Games of the week for 07/07/08: Aunt David Bowie edition

Aunt David Bowie has sweets for you,
Construction paper and sticky glue,
A fresh baked pie and some clotted cream, maybe,
Scream like a baby.

Aunt David Bowie, as sweet as can be,
She lives in a cottage with a garden and tree,
Only drives in those old fashioned cars,
Is there life on Mars?

Aunt David Bowie, visits always delight,
With lullabies to soothe, ghost stories to fright,
I love my sweet auntie, and you can’t deride us,
So where were the spiders?

I think that all means we played videogames this week. Hit the jump to find out exactly what’s been in Destructoid’s hardware.

Anthony “Jim can italicize everything” Burch: I’m trying to pick up all the groovy PSN games I missed before I had a PS3. So far I’m planning on getting Echochrome, Super Stardust HD, Pixeljunk Racers, Pixeljunk Monsters, Calling All Cars, Flow, and Everyday Shooter. Am I missing any good ones?

Topher: Also add me to your friends list. We can send each other messages and do 1 or 2 other things that aren’t playing games together.

I’ve been playing mostly DS titles this week. Soul Bubbles, Trauma Center 2, and trying to get into Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. I want to like it so I can see more of Takehito Harada’s brilliant character art, but so far it hasn’t happened.

DMV: Been playing through God of War, Soul Nomad and the World Eaters, The Simpsons Game, and a bit of Mario Galaxy. It hasn’t been all that exciting of a week, but I just want to get through some games. Unfortunately, the constant wave of updates and exciting news coming from Japanator and Anime Expo has kept me from playing as many games as I could.

Jonathan: Since the announcement of Mega Man 9, I’ve gone a huge 2D platforming binge. Played through all the Bonk games, the NES Mega Man games, the old Castlevania games, any low res 2D platformer I could get my hands on. Surprisingly, I think I had the most fun with the Bonk. The series and it’s head-butt focused gameplay remains unique in the world of platformers.

Also played some more The World Ends With You, though I’m not really sure why as the game isn’t all that good. I guess it must be out of curiosity. For all the game’s flaws, it at least stays consistently fresh. Every half hour or so the game introduces a whole new gameplay mechanic, which is commendable. Plus, thanks to the text heavy nature of the game, it never fails at curing my intermittent bouts of insomnia. 

Finally, still chugging away at WiiFit. Lost about ten pounds so far, so now instead of telling me I’m extremely obese, it just says I’m very, very obese.

Justin: I’ve been playing the first episode of American McGee’s Grimm for an upcoming preview along with some Legend: Hand of God, which has hilariously bad voice acting. I’ve also been trying to finish Mega Man Starforce on the DS just to be done with it.

Samit: The only game I played this week was Top Spin 3 (Destructoid review incoming). Of course, I also messed around with the PS3’s vaunted v2.40 firmware update, which, thankfully, has done no harm to my unit. So far, everything’s been peachy — I’ve been sending messages while playing games, and it’s working like a charm.

Hopefully, Sony will force future releases to support custom soundtracks (they’ve already said that they’re eventually going to require all games to have trophies), because the soundtrack of Top Spin 3 is already starting to get on my nerves. It’s not that it’s bad music per se; but there’s not much variety (either rock or dance) and there just aren’t enough songs.

Nick: I played a few arcade games this week, including a Japanese oddity called I’m Sorry and the Alien vs. Predator game where the Predator eats turkey and salad for health.

Debbey and I also rented Alone in the Dark for the Xbox 360, and now I realize why we haven’t gotten a single one of the three review copies promised to us by Atari: this game isn’t done yet. It’s full of good ideas, but it’s plagued with sloppy controls, horrifying camera, and bugs up the wazoo. More development time might have been able to save this game, I think. I did get 30 achievement points for finishing the first area, though.

Jim: Replayed all of Half-Life 2 and if that game does one thing well, it’s make me angry about the fact that so few developers spend the kind of time, attention and intelligence that Valve did. Also, Portal.

DS delights this week include more Final Fantasy III, Contact and Magical Starsign.

Chad: I just got back from vacation, so I didn’t have time to play much. I finished Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and have decided that it is my favorite game in the amazing Phoenix/Apollo series. Seriously, the end twist completely took me by surprise.

I also have been partying like it’s November 2007 and just played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the first time. I usually run away from military first-person shooters, but this game is amazing!

Oh, yeah, I also squeezed in some N+ and Roogoo. Good times. 🙂

Hamza: I played Heavenly Sword. Wow, what a fucking disappointment. Also played Star Wars Force Unleashed. It’s fun as hell grabbing Storm Troopers with the Force and slamming them around. And of course, Halo 3 like every week. It’s finally starting to bore me which says a lot as I can still play Halo 1’s multiplayer and love every second of it.

Gameboi: This week was spent with Guitar Hero III and Max Payne II. Other than that, I piddled around with Super Stardust HD and the infamous PS3 update that everybody seemed to talk about, but few had problems with. Guess I’m one of the (many) lucky ones too, since old faithful is still kicking as well as it ever has.

Brad: I recently just turned on MGS4 again to play through the game on Hard. Holy shit, is it rough. I do like the slower pace that it forces me into though. I’ve barely gotten through the first act as of now.

I also just purchased a God of War PSP. I’m a little pissed off because it has a few broken pixels, so I’ll have to take it back tomorrow. I picked up Patapon to play in addition to the games that came with the package. I haven’t had a chance to explore it as much as I desire, so I’ll keep my mouth shut.

