I just read this rumor earlier today on Joystiq.
While it would be weird to go from the gritty setting of Liberty City to a zombie-infested Liberty City, I would certainly approve this change. Especially if Frank West was a playable character.
Mashing buttons since 1984
by Tony 4 Comments
I just read this rumor earlier today on Joystiq.
While it would be weird to go from the gritty setting of Liberty City to a zombie-infested Liberty City, I would certainly approve this change. Especially if Frank West was a playable character.
by Tony 11 Comments
A step in the way-back machine would prove that I was completely caught up in the Fable hype back in Xbox 1 days. I was head over heels. It was going to be the best game ever. Immediately after I read the TWELVE page preview at IGN, I excitedly told a fellow buttonmasher the he needed this game. My effulgent praise convinced to buy not one, but two copies of the game. (He ordered a copy online, then couldn’t wait for it to arrive and purchased the second later that day at a local store). I grabbed mine shortly thereafter and traveled to Disappointment City, population: me.
It stunk.
I promised myself I wouldn’t play the sequel, no matter how much praise it gets. But it’s happening: this time around, it might just be good. First, I recently read BAPenguin’s “10 Things You May or May Not Know About Fable II“. The first Fable was full of promises but, in my opinion, did not deliver. From these ten things, it looks ambitious once again. I’m not going to fall for it again!
Jake at 8Bit Joystick says it’s “better than the last two Zeldas.” I loved Wind Waker. That’s high praise. I still ain’t buying it.
Then, Don Reisinger calls it his “game of the year.” The hype machine is firing up again.
I haven’t checked any of the review sites, yet. I’m sure they’ll be giving it high marks. I’m looking forward to some more trusted blogs to give their thoughts and reviews. But it can’t be as good as they say, can it?
Naturally, this game now sits at the top of my Gamefly queue.
We had a little Dead Space party here at Casa Buttonmasher this weekend, celebrating the arrival of Dead Space on the Xbox 360.
In preparation for a full review, Ehergeiz is currently putting it through its paces. But since my 360 is kaput, he brought his machine over here and we put a couple hours in together.
So some initial impressions: In a generation of expensive development cycles and heavy focus testing, it’s clear that Dead Space is game of very high production value. Both the graphics and sound are superb. Not to be gushing, but these are Gears of War-level graphics, but in space. The environments are creepy and eerily quiet. Tension is real and when a baddie drops in behind you, it’ll make you jump. In the dead space of space, no one can hear you wet your pants.
Erhegeiz will have to go into specifics of actual gameplay, but from what I observed, control seemed pretty intuitive and responsive.
It’s hard to be innovative and appeal to the mainstream at the same time. There’s nothing new here, but that’s not a bad thing. There are lots of little tweaks and enhancements. It’s going to be compared to games like Gears of War and Resident Evil 4 for obvious reasons. But it takes its own approach. Marcus Phoenix’s curb stomp has nothing on you dropping the big boot.
Devastating.
RE4 had a great weapons upgrade system which Dead Space apes to a certain extent, but does it its own way, giving you upgrade paths with limited resources to max everything out.
The story has been enhanced by things like the No Known Survivors website, but is mostly standard sci-fi fare. You pick up snippets of what has happened (and clearly something has happened) as you begin exploring the space station. I love the details like writing on the walls (Portal), the audio and video files you find (Bioshock) and the monsters jumping out of ventilation ducts (Doom 3). Again, there’s nothing wrong with imitation. Dead Space does it with flair.
Now I can’t wait until Ehergeiz is done with it so I can get some time with it.
by Tony 10 Comments
Honestly, I thought I was done with Halo. I thoroughly enjoyed all three games and played the heck out of them. It’s no secret I have a special place in my heart for the trilogy. But I thought I had my fill of the Master Chief. Then I saw the trailer/teaser for Halo 3 Recon:
And they pulled me back in. I’m such a sucker for good marketing a good trailer.
I do, however, have a problem with the name. Why are they calling it Halo 3 Recon if this is supposed to be a prologue to the first Halo? Was Halo Zero not available? (I guess not)
Anyway, what do you guys think? Don Reisinger doesn’t think this is a good move for Microsoft. I’d have to agree. I think it’s time to let Halo (at least in its current FPS carnation) go. At least until the next Xbox is upon us. By then, we’ll be ready to take on the Flood once again.
