The next wave of Skylanders are upon us, which is great for gamers, and terrible for parents’ wallets. New in this wave are Cynder, Double Trouble, and Slam Bam, who is part of the Empire of Ice adventure pack. These new figures are now available at retail, and you can find bios, images, and videos below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cynder
Volts And Lightning!

Element:  Undead

Primary Attack:   Spectral Lightning
Secondary Attack:  Shadow Dash

Upgrades include: 

• Cynder Flight
• Black Lightning
• Shadow Reach

Bio:  While just an egg, Cynder was stolen by the henchmen of an evil dragon named Malefor and raised to do his bidding.  For years, she spread fear throughout the land until she was defeated by Spyro the dragon and freed from the grip of Malefor.  But dark powers still flow through her, and despite her desire to make amends for her past, most Skylanders try to keep a safe distance… just in case.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Double Trouble
Boom Shock-A-Laka!

Element:  Magic

Primary Attack:  Eldritch Beam
Secondary Attack:  Conjure Exploding Double

Upgrades include:

• Summon Magic Bomb
• Arcane Eldritch Beam
• Magical Cataclysm

Bio:  Double Trouble was an adept spellcaster.  On an expedition to find exotic ingredients for his potions, he traveled in search of a rare lily that was said to multiply the power of any spell.  So thrilled was he when he found it, Double Trouble instantly ate the plant and performed a spell.  Suddenly, there was a loud pop… then another… and another – until Double Trouble was surrounded by exact copies of himself.  As it turned out, he had misunderstood the details about exactly what would multiply.  But it didn’t matter, for he quickly realized the clones were delightful companions… never mind that they were only half his size and would explode on contact.

Slam Bam
Armed And Dangerous!

Element:  Water

Primary Attack:  Yeti Fists
Secondary Attack:  Ice Prison

Upgrades include:

• Arctic Explosion
• Yeti Ice Shoe Slide
• Ice Knuckles

Bio:  Slam Bam lived alone on a floating glacier in a remote region of Skylands, where he spent his time ice surfing, eating snow cones, and sculpting amazing ice statues.  It was a peaceful life, until Kaos destroyed the glacier, stranding Slam Bam on an iceberg that drifted through the skies for days.  He awoke on Eon’s Island, where he was taken in and trained to become a Skylander.  Now his ice sculptures serve as a frosty prison for any evil-doer.

You don’t have to get all Field of Dreams, but there’s something about baseball that just says family. Whether its throwing the ball around in the yard, sitting in the bleachers and watching a game live, or picking up a couple of controllers and playing your favourite baseball game, that’s something that instinctively feels like a father/son or father/daughter activity.

Which is a nice lead in to the annual baseball video game season, including MLB 2K12, showcasing the reigning AL MVP & Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander. Ahead of its release in March, 2K Sports has released a quick teaser trailer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Skylanders was one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of 2011, successfully mixing video games and action figures in a way that we’ve never seen before on a console. GamerPops had the opportunity to chat with Alex Ness, Producer and Chief-Of-Staff at Toys for Bob, the creators of Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, to gain some insight into the background of Activision’s latest hit franchise. Hope you enjoy the interview, and be sure to check out our review.

Click here to view the embedded video.

GamerPops:  From practically the moment it was announced, Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure seemed like a brilliant concept that was either going to soar or to crash and burn. How does it feel now that the critical and consumer reaction seems to have validated all the work that went into Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure?

Alex Ness:  It is wonderful and surreal and more wonderful.  We really did put a lot into both the game and toys.  So we really, really love getting positive reviews and sales figures but honestly, the greatest thing in the world is when we see someone like that boy, Malcolm Peeters, in a video you have posted on your very website introducing and describing all of his Skylanders.  Or hearing parents describe playing with their child and both of them really enjoying the experience so much together.  Or hearing non-parent hardcore gamers tell us that although they shouldn’t even be playing, let alone be addicted to a game like Skylanders, they really love it and can’t wait for the next wave of toys to come out.  Basically, just witnessing real people who have been affected by Skylanders in some significant way feels great.  That’s the kind of thing we dreamed of when we made this thing and it’s just so incredible to see it coming true.

GP:  There really isn’t a template for creating something like Skylanders on a console. Where did the concept come from? How difficult was it to make that a reality?

