any console

So, Mass Effect came out for the Xbox 360, and wow. I must confess that I haven’t been able to put this game down. This game touches on everything that I, as a sci-fi gamer, really like. I get an elite soldier status where I can choose to be good or bad, I can control what I look like, I can control who I bring with me on which missions, and I can explore several planets throughout the milky way galaxy.

The premise of this game is that you are a human member of the System Alliance military, and you kinda get to choose your past a little bit, too. You eventually get promoted to an elite soldier in a multi-species group called “specters.” You get to be the “right hand” of a council that governs galactic affairs for a large number of systems in the galaxy. You get to fly around space and take care of problems using any amount of force you deem necessary. This game is just a whole lot of fun, and I recommend it to sci-fi enthusiasts and RPG enthusiasts looking for an interesting new take on the RPG.

Parents, please note that this game is rated “M” by the ESRB, and it does have some rather suggestive themes, a little nudity, some foul language, and some minor gore.

Pros:

• You’re an elite soldier who gets to choose how to handle the criminals.
• This game is pretty open to what order you want to complete missions in. It’s very nice.
• The leveling system is robust and offers you several different ways to configure your character.
• You get your own spaceship, how is that not cool?
• While there is significant load time in this game, it is very tastefully disguised in the form of decontamination sweeps or elevator rides.
• You can save your game ANYWHERE and pick it up right where you left off. This is great for those of us who don’t have a whole lot of time to game in a single sitting.
• Lots of fantastic voice acting with several well-respected voice actors like Seth Green.

Cons:

• This game locks up and crashes infrequently.
• Lots of freezes while saving.
• This game is still pretty linear, and I was a bit disappointed.
• The conversation driving engine is a little limited.
• It’s sometimes difficult to know what your character will say when you choose an option in the dialog.
• You don’t get to explore as many planets as I’d like to.
• No analog control of your spacecraft.
• Your character can only be a human.
• For some reason, the game developers won’t let me explore Earth. I don’t know about you all, but that was something I’d really like to see.

The bottom line on this game is that it is a lot of fun for those of us who’ve been waiting a while to do something different with our gaming. It’s not a traditional shooter, it’s not a traditional RPG, and it’s not a traditional Sci-Fi Thriller. It’s all three of them wrapped in a beautiful little package. The graphics are outstanding and the voice acting is wonderful. I highly recommend this game.

Popularity: 26%

So yesterday I walked into my local GameCrazy and snagged my pre-ordered copy of Stranglehold, and I also got a copy of the latest Harvest Moon for the wife and one of those nifty Xbox 360 keyboards for myself. My Stranglehold came with a super-nifty shot-glass, too, as the pre-order goody.

So, back to Stranglehold… I don’t know if any of you have tried the demo, but the demo is the reason I pre-ordered Stranglehold. The first five minutes of Stranglehold has you killing more than 22 baddies (I lost count around 22, sorry). That’s an insane action game. Not only that but your character is a middle-aged smarty-pants detective who doesn’t know how to take “no” for an answer. It’s like a Bruce Willis movie without the male-pattern-baldness and cheesy come-backs.

Then there’s the accuracy shot… so to the developers of Stranglehold, how did you know I was gonna pop a cap in that guy’s junk? Was the nut-shot that easy to anticipate? Either way it’s beautiful. There is nothing like shooting a baddie in the family jewels and seeing him grab himself in pain as he goes down. In addition to shooting folks in the junk–which is not always possible because of how the baddie is standing–you can shoot him in pretty much any part of his face or neck to get a very satisfying response.

So I haven’t gotten very far in this game, and I hope it’s saving at every checkpoint because I just don’t have the time to get to savepoints if checkpoints are them, but I’ll let you all know what I think as I progress through the game.

I’ve also got BioShock, but I’m thinking I’ll wait until my brother gets back from Arkansas to play any more of that. That game is just too beautiful to play by yourself.

