Gamesugar

May 25, 2011

Review – Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD

Might and Magic Clash of Heroes
Though the Great Fall of the PSN has much delayed us, that service’s howling, furious resurrection has finally allowed Team Sugar to report on the matter of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, the HD upgrade of 2009’s DS original.

Clash of Heroes exists in some infinite limbo between puzzle game and turn-based strategy. The goal of each battle is to deplete the enemy’s health by firing attacks into his endzone—which is carefully protected by his army of units. Units can be organized to form attack formations or defensive wall formations. Additionally, specialized hero units can be purchased and employed for devastating attacks.

The primary task here is to maximize the number of actions that can be performed in one turn. The player has a limited number of moves, and while certain actions may grant additional moves, one must be mindful of the most efficient, useful maneuvers on the field. Combat, accordingly, is as much a puzzle as a strategy game.

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May 23, 2011

The Spirit of ’47: A Primer to the Influences of L.A. Noire

Filed under: Features — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Gregory Gay @ 1:34 pm


Rockstar and Team Bondi’s latest game, L.A. Noire, hit stores last week. The game shoves you into the role of detective Cole Phelps as he solves a number of brutal crimes in the aftermath of World War 2 – think of it as a mix of Phoenix Wright and Grand Theft Auto. The thing is, L.A. Noire isn’t just a sandbox game set in the 40’s. It’s a love letter to the film noir genre – a distinctive cinematic genre from the 1940’s and 50’s mired in the shadowy world of crime.

Like every other Rockstar game, L.A. Noire will probably sell roughly a bajillion copies, and a few of those owners may just feel an urge to dive deeper into the game’s source material. Given that possibility, I thought this would be a good time to go into a bit more detail on the movies that have influenced L.A. Noir.

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May 18, 2011

Catching Up with the Thunderer

Thor: God of Thunder
To say that I read comics does not adequately describe the depth of my madness; to achieve that, one must paint a picture of filing cabinets, shelves and boxes spilling over with twenty years of meticulously bagged and boarded comics, piles of this month’s readings strewn across the floor; walls adorned with art, shelves with models, and a stack of individually framed posters from The Dark Knight that haven’t yet found wallspace. There’s a batmobile on the shelf behind me, and I assure you it isn’t my only one.

Suffice to say, I am invested.

Thus, I took the opportunity to play Thor: God of Thunder on both the Xbox 360 and Wii recently, and I will now leverage that terrible qualification to examine whether these titles do justice to Marvel’s Norse thunderer. Surprisingly, the version to come out on top isn’t the one you’d expect.

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May 14, 2011

Review – Section 8: Prejudice

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 9:00 am

Section 8 Prejudice
Section 8: Prejudice straddles an interesting zone between downloadable budget title and full-fledged retail release. Though it isn’t quite comparable to similar on-disc titles, it provides a comprehensive multiplayer mode and a campaign of near-retail length, providing decidedly more value than the standard downloadable experience.

Prejudice is, however, chiefly a multiplayer product. The competitive mode is where players will spend most of their time and contains the most replay value. The strength of it comes from Section 8’s intriguing core combat mechanic, which may appear deceptively simple, but employs a number of unique features to change the face of the battle.

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May 7, 2011

Refresh Rate – Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll

Filed under: Archives — Tags: , , , , — Nathan White @ 12:28 pm

Refresh Rate Snake Rattle N Roll
As much as people discuss the emergence of casual audiences today, the 8-bit Nintendo era was the perfect casual crossroads in videogame technology from my nostalgic vantage point. It was far more cost efficient than the computers of the day, with the savings far out-weighing what those computers could offer the casual consumer for entertainment. It also offered the potential for more complex types of games than the vastly inferior blocks and bleeps of the earlier Atari 2600 and other contenders prior to the infamous crash of the industry.

And as the NES found its way into more living rooms, it became an ideal platform for the ultimate casual player time-sink; puzzle games.

From my own childhood, I can comfortably say that the release of the NES version of Tetris caused a massive influx of casual gaming interest. Different from the Wii boom, this was still a time when videogames were viewed as little more than children’s toys, and as a result this first casual revolution did not serve to sell more Nintendo consoles to casual players but instead saw game time on your own Nintendo eroded, chiefly by your parent’s newly sparked interest in your toy.

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May 3, 2011

Review – Portal 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 8:53 am

Portal 2
I think it’s fair to say that probably every game is made, at least in part, by committee. The results can be fairly obvious; it’s easy to see when some executive has made the decision to pursue a Call of Duty or a Gears of War.

Valve, by contrast, produces perhaps the purest product available on the current market; the games where it’s clear that most decisions have been made in the interest of making the best videogame possible.

Portal 2 exemplifies this condition; it is pure game, straight through, with each facet specifically calibrated to produce what, undoubtedly, becomes an instant classic the moment the disc enters the tray.

The sequel returns the player to the life of Chell, unknown Aperture test subject, as she awakes hundreds of years after the events of the original game, once again trapped in the Aperture facility. If this change of circumstance is somewhat mystifying, then I recommend reviewing the updated ending to Portal (dispensed via Valve-patch), or better yet, reading the online comic bridging the events of the two games.

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May 2, 2011

Review – Conduit 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 9:03 pm

Conduit 2
Conduit 2 is a strange, mysterious product—much like the preposterous conspiracy story it attempts to tell. A mix of ideas from other games, painted with a brush of humor and absurdity and featuring a hero who recalls Duke Nukem more so than the grim soldiers of more recent games, it’s software that strains against the limitations of its platform and manages to come out only as satisfying as it is frustrating.

The protagonist is Michael Ford, former secret service agent on a quest to defeat some sort of alien bad guy who’s out to do stuff, I guess. I can’t tell you much more than that, because the game didn’t see fit to tell me much more than that. The story provides no context for the events, which I imagine is fine if you played the previous game—but I did not. I suppose I now understand how new players feel when picking up Halo 2 or 3.

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