Video Games

Just Cause 2

When you think of Square Enix, you think of elaborate, time-consuming RPGs and fantastic worlds where magic and wizardry are more commonplace than traffic at the Holland Tunnel. So when it came down that Square Enix was pairing with Eidos and Avalanche Studios to bring us a sequel to a game that had a lukewarm reception, befuddled to optimistically curious was the range of thoughts for many gamers.

Just Cause 2 sees the return of CIA special agent Rico Rodriguez, our protagonist from the first game, as he is again tasked with overthrowing a tropical island’s government that is somewhat hostile towards our good ol’ U.S. of A. On top of this, Rico must also track down his missing mentor and best friend, Tom Sheldon, whom the desk jockeys in Washington think has gone rouge after he fell off their radar for several weeks. In order to accomplish his mission, Rico is tasked with going around and blowing up as much government owned and operated equipment as possible in order to lure out both Tom and the dictator of the island nation of Panau, “Baby” Panay.

Darksiders

Often when something works, and works well, it will have imitators and copycats come out of the woodwork and try to capitalize on the splash made by the original. This is especially true in the media world and in video games. The hottest trend right now is an oldie but goodie: the portrayal of the possibility of a coming apocalypse, an Armageddon. There are different spins put on it from heaven vs. hell, man vs. the supernatural, or some seemingly omnipotent being needing to be stopped from wreaking havoc, but in the end it all comes down to the same basic concept. In the first quarter of 2010, we have three such games coming out with this basic theme: God of War 3, Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders with the original God of War series being the base concept.

Just because all these games may be similar in theme and execution, does not mean that they all can’t be good. In fact, sometimes the imitators will surpass the original and blow the concept out of the water. The first of these three games released, Darksiders, might do just that.

Bayonetta

When one mentions Sega, the first thing that comes to mind, for most people, is a spiky blue hedgehog. However, Sega has taken steps over the past couple years to let people know there is a lot more to them than our super fast friend. First came Jack in last year’s sleeper hit Madworld, with his chainsaw and the game’s Sin City style sending gamers into a frenzy. Now, with the help of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe director Hideki Kamiya, Sega unveils their latest creation: Bayonetta.

With guns in hand (and attached to each ankle), as well as swords, claws, and other weapons you acquire over the course of the game, Bayonetta, a 500 year old witch who escaped the witch hunts of the 15th century, rages her own personal war against the forces of heaven as she fights to not only restore the balance between light and dark, but also to restore the memories she lost when she was forced into a near five century hibernation by her fellow witches.

Two More Infinity Ward Leads Leave

Activision has had a rough week, to say the least. It’s 15 dollar “Stimulus” map pack for Modern Warfare 2 is facing backlash from the community and critics alike for it’s pricey nature and glitches it had right out of the gate. To make matters worse however, two more Infinity Ward leads have left. The two leads in question are Lead Designer Todd Alderman and Lead Software Designer Francesco Gigliotti. Alderman is a significant blow to the developer, as he reportedly was the lead creator on Call of Duty’s multiplayer. Activision is not commenting on the situation, so whether or not this has to do with the recent lawsuit against Activision by Vince Zampella and Jason West is not known.

Halo Reach Multiplayer

A few weeks ago a video was released of the Halo: Reach multiplayer and it was in short, awesome.  However, they gave very little detail about everything they showed till now, Bungie has released some information about things to come in the new Halo game coming out this fall.  For the whole story go to Bungie for all of the details but here we’ll give you a quick over view of what they said.

First of Elites are actually different than Spartans, they are faster, bigger, have a stronger shield and have the ability to evade (I’ll go into detail about that later).  So how does this work?  Seems like everyone would pick the Elite over the Spartan, and while Bungie hasn’t given detail about how the Elite vs. Spartan will be they said it will mainly be Spartan vs. Spartan and Elite vs. Elite.

XBLA Price Cuts are Abound! Until April 7th.

Thankfully, this is not a very poor April Fools Day joke. Ten, from what I hear, decent little XBLA games have had their prices slashed until April 7th. I have actually only played, out of those 10, Rocket Riot and South Park Let’s Go Shenanigans. Both well worth the price, but Rocket Riot is definitely the superior one. A very cute, lovable, time-sucking game.

Heavy Rain Double Review

Heavy Rain is a game that delivers in all the ways that it wants to and does it so very well.  I have never been as attached to video game characters for so long. It feels almost odd how much I cared for each one. 

But let me take it one step back before I talk about everything I love about this game.  For those who don’t know what this game is about let me inform you.  You play as several characters in a story who, in one way or another, have ties to the serial murderer named the Origami Killer.  Each of the characters has their own reasons to go for this mad man, and how they go about finding out who the killer is depends heavily on your, the player’s, actions.

This game has a lot of cut scenes where you have to press a series of buttons in order to successfully catch a running criminal, fight a thug or even shave (yes you read it right … shave).  What makes this different from other games though, like God of War where you have the same idea of button presses, is that if you miss a button prompt it’s not “crap now I have to start over”.  Instead, the game keeps going so whether or not that missed hit cost you, the chance to catch someone with valuable information, save someone’s life or the cost to your own life depends on how quick you are on your feet … or fingers. Also, yes, your characters can die. That means if one of the characters dies, then that’s it. The story keeps going without that particular story arc, which makes for a lot of interesting outcomes.  Now a lot of these actions may feel a little mundane at first like having to use the left analog stick to put your car in park, knock on doors, or even move under an object.  However, it really helps to make you feel in control and feel like you are the one making every single decision, which helped me get sucked in deeper into this world.