Stuff I've been playing recently
By artelinarose 7 Comments
uhhh does this go here
I went out Tuesday and purchased three video games that I have been spending my unfortunately abundant amount of free time with. I've had enough time now that I think I'm ready to express my thoughts on them thus far.
Dead Space 2
This was the big one that I went out for; I waited about a week to pick up the other two games here because I was too lazy to make the one-hour-both-ways walk to Fry's two times in a row. I went in, picked up the Collector's Edition for my PS3, and waited until it got dark to sit down with my significant other and let it entertain the hell out of both of us.
And entertain it does! This game is amazing on all fronts; the visuals, the great atmosphere, tight controls, creepy enemies, satisfying combat that is challenging but never bullshit, the perfectly times musical stings... it's very well crafted. The game is less creepy than the first, forgoing the sense of dread and isolation it worked so hard to maintain in the first for a more intense, on the edge of your seat adventure. There are still monsters closets and fake-out scares abound, but the real parts that get my heart racing and my mind jumping all about in a frantic effort to figure out what I need to do before the thing in front of me kills me dead are the setpieces; dangling upside down from a train hanging loosely from the ceiling or barely fighting off a giant necromorph as it slams me about the room, running down a hall and then into jumping into space to get away from it are the highlights for me.
I like that they gave Isaac a voice, too; he's sort of high pitched without being annoying. A good pick for a nerdy engineer protagonist.
LittleBigPlanet 2
Part of me loves this game and everything about it. The cute visuals, the optimistic "just have fun" attitude that permeates the entire thing, the simplistic nature of the gameplay. All of it. I spend most of my time just searching online for fun levels people have created in their spare time, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the ridiculous concepts people have come up with, or just how much they've managed to squeeze out of the new level creation tools. Every other level I step into I audibly exclaim "Oh, WOW!" It's mind boggling to consider what people will have done months from now, or even a year. But I'll be a little honest here. I'm terrible at platformers. The WORST at platformers. I can go through a significant portion of God Hand or Shinobi on their hardest difficulties, but give me a platforming game and I will want to strangle myself with my controller cable out of frustration within a few hours. I don't know what I was thinking when I picked this up. I'm glad I did but ugh i am so bad at it i hate myself
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
