Games of the week for 7/5/09: Handlebar edition

7:20 PM on 07.05.2009   |   Topher Cantler

48 comments

As Jim is busy hobnobbing with furries and ambulatory homeless shelters at SGC 09, I am happy to take up the torch and deliver to you this week's edition of Games of the Week -- a task for which he didn't even bother to thank me by the way, the rotten pr*ck. But that's okay, because Adam Dork currently has a handlebar moustache.

There he is, ladies and gentlemen. The Lovely Adam Dork, in all his curly JOURNALISM moustachioed glory. Go on, gaze upon its majesty. Yeah, that happened. He even went for Chinese food with that thing on his face yesterday -- a move that would make Geraldo Beedog shed a single tear of prideful admiration, not unlike a father watching his son win the goddamned Super Bowl. Mr. Dork is deserving of your respect and applause, folks, f*cking rockstar that he is.

Since the rest of us are not nearly as awesome as him, we just played some games. You can find out what they were after the jump.

The Tom Fronczak: Still playing DotA more than anything else. Friday night my friends and I tried the Level 1 Roshan trick I found from league replay videos where Enigma kills either Rexxar's bird or Furion's treants to make eidolons so the whole team can rush Rosh before the game even starts (usually he's not possible to kill until everyone is Level 13 or so, unless you have an Ursa). Seeing the other team's comments was hilarious. Basically all insta-leavers, or if they missed the global text announcement, they would scream "OMG HOW ARE YOU LEVEL 4 ALREADY?!" Only one out of three games' enemy teams stayed, but even with a few leaver items, after 3 Rosh rushes in 30 minutes (he respawns ten minutes after you kill him) they could only take one of our 6 lane towers, and the only tower fall was a deny. :) Level 1 Aegis is about as imba as Level 1 Tauren Chieftain! You few DotA players out there should try it out.

Other than that, my new HDTV is now hooked up, so I'm finally dusting off my PS3 again and plan on starting Uncharted: Drake's Fortune this week. Anyone have some good non-Pixar (that's cheating!) suggestions for amazing-looking Blu-ray films? Transformers and Iron Man look pretty damn slick. And Wall·E is ridiculous-looking.

The Jim Sterling: Mostly played Overlord II for review and you can go read that for my views on it, you lazy fucks. Outside of that, been plugging away on Megaman Starforce 3, also for review. It really is quite a good game, despite all the bullshit attached to it. Still at the ScrewAttack Con, but I hear I have three Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen games waiting for me when I get back ... shudder.

The Chad Concelmo: @Fronz, Yeah. You pretty much can't do any better than WALL-E on Blu-ray. It really is the best-looking high-def movie I have ever seen in my life. The Pirates of the Caribbean films look pretty good as well if you want to give your eyes a treat. Try those! :)

As far as videogames, I am doing a Harry Potter spree in preparation for the new movie that comes out in a week and a half. Honestly, though, there is only one good Harry Potter videogame, and that is the Chamber of Secrets for the GameCube. And it's not even just passable -- it's actually pretty fantastic!

I also am replaying Final Fantasy VII for the first time in years thanks to its recent release on the PSN. And, of course, I am loving it. Tifa FTW!

The Jonathan Ross: Get Demigod. Been getting in a lot of TF2, and also picked up BlazBlue, which has been pretty good. Started Devil Summoner on DS, which I'm really enjoying, and I've also gotten back into Picross DS.

The Topher Cantler: I'd tell you I played stuff like Flower, Sun and Rain for the DS, 'Splosion Man and the new TMNT: Turtles In Time remake this week, but what's more important to me right now is what I'm NOT playing, and that is Metal Slug 3 on XBLA. Not for lack of trying, I assure you.

For some reason, no matter how many times I delete and redownload the game, clear the cache on my console and perform all manner of voodoo rituals to the contrary, shit don't work, son. The game freezes at random points, more often than not on the last fucking level, when my score is already far superior to that of Wilbo, who has dared challenge me. It's not the console, either, as when the action on screen freezes I can still bring up the Xbox guide and even scroll through the pause menu of the game itself, adjusting settings, etc. Anybody else having this problem? Or am I just doomed never to finish a game of MS3 on my 360 again? If someone knows who I can call and yell at to get it working, please enlighten me. Otherwise, suck it, Wilbo.

