| Author | Review |
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Lucid Dreams84
118,713
TA Score for this game: 1,189
Posted on 25 May 12 at 03:41, Edited on 24 March 13 at 20:48 |
This review has 24 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
Original
Release Date: May 22 2012 (US), May 25 2012 (EU)
Platforms: 360, PS3, Wii
Publisher/Developer: Activision, Fun Labs
Genre: Action
ESRB/PEGI Rating: T
Online: No
They are the Men In Black, and we all know who these alien stomping, side-stepping, memory erasers are. I enjoyed the first movie and the second was entertaining enough, so I’m sure we all knew another would come out, but a video game? It actually seems right when you think about it. Aliens across the universe are coming to earth to either demolish it or be a part of it and a secret group of agents protecting us from any threat that happens to come along. Can Fun Labs pull this off?
You aren’t J or K, which I’m sure some hoped for, but a thief named Peter Delacoeur who is caught stealing an ancient artifact by the MIB. Peter had no idea that he was helping aliens and the MIB noticed his “skills”, so they decided to suit him up and put him out in the field with Agent C who can be a real see you next Tuesday.
The story is pretty cut and dry. Peter and C need to stop these aliens from finding the secret that the artifact holds before it is too late. To be honest, the story isn’t really bad at all. However, the way it is presented to us could have been done much better. The graphics weren’t the worst I have seen, but definitely second-rate. Whenever the characters would talk they would just move their mouths up and down randomly like they were all Muppet characters. The voice acting was the worst part about this game and made me cringe. There was no real emotion at all with the characters along with the annoying laugh that Chauncey made, and the tacky one-liners. I might have to give them a break on that last criticism since they are centering it on the movies and they were chalk full of them.
Gameplay was pretty fun on certain parts. The main bits of fighting have you run around in a third-person shooter style ducking behind objects and shooting at your enemy. You can’t move around as freely as you want and the game moves forward once you kill the enemies in that area. Peter has a few weapons at his disposal that you might remember from the movies like The Cricket, Plasma Handgun or The Tri-Barrel Plasma Rifle. Each weapon you acquire will have its own style of spewing alien guts on the wall. You also earn yourself special items you can use with your weapons like freezing them, putting a barrier around yourself or slowing time. This was a nice feature to have so you wouldn’t get bored just ducking and shooting. A couple of levels are sneaking based where if you get caught you have to start again. You need to shoot out cameras and trap enemies from finding you. They weren’t very hard, which was a shame, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
There are three levels where you fly the car around and they really ticked me off with the controls. You fly the car shooting down enemies and what not, but you move off the targeting system. This isn’t the 1980’s! There is a whole controller full of buttons that you can use to move yourself around! Why they decided to do this I will never know, but the man or woman, I don’t want to be sexist, should have their fingers crushed.
The searching tool was pretty pointless as well. You use it to find hidden aliens or items that are lying right in front of you! There are two levels that go over this part and they were just a huge waste of time.
The story overall is very short, but they have a few VR missions that you can play with friends. There is a co-op for two players and for four you just pass along the controllers. The missions have you go over certain areas in the story mode, so it is just a quick copy and paste of the other levels. Each level on the story and VR has leaderboards, so you can compare it with everyone else that plays.
THE VERDICT
GAMEPLAY: 5/10
DESIGN: 5/10
SOUND: 4/10
REPLAYABILITY: 5/10
OVERALL: 4.5/10
Closing Thoughts:
The game wasn’t insanely bad, but it was very average. If the graphics and sound quality were done better I probably would have given it one more point. I would recommend that you do not buy this for sixty dollars or even thirty really. Get it on Game Fly or wait for it to hit the bargain bin before you attempt this.
