Pokémon Black Version 2 Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $34.99
Sale Price: $26.91
Today's Bonus: 23% Off

The answer is YES! YES YES YES!

I found Pokemon Black and White to be the first games in the Pokemon series that deeply disappointed me. I found the music to be, for the most part, boring and uninspired. They took away so many things that had come to make playing the Pokemon games so interesting and varied, such as the berry-growing and the Pokemon contests (which were replaced by musicals). And I disliked the direction they took with the story. I would have preferred if they actually just kept it as before, rather than introducing the idea that maybe having Pokemon battle each other wasn't ethical and then completely going with the argument that "It helps Pokemon reach their true potential." As a 20-year old college student, it just seems a bit ridiculous, though I wonder if children blindly accept this explanation. Also, I felt that the games were lacking post-game content that was varied. The Battle Subway is a challenge, but after a while it gets boring as there is not much variety to it.

Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, however, deliver where the first two games did not. First of all, the music in these two games is beautiful. There are many great new themes, especially in the new beginning cities and towns. The theme for Aspertia City (that's right, CITY it has its own gym and Pokemon Center) is a breath of fresh air, and completely different from all starting themes before it. Quite honestly, it is one of the best in the series.

Story wise, I feel that they toned it down with all of the ethical stuff and turned it more into a traditional hero-versus-Team Rocket story, which Game Freak has always done well.

In terms of post-game content, this game has a lot to offer.

First, there is the Pokemon World Tournament, where you can challenge past Gym Leaders and members of the Elite Four. You can also participate in competitions where you only battle in a certain style, such as double, rotation, and triple battles. I thought this was excellent since these modes are barely used in the storyline.

There is also the White Treehollow and Black Tower, where you have to go to the lowest levels of these locations. The trick is, you don't get to bring items with you and the place is infested with Pokemon trainers with strong Pokemon. I have actually lost various times here. It is challenging, and I like it!

In addition, there is also Join Avenue, a place where you can buy loads of new items, increase your Pokemon's friendliness, and even buy your Pokemon food that can raise their levels and their EV stats, which makes it easier to train Pokemon for competitive play.

Also, there is now a medal system basically, its a trophy system. It is pretty addictive. The game also gets a challenge mode! If you get the key yourself or have someone give you the challenge mode key, you can increase enemy levels and AI! Which is a big plus for me!

A few other changes that I liked about Pokemon Black 2 and White 2:

+When you run out of repels, a little text box pops up and asks you if you'd like to use another. It is faster than having to open your bag and pick it again.

+You are no longer limited to Unova Region Pokemon.

+It is easier to move Pokemon around in the PC. You can actually now choose whole groups of Pokemon to transfer at once.

+Every gym has its own theme! This is excellent! I hope they keep doing this for all new Pokemon games, because it really helps give each gym its own feel.

There are a ton of kool, new additions to the series this time around. So if you are wondering if you should get the sequels to Black and White, I say do it NOW!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

While HeartGold and SoulSilver will hold a special place in my heart as my favorites, Black 2 (I refer only to Black 2 in this review, though most commentary is transferable to White 2 as well) is a strong entry in the Pokemon series without a doubt,and may objectively be the best so far.

Game Freak made a surprising move in announcing "Black and White 2", as no games had ever had direct sequels before immediately visiting a new region ought to have killed the game while it was still an idea. It made it through somehow though, and I'm glad it did, because these games are packed so full of new content I have no doubt that I got my money's worth. From the new storyline to new areas to the medal system (a nod to Steam's "Achievements" and the like), there's no doubting that Game Freak took pains to make this a world worth revisiting.

All the old favorites are present (all... what, 649 of them not all catchable in-game of course) and some Pokemon come in new forms as well. The new starting area is especially appreciated, as starting off exactly the same way B/W did would have started things off on an old, expired note. Also updated is the necessity of HMs once a painful bane of a gamer's existence, they've been almost entirely eliminated from the main story, instead serving as paths to extra areas. They've really packed in the extras as well, though I'd prefer not to say much about them to keep the review relatively spoiler-free.

The game starts rather slowly as usual, and the graphics have received little update, always a weak point of the series. While Game Freak has recently started stepping into 3D territory, battle sprites and animations are as 2D as ever. Likewise, the plot is thin (though in recent games, has shown some improvement, especially in B/W and here). Those who missed out on the original B/W will not find themselves utterly stranded, as the game does a good job of filling in the gaps, though some of the nuances may be lost on them. However, combat is as finely-tuned as ever, and if you live around many other Pokemon fans, there is no end in the ways to compete. It's always a little harder on those living in Poke-isolation, and while wifi takes some steps to relieve that, the "Pal Pad" is always a burden.

Still, these are minor issues in comparison to the big picture. Pokemon has always been strong, and Black 2 is another, if surprising, improvement to the franchise.

Gotta catch em all!

Best Deals for Pokémon Black Version 2

This game takes place 2 years after the events of Pokemon Black/White. I've played the Japanese version from the beginning to the end and I absolutely LOVE this game, much more than the prequel (even the games before black and white!). I also love this game enough to buy it again in English, even though I've already beaten it before.

And I'm very fond with the new characters and especially your new rival. He has great character development and feels more like a bro than anything else. I'd write more but that's where GameFAQs comes into place. Buy this game, it's very much worth it.

Honest reviews on Pokémon Black Version 2

I pre-ordered both Pokemon Black 2, as well as White 2. The story and flow has not been a disappointment in the least. All of what you can expect from the previous games has been tweaked a bit to improve the gameplay. There are a couple of new features and gimmicks, on of them being PokeStar studios which is a bit of a flunk in my opinion (you battle, and then they add a script to your battle to make it a "movie").

I have always been a fan of Pokemon games and so I know what to expect when I am purchasing. For someone completely new to the Pokemon games I would recommend this series first, I have noticed it has a bigger variety of wild pokemon early on to choose from. Pokemon HeartGold, Soulsilver and B/W are good choices as well but this game will definitely give a new player a bigger list of choices on which Pokemon they want to train.

They did not add any new pokemon in this game unique from B/W but they have expanded the Pokemon you can catch in single areas. There is a feature on your Pokedex that gives you a stamp when you have seen all the unique pokemon to an area (which is useful). With the combination of those features it allows for you to fill your pokedex with ease, as well as a quick and easy way to know where to look for a specific pokemon.

In the opposing light, this game is not extremely different from the others. If you have played the other games that have come out recently, this game is probably not going to be much different for you. If you didn't like Black or White you can assume that you will not really enjoy this one. That being said, this game is a continuation of B/W and you can link your games which has been fun. It provides flash backs and little dialogue occasionally about your previous character in B/W. For a list of the different features I would recommend looking into other reviews or using a guidebook. I have kept from them to reduce spoilers.

The story of this game is different, you will meet new characters and revisit others later on in a timeline. This game is great stand alone and I believe it is excellent if combined with your experience with B/W.

I give this game 5 stars because it has kept me thinking, even as an older player I have to have a new strategy for new types. There are some really nice new items that you can attach that will make your Pokemon more competitive. This game can have an increased difficulty which has been fun but you need to train quickly. It helps children and adults to use critical thinking on which Pokemon to use against the opponents Pokemon. I was also surprised to find out they do have some random difficult wild Pokemon that can wipe your team out if you suck... like me. Anyways.. I digress.

Enjoy!

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Pokémon Black Version 2

Yes I got both black2 and white2....I'm stupid, Nintendo take all my money but I still love their games.

By the way, my black2 was brought in Japan on the release day.(I'm Chinese and I made my travel plan to Japan base on the pokemon relase day) When I was in a huge line with all Japanese friends holding either a ds/3ds playing pokemon and wait for the new one come out, we start talking about why everyone in the world love pokemon so much.

I believe all pokemon fans have been asked the same question, Some people think the game have poor graphics and "naive" game style. They never truly understand what's fun in this game. Usually, I asked them to take a little bit of time and play the game. most people will understand why in short time.

Pokemon is just fun! For lite gamer, it has all cute pokemon and you feel relationships with them are real. even beat through the story is fun. If you are hard core gamer, no problem, Pokemon have the most creative, most competitive and most interesting battle system, and the battle tactics has always developed. pokemon is for everyone.

Now Let me talk about Black/white2

it is still gen5 of Pokemon series, if you know what that means...

It means, it is not a NEW Pokemon game. It is like yellow, you playing on basically the SAME map.

but, that story happened two year after black/white, there will be place that you know, but VERY different in details. a lot of ice is going to make secret pass which do not exist in b/w1. And just like it all time: the soundtracks are amazing!

This time when you are playing, you can catch old pokemon in the very beginning (if you remember in b/w1 you can only meet new pokemons before you beat N).

Of course there are new legendary Pokemons. All of them are awesome.

