Leveling Down

Last week cmfl3x and I presented you with a list of games that we felt were good value from a standpoint of being enjoyable for pretty much every type of gamer. This week we’ll share more “niche” titles – games that you can enjoy – provided you’re into the genre. Again, we want to look at games that are good value – ones that either have a lengthy/replayable single player campaign or plenty of multiplayer hours to keep you coming back while at the same time being enjoyable while being inexpensive.

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It’s somewhat silly, but I mentioned to my wife the other day that I think my general mood seems dependent on what game I’m actually playing at the time. If the game is awesome, I’m in a great mood, but if it’s kind of boring, I’m “blah.”

It hasn’t been helping lately that I’ve been playing a string of mediocre games, like Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Prince of Persia, and now Infinite Undiscovery. I guess coming off of better games like Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2, and Dead Space just makes it all the more difficult.

Infinite Undiscovery – Seemed like there was a lot of potential at first when I started playing the game, but it ultimately isn’t delivering as much as I’d like in the end.

Burnout Revenge – Decided to pop this in to give myself a break from the mundaneness of Infinite Undiscovery. I stopped playing it before because the load times got too annoying, but now that I’m able to install it to the HD, it’s a bit faster. Actually reminds me of the Time Trials of Mirror’s Edge, as I’m collecting stars from doing well on courses but it’s also proving to be just as frustrating with restarts.

Shadowrun - Saw it on sale on the PC for $3 so I went ahead and bought it. It’s the first game that has cross platform 360/PC play, so I was actually able to log into Live when playing it on my new PC. For some reason, it feels more enjoyable to play it with the 360 controller though. Maybe that $3 wasn’t worth it as I’ll probably end up going back to the 360 version.

Going to change up my weekly thoughts entries to shortened gaming related thoughts I’ve had each week. Here’s this week:

Left 4 Dead – Finally got the 1000. Dang it why did one of my friends have to just get the game this week though. Why couldn’t he have gotten it weeks ago?!

Shadowrun – Cool now maybe I can get back into this for multiplayer since I no longer have another multiplayer game to play at the moment.

Mirror’s Edge – Stupid Time Trial modes. I better just suck it up and beat them. Maybe I can clear them out this weekend.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway – I should try to beat this soon so I can get rid of it while it still has some value.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – I wanted to start it but it’s getting bumped down so I can get through Brothers in Arms first.

Call of Duty: World at War – Tried it out again recently and maybe I won’t be able to hit the first Prestige after all. It’s just not fun anymore and the fact that I’ll have to put maybe 20 more hours in to get it means I’m pushing it back in my backlog queue in hopes the desire comes back later.

Prince of Persia – Looks interesting, but dang it there’s an Achievement for collecting like 1001 gems or something in the game? Ugh I’ll get to it later then. Same reason I ended up putting Naruto: Rise of a Ninja off.

Gears of War 2 – Epic announced that they’re actually going to release a patch to balance the multiplayer game sometime this month? Too late. And why aren’t they fixing the matchmaking that still takes 10 minutes to find a game?!

Shadowrun, one of the most underrated FPS titles of 2007?

Even though I picked up GTAIV, I’ve been spending more of my time lately playing Lost Odyssey and Shadowrun. I’ve put several hours into Shadowrun now, and with it being multiplayer only, I figured I’ve given it enough time to warrant a review. My quick thoughts on it include:

Good:
- Party Matchmaking makes it easy to find games and stick with friends
- Interesting blend of races, magic, tech, and contemporary weaponry
- Addictive Counter-Strike-like gameplay (earn money from round to round, no respawning, etc.)
- Bots for offline play

Bad:
- Multiplayer only (no campaign mode)
- Lack of splitscreen modes for either offline or online play
- Lack of stat tracking of any sort
- Lack of persistent rank system

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