Oh So Lazy, Oh So Late -- General Update.

Like the title says, this is oh so late and I've been oh so lazy. Since the last update I've completed three titles and broken the 100,000 gamerscore barrier. I played Ninja Blade, developed by From Software. I played LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean developed by Traveler's Tales, and I've played Dead Island developed by Techland. So here are the very brief opinions of each title.

Ninja Blade is an over the top action game wherein a biological menace is invading Tokyo and you're just the ninja to deal with it. The game relies heavily on quick time events to progress through the action. How else are you going to kill a skyscraper sized menace by flipping through the air and throwing the motorcycle you're currently riding down into the mouth and timing a thrown blade into the engine causing the fatal explosion? You can see how over the top Ninja Blade is, and that's just level two. Ninja Blade is an all around average title and doesn't really try to be anything else. It knows what it is and doesn't have delusions of grandeur. It wants to be a decently fun little game, and that's pretty much what it is.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is merely the LEGO gameplay at its most polished and refined to date. Traveler's Tales has been rather smart, and lucky in the licenses they've managed to pair up with. Pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect fit for that classic LEGO gameplay. If you've played any of the LEGO titles then you know exactly what LEGO Pirates is. It's still a tad glitchy, but for the most part, it performs better than what's come before it.

Dead Island is a cool concept to be sure. Open world online co-op zombie apocalypse action with all the RPG trimmings. Techland has taken a decent first step in a concept that might have been a tad too ambitious for them. I guess that's a more polite way of saying that there is still a lot of fun to be had in what amounts to a title that's glitchy as can be and full of bizarre design choices. As far as glitchy goes I've never seen a game eat itself before as it crashes. Nothing quite compares to seeing the frame rate go to hell like you can't even imagine and the screen begin to blur before fading to gray while the sounds of the enemy attacking intensifies before the game finally locks up. The whole process taking ten plus seconds. And to have it happen to everyone in the game every time, not just one person is just an extra special treat. Also the game has a few functions like being able to warp to a key quest giver because people are waiting and everyone needs to be there to advance. That's a smart feature, if it worked. It does for some people, some times, with not so much as a clue as to why its being so fickle as to who it will or will not decide to work for. As far as design decisions, it's always fascinating to see quests that lock you out of other quests being accessible before you have any notion of such a possibility. It isn't all bad though. As I stated, the concept is great. The combat is visceral. The story is ludicrous and nonsensical to the point of being humorous in co-op because of having people there to laugh at it with. Like a great bad movie, and no, that wasn't intentional by the developers.

I'm giving the games the following scores:

Ninja Blade -- 7.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean -- 8.
Dead Island -- 7.

Next up? I'm currently revisiting Resident Evil 4, this time in high definition via the Xbox 360.