Agreed. I don't know how anybody could play that game and not be bored to tears by it.

I am an hour in to AC2 which isn't much time to pass judgment, but so far it is more engaging then the original. It's a wide open environment so there are no real restrictions but I haven't done too many missions yet which was the biggest problem in AC1.

What is AC2?

I think we need to make a rule that no acronyms are used until the actual game is mentioned once in the post. No more "I'm really loving DHRLL! What a great game DHRLL is! Go buy DHRLL!".

AC2 is Assassin's Creed 2. I loved the first one for the first few hours, but the repetition killed it for me. If they really fixed that, I'm looking forward to playing it at some point in the future.

AC2 is Assassin's Creed Deux.

Nintendo are finally offering demos of WiiWare games, I like what I've played of NyxQuest and My Life as a Darklord after trying them out and I'll probably get one or both of them after beating the new Mario game. It's better late than never. Now I wish they could do the same thing for Wii retail games though the console's limited memory might prevent that from being possible.

COD MW2 has sort of made my 360 crazy. It was vibrating and making loud buzzing noises as it plays. I know the 360 hardware is a hunk of shit, but is this the hardware or the disc? I've heard that certain high resource games can fuck with the system.

Most would argue that the GTA series has grown repetitive, so I'm not sure that's a glowing example of the game being less repetitive. We'll just assume it was a poor choice of examples.

The last one was certainly a critical and commercial failure.

I got a disc read error my first night of playing Modern Warfare 2, and the drive was definitely spinning hard prior to that. So I installed the game to my hard drive and will play it from there from now on, which is something you may want to consider as well.

My credit card CANNOT take it anymore. I thought I would pass on AC 2.. but alas, the reviews are VERY positive..

and L4D2.. wow.. now if I can only get my kids to stop playing!

Anyone tried Lego Indiana Jones 2 or Super Mario Wii? I'd like to get one for my son and I to play, don't know which. Indiana Jones got some initially bad ratings, but it's seemed to come back up when some more mainstream places starting reviewing it.

My son would like either, but I just want to make sure it's worth playing.

I've been really having a good time with Super Mario Wii, but I haven't gotten into the multiplayer at all.

Lego Indy 2 is basically Lego Indy 1 + Crystal Skull + level editor. Anybody who's bashing it is doing so on the basis of it not being "new" enough. Unlike Star Wars, which had two separate trilogies, or Harry Potter, which has seven freaking books to draw from, there's just not that much source material after the first three Indy movies.

So making a sequel is kind of pointless, and I can see where it would piss people off.

FYI.......Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Beta starts today on the PS3.

Since I haven't bought Call of Duty MW 2, I fired up Resistance: Fall of Man. Very good game so far. Varied missions, good story. I'm liking it.

Thanks. I think we'll get Super Mario now and wait till Indiana Jones goes down some. If it's like the original, then my son will be fine with it. It may not be worth putting $50 into, but I'll definitely pick it up sometime.

"Finished" New Super Mario Bros. Wii last night with my roommate - we started from world one, intentionally found the Warp Cannon in World 1, then accidentally found the Warp Cannon in World 5 which took us all the way to World 8. World 8 was fantastic, though I really wish that they would have made it longer - it was very difficult and had a few really cool mechanics, but there were only I think 5 levels within the world. Also, the final battle was suitably epic, and didn't leave me wanting in any way. I can't wait to go back and really dig into the game, checking out each world along the way.

I still have yet to try single player mode (I've played only 2-player up to this point), and I also can't wait to try more than 2 people at a time. The potential for humor with multiple people playing this game is awesome - we spent just as much time laughing at ourselves and each other for killing one another as we did playing the game. For example, in the World 8 mini-castle, we encountered some very narrow ledges we had to jump across, so we decided we would carry one another through. My roommate picked up my character and started jumping...and then inexplicably (and accidentally) threw my character right into some spikes. Took us about 5 minutes to settle down from laughing enough to play the game again. It is a pretty fantastic way to take the sting out of multiple failures - half the time we died it was to foolish mistakes, and with each other to laugh at, continuing multiple times was not at all frustrating.

Also, for those who don't know and are curious about the large coins:

Man I can't wait to get NSMBW

These games all sound great, but I'm holding out for NSSFCTRRXE, that game is going to beat them all!

Don't forget LADJFPOADKJ:LKADLKFJ 2. It will own us all.

fwiw NSBMW ifb imo

I can't wait til NAMBLA gets released.

+1

On preorder already.

Any word yet on what the first DLC will be?

Man I can't wait to get GFYS.

I just pulled off some cool stuff in the new Mario game, I watched one of the hint videos for getting infinite men in 2-5 but on my way to that spot I managed to get 41 in a different spot in between two blocks where a Lakitu kept dropping spines. I needed the the 1ups too, I was running low because the World 5 castle is kicking my ass so far, I hate the way that green block taunts me when every time I have to start the level over again. This game rocks.

Downloaded demo for Bit Trip Beat from the Wii Shop Channel yesterday. I loved it. Anyone played it or any of the other Bit Trip games? Great stuff.

World 5 was extremely difficult. We were both excited (and pretty surprised) when we found the Warp Cannon and were able to get out of the level.

