Looking over my list of posts from this week it is just now sinking in how many games I saw and played at E3 2011. I have a lengthy post on AGErocks.com covering some of my general thoughts on E3 this year, but here is a listing of the individual games I covered as well.

Crimson Alliance
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team
Orcs Must Die!
Trenched
Rock of Ages
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Bastion
Twisted Metal
Dead Rising 2: Off The Record
Medieval Moves
Skyrim
Battlefield 3
Bioshock Infinte
SSX
Gotham City Imposters
Batman: Arkham City
Torchlight II

A Dungeon Siege III demo hit Xbox Live this week and I’ve been enjoying it.  The camera angles get a little annoying at spots but otherwise it is pretty fun. Only 2 of the 4 classes from the full game are available in the demo, but those two are both pretty fun.  The one big complaint I keep hearing is that you have a separate character for co-op and single player. The developers did the intentionally so that the story plays correctly and you don’t have 4 of the same character playing at once.  It would have been nice to have one character that plays both co-op and solo, but I don’t think doing it separately like this is such a big deal. I’m looking forward to playing some co0op when it releases.

I’ve also been playing some Dungeon Runners this week as well. No, not the MMORPG. This web based rougelike is simple but really fun.  You have one screen and 5 characters to get to the final treasure.  Kill the enemies and the loot; then get scored for how well you do. If you have 5 minutes I would highly recommend checking it out.  Be sure to read through the instructions 🙂

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragon Daggerdale for the last week co-op with some guys from AGErocks.com and while it has glitches it is still a lot of fun.  I’m not going to rehash my whole review so you can check it out here.  If you have some friends you like co-op hack-n-slash games be sure to check it out.

So, I’ve been playing Brink for a couple weeks now and I’m completely hooked. My review is up over on VGrevolution but having spent a lot more time with Brink I wanted to touch on a couple things.  I’ve seem a lot of people not really happy with Brink, but it seems like they also have not taken the time to get familiar with the game’s mechanics. Brink is a complex game with a lot of stuff to learn and unlock, but I’ve found it to also be quite rewarding the more I play and get to know the ins and outs.

One thing I’ve found is that a lot of people skip over the Challenge mode until they find out that is where some of the weapon attachments unlock.  Instead a new player should really start with the Challenges.  They are easier to complete with a lower level character and the weapon unlocks are crucial to being able to play well in multiplayer matches.  Run through the one and two start challenges before doing anything else with your character.  Then, if you are wanting to get all the achievements run the three start challenges too.

After completing the challenges take a few matches to become familiar with the various guns. Then, go through and customize them to fit your play style.  Personally, I like adding a Muzzle Break and a Grip to make the gun more easy to handle and aim, and then a red dot scope and a larger magazine.

Keep in mind that you cannot unlock all of the upgrades for just 1 character.  You can however unlock all the general upgrades and all of one classes upgrades for one character.  Once you have completed the challenges with 1 character the weapon attachments are available for all of your setups. Take your first character and try out a few of the abilities for each class. Once you find the one or two classes you prefer start a new character and focus on one class for them.  Getting up to level 10 does not take very long and that gives you half of the unlocks for the class you choose.

When you are playing with bots on your team be sure to hit up on the D-Pad often.  This announces to them you are going for the primary objective.  If you do not they will just wonder around and not be especially useful.  By announcing where you are headed the bots at least will come along to the same area and provide some additional targets for the enemies.  The bots are not as good as playing with a real team who communicates and works together but they are not too bad either.

It is going to take a few matches to get the hang of each objective type, the various maps and all the various strategies. Stick with a teammate whenever you can and watch for flanking paths.  Initially it seems like there are a lot of choke-points on the maps but if you take the time to look around you will find plenty of paths for getting behind enemies.  Especially, if you watch the light character bots. They will use paths that are only accessible to the light class and that you probably would never have otherwise seen.

Hopefully these pointers will help you get started in Brink.  If you take the time to learn what is going on in this objective based game it can be a lot of fun.

I played through James Bond: Blood Stone last weekend since I was waiting for Brink to release. You play as the Daniel Craig version of James Bond with a story that fits could easily fit in with the movie franchise.  Overall, I enjoyed the game and the story, but it is definitely a rental. I easily completed the whole campaign in about 5 hours.  Like most Bond games there is a mix of on foot and in car missions.  These missions give you a good mix of stealth, gun fights and melee combat. The cover system works well to let you easily jump from cover to cover without getting up. There are a decent mix of guns to use and since most of them are pretty accurate swapping with whatever is lying around is never much of a big deal. I enjoyed being able to sneak up on enemies and silently take then out, and then turn the corner and open fire to clear a room. These missions were all a pretty good length in that there are multiple sequential objectives but not so many that it gets annoying.