AN:   About 3 years ago, Activision had asked us to try and come up with a very Wii-centric concept for a game.  Something that not only was for the Wii console but really looked and felt like it was really made for the Wii.  And not just that it used a motion-sensitive controller but had that Nintendo kind of aesthetic and sense of wonder and feel that is generally so high-quality.  We took a step back and asked ourselves what, above all else, the Wii represents?  On a very basic level, the console introduced a brand new way to play video games and that was also what we loved most about it.  We decided that is what our new concept should do as well – introduce a new way to play games.  A bunch of ideas came out of that basic paradigm but the one we liked the most had to do with toys.  All of us grew up playing with toys, and in a deeper sense, they almost represent childhood more than just about anything else.  Since we often imagined our toys interacting with these different fantasy worlds, it suddenly became pretty clear – what if we could bring toys to life in a video game?

Now, we could have put all of this into a nice PowerPoint presentation or something and Activision probably would have put the kibosh on that idea pretty quickly.  But we lucked out.  Our lead character guy, I-Wei Huang, just happens to be able to make figurines out of clay and paint them and make them look really nice.  Then one of our engineers, Robert Leyland, is a serious electronics wiz and he was able to build our first prototype of the Portal of Power and make them work with I-Wei’s figures.  So when we originally pitched it to Activision, instead of telling them about this idea, we showed it to them.  That made all the difference.  It was a lot more impressive than any PowerPoint presentation (no offense, PowerPoint) and we had Activision’s support from the get-go.

GP:  What was the process behind creating each Skylander character?  Did the ideas originate with the game team, the toy team, or was it a mix of the two?

AN:  The creative part of the toy team actually is the game team over here and all ideas originated from them.  Besides I-Wei, our studio head has had a lot of experience creating characters, going all the way back to his days at TSR making Dungeons & Dragons.  Since he’s also my boss, I guess I should say his name – Paul Reiche III.  What a guy!  Anyway, Paul and I-Wei worked very closely together to come up with the concepts for every single one of our characters.  Then we would present these concepts to a group at Activision and luckily, there were some good, creative minds on that side too.  One of our marketing guys, John Coyne, had just come over from Bakugan and knew a lot about toys.  Even our CEO, Eric Hirshberg, was heavily involved in the process too.  Together we were able to come to a consensus and finalize the look of all the Skylanders toys.

But again, that’s just the look.  There are a lot of other factors that go into making our Skylanders toys.  I have to give tons of the credit to our character gameplay designers, our animators, and our audio team.  Everyone worked so hard to really bring each Skylander to life and make them interesting and fun and powerful in their own unique way.  Especially since we are selling these guys as toys, we wanted to make sure that players really felt like they were getting a great value with each one.

GP:  How did the inclusion of Spyro come about? He has a modest amount of recognition with some fans at best, but he wasn’t exactly a household name with the game’s target audience, and his own line of titles had pretty much dried up.

AN:  We all liked the character of Spyro, as well as the franchise’s unique charm.  While Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure is not a Spyro game, per se, we did want to really to create a world not dissimilar to the Spyro games, particularly the early ones that had a similar kind of charm and blend of fantasy and adventure.  We also thought it would be cool to have a familiar face in there as one of the Skylanders, even if not necessarily familiar to the target audience as you mention.  We liked the idea of reintroducing that character to kids too young to have maybe played one of those older Spyro titles.

GP:  What’s in the near future for Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure?  We know there are still more toys waiting to be released, but can we expect DLC?  Or any new characters to be introduced? Chase and collectors variants?

AN:   Well we’ve got 2 more waves of toys coming out so that’s another 12 Skylanders plus 2 adventure packs.  There are some different collector’s edition Skylanders being randomly introduced into the toy packs as well.  Have you seen any of these things?  Then there might be a couple of surprises coming down the road, but of course, I’m not allowed to talk about them yet, as they would cease to be surprises.

GP:  How connected will future toys be to the game? Will Skylanders toys always connect to a game, or will we see the toy line expand into articulated figures and playsets that exist on their own without the interactivity?

AN:   I honestly don’t know what the future holds but I do know that the main tenet of the Skylanders franchise is to make games that support toys.  The toy should always be at the absolute core of the gameplay experience.  So while I’m not sure about your idea of toys that don’t connect to a game, I’ll say that I really could never see things going the other way around, i.e. making a game without the toys.  That just wouldn’t be Skylanders.

GP:  There are a couple of red flags that we identified with Skylanders, and they both relate to money and value. At minimum, Skylanders is $70 for the console edition (very reasonable price considering the included figures and the portal), but up to $120-$130 for the optimal experience with all eight elements, and higher still with extra characters. When you’re developing a game like this, how difficult is it to balance the needs of the game and respect for the player with the need to have a fully developed toy line?

