Now Playing: June 21-27, 2009

Yup, Monster Hunter looks like the buy for me as well this week.

me as well

i wish i could say the same... i want it, the demo was amazing.. but id rather not play those muderously difficult bosses solo...

that, and i told my friend id get Phantasy Star Portable..=/

Same.

I'd hope it wasn't, that up there looks last gen..

I saw the conduit commercial for the first time last night and it looks really bad in motion. I mean, we all knew it would look bad compared to the HD systems but seriously I didn't even think it was going to look as bad it actually does.

Composite Cables + Increased Resolution = Shitty Pic

@marzel:

that's becuz it's the wii

@tmac I haven't seen the commercials. I was just watching offscreen play from video that IGN put up. They were on a 720p Samsung LCD and it didn't look that bad.

The gameplay on the other hand....

I love how all of your comments are see-through. I played the Conduit at E3 and it looked just fine.

The Wii on an HDTV, even with Component (3 colour, 2 sound cables) still looks a bit nasty, an update around the time Mario Kart improved things a bit. but it still looks grainy (if that's the right word), as it's still a 480i/p signal into 768 lines (on mine at least)

Infamous is a lot of fun. I have played that constantly since it came out and love it.

monster hunter got a 9.5 from IGN AU. and i've played the japanese one with the english patch and it's awesome! definitely worth a purchase AND more.

All these weeks? Need to do yourself a favor and check out Prototype, Ghostbusters, and the new Burnout DLC dude.

Yeah I bought the Burnout DLC, but prototype and ghostbusters are rentals at best. I probably won't even rent ghostbusters. I'm not gonna spend $60 on mediocrity cause I'm not made of money.

Well then rent them. You were making it sound like it's been the typical summer gaming line-up and it certainly has not.

It is the typical summer for me though. A bunch of rentals, but nothing worthy of a purchase. At least last year I had MGS 4 to last me a month or so, and I would have had the new Batman game today if they didn't delay it for no reason at all.

I would call it a very strong week. 3 worthwhile titles for each platform (though the same 3 for both PS3 and 360), and a solid variety, too

What about Mark of the Wolves? It's the best in the Fatal Fury series.

lol, Ghostbusters.

T-Mac

I was all about Fight Night Round 4 ... until I played the demo. That game sucks and is an embarassment for how much hype it has been getting. Maybe if UFC Undisputed hadn't spoiled me on a good realistic depiction of combat sports I would have been overwhelmed by FNR4. But, why play an archaic boxing franchise when I already have a top flight MMA game? Personally, I won't, even though I already have it paid off at Gamestoppo.

As for this week ... Monster Hunter Freedom Unite FTW. I wouldn't mind trying out The Conduit (my son wants a shoot-em-up for his Wii) and Overlord 2 could be a bigtime sleeper hit like the first game which was rather good. I can't really say because I haven't been able to try them out. I thought Punch-Out!! was going to suck but after picking it up for my daughter as a gift I'm actually surprised how much content they put in there. I thought it would have been little more than a remake but there is more to it than that.

I just think you are a little pessimistic and overly critical about these games sometimes. There has been lots of quality stuff this summer ... you have to try something out before you know how good/bad it is first. If it doesn't appeal to you thats a completely seperate issue but always portraying every game (except a handful) as mediocre trash only worthy of a rental comes off as arrogant and short sided. Truth is you have to make your purchases count because of your fiscal situation which isn't anything to be ashamed about. No need to rationalize it as a summer drought with nothing worthy of a purchase.

It's not just you but there is this attitude with some of the hardcore elitist that every game that doesn't get a 85 on metacritic or isn't nominated for GotY is rubbish that shouldn't of been made. Not every game has to be the best EVAR to merit a purchase ... I guess thats the point.

Not trying to come off as a dick or anything and call you out ... just saying.

I'm not rationalizing anything. Even if I was filthy bill gates rich, I would still just gamefly most of these games because I don't feel like they're worthy of a full purchase. I do admit it takes a LOT to impress me, but I don't view that as a bad thing at all.

This was brought up on the last 1up podcast, how there's so many games flooding the shelves that aren't horrible, but aren't great and its starting to dilute the industry and hurt publishers because people aren't buying every single game out there. There's way too many mediocre games that honestly shouldn't have been made to begin with.

