Anyone for a yellow snow cone?

When I was younger I was asked if I wanted a yellow snow cone. At the tender age of 8 years old it sounded like a fantastic idea. What could be the wonderful delights of said product? Lemon or perhaps tropical in taste my hopes were immediately dashed when I found it to be rather bitter, steamy and smelling a little like my great grand mother. So ever since, I’ve never been a fan of snow, especially when I found out that a yellow snow cone was in fact someone’s urea. If anyone wanted to know the question of, what do you do after eating one then the answer is; gargle with Listerine. This then brings me on to today’s game. Any game that uses snow that isn’t related to snowboarding or some winter Olympic type event and I get slightly dubious of its quality and its seriousness of being a decent title, so how will Avatar Wave: Snowball Fight fair?

A lovely quaint Christmasy location

Before reviewing this game, I decided to eat a mince pie, turn off the central heating and play thirty minutes worth of Cliff Richard in a vein attempt to feel in the Christmas spirit. AWSF was a game designed to sell its units at the holiday season instead of February when we picked this up for review. So what is the premise of the game, well it does exactly what it says on the tin (Ronseal Wood Stain) sorry box, no sorry err…virtual packaging? You’re tasked with having snowball fights with other rascal avatars in a fight for supremacy of frostbite of the hand. The game takes place on an elegant old fashion village area where snow is scattered everywhere with Christmas lights in abundance. You and you’re opponents scramble and scurry to collect snow and pack them into balls to be thrown. Aiming isn’t 100% manual, it’s somewhat locked on but the power meter is mixed in to help you with your short or long targets.

Now, in terms of game play modes Hotwave Games have given plenty of offerings. You have your arcade mode where you have to beat a mixture of stages. These can start out from being contested in a 1 on 1 and later to a 2 on 1 situation. In a 1 on 1 situation it is rather easy to say the least however once you’re against the odds you will have to do allot of ducking and weaving to win the matches. Now there are also some power-ups that can be had too, ones that increase the power of your shot, create tri-snowball throws and ones that allow you to throw curveball shots. There are also foods to keep you warm and candy that can give you a good or nasty surprise. So when playing online, it really offers an extra level of strategy to the game play to help you stay alive during matches and beat opponents.

Speaking of multiplayer, it’s supported and it works well. No lag, 1-4 support and no graphics have been compensated to bring the experience online and although the lobbies were rather empty, we actually found the odd person looking for matches which really surprised me. I was expecting this title to be no fun at all, but when put against one of your online or local friends it’s actually a good short burst of fun game play. Fortunately the game keeps a tally of who has won the most rounds as well. That’s not all though, if you are a glutton for punishment AWSF also has a Survival mode whereby you are pitted against 3 avatars gunning to take you down. This will require allot of rolling out of the way, which can be executed seamlessly with the B button. A couple of reviewers have criticized the aiming system on this game, but I have to disagree. If you were to assign a targeting system to the shoulder buttons, it would make the game stupidly easy. Putting them on a directional stick actually gives the sense of feeling that you’re in fact making manual shots even with semi-lock on.

Let the games begin.

For those willing to make the most out of the game there is also a secret shooting game where you can ascertain more information on the game itself and lest not forget that there is a screensaver on the game also which you can customize, it’s nice touch, if a little pointless. So, can we really recommend this title? It hits around a conversion rate £1.89 to your wallet and I have to be honest I can think of some 80 Microsoft Point gems that I would recommend you spend your money on over this. Sure, the graphics have allot of polish and perhaps this somewhat reflects the price tag a little but if the game play has no sticking point to it, then its useless. I can only recommend this then if you are in the holiday spirit. AWSF is certainly the best holiday themed game on Xbox Indie right now, so perhaps when the mulled wine comes out for another year, you may consider a donning your best set of thermos and throw a snowball or two.

When rumours arose stating legendary director James Cameron would be making a long awaited return to the big screen directing a new adventure called Avatar, movie lovers around the world began wetting themselves with excitement and hyping up what would become the most anticipated film of the year, if not the decade. Famous for directing the highly successful Terminator 1 and 2 films along with the 11 Oscar winning Titanic, Cameron is best known for creating epic films with incredible special effects; so when the announcement was made that his latest feature Avatar would be costing approximately $300 million Dollars to make, speculation ran rife and excitement spiralled around the world. Could James Cameron improve on his already successful career and create a film for the ages, or would Avatar be a complete waste of money?

Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation) plays a paraplegic marine called Jake Sulley whose twin brother recently passed away. Sulley’s brother was picked for a special mission by the Marines to visit a planet called Pandora which is inhabited by a mysterious, blue-skinned race called the Na’vi. Pandora is the richest source in the universe of a material called Unobtanium, which the humans are desperate to acquire, and as you can guess, the Na’vi won’t give up easily. In order to infiltrate the planet and find out if the humans and Na’vi can come to an agreement, human scientists created Na’vi replica bodies known as Avatars, which are controlled by a human whilst connected to a machine. Each human has its own Avatar which replicates his/her facial features and creates a Na’vi like body; a blue, 3 metre tall frame. Each Avatar costs approximately £500,000 to make and to avoid wasting the money, the humans ask Sulley to pilot his deceased brothers Avatar as they happen to have the exact same genetics; allowing Sulley to fully operate the Avatar. Having little left to live for and wanting a fresh start, Sulley agrees to the mission and enters the dangerous planet Pandora.

While exploring the incredible planet of Pandora in his new body, Sulley crosses paths with the Na’vi and eventually bonds with them, being accepted as one of their own. Sulley grows particularly close to one member of the Na’vi in particular, the beautiful Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana (Star Trek). Learning that the Na’vi won’t move their home and give up the precious Unobtainium, Sulley has a decision to make; stay and protect Pandora with his new love Neytiri and the Na’vi tribe or help the Marines invade Pandora and take the highly sought after mineral.

The 2 hour 40 minute running time of Avatar whizzes by as you are engrossed in a quite incredible movie. If you’ve seen the trailer for Avatar, you’d mistakenly believe it was purely an action movie, but it’s so much more. In between the incredible special effects and tons of action, you’ll find a love story that will melt your heart as Sulley bonds with Neytiri and the Na’vi tribe. The way the story is written and shown to us is a huge credit to director Cameron, who proves he can tell a fantastic tale and not just produce action packed movies.

The cast manager also deserves a firm pat on the back as Avatar’s cast is one of the strongest I’ve seen in a long time. Every actor and actress in the film produces stellar performances which help make you believe a battle is actually occurring on the make believe planet of Pandora. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have an unbelievable on-screen relationship and work together extremely well, giving the impression that they generally have feelings for each other. The supporting cast of Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez all give strong appearances. Sigourney Weaver plays Dr. Grace Augustine, who is the leading scientist of the whole Avatar operation and actually ventures onto Pandora herself disguised as a Na’vi. The lesser known Lang is the leader of the Marines and plays a vicious, no-nonsense role that helps add a bit of bite to the film. Rodriguez, famous for her roles in the Fast and the Furious films, is another well known face in the movie and plays a pilot who drops off the Avatars to Pandora. The whole cast work as a cohesive unit and all produce stellar performances to really help bring the film alive.

The majority of the audience who go and see Avatar will do so to see the outstanding special effects created by Cameron and his crew. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe how amazing Avatar looks throughout the whole film. I can quite comfortably say that Avatar has the best special effects and CGI ever seen in cinema and will help change the future of films. In some parts of the film, it is actually quite hard to tell whether what you’re watching is CGI or infact real life acting! The animations of the blue, Na’vi creatures make you believe they are a real tribe living on this beautiful, exotic planet called Pandora. Whether it be the tears in their eyes, the grins on their faces or the way they effortlessly jump and swing around their planet, your jaw will most likely be rooted to the floor throughout the film. Myself, along with many others, left the cinema wishing they could live on Pandora themselves instead of Earth.

Overall, Avatar is a must-see film. A compelling story, fantastic acting and the most incredible special effects and CGI are dwelled together to create 2 hours 40 minutes of cinematic brilliance. $300 million well spent Mr. Cameron!

Some video footage of Avatar being played. Along with the 3D version being demoed by the Ubisoft team. I’ve added our impressions to the video as added commentary.

At the MCM Expo this weekend we’ve got a closer insight into Avatar: The Videogame a new story from James Cameron’s masterpiece film. The storyline was written by Ubisoft for the game but vetted by Cameron and what we’ve played so far in both Stereoscopic 3D and High-Def has been fantastic. Watch in the below two videos some insightful information regarding the game from press and public’s questions and also Brian George & Kevin Short giving us an insight to the development of the game.

The video below also answers the press and public’s questions relation to the game, ignore some of the general questions and skip to ours. Ubisoft reveal they are working at a strategy of sealing movie licenses and actually making them decent. If their future movie license projects are like Avatar, you will not be dissappointed.

Dean Case & James Joell-Ireland talk about their thoughts after playing Avatar in stereoscopic 3D aswell as playing the standard high definition version. Click the audio feed to find out (use Internet explorer) Audioboo are working on an embed fix for firefox users.