This past weekend I started playing the new Ninja Gaiden game on the DS. It’s controlled completely with the stylus. It’s pretty rad and does a good job of retaining the feel of the awesome Ninja Gaiden Xbox game on a handheld scale. Check it out if you like action games and don’t mind wailing on your DS screen a little bit.
Everyone’s nuts for Grand Theft Auto IV but I don’t have a 360/PS3 so I’m revisiting the original GTA3 on my Xbox. I originally played it on my PC way back when it came out almost 7 years ago. My PC at the time could barely handle it so I’m actually getting a better visual experience with the Xbox. The game holds up splendidly.
I got some nifty “trilogy” edition for Xbox that includes GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas. It’s a cool package with full-color manuals and posters for each game. I’ve played through both VC and SA on my PS2. I will probably revisit them at some point on Xbox. I’ve also got both of the spin-off “Stories” titles for PS2 but haven’t tried them yet. I got them from GameFly, which had a good system for buying used games.
I got Disgaea 2, new and sealed, for a mere $5 at Wal-Mart this evening! And you dipsticks are always telling me that Wal-Mart is evil, ha!
I bought all 4 of the copies they had. I’m keeping one for myself, sending one to Steve (that’s Dead Lantern Steve, not BeerOrKid Steve 
) and the other two copies are going up on good ‘ol eBay.
Tina and Genny are in Illinois for a few day to visit Tina’s sister, so I’ve been left to my own devices over the weekend. I’ve gone to Knickerbockers two days in a row to see The Favors; I think that technically qualifies me as a groupie. The fellas are going to the Zoo Bar for a 40/20 show tonight but I pussied out because I’m supposed to record an episode of Dead Politics with Mat & Deejay later tonight. Maybe I’ll swing in there if I’m done with the podcast early enough.
I’ve just started playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DS. It’s a really cool game, a perfect fit for the system. I love the comic Penny Arcade did on Layton. Play the game for a few minutes, you’ll get it.
One of my favorite sites, Hardcore Gaming 101, has a new article up on a bizarre Japanese indie game from the Super Famicom era: Hong Kong 97. It’s some wacky protest/commentary game about the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong in 1997.
I finished Breakdown for Xbox this weekend. I got it used a couple years ago when I first got my Xbox, and it just sat on the shelf until now. HG101 has a great write-up on the game. It does a few things really well and there are a handful of very cool moments, but the overall package is less than stellar - which is kind of a shame, since there are those little nuggets of greatness in there. You can get it for $6 or $7 bucks used and I think it’s definitely worth that, just be sure to set the difficulty to “easy” otherwise the frustration-to-reward ratio will be way out of wack.
I also got the new Advance Wars DS game tonight at one of the Gamestop stores in town. Of course it was about 15% cheaper at the Wal-Mart that was a few yards away, but I had a gift card for Gamestop. The dude working the register told me the game was “totally awesome” and I trust his professional opinion.
I wholeheartedly recommend any of the Advance Wars games for either the GBA or DS. All of them are great and you’ll get tons of playtime out of them.
Via Destructoid, this homebrew game called I Wanna Be The Guy looks amazing. It’s an insanely difficult mash-up of all our favorite old-school video games. I won’t ever attempt to actually beat it, because I just don’t need that sort of stress in my life, but I will check out the run-through of the game available on the dude’s YouTube page.
From Destructoid, here’s a list of their top 15 YTMND’s of 2007.
I love YTMND, every once in a while you see something really genius.
There’s a nifty gallery at DS Fanboy with new images of the upcoming Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. The art designs for the new CO’s is awesome.
I’ve been trying this “hidden” faux-HD mode the developers of God of War 2 came up with. I must say, this game looks amazing in this mode. I just played through the sequence where Kratos flies to the Island of Creation and fights the griffons in mid-air. Friggin’ awesome.
It’s mostly the game itself and the fantastic level design and all-around high production values that make it look so good - it’s awesome in standard-def; but this HD mode is a treat.
God of War is to the Playstation 2 what Resident Evil 4 was to the GameCube: A game that is just so amazing, you have to do a double-take, like you can’t believe this game is running on that hardware.