Well, this is a moment I was quite hyped for. Finally getting the play the demo for Vanquish. One part of me is very excited for this game, and then there’s the part of me that says “calm down, it’s probably just another bland TPS”. SURE, it’s being made by Platinum games, who made the incredibly badass Bayonetta, but, on the other hand, it’s a TPS with a cover system, which has pretty much never been really enjoyable to me (too slow, too easy, rarely actually any fun to play).

Me getting excited about a TPS is all sorts of weird. Almost as weird as me getting excited about an FPS. In both cases, I usually end up being disappointed (most recent example: Singularity… Please don’t suck Bulletstorm, PLEASE), and this is why I’m being VERY skeptical about Vanquish.

So does this game follow the blandness of most TPS, or is it actually good?

Read on and see!
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jobocan Console, Games, impressions, ps3, xbox 360

Shank was a game that really intrigued me for quite a while. It looked cool, but I was unsure if it was gonna be good, or just needlessly violent to appeal to the masses. The gameplay seemed interesting, but, without playing it, it was hard to tell.

So I finally got to play it, and… I’m pretty satisfied, if not a bit annoyed at a few things.

Read on and see what I liked and disliked about Shank!
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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, Review, XBLA, ps3, xbox 360

Well, time for the gaming world to “recover” from the “drought” of the summer, so it’s time for a lot more “interesting”/noteworthy releases than in the last few months.

This time there’s releases on every system which is good. 3 DS releases, 2 PC releases, 3 PS3 exclusives, 2 PSP releases, 1 Wii release, 2 360 exclusive releases and 10 multiplatform releases. Everyone should at least find one interesting game to play in here.

So yeah, read on to see what possibly interesting games are comming in september 2010!
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jobocan Console, Games, Handheld, PC, Releases, ds, games of the month, ps3, psp, wii, xbox 360

Well, this week has been a dream week for Scott Pilgrim fans, with the movie coming out on Friday, and the game coming out on Tuesday on the PSN.

Just from the trailers, it was clear this game was gonna be great, and obviously a tribute to games of the old. The trailers displayed colorful graphics, fun gameplay, and incredible 8-bit music. Enough to make any gamer happy.

So obviously I was hyped for the game, and not just because I loved the Scott Pilgrim comics, but because it looked like a legitimately great game.

Read on and see if I was right!
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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, Review, XBLA, ps3, xbox 360

Well that took way too long to come out. The first Monster Rancher DS game came out in japan in 2007, and a second one came out in 2008. On the american side of the world, nothing. Surprisingly, 2 years later, it was announced for the US. Not the first game that came out in japan, but the second one, so one of them was skipped (which is probably a good thing).

After the announcement, it was said to come out in March… and then it was delayed a month, and then it was delayed 2 months, and then it was delayed another month, just to be delayed another 2 weeks. Damn! I have no idea why it was delayed so much… and it did change publishers on the way which is pretty weird. But finally the wait is over and we can play the game!

Monster Rancher isn’t a series I played a lot of… I played Monster Rancher Advance a bit, and Monster Rancher Advance 2 a LOT, but I haven’t played any of the PS1/PS2 versions of the series, so I missed the novelty of summoning monsters using any disc you could find in your home. But still, I loved playing the GBA games in the series, they remain as my most played games on the system.

So… read on and see if the huge amount of wait was worth it!
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jobocan Games, Handheld, Review, ds

Earthworm Jim, amongst the biggest badasses in the video game world. I mean, they just don’t make heroes like him anymore. Random earthworm who had a super-advanced space suit falling on him from outer space, making him a super powerful, lasergun-totting, super hero? And he can use his head as a whip? Awesome.
He hasn’t seen lots of action in quite some time (let’s just forget Earthworm Jim 3D, shall we?), but finally Jim is back and awesome as he should be.

I wanted to do a full review of this, but, well, I can’t find the motivation/originality to write a full complete review of such a classic game without sounding like a broken record. Instead, I’ll just quickly give my impressions on it, which will be a lot simpler.

Read on!
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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, XBLA, impressions, ps3, xbox 360

Well, at first I was planning to do a full review of Blur. It seemed like an interesting racing game, combining more realistic racers to Mario Kart. I had pretty good hopes for it.

It’s been out for a while, and I finally got around to renting it, and after quite some play time, I just can’t get into it at all, and, as such, I’ll just give my impressions on the game, and explain why I don’t really like it, or at least why I don’t feel like it lived up to its incredible potential.

Read on!
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jobocan Console, Games, PC, impressions, ps3, xbox 360

While Record of Agarest War was just like Cross Edge in almost every way, this is another game I had up as this year’s candidate for “game that will have the same kind of reviews as Cross Edge”. Surprisingly enough, it seems like people were a bit more lenient on this one than they were with Cross Edge. Granted, it doesn’t suffer from as many problems as Cross Edge, but it’s still aiming at exactly the same audience.

I was interested in the game partly because of the Disgaea crossovers, but also because the gameplay seemed fairly solid. So I had some fairly good expectations for this.

Read on!
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jobocan Console, Games, Review, ps3

(Despite the Xbox 360 boxart here, the PS3 version is reviewed… there’s no PS3 boxart so I went with the closest thing)
Remember Cross Edge? It came out last year, and it was hated by critics and gamers overall. But I still thought it was a very fun game, there were just a lot of hurdles to jump over before really getting to enjoy it, hurdles which the average gamer or reviewer just didn’t want to bother with (which is quite understandable). And then there’s the fact that it was incredibly badly optimized, with pixelated/blurry 2D graphics and relatively long load times (even when the game was installed). It was still a fun game, with a really good battle system and lots of fun leveling systems.

This year we get Record of Agarest War. Made by the same company, and it has a lot in common. So maybe this is this year’s “Cross Edge” in a sense. It’s been out for a while now, I just took my sweet time playing it and finally getting to review it. But, from the little research I made, I found that it got more favorable reviews than Cross Edge did.

So read on and see if it really deserves the slightly more favorable reviews!

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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, Review, ps3, xbox 360

The level of details this game goes for in terms of art presentation is outstanding and way beyond what you’d expect of a “casual” game.

The steampunk setting is a setup we don’t see all that often in recent works (or at least not that I’ve noticed). So it doesn’t come as overplayed when games like Clockwork Man 2 – The Hidden World comes along.  I’ve never tried the prequel to this casual game, but it didn’t stop me from being able to enjoy this one.

So what exactly is this game? It’s a puzzle adventure game, not unlike the such as the Monkey Islands, with its own rules and features. It mixes the elements of the prior mentioned game, where you need to use and mix items to solve puzzles and another part where you’re looking for specific items in screens filled with beautifully-drawn objects.

So did I enjoy it enough to recommend this game to the casual gamers in you? Read on to find out!

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David A. Games