Volume 9
Monthly, the Hawk gives you the good, the bad and the ugly of the whole Xbox Live Marketplace content. This time we’ll delve into 3rd-Person Action-Adventure games.
With the new House-Party wave just starting on the Marketplace, we will finally enjoy “I am Alive”, one title that has been expected for a long time. We already received “Alan Wake’s American Nightmare”, a title that complements the great thriller game from 2 years ago.
Based on these 2 titles, it’s good to see that, even though there are not too many of their kind as arcade titles, the 3rd-person action adventure gaming genre is well represented on the Marketplace. Most of them have been worked around an existing franchise (like “Dead Rising 2”) or even a movie (“Watchmen”), but we also have stand-alone titles (like “Hydrophobia”).
The key factors are well-rounded stories and game mechanics that will not leave you frustrated while moving around, looking at your surroundings or defending yourself. If the story doesn’t get you interested, even great mechanics or a lot of action will do nothing for you. If trying to solve a puzzle, survive a boss attack or moving around a level makes you throw the controller, then the developer has not programmed the game mechanics as he should.
About the former, even with the excuse of an arcade game just being half-a-experience, we can find some great titles. Take one of my favorites: “Hydrophobia”. The lead character is part of the security team in a futuristic sea city-ship that’s being sabotaged by a group of fanatic zealots that are against the developments the new era has bought. She’s a great swimmer, which will come in handy as bombs start destroying the integrity of the hull and she finds herself using all her skills to avoid drowning and solve the mystery around the cult founder. The story is rock-solid, and the ending cliff-hanger will leave you begging for more. For an arcade game, it’s long enough, and at 800 MSP, it’s worth every cent. Don’t mind the metacritic score, as the game was patched and it rose to greatness afterwards. It even includes a puzzle scenario, where the character gets power over water and she can try to defeat enemies as fast as possible.
If not going for the standalone route, we have the great “Dead Rising 2” Case games (Case Zero and Case West). Worked around the Dead Rising story, once you play them out you will want to get into Dead Rising 2 (or the first one, if you haven’t played it) ASAP. Both stand at 800 MSP as well, so they are muy bueno, as we say down here.
Unfortunately, as it’s always the case, we have some major failures in the area. Take for example the “Watchmen” games. Built around the story untold in the movie and the graphic novel, we join Nite Owl and Rorschach as they clean up the city from street gangs and other enemies. Unfortunately that’s all you will get, a brawler with 3rd person view, and at 1600 MSP and 1200 MSP, they are too expensive for the delivered experience. Another excuse of why developers fail when giving us movie-to-videogame titles.
When I talked about game mechanics, we can find one major failure in Amy, a recent title which could be related to those survival horror games like “Resident Evil”. Moving the character and the camera are a nightmare, and the story has nothing you can talk about. The idea had a lot of potential, but the final product failed miserably.
The list wouldn’t be complete without one of the greatest Xbox originals classic turned into a great graphic experience in the 360: “Beyond Good and Evil”. If you didn’t play the original, don’t wait no more: buy it NOW! The story, the game mechanics, the humor, everything works great in this game.
There you have them. With 3200 MSP you’ll get 4 solid titles, and they’re a proof that even an Arcade title can be as great as a retail one.
