And finally, on the last day of camp, we all learn a very important lesson about being true to ourselves and come to terms with the bittersweet death of childhood innocence as Becky Johnson and Samuel Teshterberger are caught together in the old haunted boat house.

Excite Truck (Wii)
Nearly two years after it debuted as a launch title for the Wii, Excite Truck remains not only one of my favorite titles for Nintendo’s motion sensitive console, it’s also one of my favorite racing games period. Developed by eternal independent racing game studio Monster Games, Excite Truck completely revels in its bonkers arcade-y nature by letting you toss its healthy selection of vehicles around various bits of Mexico, China, Scotland, Canada, and other places I can’t quite think of at the moment. Best of all, the folks behind it seem to have realized that it’s every bit as fun – if not more so – to fling your truck into the upper strata as it is to, say, win a race, and as such have pinned progression on collecting stars for performing as many stunts as possible. Whether eeking out victory by smashing your truck into another just in time to sputter across the finish line as your engine overheats and dies or chucking your truck through the Scottish woods and just praying you’ve happened upon the one path that will lead you safely through the trees with gobs of points to show for it, Excite Truck remains the gold standard by which all other racing games seem doomed to measure their big stupid moments against only to come up sadly wanting.

Rock Band 2 (360)
The music game perfected. All the issues I had with the first Rock Band (tying bands to a band leader that must be present, not letting your character play more than one instrument, the traditional solo career mode not being nearly as fun as the World Tour) and then some have been addressed, leaving an experience that’s completely engrossing and friendly before you ever strum the first note. Throw in the ability to download all but three songs from the original Rock Band to the 360′s hard drive and full compatibility with the gobs and gobs of largely great downloadable content developer Harmonix has cranked out on a weekly basis over the last year, and it’s hard to imagine – or care, really – where the genre goes from here or what poor exiled Guitar Hero can do to keep up. All this, and the ability to create a band with Triana Orpheus on bass and Dean Venture on guitar.

LEGO Batman (360)
Part of me feels like I should be tired of the Traveler’s Tales trick of creating utterly charming all-ages adventure games by mixing popular licenses with heaping doses of brick-based comedy, and to a degree I am. But while I’m not really interested in another sol jaunt through the breakable world of of my favorite childhood characters, the co-op mode continues to delight on a number of levels. When things are easy it’s a chaotic delight, full of stuff to smash, goons to bust in to bits, and inside jokes to revel in. When it’s hard (and this is probably one of the harder LEGO games I’ve played so far, not to mention the buggiest), it’s a great example of the value of two heads working to solve a problem. Whether the problem is what Bat-suit is necessary to progress or trying to find the right turbine to power up with Joker’s deadly hand buzzer, it’s so nice to see Traveler’s Tales given the chance to craft their own story, even its still with some one else’s characters. I can really only hope this is the just another necessary step to creating their own playground. In the meantime, any game that lets you play Clayface as a messy special needs child is completely worth owning.

Bioshock (360)
Because the third time’s a charm, right? This time things are slightly different, as not only am I finally getting to play with the bonus plasmids that bastard Irrational (or rather, Take-Two Boston and Australia) saw fit fit to release just as I was wrapping up my second play through, I’m doing it for an audience. Rapture is a very different place when playing tour guide. It encourages you to focus less on fighting for your life and more on being sure to take it all in. Best of all, it calls attention to little details I still hadn’t noticed before, such as seemingly random Splicer behavior pointing the way to hidden items or trap doors, the clever, careful pacing of the main character’s flashbacks to his quiet life back on the farm, and that rarest of things – a gang of Splicer’s almost successfully taking down a Big Daddy on their very own. It’s still a beautiful game, still perfectly happy to give back in spades whatever you’re willing to put in to it. That it works just as well showing off the sites as it does the first time stumbling through alone isn’t terribly surprising, but it’s always nice to squeeze one more little secret out of Rapture’s crumbling halls.

Filed under: talk about games