The story, for the reason to not blow the fun, I will not talk about the story. Everyone knows even pokemon game never actually have a big story, the b/w1 still made a lovely story which it much better that the old four generations. characters like N gave me a huge impact... B/W2 have the same stage, so you will enjoy the story just like b/w1. If you are huge pokemon fan and you want to know more pokemon story wise, there is a manga called "Pokemon special" that I huge recommend.

some weakness about b/w2:

1: Nintendo decided to make this game still, on the ds. So the graphic dis not improve. Personally, I'm super excited for a new pokemon game on 3DS. Hopefully release next year 2013.

2: They still didn't bring back the following pokemon like heart gold and soul silver did. I do not understand why.

3: The character we used in b/w 1. Did not have huge impact to the story.

Overall, B/W2 has all I expect to see, 5 star no question.

Discount Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's - PlayStation 2

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $4.96
Today's Bonus: 75% Off

The Guitar Hero series has quickly become the premiere rhythm based gaming franchise, and with Activision now publishing the series, prepare for a yearly blitz of Guitar Hero games. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's, compiles thirty songs from said decade. Many bands and group from the era; ranging from hair metal smashes like Poison and Ratt to legendary metal pioneers Iron Maiden and Anthrax, are featured here, along with songs from Asia, Twisted Sister, the Dead Kennedys, and Skid Row to boot. While many of the songs are incredibly fun to play, Guitar Hero Encore suffers from the fact that there isn't anything here that you haven't seen before. Combine this with the fact that the game is selling for the full list price and only features thirty songs with basically nothing else new, and you get one disappointing overall package. There's no unlockable tracks either, and some of the featured songs (like cuts from White Lion and Faster Pussycat) could have been done without. All in all, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's isn't bad one bit and offers a decent amount of fun for veteran players of the series, but the game is a disappointing quick cash-in attempt that doesn't offer enough bang for your buck to warrant the price tag.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

As a big Guitar Hero fan (I own the previous two installments) I was very excited that Red Octane was making an 80s version for us children of the 80s. Oddly enough, I didn't hear about it until literally the week before while doing some random research; it appeared as though Red Octane was barely advertising this and I think that was mistake no. 1.

Rock the 80s has a diverse track list that many a child of the 80s can enjoy. I personally enjoyed I Ran(So Far Away) by A Flock of Seagulls and Radar Love and my buddies got a kick out of Turning Japanese. However, that is where the fun ends. I bought it three hours ago and already I earned everything. As an encore I'm not surprised that Red Octane changed very little of the gameplay from Guitar Hero II but it seems as though they left out all the good stuff.

You can only purchase one additional character (Grim Reaper) so the other bonus characters are gone. This is sad as several of my buddies played exclusively as certain bonus characters. They also took out the bonus track section severely limiting songs. Red Octane barely edited the loading screen advice leaving most of the advice from Guitar Hero II on there.

On a few plus sides, I'm glad they kept co-op mode and many of the bonus guitars. I also wish they would've chosen better songs from certain groups (I think We're Not Gonna Take It would've been a better choice by Twisted Sister) but this is a criticism I have of the other Guitar Hero games.

Overall, I'm glad I waited in line to purchase Rock the 80s as I loved playing songs from my childhood but this could've been done a lot better with better bonus materials and less Guitar Hero II look-a-like but I should have expected as much when I saw "encore" under the title. An 85% overall with massive room for improvement.

Best Deals for Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's - PlayStation 2

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The 80s as a sequel to GH and GHII doesn't really measure up. It's still a fun game, mostly for people who grew up in the 80s like myself, but overall it really adds nothing new to the series. While GHII evolved the game quite a bit adding new multiplayer options and updating the hammer-on and pull-off functionality to make it more usable GH80s does nothing other than add a few new tunes to the mix. Barring a few tweaks the graphics are mostly the same throughout and the engine also remains the same. Apparently there are no plans to put this version of the game onto the XBOX 360.

Overall the songs are a lot easier to play through all difficulties with the exception of certain ones like Seventeen and Play With Me. For those who had a hard time progressing past the Medium difficulty this might be the right version of GH for you to break into Hard or even Expert. The songs themselves sound pretty decent overall and there are no glaringly bad vocal covers.

Songs by the original artists are:

"I Ran (So Far Away)" A Flock of Seagulls

"Because, It's Midnite" Limozeen

"The Warrior" Scandal

"I Wanna Rock" Twisted Sister

"Electric Eye" Judas Priest

This will be the last GH game from Harmonix as they move on to do Rock Band. GHIII will be developed by Neversoft Entertainment.

Honest reviews on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's - PlayStation 2

If this game cost me $25, it would be the greatest game ever. I would love it for hours, I would master every single song on it, and I would be very, very happy.

It costs $50.

There are only 30 songs, no bonuses, no quirks, no unlockables to speak of. It's Guitar Hero 2 bonus tracks with a palette swap.

That being said, I really love the songs. I am a huge fan of 80s music, especially the ever present metal.

If they ever plan on doing something like this again, they need to do three things.

First off, they need to either reduce the price or put in more effort. $50 is a lot for a game, and if I pay it, I expect an actual game, not just an expansion pack.

Second, they need to do playtesting on it a lot more. No, I don't just mean put in more effort, I mean... it skips, it jumps, it's awful. Many songs are unplayable because of the skips.

Third, they need to do more than just make songs more difficult. This version is *much* harder than Guitar Hero 2, and to a certain extent, as someone who plays exclusively on expert, that's a good thing, but even though I would kill for an Yngwie Malmsteen track on one of them, I have to confess, enough is enough. If you play on expert, expect endless triple chords and transitions from the first song. If you play on easier difficulties, expect it to be so easy that you will scream.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's - PlayStation 2

The price of the game $40-50 is too high for only 30 songs. But had those 30 songs been real gems of the 80's I could have forgiven the price and reveled in my teen years.

However, despite a couple of good 80's songs, the most loved of all the 80's bands were completely ignored and left out! I understand they have to pay for rights to these songs, but with as many copies as they sell and as high as they are charging, they owe us some decent 80's music. This is not a tribute to the 80's, it's a desperate attempt to throw us some cheap music for high profits.

I was a teen in the 80's and listened to rock for 18 hours per day. I've never heard of many of the songs on the tracks. I've never heard of some of the bands on the list!

Where are Bryan Adams, Pat Benetar, Prince, ZZ-top, Van Halen, Run DMC, Wham, Duran Duran, Springsteen, Def Leppard, Dire Straits, Guns N' Roses, and 90 others I could list that top most of the artists on this edition.

A huge disappointment. I would pay 50 per month for a new version if they had decent music on it.

Discount Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

Customer Ratings:

The prime difference between what the folks at Harmonix and the people at Neversoft/RedOctane are doing with their perspective games comes down to very important semantics. Neversoft's Guitar Hero series is a franchise. Harmonix's Rock Band is a platform. It's a huge distinction and the truth is that Rock Band's method benefits the consumers a lot more.

So when you're purchasing Rock Band 2, you'll getting a lot more value than you can imagine. Sure there's the 84 song (all master cuts) list and the 20 additional free bonus songs coming really soon, but what's important to note is the promise that Harmonix is keeping with: Rock Band is a platform, meaning every song under the Rock Band umbrella (with a few unfortunate nixes) will work with their games. So not only do all the songs you've been downloading for a year work, but also all but three songs in Rock Band 1 can be ripped to your hard drive (for a nominal $5 for licensing fees). This is a phenomenal value that values the customer more than paying for individual "expansion" packs that have no connectivity to one another. Platform versus franchise.

Alright, so there's a huge value here. But once you dig into the actual game, there's some good and some blah. Harmonix revamped the touring mode so that, regardless of playing single or multi, you have one World Tour. Previously, songs unlocked in solo play would show up in the multiplayer; here, though, regardless of whether you're playing by yourself or with friends, you're unlocking songs as you travel throughout the world. It's a lot more fun and emphasizes group play.

One of the issues I've run into is that the people I play Rock Band with aren't the best of players. We do it for fun and we'd invariably run into a brick wall in the tour where they'd have to move up to the next difficulty and couldn't. So far, we haven't run into that situation and have gotten a lot more out of touring that we used to. I hope this continues as this is the most exciting and fun aspect of the game.

Other game types have been included, as well. Your band can do the "Tour Challenge," which basically throws various set lists at you to get through. These set lists can be songs from a specific band or songs difficult on a certain instrument or songs of a certain theme, etc. A second game type is "Battle of the Bands" and puts your band against another band virtually, with a leaderboard to track your progress.

If you're looking for more character customization options, you'll probably be disappointed. There's a few more new hair types and a couple more faces, but for the most part it feels like the first Rock Band. This is a common thread throughout Rock Band 2: it feels a lot like the first Rock Band. It's more of a slow evolution. By far the best changes are ones that should have been in place the first time around, namely the fact you don't need a band leader and that you can have one character play any of the instruments. This is probably my favorite part of the new game (minus the songs).

