Xbox 360 Reviews

Damnation is a glowing example of how technology in the wrong hands can lead to disaster. Now, when we say this, are we referring to the story, which sees you taking on an army of evil robots in an alternative, steampunk version of the US Civil war? Or are we referring to the fact that Blue Omega have made one of the worst Unreal Engine-powered games we’ve ever seen? Hmm…

Out of all the Kinect games released at launch yesterday, Dance Central is easily the one that makes the best use of the technology. The motion sensing works well to detect if you've made the right moves, and each of the Easy/Medium/Hard routines in the 32 song list is well-choreographed and fun to perform. It's also easily the most authentic dance game to date – it really is about learning and performing real dance moves. Cheryll and I played it together for review, and we both agree that among purely motion control-based games, Dance Central is the first game where we honestly had fun because of the motion controls rather than in spite of them...

We hit the final pose of Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” with a satisfied, but sweaty, grin. One of the most difficult songs in Dance Central 2 is a prime example of why this series is so successful: interesting and challenging choreography that’s still fun, a familiar Top 40 release performed by the original artist and a responsive gameplay system that lets you know when your limbs are horribly off-beat and are making you look like a complete douche. And while this isn’t news for those of us who played the first iteration, you can now do all of that with someone else at the same damn time...

DanceMasters definitely feels like a spiritual successor to the Dance Dance Revolution series even though the dancing itself is totally different, and the interface bears little resemblance at first glance. Like DDR, DanceMasters is all about hitting various marks precisely on beat when certain visual cues line up. Naoki himself (of DDR fame) demonstrates the gameplay mechanics in our favorite press conference of E3 2010...

It won’t call you names, but Dante’s Inferno will offend. Whether intentional on Visceral Games’ part or not – and in truth it’ll be a combination of the two – you’ll not enjoy every minute in Lucifer’s lair. The abhorrence begins with Limbo, the lair of unbaptized babies.

Demon’s Souls was an anomaly, a thoroughly modern 3D game whose mechanics and philosophy were plucked wholesale from the 8-bit era: unforgivingly brutal difficulty, a focus on repetitive attack patterns, and absolutely no hand-holding whatsoever. While all of these things are true of Dark Souls as well, it’s billed as a “spiritual successor” and not a sequel for good reason – in many ways, this is a wildly different experience...