From Retro to Renew: Battle Chess

So when I was a kid I played I a lot of PC games my Father would trade from friends and such. One such games was called Battle Chess which was released by Interplay in 1988. I wasn't really good at playing chess but I loved watching each character battle it out for the chess spot. Each Chess piece would react differently to another piece type and it was so cool to watch their battle moves.


SouthPeak Games is coming out with a new version of this classic game, Battle vs Chess and has a new trailer posted for it. It looks pretty darn cool and again, though I sucked at chess, I would totally play this game just to watch the pieces battle it out for the space

To quote Ron Wesley "That's Wizard's Chess!"

Review: X-Blades

X-Blades
SouthPeak Interactive, Gaijin Entertainment
Available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC

Southpeak’s newest title, X-Blades has been the talk of the web since its pants-free heroine made her photo debut. The pictures of the plucky little tomb raider had everyone wondering if X-Blades was going to be more than just a pretty face in ass-less chaps or something with actual descent game play and a good storyline. Now that the game is actual on the market, I guess it’s time to finally answer that question.

The story begins when Ayumi, our g-string wearing heroine discovers a map leading to an ancient artifact that contains the power of two powerful Gods, one light and one dark. Ayumi becomes cursed by these Gods once she touches the artefact and must venture to find a way to stop the powers of the Gods from awakening inside her.


Ayumi has a choice of two weapons: her blades which also double as guns. She can also unlock magic spells to use like fire or ice. As Ayumi takes out enemies in each area, she gains souls which can be transferred into your skills to unlock stuff like magic spells or special attacks. Each area has Ayumi clearing a stage of hundreds of enemies and collecting items like power stones. Once she clears the required amount of enemies or destroys the boss enemy, then the door to the next level will unlock.

From the menu, you can also purchase health refills as the game world does not offer any health potions that can used on screen. Your character’s health does return on its own but it does so slowly and it never really offsets the damage your character suffers unless you can find a good spot to hide.

The game makes use of a targeting system but considering how many enemies can be on screen at once, this system is incredible flawed. Tracking enemies as they dart back and forth through your field of view can be both challenging and frustrating at the same time. Ground units are much easier to track than flying units.

While the levels are often small in size the battles can last for a long time. One particular boss battle I fought for over fifteen minutes before I discovered a more efficient way of achieving my goal. The majority of your time will be spent in furious battle against seemingly endless waves of enemies which will get very repetitive and annoying unless you like that sort of thing. *cough* Dynasty Warriors *cough*

Failure in X-Blades results in your character starting back at the beginning of the level with all enemies resetting. Fortunately you get to keep all the souls and other goodies you already picked up. Death doesn’t occur often to be a real nuisance, but untimely deaths into a long fight forcing you to start all over can certainly make ones blood boil. It would certainly help if levels had save points or the ability to quick save your progress but that would certainly dull some of the challenge.


Graphically the game looks great and is enhanced through optional goodies like bump mapping and HDR lighting. Unfortunately the small level sizes rarely allow X-Blades to truly show its capabilities. The game also makes use of anime style cut scenes that are shown every few levels to explain and further the games storyline. It is during these intermissions that the developers advertising of an attractive heroine really comes to light. The camera pans around and behind Ayumi a healthy amount of times to give gamers a nice view of her significant lack of clothing. In fact if Ayumi had any less clothing the game would stand on very different store shelves such as those that cover up their windows and use many neon signs.

Though the game’s style succeeds in creating what looks like an attractive product, truthfully what you really get is just a hollow hack and slash with a sexy lead. X-Blades and its scantily clad heroine may provide an alternative to the much exhausted Tomb Raider franchise, but I personally would rather stick to staring at Lara Croft’s backside through another phoned-in sequel. At least I can look at her throughout the game without blushing.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Pass on it!

SouthPeak Games Shows its Hand in Upcoming Games

SouthPeak Games shows off its current and upcoming lineup of games in this sweet video.

I've already had the pleasure of reviewing Dream Pinball 3D for the Nintendo DS and playing Roogoo on Xbox Live Arcade, and I will be definitely trying out some of their other titles like Ninja Town, Monster Madness: Grave Danger, Raven Squad: Amazon Down, Tow and Blades X first chance I get.

Check out the video for gameplay footage from all the games I've mentioned here.