But the songs are the real showcase. There's a lot of diversity here with a lot of new bands, some oldies and everything in between. But most of the songs are a ton of fun to play, which is the most important part. If you have Rock Band, this is a no brainer as the gameplay modes are more fun and you're not losing songs. If you're new, this is a terrific place to start. Many many hours have been logged so far and I can't wait for more.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

vs. Rock Band 1:

Rock Band 2 doesn't add too many features, but the new challenges and especially the drum trainer are great. In the first Rock Band game I constantly ran into patterns on songs I was completely unfamiliar with. I could either fail the song over and over, or hit practice mode. But either way, I'd likely be ill-prepared for the next song. The drum trainer lets you practice pure rudiments, basics that many patterns in the songs are built from. Plus, you get to feel like you are actually learning how to play an instrument (and unlike guitar, you are).

However, my favorite feature is the new World Tour mode, despite having only minor changes from Rock Band 1. Now you can use any members for a band at any time, which actually was the reason my wife stopped playing and I just played on the solo mode (which is now gone unfortuantely). Aside from the missing solo mode, a minor difference (and not so practical now that I have a couple hundred songs), Rock Band 2 really does a great job of upgrading and adding new features.

Songs:

The library of songs added in Rock Band 2 is great. I think just about anybody could find 20 songs on the list they like, probably many more. The list is pretty ecclectic, so I doubt anybody will be a fan of each and every song, but it's definitely a solid list with all master recordings and mainly big names. Of course the sheer volume, 104 songs (including those yet to be released) plus all the downloadable songs you can buy and those in Rock Band 1 are the biggest draw.

Overall:

Rock Band 2 doesn't mess with what Rock Band 1 did right and simply refines the experience and beefs up the content. Harmonix did a great job with this game and I only wish that the bundle had come out as early, as the prices for everything individually is much higher, (not that I need a new mic). If you don't have any fake guitars or drum sets cluttering up your TV area, well, maybe you should hold out for the bundle and save some $$$. Or who knows, maybe the Guitar Hero World Tour instruments will be superior anyway? But if you do have the Rock Band 1 bundle, or even an old guitar hero guitar, Rock Band 2 is a must have.

Best Deals for Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

So if you've even heard the words "video" and "game" put together outside of Fox News' patented Chicken Little hysteria over violence and such, you're well aware of just what Rock Band and Guitar Hero are all about. Good. That'll make this easy. "Rock Band 2" Takes every single little thing every living breathing gaming entity on the planet loved about the first one and added every little thing that was lacking and then some. Seriously, some may call this a full-priced expansion pack, but for what you're getting here you'd be an idiot not to buy this game if you already have the original pack. And if you missed out then there is no reason not to start here with the Special Edition's new and improved peripherals. I called the battle between RB and GH a draw before since GH had such a cooler over-the-top style, better translation of music-to-game and better songs to boot. No more. Rock band is the top of the music game hill right now and Guitar Hero World Tour is going to have to rock some serious socks off if it hopes to surpass this one.

First off, the most important part of the game: the music. Like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam? Sure you do. How about Bob Dylan, Blondie, and The Go-Go's? Darn skippy. Not hard enough? How about freakin' Testament, Mastodon, Megadeth, and System of a Down? My head is banging just thinking about it. Not legendary enough? The Who, Bad Company, Journey, AC/DC, and Fleetwood Mac do anything for you? Heard it all before? Well then check out the brand new never before heard new Guns n Roses song. Favorite band still not here, you say? Lacuna Coil, Sonic Youth, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and two different D's ( Social AND Tenacious) wish to make the pain go away. That's just a few of the EIGHTY FOUR master recordings you will jam out to. Not enough? How about a free code to download TWENTY MORE FOR FREE when they become available? And endless downloadable content including entire albums from Megadeth, Judas Priest, Boston, and an ever-growing list of many mucho more is an even bigger clincher. Plus, for a $5 fee you can import your entire Rock Band 1 library. If you love any sort of rock music, you will love this game.

Okay, the new additions. There is no reinventing of the wheel here, but the road is much smoother. The useless solo mode has been eliminated and instead solo play is integrated into the awesomely awesome world tour mode. I have not the time or the Rock Band-playing friends with too much time on their hands to embark on a lengthy multiplayer campaign so this is a dream come true. The best aspects of the original was saved for the multiplayer. That's no longer the case. You can also choose to play bass when going solo now so three cheers for that. The basslines are translated much better than the guitar parts anyhow. This time around you aren't tied down to any instrument at all going it solo; you can switch freely among them as you progress through the game. You can pass on the songs you don't like (or that kick your rear end) whereas in the original's solo mode you'd have to slog through every single song. Even the Flyleaf and Jet ones. Torturous!

Using the barely upgraded create-a-rocker feature I recreated my original RB band Midget Apartheid's lineup to a T and now I can play with all of my custom thrashers onstage at once when playing alone instead of having a bunch of lame stock-rockers filling out the ranks. I love this. Sadly, my band name was deemed "not classy" by the fascists at MTV Games and I'm barred from online play until I change it. I'm not changing it. It rules. Anywho, the online component is brilliantly integrated into the tour mode with optional battles and challenges where you can compete against other online bands that pop up as you travel. "Sage Tellah and the Spoony Bard Band" is sounding like a cool band name at this point (if you get that reference, you are now my friend). It's not selling out or caving in if I pretend it was my idea, right? I wanna try this new component out!

This is the simply the coolest music game ever put together from top to bottom. The only problem that remains is that a few of the songs are duds ("So Whatcha Want" is awful on guitar) and there are still times when you don't feel like you're controlling the music so much as you're just pressing combinations of buttons because the game says so. Guitar hero always makes you feel like you rule the guitar track. At times in Rock Band you are obviously playing a drum or bass part on the guitar and hearing something you aren't playing and vice-versa. There were also drum parts where all I heard was the bass drum and yet they still had me flailing away. This throws me off to no end because I listen to the music intensely and take rhythmic cues from it. It pulls me right out of the game when I'm hearing one thing and playing something else entirely. I can forgive this because it isn;t always flagrant and everything else is so heavenly. But no excuses, Harmonix. Fix this and you've got a contender the best game of any genre ever. Maybe it already is.

Bon Scott was a prophet. This I know to be true. He hath spake the blessed verse that hath come to be many a decade ago when he bequeathed unto us these words that best describe the experience that is Rock Band 2.

"Let there be sound", there was sound

"Let there be light", there was light

"Let there be drums", there was drums

"Let there be guitar", there was guitar

"Let there be rock"

And so on this day it has come to pass that (ramma lamma lamma lamma) Rock Band 2 is king. It's got the drums, it's got the singing, it's got the guitar/bass, it's got the songs, it's got more songs if you don't like those songs, and it's got a much better interface than any of it's predecessors. You like music? Got an up-to-date video game system? Beg, borrow, steal, or sell your family members' organs if you have to; but buy this game.

Honest reviews on Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

RB2 doesn't stray too far from the formula that made RB1 so fun and successful. So for the sake of brevity I'm only going to focus on what has been changed.

There are of course many new songs which keeps this game fresh, that is easily the most obvious change from RB1 to RB2. Besides that some of the gameplay modes have been tweaked and some new elements added.

World tour mode can now be played any way you like it. You can play solo, local with buddies, or on Live. To make this new freedom functional the band leader restriction has been removed, so you can play with whoever is around with whichever band you like. No need to go creating new bands when dongman420[this is a fake name ... I hope] isn't available for a gaming session. The inclusion of online world tour is easily the biggest draw, and it's one of those features that really makes you wonder how you ever lived without it in RB1. Too much fun.

There is also a battle of the bands mode, which is exactly what it sounds like [band vs. band], and something called tour challenges. Tour challenges generate random setlists from your library of "hard" songs, although they may not actually be all that tough. The setlists are culled from all of your content, including downloaded songs and imported RB1 tracks, which is a nice treat. It's a neat little feature that keeps gameplay fresh.

As a side note the track select screen is nearly identical to RB1's store screen, which is cool because you can see at a glance the difficulty of song per instrument. I also like that you get album info on each track in the form of a little cover art icon as well as the publishing year. A small change but a really nice touch.

The drum trainer is, for me, the coolest new feature aside from online world tour. I'm an RB drummer and I've sort of hit a wall with my drum skill. The trainer lets you select from songs, beats that are rated in difficulty, and even a bunch of drum fills to help your fills not suck. I've been playing on expert since RB1 launched, but since I've been playing the trainer my scores have become even higher. A great inclusion if you dig the drums.

All the other changes are pretty much cosmetic. The note and multiplier graphics are slightly different, and there are new band animations, background effects, and over drive effects. It's a good looking game but not drastically different from RB1.

