I picked up Resistance 2 when I first bought my PS3 and loved every moment of it. Those of you who missed either 1 or 2 now have a killer deal coming your way in the form of a greatest hits bundle. You can see the insert here . The ad which is inserted into the Battle Los Angeles Blu-ray says it will come with $10 worth in extras and an exclusive Resistance 3 skin. $39.99 is a heck of a deal for 2 great games. Source: IGN

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Resistance Bundle is coming

These new screens were just released for the upcoming Pirate RPG, Risen 2: Dark Waters. Set several years after the end of Risen, raging titans have devastated the world and pushed humanity to the brink of existence. Subsequently, monstrous creatures have risen from the watery depths of the sea and their attacks have brought all seafaring to a grinding halt. The hero, now a member of the Inquisition, is sent out to find out how to stop the chaos caused by these creatures from the deep. His quest begins with rumors that the pirates who frequent the southern islands are the only ones who know a way to get rid of the creatures once and for all and end their reign of terror. With an all-new pirate-based theme, Risen 2: Dark Waters aims to combine the most loved classic RPG gameplay mechanics of the original Risen with a fresh theme and setting on a huge variety of themed island locales. A third-person role-playing game set in a dark and gritty universe, Risen 2: Dark Waters maintains the most immersive features of the original Risen, with multiple approaches to every challenge allowing players to shape the game world based on their own decisions. These choices will serve to unlock new paths, features and additional skills for the character. Together with a highly interactive environment and a full day/night-cycle affecting countless aspects of the game world, Risen 2 will be set in the most immersive RPG game world so far. Source: Press Release

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New Risen 2 Screens Have Just Been Released

American McGee, told CVG , that the original Alice will be included as free DLC with purchase of Madness Returns. “There’s also going to be pretty significant release which is the original Alice brought over to the consoles so that a person who’s purchased Madness Returns gets a download code and is able to bring Alice 1 onto their console and play through the entire original game alongside playing Madness Returns.” This will be awesome, especially for those of us that never played through the first game.

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Alice: Madness Returns Will Include DLC of the Original Game

This week Tron: Legacy is finally out. I enjoyed the original Tron as a child, I doubt very many people that watched the new one ever watched the original. I re-watched it a couple days before watching the new one and I’m glad I did. Noticed some things in the new movie I wouldn’t have otherwise. If you are going to buy the blu-ray I suggest getting the version that has the original Tron bundled in. In short I loved Tron: Legacy. It honors the classic and brought it up to date in a great way. The soundtrack is amazing! All done by the famous Daft Punk, they even made a cameo in the movie which fit perfectly. I’m glad I didn’t go all out and get the Collectible Version of Tron: Legacy. Which is basically just for the identity disc. Here is a photo of it in the dark . Kind of looks cheap like I thought it might. Now if it was dark metal and glowed even all around, count me in. The last Narnia movie I didn’t enjoy to much to be honest. I liked the first 2 though. We also have some Anime Blu-rays this week (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Part 4 & Evangelion: 2.22 You Can [Not] Advance). Anything interest you this week? END OF LINE Highlights for this week & last week : Tron: Legacy / Tron: The Original Classic, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Tangled, Black Swan, Mad Men: Season Four, Evangelion: 2.22 You Can [Not] Advance, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Part 4, The Ten Commandments, Sherlock Holmes: Complete Collection [Blu-ray] (1939), Teen Wolf, Taxi Driver, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Babe,

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Blu-ray Releases for the Week of 4.6.11

