I finished the main story of Marvel Ultimate Alliance last night. I only bothered with a couple of the comic missions, and I think I will leave them for now, it will give me something to do if I ever get the itch to play the game again. The gameplay was decent if repetitive, but the motion controls (I played the PS3 version) were annoying. The 'down' motion never worked for me except by fluke; sometimes I would be holding the controller completely still, the indicator would appear for a split second before disappearing while the tone played that indicated success. If I didn't get that fluke, it usually meant I had to repeat the sequence. A-NNOY-ING. Graphically the game was a bit of a let down, but it didn't really get in the way of the game. I still would have hoped for more detail and a solid frame rate. I suppose it will have improved for the sequel. So I perused to shelf to see what to play next, and saw Burnout Paradise. I thought to myself I didn't really want to play the game, but I suppose I should at least pop it in and install the updates so when I DO want to play it, it's ready to go. As I suspected, there were multiple updates. The first of seven was 385 meg. So probably up to a dozen hours of download time. Great. Then I chucked in Pikmin New Play Control! to give that a whirl. Then the batteries died on the Wii-mote, so I went shopping and hired a movie. Of course, I couldn't hire a blu-ray because you can't download updates in the background... sigh. So I finish watching the movie in the 360, and what's the first thing I do? Press eject on the PS3, the machine I use to play movies. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!.... is what was going through my head, but upon flicking the channel looks like the download is still going even thought the disc is not in the drive. Whew. With some batteries charged, I continue playing Pikmin. I've completed day 6 of 30, and I'm a bit concerned that I haven't been terribly efficient and I may not put my ship together in 30 days. But if that does happen, I don't think I will be terribly upset about having to repeat it, because I am enjoying the game so far and once you know where stuff is you can focus on the strategy more. But then again, I may be worrying about nothing; I've got 5 parts in 6 days, which is almost par for course. I've never played the original, but I'd guess that by comparison the remote controls would be an improvment. Some very mild frustrations such as pikmin getting stuck on scenery (especially when using holes which are shortcuts, but you have to go the long way to get them all to follow) and I don't think the group command seems to work the way I think I should and I lose pikmin who should be attacking creatures, but so far I'm enjoying the strategy. Played a bit of Uncharted 2 around a friends house and that was pretty awesome. At first I didn't think it looked as good as the first and that my friend hadn't set up his new toy and TV properly, but I couldn't find the settings in the PS menu. But it's still pretty. He bought a second controller so we could play co-op.... but it's online only co-op. Damn it. So now I have to consider whether to borrow the game from him to play the single-player, or whether to purchase a copy so I can play co-op with him. And if I'm going to do that, I suppose I would need a headset... Give us local co-op please. Scale back the graphics on the games when there are multiple players if you need to, but I much prefer playing with someone sitting on the couch next to me. I need to get off my butt and write the the blog that has been in my head for ages about how we perceive value in games we play/purchase. So here is my commitment to write it up by next weekend. It's in my head but every time I've tried to write it, it just doesn't come out right. But I'll just bash it out and see how it falls.
