What we’ve been playing: Week of 3/7/2011

Just skip to 1 minute 40 seconds to see the good stuff. Yeah that’s that guy I told you about, from when I went to Summer of Sonic. Good times. Well it was good times for him at least.

Anyway, hit the jump to read an unrelated post about what some idiots on the internet were playing.

Stevie Grant- Writer of Top 10 Worst and Boss Attack:
Nothing. Well I played some Bulletstorm just now I guess. Last week wasn’t very kind to me, gaming wise. Doesn’t look like next week will either. Sorry guys guess I have to kill myself!

Sven Wohl- Sexy new writer:
Well, I played House of the Dead, House of the Dead 2, House of the Dead 3 and House of the Dead: Overkill. Which means my wrist hurts actually while I type this. But it has been an amazing trip down memory lane, and the first part of the retrospective is already up. Hope everyone enjoys it.

I’ve also been playing some Pocked Academy on the iPhone, which is brilliant, and Sonic and Sega All-stars racing, which is quite good too. Radiant Historia is something I come back to regularly too!

Alexander Sargeant- Writer of Retro Reviews:
I’m glad that Mercenaries has an easy mode, as I’m not very good at the high-stakes survival style games. I don’t mean difficulty selection of course. I mean Krauser. His bow is incredible. Shadows of the Damned was hilariously good, although AGAIN it stars Steve Blum. Spike Spiegel is the new Nolan North. Chapter 4 is tremendously idiotic though, with horrible 2D shooter sections. It does feature giant half-naked women though so.. swings and roundabouts.

Solatorobo on DS is pretty much a full-fledged sequel to Tail Concerto. Not incredibly far into it yet, and boy does it start slow. Lack of voice acting is a shame (but standard for the platform). Cyber Connect have proven however that they can pull as much graphical goodness as anyone can on a system of their choosing. I don’t think I’ve seen a 3D game move this smooth on the DS besides Rune Factory 3, and this features some delightfully detailed 3D models along with some great 2D character art.

Also Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3, which is AMAZING. So far the stages repeat too much, but I think that might just be a fault of the way the campaigns are designed (One campaign, three perspectives). So many Gundams though, and it looks like a lot of the classic Wing cast are in it. That series was pretty weak but after Endless Duel on the SNES I’ve always had a soft spot for tthem. Kara no Shoujo I’m hoping to read more soon, but so far it’s a pretty moody read. I’m a detective in 1950’s Japan. What’s not to love?

Pat Reddick- Community Manager/ Writer of Forum News:
I finally got around to playing Splatterhouse for Xbox 360. I got it for Christmas last year and just kind of sat on it until now. I’m pleasantly surprised by it to be honest. The whole pictures thing really caught me off guard, and at this point I really don’t understand their relevance to the game. They probably have no relevance, but whatever. I find the game to be pretty hard, which is neat because a lot of games today seem to really lay off the difficulty, but sometimes the checkpoints are really far apart and dying means replaying quite a bit. Overall though, I like it.

Other than that I have a pretty important Pokébattle to tend to, my team will be Flygon, Metagross, Skarmory and Empoleon. It’s supposed to be a mach 4-on-4 gym battle for the Draco Badge and I’m the challenger. I’m hoping to use Skarmory as set-up, then Flygon as a physical attacker, Empoleon as a special attacker/wall, and Metagross as a physical wall. I’m hoping to end it kind of quickly, but given that 3/4 of my team are defensive beasts I think I can take it if it gets dragged out. I expect to see Flygon/Garchomp, Salemance/Dragonite, Latios/Latias and possibly another Dragon-Flying. Empoleon is EV trained in both defenses and special attack, so hopefully he can take out the ground and flying dragons. With relative ease. We shall see. In the comments I’ll update you guys on how it went.

