If you had the choice between two meals, which would you choose? Filet mignon or a 1/4 lb burger? Keep that in mind while you read this review for the King of Fighters XII. Ah, yes! King of Fighters is back, and SNK Playmore hopes that this year’s KOF will garner many fighting game fans. Can it accomplish this?

Story: There isn’t much of one. There is a fighting tournament and your combatants have to win the whole thing. That’s about it. It would have been nice if this game had a main antagonist like in previous KOF games, but for some odd reason, SNK decided not to have one in this game. It shouldn’t be a big deal, most fighting game fans don’t play these games for the story anyways.

Graphics: Wow! What were you thinking SNK. The character sprites are noticeably pixelated. In this day and age of high powered gaming consoles, there’s just no excuse for this. You might have to sit back at least ten feet from your tv set if you don’t want to notice the low rez characters. The background visuals are better drawn, but most of them look boring. Only two backgrounds stand out as memorable, the one with the fat ladies sitting at a cafe near the ocean, and the other is the one with the fire background. The other stages are meh! There are also some anime cut scenes that are, again, well drawn but boring. They could have showed some fighting cut scenes, instead all they show is a news report.

Sound: Most of the music in this game is good, it has a metal\rock vibe to it. The grunts, hits, yells, from each character also sound decent. The only issue I have with the sound is that the fight announcer sounds way louder than the rest of the game. This should be no problem, as I’m sure you can change this in the settings options. But come on? Should the fighting announcer be louder than the rest of the game by default?

Gameplay: You have to pick three characters from the available twenty-two. Before each match you can choose the order in which your characters will fight. This is helpful when for instance, you know how one of your characters will matchup with the opponent’s character. The combos seem easy to learn. You wont have any problem in performing three to six hit combos. Longer combos are possible, you just have to spend some time with the game in order to learn them. Special moves and super moves are also in the game, and are generally easy to pull off, provided you are using an arcade stick or the madcatz SFIV gamepad. The regular xbox 360 controller just doesn’t cut it when it comes to fighting games. The game is most enjoyable when playing against someone else in local play. I had no problem when I played online, the game ran smoothly. However, there have been several reports about the game being laggy online to the point where it became unplayable. I guess I just got lucky.

Content: As stated before, this game lacks a main villain. In past KOF games, there was always a final boss that had to be defeated. He was often made so hard and cheap that it often took all three of your characters to take him down. In this game, your final adversaries are three random characters. In past games there were way more characters available. The most notable absence from the game KOF fans will tell you, is Mai. She is an Asian lady who has a huge cleavage, wears a skimpy outfit, and uses fans as weapons. Instead you get Ash, a dude who looks like a chick, oy vey! KOF XII also lacks in stages, there are only six. This game has a practice mode, but in order to pick another character you have to exit to the main menu and pick practice mode again. What a hassle. There is no survival mode! SNK, how can you omit survival mode from your best fighting game franchise. Hopefully you can add this in some future dlc, for free of course. Time attack has been incorporated into the Arcade mode. Every time a match ends, you will be shown the time it took you to beat your opponents. You will then be given an option to restart the level to get a better time if you wish.

So there you have it. This game isn’t terrible. Like a 1/4 lb hamburger, you’ll enjoy it. It has its faults, and SNK will hopefully learn enough from them before KOF XIII. If you are a hardcore KOF fan, then I would recommend this game, but only after a price drop. If you are looking for a good fighting game, get the filet mignon. Get SFV or Blazblue. These are the games that KOF should aspire to be like. Those are 9-10 caliber games. KOF XII? A 7.

Captain Rivas of the Dark Athena has been taking prisoners and using advanced technology to transform them into drones. The drones are controlled by other people via machines spread across the ship. The player’s goal is to escape the Dark Athena and ultimately put an end to Captain Rivas’ evil designs.

Gameplay

Dark Athena offers up some fairly unique aspects to its gameplay and shouldn’t ever be pushed off as being just another FPS (first person shooter) on the 360. The game is relatively short, but its what is offered within this short time span that makes all the difference.

