A Gamer's Christmas Dream!

I'm back! Happy New-Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, now get back to work.

Today I just wanted to post my impressions of the games (7 of them!) I got for Christmas, so here I go!

Super Paper Mario: So, a while ago I decided to download the original Paper Mario game from the Wii virtual console and fell in love with the games humor and simplified RPG feel. So, when I finally got to play this game my expectations were high.

What I saw was everything I ever wanted plus more. The one thing that annoyed me just a little about the original was the battle system, FFXII has shown me a world free of battle screens and I can't look back. Well, Super Paper Mario replaces the old battle mode, tosses it out and does something a little unexpected. It makes it a Mario game of old, all the running and jumping intact. HP and EXP and Abilities and Sidekicks are all still there just, more freedom to play and not be stopped every time you see an enemy.

Super Mario Galaxy: So, did you play Mario 64? Did you wish Sunshine wasn't stupid? Did you want a game that takes elements from the Mario games you love (mostly SMB3 and SMB64) and use the to create the perfect Mario game? Well, you better get down and kiss Nintendo's feet cause that's just what they did. This game is amazing! Now... go play it. Now.

The Orange Box: Honestly, All I've really been playing from this 5 game collection is Portal, and maybe a little TF2. I'll get to the HL2 episodes eventually, I promise. Portal is a game that does something most games can't do. It kills me 100s of times without me getting upset and throwing something. I'm bad at puzzle games, they make me angry. Really I just shouldn't play them. Portal though, somehow manages to be every bit as hard without the controller through the TV frustration. When you figure out a puzzle its a great feeling of satisfaction, not a feeling of "FRIGGEN FINALLY!" I don't want to ruin the "story" for anyone, but yeah..you need to play this game. And the cake is a lie.

The Simpsons Game: I found out something yesterday. Allot of this games annoyances can be cleared away after shoving a controller in your wife's face and asking her (read: begging her) to play with you. This game is hard (mostly because I suck at seeing the obvious) the controls are always working against you (if Bart goes the wrong way on a zipline again I'm going to need a new TV) the camera is also your sworn enemy. But, while this game isn't GOtY potential, it certainly does what it is supposed to do. Its funny, and its a great fan service. So, Simpsons Fans, pick it up and make sure to get a 2nd player to help out.

Call of Duty 4: Okokok, so this game's single player campaign is supposed to be amazingly great... thing is I haven't really touched it yet. Throughout Christmas it was all about schooling my dad in 2 player split-screen or my brother putting up a great fight. I've been addicted to this game' mutiplayer. Split-screen play aside the real star of the game is the online mode. Take a standard FPS, add a RPGesque lvling system where you gain exp for every time you play, every kill you get and even mission objectives (get 20 head shots with this gun kinda thing). And exp get you lvls, which in turn unlock guns, perks, things that go boom ect. Halo 3 can go cry in a corner, as far as I'm concerned THIS game is the online FPS to play...

Unreal Tournament III: ...unless you want an old-school, crazy fast fragfest. Then you'll have to look to this game. Not much to say here really. If you have played and liked Unreal Tournament in the past, you'll like this game. Its every bit the fun the other games were, and with a keyboard and mouse plugged into your PS3 (though, the SIXAXIS control is very well done and there is SIXAXIS only servers for you people who don't want to get schooled be the KB&M folk :P) you'll feel every bit like your playing the PC version...cept on your tv.

I do have a few beefs with this game though... the biggest one being a lack of split-screen play. That's right folks, you can't get this game for Christmas, bring it over to your dad's place and expect to flak your father to death. You'll have to make do with repeated CoD4 sniper head shots.

Really though. A game like this, totaly designed as a multi player experience lacking any sort of split screen mode is simply stupid.

Resistance: I'll wrap all this up with a short one. Haven't played much of this... and what I did play I sucked at. So there you go.

Well, this was fun... drop me a comment if you read this at all. Thanks!

X

Let the Fanboy Wars Begin!

Every so often, GameTrailers.com feels the need to fan the flames of war between the XBots and the.. er, well... those PS3 Fanboys. I assume its just to sit back and have a good laugh at the silly kids all standing on the soapbox proclaiming that once again their system has come out on top.