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knight0fkh0nshu
349,860
TA Score for this game: 1,189
Posted on 21 October 12 at 04:27, Edited on 21 October 12 at 04:41 |
This review has 12 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Men In Black: Alien Crisis
If there is a franchise that could make it big on consoles, it's Men In Black. An established brand that has humor, unique characters, and gadgets/weapons galore! Unfortunately this is not the Men In Black game that you will be looking for. An on-the-rails shooter, Men In Black: Alien Crisis attempts to cash in on the popularity of the movies with last-gen graphics, horrible lip syncing, and uninspiring voice acting.
J and K, the main characters in the Men In Black universe, are not playable in this game which will disappoint long time fans of the franchise. Instead, you are cast as Peter Delacoeur - a petty thief that is unknowingly working for a sinister group of aliens to steal an ancient alien artifact. Long story short, Peter gets caught and the MiB recruit him into their ranks to find the alien artifact before the opposition does. The story actually wouldn't be that bad if the voice actors had shown some emphasis with their characters. I know it's not a high budget title, but some kind of emotion would've made this game a bit more enjoyable.
In addition to the D-list voice acting, the lip syncing is just as horrible. None of the dialogue matches up with the voices which is a constant annoyance. With this generation of technology with the consoles we have there is truly no excuse for this anymore. Granted it doesn't have to be flawless, but at least make an attempt to properly sync the voice with the lip movement. This isn't the 1970's Scooby Doo era.
Men In Black: Alien Crisis isn't completely all bad though. While progressing the story you unlock some of the iconic weapons seen in some of the previous movies. Most notably the Noisy Cricket. Each weapon can be upgrading a few times to increase their effectiveness to kill the alien scum. The Tri-Barrel Plasma Gun had to be one of my favorite guns, but apart from that there wasn't a lot of variety in the weapons department.
New alien species populate this game which has always been one of the coolest things about the franchise. From the Adorian Elites, to flying jellyfish looking things, and the Nakkadan - there are some definitely some new alien faces for you to check out. The A.I. responds pretty well, though sometimes the "stealth sections" seem a bit unrealistic.
The on-the-rails arcade style of this game caught me by complete surprise. While it wasn't a big deal, because the enemies could hardly kill you, I didn't like the fact that I couldn't move around in the environment when I wanted to. Sure you could strafe from side to side to cover, but if a grenade landed right in the middle of both there was nowhere to go. But as mentioned before, I rarely died because of it. Just a nuisance to not be able to go where you want due to the limited on-the-rails linearity of this game.
Those looking for a deep multiplayer campaign better put their sunglasses on because otherwise you will forget it. Not only is there no online multiplayer, you are limited to two player or four player co-op competitive modes. Which is essentially sections of the single player story that you run through trying to outscore your teammate by killing more enemies.
After it's all said and done I feel like I've been hit by a neuralizer or at least I wish I had been. Men In Black: Alien Crisis is a far cry from what it could have been with more production time and greater care with the franchise. A short storyline that spans a maximum of four hours if you're lucky limits the re-playability. The multiplayer is irrelevant due to the lack of online support - unless you have a friend to play with you. Even then it gets old fast due to the lack of game types. Men In Black: Alien Crisis is a cheap attempt to cash in on a popular franchise brand. So you get what you pay for and hopefully you didn't pay anything for it.
Rating: 4/10
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This review was written for XboxCritic and is the property of XboxCritic and its' author.
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CRAZE KILER
450,211
TA Score for this game: 1,189
Posted on 28 May 12 at 00:05 |
This review has 13 positive votes and 4 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Most of us have seen the Men in Black movies, each one has plenty of action and comedy that shouldnt be to hard to bring to an XBOX near you. Unfortunately for us gamers we usually are stuck with a game full of un-funny jokes and poor gameplay. Luckily for us Activision decided to not do the standard third person game and made a game that reminds me of the arcade classic Time Crysis.
The way MIB reminds me of time crysis is becuase you do very little to move your charector, you move foreward when all of your enemies die. MIB is also heavily reliant on a cover system but unlike Time Crysis you are able to move from left to right. If you have the gun perifiral MIB is compatible but for the rest of us the gunplay is a railshooter, which works well. The one issue I have with the story is that is only a single player game, which is a shame because it would be a perfect game for a couple pre-teens to tackle together.
