So I'm back. Cleaned up, unpacked my suitcase and the like. This was a big week for games and gaming hardware, so I installed my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player (looked at some clips from King Kong and Serenity), set up my 360 wireless headset (charging, not really used yet), and sorted all the mail and the like. So more on those later. I'll pick up Gears of War on Thursday, and I actually grabbed Elite Beat Agents while on vacation. And I'm about a quarter through Vice City Stories, so I could talk about that as well.

And I'd better get some work done as well :-)

technorati tags:vacation, gaming, Xbox_360, HD-DVD

Blogged with Flock

I'm on vacation from now until next Monday, in Vegas for most of this week and then road tripping around southern California over the weekend. Updates will likely be non-existent. I'll be playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories over the trip, so bug me about that when I return. Also I've been playing some Just Cause and so far I really like it. Between it and Saint's Row I guess this is the year the GTA clones stop sucking. (Some people would say Mercenaries gets that honor. I thought Mercenaries was . . . OK, but not spectacular. I didn't finish it, and I can't say as it bothered me much.)

Anyway, it's a blogging holiday. Away!

technorati tags:vacation, SLARTIBARTFAST_06, Las_Vegas

Blogged with Flock

So I did finally get Dead Rising from Gamefly. And I'm glad I waited, because ultimately? Unimpressed with it. It's almost brilliant and I really wanted to like it, but ultimately a game gets very few "make me play 40 minutes and they reload because the save points are so @#$^#$%#$ far apart" tokens, and Dead Rising burned right through the supply. The last time I played for a while, then found a homicidal clown juggling chainsaws who has some trick to killing him I suppose. Bullets to the head at point-blank range did no damage. Then he breathed fire on me, knocked me into a moving funhouse ride and as I stood up he came over and cut me with his chainsaws. End result? I lost five of my six blocks of health before I got control back. And the little orange envelope came out and away it went. Good riddance. I've got more games than I can handle, and I can't be bothered with games that spring cutesy bosses on you with little to no warning and no save point beforehand.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a different story. I haven't made up my mind about singleplayer yet, but multiplayer is a blast. I've played a bunch of coop-challenge play and tonight we tried the versus mode. They definitely streamlined the game down, it's faster paced than either Pandora Tomorrow or Chaos Theory, but that's a good thing, in my opinion.

Gabe from Penny Arcade disagrees with me and I can see his points without entirely agreeing. You can read that here:

You can like this game, that’s fine. But it really is a new game. This isn’t Splinter Cell multiplayer, this is Halo hide and seek.

Penny Arcade! - The Green Harvest, Part Two

Scroll down a bit - it's the second post of the day and it's titled "Yuck".

I don't really see the Halo comparison at all. It's definitely faster, and the mercs have lost the ability to place mines. In exchange they got more powerful grenades, unlimited ammo, and these super-cool remote hover-drones that can investigate the airducts where a filthy spy might be hiding. They can also quickly move from one terminal to another. In Chaos Theory mines were super-important because there were more terminals than mercs and you couldn't get from one to the other easily. So I usually ended up mining up one terminal so I could then guard another.

They are very different games, no doubt about it. The difference is that Double Agent supports six players versus four, and that you can have a friend up to speed in Double Agent with a couple of plays. I remember how complicated it was to explain Chaos Theory to a new player - I like this version much better myself.

I can see where somebody who played PT or CT three-four times a week for months on end wouldn't like it. But those people need to acknowledge that catering a game to them means an incredibly limited (and stagnant) market segment. At the end of the day Double Agent captures much the same feel (for me at least) while making it much more accessible to newcomers. That's all to the good.

technorati tags:gaming, Xbox_360, Splinter_Cell, Dead_Rising

Blogged with Flock

(I really, really hate the name of the Wii. It goes way deeper than the Freudian pee-pee jokes - the Wii is the cuter-than-cute industrial design of the Gamecube graven onto our very language. It shouldn't be allowed.)

