Cuphead is the latest indie game that has caught the attention of many. Up to two players can play this run and shoot game which some will draw similarities with Metal Slug. However, Cuphead’s gameplay and artistic styles makes it a truly unique game on its own.

1930s cartoonist style

Straight after booting up the game, you will feel as if you have step into a time portal and transported to the 1930s. The slight static noise visible on the screen is not a sign of your TV breaking down but added on purpose as a nostalgic touch.

The characters in the game will feel familiar to you but at the same time refreshing. The developers had taken reference from animators in the 1930 such as Disney. The surrealistic nature of the bosses (a flower firing carrot missile etc.) was inspired by cartoonist of that time.

The presentation, art style and also music blends together perfectly, making it one of the most aesthetically pleasing game we have played so far. No fancy 3D graphics but just hand drawn animation that looked so good.

Tough game to beat but satisfying

As a run and shoot title, you control the main protagonist, Cuphead, shooting your way through over 30 bosses. A second player can also join the game controlling Mugman, brother of Cuphead. Kind of like Mario and Luigi.

Cuphead has infinite lives. So you can’t game over technically. But if you think this is an easy game, think again. This is one of the HARDEST game by far we have ever played in the last five years! Each boss fights or run-through level requires multiple rounds of playing before you can actually master and beat them.

Generally games require two things for you to beat them. One being luck and the other being skill (we are disregarding the pay-to-win model some games employed today). And Cuphead is one that is heavy on the skill side.

After umpteen attempts at beating a level or boss, at the moment when you finally beats it, joy and satisfaction will definitely overwhelm you.

Comparison with other shoot and run games

Cuphead has been likened to the Metal Slug series for obvious reasons. However, we actually found it to be more similar to the Megaman (aka Rockman) series.

In the Megaman, you beats of a series of boss to gain power of that boss. While that did not happen in Cuphead, the level of difficulty of the bosses in both games are equitable in our opinion. The dashing mechanism is also familiar to those who have played the more recent Megaman.

Need help with the Game? Our Tips!

This game is tough. Let us share with you some tips.

1. Get the more HP charm – Although this will reduce your damage slightly, the extra health will be much needed especially in later bosses where it becomes almost impossible to loss 3 lives before beating them.
2. Dash – Dashing is a great way to escape. Set your keyboard/game pad such that this button is easily reached. Getting the smoke bomb charm earlier in the game is also recommended.
3. Play with controllers – If you are playing on the PC version and not the Xbox version like us, use a controller. It is easier to play with a controller than keyboard. Also your Playstation 4 controller will work nicely with the game.
4. Learn the pattern – Most of the moves by the bosses are predictable to a certain extent. There are times when there will be some randomness in the move the boss makes. But by mastering the ways to avoid taking damages from the various moves, you will be on your way to beat the game.
5. Super Arts – Don’t forget to use them. When you are fully charged, these Super Arts are a great way to end the level dealing lethal damage.

If you think games these days are to easy and want more challenge, this is the game you should try. You can get the game for Xbox One or on Steam right now.

One of the cool feature of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the buddy system. Unlike previous MGS in the series where you are to fight out on the battlefield alone, MGS5 TPP allows you to bring in one of your buddy to the field. To find out the best buddy for fellow GameTraders, we played over 60 hours of gameplay using a mix of different buddies and equipments to evaluate each buddy’s abilities.

D-Horse

In the beginning, your only buddy is D-Horse, which acts as a transportation tool more than anything else. While D-Horse is definitely useful in the earlier part of the game to travel across the vast land of Afghanistan, it does very little with respect to combat. Yes sure, you can get it to poo and it’s dropping will cause enemy vehicle to skid. However, that will require good timing and placing of the dropping. So far, I did not manage to do it even once. Either the dropping is placed off course or no vehicle is going through after D-Horse empty his bowel.

Once you start to use other buddy and not D-Horse, you may miss it especially when you need to run another 1000m to your next mission or checkpoint.

D-Dog

This little puppy that you have ‘fulton-ed’ earlier on in the game, grows up to be a ferocious dog (or wolf). D-Dog has many abilities that can be unlock with R&D. It can kill, stun, bark and even fulton enemy for you without expending your fulton. Also D-Dog can sniff out enemies, wild lives and plants and mark it conveniently on your map.

Personally, I don’t really find the bark ability useful in the field. Many times, D-Dog stays close to your side. If you command it to bark, it will only attract unnecessary attention to your hiding spot. You can ask D-Dog to wait first at your spot then move on to a new spot before asking it to bark. However, it is too tedious for me to manage a buddy like that.

