Xbox LIVE Addicts: The Gaming Exposition - Xbox LIVE Addicts

So, you haven't heard from me in two years at this blog but here I am again with my second blog entry in a single day..... is it luck? fate? Who knows but here goes.

For those that do not know me and those that even do, I have no real-life flight experience of any kind, my feelings of simulation are gathered from whether I feel like I could be doing this exact thing in reality as we are today, or in the near future, or the past. That should be the definition of simulation to the person who has little real-life experience on a certain topic they are trying to simulate. I do however, own every flight game for the Xbox 360 and the vast majority of them for the Xbox. I do not trade these games in, you could even find a few of them, even though not recent games, in my recent playlist because I enjoy flying. I enjoy simulation, I also enjoy arcade flight games. On my console I use gamepads as well I have a Saitek AV8-R joystick for the 360 that i use, I will touch on both for this particular review. On my PC I have a full yoke/throttle/pedal setup, as for games Flight Simulator, IL-2 of various titles and a few others. I do not play my PC that much at all anymore however, too much to keep updated.

I will not compare the title to other games, I tell you what I see, and what I feel, the menus/options and sometimes a play-by-play basis of me playing the game. That is how I review titles, enjoy.


Apache Air Assault is a game that came out in mid-November for the PC, PS3, and Xbox360. It is published by Activision, and developed by Gaijin Entertainment, who are the same people who brought us the prop-plane WWII simulation, IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey. There was little advertisement so you may not even know of its existance and with that I bring to you my point of view on the game to perhaps help in your decision to make a purchase.

The game does not begin with any type of cinematic to start with, it loads up, and comes to a title screen with a rather nice looking rotating Apache AH-64 sitting on a white/blue background telling you to push the start button. Doing so will give you the usual select a storage space and autosave warning, a short loading screen and you have the main menu of the game. The menu here gives the following options, Campaign, Free Flight, Squad Operations, Options and Extra. The screen itself has the main title, the menu, and there is another rotating helicopter as a background, however you can change this one by choosing the Extra option and going to Hangar. The helicopter you exit the Hangar viewing will be the one displayed on the main menu.

While I'm in the Extra menu let's touch on it for a moment.
- First you have the Hangar, where after unlocking each helicopter (AH-64D Longbow, AH-64X, AH-1, MQ-8B Fire Scout, and Mi-35 Hind), you may then select each, change the skin of each from the skins that you have unlocked, as well as apply up to 4 decals to the helicopter. You may rotate, resize, flip, mirror, move to anywhere, and even wrap the helicopter with each decal. There are many decals/skins to unlock from within the game to customize your helicopters.
- The second option is Statistics, which will show you number of missions completed, total time played, air targets destroyed and ground targets destroyed. The game does not keep track of individual stats for each helicopter.
- The third option is Leaderboards, which include Total Time Played, Targets Destroyed, Missions Completed, Kill Ratio, and Flawless Missions. These are online leaderboards.
- Option four is Replays, the game allows you to save ANY replay, online or offline, any game mode. You can then come to this section and review or delete any of those replays you have saved. Each replay is timestamped with date/time/level/time of day/weather/dificulty so they are easier to find, you cannot name the replays yourself.
- Next you have Encylopedia, from here you can retrieve detailed information on each Game Mode (Campaign, Squad Operations, Free Flight, Replay and Hangar), retrieve detailed information on each difficulty level and their differences which I will also touch on shortly. Information on the Controls is available, this is very detailed in explaining how to yaw and what yaw is how to pitch how to roll what they are etc etc. Includes information on Weapons/AI Gunner/Manual Gun Views/Views/Satellite View and how to use them with your controls. Finally it also gives you detailed information on all of the HUD and what each display tells you/means to you as you pilot your helicopter.
- Finally you have the Credits and an option to go back to the main menu.

Next up on the main menu you have the Options menu selection.
- First you have Game Options where you can set your default view between third-person, cockpit, cockpit(gunner), and virtual cockpit. You may also turn subtitles off or on, change the HUD color between several shades of green, orange, red, yellow, blue, white. You may turn vibration on or off and change the brightness of the screen. Also there is an option fro Gunner Time which allows you to set how many seconds the AI gunner will wait before taking over the guns after you've used them, you can turn this off or have it be 4/8 seconds.
- The second option is Sound Options, here you can set the music volume, music volume while in the menu, sfx volume, radio chatter volume, and speech and FMV volume.
- Third up you can Re-select your Storage Device.
- Finally you have the Controls options. From here you can select your control layout, the options are Default (gamepad), Cyborg FLY9, Saitek AV8-R, and Ace-Edge. Those last three are joysticks in case you were not aware. You cannot map the gamepad controls. However you do still have more options, you can Invert Y-Axis, Invert Camera Y-Axis, Invert Throttle Axis, Invert Y-Axis (Gunner), Swap the sticks (I recommend this if using a gamepad, for me it helped), turn off or on whether to control the gun turret when in zoom (I recommend yes, helps a lot after you get good at it). You can also set the roll, pitch, yaw, and zoom sensitivity sliders. Even though I could not map my gamepad, I did not find it too terribly difficult find something that I was comfortable with. That being said I much prefer and highly recommend using a joystick for this particular flight game, helicopters are.... to say the least... "different" monsters to tackle in the air.

Up from here are the 3 main modes of gameplay. Squad Operations, Free Flight, and Campaign of which I will talk about each separately but in that order.

The Squad Operations mode is your online gameplay. Don't let the title confuse you this is it. There are no adversarial mode types to tackle at all. Squad Operations are sorties (missions) designed for 2-4 players however you do have the option to do them solo or even locally with a co-op gunner. (I will touch more on the local-play when explaining Campaign). You may also set a lobby you create to private or public however you cannot designate specific number of slots as friends only. Of course you can always Quick Match or join someone elses game they have created. You may only join a lobby, not a game/mission already started. Other options for room setup include the mission you would like to do, and its difficulty level (Training, Realistic, Veteran - only unlocks after beating the Campaign). After you've created a room your options then consist of just changing the mission. Difficulty level changes require you to recreate the room.

All of the missions in Squad Operations mode are more basic than campaign however still quite involved/long and very much enjoyable. As well they can be quite difficult especially if you do not have 2, 3 or even 4 players. One of the missions is a race where you can shoot each other down, you also have missions where you take out a bunch of ground targets, escort a ship or transport, dog fight with other helicopters, etc., pretty much everything you get in the Campaign just a more distinct objective with generally harder difficulty due to you having 2-4 real players. There is even a mission where one-two players are drone helo's that paint targets in an area where the Apache would get shot down while the other players piloting the Apache's air strike the painted targets from far away with hellfire missiles. What difficulty levels you have beaten each mission on as well as your Player Score for each mission is kept track of and shown in the mission select screen. There are 13 Squad Operations all together.

Next we will touch on the Free Flight mode. This is a single-player only game mode, which is a real bummer because it would have been fantastic online. You may select from 10 different arenas which are taken from places within the Campaign. You can select the difficulty level, which sides have ground units (friendly, hostile, both, none), you can select the weather (clear, good, hazy, overcast, rain/snow) as well you may select the time of day (morning, day, evening, night). You can set whether you start on the ground and need to take off, or if you start off in the air already and what altitude that may be at. You may set the number of allied aircraft, what type of aircraft and their weapon payload. As well you may set the number of enemy aircraft, what type of aircraft and their payload for weapons. The skill level of each allied/enemy may be set and you can even set what skin you would like for them to be using from the ones you have unlocked. Of course you can also select what type of aircraft you are in as well as weapons. After making all of these selections you click apply and off you go into a mission with all of those parameters. This mode is simply fantastic and great for practicing as certain arenas you select have boat targets etc which can be tricky to get when they are moving and so are you (at least with hydra rockets).

