Game Of The Week

By: CAPTAIN GORDON EDWARD
Date: Saturday, February 17, 2007

Welcome to the Countdown, where I borrow just the tiniest bit of style from Ze Frank. With Microsoft rolling out an achievement reward system, I have recently seen a lot of people abandon new games, for the games of the old. It seems a lot of the older games have easy to achieve points, one of them happening to be Madden 06. Luckily the Countdown is here to keep the tabs on games going out, so hopefully they will pick up a new game and realise that they still have a few months before the contest is over.

Arena Football: Road to Glory (PS2) - Taking a different approach to football, EA continues with their Arena style, where everything takes place in a dome. Action is much more fluent than regular football, while the team size takes a hit. With only 59 yards between the two goal lines, there are plenty of points to achieve.

M.A.C.H. (PSP) - The year is 2049, where the governments of the world switch to unmanned aircraft to fight their battles for them, in hopes of saving lives. A few years passes, and the older manned planes found their ways to black markets where a group of ex-fighter pilots, smugglers, and hobbyists snatch them up. Thus causes an older style of plane fighting is about to re-emerge. One wonders if this has any link to Stealth the movie.

Metal Slug Anthology (PSP) - The Metal Slug series has always been a fun adventure, and if this game is anything like the anthology on the Wii, the PSP owners will have something solid to buy this week.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3) - Playstation has possibly a hit on their hands with the newest edition to the Virtua Fighter series, though not enough console sales to capitalize on it. Sporting a whole new system of graphics, it will be the most beautiful game in the series so far.

Crackdown (X-Box 360) - There are going to be three groups that buy this game, those that want the beta to Halo 3 multiplayer exclusively, those that want to be a virtual cop, and those that want both. After playing the demo on the X-Box 360, Crackdown will be a worthy game to pick up, even if you do not care about Halo. Immersed in Pacific City, the crime ridden urban centre is about to get a clean-up call from the super police. New news indicates that those wanting to get the Halo 3 multiplayer beta probably will not have the chance once they purchase the game. It seems that they will need to wait till springtime to enjoy the slaughter.

NBA Street Homecourt (X-Box 360) - EA continues their franchise with the NBA series with this game.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces Expansion Pack (PC) - With this expansion pack to the real time sim, those that purchased the original game can now expand upon it. Hopefully they have solved quite a few controlling issues over the original game, but I just do not have faith in them at this time.

Supreme Commander (PC) - Probably the top game for those wanting an RTS this week, this game presents giant epic battles that could harden the heart of any player. It looked beautiful at E3, and the demo was fun as heck. With plenty of action going on the screen, this game should keep any player entertained. Since it has such promise, I am awarding the game my patented "Game of the Week" nod.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii) - As Sega continues attempting to re-invent the wheel, with their Sonic series, they have taken a step back and given Sonic his own solo adventure. It will be interesting to see how the Wii-mote will add to the series, but I will recommend renting before buying since the version on the PS3 was a little... Lack lustre. Perhaps the series should go back to its roots of simple 2D games.

Trioncube (DS) - The evil Hell Metal has kidnapped your Princess, and as the Captain of the mighty ship Penko, you will embark on a journey to return her to safety. But siding its interesting storyline, the game is a puzzle game, having you break series of 3X3 blocks.

While it was a PC game of the week, I would still like to give my nod of the hat to Microsoft with their achievement system. It seems to enthral gamers that have the system, so that they will buy these games over other console versions. It seems that they have a hit on their hands, which begs the question if the other consoles will follow suit. In any event, I strongly recommend picking up Supreme Commander if you are an RTS fanatic, and love the future. If you hate the future, well you could try waiting for the new Command and Conquer game going out in a few weeks. In any event, this is Captain Gordon… Signing off.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com