Review: Dream Pinball 3D for the Nintendo DS

Dream Pinball 3D
South Peak Games, Zuxxez Entertainment AG, TopWare Interactive
Available for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii

South Peak games has brought the fun of the pinball machine to your Nintendo DS in their newest title, Dream Pinball 3D. Dream Pinball 3D offers a trip down memory lane (or a history lesson, depending on who’s playing) to the days before home consoles and giant, interactive arcade games, when pinball tables ruled the arcades and kids would pump quarters into them for endless hours at a time.

Players get to choose from 6 different themed tables: Monsters, Aquatic, Dino Wars, Knight Tournament, Amber Moon and Spinning Rotors; each has their own music, sounds effects and table layouts. Each table can be played through classic mode, which allows for just normal play, or mission mode, which allows you to pick certain challenges you must meet on the table like extra ball or super combo.


Head to Head is also available but you have to find another person that also owns the game, then you can connect via local wireless connection and choose the table, the difficulty and the mode.

During game play, you can view your pinball table on one screen, while your table back and score is visible on the other. While you can choose which screen each one shows on in the options menu, real pinball fans will probably go with the traditional method and have the table on the bottom DS screen.

Controls on the game are all button based and with only the top shoulder buttons and the A button to use, the game is pretty simple for any one to pick up immediately. I was pretty happy with the table physics, because the table flippers react in time with your button pushing and the ball movements are pretty spot on. Some pinball games tend to miss on these points and no one likes a pinball game that cheats you on a life-like experience.

Options in the game allow you to customise the pinball game somewhat to your liking by allowing you to change things like the difficulty and the camera angles. The camera angles on your table are limited to two different ones you get to pre-program into the options before you start playing a table and you can’t tell what the angles are at first until you set them and use them in game.

Each table is shown in 3D form and when shown up close during game play, the graphics look clean and pretty sharp, but pull the camera back and the graphics suddenly look blocky and messy. Players will be happy to see the table animations to respond in time with the sound effects and the ball movements though. Tilts flash when they should and bumpers bump when they’re bumped.


Sounds in the game are created to fit along side each themed table they appear on and while they all were clear and appropriate for their tables, it seems like some sounds were getting cut off by other sounds. You figure the developers would have set the sounds to overlap each other, rather than cut each other off. Each tables had voiceovers to fit along side the themes too and they were pretty cool. The voice over really added to the creepy Monsters table.

Dream Pinball 3D, while not a bad game to sit down a play on your lunch hour, it’s not really anything to write home about either. It does its job as a pinball game and that’s about it. No flash, no bonus, just pinball. So, if you want something to fill some time during your break and you like pinball games, then this might be the game for you.

Rating 6 out of 10
Rent it



[Note: This footage is from the Wii version of the game]

TWO WORLDS: CURSE OF SOULS DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT CRUSADES ONTO XBOX

Pack Expands Antaloor Online Multiplayer Experience Even Further

Grapevine, Tx - April 3, 2008 - SouthPeak Games has announced that Curse
of Souls, the highly anticipated second set of downloadable content for
their open world role-playing game Two Worlds, is now available via Xbox
LIVE(r) Marketplace. Rated M for Mature, the content pack expands the
online multiplayer world of Antaloor with new maps and weapons, and is
available for 600 Microsoft points.

Curse of Souls' four new maps offer over 35 never before seen quests for
players to conquer together. In addition, players can battle one another
in an innovative player-versus-player challenge where opponents battle
to control magical orbs within a variety of arenas. In all, there are
over 10 hours of new content in this downloadable pack.

Players can also combine Curse of Souls with Tainted Blood, the first
downloadable content pack for Two Worlds, to greatly expand the
experience. Tainted Blood offered new maps, more quests, and introduced
players to the town of Tharnburg. Composed of two distinct districts,
those visiting the new town can learn skills in the Merchant's District,
or challenge other players to battle in the Gladiator District's huge
arena.

"The online portion of Two Worlds has proven immensely popular with the
game's fans, and this downloadable pack not only offers new places to
explore but gives players an arena to go mono e mono and see who has
created the stronger character," said Melanie Mroz, CEO of SouthPeak
Games. "Combined with the first downloadable content pack, there are
more hours of multiplayer gaming available than many single-player games
offer."

In January, SouthPeak Interactive, LLC and Global Services Partners
Acquisition Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: GSPA, GSPAB, GSPAW, GSPAZ)
jointly announced that they have agreed to a business combination
resulting in a new publicly held entity that will be called SouthPeak
Interactive Corporation. The transaction will allow SouthPeak to access
the public markets to accelerate its growth strategy and take advantage
of strong industry growth trends.