Tuesday, October 7, 2008

DN3D; Sonic DS; SH:H

It's been even longer since my last post than that one was in relation to the one preceding it, so I won't bother apologizing. Suffice it to say, I've been pretty busy lately and there hasn't been a whole lot of gaming going on, and that particular trend looks to continue for the next few weeks; considering the bevy of big titles that are about to be released (Fable 2, Fallout 3, and LittleBigPlanet, to name but 3), I am more than a little curious how I'm going to be able to do anything at all.

So, then, let me get to it:

Duke Nukem 3D is one of my all-time favorites, and I am ever-so-pleased to see that after all this time, it still holds up. Obviously the graphics are dated, but whatever - the level design is still fresh, the carnage is still, er, carnal, the weapons are still awesome and the one-liners still put smiles on my face. There's a lot to be said for the retro-irony factor of playing old games again on new systems, but here's the thing - DN3D is actually still fun. And I'm not even talking about multiplayer, which is something I never did back then nor am I doing now - the single-player campaign is fucking AWESOME. I'll say this right now - if DNF was simply a remodelling of DN3D in the Unreal Engine, it would probably still be better than whatever it is they've been working on for the last 12 years, and it would also probably be one of the most fun FPSs going.

Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood is something I picked up on Friday, the day before a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio for a wedding. I had originally intended to rent it, and then I read the IGN review which kinda tore it apart somewhat convincingly, and I removed it from my Gamefly queue; then I read some other reviews which were a bit more upbeat, and since I was in a state of post-anxiety relief and release (I'd bought a suit for this wedding, and in the week between buying it and actually picking it up I'd somehow remembered it as being this gaudy, tacky monstrosity, and when I finally picked it up it instead turned out to be a rather nice suit), I figured, well, why the hell not. ANYWAY. I've put a few hours into it, most of my party is around level 6 or 7 (I think) and I've pretty much gotten the hang of how the mechanics work, and I have to say - it's pretty fun. It's somewhat easy, which is fine, and the story is pretty simplistic for a BioWare game - but, again, this is a Sonic game - who the hell cares? The battle system is engaging and utilizes the DS touchscreen quite nicely. There's not a tremendous amount of exploration to be done, but what's there is fine. A solid, engaging title that will certainly keep you occupied on a plane.

I've only put maybe 20 minutes into Silent Hill: Homecoming which had arrived in the mail while we were away, so I'm not really ready to talk about it. Having only actually played Silent Hill 4 (which was kinda meh), I'm not a fanboy; indeed, I only decided to pick it up because a friend of mine at work has been talking about wanting to play it for the last month or so, and I figured I'd give it a shot. It is creepy, but not scary, and to be honest, some of the attempts at creepiness are a little lame and cliched; solitary ghost children drawing pictures in delapidated, monster-infested buildings is something that's been around in the genre FOREVER. The game just kinda throws you into the story without explaining who you are and why you're there; maybe if I were more knowledgeable about the franchise it would mean something more to me, because right now I'm just a dude with a flashlight in an abandoned mental hospital taking orders from some whiny brat.

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