Games of the week for 05/11/08: Shilling friends edition

8:29 PM on 05.11.2008   |   Jim Sterling

42 comments

I can see why Nex enjoyed posting the Games of the Week feature when he was in charge of it, because it's essentially a tiny little soapbox upon which you can peddle any kind of crap you like. Since nobody even spends time reading it, eager as they are to post a reply telling us what they've been playing this week, I can essentially get away with cheap and tactless plugs for other Web sites.

Which is what I am going to do.

Morphine Nation is the Web site I used to own before I was hired by Destructoid. Essentially a social satire site, I'd write general commentary and comedy articles, and post comics about what an arsehole Skeletor is. Anyway, the site relaunched in blog format this year after I retired (since Destructoid took up all my time). They post some pretty nutty stuff, and I occasionally contribute -- check out my "Uncle Cheeky" series if you never want to sleep again.

A friend of mine called Brad Rychard has launched a Web site for his comic series Cane/Hat Man, which is all about a man with a hat and a cane who likes to stab people. The premise is rather silly, as are the comics, but there is some inspired stuff in there. Not for everyone, but worth a look.

Hit the jump to see what we've playing (clue: there's a lot of theft in our games, some of it grand and involving automobiles).

Hamza: Nothing but Grand Theft Auto IV.

Samit: What Hamza said.

Oh wait, I did hop into CoD 4 for a bit last night during FNF. But other than that, it's been all GTA IV, all the time.

Colette: Persona 3 FES. I don't give a shit about any other game right now. Seriously.

Jim: GTA IV, of course. I also had something of a PSP blowout thanks to my friend, the irrepressible Master Falls, who got me some nice deals. Sadly, a lot of my PSP gaming has been disappointing -- Killzone: Liberation proves that a rubbish game can get a lot of praise if it's on a system where great original titles are lacking, while Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is unbelievable cack. As for Parappa the Rappa, I finally tried more than a demo version after all these years and ... wow ... strict, just a little? Even Gitaroo Man has a semblance of forgiveness, and that's a tricky game.

Ah well, I at least lucked out on Final Fantasy Tactics, and Tales of Eternia looks swank for the few minutes I got with it at work. Noooow -- back to GTA IV! 

Niero: I gave into the guilty pleasures of demo whoring and tried everything there is to try for the PS3. I was pretty impressed with how polished the latest wave of demos were and pondered a future where we'd only see really high-quality demos or just less of them, now that the industry has found that trailers do a better job at selling games. Also, I've rediscovered Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! <3 Dexter345.

DMV: I've been blazing through Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and am slowly chugging through Mother 3. The game is really odd in that everyone speaks in hiragana, but it's not like that means much to you. After FFT, I'm planning on starting Phantasy Star II, but I'm not sure how far I'll get into it, since I come home in 22 days. That's scary as hell.

Grim: Lots and lots of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PSP -- I'll never grow tired of this game. Also, playing the same f***ing missions multiple times in GTA IV.

Chad: After 70+ hours I finally (finally!) beat Lost Odyssey. So tired. So cold. Need water ...

Gameboi: Like Hamza said, nothing but GTA IV. Nothing else exists right now.

Fronz: Just started Mario Kart Wii last night, and so far I'm a little disappointed. I like some of the additions to the series, but overall it seems like there's not a lot of content, and it's annoying to not be able to unlock more things by playing only multiplayer first. Maybe it's that I don't remember the older Mario Kart games too well, maybe it's because Super Smash Bros. Brawl is way more fun and fulfilling, but I think it's mainly that I'm sick of gold mushrooms helping 12th place players get trophies. I'll have to give it a few more days before I can make any final judgments though.

Nick: Just a lot of Grand Theft Auto IV when I have the chance. I'm still completely wrapped up in the game, and have yet to really find myself inclined to use cheat codes or go bat shit on the citizens of Liberty City. That says a lot for this game, I think.

Dipped into some Operation Darkness, have no idea what I'm doing, and am disappointed there are no werewolves immediately after starting the game. I'm also playing Liberty City Stories on the PSP when I'm not home, and Solitaire on my Q.

Jonathan: Digging R-Type Command, and to a lesser degree, Boom Blox. A review on the latter game should be popping up on the front page any second now. Also enjoying all the DS demos from the newly launched Nintendo Channel.

Topher: I haven't played much of anything this week because I started watching Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and it sucked me in to the point where I forgot that anything else existed. When that was over, it was as everyone else said; just GTA4. Though I did play some more Dino Run on teh webz. You should too, because it's awesome.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAND what have you been up to this week?