Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, a sci-fi third person shooter from Capcom, focuses on an amnesia stricken protagonist in search of the alien “what killed his Pa.” The game takes place across a snow-covered world known as E.D.N. III in which our hero battles pirates and an alien race known as the Akrid.

Capcom seems to have learned from their SDTV problems with Dead Rising. The Lost Planet demo was plagued with SDTV display issues similar to Dead Rising, but it was fixed prior to the full game’s release, and things look marvelous. Though I still feel Oblivion is the best looking thing that has graced my television, Lost Planet isn’t far behind it.

The in-game text is displayed in a prominent and legible fashion. However, when members of your team contact you, a slight fuzz appears around the edges of the font. This problem doesn’t hinder the ability to read the text, it just makes it a less attractive.

The visuals are quite stunning. The desolate planet of E.D.N. III is aesthetically pleasing and evokes a feeling that goes well with the story. One of the only faults I found was that the constant snow while on the surface of the planet made things difficult to see. However, this effect could be intentional, and not due to my SDTV.

All the alien blasting and gun power ups made me nostalgic for th days of Contra. I didn’t test drive the multi-player but could tell from the single that it’d be a blast. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, while a bit short, is a worthy purchase in my humble opinion.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

Marvel Ultimate Alliance takes the successful formula of X-Men Legends and applies it to the entire Marvel Comic’s universe. 20 plus characters are involved in the storyline which makes things interesting. While the game is quite fun, things displayed somewhat poorly. The cut scenes were brilliant, but a tad dark, with fluid animation and decent voice acting. However, once the gameplay started things went a south.

One of the first things I noticed was the aspect ratio pushed the image off the side of my screen. Everything is visible that is necessary to play, but it’s still quite annoying. Graphics were on the dark side with a slight fuzz about them. The text was fuzzy as well, but still highly readable.

Aside from those quirks, it’s still a great game. If you are a comic and/or RPG nerd you should enjoy it. SDTV owners be warned, rent it and try it before dropping 60 large on a purchase.

RATED T: Mild Language, Violence

Burnout Revenge

Rated E – Some Violence

About The Game: Since its inception, the Burnout series of racing games have always forsook the realism of games like Gran Turismo for sheer, unadulterated fun. Those wishing to cause mayhem on the racetrack as opposed to setting up cars and trying to avoid crashing instantly fell in love. My Xbox 360 came packaged with one of the newer games in the series, Burnout Revenge, which is an Xbox 360 update to the older title of the same name.

How Does It Look?: Right away, on the game intro, it makes no bones about being intended for an HDTV audience. It did appear somewhat blurry on my television but not enough to take away from the overall fun factor. The text is legible, I could read everything fine, but it is slightly fuzzy around it’s edges. I played with the ‘game’ picture setting, which looked fine aside from the aforementioned blurriness, I tried manual and adjusted the sharpness but it didn’t help much.

Also, the game falls victim to what Xbox Magazine calls, “Light Bloom Overkill,” which means that they use an overly bright light source. This is quite distracting and could hamper the enjoyment of the game for SDTV owners, more so than those who have HDTV’s.

How Does It Sound: Nice explosions, good punk rock tunes, everything is well done on the sound front.

To Sum It Up: With all that said, Burnout Revenge is still an incredibly fun game that’s worth a discount purchase. It can be found at most online shops for roughly $29.99. If the aforementioned graphical woes make you nervous about dropping some cash, I’d recommend a rental first, but it’s really not that bad. The fun more than makes up for its faults.

Call Of Duty 3

ESRB Rating: T – Blood, Language, Violence

About The Game: Though the Call Of Duty franchise has had massive success on the PC platform, console released versions were usually met with lackluster reviews. All that changed with the release of the Infinity Ward developed Call Of Duty 2 to the Xbox 360 console. CoD2 accurately recreated the feel of the PC game and sold quite well.

Enter Call Of Duty 3. CoD3, developed by Treyarch, does a great job recreating the glory of its PC predecessors. However, it offers little new to attract games who’ve yet to be exposed to the series. It does offer a more character driven story than before, which is a welcomed change, but other than that things stick pretty close to what we’ve seen before. The, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule could easily apply here.

This was my exposure to a CoD console title and overall I was pleased. I had thought the transition between the control scheme on the PC to the Xbox would be a difficult one, but it only took a few moments to get used to them.

How It Displays: Great. Of all the Xbox 360 title’s I’ve played since receiving the console, this is one of the best looking ones. I noticed no blurring or fuzziness. The animation moved along quite fluidly. There were certain areas of the game where a bit dark, which could possibly be remedied by adjusting the color settings. I played under the default “gaming” color setting on my television set.

How It Sounds: The Call Of Duty franchise is well known for amazing sound design and this game makes is no exception. The gunfire and explosions are big and lifelike. I have no additional sound equipment on my TV, but the stereo speakers were adequate and things sounded fantastic.

To Sum It Up: Call Of Duty 3 is overall a fairly solid title. As I said, most of it you’ve seen before, but fans of the series will enjoy it. I wouldn’t recommend picking it up new, but it’d make a nice used purchase at the right price point.