Game Review:

Toy Soldiers: Cold War was launched onto XBLA and PSN in August 2011 and quickly garnered both critical acclaim and praise from gamers. TS:CW took the formula from the original WWII themed Toy Soldiers and updated it by infusing the presentation, mechanics, and scenarios with an 80′s flare that gave  the game some much needed levity and personality. With the new Napalm and Evil Empire DLC packs, Signal Studios looks to give fans of the game some new scenarios to play through and enjoy. Each pack comes with three brand new maps that play and look a lot different than any of the original maps that were released with Toy Soldiers: Cold War.

The first DLC Pack that I played through was the Evil Empire one which focused on the Soviet Union and it’s campaign to rid the world of the capitalist pig threat. Rather than slowly coax you into the game play, Evil Empire starts the player off with a full-on invasion that will force you to quickly dispose of the initial wave before setting up your defenses. To help you along with your ruskie campaign you’re given a full arsenal of emplacements and a couple new vehicles to use as you eliminate the Yankee threat from Mother Russia. Over the three maps you’ll be faced with a mixture of troops that will constantly have you selling off useless turrets to change up your strategy to better defend against the enemy. The trio of maps ends with a heated battle against droves of increasingly difficult American troops that culminates with an all out battle against a huge tank that utilizes advanced weapons and spits out infantry and armored units along the way.

Next up we have the Napalm map that focuses on backdrop of the Vietnam War and utilizes the guerilla tactics and weaponry that were used during that time. Just like with the Evil Empire maps the Napalm map does not pull any punches and will have you immediately thrown into the fray as soon as you begin the first map. Of the two, I found Napalm to be the more difficult as it has the play multi-tasking between multiple targets and even has you at one point defending a triple entrance base that will have you juggling your defenses  throughout the relentless attack by Vietnamese troops. Throughout this campaign I found myself utilizing the vehicles more often than not as the onslaught of enemies proved to be more than my defenses could handle. The maps ended with what seemed like an easy to defend choke point that quickly turned into an all out battle to defend against heavily armored tanks outfitted with high-powered lasers and an eventual standoff against a flying death machine.

All six of the maps had me restarting on more than one occasion but rather than being overly frustrated I took this as a challenge to better tune my defenses to the waves of enemies rather than utilizing my default “catch all” set-ups. I really enjoyed the challenge that these maps provided and I commend Signal Studios for choosing to put a lil effort into providing new scenarios rather than just maps to extend the experience.  Both DLC packs provide experiences that expand on the tight gameplay found in Toy Soldiers: Cold War as well as provide some new backdrops to enjoy as you fend over the evil horde of enemies.

There’s very little that I would change about the Napalm experience, other than perhaps more maps to enjoy. Without a doubt I had a lot of fun getting through the waves of enemies as I made my way through the maps. As for the Evil Empire maps, I’d have to say that I found them to be lacking in originality and that they offered very little to the formula found in the original game. While I enjoyed playing through Evil Empire, I’d say that Napalm was the real must-have of the two packs as it is a  unique experience that expands the universe created by the original game.

You’d have to be a big fan of the original Toy Soldiers: Cold War to purchase the Napalm and Evil Empire DLC Packs, but if you do, you’ll be treated to a suite of maps that are sure to challenge the skills you acquired while playing the main game. For five dollars a piece, you’ll get a group of maps that are sure to satisfy your devious penchant for toy-based destruction.

+Napalm DLC provides a variety of new challenges to overcome
+Sure to challenge veterans and new players a like
+Revels in the 80′s aesthetic through music and scenery
-Evil Empire feels like more of the same
-3 maps per pack leaves you wanting more

Final Scores: Napalm DLC – 8 Out Of 10

Evil Empire DLC – 7 Out Of 10

The Walking Dead, long before it became known as a TV series on AMC, was a comic book series by Robert Kirkman.  I mention this because the game is based on said comic book series, so those people who go into this game thinking they’re getting some sort of continuation of the TV series will be in for a shock, but fortunately no prior understanding of either the show or the comic is necessary to play the game.  This review will be spoiler free, because a game like this needs to be experienced by the player first, not read in some review.  The first episode in this 5 chapter season sets the stage wonderfully, as you take part in the early stages of the zombie infestation that has begun to plague Atlanta and the outlying suburbs.  You’ll meet up with all sorts of characters, all of whom have their own motives and methods of surviving (with various degrees of success).  Your goal through this episode is to establish what’s going on, find help, try to locate your family, and, of course, survive.

