Thursday Night: Walmart: LA Noir - $10

Playing LA Noir now, not quite as good as I'd hoped, but still enjoying it. Between 3-4 stars right now.

I am somewhere in the homicide cases, and I put it down. The story has gotten interesting. But the sheen on the gameplay has really worn off. It seems pretty shallow now. The open world driving seems pretty pointless.

Cyber Monday: XBox.com: Forza Horizon - $15, Rage $10, Gears 3 $10

Rage: I kept going back to this. I understand in theory why this game should be generic and dumb. But in practice it's just super fun. The vehicle stuff is just super fun. The shooting levels are a bit too long, but they are still really enjoyable. I will finish this game. After last Friday I really didn't want to be looking down the barrel of a gun. But I'll get back to it eventually.

Forza Horizon: played a good bit of this and sorry, Jeff, not a 5. It's Forza, and I really like Forza. But the whole setting is just bland. No crashing or even damage is unfortunate. Will play in spurts.

Haven't cracked open Gears 3 yet.

Just not sure yet, which is very disappointing. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not even saying I won't buy it and love it. But what I am feeling is that it is not SSX 3, and I'm going to have to get over that.

There is no SSX in SSX. That is, no snowboard cross. No actual racing. You know, racers slotted in to starting gates, 3, 2, 1, GO! Jostling for position, pushing people down. Groomed courses with banked turns. Crowds. Fireworks.

No trick courses? Not sure, it looked like the trick event was just down the same mountain you race down. No half pipes, no big air events. No rival events. No free roaming. No running all the way down from the top of the 3rd peak to the bottom of the 1st.

So what we do have is time trials on a whole bunch of mountains. No way to know yet what the variety is like. And the deadly descents, which look cool, but I don't know how they play.

No DJ Atomica in the demo. But why would he be there? You aren't hanging out a some awesome ski resort, you are flying around the world jumping out of helicopters. The only person around is your (based on the demo) annoying helicopter pilot.

It plays like SSX, it just doesn't feel like it. Yet. I'm going to have to follow this closely, and play the demo some more.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

Pinball FX2

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Forza Motorsport 3

Game Room

Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Age of Empires Online

Lips

Rez HD

Gears of War 2

Super Street Fighter IV

Mass Effect 2

Doom II: Hell on Earth

Pac-Man: Championship Edition

Final Fantasy XIII

Panzer General: Allied Assault

Assassin's Creed II

I was going to write up F-Zero and Mario Cart first, as they are the first games I fired up, and it makes for a good compare and contrast. However, I never went back to them after my inital looksie because OH MY GOD WARIOWARE, INC. Genius game of the (previous) decade. Seriously whoever came up with the idea of 3 second microgames should have secured himself a place in video game design history.

Perfect mobile game. Perfect have on hand at all times downloadable game.

Also it has a perfectly playable Dr. Mario clone embedded in it. Who knows what other wonders it has hidden inside. (Yes the internet, but I prefer to be surprised.

This game is everything good about Japanese game design. Perfect design, incomprehensibly delightful 'story'. I could write more, but then I wouldn't be playing more WarioWare.

So apparently the GBA ambassador games are available today. I love GBA so I'm pretty stoked. I'm going to write a mini-review of each game. Here's a summary of what I know about these games.

Fire Emblem: the Sacred Stones - I don't know what this is. An rpg? Will take a look, but I'm sorta full up on rpg's with Skyrim.

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity - Liked F-Zero on the Gamecube, so I'm interested in trying this.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror - Never played a Kirby game. Is this a platformer.

The Legend of Zelda: the Minish Cap - I own this on GBA but didn't get very far. My wife did finish it. I'm very Zelda'd out this year, but I'll give it a look.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Own it. This was my second Mario Kart after the SNES. I remember liking it.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong - I don't know what this is, a puzzle game.

Metroid Fusion - I love Metroid Prime, and I love Metroidvania style games, so hopefully I'm going to love this.

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island - Own it on GBA. Love this game. Maybe the best 2-D platformer of all time. Didn't finish it though, got hard. I'm ready to give it another shot.

Wario Land 4 - No idea, never played a Wario anything.

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ - Very excited for this though! I recall playing it in the store and thinking it was crazy fun.

This weekend's play sessions started inauspiciously with my son erasing our save game. Then his brother hid Spyro under his bed. So I had to play back through the first 6 levels. Ended up getting through level 10. Feels like about halfway through.

I have to say the boss fights with Kaos are both exciting and hilarious. They consist of alternate battles with 'dark' Skylanders and surviving a sort of magic bullet hell from one of Kaos' spells.

I'm still enjoying this game greatly. Playing with just the 3 starter figures is fine, it still feels like a whole game. I'm guessing I'll max out the guys levels and abilities before I reach the end, we'll see how I feel then.

