Halo 4 (360)

So. Halo 4. After 5 years, Master Chief finally gets to star in another Halo installment. No more prequels, midquels, spinoffs and all that nonsense. We're actually continuing the story that we last saw in a game whose tagline was "finish the fight."

The point I'm trying to get around to is that I'm not a fan of unnecessary sequels, which is exactly what Halo 4 is, so upon its announcement I had already decide that I would hate it. Even so, I was unable to force myself not to get excited for it after seeing gameplay footage featuring new weaponry from a certain ancient race of dead aliens. I decided that I would give it a chance.

Having finally gotten around to playing it, my response can be summed up as: "Eh."

Translation: "Better than I expected, but not by much."

Halo 4 feels much too small for Master Chief's return after a 5-year absence (1/2-second cameo in Reach not counting.) There are a lot of fantastic new ideas, but I don't feel they were taken as far as they should have been. I get the impression that 343 was afraid to change too much, lest they tempt the wrath of the Bungie fans. As such, there is a distinct lack of variety in Halo 4, especially when compared with what we saw in the jump from Halo 3 to Reach.

This lack of variety very clearly shines through in the enemy designs. Remember how Halo 3 added more advanced forms of the Flood, but used them just sparingly enough that they managed to be terrifying each time you ran into them? There are exactly 3 new enemies in Halo 4 and you fight them over. And over. And over. And over. And over. AND OVER again. To the point where "oh shit! It's those new guys again! Better be careful and strategize a bit before this next fight" becomes "oh, look. It's THESE assholes. Again. I wonder how many I will have to sprint toward and unload 1/4 of a clip of ammo into this time." It's repetitive even by FPS standards.

Also Covenant. Again. All the same ones. Because they're somehow evil again even though we CLEARLY had everyone but the Brutes realizing what assholes the Prophets were in Halo 2 and 3. So why are they suddenly evil again? The game's ONLY line of dialogue relating to the situation is "a lot can happen in 4 years." Supposedly, it's explained in some expanded universe material that it's a different group of Covenant who never got the "HUMANS GOOD, PROPHETS BAD" memo (or did, but told everyone to fuck off anyway), but really the only reason they're here now is because they're iconic enemies.

AND SPEAKING OF LACK OF VARIETY, LET'S TALK ABOUT THOSE FORERUNNER GUNS I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT.

Yeah. They're literally clones of the other guns.

The Light Rifle? It's just the DMR or Carbine. (Incidentally, they added the Battle Rifle back in alongside the DMR, so there are now FOUR guns that do the exact. Same. Thing.)

Scattershot? Shotgun.

Suppressor? Assault Rifle.

Binary Rifle? Sniper/Beam Rifle.

They do the EXACT SAME THINGS as these previous guns. I don't even think there's a difference the damage they inflict! Even the new grenade is literally as easy as stepping 3 feet away from it to avoid getting damaged. The only reason to use these new guns over the ones you start with is because they're a lot easier to find given the environment 85% of the game takes place. (Meaning on a Forerunner planet...thing....)

SO WHAT ABOUT STORY?

Halo 3 ended with Chief and Cortana stranded in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere in the other half of the ship that got cut in half buy the Ark's closing subspace portal. Still not clear on how that worked, what with the exploding Halo ring and their half of the ship NOT going through the portal with the rest of it, but hey. Killing off the main characters would just ruin the prospects for another sequel trilogy,wouldn't it? (Except Halo reach was just fantastic, despite Chief being demoted to Easter Egg and Cortana having exactly 4 seconds of background screentime.)

ANYWAY. Cortana wakes up Chief after some weird scanny-beam passes through the ship, and they soon get boarded by the aforementioned now-evil-again Covenant. After fighting them off, they find out that the Covenant weren't the ones scanning them. So who was it? None other than UNICRON!

Overused joke aside, the gigantic metal planet...thingy (AKA Requiem)...opens up and pulls all the nearby ships inside, where we discover that it's actually a very nice place once Chief escapes the flaming pile of wreckage he arrived in. The sun is shining, the grass is blowing in the wind, the holographic death machines slaughter everything in their path- wait...what? Okay...maybe not such a nice place after all...but still pretty enough to make Bethesda's environment artists jealous, that's for damn sure.

