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October Releases

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It’s the monthly releases, yay hurray!

Xbox 360 banner

Week of October 6th
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Samurai Warriors 2: Extreme Legends for Xbox 360
NBA 2K9
NBA Live 09 – It’s been a long time since I’ve done a basketball game. I’ll be adding one of these to my GFQ but won’t be buying either.
Fracture – I haven’t tried the demo out, but I think Ehergeiz has. Hopefully he’ll fill us in.
Guilty Gear 2: Overture

Week of October 13th
FIFA Soccer 09
Dead Space – Dead Space is one of those games on my radar. Definitely looking forward to this one.
Saints Row 2
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008
Golden Axe: Beast Rider – Everyone picked the girl when you played Golden Axe back in the day. The developers are just saving you one step. AMIRIGHT?
Blitz: The League II
Rock Revolution – Konami is really going to try this? Is there room for one more Rock Band game?
Disney Sing It Bundle with Microphone – My wife and I are seriously considering this for our daughter. She already thinks she Ariel (or Jasmine, or Cinderella) so we figured this would be perfect for her.

Week of October 20th
Fable 2 – I completely feel for Fable and ended up pretty much hating it. I’m not getting burned this time. I’ll be watching the reviews carefully with this one.
Far Cry 2 – If I can set traps that send bad guys flying through the jungle like the first one, sign me up!
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Monopoly – Monopoly? Really? Shouldn’t this be a downloadable XBLA game for 400 points?
Legendary – Don’t know much about this one.
Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 with Dance Mat – I include DDR games every time they show up, because I secretly hope some of my readers are die-hard DDR’ers.

Week of October 27th
Fallout 3 – Man this month keeps getting better and better. I am going to be broke by the end of the month.
Guitar Hero World Tour – Band Kit
Mafia II
James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace Collector’s Edition
MotoGP 08

Wii banner

Week of October 6th
NBA Live 09 All-Play
Sam & Max: Season One
Crash: Mind Over Mutant
Army Men Soldiers of Misfortune

Week of October 13th
Goosebumps HorrorLand
Jeep Thrills – Get it? Get it?
Ocean Commander
Boogie Superstar
Safecracker – First, go look at the boxart for this game. Then tell me, honestly, how a came called “Safecracker” can be even remotely enjoyable. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but seriously.

Week of October 20th
Wii Music – It’s going to take a bunch of good reviews for me to consider this one. Just doesn’t sound fun.
Monopoly
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader: Make the Grade – If you buy this game, no.
Disney High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
King of Fighters Collection- The Orochi Saga

Week of October 27th
Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 – How ironic I post this game as I’m watching the Biggest Loser on TV. I wonder if this is the first game to use the Wii Fit board?
Guitar Hero World Tour
MySims Kingdom
Line Rider 2: Unbound
Cooking Mama World Kitchen
Build-A-Bear Workshop: The Fur Seasons Islands – I was surprised when they made a DS version of this game. The fact that there’s a second one makes me question humanity.
FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play
PBR: Out of the Chute – Pro Bull Riding? For the Wii? I am so confused.
Ultimate I Spy
Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine – For all the licensed games I make fun of, this is one game I’d like to try.

Nintendo DS banner

Week of October 6th
Bleach: Dark Souls
The Legend Of Kage 2
Exit

Week of October 13th
Populous
Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs – Everything about this game is AWESOME.
Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer – I was going to mock this game unmercifully, then realized how genius it is. A whispering game? For the DS? BRILLIANT!
Rock Revolution – This could be perfect of the DS.

Week of October 20th
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia – Been hearing lots of good things about this one.
Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (Gift With Purchase)
Tornado – Know how a tornado and a divorce in Kentucky are the same thing? Someone’s losing a trailer.
Awa Shuffle Dungeon – Winner of the horribly named game of the month.
Pass the Pigs – This one was a close second.
Theresia

Week of October 27th
Mechanic Master – To be followed shortly by Carpenter, Plumber and Electrician Master.