How you go about accomplishing those goals is what this game is all about.  Telltale Games has done an excellent job with how you interact with the world.  Rather than having just point and click environments, or just having you move the character around exploring, The Walking Dead mixes them both in.  At times, you’ll be free to explore an area (often a fairly limited space) using either the control pad or WASD keys, depending on your input method.  Other times, you may be crawling along the ground using those same controls, scrambling to get away from a zombie.  And there are instances where it is point and click: you can’t move at all, and must look around at what is nearby to determine what you must do next, such as escaping a vehicle, or distracting a zombie horde.  It’s the fusion of these different types of interfaces that help keep The Walking Dead from feeling repetitive while serving a specific purpose; for example, most point and click scenes are used in claustrophobic environments where you need to act quickly.

And acting quickly is a common theme in this game.  Almost from the start, you’re on a timer any time an interaction is required of you.  Everything from conversation responses to actions to chases are timed, and your reaction will dictate life or death, be it yours or someone else’s.  Conversations in particular require constant attention, as your input is often needed to steer things in one direction or another.  Silence (either no response, or selecting the “…” response) is an option, and sometimes can be the prudent move, but more often than not, you’ll want to say something.  Building relationships in this game is critical, and you will often need to decide between telling people the truth, and telling them what they want to hear.  You’ll have to remember all the stories you tell, too, because characters will either test you on what you previously said, or be listening when you tell your story to others, and if things don’t mesh up, you’ll damage your credibility.  This might not seem like a big deal, until you try to convince them to help you and they blow you off.  Every choice you make will change the story you experience, and in fairly drastic ways.  Telltale Games has stated that the episodes will build off of the choices you make (and this is made evident in the closing preview to the next chapter, in which cutscenes are tailored to the choices you made in the game), so choose wisely (but quickly!).

The Walking Dead does a great job of immersing you in its world quickly, and you learn about your character from the interactions you have with other characters (including the lies you tell). This character interaction is one of the real strengths of the game, and is driven by excellent dialog and voice acting.  The emotions that people feel are real, and with the cel-shaded cartoon style of graphical representation, solid dialog was critical in order to keep the game’s fairly serious tone plausible.  The game does not shy away from forcing tough decisions on your character with real ramifications, and you will quickly learn that slow response time or poor decision making will cost people their lives.  The game takes this all in stride and moves on, but you may find yourself dwelling on whether you could have handled a situation better.  Fortunately, there are 3 save slots, so if you want to try it again on another playthrough, you can do so without overwriting anything.  Another strength is the frantic feeling you get in close combat situations, in which you must quickly find the spot on an attacking zombie to hit before it makes you its lunch.  It’s also worth noting that once you do beat the episode, you’ll want to go back through and just spend time dying at various points.  I played through the episode the first time without dying (though I can’t say the same for my companions), and realized there were some pretty insane (and humorous) death scenes I was missing.  The episode is short enough (~2 hours) that you can play through it a few times to see everything the game has to offer, as it will be impossible to do so in a single run.

My gripes are minor: the animations, particularly with a character’s eyes, can be a little off.  Characters can do scowls, glares and other facial expressions that involve eye squints very well, but when a character is surprised, shocked or using an expression that involves their eyes going wide, it looks awful, and pulls you out of the experience a bit.  Controls on the keyboard for movement feel very awkward; if you can use a gamepad, do so.  There are points in the conversations where there is an out of place silence, or characters will say things that don’t seem in line with how the conversation was going, almost as if the game was choosing the wrong dialog response to the previous statement.  The game is also very linear, with fairly obvious solutions to the various puzzles.  The only real challenge is trying to balance everyone’s emotions towards you, until you realize that you can’t please everyone.  Then it just turns into focusing your efforts on the characters you care about, and letting the others fend for themselves.

