So Bioshock hit the stores a couple of weeks ago and the hype on release was immense, the game was expected to be popular since the dramatic trailer. Bioshock has surpassed expectations when it was snatched up by a game hungry public that had just been through a long gameless drought, you’ve undoubtedly heard much about this game, and now you’ll hear a little more

The game isn’t totally without humor, but you’ll have to look around to find it

Bioshock tells a story of the rise and fall of the great underwater city of Rapture created back in 1946 to hold the best and the brightest people without being suppressed by world governments, the city was made to exist without any contact with the outside world and be totally self sufficient. You enter the city in the year 1960 which is under a year since the city collapsed and fell into complete anarchy and chaos, you’ll see plenty of evidence of this as you walk through the waterlogged metropolis. The whole story of the city is told through a series of audio diaries which play out much like in Doom 3 except thankfully you don’t have to stop to hear each audio message, you can continue to progress while you’re being fed back-story. These diaries do a great job of story telling, you may be following a series of diaries about one woman’s struggle in the city, only to find the last document next to a female corpse, it’s all quite moving and splits up the action yet things still flow smoothly.

Looking through the screenshots, Bioshock could be mistaken for another run and gun first person shooter, although there is a surprising amount of in-combat depth while keeping an easy to use and simple control method. Switching weapons is as simple as holding a button and moving a control stick around a dial, as you do this the action will freeze, it may seem like a small point but when you are up and fighting a big daddy you’ll be glad you can switch quickly between your firearms. The weapons here are pretty run of the mill; wrench, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, crossbow, chemical thrower and grenade launcher. Their mundane nature is forgiven thanks to weapon upgrades that can be performed at any of the 12 (single use) weapon upgrade stations throughout the game. Each weapon can be upgraded twice with features such as faster reloading or dealing more damage, you’ll find yourself hunting out these locations so you can get the most powerful arsenal available. The thing that really adds interest to the weapons is the three different types of ammo that can be inserted into each gun, have your grenade launcher fire rockets, or your crossbow shoot flaming arrows and electric traps. This gives the weapons some much needed appeal as they are outclassed by the games other offensive ability, plasmids.

Bioshock earns its M rating

Over the course of the game you’ll be harvesting Adam which essentially behaves as a secondary form of currency, this currency can be spent at gene banks to upgrade your body in various ways. These come in several flavors; plasmids, physical tonics, engineering tonics and combat tonics. Combat tonics improve your ability to deal and resist damage, Static discharge is my favorite here, giving off a powerful zap and often killing anyone who performs a physical attack on you. Engineering tonics, unsurprisingly improve the way you interact with machines, these generally make the crazy “pipe dreams” hacking minigame much easier. Physical tonics improve your strength and make you more powerful, easily confused with combat tonics, these can increase the healing effects of food, or give other useful benefits. Often these ability’s can be found throughout the game, or even researched by taking photos of creatures with the research camera, most abilities also have different levels of effectiveness, Static Discharge II does more damage than Discharge I.

For the majority of the combat you’ll find yourself using Plasmids, these are the major element that makes the combat fun. Unlike the tonics plasmids aren’t a passive ability, which means you’ll have switch and use plasmids in the same way as weapons and activate them to take down any serious opponent Bioshock throws at you. The first plasmid you’ll find will be the electro bolt, fire it at the door to short a fuse and open it, shoot at a puddle water to shock everyone inside or just shoot at an enemy to stun him. Other plasmid examples are fire and ice, you can use the fire to unfreeze a door or use the ice to slow down the liquid in the hacking mini game, or you could just fire the plasmid straight at your enemy to get the expected effects. Getting creative with plasmids proves 2K’s point of many people will play through the game in different ways and hearing how others use the environment and plasmids in different ways sets Bioshock above the rest.

