Hello and welcome to this thing once more. I’m very happy you came to read it this week as I am happy to present this installment in words what you read and go into your head! So hit the jump to do that!
Stevie Grant- Writer of Top 10 Worst and Boss Attack:
I played Lilt Line (which is so good) and Startropics (which is eh). Nothing much sorry. Hopefully next week I’ll get on something Sega related. Woops.
Brett Hatfield- Community Manager and Writer of Megadriving:
Played more Street Fighter than I care to admit this week. I dunno why, but around this time every year I get the itch to play my SF stuff, so I did. Started with Super Street Fighter IV, which I’ve remembered why I didn’t like that all too well. All of my hate, Seth. Then I moved onto Street Fighter II HD Remix. I’ve kinda adopted Bison as my main for that game. It’s just fun to spam Psycho Crushers, especially when I couldn’t do them at all back in that game’s heydey. Then, Street Fighter Alpha 2, which is still one of my top favorites in the series. Not just for debuting my beloved Sakura either. That game is SUPERB in nearly every way, and for me, only SFA3 and Capcom Vs. SNK 2 beat it out when it comes to the SF series.As for the rest, I got my NCAA Football 11 and Madden NFL 11 dynasty modes restarted. I really hate how Madden pretty much forces you to play a full season in NCAA before you can start a Madden dynasty if you want to import NCAA draft classes. I wish they’d go back to the old way of putting the prompt at the end of the season instead of the beginning. Also got back into Resonance of Fate, and I gotta say, I still love it just as much as I did before. Why didn’t this game take off the way it should’ve? Well, aside from the horrible release date.
As for upcoming games, I should have Yakuza 4 and NASCAR 2011 coming this week, both for review, so I cannot wait to tear into those.
Alexander Sargeant- Writer of Retro Reviews:
So busy. So tired. Not a whole lot of gaming this week, but free-time should be returning most imminently.Finished Yakuza 4’s story. 35 hours. 26%. Large amount of that time was spent learning how to play Mahjong. This might be the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever learnt from a game till Quake taught me how to spell ‘eviscerated’. Finale is the most manly part of the series since the blonde guy protected a dog house in Yakuza 3.
Other than that I’ve been tucking into Hard Corp Uprising, a game that reminds me of the murky realm of DLC. The game is actually entirely justified in what it does, as the entire game with all three DLC characters is still only £15, when I would gladly have paid a higher price if it was a retail release like Deathsmiles. Yet knowing this the DLC pissed me off a bit, which makes me an idiot probably maybe. It’s perhaps just that there’s no signage explaining the situation. The irrational part of my brain saw the characters in the intro sequence sold as DLC and raged that he was being nickle and dimed, when in essence it’s simply the creators making a game of incredibly value even more afforadable in a more barebones package.
I do prefer the simplicity of a single product, so everyone knows exactly what they’re getting. I just need to stop thinking that everyone who doesn’t do that is instantly wrong.
John Doherty- Writer of Take Cover:
I just finished my finals this week so I haven’t had a huge amount of gaming time. Still a lot of League of Legends. I also started replaying Portrait of Ruin on the DS. I really like having two characters to play simultaneous in the game. I also just grabbed Mass Effect 2 off of Steam because it was on sale for 20 bucks this weekend. As we speak I am loading the game up. Wish me luck!
Josh Newey – Writer of With Great Power Comes Great Games and Underappreciated Gems:
…CAN’T… STOP… PLAYING… TINY… WINGS… Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me It’s perfect for a few minutes of play every once in a while, but every single time I sit down with it, I find that an hour has gone by. To be honest, it reminds me quite a bit of the addiction I had to Sonic’s early games. As with the hedgehog, the sense of momentum is pivotal in Tiny Wings, and once you really get moving in fever mode, the game becomes a score fiend’s dream. I highly recommend any iPhone user pick it up. I grit my teeth at the whole little bird trend in iPhone games as much as the next guy, but this shouldn’t be missed by anyone who likes speedy gameplay.My 360 stopped reading discs this week (…rrr), so I’ve been doing most of my console gaming on my Wii. I played more Madworld, and I can’t seem to get past the Frankenstein boss, cause screw that guy. I’ve also started up Ivy The Kiwi?, and I absolutely adore it. It takes a little getting used to, and its simplicity is almost too limiting, but so far it stands as a perfect representation of a game that becomes fun only with motion control. Wii haters take notice – motion control can do something that controllers can’t. Yeah, I said it.
Kris Knigge- Reviewer and Podcast Co-host:
Well, it’s spring break, so I’ve been playing a lot of stuff. Marvel vs Capcom 3 (which is seizure-inducingly good), Virtual On Force (which can be really frustrating at times), Final Fantasy XIII (a year after the game’s release, I’ve finally reached Gran Pulse) , Umihara Kawase Shun Second Edition DS (look it up), Halo Reach (lolhalo), and Crysis 2 (pretty fun, actually) have all been in heavy rotation. Good times all around. Also, Bomberman Online and Vampire Savior are making my friends hate me. I also tried some more Red Dead Redemption. I still kind of loathe it. How can it be so many people’s game of the year if it’s so boring?
Tom Kyzivat- Artist and Podcast Co-host:
I visited a couple friends this week, so I played Marvel vs Capcom 2 with one and Marvel vs Capcom 3 with the other. Aaaaaaand…. that’s about it.
Alex Riggen- Editor in Chief and Podcast Host:
I haven’t played too much this week. Finished both Yakuza 4 and Homefront early this week. Yakuza 4 was amazing, I spent over 20 hours beating the main quest and doing quite a few sidequests and I’ve still only completed 10% of the game. I’ll definitely be revisiting it someday to boost that percentage.Homefront was short and underwhelming. I don’t mind the shortness as I enjoy the occasional short campaign but the game never did much with its source material. The design was very very archaic and did not hide its scripting and linearity at all.
Other than that I played some James Bond 007: The Duel on Sega Master System. Kind of random but I recently decided to buy a cheap Master System game that I knew nothing about and that was it. It’s not that great but its a competent 2D sidescroller.
And last I played some Earth Defence Force 2017 with my brother for three hours. Everything I heard is true as that game is incredibly fun. Why is it that two of my favorite 360 games were released as $20 budget games?
And that’s it for this week. Tell me what you’ve been playing in the comments and we can all get along. See you next week friends!
