VIDEO GAMES
section by: Justin Clark and SCOTT!
RED DEAD REDEMPTION
360, PS3
5/18
MSRP: $59.99
Remember Red Dead Revolver? Yeah, me neither. Moving on.
Troubled production doesn’t even begin to cover what was happening behind the scenes at Rockstar while this game was in development, but whatever unhappiness plagued the game in its infancy, it sure as hell hasn’t shown up in any of the fantastic trailers released thus far. While I have the sinking feeling the general structure will have all the positives and negatives of GTA IV, that game’s ambition attached to a still under-utilized genre of gaming is an almost guaranteed win.
ALAN WAKE
Microsoft
360, PC
5/18
MSRP: $59.99
CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!
At this point I don’t know what to feel about Alan Wake. Swap out a few key phrases in the reviews so far, you could easily be describing Silent Hill 2, which should be an instant sell for a lot of gamers, but those same reviews seem to suggest a story that never reaches SH2‘s heights outside of the first chapter, atmosphere that never ups the ante once you’ve seen the initial bag of tricks, and those two elements are necessary to smooth over the klutzy gameplay that apparently plagues both games. Nevertheless, I don’t know how anyone with a yen for survival horror can look at the footage released so far and not let their curiosity get the best of them. If not now, certainly at the first significant price drop.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS
UbiSoft
360, PS3, PC, Wii, DS, PSP
MSRP $39.99
CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!
Aw, Ubi Soft, I know you wanted to cash in on that Shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal flick coming out on Friday, but you kinda caught us at a bad time. Surely, you could’ve saved this for one of those dead summer months we’ll be begging for a triple-A title to keep us sane while Twilight: Eclipse is playing on over 9000 screens for the delight of the repressed over- and undersexed around the country, not for when there’s two high profile titles already vying for gamer dollars? And it doesn’t help that, aside from the Prince himself looking like he has a face made of an abdomen, the game actually looks like a return to form for the series. My guilt while tooling around Red Dead Redemption this week will be palpable.
SPLIT/SECOND
Disney Interactive
360, PS3, PC
MSRP: $59.99
CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!
I don’t know what corner of Hades Disney pulled this game out of, but I can’t help but feel like every Criterion Games employee just had a “millions of voices cried out in terror” moment. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone made a run into Burnout‘s side of the demolition derby racing spectrum, and did it well, but with Burnout Paradise dipping its toes into the open world pool, it’s good to have this game around keeping the crash-into-shit-real-good faith.
TRAUMA TEAM
Atlus
Wii
MSRP: $59.99
CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!
I continue to believe this series’ true home is on the DS, but more Trauma Center is more Trauma Center, and this entry adds 5 different medical fields to the trademark surgery, including one guy who works in the ER by day, is a costumed superhero by night. Shine on, you crazy diamond of a series, you.
OOOOHH: ON THE DLC TIP
METAL SLUG XX
Xbox Live Arcade
5/19
1200 MS pts
Well, it’s Metal Slug. At this point you know whether you’re excited for this or not, because the song’s staying the same here, only now with DLC and co-op. But the formula hasn’t gotten old (yet), and this is one of the few games still upholding the old guard of run n’ gun shooters in any sort of next gen format.
ROCK BAND TUESDAY
Grateful Dead Pack 03 ($9.99/800 MS pts)
- Beat It on Down the Line +
- Cumberland Blues +
- Scarlet Begonias +
- Throwing Stones
- Touch of Grey +
- U.S. Blues +
The Smithereens – A Girl Like You
The Smithereens – Only a Memory +
+=Available in Lego Rock Band
$1.99/160 MS pts per track
The Grateful Dead joins the Foo Fighters and Weezer in the 3-DLC Pack Club this week. I’d say this is the only band of that group that earns it though: They stretch on, but there hasn’t been a Grateful Dead track yet that hasn’t been fun to play. The Smithereens tracks, I haven’t heard in close to ten years now, but my reaction upon hearing them was something along the lines of “Oasis,plus a better handle on melody, minus the dickhead sense of superiority”. This is definitely a good thing.