Physics games tend to be very popular on the App Store, and Angry Birds is one of the best among them. The idea is to flick birds off a slingshot and have structures crash down around the evil pigs. There are various types of birds, such as one that spreads into three when you tap it, one that goes really fast, one that doesn’t do anything but cause damage, and a few other types.
At the start of each level, you get shown what you have to bring down, and then you drag your finger to move to the slingshot. You can’t see where the structure is when looking at the slingshot, so this provides a challenge but also a lot of trial and error. Trying to find the weakest points in the structures can be painful and tedious since you never feel like your birds are strong or heavy enough to do a good deal of damage.
You get rated at the end of each puzzle for how many birds you have left and how much damage you have caused. Once all the pigs are dead, you clear the level and move on to the next. It seems that there is no consistent difficulty increase, and it just seems to be all over the map. The art style is nice and it feels fluid, but the sounds are really annoying.
Overall, Angry Birds is an excellent physics game and well worth your dollar.
Mortal Kombat is one of those series that is loved by all but then pitied. Mortal Kombat has grown over the years but hasn’t quite matured yet, especially in terms of visuals. Armageddon is kind of a potluck stew of every MK character ever dreamed up. This, being the goodbye game to the beloved series, has over 50 fighters and lots of different modes and is bursting at the seams with content. Most people will immediately dive into the arcade kombat mode. You will notice there is every fighter imaginable in the MK universe, and this includes bosses. Once you pick your character, you will see the classic Kombat Ladder, and the fight begins.
Once you start fighting, players of Deadly Alliance and especially Deception will become familiar with the controls. Mortal Kombat is not really a button-mashing fighter, and this is why a lot of people hate the series. Because they have to think before they start throwing punches. You can view a full move list in the pause menu, but when you get your favorite combos and the special moves memorized, you can start kicking ass. Each character has their own real-life martial arts style plus a weapon style. Deception and Deadly Alliance had two fighting styles and a weapon, but one had to be cut for balance issues.
The controls are extremely responsive, and the characters are animated very nicely. While they look a bit like plastic dolls and kind of fight like them, the animations are smooth, and there is no slowdown. New to Deception were arena traps, and this has been transitioned over to Armageddon. You will see either yellow or red lines around certain areas or objects. Yellow means that it’s just a dangerous trap that won’t instantly kill you but will deal some hefty damage. This can be an air duct that will shoot you through a fan, get knocked into a bell, or even into a giant egg and have acid spewed on you. Red lines mean instant kills, and you need to stay away from them. These can be grinders, deadly pits, or anything that can crush. A lot of the arenas are multi-tiered, and these will be marked with yellow lines as well. This really makes fighting intense, not to mention that the areas look awesome.
Fatalities are still here, as always, but with a twist. The MK team decided to do a Kreate-A-Fatality setup in which you don’t have to press any codes to see a staged fatality. The whole system is pretty complicated since there are transition moves and finishers, and each set goes into the other. You can do up to 11 moves, but you have to end with a finisher move for it to register as a fatality. With each move, your timer bar depletes faster and faster, so precision and fast input speed are a must. You can do a few forward chains, such as ripping out a heart, brain, or maybe a punch or two, then decide to go either into a face-down, behind-back, or on-the-knees transition. If you have to put that code in, then decide if you want to finish or continue from a behind-the-back transition set, on the knees, and so on. It becomes very complicated, and a lot of people don’t like this feature, calling it “generic fatalities,” but doing two fatalities for 50+ characters was too daunting, so they needed to figure something out.
Besides your core fighting in here, Konquest mode is back and better than ever. Forget the irritating, ugly, and boring deception. The team used the Shaolin Monks engine, so you get to fight in real-time via grabs, kicks, and heavy and light punches. You acquire power-ups throughout the game as well as perform fatalities by just pressing a button once the enemy is dazed. You can go around collecting relics to unlock hidden stuff in the Krypt, as well as alternate costumes, music, and koins. Sometimes you will run across weapons to hack and slash enemies, as well as do actual kombat with characters you run across.
