A weekend with Pac-Man Vs.

Woah, this game is almost too fun. I have had a copy of Pac-Man Vs. since the first day you could pick it up, but I had never played it until this past weekend. I took my GameCube up to my cabin and figured that Pac-Man Vs. would be a good family title, but I had no idea everyone would become an addict. My mom, dad, wife, brother, and sister-in-law all had a riot with this game. It's so simple, yet so addictive, much like many games of old. After our first night of playing, my brother hopped on to eBay and bought his own, and my dad is considering buying a GameCube to keep in our cabin (not just for Pac-Man Vs., but also games like Mario Party, Mario Golf, Super Monkey Ball, etc.).

I guess that simple can still be the best ingredient for addictive games.

Product Placement in Videogames

I have been playing Super Monkey Ball 2 with my wife and I only want Dole Bananas now...ask for them by name at your local grocer! Ahem.

Seriously though, games today have tons of product placement. Back in the NES or SNES days it was a novelty, something rare and kind of cool to see. I first started really seeing product placement in EA Sports titles. I wasn't surprised that they were some of the first to pick up an extra buck or two this way, but it didn't bother me. In fact, I kind of like the product placement, if it isn't stupid (see: Darkened Skye).

In some cases, product placement adds realism, atmosphere (mostly in sports titles) , or sometimes even charm (Pikmin 2). I guess I'm not for or against product placement when it all comes down to it, I just don't like it to hijack the game (see: Darkened Skye...on second thought, leave Darkened Skye alone).

Pikmin 2 is here...

This game is great. It has so much freaking polish that I used the game case to restore some old wood cabinets that I'm going to put up in my home. I'll be doing a full review on this game as soon as I'm done with it. With class it might take a while, this game seems to be quite lengthy.

Side note: Fable scored an 8.6 at Gamespot.com while Pikmin 2 got a 9.2. It's nice to see that Nintendo's big titles can hang with (and surpass) the new kids on the block.