Ben's Week In Review: September 6

inFamous

Sorry for being a little tardy to the party this weekend but I just came from a party; a wedding reception, to be more specific, but I'll blab about that towards the end.

I would LOVES me some inFamous 2!

I will freely admit when I've made a bad prediction. I was dead flat wrong in my assumption that inFamous wouldn't be something I would be interested in; that game rocked hardcore and I loved every second of it. For whatever reason, I'm drawn to some of these open-world sandbox games that don't go too far over the top, like Oblivion. Stuff like inFamous and GTA still feels...I dunno, "explorable," I guess. It's big, yes, but you don't feel overwhelmed and with Cole's supreme abilities (that continued to get better and better throughout the adventure), you always have fun, even when you're not doing anything but running around in circles. Well, I always had fun, at any rate. And if it's true that Sucker Punch is already working on a sequel, I am so on that bandwagon. Day 1 purchase for me. I know some will say Prototype was better - I guess Radical might be planning a sequel to that one - and while I haven't played it yet, I don't really buy it. I accept Arnold's analysis and it just sounds to me as if inFamous is clearly superior.

I'm not one of those people who pass judgment without playing it, though, and I probably would play it if the upcoming months weren't so insane. September and October for reviews...? Holy SH**.

I guess I'm still on the fence about next-gen remakes

I can normally take a stand on any given issue, one way or the other, but I'm constantly going back and forth on this one. When I first heard about the idea of a remake for Final Fantasy VII, I was kinda like, "meh, don't need it. The game is classic as is." But over time - and especially after watching "Advent Children" - I began to reconsider this position and now, I'm totally for it. And I'm also for the God of War Collection that's coming to the PS3, but then I heard that publishers might want to give other PS2 classic titles a next-gen makeover...and here I am, back on the fence again. Maybe certain titles should just always stay the way they are. Perhaps it makes little sense to say that a prettier and flashier Final Fantasy X would somehow be "worse" than the original (provided everything else remained the same), but at the same time, I'm questioning myself again. Maybe the only question that really needs to be answered is, "do we need it?"

I have every confidence that games like GoW can only benefit from this upgrade, but there's something about certain old visuals that become attached to the nostalgia nodes in our brain. We identify those admittedly inferior graphics with that experience and hence, we may have difficulty receiving the same impact from a remake. It's like the nostalgia is gone. ...or is it? Heck, I don't know. I just keep going back and forth. LOL

Personal gaming update

A Demon's Souls review is coming this week. Bear in mind that the game doesn't even release until October 6, so this is a big deal; it'll be one of the first reviews of the North American release you'll ever see. And Arnold may deliver a Need for Speed: Shift review very early as well. September and October will be insane, but we're on top of things for ya. Don't you worry about nothin'. ;) Demon's Souls is great but it's challenging enough to make you crawl into a corner and sob yourself to sleep. That's pretty much all I'll say about it for now, and you should expect a Mini Ninjas review to pop up this week, too, and I already have NHL 10, and NHL 2K10 should also be coming soon (just have to honor the embargo dates). There isn't an embargo date for Demon's Souls, by the way; that's why we can get this to you so soon.

So yeah, just got back from a wedding. I only went to the reception (took the place of my father, who went to the ceremony). The reception started at 7 p.m. and we didn't leave until a little before midnight, and we were like the first to leave. I'm no wedding expert but it was beautiful (the bride in this case has parents who are extremely wealthy) and as time went on, they proved they know how to motherfu***** party. I'm not a big one for such things, but hey, it was an excuse to use my new expensive suit. Plus, free food, good company...fine by me. I just wish my poor mother would get over the idea of me getting married, 'cuz that may never happen. Heh.