Thursday, November 16, 2006


Less then 30 minutes per game!


Currently though different sources I have found myself with an over abundance of games to try out. When these games are less then stellar I pack them away and don’t give them a second thought. However it might be good to give a brief explanation of why I felt the way I did.


Ridge Racer: Thumbs Down
First in our line up is a game that seems completely based of drifting your car to get nitro to go faster. Though I admit it takes a few minutes to get the corners down correctly, the game seem to simplistic to have any longevity. My preferences rarely fall on a racing game, and this one is coveted by many. For me it was just was not worth the time.

Lumines 2: Thumbs Down
If you wanted an update to Lumines one with some new songs and some videos in the background, well here it is. The first lumines didn’t do much for me, the second seem to be a remake with updated music.

Ever Extended Extra: Thumbs Down
For some reason when I saw this game was available I jumped at it. Not sure what the allure was but it got a hold of me and I wanted to play it. Once in and ready I selected the equivalent of a quick game option. Started playing and attempted to figure out what the point of the game is. Once I had five minutes later I thought to myself, that’s it? That was it, make little explosions to create chain reactions of other explosions. Cute and entertaining, but there are better free web games in my opinion.

Snoopy vs. the Red Baron: Thumbs Up
Doesn’t this sound fun? My favorite flight sim (not space sim) of all time would have to be crimson skies. Just looking at the cover made me hope that there would be a resemblance in game play. The controls are solid, yet playing on the PSP rather then a joystick felt odd. Not necessarily bad, just not what I expected. The game is cute and fun and I got thoroughly whipped in the quick play mode. It’s a game I would like to revisit when I have played through better titles and have the time to learn the dynamics of the game.

Pacman World Rally: Thumbs Down
It always amuses me when’s someone tries to take a successful game formula from Nintendo and make it there own. This game is the red headed step child of Mario kart. The karts didn’t move very smoothly the items just didn’t seem to have the right dynamics. Over all it was as I expected, a fairly poor gaming experience.

Ace Combat: Thumbs Up
This game is fun, repetitive yet fun. You fly and shoot down countless air craft with bullets and missiles. The only jet fighter game I can remember having fun with. But after playing for 20 mins it was the same thing over and over which isn’t something I really want to spend my time on.

Sponge Bob Square pants "The Yellow Avenger": Thumbs Down
I have watched a few episodes and enjoyed the child humor of it all. Didn’t really care for the controls scheme of the game, and the lack of directions. After about five minutes I just put it down and figured it was made for smarter people then me. Perhaps I was just having a bad night.

The Power Stone Collection: Thumbs Up
A close friend of mine holds this game in very high regards. Since I never had a chance to play its original debut I was always curious what he found so enjoyable about it. It’s a fighting game with allot of interaction from the environment. After about 15 minutes of play the allure had worn off. The game is fun and unique, but nothing solid enough for me to warrant continued play.


Family Guy - Not Completed


This was a title that I had really been looking forward to. Since the TV show is a hit in my mind the game could only build off that and be a wonderful interactive world.

The game is a plat former that changes main characters after a set of levels. You play as Stewy, Brian, and Peter. Each character has its own story line which inevitably weaves itself into the paths of the other characters, think Pulp fiction. When it comes to plot I really don’t see this game lacking for people in its current fan base.

The first level grants you control of stewy, packing a weapon of some magnitude. At first aiming seems awkward, but very quickly the game informs you have the targeting mechanism that will lock on an enemy as you fire away. This made the first few levels fairly easy to pass through and let you bask in the humor which is family guy. Once you are so far in there is a puzzle element to the game, shoot a mirror and try to ricochet off it to blow up this or that and bring down the laser field. The precision aiming required is not something I think the PSP is capable of. This took a few try and a lucky random shot would do its thing and bring down the laser field. This wasn’t very frustrating since it went by quickly, but I could see with out getting that lucky shot I may have just put the PSP down and walked away.

We move on to Brian, whose power evidently is crouching down. With his ultimate power of being able to crouch the next few levels consist of hiding behind desks and in the shadows with out being seen. Now I am not a fan of metal gear solid games, for me it was more fun to shoot everything that moves with stewy then sneak around like you have to do with Brian. The only saving grace of this portion of the game for me was the humor, it had me laughing till my tummy hurt.

After doing my best to avoid cops and same sex oriented felons, I got to play Peter. This sadly was turned out to be the demise of the game for me rather then its salvation. With Peter your primary attacks are melee based, kicks and punches depending on the enemy. These attacks required you to be facing the correct direction which seemed difficult in a side scrolling plat former. Failing many times to accurately trounce my foes another problem came into light. The saving is only done ever so often and fairly far between instances of enemies. This required me to spend more time then I ever should have had to, fighting the same enemies. When my attempts failed the PSP was turned off set down.

To be honest the game is only flawed by the mechanics of it. The voices are spot on, the cell shaded graphics were as expected bring the cartoon to life quite well. But with out being playable the game couldn’t hold my attention long enough to get all the humor that I had hoped for.

The game for me was a 6 out of 10. I love the idea of it all and wish I was skilled enough to play it.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006


What has happened to my blog...


In the past ten years of my life I have encountered massive multiplayer online games. Starting with LORD (get a point if you know what this is an acronym for) and continuing all the way up to WoW. These games are a time sink and a total waste of time. But really what video game is not a waste of time?

After buying my home I realized that my video game funding was drastically reduced. So I downloaded and started playing WoW again. Nice little human paladin on a PvP server (Never done PvP before this). With allot of help from Moose, Brandon, Katharine, Daniel, and Josh I am already level 38 and well equipped. However as I said this is a time sink, I spend my week nights in wow and my weekends with Athena. Eliminating the majority of my time for other consoles (until my wii comes). This has given me nothing to blog about.

Since I know I have at least four faithful readers (Moose, John, Brian, and Mike), I am hoping to try and up the amount of blogs I do. Take a single night during the week and spend an hour on each game I haven’t look at and see if I can surmise them. If I find a great game there is a chance I will play completely through it. Then give a complete review, but otherwise I am sure it will mostly be complaining about how psp controls suck.

I do appreciate you reading and hope to give you something more to read in the future.


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