So here we are Holiday 2006. I'm not buying a PS3, being mere mortal and having no definitive genetic link to Zeus. I already have a 360. The Wii required more consideration. But I've decided to pass, at least at launch.

I was playing Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 on the DS when I had an epiphany. The bosses levels of MvDK2 all have the same conceit - you have a cannon attached to a bicycle chain and this chain is attached to a big paddlewheel. You can spin the wheel back and forth to move the cannon from side to side. Pressing the center of the cannon launches a mini-Mario up into the top screen. If you hit Donkey Kong a certain amount of times you win. The boss levels I don't like - it's another gimmicky Nintendo "Hey look! A touch screen! C'mon - it's a touch screen LOVE MEEEEEEEEE!" that I've ranted about before. (I suppose I should count my blessings in that I don't have to "blow on" the DS to activate the microphone. This alone makes the game one of a very small minority of DS titles.) In contrast I do like the regular levels and feel they actually need a touch screen to work effectively. So I suffer through the boss levels. Anyway it hit me: everything Nintendo does lately is all about making carnival midway games. It's all paddlewheels and blowing up the balloon with a water gun. And the Wii looks like more of the same. Does anybody really think that Mario Galaxies will feel control better than Mario 64? Or that Zelda: Twilight Princess will control better than Zelda: Ocarina of Time did almost 10 years ago.

Now don't get me wrong - going to the carnival and playing the ring toss can be fun. About once a year. But the other 364 nights you can have my controller with more than four buttons when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. The Wii's controller is not enough. It's not a complex enough system of verbs to support the games I play as somebody on the wrong side of 30.

I'm sure I'll buy a Wii eventually, but  I'll predict that it never sees 10% of the playtime my 360 does. Or the eventual PS3 will once Prometheus brings the secret of fire down the mountain and we can all buy one. As for Wii launch titles? Piffle. Wii(tm) Sports might be interesting, but I don't really do  video game nights anymore. Zelda? Zelda suffered on the last two generations from a controller that had nine buttons and two analog sticks (or one stick and another four buttons for the N64). I'm willing to bet all this analog "swing a sword and pull back the bow (With Real By-Ear-Bowstring-Sound(tm)!)" makes the game have less depth than the last few Zeldas. Mario Galaxy? Maybe but it's not coming out before next year sometime (and I'll be surprised if it doesn't slip past March). Wario Ware? Maybe - but I've bought four Wario Wares that sucked, and only two I liked. That "franchise" may have been the "Come On Eileen" of Nintendo franchises.

I'll save the money and buy 360 games thanks.

technorati tags:Wii, gaming, Nintendo

Blogged with Flock

The holiday onslaught has well and truly begun. This week alone brings a new Tiger Woods (I realize many of you will scoff - but four player online golf with friends is pretty cool), Lumines Live (on 360), Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and Sid Meier's Railroads (OMG, SUCH a time sink). Destroy All Humans 2 comes out this week as well, but definitely loses in the face of such an assault. Bully might be interesting - but that's a definite renter first I think.

I gave up on Okami after some more play. The art style is fresh and new, and the story was somewhat interesting, but the gameplay itself is dull and repetitive. How much "Hit square repeatedly" is fun? See I have media for marveling over the art and linear storytelling. I call them "DVD's". Okami ends up being an anime that makes you push X after every two lines of dialog. No thanks.

Gamefly redeemed itself partially by shipping me the first two titles on my list (Dead Rising (finally) and Lego Star Wars II). Interestingly, both titles showed as "Short Wait" and "Not for sale" until they actually shipped and suddenly had sale prices. Why they are selling titles that they haven't had in stock for weeks is beyond me, but OK, whatever.

If you had trouble with the Gamertag display over the last couple of days - blame Microsoft. They had Xbox.com down for 24 hours of maintenance on Tuesday and then did something as yet unexplained which messed up certain areas over Wednesday. It's Thursday morning and I STILL can't access my Friends List from the web. Nice "upgrade" MS, glad to see you're still maintaining high quality standards!

technorati tags:gaming, Gamefly

Blogged with Flock