Trine 2

If you had an opportunity to play Trine when it first came out, then you understand that it was a fantastic action platformer game with puzzle elements, great multiplayer action and a compelling visual style that left you very pleased from all angles and senses. The action continues with Trine 2 as you take on the role of one (or all) of the Three Heroes in an all-new adventure that picks up a bit after the first title in the series comes to a close.

If you have not played the original Trine, you might be left with somewhat of a bewildering feeling as you're thrust into a narrative with three characters with whom you have not already established a rapport. You are basically told that the Trine is back, compelling the Three Heroes on another voyage, and are not given much more information beyond that. This is not such a big issue that you would not want to bother with this title. On the flip side, though, the original Trine is so good you'd almost be doing yourself a disservice by not experiencing the full story from the beginning.

For the uninitiated, the core gameplay of Trine 2 is a side-scrolling platformer/action game with a decent dose of puzzling thrown in for good measure. It can be played as a single-player campaign or cooperatively with up to two more players, either sitting on the couch with you or online via XBox Live. If you are playing alone you will control only one character at a time, and just the one character is on screen at a time. But you can switch between characters on the fly so if you need the strength of one particular hero, you will have their assets at your disposal with the touch of a button. To really get the full experience of Trine 2 though, I'd highly recommend you get some friends to join in on the action. As you can see from the below video, some of the neatest encounters and abilities happen when at least two characters are playing in tandem.As mentioned above, the Three Heroes of Trine 2 have differing skills and they complement one another quite nicely. Firstly you have Amadeus the Wizard. Not really one to go off on adventures, he is the least complicit of the group. He'd much rather be at home with his wife and kids. However, his conjuration spells, whereby he can create boxes (and planks too, if you unlock that ability) out of thin air are invaluable to the troupe. Pontius the Knight has a taste for the death-defying things of life, and is forever in search of his damsel in distress that he can rescue. If a gaggle of goblins comes your way, his sword and shield will come in quite handy. Not to mention the enormous hammer he's got on hand for smashing obstacles out of the group's way. Finally we have Zoya the Thief. Her bow and arrow attacks enable ranged combat and her grappling hook allows her to reach areas that her comrades cannot.

The visuals in this game are just fantastic. All areas of the color spectrum are employed, and with great effect. The animation is smooth, the frame-rate is solid and the particle effects are the icing on the cake. This is a game that I would never get tired of seeing. The environments are varied and each has an identity all its own. From an audio perspective, things are in great shape as well. The sound effects are humorous when they need to be, and not intrusive or annoying when they shouldn't be. The musical score of the game, penned by Ari Pulkkinen, really sets the tone just right for what the mood should be at any given moment. It is epic when encountering a massive boss that more than fills the screen, quiet and contemplative when dealing with a somber point, focused and energized when goblins ambush the team in the middle of the level with no warning... I think you get where I am going here.

So the main question should be does the gameplay still hold up? Was anything broken there, making this a Sophomore-slump for the Trine series? The answer, thankfully is that it is a great experience all-around. For me the best part of the game was when I encountered a puzzle. One of the nice things with Trine is that Atlus decided against having the player's hand be held the whole way through and basically having the puzzles be interactive cut-scenes. You have the ability in the options screen to disable hints entirely, or have your cohorts give you a hint after a certain amount of time passes during a puzzle without a solution. This keeps the game accessible to the "less-hardcore" gamers out there, while still appealing to those who want to grind it out and figure everything out for themselves. Admittedly, I'm not the best there is regarding puzzles so quite a few times I was stumped for a good bit before figuring it out. But that I didn't need a hint given to me felt like an accomplishment in and of itself.

When dealing with combat (with the exception of the boss battles), it is pretty standard-fare. There isn't much to say about it because it's kind of a lather-rinse-repeat element. Sometimes I would use Pontius to hack and slash my way to the next area and sometimes I would snipe the baddies as Zoya from a distance. Either way though it is not that the combat is bad; it just doesn't feel particularly outstanding either.

XBox Live Arcade games are in an interesting position. They are always much cheaper than their retail brethren, so it seems like a slam-dunk that they should be getting lots of sales. However, there is some kind of notion out there that if you can't get the game on a disc, then it is likely not worth the money. At 1200 points, or fifteen bucks for those playing around with real currency, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you can pick this game up without regret - it is a great bang-for-buck ratio happening right here. An engaging, well-written story with gameplay that is just as accessible to casuals as it is challenging for the hardcore, Trine 2 will give you an experience that will leave you with a look of satisfaction on your face all the way through.

