Consoleation Catch-Up: Games Are Evil, NHL 09, Millionheir

It’s been a busy few days. My new role with Games Are Evil has been quite the active one, having completed three reviews (Tiger Woods 09 PS3, Jeopardy! PSN, and PAIN PSN) and seven articles total within the last seven days.I also just wrapped up my review for The Price is Right for the Nintendo DS, and that’ll be up later this morning.

It feels good to be on the writing side of the fence again. It’s not that I disliked proofing reviews and features or managing other writers, but this is the front line of things for me. It’s spending time with the games themselves and then critically discussing them in written format, with pros and cons and then making the final call on the game’s worthiness. Games Are Evil does not have a scoring system, which is unique… but it does kind of force viewers to actually read reviews in their entirety instead of just scanning for a number or letter grade and then moving on.

Of course, getting back to reviewing means getting my hands on games to review, which is rather difficult for me at the moment due to my financial situation. I’m barely getting by now as it is, so I’m hoping that my editors can work their PR magic and secure me some titles to cover.

Getting to gaming stuff…

NHL 09 rocks. I can’t stop playing in Be A Pro mode. I created myself playing as a center, and I’ve moved up to the first forward line for the Springfield Falcons, who, by the way, are the local AHL team here. Granted, if I get called up to the NHL, I’ll wind up playing for the Edmonton Oilers, but at least I’d be in the big leagues. I’m a scoring machine, with 22 goals and 14 assists in 15 games so far. Be A Pro is so immersive; and you can decide what you want to do. Do you want all of the glory and score 2-3 goals per game, or do you want to be more well-rounded and dish some passes to teammates for other scoring chances? Sure, there’s a Franchise mode here, and the online play is very good… but until I can wrest myself away from Be A Pro, I won’t know much about the other stuff. The visuals are markedly better than last year’s game, but the commentary is a bit repetitive and Gary Thorne has a penchant for calling the wrong names at times. Seeing this game in a silky-smooth 60 frames per second is very sweet indeed.

In a disappointing turn of events, I have Yakuza 2 sitting here at home and it’s not yet seen the inside of my PlayStation 2. I’ve heard and read nothing but good things about it. Sam Bishop over at IGN said that the game is awesome. I hope to get to actually try it in the next few days. I had thought about trying to play through the first game, but there seems to be a recap of the first one within the sequel, so… I guess I just need to hunker down and spend some time with it.

On the portable side, I’ve been splitting time between Mystery Case Files: Millionheir and Tetris DS. Final Fantasy IV is still unfinished, but with good reason: the game is kicking my butt as I’m near the end. I will go back to it, I’m sure, but I needed some time away from it. Millionheir is deceptively fun; sure, it’s just like playing Where’s Waldo?, but there are some interesting diversions from the core formula and the challenge of a ticking timer and limited hints will test your visual acuity. I just recently finished the Rookie level, so I’m tackling the next difficulty setting up. I am hoping to have this review done by week’s end.

That’s it from here. I hope that you’ll check out my latest work and consider adding the RSS feed to track our updates. Sure, it’s a cheap plug, but… it’s worth a try.

Have a great Tuesday!