E3

Last day of E3 is upon us, it came and went so fast.

What I want to do is talk about the big 3 (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) conferences. The games or features that the companies covered very well and their disappointments or faults during the briefing. This will be a 3 part blog so lets start off with Microsoft first.



Microsoft started out by showing Rock Band: Beatles which visually looked amazing. I was worried and wondered how Harmonix would accomplish the three part vocal harmonies but was immediately relieved to see how great it worked. I forgot the executive's (Microsoft) name but he looked out of place with his red leather jacket. I don't know it seemed odd to me... Anyway, another thing that stood out to me was their showing instead of telling mentality. For the most part they showed their games and demoed them for the crowd. All the big games that you would expect were there. Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell: Convictions and Crackdown 2. The most interesting thing to come out their conference was their new camera/controller peripheral called Natal, think Ps3's Eye Toy but with more uses. The biggest use for Natal was the ability to navigate through menus and voice recognition. Microsoft looks like they want to try and break into the market place where the Wii is. I don't see it happening but I guess they believe they can do it with Natal. Another cool addition to Natal is what Peter Molyneux has been working on. Rather than explaining Milo, it would be easier to show you so I'll post the video of it at the end of this post.

On to the disappointments.

I was a little disappointed with Alan wake to be honest. I was expecting a little more out of the demo especially with all the hype surrounding it. The way to kill enemies is to shine any kind of light at them. Every time the flash light was pointed at the enemy, it looked like it took a while or it was in slow motion to show them disappearing. Whatever was happening the enemies got annoying very quickly. It was a very small slice of the game but it didn't excite me.

Am I the only one getting sick of Halo? Bungie showed a little more of ODST and a teaser of Halo: Reach but it failed to excite me once again. I know its Microsoft's flagship title but I don't know if they really need a Halo every year.

Microsoft has been famous for their online service; adding twitter and Facebook seems like a great idea but I think the majority of people do it on their computer or iphone. Its a good that its there but it may just be a small segment of people using it.

Milo

Grand Theft Auto 4 Insanity 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdbs-esVWps

Done by yours truly, watch in high quality as well. Sound is a little off because youtube messed it up, but you get the idea lol.

If you liked this video, number 1 in this "series" is under my youtube profile, "whoosh88"

-Mark

Excuse Me, What Can I Get With $10?

Quite a lot actually.

I remember the days before the Playstation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace took off with downloadable games. Every new game that came out was $60 (or even $50 back in the PS2/Xbox days). Today, we are fortunate enough to buy games online without having to drive to the store...all for around $10.

Of course these games aren't $60 titles, "you get what you pay for" does play a role. But surprisingly, you get a lot for paying only 10 bucks. These games include Bionic Commando, Super Stardust HD, the Pixel Junk games, and plenty of others that serve a simple purpose. Provide a quick way for people to get their gaming fix.

At first the PSN Store was slow to take off, but now it's coming out with new games all the time. And take a look at some of the new titles and others that are in store: Fat Princess, Worms, Burn Zombie Burn, Zombie Apocalypse, and Trine.

Combine these simple games with trophies and they can be played for hours. It's a nice break from spending $60 on a game with a 7 hour story line or $40 on a multiplayer, tactical shooter that doesn't work half the time. If you're in the mood for a change that won't hurt your wallet, check out some of the titles on the PSN or Xbox Live Marketplace. And definitely look towards some of the new titles coming out.

-Mark

WordFu

I couldn't sleep last night so I started going through the app store on my iphone trying to find Oregon Trail. I remembered listening to a podcast where John Davison talked about a game called WordFu from NGmoco. He described it as Boggle with Kung Fu noises. This game came out at the end of February for 99 cents but when I went to download it, the price changed to $1.99. I would have liked to pay 99 cents, but like Shane Bettenhausen always says, "it’s nice to want things".

