Now, as many of you know, I’m not overly eloquent.. I’m not a professional blogger like most of my counterparts.. especially when I get excited.. so please bear with me in this blog post as I rant and ultimately rave about why I’m excited about the next couple weeks..

First, I have to be upfront about this.. I’m going to be talking about Games.. that’s right.. What’s just around the corner?  Christmas.. and with that.. November and December have turned into BIG game release months.. there are several high priority titles coming out, like Skyrim, COD: MW3, Uncharted 3 and many others..

I, myself will not be getting Skyrim until it hits the “Greatest Hits” collection as I didn’t really enjoy Oblivion, I wasn’t going to waste 60$ on a game I probably wouldn’t like very much.  20$ however, I might part with to play.

The first game that has already hit the shelves but has me excited is U3.. We all know about Drake and his exploits.. th

is is the third game in the series, and probably the last unless Naughty Dog can come up with something SPECTACULAR for another sequel.  I would, however, love to see a live action movie try to be made (Yes, with Nathan Fillion in the role of Drake.. it’s a given).  I’ve heard this iteration of the game is a rehash of 1 and 2.. with a new story line.. For me.. that’s cool.. Uncharted is what got me into FPS games.. I’ve never been one to play FPS type of games, outside of the classics like Doom and such.  I resisted getting Uncharted for a long long time.. I bought it for a 9.99 special at Best Buy.. I figured.. 10$ isn’t so bad, and if I don’t like it.. I’m not out all that much.. Man I couldn’t have been more wrong.. The game was awesome, it lived up to the hype it got.. and it was one of the few games I have actually finished.. it kept me engaged enough to want to play it .. and had cut-scenes that, albeit there were a lot, weren’t overly annoying to the game-play.. gave you time to get a cup of tea or whatever.. Then came U2, and now U3.. I’m still in the process of playing U2.. so I won’t have a review of U3 until I get that finished.. And yes I will be getting Uncharted: Golden Abyss for my Vita when it’s released

Next on my list, and coming out soon will be the newest Assasins Creed, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.  Now as I said before, was never really into these types of games.. but Uncharted really did spark my curiosity for these games.. once again.. got the original AC on a special at Best Buy.. Same reasoning.. and let me tell you .. not only did the game blow me away, the visuals were breathtaking.. I love how it transported you back in time.. and made you almost feel like you were there.. I like it so much, that once again.. I actually finished it.. (or I have almost finished it, I can’t rightly remember these days).  I have also bought AC: II and have this third one on Preorder from our Gaming Overlords at GameStop, as they upgraded the “version” for free.  I’m really excited for this game, because not only did they add more and more content, the visuals are just getting better and better.. Once again, no review until I can get through AC and AC: 2.. yeah when I play series games, I actually play them in series..

Onward we go into my the next game that’s got me writting this post.  That would be, Zelda: Skyward Sword.  Now I’ve always been very vocal about my love for Zelda.. after playing it on the NES all those years ago (top down, 8 bit.. love it), I’ve always vowed I’d buy any Zelda game that was made.  And so far I have.. I just recently acquired Ocarina of Time: 3D and Twilight Princess.   Now will this get me to play my Wii more?  Only to play this and Twilight Princess.  Will this get me to buy a Wii-U?  Only and I stress only if there is a Zelda game that requires me to do so.. I do love Zelda, and that being said.. yes I had to buy the special edition with Gold Wii-Mote.. why wouldn’t you?  When Spirit Tracks came out (which I’m still playing BTW) I got a special Stylus from NOA, that was pretty darned cool. Now that I have explained my love for Zelda, I have to express my jealousy over Jimmy Fallon for getting this awesome pre-release of a link statue:
This thing is freaking awesome..and knowing that, I’ll probably never ever be able to afford the thing, but I do think it would look AWESOME sitting on my shelf.. I wish the Wii had a little better graphics chip-set, something that could do this franchise more justice than the blocky graphics, that I feel, are worse than the 3DS.. I’ll be definitely playing this (trumping all other games) when it comes out on Nov 20th..

Now onto my RPG’s.. Many people know that I’m a WoW addict.. I have quit it several times, only to come back and play.. I have bought the special edition sets of the last two expansions, and probably will for the newest one that’s coming out.. I mean pandas.. who doesn’t love ‘em?  With that we come up to is Guild Wars 2.  Yeah Guild Wars was a good game, but there was something about it, other than loosing my install discs, that made me just not give with the world.. I’m not sure what it was.. but when I look at all the trailers for the upcoming 2nd version of the game, it makes me squee just a little.. it looks like it will be a lot of fun, and will fill my  need to try “Another MMO” .. I know, it’s not in the upcoming release window, it’s sometime in 2012.. but I just had to mention it.. I don’t know much more about the game than what I ‘ve seen in game-play videos, so I’ll reserve judgement until I get my grubby hands on it and give it a good play..

