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This was a great year of gaming for me.  I was surprised by new titles I hadn’t heard of, pleased by spontaneous buys, and disappointed by games I had planned to buy for months prior.  Given how long it takes for me to get through games I usually just buy them or trade for them on Goozex, using the service as a long term Gamefly type setup.  As my rate of consumption increases I have to wonder if using Gamefly as a set rate of expense is a more cost effective solution, especially given the pain when I buy a stinker.  We shall see.

Below is a list of the major games I have played throughout this year.  With each is a little quip about them, and they are categorized by awesomeness.  Without further ado, here is the list:

Amazing adventures –

Borderlands – This game came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face.  I remember seeing some trailer for it, saying it was cool, then promptly forgetting about it in a sea of incoming games.  On release week, it was brought to my attention again.  The action RPG style, cell themed graphics and co-op features immediately attracted me to the title.  By release day I found myself in a Best Buy, shelling out my $60.  It was worth every penny.  Not only did it play awesome, and have great co-op, but Gearbox continued to put out DLC for this game.  In fact, I would say that I played it 6 to 8 months out of the entire year.  It had great legs to begin with, but the DLC made it into a supermodel.  At the time of this writing I have 2 days and 6 hours into my primary character, a siren.  I have enjoyed every minute of it, both on and off line, and continue to play it currently in between other games.  This was my game of the year.  Full Review

Mass Effect 2 – Literally taking your character from the first game and continuing the story (with story elements correct between games where you made hard choices) this game consumed a fair bit of my spring.  Like Borderlands, the action RPG style played really well, but the story and dialog options gave this game a lot of richness in its universe.  Leaning on my knowledge of how I never went back for a second playthrough on the first game, I played every major side quest in ME2 to their fullest.  I soaked it up like a kitchen sponge.  The plot twists and engaging nature of the story made the 30+ hours I put into the first play through worth every minute.  I knew myself well though, as I never picked it up again after the ending credits.  There was DLC released for it, but by then I had already pawned it on Goozex and was back into Borderlands again.

Splinter Cell Conviction – As a fan of Clancy games for years, this one really baked them all into one for me.  Taking the more agressive tactical elements from Rainbow Six Vegas and blending them with the assassin’s stealth of Splinter Cell, Ubisoft has created a game that tore me away from even one of my favorite games of the year Borderlands for a few months of distraction in a tight leather armor suit.  In order to take advantage of some online co-op opportunities I picked this up used off eBay of all places.  I played it online with a friend on some pre-planned weekends without ever having done the story.  I had so much fun with these couple stints that it spurned me to not only play through the entire game, but we also played through the 5 hour co-op storyline again on the highest difficulty but in half the time of the previous run through.  This game consumed a lot of time for me and I enjoyed every minute.  Previous SC games never had the pull into me that this one did and I look forward to future games if they take this direction and blend of game play elements.  Full Review

A nice fling –

Split/Second – I picked this game up after I had gotten too frustrated with Blur.  Like most games, I got it on a deal and always figured I could dump it on Goozex if I didn’t like it.  When I get into the game I was overjoyed by the gameplay and explosive graphical representations that the environment provided when you triggered events to crash your opponents.  The play and design reminded me a lot of Burnout 3 or 4, especially with the generic car makers and repeating tracks.  Though it was a rush to play up through episode 7, the game started to wain for me as the races became too difficult to get enough points to unlock progression in the game.  This lead me to having to backtrack and play previous episodes over again just to unlock newer races, which ended up being on most of the same tracks anyway.  Online play was decent, but more often than not it was hard to get a match together with a limited amount of people playing online.  It was an amazing game for a short time, but lacked the legs to make me play more than a month or so.

Kinect Adventures – I played this force fed game that comes bundled with the Kinect sensor for several days.  Given that it was my only Kinect title out of the gate it’s not like I had a lot of choice unless I wanted to keep playing with swipe and voice controls in the dashboard.  Overall the play experiences were very tight and controlled at a level of accuracy that easily surpassed the Wii we have.  With only 5 main game types and a dozen or so levels in these types you can easily see all there is to see in the game after a long day of playing.  Granted, they are still fun to go back into, but only to get a next higher level of performance or score.  Gold medals seemed to come a little too easily but Platinums were rather challenging to get.  Lots of fun, but it certainly spurns you to get more games for the Kinect in short order.  To be fair, how many people just stayed at Wii Sports when they got the console?