So it turns out that another ship, the UNSC Infinity, is on its way to pick up Chief and Cortana after finally picking up their distress signal. Except...Oh no! If they get too close to Requiem, they'll get sucked in and be trapped too! Cortana tries to warn the Infinity to stay away, but Chief's suit transmitter is being mysteriously jammed. So we're led on a big ol' mission to find and shut down the jammy thingy and stop the Infinity from trying to rescue us.

ONLY IT DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE SPOILERS: CORTANA WAS WRONG AND ALL THE STUFF YOU TURNED OFF ACTUALLY RELEASES A VERY VERY BAD FORERUNNER GUY WHO WANTS TO KILL ALL THE HUMANS BECAUSE HE DIDN'T THINK THEY WERE READY TO INHERIT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GALAXY AFTER HIS PEOPLE KILLED THEMSELVES TO STOP THE FLOOD.

OR. SOMETHING.

Chief, remember what happened the last time you took instructions from a computer on how to operate machinery left behind by an ancient alien race? Something about almost accidentally wiping out all life in the known galaxy?

Yet somehow 98% of the campaign involves fighting from one terminal to the next to plug in Cortana so she can do whatever it is she needs to do at that particular point, then move on. You fight through jungles to the crash site of the Infinity, you fight through the Infinity to destroy some Covenant ships attacking it, you fight through some more jungle, you fight through Forerunner buildings etc, etc, etc. The game feels extremely linear and almost claustrophobic, as opposed to the much more open areas of the previous Halo games. You could get lost in Halo CE, and 2 and 3 still felt very expansive. Even Reach had some wide nice lengthy vehicle sections. There is ONE level that tries to capture this feel in Halo 4, and it still keeps you pretty much on a straight track and gives you very little to actually explore. It doesn't even let you DRIVE the biggest land vehicle in the game! (Granted, the ONLY place it can go is along the path the game lays out for it, but how can they deny the player the opportunity to control a vehicle easily 8 times the size of the Elephant? It's the human equivalent of the Scarab for fuck's sake!)

BUT YOU DO FINALLY GET TO FLY A PELICAN, WHICH IS SOMETHING EVERYONE'S WANTED TO DO SINCE HALO CE, SO I HAVE TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S EXACTLY LIKE FLYING A FALCON ONLY WITH A SPARTAN LASER MOUNTED ON THE FRONT SO IT'S REALLY NOT ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE. (You know that mission in Reach where you fly the Falcon over a city, land at buildings, kill everyone inside, and push a button about 3 or 4 times? It's literally the exact same mission only with Forerunner buildings.)

Not to give too much away, but the entire plot is resolved in the space of this single game and doesn't even ask any new questions that warrant a sequel to answer them. Halo CE ended with the climactic destruction of a Halo ring, but had introduced the Flood, an enemy that would take a further 2 games to finally fully understand and ultimately defeat. The primary villain of Halo 4 is defeated at the end of the first game of what is supposed to be another trilogy, meaning the story isn't supposed to be fully resolved until Halo 6! This could have been another Halo spin-off and been all the better for it instead of branding itself as the Chief's triumphant return!  

In short,  Halo 4 is crippled right off the bat by its predecessors. 343 had a lot to live up to, and surely did their best, but overall it just doesn't work. The graphics are amazing, though, and the story itself is fairly interesting for those who haven't gotten into the books and other supplementary material. I can't help feeling this rendition of Halo may have been better off as a movie. Or even a multi-part episode of the apparently upcoming Halo TV show. (Yeah, it's a thing.)

For still being reasonably enjoyable, but rather lackluster, I'll give Halo 4 a 6.5/10.

Sonic Generations (360)

Okay, SEGA. You made Sonic. Pretty much all of his Genesis titles are among the best video games of all time. We get it. What you don't seem to get is that pretty much everything you've put him in after the death of the Dreamcast has been complete shit.

 It's painfully obvious that all you want to do is remake the old (actually good) levels that made Sonic great. Sonic Generations was off to a great start, even with the stupid plot, but why in the HELL would you only use ONE zone from EVERY game? I emphasize "every" because that's including the objectively awful Sonic 2006 and Sonic Unleashed. Because of this, literally only a QUARTER of the game is even in the same ballpark as "fun."

