Probably showing my bias against fighting games here, but this is another fighting game that I couldn’t get in to. I was actually pretty surprised about that as SC2 is one of my favourite fighting games of all time. I really enjoy the use of weapons as it increases the variety of the characters move-sets and makes the game simpler tactically. For example, a character like Kilik is quick and has great range with his long staff. This makes it pretty clear how to play as or against him as soon as you pick up the game and thus easier to get into compared to a lot of fighting games.

Soul Calibur IV brings back some of these characters and introduces some new ones keeping the weapon based combat and large character variety mostly the same. It also introduces some new characters including some star wars characters and a character creation mode. These additions didn't really appeal to me, the new characters are fine but the star wars characters really don't fit into the game. Another aspect of the game which is a let down is the boring game modes. The game has a very short and bland story mode, with little story and a tower of souls mode which is not as exciting as it seems. The tower of souls is just another multi fight mode, with all the fights set in similar boring square arenas. Now, combat wise SC4 is decent. The fights have a nice ebb and flow and are quite tactical if perhaps a little slow for my liking. Yet, this doesn't really make up for the rest of it's flaws. A fine fighting game that probably should have been a great one. In the end, I would rather just play SC2.

Platinum games always strive to make interesting and stylish games. Bayonetta is their best known game on the system which managed to combine style and substance with its excellent combat. Vanquish came next with is substance but not much style, which makes it still a fun game to play. Anarchy Reigns is the third offering on the console and while it ticks the stylish box, it doesn't hold up in terms of substance. Gameplay wise AR is a 3D brawler set in a post apocalyptic future. A spiritual successor to the better Madworld, the game features 2 different but very short campaigns with different characters Jack and Leo. The story for each character is intertwined and works quite well, with some suitably cheesy dialogue between fights. It's a shame then that it's enjoyable on a very superficial level. The combat, while fun at first, quickly becomes repetitive and the lack of enemy variety later on in the game becomes a big issue. I found myself repeating similar combos all the way throughout the game and you are really given one set option to handle each enemy type which leaves you little space for creativity. Each level is set in a different area which seems interesting at first, there are different sections to each area and some special areas too, yet it all feels very superficial as when you spend a bit of time in a level you realise how small and dull they are. A lot of these problems are probably due to the fact the game wants to be a multiplayer brawler and maybe it did succeed in that, but i doubt you will be able to find any matches nowadays. A game which, while fun for a short while, looks more interesting than it actually is. Bonus points for the excellent music though.

This one I dig. As I grapple with the sheer number of American Football games on the console, there are quite a number that stand out and NCAA 13 is one of them. The penultimate NCAA game on the console, 13 is rarely mentioned compared to the well loved and equally expensive 14, yet I think you could argue it's actually better. Now NCAA 13 doesn't make any big leaps in terms of the game modes, it still has the Heisman challenges, road to glory etc. Where it excels though is it's gameplay changes, which I think make the game modes even better. The game has been made a bit more difficult, you can't nail all those long throws you used to and the defense seems smarter. This made me pay a lot more attention in the training sessions in Road to Glory and tweak my gameplay style accordingly to try to level up my player with exp. It has an almost RPG like feel about it which is cool. Reaction time is also a nice addition, slowing down the gameplay for just a few seconds can be really helpful and help you pull out some big plays. For me though, the most interesting aspect is the in depth recruiting in the game when you are in charge of a team. Scouting players, inviting them to your school, even calling them on the phone, it really makes the process feel authentic and worthwhile. It doesn't quite reach the heights of NCAA 14, especially in terms of gameplay, but it's still an excellent football game.

For a lot of these Madden and other sports title reviews, I really don't have much to say. It's a yearly franchise of American football games, they are all fairly similar etc etc. It's nice then, or perhaps not so nice in this case, when there is some interesting history behind the game. Madden 06 came out the year after the consensus best NFL game of all time NFL 2K5. EA had managed to bully 2K games out of the market and as such Madden 06 was the only NFL game available that year. Add this to the fact that it was the first NFL game on next gen consoles, there was a lot of pressure on EA to make a good game. With all this pressure, Madden 06 ended up being a stinker and the worst Madden game on the console. It was obvious that the development of the game had gone poorly, with the 360 version being so much worse than the PS2 version. The game just feels off. Collisions look weird and often send your player in the wrong direction. Catching animations are bad. There's a huge lack of features. The game just doesn't run well at all. I found numerous glitches and really long loading times during my time with the game. It almost feels like the console is struggling to run the game. There is no reason to pick up this game on the 360 unless you like easy achievements.