We’ve all have had games we’ve despised, and games we’ve loved. Games that made us stand up and cheer, and games that made us stand up and throw the controller through the nearest window. Games that are a triumph and games that are…um…not a triumph. I’m not good with analogies. Anyway, we’ve all had games we’ve loved and games we’ve hated. It’s just the games I love are always within arm’s reach, and the ones I hate are in the bargain bins at Goodwill. MOST FAVORITE 5: Black, EA, Criterion Games, 2006 This is only a small fraction of the bullets you get to fire in this game. Man, look at that cover. Awesome. The European cover is really cool too. Enough about aesthetics, let’s move onto the actual game. This little known FPS may not match up with the more popular Red Faction and TimeSplitters (neither of which I’ve played, but have heard good things about; and plan to play them sometime this…decade), but it is up there with the elites on last-generation consoles. The graphics are phenomenal, pushing the PS2 (and, I imagine, the original Xbox) to it’s limits. Sound is great, particle effects are great, lighting is great. I’ll even say that it’s better looking than some early PS3 FPS games. The plot is average, the usual “super secret black ops guys taking out Russian/Chinese/Middle Eastern terrorists in the most awesome way possible”. The story, however, is moved forward in live action cutscenes, all of which are very artistically done. The cinematography in them is better than some certain Hollywood “films” . An unnamed federal agent grills your character, Jack Kellar, on things that happened over the week, so the parts that you play in are the semi-clichéd “flashback” scenario. Criterion Games is more famous as being EA’s Burnout -developing powerhouse, but it proved in 2006 that it could make a very good FPS. I don’t often play FPS games (GAMING BLASPHEMY!), but if they start to get as good as Black , I might actually have to start playing them. There’s been rumors of a 7th Gen sequel to Black , but that continues to seem less likely. I really do wish for a Black sequel, because the first one was amazing. 4: Saint’s Row 2, THQ, Volition, 2008 Is Saint’s Row 2 better than Grand Theft Auto IV? That depends… I’ve never played the original Saint’s Row , as it came out in that awkward stage before the PS3 release but after the 360 release, and like so many early 7th Gen games that would’ve gone multiplatform had the PS3 been out, the original Saint’s Row went 360 exclusive. Because of SR2′s unfortunate release date just months after Rockstar’s epic Grand Theft Auto IV (which won’t be making this list, more on that later), SR2 was immediately put under the GTA microscope, and, of course, it didn’t hold up. However, I always compared SR2 and GTAIV like this: you play IV for nice graphics, a gripping, epic storyline, and realism. You play SR2 when you just want to have an unreal amount of fun. That’s not saying that IV ‘s not an insane amount of fun, it’s just that SR2 is quirkier. The vehicles in SR2 are more unique and more varied, even if there are less, as is the locale of the game. The missions are more epic, the storyline more insane, and there are more weapons than you can shake a detached hand at. Sure, it’s not GTAIV , but it’s not trying to be. It’s just trying to be fun. From the crazy outfits and styles you can create with the games above average creation tools, to running over the frightened civilians of Stilwater in a monster truck, Saint’s Row 2 is just plain fun. 3: Mass Effect 2, EA, BioWare, 2010-2011 This looks so much better bordered by PS3 black than 360 neon green. If you read my review of Mass Effect 2 , you know I absolutely adored the game. It seemed perfect: graphics, plot, open world, great action. But it’s so much more than that. You are literally engulfed in your role as Commander Shepard, every mission seems almost real, every character seems like your friend…or enemy. That may have something to do with BioWare’s excellent dialogue system. I went into further detail in my review, but ME2 ‘s dialogue system is the very best I’ve ever seen, and perhaps the very best ever put into a video game. The customization features in ME2 have been praised, and for good reason. They’re significantly better than Saint’s Row 2 ‘s customization tools. (although that may have something to do with the fact that ME2 ‘s graphics are several steps above SR2 ‘s). I said in my review for ME2 , you can make a red-headed Michael Jackson if you have the patience. The fact that you can make yourself the new Commander Shepard may have something to do with immersion level I mentioned earlier. The work that went into ME2 must’ve been massive and time consuming. In the end, it’s worth it, as this is clearly one of the most epic games I’ve ever played. My level of immersion is rivaled only by… 2: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, 2004 I think I spent one full month in my basement playing GTA:SA. It’s that good. A lot of people prefer the precursor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City , over San Andreas . I don’t blame them; I just love SA more. I could fill this entire list with Rockstar games…or, more specifically, just Grand Theft Autos . I’ll go with this one because it is by far my favorite GTA . The storyline might not be that of Vice City ‘s, but it’s larger and, in my opinion, twice as amazing. Everything about San Andreas is larger; it’s three major cities in one huge open world. The graphics are pretty average, but with the sheer level of content and gameplay you get with San Andreas , the graphics take a back seat. The storyline is average Boyz N The Hood kind of stuff; you play as Los Santos, San Andreas gangster Carl Johnson who left home to Liberty City after his brother was murdered in 1987, only to return to Los Santos in 1992 to help bring the gang back (the Grove Street Families) to power after a botched hit on his