CrossfireX – Before You Buy

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If you knew anything about me, you would probably note that I’m a massive Spider-Man fan. I have various posters around my room, multiple ticket stubs from the Marvel movies and heck, I’m even drinking out of a Spider-Man cup right now. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to play Beenox’s latest Spider-Man game, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for the Xbox One. Usually, I’m apprehensive about playing a movie tie-in game, but he’s my favorite hero. Even if it’s an average game I should be able to look past its faults, right? After playing the fairly short campaign, I have to say this Xbox One iteration of the web-slinger should have been squashed.

Infamous Second Son is an open world adventure game released exclusively for the PlayStation 4. Developed by the long time Sony exclusive studio Sucker Punch Productions, Second Son is the third game in the Infamous series. The first two games focused on Cole MacGrath, a super powered human called a Conduit that had the ability to wield electricity as a weapon. If you played Cole as a hero (which Second Son assumes that you did), the climax of Infamous 2 culminated in MacGrath sacrificing himself, laying down his life for the greater good. Set seven years after those fateful events, Infamous: Second Son introduces new protagonist Delsin Rowe, along with all new power sets, and a Seattle that’s under siege by a government agency called the Department of Unified Protection, or the DUP, an agency tasked with controlling Conduits in an effort to protect the rest of humanity.

NFS Rivals is a game that was developed by Ghost games. It features a combination of hot pursuit’s cops-versus-racer and the Most Wanted’s freeform gameplay. Rivals’ setting is in the fictional Redview County that has the most diverse geography one can imagine of.

Madden 25 is a new addition to the franchise of entertaining sports in the electronic arts entity. It is a game that gives sports enthusiasts a chance to immerse themselves in a world that allows them to be NFL stars. It ushers in the next generation of sports games that have the ability to deliver ten times more detail compared to any other game in the franchise’s 25 year history.

Metal-Gear Solid V is a video game with a mission aimed at rescuing two prisoners that are held in Camp Omega, which is a military base in the United States. The prisoners are Paz and Chico, two of Snake’ allies that are introduced in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Even though the game itself is quite short, it features very good moments for Snake in an open mission area that does not have restrictions on approach as well as a specific way for completing the mission.

Fable Anniversary, recently released by Microsoft for the Xbox 360, celebrates the (almost) 10 year anniversary of the original Fable, released in September of 2004 for the original Xbox console. Anniversary is a faithful HD remastering of the original game, including all of the additional Lost Chapters content, along with a few updates such as the addition of achievements, SmartGlass functionality, and a new save system.

The invasion of toy based video games happened two years ago with the release of Activision’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Of course Activision isn’t one to just release one successful game where a franchise could be- just like with Call of Duty, Skylanders has had annual releases and 2013 brought Skylanders: Swap Force and the only difference this year was that Disney released their own version of the genre with the incredibly ambitious Disney Infinity. Finally we can determine which one truly deserves your parents’ money.

Racing games are fun for just about everyone. We all dream of going incredibly fast while screeching into a hairpin turn. What makes these games so fun is the fact that we can’t perform these feats in our 92 Ford Taurus on the real road. Need for Speed Rivals is one of the few shared launch games for both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t include any family sized sedans to race in.

I have to admit, this whole zombie craze is getting a little bit stale. We’ve had plenty of flesh-eating undead scenarios with The Walking Dead, World War Z, Left 4 Dead, even Plants vs Zombies! So when I had the chance to review Dead Rising 3 for the Xbox One, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. I mean I played the first two, and enjoyed them but I’m just so burnt out on the genre. Thankfully, Dead Rising 3 was wacky enough to make me forget about all the other zombie nonsense out there.

Super Mario 3D World, developed and published by Nintendo for the WiiU console, is the latest platformer in the extensive and storied Mario Brothers franchise. 3D World, the sixth 3D incarnation of the series (seventh if you count Super Mario 64 DS), liberally borrows different mechanics from past Mario titles and combines them into a game that not only feels immediately familiar and fresh in equal parts, but is arguably the best Mario game in recent memory. It is without a doubt the best Mario game available for the WiiU right now.

Microsoft has to be feeling a little bit nervous right now. The Xbox One is absolutely getting decimated by Sony’s PlayStation 4. In order to stay in the console race with the new generation, Microsoft needs a killer app, or another Halo-like hit. It seems they’ve hit gold with Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall. After playing the retail version obsessively, I can confidently pronounce Titanfall as one of my all-time favorite games.

Platformer refers to a game whose play is conducted mostly in the form of navigating levels, overcoming obstacles, running, jumping and other abilities. Often there are other game play styles mixed in as well, whether it’s shooter elements as seen in Contra or Mega Man, beat em up action a la Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden, a focus on adventuring and exploration as found in Metroid and Castlevania II, or even puzzle solving elements in the way of Braid or The Lost Vikings. Many titles have collectables for players to find, giving players a reason to run through a level multiple times, lending instant replayability. Platform games are likely the reason the genre dominated throughout the 1980s and ’90s, and was responsible for more top earning blockbusters than any other game style until the advent of the first person shooter. Platforming has seen a resurgence in the last few years with the popularity of games like New Super Mario Brothers. Ubisoft is looking to capitalize on that popularity by bringing back the armless, legless, and neckless protagonist Rayman in Rayman Legends, a direct sequel to the 2011 critical hit Rayman Origins.