Hey gang! It happens every once in a while that no particular topic lights a fire in me for my monthly front page entry. I haven't begun work on my next Black Mirror episode review and I don't want to rush it. So as I have done in the past, here is a more traditional "blog" entry for this autumnal equinox, with just a few things that have been in my orbit lately. Thank you as always for your support!




Civilization Revolution

I grew up playing the original Civilization on my family's DOS PC in the 1990s. When Civilization Revolution came out in 2008, I really paid it no mind as I only played the first game and none of its sequels. I didn't realize that this game is pretty much a re-skinned version of the original game. My wife bought a copy of the game for me around when it came out so I gave it shot, and thus began the addiction. Though I first played it on the Xbox 360, I have more recently played through the Nintendo DS version quite a few times, and it is actually very good. Whenever I find myself in a gaming glut, I know I can always fire up either version of this game. Now I am eyeing a copy Civilization Revolution 2 for the Vita. It was not released physically in North America but it looks like there is an Asian version which can be played in English. This type of game on the Vita seems like a fantastic idea to me.


MySims Special Agents

I fired this game up on the Wii and was pleasantly surprised. Though this is definitely something designed for children, I am enjoying it quite a bit. The game is pretty much a point and click adventure game complete with inventory puzzles and interactions with NPCs. The game starts with a simple character creator and is amazingly cute overall. I'm not very far into the game but I intend to spend more time with it. I am confident recommending it for those with small children.



Need for Speed: Shift

I recently purchased a 2008 Honda Civic Si from a coworker, and I am really enjoying the vehicle. It came to my attention that there is a game in the Need for Speed series which contains this exact car, so when I saw that I could grab a copy on the PS3 for less than five bucks, I picked it up. Need for Speed: Shift is surprisingly unlike any NFS game I have played before. I am by no means an expert on the series, but as opposed to the street racing police chases I am used to from the series, Shift plays much closer to a traditional racing game like something out of the early games of the Forza series. I thought I might play long enough to purchase my real life car and then put the game down. I'm not really into racing games after all. However as I got used to the game I ended up getting all the required points for the entire first tier of events. The game has a pretty rewarding feedback loop which constantly ratchets up the player's levels and money within the game after every race. Even though you can score points by driving aggressively, I still feel this is one of the more "sophisticated" games in the series, and I highly recommend it!

[/img]

Permalink | Comments [3] | Digg This Article | Tweet