Mass Effect

See you in six light-months. Worth: $50
based on the Xbox 360 retail

Billions and billions of hours of gameplay.*

Mass Effect looks great, sounds great, and plays great. It's got awesome storylines, characters, and settings. It's Oblivion and KOTOR and GRAW all crammed into one colossal experience. It redefines "Life" itself. As in, once you get this game, you won't have one.

The GamerGal gave us this for Xmas. That was three days ago, and since then she and I have played Mass Effect for over 40 hours. She's way ahead of me because she played KOTOR 1 & 2, so she's got the vibe on how BioWare likes you to play. I keep running and gunning past all the goodies, but I don't care because I'll do this game at least three more times.

You can find a very detailed description of this game at Wikipedia, but something I wasn't ready for was how beautiful the galaxy is. Zooming in on star clusters, then down to star systems, then down to planets is a completely new experience for me and one I'll never forget. (It's awesome like the BFG9000 from Doom 1 was awesome, but adjusted for today's inflated awe-dollars.) I really feel like I'm traveling the galaxy and landing on alien worlds (and killing everyone I find there).

More on this outstanding experience as the GamerGal and I go along...

* UPDATE Jan 8, 2008
Well, maybe not billions of hours of gameplay. I finished my first play-through in about 35 hours. That's doing most of the side quests, and rummaging around for a lot of the collectibles. I had a great time. I'm playing my second character as a fast-paced gun-toting guy who always says the most obnoxious thing possible and ignores anything not related to the main quest. I'll do a third character as a primarily magic character that will attempt to do 100% of the game.

* UPDATE Jan 15, 2008
Second character done. The endgame is the same, but the final cut-scene is very different from what I got with my first character. This guy got the "Completionist" achievement, so I may never bother to get all the collectibles as there are a _lot_ of them and hunting for them slows the game down. I've started a 3rd character and found out something about the game. If you get an Achievement with a certain weapon type (like Assault Rifles), your next character can take that weapon as a trainable skill, even if their class doesn't include it. You can only pick one of these bonus abilities per character, but it's a great bonus because now I can have all my characters be gun-toting freaks, even if they're otherwise all-magic.

1st character: name "Hungry Joe", class Infiltrator (guns and tech combo).
2nd character: name "MachineGun", class Soldier (gun-toting maniac).
3rd character: name"AssBlaster", class Engineer (tech specialist).

Project Gotham Racing 4

Totally awesome racer. Worth: $30
based on the 360 retail, December 2007

One word: Ferraris. One more word: Motorcycles. Like sex and ice cream, these are two things I never thought I'd get in one place. The gameplay is fast, the graphics rock, and the sound is outstanding.

So why isn't it Worth more? Because as much as I love racers, they're still just racers. There's no story, characters, boss fights, inventory, or guns. This puts a fiberglass ceiling on the Worth. With that said, PGR2 is my fourth-most played game after Oblivion, Halo 1, and Morrowind, followed closely by Mercenaries, Halo 2, Galaga, and Doom 1. In fact I played PGR2 for so long, I skipped PGR3. This is fine with me since PGR3 has the sex but no ice cream - uhhh - I mean the Ferraris but no motorcycles.

The game handles differently than PGR2, but it's still good. Within 30 minutes I was able to take Silver in one of the first races.

The multiplayer is much improved over the already excellent multi-player from PGR2. You can customize the matches, and even include a few AI drivers to spice things up. The most fun so far has been me on a motorcycle trying to avoid getting crushed by Angus in his big American muscle car.

The Career Mode sounds a little wacked, but it works well. It's based on a calendar, so you progress through a "season". It sounds more confusing than it is. The game takes care of it, you just race.

The Store sells you cars, but not singly. You buy them in groups of 3 to 6. The developers did a good job of only bothering with cars you'd want to play, so this bundling isn't nearly as annoying as it sounds. The motorcycles generate Kudos so quickly that you'll wind up buying everything anyway.

The difficulty is all over the place. Regular races are wicked easy, just crash your way to the front and get wide for the win. Some of the other race types are totally wacked and required me to get a _lot_ better at the game before I won them. Now that I've got the hang of them it's fun, but there were some unexpectedly steep learning curves here and there.

More as I drive my way to glory.

20 December, 2008
UPDATE: I played PGR4 for about 4 months. At one point, the races got so difficult that I sold the game back to EBGames. After a while I found myself really missing having a good driving game, and last week I bought the game again (used, 'natch). It turns out my problem was I had the difficulty too high. Sure, I _could_ spend weeks and weeks mastering this game, but I'm in my 40s and my real life is already plenty challenging enough: career, family, middle-aged thoughts of mortality. What the hell do I need my games to be so hard for? I set PGR4's Career mode on Easy and now I'm having fun again. It still looks great, plays great, and now I can just (mostly) win everything and have a good time escaping from how stressful my real life is. :)

Frontlines: Fuel of War

Gosh, you've really got some nice toys here. Worth: $30
based on Xbox 360 demo

Is war really hell when you've got so many cool gadgets?

Toy remote-control cars are always fun. I love steering them around my living room, especially under the coffee table because my dog goes bananas trying to chase it under there. Go get it girl! Woof woof! Now imagine that you have an RC car packed with enough C4 to blow up a tank. Who says playtime isn't Army training?

FFoW is a smooth and solid FPS with a good premise and lots of creative and well-executed gadgetry to help you mercilessly slaughter the enemies of, uh... us. Whoever "us" is. Ahh, hell, who cares? The bad guys make my aiming reticle turn red, so they must be unholy monsters that deserve to be riddled with bullets, blown to bits, set on fire, and/or crushed to death. Makes sense to me, and not just because I've been raised to do whatever my warlord Premier (oops, I mean Secretary of State) tells me to do.

It's touted as an "open-world" shooter. What they really mean is you get a finite area to fight in until you've killed everything in whatever order you want. This relative flexibility, combined with at least 3 or 4 ways to achieve each objective makes this a game I'm really looking forward to.

UPDATE: Feb 28
New videos from Xbox Live shows some fantastic Multiplayer features. Much more objective-based than most other games. Strategy has been built in to every map, and they all seem very team-oriented, which is smart. I think a lot of gamers have had enough free-for-all deathmatch and are looking for something more strategic.

Kane & Lynch

The link to our @#$%-ing ancestors has been found! Worth: $5
based on Xbox 360 demo

Nah, no picture for this Neanderthal.

Back in my day, we played primitive games like Doom, Marathon, and Tigers Over Leyte Gulf. They were "3-D" in that you moved forward and backward, but otherwise it still took imagination to immerse yourself. Nowadays, we have games -- no, no, "experiences" -- that are so detailed and well-rendered it makes the real world look like crap. Somewhere in between there we evolved. This game is a jump back to video gaming's adolescence, sometime in the late 90's. Think about a good PlayStation 1 game. Then.

Just like Two Worlds, this game got horrible reviews and they've had to release a demo to try to entice some sales. Being a freebie-ho, I'll try anything for nothing. I download the demo and fire it up, bracing myself for a truly awful game. It's not quite that bad. The big difference I have with what I've read is that it _is_ playable. Barely anyway. The targeting sucks, the moving sucks, and the graphics suck. But there's lots of cursing, which I like. There's also a lot of shooting, which is why I play shooters, so that's no so bad.

