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.