Monday, January 28, 2008

Imitation, 360 minibits, Blu-ray additions...



Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so they say. Passing the intersection of Harry & Oliver I did a double take seeing the red/white neon 'GameShop' sign, it sure looked like the GameStop logo. After further review it seems that 1 letter, and a color swap is indeed the only difference between the two signs, someone must think they have a good idea. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just additional store front for the A-Ok Pawn shop that owns the building, although it may be a totally separate operation.

On a semi-related note the Game X-change at Harry & Rock Road had a notice up that they were closing at the end of January. Both of the west locations would remain open, and they hoped to have another east side location before the end of the year. I've been in the new 'way west' location two or three times now, and never seen much there (product or people), maybe they'll get the east side inventory.


Hopefully you picked up your free copy of Undertow last week, it was Microsoft's 'apology' for the Christmas downtime of Xbox LIVE. I played around with the tutorial level a bit, it looks pretty, but didn't really grab me at all. There were some new demos up on LIVE over the last couple weeks, The Club was originally available in Europe only (now it's up in the U.S. also), a shoot' em up brawler where everyone is thrown together and last man standing wins. Think Running Man (with Arnold the governator) and you get the general idea. It's was fair, definitely not a purchase for me though, maybe if I hear some good buzz after it comes out, and it's under $20.

Next up was the much ballyhooed Devil May Cry 4, ummm okay, evidently I'm not the target audience for this one either. I never played any of the PlayStation titles, and never felt like I was missing out. I know there are a lot of people hyped for this so I hope they enjoy it.

Then there was Turning Point Fall of Liberty a WWII 'alternate reality' FPS. I've read some about it, and it seemed to have a neat storyline, so I was eager to try it out. It looks pretty good, but it controls like Hour of Victory unfortunately. It has that same weird slow motion turning that really killed HoV when I tried it, way to sluggish. Hopefully the final game will fix it, or have some way to tweak the settings to make it playable because I really think it could be good.

The best demo I've played lately was out way back in early December, Culdcept Saga is a great mix of a trading card game, and a board game. I really enjoyed Magic the Gathering TCG, and this fantasy based game really struck a cord, it comes out next week at $40 I think, and will probably be my next purchase.


I've expanded my blu-ray collection quite a bit (tripled it, actually) when I ran across some used titles at work. I couldn't afford to pass them up even though I don't have a player yet... (tax refund where are you?). I also ran across a website for retail employees where you can take some video courses (about 20 minutes of effort) over blu-ray technology, and earn a free blu-ray movie. There were only 5-6 to choose from, but they were decent titles, and who complains about free?

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