20 | November | 2011 | "DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!"

Deep Silver’s got a plan to get those of you looking for a winter sports game to buy a copy of Winter Stars, their just released motion-controller-based game for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Eleven different sporting events bound to get you up off the couch and shaking it like you mean it sounds like a good idea to me, as my own “it” is getting a tiny bit wider from way too much Skyrim. Naturally, I’ll at least play the snowmobiling mini-game sitting down, but it looks like I’ll need to be waving my arms and moving about for the rest of them. With Move, Kinect or Wii Remote/Balance Board support for each platform, it’ll be interesting to see if this one takes off as the weather gets colder and holiday gift thoughts start wafting through the air like the scent of freshly baked pies.

Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3)

Developer: Spike

Publisher: Namco Bandai

# of Players: 1 – 2 (Online 1 – 2)

ESRB Rating: T Teen

Official Site

Score: B (75%)

Bigger, meaner, louder and faster pretty much sums up each new Dragon Ball Z game that hits consoles on what seems to be a yearly basis, but this year’s DBZ game, Ultimate Tenkaichi, while spectacular looking and a thrill to play, somehow drops the ball when it comes to character count. While there’s a character edit function here, it’s a bit limited and the overall number of playable fighters isn’t as impressive as last year’s Raging Blast 2. If you can manage to get over that disappointment (or could care lass about who’s in this game as long as it’s fun), what’s here is a total blast to dive into again and again as it still packs in many hours of exciting fighting action. A few elements, such as the emphasis on quick time events for some special attacks and interesting pattern-based boss battles that would feel more at home in a 3D platformer, may take a bit of getting used to for some younger players. But overall, there’s more than enough of the usual DBZ stuff here to keep you busy for quite some time. Continue reading →