PSP- Lego Batman

OMG.

Srsly gyz, omg.

Ok, I played the demo, I saw the hundreds of people selling back the Lego Batman/Pure 360 two-pack they got with their 360 Elites, but I never really played the Lego Batman.

I played the Lego Indiana Jones, like too much, probably way too much, but never the Lego Batman. I played every single Lego Star Wars (way back on the PS2 days), but never the Lego Batman.

So I finally played the demo on the PSP- Go, and holy crap I was hooked.

I don't....know why.... well, I have some theories. There's something about collecting every single lego piece that speaks to some inner-most obsessive compulsive me inside me, but why wasn't I as obsessed with the game on the Wii or the 360? or PS2 for that matter?

Oooooooh, portable Batman memories AND portable obsessive-compulsive feeding.

Perfect.

This game's pretty simple, you run around as a little lego batman and robin, and you fight people, you destroy small blocks to get lego "coins" sort of, which are counted at the end of each level, and you win prizes. However, there are like 10's of thousands of these lego pieces in each level. Standard Lego game fare, however... this lego game has Batman, not just Batman and Robin, as bastardized as they've become, but rather the dynamic duo from the animated series. The enemies, the levels, the interactions, all from the animated series, hell even the music is from the animated series. oh my..... the music, that's what sold me on this game, the music. Remember the music from Batman: The Animated Series? How each episode had a full orchestration for basically every single bit of screentime? Ayup, it's basically in this game. If you're unfamiliar with the music from the original animated series, then just go, now.

It's adorable and gorgeous in its adolescent graphics, it's charming it its controls, it's simplistic in it's system. Too much alliteration, it's a good game.

Controls? Move the character, punch, jump, use a tool. Done and done. Delish.

Played the Lego:Star Wars games? Play Lego Batman, Played Lego Indiana Jones? Play Lego Batman. If you like any of the lego games, play lego batman.

Basically, it's an extremely well done game in an extremely well done series.

Never played a lego game before? Give the demo a spin, or buy the full Xbox 360 game (for like $5) to see if you like it. If you've ever been a fan of batman, legos, or simplistically beautiful games, you'll be hooked.

Xbox 360's Darksiders

This game got a terrible rep from people even before the game came out!!

Lemme explain, around this time Bayonetta, Darksiders, and Dante's Inferno came out, with God Of War 3 coming soon.

All 4 games play fairly similar, almost duplicating in some parts. But here's the thing, God Of War is a copy from Devil May Cry, which is a copy from Soul Reaver, which is a copy from basically any good platformer on old systems. I hate talking about other games in reviews, but every single game I just named is really good! Try them all!

Here's the problem, Dante's Inferno, for it's effort, looks a whole bunch like God Of War, and the idea was "hey bra, if you want to play something like God of War, just play God of War, not some crappy ripoff" which would make sense if GOW was on the 360. So some gaming companies came up with the good idea to make something like GOW on the 360, beautiful!

Nothing wrong with that, and everyone else kinda took to the helm and did the same.

Darksiders however, got the brunt of the popularity, and it's a good game, just no one gave it a chance.

Here, they say it's one part Zelda, one part God Of War, that sounds fine to me!

Puzzles, a really strong, but simplistic combat system, and dungeon crawling. But oh no, for some bizarre reason they kept calling it a Zelda copy. Which, to me (a huge zelda fan) that's totally fine, since Zelda games are good, but rare.

So to the game. You play War, one of the 4 Horsemen for the end of the world, you accidentally get started too early, or so you're told, and you have to avenge yourself.

Green button jumps, blue button attacks, red button grabs, yellow button uses your special tools (boomerang, hookshot, potions, yeah whateva, it's a time-tested working game system)

Very simple, but you know what, it works. It's a platformer, so you have to jump from area to area, find some keys, do some backtracking and repeat. But it's a good game! It's fun! If it was on the N64 or the PS2 if would win game of the year easily, it just got screwed over because of when it was released.

I had to laugh when I got to a puzzle where a certain bomb only blows up when hit by fire. To my side I see a torch, I have a boomerang, I blow up the bomb. Zelda games have taught me well, hahah.

but really, there is nothing wrong with this game, here's what I've heard.

It's short: ok, it's 8-10 hours, that's standard nowadays, it just doesn't have replayability, find a Zelda game, or a shooter for that matter that does.

It's boring and repetitive: play Link To The Past, you'll do the same thing essentially over and over again, but if you like it, you don't mind.

It's like Zelda: well, I had to play though Twilight Princess, so I'll act like this is an apology.

Bayonetta is better: Driving a BMW and eating chocolate covered lobster is probably better than driving my grand prix and eating tbells, but I don't bitch about the tbells when I'm in my car, haha.

Give it a shot if you like Bayonetta, Zelda games, Baldurs Gate, God Of War, or want an action game that's a good solid rent for a few days.

Will it stay on your shelves forever, probably not. But with everyone hating it, that makes it cheaper, which is a good thing. A used copy of Goldeneye is $8 on amazon, but holy fuck they said that was the greatest game ever too once, don't let a low price fool you, give it a chance.

