GameBlurg

What a fun little week I’ve just had. After keeping up with the Leipzig and an impromptu trip to see nerdcore phenomenon mc chris down in Orlando, Florida, I’m ready to take it easy and realign my focus to the important things in life: school games.

Puzzles Puzzle Me

Of all the things I’ve played the most over the past week, naturally, Braid intrigued me the most. If you haven’t played it yet, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard its name being enthusiastically expressed somewhere. (When a game reaches such a level of enthusiasm as Braid has, I tend not to peek at reviews out of fear of spoilers and awkward subjectivity.)

The only thing that I would like to touch on is the constant pitching of the word “pretentious” at conversations about the Xbox Live title. The “pretentiousness” surroundings in games have never bothered me (barring poor execution): i.e. when they take themselves seriously. Outside of the facade that a “game” inherits because of it’s nature, some games carry implication of an earnest atmosphere generated by artistic style, gameplay or its story. Instead of a mere distraction from the normality of our livelihood, what’s wrong with diving into a methodical environment and discovering the extremities of the unfamiliar?

As far as my position of “liking” the Braid or not, I did enjoy it (I haven’t finished it yet though). The game’s time traveling mechanic enraptures the gameplay, allowing you to tinker with the game’s time line at your own will. The inclusion of its power in the story line produces a realistic feeling toward Tim’s, the main protagonist, power, as if it’s not just a randomly placed skill, but a power that the main character posses and exploits in game, and throughout his own personal life. The puzzles evoke meticulous preparation and mind consuming thought (for which, I was lucky to play with friends). I’m not going to drown this paragraph in a bunch of adjectives to describe its disposition in my line of new games (we’ll save that for later), but I recommend a trial download to those who haven’t tried it as of yet.

A Stale Franchise No More

As a stereotypical American, I too enjoy our little national game centered around silly hats and dog piles. To extend my love for the game (football), I ended my 3 year “not-giving-a-crap-about-Madden” drought to simulate my favoritest sport in the whole wild world. Madden 09 was recently released, celebrating it’s 20th year anniversary. I don’t know if it was public relation’s consistent badgering from Electronic Arts, hopelessly addressing their continuation of their successful 20+ year franchise, or Brett Favre on the cover, or all of the positive buzz generated from it that warranted at least a try. Being that I haven’t extensively played the game in so long, I can’t personally report improvements of the franchise, but I do know that I actually had an exciting time playing. Wow…that isn’t helpful for sports game fans at all is it? Well, in a sad attempt to appear knowledgeable about the game, here’s a link to new discoveries about the game.

Hoodie Ninja

How about something that I do know about? Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo was released on Thursday this past week, and finally, after the dust and bandwidth have cleared, I was able to get my chance to wreak havoc among the somewhat, familiar world that is the Star Wars universe utilizing the powers of the main character, Starkiller. I have purposely ignored every piece of concept art, story detail, etc. because ever since my eyes darted to the E3 2007 trailer, I’ve wanted everything in this game to catch me by surprise. Thank god I’m not a journalist (yet). Although I didn’t want to spoil it for myself, when the demo glided into the Xbox Live Marketplace, my patience and will power had worn thin. Seeing as it is a demo, all I feel comfortable talking about is the small amount of time with it, my expectations, and my fears.

The first thing I noticed was the Starkiller’s artillery. In the beginning, I felt an overwhelming emotion of freedom and power because of the seemingly limitless power I had been endowed. The ability to retract nearly any item/person Force’s reach is remarkable. Obviously, there was an immense focus on this portion of the gameplay: as a vast portion of its physics engine revolves around the player’s ability to physically manipulate and bewitch objects/people in your area. Initially, the powers were exciting, but easily was reduced into skepticism. Was I “too” powerful? Although it is a demo, and LucasArts continues throwing all of these powers in my direction in an attempt to sell the game to me, I’m assuming that it won’t take long for these rudimentary “dark side” powers will become a part of my arsenal relatively early in the retail copy. After all, what’s a sith lord without his Force Lightening? As I dove further into the demo, I found that this was not the case. Although my foes did not wield the same power, they carried what I lacked: numbers. It balances the overexhuberance of Force powers out a bit, but I do pray for saber-to-saber battles in the longrun. The game also seemed to disregard skill and award random button patterns. My personal gameplay style revolved around the Force Grip power (something about throwing Stormtroopers into…Stormtroopers makes me giggle), but upon further feedback and experiment, you could get through the demo just fine by mashing your X and Y buttons without regularity or pattern and survive the droves of enemies. The inability to block stray bolster shots and run simultaneously also hurts the ebb and flow of the game, causing you to pause and rely on defense when being bombarded by random infantry.

Weighing out the awkward and the good, the demo’s done good things for the upcoming performance of the title. The BioShock-like endowment of a multitude of potent powers have excited Star Wars fans, and generated curiosity from those who haven’t already succumbed to the avaricious pockets of George Lucas.

Unfortunately I have yet to try Too Human, SIREN: Blood Curse, Galaga Legions, or any other game that costs more than “free” (college student johns).* From what I’ve heard, they’re worth the babbling or two.  For now, deal with talk about popular games that you’re probably already sick of hearing, or send us some games. The latter excites me.

Note: However, I did play through a bit of Pixel Junk Eden. Wasn’t all too excited at the end of the 2+ hour session. Am I missing something?

Subliminal Nonsense: New Slipknot album is out, go buy it.