Another Lagging General Update.

    It's been another long stretch without an update. So it's another entry playing catch up. Going all the way back to just after Mass Effect 3, I played The Baconing, which is the third game in the DeathSpank series. The Baconing was developed by Hothead Games and published by Valcon Games. The game has lost the DeathSpank naming scheme because the publisher of the first two titles in the series Electronic Arts owns the name and they're no longer publishing the series. The Baconing offers up the same experience as the previous two titles. It's an action RPG with a decidedly comic tone. I'm surprised how I still find the series as funny as I do. And that's probably why the series works for me. The gameplay is decent fun, but I'm there because I like the comic voice of the series. The end of The Baconing teases a fourth entry. If it shows up, I'll be there for the ride.

     I followed The Baconing up with The GG Shinobi on the 3DS via the eShop. The GG Shinobi was initially developed and published by SEGA in April of 1991 for the Game Gear. The GG Shinobi is obviously short for The Game Gear Shinobi. The game was among the first wave of Game Gear titles that hit the eShop for the 3DS in March. Why would a twenty-one year old Game Gear game be worth playing? Because it's a true classic and easily one of the best games ever made. It's classic Shinobi. It's an action platformer where you're out to save your fellow ninja clansmen. Once you rescue a ninja they become playable. You can switch to them on the fly at any time. Each of the rescued ninja are a different color and they come with different ninja magic and abilities. There is a slight Metroidvania sense of using their different skills to access areas and power ups normally out of reach. There is also a slight MegaMan feel in using the right ninja for the job in the boss battles. The bosses range from really tough to simple based on which ninja you're attempting the battle with. The game has the standard Shinobi difficulty, especially in the final labyrinth like stage. The game looks and plays great all these years later. And the music from Yuzo Koshiro still sounds amazing.

     I followed up The GG Shinobi with Silent Hill: Downpour. The game was developed by Vatra Games as was published by Konami Digital Entertainment. I played the Xbox 360 version of the game. The Silent Hill series has long been considered adrift. The original game was a true classic. The second appealed to a wider audience thanks to a strong story. The third game was a smart direct sequel to the original game. This is the point where Team Silent, the makers of the first three titles disbanded. The fourth game started out as another title and was then shoehorned into the Silent Hill universe midway through development. All of the titles that followed were outsourced by Konami and have wildly varying levels of quality. Silent Hill: Downpour tries pretty hard to give the player a great Silent Hill experience. It starts with an interesting concept and features of couple of rather good set pieces. They've introduced side quests that deliver more of the town's lore. The combat system is better than most previous titles but not as involved as that found in Silent Hill: Homecoming. Long time series composer Akira Yamaoka has been replaced with Daniel Licth. The new music is pretty good. Some of the tracks have a strong John Carpenter vibe to them, which is always a plus. They've also used licensed music in a rather interesting way. Let's just say there are some unique choices. I think some of the puzzles in the game are the best in the series. I enjoyed Downpour for what it is. It's probably the most Silent Hill feeling out of all the outsourced titles thus far. But it's still below The Room as far as overall quality is concerned.

I followed up Silent Hill: Downpour with Metroid. I've played Metroid a few times before but I wanted a refresher. Metroid was originally developed for the NES by Nintendo R&D 1 and published by Nintendo. I played the 3DS version. I don't think I would have had the patience to play Metroid via the NES original, but the 3DS version's save state system made it bearable. Metroid is the classic action game that hid power ups throughout a huge maze of a world. Finding these powers enabled you to venture further into new areas and advance through the game. The original Metroid was unforgiving. Especially in not providing any sort of in game map and respawning creatures based on screen movement. Both issues of memory constraints of the NES. It's a classic game but it's an unforgiving kick in the balls.

