Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Starkiller is back! Darth Vaders apprentice is back and he is even stronger and more powerful than before. We are thrown straight into the mix in typical Star Wars fashion fending for our lives whilst trying to escape from Vaders clutches. The story picks up where it left of in the Force Unleashed, Starkiller is on a quest to find his true identity and also his one true love, Juno Eclipse. Vader is attempting to try and clone his former apprentice in search of the perfect sith warrior, Starkiller is on the hunt to stop his former master and save Juno.

The game starts out with a huge bang, you are thrown into a very small tutorial on how to attack and use your devastating force powers. This lasts minutes and in no time you are fleeing from Vader and his army. You immediately get to see how graphics and cinematics look and its visually stunning to say the least, as you plumet through the air, blowing up obstacles and tie fighters with your force push and or lightening ability. Also with Starkillers new ability to hold two light sabers, you feel like he has really progressed since the first game.

The story, as good as it is, does not take long. On my first play through I finished the game in under 6-7 hours on medium difficulty, I even picked up most of the orbs and collectables. This does not truly disappoint me however, the story you play through is very impressive and the visuals are just awe inspiring. You start to feel a real sense of remorse for Starkiller, he doesn't know his past, if he is real or not and you want to help him understand so you push through the game, killing anything in your path. Just like in the previous game you are able to change your costumes, light saber crystals (which actually give you certain abilities), its a nice feature that allows you to customize star killer a little, however it could be a bit more in depth. If you did play through the first game you will have a few extra costumes which is always nice.

However there are some obvious issues, as mentioned before its a little short. You feel a little trapped, there is  a basic set path that you can hardly stray from at all. Also its very nice to see Starkiller holding two light sabers and the way he throws them around is awesome, however it's always the same, he swings in the same way every time and it just becomes a little old after a while, I think it would be nice if you could just use one light saber or a double edged light saber, its a simple touch that could have made a big difference. Another issue I have is the big mob fights, when you fight a big robot or a drone, after a bit of a struggle you come to a point where it takes you into a fixed action scene where you must press certain buttons in a certain way to killer the robot or whatever you are against, the first time I did this I was blown away, but after the 5th or 6th time of doing the same thing and seeing the same scene you just get tired of it, why couldn't we kill these drones in different ways?

I don't think the cons outweigh the pros. The game is still fantastic, you really do learn what you want to after a full play through and there is something about cutting up drones and battling with Vadar that never gets old! There is one thing that I really wish they would have changed, yes there is a point in the game where you chose the Dark Side or The Light. Now this choice for me was so hard and I cannot wait to see what my choice has led to in the next game, however I wish you could have played through this game as one or the other, or even gradually choosing over time, instead of one sudden moment where you are forced to chose.

Overall though I still love this game, I am a huge Star Wars fan and if you are the kind of player who loved to button bash for a while, slice some drones and control things with your mind this game could very well be for you. I give it an 7.5/10, it needed to be a little longer, a few more choices should have been your own, but you cannot fault the graphics, the way the game runs and just the story!

Godfather II

Review will be published soon.

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports, to put it simply its Microsofts version of Wii Sports. However Kinect Sports bring so much more to the table! This game is very enjoyable from the off, there are a lot of different events that you can take part in, such as; Bowling, Boxing, Track and Field, VolleyBall, Table Tennis and Football.

Before we start though lets get the negativity out of the way, playing on your own can be very boring and running as fast as you can in 100m sprint isn't as fun when you don't have a friend next to you, trying to beat your world record! If you leave the game screen and come back in on the other side of the screen, sometimes your avatar does't switch and you are stuck playing on someone else's avatar, but these issues can be avoided. Sometimes with certain events the Kinect camera can't read you properly, such as the Javelin, if you pull your arm to far back, almost behind your back its like the camera gets confused and tries to replace your arm with something that looks similar, so your avatar has this flapping upside down arm. The same kind of thing with the Bowling, you can't actually put both hands on the ball like the computer seems to or all kinds of crazy things happen!

However these are just little things that really don't effect the game overall. One thing however that is pretty annoying is the game freezing.. It doesn't seem to happen during and actual game which is good, but when loading sometimes it just freezes, its happened twice for me and I have heard about it all over the world, maybe a patch to fix this issue Microsoft? Of corse people are going to complain about the space issue, but honestly if you don't have at least 6ft of space and did not want to move anything around when you want to play Kinect you should have really investigated into Kinect more before you purchased.

I love how just like in Adventures and the Kinect hub, the second you walk infront of your screen you are recognized and signed in! It's amazing and just one less thing for you to worry about. As soon as the game loads you stand alone as your avatar in a stadium filled with people, I couldn't really understand why until I raised my arms and the crowed erupted with cheers! A silly ego booster indeed, but it was just another little feature that shows you what Kinect can do. You can chose between mini games or party events or just playing games generally, then you are able to chose whether you play online, against a computer, against a friend or with a friend, at first you start playing very basic computer difficulties but if you raise the difficulty to Pro or Champion it does become very challenging!

 Like I mentioned before, playing with your friends is the way to do it, get a few buddies over with some beers and start that track and field, soon you will be sprinting for your life! Which gets very tiering very very fast, your windows will need to be opened I warn you now! Now I can't finish writing this without talking about my favorite game.. Table tennis.. Now I know that some people don't view this game like I do, but I find it ridiculously fun! When you start to understand how spinning the ball works you can really thrust yourself into the game, I  start to take it very seriously when it gets to match point. When the smash ball opportunity comes, you feel that you have to jump and smash that ball as hard as you can, my after game photos certainly show how much effort I put in!

Well overall Kinect Sports hits 7/10. There are a few annoying issues with avatars freaking out, game freezing, but the game makes up for it with it's realistic feeling games. You truly feel like you are sprinting as fast as you can when you get on that track! It may feel strange at first not holding something in your hand for certain games, but it begins to feel very natural very fast!