero 378, better known as Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, is actually a very strong entry in the series. Guitar Hero has becoming more and more user friendly, having all songs unlocked from the start, allowing drop in/drop out, etc. The tracklist is pretty good, but make sure you check it out to determine whether the game is for you or not.

If you like more contemporary music, consider checking out DJ Hero 2. It’s tracklist is stellar, and the gameplay is pretty challenging. I’ve always been a fan of the DJ Hero series, and the sequel definitely makes a lot of improvements over the original. It’s too bad this game hasn’t made more traction amongst consumers, but it definitely fills a nice niche in the music genre.

The winner of this category, almost by default, is Rock Band 3. Harmonix has always been the main innovator in the music genre, and the ability to actually learn how to play an instrument is a big plus. Rock Band still is the gold standard for music games, and this year is no exception.

Dance Central wasn’t originally on the list, but I guess as a gift guide, it probably deserves to be on her. Kinect isn’t worth much in my eyes, but Dance Central has been enjoyed by a lot of people as a party game. Tycho at Penny Arcade said his wife even took his Kinect to a party. It’s basically a dance game, and it takes advantage of what Kinect does well – interpret gross motor movements. If you’re willing to shell out the $150 bucks for a Kinect, you could do worse than buying this as a gift.

Best Multiplayer Game of 2010

Halo: Reach
Super Street Fighter IV

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner]

Bungie’s Microsoft swan song, Halo: Reach, might be the strongest entry in the series yet. The game even made a believer out of espion4ge. Reach takes the tried and true Halo formula with a few new twists, most notably the loadout system. Jetpacks and headshots are a pretty fun combination.

Super Street Fighter IV feels more like an expansion to the original than a brand new game, but with it’s new quarter matches and tournaments, it’s a bit more user friendly in the multiplayer experience. You probably already own this game if you are an avid fighting game fan, but still, the multiplayer is relatively lag free and it’s tough to find a better fighting game on the market right now. Plus, DeeJay. Not.

As this site has noted, Call of Duty: Black Ops, provides a more balanced and less crazy multiplayer experience than Modern Warfare. For people who felt MW2 was unbalanced, Black Ops provides a good alternative, plus there is the zombie mode for people who enjoy that sort of thing. It’s fun to play with friends, although you’ll unlock guns at a faster pace so it’s not as addictive leveling up wise. It’s Call of Duty, what else is there to be said?

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the first Assassin’s Creed game to feature multiplayer. Unlike other games that are trying to force some sort of generic multiplayer into their game, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood provides an innovative thinking man’s game. Instead of the running and gunning that we are used to seeing in various multiplayer shooters these days, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer is all about blending in with the computer crowd such that you can make your way to the player you are trying to assassinate without other players being able to tell you apart from the AI. It’s quite a fresh take, but whether a vibrant multiplayer community will be formed by gamers who have the patience these days to sit through slow methodical killing is yet to be seen.

Finally, the winner in this category is – you guessed it – Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Was there any doubt? This is a game worth buying a new computer for. Addictive gameplay? Check. Achievements? Check. Continual support from Blizzard via patches? Check. Zerglings? Check. Banelings, banelings, banelings, ohhhh? CHECK PLUS. True story, someone asked me to play Starcraft 2 today, five months after the game released. I’m logging back in after I finish this post – that’s longevity.

Last week I started the conversation about the types of games non-gamers (specifically, wives and girlfriends) could enjoy or at least tolerate. After laying out some general principles and looking at some broad areas of gaming, this week I’ll be narrowing my focus and talking about some specific genres that might appeal to non-gamers. I’ve organized the games from most appealing to least, in general. As always, your mileage may vary, and I’d love to hear others’ ideas as well!

Mario Party put party games onto the map

Party Games
Everybody loves a good party game. Since Mario Party on Nintendo 64 (I’m sure there are other examples from before then), party games have been drawing in non-gamers in droves. There’s something about the competition involved, the inherent fun involved, that keeps people coming back for more. It’s like playing a board game on your television, quite literally sometimes.

In the current generation, the party game has evolved. Now we have music games, where you can get an entire band together, and up to six people can party at once. We have dance games – not only the bestseller Just Dance on the Wii, but upcoming games for Microsoft’s Kinect and tons of more games in the pipeline. Then there are sports games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit or EA Active, which manage to sell game systems to non-gamers.

These party games are the only type of games I can consistently get Mrs. cmfl3x to play. Whether it’s Wii Sports, Rock Band, or the like, these are the ONLY type of games where I can ask Mrs. cmfl3x “Do you want to play?” without getting a drink thrown in my face.

Party Games for Non-gamers
Wii Sports series
Mario Party series
Rock Band series
Guitar Hero series
Dance Dance Revolution Series
Any Karaoke Game

Despite spending most of his time running around with a school aged boy, Professor Layton has found his way into the hearts of many non-gamers.

Casual/Puzzle Games
I lumped casual and puzzle games together because they often go hand in hand. Whether it’s Bejeweled, Sudoku, or brain teasers, puzzle type games generally appeal to the casual audience. The Nintendo DS has practically cornered the market on old people who are trying to keep their brains fresh.

One standout and potential gateway drug game for non-gamers is the Professor Layton series. It has extremely simple gameplay: you just walk around and solve a bunch of brain teasers to ultimately solve a crime. However, it’s super addicting, and it’s also a very low barrier of entry for non-gamers. It’s the type of game that could potentially get somebody addicted to games, no mean feat.

Another game that deserves it’s own paragraph is Peggle. I’m not sure why it’s so darn addicting, but the combination of cute graphics, random but NOT random gameplay, and attainable goals makes it a big hit with non-gamers. Mrs. cmfl3x actually sat down and played Peggle for an hour one day – that is a minor miracle in and of itself. So keep an eye out for puzzle/casual games, and maybe you can find something to enjoy with that non-gamer in your life. But be careful, if the game is on your DS, you might not get it back.

Puzzle/Casual Games for Non-gamers
Peggle Series
Professor Layton Series
Puzzle Quest
Brain Age Series
Big Brain Academy
Crossword Puzzle Games on DS (there are tons out there)

You can never go wrong with pirates. Y’arr!

Adventure Games
Finally, a genre of gaming that combines story elements, graphical elements, and puzzle elements all into one is the adventure series genre which is making a comeback of late. Adventure games are basically story and puzzle games: you progress a narrative by solving various environmentally based puzzles. Adventure games aren’t for everyone, but Mrs. cmfl3x actually prefers when I play these types of games for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the graphics aren’t as edgy in adventure based games. Secondly, the dialogue is generally pretty funny, and thirdly, the stories involved are generally pretty interesting. Whether it’s Monkey Island, Wallace and Grommit, or Sam and Max, adventure games all seem like something more suited for kids. This helps to dispel “video games are too violent” myths and also helps to propel “video games can aid critical thinking” arguments. You may not ever need to use a rubber chicken with a pulley attached to it in real life, but it’s that kind of out of the box thinking that will help you (and your children!) go far in life.

The nice thing about adventure games is that you can play them together with your non-gaming friends. Only one person needs to be actually controlling the character, but both of you can give input on how to solve the environmental puzzles. And when one person gets tired of failing, the controller can always exchange hands. Regular readers of this site know I am a huge fan of adventure games – it also doesn’t hurt that Mrs. cmfl3x has a soft spot for them as well.

