Arkham Asylum – Silent Knight Challenge Gameplay

I shan’t think I need comment any further.

Skate 2 Hall of Meat Guide

Before you start hurting and maiming yourselves, there are a few things to note:

Do the challenges in the sequence they are listed in the Hall of Meat in order to unlock the locations and spawn points that you’ll need for later challenges. While this isn’t necessary, it will make the process a lot less frustrating later on down the line, and we’ve written this guide assuming you’ll complete the challenges in sequence.

You can jump ahead to any of the four sections by clicking these links below:

SECTION 1 – Intro to Hurting yourself
SECTION 2 – Check Yo’self … then Wreck Yo’self
SECTION 3 – Posing will get you Hurt
SECTION 4 – Objects n Stuff …

Actions:
Intentional Wipeout (aka AUTO BAIL) – Right Trigger + Left Trigger + Left Stick + Right Stick
Cannonball – Right Analog Stick UP
Spread Eagle – Right Analog Stick DOWN
Torpedo – Right Analog Stick LEFT
Judo Kick – Right Analog Stick RIGHT

Session Marker – Left Bumper + Dpad DOWN

1.1 – 5000 Points @ GED High School Location: GED High What you’ll need: Nothing Description: Get to the top of the ramp leading into the courtyard. Gain speed, aim straight, and a general bail with a roll or two should get this rather simple challenge. What you get: $100

1.2 – 10,000 Points @ Upper Stacks Location: Upper Stacks What you’ll need: Nothing Description: Jump through any of the large circular openings in wall at the upper stacks and bail immediately. The combination of height, and falling damage should do the rest. If not, try to roll a couple rotations when you hit the ground. What you get: $200

1.3 - 15,000 Points @ Sunset Heights Location: Sunset Heights What you’ll Need: Nothing Description: After spawning at Sunset Heights, blindly bail over the left side, which should be a fairly high drop. Do a few tweaks, try to land spread eagle or judo kicking, and you’ll get the 15,000 you need. What you get: $300

1.4- 17,500 Points @ Mini Mega Location: Mini Mega Redux OTS What you’ll Need: Nothing Description: The key here is rotation and speed. Launch off the mini mega, and try to grab as much speed and air as possible before bailing. After a good launch, bail, spin and spin some more. A good tweak like judo kick or spreading eagle will also help deal some damage. What you get: $400

1.5 – 20,000 Points @ Dueling Snakes Location: Dueling Snakes What you’ll Need: Description: From the spawnpoint, head left up the hill toward the small grouping of apartment buildings overlooking the park. At the top of this hill, you should see a break between two railings that open up over a concrete block. Back up a short distance from the edge of this hill and set your marker. When you bail off the hill cannonball into the top of this concrete block. With enough momentum, you should be able to continue rolling off this block and either hit the glass awning right below, or just land smack dab on the concrete. Either way should do enough damage, but this one still might take a few attempts. What you get: $500

1.6 - 22,500 Points @ Lighthouse Park Location: Lighthouse Park What you’ll Need: Description: As tempting as it might be to shoot off the ramp after spawning, there’s an easier way to get this challenge. Immediately to your left and right, you’ll notice a set of red stairs leading to the bottom of the park. Set your marker at the spawn point, and skate over to the top of either stairway and ollie. Bail off the ollie and roll down the stairs, cannonballing and torpedoeing to maximize your time on the stairs. If you’re over 10,000 points by the time you’ve hit the bottom, you’re on the right track. This one takes some tweaking. What you get: $1000

1.7 – 25,000 Points @ The Boneyard Location: Boneyard What you’ll Need: Description:From the spawnpoint, look toward the blue half pipe near the center Boneyard. To the left, you should see an abandoned building. Head for the building, and keep your eyes peeled for a set of metal steps at the corner of the building. At the top of those stairs, you’ll see another flight of stairs, follow that, and go up as high as you can. You’ll find yourself in a semi-demolished room overlooking the rest of the park. Set your marker here and ride off the opening opposite to the half pipe, bail, spin, and spread eagle. What you get: $2000

1.8 – 30,000 Points @ Mega Compound Location: Mega Compound What you’ll Need: Description: This will probably be the easiest 30,000 bail points you’ll ever earn. Hit the middle ramp – be careful though, to properly land the downramp, you’ll have to hop from the crease right before the drop. Ride the ramp down and bail where the boards meet the green, spinning and nailing as many tweaks/gestures as you can before hitting the ground. Roll down the landing ramp to earn some bonus points. What you get: $1,500

