Little League World Series Baseball 2010 is not going to make it to Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The official video game of the summer tournament that annually features the best Little League ballclubs from across the globe isn't world class by any stretch of the imagination, committing more errors than the Bad News Bears did before they picked up Kelly Leak. While the game has a likable enough personality, courtesy of anime-style ballplayers and a love of baseball right up there with Field of Dreams, many mistakes are made in core areas of the design, like pitching mechanics and the fielding camera. As a result, this shiny-happy ode to kids playing baseball can be more than a touch aggravating.
What first strikes you about Little League World Series 2010 is its unique presentation. Japanese developer NOW Production has given the game an anime style, complete with spiky-haired players with saucer eyes so big and glassy that they wouldn't look out of place on a teddy bear. It's a bit off-putting at first, especially if you're coming into the game expecting more of a serious arcade baseball simulation, given that the subject
Pixar's films touch on themes so universal and immediate that it is possible for both adults and children to be sucked into their imaginative worlds. Unfortunately, most of the games based on these popular properties have been unable to replicate this appeal, veering too far to the simple side of things to give veteran players a worthwhile experience. Toy Story 3 does little to buck this trend, but it does a fine job of providing an entertaining and varied experience for younger players eager to spend more time with their favorite characters. The vast array of different activities ensures there is always something new to conquer, and the wealth of missions keeps the good times flowing for many hours. The troublesome controls during certain segments get in the way of the carefree fun, but the colorful visuals and bountiful rewards make this an easy game to stick with.
Toy Story 3 doesn't rigidly follow the narrative of the movie. Rather, the story portion is a virtual tour of many of the set pieces found in the upcoming movie and the overarching fiction. There is still a story tying all of these events together, but it mostly exists to provide the occasional chuckle. While that may be disappointing for anyone eager to play through the silver-screen adventure, what this approach offers is a varied experience that deftly introduces new gameplay mechanics in every stage. The core of Toy Story 3 is platforming, but there is a lot more to do than just run and jump. Buzz Lightyear leaps between crumbling asteroids in outer space while shooting down robots with his laser; Woody chases down a train while riding his trusty steed, Bullseye; and Jessie helps free Hamm from a garbage conveyor belt. Not all of the levels are quite so fun, though. A nighttime escape from a daycare center focuses on stealthily slinking past a roving patrol of light-bearing toys, but being spotted and having to restart because the controls and camera wouldn't cooperate is aggravating. However, even with the occasional stumble, the variety keeps things fresh throughout.
NCAA Football 10 made some significant strides last year by introducing some entertaining new modes and reworking old ones to flesh out the entire college football experience. This year, EA Sports took a different approach with NCAA Football 11 by focusing more on beefing up on-field action than on making major in-game upgrades to supplementary modes like Road to Glory. But, that's not to say these preexisting modes--those transferred from last year to this year--are completely neglected. There are some small changes to be found, some of which don't amount to much more than window dressing while others succeed in making their associated modes more engaging.
n either case, it's disappointing to start up a mode in NCAA Football 11 and find that little has changed, and there's no greater offender than the Road to Glory mode. This is the mode where you can create your own player and watch him grow from a high school standout to a college superstar. It's still hosted by ESPN's Erin Andrews, and colleague Kirk Herbstreit still chimes in to break down your performance, but aside from game specific highlights that play during his postgame recaps, there isn't anything specific to this mode that you haven't already seen if you played NCAA Football 10. Even Andrews' appearance is simply a replay of what she did for the previous game. Still, there's something undeniably addictive about taking a no-name player and turning him into a star athlete, but like last year, you still have to be mindful of the pitfalls of selecting certain positions on offense. For example, quarterbacks can always call an audible to get out of predetermined plays, but running backs and receivers are still at the mercy of an AI-controlled coach that wants to win and doesn't care about your individual performance.
There are few sports that polarise opinion in quite the manner cricket does, and it is likely to be the same for International Cricket 2010. It provides a faithful and nuanced translation of the game to consoles, with satisfaction to be found picking the perfect spot to cream a ball for six or frustrating batsmen into rash shots. However, it's unlikely to win over any but the most ardent cricket fans thanks to its poor visuals, lacklustre sound, frequent bugs, and incomplete squad lists.
IC2010 gives you the opportunity to take control of an international cricket team of your choice and take on the rest of the world in any form of the game you like. As with last year's Ashes effort, only the England and Australia teams are licensed, which means that players from other nations are represented by approximate names. Cricket fans will be able to identify most of them readily enough, and their stats are appropriate. Licensed or not, anyone dashing enough to sport a real-life beard is relatively hard to recognise as the best IC2010 can manage is a smattering of stubble.
If you're familiar with developer Traveller's Tales' previous Lego games, you might think you know what Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is like even before you've played it--and you'd be partially right. In this game, just as in Lego Star Wars and its ilk, you (perhaps along with a friend on the same console) experience a witty and wordless rendition of a famed tale, with your favorite characters replaced by blocky Lego re-creations. Yet central elements of the previous games, such as simplistic combat and floaty platforming, have been given a secondary role in Harry's story. Now, the focus is squarely on collecting all those countless Lego bits that go flying everywhere with almost every spell you cast. You're constantly showered with currency as you solve light puzzles and manipulate practically every object you see with your versatile wand. You still need to contend with a few of the series' lingering issues (unhelpful AI, slippery platforms) and a couple of minor new ones (iffy targeting, random bugs). But the scattered flaws aren't likely to dampen the joy of playing Lego Harry Potter, particularly if you're a fan of the source material.
brought the "Play, Create, Share" ethos to the PlayStation 3, and ModNation Racers applies the same concept to the kart racer. The result is a game that offers you all the tools you need to create your own karts, tracks, and racers and then easily share your creations online with the community. These features are excellent--both simple enough for beginners and powerful enough for creative types to match anything from the developer. The fiercely competitive AI makes the single player career more challenging than it needs to be, and long load times are a bind across all game modes. However, played with friends locally or online, ModNation Racers is a fun, rewarding and novel addition to the genre.
Once you've played the first tutorial race, you're dropped into ModNation Racers' central hub, which connects all of the play, create, and share elements of the game. You can select game modes either by browsing the menu system or by physically driving your kart to the corresponding area of the hub. If you're online, the world is populated by other racers whom you can communicate with, share content with, or challenge to a race. The hub also highlights some of the highest rated content from users around the world, with statues of user-created characters, such as Mario, Ryu, and Spider-Man, and karts that have been made to look like locomotives, aeroplanes, or even the A-Team van. There's a clear emphasis on sharing at all times--you can drive up to anything you see and press the square button to browse, rate, and download items. It’s a brilliantly implemented system, with seamless online integration providing a stream of new content.
It's obvious that each iteration of the long-running Street Fighter series has been carefully tuned and tweaked to the finest degree, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Street Fighter IV. The lessons learned in the franchise's 20-plus years have been used to prune back the core fighting experience to create something truly special. Street Fighter IV isn't a success simply because it's one of the most technically complex 2D fighters ever made, it's a success because it's also wrapped inside a layer of absolute accessibility. Never has the old "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master" adage been truer than it is here.