This week continues on from last week’s RPG-shooter, one-two punch with its own combo of monster hack-and-slashing and bad guy shooting. Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma finally sees the light of day, as does Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. One title I don’t understand, the other one I don’t understand why it has to be so large. Mario Tennis also shows up for the 3DS, we have another summer movie tie-in to ignore and Sony encourages you to play with your wand.
New Releases
I played Dragon’s Dogma (PS3, 360) at E3 last year and was not impressed. Granted, at the time the game was a couple of months away from its original release date so my feelings may have been colored by the fact that the game was so not ready for prime time. Since then, a demo has been released and folks seem to dig it. I’m not opposed to a new action-RPG so I will gladly rent this one and give it a try. How’s that for a seal of approval? Maybe if I play it, I can understand what the title is about. I don’t think it’s about a dragon looking to get back its copy of Kevin Smith’s weird angel buddy comedy movie.
Tom Clancy is the military game equivalent of American McGee. Nothing this dude makes can be released without his name all over it, even if he is only tangentially related to the property. This week, the Tom Clancy juggernaut continues with Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier (PS3, 360). I stopped playing these games back with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter when I realized that I was terrible at military shooters and that the group I was gaming with online moved to the new hotness at breakneck speeds. To this day, GRAW is one of the lowest percentage games on my tag. Stupid Tom Clancy.
Mario Tennis Open is Mario Tennis on the 3DS. Yeah, that’s all I got.
Men in Black: Alien Crisis (PS3, 360, Wii) is a rail shooter that also features on-rails interrogation sequences which makes me think that this game is some sort of tax shelter for Activision rather than a product they expect to be even remotely successful.
The PlayStation Move’s reliance on a camera makes it a somewhat finicky peripheral in my basement set up, due to my overhead projector. Some games, like Tiger Woods and House of the Dead, work fine. Killzone 3 was an abject disaster. I’m not sure how Sorcery will fare, but I’d be interested in giving it a try. I don’t see it being something I play for a long time as I’m lazy, but it might be worth a try.
In PC news, Alan Wake: American Nightmare gets a PC release, DiRT Showdown gets down in the muck, EVE Online gets the Inferno expansion and Iron Front Liberation 1944 gives you yet another opportunity to tactically shoot up the battlefields of WWII.
Deals
Toys R Us – Buy one, get one at 40% off on all Wii, DS and 3DS games. Get a free $20 gift card when purchasing a 3DS. Save $30 when purchasing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and the strategy guide.
Target – Get a free $20 gift card with purchase of a 3DS. Get $10 in movie cash when buying either Battleship or Men in Black: Alien Crisis.
Best Buy – Get a free $20 gift card with purchase of a 3DS.
KMart – Buy any of the following DS games, get another of the following at 50% off: Super Mario 64 DS. Mario Kart DS, New Super Mario Bros., Mario Party DS
I… didn’t like the demo for Dragon’s Dogma. A lot of my friends were also raving like madmen about it and saying it was amazing. I just didn’t care about it, couldn’t get what was so amazing about the pawn system, and found the controls sluggish.
Big shrug for me.
I’ll probably just continue playing Grimrock and… some other game ;).
Yep, my demon hunter’s moving on to nightmare this week. Somehow, I’m managing to be between everyone else on NHS. There’s always a bunch of people one Act behind me and a bunch of people one Act ahead of me, but nobody’s ever on the same one as me (except for a couple work buddies, so it’s been okay).
Bill is supposed to send me the review copy of Dragon’s Dogma we got…so expect a NHS review soon. Maybe by the end of the week.
I liked the demo, but I could see that it was going to be a game that gets a mixed reception. THere’s some really great stuff in it, but some clunk that may be troublesome in a longer title.
I really like that it feels in some ways like a cross between Devil May Cry and Shadow of the Colossus, but with Western fantasy stuff.
Ghost Recon, I need a demo or a review or something. I’m not buying stuff like that sight unseen anymore. Might rent it. It could be great, might not be.
I’m picking at Witcher 2 (not barreling through it, can’t do that two in a row) and playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. My god, what a fun game.
I’m down for Dragon’s Dogma because of what it’s trying to be – a more accessible, wander-and-kill version of Dark Souls.
It’s interesting that Joystiq panned Dragon’s Dogma with the central theme “no story”, but gave Dark Souls a pass for the same sin. I suspect the muddier controls are probably the real tipping point. I had to play the demo twice before I understood how the game “wanted” to be played. Although there are attack combos, button spamming doesn’t work God-of-War well.
Speaking of low gamers core % games, I played call to Juarez for half an hour before realizing I hated it, and got 5/1000 gamers core to show for it… That and all guitar hero games.