1.9 – 35,000 Points @ Cougar Bridge Location: Cougar Bridge Via Cougar Mountain — Past the SV Dam What you’ll Need: Description: Coming from the top of Cougar Mountain, you’ll see a ramp to the left when you arrive at the bridge. You’ll also notice this ramp leads right over the side of the bridge. Set your marker and follow your instincts by using the ramp to fly off the side. As usual, bail at the peak of your jump, spinning and tweaking for bonus points. What you get: $1750

1.10 – 40,000 Points @ the Dam Location: SV Dam What you’ll Need: Description: This one requires a little attention to detail. From the top of Cougar Mountain, you’ll see the entrance to the Dam, guarded by a traffic pole gate. Slip under it, and stop at the circular court immediately to the left. Note the cabling that descends the side of the hill/dam. Follow the one of the right with your eyes, and you’ll also spot what appears to be a to be a scenery-scope, mounted on a pole. From the center of the court, place your marker, and ride off the edge, following the cable on the right, but staying to the left of the scope. You don’t need speed for this one – if you just roll right over the edge, you’ll hit the hill and continue rolling to the bottom of the dam. Remember, spin and tweak. What you get: $2000, Hideki Tower

1.11 – 45,000 Points Anywhere Location: Hideki Tower What you’ll Need: Description: Now that you’ve unlocked Hideki Tower, it’s time to have some real fun. Teleport to the Spawn Point, and just bail over the ledge in front of where you spawn. Let nature take its course. If you want a sure thing, go over to the left, you’ll be able to hit a few things to add a few thousand bonus points. What you get: $5000

1.12 - 46,000 Points Anywhere Location: Hideki Tower What you’ll Need: Description: SEE ABOVE. What you get: $6000

1.13 – 47,000 Points Anywhere Location: Hideki Tower What you’ll Need: Description: SEE ABOVE. What you get: $7000

1.14 – 50,000 Points Anywhere Location: Hideki Tower What you’ll Need: Description: SEE ABOVE. What you get: $8000

1.15 – 55,000 Points Anywhere Location: Hideki Tower What you’ll Need: Description: SEE ABOVE What you get: $10,000, Hideki Tower OTS

Review: Skate 2

Title: Skate 2
Developer: EA Games / Black Box
Version Reviewed: Xbox 360
Words: Jon Chan

I still remember the first time I laid my hands on Skate. After a little fumbling around with the then-fangled trick stick, the rhythm finally came to me and I immediately realized how obsolete the Tony Hawk series had become. The organic controls required delicate, but confident flicks and twirls – a most welcome contrast to the rigid and static button combinations of the hey-day. But we gamers quickly came to believe that this was merely version one point oh.

We envisioned enhancements, all agreeing with each other. “We should be able to get off our boards.” We demanded. We wanted to do hand plants. We wanted to move that encumbering dumpster bin. We wanted to bail through a mailbox.

We waited a long time, but someone up there (by that, I mean, someone at EA Games / Black Box) heard and answered our prayers; almost every one of them. At first play, Skate 2 seems to be more of the same – what might even be deemed ‘Skate 1.5.’ But then you sit around with friends, and go into the competitive multiplayer modes, or make repeated attempts to record that perfect line, and next thing you know you’re howling and hooting and cheering for the top line scores, bails, and crashes. Skate 2 manages to be just as exciting and entertaining to watch as it is to play, provided that your turn is coming up next.

It’s rather hard to imagine where Skate can go from here. The obviously evolutions have been made, and from this gamer’s perspective, its subtle adjustments and elements are implemented very well. Grinding seems to require a hair’s precision more. And getting off one’s board is useful and sometimes necessary, but it is definitely not the preferred method of transport. These conditions feel deliberate – sharpening the skills of the player, and promoting the joys of the skateboard. They are very subtle but, if truly deliberate, immediately flags Black Box to be a developer to keep your eye on [edit – Would have been, if EA didn’t lay the shut down on them].

In-game graphics and processing are also areas of improvement, with lighting, texturing, animation, and ragdoll physics making appropriate advancements alongside the state of today’s standard technologies. Art and sound direction have also received a makeover; the game’s intro feels a lot like a Beastie Boys music video featuring all your favourite skaters, in-game symbols and interfaces have been further modernized and polished, and the all around soundtrack is much more appealing over the partially sound music compilation of the original (Though Sister Nancy IS a rude gyal).

There are still some minor irritants though. Like many three dimensional games, quirky follow-camera issues make it difficult to skate as freely as one would like, while the inability to walk backwards just make most seasoned gamers scratch their heads. These two issues alone manage to break immersion, and when combined, are incredibly frustrating.

However, these irritations are rare, and Skate 2 does manage to satisfy the skater’s soul. Many sequels are drastically changed from their predecessors, sometimes to a fault. Skate 2, while not a vast difference from the original, sticks to a winning formula, and is a must play for all Skateboarding fans — but you already knew that didn’t you?

