Video games come out every week, and I’m going to tell you a thing or two about them. Really, that might be the most I can tell you. I won’t be covering every new release. That seems like a fool’s errand. Besides, I’m way too lazy to make sure I find every game. If I can’t be informative, maybe I can at least be entertaining.
This has been a crazy busy week at my “real” job. So, we need to get right to this folks. I’m short on time, but luckily, this week is short on games.
Lollipop Chainsaw (Xbox 360, PS3): I’ve watched the trailer for Lollipop Chainsaw a few times now, and I’m still not really sure what’s going on. I believe this game was at the last PAX I attended, but I never got around to checking it out.
Lollipop Chainsaw is a game about the cheerleader, Juliet, and her chainsaw with which she fights zombies in her high school. Apparently, Juliet has pissed off some “Zombie Rock Lords” and now they want to kill her. My guess is that she said they were totally U-G-L-Y and they had absolutely no alibi to speak of.
My friend Dub made a point on Twitter this afternoon. He said that he’s seen more coverage on the real life mascot of Juliet than he has of the game, and I would agree. Since PAX I’ve seen exactly one article about her and zero about the actual game. Now, one could argue that I just missed all the other articles, and that’s pretty likely. But, in my defense, the one article I saw about the mascot made boobs the main feature. That’s what this whole industry is about, right? Just nerds pining for boobs? You win, Lollipop Chainsaw.
Gravity Rush (Vita): I kind of ran head first into the idea of this game. Gabe and friend of the site, Harris, both talked this game up after seeing it several months ago. However, they never really told me what the game was about, or what it looked like. They said something about gravity, but that seemed implied with the name. I think the fact that I was just looking for something to play on my Vita lulled me into the idea that I would definitely, definitely want this game based off of their level of excitement. I checked out a trailer tonight and I can’t be more turned off. I did find one bit of humor. From the trailer:
“A young girl struggles to regain her lost memories, with only one friend by her side, and the ability to shift gravity“
I added the emphasis myself. That poor, poor fucking magical girl. She just has her one friend and the ability to control the fucking thing that keeps us attached to the ground and within a reasonable distance to the sun allowing life to be sustained on our fragile, little rock. I think she’ll be okay. I can drive a car. I guess that’s pretty impressive. Oh, until there’s no fucking gravity. I drew you a picture.
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (Vita): Over the weekend, I attended a couple of birthday parties. The theme of both parties seemed to be drinking fruity beverages out of large fish bowls. I didn’t even know this was an option on my birthday. I just drank beer like always. Can I get beer in a fishbowl? Also, both birthdays I attended were for women. Is there a fishbowl gender bias? These are the important questions I have. I’m headed to Austin over the weekend for my friend Barry’s birthday. I’ll monitor the fishbowl situation at this event to get a better feel for my 31st.
On a relevant note, I’m sitting here considering buying this HD collection right now. I’ve never played any of the Metal Gear games. Now, before you punch your computer screen, you have to understand that I was a Nintendo kid and my parents didn’t have the money to support multiple consoles in the house when I was growing up. So, no Metal Gear for me. A portable version seems like the perfect way to get caught up.
What I’ve Been Playing Instead of Any of Those:
Crysis 2: A few weeks ago I mentioned a trip down to my parents’ house here on the site. While there I took Modern Warfare 3, Crysis 2, and Open Season off their hands. Open Season belongs to my little sister and also doesn’t seem to have a readable disk. Yes, it’s based on a cartoon. I played a little of it with my sister when she first got it, and that one lonely achievement I earned has bugged me ever since. I was all ready to remedy that only to be foiled by an unreadable disk.
So, Crysis 2 was next on deck. Coming off of Skyrim and Amalur it’s been a great change of pace. It feels weird to call a relatively generic shooter a “change of pace,” but here we are. The game does some pretty cool things with the suit powers. The most useful of these powers is definitely the ability to crank up the armor and basically become invincible for as long as your suit has power left. The main problem was that I forgot to use it at first, which made many situations more difficult than necessary. Once I started using combinations of cloaking and armor at varying moments, Crysis 2 became pretty interesting from a gameplay standpoint. So, yeah, I’m enjoying it so far.
Also, I have to commend my dad right now. He has achievements for completing the game on Super Soldier difficulty. Crysis 2 isn’t an easy game, guys. Like, what the fuck, dad? This is the same man I once walked in on holding his controller upside down because he didn’t know how to invert the axis. He’s come a long way. I’m so proud.
-Ryan