For all the time I spent working, I still managed to play a lot of games in 2009. I’m late on the decons, but in the meantime I’ve put together a list of (almost) every game I played this year with a couple thoughts on things that stuck out to me about each of them. More >
Posted by Holden in Decon
“FarmVille? That stupid Facebook game that clutters my news feed all the time with random messages about lost pigs and ugly ducklings? Really?”
When I decided I was going to do these deconstructions, Facebook games were the last thing on my mind. This time last month, I had never even played a Facebook game. I thought the very concept of Facebook games was backwards – I have Steam to play games on my computer, after all. Facebook should be strictly for staying in touch with friends. But after hearing that FarmVille has over 11 million active users on a daily basis – even more than World of Warcraft - I figured that there must be something about the game that the average Facebook user finds attractive. And in always trying to expand my knowledge of games, I finally gave in and started playing. More >
Since Audiball finished development, I’ve had a lot more time to play the games I’ve been buying over the past few months. Hit the jump for some quick impressions.
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Picked up Rock Band 2 last weekend with high expectations. The original Rock Band was my favorite rhythm game to date, and I couldn’t wait to see how they improved upon the original. It turns out that the biggest improvements are quite minimal on paper. The single player campaigns have been axed in favor of using Tour mode for everything and a few “challenges” that consist of playing various sets of songs with certain instruments. The online modes have been left mostly the same, but tour mode is now online as “Battle of the Bands,” so the old modes are somewhat irrelevant to me. Combining the songs I’ve downloaded with the songs imported from the original Rock Band, I have over two hundred songs available to play in Rock Band 2. Choosing a song to play is like looking at someone’s iTunes library. It’s better than the original in every facet of gameplay and presentation, but of course, the game’s own song selection is what really matters, and it somehow manages to best its predecessor. It’s got Bon Jovi, Journey, Modest Mouse, Blondie, Beck, and more. Many of the songs aren’t obvious, and that’s what makes it so great.
So basically, it’s still Rock Band. And I couldn’t recommend it more for rhythm game fans.
Got Army of Two through Goozex this week. The game is actually quite a bit better than I expected. I don’t understand how mainstream sites like GameSpot gave it anything less than an 8/10. I mean, the plot is abysmal, the co-op AI partner is awful, but playing it through with an another person in the room makes all those problems insignificant and lets you enjoy an experience easily as satisfying as the co-op campaign in any other big-budget title of recent years. More >