Popularity: 34%

Some of you are aware of my fascination with family and cartoon-link games. Viva Piñata is a game that I completely got distracted from before it got really good. Well that problem is gone. The distraction was Crackdown, and since I finished that game I’ve been spending a lot more time playing Viva Piñata. Since getting back into Viva Piñata, I’ve discovered a whole new depth to the game. There seems to be a lot of event-driven activity in there, and there are certainly a lot of achievements to be unlocked.

Since picking the game back up, I’ve unlocked another 19 achievements for a total of 380 gamer points. I’ve also built a mine, unlocked several variants of several piñata, and had an awful lot of fun in the process. This game is doing a fantastic game of recapturing my attention and helping bridge the gap until the next great game.

My previous review of this game can be found here.

If you are playing this game and would like some tips, I encourage you to check out http://www.pinataisland.info for some tips and information about the game.

Popularity: 62%

Okay, so I know I’m gonna catch flack for this one, but I must declare Bioshock a suspense thriller instead of a shooter. Yeah, so you’re in first person, and yeah, you shoot things, but this is so much more than a shooter. So much more indeed. Here’s the rundown of the demo.

SPOILER ALERT: Contrary to my normal position on not posting spoilers, in order to make my point with this game I must post some degree of a spoiler. If you don’t want to read the spoiler, PLEASE STOP NOW.

Right in the beginning of this game, you’re a victim in a plane crash–though I suspect your character may have had something to do with the crash–and you’re in a large body of water, presumably the ocean, near a lighthouse. Once you enter the lighthouse you enter a strange sort of elevator that takes you under water quite a ways. Then you get shown a video telling you about this underwater city of “Rapture”. The moment the elevator stops, you see a man being killed by a very strange looking creature, and it’s kinda scary. Then the creature comes after you, clawing at your elevator roof. You’re told to get out of the elevator and then you go and find a weapon yadda yadda yadda. Then you find a syringe, and like any good game player assume that it is a good idea to inject the contents of the syringe into your character. Your character’s body kinda freaks out you you get the creepiest cut-scene ever.

A very pale-looking little girl–you don’t get to see all of her–talks to a gigantic monster in a dive suit with a drill on its arm like its her little pet. She says that she thinks you’re an angel, but then reconsiders when she sees you breathing. But she assures her “pet” that you will be an angel soon.

Conclusion: This game is not a shooter. As I said, this game does have shooting, and that’s all find and dandy, but this is so much more than a shooter. In shooters you don’t have story lines this disturbingly creepy or suspenseful. I actually got a kick of adrenaline playing the demo, similar to when you watch films like Silence of the Lambs or Halloween. This game is really pioneering a new type of game, which actually seems to be just as much about the story–which seems incredible–as well as the graphics and gameplay–which also seem quite nice.

I seriously recommend that folks try the demo for themselves and see what they think. It just blew me away.

Popularity: 78%

I bet many of you have heard of this accessory already, but it might be news for some of you. Microsoft came up with a keyboard to allow folks to type messages using a little keyboard that plugs into your Xbox 360 controller. It looks kinda like this:

I’m eagerly anticipating this accessory, because I use my messenger a when I’m on the 360, and this will make that much easier.

This keyboard is scheduled to come out on the fourth of September, 2007. I believe you can already pre-order this accessory in many game enthusiast stores (e.g. GameCrazy).

Popularity: 100%

Hey 93 games and Focus home interactive, 1997 called, they want their pathetic graphics and crappy controls back.

Call of Juarez first piqued my interest when it was on the Official Xbox Magazine’s disc about two months ago. So I rented it from my local video store, hoping it was not too good to be true… boy were my hopes dashed. I’ve been looking for a great western shooter for a while, and I have yet to see one, so I was hoping that Call of Juarez might deliver. I like games where you shoot with guns that really exist, and where the graphics look like landscape that really exists, or at least existed in the past.