I played Metroid to prepare for my first ever playing of Metroid II: Return of Samus. I avoided the GameBoy the first time around. So being able to go back and play the games I missed out on has been the best aspect of the Nintendo 3DS thus far. Metroid II: Return of Samus was originally developed Nintendo R&D 1 and published by Nintendo for the GameBoy in 1991. I found Metroid II to be a much better game than the original. The game helps curtail the excessive wandering around lost of the original game. The game better controls your movement throughout the game world. You need to kill all the Metroids in the game. You can't advance to a new area until you've killed all of the Metroids in your current area. It really keeps you moving forward through the game. I also like the large and detailed sprites. The music is surprisingly effective especially through headphones.

I followed up Metroid II: Return of Samus with Silent Hill HD Collection. Silent Hill HD Collection was developed by Hijinx Studios and was published by Konami Digital Entertainment. I played the Xbox 360 version. Silent Hill HD Collection contains Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 are classic games. You might assume that creating HD versions of the games for current generation systems wouldn't be too difficult a project. Apparently it is, judging from the results. This collection just looks downright poor in certain areas. They've butchered the fog effects of the originals revealing areas in the game that were never meant to be seen such as the edge of the game world. That's right. You can see where the world ends in Silent Hill 2. Even worse are the sound glitches. I can't understand how Konami thought it was okay to ship the game in this condition. Countless glitches. I would only suggest this collection to the most diehard Silent Hill fans and those that are fans of achievements. You're not going to find definitive versions of the games here. In fact you'll find inferior versions.

I technically split Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 via the collection around the next title in this entry. Fez was developed and published by Polytron for the Xbox 360. Fez is a deceptive platformer. On the surface Fez is sold as a platformer that has a clean 8-bit inspired graphics that allows you to rotate the game world to advance through the world. Fez isn't really being sold as a puzzle game and it probably should be. In fact I'd say the puzzles are the meat of the game. If you like solving puzzles then Fez might be your game. It features full on cryptology. You'll have to decipher a made up language to be able to complete most of the game's puzzles. As a platformer Fez is a cute little distraction at best. As a puzzle based platformer the game is so much more. I can't remember the last game that caused me to fill fifteen or so notebook pages with notes and scribbling. If you want to really have to stop and think in your platforming, then Fez is your game.


The Baconing -- 7.5
The GG Shinobi -- 9.5
Silent Hill: Downpour -- 7.5
Metroid -- 7
Metroid II: Return of Samus -- 9
Silent Hill HD Collection -- 5
Fez -- 8.5

Mass Effect 3 -- All-In-One.

