New Super Mario Brothers

Date Acquired: 11.14.2009

Date Completed: 12.30.2010

Thoughts: I could have completed this game a year ago, but It has always been my impression that this is a game built for multiplayer and that I needed to beat it in multiplayer. So I saved it for irregular co-op sessions, often with different people, forcing me to start at the begining again and again for them. Not a chore, the game's a ton of fun, especially in co-op. I was in no hurry to burn through it.

How does this game compare to SMB 1-3? That's hard to answer. It may technically be a better game, and certainly is light years better graphically, but SMB 1-3 and Super Mario World are legends, established in gaming's infancy. I'm not sure any new game could live up, particularily for someone who grew up on the original games. A young gamer, being introduced to all at the same time might like this one better, but for me, Nintendo was smart not to try to pass this off as Super Mario Brothers 4. There should never be a Super Mario Brothers 4. I won't sink countless hours into this game, playing it over and over again by myself, looking for hidden pathways and warp whistles, but that may speak just as much to my own different place in life as to this game's quality.

Pros: The Co-Op, obviously is the biggest draw to this game. Nintendo had co-op in the very first Mario Brothers game, but in all games after that, 2 players had to take turns through the game, if a 2 player option was even offered at all. So this represented both a welcome change for the series and a return to it's roots. The co-op is crazy fun. Insane. It's impossible not to play through this game laughing when you have 3 other people playing with you. It's pure chaos with 4 players all trying to jump to the same platform, and often jumping on other player's heads, which propells them further up into the air, and their unfortunate platform falls into the abyss. It is very, very easy to kill your fellow players in this game. Fortunately the game offers the bubble save. If you are about to fall to your death, be it because another player is advancing the screen too quickly, or through your own mis-jump, you have the option to go into a bubble at any point in the game by pushing the A button on the wiimote. Doing this will keep you from harm and you float around until another player pops you. Now if all the players go into a bubble (which happens a LOT), the level is exited and you have to start again, sans any power ups you may have had at the time, but not at the cost of any lives. This aspect saves the experience from becoming very frustrating and instead adds a lot of fun to the game.

Cons: My one big regret for this game is that there's no online co-op. The game is built around, and best experienced in co-op, and no online option was added. That was a crushing dissapointment to me. I dont' know what the reasoning for leaving it out was, it took 24 years for Nintendo to put co-op in a Super Mario Brothers game, so maybe in another 24 years they'll add online.

Another big annoyance was the controller. The Wiimote simply isn't suited for intense side-scrolling platforming. The placement of the A Button is too close to the arrow pad. It is way too easy to accidentally go into a bubble when you're only trying to move right, and get away, which leads to a lot of accidental level exits.

Outside of the multi-player, the game doesn't tread a lot of new ground. Most of the stuff in the game are things you've seen many times before in Mario titles. The largest surge of creativity is saved for the last fight with Bowser, which is both an homage to the past, and something new and different. The lack of new territory isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a bit disappointing.

Conclusion: While it may not live up to the NES original games, this is a very good game in it's own right, and if you have people to play with regularly, then it's a must-own. Without that, it's likely in the same boat as the DS New Super Mario Brothers, a game I haven't touched since I completed it years ago. It stands up as a single player experience very well, but the multi-player aspect is what compels replays.

Mega Man 10

Date Acquired: 9.05.2010

Date Completed: 12.30.2010

Thoughts: Two years ago, Capcom surprised people by releasing a brand new 8 bit Mega Man game. The game was a throwback in all ways, complete with controller-smashing difficulty and critical praise. Two years later, Capcom surprises nobody by repeating themselves. This time around the biggest buzz is the fact that one of the 8 robot bosses is named sheep man, a baffling decision considering the character's power is electricity and he basically already looks like a big cloud.

I never played Mega Man 9. Well, I played the demo and couldn't beat the demo level. Also the game has NEVER gone on sale since the day it released. MM10 on the other hand has had 2 price drops this year alone. The Mega Man games aren't something you need to play in order to appreciate them, so I jumped right into 10. The only thing out of the status quo is that Dr Wiley is now a respected member of society, helping mankind. A plot device that obviously doesn't make it through the opening credits. Wiley releases a virus that only affects robots (such as Mega Man) called robofluenza and the plot only goes downhill from there. Fortunately nobody plays Mega Man games for the plot. They play them, well, nowadays they play them for nostalgia and/or masochism. I fall on the nostalgia side. The masochism is a bonus.

Pros: I believe I already mentioned the nostalgia? Mega Man was one of my absolute favorite games on the NES, with MM 3 being my all time favorite even today.

The Easy mode has to rate as a pro as well. It's a good option for people who get frustrated with the game and want to dial it down a bit and relax. Am I speaking from personal experience?

The level design was creative. I enjoyed both the nods to older games, and the new ideas.

Cons: Why did they take away the slide? I loved that thing. Mastery of that move made it easier to miss certain attacks but was tricky enough to reinforce the game's hard core pedigree.

The plot was silly and the bosses fairly uninspired, minor quibbles of course.

Conclusion: Nothing can compete with Nostalgia. It doesn't really matter how good this game is, I can't go back to my childhood and compare it to Megaman 1-3. I don't really believe this game is as good as the original Mega Mans, but I acknowledge that my opinion is biased. It's a fun game still, and mercilessly difficult, but it's best value is as a novelty to older gamers who occasionally miss times gone by.

Red Dead Redemption

Date Acquired: 5.17.2010

Date Completed: 12.16.2010

Thoughts: I was looking forward to this game with great anticipation well over a year before it finally released. I loved the concept of a game set in the old west, along with the Rock Star Studios pedigree, I just couldn't wait. Then, early this year, word came of bad work conditions and poor morale from the San Diego studios while they were finishing up on this game. It was the kind of stuff thate could lead one to believe that the game wasn't going to get the polish it deserves and needs. Thankfully, those concerns proved unfounded and Red Dead Redemption is a certified hit.

I spent a long portion of the game trying to work out my feelings for it. It's VERY similar to the GTA games, similar to a fault, according to its critics. It's an open world sandbox where you accept missions to advance the plot. And just like GTA there'sa ton of side missions and optional activities you can spend hours doing that don't advance the plot at all. There's not a ton of variety to the missions. Mainly go here, go there, shoot till they're dead. But there are other types completely alien to GTA such as cattle rustling missions, duels, and lasoing and then breaking wild horses. I adored GTA4 and early on, I didn't feel like Red Dead measured up favorably. Riding horses might be an interesting novelty, but it doesn't compare to jacking a lamborghini and driving it off a building.

The game evolves though, and does a good job seperating itself from GTA. I liked the story a lot more than I have the GTA stories. There are a lot of nice touches. Hunting is great in the begining, and a welcome concept. Thanks to auto-targeting, it's not the most difficult activity, but it's nice riding along gorgeous outdoor environments and seeing the animals living there, and having the option to hunt or lasso them.

The Western element is captured very well in this game, and it probably helps to have seen a lot of old Western movies. Hell, I saw Tru Gritt yesterday, and there were several scenes that reminded me of RDR. I watched a couple of the Clint Eastwood Dollar movies while playing this and could see a direct influence.

Pros: John Marston himself comes immediately to mind. By far the most likeable of Rockstar's protagonists. I thought GTA4's Niko was a douchebag, but I like Marston. He does have a dark past, but he's beyond that now. He fights only to save his family. He has a wife whom he loves, which means no laying with prostitues for him.