And before the breakdown, what the hell was up with the beginning of this game? Why do I have to go down this nasty hill with terrible controls? It took me like 10 minutes just to get down the hill because it is impossible to judge what distances of falling will and will not kill you. Now let’s get to the breakdown…

Pros:

• The guns in this game actually existed at some point in history
• The story line seems to make sense

Cons:

• Game play is limited by the story line rather than moved by it
• You can only shoot who the game wants you to shoot
• The tasks the game wants you to perform are actually very hard to guess sometimes
• The beginning of this game just flat-out sucks
• The accuracy of the weapons seems to be off considerably at times

The bottom line is that this game might be neat for people who haven’t been lobotomized with a rusty spoon, but for the rest of us it would be nice to have a game that actually delivered on the hype.

Popularity: 32%

Let me start out by saying that I think there’s a Nintendo DS version of this game coming soon. Technabob reported this a few days ago, so I’m stoked. I hope to see this soon.

Viva Piñata is a fantastic family game that I think anybody would really enjoy playing. This game is not just for kids (and no jokes about the 25-year-old an loving kid games please). In this very colorful game you are given gardening tools and a small plot of land. Your simple task is to take this plot of land, and use your tools to make it a place that piñata animals would want to live.

In this game you get to put together different places to live, you can landscape your garden pretty easily, and you can grow and sell crops to make money to continue to grow your garden.

Pros:

• Very colorful an appealing graphics
• Very easy to understand instructions help you move along the game
• A very interesting and slightly detached story line helps keep you interested

Cons:

• The online play could have been better. It would be great to be able to visit other folks’ gardens on Xbox Live
• The piñata houses are rather large, so it’s kinda tricky to place them well
• It’s far too easy to accidentally hit characters and upset them, causing them to stay away
• We could a little more action in the game, it gets a bit tedious at times

The bottom line is that this game is pretty non-linear and fun to play. It could use a little more online play and it would be nice if it mixed it up a little more.

Popularity: 15%

So I have a question for the Xbox 360 game publishers. Why won’t you give gamers free downloads if we buy a game? Did you know that Nintendo at least gives you a discount on Nintendo Power if you register three games, would it kill you to give me a free game-related theme or gamer-picture? Or at least a freaking discount on one. Man.

And Microsoft, could you please give us a better way to demo gamer pictures and themes before we commit to buying them? I’m tired of dropping 150MP on a theme or gamer picture just to figure out that it sucks. The silly picture pack put out by those fellas that do Red vs. Blue really did suck. You let me try the games, but you don’t let me try the themes. No fun.

This has been a rant with manchicken.

Popularity: 13%

So you all are going to think that I’m all teenie-bopper on this, but I must confess my love for Xbox 360 faceplates. These little accessories really make the Xbox 360 fit in better with my living room, and since they’re so easily interchangeable, if I want to switch faceplates to match my current favorite game I can. More games should pick up on these.

Right now, I’m sporting this sweet woody one. They also have a few customizable faceplates that you can make designs for using your computer and your printer. I’ve also seen some for Forza Motorsport 2, Halo 3, and Viva Piñata. I’ve also seen some people with some decals for the sides of your Xbox 360.

Popularity: 18%

So, raise your hand if you’ve ever been blown away by a racing game. Now put your hand down if you’re normally a racing game fan. Please note that my hand is still up.

I am one of the people who has recently had their world seriously rocked by this incredible racing game. So let’s talk turkey about this game.

Pros:

• This game has the greatest in-game graphics I have ever seen, especially in a racing game. The wheels are actually round, the shading and lighting are realistic and intense.
• The suggestion line is a fantastic idea. I normally suck at racing games, so the suggestion line really helped.
• Everything is online. There are leaderboards, online races, and you can even upload all of your photos and videos.

Cons:

• The controls are a bit too sensitive, and I couldn’t figure out how to configure the sensitivity.
• A bit of a nitpick, but it would have been great if I could have kept the music playing while racing. They had some good stuff there.
• The website where it uploads all the info to requires Flash. I really wish Microsoft would stop using Flash for all their Xbox web interfaces.

The bottom line is that Forza Motorsport 2 has won me over to racing games.

Popularity: 13%