I've found quite a few reasons to enjoy and 360 in a more casual manner. It's a great machine for casual gaming, as Microsoft seems to realize, what with their recent announcement of the Xbox 360 Arcade version.
In an effort to catch up, I'll try to quickly summarize the XBLA titles that have caused my point expenditures.
Carcassonne
A very well-executed version of the board game. To date, three expansions are available; The River (included in the base game), The River II, and King and Baron. The console version takes away some of the annoying aspects of the tile game, particularly in the area of scoring. Several game play options are available, which is nice to have.
Puzzle Quest
Wow. It's great that someone can take a game so throughly played-through as Bejeweled and make it so fresh and compelling. By wrapping the base Bejeweled engine in an RPG blanket, it's not only new again, but compelling and captivating.
Catan
Yeah, it's probably because I'm such a big board game slut that I'll always get the XBLA version of any board game, but Catan hold a warm place in my heart and I'm sure I'm not alone. The XBLA version of it is solid, but I'm wondering why it is taking so long for the expansions to come out. Seafarers now!
Others:
Yaris
A free game from Toyota. Generally frustrating and worth ignoring. You get what you pay for.
Upcoming:
Battlestar Galactica
Released tomorrow! I'm a fan of the television show, but this one is definitely try-before-you-buy.
Mutant Storm Empires
I rather enjoyed Mutant Storm Reloaded, so I'm eager to get my hands on the follow-up, which should be out next week, on Halloween day.
Enough of this quick recap - I have to limber up my fingers for the Saturday release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock... the world is about to get louder.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Beast Reawakens
Damn... time to dust this place off and get to updating.
As usual, when I hit a roadbump in the Real World, side projects such as this one get put on hold for a while. In this case, it was a job change.
I've been playing quite a few games lately, and I'll try to get to each of them in turn. For now, let me cover the one that took most of my weekend and came from an Orange Box.
Portal
Before I get into the specifics of Portal, I must say that The Orange Box is one of the best bang-for-the-buck deals available for consoles. Packed with five full games, this thing could keep you busy for a long while. That's especially true for me, as I have not played Half Life 2, the Half Life episodes, or Team Fortress.
There is no denying that Portal is short. I played through then entirety of the game in under four hours. Then when I played it again for one of the achievements, I was done in under 90 minutes. And I played it yet again for the developers' commentary.
The first time through was suspenseful and thrilling. The puzzles were challenging but not overly so. This last feature is a good thing, as Portal is a puzzle game. The environment is fully rendered and realized in the manner of a first-person shooter, but it is essentially a platformer puzzle game. Perhaps the most engaging part of the game, besides the challenging nature of the puzzles, is the characters and the plot. Of those I will not mention further - I'll not spoil anything here.
Capping off the entire delicious sweet treat of Portal were the credits, thanks to a wonderful song by Jonathan Coulton, he of Code Monkey fame.
I've started through Half Life 2, and it seems to be all it should be. More on that later. In any case, I heartily recommend trying (and possibly buying) The Orange Box - it's more fun than a barrel of codeless monkeys.
As usual, when I hit a roadbump in the Real World, side projects such as this one get put on hold for a while. In this case, it was a job change.
I've been playing quite a few games lately, and I'll try to get to each of them in turn. For now, let me cover the one that took most of my weekend and came from an Orange Box.
Portal
Before I get into the specifics of Portal, I must say that The Orange Box is one of the best bang-for-the-buck deals available for consoles. Packed with five full games, this thing could keep you busy for a long while. That's especially true for me, as I have not played Half Life 2, the Half Life episodes, or Team Fortress.
There is no denying that Portal is short. I played through then entirety of the game in under four hours. Then when I played it again for one of the achievements, I was done in under 90 minutes. And I played it yet again for the developers' commentary.
The first time through was suspenseful and thrilling. The puzzles were challenging but not overly so. This last feature is a good thing, as Portal is a puzzle game. The environment is fully rendered and realized in the manner of a first-person shooter, but it is essentially a platformer puzzle game. Perhaps the most engaging part of the game, besides the challenging nature of the puzzles, is the characters and the plot. Of those I will not mention further - I'll not spoil anything here.
Capping off the entire delicious sweet treat of Portal were the credits, thanks to a wonderful song by Jonathan Coulton, he of Code Monkey fame.
I've started through Half Life 2, and it seems to be all it should be. More on that later. In any case, I heartily recommend trying (and possibly buying) The Orange Box - it's more fun than a barrel of codeless monkeys.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)