K&L isn't completely worthless. When it hits $5 I'll pick it up with a friend so we can rob a couple banks together and then move on to Gears of War 2.

Halo 3: Triple Mayhem

Halo 3 Co-Op with Arth and Wolf

We can MacGyver this back together, I'm sure.

We're roaring through the desert in a Warthog: Arth is driving, I'm on the turret, and Wolf is in the passenger seat. We come over a big sand dune and burst upon a bunch of Covenant. I open up with the .50-cal while Wolf starts chucking grenades. We're making a dent in the baddies, but we're taking a ton of damage from a Grunt in a Turret. I start firing at it, but Arth has other plans. He floors the Warthog and heads straight for the Turret. Before we get there, a Brute's grenade launches us into the air. Fortunately, it doesn't change our direction, in fact it gives us a big burst of speed. We're tumbling end over end as the top of our 'Hog hits the turret and explodes in a blinding flash of light, destroying the Turret and our Warthog all in one fell swoop.

I'm down, and so is Wolf, but Arth is still standing. What normal people would do now is back up and respawn some reinforcements, but Arth isn't normal. He charges into the remaining crowd of baddies and wipes out a half-dozen Grunts and then jumps over a wall of crates to discover that there are four Brutes waiting for him. Arth sticks a plasma grenade to one, melee attacks another, and head-shots the remaining two. Their bodies all hit the ground at the same time as Arth's Master Chief avatar lights up a cigarette while he waits for Wolf and me to respawn.

Clearly, Arth is in The Zone. But Wolf is having a good day too. Later we're attacking a large group of Covenant featuring two Wraith tanks, half a dozen Brute Choppers and two Turrets, all of them occupying a high point on a hill. The way I've been attacking this position has been to swing around to the other side of the hill and attack from the angle they expect me to. Wolf, on the other hand, simply charges up the steep side of the hill, showing off some serious agility. He attacks the tank from behind and stuffs a grenade right down the hatch. Boom! He gets shot off the tank by the other tank and the two Turrets. He's down, but he's shown us the way. Arth and I start a combined assault of swirling around the normal-approach side of the hill while Wolf continues to assault from the steep side, wiping out a major opponent each time. It's not particularly elegant, but it's very effective. We clear the hill, and continue on foot, since every vehicle within a square mile has been reduced to little bits and pieces.

We move up the highway and find another Warthog to ride in. After Arthur's Turret-crashing trick, I decide I'll drive. Arth hops on the gun while Wolf jumps in the passenger seat again. About a minute later we get pounced at the mouth of a tunnel by a bunch of Grunts and Brutes. Wolf and I jump out of the Warthog while Arth supresses everyone with the .50-cal. By the time we take out all the bad guys, Wolf and I are down, leaving Arth alone in the Warthog turret to deal with a huge swarm of Drones all by himself. Moments later, all the Drones are dead. When viewed from above, the bodies of the Drones form a perfect circle around Arth's position. Stylish even in mayhem, Arth reloads while Wolf and I respawn. We hop into what's left of our Warthog (smoking hulk), and go zooming away down the tunnel.

Kill The All

a huge brawl in Assassin's Creed

Bring out your dead.

I've just spent 30 minutes clearing the parapets of archers. I see my target William of Somethingorother, working at a desk in a big courtyard. I check my weapons one last time, take a deep breath, and leap down to the ground, right behind Mr. Dead Soon.

I'm not quick enough to prevent him yelling a warning as I slash his blade out of the way and move in with a heavy blast from my sword. I bash him a few times and he's goes down in a heap of regrets, excuses, and blood. This is only the beginning, however, as the entire castle's garrison comes charging into the courtyard. I back into a corner so I can't get hit from behind and set up my one-man butcher shop.

The first wave of guards are really aggressive, so I wait for them to strike, and parry their strokes with well-timed counterattacks. Three of them go down in just a few seconds. The odds are still against me as the entire courtyard seems to be full of men, but the ferocity of my defense has them wary. I take the initiative and hammer my way out of the corner with perfectly timed sword hits that demolish their defense and allows me to kill four guards in only eight strokes.

I continue this pattern, set up in a corner, counter a few attacks, then bash my way through the crowd to another corner until I've run out of opponents. There's so many bodies I have to climb up above the courtyard to see it clearly. Twenty guards lay sprawled across the courtyard, most of them heaped in the two corners where I had my most successful butcher shops set up.

It's taken some work to start getting the hang of the swordfighting in this game, but the rewards are great. This fight was so exciting my heart was pounding by the time I was done. So far, an excellent, if somewhat repetitive, game.

Orange Box on 360

What's not in my Kool-Aid? Worth: $0
based on Xbox 360 demo of HL2 EP2, and Xbox demo of HL2

Picture? Over-rated garbage like Half-Life 2 doesn't get no stinking picture!

This game sucks! I have no idea why this game is so highly rated. It's really linear, the gravity gun bites, and the graphics are average. Everybody talks about Half-Life 2 like it's the greatest game they ever played, but this just makes me think they haven't played anything else.

Both HL2 demos I've tried only give you the "Gravity Gun" that grabs things like chairs, boulders, saw blades, and propane tanks and the shoots them wherever you aim it. It sounds ok, I guess, but it plays really tediously. I can tell there's an epic story, but I've also read that these games are really long. The idea of spending two weeks picking up chairs and throwing them at mutants sounds pretty boring to me.

The other games in this package look like scraps from the floor, based on videos and reviews I've checked out. People are calling it the greatest video game value ever, but I wouldn't play the Orange Box if you gave it to me.

UPDATE: Nov 28, 2007
My buddy Wolf was surprised that I disliked HL2 so much, so he went and checked out the demo. His verdict is that the demo is a poor representation of the game, being limited to really dumb enemies, one gun, and a short, uninteresting sequence. He's played HL2 on his PC and contends it's the best FPS he's ever played.

Assassin's Creed

Astounding in every way. Worth: $40
based on Xbox 360 retail

The GamerGal applying her feminine whiles.

I'm struggling. Struggling to avoid building this game up too much. You know how if someone says that a movie is "great great great" and then you see it and it's only "great" you feel disappointed? I'm trying to stay away from that. Let's start with a little critical commentary:

The game can be a little repetitive. There's only 5 types of jobs (eavesdropping, pickpocketing, rescuing, interrogating, and killing). There are a couple other activities, like collecting flags and climbing to lookout points. But that's kind of it. The thing is, it's a great "it".

The acrobatic urban jungle gym makes this one of the freshest games I've played in 10 years. The controls are very different, but as I'm getting used to them I see that they're well-done. There is a learning curve to them, but the game is written to introduce you to these new controls gradually.

The game has an important quality for me: flexibility. You can play like a maniac (Arth), like a sneaky SOB (Gypsy 6), or somewhere in-between (GamerGal). A great aspect of this flexibility is that if you blow your cover on a stealth mission, you don't fail the mission (a la Hitman and Metal Gear Solid). It just means you have to finish the mission by killing everything in sight. Your boss will give you a hard time about being so sloppy, but you still finish the damn mission. This lets me keep progressing, and it gives me some replay motivation. ("I bet I can sneak up on that guy if I try it again.") If you totally blow it (meaning die) the checkpoints are well-placed as you respawn just before your confrontation.