The large variety of plasmids and smart AI elevate the quality of the combat compared to your average shooter

On the Whole, Bioshock is an immersive and highly entertaining game with only a handful of drawbacks worth mentioning. The worst problem I experienced was a degree of tedium near the end of the game, much like I experienced towards the end of Doom 3. Although the level designs are great and highly varied, your just attacking the same handful of characters over and over. The creative AI prevents this from being a huge problem but the variety here felt a little lacking. The only other thing worth mentioning is the infinite lives and respawns, you see, every time you die you re-appear at one of the very frequent Vita-chambers (checkpoints). This removes the tension of death, when a huge big daddy starts charging towards you fear should be at least slightly on your mind. Instead caution you can just go all out, die, then run straight back to the battle where the Big Daddy will still be weakened from your first onslaught. These drawbacks are noticeable, but minor, Bioshock should be experienced by anyone who’s looking for a different FPS experience

Check out Bioshock reviews 1 & 2 from Jim and Charlie

Graphics 10 Gameplay 9 Sound 9 Length 10 Overall score 9

Lots of variety on ways to approach a battle Beautiful atmospheric graphics Just the right length Story flows and advances well Little variety in enemies to encounter Infinite ‘lives’ kills the tension

You are Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the Franchetti crime family. On your 21st birthday a timeless force known as ‘The Darkness’ awakens within you. You can wreak havoc on your enemies with the powers it bestows. But you’ll quickly learn that The Darkness has a will of its own. (2K’s box description)

:: This review may contain spoilers ::

When The Darkness was initially released, a second game “Overlord” was released at the same time. Both games immediately interested me, however I was not about to shell out the cash for both games, but ultimately I decided to pickup The Darkness.

Single Player:

Right from the beginning of the game, I became confused. I hadn’t familiarized myself with the back-story, and was disappointed when I realized I didn’t start off with any of the Darkness powers. The game starts off as any first-person shooter often does. In this case you are a hitman for a Mob family and something goes wrong… on your 21st birthday, your uncle Paulie turns on you.

For those individuals who have not played the game, I will spare the details of the story, however throughout the game Jackie is thrown into a constant struggle of trying to control The Darkness that is empowering him. The game entertains the player with good graphics, and ample firefights. The pace of the game is good all the way through the end, and the ambient sound and music do a good job at immersing the player into the game. Controls feel natural and easy to navigate.

Never-the-less, despite this games good qualities, it is not without its faults. Initially it takes some time to figure out where to go and how to get there. Using the Subway system to get where you want to go can become burdensome, especially when you are faced with repetitive cut-scenes while the game loads. Playing the game I ran into a couple situations where I would back my character into a corner, or duck in between a phone booth and bus stop for cover, and my character would get stuck and I was unable to move. This would result in some frustration and a restart to the last checkpoint. I also had some difficulties with the side quests. I have heard complaints from other players as well, that they were unable to collect rewards from characters they completed side quests for. I too had this problem.

Despite the issues I ran across, the team at 2K did a great job with the story of The Darkness. I understand that The Darkness was inspired by a comic book series. While I am not a reader or collector of comic books, after playing the game, I am interested in reading the graphic story the comics may offer. I enjoyed the game and while I still would like to play Overlord, I’m glad I chose The Darkness first.

Multi Player:

The Darkness also contains an online component. The online matches I participated in were of the standard deathmatch variety, however the match did have a unique component that made the game a little different. The Darkness multiplayer has what is called ‘Shape-Shifter’ mode. This allows the player to play as a darkling or as a human. There are also Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag, Last Darkling, and Last Human game types.

Overall the Multi Player was enjoyable, but dont expect this to be a major contender to Halo 2.

I don’t like to give my game reviews a numerical score simply for the reason that one person’s 7.5 may be another’s 5. I do however like to rate games on their value and tell you whether or not a game is worth spending your money on. I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing The Darkness. So much in fact I will likely hang on to the game. I can see myself pulling this one off the shelf and playing through the game again.

Bottom-line, would I recommend running out and spending $60 on this game? Perhaps not. I did however enjoy the game and with multiplayer and all of the side quests available within the game, it does have good replay value. For $45 or less, yes, I would recommend the purchase. Give yourself some time to get lost with The Darkness, I’m sure you will find it as enjoyable as I did.

