Even before the dreaded September - Christmas AAA Video Game Rush, my gaming has picked up to a steady clip. Here’s where I’m at:

In:

Snatcher (Sega CD) - Big Tip of The Hat to Chris at The Artful Gamer for steering me towards this one. In this post-apocalyptic adventure game, you’re an investigator trying to root out Snatchers — a group of robots, origin unknown, who murder people and take over their host bodies. Added Bonus: early indications of Hideo Kojima as an auteur, in a game that isn’t Metal Gear. I’ll have more on this later.

Contra 4 (Nintendo DS) - My girlfriend recently bought me a Nintendo DS for my birthday (which fell in January), and I’ve been making decent use of it. Contra 4 is unashamedly derivative, right down to near zen-like timing and patience required to surmount even the first level. That the instruction manual and menu play up and celebrate the retro, balls-to-the-wall action, apparently in service of Contra’s 20-year anniversary, only adds to the giddy fun of slaughtering wave after wave of aliens.

Out:

Cave Story (PC, free download) - It’s been called a “work of art” by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, but really it’s just a solid, fun platform game delicately woven into a nice plot. There’s no advancing of the medium here, just a faithful take on a time-honored genre, truly pleasurable from start to finish.

Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360) - I may add some more complete thoughts now that I’ve (finally) felled the final boss, but for now I’m just happy it’s over. Life is hard on the lonely island of “20-Hour Games Are Too Damn Long.”

On The Way:

Two empty slots on my Gamefly account and three games in my queue. Tempting the fates with Eternal Sonata, Elebits and Dead Rising. Which lucky ones will arrive in my mailbox? We report, you decide. Rock the Vote. Save the Whales. See you tomorrow.

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Been a while. Time for a playlist:

What’s in:

Zack and Wiki: The sleeper hit that gamer nerds love to love. It’s a point and click adventure, like Monkey Island, with some Wii controls thrown in — manipulating objects requires you to figure out the corresponding motions. The concept sounds good, but in execution I’m wondering if this is just a gimmick or something that will actually improve the gameplay. Hopefully I’ll find out before Wiki’s voice compels me to throw my TV into a wall.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge: I forgot what it’s like to battle The Shadow Warrior, or whatever his name is. Unfortunately, I also forgot the feeling of playing six solid levels before being confronted with a series of arbitrary jumping puzzles that can make or break your entire game.

What’s out:

No More Heroes: First time in a while that I’ve been really sad to finish a game. A first-rate title from start to finish, with only a few minor flaws. I find myself disagreeing with critics’ main detraction, but more on that later.

Rez: The “interactive techno music video on acid,” as I like to call it, was totally super awesome pants. It was also totally super awesome short, and I really mean that. It’s nice to have a game that doesn’t take 15 hours to finish, but you can return to later for some simple psychedelic euphoria.

What’s coming:

Something violent that’s already been released three times: Call of Duty 4 and Devil May Cry 4 are queued up on my Gamefly account, just to see what all the fuss is about.

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Games I Am Currently Playing:

Streets of Rage 2 (Sega Genesis via XBox 360) - In the box art, Max looks like he’s floating in midair with really tiny legs, but on closer inspection, it’s just the bottom half of some dude that Blaze roundhouse kicked, who Max then elbowed in the face. And that really captures the elegance of this game. The systematic beating on hundreds of punks never seemed as refined after this, but with a cast of cleverly named characters and some great vocal effects (Bourbon, drunkenly: “C’MON!”), SOR2 had a sense of self-parody as well.

Project Sylpheed (XBox 360) - Granted, I started playing this last night in a post Bioshock haze. That said, I don’t recall being too impressed. Instead of the graceful controls of Freespace or the inherently interesting plot of X-Wing, we’re treated to way too much exposition and a cockpit that’s backward and clunky. I’m prepared to stick it out a little longer because, as everyone says, space sims are so rare, but you at least hope they would get better with time.

Games I Was Playing But Now Not So Much:

Urban Dead (PC): It’s hard enough playing Halo in real time with a headset convincing my teammates not to shoot me in the face and call me a faggot, but stopping hundreds of zombies when everyone is playing on a different schedule is damn near impossible. It doesn’t help that the zeds can come back to life with full health almost immediately, but fallen survivors have to stand up, seek a revive point, put in a request at an external Web site and wait until another survivor comes along to help them. I stopped playing once I upgraded my character to super badass, killed a bunch of zombies and watched our home base fall after one of my teammates shot me in the face.

Bioshock: Let me know when the universal ban on spoilers is lifted and I’ll have more to say on this matter.

N (PC): I have nothing bad to say about N and its sadistic rocket/laser/tripmine death traps, with no means of counterattack. But my interest was bound to run its course before the 400+ included levels did.

Games I Am Meaning to Play Soon:

Super Metroid (SNES via Wii) - I know in my heart that Metroid Prime 3 will disappoint me. This old standby will not, and since I never owned a Super Nintendo, I’ve got a great excuse to revisit this after never solving it though emulators.

Arbitrary Lists, Playlists | 2 Comments »