Turning Your Xbox 360 Into A Wireless Hi Def Media Extender

The XBOX 360 is a great piece of technology that will let you not only play next gen (I think we can start calling them current gen by now) games but can also serve as a media entertainment center in a few simple steps.

I am by no means a techy or an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted to share with everyone the way that I got my setup to work, and believe me, if I can do it, so can you!

Hardware

Lets first outline the hardware that you are going to need in order to get this setup working at peek efficiency:

1. XBOX 360

Ok so you’d think this is a given right?….Well yeah it is, but there are quite a few different types of 360’s out there (short 360’s, skinny 360’s, 360’s that climb on rocks!). The one you have or chose may have different outputs such as the Premium which comes packing component and RCA connections while the badass Elite and Halo editions come with HDMI. This is somewhat of a moot point as the 360 only outputs in 1080i (720P), but if you want to figure out the inputs for your TV, you might want to consider your choice wisely.

2. Windows based PC (Vista or XP)

I’m not sure how this would work if you tried it with a Mac or Linux, although you could be using Windows on a Mac, so…..whatever, you need a computer.

3. Windows Media Player 11

This might not be absolutely necessary but it was used in my setup.

4. Wireless Router ($150 after tax)

Theres lots of different options in routers, I recommend Linksys but I have a D-Link Extreme N DIR-655. For High def you’ll need an N router otherwise you dont have enough bandwidth to stream high bitrate media. G won’t cut it.

5. Wireless adapter for the 360 ($133 after tax and shipping)

I picked up the only N adapter I could find for the 360, the Linksys WGA600N gaming bridge and its working like a dream.

Setup

You want to get your XBOX 360 setup with the wireless connection before anything else. The Microsoft wireless adapter is very straightforward, plug it in and play. The Linksys WGA600N was not so  forthcoming with me.

I am sorry to say that I can’t show you what I did to get mine working, because I didn’t keep track, but the Linksys tech support people were pretty helpful in that department, so when in doubt, call tech support. I’ve read that some people had no problems setting it up out of the box though, so follow the instructions as you see em and you’ll probably be fine. It probably helps if you have a Linksys Router too.

Next step is going to be on the computer that you’ll be using as your storage drive for the media. Start up Media Player. Click on Now Playing and click on More Options.

Click on the Library Tab and then click on the Configure Sharing button.

Next you’re going to see a list of the hardware that is connected to your network. As long as your XBOX’s wireless is working, it will show up here. Click on the XBOX and click the Allow Button.

Once the green check mark is there, your XBOX has been cleared for sharing files over your network. Bada Bing bada Boom! Next you want to select the folders that you have your media. Hit Ok and click on the Monitor Folders button and you’ll see this screen:

Click on the Add button and select the folders you want to share on the network.

To play the movies on the XBOX go into the My XBOX section of the Dashboard and scroll over the the My Videos window. You should see your PC’s name show up and the folders you specified and under there will be the glorious hi def that you’ve been waiting for.

Prince of Persia Redux Impressions

I think I’ve played enough of Ubisoft Montreal’s latest Prince of Persia iteration to understand the core mechanics and style of the game. And really, I think they’ve milked their last cow. Let’s call it Prince of Persia Montreal Edition, because fuck, there are so many iterations of this god damned franchise.

I was really surprised to find that Prince of Persia Montreal Edition (or POP ME) was receiving an average 85% on both Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. I didn’t think this game was incredibly innovate or unique, or even had that short term play-itch that tends to get me from title to title.

It’s not that the game is poorly designed or developed. In fact, quite the opposite. I really like the writing style and art direction that this game has taken. The Prince’s sarcastic but whimsical tone, combined with vibrant colours and a balanced combination of mechanical and natural environments makes It feel like I’m playing an Aladdin action movie. But I don’t know if that’s good or bad. The adult  in me doesn’t really appreciate this style anymore. It feels rash and immature. On the other hand, the Michael Jackson in me absolutely loves it.  Where the fuck is my genie? Oh right. Elika. I have a hot genie. Awesome.

However, this is only aesthetic. While I completely agree with Alison Haislip’s brilliant observation that the writing is good, and the graphics are good, I really don’t think the “play of the game” will keep you coming back any time soon. If anything, it’s the writing and the graphics, and even then, I crave something more.

Are Counter-Terrorism and Wall Running the only things that Ubisoft knows? Are they really milking their cows down to the last drop? Will it only be a matter of time before we see Prince of Vegas: Recon Assassin? Actually … that would be pretty fucking sick.

Let us know what you think…