Leveling Down

“NO I WILL NOT MAKE OUT WITH YOU!” Joking aside – Resident Evil 5 turned out to be a pretty good game.

I had a “productive week” in gaming this past week, as I was able to complete all of the Achievements in Resident Evil 5 and all of the offline Achievements in Halo Wars. This means it’s almost time for me to pick my next game to get into, which is always fun. What will I choose to take out of the plastic wrap next?!

Resident Evil 5 – While I had negative impressions of the game early on, after putting about 30 hours into it to get all of the Achievements (had to go through the game several times), I have to say that it turned out better than I initially thought. Sure it’s not as good as Resident Evil 4, but it’s still quite playable although playing with the AI on Professional difficulty is an exercise in patience. Expect a review on it some time soon.

Halo Wars – I completed the campaign and all of the associated sidequests that came with them, like finishing under part time, finding hidden boxes, skulls, and all that and even got a chance to try out the multiplayer some this past week. I’m not the biggest fan of the skirmish Achievements though where I’m supposed to win on every map and all that. Still, like a sheep I went through and beat the AI on easy within 5 minutes of each map. While I think the game is actually a pretty enjoyable RTS on the console, it does seem to lack a bit in terms of depth for multiplayer. I’ll put some more time in and maybe I’ll change my mind by the time we get a review out.

World of Goo – Started playing it this week on my PC and it’s pretty enjoyable. The premise is interesting since it’s sort of like Lemmings where you’re trying to get units to an exit point, but in this game, the pieces of goo form nodes that are used to allow the goo to travel further along. What shakes things up though is when the environment presents all sorts of variables, like a rotating wheel or pillars to lean on so that you really see the physics at work behind the goo structure you build. Build too heavy on one side and the structure will keel over. I’m happy I bought it for $5 on Steam back then and will definitely buy some more indie games on Steam if they go on sale.

Are digital distribution systems like Steam going to be the death of the used game industry?

We’ve come to the end of our look at used games, which means it’s time to look forward. As we’ve noted, GameStop takes the lion’s share of used game sales as they sit on their mountain of money raking in more and more profits. Last month, however, Amazon announced that it will begin to buy back used games. On the day of the announcement GameStop’s stock dropped 13% showing stockholders feared new entrants into the used games market (though the stock has since recovered).

The question remains, will other players in the used game market affect GameStop? Or is there another threat – digital distribution – to GameStop’s dominance over the market? In the final part of our discussion on used games, espion4ge and I discuss what we predict will be the end of used game sales, and maybe GameStop. Without further adieu, we present to you Part 3!

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