Sunday Roundup: 8/9/15

Since all of these DS games were loose, all I had to go on when browsing through the rows and rows of titles was just that: the title. A game like Mage Knight sticks out since it sounds RPG’ish, and the cheap price tag helped too. I guess this is a strategy game based on a tabeltop board game/miniatures war game. After looking into the game more, I do feel like I’ve seen the physical game before, but have never played it.

The timing is right to pick up this last version of Star Wars Battlefront before the newest version gets released late this year! My experience with the Battlefront series has been short but sweet: I first demoed the game at a local Game Crazy video game store, really liked the ability to control your units on the battlefield, then bought the game and only played through the first couple missions. People really swear by these games (I’m sure this spinoff on the DS isn’t included in that fandom), so I’m actually hoping the new Battlefront will live up to the hype.

Way back when I found the Wii version, Roogoo Twisted Towers, I decided I needed the DS version as well because it unlocks exclusive levels only found in both games when you have both games. Seeing as I still haven’t even played the game since then, chances aren’t looking too great for this one either. But hey, if I ever do those unlockable levels are mine, baby!

A gag game I bought for Laura, Funky Barn 3D is a farm simulator that seems to take the concepts behind other farming games like Harvest Moon and pushes them to the absurd. Honestly the game looks like garbage, but Laura says she’ll play it just so we can see how truly… “Funky”… it is. Ugh…

Fun fact: Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop was created as a remake of the original Xbox 360 version of Dead Rising entirely for the Wii. It features Wii-specific content like motion controls and some added modes of play, but mostly cut a lot of features since the Wii isn’t as powerful as the 360. Interestingly, the ability to take photographs has been removed, which seems like an odd choice give the main character, Frank West, is the most respected journalist in the area. Hmm… Also, this version fails to capture any of the accolades the original version did. Long story short, if you have a 360, get that one and not this one.

I’ve seen Gremlins: Gizmo before but never really gave it much thought. I mean, the cover looks bland, it doesn’t offer any indication on what the game will actually be about (it’s a mini-game collection), and it just has that sort of “This is a shovelware game” look about it. But for just a few bucks I thought I would give it a try. Plus, it’s selling for a bit more online, so maybe it’ll become something of a collectors item in the future.

I will forever remember the FEAR series as the series my friend in college loved. I remember his hype around FEAR 3: he wanted to play it so bad when it came out! We went and picked it up around it’s time of release. Literally the day after we bought the game I asked him how it was going and he said he’d beaten it already! The story campaign took littler over 6 hours and he was fairly upset he had spent $60 on it! I do remember him telling me about the story of the whole series though, and that does sound interesting. It must have been good enough since two sequels have come out since this game here!

When this game first came out it was like wildfire back in college. Tons of people were playing it, myself included albeit on the PS2, and tons of people were way better at it than I was. That never stopped me from having fun and enjoying the game. Still though, coming off of Guitar Hero II which I played and loved, I felt like Guitar Hero III was too difficult and didn’t have as fun a playlist as prior games. This, in part with series development being handed over to Neversoft and the original developers Harmonix going on to create to Rock Band series, lead me to a sort of fallout with the series until Rock Band 2 drug me back in.

When the Forza games first came out, I recall a few gaming friends who were really into, calling it the new Gran Turismo for the Xbox users out there. I can’t really speak on the subject though, because I won’t be playing these games. I’m just not the biggest fan of racing games, especially the more realistic racers like this one. Give me Mario Kart any day over this.

Speaking of Rock Band 2, here we have it for the Xbox 360. I played a heck of a lot of Rock Band in college. So much so that I nearly passed just about every song on Expert on guitar, bass, and drums. Drums gave me the most trouble though: that freaking bass pedal was tough to nail down! Regardless, Rock Band 2 is a fantastic rhythm game and has a special place in my gaming history!

The Halo franchise is arguably the flagship franchise of the entire Xbox brand, even though Call of Duty seems to have taken over as the most popular game on the system. Halo 4 is the first game in the mainline series not to be developed by series creators Bungie, instead 343 Industries handled development duties. Reviews upon the game’s release were glowing, calling it one of, if not the best, game in the series. That’s saying a lot. And for me it has meaning because unlike many other games in Sunday Roundups, I’ve actually played the prior 3 games!

Laura and another friend of mine bought me Red Dead Redemption on the PS3 for my birthday back when the game was new. I played a lot of it back then, but never came close to finishing. I think games like this (open world) just have so much stuff to do I get caught up doing side missions and never get around to completing actual story missions (Like I’m doing now in Far Cry 4). Either way, this is Wild West Grand Theft Auto, and it’s fun!

Man, has it really been eight years since this game came out? Along with the equally superb Fallout 3, I received BioShock as a Christmas gift for PS3 in 2007. I chose to play BioShock first over Fallout, and eventually completed both of them in their entirety. And wow, what a fun, story-driven experience BioShock has to offer! There are still vivid scenes engraved in my gaming memory that will be there for years to come, not the least of which being the awesome ending! Long story short, if you haven’t played BioShock yet, you need to.

I picked up Arkham Asylum awhile back and completed it. I thought the game was a great blend of action and puzzles. It’s for that reason that I found it pretty astounding the sequel, Arkham City, was heralded as an even better game in nearly every aspect. Despite this, I haven’t gotten around to playing it. Perhaps with this PC game I’ll finally experience the better of the two games.

A great find, albeit a loose game. I was at first worried because the cart didn’t work in my 3DS, but after some jostling of the cart in the system I got it to work. The game looks kind of grainy on the Nintendo DS, but if for some reason you haven’t played it on the PC, Xbox, iPhone, and pretty much any device imaginable before, then this is a qualified version that you’ll still enjoy. There’s something oddly satisfying about the chaos that is clearing orange pegs!

It took me about a month to finally see Laura’s mom and stepdad for a significant amount of time, so I finally picked up the birthday gifts they gracious got me! One of them was Codename: S.T.E.A.M. on 3DS, which was a game I have been itching to play! The demo was a bit slow, but still really fun. And there’s amiibo support, and I actually have a Marth amiibo to use! It’s gonna be great.

The newest installment in the stalwart Mortal Kombat series looks to be one of the goriest yet! You know, the fatalities and blood are what made the series so well known, but I feel like I’ve come to like the series more for its lore than anything else. The fighting comes second, haha! If only they could make a halfway decent spinoff game concerning story then we’d be set!

Last and certainly not least is the game I picked up a Balance Board way back when for: Wii Fit U! I’ve heard it’s nothing too special, but for some reason I’ve been really wanting to play this game. I think because it’s the newest installment in the game I’m wanting to play it more. And the Fit Meter could be a cool addition that I’m sure all the walking I do at work will enhance. Here’s to getting (Wii) fit!