Coming down from Bioshock (about which there’s still a good bit to say, provided I ever get around to it), I’m starting to remember that there are, in fact, other games out there what need playing. Not only that, but as Fall creeps up on us and the summer drought of top flight titles is starting to draw to a close, there are soon to be many, many, things that, if not worth buying outright, will at least deserve some attention. Thank god for my status as a contractor at work making everything game related a tax write off, eh?

So with the holiday crush looming right around the corner and the dizzying concept of a good month or two where every week brings something new and interesting, I thought I’d hit on what I’m playing and what I think about it at the moment. Y’know, for science.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – Wii: On one hand, more of the same if you spent any time with the previous two Prime’s for the Game Cube. On the other, it is the definitive shooter for the Wii, and the sort of game that could easily prove every bit as important to FPS games on the console as Halo did when it first arrived. The controls are simply perfect – no other console shooter on the market today (and let’s go ahead and extend that through at least the beginning of the new year) has so deftly mimed the speed, grace, and maneuverability of the mouse-and-keyboard control set up, and as long as Microsoft and Sony stick with their traditional controllers it’s hard to see this same experience ever being available on the traditionally more “hardcore” systems. Nintendo have once again shown not only the potential that lies within their (pardon the pun) revolutionary controller but how well they understand it – Corruption offers up the most satisfying time on the Wii since, oh, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword though, of course, as amazing first-party games do little to assure the worries that enough third-party developers will ever come to grips with the motion-sensitive controls enough to keep store shelves full of great new games. That said, there are a number of third-party games coming slated for the next few months and beyond that I’m looking forward to, and the optimistic vote says that this first year of the Wii’s existence has been one of growing pains for a lot of developers out there.

All praise for the controls aside, the gameplay really is more of the same, for better or worse – lots of exploring, lots of backtracking, lots of puzzles to figure out and enemies needing to be killed in a certain way. While the controls add an interesting flair and very little of their implementation here feels gimmicky, it only helps so much when the frustration begins to set in at another progress blocker requiring you to backtrack or another boss with convenient orbs covering his body to shoot. I’m enjoying myself, but I’m also not spending as much time with it as I thought I would be. Make of that what you will.

Picross DS – DS: A simple yet fun puzzle game, and pretty much exactly what I’ve been in the mood for lately whenever I pick up my DS (actually, what I want is another Rocket Slime, but puzzles are usually another itch that needs scratching). Each puzzle is made up of a grid with numbers along the top and left sides. These numbers tell you how many squares within their row or column need to be filled in to create that puzzle’s image. It’s a wonderful logic puzzle and bastard addictive, and that it reminds me of the third Indiana Jones movie’s Jehovah-Starts-With-An-I bit only helps.

Clubhouse Games – DS: I was expecting a collection of simple board and card games, which this certainly is. But it’s also bowling, darts, and a number of other unexpected games each implemented with simple yet graceful use of the touch screen. A number of titles are locked when you first start playing, encouraging you to try things you’ve never heard of or might not otherwise be excited over, and several games have secret modes or skins that can only be accessed by winning a set number of times. Toss in online play and it’s the perfect companion for a long trip – not-quite-mindless fun that’s constantly egging you in to one more round.

Skate. – Xbox 360 (demo): I’ve never really liked the Tony Hawk games, though I appreciate the idea behind them – lots of people want to skateboard, but not everybody has the skill/patience/lack of a job or other responsibilities it takes to learn, so yeah, there’s definitely a place for a skating sim. Perhaps it’s that my sucking in real life tends to transfer to any time spent with Tony Hawk, or maybe it’s Neversoft’s apparent inability to do anything other than churn out skating games and make me lose interest in Guitar Hero III, but something always put me off about the series and, because there’s no real alternatives, skating games in general.

But then there’s the demo for EA’s Skate., which in the hour I played it (the demo has a time limit on it, presumably to keep you from screwing around forever in free play mode) managed to turn a good portion of my sucking into something that, while not yet mad skillz, could possibly get there one day. The tutorial mode is incredibly easy going, with the narrator (who only eventually lapses into annoying hip speak rather than drowning in it from the start) walking you through the basic moves and emphasizing the importance of timing when doing tricks. It’s here where Skate. really shines, as you soon begin to see how even the most complicated tricks are done by flowing in and out of the same moves you learned at the beginning of the game. One control stick moves the board, one moves your body, and the triggers handle your arms. There are the usual time trials and stunt challenges and such, but there’s also lots of opportunities to just, y’know, skate. And it turns out that’s all I’m really looking for in a skating game.

Medal of Honor: Airborne – Xbox 360 (demo): The tired and… tired Medal of Honor series gets a rather dramatic overhaul here: instead the usual linear slog through war-torn Europe, Airborne sees you leaping out of a plane and parachuting into the middle of a battle already in progress. Each battle has a number of things that need doing, and you can choose which to go after first by where you decide to land. The idea here is it’s your battle, and you can fight it the way you want to, by aiming for the green smoke that indicates an area with lots of friendly forces or dropping right into the heat of battle. It’s a good idea in a game that seems to have lots of them – there’s an interesting system in place where you become better with weapons as you use them, which leads to faster loading times, better accuracy, and other skill bonuses – but at the end of the day, you’re playing another WW2 game, fighting another bunch of Nazis for the same handful of towns and villages you’ve probably saved a dozen times before. It really feels like the age of WW2 games is coming to an end – even Call of Duty is making the leap into the modern age, for god’s sake – and it’s hard to tell what’s the greater shame here: that Medal of Honor: Airborne will be largely overlooked as just another Nazi-em-up, or that EA decided to make it one in the first place. For all it’s gameplay twists, I just can’t get excited about another bunch of Nazis waiting around for me to machine gun them down. And maybe that’s the greatest shame of all.

Filed under: Games