Disney Infinity 2.0, Part 1: Enter the Avengers

You've got your Iron Man, your Thor and your Hulk at the end of the month. What else do you need? Perhaps a bit more some substance. Disney Infinity 2.0 has been one of my most anticipated games for quite some time now. Take the magic of the first game and add a hefty cast of Marvelcharacters; the results sounded like a match made in heaven. By all means, it is definitely a fantastic team-up, with a few disappointments drizzled into the Avengers playset.

Disney infinity 2.0 is very much the same as the original but with quite a decent and well needed amount of upgrades. New skill trees will have you anticipating your favorite Avenger's super powers as they're gradually unlocked at a decent enough pace. A new combat system to accompany the new skill set is also absolutely fantastic. My gal and I have been playing non-stop and she simply can't get enough of flying around with Iron Man and unleashing all forms of death beams. It's a simple system that expands on the original by adding easy command. You may now hold your attack trigger to unleash one more, click another trigger to unleash a super, hold jump and a bumper to fly. It's all incredibly entertaining but simple, the charm of this series. The attention to detail on the characters themselves is brilliant. For example, Iron Man's flight is sweet and all but when Thortakes to the air, he's followed by a whirlwind of air which further demonstrates the speed he's flying at. Black Widow has an appropriately feminine and attractive hip-sway walk. The effects are bright and colorful and so are the humorous interactions of characters. There are a plethora of vocalisations that will leave you smiling. Since we had pre-ordered, we got Groot as our bonus free figure and we discovered that even the Avengerswill interact with him. You can't help but glee at the first time you hear the exchange: "I.Am.Groot." replied by Thor's "Yes....you are indeed Groot".  In essence, the characters are exceptionally wonderful. They feel severely more sophisticated than the initial cast and are far more immersive.

As a result, the playset for the Avengers is fun simply because you get to mess around with the cast via objective based missions and that is all. The Avengers playset is unfortunately the downside to your entire Disney Infinity 2.0 experience. It's not entirely bad, it's simply disappointing. When we first bought the original Disney Infinity, we were given three playsets in one. All three of those playsets took a few days to complete and were entirely fun. Even the frustrating bits were entertaining and bloody hell, you got to take part in sailing the seven seas and mess up some bad mothas in ship battles. This time around, you spend the same amount for one playset and two mini-game disks.  The Avengers playset started off fun. Initially, we were awed by how big the city was and the character abilities. Then it went downhill from there. Missions constantly repeated themselves and we found ourselves doing the exact same thing throughout the whole playset. It was both dull and frustrating. Sure, there's some fantastic cameos by Sif, Waspand Cpt.Marvel (Carol Danvers, who's one of my favorites), but there was nothing to keep us going except for empty promises. The antagonists are Lokiand Modok, which is fantastic, if only we were able to battle them. There's one Loki boss fight right at the beginning and that's it. We have no idea what happens to Modok afterwards. Supposedly, if you collect all the coins in the city, you unlock the option to play as Rocket and Nova. Through them, you face Modok. Which is the dumbest decision I have yet seen. Nova comes in the Spider-Manplayset which is another $35-45 and Rocketis another fifteen. Why would you have to spend more to get the entirety of the main storyline? They could've easily added some other obscure antagonist for those characters to face off against but why limit us to only one half of the bloody game? It feels stupid and if you're on a budget, you won't get the full experience within the first few weeks. WHAT!!? It's one of those two steps forward and one step backwards situations. The game is still great and you won't really be playing the playsets much other than to get all the unlocks for the toybox. However, it was such a pleasant surprise in the original game to find out that the playsets weren't just a bonus but a genuine fun and clever experience. You won't get that here in Avengers.

