Hello, evil world! In the days since finishing Assault on Dark Athena last week, the midwest has been hit with more rain than you can shake a MotionPlus-enhanced Wiimote at. As a result of both the amount of rain and my house sitting just outside a floodplain, I’ve been spending most of my time addressing that issue. So as you can guess, I’ve had little time to game, save for an evening of Rock Band with friends and a little bit of Left 4 Dead DLC.
In both the spirit of all the rain and Andrew Heller’s (my favorite childhood columnist) book-turned-blog, Come Heller High Water, I am going to give you a brief rundown of my video game-related thoughts from the last week. It shall henceforth be called, Come Hell or Power Outage. After all, as gamers, Hell and power outage are pretty much synonymous.
- What is up with bloated XBLA prices? I tried out Hasbro’s Family Game Night, and it’s a lot of fun! Gives you a little throwback to the games you used to play when your dad had the computer occupied with Leisure Suit Larry. The demo lets you try out a little Battleship, Connect 4, Yahtzee! and Scrabble. I was getting ready to buy it because I figured the whole package came as one for a bargain price. No, no! Instead, each individual title is $10 (800 MS points) versus $40 for the entire package on Wii (Yahtzee, Boggle, Battleship, Connect 4 and Sorry!). Are you serial?! They must be using Capcom’s price-fixing methods for XBLA releases.
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Left 4 Dead: Free DLC. ‘Nuff said. Okay, maybe not… It’s almost impossible to find something wrong with the L4D update. First of all, it’s free, so complaints should be left at the door. Secondly, it’s enhancing the most beautiful game in the street – or definitely in the top three. However, I have to get this off of my chest, I hate the new Survivor mode. It sounded like a lot of fun when they first announced it. Finally, a real challenge! My mates and I are really good at the normal game, so something that could provide a challenge was more than welcome. Surprise! This new game mode will wreck your world! 10-15 minutes of prep time for 4 minutes of gameplay? That’s not fun, it’s frustrating! It leads to a lot of “movie words” being shouted over and over again. I almost suffered from that Wiimote-through-TV-screen illness, except I had an Xbox controller in hand. ARGH!
WITCH!!
- Zoey is ugly in the new loading screen posters. I know that sounds a little “fanboy erotica-ish”, but it’s true.
- Valve, thanks for adding Versus mode support on the other two maps!
Last night while I was waiting for people to join a versus server, I had a brilliant idea. Someone else may have thought of this idea already, but if not, I’ll take credit, not to mention the royalties if possible! We must have been waiting for 15 minutes for people to join in our server. During that time, how about having a little 2D game action in the blade system via the guide button? Nothing helps pass the time like playing a little Peggle, and it’s so graphically un-intense that the box should be able to handle it no problem! Maybe this is something that comes free when you download a game from XBLA, or is packed in with the game itself. This could also be played during the load times. Sure, it might slow down the load speed, but you’re playing a game! Make it multiplayer with the other people in the server (it doesn’t even have to count for points, but something to keep your thumbs occupied), and you’ve got a real hit, Microsoft.- Now someone is going to tell me that Sony already has this and that I should buy a PS3. I agree, I should buy a PS3. Unfortunately, I’ve been spending my money on basement waterproofing.
- My girlfriend doesn’t have much experience with video games, but she played Rock Band the other night and is a natural. Sure, she was on easy mode, but she’s a rockstar. If you have a girlfriend and she doesn’t play, nothing’s hotter… Okay, maybe that’s not true, but it’s a whole lot hotter than her sitting on the couch, getting mad at you for playing video games!
- Listen to any good music lately? I love the Channel system in the Zune Marketplace; weekly updates of new and old music, every genre imaginable, partner DJs – it’s amazing. With all the news about the ZuneHD and the Pink project, I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Marketplace on my Omnia (hopefully it will work!).
Lastly, anybody have a DSi that I can borrow/have for the next couple of months? I have a three week focus session coming up for grad school, then I will be on the road for work for four weeks in a row through June and July. Needless to say, a little distraction would be good for me. My birthday is in June, so if you’re in a gift-giving mood, keep that in mind!
Alright gamers, that’s all I have for you. This was a lot of fun, and look forward to more editions of Come Hell or Power Outage in the future. That’s about all you’re gonna get on the weeks that I’m gone!
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