Tag Archives: Xbox 360

Sunday Driving: Rigged to Blow – Split/Second #1

I fancied a bit of a change from OutRun this week, so I present to you one of my all-time favourite arcade racers: Split/Second, developed by Black Rock and published by Disney.

Split/Second is a tragic tale, really; it was a spectacularly good game that came out at a bad time, had no marketing whatsoever and consequently flopped so badly that Black Rock had to close down and Disney stopped doing anything interesting like unusual cinematic arcade racers ever again. Booo.

Still, at least Split/Second still exists, and we can still enjoy it for ourselves, so let’s do just that!

Continue reading Sunday Driving: Rigged to Blow – Split/Second #1

Warriors Wednesday: The Mail Must Get Through – Warriors Orochi #20

Warriors Orochi is definitely getting easier the further I go through it.

Today’s mission is done and dusted in under 20 minutes — including the obligatory “upgrade and fusion” time before we actually get into the hackin’ and a-slashin’. This is keeping things fun and interesting, however; the sense of “power creep” is very satisfying indeed, and I’m looking forward to seeing how powerful my warriors are by the time I get to the final story campaigns!

For now, hit the jump to see how remarkably smoothly today’s rescue mission went.

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: The Mail Must Get Through – Warriors Orochi #20

Warriors Wednesday: When You Get Around Like I Do, You Pick Up a Thing or Two – Warriors Orochi #19

Sakon Shima has been something of a fixture in the Samurai Warriors series since the second installment.

Typically depicted as a cunning strategist and a powerful warrior in his own right, the real Sakon Shima was an extremely well-regarded and famous samurai. After his original master Junkei Tsutsui met his end, he retired, but after being offered an extraordinarily generous amount of wealth, he decided to return to the fray to serve under Mitsunari Ishida. If someone offers you half of their income to bring you on board, you don’t argue!

Of course, most of this is irrelevant in Warriors Orochi, but Shima still has a significant role to play from the perspective of his formidable strategic skills. Hit the jump to see how he helped out this time around!

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: When You Get Around Like I Do, You Pick Up a Thing or Two – Warriors Orochi #19

The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best Common Architecture

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by spaktukal.

Environmental design in gaming is a funny old beast; you only tend to really actively notice it if it’s really good or really bad — most of the rest of the time, it’s just sort of there, indicating that it’s doing its job. That job being, of course, to immerse the player in the game world and give that game world a bit of “character” of its own.

There were a number of games that had particularly striking world design this year, but today we’re focusing specifically on the idea of “common architecture” — the way just regular ol’ normal buildings look, rather than palaces, temples and ruins of an ancient civilisation.

And the winner is…

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Warriors Wednesday: Samurai Warriors vs Orochi 2 – Electric Lu Bu-Galoo – Warriors Orochi #15

Did you think we were done with the adventures of the Samurai Warriors? Well, nope, we weren’t quite finished…

Today we tackle the final side mission of the Samurai campaign in Warriors Orochi, which culminates in another tough battle against King Snek himself.

Who will prevail? I mean, you know it’s me eventually, but hit the jump anyway and see how this final final battle actually went…

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: Samurai Warriors vs Orochi 2 – Electric Lu Bu-Galoo – Warriors Orochi #15

Warriors Wednesday: The God of War’s Windmill Blade – Warriors Orochi #13

We’re nearly there! On the Samurai Warriors campaign, that is.

Yes, it’s the penultimate mission of the first phase of our Warriors Orochi playthrough, meaning that next time around we get to wail on ol’ snake boy himself for the first time.

After a bit of off-camera unlocking of passive abilities, things are going pretty well for the crew. Hit the jump to see how today’s mission went.

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: The God of War’s Windmill Blade – Warriors Orochi #13

Sonic the Hedgehog: Dare to be Different

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With how positively Sonic Adventure had been received on its original release — and many subsequent Sonic releases being compared unfavourably to it — it’s surprising that Sonic Team didn’t return to the concept sooner.

Return they did, however, with an ambitious multiplatform title that was originally intended to be the third official Sonic Adventure game. Initially developed under the working title of Sonic World Adventure — a title it would keep in Japan — Sonic Unleashed was intended to shake up the series in a few fundamental ways.

These days, in retrospect, Sonic Unleashed is seen as one of the earliest examples of what some people describe as “Boost Sonic“, but it’s an interesting game in its own right. Let’s take a closer look.

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Warriors Wednesday: The Sword That Hits Eight Times – Warriors Orochi #5

It’s time for another romp in Orochi’s less-than-fair lands as Nobunaga and his samurai friends hack and slash their way to another victory.

I, uh, made a small mistake with recording this one in that I accidentally deleted my whole commentary while I was cleaning up my videos folder, so I ended up having to record a new commentary “after the fact”, as it were. I don’t think it came out too badly.

Hit the jump for the new video.

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: The Sword That Hits Eight Times – Warriors Orochi #5

Sonic the Hedgehog: The Dark Age

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Declaring anything the “best thing ever” or the “worst thing ever” is a dangerous game, for a variety of reasons.

Tastes change over time. Preferences vary between individuals. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and all that. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting MoeGamer — well, quite a bit before that, to be honest — it’s that something getting critically panned doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth checking out.

It was with this in mind that I was greatly looking forward to investigating the much-maligned 2006 reboot of Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 — a game that Wikipedia used to claim (without citation) to be “among the worst games not only in the Sonic series but also in the video game medium.” That sounds like a challenge to me.

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Sunday Driving: Blur – Powered-Up Racing

Following some discussion on the podcast recently, I decided to revisit some old favourite arcade racers, including Bizarre Creations’ swansong Blur.

For the uninitiated, this “powered up racer” features a delightful blend of real-world cars and locales with purely fantastic, neon-coloured power-ups. This makes the racing enormously aggressive and a huge amount of fun, and it’s a crying shame that Activision completely failed to market the game effectively.

But, well, the game still exists, so I’m damn well going to play it and enjoy it, and you can join me for the ride! Hit the jump for the first part of this new video series.

Continue reading Sunday Driving: Blur – Powered-Up Racing