Holiday Review Guide: Part 3 - Nintendo Wii & PSP Games

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier
Sony Computer Entertainment, High Impact Games
Available for PSP and Playstation 2

Jak and Daxter are back and on a mission to save their world from the brink of destruction due to Eco shortages. Along with Jak’s girlfriend, Keira, they speed to the end of the world to search for a new Eco source and happen upon new characters, locations and a whole new adventure.

The Lost Frontier lives up to the successful Jak and Daxter franchise with tons of fun platforming levels, new vehicles to ride around in and more. There are lots of new power-ups to explore but you won’t be able to switch back and forth between Dark Jak and normal Jak like the previous game. Dark Jak does make an appearance once in a while though.

This makes a great holiday buy either on the PSP or PS2 and I know fans of the series will be impressed with the new instalment.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Buy it!

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Rockstar Games, Rockstar Leeds
Available for PSP and Nintendo DS

Now I’ve reviewed at Chinatown Wars before on the Nintendo DS, but now there’s a version for the PSP and I know Sony fans want to know if the game is worth the coin. The game still focuses on Huang Lee and his quest to return his stolen father’s sword and seek revenge on the people who took it. You will join up with the Triads and do all the usual car stealing and gun shooting missions you find in GTA games but in this version, the screen is wider, the radio station selection is bigger and there are more missions to complete.

The controls don’t exactly translate well over from the Nintendo DS version to the PSP and the multi-player mode only allows for 2 players on the PSP but overall, this is still a fun game. Fans of the GTA genre will find the same excellent Rockstar flare and humour here as the big console games.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Rent it!

Little King’s Story
Xseed Games, Cing & Town Factory
Available for the Nintendo Wii

Little King’s Story puts you in the role of a young boy, Corobo who is the newly crowned King of a whole kingdom. You must return your new kingdom to its former glory by training your subjects and defending your borders. Taking a page from the book of Pikmin, you must control your groups of soldiers, builders and more by pointing them towards their tasks.

Don’t let Little King’s Story’s childish exterior fool you into thinking this is a kid’s game because this title will have you massively frustrated after the second boss or so. Remember to save often and expect to die a lot. Achieving upgrades and exploring new areas will have you addicting to this title in no time.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Buy it!

Rabbids Go Home
Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montpellier
Available for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS

The rabbids have finally tired of their party life and want to go home. Believing they live in the moon, they begin to steal tons of junk from around the world to build a tower that reaches their home. You need to help the rabbids race their shopping carts around and collect all the junk needed to complete their tower.

Moving away from the normal rabbids mini game genre, Rabbids Go Home has you racing through levels collecting items on a list and scaring humans in the typical rabbids’ humour. There isn’t much of a story here but the need to help the rabbids collect their items and complete their mission will keep you on your goofy path.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Rent it!

Support Men's Health in Movember with Rockstar and The Girl Gamer

I have decided to join a global movement known as Movember to bring much needed attention to men’s health and prostate cancer. 

Movember is the month formerly known as November where men start clean shaven and commit to growing a Moustache for the entire month.  That’s right, the Prostate Cancer Society is bringing back the Moustache to raise funds and awareness for men’s health. All the funds I raise go directly to Prostate Cancer Canada.

What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to afflict Canadian men with 25,500 diagnosed and 4,400 dying from the disease each year.

My Father was diagnosed with colon cancer a few years back and what was suppose to be something they could just remove easily, soon spread throughout his entire body and killed him. For this very reason, men should never take their health lightly because even something as small as back pain or an problem with iron in your blood can turn out to be more serious.

Now clearly I can’t grow a moustache but the love of the men in my life has convinced me I should get involved and I am hoping that you will support me with a donation. 

To make a donation, you can either:

•  Purchase one of my moustache necklaces over at Pixelated Creations for $10 plus shipping. $5 will be donated to the Prostate Cancer Society of Canada.
  
• Click this link http://ca.movember.com/mospace/158621/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account
• Write a cheque payable to ‘Prostate Cancer Canada’, referencing my Registration Number 158621 and mailing it to: Prostate Cancer Canada, 145 Front Street East, Ste. 306, Toronto, ON M5A 1E3, Canada.
  

All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Prostate Cancer Canada will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please go to http://ca.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

Now for you men out there, Rockstar is running a contest in conjunction with the Prostate Cancer Society to support Movember and Men's Health. Starting November 1st, all men are required to shave their face clean and then grow the most wicked moustache possible. The person with the best mo with be immortalized in the upcoming Rockstar game, Red Dead Redemption.

Contest details are available here.

Do you need any more reasons to get involved?

Review: Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV
Rockstar Games, Rockstar North
Available now for Xbox 360 and PS3

Rockstar has finally released their latest addition to the Grand Theft Auto series with GTA IV and it promises to be the best yet in a long line of amazing games. But before I go into any details, I just want to remind Pulse readers that Grand Theft Auto IV is rated M for Mature and should not be purchased or played by any one under the age of 17 as it contains sexual content, partial nudity, strong language and extreme violence.