For a change of pace there are a few parts of the game where your in the flying car, the controls are difficult to use. The thumb stick used to aim is also the movement stick. I dont understand why one thumb stick could be used for aiming while the other is used for movement.
The other type of level is a stealth level, for the most part they are about 5 minutes long. You just shoot cameras and then the enemy without getting caught. The only frustrating part is if an enemy spots you its over unlike most games where they hit an alarm. Its not difficult but there were a couple times I was spotted as I was shotting the guy just to lose.
There are several guns available for use, you gain them as you progress through the game. For the most part they are a standard affair but the attachments for you guns are what differentiates the game from the rest. You have one that levitates the enemy, slows time, freezes, and shield.
Besides the short story mode there are challenges for you to play, these are single player and vs. challenges. They retake you to the gunfight sections of the game. For me there is really no point in playing them unless you want to see who can get the highest score between you and a friend. There are online leaderboards but no online capabilities to speak of.
The achievements are very easy to get and to get the full 1000 should take you about 5 hours of gameplay. There is only one tricky achievement in the game and the only reason why it is tricky is becuase of the difficulty of moving you flying car. The achievement list looks like a grindfest but its really not. I was able to get all of the kills achievements but one during my first playthrough but I was able to get it when doing the vs. challenges. For the full 1000 you have to play through two times, you have to beat the game for the second difficulty to be available.
At the end of the day I would only recommend this game for 10 year olds or achievement hounds. It has a lot of potential to be fun but the lack of two player story mode really dampers the game. I also think the challenges would had been better if they were waves of enemies or in different locations than whats in the story. It feels redundant to play the same thing at least three times to complete the game. I am going to give the game two stars becuase of the redundancy and lack of multiplayer.
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SSCP
579,575
TA Score for this game: 1,189
Posted on 15 March 13 at 14:05, Edited on 15 March 13 at 16:58 |
This review has 6 positive votes and 0 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
This is a review i wrote for my site and is here
http://ntagameguides.com/review/men-in-black-alien-crisis/
We all know Men In Black as a comedic take on Alien Invasion, and the fact that in the movies aliens live among us. Going into the game i was expecting the same kind of basis, Not sure how anything carrying the MIB title could have been made this badly though. Luckily Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones kept their names away from this, as this just seems a very poor attempt to gain extra cash from us gamers without investing time and money into the game. If Will Smith or TLJ had put their names to it, i think all respect i have for those would deminish very quickly.
So what is Alien Crisis? From now on it doesn't deserve to use the MiB title so i shall refer to it as Alien Crisis. Alien Crisis is a rail shooter, with probably the most outdated graphics this side of 1980, team that with uninspiring dialogue and gameplay that isnt out of this world and your have the reason why movie tie in games have such a bad reputation.
You are playing the game as "Agent P", a former archeologist disgraced by his peers turned thief for hire. He was tasked to steal a Egyptian Artifact for Emilio Chauncy,the games villian. The artifact is of alien origin and has the power of the egypitian gods.. With this Chauncy wants to use it to take over the world and help the Alien race he has sided with win their civil war. But Chauncy double crosses Peter Delacoeur (our character) and instead tells his goons "to give Peter what he is owed" - Fortunately the goons get attacked and ultimately Peter gets captured by the MiB. We then discover that agent J and K have both gone missing during a mission, Subsequently we get "recruited" into the MiB and are teamed up with a blonde female partner called Catyana (Agent C), and together they make poor attempts at comedy, and flirtacious banter.It seems like an embarrassing attempt to try and mimic the attitude of Agent J in the MiB films...This is where the fun ends i am afraid as the game begins...