I played two more levels, chapter 4 and 5 tonight. The levels are very interesting visually and there were a few different things to do. I played both levels with Spyro, he's pretty fun with both a ranged and melee attack. He also has a fly power, which isn't really flying he just moves faster and has some more defense. I did notice that he could fly over the water areas that Gill Grunt could swim in.

I scanned in the toys I bought today but kept them in the package. Having 8 characters registered rewarded me with bonus xp.

I listened closely to the soundtrack tonight and it's pretty good. It does sort of sound like Hans Zimmer.

The plot and dialogue are pretty generic and kiddy.

The general pacing and action is a bit slow, but I'm still enjoying it.

The game is still trending toward a 4 star review.

I'm going to start writing down my impressions of this game, in the hopes of an eventual review (so far there are zero on the site).

I'm finding it fascinating that the marketing for this game completely missed the game enthusiast community and we are sort have to find out about it on our own.

Personally I found out about it last week when I just happened upon the marketing display in Best Buy. I looked around but I couldn't find the game or anything there. That's when my Odyssey began...

Anyway I want to talk about the game itself, but just to get past a few things.

I think the tech is neat. I'm into new toy tech, though my son is too young to get into it.

I've never played a Spiro game, so I really have no idea about his character or the games he's in.

By the way this is called Spyro's adventure but he isn't in it any more than say the fish guy or any of the other characters.

I think the toys themselves are alright. They look good and seem sturdy. The think that makes them work with the game is embedded so I think they should withstand some abuse. The 2 year old hasn't gotten a hold of it yet though.

So the game:

I was looking for a new Lego type game to play with my son. I think this is going to fit the bill.

Basically you run around a level fighting monsters and smashing stuff to get loot. Loot comes in lots of variety but it all translates into gold, so no diablo style looting. So far the puzzle solving involves getting keys to open doors, pushing blocks around, and navigating teleporters and jump blocks.

No jumping. Controls are primary attack, secondary attack, special attack (haven't got those yet). I have upgraded my Spyro with a movement ability, I'd assume every character gets something like that.

Occasionally you have to jump into a turret and shoot at stuff. When you have a key you push the right stick forward to put it in the lock, and to open treasure chests you waggle the RS back and forward. I assume these are holdovers from the WII.

The game looks good. It has a nice Wow/Free Realms type art style. So far everything is in an outdoor 'sky islands' environment so the fixed camera isn't not a problem.

Each level has three stars or level of completion: 1 is just for getting to the end, 2 for getting through in a certain time, and 3 for finding every treasure and whatnot. Obviously you aren't going to be able to 3 star every level without getting additional figures. But I don't see any particular reason to do it anyway.

There is a challenge level for each character you have. I was able to beat the first one I tried but not the second. The challenge mainly comes from the time limit, so I think it's probably more a matter of memorizing the level than anything.

Each character has it's own unique animations and sounds. Voice acting is generally well done and charming.

Multiplayer PVP isn't bad, but is really hampered by being only 2 players.

I've only played through 3 levels, but I've done each one multiple times. Co-op with my son and then again to find secrets/grid the characters up a bit. Upgrades are all meaningful so far.

Also there are hats. Some are so ridiculous I can't bring myself to wear them (like a potted plant) but some look cool. Trigger Happy looks mighty fine with a cowboy hat on.

This game really makes up for the absence of shoot 'em ups on the Genesis.  This arcade game came out in 1986, but it is much better than many of the Genesis games on the collection.   The music and art style is very colorful and whimsical, but the shooting is serious business.  It's a side scroller than you can fly in either direction, similar to defender or chopper command.  You have a primary gun and a bomb, similar to Scramble.  You clear a round by beating all of a certain type of creature, designated on your radar screen, while fighting waves of other enemy formations.  The enemies drop gold, which can be used at a floating shop for upgrades to weapons and ship components.  Each round ends with a bullet hell style boss. 

This is a great game.  I give it value of $2.  My tolerance for shoot 'em ups isn't that great, but this is a good one and I'm glad to have it on this collection.

I finally unlocked Zaxxon by playing the miserable Decap attack.  Props to Jade from 1up clueing me into Chuck's "spastic hover" maneuver, which she mentioned on the "at1up" podcast.

And Zaxxon is as difficult as I expected.  I can't even get as far as I could as a kid.  I keep running into everything.  And that stupid robot is shooting missle from two stages away!  Unfair.  Still, notalgia is strong with this one.  Valuation $1.

As expected, Fallout has pulled me away, but I just hit the level cap, so I'll probably come back to the Genesis collection.  Don't want to waste XP.  So more Shining force, and maybe some Streets of Rage co-op with my wife.