Adventure Games for Non-gamers
Monkey Island series
Sam and Max series
Wallace and Grommit series
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
Homestar Runner series
Phoenix Wright series
Heavy Rain (mature audiences only)

Final Thoughts
In the end, I think video games are generally pretty hit or miss with non-gamers. It all comes down to personal preference, whether you catch them in the right mood, etc. etc. Hopefully, this little guide can give you some ideas if you’re looking for something to play with that non-gamer in your life. Remember, though – nothing beats REAL quality time. Of course, if you can pull off spending some of that time with controllers in your hands…there’s no harm in that either!

I think I’m pretty much done with Band Hero on the 360, so I’m ready to share my review. For those that don’t know, Band Hero was released by Activision last November and is basically Guitar Hero but with a more family friendly and female friendly tracklist. The game is headlined by Taylor Swift as a playable character, and is pretty much a carbon copy of Guitar Hero 5′s engine and features except for its Achievement design and tracklist. I never got around to reviewing Guitar Hero 5, so please consider this review as one that is most likely applicable to both games – they really just come down to whether you like the tracklist of either game.

The Soundtrack
In past Guitar Hero/Rock Band games I would enjoy a few songs and then not be so into the others. With Band Hero, I was a bit more excited to play it since it contained more “pop hits”. I think overall, there were more songs I enjoyed listening to (but not necessarily playing) in this game than any other Guitar Hero/Rock Band game, but the number was still probably less than a quarter of the tracks. While the game’s focus is on pop songs, the songs range from 1964 until the present, so there’s a lot of stuff in there that just wasn’t that enjoyable/recognizable for me. I think in the end, maybe I’m just looking for a soundtrack that contains various pop/rock songs from today’s “Now That’s What I Call Music” albums, but this is the closest I can get to enjoying it for now. There are definitely more girl friendly songs in this game, and my wife loved singing the Taylor Swift songs. As for me, it feels a little odd playing it solo, especially to fail to some Hillary Duff or Spice Girls song, but that’s something I’ll just keep to myself.

Party Play
I never got a chance to try out Party Play with Guitar Hero 5, but I was able to get it going this time around and felt it was very well done. The concept behind the mode allows you to just focus on playing, without worrying about setting up instruments, picking songs, going through some menu modes, etc. Before you even get to the main game menu, the intro will have random characters playing a random song, and if you want to play, you just hit the green button on your instrument. You choose your difficulty right there, and then jump right in. There’s no failing in this mode, and players can jump in and jump out at any time without stopping the progress of anyone else. If they pause the game to leave, it doesn’t pause for anyone else so they can just drop out and even pop back in without anyone else missing a beat. It’s really the perfect mode to play a music game at a party. As a hardcore gamer, in the past when I would have friend over to play other music games, I would have to set everyone up and sort of just hover nearby to make sure that everyone was ok figuring out menus and stuff. But with Band Hero (and Guitar Hero 5)’s Party Play mode, I can honestly just let it go and not worry about it. The Party Play mode will cycle through every song in the game randomly, so it’s almost like an interactive jukebox that your guests can just pick up and start jamming to.

Other Little Things I Noticed
One of my biggest pet peeves in previous music games is when you pick a male or female lead singer for your band and then you choose a song sung by the other gender, previous music games would always still have that male singing the female song. I always wondered, why the heck did anyone not think to just put in a random female singer instead? Finally with Band Hero (and maybe even Guitar Hero 5), it has been taken care of. Now the singer actually changes if the song is sung by a female!

I can’t help but feel like the Guitar Hero cast sold out when they showed up in this game though. Now they’re all sporting teenybopper-like outfits, and I think characters like Axel Steel and Clive Winston deserve more. But maybe it’s just a reflection of Activion also selling out with this game as it was one of the last Guitar Hero games to be released in 2009 – and there were 5 titles released!

I used the Rock Band 2 drumset to play this game, and didn’t enjoy playing drums in this game as much as I do for the Rock Band games. The most jarring aspect of using the drums is that you have to hit both the yellow and the blue (the middle two) drumpads to activate star power on the drums. For more difficult songs, you may have to constantly be hitting the red and yellow, so to figure out a good time to hit both the yellow and blue and then go back to the red and yellow is not easy. I found myself preferring to play with the guitar for this game while the opposite was true with the Rock Band games. Drumming is just more enjoyable in Rock Band but guitar play is tops for Guitar Hero.

Final Thoughts
While this game doesn’t have awesome guitar songs or even a ton of great rock ones, it does have a soundtrack that is quite family friendly and is probably the current best music game to own for guests of all types – especially girls. If you have female friends coming over, Band Hero is the game to fire up, as there are going to be more songs in Band Hero than any other Hero game that your female friends will recognize and be willing to sing. Of course, that doesn’t translate quite so well for a hardcore male gamer playing the game solo, but hey, I knew what I was getting into when I got this game. Guitar Hero 5 would probably be more appropriate for solo play. In any case, both Band Hero and Guitar Hero 5 are good music games, if you’re not sick of music games just yet.

Final Score: B [for both games]

This one’s gonna be a tough one. On the one hand, DJ Hero has innovative gameplay, a great tracklist, a well built peripheral, and a lot of small, but cool features, that really help make it a solid package. On the other hand, it’s done horribly in sales, is hampered by an insane difficulty curve, and is published by Activision, the evil empire of gaming right now. So do I review the game based on my personal experience, or do I need to take into account all the other factors? I’m not totally sure, but we’ll find out together after the jump…

Why it matters that “evil” Activision published this game
DJ Hero is the latest in Activision’s “Hero” games, which for all intents and purposes are completely oversaturating the music game scene (along with Rock Band). The problem with DJ Hero being an Activision game is that everyone hates Activision right now. Deservedly, Activision has gotten a reputation of just stealing consumers’ money and only caring about the bottom line (which is more or less true). So there’s been a lot of backlash about the DJ Hero game, even from consumers, and it has hurt sales. It’s not the ONLY thing that hurts sales, which I will get into later, but DJ Hero definitely has hurt sales. “Another Hero game? Forget it.” But I have a fundamental problem with all this hate for the DJ Hero series because it’s from Activision. Why? Because two years ago, when EA was the evil empire, they released Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two new, risky IPs, and gamers praised them for it. Activision has taken the same sort of risk with DJ Hero, albeit in an attempt to make money, but they are getting panned. It doesn’t make sense! We should support publishers, especially big publishers, taking risks with games and innovating, or in this case, bringing back old school innovations (Konami’s Beatmania).

Why am I writing about the Activision thing in this review? Because it influenced my initial impressions of the game. I too bought into the whole, “this is just an extra peripheral that’s going to take up space and the game is gonna suck” thing and didn’t want to buy the game. But reviews were positive enough to get me interested, and then my sister bought DJ Hero for me for Christmas, and I’m glad she did. So enough boring stuff, time for me to talk about the actual game.

Is DJ Hero’s gameplay any good?
DJ Hero pits you as an actual DJ, and you play along to various mashups and mixes that have been created specifically for the game. As espion4ge stated in his impressions, there are 90+ “mixes” which are composed of two or more tracks, which do tend to repeat quite a bit. Tempering the annoyance of repeating tracks is the fact that different samples are used from each track, so when they’re dropping the No Doubt beat, in one mix you’ll hear “b-a-n-a-n-a-s” but in another mix you’ll just hear Gwen singing the “holla back girl” section.