older brother, Sweet Johnson, leader of the gang, lead to the death of his innocent mother. Sweet eventually gets arrested and incarcerated in an unknown prison, and Carl has to become an errand boy in order to get him out, and get revenge on the two former friends who sold out the Johnsons for their own selfish needs. More weapons than any previous, or future, GTA game, more vehicles too; over 200. The reason I chose this over GTAIV is that I just had more fun with San Andreas . More immersion and a bigger locale than in GTAIV , coupled with the seeming never-endingness of San Andreas (I still haven’t beaten the storyline, even after all this time) while IV can get boring after awhile. San Andreas doesn’t. 1: Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games, Rockstar San Diego, 2010 Pictured: My entire 2010 Like I said in San Andreas , if I had my way, this entire list would be filled with Rockstar games. I decided to whittle it down to just two. But this is, by far, Rockstar’s best. The mere mention of Red Dead Redemption will draw me into a conversation with complete strangers. From the epic music score (the official soundtrack CD is never far out of my reach), to a phenomenal storyline, to an emotional bond with a horse that only Shadow of the Colossus can compare to, RDR is truly a tour de force. Whether it’s riding the frontier from West Elizabeth to Nuevo Paraiso, taking in the scenery, to enjoying the game’s fantastic Undead Nightmare DLC , to taking back gang hideouts, Redemption has something for everybody, even if that something is just collecting herbs you find around the frontier. The gameplay may not give you that feeling you’re riding a horse, but it comes very close. The shootouts are electric, and the characterization and voice acting is so good that the characters in the game occasionally merit an emotional response, like when John Marston is saying goodbye to his childhood hero and adult mentor Landon Ricketts. Red Dead Redemption is so much more than just “Grand Theft Horse” that unoriginal Internet hipsters and people with bad taste have called it. Red Dead Redemption is a truly beautiful game. Rockstar’s games are always rated “Mature”. Redemption is, arguably, Rockstar’s most ‘mature’ game yet. – LEAST FAVORITE 5: Independence Day, Fox Interactive/Activision, Radical Entertainment, 1997 A flight simulator? Ha! The Roland Emmerich film was decent. The Radical Entertainment video game wasn’t. In ID4 , you play as a fighter jet pilot trying to complete a list of objectives, and blow up stuff either on the ground, on a large, city-destroying alien ship or the alien version of fighter jets. This joint Activision (eww) and Fox (EWWW!!) production, ID4 is a “flight simulator” on the PSOne. As bad as that sounds (and believe me, it’s bad), Radical somehow screws it up even worse. The controls are ungodly clunky, making me thankful analog sticks were invented. It’s incredibly difficult to even complete the simple tasks the game’s campaign gives you. The graphics are no better. I wasn’t expecting much for a PSOne game in the second decade of the 21st Century, but when you fly into a wall into this game, your plane bounces off and starts heading into the opposite direction, only losing a bar of health. Just like a real fighter jet! The one possible redeeming factor ID4 gives you is that you can fly multiple planes in the game. The downside to that is that each plane is utterly uncontrollable. 4: Dead Rising 2, Capcom, Blue Castle, 2010 I hate you, Chuck Greene. Ooh, edgy. An immensely popular, well received game and MAINEiac hated it? Why? Frustration, mostly. I disliked Dead Rising 2 for one reason: it was damn hard. Navigating a decently sized open world with no fast travel, and 500,000 undead standing in your way, it makes it difficult to get back to your safe house. There’s still no way to even put waypoints on the map. That’s annoying. I’m not asking for an open world at the level of Rockstar. I’m asking for a fairly competent one! Luxoflux could do it with True Crime . Why can’t Capcom do it with Dead Rising 2 ? It is damn near impossible to complete all of the challenges and missions in the game. You have several simultaneous challenges going on, and a certain amount of time to complete each of them. They’re all scattered over the massive open world, but there’s no efficient way to get to any of them. Some fall by the wayside, even if their important, because in the text Another thing that annoyed me about DR2 was the health system. Eating food has always been a staple of video game health regeneration, but something about DR2 ‘s food system just really annoyed me. If all your item slots are filled up, you drop whichever weapon you’re holding. Normal enough. But it actually takes several seconds to eat the food, which could potentially put Chuck in danger, and thus wasting the health you just got. The thing that made me turn off my PS3 in anger was one of the cheapest set pieces I’ve ever encountered in a game. Inside a restaurant, there were these looters that you run into around the city. I thought I could take them out easy. Turns out, one of them sprayed a spray-can in Chuck’s face, and Chuck blacks out. He wakes up, naked except for his shorts, no weapons, no Zombrex (I had two on me at the time), no anything. That really annoyed me. I got up, turned off the TV, ejected the disc and drove back to GameStop to return it. It was the final straw. I just didn’t have fun with DR2 . I know, I thought that an open world game filled with zombies would be fun. Turns out it’s just frustrating. I’m not against challenging games, but when a game reverts to cheap cop-outs to up the difficulty, that’s where I draw the line. In my humble opinion, this game could’ve done several things differently and been fun. Another thing is that I just didn’t have fun with DR2 . I was positively bored most of the time, and the time I wasn’t, I was amazingly