Tym’s Take: The Walking Dead is an excellent start to this 5 episode game series.  You quickly become invested both in your character and the characters you meet, and for a game that’s as short as this is, that’s an impressive feat.  You will have genuine moments of terror as you watch companions die while you’re trying to save them, and the mature tone of the game is appreciated.  I truly got the feeling that the way characters behaved in this game is pretty much how real people would behave, and what shocked me most was realizing that how I was interacting with the game is probably a fair representation of how I’d handle myself in that situation in life.  The Walking Dead is as much litmus test of your real-life handling of pressure situations as it is a horror game, and is probably why this game does such a good job of pulling you in, and keeping you engaged.  I strongly recommend this game to anyone.

+ Excellent dialog and voice acting
+ Decisions have real consequences
+ Decisions must be made quickly
- Animations and certain dialog sequences are a little off
- Game is pretty much on rails, relying on character interactions to provide the variety of outcomes

Final Score: 9/10

I’ve been playing with Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite, and it’s time I tell you what I think. Is it a dud or a must have for any tablet or smartphone user?

For those of you that don’t know what’s so special about the GoFlex Satellite, it’s a Wi-Fi portable hard drive. One that has 500GBs worth a space. With any iOS or Android device, you are able to pretty much stream any of your media library over the Wi-Fi from the GoFlex Satellite to whatever you’re using. You can also access files that are on the GoFlex Satellite and copy them from the Satellite to whatever you are using.

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite is a pretty simple device. It’s just a tad bigger then your standard USB powered HDD; this is to store a battery that’s reported good for up to 7 hours. It, of course, also has Wi-Fi hardware inside of it that allows you to connect to it through Seagate’s GoFlex Media app. To keep internet access to your device, you can connect your GoFlex Satellite to another network and then piggyback its connection to your device. This is a nice and very important feature to have because without it, if you were connected to the GoFlex Satellite, you wouldn’t have any internet on your device. Also packed in with the GoFlex Satellite were the cables necessary to connect it to your computer via USB 2 or USB 3. A USB power cord (so you can charge it without having to connect it to your Mac or PC), and an car charger adapter (for those long drives) are also included.

So how well does is work? Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite almost hit a homerun with this HDD. The only flaws I could find happen to be with the GoFlex Media app and not the HDD itself. Yes you can stream videos, but ONLY iOS friendly videos. This means no .avi’s or .mkv’s, two well known and widely used formats in the video media world. You can, of course, convert your media to .mp4′s or .m4v’s, but who really wants to do that? Certainly I don’t, nor would I want to when I can play just about any type of file already on my iPad with apps. Another really big flaw for me was how I can’t move files from my iPad to the GoFlex Satellite. Their file transfer system only works one way. I think it would be great to be able to move some of my documents from Pages, or photos that are on my device to the GoFlex Satellite. The fact you can not do it only baffles me; it seems like such a common sense type of thing. The only reason that I could see as a legit reason not to include this option is if Apple won’t allow it, but as other apps have allowed me to do similar things, I’m not sure if this is the reason. These two issues are the only two problems I have with the GoFlex Satellite, both of which seem that they could be fixed through an update of their app.

Overall I was very surprised by how well the Seagate GoFlex Satellite worked and performed. I plugged it to my Mac, threw some videos on it, and then it was ready to go. I’ve tried it around the house, and on a trip down to Boulder. Actually to be honest, my daughter tried it on the trip down to Boulder and it worked great. The Seagate app connected right to the HDD and it showed me all the videos that I threw on it. Each one played pretty much instantly and without any issue. I could easily see myself using this on any type of commutes, vacations, or even just around the office. The fact that I can connect up to 3 devices up to the GoFlex Satellite just makes it even more appealing. All of a sudden, I’m watching a movie, my daughter is watching one of her Disney shows and my wife can still watch whatever she wants to. That would be so awesome for any of our vacations when we have our downtime.

Steve’s Final Say: If you have kids, and they have any iOS or Android device, this is really a must have. Just think of all the quiet time you’ll get on any trip as they have access to their movies or tv shows. If you go on trips yourself, or commutes where you watch tv shows or movies, this again, is really a must have. Free up your iOS or Android device and keep your media on this, and then just connect it to whenever you want to watch your media. The GoFlex Satellite really does work great and it’s so simple to use.

