Originally published at Diehard GameFAN

Through the course of 2009, we’ve seen the Guitar Hero franchise multiply like rabbits and with Van Halen on the horizon, you can at least count on one more release in the series to hit consoles this year. Crunched into the music market last month, console gamers were treated to a new spin-off entitled Band Hero. At face value, Band Hero serves as a more welcome addition to the franchise than most people will give new Guitar Hero titles credit for. While most of Activision’s Hero releases cater to specific bands, Band Hero opens up a wider, and arguably, untapped demographic in an attempt to stray from the edgier rock anthems to provide more pop-oriented and well-known classics to draw in a more family and multiplayer-focused affair to encourage more accessible multiplayer and party excursions. The attempt is definitely more noble than most of its releases; however, with some confusing material, lack of innovation and strong competition against Harmonix’s LEGO Rock Band, this otherwise solid game can be easily lost in the shuffle, especially if you’re not a fan of the songlist offering.

To sum it up in the least amount of words possible, Band Hero is a spot-on replication of Guitar Hero 5 with a few presentation tweaks and, obviously, a new, niche songlist. On one hand, this is a fantastic aspect of the game as the modes and accessibility found in Guitar Hero 5 easily makes it the best title in the series in regard to balancing, freedom of progression and ease of use. As such, as a carbon copy of the format, Band Hero is just as accessible, which is a blessing considering the target audience for the title. On the other hand, this is the exact same game I reviewed about two months ago, as you can see from this snippet of that review:

“Let’s just say I’m not going to waste my time explaining the game’s premise. Since you are reading this review online, you have the Internet and have some interest in games, so I’m inclined to believe you aren’t an anti-social hermit that has never heard of Guitar Hero. Every staple mechanic found in World Tour returns, meaning you have selections between quickplay and career modes (albeit these are now fully fleshed out with online features), the band, character and instrument creation tools, GHMix makes a return with a few more options and the competitive modes make a return with a bit more emphasis and twists. For the most part, the “new” modes are just twists on ones already given to us in previous entries but the sequel does pack on some dandy features.

Hands-down, the biggest feature lies in the fact that Guitar Hero 5 allows players to play whatever instrument they please, regardless of whether or not someone is already on that instrument. No longer do the expert guitar players have to fight amongst themselves to see who gets “demoted” to bass, as bands can consist of five lead guitars if that is the players’ desire. The mixing and matching is by far the game’s greatest accomplishment and puts its flexibility beyond what is even found in Rock Band’s entries. Guitar Hero 5 also dumps World Tour’s long-winded and painful career mode and cash earnings to provide players with challenges per each song. This is a most welcome change as not only are players able to tackle the career in a bite-sized, per-song fashion, but each song has an instrument specific challenge (such as using only upstrums on bass guitar, holding on to a 4x multiplier as long as you can, whammying sustains for specified timeframes, etc.) that will have players coming back to songs with different instruments and full bands for those high-scoring band achievements (which is strengthened by the smart decision to finally allow the career to go online). These challenges are now what unlocks the hidden characters, cheats and customization goods and all 85 tracks are available from the getgo, meaning players won’t have to slave away for cash to enjoy certain songs. These two features are certainly well-played on Neversoft’s part.”

Sure the feature set is indeed full, especially when you add in the other additions to GH5 such as the band moments and party modes, but seeing as the name Band Hero implies Activision is trying to take something in a different direction, it’s a bit painful to see no effort whatsoever being made to differentiate itself from a game released two months ago. I mean, GHMix wasn’t even changed to BHMix or something different. If the Band Hero series wants to continue, it could definitely use a shot in the arm to differentiate itself because, as it stands, the song list is the only feature that will pull players into this game and I’ll tell you right now, Band Hero’s song list will turn away a lot of people.

On that same token, though, the title’s song list will pull in a good chunk of players based on its more pop-oriented tones. Names such as Hillary Duff and Taylor Swift have such huge fan bases that two such names on their own would warrant a purchase from some and you’ll see other recent names such as Maroon 5 and No Doubt mixed in with classic acts such as Jackson 5, Carl Douglas, Don McLean and Marvin Gaye. The lineup does have some “name brand” power to it, although it touches on the lighter side of rock and this will admittedly turn away some Guitar Hero players, however, given the context, I believe the included acts touch on the intended demographic extremely well.

The gameplay in Band Hero largely remains untouched: Strum, strike or sing on your favorite instrument as indicated by the game. Of course we wouldn’t expect this foundation to change, but don’t expect any leaps and bounds toward the improvement or innovation of these features. With the career mode challenges, thankfully, more variety has been injected into the tasks, providing a little bit of freshness for the title and preventing the mode from getting as repetitive as it does in Guitar Hero 5. Otherwise, you’re getting the same linear experience with the mode – earn stars from song selection chunks to progress to the next venue and complete challenges to unlock character items, which, for some people, are completely worthless. The basic approach to the career mode worked in Guitar Hero 5 as it was much better than what was implemented prior, but not seeing the mode progress at all in Band Hero is certainly a bummer.

Being built off Guitar Hero 5 means you will see a lot of the same visuals and menus as well as sound effects directly recycled in Band Hero – with so much borrowed material, Band Hero really seems more like a expansion or track pack, but with more than 60 songs and many not being available elsewhere, I wouldn’t say Activision is overcharging on the title. The default characters do receive some touch-ups with new attire that reflects the pop presentation of the game, but every character’s GH5 outfit is included as well. On the whole, you do receive some additions that cater to the target demo of the title, but players won’t find anything mindblowing and the quantity of such material isn’t exactly overwhelming. The two major graphical changes seen in Band Hero is in the menus being re-skinned to feature all sort of purple/pink colors to perhaps appeal to the female demographic and a host of new venues that range from your basic mall to spring break resorts and all the way into space. The venues do sport a sliver more craziness to them and do provide a bit more variety to them than the previous versions’ stereotypically worldly locales, however, you still get recycled characters placed on top of them for the most part. Of course, the career movies are replaced with new ones, but these are just as generic and not entertaining as ever and fail to really tell any sort of interesting story. With those features aside, you’re getting everything handed directly over from Guitar Hero 5 – it looks great for the most part, but some jaggies on the characters and a few instances of transparency issues on the tap notes take the graphics down just a notch.

