NHL 2K7- $5.00- Best Buy

First, I want to mention that I owe S.E. Hartle a big debt of gratitude for continuing to update the site while I have been transitioning into a new job that has sacked both my time for writing and for game playing, but nevertheless, there are still tons of fabulous deals out there.  Maybe none more so than Best Buy’s offer of NHL 2K7 for a scant 5 bucks.

On certain weekends, Best Buy is beginning to sell “at risk, opened, and demoed” items for utterly insane saving.  Last week I picked up both NHL 2K7 for the original XBOX as well as MLB 06 The Show for the PS2 (I will review that after I get some time under my belt with it) both for $5.

Whether NHL 2K7 is a good buy for you is completely dependant on several things:

1.)   Do you have an XBOX 360?

2.)   Do you own any other NHL 2K?

3.)   Are you a huge hockey fan?

4.)   Do you insist on playing online?

In short, the upgrades you get to NHL 2K7 are fairly minimal and may not be worth it depending on how you play.

First though, it should be said, NHL 2K7 is still the best hockey game available for 6th generation systems.  It is better than any of the previous 2K games and is still light-years past the continually worsening EA series.  Control is fantastic and makes almost unnoticeable upgrades to previous control schemes.  It also continues a strong history of quality defense with the use of a free-control stick swinging system that is especially helpful on power plays and odd man rushes.

Offense is still the same and offers the same amusingly awful goaltenders.  While the now infamous “S move” is more covered than in previous years, one-times and skating parallel to the goal line are still almost guaranteed goal scoring moves.  Fortunately, the AI defensemen are better at breaking up one-time opportunities, and it is much easier to miss the one-time pass.  However, if you connect, you can put it on the board every time.  These exploits can lead to frustration over XBOX live as well, as certain games will become battles of who can stop the exploits better.

The one minor change that will feel major for long time 2K fans is the introduction of the new camera angle, which is quite simply, the best camera angle ever used for a hockey game.  It takes the same angle that has been used for 15 years, but it drops it lower to the ice and uses subtle zoom in and zoom out technique to keep you as close to the action as possible.  For example, when a puck is pinned in the corner, the camera zooms in, but if you get the puck free, it will zoom back out so you can judge where to fire an outlet pass.  It is really quite brilliant.

 

Modes also remain the same, which is not a problem considering that the 2K series has always had strong franchise and multiplayer modes.

NHL 2K7 is little more than a roster update and a new camera angle.  It is the newest of the NHL 2K games, so you will still be able to find XBL partners.  Yet, it will not change your view of hockey games.  If you have liked the series in the past and have not picked up the newest iteration, its certainly worth your 5 bucks.  However, if you are looking for a brand new next-gen hockey simulator, you may be best served by waiting for the series reboot NHL 2K8 on XBOX 360.

Score (based on bargain)- 8.6

Spending on The Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion is a “Profitable Transaction”

By : S. E. Hartle 

The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion, may be the largest scale game ever produced on any game console, and nearly every aspect of the XBOX 360 version seemed honed to perfection while its limited competition pushed one inadequate title after another. Although you cannot find a new copy for much less than $49.99, it is a bargain at double that price.

 

With two expansions released via Microsoft’s online Marketplace, Bethesda Softwork’s astounding world of Cyrodil, where the majority of your heroic exploits will mature, is literally a lifetime for your created character, and for you if you have the time.

I personally logged more than 400 hours now, and there are still side quests, storylines and areas left unexplored. Try and log that in any game, on any console without suffering mind-numbing repetition.   

From the moment the game begins and you choose your gender, race and class, you begin a whirlwind of events that unfold upon the assassination of the land’s emperor, leaving you with a seemingly impossible quest of saving the world and finding a new heir to the throne. Fate has chosen you regardless of your past or your plans.

       

You choose your own path; tamper with magic, pound your enemies with hammers and muscle, master the art of sword and shield or disappear into the night and attack without admonition. You can steal, eat, fight, hide, sleep, work, run, swim and even die. Your character is alive in a fantasy land and your dreams become reality as you choose your path to be a hero and save your fellow man, or stray your course and fend off law from city to city while bidding evil in your wake.

