When Ninja Gaiden 3 was released on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
in 2012, it was met with a very lukewarm reception. The emphasis on quick time
events and oversimplifying everything else was a massive step backwards for the
franchise. Team Ninja has been listening to their feedback and re-tooled
Ninja Gaiden 3 for the Nintendo Wii U. The end result is what Ninja Gaiden 3
should have been in the first place.
The Ninja Gaiden games have never been praised for their story telling, but you
have to give Team Ninja credit for adding humanity and depth to
protagonist Ryu Hayabusa. Most of the chaff, like the terrorist begging for his
life and that pointless prologue has been removed in Razor’s Edge. But the
story is still plagued by plot holes and stupid clinches like giving all the
bad guys a British accent. Of course you can always switch over to the Japanese
voice track to suit your preference.
Fortunately the game play has been improved in Razor’s Edge. Combat is much
deeper and the game now offers a wider selection of different weapons and magic
to increase variety. There’s also a new RPG style upgrade system, hidden
collectibles and the difficulty has been increased. Although the difficulty
will spike and I mean spike during the boss battles. Quick time events are kept
to a minimum and those boring grip of murder sequences are replaced with faster
arena battles where you have to quickly kill enemies to maintain your health
bar. Razor’s Edge also contains two exclusive levels featuring the lighter and
more agile Ayane.
The main story mode is around 8 hours long, but Razor’s Edge is packed with
plenty of replay value. Not only can you revisit levels in mission mode and compete for
the fastest time on the leader boards. But you can also take on dozens of
challenging Ninja trials and fight other players in competitive multiplayer.
Best of all, Nintendo is offering free DLC that adds new characters,
costumes and extra Ninja trials. It’s the game that keeps on giving.
Ninja Gaiden 3 looked fantastic on the Playstation 3 and looks even better on
the Wii U. Not only is the frame rate and lighting superior. But the screen
tearing on the Playstation 3 version is non-existent on the Wii U. On the
downside, this version does suffer from the occasional slowdown when the action
becomes chaotic. The Wii U version can played with either the Pro Controller or the Gamepad. The display only gives you a few extra buttons and a list of moves. But at least the game supports off-TV play.
Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge doesn’t fix all the issues I had with this game. But
it’s no doubt a huge improvement over the vanilla version of Ninja Gaiden 3 and I recommended it to any action fan that just invested in a Wii U.
RATING – 7/10* (NOT PERFECT. BUT IT'S A HUGE IMPROVEMENT)
Windy Corner believes Five should be the average instead of Seven on most gaming publications and websites.
"Far
Cry 3: Blood Dragon" is a loving parody of 1980s culture, most
notably films, music and television. Eagle eye gamers will spot
some of the references, but if you missed any of them during your play through. Here's a handy checklist of all the references you can find in "Far Cy 3: Blood Dragon".
THE TERMINATOR (1984)
The game's hero Rex Power Colt is a cyborg
soldier that shares a few design elements with the titular character from
The Terminator. In fact the actor that plays Rex is none other than
Michael Biehn. Who played Kyle Reece in the first and second Terminator films.
The design of the menus and Rex's in-game Cyborg vision were also inspired by
the movies.
PREDATOR (1987)
Like Predator, the game takes place in an American jungle and our
commando friends arrive on a helicopter. Rex even borrows a line ("I'm
Gonna Have Me Some Fun") from the film before mowing down the enemy
with a mini-gun while listening to the song "Long Tall Sally" by
Little Richard.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA
TURTLES (1987)
One of the Predator (cue the light bulb above your head) missions will ask the player to enter the Sewers and eliminate four turtles that have
an affinity for takeaway pizzas. An obvious reference to the four
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
ALIENS (1986)
In the second half of the story mission "What is this s**t?" Rex
is ordered to destroy the Blood Dragon eggs with his
trusty flamethrower. Which reminds us of the Xenomorph eggs from
the Alien films. But this homage to Alien doesn't end there. At the end of
the mission, Rex has to fight the Blood Dragon mother while he waits for
the elevator to arrive just like the battle against the Xenomorph queen in
Aliens. Rex even highlights this clear reference to Aliens by
saying "Doesn't this look familiar?"
ROCKY IV (1985)
After he acquires the Kill Star, Rex now has the ability to destroy the game's
antagonist and avenge the death of his friend (cough cough
Apollo Creed). This cues the gym montage with an inspirational rock song
(unfortunately it's not Hearts On Fire) that pays tribute to Rocky IV.
THE KARATE KID (1984)
During one cut-scene, Rex does a few karate poses as the sun sets in the background
and later ties a bandana around his head. Mr. Miyagi
approves of this reference.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
(1980)
During the final confrontation with Colonel Sloan, he gains the upper hand
and lectures Rex on how serving under his command made him what he is today. After establishing this fact, Sloan declares himself as Rex's
father (in a metaphorical way) "I am your father". To
complete this reference to Star Wars, Rex screams out
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
MICHAEL JACKSON'S
THRILLER (1983)
How else do you end this love letter to the 1980s, but with a
reference to the best selling album of the time period. After Rex defeats
Colonel Sloan, he reunites with Doctor Elizabeth Darling and blows up the
base using some explosives. The two of them decide to hug each other and Darling
faces the camera with an evil expression as it gradually zooms in on her. Just
like the ending for the music video of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Mario Party for the Nintendo 64 was basically a
collection of Super Mario themed board games with a couple of mini games thrown
into the mix. It’s a formula that hasn’t changed much with the sequels and it’s
the same story with the newest incarnation for the 3DS. But the execution makes
Island Tour one of the more enjoyable games in the series.
