Call of Duty 4- Modern Warfare for Nintendo DS review

Summer was so nice, but now since it's over, I'd better start reviewing the loads of games (just kidding, only four of them) that I finished over the nice break. First off is Call of Duty 4 on the DS.

For the first time Call of Duty comes to the DS, this is truly a remarkable performance. The control scheme is similar to that of Metriod on the DS, in which you use the touch screen for aiming and the control pad (or A,B,X, and Y buttons if you're a lefty) for movement. You can also sprint by double tapping forward and crouch by doing the same for down. The shoulder buttons are fire but everything else is controlled via touch screen. You go into your ADS (aiming-down-the-sight mode) by double tapping the touch screen. This is the one hiccup in the controls. Sometimes, you'll go into ADS when you didn't want to, and pop out of it in the middle of snipping an unsuspecting enemy.

The single player campaign holds eleven missions for you to gun down enemies in. You play as either a Russian or American secret operative soldier, and although you're supposed to be all stealthy, you always end up raging in and gunning everyone down. The missions themselves will task you with playing as the soldier, hopping on a Jeep for turret fire, disarming bombs, arming bombs, and even taking the control of a turret on a helicopter (which is awesome because you can blow-up cars with that kind of firepower). The missions take about 20 - 30 minutes each, so I finished the single player mode in about 2 days. Although this is slightly shallow, the multiplayer mode almost makes up for it.

Multiplayer has two modes. The first is a simple one cartridge deathmatch with up to four people. You're given an M-16 and your job is to kill all your friends for a total of ten kills. The fun truly racks up with the multi-card mode, though. Now, you can chose one of four different types of games: deathmatch, team deathmatch, hunter vs. prey, or capture the flag, one of four factions, one of five guns (AK-47, M-16, shotgun, sniper rifle, and RPG), and one of seven maps (with one cartridge you can only chose one of the two simplest). Still, chances are you aren't going to convince three of your friends to get the same game, and meet at one time in one place just for multiplayer.


The graphics were a surprise for the system, and I was happy to see nice environments and solid enemy animation. Though the blood was poor, it was kind of funny to see the red squares pop up when ever you shot someone. Still, my favorite part of the game is when you enter a new room and your opposition screams "ENEMY!" in the same style everytime (you have to hear it to laugh at it).

Overall, the game provides a solid, yet short-lived first person shooter experience for the DS. Though it does have some rivals like Brothers in Arms and Metriod Prime Hunters, it beats the former out with multiplayer and the later with a game totally focused on shooting, not so with Metriod. Somewhere in the 7.8-8.0 range for Call of Duty DS.

E3 08 report

The E3 convention recently took place. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the main event where all the major gaming companies announce new products for the upcoming year, and report on sales. Coverage can be found everywhere on the internet including ign.com, gamespot.com, and e3’s official site. This post will just feature some of the highlights. I’ll break it down by the large companies.

EA- EA discussed their new 09 sports franchises, and announced some major updates to NBA Live, where the 09 version should prove to be something to look forward to. They also announced Dead Space; a new sci-fi thriller for the Xbox and PS3 that explores a space ship being overtaken by this virus that mutates its owner and changes them into these extremely disgusting beings that seeks to spread the virus more. To kill them, you must shoot off every one of their limbs. The game will definitely keep you up in the middle of the night and will scare you beyond anything else EA has put together before. Warhammer Online will bring the popular strategy game to a mass multiplayer online experience. This game won Best MMO from IGN and looks very well developed. Spore was also discussed. The developers were overjoyed with the success of the creature creator released about a month previous. They were expecting about 100K creatures by the September launch, but the users surpassed that mark in 22 hours. Now, there are over 2.1 million “Sporians” one their website. Last major game news was Lord of the Rings Conquest, a game similar to the Star Wars Battlefront series, but with the Lord of the Rings theme and close combat units.
Briefly, EA discussed Call of Duty: World at War which will be released for all major platforms come this November.

