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week in games
Posts Tagged “Lists”
week in games
grand theft auto iv
A List of Demands for Grand Theft Auto
Not even two weeks since its release and the ingrates at Kombo.com already have eight things they want to see in Grand Theft Auto from now on. Everyone has an ultimate GTA experience list, and I'm betting that GTA IV represents someone's wishful thinking from the Vice City days (the controls represent mine). But some of these have already been introduced.
More »
lists
LOLBox Art: You're Doing it Wrong
1Up has a running feature on worst-ever box cover art. It's been about six months since the last installation so they drop another dozen or so for us to laugh at. Yes, Okami's watermarked box makes the list. So does the Orange Box. Remember, just because it's bad box doesn't make it a bad game. In fact, a good game triumphing over bad packaging is ... even gooder!
Some of these are so bad they look like LOLz. Utterly incongruous text over the graphics. Like someone developed a game and then they retrofit whatever art was laying around because they ran out the packaging budget. Pure Pinball? That looks more like a concept for Fox Force Five or something.
week in games
Week in Games: The Blox that Go Boom
After last week, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly be thinking about new game purchases this week. If you bought Iron Man, Mario Kart Wii or GTA IV, there's no way you've gotten your fill of them yet. Unless you were waiting on Boom Blox? Here's the roster of releases for the coming week. Is anyone picking any of these up, or are we still gorging silly on other games?
Iron Man (PC)
SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 (PSP, PS2)
Boom Blox (WII)
Great War Nations: The Spartans (PC)
R-Type Command (PSP)
Speed Racer (WII, DS)
Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold (PC)
Baseball Mogul 2009 (PC)
The Dog Island (WII)
Toy Shop (DS)
Brain Voyage (DS)
Crosswords DS (DS)
New Releases Week of May 4 [Gamespot]
controllers
Five Ways to Simplify Complex Controllers
Arriving yesterday in the mail, as if laughing at me, was Assassin's Creed, courtesy of my restarted Gamefly subscription. I had forgotten to change my game queue (I also got The Warriors on PSP. WTF?) So, really, if I were to seriously play Assassin's Creed within a week after getting GTA IV, we're talking about a length of time spent indoors that borders on being incarcerated.
Anyway, this is hardly news, but AC has a control system that will take me a week to get comfortable manipulating. The game is a perfect example of how increasingly complex controllers will give rise to increasingly complex-to-control games. GamePro has a list of 5 suggestions for paring down the buttons and options.
music
Chocolate Rain on Mario Paint
And nine other songs, including a RickRoll (although, it's not really a RickRoll if you know its coming). Thanks to reader Mrjuandrfl for spotting an anthology of classic songs composed on Mario Paint. More »
sex
Another List: Top Blue Ball Moments in Gaming
And weekends are made for lists, too. GamesRadar put up the seven top unrequited lust moments in gaming. The Sims, Leisure Suit Larry and, of course, the final rescue sequence in Super Mario Brothers make the list, but I think they missed about half a dozen more: More »
nonviolent video games
The Top 5 Nonviolent Things to Do in GTA
Naturally, no one's going to chop together video of this, Youtube it and get it in Jack Thompson's hellfire-and-damnation spree of legal motions. But Popular Mechanics wrote up a list of five nonviolent pastimes in Grand Theft Auto IV and, surprisingly, you can spend a lot of time entertaining yourself with them.
1. Listen to the rockin' radioWhether or not this is a palatable way to spend time playing a game, it underlines the point that Grand Theft Auto is a game of choices in a wide open environment. Yes you can kill hookers. Yes you can shoot cops. Yes you can run over bystanders. If that's your choice. You can also eat hot dogs all day, watch TV and go sightseeing, if you're not a sociopath. I play it somewhere in between.
