Sometimes you just need a platitude to get you through the day.
In a staggering departure from form, the Destructoid staff played videogames this week. Read on to find out more and tell us what you’ve been on about.
Chester: Metroid: Other M, BioShock 2 downloadable content “Minerva’s Den,” Guilty Party, and a ton of PlayStation Move games I can’t really say much about yet. Oh, and Baby Maker Extreme on Xbox Live Indie games. Yes. That.
Razak: I convinced my fiancee that since there wasn’t much television to watch we should download a game to play together. This is a major step forward in our relationship. I decided to download Super Mario RPG as it’s one of the classics I’ve never played and I figured she would like the story and the time-based, but not too tricky battles. We’re about 30 minutes in and I think it’s going well.
I’m also playing And Yet It Moves for Wii, which I’ll have a review on later and a bit of Spyborgs. Bowser’s Inside Story is still residing in my DS. I will defeat it.
Sterling: I beat Dead Space after playing it ages ago. I take back what I said about me getting ready to stop long before the game did. It’s so much better on PC and now I can’t wait for Dead Space 2. Speaking of PC, I finally moved my Steam files over to my 900GB drive, thus giving me obscene amounts of space for games, so I went on a downloading binge this weekend. I started playing Crysis again, and I still can’t work out what that game wants to be. It tries to have an open-ended approach to gameplay, but it tends to punish anything that isn’t stealth, but then the stealth barely works so it can end up as a brawler, or a long-ranged shooter, except the enemies take a thousand bullets to die. I’m not sure I like how its concepts just seem crushed together.
I’ve been replaying F.E.A.R and downloaded an old shooter called Chaser. Both of those do the job they intended to do. Played some RPG called Hazen, which is eehh. Oh, and Monday Night Combat. Plenty of Monday Night Combat.
Holmes: Got Ufouria: The Saga, and Shadow of the Ninja on the Virtual Console. Both games were originally on the NES, and both are filled with design decisions that you just don’t see anymore, some for better, some for worse.
Also played the WiiWare title Monsteca Corral: Monsters Vs. Robots. It’s so fucking weird. The only other thing that’s ever made me feel this way is Xavier: Renegade Angel.
Lastly, I played some more Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game, trying new stuff to unlock the game’s last playable character, Knives Chau. Rumor has it that she’s going to be DLC., to be included Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World DVD. I wonder how that’s going to work?
Devore: Lots of stuff for once, thanks to Conrad. Shank, Dead Rising: Case Zero, Little King’s Story, Ufouria, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Monday Night Combat. I think that about covers it. I’m super late to the party on this one, but yeah, everyone really ought to check out Little King’s Story — the music alone is worth the $30.
Toletino: For some reason I’ve been playing Mafia AND Mafia II almost simultaneously, and in light of that, I’ve found that Mafia II is everything I ever wanted in a sequel to Mafia, that is to say, an achingly pretty shooting/driving game that follows a story about period Italian organized crime.
Well, almost everything. Mafia II‘s story and individual missions are not as interesting as Mafia‘s are, which is probably something of a worst-case scenario, as those bits were the best thing about Mafia (besides the graphics). But the graphics and acting are tremendously well-presented, so I’m going to stick with it for now.
Hey, rent it at least. It’s not as if you’ll drown in minigames and collectibles *cough*RedFactionGuerilla*cough*
Concelmo: My Xbox 360 red-ringed for the first time ever this week, so instead of finishing Puzzle Quest II and Deadly Premonition, I have moved over to Final Fantasy IX and PixelJunk Monsters. Not a bad trade-off at all.
I am still cursing Microsoft’s name, though.
Sarkar: I’d been playing nothing but the NHL 11 XBL/PSN demos, which led me to affirm the fact that I am much better at EA’s NHL games with a DualShock 3 as opposed to a 360 controller. I took a break from hockey and decided to finally check out the Joe Danger PSN demo, which — for lack of a better word — is FUN.
But then my review copy of NHL 11 arrived last night, so…yeah. That.
Ross: It’s been a very XBLA week for me. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and Shank. Oh, and some Super Street Fighter IV.
Holmes: Oh, that reminds me, I played NHL 2K11 at Best Buy yesterday. I guess the game is on some sort of bus tour. They’re even giving out t-shirts and hockey pucks, both of which I absolutely loved. I fucking LOVE hockey pucks. So awesome.
The game was just OK. Ice Hockey on the NES is still my favorite sports videogame ever, followed by Cyberball on the Genesis, and Mega Man Soccer on the SNES. NHL 2K11 definitely ranks in the top 20 though.
Zimmerman: Lots of Shank. Checked out the first hour or so of Mafia II which has really impressed me in a visual design sense. Also Dead Rising: Case Zero, which I’ll have more to talk about in the review, and Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess.
Perlee: I’ve been playing Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light with my roommate, and still blasting through the Scott Pilgrim game. Have you seen that website from the developer showing off what was missing from the game? It’s pretty impressive that this already great game could have been soo sooo much. I kinda hope for a sequel.
Oh, and the big game I played this week? I beat Halo: Reach. I can’t say much about it, but boy oh boy, I wish I was still at that preview event, and I don’t even like Halo games.
Aziz: I played Halo: Reach too. I can’t say anything either, but I can say I’m better than Ben PerLee at the game. 😉
Perlee: Suck it, you’re terrible at headhunter. and all the cool kids know it’s about headhunter now. FAIL.
Aziz: Yeah, and I kicked everyone’s asses in the skill based games, not the collection game.
Perlee: Sure, it’s hella easy to do that when the only game you play online is Halo 3. Seriously, when people are calling you a robot….
Aziz: I haven’t touched Halo 3 in over a year! I can’t even stand it anymore.