Throughout the game are nice little touches that developer added that makes Dark Athena a more surreal experience. One example is the doors. Anyone familiar with the genre knows that in most fps games, defeating whatever enemies are in a particular room will result in the door to the next area magically opening for the player to continue onward. In Riddick, that is not the case. Instead of taking that simple route, the developers took the time to offer a variety of ways throughout the game. Sometimes you must wait for a Drone to come through a locked door, pick up a use a Drone’s gun to shoot out the glass to the next area, aquire key codes, and even in one point pick up a grenade from a defeated foe to blast through a wall. It’s these small little experiences that helped to shape the game into what it is.

While gunning down Drones is an important part of the game, stealth and hand-to-hand combat is also vital in completing the tasks at hand. Riddick can use the darkness to his advantage and stealthily sneak up on Drones and fatally kill them using his hands or a variety of different weapons such clubs, hair pins, and scalping tools–each of which has its own unique finisher. These items can also be used in hand-to-hand combat rather than just using Riddick’s fists.

Riddick isn’t the only character to control througout the game. In a few sections of the game, players will don machines to take control of Drones and even a giant mecha-robot that fires missiles. These moments add some exra spice to an already incredible game that does so much to begin with.

The only real complaint I honestly have with the game is its lack of variety in enemies. While the Drones can be somewhat more difficult in the later parts of the game, they are basically the only enemies you’ll be fighting. Drones, some soldiers, and a few people in mechanized suits are all Athena offers in this regard. It is still enjoyable to battle them, but it would have been nice if more enemies had been readily available.

Graphics

Visually, Dark Athen manages to hold its own quite well and offers some of the best graphics on the 360 imo. Attention to detail is noticeable from beginning to end and Riddick is near picture perfect in resemblance to his Vin Diesel. Watching the animations when you perform a fatility move on a Drone never gets old and the fire effects from explosions are incredible. Fantastic job done here.

Sound

The sound effects and voice overs in the game are certainly top notch. Vin Diesel is a professional actor and he does an excellent job in lending his voice to a game that he plays a major role in. Hearing the guns fire definately has a realistic feel to it along with the many explosions throughout the game. The screams of your victims are unforgettable as well and will leave you wanting to continue killing them time and time again.

Controls

Flawless. Not a better word for it. The hand-to-hand combat, the shooting, the stealth, and so on all flows smoothly and not a single moment did I have any issues with it whatsoever. Even the jumping and climbing aspects worked perfectly to compliment the game. The developers are definately deserving of praise for managing to keep them feeling incredible and intuitive throughout.

Overall

Overall, Assault on Dark Athena is an unforgettable experience that brings something fresh and unique to a genre filled with so many generic titles. With fantastic gameplay, wonderful visions, great sound effects, controls to die for and even a completely remasters version of the original game, Dark Athena is a title that no one who is a fan of shooters should miss out on.

Score: 9.5/10

General Info/Story: Perfect Dark Zero takes place years before the events of the Nintendo 64 version. After a relatively brief training mission, the game features Joanna going on her first live assignment with her pappy, Jack Dark. Eventually, this leads to her joining the Carrington Institute. Y’know, those folks she worked for in the first game. When first hearing that Perfect Dark Zero was going to be a prequel, I had hopes of a deep, engaging storyline. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Instead, the game provides lackluster voice acting, and a script that I found laughably dull. So, perhaps it’s not the story itself I found so boring, but rather the way it was delivered. That said, I wasn’t really sure as to what was going on throughout the plot. I never understood what I was doing, or specifically why I was doing it. Of course, I knew what my general goal was, but there’s very little to no character development in this game.

Gameplay/Replay Value: Zero is saved primarily by its gameplay, as that is obviously what is most important. The controls are intuitive, and the mission objectives become more complicated as you crank up the difficulty settings. This adds a bit more depth and replayability to the singleplayer campaign.

As you complete missions with individual weapons, you’ll be able to start levels with what’s been added to your arsenal. The majority of the weapons from the original game have returned in Perfect Dark Zero. Ontop of that, the singleplayer mode is Co-Operatively playable-in its entirety-via Xbox LIVE or Splitscreen.

Incase you get bored of the Campaign Mode, however, the game also has an in-depth multiplayer component, which features a relatively basic set of game modes. These include (Team)Killcount, Capture the Flog, and Territories. Interestingly enough, the game features the ability to add bots, regardless of whether or not you’re playin’ with buddies.