Taken as a sequel RB2 does everything right, it takes the gameplay that made RB1 addicting and ratchets it up a few notches. (I will avoid the spinal tap pun ... you're welcome) Harmonix hasn't reinvented the wheel with this installment in the series, but really why would they? They've taken an "if it ain't broke don't fix it attitude" towards RB, and made a ton of little improvements that make the RB2 experience more seamless and more fun. If you loved the first one you'll love this one ... pick it up.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

If you liked Guitar Hero or the original Rock Band, then this game is a must buy. And if you have never tried it, you owe it to yourself to unleash your inner rock star.

Mainly this game offers a ton of new music. It comes with 85 songs on the disc and a code to download 20 more. Plus for about $5 you can copy all the songs from Rock Band 1 over to play! They have plans to offer 500 songs for this game by the end of 2008. And the cost for downloading new songs is way cheaper than Guitar Hero.

It's a fun game to play alone, but it is a really fun game to play with friends or at parties. They have also added a no fail mode so you can get through songs no matter how bad one person might be!

Reviews of StarTech.com COMP2VGA Composite and S-Video to VGA Video Converter

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $78.99
Sale Price: $48.98
Today's Bonus: 38% Off

This product does exactly what I anticipated. It allows me to play the Xbox using my PC monitor and speakers. The device is an all hardware solution, that once connected has a button to toggle the monitor/speakers between the Xbox and PC. Note that this device will also work with any other game console (Nintendo, Playstation) that outputs NTSC video.

I use the device on a 19" Trinitron monitor and the video displayed from the Xbox is not quite as crisp and clear as when the Xbox is connected to my 27" TV. But I found the quality to be very good and many people may not notice that a regular TV provided a better image if the two are not directly compared. The bottom line is that a purist may be bothered by the difference in image quality, but it provides me a great alternative for playing the Xbox when my TV is being used by others, or when a TV is not available, e.g. playing Xbox System Link games (like Halo) at a friends house.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

(first review)

Simply put, this item was DOA, straight out of the box. I attempted all of the following as input devices:

* Wii console

* VCR

* DVD player

and both of the following as displays:

* 17" ViewSonic CRT monitor

* 20" Samsung LCD monitor

and regardless of the configuration I got the exact same result -NO SIGNAL. I will attempt one exchange. If that one is DOA as well, I will get a refund.

(after getting the replacement)

I would like to amend a prior review where I gave 1 star, saying I would give 0 if I could, because it just didn't work. Well, the replacement does work, and I have successfully run the Wii through the analog port on my 20" LCD monitor. That's the good news.

The bad news:

* Piping sound through it is bad. Really bad. Tin cans and a string bad. Fortunately, you don't have to, and I don't any more. You just have to be inventive with your cabling.

* The video quality isn't great, but this may be as good as it gets with composite. Results might be better with S-video, but I don't have anything that delivers that. I blame outdated standards here.

* It doesn't drive 1024x768 like you may see in the specs, it drives 640x480. This makes the next point all the more confusing...

* It doesn't work with my 17" CRT monitor, which I had intended to turn into a TV with this, a VCR, and a pair of amplified speakers. The monitor works fine on the analog port of the video card, so there's nothing wrong with it. It just doesn't get along with the Video Game Jockey.

Also of note is that it sends an output signal even when there is no input signal. This means that if your monitor auto-detects source, it will lock onto the blank-screen analog signal if you try to connect the analog to the Jockey and the DVI to your computer. I can force-switch it, but occasionally it still flips back over to analog (and is guaranteed to if the machine is rebooted), and it won't go to sleep because it's always getting a signal. This can be dealt with by switching the Jockey to use the VGA input, even though I haven't connected anything to it. It does not attempt to drive a blank signal this way. I just have to remember to switch it back before I can use the Wii.

In short, it does what it says (other than the 1024x768 part) but it has crappy sound quality and doesn't work with all monitors. 3 stars.

Best Deals for StarTech.com COMP2VGA Composite and S-Video to VGA Video Converter

Bought this to be able to convert the composite video from my Directv box to VGA so that I could use an old computer monitor as my "TV." It does the job! No complaints.

Honest reviews on StarTech.com COMP2VGA Composite and S-Video to VGA Video Converter

This product is great! I hooked up the video / audio in in the right spots, yet the screen was flickering and wasn't clear. I think this is what may have happened to the previous reviewers and their bad responses.

ANYWAYS, i went and bought a connector for the PS2, that had the same connections EXCEPT it had an S-video input instead of the video plugs. Once I hooked it up this way, everything was great and I have never had a problem.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for StarTech.com COMP2VGA Composite and S-Video to VGA Video Converter

The static on this device on the audio line is intolerable in my opinion. However, newer computer stereo systems, as well as radio shack, have a converter that goes from left right audio to 3.5mm stereo jacks. That solved the static problem by bypassing the device all together with some creative cabling.

As for the video quality, it's not too good if your using a composite device. You'll imediately notice a flicker on straght lines and text that gave me a headache. However, if you are using an s-video cable (which is what I use for my ps2) then the picture is decent. Not the best product on the market, I'm sure, but a functional solution if your like me and don't always have a TV available.

Cheap Midway Arcade Origins

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $17.29
Today's Bonus: 14% Off

I was very thrilled to get Midway's Arcade Origins for the Playstation and overall I was very impressed with it.I'm hoping the Midway,Namco,or even Data-East collections make their way to the PS3 consoles...I felt burned when I found out my copies of the PS2 couldn't be played on the PS3.On that note it was very refreshing for this Midway collection at a reasonable price.Our current 'most helped reviewer' has a pretty negative outlook and strays from logic such as the following....

Controller Functions:

Yes the trackball from Marble Madness had interesting reaction to the slightest touch,but the smooth action on the joystick knobs has pretty smooth response too.Same can be said for Defender or Super Off Road which used a steering wheel,as a substitute the playstation's controller and button assignments are well laid out.The reviewer isn't thinking like an adult 'I want a trackball blah,blah,blah' like a whining child.Technology has progressed (and will continue to) allowing these games to be comfortably played on a flexible controller.If you expect the controller styles to be 100% accurate then buy the original arcade game,actually a product like what the reviewer mentioned probably wouldn't be as heavy-duty or would be very limited to range of use.

The Games:

As far as the games some of these I had from the previous Midway Arcade Treasures collections and I felt the library was perfectly consolidated.Root Beer Tapper?it's a very straight forward game but requires speed and serious hand/eye coordination to keep up.Xybots isn't really in league with Wolfenstein 3D or Doom but it's a decent third person person shooter.Smash TV and Total Carnage were decent shooters of the early 1990's but they ate quarters since you got killed so quick by enemies in mass quantities...but the bosses were awesome!Rampage was alot of fun-who wouldn't want to be a ruthless monster destroying buildings and eating while destroying cars,tanks,and anything that can hurt you.I've never been much of a sports game fan but I liked the basketball game Arch-Rivals which allowed you punch another player to get your ball back...playing by street rules.Gauntlet/Gauntlet II was a quarter burner just like Smash TV and though it doesn't hold a candle to the souped up action games today Gauntlet was a tasty delight just as well as Wizards of Wor.Pit Fighter may not have gained as much popularity as Mortal Kombat due to advanced moves and fatalities.But you could move around more and pick up weapons(shurikens,pool cues,knives,and even a motorcycle) and at certain times there are two opponents at once to fight.Watch out for the occassional character who pops out from the crowd and tries to knife you...you can attack them back.Pit-Fighter came out several years before MK and despite the lack of eye candy gave I really liked Pit-Fighter.Galaga was created by Namco and I believe Space Invaders was as well,or maybe Atari...either way Midway/WB doesn't own the rights to these titles so that explains why they aren't included.Every game on this collection has varying fun factors depending on the player and I like this approach of these vintage collections,it really brings something special to the table.

Presentation:

It was pretty cool to see the old original cabinets of these classic games on the game selection screen,it really takes you back seeing them after all these years and the unique character behind these games.For thirty dollars rather than the typical fifty to sixty dollar price for a PS3 game just released?pretty good value.The ability to choose free play settings such as difficulty,number of lives,score bonus does lend flexibility to the settings.

