relentless879

Axel & Pixel is a charming point & click adventure game about a painter, Axel & his dog, Pixel who are thrown into a weird dream world after a rat had tampered with a magic record player. Within this dream world, weird creatures appear, and the rat had transformed into an evil demon rat. You have to chase the rat through dozens of scenes depicting the four seasons, spring through to winter. To progress through, you have to solve puzzles using the magic cursor clicking on numerous objects around the scenes in the correct order. The game varies slightly, where some actions will require you to follow a sequence of button presses that appear on screen, usually to climb objects or dodge hazards. At the end of each season you have to control a vehicle, a hot air balloon, car and a boat, using controls to avoid hazards along the way. Graphically the game shows good details showing the different seasons, with snow covered landscapes, blooming flowers of spring, and orange tones of autumn. The characters are quirky, with painter looking like a modern day Picasso, acknowledging the player when he has made the correct choice or not, with mumbles and cheers. With the world being weird, some of the puzzles you need to complete would not make any sense if the objects did not get highlighted. For example, you would not expect hitting a bird to get an egg to crush would be needed to grow a beanstalk to climb on top of a turtle. But with the game being an adventure game, the game makes you feel like a spectator, even though for each scene you are given 3 clues, mostly likely you'll never need them. The magic cursor changes colour and shape whenever the cursor is over an object, so you just have to use trial and error to figure the puzzles out. Most players will find the game too easy, even for young gamers this is aimed at, the story can be finished in a couple of hours. There are hidden objects within the scenes as well are paint tubes, paintings, and dog bones for you to find, which will give some replay value if you missed any on your first play-through. Collecting all the items and solving the scenes with less clues will give you a score which goes on a leader-board to compare with friends. The game features mini-games featuring the 3 vehicles from the story, collecting items and trying to get a high score, but these games don't offer much more of a challenge either. Overall the game doesn't offer much of a challenge considering the price is 800 MS points or about £8, to be played just for a couple of hours. Though the player will enjoy the quirky characters and unique art style of the scenes, this does not feel like a real game as it could have been.

007 Bloodstone sends the world's most famous agent, James Bond into a mission not based on any previously released film tie-in, a storyline created by the designers. The game features stunning world environments, vehicles exploding, collapsing freeways, though the character models are lacking in texture, but not enough to distract you from the action. The single player campaign sends you to Athens, Istanbul, and many more, beginning with a speedboat chase around the Greek harbour, leading onto a car chase around Athens, then you get the opening credits. But after the credits the pacing of the action slows down and there are not so many exciting scenes until later in the story, with some levels dragging on too long, making the game feel dull in some areas. The gameplay of the game requires the use of stealth tactics to eliminate guards to reach the objectives within the missions. The player can look around corners and wait for a passing guard to come you, where the player is able to use a takedown to eliminate him without alerting surrounding guards. Each time a takedown is used the player is awarded a focus kill, which is a one-hit kill, the player can accumulate up to 3 focus kills to eliminate 3 guards in quick succession, making game feel awarding to the player who uses stealth tactics instead of going in guns blazing. The player is always equipped with a standard PP09, but is able to pick up SMG's, assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles, but can only carry 1 of these weapons at a time. The takedown animations are exciting to watch, and uses the environment to enhance the animation. Some missions involve car chases, chasing enemy targets through cities, driving over a frozen lake and avoiding obstacles thrown into your path. The controls can take a while to get used to as using the brake too much will make you stop and you may lose your target. When not using your weapons, you have use of a smartphone which you can use to deactivate security cameras, locate and download intel, and decrypting codes. The AI can be smart, especially on the higher difficulties, they will use cover, change positions, flank your position, communicate with each other, and they will focus on your last known position. The multiplayer modes include the standard team deathmatch, objective which involves completing a series of objectives (unlocking doors, activating terminals) while the enemy try to stop you, and then you have last man standing, eliminating all of the other team before they kill yours. The multiplayer only features two environments from the single player, split into six separate levels. Though lacking in levels and modes, the multiplayer rewards the player with numerous medals for weapon kills, matches played, and you gain expericence unlocking better weapons, silver and gold variants. Overall, the game features an enjoyable campaign when the story progresses further in the game, memorable action sequences, smart AI, though lacking in character model details, and lack of multiplayer modes, this is a good addition to the James Bond franchise.