The game includes a total of seven boards and each one offers an interesting
bent. For example, the Skyway board gives out the top prize to the person with
the most stars, one of the boards will ditch the dice in favour of playing
cards and the secret Bowser board encourages you to be the last person to reach
the finish line. It’s this kind of variation that makes every board fun and interesting.
Island Tour features more than 80 mini games and they’ve managed to utilise everything
the system has to offer. Although I’ll never warm up to those gyro games, since
many of them force you to wave that thing around like an idiot and it’s very
telling that Nintendo demands you to be aware of your surroundings.
The mini games might be a case of quantity over quality, but at least the
instructions are clear and easy to learn. The game will let you have a practice
session and sometimes show a quick demonstration of the mini game in action. It’s
definitely an improvement over Mario Party 9, where many of the games were
too complicated and relied purely on dumb luck.
The Mario Party games have always been more enjoyable with friends and the
download play in Island Tour lets up to 4 people play through party mode
with only one cartridge. If you don’t have any friends, you can always play the
party mode by yourself with an A.I. controlling the other players. But I didn't enjoy the single player campaign called "Bowser’s Tower". Mainly
because it’s a bit of a grind and forces you to play through mini games with
the most hopeless A.I. to ever grace the video game world. The boss battles on the other hand are actually really enjoyable
but being forced to watch the animation of your character go from floor to
floor is just pointless and boring.
At least when you finish the campaign, you can revisit the boss battles along
with all the other mini games. Street pass is utilised for the mini games, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to test it and like previous games in the series
you can spend points on unlocking various things in the gallery.
In the graphics department it looks fantastic and because it runs at native
resolution it looks good on both the original 3DS and the XL. The orchestral
soundtrack is nothing special but it does add some class to the experience.
Island Tour doesn’t change the formula in a radical way, but you’ll be having
so much fun you can’t complain. So gather up your friends, get the download
play rocking and start the party in what’s easily one of the best multiplayer games
on the system.
RATING - 6/10* (ENJOYABLE BUT NOTHING SPECIAL OR INNOVATIVE)
*Windy Corner believes Five should be the average instead of Seven on most gaming publications and websites.
It seems like I'm the only person that actually read the
press release and knew this game was an on rail shooter. Even the
description on Steam stresses the fact its a rail shooter on three occasions (pictured above). Of course people just look at the pretty pictures and assumed it was another first
person shooter. I personally love rail shooters and it's such a shame it's becoming a dead genre. So I was really pinning my hopes on Rambo The Video Game,
unfortunately the combination of bad game design and lazy production values
hold it back from being a fun arcade shooter.
Rambo the Video Game recreates the events of the first three films in the
franchise. You play as John Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran unable to readjust to normal society and learns the battlefield is the only place he can call home. The developers have managed to replicate all the key
sequences from the movies, while adding a few of their own. The voices for
Rambo and Colonel Trautman were taken directly from the movies and were spliced
among newly recorded voice overs (comprised mostly of UK actors using a poor excuse for an American accent). The end result is an inconsistent audio mix
that comes across as cheap and lazy.
The game play is an on rail shooter with a cover system similar to Time Crisis.
Unfortunately this so called "cover" doesn’t protect you from certain enemies and can easily be destroyed by enemy gunfire. To make matters worst, half of the game is spent standing out in the open with zero protection. A huge
problem when reloading your gun turns the player into a sitting duck. This has
to be the most frustrating on rail shooter I’ve ever played, in fact the
difficulty on the last level spiked so hard, the only way I could finish this bloody game was by adjusting the difficulty to the lowest setting.
The developers tried to mix in a couple of ideas from other genres, but
they don’t exactly work in the simple on rail shooter. Does every
game need to have stealth these days? As well as those bloody quick time
events, in fact one whole mission is nothing but quick time events. A testament to the game's lazy design.
Now to be fair
there are some interesting ideas, including the RPG style upgrade and perk
system. You can also disarm enemies by shooting the gun out of their hands and
a wrath system where Rambo does his trademark screaming. The PS3 version
supports the Playstation Move and the navigation controller. You can also use the sharpshooter attachment and this was by far the most enjoyable way to play the game. Mainly because it gives you the most accuracy and makes you feel like you're at the arcade with a light gun in your hands.
It took me 3 hours and 6 minutes to finish the story mode and this includes all
my failed attempts and watching every cut-scenes. You can play through the
missions again to unlock all the weapons and perks. There’s online leader
boards and two player co-op. But it still doesn’t hide the fact it’s a really
short game.
The graphics and animation are downright terrible. It's full of clipping, glitches and the occasional crashing. In fact
Resistance Fall of Man, a launch title that came out seven years ago looks way
better than this so called 2014 release.
The issues with Rambo The Video Game stem from it trying to do too much with a simple genre. Plus the low production values, terrible quality
control and bad graphics are really glaring for a game on a system at the end
of its life cycle. If you’re looking for a good Rambo video game, keep an eye out for
the Sega arcade machine from 2008 and leave this one to rot in the bargain bin.
RATING - 2/10 (A FRUSTRATING, CHEAPLY MADE ARCADE SHOOTER)
