Leveling Down

GTA: Chinatown Wars marks the first (and possibly the last) time the mature franchise hits the family-friendly DS market.

Fresh off the great success of GTAIV, Rockstar released another Grand Theft Auto game this past March. GTA: Chinatown Wars was the first GTA offering ever to hit Nintendo’s family friendly DS, and analysts predicted that people would buy it in droves. Unfortunately for Nintendo and Rockstar, the analysts were wrong, though the game has received high praise, the fact of the matter is, nobody is buying it (only a little over 100,000 copies have sold in 2 months which is way below expectations).

I wasn’t planning on picking up a copy, but a friend of mine lent me his. I’ve put a few hours in the game so figured I’d write up a quick retail impressions.

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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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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.

In Survival mode, teamwork is more important than ever

Mirror’s Edge
I finished the story mode and am halfway through beating it again on hard difficulty. I’ve also been working my way through the speed runs and time trials. There are some sections in the game that can be pretty frustrating, but for the most part I thought it was a great experience. The single player campaign is a little short, but with all the other stuff you can do, I think Mirror’s Edge is a pretty comprehensive package, as long as you are up for a hefty challenge.

Halo Wars
Still playing multiplayer. I don’t know if I’ll ever make lieutenant if I keep randoming, at the same time, I think I would get bored of the multiplayer quickly if I played the same commander every time. It’s all about having fun!

Left 4 Dead: Survival Mode
Speaking of fun, survival mode is awesome. Some people complain that it takes more time to set up than it does to actually defend. I take care of that by spending absolutely no time setting up and just letting the dice roll. We’ve got a couple of bronze medals and were about a minute away from getting silver. Hopefully anyone who doesn’t have Left 4 Dead picked it up during the Steam sale this weekend.

Street Fighter IV
I just want to put this on here to point out that the championship update is stupid. Where is the lobby support!?

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
The game is pretty good, it’s basically GTA light on the DS. I question some of the design choices, such as no mid mission checkpoints. I understand the game doesn’t want you to “cheat”, but this is a portable game and there should be a quicksave option a la Final Fantasy on Nintendo handhelds. I also don’t like games that use the stylus just because they can, you need to use the stylus to hotwire cars and it can get pretty awkward. My full impressions will be coming soon.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is the best Grand Theft Auto game yet and is an experience all gamers (who are old enough) should enjoy.

I finally got around to completing Grand Theft Auto IV, a year after it was initially released. As a testament to the game, even reviewing it now I have to say that it still holds up very well. My background on the Grand Theft Auto games is that I started with Grand Theft Auto III on the PS2, enjoyed it a lot, and bought both Vice City and San Andreas but did not enjoy either of those two as much as III. The funny thing is, I never finished any of those three games. While my fondness for the games got lower and lower after each iteration, I have to say that Grand Theft Auto IV won me back as a fan of the series, and I will explain why in my review.

Good
- excellent storyline
- a living, breathing, NYC world
- more conveniences than previous GTA games, like taxis

Bad
- poor competitive multiplayer design
- car handling is a bit too floaty
- lack of certain gameplay features & customization in previous GTA titles

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For anyone that still has yet to purchase this game, I guess maybe the wait was worth it? (If you’re on the fence, check out my review tomorrow.) Newegg has the Special Edition of the 360 game for the low price of $39.99.

The Special Edition includes:
- Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system with special packaging.
- Grand Theft Auto IV Art Book, featuring never-before-seen production artwork from Grand Theft Auto IV.
- Selected soundtrack CD from Grand Theft Auto IV, featuring new material from top artists, only available on this release.
- An exclusive Rockstar key chain for the safety deposit box keys.
- Completing the collection is a limited edition Rockstar duffel bag.