The ending was a huge plus for me as well. The last 10 or so missions, the game ramps up to a whole new level, and I loved it. A very original direction and it worked well. Though I will admit to having to check Gamefaqs to be sure I did everything correctly.

This game has maybe the best acheivement I've ever seen, it's called 'Dastardly'. To get it, you have to lasso a girl and then hogtie her, carry her over to the railroad tracks and wait for a train to run her over. Genius.

Really a lot went right here. The graphics were gorgeous, the charactorizations of all the characters, main and supporting were great. The mood of the game, the pace and story and uniqueness. It all added up to make a fantastic game.

Cons: For some reason, there's only 3 save slots. I like to use a ton of these, and there's one very specific point in the game I want to keep a before and after save, which limits me to only one other save option. This isn't normal GTA procedure, not sure why Rockstar limited me like this.

I was also a little dissapointed in the time period the game is set in. It's set in the early 1900's. There are movie theaters for god's sakes. I would have preferred the game to be set during the California gold Rush period. It seems like a lot could have been done with this, including Indian wars and interactions.

To Do: There is some DLC I have to get back to, specifically the Undead pack, which looks to be a lot of fun, and there may be a few acheivements I have to make a run at before I'm done for good.

Conclusion: If you're someone who doesn't like the GTA games, I'd think long and hard before getting this game, depending on what your reason for not liking it is. If you're burnt out on those games, maybe wait a bit before picking it up, but definately pick it up.

Dead Rising 2

Date Acquired: 11.13.2010

Date Completed: 11.25.2010

Thoughts: This game wasn't on my radar too much. I played the original, and to be honest, my brain didn't know what to do with it. I see that now. It didn't follow many of the conventions I have come to expect from a video game. For starters, you're not supposed to beat the game. Not right away anyway. You're supposed to play through a little bit, level up your character, get overwhelmed and die, then you can start a new game with that same leveled up character to make getting through the game easier. The Time limit really frustrated me at first. I like taking my time and doing everything I want to do in the game I paid for, but that isn't allowed here. There's plenty of time to finish the game, but it's very difficult to finish the game 100%- ie rescuing every civilian and killing every psycho. I definitely didn't realize in my play through the first game that the psychos and civilian rescues are all optional. You can do them for more points to level up faster, but no big deal if you don't, just do the main story stuff.

As I said, this game wasn't on my radar, I wasn't going to buy it. So what changed my mind? An ingenious marketing tool called Dead Rising: Case Zero. In lieu of releasing a DR2 demo, Capcom released Case Zero- a $5 prequel chapter to the events of DR2. Now before you complain that I am praising Capcom for tricking me into buying a demo, there WAS a demo for Case Zero, and the gameplay is the same in both games, it really is just a missing chapter from DR2. Anyway I DL'd the demo, played it, decided it was worth my $5 and finished the prequel 100%- got all 200 achievement points. I really enjoyed it and got addicted to it, so I knew I would need to get DR2.

Pros: Well, to start off, there's Case Zero. It was handled very well, and I liked the fact that I could import my leveled up character from Case Zero into DR2 proper. Sadly CZ caps you out at level 5, but it was better than nothing. In the original Dead Rising, the gameplay is supplemented with possibly the most annoying gameplay mechanic ever- taking pictures. You could take pictures of different events and characters to earn more experience points and level up faster. That's gone in this game, new character Chuck Green is a mechanic, not a photographer, so you get extra experience points by taking the existing weapons and combining them into new weapons. Have a boat oar and a chainsaw? Duct tape them together to create the mighty paddlesaw. A Bucket and some drills combine into a drill helmet you can put on the heads of zombies, and by far the most used weapon is a handfull of nails and a wooden baseball bat that become the spiked bat. My personal favorite though, was a pair of boxing gloves and some knives could be combined into knife gloves where you could embrace your inner wolverine and tear shit up.

The game just feels so much more polished than the original Dead Rising. I can read the text on the screens now. The survivors are generally good at not running into shit and getting stuck on the environment. The characters were done well also. The voice acting was very good, and the psychos....man some of them were very creepy and disturbed. These fights were usually pretty hard, but they are optional and you can save them for a later playthrough when you've leveled up more and can take them on. The game is still saved in bathrooms you have to find throughout the malls, but now you get 3 save slots, so you aren't stuck with a bad decision. (Also good for going back to an earlier period for achievements) The achievements in this game are handled pretty well also. There are only 2 story-related achievements. Everything else is optional (though a few would be tough to beat the game without winning) Every Achievement is worth exactly the same: 20 points.

The option of Co-op is nice also. A new player can play with an experienced player, and learn the layout of the land, and level himself up quickly, then import that character into his new game.

Cons: While the idea of Co-op is nice, it's not handled in the best way. Whenever I save the game, as the host, it kicks the guy I'm playing with out and i have to re-invite him. Considering there are achievements for beating the whole game on co-op, I don't see how this is possible because it seems to mean you would have to beat the whole game in one sitting without ever saving, which would be very difficult and not a lot of fun.

While I get the idea behind the time limit, I'm still not crazy about it, and I don't understand why I can't unlock a new mode after finishing the game that turns off the timer? This seems like a nice compromise and would give me incentive to play through the game a 2nd time and kill every psycho and rescue every hostage.

To Do: Not right away, but eventually will have to replay some of the game on co-op to go hunting for a few achievements I don't have yet like killing all the psychos, probably a lot easier on c0-op.

Conclusion: This game was a very pleasant surprise. It went from being a game I expected to buy in a year or two after a heavy discount to legitimately one of my favorite games of the year.

Halo Reach

Date Acquired: 9.15.2010

Date Completed: 9.17.2010

Thoughts: Wait, I beat this thing in 2 days over 2 months ago and I'm just now posting my thoughts? Well....yeah. I beat the game initially on normal on one playthrough via 4 player online coop. Not a lot of challenge, and really not a great way to experience the game. I didn't create a lot of lasting memories except for getting 'accidentally' team killed by my buddy and finding out that I was allowed to boot him out of the game. That was good times. After beating it, I played around with the single player on legendary which is slow going. For whatever reason over a month went by before I could finally get my friends to all sit down and play multiplayer with me. Halo isn't like Call of Duty for me, the online mode is very important and it's the reason it's an automatic purchase. If the game was strictly single-player I'd have rented it and been done with it, but it's multi player has been a huge draw for me in it's last 3 iterations, and thus it earns an insta-purchase.

Pros: Firefight. Yes, there was firefight before in ODST, but it was very bare-bones, something I complained about in my ODST thoughts. You had no control over anything in those modes. Enemies, weapons, skulls turned on, nothing. (Skulls represent adverse effects that make the game harder such as making the enemies throw more grenades, taking away your map, getting less ammo from weapon drops, etc) You just had to play through the same mode every time with no way to customize it. Thankfully Bungie has retooled this feature with a vengeance. It starts with 2 separate firefight modes: Classic- the old version where you had a set number of lives and fought till you were dead (but you can now customize weapons, enemies, skulls, etc) and the new mode where you're just trying to get through one wave before the half hour timer expires, which is actually pretty difficult. On top of this there are different variations of firefight such as rocketfight which is awesome, everyone gets unlimited rockets to rain down on the covenant. You will kill yourself many many times, and you won't care, and sniper fight: Wave after wave of enemy and you only get sniper rifles? Eh, not as fun.

