Happy Halloween!

Good morning, everyone.  It is that time of the year when it gets really cold out and people want to hype up small children so their parents go a little bit more crazy than usual.  I have long enjoyed scary movies and games, and Halloween tends to bring about an abundance of both every year.

Read More

Darksiders - Xbox 360 Review

Just a quick review of some limited time I had with the first Darksiders in the past.  Had a far more hectic weekend than I planned with a wedding and some other stuff going on - which sadly meant almost no gaming outside of my iPhones games since we were on the road a lot.  With our youngest still doing the Trick or Treat thing, this week will no doubt continue the feeling of being busy as Halloween approaches, but here is something to tide you over in the meantime.  Hope you had a great weekend!

I never bought Darksiders, and I will admit I have never completed it.  Like when I reviewed Enslaved: Odyssey to the West this was just one of those titles I was never convinced of to buy, so I played it at a friend's house on and off.  Therefore, I will not give this game a real detailed review seeing as I spent only a handful of hours with it, but I have played enough and seen enough to develop a pretty solid opinion of the game.

Read More

Marvel: War of Heroes - iPad/iPhone Review

I think by now it is safe to say I am a fan of collectible card games.  Of course, this spills out into Magic: The Gathering, but also a lot of the video game based ones like Guardian Cross and Rage of Bahamut.  I had heard some time ago on IGN that Mobage was going to be releasing a Transformers game this fall that would be very similar to Rage of Bahamut.  I have not seen or heard anything else about that (it might even be out for all I know?  Searches did not turn anything up yesterday, however).

I did however get a pleasant surprise when I found out that Marvel: War of Heroes had been released last week for mobile devices.  I had completely forgotten about this title, only having heard it briefly mentioned months ago before I even had an iPhone, and therefore any particular interest in it.

Read More

That feeling of being behind in... everything!

I just cannot seem to get caught up over the last couple of weeks.  And going forward?  I can't imagine it's going to get much better for another week or two.  We have a wedding this weekend, Halloween coming up for our youngest, I am getting sent off in the near future for work for a bit... chaos people, chaos.  That's not to say things are all bad - just busy.  I'm still getting some gaming in, just in smaller doses than I would like.

Read More

Guardian Cross - iPad/iPhone Review

I have been noticing a lot of collectible card games for the iOS lately, and it makes sense really. Matches are usually quick, there is a competitive online element and they tend to be more strategic than action-based. I first heard about Guardian Cross by Square Enix some time ago, and it finally got its release and I have been playing it daily since.

Read More

Sega CD - 20 years (and two days) old!

So I was browsing IGN a couple of nights ago when I saw the article proclaiming that the Sega CD was 20 years old.  I immediately went and hit up a few websites to confirm that, and sure enough - it is.  It is funny, because as I get older and the annual birthdays come around, people tease me asking me if I am starting to feel old.  I reply that no - my birthdays do not make me feel old, but specific birthdays that my kids have do.  This year was a doozy on that front too, as my oldest turned 16, my son turned 13 and my youngest hit 10.  Driving age, teenager, double digits.

Well, now video game systems are starting to have the same effect on me.  See, I recall very clearly when I got the Sega CD.  I have posted about the Genesis I got from my uncle years ago, and it was definitely a favorite system of mine.  Almost every console has a handful of games that really resonated well with me, and become the games I immediately think of when I reflect back on that console.  That being said - there were a lot of Genesis games that immediately spring to mind for me, so when an opportunity came up to 'add' to my Genesis and pick up the Sega CD peripheral back then, I did so right away.

Read More

And the weekend is over...

Hopefully you all had a nice weekend.  As usual my weekend had some gaming goodness in it.  Having ground to something of a halt in all three of my Madden 13 leagues (just seriously having a tough time keeping the people who are playing them with me as active as I am), I had to settle for the Lions winning in real life yesterday in overtime against the Eagles.  Frustrating first few quarters, exciting finish - I'll take it.

Read More

Madden 13 crash glitch for the PS3

I am a big fan of this year's Madden 13 release, scoring it fairly highly here, but a new problem has cropped up over the last few weeks since my review. At first I thought it was maybe something specific to my system, but then a friend told me he had the same issue with his Sony PlayStation 3 and Madden 13, and I tested it on my other PlayStation 3 and got the same results. What is the issue?