The story is more interesting than any other MK side story that has a lot of mystery wrapped around it. New characters Taven and Daegon awaken from slumber by the call of Blaze (yeah, that hidden character in Deadly Alliance). Daegon is trying to find his father while discovering why he needs to fight his brother and how to become the new Emperor of Edenia. Overall, the Konquest mode is very entertaining and a welcome treat.
Another questionable mini-game is Motor Kombat, which is a cart racing game. This could have been greatly improved, but it’s entertaining for a while. You pick your favorite MK character (or a select few) and run across a star that will allow you to use your weapon or a lightning bolt, which is a burst of speed. You can bump people left or right into death traps (marked by red lines). There are jumps and the tracks are laid out differently, but there could have been more power-ups instead of just one set for the character, and I would have liked the levels to be more alive. Motor Kombat is fun at best with more players, but other than that, you’ll forget about it after you play all the stages.
I finally came to Kreate-A-Fighter mode, and this has been a huge request by fans since Deadly Alliance. You get a lot of customization options, and you can buy more accessories with the coins you collect from all modes of the game. You can set moves, fighting style, finishing stance, and even write out a bio (pull out that dusty PS2 keyboard!) You can do pretty much anything you want with the character, and there are so many items that no one will look the same. There are even some conspicuous items that look like superheroes or real-life heroes as well. You can take your character online and hone your skills against other people’s characters. As of this review, Xbox LIVE has been shut off, so local play is only possible. Besides, even before, no one was playing online anymore. This feature is greatly welcomed and is a blast to use.
The Krypt returns for a third time, but simpler. Instead of different kinds of colored koins, there’s just one type, and you can unlock tons of stuff. Anything from concept art, videos, sketches, alternate costumes, and music. Armageddon is chock-full of content, but it does have its flaws.
For instance, the visuals. While they look nice, they don’t really push the systems to their limits. The voice acting is terrible in Konquest mode, and like I said before, the characters look a bit like plastic dolls, and the animations are a bit canned. The Kreate-A-Fatality mode is not well received, and I would like to have seen set fatalities for each character. Motor Kombat is pretty lackluster, and it’s obvious the game needs a reboot. I also would have liked to see Chess Kombat and Puzzle Kombat from Deception included here as well, but they are sadly absent. Until then, Armageddon should keep fans and newcomers entertained for hours on end.
Dead Space is a surprising new gaming franchise from EA that is actually original, in-depth, and just really amazing. The whole story behind Dead Space is just so surreal, thanks to all the different forms of media, from movies to books to comic books. Dead Space is an alien artifact that somehow unleashed a deadly race of aliens onto a planet colony and found its way to the Ishimura, which is a planet-cracking ship.
Dead Space: Extraction sets itself between the comic books and the first Dead Space game. Think of this as what happened before Isaac Clarke entered the Ishimura. Extraction may initially throw you off guard since it’s an “on-rails” FPS kind of like old arcade games. This may turn Dead Space fans completely off since you don’t have control over exploration. While this does hamper the score a lot, there is so much fun and fright to be had in Extraction.
The main focus in Extraction is getting the hell off the Ishimura and finding a shuttle. You play several characters throughout the game, but your main guy is Nate. He is a P-SEC officer who is working with his sergeant to get as many people to safety as possible. You really only see your reticle; the main focus is to point and shoot. The controls are really great and laid out for both regular use and the Wii Zapper (or any other gun attachment you may have), so I will be reviewing this game off of the Zapper control scheme. You have a lot in your hands besides weapons, and this includes your stasis (which slows down objects) and your telekinesis, which will pull objects towards you. You also have a swipe attack for melee and cutting things throughout the game.
Most of your weapon arsenal is tools, and all the weapons from the original Dead Space are back with lots of additions. Some of these include the P-SEC pistol, welding gun, and nail gun. The nail gun is standard and has unlimited ammo, but each weapon has secondary fire. For example, the pulse rifle has a shotgun blast that must be charged, the P-SEC pistol has a spray shot, and the flamethrower can shoot fireballs. All of these weapons will be needed and strategically used for certain situations.