The five year journey comes to a close with the final entry in the Mass Effect trilogy. Mass Effect 3 was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. I played the Xbox 360 version. For the most part the trilogy should be considered a great success. Let's start with the positive. The game shines at character and character interaction. The trilogy features a large cast of characters who manage to remain interesting throughout. That alone could be considered an impressive feat. Mass Effect 3 crosses all the T's and dots all the I's as far as wrapping up all the character arcs. Not only for the main characters but for almost every NPC of note. An impressive amount of effort was paid to hitting all the little details. I really enjoyed the trilogy's overriding story until the very last moments of Mass Effect 3. I did not like the ending. I didn't like the ending for two reasons. As an artistic choice I found it to be boring and safe and a bit too unoriginal. The ending treads on what has been the absolutely most common theme of science fiction for the last forty years. Almost every other occurrence of said theme has been handled better elsewhere. Blade Runner, War Games, Tron, Star Trek: The Next Generation, A. I., The Terminator, you name it. Mass Effect 3 doesn't add anything new to the theme. The other aspect I didn't like was more on the game mechanics side of things. The trilogy has been sold on having your choices matter. And they do, until the ending. The ending presents you with three choices. Three choices the writers have given you regardless of the consideration of how you might have actually played your character. The choices fit their ending. They don't fit my character. They've failed to account for my Shepard. A simple fourth choice of not accepting the choices would have saved the day from a mechanics standpoint and a story standpoint. This comes off as very jarring to me. This is where BioWare needs to learn from the fervor over the endings. Hopefully they see the people making this valid complaint amongst all the morons screaming over the artistic aspects of the ending. As far as the public uproar over the endings are concerned, BioWare should stick to, and be held to, their artistic statement. They shouldn't cave in to pressure to change the endings in Mass Effect 3. They should learn what real lessons are there to be learned and make use of that knowledge in future projects. Graphically Mass Effect 3 looks great. It still features some of the best voice acting you're ever going to hear. The music works wonderfully. Although I would have liked to have heard newer music. The score uses a lot of music from the first two games. The gameplay is the most polished of the three games but it's not perfect. The cover system is still a twitchy mess and the squad AI still doesn't like to pay attention to your commands sometimes. Some of the complaints towards Mass Effect 2 was the loss of the RPG elements and other aspects from the original Mass Effect. While I could understand those complaints I didn't exactly feel them to be true for me. They start to feel a bit more true to me in Mass Effect 3. There are a couple of design choices I don't understand in Mass Effect 3. The planet scanning has been neutered and tied to war assets. The problem with BioWare is they try to listen to their fans a bit too much. It results in aspects like this. There wasn't anything wrong with scanning in Mass Effect 2. But because they've felt the need to listen to some vocal fans they've tinkered with it so now it's less than it used to be. I also miss the sense of exploration the original game conveyed. That is wholly absent from Mass Effect 3. Another aspect they've tinkered with is the game's journal. The quest log is a major step backwards from what it was in the previous games. It doesn't convey the level of information about the quests it used to. It is sort of a pain in the ass to navigate and comes off as actively annoying. Overall though the Mass Effect trilogy has been a great experience. I'm looking forward to all the DLC being out so I can jump back in and do it all in one go. And I'm interested in seeing how the renegade playthrough changes things up. I'm giving Mass Effect 3 a 9.

The Pre Mass Effect 3 General Update.

It's Mass Effect 3 day! I'll be starting Mass Effect 3 today just like many a gamer. In preparation for that I need to churn out an entry bringing me up to date. I played Resident Evil: Revelations when it originally came out on the sixth of February. I didn't create an entry for it because I intended to complete its raid mode before doing so. That sort of fell by the wayside. I did however complete the main game. Resident Evil: Revelations was developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo 3DS. Resident Evil: Revelations came about because Capcom had just gotten the 3DS development kits and wanted to mess around and see what was possible on the system. So they set about trying to get the Mercenaries from Resident Evil 5 up and running on the system. They were able to do that and found that it controlled relatively well and that there was something to that. They decided to fully flesh out the Mercenaries and it became a full on release. Seeing as they were able to get the Mercenaries up and running on the system that gave them the idea of being able to deliver a full on console Resident Evil experience on a handheld system. Resident Evil: Revelations is pretty much just that. A full on Resident Evil experience on an handheld. The game delivers everything one would expect from a Resident Evil title. You have the cheesy storyline. You have the goofy characters. You have tense survival horror action. And you have it all in the palms of your hands. I played through the game with the Circle Pad Pro, Nintendo's add-on to the 3DS system that provides extra triggers and a second circle pad to the hardware itself. It also makes the 3DS far more comfortable to hold. I didn't have any control issues at all. The game represents the most capable Resident Evil to date as far as controls are concerned. You can even move and shoot at the same time. I know right, advanced stuff. For Resident Evil it actually is. Overall Resident Evil: Revelations is a great success. It gives you the full Resident Evil experience with a level of 3D that makes the rather impressive graphics really pop. The sound design works wonders, especially with headphones. The quest is sizeable. The story helps bridge the gap between Resident Evil 5 and the upcoming Resident Evil 6. The Circle Pad Pro makes it so your hands don't cramp up playing the 3DS longer than an hour. I'd fully recommend the game to any Resident Evil fan. Play it at night with headphones and enjoy the cheese.