frustrated. Maybe I’m just a p***y and can’t handle a challenge in a game, but DR2 was insanely frustrating. At least for me. 3: Need for Speed: Undercover, EA, EA Black Box, 2008 An utter waste of time. When I was younger, Need for Speed was my favorite series, as the PC releases of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit and Need for Speed: High Stakes were fun racing games. How far NFS fell. Undercover is an ugly, clunky mess of a racing game, with a tacked on open world mode and horrendous, live action cutscenes. Like I said above with Black , live action cutscenes can actually be pretty good when done right. Undercover’s live action cutscenes, instead were horrendous, and filled with a bunch of people who I stretch to consider “actors”. It’s all meant to move forward this really dumb plot, and have you go drive somewhere to race someone. Maybe the 7th Gen versions were better, because I had this on PS2. Even so, it’s still on my list because of the sheer horribleness of the PS2 version. NFS has started their redemption with Shift and the reboot of Hot Pursuit . As long as EA avoids the mistakes it made in the past with NFS , it could become one of EA’s premier racing franchises, next to Burnout . 2: Driv3r, Atari, Reflections Interactive, 2004 A complete and utter abomination. Another once proud franchise that has fallen recently. Driver was Grand Theft Auto before Grand Theft Auto was even 3D. The cool plot, fun missions and great driving mechanics were all missing in Driv3r . Instead, we have clunky, tacked on on-foot action, archaic wanted meters, and a plot as stupid as it is boring. Cutscenes are almost hilariously bad, as is most of the dialogue (sure, it’s not Resident Evil level, but it’s still pretty bad). Even if the dialogue was actually good, the sound was horrendous. The driving system also feels old, which is weird, because the original Driver ‘s driving mechanics still feel, at least partially, fresh. The worst part is, Atari and Reflections knew that Driv3r was a bad product. Why else would there be such a thing as “ Driv3rgate “? Seriously, this was 2004′s Kane and Lynch . The series was able to regain some ground with it’s most recent release, Driver: Parallel Lines , and Ubisoft is now in charge of the eventually upcoming Driver: San Francisco , unveiled at 2010′s E3. There’s hope for a franchise that rose so high only to fall so far. 1: MLB Front Office Manager, 2K Sports, Blue Castle, 2009 Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here I am a baseball fanatic. I love the stats, I love the trades, I love everything about the sport. But this… this is an abomination of America’s pastime. If you’re like me and saw all the bad reviews for this game, and thought “It’s a game where you play as a GM of a baseball team. It can’t possibly be that bad!” and are thinking about picking it up, don’t. This is, by far, the worst game I’ve ever played. In a game where you spend 90% of the time, you’d think that the devs would try their hardest to make the menus look good and easy to navigate, right? Turns out, you’re wrong, because Blue Castle decided to make the menus as obnoxious and clunky as possible. Seriously, the menus in FOM should be shown in developer schools as an example on how NOT to be user-friendly. Here’s an example on how to do a trade in FOM : you go through this incredibly long and difficult to navigate main menu until you find a “team transactions” screen. You go through that until you find the trade screen, go through a clunky menu to look at players to trade…except their stats on on another screen that you have to go through, making it almost impossible to compare and contrast players. If you do get a trade proposed, you have to wait a few in-game days before the other GM gets back to you. You will receive a message from that GM whether or not that the trade has been completed. No negotiating. No counter-offer. Just whether or not it had been completed. Another thing that makes transactions obscenely difficult and annoying: the opposing GMs are all trying to get an edge, and if the trade is tipped slightly in your favor, 99 out of 100 times they’ll reject it. You will also receive trade offers from the other GMs, all tipped in their favor. It’s like you have Joe Mauer, and they’re offering you Jed Lowrie. Another thing that’s incredibly annoying is that you’re starting pitcher, no matter what his stamina, will only last three to five innings. If you’re not a baseball person and don’t know what it means, most starting pitchers last six to seven innings in a decent outing. Even if you’re pitcher is throwing a no hitter, he will ask to be taken out in the 4th inning. According to Metacritic, the PS3 version is actually the best version of the game; FOM got a 49 on the PS3, a 47 on the 360 and a 45 on PC. I can’t possibly see how this game could get worse, but evidently it has. Also, IGN gave it a 66? That’s like giving Driv3r a 97. And through it all, I honestly hope 2K comes back with a sequel to this. Sports management sims, especially for baseball, are right up my alley, and I really think this game could be awesome if done right. Until then, I’ll just stick with MLB: The Show ‘s Franchise mode, which is an infinitely better GM sim than this mess. This is also the second time Blue Castle Games has appeared on this list. You might not think they deserved it for Dead Rising 2 , but for MLB Front Office Manager , they definitely do. – Honorable Mentions: Burnout: Paradise , Destroy All Humans , World in Conflict , Gran Turismo 4 Dishonorable Mentions: LittleBigPlanet , Fallout 3 , EndWar , Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter , Call of Duty: World at War – Final Fronts If you’re wondering where epically well received and popular games like BioShock , Batman: Arkham Asylum and Battlefield are, I offer you this: I only have so much money and so much time, that some games get pushed to the side

