The Ninja Blade demo is plagued by a ton of quick time events instead of actual gameplay.
After Resident Evil 5, it doesn’t seem like there’s much coming out in the next couple of months that will be interesting for me. I guess that’s a good thing, since my backlog isn’t getting any shorter. Ninja Blade comes out soon though, and as a Ninja Gaiden fan, I felt it may be good to share what I thought about the demo.
Being XBox free has given me the chance to check out some stuff I’ve missed
Yesterday, UPS called me and said that I will be receiving a package between 8 AM and 7 PM tomorrow that requires a signature. Crossing my fingers that I will be home in time to receive said package. I haven’t been gaming too much these past two weeks, but I’ve been keeping up with some of the GDC news and found my gaming fix elsewhere. Check out my thoughts after the jump.
Xbox 360
Alien Hominid HD [400 points/$5 Xbox Live Arcade]
BioShock [$19.97 Amazon]
Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway [$14.25 Amazon]
Call of Duty: World at War [$49.99 Amazon] [$49.99 Best Buy]
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin [$43.99 Amazon]
Far Cry 2 [$24.99 Newegg]
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 [$9.99 Newegg]
Halo Wars [$52.99 Amazon] [$52.99 Newegg]
Prince of Persia [$39.97 Amazon]
Resident Evil 5 [$53.99 Amazon] [$53.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition [$79.99 Newegg]
Rock Band 2 [$49.99 Amazon]
Shaun White Snowboarding [$21.87 Amazon]
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution [$29.97 Amazon]
Splinter Cell: Double Agent [$9.99 Newegg]
Street Fighter IV [$51.99 Amazon] [$51.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. [$44.99 Amazon] [$44.99 Newegg]
Too Human [$18.00 Amazon]
Wanted [$42.99 Amazon]
Live 12 Month Gold Card plus 1 Month Bonus [$38.99 Amazon] [$38.99 Newegg]
Playstation 3
BioShock [$29.97 Amazon]
Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway [$14.42 Amazon]
Call of Duty: World at War [$49.99 Amazon] [$49.99 Best Buy]
Eternal Sonata [$39.98 Amazon]
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin [$43.99 Amazon]
Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition [$52.99 Newegg]
Guitar Hero: World Tour [$24.99 Newegg]
Killzone 2 [$52.99 Amazon] [$52.99 Newegg]
LEGO Batman [$36.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
Little Big Planet [$49.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Lost Planet [$17.17 Amazon]
Metal Gear Solid 4 [$39.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Midnight Club: Los Angeles [$44.49 Amazon]
Prince of Persia [$39.97 Amazon]
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction [$44.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 [$53.99 Amazon] [$53.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition [$77.99 Newegg]
Resistance 2: Collector’s Edition [$54.99 Newegg]
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution [$29.97 Amazon]
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows [$36.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s End War [$24.99 Newegg]
Wanted [$44.99 Amazon]
Nintendo Wii
Animal Crossing: City Folk [$29.99 Newegg]
Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 with Dance Pad [$59.99 Best Buy]
Guitar Hero World Tour [$40.99 Amazon] [$24.99 Newegg]
MySims Party [$29.99 Best Buy]
NERF N-Strike with Blaster [$19.99 Best Buy]
No More Heroes [$15.99 Amazon] [$15.99 Newegg]
Pokemon Battle Revolution [$40.99 Amazon] [$40.99 Newegg]
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 [$19.99 Newegg]
Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party [$39.99 Amazon]
Rock Band 2 [$39.99 Amazon]
Sonic and the Black Knight [$39.99 Best Buy]
Wii Music [$29.99 Newegg]
Buy any 2 Wii Games, Get 1 Free [Target]
PC
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II [$37.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Not much new stuff on sale this week compared to last week except for some old games for cheap at Newegg & Amazon, and Target offering a B2G1 free deal in-store on all Wii titles. Also a little surprising to see Amazon offering Wanted for a reduced price so close to release.
Xbox Live Arcade deal of the week is Alien Hominid HD. I’m considering the purchase myself, as I’ve played the 4-player PDA games with friends when I owned it on the Gamecube and it was a lot of fun. The actual game itself though, is probably as hard as Contra without the 30 man code. So yeah…I dunno if I have what it these days takes to actually play the real game!