Sony- I didn’t catch much of Sony’s news and games, so this section will be brief. Sony discussed how they were the only company to have three systems selling and being used at one time. I think it’s kind of neat how they turned the PS2 into a lower line model, rather than making it obsolete when the new version came out. They also announced that there would be 130 new PS2 titles this year. Games announced include Resistance 2, the follow up to the shooter in which the US was being overtaken by gigantic, mutant aliens. Also, Little Big Planet was announced, a platformer (think Mario for Play Station) where up to four players could play as “Sackboy”, an adorable character made from sack material. You could unlock outfits for him and dress him up for your adventures. The biggest buzz about this game was the UGC (user-generated content). Sony used this for announcing their statistics and it was amazing how interesting they became. People can’t wait to just design some insane things. Also note, this isn’t a basic level editor like in Brawl, this is extremely in depth, all found in Little Big World, exclusive PS3 release. The most popularly viewed PS3 game was Infamous, a game featuring the main character as a superhero with electric powers that can chose their own path, evil or good. They can use big electric shocks that way kill citizens, or be careful about just killing the enemy. The game's wide-open world made this IGN’s favorite PS3 announcement. A sequel to the popular PS3 racing game Motorstorm was announced as well as PS3 Home. A game in which the player would create an avatar and could explore a world built on the PS3 network. They could chat with other players, play games, or do a whole collection of things. Games like these open up pathways for even further socialization on gaming consoles.

Nintendo- Nintendo held a, for the most part, rather disappointing press conference. They started out with Shaun White snow boarding, an in depth snow board game taking advantage of the Wii Balance Board. Then, Animal Crossing: City Folk (the third in the series, the original on Gamecube, followed by Wild Word on DS) which would take advantage of the new Wii Speak accessory. Wii Speak follows the concept of the Xbox 360 headset, but modifies it slightly. Instead of each person using their own microphone, this device can sense voices from everyone in the living room and essentially connect not just people, but entire rooms. The accessory will be included in the new Animal Crossing game and be sold separately for $30. It is unknown whether users can have stand-alone talks, or have to be integrated into games. New third-party games include Viva Pinata for DS, a sequel to Guitar Hero: On Tour for DS, named “Decades”, a new Kirby game, Spore Creatures (a version of Spore for the DS focusing on the “creature” game), and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Nintendo also discussed possible future expansion for the DS. At the Seattle Mariner’s stadium, DS owners can order food, check other live baseball games, and compete in stadium trivia contests. This type of technology was hoped to be expanded to airports, where people can check flight times and view maps of their destination airport to check the location of baggage claim or their next flight. Lastly for the DS, a cooking recipe database with international dishes and cooking tips will become available so the DS can take over your kitchen! Outside of Animal Crossing, two other huge Wii games were announced: the first, Wii Sports Resort, a game taking advantage of the new Wii Motion Plus accessory. This little jack that you plug into the bottom or your Wii remote adds 1:1 motion control to your gaming. This was demoed in three mini games including Jet skiing, dog disc throwing, and fencing (personally, the fencing looked the best with the 1:1 control). One of these would come with the game and others can be bought for a yet unknown price, but probably $30-$40 each. Lastly, Wii Music was finally given a release date, this holiday season. A game featuring conducting of an orchestra was demoed at the Nintendo’s press conference before the Wii’s launch a couple of E3’s ago, but wasn’t officially announced until now. Grab a Wiimote, and mimic over 50 instruments including sax, xylophone, cow bell, trumpet, and piano. Also, a drum mode featuring the balance board for the bass and high hat petal looked extremely cool. No Wii storage solution was brought to the table (with all the Virtual Console and Wii Ware games, people are running out of room with the Wii’s 256MB internal storage). Also, no core games were announced. Typical Nintendo, but still a disappointing press conference.

Microsoft- Although Microsoft’s press conference was the first of the “big three”, I saved their review for last because their conference and announcements were by far the best, and yes, this is coming from a Nintendo only gamer. For hard-core games, Microsoft had demos of the sequel to the gory Gears of War, Fallout 3, and Resident Evil 5. All of these looked stunning and promised quite a lot to the Xbox 360 crowd.
Microsoft also had Fable 2, and exclusive RPG for the system, which presented a very unique feature. During your questing, you will see small, translucent orbs that represent your Xbox Live friends. By simply going up to one, you can invite them into your game and you and your friend can go around in your world fighting, questing, and becoming the ultimate duo. Family games at the event involved a sequel to the 360 uno game, a new trivia game, and “You’re in the movies”. You’re in the Movies takes you and your friends doing silly things like acting like a clown attached to a bungee cord and putting them into a pre-made movie cinematic, in this case, running from a horrible monster. The game uses and comes packaged with a 360 webcam. Music games brought to the table were Rock Band 2 and Lips, a new karaoke game for the 360 with wireless, light up mics, and the ability to connect a Zune or iPod and sing to your own songs rather than a pre-selected set list. A huge announcement from Square Enix was that Final Fantasy 13 would be brought to the 360, another old PlayStation exclusive moving away for other systems. Lastly, the new Xbox 360 interface. This fall, 360 will download an update that will entirely redo the main menu and the way they interact with their friends. This new interaction is entirely based on the concept of the new 360 avatars. Similar to Nintendo’s Mii’s, these much more realistic self impressions also include the ability to change clothing, so you can be a business man, Goth girl, or any other fashion design you could want. The catalog will update with the seasons newest and hottest outfits. Also, the new party feature will let you and selected friends do a whole ton of things together, form playing games, to chatting, to watching a movie. Speaking of movies, Microsoft announced an exclusive partnership with Netflix that allows 360 owners to download and watch movies from Netflix all on the system. In a G4TV poll, over 60% voted Microsoft “won” E3, and with a collection of games for hard-core and family crowds and the new, extremely social interface, I couldn’t agree more.