Adding onto this is the new ranking system represented by commendations. This is a deep and addictive mode in and of itself. Seemingly everything you do is recorded and goes towards earning you a commendation. There are 5 different levels: Iron, Bronze, Sliver, Gold and Onyx. Did you get a multi kill? That's a commendation. A Head shot? Commendation. Did you assassinate a member of the covenant? Commendation. Did you kill a member of the covenant while your teammate was in the middle of the assassination animation, cheating him out of the assassination? (Jon, I am looking at you) Even that qualifies towards a commendation. And there are commendations for each of the game's 3 main modes: Campaign, Multiplayer and Firefight. Getting these commendations and kills in general earn you credits that can be used to buy new armor for your character. The armor doesn't do any thing, it's purely cosmetic, but hey you get to differentiate yourself from the other players.

Cons: There's not a lot not to like here to be honest, but if I'm picking something to pick on, it's probably the campaign mode. It's not terrible, but it's not a giant improvement over what we've seen before. It's better than ODST's Campaign, but that's not saying much. I am not sure it's better than the campaign mode in any of the first 3 Halos, I'd definitely take the first 2 over this, and don't really remember 3 well enough to decide. That's not really a slight, those were all fantastic games, and this still has a good single player campaign, but it's not the star of the Halo Reach Experience

To Do: I sit at 510 achievements at the moment, I have a few more that will unlock for sure after I finish the game on legendary. This will continue to get a lot of play time in the months to come on game nights with my friends, but probably won't be in my XBox when we're not playing together.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Date Acquired: Rented 11/11/2010

Date Completed: 11/25/2010

Thoughts: While Activision releases a Call of Duty game every year, they don't overload one studio with this assignment, they divide the work between two studios, and allow them to make every other game. For years Inifity Ward has set the standard. The best-received and best-reviewed games in the series such as 1, 2, 4 and Modern Warfare 2 were all developed by them. The other games in the series: 3, World at War, and now Black Ops were made by Treyarch. Their first offering, Call of Duty 3 was not met with much acclaim, but they have bettered themselves with each sequal, and review-score-wise, Black Ops is their best work to date. I never played 3, and I barelyl played World at War, so I can't really judge those games. I did play Modern Warfare 1 and 2 extensively, and if I'm being honest, Black Ops still falls way short.

I am, and remain primarily a single player guy. If I play a game in muliplayer it's always with friends and usually co-op, so when I review a Call of Duty game, I'm just playing it for the single player. Black Ops is like a ride at Disney Land. It feels very staged, the action pops up as you walk near it. It's in no way a sandbox with a whole world to walk around like you can in Halo. It feels like you're on rails. It strives to present a movie experience, but it offers a plot that I don't care much about that is supposed to be compelling me to play the game. The game has it's moments, and it got my heart pumping a few times, but when the dust settled and I had finished the game, I was done. With Modern warfare 1 I went back through some of the game on the hardest difficulty setting. With MW2, I finished the game on the hardest setting, I was really into it. But with Black Ops, I didn't even want to go back and try to get achievements I missed. I just had no desire to play it any more.

For some reason, Treyarch introduced Zombies to the game with World at War, and they're back in Black Ops. You can play a zombie mission from the begining, and when you beat the game it drops you straight into a new zombie mission you've apparently just unlocked. You're playing as John F Kennedy and the whitehouse is overrun by zombies. Unusual doesn't begin to describe it. I played through it a few times, never getting very far annd eventually lost interest.

Pros: The game clearly has high production values. A lot of time, money and effort was put into making thig thing and it shows. It's polished. There are a lot of 'holy shit' moments in the game and I did find myself smiling at a lot of the ideas they put into it. Also since the game is set in the cold war era, you're not fighting with blunderbusses and bayonets here, you get pretty modern weaponry. One of my guns even had the red dot laser site, I had guided missiles.

Cons: The game just felt shallow to me. It wasn't compelling to play through or to come back for. Now for these games, the multiplayer is king, and it's what gets people coming back again and again, but Modern Warfare 2 I blew through in 2 days, then immediately went through again on veteran difficulty. That game compelled me. This game? Eh, it was a fun ride, I liked seeing what it had to offer, but I'm not ready to settle down. It was a solid rental.

To Do: I've already sent it back to gamefly, and canceled my membership. Ther e probably isn't much more of this game in my future. I finished with my pathetic 220 or so achievement points and move on to the next game.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

Date Acquired: Rented 10.28.10

Date Completed: 11.4.10

Thoughts: In what appears to be part of a 2 D retro-revival plan that started off with last year's New Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo has decided to release 2 new iterations of classic titles as 2 D co-op side scrollers with one game being aimed at the casual and younger gamers, and the other at the more hardcore. The forthcoming Donkey Kong Country Returns will be the hardcore platformer, tales of it's insidious difficulty are already filtering in. Insidious difficulty are not words one would ever use to describe Epic Yarn. The game was seemingly developed with the idea that anyone who wants to finish a video game should be able to. It's impossible to die in Kirby's Epic yarn. While we've seen this before to some extent in games like Prince of Persia where you can't fall to your death, in those games you could still die in combat. You can't die at all in Epic Yarn. You proceed through the game collecting jewels as you go. If you get hit by an enemy you lose most of your jeweles Sonic-style, but if you're quick you can get them all back. (Side note: That always used to annoy the hell out of me in Sonic, I'd have 150 rings, get hit, collect every ring that appeared after I was hit, which would bring my total up to...20? What the hell happened to my other 130 rings, Sega?!) The inability to die is most glaring during boss battles. They offer no challenge at all since you know you are going to win no matter what you do. At least in the stages leading up to the boss you encounter platforming, some fairly difficult at times. Invincibility doesn't help you when your enemy is gravity.

That's not to say there's no challenge at all in Kirby, or value to more experienced gamers. When I initially finished the game it said that I was at 55%. I of course went back and bumped that way up to a respectable 60. Each stage offers 3 treasure chests to find (reminding me or Wario World: Shake it! in this way) Every stage has 2 pieces of furniture and the sound track to that level hidden in those three chests. That's right, furniture. In Epic Yarn you maintaint an apartment for a NPC by furnishing it with the items you find throughout your quest, as well as those purchased from the store with the gems acquired in the levels. After completing each stage you are awarded a medal: gold, silver or bronze depending on how you did. While I could find no real consequences of getting a bronze vs a gold in the regular levels, the boss levels provide great incentive to finish with a high score. A Bronze medal gets you a piece of furniture, silver the sound track to the boss's level, and a gold score unlocks another level in the world you're playing in. Finishing that new level opens up a second level. So if you don't beat the boss with a high score, you are missing out on 2 levels per chapter. Pretty significant IMO.

Pros: Some of the individual worlds stood out. The Snow world mesmorized me. I know ice worlds are very cliche these days, but this one was done right. A Christmas theme was targeted here, the gems you have to collect are used as decorations on Christmas trees, the music is festive and Christmas-y. instead of turning into a car when you press the Right arrow twice as you do in every other world, Kirby turns into a sled. The Toy level would probably be my second favorite. Overall the game is inventive and unique.

Cons: While I enjoyed the game, it does very much seem aimed at younger gamers. No where is this more evident than the plot which moves along by a narratar reading a fairy tale, complete with providing the voices for all the characters himself. Much has been made of the graphical style, but in a post-Little Big Planet World, they didn't seem that out of the ordinary or remarkable to me.

