Back in January, this THQ game caught a lot of people by surprise. People who were expecting it to be a God of War clone were surprised at how Zelda-like it’s gameplay was. It reviewed well and as far as I know, sold above the company’s expectations.
For a number of reasons, I kept tabs on it until it came down to a lower price. A few weeks ago, it hit $20, and I grabbed my local Best Buy’s last copy.
When it comes to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the main event has always been the press conferences by the major platform holders to start the show. Over the last few years, the major third party developers have begun hosting their own events, which I care little about to be honest. The “megatons” always come from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, so I make it a point to watch the press conferences no matter what.
This year was a bit weird, as I had to “work around my day job” to watch them. However, I saw them all and would like to share my impressions on those conferences with you. Did Kinect connect with the hardcore and mainstream audiences? Did Nintendo abandon the hardcore gamer for good? Did Sony ride its momentum to e3 2010 glory? Hit the link for my impressions.
Summer is about as close to an off-season for video games for me as it gets. Sure, I’ve dabbled a bit in a bunch of different games on different platforms over the past few weeks, but I’ve been very much caught up in the spoils of the season, such as good weather, outdoor parties and street basketball.
Gaming and writing about gaming have taken a serious nose-dive on my list of things-to-do of late. For the few people who follow my blog regularly, I apologize. I’m hoping I can write more in detail about what’s happened and what’s to come, but for now, I will give you some snippets of things that I’ve been up to gaming-wise and my thoughts on current gaming events.
Continue reading
I like Green Day. I like Rock Band. Therefore, Green Day: Rock Band should be a day-one purchase for me, right? Maybe not. I’m definitely starting to feel burned out on the music game genre, and I’m not sure I want 47 Green Day songs at once. Going into this demo, I was a bit skeptical about what I’d find.
My birthday just passed yesterday. While I’m past the point of gift-hording from everyone I know, my girlfriend was wonderful enough to spoil me on my special day. I got a few CDs, a 13-month subscription to XBOX Live and the piece of awesome picture above that you can read about if you hit the link.
For a game series I keep saying I have no interest in playing, I’ve done a terrible job of avoiding them. During a rash of cheap game buying, I ended up picking up the every Call of Duty game on the XBOX 360 that I didn’t already own (which was everything but Modern Warfare 2). My first experience was Modern Warfare 2, which has made enough of an impact on me to try out the rest of the series.
It just turns out that I’m working backwards from Modern Warfare 2. I felt that World at War at its best was pretty good, but it oftentimes felt like a knockoff of Modern Warfare 2 and at its worst, infuriated me to the point that I don’t want to play it ever again. I know that World at War was made by the Call of Duty “B-team”, so I was looking forward to playing the Infinity Ward game that first took the world by storm.
Normally, I am not one to argue a “best-of” list in any serious manner. Due to the subjectivity behind these lists, there will never be a definitive list that everyone can agree on. The “best-of” lists that are the worst are the ones voted on by “the people”, because regular people make the worst choices.
In spite of that, people love to make them anyway and argue about them till the cows come home. Recently, Guinness announced its top 50 video game franchises, as chosen by you. Snap judgment: you suck. If you would like to read the full list, I advise you to hit the link. Otherwise, continue to read as I highlight a few key spots and add snarky commentary.
I’m still playing (and for the most part) enjoying Skate, which I’m playing at a very leisurely pace. While it’s a lot of fun to just cruise around the world and bust tricks, there are some very awkward design choices that can annoy the heck out of you when you play Skate. The inability to walk can be infuriating due to the way the world is designed. Bystanders always seem to get in the way of your objectives, which leaves you skating into them more than you would like. But I wanted to talk about one very specific case of poor game design that drove me nuts.
When I first wrote about de Blob, I was really digging it. I loved the visual and audio presentation. The gameplay was really fun and easy to pick up. The second time I wrote about it, I voiced what was (and still is) my biggest problem with the game: its pacing. Now that I have beaten de Blob, how do I feel about this sleeper hit?
After a year of damn-near uncontrollable anticipation, the sequel to my 2009 game of the year is now in my house. I was actually so excited for this, I was at Walmart at 7:00 AM buying this game, even though I wouldn’t get to play it till after work. After putting in about 20 hours this week into it (and waking up this morning with an arthritic right hand due to all the fighting action) I can positively say this game is good. In fact, it’s SUPER (sorry).
In Third Person 