Now Playing: November ’06

18 games across nine platforms make up this month’s “Now Playing.”

The hit games this month were Need For Speed Most Wanted, Guitar Hero II, Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I finished Project: Snowblind, Contra (many times as usual), Final Fight One, the original Mortal Kombat (ARC & SNES), and the aforementioned MKT.

Early in the month I played some of Tetris DS, Capcom Generation 5 (aka Street Fighter Collection 2), Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (though very little of that one). More recently I configured Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the Super NES to practice some combos and the Brutalities. Yes, it’s that B-R-Utal! :P Other SNES games played were Final Fight and Mortal Kombat II (along with the Arcade version).

The first game I ever played on the Xbox 360 was the free puzzle game Hexic HD. I must say that I really enjoy the game, however I need the symbols turned on because of blue/purple and yellow/green colors that blend together for me.

Oh, and even though I don’t count it in the list because it was a demo, I played some of the new Sonic the Hedgehog game. I didn’t have the problems with the controls that many have pointed out. My biggest problem with the game is that there’s just too many places to fall to your death. Speaking of demos and controls, I also tried the Call of Duty 2 demo. The way the controls are laid out on the 360 pad is wonderful and makes for an easy and fun play experience.

Quick stats:
Platform most played: PlayStation 2 (5 games)
Series most played: Mortal Kombat (7 games)
Genre most played: Fighting (9 games)
Favorite game of the month: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64)
Number of games played that I don’t own: 8

I Don’t Care If It’s Not GoldenEye!

It’s time to cut the crap. Too many people can’t just sit down and enjoy any James Bond first person shooter since GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 all because “it’s not GoldenEye.” Give me a break! That’s the whole point of the 007 games that came after the one on the N64. Those weren’t GoldenEye because they weren’t trying to be GoldenEye.

I have played Agent Under Fire and NightFire and enjoyed both. You don’t have to like them just because I do, but please stop hating those games for what they’re not. Only GoldenEye: Rogue Agent can be disliked for not being as good as the original N64 game. The reason being that the developers actually said that they were trying to recreate the experience from that previous game. Chris Plummer, the Senior Producer of Rogue Agent, says this near the beginning of the first developer interview.

So, yes, Rogue Agent isn’t as good as the original GoldenEye. That criticism is fine since EA was wanting to basically remake that game. However, NightFire was great despite what some may say. Instead of complaining about which game isn’t GoldenEye, just go and play that game since it’s so great.