Final Thoughts:

Not that I'm against the video games of today(as a matter of fact my modern game collection consists of first person shooters),but alot are missing something special behind all that high resolution...to be honest I think the newer/hi-tech games have gotten easy to beat.These retro games were more streamlined back then-some were just fun in general to play and some were flat out challenging.Although this isn't an included game PAC-MAN was a great example of a basic retro game..it required very quick hand and eye coordination to survive.The beauty of these arcade collections is they get re-released in higher resolution without sacrificing the natural low-res graphics and even better...no more quarters to burn through!As I mentioned earlier I had the Gottlieb and Williams Pinball Hall of Fame Collections,Midway Arcade Treasures Vol.1-3,Namco Museum Collection and the Intellivision Collection(it was okay but accurately captured).Altogether I spent alot more time playing these collections than the newer games because they prove to have a focused level of enjoyment.Just like the Sonic's Ultimate Sega Genesis Collection-It doesn't quite shine me on like the arcade collections do,but I do miss those my old Sega Genesis at times.Anyways,the Midway Arcade Origins is great and I highly recommend it...5-stars!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

While I had the first two Midway Arcade Collections for the PS2 the price of this made it worth getting as well since I actually haven't played on my PS2 for awhile. There's really not much to say about this collection other then it's a nice nostalgic collection of 80 and some early 90 games for those who grew up playing these either at the arcade or on consoles. Obviously the graphics aren't going to match up to today standards as most are 8bit or slightly higher but it's sometimes nice to play these longtime classics that bring back fond memories of those times for many of us. The collection is pretty decent about 30 games as the collection is similar to the http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Ultimate-Genesis-Collection-Playstation-3/dp/B001G33V8S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365461273&sr=8-1&keywords=sega+collection which is another great collection to have for the older generation gamers. Regardless for those of us who remember these games fondly then rejoice as this collection helps bring back those memories of yesteryear this time on the PS3.

Best Deals for Midway Arcade Origins

This is a great mix of games. I love Defender, Stargate, Smash TV, Sinistar, Wizard of Wor.

The sound effects are my favorite part. If you have an HDTV and sound bar than this is heaven.

I have read complaints about how it is a re release of last generation's but you can't forget that Midway went under and WB owns it now. The games are presented in HD 16:9 so it offers something the other Midway/Williams compilations don't.

Turn off the lights and escape into the wonderful world of the 80's arcade experience!

Honest reviews on Midway Arcade Origins

Nothing gimmicky like 80s music or extra minigames in this package just a solid collection of some of the most addictive titles from our arcade past. The HD conversion process actually makes some of these games more playable as well as the dual stick controls for games like Smash TV and Robotron. If you have an arcade stick games like Defender really hold up well and can be hard to stop. These games are almost all classics in one respect or another you can't go wrong with this bundle.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Midway Arcade Origins

I would have paid the price just for Robotron 2084. Honestly there are only about 10 games in the collection that I play constantly. But IMO if we are honest, we remember that when we went to the arcade, there were only a handful of games that we pumped our money into anyway. Sure, it was fun to have our friends around, 80's tunes on the jukebox, the click clack, of the air hockey tables, and the demo sounds of all the surrounding games all clamoring together... But at the end of it all it was just the favorites that we put our hard earned quarters into. This collection of games is no different. Find your favorites and play them until the controller breaks... Buy a new controller and start again!

Reviews of uDraw GameTablet with uDraw Studio - Nintendo Wii

Customer Ratings:

Ours came today. Set up was simple, just connecting it and then putting the Wiimote into the tablet. Mostly it was just doodles but when we started looking at all of the different options and things you can do with it we realized we are really going to have to spend some time with it. I'm going to try to get everyone to draw a Christmas card and then go online to use it as our Christmas card! You can do all sorts of things with saving the pictures you draw. And we played a full game of Pictionary, which we ordered too. We all LOVED THAT. It takes a while to get used to drawing and seeing it on the screen and also the drawing pad is a little small so you have to practice, but part of the fun of drawing is making mistakes and drawing silly things. Our next door neightbor is a graphic designer and I want to have him over this weekend to show us what he can do with it. Great choice and it would be a really great holiday gift. If you're seriously worried about being bored, then know that this is NOT A "GAME." It's a really great drawing/art device and we are really happy we bought it! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

This is much more than "just a game."

So far everyone in the family, from a 3 y/o to myself have had great fun with this.

It is extremely simple to connect and start using it.

The software includes enough tools to actually some nice artwork. The tools are fairly intuitive. Changing between them is a simple matter of pressing a button. Erasing mistakes is also simple. Once you're done, everything can be saved into an SD card and ported to a computer.

This is one of those "games" that are good for the whole family.

As an added bonus, the tablet connects to Pictionary for a few more hours of fun.

Best Deals for uDraw GameTablet with uDraw Studio - Nintendo Wii

Being grandparents of eight, we are always looking for things for grandchildren to do when they visit. I read about this and it sounded interesting. We have had our Wii for over two years. We also have the balance board and a few games.

We bought the uDraw thinking we might give it as a Christmas gift for some of our grandchildren. We tried it and showed it to our son. Our first thoughts were that it was too hard for the kids. Our son did not think so. So we kid tested it. We let three of our granddaughters try it at our house. The 7 and 10 year old fought over it. They had a great time and picked up the basic tools, etc. faster than Grandma and Grandpa did. Then the 5 year old had her turn. She didn't do too much but did have fun.

While we were doing this, another son and his family showed up. Our daughter-in-law was excited to see it work. They were considering buying it for their almost 8 year old son and their almost 6 year old daughter. Those kids tried it, too. They also had a great time. Our grandson is a heavy-duty video game player so we were surprised at his interest. Grandpa had read the tutorials by then and showed them how to do some things. Their Mom tried it later and thought it was great for them. We have saved a picture to an SD card and printed it from our computer. The picture was certainly acceptable for our uses.

In the end, Grandma and Grandpa bought uDraws for both sets of grandkids. We decided to keep the first one for ourselves. We have had fun with it and feel we can learn how to use more of the features and then help the grandkids learn how to use theirs in different ways. We definitely are not artists but this tablet is very relaxing to just experiment with.

We have not purchased any other games for the uDraw yet. We do see how it could be used in many other ways. Hope more games will come out soon.

We have alot of paper, color crayons, play doh, paint, etc. at our house. We have always believed that we would not use the TV as a babysitter and encourage other forms of play. That being said, there are video games, etc. that we do think are excellent for kids. This definitely is one of them.

Honest reviews on uDraw GameTablet with uDraw Studio - Nintendo Wii

First off this review is coming from a 40 year old guy with hardly no artistic ability when it comes to drawing or painting so I have to say that for the "fun" factor this is pretty cool for something that lets you draw pictures on your television. This uDraw tablet is nothing more than an overrated toy however. It is not by any means designed for high quality images. Great for kids, and can be fun for adults.

Three points I should mention right off.....

(1.) I discovered that there is a 35 minute time limit on your drawings. That is calculated by actual drawing time. So a stroke of your brush would only make a few seconds of time into your drawing. This is ok for kids and non-skilled artists, but for true artists looking for something to make highly detailed art this is not going to do it for you. Get a Wacom tablet for your PC. I wish I had done that instead of spending money on this.

(2.) The images produced by this software are very low quality. Yes you can save your images to a SD card but when you get them over onto the computer you will find they are small images (only 576 X ??? pixels) and the colors won't even come close to what you saw on your television screen. In other words if your Wii is hooked up to your HDTV with beautiful colors it's not going to look at all like that on your computer. The image will be drab looking on your computer as compared to what you saw on your television.

(3.) The uDraw tablet and Studio disc is not actually a game. It is just a tablet and drawing software. You have to either buy Dood's Big Adventure or Pictionary seperately to use the tablet in a game.

All in all this is a system you can have fun with but don't expect super high quality images if that's what your looking for. If your just looking for something to draw random things on your tv screen this is will do it for you.

I wouldn't exactly say it is worth nearly 70 dollars. Maybe 45 but not 70.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for uDraw GameTablet with uDraw Studio - Nintendo Wii

First off, let me state that I am an artist, and I've been wanting a tablet for years, but have never had the money. I've used plenty of tablets and borrowed from friends.

Although this product is not without flaw, it certainly is amazing.

The uDraw tablet drawing space is a lot bigger than I thought it would be (most of the pictures were angled, so it looked as if it was only a 3x5 space in the upper right-hand corner). I do wish the cord attaching the pen was just a little longer, but the convenience of being able to lift your pen and appropriately line up the pen to where you ended that line, and begin that same line seamlessly, is priceless.

The performance of it is wonderful and the feeling of it is smooth-not the least bit clumsy or bulky.

The features are amazing, cute enough (you can pick your drawing environment. I tend to pick the Beach, with the seagull sounds, or Art Class with the random ruckus periodically; Which you can also opt to silence altogether) and the tools are awesome, ranging from pen to sponge and down to marker.

Another cool option is to watch you re-draw the entire portrait in a recording, pause it where you would like to go back to, and continue drawing from there. For example, if you drew something, sponged it, and colored it in, you can play back the recording of you drawing it line by line, then sponging it, and watch it become colored. You CAN fast forward it to 2x, 4x and 8x speed, but once you do, you still have to watch it draw the whole thing, because it's loading the entire video up to the point you chose.

Also, another mentionable: "Save" and "Snapshot" are different; "Save" allows you to save it to your uDraw gallery, while "Snapshot" saves it to your SD card. It saves in .PNG format for high resolution images.