Console sequel to the absolute classic PC online multiplayer shooter, UT3 had big boots to fill and of course it couldn't really manage to fill them, at least in it's present state. As with the nature of these reviews, playing it in 2024 with the multiplayer totally dead can be really detrimental to some of the more online focused games. Know I don't know if the chaos of capture the flag on Facing Worlds was recreated with this release, but even as a single player game it's not a complete disaster. For a start, they have kept consistent with the original games, which is probably for the best. Playing the campaign, albeit against bots, is a similar feel to the multiplayer of the original games. It's a super fast paced FPS with the same fun weapons, great controls and fun maps. The guns are all useful in different situations, with second functions adding to the tactical diversity. The bots are fine, obviously not as good as real players, but they do the job. I was quite surprised that the campaign is just a selection of multiplayer styles fights against bots. This decision for the campaign to be basically the multiplayer is a good and a bad one. While it highlights the best aspects of the game, it doesn't really feel like a campaign. The same effect could have been achieved with an offline mode for multiplayer games with bots, and then a separate real campaign with a story would have been appreciated. With that in mind, UT3 is fun to play, but it's not really something I would recommend picking up nowadays and in it's current form is a very average game at best.

If you remove all the exercise and dance related game, you are left with about 3 games. This isn't that surprising as while the kinect was a great idea, despite Microsoft's best efforts, most of the games were frustrating to play. I'm not sure if they had a gun to their head, but somehow Microsoft convinced famed indie game developer Twisted Pixel to develop a full kinect release. Twisted Pixel's The Gunstringer then is a bit of an anomaly in that it is a rail shooter game which controls fine and is fun to play. Levels are mostly run and gun style. Your character is constantly moving forward. You use your left hand to control your characters movement, avoiding obstacles and popping out of cover to shoot enemies. Your right had is used to aim at enemies and fire. The controls work fairly well and while it can be tiring, it's way less frustrating than most kinect games that I have tried. There are some slight variations, some platforming sections and light gun style sections, plus the boss fights at the end of most levels add to the enjoyment. The wild west theme and humour that Twisted Pixel are known for really shine through and best of all you can play it sat down. It's refreshing to see a developer put effort into a kinect title so if you are looking to play one, this is one of the best.

CSI Hard Evidence is the first of 3 CSI games on the console and it is actually quite well known. Mostly known for how easy it is to get achievement points (if you care about that), CSI HE should probably should be know for its horrible acting, graphics and facial animations, which are comical and a real highlight. So how does a game like this work? Well, it's surprisingly quite interesting and a bit of a unique experience. You play through 5 episodes of point and click detective style gameplay. You investigate crime-scenes, find evidence, process it in the lab, and question suspects. This gameplay style is certainly different, but it's not that great in practice. It's nearly impossible to miss clues and you can't really fail a mission, so the game basically plays itself. That being said, if treated as an interactive TV show, it is quite nice. The episodes are detailed, with interesting stories which feel like they were real TV episodes. There is some fun to be had in the lab, where analysing evidence is turned into small fun mini games like matching pictures. It's nothing special but it works. I'm sure there's a lot of people who hate this game but for me it was moderately enjoyable. It's not too long and doesn't overstay its welcome. The bitesize chunks were a nice break from other epic games and campaigns on the console. Worth picking up just to experience and see if you like it.