Marvel Pinball: Vengeance And Virtue (Pinball FX 2)

Zen Studio's Pinball FX 2 has centered itself as being a platform of it's own for virtual pinball adaptations of various big brands. The latest tables released for the Xbox Live Arcade game are those in Marvel Pinball: Vengeance and Virtue. 
This is the second pack of Marvel-themed tables to be released for Pinball FX 2, with the first having the bigger names like Spider Man and the Hulk, amongst others, be featured. This time around, we have dedicated tables for Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Thor, and X-Men. Each table is effectively their own game, with various sounds, special effects, missions and objectives to complete in order to achieve the highest score possible. They all come with their own achievements and support online leader boards as well as multiplayer. 

The beginning of every table usually has a little big of an introduction of the table as a whole, with the occasional sound clips of characters shouting catchphrases and the like. All the tables are very mostly visually appealing, while all maintaining variety within their separate universes. They all feature characters and villains from the stories and are fully voiced (in some cases, too much so) to go with the animations and detail put into each table. There are four main missions per table which can be chosen by using the triggers when prompted. They range from easy to incessantly difficult – a swift reminder that pinball games aren't all a walk in the park. 



The Ghost Rider table features lots of fire and wouldn't be complete without characters like Lucifer. It's fun, fast, and requires a lot of skill in order to get some of the missions down. It may just be the most difficult of the bunch, but it's not frustratingly hard once you learn the basics. Worth nothing: there's a pinball-shooting shotgun in the corner of the table, just waiting to be utilized – that alone is worth giving it a try. This iteration of Ghost Rider is definitely much preferred to the Nicholas Cage version, and it's more entertaining, too. 

The Moon Knight table surprised me, as I hadn't known much about who Moon Knight was until playing the table. Regardless, this table has a big more of a unique introduction compared to the others, with the Moon Knight flying a spaceship around before beginning as usual. This table was definitely my favorite of the four, not just because it was an introduction to a previously unknown Marvel character, but it overall feels the most complete and fun to play. The sci-fi feel of the table definitely stands out amongst the rest, and it is one of the more easy tables to understand how to work. 

Thor's table, given the most recent Marvel film release, will probably be the most familiar to those who don't keep up with Marvel's comic characters. Villains like Loki and the Destroyer make an appearance and you're tasked with fighting them while maintaining Thor's health. This table features lots of spelling for various power ups, like Mjolnir and Uru, in order to access Asgard to complete various missions. This table is fun, but I can't help but feel like the developers overdid it just a bit when it comes to how often Thor opens his mouth. We get it, Thor, you're from Asgard. You're the son of Odin. Stop reminding us every 15 seconds. 

The table that is the least impressive of the bunch is definitely the X-Men table. While the integration of characters from the universe is nicely done, the actual mechanics of the table itself feel a bit unbalanced and not as well thought out as the other tables. The missions aren't as creative and the overall objectives aren't as clear. That doesn't necessarily make this a bad table, but it's definitely not on the same level as the rest of them. 

Overall, Marvel Pinball: Vengeance and Virtue is a source of great entertainment that is easy to pick up. Whether you're a dedicated Marvel fanatic or just someone who likes pinball, you shouldn't have too much trouble enjoying the game. For 800 Microsoft Points, or roughly $2.50 per table, it's not only cheap, but lots of fun.

Gears of War 3

The Xbox oriented game, Gears of War 3, concludes an excellent trilogy with engrossing cooperative play, taut competitive action, and a masterful campaign.
It's hard to believe that almost five years have passed since Emergence Day. The bane of the humans on Sera was a boon for the gamers on Earth, as we plunged headlong into a grim new world of brutal, cover-based combat and gorgeous visuals. Now the third-person shooter trilogy comes to a superb climax in Gears of War 3. Building on the savage shoot-outs and merciless melees of its predecessors, Gears of War 3 hones the series' signature action to a wickedly sharp edge. Cooperative and competitive opportunities are broader and better than ever, but the most stunning achievement is the campaign. It's an exhilarating, emotional, and thoroughly satisfying finale for the series, and it makes Gears of War 3 one of the best shooters of the year.

