Leveling Down

I had trouble not filling this entire list with sequels so I had to stretch for one of them. In general, I think I’m a bit more into the “blockbusters” than espion4ge, I get really amped up for them and they are always what I anticipate the most. Thus, unique titles like The Last Guardian don’t garner anticipation from me (though I am curious to check it out), while titles like Gears of War 3, even though they feel derivative sometimes, get me kind of excited. What’s on my list for this year? A lot of sequels. Here they are, in order of anticipated release date.

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Are these four games enough to hold against this holiday season’s sequels?

Going into this year’s holiday gaming season, I am lacking enthusiasm. I don’t know if it’s because I’m busier now or if the current games this holiday season are just not as exciting as in the last couple of years. To be honest, most of the games I am about to call out I haven’t played yet, but based on buzz I am reading and demos I’ve played today’s entry will sort of be my knee-jerk reaction as to why I am not excited about what’s in store for the 2010 holiday season.

The problem is, we have so many sequels that are worse than their predecessors or sequels that don’t exactly blow their predecessors out of the water. This leads me to find practically all of them lacking in the excitement category that I have had in past holiday seasons. How many sequels are being released this holiday season? Let’s see!

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With only a few games left in the running, cmfl3x and I have decided to combine the results discussion from Round 3 along with the starting the polling for Round 4.

Round 4 polls will close Monday, April 5th, at 6pm EST. cmfl3x will announce the two games moving into the Finals and open the voting on Tuesday. Hit the jump to see some commentary on the results and to vote for the Final Four…

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Voting for Round 3 is now open.

Polls will close this Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 6PM EST, so you will only have today and tomorrow to vote. I will post the winners for each of the four regions on Friday. These winners will move onto the Final Four next week as we get closer to the 2010 Finals. Hit the jump to cast your votes!

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After another furious round of voting, the Elite 8 is set! There were some pretty interesting Sweet 16 matchups, and a lot of the polls were closer than in the first round. At this point, 75% of the field has been eliminated, and we are 3 rounds away from finding out who is the winner of Leveling Down’s Video Game March Madness 2010! Hit the jump for a full recap, and feel free to express your utter outrage at the results in the comments!

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Voting for Round 2 is now open.

The polls will close on Monday March 29th, 2010 at 6PM EST. cmfl3x will announce the 8 winners moving into Round 3. Hit the jump to cast your votes!

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For the next few weeks, my Xbox is going to take a backseat to my favorite sporting event of the year: March Madness. What little time I have left for video games will probably be spent playing Dragon Age: Origins, and since we’ve covered that on the site, I figured I’d try something new: a video game bracket!

I’ve chosen 28 of my favorite games across 4 different categories (“regions”), and as the NCAA tournament plays itself out, so too will you get to watch this video game bracket play itself out. Why am I doing this? Well, I love brackets, first of all. Secondly, it’s a chance for me to take a trip down memory lane and narrow down some of my favorite games of all time. I recognize that a lot of times comparing games is like comparing apples to oranges, which is why I separated the games by genres (loosely).

Anyway, I’ve left the 8 seed open in all four regions, so I need YOU, the Leveling Down reader, to suggest games to finish out the bracket. Hit the jump to see the selection committee’s (aka, cmfl3x’s) criteria and some other notes about this totally awesome tournament.

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Mass Effect & Dragon Age – Bioware’s own Star Wars & Lord of the Rings?

So coming off of Mass Effect 2, I decided I needed some more Bioware in my life, so I picked up Dragon Age: Origins to give it a whirl. I’m really digging the game and am getting pretty into it, although I still think Mass Effect 2 is the better game in my mind. Maybe that’s because every step of the way in Dragon Age I’m just comparing it to Mass Effect. I decided to jot down a few of my thoughts into writing.

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Throughout “winter break”, Steam had been running a monster sale on various PC games, knocking off up to 80% many titles. I must have bought over a dozen games during this sale, but they were so inexpensive at only a few dollars a pop that I really felt like a kid in a candy store. I have to give Valve major props for arranging their crazy holiday sale: I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so excited during the holiday season and I have the Steam sale to really thank for it.

My buying got so bad that I actually wondered to myself if I actually enjoyed buying each game more than actually playing it. After all, it looks like I’m all excited to find new deals, add them to my cart, buy them, but end up not spending too much time playing them. Is this what happens to a hardcore gamer as he gets older?

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I think Sony and Microsoft are facing a bit of an identity crisis. Nintendo is destroying them in the “console war”, but are they really at war with Nintendo anymore? Are motion controllers (or cameras, in the case of Project Natal) really going to attract more casual users to these hardcore systems? It seems like a big risk. My thoughts: Natal will be used for interface, Minority Report type stuff, which really doesn’t have much to do with games. The Sony 1:1 motion control stuff looks more promising in terms of games. But either way, it’s something I personally didn’t need. The Wii games I enjoy the most minimize motion controls (see: Punch Out).

When I heard that Bioware was doing a Star Wars MMO, I didn’t blink an eye. After all, I’ve never played a MMO before. Then, this came out. If the game is half as good, I may need to buy a better PC.

Finally, for anyone who twitters, behold the pulse of gamers…in real time.