Fracture

Prepare to walk the walk, MechWarrior.
The Inner Sphere's long-awaited counterattack against the vicious Clan Smoke Jaguar rages on, but the enemy isn't willing to lie down and die. On a world with the ironic name of Tranquil, one of the last ranking Smoke Jaguar star colonels is preparing a bastion for his clan to lick its wounds and prepare its vengeance. Your mission: conduct a high-impact commando raid on Tranquil and destroy its usefulness as a base of operations before the enemy has a chance to dig in.

The tricky part is, MechWarrior, that the Jaguars know they're beaten and, honorable or not, they're going to try everything to see that they get their shot at vengeance against the Inner Sphere. You can bet they're going to start with the closest target--you.

Relive the epic story of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and recreate the kung-fu fury from the famed martial-arts masterpiece for the very first time! Unleash a variety of fighting techniques, weapons, stunts, and superhuman moves against brutally gifted enemies to master the art of Wudan-style fighting, inspired by renowned choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping. Green Destiny beckons you. Rediscover the legend.

With Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, the epic story continues as players once again assume the role of the devastatingly powerful Starkiller - Darth Vader's secret apprentice set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

The design document for Azurik, the first role-playing game released on the Xbox game system, must have read like a recipe: take all the ingredients of a good console RPG (third-person view, tons of combat, a freaky little world to adventure in, and a world-threatening evil to defeat), mix in the role-playing stock of Zelda with the spicy action of Soul Reaver 2, and you get Azurik. But, while this game has all the elements to satisfy the hunger of Xbox role players, it comes off as somewhat half-baked.
The denizens of the planet Perathia are blue-skinned and wear what looks like Aztec warrior garb. To be sure, this is a strange game with an offbeat story line that pits the young warrior Azurik against an enemy who, through a massive battle, has shattered the elements that power the world into tiny gems. Azurik must quest for these gems, fighting evil creatures with his massive two-bladed axe-staff and solving puzzles to achieve his objective and restore the world. The gems represent earth, air, fire, and water; the game's massive and generally well-designed levels follow that theme as well.

The graphics are up to the task and often impress. Specifically the monsters and the game's sense of scale: rooms and some of the boss monsters are enormous. The special effects are good, particularly the weapon effects, but this is also the first Xbox game to feature some minor graphics glitches that indicate the game wasn't as polished as you'd expect from the company that also brought you the console.

The real problems with Azurik involve the unresponsive controls, which suffer from a tiny but noticeable amount of lag. Azurik looks cool while swinging his weapon, but you'll never feel in complete control. Since combat is 90 percent of this game, poor combat control is a serious flaw. Also the controls aren't customizable at all. You'd think with the hard drive space they could easily offer this option, but instead you're stuck with the default controls: A for jab, B for a sweep attack, and Y for jump. The trigger is used for special magical attacks involving the gems you'll pick up.

Azurik isn't a bad game, but it's a shame that its main flaws (control and options) are due to problems that could have been corrected with a little more development time