When I first saw screen shots of this title it really intrigued me. And now I can tell you after drooling, it is my own personal nightmare, in a good way of course. Before I get into the guts(pun) of the game, let me warn you that this game is the most gruesome, bloody; hell, it makes “Gears of War” look like Alice in Wonderland. Shall we begin?

You are a passenger on an airplane over the ocean, which is specified as the Atlantic in the year 1960. Your plane out of nowhere rips apart(ala “Lost”) and you find yourself swimming to this pedestal jutting out of the water. You swim to it, as, well where else is there to go, certainly the plane has made it’s final stop.

Now I’m not going to try and spoil it, but it’s kind of hard to explain the environment, and what to expect out of this game without some morsels to give you an idea. So now you’re warned.

Let me spell some things out right now so you know what kind of game this is, then I’ll feed you a little story. This is not an open-ended game, ie. you can’t go everywhere. It’s between a rail, and puzzle shooter. So it’s “Resident Evil 4″ with MAJOR modifications. There is nomulti player over XBOX Live, however the case I received did mention downloadable content, so that is something to look forward to.

The game makes you “use” your environment. After you have been exploring the city of “Rapture” you come to a point where you must re-write your DNA using a method of injecting “Plasmids”. So the first one is electricity, no really, you can shoot electricity out of your hands, kind of like the Emperor in “Jedi”. To give you an example of using theenvironment , say there are 3 people in a pool of water(did I mention it takes place underwater?”) well shoot some electricity into the water and you fry all three of them, very cool.

This is a fantastic game, download the demo for sure, even for those skeptical. This game has a lot of potential with future downloadable content. The only thing holding it back is multi player or even co-op, but then it wouldn’t be YOUR story. Another nugget is you get a new experience every time, the game is not the same experience for everyone. There are different paths and ways to kill people that work in many ways.

This is a must game, so make sure you get your copy on the 21st, this is not for the faint of heart.

And the Final Score is 9.2 out of 10.

When I got wind of the BioShock Demo being available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace I started the download before I went to work this morning. But at 1.3 gigs in size I could not wait around and get a little game play in before work. If only I had picked the right six numbers for the Powerball last Saturday, my gaming would not be bothered by this pesky work stuff and I could have sat in my underwear playing BioShock all morning. Sitting at my desk this morning was the longest five hours of my life. As soon as noon rolled around, I was heading back home to play a little BioShock, and I have to say it was worth it.

I will try not to give away to many specifics of the story, but keep my comments mainly to game play and environment. The controls are your basic First Person Shooter controls, so not really anything new there and besides developers are kind of locking into a formula that seems to work with the controls. The visuals are amazing there is not another Xbox 360 game out there that looks this good. There is a scene where you are floating underwater trying to get to the surface. Between the visuals combined with the sound effects really evoke the sensation of terror. You almost feel like you are truly struggling to get to the surface for air. When you fight enemies they have certain presence that seems to make them really scary. You will notice as you finish them off they all seem to look a little different. One enemy that attacks you while being on fire is truely amazing, he is covered in flames as he lunges at you doing his best to send you to the same demise as he is certainly headed for. When you are finally finished beating him to a plup, you will notice his body is covered in burns. Like I said the visuals really REALLY good. The game seems to have this formula of crazy heart pounding action, then calm, then the suspense leading up to another super intense action scene.

I did notice a couple of visuals that seemed kind of off. First when you are swimming on the top of the ocean, I kind of got the feeling that I was floating over the water. Think of Shadow Run and floating up the ladders and you sort of have the idea. Since this is a first person perspective I kind of expected to see my arms reaching out in front of me as I swim. Second some of the clouds seemed kind of a strange color and texture as I was swimming, for those of you who have ever run Microsoft Windows in 256 colors instead of True 32 will understand what I am talking about. It just did not seem quite right. But honestly these two small instances do not even compare to the great eye candy that is the rest of the game. Seeing fish flopping on the ground or the flames that are consuming an enemy as he attacks you are incredible.