We start out 20ish years in the past, with the original Sonic (here on out referred to as "Classic Sonic") running around and doing...whatever the fuck else he did in his free time before he started battling gigantic eldritch abominations. Suddenly, Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks him. You're probably wondering what exactly the hell just happened.

Fuck it! We're cutting 20 years ahead to Sonic's birthday party! (So obviously he survived the attack in the past or he wouldn't be here in the present, right?) Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks again, with Sonic wondering what the hell it is. Shouldn't he know? He saw it when he was his past self helping his future self fight it, right? He should know how this whole story turns out because he was already present when it took place- WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T USE TIME TRAVEL AS A DEVICE FOR AN EXCUSE PLOT.

Steampunk Haunter sucks everyone into black holes and puts Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber where they find a bunch of locations from their past adventures (or Classic Sonic's future adventures) all frozen in time and de-colorized. They discover that by running really fast through the zones, they can unfreeze them and rescue their friends who have been trapped inside.

So as I said, we get ONE zone from each major Sonic game, for a total of 9 levels with two acts each. This is where the bad design really sets in. You play act one of each zone as Classic Sonic, and it's the standard side-scrolling, spin dash "no homing attack" gameplay you know and love. Act two is played as Modern Sonic, and is in the 3D, gimmicky, stupid special attacks gameplay style. This means you will be playing 2D versions of designed-for-3D levels as Classic Sonic, and 3D versions of designed-for-2D levels as Modern Sonic and this DOES. NOT. WORK. It's the reason exactly FIVE of the EIGHTEEN total acts don't suck.

Everywhere SEGA has had to come up with original level designs, they fail horribly. If it's not 2D based on an originally 2D level, or 3D originally based on a 3D level, it's awful. And even then all the levels taken from the later games are crap across the board because THEY WERE CRAP TO BEGIN WITH. There's far too much reliance on precision jumping and the homing attack, ridiculous enemy placement, forcing the player to learn new special attacks as Modern Sonic, it's all just stupid! Seriously, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SONIC CAN FUCKING WALL-JUMP NOW? (To be fair, there is a warning and offer of a tutorial when these new mechanics pop up, but I made the mistake of assuming they would be obvious and easy for someone like me- who has literally grown up with Sonic games- to figure out.) On top of this, some of the last few acts are insanely long. You know how in the old, good Sonic games, you had 10 minutes to get through each act, and most of the time you wouldn't need more than 5 or 6? GOOD FUCKING LUCK BEATING PLANET WISP IN LESS THAN 15, AND THAT'S IF YOU CAN QUICKLY FIGURE OUT WHERE THE HELL TO EVEN GO.

And that's not all. "Oh thank goodness," you think. "I've finally gotten through those horribly designed levels and can move on to the boss fight! That should be fun at least!"

NOPE. YOU GOTTA DO SOME CHALLENGES IN THOSE HORRIBLY DESIGNED LEVELS BEFORE YOU CAN GO TO THE BOSSES.

"Oh...okay. So what, I gotta beat the act with a tough, but reasonable time limit now or something?"

NOPE. YOU'RE RACING A COPY OF YOURSELF WHO'S NOT BOUND BY THE LAWS OF REALITY. HE FOLLOWS A SET PATH AT A CONSTANT SPEED EVERY TIME NO MATTER WHAT, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR MOVING PLATFORMS. AND IF YOU SCREW UP EVEN ONCE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CATCH UP IN TIME TO WIN.

"Oh...well that was tremendously unfair, but I managed to beat it. Can I fight the boss now?"

NOW YOU HAVE TO USE CHARMY TO GET THROUGH THIS JUMPING PUZZLE!

"Who? Oh, the annoying bee guy...I see. That was painfully frustrating, but I finally got it. Boss time now?"

MORE PUZZLES! BUTTONS AND LASER WALLS!

"Okay, I see you're trying to extend the gameplay experience, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Can I just fight the b-"

NO! PLAY MUSICAL TENNIS WITH VECTOR!

"Musica- What!? I don't- That doesn't even- Know what? Fuck you! I'm playing Sonic Spinball."