Things haven't been good for the Gears since the first cutscene of the series, and this time around, the human race is really on the ropes. Having sacrificed their last civilized holdout in a desperate bid to destroy the Locust, they now cling to survival in isolated forts and on ships, teetering on the verge of annihilation. The included "Previously On…" video gives you a disappointingly meager refresher, but the first act of the campaign sets the tone beautifully. It starts with a surreal surprise that undermines your expectations right from the get-go, and then it reacquaints you with Delta Squad. Marcus grumbles about taking orders while Dom cultivates plants, and this brief moment of quiet offers a nice contrast to the chaos moments later when Marcus is barking out orders and Dom is threatening to kill the enemies that mess up his garden.
Gears of War has always done brash well, and this game is no exception. A salty new female squad member named Sam gives Baird a run for his sarcastic money, and the Cole Train barrels along, full steam ahead. Some of his lines are groan-worthy, while some are genuinely amusing, and the same holds true for many characters in the game. Regardless of whether you cringe or chuckle, the dialogue does a great job of creating a sense of camaraderie that bonds both new and old members of Delta Squad into a cohesive unit. Their fraternal connection makes you feel like you know the characters well, and sets the stage for the outstanding campaign to come.
An early revelation shocks Marcus Fenix, but you get only a glimpse of internal turmoil as he overrides his emotions to be the leader his squad needs. It isn't until halfway through the first act that the game really flexes its storytelling muscle. Stepping out of Marcus Fenix's boots, you play as Cole Train on a foraging mission to the town where he earned his reputation as a star athlete. Your first encounter with his past includes a simple line that foreshadows the journey you are about to take: "You ever feel like you're dead, but nobody told you?" As you catch more and more snippets of the life that used to be, the horrifying reality of the life that is begins to sink in deeper than it ever did before. By the time you see this chapter through its hallucinatory climax, you don't just have a whole new understanding of Augustus Cole; you have a richer understanding of what it must be like for everyone still alive on this war-ravaged planet. As the campaign progresses, different characters, environments, and situations intertwine to further flesh out your emotional investment in this world. Gears of War 3 delivers some truly poignant moments and boasts some of the best storytelling ever seen in a shooter, complemented by great facial animation, an expressive soundtrack, and excellent pacing.
As you journey from ship to shore and beyond, you visit a variety of beautifully designed locations. Improvised settlements of human and Locust alike convey the desperate state of Seran surface dwellers and contrast starkly with the areas humans have forsaken. These places all have meaningful connections to the story, so every narrative detour feels natural. The same goes for the gameplay detours. Logical on-rails vehicle sequences link major locations, providing exciting interludes that last just long enough to add some welcome diversity. The only vehicles you actually pilot are squat exoskeletons that move like a bulkier, robotic version of you. They are used sparingly and handle well, offering a heady feeling of destructive power. Gears of War 3 doles out cutscenes, combat, and changes of pace in skillful measure, and maintains this delicate balance within the on-foot firefights.
Conflict zones vary widely in size and shape. Claustrophobic rooms channel you straight into your enemies, while larger areas give you plenty of room to flank your foes. Such spacious locations often play host to a new type of enemy spawn point, the Lambent stalk. Like the emergence holes before it, the stalk must be damaged to stanch the flow of enemies, and this can require some active maneuvering on your part. You need to use cover to stay alive, but you also must venture out into the field of fire to stop these spawn points and locate powerful weapons to wield against your foes. Returning favorites like the Mortar and Mulcher are joined by the One Shot (guess how it got that name) and the massive Vulcan, a devastating minigun that can only be moved by two people. Most of your arsenal is made up of guns that will be familiar to series veterans, providing a gruesome and satisfying array of ways to deal death at all ranges. Bullets still hit their marks with gratifying squish noises, and roaring chainsaws proclaim that the tried-and-true combat mechanics are once again in top form.
A must played game now available... i recommend that if any1 who likes  single player strategy game, will surely love this.

