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Over the last seven years, I’ve written 420 game reviews – about half of those in the last two years for “professional” rates. I’d love to review games for the rest of my life, but over the last three months, I’ve been educated on just how volatile this industry can be, having gone from reviewing 8-12 games per month to none.

In the extra time I’ve had to twiddle my thumbs and watch other people review games that I wanted to cover. Much of it, even from alleged “seasoned veterans” has made me want to bang my head against the wall until I pass out.

Reviews of AAA titles have become superfluous. The sheer amount of media – screenshots, previews, videos and demos – provided before a game’s release is enough to influence the consumer’s decision to buy a game well before a review hits. People who read websites for games news are well-informed compared to what we were 15 years ago when we solely relied on magazines for all gaming news – there’s no need to provide these consumers with advice. Most people who read online reviews basically come to see whether or not you agree with their opinion on the game so they can feel validated.

The system is so focused on reviews of these mass-market titles that many smaller projects and independent games – games where a review could have due influence – go uncovered. From a financial perspective, it’s well and truly understandable, but there’s a gap there – one that I intend to start filling.

I’ve been slack on doing acquisitions updates since April. I got Charly to take pictures recently of everything we’d bought after our anniversary in June. Charly says the pics aren’t the best, but to me, they get the job done.

First up is, yes, a new Xbox 360 Elite. My launch one packed it in, 6 months out of warranty. This particular deal was $AU429 for the elite (before they cut down on the cables), Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST (not pictured). I’ve not really spent much time with it, unfortunately.

Here we have a bunch of bargain Xbox 360 games mixed in with a couple of new releases. The two Warriors Orochi games were under 15 bucks each, VF5 was only 10 bucks and Sonic Unleashed was about $30. As much as I like it, I can’t really afford to keep NHL 10, but it’s a great little game. The Beatles: Rock Band is actually Charly’s.

And here we have another bunch of 360 bargains. These range from $10 from Project Sylpheed to $39 for Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. Barely had the opportunity to play any of these. Would have preferred DMC4 on the PS3 as well, but thems the breaks.

I’ve become a little more intrigued with the Game Boy in recent times, so I’ve expanded the list of things we’re after. Mario Pinball Land was a steal at $14.95, particularly for that sort of condition. The Rescue of Princess Blobette was one of those games I never expected to see complete, and it cost me all of $4.77 – really happy about that. Metal Gear Solid is arguably the best game on the Game Boy Color, probably the best of the 2D Metal Gear games. Back in April it was hitting up around a hundred bucks, but I got this one for $61.08. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe was something I’d been after for a long time but wasn’t having any luck finding it complete for a good price – Charly picked it up for my birthday. Same goes for Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow – I only need Circle of the Moon to complete the handheld “Metroidvania” series.

I’ve developed this naughty little habit of getting Japanese versions of games, mainly for completionist purposes for franchise series, because the art is better or because they’re cheaper (handy when a game doesn’t require Japanese knowledge, like fighters or beat em ups). Batman Returns is the best pre-Arkham Asylum Batman game, a Final Fight style beat ‘em up by Konami. Grabbed it from the awesome Yamatoku for $16.65. Next to that, but slightly obscured by the light is Return of Double Dragon. This came across the pond as Super Double Dragon, but apparently that was not only censored, but based on a beta build of this version. Another birthday present (isn’t she lovely?).

The Japanese version of Zelda: Four Swords + was bloody cheap on Play-Asia ($23.98), and comes with a GBA/GCN link cable and the Tetra’s Trackers game, which isn’t in the US or PAL releases.

Policenauts Limited Edition was a steal at $2.25. Comes with a sort of vinyl cover holding the game and an art book. Normally goes for about $50. I usually like to get the spine cards with these things, but this was too cheap to pass up. X-Men vs. Street Fighter contains the game and a RAM cart – it’s by far the best home port of the game, and set me back about 35 bucks.

We’ve been sweeping the bargain bins lately, since many of the stores are having clearance sales. You’ll no doubt laugh at the quality of the vast majority of the games in this shot, and perhaps even poke fun at the fact that I rated some of them less than 5/10, but they were all between $14 and $27.