Finally we have the Campaign mode, the bulk of the story. You may play this mode in either single-player or local co-op where the second player acts as the gunner. While I had read many reviews that this was not very fun, my friend and I love it. The pilot has to line up targets, the gunner has to paint them, the pilot has to fire the rockets. The gunner has full control over the gun turret. Its quite engaging and fun for both parties. You may also do the Squad Operations mode local co-op as aforementioned. Counting the Tutorial mission there are 17 missions all together which can be set on either of three difficulty levels however you only unlock Veteran after beating the Campaign the first time. Each mission is quite long, almost as long as you want them to be. They consist of many targets, and most of the time you have an AI controlled wingman piloting an Apache next to you. The missions on Realistic can be quite engaging, and sometimes difficult to the point of restarts. One such mission took me 2-3 days to complete but it never made me want to stop playing, in fact I was elated to keep on over and over with that mission trying different helicopter tactics to see what would finally crack the code. I have heard that even on training difficulty this particular mission can be quite tough though I did not try it. There story is separated into three different campaigns however you would not realize it as you keep switching from location to location/campaign setting to campaign setting on each mission, after realizing this at the very last three missions and replaying the game through, the story unfolds quite well and the missions themselves fall nothing short of epic and a blast to play.

So now you know what the game looks like and how it is represented, but what does the game feel like? Let me start by touching on the difficulty differences. Training is a completely different set of controls from Realistic/Veteran. It is much easier to control your helicopter's stability/strafing with the Training control method, I also found this to be the more comfortable control method when using the controller and not the joystick, however that is not to say you would not enjoy realistic with the controller, it just takes some getting used to especially if you've played many airplane games with the controller. The AI difficulty notches up with each difficulty level as can be expected, the simulation/controls is the same on Realistic/Veteran except that you MUST land at an LZ (landing zone) to replenish fuel/ammunition on Veteran mode.

The damage modeling in the game is simply fantastic and really immerses you in the gameplay. Different parts can get damaged like the gear, or rotor, left engine, right engine, pulley system, radar, tail rotor etc. When these get damaged the helicopter will react differently dependant on the amount of damage to the part and the part that is damaged. You could still be able to fly, even land and get repaired depending on the situation. I even managed to land my helicopter once when the tail rotor was damaged and I was in a flat spin, however because I was not at an LZ (Landing Zone), I did not get repairs, but at least I felt like I saved the life of myself and my gunner.

All of the dials/meters/HUD works inside the helicopter cockpits, they are all different and representative of their real-life counterparts. The attention to detail on the helicopter models themselves is nothing short of amazing, for a console game. The same is to be said about the simulation/flight representation as well. For a console, nothing short of amazing and much of what to be expected from the same people who made IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, however if you try and compare them to a simulation on the PC, it falls well short, so let me make a recommendation, don't try and make that comparison.

The sound within the game is very well done and leaves little to be desired, I've heard reports of the sound of the rotors not working from within the cockpit but I have experienced nothing like this. The radio chatter can keep you very engaged with what is going on around you while playing the game.

The game works extremely well with a joystick and I cannot recommend it more, however I know from experience before I got my joystick (I purchased the AV8-R after Apache) and from the people I play with, that the experience on the gamepad doesn't fall flat either.

The graphics during gameplay are incredible, the only graphical problems I found were actually during some of the cinematics, in particular on mission two, it appears as though it is on the PS1. As you progress toward the later stages of the game the cinematics get much improved but nothing to the likes of Metal Gear or something. The development team clearly chose to focus on gameplay elements/attention to detail over HD cinematics.


Pros: Due to lack of HD cinematics, only 1.3 GB install. Sound. Attention to detail on helicopters. Local co-op in Campaign and Squad Operations modes. Simulation physics/landing/mission design.

Cons: No adversarial mode, no Free Flight mode online or in local co-op.



8.5/10

Greetings fellow gamers,

I write to you today on the topic that has taken over my life as of recent, that being the new expansion titled Cataclysm that has recently come out for the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Perhaps some of you have heard of that game however if you have been living under a rock the past 8 years then I shall briefly shed light on the subject. World of Warcraft is currently the most popular MMORPG in games today. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Over 13 million people subscribe to this game on a monthly basis of $15.... wow must be good then eh? Anyways, this blog post will be brief, my point is to go over the new expansion for those familiar with the game already, not explain the game as a whole as that would take entirely too long.

A very brief history on how the shattering of Azeroth (the Cataclysm) has come to existance. Deathwing, one of the five dragon aspects and dominion over the earth and the deep places of Azeroth, was once known as Neltharion the Earth-Warder, a great protector of the land. During the War of the Ancients Neltharion was driven mad by the Old Gods and turned against the other dragon aspects. He was however defeated by the other dragon aspects and retreated to the the depths of Deepholm (the core of the earth) to regain his strength and to plot a return to Azeroth that would shake it to its very core. With the Cataclysm, Deathwing has now erupted from the bowels of earth and shattered the lands of Azeroth in pieces, unearthing many new things to explore and many new evils to prevail.

Any questions? Good.

Now for the good, the bad, and the ugly. I will break this down into several areas, New Content (areas to explore/quest), Class/Race Specifics, PVP, Professions, and finally Dungeon/Raids.

New Content:
There are 5 new main zones/areas for you to progress from 80-85 in. If you had kept up with Blizzard's hints of epic leveling from 81-85, making it sound difficult and time consuming, this is NOT the case. However the questing itself, does indeed take that classification, of 'epic'. I will not go into the story of the new zones as I do not wish to ruin anything for those wanting to take part, I will however explain some of the questing mechanics. First, there are no '5-man, 3-man w/e group quests' in the new zones. A solo player can, if he/she so chooses, do all of the new questlines by themselves with no assistance from human-interacted players. Instead Blizzard has continued with quest changes seen in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion involving vehicles, npc (non-player-controlled) characters assisting or telling a story, and the phasing of zones as you do quests to unravel the story (the zones/areas themselves change, for example you burned down a city in a quest, afterwards the city is in ashes as before it was a city with people/monsters etc. (this is just an example)). These types of quests make for a much more enriching lore/history that you learn about as you go, as well the quest itself is more enjoyable than the 'hey go kill this and bring me back whatever he drops' quests from previous history in WoW and other MMORPG's.

That's it you say? 5 new levels and 5 new zones/areas????? On the contrary my friend, Deathwing's eruption from the middle of earth is CATACLYSMIC to say the least, the realm has been Shattered and forever changed. The only old zones not changed are from the previous two expansions, Outlands (from Burning Crusade) is unchanged, as well Northrend (from Wrath of the Lich King) is unchanged. However, ALL OF AZEROTH (level 1-60 content) has been forever changed. All of the new questlines/story are of the same great/epic build as the 5 new zones for 80-85, including phasing of zones and epic interactive cinemas/vehicles etc. As well, you can now FLY IN AZEROTH, previously unable to do so (only flyable zones were Outlands and Northrend).