The Jonathan Holmes: Was playing The Conduit online for review, but the game has consistently glitched on me for the past three days. Rumor has it that High Voltage just changed their servers so that anyone with the Homebrew Channel installed can't play their game online, presumably to bust cheaters. Bummer. It's a great online FPS, but not great enough to sacrifice Another Code R, Disaster: Day of Crisis, and Captain Rainbow. Going to contact High Voltage on Monday to see what's up.

Also playing BlazBlue for review. It's everything that Street Fighter IV isn't, but in a good way. Fans of KoF, Guilty Gear, and Street Fighter III should pick it up ASAP.

The Justin Villasenor: Not a whole lot this week. I'm still chipping away at Super Robot Wars Origional Generation, and I also picked up Lost Odyssey for the first time in months. That's about it.

The Samit Sarkar: I finished my Fight Night Round 4 (review coming this week!) Legacy mode with Samit Sarkar, retiring with the ranking of Greatest Of All Time and a record of 50(47)-1-0 (for those of you who need a translation, that's 50 wins -- 47 of which were knockouts -- one loss, and no draws). I also lost twice to Anthony online, but that's because he's a cheating, spamming little bitch who doesn't have any interest in fighting even close to the way an actual (or CPU) boxer would.

Since I'd been trying to complete the career mode for the upcoming review, I didn't really play all that much else this week. I spent an hour or two with MLB 09 yesterday, playing a number of RTTS games. In one of them, against the Blue Jays, Samit Sarkar scattered six hits over 7.2 innings while giving up no runs and striking out eight. Later on, I played two games each of Worms and 3 on 3 NHL Arcade with a friend.

Fronz, regarding your question about great-looking Blu-rays to show off your HDTV, check out this thread on the AVS Forum. It ranks Blu-ray Discs in order of their picture quality. Well, actually, Tier 0 ("Blu") ranks the films in order of picture quality -- for example, the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie looks slightly better than WALL-E. But the rest of the tiers are split into sections in which the movies are merely ranked alphabetically. (Notice how most of the movies in the top tier are CG films like Kung Fu Panda and Ratatouille! And as you can see, Chad was right about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.)

The Anthony Burch: If making shitty excuses for sucking at a genre he's supposed to be great at was a sport, Samit would be MVP.

The Brad Nicholson: I also beat Samit.

The Samit Sarkar: Uh...no, you didn't, Mr. I Want The Xbox 360 Version So I Don't Have To Play Samit Or Anthony.

The Dyson Grigsby: Believe it or not, I've been playing Prince of Persia for the 360. Yes, I know I'm always months late to the party when it comes to games, but whatever... Maybe in a month I'll get around to that Left for Dead  game that all the kids are talking about.

The Colette Bennett: I've been playing nothing but Project Diva on my PSP, and I'm convinced it's the best thing on earth.

The Dyson Grigsby: Samit Sarkar also wins the "referring to himself in third person more times that Dyson does" award.

The Ashley Davis: It's okay Dyson, I'm just now playing Knights of the Old Republic. It's really freaking awesome, by the way.

The Brad Nicholson: I beat Samit in FNR4.

The Tom Fronczack: Oh man, how could I forget to pickup the Pirates movies on Blu-ray! I'm on it, thanks!

@Jonathan -- I'm not saying I think Demigod will be bad, but there's just no way it would offer as much adrenaline in an equally awesome 10 player environment online. 90+ heroes times 4+ spells each plus 90+ items = highly reluctant to try Demigod for a long time. Plus DotA is free.

P.S. I beat Samit in FNR4

The Brad Nicholson: You did, too? Samit really sucks at sports games, right?

The Nick Chester: Been watching my wife, Debbey, play BioShock all weekend. Started yesterday, she's just about done as I write this. I had nearly forgotten how beautiful the game is, how perfect it is as setting and keeping a tone. Just incredible.

When I have been playing games, it's been handheld stuff, specifically Mecho Wars on the iPhone. Also: blew through Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled (XBLA), picked up The Conduit for a few hours; played a few preview levels of Twisted Pixel's upcoming XBLA game 'Splosion Man; and continued my Fight Night Round 4 career (haven't fought Samit, but there's little doubt I'd beat him to a pulp).

The Samit Sarkar: Dyson, I wasn't exactly referring to myself in the third person -- the games I was talking about allow you to create your own player for the career mode, and I created myself in Fight Night Round 4, MLB 09 The Show, and NHL 09! And by the way, I got Prince of Persia for my birthday last November, and the Blu-ray has never seen the inside of my PS3. I also just got Mirror's Edge last week, so I'll probably start playing through that soon.