The Long Days of Summer

Time to dust off the ol' pile...

Summer is an enigma in the gaming world. With the abundance of free time, oppressive heat that makes you want to stay inside until the evening, and eagerness to not be bored to tears, you would think it would be the perfect time to release a big named AAA title for gamers to sink their teeth. Right? Maybe? But it doesn't happen. Ever. Very few must buy games come out in the summer and, for the life of me, I have no idea why. It boggles analysts too for that matter, Michael Pachter discussing the question in an episode of Pac-Attack on Gametrailers a few weeks ago. I'm guessing developers know that the end of the year sees the most success with releases being closer to the holidays, but it leaves us in a figurative desert in the summer in terms of things to play.

But hey, cheer up! No need to dwell on it. What better time to attack the ol' backlog of games that you wanted to play but never had the time? That's the attitude I've adopted over the past month and will need to continue to adopt in the coming one. Thankfully, it's been somewhat successful thus far. Things started off well with Infamous 2, which definitely live up to my expectations. After that, I decided to dive into some PSN titles which are often not the best for trophies, but what can you do. First up was Super Stardust HD.

So pretty

This was one of those titles that is considered a staple of PSN for years and I finally got around to checking it out thanks to the Welcome Back program. Very much an arcade game to the core, Super Stardust HD basically has you flying around a planet busting up asteroids with 3 different weapons, each with their own characteristics and strengths. I've never been into the whole "high score" thing, but trophies the are decent and it entertained me for a good 5 hours before I was done with the campaign. The hardest trophy, which dares you to try to get a 10x multiplayer, means you have to basically get through about 75% of the arcade without dying, which was a tremendous bitch to do. But, after some cursing and hair pulling, I pulled it off. Overall, it's a really solid title and I could see myself playing it again. It's perfect for those times you just want to pick something up and play.

The next two after that were Beyond Good & Evil HD and Limbo, which I wrote about in my last two blog posts. They were ok overall, but I was definitely a little disappointed in them overall. And in terms of time wise, they didn't hold me over for very long - took maybe 2 weeks to get through them both and get all the trophies my stomach could stand (No way I'm doing that die only 5 times in Limbo BS - I'll just save my sanity now).

Square button x 100000000000000000000000

 On the disc side, I've been fooling around with Dynasty Warriros 7 with my cousin, Dave. It's a long running series that definitely hasn't innovated much, but for both of us, it holds a nostalgic soft spot in our hearts. When 2 and 3 came out on PS2, we demolished that shit. It was just fun as hell running through an army and mowing them down like the lawn. We grew connected to the characters and I even bought Dave this ballin' Guan Yu statue one Christmas. Who couldn't love that? Unfortunately, the series has essentially stayed the same for over a decade now, besides adding some new characters and restructuring the way the story mode goes. And that ain't enough to make it worth the $60 bucks.

I went through the story modes of the 4 kingdoms (Wei, Shu, Wu, and Jin) and appreciated that each was tied to an improved narrative and switched you from character to character for each mission rather than you just picking a dude (or lady) and playing everything with them. Mixed things up a bit. But even with that, it's the same freaking thing over and over essentially. Run, kill general, grab stat upgrade, repeat. There's different weapons you can equip with different characteristics, but it really doesn't matter. Just hit square. I have a high threshold for repetitiveness (clearly) so it doesn't bug me that much, but I can see how others are turned off by it.

Currently, we're playing the online component, Conquest Mode, once or twice a week together and probably will be playing it until probably the end of time because it's huge. Broken into 100 or so individual battles, we just jump in with a warrior we chose and, once again, kill everything in sight. Not the most exciting, but it's nice to casually chat and play together, both of us feeling like we're with a group of friends from our childhood. And of course, the looming platnium doesn't hurt either.

Stack that shit!

Currently, I'm playing Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, which is a DS port on PSN. It's been on my radar for awhile after IGN gave it a 9.My fiancee isn't digging it because she thinks its boring to watch, but as the one playing it, I like it a lot despite the fact that it's not great for trophies. The gameplay basically boils down to a version of Bejewled with an action/rpg twist. You get a certain amount of moves per round to move units, each with their own characteristics. Stack 3 on top of each other to attack. Line up 3 side by side to make a shield. You can remove units, link 'em, fuse 'em, etc. Needless to say, there's a lot of strategy that goes into each battle. The campaign's story is solid with some surprising humor and really teaches you the nuances of the game to deliver a really fulfilling strategy experience. I'm just about done with the single player campaign, which clocked in around 30 hours for me. With that, along with an extensive multiplayer mode, it's definitely a value for $15 bucks.

On the horizon, I'm going to delve into the Catherine business that I keep hearing about. It piqued my interest when it first came out in Japan as a game that was different and most of the scores it has gotten on Metacritic have been in the 80s, so it's got to be different in a good way. I'll probably ride that out for most of August and go for the platnium, hopefully keep me entertained until August 28th when the first must by game of the season hits shelves. Should be a stacked second of the year :)

We're gonna need a cleanup on aisle 5...