I beat NSMB Wii tonight, going through all eight worlds without warps. That final level is probably the best one in the series. Compared to the other 2D Marios I put this game right up there with Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, it's that good and so much better than NSMB DS. The game gets hard in some of the latter stages (though there are a few easier ones mixed in even on worlds 6 through 8) but it's never unfair. Immediately after beating the game I went back to the beginning to get the three star coins on every level in order to...

IGN Advertisement

Rogue Warrior = Worst "next gen" game ever? IGN thinks so.

More info about Final Fantasy XIII in the Famitsu review of the game (got a 39/40).

-FFXIII will be on a dual layered blu-ray disc. MGS4 is the only other game to use one.
-No installs
-PS3 version will remain uncompressed due to lack of size constraints.
-You can restart battles.

Really happy about no installs and the restart battle option.

Announcement was also made that White Knight Chronicles will be released in U.S. and Europe on February 5th. That and FFXIII should keep RPG people busy this spring.

Pity, 'cause I love Marcinko. But I had a feeling the game would be about like this. I didn't know they were using Mickey Rourke for the voice though, so at least I learned something.

For PS3 owners, Pixeljunk Shooter is a GREAT game. I'm a fan of most of their games and I think this game is probably their best offering yet. It's a lot of fun and easy to pick up.

Are there any good online co-op games out there? Been playing Borderlands with a friend and looking for more games we can play online together. Have played Army of Two and the old Crackdown.

While I am not sure about how the on-line experience is (since I mainly do split-screen), here are a few:

Rainbow Six: Las Vegas 2
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Ghost Recond Advanced Warfighter: 2
Modern Warfare 2: Special Ops missions
Gears of War
Gears of War II

Check out this website for some more:

Co-Optimus - Your Prime Source for Co-Op Gaming!

Co-Op games are my specialty.

We know it can't be hockey.

MIKEVIC WITH THE SUPLEX

Thanks, we do try very hard ;)

New 4:00 trailer with actual gameplay footage of new Red Dead game.

You're mean.


Stop encouraging him.

Yeah, this game is looking very promising. Assuming the reviews on gameplay come back positive, this is probably my next big video game time investment...

Grand Theft Horse

lol

Carlos Mencia?

No, I think that's Grand Theft Joke.

:D

I'll probably give Red Dead a run... ever since ye olde nintendo "Lone Ranger" I've been looking for an open world western game. And i generally love me some Grand Theft Auto anyway.

Red Dead is a definite buy. Not a huge Western fan but it's different looking which is a plus where everything seems to be amped up FPS. I wonder how big the environment will be, from what they are saying, it seems massive.

I'd love to see Rockstar create a police game. Sort of a Police Quest in a sandbox environment where you can make decisions on whether to be good or bad. Always thought that would be a nice change of pace from the typical bad guy building his way up the ranks of the crime pyramid.

I think a serial killer game would be fun, either from a being the police perspective or from being the killer and trying to get away with it.

Isn't "Heavy Rain" supposed to be a serial killer game? I don't think you play the serial killer, but I think you can play various people trying to find him or stop him.

Would be controversial as hell and I just can't fathom anyone being able to get that on to store shelves here. Have to admit it in a morbid way, it would be a blast playing from the killers perspective. Scouting your victims, creating a signature, and trying to cover your tracks. Could even mix an element of playing as the police officer into it. Could download other users crimes and see if you can figure it out.

I said this probably about 6 months ago to my brothers. It's only a matter of time before someone has the guts to make a game where you are the serial killer. Sick and twisted but people would no doubt buy it.

I could see the first shot at this being something like a Dexter-type game where the serial killer is a vigilante which leaves it morally ambiguous rather than it be a person purely stalking innocent people.

Final Fantasy XIV beta signups are now available if anyone wants to give it a spin.......

FFXIV Online Beta Signup

Those pansy GTA games are somewhat close, but not quite there yet.

I've got a gameplay design for a detective game which has AI serial killers. The problem is, people would be expecting an exciting shoot out every couple of minutes (ala GTA) but to really make an intellectually mysterious detective game it actually is about investigation and putting clues together. I don't think the market would be very big for it.

I'm not talking about railroad detective games either, where you are basically point and clicked through a planned out series of gameplay elements with some sort of puzzle/mini-game design until you reach the end of the plot. I was thinking of inverted GTA open world, except the missions themselves are procedurally generated, and the artificial intelligence is on a 'mission' and you as the detective need to detect and defeat it under the condition of ambiguous information.

Need an assist from some 360 parents/gamers. Got an 8-9 year old boy that just got a 360. He's had a PS2 before now, so all 360 games would be new for him. Any suggestions on some games in the library that I could pick up that would be good for him? I looked through all my multiplatform games in my library and quickly realized that all the games I think are good are mostly rated Mature. :) So I'm not exactly sure what's available for the kids on 360. Thanks in advance.

Most of the games in my library are rated M as well, but I enjoyed the Lego Star Wars games. There's also the Indiana Jones and Batman titles, and those seem to be pretty kid-friendly.

Have you tried any of the Lego games?

edit : What Dataking said.