From the people that brought you the Final Fantasy series, we have another JRPG on the console, and it's a fairly unheralded one at that. IU puts you in the shoes of Capell, working with a group of heroes tasked with destroying the chains attaching the moon to the earth. It's a bit of a weird story and very JRPG, but it lends itself to some nice visuals and cutscenes. The gameplay is one of the more unique elements of the game. If plays like a simple but quite decent hack and slash game, where you control Capell and can offer orders to the AI controlled party members. It's not the most complex combat, but works fine and I didn't get that bored with it. The game starts pretty slow, but the difficulty ramps up and the enemy variety and bosses keep the gameplay fairly interesting. The adventuring itself isn't particularly detailed. It is a small game so there aren't any huge maps or sprawling sub-quests. You follow a linear route to achieve your goals and that is totally fine. We don't all have 100 hours to stick into an RPG, particularly not one which doesn't really shine in any way. For my criticisms of the game, I don't really have a whole lot, but at the same time there not much that I loved about the game. The menu is a bit frustrating as you can't pause the game and I didn't enjoy messing around with items and equipment, but it wasn't any worse than any other RPG. With that in mind, it's a fine game, but only really worth it for huge JRPG fans. I also don't hate the name as much as everyone else.

Take everything you know and love about the highly underrated Conflict series of games and deflate it into a bland FPS game, that is really all there is to say about Conflict Denied Ops. A game so bad that even me, someone who loves crappy FPS games, hates it. You are put in control of one of two characters, a sniper or a heavy machine gunner, and run through levels blasting stuff. They seem to be aiming for the same character design as Kane and Lynch, but gameplay wise it doesn't really matter which you choose and you can switch between the two whenever you like. The coop mode is a nice inclusion in this fairly short and bland campaign, but playing alone with the AI is extremely frustrating. It has some fairly bog standard N64 Goldeneye style missions, like protecting the scientist while he hacks the mainframe or survive waves of enemies for 3 minutes, which are alright but not enough to make it worth playing. It really is a fairly bland game. If anything stands out, it is the horrible controls. While not unresponsive, the button layout is quite unique and perhaps counterintuitive. Even worse, you can't change the aim sensitivity. The other thing that stood out was how terrible the enemy AI was. Either they will pop out of nowhere right next to you and kill you in seconds or they will be running from place to place like a headless chicken. It makes the game difficult and frustrating, especially with the sparse checkpoints and missions which require protecting NPCs. The Conflict series died for the sins of this game, and there are many many sins in it. At least the Japanese market had the decency to call it Double Clutch, which is much cooler. If you see a copy for sale, hide it behind other games so no one buys it.

Very weird FPS and 3rd person brawler hybrid movie tie-in game. King Kong was one of the release titles for the console and as such probably got more playtime and accolades that it deserved. It's the type of game that looks decent in videos but is actually a chore to play. You play mostly as Jack (Adrian Brody in the movie) running around shooting stuff on an island full of giant bugs and dinosaurs. These parts of the game feel like they should be survival horror style. You have a very limited number of weapons and ammo and frequently rely on picking up sticks and bones to fend off the various creatures that attack you. The lack of a hud or aiming reticle gives the game quite a cool atmosphere and a unique feeling which make these sections somewhat interesting but still often a bit of a slog. The problems are numerous. Linear levels, dumb NPCs that follow you around, poor controls and repetitive puzzle sections which normally require setting bushes on fire. Worse still are the King Kong missions. Playing as King Kong, these missions feel like continuous quick time events mixed with some very basic brawling. The controls also are annoying, making the boss fights much more frustrating than they should be and I found myself dreading playing as Kong, which should really be the highlight of the game. If you stick the weapons and unlimited ammo cheats on, the game becomes much more playable. Still, it's no where near as much fun as it looks and even King Kong fans will struggle.

Samurai Shodown Sen is the 360 generation's release of the beloved fighting game series. While I haven't spent much time with the previous games, Sen is seen as a departure from most of the previous games in terms of how it plays and this change has been attributed to making it more accessible to the general consumer. Sen attempts the transition to a modern 3D fighting game, but fails spectacularly. You have a fairly large roster of interesting characters with different fighting styles. The menus also have some nice music and decent artwork too giving a very feudal Japan feeling. In terms of positives that's about it. With it's lack of features, clunky controls, ugly graphics and total lack of a tutorial, Sen fails in some of the most basic aspects of game design. The most aggravating way however is the gameplay itself. Fights are slow and sluggish and the characters move extremely awkwardly. At no point in my time with the game was I able to feel any type of flow with the combat, I would either win with some cheap attacks or get totally dominated. The move list doesn't really help and the tutorial is even more useless. I'm not sure if this was a cash grab or they just absolutely botched the game but it's difficult to understand how such a poor entry in an otherwise highly regarded series could be released.