Okay. So let's say you complete the necessary challenges without putting a controller through a TV screen and make it to the bosses. Well, to sum it up: The first 2 are way too easy, and the last 2 are way too hard. Death Egg Robot and Perfect Chaos? Both immensely difficult final bosses in their respective debut games? Pushovers. You don't even go Super Sonic against Chaos. Also, his modernized design looks stupid. Why the hell does he have armor now? There was a high-definition version of him in Sonic Adventure's opening! Make him look like that!

And I don't know what the hell the Egg Dragoon came from (Sonic Unleashed, apparently) but FUCK THAT THING TO HELL AND BACK TWICE. It's a running boss fight with Sonic going constantly at full speed, so you have to boost to catch up. Unfortunately, while doing this he steers like a goddamn semi truck, making it effectively IMPOSSIBLE to get to Robotnik and damage him until the fight shifts into side-scroller mode and has you jumping over ice bombs. Because of the element of randomness to it, this fight can TAKE FUCKING FOREVER, only for you to fuck up when it's time to deliver the final hit and have to do the WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.

Oh, but that's nothing compared to the final boss fight with Steampunk Haunter. It shouldn't come as any surprise that both Sonics use the Chaos Emeralds to turn into their super forms for this fight, and as per tradition, you need to keep collecting rings throughout the battle in order to stay super. This would not normally be much of a problem, except...

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SEE THE RINGS WITH A BACKGROUND THAT FLASHY AND BUSY? YOU'VE GOT HYPERSPACE RAYS GOING THIS WAY, GEARS AND SHIT GOING THAT WAY, AND IT'S ZOOMED SO FAR OUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHERE YOU ARE HALF THE TIME. It doesn't even TELL you what you're supposed to do! Like at all! There is NO mention that all you have to do is catch up to the boss and keep boosting into his little orb thingy to damage him.

 The Sonic-switching mechanic is confusing and leaves you clueless as to what you're supposed to do even though the characters all told you a hundred times to use it. You spend 90% of the time trying to catch up to the boss only for it to go into side-scrolling mode, and the other 10% trying to get some goddamn rings so you can stay alive long enough to keep doing that! There is no point in switching whatsoever!

Also, do you know what a homing shot looks like? Don't worry. The extra characters will let you know. All of them. Every. Fucking. Time. It. Happens.

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT'S A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

There is simply not enough good in this game to counteract all the bad. The early levels are enjoyable to play,  and they're obviously all visually impressive, but the story is stupid, the gameplay shifts so rapidly between fun/nostalgic and tedious/infuriating, the voice acting is annoying as fuck,  all the required extra challenges are such obvious padding, and the classic bosses are so dumbed down it's downright insulting.

If you want Classic Sonic gameplay, PLAY A FUCKING CLASSIC SONIC GAME because SEGA apparently has no idea how to do a remake anything even remotely resembling justice.

4/10

And no, I'm not touching Sonic 4 Part 2 unless it goes on sale for a fucking buck because SEGA still hasn't figured out that homing attack is NOT A GODDAMN 2-D MECHANIC. I don't care if it's a level-for-level, platform-for-platform remake of EVERY Genesis Sonic game. 

Sonic The Hedgehog 4 (360)

Yep. I'm finally reposting a review from my DA journal. Word for word, copy/paste. Because I am lazy and wanted to update without actually putting any thought into a new review.

Quite some time ago, I posted a comment somewhere (it was either Halolz or the Escapist forums,) detailing a single course of action SEGA could take to earn my universal forgiveness for the travesty that is every Sonic game to come out since Adventure 2.

I said that they could remake Sonic 3 & Knuckles with current generation graphics. I would even allow the addition of some of the Loads and Loads of Characters they've crammed into the series as unlockable extras or something, so long as they didn't go overboard.

Less than a month after I said that, SEGA announced NOT S3&K, but SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4, a direct SEQUEL to S3&K. Not only was it a direct sequel to the greatest Sonic the Hedgehog game to ever exist, but it was to have similar side-scrolling gameplay, level design, and a cast consisting solely of the blue hedgehog himself and his arch-nemesis Dr. Robotnik. Not so much as a two-tailed fox more. Cue jaw-drop and a fan-girlish squee the likes of which would not be heard again until Portal 2's announcement.