Doritos Crash Course – I have to say, this is one of the best platformer games I have played in a long time.  Taking your XBL avatar and running it through a physical obstical course is both fun and entertaining.  A lot of great features were put into a game that was obviously setup as an advertisement.  That’s the real rub though, you only see the Doritos name in the title screen and at the start of each level in small letters.  Small things like the screen cracking in a virtual spiderweb of your TV glass when you get thrown towards it and a collection of falling animations spice up what could have been a fairly boring game.  For a free game, it’s easily better than many paid XBLA games I’ve nabbed in the past.  Good job Doritos!

Red Steel 2 – This game was picked up on a whim.  Mostly it was because I wanted to play with more swords than Wii Sports Resort would offer.  Since the second iteration of Red Steel required Motion Plus, I figured it had to be fairly accurate.  For $7 I got it from the Target clearance rack.  Needless to say, the game play was fun, but it didn’t keep my interest very long.  The combination of sword and shooting works out pretty well, however the Wii seems to get out of sync with my movements if the action gets too heavy, causing me to get a beatdown while waiting for it to figure out what I’m doing.  I love the concept, and the game is fun overall with a fairly decent set of story cutscenes to string you along, but it just doesn’t have the staying power to be played more than a few times for me.

Missed connections –

Blur – I had a lot of excitement about this game.  When both Blur and Split/Second came out around the same time, I had to make a choice.  Ultimately what won for me was the ease of slipping into play with this game (Mario Kart on steroids), the social challenge pieces and the 4 player split screen (where S/S only had two).  Once I got it for a third of retail within a month of launch via a Kmart sale and a publisher coupon.  I figured worst case I could make a “profit” by dumping it on Goozex if I lost interest.  The first couple brackets of play were a bit of fun, and I leveraged social challenges to a couple people on my friends list, played split screen with my kids and played a bit online.  After about the third bracket I found that though I was still gaining fans, I was unable to progress.  It seemed as though they had designed the game in such a way that you would have to build up enough fans in order to unlock some car that would make you win.  I tried several more play sessions to progress and could not.  At this point I basically gave up and put it on Goozex for trade at a high point value.  Bye bye Blur baby.

Crackdown 2 – As mentioned in my previous post, I was deeply invested in the first game, so naturally I thought this one would hold true and be at least the same if not better.  With so much pent up anticipation it was only a matter of time before I finally got the game and its true colors were shown to me.  For the most part, the game had less story and structure than the first, leaving me with only a checklist of objectives to roll through.  No amount of new features like wing suits or helicopters or zombies could keep me from the fact that I was plopped down in an open world and merely told to just go out and have fun.  The fun lasted for a while, but without major plot points or really any guidance it came down to just blowing things up and collecting orbs.  Fun for a while, but not enough to even complete any set of tasks.

My DS – I swear I played something on my DS this year, but I have no idea what it was.  Most likely it was Peggle…still.  Recently the DS almost falls into phone gaming for me:  something to quickly pull out and use for short sessions.  It’s too bad because when I have a large amount of time (airplane) I love sinking a bunch of time into games like GTA: Chinatown Wars and such.  This just wasn’t one of those years.  We have Wario DIY in the house now, so maybe I’ll start playing with that.  Full Review

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And there you have it, a year of gaming for me tied up in a pretty little bow.  For the upcoming year I have a hard time getting excited about anything I have seen on the horizon except for Mass Effect 3 and Portal 2.  However if 2010 was any indication, I’m sure a game will come out of nowhere and slap me about the face with its awesomeness, just when I need it most.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

There have been a lot of Star Wars games.  A LOT.  In my experience, only a few have made the cut at all in terms of quality.  I think the last good one I played was X-wing vs. Tie Fighter.  Maybe Jedi Knight.  Rogue Squadron?  Please.  So along comes a game where you get to fully explore the dark side of the force.  I was intrigued.  Never before had we been given an opportunity to slay down anything in our path, with no regard for who it was that you were mowing down.  After a few looks at screenshots and descriptions, I ordered Star Wars: The Force Unleashed off of the Best Buy site on basically a half price deal they were doing the day after Christmas here.  After a very painful process to actually get the game in my house from Best Buy (took over a month and somehow I ended up with two copies of the game) I was able to sink my teeth into the game.