Most of the game plays through the creepy and eerie story, with the character moving on his or her own. While this is immersive and cinematic, it can be boring sometimes since several minutes can pass by just looking around at nothing. The game moves at a slower pace than you would want, but it fits the atmosphere. There will be times when creatures will grab you out of the dark, and you must shake your Wii remote to turn on your glow worm. You will hear strange voices and creepy visions that pop up out of nowhere. While you’re roaming these halls, you need to act fast and use your telekinesis to grab ammo, upgrades, health, audio/text logs, etc. All of these are tallied up at the end of each chapter, and you are scored.
When it comes to creatures, I can’t really recall any new forms. Every single form from the original Dead Space is here, and even some environments. The developers recycled a lot of content, and this felt like a big no-no to me. While there are some simple mini-games, such as a rewiring game where you can’t touch red circuits, a turret section, and some parts that have you nail stuff up to keep things out, The game is riveting and exciting, but by the time you get through all ten (long) chapters, you just want it to end. This is partly due to the difficulty factor and the unbalanced ammo versus creature problem. Scrounging ammo is very difficult in this game, even in the easiest setting, and it makes you wish the developers would just stop doing that.
I, however, highly enjoyed this game and found it to be worth the $50 purchase. A number of weapons, a decent length, and amazing graphics helped make this game easy to chew. There is just enough mixed around for you to stay on the edge of your seat, and that’s what keeps you playing.
Why is it that all things childish have to be bad? Marvel Super Hero Squad features pint-sized superheroes that you would expect to have life-size powers, but this seems to be just an illusion. The game has a great story with Dr. Doom trying to take over the world with an infinity crystal. Modok screws up his doom cannon and blows the shard into six pieces that each side is desperately trying to find. The voice acting is great, and the dialog is actually pretty fun, which is a plus for such a crappy game.
What really hurts the game is the repetition. You start the game by picking two different heroes, then you are thrown into a level with yellow guys called AIM soldiers. You basically mash X (light) and O (heavy) attacks to kill these guys. You can pick stuff up and throw it at them, and sometimes you can use a powerful special attack. That is pretty much it. Yes, I am dead serious. Do not doubt this. I played well into the second chapter, and nothing changed. There are some semi-fun button-pressing sequences, but that’s as far as variety goes in in-game play. Each character plays exactly the same role, so choosing different characters isn’t going to do you much. Enemy variety is pretty minimal, and not only is the game repetitive, but the controls are sluggish and hard to manage.
If mindless button-mashing is your thing, then go for it since the objectives are also just as boring. Kill all enemies here, destroy all equipment here, protect this, protect that. The issue here is that the enemies never stop coming. Combat wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t have to fight the terrible camera, but there’s no way to control it. Sometimes the camera will even do weird things like zoom WAY out where the level is a lot, then go back in.
If you like co-op, then that is probably the best thing to do here, or go into battle mode and fight it out. There are some extras, but they aren’t worth playing through this horribly repetitive and boring game. Save it for the kids.
You all know Astro Boy, right? Well, probably not, since he is a lesser-known comic superhero. A boy is caught in a scientific experiment. This game is based on a 3D movie that will come out soon. The best Astro Boy game is by far Omega Factor on the GBA, and I have to say, from looking at the screenshots for this game, I thought it would be much like that aforementioned, but it’s just another movie tie-in cash cow.
Everything starts off great with Toby flying through the air using his laser, guns, and various other weapons. Killing enemies gives you orange orbs that charge your special meter, and these can be stacked up to ten. Using the latter moves using one of those bars, even healing. That sounds great and all, but the game relies on this way too much, and you deplete your special bars way too fast. Most of the enemies are hard to kill, even from the start, so what do you do? Use your laser or punch them. The problem with punching is that it’s slow and unresponsive since you can’t punch while moving. Once you hit the button, Toby stops dead, and you have to wait for the whole animation to play out. Not a very good thing in a fast-paced game at all. If you think that breaks the game, the jumping is even worse. Using a double jump makes Toby fly in one direction instead of just double jumping. Single-jumping is slow and pathetic, like you’re on the moon or something. This makes instadeaths constant and very frustrating.