Now, I know there are lots of other games coming out.. Inlcuding BioShock: Infinate, and yes I own the other two, that will tickle me a little to play, but they don’t have my attention like the ones above do..

Now wait, you might be saying, if you are such a big MMO person, where is  your gleeful rant about Star Wars: The Old Republic.. Well let me tell you.. I have never been a Star Wars Fan, so the story line isn’t probably to my liking.. and I was burned with the Rift Preorder (yeah that game was not my cup of tea, every once in a while I re-activate and play and promptly cancel again), but I will be playing this weekend in the Stress Test Weekend, so I’ll be able to see if it lives up to all the hype that BioWare and Atari have been giving it.. I hope it does… The franchise is strong and needed a good game, the last few for the SW Galaxy (pun intended) have been a pretty poor showing..

We now that you have fallen asleep .. I shall return you to your regular scheduled day.. enjoy..

So the other day, I heard about this game.. It’s name.. DeathSpank.  What?  I say to myself, and after watching videos on it’s website, it seemed very interesting.  It reminded me a lot of Torchlight, which I am still playing, as I’ve not had time to actually finish that game.

However, this small hack and slash dungeon crawler is top notch.  The controls are wonderful and the story was good.

The game is rated TEEN, and I would agree with that.  The game mechanics are simple.  Each button and arrow on the D-PAD are assigned a weapon, potion or orb.  This makes the game incredibly easy to play on the XBOX 360 controller.  The inventory gets full quick with old armor, weapons and orbs.  The mechanics show you a green background with good things for your level, and lets you “Grind” old things to obtain money.  The game was pretty easy and when I finished the game I had 2.2 million dollars in my inventory, as well as a full bag.

There was a mechanic for “blocking” enemies too, but it seemed really forgettable, I think I only used it when the actual hints popped up on screen but not after that.. I found that using the “Justice” powers served me more than blocking.

The story was good, the hero with the powerful thong battling a king who has been corrupted by the power of his throne.  Deathspank is the dispenser of justice and hero to the downtrodden.

When the game was over, it preludes a SEQUEL which I will most likely get.. I played DeathSpank Straight through, probably a good straight 10 – 12 hour of game-play.. got almost all the achievements, but might try to go back into my saved game to get the last two.

All in all, wonderful game and a good way to waste a weekend.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Recommended: YES

It’s about that time again, time for a game review ( I know I need to review Ghostbusters yet).  This time, this review is for Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

Alright, I might be a little behind, but back when Uncharted originally came out I downloaded the demo, and had major issues playing the game.  I really never liked FPS style games, and I just didn’t give this one a chance.  The visuals were awesome and I told myself if the game ever dropped in price, I was going to try it.

About a month ago, I found this game for 30$ at BestBuy, so I thought I’d finally try the game.  Let me tell you, this game has got to be one of the MUST HAVE for PS3 owners.

So I got into the game, the amazing cinematics.  The awesome graphics.  The ease of game play.  As I’m not much of a FPS gamer, I played the game very safe (and on normal) and tried to use mostly guns for the fighting.  Let me tell  you, the amount of different weapons was quite interesting.  I myself, loved the Dragon Sniper Rifle.  That was just awesomeness in a can.  There is melee combat as well, which I didn’t do much of.   The game also consists of several puzzles, but on Normal mode the game does help out with some hints.

With this game, unlike many games, I never used any sort of walkthroughs or cheats on this game.  I had lots of fun just trying to figure it out myself, with my 8 year old helping me look for ammo and treasure.

First time through, I got most (half) of the treasures, so I figure for me, that’s not too bad.  Once you finish the game, and save the world the main menu  unlocks some bonus content.  Watching the behind the scenes of how they made the game, for a techie and 3d person was just awesome.

Now I have the ability to play certain levels again (like I didn’t play them enough when I was dying the first time) and try to get more trophies and more treasures.  Now that I understand the game mechanics, some of the earlier levels might be a lot more fun.

As I’ve said before, I would highly recommend this game to every PS3 owner, even if you don’t like the FPS genre.  It mixes a lot of other things in too.. GET IT!! (it’s cheaper now too)

Score: 9.5 out of 10
Recommend: YES

A couple of weeks ago, I received a coupon from Best Buy that allowed for a 10$ gift card when I bought the Wii Version of Punch Out.