Edit: There has been a firmware update that now allows up to 8 people to connect wirelessly to to GoFlex Satellite.

Game Review: Trials Evolution
Release: April 18th, 2012
Genre: Platform, Racing
Developer: RedLynx
Available Platforms: XBLA
Players: 1-4
MSRP: $15
ESRB Rating: E10+
Website: http://www.redlynx.com/trials-evolution

For a long time, I have been a Trials fan. Back when the game wasn’t on consoles and was a browser game, it had some great addictive potential but lacked the charm and variety that would truly make it a huge hit. That changed when Trials HD launched on Xbox Live Arcade in 2009 and was met with outstanding reviews. It was one of the best XBLA games to release on the console and was downloaded millions of times and loved by gamers worldwide, the wide variety of tracks and fun challenging gameplay kept you coming back just to get over the next obstacle or beat your friends new score.

When I sat down to play Trials Evolution, from what information I had previously seen about the game, I was expecting more tracks to be based outside, more obstacles for me to throw myself over and the addition of a multiplayer component. What I found was something better, Trials Evolution is one of the most comprehensive, addictive and fun games to hit XBLA since the service first launched. If you are looking for a game to keep your attention, to keep you hooked to your controller and to keep you coming back again and again, load up your console and hit the download button right now.

Trials Evolution is the follow-up to Trials HD. Developers RedLynx have done an outstanding job of maintaining the best qualities of Trials HD while adding extra games modes, in-level physics and track environments. Every so often you’ll finish a track and think “Wow, did that really just happen?”.

If you haven’t seen either of the Trials games that have made their way to Xbox Live Arcade, you are in control of a biker and have to make your way to the end of a course, each of the courses you make your way through have a different theme and aesthetic. As you progress further through the game you will unlock more challenging levels, ultimately leading you up to some extremely delicate and nail-biting sections as you face the extreme tracks that have been menacingly conjured up by the team at RedLynx. Before you even plan to make progress through the game you’ll need to wrap your head around the bike physics of the game. Jumping off the ramp and landing at the right angle are make or break in this game. Thankfully the checkpoint system is very forgiving and most tracks have a checkpoint between each obstacle.

While resetting to the last checkpoint you passed and attempting to make the jump again can seem like the best solution, another great element in Trials Evolution is the competitive nature. After every track you complete you will be presented with the scores that your friends have got. I pride myself of coming the top of all track leaderboards and sometimes spend hours on the same track just to shave a couple of seconds off my final time. This competitive nature increases tenfold with the addition of Online Multiplayer in Trials Evolution, four players can now pit themselves against each other on specially designed four player courses, or you can have a ghost races against each other on some of the Single Player tracks to see who really is the best racer. The rank system implemented into the game doesn’t really matter too much as you can unlock cash from doing absolutely anything in the game, whether it be finishing a race or completing a tournament. Once I had completed all the offline tracks, I found myself with over $100,000 and at that point I could already afford the most expensive items available to customize your racer and your bike.

Another addition that players of Trials HD have been waiting for is the online track sharing and creating feature. While the original game featured a track creator, it was very limited and once you had created a track you would only be able to share it with people on your friends list and not the entire Trials community. Some of the maps I have encountered while looking for tracks to download from the community are incredibly well designed, including a 2D shooter and even a remake of Angry Birds, aptly named Angry Bikes.

If I could say one thing about the game it would be sit back and enjoy the ride. If you have Trials HD and are wondering if this game really improves enough on the original formula to warrant a download, trust me, download this game now. If you are new to the Trials games, Trials Evolution is a great place to start.

• Addictive gameplay
• Wide variety of levels
• Great difficulty progression in Single Player catering for new players and old
• Track Editor that gives you endless possibilities

Final Score: 10 out of 10

Looking at the description for Deep Black: Reloaded it had many appealing features that I look for in a shooter. The main thing pulling me into the game were the underwater sections in the game. Did the game live up to what I expected? Not really.

The story takes place as two different nations have had a little falling out and decide to start a war. You play as a soldier coming out of retirement known as Pierce and are given a mission to rescue some hostages from a base that are up in the drama. When you get to the compound, things aren’t as you would expect. You find a giant weapon and have to do something about it.

