I’m generally not a big fan of these small downloadable arcade games, however, many companies have been putting a lot more effort into making them more worth your 10-15 dollars. Capcom has to be one of the foremost of these companies. At their recent conference, Digital Day, they announced quite a number of upcoming downloadable arcade games, most of which are remakes of existing franchises.

Enter Rocketmen: Axis of Evil, not an existing franchise in the video game world, it is an existing game franchise, as in collectible card game. Capcom hasn’t exactly reinvented the wheel, or the arcade game, but they have included a number of great features to stretch your gameplay dollar. Some of these include 4 player drop in drop out co-op gameplay throughout the entire game. Customizable stats, semi-custom characters, and a good amount of powerups.

Keep reading for the giveaway details and the entire review.
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The word epic is tossed around allot today. I for one have been reluctant in the past to use epic when describing video games. Well today I choose to use epic for a video game. That game is Mass Effect. The shear scale of this game is pretty amazing. I feel I must start this by saying that I am not the biggest RPG fan out there. Yea I loved KOTOR, but that was Star Wars and I like me some Star Wars. Besides KOTOR I’ve never played a RPG I loved until Mass Effect. I really wasn’t even all that stoked on this game in the first place, but in the spirit of equal opportunity I gave Mass Effect a chance. I sure am glad I did. More…

I’ve tried a number of video game rental services as of late. The majority has been quite a let down. Let’s see how they did.

Gamerang.com

I tried Gamerang.com and even after I paid the first two months up front they sent me hardly any games. When a game said it was available, I would move it to the top of my list, within a few hours to a day, the game would eventually change from ‘Available’ to ‘Short Wait’ or something similar. During the two months (remember I’ve already prepaid right) the credit card I used with them happened to expire. Well, I never went to my Gamerang account to update the expired card. I thought it wouldn’t matter, they already had my money for the first two months and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue the service past that. I wait more than two weeks for a new game in the mail. Nothing. I email them and they tell me, now, their system put my account on an automatic hold until my credit card info is updated. Before this, they never sent me any notices that this was the case. So I update my card info and in the next couple days they finally start sending me games again. Yeah, they suck.
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If your like me you’ve been waiting for this game since it showed up at e3 this year and won most of the big awards. This game didn’t disappoint. I’ve had a hard time just starting this review because I didn’t know where to start.

COD2 was a great release title for the 360 from the guys at Infinity Ward. It of course was another in the long line of WW2 shooters and quite possibly the best. Unfortunately Activision went elsewhere for COD3 and it suffered. The reason Infinity Ward didn’t do COD3 you may ask? Because they were working on COD4.
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“I am Beowulf! Do you like me?” That’s a quote directly from the new CG movie Beowulf, but not really. So, anyway, if you didn’t know already, Beowulf is in theaters and the reviews are out. Does Beowulf live up to the hype? Well, if you’re like me and you follow the crowd, the crowd is saying no, it did not live up to the hype.

Here’s some quotes from some movie goers like yourself, or critics:

Zemeckis has been seduced by the siren call of motion capture… Memo to Zemeckis: come back to earth! read it at News Week

Beowulf aspires to epic realm of 300 and the fantasy of Lord of the Rings but falls short of both. But it’s an intriguing novelty act with a few stirring scenes. read the full article here

Though the realistic-looking people still have dead, soulless eyes, Beowulf is still an improvement over Zemeckis’ creepy kids’ movie The Polar Express. read it at Combustible Celluloid

So, that’s what some of the critics are saying. I happen to agree with most of what they’ve said. But, whatever, I wasn’t really even looking forward to this anyway. Leave a comment and let us know what you think of Beowulf.

Boom!

Well, GameTrailers.com has you covered. They recently launched a special area on their site dedicated to the new Assassin’s Creed game. It’s their Assassin’s Creed Launch Center.

Not only do they have a ton of video on the game, they also have a video review of the game as well. Most of the videos are available in HD which makes everything better.Game Trailers has already done this “launch center” thing with other games you may have heard of like Halo 3. So, if you’re interested in this game and love to watch game videos this is the place to be.

Boom!