The content itself flows extremely well within each zone/area, there are no times I would forsee a character/player getting stuck because the leveling content is too difficult or because he/she does not know where to go next. With that statement some of the more hardcore players may frown, well let me tell you, turn that frown upside down. The leveling content is exactly what you want, enriched, compelling, enjoyable, fast-paced and almost movie-like. Never will you have to grind for some xp because there are no quests available to do. There are also quests that TEACH the mechanics of how to survive raid/dungeon encounters that could potentially cause everyone to die if not executed properly, preparing players for the harder parts of the game. I did mention they are harder? I'll touch base on that at the end but heroic content has finally returned to actually being heroic content similar to vanilla WoW. (most felt Wrath of the Lich King was way too easy)

Just a comparion between expansions and new content:

Burning Crusade:
- Two new races, Blood Elf/Dranei, thus allowing horde to have the paladin class on BE's and the alliance to have the shaman class on Draenei. Previously these two classes were faction-specific. New starting zones for these races as well (levels 1-20)
- 10 new levels (60-70)
- New continent with 7 new zones/areas to quest in/progress from 60-70
- New PVP battleground Eye of the Storm for 60+ characters.
Wrath of the Lich King:
- New Hero Class (Death Knight), must have a 60+ character and DK's start at level 55. All races can be a DK. Starting zone for DK's lvl 55-60
- 10 new levels (70-80)
- New continent with 9 new zones/areas to quest in/progress from 70-80
- Entirely new World PVP Battleground called Wintersgrasp
- 2 new PVP battlegrounds Isle of Conquest and Strand of the Ancients for 70+ characters.
Cataclysm:
- Two new races, Goblin/Worgen, as well making many class/race combinations that were not previously available. Starting zones for these two races level 1-10 then advanced to changed areas of Azeroth.
- Complete overhaul of classes to make more fun and enjoyable as well as easier to understand/use but still enjoyable for the hardcore player.
- 5 new levels (80-85)
- 7 new zones spread through Azeroth (filled in gaps of zones you could not get to before but were on maps) to quest in/progress from 80-85
- Entire 2 original continents changed, that is approx. 35 new zones to quest in/progress from 1-60
- New World PVP Battleground called Tol Barad
- 2 new PVP Battlegrounds called Twin Peaks and Battle for Gilneas.
- New secondary profession called Archaeology to unearth the lore of Azeroth as well as find some toys/items to help you on your journey.

Class/Race Specifics:
They made a few racial changes to the current races to balance them (this is ongoing/never-ending) but nothing has changed with the old races much other than that. You can now pick some classes that weren't available before to certain races, ie gnome priest, dwarf shaman, tauren paladin etc. There are however, 2 new races in Azeroth, Goblin (Horde), Worgen (Alliance). I will let the expansion tell their story, both of the new races fit with the lore quite perfectly and are very fun to play. Cosmetically they both look very good. I do not see any balance issues with these races either.

They have completely overhauld the talent/skill/spells of every class in the game, some classes like hunters, will feel to be entirely different to their playstyle than previously, again I cannot delve to deep into this as that would take entirely too long. Basically, they have made each talent tree in each class more specific to what that tree was supposed to be doing. A prime example of this would be seen with the Deathknight class, as previously all three trees could tank or dps or pvp or pve. Now it is more specific as blood is really the only possible tanking spec to take etc. They have also lowered the Dual Talent specialization from level 40 to level 30 and from 1000gold cost to 10gold cost so that players can better take advantage of this change as they progress through the game. This is perfectly fine as I would say until level 30 or so, you do not need a specific spec to heal a dungeon, or tank a dungeon, or dps a dungeon, just about all of them will work until level 30, and even past that for some. Another advantage is that choosing a correct talent spec is much easier for people as there are less talents/points to spend, as well all of the talents seem much more useful in certain situations where previously it felt as if there were some useless talents you were forced to take to advance to the better talents down the tree.

Stats/gear has been redesigned so there are no stupid pieces of gear (intellect and strength on the same piece) as well so that it is easier to gear your character the way you want him/her. They have added in Reforging as well which allows you to visit an NPC and spend gold to change the minor stats of an item for another minor stat (hit rating, crit rating, mastery rating, parry rating, dodge rating etc). Stats that cannot be reforged are the main attributes (strength, intellect, stamina, agility, spirit). This makes it extremely easy to get the exact gear you want as well allows you to customize/differentiate yourself from the rest of the population, even someone with the exact same gear pieces as you.

PVP:
I would say PVP has not changed that much. It is still a never-ending seesaw of balancing skills/classes, that will not change. A few things have changed however, Wintersgrasp and the new Tol Barad (very similar in idea to WG) have gotten rid of the tenacity buff when one faction outnumbers another, instead it is always even numbers vs even numbers. This is much better as the tenacity buff did not help enough when one faction out-numbered the other 8:1. The cap on the amount of players in WG and TB is 80, however if 70 queue up on horde and 50 queue up on alliance it will be a 50vs50 match until the undermatched side gets more players. (which can happen DURING the battle). They have added 2 new battlegrounds for level 85 players. The Battle for Gilneas (a conquest style battleground similar to Arathi Basin but with 3 bases instead of 5 and a nice -non-controlled base in the middle/crossroads area that can be used as a defensive compound in between the 3 bases. Twin Peaks is a CTF style battleground very similar to Warsong Gulch but with updated graphics, it takes place in Twilight Highlands between the Wildhammer Dwarf Clan and the Dragonmaw Orc Clan. 2 bases, flag at each base, return opposition flag to your base to capture. First to 3 flags wins. The main difference between WSG and TP is that all of the structures in the midfield are LOS (line of sight obstacles), unlike WSG where you can shoot through rocks/treestumps. They have also lowered the level requirements on all previous battlegrounds allowing more battleground options to be available at lower levels. None of the new quest zones have any world pvp events similar to some of the older zones like Eastern Plaguelands/Hellfire Peninsula. All of the old world pvp events still exist after the Shattering.

Professions:
All the professions can be leveled to 525 now from 450 with the new expansion, new recipes, new toys, new enhancements etc as to be expected. With the exception of Alchemy and Engineering, all second-tier professions (ie Dragonscale Leatherworking, Armorsmith/Weaponsmith etc) are gone. The only ones still there are Goblin/Gnomish Engineering and Potion/Elixir/Transmutation Mastery from Alchemy. A new secondary profession has been added called Archaeology. This profession allows players to survey the Shattered realms of Azeroth and unearth ancient artifacts/lore to tell stories of our past, as well find some neat vanity items/toys/mounts and even Bind on Account weapons/armor. Other than that not much has changed here, still cooking dailies/fishing dailies as well.

Dungeons/Raids:
Most of the classic dungeons have changed slightly, some of them have changed completely (Shadowfang Keep/Deadmines). Obviously with the new levels for zones the levels for dungeons in those zones have also decreased or increased as needed. Most notably changed would be boss mechanics, they are a lot more akin to what you would see in vanilla wow and not the easy stuff from Wrath of the Lich King. There is now a Heroic Deadmines/Shadowfang Keep for level 85s (a request by many since the begining of time). All the new dungeons have very nice boss mechanics and actually a level of difficulty to them. Heroic versions are back to being as titled, "HEROIC" instead of a walk-in-the-park like in Wrath of the Lich King. Not to worry if you fear dying a lot, the new questlines/zones actually help to teach you boss mechanics as you progress to 85 making it easier for you once you get there. I would expect Raids to be the same but have only gathered what I can from my roommate as I don't raid much myself, lets just say they are pretty epic so far.

I began this tale with a 'good the bad and the ugly' lead-in and I must be honest, its only good. There is no bad this time around like the previous two expansions, and there is definately no ugly at all found in Cataclysm. This is by far the best expansion they have released and you can really tell how far the company/programmers/game has progressed from then, to now.

Hopefully, this has helped shed some needed light for those on the tipping point. Do I think Cataclysm would even be worth it for those without the first two expansions? (you'd have to purchase all three) The answer is easily, YES.




9.5/10

Here we have Left 4 Dead, Valve's attempt at the zombie-game genre. You may remember Valve, yeah they developed that erie blockbuster named Half-Life, as well as the multiplayer mayhem that is Team Fortress. They definately have the pedigree to take on this task so let's get to the meat and potatoes of this review so you can see for yourself.

The game begins right after you put the disc in. A cinematic kicks in straight-away that leads right into the first scenario of the game. You are given the option to skip it, but I would highly recommend watching this as you get a feel for the game, are introduced to one of the meanest infected in the game and what to do when nearby, and gives you a lil insight on the 4 survivors and their demeanor with some excellent voice acting director/storytelling. Definately puts you right into the mood of the game and gets you pumped for the first scenario. I've mentioned first scenario, so let me explain what I mean by that real fast so I don't lose you.