This game fills in some new back story with Vader.  It occurs after the events of the 3rd movie (Episode III), after Vader has been created.  Vader has taken on a new apprentice, behind the Emperor’s back, in hopes to overthrow the Emperor behind the scenes.  The game leads you through a storyline as his apprentice, with the time line coming rather close to the 4th movie (Episode IV), as there is a Death Star already being built and functional.

First impressions were good.  You start the opening level as Darth Vader so you have no issues slaying all the Wookies in front of you, though I did feel a little bad about it at first.  Once that level is down however, you are left to fend for yourself as Vader’s apprentice.   The first HALF of the game was truly painful as this character.  You rarely had enough power or experience to really do the damage you needed to.  Boss battles were often very hard.  Given this, you end up spending half the game attacking and hiding and dodging to keep alive until you level up enough.  Whenever you level you are given points that allow you to add to stats or abilities, similar to a mini-RPG.  The decisions are not very difficult.  More force power that recharges faster?  Yes please.

Once the second half of the game kicks in, you are in the swing of things.  Powers are readily available and you can easily meet the objectives of each level without a redo.  There is certainly joy in wreaking complete havoc on your environment.  Force push here, lightning there, jump in here and sith slay with your saber.  Rinse and repeat.  Most large enemies are easily taken down with running in circles and force lightning them.  Kind of a cheat, but it also feels great to be your own personal electric chair.

When you tire of hacking through levels (as this game really is just a hack and slash), there is a sum of training and challenges you can do.  I wouldn’t expect them to take more than an hour all told, and are usually best done after you are fully leveled up near the end of the game.  For the most part they aren’t very difficult, as long as you engage the most troublesome enemies in the room first, then deal with the rest afterward.

Overall the game is very satisfying.  Once you get a fair amount of powers under your belt, the game is enjoyable, though before that it can feel like a grind.  Like most Star Wars games from Lucasarts, it feels like they put a lot of thought into it, but didn’t take the time at the end to put in the extra polish a truly excellent game usually has.  I experienced many glitches, where I’d fall halfway into the floor, the enemy I was fighting would disappear, and once the save game even became corrupt, causing the game not to boot anymore and moving it off from the hard drive to a memory card made it suddenly work again.  Amazingly, these still didn’t take enough away from the experience to make it miserable.  I liked the game, and had a great time with it.  However once you are done, there isn’t much replay value, and off to Goozex it goes with my two copies.  I’d recommend picking this up if you enjoy the Star Wars universe.  If you are looking for a basic shooter or hack and slash game, your money might be well spent somewhere else.  A solid rental for sure, buy if you are a fan.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

The Nintendo DS is certainly prone to a slew of developers just putting out crap for them to say they have a title out.  Thus, with the DS (and the Wii) there are so few games actually worth trying out.  Some feel as good (bad) as a flash game port.  Often, 1st party games end up being the safe bet, and they are usually the highest quality.  Quality of course is completely personal opinion and experience.  In my experiences, the games below for the DS are a “safe bet” when starting your collection or looking for something new to try.

So here it goes in extreme summary mode, in no particular order:

New Super Mario Bros – brings back classic NES action, new layout, combo 2d/3d look
Mario Kart DS – great action similar to the Gamecube version, 4 players off one card
Kirby Canvas Curse – best use of the touchscreen I’ve seen yet, one of my lasting faves
Puzzle Quest – think Bejeweled with RPG elements
Animal Crossing – more kiddish, but it’s a casual fun game, can make up to 4 chars
Professor Layton’s Curious Village – one of the hardest games I’ve played, 300+puzzles
N+ – very simple 2d ninja level hopping puzzle game, works great with d-pad controls
Rune Factory - do farming and adventure RPG, etc.  Think Animal Crossing meets Zelda
SimCity - PC classic ported to the DS, hours of city building
Kung Fu Panda – yes, it’s a total movie sellout, but I had fun with it
Space Invaders Extreme – awesome redo of this game, play against people over wifi/inet
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword – book style play, all stylus no buttons, amazingly difficult
Elite Beat Agents – fun rhythm based game, all touchscreen
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles – RPG game, I found it lots of fun