Overall: A good, solid game. The co-op would probably add some fun to the game (though likely not as much as NSMB does since you get half as many players and nobody has to worry about dieing). Given the easy nature of the game, I personally wouldn't spend $50 on it, prefering to save that money for the forthcoming Donkey Kong Coutry Returns, but I did buy it for my sister for Christmas this year, so you get my money in the end as you always do, Nintendo.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Date Acquired: Rented on 10.9.2010

Date completed: 10.12.2010

Thoughts: A relatively recent addition to my gaming radar, my interest in Enslaved was boosted with the release of the fantastic demo last week.

Enslaved is the second game from Ninja Theory, the developers behind cult hit Heavenly Sword, and the studio that has been tapped to make Devil May Cry 5 it's next project.

In a lot of ways Enslaved reminds me of Prince of Persia 2008, thanks to it's unique graphical style, and the manner of platforming. The combat is not a lot deeper than Prince of Persia and this is a pretty easy game, as PoP was. It's also at least partially an escort game, which Pop really wasn't, despite having a female character follow you around, she got around on her own and only entered the game to help you. Such is not the case with Trip. You are often forced to not only figure out how to get yourself from point A to point B, but you also have to figure out how to get Trip there, and of course, it's usually two different paths.

Trip comes across as kind of a bitch in the beginning of the game. The game opens with both your character, the inanely, though accurately-named Monkey, trying to escape a crashing space ship. It's here that he encounters Trip, who is also trying to escape. Instead of helping each other, Trip keeps slamming doors in Monkey's face, and refusing to do anything to help him escape, instead trying to save herself and leaving Monkey to die. When the two of you finally do escape, Trip puts a slave collar on Monkey, forcing him to help her get home. Throwing Trip across chasms is the earliest form of revenge/satisfaction the game provides, but it's still and escort effect.

Pros: The acting, the characters and the story are all mesmerizing. Ninja Theory did a great job creating a world that was interesting and making characters that I care about. The game injects a lot of creativity and humor. At one point Trip dismisses a bunch of boxes as 'obsolete technology'. If you choose to examine the boxes further, you'll see they read '3D Televisions'. Later in the game, Trip, Monkey and the enormous Pigsy are crammed into an escape pod together, prompting Monkey to wryly comment 'at least I get to be inside this time', which made me laugh in itself, but the next part of that scene is hysterical. Boss battles were enjoyable and creative and varied. Games like this tend to give you the same boss fight over and over, but Enslaved does a good job of delivering enjoyable variety.

Cons: The game is very short, and doesn't seem to have a lot to offer as incentive to replay it. I finished the game 2 days before it was due back to Blockbuster, and I don't really see myself playing through it much more before I return it. The ending is interesting and unique, but a little disappointing from the perspective of resolving the story. It seems likely that the game will deliver the true ending via downloadable content in the future. It didn't end on a cliffhanger, but it didn't end with the sweeping resolution I hoped for. The game has it's glitches, and combat can be made much more frustrating because of these. Many times I would have to deal with slow response times where I would aim at one enemy, it would swing at another, so I would aim at that enemy, and then it would bounce me back to the last enemy, finally registering my command from the previous sequence. There's also not a lot of varietey to the combat. There's an upgrade system, you can use the orbs you collect to unlock things, but there's not a lot of things you can unlock that affect the combat.

Conclusion: I hemmed and hawed about what to do about this game. I knew I wanted to play it as soon as possible, but I also knew it would be short, and it seems like the kind of game to follow in Brutal Legend's steps, and will be in the bargain bin very quickly. I decided to rent it, betting that I could finish the game before I had to return it. I feel a bit guilty not giving the developers money for the game, I know this isn't going to sell well, but this was the best decision for me. I will buy the game eventually, when it is miring in the bargain bin and probably the PS3 edition, to double dip and get the trophies, again exactly as I did with Prince of Persia 2008 which I also rented initially. I liked the game a lot, and definitely think it's worth playing, but maybe just not spending $60 on. I would love a sequal, but strongly doubt that happens. The best we can likely hope for is Monkey appearing in Soul Caliber one day.

Resistance 2

Date Acquired: April 2010

Date Completed: 10.06.2010

Thoughts: I don't think you always have to start at the begining of a franchise. And if you think about it, most people don't. The best selling game of the modern era is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. That's not the most critically acclaimed Call of Duty, and it's not the first Call of Duty, it's the 6th (not counting spinoffs like 'Big Red One') So clearly people bought MW2 who didn't buy Call of Duty 4. The original Resistance got good review scores, but if you read the reviews, most of them weren't real enthusiastic about it. Also if you read the reviews of the sequal, they all say the game got a lot better, but the average scores are almost identical. 1up for instance wrote: "This sense of scale goes a long way toward making Resistance 2 a more cinematic, grandiose and vastly improved sequal" But it actually got a lower score from 1up than the original did. This is due largely to new-console bias (and a different reviewer). Launch games almost always get better scores than they deserve. The only exceptions I can think of are Halo and Super Mario 64. Perfect Dark 0 got good reviews and it's REVILED today. That's not to say Chris, that I let the reviews decide it for me. I downloaded the demo from PSN. It's one of the first things I did when I got my PS3. I HATED the demo. I thought it was generic and boring. Throw in no trophy support, and I decided to skip it. But I didn't want to give up on the franchise altogether. I like Insomniac, I've always liked the Ratchet and Clank games. And the reviews do all seem to indicte the sequal is vastly improved. There is no R2 demo on PSN (or at least there wasn't when I last checked 6 months ago or so) and R2 does have trophies. So when the game went Greatest Hits earlier this year, I bought it. I decided I shouldn't force myself to play a game I didn't want to play to play one I do. And I knew that I might never play R2 if I make myself play R1 first. So I skipped it.

Pros: Resistance 2 is a great game. It immediately reminds me of Gears of War. FPS, fighting aliens trying to take over the world, there's even a variation of the chainsaw-esque Lancer. Also it's fully playable via online co-op like Gears. Comparisons to Gears are always a good thing in my mind, so it's not surprising that I enjoyed the game. As they are in the Ratchet and Clank series, the guns are a highlight for me. Insomniac did a great job crafting weapons that are both fun to use, and creative, different than what you've seen in other games. Every gun is augmented via a secondary function accessed by pushing the R2 bumper. My favorite by far is the magnum. Not only does it unleash punishing pistol rounds, but R2 and the round then explodes. A great way to deal with a horde of enemies charging in a tight group, put one down with the magnum then detonate it and take down the surrounding aliens. The bullseye, probably the most common weapon in the game is cool too, if you push the R2 bumper it fires a tracking beam so all of your shots home in on that alien until it's dead. The game feels epic too, it continuously throws huge enemies at you and many times I would groan and say 'they aren't giving me the ammo I need to deal with these'. And then I'd deal with them. One enemy that I had a love/hate relationship were these large predator ripoffs that ran through the jungle invisbly. You typically wouldn't know one was there until right before it reached you and it deals a one hit kill. This was frustrating at times and did result in some trial and error gameplay ('oh, I can't run here, I have to stay and wait for these monsters') but other times it was cool, particularily in the water when you would hear and see the water start moving towards you. That was enough notice and a cool effect. I found the story interesting and loved the ending. I can't wait to see what happens in R3.

