When a game comes out with a title that exudes greatness, you expect greatness. Epic Mickey from Disney Interactive Studios, is such a game. With “epic” in the title, you expect something that’s far superior, especially in comparison to a lot of the Nintendo Wii library of games, where good games are outnumbered by crappy games 3 to 1. What Epic Mickey ends up doing, is showing you the potential of a great game, without reaching said potential.

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Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that MicroBot, a unique gameplay experience taking players inside the human body, is now available on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points ($10) and on PlayStation Network ($10). The new arcade-style shooter, created in collaboration with acclaimed development studio Naked Sky Entertainment, challenges gamers to control a microscopic ship—a MicroBot—on a mission to destroy a biotechnological infestation.

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For anybody knows their old school video games, they’ll instantly recognize Splatterhouse as a 2D platformer from the arcade that you stood in line for it’s obscene amount of gore. Namco has decided to bring back the series after so many other successful games have made their return including Street Fighter and Fallout. Usually there are two distinct results one with it being a complete successful breathing new life to a long dead series or it’s a failure forgetting what made the games great in the first place.

The first to start with talking about the graphics engine and it’s frequent inability to cope with the number of enemies of the screen. The game isn’t doing anything too impressive graphically yet when the enemy numbers start piling up which happens often enough the game has the tendency to start to lag terribly making it hard to play the game properly, this is not just limited enemies, but also just when there’s a lot of things are in the environment being rendered by the game. In these moments you’ll get the feeling you’re playing a game in it’s early beta rather than something that should be on retail shelves. The one thing the game isn’t short on is blood in which the game uses every opportunity to add more and more to game. It feels like an old Mortal Kombat going to excess but by now we’ve been desensitized to seeing the red blotches in games and doesn’t have that same impact as it used to back in 16bit days.

The gameplay does have some charm to it, you’ve got your obligatory light and heavy attacks, you can block and you can combo your moves. The game doesn’t try to be anything new but the controls aren’t too bad but then after there’s a million things to get in the way of having any real fun. One of the most annoying “features” is when the camera decides to make sure it doesn’t go through walls in tight spaces by freezing up and giving you little to no camera control making it very hard to play in enclosed spaces. Then there’s the assortment of bugs from invisible walls that shouldn’t be there to the amusing bug I saw in the first hour play where my character floated in mid-air having little impact on the enemies below me. The game has no balance whatsoever, you fill out a “necro meter” that has multiple segments that you fill by killing enemies and collecting blood, as you do you can recover your health from nearby enemies by using a part to do so, if you have 3 or more can go and use them all and enter Berserker mode; a mode where you do massive damage and are practically unstoppable for limited time. The problem is when you’ve got a full bar you’re character is pretty hard to kill being able to constantly recover your health. The only real way you’ll die is through pure numbers, especially if you’re knocked down and you can’t move for about 10 seconds while the various creatures are pounding on. Then there’s bits where the checkpoints are few far between where you might die after what is considered a cheap death and have to redo long parts of game because the game decided for some unknown reason it wasn’t worth putting a checkpoint in between The game has some 2D levels and generally they’re really fun, I’d say they’re easily one of the most fun parts of the game and fans of 2D platforming games should get a blast from platforming their way through them, not that there are that many.

One of the saving graces of Splatterhouse is the cheesy story. There isn’t much substance but what it lacks in substance it makes up with attitude. The game’s main voice is brought you by the Terror Mask , the mask stuck on the protagonist face. I knew instantly after heard the voice over that I recognized the voice and anybody who’s watched cartoons in the 90s should recognized it as well. The game has lending to it’s cast the talented Jim Cummings known for such cartoons as Darkwing Duck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius among many many others. He makes the game for me executing his lines to perfection making me look forward to what the “evil” terror mask will say to the protagonist next. The voices of the main hero Rick and villain Dr Henry West M.D are competent but completely forgettable letting the Terror Mask stand alone as reason to listen to dialog. The game includes an awesome heavy metal soundtrack that’s quite good and certainly sets the mood well.