The game itself, both online and offline is split into 4 different scenarios. Each scenario plays out like a movie. There's a movie poster at the start, with a clever/funny catch-phrase line and a shot of the 4 survivors with a background related to that particular scenario. It also lists the cast on this poster under the picture of each survivor, ie. Bill as Himself, Bank of Dank as Zoey, Louis as Himself, Francis as Himself. At the end of each scenario are the movie credits, which Valve did a very innovative job here by using it as a stat tracker for that particular scenario. The cast is mentioned first of course, and then it goes into numerous stats, like number of each infected killed, accuracy, friendly fire incidents, headshots, number of pills used, first aid used etc. You think of it, and the stat is probably in the credits somewhere. The story/movie itself is completely played out by you, you won't see any cinematics explaining plot or characterization with the exception of the one you see when you first put the disc in. The opening cinematic is fantastic and leads directly into the start of the first scenario. Why they didn't put this at the begining of the first scenario, or make one similar for the begining of each other scenario I do not know as it would definately add to the movie feel I'd think. Without getting too far ahead of myself, let me get back to where I was.

We are at the main title screen so let me explain its menu real fast, sub-menu options will be in parantheses. Just to let you know, you can enable split-screen with a second controller connected by pressing the start button on the second controller from the main title screen. Your first option from the menu is Play Campagin, which is where you would want to go if you wanted to find some people online to play with (Quick Match & Xbox Live Custom Match), or if you wanted to play with friends online (Play With Friends). Quick match finds a match straight away that best fits your experience level. Xbox Live Custom Match will allow you to select difficulty and which Campaign you're looking for, as well whether you want to join a game in progress or one waiting in the lobby. Play With Friends will bring up a list of friends playing and what games they are in. If joinable you can join from this screen. You can also create your own lobby from the Play With Friends screen. You can make lobbies private, friends only or public, as well you can set the difficulty and campaign desired. Once in your own lobby you may also change the Chapter of the campaign chosen if you don't want to start from the begining. When online, character selection happens in the lobby, random is also a choice here. Next menu item is Play Versus, the sub-menu options here are all the same as Play Campaign so I won't explain them again. Then you have Play Single Player which allows you to start a campaign at which chapter and difficulty you'd like as well choose a character. Note: If a second controller is logged in for split-screen, it will apply to every option here, meaning you and a local buddy can go online and play coop or versus with others. The next menu item is Achievements, this is self-explainatory but I would like to note it does keep track of how many kills or whatever you have so you know how much further you have to go to reach your achievement, if applicable. The next menu is Options which I will explain in the next paragraph. Last you have the Extras (Developer Commentary & Credits). The Credits are exactly that but the Developer Commentary is something new and innovative brought to us by Valve. Selecting this will allow you to choose a character and go straight into the first campaign. During this campaign, the Infected will not take notice of you until the very end. You can travel and explore as you like through the whole thing, even kill all the infected if you wish. There are chat bubbles you can interact with throughout the first campaign that will start a voice commentary about certain things within the game and why they chose to go certain routes with their developement of Left 4 Dead. I highly recommend playing through this after you've completed the first campaign at least once. It doesn't ruin anything if you decide to do it right away either.

The options menu from the main title screen has three sub-menus (Audio/Video, Controller and Storage). The latter just selects the storage device for the current profile. Under Audio/Video you have settings for Brightness, Color Mode (Television or Monitor), Film Grain Amount, Splitscreen direction (Horizontal or Vertical), Master Volume, Music Volume, and turning Closed Captioning on or off. Under the Controller menu you have Button Layout between 4 different configurations. Stick Layout (Normal or Southpaw), vertical and horizontal sensitivity, look type inverted or normal and whether you want to toggle crouch or hold it down. I'd also like to mention that while playing online with friends in a co-operative campaign, the pause menu has these options as well as a Take a Break option which allows you to take a break from the game and let the computer take over for you. Also the vote option is available which allows you to vote to go back to the lobby, change the difficulty on the fly, or kick an offending player out of the room.

I described the way the scenarios are layed out earlier but now I'll go into the meat of the gameplay. The first thing I noticed about this game was its lack of cinematics. The opening intro did leave me at first to believe there would be many more like it, but there is not. There is a very small scene before each scenario and an escaping scene at the end, which is usually just the vehicle rescuing the remaining survivors, getting away. The final rescue scenes are more of just a visual from the vehicle itself, letting you see the hordes of zombies frenzy as they attempt to find a path to reach you. This can be quite humorous and a great way to end each scenario in my opinion as it its quick and a different view of the zombies every time. Some may be disappointed by the lack of cut-scenes found in the game however because of the immense replayability to be had here, I found having less of these to interrupt actual gameplay to be a blessing and common-sense as I hate to have to skip cut-scenes over and over if I play a game a lot, and this games scenarios are meant to be played a lot, over and over. I will mention that a slightly larger, but not by much, opening scene for each movie, shortly describing how the 4 of you got there, well this would have been nice but having played the scenarios many times now and explored its story through visual queues I can say its not necessary.

The hud is very well set up, the health/situation of each survivor can be seen at the bottom with a bar, which looks different when using pain pills for health. Accompanied with this bar you can see whether each survivor carries a health pack, pills, or explosives of any type. Below each bar is the survivors name or the gamertag of who is playing them. On the right side of the screen you see your D-pad button display, which allows you to turn your flashlight on and off, change to health, pills or your chosen explosive if carrying any. Above the d-pad display is the guns you're carrying and how much ammo you have for your main gun. Over each survivor is their name as well. The survivors themselves also look quite a bit different from any infected by color and shadow so I really didn't have a difficult time ever telling them apart from the masses of zombies. This really helped in frantic situations for friendly fire, which on the harder difficulty levels can really come into play as a shotgun blast to your commrade will send them to the floor incapacitated. As well when any survivors are not near you, you can see a highlighted sillouhette through walls and floors to help you find them. This highlight will also change colors depending on their situation, really helping to alert you to people snagged by a hunter or smoker, and helping you find them if for some reason you happen to be split up.

Each survivor can carry two pistols, a larger weapon, one health pack, one bottle of pills, and one explosive either molotov or pipe bomb. You can visibly see what a survivor is carrying just by looking at them, or as mentioned before above their health bar at the bottom of the screen. The importance of choosing the right weapon and explosive, because you can only take one, really pays off for the co-op side of things here. The mechanics of each weapon and explosive are vastly different so deciding on who takes what can be of the highest importance especially when preparing for a Crescendo Event or any of the campaigns' rescue finales.

The story of each scenario is played out by the 4 of the survivors entirely. What you choose to look at and read, as well as how quickly you try and advance from safe house to safe house, is all up to you. In fact, each story is kind of played out individually even though this is a co-op affair, let me briefly explain. There is a built-in director in the background telling everything how to play out, as you move through each scenario. The enemies spawn based on where you're going at that instant, making it impossible to figure out spawn points, giving you an endless supply of replays through each scenario without real repetitiveness. The music/sound of the game is also handled the same way and gives to an eerie suspenseful feeling, as well letting you know when a special infected may be nearby. Valve wanted to make sure this was a game you were definately not going to turn the sound or music off to do your own thing and I must say they did a wonderful job at that. The best part about this background director, is that it is for the individual. Everyone playing hears a different soundtrack based on their precise location within the scenario. This also holds true for the AI and its reactions/spawn locations, meaning someone wondering off alone could end up in a heap of trouble before long. Because of this individual AI director and the way the special infected are handled, co-operative gameplay becomes essential.

There are five chapters of each scenario to go through, this is travelling safe house to safe house until you finally reach the finale at the end. The final chapter consists of the four survivors going that last step to reach the rescue pickup point. They then have to call the rescurers on the radio there and fend off the hordes of infected for 10-15 minutes until their saviors arrive. Each safe house will have ammunition, as well as possible weapons, health or pills depending on the internal game director's choice. The final rescue point has all items to stock up on, as well exploring around can find you explosives of many types to help in your escape.