Thanks You!

Ok, first of all, to everyone reading the blog and emailing me (shockingly enough) thanks, I appreciate it.

I really can't stand the stereotypical magazine game review, for example

"man, this game is sweet, the tech specs are amazing, and it doesn't remind me of a crappy game like custards revenge or rogue warrior, even though i got the game for free, I'd still consider shelling out the money for the game, oh wait, they let me keep it, thanks infinity ward, you get a 10 out of 10, don't mind that the gaming companies own the gaming magazines and can tell us what to rate"..... wait a minute....

its true, most gaming companies give money to gaming mags, in short, don't read them for the reviews, it's better that way, and they get the game for free, so they don't care what you think.

however, I, play the game, and buy the game, so I'll tell you whats goin on from an aspect of someone who knows $60 ain't cheap nowadays (that's 60 tacos, just sayin)

Recently one customer told me at work that he trusts every single game I tell him is good, which is always a great thing to hear. I don't sing the praises of COD like others. However, another guy told me that he can never trust a single review I give a game. (Both are readers of my blog, and both of you know who you are, I don't hate you that you hate Just Cause for the 360)

Here's the way I look at it, there are probably millions of blogs out there on video games, probably even thousands of blogs written by people who work at gaming stores, but I don't give you the bullshit tech specs 1.21 gigawatts "compare this game to billions of other good games" verbose review, I tell you about the game, and I take maybe 5 to 10 minutes of your time, the same short and sweet review you'd get from me in the store, if you want a fuller review, rent the game and make your own decision.

Mostly though, thanks to everyone who reads this, and understands the difference between magazine/ online gaming reviews, and reviews written by an actual person who actually had to fork over the cash to get the damn game. Let's not forget when other gaming magazine critics were working on their high school paper, or getting a journalism/ english degree, I was helping start a gamers club and playing N64 while rehearsing theatre shows, haha. Priorities.

Basically, thanks for reading, I haven't turned on any money making schemes on this blog because I don't care. My theory is if there are more people who game, and more people who talk about gaming out there, better games will start to be made. Nothing wrong with Infinity Ward and COD, but it's not the game for me, and it's not the game for lots of gamers, so let's keep the reviews balanced. (To date 4 game informer issues have had Halo as the cover, you'll never see something like Saboteur or Borderlands on there, since those companies didn't give money to the gaming mags)

And as always, if you want me to review something specific, let me know. I'm workin through my list as best I can. Keep an eye out for

DS-

Moon

Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

360-

Batman:AA

Final Fantasy 13 (which releases tonight)

Saboteur

Bayonetta

Dragon Age: Origins

Kane & Lynch 1 &2

and a bunch of others, haha, like I said, I have a list.

The one comment I heard was compare it to other games, like I do very often in the store, which I'll be more than happy to do, but remember, this game is of course different, so it's not EXACTLY the same. Happy Gaming!

Ragnarok DS

Well, some games just take too long to beat before reviewing them completely, so in an attempt to get reviews to all of you faithful readers, I'll start reviewing games after getting somewhat into the game.

Ragnarok on the DS. Apparently this is a huge pc game, an mmo at that, that tons of people play, younger teens it seems.

It's slated as a single player mmo-rpg on the ds, if that makes sense, the basic idea is you have a very very modifiable character, with 17 classes to pick from. The classes are of standard fare, ranging from soldier to mage to thief.

The storyline somewhat standard for the jrpg as well. A girl and some guy are with an adventurer, and they are attacked, the girl has some special power, and she runs into you, a boy with a sick mom? And the two of you start to fight evil, oh and she has amnesia as well, but isn't too concerned about finding out who she is, but more of commenting on your attitude to others. Needless to say your character is sort of a jerk to people.

At any rate, the storyline is somewhat forgetful, and you'll quickly become annoyed at the fact that you have to click the touchscreen to advance every single line of dialogue, an annoying but ignorable element.

The strongest part of the game are the controls. There are two kinds of rpgs in this world, some have you select attacks and advance slowly, or more commonly known as turn-based fighting, the other is a sort of "click on what you want to fight, once" and the character does the rest. Ragnarok allows you to simply click on the enemy, and you attack it until its dead. For those of you video game savvy, Diablo or Tales of Symphonia style.

You level up quickly and you don't constantly have to stop to readjust skill points, you can just do them whenever you start to feel the game is difficult, a nice gameplay element not often used.

The music is dreadful, but hey, its a DS game, haha. You'll hear the same music for a dungeon, every dungeon. The same music for towns, every town. The same music for forests, every... you get the idea.

Overall, if you have a DS for rpgs, and let's face it, if you're over 16 and you have a DS, chances are it's for rpgs, this one fits nicely within the ranks. It's not the annoying Final Fantasy titles (look I'm sorry, I played through them once, I hate having to grind again, sorry), and it's not a kids title (although making hooker-looking girls in "my fashion designer" does have some appeal).

Since it's a DS game, and the first one I've reviewed for my own blog, you can't exactly rent them easily, but if you like rpgs, or are a fan of Ragnarok on the pc, get this and chances are you won't be disappointed.