Another aspect of this flexibility is that you can just be a tourist and wander around the gorgeous cities, or you can be more goal-oriented and work the missions. I tend to mix them together. You can (if you're Arth) just go crashing in right away and kill your target, slashing and maiming with reckless abandon. Or you can (if you're Gypsy 6) gather intel so you can sneak up on the guy. (Actually, if you're Gypsy 6, you gather intel, attempt to sneak up on the guy, trip over your own feet, get caught, and then have to fight your way out of the area, slashing and maiming with reckless abandon.)

So far, this game may well prove to be worth the $60 I paid for it. Even the GamerGal is playing it. She's a little out of control with the acrobatics (falling off buildings never looked so good), but she's ferocious in a sword fight (bring out your dead!). From watching her play I've learned to try and keep a low profile to avoid pissing off the guards every 20 seconds. The guards will attack you for basically no reason so it's important to blend into the crowd, or avoid the guards altogether. This makes the rooftops your primary route to everywhere, since the streets are so (realistically) clogged with obstacles it's almost impossible to avoid attracting attention (and fights) to yourself.

More later, as we continue through this excellent game...

UPDATE: Dec 3, 2007
Now that I've gotten the hang of the sword-fighting, I don't really worry about sneaking around. If I'm in a bad mood I'll purposely antagonize the biggest group of guards I can find, set up my one-man slaughterhouse, and start carving steaks. These brawls can last so long that fresh guards come by and join the fray. I've been able to get some streets so full of piled-up bodies you couldn't see the ground anymore. Totally awesome. You become everyone's nightmare come alive in daytime and the scourge of repression-loving rent-a-cops everywhere.

UPDATE: Dec. 19 2007
I've finished, and I've got two things to add. (1) Learn the sword-fighting moves*, because the endgame is tough. (2) Good story, but they've obviously got AC2 in the works, so don't expect a lot of resolution.

* At least master the Counterattack move. The other moves are very helpful, but I never would have finished AC without spending a little time practicing Counterattack. Getting the hang of this move made me totally fearless in a fight, no matter how many guys I was facing. Grab Break is a good one too (you'll see what I mean) but it isn't necessary.

Prey

Imaginative corridor-shooter. Worth: $15
based on Xbox 360 retail

I've been playing shooters for 15 years, but I never got to walk on walls and ceilings before.

This game is pretty wacked, but it's full of action-packed shooting and innovative level designs and puzzles. Like all corridor shooters however, there's only one way to play it so replay value is nil.

The controls are tight and allow you to manage eight weapons, most with secondary fire functions. The graphics are great, as are the sounds. But what makes this game worth playing are the gravity effects. I don't want to give away too much, but the designers really took advantage of having a game in a zero-G spaceship. The alien ship has lots of gravity generators that flip you from the floor to the wall, or to the ceiling. The ship also features gravity-walkways that allow you to walk all over the place. It's so well done I got a little vertigo sometimes. Without this gravity effect, this game would be totally boring. With it, it was really fun.

I picked this up for $15, and I'd say it was worth it. I'll return it right away so I can get my trade-in bucks. If I were a renting type of person, I'd say this was a great rental.

The Darkness

And Hell's comin' with me. Worth: $15
based on 360 demo

I normally hate horror games because they give me nightmares. But this game doesn't bother me because the horror isn't happening to me. In this game, I'm the horror, and I'm happening to everybody else.

The story seems pretty thin, and it feels really linear, so replay will be minimal. But, it's such an interesting twist on a horror-shooter that I'll pick it up when it hits $15.

Two Worlds redux

What do you know? It isn't worthless. Worth: $15
based on 360 demo

Two Worlds was touted as a match for Oblivion, and it falls hilariously short of that. It got panned worse than any other major release I can remember, receiving a 4 from GameInformer. Two Worlds was heavily advertised in this magazine, so for them to bomb it like that means the game must have been truly disappointing.

I know I was disappointed. I had thought, "Wow, Oblivion with multiplayer. I can't wait!" But the videos looked bad, the users reviews were dreadful, and the official reviews were disastrous. I gave up on the game, and moved on to jonesing for Mass Effect.

Then the developer released a demo two months after the retail game was released. I've never seen this before, demos are always part of the run-up to the release. I downloaded it (what the hell, it's free). I fire up the demo, and two hours later I was still playing it. I was laughing at the art direction and writing (high school kids could have done a better job) but I was intrigued by the mechanics of the gameplay and the character advancement.

While I was playing it the GamerGal noted, "It looks kind of like Morrowind." She's right, if this had come out four years ago, it might have compared favorably to Morrowind. This is significant because Morrowind is one of my top 5 games ever. Like MW, Two Worlds has terrible looking characters, crappy music, and dreadfully stiff writing. But, it's a big open world to explore filled with lots of things to set on fire and chop up.

The creative in Two Worlds is really weak. The art looks like stuff I drew during math class back in middle school. The writing is so bad it makes me laugh out loud. The voice acting is terrible, but I solved it by going into Options and turning the voice sound all the way down. Problem solved.

The mechanics of combat, character advancement, magic and inventory are like any D&D-style RPG you've played, meaning "good". I can tell there's a lot of depth here. You can combine things into new things, make potions (I've only been able to make bad ones so far), and distribute skill points to build your character the way you like. The magic works well and is interestingly customizable.

Two World's isn't great, but the day I find it for $15, I'll pick it up.

Call of Duty 2

Charge! Worth: $15
based on 360 retail game, October 2007

I know, I know, this game is however many years old already. I hated the demos for COD1, 2, and 3, but one of my video store guys recently talked me into giving the game a try. What the hell, it was only $12 and I was jonesing for Halo 3 when I bought it back in early September. Plus I'm reading Richard Evans' history of the Third Reich, so I was in the mood to shoot at Nazis.

There's only one way to play this game: full-speed ahead. If you hang around in one place, you'll just waste your ammo on the eternally-spawning Germans up ahead. The only way to turn off the Nazi faucet is to move up and occupy that (house / hill / bunker / field). This was a revelation to me because I tend to hang back and soften up that (house / hill / bunker / field) with some well-aimed headshots before moving in to mop up. When I played the demos, I didn't realize that COD punishes you for playing this way since all those guys you smoked just respawn forever. So shooting that guy off the MG42 does you no good unless you immediately go busting into his (h/h/b/f) to make the game stop respawning baddies.

It took me a long time to get used to this. For a game that aspires to some level of realism, it feels incredibly arcadey. But once I got used to playing like my buddy Arth (think Rambo-style gamer) I had a lot of fun playing this game.

The best thing about Call of Duty 2 are the missions. There's a fantastic variety of tasks and objectives that are well-yelled at you by your in-game compadres. The large missions are nicely chunked into smaller chapters and most checkpoints are well placed.

The sense of dramatic action is the best I've ever played. By "dramatic" I also mean "loud." This is one loud-ass game. Shouting, shooting, and exploding are all happening pretty much all the time. My pulse was up over 100 and my teeth were gritted in righteous determination to do my part to stop the Nazi war machine. What this mostly boiled down to was me finding a flank on the enemy positions to trigger my AI buddies to come up and cover me while I frag the shit out of every Nazi I could find. This is the basic tactic for the entire game. Pop a smoke grenade, find the flank, wait for your guys to move up, then jump into the (house / hill / bunker / field) and start kicking ass. Like all WW2 games, the MP40 is the weapon of choice, especially because you've got to fight up-close to clear the (h/h/b/f) anyway. 99% of my kills that mattered happened at ten feet or less.