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My Top Five Most (and Least) Favorite Games

Tim Schafer’s studio Double Fine, which created the innovative adventure/platformer “Psychonauts” and more recently the quirky Russian doll game “Stacking,” released the seasonally-themed light RPG adventure “Costume Quest” to PSN and XBLA on October 19, 2010. The game is a delightful bit of cotton candy fluff that features tongue-in-cheek but innocent humor, a solid if simplistic turn-based battle mechanic, and a healthy respect for the sense of empowerment that role-playing can bring to a kid or even to us, whether in a Halloween costume or through digital avatar. The game is suitable for everyone from a child who has never played an RPG before to an experienced and obsessional gamer (you know the type: the one who has to collect every single one of the five hundred useless doodads scattered throughout a game world). Costume Quest Review The conceit in Costume Quest is that your sibling has been carried off by interdimensional goblins (whom only kids can see!) who have invaded Suburbia, USA with the nefarious aim of stealing all the candy that they can lay their grubby little hands on. (The goblins are called Grubbins, by the way.) You choose at the outset whether you want to play as the brother or sister – a choice that has no impact on gameplay, but allows you to cast either gender in the role of hero and protector. But you need funds to accomplish your quest, and what’s a kid’s Halloween currency? Candy, of course! You must go house-to-house in the neighborhood trick-or-treating, and when the front door opens, you’ll either get a stash of candy or be confronted by a pugnacious goblin. When you enter combat, your little tyke in his/her costume cobbled from bedsheets, cardboard, duct tape, and the like grows into an enormous, superheroic instantiation of the costume type. So the hokey cardboard robot becomes a massive Voltron-like powerhouse. The goblins similarly expand, and you and your opponents face off in turn based battle looming high over the suburban houses. Combat is turn-based and rather simple. Each costume has a generic attack and a special power, which charges up over time. You must pay attention during combat as the mechanics are quite reminiscent of “Paper Mario,” in the sense that attacks have timed button press sequences (which are rather rudimentary) that when properly executed do extra damage or minimize the damage that your character takes from enemy attacks. What spices up the battle is that fact that throughout the game you gather patterns and materials that allow you to construct new costumes (eleven costumes in all), which mean new characters on the battlefield when you don these costumes. You also gather party members over the course of the game, whose costumes you choose and who fight alongside you. Finally, the candy that you collect can be traded for “battle stamps,” which are sort of like items that your characters can equip and which allow for different kinds of buffs and attacks when battling, from increased critical damage to stunning attacks to health regeneration. Different costumes have different special powers as well, from area-of-effect attacks to resurrection of downed allies. It’s fun tailoring one’s party to suit one’s play style. But by about half-way through the game, if you’re like me, you’ll have found a formula that works quite well, and you’ll have little reason to vary it. Also, the outcome of the battles will rarely be in question, especially if you pull of the critical attack button sequence (which isn’t a difficult achievement). Battling aside, much of the fun of the game lies in exploration of the three main game areas, which include the neighborhood, a mall, and country fairgrounds. One must solve various puzzles to progress through the game, which often rely on using the various costumes’ powers. Many costumes have powers that can be activated in the game world, not just on the battlefield. The robot costume has rollerblades, allows you to jump ramps to otherwise inaccessible areas, the knight’s shield protects you from falling rocks, and so on. Some of the puzzles require some thought and experimentation, often they are solved readily enough by hunting down missing components of a necessary costume. Along the way there are side-puzzles, mini-games, trading card collection opportunities, secondary quests, and so on. You won’t be confronted with major challenges, but the puzzles are quirky and fun. The game is quite amusing in a sometimes dopey sort of way. But it does a great job of using humor that is appropriate for kids (and doesn’t even resort to the bathos of potty humor and fart jokes – which is a minor annoyance in “Stacking”), while at the same time offering clever socio-political commentaries that adults will appreciate as well as making occasional popular cultural references. (My favorite is an allusion to the sadly defunct Fox sitcom “Arrested