PC banner

Week of October 6th
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
Saints Row 2

Week of October 13th
FIFA Soccer 09

Week of October 20th
Far Cry 2
Dead Space
NHL 09
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Week of October 27th
Fallout 3
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
World Wide Soccer Manager 2009
Aion: The Tower of Eternity

PS3 banner

Week of October 6th
NBA 2K9
NBA Live 09
Fracture
NBA ’09 The Inside

Week of October 13th
FIFA Soccer 09
Dead Space
Socom US Navy Seals: Confrontation Stand Alone
Saints Row 2
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
Rock Revolution
Blitz: The League II

Week of October 20th
LittleBigPlanet – DROOOL.
BioShock
Far Cry 2
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Eternal Sonata
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Legendary
Rock Band 2

Week of October 27th
Fallout 3
Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
SingStar Vol. 2 Stand Alone
MotoGP 08
James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace Collector’s Edition

PSP banner

Week of October 6th
NBA Live 09
NBA ’09 The Inside
Crash: Mind Over Mutant

Week of October 13th
FIFA Soccer 09

Week of October 20th
Star Ocean: First Departure
Midnight Club: LA Remix
King of Fighters Collection- The Orochi Saga
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Week of October 27th
NeverLand Card Battles
Air Conflicts
DT Carnage

Great month ahead! What will you be picking up?

[2 Minute Review] Marvel Trading Card Game

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What’s better than a cross between the Marvel universe and Magic:The Gathering right?


DO: Use the stylus so much in the same spot that it scratches the surface of the touch screen on your DS. A game that probably has the most characters from the Marvel universe. Keeps you craving more cards.

TYPE: Card

PLATFORM: DS (and the PSP)

PRICE: About $20 or $30

MEAT: This game is a pretty straight forward card game. The battle system takes some getting used to and the tutorial doesn’t help out too much. If you put the time and effort into getting to know the system it’s well worth it. The game has all the main characters that you could want and even some that you wished they didn’t waste their time putting into the game. Then again you need to have some weak characters in the game, everyone can’t be the strongest card available. The actual powers/abilities, strength, and defense of the characters match up pretty well in the system as they do in the comics.

The story of the game isn’t the best and is kind of lacking yet the cut scenes are in the form of a comic which is cool. The artwork of the superheroes and super heroines on the cards and in the cut scenes are great, the characters have several cards each with different pictures on each one. Half of the fun of the game is getting new cards and seeing the new art on the cards. When you start a new single player game you pick either hero or villain and once you beat it as one, you play through the story of the other with all of your previously collected cards. The system to get new cards is the same setup as a store in the real world. You buy a booster pack of hero or villain cards and in each comic world like the X-men or Fantastic Four.

PERKS: Great gallery of all the main characters; smooth gameplay; online play; a good comic book based game; it’s great to beat a hard opponent that you’ve lost to multiple times.

SCREAMS: The need of a good story; no cancel button (if you hit the wrong button or choose the wrong card your stuck, I’ve lost a couple hands due to that missing feature); one boss was WAY harder than it needed to be; the tutorial/learning curve could be better.

VERDICT: Buy~ As a comic book related game it is a lot better then most of the ones out there. I enjoyed the game a lot. I recommend the game for anyone interested in it or knows enough about comics and needs a handheld gaming fix of them. [Read more…] about [2 Minute Review] Marvel Trading Card Game

Thoughts on the new Prince of Persia

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I’ve played a few of the previous Prince of Persia titles like The Warrior Within and the original version. The prince (for those of you who don’t know the main character of the series has never had a name except simply, the prince) was always alone and looked like a nomad who was in need of a bath but still looked cooler then cool.

This time around the prince has a companion in the form of Elika. She is able to help the prince fight, make it through the environments, and keep him alive. I think she’ll be taking the place of the dagger of time and help the player make it through the game and instead of stopping time and reversing it when you die with the dagger, she’ll be the one to save you with her magical powers.

