September 22 - September 26

Section: 

Another absolutely monster week of releases, and another week of agonizing over which games to spend my limited monies upon. It's fair to say that I already have enough games from the past two weeks to happily see me through the remainder of the year, and yet I am seriously considering buying no less than 3 titles this week.

My choice for Game of the Week may not be the most popular, but Sid Meier's Civilization IV and its various expansions have yet to remotely disappoint me. I have invested countless hours into what is arguably the best iteration of the storied franchise, and marrying the platform to a remake of Colonization is the same level of genius that originally filled a hollowed chocolate shell with peanut butter. Therefore, I give GotW to a niche expansion.

Arguments can be strongly formed, however, for LEGO Batman, Disgaea DS and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway as the highlight of the week, and I would fault no man for crafting such rebuttals. These are compelling games that, frankly, I will be eyeing lustily when picking up my copy of Colonization.

PC
- Barbie Fashion Show: An Eye for Style
- Command & Conquer 3 Deluxe Edition
- Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge
- King's Bounty: The Legend
- LEGO Batman
- Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy
- Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization

PS2
- Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009
- LEGO Batman
- Onimusha: The Essentials
- Pipe Mania
- SingStar Pop Vol. 2
- Warriors Orochi 2

DS
- Barbie Fashion Show: An Eye for Style
- Babysitting Mania
- Brain Quest: Grades 3 & 4
- Brain Quest: Grades 5 & 6
- Di-Gata Defenders
- Dinosaur King
- Disgaea DS
- Drop Cast
- Hi! Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Challenge
- Kirby Super Star Ultra
- LEGO Batman
- Margot's Word Brain
- My Japanese Coach
- My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party
- My SAT Coach: The Princeton Review
- Nancy Drew: The Hidden Staircase
- Pipe Mania
- Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
- Shaun the Sheep
- Sim City Creator
- Time Hollow

PSP
- Buzz! Master Quiz
- LEGO Batman
- Pipe Mania

Xbox 360
- Baja: Edge of Control
- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
- Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009
- LEGO Batman
- Warriors Orochi 2

PS3
- Baja: Edge of Control
- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
- Buzz! Quiz TV
- Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009
- LEGO Batman

Wii
- Brothers in Arms: Double Time
- Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009
- de Blob
- LEGO Batman
- Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked
- Margot's Word Brain
- Pitfall: The Big Adventure
- Samba de Amigo
- SimCity Creator
- Twin Strike: Operation Thunder
- Ultimate Shooting Collection
- Wario Land: Shake It!

Comments

Sad that Brothers in Arms is coming out on the PC in October. Wait for the PC version, or go 360? Choices, choices.

Colonization and Disgaea DS. My two long time dreams have come true on the same week. Yay! And I'm also quite interested in Rhapsody, a remake of PS1 original from Nippon Ichi. Japanese musical SRPG, what's not to love?

Certis wrote:

Sad that Brothers in Arms is coming out on the PC in October. Wait for the PC version, or go 360? Choices, choices.

Go PC and pick up Barbie Fashion Show: An Eye for Style to bide the time.

I tell you where my $10 is going this week:

Mega Man 9

I'll be leaving Brothers in arms for the moment (still haven't finished the first OR second ones) so it'll be the PC version i get when I'm ready (if ever)!

The Kings Bounty Demo is great (if a little starforce heavy). If they dump SF -which they said they were doing - for the final version it's a must buy I think.

Oh and I do love those LEGO games...probably grab it on 360 for another easy 1000 points

I loved the King's Bounty demo, too. I really loved the Heroes of Might and Magic series and this does a great job of recreating that feel. It also works well on my aging PC. I think I'll be buying unless there's some form of crippling copy protection.

I'm telling you, Kings Bounty looks like fun! Everyone at Gencon mocked me for liking it. We'll show them. We'll show them all.

In case you didn't know, King's Bounty was mostly created by the same team behind the Space Rangers games. I'll be picking it up as well, I think. I'm a sucker for turn-based strategy games as it is, and seeing as East European developers are the ones keeping this stuff alive on the PC, I definetely want to support them, especially one with as much polish as this one has.

As a strategy / tactics fan, I found King's Bounty (I played it for about ten minutes on the PAX show floor) a little light. Melee characters weren't "sticky" so they could run right past each other.
In order to counteract this, you can move them forward and watch the lemming-like AI focus all its attacks on the closest one of your creatures.

Certis wrote:

Sad that Brothers in Arms is coming out on the PC in October. Wait for the PC version, or go 360? Choices, choices.

Leave it until you man up through Clear Sky.

Certis wrote:

I'm telling you, Kings Bounty looks like fun! Everyone at Gencon mocked me for liking it. We'll show them. We'll show them all.

I mocked you for a few reasons, but I don't recall that being one of them. In fact, I still don't really know what the game's about. Guess I have some reading or demo playing to do.

What's this I'm seeing about annoying copy protection on the demo, though?

wordsmythe wrote:

What's this I'm seeing about annoying copy protection on the demo, though?

