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Girlfriend Gaming: Help Me Recommend PS3 Games

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My girlfriend is a life-long PlayStation fan. Way before I entered her life, she grew up playing Crash Team Racing on her PlayStation One. She’s since picked up a SNES and a Wii, but she’s had her eye on a PlayStation 3 for a long time now. At the very least, she’s wanted one long before I ever started thinking about it.

She feels like now is the right time to take the plunge and pick up a PS3. She’s asked for my help in recommending games for her to try, but my PS3 knowledge isn’t that great compared to what I know about the other systems. This is why I’m enlisting you for help. What should she buy or try out on the PS3?

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What is Your Favourite Launch Title of All-Time?

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Microsoft’s Kinect has been out for about a week now, and it appears as though Dance Central is the launch game to get. With every launch (at least the good ones), there’s usually at least one killer app that early adopters flock to or raise in high regard.

The launch of Kinect got me thinking about previous console launches and the games that came out alongside them, which ultimately lead me to the question, “What is your favourite launch title of all-time?”

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Cool Moment From Rock Band 3

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Over the weekend, I watched my brother playing “Rock Lobster” on hard pro keys. He took piano lessons many years ago, but hasn’t played piano seriously in a very long time. Part of his desire to get Rock Band 3 was to use it to get back into piano and as a means of extending his learning.

Before he finished the song, I left. A few minutes later though, I heard (and then saw) something very cool that probably wouldn’t have happened without Rock Band 3.

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Game Length and Adulthood

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A few months ago, I picked up Okami for the Wii. I heard a lot of great things about the game and was looking forward to playing it. I played it for a bit, but not really enough to get a feel for the game. Before I could even give the game a fair shake, I traded it away.

Why? For one, I heard that EBGames was giving out extra credit on this game. Second (and more more importantly), I heard the game was roughly 40 hours long. In my younger days, that meant I could expect good times for a long time to come. As an adult with responsibilities, playing through a 40-hour game is a tough thought to swallow.

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Let’s Talk About Buying Video Games New vs. Used

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When it comes to video game shopping, I don’t think the average customer cares much about whether or not they buy a game new or used. I think when they want a game, they buy the game and get it at the best value they can. However, among gaming press, online gaming communities and anywhere else where serious video game discussion takes place, the topic of buying new vs. buying used always seems to crop up. The main argument for buying new is that your money supports the creators of the game and the main argument for buying used is that you get the game at a discounted price.

I don’t think this is a binary argument. There are a number of reasons for consumers to do both. I buy games both new and used. This post highlights the reasons I buy new and the reasons I buy used.

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Pick Up Post: Just Dance 2

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The first Just Dance was nothing short of a smash hit. It was a game that did a great job catering to the Wii audience, in spite of the gripes I had from a hardcore gamer perspective; which wouldn’t matter to the vast majority of people who would play or buy this game in the first place. To be fair, once I stopped thinking about the game as a hardcore game reviewer and started thinking about it as just someone wanting to play a dance game with others, the original was a lot of fun.

Yesterday evening, my girlfriend went to pick up her copy of Just Dance 2, which might be her most anticipated game of the year. After a long weekend of Just Dance 1 madness with her, my brother, my cousins and I, my brother and I decided to go half on our own copy as well.

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The ESRB and My Video Game Collection

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Last year, my 7 year-old cousin at the time discovered Modern Warfare 2 through my 12 year-old cousin. Ever since that day, my now 8 year-old cousin has become enamored with the Mature-rated Call of Duty series. For him, Modern Warfare 2 was his Mortal Kombat; it was his gateway drug to Mature-rated games. As of now, he owns Conflict: Denied Ops and Sniper: Ghost Warrior, which he brags about being M-rated all the time.

I didn’t bring this anecdote up to talk about parenting. I don’t approve of him playing content I would deem inappropriate for him and I do what I can to keep that stuff away. The reason I bring this up though, is because my 8 year-old cousin now views that M rating as a symbol of cool. He loves the fact that he owns games that he knows he’s too young to be playing. They’re his forbidden fruit and he’ll take anything he can get at this point.

All of this made me think about my video game collection and how it relates to the ESRB. Once upon a time, the Mortal Kombat series was my forbidden fruit. Did my catalogue of games evolve in relation to the ESRB guidelines or did I overdose on forbidden fruit? I do the math to answer these questions and highlight any insights regarding gaming as I grew up.

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Girlfriend Gaming: How Ubisoft Won Her Brand Loyalty

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Ever since she got a Wii for Christmas last year, I’ve noticed that my girlfriend looks at Ubisoft in a very positive light. She as built up quite a collection of Wii games for herself, many of them published by Ubisoft. Thanks to her positive experiences with Ubisoft games, she’s become a Ubisoft fan in the same way that I’m a fan of Capcom. When she sees that Ubisoft logo on the game box, she expects that game to be good. When we visited the Ubisoft booth at Fan Expo, she was hyped to receive a promo code on Ubisoft games and tried to cash it in the moment we got back to the hotel. To her disappointment, it didn’t work on pre-orders and she’d already bought every other Ubisoft game she wanted.

How did Ubisoft win her over to the point where she equates their brand with good games?

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Games That Make Me Feel Dumb

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Video game complexity has come a long way from the days of Pong. Graphics have improved, AI has gotten smarter, control methods have become increasingly complex and the games themselves are more complicated than anything you can find on an Atari 2600.

Due to the way the medium has evolved, there are games and game genres that I cannot wrap my head around, regardless of how hard I try. The following is a list of games and game genres that make me feel dumb after playing them because I can’t come to grips with how to play them. Knowing that there are thousands of other people that are playing the same games just fine only amplifies the stupidity I feel when I fail miserably. Check out my list and tell me if any of these games make you feel dumb, too.
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Let’s Talk About Collector’s Editions of Video Games

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Back in 2007, the hype surrounding Halo 3 was massive. This was going to be the biggest and best-selling media launch of all-time. In particular, the hardest of hardcore gamers were salivating over the Legendary Edition of Halo 3, which featured of all things, a miniature replica of Master Chief’s helmet. Video game collector’s editions were still new at the time, and we’d never seen anything this epic (or expensive) before.

Part of the appeal in the Legendary Edition was the fact that it was supposed to be super rare. Instead, it stands as one of the biggest jokes in the short history of video game collector’s editions. I can name multiple stores in my city that have these in stock right now, collecting dust on the shelf at 1/3 of the original asking price. Even at that price point, retailers still can’t rid of them. If you paid $150 for it at launch in hopes of getting something truly special, I bet you’re bitter that the monetary and financial value of this set has dropped dramatically.

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