Not a lot this week, so I’m going to keep this short. Aliens: Colonial Marines (360
Deals
Target – Buy any game priced $39.99 and up and reserve an upcoming game for a dollar and get a free $10 gift card. Get a free $25 gift card with purchase of a 3DS or 3DS XL
Best Buy – Get Resident Evil 6 for $19.99. Get Forza Horizon or Halo 4 for $39.99 each.
Dishonored in Review
XCOM: Enemy Unknown in Review
Borderlands 2 in Review
I am still brooding over the loss of Rayman Legends in two weeks. So I will continue to not buy games when they are first released (Ni No Kuni being one of the few exceptions that I have made recently, but I regret that now, it is good but not $60 good) and likely hold off on Rayman until the price drops now out of protest, or maybe even buy it used. My main complaint is that I will be starting grad school in the fall and will, in all likely hood, have no time to play it then. Whereas I have all the time in the world to play it right now.
Good Aliens reference…. Never again, please
.
I finished both Dust on XBLA and Picross 3D on the weekend so I now have my single-player slate wide open.
I am torn between Ni No Kuni or Fire Emblem. I booted Fire Emblem up this morning for a quick spin and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Amazing presentation for the 3DS. Leaning towards it and picking away at SSX while on console time.
I gave up on Sly 4 and started Dead Space 3 because Barnes told me to.
I am also still racing in NFS:MW.
On the ukulele front, I am learning Guster’s “Jesus on the Radio” and R Kelly’s “Ignition Remix” because, well, just because.
How was Sly 4? I have no current interest since I wager Sony gives it away by year’s end, but I am a fan of the series.
I still refuse to touch Dead Space 3 until the price drops. Not as hard as I thought it would be, actually.
Sly 4′s production values are great, aside from the horribly long loading levels, but it plays so similarly to Sly 2 and Sly 3 that I felt like I had already played it. I got frustrated with a boss fight that felt like it wanted a level of precision that the controls wouldn’t allow for, so I quit. Keep in mind that I rarely play my PS3 so I’m not as adept on the DualShock as I am on the 360 controller.
“…you’re best off nuking this one from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
This made my day. Thank you.
I mentioned this in the JtS #161 thread, but I’m about 5.5 hours into Dead Space 3 so far and it has been *awesome!* The weapon crafting system is a real stand-out so far: tinkering with different part combinations opens up some surprising combinations, and it goes a long way towards restoring that feeling of playing as an improvisational engineer. That’s an element they really left by the wayside in the second game.
The story is another big improvement, at least so far. I’m very mindful of Brandon’s summation from a couple weeks ago: “Visceral is great at starting games but crap at finishing them.” Still, I’m already more invested in learning more about the core mystery in this game than I ever was in exploring the roots of some lunatic cult.
It isn’t perfect — the inability to manually save means I’ve lost a few minutes worth of progress on exiting the game, and the abundance of ammo and health packs further remove the action from the series’ survival-horror roots — but I’m enjoying it more the further I play.
So what’s the micro-transaction stuff actually do?
Ruin the game balance. They’re basically paid cheat codes.
It’s actually a time-honored tradition for the Dead Space franchise. The first game gave away a super-suit with every pre-order that radically increased Issac’s health, armor, and inventory capacity. Not only did that make the character far too powerful to be threatened by the early chapters on the game, it freed up all the cash he would have spent upgrading the normal suits and allowed him to max out his guns early too. All those tough game play decisions about how to manage your limited resources – gone.
Dead Space 3 is the same idea, but now EA expects you to buy your way out of playing the game. Want Issac’s scavenger bots to provide him with more crafting materials? Double their speed and capacity for $10! Don’t feel like crafting at all? The low, low price of $5 gets Issac a bundle of super-powered weapons so he’ll never feel threatened again!
I never used the free uber-suit in Dead Space 1, nor the similarly overpowered swag in the sequel because I *enjoy* building my character up from scratch. It’s practically half the game. Otherwise, I might as well just watch someone play it on YouTube.
Choosing not to buy the DLC cheats is the easiest decision I’ll make this week.
Thanks for the info