Development.”) The game’s visual aesthetic is unique and charming. It’s cartoony in a rather original way, which is consequently difficult to describe. It might be compared to Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” meets “Southpark.” But ignore whatever associations you might have with either of the above texts: I’m just talking cartoon style here, not message, ethics, or humor. The music is serviceable in a workman-like fashion (it gets repetitive), and there is no dialog. But hey, it’s a PSN title. “Costume Quest” is a fun diversion built on a satisfying and quirky adventuring premise. It’s a fun world to explore and to master, and it is one of those rare games that is rewarding for both kids and adults. A speed run-though might only take a few hours, but plan on eight or so hours if you intend to explore all the crevices, finish all the side quests, and collect all the PSN trophies (of which there are twelve, including one gold and four silver). The main downside is that battle eventually becomes repetitive and is always win-able, except in the rare boss fights, which can provide slightly greater challenge and which sometimes require particular costumes and battle-stamp combinations to win. I would have liked to see a little more variety in battling options and strategic opportunities, but I recognize that the fighting mechanic is designedly somewhat stripped-down for the sake of being accessible to a young audience. Also, it should be said that the game has very little replay value. But don’t think that I don’t like the title: This is a charming game suitable for your entire family. Review Pros Cons Unique, seasonal, and empowering game play Satisfying exploration and collection Eccentric, family-friendly humor Battles become repetitive Little replay value Rating 75% Costume Quest DLC Review – Grubbins on Ice “Grubbins on Ice,” the DLC expansion to Double Fine’s “Costume Quest,” was released on PSN and XBLA on December 21, 2010. In this game, your collection of friends ventures through one of the goblins’ interdimensional portals into their monster land, where you’ll aid in a Grubbins revolution. The format here is much the same as in “Costume Quest”: You trick-or-treat and gather candy just like before, except now the candy funds revolutionary coffers, and the houses are inhabited by goblins – some who are comrades and some who decidedly reactionary. The game offers a new breed of enemy, but the enemy soldiers are all one of four types, just as in the original game: warrior, archer, buffing priest, or damaging mage. You’ll have access to all of the original title’s eleven costumes, and over the course of this adventure, you’ll unlock three more costumes (two of which are necessary to advance the story and one of which is not) as well as eight new battle stamps and assorted new collector’s cards. There’s another apple-bobbing game and another find the hiding children quest: It’s much of the same, but with an eccentric new tileset in this alternate universe. The new costumes are cute: pirate, yeti, and eyeball. The eyeball has a neat adventuring power, which zooms the camera out a bit from the map, allowing you to see more, including hidden places that you might jump to. My gripe, though, is that the eyeball power is actually only helpful in one particular place, and your companions tell you to use the ability there, which sort of ruins the puzzle. Moreover, when I got to that spot, I hadn’t yet assembled the eyeball costume, but I was still able to divine where I needed to jump to reach the secret area – so the eyeball’s adventuring power was never useful to me. It’s a neat idea, but it was woefully underused, and it feels rather tacked on. The puzzles seem easier and more geographically contained in this expansion pack. But even if this game is less intellectually demanding (if that’s not too strong a term for the original title), it still has a great sense of humor. The final boss fight, though, is more challenging than any of the battles in the original game. Granted, one of the main reasons that I lost the battle on my first attempt was that the boss fight took me by surprise, so I hadn’t had time to change my party into their boss-killing costumes and arm them with the appropriate stamps. Still, a fun battle, and more rewarding than most of the battles in the game. My main beef with this DLC is that it is really quite short. I spent somewhere between two and three hours playing it, and I did every secondary quest, acquired every battle stamp and trading card, and won every PSN trophy (five this time, including one gold and three silver). Is the DLC worth 5 USD? It’s hard to say. If you’re jonesin’ for more “Costume Quest,” then yes, this title has all the charm of its parent game plus a few new costumes. But if you want “bang for your buck,” then this isn’t the place to invest your money. Review Pros Cons More quirky fun with costumes Too short an experience Little replay value Rating 40% –