Some people dislike it, but I have no real problem with the peripheral, though I will agree that it takes some getting used to. Even though it makes no sense that the buttons are on the turntable part of the peripheral, I think it works. You need something to do, and I like tapping along with the beat, and I definitely like the feature of pushing the button while you are scratching, unlike espion4ge. It takes awhile getting used to, but eventually I was able to scratch just using my finger muscles, and not my wrists, which made me much less tired. Another neat feature is the “rewind” feature, if you hit enough notes in a row, you will see a rewind symbol light up, and you can spin the record backwards to reeeeeeeewind, and play a section over for more points. It feels pretty sweet.

The gameplay looks pretty complicated, but practice makes perfect

While you are pushing buttons and scratching with your dominant hand, your off hand has some other crazy stuff to do. Your left hand rests on the cross-fader, which allows you to switch between tracks. So you will be playing Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, then fade to the left and it’ll be Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock”, and back and forth, to great effect. On top of that, there’s an effects knob that you can turn for multiplier bonuses, and cross fading gets pretty intense at the harder difficulties. There is a lot going on, and it’s not “synced” like it is in Guitar Hero – you can be scratching with your right hand and cross fading with your left, both at different rhythms. The game is no joke. But surprisingly, that’s what appeals to me the most. The difficulty makes me feel like I’m actually a DJ, since DJ’s have to multitask so much. Aside from the button pressing, it feels pretty realistic. Scratch, scratch, fade, scratch, fade, REWIND, scratch, scratch, fade, scratch fade. When you get it right, it looks, feels and sounds pretty awesome.

Thus, I absolutely love what DJ Hero does for music games. It introduces a unique and challenging gameplay style. As a hardcore music gamer, I appreciate the challenge of learning a new “skill”. I’m tired of blowing through expert in the Rock Band games (though I still can’t handle everything in Guitar Hero), and it’s fun to actually “work” to get good at a game. Yes, the learning curve is high. But isn’t that a good thing sometimes? Just like a gamer like espion4ge is willing to go through Ninja Gaiden 2 on it’s hardest difficulty, I think music gamers should appreciate DJ Hero. But…

Why the game isn’t selling
They don’t. Or at least, nobody is buying the game. It’s sold about 700K copies, which is pretty good until you factor in how much the peripheral probably cost Activision. There are a couple of reasons why the game isn’t selling. Firstly, it’s difficult, as I said, and thus it doesn’t appeal to as wide a spectrum of consumers. Secondly, DJing seems much more abstract compared to picking up a plastic guitar at this point, and I think that is dissuading consumers as well. Third, gamers who might ordinarily buy the game are sick of making living room space for plastic instruments.

The fourth, and probably most damning reason, is the fact that DJ Hero isn’t a party game. With Guitar Hero/Rock Band, you can pass the guitar around, and you can play in a party and have a good time. But since DJ Hero is much more difficult to learn, you really can’t do that. If my friends come over and I am playing the game, it will be more fun for them to just watch me play and listen to the music than deal with the frustration of learning all the intricacies. That’s a real problem if you are trying to sell games. And that’s unfortunate. But I’m not here to figure out whether DJ Hero should be a bestseller, my job is to determine whether it’s fun to play on its own. So it’s time to wrap this up.

Final thoughts
In coming up with a final grade for this game, I’ve decided to weight the gameplay and tracklist over all those other outside factors. Yes, the game is difficult. Yes, it’s no fun to play with friends. Yes, pushing buttons on a turntable is ludicrous. And yes, you sometimes hear the same songs over and over. BUT:

1. The music in this game is AWESOME. Some favorites: Jay Z’s “H to the Izzo” + Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back”, Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra’s “Bittersweet Symphony” + LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”, all the Beck remixes, and Benny Bayassi’s “Satisfaction + Tiesto’s “Elements of Life”.

2. DJ Hero has a “party mode”. If you hold the euphoria (star power) button, the game will just play any setlists you create automatically, and you can just let the music play in the background while you…dance…or do whatever you want to do at a party. The music is worth it.

3. It’s a good challenge for those who want to take it on. This may not be everybody, but this = me.

4. When you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun, and you will find that you will notice others in the room bouncing up and down to the beat.

5. If Activision sticks with it, there is potential for the franchise. It probably won’t make as much money as they’d like, but I’m sure they can find some dedicated fans. It could be a niche game, but a game that fills a bigger niche.

Anyway, $120 might be too steep a price to pay, but prices are slashed all over the place now. I spent $100 on Guitar Hero 2, an investment that was well worth it. If you don’t want to spend that much, find DJ Hero for cheap and check it out, or find a friend. Give the game an hour, it’s at least worth the time investment. Just don’t blame me when you have random mash-ups stuck in your head all day.

Final Grade: A-

DJ Hero was a game that was released this past holiday season and apparently it “bombed” in sales (based on initial sales estimates that Activision had). At first I didn’t quite understand why, since the reviews had been pretty good for it. Once Amazon put it on sale for $70, I figured I would take the plunge in the name of the blog and let you guys know how it played. Unfortunately, cmfl3x also got it as a present, so I guess I didn’t need to take the plunge after all. He’s played a lot more into it than me, but we’ve agreed that I will give my initial impressions of the game as I am not enjoying it as much as I had hoped. He, being the more music game-inclined player between the two of us, will give a full review sometime afterwards.

One of the biggest problems I had with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games was the lack of recognizable pop songs that I would enjoy playing to. Sure there were always a handful of songs in each game that I would like, but when about 5 out of 60+ songs are the songs you like to play in a game you buy, it’s not exactly the best deal. DJ Hero had me most interested becaues they had several songs from artists I recognize such as The Jackson 5, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Jay-Z, etc. The tracklist was a strong selling point for me since I thought that maybe now I’d get a music video game that I would actually enjoy playing an “instrument” to.

While there are plenty of songs that I do recognize and enjoy, it wasn’t after I played through several of them that I felt somewhat ripped off. The game advertises something like 96 different mixes, which had me thinking, “Wow, that’s quite a large number of tracks. More than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game. What a deal!” Unfortunately what I didn’t know is that while the mixes are “original”, the actual songs being used are repeated. Every mix is basically two different songs mixed together, but several of the more popular songs are mixed into 2-3 different mixes. With many song averaging being in 2 mixes, that really means something like 50 distinct tracks as opposed to 192 (96×2) distinct tracks. Several times I would play a new mix and think, “Didn’t I just hear this song already?” And sure enough, I did – it was just mixed in another song I played earlier. This is not that big of a deal, as I think there’s still plenty of songs to go around, but it’s worth keeping in mind so you don’t get fooled by the advertising of 96 different mixes. Different mixes don’t necessarily mean different songs.

I’ll forgive the lack of tracks that I expected, as the music that is there is still pretty good. Many of the mixes are pretty “bumpin”, since I do find my wife from time to time dancing around as she hears me playing the game so it gets points there. I would conclude from my initial impressions that the music is good, but I wish there was more variety. Still, I’ve enjoyed more tracks in this game than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game I’ve played so far.

