iPad Game Screenshots: Alpine Crawler HD

Alpine Crawler HD an interesting scenery racing game, but the controls stink and I quickly gave up on it. Sure I do not expect entirely awesome games when they are free, but they need to at least have the controls work smoothly and easy for games to be worthwhile as pushing you to get the paid version or at least play a lot and potentially clicking ads.

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Nintendo Wii Screenshots: LEGO Rock Band

About a month ago I picked up LEGO Rock Band for the Wii used at Gamestop as part of a buy 2 get 1 free used game sale. I had been wanting it since it came out last November, but kept putting off buying it since I had not finished playing through Rock Band 2, Beatles Rock Band, or even the simple Country Pack (now I think I have unlocked all the songs on this one at least). Waiting ended up being good in that it now only costs about $20 (about $15 used) instead of the original $50, but honestly it is good enough to be worth the full original new price in my opinion.

LEGO Rock Band is not really all that much different in terms of actually playing the songs other than there is a Very Easy mode. However, I love that you unlock mini figs and other LEGO themed items. The coolest is decorating the Rock Den with the items you have unlocked and purchased. The choice of songs are also better than the purely Rock version, as it does not seem to have any of the annoying metal, etc.

Overall LEGO Rock Band has become my favorite version and I have been enjoying it a lot the past month. I actually think I have gotten closer to finishing this one's plot in one month than Rock Band 2 in a year, but mostly only because Rock Band 2 has other stuff like the Band Challenges and online challenges regularly added (I do not do these anymore, though, since I no longer have my Wii connected to the Internet).

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Nintendo DS Screenshots: History Great Empires Rome

History Great Empires Rome is not too bad of a role playing game, but I just cannot get into playing this style of game on the DS. These kinds of games just work better on a computer despite me not being much of a computer gamer. I did not like the main gameplay, but I thought the mini games were kind of cool. It was fun to play the Sudoku with Roman Numerals. I also liked the trivia game (Quo Vadis?). Not enough to make the game worth owning, though. Some may like this game as a good role playing game on the go, but I suggest renting it before buying because even though I like similar games on the computer this does not cut it as worthwhile on the go.

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Can't I Be a Hardcore Gamer?

I know I mostly just post reviews of specific games and such, but yesterday we renewed our subscription to Game Informer and I was reading one of the letters to the magazine in the July 2010 issue that really got me thinking. I spend several hours a day playing games of different sorts, but I feel like the supposedly true hardcore gamers would say I am a casual gamer. The letter was complaining that Game Informer wrote about Farmville and the magazine should just be hardcore games like Halo.

Honestly, I do not care about 90% of the games they talk about in Game Informer. However, I still love to read it every month. The fact they have finally realized that they could change the balance to a little less of the supposed hardcore stuff in favor of just a little more supposedly casual game stuff is a plus to me. At the same time I do not like the label of hardcore because it seems to mean playing specific types of games and not quantity of gaming or variety of gaming.

I just do not see why cannot I be a hardcore gamer if I play a variety of genres that are all not the supposed hardcore games and also play those games very frequently. Sure, there has to always be limits to things like making the definition of hardcore, but I do not like limiting you to be a hardcore gaming to you playing specific types of games. Heck, you could play those games and actually be a casual gamer because you do not play regularly or at least in my opinion you could be. In contrast you could play none of those hardcore games and play only an hour a day of games of a variety of styles such as the scavenger hunt style of the Pacifico Webtrek, quick Facebook games like FarmVille, and the daily test on Brain Age; and I would consider that to be hardcore.

Nintendo Wii Screenshots: Madagascar Kartz

A couple weeks ago I played Madagascar Kartz on the Wii. I enjoyed it for about a week and then got tired of the racing. Part of the issue is it was too difficult to do well at some of the cups and it seemed like I crashed and ran into walls too often. The responsiveness seemed bad, but it actually had more to do with how I am used to holding the controller in a racing game. I usually hold it with the buttons towards me, but it works fine when I remembered to hold the remote with the buttons facing towards the ceiling.

Overall I really like the Madagascar Kartz racing. It is a lot like Mario Kart, but with the Madagascar characters and a few other Dreamworks characters that you unlock (such as Shrek and B.O.B.). I probably would buy this sometime if I saw it used at Gamestop, but it is not quite on my list of got to own right now.

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iPad Game Screenshots: Break HD Free

Break HD Free is a brick style game for the iPad. It is nice that it is free, but it really is not worth it. The graphics are rather ugly, but you know me the graphics are a minimal thing compared to gameplay. The game play works decent, but it is still not all that interesting. Worth about 10 minutes total play time before it got boring and I never have a desire to play it and I deleted it after a few weeks of never playing it except the first day I got it.

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iPad Game Screenshots: Insanity X

Insanity X is an interesting puzzle game for the iPad.  You have to match up the triangles to match colors with the gray being on the outside.  It is pretty addicting for puzzle game fans like me.  I find it to be a fun game.  At first it was challenging, but I soon figured out a strategy and the levels became easy until I got further and it became challenging again when I got to the medium set of levels, which keeps it enjoyable.

iPad Game Screenshots: Racecar

Racecar for the iPad is a racing game.  The game is not exactly horrible, but the steering is downright annoying.  It is really hard to get the hang of controlling the car making this a pretty hard game to enjoy.  I guess if you have the patience to learn how to use the controls, then it might be somewhat enjoying.  However, I also do not think it has much depth even if you can figure it out.

Nintendo Wii Screenshots: Water Sports

Water Sports sounded like an interesting game because it has wakeboarding and uses the balance board. Well, it turned out to be quite disappointing. I am so glad I rented it, as I almost bought it and that would have been a major waste for me. Now the game is not entirely horrible if you use just the Wii remote, but the promise of balance board compatibility majorly fails because it just is not very responsive and can be downright frustrating for turning.

The Water Sports include kiteboarding, wakeboarding, windsurfing, and watercraft racing (Jet Skis). It is mostly just different ways of racing, except wakeboarding is just tricks. Wii Sports Resort is much better than this game even though it does not have all these events and does not use the balance board. The wakeboarding I thought would be fun with the balance board, but not with the lame way tricks are (just going off ramps and on rails) and the poor responsiveness of the turning.

Nintendo DS Screenshots: LEGO Battles

I finally can afford to have Gamefly again and my first rental was LEGO Battles for Nintendo DS. I enjoyed the game in that it was a lot like playing some strategy games I have played on the computer, such as Majesty and Rise of Legends. However, it is much less complex and at the same time not quite as enjoyable because managing these types of games on a little touch screen just does not work out all that great.

It is not as good as playing a similar style game on a computer, but since I have a Mac my options for that is pretty much nil that appeal to me. This is a decent alternative, but not quite good enough to keep me playing beyond a few missions because there was just too much wait time and not enough building up and actually doing stuff in the beginning levels.

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