Initially released screenshots and videos looked good. Maybe a bit TOO similar to the games whose honor STH4 is meant to restore, but I'd let it slide. Some of the original badniks even got pretty awesome graphical upgrades!

Fastforward a bit to unveil SEGA's first mistake of what was to be many. Two words: "Episode. One."

4 zones. That's it. Sonic's "triumphant return" is even shorter than his FIRST FUCKING GAME, which you can buy from the Wii shop channel for HALF THE PRICE.

Needless to say, my response to learning this was "well fuck that!" And so I forgot all about Sonic The Hedgehog 4 for a while.

NOW. For Christmas this year, I received an Xbox 360 (and a few other games, but that's neither here nor there.) Aware that there was a wide selection of downloadable games available from the marketplace, I decided to check 'em out. Among them, I saw STH4, which reminded me that the game existed.

So I got it.

After a few hours, I began to wish I hadn't.

The graphics are great, so it has that going for it. The backgrounds blend in and move nicely with the rest of the stages, which themselves are very well drawn and colorful as a Sonic game should be.

The first Zone, Splash Hill was a joyfully nostalgic breeze through an Green/Emerald Hill remake/mashup. Or it would have been. If not for that FUCKING homing attack mechanic SEGA decided would be a good idea to implement in a 2-D FUCKING GAME. FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT! Not only does it randomly lock on to everything you DON'T want to jump toward, but it essentially adds a double jump that moves you forward. This can be kind of handy in a very select few areas, but it makes the rest of the game a great deal HARDER when you're not used to it because you've been playing, say...every OTHER 2-D Sonic game. (Remember the fire shield from STH3? Imagine doing that involuntarily every other time you want to make a precise jump.)

Also, I hope you're not a fan of Sonic's speed, because you certainly won't be doing a lot of running in this game. What's that? A Sonic game that takes the focus off of running really fast? Yeah. I was shocked too, but every time I managed to get up to full speed, I ran smack straight into one of the badniks SEGA cleverly placed on EVERY stretch of land you'd otherwise be capable of using to run really fast on, and lost half my rings. With another hearty "fuck that!" I restarted the act, expecting I'd be smart enough not to make the same mistake, keep my rings, and actually make it to the Special Stage.

NOT SO.

This EXACT SAME incident occurred no less than 4 more times in different areas around the FIRST. FUCKING. ACT. I know collecting the Chaos Emeralds is supposed to be a challenge, but GOD DAMN! I can't even hold on to enough rings GET to them! (The Special Stages themselves are ironically not all that special. Basically exactly the same as the ones from STH1, only you control the rotation of the stage rather than Sonic himself. I know this because I've managed to get into one ONCE. Also you're on a ludicrous fun-killing time limit and have to collect rings to open gates.)

The other zones are more of the same. You have the clone of Casino Night Zone, the clone of Labyrinth Zone, and the clone of Metropolis Zone. I thought this was supposed to be a sequel to Sonic 3! Why are we going back through zones from Sonic 1 and 2? They even have all the same enemies! There is not a single new badnik design to be found!

These zones, while very visually pleasing, and effectively appealing to one's sense of nostalgia are considerably terribly designed. Aside from the enemy placement and lack of Hedgehog-suited terrain I mentioned earlier, SEGA decided to add fucking PUZZLES to the stages. WHY? This is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, NOT MYST, SEGA!

The took Labyrinth Zone, the second* most evil and unforgiving Zone in Sonic history, and made it EVEN MORE hard and unforgiving to the point where it's not even fun to play through anymore, it's just a chore! Why am I lighting torches? Why am I moving walls around? Why did I run out of time while doing this crap? WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I JUST RUN REAL FAST!?

And what. THE. FUCK. IS WITH THE LIBERAL USE OF INSTANT-DEATH PITS? I had 20 lives going into the Casino Zone. I lost 15 of them in ONE absurdly wide instant-death pit spanned by Mega Man-esque platforms-that-appear-and-disappear. Either make the platforms stationary, or put something under them to land on. Using both is just begging for an I Wanna Be The Guy comparison. That's just one example. These fucking pits are EVERYWHERE.

