G-pinions

Apparently Tom is too enraptured with ESPN NFL 2K5 to update (understandably), so I'll do the honors. Not too much news on the digital entertainment frontier, so I figure I'll just rant about a games or two.

First off, X-Men Legends is going to rule more than even I previously thought, for two reasons: 4-player co-op, and "classic" missions. Few games sport co-op of this extent (Gauntlet, and...?), and I'm looking forward to tearing up some sentinels with Dan, Ben and possibly Tom more than most things. I obviously have dibs on Wolverine. The meat of the game is a bit like Norrath, only with more combo attacks, bosses, team-ups, strategy, characters, puzzles, and, I can assume, fun (don't get me wrong, Norrath kicked ass, but this license alone can't be beat). Each character has a handful of their powers, so the experience differs greatly depending on who you're playing as. I figure a team of Wolvie, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Forge can't be defeated, but we'll see. And as far as the "classic" missions, well, they're basically individual missions based on various famous X-Men battles (Juggernaut attacking the mansion, etc.), and you get to wear the era-appropriate costumes for each. This kind of thing makes a fanboy like myself weep openly with joy.

Did anyone else see PSM's "PS2's 5 Next Mega-Hits" feature this month? God of War, Destroy All Humans!, Mercenaries, Area 51, and Viewtiful Joe 2. I'd just like to point out that I've been talking about how good those first four games look for months; I'm glad the mainstream gaming media is taking notice, because our scope of influence is fairly limited.

Man, you know what game I'm not looking forward to? Prince of Persia 2. I mean, of course I'll play it through when it comes out, but I have several reasons to be suspect of it's quality, especially in relation to the first game. First off, they seem to be spending a ton of time on making the fighting engine better - making the attacks flow into the acrobatics, adding lots of gore, making the combat combo-heavy, etc. Does anyone else think this will lead to a much more combat-centered game? The first game had a perfect balance of exploring and combat, the fighting just kind of sucked after the first few fights. The fights might be a whole lot more fun this time around, but I have a billion other games to get my fighting fix from - I want to swing through rafters, backflip off of walls, and run over spike pits with the greatest of ease. Take a look at the video I linked to above; the levels are looking gorgeous, but they don't look very platform-plentiful, do they? I also don't approve of the dark, edgy, 'I'm a badass in the sequel' look for the prince. It's been way overdone in games (ahem, Jak 2), and I just don't think it fits the PoP universe well. Add all that to the fact that the game will have had roughly a year-long development cycle when it's released (unless it gets delayed, which I'm hoping for). That's fine for a game like Ratchet & Clank, where they spend all their time on level, gadget and game design, since the engine is so solid and only needs minor tweaks with each iteration. With PoP2, it seems the majority of the work so far is going into the basic engine, which would seem to leave little time for more of the ingenious puzzle design we saw in the first game. After all, that one was in development for what, three years plus? I hope like hell that I'm wrong about all this, but I figured I'd get my concerns out of the way now, before they reveal some kickass footage to get me excited about it again.