The Dark Ops games, while they don’t allow bots, are what I find to be the better half of Perfect Dark Zero’s multiplayer mode. My favorite of these would have to be Infection, in which a couple of skeletons (which spawn with nothing more than a pistol) are sent out to eliminate the rest of the party. If ever you’re killed by one of the “Infected”, you become one of them. When you’re one of the only poor saps left, it can get pretty intense fairly quickly.

Graphics: Though not quite up to the standards of, say, Gears of War or Halo 3, Perfect Dark Zero remains one of the better looking titles on the Xbox 360, which is pretty impressive considering it’s a launch game. The lighting is crisp and beautiful, although some may find the enviornments to be a little too shiny.

The same cannot be said for the cinematics in the singleplayer mode, however. Specifically, the character animations are really awkward. Even in-game, the corpses of your enemies will sometimes flutter up and down the ceiling.

The level designs are, to say the least, extremely diverse. You’ll fight your way through snow-covered mountains, city streets, underwater bases, night clubs, temples, jungles, you name it! Infact, the only enviornment you’ll play through twice throughout the entire experience is the underwater base.

Pros and Cons
+Diverse level designs
+Addictive Multiplayer
-Weak Plot
-Awkward Character Animations

Scores
Story 5.0: While it did give a clever premise, the story fails to provide any twists or character development throughout. If you’re searching for an engrossing plot during Perfect Dark Zero’s singleplayer campaign, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Gameplay/Replay Value 9.5: The game plays fairly similar to the original Perfect Dark. Tack on the ability to play Campaign mode co-opeveratively, along with the vast erray of multiplayer modes, and you’ve got the makings of a smash hit.

Sound 7.0: The gun sound effects are impressive, and the sounds heard throughout the jungle/forest-based enviornments give the game a greater sense of immersion. The voice acting and music, however, is pretty disappointing.

Graphics 8.5: Coupled with crisp textures and sweet gun design, Perfect Dark Zero is arguably one of the prettiest titles on Microsoft’s two-year-old console. It may not be as gorgeous as some of the more recent titles to hit the Xbox 360, though it’s atleast worth checking out for its visuals.

Overall Score: 7.5 (C)

Chances are you may have heard of Kameo: Elements of Power before. Maybe because it’s been getting a lot of attention since it’s unveiling on the Xbox 360, but maybe also because it was a game shown on the back of your Gamecube’s packaging. Yes Kameo originally started out on the Gamecube (rumor has it that Kameo may have even been planned for an N64 release at some point) back before Rare was purchased by Microsoft and after that purchase was made, development of the game continued for the Xbox instead. But in October 2004, one final delay led the way for Rare to turn their focus towards Microsoft’s next gen console that was due out at the end of next year. And that Kameo is the Kameo we have today.

With development time stretching out to nearly 6 years, Kameo has certainly gone through some changes as well. Rare originally planned the game to feature well over a hundred monsters for you to capture, but apparently this idea was far too ambitious and instead Rare focused on polishing up and perfecting less warriors. They kept cutting down the amount of monsters (or warriors as Rare calls them) in the game all the way down to ten. Rare unfortunately even had to cut out an entire warrior element from the game to make the game’s release. Some character and level art was changed over the years, and to be blunt, Kameo has been through development hell. Luckily, in the end Kameo turned out really well. It’s one of the most compelling reasons to pick up a 360, and just one of the best action/adventure games in general.

General Info: Kameo’s mother, Queen Theena, has to make a choice of which of her two daughters she must pass her elemental powers down to, Kameo or her sister Kalus. Theena chooses Kameo and in an uproar of jealousy, Kalus chooses to release the troll king, Thorn, from his stone imprisonment and makes chaos reigns over the once peaceful kingdom and captures Kameo’s family and ancestors. So it is up to Kameo to release find her family and prevent Kalus and Thorn from wreaking havoc upon the land. To do this Kameo gets help from 10 elemental warriors she can transform into and thus begins Kameo: Elements of Power.

There are some interesting plot twists here and there, and just in general, the story is enjoyable with very memorable and entertaining characters, each one brimming with a ton of personality and a ton of interesting traits. It’s just a shame the story is overall a bit shallow and ends quickly. Luckily, the end leaves plenty of room for a sequel. We’ll probably be dead before that game finally surfaces.

