Heavy Rain (PS3)

Heavy Rain came out a few years ago on PS3 and I watched my brother and his friends play through it right after it came out. Yesterday I decided to give it a try on my own and 12 hours later I was still on the edge of my seat watching my unique ending to the story. Thats the best thing about this game.. you go through this story as a set of different characters and they control themselves for the most part. You, however, are in control of the decisions they make and the evidence they consider. The decisions you make throughout the game effect the ending of the story, including what characters are still alive when it’s all said and done.

Honestly this game felt like I was watching a 12 hour interactive movie, which was so cool and unique. Besides walking the only interaction you have with your characters is via quicktime events where you are told to push and hold the square button while hitting R1 repeatedly, etc. These can get a bit tricky, especially in some of the actions scenes. My only regret is that two of my characters died as a result of my choices. One I was okay with but the other I felt really bad about!

I really enjoyed playing this game on my own but next play through it would be awesome to have someone new the game play through with me and see what kind of ending we experience.

If you have been on the fence about this game I definitely recommend you pick it up and give it a try.

Wreck-it Ralph

Holy crap! It’s a CG movie that I’m genuinely excited for! I’m hoping the hype in my head won’t ruin it for me.

Pocket Legends – Spacetime Studios

The world of Alterra has been over-run and the Elf Queen needs your help to save the kingdom!

Require gaming on the go but want to get your MMORPG fix at the same time?  Try out Pocket Legends!  The best way to describe it is to call it World of Warcaft and Diablo’s love child.  The game starts you off choosing between 3 different class types.  The class types are also race dependent so there really isn’t a mix and match setup that you would expect out of a deeper MMO.  The bears are the warriors, avians (birds) are archers and the Elves are the mages.  (Don’t ask me why the world if filled with animal based races then there are the elves??!?!)  When you get through registration and creation, you can outfit your character with their corresponding type of garb and weaponry.

Quests and other tasks are a breeze to get started into.  Some are basic grind, others are in depth for this kind of quick play MMO.

Even on smaller screens for Android and iOS devices (phones) the game is a dream to play.  Having the minimap overlayed on the screen with all of the magic spells and on-screen controls, everything is still playable and unobtrusive.

The game is great while not forcing you to dedicate a large amount of time.

All screen shots were taken from the iOS version.  Video is official from Space Time Studios.

Tiny Tower – NimbleBit

Have you ever wanted to build a skyscraper and micromanage what goes in it? Well you are in luck! NimbleBit’s Tiny Tower gives you all of that in a cute timehole of a game. You start with a couple of levels where you can install apartments and your first establishment. From there, It’s all downhill.  Your job is to keep your Bitiznes happy so they keep bringing in more residents to work at the shops you put put in each floor.

There are charts so you can see how to place your Bitizens according to their dream job.

Now with the elevator, you can get visitors (and possible new residents) to their floor of choice.  If you know how to make the ride smooth for then, they will tip you TowerBux.  Tiny Tower is a Freemium game.  Like many that fit this term, there is the in game money and the premium items you can get with these hard to obtain TowerBux.  Unlike other Freemium titles, this game gives you the IRL currency to get further into the game.  Lots of this is rinse and repeat.  Build a new floor, get people to move in, get them to work, make money, etc…

As monotonous as this review sounds, this really is a fun game.  Install it and see your time fly by!

Annual flea market tour

Every year some of my friends (a partial cross section of GameBlips) make an all day pilgrimage around the central to southeastern part of the state and tour the major flea markets.  After a few years of missing out on this annual tradition, I am fianally able to go.  This year’s was May 26.  What an amazing trip!

We startred out by hitting up a couple of places in Flint.  This is where I picked up 4 of these Transformers figures that I’ve always wanted (but never wanted to get them in the mix package.)

Something a tad more amazing would be this framed portrait of Snoop Dog holding a can of Grape Colt 45.  I wanted it really bad but couldn’t haggle a price that I could feel good about, although it was probably the most amazing thing I saw all day.

Worth $50?  I haggled them down to $40.

More video games, more toys, more awesome throughout the day.  We ended up in Taylor at another indoor market and found a guy that looks like Diamond Dallas Page.  He loves his video games, toys and horror memorabilia.  After almost buying at his booth, I walked away but then Jboy came back over and asked if I saw the Voltron 2, complete back at that guy’s display???  I never noticed it because it was in a plastic grocery bag behind the counter.  I hurried my butt back over there and asked about it.  DDP was all about bringing it out and said that he doesn’t know about it since it was v2 and didn’t know if it was complete.  I slapped it all together and slid the Blazing Sword in his fist.  Yep, pretty complete to me!

I also was able to pick up an aluminum case for the DS Lite that I’ve been hanging onto since it is metallic pink and not very manly.  Now it’s less girly-ish.  (See the original pick up above with the full group shot.)  I hope to hit these places up more in the future.  Like I said before, it was an amazing day.  Just the small blurbs here don’t do it justice at all.

Gog.com is running my childhood for cheap this weekend!

If you aren’t aware of who Good Ol’ Games (gog.com) is, you should take notice this weekend.  They are the purveyors of awesomeness when  it comes to classic PC gaming.  This time around is a 50% off sale for the full Wing Commander and Ultima Series!  Personally, I played the crap out of these games as a kid and if I didn’t still have them in the basement on CD, I’d be all about buying them all over again!

Ahhh, Wing Commander 1 on a 286 with Ega graphics.  Those were the days…