Leveling Down

The creators of Peggle have done it again with their newest hit, Plants vs. Zombies

I started playing Plants vs Zombies and Defense Grid: The Awakening at the same time, since Defense Grid went on sale for $5 around the same time Plants vs Zombies was released. With both of them being tower defense games, I can’t help but compare the two. Plants vs Zombies is actually a pretty enjoyable game in and of itself, but I also felt that its gameplay was limited due to there only being one screen for the game. The single screen simplifies it a bit, maybe making it easier for casual gamers. It’s still a good game, and if I had to answer which one is worth buying, my answer would be: it depends if you want a tower defense game that is more casual or more advanced. Each game plays well from its respective angle. Read on for why I liked Plants vs Zombies’ casual tower defense gameplay.

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In Broken Sword, as in Penny Arcade Adventures, mimes = evil. Remember that.

We really are in the gaming doldrums right now. But hopefully with E3 coming up, we’ll start having some games to look forward to! Anyway, I’ve been playing a lot of this and that - I’m probably TOO diversified in my gaming right now. But hey, I’m having a blast! Apologies in advance for the crazy tone…I’m just in one of those moods.

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April 2009 US Software Sales
Rank | Platform | Title | Units Sold | Last Month | Lifetime to Date
01 Wii Wii Fit 471,000 541,000 6,958,900
02 NDS Pokemon Platinum 433,000 805,000 1,238,000
03 Wii Mario Kart 210,000 278,000 5,934,000
04 Wii Wii Play 170,000 281,000 10,469,396 10,639,396
05 360 The Godfather II 155,000 n/a 155,000
06 360 Resident Evil 5 122,000 938,000 1,060,000
07 NDS New Super Mario Bros. 119,000 unknown 119,000+
08 NDS Mario Kart 112,000 unknown 112,000+
09 360 Guitar Hero Aerosmith 110,000 unknown 110,000+
10 PS3 The Godfather II 91,000 n/a 91,000

April 2009 US Hardware Sales
Rank | Platform | Units Sold | Last Month | Lifetime to Date
01 Nintendo DS 1,040,000 563,000 30,241,900
02 Nintendo Wii 340,000 601,000 20,025,900
03 Xbox 360 175,000 330,000 15,061,400
04 Playstation 2 172,000 112,000 46,000,000+
05 Playstation 3 127,000 218,000 7,615,100
06 Playstation Portable 116,000 168,000 14,994,900

Nothing really big launched last month except for the DSi, which helped the DS sales jump to over a million last month. The PS2 also sees a large sales jump due to the price cut. Other than that, all other consoles decreased compared to March. With The Godfather II being the only notable major release last month, the top 10 software sales was primarily made up of the Wii and NDS staple games. Guitar Hero Aerosmith also made its way back into the top 10 last month, most likely due to several retailers selling it at the $10 clearance price point.

NPD Sales Results for April 2009 [NeoGAF]

To take a chance or not with Sacred 2…

Man I am really starting to feel like I’m “leveling down” on my gaming as of late. With my new locale, job, and commute, I’m pretty fried when I get home and have only a couple of hours to play something but mentally I’m not even “there”. I started Conan on the 360 this past week, but it’s really only been a decent title at best. Instead, I’ve spent most of my gaming these past few days on Defense Grid and Starcraft (just beat the vanilla campaign, so I’ll start up on Brood War at some point in the near future). I’m not sure, but even with my huge 360 backlog, nothing is really standing out much that I want to play immediately. Part of me doesn’t even want to play a hardcore game these days, just because I need to veg out or something each night. I wonder if this means I’m growing out of gaming?

Or, it could very well just be that I’m currently on a gaming “low”, as there’s just nothing out or coming out that I’m super interested in playing right now. Give me Starcraft 2, Bioshock 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age, Bayonetta…any of these!! Instead I have to wait at least another half year for all the awesome titles. Why can’t they stagger it a bit more so we get big titles for the summer too? Oh well. Hopefully I get into the Starcraft 2 beta this summer. And if all else fails, maybe I’ll finally dive into the definitive version of Team Fortress 2: the PC version.

Still, I’m looking into Sacred 2, which just released on the 360/PS3 this past week. It’s gotten hammered in reviews, but this is perhaps the best implementation of a 4 player online co-op Diablo style game on the 360. But the thing is, am I going to spend my gaming time playing another mediocre title? And will I even be able to find a core group of players to play it together with each night? At least there’s Mother 3 to keep me busy on the subway, as I’m only about a quarter way through the game…

Dawn of War 2 is a gorgeous looking game that emphasizes tactics over strategy.

50 or so hours later and I can say that I’m done with Dawn of War II. I may go back in and skirmish with the AI from time to time, but for the most part, I’ll say that Dawn of War II was quite a satisfying experience and I recommend it if you are in the market for a PC based RTS/RPG style game. It’s pretty much Company of Heroes inserted into Dawn of War, and for fans of Company of Heroes, that’s great news, but for fans of Dawn of War I, not so much. Read on for my review.

Good
- innovative campaign design
- enjoyable gameplay mechanics
- excellent presentation

Bad
- campaign is only for one of the four playable races
- polarizing multiplayer that isn’t as deep as traditional RTS game
- quite a departure from the previous Dawn of War game

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The Power Glove did exist back during the NES days, and like you can imagine, it was quite stupid. It will not be missed.

