Now Not Playing: Brutal Legend, Uncharted 2
So, the two hottest games of October are Brutal Legend by Psychonaut’s Double Fine and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2. I’m not currently playing either of these high quality games.
The question is why?
Well taking Brutal Legend first. I played the demo and I read the reviews. So it looks and sounds amazing and I would kill to play that game just to experience the story. Thing is the gameplay on the demo didn’t excite me very much. I have gotten very bored with brawlers having worked on a couple in my day. The music and visuals are great but the hack and the slash gameplay in the demo didn’t give me any sort of warm gooey, pant-changing feeling. Then in the reviews it apparently becomes a strategy game with units and resource management. Even if it is simple, I think I will pass. Maybe later when it is cheaper and I can justify breezing through it on easy just for the experience, but for now… Next!
Which would mean Uncharted 2. I liked Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when it came out in 2007. I felt it was the best PS3 title available at that point and until now I still think it, MGS4 and the new Uncharted are the three best reasons to own a PS3 if you like to play games. I have bought Uncharted 2, I still haven’t played it. Mainly because I haven’t had time to play it with work commitments recently, and the other sticking point is I started to replay the original game earlier in the week. Part of me is berating myself for getting Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game which disappoints in more ways than a Nintendo Press conference. If I hadn’t have bought that (despite the good word of mouth and the fun I had with the original), I would have finished it time to play the sequel. Part of me still hopes I can blast through the original before sticking part two in.
The trouble with that is, I’m still fairly on through the first game, when it was still a Tomb Raider Clone. I’m only just now reaching the point where the game becomes a Gears of War clone. Maybe I should just put it aside and play the new game. Maybe I will.
Of course, I’ve been playing CoD4 for the last few months on PC. This is a game I have put aside and come back to on many, many occasions. For some reason I get completely frustrated with it and quite for a while. Then I come back to it. There are several silly reasons why I am playing this over WaW on PC right now.
1- The only gaming PC I have available is my work’s PC, a HP quadcore machine with a decent video card (a 260 something something). I typically play for around 30-40 mins after work each night before I go home
2- I have finally managed to get a profile high enough to unlock weapons like the Barret 50.cal sniper rifle. I have had to restart at level 1 without ever restiging several times over the last 2 years (new PC, playing PC and 360, etc)
3- Only a few games are set up to work within my Work’s firewall. CoD 4, L4D, TF2 and WoW are set up since they are popular. WaW needs an online profile to work and there are enough people wanting to play it to bother
4-MW2 is out in a few weeks. I’d love to reach level 55 at least once.
So I’m playing against random kids on the net some days and at others with my colleagues. It’s clear the colleagues are very bored with CoD4. They love the gameplay but the lack of new maps has really added to the fatigue. That said, I expect each of them to have MW2 within a week and hopefully, it will be at least 3 hours before they start complaining about hax.
My plans for the next few month in terms of picking up games looks quite slim. Modern Warfare 2 on PC and 360, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Maybe Borderlands and of course All New Super Mario Brothers on Wii. Fuck Assassin’s Creed 2, Forza 3, Need for Speed and the rest.