The reviews are trickling in and it looks like Super Mario Galaxy may just be the best game ever. A few early reviews have surfaced for the much anticipated Nintendo game and it’s nothing but love. GamePro and some other’s got their hands on the game early and have already posted reviews.

Now, I pretty much bought my Nintendo Wii based on 2 games, (one launched with the Wii), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and the newest installment of the Super Mario franchise, Super Mario Galaxy. So, for me, this is great news if it holds true. I’ve had nothing but high hopes for this game, so these reviews really don’t surprise me. I mean, Super Mario 64 is probably my favorite game of all time.

Still counting…

Boom!

Sorry about the title, it just came to me and I couldn’t resist.

Anyway, Game Informer got an exclusive early review on the highly anticipated action/adventure/RPG game Mass Effect. Score one for old school printed publications. In their review they rave about pretty much everything this game offers, from the epic, compelling story to the expansive, gorgeous, and deep universe. Ben of Game Informer said, the game has

“the richly detailed environments of Gear of War, the deep exploration of Oblivion, and a fictional universe almost as compelling as Star Wars.”

They gave the game an overall score of 9.75 (same score they gave Halo 3 and The Orange Box), Noting that the graphics, sound, and replay value were all top notch. The only real complaint they had was with some of the combat balancing. Saying some combinations of weapons and “force” like powers were almost too powerful, making some enemies and battles too easy. That said, the game will still last you between 18 and 30 hours.

Thanks to Game Informer for the early heads up. I was already looking forward to this one, now can’t wait. The game comes out exclusively for Xbox 360 on November 20th.

Boom!

Just when it seemed that fighting Nazi hordes to save Europe was over. Just when you thought “I will never play another WW2 shooter”. Another one comes along and we couldn’t resist it. I am a big fan of WW2 shooters but have grown tired of the genre, then along comes Medal of Honor Airborne and I believe once again. The MOH series of games has been pushed aside by Call of Duty in recent as the premier WW2 shooter. With COD moving to a modern combat genre MOH has picked a perfect time to change up the system and give us a pretty darn good game.

The first thing that you’ll notice is that the levels are free roaming, no more point A to point B only. Its a welcome change and can make the game playable multiple times. You’ll also be able to parachute into any part of the battlefield. While landing in an intense fire fight can make your survival tough it can also give you the needed advantage. The ability to land anywhere, such as roofs, into blown open buildings and enemy bunkers makes for different gameplay each time as well as perfect sniping posts (if your into sniping as I am). When landing behind enemy lines make sure you nail your landing or it will be a short life for you.

Also the game allows you to pick what weapons load-out you want before you deploy. It has a small arsenal at first including some German weapons and as you pick up weapons they will be added to your load-out screen so you can start with them. This leads me to personally one of my favorite things and that is the weapons upgrades. This caused me to play the game through multiple times as getting these upgrades is quite addicting. You can get the upgrades by using each weapon to remove a Nazi from the game. Granted while some of the upgrades don’t seem to do much, some of them are great such as the addition of scopes, larger mags, and bayonets.

The levels are done well and really make you feel like you’re in old world Europe. They aren’t extremely large so navigating them is easy. Although the last level is a bit of a maze and I admit to getting lost a couple of times.

As with most WW2 games the AI leaves a bit to be desired. While the Nazi’s are fierce and will not run away they also will not move to and from cover very often so getting a sight on them isn’t all that difficult. The Nazi’s are also split up into classes and the lower the class the less battle hardened they are and thus easy to dispose of. The top of the Nazi food chain are the Nazi Elite, they are well armored soldiers with MG 42 machine guns that they carry around and are quite hard to take down (aim for the head). This was a nice addition. The AI of your teammates is awful as usual. It is nice to have multiple guys around so the bad guys aren’t just wasting you, and the AI is good for a few kills but more than a couple of times the AI decides to run in front of you just as your tossing a grenade and the grenade comes bouncing off their helmet right back to your feet.

Mutliplayer just seems a bit tacked on and really isn’t all that great. This game would have been a great co-op game and I’d like to see a WW2 game with co-op in the future.

All in all this game did not disappoint in a world where there may already be to many WW2 games. MOH Airborne gives a bit of a twist that makes it better then most recent WW2 games. With Call of Duty leaving the WW2 game behind and if your just itching to waste some of those easy to hate Nazi’s this game is worth picking up.

