Here is a list of irrefutable reasons why Wig Wam is the greatest band ever invented. If you disagree with any of them, you are a frenulum:
I’m glad we had this little chat. Oh, and in case you were wondering, we played videogames this week. Hit the jump to find out which ones, you bunch of frenulums.
Zimmerman:Apart from playingMight and Magic: Clash of Heroesfor my disgustingly late review and a little bit of time spent onThe Castlevania Adventure ReBirth,my week has pretty much been spent staring at my television, waiting for theDoctor Whofinale.
At the risk of nobody bothering to read the review when I eventually manage to finishClash of Heroes, just go out and buy it if you have a DS. For thirty clams, it is by far one of the best values in gaming right now. Seriously, it’s nothing to do with a lack of desire to play it through. It’s just sogoddamn long.
Grim:After pickingMass Effect 2as one of my most wanted games of 2010, some people weren’t happy that I hadn’t played the original, so I gave the game a shot. Inadvertently, I played through the majority of it without doing any of the side missions. So now I’m on my second career or whatever they call it, trying to experience everything. Love the game, although I can already tell it will become outdated the secondME2hits. I’m seriously pumped. Also got into the newishTrials HDadd-on which kicks all sorts of ass
Cantler:Mushi Futari, DeathSmiles, Project Justice, Muchi Muchi Pork, Espgaluda 2, SFIV, 3rd Strike, BlazBlue, what haven’t I been playing? MAGfest bitches!
Tolentino:I remember promising last week to playPersona PSPwhile I was out in the mountains, and it turns out I’m adirty liar. Instead I played and finishedSteambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament. Frankly speaking,Battle Tournamentis out-and-outbadas aSteambot Chroniclestitle, and is mediocre as agame. And yet, for the life of me I could not stop playing it. Maybe it’s just been way too long since we’ve had news of thetruesequel, announced way back in ’06.
Razak:I’ve been playingBorderlandsall week and wish I had opened my brothers Christmas present so I could be playingSpirit Tracks, but our gift giving was delayed so I have to wait until tomorrow. I also have a copy ofAvatar: The Gamesitting on my table, but I’m afraid to open it so I’m not going to. Finally, I popped inMario Galaxytoday and re-fell in love with it.
North:Final Fantasy XIII. Goddamn, this game is good. I love how people are judging it before they’ve even played it. Worse yet, people are judging it from only playing it for a few minutes. The game is fucking awesome when it gets into it. Epic battles, great storytelling, and characters I give a shit about. Also Atlus’ Strange Journey. Don’t have a soap box on that one. Just good.
Chester:Played a bit ofThe Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, which so far has plenty of character and dozens of confounding puzzles. Also picked upCastlevania The Adventure: ReBirthwhich is exactly what I had expected, and brought back solid old-school memories for me. As for what Iwill beplaying this week, who knows… maybe nothing, considering that there’s a newborn in my house. But if I have my druthers, I’ll seeModern Warfare 2‘s single-player campaign to its end, and possibly even play someBioShock 2. Oh, and I’m seriously tempted to run out and pick upDarksidersthis week, but I’m pretty sure that means I will never, ever finishModern Warfare 2; maybe I’ll use Vigil’s game as my “reward” for finishing Infinity Ward’s shooter.
Concelmo:I finally finishedThe Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Is it just me, or isSpirit Tracksone of the most challenging Zelda games ever? Not in the traditional sense, mind you, like dying all the time … but for the fact that some of the Link/Zelda combo dungeons are tough! The last Tower of Spirits level is absolutely epic, ridiculously lengthy, and involves so much thinking I almost had to use a guide at times! I don’t remember ever having to (almost) use a guide for aZeldagame before.
Oh, and the final boss is unbelievably awesome. Not only is he (or she? — don’t want to ruin it) really tough, he/she sets the new standard for fighting multipleforms. Seriously. Wow.
Other than the immensely satisfyingSpirit Tracks, I played through Episode 2 ofWallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures(so good!) and am replayingMetroid Prime 3: Corruption(love it!).
Ross:I’ve been playing a lot ofLeft 4 Dead 2, and that’s pretty much it.
Sterling:I picked up theDiabloBattle Chest and played a fun game called “PC gaming lol” where I spend an hour makingDiablowork in Windows 7. I also played a bit ofThe Voidwhich Anthony gifted to me because it was an indie game. My first impressions are that it is definitely an indie game.
Also played a bit ofPreywhich was cool until they started throwing in obligatory gimmicks.Left 4 Dead 2as usual. A bit ofResident Evil 2andFinal Fantasy VIIIon the PSP.RE2is deliciously bad, looking back at it. Hearing a bad voice actor say “There was an incident involving zombies” never gets old. Which VIII, I have resolved to finally play the card game, since I nearly always ignore those shitty subgames inFinal Fantasygames. Also been playingDark Voidfor review, but I can’t much talk about that.
What I have NOT been playing, however, isBayonetta.But then, if Sega wants to throw away what was guaranteed to be a nice pre-launch near-positive review, that’s Sega’s business, not mine. Same could be said forDarksiders.
Sarkar:
Thanks,Gyrael, for sending me my dream game!
Seriously, though, I’d like to thankBFeld13for gifting mePortalon Steam the other day. I was planning to play through it on my PS3, because I’ve ownedThe Orange Boxsince, like, May of 2008. But once someone actually spent money on me — and once Twitter told me thatHalf-Life 2: Episode TworeferencesPortalin some small way, thereby making it logical to playPortalbeforeEpisode Two— I figured I owed it to the world to playPortal, goddammit. (I should note that I didn’t particularly feel I owed anyone anything — in terms of playingPortal, that is — before I received said gift.)
Anyway, it’s pretty damn awesome; I’m in the middle of the 14th room right now. Sometimes, it makes me feel very dumb (like when I realize a simple solution’s been staring me in the face for ten minutes), and in that way, it’s likeMachinarium, an indie point-and-click adventure game that I finished earlier this week. I agree with everything Anthony said in hisreview: it’s a beautiful, effortlessly charming game that’s as much of a brain-teasing puzzle game as it is an adventure game. It’s easily one of my top 10 games of 2009, perhaps even top 5. You should all play it. In fact, as of this post, it should still be on sale onSteam for only$9.99! (Even if it’s not, the game’s totally worth its full price, which is $19.99.)
I spent the first few hours of 2010 in my room playingRock Band 2. I was home alone, so I had the volume turned way up. Oh yeah. (Yes, I’m lame.)
Also, I remain hopelessly addicted toModern Warfare 2multiplayer.
Holmes:One of our editors recently made a passionate argument forShadow Complex superiority toSuper Metroid, so I played both this week to see if I could agree with him.
Not surprisingly, I couldn’t. However, I now see how different the two games are. When I first playedShadow Complex, I wrote it off as aSuper Metroidclone. That’s was wrong. Actually, I wish it was a Metroid clone. That way, maybe it wouldn’t lack all the atmosphere, mystery, and sense excitement thatSuper Metroidhas. Swapping out Samus with a Nathan Drake clone and planet Zebes with a big cave was a bad idea. It’s still a good game, just an forgettable one.
Also played moreBlaster Master,Castlvania: The Adventure Rebirth,Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, andLoZ: The Spirit Tracks. I’m not half as far in the game as Chad is. I envy him.
