1P Start

I was a huge Wallace and Gromit fan from back in the day, but I kind of fell behind the ball on their adventures. Still, they have a soft spot in my heart so when the opportunity came for me to review the first downloadable installment of the Wallace and Gromit game on Xbox Live by Telltale Games, I jumped on it.

Wallace and Gromit: Fright of the Bumblees starts out suitably wacky. Wallace, the goofy inventor, and Gromit, his faithful canine friend, need 50 gallons of honey in one night, but that’s far more than their bees can possibly produce. Their efforts to get more honey gets the ball rolling for their adventure. The story itself is reminiscent of other Wallace and Gromit adventures and the dialog truly captures the humor found in their previous outings.

All the action is the fairly simple “point and click” action found in adventure games. If you’ve never played an adventure game you basically have to click around in the environment until you activate something, pick something up, or use an item on something to make it work. It may not sound very fun from my pathetic description, but there’s nothing better than solving a puzzle in an adventure game. In Fright of the Bumble Bees, the puzzles aren’t overly difficult, yet they should offer enough challenge to be rewarding. There was enough variety to keep me from getting bored as well. I particularly liked the end sequence where… well I don’t want to spoil it.

One thing that I really liked was that you took turns playing both Wallace and Gromit. I wasn’t particularly interested in playing as Wallace, because let’s face it I’m here for Gromit, but his reactions to events and his dialogue really turned me around. And playing as Gromit? Awesome!

The controls themselves are a little clunky at times. I’ll blame this on the fact that “point and clicking” is best with a mouse and not on an Xbox 360 controller. Still, the inventory management was effective and it was very easy to use items with elements in the environments. My only other issue with the game is that I encountered a few audio bugs that took me out of the game play, but nothing that impeded my progress. There was also a few video stuttering issues at times. Hopefully a patch can take care of these sorts of issues.

Since this is an episodic game, it ends before the entire story is truly over. Thankfully, it gave me enough to feel satisfied while making me want to play the next episode to find out what happens next.

My verdict is that Wallace and Gromit: Fright of the Bumblebees first installment is a great purchase for anyone who loves Wallace and Gromit or enjoys an adventure game.

I’ve spent more time on Halo Wars and I believe I have a better opinion on the game. I’m confident that if you’re a Halo fan, then you should like Halo Wars. The online co-op is really fun, especially since I only really like building bases and researching tech so my buddy can just go and kick some serious ass. I do wish there were more missions for the co-op/story mode though, it seems a bit on the short side.

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I recently picked up the Halo Wars limited edition for the rather high sum of eighty bucks the other night. Like I’ve said before, I’m not a big RTS fan, but I’m a huge Halo fan so this was a must buy. It didn’t hurt that I had Best Buy Reward Zone money and a gift card left over for Christmas, either.

I haven’t played the game long enough to really give a full review, but while it is fairly fun and I love, love the cut scenes it’s friggen frustrating that I can’t select or set aside squads to fight on more than one front. Also as an RTS newb, I get a bit of a panic attack when there’s too much going on at once. I’m more of a slow strategy thinker… damn you kids and your RTS games. In my day all combat took place in turns on hexagons!

Anyway, let’s take a look at the extras found in the limited edition.

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Since I ran out of interesting news today, here’s an update on my progress on Fallout 3. I’m still addicted, but not as much as I was previously. I suppose it can be chalked up to the fact that you can only look in so many desks, file cabinets, and boxes before the process becomes tiring. I will say that the exploration and side quests have really kept my interest though, considering I’ve spend over fifty hours on the game and I haven’t even really begun the main quest.

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I did something about a week ago that I deeply regret, I purchased a copy of Fallout 3. Now I haven’t seen my wife for weeks and I’m struggling at work, because all I can do or think about is playing the damned game.

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If you buy a PS3, there’s a good chance you’re going to watch some Blu-Rays on it. Hell, a lot of people bought PS3s only to watch Blu-Rays. The purchase of a remote is almost absolutely essential if you don’t want to mess around with the awkward and confusing controls found on the game controller.

Likes:

I think the like column on this one is pretty easy. It’s a friggen remote that has clear labels, so it makes navigating through Blu-Rays an ease.

Eject button? Hell yeah.

It also has the potential of being a one handed controller, if you know what I mean.

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I don’t get that many games too often, but I have a source of PS3 games that occasionally makes games available for super cheap. I’m not bragging, I’m just explaining how I can end up with copy of Resistance 2 for the PS3 when I wasn’t overly impressed by the first game and really wasn’t looking forward to the second. Don’t get me wrong I wanted to play it, but it really was a back burner type of need.