While the story has potential and the game looks and sounds good, the game is killed by the terrible controls and badly thought-out design. You can upgrade your powers, but you probably won’t get far enough to do that before hurling the game out the window. Astro Boy is supposed to be fast-paced and fun, but all we get is a sluggish, hard, unresponsive borefest. Think of a delicious-looking piece of candy. It looks yummy, has a great color, and shines on it, and when you bite down, it tastes like vomit. That’s Astro Boy in a nutshell. If you really liked the movie, just go play Omega Factor on GBA or even the other mediocre Astro Boy that came out a few years ago on the PS2.
Cooking Jam is one of those little games that you wish were just a tad more fun. In Cooking Jam, you can make four different kinds of dishes: hot dogs, burgers, pizza, and tacos. You have four seats in front of you, and when customers come in, you hand out menus and wait for their orders to pop up beside them. For example, if you’re cooking hot dogs, you have to stick the buns on a bun warmer, the hot dogs on a dog warmer, and then put either ketchup, mustard, or onions on them, depending on the order. You can adjust the heat on the warmers, but if you wait too long, they will burn to a crisp. You can still serve this, but you will get a smaller tip.
Sometimes customers want a soda or even fries. While this sounds simple, that’s really all there is to it. Nothing ever gets hectic since you only have up to four people at a time. Sometimes they will order more than once, and that can throw you off at first, but everything is always manageable.
The goal is to fill your money meter to make the quota for the day, but this is always too easy, even when making food takes money away. If your customers get impatient, you can use a “secret ingredient,” depending on what type of person they are.
Speaking of that, the graphics are really simple, and so is the sound. The graphics are bright and colorful, but they are repetitive and nothing really interesting. The same song loops in the background over and over, and the grunts and various sounds are all repeated constantly, and it just gets old really fast. The bottom line is that after you try each dish once, you will get tired of the game, and I doubt you will play through all 48 stages. I just wish this game had more variety because it has a lot of potential.
The new Star Wars: The Clone Wars series is a cartoon/CGI spin-off of the Clone Wars era of Star Wars, complete with 20’s Anakin. While the cartoon series is something to be desired, the game is the same way. The story is about, well, the Clone Wars, and, um, yeah, you know, I know nothing about the cartoon series except the fact that I did watch the Clone Wars cartoon movie. I don’t know what the big deal was since it was mediocre at best with a strange art style, but enough of that. The best part about Republic Heroes is the co-op and the fact that you play as many Star Wars heroes as possible. You start out playing as Anakin and Snips, while branching off and playing as Republic soldiers, Obi-Wan, and even Aayla Secura (hot). The bad part is they all play the same game using mindless saber hacking (mash square forever), force pushing, and jumping. You can build a combo bar that lets you increase your saber throw power, but it’s no big deal. Playing as soldiers lets you shoot and toss grenades and shoot rocket launchers, but it’s all pretty much the same.
You can “Droid Jack,” which I found completely useless since you can’t move these droids when they are jacked; all you can do is use their “ability” while staying still. This varies by Droid since some can shoot, some stomp, etc. The levels tend to be pretty short, lasting about 10–15 minutes each, but I haven’t gotten to the thing that kills the game. It’s the jumping. Yes, since the game has pretty nicely large environments, the game stays linear with platforms that have that “sticky” jumping thing going on where you jump and then stick to it. The camera is what kills this, in turn, since the camera is so far back that the characters look almost like ants on-screen, and judging jumps is really hard this way.
Not only is Droid hacking useless, but upgrades are as well. You pick up blue orbs that you experience, but you lose them when you start a new level. How can you collect enough orbs in 10–15 minutes for the more powerful attacks? Beats me. You really don’t need them anyway since I played 3/4 of the way through without any upgrades, and that goes to show how easy this game is. I mean, you can’t even die in this game because you get a checkpoint every five seconds and you can just respawn there, so I found a life bar pointless. All enemies have around the same health, and this includes destroyer droids all the way to battle droids and beyond. All your Clone Wars enemies are in here, but seriously, it’s not much variety. You do rarely get a fun vehicle driving section, but they are so short and so rare that you wish, “I want another one of those.”.