Even the bosses for this game are just rehashes from the first 3. You've got Robotnik's classic ball/chain, his pinball death machine, his "I run away while the water level creeps up absurdly fast," and his...whatever that thing is where he makes all the little copies of himself. These bosses have very slightly modified moves, but it hardly makes them any more difficult than they originally were. (Except Labyrinth's. The addition of moving smashy walls after the toned-down creeping water part is an admittedly welcome challenge.)

The final zone consists of a boss run with a few further changes. Namely, the smashy walls from the Labyrinth boss seem to be a lot more smashy. Annoyingly so. To the point where I lost my remaining lives and gave up for the day.

SEGA is trying. They have the right idea. They just don't seem to know what the hell to do with it. Kill the homing attack, kill the puzzles, tweak the terrain, and it wouldn't kill 'em to add some originality to the mix. I know we wanted a new Sonic game to be closer to the originals, but this is pushing it.

As it is, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 gets a 5/10

*#1 is Metropolis, and #3 is Carnival Night.

Raskulls (360)

Another interesting game. And I actually meant "interesting" this time. Raskulls is a quirky, cartoony puzzle/platformer in which you navigate various worlds by destroying colored blocks.

The evil space "Pirats" (they're pirate rats. Get it?), in their search for a planet made of cheese, have crashed their ship on a world inhabited by skull-faced characters known as the Raskulls. To repair it, they need the powers of the Shiny Stone, owned by the Raskull King. The story revolves around the Raskulls thwarting the plans of the Pirats.

The gameplay is essentially Super Mario Bros. meets Collapse. As you run and jump through the levels, you will occasionally find your path blocked by...blocks...that you must zap with a wand-like tool to destroy. If multiple blocks of the same color are touching, zapping one will destroy them all. There are also powerups such as the fireball (with which you can dash through and destroy blocks without zapping them), and the lightning (which instantly zaps out several blocks in a row, including the normally hard to break black ones).

Aside from the powerups there are "boosties" that you collect from destroying blocks, and can find in jars lying around. Boosties charge up a frenzy meter. Activating frenzy mode speeds up your character for a short time (unless you're collecting lots of boosties as you go) and allows them to zap blocks much faster, but be careful. Getting smashed by falling blocks will drain the frenzy meter.

Few of the levels are as simple as "get to the end." Every chapter introduces a new spin on the existing game mechanics. For example, you might be required to get to the end with a limited number of zaps. Or you might be required to get objects down to platforms without dropping them too far at a time. Or you might have to do BOTH of these with an insanely unfair time limit.

Some special challenges require you to complete a course without running out of frenzy power, while others require liberal use of frenzy mode to finish in a time limit. Frenzy mode and the powerups are also absolutely vital if you want to complete any of the race levels.


Unfortunately, despite this wide variation in level goals, Raskulls does suffer from one glaring flaw. Most of the levels are far too easy. The ones that aren't too easy? They're controller-snappingly frustrating. I was actually glad when I finally failed a challenge for the first time, assuming that the difficulty curve was finally catching up to me, but this quickly dissolved into annoyance after I failed it several more times before I finally completed it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground in terms of difficulty. Everything is either way too easy, or way too hard. (I'd say about 8 super-easy to every 2 super-hard.) It's great and all that you get a feeling of accomplishment from clearing the hard ones, but you have you ask yourself if it was really worth the headache.

The second and most major problem is that this game is mind blowingly short. It's only 3 chapters long! I mean, sure the later 2 world maps are on the larger side, but I was still able to beat the main story in less than a day. After that, the only things left to do are complete any remaining challenges (which you probably left unfinished for reasons mentioned above) and , if you're the type, go for all the achievements. There's also Xbox Live multiplayer, which I have yet to try, but it looks like it's just more races.

Those complaints aside, though, Raskulls is a fairly entertaining game. It's the kind you play with a friend or two and take turns dying during the hard challenges while you make fun of the guy who screws up the easy ones.

The gameplay is somewhat original, characters are creative, and the dialog and jokes are lighthearted and funny, while maintaining just an occasional very slight hint of dark humor. However, there are spikes in the difficulty and it is an extremely short- although enjoyable- experience.

Raskulls gets an  8/10