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After having Gears of War 2 for several days I’ve come to the conclusion that it rules. What I liked about the first game is what I like about the sequel, it’s like the biggest, dumbest, most over the top sci-fi action flick never put to film. It’s got big explosions, retarded dialog, and enough killing to keep you entertained. Seriously, think of any of the classic Schwarzenegger films and amp it up several times and you have Gears of War 2.

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I know I’m the last one to post this, but you have to give me some leeway. I was busy beating Castle Crashers. Anyway, this teaser trailer doesn’t show much of anything at all, but at least it’s something for anyone looking forward to the inevitable sequel to Bioshock.

I’m not so sure how I feel about Bioshock 2. On one hand I’m excited, since it was a really great first person shooter with an amazing setting and a great plot. On the other hand I’m a tad worried, because the first one was such a unique experience that it overrode any of the problems I had with the game. I mean really, it was hard to swallow that anyone in Rapture could just buy guns or Plasmids capable of killing thousands out of a vending machine. Bioshock also relied on a huge twist as one of it’s wow factors, if the sequel even attempts to do something like that, then they might be in trouble.

For a guy that writes on a gaming site, I don’t get new games that often. The problem is that I’m poor and publishers don’t send me free games (for shame!). The one exception was Rock Band 2. My wife and I have been waiting for Rock Band 2 as a family activity, so it would have been stupid not to get it this weekend. After playing it for about five hours here’s my world shattering thoughts:

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With the arrival of Resistance Fall of Man 2 in November, I thought it would be appropriate for a look back on the first game to get PS3 owners back into the world of Resistance once again.

Boiled to it’s essentials, Resistance Fall of Man is a standard shooter. You get your variety of guns (all with secondary functions), levels that are almost completely straight forward tracks, vehicle levels, and alien race which borrows from almost every popular type of sci-fi alien movie. Hell, they even through in such staples as spider-like creatures. At least there weren’t a ton of exploding barrels, although there were still a few to be found.

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If there is one great question that mankind has stumbled with it’s got to be, “Why isn’t there a flipping awesome Batman game?” There may be no true answer to this problem, but the solution may come in a double dose. Not only is the Lego Batman game looking to be pretty good, but there’s a new game called Batman Arkham Asylum that holds all kind of promise for those looking for a more adult Batman game. You can check out a bunch of screenshots over on 1up.

Batman Arkham Asylum is coming out for the PC, 360, and PS3. Rocksteady Studios and Eidos have Batman in the infamous Arkham Asylum trying to stop the Joker’s evil plans. Just look at the screens for proof that this looks like a darker take on Batman than what we’ve really seen previously in video games. All I can ask for this game is it to not suck. That can’t be too hard can it?

Yep, I’m a hypocrite. After writing the article a few weeks ago giving five reasons why I’m not playing Grand Theft Auto IV, I’m addicted to it now. The reason why I am playing the game so soon after writing the article came about from a perfect storm of getting a PS3 as a wedding gift and then having a roommate who had gotten GTA IV for free for the PS3. There was no reason left for me not to at least try it out.

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Grand Theft Auto 4 has now been out for 5 days, and with this being the first weekend since it’s release, I expect a lot of people will just be getting to grips with the game. So I thought we should take a look at what’s happened around the release, and how the game has been received in different quarters.

The sales bale began on Tuesday at Midnight, with many gamers queuing up at their local games retailer to be the first to get their hands on the game. 5 days later, and both Sony and Microsoft are already arguing over which console has seen the best return on the game. The only sales figures we actually have to go on at the point are from the UK, where the game sold 600,000 copies in 24 hours, making it the new one day record holder.

From the reviews of the game, it seems the PS3 version had a slight edge in the graphics department, looking sexier, and suffering from less frame-rate issues. Both versions have however shipped with bugs, with the PS3 reportedly suffering worse from Rockstar’s seeming inability to release a game without some sort of problem.

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If you have not caught on, I have sort of a fetish for Tetris (seriously).

Well a couple of Tetris related happenings have come crossed my path recently, the first being something I hope to see you all in (then CRUSH YOU!).. a Tetris Splash Tournament being held on Xbox 360. This is the second one to be created and held just by other Tetris lovers on the official Xbox.com forums. User ‘cyno‘ has posted the information in a post here.

The long and short of it is, send him a PM that you would like to be in the tournament by March 12 (tomorrow) at 5:00pm. On the 14th, check the Tetris Splash forums and see the brackets.. easy enough? Well sign up and get to practicing! Want to see the best of the best from the last tournament, check this video below so you know what you are getting yourself into:

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