Another cool bit, especially for the kiddies, is the Coloring Book. You can pick a page from a couple of genres, such as Fantasy, or Science for instance, and...well...freely color!

For 70 dollars, this tablet is amazing. It's good for artists with an open mind, great for kids (I'd let my 6 year old cousin have at it) and including all the neat games they'll surely release in the near future along with the ones already out-like Pictionary?

This thing is an awesome steal.

Buy Xbox 360 Official NFL Baltimore Ravens Controller Faceplate

Customer Ratings:

My girlfriend got me this faceplate as a gift and it is very nice for any xbox playing Ravens fan. Snaps on nice on both sides. Only problem for me was after a year the little plastic clips that keep it on the controller eventually broke. Overall it's a nice gift and you get what you pay for.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I bought this for my 8 year old son who loves the Ravens. He likes to play Madden 11 with his step dad who is a Steelers fan. I actually bought my husband a Steelers faceplate. They love them and they clip right on the controller. Excellent for any XBOX playing, football fanatic!

Best One Premium Minecraft Account User Name and Password Deals

Customer Ratings:

This account works great! It works and its the best on Amazon. Support is good and account works well. It's defiantly one of the bet prices on Amazon! Definitely a must buy!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

It works well. Too bad about the username but yes nice product, i would like to buy more accounts cheaply like this. its a pretty darn good deal and highly recommend it.

NCAA Football 10 - Playstation 3 Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $24.99
Sale Price: $9.76
Today's Bonus: 61% Off

I must preface this review by stating that I have been a fan of the NCAA Football series since it was "Bill Walsh Football". I have become accustomed to each year only having a few updates and modest improvements and those have been enough to satisfy my needs as a college football enthusiast.

THIS LATEST INSTALLMENT LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED.

I play this game as follows: 50% of the time is spent in dynasty mode, 25% is spent playing against friends, 25% is spent playing online. With that said, dynasty mode is the mode that I obviously really focus on. I was alarmed to find out as soon as I booted up dynasty mode that it starts soliciting you to buy "add ons" that you would think would be standard. You have to pay an additional $2.50 per add-on ($12.50 for the total dynasty add-on package) -via the PSN store to have things such as a second pipeline state, a recruiting advisor etc.

EA could have greatly improved dynasty mode this year by releasing these new options as standard features instead of gouging for more $$$.

It's not that the add-ons are expensive, but its that they are unwarranted and it is a matter of principle. I can honestly say that this will very likely be the last time I purchase a release from the NCAA Football series.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

EA Sports has finally made a challenging football game. Playing the CPU on Heisman mode is like playing last year's Madden on Your Level. The game now adapts to the way you play just like a real (good) coach does. You can't run that option over and over, you will get stuffed!

In addition to making CPU play harder and more realistic, there is a new mode called Season Showdown where you chose your favorite team and everything you do on and offline gets tallied toward an end of the season winner. In Season Showdown mode, you get points based on many categories including Skill (making certain plays yourself), Strategy (Choosing the upcoming play type while on defense and successfully stopping it), and Sportsmanship ( where good sports that don't go for it on 4th get points and those that do or run up the score get them taken away). There is also an online trivia component where you go to the EA Sports website and answer 10 trivia questions each week for points. During the season, each week you can play your team's game online against players from the other team to get points. You get points whether you win or lose, but you get more for winning. Season Showdown is a great way to show support for your favorite team and it also gives a rating so when you are in a lobby you can tell if someone who is participating in Season Showdown will go for it every 4th or not and if they know how to stop plays by looking at their Strategy rating.

Teambuilder is another new mode where you can go to the EA Sports website and create your own school and design the uniforms, stadium and player names and attributes and then download it into the game. And you can use your Teambuilder teams in online dynasties, which is pretty cool.

Online dynasties are better, you can now create a custom team conference by swapping your members teams with teams in an existing conference. For example you can swap all the Big 12 teams with all 12 of your dynasty member's teams. This makes it easier for scheduling user vs user games. They also fixed last year's bug where you talked a player into staying (from going to the NFL draft or transferring to another school) they and they still left. The recruiting process is more involved now, you can talk down other schools the recruit is interested ins attributes and you have a recruiting adviser that tells you when someone is ready to sign, is interested in your school or gets a call from a mom who tells some of a recruit's interests.

The other new addition is Road To Glory, which has been in the game before but is vamped up with a video segment on your player after winning games that is hosted by Erin Andrews, who discusses your play during the game with Herbstriet and shows auto saved highlights from the game. Look for a similar video show presentation in Madden NFL 10 which will have a video show for the online leagues showing highlights from members of the leagues teams each week.

PROS

Season Showdown It has brought a new sense of competition to the game, where everything you do helps your favorite school in the rankings.

Adaptive CPU Play You have to really be on your toes to win against the CPU on Heisman mode now. All American mode is as hard as Heisman in NCAA Football 09.

Road to Glory Your player is now ranked so you can see how others playing on your favorite team are doing. Plus you get to see Erin Andrews. lol.

Family Mode This is another adaptation from Madden, which has an easy mode. Now, you can play a tough game against grandma. Family mode is a very simplified set of controls where even your sister can make a TD pass. So now, just about anyone can play and be good at it.

PS3 Trophies For the first time you get trophies for your game play.

Tweaks to Graphics Close ups are more polished, although most of the graphics are the same. Marching bands are now shown pre game and they have added additional uniform settings and TD animations (My team, USF, can now do the horns hand sign after TDs)

Players Are More Realistic No More sub 4.3 40 yard dash players. Speed is not as much a factor as ability to catching or running through a tackle.

Ability to Tweak Team Play Now you can tweak how your D and O play on different aspects such as blocking or tackling, with choices being Aggressive, Normal, And Conservative.

Cons

EA has now gone the money route. Additional items, like "Dynasty Accelerators" where you get things like an extra pipeline state in Dynasty Mode you have to play for, WITH REAL MONEY! You want to be a 5 star high school recruit in Road To Glory? You can pay for it now, 2 bucks. If you lost your manual for the game, you won't be able to download your Teambuilder team to the game without paying for it. And if you want to download other teams you have to pay for each team. Its not quite as bad as they have done with Tiger Woods Golf, but look for more of it in future additions depending on how successful they are this year.

Adaptive CPU Play I know, I said it was a Pro, but its both. I am seeing players struggling in Dynasties that are set at Heisman mode, good players. When someone is ranked high against other players (top 1000) plays a game against the cpu in Heisman mode with Penn St and loses to Akron, you know something is wrong. Luckily, the CPU sliders are still included in this addition. Sliders can be adjusted to so that CPU and User play can be adjusted, like increase the likelihood your receiver will catch balls or your QB will throw more accurately.

Graphics and Presentation While I know that they have worked more on game play and features this past edition, it would be nice to see a better presentation. Not all the mascots are in 2010 yet, there are more in the PS2 version. Many of the lines of the commentators are the same they have used for several versions now. The graphics are pretty much the same, although you get a glimpse of some better graphics during the brief close ups after plays.

Putting your D on Aggressive Stripping the Ball results on face mask penalties on just about every play. Its pretty much useless.

The video is pretty repetitive in Road To Glory. Heck Erin doesn't even have a wardrobe change. It would be nice to see her change wardrobe, and spice up the video some.

Overall, great improvements to last year's game. Much of this is because Tiberon, who makes the game for EA Sports, let seasoned NCAA gamers have a day with the game early enough in development to get input and use it to change and tweak the game before it was shipped. They also did this to Madden this year.

UPDATE: The more I play Madden, the less I like NCAA 10. Why? On the harder settings its like work. And conversely, Madden is pretty fun, even when you are losing. On the harder settings in NCAA 10, one mistake can cost you the game. The game presentation is boring and rather dull compared to Madden. Even though I am #1 for my school in Season Showdown, I still am considering selling my copy. Hopefully next year EA Sports will take the things that work in NCAA 10 and Madden separately and include them in both of next year's offering.

Best Deals for NCAA Football 10 - Playstation 3

I purchased each game in the series for many years. Not much has really changed in the last few years, so I didn't expect too much from this one either. The gameplay is imporved from last year dramatically. The CPU is more intelligent and seems to react to what you are doing better (such as coverage, play calling, audibles, etc). However there are time when you really wonder (such as when the CPU calls a quarter defense when you are in the goal line formation running the clock down). The graphics are imporved, however they are not as polished as they should be for a next gen game (at times they are SLOW). The plays themselves are a copy from last year, no change (could be negative or positive).