Due to a manufacturing problem, Mario DDR tends to be pretty tough to find, so I opted to go with the PAL version, Dancing Stage Mario Mix. Cost about $63 – seller decided to ship by sea to save me some dough, but it took over 3 months to arrive.

I’ve been clamping down on impulse buys (that aren’t at clearance sales) lately, but when I saw Play Asia had new N64 pad stock, I was unable to resist. It’s been impossible to find new official N64 pads for ages, so I bought one of every non-grey colour they had. Fortunately we don’t have Mario Party yet, so they should stay in good working order for a long time.

My 26th birthday occured recently (time needs to freeze), and Charly went overboard with the presents. Metal Gear has become one of my favourite franchises in recent years – would you believe I hated the original the first time I played it? Just need the Japanese versions of these two games to complete the multi-region set of each, which will put me closer to a full PAL/NTSC-U/NTSC-J Metal Gear set. Smash Bros is something we’ve been after for ages, but have had trouble finding in good condition. Mario Superstar Baseball brings us closer to a near complete Mario Sports collection – I can’t think of more than half a dozen games we need for that set.

Two bargain buys from the Harvey Norman sales. It’s a bit of a dubious honour to own more than one copy of Alone in the Dark (2008), and a source of amusement for a number of other writers. Riddick I wanted for 360, but I can never find it for less than $80.

I’ll be frank; I’m a complete special/limited/collector’s edition whore. Even if the bonus content is shit, I have to have it. I even get remorseful after the purchase, but I can never seem to let them go. Metroid Prime Trilogy was a must for me, especially since it’s got the first two games with Wii controls – art book is neat but would have been nicer if it had more pages. Soul Calibur IV – got the 360 version with all of its fancy shit, but the PS3 version came on sale at Video Games Plus for only 35 bucks, couldn’t resist, plus the US contents are different. Next to that are the NTSC-U and NTSC-J Metal Gear Solid 4 collectors editions, bringing my MGS4 total up to 5. To complete the set you could argue I need a PAL standard and an Asian Limited, but the PAL standard is in the PAL LE (albeit without the slip case) and the Asian LE is identical to the Japanese one without a CERO rating. Finally, there’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, great game, crappy limited edition.

Finally, we have a bit of a mix of things. That neat little book on the side is a fan-written guide for Mother 3 – and it’s arguably one of the most well made play guides I’ve seen. Simply amazing. In the middle are two more presents, both of which are Capcom games which didn’t get nearly enough attention. The first is Strider 2 which is the true sequel to Strider, as opposed to Strider Returns, which is utter tosh. The other is Cannon Spike, a Smash-TV style blaster/beat ‘em up starring various Capcom characters like Arthur, Mega Man, Cammie and B.B. Hood/Bulleta. Next to that is ICO Limited Edition – normally that’d cost a lot of money, but someone on the PALGN forums was feeling charitable and let it and a Shadow of the Colossus go for cheap. The SOTC went to Charly’s sister for her birthday. Finally, there’s a copy of 1080 Avalanche, which I grabbed from Play Asia for $20 on a whim.

There’s probably a whole heap of stuff we’ve missed over the course of the year, but we’ll sort it all out sometime.

Copped it again. Not sending this one in for repair since it’s out of warranty – going to hold out until the 23rd for the pricedrop + Halo 3 ODST bundle. In the mean time, I can use Charly’s machine to get my work done.

Time for some quick capsule reviews in the mean time.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
The Layton sequel brings more of the same sorts puzzles and mystery solving – fortunately it fantastic the first time around and works well again here.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Battle of the Androgynous Sissy Boys with a decent fighting system and solid RPG elements surrounding it. Jarring difference in the quality of character conception between the first six Final Fantasy heroes and the later four.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Latest Caped Crusader outing is one of only two games he’s in that doesn’t make me want to puke. Succeeds as both a Batman product and a video game due to high production values (including the involvement of the animated series crew) and some fantastic gameplay that makes players feel like Batman for once.

Sometimes the best review is a quick one. My bank account doesn’t necessarily agree, but sometimes you can tell someone all they need to know in 50 words or less. I figured I’d do that here and slap on a traffic light styled rating system for those people with even shorter attention spans and ratings fetishes.