Co-op is what really brings the game to life, since your AI-controlled buddy is retarded. Each person can take separate paths, but you really have to work together to get all the orbs and artifacts, but that’s if you don’t beat each other up over the bad platforming and terrible camera. Yeah, the graphics are decent and the audio is good, but that doesn’t save this mediocre Star Wars game from the bargain bin.
I remember talking to my family years ago about a game where you can play as a bug, animal, etc. instead of a human or some other form of biped. THQ finally delivered with the interesting concept of playing as a tarantula or scorpion in Deadly Creatures. The game is about some guy who killed another guy and said deadly creatures did it. Yeah, not very interesting, but Dennis “King Koopa” Hopper and Billy Bob “Major Pervert” Thornton’s voices as the two hicks in this game make me wonder where this low-budget game got the money for that.
Anyhow, you start out like a tarantula crawling around in a desert, trying to find nests of real-life enemies such as tarantula wasps and different types of lizards and scorpions. All represent real-life creatures and are as gross as their real-life counterparts. While you’re skittering around as either the tarantula or the scorpion, you can walk up on walls to collect grub to slightly add health while also unlocking concept art. There are crickets and grasshoppers to give you health, while bright green ones permanently increase your health. When it comes to combat, this is where things get interesting. You can use the A button for your basic attack, then combo from here with a wiggle of the Wiimote. You can shoot your web to stun enemies, pounce on enemies, and if you’re the scorpion, you can even flip that Wiimote upside to bury underground, then turn it up to pop out and attack your enemy. The control scheme is fairly neat, but there were a few moments when the controls wouldn’t respond unless you held the Wiimote a certain way. Among these moves, you can slowly unlock more by leveling up, such as being able to climb on ceilings (passive moves) or the ability to burrow under designated areas. Along with these, you can unlock an “execution move,” which will display buttons to press for cinematic camera cuts, and this can be pretty epic.
Some moments in combat can actually be pretty epic, such as the rattlesnake and tarantula fight (as seen on the cover). Some moves are button-timed sensitive, which is used for great cinematic camera cuts. While that sounds like that’s all there is, that is really true. The whole game is combat-based, and there’s not much in terms of variety. The level design is a bit funky since it can be hard to find out where to go thanks to the bland brown environments, which make it hard to figure out where to go. There are a lot of invisible walls, and there are just certain places you can’t climb. You have cacti blocking your path, cracks in walls, and even some collision detection issues where if you move too far to the side of a log underground, your creature will just stick to the air for a second, then fall off and die. There are certain obstacles each creature must overcome, such as jumping for the tarantula and digging for the scorpion, but these don’t pose too much of a problem.
My main gripe about the game is that it’s too damn difficult for larger creatures to fight. There are no hints on how to beat these guys, and it just makes things so impossible and frustrating, especially when the guys take forever to kill. The environments tend to be a little cramped, and it may take a long time to use every move on the enemy until the right one kills them. Some enemies must be turned upside down, some have to be stunned, etc.
When it comes to looks and sounds, the graphics are just OK with flat textures, and everything is really brown. The creature models are highly detailed with excellent lifelike animations, but that’s about it in the looks department. The sounds the creatures make don’t seem to sound accurate, but hey, this was kind of an experimental game anyway. I really hope THQ makes another game in the series or someone else picks up on the idea. There is a lot of potential here, and I hope the idea doesn’t die.
