ShareThisBy CHRIS CAMPBELL
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
("Just Cause." Platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC. Genre: Action/Adventure. Publisher: Eidos. ESRB Rating: M for Mature. Grade: 4 stars out of 5)
"Just Cause" is a heavy blend of James Bond and CIA-style military action that involves overthrows of hostile regimes. You play as Rico, a black-clad mercenary type who must help overthrow a drug cartel on a Caribbean island. If you can get over the U.S. government-sponsored overthrows of smaller regimes, then there's something here to enjoy.
Overall the game is very open-ended, allowing you to travel from one area of the island to the other however you see fit. This can be done by hijacking automobiles or, more stylishly, grappling onto helicopters or planes and parasailing to your next destination. The plot is pretty linear, however, and you'll rarely tread off the storyline, so the travel is a bit of a red herring.
The game is great on the Xbox 360, since there are no loading times and the visuals are fantastic. Usually you sacrifice one or the other, but not here. "Just Cause" feels a lot like a 007 James Bond game with less tricky gadgets and more of the gunplay, driving/flying scenes and acrobatics you want out of an action/adventure game.
("FIFA 07." Platforms: Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, PC. Genre: Sports. Publisher: EA Sports. ESRB Rating: E for Everyone. Grade: 4 stars out of 5)
Sweet eureka for EA Sports _ it has delivered a new version of one of its sports titles that outdoes its predecessor and makes solid improvements, but yields almost nothing.
Just about everything from "FIFA 06" is updated or changed to make '07 a more complete package. The strength is in the online modes, where updated stats, organization and menus are much better, and in the manager mode, giving you more hands-on abilities to keep your team at the top of the standings.
The most noticeable improvement is on the pitch, where games play out more realistically in terms of pacing, instead of finding yourself scoring silly open-net goals and running up scores like in "FIFA 06."
For several years Konami's "Winning Eleven" soccer franchise has been the pace car for gaming fans. EA Sports, with "FIFA 06" and now "07," has taken huge leaps forward and easily challenges for soccer supremacy.
("Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis." Platforms: DS. Genre: Platformer. Publisher: Nintendo. ESRB Rating: E for Everyone. Grade: 4 stars out of 5)
"March of the Minis" picks up where the previous Game Boy Advance game left off _ where you must rescue Pauline (the damsel in distress from the arcade games) from the clutches of Donkey Kong, (who has always been a cooler monkey than King Kong, anyway).
Instead of playing as Mario himself, you instead control a ton of little Marios, and must direct them through each level before taking on Donkey Kong. Combining the classic '80s aspects of the game with the DS's touchscreen technology, and the result is like the original Donkey Kong arcade game on speed. This allows the game to be both difficult and nostalgic, and who doesn't enjoy the best of both worlds when Mario and Kong are involved?
With its ton of levels, some online multiplayers and an interesting create-a-level mode and there's nothing mini about this new Mario game.
("Mortal Kombat: Armageddon." Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox. Genre: Fighting. Publisher: Midway. ESRB Rating: M for Mature. Grade: 3 stars out of 5)
With the remaining next-gen consoles debuting soon, what's the point of investing in current-gen games? Well, it's because there's always "Mortal Kombat" to keep you equally entertained and grossed out.
"Armageddon" is not making any attempts to re-invent the wheel. Midway has wisely calculated that the formula for its success is to cull together just about everything from the franchise's stable and stick it in one game. Every character from the MK franchise is playable, and has the ability to realize some "what if" fights. One downer is that the character-specific fatalities are gone, and instead every character kind of does the same thing, except with little differences here and there, and it soon loses its originality.
It's silly to think that this is MK's swan song. Rather, this is a celebration of all that the current-gen had to offer, and that in itself is worthy of giving this game a shot.