Also, at any one sortie, D-Dog can only be equip with a single ability from the selection of kill, stun and fulton. So if you want the unlimited fulton ability of D-Dog, it cannot kill or stun enemy.

D-Walker

D-Walker has tons of R&D that you can buy to upgrade this machine. While it is rather costly, with enough investment D-Walker can be quite a killer machine to bring out for mission. We don’t suggest using D-Walker for stealth mission, but it maybe useful for missions where firepower is needed. Do note that in the earlier stage when you first get D-Walker, it is not advisable to bring it out to field just yet. You will need a number of upgrades before it is deem combat ready.

The good things about D-Walker is that no bonding is needed. Also, it can be used as a sentry gun with its intercept mode. In the video above, we see how this player uses D-Walker well using its intercept mode.

Quiet

For some people, you may never get Quiet to be on your team. In main ops 11, after defeating Quiet, you can choose to kill her or to capture her. Killing her will mean that she will not appear any more in the later part of the game.

Quiet has two modes of operation, the scout mode and the attack mode. Both can be access from the iDroid. In scout mode, Quiet will infiltrate an outpost that you specify on the map and marked out enemies for you. Quiet will then move into attack mode once all enemies have been marked. She will not fire unless you give her command to.

Quiet’s bonding takes time to build. Initially, with low bonding, she will not listen to you at all and that can be hard for your mission. But after your bond has max out or reach 50%, she will be a very valuable asset to you. To bond with her, you can visit her frequently on the medical platform other than bringing her out to the field.

For me, I would usually sent quiet out to scout out an outpost of base I am heading too. Her super human speed makes sure that she is always ahead of me. So before even reaching my destination, all the enemies are marked out nicely for me. Once you unlock the tranquilliser sniper rifle, you can essentially command her to take out the whole base of enemy while you fulton them away happily.

Quiet can get injured and will be place in the sick bay if her health has reduced to zero. To prevent that, whenever her sniping spot is compromised (you will know this when the enemy starts shooting at her or radio back to HQ that they spotted a sniper), select a new attack spot for her from your iDroid. If you get the silencer for her rifle eventually, the enemy will have a much tougher time finding her.

SPOILER ALERT:

Quiet will leave you permanently  (*soob soob*) starting from main ops 43. The easiest way to prevent this is to equip butterfly emblem before mission 41.

END SPOILER

And the award goes to …

Quiet! I mean Quiet ….shh……

Quiet is the most versatile and easy-to-manage buddy on the field. While D-Dog can mark enemies, so can Quiet. D-Walker is a bit too loud and clumsy for our liking although we love the fulton canon that can fulton even vehicle from a range.  D-Horse for us, is more of a transportation tool. Vehicles can be gotten easily on the field and can move as fast if not faster than D-Horse.

Quiet allows us to be super stealthy in our mission. At times, we even reached a outpost with all enemy tranquillised ready for us to fulton away! However, you would need a rather high bond with Quiet and the proper weapon with silencer for her before you can realise her full potential.

So that is our pick for Best Buddy Award MGS5 TPP. Although we think that Quiet is the best buddy for us, other buddies may better suit your gameplay. For us, we like stealth and fultoning people to mother base and Quiet is really helpful in that. Different buddies will require different tactics and way of playing..

Which is your best buddy? Let us know in the comments below.

For those with Kinect, Dance Central should be one of the title that you are familiar with. The first Dance Central was a breakthrough as it is the first full-body motion dancing game ever made. It leapfrogged this genre of game and shadowed its predecessor like Dance Dance Revolution.

However, the game wasn’t really complete and it has received a number of complains from gamers. Among them includes the lack of two-players and online mode. Dance Central 2 attempts to address some of those issues.

After playing Dance Central 2 for a week plus, we have decided to give it a GT score of 8.5. To cut the chase, let us drill down to the 2 major reasons on why you should buy this game.

Two-players mode

What makes Rock Band popular? It is the ability to play with your friends and participating together in the game. This is exactly what Dance Central 1 lacks in.

With Dance Central 2, up to two players can now dance together in front of your Kinect. So is this really that good? Well based on our experience, with two players tangoing, you really need alot more space. So those with tight space constraint, you might not get to enjoy the two-player mode as much. Remember the epic ‘Father-smacks-daughter-while-playing-Kinect’ video? You can expect to see more of such videos in time to come!