I think the music is the strongest aspect of the game, as the gameplay itself is not quite enjoyable for me. When I first played Guitar Hero, I remembered how awesome it was to play, even if I didn’t enjoy all of the heavy metal and rock tracks. But with DJ Hero, it’s the opposite. I enjoy listening to several of the songs, but I’m finding the actual gameplay to not really be up to par. I’ve been analyzing why this is, and have come up with several issues I have with not only the turntable peripheral, but the amount of stuff you’re expected to do with both of your hands and the tiny window of accuracy you must adhere to in order to score highly.

It’s hard to explain how DJ Hero plays, but I’ll try to summarize it as easily as possible. There’s a turntable with three buttons on it, and there are three colored tracks that come down on the screen. If a circle is on that track, you just have to hit the corresponding button. If there are “scratch” sections on that track, you have to hold the circle down and scratch the turntable by turning it back and forth. This is the primary aspect of the game. It’s somewhat simple, but I had some problems with it from the getgo. First of all, hitting buttons on the turntable that correspond to mixing makes maybe as much sense as playing a plastic guitar for piano parts of a song (which is a disturbing new trend). But what’s more annoying is that holding a button down and scratching throughout the song actually is not so fun (and can be downright painful). After a few songs, I found my arm actually sore and I didn’t really want to continue. I don’t know if it’s because the peripheral is too small for me to rest my hand on it when scratching or simply the combination of holding a button down while trying to get it to scratch is just not fun, but something was not working for me. With this being the heart of the gameplay, I knew that that could be a problem in enjoying the game.

With the core gameplay not being so hot, all of the other stuff just builds on that to make it even less enjoyable. There’s a left-right fader slide that you have to move with your left hand as the tracks sometimes shift left or right quickly. It’s an interesting concept, and the effect is pretty cool but  most of the time the fader rests in the middle. Unfortunately, the nudge that indicates that your fader is in the middle is not so prominent, so you have a hard to figuring out if you’re in the middle or not. I HATED the sequences where you had to keep alternating to the left and right and middle, just because I couldn’t always figure out where I was.

The final two aspects of the game that are making me question my enjoyment of the game are that there’s too much going on on the screen (especially at higher level difficulties) and the room for error is practically none. At least when Guitar Hero got more difficult, it was all about speed – there were still 5 buttons to hit, but everything just came faster. It’s was manageable, and you could go from Easy to Expert with enough practice. In DJ Hero, you have to worry about spinning and hitting buttons with your right hand while moving the slider and adjusting a knob with your left hand. Compared to simply using your right hand to strum for a guitar, and you can see that the learning curve for playing DJ Hero is really steep. On top of that, while you can’t “lose a mix”, the room for error is ridiculous. If you’re scratching a song and you stop scratching a little early, you lose the multiplier. If you are moving the fader and you don’t get it exactly where it needs to be in time, you lose the multiplier. Even on Medium difficulty, I’m getting frustrated where I’m getting sequences where I need to move the fader while still scratching or complete my scratching at the exact same time. What is up with that? Maybe one day I’ll be able to play on Hard, but I’m also feeling like the game’s difficulty just doesn’t make it casual friendly.

In a way, perhaps DJ Hero is a music game for “pro music gamers”, and I’m definitely more of a casual music gamer. It’s not as accessible, and because it’s primarily single player (however, there are a few tracks to play co-op with a guitar), it’s not something you’d want to break out at parties. But the problem with this game for me is that I’m not even that interested in breaking it out by myself either. I think the game’s tracks are pretty good, and I like the innovation that the game adds, but the gameplay itself just isn’t too solid or enjoyable. Maybe it’s time for me to go play Band Hero.

I now understand now why the game bombed. It wasn’t that fun, and it was primarily a single player experience, which meant word of mouth was practically none. With Guitar Hero, someone would play it, love it, invite their friends over, let them play it, they would love it, they would go buy it, and so on. It would just keep spreading like wildfire. Whereas with DJ Hero, I’ve played it, didn’t really enjoy it that much, and now am telling all of you not to buy it. I am probably one of many people that did this, and have contributed to the lack of sales for the game. Needless to say, I will most likely not buy the sequel. In any case, we’ll see what cmfl3x says in his upcoming review of DJ Hero and if his thoughts differ.

One of the Xbox 360′s strongest features compared to other consoles is its multiplayer gameplay, which can probably be attributed to the Live infrastructure. It is thus not surprisingly to see strong multiplayer games on this system. For today’s awards, I will be discussing the best multiplayer games released this year, and the one better than the rest.

I will also be discussing the best new IP and best sequel of the year. It’s good to see that in 2009, there were nearly an equal number of good new IPs and sequels. The moment we begin seeing only sequels releasing and new IPs no longer developed is the moment the game industry stops advancing. It’s easy to support sequels since you know what you’re getting yourself into, but this year was perhaps the year with the largest number of development studios shutting down. Continue to take a chance by supporting new IPs – the developers need this type of support to stay in business and come up with new and exciting games to push our industry forward!

Best Xbox 360 Multiplayer Game of 2009

Street Fighter IV
Halo Wars
Battlefield 1943
Halo 3: ODST
Borderlands
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [winner]
Left 4 Dead 2

In determining the best multiplayer game of the year, I’ve considered not only whether the game itself is fun to play, but various other aspects that come with multiplayer: customization options, co-op, ease of use, appeal, etc. In short, the best multiplayer game should provide for the best overall multiplayer experience.

Street Fighter IV took several steps forward in the online multiplayer arena for fighting games – most notably the automated matchmaking while you played Arcade mode and the ability to unlock and use titles to further personalize yourself online. The big misstep in Street Fighter IV’s multiplayer was the lack of any sort of party room where multiple players could join and take turns fighting each other together. This will be fixed when Super Street Fighter IV comes out in March of 2010.

While Halo Wars was the only serious RTS game released on the 360 this year, its multiplayer was quite well done and the gameplay was simplified enough to be quite playable on the console. Matchmaking was in-place, allowing you to take on 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 matches with either random partners or arranged teams – just like in Blizzard’s Warcraft III games. Borrowing a page from the Halo games, Halo Wars has extensive stats tracked for every game played, and you can access these stats through the website to see how you perform, what your opponents were ranked at, the results of each match, etc. In short, the game provides a very strong multiplayer infrastructure to be a competitive game. Unfortunately, not many Xbox 360 players are still playing Halo Wars these days, as arranged team matchmaking can take several minutes before you’re able to go up against another team.

Battlefield 1943 belongs up here as the only “multiplayer” only title of the list. At $15, 360 owners are able to download this Live Arcade title and jump right into a handful of online maps and play the beloved primary Battlefield mode: Conquest. The vehicular combat that the series is known for is present, as well as stat tracking on the EA website. One minor thing to consider about Battlefield 1943 is the simplification of the game by having unlimited ammo and only three distinct, yet intuitive classes. It works, and while I would have loved to see more maps, it was certainly fun for the $15 we spent playing it this past summer. Playing with friends can be a little dicey in the game though, as you can still be split onto separate teams from your squad from time to time if your squad dominates too much.