2. Swim out of a car accident
3. Drive like you mean it
4. One up Google's NYC street view
5. Meet the neighborhood strangers
Top 5 Non-Violent Things You Can Do in Grand Theft Auto IV [Popular Mechanics]
week in games
Week in Games: OMG Most Awesomest Game Ever This Week
Of course I am talking about LET'S PILATES for the DS! Woot! This amazingly deep sandbox-MMO-driving-multiplayer-movie tie-in lets you build flexibility, strength, endurance and coordination IN REAL TIME! An exclusive review gave it 11/10! Best game since Shaq Fu!
Oh yeah, Mario Kart Wii is out, Iron Man is coming Friday and uh, Grand Theft Auto IV or something. So which of these gets your hard earned gamer coin?
Mario Kart Wii (WII)
Grand Theft Auto IV (X360, PS3)
Iron Man (X360, PSP, PS2, PS3, WII, DS)
SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 (PSP, PS2)
Great War Nations: The Spartans (PC)
Baseball Mogul 2009 (PC)
Toy Shop (DS)
Let's Yoga (DS)
Brain Voyage (DS)
Let's Pilates (DS)
New Video Game Releases - Week of April 27 [GameSpot]
fanboys
Self-diagnosing Fanboyism
Destructoid has a handy list, on the heels of TechRadar's "Signs you are no longer a hardcore gamer." Now, Kotaku is an open environment where fanboys are
hookers
Who Will Win the GTA Hooker Pageant?
Man, I am on a mission to get Jack Thompson to spam my inbox. I figured anything pairing "Grand Theft Auto" and "hookers" might trigger his impotent, wasted bot-army of letter writers which is, of course, himself alone.
GamesRadar has an amusing tribute to one of the most indispensable classes in the GTA franchise, the hooker. I'll have you know — this is written with as serious a face I can muster — I've never killed one. Ever. I consider it a point of pride that I never, even to see the outcome, lowered myself to the top-of-mind stereotype everyone has of a GTA gamer. Nor do I kill the cops. Unless I have 3 stars and have been separated from a burning vehicle. But I digress.
getting old
Signs You're Too Old for Hardcore Gaming
There are signs you're getting old: Baldness, yelling at people who play music too loud, that cummerbund of gut that's been piling up like credit card debt since your freshman 15. And then there are signs you are really old, which means you can't hack it as a serious gamer anymore. TechRadar has a list of 11, and, like, eight apply to me. Harsh.
Most hurtful was "You've pre-ordered GTA IV but don't mind if it doesn't turn up on launch day." Oh come on. I have a life, I have a job, I probably won't even have everything moved in by Tuesday ... why does that make me such a backslider?
So here's the list, and I'm curious what's the youngest applicable age for any of them? "You fondly remember a golden age of gaming ..." That qualifies Dreamcast fanboys, much less guys like me who loved ... oh never mind.
11 Signs You're No Longer a Hardcore Gamer [TechRadar]
grand theft auto iv
The Week in Grand Theft Auto IV
So this is the week that was in GTA: Biggest developments were the creation of our own compendium and FAQ. The Aussies threw a hissy because someone sticks a gun in someone's hoo-hoo, or heinie, or whatever. Also, a handy piece of code to filter all GTA:IV news, in case you want to be sequestered like the OJ jury from all sights and sounds GTA until the big verdict April 29. Or if you just find these posts a little cumulative (nahhhhh!!). If you want to see the non-GTA Kotaku, use this URL: kotaku.com/tag/not:gta-iv
But then you'd miss awesome lists like this:
GTA's Lazlow discusses IV on Radio
Australia Also Gets A PS3/GTA IV Bundle
GTA IV Gets Its First Taste Of Console Nitpicking
How To: Block Our GTA IV Content
To Microsoft, GTA IV's As Big As Halo 3
Grand Theft Auto IV Has So Gone Gold
Rockstar Games Social Club Open For Business
GTA: Remembrances of Cars Jacked
British Office Star Ricky Gervais Appears In GTA IV
Grand Theft Auto IV DLC To Bring Whole Cities?