Cons: At times I couldn't figure out what the point of having squadmates was. You have teammates at your side for basically the entire game, and sometimes they would be helpful, but more often I would watch enemies run right past them while they stand there and do nothing, and the enemy goes after me. Also the ammo situation was strange. Every gun you pick up is completely full, even though it's often dropped by an enemy who was you know, just using it. But the weird thing is that if you were equipped with the gun and then walked over the same gun, you would only pick up a small amount of ammo, maybe 30 rounds. I found myself running out of ammo, then dropping the gun for a different gun I didn't want, then walking over to one of the original guns I was just holding laying on the ground, and then I'd get a full clip. It didn't make a lot of sense the way it was handeled.

Conclusion: After finishing R2 I decided I had probably misjudged the original R1, I couldn't believe I was so off in my assessment of R1 but loved R2. So I played the R1 demo again (still loaded on my harddrive). Now I would expect after just finishing the sequal that I would tear through the demo like a god, experienced as I am with the control scheme. But no, R2 received a complete control-setting overhaul. Other than shoot, none of the other buttons did the same thing. Scope, melee, reload, they were all different, and I kept messing up. Also the health system was completely overhauled, in the original game you don't regenerate all of your health back. Your health bar is broken up into quarters and you only regenerate your health up to the nearest quarter, but never above that. It's just a demo, but the characters didn't seem to have any personality from what I played, and I stand by my initial assesment that the game is generic. I thought about getting R1 and plaything through it with a friend via online co-op, but no, that too is a feature new to the 2nd game. I may still buy Resistance given how cheap it is and try it, but I'm in no hurry to do so, and I stand by my decision to skip to the superior sequal.

Alan Wake

Date Acquired: 9.4.2010

Date Completed: 9.25.2010

Thoughts: I kind of ignored this game when it first came out. Judging by the sales figures I am far from alone. I had recently played through Heavy Rain, (a game I thought was kind of the PS3 couterpart of this game) and it launched the same day as Red Dead Redemption. In retrospect, this was probably a poor decision for this game, as RDR had incredible sales and topped the sales charts for weeks. Microsoft would have been far better off releasing this 3 weeks early, or delaying it two months, but instead they took on Red Dead and lost. Then all of a sudden in August, I started getting a strong urge to play this game. I'm not sure where it came from, but I just really wanted to play it. So I finally sucumbed and picked it up shortly after finishing Wario Land.

I almost didn't finish this game. Not because I wanted to stop, but because I already have 3-4 games in the can for September, and was thinking I could hold out and make this my October game so I'd have one. I was seriously considering this, until I thought about why I'm doing this list. The whole point (and it's been very succesful) is to get me to finish games. Delaying finishing a game I otherwise would finish sooner is the antithesis of the whole list. So I couldn't do it. Plus I really wanted to finish the game, this game rocks.

Pros: There's a lot to like about this game. It starts out with a unique story that does a good job of piquing the player's interest. It supports the story telling with excellent voice acting. The mood is fantastic, it uses a creative episode format that makes it seem like you're playing a weekly television show. Every new chapter begins with a recap of the previous chapters (which makes it ideal for incremental gaming) Every chapter ends with a cool song that will play all the way through if you let it, or skip past it because you're impatient to continue the story/get your achievement points. The game is all about light vs dark. You're wandering around in the dark with your flashlight a lot, but it never got annoying, it was never so ridiculously dark that you couldn't see (We'll call this the Doom 3 effect). You go through the game armed with a flashlight and a gun. To defeat the enemies you have to hit them with light for a certain amount of time to make them vulnerable, then you can finish them off with your gun. It's an unusual gaming mechanic, but it works well. The game does a good job of creating suspense, but I wouldn't call this game a horror title. Though there was at least one scene where I said to myself 'I bet something is going to jump out at me here, and not only did that happen, but it still made me jump. Weird. I also loved the driving parts. A great way to conserve ammo is to run the enemies over. The game makes great use of frequent checkpoints so you won't find yourself repeating long stretches of the game after dying very often.

As for the comparisons I was drawing in my mind between Alan Wake and Heavy Rain, they wound up being not very similar after all. While both games are story driven, unique and original experiences, Alan Wake is much more combat focused than Heavy Raind, and doesn't have the multiple endings. There's just the one. Actually the game that I most closely compare Alan Wake to would be the cult classic Eternal Darkness. They're not identical, but I thought of ED many times while playing through Alan Wake. Speaking of which, I would LOVE to see an HD ED remake or better yet, a true sequal.

Cons: The game gets a bit repetitive eventually. The basic mechanics never change, you don't really get new weapons in later chapters, you pretty much have everything in the first chapter (and for some reason keep losing it in each chapter and have to find new weapons every time, so don't be afraid to use your good ammo when you play, you can't take it with you) And there aren't a lot of different enemy types. Also the game ends and has a decent ending, but it then continues in 2 downloadable chapters. One of which came free with new copies of the game, the other will be released this month, and it's somewhat annoying to have to purchase the true ending of the game. However, in this case, I enjoyed the game and want to extend the experience so I will gladly be handing over my money.

Final Thoughts: I'm just going to say it, this is my favorite game of the year so far. Granted there's a lot of great stuff from this year I haven't played yet (Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy 13, God of War 3) as well as great stuff on the way, but for me, right now, this is my favorite game so far. I strongly recommend buying this game new, to give the developers the money and help this game's sales. It needs it. Trust me, you're going to want a sequal after you finish this game.

Metroid: Zero Mission

Date Acquired: 2.8.2004

Date Completed: 9.16.2010

Thoughts: This game is exhibit A as to why I am challenging myself to finish games and post about them. I own so many incredible games that I played halfway through and then stopped for no obvious reason. It bothers me. And leaving a 2D Metroid unfinished REALLY bothers me. It is a coincidence that Metroid: Other M was released less than a month ago. That's not what got me thinking about revisiting this game. Actually it was my August deadline that really got me thinking about it. I needed a game, and started looking at games I thought I could finish quickly. I decided this game needed to be restarted from the begining (AGAIN, I have literally started this game from the begining at least 4 times now. I always got stuck midway, or distracted and moved to something else. But not this time.) So this game was added to the short list of August candidates. Obviously I went with Wario Ware instead. Most of my portable gaming time was going to DQ9, and I just didn't want to distract myself from it.

Pros:It's 2D Metroid! Haven't we been over this already? But more than that, it's a remake of the original Metroid game. But rather than just take that short game and improve the graphics, Nintendo added updated play mechanics (Now I can duck AND shoot!), a save system (which means no Justin Bailey code), Super Metroid Weapons, and whole new levels, including the post-Mother brain level. In Metroid Zero Mission, Mother brain isn't your final nemesis, giant robot Ridley is. That final level by the way, is incredible. A great addition to the series, and something completely different. You get to run around as Samus, sans her armor, armed only with a stun gun as you try to avoid detection while you make your way through the ship. It's a little bit of Metal Gear Solid in my Metroid, but it works. Eventually you get a suit of armor, and get all your old weapons back and get to pay those space pirate bastards back for messing with you when you were weak and frail. Another cool addition is the inclusion of the original NES Metroid game. It's not available at the begining, but becomes available after beating the game. (there's my Justin Bailey code!)