Halo 3: ODST is a controversial multiplayer package. Within the game comes a new multiplayer Firefight mode, allowing for you and up to three buddies to take on wave after wave of Covenant as long as you can stay alive – injecting an enjoyable arcade style co-operative mode to the Halo universe. But is that really enough to make Halo 3: ODST stand out as one of the stronger multiplayer games this year? Nope. This is why Halo 3′s multiplayer and every charged map to date is included with the game. This stands as potentially a fantastic bargain for those that have never played Halo 3 multiplayer before, but for 360 owners, if you haven’t already played Halo 3 multiplayer by now, you probably never will. For many of us, we bought the game, played some Firefight, and were done with it.

Borderlands gets points for the thought that was involved in implementing a RPG game like this with up to three other buddies. The enemies scale in difficulty, the loot gets more impressive, and every player can go back into their own solo games with the progress and quests they made in multiplayer. Everything seems like it’s going to be an enjoyable multiplayer game – and it is, provided that you and all of your buddies only play together when everyone is on. Unfortunately, people can’t realistically all maintain the same gaming schedules, and thus the RPG element of Borderlands hurts the game’s multiplayer component enough to make it a difficult game to enjoy with friends. This is not really inherent to the design of the game, but the mere limitations of making an RPG have multiplayer.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is Leveling Down’s vote for Best Multiplayer Game of the Year. If it’s one game that you are stuck on a desert island with but have an Internet connection, this is your best bet. The amount of multiplayer customization the series has become known for in this game is ridiculous, allowing any player to focus on his strengths when playing competitively. With so many guns, accessories, Perks, Killstreak rewards and the like, you can play multiplayer however you want. And while Modern Warfare 2 also has an addictive experience level system, it doesn’t hinder your progress in the game – it merely provides you with more options. Throw in the ability to unlock new custom emblems and logos to display in-game, over 20 co-op missions, and many different game modes besides the traditional Team Deathmatch, and we have a multiplayer game here that some players may not budge from until Modern Warfare 3 comes out. The only negative issue about the multiplayer is that Party Chat is disabled for several of the game modes, but there are manual workarounds.

One thing that Left 4 Dead 2 excels in on the multiplayer side that the other games nominated in this category can’t touch is co-op. Left 4 Dead 2′s primary campaign focuses on just you and three buddies trying to make your way through over 20 well-designed levels and specifically for this aspect, the game cannot be beat. There’s no experience levels you need to worry about in this game (like Borderlands) – grab three other guys and start killing some zombies. On top of that, Left 4 Dead 2 has a few more competitive modes if co-op isn’t enough. There’s a Survival mode where you compete to stay alive the longest against ridiculous odds, and a Versus mode & Scavenge mode where you and up to three other players can take on four other players with one side playing as the Survivors and another side as the Infected and the two sides switching every round. From what I understand, new to Left 4 Dead 2 is team matchmaking, allowing you and your buddies to go up against other teams within the Versus mode. The adversarial modes in Left 4 Dead 2 don’t play as well as they do in Modern Warfare 2, due to a lack of customization, unlocks, and even simple stat tracking. Still, Left 4 Dead 2′s co-op makes it still a game worth considering for multiplayer fans.

Best Xbox 360 New IP of 2009

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
Shadow Complex
Batman: Arkham Asylum [winner]
Brutal Legend
Borderlands
DJ Hero
Dragon Age: Origins

While some companies are content to release sequel after sequel for minimal risk, others take a chance and decide on something completely new. Ironically, these games themselves have potential to spawn sequels, so my criteria in determining which game is the best new IP is the one that I am anticipating the sequel from most.

In a fighting game world populated with sequels such as Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur IV, Virtual Fighter 5, Tekken 6, and King of Fighters XII, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger stands alone as one of the only new fighting game IPs to the market. It’s also a very good fighting game with fresh character design, an innovative gameplay style that keeps all the characters very unique, and excellent presentation. If you tire of all the other fighting games on the market and want something completely fresh, BlazBlue is the one to check out.

Some consider Shadow Complex their game of the year, and while I may not feel that strongly about the game, I believe it does deserve a spot here on the best new IPs list of 2009. Shadow Complex successfully combined a “2.5D” Unreal graphics engine with Metroid style gameplay, and the result was a modernized version of the beloved classic. Unfortunately, its primary drawback is that the story was practically non-existent. I also don’t see how a sequel to the game could work – will you find yourself in a new abandoned base and unarmed, only to look for new gear upgrades in order to unlock new rooms? Shadow Complex is a great game, but whether it can be a great franchise is yet to be determined.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is our Best New IP of the year. This was somewhat of a technical call, as the Batman IP has been around for quite a long while. However, this particular Batman gaming IP is new, and it looks very promising. The graphics engine was phenomenal, the combat system perfect, and the amount of lore in the Batman universe can easily lend itself to more sequels. Of all the nominees in this list, I’m most anticipating a sequel to Arkham Asylum, with the hopes that the investigation gameplay is more refined (Batman is the world’s greatest detective, after all) and the bosses more unique and better designed next time around.

Brutal Legend was an interesting “experiment” for Tim Schafer. It combined action/adventure with real time strategy, and infused that combination with heavy metal and humor. The storyline, voice actors, and presentation were well regarded, but the gameplay itself fell a bit flat. Apparently the mixing of the action/adventure and RTS genres left out enough aspects from both genres to not really please fans of either genre. Fortunately, Tim Schafer has been building a fanbase with every new game he designs, and whatever he designs next is sure to keep the charm that all his games have had. To be honest, I’d be more interested in seeing a completely new game from him rather than a sequel to Brutal Legend. Does he even do sequels?

Borderlands is one of the bigger new successful IPs this year, and for good reason: it is one of the first games to successfully combine FPS with RPG. While its multiplayer suffered due to the inherent limitations of RPG aspects in general, the combination was solid from a single player standpoint and I’m sure there are many new fans of not only the game, but the genre. My hopes is that in future sequels, the weapon types are a bit more varied and items are less randomly generated.

DJ Hero is also one of the new interesting IPs created this year. It actually had a lot going for it: an exciting track list, a new peripheral, and innovative gameplay. But perhaps people have already tired of music peripheral games, and the lack of any sort of real party mode for DJ Hero led to its poor sales and probably the end of the franchise. One also has to wonder at this point whether or not the Hero name in the title helps it or hinders it due to the over-saturation of Hero games nowadays.

Rounding out the top new IPs for this year is Dragon Age: Origins, a new RPG from the makers of Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect. While this looks to be a solid RPG (and winner of our best RPG of the year), the game doesn’t seem to bring many new innovations to the table as an epic fantasy RPG and a spiritual successor to the beloved Baldur’s Gate series. With this first game being titled “Origins”, sequels in the Dragon Age franchise are bound to be released. Note that some complain that the game is too long and it has too many moral choices with game-channging consequences, so perhaps there’s such a thing as too much RPG in an RPG!

Best Xbox 360 Sequel of 2009

Street Fighter IV
Resident Evil 5
Guitar Hero 5
Tekken 6
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed II [winner]
Left 4 Dead 2

In determining the best sequel award, I’ve evaluated the winner based on how much better a game is than its predecessor(s). If the jump is significant, it has cause to be considered an amazing sequel. But what if the game before it was already amazing? That begs the question of whether the sequel is even really necessary. Regardless, let’s get to the list.