As I’ve stated before, the song selection could potentially turn away a lot of players, but when you look at the tunes from a technical standpoint, everything is in tip-top shape here. The audio rings through clearly and stage effects and pyro boom through your speakers, really pounding the rock experience into your ears. However, again, you do get a lot of recycled sound effects, but given that the music is real star of the audio, it is mostly forgettable. On that note, however, there are some really questionable song choices that go against the grain here. In a game catering toward family play and tweeners, there are a handful of songs containing questionable sexual content for this group and there are some really bizarre content edits, most infamously in the muting of the word “whiskey” in American Pie, that may draw the ire of fans of these songs.

The charting on the songs also potentially go overboard, with even some of the tunes being a bit of a challenge on the medium difficulty. In trying to go for a more casual audience, one would think the difficulty would be eased up just a tad. Seasoned Guitar Hero players will no doubt go to town on the expert difficulty and, yes, I would believe there are eight-year-olds out there that can shred with the best of them – I’m not out to discredit the younger crowd – but Band Hero should really be drawing in the casual crowd that doesn’t play the game regularly. Finally, Activision is beginning to go way overboard on its implementation of faux instruments – if I’m holding a guitar, I should be playing the guitar, not switching over to instruments such as the piano, trumpet or such at the expense of finding a way to use the tap buttons. A few of the songs really abuse this use of the tap notes and it just did nothing but take me out of the experience with its absurdity, especially with the piano trills found at the end of I Heard It Through the Grapevine. On the whole, while the lineup of tunes really hits home, the way they are implemented among the context of the demographic had me scratching my head a number of times.

In another bit of progress with the series, Band Hero does offer the ability to export and import tracks between a few of the franchise’s games along with implementation of downloadable tracks. While it isn’t a feature new to Band Hero, it shows Activision is showing dedication to the cause and with the admittedly generous offering of free tracks available from World Tour through the newest titles, players can easily bump up the song offerings beyond the initial 65 without any extra cost. I would like to see this Band Hero series continue for the sake of the casual crowd, but, if it does, this spin-off really needs to somehow differentiate itself beyond splashing everything with what I’ve heard some people refer to as “girl colors.” It has a nice approach and thought going for it and maybe even a deal with a label such as the various artist CD collection of NOW! could lend some credibility to this extension in the future. As it stands now, however, Band Hero is a carbon copy of Guitar Hero 5 and fails to produce anything fresh while implementing a song list that will no doubt alienate a lot of people no matter how well put together it is.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

Many people will probably come into a review of Band Hero expecting the reviewer to lambast the song list choices in the title, but, that’s just not the case. Activision and crew has actually assembled quite a suitable song list for a new demographic in family and party play while implementing pop songs to appeal to tweeners and these are appropriate grounds for a spin-off. The crutch here is in the title doing nothing to differentiate itself from Guitar Hero 5 aside from a purple and pink menu skin and a new song list – you’ll even see instances where the developers couldn’t even be bothered to remove instances of the initials “GH” from a number of items. This leaves the title feeling more like an expansion or track pack than anything with its own identity and is no doubt the title’s biggest failure. Also, there are confusing ways the content is implemented that wholly works against the grain when you take a look at who Band Hero tries to appeal to and these additions are no doubt going to drive a good portion of longtime Guitar Hero fans away from this entry. When you get over these glaring downsides, however, you still have the foundation of an enjoyable experience and everything that made Guitar Hero 5 fun carries over into Band Hero. Band Hero is another instance where my recommendation would be based solely on whether or not you enjoy the song selection offered in the title. The fun of Guitar Hero is still here, but this spin-off has a long way to go in building its identity and offering something music game fans must have.

Originally from Diehard GameFAN

Way of the Samurai has had an interesting history in the United States, but through its low-key releases and near misses to the North American market, the series ultimately has quite the cult following. Billed as a samurai adventure, the series has been compared to established franchises such as Fable, based on its decision making, consequences and themes of morality. Enjoying moderate success, the franchise has jumped from the Playstation 2 format to the Xbox 360 thanks to an effort by UFO Interactive (as well as the Playstation 3, although this entry is published courtesy of Agetec). With the expansive offerings seen in the first two entries, it should be expected the 360 hardware would considerably bump up the replayability and scope of the game. Unfortunately, the answer to this expectation is a mix of yes and no and while Way of the Samurai 3 does a number of mechanics to satisfaction, a number of others fall pretty flat.

Just like the other entries of the series, the title puts players in the role of a wandering samurai in which your past has no bearing in the game, but your character’s future is entirely dependent on the actions and choices made through the course of gameplay. In Way of the Samurai 3, specifically, the player appears to be mixed into warfare from the feudal era, when an attack deals a crippling injury to their player. Miraculously surviving and waking up among a battlefield littered with fallen soldiers, the player begins their quest from here and immediately the factors of choice and story development unfold as villagers scoping the battlefield will show concern for you – you can be nice to receive their help or tell them to piss off either verbally or by unsheathing your sword and scaring them away.

While every story path will revolve around the warring states in the vicinity of Amana and various clans vying for control of the territory and the villages affected by this warfare, it is up to the player to decide how events unfold from the beginning up until the impending invasion of the forces of Nobunaga Oda. Ultimately, the story is decided on by the player, which greatly increases the title’s appeal and, in this manner, players are free to do as they please, whether those actions are good, neutral or evil, in order to uncover the game’s more than 20 different endings. While the scripting is hardly mind-blowing, the story is very serviceable and holds true to its source setting and there are some fairly entertaining bits of dialog to be found, even though it is usually sluggishly told through word bubbles that pop on the screen (and when multiple people are talking, this can be quite annoying). As archaic as the delivery might be in regard to today’s standards, adventure aficionados that have seen their fair share of classic titles might fit right at home with the simple text dialog and menu-based delivery. Most of the game is hosted in the traditional single-player story, which, given the amount of options available to the player isn’t necessarily a bad point, but the title doesn’t feature depth in its modes and even some simple online functionality that allowed players to take their custom character online to duel other players would have taken the title a bit further in its offerings.

