Or How I justify my Gamefly account.

Let me take a minute to tell you how awesome Gamefly has become for me.  I originally signed up with the service about a year ago (Just after I got my 360) and wasn’t all that impressed.  Sure it was nice getting games, playing through them and getting new ones, it just sucked that it took 7-10 full days from the day I returned a game until I got a new one.  Now that the new Tampa center has opened, I’m finding my turn around time is three times better.  Now it’s never more than 4 days before I’m playing the next available game on my queue.  I highly recommend this service to anyone with a new console (They Rent 360, Wii, PS3, DS, PSP, PS2 and even original Xbox, Gamecube, and GBA); it’s just so much easier to pay $20 a month for two games out at a time than it is to drop $60 on every awesome game that comes out.  Plus their Keep It option is easy and beats every used game store’s price, usually by about $10.  Throw in the coupons and discounts and you’ll become one happy gamer.  But if you’re going to sign up, can you do me a big favor?  Click this link when you sign up.  Daddy needs a new DS Lite and Gamefly will give anyone a shiny new DS Lite with just 5 friend referrals.  Now that this totally unpaid advertisement is over, let’s run through some of the smaller or lesser known titles I’ve been tearing through in the last few months.

Wii Play (Nintendo Wii)

It’s a game play collection that is even shallower than Wii Sports.  It’s fantastic for non-gamers to get used to the controls, but anyone who’s played the system more than a few times will find almost every game boring.  There’s a shooting game loosely based on Duck Hunt (although you rarely shoot at ducks), Find Mii which is based on Where’s Waldo, Pose Mii where you just rotate the controller to match the onscreen Mii, Charge a simplistic Cart Racing sim where you ride cows, Fishing where you….fish, Table tennis where you move the remote left and right to return the ball, Laser Hockey which is a really pretty air hockey sim, Billiards which is a pretty good sim of a 9-Ball game, and finally Tanks! which is like the old Atari game Combat.  Tanks! is worth the price of admission alone (it’s 49.99 and comes with an extra Wii Remote) and is truly fun with two players.  Billiards and Laser Hockey both have their bright spots and are genuinely fun with two players, but all of the other games are not worth playing more than a couple times.  For a game that’s practically a Tech demo, the controls are surprisingly wonky, especially in Laser Hockey and Billiards.  It’s very hard to put extra speed on the puck in Laser Hockey without knocking the puck back in your net or sending it in some unintended direction and Billiards often doesn’t register your shot the first couple times you set it up.  If you need another remote, you might as well pick up Wii Play for Tanks! Laser Hockey and Billiards, along with having a second non Wii sports game to play at parties with friends who aren’t too into gaming, but don’t go out and pick this game up on its own.  It’s just not worth it.

4/10

Viva Piñata Party Animals

My girlfriend is kind of picky when it comes to the games she is willing to play.  Most of the time she’s into Oblivion, an Action-RPG like Baldur’s Gate or a mini game collection with the occasional Animal Crossing or Viva Piñata thrown in.  This means I also play a ton of Action-RPGs and Mini game collections and consider myself a bit of an expert of the genres.  When I saw that Microsoft put out a Viva Piñata mini-game collection, I knew I’d be spending some time with this game.  Turns out it didn’t last too long because it’s just not a very good effort.  There is a typical collection of mini-games which most players have played through 10 times over with a cart race level thrown in for good measure every now and then.  This game is strictly for children who are enormous fans of the cartoon as even my very forgiving girlfriend tired of the characters voices and repetitive game play after only a couple hours.  There are far better mini game collections out there, so avoid VP Party Animals.  (Although if they come out with a mini game collection where I can play as Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle, I’m so down)

3/10

The Bigs

I’m not a baseball fan, and I’m not a fan of baseball games either.  I am a fan of these over the top NBA JAM, NFL Blitz, NFL Street type games, so I decided to give The Bigs a spin.  It’s a very arcadey baseball game where the emphasis is on over the top home runs, 120 MPH fast balls and ludicrously acrobatic fielding.  Turbo meters, an emphasis on the big plays, over the top presentations and a couple button pressing mini-games keep the game moving at a fast and exciting pace.  The Rookie Challenge lets you create a player, throw him on a team and compete in a variety of different game scenarios to make it through the season.  You’ll be playing some standard games as well as having goals like 3 HRs in one game or 2 Stolen bases, adding variety to the standard 5 inning game.  Then there’s the option of stealing players from any team you beat, so it’s easy to assemble your own All star team on your way to a World Series.  Unfortunately for hardcore fans, there is no franchise mode or season mode, so after you’ve won the Series, it’s time to start it up again.  Not much replay value unless you’re chasing achievements, and even then after two rookies are leveled up, you’re done.  There is also a Home Run derby and quick play option, but my favorite aspect of this game is the Home Run Pinball.  In this game, you choose your hitter and stand in the middle of Times Square in New York.  A pitcher throws you balls and your goal is to hit neon signs, taxi cabs, lights, billboards and other things to rack up points.  This is easily the most addicting portion of the game and adds quite a bit of replay value.  If you’re a baseball fan or a fan of extreme sports titles, this game is worth picking up if the price is right, but for everyone else it’s probably not worth a rental for Home Run Pinball alone.

6/10

Mahalo,

Duke