Street Fighter IV is our runner up for Best Sequel. It’s tough to really think what Street Fighter IV is a true sequel to: Street Fighter II or Street Fighter III. Unlike the other games in this category where their predecessors are on the same console generation or only one console generation prior, both Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III were on consoles several generations prior to the Xbox 360. While each of these earlier Street Fighters stood out strongly on their respective console generations, it wasn’t until Street Fighter IV was released that many fighting game fans finally felt that Street Fighter had caught up to the present. Let’s face it: Street Fighter IV closed the generation gap by wowing fans, and for that it is recognized as an outstanding sequel.

Resident Evil 5 is a pretty good game in its own right, but an example of a sequel that is worse than its predecessor. Of course, being the sequel to a game that many considered game of the year (and even game of the system for the Gamecube), meant Resident Evil 5 just had too much pressure to live up to. If you can deal with the AI partner or find a friend to play it through with, the game is actually quite enjoyable.

Guitar Hero 5 – while rated pretty highly and many call a definite improvement over Guitar Hero World Tour, the question that many of us are wondering about is whether this was even a necessary sequel. Sure it was slightly better than its predecessor, but when the bulk of the enjoyment for these types of games falls merely on the songs, implementing a Rock Band based DLC store may be a better way to go than to churn out sequel after sequel onto disc with limited export functionality. Still, it looks like Neversoft is finally catching onto what Harmonix has been trying to accomplish. Perhaps there won’t be the need for a Guitar Hero 6. Wait, who am I kidding?

Tekken 6 is also starting to get a bit guilty of the “over-sequel” syndrome as it’s a sequel that plays it safe and continues to satisfy the fans. But does it reinvent itself? Does it succeed in driving new players to the genre? No. The core gameplay is present, with tons of characters (the character select screen is actually pretty overwhelming!), and Namco is again off to their old antics of creating some single player beat-em-up mode that sucks. I feel like they’ve been experimenting with this since maybe Tekken 2, and they still haven’t gotten it right. Fortunately, the fighting game itself doesn’t suffer so I’ll simply conclude that it’s a decent game, but not a huge improvement over its predecessor.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 actually did everything right for a sequel. It continued the over-the top yet captivating storyline of Call of Duty 4, while introducing a completely new Special Ops mode for co-op. On the multiplayer side, the amount of improvements may seem minor for those that haven’t been following the series, but Call of Duty 4 fans do notice everything. Now the question I ask myself with this game is, “Is Modern Warfare 2 that much more awesome than Modern Warfare 1?” I can’t help but say no. Modern Warfare 1 was a phenomenal package when it was released back in 2007, and Modern Warfare 2 is no different when it was released this year. It just continues the high standards set forth by its predecessor.

It may be surprisingly for some of you, but Assassin’s Creed II is our pick for Best Sequel of 2009. In a way, our Best Sequel award is also comparable to a “Most Improved” award, and Assassin’s Creed II improves over the original Assassin’s Creed in many ways, making the sequel far better than the first. While the first game polarized players, the sequel is unanimously applauded. Take cmfl3x for example – he couldn’t even get through the first game before getting bored, but he’s already gone through the sequel in the span of practically only a week and loving it! This game deserves a look from those that had problems with the first as it’s not only an excellent sequel, but a lengthy and enjoyable game in its own right.

Rounding out the Best Sequel category for this year is Left 4 Dead 2. Left 4 Dead 2 falls into a similar problem that Modern Warfare 2 does when being considered for the Best Sequel category: the original one was awesome during its time already and the sequel, while quite good, doesn’t quite put the first one to shame. I would argue that the Left 4 Dead 2 sequel lacks the charm of the first, but from a technical standpoint, Left 4 Dead 2 provides lots of new enjoyable content and is well recommended for anyone that is eager for a new setting in the Left 4 Dead universe.

Rounding out our main categories, today we will be looking at Best Action/Adventure, Music, Real-Time Strategy and XBLA games. Looking at the list of titles from this year, there were a surprising number of good action/adventure games out this year, and even though neither of us owns a PS3, you can’t talk about action/adventure in 2009 without mentioning Uncharted 2. I’m glad I didn’t have to nominate that game though, since that would probably have made for some tough decisions. Music games, on the other hand, seemed to take a step backwards, or maybe we are just getting sick of them. Meanwhile, Live Arcade continues to put out good titles worth taking a look at.

Best Xbox 360 Action/Adventure Game of 2009

Resident Evil 5
Prototype
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Shadow Complex
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Assassin’s Creed 2 [winner]

This was the most difficult category to decide on, as there were a lot of worthy nominees this year. Resident Evil 5 kicked things off to much controversy. Over the course of Resident Evil’s history, it has been the quintessential survival horror game, but RE5 changed the series game by focusing the game on co-op. This turned into a love it or hate it situation. For the most part, RE5 was a success, and if you are a fan of the Resident Evil series you should definitely check it out. I’d recommend playing with a friend, since the AI is a bit wonky.

Prototype is an open world action/adventure game featuring a protagonist wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt whose claim to fame is being compared to Infamous, another open world action adventure game featuring a protagonist wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt (PS3 exclusive). The game got pretty good reviews, but most people prefer Infamous to Prototype. The game deserves mention though, since it is a victim of it’s release date.

A surprisingly strong game this year was Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which is a game that is perfect for anyone who loves the movies. Generally, these licensed games are a bust, but this 3rd person shooter is a lot of fun and serves as a sequel to Ghostbusters 2. It’s too bad it’s the 1980s anymore, because Ghostbusters is sure to be a hit with kids!

Those three games were merely appetizers to the main events this year, though, which kicked off when Microsoft released Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade. Shadow Complex is a spiritual successor to Metroid, set in a universe created by Orson Scott Card, and a game worth much more than its $15 price tag. Between acquiring power-ups, finding hidden secrets, and exploring the expansive map, there are hours of enjoyment to be found in this game.

The runner-up in this category also released in August. Due to its pre-holiday rush release, Batman: Arkham Asylum was primed to do well, and it made a modest killing in sales. More importantly, Arkham Asylum solidified its place as one of the best superhero games ever made. With an engaging story, a surprisingly deep combat system, and lots of fun gadgets and tools to play with, this was one of my favorite games of the year. Unfortunately, the game misses out a bit on the “adventure” aspect of things, but if you’re a fan of comics, it doesn’t matter. This game is awesome.

Finally, the last action/adventure game and the winner is Assassin’s Creed 2. First, Ubisoft should be commended for not delaying the game because of Modern Warfare 2, something a lot of publishers were doing this year. They were rewarded for their boldness, and so were gamers. Assassin’s Creed 2 brings the series to Renaissance Italy and is a resounding success. The majority of the flaws from the first game have been fixed, and Assassin’s Creed 2 has really gotten me excited about the conclusion of the trilogy. This game can take up 30 hours of your time, so it’s a great value too. Buy it for someone you love and you can’t go wrong!

Best Xbox 360 Music Game of 2009

Guitar Hero 5
The Beatles: Rock Band [winner]
DJ Hero
Band Hero
Lego Rock Band

This was a tough award to pick this year because, frankly, music games may have reached their saturation point. I basically bought my 360 to play Guitar Hero 2, but I just wasn’t as pumped up by the games this year as I have been in the past. A lot of this was due to curious decisions made by the publishers, and I don’t only mean Activision.

