Microsoft Reviews

LucasArts has unleashed the Force with their latest Star Wars title, but does it live up to the hype? There’s no doubt that this game is one of the most anticipated titles of the year; months of gorgeous screenshots and action-packed videos has worked gamers into a frenzy and even non Star Wars fans have been looking forward to this one. Now that the game has landed on store shelves, we’re going to give you the information you need to decide if its really worth the $60 price tag.

After more than two years since the launch of Geometry Wars Retro Evolved on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Bizarre Creations has finally released a proper sequel.

The Soul Calibur series is one of gaming's most celebrated fighting franchises. The series' unique weapons-based fighting system and lengthy quest modes have endeared it with fans around the world. Now Soul Calibur IV has been released and marks the first entry for the franchise on current generation hardware.

If Viking: Battle for Asgard is to be believed, Viking must have had very boring lives. Viking is a practice in patience. Flawed as it may be, there is still a great deal of fun to be had if you can stick it through to the end, though many may not.

Viking has you taking the role of Skarin, a run of the mill hero, in a run of the mill story. Freya (the good goddess) has brought Skarin back from the brink of death to lead her Viking in a war against Hel (the evil goddess) and her legion in an attempt to stop Ragnarök (the apocalypse of the viking world). The story and the characters are far from creative and you will most likely not care about either.

In the world of co-op gaming, few games have truly felt... cooperative. Many let you play through the story with another player--but few give you a unique role and require you to work with your partner. Army of two does this brilliantly--even if it fails on many other levels.

It's obvious from the outset that Army of Two was built to play with a friend, not with AI. The Partner AI (the computer controlled player, if you play solo) is inconsistent at best. The AI is not so bad that it detracts from the fun, but it most certainly is not good enough to add to it. On the flip side fire the game up with a friend and the fun of twenty-four hour Goldeneye marathons is alive again.

With all the games being released on Xbox Live Arcade, it can be hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones. Sure, you can download demos for the games to see which ones are worth the price, but that's a lot of demos to download. Fear not, for that's why we're here at CVG; to let you know which games are good and which are better left untouched. To that end, allow me to introduce Commanders: Attack of the Genos. Developed by Southend Interactive and published by Sierra, this is as close a thing as you'll find to Nintendo's Advance Wars on XBLA.

Once again the time has come to drive like you have never driven before! Criterion Games has been wowing us with the Burnout franchise for years and the time has come to bring it to the new generation of gaming consoles with Burnout Paradise. Criterion has constantly tweaked each iteration of the franchise but none as much as this installment. Some say change is bad but in this case it is a very good thing.

2007 was a great year for the shooter. Halo 3, BioShock, The Orange Box, and Call of Duty 4 gave shooter fans everything they could ask for. Well, almost everything... Sure they gave us aliens, mutants, and terrorists aplenty--but the latest entry in the fabled Turok series brings something else to the table: dinosaurs. Not that we haven't seen this before; afterall, it is what makes a Turok game a Turok game. This time around though the developers have utilized the power of current gen hardware to bring these monstrosities to life like never before. The results make Turok a fun and suspenseful addition to the shooter family.

When Infinity Ward was enlisted by Activision to slay the mighty EA and their Medal of Honor Series with the original Call of Duty, I don't recall anyone in the industry thinking it could be done. Who could top the already established First Person Shooter in the crowded WWII sub-genre? It wasn't until the release of Call of Duty 2 that most began to see how great a developer Infinity Ward was and witnessed Call of Duty 2 not only be a great game but the best title available on the Xbox 360 in the first several months of its life.

In recent years, it would seem quite odd for a company to risk its biggest quarter, in terms of sales, on a brand new franchise. Although it probably wasn't their original plan to feature Assassin's Creed as their premiere software release for the 2007 holiday season, delays to other titles caused Ubisoft to put all of their marketing muscle into Assassin's Creed. The road to release hasn't been without its bumps though.