Before we dive into the gameplay, I will have to point out that technology junkies will surely be put off by the title’s presentation. Way of the Samurai 3 seems as if it was developed originally for the Playstation 2 or on a lower budget because it definitely shows in the game’s visuals and audio. Everything here is certainly passable, but nothing uses the true processing of the Xbox 360 as you’ll see undetailed character models that lack much animation during conversations, pop-up runs wild in certain parts of the title and players will be sure to notice the lack of detail and jagged model edges in the cutscenes. What is provided for the game’s audio measures up just a little better, but with very little voice acting in the title (with the English voices being a bit shaky in quality for the most part), players will mostly be treated to ambient sounds that get the job done. In perhaps the game’s real shining moment in presentation, during certain situations, players will be treated to music that is fitting for the time period. Overall, I wouldn’t say Way of the Samurai 3 has bad presentation, it just needed a lot more polish than what it received and doesn’t hold a candle to most of the game’s seen on the format.

Thankfully, the meat of the game is ripe with satisfying gameplay that the player can tackle in short bursts or long periods of time. Playing by the rules, players will end up doing a fair share of quests, exploration and decision making instead of haphazardly instigating fights, but given the fact these aspects shape the game as a whole, they become immediately engrossing as slight differences in the player’s actions can create the infamous butterfly effect. If you’re truly thirsting for blood, however, who you attack and off in the game does serve as a significant factor in how the world turns out in the end even though it hinders your overall progress in the game by reducing your samurai points that unlock various features in the game. In Way of the Samurai 3, if the player executes a unique character, they never come back for that specific playthrough, however, more honorable samurai will utilize the game’s new feature to attack with the blunt side of the weapon in order to merely knockout that character and immobilize them for a while. Another new mechanic remedies the problems encountered in many other titles in the genre, by allowing the player to bow down and apologize if they accidentally threaten someone (it also does a few other quirky acts such interact with cats or allow the player to beg for money). Along with dialog choices and the ability to unsheathe your sword during any event, a number of mechanics are in place to keep the premise of the game interesting and the branching series of events keep different elements of the game intriguing to return to.

Even if the story isn’t your thing, this installment of Way of the Samurai eliminates the time limitations placed on the player, allowing them to spend whatever time they wish to in the game world before engaging in the final few events of the game. Much like previous entries of the game, this allows players to collect a huge assortment of weapons that can be stored for later use and the weapon crafting system alone has the potential to keep players engrossed in the management the game has to offer. Not only can players pick fights, but they can also foster relationships with key characters and even convince them to be companions that can aid in battle, provide support or even steal from you if you don’t keep an eye on them. Also, through battle, players can raise their abilities with a given weapon, learning new moves with it, but care will also have be given to each weapon as if a weapon loses its durability, it can break and be lost for good. With such examples to supplement the title’s gameplay, it becomes somewhat of a simulation, supplementing the adventure and action aspects of the title for those that like to tinker with collectibles and inventory.

Battling remains very similar to the way it was executed in Way of the Samurai 2, where parries are performed with timing a block with an enemy’s attack as opposed to the original entry, which used directional controls to manipulate the enemy’s momentum. This becomes quite important in allowing players to execute one-hit kills with counters and play passively to adapt to the enemies’ actions. The parrying becomes crucial since being reckless with your weapons will quickly lead to their durability fading away. While mowing down grunt enemies can become a bit repetitive, as the player progresses, there will be more suitable enemies to test the player’s skill and with multiple difficulty settings, players should be able to find a suitably satisfying fight. At face value, the player has a “weak” and “strong” attack, but when you factor in the numerous weapon types and techniques that players eventually uncover, players can mix in a number of offensive strings to compliment the defensive techniques. To further add to the exploration, players can use some wacky weapons such as garden utensils or wield vegetables and scrappy fighters can opt to go to battle with their fists.

That being said, though, everything in Way of the Samurai 3 is a pretty straightforward game and while there is a ton of interesting aspects to do and see, the execution will most likely fall a bit short from most current-generation gamers’ expectations. The game’s targeting and camera work can be a bit suspect at times and while the fighting is overall satisfying, players will most likely expect a bit more scope from the title, which only has a rough handful of environments to check out. Way of the Samurai 3 is one of those titles that is short at face value, taking only an hour or two to reach an ending, but encourages multiple playthroughs and, as such, it may potentially only hold a player’s attention for a couple of times before they move on to something else. The customization of the character is fairly bare-bones and while a number of features such as dual-wielding weapons and more can be unlocked, players will find themselves going through the same processes multiple times to reach this goal and the game’s samurai points are actually pretty easy to exploit for quick advancement that creates a bit of an unbalanced player progression. Thankfully, the multiple difficulties and satisfying fights level out the game’s balance and the quantity of content makes the title worth its price tag.

However, the questionable aspect at hand for a gamer deciding whether or not to pick up Way of the Samurai 3 is in the quality of its content. Acquire has created a unique approach to the “sandbox” style of gameplay many current gamers are familiar with, but with its behind-the-times presentation and calculating gameplay, Grand Theft Auto this is not, which is made most obvious through the game’s slower pacing. One of the first quests has you fetching an old lady’s underwear, which can be stolen from your inventory by crows, definitely setting up a questionable entry into the game, but as players progress or become more unruly, they’ll begin to find more options and action in quests such as punishing thieves. Regardless, Way of the Samurai 3 can still manage to be a satisfying time sink if players can overlook its downsides. Unlike a game such as Grand Theft Auto IV that revolves around giving a story to the player, Way of the Samurai 3 does the reverse and allows the player to dictate the story, allowing the player to make the character his or her own and this even carries over into the possibility of death, which effectively ends the story for that playthrough. This may upset some gamers, but with the ability to keep all money and items earned through the player’s career, the game features enough appeal and content to keep players diving right back in.