Deep Black: Reloaded has some great water sections. You find yourself swimming throughout tunnels, raising and lowering the water level and solving underwater puzzles to progress yourself through the game. Unfortunately these underwater sections are split up by repetitive shooting sections that become more frustrating than fun after the first few battles. Deep Black: Reloaded is a shooter and the shooting sections are plenty.  On your mission to find out who is responsible for the weapon, you will have hundreds of enemies to take out, all spawning out of nowhere on the side of the corridor and coincidentally standing directly next to an exploding object for you to conveniently shoot and take them out in one shot. The majority of the game takes place while shooting instead of making great use of the most appealing part, the underwater sections. It becomes very difficult to enjoy certain parts of the game knowing that the second you step out of the water you should get comfortable as you might be repeating that section another 10 times after getting killed for a whole number of reasons out of your control.

The cover mechanic doesn’t help the combat as attempting to get to the cover becomes just as difficult as hiding behind it. The game has a non existent sprint button so you find yourself walking with the camera slightly to the side hoping that the game kicks you into sprint mode so you can actually make some progress through the level. As most of the game takes place on land, the pace of the game is slowed down by this. At times you will end up dying as you can’t make your way to the cover before a turret takes you down because you are stood out in the open trying to hide behind anything. Once hidden, you won’t have much luck either as most of the things that you attempt to hide behind, Pierce will end up with his arm or his head poking out so the enemies can do just as much damage when you are in cover. The underwater combat sections are more forgiving and although repetitive, I didn’t have an issue with any of the underwater controls or mechanics. You have a boost button to push yourself forward and a grappling hook that you can use to pull enemies into the water or hack and solve underwater puzzles. The enemies you face underwater are basic and at times you have difficulty telling where the enemy is in context to you and start spinning around hoping to see a bullet fly past.

The enemies that you take out aren’t varied enough for each section to be a new challenge, and as the environments aren’t that varied either, the game just becomes one giant level, with shooter sections, water sections, shooter section and so on. I wouldn’t mind the various faults of the shooting sections if the checkpoints within the game weren’t so terrible, at points if you get killed you end up going back 10-15 minutes and having to do another two shooting sections before you get back to where you were originally. The boss battles (or giant mechanical robot battles) you occasionally encounter follow the theme of the rest of the game as you have to figure out what to do and then three deaths later you finally take them out. The voice acting is very poor and basic and the certain sounds that the enemy makes when you kill them can get repetitive after hearing someone collapse and gargle themself to death for the tenth time in 15 minutes. I didn’t get chance to try the multiplayer as I couldn’t find a match, but I can imagine it is the same painful shooting sections as the Single Player but with other people.

I went into Deep Black: Reloaded with the impression that it was going to be a primarily underwater based game, and on certain sections, it is. Unfortunately those underwater sections are accompanied by some terrible shooting sections on land that after your first couple of times can become boring and at times frustrating. If you are looking for a game in this genre, it might be best if you give this one a miss.

• Beautiful water effects
• Fun underwater sections
• Terrible shooting sections
• Frustrating and infrequent checkpoints
• Clunky cover and movement

Score: 3 out of 10

Game Review: Defenders of Ardania
Release: March 14th 2012
Genre: Strategy
Developer: Most Wanted Entertainment (MWE)
Available Platforms: XBLA, PC and iPad
Players: 1-4
MSRP: $15
ESRB Rating: 12+
Website: http://www.defendersofardania.com/

Defenders of Ardania is a tower defense game from Most Wanted Entertainment that attempts to take the traditional gameplay of a tower defense game and throw it out the window. Instead of the usual act of just defending, Defenders of Ardania requires you to fight back and send troops back out to your enemies base. While this is an interesting addition to a tower defense game, it is ultimately the downfall of the game.

In Defenders of Ardania, you make your way across the map from territory to territory facing different enemy types while unlocking and purchasing new towers and units to send to your enemies base. As with most tower defense games, you start with the simple close range and long range towers and slowly as the levels progress you unlock more varied towers. The same applies to the units you can send out, the soldiers, tanks and rogues are a great starting point, although even fully upgraded, the enemy towers can still take them down pretty fast if they are left out on their own.