AN:  To tell you the honest-to-goodness truth, when we were making Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure we didn’t see it as just making a single title like other single titles we’ve made.  We tried to make it more than a single game so that if you were to only buy the starter pack, you could not only finish the adventure portion of Skylanders but also have a full-game experience, and I really think we delivered on that.  Even without those optional areas, I believe the main path of our game is pretty big, and it takes a while to see all of it.

But then, if a player wants to experience some additional content, they can do so by purchasing more toys for their collection.  For $8.00 you can buy an extra Skylander toy and get access to the toy’s elemental area (which are some of my favorite parts of the game), you get an extra Heroic Challenge level that all of your Skylanders can play, you get a new, fun, distinct character, and lastly, you get a high-quality toy.  I’ve seen toys that aren’t as nice as ours, both from a subjective opinion and from a technical standpoint (paint operations, etc.) that cost as much, or more, and don’t work in a video game!  We made sure we made toys with really good value because we were (and are) sensitive to the things you mention.  Many of us are parents, and all of us are gamers, so we pushed ourselves harder than ever to keep our customers from feeling ripped off in any way.

So, let me get this straight. Twister Mania is a game for Xbox 360 with Kinect. It uses the camera to see where you are in space and how your body is posed. It heavily utilizes the minimalist aesthetic and colour scheme of Twister. It comes with four coloured circles about the size of coasters that match the colours used in the game. It promises an “outrageous fast-paced party game” offering “over-the-top hilarity.”

So why is there no actual version of the game Twister in Twister Mania?

And further, why doesn’t that matter?

Break It Down is like Arkanoid, but You Are The Ball.

The Parent Perspective

Fact: There’s no actual Twister game in Twister Mania. The only association with Twister proper is the licensing of the name, and similarities to the body-bending party-game atmosphere that traditional Twister provides. Otherwise, this game is closer to Hole-In-The-Wall-type games. This makes it fairly easy to play as all modes of the game require the player(s) to pose their body in a particular way to accomplish the given task. My kids didn’t need very long to get the gist of what was needed.

One thing they did encounter problems with, though, was the height requirement. Certain game modes expect an adult-sized person. So for tasks like trying to knock out as many blocks as possible, or matching a specific pose, it is almost impossible for children to complete as they won’t be able to reach the higher points. It’s a limitation of having a fixed camera, though it would have been nice if the Kinect sensor could be made to self adjust when a smaller gamer enters the picture. This aspect caused some frustration for the kids. For this reason, Twister Mania might be more appropriate for families with older children, though there are co-op modes where an adult could give a helping hand to the vertically-challenged.

At times, quick and full body movement are required. It’s surprising how much exercise you can actually get with Twister Mania. This is one of the aspects of Kinect that I’ve always liked and after some time playing Twister Mania I could actually feel a bit of sweat starting to form.

There are three levels of difficulty for all minigames, which allows you to select an appropriate challenge for your fellow players. The beginner levels provide something anybody in your party can do, while the advanced levels will make you wish you’d taken up yoga. Play can be competitive either solo or in teams of two, and there are co-operative modes available as well.

Content-wise, there’s certainly nothing to be worried about here, unless the occasional exploding bomb offends your sensibilities.

They'll never forget trying to match this shape.

The Review

Where Twister Mania succeeds as a Kinect game is in playing to the strengths of the sensor. By focusing on pattern matching with relatively generous timing and forgiveness, the game avoids a lot of the frustration that you can typically expect out of most Kinect titles. At all times you can see your outline on the screen, giving you feedback and an idea of what you need to do to accomplish your shape matching task. Even menu navigation was good. The only thing I really noticed was that the game wants you to stand closer to the sensor than I’m accustomed to in a typical Kinect game.

There are three main game modes to choose from. Quick Play lets you jump right into the action either solo, facing off with somebody, in co-op, or in party mode in up to four teams of two. All minigames are available from the start with no unlocking necessary, which is an appreciated touch for a party game. Party Play is metagame where players or teams take turns spinning the famous Twister spinner to decide which minigames you’ll compete in. Performance in these minigames will advance you a number of spaces on a game board, and the person or team that crosses the finish line first is the winner. Finally, the ambitious single player or co-op team of two can play a campaign mode called Play It All where you have to clear all the game’s challenges. I saw 90 available ones in each mode, though most don’t last too long.

