|
I've bought a lot of games over the past couple of years, and my enthusiasm for most of them runs out after 10-15 hours of play. Oblivion (360) - Beautiful, empty world. Good game mechanics. Ruined for me by lousy voice work/four actors playing (often overplaying) 50 different characters. Also, only the assassin sidestory had any resonance for me. Fallout 3 (360) - Same game as Oblivion, but with different skin and guns. They hired some more actors and tried a lot harder to fill the world up with cool stuff, which makes a big difference. Main questline still pretty boring. Played through once, am playing through again in more detail. Will buy DLC when I'm done. (DLC = "downloadable content" - new missions and sometimes new world maps, in most cases.)
Fable 2 (360) - Too cartoony for me to enjoy, but I may give it another chance. Shooting people is a lot of fun, because they bounce around all over the freakin' place, but that's not a game. Mass Effect (360) - Expected to hate the inability to jump (or even step over curbs), but I ended up loving this game, and I'm ridiculously excited about the sequel (in which, apparently, if you have a saved game from version 1 on your machine, you will be able to continue the same character you've created by importing them). Left 4 Dead (360) - SO MUCH FUN SO MUCH FUN SO MUCH FUN. Game of the year, so long as you play it online (with friends, not strangers).
Grand Theft Auto IV (360) - The world is so utterly amazing and immersive that the gameplay weaknesses have become highly evident. The mission design team was apparently not tasked with the same mandate to evolve that the world-build team was... The Lost and Damned DLC helped flesh out the world, and I'm looking forward to chapter 3, but I'l probably never replay the original again all the way through (and I played through San Andreas in the previous generation three or four times, so it's not like I don't want to...) The Godfather (360) - GTA clone based on the movie. Started four times, never finished. Just not that interesting. The Godfather 2 (PS3) - Same, but with an empire-maintenance aspect that promises to be a little more compelling. Just came out, and I've started it, but I'm not sure yet if it has legs. Saints Row 2 (PS3) - Another GTA clone, but with a welcome emphasis on the game actually being fun to play, and with a ridiculous number of things to do (and a self-deprecating sense of humor). A really strong game; I only haven't finished yet because I was distracted by other things and haven't gotten back to it yet... Mirror's Edge (PS3) - Still in the plastic wrap. Anticipating nausea when and if I try it. Dead Space (PS3) - Still in the plastic wrap. Jumpy scares are stupid - I got it primarily to study the interface. Civilization Revolution (PS3) - Fun to play once, beat it, will probably never play again. Buggy as hell, with some awful design decisions -- clearly farmed out to the B-Team. SimCity 4 (PC) - I think I've wrung every drop of enjoyment I can out of this game over the past five years or so. Since the last version (SimCity Societies) was a total failure, I'm waiting for the upcoming competitor City Life 2 to beat it at its own racket.
GTA Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS) - I bought a DS for this (which is a tradition now - I bought my PS2 for San Andreas, and my 360 for GTAIV). I'm surprised at how much fun it is. The drug dealing element was something that I thought would be a dumb side-thing, but it's strangely enjoyable. That's all I feel qualified to comment on for now...
 
|