The driving levels are the one big thing I really did not like. I was expecting some fun driving levels since the developer, Bizarre Creation, made the awesome racing game Blur. Instead the driving is terrible.  Instead of the normal overtake style missions you would expect the driving levels are instead about keeping on the course and not letting the enemy get too far ahead. I could probably live with these style of driving missions where you have to complete the whole course if the cars were fun to drive.  Instead, the cars are a real pain to handle and control. The driving levels have a very specific path you have to drive and because they are way to long it becomes a matter of memorizing the course and where you need to turn or drift.

If it was not for the driving levels I would have said that James Bond: Blood Stone is great rent. But, I almost quit playing after the first driving level because I had so much trouble completing even the first checkpoint.  It is a shame the driving is so bad because the rest of the game is pretty fun. Still, if you like Bond games and can deal with some driving level suckage then check it out.

I realize we’re still pretty early in 2011, in terms of game releases, with big titles like Gears of War 3 and Battlefield 3 still coming out, but I don’t see how a game can be better and more fun than Portal 2. It has the perfect mix of story, humor, challenge and mechanics.  I’m going to try and talk about Portal 2 without giving any spoilers so things may be a little vague but when you play you’ll thank me for not getting anything spoiled.   I played through the campaign and then immediately after completing it restarted it again and got all of the solo achievements.  Now on to the rest of the co-op. Things start off very familiar if you played Portal but quickly new game mechanics start getting added in.  By the end of the game you’ve got multiple new mechanics you have to pair together to complete fairly difficult puzzles. It is not that they are hard physically to complete with a lot of fast portal switching but the take some real thought to figure out how to complete them.  The earlier levels you can experiment a lot more and figure out how to complete rooms, but later on there are a lot of traps that will kill you if you are not careful.  I don’t mind this though as it made me think about my actions instead of just running in all crazy.

Even when I was stuck on levels for a while I did not mind because the story and interactions are so funny.  Throughout the whole game the interactions are really well done and the voice acting of them is excellent.  Plus many of the levels have fun easter eggs that you will only find if you stop and look around for a while. The really reward exploration and finding unique ways to complete levels.  Doing something unexpected almost always rewards you with some witty remark or sarcasm. Valve also fills in a lot of the back story behind how the Portal testing got started and who the various characters are in relation to each other.  All of this is done without your main character ever saying a word.

I’m not really doing Portal 2 justice here but just rent Portal 2, play for a few hours and you will be hooked. It is that awesome!

I knew after seeing this years CES coverage that I was going to get an Android tablet. There are a lot of times that need to quickly check my email or want to look up a web site while on the couch and getting out a is overkill. For a task that will only take a couple minutes I don’t want to wait for a laptop to boot up.  Sure, I could get a really fast laptop with a SSD in it but I don’t need that powerful of a laptop for anything else.  So, a tablet is a fit for my current situation.  So, after reading up on all the upcoming tablets I decided to get the Motorola Xoom. I thought about waiting for Asus’ Transformer with the optional keyboard, but I just don’t see using the keyboard that often.  While the extra battery life it adds with the keyboard seems nice I already have a laptop that I don’t want to use. Plus the USA release date on the Transformer had not been set when I picked up my Xoom.

I’ve never had an Android device before but I love it.  Both the device and Android as a whole.  I’ve been using the Xoom for a couple weeks now and while it is not perfect it is great.  It fits my needs and does so well.  Because it is still fairly new there are only a limited number of tablet formatted apps available but more and getting added daily, and I’ve not had an issue finding ones that fit what I need so far.  Sure, there are a ton more apps on the iPad, but then I’m stuck with an iPad and its very locked down platform.  No thanks.

It is kind of funny to me that I don’t play more games on the Xoom.  I fully expected to be gaming on it more, but I actually find myself using it more as a tool for getting tasks done and keeping up to date in emails than as a gaming platform.  Sure, I’m gaming on it, but more than that I’ve got a useful calendar and to do list that is always handy.

Half the fun so far has been customizing everything to be exactly how I want it … that day. I’ve gone though a ton of layouts, wallpapers, and widgets so far and I’m looking forward to doing it more.  I’m getting to the point where I have most of the setup how I like it but I doubt I ever quit tweaking things. Plus with new widgets and apps getting optimized for Android tablets there is always something new to play with.