One of the new abilities that the prince is getting in this next-gen version is called the “roof run” which allows the prince to run on the roof as he grabs a hold of rings hanging from the ceiling of a level. The developers even mention in one of their commentaries that he can go from a roof run to a vertical wall run. The new ability however really doesn’t make the game next-gen to me. Something that does and hopefully will make it seem much better then the previous installments is the newly revamped combat system. The new system was designed to be a cinematic experience. In the video that is linked they named Final Fantasy: Advent Children and Soul Calibur as inspirations for the combat system.

That’s encouraging to hear.

There are four main buttons that were described.

The Princes Sword button: which seems simple as the prince taking a swing at the monster with his sword. I’m hoping and assuming that the further the you take the combo the better the moves are and in turn the swordplay takes a more cinematic/skillful approach then just a simple swing.

The Elika button: you call in your backup and Elika takes a crack at the monster your fighting and if the videos I’ve seen are anything close to what she’ll be doing it seems that her attacks might be more flashy then the princes.

The Claw/Lift button: the prince uses his other hand to attack with his new claw. Which is also the attack to knock the opponent into the air. Hoping some cool stuff can come from this claw, who knows maybe it can power up and do some massive damage? Fingers are crossed….

The Acrobatic button: last and certainly not least, this button is the one that gets me thinking that the combat really will be a cinematic experience. Just imagine all of the combos that you can make with these four buttons. It would be a great system if they make a lot of button combination animations available.

I’m looking forward to see how everything they are trying to put in the game turns out. We’re probably still pretty far away from the game actually coming out but I for one am expecting it to be a solid game. That is if the game play length is more than 2 hours.

This is just a small amount of info about the game itself if your interested in hear more about the game check out the videos that are available at the main website.

[2 Minute Review] Time Hollow

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What do you get if you lock Phoenix Wright, Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory in a room with a Barry White CD playing?

This kid will have a lot of questions when he’s older…

DO: A lot of reading, cause time paradoxes and get really confused… in a good way.

TYPE: Point & Click adventure game.

PLATFORM: DS

PRICE: $29.99

MEAT: If you’ve played an Ace Attorney game or Hotel Dusk: Room 215, you’ll be right at home with Time Hollow. The game plays like a combination of an interactive novel and an old Lucasarts/Sierra point & click adventure, with inventory management and conversation trees galore. Thankfully, it’s all done in a clean, simple way with minimal backtracking and plenty of hooks to move the story along.

Time Hollow deals with your character, Ethan Kairos, who wakes the day of his 17th birthday to find that everything in his life doesn’t seem right. His parents, who were just having dinner with him the night before, have now been missing for 12 years. Friends go missing for days despite Ethan having just talked to them moments earlier. Am I hurting your brain? Don’t worry. It all makes a lot more sense in the game proper and a large part of the game’s plot involves trying to unravel the cause of these paradoxes.

That’s where the Hollow Pen comes into play. Ethan uses this device to ‘dig’ into the past and find clues to the unraveling chronosphere around him.

PERKS: The production values on Time Hollow are VERY impressive for a DS game and that, plus the excellent translation from the original Japanese, make it a must-own game for fans of the waning point & click adventure genre. I was quite impressed with the number of animated (and fully voiced) cutscenes in the game as well.

VERDICT: Buy. If you’ve enjoyed the Ace Attorney games and want something with a little more actual gameplay and a more serious storyline (and time travel!) or are a fan of point & click adventure games in general, run, don’t walk, to the store to get this game. You won’t be sorry…

LittleBigPlanet Gets Bigger…

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…or, basically, some more info on what appears to be a wonderful game. (Can it be called that?)

Aeropause is reporting that the release date for the game may be moved up from Oct. 21 to Oct. 7. This is Good.TM

GameSetWatch has an indepth article covering the LittleBigPlanet game jam at NY’s Parsons School of Design that we mentioned earlier. The amount of creativity exhibited in this game in just 24 hours is staggering. I personally love the concept of telling stories with the game.

In [Nat’s] Digital Hands: WipEout HD (plus InstaPreview!)

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I believe I’ve admitted before that I’m a closet WipEout (have to get the weird capitalization right now I guess) fan and today’s release on the PlayStation Network is no exception for me to miss. I’m not a hardcore fan, however. I’ve never really completed any of the games. They become hard. Extremely hard.

