This Week in Games: May 10 – 16

sacred2_consolesHappy Mother’s Day – hope you are doing something special for the mom’s and wives out there! I am rather thrilled this week to put Sacred 2 for XBOX360 and PS3 as the cover image for two reasons: first Ascaron is having financial troubles so I was concerned that it wouldn’t release at all, and second because early reports indicate it is as good as I indicated in my review of the PC version for VGBlogger. Other than that there is Battlestations: Pacific and a bunch of games making their scond or third appearance on the list. Hopefully some of them (and also last week’s Jagged Alliance DS) will be released this week! Check out the list!

  • Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
  • Texas Cheat ‘Em
  • Battlestations: Pacific

  • Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
  • ZEN Pinball
  • Texas Cheat ‘Em

  • Help Wanted
  • Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus
  • Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball

  • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon

  • No New Releases

  • Magician’s Quest: Mysterious Times
  • Desktop Tower Defense
  • History Great Empires Rome

  • Battlestations: Pacific
  • Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships
  • Killing Floor
  • Hinterland: Orc Lords
  • Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: The Complete Edition

As for last week … while the cover game Klonoa is gettign decent reviews, the story of the week is Plants vs. Zombies. This is one of those casual games that is sublime in execution – there is a house, a bunch of zombies, and a lawn in between. You simply have to keep the zombies from reaching your house. Simple, yet fun and addictive! As for the PSP game Patapon, nothing has changed in the months since the EU release – decent and solid, but with some flaws and unimaginative design that make it a slightly lesser sequel to one of the best games of 2008. I will still be looking to see how the PSN-store only release impacts sales.

What I’m Currently Playing:

  • PC: Plants vs. Martians – awesome casual game.
  • Mac: Neverwinter Nights – reinstalled the original game, both expansions and all six Premium Modules and still working my way through.
  • PSP: Patapon 2 – I still like the core game, but this one is a hard sell even at $20 compared to the original.
  • DS: Legacy of Ys: Books I & II – another fun replay, still underway … definitely slowed down by Plants vs. Zombies.

Enjoy gaming and have a happy Mother’s Day!

No Responses to “This Week in Games: May 10 – 16”

  1. “another fun replay, still underway … definitely slowed down by Plants vs. Zombies.”

    You mean Plants vs. Martians? Or is this a prequel/sequel. I love plants, aliens, and zombies (pirates and cowboys too – ninjas are played out, so are robots, but I’ll allow Fuseliers, Grenadiers, Foreign Legionairres and the inevitable Nazis). But, referring to another game, Pirates/Ninjas Dodgeball? Woot.

    “What a strange and interesting plant!”
    “Nice plant. S’Big!”

    Is Plants and Whatnot a tower defense-style game btw? I played something that sounds like this for iPhone and got bored quick. In that one you had to place guns to deter the walking dead. This sounds different and therefore interesting. Plants can do so much, they are underrated as weapons, foods and defenses by an unimaginative populace.

    I’m playing?

    We Love Katamari – iPhone

    Gears of War 2 – because I’ve been told I didn’t “get” it the first time. I mean, stupid is stupid but okay, I’m trying it again with a friend who’d rather be playing Resistance 2 – or at least he thinks he’d rather. Hmmm

    Spider-Man Friend or Foe (Wii) with GamerBoy. He’s the webhead and I usually stick to Doc Ock.

    Agreed on Patapon 2.

    I mean to fire up Okami for Wii as well. Sort of like how I mean to read some Tolstoy and a lot of Cormac McCarthy and I mean to watch the Kurosawa ouvre or the works of various foreign directors (btw Let the Right One In is in Swedish and it is fantastic).

  2. Hehe … no – Stalin vs. Martians is sadly not very good, but Plants vs. Zombies works quite well. On Steam for $10 (I actually got the $20 Mac Popcap one before I knew it was on Steam, but since both kids are also digging it I got both!)

  3. With all the hype I’ve read about PvZ, I tried out the demo through steam over the weekend. I quit playing well before the time limit as I didn’t find it that interesting or fun. Sure, there were some amusing animations and plants, but I found it to be “too hyper”: I always needed to be keeping on top of the game — clicking on dropping bits of sun, waiting for key plants to generate — all while trying to keep on some sort of reasonable layout plan. It was the opposite of relaxing, and with too little fun to compensate for the tension.

    I don’t tend to play much, if any, casual games, and if this is what they’re like, I suppose there’s a good reason why. Just my opinion.

    I think I can see why other people would enjoy it, though. Each level is pretty short (at least as far as I played) and it’s easy to get drawn into a “just one more level” and then notice that hours have gone by unnoticed.

  4. Gears of War 2 – because I’ve been told I didn’t “get” it the first time.

    Personally, that game has been one of my favorites, but games are so subjective that I have a hard time understanding why someone would tell someone else they don’t “get” a game.

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