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Costume Quest & Grubbins on Ice DLC Review

user-reviews.ps3blog.net – On our new site, you can review video games and movies , create or vote in polls , and earn badges (more coming later). If you want to review PS3 Games, PSN Games, or even PSP games, I highly recommend you do it on PS3Blog.net first. If you don’t have access to post news/reviews and would like to, please let me know here . If you already have reviews posted on here, feel free to copy them over to our new review site. At the end of your review, put a link back to your original post at PS3Blog.net. You will need to create a new login for this site, but you can log in using your Facebook. If you just want to rate/review movies on the new site, that’s perfectly fine too. Note: You won’t be able to earn any points on this new review site, so make sure your still active here as well! If the game or movie isn’t listed, you can add it to the community. Make sure you add all relevant tags and information it asks for. We already have some of our members signed up on the new site. I’ve put a widget in the community part of the site that will show the latest activity as well. There is also a link in the main menu for this site under Reviews called “User Reviews”.

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Review Games and Movies on PS3Blog.net | User Reviews

An HD collection of the original Metal Gear Solid trilogy is on the way to PS3, according to inside rumors heard by the ears of the UK’s Official PlayStation Magazine. In the mag’s new issue, in stores now, it reports that Snake is “in the facelift queue”, and that the “first three” MGS games are set to be reborn in High Definition. As for now this is a rumor, but chances are pretty good.

Originally posted here:
Metal Gear Solid Trilogy Collection Come to PS3?

