Unfettered Blather

Really slow month for gaming. There isn’t a lot out right now and I’ve been busy at work, so new samplings are few and far in-between.

GAME OF THE MONTH Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Soulstorm
Winning game of the month this time is kind of like those places that give people turns getting Employee of the Month. Not that Soulstorm is a bad game, but it didn’t have much competition.

BEST OF THE MONTH
	#1 Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Soulstorm (PC) The Dawn of War series has always appealed to me even though I generally hate Real-Time Strategy games. Unfortunately, Soulstorm was not made by Relic but was contracted to Ironlore. The end result is a game that is ambitious but missed some of the concepts that made the last expansion, Dark Crusade, so great. In particular the game features much more grinding and is a lot less fun despite the addition of two new races. Still a solid RTS game and enjoyable in its own right, but a step backwards despite the added content.
	#2 Dead Rising (360) On loan from a co-worker, Dead Rising is a solid zombie fighting game that falls apart everytime you try to do anything with the story. In a lot of ways this is Grand Theft Auto III except with zombies. Great so long as you never bother to do anything the designers intended for you to do. I do have fun finding new and creative ways to kill, maim, and generally screw around with the zombies.

BEST SO FAR

1. Portal (X360)
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (X360)
3. Guitar Hero II (X360)
4. Crackdown (X360)
5. Endless Ocean (Wii)
6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
7. Halo 3 (X360)
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (X360)
9. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (X360)
10. Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Soulstorm (PC)

WORST SO FAR

1. Call of Duty 3 (Wii)
2. Road Trip: Arcade Edition (GCN)
3. Carnival Games (Wii)
4. Yaris (X360)
5. Virtual On Marz (PS2)
6. Hexic HD (X360)
7. Pac-Man: Championship Edition (X360)
8. Bankshot Billiards 2 (X360)
9. Small Arms (X360)
10. Two Worlds (X360)

YOU’RE OUT OF THE RUNNING
And now we bid farewell to those games that won’t make either list.

• Dead Rising (X360)
  Capcom simply made too many bad design choices with this game. The lesson that needs to be learned is that the fun part of the game should be the game. If it is fun to fight zombies then missions should be based around that. Also, the idea that they could ignore the needs of SDTV users when HDTV is still a relatively new technology was flawed from the start. Why limit your audience. I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t for the fact I can’t read the text. Thanks! That is just one of many annoyances. Why they made such a great zombie fighting game and then weighed it down with one irritation after another mystifies me. I spend much of the time playing the actual game wondering why Capcom seems to hate players.
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (X360)
  I still uphold this as one of the best RPG’s available on current consoles, but still inferior to its predecessor. I like Bethesda’s ongoing ambitions to create huge game worlds, but they continue to not learn from their mistakes and it’s beginning to grow tiresome. While I enjoyed Oblivion I can’t say that I’ll be hotly anticipating Elder Scrolls V unless they decide to make up for some control issues, poor character modelling, and lackluster story. Vast yet same doesn’t feel vast.

JUNE STATISTICS -
Average Cost: $20
PC - 1 Title (50%)
X-Box 360 - 1 Title (50%)
2 Titles

STATISTICS SO FAR -
Average Cost: $16.27 per game
Gamecube - 5 Titles (6.1%)
PC - 2 Titles (2.4%)
Playstation 2 - 10 Titles (12.2%)
Wii - 13 Titles (15.9%)
X-Box - 15 Titles (18.3%)
X-Box 360 - 37 Titles (45.1%)
82 Titles

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