Glass Joe

Why not, I thought.  I liked the game when I was younger on the original NES.  I remember playing both on the home console and in the arcade.  I had fond memories of Glass Joe, King Hippo and of course Mike Tyson.

Wii has since, removed Tyson and replaced him with a character called The Disco Kid.  The game plays very well on the Wii console.  Game play seems to be the exact same as I remember.

The characters are styled very well, they kept the look.  The feel of the original game still remains.  There are 3 sections you have to play through on “Career” mode that has 4 characters to beat in each class.  Glass Joe is the first as it was before, and is very easy to beat once you get the controls down.

As with the controls, they let you choose how you want to do it.  Using both the Nunchuck and the WiiMote, using just the WiiMote and using the Nunchuck, WiiMote and Balance Board.

I tried to use the version with the Balance Board, but couldn’t get it to work to my advantage.  There were times when I turned one way on the board, but the game registered it going the other way.  I found using the standard Wii controls was the best way to go.

I also notice there was a “Head-to-Head” version of the game.  I have yet to try this version of the game and will play it before the final review.

The next day, after I first played, I found how out of shape I really am.  My whole BODY ached and stiff.  I will have to wait a couple days before going back to the game (or playing through the pain).  I believe this game will also help me get a little more fit, seeing as I do have some to shed.

Hopefully, within a month or so I’ll be back with a full review of this game.

For now, I recommend it to anyone that has a Wii and a love of the original game!

GLaDOS Companion Cube

I bought the XBLA version of Portal a few months back.  Well okay, maybe more.  I had heard a lot of  hype about the game, but couldn’t really figure out why people liked it so much.  Was it the nefarious references to cake?  Was it the cuddly companion cubes that I saw all over the Internet?

So I dropped the coin and downloaded Portal.  After learning the basics of portal I was hooked.  Granted, I’m not the best at this game, I had a couple of times I couldn’t think spatially.

There were a few times, I needed a hint from an anonymous source on the Internet.. but only in a few of the areas.. The game became extremely addictive when I did play, and I was forced to leave it from time to time.  The game had a wonderfully fun game play, but looks to have limited replay value.

The game was a lot of fun and did keep me entertained, and the final credits were the best part of the game.  GLaDOS was extremely entertaining too.

I would definitely recommend this game to anyone.  It wasn’t too hard, but it wasn’t so easy that it wasn’t enjoyable.  I think maybe in a few months I may go back and play some more.  I also will plan on doing the challenge maps to try and get some more achievements.  There are some achievements that I KNOW I won’t be able to get.. but that’s okay..

Rating: 8 out of 10
Recommended: YES

Big Daddy

I’ve had BioShock for a while, tonight I decided to crack it open and try it out.

These are my first impressions I had with the game.  The game reminded me a lot of a cross between a Horror Movie and a ride at Disney World.  There were times were I found it extremely hard to see things as the game is set in a underground city with electrical problems

The back-story is quite interesting and lends itself well to the game.  As I don’t usually play FPS type of game the controls were a little wonky to me, but you eventually got used to ‘em.  I was able to get through about an hour of play and the first puzzle.  The first puzzle wasn’t overly hard, I did fail it a couple of times while I tried to “get it”, however only took me like 3 times to finish it.  I assume it’s going to be harder as we go along.

The whisper and yells that are in the background are a little disconcerting, which lends itself to the game very well.  The graphics are good, and the game play seems to work well.  I did find that the camera seemed limiting, I was always bumping up against walls and getting stuck in corners, but this is probably my inexperience with FPS games.

So far, I’d give this one a 4/5 rating.. I hope to play this one some more.. I know it will frustrate me, but I believe it will be worth it.

So I was able to finally find a copy of Fable II.  It’s been sold out in a lot of the retail stores around here.. and I hate buying games over the internet.

I’ve only played this game for a total of around 1 hour and 4 achivements. So far the game has not let me down.  It had alot of the elements that I like in games.  The ability to go off the path and “Quests”.  I’m a huge quest hound which is probably why I like WoW so much.

The graphics on the gameplay and the fighting are nothing more that astonishing.  The cut scenes, what few there are, are beautifully done and add well to the story line.  The idea of the dog companion is great, I like that he helps find little things that you might otherwise miss, and playing ball with a dog is always fun!

As I said, I’ve only got about an hour under my belt so I can’t rightly say how the game is, but the gameplay, the graphics and the story are keeping my interest; for someone with ADD that’s a plus.  I will return after I’ve completed the game (if I can get that far) and give you and over view of what I like, what I hated.  As of now, I’d give this a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I do plan on downloading the DLC (Knothole island), but will give my final review before I play that.