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DeadPoolX wrote: The real game has a lot more to it, but I don't know if it's worth the full asking price.

In my opinion, no.

The first phase is quick and funny, the second one is equally entertaining and, from the third phase (the one similar to any RTS) the game becomes boring. The last phase, the Space one, is really annoying and repetitive.

The only really great thing about the game is the Creator tool. The rest is really forgettable.

Good to know -- thanks! One of my kids expressed interest in it. It doesn't sound like he'd enjoy it all that much. If he still thinks he wants it after it's been out for a while, and the price goes down, we might get it. He's more into action than creating creatures at this point.

I'm playing Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II. It's a fun time-waster.

Completely off-topic, but - Linda, your dog avatar is adorable! How old is he? What kind of dog is he? How long have you had him?

Also completely off-topic, but - Linda, I also recognise your quote about Sea World. That's from a George Carlin routine, isn't it?

Maia and I rented three Wii games from Blockbuster: Ghostbusters, Punch Out!! and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
PROS:

• Co-op gameplay in both story mode and arena mode.
• Controls are relatively simple to use.
• Power management is put to good use.
• Graphics look pretty good.
• Peter Cullen voices Optimus Prime (as he does in the movies and the original G1 cartoon).

CONS:

• Controls are sometimes clunky (especially the nunchuk).
• Terrible camera issues.
• Loading the game places you back at the start of the stage.
• Co-op piggybacks the second player to a non-visible character and just a targeting reticule (in the main story).

Punch Out!!
PROS:

• Fantastic graphics.
• Controls are very easy to master (if using the Wiimote as a horizontal controller).
• Plays a LOT like Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! for the NES with many familiar faces.
• Two-player versus mode available.
• The ability to practice against upcoming opponents before fighting them in the ring.
• Multiple challenge modes and unlockables available AFTER the game has been beaten.
• Autosaves after each fight and allows for more than one profile.
• Incredibly awesome and fun!

CONS:

• If you dislike boxing, you'll heavily dislike this game.
• Some characters can be insanely difficult to fight (i.e. Mr Dream, Bald Bull, etc).
• No co-op (but then again, how would that even work?)
• Controls don't work well IF you use the Wiimote/Nunchuk combo and/or the balanced board.

Ghostbusters
PROS:

• Great graphics, especially if you prefer the GB cartoon to the movies.
• Controls well suited to using the GB arsenal.
• The entire game can be played co-op.
• Mostly destructible environments.
• Dialog is well written and often hilarious.
• Autosaves after each mission or event.
• Best Ghostbusters game ever!
• Bill Murray (Peter Venkman), Dan Ackroyd (Ray Stanz), Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler) and Ernie Hudson (Winston Zeddemore) voice the same GB characters they played in the 1984 and 1989 movies.

CONS:

• Your arm can get tired easily after holding the Wiimote for a while.
• Co-op is viewed in a split-screen environment.
• A few camera issues when playing co-op, but mostly due to targeting inexperience.

evil genius.

It is fun!

Re-living my childhood, thoroughly enjoying DOSBox and setting up for conjuring with my name: Clyde's Adventure. Cute little platform puzzler, but the later levels are real tough!

Right now I am playing XBlades on my ps3...

Curse of Monkey Island, both modes. Easy mode by myself, hard mode with my wife. Never actually beat it before. Then it's on to Escape From Monkey Island. All while waiting for TMI Chapter 2.

I got Hans Christian Andeson's The Ugly Prince Duckling in the mail today..so of course I had to start playing it..It's really neat....The graphics really remind me a lot of KQ7.... .I is happayyy!

Ghostbusters is pretty fun, once you get used to the controls. I love the PKE goggles.

Still playing Mass Effect and Bioshock sporadically. I haven't had as much time for gaming lately and we've also been sidetracked with Guild Wars again, so I've fallen a bit behind.

Yeah, Maia likes to the PKE meter and goggles a lot. Both help track down ghosts, but with the latter, you can actually see a ghost's trail.

Maia's also aiming to identify every ghost and creature in the game. That's the first thing she does (using the PKE meter) when seeing a ghost.

Meanwhile... I go in full-speed ahead and start blasting.

I rented three more games from Blockbuster to try them out. They are... Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels, Mad World and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels
SWTCWLD (how's that for shortening the title?) is fun, if not a little too cartoony. That's not the real issue, however. While it's neat using the Force and fighting with lightsabers, the control scheme sucks.

When the Wii came out, everyone's first thought was: "Holy crap! I can't wait until a Star Wars game comes out where I can swing a lightsaber around!" I know that's what crossed my mine.

While the idea was great, it didn't turn out too well. Fighting mostly consists of swinging your Wiimote around haphazardly. That's not entirely unexpected, but it's still a shame. I have to admit that using the Force to pick up objects and toss them is easy to do with the Nunchuk.

There's not a whole lot in the way of story, either. Who buys a fighting game for the story? Not a whole lot of people, but I'd like some sort of purpose.

My last complaint is rather minor, but am I the only one who wants to see lightsabers rendered as lethal as they are in the movies? In every single SW game that's had lightsabers, the enemy can endure multiple hits (as can you). I realize the game would be over quickly if lightsabers were insta-kill weapons, but it'd still be neat.

Mad World
MW is interesting. It's designed to look a lot like Frank Miller's Sin City comics, although I don't think the two are connected. The graphics are all black and white, but highly stylized. Only blood is colorized.

Blood is something you'll see a lot of, too. I wouldn't say there's tons of gore involved (it's not like you see heads flying or entrails on the floor), but blood splatters all over the place.