Overall, the experience is still great. Having to play with your family or friends together makes it easier to break the ice and get you on the dance floor. Also it makes the second player look less stupid as he is now actually playing unlike in DC1.

Break it Down

We have tried Michael Jackson: The Experience before and we notice the stark difference between how this game teaches you how to dance VS Dance Central. Already Dance Central was a clear winner. However, in Dance Central 2, the developers took great pain to make it even easier for noobs dancer like us to learn how to dance.

Firstly, voice command. Players can now choose to skip or go back to the previous move easily with voice command. Surprisingly, Xbox understand our Singlish accent better than Apple’s Siri. You can also slow down, speed up and even take a video footage of yourself!

Based on our experience, learning the dance is really simpler! Although it may be better if they can allow us to see different views of the dancer. After all, it is a 3D avatar right? Can’t we just rotate them and get a better view for certain dance step?

Conclusion

The songs collection, the improved Break It Down mode and the two-player mode is what makes this game stands out . What we feel lacking is still the ability to play online. Nonetheless, we still recommend this game as one of the must-get for Xbox 360.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 Promises so much yet delivers so little (Much like Arsenal FC)

It Has been 4 years since the last Test Drive which was an interesting step towards a new genre, the MMO Driving simulator. It was certainly a breath of fresh air into an over saturated driving genre. The big question from fans and interested buyers alike was whether they could provide a better experience and not fall into the category of a bad sequel.

And in some ways it does. A car list ranging from old Lotuses to THE Bugatti Veyron and even Range Rovers Provides great diversity in terms of cars to drive around the huge island of Ibiza. And boy is it huge. The satisfaction of getting the money to buy one of the many premium car brands (Audi, Lexus, Mercedes, Ferrari) is increased when you cruise along Ibiza’s wide highways with the sun shining off your gleaming car.

The developers, Lyon’s Eden Games have realized that driving for miles to reach a clothing shop may not appeal to all (especially those who drive to work during rush hour in real life, MORE DRIVING??!! NOOOOOOO!!!!). Thus they have introduced a scoring system where you get cash for close-shaves, jumps and speed. Sadly you soon come to realize that earning money this way is not the most efficient way as rarely do you get more than a 1000 dollars at a time.

Therefore it is good that the game never leaves you alone, NPCs call you frequently to inform you of various events that you can and should participate in the advance your level. The GPS in the game is better than some in real life and this makes for a pleasant gaming experience.

As with any MMO, 2 things matter; Leveling up, and Cash. Thankfully TDU 2 makes both easy to start with and harder as the game goes on.

You can level up in 4 categories:

• Competition (racing, completing challenges)
• Social (making friends in the game, race against other people, joining clubs)
• Discovery (discover all roads, take photographs of specific locations, find all car wrecks)
• Collection (buy cars, houses, furniture, clothing/basic needs)

Cash can be obtained through the earlier mentioned method or through races. Cash is used for buying funky and cool clothes (Admittedly i did not change from my Valet Driver uniform which you start with), Houses ranging from your dingy 1-rooms to sprawling mansions LKY would live in and of course cars which cost like real life too meaning the MMO grind is well and truly alive in this game.

The multiplayer aspect of the game has a couple of good ideas, Players are able to create their own challenges for other players to attempt to win the prize. You can also rate the challenge afterward which prevents cheaters who create impossible challenges. You may also challenge any player you see on the roads with a flash of your headlights, an idea Apple themselves would be proud of. Voice chat is also available for trash talking.

The sound in this game is good but not amazing, the roars from the more expensive cars feel somewhat hollow.

Now at this point, you may be already opening up another tab on your browser to look for TDU 2 on Gametrader.SG, but hold on to your horses or horsepowers (bad joke) as with anything in this world its not perfect, not even near perfect.

The graphics appear to not have changed from the first TDU and the setting of the Tropical Island of Ibiza seems to be an effort to  .

What is, is the poorly done cut-scenes which pale in comparison to efforts by Rockstar, and even Quantic Dream( Heavy Rain). Where these companies have cut-scenes which are realistic and emotional, TDU2 is cut-off and aloof. And this is bad because the point of the game is to dump the player into a realistic moving world where you can live out your real life car fantasies. sadly the Bad voice acting jarred the experience.

This also applies to the main story where you are in a racing competition. There was huge potential for something like F1 2010 where the were press conferences and commentary. All you get from this game is “So and So are fighting again” or “What an important race this is” over and over again. Of course its important! I don’t think the viewers, whoever they may be, need to be told this.

