A review of the ricockulous pre-order incentive that comes with the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie.

$0 gets you nothing, apparently.

PSP Metal Gear Fans have a reason to rejoice, for now there is an actual factual Metal Gear Solid game set within the series’s canon. The two MGS Acid games were nice, but their card game style can’t replace the stealth action that the series is known for. With the PSP’s control scheme, some big changes had to be made to the actual gameplay. Even so, it’s the same style of Metal Gear that we know and love.

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A while back when I featured Silent Hill 4 in this column, I expressed my desire to see an actual FPS Silent Hill game. The fear factor, the atmosphere, and the fact that anything you run into can kill you would make it a unique experience more than any other survival horror or FPS game. Sega’s Condemned, one of the first games announced for the Xbox 360 and one of the system’s best launch titles, is a great example of what such a game would look like. Not only that, it’s a fine game on its own merits as well.
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This game is the sequel to 2002’s Freedom Force, which is one of the best games inspired by comic books without actually being based on one. The game featured a wide array of characters, RTS-style controls, and a look right out of a 1960s Jack Kirby comic. You fought against an assortment of weird communism-worshiping villains inspired by the Silver Age of comics. The game was also modable, allowing players to add in new characters, missions, and campaigns to the experience. In 2005, Irrational Games released a sequel containing even more comic goodness, and this time, it took gamers to the golden age of comics, and Freedom Force fought against the evil of the Nazis.
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I wanted to give you some first impressions a while ago when the demo hit Xbox Live, but it was too short to fully try out the game’s features. Also, I wasn’t too sure about the new direction EA decided to take with the series, so I decided to wait until I could find it used. For those of you who don’t already know, for reasons known only to themselves, EA decided to hand the Def Jam brand off to EA Chicago, the creators of the Fight Night series. Many players agree that it was just fine with developer AKI, but Kudo Tsunoda had his own ideas for the series, mainly integrating the music into the game engine, and making use of the analog sticks in a manner similar to Fight Night. It’s clearly not gonna be for everyone, and there are a few areas that could use some work, but for the most part, it’s a bold new direction for the series.
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In 1999, Capcom’s Flagship Studios was still riding high off the success of Resident Evil. They were gearing up to release not only the third game in the franchise, but also Dino Crisis, a survival horror game in a similar vein. The game was good, but it’s slow pacing and control scheme basically regulated it to being Resident Evil with Dinosaurs. Taking the criticisms to heart, Capcom released this sequel the following year which not only gave the series its own identity, but made it into a fast paced enjoyable action game for Playstation 1 games not yet ready to make the jump to the next generation. In fact, this game was a lot better than most of the Playstation 2’s launch lineup. After this game, no one would confuse Dino Crisis with Resident Evil again.
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With Nintendo’s Wii and DS, the features that make them standout (the stylus and motion sensing control) also turn out to be their biggest liabilities. Developers often feel obligated to make use of them regardless of how well it can be implemented. As a result, we end up with games with mediocre playability due to the fact that the developers shoehorned Wiimote/stylus functionality into what would have worked just as fine (if not better) without it. This is why we should be thankful for games such as Mega Man DX, as it proves that DS and Wii games don’t necessarily have to make extensive use of fancy new features to be good.
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