Right now, Acquire and Spike have the content feature nailed down with its Japanese releases and if future titles can build upon this with more quality and polish, Way of the Samurai will be a series to recommend without hesitation. There is plenty of appeal and replayability in the series as a whole and this definitely isn’t lost in the series. However, it’s hard to ignore that the title does not take advantage of the hardware, which is perhaps the biggest downside of the game. Sure there are other quirks in the game’s progression and combat, but they can be easily overlooked to find a satisfying title that players can come back to time and time again.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

Much like its predecessors, while Way of the Samurai 3 fails to really flex the system’s hardware muscle, it doesn’t stray from providing the replayability and unique, interesting gameplay the series is known for. The newest installment adds enough new features to freshen up the series while remaining true to its roots, but the fact it does not take advantage of the hardware is one of the title’s crippling downsides. You’ll also have a number of graphical and camera issues along with some questionable quality among the game’s huge scope of content, but at the end of the day, Way of the Samurai 3 is a title you can come back to numerous times and it will most likely have something new to show you.

I’ve already disclosed my relationship with the Raiden shooter series in our preview of Raiden IV. After 10 years of silence between my treasured longbox The Raiden Project and Raiden III, the industry has been rather kind to the shmup genre as of late. While Gradius and Salamander are what pulled me into the shmup scene when I was younger, I would have to say Raiden is what hooked me on the genre after I was exposed to its attention to detail, memorable music and satisfying challenge. However, a lot has changed since 1990, as we move from pumping quarters into a stand-up cabinet to spinning a disc around in our Xbox 360s. After nearly 20 years does Raiden still have the punch needed to keep it at the top of the genre? Thankfully, yes, it does, but its means of achieving this definitely isn’t suitable for everyone.

Oddly, Raiden IV has no story to speak of. The instruction booklet fails to humor us with the typical alien war scenario that banks on the might of a single ship to take down an entire enemy armada, but given how cliché and drab this has become, perhaps it serves as a sign that UFO Interactive understands that fans of this genre know what the game is about coming in to the experience. I’ll take a stab at crafting the scenario, though, and state that players once again man the Raiden series of ships, the Fighting Thunder ME-2, in order to fight off an alien menace to Earth – a red crystal being launched into space in order to power up an ultimate weapon of destruction in space. The stages do transition about halfway through to showcase the entry of an enemy base, the launching of a craft into space and players tracking down the parts of the craft, so if you look hard enough, there is some semblance of a story, but most players aren’t going to dig that deep beyond the sparse CGI videos that attempt to convey a plot.

On that note, recently, I came across a situation where it took me a couple of days of sending messages back and forth on a community site to explain to someone that the Seibu-originated Raiden series had nothing to do with Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series, so maybe I do have to step back for a second and explain this whole ordeal. The original premise of the series put forth a storyline taking place in the year 2090 where a ruthless alien race has targeted Earth. After putting up a desperate fight, humankind is able to salvage a destroyed alien craft and replicate its technology to create the Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter.

Strangely, through five games in the main series (the third game in the series was an upgraded Raiden DX if you’re wondering “what’s up” with my counting), this is the only one that even attempts to tell a story, which is a disappointment when compared to an Xbox 360 shooter such as Cave’s excellent, Japanese-only Death Smiles, but I’ll make up for it with historical context. Raiden in Japanese literally equates to, “thunder and lightning” or a, “thunderbolt;” a fitting name attributed to a god of those two elements in Japanese mythology. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy manufactured Mitsubishi J2M Raiden fighter plane (for your bonus Metal Gear Solid tidbit, Allied soldiers referred to these planes with the codename “Jack,” which is Raiden’s real name in the MGS series), after which the Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter is presumably modeled after, albeit in modernized form.

Now that you no longer have an excuse to be unfamiliar with the Raiden shooter series, let’s break down the game’s contents. It is to be expected that many players will assume that Raiden IV, being a port of an arcade title, will be nothing more than a bare-bones transition of the five-stage original game. Thankfully, this is not the case, but when you boil it down, these features are par for the course with any home shooter port: You’ll find an arcade-perfect mode, an original mode, a boss rush and score attack. On top of this, however, you’ll find a few unique features in the online ranking mode and the dual control mode that puts the control of two ships into the hands of one player via dual along controls. To be fair, however, the dual mode was introduced in Raiden III and the online ranking mode has the same gameplay as the other modes but it regulates players to default settings and prohibits continues to promote fair competition. Raiden IV does give players a lot to do if they want to experience some variety in the way they play the main course the title offers up, but a lack of online gameplay and originality does take the overall offerings down just a notch.

Once a player dives into these modes, though, instincts will no doubt take over as fans of the series will know what to do and the simple, two-button control scheme is easy enough for anyone, but regardless of your skill or Raiden familiarity, it’s not hard to understand the concept of “don’t die.” As is typical in this genre, that is far easier said than done, but players do have a scope of tools that haven’t changed in large since Raiden II – players can command a wide-spread Vulcan gun, a narrow, but powerful laser and players can choose to have the purple power-up award them a weak, but homing plasma stream and a branching, arching proton stream. These weapons can be powered up and supplemented with bombs as well as missiles that have various guidance and explosion properties. Pretty much everything from Raiden III is carried over with very few tweaks here and there, so there is really nothing too unfamiliar here.

The controls are as tight as one would expect from a game in the genre and, as stated earlier, are simple in nature. However, there are a few factors that deviate from the mindless shooting such as laying off the fire button for a brief time to allow your sub weapon to charge for a double dose of fire that awards the player bonus points and smart players will switch to different main weapons throughout the game as there are clear instances where one weapon is more efficient over the other to promote a little in-game strategy – the spread of the vulcan cannon is great when transitioning to outer space in stage four and the armadas in stage six are easily taken down with the plasma stream, for example. Still, player reflexes will prove most valuable when the screen is littered with enemy fire and with the speed of enemy fire increasing on the later difficulties, it won’t be hard for the player to become overwhelmed and hastily chasing power-ups will most likely find the player reduced to ashes. Luckily Raiden IV has a very robust difficulty set that even features a practice difficulty where the enemy ships don’t even fire, but where is the fun in that? Even the very easy setting will prove to be a challenge for most players, but the solid shooter foundation in Raiden IV will no doubt have them coming back for more every once in a while. For masochists, there is, of course, the ultimate difficulty and there is a decent spread in between, but this doesn’t help the balance progression at all as the enemies will start throwing everything they have at you as soon as the third level.