But for now, let’s give it a rest.
by Tony 5 Comments
Well, it looks like my 360 is on the way out, again. So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be seeing a lot more DS and PC action, with the occasional DS game as well. With that in mind, here are a few games that are showing up on my radar.
For the DS, three games that have piqued my interest:
Lock’s Quest
I have mentioned this game before, but it completely fell off my radar until recently and now I’m ready to give this a go. It’s quite simple: an RPG with Tower Defense. Need I say more?
Disgaea DS
Disgaea is one of those games I’ve always been intrigued by and always wanted to play, but never had chance due to its platform exclusivity. Now that it’s coming out on the DS, Disgaea is finally within my reach. Even though it’s a port of the PSP version (which is, itself, a port of the PS2 version), I want to play this game. I’ve heard of its depth and replayability and I want a piece of that action.
Chrono Trigger DS
Being a part of the Greatest Video Game Generation™ (The 16-bit generation), I played my share of Square titles on the Super Nintendo, but one that I only played briefly was Chrono Trigger. I played enough of it (before I had to return it) to know that it was awesome. Now I get a chance to relive those memories and actually finish the game. This is going to be a great game.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (link is in Japanese, sorry)
I love Fire Emblems on the GBA and started playing the Gamecube version before getting distracted by other games. This one isn’t due out until next year, but another one I’m anxiously awaiting. I’m starting to see a pattern here.
Is there anyway to disagree that the DS is not the best gaming console out there right now?
Dead Space
If you’ve been following the development of Dead Space at all, you already know EA is going all-out in developing the back story and setting the stage for the release of Dead Space next week. If you haven’t been following its development, definitely check out No Known Survivors. There’s lots of good stuff there. We should be getting copy here in-house and hope to have a review of it up as soon as we can. Even though my 360 is kaput, as soon as it’s back in commission, I’ll be firing this up. I am very much looking forward to this.
The Godfather II
Speaking of EA, I’ll admit interest in their upcoming open-world mobster game, The Godfather II. That’s not arriving for a while, though, so we’ll have to wait and see how it develops.
There are more games out there, especially some triple-A titles for the 360 coming out very soon. But until I get my box back in house, fully operational, it’s the DS for me.
(Updated: I knew I’d forget something. I meant to include Fire Emblem for the DS. That’s been corrected)
by Nat 6 Comments
Can an ape work his way to the top of the school social pyramid?
Yes, and the journey is satisfying.
DO: Crack heads, kiss girls and uh…well, attend classes, and run from authority figures to be the big man on campus
TYPE: Third-person sandbox
PLATFORM: 360 (reviewed here) and Wii
PRICE: $29.99
MEAT: You play as Jimmy Hopkins—misfit, intellectual, romantic, mascot, leader, and above all, bully. There are four cliques in the school and they all hate each other. Your job is to unite the geeks, preps, greasers, and jocks under one banner—Jimmy’s. All the while, you have to go to classes and perform mini-games for clothing and skills upgrades. You can skip them as well. However, skipping and not being in dress code will land you a beatdown by the school’s prefects if caught. You’ll eventually get to wander all over the town that surrounds the school and be able to perform numerous missions and side quests in order to be the guy in charge of it all. Of course, someone else has the same idea. This has all been done before in 2006 on the PS2. Yep, this is a port with a couple of additions, including new game stopping glitches.
PERKS: excellent style and presentation, well paced, some great achievements for the whores, 20+ hours of play; mini-games are not lame—well, most are not; stellar voice acting (best I’ve ever seen, er, heard), excellent motion capture; superb dialogue; numerous LOL moments
SCREAMS: to have been better tested—the second time around (360 version—there is a patch, thankfully); some achievements are silly repetitive time sinks that you would not do in the general order of play; to have better controls in the mini games—timing is brutal on some; to have had an online or, better yet, co-op component; the main villain is a downer; buttonmashing traverses Billy faster but it offers no benefit the faster you mash; to have an auto-save feature (don’t ask)
VERDICT: Buy. Get it if you’ve never played the PS2 version.
I find it funny most professional reviewers don’t do this, but here’s my gamercard to show I completed the game.
Speaking of GTA IV and cheats, I recently uploaded a set of three maps to Flickr that have the locations of all the pigeons in the city (again, there’s an achievement for that). Now that I’ve finished the game and Niko has done what he needed to do, I suddenly feel a responsibility to clean up the pigeon problem in Liberty City.