PC- PC releases include a couple repeats from the above sections like Fallout 3. Portal 2 was announced, a follow-up to the simple, yet highly favored by editors everywhere, game. Also, Mirror’s edge, coming out for some consoles as well, is a new action game that takes you to your extreme edge.

This year's E3 convention was quite obviously all about the games. While most companies delivered, I still wish Nintendo had announced a new Zelda or discussed some hardcore game development.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith Review

Wow, another Guitar Hero, already?!?! The release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was quite hyped up for the simplicity of the game. This game acts as a fill-in between the games you actually care about, Legends of Rock and World Tour. Still, Guitar Hero Aerosmith does have quite a bit to offer.

Aerosmith features new venues, new characters (from the actual band, but there are others from the Guitar Hero franchise), new guitars, new outfits, etc; everything in the game that you don’t pay much attention to, except for the songs. Aerosmith features 31 songs over six venues and one boss battle song (Guitar Hero Aerosmith…. who could it be?). The inferring of the general population is that all of the songs are by Aerosmith; this however, is not true. In each venue, only three songs are by the rockers from Boston, while the other two are by bands that influenced them, bands they like, or bands that were influenced by them. That totals up to only 60% Aerosmith in the game.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith uses the same Les Paul guitars found in Legends of Rock (although, if bought with the game, features an exclusive Aerosmith faceplate), but proves to have a noticeably clearer, crisper image than the third installment of the franchise, especially on the Wii version. Wi-fi will remain similar, but bonus songs bought on the PS3 or Xbox 360 version will not carry over. Also note, the game is easier that Legends of Rock, so is great for entrants to the Guitar Hero series. For those expert shredders, however, the game’s expert mode can be easily passed by moderate players without failing. For Aerosmith fans, this game is a treat because it really does take you through the highlights of their career and features exclusive interviews and behind the scenes features about the band.

The bottom line is, this game is worthwhile for three groups of people: one, those who love the band, two, those who love the game, and finally, those who are new to the game. Personally, I do not fit into one of the above categories, so I did not purchase the game, so I will not give this game a numbered rating.

Info ign.com and pics ign.com and Google image search

Guitar Hero On Tour review

This past weekend, I got my hands on a copy of Guitar Hero On Tour. Since I have previewed it before, I will only do a quick review of the game.


Guitar Hero On Tour is the first time that Activision has brought the incredibly popular rhythm game series to a portable system. Guitar Hero On Tour lives up to most of its promises. The pros include the graphics are, in my opinion, very advanced for a DS game. The game lives up to its promises. The guitar hero franchise and experience has officially been brought to a portable system. The pick stylus is neat and the guitar grip is, for the most part, a great peripheral.


The cons are numbered, unfortunately. One, the strumming does not always work, and isn’t always accurate. Two, the track list includes some odd tracks and some repeats from Guitar Hero 3. Personally, I thought these were some of the most annoying tracks, including La Grange and Helicopter. With only 25 tracks, I don’t think the game could afford many disappointments, and with the combination of poorly chosen tracks and repeats from the previous game, the track list wasn’t a full delivery. Three, the guitar grip is sometimes uncomfortable and does not work well with fast notes and I found hammer-ons extremely difficult in this game.


In the end, Guitar Hero On Tour delivers a similar Guitar Hero experience to that of the console versions, and although the track list is slightly disappointing and the hardware not perfect, the game’s high price could lead it to be a questionable buy for most people.