Halo: Reach

For all those fans who liked the previous version of halo, this game brings them a new culmination of the superlative combat, sensational multiplayer, and seamless online integration.
All those who were disappointed by the previous versions of halo, this game is what is going to cheer 'em up.
Before the discovery and destruction of an ancient alien ringworld, before a teeming parasitic enemy threatened Earth, before a soldier called John-117 made a new name for himself, humanity fought to defend the planet Reach. And though Halo: Reach is a prequel to all the Halo games that have come before, it represents the evolutionary pinnacle of the series. From the expertly tuned combat to the expansive level design and from the innovative online integration to the robust creation tools, all the pillars of Halo's success are in top form here, tied together seamlessly by an elegant and intuitive menu system. While the core mechanics remain very familiar, invigorating new elements and extensive customization options make it so there are more ways to enjoy yourself than ever. Halo: Reach is one of the most fully featured games on consoles today, and it's also one of the best.
One of the first things you notice about Halo: Reach is the refined menu system. In addition to presenting the main gameplay modes, the main menu displays the status of your friends who are playing Reach and allows you to peruse their service records and invite them to your party with ease. Entering a mode, tweaking options, and starting up a match is an effortless process, and your party members can come with you almost everywhere you go. The interface allows you to easily explore game types, customization tools, and user-created content without getting swamped or overwhelmed. It's remarkable that everything is this easily accessible, because Halo: Reach is absolutely packed with great content.
Halo campaigns have traditionally had epic aspirations, and Halo: Reach is no different. Whether you play solo or cooperatively with up to four players, you play as the newest member of Noble team. Your first mission is to investigate a distress signal in a rural mountainous area, and it's no surprise when the source of the distress turns out to be the Covenant. Small skirmishes and reconnaissance missions soon escalate to all-out war as humanity tries to repel the alien invaders. Anyone familiar with the Halo canon knows how that one ends, but it's thrilling to be a part of Noble team's efforts. You undertake missions of increasingly crucial strategic importance, and this urgency is conveyed without any reliance on previous Halo knowledge. Instead, the characters you interact with help set the tone, and your squadmates have unique personalities that go a long way toward keeping you emotionally invested in the action. There are some cliches and a few cheap moments, but the story successfully channels the forthright heroism of soldiers who are committed to their cause. This earnest appeal makes Halo: Reach's campaign one of the most satisfying in the series.
The campaign also benefits from great pacing and a cohesive sense of place. The slow burn of the early levels explodes into frenetic large-scale conflict, and some good dramatic turns and an engrossing musical score keep the pace from fizzling out as the game builds toward a climactic ending. Your missions take you through a rich array of environments, from rural farming communities to high-country military outposts and from dry, rocky steppes to battered city streets. Throughout these diverse locations, the mountainous geography of Reach remains a constant presence that helps you connect with the land you are fighting to defend. Levels are often expansive, offering stunning views and allowing for some nice gameplay diversity. In addition to a number of classic vehicles that still handle marvelously, there are a few new rides that provide some kicks of their own. There's also a space-faring first for the series, and though this sequence is a bit shallow, it doesn't overstay its welcome and features some gorgeous orbital vistas.

The campaign provides excitement aplenty, and adding some friends to the mix makes it even more enjoyable. Picking your own routes through the battlefield is more exciting when you know your buddies are doing it too, and it leads to some great moments of teamwork, both planned and unexpected. Though the friendly AI is generally harmless, it has trouble when it comes to driving, so you're better off driving yourself or trusting a friend behind the wheel. If you want to spice things up a bit, you can keep score individually or as a team, using skulls (now found in an options screen rather than hidden in levels) to modify battlefield conditions and boost your scoring potential. And if you don't have any friends available to join you, the online campaign matchmaking can easily set you up with squadmates. These options, along with the stellar core action, the excellent level design, and the well-balanced difficulty levels, make this great campaign supremely replayable.
Back after a very successful debut in Halo 3: ODST, the Firefight mode once again offers up to four players an arena to take on increasingly difficult waves of Covenant enemies. This is largely the same addictively entertaining experience, though it now boasts full online matchmaking support. Frantically fighting off hordes of enemies is as exciting and satisfying as ever, and the new maps and gameplay variants offer many different ways to enjoy this mode. You can take on a tougher challenge by choosing to defend generators in addition to killing Covenant or add a bit of levity by fighting hordes of grunts that fling confetti into the air when you shoot them in the head. You can even have some players play as Elites and try to thwart the remaining Spartans. If you want to tweak one of the built-in variants or create something entirely different, the extensive game options let you customize the makeup and toughness of each enemy wave, the weapons and shields available to you, the strength of gravity, and a lot more. It's a lot of fun to mess around with these options and see what you can come up with, and if you're not the tailoring type, you can easily download user-created variants by browsing popular variants or searching for keywords.
It is one of my own recommended games... 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

