It’s been a while since I did a game-related post, so I guess it’s time for an update.
Disaster: Day of Crisis is a game that’s been flickering on the edge of my radar since it was announced several years ago, but there’s been so little hype and promotion for this title that I didn’t realise it had actually come out. Hell, it doesn’t even have a US release date (which is probably because 10 minutes in you’re running down a city street avoiding the smoke and falling debris of a crumbling skyscraper… *ahem*). So I got it, sat down for the day in front of the TV, and blasted through the main story mode in a single 8-hour sitting. I don’t know whether I would call it a game, though – Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic piece of entertainment with a half-decent plot and shiny graphics, but it’s more of a long playlist of cutscenes and FMVs strung together with light gun segments, a dash of third-person exploring with minigames, and a crapload of QTEs than an actual game with fixed gameplay elements. And let me tell you, the game’s main protagonist, Raymond Bryce, sure can run fast. This game will have you outrunning debris, fires, earthquakes, an erupting volcano, even a tsunami. Multiple times. It’s like the script for a over-the-top cheesy season of 24, in game form, but it’s great if you realise that and don’t take it too seriously. If we’re focusing on gameplay, hell, the light gun sections are better than Ghost Squad and are probably worth it alone, so check it out if you get the chance.
As my housemate has an Xbox 360 hooked up to the 52″ plasma TV in his room, it’d be a waste if it didn’t get used by me all the time… trust me, Rock Band looks freaking awesome on that thing. I’ve finished the drum solo career on Medium (was a bit too easy, I can do usually half of the stuff on hard), and finally completed guitar on expert, something that I couldn’t even do on my PS2 version that I got 10 months ago. I hope I never have to complete that damn final song ever again as long as I live. I’ll probably leave my progression there for now and wait for Rock Band 2 to come out, then play everything on that instead… with the added bonus of being able to do a World Tour on my lonesome, and create an even sexier cast of musicians. Rock on.
I also got the opportunity to check out the demo for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts the other day, confirming my fear that the series is heading in the wrong direction. As a standalone game, the mechanics of the vehicle building system works fantastically well and I spent hours just tinkering around in the workshop (and with very few parts, there’s way more in the full game) creating some rather intriguing contraptions. However, it’s not a Banjo game. When I see that bear and breegull duo, I expect classic platforming, jumping between ledges and collecting a ton of stuff to get 100%. I don’t expect that element to be stripped out completely and to be faced with a middle finger from Rare telling me that if I don’t like the vehicular gameplay, I should play the remake of the original game on the Live Arcade instead. I’m not kidding, it actually says that on one of the loading screens. Oh well, it’s not gonna stop me from playing it. I’m sure I can convince my housemate to buy it when it comes out, so I’ll have one more game to add to the already bulging list of titles to get through. Bah.
What else… World of Goo on Nintendo’s WiiWare store is way cool, physics and engineering puzzles for the win. I’ve also started playing Warcraft III, seeing as I’m not currently subscribed to the MMO. I’m actually enjoying it, and this is coming from someone that doesn’t like RTS games. It doesn’t really matter, I’m resubscribing on Thursday anyway in preparation for the Wrath launch.
Damn, I need to post more often rather than into one big rant such as this. Someone should come find and hit me when I don’t post on my blog every few days, damnit… encouragement is needed.
