I am not Jim Sterling. Depending on your perspective, this could be a great or terrible thing. Jim’s plate is pretty full these days, so I will be taking over the posting duties for our weekly celebration of the games we played the week before.
Let us begin as all things should begin: With a murderous lawn jockey. Hop along past the jump for everything we did last week.
Chester: Been playing Dive: The Medes Island Secrets on WiiWare, a surprisingly relaxing undersea exploration game. Also: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair on Xbox LIVE Arcade, and Ubisoft’s throwback Scott Pilgrim beat ’em up on PlayStation 3, neither of which I can talk about yet. I can, however, talk about the Mafia II preview code I got on Thursday. Oh wait, I haven’t had time to play that yet. But by the time you read this, I hope to have shot a bunch of Italians. (that’s cool if I’m both Italian in and out of the game, right?)
Bennett: This week I have been keeping it simple by returning to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on GameCube. I really underestimated this game when I first played it and probably dismissed it far to quickly. However since returning to it I see it in a whole new light and I have now fallen in love with it. On the more casual side of things, Angry Birds on the iPhone is addictive beyond belief and since I was told to download it while recording this months BritToid, I haven’t spent much time away from my iPhone.
I have spent little or no time on my Xbox360 as of late but I did log-in long enough to purchase a ‘Save Carmine’ t-shirt. Seriously kids, SAVE CARMINE!
Razak: I play about 45 minutes of Bowser’s Inside Story every week. I’m loving it, but need to find more time to pick up my portable. I’m also being dated with my console gaming as I’m working through Arkham Asylum right now. At first I was only digging the fact that the voice acting was so awesome, but the game is just getting better and better as it goes along. I don’t think I’ve had a feeling of a universe and characters so well developed and represented since I played BioShock. Hopefully it doesn’t end in such a disappointingly cliche way like that did.
Oh! And I got the Game of the Year Edition so I look insanely lame playing it in 3D. It’s pretty cool, but for the most part I’ve been keeping it two dimensional.
North: Etrian Odyssey III is like crack. Really punishing crack. And my OCDness has me freaking out over perfect maps. Can’t. Put. Down.
Zimmerman: Oh, God, Matt. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You need to have those hopes for the future of Arkham Asylum to be crushed in the absolute worst way. Now skip the next paragraph so I don’t outright ruin this for you if you’d rather be surprised.
Actually, now that I think about it, Arkham Asylum has exactly the same climax as BioShock. I don’t know why I didn’t draw the connection before because it’s so flagrant, but there are a ton of similar plot and narrative elements between the two games. I wonder if Rocksteady were conscious of that when they were doing it.
As for me, I’ve been playing Castlevania HD. And FrontierVille.
Holmes: Yeah Matt, you just said a mouthful with the Arkham Asylum/Bioshock comparison, especially in regards to the ending. I don’t want to give it away, but I will say that you’ll probably see Jasper Batt Jr. in a whole new light after finishing Arkham.
As for me, I didn’t get to play videogames that much this week, which sucked. I got some time in with Persona 3 Portable every night before bed, weighed myself and played Wii Fit Plus for a bit, ran through a level or two in Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, and was beaten up on Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom a few times. All old games for me, as nothing new excited me this week.
I’m pretty excited about the games that other people played though, specifically Scott Pilgrim and Castlevania HD.
You lucky fuckers!
Perlee: Beat LIMBO on a friend’s 360. Other than a couple ingenious puzzles, I was mostly unimpressed and apathetic. Oh well.
But other than that, I’ve been all over BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, got every achievement in LEGO Harry Potter, started Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and played a bunch of games that you’ll know about next week.
All in all, it’s been pretty good.
Razak: Well, crud. I skipped Conrad’s second paragraph, but this doesn’t sound too good. Guess I’ll spend more time looking for those Riddler trophies to ward off the end.
Sterling: The Sims 3 took up a lot of time this week, and it’s a damn fine game. I wanted to give it a chance since everyone shits on it, but it’s compelling stuff, and I’ve found that when you admit to playing The Sims, you get a hushed “me too” from other gamers, as if it’s some social shame that everyone is secretly indulging in but never wants to admit. So anyway, I liked that.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Castlevania HD. I’m not talking about that.
Ponce: I played a really fun game all week called “Fry alive in Orlando in 100-degree weather with 80 to 90% humidity, then return to your shit motel room where the AC doesn’t even fucking work.” When I wasn’t suffering from heat stroke, I too was playing Bowser’s Inside Story.
Ross: StarCraft II all day every day. And Bejeweled Blitz for when I wasn’t home with my computer.
Carey: Finished up the Autobot campaign for Transformers: WFC, and it just kept getting better and better for me. I’ve been wounded by too many crappy tie-ins to that franchise, so I think it just took me a while to get over my trust issues; I ended up loving it. Also got sucked into a binge session of Puzzle Quest 2 yesterday, I guess Castlevania Puzzle got me in a match-3 RPG kind of mood.
On iPhone, been playing Helsing’s Fire for good puzzling and because Helsing will periodically give his partner a brofist after beating a level. Got a kick out of Fastar!, which is a fun time-attack RPG where you fight squares. Finally, I started Shining Force, which is the only decent game so far using SEGA’s emulator on the iPhone. Really enjoying the simplicity of the old-school SRPG.
Devore: Castlevania HD, StarCraft II (only the campaign, so far), and New Super Mario Bros. Wii now that I have four Wii remotes. The rules of the house are basically “make it to the end as the only survivor utilizing any means necessary.” Fun times!
Concelmo: Finished Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (adored it!), a little more Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky (love it!), and, I don’t know, a little something called StarCarft II!
StarCraft II is the reason I recently bought my fancy new computer, and the purchase was totally worth it. StarCraft II may be my favorite thing that has ever been created. EVER BEEN CREATED!
Sarkar: I played the Madden NFL 11 demo and wrote up some impressions, but my review copy showed up on Friday afternoon, so I’ve been spending time with the full game for a final preview that will go up tomorrow. Last night, I went to a Dtoid NY party and joined Dtoider Nintendoll in singing, like, 30 songs in The Beatles: Rock Band. Good times!