While the multiplayer in theory sounds like a great idea, it is limited due to server issues much like a car would be limited if the engine keeps breaking down. Issues with connection to servers, entering the casino, and redeeming DLCs make the bulk of the problem. Thankfully most of the bugs and glitches have been sorted out.

The handling also suffers with no clear difference between the Guided and Sport options, with a controller the handling is jerky and not accurate, this game is best played with a wheel.

What is worse is the lousy radio which plays Top 100 Worst hits EVER on every station you choose

In total this game should last you from 5 mins to 60 hours depending on whether you Rage-quit due to:

1. Lousy Starting Scene
2. Only 1 Asian Character option
3. Poor Voice acting
4. Poor Graphics
5. Jerky Handling
6. The Grind to get better cars
7. Getting thrashed by the Buggati Veyron Super Sport (a pre-order DLC)
8. Trouble connecting to Online Servers
9. Corrupted save due to bug
10. Smashing of Speaker system due to terrible soundtrack

Final Verdict:

• Graphics : 6.5/10
• Sound : 7/10
• Gameplay : 8/10
• Multiplayer : 7.8/10
• Longevity : 4-8/10

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is close to gaming perfection just based on its gameplay, and large amount of great ideas but it doesn’t have ruins it. ( Much like Arsenal and their lack of a good back 4 😉 )

I’ve recently managed to get my hands on the PlayStation Move and decided to write a review on it.

I’ve bought the bundle with Sports Champions and subsequently bought the other Move games as well. Comparing with the Wii, PlayStation Move has definitely much better graphics, basically a Wii HD. The accuracy of the Move controller is much better compared to that of Wii. As far I am concerned, you do need two Move controllers to completely enjoy the experience while playing Sports Champions. Although you don’t really need the navigator controller until the really good games come out next year.

Sports Champions
For Sports Champions, you get a couple of mini games such as table tennis and gladiator dueling. For the table tennis and archery mini games, the Move controllers work extremely well and you actually feel like you are doing exactly what is on the screen. As for the the other games like beach volleyball and gladiator dueling, it didn’t feel like you are doing the motions as you don’t move with your body besides your hands. During the gladiator dueling , the move controller also doesn’t capture your motions correctly.

Start the Party!
Start the Party is just like the Wii’s Mario Party, a party game. Playing by yourself is extremely boring although there could be some games that make you giggle or two. Playing your with your friends, however, is a totally different experience. You are given some tasks to do within a time limit and you are rack up as much points as you can. As I’ve said, playing with your friends is extremely fun and you would be constantly be laughing at your friends failing the tasks or failing to beat your score. Although it is fun playing with your friends though, there is very little games to play with and if you are playing with a group of four to five, the fun only lasts for a moment. To truly stretch the playability you would probably have to play with your whole gang of friend in a chalet.

Time Crisis Razing Storm
If you frequent the arcades alot you probably recognize the name Time Crisis and Razing Storm. The game disc includes those 2 games and an extra called DeadStorm Pirates, making it 3 games in 1 disc. To fully enjoy the game you do need to gun attachment for the move OR if you have a guncon, you could use that.All 3 games are basically what you would expect from the arcade, the experience is however dampened by the fact that you could revive each time you die without putting in money like in arcade which kind of ruins the challenge. Apart from that the games are pretty decent but i personally think that DeadStorm Pirates should had been the main game as it was way better than the other 2. The gun attachment for the move works perfectly and functions exactly like the same guns in the arcade and shooting people is ok as well as detection of where you point the move controller is working. Overall its better to play with friends but do note the short campaign, you could easily finish the game in a day.

The Fight: Lights Out
This video game blew my mind away albeit in the wrong way. This fighting game is extremely mediocre and for the first time, the move controllers did not function the way I wanted it to function. You are taught by the guy from Machete, Danny Trejo, on how to fight, which is probably the cool thing about the game, but everytime you try to execute the moves he told you to do, it doesn’t work! Moving is clunky as well and hit detection is awful. It will let you lose weight for those who want to lose weight but I would advise you just go outside to exercise.

All in all,the games may be fun for a short time but after a while. you would probably just trade them away. If you want to buy the Move, I suggest you buy it in the middle of next year where many of the most anticipated games and new hardware for the move will come out. Below is one of the games that will use the move plus a picture showing the new gun attachment.