Attacking ultimately becomes the main strategy, as the game limits you to placing only 10 towers when you start each level, it pushes the tower defense element of the gameplay to the back burner and leaves you to focus on taking on the enemy. Unfortunately the attacking element can become repetitive very quickly and you end up focusing on spending all of your resources on sending out 25 of the same rogue or tank unit so that the opponents towers can’t keep up with such a horde.

At the start of the game, I was really excited by the premise of being able to attack the enemy. Slowly as the levels progressed, it turned from a new and interested game into a repetitive and very limited game. Some elements of the game are a great addition, such as the magic ability granting you the power to use some of your resources to heal your base or attack a certain point of the map with a thunderstorm.

Music in the game is a strong point and definitely suits the game. This is accompanied by some terrible voice acting as it seems like the voice actors for the game are reading the script for the first time. Thankfully you don’t need to focus on the story much and this only affects you in between levels leaving you to focus on the actual game within the level. Multiplayer follows the same theme as the single player and pits you against up to four online opponents in the same format as the single player. While following this format, the online matches will also take you sometimes an hour, just because your units are just too weak to take out the enemy and you wind up just endlessly throwing hundreds of troops out, hoping that at least one of them might make it the enemy base.

Defenders of Ardania was a really great idea for a tower defense game and at certain points it fulfils what you expect from the game. With a wide variety of levels, towers and units, strategy is key. If you can see past the long levels and the limitation of tower placements, then Defenders of Ardania is a comparable strategy game. If you are looking for a real tower defense game, I would give this one a miss.

• Wide range of towers and units
• Great first couple of levels
• Too much repetitive gameplay
• Terrible voice acting and dull story

Score: 4 out of 10

As an Oni demon (and his two “Inkgod”comrades), you are tasked with saving a kingdom from an evil presence, which you unfortunately learn from walls of scrolling text. Once you clear the tutorial stage, there are sixth paths you can take to victory. The branches you can choose are tied to your end-of-level grades, which means only the most efficient players will ever make it to the “good” endings. While I’m never a fan of playing through the same set of levels several times, the structure promises new sights and challenges each time you play. In practice however, the levels are so dull and short that I struggled to keep playing. The levels are only ever as tall as the Vita’s screen itself, meaning that you never have much room to draw your bridges and ramps, and in most instances, you won’t need to, because levels rarely extend beyond a couple screens. With a handheld game, developers usually aim for shorter play sessions, but Sumioni takes that to an extreme.

Even if can get over the brief levels, the enemies and obstacles just don’t complement the mechanics well. Random foot soldiers will blindly walk into the stationary flames you can draw, while bosses can fill the screen with projectiles that make it too difficult to find an attack window. Even summoning your Inkgod lion or phoenix is dull, as you’re just drawing the same hourglass every time. Okami‘s calligraphy worked because there was so much variety – bombs, vines, cherry blossoms, lily pads. Sumioni didn’t need to recreate that necessarily, but the game never develops beyond the opening tutorial. It’s a shame too, because there’s absolutely potential here. It’s a shame that Acquire pushed this out for the launch window, because Sumioni is a shell of a game in its current state.

Game Review: Street Fighter X Tekken
Release: 3/6/12
Genre: Fighting
Developer: Capcom
Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita
Players: 1-4
MSRP: $59.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Website: http://www.streetfighter.com/us/sfxtk/

The worlds of Street Fighter and Tekken have collided. In an effort to attain the mysterious Pandora, Capcom and Namco’s warriors have taken the fight to a merged universe! The cast of Tekken take step into the 2D plane for a rare occurrence, and the Street Fighters team up with a partner. Some teams, such as Ryu and Ken, are natural and expected, but players are expected to mix things up a bit. The gender-confusing Poison with a gaseous bear? Bob with Sagat, leading to a team that can only be named as “Bob Sagat”? Capcom may have successfully merged the two worlds for this title, but the dark secret uncovered may destroy their reputation with fans in the long run.