I've mentioned special infected already and their are five different types of special infected, each having their own types of attacks that wreak havoc in entirely different ways. The Boomer is a glutton, bolbous and ugly, he moves slow but has an attack that can regurgitate on its target or targets from a medium range. If covered by his slop, all of the horde will instantly be attracted to the ones affected, covering them with a huge swarm of zombies. As well the affected are essentially blind, making it difficult for them to see, in turn forcing the unaffected survivors to assist them with all this horde, and hoping they don't get shot by the blind survivors random gunfire. The hunter is a stealthy fellow, able to pounce on an unsuspecting survivor from quite a distance. Once pinned to the ground, that survivor is at the mercy of the hunter and the other survivors, fate in their hands. Next is the smoker, a long distance sniper type who stays away and will try and lash at a survivor with his long tongue, dragging them to him or hanging them from up high so the horde can have their way with them. Like the hunter, the effected survivor is at the mercy of the other survivors to get them out of this bind. Then there is the tank, a massive hulking beast that is slightly slower than a running survivor. This enraged monster will smash their way to killing all of the survivors. As well they can hurl cars and chunks of stone from the ground at the survivors, stunning or even incapacitating them in a single throw. Last is the witch, this sobbing wench can be heard from quite far away, alerting the survivors of her presence so they can take precautions. For if you alert a witch from her crying state, she will almost certainly kill the one who frightened her unless all of the survivors can very quickly react.

The ordinary zombie horde themselves will wander slowly around or even be sitting or just standing there, perhaps coughing, puking, weezing, evening fighting one another as you observe them. Once they take notice of a survivor they will find whichever path they can to get to them quickly. The zombies can reach you no matter where you are, they will always find a path. Watching them can be amazing. Entering a room or area with many zombies wandering about can be fun, they can either all react to you at once when alerted or not, it all varies. Having a massive horde of zombies surround you can be quite intense, especially when it takes a few reloads from the shotgun. Keep in mind one shot can decimate quite a few zombies at once if placed right, so we're talking a whole lot of freaking zombies man. Sometimes the music will heighten, and you will hear off in the background zombies in a frenzy reaching closer and closer toward you only to see them frantically climbing over a wall or around a corner or whatever the path need be. This can be a very intense moment for the four survivors as usually a special infected or two or three or even all of them will be involved as well.

Even with the impressive AI director and impossible to predict spawning of infected, to keep the game from being just the four survivors running from safe house to safe house killing the infected in their path, Valve decided to put in what they call Crescendo Events to spice things up every now and then. Each campaign usually has one or two of these events that must be done in order to progress past a certain point. This could be the opening of a door with an alarm on it, raising of lift, waiting on an elevator, there are many different events I can't list them all. Triggering these will cause a massive swarm of infected and special infected to frenzy towards the four survivors that must fend them off until the end of that particular event. These are much like the end of each movie but not nearly as long. Also littered through the game can be vehicles with still active car alarms, if they go off, hordes of infected will charge towards the survivors. The car alarms in particular can be quite a difficult task to overcome so making sure not to hit these vehicles that can be visibly noted before-hand, really important.

The scenarios themselves can be quite linear, though you still usually have two or three different routes to take at all times. These slightly different paths to take when paired with the previously mentioned AI director and music director, can make replaying each scenario as fun as the first time you tried it, even after playing them over, and over, and over. Every window can be broken, as well as numbers of different types of furniture. Doors can be clawed through by zombie hordes or blasted through by shotguns. Almost every door you see that isn't barricaded can be opened and closed, leaving many closet locations to explore that have zombies wandering about and can be possible locations for molotovs, pipebombs, first aid, pills and ammo. The better weapon stashes also have random locations to spawn in so searching around can be essential to survival at times.

The graphics in the game are stunning to say the least, the lighting from the flashlights and surrounding areas is amazing. Film grain was used at certain times to give the game that horror/zombie movie feel which as I said before can be completely adjusted with a slider for your own personal liking. Gas-tanks, propane tanks, even nitrogen tanks can all be found, picked up and used for explosive purposes with proper placement and the strike of a bullet. Broken down vehicles, gas stations themselves, & flammable barrels litter the areas as well to be fired upon as help, or hindrance to your survival in the game. All of these explosions are quite stunning to say the least, especially to see the hordes reactions to them. Blood, guts and body parts flying all over the place flood the game. You can aim where you want with the infected and get the expected results and glorious bloody detail that puts anything else I've played in my video game lifespan to shame. The detail of the maps and areas is incredible, there are things to read and look at everywhere. Clear visible signs of a story can be told as you travel along your chosen path. Each zombie moves, looks and reacts in many different ways leading to a different experience with almost every zombie every time. They will also find whatever path necessary to reach their goal and the amount of animations used for their movement through such path is really quite incredible.

The difficulty levels make the game extremely accessible to anyone's ability. Easy is still a frenzied rush of intense excitement but something anyone has the ability to get through. As you increase the difficulty so does the amount of infected/special infected and how quickly they react to you. Expert is something 4 people will be trying to tackle for a very long time. Friendly fire damage is also increased as the difficulty rises. When incapacitated you will eventually bleed out, as well the horde of infected will continue to attack you. You do have the ability to shoot with your pistol in this position. You may be revived from being incapacitated three times. After that you'll die when your health reaches 0. Once dead however, you'll only be out of the action for a moment. The game puts you in a spectator mode for a few minutes letting you take a break from the excitement and view the other survivors. Then it will place you in a closet somewhere that the remaining survivors have to reach and open to help you escape. If everyone dies, the last safe house is where you may restart.

One thing I haven't spoke about is the online versus mode. Yet again Valve comes up with something extremely innovative and fun to play. When listening to the developer commentary you find out that originally the Versus mode was supposed to be the entirety of the game until they decided to split it up later on. So what this means is that its the exact same except the special infected within each scenario, with the exception of the witch, will all be controlled by human opponents. Confused? Well hopefully this clears it up, 8 people can get into a single versus match, meaning four survivors and four infected. You may choose any chapter from any of the campaigns to play on, including the finale. Survivors can choose their characters in the main lobby. When the game starts the four survivors play out what appears to be a co-op campaign. Still lots of infected wandering about, still an interanl AI/music director, still have to escape. The four infected start as a spectator ghost waiting to spawn, looking directly at the four survivors. You can move your ghost around to any location then pull the right trigger to spawn. As long you cannot see the survivors, you can spawn, meaning you can spawn righht around the corner. You don't get to choose an infected this is randomly chosen for you to keep the game fair, we don't want tank after tank coming out. You then take your usually short-lived life to do what your chosen special infected is supposed to do. After death you are immediately in ghost respawn view and can find another spawn location. This is extremely fun and can really be co-operative again but not just for the survivors but for the special infected as well as working together can really bring out the best result in their attacks. As well, Valve mentioned in the developer commentary that with this mode, escape was really not expected, its heightened intensity far outweighs what you experience in the campaign/co-op and a score is kept for each team till they likely fail, or perhaps they succeed. There are two rounds per chapter so each team of 4 gets a chance to play the survivors and the infected. Top scores at the end of course are deemed the winner.

Well I think I've covered everything and I do apologize if I left anything out. I'm now supposed to do a score or something so below I've listed some pros and cons as well as stuff you may not like but didn't bother me, tagged with my overall score for the game. Thanks for reading if you got this far.


Pros: Individual AI & music director. Graphics and sound are incredible, really give a sense to the game and it's zombie movie/escape/survival feel. Doors open and close. Every time I play a scenario it seems vastly new to me. Detail of the characters and infected is really incredible, you don't see the same zombie models over and over. Aiming and gunfire/explosives is really well done. Blood and gore expected of a zombie game trying to make it look like you're playing a zombie movie is spot on. Incredible co-op and versus gameplay. Very innovative and new game to a genre that already has so many titles.

Cons: None for me.

You may not like: Only 4 campaigns, while these can be replayed over and over and over with everlasting joy and appeal, having even just one more or any more may have been a blessing for the majority.

Score: 9.3/10

as the title suggests.... wait no this is not some drug-induced blog entry so get out of the gutter!