Cyrodil is built from dozens of small towns and large cities, each with their own distinct differences, spread out over a massive map entwined with caves, castles, ruins and monsters all at your disposal. Conquer and command respect, or ignore and just exist like the hundreds of non-player characters roaming the land. Every character is an individual with their own personality and business in life. Some will like you, some will not, and even some will just plain ignore you.

                                                       

You can follow the main plotline, which leads you into the epic immortal battle of good versus evil, or drift the land gaining experience, strength and items that will make your eventual destiny a little easier to subgugate.

Oblivion’s few drawbacks are derived mainly in the long-loading screens, due to the absorbent amount of information being processed and the lack of online action. Although Bethesda and Microsoft offer several bonuses to the online enthusiast including two bonus plotlines and multiple new areas to explore, but they aren’t free. Each online option carries its own price in Microsoft points, but as goes the game, they are all worth their weight in cost.

Days go by as decisions are made and areas explored, just as time passes in life, so it does in Cyrodil and it is your choice to do as you please, as long as you are willing to suffer, or maybe savor, the consequence.

Behind the sheer magnitude of the land around you, the unmatched beauty and detail of the landscape is nothing short of breathtaking. Bethesda’s Cyrodil fabricates multi-colored sunsets, murky darkness lit up with brilliant stars reflecting over a shimmering lake, sense-jarring thunderstorms and a host of brilliantly designed landscapes, not to mention the uniquely designed towns, architectural devices and the countless idiosyncratic  creatures that live among them.

As hackneyed, well-worn and clichéd as it goes, Webster’s Dictionary defines the word, bargain, as “a profitable transaction.” Although the utter enormity of this game may scare off several gaming demographics, the cult of RPG cohorts will plummet instantly in love.

I spent $64.99 on the game, $19.99 on the nearly 400-page official Xbox 360 game guide, about $35.00 on downloadable supplementary gist, and another $19.99 on a 175-page additional content game guide.

That’s more than $140.00 for a single game. What a bargain.

Bargain Bin Game Rating :

Any Price — 10 out of 10

Xbox 360 — The Godfather Makes Us a Promise We Cannot Refuse

By : S. E. Hartle

In a virtual world controlled by mobsters everyone who’s anyone is getting a cut of the action. Shouldn’t you, the buyer, get something as well?

Although getting a real bargain on this game is rare, (there are used copies of this game for between 10 and 20 dollars) the average price of 29.99 is still well worth the amount of hours you can spend roaming the streets of
New York following scenes from the award-winning movie, The Godfather.

Real voice-overs, lifelike motion video and actual-face graphing make your created character feel like he is one of the infamous Corleone family. From the attempted murder of Don Vito, to the rise of Don Michael, your character whacks, smacks and explodes his way through dozens of missions and side tasks all the while gaining power and control of the city.

The game replicates the play style made famous by Rockstar’s, Grand Theft Auto series. Although some have called games of this nature “copycats,” it is more that GTA revolutionized the gaming industry. GTA taught us to stop expecting one angle, when there is so much more to be had.

You can move on foot, with dozens of weapons and upgrades at your disposal, and you can take any car in the city, but be weary of the law. You can also hire a body guard to follow you around and watch your back. In a cityscape of this size, it’s nice to have someone on your side for a change. Everyone in the game is a virtual target, but if you are a killing machine and like to take down anything that moves, you won’t have any side missions later on to help you progress. Choose your bullet direction wisely.

So, you can steal cars, kill innocent bystanders, take over rival turf and even try to war with the police. But in 1950s New York City, everything you do has its consequences, and the only way out of trouble is to either bribe or shoot your way out.

 

The graphics and game-play are solid, although it can be frustrating starting out as a thug trying to take over an entire city full of people who want to see you dead. The city boasts five central areas, all with hours of exploration and nifty things to find and accomplish. You can log a lot of hours into this game and still end up being just another lackey in a long list of wannabe gangsters.

Play nice with the cops and the feds, stay true to the family and remain diligent in the demise of your enemies, and one day you will be the Don of N.Y.C.

I don’t want to spoil the storyline too much, but it follows the plot of the first movie almost religiously, with spots from Marlon Brando, James Caan and Robert Duvall. One hundred bonus movie clips can be found all over the city allowing the gamer to watch real footage from the Academy Award winning film.