A world full of dragons and alot more graphics are put into this game. The province of Skyrim might be frigid, but the role-playing game that takes place within it burns with a fire few games possess. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you take up arms against dragons, and your encounters with them are invariably exciting--yet depending on where your adventure takes you, such battles may not even represent the pinnacle of your experience. A side quest that starts as a momentary distraction may turn into a full-fledged tale that could form the entirety of a less ambitious game. Yes, Skyrim is another enormous fantasy RPG from a developer that specializes in them, and it could suck up hundreds of hours of your time as you inspect each nook and crevasse for the secrets to be found within. If you know Bethesda Softworks' previous games, you might be unsurprised that Skyrim is not a land without blemish, but rather harbors any number of technical glitches and frustrating idiosyncrasies that tear open the icy veil that blankets the land. Many of them are ones Elder Scrolls fans will probably see coming, but they're ultimately a low price to pay for the wonders of a game this sprawling and enthralling.
The game returns you to the continent of Tamriel, where you explore the northern realm called Skyrim, home to the Nord race. In these northern regions, snow flurries cloud your view, and platforms of ice float on the chilled waters. Nighttime often brings Tamriel's version of the aurora borealis, with its gorgeous blue and green ribbons stretching across the heavens. Skyrim's predecessor.
Skyrim's atmospheric tone harks back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, only the hazy dust storms of the earlier game have been replaced by glimmering snowfall and opaque fog. 
These lovely vistas are best seen from a distance. Closer inspection reveals plenty of hard edges, ugly painted-on textures, and other visual flaws that are awfully conspicuous should you seek them out. But like many enormous games, Skyrim makes a fantastic impression not because its individual elements are sharply honed, but because they contribute to a grander whole. There's so much to do that your quest log becomes an embarrassment of pleasures, offering dozens of choices at any given time, each one as enticing as the next. You could follow the story, of course, which weaves a compelling tale that casts you as a dragonborn; that is, the soul of a dragon emanates from within you. As such, you are the key to discovering why dragons have returned to the land, terrorizing cities and potentially ending the known world. The tale has you facing dragons, of course, but also crashing fancy dress parties and scouring sewers in search of a key figure long assumed dead. It's a well-crafted tale that makes good use of those fearsome flying creatures that horrify the masses with roaring gusts of fire and ice.

Even when you aren't pursuing story quests, though, the core narrative dogs you as you trot across the land on foot or on horseback. You might travel to a quaint hamlet only to discover that it's under siege by a hovering beast. The townspeople join you, aiming their arrows and fireballs upward, and not all of them may survive the encounter. These battles impress upon you the terror in which the populace lives, and thus give you a reason to be a hero to them. But plenty of narrative delights have nothing to do with dragons, and some of them could have formed the main story of a lesser RPG. Following an early lead takes you to a lonely house occupied by a single child with a disturbing request. The story that unravels has you acting as a predator and eavesdropping from an unimaginably sinister hiding place. Other story threads embrace the element of choice. You can take sides in the ongoing conflict between Imperial forces and the rebellious Stormcloaks, and then assault enemy camps and rescue prisoners jailed by the enemy. And in one memorable if minor quest line, you can kill a creepy cannibal--or join her and her cohorts at the table.
It's impressive enough that there's so much to do; it's even more impressive that most of it is wonderful. Not every dungeon is a joy to explore. Stone-turning puzzles occasionally bring the fun to a halt, and a few repeated cave designs could dampen your spirits. But overall, every task has an excellent sense of context, and surprises lurk around many a turn. Searching for a lost dog turns into a grander quest than you could have guessed--and witty writing and voice acting shine some light into this somber world. Even a simple "go there, kill that" bounty can be a thrill. After all, how often do you face a towering giant and a couple of woolly mammoths? It's too bad that as you approach the giant's camp, one of those mammoths might spawn 100 feet in the air and fall to its death, or land on another mammoth and ride on its back for a few seconds before sliding off.

So maybe not every surprise is a welcome one. But most are, and the element of the unexpected is what lures you to explore as much as you can. The reward could be a great weapon hidden in a locked chest, a gorgeous vista to ogle, or a book of lore that enhances one of your attributes. Or perhaps you'll discover words written in the dragons' tongue--an important discovery indeed. Finding those words is key to using Skyrim's most powerful spells, known as shouts. Well, they are half the key anyway: you also must defeat dragons and absorb their souls to activate those shouts. Shouts have their own cooldown timer and aren't tied to the magicka bar that governs standard spellcasting. With one shout, you can breathe fire on your attackers. With another, you can slow down time. Shouts hardly guarantee success in a difficult battle, but they can tip the scales in your favor. Besides, the dramatic visual and sound effects of both the discovery of words and the absorption of a dragon soul are a lovely bonus.
As for standard spells, they come in the usual schools of magicka: destruction (zap skeletons with sparks!), conjuration (summon a giant frost atronach!), alteration (light the way ahead!), and so on. You can even dual-wield spells, going full-on mage, with a glowing ball of fire in one hand and a summon at the ready in the other. For that matter, you can dual-wield one-handed weapons, giving you more flexibility in how you form your character. When you create your character, you choose a race from the usual Elder Scrolls standbys (Dark Elf, Breton, Argonian, and so forth), but you don't choose a class. Rather, your skill level with certain types of weapons, magicka schools, speech, and so on is governed primarily by how you play. Wear heavy armor, and taking blows gradually increases your heavy armor proficiency. Swing two-handed weapons, and you get better at using them.
Enjoy the virtual daring environment twisted within this particular part of THE ELDER SCROLLS.