Watching the top replays, a lot of success in Raiden IV hinges on memorizing the enemy patterns (which differs very slightly in the Xbox 360 mode compared to the arcade mode), which will no doubt keep interested players glued to the game for quite a bit. If the enemies can’t make it on to the screen, they can’t fire at you and this is where the brilliance of the returning flash bonus feature comes in, rewarding players with bonus points for taking out enemies as soon as possible. If a player scores a 5.0x bonus, that means they have destroyed the enemy as soon as it entered the field, letting players know they are in the best position for that given situation. In order to ease the frustration of defeat, dedicated players will be rewarded with extended continues and level selects, so it isn’t unfeasible to clear the game in most cases and it really encourages players to give the modes one more shot. Also, once you get into the genre, it is quite compelling to see how far you can get into the game with just one ship or one credit, so it’s most likely that if you enjoy your first go with the game, you’ll come back for a little more punishment, but it is also easy to say that a good portion of gamers will be too intimidated by the difficulty.

As fun as the game can be, however, Moss did take a few shortcuts with the game, which is most notable in how the progression is set up. The Xbox 360 mode does reward players for their purchase a little by adding in two new stages to the original arcade lineup, but in Ghost ‘N’ Goblins fashion, players will have to tackle the full seven-stage spread twice to reach the true final boss. This comes across as a cheap way to extend the longetivity of the title, but at least during the second playthrough, the bullet speed increases and the bosses get a few minor upgrades to keep players on their toes. Also, with no real story to the game, it becomes hard to care about the small cutscenes that occur after the seventh stage, so even though it won’t bother fans of the genre too much, the game’s progression is a little shaky, acting more like a throwback to retro titles as opposed to taking advantage of what can be done on the Xbox 360. Also, this new installment is pretty much Raiden III with a fresh coat of paint, meaning very little has been done to advance the series, let alone the genre. However, when you boil down the gameplay, Raiden IV does what is expected out of a shmup and anyone who has interest in the genre will no doubt find a satisfying playthrough with the title.

The presentation in the title is serviceable for the Xbox 360, remaining on par with a lot of what has been released on Xbox LIVE Arcade. While the detail isn’t extravagant in the title, it is definitely in the style of Raiden and, as always with the series, there are some key attentions to detail that do pop out on occasion. Most notably is the game’s use of lighting – explosions are glaringly bright, you can see particles flowing in your ship’s laser and the proton/plasma beams spark with electricity – and if you can somehow pay attention to subtle effects, there are different enemy kill animations that range from an outright explosion to their ship shorting out and crashing to the environment below and enemies destroyed over water result in the craft splashing down, especially the stage three boss where the huge craft creates a wake in the water.

The enemy fire doesn’t nearly have this same pop and the orange colored bullets can get lost on a few of the environments (which why a lot of games in this genre are heading toward vivid green or pink bullets), but you do still get a handful of unique spray patterns, such as the rings spewed by the stage six boss. The menus and transition screens are also a bit lively and give players very adequate visuals to carry them from one menu to the next. Also, while some of the enemies and environments do not have great detail, players can view models of each enemy in a gallery mode, which does provide a bit more detail and scale for the player. Perhaps the most glaringly negative aspect of the title is in its few CGI sequences, that get the job done and are perhaps trying to provide an animation, cell-shaded style appearance, but the lack of detail on anything other than the ME-2 and the slightly jerky animation make these entirely skippable.

Going on to more positives, though, Raiden IV features some quality sounds, which I would wholly expect from the title as the music and sound was one of the aspects that originally engrossed me into the series. While the music is nothing revolutionary, maybe intending to reflect the style of music common to classic shooters, it pushes the action along with some catchy melodies, with a portion of the tunes actually being remixes of classic Raiden themes. These will probably go over the heads of most players, but I just can’t be mad at the game over screen with that recognizable jingle ringing in my ears. As players mow down enemies, they’ll hear impressive booms from the explosions with the bigger enemies and player bombs providing some really deep, satisfying explosions. Outside of this, players will hear a lot of generic weapons sound effects that are pretty subtle, so it’s possible players will lose track of these effects among the intense action. The explosions and music definitely take center stage audibly, though, so the basic sound effects are no huge loss.

A lot of players will probably question the value of the title as it comes off the heels of Valcon Games’ Raiden Fighters Aces, which packs three full Raiden Fighters releases onto one disc, but you really can’t blame UFO Interactive for what Moss developed in Japan. It is clear that UFO has stepped in as a service to fans of Raiden and the shmup genre in order to provide them with a U.S. version that didn’t cost them a $75 import on top of a nearly $300 import system to play it on. While the average gamer might question the package, it seems UFO has a clear, intended target, and for that audience, Raiden IV is an easy recommendation. The title can be further extended for a paltry buck a piece to play as the series’ trademark Fairy as well as the original MK-II Raiden ship and both have more weapon variation than one might imagine. Sure, it would have been nice to have the extra ships on the disc or have DLC that extended the game with more levels, but the extra ships aren’t necessary to enjoy the game and they are excellent fan service to anyone familiar with the series. There are also some challenging achievements to reach for in the game, which will keep shooter fans striving for perfection in the title, however, it is a bit disappointing that the achievements discourage cooperative play with another person.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

While there are some weak spots that can’t be ignored in Raiden IV, as a shooter, the title excels in all of the areas it should – solid presentation stacked on top of intense and satisfying action. UFO Interactive is clearly catering towards fans of the genre and series with this installment and these gamers will no doubt enjoy their time with the title that now graciously comes at about half the price as the imported version. However, it would have been nice to see the series advance the shooting genre a little more as opposed to merely extending what players found in Raiden III and a few omissions such as online gameplay really prevent the title from being much more than an arcade port. Casual players will no doubt be intimidated by the difficulty balance even with practice and very easy modes and, unfortunately, Moss extends the replayability with a cheap repetition, but, overall, Raiden IV does what any shooter fan will ask of it. People unfamiliar with the series might want to approach with caution, but fans of the series and franchise should be able to pull a good amount of fun out of this sequel.