If you are dead set on being a modern-day gang banger, or a hell-bent cop destroying drug lords in futuristic settings, then this is a probable pass for you. But if you are a fan of The Godfather, its characters, or just the mafia mystique in general, this game will have your trigger itching for a sequel, if only to find out if Don Michael whacks his brother Fredo, or if you have to do the dirty work.

Bargain Bin Game Rating :

Full Price of $29.99 – 7 out of 10

Discounted $19.99 – 9 out of 10

XBox 360 Fight Night Round 3 is a Knockout Bargain — 19.99 to 29.99

By : S. E. Hartle

Although Fight Night Round 3 does not boast, “I am the greatest,” as does its focal heavyweight icon Muhammad Ali, but it does KO the competition when it comes to getting bang for your buck.

 

Sports games decrease in value so quickly because they reproduce their image every year, but FNR3 has everything you need from this series for years to come. The next Fight Night installment will certainly add more boxers and additional venues, but the real-to-life in ring boxing and the stunning graphics of FNR3 should quench your ring thirst until at least they come out with a Round 5.

The best part about FNR3 are the near limitless combination of fights that can be created from all weight classes, and all generations. Outside of Mike Tyson, and George Foreman, and Rocky Marciano, nearly every major contender and known name in boxing since the turn of the century has a spot on FNR3’s roster. And just to suit those fans who might want to bite off their opponent’s ear, there is a create menu where you can mold your boxer’s bio, physical form, and fighting style.

Using the new duel-stick technology offered by the XBox 360, what used to be mere video boxing has evolved into a kind of virtual fighting that puts the gamer in complete command of  both body movement and punch control. The in-ring fighting is as realistic as any fighting game ever made, period. From the sweat that beads as rounds murmur on, to the gradual swelling and eventual bleeding, the realism is literally a punch in the face to all other fighter titles on the market. The graphic display culminates with slow-motion knockouts that throw away mouth pieces, wobble knees, close eyes and send splatters of blood across your television screen, and all offered in high definition. That is satisfying at any price.

The game offers multiple modes including classic ESPN-sponsored brawls, which offers fights such as Ali vs. Frazier and Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran, as well as several more classics from the 20th and 21st century. The career mode is lengthy and can span all weight classes offering as many fights as you can handle, but be weary, your fighter ages with each fight and without proper training and knowing when to call it quits, you may have to retire as a washed-up has-been. Make good decisions, train hard and step down when it’s time and you may become one of the “greatest” of all time. But you’ll have to beat the “Greatest” to prove it.

Overall for your money I would risk buying FNR3 and avoid its eventual counterpart, because I don’t see much improvement coming from the next model. Few games offer such lengthy entertainment at such a shallow price, and even fewer sports games appeal in any real long-term fashion, but FNR3 does both with lethal combination. If you can find a new or used version for 19.99 or less, that is the knockout uppercut you were yearning to dish out.

Online, Circuit City gives you the best price for this game new, but auction sites like Ebay, and shopping sites like Amazon offer used versions much cheaper. Shopping at Best Buy and Wal-Mart will find you shelling out at least $29.99 plus tax, and at that price you may consider waiting for the next version. Maybe they will offer in-ring ear biting, and that would be worth paying the full 60 dollars.

Bottom line, it’s worth every bit of 20 or 25 dollars, but be diligent as prices for sports titles drop quicker than Ali drops Frazier.

 

Bargain Bin Game Rating :

Full Price of $29.99 – 8 of 10    

Discounted  $19.99  – 9 of 10

Xbox 360 : Are there any true bargains?

By : S. E. Hartle

 The current state of the market for the semi-new Microsoft XBox 360 gives us gamers very little to hope for as far as affordability when it comes to games. If you can get any game, other than your yearly outdated sports releases, for $30 or less, I believe you have found yourself a rarity. Hence, any game $30 or less is a bargain in this insane visual world where consoles and their counterparts cost as much as a used Honda. There is hope, because some of these so-called bargains turn out to be fairly good games, and in some cases, even great games.