We played Shaun White really late last night having a fantastic time with some friends locally. There really isn't any local play, which is a shame but I have always felt split-screen in these types of games really didn't work well anyways, but still something you wouldn't think they'd leave out. That being said, all of us last night, usually the type to sod off and game by ourselves so we can get more time with the controller in our hands, we were all having a blast just taking turns on the mountain or different challenges we came across. The views and just simply watching the fantastic runs you can put together were enough to hold the spectators at bay.

My view of the game still stands, in fact even though I pointed out the local play flaw, I would raise my score if I could the more I play the game. Here's one snipet of information I definately left out of my review that is a very important part of the game and essence to a lot of people in this genre. Here's the scoop below.

I didn't talk about the different type of boards available to purchase. There are Freeride boards, Freestyle boards, & Park boards. If you've ever purchased a snowboard, this holds true to life they didn't just make these names up or something. Best of all each board has a remarkably different feel/ride down the mountain. To reach the higher tier of some of the challenges, you really do need to invest in a board for that type of challenge you're up against. Top class!



Ended up taking off work today as well cause I woke up two hours late feeling a bit woozy.

Ok, so if you haven't seen me mention it in the past couple days on the site somewhere, I've been rather excited to get my hands on Shaun White Snowboarding for the Xbox 360. The last snowboarding title for the 360 was at launch with Amped 3, and for me, that is entirely too long. As well this title, using the Assassin's Creed engine, has boasted some impressive videos and screenshots for me to drool over while I waited. The past couple days have proven to be the tougher to get through as a few of the initial reviews begin to roll onto the web. I generally just read reviews and shove them aside as I like to form my own opinion thank you, and with that I bring to you my first blog entry in The Gaming Exposition, hopefully it helps enlighten you on whether or not this particular snowboarding game is for you.

Well first, when I put the disc in and loaded her up I'm greeted by a familiar friend, the Ubisoft logo, this time with the added flare of a neat snowy effect, how nice. Now I generally like to take a smoke break and watch the loading/startup/initial video sequence so as usual, I did this first thing.

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.... .. Ok, now that the important stuff has been taken care of, let's get down to business. As soon as you press the start button from the main screen, you're taken through a short video of one of the mountains while Shaun White voices a lil forward/preface for the game, it does have a touch of humor to lighten the mood if need be, this sort of humor is found throughout the game as well, even the manual appears to be written by Shaun himself

After this short vid, you're taken to where you create you personal snowboarder, you can choose between male and female to start. There are 16 faces to choose from for males and 7 faces for females. No customization options to any of the faces. You're given $4,000 to start with and you have to buy your gear. There are free options in each category as well so money doesn't have to be spent right away or you can spend it all on one item to start if you'd like. You can purchase different boards, bindings, jackets, pants, boots, gloves, hats, goggles and even backpacks. Accessories and clothing in this game is definately not lacking. There are thousands of combinations that you can create so your character will certainly be unique on the slopes even though his or her face may resemble another boarder

After you've created your personal snowboarder, you may start riding. First thing you'll notice is the loading screen. I thought I was in the matrix right away as I saw my character and just white, but then realized during the loading screens I have a half-pipe to ride in void of any background whatsoever, cool enough for me though as it gives me a chance to practice a pretty difficult part of the game, that being the half-pipes while I wait on the loading times. I tinker with the controls a bit pressing each button before I head down to the half-pipe. Pressing B, I pick up some snow in the form of a snowball and throw it upon release of the button, nifty! Pressing Y while stationary, and my rider unclicks his bindings and gets off the board to walk around, really nifty! The game loads fairly quickly and tells me to press A to continue and not being one to wait, I do so without even trying the half-pipe, but great that its there during loading times even though it does really feel like the matrix with its white/void background.

A beautiful view of snowy mountains in the background greets you straight away with a message instructing you to get on your board and fasten your bindings, it also informs you that you can take the right path ahead for a quick tutorial, or the left path if you feel you already know what you're doing. Of course I took the right path, but first lets talk quickly about the hud.

Your camera view is directly behind your boarder, and this can be controlled with the right stick, as well while you're riding with the right and left bumpers to get a side view as you fly down the mountain. In the bottom right is a radar of sorts that shows you locations of certain things close to your proximity. In the bottom left corner is the d-pad controls so let me briefly go over those. Pressing right on the d-pad will bring up your music options which can be your own set playlist from music off your 360's hard drive, or can be one of several set playlists in the game. You can also stop the music, fast forward, & rewind. Also let me note here that the soundtrack in this game is simply fantastic. Pressing down on the d-pad brings up your special options, allowing you to set markers you can warp to at any time, access the save replay editor and setting a betting quest, which is a multi-player function allowing you to create your own challenges, apply a wager to it and challenge friends. Pressing up on the d-pad will access your multi-player options and pressing right on the d-pad will access your chat functions, as well as being able to turn off Proximity of other players. The multi-player of this game operates very much like Test Drive Unlimited and Burnout Paradise to give you an idea. So other than the radar and your d-pad menu, the hud is clear of nothing but beautiful powder and snowy views. Now, on with the game, lets get through this tutorial.

As you head down the right path, the game interjects for a moment to give you pointers on how to ride and explain some of the controls to you. You go through the normal, ollie this, ollie and spin this, ollie and grab, grind etc. The usual if you've been through this type of game before. It is quite brief though as you reach a large jump towards the end it takes you through a short cinematic as you bail and Shaun comes to your rescue, then proceeds to give you your first mission, telling you to collect 12 Euros scattered about the mountains, then to come back to him. Sounds easy enough lets get on with it. Starting down the mountain immediately in front of you is your first Euro, alright! Checking my lil radar thing I noticed earlier I see two more Euro icons behind me up the mountain a bit it seems and several other icons of other sorts scattered about as well. Not knowing what these are I just continue down the mountain trying to get a handle on the new control layout that differs a bit from other games of this genre prior. I'm able to pull off several daft manuevers if I say so myself and well... bail many many... many times. After a few minutes down the slope I finally reach the bottom and am greeted with a message informing me that I can get back up now using the chair lift or the helicopter, and the mountain is mine to free roam as I please. As well it informs me that there are many challenges and competitions all around the mountain, and that I can press the back button to access my trail map which looks very similar to a real trail map you would get from a ski resort. Using the right stick in the map I can scroll through the different map markers as well as relocate to many chair lift and helicopter locations scattered around the mountain on the fly. The euros I need to find however are not marked on this map, so I decide to relocate to the highest point on the mountain and see what kind of view I can find. So alright then back up the mountain shall we?

I took the helicopter to get to the top so I got a short cinematic of a helicopter flying and then was literally dropped in on the location of my choice, which happened to be the peak. Absolutely breathtaking is all I can say, I immediately try and come to a stop before I fly down the mountain too far, I then unsnap my bindings, lets have a look around. Apparently there is a challenge right here as well, but its a multiplayer King of the Hill challenge so we will have to tuck that away for later. The view from here is really.... quite incredible. Well anyways, lets find these Euros and get on with the game already. I begin to carve my way down the mountain really enjoying the simulation feel of this title and its gorgeous scenery. Using my handy radar, I'm able to find another Euro relatively quickly, then shortly after fall off the mountain into an ice chasm to my death. This respawned me back where I found the Euro (later finding that when you die it just respawns you where you last stopped on your board or a short distance away if it has been a long time since you stopped). I continue down the run, carving this way and that, doing a few rails and grabs, maybe a bail or two. Overall doing pretty well and getting the hang of this new control scheme fairly quickly. The sense of speed is incredible when you really start to fly, as well the camera pans out on the really steep drops to give you a feel for whats about to happen at the right times Takes my breath away that's for sure. Zooming down I notice on my radar I've passed my other Euro to collect for this mountain, but not wanting to waddle on my board back up or even unsnap the bindings and walk, I just simply continue on down the slopes enjoying my new found toy. Getting to the bottom again after a very long ride, this mountain is absolutely enormous, I decide to take the chair lift this time and waddle my way over to it, finding my way into the chair lift I'm immediately put into the chair and just begin my lift up the mountain. You actually get to ride the lift up the mountain, or you can skip it if you'd like, taking you to the top of that particular chair lift instantly (their are a few lifts for each mountain linked together to get you up to the peak over various slopes). Even better, you can 'drop' from the chair at any point up your ascent just like you'd want to be able to! Taking the lift from bottom to top can also be good for a break if necessary as it takes 10 minutes or so to do it. While riding on the chair lift the view is first person and you can move your head around in all directions except behind you, as your head would then twist off and you would die so, that's a good thing. This is also a time to really enjoy the fantastic job the developers did on the graphics of this game, snow clouds from wind off the powder, other boarders going down the slopes etc, as well as the sky and lighting which is truly incredible. When I arrived at the top it was simple enough to find my third and final Euro for this mountain using my radar but after I found it the game really didn't inform me of anything new to do. So I took the closest lift back up and had another go down the slopes! Seriously a joy for me so far! The replication of actually going to a ski resort and having a day at the slopes on your favorite snowboard in your favorite kit.... well they did an excellent job at making you feel exactly that in this game.

