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Monday, January 01, 2007

Latest rush: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE, CALL OF DUTY and THE GODFATHER on Xbox

This year's prize for Most Uber-Neato Christmas Gift has got to be what "Weird" Ed got from his lovely bride Olivia this first holiday season with them as a married couple: an old-school Nintendo Entertainment System, complete with light gun and 20 games! Can't begin to say how envious I am of the guy. I wound up giving my NES to a little cousin about twelve years ago along with most of the games. Which I'm glad he got to enjoy it but over the years, some of those games have become real classics, y'know?

Yeah, we're now in "the seventh generation" or whatever of videogames and that's supposed to mean that we are now meant to be playing only on Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s and Wiis... but a videogame system is never obsolete so long as there are people who love to play games on them. Heck, there are still plenty of people around who get their kicks out of playing on the Atari 2600 VCS, and that system is almost thirty years old! I know a few folks who keep their Super Nintendo Systems around to play Super Mario World (a game which took me over three years to beat on the Gameboy Advance, by the way).

Well, Lisa and I got an Xbox two years ago, and the only reason I can see for us "upgrading" to an Xbox 360 anytime soon is when Halo 3 comes out next year. We're still getting a lot of mileage out of the Xbox and even the Gamecube that we got for Christmas our first year of marriage. Thank goodness than when we get a Wii eventually that all the Gamecube games will play on that. I wish the Xbox 360 was as backward compatible. But we aren't looking to stop using the Xbox anytime soon. One good reason is that the Xbox 360 has yet to have any games like Karaoke Revolution and Dance Dance Revolution for it. Either made for the system or with a "software profile" made for them for backward compatibility. And those get more play in this house than anything else.

Well, for Christmas I got Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 4 for Lisa. And I wound up with a few games that I'm only now really getting into 'cuz of how sick I've been this past week. But now I'm finding it very hard to put them down, for various reasons...

Mom got me Call of Duty: Finest Hour 'cuz we were in Best Buy the week before Christmas and she was complaining that I hadn't put anything on my "Christmas list" this year... which is 'cuz I've been too busy running for office and other stuff. I spotted Call of Duty: Finest Hour and told her she could get me this. World War II first-person shooter is a new genre to me, even though it's been out for awhile (unless you count Wolfenstein 3-D from back in the day). I like this game a lot... but it's VERY hard! I'm still stuck in the first few levels playing a Russian soldier. I've heard the most recent installment in this series, Call of Duty 3, is supposed to be really good.

Lisa surprised me with The Godfather: The Game, which she remembered my being interested in getting way back months ago but I got so wrapped up in things, I'd forgotten that I really wanted this game. Now I've got it... and I feel like I'm getting way too drawn into this game. It tracks the plot of the movies very well, giving you something of a "parallel" storyline taking place alongside the first two movies. It's incredibly detailed and engaging: so much so that I wound up buying the strategy guide for this game, because otherwise I really might get lost. So much illegal activity you can do in The Godfather: The Game like protection rackets, prostitution and assassination. Stuff that caters to the dark creature lurking in the back of everyone's id. I'm a huge fan of the movies and will admit to sometimes having fantasies of living the Corleone lifestyle... now I get that chance :-)

Marvel Ultimate Alliance was one game that I'd asked for but didn't get, so I went out and bought it at the nearby Wal-Mart the next day. I've been wanting to play this game for a few months now, and it has not disappointed! It's an action role-playing game where you assemble a team of four Marvel Comics character from a huge roster of heroes, fighting to stop this mad plot for world domination by longtime Marvel baddie Doctor Doom. You start off with Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor and Wolverine, but it's not long before you can mix up your team with other characters like Iron Man, Elektra and Deadpool... or even field entire established teams like the Fantastic Four. VERY awesome graphics and gripping gameplay. Definitely something to recommend for whatever system you may have.

So that's how I'm spending my leisure time lately: fighting the Nazis, being a soldier for the Cosa Nostra, and saving the world from the Masters of Evil. Who could ask for anything more? :-)

2 comments:

qemuel said...

I'm playing MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE right now. Love, love LOVE the game.

Anonymous said...

"Mom got me Call of Duty: Finest Hour 'cuz we were in Best Buy the week before Christmas and she was complaining that I hadn't put anything on my "Christmas list" this year... which is 'cuz I've been too busy running for office and other stuff. I spotted Call of Duty: Finest Hour and told her she could get me this. World War II first-person shooter is a new genre to me, even though it's been out for awhile (unless you count Wolfenstein 3-D from back in the day). I like this game a lot... but it's VERY hard! I'm still stuck in the first few levels playing a Russian soldier. I've heard the most recent installment in this series, Call of Duty 3, is supposed to be really good."

Never heard of Call of Duty: Finest Hour. I have Call of Duty 2 (xbox 360). In that we play Russian soldier too. And British soldier, and finally American soldier.

Call of Duty 3, the fighting was much more intense than in number 2. And its all in France. And you play only an American soldier.

But you get to play with more weapons, tanks, mortar tubes, shotguns, grenade launchers, etc.

SPOILER SPACE:






My biggest gripe is that you dont get to fight in Paris. Even though that is the objective: Liberate Paris. The game ends after you have liberated yet another lonely village somewhere outside of Paris. And then you get one of those short films that tells you that the troops have liberated Paris. And thats the end of the game. THAT was kind of anti-climatic. I wanted SOOOO much to be fighting in the streets of Paris. See the sights, the Eiffel Tower, etc. Fight at such landmarks. But no such luck.





Spoiler space ends

Me, my brother and a friend of his had a ball playing one on one on Call of Duty 3, or rather, all three of us at the same time. Hunting each other down in some sort of villages to blast away at each other. You can use vehicles (I got run over more times than I can count)