Just shy of a full four years since the birth of the Guitar Hero franchise, Activision has touched down with its newest in-house effort in its attempt to craft gamers’ quintessential music game entry on the Xbox 360 (along with the Playstation 2/3 and Nintendo Wii , of course). After a string of installments that brought us little more than alternate gimmicks based on the foundation of October 2008’s World Tour, the company now bares a new fruit to rock gamers that aims to take the series one step further, donning the series entry number 5 instead of a subtitle. Obviously, with the recent milking of the series, players no doubt have a serious question on their hands: Does this numerical increment mean players are in for a suitably updated experience or has Neversoft just tacked a different set of songs on top of the abused World Tour engine? Thankfully, there are a handful of features that come into the scene as a welcome addition, however, some aspects of the product feel a tad rushed and devoid of innovation and polish.

That’s not at all to say the game doesn’t have its moments of brilliance or that one cannot derive any satisfaction from the title, though. However, the end product ends up feeling like a World Tour version 1.5, or, in my mind, the product last year’s World Tour should have been in the first place. Some interesting new ideas are injected into the franchise’s stale bloodstream, but let’s take a step back and look at the product as a whole.

Let’s just say I’m not going to waste my time explaining the game’s premise. Since you are reading this review online, you have the Internet and have some interest in games, so I’m inclined to believe you aren’t an anti-social hermit that has never heard of Guitar Hero – even so, this is the third Guitar Hero I’ve reviewed for Diehard GameFAN, so go take a whiff of Guitar Hero: Metallica or Guitar Hero: Smash Hits if you need to. Every staple mechanic found in World Tour returns, meaning you have selections between quickplay and career modes (albeit these are now fully fleshed out with online features), the band, character and instrument creation tools, GHMix makes a return with a few more options and the competitive modes make a return with a bit more emphasis and twists. For the most part, the “new” modes are just twists on ones already given to us in previous entries but the sequel does pack on some dandy features.

Hands-down, the biggest feature lies in the fact that Guitar Hero 5 allows players to play whatever instrument they please, regardless of whether or not someone is already on that instrument. No longer do the expert guitar players have to fight amongst themselves to see who gets “demoted” to bass, as bands can consist of five lead guitars if that is the players’ desire. The mixing and matching is by far the game’s greatest accomplishment and puts its flexibility beyond what is even found in Rock Band’s entries. Guitar Hero 5 also dumps World Tour’s long-winded and painful career mode and cash earnings to provide players with challenges per each song. This is a most welcome change as not only are players able to tackle the career in a bite-sized, per-song fashion, but each song has an instrument specific challenge (such as using only upstrums on bass guitar, holding on to a 4x multiplier as long as you can, whammying sustains for specified timeframes, etc.) that will have players coming back to songs with different instruments and full bands for those high-scoring band achievements (which is strengthened by the smart decision to finally allow the career to go online). These challenges are now what unlocks the hidden characters, cheats and customization goods and all 85 tracks are available from the getgo, meaning players won’t have to slave away for cash to enjoy certain songs. These two features are certainly well-played on Neversoft’s part.

On the other hand, you have a handful of features that are just kind of “there.” The band moments do nothing of huge benefit to anyone that doesn’t care about getting high scores and just seem like a ploy at imitating Rock Band’s unison bonuses. While the jump-in feature that allows other players to join or drop out of a song at any time seems like a nifty feature, in the two weeks I’ve played this title, I haven’t used it once, but I suppose I have a little ease of mind knowing it is there just in case. The new competitive setup just adds in one new mode to the already existing pro face-offs and band vs. band and, really, it just takes the place of the battle mode while adding in new twists to expand it to five different modes. Granted, these additions do add something to the overall value of the game, they just don’t leave the same impact as the band structure and challenges do.

Looking at the title, however, it is evident that Neversoft did put a little effort into pumping up the game’s bicep to flex its graphical muscle. The animations and character models are as great as ever and the development team still works in some crazy environments with subtle quirks. The environments aren’t nearly as crazy as those seen in World Tour, but the environments seen in Guitar Hero 5 are very believable and the unlockable visual effects environment gives the performance a “music-video” vibe that the series has always lacked outside of mind-ripping Tool venues. Even the avatars meld into the game very well and it’s a kick to see that they even animate just like on the dashboard – this leads to very amusing results when the avatars sing and go a little crazy onstage. Lastly, while it might not matter to most people, the note gems have a really noticeable pop to them in this installment. With brighter color and a bit of animation inside of them, the notes stream down the highway very noticeably and with the highways themselves being a bit less busy in design, the highways are as clear as they have ever been.

There are a few minor setbacks to the graphics, however, most notably in the jaggies and lack of detail of the created characters when compared to the on-disc characters. Also, even though the notes have gone through an overhaul, the tap notes seemed to have lost a bit of their transparency, which makes them stick out even less when you consider the purple connectors have been dumped in this installment. It’s a minor detail as if you can’t tell whether or not the note is of the tap variety, you can just strum it without penalty, but it is a slight step back for the game’s intuitive visuals. Finally, even though the menus and HUD are now as streamlined and accessible as ever, they just seem to lack in graphical punch – they get the job done, but nothing really pops out for players to feast their eyes on. Regardless, with how easy the game makes navigating these menus, it’s a small price to pay.