I own the Special Edition myself, and I’ll say it’s a nice package. While the artbook and soundtrack CD are pretty dinky, the lockbox and duffel bag are nice so I’d say it’s worth it at that price point…

Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition Xbox 360 Game ROCKSTAR [Newegg.com] via Cheap Ass Gamer

Like espion4ge, I’ve found my way back to Liberty City as well

Mirror’s Edge
I have put a lot of hours into the game, slowly working through the story but I’ve also started working through the time trial mode. I came within 0.90 seconds of a three star time on “Cranes Two” on my fourth or fifth try, which was pretty exhilarating. Unfortunately, I spent the next hour and a half trying to shave that 0.90 seconds off. My thumb started hurting and I had to give up. I managed not to destroy my controller though, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Halo Wars
A week off of playing and I’ve gotten pretty rusty. I guess that means I’m old. I still need to finish the game in legendary and find all the black boxes, so hopefully I’ll be able to get to that soon. I still need to get back to Dead Space though but jet lag has put that on the backburner.

Left 4 Dead: Survival Mode
I played this with a few friends, and I enjoyed it a lot. I really enjoyed it but I’m not sure how into it my friends were. Basically it’s like fighting a bunch of finales and standoffs, which I actually really enjoy. I also think it’s fun to have goals you are trying to beat, surviving for a certain amount of time in this instance. Hopefully people will be willing to put a few more hours into this with me!

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)
I’ve finished about 40% of the game so far, and the difficulty level is really starting to ramp up. I get the feeling the platform is going to start becoming Ninja Gaidenesque, i.e. I’m going to need to start memorizing where enemies are going to spawn and stuff. I think I’ll need to better understand how the puzzling elements power me up in the platformer pretty soon.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
A friend lent this to me and I started playing it as a change of pace to Henry Hatsworth. It’s pretty cool, Liberty City looks pretty much the same except it’s a top down view. I think I even drove by Roman’s taxi hub. The dialogue is horrible – I don’t know if they are making fun of bad Chinese Engrish or what but it leaves a lot to be desired. I hear the story is pretty much a throwaway though, so we’ll see if the gameplay holds up.

I’m glad I finally gave Grand Theft Auto IV a chance, as it’s nearly consumed my entire week of gaming.

Grand Theft Auto IV – Had a lot of free time this week so I decided to get back into GTA4. This game I bought at launch and after playing it for about 30 minutes, decided I would eventually pick it up again later. Well, I started playing it this past weekend and I got hooked. Already beat the storyline, and am now just trying to clear all of the extra stuff. I’m surprised how much I like the game today, and realize now why it’s so good. Expect a (quite overdue) review on it next week.

Ace Combat 6 – All done! Sucks that 400 of the 1000 Achievement points are multiplayer based, but what can you do. Maybe I can go pick up Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. now…

Left 4 Dead – The free DLC has arrived for the game, consisting of Versus for the two other campaigns, as well as a new Survival mode for all four campaigns and a new lighthouse level. I already sold my 360 version, but I’ve been playing it a bit on the PC. I have to say, going from a 360 controller back to mouse and keyboard is really difficult. I’m so out of it when it comes to gaming on the PC now that I’m trying to map the Left 4 Dead controls to my Logitech PC control pad just so it can feel like I used to play it on the 360. Talk about regressing! Anyway, I need to play the survival a bit more to see if it’s really good but for now I’m not too impressed. It feels like I’m just playing the finales to each of the scenarios again, and I wasn’t that big of a fan of them to begin with. Now it’s even harder since regular infected still pour out at the same time as the tanks so it definitely doesn’t send you to a happy place when you play this mode haha

Fallout 3’s Operation Anchorage – really worth $10?

cmfl3x asked me a little while back if I was looking forward to the Fallout 3 downloadable content. He seemed pretty excited about it and I felt bad telling him but no, I didn’t share in his excitement. In fact, while there are games I may fully enjoy, like Ninja Gaiden II or Fallout 3, I’ll never buy their DLC. To this day, I have not paid for downloadable content for any traditional game, and I don’t plan on ever doing so. Why? Because I don’t believe in what it stands for. Obviously if downloadable content is free, such as Burnout Paradise’s motorcycles and whatnot, or BioShock’s extra plasmids, then sure – it is always welcome. It’s when it starts getting charged for that it gets on my nerves.

I actually wrote up an entire article just knocking on it, but then felt it may come off as too much of a rant so I held off. I figure that if I could turn it into a discussion topic with cmfl3x, it’d be a little more civil.

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My Special Edition finally arrived Monday, and I got a chance to sink a few hours into the game this week. Read on for my initial impressions on the Special Edition contents, my time with the single player and the multiplayer.

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