First and foremost, this is one of two titles that will crossover the casts of these two universes in a fighting game. Street Fighter X Tekken is developed by Capcom, and therefore plays akin to many of their titles; it’s 2D with 3D graphics, there are six attack buttons (three punches, three kicks), and by performing button combos, unique moves are unleashed (both light attacks for a throw, both medium to swap partners, and so forth). The big twist that will inevitably affect all players is that you chose two characters at the beginning (or, if you’re playing with a friend, you each choose one). When one of the fighters falls, the match is over; strategy kicks in here, as you need to swap out before you fall, let the other fighter take a backseat, or pull a desperate attack that takes out one fighter on his last legs and gives a power boost to the remaining one, for a few scant remaining seconds.

On a technical level, the fighting system is largely great; the controls aren’t simplified, allowing for a fair amount of variety and technique that harkens back to the six-button controls of most Street Fighter titles, and it’s a system that works. The Street Fighter cast is largely unchanged, and the Tekken cast plays how they would limited to a 2D plane. Poison, one of the characters in the cast who’s only had one previous playable title in very limited release, is a fun new fighter that might get a few good hits in, beyond the infamous backstory. If you wanted to pit Street Fighter characters against Tekken characters in a Street Fighter-stylized game, this is what you want.

Obviously, there is one huge complaint about the game (and the game industry as a whole), discovered by early adopters and those willing to take a peek behind the game’s curtain, as it were. Between the two home console versions, the Sony title has an extra five characters. Three of them make complete sense, Cole (from Infamous, a Sony-exclusive title) and two mascots for Sony wouldn’t show up on Microsoft, and that’s okay. Megaman and Pac-Man, on the other hand, have been platform agnostic for years, and wouldn’t stand out on a Microsoft console. For the future Vita version, an additional 12 characters have been confirmed as bundled with the game at launch; while that’s not truly damaging, as the Vita title will be in gestation longer (and could benefit from the time to polish off more characters), various bits of the characters and code have been found on the Xbox version. Capcom has already confirmed that these characters will be part of a paid download down the road.

Effectively, Capcom will be wanting Microsoft players (and home Sony players) to pay extra for stuff that’s already on the disc. It’s a damaging indictment towards the monetization of gameplay and console-exclusivities; players aren’t deciding between Street Fighter X Tekken for the Xbox 360, Street Fighter X Tekken: Championship Edition for the PlayStation 3, and Super Street Fighter X Tekken Turbo Revival for the Vita in name, but they definitely are when it comes down to characters. More costumes and gems will be available too, but at the onset, whole play styles will be locked until players spend more Microsoft Points.

Without tackling the moral and other ramifications of having so many versions of rosters different between the various titles of the game, Street Fighter X Tekken seems to have too much going on at one time. A tag-team Street Fighter, or a game focusing on Street Fighter heroes fighting Tekken heroes? Too simple. Combine them, and you have something “good enough”. Adding in the gem system, though, and you’ve got what should be relegated to an extra mode. Heroes VS. Heralds mode in Ultimate Marvel VS. Capcom 3 worked in one fashion, as it was limited to Free Post-Release DLC in it’s own mode; ignoring the fact that no Achievements or Trophies or content was unlocked from that mode, you played it because you actively wanted to play that mode. Additionally, Xbox 360 fans cannot play with a partner on the same console against online opponents; it’s listed in the manual, Mortal Kombat did it, but for various reasons, Capcom retracted that capability in the Xbox title.

This is a Street Fighter game with a bit too much thrown on it’s plate, and a Capcom game with too much negative backlash for most to give the title a fair shake. In a vacuum, people picking up the Xbox 360 version (the iteration reviewed) will be treated with a game with a good amount of fighters, an overzealous fighting engine, and a general appreciation for both fighting game worlds. Still, it’s impossible for someone who keeps up with gaming news to play a game in a total vacuum, and the viewpoint that the title is “unfinished” or “part 1″ is additionally inherent. As it stands, it’s a good game that doesn’t exactly get everything perfect, and will only get better and cheaper with time. Give it a year, and when the inevitable Street Fighter X Tekken: Complete Edition is released for less the cost with all the DLC bundled, and you have a game worthy of a fight fan’s collection. As it is, this is a preview of what the Vita version will have all at launch, and while it might be a fun demo, it’s a demo.

• Gem system is unnecessary
• Tekken and Street Fighter fans will find nods to aspects they like
• On-Disc DLC is a major sticking point

Final Score: 6 out of 10