I found my first challenge after some extensive carving of the back country first I ended up getting the lowest rank and earning me $55 on my first go, not bad I thought so I continued on. Found another challenge after some more free riding and this time it was an air trick challenge where only air tricks counted towards my score. Had to run this twice in order to get the lowest rank, but earned me $110 for doing so. After this I decided to just enjoy the mountain for a bit, having a quick break on my next chair lift run taking in the sites, I happened to spot a wicked line I thought would be fun as I rode up the mountain on the lift and decided, yeah let's drop, hit the right trigger and bam it shows my rider drop off the lift in third person (the lift ride itself is the only first person part of this game) and does a good job shifting cameras to the view as I quickly hit the powder and descend down to that line I spotted. Wow, aced it just like I envisioned.. ran back down to the chair lift again and took it back up to the top this time quick with the push of a button. The first freestyle challenge I tried was near here so I headed to that as I felt I could now perhaps advance my score total to the next rank. It took me a few tries but I did get it, as everything is very simulation in this game, you may find it difficult to get the high score totals at first but the satisfaction when you do is well worth the effort. Let's try a few more events on the mountain. Looking at my trailmap I map out which lifts I should take to get to the events I wanna try first and then head to my desired destination. Doesn't take me too long, I did have to ride a bit of a horizontal line to get to the next lift over that went further up the mountain, and if you enjoy snowboarding in real life then you'll enjoy all of this as they replicate it perfectly, going horizontal is a tricky carve as it should and when you have to stop where your board won't glide, you'll waddle with your board strapped like you would or you can unsnap the bindings and carry your board to where you wanna go. The way your rider runs in the snow having to pick up his feet and then when he runs on hard surface is excellent, it all looks and feels extremely real. Anyway, up the next lift with the push of a button and off I go, there was another two competitions up here I wanted to check out, I checked my trailmap to try and map out my route again to make sure as when on a mountain this size it is very easy to take the wrong slope and get lost. You can't set waypoints which is something I thought perhaps they could have added, but it does add to the realism quite a bit so I actually enjoy it more without this mechanic as well at times. I decided to horizontal carve the mountain and waddle-walk my way to just above the point of the two competitions I wanted to try.... and happened to find a rather large cliff with yellow warning signs and a fence.... Well let's see what happens shall we? I totally over shot my two competitions with this massive air I got, like the ice chasm I expected death but was rewarded with a sloppy landing and then coming really quickly to a stop as I slid on my backside with the board carving the snow like brakes, I ran into a house for some added assistance.



Unfortunately I did overshoot my two competitions by just a bit and had to waddle-walk my way to them up the mountain... this took me a minute. I set a marker once I reached them using the d-pad like I mentioned earlier since I wanted to run the other competition after this one and it was close by. After I got the lowest rank score, earning me another $120, I warped back to my marker. This acted just as I'd hoped and put me on the board standing horizontal ready to go, pressing the right trigger sets your guy in motion from this position in a way that is very true to what you do in reality, a joy for myself really. The score total for this next freestyle challenge that I had to get was a bit higher than what I've come across before, but much to my surprise I got it after just two jumps as this challenge started you before a really impressive jump into a downed tree rail-slide, another jump after that with some wicked air and I had my challenge score already for the low rank. I had a lot of time left on this challenge and continued my run. I ended up getting the next rank from the lowest which was a much higher score than anything I've previously done. I decided to take a quick smoke after this. Oh and $180 was my reward, excellent.

I wanted to move on to a different type of challenge after this and had a look at my trailmap and found one I thought would be fun, then mapped my way to the spot. It was a death race, my first race oh boy. It was also just further down the mountain so it was only a quick ride down the slopes to get there. I did have to be very careful however to make sure I didn't pass it up though, but there was a chair lift drop off nearby so getting back would have been easy none the less, sometimes passing up your desired destination happens and if you have to walk or waddle uphill, it can take a minute. To me this is all part of the realism of this game and is really spot on as well an important element that adds to the effect of making you feel like you're there.

The races in this game can be really intense, as the snowball mechanic I mentioned earlier with the B button really comes into play. You can hold the button down and the longer you do the better your aim will be, but it also slows you down so can be a detriment to your racing success as well. When hit by a snowball you immediately take a tumble to the floor. Its pretty tough to hit people though if they are any distance in front of you, next to you, and let the snowball fight ensue! In my first race I managed to do a really sick jump off a cliff landing on the roof of a building with a wicked rail-slide. I hit this spot-on much to my surprise and was zooming down the mountain quite a bit ahead of the rest of the pack. There was one or two AI with me however and we had a snowball fight to the finish, most of the time missing each other as we zoomed down the mountain. I ended up actually beating him by a NOSE of the board right at the end, photo finish. Great way to start my racing career. My time placed me mili-seconds behind the second place rank for cash reward, so I ended up with third on that but it did put an impressive $670 in my wallet. Just 00:00.44 quicker and I would have gotten that rank with $808 to spend. Oh well, it was a blast anyways, just means I have a lot to accomplish in this game for later on. Sounds good to me.

I wanted to try a different mountain, but the game didn't tell me if I'd unlocked any so I had been just boarding around having a blast for now. However, I desire the sights of another location and wanted to continue my Shaun quest to pick up those Euros, figured he might give me something for it you know. So I pressed pause to see what this menu had to offer. Let me break it down for you now.

