By Matthew Scott Hunter
‘Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker’ (T)
****1/2
Raising the bar
Konami
PlayStation Portable
Usually, when a series built for consoles gets a handheld offering, we wind up with truncated missions, inferior graphics, a limited move set, and a throwaway side story. Not this time. “Peace Walker” is anything but “Metal Gear Lite.” The missions are meaty enough to have you wishing for additional checkpoints. The graphics are so pretty, you’ll forget you’re looking at a PSP. Snake’s close-quarters-combat moves have been expanded for taking down multiple enemies. And the Cold War-era story feels essential — fitting comfortably in the timeline between “Snake Eater” and the rest of the franchise. It almost feels like, this time, the console side of the series got the short shrift.
“Peace Walker’s” most striking addition to the franchise, however, has to be co-op play. You can have a friend join you in any campaign mission, and the ways two people can work in conjuncture with Snake’s standard bag of stealth tricks opens up whole new realms of sneaky possibilities. Having a friend along also comes in handy during boss battles. “Peace Walker” will have you battling some of the most spectacular and memorable mechs yet, but many of them are hard to take down without some extra firepower. Despite the added difficulty, this is still a game that belongs on every PSP owner’s shelf. Not only does it raise the bar for handheld games, it raises the bar for the “Metal Gear” series on any gaming platform.
‘Green Day: Rock Band’ (T)
***
MTV Games
Xbox 360
It’s gotta be tough for any band to follow The Beatles, but developer Harmonix made it even tougher for this popular alt-punk group. “Green Day: Rock Band” doesn’t get nearly the degree of polish given to the Fab Four’s game. Nevertheless, the singing of Billy Joe Armstrong and company lends itself well to the new “Vocal Harmonies” feature, and the color-coded button prompts scroll down as effectively as they do in any other “Rock Band” game. But since we’re paying full retail price for less than 50 tracks, it would’ve been nice to find something extra.
‘Pure Futbol’ (E)
*1/2
Ubisoft
Xbox 360
In a bid to be the spiritual successor to EA Sports’ “FIFA Street,” “Pure Futbol” offers an arcade-style soccer experience in an urban setting. This might appeal to the most casual fans of the sport or the most casual fans of video games. But anyone who’s spent more than five minutes playing one or the other will easily recognize that the controls are sluggish, the ball doesn’t go fast enough (despite having a smoke trail) and the A.I. teammates are morons who are more likely to go out-of-bounds than to ever find the goal.
‘Shrek Forever After’ (E10+)
**
Activision
Xbox 360
Much like previous Shrek games and, more recently, the “Alice and Wonderland” movie tie-in, “Shrek Forever After” largely ignores its source material in favor of giving us a brawler, featuring multiple characters from the film. If you can’t find three friends to play along, then you’ll be switching between Shrek, Donkey, Fiona and Puss-in-Boots and their respective special abilities as they pummel generic bad guys in the land of Far Far Away, which is where this game belongs.