But let’s start with Activision. In the course of this calendar year, they released Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero V, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, DJ Hero, and Band Hero. Metallica was pretty good, but Van Halen supposedly is terrible (though espion4ge liked it well enough). I actually think DJ Hero looks pretty awesome, and if I had 120 dollars to spend (or 90 at this point), I would have checked it out and it might have won this category due to its innovative gameplay. But that’s the problem, I have way too many plastic instruments and thus didn’t want to dip my toes into the DJ Hero pool. Meanwhile, Guitar Hero 5 suffered with its all over the place tracklist. Though the game made a lot of improvements in the interface, and is much easier for party play than Rock Band these days, it’s just weird to switch between Megadeth and Grand Funk Railroad. The game has no identity. Band Hero is basically the same game, but it features Taylor Swift. I actually think if you want to buy one of the “Hero” games, you’re best off getting Band Hero or DJ Hero, as those are probably the games with the most enjoyable soundtracks for the general public. Of course, you could always just refer to our import/export guide and play all your songs off of one disc.

Harmonix, which has been king in the music game genre, hasn’t had the greatest year either. The Beatles: Rock Band is my winner in this category, due to its unique take on the genre. The Beatles is more of an experience: you follow the career of the Fab 4 and the graphics, music, and presentation all work together to create a cohesive, spectacular experience. Unfortunately, the game is too short, and only features 45 songs. Also, DLC is more expensive (about twice as much). This is a great game to buy if you plan to play with your parents or someone of an older generation, but it’s not going to be for everyone. Lego: Rock Band, on the other hand, is probably the weakest nominee in this category. It features a casual-friendly tracklist, but Harmonix really missed a huge opportunity here to build on the humor and fun block loving gameplay of the Lego games. Lego: RB is just Lego David Bowie playing Rock Band – but it could have been so much more.

Best Xbox 360 Real-Time Strategy Game of 2009

Halo Wars [winner]
Brutal Legend

I think people are still surprised to find out that Brutal Legend is a real-time strategy game, but with a cult online multiplayer following and a lot of RTS gameplay, it deserves to be mentioned in this category. Brutal Legend is a great game with a great story, and I had a blast playing it, but the truth is it isn’t for everyone. Aside from the story elements, Brutal Legend does a bunch of things well, but doesn’t do anything great. Its RTS component focuses more on using your hero character correctly – it’s almost as if it’s a third person brawler with other units to command. I almost put this game into the music category though – its soundtrack is SOLID.

Halo Wars wins the real-time strategy hands down, and really did not have any serious contenders. It was Ensemble’s swan song, and the studio can be confident that it went out on a high note. Halo Wars successfully blends an interesting story campaign with a robust multiplayer component, one that unfortunately did not receive the popularity it deserves. I continue to be impressed by the slickness of the controls – Ensemble did a great job customizing the controls for consoles. Moreover, the balancing in the game is spot-on. Real-time strategy is all about counters, and like Starcraft before it, EVERY unit in Halo Wars is useful for countering something. Well, maybe not Brute Choppers, but hey, who’s counting?

Best Xbox 360 Live Arcade Game of 2009

The Maw
Peggle
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
Magic: The Gathering – Duel of the Planeswalkers
Battlefield: 1943
‘Splosion Man
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Shadow Complex [winner]

Microsoft continues to put out some quality Arcade games, and I hope they keep it up because I really enjoy the Arcade titles. Since these games are shorter for the most part, I will do the same with my descriptions!

The Maw is a short but sweet 3-D action/adventure game that has you following a cute, but growing alien. As you progress through the game, The Maw acquires more and more powers and gameplay options increase exponentially. By all accounts it’s a great game, but it ends a bit too soon for it’s $10 price tag.

Peggle and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix deserve to be mentioned because these two franchises are universally popular. Peggle is a perfect Arcade game, one you can pick up and play for 5 minutes or 5 hours straight, depending on the circumstance. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is not as strong as the medieval entrees in the series, but a worthy game nonetheless.

Magic: The Gathering – Duel of the Planeswalkers does a great job of translating the classic card game to the console, but lacks one key feature: fully customizable decks. But if you’re into Magic, and you have some friends, the game is probably worth the $10 price tag.

Battlefield: 1943 is the runner-up in this category and for good reason. For $15 you can get a surprisingly deep multiplayer experience that you can play for months without getting bored. There are 3 standard maps to play on and one airplane only map, but the game’s maps are well designed, and the gameplay is simplified enough to make it easy to pick up and play (if you’re already familiar with FPS). There are no persistent upgrades like Modern Warfare 2, but it doesn’t really matter – as an arcade game, Battlefield: 1943 succeeds in every way.

‘Splosion Man and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 were featured in XBLA’s Summer of Arcade, and are throwbacks to former generations. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is basically the same game you remember from the Dreamcast, for better or worse. Don’t bother playing online, you will get pwned. But if you are a fighting game master, it’s worth a shot. ‘Splosion Man is an incredibly hard platformer with a unique presence: you “blow yourself up” to jump which leads to all sorts of puzzles. Just make sure there aren’t any windows nearby, you might throw your controller out of it.

Topping all of these quality games, Shadow Complex is the champion in this category. I chose Shadow Complex as the winner not only for the reasons outlined above in the Action/Adventure category, but also because it’s the best value out of all of these games (Battlefield: 1943 or Peggle are the only competition). It’s a great game, and one every Metroid fan should not hesitate to check out.

With Band Hero and LEGO Rock Band recently released, I picked up Band Hero to play with my family this holiday season and am even looking at LEGO Rock Band since both have several “family friendly” recognizable songs. But then I was trying to understand how the importing works for all these music games and it was somewhat of a headache since there’s over a dozen of them out now. Well, as I went through figuring them out, I decided to write up a guide at the same time, so those of you that are curious about how exporting works for all the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games can now learn from what I just learned. However, please keep in mind that I’m talking about these games specifically from a 360/PS3 perspective – Wii owners may find even more limitations in place since I don’t know much about the Wii versions. I believe the Wii Rock Band universe does not support any sort of exporting but the Wii Guitar Hero universe follows the same limitations as the 360 & PS3 versions.

First off, it’s a given that the Rock Band and Guitar Hero universes do not play together so you cannot export music from one universe to another. Second of all, it’s good to think of all this exporting business centralized around your hard drive like DLC music tracks. Each particular game has potential to “export”, and if it does, any other game that supports it will be able to play it just like DLC. For all intents and purposes, consider exported tracks the same as DLC. The one time cost comes from exporting the track to your hard drive so other games can play it, not for the ability for a particular game to play tracks on your hard drive. If the songs are already on your hard drive, it’s free to play by any games that support the songs.