Unlike espion4ge, I can’t remember enough NES games to only pick out only ones that deserve more press. In fact, I should put out a disclaimer that I can’t really remember how good any of these games are, I just remember really enjoying them. I’ve also never really gotten into any emulators or anything so some of these games I haven’t picked up in 20 years. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, though. I decided to put the games in the order I remember playing them, which more or less coincides with when they came out.

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The strategy behind tower defense games like Defense Grid involves choosing not only where, but what types of towers to place to destroy the invading enemies

I bought this game last week since it went on sale for $5 on Steam and with it being on sale for this same price until tomorrow, I felt it would be good if I could share some impressions on it today in case any of you were still on the fence. I’ll say right now: definitely buy it if your computer can run it, as it’s easily worth the $5 sale price.

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Some of the best games are also the simplest

Mirror’s Edge – Almost finished with this game, although the things I have left to do are the most challenging. I failed a speed run (an entire level under a certain amount of time) by being slow by 2.1 seconds. I then ran it back, and managed to pass by shaving 3.3 seconds off my time. 10:58.8 seconds was enough FTW! Anyway, if you are masochistic and enjoy punishing yourself by trying to shave milliseconds off of your times, you should really play Mirror’s Edge!

Peggle – To take a break from the intensity of Mirror’s Edge I downloaded Peggle on XBLA. I’ve heard a lot about this game but didn’t know too much about it, but figured at $10 I could afford to take the plunge. It’s tough to explain how the game works, but it’s easy to explain that it’s a lot of fun. It’s particularly rewarding every time you clear a stage. I kind of wish I got this for DS, because it’d probably be nicer to play on the go, but it’s a good game to relax with between intense sessions of bigger games.

Chinatown Wars (DS) – I’ve been playing about one mission per night. It’s not as engaging as I thought it would be, but it’s not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll probably save the majority of this game for my upcoming trip on Memorial Day.

Perhaps one of the best GBA games most people will never get to play?

Mother 3
On my new commute to work these days, I am now playing Mother 3, which is the sequel to Earthbound (Mother 2) here in the United States. Apparently, the game was never released in America due to several reasons such as it being a bit too controversial for children (it looks cute but its storyline is mature), too many potential copyright infringements (the music team behind the Earthbound games love the Beatles, among other things), and it is a Gameboy Advance game that released in Japan when the DS already took off in the States. Suffice to say, the only way to actually play this game is by downloading a fan translation that patches the Japanese version of the game. It’s a stellar translation and Nintendo isn’t telling the group to cease and desist because the company decided not to release the game in the US, so no one holds the copyright. The translation group has even gone one step further and put together a 240 page full color guidebook with tons of original art and is selling it for $20. I almost want to buy the guidebook just to support their effort, but the thing about guidebooks with me is if I buy one, then I will have to depend on it as a crutch the rest of the game since I’ll worry I’ll miss something so I’d rather just play it freely. Plus, I’m in the subway and I’d be a little embarrassed reading a strategy guide and playing the game at the same time on my way to work.

Dawn of War II
I spent most of this week’s gaming time finishing off the campaign for Dawn of War II, but I haven’t had a chance to try out multiplayer enough to warrant a review. I’m surprised though that Steam is telling me I’ve already logged 40 or so hours into this game, so suffice to say, the game is pretty lengthy on the hardest difficulty. Review will definitely be out next week as this weekend should give me some extra needed time to spend with the multiplayer.

Defense Grid
Been playing this a bit this week since it’s on sale for $5 and I’m actually enjoying it a lot. It does a great job in the first few levels of keeping things simple and slowly adding more enemy types and towers to use. I also like that there’s a feature for speeding up the enemy movement, so you’re not always sitting around waiting when you don’t have enough to make/upgrade towers. Great deal at $5 and I’ll try to write some detailed impressions up for it next week.

Starcraft
Starcraft rounds out my heavy PC gaming week, as I’ve gotten back into the PC gaming side pretty strong thanks to Steam’s sale, Dawn of War II, and the impending Starcraft II release. Now that the Starcraft II beta is imminent, I’m continuing to play the game to brush up on its mechanics. Having completed the Terran campaign, I’m now knee deep in the Zerg campaign. All these memories keep coming back as I play this game – one of my more memorable aspects of playing Zerg that I got to experience again is having 4 Hatcheries next to each other and spawning a full hotkey of units at once.

Down from a usual price of $19.99, it’s a great deal at the $5 price and I ended up picking it up after checking out the demo. It’s a tower defense game, but it’s also a really well done one with good graphics, Steam Achievements, and leaderboards. I’m not *that* competitive when it comes to playing tower defense, but I’ll admit that this is a great little game to be playing when I’m on the phone with my wife. It’s perfect since it doesn’t have you too occupied so your significant other gets mad at you because she knows you’re playing games, but it’s also better than just sitting there doing nothing while talking.

I was also tempted to pick up Plants vs Zombies after trying that out too, but one tower defense game at a time! Maybe I’ll write up impressions to both of them at some point…

Defense Grid: The Awakening $5 until May 13 [Steam]