I spent a bunch of time playing Gotham City Impostors with Riddel over on the PlayStation 3. Gotham City Impostors was developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Gotham City Impostors is a downloadable title wherein you play as a wannabe super hero or super villain. Batman and the Joker have seemingly left town so you're out there with the other delusional vigilantes and criminals picking up the slack. The resulting game is a frenetic, yet surprisingly strategic, and chaotic first person shooter. There are numerous body types that offer different advantages and disadvantages. The faster you are the less damage it takes to kill you, for example. Mix in various gadgets and skill sets, such as the ability to run around cloaked or to have the ability to fly, with numerous weapon types and you can start to see the depth of the potential strategy in the game. What's impressive about it is how truly chaotic the game becomes. It's fast, frenetic, and fun. It's a simple concept that's executed rather well.

I played through Alan Wake's American Nightmare for the Xbox 360. Alan Wake's American Nightmare was developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. The game picks up a couple years after the events of Alan Wake. The game is presented as an episode of Night Springs, an episode written by Wake himself. The game is a subtle shift from the survival horror set in the pacific northwest of the original. It's now taking on more of a pulp fiction flavor and is set in Arizona off Route 66. I really enjoyed the story campaign. Although it does suffer a little bit from sort of having to further explain the events of the original game and its download content. Essentially along the lines of for those of you who still don't understand what happened in the original here it is point blank. Beyond that it's still a fun and interesting ride. The game's combat is still as fun as it ever was. If you liked it in Alan Wake you'll like it here. The game looks great. Especially for a download title. The other half of the game features a horde mode. The combat is intense with wave after wave of the taken coming at you. You have to keep killing them without taking damage to raise and maintain your combo meter to score well. The game works wonderfully as both a story campaign and as an arcade game.

I filled the final week before Mass Effect 3 with Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom for the Xbox 360. The game was developed by Game Republic and published by Namco-Bandai Games. Game Republic made Genji and Folklore among other titles. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is an action game where you befriend a giant creature who is an ancient guardian. You have to work together to save the kingdom. You're able to run and jump and fight using a sword and throw rocks and the like. Pretty much all the action game standards. What's different is that you're able to command the ancient guardian. You'll command him in both combat and puzzle solving. You'll have him attack specific creatures and you'll have him using different types of magic. You'll be doing combination moves and finishers. You'll also command him to stand here or there so you can use him to climb up to higher ledges or have him open doors or otherwise help in solving puzzles. The AI for the most part does what it's told without getting stuck or screwing up. It functions rather well. I really liked the structure of the world. It has a decent amount of puzzles and it's interesting to explore. The boss battles are surprisingly impressive. Each one was rather an epic encounter. Graphically the game isn't all that impressive. The music comes off much better. The voice acting is on the lower end of the scale. Overall the game is solid and fun.

Resident Evil: Revelations -- 8
Gotham City Impostors -- 8
Alan Wake's American Nightmare -- 8.5
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom -- 7.5

Next up... Mass Effect 3, of course.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.

I completed Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. The third title in the Uncharted series was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. There isn't really a lot to say about Uncharted 3, especially if you've played the previous two entries. Uncharted 3 is more Uncharted 2 although there are some differences. They've beefed up the hand to hand combat to something closer to a pale imitation of Batman: Arkham Asylum's combat and given it a larger focus in the game. The game still features outrageously over the top action set pieces. The more impressive ones, like fighting on a listing ship in the middle of a massive storm while your cover slides back and forth and a gunfight in a sandstorm, are fun. They've also tried adjusting the pacing from the previous entry. There is more downtime in this one. There are larger stretches without combat or that oh my god run sense of urgency that was too prevalent in Uncharted 2. Much like the third Indiana Jones movie, we see the early days of Nathan Drake and his introduction to Victor Sullivan as a kid. The story spans twenty years and introduces a new villain that has a bit more substance as a character than the previous games. The plot is decent enough. Standard Uncharted. The characterization is also standard Uncharted. And that's to say, great. Among the absolute best in the industry. The characters remain the best reason to play the Uncharted games. The puzzles were a step up from the previous entries. A couple of them will require a little more thought than usual. The game retains some of the technical flaws from the previous titles. The gunplay is still wonky. The enemies are still massive bullet sponges. Headshots still don't kill with any sort of regularity. Nathan Drake's animation got in the way more than a couple times resulting in death. Especially in crushing difficulty. The game still is adventure platforming for dummies. A too well defined single path. And the series just can't do an interesting final boss battle in the slightest. I'm giving Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception an 8.