With that, here is the breakdown:

Rock Band Universe

Rock Band Track Pack 1
Rock Band Track Pack 2
Rock Band Unplugged
Rock Band AC/DC
Rock Band Classic Rock
Rock Band Country
Rock Band Metal
Export: All these discs are free to export one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: n/a

Rock Band
Export: All songs except for 3 are exportable an infinite number of times for $4.99
Import: All Rock Band track packs, LEGO Rock Band, and Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared)

Rock Band 2
Export: none
Import: Rock Band 1 (except 3 of the songs), all Rock Band track packs, LEGO Rock Band, and Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared)

The Beatles: Rock Band
Export: none
Import: none

LEGO Rock Band
Export: All songs exportable for $10 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: All family friendly Rock Band track pack songs, family friendly Rock Band 1 songs, and family friendly Rock Band 1-2 DLC (shared) songs

Guitar Hero Universe

Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Guitar Hero: Metallica
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Export: none
Import: none

Guitar Hero World Tour
Export: 35/86 songs for $3.50 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: none

Guitar Hero Smash Hits
Export: 21/48 songs for $2 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: none

Guitar Hero 5
Export: 69/85 songs for $6 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: Guitar Hero World Tour exported tracks, Guitar Hero Smash Hits exported tracks, Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (except 6 Jimi Hendrix songs), Band Hero exported tracks

Band Hero
Export: 61/65 songs for $5 one time with a unique code in the game box
Import: Guitar Hero World Tour exported tracks, Guitar Hero Smash Hits exported tracks, Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (except 6 Jimi Hendrix songs), Guitar Hero 5 exported tracks

Summary
It looks like the two universes are focusing in on a couple games as their primary mediums. The Rock Band Universe focuses around Rock Band 2 – practically every other Rock Band game can export out tracks and Rock Band 2 can import everything in. It’s possible to pick up all the other Rock Band related discs and pay and/or use the code to export the songs, and save for the 3 Rock Band 1 songs, you’ll have everything available to play when you boot up Rock Band 2. That means you can basically sell all the other discs and use Rock Band 2 to play everything.

The Guitar Hero universe is a lot more tricky it seems, because not only did Activision start late with the exporting business, the focus is split between two games now too. While there have been several Guitar Hero games released, it wasn’t until World Tour that the exporting/importing business was implemented. And even then, Activision did a pretty shoddy job since not even half of the tracks for either World Tour or Smash hits are currently exportable. This means even after you export them, you may still want to hold onto the discs in case you ever feel like playing songs that weren’t exported. What’s good with Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero now though is that they can both play the songs exported from World Tour or Smash Hits, and can even play songs exported from each others’ games if the player wants to pay for the associated exporting costs. A higher percentage of Band Hero’s songs are exportable than Guitar Hero 5′s songs, so perhaps Guitar Hero 5 is more fitting as the current primary Guitar Hero Universe hub.

One more thing to think about is to be very cautious about buying used games that have any of these one-time export codes. Many people may simply pick up Band Hero or LEGO Rock Band and pay the export cost and sell the game to Gamestop. If you pick up that same used game, you won’t be able to export it to your system and you’ll be stuck having to use the disc whenever you want to play it. In the case of games you might want to export, try to buy them new. Oh, and make sure you have a hard drive big enough to store all of these songs you plan on exporting. You can export the songs to your hard drive, delete specific songs, and still re-export them in the future should you ever desire to so it may be worth holding onto the discs if you have low hard drive space.

I received my free copy of Guitar Hero Van Halen in the mail this past weekend, so I decided to give it a try. The first thing that I sadly discovered was that the game shipped in a little cardboard sleeve, with no instruction manual or anything. It also wasn’t so nice to see “FOR PROMOTION ONLY NOT FOR RESALE” slapped across the sleeve and disc – but hey, the game works and I guess that’s what really matters. Apparently this game isn’t going to sit in a box in my 360 collection on the shelf.

Anyway, let me first say that I don’t even know any Van Halen songs at all. With my teenage years in the ’90s, I was raised on alternative rock like Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Green Day so I was either not even born yet or still an infant when Van Halen was putting out hits. What actually drew me in to wanting to play this game was not even Van Halen, but the guest artist songs on Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

And you know what’s surprising? Guitar Hero Van Halen has a tracklist consisting of more songs I’ve enjoyed than any other music game released so far except perhaps Guitar Hero 2. While everyone’s musical tastes are different, I’m pleased that I can play stuff like Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom”, Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”, and Blink-182′s “First Date”. And then there’s other bands I recognize as well, such as Foo Fighters, Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, and The Offspring. Of course, when Band Hero and Lego Rock Band come out, those will probably have tracklists I find even more enjoyable than Guitar Hero Van Halen since they will be more pop oriented. But in any case, my point is, unlike Guitar Hero 5′s terrible setlist (for me at least), I actually want to play through Guitar Hero Van Halen to hear all the songs. I’ve even found some Van Halen songs I enjoyed, so that was a bonus.

Surprisingly, Guitar Hero Van Halen does sport a dated interface and doesn’t have the “advances” that Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero 5 have implemented. In fact, it feels like I’m back to playing Guitar Hero 2 again, and to be honest, I’m actually happy with that. The game is simple to play – I go through career mode and choose whatever difficulty I want to play, earn money from each song, and just progress along. It’s the formula I enjoyed in the earlier Guitar Hero iterations, until Neversoft went all crazy and started making it more and more complicated. I still believe that Guitar Hero should just focus on guitar, and leave it at that. While Guitar Hero Van Halen does allow for drums and mic, the game still feels more guitar oriented, which is what more serious Guitar Hero fans desire. I’m not sure if I can be considered a serious Guitar Hero fan or not since I only play on Hard difficulty, but I’m certainly pleased with the way the game turned out.

It’s strange but while Guitar Hero 5 sports several improvements to the series, I’m enjoying Guitar Hero Van Halen a lot more. So far I find not only Guitar Hero Van Halen’s setlist more enjoyable to play than Guitar Hero 5, but the charting seems to be better thought out too. I wonder if the development teams behind Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero Van Halen were different – I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. It just goes to show you – even if a music game is easier to pickup and play and has more features, the music is ultimately what keeps you playing. If you didn’t already get this game free with your Guitar Hero 5 purchase, I’d recommend waiting it out anyway before it goes on sale. With the plethora of music games out now and continuing to be released, there’s no reason to buy one of these games on day 1 at $60 when they drop to less than half price within a year.

Every bone in my alternative, grunge-loving, rock and roll body (aka my childhood) finds the upcoming casual-friendly Lego Rock Band and Band Hero games kind of gross. Taylor Swift? Janet Jackson? BRYAN ADAMS? These are the artists being rolled out for Lego Rock Band (Harmonix) and Band Hero (Activision) in the two companies’ latest attempt to cash in on the music game craze. Yet, the older, more mature, and lamer side of me is intrigued by both these games.

Harmonix’s game I’m sure will be made with the high standards all the Rock Band games have had (although I’m not sure how Lego David Bowie and Lego Iggy Pop are going to look different), and there are a lot of catchy tunes on there, including the aforementioned Bryan Adams “Summer of 69′”, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin”, and the one song I would like to play: Europe’s “The Final Countdown”. Band Hero counters with The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “The Impression that I Get”, Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”, and the CTY classic “American Pie”, by Don McLean.

These games and their tracklists present me with two dilemmas:

1) I would feel like a corporate sellout playing these songs. At the same time, pop songs are so catchy and they seem like they would be genuinely fun to play, especially with friends or my wife.

2) I really shouldn’t be spending any more money on music games. There are tracks on both discs that I would love to try out, but I can’t shell out $120 on more music games, especially when I’m still planning on picking up Guitar Hero 5 eventually! This is getting out of hand.

In the end, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I don’t even need reviews, I’m pretty sure both games will be much of the same. If I had tweenage kids it probably would be a no-brainer, and I think a lot of families will have fun with these games, but as a solo act…I might have to pass………or not. Bah!