Game types fall into one of four categories: Shape Frenzy games see you trying to match a given shape; Twist & Fit is similar to Hole In The Wall where you try to pass through a virtual wall while trying not to knock blocks out of it or in some cases trying to take out as much of the wall as you can; Break It Down sees you using your body to clear blocks away, while new ones come from above (think Breakout with gravity); and Spot On is like a game of H-O-R-S-E where you have to try and match your opponent’s poses.

Despite all the game modes, I did get the sense that the game is a bit shallow. There really is only so much you can do with pattern matching-type games, though Twister Mania does try in earnest to squeeze out as much as it can. But really, all the minigames come down to one of four main types, with some variants thrown in. It could start to feel repetitive after playing for a period of time, or repeated play. In a party setting, this may not be a big deal, but it certainly results in a lack of staying power as a single-player experience (especially with Spot On not being available in single player experiences because there’s nobody to match), which it’s not best suited for anyways.

Okay, spinning the wheel DID make it over into the game.

The GamerPops Recommendation

If you have a Kinect system and you’re looking for a game that will provide a good time for multiple people, Twister Mania is an excellent choice, especially if you’re looking for something not quite as intense as dance games. It really is an outstanding party game, and is something your family can get together and play as well (as long as your kids are tall enough). Controls are tight and the gameplay is frantic and fun. It’s not going to be for the solo player, despite the inclusion of a gauntlet-type mode for single players, as the game loses a lot of its novelty and charm playing on your own. It’s not particularly deep, though that also gives it a level of simplicity that makes it a better party game. And even if it doesn’t actually have real Twister in it, that shouldn’t stop you from picking it up for your next get-together.

A review copy was provided to GamerPops by the publisher.

ESRB Rating Summary

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: No Descriptors

Rating summary: This is a collection of multiplayer mini-games (i.e., party games) based on the classic game Twister. Players move and twist their bodies to mimic on-screen silhouettes/shapes to achieve the highest score.

Microsoft’s own Kinect Sports Seasons One and Two are the standard bearers for Kinect sports minigame titles, but with Kinect stealing the Wii’s momentum as the family gaming console of choice, it’s no surprise to see a steadily increasing number of minigame and party titles, each fighting to stand out in the crowd. Smack in the middle of the pack is Activision’s Big League Sports, which offers a collection of minigames with full Kinect controls.

The Parent Perspective

If anyone’s going to really enjoy Big League Sports, it’s going to be a younger audience. It’s bright and colourful, and features six popular sports packaged as quick-bite minigames. The games themselves are sensible pieces of each sport, hitting on major elements that you would immediately associate with the sport.

The good news is that the Kinect controls are surprisingly capable, which will help said younger gamers avoid the frustration that has accompanied many of the initial Kinect titles. With some Kinect titles, the game just never quite feels right, or it doesn’t seem to track your movements very well. Playing through each of the different sports in Big League Sports, I never got the feeling that the game wasn’t doing what I wanted.

The game supports up to four players competing individually for high scores, but doesn’t provide the excitement of head-to-head action.

The Review

So here’s the question, if you’re going to play a sports game, do you want only minigames, or do you want to play a full game? If your preference is for mingames, then Big League Sports might be for you.

Might be.

Might be, because it is the kind of largely generic title that a month from now you won’t even remember existed. That’s because the game, while technically competent and largely successful at the little it aims to do, does a lot of the things we have seen time and time again in the post-Wii Sports world. If you’ve managed to avoid sports minigame compilations over the past five years, you’ll find some new and interesting things here. But if you’ve played any of those games since 2007, expect more of the same.

But while the sports are represented in name, they aren’t truly there in play. Instead, each sport features three minigames pulling out key elements of each sport. In baseball, that means a home run derby, in basketball the three-point shootout, etc. If you’re committed to making minigames out of major sports, this is probably as smart and reasonable a way as you could do it, but it comes off feeling rather shallow without the ability to really play any of the games. Perhaps we’re years away from a true Kinect-enabled sports experience, but Big League Sports puts the idea in your head, and then doesn’t ever come close to that ideal.

For anyone over the age of ten, there’s going to be very little incentive to do anything more than try out each of the minigames once. You can earn and accumulate skill points in each event, or choose three events of your choice for an alleged tournament, but other than that, there wasn’t a lot of effort put into doing anything with the acceptably decent minigames. They just kind of are, and you’re expected to like them as is, rather than make even a modest attempt at wrapping a larger experience around them.