In the newest addition to the GTA series, Players follow the storyline of Niko Bellic, a fresh-off-the-boat, yet tragic anti-hero who comes to American to join his cousin, Roman in his perfect dream life, but instead finds only that his cousin lied and is wrapped up in same type of criminal world, he came here to escape.



Instead of the predetermined characters on criminal paths we usually find in GTA games, Rockstar decided this time they would allow players to choose the path of Niko, by allowing them to choose between either honourable or harsh ways to end certain missions. These choices change the storyline as you play and really add to the game’s replay value.

Driving through the streets of GTA IV’s Liberty City, players may feel like they’ve seen these streets before as the city has been almost mirrored completely to look like New York City. Though you are confined to certain areas of the city at first, more areas open to you as you complete specific missions and you will be able to hit all the hot spots Liberty City has to offer like Tw@ Internet Café which has an entire internet for Niko to surf or Honker‘s Strip Club, where you can spend some time with the ladies of Liberty City.



Besides the usual romp in your car with a prostitute, players can have Niko take part in different activities throughout the city which can add to Niko’s cash flow, build his relationship with friends or just add to your game completion score. Mini games like bowling or darts can be played on evenings out with a date or friend to build rapport with them and add to your game score, while street racing adds cash to your pocket and add to your game score. There are even hidden pigeons to kill in the streets of Liberty City to add to your score.



Building rapport with Niko’s friends is important in the game if you wish to have access to extra VIP elements of the game. For example, spend time with Roman and he’ll offer you free Taxi service. Each friend has something to offer Niko, so make sure you spend some quality time with them. Niko will also have dates during the course of the game and, if you spend some quality time with the ladies, the ladies will maybe show you a good time at the end of the date.

The driving physics have been changed to make driving more realistic, but I found driving is much harder now. If you drive anything but a compact car, you spin out of control and even using the hand brake doesn’t help to take corners at fast speeds. The GPS tracking system is still available and allows you to see where you need to go in missions or where to find specific locations, but Rockstar probably should have made it bigger to allow you to see a bigger chunk of area. Setting waypoints really helps in finding locations easier and I wouldn’t suggest navigating Liberty City without doing so at any point.

There are still a few collusion detection problems or bugs within the game that has the characters walking through walls, getting stuck between cars, or has you getting into the wrong cars when there are too many around you, but bugs in such a huge game are too be expected and can be slightly forgiven.



This time around players will finally have the chance to take to the streets of Liberty with their friends or complete strangers online all with a touch of a button on your cell phone. Players have the chance to go online with up to 15 players to play in different modes like cops & crooks, death matches, turf wars, etc., and if you host a game, you can change the variables in the game like friendly fire, police presence, weapons sets, traffic levels, radar functionality, and many more.



Graphics in GTA have come a long way since we last played and the series looks incredible. From characters to the city, everything has been given a better textured and detailed look. Character animations actually sync to their dialogs, even during game play and their movements are so much more human from the way they stroll up and down the streets to the way Niko hot-wires his cars. The city in general has a life of its own now and you could spend hours just watching the NPCs living out their daily lives, because Rockstar has made sure that each of them have their own stories to act out.

Rockstar didn’t seem to employ a lot of big name actors to voice any of the character this time, but honestly the game didn’t need it. Every character sounded spectacular and brought a genuine realism in their roles across the board. The only downside is you have to listen to such great acting while some dumb hot dog vendor is screaming in the background about how great his long, hot wiener tastes.

At first, I didn’t care for the music picked for the different radio stations in GTA IV, but after a while I found a few hidden gems, though mostly on the Russian station, Vladivostok FM. The instrumental music, especially the theme, manages to mix some European old country sounds with more modern beats and come up with the best GTA original music yet.



If you’re wondering about the differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, there isn’t much. PS3 version has an install and patch to download before you play, which shortens the load times, and you can use the SIXAXIS to control vehicles in the game, if you choose. The graphics and audio are the same, as are the online play, so really the only factors in which system you choose to buy the game on, are only your friend’s list and your patience for load times.

I generally am not a fan of Grand Theft Auto games, but this time Rockstar has made a game that mixes art and entertainment so perfectly, you can‘t help but want to play it. Sure there are a few bugs and the driving mechanics suck, but when you put those things aside this game is pretty damn near perfect. Perfect enough though for every mature gamer out there to have to pick this game up.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Buy it!

Grand Theft Auto IV: What are you doing? Trailer

Next week Grand Theft Auto IV hits store shelves and more people in North American will be calling in sick than on Madden release day. Trust me.

I haven't been really excited about this game until I watched a trailer on Gamespot that the embed code won't work for, so here's a working version of the trailer from Gametrailers.com. Wow! This game is coming out on my birthday ... I'll be 27 ... arg, and so far not a bad birthday present, Rockstar.

Look my review later in May.