When you take a look at the game’s sound, there’s not really much you can say. I’ve always stood on the firm ground that song content is entirely subjective, so you can check out our onsite song listing and decide whether or not Guitar Hero 5 wets your musical appetite. However, you can’t deny that the title has a wide variety of acts and rock genres, so there should be some sort of appeal for nearly anyone to enjoy. One could potentially argue that being so far into the rock game cycle, that this entry doesn’t have as many classically-notable tunes, but there are some jams such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Ring of Fire” that would beg to differ. Even so, the title gives some more recent bands a chance to shine, so regardless of familiarity or personal taste, Guitar Hero 5 provides a very balanced song offering.

As always, these songs ring through in album quality and the master tracks will ensure that all of the songs are presented in the way everyone remembers them. Unfortunately, every single sound effect in the game from what I could gather has been recycled yet again. It’s a minor annoyance, but most players will probably never even think about it and, of course, the music prominently takes center stage. Perhaps what annoyed me the most, though, is the crowd clapping effect during the execution of star power, which just seemed off for some of my guitar rhythms and proved somewhat distracting. Very minor setbacks aside, though, the presentation is about as top-notch as I’ve ever seen in a Guitar Hero title.

With most music games changing so little in its presentation, we finally get to the meat of the title, its gameplay, which, still, admittedly, hasn’t changed all that much. Players strum the guitar, bang on the drums or belt out vocals and the star power works 100% the same as it has since the original entry – that is to be expected. What Guitar Hero 5 does, however, is update a handful of mechanics to make the game a bit more serviceable. The most obvious of these changes for a band lies within the fact each separate band member finally, finally, finally has their own star power meter. To take things a step further, players that score star power with a full meter will have that juice overflow into other players’ meters. Finally, bands can step away from the star power hogs and stolen star power that has plagued the title for quite some time and the cooperative elements of the star power and band moments, coupled with the revival of failed instruments, should pull bands into a more cohesive unit as opposed to being a think-for-yourselfer.

I’ve touched on it a few times already, but, perhaps the game’s greatest achievement for the series is its ease of use. Guitar Hero 5 has finally done away with sticking players to a single difficulty for the career and a few of the other changes just make the game wholly accessible. The party mode allows players to jump straight into a song currently playing from the main menu with the press of a button and the party mode allows players to switch instruments and difficulties and drop out/jump in on the fly, creating a process that anyone can understand and catering to the party aspect of the series. On the opposite side of the spectrum, diehard expert players have some enticing new gameplay modes in the competitive set, such as the Do or Die mode that boots players from the song for a bit. When you throw in some relatively nicely-done notecharts (although, I do have to say the amount of keyboard/organ fillers are getting a bit ridiculous on the guitar) that also have a nice spread from beginner to expert, Guitar Hero 5 is an adequately balanced game.

That being said, even though I would say Guitar Hero 5 is easily the best entry for the series since Guitar Hero II and it seems Neversoft has somewhat found its groove with the series, let’s be honest – I just can’t shake the feeling the series is playing catch up to Rock Band and even on some of these facets, it fails to match that game even with nearly two years of development progress on top of the said series’ debut. The band moments, trying to get previous games’ songs into the mix (and not even being able to offer even half of the content from previous discs), trying to freeform the career a little, finally balancing the star power out a bit more, taking the career online and so on – while these implementations, along with brilliant accessibility, have crafted the title into a dandy Guitar Hero experience, it is just now taking the series on par with what the Rock Band series has offered players for some time now. It is debatable whether or not the game was thrown out with gimmicks to steal some thunder from The Beatles: Rock Band the week before its release, but a few more months of polish and subtle additions to the game could have went a long way. I’m just hoping Neversoft can adequately build upon this foundation as if the team can take the game forward even more, the next Guitar Hero should be a unique experience.

Still, Guitar Hero 5 is a fun outing that shows the series’ potential. With the new challenges, better party functionality and expanse in online content, there is a good bit of replayability to be found in the title if what it has to offer keeps your attention. The content is nothing to sneeze at either, as 85 songs come on the disc and if players download a free patch to carry over their World Tour downloadable tracks, with the free World Tour DLC, you’re looking at around 100 songs from the get go – much more serviceable than the pathetic 40 or so songs Konami thinks it can get away with on a full-priced disc. While the import ability to bring tracks from World Tour and Smash Hits isn’t panning out like everyone had hoped, it’s still an earnest effort and gives players a means to add even more content to the title.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 4 of 5

If the rehashing of Smash Hits left a bad taste in your mouth, Guitar Hero 5 is like a fresh blast of mint that breathes a little bit of life and some much needed originality into the series. It’s not without a few issues and the mix of new features might seem like the series is still trying to catch up to Rock Band, but the positives far outweigh the negatives in this new rock entry. A great presentation is wrapped around the familiar, yet fun gameplay and the ability to feature multiples of the same instrument and the ease of use of the title combine to be the greatest innovations the series has provided in quite some time. The game is suitably balanced to allow anyone to jump in while giving expert players some new content to go to town on and the mix of rock genres should have everyone finding something to enjoy. It’s not a perfect game, but Neversoft is seemingly finally getting into the knack of the series and Guitar Hero 5 is a great step in taking the series to where it should be.

Being upfront and honest, I will have to say NBA 2K10 Draft Combine is one of the oddest titles I’ve had to review in a long time. That being said, however, I mean that in a good way. What appears to be a $5 demo upfront (and still is in many online gamers’ minds) for me unraveled into a satisfying short-burst simulation experience that gave me a taste of what to expect in NBA 2K10 and keeps providing content to me in short chunks with solid b-ball gameplay. In all, this taste of the court won’t be for everyone, but sports fans will be pressed (that’s an unintentional pun … honestly) to find a better sports package on Xbox LIVE and I can easily give you a list of far worse items you can spend 400 Microsoft Points on.

NBA 2K10 Draft Combine really cuts to the chase: You dream of playing in the NBA and as part of the draft, the player will need to play as well as humanely possible to flex your value to the NBA teams. The better you do, the higher your draft stock raises and players will see themselves slated as an early draft pick, meaning these teams really want to hand you a large chunk of money to lure you to their city. It’s really as simple as that and when the mission is accomplished, players can upload their player to the 2K server so if they choose to pick up the full NBA 2K10 game when it releases, that player can be plucked from said server and imported into the upcoming My Player mode. With such a straightforward premise, Draft Combine actually provides a good amount to cycle through, with the menus presented in the trademark 2K Navigation. What seems like a simple demo upfront, turns into a bit more when you add in drills, free shooting, scrimmage practices, a robust character creation, stat boosting, leaderboards, statistical analysis and a good bit more.