Cons: Cons. Cons. Cons. You mean I have to say something bad about this game? Hmmm, well I guess I would start by comparing it to other 2D Metroids. It's not as good as Fusion, in my opinion. It just can't stack up to that game's awesomeness (and that's despite the pink and purple armor that Samus is forced to wear throughout most of the game). It may be technically better than Super Metroid, but it's not by much, and SM came first, so SM still comes in ahead. So it's the 3rd best 2D Metroid of all time. That's obviously still a hell of a thing. It's a great game that probably everyone who wants to play already has. If not, well good luck, it's not getting any easier to find at this point. Other minor gripe would be that I didn’t appreciate waiting until that last level to finally get the power bomb, letting me go back all the way through the entire game again to finish trying to unlock things. At that point I was ready to fight the final boss and move on.

To Do: Probably not much. I could go back and find some of the other power ups I didn't get, but why? If I do anything with this game, it will be play the original Metroid, but since GBA games don't work on the DSi, I probably won't do that. (That's right, I had to whip out the SP to play this thing. At least I didn't have to use my micro)

Dragon Quest 9: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Date Acquired: 7.10.2010

Date Completed: 9.13.2010


Thoughts: I am well known (among my friends anyway) for my love of the Dragon Quest series. It’s one of the only series, maybe THE only series where I don’t get distracted from the game and take time off. I always finish Dragon Quest games. And this one was no different. I followed the life cycle of this game closely, from the controversial announcement that the series would be moving to the DS for the 9^th game (the 8^th game was on the PS2, the 7^th game on PS1) It was controversial because DQ8 on the PS2 was amazing, the first time the Dragon Qwest series had a game that was known for it’s graphics. DQ8 had voice acting, something you don’t get much in typical DS games. I also sunk over 100 hours into the PS2 game. Could a DS game actually be that big?

Pros: The answer is, yeah, pretty close. While the actual main story only took me about 53 hours, there are 120 optional side quests, many of which don’t activate until after you beat the game, and an additional batch available from Nintendo via download, as well as treasure maps that can be found in a variety of ways including the game’s tag mode. In short, there’s a lot content in the game.

The game offers a lot in the way of customization as well. You create not only your main character, but every member of the party. Deciding things like gender, skin color, appearance and name for each. In addition, every piece of clothing or weapon equipped by the characters are visible on the characters at all time. So every new sword, or armor piece results in a different look for the character.

DQ9 also maintains the classic Dragon Quest charm. It’s been a key element to my enjoyment of the series, and it’s hard to put into words, but I know it begins with the monsters. The slimes and wyverns and drakes and golems all harken back to the very first game, and I’m always happy to see them return.

Cons: While I did like customizing the look of every character in my party, I didn’t like the decision to make them non-characters. They have no personality, no back story and never speak or do anything in the game. They are basically just there to give you extra turns. I feel like we’re way past that. That’s just too big of a throwback. I LIKED the characterizations in DQ8. I liked Yangus and Angelo and the rest. It’s not like it would have been difficult to give me customization AND characterization. When I’m creating characters just give me a byline describing the character I am making: This character is boisterous and outgoing, ‘this character is timid and stutters a lot’ whatever. Then I can design the character with this criteria in mind. If the character I’m making a notorious lady killer, I might design him as a fat hideous slob. It would be great!

Furthermore some of the elements introduced in previous games have been removed or left in a bad state. For instance: Monster capturing is gone from this game altogether. That was one of the elements that made DQ5 and 8 so interesting, happening upon a monster that could fight either in your party like in DQ5 or in an optional monster battle in DQ8. Tracking the monsters down and recruiting them became a tremendously fun part of the Dragon Qwest series. I haven’t played 6 or 7, so I don’t know if this element existed in those games, but it was missing in DQ9. Alchemization is another factor I took umbrage with. In DQ8 you could use alchemy to craft weapons you couldn’t buy, superior weapons relatively early in the game. In DQ9 you really can’t do this until after you’ve completed the game. So uh, what’s the point then? All the good equipment requires very rare materials you can’t get without downloading the extra content and/or finishing the game.

The use of character classes left me puzzled as well. At first it seemed an adaption of Final Fantasy 5, where you could have your warrior study mage class for a while and learn spells. But no, anything you learn as a mage is immediately lost to you when you become a warrior, with the lone exception of skill point allotment. Then there’s the decision of when to make them unlockable. The sage vocation for instance, can’t be learned until at least the 2^nd to last dungeon in the game. At the point that I learned it my characters had played through the whole game and were around level 45. If I made a character a sage, he would go all the way back to level 1, lose all of his HP, MP and spells and I’d have to build him back up so he could help me in the last dungeon of the game. Yeah sure, why not just grind an entire game’s worth between the 2^nd to last dungeon and the last dungeon?

Conclusion: I enjoyed the game, but after 8 and 5, this game fell way short for me. I suspect the tag mode and multiplayer aspect would add a lot to this game, but those aren’t really options for me, so I can’t consider them. I’d recommend this game for die-hards, but for others, I would tell them to play 5 and 8 and wait and see on the upcoming 6.

To do: Download some of the extra quests and play through those. Also meet up with my friend Dan and play the multiplayer.

The Typing of the Dead

Date Acquired: 9-3-2010

Date Completed: 9-9.2010

Thoughts: This is a game I've wanted to play for YEARS. I never bought it on the dreamcast because I was a college student and buying a keyboard for exactly one game was stupid. I couldn't afford that. A few years later I learned that a PC version existed and tried to track that down but failed (I should have used the internet, but it was still relatively new at that point, I checked gamestops and gave up)

It doesn't really make any sense why this game has disappeared. Sega LOVES to shove remakes of their older games or quasi-sequals down our throats, and while many of them are dubious fits at best (Jet Grind Radio on the GBA?) A Steam release of Typing of the dead is a gigantic no-brainer. So of course Sega screws up an obvious decision as only Sega can. They are out of the console market for a reason folks, and it ain't their great business sense. I get the feeling this game would have an audience if Sega would just release it. While I was playing, my roomate came out of his room to get ready for work and immediately said 'is that typing of the dead? How'd you get that? I've been looking for that forever'. So that's 2/2 in my apartment alone. You're sitting on a goldmine Trebec! Er, Sega.

I won't bore you with the details of how I acquired it. The important thing is that I finally did and got to play it. And it is awesome! The graphics are no great shakes by today's standards of course, but I loved them. This game is a great throwback to the House of the dead series (obviously). What's cool is that the further along in the game I got the more rewards and unlockables I opened up. Such as starting with 5 lives instead of 3, or getting up to 9 continues. What I really like is the boss battles. The first one is just standard type the word before he hits you fare, but later fights get more creative. My favorite involves a 3 headed hydra. You are asked a question and then you must type the answer from the three choices below the hydra heads. It forces you to stop and think about the question, read the 3 possible choices and then furiously type the answer. There are all kinds of neat touches in the game. When you are fighting 3 zombies at once, you have to try to figure out which is the closest to you and type it's word. If you hear a whooshing noise, it means an axe or knife is being thrown through the air at you. You have to finish the word you are typing and then type the single letter associated with the object being thrown, then move onto the next zombie. I also loved the fact that my character walks around the whole game with a dreamcast strapped to his back, with a giant duracel battery on top of it, and a keyboard in front of him. The voice acting and story are god-awful. Just hideous. But you get the impression that that's intentional, a B-movie sort of vibe there. It certainly didn't keep me from enjoying the game.

