ISSUE 0, SEPTEMBER 2009GAMING YOU JUST CAN’T GET AT THE STORE

XBOX LIVE ARCADE, PLAYSTATION NETWORK, WIIWARE, PC, IPHONE GAMES.DLC.EPISODIC

ISSUE 0

SE

PT

E M B E R 20

09PAX ‘09

ISSUE

ContentsBurnout Paradise Big Surf Island 4Tales of Monkey Island Ep. 1 6Monkey Island SE 8Splosion Man 10Mass Effect : BDTS 12Trine 13Onslaught 14

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THE STATSTitle Big Surf Island

Format DLCPrice 1000 MS Points

(about $12)Reviewer Munly LeongPlatform XBOX 360, PS3

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THE STATSTitle Tales of Monkey Island

Epsiode 1Format Game

Price 1000 WiiPoints ($10)$35 for PC

Reviewer Matt HuntPlatform Wii, PC

“The WiiWare version is downright horrendous.”

-Matt Hunt

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Old Vs New

THE STATSTitle Secret of Monkey

Island Special EditionFormat Game

Price 800 MS Points ($10)Reviewer Munly LeongPlatform XBOX 360, PC

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Ahoy! it is the age of remakes and none came more surpris-ing than Secret of Monkey

Island Special Edition. The younger generation probably doesn't under-stand the nostalgia and legendary status afforded to this game, but this is a perfect introduction. For this particular reviewer, it was his first PC game and first adventure game ever and began a love affair with the genre that continues to this day. The game begins with the same nostalgic low res opening as the original complete with poorly synthesised music and unfolds into a high fidelity cinematic reveal com-plete with new water shader effects.

Monkey Island tells the story of Guybrush Threepwood who wants

to be a pirate! and of course things are never that easy.. or simple. As usual the strapping young hero gets in over his head and is whisked off into a swashbuckling adventure he never planned for. This series brings up fond memories for many gam-ers, especially of its writing and hu-mour and in this respect the game has aged particularly well.

Not all the glitter is necessarily gold in this remake however. It is pos-sible to switch between the original graphics and the new with a quick hotkey but in doing so you notice that while the new graphics are sharper and more colorful, some of the shading detail and hand painted charm of the original has been lost. The remake looks too much like a

flash game at times which cheapens the experience a little. I also find Gov-ernor Marley's appearance is a lot less attractive in this remake too.The new interface while bringing less visual clutter is also slower to navi-gate as the player has to navigate through each action "verb" one at a time, thankfully a quick keypress can still bring up the original menu which lets you get quickly to what you want

which is needed for especially for one particular puzzle later in the game.

These niggles are not deal break-ers however, the quality of the origi-nal still shines through. Many gamers have never experienced the adventure genre before which is more story and puzzle based that you may be used to with FPS and action games, but those that stick through will be well reward-

ed. Monkey Island clocks in at about 6-8 hours if you have already played through it before and potentially longer if you have not depending if you re-sort to using the built in hint system or tough it out old school.

Recommendation - BUY, whether you're an old fan or a new one. n

Bang! Boom! Pow! No, it isn’t Batman, its Twisted Pixel’s Splo-sion Man; a new Xbox Live Ar-

cade game that has style, substance and originality. When looking for a new game on the Arcade, I try to find some-thing that looks new and also appeals to my love for old school games from the days of the NES. With Splosion Man you get all of the perfectly timed jumps, the speed runs and cool boss fights. Once you throw in the fifty single player levels, the fifty multiplayer levels, and a Hardcore mode to unlock after completing the game, you’ve got eve-rything you need for hours of fun in a nice neat little package that’s ready to Splode! Splosion Man is the product of a sci-ence experiment gone wrong, and now you can explode yourself at will. Splode once and you fly up in the air, splode twice and you’ll get a little more boost, add in a third time to maintain height, so you can make those longer jumps. Once you touch the ground or hang onto a wall you recharge your splosions. These are all of the tools that you need to make your way through the puzzle, and trap-ridden lab. The life of

Splosion Man must be a joy-filled one because he never stops smiling, laugh-ing, and pretty much making light of every situation he’s thrown into even when you stop, Splosion Man is still running in place, or getting a few jump-ing jacks, because ya know those calo-ries don’t burn themselves! With that said, I can’t get enough of his one lin-ers and constant cackling while chas-ing down those that made you what you are. If you do splode near one of the

scientists they’ll turn into different kinds of meats. Its fun to see when you scare the meat outta them. However, it turns out that these scientists don’t really like you messing up their lab and turning their buddies into deli meats; so they’re sending everything they can to stop you

and by the end I was expecting a kitch-en sink. It would’ve fit right in with the rest of the game. The bosses are big n’ bad. They do have a particular attack pattern to learn but they’ll always give you some sort of in-dication of what they’re gonna do next. Even when the boss is giving away his next move its still in a way that’ll make you laugh. For example, a giant missile-firing robot that calls out, “I love mis-

siles,” before it let’s loose with a barrage. At the end of every lev-el you’ll be scored on how fast you completed, how many sci-entists you’ve turned into meat and how much damage you’ve done to their equipment. Also every level except the boss bat-tles have a cake to find and this one is no lie. Hmm, I’m gonna have to look into the correlation between science and cake.

The levels get progressively harder as you make your way through the game, as one would expect, adding a new ele-ment to the mix with each new world. The game still retains its charm as the levels get harder but if you find yourself

THE STATSTitle Splosion Man

Format GamePrice 800 MS Points ($10)

Reviewer DaRon RicePlatform XBOX 360

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fizzing out in the same spot over and over again then the game will let you know that you’ve died a lot and give you the option to select “Way of the Cow-ard” on the start menu. This allows you to skip to the next level. The only down side to this is if you decide to be a "girly" Splosion Man then you’ll be forced to wear a tutu until you complete the next stage. Even though the game runs on a 2D plane the game is rendered in 3D. The camera will change position, some-times to give more cinematic view and other times just to show where to go next, even though you’ll be moving to the right most of the time. The multiplayer portion of the game is a fun inclusion to the mix. Once you have more than one Splosion Man on the screen you’ll have to learn to time your splosions to make it to new heights and activate some of the switches at the right times. It’s a good thing that you

can start a three second timer by hitting the right trigger to help you get things down. I did notice a bit of lag when playing online, but local is where it’s at - nothing is better than the reactions to in-tense areas of the game when there is a friend helping you through it. And there's still plenty of cake to be found for you and your friends. Splosion Man is good times for all. With funny lines and attitude that’ll keep you coming back to bring your time down. The premise is simple and never gets old as it takes platforming in a good direction and freshens things up. Splosion Man is just a complete nut that you’ll never get

enough of which is why I think Microsoft saw potential in this game. It is set as one of the games of summer and is a welcome inclusion to the Arcade.

Recommendation - BUY n

THE STATSTitle Mass Effect

Bring Down the SkyFormat DLC

Price 400 MS Points ($5)Reviewer Matt HuntPlatform XBOX 360, PC

THE STATSTitle Trine

Format GamePrice $20 PSN

$30 PCReviewer Leon BrinPlatform PS3, PC

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THE STATSTitle Onslaught

Format GamePrice 1000 WiiPoints ($10)

Reviewer Behrouz SafiPlatform Wii

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