Here’s a look at what games I’ve been playing, ranked roughly from most-played to least-played. This allows me to offer some thoughts on some titles that I may not devote a full review to, plus sound off on some ideas that might not have made it into full reviews of the games I play. Games are listed roughly in order of most- to least-played, with assistance from my Raptr profile.
“Duke Nukem Forever” (rated M,$60 for Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, $50 for PC): I’m pretty much done talking about this, and I’m hoping to forget my time with “DNF” as quickly as possible. Here’s my review, though!
“Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012” (rated T, $10 download for Xbox 360 and PS3): I used this collectible card game as a palette cleanser after finishing “DNF.” I plowed my way through the campaign. Once I grind to unlock a few more cards, I’m going to try out the online play and write up a short review. So far, so good. I’m really enjoying the new decks they’ve included but wish they’d found a way for those of us who bought the first “Planeswalkers” to import our decks into the sequel.
“Dungeon Siege III” (rated T, due out Tuesday for $60 on Xbox 360 or PS3, $50 on PC): I haven’t played enough of this hack-and-slash role-playing game to write a review or even impressions, but it might end up being more fun with co-op partners than it is solo. That’s not to say my solo time has been bad or anything.; I’m really just getting started. One thing that’s stood out thus far, though, is how awful the voice acting is for Anjali, one of the four characters you can play in the game. It sounds like developer Obsidian Entertainment hired a live mannequin and had her read her lines cold off of cue cards. What’s weird, though, is that all the non-player characters I’ve met so far have sounded fairly convincing. I’m guessing this is just an isolated thing with this one character, but it was so bad it warranted comment.
“Child of Eden” (rated T, $60 for Xbox 360): I’ll be reviewing this game later this week. Last week, I played with a standard controller to get the hang of how the colorful shoot-’em-up played without the use of Kinect. Pretty much the whole time I was playing, I thought, “This is pretty fun, but I can’t wait to play with Kinect.” I’ll get my chance over the next few nights.
“Dead Rising 2: Case West” (rated M, $10 download for Xbox 360): I hooked up with Swiller for some “Case West” co-op last Wednesday night and was dismayed to see that the standalone minisequel to “Dead Rising 2” featured the same irritating online co-op system where Player 2 is kicked from the game every time Player 1 elects to save. Who the heck came up with that? Though we enjoyed playing co-op, both of us felt the Phenotrans research facility wasn’t anywhere near as varied or fun a sandbox as “Dead Rising 2’s” Fortune City strip.
“Dead Nation” (rated M, $15 download for PS3): Having both gotten the game for free as part of the “Welcome back” promotion, another friend and I joined forces for some “Dead Nation” co-op on Tuesday night. Wanna hear something crazy? For some reason, online voice chat in this title is turned “off” by default. If you want to talk to your online co-op partner, you actually have to go in and tweak the settings in the options menu. My friend and I didn’t realize this at the time, so we did what we do for a lot of PS3 games that restrict or limit chatting: We fired up our Xbox 360s and chatted on there while playing on our PS3s.
“El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron” demo (free download on Xbox 360, PS3, game rated T, due out July 26): I boned up on the contents of the demo a bit before writing up my preview of the game.
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