buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Gaming

Cheap Game of the Week – History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided

by 4 Comments

Overview: A rare first person shooter set in the American Civil War

Pricing: About $20 new or used.

Rip-Off Warning: Can occassionally be found for $30 new.

Platform: Playstation 2, Windows, XBox 360 (Reviewed)

Is it worth it? There aren’t many first person shooters set in the American Civil War. While there have definitely been some liberties taken with historical accuracy and weapon reloading has been tweaked somewhat, the game stands in rare company. A lever action rifle feels like an assault rifle in this game and learning melee combat is a must.

The game does have some issues. The level design is full of invisible walls and is practically on rails, there are only 6 missions per each side, and the graphics are just barely servicable. Yet I found myself enjoying this game and the unique challenges it often presented the player. The game is not particularly hard, but the play style is different from standard run and gun.

Some quibbles with the game. Iron sights were worthless since you were better off just looking at the cross hair and waiting for it to turn red. Also, taking cover didn’t seem to work very well. Not that the game had a cover system, but enemies standing close to a solid object seemed to become bullet proof while I could hide behind a wall and still take damage.

Final Judgement: I just don’t have much to say about this one. It’s an enjoyable if somewhat short play experience that will definitely give you something different. It was a solid PURCHASE for me and highly recommended if you’re looking for a budget title.

Cheap Game of the Week – Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

by Leave a Comment

Overview: The title says it all, Guitar Hero + Aerosmith.

Pricing: This one has dropped pretty fast. $15 used seems to be the standard and new copies go for $20. The version with the guitar even dropped to $50 or less, which is ridiculously cheap if you don’t already have the controller.

Rip-Off Warning: Not much danger here. All the Guitar Hero games except for Metallica, Smash Hits, and 5 seem to be dropping in price steadily. Look around and you might see the occasional $25 or 30 price.

Platform: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, XBox 360 (Reviewed), Wii

Is it worth it? This might be my cheap game of the week, but I actually purchased this brand-spanking new with a guitar controller and everything for $100. The release was just a perfect storm of having recently discovered the music rhythm genre, needing a second 360 compatible controller, and actually being an Aerosmith fan. How’s that for a disclaimer?

Unfortunately, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was the sophmore effort for Neversoft who released the incredibly well selling but widely criticized Guitar Hero III after Harmonix went off to make Rock Band. The primary criticisms of Guitar Hero III was imprecise note charts, high degree of difficulty, and the ridiculous “boss battles” that they introduced. Instead of the fun, casual, social gaming experience that previous Guitar Hero games had been, Neversoft had seemingly adopted their usual “2 HARDKOR 4 U” mentality of the Tony Hawk series.

While they claimed to have listened to criticisms, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith feels like one of those non-apologies that are quickly followed by a middle finger when your back is turned. The difficulty isn’t quite as bad, but still ramps up rather quickly about mid-game. They retained one boss battle and made it skippable. That just smacks of a stubborn refusal to learn their lesson while also acknowledging that maybe it wasn’t the best idea. As for the note charts, my favorite quote about GH: Aerosmith was “Neversoft continues to display complete ignorance for the mechanical workings of a guitar or even a human hand”.

Other issues is that the game is incredibly short and there are many other songs you have to play through before getting to each Aerosmith set. That’s too bad because if you’re an Aerosmith fan it’s a pretty good song list, but if you’re not a fan then there is no point to this game. Adding other bands that “inspired” or where “inspired by” Aerosmith is just a lame attempt to pull in people who aren’t familiar with their music.

Final Judgement: This is a PASS. If you’re an existing Aerosmith fan you may enjoy it, but otherwise it’s going to feel like a waste of time and money to most anyone else.

One Company Gets It Right

by 8 Comments

While Sony seems to be bungling the PSPgo, one PSP publisher seems to see what works for gamers. NIS is heavily discounting digital versions of it’s games for one week starting tomorrow. They are priced from $5-$10.

I’ll be picking up one title for sure. Can you guess which one? Oh, and hey, I won’t be getting a PSPgo to play it.

Wheel Chair Tank

by 2 Comments

Nat and I are planning on a huge Dead Rising 2 mega-post, including screen shots, videos and previews. But this video was too good to wait. I give you the Wheel Chair Tank:

This game is going to kick so much butt.

One To Watch: Half-Minute Hero

by 1 Comment

If you’ve been a long-time reader of the site you’ll know that we tend to gravitate towards a little quirk here and there. Some of us even revel in it.

One such game that has flown under our radar as a small blip on the screen has been Half-Minute Hero published by XSEED. Essentially, it’s just like it reads: You have 30 seconds to beat an RPG.

Yes. 30 seconds, not hours. For a person who likes RPGs but cannot devote 100 hours in to a title, this is a dream come true.

hmh1 From what little background I’ve gathered you play a young hero who has 30 seconds to stop an evil baddie from taking over or destroying a land. During that time, you need to level up, acquire gear, and recruit help—in 30 seconds.