Gameplay: Shortly after being shown a, roughly, 30 second cut scene, you are immediately thrown into an action level with no tutorial or without any time to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of the game. You may see this as good or bad depending on the type of person you are. I like this idea, yet I don’t at the same time. I love how Rare made the game start with a bang and didn’t force a two hour long tutorial upon you like in a lot of games. But at the same time, even though I was already aware of the story and events in Kameo before the game released, I would have rather seen a bit of a longer intro cinematic to get a bit more info and backstory on the characters and world before immediately delving into the game. But to be honest, new players to Kameo will have little difficulty familiarizing themselves with the game. The game explains how to play all throughout the first level, and enemies are little challenge, so the learning curve isn’t nearly as steep as it may first appear to be.

The rest of the game is much more approachable. What I found to be very unique was the talking wotnot book called Ortho, Kameo’s guide. He’s part of an adaptive hint system that, depending on how good or bad you are doing, will give you hints and help you if you are stuck in a part of the game. If you are a really good player and seem to be doing well in the game, you will seldom hear from Ortho. But on the other hand, if you…well, suck at the game, he won’t ever pipe down. He’ll, in some cases, literally give you the answers to the problems you’re having. And if you don’t like this "adaptive hint system" you can simply go into the game’s options and turn it off.

Kameo, herself doesn’t possess all too many abilities. She can hover in the air and also has a flip kick move to defend herself. It doesn’t do much damage, but that and in combination with her speed, makes Kameo for quite the fast and agile character. But because she doesn’t have many abilities she will need the help of ten different elemental warriors which is where the big selling point, or gimmick depending on how much you look at things, comes in. Kameo can shape-shift and transform into 10 different elemental warriors and must use their abilities to fight enemies and solve puzzles. To do this, she must hunt down these "shadow trolls" that inhabit Kameo’s world and chase them to the Shadow Realm where she must then defeat and rescue the corresponding elemental sprite. These fights, although fun and look great, visually, can get repetitious since each Shadow Troll fight isn’t much different than the last. Anyways, each elemental warrior starts out in a sprite, or baby form, then upon rescuing it, you are shown a brief cutscene of the sprite transforming into its true form. These were actually the times I was most impressed with Kameo, and found myself enjoying the game most when I acquired a new warrior. It just really blew me away to see the amount of character, personality, and humor Rare can put in their games. Unfortunately Rare could not maintain this vibe all throughout the entire game, but still, they really did an amazing job with these sequences.

Each warrior, looks, feels, controls, and acts completely different from every other warrior in the game. The Kameo team at Rare really let their imaginations run wild when designing each of these things. Calling the game unique would be a major understatement and just downright insulting. Rare has put that much effort into making all of these creatures play, look, and act great. Although a lot of the warriors are used and needed quite frequently others are used scarcely and become unneeded. And it never quite feels like the abilities of each of these creatures is exploited to their fullest which makes the transforming element of Kameo start to feel almost like a gimmick at times. A ludicrously fun gimmick, but a gimmick no less.

Kameo is an action/adventure game. It’s around 60% action and 40% adventure. Kameo, unlike a lot of games in this genre, is mainly combat-oriented. But even the puzzles are combat oriented and take use of the warriors’ combat abilities. Luckily with a good variety of enemies, stunning boss fights (although the final boss is a bit underwhelming), upgradable moves, and new warriors to acquire, the combat never once feels repetitive. Your enjoyment of the game’s combat really comes from how much effort you put into trying to enjoy it. If you upgrade your warriors, try to figure out some really unique combos with the different moves of the warriors, etc. then I guarantee you that you’ll never get bored with Kameo’s combat. Another interesting element Rare adds in is Warrior Focus which is essentially bullet time. This can really allow your imagination to roam wild and come up with some crazy combo moves with the monsters and defeating enemies in this mode and coming up with creative ways to defeat enemies heavily affects your score, which prevents this Warrior Focus mode from becoming a gimmick, like in so many other games that use some form of "bullet-time." The scoring system is no gimmick either. There are a bevy of unlockables too, which comes back to the scoring system. Just trying to get a good score in the score attack mode and unlocking things will increase the longevity of the game substantially.

