No POTM for January 2010

So, January 2010 is coming to a close…and I didn’t make a single purchase this month. Nor do I plan to.

Between getting four games for Christmas (TouchMaster 3, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, BioShock, and LEGO Indiana Jones 2) and winning a free download of Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, I’ve had plenty to play and keep me busy during those rare moments when I have what you slackers call “free time.” Plus, I’m still loving Fallout 3, as well as picking up some bereaved games for future reviews at The First Hour.

I generally allow myself the purchase of one game a month, whether it’s a big AAA retail game or more like a $10 used bargain binner. It’s like a reward for myself for making it through another day or whatever excuse sounds best. But this ultimately doesn’t mean I’m picking up two games come February. Gotta stick to my guns.

Possible titles and why though for Purchases of the Month for February 2010 are:

• Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare fantasy with lots of swords and blood and dragons and…stats)
• Assassin’s Creed 2 (reviews say it improved a lot of things, but I still just don’t know if I’d enjoy it)
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (seems like a fun, quirky action RPG for the DS)

Got a suggestion? Try me in the comments below. Word of warning: I’m not just ready for Mass Effect 2 yet so you can cross that off your speculative list. Sorry, spaceheads!

Cautiously Optimistic about Mass Effect 2

Evidently, there’s some crazy popular new game coming out tomorrow that everyone’s super excited for…I think it’s this one, but I’m not 100% sure:

No? Hmm…well, I’m surely stumped then. Oh wait. Wait a sec. It might be Mass Effect 2. Yeah, I think that’s releasing tomorrow, too. Poor epic sci-fi game. It’s gonna get lost in the flood as sales of Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans take over, forcing BioWare to go bankrupt immediately. I kid, I kid. It’ll do just fine.

Anyways, I just checked out IGN’s video review of the game. I also dropped Mass Effect back into my Xbox 360 earlier in the week, and between these two things…I’m cautiously optimistic. To set the scene, I’m still trying to finish a second playthrough of the first game, with a mean Shephard and a strong supporting cast of biotics brutes. It’s not going well. I hate driving the M35 Mako, I hate having to wait between rooms as I ride the Elevator of Boring, and I hate trying to navigate the inventory system, which, ultimately, is completely useless and all I do now is turn everything I get–and I do mean everything; I don’t even care what it is–into medigel or whatever it is that heals you. These things really do work against me and my brain and the idea of having a good time. On the other hand, I love everything else about Mass Effect.

And from what early reviews and impressions hint at, BioWare kept what I loved and dropped all the bad. A new menu interface, no more aimless Mako excursions, elevators are a thing of the past, and even more customization for characters. Plus, you can transfer your character and his/her decisions over. Still, early reports say that not all is great, with glitches and freezing occuring, but I’m gonna keep my mind open. I know I said this was a game sequel I was not interested in, but if BioWare was able to fix the broken and make the shiny even shinier…well, I guess I will just have to eat my words.

Maybe just knowing that things will get better will be enough for me to push through Mass Effect for the second time. Or maybe not. I could always give Dragon Age: Origins a try, too.

REVIEW: Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

Developer/Publisher: CroTeam/Devolver Digital
Platform: Xbox 360 [reviewed], PC
Genre(s): PEW PEW PEW/Samicide
Mode(s): Single player/online co-op
Rating: M
Time clocked: Around 10 hours or so

Last week, I won a free download code from That Videogame Blog, and all I had to do was follow them on Twitter. My prize? Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, a shooter à la DOOM that is hardly serious and was seemingly inspired by a combination of sugar rush speedtrips and masochistic tendencies.

I’ve voiced before on here that I’m just no good at first-person shooters. Let me clarify that more. Fallout 3 is the kind of shooter I’m decent at because it’s not really a shooter at all. I did moderately okay in the single player modes for games like Red Faction and Killzone, which were slower, zone-to-zone sort of adventures, and I have many fond memories of taking down Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D. However, scenarios where you have to be quick on your metaphysical feet and spinning like a madman while still shooting with precise accuracy as hordes of enemies barrel down on you—yeah, not my favorite dish to order.

