Month: April 2010

Metacritic and My Video Game Collection

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Hate it or love it, review aggregators are becoming an increasingly important service for consumers of just about anything. In the video game space, people like them because it gives them a quick and quantifiable way of knowing what games are good and what games suck. The counterpoint to those people are those who don’t feel that aggregates tell the whole story and put an emphasis on a number rather than the context from which that number is derived from.

I’m not here to choose sides. Out of boredom and curiosity, I decided to take my XBOX 360 and Wii game collection, full retail games only, compile all of their Metacritic scores and see what the results say about my game stash. I must preface that this is far from scientific and that my collection has changed since I compiled these numbers.

With that said, lets hit the results.

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Pick Up Post: I Got The Magic Stick

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After months of deliberation, I have finally decided to purchase an arcade joystick. With the release of Super Street Fighter IV happening in a few days (and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 having just been announced), I figured now would be the right time to finally give this arcade joystick thing a shot. As a long-time pad player who has always struggled with joysticks in the arcade, this is a bit of a risky investment. The market for joysticks varies wildly, as the prices can go as low as $30 and as high as $200 for products that do the exact same thing. All of the joysticks also vary wildly in features, build quality and the ability to fix/mod the joystick yourself.

As much as I would like to immediately jump to the top-of-the-line MadCatz TE stick, I’m not ready to invest $200 on a controller that I may never find as comfortable as a regular controller. With everything taken into consideration, I ended up putting down the money on this arcade joystick.

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Call of Duty: World at War Pushes Me to the Brink

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Call of Duty: World at War was a game that, even after Modern Warfare 2 blew my mind, I had no interest in going back for. It had two major hurdles: it was a World War II shooter and it was made by Treyarch, whom I’ve been lead to believe made the “not-so-good” Call of Duty games.

Well, I decided to give World at War a shot when I saw it on sale at a price I couldn’t refuse. Did it earn a Purple Heart, or make me wish I was killed in action? After finishing the solo campaign, I would say a little from column A, a little from column B.

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Game Design Talk: Soul Calibur IV and the Apprentice

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Within minutes of first playing Soul Calibur IV, the game has already figured out how to infuriate me. I’m not even close to being a good player at any Soul Calibur game, but I did play enough Soul Calibur II to beat the game on normal difficulty with every character. Having been out of practice, I decided to get reacquainted with the systems by starting out in Arcade mode.

Up until the second last level, I was doing just fine. But it was then that I was pit against the Apprentice.

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Pick Up Post: You Say You Want A Revolution

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Over the weekend, I just so happened to be at an HMV when I stumbled across one of the most ill-conceived games of the last decade (if not of all-time). I have made fun of this game incessantly since it was announced in May of 2008 and have watched it fall into the absolute bottom of the bargain bin. I have seen stores have difficulty selling the full kit for $10 and the disc alone for $5.  At the price of $2 (which was the price I got it for), even I had to stand there and think about whether or not this would be a good investment. It probably wasn’t, but at least I can now speak first hand on why this game sucks.

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Closing Thoughts on Mass Effect 2

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When this game first came out in January, the Internet buzz surrounding Mass Effect 2 was insane. People were hailing this as the game of the year 2010, regardless of what else was to come out in the next 11 months. I got so caught up in the Mass Effect 2 that I went out and bought Mass Effect 1 and beat it just so that I could get the full Mass Effect 2 experience.

Mass Effect 1 rocked my socks pretty hard. If it weren’t for a few excessive RPG elements and technical issues, it could have been right near the top of my unofficial “best games I’ve ever played” list. With such lofty expectations built up for this game, did they live up to them?

Yes. Yes they did.

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Pick Up Post: Cobra Clutch

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Earlier this week, I found myself hanging out at my local EB Games while my mom was at the Lenscrafters across the mall. After cycling through their inventory with my brother, we talked to the on-duty cashier, who just happened to be my brother’s friend. I had come into the store with no intentions to buy anything, but he made me an offer on a game I couldn’t refuse.

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Suicidal Thoughts

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(WARNING: This post is about the endgame for Mass Effect 2. I will try my best not to spoil anything, but feel free to skip this if you fear I may ruin something for you)

I just finished Mass Effect 2, and I felt compelled to share my thoughts on the endgame sequence to the game. I have been hyper-critical of endgame sequences in the past, but I am glad to report that Mass Effect 2 does not fall by the wayside. It’s a fantastic experience from beginning to end, but the gravity of the situation and the choices you make leading up to the final mission build up to one of the most epic and varied endgame sequences I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

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How I Left Left 4 Dead 2…4 Dead

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Last time I wrote about Left 4 Dead 2, I had some very nice things to say about it. Since then, I’ve played it only once or twice. While I still stand by the belief that Left 4 Dead 2 is a good game, I don’t really have any motivation to go back any time soon.

Two things happened that made me fall off the Left 4 Dead 2 hype train: I’ve grown tired of the L4D formula and I’ve gotten a number of other games that have offered a fresher experience to me.

When the original Left 4 Dead came out, I had never played anything like it before. My brother played the hell out of that game. Those characters, special infected and scenarios became iconic. Eventually, I grew tired of it and was excited to see what Left 4 Dead 2 had to offer. While Left 4 Dead 2 does add a lot to spice things up, it’s still Left 4 Dead at it’s core, which I’m pretty much done with at this point.

The other reason I dropped it relatively quickly is that it came out around the time I got a bunch of games that were fresh experiences to me. I tore through Assassin’s Creed 2, Borderlands and Liberty City Stories, and still have a long way to go in Modern Warfare 2. And now I’m at a point where I’m currently playing other stuff and can’t really fit Left 4 Dead 2 back in the queue.

If you’re still enjoying the zombie apocalypse, power to you. For now, I’ll spend my gaming time elsewhere.

Game Design Talk: Taking Control Out of My Hands

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(SPOILER ALERT: This post will discuss major plot points in Modern Warfare 2 and Prince of Persia)

The terrorist scene in Modern Warfare 2 has been dissected from every conceivable angle by now. Odds are if you’re a fan of reading niche video game blogs like mine, you’ve probably played this sequence and have already come to your own conclusions about it.

For the record, I hate it. I hate it for a number of reasons, but for the sake of this discussion, I’m only going to get into one reason why I dislike this scene. I don’t hate it for the fact that you get to shoot innocent people. I applaud Infinity Ward for leaving that option open. However, that entire scenario is fundamentally broken because of the people you can’t shoot.

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