The GamerPops Recommendation

Big League Sports feels like a game that exists because someone at Activision said “we should have a minigame sports title on Kinect” and not because there was any real need or creative inspiration for it. As a result, Activision has staked its claim to the casual Kinect sports title segment with a title that is just okay. Not especially good, not especially bad. It’s just okay. I would say that short of a significant sale, this is a title that’s easily skipped, saving your valuable dollars for a game that shows not just what Kinect can do, but what Kinect can do well. Big League Sports is definitely the former, and not the latter.

A review copy was provided to GamerPops.

ESRB Rating Summary

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: Mild Cartoon Violence

Rating summary: This is a sports simulation game in which players compete in a variety of events (e.g., baseball, hockey, golf, soccer) to be crowned King of Big League Sports. In the hockey game, players can perform “checks” against opponents that skate into their way; opponents flail through the air amid slow-motion effects.

Bang Bang Racing is an upcoming XBox Live Arcade and PSN title from Digital Reality, makers of least year’s quite enjoyable Skydrift, and if the studio can achieve on the ground what it did in the air, this could be an entertaining and family-friendly addition to the racing family’s library.

In a new video released today, we get a look at the four different classes of cute and chunky vehicles available in the game, from muscular roadsters to aerodynamic racers.

• N-Dura Class: With strong grip, good control and moderate speed, this intro class will bring you up to speed and deliver your first taste of nitro boosting!
• Evo GT: Faster, greater drift around corners, insane acceleration with even more nitro – mastering these beasts is a bit of challenge.
• Protech: You’re going to need some wicked moves to conquer these racing machines – don’t forget to use those brakes either, as these babies can move!
• Apex: Hope you’re ready for the major leagues as these are the fastest cars on the planet – highly agile but also fragile, requiring the tightest control imaginable.

Each class of car will also feature multiple models with different attributes, and some user customization. You can check out these vehicles in the video and images below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A couple of months ago, Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 celebrated the one year anniversary of its introduction to the gaming marketplace. As we got multiple PR tidbits and saw many stories talking about Kinect’s First Year, I had a few things I wanted to get off my chest regarding the peripheral, but an influx of games forced us to shift our focus to the reviewing side of the ledger. Now with things easing up, I wanted to take a closer look at what Kinect has done so far, and ponder why it still has a long ways to go.

Kinect was supposed to be a revolution in gaming when it was first announced at E3 2009 under the name Project Natal. And to be sure, the early demonstrations were quite impressive. The idea of using your body to control your games and navigate your console was novel but opened up a world of opportunities. And with onboard technology including two cameras (one RGB and one monochromatic depth sensor) and a multi-array microphone capable of tracking 3D body movement and providing facial and voice recognition, there was no shortage of tools at the disposal of developers. It seemed only a matter of time until they would start wowing us with amazing things once they figured out the system.

A little over a year later, and I wonder if they’ve yet to figure it out. Or even worse, what if they already have?

It’s certainly not doom and gloom, and to be fair, the technology is still relatively in its infancy, but colour me a bit disappointed. Sure, we’ve seen a slew of good titles for the system, and the games that have been released have skewed towards kid and family fare, which is fine by us. I always figured core gamers would want to stick with their trusty controllers anyways and Kinect was best served going after the casual market. That has come to bear, and there are certainly a handful of excellent titles for the system already out there. Games like Kinectimals, Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, and to an extent Kinect Disneyland Adventures are some of the best available right now.

Does this mean I don't always work?

Unfortunately, Kinect has a long way to go. For a system that tells us “You are the controller”, it frankly does a mediocre job of letting us be that controller. For every game that seems to nail it like, say, a Dance Central 2, there are others like, say, Sonic Free Riders that don’t. And we’ve found the misses so far outnumber the hits. At this point in time, it would seem from our playing experience that Kinect tracks certain movements well and has a really hard time with others. Add the inherent lag of interpreting those movements, and you end up with a system that is, at least right now, limited in what it should be used for.

Pattern matching is something I’ve found the system is pretty good at. Whether it’s static like “Hole in the Wall” type games or active like dancing games, Kinect seems to do a fairly good job of capturing general body movement and posing. This is why people will rave about a game like Dance Central 2. The impact of lag can be minimized in these kind of games and the movements tend to be less subtle. Along the same lines, games where you have to move your hands over certain areas work well more often than not. These are the kind of games that are, right now, working really well with the system, and for the most part, are the games you should be looking at.