With the mess of tennis games on the console, it's a little bit difficult for tennis fans to figure out what to play. To simplify things for this, Top Spin is your premium simulation series, and in my opinion the best option for fans of tennis on the console. There are 3 entries in the series, and I have picked 2 as my favourite as I think it is really quite impressive for a 2006 title. Top spin 3 makes some changes, but some of them not are good ones and over complicate things. Top Spin 4 goes on to make solid improvements and is arguably the best in the series. However, due to the similarity of the three, I decided to rank them together. I really think only the biggest tennis nerds need more than one of these. So what is so good about these games? Well, for a start its a great blend of easy to play but difficult to master. The career mode has an excellent tutorial, interjecting in the gameplay every now and again to teach you a new move. I really enjoyed this approach and found it a lot more fun than them teaching you everything in one boring block. The career starts you as a rookie created character, and each week you will work with your trainer on drills to improve your stats. This progression system is a lot fun and adds some connection with the created player. Most of the training activities are fun minigames that really help you understand the controls and different techniques for getting points. They are simple such as using power to hit a box out of the court, or hitting bowling balls to knock down pins, but quite effecitve and fun too. Once you have built up your stats and can take part in the competition you will find that it's quite hard. You can't just press A and direct the ball, you really need to master different shots and tactics. In this regard, it's quite different from the more arcade style gameplay from titles like virtua tennis. Yet, even as a non-tennis fan, I was willing to put time in to master it and had a lot of fun with it. Even if you are not putting time into the career mode, this style of gameplay is great for 1 on 1 or doubles couch play with your friends and really makes the game stand out. I can definitely reccomend this one to all 360 owners. If you are willing to put a bit of time in, you will get a lot out of this series. If you are picking one up in 2023, while there is some decent progression in the series and some improvements, I think top spin 2 holds up as the best of the bunch, and is definitely the most impressive for its age.

I've seen reviews of this game which highlight it's "massive" open world and it's "amazing" and "forward thinking" pawn system. Personally I was quite baffled when I played the game. I spent most of my time walking between the same two towns of a map which is hardly massive. The pawn system while fine is nothing to write home about, I would rather have companions that actually have something interesting to say. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the game. It has its charm, the combat system is good, you are able to grab onto enemies and team up with your pawns, the quests are fairly solid too. Unfortunately, its bogged down by walking over the same boring path with the same enemies who respawn in exactly the same places. On the other hand you can use a warp stone and skip most of the game. If you are a fan of action RPGs, especially difficult ones, then this is a semi- enjoyable romp. The side missions are quite detailed and normally have an interesting set up. The graphics are quite nice. However, it feels like it could have been better and in many ways seems a little over-hyped.

The word hidden gem gets thrown around a lot, so much so that games which are heralded as hidden gems become popular well liked games. MXGP is a true hidden gem and due to its nature as a bit of a niche title I feel confident it will stay that way, especially considering how many good racers there are on the console. MXGP is the first official MX game on the console, but is fairly similar to the previously released MX vs ATV games. This is some fast action, dirt track racing and it is a lot of fun. The first thing I have to mention is the incredible track degradation/deformation, by this I mean the surface of the race track - the mud- being carved up by other racers, creating a totally different track each lap. Sega Rally Revo pioneered the track degradation/ deformation effects and MXGP takes it to another level. Lines and routes will get cut into the track, some of which are helpful and some of which deviate from the racing line. It's a really nice feature and it looks great and adds some variety to races. This is helped by the excellent physics. The cornering feels right and the ruble gives you some nice feedback each turn feeling very responsive. I'm sure fans of MX will dig this one, but even for none race fans it is a decent and polished package, with everything you would expect from a 2014 racing game. On the negative side there are a few issues. Perhaps this can be played with in the menus, but I found the game was a bit too forgiving of rule breaking and crashes. Even on the most difficult of handling settings I was able to maintain first even after a crash. This could also affect the longevity of the game as some may not find it challenging enough. For a fairly unheard of 360 title though these are minor flaws and it is a great game. If you are looking for more mud based fun after Sega Rally Revo, go for this one.