Darkest of Days | Review

Synopsis: In Darkest of Days, the player takes on the role of Alexander Morris, who is a soldier fighting under General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn, and just before your untimely death, you are taken to the future by a time agent that informs you that your new responsibilities will consist of preventing an unknown faction attempting to re-write history by fighting your way through a number of epic battles of the course of thousands of years. This first person shooter takes the player back in history to reenact the most memorable battles taking place in the Civil War, World War I and II, and more. 8Monkey Labs uses their new game engine, Marmoset, in Darkest of Days to make it possible to fight on screen with hundreds of non playable characters on the screen at the same time in very large and incredibly detailed environments.

Praise: The ability for futuristic weapons to have an impact on the outcome of future missions is a very welcome feature in this title, mainly because if you are on a killing spree with a weapon from the future, you are sent back to the same time period to fight for the opposing side to even the score. The graphics stayed very detailed with everything going on from the large number of soldiers on the screen at one time to all the action taking place at once. Controls are solid and stick to FPS controls found in other games and has a reloading process, where the player needs to hit reload again at just the right time or you will be caught in the middle of a firefight with a jammed weapon.

Gripes: There is slowdown at times in the heat of battle, which I did not encounter too often but was hard to miss when it did happen. Also, the voice acting is far from Oscar worthy by the non playable characters that play a large role throughout the story in Darkest of Days. Lastly, the gameplay is fairly simple without adding to the other FPS titles available, while there is no online multiplayer, and the story is also rather linear without much replay value after playing through.

Overall, Darkest of Days is a fun game to play through and has a fresh storyline that keeps you playing to see exactly how intense the battlefields can get along with what new futuristic weapons will become available to ease wiping out the opposition. Though it lacks some elements that can help with replay value and only provides thirteen achievements, rather than the typical fifty seen on other titles, it does not feel like a chore to complete the game, unlike some others titles once you get about halfway through.

Mashbuttons.com gives Darkest of Days a 7 out of 10.

Darkest of Days is available now for the Xbox 360 and PC.

POW! Batman Arkham Asylum review

In the last 4 years, Batman has made a cultural resurgence into the hearts of many a fan, as well as introduced the worlds greatest detective to a whole new generation of followers. Since Christopher Nolan's re-boot of the film franchise, Batman is once again at the peak of his popularity. Flash forward to August of 2009, a fairly unknown independent development house out of London by the name of Rocksteady Studios, has just released the "Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever" (Says The Guinness Book of World Records).

And I'm keen on believing it. You should too.

In fact, we're going to go crazy here, and tell you our score now - so you don't waste any further time in not playing this game. Mashbuttons gives Batman Arkham Asylum a 10 out of 10.

If you do enjoy our wordsmithing, then by all means please continue and click the "read more" link for our full thoughts on the experience.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade | Review

Synopsis: Boasting such rewards as best Wii game, best artistic design, best action game, and best platformer, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is Vanilla Ware’s recent title to be launched exclusively on the Wii. The graphics and background environments have all been hand drawn and beautifully executed to stimulate while revolutionizing the new side scroller. In Muramasa, the player takes on the role of either Kisuke or Momohime, which each have their own separate quests to gather the demon blades. Players are able to use the Wiimote and nunchuk, Gamecube controller, or the classic controller to play through this innovative entry to the Wii’s library.

Praise: Muramasa sticks to what it did so great in Okami, which was adding RPG elements to a solid action title. However in Muramasa, Vanilla Ware decided to pay homage to the old school 2D platformer. With a hundred and twenty different swords to seek out, each with different strengths and special attacks, equipable items and the ability to forge weapons, so it is hard not to go back through the map and seek out challenges that you could not try on the first pass, due to not having a strong enough demon blade. The simplistic controls of the game make it easy to get into, and the leveling up to get the next, stronger sword, along with striving to get high number hit combos on top of the beautiful artistic backgrounds make it hard to put down...

Defense Grid: The Awakening | Review

What it is: Defense Grid is a tower defense game that makes the player think on the fly to decide what tower to place on the specified grid to prevent the alien opponents from hijacking your power cores. The title boasts ten solid hours of story play through twenty maps in the Awakening campaign alone, with four bonus Borderlands maps, and once completed, you have over a hundred challenges to master.

What’s to enjoy: Hidden Path stuck to the basics of what makes a tower defense game addicting, easy to pick up, and fun to play. The high definition graphics make this XBLA title look great, and while there can potentially be a lot going on all at any given time; it is still easy to see what is going on. Defense Grid started as a PC game last year and while tower defense games tend to be a lot easier to play with a mouse than a controller, the developer did a great job converting the control scheme to the Xbox controller.

The not so great: There is a good amount of trial and error to completing each map, especially the further you get into the game. The first four of five missions are pretty straightforward as to where the towers can be placed, but after that, you need to be more careful in regards to what tower is used and the location it is placed to prevent numerous missions restarts. The checkpoint save locations also does not help when all the power cores are taken, in most instances it is more beneficial to restart from the beginning than from the last checkpoint.

All in all, there is a lot of fun to be had in playing Defense Grid. The progression in difficulty makes it easy for newcomers to the genre to pick up and get into the frantic tower building process while suppressing phases of alien invasions does not get old, just remember to think a couple steps ahead of the enemy and keep an eye on the power core meter.

Mashbuttons.com gives Defense Grid: The Awakening an 8 out of 10.

Defense Grid: The Awakening is available now for the Xbox 360.