Tuesday, January 05, 2010
2009 Gaming in Review - Part 1
Closin the books on 2009 and my list of completed games for 2009 looks pretty decent - revisited an oldie but goodie, finished at least 3 games that were games I've played more than 50% at one point only to have to restart them this year and finally finish them. I've completed more than 10 games this year, and I'm going to post about each game and what I loved about them - SPOILER alert for all of these games, but since only two of them are 2009 releases, I'm sure not many people will care.
2008 ended with my birthday and Kate giving me the acclaimed Gears of War for my birthday. I was very excited to play the sequel one of the most exciting visceral shooters ever and I wasn't disappointed.
Gears of War 2 (completed Febrauary 2009)
The gritty intensity returns. This game provides more of the same - over-the-top manly action killing and chainsawing grubs along with a ho-hum story. Some great intense gunfights and revelations and an online system that was just as fun.
Favorite moments: Lab with the AI security system. Unleashing something and chainsawing my way out of the lab. Intense gunfight through the razorhail. Horde mode till 4 in the morning.
Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves (completed March 2009)
With Gears of War 2 complete, I set my sights on an old favorite that slipped by. Kate and I loved Sly Cooper 1 - one of the few games we played together and beat in less than 15 hours or so. Sly 2 was excellent as well, but never completed it (on the backburner for now).
Sly 3 continued the open world character specific questing that Sly 2 did, but introduced more characters with each chapter. This adjusted the approach to missions as new characters had new abilities - for example, the Guru cannot attack, but can mount bad guys and make them run into each other.
The story was well told as well, opening with the final heist (and Sly seconds before death) and the rest of the game explaining that Sly needed to recruit a gang of specific skills to pull off the heist.
Favorite moments: Finding out the last boss was part of Sly Cooper's dad's gang and seeing how gang camaraderie is different between them. Also, the scenes with Panda King fighting himself, as well as the epic battle against Tsao on the bamboo shoots. Great ending and I hope there are more Sly Cooper games.
2008 ended with my birthday and Kate giving me the acclaimed Gears of War for my birthday. I was very excited to play the sequel one of the most exciting visceral shooters ever and I wasn't disappointed.
Gears of War 2 (completed Febrauary 2009)
The gritty intensity returns. This game provides more of the same - over-the-top manly action killing and chainsawing grubs along with a ho-hum story. Some great intense gunfights and revelations and an online system that was just as fun.
Favorite moments: Lab with the AI security system. Unleashing something and chainsawing my way out of the lab. Intense gunfight through the razorhail. Horde mode till 4 in the morning.
Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves (completed March 2009)
With Gears of War 2 complete, I set my sights on an old favorite that slipped by. Kate and I loved Sly Cooper 1 - one of the few games we played together and beat in less than 15 hours or so. Sly 2 was excellent as well, but never completed it (on the backburner for now).
Sly 3 continued the open world character specific questing that Sly 2 did, but introduced more characters with each chapter. This adjusted the approach to missions as new characters had new abilities - for example, the Guru cannot attack, but can mount bad guys and make them run into each other.
The story was well told as well, opening with the final heist (and Sly seconds before death) and the rest of the game explaining that Sly needed to recruit a gang of specific skills to pull off the heist.
Favorite moments: Finding out the last boss was part of Sly Cooper's dad's gang and seeing how gang camaraderie is different between them. Also, the scenes with Panda King fighting himself, as well as the epic battle against Tsao on the bamboo shoots. Great ending and I hope there are more Sly Cooper games.