Included in the game to be unlocked is all 3 original Splatterhouse games for you to play after beating parts of the game. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about it but what I do want to say is these games really didn’t age well and are some of the worst platforming you could play for the early 90s. The only somewhat playable game is the 3rd installment but you can’t really get into it because it’s built as an arcade game and it’s gimmick to get your quarter is to have a time limit for you to rescue your girlfriend Jennifer keeping the playtime short.

What upset me about Splatterhouse is it has the possibility of actually being a good game had the developers actually spent the time to complete the game. As it stands right now the game is buggy, unbalanced and has major slowdowns during normal gameplay. The only conclusion I can come up with is they rushed it out for the holiday regardless of quality and released before it was ready which is a damn shame because as it stands it’s not worth your cash.

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Buy Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360 Online from EBGames.com

Click here to buy Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360 online from EBGames.com

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The magical platform adventure game, Lost in Shadow, illuminates store shelves as it is now available nationwide on the Wii system from Nintendo. The game, published by Hudson Entertainment, the North and South American publishing arm of HUDSON SOFT, gained critical acclaim at the 2010 E3 when it picked up Kotaku’s “Best Gameplay Mechanic” award and was a runner up for “Best New Game.”

“Lost in Shadow is special. The game is compelling both visually and emotionally, with an original and fun-to-play gameplay mechanic,” said Mike Pepe, Director of Marketing at Hudson Entertainment. “From the beginning, the development team has been committed to experimenting with light and shadow while taking players on an intriguing journey – one that is filled with puzzles and adventure.”

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World War II shooters used to be the trend with last generation’s system, where a WWII game would be released with many others trying to copy it. Now, today, and probably for the future, it seems as we are in the same spot; but instead of WWII games, we are getting a fair amount of modern warfare games. After a few blunders in recent years, EA tries to revive the highly-acclaimed Medal of Honor franchise known for its WWII prowess and cinematic experience. Medal of Honor for the PS3 is franchise’s first game to dabble into modern day warfare. This game was developed by two different developers using two different engines for single player and multiplayer. Single player was developed by Danger Close using the Unreal engine and multiplayer portion was created by DICE utilizing their Frostbite engine which they created for Battlefield games; recently Battlefield: Bad Company. Medal of Honor has the story following a variety of soldiers in the Middle East through intense, realistic missions which were created with the help of actual elite soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces. Can the Medal of Honor franchise take back the king’s throne of the FPS war genre from games like Call of Duty?

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Haromonix sends over a cool video for the latest DLC’s for Dance Central for the Xbox 360 Kinect. ; The new songs you can purchase are from Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Blur.

Share this video on your blog with an website or even a forum by using the html code below:

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Sega sends over a new Yakuza 4 trailer, the final character trailer is being released today. This trailer focuses on 4th playable character, Tanimura, a good cop gone bad who is seeking vengeance for the death of his father.

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is an action adventure platformer released by Bandai Namco games. It follows the story of an unlikely alliance of a loner thief named Tepeu and a monster, who is the guardian of the kingdom named Majin. Tepeu can talk to animals, sneak into a castles with the help of his animal companions in search of the legendary Majin so they can save the kingdom from an evil darkness. Eventually Tepeu finds and frees the Majin and they quickly become friends. From there they embark on a journey to defeat an enemy called The Darkness that destroyed an advanced empire 100 years ago. Along the way you’ll be solving puzzles and regaining the Majin’s powers and memories.

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Bethesda sends word that that Dead Money, the first downloadable content for Fallout: New Vegas, is now available on Xbox LIVE!

As the victim of a raw deal you must work alongside three other captured wastelanders to recover the legendary treasure of the Sierra Madre Casino. In Dead Money, your life hangs in the balance as you face new terrain, foes, and choices. It is up to you how you play your cards in the quest to survive.

Dead Money is available for 800 Microsoft points. For more information on Fallout: New Vegas or Dead Money please visit http://fallout.bethsoft.com.

EA sends over a cool new trailer for Crysis 2, it’s time to save New York from an alien invation. This video features the cool Nano Suit in the game.