Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Storm's A'comin.

Well folks, the Holiday season is almost upon us, and it's looking like it's going to be great. I'm not entirely sure what all this talk is about "no games being released"... I feel like I'll already have more than enough to play. Maybe I should even consider finishing up Assassin's Creed before Assassin's Creed 2 hits the shelves... maybe.

All members of The Axis have spent a significant amount of time with Arkham Asylum, and the conclusions about it drawn here are very similar to what you'll read pretty much anywhere right now... that is to say, it's very good. What we can't seem to figure out are the combat challenges. Who are these degenerates scoring high enough to earn the high score medals. Maybe we're not flashy enough... maybe we're just not good enough. Either way, I don't think I have the energy to earn those medals, and I think my friends here are in agreement. However, the game as a whole is a must buy, must play. It been a while since a game has kept me playing that many hours without a break.

I'd say that the game that has me most pumped up at the moment is Halo 3: ODST... I can't even totally understand why myself. I've never been the "fanboy" type when it came to the Halo games. I played them, I enjoyed them. I even spent my fair share of time being called racial slurs by 14 year olds... but I stopped playing Halo 3 about 3 months after the release (and that's a generous estimate). I think what got me most excited about ODST is the new firefight mode... and the moment it hooked me was in Tycho's post over at Penny Arcade. I've become a fan of these non-story co-op modes that seem to be becoming very popular. It started with the Horde Mode in Gears of War 2... I played the SHIT out of that for several months. The best part about it is that if you have a few friends willing to hop in, you don't have to deal with a single 14 year old or racial slur... ok, there are still a lot of racial slurs, but it's from people you know... and sometimes they're even clever! After Gears of War 2 there was Left 4 Dead, which was essentially a Horde Mode all dressed up with a "story." What it really was, was a 4 part Zombie grinder with "get the fuck out of Ryan's way because he will team kill your ass in a heartbeat" written all over it. I blamed all the friendly fire incidents on the fact that I used the old guy... his vision was going to shit. Now, the fun of this non-story co-op trend is coming to Halo... say what you will about the series, or about the community... but there is a lot Bungie has done right when it comes to multiplayer. I'm excited to see what they can do here. Also, and I apologize for making this an after thought, the story sounds pretty interesting. Read this article over at Kotaku for a look into that aspect of the game.

Outside of this we have things like Borderlands, Assassin's Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2 all coming to us in the very near future. I know Barry is pretty excited for a few racing games on the horizon... and I believe he picked up a copy of Need For Speed Shift today. I'll try to get him to say a little something about it later. All this, and I didn't even mention Shadow Complex... I'll just say this: Buy It. Play It.

Aight, I'm out!

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