Well it finally happened. I am now the owner of an Xbox. Based on the advice of a few people who wrote me I decided to pick up Buffy the Vampire Slayer as my first game. I don't know exactly how they did it, but some how The Collective has managed to make a really great action game based on a TV show license. I've never even watched the damn show and I am having a blast with the game. The control is tight, the visuals are top notch and the dialogue is actually funny. The thing I found most interesting is that the developers didn't try to make a watered down game that would appeal to fans of the series who were casual gamers. I'm sure if you dig the show you're gonna love the game, but they make you fucking work. This game gets hard fast and if you want to ride it all the way out you are gonna need some serious skills. They could have made it a cookie cutter brawler and let it ride on the strength of the license but instead they made a rock solid game that could be enjoyed by fans of the TV show and fans of the genre (beating shit up) alike.
On the day I purchased the Xbox I went to three different stores looking for the smaller human sized controller, and everyplace I went was sold out. It seems as though it's a popular item and I can understand why. I've used Tycho's and it's obvious that it's a superior controller in every respect. There is absolutely no good goddamned reason why they should still be packaging systems with the old controller. Just suck it up, admit your mistake and give everyone the controller that they obviously want.
So now that I am like Robert Xbox (you can call me bob) I can finally come clean and admit that there are a few titles coming down the pipe that I am pretty interested in. I think Brute Force looks really good. I saw it at E3 and they seemed to have some frame rate issues but the game looked to have a lot of promise. I love squad based tactical combat and if you mix that with Sci-Fi you've got a game with Gabe written all over it. The previews I've read have me really excited. I'd love to see how far it's come since E3. Another Xbox game I saw at E3 that really impressed me was Psychonauts. I had never heard of the title before the show, but a good friend of ours at Microsoft hooked us up with a sneak peak and what we saw really made an impression on me. I am a bitch for platform games and this one had some of the most original character designs and game mechanics I've ever seen. It looked like a really quirky fun platform game with some dark twists that gave the whole thing a very "Nightmare before Christmas" sort of vibe that I could have eaten with a fucking spoon. Obviously I'm still really looking forward to my big three: Panzer Dragoon Orta, Knights of the Old Republic and Shenmue II as well. Add in all the great shit Tycho keeps telling me about Xbox live and I feel like I probably made a pretty good investment. Now if I can just find one of those human sized controllers I'll be set.
I went ahead and added the three import reviews I did last week to the Land of the Rising Fun archive. So if you're curious about Gungrave, Auto Modellista or King of Fighters 2000 just hit this link here.
-Gabe out