This time its the Orange Box, and to me at least I'm quite happily surprised. After 1up.com posted saying the PS3 port was "unplayable" due to frame rate issues I'm glad to see that, although not quite up to where the XBox360 is, the PS3's frame rate in indeed playable and it looks just as good as it does on M$'s system.

You should really go see the flame war brewing on this video's comments, fanboys are so amusing lol.

X

10 years later...

So... that's it. Vaporware king Duke Nukem's latest game "Duke Nukem Forever" has been in production since 1997. That's right, it was originally planned to be made in the Quake II engine!

Here we are 10 years later, moved from engine to engine, pushed back again and again. Awarded vaporware lifetime achievement... and the game is still somehow ticking.

The first trailer in 6 years is by far the shortest... like we really needed to be teased. Ah well, take it or leave it. Maybe we should start a pool on when this game (if ever) will actually come out. O, and who still cares about Duke Nukem anyway?

Congratulations Mac Owners!

It looks like you poor poor Mac owners can soon finally log off WoW and dive into some FPS action sometime in "early 2008". Epic is porting their latest quazi-hit Unreal Tournament III to the OSX operating system.

How exactly will you frag someone with a one button mouse? Only time will tell I suppose. Still, though I'll probably never own a Mac its nice to see you guys finally feeling some game developer loven'.

Now Epic, those XBox360 owners will be angry if Macs get the game first you know...just saying...

X

*image and story found on joystiq.com

Playstation 3 And Me!

ok, so I'm going to start a "... And Me!" weekly update on just what I've been doing in the world of gaming! Up first, the Playstation 3.

This week we saw the v2.10 update for the PS3 and I've been downloading WMV files from GameTrailers.com like crazy (starting with the entire 13 part Final Fantasy Retrospective) and playing them over the network on my HDTV.

Thank you Sony, and..its about time! Now, can we get ingame XMB? Please?

While not watching videos, I've been playing a little bit of the Burnout demo. I like it alot. The free roaming feel of it and the uber-simple online access (press right on the d-pad) are wonderful. You can tell right away that this game was developed on the PS3 (read: no slowdown). Its so nice to see games developed in a way that makes sence. PS3 -> X360 means both versions actually work on their respective consoles.

(Hey Valve! Yeah! I'm talking to you! EA screwed your game over! Why do you hate us?)

Other then that, its been more of the same. I play GRAW2 online lots still. Play FFXI sometimes as well. Don't play Oblivion much anymore. Lets hope Christmas means more games to sink my teeth into :D.

Till next time, X

Halo 2 HD

So, I was downstairs playing Halo 3 with my brother the other day while he's borrowing a friends XBox360 and I have to say that while the game is certainly fun... the impression I got from reading online forums was that this game is the be-all end-all of online entertainment, that its so amazingly wonderfully outstanding that any other online shooter is complete fail compared to it...

ok, well..not EVERYTHING I've read online gives that impression, but when I see GOTY nominations all over the place I start to think that this game must be something new and exciting...

Let me tell you what Halo 3 is exactly.

Play Halo 2...

Now, upscale that game into HD

give the game HD textures..

hey look! You have Halo 3!
ITS EXACTLY THE SAME GAME!!!

People online screaming GAME OF THE YEAR all over the place for this game confuse me.

Yeah, its a solid and fun online experience...but its also a dated one. Call of Duty 4 took the franchise into new ground and made a whole new game and from what I hear, its a totaly great game with wonderful innovations to keep the game fresh. Super Mario Galaxy which I've been playing for a bit the past few days (Rental! yey Blockbuster!) Took everything that was great about past 3d mario games (Mario 64, Mario Sunshine) and came up with a truly amazing original game that, while still feeling every-bit like a mario game, does everything in a totaly new way all at the same time.

Halo 3 really isn't that great, because at the end of the day...as fun as it is..its really only Halo 2 HD. Innovate people! I understand wanting to "Not fix what is not broken" but...we've played this game before, give us something new! Its the reason the Wii is #1 in the market right now. People don't care about the graphics or how many polys you can put on the screen at any one time as much as they do about doing something new, something different.
That being said...

Can I have Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3) for Christmas please? Anyone? Hello?

X

*All images from 1up.com