The UNSC campaign in Halo Wars was quite enjoyable – but where is the Covenant one?
Halo Wars – Spent this week taking the time to crank through the campaign on Legendary and grabbed all the skulls and black boxes too. While the game is definitely more simple than I’m used to for a traditional RPG, I enjoyed it more than I expected to. The main issue I have is that there’s no Covenant campaign. I don’t know what that’s attributed to but it seems to be the trend nowadays since the new Starcraft II will also only have the Terran campaign. I’m going to be diving into the multiplayer soon, and without any experience with Covenant my predisposition is definitely more towards the UNSC. But, maybe a few scrimmage games playing as the Covenant will change that.
Resident Evil 5 – Also plowing through the game this week now that it’s become my main single player game with Halo Wars beaten. I’m on the last leg of the game now, and while it’s introducing a few new things, the game still feels poorly paced. I don’t want to go into spoilers with regards to enemy types, but again, let’s just say I was disappointed when I have to fight half a dozen of them at a time when in games past it was really only 1 or 2. The game is just all out action now rather than adventure, and while that clicks a bit for me as a hardcore gamer, it still bothers a little bit of my Resident Evil fanboism. I could talk more about it, but I’d rather not spoil anything!
Street Fighter IV – My beatdown continues. This week I played online and dropped to 800 BP before fiercely fighting my way back up to 1000 BP and calling it a day. Competition is still quite fierce – probably because everyone else is improving but me. Nowadays I seem to be seeing a lot more Blanka players, and Chun Li players too. My friend Jason is coming over this weekend, so hopefully I can talk to him about strategy and maybe learn something more to see if I can get myself at least back up to 1500 BP.
Guitar Hero World Tour – After getting the Rock Band 2 Wireless Drumset last week, I ended up ordering Guitar Hero World Tour from Newegg since they were selling it for $35.99. Thought it was cheap enough to get a few new songs to try out with my new drumkit. While I’ve spent a little bit of time with it before and came away unimpressed, part of me is starting to get a little bit bored of the Rock Band 2 Tour mode since I feel like I keep playing the same Rock Band 2 songs over and over! It’ll be nice to finally jam to something new like Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, for example. The other thing that also had me deciding to purchase it is Stan Bush’s “The Touch” from the Transformers Movie is going to be free DLC for GHWT. Now if only GHWT or Rock Band had “Dare” and Karate Kid’s “You’re the Best Around” I’d be all set.
I recently picked up both the Rock Band 2 drumset and the Madcatz portable drum kit for good deals ($45 for the Rockband 2 kit, and $20 for the portable drum kit). Of course, my wife is going to kill me, but I’m risking it to give you readers the heads up on how they are! I originally had the Rock Band 1 drumset, and since getting these new kits, I’ve already sold it, but I will be often comparing these new kits I got with the original. Read on for my thoughts.
ICONS REGIONAL
First Round
(1) Mario vs. (16) Luigi
Biggest sibling non-rivalry since Cal and Billy Ripken. Well, unless you consider Luigi’s Mansion an unappreciated classic.(8) Carmen Sandiego vs. (9) Bison from Oregon Trail
Whaddya mean the wagon can’t carry 800 pounds of meat?(5) Lara Croft vs. (12) Dana Plato in Night Trap
“Night Trap” is essentially an unwatchable movie, just like the two “Tomb Raider” films. On the other hand: Angelina Jolie. Advantage, Croft.
Everyone should check this out. I wish they printed out the entire bracket complete with character images though.
Video Game Character March Madness [ESPN Page 2]
Are scripted car chase shooting scenes what Resident Evil has become?
I picked this game up on launch day, but unfortunately, I also picked up Halo Wars that same day and have been trying to balance my time between those two games, as well as Street Fighter IV, ever since. For the most part, Halo Wars and Street Fighter IV have been winning – Resident Evil 5 is just not an excellent game. I guess I sort of already knew that from playing the demo, but still decided to take the plunge anyway. Here are my initial impressions on the retail game, after getting through about half of it already (I’m just starting Act 4 now).
Want that single gamer point? Be prepared to put in many hours for it…
Surprisingly, while the game got relatively negative reviews, I found Infinite Undiscovery to be pretty enjoyable and have already picked up tri-Ace’s next 360 RPG: Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Unfortunately for me, it looks to be even more crazy and hardcore than Infinite Undiscovery, but one game at a time I guess.