I know you all hate me (I got the messages) but I got in the Gears of War 3 on Friday and have been really enjoying it. I’ve got my hands-on impressions up on VGrevolution at http://www.vgrevolution.com/2011/04/gears-ow-war-3-beta-impressions/ I’m not going to rehash it so head over there and check it out.

I never played the original Crysis because I did not play PC games much at the time it came out and my PC probably would not have been able to handle it. Since Crysis 2 came out for the Xbox 360 I figured I’d give it a try.  I played the multiplayer demo for Crysis 2 when it his Xbox Live and while it was pretty fun I was more interested in the single player. I have played some more of the multiplayer and it is well done.  It just happens to be a little to fast paced for my taste.  I’m old, I can’t help it.  The multiplayer game modes are fun the party system is one of the best since Halo.  I also like the really deep customization options.  There is a slant for players who hare higher ranked to dominate since they can have better weapons but I was still able to hold my own ok most of the time.  If the pace of the game was just a little slower I’d definitely be playing regularly.

After the disaster that was Homefront I was wanting a solid, fun campaign that I could not complete in one sitting. The Crysis 2 campaign delivered that an more. First off, it is gorgeous. Even my wife walking through the room stopped to watch and commented on how great it looks.  The campaign took me around 12 hours to complete and I was not really looking for collectibles as I was going. I had a blast with the game play. Then guns feel good and the levels are pretty large.  What I really liked is that because of the armor abilities you can approach each mission however you want.  You can go stealth or guns blazing or some combinations of the two.  There were levels where I did not kill a single enemy and instead sneak through the level Sam Fisher style.  Other times I’d rip a heavy machine gun off a turret and go into an area with my extra armor on and taking on all the enemies at once.  I had so much fun doing this that I even went back and played some of the missions a second time just to try different tactics.  My favorite was probably going back to the level which was designed for stealth and instead climbed a tower and sniped every single enemy on the level. Other developers should take note of this because the way levels were created to allow for any play style was really fun.

I would highly recommend at least renting Crysis 2 and playing through the campaign.  The story takes a while to start making sense but the game play is so fun that I just did not care.   If you enjoy a fast paced multiplayer shooter then be sure to check out that part of the of the game too because it is really well made as well.

It was not long before Dragon Age II released that I played through Dragon Age: Origins and the Awakenings DLC. I’m glad that I essentially played them back to back because the little things that carry over from the first game to the second were more noticeable.  All the reference to things I did in DA:O would have been long forgotten if I had played it when it first released.  With them fresh in mind though it Dragon Age II’s story a lot better.  Which is good because compared the the Origins’ story the story in DA2 is not as good.  It is not that I did not enjoy it, I did, but DA:O has a truly epic story and DA2 is just a pretty good story. Don’t let that scare you off playing it though because the game is still a blast.

Even with the overall story being less grand the moment to moment quests were great.   Some of them were really funny and the dialog between characters in my party was even better.  I would find myself just walking around Kirkwall listening to my teammates pick on each other.  And, even after 30 hours I don’t recall hearing them say the same thing twice.  As the story progressed and their friendships and rivalries grew the corresponding dialog adjusts as well.  Listening to Isabela pick on Aveline at the beginning and then slowly become more friendly to her while Aveline slowly let her insults bother her less was amazing.  The characters grew with the story in a way I’ve never experienced before in a game.

The graphics and animations were noticeably better in Dragon Age II.  It is not a huge jump but still one that was nice to see.  I also liked the new skill tree setup.  Grouping the skills into categories made it a lot easier to have different characters who focused on one or two areas of expertise. However, I did not really like that they took away the option to change your party’s armor.  You can still give them new weapons and accessories, but only your own character can change armor.  The rest of your part just gets armor upgrades you find or buy.  This puts more of the focus on the combat and quests, but since my Mage could not sue any of the Rouge or Warrior equipment it was a shame that I could not pass it on to my party.

The combat is more streamlined in DA2.  In DA:O you pretty much spend each fight pausing combat, assigning everyone their next attack, start up the fighting and then pause and repeat. In DA2 I only ever had to pause the combat if I needed to give someone a health potion or later in the game to access some of the additional spells I unlocked after I filled up my main 6 spell slots. The rest of my party did a good job using their abilities and spells appropriately which let me just focus on my spell casting.  It was fun to just watch all the combat unfold instead of pause, attack once and repeat.

Overall, I highly recommend playing Dragon Age II.  It is a great game and one that should not be missed.  Personally, I’m thinking it is about time I play through again with a Rouge character…unless some DLC gets announced in the next few days.