Another Lagging Update...

I'm late once again. I've completed another bunch of games without individual entries. Too many this time to really give any detailed impressions. So I'll just give the basics so I'll have them on the record. Which is essentially the whole point of my having done this all these years.

I've completed Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. The game was developed by Capcom Vancouver, formerly Blue Castle Games, and it was published by Capcom. Off the Record is a what if version of Dead Rising 2 with Dead Rising's Frank West replacing Chuck Greene. They added a whole new area with the Uranus Zone theme park as well as a couple of new psychopath battles and a slew of combo weapons. They also added a new final boss battle that comes off more like a true boss battle than anything the series has seen. Frank's a photojournalist and his camera mechanics make a welcome return. The story is interesting enough. They also added in a sandbox mode which allows you to mess around without a timer. Your experience and money transfer back and forth between sandbox mode and the main game. They added thirty challenges to get through in sandbox mode. There are co-op versions of each of them. The game engine is the same so most of the issues from Dead Rising 2 return. Especially in the broken saving in co-op. This retelling isn't drastically different but it provides enough content to make it well worth while for fans of the series. Especially if you've going through it all in co-op.

I've played Pushmo for the 3DS. The game is from Intelligent Systems, the makers of Wild Gunman, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Advance Wars and more. The game was published by Nintendo. Pushmo is a puzzle game where you can jump and push and pull blocks within a limited 3D space. You push and pull blocks out of structures so that you can essentially climb up to the top and rescue a trapped child. It's a simple concept that's great for a handheld where you just want to kill ten minutes here or there. I don't think it hold ups that well for extended play sessions but for bite sized play sessions it's great.

I've played Mutant Mudds for the 3DS. The game was developed by Renegade Kid. Mutant Mudds is a platformer that harkens back to the 8-bit era. It has great 8-bit styled visuals and sound. The controls get the job done in a game filled with tight timing and lots of platforms disappearing and reforming. The game's gimmick is a heavy use of parallax scrolling and the ability to jump in and out of the background at certain points. It works well combined with the 3D of the system. I'm not that big a fan of the strict time limit in each stage.

I've played Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword for the 3DS. The game was developed by Grounding Inc, and it was published by Nintendo. Sakurai Samurai is an almost bite sized action game that focuses on exacting combat. It's kind of like Punch-Out meets swordplay. The enemies all have tells that give away when they're going to attack. You're rewarded for successfully dodging their attack at the last moment. Once you've dodged their attack they're left open to your attack. You'll need to strike fast. The game has you moving across an overworld selecting areas to fight in. There are towns with inns to restore your health and save your game. You can upgrade and sharpen your sword. You'll talk to NPCs and play mini game based challenges. And there are shops to sell you items. The game has three bosses and can be completed in a couple of hours. It's a cool little game with great combat. I'd like to see it fully expanded into a full sized game.

I've completed LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars for the Xbox 360. There isn't a lot to say here. It's just like every other LEGO game. If you've played them, you know exactly what they are. I really like the games, so I keep playing them. And I like the Star Wars license so this one was inevitable. It does throw in a new wrinkle. You have ground and space battles for each of the sixteen star systems represented beyond the levels based on episodes from the show. The space battles are represented by challenges that last a minute or two. The ground battles are a very light real time strategy element where you can command troops on the battlefield. There is a lot of content packed into the standard LEGO game. I was at least able to escape any glitches this time around.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record -- 8
Pushmo -- 7.5
Mutant Mudds -- 7
Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword -- 8
LEGO Star Wars: The Clone Wars--8.5

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim -- All-In-One.