The game takes place in some sort of dystopian future (that's original, right?) where gangs rule the streets. Most people fight in televised games where you fight to death -- usually against multiple opponents. For a good idea how this works, think Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome or the Roman Colosseum gladiator fights.

Your character has an artificial right arm and somehow he's able to extend a full working chainsaw from it. You can only have the chainsaw activated in limited intervals or it overheats. Even if you don't use the chainsaw (and you will, trust me), nearly every object in the game can be used to hurt or kill your enemies.

For instance... I first slammed a tire on an enemy, thereby restricting his movement. I then impaled him using a street sign's metal pole. After that, I picked him up and slammed him against a spiked wall (called the "rose bush") where he finally died a very painful death.

You get assigned points for your kills. The more original and intricately involved ways you kill enemies, the more points you gain. There are two announcers who often comment on the battle field, the enemies and your actions.

I have to admit, this game is fun in that it's unique. However, once the novelty of committing gruesome death and destruction wears off, you're not left with much of a game. There's virtually no storyline to speak of. No online play either, but somehow they managed to work in a two-player option. I haven't tried that yet, but I have to assume it's a "versus mode" and not "co-op."

The major problem isn't the game itself. It's that due to its highly violent and graphic content, it'll quickly become a major target for anti-game pundits. MW is, in some ways, very similar to an older game called Manhunt. In that title you played in a violent competition where you were rewarded for killing off your enemies in worst ways possible.

For some reason or another, very few rallied against it. I'd guess that's because it wasn't popular. Instead, most people focused on the GTA games (which actually penalize you for theft and causing violence).

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
MP3C is the third game in the Prime series. The first two were on the Gamecube. You can play GC games on the Wii and last I heard they're getting ported to the Wii. I hope they upgrade the graphics. If not, there's no way it'll be worth a full price purchase -- unless it's a disc where both games are on it.

For those who don't know about the protagonist, she's a woman named Samus Aran. She's been around since 1986 (on the NES) and is widely considered the "first playable female lead" in a video game. That's two years before KQ4 was released and let you play Rosella.

Unlike most female characters, Samus is not eye candy. She looks very good, especially in her Zero Suit outfit which is skin-tight, but even that is practical since it doesn't reveal any skin and is still designed for light combat. Most of the time, however, she wears heavy combat armor that covers her entirely. In fact, you can't even tell she's a woman inside her suit. That was the major surprise at the end of first Metroid on the NES. Everyone thought Samus was a man (the manual even suggested such), but when she took her armor off during the ending, players were shocked to find out Samus is female.

Yes, it's more or less an FPS game, but there's tons of items to interact with. Maia was playing this the other day and when she realized she could scan nearly everything, she decided she would do so at every opportunity. Characters speak to you and you engage in a story that, from what I've heard, is supposed to be pretty good.

You control everything with the Wiimote and Nunchuk and the controls work well. It's a little tiring to move the camera and your weapon with the Wiimote (you need to hold it up at all times), but otherwise, the controls seem intuitive. The best part is when you need to physically interact with the environment. You push and turn and pull the Wiimote to grab and manipulate objects in the game.

The one sore spot is that it uses save points. Many other Wii games do as well, but in a game like this, which is heavily action-oriented and may result in death at any time, it's a real pain to lose whatever work you've accomplished and return to your last save spot. Considering the capabilities of modern consoles, the use of save points is inexcusable. Those may have worked when the SNES and Sega Genesis were modern gaming machines, but nowadays we should be able to save anywhere we want.

DeadPoolX wrote: Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels
SWTCWLD (how's that for shortening the title?) is fun, if not a little too cartoony. That's not the real issue, however. While it's neat using the Force and fighting with lightsabers, the control scheme sucks.

While the idea was great, it didn't turn out too well. Fighting mostly consists of swinging your Wiimote around haphazardly. That's not entirely unexpected, but it's still a shame. I have to admit that using the Force to pick up objects and toss them is easy to do with the Nunchuk.

I am so not a fan of this game. Friend of mine has it. The thing is - if you time it you can do things with the lightsabre (nice moves) - however, if your opponent is haphazardly swinging their lightsabre at you, it's virtually impossible to do some of the ingame moves that are designed to be used. Your best bet is just to swing wildly and try and prevent your opponent from having the time to actually do a "real" move in the game. This is definitely where having normal controls to do Up, Up, Back to do a move would have worked much much better.

DPX and I always find we have vastly different goals when playing a game together. I always want to explore every nook and cranny of the game world, as well as find out as much information as I can. He generally wants to blast through everything as powerfully as possible. This leads to some interesting in-game debates on what to do next.

I think I'm addicted to RPGs. I can hardly wait for Dragon Age, even though I have three other games on the go right now.

The thing I like about the Wii controls in Metroid is how you can interact with objects. Although I prefer the keboard/mouse combination for movement and camera control over the Wiimote, I really like how you can use it to interact with the environment using the Wiimote. That would be great for adventure games.

Maiandra wrote:DPX and I always find we have vastly different goals when playing a game together. I always want to explore every nook and cranny of the game world, as well as find out as much information as I can. He generally wants to blast through everything as powerfully as possible. This leads to some interesting in-game debates on what to do next.

I think I'm addicted to RPGs. I can hardly wait for Dragon Age, even though I have three other games on the go right now.

I am like that during Co-Op games that are FPS. I shoot first rummage the bodies later - clearly there's no time to ask. Paul who is usually my partner in crime for games like GEARS OF WAR is the slow mover, sniper, take it slow type, while I chain anything that moves - and doesn't move.

But when I am doing games on my own, I explore everything.