Oh, along the way, you can perform various side quests—in 30 seconds.

Released earlier this year in Japan for the PSP, Half-Minute Hero really flips the genre on its head with retro 8-and-16-bit graphics, sounds, and text. Everything in this game moves fast. However, time stops when you enter a village and various other locations. From there you’ll need to gather clues on how to defeat the boss, what items to carry, and to heal up.

Battles are an automatic affair consisting of more more than 3-5 seconds. Run out into a field and—poof—random enemy. You can run to avoid fighting (handy if you need to get somewhere), but it also drains your health.  Fighting though is rather hilarious as you bounce and bump the mobs coming at you. Kill an enemy. Level up. Rinse and repeat until you think you are high enough.

hmh2 While this is happening, your time is draining, but there is one help in praying to the Time Goddess located in various towns. There’s a catch: it’ll cost you. The more you pray to her the higher it gets. Run out of gold? No problem. She’ll take your clothes. You’ll want to use her as a last resort because you’ll need that gold for future quests.

But wait. There’s more. This is only one mode of the game. Evil Lord 30 is where you play as one of the baddies and things have not gone well for your baddie-girlie-friend. In turn you need to save people and transform to a hero in order to save her. The trick with this mode is that you summon help and transform dead monsters to your aid—all in 30 seconds. In Princess 30 mode you play the part of, yep a princess. However, this part of the game plays more like a shump. You have to run all over the map collecting various items to help defend your castle from baddies—in 30 seconds. The last mode, Knight 30, was the hardest to come by in info. It appears that this plays out like a tower defense game or king of the hill type of style. Of course, one assumes this is done in, well, you know.

This would be an excellent title on the PSN at a reasonable price, but after some digging that might not be the case. It appears that Amazon is selling it as a UMD title for $30. The game boasts over 15 hours of game play, but time will tell (geesh) if it’ll be worth it or not.

You can currently download two small demos from the PSN (Hero 30 and Evil Lord 30) and the game appears to come out October 13. Give it a try. It won’t take long.

Sources: Kotaku, Destructoid (large image gallery), IGN, and Siliconera

Sony to Its Entire PSP User-base: “Screw you.”

by 4 Comments

sony-psp-go-1 Sony’s new PSPgo—a system we’ve not talked much about here—is launching next week. It’s basically an all digital version of the PSP. You can only get games for it via a download service—the overpriced, old-game Playstation Network Store.

Here is a firm list of “screw you’s” from Sony to basically anyone who breathes air:

  1. The price of the unit: $250
  2. The price of games are the same if not more on their download service when compared to the UMD versions. (We’ll come back to that.)
  3. They’ve announced today that there is no UMD conversion service for those who already own games. Want the new system? Buy the games all over again—at the same price years later. Oh, and there’s not many games available yet.

Now, let’s deconstruct this:

  1. Why buy a UMD-less system when you can get the model they sell now for $70 cheaper—sometimes with an included game?
  2. Why buy games at a premium when you can go to a retailer and get the same titles at almost two-thirds less brand new? (cheaper if you go used)
  3. Why buy a new system when your old library will not work? The crazy thing is that it’s the exact same library that should be able to play on it.

Who is the PSPgo marketed to again?

We fantasized about a memory-based PSP a while back. It’s like Sony listened to us with one ear wearing earplugs—under water.

A death knell usually comes from a third party, never from yourself. Golf clap to Sony. Golf clap all around.

Dad was a gamer

by 3 Comments

On September 13th, 2009 my Dad passed away. He had a massive heart attack and was unable to be revived. Dad and I loved to do many things together, we spent a lot of time doing things on the weekend. We went to the arcade, saw movies, went to the comic book shop, and played games. VHS and DVD gave us the ability to watch some of our favorite movies at our own convenience. He purchased the Atari 2600 that was my first game console. I think the milestone gaming experience for my Dad and I was Contra on the NES. We could play that from start to finish without even using the “Konami Code”.

Dad introduced me to videogames, and he was a gamer until the day he died, literally. I drove down to Austin on the day of his death and found him still logged in to Lord of the Rings Online. I was never into those kinds of games, but I liked that we had other shared experiences. I liked to do for him what so few family members seem willing to do for me, I would buy games for birthdays and holidays.

While videogames were hardly our own shared experience, it’s the one I’d want to share with the most likely readers of these words. I enjoy reading and movies as well, but games were always different. Games were an activity that allowed me to be part of the experience, and that is why I have always enjoyed them.

Dad was a good man, he taught me many things. He was a hard worker who believed in always striving for the best. He worked hard, but he played hard to. That is a philosophy that has served me very well throughout my life.

Thanks, Dad. For everything.