Before I played the Demo I was thinking about picking up this game when it got its first price drop. But now I am going to go out and pick this game up day One! My suggestion is try out the Demo. I think you are going to be like me and start racing to get through whatever game you are playing right now so you can be ready to start this game the day it comes out. I just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Sunday, and I am planning on working twice as hard to finish up Call of Duty 3 before August 21st so I can dedicate myself to this game. If you are someone who believes in try before you buy then you definitely need to bump BioShock to the top of your Game Q.

Updated: To check out Ryan’s thoughts of BioShock, click here.

Ask someone on the street what they think of when they hear the name Michelangelo and you will likely be told about the Sistine Chapel.  Now ask a gamer and you will likely get very different response.

2007 seems to be a comeback year for a couple of my favorite boyhood IP’s, The Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). Since I was a fan of TMNT back in the arcade, years ago, (which is now available to download from the XBLA) I was intrigued by the announcement of a new TMNT game for the Xbox 360 (Ubisoft Montreal). Released on March 20^th 2007, TMNT hit the store shelves at the same time as the release of a movie by the same name.

My initial impressions were very good. The game has a very easy learning curve and I found it easy to pick up the game and play. Throughout the first level, Splinter (the turtle’s master) walks you through how the controls work and offers advice through your first few fight scenes.

Game play had a very arcade-like feel as you progressed through the levels. The big difference between this game and the classic TMNT arcade game is that the levels are in three dimensions, and instead of encountering enemies periodically you encounter various ‘Fight scenes.’ As I progressed through the game I found the levels to be somewhat linear, yet they still allowed you to explore your surroundings.

The game has 16 levels of game play and ends with a series of four boss battles. I found as I played through the game, each level was different, yet the progression became repetitive with each fight. Achievement hunters will be happy to hear that TMNT does reward the player with a few achievement points for each completed level, and obtaining a full 1000 achievement points is not a dificult task.

The most difficult part of this game is the boss battles at the end of the game. Two of the four boss battles are very straight forward, however boss battle two and four have a bit of a trick to them that is required to progress in the game. I have included tips on the second and fourth boss battles below:

Boss Battle Two: This boss has 3 main attacks, a hammer wave, jumping, and a mega blast. You’ll want to dodge his hammer waves using a backup turtle to attack. Keep mike healthy since he is the most useful in this stage. Dodge the impact waves as best as possible. When he starts his jump attack switch to Mike and just keep moving… don’t stop. Attack him each time he misses you (you’ll get 3 chances) after this he’ll either go back to hammer waves or he’ll do a mega blast. If he falls on his back then he’s going to do a mega blast. Now this is where things get tricky. If you see him fall on his back, switch to Don (next turtle) and immediately does a Coop move by ‘holding X’. (As soon as he starts on the down swing of his hammer.) The electric co-op attack will stop the mega blast attack and keep you from being knocked off the platform. He will continue with his pattern of jumping and mega blasts. Keep hitting him with normal attacks and after about 6 or 7 times of getting up he’ll die

Boss Battle Four: This boss is also difficult of you do not know the trick. The trick here was to use Raphael and attack using the Coop move (holding X). The only way to do damage to this boss is with Coop moves, and Raphael’s is a distance attack that throws a turtle straight out. It’ll only take 4-5 attacks to beat this boss. Be careful though, many of his attacks will take half the health of your turtles if they don’t get knocked off.

Overall I would recommend this game, especially to the Achievement hunters. However I would have to recommend this game as a rental. Once the game is beaten, there is little replay value.

So GameFly sent me the new UBISoft game Call of Juarez. A game loosely based on the American Wild West. The game has you play as two different characters who share past experiences together and forge new memories through out the game. In my opinion this game dynamic has never been one that I truly enjoy. The first character you play is Reverend Ray McCall, then you play a few missions as Billy Candle and back and forth.

The game play is pretty basic. It is the shooter on rails that we have all come to love. In standard UBISoft style it has really good graphics. I would compare the graphics to Rainbow Six: Vegas on the Xbox 360. But that is about where that comparison ends. The game play is a little more cryptic and what you exactly need to do next to move to the next level can be a little difficult to figure out at times. The one thing I have never done in a video game before was pick up a bible deliver a sermon of fire and brimstone from a church pulpit. So you have to give them credit for some new game play action there, although it was not something I was terribly thrilled with doing.

