I'm Playing: June 2008

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Video games, PC games, or other interactive media that's currently caught my attention ...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Dragonball Z: Burst Limit

I'm about an hour and a half and three chapters in to Dragonball Z: Burst Limit.

This is a solid licensed fighter, but limiting it to that would be a disservice.

For fans of the creative intellectual property, DBZ: Burst Limit finally gets it right (at least in relation to the recent spate of games).

But for fanboys -- you may wet yourself (I'm dry, but just barely).

DBZ:BL (like that?) is a decently deep fighter, contains IP (and genre) signature tropes that I totally dig (for example, sub or dub purists? You can play with English voice dubbing, or in Japanese, with English subtitles.

On the feeling empowered / pushing myself "as the character" front, I really felt like Kaioken x3 was the shizzle (relax, x4 was a cutscene, so it didn't do the same for me); I can't wait to hit super, let alone take on Freiza (and Cell? Please? Majin Buu?).

And while I genuinely suck at button mashers, I genuinely feel like the controls for DBZ:BL are more intuitive, and I find myself doing things "right" more often than with, say, Soul Calibur (much as I love that franchise, I get pwned more often than not).

Don't get me wrong, this DBZ game isn't perfect -- the camera at times seems a little floaty, I can't figure out why they made some of the stage and cut-scene transitions, the rating system is overly complex, and I have a love/hate relationship with the unlock notifications.

But those are trivial detractors from a great overall package.

C'mon Atari -- you're not the love from my youth, but I'm still rooting for you. Knock out some more like this one.

Labels: fighting, licensed, Xbox 360

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Ninja Gaiden II (360 demo)

I so dig Ninja Gaiden, so I was stoked when the demo for Ninja Gaiden II finally came stateside (last? WTF?).

The demo gives that sense of amazing ninja bad-assery, which is great, but ...

This may be the worst third-person camera ever. I'm hoping it's just an artifact of the demo, though.

Labels: brawler, hack-n-slash, Xbox 360