10. Rockband (PS3/360)

Rock Band is a recent release of the year, but it’s one that should be on everyone’s list. Rock Band is the ultimate party game. Combine Karoke Revolution, Guitar Hero and drums and you’ve got something for everyone to play. The music selection is varied, and the presentation is absolutely top notch. I expect this game to have a lot of legs well into next year, especially with the weekly support of downloadable content.

9. Company of Heroes (PC)

The first time you fire up Company of Heroes you’ll marvel at the detail and animation of the game’s characters an environment. Then you’ll realize you can use your little mouse wheel and zoom all the way down to street level and see even MORE detail. The best thing about this RTS is it’s focus on action and the units. There’s no resource gathering here, it’s all about building up your army and conquering the enemy.

8. Heavenly Sword (PS3)

From a purely game play standpoint Heavenly Sword doesn’t bring much new to the table. But what is there is very solid. What the game really excels at though is story telling and character detail. You will be hard pressed to find a more detailed facial expression system than the one found in Heavenly Sword. Even Mass Effect which looks gorgeous in it’s own right can’t hold a candle to the emotion that was conveyed by the characters facial expressions in Heavenly Sword.

7. Crackdown (360)

Crackdown is one of those games that if it was released later in the year it would be on a lot of people’s GOTY lists. But having been released in February it’s going to get glossed over quite a bit. Crackdown redefined what it means to be a sandbox game by setting players in a futuristic city in control of a character with super powers. Anyone who played the game remembers that first giant leap from building to building, or climbing the Agency Tower and looking out over the entire city. The game was an amazing technical marvel. Not only that but it provided some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a game via online Co-Op play. Many people picked this one up for the Halo 3 Beta, and after playing it many people spent more time on Crackdown than they did in the H3 Beta.

6. Portal (PC/360/PS3)

Portal was packaged in with the Half-Life: Orange Box set, which was probably the best value in gaming. Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Half-Life 2 Epside 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal all for under $60! The funny thing about it is, Portal was the game everyone thought was a tack-on, and it turns out Portal was by far the best game of the bunch. The game is a 3-D puzzler of sorts where you need to get form point A to point B by placing two inter connecting Portals. It forces you to think outside the realm of normalcy to solve the puzzles presented. What makes Portal so enticing is the atmosphere and character. Set in a Test-Lab you are guided by GlaDOS to your goal of testing out the Portal gun for Aperature Science. Everything here is top notch, and if there’s one downside to Portal it’s the fact the game only lasts under 2 hours. The game spawned an internet catch phrase (the Cake is a lie), the companion cube craze, and a song so catchy everyone wanted to sing it.

5. Mario Galaxy (Wii)

From the moment you turn Mario Galaxy on you know the game is going to win the hearts over of many gamers. The game features Mario on the path to rescue Princess Peach who was captured by Bowser and wisked away across the galaxy. It’s your job to go from galaxy to galaxy and then jump from little planet to little planet to gather up lost stars. The design, the colors, the controls are all top notch. This is one game every Wii owner shouldn’t be without.

Be on the lookout for the top 4 games of the year later this week.

Galaxies is broken up into, surprise, galaxies! Each galaxy offers different planets to unlock and each planet has it’s own point total goals, enemies, and layouts. The layouts of the levels can vary between your normal square to one of many non standard shapes, both big and small. There’s lots of neat little things that happen on levels. Some levels have moving geometry which you have to work around. Others have enemies that lay down mines which you can trigger to set off chain reactions. And of course, there’s just the tried and true GW formula of shoot everything and never stop moving.

The one main problem with Galaxies is the game is a dual analog shooter without dual analog sticks. The developers made an admirable attempt to utilize the Wii controls to kind of use a point and shoot hybrid type control scheme. Unfortunately the Wii controller simply can’t provide a smoother circular motion and feels like a constant battle to aim and shoot where you want to. The Classic Controller becomes a necessity, but even then, I find the analog sticks and the hard corners of it detrimental to the fast pace of Geometry Wars.

Despite the controller flaws, the game is still Geometry Wars at heart, and that’s a good thing. The planets are very intuitive, and the unlocking nature of seeing what happens next is incredibly addictive. Add in co-op and versus play and the ability to link the game up to the DS and you’ve got a full value package at $39.99. The bottom line is this… if you are an arcade shooter fan – you need this game.

Score:
4 out of 5

The first of these elements is color. Scattered throughout the levels are various doors and switches which require your blob to be a certain color to activate. To change the color of your blob simply roll through a red, green or blue color sprayer. The strategy comes in when you need to create colors like yellow, purple, or sky blue to reach a goal. How do you create these colors? You’ll need to split your mercury blob by running into a corner and take each piece into one of the color painters. Roll your mercury pieces back together and voila! A new color. Color isn’t the only way to change your mercury. You can heat it up with steam to go faster, or slow it down by chilling it. Overall these elements all get combined in some way shape or form to create some interesting puzzles in the levels.

Speaking of levels, the game contains almost 150 of them spread across a handful of themed labs. There’s plenty of content here to keep you busy, though if you’ve played the original I’ve heard that all the content isn’t unique to this version.

The controls are top notch with the Wii-Mote. While holding the controller classic style you simply tilt and rotate it to tilt and rotate the board and move your mercury blob. It works well, it feels natural and it seems like exactly the kind of game the Wii-mote was designed for.