I’m neither an X-Men fan nor a comic book fan, so you can expect a fair, unbiased review first off. One great thing to think about when thinking about this game is that you don’t need to be an X-Men or comic fan to like this game; all you have to do is like action/adventure games (God of War, Prince of Persia, Bionic Commando, etc.). The game starts out pretty heavy and shows some great graphics, cinematic gameplay, and great voice acting (by none other than Hugh Jackman himself) all while skydiving into the forests of Africa. When you land, you’ll be shown a quick tutorial on how to use heavy and light attacks, along with combos. You’ll learn how to do quick kills, which are a timed heavy attack complete with a zoom-in slow-mo, gruesome, and gory kill. Yes, I said gory, and yes, this is the first mature-rated comic book game ever made, and I’m so glad Marvel got off their high horse (cough DC) and started showing their characters’s true feral side.
Most of Wolverine is based around combat since the story is simply only for hardcore fans, people who saw the movie (I hear it’s excellent and Mr. Jackman is the best Wolverine yet), or the fact that the story is just too cut up and flashed back to really get a grip on. A lot of the combat may feel repetitive sometimes, but it’s all cut up thanks to great platforming sections, some action button timing, some really big guys you must take on, and sprinkle on some epic boss fights. Each enemy must be killed differently since some are not weak enough to make quick kills and must be weakened; some can’t be thrown off ledges; and some enemies can only be killed in feral sense mode because of their camouflage. Each enemy has different quick-kill animations, thus making the game feel less repetitive. You can unlock different moves by leveling up, along with permanently increasing your health and rage meter. Rage always requires you to perform four of the rage moves, which range from a blender-style claw spin to a saw blade-style spin. Each one can be upgraded for a longer time—more power, more speed, etc. You also have three slots for mutagens, which somehow passively enhance the gameplay by adding some more health, making rage moves more powerful, or gaining more experience per kill. All these are easily in sync with each other, along with a great tree that allows you to learn things about your enemies for every kill, so they die faster later on in the game. This immense skill tree really works brilliantly and keeps the game from feeling cookie-cutter.
The game does have puzzles when it comes to environments, and some puzzles are even part of the environment. These puzzles are never hard to figure out thanks to your feral senses, but the timing of certain puzzles can be frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the only real gripe I have with the game is that the difficulty isn’t balanced very well, so several levels will be easy, then suddenly an ultra-hard one, then an easy one, and maybe a few hard ones. The same goes for certain sections in levels, and this can lead some people to throw their controller at the wall…or a person. A lot of puzzles consist of pushing blocks to get up on certain ledges, pulling panels out of walls to unlock certain doors, and some level-length puzzles, such as using the hand of a giant robot to destroy the head and firing lasers to get through the only door out of the base.
Let’s talk boss fights. Some range from other X-Men universe characters (Saber Tooth for one) that are easily killed, along with some that are hundreds of stories high (like the epic robot boss fight that you fight from space while falling down to earth—yes, uber epic). Boss fights aren’t annoying; you just have to learn their moves.
The visuals in the game are astounding, and using the Unreal 3 engine, you can expect some of the finest-looking graphics yet. Everything looks sharp, clean, and highly detailed for your ultimate Wolverine experience. There are some nice unlockables for fans of the game, and I guarantee that this game will turn haters into lovers.
Overlord is back in action. Hand-tailored to the Wii, it comes with more precise control of minions and overall easier ‘Overlording’ gameplay. Dark Legend is a whole new adventure, and while it isn’t going to knock your socks off, it will make you laugh, cry, scream, and even strangle people. To enjoy this game, bring an open mind, a dash of patience, and a hint of speed in your fingers to give your minions a run for their money. Get ready to take control of the young Dark Prince of Gromgard.
The start of the game feels like a narrative from a book, written so well that it really makes you wonder if it is a tale or if it is a true story. You play as a young Dark Prince of Gromgard, running through the castle talking to people, learning about your wonderful evil siblings, and rescuing the cook from the clutches of crazed Halflings.
The whole idea behind Dark Legend was to give fans an idea of how the young prince started out before gaining his evil overlordship. You will be wandering through the castle hallways and getting your first introduction to your gauntlet of evil. All gloved in, you will learn how to use your minions in basic and advanced ways. With your loyal servant and mentor Gnarl by your side, you will traverse the dangerous depths of Gromgard in search of minions, destroying your evil siblings and taking the throne of Gromgard. Dark Legend has a bit of a Lord of the Rings feel to it, with the whole Knights in Shining Armor/Medieval setting to boost this idea. To complete the picture, you can throw some fairy-tale stuff into the Lord of the Rings mix. Little Red Riding Hood makes an appearance, and there is no shortage of wolves either.