I've completed the Xbox 360 version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Skyrim was developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. I thought the 140 hours I spent getting through Oblivion and its expansion Shivering Isles was about the max I'd ever spend in a game without any online aspect. I spent 190 hours in Skyrim. In that 190 hours I earned all the achievements of course, but I also found all the words of power and collected all the dragon priest masks. I also made the best weapon and armor set I could possibly make. I'm sure if you wanted to you could cut that time by well over half and complete everything major there is to do in the game. But to me that goes against everything Skyrim's design represents. Skyrim's design represents freedom of choice. Once you're through the opening quest you're free to essentially do what you want. Of course the game points you in the direction of the main storyline, but you're free to turn around and head off in any direction you so choose. You're free to explore the world and discover what's there to be discovered and that's exactly what I did. I ignored the main quest for thirty hours or more. I ended up discovering over 340 named locations within Skyrim. That's cities, towns, villages, mills, glades, caves, towers, forts, encampments, ruins, dungeons, and more. There is a lot discover and explore within Skyrim. The sense of freedom within how you can explore the world extends to the combat. Skyrim's leveling system is based on action and not experience points. You don't get a set value for killing any enemy or completing quests. You level up by doing. You want to level archery? You're going to have to use bows in combat. The same thing goes for one-handed weapons like swords and daggers. You want to level up the two-handed category then you're going to have to actually go use great swords and battle hammers and the like. This applies to all of the types in Skyrim. Such as each of the different classes of magic like destruction and illusion to heavy armor or light armor. It also applies to crafting. You'll need to enchant items to level enchanting or smith items to level smithing. Each time you level up one of these it adds experience towards your character level. Once your character level goes up you're able to add ten points to either health, magic, or stamina and you're able to spend one point on a perk within one of the types. So to actually make use of having leveled archery, you're going to have to spend the point to unlock the perk that makes bows do 20% more damage for example. You're going to unlock perks down the archery skill tree. This system allows you to create the character you want to create by actually doing what you want to do. But it's quite smart in that it's balanced so you can't just do everything. The higher your character level, the more experience you're going to need. So you'll have to pick and choose what skills you'll want to make use of. To be a jack-of-all-trades you'll have to be a master of none. To be a master in archery and stealth you'll need to ignore other skills entirely. For its genre, Skyrim is a visually impressive game. The world looks amazing. Skyrim's snowy forested mountains and tundra looks great and is full of rich detail. The NPCs are far more detailed and lifelike than they were in Oblivion. The wildlife and enemies are also greatly improved. Musically the game walks the line between ambiance and rousing score quite well. You'll spend large amounts of time with just the ambient sound and it works wonderfully. When the score comes in it has far more impact. One of the complaints about Oblivion was the voice work. Not that it was bad, just that it had the same five actors handling hundreds of NPC voices. Skyrim alleviates this a little bit. Instead of the same five actors you now have fifteen actors handling hundreds of NPC voices. Although these fifteen are more versatile and seem capable of bringing different character voices to the table. Outside of the repetition of voices, the voice work is well done and is a good fit within the Nordic theme of Skyrim. Not everything within Skyrim is a wonderful experience though. I have two complaints. One is in how buggy the game is. The complexity of large sandbox titles is no longer a valid excuse to me. Bethesda is famous for releasing horridly bugged software and Skyrim is no exception. You will have a quest bug out on you. Nobody I know that's played the game has escaped having some quest or another glitch out on them. The other complaint is with the AI for the dragons. All dragon encounters play out identically. They all exhibit the same stupid behavior. It takes what is meant to be an epic encounter down a few notches to something less than special. I truly enjoyed my time with Skyrim. It's not perfection by any means but it is a significant improvement over Oblivion in pretty much all aspects. As long as they keep gaining ground between iterations it makes it easier to overlook the imperfections. I'm giving The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a 9. After 190 hours I just sort of want to veg out and not really start anything. I have no idea what will be next...