Since you're the player character, you're given all the crazy shit to do, like sticking a bomb to the back of a moving Tiger tank. "Sure, no problem." I died a lot getting the hang of this, but that makes sense since Tigers are natural video game bosses. You also get to storm MG42 nests, snipe at mortar crews, drive a tank (once), use an AA gun (once), and lug a Panzerfaust around. Very dangerous, those Panzerfausts. As likely to kill you as your enemy until you get the hang of it.

So, all in all, an excellent but severely limited game. Since there's only one way to play it (at full-speed ahead), there's not much point in playing it twice. It'll be an exciting Nazi ass-kicking good time, but it'll be exactly the same exciting Nazi ass-kicking good time you just had.

Angus The Barbarian

30 seconds of Halo 3 Co-Op, Sierra 117 on Hard

Angus and Gypsy 6, ready for action.

Angus and I have just rescued Sgt. Johnson from the Brutes when two Phantoms come swooping in and puke out a squad of enemy reinforcements. Having just killed our way in here, we need to kill our way right back out again.

Angus follows me out of the jail-house into a long corridor. We leap up a ladder at the end, and Angus takes off down the causeway, brandishing a hammer as big as a Fiat. I follow about 10 paces behind to cover his six while he charges into the crowd of Brutes and Grunts. He scares them so badly that two of them pop open Bubble Shields, but to no avail. By the time they get their weapons out he's already among them, pounding them like a chef tenderizes a stubborn cut of beef. I see a pair of Jackal snipers try to light him up and I dispatch them with headshots from my Battle Rifle. Normally this is an easy job, but I can barely take my eyes off the furious shit-storm Angus is kicking up. After I drop the Jackals, I look back to Hurricane Angus to see not one, but two Grunts stick Plasma grenades to him. The explosions shake the ground and kill every enemy within 30 feet. Angus' shattered corpse flies off the causeway into the water, sinking into glorious oblivion.

I back up to respawn him. He pops into life and says, "Ok I'm back." We both run into the open while I switch to my Needler to take out a couple more Grunts that have come scuttling onto the causeway. They explode into little Grunty-balls while Angus retrieves his Hammer and goes after the one remaining Brute. It's a leader, wearing gold armor. I try to attract as much aggro as possible by jumping up on top of a crate and firing for effect. The Brute blasts me with his Brute Shot, his grenades knocking me off the crate, where I hide while my shields recharge. By the time I jump up again, Angus has moved around behind the Brute leader. Angus rears back and in one blow crushes the bad guy flat as a pancake. All clear. Our Pelican comes to get us and we get the hell out of Dodge.

Despite being only an occasional Halo player, Angus has shown a terrific ferocity and accuracy in his Halo 3 gameplay. If I accounted for more bad guys than him, it's only because I've played through the level a couple times, while this was his first time through. A great session.

H3 Gallery: Exploding Warthog

A surprisingly cool feature of the game is the ability to review your single-player levels. You can pause them, and snap images from any angle.

My precision driving techniques are truly evident in this image. Look carefully near the top of the image (behind the huge fireball) and you can see me ascending to heaven.

H3 Gallery: Flying Warthog

A surprisingly cool feature of the game is the ability to review your single-player levels. You can pause them, and snap images from any angle.

You can see that my tires will really last because they hardly ever touch the ground.

The Simpsons Game

Surprisingly fun. Worth: $12
based on 360 demo, October 2007

I played this demo more from a sense of obligation than anything else, but I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It felt like I was playing the cartoon: same voices, same visual style, and same great sense of humor.

While fun, it's really easy. Only a total video game newbie would struggle with this game. Skill level dictates not whether you finish, but how long it takes you to finish. Even with the relatively easy play, it's fast pacing could make it a fun diversion for a while.

Halo 3 Journal

This is the Big One. Worth: $50
based on Halo 3 retail: Sep. 2007 on 360

25 Sep: buy the game, blow through 8 missions in 6 hours.
26 Sep: finish the last two missions in two hours. Explore multiplayer maps, try out the Forge and Saved Films.
27 Sep: explore MP maps w/ the GamerGal. Discover the true meaning of "getting hammered".

Everything I'm reading about this game goes on about the graphics, the sound, and the gameplay. This was all nailed in H2 and does not deserve further comment. Yes, there are lots of new toys, but they all do the same things as the old toys (except one).

Single-player Campaign (on Normal).
The campaign is a let-down. The unique story started in the previous games finishes without any twists or surprises. You can guess what happens. You'll be right. Strike One. It's also outrageously short. If you start at breakfast, you'll be done by dinner. Strike Two. The final scene is totally derivative and shapeless. Once you know what to do it'll take four minutes without any challenge. Strike Three.

What Bungie has done is they've left the door open for other developers to move to the front of the line. For example, I liked the Gears of War campaign better than the Halo 3 campaign. It was just more interesting, even though there's practically no vehicles. Gears2 has a chance to be the greatest FPS campaign ever, if only because Bungie dropped the ball. Mercenaries 2 is another contender.

The user reviews I'm reading are mixed, with many people expressing disappointment. The users that love the game all have terrible spelling or type L1k3 hAck3r5. Meaning, they're the jackasses who taunt, curse, and generally ruin the online experience for those of us with some manners.

UPDATE October 22:
Single-Player (on Hard)
Much better on Hard. The sense of accomplishment returns, as well as the need to use some of the goodies. You can't just cruise through the game with the Assault Rifle. Certain baddies are more or less vulnerable to certain weapons, and this difficulty level forces you to figure it out. This makes the game feel deeper and more worthwhile simply because it takes longer. I got killed a lot more, but the game resets you quickly back at the checkpoint. Some of the checkpoints are pretty far apart, leading to that frustrating "I just did this" feeling, but hey, nothing's perfect.

I didn't use much of the Equipment, simply because I can't figure it out, the icons are meaningless. I have to drop and re-pick-up things to figure out what are. Why not just write the goddamn name for me? The portable cover was handy, but the other stuff seems totally superfluous. The Turrets are useless, and the Bubble Shields just make the baddies bum-rush inside and beat the crap out of me. For Power Drain, Flare, Regenerate, and the rest: by the time I remember to use them I've either: (a) won or (b) died.

Co-Op.
Totally awesome. Opens up a lot of tactical opportunities and lets you play a lot more recklessly. This is the game of choice when I have Arth or Angus over to visit.

Multiplayer.
So far I've just toured the maps to get my bearings. I've found:

Gorgeous, easy-to-grok maps. Forge games could be an entire new class of MP gaming. The save films are incredible. The Multiplayer side is obviously where 90% of Bungie's effort went. I guess it makes sense, because I've read that a lot of hard-core H2 MP players never did the single-player campaign at all! Bungie, of course, knows this and has put their effort into what will make the masses happy. Sometimes it sucks to not be part of the masses.

