Outrider
Jan 21, 2010, 01:26 PM
The holidays are always a great time for picking up new games on the cheap. Between my brothers and I giving each other games for Christmas and just a general abundance of good games on sale, I've been playing a lot of new titles this past month. My thoughts:
Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360 - Received as a gift) - A great game that suffers from some fairly big issues; If you can get past them (especially the mind-numbing opening hours) you'll find that it's a fun sandbox to play around in.
Sam & Max: Season 1 (Wii - Received as a gift) - I only played a bit of the first episode, but it's fun so far. Unfortunately, there are frame rate and loading issues on the Wii version. Nothing you can't get over, but when I first started playing it, I was a little put off.
Spider-Man 2 (Xbox - Received as a gift) - Haven't played this yet. I actually already own this on Gamecube and played through it a few years back, but despite that fact I'm still willing to jump in and see how the two versions compare.
The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance - Received as a gift) - I already own this, so I haven't played the double. The funny thing is, I was looking and I think that this copy is actually a bootleg. It's got a different colored label with somewhat shoddy printing, the cartridge looks and feels like it's made of a different kind of plastic, and the imprinted numbers on the label are missing. Plus, it was bought off of eBay. So that's kind of cool for novelty's sake, I guess.
Torchlight (PC - Purchased for $9.99 sometime in November) - I didn't get a chance to play this until around Christmas, but it's a fun little game. It's great for when you have ten or twenty minutes to kill.
Dragon Age: Origins (PC - Purchased for $49.99 as a gift for my brother) - It's got a good story and it's gorgeous and I'm liking it, but I just don't think I'm built for these types of PC RPGs (Neverwinter Nights has also destroyed me before, even on Easy difficulty from what I remember.) Basically, Dragon Age has made me feel like this:
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215210499_crBV7-L-2.jpg
Overlord (PC - Purchased for ~$3 on Steam) - This is a neat enough game, though I don't know how dedicated I'll be to finishing it. I've had fun through the first chapter, but I ran into trouble trying to direct my minions to take out some beholder creature in one of the early areas and haven't gone back to it yet.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (PC - Purchased for $1.99 on Steam) - Played about an hour. I think I'm done with it. At times, it's far too much of a "niche pc gamer wank-fest" for me. (You need to hold three keys within close proximity of each other simply to crawl and you need to click with one finger and scroll with the other to use the binoculars? Maybe it's my giant monster hands, but those are unnatural positions and movements.) Still, I did get a kick out of how much it reminded me of Fallout 3 (which my brother has been playing almost non-stop since before Christmas).
7 or 8 other games from Steam I haven't even touched (PC - Each was around ~$1 or less, due to being bundled together) - Pure impulse buys, but I'm hoping to give them a shot, even though I have some for other platforms. There was Braid, Loom, the Dig, two Indiana Jones adventure games from Lucasarts, the first two OddWorld games, Ben There Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please.
Dokapon Kingdom (Wii - Purchased as a gift for my brothers for $20) - I bought this purely on the recommendation of one of my cousins. I've only played an hour or two (which isn't even a complete game), but if I had to describe it I'd say it's the perfect combination of a party game and an RPG. And I mean that entirely in a good way.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS - Bought for $20 from an independent videogame store in Manhattan; I've had my eye on this game and I felt bad browsing for so long and then not picking up anything because everything else was way overpriced) - Surprisingly great. I never liked the pre-GTA 3 games, so I figured that the birds-eye gameplay in this would be disappointing, but I've pretty much only had fun with it so far. I definitely recommend it if you're looking for a good, meaty experience on the DS (especially if you're not looking for yet another DS RPG to spend your time on). I didn't think I'd care for it, but surprisingly I've been spending most of my time on the drug dealing mini-game so far.
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii - Bought for $50 because apparently it's been discontinued and I want to play through Prime 1 & 2 with Wii controls and my brothers still haven't played through any of the Prime games) - Uh... it's Metroid Prime. But with Wii controls. I can't argue that it's worth $50 for somebody who already owns all three games (Hey look, I'm talking about myself!), but it's probably great for people who are unfamiliar with the games. At the very least, it's a good excuse to play through the trilogy again and see how the entire series works as one cohesive work (based off of my memories of my original playthroughs, I'm going to say it's not very cohesive at all, but maybe I'll think differently this time around.)
MadWorld (Wii - Bought on sale for $13 from Amazon) - I just started this last night, but holy crap am I having a good time. Maybe it's because some of the reviews I've read had lowered my expectations, but I'm enjoying this much more than I thought I would. It's a gorgeous, fun action title that is strongly reminiscent of No More Heroes (fight through random bad guys to score enough points until you can fight the big boss; rinse and repeat.) I think I'm just shy of the half-way mark, and I've heard that the second half of the game drags a bit, but I'm still looking forward to playing some more tonight. Highly recommend this.
Also bought these games as gifts for others but haven't tried them out yet:
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (Wii - $4 for a sealed, brand new copy from Gamestop; Weird, I know) - Watched my brother play this and it's a perfect combo of Phoenix Wright and the Harvey Birdman show. Loving what I've seen. (Though, like the show, probably better if playing with other people in the room.)
Assassin's Creed II (PS3 - $50) - It's weird that my brother got me AC at the same time that I got him ACII.
Rhythm Heaven (DS - ~$10, I think) - It's supposed to be good, from what I've heard.
The World Ends With You (DS - Somewhere between $15 and $20) - Heard lots of great things about this game, and I've been meaning to try it but I figured it would make sense to see of my RPG-crazed brother would like it. I don't think he does.
I think that's everything. It's a lot of videogames.
Let's see - total amount of money spent on games for the holiday season up until now: ~$258 by my count. That's pretty insane. Maybe I should rethink picking up NMH2 next week (Nah, who am I kidding).
tl;dr - I've spent a lot of money on video games since November, but I've also played some that I've enjoyed quite a bit.
Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360 - Received as a gift) - A great game that suffers from some fairly big issues; If you can get past them (especially the mind-numbing opening hours) you'll find that it's a fun sandbox to play around in.
Sam & Max: Season 1 (Wii - Received as a gift) - I only played a bit of the first episode, but it's fun so far. Unfortunately, there are frame rate and loading issues on the Wii version. Nothing you can't get over, but when I first started playing it, I was a little put off.
Spider-Man 2 (Xbox - Received as a gift) - Haven't played this yet. I actually already own this on Gamecube and played through it a few years back, but despite that fact I'm still willing to jump in and see how the two versions compare.
The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance - Received as a gift) - I already own this, so I haven't played the double. The funny thing is, I was looking and I think that this copy is actually a bootleg. It's got a different colored label with somewhat shoddy printing, the cartridge looks and feels like it's made of a different kind of plastic, and the imprinted numbers on the label are missing. Plus, it was bought off of eBay. So that's kind of cool for novelty's sake, I guess.
Torchlight (PC - Purchased for $9.99 sometime in November) - I didn't get a chance to play this until around Christmas, but it's a fun little game. It's great for when you have ten or twenty minutes to kill.
Dragon Age: Origins (PC - Purchased for $49.99 as a gift for my brother) - It's got a good story and it's gorgeous and I'm liking it, but I just don't think I'm built for these types of PC RPGs (Neverwinter Nights has also destroyed me before, even on Easy difficulty from what I remember.) Basically, Dragon Age has made me feel like this:
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215210499_crBV7-L-2.jpg
Overlord (PC - Purchased for ~$3 on Steam) - This is a neat enough game, though I don't know how dedicated I'll be to finishing it. I've had fun through the first chapter, but I ran into trouble trying to direct my minions to take out some beholder creature in one of the early areas and haven't gone back to it yet.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (PC - Purchased for $1.99 on Steam) - Played about an hour. I think I'm done with it. At times, it's far too much of a "niche pc gamer wank-fest" for me. (You need to hold three keys within close proximity of each other simply to crawl and you need to click with one finger and scroll with the other to use the binoculars? Maybe it's my giant monster hands, but those are unnatural positions and movements.) Still, I did get a kick out of how much it reminded me of Fallout 3 (which my brother has been playing almost non-stop since before Christmas).
7 or 8 other games from Steam I haven't even touched (PC - Each was around ~$1 or less, due to being bundled together) - Pure impulse buys, but I'm hoping to give them a shot, even though I have some for other platforms. There was Braid, Loom, the Dig, two Indiana Jones adventure games from Lucasarts, the first two OddWorld games, Ben There Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please.
Dokapon Kingdom (Wii - Purchased as a gift for my brothers for $20) - I bought this purely on the recommendation of one of my cousins. I've only played an hour or two (which isn't even a complete game), but if I had to describe it I'd say it's the perfect combination of a party game and an RPG. And I mean that entirely in a good way.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS - Bought for $20 from an independent videogame store in Manhattan; I've had my eye on this game and I felt bad browsing for so long and then not picking up anything because everything else was way overpriced) - Surprisingly great. I never liked the pre-GTA 3 games, so I figured that the birds-eye gameplay in this would be disappointing, but I've pretty much only had fun with it so far. I definitely recommend it if you're looking for a good, meaty experience on the DS (especially if you're not looking for yet another DS RPG to spend your time on). I didn't think I'd care for it, but surprisingly I've been spending most of my time on the drug dealing mini-game so far.
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii - Bought for $50 because apparently it's been discontinued and I want to play through Prime 1 & 2 with Wii controls and my brothers still haven't played through any of the Prime games) - Uh... it's Metroid Prime. But with Wii controls. I can't argue that it's worth $50 for somebody who already owns all three games (Hey look, I'm talking about myself!), but it's probably great for people who are unfamiliar with the games. At the very least, it's a good excuse to play through the trilogy again and see how the entire series works as one cohesive work (based off of my memories of my original playthroughs, I'm going to say it's not very cohesive at all, but maybe I'll think differently this time around.)
MadWorld (Wii - Bought on sale for $13 from Amazon) - I just started this last night, but holy crap am I having a good time. Maybe it's because some of the reviews I've read had lowered my expectations, but I'm enjoying this much more than I thought I would. It's a gorgeous, fun action title that is strongly reminiscent of No More Heroes (fight through random bad guys to score enough points until you can fight the big boss; rinse and repeat.) I think I'm just shy of the half-way mark, and I've heard that the second half of the game drags a bit, but I'm still looking forward to playing some more tonight. Highly recommend this.
Also bought these games as gifts for others but haven't tried them out yet:
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (Wii - $4 for a sealed, brand new copy from Gamestop; Weird, I know) - Watched my brother play this and it's a perfect combo of Phoenix Wright and the Harvey Birdman show. Loving what I've seen. (Though, like the show, probably better if playing with other people in the room.)
Assassin's Creed II (PS3 - $50) - It's weird that my brother got me AC at the same time that I got him ACII.
Rhythm Heaven (DS - ~$10, I think) - It's supposed to be good, from what I've heard.
The World Ends With You (DS - Somewhere between $15 and $20) - Heard lots of great things about this game, and I've been meaning to try it but I figured it would make sense to see of my RPG-crazed brother would like it. I don't think he does.
I think that's everything. It's a lot of videogames.
Let's see - total amount of money spent on games for the holiday season up until now: ~$258 by my count. That's pretty insane. Maybe I should rethink picking up NMH2 next week (Nah, who am I kidding).
tl;dr - I've spent a lot of money on video games since November, but I've also played some that I've enjoyed quite a bit.