 

For the most part, games for this  console start at $60, but bucking the trend set with other systems in the past, they are not guaranteed to go down in price as time looms on. For instance, Oblivion : The Elder Scrolls IV, was released one year ago this month and still goes for between 50 and 60 dollars retail. This could be for one of two reasons; either the game is excellent in every way, or Microsoft knows it has the next generation console market cornered, and they can charge whatever they want. I have personally logged over 300 hours into Oblivion, and can assure you, it is about as vast and exciting as a game can get on any console today, but that is still no excuse for the lack of decline in price as demand goes down.  
I cannot afford to buy a $60 game every month, more or less every few months, so I recently began hunting for games at lower prices. You can always try the used-game route, which doesn’t discount much on newer more popular titles, but it may give you an advantage when looking at some of the lower-priced titles.

I plan on reviewing at least one game per week, as I tend to rent before I buy, so I can give some insight as to which games are worth the discounted prices, and which should be left behind. Currently I have noticed about a dozen decent titles priced between 25 and 30 dollars. Most are newer titles, or titles that didn’t have the same marketing push as the more popular and recognizable franchise games we’ve all come to know and love, such as the aforementioned Oblivion.

For example, football fans may opt to pass on the incredibly popular Madden titles and opt out for its only real competitor this season, and that is Blitz: The League. Blitz does not offer the NFL logo or its franchised teams, but it does offer intense play, coupled with interesting story lines, comparable graphics and several new avenues that the Madden franchise has left out. It also carries a price tag of less than half the cost of Madden. I don’t want to get into a full review of this game yet (but it is the first game I plan on writing a full review for) as I am only making a mere example of the options we have available to us as buyers. It is important not to get presold on titles because of what the gaming industry producers have done in the past. If you buy based solely on past games and their production companies, I believe you will be sorely disappointed and left with a dent in your checkbook to boot.

The most important aspect of buying a game for this console is to do your homework. Don’t be a spoiled, gotta-have-it, gaming zombie that must buy everything with a cool advertisement campaign. Wait until the game is released. Read reviews from fellow gamers, and by all means borrow or rent a game if you have the opportunity.

Finding decent playing titles at bargain cost for this system is no easy task, as the system is still realtively new and the production line has not fully exposed itself to the marketplace. At this point for this system, the only play we get at a bargain is to play the waiting game.

In the meantime I will try to offer you as many options I can find for less than 30 dollars.

Here are upcoming titles priced 30 dollars or less which I plan on reviewing :

Blitz : The League — The Godfather — Cabela’s African Safari — Cabela’s Alaskan Adventure — Fight Night Round 3 –Hitman : Blood Money –Ninety-Nine Nights — The Outfit — Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfighter — Lord of the Rings : The Battle for Middle Earth II.

Please feel free to email me at hahajaxson@hotmail.com to submit games you wish to be reviewed as well, and I will tell you if they are a bargain, or a bust. Good luck, and as always, it’s game or die!

Fugitive Hunter Redux

Over the weekend I reread my review of Fugitive Hunter and began to feel kind of bad.  I know the game isn’t Halo 2, but someone worked hard on it right?  I read a few other reviews, one stating that it was a “pure” FPS, maybe the most pure since Doom.  There wasn’t a lot of story, no real puzzle solving, just kill, kill, (subdue?).  So I decided to give it another chance, maybe I was setting the bar too high for what should have been just pure escapist fun.

So I loaded up the game again and chose a random level.  In this mission you have to destroy a satillite phone and capture some guy named Eduardo.  The mission starts with you on a poorly rendered tropical beach and you shoot some random guards.  I was too harsh on Auto-Aim I realized, it actually works inside about ten feet.  Its only completely broken on an enemy that doesn’t take up a full quarter of your screen.

After finding a contact and receiving a key, you walk through more forested area.  This particular area has the stilted watchtowers that every jungle seems to have in videogames.  They also have the same snipers.  Unlike other games, it is nearly impossible to kill these snipers without running up their ladders because of the poor control.

You come upon a poorly rendered pyramid which is only about 12 feet tall.  In addition, this pyramid has one barren room (with no door) and a health pack.  How odd.  Now you can search this area for 20 minutes as you try and figure out what the hell to do next.  Right before you throw your controller through the screen, you notice a covered hole in the wall of the jungle valley you are in.  Crouch through that for an underwhelming fistfight on top of another crappy pyramid.  Now you can end the level.

Sound like fun?  It wasn’t.  The only thing pure about Fugitive Hunter is my hate for the game.  The game is as dreadful as you can imagine and stands as a testiment to everything you can break in a game. 