I wish this game was compatible with Windows 7. I tried installing it on my laptop and it won't run. That's a shame, this would be a great portable option for me. I'll just have to play it on my desktop when I get the urge. The main game didn't take me long, but there are some other modes I can try out, and I certainly don't mind playing through the main game a few times. I actually acquired this game with the idea that I could put this on the computers of the girl I am dating. She's a teacher, and has a couple of computers (that I need to fix so she can use) and I thought I should load some educational games on there. I have no idea if Typing of the dead is sixth grader appropriate. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it at all. The 'blood' is green zombie goo, there's no swearing or even any real sexual inuendo in the words you type (although feel free to read in a little, but it's nothing glaring that a sixth grader will pick up). It's likely that Nicole will tell me that she can't put this in the classroom, at least one parent will find out about it and flip out. But I'll play it in front of her and let her be the judge. I still have where in the world is carmen san diego to install for them...

Wario Land: Shake It!

Date Acquired: 2010 sometime

Date Completed: 8.31.2010

Thoughts: August was another close call for me. It was a very busy month. My time was taken up by finals in both of my classes, and I started spending time with Nicole. This all led to a relatively video-game free month for me. I finished my finals up last Friday and drove down to Klamath Falls with my family for the week. My DS and Wii were the only two consoles to make the trip, which limited my choices for August's game. I bought Wario Land a few months ago for $11 at Best Buy. I had had interest in it previously, but always thought that at $50 it was over priced. It actually seemed like it should have been a wii-ware title or even a DS game, not a $50 Wii game. The reviews weren't glowing either, so I passed on it, resigned to miss it since Nintendo rarely drops the price of their first party games.

Pros: The graphics and animation are very appealing. Much better graphics than I'm accustomed to seeing in 2D. And I grew up on side scrollers so I have a soft spot for them. The game itself isn't very difficult, but the boss fights, especially the last few, are challenging and fun. The game has some humor to it and is inventive and clever. I liked that you had to purchase maps (after beating a boss) to continue. Towards the end I didn't have enough money to buy the next map, so I had to replay earlier levels to build up my cash. I of course chose the levels I'd made the most money in. I never played the GBA Wario games, so I can't say if it's a natural evolution of that series or not.

Cons: Well it's too short for one thing. My original assessment was correct, this game in no way is worth $50. $11 was fine, but I would feel pretty cheated if I'd paid $50 for this short single player game. Sure I could go back and try to find every hidden treasure, but I never like doing stuff like that. Speaking of the treasure, what was the point of it? You get no money bonus at all for finding it, and you can't sell it like you can in Resident Evil 5. It doesn't help you raise money for your next map or heart container, so what does it do? Nothing. I would have preferred charging more for the maps but letting me sell my treasure. Make it actually worth something, damnit.

Conclusion: Overall it was a fun enough game. Not really something that stands out as one of the best games I've played, but a fun and fast experience. Still should have been a Wiiware title though.

To do: Nothing. I'm mailing it to my 12 year old cousin who's obsessed with Mario. He'll appreciate it, but I'm never going to play it again.

Goodbye old friend

This evening I had some potatos in the oven, I was boiling some water to put corn in, and I turned on My XBox 360 (which has become my defacto DVD player) to queue up disk 2 of Entourage Season 6 which just arrived from Netflix today. Only instead of Vinny, Ari and the boys, I am greeted with this unpleasantness. (Not the cord dissaster geniuses, I plugged the 360 back in after I unhooked everything for the picture) I'm referring to the E73 error message. That's as far as my XBox would go. You can't see it from this picture but the top left quarter circle of the power LED is red and blinking. I looked up this error and it means the ethernet port on the xbox 360 is bad. I unhooked the ethernet cable, but it made no difference. I called Microsoft, knowing that I would have to pay to get it fixed. The customer service rep had me go through a couple of steps, nothing fixed it, so she informed me that I would have to send in my XBox to have it fixed for $120. Say what? $120? I thanked her and told her I would think about it. I then turned down the heat on my potatoes, turned off the boiling water, and went to Best Buy.

Last month, Microsoft announced the XBox 360 slim model, which replaced the original, effective immediately, and had the effect of causing retailers to knock $50 off the price of the system. I went to Best Buy and bought an Arcade unit for $150. No tax on Oregon purchases. So instead of paying $120 that I may have had to pay tax on, and wait 2-3 weeks to get my Xbox back repaired, I just bought a new one and connected my old hard drive to it. The new one comes with a wireless controller (bringing me up to 3 now) and 2 games: Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts and Viva Pinata, neither game I have ever owned.




The new Xbox has the newest motherboard style: The Jasper, which is supposed to have the fewest instances of red rings (though my problem wasn't a red ring so who cares?) One nice surprise was the power brick on the new one is noticably smaller than the obese original.

Best Buy didn't have any slim Arcades for me to consider. I'm not sure if I'd pay $50 more for the slim. On the plus side it has a built in wireless adapter and it has a direct port for Natal, which even though at this time I have no plans to get, never say never. On the other hand, it's $50, I don't really want to play my games via wireless adapter if I can avoid i t, and it's way too soon to know what new hardware problems this first run of slim consoles will have. I have some time to think about it, 30 days to return the new system, but at the moment I am happy with the Arcade unit.



It's kind of a sad moment, we've been through a lot together. It died 2 days after I finished Bionic Commando, making it the last game I played, and one day after I watched Scrubs season 4 on DVD, making it the last DVD I watched. I won't be able to access my downloaded content unless I'm online with the new system, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Bionic Commando

Date Acquired: 7.17.2010

Date Completed: 7.25.2010

Thoughts: I have to admit, I'm shocked that I finished this game. I tend to be bad at finishing games over all, so when I do finish one, it tends to be a AAA title, or close to it. Bionic Commando had all the potential to be that AAA title upon it's release last year, but reviews refuted that promise, and so I passed it by until last weekend when I saw Gamestop sellign it used for $8.99 AND during a buy 2 get one free sale. Can't get much cheaper than that for a barely year old game. I bought it because of the price. I knew the reviews were bad, so I wasn't expecting to play it much. It has an average review score of 73 on gamerankings. Not the kind of game I usually buy, I figured I'd throw it in for a little while, pick up some cheap achievement points and move on. But then I started really liking it. I guess if you go in with no expectations, it helps you enjoy a game. I might have felt differently about this game if I bought it on day 1 last year for $60. I played it for a few hours last Saturday, then switched to a different game, but thought about it at work on Sunday, so played it more, and so on.

Pros: The Swing Mechanic. In the begining this can be frustrating. There's a point early to midway in the game where you have to swing over some floating mines over water, and you have to go from one to the next for quite a while, if you drop in the water you die (which, while I hate that in games, I have to admit, falling into the water with a giant metal arm strapped to your body that extends for 50 feet probably would be hard to swim with). Anyway this section of the game was really really hard. It probably took me more than 20 tries to get it and I was frustrated. But that was the last time I had any issue with the swing. After I crossed that hurdle, I knew how to use it, I knew how it worked, and the few times they'd sprinkle those in again gave me no trouble at all. The Graphics are decent, not spectacular, but fine. There was a really creative section of the game where you're riding on top of an army jet, you have to rip the metal covering off of it, then use your arm to hack into it, you take over the plane and fly it to another plane and jump to it, and repeat. I liked creative little touches like this throughout the game. The gun combat was easy enough, standard 3rd person controls here, get shot too much, go hide while you heal automatically. Another thing this game has going for it is it felt like a blockbuster title. Like the money was clearly put into it, the cut scenes are good, the dialog is good, it just feels pretty polished for the most part, it's hard to describe. It didn't feel like when I was playing TMNT and I could tell they were just half-assing it. Some real effort was put into it, and while it may not have translated in review scores, I appreciated it.