The first selection is the Player Log, which allows me view all the competitions on this mountain and the medals I've received for them, as well as view the online leaderboards for each challenge. It also tells you the rewards and goals for each challenge as well as a small description of each. Pressing the left and right triggers here will change mountains, there are 4 mountains here to choose from and I notice the scores and goals for the mountains I have not visited yet, are not posted. The description of each challenge however is. The next selection on the pause menu is Shaun's Quest which shows your progress on collecting the Euros/Coins scattered about the game. There appear to be 12 Euros for each mountain that will unlock different focus abilities. There are four focus abilities in all so that's 48 coins total to collect throughout the game. These can be anywhere on the mountains and are sometimes a trek to get to, all in good fun though if you ask me. I will speak on the focus items in the next paragraph. The next selection on the pause menu is your Inventory, from here not only can you change all your gear on the fly but you can purchase it as well. Now with such replication of a ski resort I would have expected a shop down at the bottom of the mountain, and there are boards to look at down there but apparently buying something is as easy as a press of the start button. This is all fine by me. You can also press Y to access the Gear Set screen which appears to be some sort of DLC tool that will be used to purchase more gear in the future, the current gear set shown is 2008-2009 so who knows what to expect for this feature later. Or perhaps I'll unlock even more gear later in the game I'm not sure yet, the amount already shown is really expansive so it won't bother me either way. Next in the pause menu we have the Replay Editor, which takes you out of your career into whichever replay you chose to edit/view. I had one to choose from somewhere so I checked it out, it was me horizontal carving/waddling over to that cliff earlier, didn't realize I recorded that but ok. From here you can play/pause, set markers and toggle the UI on and off. Not much to editing other than clipping the video to what you want to see. No different camera angles or effects, so a bit lacking what we've seen in skate but still not a bad effort and effective. You can also upload your replay's to online. I've yet to tinker with this however I'm sure its similar to anything we've come across in the past. Exiting the replay editor made me come to realize it does take you out of your career so I had to jump back into that from the menu. Next on the pause screen is Ride With Friends, from here you can quick match, custom match, host, host private and check leaderboards. While quick match and custom match allow you to play in other peoples games, pressing Host will take you right out of the pause menu turning your mountain into an online mountain. Host private does the same but private so only friends can join. Leaving the created session is as easy as pressing pause and hitting leave session which is now an available option from the Ride With Friends menu. Which just takes you out of pause and turns you mountain back into a single player domain, pretty seamless. Leaderboards menu just lets you view all the leaderboards for every challenge on all the different mountains while in a paused state. Finding your own score seems to be much easier from the Player Log than from this screen however as you can't seem to sort by anything but top players from here. It does sort by weekly, monthly and all-time though. The next setting in pause is the option menu, from here you can turn vibration on and off, change the brightness, invert the Y and X axis, turn the radar on and off, turn the subtitles on and off, as well as swap the grab and shifty controls if it feels more appropriate for you. You can also turn the tutorial tips that pop up on and off from here and change all the sound volumes for music, speech, sound fx, ambience, and interface/menu sounds. As well you may change this storage device from here with Y. The game controls themselves cannot be changed with the exception of the grab/shifty swap option so hopefully you can get used to them. I know for me it didn't take but a couple of minutes but for others this can be a chore as they are slightly different from any game prior of this genre but not so much so that it isn't too difficult. The final selection on the pause menu is Destination, from here you can change mountains on the fly which is what I wanted to do in the first place so lets hit up Europe the next mountain on the list.

I mentioned the focus items a minute ago so let me go over those really quick. I haven't unlocked these myself in the game yet but the manual mentions them as such. You activate focus with the X button. There is a speed boost focus which helps increase your speed better when tucked forward. Also there is a power check focus, which is a body check like move that allows you to destroy new obstacles and helps in finding new locations as well as some coins. The last focus is the jumping focus which increases the amount of air you will get when focus is activated and you jump.

So again the half-pipe matrix loading screen to tinker around in, trying to improve my lackluster half-pipe skills, while I wait on Europe to load up. It does and as I zone in I'm given a message explaining that each challenge is given a difficulty rating the same as you'd see on slope difficulties in real life. Green circle, blue square, black triangle and double black triangle. It also told me that I have a lot of cash just burning a hole in my pocket and to goto my inventory and spend that dough! I really came to see the differences in the mountains however so I jogged over to the helicopter and decided to take a drop from the peak. I must say the resort itself at the bottom looked a lot different as well as the mountain as I gazed upward in amazement. My trailmap showed all of my challenges again and the different lifts locations etc, everything looks good so far. I also noticed for the first time it was snowing, not sure if the weather changes or that's just here in Europe but I'd imagine the former, however at this time I'm not entirely sure as I did just load into a new mountain. Well on to my helicopter then...

Different isn't the word for the view from up here in Europe, oh my god was I high up (wait until you see Alaska). There were two challenges up here, another king of the hill multiplayer event and a freestyle challenge for me to try. It's freestyle 3 so the point total to get lowest rank was hefty, but I imagine coming from this high up, I'd have plenty of attempts to make that score. On my way down I was greeted with my first avalanche The vibration kicks in and you hear the rumble of the mountain behind you. A meter comes up on the hud to tell you how close you are to your doom as the avalanche races down behind you. I was pretty quick and doing some impressive jumps getting my freestyle score for the challenge. The rumbling went away and I came to a stop to turn around and look behind me. Incredible.... I continued down the rest of the timer on the event and finished with my $215 worth score, lowest possible but I did stop to gaze up the slope for a good bit of time. I wanted to retry that and see if I could get killed by the avalanche so I went ahead and hit the retry button from my final score for the event screen. The avalanche ensued and I slowly carved back n forth down the mountain. Enveloped in a cloud of snow I raced in it for a good few seconds, then my controller vibrated violently and my event came to an abrupt ending. Even though I retried my best score from before stayed posted so I just continued on from that to see what else we could find. Right below me a bit was another challenge I hadn't tried called precision riding, this is basically a slalom of sorts where you have to pass through gates to achieve your goals, the more gates the more reward. Another avalanche ensued and the camera panned out a bit as it does during an avalanche which actually helped me see a bit more ahead to plan my carve for the most gates. This also really gives you a feel of escaping something as you race down the mountain carving this way and that to make sure you get as many gates as possible while staying in front of your impending doom. I ended getting 24 gates, falling only 3 short of the highest goal possible, not bad for my first precision ride considering I had read on other reviews that this was remarkably difficult because of control issues. I have encountered no such problems as of yet myself. In fact I find the exact opposite I find the control to be really well done. I clicked to my trail map and took notice this time of the Avalanche warnings in red color with their yellow danger signs... no wonder.

The different challenges you'll come across in this game are slopestyle (rails and air tricks), jibfest (rails), big air (one big jump, best trick you can do), collection events to collect items, precision riding (slalom), death race (snowball fight race through gates), ground tricking (ground tricks, manuals and such), air time (total air time over a run), freestyle (anything goes to get points), half-pipe (self explanatory), rat race (multiplayer race usually starts near peak race to the bottom, players can take whatever route they want to finish fastest), king of the hill (multiplayer game from peak to bottom to get the best respect to time ratio (score while being fast). As well after beating all the challenges on each mountain you will unlock an ultimate challenge for that mountain.

Each individual mountain looks remarkably close to what you find in that region if you went there in reality. The amount of area to explore almost seems endless even though there is only 4 mountains total. I wanted to wrap this up now before I give away too much more of the story, I hope you get the idea of what to expect from reading this as that is my goal, I'm not here to form my own opinion as much as I am to tell you what the game is has involved. That being said I have listed below some pros and cons as well as things I think others may not enjoy even though I did.

Pros: Realistic physics and environments. Incredible views and scenery as you would expect from the Assassin's Creed engine. Great sense of speed, realism as you carve your way around the mountain. Free roaming of the mountain to go as you please. You can get off your board and walk around. Snowball fights add a sense of humor/fun to an otherwise intense game, but also add their own intensity as well during races. The control scheme though different works remarkably well after you get a feel for it. Camera pans/views are really well done. Avalanche!!! Incredible & expansive accessory/gear collection to buy with your hard earned cash from events. Excellent online setup, everything runs smooth and no hitches thus far. Leaderboards accessible from anywhere. Fast-travel from anywhere if you'd like or take the long chair lift ride for that sense of reality or to perhaps scope out the mountain, or even for a quick break. Helicopter drops from peak locations. The whole feel and sense of realism that you are actually going to a ski resort and having a day of fun in the sun carving down your favorite mountain. The soundtrack for this game is really fantastic. Feels like a next-gen snowboarding title.

Cons: No real weather effect changes, it does light snow from time to time but that's really it. Though the control scheme works really well after some getting used to, it is slightly different from any games prior of this genre. Character creation as far as body-type/face etc is extremely limited. Replay editor not as good as previous games that have done the same thing, but a decent effort that does its job.

You may not like: The simulation/realism of tricks in this game, there are no 24-rotation, with 10 backflips while spinning your board on one finger. AI throwing snowballs at you in races can make it difficult to win at times, until you get out in front it can be rather tough. Can be lots of walking/waddling on your board which though very realistic, can be slow and tedious for some. The game lacks a real 'this is what to do now' type storyline and can leave you feeling flustered over the large free-roam environments.

8.9/10