If you’re like me and you’re interested in exterminating all the flying rats, you can check out the Flickr set here. I’ve embedded the images after the jump.
Should I break a sweat playing a sports game?
Well, I maybe didn’t break a sweat, but I did cramp my brain.
DO: Play possibly the most realistic tennis game ever. Overhand smashes, drop shots at the net and grunts that would make Maria Sharapova proud. (Okay, maybe that was just me)
TYPE: Tennis (hopefully that’s obvious).
PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (also available on everything else but the PC).
PRICE: $59.99 on the 360.
MEAT: On the surface, it’s another sports game. Where Top Spin 3 really shines is its complexity. At times it can be extremely difficult and hard to get used to, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly. The tutorials are very well done, and get deep fast. It may be a surprise, but I’m not a professional tennis player. So I can’t say if this “feels” right, but some of the shots definitely feel like they should.
There’s a career mode, of course, which I spent most of my time in. There’s nothing new here. Play some matches, get some points to get better skills, rinse, repeat. It’s fun, it’s addictive and I’ll be playing this much more. Oh, and the character creator? My daughter could have played with that for hours. Yay for electronic paper dolls!
PERKS: We’re getting dangerously close to the uncanny valley. Not sure if that’s a perk?
SCREAMS: Nothing new? Even though this is the first Top Spin game I’ve played, I’ve played enough sports games to know there’s only so much improvement can be made. It also can be insanely complex if you want it to.
VERDICT: For most gamers, this is a rental. Tennis fans and sports fans know what they’re getting and are more likely to pick it up. It’s a good buy for a specific group of gamers. You know whether you are in that group or not. If you’re not, you probably won’t be playing this.
by Nat 5 Comments
Is it any good? Personally, I need to see more blog reviews of games. I mean, we are the ones in the trenches. We are the ones playing games (hopefully) for enjoyment. It’s not our job to quick-play and meet a deadline and look over our shoulders at the marketing department.
Aeropause seems to think it’s good—and I don’t mean like those feminist yogurt commercials good.
Being that I am only halfway through the games main story I can’t really review it, but from what I have played so far I think the game is worthy of a 80% score. It would be a shame if this game doesn’t get a chance to improve upon itself with a sequel because of a few reviewers who just didn’t get the game. I know this is only my opinion but I truly think that Too Human is a game worthy of your money.
In the post, the author does seem to cover more of the negative aspects of the game. (I want to hear positive, people!) However, he thinks it’s a solid 80%. I’ve also heard this from others.
I think what I can honestly deduce from this game is that it does a good job of creating the love it/hate it mentality. There’s not much in the middle of the road.
Here’s the callout: show us some blog reviews in your comments below…or review it yourself.
by Nat 7 Comments
I know that one of the games (released today) has been on some of our readers minds for a while now. It’s just recently come up on mine. I’m actually in the process of playing through some 360 games so I can trade them in (NEW RULE: one game at a time—more on that later). I was even thinking of using the credit for Too Human. Things are not looking bright with the mainstream hardcore press.
From Gamespot—who gave the game a 5.5—a surprisingly low score for a AAA developer. Here’s their opening salvo:
Too Human drops a juicy plot development at the most inopportune time: its very end. It’s the obvious manner of setting up a sequel, the infamous “to be continued…” we’ve come to expect from television shows and, yes, even some modern video games. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it exemplifies the core experience of this action/role-playing hybrid. Too Human is a game of false starts and unrealized potential that infiltrate almost every aspect of the game, from story, to combat, to balance. Its elements feel stitched together, making for a patchwork quilt of a game that’s fraying at the seams.
Probably of all the mainstream reviewing sites, I trust Gamespot the most. Only once or twice have they ever steered me wrong. This does not bode well. I had mentioned on other forums that the lack of pre-release reviews was not a good sign. It usually never works in the developer’s favor.
After playing the unispiring demo, and like I’ve mentioned to others, I’m not paying $60 for this game—in credit or cash. Unless there’s some hidden ecstacy or bliss that the reviewers are overlooking. Sites like Gamespot, Gamespy, and 1up are being the most critical. Metacritic seems to raise the average (67), but it doesn’t look promising.