The other part of Kameo, the puzzles, are a lot less frequent than the combat and like I said earlier, are still more or less combat-oriented since they all take use of the combat abilities of the warriors. Most are quite inventive and make you think, but they aren’t terribly difficult by any means. A lot of these puzzles actually encourage the use of multiple warriors. For instance, early on in the game you will see an icy wall that only the ice creature, Chilla, can climb, but there is a huge gap in between where you are and where the wall is. So how do you reach that wall? Simple. Propel yourself over the gap with Major Ruin and in midair switch to Chilla so you can continue to climb the wall. It’s creative things like this that really bring out the best in Kameo. But there is a downside. The temples and dungeons in Kameo are far too short and small to really make use of all of the characters’ abilities. But in this case it’s quality over quantity so I don’t mind all that much.

Graphics: When playing Kameo the first thing you may notice, especially once you arrive in the Enchanted Kingdom after the first level, are the outstanding graphics. This is the Ferrari of video games when talking about looks. Kameo is one of the best looking 360 games you will lay eyes on for a long time. Every object in the game is parallax mapped and normal mapped creating insanely detailed textures that make the world come alive. Character models sport these same tricks and animate near flawlessly with only a couple jerky animations here and there. Gorgeous lighting, full time depth of field effects, and all that other technical mumbo jumbo most don’t care to hear about. Basically, the game looks awesome. For me, the best part about the graphics is the water. You’ll probably need a fork lift to get your jaw up off the ground when you see this. Not only is the water just downright good looking with great reflections and refractions, but Kameo is the first game to have mathematically correct water. What that means is that every last object in the water will create realistic ripples that bounce, again realistically, off other objects and ripples in the water. The amount of computations this takes to create is just insane, something not even fathomable on previous generation systems. Play this in 720p on an HD TV and you will be in heaven.

That’s not to say there aren’t some bumps in the road. There are some graphical imperfections throughout Kameo. A lot of the particle effects in the game seem to have been taken directly from the Xbox version. And there are tons of reused objects like certain plants or textures all throughout the game world. This is most apparent in the Badlands section of the game, which is essentially the main overworld. From what I have seen there seem to be maybe four or five textures used at most to cover the entire landscape. They seem to be just copied and pasted all over the game world and not only are these textures repetitious, but don’t even have near the amount of detail as any other part of the game. In addition to that, no objects in the badlands have self-shadowing aside from characters within a few feet of you. Shadows from characters will just appear and disappear, no trees, bushes, or any other object cast shadows, and the Badlands in general is just a graphical wasteland. The only saving grace is the insane amount of characters displayed during some of the fights throughout the Badlands. There will be fights with quite literally thousand upon thousands of characters fighting each with their own individual A.I.

Speaking of which, one of the big new features Rare has implemented in the Xbox 360 version of Kameo are the fights in the Badlands. But to be honest, I found these battles to be not as exhilarating as they have been made out to be and they really have no effect on your progress in the game. They just seemed unpolished. I know this may sound a bit crazy, but I really do think Rare needed more time. They created the badlands and these huge fight scenes just for the Xbox 360 version and didn’t exactly have a large amount of time to do so. These portions of the game feel rushed, whipped together, and just completely out of place in Kameo’s fairy tale world, but trust me; the rest of the game far exceeds the sloppiness of the Badlands.

Sound: I saved the best part of the game’s presentation to talk about last and that’s the sound. Kameo, in my opinion, is just one of the greatest games of all time as far as sound goes. Rare went far beyond the call of duty and everything is done perfectly or moreso. Whether it’s the voice acting, sound effects, or music, it’s really hard to fault the sound. Rare for the first time actually went and got some professional talent to do voice work for Kameo instead of using people from in house. Surprisingly these voice actors did a commendable job, although I do miss a lot of the trademark British accents from Rare’s games. Then there’s the game’s music. Just, just, just do yourself a favor and go out and pick up the soundtrack to Kameo. Yes, I’m recommending a game’s soundtrack. I never buy video game soundtracks or listen to them, but Kameo is the only exception. It has some of the most brilliant music I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. Steve Burke is one of the composers at Rare and has done and absolutely mind blowing job on the music in the game. I have literally just put down my controller, sat down, and just took a moment to enjoy the music of the game. That’s a sign of a good soundtrack if I were to ever see one. Although this is really more of a personal preference, I enjoyed more of the music from the older builds of the game back from around 2002 and 2003 which were more enchanting and fairy tale-esque and there are a couple of pieces in the final game that retain that same type of mood and sound, but I would have liked to see more pieces of music like that. But judging the music that made it into the final game, it’s still incredible, no matter what my personal preferences may be.

