Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > November > 30
Monday, November 30, 2009
Incomplete video game reviews
Every year around Thanksgiving, I try to spend some time making it through at least a tiny swath of the mountain of video games released from September to November.
Video game reviewing makes up probably less than 10 percent of my job and I’m only one person, so it’s hard to make much progress in the face of so much product, but I do what I can to try to at least hit the big titles. Here’s an update of the games I’m looking at right now (none of which I’ve gotten far enough into to write full reviews):
“New Super Mario Bros. Wii” — This is an example of a game that should be an easy, quick one to review. That’s what I thought. Oh, how wrong I was. After two weeks of playing, I’ve barely gotten to World 2 and find myself cursing at the screen in ways I thought I’d left far behind in my youth. This game is hard. Not hard for Wii-playing kids, not hard for game novices. It’s hard even for someone who’s been playing video games non-stop his whole life. The difficulty is off the charts and I’m playing the game in single-player mode. With more players, the game’s chaos increases exponentially. I’ve heard people declare that this game could lead to divorce. All that being said, the game looks great, has fun power-ups and benefits from the usual Nintendo polish. But I admire the game more than I love it. It’s very difficult to progress, at least for me, and because of the way the game saves work, I often have to backtrack and play through levels I already defeated. If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would be: “Frustrating.”
“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” — Another game I thought I would fall in love with. So far, I’m not in love. Playing in normal difficulty mode, I’m finding it impossible to get past the third level of the single-player campaign. People shoot at you constantly from all sides. It’s an exercise in replay: you have to play again and again to figure out where the snipers are and to keep from getting obliterated at every turn. The game’s early levels are impressively cinematic and “MW2” is constantly throwing you off balance. I was not impressed with a violent and controversial airport scene that, to me, feels gratuitous. I hear the multiplayer parts of the game are much better, but so far the single-player campaign has left me cold.
“DJ Hero” — I love rhythm games, but despite the very nice hardware and good song selection of this game, I’m having a really hard time getting into this one. The turntable controls just feel unnatural and I haven’t invested the time to get comfortable with the set-up. The $120 pricetag seems ridiculous given how cheap guitar controllers have gotten. I’m not really sure who the audience is for a game like this. The replay value seems very limited and I could barely rouse myself past the training levels (which are necessary, but tedious). I don’t know if I see much of a future for this new franchise.
“Left 4 Dead 2” — I hated the Xbox 360 version of “Left 4 Dead” and I’m no fonder of the Xbox version of this sequel. The graphics are muddy, the controls feel imprecise and when you’re surrounded by zombies, it’s impossible to tell what’s going on. But I LOVE the PC versions of both games. I bought a copy of the PC “Left 4 Dead 2” yesterday and after playing just a few levels, remembered why I loved the first game so much. On a nicely powered PC, the game looks fantastic, plays smoothly and now has more weapons and more interesting environments to play through. The Xbox version is best ignored.
“Tony Hawk: Ride” — Another strangely conceived $120 peripheral-driven game from Activision. The game has so far earned very mixed reviews and some have maligned the skateboard-shaped controller as a hazard to humanity. Even though I grew up skateboarding, I’m viewing the game with suspicion. It remains in the box, awaiting my attention. I’ll probably risk my life on it later this week.
What are you playing these days? Anything good?
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