General Update -- Catching Up.

I've been chastised for not posting timely updates once again. It's a new year and with resolutions and the like maybe I can do something about that but first we'll have to play a little catch up. Going back to early to mid December I started LEGO: Harry Potter Years 5-7 because at the time The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was having technical difficulties and was awaiting a patch. I figured LEGO: Harry Potter would be a nice little way of filling the time while waiting for the patch. And it was, until I hit a glitch. A glitch that essentially prevented my from reaching 100% complete and blocked three achievements. The glitch allowed me to earn 99.8% complete. Needless to say I was more than a little annoyed and it's what kept me from posting initially. I went on to play another title and then went back and fully replayed LEGO: Harry Potter to get those last three achievements. It went off glitch free that time. And now that some considerable time has elapsed I can comment on the game without having some sort of conniption fit.

LEGO: Harry Potter Years 5-7 was developed by Traveller's Tales and it was published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. I played the Xbox 360 version of the game. Once again if you've played any of the LEGO games then you already exactly know what this is. If you haven't played them then you should know they're great family friendly action games that deliver a wonderfully charming take on a famous licensed property. They're entirely played for laughs and are genuinely funny. Essentially you'll play through the game in story mode. You'll then need to go back and play through the game in free play mode which allows for you to use all the various characters and their specific abilities to unlock and find all the hidden collectibles. It's very much a collector's series in that regard. If you're one of those types of gamers who has to collect every last whatever it is then any of the LEGO titles will scratch that particular itch. If you're not a fan of collecting then you're still going to enjoy yourself through the story mode and its charming humor and gameplay but you'll lose a considerable amount of the game. Graphically LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 is a very good looking game with its simple and clean aesthetics. The music is great as it's from the films. The game is actually quite sizeable as well. There is a lot to do in and around Hogwarts between the levels themselves. I'd still highly recommend the game even if you've sort of got to cross your fingers and hope for the best to play it without a glitch.

I've also been playing Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS. Mario Kart 7 was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development as well as Retro Studios and was published by Nintendo. Some of you might be asking Retro? Apparently Nintendo EAD handled the racing mechanics and Retro handled the art and track design. Mario Kart 7 features a lot of firsts for the series. The first Mario Kart in stereoscopic 3D, the first with racing underwater, and the first with flight, as well as the first with customizable karts. Even with all the firsts Mario Kart 7 still feels like every other Mario Kart. This is the first entry where I've really started to feel that the series is growing long in the tooth as the saying goes. Graphically it looks good in that sort of simple and clean Nintendo fashion. Nintendo games never push the boundaries graphically and Mario Kart 7 is no exception. The same can be said for the sound effects and soundtrack. They're well within that Nintendo safe area. The game's controls are responsive and won't cause you any missed turns or the like. The amount of cramping your hands will experience of course will depend on how well they get along with the system itself as not everyone finds it to be the most ergonomic device ever created. The track designs are rather good, but again well within the safe zone. Nintendo isn't taking any chances here. The actual 3D effect works rather well and I found myself playing in 3D more often than not. There are a couple of aspects of the game I didn't like however. One being the new kart customization. It's not that it exists, it's more in the how you go about unlocking everything and the balance of it all. You're able to collect coins scattered across the course while racing. Those coins are used to unlock new parts for the karts. In previous Mario Kart titles I essentially went right through the 50 cc and 100 cc levels and would spend the majority of my time racing in 150 cc. But in Mario Kart 7 you're not exactly racing the most competitive kart until you've unlocked the better parts for it. I found myself having to race the lower speed levels over and over again to earn the coins to unlock the parts that would make me competitive in 150 cc. I found that tedious and boring. The other area I didn't like was how Nintendo is still employing hideous rubber band AI and items like the blue shell. Your skill level is essentially irrelevant and pure idiotic luck is far more important. And the AI just absolutely abuse the damn blue shell among the other items. It's almost guaranteed that you'll be leading the race on the final lap and you'll be hit with a blue shell, or hit one after the other with like three items. You'll go from first to sixth on the last turn because the AI comes as close to just out and out cheating as I've ever seen in my 35 years of playing video games. It's amazingly frustrating. It's also bad design. And it amazes me Nintendo gets away with this crap without so much as a word of protest.