Fugitive Hunter- $3.99

Fugitive Hunter- PS2- $3.99 at Blockbuster Video

Up until now, I’ve given you little gaming gems.  However, not all bargain games are bargains, some games are cheap because they are truly awful.  Enter Fugitive Hunter- War on Terror, a game so slip-shod, insulting and racist, you will have to take a shower after you finish playing it.  It may be the worst game you ever play.

How do you even review a game like this?  What completely broken section do you tackle first?  Gameplay is a disaster because of remarkably awful controls and miserable level design.  Take for example the first mission, a mission where you run down the side of a big tan mountain, shooting little tan people that randomly spawn from little tan places.

Controlling your character is similar to ever first person shooter on the PS2, with the left stick controlling movement and the right stick controlling look/aim.  However, the right stick jumps in spurts and never really reacts how you would expect it to, leading to a number of missed shots.  Fugitive Hunter has this problem covered by implementing an auto-aim lock on system; wait, that is broken as well.

In short, the main portion of the game is entirely broken.  Lest the problems stop at mere control, the design itself is broken.  The levels are short, but occasionally nearing impossibility because objectives and where to proceed is so vague that you cannot figure out what you are supposed to do.  Meanwhile, enemies continue to respawn, using special terrorist generating machines that allow them to spawn in midair, inside walls and in rooms you’ve recently cleared out of all enemies.

Then there are the boss battles.  Boss battles take place in a third person Street Fighter minigame and its just as bad as you can imagine.  Fighting minigames in hockey titles have better fight simulators than this one.  Basically you press X until the bad guy falls over, then you press X some more until he is captured.  Really, I can’t make this crap up.

The graphics are as bad or worse than a PS1 game and the sound is even more frighteningly bad.  The game was shoved out after 9-11, presumably to get the budget minded redneck to buy it so they could kill virtual Bin Laden (in a kung fu fight of course).  This title isn’t even fit to be a coaster, let alone the bargain game you spend that hard earned 4 bucks on.  Hit a bucket of golf balls, buy a burrito, give it to charity, just don’t buy this irredeemable piece of shit game.

Update:  This game is so ridiculous that I forgot to even include a score.  So here it is- 0, this game blows.

Raze’s Hell- $7.99 or less

Raze’s Hell- Free- Ebay (with purchase of $9.99 game Oddworld)- Available at EBgames for 7.99

Raze’s Hell is a game that was budget priced to begin with.  At only 19.99, it offered a third person shooter with attitude and a tremendous level of difficulty.  Now, with it well under $10 in most places, it is a game that is hard to pass up.

The story is short but funny.  Adorable little creatures have taken over and tried to beautify the world.  As a grotesque monster, you and your kind are on their list for genocide.  Armed with a wide variety of “pods” and one razor sharp claw, you set out to maim, torture and kill all those cute little creatures before they destroy your world.

 

The gameplay is simple, but enjoyable.  As Raze, you run through levels, killing everything in your path and occasionally saving creatures of your same species.  Weapons come in the form “pods” though they roughly translate to typical sets such as machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers.  By breaking open pods, you can use your “vacuum” to suck in the remains.  Different colored pods bring ammo for your different weapons.

Health is handled even more horrendously.  You won’t spend much time searching for health packs as you can regain all your health by dismembering your enemies and sucking up their gibbed remains.

Yes, it is all very dark, but if you have laughed at the idea of shooting a Teletubby in the face with a machine gun, dismembering and eating it, this game is probably right up your alley.

The action is frantic and well handled.  The game is very difficult, but it never feels cheap.  There is a specific strategy to each stage, and you will have to figure it out with trial and error.  The enemies are cute but relentless.

Graphics in the game as similary budget priced, but surprisingly adept.  Most budget games recycle graphics from games of years past.  Raze’s Hell does not do amazing things with the XBox, but they make the enemies adorable enough that you will get a huge cackle as you maim them over and over again.

Raze’s Hell won’t change your life, but it is a pretty enjoyable way to pass the time after you’ve plowed through Halo 2 for the tenth time.

Review based on free:  10

Review based on normal price: 7.8

Finding the Bargains

Admittedly, some of the bargains that I, or other writers find will not be available to you.  Some are one time only sales, or specific to certain stores, however, many of the games that are on clearance in one place will soon be clearance in another.  So here are some great places to look.