Game Crazy Launching GTA IV At Midnight
EBGames Try For Teh GTAIV Funnies
Aus/NZ GTAIV Cut Due To "Weapon Being Inserted Into A Private Area"
Variety: GTAIV Launch Bigger Than Halo 3 (And Then Some)
GTA IV Box O' Swag
The GTA IV Compendium & FAQ
Yes, Yes, The *First* Grand Theft Auto IV Print Review
lists
Top 10 Games For $10 or Under
If you're looking for some cheap thrills (and really, who isn't?), head over to Sarcastic Gamer, where 10 bloggers (including our very own Luke and Leigh) weigh in on their favorite cheap options for some fun — and they're not all super obvious. On the list? Knytt, Tori-Emaki, Bloody Roar, and several others. I can think of a few cheapies (or freebies) I'd put on my own personal list.
Top bloggers name top 10 Games for $10 [Sarcastic Gamer]
lists
Games With the Best Stories Ever
These evergreen features are made for weekends: GamesRadar has a list of the 15 best video game stories of all time. It's good for a midafternoon bull session between the hours of whatever you're playing (still hammering on Bully, myself.)
I haven't played many on the list to be quite honest, as lots are PC games and I am one of those lifelong Mac users (sue me). In fact, the only Portal I played was the interactive novel on a Macintosh Plus back in 1987. Not sure if interactive novels qualify, they might be more novel than game, but that one was outstanding.
I'm also a little surprised that neither Sam & Max nor, for that matter, Full Throttle (an extremely underrated game) didn't make the list. Throttle especially, as it had one of the great finales of all time, when Ripburger goes into the chasm clutching a "Can't beat a Corley" license plate. Indeed.
I've put the full list after the jump, if you want to see what made it without going through the whole article, which has some nice YouTube and flash videos of game highlights.
More »
lists
Video Game Tropes Wiki
We all know and love (or hate) the expansive list of video game tropes; the TV Tropes wiki has put together a shockingly extensive list (also home of a wiki version ofthe grand list of RPG clichés), spanning all sorts of genres and with plenty of examples. My favorite is "Malevolent Architecture":
Castles aren't large walled structures where people live and work, they're intricate mazes. Temples aren't places where people go to worship their various deities, they're where the ancients practiced their Booby Trap- and Death Course-making skills (and they were so good at it that they are still functional after hundreds of years without maintenance). Even places like warehouses and sewers, where the design should be fairly straightforward, are designed solely to deter intruders, even if there is no earthly reason why it should be so, and even if it utterly inconveniences non-intruders. One wonders what the regular people do.
Oh, so true.
Videogame Tropes [TV Tropes via Joystick Division]
bedtime
Top 5 Games to Play Before Bedtime
MSNBC has a feature up: The top 5 games to play before you go to bed. This means PSP and DS games, mostly, unless you pass out on the couch after a marathon session on your console. They seem to be looking for mental challenges to tucker your brain out so you go straight to slumberland. More »
top 10
Top 10 Video Game Emotions
Only a Game has a fun post on the 'top 10 video game emotions' - emotions that people recognize as both present while they're playing, and enhancements of gameplay:
Based on the 1,040 responses to the DGD2 survey, I have ranked the top 10 emotions with their average score out of 5 to get a rough-and-ready estimate of the popularity of various emotions. This isn't a strict scientific measure, as such, but the highest scoring emotions are those for which the majority of people not only recognised having that emotion while playing games, but recognised it enhanced their enjoyment.
There are some surprises ('fiero,' or 'triumph over adversity,' one of the emotions that gets a lot of attention in these sorts of discussions, didn't even make it halfway up the top ten list), and some not so surprising ('amusement' got the top spot). Anyways, it's an interesting analysis of some of the whys and wherefores of the final tallies.
Top Ten Videogame Emotions [Only a Game]