When you try to quit the game, you run a fairly high chance of the game locking up, and then the system shutting down improperly with three rapid beeps. Upon restarting the system, you get the notification to send to Sony that there was a problem, and then the system goes through the error checking and restoration of the drive.

Read More

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 - Expansion 1

With the recent release of return to Ravnica into the actual card game Magic: The Gathering, I was not surprised to hear that there was a release for the video game Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013.  What I was surprised by, was that the first expansion to the game actually contained no cards from the new Return to Ravnica set, but instead revisited cards from the original Ravnica set.  Giving players a bit of a taste of the Ravnica history, I cannot help but think that the next expansion will in fact support new mechanics from Return to Ravnica.

Read More

The Splatters - Xbox Live discount this week

Good morning, everyone.

The Splatters was a title I really enjoyed and scored it an 8 out of 10 when it first came out.  It's a puzzle game with some serious physics at work, with a graphic style that sort of reminded me of the Worms series with its use of colors and odd animations.

Read More

Busy weekend, probably a busy week

Well, I definitely got some gaming in over the weekend.  That was the good news.  The bad news?  My son may have picked up something very not cool on my PC at home.  This morning there was some annoying error message about how my PC couldn't be verified and I'd have to reinstall Win 7, which is obviously pretty shady to begin with, but on top of that most of the functions on it are now running doggedly slow.  Poor kid - I'm annoyed with him, but he sorta knew he was in trouble too.  He was sitting on the couch looking like he was either sick, or someone kicked a cat, and he's like:

You're going to want to see the error up on your computer.

Considering how little I use that PC lately, he didn't even try brushing it off as something someone else might have done.  For about the last 3 months, it's been 95% him.  Amusingly, I did use it some Saturday, but only for a pair of Steam games.  So, I suspect I'll be spending some time this evening trying to smooth THAT mess out.  So I'm plugging this article together on a far less effective laptop for the time-being.

So, how about those games this weekend?

Read More

Orcs Must Die 2! - Fire and Water Booster DLC Review

This week has not been kind to me in terms of free time.  Here's hoping the weekend goes a bit more smoothly.  Any plans of your own for the weekend?

I was a huge fan of Orcs Must Die! 2 when it came out.  I knocked a lot of those ornery little buggers off and lost quite a bit more sleep than I had ever intended.  The blend of tower defense strategy and third person action really sat well with me, as did the spirit of experimentation.  There are just so many delightful traps for proper orc dismemberment, and their upgrades can be a ton of fun.

Read More

LittleBigPlanet: Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves - PlayStation 3 Review

Little BigPlanet got a ton of play this weekend from my youngest.  She has always loved the series - pretty much fell in love with it since playing the first game, and she has enjoyed the series since.  It sort of amazes me how much time she puts into it, but she makes most of her online friends through the game, and spends hours upon hours creating and testing areas - often Pokemon themed.

I hope you all had a very nice weekend and got some gaming in.  I got obscene amounts of several titles in, and probably have upwards of forty hours in total clocked in on Dragon's Dogma now.  I am about halfway through the primary storyline, but have been keeping busy with all of the side quests.  I also have several online franchises in Madden that have progressed (more effectively than my Lions have progressed in real life).  I have some Magic: The Gathering to play tonight -and it should be interesting as a few of the guys I play with tonight attended the pre-release tournaments for the upcoming expansion, so I'll get to see some new cards in play this evening.

So, speaking of Little BigPlanet, I thought I would touch on one of the spinoffs from the primary series.

LittleBigPlanet is pretty big in my house.  My son likes it, but my youngest daughter?  Well, she loves it.  It is pretty easy to see the appeal.  I have never really gotten into the game myself, but with those design options I probably would have eaten this series up as a kid who learned BASIC for the sole purpose of creating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories on my TI99/4a.  So back when we had a move, Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves came out and then shortly after it was a freebie for PlayStation Plus owners.  My daughter was very excited to give this game a go.

Read More