The first thing i noticed is we are on rails, i was not expecting that at all. We are able to move left and right and take cover. Even this is done badly. On the Xbox 360 you hold RB and direction to dodge out of cover, towards cover to the left or right, great. Except it doesn't automatically put you in cover on the object you dodged towards. After seeing the likes of Army of Two and Gears Of War do this sucessfully along with others its a nice touch i think. But bearing in mind this game was made using a childs pocket money its not surprising things are missing.
The enemies are uninspiring, while i like the character design, they move around so slow they are easy to spot and bare no danger for the most part. At some points though the game will decide you should move forward even though there is an enemy still alive, therefore at the next cover point there is an alien behind you; luckily the alien doesnt always shoot you in the back with no means of killing them, and proceeds to join the slaughter of his collegues in front of you.
"In this day and age is it possible for the games dialogue, regardless of content to actually match the mouth movements?"
So when we are not fighting Aliens from the comfort of our rails, we do have a few flying levels to navigate. You are in a flying car, with an unlimited plasma/mini gun and as a sencondary you have a rocket launcher - You fly through the level destroying aliens still on a rail, what were you expecting?
There are times where you are doing a stealth type scene in which you need to navigate through a few areas shooting out cameras and taking out enemies without being detected. The detection is a little off as for some reason even if you kill the enemies quick and after they are dead you still get detected, and have to begin from the last checkpoint. At a couple of parts you need to investigate an area or office - Which basically means walk around and using the cursor to click on objects that glow. For the outdoor part they start you off a mile from where you need to be and then decide that you should walk at a pace slower than walking, maybe in an attempt to drag the agony out a little longer.
Well for all its faults there are a few positives, unless you bought the game brand new on release for full price. For those of you of the achievements / gamerscore persuassion this game is a very quick,easy 1k. It will take around 6-8 hours to get everything done. And that is completing the campaign twice. Unfortunately this is a shrewd move as it will keep people like me getting it to add to my gamerscore. Look at Avatar TBE... But that game at least was somewhere close to good...
I took my time in the first playthrough, but the second took around 2 1/2 hours, skipping cutscenes and whatnot.
Its a shame that that is all the positives i can muster for this very poor, cheap attempt to once again prove that there are very few companies out there that see gamers as people, but rather an easy stream of income...
Conclusion
Dated Graphics, Awful dialogue, repetitive and boring gameplay,extremely short story. Shouldnt carry the MiB name.
A poor attempt to cash in on the film release - And completely missed the mark
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dudecrazy108
153,347
TA Score for this game: 1,013
Posted on 06 June 12 at 04:34 |
This review has 6 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
Posted on my site at : http://undeadkingdomreviews.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/men-in-...
Men In Black Alien Crisis (Xbox 360) Game Review
Released : May 22nd, 2012
Reviewed : June 5th, 2012
Genre : Action
Review :
Now movie games usually get a bad rep for being games that are generally rushed and shallow because they are mainly made to make cash off a movie of the same name or theme. This game fits right into that category. This game is rushed and most of shallow. Now if the right amount of time and care was actually put into making a real MIB game you could have something good, instead we get this “game”.
First off this game is really just a rail shooter that lets you have very limited movement with a few bad driving sequences. Don’t forget the “stealth” scenes though also. The majority of the game plays like a rail shooter with you going from area to area killing everything. Now they do give you a few different guns with some different abilities to try and change the pace. Still doesn’t change the fact that this is a glorified rail shooter. The controls are stiff shooting wise and when you can move the controls are even worse. Aiming takes awhile to get use to and even then you never really have to try and go out of your way to aim since the enemies seem to enjoy standing still in the open waiting for their demise. Upgrading your weapon just really consists of aiming over the diamond which enemies randomly drop then added it to one of three sections for you weapon. That easy. Takes no work at all. It just shocks me that they just didn’t add free movement into the game. It’s 2012 and they think that making this will sell for $60.