I mostly play the dynasty mode and that is where my main grips are. In order to be really competative in a online (or just a normal dynasty unless you choose the easiest settings or re-sim everything 20 million times to get perfection) you really are going to feel the need to buy those dynasty add on's. And those are where most of the controversies are. You just spent a ton of money to buy the game and now you have to go and fork over about a quarter of another ton to get all of the dynasty add ons. Once you get them, you come to realize many of them are just junk and do nothing. Why in the world do I care about an add on that gives me the time I spent with a recruit in a week? However the recruiting advisor however, does come in handy.

For EA Sports greed is the sole reason I think this game deserves a two star rating. Madden follows this 'charge more for add on's', as well as many of the other EA Sports franchises. If you purchase the game anyway, at least give EA Sports two cents about the extra money!!!

Honest reviews on NCAA Football 10 - Playstation 3

In the age of technology in which we currently live, it's impossible to fathom how a next generation football game takes a step back from '09 to '10. In last year's version, if you fielded a good team, you could manipulate the audibles and the defense would react the same way every time. If you needed 15 yards, you could get 20. It got to the point where I would stop calling certain plays in the playbook because it was guaranteed to work every time. That has been fixed this year but for several reasons, this game takes two steps back.

NCAA Football 2010 ushered in some unforgivable mistakes that sink this game all the way to complete mediocrity, such as fumbles when the other team needs the ball back, facemask penalties when they need a first down, and a completely idiotic camera angle which happens when you accidentally click the L3 button when trying to rush the quarterback (which happens to be the same button that moves your defensemen). Once you click the button, if you don't click it again in time you end up off sides because down causes your player to move up and up causes the player to move down and if you're trying to blitz the quarterback, you're trying to figure this out before he snaps the ball because you're already off sides. This happens to me about ten times a game, about half of which wind up in a penalty. I'm forced to play the other half from the idiotic camera view which is so worthless that I don't even play the down.

The worst of these miscues is easily the facemask. I turned the facemask penalty slider as low as it would go and I still get flagged for it 4-8 times every game, usually on third and 10+ so the other team can get a first down. The computer NEVER gets flagged for facemask, or any other penalties for that matter. Penalties only apply to the user and not the AI. This is unacceptable. Also, if you try and play conservatively with the lead, yeah, you fumble the ball and the defense recovers. I once had a 27 point lead in the 4th quarter when I fumbled the ball. The defense returned for a touchdown, kicked off, I fumbled the return, the computer scored on the next play, recovered an onside kick, threw a bomb for a touchdown, RECOVERED ANOTHER ONSIDE KICK, and slowly drove down the field and scored with barely any time left on the clock. I realize that EA needed to make this game more challenging, but there are better ways to do that than creating ways for the computer to cheat. A couple of other maddening issues worthy of mention include tipped passes and defensive AI. My tipped passes end up intercepted while the computer's float haphazardly into the hands of the intended receiver for a thirty yard gain. They intercept nearly every mistake I make while my defense will drop three balls thrown straight to them on the same drive. Also, the computer always makes defensive plays on the ball whereas you can try and swat or intercept the ball during the play and rarely does it ever work. I'm beginning to think that these "mistakes" are intentional so that consumers will break the disc in half in a fit of rage and go buy another. Seriously, how does this happen after twenty years of experience?

I learned my lesson with EA years ago. They no longer get any of my money. Every EA game I buy comes from Ebay or used from Amazon. I also wait until I can get them for less than $20 so that I'm not pissed when I get ripped off like this. Every year I read reviews just like this from people that continue to buy these mediocre games brand new. As long as EA is raking in billions of dollars in sales, they won't care about the quality of the product. If people would quit buying, then we may finally see a game with some quality effort put into it. Some competition would do the trick too, but EA owns the rights. Go figure.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for NCAA Football 10 - Playstation 3

I'm not going to write a long review of the game but I will say this: I own NCAAF09 as well and enjoyed it thoroughly (even though that game had major flaws as well). I think the real problem with '10 is the fact that EA decided to spend time improving the most unimportant features. What's more important - flashes in the crowd or decent AI? Seriously, Heisman mode is infuriating. First of all, EA doesn't seem to understand that simply increasing the amount of fumbles and interceptions in a game equals a better team. Also, simply sliding the speed bar of the opposing team to 100 is not realistic. "Heisman mode" should equal more completed passes, generally better skill, but not turbo mode. If you can deal with the annoying AI, then this may be the game for you. But until EA patches this game, I don't know if it's worth it.

Cheap Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do - Xbox 360

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $18.50
Today's Bonus: 54% Off

I have been playing this game now for a month, so my initial response to it has alter somewhat. First things first, I agree with the other reviews commenting on the fun of this game and its party nature. It features mini games similar to that of a carnival and you get to really use your full body to interact with these games. After completion you win tickets (those no-good tokens that could buy you a hair pin at a real carnival) which can be traded in for costumes and the like. The game even boasts with its own fortune teller, which just like its real life counterpart, makes you feel like you've been ripped off afterwards.

In essence, this is a party/group game. Trying it alone I find myself quickly rushing through the games and ejecting the game. With friends it becomes fun and gameplay time is lengthened.

CONS

not one player; must be played in groups/parties

too few games

replay value of games quickly diminishes the more you play, quicker than similar games

the "harder" levels are pretty hard to reach

PROS

menus are easy to navigate

setup is clear and easy to follow and one can jump into the action quickly

2-player is really easy and fun: opt in or out any time during play and the Kinect senses the second person easily

space requirements are decent and you don't have to stand all the way back for the Kinect to pick you up

My real gripe with this is after more than a month of playing it is that it has kinda reached its purpose now. We hardly remember having this game, unless friends come over. Friends from previous times are not too eager playing it again, so that indicated to me it's fun first time around and then it loses its appeal. At this point I'll argue for it to be discounted before it really reaches its value. Don't trade this game in though, as you never know when along the road you might have some family/friends over interested in a little carnie fun.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I will be honest: I am not much of a gamer and neither is my 5 year old. However, we enjoyed some of the Kinect games and he had requested something new to play. We read through the descriptions together and settled on this one.

First impression: decent graphics and colorful, fun atmosphere. It really has a sort of carnival feel to it.

Game format: the multitude of games was nice because there are a lot of different challenges. There is a lot to see and explore. Again, the carnival atmosphere is really shining through here.

Playing: as some have mentioned, there did seem to be a bit of lag with the Kinect control. They didn't always recognize certain movements and my son had some trouble with it. There is a bit of a learning curve here and it is steeper than Kinect sports or Adventures. Even I was challenged at times.

And another thing: Some of the language after doing poorly at a game is discouraging and inappropriate for a younger child who might be easily discouraged. While an adult might find this as a challenge to their skills, a child might see this as a put-down and not want to play anymore.

Final assessment: As there aren't a lot of Kinect games out there yet, I would reluctantly recommend this for older children and above. That being said, I would look for it used or on sale rather than paying $40-$50. For us, it wasn't worth the full price.

Best Deals for Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do - Xbox 360

This game is fun and just about anyone can pick up and play with a short learning curve. The games range from a skeeball game, a dart game, a strength game, a fried dough catching, and dancing like a monkey, plus many more. The games are cute and fun, challenging but not too hard to master. Prizes are tickets which can be redeemed for outfits and pets for your avatar. The top win in each game gets an exclusive prize which is also for your avatar. I like this, in the Wii one you simply win virtual prizes but with the clothes (shoes, shirts, hats, outfits, pets, etc.) you can dress your avatar and have a little more fun with the prizes.

The Kinect works well with this game. Whenever it did not immediately recognize me, I simply jumped once and it would see me right away. Some games may take a long time to recognize you, but this is NOT one of them. My boyfriend and I enjoyed this game for hours!

The only gripe I may have is replayability (once I beat a game how much more do I really want to keep playing that game, over and over?), and I wish there were more games. I'm hoping they will release some downloadable content for this game, which I suspect they will.

If you liked Carnival Games for Wii, you will LOVE Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do for the Kinect! It's a solid purchase fun for one or a group of people, and will keep you entertained for hours.

Honest reviews on Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do - Xbox 360

I love this game!! I had so much fun playing this game! There's a lot of games to play and they're not all super easy to beat so the game's not done in an hour. You can also win lots of fun outfits and other stuff for your avatar. Definitely worth the money!

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Carnival Games: Monkey See Monkey Do - Xbox 360

When I was a lot younger I loved going to the carnival that visited my area once every year. This game is very entertaining and a million times cheaper than actually going to a carnival. I have 2 children (13 & 8)and they absolutely love this game. I also enjoy this game as it allows us to spend quality family ime together and is great for parties. KINECT has made all the board games in our house practically irrelevant. When we have family get togethers people automatically gravitate towards the KINECT. IN DEPTH REVIEW and our favorite carnival games.

Our favorites are:

* Knockout Punch against a heavy bag that fights back Extremely challenging to earn the highest scores but non-stop fun.

* You twist your body inCrash Test Dummy to control everything GREAT WORKOUT

* Leap into a space-age journey in Rocket to MarS Kids really loved this one

* Catch coins while roller-coasting down Gold Rush Mountain Similar to kinect adventures game but with more depth and amazing prizes!!!