Multiplayer is where the one truly new toy comes into play: the Big Hammer. I got my ass kicked by the GamerGal when she was wielding this monster. She's _never_ played Halo, but she was whompin' my sorry butt from here to Calcutta. I see this weapon being a great leveler because anyone can be an ass-kicker with this sum'bitch. But, it could also be a huge turn-off because in the hands of a good player it will truly DOMINATE. All of us regular shitheads will have such a miserable experience that we'll just quit and go play MoH: Airborne or Stranglehold.

--- this post is being updated all this month ---

Marathon Durandal on 360

No wonder Halo is so comfy. Worth: $10
based on retail game, Xbox Live Arcade

Bloodthirsty aliens, devastated spaceships, self-aware AI constructs, and guns, lots of guns. Sound familiar? If it sounds like Halo it's because I'm describing Halo's ancestor, Marathon.

This game blew my mind when I played it back in the 90's. You could aim up! Or down! You got to use weird alien guns, and some awesome human ones like dual-wielded sawed-off double-barreled shotguns. If our guys at D-Day had these shotguns the war would have been over by lunchtime.

Plus, it had a cool sci-fi space story. Granted, it's pretty obtuse, but these were simpler times when you'd read reams of text to help you comprehend the video mayhem around you. You were also willing to deal with unbelievably complicated maps like this:


It came from the past.
But how does it play now? To mangle a Buddhist saying, "Reality is perceived, not experienced." It's a matter of how old you are. If you never knew a world without VCRs, you're too young and it'll look like crap to you. If you're a crotchety old windbag like me, however, you'll be able to appreciate the huge milestone this game represented back in the day. The graphics have not aged well, but I like them for sentimental reasons. The gameplay has aged _very_ well, and it translates to the 360 controller with sublime perfection.

And created our future.
The Gamer Gal has watched me play a lot of Halo. She was watching me play Marathon and noticed many similarities, including the collection of alien races, the profusion of gun choices, and the variety of settings. Some of the dialogue is taken verbatim ("They're everywhere!"). The Fusion Pistol is the Plasma Pistol, complete with charged-up-big-blast. There are heavily-armored aliens with shoulder-mounted cannons called Hunters. Your armor is Mjolnir armor, like the Master Chief's. The first Halo's control room is a giant Marathon logo. "Durandal" and "Cortana" are names of famous swords from the time of Charlemagne. Lots of things like this.

Some things were obviously old-school, prompting the following from the Gamer Gal, "Wow, when was the last time we saw lava in one of your games?"

The connections are clear.
By the time I finished this game, I was a huge fan all over again. It's a great warm-up for me as I await Halo 3. A caveat: it's wayyy hard. Play it on Easy unless you've got nothing to do until your Dominatrix comes back from the cleaners.

God of War 2

Fix one, break one. Worth: $10
based on retail game, Playstation 2

First, the bad: the developers managed to avoid repeating GoW1's ridiculously non-fun platformer sequences, but they replaced it with an equally non-fun button-puzzle system. For any major action (like ripping someone's eye out) the player must press a randomized four-button sequence while Kratos gets to do the fun part: ripping someone's eye out. If this were the same button sequence every time I would have loved it. It would have just been a combo for "rip eye out". Because it's different every time, I'm torn from the game experience and forced to concentrate on the buttons on my controller. I press the buttons and Kratos does the ripping. Who's idea was this? How did this get off the whiteboard without being kiboshed as the counter-immersive train-wreck that it is? Why don't I get to do the ripping? I get to do everything else (slashing, jumping, running) because the controls for this are always the same. If it weren't for the good things about this game, I'd give it a Zero.

Speaking of the good things: the story, art direction, general gameplay, and music are all among the best I've ever played. The first fight is beyond epic. I was totally cranked (until the fakachta button-puzzles started) to feel like I was part of an expansive, mythology-changing story. The platformer sequences were much better, much more in line with my expectations from an action game (this isn't Tomb Raider, people).

As with all story-driven action games, there's no point in playing it twice. I can barely recommend this game, but it is worth it for the story and the cathartic gore-fests. Rent it or buy it cheap, grab a walkthrough, fly through it, then move on to a better game.

UPDATE: Sep 13, 2007
I've talked to some friends and game store guys about this game. When I go off about the button-puzzles they just give me blank stares like, "Gee, I thought those were cool." I still think they totally bit, but I may be the only one. If you've played this game, let me know what I'm missing here. They just felt so artificial, like "Look, you're playing a video game" instead of "Look, you're ripping someone's eye out!"

Stuntman, Forza, MotoGP, Burnout, NASCAR

All with Skid-King Quadra-Bubble braking systems. Worth: $0
based on 360 demo, August 2007

Man, I hate these games. Let's do the same mission/race over and over. Let's never make it. Let's delete the demo from my hard drive right now.

Time for a driving game throw-down.

I've enjoyed lots of different racers/urban driving games. They all handled differently, naturally. But they at least handled like cars, not bars of soap on an ice rink. Stuntman, Forza, MotoGP, Burnout, and NASCAR don't have any sense of how cars handle or what makes for a fun experience. Definitely try a demo first because you will be disappointed. If gifted, I'd return it for a good driving game like Project Gotham Racing (whatever number), Colin McRae (whatever number), or Gran Turismo (whatever number).

Clearly, I could "put in the time" to get good at these games, but why? I'm already good at other driving games. Why do the developers feel they have to re-invent the wheel, as it were? Just use existing software. Off-the-shelf physics are already spot-on, and there would be more time to cook up an interesting experience.

Call Of Juarez

Yeah, that's why we invented automatics. Worth: $10
based on 360 demo, September 2007

It looks good and plays fair, but it's every FPS I've ever played except it's in the Old West. Dual-wielding the six-shooters looks cool, but I spent more time reloading than anything else. No wonder we invented better firearms.

The game felt very heavily scripted, so replay will be null. It also suffers from Random Character Fragility (RCF) where you can survive getting shot hundreds of times, but if you fall more than seven feet you're dead.

You had me at "Chainsaw"

GEARS OF WAR ONLINE CO-OP

Here's Wolf up front, brandishing his chainsaw. There's me in back, crapping my pants.

Wolf and I burst into the street, running for cover behind a burnt-out car. The Locusts open up with everything they've got including a "Troika" mounted heavy machine gun. Before I make it to cover, I get pumped full of lead and go down in a heap. Fortunately Wolf is right there to revive me by standing next to me and hitting "X". I'm alive again, but we're completely pinned down.

Wolf calls to me, "Help me push the car so we can get in close to that Troika!"

The two of us lean against the car and start shoving it down the street, bullets zinging overhead and pinging off the car. I had no idea you could move this car! Three regular Locust troopers shift position to try to get an angle on us.

While I'm pushing the car, I'm also blind-firing over the top of the vehicle, spraying bullets to keep the Locust soldiers ducking for cover. This helps reduce the amount of incoming fire. When we get close enough, I uncork a grenade, but it bounces off a pole and just explodes in the street. It's Wolf's turn. He makes a perfect throw: his grenade lands right in the gunner's position and blasts the shinola out of the sucka. Scratch one Troika.

New York minute: 2,000 bullets
The three remaining Locust soldiers vault over their cover, trying to get in close. Unfortunately for them, Wolf and I are locked and loaded. Between the two of us, we fire 120 bullets in three seconds. Both of us hit a perfect reload and are firing again one second later. This means that in seven seconds we fire 240 bullets (equiv. to a cyclic rate of over 2,000 bullets per minute!), and have taken down all three of the Locust coming at us.

"Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog."

We get out from behind our car and move forward. Suddenly three more Locust troops run around a corner to ambush us. We duck behind a big concrete block. I shoot the head off one guy while Wolf riddles a second baddie. I'm reloading when I see Wolf leap over the concrete block and run straight at the last Locust trooper, revving his chainsaw to full speed. I leap over the block to follow because I know what's coming and I don't want to miss it. I'm only a few feet behind Wolf when he gets to the last Locust and literally saws the enemy in half from shoulder to crotch. Blood sprays _everywhere_ as the entire right side of the Locust's body comes off like a meat avalanche. I raise my arms and holler, "YEAH baby!"

Giving 'em the ol' Meat and Potatoes
Normally a mild-mannered office worker bee, Wolf has proven himself to be a ferociously effective fighter. As we progress through the game, we have him do all the specialty skill work (meaning he's Potatoes), while I run around distracting everyone (meaning I'm Meat). For example, we were trying to fight our way down a hallway when I saw a flanking path around the left side. I run around to the side and pop out on our enemy's flank. Before I can get to cover I almost get shot down. I duck behind cover just in time, blind-firing around the corner while my shields come back up. I'm not hitting anything, but my presence has unnerved the enemy soldiers such that they all break cover to try to get me, exposing themselves to Wolf's murderous barrage of grenades and bullets. I smugly watch them all get perforated and blasted to Kingdom Come, and then we move on.

The incompetent leading the unskilled.

CONFLICT GLOBAL TERROR: JUNGLE PRISON
Death and taxes, but we mostly get death.
Featuring: Angus as Foley and Gypsy 6 as Jones.

My name is Jones. I'm a demolition expert in a super-elite... soldier, thingy. My partner Foley and I are fighting our way out of a Spanish prison (or is it Brazilian?)

Attempt 1:
We're in a garage. Foley is upstairs scoring headshot after headshot while I cover the garage door. Enemies are trying to come in and get Foley, but they can't get past me. I pile up 5 or 6 baddies by the time Foley runs out of targets and comes downstairs. Now we must shoot our way across the prison compound. We're fighting a bunch of troops when we hear something. Something loud. Something clanking. It's a tank. Foley pokes his head around a corner to see where it is. His head never comes back. I crawl forward to heal him, and the tank runs me over, crushing me like a bug. Mission failed.

Shoulder-to-shoulder bullet-blasting action.

Attempt 2:
Repeat up to the tank. We clear out the tank's supporting troops and wait for the tank to go clanking past. It goes around the other side of a small building. Foley and I break cover. Foley runs into a nearby hut to grab some ammo while I set up an Anti-Tank mine. Foley comes running back to me, his arms full of grenades, guns, and ammo. I barely have time to say "Look out for the - " when he steps on the mine, blowing us both to kingdom come. Mission failed.

Attempt 3:
Repeat up to the tank. We kill the troopers and use the Anti-Tank mine to blow up the tank (instead of ourselves). We ease our way down a long path until we come under sniper fire. Foley goes down, but I see the sniper. Being a demolitions guy, I'm highly skilled in the subtle arts of killing. So I haul out my RPG and blast the sniper completely out of his tower. Then I heal Foley. We sneak our way into a cave, encountering two enemies on the way. Foley uses a silenced pistol and scores two head shots. This is why he's the sniper. We come out of the caves, round a corner and are instantly pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire. We're also being assaulted by regular troopers. Foley is trying to get a shot at the machine-gunner while I'm taking care of the ground troops. He goes down. I crawl over and heal him. We try to move up, but we don't use any tactics. I go down. Foley crawls over to me and heals me. A minute later he goes down. I'm on my way to him when I get ambushed by three enemy troops. Mission failed.

Attempt 4:
Repeat >> upstairs, troops, tank, sniper, cave, machine-gun nest. This time we decide to throw some smoke grenades before we assault the machine-gun nest. But we don't coordinate timing or placement, so the smoke isn't concentrated enough to provide real cover. I manage to get up fairly close, hiding behind some logs. I think I'm in cover from the MG nest, but apparently I'm not. I go down. Foley somehow gets to me and revives me. I decide to throw some frags, I mean why not, nothing else is working. Only now do I discover I have an arm like Peyton Manning. The MG nest is about 30 yards away. My grenade flies at least 100 yards past it. It's like having a grenade launcher for an arm. I try again and get lucky. The grenade flies into the nest and blows up the machine-gunner. Foley and I jump into the now-unoccipied MG nest and get our bearings. We're only a third of the way to our objective. At this rate, we'll need 13 attempts to finish this one mission. Sure enough, a couple minutes later we both get wiped out by a wave of attacking infantry and a second MG nest. Mission Failed.

Attempt 5: Repeat >>.... The first MG nest gets us again. We're getting worse.

Here's the entire four-man team, but we're trying it with only two. Predictably, we're getting our butts kicked.

Attempt 6: Repeat >>.... We get past the first MG nest, only to get pinned down again by the second MG nest that killed us back in attempt 4. Foley is slaughtering the incoming infantry, "pedestrians" as we're calling them now. I chuck 6 or 7 smoke grenades all over the field and bum-rush the second MG nest. I emerge from the smoke only a few yards from the side of the nest. I run around to the back and sucker-punch the machine-gunner to death. Foley comes forward while I scout the path ahead. There's a big roadblock. Time for some C4. While I'm sticking the explosives to the roadblock, I hear a tank coming. I get the C4 set. I back up and click my detonator, destroying the roadblock. Unfortunately I also blow myself into little Jones-chunklets because I didn't back up far enough. Foley comes forward to heal me and the tank blows him to smithereens. Mission Failed.

Attempt 7: Repeat >>.... The first MG nest gets us again.

Attempt 8: Repeat >>..... We get all the way up to the roadblock. I stand away from the C4 and destroy the roadblock. As the tank rolls forward to get us I pull out my RPG. As the tank comes into my sights I let fly, and again blow myself into little Jones-chunklets because the rocket hits a small tree only a few feet away from my face. Foley, bless his heart, is trying to revive me when the tank again blows him to smithereens. Mission Failed.

Attempt 9: Repeat >>...... Roadblock. C4. Boom. This time I immediately set another C4 charge in the road and run back to the MG nest with Foley. The tank comes around the corner, and I click the detonator. The tank and it's supporting troops vanish in a cloud of fire and dust. Instant junkyard. Foley and I move past the burning tank and move up the road. There's no cover, so we're low-crawling the whole way. Foley is shooting enemies' brains out while I try not to get hung up on branches and rocks. We come to a two-story building that's oozing bad guys. Foley and I pile up 15 or 20 bad guys before we run out of ammo and get wiped out. Mission Failed.

Attempt 10: Repeat >>.... Two-story building. Foley and I throw a double helping of smoke grenades and assault the building. We take a lot of damage, but we inflict much more. We take the building and health up. We're close, we just need to fight our way through a tunnel and we'll be at our objective. The tunnel is easy, the objective is not. Lots of bad guys. Foley and I fill the air with frag grenades, willy-pete grenades, smoke grenades, rifle fire, curses, and blood. We take the objective area. Then we hear something. We can't tell what it is until something blots out the sun. It's a helicopter. A huge, armored helicopter, bristling with rocket-pods and machine-guns. We're out of RPG ammo. In fact, we're out of rifle ammo too. All we've got are pistols and foul language. We last for approximately 8 seconds. Mission Failed.