As with all western games, you get some game mechanic which gives you the ability to pull of super shooting. Here in Call of Juarez you go into a concentration mode. When you do this two cross hairs scan across the screen and turn red when the move over an enemy on screen giving you the chance to plug two or three rounds of hot lead into them, hopefully sending them off to a good long dirt nap. This adds a level of complication due to the fact that you have to watch both cross hairs at the same time and they generally speed up and slow down and travel at different speeds. This makes it a little harder then the slowing down time feature that was used in GUN. But I do like the GUN style game play better.

Another interesting feature of Call of Juarez is the building block play you get to do with crates and boxes. In different areas of the game you get to stack crates in order to form stepping blocks to allow you to areas of the map. Here the developers took the game mechanic exactly from Half Life. If you have moved stuff around in Half Life it looks the same in Call of Juarez.

For all you Achievement Junkies out there, I really like the way the Achievements were setup. Most of the Achievements are given out to you if you perform some task in each level. And to do this you may have to play the level one or two extra times to get it done, but all in all I really liked the setup. The multiplayer Achievements are your basic kill so many players using some sort of method such as killing with explosives, head shots, or by some other means.

The multi player functions in the game are very well done and allot of fun. The maps seemed to be laid out quite well. The weapons and different character classes seemed to be well balanced. Running around the Old West setting with the old weaponry was a pleasant change from the Sci-Fi, World War II, and Modern day weapons that most shooters offer today. Without being able to discharge twenty to thirty rounds inside of a second really makes the user cautious, and with the rifle you really want to make that first shot count. The one problem I had with multi player is there just were not allot of people playing. I could not find anyone playing Skirmish, or Robbery and there were only four games going of team death match.

All and all this is a good multiplayer game, with a single player campaign that definitely above the average. Gamers who like the Wild West genre and maybe enjoyed Red Dead Revolver, or GUN this game is a definite rental. I plan to purchase this game but will probably wait until I can pick it up new for $40.00 or used $25.00.

by
Charlie George

Do you get confused with the words RBI, ERA, or IP? Well fear not baseball onlookers, The BIGS is here to help. This is 2K Sports first foray into adrenaline/arcade baseball that, believe it or not, does not take away the excitement and realism you would expect from a baseball game.

I decided to take a look at a couple of the game modes and chalked up the good and the bad.

The 360 version is by all accounts for the “Armchair Athlete”. Here is how I rated it and why. On the 360 I started things off in Rookie Mode(Probably one of the most addicting aspects of the game). Essentially “Rookie Mode” sets you up as an up and coming Minor League player who has been called up to the team of your choice. You do some training, and assign skill stars as you progress. During this mode you will be put in 3-5 inning games where conditions, such as stealing a base and winning the game is mandatory. If you fail, its back up to the plate for you. Throughout the Rookies season you play other teams where you get opportunities to “Steal” players from them and such, The end result is you go in the Worlds Series(Naturally I chose the Cubs, yeah, the Cubs in the Worlds Series, definitely fiction). This was by far my favorite mode in the game.

Other modes are Exhibition, Home Run Derby, and Home Run Pinball, which puts you in Times Square where it’s pretty much a Home Run Derby. The more you smash up with the balls the higher the score.

Now with all the good there was some bad. The pitching, batting, throwing, and in-field mechanics are great. However the outfield is very glitchy in the area of player response. The ball would be hit right to them and they wouldn’t do much. I though maybe it was just my copy or I was playing badly, I played a few games on XBox Live and asked if they were experiencing the same thing so I was not the only one.

Now speaking of XBox Live, it’s great to see the rosters updated, and the game play for the most part is REALLY smooth, so props for that.

So when it comes down to it in the end, this game really does a great job of bringing that baseball experience to you. So my rating is a solid 8. It would have been a 9 if it wasn’t for the outfield issues. But all in all, its a great title and hope next years edition comes out next spring!

