Happy 4th of July!

Posted 7/4/09

Categories: General

Well after a 6 month hiatus I’m back and better than ever. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I am back and my web designer did whip me up this snazzy new layout.

At the start of the year I must say I was a little apprehensive about the state of upcoming titles being any good. But so far this year has offered plenty of great stuff from full release titles, add ons for existing titles and addictive downloadable titles from the various online marketplaces. Here’s a little mid year assessment by the one and only true Thunderpudd…

Now likely at this point you’ve read everyone’s reviews and impressions of what’s out, so since I’ve been out for a while I won’t bore you with my reviews today. But I will say I have probably spent more time on that damned Peggle Deluxe for XBLA than anything else this year. And I’m still two challenges shy of getting that one achievement. Also The Last Guy can be crazy addictive and was the second PSN game (FF7 PS One was first) to get my money into Sony’s marketplace. I dabbled in Sony’s Home, it iz teh suxorz big time, I would expand but you’ve either “played” it and realize it sucks or your a fanboy and you’ll disagree with me.

Of course Street Fighter 4 was great, Halo Wars looks great but my wife has been dominating that disc so I’m still waiting my turn for that one. Ninja Blade was meh at best along with Killzone and inFamous but damned if they didn’t all look pretty. Speaking of pretty, Resident Evil 5 made looking grotesque look better than ever with some great co-op thrown in to boot. And please for the love of Pete at least rent House of the Dead Overkill if you’re at least 17 and own a Wii. I realize that last part is a bit of a rarity but that game is an unabashed cheese fest that should be paying royalties to Quentin Tarantino. Beyond that I’ve been catching up on last years titles playing through Fable 2 as a good guy, brushing up on Uncharted in preparation for the sequel and finally getting around to Mass Effect before its sequel.

And speaking of great sequels E3 impressed me this year and reclaimed it’s former glory as well. I’ve been an active avid gamer for over 27 years now and nothing made me more sad than when they crippled E3 a few years back. For us gamers it’s basically the Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup, Cannes Film Fest, etc, etc of our hobby and for some passion and they basically had made it suck. Thanks to people like the fine folks at Penny Arcade we still had PAX, but now our Mecca has returned. Once again hardcore gamers everywhere can do their best to sneak in, or at least follow the coverage provided by the abundance of media outlets to get their fix on this most glorious of events. I was privileged enough back in my Electronics Boutique days (prior to their purchase/destruction by the GameStapo) to attend an E3 event and the only thing I can compare it to is Vegas. Lights, sounds, games, fast talking pitchman and lovely models all wanting to show you how great their “whatever is” before you move on to the next guy or gal handing out shwag.