The Coffee Break

Coffee Break! Time to take a moment, step away from the World, that is Warcraft and discuss other things.

I recently picked up two new DS games.

Desktop Tower Defense is a below average game derived from a browser based game which is free. I only picked it up because the box said "Game of the year" but apparently that was a marketing ruse. It's your typical, build turret, upgrade turret, defend against on coming army. Nothing too spectacular. Very low end graphics and the game can provide some entertainment, but at $20.00 it's pretty much a rip off. If you have a PS3, I would recommend PixelJunk Monsters, which is a much better game and half the price or just play it through a browser.

The second and much much better game I purchased is Grand Theft Auto: China Wars by Rockstar Games. It's a top down version of their very popular console series and let me say, it's a lot of fun and challenging. It's the typical set up, you are small fry in a big mafia, Yakuza to be precise. You do odd jobs for your uncle till you can start branching out and making new friends, all the while trying to find out who killed your father and stole the family heirloom.

Driving around town is a good portion of the game. There are lots of side missions some of them entail you working in the drug trade. One of the more difficult aspects, at least for me is the driving. It isn't as easy as one would expect, the controls are very similar to those used in previous versions of the console game, but since the DS is much smaller than a console controller working with the left and right bumper buttons while trying to zip around town takes some getting use to and it takes time coordinating your moves so it feels more natural. Also keeping your car on the road does seem a bit difficult, but it is a bit forgiving on damage and running over people, meaning the cops don't start after if you run over one person, unless it's a cop. But if the law starts chasing after you, no fear, just run them into other cars or building structures until they crash or explode, this will generally discourage those following and eventually they will give up pursuit. The game is also chalk full of naughty language so it's definitely not for kids. The humor is there, just inbetween the F-bombs.

At $35.00 it's a little above my normal DS game price range, but I don't feel like I got robbed amd the cost is about equal to the amount of fun I've been having, which is always a plus, since I've only scratched the surface.

The only other game purchase I have made in the past few months is Sims 3, but I'm not ready to speak about it just yet indepth. It is a time sink, and a lot easier to play, for me at least, than previous versions. But if you want more info on the game for now, check out Ysharro's blog.

(Course, knowing me, I've probably already mentioned all that a few blogs back. Memory is one of the first things to go, right?)

Other than that, I've really not been playing anything except World of Warcraft. I am, however, looking forward to trying out Wii Sports Resort, which came out last week and Scribblenauts for the DS, which should be hitting shelves in a few weeks. I also have my eye on a few Monkey Island games, the old version, which has been reskinned and the new episodic version, have recently been released and I've very interested in picking something up, but since they release it on both Steam and XBLA, its hard to choose. I'll probably have to consult the gaming community to see which is better.

See, it doesn't have to always be rants and WoW!

*Personal Point*
I've lost 27 lbs. on Weight Watchers.