I am not sure when something was considered cool by the fact that old people are using it in some way, but Nintendo sure is milking this Public Relations cow to death.  It seems like every other Blog post about the Nintendo Wii is about somebody’s grandma or grandpa bowling with Wii Sports.  Well Microsoft finally took notice of this and decided they want some of this Geriatric love also.  But without any motion controls what is a console maker to do?  Well create a game that the Grannies and Graps of the world already love, bring on Solitaire!  For the price of an entire Social Security check you can play solitaire, but it will be worth if is the only way to get those pesky grandkids to come and visit.

If you want an idea of  the game play in Soltrio Solitaire go to any Best Buy, Wall mart, or any Big Box store head on over to the computer section and find a Microsoft Windows computer.  And play the version of Solitaire that comes free with Windows, but the trick is this.  To get the real Soltrio Solitaire experience you need to not use the mouse, only the keyboard.  Using only the keyboard will give you the same sticky clumsy interface that has been programmed for the game controller.  Like a teenage boy fumbling with his first bra snaps (or hooks), you to will fight and wiggle and curse trying to unlock the wonders that are being kept from you.  The focus or sparkle highlight seems to jump rather unpredictably around the screen.  While the game does offer a little more then just the basic game of Solitaire that has come with every copy of Microsoft Windows since the early 1990’s, I just can not recommend spending $10.00 in Microsoft Points to buy this game.  Even at $5.00 this game would be really hard to recommend, most of you probably have it on a computer in your house or you could pick it up in some card game compilation pack for about the same price.  Not to mention they are already trying to get more money out of you for more skins and different decks of cards in the form of extra downloadable content available at 150 Microsoft Points each.

I got a free code to download the full game to test it out, if you can get a free code also I highly recommend you use it.  Otherwise I would have to say let this one sit on the Microsoft LIVE server, download the demo if you really need to get a Solitaire fix but keep your cash!

 
The Halo 3 beta was finally released on May 16th with a little delay to the dismay of some of the Crackdown users. The demo was due for release in the early hours of the morning although it arrived after 10pm (CST), which caused large backlash on the bungie.net forums, where threats of suicide and lawsuits were thrown around like monkeys with feces. Now all the drama has past it’s time to take a look at this BETA demo and see if it lives up to the hype.

Firstly, the game runs really well, the frame rate is steady, the graphics are greatly improved and the matchmaking is easy, making it a good pick up and play demo. Load times are great also which is something with often hasn’t been tuned yet in a beta. In all it does feel more like a retail demo rather than beta, as everything down to typical Halo esque music has been included, Bungie clearly took their time on getting this ready and it shows.

Gameplay has not been adjusted in any major way since Halo 2, the winning formula and style is still in place. It’s still the Red Vs Blue Spartans dukeng it out across a series of 3 maps (Snowbound, High Ground, and Valhalla) with a handful of game modes:
Rumble pit: Everyone is your enemy in a fast paced death match.
Team slayer: Red Vs Blue, 4 on 4 action
Team skirmish: Capture the flag/base style game mode for teams

The major new weapon I experienced was the Spartan laser, this weapon deals out quick and hit death after a short charging time. I’m wondering if this weapon is overpowered or if it’s just that other people haven’t yet become accustomed to avoiding it, but it seems you are guaranteed several kills if you manage to stumble across one of these beauties

The biggest change to the way the game plays is through the equipment button X. Using this you can throw down a quick bubble shield, that rather than just granting temporary invincibility only keeps you safe in certain ways adding to the technical element to the game. You are complexly safe from all incoming fire and grenade as long as they originate from outside the shell, anyone can walk inside and lay the smack down on you as well as drive straight through the shield and deliver some four-wheeled justice. This modifies the controls slightly as now you can press the triggers to fire the left and right weapons and the bumpers to reload left and right. This adds a useful feature of reloading one weapon while firing another, which takes a little getting used to.

Besides from being a part of the carnage you also have the option of viewing the replays and saving them. One awesome feature is saving the replay and going back to it even when you are in the matchmaking menus and the match is over. Sadly you can only view the replay from your own first person view, which is a real shame as something more akin to the photo and video modes in some driving games would be ace, imagine being able to get that moody close-up view of you and your team saved and uploaded to the interwebs.