Now you are probably thinking, “That sounds evil enough for me, but can I play the game to fit my evil Overlord ways?” The answer is, of course, you can, but it will require a little bit of patience, so sit back and take some notes. You play the game with the remote and Nunchuk. The Prince is controlled with the analog stick, the camera can be reset, and you can move the camera manually by holding down C and moving the cursor around the screen. When you actually get your first set of minions, you sweep them by holding down the B button and moving them around on the screen with the cursor. I know this sounds just fine, but wait, don’t get too excited yet! There’s a problem with this setup; the AI is pretty dumb. You can’t just move the cursor anywhere and hope that the little guys will follow. No, you have to put the cursor right in front of them, like a carrot held in front of a donkey, to get them to move. This becomes very frustrating when you have several enemies hitting you and you need your minions to go across a log to cross a stream (only blue minions can go into the water). Just holding down the B button on the other side is no good; you have to “drag” them over there, which is a serious drag.
Unlike minion sweeping, switching magic spells is really simple. You just hold down the + button, move the cursor over your spell, and let go. Wow, genius! Ok, maybe not, but the fighting mechanics of the game are definitely not so genius. All you do is swing your weapon with the Z button or wave your Wii-mote around. Yep, that is all, folks. Just wave the ‘ol remote around or tap that lonely little Z button. There are no combo upgrades or anything like that. You can switch between different colored minions with the left, right, and down D-pads. The D-pad is also used to do magic. Setting markers is done with the + button, and this allows you to tell a certain color minion to stay and attack for ambushing or get enemies you can’t reach.
When it comes to actual gameplay, Dark Legend is decent at best. Minions come in red, blue, green, and brown, and they are all unique in their own annoying, evil, and destructive little way. You will first gain brown minions, who are your basic fighting grunts and are no good at anything but looting, pillaging, and beating on things. Later on, you will gain green (which absorbs poison), blue (which can go into the water), and red (which can absorb fire), which are all needed at all times. To solve simple environmental puzzles, certain amounts of minerals are required. Say you have a turning wheel, but it has green gas pods around it. Then you use greens to absorb the gas before sending blues to turn the wheel. Everything works like a chain, and it is never too hard to figure out what is expected of you. You even have a mini-map with a compass that shows you your current objective. Using warp gates, you can quickly move from one area to another.
Summoning your minions is done via hives located throughout the levels. You can use them to pick up relics for spells, max health, and mana increases as well. Such spells vary from petrifying to electrocution, from slowing time to making your minions crazy and powerful for a short amount of time. The best technique, however, is the new ability to strangle your minions and charge them up. Red and brown ones explode, green ones can be used as a gas grenade, and blue ones give you life. I found all of these to be extremely helpful in a tight pinch. To top things off, you can kill enemies for souls to acquire more minions. Gold found in chests can be spent in your castle’s smelting room, where you can upgrade your weapons, armor, and minions. This is a must for harder enemies and bosses later on in the game.
The environments are very pretty at times, and some of the areas will definitely pique your interest. My favorite moment in the game was when I was in the woods chasing down Little Red. The area in which this takes place felt both charming and unique, its ambiance amplified by a menacing-looking moonlight that gave the leaves on trees a creepy look. The dialog the developers chose is clever yet evil, and the voice actors give it all their evil might to help set the mood.
So, there is lots of fun to be had in Dark Legend thanks to the clever use of minions, the good amount of spells, and plenty of relics to find. You will be sucked in for a good 6 to 8 hours. I just wish the minions were a bit smarter and the collision detection didn’t stink. The backtracking can really get you down too. I highly recommend Dark Legend only to Overlord fans or Wii gamers who want to wipe the dust off that Wii. The Wii shovelware stops here, my Lord, and so begins the tale
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…