Nanostray - impossibly hard spaceship shooter, good challenge though
Geometry Wars: Galaxies – great use of d-pad and touchpad, always entertaining

Peggle Dual Shot – eliminate all the pegs with a set number of balls, good physics
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars – classic GTA action in your hand, lots of replay value

Hrm, guess that’s about it.  I’ve played many others, but these are the cream of the crop in my opinion.  I usually get all my DS games used at Gamestop, Game Trader, Craigslist or off Goozex.  Another great resource is Cheap Ass Gamer, which keeps track of the deals and sales all around.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

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I’m sure we have all had moments where there is nothing you can do, but sit where you are, waiting.  It might be waiting for the movie to start, or your car to get an oil change, or in my recent case: on the airplane for 6-8 hour stints.  After a while, your options become limited.  You might be able to read a book or watch a movie, but these are usually only good for a couple hours, then you are left hunting for something else to keep your brain occupied.  For me, and I’m sure the same is likely true for you if you are bothering to read this, I often turn to my trusty candy apple red Nintendo DS Lite.  Granted, some games are better suited for long game play than others, and in this writing, I would like to focus on some games for the DS hand held that I found especially helpful on my recent trip to Europe and Africa (thus the long flights).

What makes a captivating game?  In my opinion; variety, ease of play, and lots of levels.  In a nutshell, this is what makes Peggle so popular.  It has seen light on many platforms, including PC, Flash, Xbox 360 Arcade and more recently DS.  I sunk grotesquely long hours into this game, which included both the popular Peggle as well as the Peggle Nights sequel.  For those that don’t know, Peggle is very much like the Price is Right mini-game of Plink-o.  You have a ball which you can aim and shoot, in order to get rid of all the red pegs.  Sounds simple enough, except for the fact you are limited to the amount of balls you have, as well as the shots and angles you can take.  With metric tons of different maps to play, as well as unique power ups and challenges, this game is great for long trips.  Also, you can pick it up and set it down at any time with the turn based nature of it, which is very handy when the stewardess wants to hand you another drink.

Looking to take over the world instead?  I would highly suggest trying out Civilization Revolution for the DS.  Civilization has been wildy popular in the RTS space over the years, and the recent port to the DS keeps the game pure enough to make for many many hours of game play in any sceniaro you setup.  The rules are simple.  Pick out a famous ruler, such as Cleopatria or Napolean, then race to the finish in one of four ways:  conquer everyone else, get into space first, have the most culture, or be the richest.  Throughout the game you will need to make choices that will ultimately mould your fate in the game.  Weither you go to war, or setup all your towns to only research technology, everything you do will change the game, thus making it a different game every time.  This makes for excellent replayibility.  I easily could spend an hour or two after I picked a fameous ruler to sceniaro completion.  Highly recommend as a great time sink.

And who doesn’t love dealing drugs and cops chasing you?  Anyone familiar with the Grand Theft Auto series may recall the original top down GTA for the PC.  It was fun, but sometimes it languished and you would just end up trying to piss off the cops and see how long you could stay alive.  I have throughly enjoyed this iteration of GTA for the DS, named GTA Chinatown Wars.  It brings back some of the old first generation GTA, but with better graphics, an interesting storyline, comical dialogue, and great gameplay.  You start off as a punk kid, just like all the other GTAs, and start to make your fortune by working for your uncle in Chinatown, doing runs and dealing drugs.  Over time you end up working for multiple bosses and owing safehouses all over the city.  The gameplay is solid for such a small platform, with even the driving being pretty decent.  In my experience, all driving games for the DS have fallen short.  The PDA functionality works great to make the game flow.  Obviously, a sandbox game such as this leads to tons of time sunk into playing through the story, or just running around the town dealing drugs for profit.  I’d recommend it for long trips, but usually works good for small stints as well, but you may have a hard time remembering what your current objective was.