Cons: There were definitely some issues with this game. Chief among them for me anyway was the radiation. There's Radiation all over the city, if you go off the path you're supposed to go, the radiation kills you. The problem is, well there's a lot of problems with this. For one, it's not always obvious you're swinging into radiation. It's one thing if I go way off the map, I know I'm risking it, but sometimes you're just heading for the next waypoint, and while that waypoint *IS* due west of you, you can't actually go West, you have to go North first, then west, and you can pick up some serious speed swinging through the game getting shot at, and you propel yourself into the middle of a radiation patch while following the map and die. But worse than that is why the radiation is there in the first place. Obviously it's being used to make the game linear, force you to go one the path Capcom wants you to, but that's a giant cop-out. The crux of the game is you have this bionic arm that lets you go up and around all over the place, places you can't go in other games. The game even hides collectibles (that coolly look just like the original NES power ups) So you're supposed to explore to find the collectibles, but not TOO much or you'll die? What kind of logic is that? The game should be as much about figuring out cool ways to get where you want as about the combat, and adding the radiation really detracts from that. The game's hard too. They give you some really difficult enemies that your gun does nothing against. You get some power ups, but they are very few and far between, mainly saved for the boss fights. It's the game's way of forcing you to use your arm attacks to defeat the enemies, which is fine, but it sometimes feels like you're under-armed (no pun intended) and you ought to have at least a few cars laying around to throw at the enemy or something. Another really annoying con to this game is level jumping. When you load up a game you have the option to continue your game, make a new game, or level jump. Level jumping sounds like a great idea. Use this to go back and find the collectibles and achievements you missed, right? No. The game tells you specifically you can't get either of these things if you use the level jump. So uh, what's the point of it? I already played the level, why would I want to go back if nothing I'll do has any impact on the rest of my game? The game auto saves, and I only have one save, stuck on the last fight of the game, so I can't go back that way either .Basically unless I want to replay the game again, I can't increase my achievement score. I could care less about the collectibles, I wasn't going to get all of those any way. I just don't see why even have that level jump option if you can't do anything with it.

To do: Nothing. I'm not playing through it again, and have no interest in the multiplayer. Since I can't get any achievements without putting another 3-5 hours into the game, I'm just going to move on.

Shopping Spree

Gamestop's buy 2 get 1 free sale is a periodic event that has proven to be an achiles heel of mine. I just can't say no. Today, my day off, was the last day of their latest such sale. I rode my bike to the closest Gamestop to me, looked around, bought nothing, came home. Thought about what I saw, looked some games up via game rankings, and went back to a different gamestop (because for some stupid reason, the gamestop near me is the ONLY gamestop of the 6 in Vancouver that closes at 8, the rest close at 9, and it was literally 8:01 when I stopped by. I was at this next Gamestop for quite a while, until 9:00 when it closed actually. Here's what I came out with:

Battlefield: Bad Company - 1 of the 2 primary games I went into Gamestop to get. The 2nd game has received a ton of good word of mouth, but the first game got very solid review scores as well. Given the good time I've had with the Call of Duties, this reasonably-priced prequal seemed like a must-buy. This is also one of only 2 games that I played tonight after I got home. Liked what I saw so far. Good humor, good graphics and gameplay. Solid title.

Fallout 3 - I can't believe I didn't own this already. It even came out in the relatively mediocre gaming year that was 2008. But I was in a relationship, and that caused me to miss out on the 2 biggest games of that year (this and Metal Gear Solid 4, among other games) I have wanted to get to this for literally years now, but the scope of it, the size of this RPG is intimidating. I just don't know where I'll find the time to play it. But I need to try. It has a sequal coming out this year, and while I have no plans to buy the sequal this year, it does add urgency to my need to finally get to this game. I got somewhat lucky with this as well, the copy I tried to purchase had no boxart or manual. But when they pulled it out of the drawer they keep used games in, they had tons of copies of this game, complete with box art. It's the little things.

Bionic Commando: Here is a game that didn't review well at all. I was initially looking forward to it last year, but the reviews were so bad I didn't even consider purchasing it when it eventually came out. But it was $8.99. That's hard to pass up. I looked up it's review score, and it's not as bad as I thought. About a 73 on game rankings. Which isn't awful. So I bought it. This is the other of the 2 games I played tonight, and I played this the longest. I am 26% of the way through the game, and to be honest, I really like it. Maybe I haven't gotten to the really frustrating parts yet, I see what some of the reviews are saying about the play control, but it hasn't been that big of an issue for me at this point. This game has been a really nice surprise.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 - This is the other of the 2 games that I went into Gamestop to buy. I've been jonesing for a new Tony Hawk game since forever, but they stopped being worthwhile a while ago. This is the highest rated game in the series on the 360, getting about an 82 on gamerankings, and doing even better on the big sites like 1up (gave it a 9) This was the 2nd Tony Hawk game to appear on 360, but the first built for it (the first 360 game was an Xbox/PS2 port. Not impressive from the reviews that I've read.

Halo 3 - I actually used to own this, and already beat it. But I knew I'd have to buy it again some day, as this is a prime candidate for a game my friends and I can pick up and play through the campaign together with. What finally pushed me over the top and got me to buy it this time was: It was $15. I've never seen this game this cheap, and I just decided to get it.

Ninety-Nine Nights - This was the one placeholder title. I needed another $10 game to satisfy the 2nd buy 2 get one free deal. I considered Tomb Raider Underground ($8.99, but I have a couple TR games I haven't played already, I'll never get to it), Motor Storm on PS3 (Good racing game, but no achievements) and others, but I went with this on the strength of a demo I remember enjoying years ago. This had by far the worst reviews of any game I bought, and when I looked up the achievement points, I found it unlikely that I will get any of them, which basically made the decision to return this game an easy one. Gamestop is having a half off sale on many older titles starting tomorrow (right after the Buy 2 get one free sale ended) but since I have a receipt, I will be able to exchange this game tomorrow, and I can get one of the discounted games that wasn't available today at that price. The leading candidates so far are: Lost Odysee: $12, Soul Calibur 4: $10 and Heavenly Sword: $15. I will likely update this list to reflect what I chose.

The grand total for these 6 games? $52. Less than the cost of one new game. Tough to beat that.

EDIT: I returned Ninety-Nine Nights the next day. These are the two titles I acquired instead:

Soul Calibur 4 - A game that's been on my list to get for a long time, yet when I looked at it yesterday it was a full $19.99 used which seems high for an older title. So I waited on it, and then saw it in the Gamestop sale for half off, finally it fell to the price point that I was willing to pay. I loved SC2, didn't really play 3, so hopefully I'll be able to get into and enjoy the 4th game. If Jon ever gets it, we can play online!

Lost Odyssey - Microsoft had a string of Square and Sakaguchi titles that didn't live up the hype. Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, etc etc, just didn't turn out well. But Lost Odyssey did. This Sakaguchi title reviewed very well, and consequently hasn't seen it's price drop as quickly as I'd have liked. It was still $24.99 yesterday, but half off today, so I made it an impulse buy.