Welcome to a new feature for PS3Blog.net. As many of you know, I’ve only owned a PS3 for a year (bought a slim console in November 2009) and thus, I had a list of several games I wanted to try for myself since I was a late owner and it’s been a while since Sony’s latest console materialized at retailers. This got me thinking about how there might be others that have either bought their PS3 in the last year or could have even just obtained theirs a couple of days ago, and that they might find this site (along with PS3trophies.org) and make it one of their “go to” destinations for everything PS3 related. They won’t only need to know about the latest releases for their new console, as they would also  like to get an idea about what games they should add to their collection… as well as what games to only rent and/or avoid. It’s with that in mind that I realized that by adding reviews for older games we could better provide them with an “experience” that caters to most of their information needs. Now, with that out of the way, let’s get things started! Devil May Cry 4 was released on February 5, 2008 by CAPCOM, which, in video game years, means it’s already eligible for senior citizen status in the minds of gamers worldwide. Now, before you continue reading, please pop in the game into your PS3 and start installing it since it take about 15-20 minutes for the 5 GB data to be placed in the HDD, thus allowing you to finally plat it. What does the install do? Why, it shortens loading time by making you wait in advance! You can even go and make yourself a snack to comfortably read this review. DMC4 (let’´s do it this way so I don’t have to type Devil May Cry 4 every time I refer to the game… but then again the space that this explanation has taken would have allowed me to mentiot it by full name at least eight times. Oh well, carry on!) is what I like to call a transition game since it really doesn’t stray far from the original franchise format as to not make fans uncomfortable with their new purchase, and it brings them to the PS3 front for a game that is 70% DMC and 30% DMC3. You play as a white haired “sorta-demon” that is definitely a human looking kid (as is required when applying for the position of main protagonist of a DMC game) named Nero, who is part of an Order that worships and admires Sparda (the father of Dante and Virgil) a bit too religiously.. but all is not as it seems. Kyrie, the songstress of the Order, is performing a delightful song at a ceremony for Sparda when suddenly we start to see everything in a different light. Dante breaks into the Opera House and starts eliminating all the guards with great ease, for apparently no reason, until Nero decides to step in and have a go at it. Our new hero is 95% human and 5% demon since his arm is of “horns and sulfur” origin, but it turns out that all the members of the order are actually demons (as explained by Dante) and that Kyrie and Nero are actually their most normal members. Nero doesn’t believe Dante, of course (since doing so would make for a very short, 5 minute game), and is tasked with finding and eliminating the son of Sparda. As soon as he steps out a full on demon attack starts and the game proper begins. This is as much story as I’ll share, as to avoid accidentally starting a spoilers extravaganza here. For me, other than a deeper draw distance, some extra shadows and a bit of interesting lighting choices and shiny textures here and there, the game doesn’t feel much different than the original trilogy released for the PS2 (except for DMC2 which really wasn’t as bad as the press said it was, but isn’t as good as DMC3), and for new PS3 owners it’s a great option that doesn’t try shoehorning  limited motion controlled by way of the Sixasis (mmm, they don’t use that name anymore… I wonder why?) to spice things up. It does suffer from some unnecessary backtracking since you visit the same terrain several times, because it seems that doing so using  a character that controls a bit differently is a great way to reduce cost by reusing resources, while, at the same time, increasing the total number of hours needed to finish a game. Who doesn’t LOVE that? Did I have fun playing Devil May Cry 4? Yes, I certainly did. Would I change some things? Definitely. If you’re using a new character in place of someone who is considered the face of the franchise, you should go in a different direction instead of just using a slightly different hairstyle, a gauntlet and calling it a day. Maybe this game is in part responsible for the reboot that the franchise is due for. In case you don’t read forums, here’s the trailer that started the flames: You can still find new copies (always buy them new kids, it’s the best you can do for the industry!) of DMC4 here and there for $15-20 at most and at that price it’s a game that should fin a place in your collection. If you’re a fan of the series then you don’t have to overthink it at all. Due take into consideration that this game does not support trophies and, if you’re a trophy hunter like me,  you won’t have anything to show for it once you’re done with the game. DISCLAMER: This game was bought with some hard earned money and fully completed before writing this review.

Excerpt from:
Review Rewind: Devil May Cry 4

This game looks great, I remember playing it back in the day on the Genesis when it first came on. It was all that everyone talked about in school. NBA JAM this and NBA JAM that, a little BOOMSHAKALAKA here and there and off you went. But this game in HD looks amazing, and has tons of extra content that the original never had. Even with the price sitting at $50 I think a lot of people are going to want to get this. Honestly, I was hoping that the game would be for $20 as a DLC. Oh well I guess you can’t have everything.

Excerpt from: 
NBA JAM is On Fire!