A Quick Catch-Up (Two Mini-Reviews and an Explanation)

Okay, we admit it. We haven't done a hell of a lot lately. So to cover what we've missed and to explain our ridiculous posting rate I'm going to give an update on everything I can within reason. Thus, I'm not going to cover the myriad of trailers that came out at Tokyo Game Show. Most of it seems redundant anyway. I will give a quick two cents on both Dead Island and Resistance 3, though.

Two cents isn't enough for a joke, however.

 So why have we been gone? A stream of bad luck would not be an overstatement. School not withstanding, two of us have been sick and one I guess was just uninterested in everything.

But at least we have plenty of medicine

A more entertaining event, I should mention, is the fact that I've had to prepare to possibly take the owners of my previous residence to court. There's also this whole LSAT thing, whatever that is. It's been hectic to say the least.

So in summation of the last two things I mentioned, gavel.

So Dead Island. As far as unfinished games go I guess you could say it's a good one. It gets remarkably difficult around 30% in and a solo playthrough is quickly becoming more and more unlikely. A remarkably simple yet good idea, Borderlands with more realism and zombies (I know Borderlands DLC has zombies), just not brought through to it's own potential. Yes, there are glimpses of greatness, but the problems are just to frequent and numerous. The voice acting is atrocious, modified weapons still have a tendency to disappear from your inventory to never be seen again, and if I hear one more NPC yell at me, "wait, where are you going," while I'm fighting in front of him to save his ass I'm going to lose it. However, if I manage to secure other players I can honestly see myself have lots of fun, and isn't that one of the main goals of a game? Now if only my weapons didn't degrade 10 times faster than they should. And one more thing. Why do I need money to upgrade, fix, and make weapons? I find all the supplies I need to complete such tasks and it's all done at a workbench. Who on earth am I paying? The bench? It has no need for currency.

Trust me, workbenches will show nothing but quiet indifference to monetary contributions.

On the opposite end, we have Resistance 3. I say opposite because one is a first person shooter and the other isn't possibly that at all until later. Hell, if you choose Logan in Dead Island I would consider it almost a first person thrower. But I digress. Resistance, in short, blew me away. I wasn't even intending to get it until I heard the good buzz. After all, I was thoroughly unimpressed by the first two. It's not at all hard to love this game, especially if you love old school shooters. Yes, it has the appearance of the modern FPS with all it's cinematic set pieces and dramatic cutscenes, but it's guts are all old-school. Healthpacks restore your life and you get to carry all the guns at once. What more do those who yearn for games of yesteryear want? I would almost say Bulletstorm, which I adored, could have benefited from these implementations.

Unlike this chimera's face that does not benefit from a punch.

 Resistance 3's weapons almost seem to blast forth pure gaming joy, each with an ability to be upgraded twice (that is to say, to level 3) with use. The second you upgrade your Bullseye completely and tag three enemies at once all while shooting wildly in any direction you'll understand what I mean.  Wrap all of that up in a campaign about, as Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade put it, mittens and there's plenty to love. If I were giving scores in this post I would be tempted to give it a 10. You know, if I was.

Hopefully, that catches us up to the present. Later, I'll be dragging my sleep deprived posterior over to gamestop to pick up Gears 3 at midnight. I'll be reporting on it's quality a lot sooner than I did with these two games. Unless, you know, I can make Stephen do it.