Steering type games can be hit or miss, though it’s not as precise yet as I’d like it to be. A lot depends on how sensitive the game is to your leaning. Since a lot of games that involve traveling right now have to be pretty much on rails, the “lean to steer” mechanic is your only way to control your movement. Kinect Disneyland Adventures is one notable exception to this, with its “point to move forward” mechanic, though that will tire your arms out quickly.

Nobody's asking for this... yet.

Where I find Kinect pretty much fails, though, is when movement has to be subtle, like aiming a throw. I’ve played multiple games that require throwing in some form, and it’s a frustrating crapshoot getting any degree of accuracy. See games like Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do, Nicktoons MLB, and some of the minigames in Kinect Disneyland Adventures for examples of this. And finally, as you would expect, the lag can come into play. Any game requiring precise timing, or worse, the dreaded Quick Time Event (QTE) simply should not be developed on Kinect right now. Nicktoons MLB‘s batting using Kinect was a frustrating mess (non-Kinect, the game was actually really solid) and the QTEs in Hulk Hogan’s Main Event were some examples of how Kinect needs to either fix the lag problem, or developers need to stay away from fast-twitch mechanics in Kinect games altogether.

One question I always ask myself is whether the issue lies in the hardware itself, or the software that the Xbox uses to interpret the data. Given the tech used in the cameras, I’m going to lean towards the software being the problem right now.  Maybe it’s just too much for the Xbox to process. Maybe the next Xbox will have the horsepower necessary to process the large amounts of data that Kinect can no doubt feed it and it will be a much more refined experience. For an idea of why I think this way, just take a quick Google of some of the amazing things people are doing with hacked Kinect systems right now. This hardware is capable of some ridiculously amazing things in regards to what it can track. I’d like to think poor or inefficient development is at the root of some of the problems, and it may very well be in some cases, but when I see a game like Disneyland Adventures that does so well in many areas and then so poorly in areas that I see other games miss on as well, I think the hardware/software might just be really limited right now for certain things.

Do I think you should avoid Kinect right now? No. I’ve recommended it to multiple people asking about what system they should be looking for. There are a lot of things that Kinect can do well at this time, and even some of the games where control can be an issue will likely not bother a good amount of folks. Just understand that there are going to be some games that work better than others. Perhaps it’s all still a little too bleeding edge and the learning curve for developers is steeper than initially expected. But the Wii is faltering. PlayStation Move is a much more precise movement tracking mechanism but Sony haven’t executed well enough on it yet, and it still is focused on the expensive wands. Kinect has a chance to really take a stranglehold of a lucrative market right now and there are some amazing things coming down the pipe for the system. There’s loads of potential for this peripheral. But until I can stop writing about how Kinect controls spoil what could otherwise have been truly amazing games, I fear that potential is not yet being realized, and may not for quite some time.

Somebody, please, prove me wrong.

Dragons vs. Spaceships is a classic Peanut Butter Cup scenario: taking two things that are great on their own and mixing them up to create something better. Like Plants vs. Zombies, this game takes two individually cool things that wouldn’t ordinarily be seen together and pits them head to head, in this case in classic top down shoot’em up (or shmup, as the cool kids call it) style.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve gotten to know some of the guys behind Dragons vs. Spaceships, and have seen the game evolve from just a logo through to its release as an Xbox Live Indie Game.

The Parent Perspective

Dragons vs. Spaceships is a classic shmup, a genre that peaked before most of today’s kid gamers were even born, and other than the occasional appearance as minigames, it’s something completely unfamiliar to them. So don’t expect kids to necessarily gravitate towards this game.

There is multiplayer action, which makes the experience more fun for grown ups (though not necessarily better), but there’s still little incentive to get kids playing Dragons vs. Spaceships.

The Review

I’ll admit, like a whole lot of other Xbox 360 owners, I’ve completely ignored the Indie Games section of Xbox Live. With all of the retail titles and Live Arcade games, the Indie Games are easy to bypass. In fact, were it not for the fact that I personally know the folks behind Dragons vs. Spaceships, I wouldn’t have even known this game existed. So if nothing else, Dragons vs. Spaceships has provided a different perspective on the Xbox 360′s game offerings.

Unfortunately, that might also be the best thing that Dragons vs. Spaceships offers. In what is otherwise a throwback to the golden age of top-down scrollers it doesn’t bring anything new or compelling to the table.

As one of four colourful dragons, you’ll take on wave after wave of mechanical enemy as you scroll through the game’s three levels. Three different weapon power-ups can combine to offer different primary and secondary attacks to help you fight on the spaceships, which you’ll need as your fragile dragon can be killed with just one enemy bullet.