Circuit City:  This seems to be the granddaddy of closeouts for whatever reason.  On any given day, you may find dozens of games under $10, of course some of them are total and utter crap, which we will try to steer you away from, but some are gold, like Sid Meier’s Pirates! for example.  The first rule to bargain hunting is that great games continue to be great, even after they are two years old.  Best Deal Ever Obtained- Manhunt PS2- $3.99

Best Buy:  While slightly less closeout friendly that Circuit City, you can still stumble upon great deals here, though they usually are not advertised on the website or newspapers, you will have to do some legwork, and it won’t always work out.  Best Deal Ever Obtained- Corvette/Starsky and Hutch 2-pack- $0.99

Target:  In the back of the electronics section of a Target, there is often a clearance shelf on the end of an aisle.  Look for a messy pile of games, CDs and other items with red tags on them.  The quality and size of clearance items varies greatly from day to day, but there is a lot of quality gaming to be found.  Best Deal Ever Obtained- X-Men Legends II- Gamecube- $3.74.

Used Games:  Used games are always another great option for a cash strapped gamer.  Stores such as Gamestop often have stacks of used titles for under $10 and Ebay is filled with great items that can be bought for way under market value.  Again, it takes digging and legwork, but the rewards can be huge.  Best Deal Ever Obtained- Ghost Recon 2- XBox- $0.10 + $2.50 S/H

As this site (hopefully) grows.  I hope you will all take the time to alert other readers to great deals that you find in stores across the country.  As always, just leave any comments below.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! – $8.99

Sid Meier’s Pirates – Originally purchased for 8.99 at Circuit City, available on Ebay as low as $8.50

Any young boy who had a computer in the 1980s is well versed in the lore that is Sid Meier’s Pirates!  The original game, simply “Pirates!”, was enjoyable action RPG set in Caribbean seas that allowed players to assume the role of a pirate captain and said the seas in search of bounty and his lost family.  The graphics and control were terribly simplistic, but the game play was deceptively deep and addictive.

Nearly two decades after that original game, creator Sid Meier relased a brand new version of the old classic on XBox (which is reviewed here), PC and most recently, the PSP.

Fans of the original Pirates! will feel right at home from the opening moments of the game.  For all intents and purposes, Pirates is a series of amazingly capable mini-games cobbled together around a brilliant premise.  As a Pirate, you will choose your alliances with the Spanish, French, English and Dutch and attempt to keep your crew happy while building up a stock of treasure and searching for your lost family.

In any one of the game’s dozens of towns, you can speak with the Governor, attempt to woo his daughter into marriage, recruit and hear rumors in local bars as well as trade goods and repair ships.  On the seas, you will fight with notorious pirates and capture your own fleet of ships for trade and battle.  Swordfights, ship battles and fights to storm towns rule the day, and your enjoyment of these main-games will determine the level of interest in the game.

 Fortunately, each one is both simple and amazingly fun.  Ship battles are fought between one of your ships and one or two enemy ships (as some ships have escorts).  Different types of shot can ruin enemy sails, blow holes their hulls or even kill large swaths of their crew.  When rammed, some ships immediately surrend, while others will force you and your crew into swordfights for control of the ship.

Defeated ships can be looted and sunk, or kept to increase your fleet.  This again shows the brilliance of Pirates!  Man players will be happy simply fighting ships, trading their goods, and selling the ships for hours (and game years) on end.  Pirates! allows you to play the game as you want, if you never attempt any “main quest” items, you can still enjoy the game.

Of course, many players will choose to try and find their family.  During this quest, you must complete at least fifteen smaller tasks en route to finding your lost family.  These take could include finding a buried treasure or killing a notorious pirate such as Blackbeard.  The options for your time are nearly endless.

The graphics are colorful, simple but well placed and adeptly handled.  Sounds put you in the game as the sound of wave crashes play as you sail the sea and the swoaks of gulls greet you in ports.

Though it was release nearly four years ago, Pirates continues to stand the test of time, and it is no wonder, since the core gameplay is basically untouched since the 1980s version.  Regardless, Sid Meier’s Pirates! is a game that will cotinue to entertain for years to come.

Review (based on bargain)- 9.4