Let’s get this out of the way first off. Should you buy this game? The answer is yes… if you want a great, fully featured multiplayer experience. However, if you’re looking to “Finish the Fight” with Master Chief and friends I’m gonna have to give this a pass, and here’s why.

The Single Player Campaign

OK, I am one of the many that played the first and second Halo games and got completely wrapped up in the epic sci-fi story presented through a wonderfully addictive action game. As many people who played through Halo 2 know, the ending was kind of a let down. I was very much looking forward to the next chapter in the Halo canon. Boy was I sad when that story was told in an experience lasting less than six hours long. Really Bungie, six hours? I don’t know how many of you out there still play single player games, but I do, and I’ve sat through movies longer than that, and they didn’t run me $60. The real problem isn’t even the length of the game, it’s the story. Without giving too much away, let’s just say, the end of this story goes the way of the Matrix series. All throughout the experience your game is temporarily interrupted when Cortana or the Gravemind talk to you for a few seconds, this gets very annoying, seeing as how it adds nothing to the overall story and pauses gameplay. Look, I really wanted to like this game, and I do, it’s just not the amazing single player experience it should have been. The co-op is a great addition, however, it can greatly reduce the time taken to finish the game and why I don’t know but only one person can be Master Chief while the rest of the players are stuck being the Arbiter and two nameless Elites, which really ticks me off, not only because your a stupid alien, but you start out with crappy alien weapons instead of the human ones Master Chief gets. The first two games let both co-op players be the Chief, who cares if it doesn’t make sense i’d rather be Master Chief. Because Master Cheif is the reason this game is so cool. Much of the levels are basically the same as halo 2 with the same feel and look, albeit the look is sharper. The amount of backtracking is exhausting and really drags the game down. It took under 6 hours to finish and would have only been 4 without the backtracking. Where this game really shines is in the multiplayer area where for some reason everybody can be Master Chief if they want.

The Multiplayer Game & Matchmaking

Here is why you should buy this game. The multiplayer aspect of this game, starting with Matchmaking, is superb. The shear number of options is staggering. You can change everything including the newly added gravity options. There is a lot of new options for customizing your emblem, colors, and now even the armor on your player model. These and other multiplayer goodies must be unlocked in various ways throughout the game. Getting into a game couldn’t be easier. You select what type of game you want and you can even filter how you want it to search, quickest or best match type options. You get into games fairly quick and they’ve added a “veto this map” option while you wait for it to find players and load the map. Once you start the match you’ll notice how good this game looks and runs in multiplayer. While some of the levels have very basic architecture very reminiscent of halo 1 & 2, most of the maps look lush and pretty. The gameplay is extremely fast, much faster paced than Halo 2, kind of similar Unreal Tournament. Most of the weapons have been upgraded and a few new ones have been added, including the new fan favorite the Brute’s Gravity Hammer, which works kind of like the sword but has a large area of damage that can take out a few people in close proximity with one swing. The big new addition is the equipment. This includes useful new items like the bubble shield which temporarily protects you and whoever jumps into it. Parties are still available and work well. Once you’ve finished a match you have a plethora of stats to look through. If you’re registered on Bungie.net, which is completely free and quick to do, you will have access to even more stats about any of the matches you’ve played. You even have access to screenshots you can take from a match in Halo 3. That said, one of the big new features are the Saved Films. After you play a match or level of the campaign you can watch a full 3D video of it. In it you control a camera and fly around watching the battle from any angle, fast forward and rewind to see exactly how you were killed or take a screenshot of some freakin awesome, impossible shot you made to win the game. You can also send the videos to a friend if you want to rub in just how great you are. The last part of the Halo 3 multiplayer experience is a map editor called Forge. It’s really more of a map re-arranger than editor, as you can only place items in level and move them arround. The difference with this one and so many others on the PC is that this can all be done while you and your friends are playing the level. It’s fun, but feels more like a novelty that’ll probably be rarely used by most players. That said, this game has legs, it won’t soon be sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust. Much like it’s predicessor Halo 2, this game is probably going to keep gamer’s attention longer than the consoles lifetime. As far as multiplayer gaming is concerned, it doesn’t get much better.

Boom!