And your dragon is certainly fragile, which isn’t helped by clunky controls and wonky collision detection that seems at times to decide at random whether you’ve been hit. And that’s only part of the frustration in a game in which you constantly feel slow, weak, and underpowered. Despite the variety of weapon combos (at one point my dragon was shooting ninja stars), the weapons just never provide the sense of awe and power than the best titles in the genre provide. It feels like you’re just moving from one basic weapon to another.

Spending your time on the defensive is par for the course in shmups, but Dragons vs. Spaceships never gives you the feeling that you can take the advantage, go on the offensive, and lay waste to your extraterrestrial enemies. Instead, it’s just your dragon slogging around the screen, trying to dodge enemy fire and avoid running out of lives.

The game is at its best when played with other players, but that’s due more to a general sense of chaos that an enriched experience.

What I don’t understand is that when you lose all your lives, you are given the choice to either continue or quit. Which really seems to mean start over or quit, since you can’t actually continue. Even though the game is relatively short (only three modest length levels), only the most experienced and dedicated shmup-lovers will make it to the end, and any casual players will likely only give it a once over and then move on.

In that sense, the game’s price is its best asset and worst enemy. It’s cheap enough at 240 Microsoft points to be worth a splurge, but not enough of an investment that you’ll really care to stick with the game for more than 10-15 mostly mediocre minutes. It’s certainly an accomplishment to see any small group of developers get a game onto the Xbox, but simply getting there is only part of the success; being able to create a fun and fundamentally sound game is equally important.

There are also reports of technical glitches around the first level’s boss, but I can’t say that I experienced it personally, but be aware that may or may not be an issue.

The GamerPops Recommendation

Dragons vs. Spaceships is a great concept, but the game doesn’t really do anything to move beyond simply being a concept. This is dated shoot ‘em up gameplay without a hook to really grab gamers’ attention. While the price of 240 Microsoft points is reasonable, there’s just not enough here in quality or quantity to justify more than a passing interest.

A review code was provided to GamerPops.

No guns, but birds are all right...

Using the chaos of the holidays as a shield, Microsoft quietly announced that they would be removing all guns and gun like devices (looking at you lasers) from the Avatar Marketplace beginning in January. Any props that you may have purchased or unlocked will be untouched, but don’t expect to outfit your cartoony Xbox companion with the latest in weaponry in the future. There has been no mention whether or not other weapons like swords or lightsabers will be affected by this change, but I think it is safe to assume that their exclusion from any of the announcements means they should be fine.

For parents who don’t want guns in the house, even virtual ones that don’t do anything, this news has to be nice. For other people who might enjoy dressing up like their favorite Gears of War character, this new policy probably seems a tad silly. Seems to me that a simple age lock on Avatar items would have sufficed to keep weapons out of young kids’ virtual hands and that a wholesale ban is a little overkill. At the same time, it shows that Microsoft is really looking at making Xbox Live more kid friendly, as it can be geared a little too much towards adults.

Have you ever played The Sims 3 and thought to yourself, “This is great and all, but wouldn’t it be great if I could play as a dog?” Then for you, the one person in the world who probably asked that question, The Sims 3: Pets fulfills your dreams and more. For the rest of the world, The Sims 3: Pets is an interesting effort that expands on the world of The Sims 3, but doesn’t quite convince gamers that a console Sims can top the PC version.

Parent Perspective

Despite the presence of adorable and playful pets, The Sims 3: Pets isn’t a game for kids or most teens, despite its T rating. Yes, there’s some fairly mild sexual content and language, but it’s not sexual content that’s the issue here. It’s the regular content, which is geared, in pace and challenge, to a more obsessive casual player. Teens can certainly play the game and those who can appreciate this style of gameplay will have fun, but they shouldn’t expect action or excitement here.

Because this is a life sim, that also means death is in play. And not necessarily a cartoonish or typical video game death, but the end of your Sim or Sim pet’s life. You can expect a long life filled with plenty of adventures and activities first though, but it’s doubtful younger games will have the patience to last long enough in the game for their characters to die.

The Review

Depending on your appreciation for The Sims, you’re probably either going to love this game or hate it. If you love handling the minutia of your Sims’ lives, then you are definitely the right kind of gamer. But for most, the combination of obsessively detailed gameplay and a rather slow-moving experience will not be engaging enough to draw them into a fairly hefty game.

And that’s not a flaw specific to this game, as it’s just the way the entire Sims franchise has been structured. You have a variety of smaller goals and challenges, as well as larger mysteries that string together a series of quests, but there’s nothing really driving you to complete anything thanks to the game’s completely open gameplay.