Graphically the game is simple, but it looks decent enough with a sort of pseudo-cell shaded look. There are some nice effects, and the game does support 480p 16:9.

For $19.99 you get a very full valued package. Above and beyond the single player there are multiplayer party games like a paint territory game, races and even some puzzles. The game allows you to save ghosts and replays of your best runs and features local leaderboards. Honestly I really can’t find a fault in this game, perhaps it gets a little repetitive during long play sessions, but other than that I’m really enjoying the title. In the age of $60 games a $20 title like this is a steal. It’s a game that anyone can enjoy, and one that truly uses the Wii-mote well.

Score:4.5 out of 5

For the most part the game remains completely unchanged in terms of content. There’s still the same characters, courts and outfits to unlock. In fact the entire single player campaign is identical to the Xbox 360 counterpart. Where the game differs is the online multi player component, namely there isn’t one on the Wii. This is pretty disappointing as this is what I had to say originally about the multi player.

…online play … in my opinion (is) the meat of this game. While you’ll need to play some of the single player to unlock the characters and courts, the online play is where you’ll have the most fun. Rockstar did an amazing job making online play smooth and lag free. I even played a friend from Japan and there was hardly any noticeable lag.

Graphically the game is noticeably worse than the Xbox 360 counterpart with a lower resolution, weaker player models and softer textures. That’s not to say the game looks bad, it’s just doesn’t match up when directly comparing the two. The game does stand well on it’s own on the Wii, being one of the better looking titles for the system.

So it all comes down to the controls, I mean, that’s what the Wii is all about. And while none of the 3 control methods provide a 1 to 1 mapping of paddle to Wii-mote, they all do work fairly well. The standard mode is a bit like Wii-Tennis with control of your character taken over by the computer. This lets you solely concentrate on spins and swinging the paddle. Spin is controlled by the d-pad, simply hold in the direction and swing the Wii-mote to hit the ball. The other two control methods provide both player movement and paddle control with the nun-chuck attachment, with the final method allowing you to aim your shots more precisely.

All 3 methods work well, but it’s really a shame there isn’t a one to one correlation when playing. It would even have been nice to see spin controlled by rotating the Wii-mote, but alas we are left without it. Even though the lack of one to one control is disappointing, I’m not sure it could even work with such a fast paced game.

If you missed the original on the 360 and are looking for another great party game for the Wii, Table Tennis will make a great addition to your library. Despite it’s flaws when comparing it to the 360 Version, the game stands well on it’s own for the Wii platform.

Score: 3.5 out of 5
Buy @ Amazon: $39.99

The Multiplayer Blog has the full story.

On another note I was reading Ozy’s blog today and noticed he mentioned how he got to a certain point in Zelda and just stopped. I can echo is sediment, as myself as well stopped playing Zelda as soon as my broken 360 returned. Since then I haven’t gone back and gamed on the Wii much at all in fact. It’s really a shame, because the Wii is a solid little system; but for whatever reason it just isn’t for me. Sure there are certain games and experiences that I find enjoyable on it, but when I compare my feelings for it to what some of these people on the Internet think about it, I often wonder…what am I missing?

On a side note, I played some of the PS3 demo kiosk this weekend and I can honestly say I’m glad I did. I’ve been on edge about getting a PS3 for a month or so now, and was really close to pulling the trigger a few times. After playing the kiosk I can honestly say I’m not missing anything, and don’t see myself missing anything for at least a few months. Motorstorm was simply not all its cracked up to be. It’s basically ATV Offroad fury with trucks and buggies and bikes. There’s nothing innovative about the racer at all IMO. Yes the graphics are solid. Why is that? They have an amazing texture artist and a fairly easy terrain palette to work with. Is it better looking than say something like Gears of War? I don’t think so, maybe on the same level, but artistically not even close.

I also got a copy of Dragon BallZ: Budokai 2 for the Wii from Atari. I’ve never been a fan of DBZ, and playing this game reminds me why. The game is essentially a fighting game with insanely large arenas to fight in, and the way the controls work on the Wii are quite frustrating. To begin with you have 1 attack button, and then a secondary move button that you hold and do gestures with the Wii-mote to complete special moves. The game essentially becomes button mashing without any buttons to mash. Here, try this. Hold both arms up in the air. Now wave your right arm uncontrollably while pressing your thumb down over and over and over again. That’s what playing this game is like. There’s also this annoying quirk where if you don’t sit/stand close enough to your TV, a big white message comes on your screen telling you to move closer. No thank you, I’d like to keep my distance.

I also tried a bit of Red Steel this weekend and found the controls simply attrocious. The fact that you need to move to the end of the screen to turn, and the looseness of the aiming. I will say the presentation is pretty nice, but the graphics are severly lacking.

Finally I’ve been playing a ton of Wii sports. Mostly just Bowling and Home Run Derby. Everything else on the game simply is too inconsistant for my tastes. Especially Golf, Boxing and sometimes Tennis. Bowling is damn near perfect, and truly shows a great use of the Wii-mote. Home Run Derby is a blast as well, but there are a few tricks you can do (sometimes accidently) that cause you to hit the ball REALLY far without actually swinging.

Overall the Wii is not living up to the hype for me. The initial offering shows quite a few shortcomings in the Wii control system. I’m hoping most of it is a software issue, and that as developers get more and more familiar with the Wii they’ll put out more solid offerings with more consistant controls.