Well, February went by without major releases (Bulletstorm here , Killzone there… nothing major 
), hopefully you saved some money for March. It’s a crazy month.
First – a little PSN treat – PixelJunk Shooter 2 is set to hit the stores today, at a price of 9.99$ – you just cant go wrong with this game.
What seems at start like a cute twin stick shooter with some elements turned out to be a really charming experience and an awesome 2 player local co-op experience. If the second one is anything like the first (and the reviews say it is) – it should be great.
The second game this month is Pokemon Black / White for the Nintendo DS – on March 4th.
For those of you raising your eyebrows over this title – You should really give this frenchise a try.
This is not a small kids game and each title in the series serves as a reminder that the games were here before the kids tv series.
Don’t be fooled by the cute childish graphics – Pokemon is a serious RPG monster collecting series with a lot of strategy and classic JRPG elements. This title pro misses to keep to the classic formula with minor improvements to the battles – presenting a new 3 characters battle system.
On March 8th comes the more important release of this month – Dragon Age 2 from Bioware (perhaps one of my favorite game companies).
While the first one was a bit of an unsung game which a lot of people missed (especially after being greatly overshadowed by Mass effect 2 from the same company that came soon after and being released in a pretty bad time and mediocre version for the consoles) – Bioware took some time to rethink the title and how it plays and is bringing to the table a much more coherent action RPG.
From the looks of the demo – much has changed – the entire style of play moved from a classic Baldur’s Gate style (which this game was kind of it’s successor) to a more Witcher style action combat with some radial battle pausing party control menu.
To me the demo felt really fresh and I’m looking forward to see if the full experience will indeed combine the good story and design of the first one with a better suited mechanic for the consoles.
3 more releases worth mentioning in a few words:
Crysis 2 Is coming to consoles and PC this march 22.
The successor to one of the more graphically advanced FPS games is promising to bring new graphics to the table and present another leap forward (and perhaps a torture test to the current gen of computers and especially graphic cards).
Lego Star Wars 3 – The current game in the Lego universe brings Star wars the clone wars story arch to the beloved Lego world games.
While the demo is nice, and I feel the Star Wars universe suits the Lego mechanics best (by design, humor and gameplay) the demo kind of lacks innovation and looks a bit of more of the same.
If you loved it before – You’ll love it now.
Though not a game release but rather a hardware release – the Nintendo 3DS is also being released this month.
Nintendo is bringing us for the first time a glassless 3D experience, the Dual screen design of the DS together with more graphic horse power and the top screen is a 3d screen with no need of glasses.
The current price point for the system is 250$. A bit steep in my opinion.
The 3D looks like a nice gimmick but the system (in my opinion) looks like it kind of lacks real innovation, price advantage or good game lineup.
But hey, It’s Nintendo – They proven us wrong more then once.
2 (actually kind of 3) more gaming related news:
Beginning with the local one – PSN Store has arrived to Israel , after 4.5 years of promises – Ishphar – the local representative fulfils its promise to bring a local PSN store.
While DLC and online content price is almost on par with the European store – Games that have a physical media version have outraging prices (probably in order not to compete with the high price point of games in retails in Israel). Well , I guess that you can’t win them all.
A local store to buy DLC with a local credit card is better then nothing.
The second news item is the announcement that came during February of the Playstation portal device future.
Sony’s strategy is divided to 2 devices:
- Android base phone and suite – using a regular Android platform to bring the PS world to your phone – more hardcore then angry birds – less hardcore then PS3.
- NGP – Sony’s next PSP iteration – together with a quad core arm CPU and quad core GPU (think of the current iPhone hardware X 4 – same architecture both for the CPU and GPU) – it promises a PS3 level of graphics in the portable world.
I have to say both of the devices are very intriguing. Meanwhile only basic tech specs and some titles were discussed – But I’ll probably go over the details as the devices come closer to final product.
The third bit of news is the apple conference that’s suppose to start sometime today (March 2nd). iPad 2 – here we come
Have a good month – and more updates as they come (and I have a feeling this time – they will come)
Liviu
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