Want to go wander around? Go for it. Dig up someone’s lawn? Have at it. Try to see how long you can go without peeing on something? That’s an option as well. If it wasn’t such an obvious part of the game’s design, I would think that maybe aimless wandering with the occasional diversion into pointless destruction is a fairly accurate representation of life as a pet. Throw in stealing food off the counter, and you pretty much have my family’s beloved dog.

Yet, while playable pets are introduced, the game doesn’t go all in and make this all about the dogs and cats, instead coming off more as a fairly expensive expansion of the core gameplay with some extra pet content added in. Essentially, new animal characters are subbed in for Sims, with new interactions and objectives, but ultimately it’s just a variation on the gameplay, rather than really trying to reinterpret the game from a pet’s perspective.

To an unfortunate degree, the game still revolves around the humans, so even while you are playing as the pet, your actions are still connected to the humans in your lives, and dependant on what they are doing. If your humans go to work and leave you home alone, the aimlessness sets in, and not in a good way.

What the game does offer is a large sandbox of options to be explored, though many of them feel more like chores than exciting options. There are quests and adventures to be had, citizens to interact and befriend, a family to love, and a whole city to be peed on. How you choose to do that, or whether you choose to do that is completely up to you.

Despite a fairly extensive tutorial, The Sims 3: Pets is not the easiest game to get into, especially for newcomers. With tried-and-true gameplay that will be instantly familiar to long-time players of the series, it asks a lot of others to figure out what all the icons, interaction options, and on-screen elements mean. It takes a while to get used to everything, but practice and repetition is the key.

What becomes immediately clear however is that the game’s interface was obviously designed for a keyboard/mouse combo, and while a valiant effort was made to make a console controller work, this is a PC game, and if you can play it on a PC instead, you probably should. And that’s without factoring in the fact that the PC version gives you more pet options beyond just dogs and cats.

The Kinect version features a number of voice commands, for your Sims and your Sim pets, but it’s completely optional, and quite honestly, ignorable.

It’s also worth noting that this game definitely needs to be installed to your Xbox’s hard drive, especially if you have an older model. Otherwise the endless (and I literally mean endless) grinding of the DVD will drive you crazy, if the resulting load times haven’t already done the job. And boy, does this game love its load times, especially if you leave the confines of your home to venture out into the surrounding areas.

The GamerPops Recommendation

For the average gamer, The Sims 3: Pets is an all or nothing proposition; you’ll either want to put in endless hours nurturing or tormenting your family, or you won’t want to put in a single minute. There’s really no middle ground, and I have a feeling that despite the presence of playable animals, most gamers will opt for the latter.

For gamers who are willing to invest the time into a pet life simulator, The Sims 3: Pets is miles ahead of the typical virtual pet game. There’s a full slate of activities to pursue or not, utilizing both the human Sims and their cats and dogs, but it’s still the same Sims gameplay, which doesn’t make the most of the new canine and feline additions.

As an Xbox title, it’s not necessarily an ideal experience, but in general it does the Sims justice. Considering this is essentially an expansion pack, the $50 price feels high, and unless you are willing to sink in a lot of hours pawing around the virtual world, there’s just not enough here to justify the cost. In an odd way, The Sims 3: Pets puts quantity over quality, and for this game that’s not a recipe for success.

A review copy was provided to GamerPops.

ESRB Rating Summary

Rating: Teen

Content descriptors: Crude Humor, Sexual Themes, Violence

Rating summary: This is a “sandbox” simulation game in which players create, customize, and control characters—including household pets—called “Sims” through their daily activities. Players are free to pursue a variety of daily goals as they observe and attempt to influence other Sims in town. Players can socially interact with Sims to build relationships, and are free to pursue more intimate encounters, such as the ability to kiss, “make out,” or engage in WooHoo (i.e., sex) with another Sim: this action depicts the Sims squirming, giggling, and moaning under the covers until hearts float around the bed. (The WooHoo option is available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.) Sims maintain their health and hygiene through eating, exercising, bathing, and using the toilet. They sometimes vomit, expel flatulence sounds, or urinate on themselves if their hygiene is not properly managed. Some interactions lead to fighting, which is depicted by sounds of struggle and partially obscured “fight-cloud” effects; other animations include Sims drowning in pools, getting electrocuted by household appliances, or dying in fires—a Grim Reaper arrives as dead Sims turn into ghosts.