Dead Space 2: The Text Log Review

{Subject is Hayden Wiseman, amateur games journalist here on the Sprawl. After being tasked with writing about a particular game he began suffering from a peculiar form of dementia and acute paranoia. He'll often start talking about a game that no one here has heard of and when we try and talk to him we can barely get through. Sometimes he just shuts down completely and stares into space. Actual space. His room has a window that faces out towards Saturn. The following is a transcription and documentation of those events.}

Frustration...

So I worked on my evolution of gaming article for about and hour and a half last night and when I got on the computer this afternoon everything I had done last night was gone...which is rather shitty considering how today has been going. So since I'm rather angry about that at the moment I figured I would post something that would fit the new year theme.

Are classic franchises becoming too bland?

With the recent releases of Front mission Evolved, and Castlevania Lords of Shadow, it makes me think about what these franchises are becoming. It makes me think that the older games of some franchise are becoming stale, so they decide to hand them off to a 3rd party developer. Now this is not a bad way to come up with some creative and fresh ideas to make the game appeal much more to a broader audience, but in the end it may destroy the interest of older fans.

Kyle's top 10 games of 2010!

2010 has come and gone, and many video games were released. Some were disappointing, and others were good. But what were my favorite games of 2010? Well, that's a really hard question since I really was not able to finish many games throughout the year... and I bought too many to remember. I found myself enjoying games that are only about five hours in length when I typically enjoy much longer games. It has definitely been a weird year for me, gaming-wise. So let's get to my top 10!

Hayden's Top 10 Games of 2010

2010 was a great year for games. Here I am, fifteen days into 2011, and I realize that 2010 flew by. I haven't really reminisced about the games I played until now and coming up with this list --ranking the games from ten to one and finding the words to describe how I feel about them-- was a lot harder than I anticipated it being. There are games that I wish I'd gotten to play and games that could be on this list but aren't. Some of the games listed here might even fluctuate in position on a list I've created in some far off, alternate universe. After several hours of deliberating and quietly engaging in mental warfare against myself, I've finished the list.

Gran Turismo 5: My Battle with Menus.

GT5 and I are having a love/hate relationship. No, it's not like what Super Meat Boy and I have. Meat Boy might hate me but at least he allows me, even wants me, to play his game. GT5 is a fun simulator but I'm really pretty reluctant to call it a game. I don't know why but it just doesn't sit right with me that way. As a simulator it works great. The cars are a blast to drive and I've been playing a lot of it just so I can level up, get more cars to tune and drive, and see more tracks. So what's my problem? I'm not sure GT5 really wants me to play it. It hides all of it's best parts behind a huge wall of horribly designed menus.

DCUO Beta Journal Follow Up

I deleted the beta for DC Universe Online a few days before Christmas. I didn't do this because the game is bad or anything. No, if you've read my first beta journal you'll understand that I quite enjoy this game and I plan on buying it eventually. I deleted it simply because it was taking up a massive 18 gigs of my hard drive space. I'm worried that when the actual game comes out next month that I won't have enough space on my 40 gig HDD to play the game. Not with all the other games I currently play or plan on playing. Here's hoping there isn't a mandatory install (though there probably will be) and that the game opts to stream mostly off the blu-ray disk.

Last time I wrote about this beta I talked about character creation and a few of the things I liked about the combat and mission structure. I was going to write a bit about the instanced PvP sessions but unfortunately I couldn't get connected to anything other than the main part of the beta. I don't know what the problem was.

The problem I mentioned last time about how small and unreadable text in menus and chat screens is has been addressed but the stability of the game as a whole could still use some work.

I know this update has been short but now that I'm playing other games and not this beta I just don't have as much to say about it. I'm not picking this game up next month either. My January title is going to be Dead Space 2 but after a while these DCUO Journals will continue with the full game.