Here’s a few quick likes and dislikes with recent (or not so recent) games. All currently available.
Like-NHL 10′s demo. Will the rest of the game live up to it? That I don’t yet know, but it seems like it’s building on the solid foundation of the last three years, and after the puck action is great. So is putting someone against the board and really getting in there to fight for the rubber. But when there’s a full on melee after the play ends, you know it’s authentic hockey.
Dislike-Madden 10. I haven’t loved a football game since NFK 2k1, to be fair, and Madden seems to be going the wrong way still. This year’s version is a major improvement over 09, particularly in the superstar department, but it just seems to be missing the fun. And certain “helpful” features causing me to lose a game. Example-3rd and Goal, 2 yard line. 19-21. 60 seconds on the clock. I make the halfback toss, it fails, but I can burn 30 seconds, make the field goal and take the lead with 22. Means it’s damn near impossible for the other team to get within field goal range if I keep my defense up. And sure enough, I did. When that 30 seconds was over, I had them at their own 30.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to burn the clock, because the AI decided to call a time out for me, in Play Now mode, where I didn’t expect it to do, well, ANYTHING, for me.
That next 30 second lead to my 30, a field goal, and a score of 24-22 with 1 second left. You can guess how that went.
Oh, and there’s some really bad texture streaming going on when they show players on the sidelines. It didn’t bother me in Mass Effect but it really bothers me here for some reason. Likely because I’m looking for detailed human faces.
Oh, and I wish I could still pick plays by quick/medium/deep passes. It had a nice balance between hardcore and helpful calling, though they still should just steal 2k1‘s playcalling mechanism.
Like-Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. Great story, great puzzles, great characters. 12 solid hours of fun to get through the story and most of the puzzles within, and some extras after, plus weekly downloadables. Good times.
Dislike-The Guitar Hero 5 soundtrack. Coldplay doesn’t rock. They don’t. They’re 5 minute long intros. Listening and enjoying, hey, everyone likes different things, but they definitely don’t fit the game.
Like-Retro Games Challenge. It’s cute, it’s charming, it’s a little short, but the games are fun and well crafted, even if there’s a good deal of repetition.
Dislike-The end of the current 1 vs 100 Live season. Damn it, it’s so fun, but it’s still buggy as hell. It needs more beta, especially if it’s going to come at a premium.
Like-Beyond Good and Evil. It took me about an hour to get it up and running properly for some reason, I had tremendous issues with video being out of sync with audio, so much so at two points that the game itself started during a cutscene, but didn’t know it had started, so I had no control, just aliens attacking me.
Dislike-That BG&E still doesn’t support a joystick. Damn it Ubisoft, it plays okay with a keyboard, but why the cheap port job? Xpadder is a good option, but still not true analog support. This wonderful game really got the shaft all the way through from the publisher.
Like-Shin Megami Tensai-Devil Survivor. The story is great, it’s very tense, and it’s a unique turn based mechanic. You get a few teams of three, one human, two demons, but you can switch demons in and out all you want, even when one gets killed. As long as the human is up, a team is up, meaning you can throw brute force waves if it comes to it. Demon fusion is great, and there’s also lots of reason to switch demons on the fly, since there’s usually more victory conditions than “kill everything.” Defending people, getting to a spot quickly, preventing demons from reaching an exit, they’ll all require you to change things up for different abilities. It’s as good as you’d expect from the SMT series.