That said, with numb hands, I recently completed Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. It wasn’t a good time. Continue reading to find out why.

Still haven’t found what I’m looking for in Assassin’s Creed

So, over the weekend, I popped in Assassin’s Creed. I looked at this as my last attempt to play the game to completion (or, rather, the closest completion percentage I could obtain), and after plodding around on horseback and stabbing soldiers for nearly an hour or so, I unlocked the following two achievements:

Fearless (25G): You’ve discovered every Reach High Point.

Eagle’s Dive (20G): Nothing can hinder the descent of an Eagle. Over 50 people have fallen to your relentless attacks.

These will, most likely, be the last achievements I earn for the game. I’m at 37/44, with the final ones being the “kill every Templar” and six “find all the flags” type. It’s not that doing these tasks is impossible; in fact, there’s plenty of online guides and maps showing where everything is (I even printed one out for the kingdom)…it’s just no fun at all.

The problem sits in the game’s design. Unless you yourself are keeping track of everything, there’s no way of knowing how many Templars you’ve killed or flags you’ve collected in a specific area without killing another Templar and/or finding a new flag. This, gaming readers, is dumb. Especially when one takes a few months off from the game.

Coming back, I tried to use a map to make things easier. It didn’t. I instead found myself heading toward Templar/flag locations only to discover nothing there. Now, fine, I must’ve already collected them, but the maps are pretty big and it’s just frustrating to have to travel here and fro to maybe, maybe find what you’re looking for. At least in Prince of Persia, when one is collecting light seeds, it is clearly marked how many light seeds are left in the area, giving the player some guidance, a nudge, a “hey, look over here, silly” instead of forcing aimless wandering on them.

But I don’t have the time (or, surprisingly, the patience) to check every single spot in every locale again and again for something that I may or may not have already collected. If you do, feel free to come over. Key’s under the mat. Game’s all yours. Just don’t raid my fridge.

“Fortune and glory, kid.”

Just unlocked the last achievement needed to get a full Gamerscore for LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. Not a terribly tough climb considering I only got the game a few weeks ago. Sure, it took time, but there wasn’t any hiccups along the way. In fact, I was surprised by how few achievements one will unlock while playing the game normally. There’s some for beating hub levels and the “do X so many times” ilk, but the rest revolved around collecting a lot of studs to buy everything, replaying story levels (yawnsome at that point), and a timed level that just took practice to get right.

I’ve now unlocked all achievement for three games in my collection; they are all LEGO games. Go ahead and try to make fun of me in the comments below. Your words will never make it out alive.

Game to break the mold…Fallout 3, all achievements. I can do it, I can. Again…it’s more about time than anything else.

Fable III wishlist

It looks like Lionshead Studio is planning to unveil Fable III more properly sometime next month. At this point, we’ve gotten just a rather bland teaser trailer and some bits of, admittedly, neat concept art. Industrial era, here we come. I rather enjoyed my time in Albion in Fable II, but there’s some aspects of the game (and of the RPG genre itself) that could change or stay in Fable III, or get dropped completely. My ultimate wishlist is as follows…

Stuff to keep

• The humor. If there’s one thing this series nails, it’s humor. Everything oozes laughs, from the tombstone engravings to the description on the back of every item. Plus, a lot of the character designs are goofy, but in a good way.
• Relationships. I like the idea that you can make anyone fall in love with you and choose to have a child with them (or not). It’ll be great fun picking the king or queen to rule beside me.
• Pigments. Customization is never frowned upon, especially in the RPG genre, and allowing us to dye our robes and courtly garments is a definite must. Losing this option would be three giant steps back.
• Fast-travel. Some people hate it; those people are not me.