Attempt 11: Coming soon.

--------------------------
If this sounds frustrating, it kind of is. But it's still surprisingly fun. Something about the comaraderie of playing this with Angus makes it very entertaining. We really suck at it. Attempts 4 and onward were on "Easy". Also, the above description is ABBREVIATED. There's actually another MG nest in this mission I've just skipped over.

What we really need is more guys. This game can do up to four player co-op over Live. Each of us would have a distict (but overlapping) role. In addition to Foley and Jones there's Connors (heavy-weapons guy) and Bradley (team leader, scout). It's hard to "get tactical" with only two guys.

Perfect Dark Zero

Slick, but you need a graduate degree to figure it out. Worth: $10
based on the retail 360 game: May 2007

Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just... oh, it's a gun.

I bought this out of deperation. I didn't think the demo was that great, and sadly, neither is the game.

Arnold Ninjaneggar
The first five missions were really slow, but I was trying to be sneaky. By mission six I realized that despite being a "spy" game about stealth, it's really just a mindless shooter with overly complicated weapons. It became more fun once I stopped sneaking around everyone and starting machine-gunning everyone.

Where's The Cliff Notes
Everything's more complicated than it needs to be. There's a lot of story, filled with intrigue and betrayal. Too bad it doesn't make any sense. I honestly couldn't tell you what's going on. It reminds me of Black. Sometimes I fail a mission and I have no idea why, none.

Click Help To Fire Your Weapon
Simliar to Gears of War, PDZ lets you take cover. You stand in front of a crate (or wall, or whatever) and press A. The game shifts from 1st-person to 3rd-person and you can swivel the camera around to find a target. Then you pull the left trigger to lean out from cover, take aim, then pull the right trigger to fire. If it sounds awkward, that's because it is. I know it's the same buttons as Gears, but it's poorly executed here.

Like all 360 shooters, PDZ has online Co-Op. I haven't tried it yet, but I could see it being more fun than playing alone ('natch). Strangely enough, most of the Achievements are wrapped up in Versus Multiplayer, which I haven't tried yet.

We Got The Bot
You can play a Multiplayer game against Bots that are at least as tough as real human opponents. I got my ass totally kicked, but this made me a better in-game fighter. This may account for why I got to like the Single-Player Campaign later in my playing time. It's an interesting concept, I get to "practice" my fighting without having to worry about failing a mission every time I die.

50 ways to crash your Monte

MIDNIGHT CLUB: ATLANTA


I've got my Monte Carlo floored, smoking my way through downtown Atlanta. I'm flying down a wide boulevard with Arth hot on my tail. I'm sweaving around the road like a three-day drunk to keep him from passing or drafting me. To no avail: Arth hits me with a powerup and I turn into a block of ice. A giant, 4,000 pound block of ice. Skidding straight for a gas station at 120 mph.

This was one of the Zen video game moments where time slows down. I can't stop, I can't steer, and even if I could, Arth iis right there to smash me into the approaching station of death. The fact that he's tailgating me gives a nice symmetry to what happens next.

Just before the ice cube wears off, I slide into a gas pump. The explosion slams my car into the station's roof, but it also blows Arth back into the street. Both of our vehicles are wrecked, and we spend the next few minutes clearing out the rest of the gas pumps by simply running over them.

Special thanks to Angus for being the first to harness the dark power of gas stations.

Halo 3 Beta

It's just H2 with fresh makeup and more guns.
based on the H3 Beta: June 2007 on 360

If hype were air we'd suffocate because Bungie's got all of it. Are they really that good? Well, yeah, actually they are.

When it comes to shooters, this studio has been a true innovator. They expanded multiplayer and were the first with dual-wielding. They brought us practical grenades, vehicles, and melee attacks. They hire fantastic creative talent to write great stories and design gorgeous worlds for us to demolish.

The multiplayer we saw in H3 Beta _feels_ exactly like H2. This is good because Bungie nailed the gameplay and controller layout in H2. It's also bad because it raises the question: why didn't they just do an expansion for H2 a year and a half ago? Yes, H3 has smoother this, more detailed that, and new shiny toys, but the H3 Beta was H2 with fresh makeup and more guns.

What is Bungie holding back? We know about the Equipment, the fightable Scarab, and the online 4-person Co-Op. We assume we'll play as the MC and the Arbiter. Any other playable characters? Do we meet the Forerunner? Who (and what) is The Gravemind? My guess is that whatever Bungie hasn't told us will be worth the price of the game by itself.

UPDATE (9/19/07): Man, that "Believe" ad is really lame. Six days to go.

UPDATE (9/22/07): The "Cinema Paradiso" video shows me what these magnificent bastards have been doing for three years. Video replays in full 3-D, real-time in-match level editing with the Forge (yes, I remember the original Forge, nice touch Bungie). Plus: Flamethrowers! I hadn't realized how much I missed flamethrowers until I played Marathon on 360. Three days to go.

UPDATE (9/27/07): Well, the game is out and I've already finished. It turns out that Bungie wasn't holding back anything significant. Overall, I'm disappointed.

The Gamer Gal vs. Gypsy 6

...and a bag of chips.

My fiancee* and I have practically no crossover to the games we like. We get along well despite this huge handicap, because when we watch the other one play, we spot things for each other. "Hmm, when you grapple that 14th flag pole, the ledge shifts to the right." or "After you saw that guy in half, I notice a glint in the lower right corner." When the going gets real tough, we'll look up walkthroughs for each other to minimize spoilers. It's sweet, actually.

Her favorites include:
+ Final Fantasy
+ Hitman
+ Tomb Raider

These are excellent franchises, but I'd never play them because they're too slow and not cathartic enough. She likes puzzles, complex relationships, sneaking around, and doesn't mind re-doing missions over and over. I like blasting, smashing, crashing, and moving on.
-----------------------------------
* aka "The Gamer Gal" (not her gamertag).

DiRT

Looks good, handles like a dream. Worth: $25
based on the 360 demo: June 2007

This racer plays well and sounds terrific. I had a blast playing Colin McRae 04 and I'm looking forward to this title coming down to $25 so I can powerslide my way to video glory.

Racers are inherently limited: you drive around, that's it. But I'm into cars enough to appreciate a good racer. With that said, I can't stand the NASCAR games, MotoGP, or anything with "Forza" on it. Too much realism is a bad thing. If I want real, I'll get in my real car. When I'm gaming, I want Project Gotham Racing, Midnight Club, and Colin McRae.

TimeShift

Been there, shot that. Worth: $5
based on the 360 demo: August 2007

The demo looks great, handles smoothly, and has cool time-warping gameplay. But I won't buy this game until it's in the Cheap-O Bin two years from now.

Maybe it's because I've been playing shooters since 1993, but these games are worthless to me: Pariah, Prey, Shadowrun, Call Of Juarez, Half-Life, Far Cry, Call of Duty (all), Project Snowblind, Perfect Dark Zero, Lost Planet, Battlefield, and Unreal Whatever. If you aren't a crusty old windbag like me, you'll think these are great because you didn't play them back when they were called Doom (1993), Marathon (1994), Quake (1996), Unreal (1998), and the original Medal Of Honor (1999).