Of course you get to play all of these games as your Xbox Avatar like most KINECT games.

The icing on the cake is that tickets earned in games can be redeemed to acquire a wide variety of outfits including Ninja, Swashbuckler, Viking and Wild West costumes.

Overall this game has been oodles of fun for everyone and I believe we will get quite a lot of play time out of this title. Fantastic experience, well designed and implemented KINECT controls, limitless entertainment.

F.E.A.R. 3 - Xbox 360 Review

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $14.99
Today's Bonus: 25% Off

This game is solid gold as far as I am concerned. In co-op it is so fun and team work is a must. There thrill, gore, and fun at every turn you make. Very dark game with loads of action. Playing as the ghost was the most fun I have had with any video game in a long time taking over bodies and frying the enemies. Games story line is dark and unique aswell which adds to its appeal. Definitely not for kids though...

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Why I think is a great game:

-About 8 hours for the main campaign to unlock other character to play the story again with other gameplay, powers and alternative ending, 16 hours total.

-The whole game is a coop experience, campaign and multiplayer modes

-Character level progress, campaign and multiplayer modes works together to reach your goals and be stronger

-About 50 different Combat Challenges to accomplish

-Multiplayer modes are unique and fast action to enjoy with friends, you can play alone too fighting "bots".

Above all you will find a creepy mood, great graphics and action. For me is awesome game.

Best Deals for F.E.A.R. 3 - Xbox 360

This is a very good game. Great survival horror action game. I enjoyed playing it. So why did I give it four stars? Don't get me wrong, I highly recommend this, but I think you'd best try Fear 2 first. First off to get the story of course, and two is that this game is almost the same as Fear 2 except for the characters and storyline. Same graphics, controls, ect. If you enjoyed Fear 2, pick this up immediatly, you will not regret it. If you didn't like Fear 2, there's not much here for you.

Honest reviews on F.E.A.R. 3 - Xbox 360

I've loved the Fear series.

Okay, the storyline was pretty funny and worthy of a Saturday cartoon, but it was interesting.

Fear 2 (minus that awful, AWFUL psychic...ghost rape ending) was fun and a bit freaky. I even didn't mind the easy mecha of destruction scenes.

But Fear 3...why is it that horror games are turning into generic action shooters?

If I want a shooter I'll play Serious Sam.

You mainly fight army men, who unlike the pervious games are as thick as bricks. I had them run past me on several occassions.

The "scary" moments are few and far between, taking a Darkwatch route to find corpses as easter eggs.

Granted, one level was interesting but short for some reason.

I got as far as looking up at the sky in an airport level to see a black hole. The sky was red and the earth trembled whenever Alma decided to have labour pains. I'd never seen such a boring, obvious example of "being in womb" before.

Rent the game, and play with a friend. Otherwise you'll get bored. Fast.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for F.E.A.R. 3 - Xbox 360

I think at this point, the mythology of the F.E.A.R. games has collapsed in on itself. The story has evolved into something nonsensical and this third chapter has lost any, if not all of the frights that the first one managed to gather. Does this make F.E.A.R. 3 a bad game? No, in fact it's far from being a bad game. I'd actually say that this is one of the best two-player co-op games you can currently get your hands on and it shouldn't be missed for those who enjoy progressing through a solid campaign experience with a buddy.

If you've played the expansion pack for F.E.A.R. 2, then you will be familiar with Point Man, who is one of the two characters you can play as. The other is Paxton Fettel, cannibal psycho psychic dude who has been a series staple from the very beginning. Between the two of you, assuming that you're playing with someone else of course, you will team up to dish out some serious harm to your enemies. So much in fact that you're certain to attain a certain euphoria as you zip through levels decimating your enemies. And decimate them you do. There's something inherently satisfying about psychically suspending some dude in the air while your partner unloads a clip into him at close range, making him jiggle like some marionette. Or you can just make them explode outright in a fine mist of blood and gore. Point Man plays like a standard run and gun super soldier but Paxton adds a certain flair to the proceedings that makes things that much more fun. In the end, the game trades in it's well worn scare tactics for some solid co-op gameplay and it's a worthwhile trade.

The game also offers some online multiplayer modes, the best of which in my humble opinion being the "F***ing Run" mode that puts you and three others in front of a wall of smoke that kills anyone who can't manage to stay ahead of it. It's incredibly intense and a lot of fun if you can find people online to play along with you.

I like this game very much and it offers a significant amount of replay value for your dollar, which is one of the best compliments you can pay a game of this type. I would recommend this to fans of the series looking for a change of pace and to those looking for some good two man gameplay. Look elsewhere for scares or you'll be sorely disappointed.

Philips & BenQ VAD6038 DVD Replacement Drive for Xbox 360 Review

Customer Ratings:

My DVD drive was not recognizing that there was a disk in it until I had opened and closed it numerous times. I checked on X Box live and found my warrenty had expired, however I could send in my X Box and Microsoft would replace the drive for $100. I looked up "X Box 360 DVD Drive" on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised to find drives for as cheap as $29. All the comments suggested that changing the drive was easy after viewing clips on YouTube, I am partial to Toshiba so I ordered one. Once my drive came, I found appropriate clips on YouTube and realized that unless you are replacing the original with the same brand of drive you can't just swap cards (once you watch the clips you'll see what I mean). Several YouTube videos suggested that you can use a different brand of drive if you flash the new drove with the old drives firmware, I ordered a ESata cable and decided to give it a try, I got half way through and my head was swimming, I realized this was way beyond my capability, so I ordered a BenQ drive. I followed the instructions on the youtube videos for opening my XBox and replacing the card and drove and I was back in business.

Several notes: The BenQ drive is the hardest to replace cards on as there are 9 wires sodered to the card, the Toshiba drive was connected with ribbon connections so no wire cutting would be required.

Find and watch the appropriate YouTube videos to determine the type of drive you have and if you feel comfortable performing this work, you might decide you would rather just send in your XBox.

I felt it was an easy change out, but with $29 for the Toshiba drive, $4 for the ESata cable and $41 for the BenQ drive I didn't save that much money, and the time I spent was probably just about as long as it would have taken for Microsoft to get my XBox back to me. Of course if I would have watched the YouTube videos prior to ordering I would have saved time and money. Hopefully my experience will help someone.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

If your xbox 360 has any of the following but not limited to

*xbox 360 recognizes games as dvd's but will not play them

*After game disc inserted Xbox 360 displays open tray error

*Games take longer than usual to load and sometimes they never load all together

This Ben Q drive will fix all your problems and bring your system back to life like when it was brand new.

This replacement drive must be flashed with dvd key from original xbox 360 dvd drive before it will recognize games correctly. The process of flashing should probably be left up to professional installers but it can be accomplished by average users with the right amount of reading.....The program needed to flash is called jungle flasher,it can be googled. The flashing process is not modding the console to play copies, it is just copying the dvd key over to the new drive from the old dvd drive, so it is safe on xbox live and you probably won't be banned from xbox live 99% sure

Also because of the flashing process this model drive is able to replace any model that you currently have in your 360 ( toshiba, lite on , samsung, benq, and hitachi)

Philips & BenQ VAD6038 DVD Replacement Drive for Xbox 360

Best Deals for Philips & BenQ VAD6038 DVD Replacement Drive for Xbox 360

Jesse has a great review of the product so I won't repeat his points. Instead I want to mention that depending on the drive you currently have in your 360 you may be required to do some hardware modification (e.g. soldering) in order to successfully switch to a different drive. If you're not comfortable with that kind of thing I'd check which drive you have in your 360, google for the instructions for Jungle Flasher, and check to see whether or not you'll need to do any hardware mods. If you do, you may want to have a professional swap it out.

Thankfully my drive didn't require any hardware modification and I was able to swap it out (relatively) easily. New drive works great and was well worth the ~$30 to replace my old drive.

Honest reviews on Philips & BenQ VAD6038 DVD Replacement Drive for Xbox 360

I have purchased two different drives from this manufacturer. I have not seen any signs of use on either unit. Unfortunately, both units have went out within 6 months of buying them. I could have bought a brand new unit from the manufacturer for the price I am having to spend on now a third unit, which needless to say, won't be purchased by this company. Beware of the other reviews, and watch what your buying.

I will note, that the drives did in fact, work. They did not last a great deal of time, but they did work. That is the only reason it did not get a 1 star from me.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Philips & BenQ VAD6038 DVD Replacement Drive for Xbox 360

Bought the drive to fix the annoying "disc read error" on my 360. Ended up just taking the laser out of the new drive, and swapping to my old drive. Works like new again. No more waiting 10 minutes for the laser to finally read, and no more games dropping out in the middle of playing either.

Great fix for a cheap price.