GAME REVIEW: Gamers guide to holiday shopping
The economy may look grim, but college gamers’ wallets are looking even grimmer.
In this time of economic crisis, justifying a $60 game purchase has become more crucial than ever. And let’s not forget the holiday shopping season is right around the corner. So, what’s a poor college gamer to do?
Well, hopefully I can help with this situation. Here’s my two cents worth on four recently released games.
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) – Fans of the series will know exactly what to expect from City Folk and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
City Folk is just as pointlessly enjoyable as the previous two games. The objective, if you can even call it that, is to move into a new town and simply live.
A typical day in City Folk consists of decorating the house, planting flowers, catching bugs, going fishing and chatting with the neighbors. Man, I wish my life could be this difficult.
If you’ve played the previous games for more than 20 minutes, then you’ve already done everything I’ve described above. Granted, City Folk does have a few new features such as online play, microphone chat and a disappointingly small city, but none of these are enough reason to warrant the purchase.
Mirror’s Edge (360, PC, PS3) – Last week as I was crossing the TSC parking lot, I had the overwhelming urge to run on top of the cars. That’s when I realized I had been playing too much Mirror’s Edge.
Finally, here’s a game that realizes every parkour fan’s wildest fantasy – freely running and leaping across the rooftops of tall buildings without injury. Mirror’s Edge is like real-life parkour, but on crack.
The object of the game is to execute seemingly impossible parkour moves across a vast city, while avoiding the cops. Interestingly, this is all achieved through a first-person perspective, making it one of the few first person games to not be a shooter, and it works well.
Once you become fully comfortable with the controls and game mechanics, which will take many hours of trial and error, Mirror’s Edge is fun, addictive and engrossing.
Quantum of Solace (360, PC, PS3, Wii) – “This can’t seriously be a PS3 game, these graphics are horrendous,” I uttered to myself as I sat and watched the opening cinematic.
Quantum of Solace was a free rental, and I’m still not satisfied with the purchase. The graphics are comparable to a Nintendo Wii and the game play is nothing more than a very simplistic first-person shooter.
Worst of all, the storyline only vaguely resembles the movie. I can’t recall from “Quantum of Solace” James Bond fighting off a hundred men, including a machine gun-mounted helicopter all within a sink hole.
I wanted to recommend this game, but I can’t. Quantum of Solace is a below-average attempt at the first-person shooter genre.
Dead Space (360, PC, PS3) – Dead Space is not only one of my favorite releases of 2008, but it’s also one of the best survival horror games of all time.
Let me begin by saying, Dead Space is not for the kids. This game has an appropriate rating of “mature” for blood, gore, intense violence and strong language. I’m fairly sure if an 8 year old saw this game, they would have nightmares for life. Heck, many adults would have nightmares, too.
You play as engineer Isaac Clarke who is sent on a repair mission to a deep-space mining ship. Upon arrival of the ship, Clarke finds himself in a nightmarish bloodbath with an alien race. The ship’s crew has been slaughtered and now he must find a way to survive.
Dead Space does two things extremely well. First off, I’ve never been subjected to so much bodily dismemberment in my life. In fact, Dead Space touts this feature as the primary reason why you should play the game. I’d have to agree. Horror games need blood and this game has plenty of it.
Secondly, the presentation is genius. There’s no distracting on-screen HUD, head-up display, cutscenes or an inventory menu that pauses the suspense. Once the player starts the game, they never leave the experience. So in a way, Dead Space perfectly captures the essence of survival horror.
–tim.russell@aggiemail.usu.edu