Shadow Complex
Everyman stumbles upon extremist plot to take over USA while looking for kidnapped girlfriend in action/adventure inspired heavily by Super Metroid et al. What it lacks in gameplay originality is made up for by its sheer quality.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
Deplorable tie-in to a not-so-bad summer action film feels like it was rushed together in record time. Very basic gameplay structure, difficulty is absent, and variety is minimal. Plays like a bad Contra game.

Ashes Cricket 2009
Latest Codemasters cricket title features a very in-depth bowling system, which came at the expense of the rest of the game’s quality. Far too many glitches than acceptable in a retail product, poor presentation and too easy to master.

Madden NFL 10
EA’s latest American Football effort still feels inferior to their 2005 game on last gen hardware. Some nice new presentation features, but everything feels shakey and disjointed; only die-hard fans will be able to detect and appreciate any changes.

Trials HD
Don’t let the dirt bike fool you – Trials HD is a devious, spectular and addictive physics based puzzle game. Starts out easy and gets crazy hard but never becomes exceedingly frustrating. Level editor and excellent leaderboard implementation will make it go further if you’ve got a few friends.

I don’t really make good use of this blog, mainly because I find most bloggers to be really annoying, and I don’t really think I can add anything of value. However, I did pay good money for this domain name and a year’s worth of hosting, so usefulness be damned.

Obviously, the whole daily update thing just isn’t me. I’m hopeless at being on the cutting edge of news – that’s the kind of stuff I’d rather just read than write. Also, my work is posted at inconsistent times on varying days, so I thought that maybe I could write some sort of topical rant here each Sunday, and accompany it with links to all of my work that has been posted over the last week. Everybody wins.

This week has all been about Grand Theft Auto IV. I had to rush through four reviews this week in order to get time to play it, and I’ve now put in about 24 hours worth of play over the course of four days, so everything’s sunk in a little. I’m not doing a review of the game for any of the sites I write for, but I will say that I do not agree with the critical consensus.

This critical consensus is something of an emerging problem facing the writing side of the industry. It’s almost like game reviews are written on the basis that they are kept within a certain range dictated by a hive mindset (usually the first few reviews to hit the internet). Any deviation from this hivemind rating will earn you the scorn of readers and PR people alike. Gamerankings and Metacritic are used on the corporate side of things to determine various factors – if you are not in a standard deviation of the meta score, then obviously, you’re full of shit.

Grand Theft Auto IV is not worth a 10. It is a fantastic game, with a great story and solid gameplay, but in focusing on the story, Rockstar North has lost a lot of the freedoms previously presented in the preceding three games (or five, if you count the PSP games). While players can still roam Liberty City at their whim, there is not the wealth of other play options. Cab, Courier and Vigilante missions are back, but work on a one at a time system, while missions for the fire service, ambulance and such are nowhere to be seen. I expected a certain level of cutbacks, but this game keeps you much more tightly bound to the story than before.

There are a lot of little things that are very frustrating. The most frustrating one comes in the form of SMS retries – sure, it’s nice that the game lets you keep all of your equipment in the event that you die (which is now bloody expensive), but most missions start with a ridiculously long drive to a certain point, really negating the point of a retry option. I’m really feeling the length of some of these missions too – would it kill them to have a checkpoint in some of the larger missions (like Three Leaf Clover)?

I’m getting towards the end of the game, and I’m finding many of the missions to be really difficult. The odds really get stacked up against Niko; I’d compare these missions to the Area 52 mission or the final mission of San Andreas, based on the sheer number of enemies you come up against. Fortunately, the game’s greatly improved mechanics make it much less frustrating than it could have been. I want to wrap the game up today so I can get on with my work for this month.

Reviews

Time Crisis 4 (PS3) at Internode Games Network
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (Xbox 360) at Internode Games Network
Condemned 2: Bloodshot (Xbox 360) at Internode Games Network

Features

The Warp Pipe at Internode Games Network

Taking a much needed long weekend after busting my ass for two months without a day off. Internode has posted a lot of my stuff while I’ve been away, so here it goes.

Warp Pipe – GTA Retrospective Part 3
Sega Superstar Tennis review
Super Smash Bros. Brawl review

Next-Gen.biz deal fell through.

Webcomic is cancelled.

Warp Pipe will be up on Sunday.

People from last house have not sent my mail over. Boo-urns.