Dreamcast Mania! – Overrated games

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What better way to wrap up our celebration of the Dreamcast than by killing it off? In my final entry in this series, I’m going to do what I do best – slaughter some sacred cows. Not all of them are at the top of many Dreamcast gamer’s lists (and some certainly are), but at the very least these were well respected games that I found to be severely lacking.

Grandia 2 – I absolutely loved Grandia 2 when I first played it. But I’m an older and wiser gamer, and I don’t think you could ever get me to touch this one again. When people so vigorously defend Grandia 2, I wonder if they remember just what it was they were playing. →  Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Post

Dreamcast Mania! – Great games you can’t get anywhere else

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Videolamer noticed that in our attempts to keep Dreamcast Mania! alive, so very many of our articles were about the things we missed out on, rather than a celebration of what we had. That changes now. Today we will be going over some of the absolute best games the DC (and only the DC) has to offer. These are not only the reasons why we loved it, but while we still do. These are the games that make it a system still worth owning and playing (meaning you won’t find games like Third Strike, which has a superior PS2 port).

Oh, and I only have a paragraph to describe each game. Prepare for distilled glory.

Soul Calibur – As far as I am concerned, the only game in the Soul series that you can argue was better than this one (and have me actually listen to you) is Soul Blade. →  There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is games.

Xbox Live Demo Roundup 2

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Another week, another batch of new and slightly stale demos to read about….

    Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground

– It probably isn’t coincidence that this one lands the week that SKATE comes out. It looks like in typical fashion, gamers are drawing the line in the sand before releases even occur. The SKATE demo was so good that people are getting hours of entertainment from it, which bodes quite well for the full retail product. Because of this, some already declare Tony dead. THPS loyalists say they are unimpressed by SKATE’s controls and are more comfortable with their failsafe. Personally, I think anyone who doesn’t like the SKATE approach is either simply bad at it, or can’t really appreciate the essence of the sport as much as they can million point combos. →  Arc the Post: Twilight of the Spirits

Dreamcast Mania! – Canceled games: Forever Denied

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Over the last few weeks I wrote about two categories of canceled Dreamcast games, those that were PC ports trying to eke out a living on Sega’s machine and those that quickly found a new home on a competing console. In the final installment of this series I take a look at the most tragic of canceled games – games that gamers never got a chance to play.

Castlevania Resurrection

What was it?
This game was slated to be the third 3D Castlevania and star Sonia and Victor Belmont. The plot line was the standard Dracula-has-returned nonsense; if you’re one of the 36 people on earth who care about the story arcs in Castlevania, please let me know, it would be an honor to meet you. →  It was the best of games, it was the worst of games

EA Tiburon shows us why Madden sucks

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Apparently EA Tiburon, the house in charge of Madden, has a history of pulling pranks on each other. As funny as some of the stories are, we as gamers should be a little disappointed in this kind of shit. On one hand, its hard to say that spending thousands to fill a room with plastic balls is a waste when you’re EA and you make Madden (actually its still a waste). But this is the same company that wants to flood your favorite games with in game ads and reap the profits, rather than using ad revenue to cut us players a break. I’m glad to know that this is what they’re using their money on rather than coke and hookers whenever they ream you for the newest lazy Battlefield expansion. →  Assassin’s Read

Do bad games get better as they drop in price?

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Game Revolution gave Excite Truck a C, partly because it wasn’t worth 50 bucks. Does this mean that when the game sells for $20 they will change the review score to a B?

Factoring cost into a game’s review has always been something I try to avoid. It is very difficult to do. As much as I pretend games should be considered as stand-alone pieces of art and should not be compared to other things you could do with the money, this is at least partially idealistic bullshit. If a crappy $10 downloadable game is a waste of time, maybe it wouldn’t be at $1, and part of the reason it’s a waste of time is because an episode of Sam & Max is only $8. →  Actraiser Readnaissance

Xbox Live Brings it On

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While everyone has been hoping and waiting for an announcement regarding Sin and Punishment on the Virtual Console, Microsoft has gone ahead and demanded you give them money. Xbox Live Arcade is going to get not only Ikaruga, but an updated, HD ready version of Rez.

That’s right. Two of the darlings of the gaming underground are getting another chance, and for reasonable prices! The only way not to be excited about this announcement is if your a smarmy collector who realizes their first print copies of these games are going to be worth a lot less.

Small price to pay to get a new version Rez for modern televisions. And I haven’t even played the damn game yet!

Many links for the news, so I’ll send you to everyone’s favorite videolamer troll to spill the beans.

PSP Lite/Slim/2000 Impressions

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To be hardcore in the video game scene, one must make a painful sacrifice. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you just can’t buy one system and call it a day. No, you must do what is necessary: you must buy every single piece of hardware that has ever been made. Yes, even a Nuon. So, with that in mind, I begged my girlfriend to buy me the new streamlined PSP. What? I didn’t say you couldn’t ruin someone else’s life in your pursuit of hardcore-ness. And guess what? The damn fool agreed to it! Can you believe that shit? Oh mercy.

So with that quick anecdote, here are my quick impressions on the new Ice Silver Sony PSP (the unit bundled with Daxter), officially referred to as the PSP 2000. →  [link only works on even seconds]

Guitar’d Hero – Downloadable song packs sell like lightning

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Guitar Hero 2 on the 360 is making Activision loads of cash monies thanks to its downloadable content.

This is interesting on several levels. For one, I find it curious that people are gobbling up these song packs when all but one of them feature tracks from Guitar Hero 1. If you haven’t played GH1, then the packs are a no-brainer, but I personally will never play Smoke on the Water again after five staring it (great song to hear, boring as fuck to play through to the end).

Of course the news is outraging the Kids of the Internet (uh-woo-oh), who are quick to call us “Sheep” for buying these packs at a high price point. Aside from the fact that I haven’t actually bought them myself, I’m still cringing at this nerd rage. →  50 Cent: Readproof

Review – Metroid Prime 3

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The moment I saw it at E3 I knew it would be one of the Wii’s killer apps. If you read any of those lesser video game sites around you know that their reviews have borne my predictions out. This review then is not meant to tell you whether or not you should buy this game.

I can tell you that right off the bat: if you have any interest in FPS or adventure games, or, to use the portmanteau generated by the ever clever gaming forum communities, first person adventure games, you need to play this game. Buy it, rent it, whatever your wallet allows, it deserves a play-through because it is one of the best games currently on the Wii and it has a lot of innovation to offer. →  It’s not you, it’s me.