Another thing that Kameo’s sound does really well is that it creates a very believable and enchanting atmosphere with the music in combination with the sound effects. Kameo’s homeland, the Enchanted Kingdom, is the most obvious example of what I’m talking about. Birds, chirping, the wind blowing in the air, the numerous NPCs conversing amongst themselves, all with the absolute perfect choice of music playing. In conjunction with the visuals, you’ll probably be completely immersed and sucked into Kameo’s world.

Replay Value: There has been a huge misconception going around that Kameo is an insanely short game, some saying less than ten hours. Yes, the main quest is around ten hours, but that’s only if you avoid everything else in the game. Actually, you’ll be hard pressed to not be able to have something extra to do. Numerous unlockables, score attack, side quests, elemental fruit to find, upgrading your warriors, etc. There’s just a large amount of things to occupy your time with. While on the subject of unlockables, the score attack has quite a few bonuses that you will be rewarded with if you can manage to achieve a score that’s sufficient enough. And while most games tend to have fairly dull unlockable things like concept art (which Kameo also does have), there are a lot of cool things well worth trying to earn such as videos of the game from some of its earlier years and even some great secret costumes for Kameo, including her original white and purple one that veteran Kameo fans such as myself will really appreciate. One of the things that will probably extend the length of the game for most is the co-op mode. Two people can play cooperatively through the action stages of Kameo. This mode is neither spectacular, but nor is it bad. It’s fun, but playing split-screen takes away a lot of the fun. Online and system link co-op is coming in the future and will probably prove to be a bit more fun, but until then we’ll just have to settle for split-screen which is still fairly enjoyable.

Pros and Cons
+Innovative monster transforming gameplay
+Top notch production values
+Undeniable charm
-Warriors’ abilities aren’t exploited to their fullest
-Story is somewhat predictable
-A lot of out of place content such as the massive LOTR-esque badlands fights. Seriously what is that doing in a fairy tale world such as this?

Scores

Gameplay 9.0: Aside from the lame badlands sections and repetitious shadow troll fights, Kameo is great. It’s innovative, unique, and just downright fun. Rare can still expand this formula a lot, but for the most part, they still got their magic.

Graphics 9.0: Rare managed to quickly rebuild Kameo from the ground up just for Xbox 360 magnificently in time for the system’s launch. Save a few poorly done areas, Kameo looks great. One of the best showcases for the 360 thus far.

Sound 10.0: To be blunt, perfect. Very few games out there have as much polish on the audio aspects of a game like Kameo does. I honestly can’t fault this game here. The bar can’t be risen any higher.

Replay Value 9.5: Yes the main story can be completed within 10 hours, but why wouldn’t you do all of the optional stuff Kameo offers? Couple that with co-op and a ton of downloadable content and Kameo will have you playing for many months to come.

Overall Score:9.3 (A)

Kameo: Elements of Power is a great entry into what could be one of Rare’s best franchises yet. This series has a ton of potential just waiting to be put to good use. A lot of the possibilities of this monster transforming aspect of the game have yet to be fully explored and elaborated upon, but I’d say Rare still did a pretty amazing job overall. Despite a few kinks in the game’s design such as the horrific looking and playing Badlands sections and the repetitious Shadow Troll fights, Kameo is stunning. There are so many other things to make you overlook any shortcomings that may be. From the innovative monster combat to the unrivaled amount of personality the each character possesses, Kameo is a pretty fantastic achievement in most aspects. It’s one of the best looking and playing Xbox 360 games available right now, and as far as action adventure games go, I think it has set the standard for this next generation so far. Another plus is that there really aren’t that many games available for Xbox 360 so far that can appeal to both kids and adults, so if you have a child interested in getting an Xbox 360, Kameo: Elements of Power may just be a game that the both of you can enjoy immensely. But be forewarned, if you don’t explore Kameo’s world, and do a lot of the optional things there are to do in the game, you may not fully enjoy Kameo as much as you could have.

Review by Mech_Master