Stuff to drop

• Co-op play. Kind of wasted space, I’m afraid.
• The dog. It’s what a lot of people associated Fable II with so it should stay there. Plus, if you’re going to be the ruler of Albion, you might not have too much time to play fetch with Beethoven.
• Can’t die death system. Makes for lame battles, especially when the DLC added potions to remove scars, the supposedly hardcore punishment for not fighting well. As I’ve mentioned before, dying is a great way to learn how to play a game. Let us die, I say!
• Ridiculous achievements. That one where you have to collect dolls, but there’s only one in your game and then you have to go online to find others who have the dolls you don’t have and then convince them to give it to you…that’s bullshit.

Stuff to tweak

• Game economy. Earning money in Fable II was surprisingly easy, especially if you were an evildoer. Steal and raise the monthly rent on buildings you buy. Easy peasy. Add in the fact that you continue to earn ka-ching ka-ching when you’re not even playing and well…it’s a bit lame.
• Consequence from actions. Shoot someone in the face “by accident”? Well, it’s okay. You can make everyone else laugh by doing the fart expression and they’ll love you all the same. This needs to be revamped tremendously. I want to be ostracized from society for doing something horrible. Or more likely…de-throned.
• The fighting system. I understand where Lionhead was coming from in developing a fighting system linked to only three buttons. I do, really. One for melee, one for ranged, and one for magic, which you can hop back and forth from to switch things up. Alas, it didn’t really make for a good time. You could totally button mash melee and call it a day. The spells, while effective, could’ve used some more…I dunno, pizazz.
• Menus. At this point, a game shouldn’t lag just to get into its menu hub. And even then, navigating them wasn’t the most simple task. I felt like I deserved a renown reward afterwards. Please make them more streamlined. I beg you.

I’m sure there’s more to want and not want for Fable III. Feel free to shout off in the comments below.

REVIEW: LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

Developer/Publisher: Lucas Arts Entertainment\Traveller’s Tales
Platform(s): Xbox 360 [reviewed], Playstation 3, Nintendo Ds, Nintendo Wii
Genre(s): Action adventure
Mode(s): Single player/two player co-op
Rating: E
Time clocked: About 10 to 15 hours

Having never seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I was pleased to not find it included in LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. The previous game instead focused on the true film trilogy, giving each movie a solid set of levels to play through and explore. It followed the same formula that won many fans over in the LEGO Star Wars games, and though it had some problems and didn’t tackle every key scene possible, it was a fun game all in all, with plenty to see and do despite no one being able to Force push droids.

And here we are now a year later with LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, a sequel that is both surprising and a great step forward for the LEGO game franchise. But not all is shiny LEGO blocks.

Click below to continue on with the review!

9,000 Gamerscore, a billion more to go

I was going to wait until I crossed 10,000 Gamerscore to post about it (because it seemed like a nice enough number, lovingly round and a threshold of sorts in terms of e-peen and gaming prowess), but somehow…somehow I managed to unlock four achievements last night from both BioShock and LEGO Indiana Jones 2 that fortuitously brought me to 9,000 exactly. See?

I’m kind of amused by this. Most likely you aren’t.

Also, since I’m now revealing my Gamertag, feel free to add me on Xbox Live. Just know that at the moment I’m only a lowly Silver account and therefore cannot help you boost or be your co-op partner in SpongeBob’s Truth or Square.

Viva Fallout: New Vegas

Bethesda tweeted earlier today that Fallout: New Vegas will hit the cover of Official XBOX Magazine next month, revealing this sneak peek:

Mmm. That simple snapshot of the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign really warms the cockles of my heart. It’s much like the sensation I got upon stepping out of Vault 101 and seeing the ruined Washington Monument in the distance. Hurry on over, February 11!

Baby, it’s cold outside

Okay, it’s cold out. Very cold. So cold that I decided that, not only would I start bundling up more, but so would my Xbox LIVE Avatar. I only wish that we could choose different colors and dyes à la Fable II…because those red-and-white woolly gloves look kind of silly. In the end, it was all I could pick.

As is the plan, I’m going to continue tracking how my Avatar evolves over time.