WipEout HD is basically a remake of previous game’s tracks in, well, HD. It is glorious. I would venture to say, initially, it’s one of the prettiest games on the PS3 right now. The sense of speed is not there yet, but it’s coming. I can feel it. Die hard players will know what I mean.

Also, there’s an added bonus that I didn’t expect in the game: a camera. I think I’ve spent more time there than anywhere else. This camera works a la Halo 3. However, it’s much easier to use and has a few more picture effects. I took these image with the Track Motion Blur effect.

Another perk the camera has over Halo 3 is that the image is saved directly to the system’s hard drive. You can then do whatever you want with it. I don’t have to go to some lame-o site and download it. The resolution on the images is pretty high. (The first one I uploaded full. Click on it to get the detail.) I expect to see some amazing images online. Take note, see the detail in the cockpit?

For $20, I believe it to already be a steal.

LittleBigPlanet to Offer More Than Gaming

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In what appears to be an interesting turn for a “user-created” game, the developers of LittleBigPlanet (no spaces, please) hope the game can be

a whole palette of tools that can be used to create anything from a puppet theater to graphic novels to pop-up books to music sequencer.

Kotaku is reporting that

“Games have conditional elements,” said Kareem Ettouney, Media Molecule art director. “We wanted to make sure that there is a tool set in there that allows you to create those elements.

“But the exciting part of LittleBigPlanet is everything else you can do with it. We didn’t want to hinder people. What we wanted to make sure we widened the palette. The only real limitation is your imagination.”

So when Sony Computer Entertainment of America called Media Molecule and suggested that they hold a design contest at the historic Parsons School of Design in Greenwich Village, the team jumped at the opportunity.

Some of the ideas that these gamers and non-gamers came up with are pretty amazing.

The most intriguing of the lot was definitely Team Good Sportsmanship’s Sack Monster. The 24-hour creation told a story, albeit a short one, and included some very interesting design choices.

In Sack Monster the entire game is the Sack Monster. Sackboy has to take on the giant creature that, according to a fish out of water, is gobbling up sackboys.

I’m getting more reved up for this game. I’ve been disappointed with releases as of late. Give me something good on the radar.

Thanks to Kotaku for the news and image.

Cleaning House (and undercutting Gamestop)

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I’ve been a little cynical lately regarding just about every area of gaming. Today, I’m going to touch on the used game market. Two words: Screw them.

With that in mind, just like last time, I’m going to make the offers here first before I go to eBay. Here’s the idea. I’ll sell the used games cheaper than Gamestop does but at a price higher than their trade-in value. The result is that we all win…if you want to own any of these titles. I’m only going to sit on this for 24 hours from the date of this post. Also, my opinions of the title follow.

Title
GS $ My$ Comments
Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise 360 34.99 30 Viva Pinata 1 with a new cover?
Ghost Squad Wii 26.99 20 Excellent shooter. Just like the arcade.
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune PS3 49.99 40 Fun for a single play through.
Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 54.99 45 Came with the PS3. Not a fan. Don’t care.
Overlord 360 17.99 10 A fun romp good for a play through.
Bioshock 360 34.99 25 Yeah. I was shocked, and I’m not into hyper-violence.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 360 54.99 40 Sigh.

Oh, did I mention that shipping (USPS) is included in the prices above? As you can see, in most cases I’m $10 under (and still over) the market asking prices.

Trials 2 Gets Some Love

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For a game that doesn’t get a lot of mention in the “professional” (I love doing that now) press, it seems to have a strong online following. We gushed all over it. It’s a strong contender for my 2008 FGOTY.

It seems as if the developers are giving it a little bit of love:

  • Added new voice-overs
  • Added new language support. Now supports English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish
  • Improved in-game chat and private messaging
  • Added new high-end graphics options, as well a new graphics mode optimized for low-end machines and laptops
  • Added 14 new downloadable tracks

RPS found it first. This has been a great week for extra game content.