X-Blades
There’s pandering and then there is… pandering.
Tags: X Blades Categories: Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Apr 22nd, 2009
What if you took the blatant Sexploitation and two handed gunplay of the Tomb Raider series, and mixed in the button mashing hack and slash of the God of War ilk that have been popular? Well wait no longer X-Blades can show you what an entirely derivative product looks like, and when it’s done on a shoestring budget it isn’t pretty. X-Blades looks like some PS2 bargain bin title, or like it could be crowding the Wii’s candidates for possible cereal box promotions.
I guess it shouldn’t be expected that every title should innovate, that I can attest is something no medium can attain to beyond its first few years. However, I think one of the biggest problem with Video Games is often developers seems to recycle ideas in strange combination like a toddler with colorforms. The whole hot treasure hunter thing was already played out at the end of the 90’s run of Tomb Raider games. The reason the franchise struggles to maintain its presence as anything more than a sharp disappointment with each passing installment.
I would be more apt to bother giving this title some breathing room if it was the bargain title it’s design warrants, but charging somebody 50 bucks for this is nearly criminal. If X Blades were a film it be direct to DVD, or some late night SyFy original. If we were talking a bundle at Target for 20, I’d be forgivable that it was such a mess.
Okay so I imagine that not every gamer cares about voice acting or story quality. There might even be a rarer sect who can abide playing out of date graphics on a new machine. What I can’t understand is why you would want to play a game whose controls are carpal tunnel inducing. I think they were trying to replicate the enemy wave of the newer Gauntlet games, but even that seems to be pushing the limits of comparison. This is being attacked by a single kind of enemy that is vulnerable to a specific attack. So essentially the button choice is arbitrary to make sure that there is “variety” in the controls, but instead you really have something with the complexity of Galaga. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the action needs to be tailored to that concept.
So have I mention that X Blades is a mess? If it hasn’t been made clear yet, don’t buy it. In a poor tribute to Dr Suess; Do not buy this for your house, do not even click the mouse, do not buy this here or there, do not buy this anywhere.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| +Horny teenage boys can be tittilated by the main character | 1.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Tired and cliched story with poor voice acting - Graphics look shoddy and dated - Controls are boring |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| There isn't much that could make this worth the effort. The game is obviously something created simply to make teenage boys hand over their cash. It's a desperate attempt at pandering a hit out a character that isn't even all that well developed. They could have at least given us graphics worth looking at. | |
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Tags: X Blades
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Apr 22nd, 2009 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
