D: A couple weeks ago, Nadine and I checked out an Xbox Live event previewing some new games for Xbox Live. At least one of these are hot hotness, so check ‘em out…
1942
“Yeah, you know me,” says 1942. “I’m the old school arcade WWII flying game that’s all 2D and awesome.”
“Well, ‘inspired by WWII,’ perhaps,” you respond.
“What do you mean?” 1942 looks hurt.
“There are lasers, and planes the size of battleships.”
1942 flies into a rage. “SO WHAT!!!”
It may not be painstakingly realistic, but 1942 sure is fun. It’s a natural co-op game – the arcade version had two sticks. The addition of a health bar makes the game less brutally difficult. There are even RPG elements – after you complete a level, your plane improves its total health depending on how well you played. Plus, it has lasers.
N: 1942 was my favourite of this event, I couldn’t get enough! D and I played several times and even replaying certain levels was awesome because you can just totally do everything differently, change up tactics, it’s pure, fast-paced ADD fun! I seriously want to spend hours playing this online with D. There’s this link up attack in co-op where at the press of a button we have this awesome chain lightening flare up between us and it takes shit out!. Super hot.
Commando 3
D: Ah, more adorably retro bloodletting. This time, the ostensible setting is the Vietnam War, one seen through Rambo goggles of an army of one to four gunning down thousands and rescuing POWs. John McCain could have been a guest star. Anyway, it’s another top-down 2D shooter, also featuring unrealistic-yet-upgradeable weaponry and sweet, merciful health bars. You can rock vehicles, too. It’s fun, but there’s rather a crowd of this sort of game on Live, and this one will set you back 800 Microsoft points, so choose wisely. The game is out now. It’s also out on PSN for $10.
N: Vietnam eh…Well, screw the political implications, this game is crazy coked out crazy town! Super big guns, mowing down enemies like tissue paper, crazy names like Wolf and Coyote! What’s not to love?! The art direction of the menus and special attack screens are hilariously righteous. You can totally tell which player was D, think handle bar stache of ultimate potency and then add dynamite and there you have it. Love running around shooting things! I like this game much more than Assault Heroes and that’s be the truths!
Roogoo!
N: Oh creepy childlike wonder, how doth you fare these days? Roogoo instantly reminds one of that weird block game many of us played as toddlers. Put the proper shaped block in the proper shaped whole. You know the one. So Roogoo takes this matchy-matchy concept and applies it to fast moving blocks and rotating circular platforms. All very shiny, all very addictive and fast – if you go for the quick reflex sort of thing. But there’s a story too! And that’s where I went “hmm, methinks this reminds me of something….thinksme.” And lo, did I remember Jetsons: The Movie. Ye gods! The whole point of that film was that these ADORABLE wee creatures who lived in a giant meteor were being exploited by the Sprocket Corporation that George Jetson worked for and then in the end they shut down the plant that processed the meteor and save the cute critters. The freaky thing is in Roogoo the wee creatures you are trying to save look exactly like those of the Jetsons! What’s more, the plot of Roogoo is that these magical meteorites that fell on the home planet of Roo started turning the Roogoos into evil Moos. The only way to stop it is to do the whole catch the falling meteorites in the proper order and restore peace. I know it may be reaching, but adorable critters AND meteors twice in a lifetime? It seems bizzare…
D: Uh, I didn’t play this one. Too busy scarfing down little hamburgers.
Schizoid
This game is one of the results of Microsoft’s XNA program, which will hopefully bear many fruits of similar quality. It’s an interesting concept – a co-op game in which the red player can only destroy red enemies, and the blue player blue ones. The only control, at least for the first few levels we played, was one stick. However, if that sounds simple, the difficulty ramped up (almost too) quickly as the game introduced a new form of enemy with every level. It became painfully clear that you would have to work together quite well with your partner in order to survive some levels.
You can play it solo with an AI-controlled partner, and apparently you can unlock a fearsome mode in which one player controls both ships with two sticks. That may very well break one’s brain.
N: Okay for me this game was not exactly fun…I was stressed and freaked out and couldn’t really relax enough to focus. I mean this type of game does stress you out and makes you react quickly, but I find there needs to be a better balance with the stress to make it work and, of course, become addictive. Geometry Wars is a perfect example, you feel loads of stress but you get faster and better. Like that Daft Punk song…So yay for the XNA awesomeness that someone got to deliver their video game vision, but not so yay for the stress of it all.
Other stuff
D: There was a new Sudoku game as well, but the presence of letters in with the numbers just threw my shit off right away and I quit out. So who knows, maybe it’s good… if you like (shudder) letters … There was also a new golf game, but as I barely understand real life golf, I’m not the one to tell you about it.
N: I tried the golf for a second but…I also do not like golf in any form, real or otherwise. And Sudoku and me is like…see I can’t even think of a proper analogy because even the word Sudoku makes my brain cry out in protest. It looked good though for fans of the mind cramping game.
D: Moral of the story? 1942 for suresies, and download the demos for the others and see if they fit your style.
N: Yes, get thee playing 1942 as soon as humanly possible and then play it all day and have joy! Have joy!
