VIDEO GAMES
SECTION

by: Justin Clark and Matt Rose

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS
Activision
360, PS3, PC, Wii, DS
11/9
MSRP: $59.99/$49.99 Wii/$29.99 DS

CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!

Now that Treyarch is no longer the second string COD team, maybe we might actually get a polished single player campaign out of these guys. Considering they had two years to work on this, and they managed to get a new, uber-realistic engine made JUST for this game and some A-class actors to do voicework, there’s no excuse otherwise for the same level of detail to go into the campaign, especially if they’ve been listening at all to the earful Infinity Ward got for that lip-service single player experience Modern Warfare 2 got.

THE SLY COLLECTION
Sony
PS3
11/9
MSRP: $39.99

CLICK HERE TO BUY FROM AMAZON!

I’ve never been a fan of Sony’s first party platformers. They have the charm and attitude right, but the gameplay has always had far too much focus on collecting nuts, bolts, sparks, rings, dildos, etc to the point where actually getting interesting mechanics of environments to use your ill gotten booty on seemed like an afterthought. However, I’ve only played bits and pieces of the first two Sly Cooper games, and got the impression each time that these were something special as opposed to the Ratchets and Jaks of the world. It’s just by poor luck that I always stumble upon them when I’m playing, say, Psychonauts, or Mario 64 for the umpteenth time. So, I definitely approve of getting the chance to revisit these in sexy HD. If you have the money to find out if the 3DTV and PS Move support is worth it, can I borrow some?

Sidenote: FUCK YOU, EUROPE.

OOOHHHH: ON THE DLC TIP

GUWANGE
Cave
XBox Live Arcade
11/10
800 MS pts

It’s a Cave shooter. You know what you’re getting into. Just remember: Throw your controller left, or right. NOT directly toward the TV.

ROCK BAND TUESDAY

Bon Jovi Greatest Hits: Rock Band Edition ($19.99/1600 MS pts)

  • Bad Medicine
  • Blaze of Glory
  • Have a Nice Day
  • I’ll Be There For You
  • It’s My Life
  • Lay Your Hands On Me
  • Livin’ on a Prayer (RB3 version) X
  • Runaway X
  • Wanted Dead or Alive (RB3 version) X
  • We Weren’t Born to Follow
  • Who Says You Can’t Go Home
  • You Give Love a Bad Name (RB3 version) X


Deftones – My Own Summer (Shove It) X
New Order – Blue Monday X
Talking Heads – Burning Down the House X

$1.99/160 MS pts per track
X-Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansion available for 99 cents/80 MS pts

Like always, it seems, Harmonix doesn’t fuck around with the DLC list when a new game hits. My Own Summer has been a long time coming, and I can only imagine Harmonix sat on that track so long just so they could slap the Pro expansion on it and get players learning one of the greatest ominous riffs in modern metal from jump. I’m weird in that I actually prefer the Orgy cover to the original Blue Monday, and I assure you that’s the last time you’ll hear me say I prefer anything about Orgy, but it’s still a groovy track, especially for this game. You’ll start hearing parties of people drunkenly chanting Burning Down The House for miles on Tuesday.

Also, Bon Jovi.