Josh Newey – Writer of Sounds of Sega and Twenty Days of Sonic:
Since the last piece of gaming hardware that my dog isn’t afraid of is my 3DS, I’ve been playing a whole lot of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. I agree that the whole save system in the game is utter BS, but as a huge fan of Resident Evil there was no way I was ever going to try and trade the thing in anyway. Even so, the principle is sleazy as hell and I’m a little embarrassed to have rewarded business practices like these with my hard-earned cash.

It has really taken its time to get going (the first full mission wasn’t until level 3-2!), but I have quickly come to love it. The Mercs sub game in Resident Evil 4 Wii is one of my most played games on the console, and that is not an exaggeration. The combo system is highly addictive and the snappy pick-up-and-play nature of the game is perfect for the handheld. That being said, the A.I. is sadly dumbed down for the lesser powered system, stunting the difficulty significantly. While the core gameplay remains as fun as ever, it’s hard to get your adrenaline pumping when an enemy in the distance is running around in circles like an excited puppy.

I’ve also been using my 3DS to play Rayman for the first time in at least a decade. It still holds up as a solid, if severely dated, platformer. The visuals are still lovely, even if their vivacity doesn’t wow the same way they did on the Saturn/PS1. All in all, it just makes me thirsty to play my most anticipated game of this year’s E3, Rayman Origins.

Kris Knigge- Reviewer and Podcast Co-host:
Haven’t played much this week due to school. Played some MvC3, which is good, and Tactics Ogre, which is great, and Ys Seven. Ys Seven is the opposite of Tactics Ogre in every way, but not necessarily bad. It’s the first JRPG I’ve ever wanted to entirely ignore the story for, but the combat is pretty fun. But yeah, not much gaming for me this week.

Tom Kyzivat- Artist and Podcast Co-host:
I missed the Games of the Week deadline for two weeks in a row now, so this answer is a fortnight old. It’s like a time capsule, but with fewer fart jars. Anyhoooooo……

I played a bit of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, which definitely doesn’t have a long enough title. I haven’t touched SFIV in a while, so I was a bit rusty (that’s my way of saying Mike kicked my ass), but I did enjoy trying out Evil Ryu and Oni. I was never a big fan of Yun or Yang from III, so it was more of a novelty than anything to play as them. I would have much rather seen Necro and Twelve return!

I also visited Stern Pinball, Inc., this week (I used to freelance for them and Mike still does), so I played my fill of the pinball games they had in their game room: their newest, Tron, as well as Rolling Stones, Big Buck Hunter and NBA. I totally suck at pinball, but they are really fun–particularly when, by the grace of Knuckles’ pimp cane, I actually manage to start modes like multiball. I recommend checking them out if you’re ever lucky enough to find an arcade, and if those arcades are actually lucky enough to have pinball games.

Alex Riggen- Editor in Chief and Podcast Host:
I played a few games this week. I started off with the FEAR expansion Extraction Point as I’ve owned it for awhile but never got around to playing it. After often hearing that it’s not that great of an expansion I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not as good as the main game but it still was pretty fun and I recommend it to fans of the FEAR games. There’s a few really good moments in there and while I believe Monolith has claimed the story isn’t canon it’s still a fun little diversion for a few hours.

Next, I picked up Saints Row 2 after hearing lots of good things about it. I’ve been unable to get into GTA style games since GTA3 but after only a few hours of Saints Row 2 I’m really enjoying it. The missions and sidequests are extremely fun and ridiculous and the customization and variety of ways to earn respect points is extremely addictive. I’m now extremely excited for the third game to come out.

And last I’ve been playing Donkey Kong on the 3DS Virtual Console. While I didn’t really ever pay attention to the Wii’s VC, I love it on 3DS. The way it emulates the old Game Boy case around the game is genius and the save state feature makes these old games a lot more playable. I can’t wait until some Game Gear games come out. Oh, and Donkey Kong is really good. Nearly 100 different puzzle/platformer levels that are short and addictive.

And that’s it for this week, all one of you still reading. Hope you enjoyed it. I live to please. Myself. I live to please myself. And on that note we shall depart until next week dear reading. Laters.

Oh I guess you can put what you’ve been playing in the comments as well if you must.