Newer shooters that I've enjoyed all seem to offer something fresh and unique. This pile includes: Gears of War, Brute Force, Brothers In Arms, XIII, Ghost Recon, Conflict: OGT, Mercenaries, and of course Halo.

UPDATE (Sep 18, 2007): The GameStoreGuys talked me into giving CoD2 another look. I've realized what I disliked about this series is that you have to play like my buddy Arth. He's a kick-down-the-door kind of guy. I'm more of a sneak-around-and-snipe kind of guy. My experience with CoD is that it punishes you for playing like me and rewards you for playing like Arth. I'm giving CoD2 a try this week and I'll see how it goes playing like Arth instead of me.

From playing the CoD2 demo I can certainly vouch for a great-feeling and looking game. It's just that it has that damn CoD Infinite Spawn Closet which keeps pumping out the baddies until you move up and occupy their post. I'll write a full review once I finish the game.

BioShock

Stunning looks but no replay value. Worth: $25
based on the 360 demo: August 2007

All the mags and sites are giving this 11 out of 10, but I gotta say, based on the demo, this game looks good but not great. Replay is my biggest concern. The story is such a big part of this game that I doubt I'll play it twice (think Max Payne or God Of War). Plus, moving around in the world is pretty awkward. Maybe it'll feel better once I get used to it.

With that said, it looks and sounds incredible. I just sat there going "wowwww". My buddy Arth sat there going "wowwww". We both remember Pathways Into Darkness (from Bungie, pre-Marathon) so maybe our base expectation is lower than some younger gamers. Even so, I think BioShock is a graphics milestone.

UPDATE: September 28, 2007
I'm reading mixed user reviews. I'm assuming the really gushy ones are corporate plants from the publisher. I'm also assuming the flames are corporate plants from the publisher's competitors. The user reviews in-between though are still very mixed. Do not run out and buy this game until it costs less. I know the Mags and Sites gave it 11 out of 10, but this might be a game that appeals more to people in the business than regular gamers. Don't forget, professional reviewers and journalists aren't spending their own money. They get the games for free, and their editors are pre-disposed to favorable reviews, especially for games that have a lot of advertising behind them.

UPDATE: October 22, 2007
GameInformer can't say enough good things about this game. It sounds like you can have the story play out differently depending on what you do in the game, so replay may be better than I think. I don't know, it's hard for me to believe this game is that good. I played the demo once or twice, but it just didn't grab me. I've got it on my Xmas list, we'll see how it is if I play the real game.

Blazing Angels 2

Flight combat: fun yet boring. Worth: $10
based on the 360 demo: August 2007

Nothing is wrong with this game, but I have a problem with this entire genre. Flight combat can be a good _part_ of an action game, but on it's own it's too limited. Fly here, shoot that. Fly there, shoot this. Even Crimson Skies got boring after a while, and that game had way more imagination than BA2. Ask yourself how much fun Halo would be if you _only_ flew the Banshee.

Back In My Day: years ago Rebar and I played a Mac game called "Hellcats Over The Pacific" that totally sucked until we found some great cheat codes. Then we started bombing islands in half. Hundreds of bombs and rockets in the air at once. Great fun. We played it that way for months.

The only flight game I really liked was called Red Baron (for Mac). It had a good sense of history because you play the entire war. You start with lousy 1914 planes doing reconaissance. By the end, you're in a Fokker Triplane or the tricky Sopwith Camel wiping out a sky full of opponents.

Stranglehold

Fun acrobatic gunplay, but potentially shallow. Worth: $15
based on the 360 demo: August 2007
update based on reviews in mags: October 2007

Here's Arth teaching his kids how to clean their rooms. Note the bloody pants, splintering tiles, and dueling pistols, all critical for success. Excellent form!

Based on Hard Boiled (my favorite John Woo movie) this demo captures the feel and psycho-violent world inhabited by Chow-Yun Fat's character, Detective Tequila. I've found three to six ways to complete each area in this demo.The gameplay is awesome, aiming is natural, and the atmospheric violence is captivating. The acrobatics are totally movie-land synthetic, but who cares? You're Chow-Yun Fat! Unstoppable killing machine!

My only hesitation about this game is that it may play out like Black did, where the guns were the star. When it comes to video mayhem, more guns is more, but eventually I'm ready for some storytelling and other gameplay elements (like vehicles). I'll wait for the reviews. I'm definitely buying this game, it's just a question of a little later, or a lot later.

UPDATE: Sep 28, 2007
I'm reading a lot of good user reviews for this game. Too many to just be corporate plants.

Update October 13
Nah, the mags are confirming what I thought. Really repetitive. Still sounds like fun, but only $15 worth.

MOH Airborne

Great FPS with innovative level design. Worth: $20
based on the 360 demo: August 2007

This is one of those demos I could play to death. Dropping into a battle-torn town is unlike anything I've experienced in a game. The FPS controls, weapons, grenades, and character movement are all right on. A huge return to the fray for this long-suffering franchise.

My buddy Boondock Wolf said he thought the enemy placement was too synthetic, which I agree with. It's a little like Call of Duty where 50 Germans come out of a closet. I prefer Halo or Brothers in Arms, where an area is being held by a finite number of bad guys and it's up to you to decide how to deal with them.

UPDATE: Sep 28, 2007.
The user reviews I'm reading all say this game is very short, and is "good" but not "great". I'm dropping my Worth Rating from $35 (based on the demo) to $20 (based on what I'm reading online). The few "great" reviews seem like corporate plants.

Two Worlds

Big RPG w/ online MP, looks, sounds, and plays like crap. Worth: $0
based on videos, and online user reviews: game released August 2007 for 360 and PC

On paper, this looks like an interesting game. Open-ended gameplay, online multiplayer with a co-op component. But, the videos looked bad and the user reviews are worse. I'll wait on this one.

9/13/07: UPDATE
I'm hearing more bad things about this game from the guys at my local game store. I'm not even waiting anymore, I've just given up. My original Worth Rating was $15, but not anymore.

10/26/07: UPDATE
Wow, GameInformer rips this game apart! The review finished with something like "If you've been a sinner all your life, play this game to find out what Hell will be like." This is is the worst major-game review I've ever read. South Peak Interactive has really screwed this one up.

11/10/07: UPDATE
See my new review based on the demo.

Total Crap

Games so worthless to me they don't even get a review. Worth: $0
Just my opinions. Don't agree? Start a blog, it's fun :)

based on demos:
- Spiderman, Friend or Foe
- Sega Rally
- Flatout UC
- Blue Dragon
+ MotoGP 2007
- Stuntman Ignition
- NASCAR 08
- Burnout (any)
- Dead To Rights
+ Ace Combat 6
- Call of Duty 1*

based on videos:
- Eternal Sonata

I'm leaving out obviously bad games like Driv3r, Obi-Wan, and Doom 3. I'll be updating this list periodically.

+ Empirically a good game, but I don't care for it. If you like the genre, you might like the game.

- Perhaps well-made, but disastrously boring. I have no idea what people like about these games. Being older, my days are already filled with tedium, I don't need it in my entertainment.

* CoD2 pending, I'm playing it now. It's better than I remember from the demo.