I'll agree that there are lots of medicore games that probably never should have been made to begin with. But at the same time I don't have the same mindset that every game has to be a GOTY contender to be worthy of a purchase. I've enjoyed many a game others scoffed at the notion of playing without giving a chance because it was written off a mediocre.

Sometimes it's good to take a chance on things. This is one of my few hobbies outside of work and athletics so I allow myself to indulge because I don't spend money on stuff like partying.

Different strokes and all that ...

UFC is ultimate fucking crap.

@Deaftly

Out of curiosity what is it about Undisputed that you don't like?

And it's a real shame too, because games like MadWorld and No More Heroes deserve that attention. They just are on the wrong platform it seems.

I love MadWorld.

"I guess it's 100% shovelware from now on as far as Wii is concerned."

Okay, just relax.

And Sega could use the cash. Big time. After House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld bombed, throw in poor marketing of Valkyria Chronicles and this isn't going to help them any.

MadWorld and No More Heroes would have sold the same wherever they went. Quit acting like they would have done better somewhere else.

And *that's* the underlying problem of Wii 3rd party support. The 3rd parties put out niche games that wouldn't sell anywhere, they get the exact response that they should have gotten for niche games (niche sales), and then they try to pin the blame on anyone else

the absolute worst part of that game was how the camera bobbed as you walked, fucking unplayable. I think I might try the second one though, it looks a lot better, although having to hold the trigger to stay transformed is idiotic, I'll at least give it a rent so I dont feel ashamed when I'm in the same room as my 20th anniversary Optimus Prime. But yeah, soon as I get my 360 back ill be murdering mutant hillbillies as much as I can

http://games.ign.com/objects/027/027174.html

Read that. All will be explained.
You're comparing Epic and Insomniac to High Voltage.

All it takes is one creative person to design non-generic enemies. In all fairness, most people can't think of many other FPS enemies other than generic humans or aliens, but I don't understand why there aren't more animal-based enemies. Or aliens that have heads in different places so it isn't always the same old headshot mechanic. Or robots even, I don't remember fighting too many robots in games.

They spent the time designing the characters, why not design them well?

@ StormEagle

I don't understand what you mean. Your reply to my post doesn't really make sense. I wasn't comparing anything. I was commenting on the laziness of devs that design garbage enemy character models.

and he replied by calling High Voltage a smaller dev and linking the listing that shows them having roughly 100 employees. Kinda cool they are in Hoffman. Wonder if I can talk someone into getting a tour. The Midway office in chicago was awesome when I got to walk around it.

i would argue that it's not just video game enemies that are poorly designed and unoriginal, but most of the characters in video games in general.

i'm not saying that there aren't games out there that are well designed, because there are, and they really stand out... but for the most part video game character design is very inbred and homogeneous and uninspired.

obi-habby, i don't think that's what he meant. i think he meant that high voltage has a long list of horrible/mediocre games that they developed or published, and that insomniac and epic are actually good developers, so it's not really a fair comparison.

So basically, High Voltage employees lack imagination? I'm not talking about the quality of textures or the polygonal structure of the character. I'm talking about how the concept sucks. This is not limited to smaller companies, either. They all do it.

I agree with aristokrat, especially with robots. There's no reason for robots to look so human. Sure, legs are good for climbing, agility not tripping etc. hands are good for grasping and manipultion, but aside from that, there's no reason to have a torso and a head, let alone socketed eyes when you could have a 360 sensor bar.

Well Dark Wayne, without a torso..they wouldn't have arms or legs. The robots would literally be 4 limbs stuck together. I agree with the head though, but I guess its to make it more human or something.

well, actually, something with just 4 arms or so would make a lot more sense. Imagine the Metal Gears, or an M1 Abrams but with legs. I didnt mean no torso,, it just wouldnt be human torso shaped, more of a chasis if anything. It's just that legs are much more capable of climbing barriers or recovering from an unexpected movement, or if it had arms to remove mines or tear away obstacles, a human shape would only make it more vulnerable. To get an idea of what im imaging, look around about the Big Dog prototype robot, only tank sized, and with guns