Yea for getting carpal tunnel playing on your phone! With the iPhone 2.0 update last week, so came a wealth of apps. I naturally went right for the (free) game category.

[More]

The other day at work, I was messing with drag and drop in Flex for the first time and was surprised at how easy it is. As always, my mind starting thinking "how can I make a game out of this?" And the answer was obvious: Make a dungeon!! I played Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground for PSP a LOT. Way too long, far past when the game is interesting and fun and deep into the terrain of "this game sucks, but how does it end?"

[More]

Goodbye WoW, hello PS3. Being able to download demos right to your next system is so sweet. So I've gone hogwild and here are some demo reviews! Just think, 15 years ago when the undisputed best game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, was released (damn I feel old saying that), "camera controls" were non-existent in games. Now it alone can break a game.

Heavenly Sword

Here was my complete experience with the demo: Long download, long install, long load time, /skipscene, 6 minutes of play time, long load time for friend, /skipscene, 6 minutes of play time, delete the demo. I thought the game would be far more God of War feeling, but alas.

Bladestorm

WAAAAAAANT!! The demo can take 15 minutes or 2 hours. I'd recommend dragging it out 2 hours. Still another month until this is released, can't wait. Fight in the 100 Year War as a mercenary. Lots of upgrades to get, lots of killing to do.

Clive Barker's Jericho

A FPS with plot? What? No. If you wanted to play this game, watch the intro movie, where all the characters are introduced. You won't want to play the game anymore.

Stranglehold

Cool in theory, though far from original, going into slow-mo mode for shooting guys, but the controls are no good. Using two sticks moving around and shooting, I always end up looking at the sky or ground. Need a mouse.

Stuntman: Ignition

I didn't play the original Stuntman, but I heard the load times killed the play experience. This has very quick level resets and has very fun levels. I'm hoping the full game lets you control the camera angles in the replay, the AI ends up making a terrible movie. I think this would be worth the investment, could be a really fun game (until Burnout is released for PS3).

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I was trying to stack some furniture so I could talk to the painting that was calling me over and get a warning saying "demo will expire in 1 minute". WTF? A timed demo? They removed content from the demo AND limit how long you can play. Doesn't make me want the game at all. Bet this is fun on Wii, waving your wand around.

Full Auto 2: Battlelines

1080p Twisted Metal, hmm. Put guns and missiles and mines on your car and blow up other cars, what's not fun about that? Guessing this is good as a party game, assuming 4 people can play on one system.

Skate

Very interesting control system for a skateboarding game. Rather than skating up to a rail and hitting square to automatically start griding on it, you flick the right stick to make your character ollie up onto the rail. Seems more realistic, but I'm not about to master the game and assume that knowledge transfers to the real thing (I'm looking at you, Guitar Hero fans).

Armored Core 4

At the start of the demo, it says it features the game at an early stage of development. I'm hoping that's it. The controls are a mess.

Folklore

Pokemon, but it's with demon souls. Nice use of the motion sensing controller, you "yank" the souls out

Blast Factor

A puzzle game purchasable from the PSstore, $9.99. Hectic, but fun.

Years ago in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for PS2, I noticed that whatever car you're currently driving, you see more of on the road. I dubbed this the GTA Effect. Shortly after, I got my Blazer, and proved the GTA Effect holds true in real life. I don't remember seeing a Blazer before I got mine, suddenly they were everywhere. This continued to hold true when I got rid of the Blazer and got my Impala. Now I never see Blazers (of course, it helps that they were discontinued), but Impalas were everywhere. Now I just got rid of the Impala for an Equinox. I'm not seeing other Equinoxes on the road, but all the sister cars and other crossover class cars from other companies (Pontiac Torrent, Ford Edge, etc) are everywhere. I wonder if it's that I'm more prone to notice a car when I'm driving the same thing, or if I'm a major trend setter and whatever car I buy, everyone else in the area decides to get too.

If you've ever played Kingdom Hearts 2, you know the most powerful command in the game is [Skip Scene]. The plot absolutely sucks. The same can be said for volume 1 of the new .hack series, G.U. Voice actors are awful, dialog is terrible and slow, and you have no option to speed through the conversation, just skip to it.

Not only am I spending my Sunday night at home alone playing video games, but I'm playing a game where I'm controlling a character that's playing a game. The .hack games take place inside a fake MMO, where the characters are far too into the game. In this one, there's a character (which looks like the main guy from the first .hack series, I never saw the ending of that so it might be him) that goes around killing other characters and by doing so, put their real life selves into a coma.

...

And the main character of this game stated that he thinks if he can find and kill the other character, that the people will come out of their real life coma.

... right ...

So you skip anytime people start talking. The game does a good job of keeping track of what you're supposed to do, almost like they're anticipating the plot to be unwatchable. Once you're past all that, the same is pretty fun. You gain levels quickly, the random world generation allows for near infinite places to fight monsters, and the computer controlled characters are actually useful in combat.

The last .hack series of games went by really quickly if you stuck just to the plot, but it's hard to not start exploring the random dungeons to collect l33ter lewts. But also like the other series, you're better off renting. Since the video game series will go on for probably 3 more games, you know each game will be short and with a predetermined level cap. Or get it from Game Stop and beat it in a week, to return it for full value.

Blizzard finally released a mini site about StarCraft II! I'm a bit shocked that Blizzard's even bothering to make more games, since they're raking in the loot with World of Warcraft. There's no date on it and the details are all very sketchy. I saw an article in a recent Game Informer, suggesting other games "now that you're board with WoW" Guess it's best to diversify your game base before your main source starts to decline. Based on how long Blizzard usually takes to polish a game, I wouldn't expect anything before Q1 2008. What they have so far looks nice. I'll keep my eye on this! StarCraft was one of the biggest games of all time, I would guess. I'm guessing the sequel will be labeled as one of the most anticipated releases of all time. StarCraft was released in 1998, but you can still find it on the shelf of any video game store. How many non-MMO games are on the shelf for 2 years, much less 9?

I got to exalted with the Aldor yesterday, letting me upgrade my shoulder enchant. Next to get to exalted will be the Consortium for that sweet dagger. I'm only barely honored with them though, so the grind will stink. I'll start farming the insignias, but not turn in anything until 2.1 is released. If there's to be new Consortium related content, their might be new quests or instances to get rep in.

It seems that's all WoW is at level 70. You grind for reputation, farm for materials, and every once in a while go into a dungeon, though only for more rep, quests, and materials.

Booooooooooommmmmmmmmmb

I can easily say I didn't give this enough time to really appreciate it. I played for under and hour before I got mad at it and quit. Bruce Campbell doing the voice over is the best part by far.

Controls are loose, there's loading time scattered all over the place, and interacting with objects requires a silly amount of precision. Such as one of the first missions, you have to destroy 7 bombs on a building. You're crawling around the outside of the building and hit triangle when you get to the square shaped bomb. But for some reason you can only destroy the bomb from one of the four sides. Web swinging didn't have the feeling of speed that Spider-man 2 did for Gamecube. There's upgrades for all that I'm sure. But I have to remain interested in the game long enough to get to those upgrades.

One amusing thing is how buggy the NPCs are. You finish a mission for a little white lady and return her purse or whatever. She'll tell you about the next mission in her husky black man voice. That's hot.

2 out of 5 [Slimy Murloc Scales]