Mass Effect: Andromeda is easily my most anticipated new title for next year, so this new trailer will probably be the highlight of my week. Then just to make things a little bit better Mass Effect 2 & 3 are now playable on Xbox One! Awesome! Spring 2017 can’t get here soon enough.
Shmee Takes A Trip With Lego Batman 3 Goes Beyond Gotham!
Do you like Batman? Do you like the same Lego game that Traveller’s Tales has been making for years? Then you will like Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. Since this is like the 9 Millionth Lego game they have created it makes the game kind of hard to review. You play as Lego mini-figs, you beat stuff up and collect studs, and then you finish the game. Then you play through the game again with all your new characters and cheats to unlock everything.
There are a few things that are different, for better or worse. For instance several characters have several different outfits, so you will need to change them constantly, and you don’t unlock the hub world (The Watchtower) until half way through the game. Other than that what makes this game unique is the sheer amount of DC content.
Pretty much every DC hero and villain is in the game, and it is a lot of fun to use their abilities while collecting them all. Really that is what the Lego games are all about. Collecting your favorite characters, and Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is a massive success in that regard.
If you are looking for a cheap and fun diversion Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is worth your time and money. If you are kind of done with the Lego games, this game is no different, and it will not change your mind. I love DC, and I love Lego, so I am having a great time.
Dead Rising, The Game I Should Love…
Dead Rising turns 10 this year, and to celebrate Capcom is re-releasing the old games and the new Dead Rising 4. When the original Dead Rising was announced for the for the Xbox 360 I was supper excited. It was like they reached inside my brain and then created a game just for me. I mean it was a game where you could use just about anything for a weapon while roaming around a large open mall that was infested with the undead, and the game delivered on that promise. However, it also delivered a constantly ticking clock so that you could not take your time to enjoy all the free form zombie killing action, a terrible save system, and bosses that were next to impossible to defeat. I don’t think I have ever been more disappointed in a game.
It turns out I am not the only one who felt this way, so they had to make drastic changes to the next Dead Rising games. Because of that I hear that things got better in the second and third games, and that they are completely getting rid of the countdown clock in the upcoming Dead Rising 4, but after the way the first game let me down it is hard to get excited about the franchise again. Who knows maybe Dead Rising 4 will be the zombie game that gets everything right, but unless I get the game as a gift I won’t find out. It is hard to trust something that has broken your heart.
PSA: Tron Evolution Is Not Tron 2.0!
I know that the title of this post seems pretty obvious, but it is a mistake that I have made. Tron Evolution came out on Xbox One backwards compatibility recently. Then Microsoft gave it away as part of Games with Gold. I love Tron, so I was pretty excited, but only because I got Tron Evolution by Propaganda Games mixed up with Tron 2.0 by Monolith Studios. Imagine my disappointment. Tron 2.0 is a well made First Person Shooter/Platformer while Tron Evolution is a bad third person movie tie-in.
This mistake is even more embarrassing because Tron 2.0 came out way back in 2003 and Tron Evolution came out in 2010, so this is just starting to show how old I am when I am getting games separated by seven years mixed up. Oh well. The take away is don’t bother playing Tron Evolution. It is not even worth it for free. On the other hand if you do get a copy of Tron 2.0 (on Steam I am guessing since who has their original Xbox setup anymore) it is worth playing. Don’t make the same mistake I made.
You Should Be Disappointed With Mighty No. 9; You Shouldn’t Be A Jerk About it.
The Kickstarter funded Mighty No. 9 developed by Keiji Inafune launched this week, and the reviews have been less than kind. Last I checked the game was sitting at 58% on Metacritic. The people that teamed up to give more than $4 Million have been raging about it all over the internet saying things like, “He took our money and ran!”, or “People have created better games with a lot less money!”, but neither of the those statements are fair.
It is true that other games made with less money have been better, I could list several, but those teams were small being made up of one or two dedicated people, not full dev teams. Large development teams like Inafune’s Comcept cost a lot of money, so if things go sideways they burn through money fast, and it seems clear from Inafune’s interviews that is what happened with Mighty No. 9. Not many developers would ever utter the words, “It is better than nothing.”, if things went well. Things went bad and Comcept pushed through and published a game for their backers. Was it the game they wanted? No, but it was indeed better than nothing. Which is more than a lot of failed projects produce. Nothing. Leaving backers empty handed.
I am not saying people should be happy with Might No. 9. It is clearly not a great game, but they shouldn’t be so mad at Keiji Inafune and the rest of Comcept either. They tried their best and failed. A lot of good dev teams have created bad games, and I think that is the case here. What people should be taking from all of this is to remember that backing any creative endeavor on Kickstarter can go sideways, even ones with a lot of talent and knowhow. Which is why you should always spend your money and back projects wisely with the understanding you may end up with nothing, or something that is better than nothing.