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Nat

I Just Saved You At Least $20

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Gamestop is offering a lot of new games for $20. I personally don’t think any of the newer games are AAA titles. (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed comes close, but you know our thoughts on that title). Bionic Commando made the list.

Let me begin by saying Bionic Commando is my Forced Unleashed for 2009. Only this title I’ll probably not play through. Right now, it’s my reigning champion for most wasted potential in a game this year.

18404_normal I’ll start with the gripes because it’s all I have.

The Swing Mechanic—It’s stupid. Attaching and beginning the swing is easy enough. However, when do you think would be the best time to let go and swing to the next item? No, it’s not at the end of the swing. It’s just right after the bottom of your arc. Yes, there is an indicator of when to let go, but it appears and disappears so fast…I don’t want to be frustrated playing games. Just the tutorial was an adventure in frustration. Think the platform jumping of The Force Unleashed with the repetition of Mirror’s Edge. (Ooo, two frustrations added together. Yay!)

The Shooting Mechanic—Pew. Pew. Literally. The only indication you have for hitting an enemy is that they twitch and the red bar above their head depletes. Think standing seizures. Think shooting with a BB gun. It’s what it sounds like.

The graphics—It’s hard to explain. It looks pretty, but there are times where it appears that the 3D world has been pressed flat—especially in some cutscenes.

The Level Design—This game screams to be open world. Nope. It’s linear and you’re held in place by almost invisible “radiation”. There’s nothing more fun than swinging up a building and realizing that their must be something up on top. Hey, they game is letting me get up there. It makes sense, right? Nope. Radiation. It’s like getting to the end of the maze and there was no cheese.

The Dialogue—you said the “F”-word in the intro. You’re big and bad now. Almost every time he falls he poops from his mouth. I heard it a lot.

The Arm Mechanic—Of all the gripes, this is the least. When it works, it’s awesome. Only there are times where there’s nothing to do with it. There are parts of levels where you’re just platforming, swinging to your next group of enemies. An open world street-brawler with special arm moves would have been killer. I guess I’ll go play Prototype.

I put in an honest five hours. Granted one of those hours was in the tutorial. I think I now know why it’s averaging $20 out there when it just came out in May for $60. Biggest and quickest price drop of any game this generation? Maybe so.

Take your $20 and get Bionic Commando Rearmed.

This didn’t get a full review because I didn’t finish it. I played five hours with the PS3 version. Disagree with me? Let me know in the comments.

The Folks at Apple Are Geniuses

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I’ve spent $15 in the last two weeks on the iTunes store for some games for my iPod Touch (phone coming next week!). Fifteen dollars net me six games and every one of them has been amazing. Assassin’s Creed and I have had an excellent past. I don’t know how Ubisoft did it, but the game on the iPod ($5) is unbelievable. The rest: Mecho Wars, Flight Control, Baseball Superstars 09, and geoDefense.

LucasArts on Steam

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I actually screamed, “WHAT?!?” when I read this at my desk: LucasArts will be on Steam starting July 8. I was just lamenting not having a copy of my 5th greatest PC game of all time. It’s time to return to The Dig. (Funny LucasArts titles take four of my top five.) If priced right, I might get Republic Commando as well. No word on Tie Fighter or the other X-Wing games.

In [Nat’s] Hands: Bangai-O Spirits

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We’ve given this Bangai-O Spirits a little air time in the past. I’ve picked it up at Target for $15. (They have a cheap DS section now, $10-$20.) From Wikipedia: “Bangai-O Spirits is a side-scrolling shooting game with free-scrolling levels that extend horizontally and vertically. The player controls a robot with the ability to fly, but is still affected by gravity. He has seven weapons to choose from, and can perform melee attacks using a baseball bat or sword.”

Want to Play Fez?

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fez

We’ve been waiting a little while for this title and it appears that we’re going to have to wait at least six more months.

What is Fez? Well, it’s a 2.5D game that we’ve mentioned before (video at the link) that simply looks amazing. Since the trailer release I’ve added Polytron’s blog to my Google Reader (everyone should be using that) waiting for any type of news.

It’s a platform-side-scroller that rotates into a third dimension to perform special moves and gain access into all sorts of areas. Just watch the video.

Here’s hoping it shows up on PSN and PC.

Rocket Riot Is, Well, A Riot

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Coming out tomorrow on XBLA for 800 MS points. (That’s $10 for us people who know the value of a dollar).

This hybrid mix of 2D and 3D looks to be fun. Oh, pirates and ninjas and zombies!



I’ll definitely be giving the demo a try. Anyone else heard of this?

A New Renaissance

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Even though the title is redundant, some of us here—namely one—is taking a trip down a little overlooked road that 136 million other people may have travelled.

The PlayStation 2 library is massive.

I owned a PS2 for almost a year before trading it in. I had done some IT training and as a result received five Xbox’s. Sadly, looking back, the Xbox became my main console. I did experience some titles such as Gran Turismo 3, Ico, and Maximo. Metal Gear Solid 2 was in that mix and a few other titles I honestly cannot remember. The PS2 was a DVD player that played games in our house.

A month ago as I was hyping myself up over Infamous, (oh, yeah, we are going to chat that dude up) Brock had mentioned to me that it was being developed by Sucker Punch, who according to him, had, “created the best PS2 game of all time, Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves.” He mentioned I should give it a try because, well, my PS3 is backwards compatible

Alright. I couldn’t play the second title without the first, so why not? The following day I walked in to the sweaty, greasy place that is my local Gamestop (first time this year) and picked up both titles for a total of $10.

In short, it was the best gaming deal of my life.

The PS2 library had opened up to me. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was a wonderful title and even though I’m only half way through the sequel I am thoroughly enjoying it. You can actually see a lot of Sly’s mannerisms in Cole McGrath’s motions in Infamous.

I eventually went back to Brock and hit him up for some more titles. At over 2,400 games, there’s got to be some other great games waiting to be played and easy to find. It looks like there is. My only criteria to Brock is that I wanted to overlook JRPGs at the moment. Of course, that cut out a chunk of the titles, but I can wait on those.

Today, for the second time this year, I walked in to Gamestop, ignored the up-saler-salesman and started to go through the PS2 bins.

  • Maximo: $3
  • The Mark of Kri: $4
  • The Thing: $5
  • Freedom Fighters: $5
  • Gladius: $8
  • Red Dead Revolver: $10

Adding the Sly games, Shadow of the Colossus (which I got with the Sly titles for $10), Rogue Trooper (I don’t remember where I got that one), and Kingdom Hearts II (a weird Target impulse buy at $20) that brings my PS2 library at eleven titles for $75.

In some ways I’m glad I waited. I know that many of those titles were on other systems, but from what I’ve read they are definitive on the PS2.

I’m all ears as to what other titles you guys may recommend I try. In the mean time, I’m set for summer. Seventy-five dollars for ten AAA games or $60 for one new one that I’ll probably play 5 hours at the most? No brainer.