I think most of the E10+ (or whatever it is) games are Lego/Sports/Disney movie type games. I've never played any of the movie game, but I can't imagine they are the greatest although, sure you could find them pretty cheaply.

What does he play on the PS2?

hxxp://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/familycentral.htm

I'd start here.

Also, Peggle, that game rocks, he might like that.

I know he plays some 'Teen' games as well. Just wanted something other than Mature.

Most of mine are M too, but Ghostbusters was pretty tame and is rated T. (only non-M, non-sports, non-rock band type game I've bought recently that I can comment on)

Yeah, that's a good one. Forgot about that.

Might be a good opportunity to introduce him to games like Ticket To Ride and Carcassone.

Mini Ninjas is great!

FWIW, my 11 y/o suggested Civ Rev as an "age appropriate" title if he's got the patience for it.

Walkthrough video of ModNation Racers with the developer. Really looking forward to this game. Beta feedback has been outstanding.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/...er-mat-thomas/

Not sure what your thoughts on a game like that are, but I actually think it's really good for kids. Gets the mind going as well as any math class.

I downloaded the Dante's Inferno demo. Ugh. The scuttlebutt about it being a God of War clone were dead on. It felt like a cheap rip-off of Kronos. I love the idea of converting literature to a game, but this is going to stop some other people from trying it, methinks.

I know it's 2010 now, but hey.

EA Sports to Bring new NBA Jam Exclusively to Wii January 4, 2010

Filed under: News — hattrick @ 10:16 pm

According to sources at ESPN, EA Sports has acquired the rights to NBA Jam, and will be bringing a new version exclusively to the Wii. Here is what ESPN writer Jon Robinson has to say:

“Sources confirmed to ESPN that the new title is actually one of the all-time classics coming back to consoles as EA Sports has acquired the rights from the NBA to deliver an updated version of “NBA Jam” that will ship to retail exclusively for the Wii.”

I guess we will find out more when EA Sports makes the official announcement at the end of the month.
For the full article from Mr. Robinson, click here.

Ok, I'm interested. And hopefully better than Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff

SI

Please, please, please make this a good game EA. I want to dunk from the foul line with the high flying twosome of Howard and Carter.

Like sterlingice said, having another failed update of a classic arcade sports game from my youth would be rough. Damn TSB:K was a letdown. Whoever developed that game made some unbelievably poor decisions.

The problem with NBA Jam "exclusively on Wii" is that it means they're going to try to jam poorly conceived motion controls onto it.

And that will fail.

I'm good with it, although frankly most of the things my son plays I can find some value in.

Is DJ Hero a big time bust? Cause every store I go into seems to have like a thousand copies of it lying around.

Yep, agreed.

Penny Arcade had a comment on Activision's Q4 offerings that I think hits the mark pretty squarely.

Instead of creating a good game and then setting the price, they started with the price - "$120!" - and then tried to work backwards from there. With DJ Hero, they run into the additional obstacle of creating a "Hero" game that is not intuitively accessible. Just about anybody can pick up a pair of drumsticks, a plastic guitar, or, hell, a microphone, and figure out in pretty short order which end is up.

A turntable is another matter. If you do not already have an interest in being a DJ, you are probably either going to ignore the game entirely, or fiddle with it for five minutes and lose interest. And if you paid $120, you're going to be pissed enough that the franchise will have negative cachet with you from then on.

They're going to have to take a bath on DJ Hero in order to build any kind of market share for the DJ extension of the brand going forward, and they probably should have planned for that bath in the first place. It isn't as if the core Hero brand, Call of Duty franchise, and World of Warcraft franchise aren't making them buckets of bank in the first place.

+2. This is going to end BADLY.

That's possible. I'm hoping for multiple control schemes, one using the classic controller. It's also possible to have good motion controls, EA's Wii games have had some failures and successes in that regard.

Any motion control scheme they have won't be the only control scheme. They will make sure you can play it with a regular controller.

Funny story. Father in law is a general practice doctor. An 82 year old lady who is a family friend came with chest pain over the weekend. When they enquired about what she did over the weekend, she mentioned that her great grandson had received a Wii over the holidays and she played Wii bowling for THREE HOURS straight on Saturday. Thankfully, the pain was nothing more than a chest muscle strain and a recommendation to never play Wii Bowling more than one game at a time without taking a break.

There's a good chance they'll badly screw it up because, hell, they're EA. Easily my first thought on the matter.


Tiger Woods for the Wii is supposed to be the best ever on any system because they actually got the controls right. There's a slim but non-zero chance they could get this to work. But it's slim.

SI

Think it is time to rename the thread to 2010 or should we simply start a new one?

This thread is sooooooo last year.

Wish granted: The 2010 Video Games Thread.

Both Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods 10 (which used Wii Motion Plus) were good, Tiger 10 was much better than the previous Wii golf games.

Too be honest I was mainly interested to see who would be the first to quickly post a new thread. You won Kodos!

I was kind of surprised that it took 5 days to do so since this thread stays so active on here.

Happy New Year!

I felt like this once, but it was four hours straight, and it was real bowling. I consider that my highlight for 2009.