I've also played Sonic CD, the 2011 version for Xbox Live Arcade. Sonic CD was originally developed by Sonic Team and it was published in 1993 for the SEGA CD by SEGA, of course. We might need a little history here. Sonic Team essentially split in two after Sonic The Hedgehog. One of Sonic's co-creators, Yuji Naka went East leaving Japan for SEGA of America and SEGA Technical Institute. They went on to make Sonic 2, 3, and Sonic & Knuckles among others. The other half of the team stayed in Japan under Naoto Oshima and began working on what became Sonic CD. In fact what became Sonic CD and Sonic 2 both started development as Sonic 2. What ended up released as Sonic 2 finished development first and got the title. The game's music is also worth discussing. Sonic CD ended up with two different soundtracks. One for Japan and Europe and one for North America. Japan's soundtrack was composed by Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ohgata while America's soundtrack was composed by Spencer Nilsen and David Young. The soundtracks have some differences in tone but both are very good. The soundtracks have different opening and ending tracks. The Japanese soundtrack famously features a sample of Work That Sucker To Death from Xavier, George Clinton, and Bootsy Collins in its boss theme. As for the game itself, Sonic CD is great. If you're expecting speed to be the focus you're going to be surprised. Sonic CD is easily the most platform gameplay focused title in the series and as such it's one of my favorites. The gimmick of Sonic CD is time travel. By hitting a sign post that says either past or future, then achieving and maintaining enough speed Sonic will travel through time. You're essentially trying to make a good future by traveling to the past to destroy devices placed there by Dr. Robotnik. The game features seven zones with three acts each. The third act in each zone being a boss battle. The game features graphic variations and different music tracks for the past, present, bad future, and good future of each act with variations for good and bad futures in the boss levels. The game also retains Sonic 1's method of needing to be carrying fifty rings at the end of the stage to make the large ring appear that acts as the gate to the special stages. Sonic CD's special stages are very cool but arguably the hardest in the entire series. The enhanced port for Xbox 360 was developed by Blit Software based on Christian Whitehead's engine and published by SEGA. You know how you've talked to people or seen posts on message boards where someone has said something to the effect of why doesn't company A just hire that modder or the guy behind some fan project to port one of their games? That's essentially what SEGA has done here. The result is one of the best ports in the history of gaming. They really went above and beyond with this one. Why is that? Well, you get Sonic CD, including all the hidden goodies in the original, in HD and true widescreen. You get three graphic filters that all look great. You get both the Japanese and American soundtracks. Although the Japanese intro and ending tracks are the instrumental versions. You get cool little things that only the most rabid Sonic fan would even care about like the ability to switch between the Sonic CD and Sonic 2 style spindash animations. You also unlock Tails as a playable character once you've completed the game. Tails wasn't in the original game. All of this and it's $5. This is how you do a port. It was clearly a labor of love for Blit Software and Christian Whitehead. I was thoroughly impressed with the Xbox 360 version of Sonic CD. It was great fun to play the game again after all these years without having to dig out my Genesis and SEGA CD and my copy of Sonic CD out of the closet. This version is now easily the definitive version of Sonic CD.


LEGO: Harry Potter Years 5-7 -- 8
Mario Kart 7 -- 7
Sonic CD -- 9.5


I've also spent around ninety hours in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. But I'll save that for another entry...