Playing Today: Loco Roco, Fuzion Frenzy 2, Mad Tracks

I am moving to a house. Real quick. Mad Tracks is fun but not very deep. Loco Roco is lots and lots of silly fun. As good as Katamari and as simple as Mario. Fuzion Frenzy 2 is still frustrating.

Playing Today: 300, AstroPop, Loco Roco

I spent a lot of time with 300 yesterday. I still find myself having to go to GameFAQs for help. That's just fine because I know that eventually I would have figured the bosses out. I just didn't have four hours to spend. This game continues to grow on me.

I found Loco Roco at the ripe price of $10 yesterday. I also found Oddworld Stranger's Wrath for $5. I didn't play Oddworld because I don't have an XBOX, but my fingers are crossed for this game to be backwards compatible in the future. Loco Roco is silly fun and kind of like a side-scrolling version of Katamari.

Do I need to mention Astropop? I leveled up and earned a new achievement. Hurr-ay.

Playing Today: Shrek the Third, 300, Crackdown, AstroPop, Burnout Legends

On this extended holiday weekend I brought back Crackdown and played some of thew new content. The free content is pretty good but the paid content is now integrated into the gameplay. So, if you didn't pay for it, the game leaves the mission points as if you did. This is like putting pop-up ads in the middle of a video game.

Played more Shrek the Third, aiming to wrap up some of those achievements I haven't attained. The voiceovers are still awful and the gameplay is basic. I think that even little kids that liked the movie would hate this game.

The PSP joy that is 300 continues to grow. While the gameplay is simplistic and the enemies are repetitive, the bosses are no walk in the park. Some take 15 minutes just to lose to. I know what I'm supposed to do, but a mistake that I made 5 minutes in comes back to haunt me. Maybe I haven't played enough on the PSP, but 300 is worth a rental or a used price purchase.

My puzzle gaming was limited to AstroPop and I played Burnout Legends on the PSP for about 10 minutes. Both are great mental break games.

Playing Today: Shrek the Third, Tetris

Didn't play a whole lot yesterday. Just some Shrek the Third (wrapping up some achievements) and some Tetris on my cell phone. Not to worry, I'm sure I'll get to spend plenty more time with Spider-Man 3 this weekend. And Shrek the Third still sucks.

Playing Today: Shrek the Third

I bit the bullet and opened up the packaging of Shrek the Third today. Luckily, this game was free. The camera has issues. The jumping has issues. The graphics are nowhere near being next gen (aka current gen) and the voiceovers are unlistenable. The only noteworthy part of the game is John Cleese's narration. At this point I'll take Tobey Maguire's lazy work in Spider-Man 3 to the painfully bad voice dupes in Shrek the Third.

Playing Today: Spider-Man 3, Rayman's Raving Rabbids, Aegis Wing

I finished up the story mode of Rayman's Raving Rabbids. There isn't really much story to the game, but the minigames are silly enough that I had a good time playing it. Rayman is not as fun or funny as WarioWare, but is definitely worth a rental. Kids will enjoy the crazy rabbits and gamers will enjoy the sometimes difficult first person shooter levels. And everyone should enjoy the dancing rabbit sequences. Overall a B or B- game.

I'm still playing Spider-man 3. I've become more comfortable with the system of the game but I keep finding strange small quirks. If you stand on top a car (working on the Hitch Hiker Achievement) you'll see that cars drive through other cars. They also shift in strange directions and sometimes stop altogether. This game was not thoroughly quality tested and it shows. Did I mention the crappy graphics?

Aegis Wing is great when playing four player. Especially if your teammates are good and communicative. The final boss of Insane is a nail-biting experience worth every penny. And amazingly this game was free! Overall a B- game.

I played Ghost Rider on a PS2 for 10 minutes. It reminds me of God of War... A LOT.

Playing This Weekend: Halo 3 Beta, Spider-Man 3, Rayman's Raving Rabbids

I finally received Spider-Man 3 and Rayman's Raving Rabbids in the mail today. They are two completely different games and only of them is worth playing.

Spider-Man 3 is the poster child for crap games based on good licenses. Basically, the game is GTA III, Crackdown, and Superman Returns rolled into one. It takes places in the midst of NYC and spends a lot of effort encouraging vertical gameplay. Nothing is new here and a lot of the gameplay is flat out broken. The camera is super buggy and the swinging mechanics don't seem to have been tested. Fighting is even worse because there is no lock-on system to speak of. When fighting, often, you'll get stuck behind a tree or building because of a crappy combat system. The graphics are low grade, the music is repetitive and boring, and the voiceover work is unenthusiastic. This game is worse than games like TMNT and Cars because of how little the company cares.

Rayman is a collection of fun mini-games akin to those in WarioWare and other titles. I especially love the timing game that is similar to Guitar Hero, Parappa the Rappa, and DDR. The game goes by pretty quick, but it seems like tons of fun for kids and groups of people.

Playing Today: Halo 3 Beta, Fuzion Frenzy 2, Gears of War

Let's see, not a lot played today but enough Halo 3 Beta to start changing my mind. Fuzion Frenzy 2 saw about 12 seconds of action from me. Meanwhile, thanks to some friends, Gears of War was back in rotation. It took a second to re-readjust to the controls. Sniper felt natural but that shotgun still threw me off.

After spending more time with Halo 3 Beta, I've found some things I enjoy. The Assault Rifle is much more comfortable to me than the Battle Rifle. I'm still enjoying the Spiker (aka the Klobb of Halo), especially when double fisting. And Territories was really cool on the mountain level. Now if only I could mater turning with the Mongoose.

Coming soon in the mail, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third!

Playing Today: Halo 3 Beta, Fuzion Frenzy 2, 300

After a bit of a delay, I finally worked my way into the Halo 3 Beta. So far my impression is that this is Halo 2 with new menus, better capabilities (engine-wise), new maps and weapons, and a full-on video recorder. The video recorder is easily the most innovative part of the game and probably going to be the hardest feature to be copied. The most frustrating part of the game is overcoming months of Gears of War training. Because I was never great at Halo or Halo 2, I quickly adapted to Gears and now forgot all of the essential buttons in Halo. I'm still not sure how to change weapons. But that's just me.

I cracked open Fuzion Frenzy 2 and was surprised at how not-awful it was. Sure the voiceover is atrocious. But some of the minigames are a blast. I can't wait to get four people in the same room to play it. And best of all - it was free!

300 is still 300. However, my earlier comparison to Eragon is starting to fade away. This is (just a bit) better than Eragon. Hopefully, Spider-Man 3 will arrive soon.

Playing Today: PDZ, Fuzion Frenzy 2, 300, Aegis Wing

I'm still playing Perfect Dark Zero, primarily for the achievement points. Received Fuzion Frenzy 2 in the mail. I doubt it will be very good, but you never know. Two days of 300 (for the PSP) have me entertained but no more than Eragon or TMNT. The voice work is laughable.

Downloaded Aegis Wing & Solitaire from XBLA. Aegis Wing is good for free but not likely to bump Pinball or Astropop from my current favorite arcade titles. At 800 points, Solitaire is just not worth the price.

Beck is still playing (and kicking my ass) in Astropop. Too bad she beat Me and My Katamri yesterday because she's run out of new games to play.

Game Reviews...

My goal is to blog daily about the games I'm playing and what I think of them. Kind of like capsule reviews...