This list of tips and notes is what I put together as I was playing through the game for the third time – the Infinity difficulty mode. For those of you that are playing it on Normal difficulty or Hard difficulty, the tips that I give in this article will still generally be valid. I prefer to write guides for the hardest difficulty of a game since it can address every difficulty mode. Keep in mind though that I will be mentioning spoilers as well since I will assume you have already beaten the game once or twice and need help with a playthrough on a harder difficulty. Can you believe that the prison escape at the beginning of the game is perhaps the most difficult part of Infinity Mode?
Spent some time bullying people around since I’ve got nothing to do
Quick thoughts due to the lack of a 360…
So I’ve been spending the most of my time playing Retro Game Challenge on the DS, and it’s pretty fun. I’ve finally unlocked the RPG, so I’m looking forward to playing through that. The nice thing about the challenges in each individual game (which you need to finish to unlock new games) is the fact that very few of them involve completing the game, so the process doesn’t get tedious. I’ve played through six of the games, and since I don’t have too much to write about, I figured I’d write my thoughts on each one. Check them out plus some thoughts on Bully for Wii after the jump.
Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed [$23.99 Amazon]
Blue Dragon [$12.99 Newegg]
Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway [$17.81 Amazon]
Crackdown [$12.99 Newegg]
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin [$43.99 Amazon]
Far Cry 2 [$24.99 Newegg]
Guitar Hero World Tour [$41.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
LEGO Indiana Jones [$39.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 [$53.99 Amazon] [$53.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition [$79.99 Newegg]
Rock Band 2 [$49.99 Amazon]
Saints Row 2 Collector’s Edition [$47.99 Newegg]
The Simpsons Game [$9.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. [$44.99 Amazon] [$44.99 Newegg]
Too Human [$18.00 Amazon]
Viva Pinata [$9.99 Newegg]
Live 12 Month Gold Card plus 1 Month Bonus [$38.99 Amazon] [$38.99 Newegg]
Messenger Kit [$19.99 Best Buy]
Playstation 3
Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway [$18.02 Amazon]
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin [$43.99 Amazon] [$43.99 Newegg]
Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition [$52.99 Newegg]
Guitar Hero: World Tour [$27.99 Newegg]
James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace [$31.99 Newegg] [$39.99 Best Buy]
John Woo’s Stranglehold [$9.99 Newegg]
Killzone 2 [$52.99 Amazon] [$52.99 Newegg]
Killzone 2 + any PS3 game [$59.99 + 50% off the PS3 game with RewardZone membership Best Buy]
LEGO Batman [$36.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
Little Big Planet [$44.99 Amazon] [$42.99 Newegg]
Lost Planet [$15.26 Amazon]
Metal Gear Solid 4 [$39.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 [$53.99 Amazon] [$53.99 Newegg]
Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition [$77.99 Newegg]
Resistance 2: Collector’s Edition [$54.99 Newegg]
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows [$36.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s End War [$24.99 Newegg]
Nintendo Wii
Animal Crossing: City Folk [$29.99 Newegg]
Guitar Hero World Tour [$40.99 Amazon] [$27.99 Newegg]
Mario Super Sluggers [$36.99 Amazon]
My Fitness Coach [$19.97 Amazon]
No More Heroes [$15.99 Amazon] [$15.99 Newegg]
Pokemon Battle Revolution [$40.99 Newegg]
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 [$19.99 Newegg]
Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party [$39.99 Amazon]
Rock Band 2 [$39.99 Amazon]
Wario Land: Shake it [$36.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
Wii Music [$29.99 Newegg]
PC
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway [$9.99 Newegg]
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars [$5.99 Newegg]
Spore: Galactic Edition [$26.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 [$9.99 Newegg]
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II [$38.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Newegg]
World of Warcraft: Battle Chest [$32.99 Amazon] [$29.99 Best Buy]
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King [$29.99 Amazon] [$29.99 Best Buy]
I was getting worried that with Circuit City gone, Amazon wouldn’t be price matching much. But with Newegg going crazy with the deals, Amazon is practically matching every deal, so we consumers totally benefit. Of course, Newegg has some great deals that even Amazon can’t match this week…