So there you have it.  Three excellent games that make long hours on a trip pass oh so much better.  Another recommendation I’d have is invest in a USB to DS charger cable.  With this cable I was able to leave my laptop in standby mode, but still charge the DS off the USB port, thus making for almost endless gameplay on the flights.  Awesome!

Happy travels!

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

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Have you ever really wanted to conquer the world, but just didn’t have the time?  Well now there’s an answer.  Civilization: Revolution (Civ Rev) from the mind of Sid Meier has everything you need to dominate the world all wrapped up in a tidy little box.  You’ll use everything from irrigation to Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (also known as nukes) to build one little city in to an empire.

Civ Rev is Sid Meier’s first foray in to the console market.  He’s been putting out Real Time Strategy (RTS) or turn based strategy games for your PC since 1991, but now with the help of 2K Games he’s made the leap to an XBox360, PS3, or Nintendo DS near you.  There are now 4 different Civilizations games and the idea behind all of them is to become the ruler of the world.  In Civ Rev you can do that in one of four ways.  You can dominate the world militarily, become the envy of the world by advancing in culture, bankrupt the world by becoming so wealthy you can do as you wish, or use technology to advance your empire beyond earthly limits.

To begin every round you must select your leader.  You have many leaders to choose ranging from Gandhi to Caesar, Napoleon to Abraham Lincoln.  Every leader has it’s strength and weaknesses, so it helps to know what kind of victory you’re looking to accomplish before you start.  One important note here, any given round can last many hours.  You’ll start at the stone age and depending on how good you are (or aren’t) you could finish in the Space Age.  I’ve seen this last four hours routinely.  There are ways to shorten that, there’s even a lightning round setting, but don’t go in to this game thinking your round will go quickly.  More than likely it won’t.  The good news it that the game let’s you save at almost any time and it gives you 10 saves to use so you can go back and forth at will.

So you’ve chosen a game type and a leader, now you’re ready to start the game.  The world opens up, and there in front of you is the entirety of your empire.  Five or six people scurrying around looking for a good place to settle down and call home.  This is a VERY important decision in the life of your civilization.  You want to look for plenty of food, plenty of resources, and a defend-able position… just to name a few factors.  Often the game puts you in a good starting square, but it’s worth looking around to see your options.  Don’t look for too long though, there are four competing civilizations that will be growing with every turn regardless of whether yours is or not.   Find your spot, settle in and get to work.

Pretty quickly after creating your settlement you’ll get your first set of warriors.  Shortly there after you’ll start researching technologies.  Eventually you can create armies, build structures, and in a short time create a sprawling city filled with activity.  Branch out and send settlers to other areas of the map.  Eventually the other civilizations will start encroaching on your space, or you on theirs.  Battles will be fought, like it or not.  Cities will flourish or fall.  You will leave an indelible mark on this virtual world, or you will fall to the wayside and fail.  It’s all in your hands.

One of the other nice things about this title is that no matter what, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Sure, the rise and fall of an entire civilization is totally up to you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dramatic.  The game is presented with a sense of humor.  Even when you’re being threatened by hostile enemies, the language is such that you can just chuckle it off.  A lot of other RTS games present your challenges with a sort of dire, do or die, mentality.  Civ Rev on the other hand just puts the information out there in a semi-comical, even cartoony manner for you to digest and respond to.

Multiplayer leaves a bit to be desired in Civ Rev.  Playing head to head can be fun and challenging.  But add a third party and things get awkward fast.  Particularly if you have a group of two or three buddies you wanna spend a few hours playing with.  The three of you will start a round, but the first person to loose is just out of luck.  They have to sit and wait, potentially HOURS, while the other two finish the fight.  I’m sure there is a time and place for that kind of gaming, but in my world it’s fairly rare.

So who should invest in this game and why?  People like me, that’s who.  Someone who is new to the RTS world and wants a full experience without the melodrama that can accompany taking over the world.  It’s a great gateway game to a whole new type of game that a lot of console gamers have yet to try.  2k Games has already released several downloadable content packs at the time of this publishing and is doing a good job of keeping the game relevant.  If you’re looking for something new and different that still offers a challenge then this game is definitely worth a look-see.  And for those on the fence, XBoxLive offers a demo version free for download on the marketplace.  Try before you buy.

Buy it now or Trade for it on Goozex

- David Hayes

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