THE Dyson: I’ve been playing a game that I can’t discuss till Monday, but it involves the Force and a guy who may or may not be named Starkiller. Aside from that, I’ve been trying to get the Tom Sawyer game that DMV got me from Japan, but I’m having a hard time getting it working. Instead, I’ve been playing Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Chad speaks very highly of this game and I felt it was time that I played it. I’m not digging it as much as the first, though. I feel it’s too easy to be considered much of a challenge, but I’m going to play through it till the end anyway.

DMV: Is it a problem with the cart itself, or just getting through the game?

Dyson: I can’t tell if it’s the cart, but I’m pretty sure it’s the NES. I’m using a Gyromite converter in a top loading NES. I think it may be the converter. I’d use the Famicom itself, but the one I have has no power source and no RF switch. I’m going to try another converter in the future.

Colette: JESUS FUCK TRAUMA CENTER 2: UNDER THE KNIFE IS SO GOOD

That is all.

Chad: @Dyson,
Be prepared for the “Extra” levels. Just be prepared. 🙂

Dyson: Are they as hard as the Star Road levels? I hope so, because so far the obvious game mechanic makes for a great game, but it has yet to make for a challenging platformer. I’m playing through world 5 right now and I’ve died a cumulative amount of no more than ten times during the whole game. Regardless, I think the play mechanics are unique and original, not to mention creative. I was just hoping for more of a challenge.

Chad: I am a little disappointed that you aren’t challenged, but I am so happy you appreciate the ridiculous amount of creativity. The level and design and bosses in that game make me weep they are so amazing. Just wait until you get to Raphael the Raven. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Yeah, they are about as tough as the Star Road levels. Are you trying to get 100% in all the levels? I am guessing not, because that is where the real challenge lies. I can’t even count how many times I got to the very end of the level and lost Baby Mario for just 1 second, giving me a 99%. Argh 🙂

Jonathan: Remember the one where you have to ride the dog-thing through the lava.

That was EVIL. Harder than and Star Road level. Harder than even “Tubular”.

Dyson: Cools. I’m not trying to get 100 percent on any of the levels, so that has a lot to do with it. I can surely see that a perfect score would be far more difficult, but the main level of difficulty is a shade low. Although, I was trying to get through the mid-castle and was having a hard time of it last night. (I was a little drunk though 🙂

Oh, by the way, I just got through the second half of world five and the game has suddenly become super difficult. Hooray!

Fronz’s Memory of Diablo 2:

Years ago, long after I had filled my 2 GB Windows 95 machine to the brim with games, and lived through the great depression of porn videos that fit on floppy discs, and moms who crashed Web sites by picking up the phone, I decided to upgrade my computer. There were all these cool computer games my friends were playing, and they all seemed to end in “Craft” as if by coincidence. Then, all my friends disappeared one year, and it wasn’t until much later that we ran into each and I was told about a game called Diablo 2.

We spent hours around the campfire one night, as I was told about Diablo rushes in hell, and the slaughtering of innocent cows, and some dude named Baalwulf or something, and SOJs, which I thought was a drink in the game for the longest time, and of course, the infamous Pindle bots — which one of my friends actually helped create in the underground scene before it spread like wildfire. All the hours of duping conversations were tooo much fun to listen to, and I couldn’t wait to get the game.

I studied the Sunday Best Buy ads for weeks, figuring out how much this new Microsoft Mecca would cost me. Then I drove out an hour away from home to some seedy looking computer parts store with Drew, the guy who helped create the Pindle Bot craze with the group of people that later disappeared from the face of the Internet when World of Warcraft was released. As if shopping for food at a grocery store, we went up and down each isle placing random gizmos and borderline weaponry into a shopping cart, before waiting in line for twenty minutes and enduring nerdy conversations of how fast everyone could get their motionless machines to run, and how badass their coolant systems and glowing cases were.

Once Xzibit was done paying for his pimped out parts at the register, we were up, and $1200 dollars later I was on my way home with my brand new gaming computer rig. I swear there was montage music while Drew assembled the colossal computer on my living room floor. When it was all said and done, I truly felt like a triumphant Egyptian slave as I groaned to pick up my 19 inch CRT beast of a monitor off the floor and place it atop the desk like the crown piece of what was yet to come. A day later I had half my 120 GB hard drive filled with every Blizzard game ever made, as well as Half-Life and every other must-have FPS. I reinstalled Myst and made green book rushes to get ready for the madness that I anticipated from “D2” as the cool kids called it. The weekend passed and I felt guilty sitting through church thinking of nothing but the devil for an hour. This was it. Finally I would understand why people let their computer run all night long while they were sleeping, and how people could make thousands of dollars in a weekend just by playing games online. I was going to hell, and I was ready.

Then my neighbor got a PlayStation 2 from his rich uncle. F@CK! F@CK! F@CK! Everyone stopped playing Diablo 2 that week, just as I beat Act I, and I completely missed out on what most people still call the favorite game of their life.

So. This week I head east. Alllllllways east. And I reinstalled D2, on that very same computer which I still own and use to this day (after some serious RAM updates of course) and am in search of cows to kill and Something Orange Juices that are apparently the shit. With the Horadric Cube in hand, I venture off into the unknown of Act II. Wish me luck, or if you’re feeling nostalgic, hop into the Dtoid ventrilo and join me while the rest of the world sleeps. When Diablo III comes out . . . I’ll be ready.

fuck that’s long . . . maybe i should finally start a community blog . . .

Hamza: You haven’t made a community blog yet?! You asshole.

Kel from Keenan & Kel: AWWWR, HERE GOES!