All in all, the game is fantastic; it truly is. You get a plethora of fantastic characters with different play-styles that will fill you with joy. Just don't expect much enjoyment out of their default story adventure. You'll get a few giggles as you run rampant in the city but that will be short lived. Oh well: perhaps the Spider-Man and Guardians playset will prove to be better. I'll make sure to review those as soon as I get my greedy little hands on them. Stay tuned for the second part of my Disney Infinity 2.0 article, as I delve into the far superior ToyBox mode, which will guarantee your need to own this game. Until then, ride some rainbows and wreck havoc with an Iron Suit.

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#wtv The Grateful Deadpool‏

After so many rumors of a Deadpool movie coming out, as well as a “test” trailer, we finally get confirmation that yes, there will be a Deadpool movie. I’m not crazy about Deadpool as some others may be, but I do enjoy reading about him from time to time.

Despite mixed-to-average reviews, Deadpool (the game) was always on my wishlist. I saw it on Amazonfor about $20 and figured, hey, what do I have to lose?

In case you don’t know, Deadpool is a Third-Person Action/Adventure game, like the tons of others. It doesn’t do much different from the rest of the pack: you get points after getting some kills and use them on weapon/ability unlocks or upgrades.

Many of the boss fights are mundane: evade the attack then hit back. I don’t believe bosses have weak spots or anything, which makes them slightly hard to beat. It’s simple and mindless button-mashing for the most part, but it’s almost expected anyway. Not like I was expecting Uncharted.

What I loved about the game, besides the character, is just that it’s not trying too hard to be the greatest. High Moon definitely could have done better—we’ve seen much better from them—but it’s excusable at this price point. With that in mind, I just had fun with it and ignored The Fault in its Stars. Get it? Because Wade’s got cancer too.

Tumors aside, if you have $20 to spend on mindless fun, you can’t do yourself wrong with Deadpool. It’s funny, a bit broken, but it’s forgivable if you like the guy. Nolan North delivers some quality voiceovers as per usual, and that definitely helps with the slightly broken mechanics and repetitive nature of the game.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 3

The last 2 weeks saw me writing about two games I owned for the Sega Genesis: NFL Football '94 and Virtual Bart. Both of these were horrid excuses for games, since either I didn't understand what I was doing or the controls were poor. Luckily enough, my childhood was spared with a third game: X-Men 2: Clone Wars.

This game was a great sidescroller. Both my brother and I ended up spending the most time with X-Men 2 out of the 3 games because we loved X-Men. Wolverine and Nightcrawler were my favorites.

Story-wise, I had no clue what was happening. Apparently these dudes called the Phalanx are out to get everyone on Earth. Don’t blame me for not caring, the story was presented as text on a screen, and I was a child. Let’s kill them already!

My brother and I had the game down pat for the most part. Through trial and error, we realized that each character was different. With time, we found that switching up the characters would make the game easier, because some were better than others for specific levels or bosses. For the most part, I ended up with Wolverine, but Cyclops was great as well, and Beast helped out a lot during boss battles.

The great part about the game is that Magneto ends up joining you, so you get to play as him. It was pretty cool for the time, but I never got the hang of playing as him, nor did I see any advantage in using him.

The game was fairly tough in my opinion. To this day, I have not beaten it. As a child, I was convinced that with time and patience, I would get through the most of it. Unlike Virtual Bart, the game was not frustratingly difficult because the controls were very tight. Each playthrough would see me getting slightly better, as I was just learning from experience.

As mentioned before, my brother and I also learned from trial and error. I guess that wouldn’t fly nowadays, but seeing as this was the best game we owned, we didn’t care about learning from the game this way. It allowed us to share more time together, as well as think of new ways to get past the tricky parts.

Sometimes we would just give up and put the game on hold because parts of the game were too hard to figure out, especially when you’re thrown into a boss fight. I knew there were cheat codes, and I was very tempted to skip a level or two, but oddly enough, the game would not accept the cheat codes. Even to this day, the cheat codes don't work on my hard copy and console, and I have no clue why.