While you might assume the gameplay has been dumbed down for a watered-down $5 experience, that isn’t the case – the full gameplay functionality of NBA 2K10 is said to be here and the list of individual controls ranks in at more than 100 pages in the game’s help menu. Layups, leans, fadeaways, bank shots and more are at the player’s control, much like in recent NBA 2K titles, and unless the player studies the full list from the beginning, they will most likely discover a new control mechanic each time they play. What does differ from the standard gameplay, however, is the fact that Draft Combine has the player focus on nothing other than their created character, thus where the simulation aspects roll into this otherwise straight-forward basketball affair.

The main hook of the game stems from the six official combine games the player will participate in – these are the games that count, awarding skill points with performance and determining whether or not your character is fit for the NBA. The title measures your team ability and decision making, however, so the player is forced to play smart if they want to go anywhere in the title, making the game much more interesting than it could have been otherwise. Much like a grade card, players are measured from a scale of A-F (with appropriate plus and minus grades inbetween) and the game grades players in real time. Taking smart shots, dishing out good passes, throwing out assists, making highlight plays and playing well consistently adds to your grade, but playing poor defense against your matchup, fouling and giving away the ball through turnovers docks it down.

Overall, the mechanic handles how it should and reflects being a team player, however, sometimes the player will question the accuracy of the feature and there are times where a few items beyond your control will diminish your grade. For instance, if you dish a pass to a wide open player to improve your position toward the basket, you get a “good pass” boost, but if the CPU teammate bobbles the ball and can’t hold onto it, this mark suddenly turns into a bad pass. The grading is pretty rigid as there will no doubt be times where players feel they have taken a good, wide-open shot without receiving a grade boost for it, but, still, it forces players to play smart and pay attention to everything that is going on during the game.

The default camera also puts a tight focus on your player, meaning action going on at the other side of the court will sometimes occur off the screen. I shouldn’t have to mention that this is bad for the player’s defensive awareness, but players can press down on the d-pad to switch up the camera. It’s a minor annoyance at most, but the remedy is a bit unintuitive to the player trying to keep tabs on the action. Also, it should be noted to players that while it mostly makes sense, your character will not play to the likes of Jordan or James. For the duration of the title, you’ll be in the shoes of a player with an overall rating that barely scratches the 40s and will be placed among players of the same caliber. What this will lead to is a good amount of embarrassingly-missed close-up shots and even layups. It doesn’t help that your teammates will feature a lot of poor AI issues, trying to weave in weird patterns that result in some really infuriating backcourt violations and out of bounds calls and taking some odd liberties that would no doubt kill your teammate grade if you did the same.

Otherwise, even with some frustrating issues, Draft Combine is still a satisfying quick-play basketball title fitting of its $5 price tag. You essentially get the refined gameplay of the 2K series without the flair of the big-time NBA spectacles. All of the shooting, passing and defensive maneuvers are as fluid as they should be and there are a ton of options available to the player while on the court. The game’s stanima indicator is also provides another nice touch that will force players to play smart or else they will start to see their player suffer in stats and speed. The amount of action in the downloadable will no doubt hold players hungry for a new NBA season over until the release of NBA 2K10, but on that same token, players will most likely not come back to this version unless they want to pump another player into the retail release. On the other hand, though, the $5 price tag is much more attractive to a casual fan of the sport or anyone wanting to get into the series at low price, so the appeal sort of works in both ways.

Even in downloadable form, the character models still hold up very well, with some good detail that can be fashioned to ridiculous levels in the character creation mode. Each of the game’s characters also animate very well, even though a few of these animations do seemed canned and fight with the player’s controls a tad. The ball itself also carries itself well with appropriate physics – I can’t say the ball ever bounced in a way I didn’t expect it to and the only weird instances I found were ones where the ball was kicked by one of the characters but this results in a violation so it doesn’t affect the gameplay. You do get a lack of variation outside of the characters, however. All games take place in a single, empty training gym and some of the bystanders look a little ugly due to a lack of polys. It’s not enough to distract players from the game, but if you pay attention, you will be able to nitpick at a handful of graphical nuances.

Unfortunately, the sound in the title doesn’t hold up to the par set by the graphics. The most glaring annoyance is in the paltry three music tracks featured in the title that are repeated ad infinitum. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the tracks themselves, not everyone will agree with the genre and the lack of variety had my girlfriend demanding I turn the music off. Yes, Kenan Bell, I have heard something like this before because I heard it about five minutes ago (that would be a reference to “Like This,” featured in the game’s soundtrack for those that haven’t played Draft Combine). Outside of the music, you won’t find any commentary, crowd ruckus or organ music here, which makes sense, meaning the majority of what players will hear stems from the on-court action: Sneakers squeaking on hardwood, the ball echoing through the gym, the clank of the rim, the swish of the net and the barking and trash talking of the players. Everything sounds like it should and the 2K Insider is a decent HUD companion, but once I blocked out the music, I felt there was no punch to the sound and that some more variation could have went a long way. The sound package is appropriate, but it has a few voids that could be filled to flesh out the experience.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5

NBA 2K10 Draft Combine is an interesting experiment that pays off overall. Even though it has a few nagging issues, some frustrating bits and a gratingly-repetitive soundtrack, players are still offered a bite-sized simulation that gives them a fully-functional 2K Sports experience. The ability to import a player into NBA 2K10 is a good hook for players that can’t get enough of the hardwood franchise and the low price tag will fit the bill of the casual sports fan. With drills, free shooting, scrimmages and combine games, there is a surprising amount of variation in the title and the serviceable presentation make for a satisfying quick-play basketball experience. Draft Combine might not blow players away, but it gives players another interesting downloadable approach to tie in with a long-running console franchise.