Halo 3 makes a great free demo, although I’d highly advise buying Crackdown to get it as you’ll likely find Crackdown gets as much Gameplay from you as the beta, especially after June 10th when the beta expires and thousands of copies of Crackdown appear on eBay and Craigslist.

The final version of Halo 3 is currently due on September 25th, look for it!
 

While doing my daily scan of Major Nelson’s Blog about a week ago and found out that Paperboy was coming to XBox LIVE Arcade, right away I made sure that I had 400 points waiting to get cashed in with Microsoft.  This is one of those arcade titles that I fondly remember, back in a time before arcades started to suck.

The game is a little bit harder then I remember, I do not ever remember a swam of bee’s chasing me down the street but then again it has been over a decade since I played this classic in the arcade.  The graphics seem to have been kept true to its original arcade fore father.  The controls on the 360 controller are quite good, it would be interesting to see something like the Wiimote mimic the old bicycle handles that were on allot of the arcade machines.  There are some achievements that are easy to get while others can be quite hard.  The game has some multi player options, but nothing that anyone is going to get too excited about.  Most of the multi player options are based on some sort time trials, and speed competition.

The basic premise of the game is simple.  You are charged with the task of making sure the final leg First Amendment is exercised by seeing to it that the newspapers are delivered to paying customers.  The player can tell which home’s are paying subscribers because they are in color, while non subscribers house’s are black usually with red windows, and adored with cozy signs like “GET OUT!”  Along the way there different obstacles that will make it more of challenge then just simply peddling down the street and tossing newspapers at subscriber’s homes.  Everything from Breakdancing teens, to run away tires rolling down the sidewalk, drunks staggering, bag ladies, radio controlled cars, to a demon possessed lawn mower that lurches out at you will attempt to stop you from delivering the news.  If that is not enough you have to cross a busy intersection with blonde drivers way to fast and not paying attention, to hard core Harley boys are too busy to stop for you.  As you complete each day successfully you will find more and more obstacles that also get progressively harder to avoid in your path.  If you do not deliver a paper on the door step or in the box to a subscriber they will cancel their subscription, if you damage any of the subscriber’s property they will also cancel their subscription.  Run out of subscribers, and you are out of a job and the game is over.  Now for non subscribers all bets are off, and the game actually rewards you for vandalizing non subscriber’s property.  This is one of the first arcade games I can remember with destructible environments.  Break windows, tipping tombstones, smacking children, and just about anything else in the environment can be destroyed by a wildly flung newspaper.  The controls are fairly straight forward, I would say most people will have a five to fifteen minute learning curve for the game.  The audio in the game is a perfect replication of the original arcade classic.

One funny story about this game is, when I came home from work I quickly turned on my XBox and downloaded the demo version of the game.  As I began playing my fifteen year old daughter walked through the living room, she stopped and watched me play for a couple of minutes.  “A game about delivering newspapers, really?” she found it hard to believe that this was the game that had me excited for several days.  Then after watching for about a total of ten minutes made her assessment of “WOW that looks like a pretty easy game!”  To which my reply was “Really?  Well then why don’t you try it.”  I handed over the controller and she immediately logged out of my LIVE account so she could rack up all these easy Nerd Points for her account.  I went upstairs changed out of my work clothes, played with the baby for a while and came back down about an hour later to find her cursing a radio controlled car that had just ended her game.  Now I am probably not going to win father of the year award for being kind sarcastic in saying “Oh, you have not finished this easy game yet?  How many achievements have you racked up already?” knowing full well the answer, she replied “10, I got through the first day.”, then proceeded to explain to me all things that made this game really hard, even on Easy Street.  Through out dinner much to the disgust of my wife my older daughter and I traded stories of our experiences of delivering newspapers, and some of our devious exploits of being a Pixilante and breaking windows, or other destruction and mayhem we were able cause with our trusty bag of extra newspapers.

In short I highly recommend this game, and hope that you have someone to share your experiences of delivering newspapers with.  And if any real life Newspaper delivery people want to chime in with their online or real life experiences please do so in the comments.