Overall, X-Men 2: Clone Wars is a game I’ve always been fond of. It made playing my Sega Genesis worth it, despite lacking many of its must-own games (i.e. any of the Sonics, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Destiny). If you’ve never played it, definitely give it a chance.

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To X-Men Or Not To X-Men, That Is The Question

In this week's installment of "Charlie played a game so now he's going to rant about it," I analyse my play-through of X-Men Destiny. The short version is that there's not much to it, but you're not here for that. Well maybe, but you should read on anyway.

               

So growing up, I was a huge fan of the X-Men, especially Jim Lee's blue and gold run on the team. Remember that 90s cartoon that was based off of it? Where Cyclops's hair was constantly groomed by the same person who did Fabio's, Beast was not quite a full-on walking cat, Gambit and Rogue were a couple and everyone and their nana hated Jubilee? Oh those glorious X-Men days, I never thought I'd see the X-Men done justly in the media ever again. On the contrary, X-Men: Days of future past came out and it blew my expectations for the Marvel universe out of the water. That being said, I was in a mutant funk, I wanted more, I needed more. It's been too long since I've played the likes of X-Men Legends 2 or even the more recent Wolverine: Origins which wasn't half bad. Unlikely as it was, I came across X-Men Destiny at my local TRU for ten dollars and figured it was worth a shot.

For the most part, X-Men Destiny just barely met my expectations. It's got a lot of good concepts and ideas but just as many flaws. The game chiefly focuses on the concept of choice. The problem is, there aren't many choices you can make and the choices you do have don't really affect the story or gameplay much. Initially, you start the game off by choosing one of three original mutant protagonists: an American muscle-brained Colossus rip-off, an introspective tattooed anti-hero or a scarf wearing Japanese gal for you anime fans. After you choose your would-be hero who doesn't affect events in the storyline other than some dialogue, you discover your powers and choose yet again amongst three of them. The Obsidian power was my choice for my quarterback hero. As you progress, you have only two other main choices, whether you're an X-Men or a Brotherhood member and whether your mutant powers are more offensive or defensive. That's it! That's all there is in your choices and yet again, it doesn't affect anything. It changes your gameplay slightly and who you get your missions from but otherwise nothing. It's pretty disappointing especially considering the amount of people who want to re-imagine themselves in the X-Men universe. Well, this isn't the game for that.

               

Incidentally, those powers that you get have such unspectacular effects that they feel super underwhelming, on top of the lack luster use of the "X-genes" you pick up that allow you to borrow other powers from well known mutants and you've got zero reason to cycle through any of them. The final form of the Obsidian is an ability that allows you to transform into a giant crystallized titan. It sounds great, feels awful and plays even worse. Honestly, Silicon Knights, what were you bloody thinking? Furthermore, since we're on the topic of gameplay, using your mutant is pretty awkward. The controls are well mapped out but nothing feels responsive. I constantly feel like I'm hitting no one while mashing the standard attack button, the specials don't come out when I need 'em, the game chokes when you use anything flashy (if it comes out). At least you only suffer for a few hours. The game lasts anywhere between five and six hours which was a relief. You know what? Writing this review has made me realize that I like this game even less than I thought. The only redeeming quality of the game is their choice of supporting cast. It was really nice to see Pixie, Caliban and Northstar alongside better known characters like Wolverine, Magneto and Mystique. Generally, their models look pretty good too. However, they're all pretty pointless and you come across them at random moments in the game. It almost feels like whenever you enter a battle area, there's a mutant there just fighting without a purpose other than fanwank. The story wasn't bad but also non-spectacular.

I initially planned to end this rant by saying that it was a fun journey for a ten dollar game. Now, I'm thinking that you all should just watch some videos online, see your favorite mutant rendered in 3D and move on. It's not worth it, even for a die-hard X-Men fan. There was potential here but it was utterly squandered by poor design. Maybe in a few years we'll get the mutant game we always wanted with all the customisation options we want, 'till then. This is Charlie telling you to save yourself from torture and go play Disney Infinity. Do it!

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