There are a few areas in the game in which you control a flying car. Now they decided to only use about 1/8th of the controller for this by making it where you use the right stick to not only aim but also drive. That’s right, so not only do you have to aim and kill enemies but at the same time you have to worry about not crashing into things and collecting powerups. Why they did this will forever ponder me. Those scenes thankfully are short lived and add absolutely nothing to the game.
To add sprinkles onto a turd though they also added what I assume to be stealth scenes. Now those have you identifying objects and aliens to sneaking around and shooting out cameras and enemies. Like the rest of the game it is beyond bad. Plus this seems to be when random things happen like you will shoot a camera and a guy across the room looking the opposite direction will notice or vice versa. The scenes sometimes only last a few minutes though then switch back to guns blazing. Makes you wonder why they decide to be stealthy for a minute then all of a sudden just open fire.
Ready for the kicker though, I was able to beat this game on normal difficulty taking my time and looked around in a whole 2 hours and 5 minutes. That’s right, this full retail game took me 2 hours and odd change to beat. Taking my time too remember that. I wonder if someone did a speed run how fast they could do that at. Achievement wise it only takes maybe 5 hours for the full 1000GS and you will get 85% of the achievements on the first playthrough.
Overall this game is worth being a cup holder. That’s all. It really doesn’t have any redeeming factors other than being the butt of a joke with friends.
Score : 1.5/10
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ALS PACMAN
54,840
TA Score for this game: 881
Posted on 28 June 12 at 19:54 |
This review has 5 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
Movie tie-in games have never been the cat’s meow. Wow some may be tolerable, most are boring, ugly, and play like they were designed for you to be holding your controller upside-down. That’s basically me summing up MIB Alien Crisis in one sentence.
MIB Alien Crisis is an on-rails third-person shooter. If you have a compatible light gun (Cabela games or Play Station Move), feel free to plug in and play. However, most will approach this game with a standard controller.
You play the role of a former archeologist, now contracted thief named Peter or Agent P (later on). You were contracted to steal an alien artifact from a museum by Emilio Chauncy. Once the artifact was turned over, Chauncy orders his men to kill you and all hell breaks loose. Peter escapes the museum to only end up being surrounded by MIB agents and taken into headquarters. Once in headquarters, you’re asked to assist on this mission since you’re familiar with Chauncy, you know more than the MIB does, and MIB’s top agents Jay and Kay have gone missing. You’re then paired up with Agent C as the two of you attempt to reclaim the stolen artifact before Chauncy uses it to take over the world.
The story is not the greatest, but it’s simple enough that it can be enjoyed by anyone. Of course, this game doesn’t seem like it wants you to take it very seriously. The visuals look like they’re from last console generation, the voice acting is awful, and the lip syncing looks like it was done by the same people that did Alan Wake (terrible). However, it does do some things pretty well. The most important thing is the gunplay works very well. I played the game using a standard Xbox 360 controller and experienced no trouble at all. As you progress through the story, you’ll unlock upgrade points that you can use to level up your guns and special abilities. The nice thing is the upgrade system is very easy to use that anyone of any age will be able to navigate through it. Another nice thing is the game does a nice job of changing pace. Some segments will be just a pure shoot out, while other parts will include driving segments, and a few stealth segments. Even though the game does a great job of breaking these segments up, it feels very repetitive. I should also mention that there are VR Missions that you can do outside of the main story. These are usually scoring a certain amount of points within the allotted time. Boss battles are done well, but overpowered weapons really make you feel more powerful than you actually are.
At the end of the day, MIB Alien Crisis is a below average game. It is a game that I had fun with, but poor visuals, poor facial animations, poor lip syncing, and terrible voice acting can and will be enough to drive you away. As I said before, the gunplay works very well and the boss battles are fun, but factor in that there are only 8 missions and the game can be finished in less than 5 hours. That’s not worth your $60 at all. As far as I’m concerned, I enjoyed MIB Alien Crisis for what is was, but most will want the MIB to flash their memory of this game.
Rent it if you want to play it now
Not worth more than $10
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