Apparently the kind on the demo is made by the same people who made Starforce. Haven't heard of any problems with it though.

- My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party
- My SAT Coach: The Princeton Review

My day is now complete. You can't construct things like that, no matter how hard you try. And even if you could, nobody would believe them.

kuddles wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

What's this I'm seeing about annoying copy protection on the demo, though?

Apparently the kind on the demo is made by the same people who made Starforce. Haven't heard of any problems with it though.

I've certainly not run into any problems with it (it doesn't seem to do any nefarious background installing of stuff - though I'll be running my starforce removal tool afterwards just in case). It's more of a "you have x days left to play the demo - click here to activate the full version" type of thing...except it's set to expire in 999 days :O

I mocked you for a few reasons, but I don't recall that being one of them. In fact, I still don't really know what the game's about. Guess I have some reading or demo playing to do.

It's basically the adventuring/light rpg and turn based combat from the HoMM games, with a bigger focus on questing and exploring and without any of the city-building/defence stuff. You still buy units for your own personal army but you only have the one 'hero' to manage. Also the overland exploration stuff is in real-time rather than turn based.

Here's the official website for that demo and screenies, etc
http://www.kings-bounty.com/eng/

I've read some reviews and watched a video of this HoMM + Warcraft 3 paint title. I'd definitely be interested in it if I ever hit the bottom of my pile during a game drought.

Oh man, I need to keep up. Civ IV: Colonization is out this week? I feel like it was just announced. I did play through the Win95 port a couple times over the past few months. Maybe that's what tided me over so I wasn't slavering over the release date like some crack monkey.

[Those were obviously structural ads, which filtered out double posts and kept GWJ from crashing.]

MEGA MAN 9

That DS list is out of control.

I'm playing WAR this week, while my gaming to-do list increases.

Nothing for me this week, thank you. And my credit card thanks you as well.

deftly wrote:

Oh man, I need to keep up. Civ IV: Colonization is out this week? I feel like it was just announced.

Same here. Same happened for the BeyondTheSword expansion. I am the target audience, so I have to wonder about their marketing.

Anyway, gtg, I need to get back to playing CivRev.

Whoo!!!!

I still play Colonization even now. Easily one of my top 15 games of all time.

My lovely new copy is setting in my truck now screaming for me to knock off work and go home to play.

Mega Man 9!

Between that, De Blob, Wario Land and the US VC release of Vectorman the Wii is a platforming fan's dream come true this week! And I'll say, I do enjoy a good platformer.

I do find it weird that all the marketing people out there didn't take a look at this and push some release dates around a bit. This is so unlike a Nintendo platform to see so many games hit all at once like this.

Oyé Oyé!

Hear Hear!

Everyone who ever loved Jagged Alliance, X-Com or Silent Storm really must check out Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge. It once was supposed to be Jagged Alliance 3 (or so I hear)

I made a few calls and it looks like it *may* be delayed or come in later this week but I'm just so glad this has found a publisher in North America.

as Rabbit would say: yaaaaaaaaaay!

interstate78 wrote:

Everyone who ever loved Jagged Alliance, X-Com or Silent Storm really must check out Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge. It once was supposed to be Jagged Alliance 3 (or so I hear)

I'ld rather wait for the game that actually will be Jagged Alliance 3, since it's made by many of the same people that made Silent Storm. Hired Guns are made by the team that has made completely broken turn-based games for a decade, each one more broken then the last, so I don't have high hopes for it, although I'm willing to be surprised.

I'm just going to put out an alternative week pick, that has now eaten 3 full days of my time (home with my 4.5 year old who has chicken pocks)

Mount & Blade

I know what your thinking, it's not that kind of game... unless you are thinking of weird action packed blend of strategy and comically bad art FPS (that somehow captures the flavor well of a brutal medieval world), then it might be what you are thinking but I doubt it.

Forget spore. Raise an army, crush looters, crush raiders, turn around and crush snooty lords that had the misfortune of backing you or not. Find heroes train them up, put them in your line. Sick of WAR lag, that's ok there are dozen of castles waiting for you to lay siege to. Rule a nation play politics, assassinate fools, win tourneys, trade goods, burn towns russle cattle (maybe I keep loosing them) and rescue damsels in distress.

Is that it? No, I have barely scratches the surface and I haven't poked into the user created content. Fugly art yes, dozen and dozens of different unit types in 50+ clashes over rendered terrain in FPS battles with RTS troop control... I'll take fugy over Oblivion curves.

Ok shutting up now and wondering pack to my rss consumption of content.

After playing Lego Batman for 3 hours tonight, I can safely say the GotW was chosen correctly.

- My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party

Does this sound like a porno to anyone else?

Vrikk wrote:
- My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party

Does this sound like a porno to anyone else?

Not to mention:

Pipe Mania

As for Shaun the Sheep, I'll let that one roll on by. Shooting fish in a barrel is just mean.

Lego Batman is mine (birthday present). I'm looking forward to playing it with my boys this weekend.