Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth

Story:  Set during the events of Season Two of the popular animated series, Avatar Aang and his friends journey to the Earth Kingdom.  Along the way the gang meets Toph, who eventually becomes Aang’s earthbending teacher.  Information is soon discovered that will aid in the war against the evil Fire Nation, but with Prince Zuko and his uber-bitchy sister Azula hot on their heels, will the Aang Gang make it to the Earth King in time?

Graphics:   Passable in some areas, awful in others.  It’s unforgivable to have cut scenes where the characters’ mouths do not move.  The 3D modeling is reminiscent of mid-level Playstation2 graphics, which is downright ugly in this day and age.  I don’t know what happened, but I think most of the production money was spent on obtaining the license.

Gameplay:  Your typical 3D platformer.  There are two characters onscreen at a time, and you can switch between them whenever you’d like.  Each character has a melee and ranged attack.  You can also collect items which give you a screen-clearing super attack.  There are also a few sections where you take control of Appa, the flying Bison, for Starfox’esque flight battles.  There are a few touchy jumping sections, and several boss battles are needlessly frustrating and time-consuming.

Sound:  Save for the main theme, music and overall sound effects are forgettable.  Most of the voice work is recycled from the series, though there are a few snippets recorded for the game.

Multiplayer:  Two players can play through the game.  There is also a one-on-one fighting game available to play through.  All of this is offline only.

Achievements:  Ha ha!  This game has earned the reputation of having the easiest achievements ever, as you can gain a full 1000 in the first two minutes of the game.  Here’s a YouTube video showing how.

Bottom Line:  As a fan of Avatar, I was insulted by such a shoddy game.  I’m also probably one of the few people to have actually completed the game, since most rent it to get the easy Achievements.  Consider this one a solid “avoid”, as it’s not that good.

Beautiful Katamari

Story:  The King of All Cosmos is playing badminton with the Beautiful Queen one day.  With a particularly powerful serve, the King accidentally smashes a hole in the cosmos, creating a powerful black hole.  He seals it, but not before it sucks up quite a bit of the universe.  He tasks the Prince to return to Earth once more and roll up enough katamaris to repopulate the barren skies.

Graphics:  The visuals are quite similar to the PS2 versions, though this time everything has a nice high-definition shine to it.  There are also some impressive depth-of-field effects as well.

Gameplay:  As with the previous games, you use both analog sticks to control your katamari as you roll over objects.  As you grow, you can pick up larger objects.  It sounds kind of odd, but it’s very unique and habit-forming.  It may take a while to get used to this control scheme with the 360 controller’s oddly placed analog sticks.

Sound:  The music is a very eclectic mix of j-pop, ambient, techno, and jazz.  Even if you normally wouldn’t like this music, it’s very catchy and fits the purposefully strange gameworld like a glove.

Multiplayer:  You’ve got an offline co-op and battle mode.  You can also go online and battle against other players in four-player battle modes.  It’s fun in doses, but the game is prone to slowdown and constant lagging.  You may also have problems finding people to actually play against, as the online population for this game is quite small.

Achievements:  Fairly easy all around, the most difficult will be collecting 100% of the in-game items.  Click here for the full list, courtesy of XBox360Achievements.Org.

Bottom Line:  The gameplay and overall game itself doesn’t stray far from the path that made the Katamari series a cult hit years ago.  In fact, to get more varied modes of play, you’ll have to pay up for the downloadable content.  Which, by the way, is already on the disc.  It’s worth a buy if you’re a die-hard Katamari fan, if not, there’s a free demo available on XBox Live.

Blacksite:  Area 51

Story:  In the Iraqi war, a branch of the military is carrying out covert medical testing on soldiers.  When the testing is abandoned, the test subjects are disposed of back home in America, buried under a large concrete dome in the desert of Nevada.  However, these subjects aren’t as dead as they appeared, and they break loose three years later, using their mutation to take control of a town.  They set up a militia, and it’s up to you to bring them down and stop their plans of infecting the entire world with the very same chemicals that mutated them.

Graphics:  Character models are nicely detailed, though they sometimes “glow” in an odd manner.  The environments are fairly detailed, though not amazing.  Unfortunately, the framerate isn’t very smooth, and there’s a lack of variety in enemies.

Gameplay:  A par for the course FPS.  The aiming can be problematic at times.  The campaign is woefully short, clocking in at barely five hours.  Weapon selection is pituful with only five guns, perhaps only two of them of any use.  There are a couple of driving sections, which control horribly.  Even on the hardest setting, the game is unchallenging.

Sound:  Laughable voice-acting, weak-sounding weapons, and sub-par effects.

Multiplayer:  Woeful.  Only four basic modes are offered, though you’ll be lucky to find anybody online.  When I was testing it out, it took nearly ten minutes for a four-player deathmatch to be assembled.

Achievements:  Not the best, with far too many based on accumulating hundreds of kills with your pathetic choice of weapons.  Getting the multiplayer achievements will be tough, simply because of the lack of players.  Again, hit up XBox360Achievements.org for a full list.

Bottom Line:  Blacksite is mediocre, but not terrible.  It’s good for dumb fun, or if you feel like taking a break from the far superior shooters available for the XBox.  Rent it for the weekend, but don’t bother with the multiplayer.

If you liked that, try...

1. Review Round-Up: Gears of War & Tomb Raider Legend
2. Roll Up the Beautiful Katamari Demo on XBox Live
3. The Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review
4. The Naruto: Rise of a Ninja Review
5. The Soul Calibur IV Review

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