The game is fairly simple when you start it up. There are 9 letters that you can choose to either mulligan by shaking the iphone/ipod to get a new batch of letters or flip over single cubes to get new letters. The point is to get the best combination of letters that will help you get the most words out of your batch. At a certain point, the game throws some power-ups to help you get a higher score. There is a power-up that stops time; one that doubles your score and another that lets you flip one cube over. Everything is timed in WordFu. You have 20 seconds to choose your batch of letters and 45 seconds to make as many words as you can. To enter your words you touch the letter cube and when you're done with the word you shake the iphone/ipod to enter it for a score. While this game is over rather quickly it’s fun and addicting, especially if you like playing word games like Boggle. Leader boards and achievements are present in WordFu as well as 2 player wifi. I haven't tried the 2 player mode (you have to be on the same hot spot) but I really want to check it out.

It was worth the 2 bucks :)

-Rob

Condemned 2: Bloodshot Review

As promised, my review of Condemned 2.

Let me start off by saying I have not played the first game, so the story is sort of lost on me. However, it didn't seem like much of a factor after playing this game. Some would say that this was scarier than the last Condemned, but to me, it seemed creepy at best. I haven't been scared in a video game since Resident Evil 2 on the Playsation. Scary video games are like scary movies, they don't work when you get older. Nonetheless I was surprised by how disturbing some of the enemies looked and behaved. I would describe them as superhuman bums. Speaking of the main character (zing), he wasn't very likable and I could care less about him. It's hard to relate to an alcoholic that beats on other bums, unless of course you watch Bumfights constantly.

The combat was the highlight of this game. It felt like the combat system from Oblivion without all the suck. There are combos if you get the timing down and if you get an enemy on the ground, you can do something along the lines of a fatality. There are environmental triggers all over the levels for some variety. You can pretty much pick up anything from the environment to use as a weapon. There are some instances where you will use a gun, but for the most part it's just hand to hand combat, baseball bats, lead pipes etc. Another cool feature in this game was the investigation set pieces. You basically have to play as a CSI detective and figure out certain things using the clues in the crime scene. You are graded every time you send information back to the other cop. At one point in the game you have to identify a specific blood spatter on a door. It's a good thing I watched a lot of seasons of Dexter or I wouldn't have gotten it right.

One thing that annoyed me about this game was that the screen became distorted every time the developers wanted to freak the player out. I have seen this trend in other games like Fear 2 but here it became frustrating especially when enemies would attack you. Overall, the game was fun even though the story was a little weird (I guess I should have played the last one) and since I only paid $10, it was a decent experience.

-Rob

Busy!!

Sorry for not posting any new updates, I have been super busy with school/work/hanging out and a few games that I'm trying to get through. I will write up a review of Condemned 2 soon. Here are some games that I have been playing:

Burnout

Killzone 2

3 versus 3 Hockey

Condemned 2

-Rob

Burnout Paradise and Why It's Insanely Awesome

Burnout Paradise was released a little over a year ago at the standard price of $60. The game was more than solid, and having picked it up on release day I was excited to start playing after I spent hours and hours on the demo. There was a lot to do, dozens of events to partake in, cars to unlock, freeroaming, and of course online play.

Now after several updates and additions (more challenges online, new cars, and the addition of bikes, which were free by the way) the game is only $20 and can be picked up without even leaving your house by downloading it off the Playstation Network or Xbox Live Marketplace. Seriously?

Yup. Criterion has really done an amazing job keeping their fans coming back to drive around in Paradise City. There is even more new content coming out, including a whole other island. Yea, a whole new island. A new "Legendary Cars" pack is out today at the price of $8 and I can only assume the new island will cost money as well. But Criterion has done plenty for them to earn a few more bucks from me.

You might say, "Well I don't like racing games...why do you think I'd enjoy this?" Yes, this game is under the racing category, but it's nowhere close to any racing or driving simulator. This is an arcade smash-em-up-while-driving-really-fast game. If you don't like racing games, that doesn't mean you won't like Burnout Paradise. In fact, I can almost promise you'll enjoy it.

So for $20 you can pick up an extremely fun game with lots of content and fun. Playing with friends online while listening to your own music is some of the best fun I've had with an online game in a while.

Good job Criterion, and thank you.

-Mark