Welcome back to the latest edition of This Week in Games. Before getting to the games, I wanted to let you all know that this will be my last edition of This Week In Games. I wanted to thank Andrew for all the great years … and invite you to read my goodbye message at the end of the article. But for now … to the games!

We have a relatively solid release schedule that is full-up with movie tie-ins, including Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I know our family has been anticipating the new Harry Potter movie since it was delayed last fall, and the video game tie-ins have generally been fairly solid if unspectacular. As for the new Ice Age … my expectation after watching a pair of dreadful ‘exclusive clips’ this week is that regardless of how bad the game is, it will take little effort to be better than the movie!

The rest of the release list is also pretty solid this week. One of the better cowboy games of this generation, Call of Juarez, arrives this week. My personal pick is the PC & PS3 release Trine from small Finnish developer FrozenByte, who were responsible for the fun top-down shooters Shadowgrounds & Shadowgrounds: Survivor. There are also new MegaMan games, another entry into the Harvest Moon franchise, and even a X360 / PS3 Zombie game (golden rule of video games – when in doubt – add zombies!). Check out the list!

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2
• Worms 2: Armageddon
• Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance
• Zombie Apocalypse

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2
• The Punisher: No Mercy
• Zombie Apocalypse
• Trine

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

• Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace
• Mega Man Star Force 3: Red Joker
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Fallen Earth
• Trine
• Legio
• Grand Theft Auto PC Trilogy

Some notes from last week:

• Fight Night Round 4 (X360, PS3)

– the consensus is that this sequel lacks the ‘wow’ factor of Fight Night 3, but is actually better than that game as it builds upon it’s strengths and corrects most of the weaknesses.

• Overlord II (PC, X360, PS3)

– a solid sequel in the ‘build your evil army’ action-strategy game that is criticized for offering too little to existing owners to justify the full price.

• Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires (X360, PS3)

– described as ‘the same thing we’ve seen a million times before, only much worse’.

• The Conduit (Wii)

– a solid but non-revolutionary shooter that is being called the best pure shooter the Wii has seen to date.

• Dawn of Discovery(PC, Wii)

– a.k.a. Anno 1404, the latest entry in the Anno franchise that is a major hit in Europe but only a minor player elsewhere. I loved Anno 1701 and its’ expansion, so this was like pure strategy candy for me!

• Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP)

– this game was already a well-known quantity as it is a major hit in Japan (one of the top sellers of last year), and the English port doesn’t disappoint. Still not deep, but loads of fun as an action-RPG.

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Multi)

– well … the best that could be said is that it is better than the (terrible) movie …

• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS)

– a solid entry in the series that includes the Persona console games, this is somewhat reminiscent of last year’s ‘The World Ends With You’, but is a very good game in its’ own right.

To highlight a recent release in more detail: Drakensang: The Dark Eye is a fantasy-RPG based on a German Paper & Pencil (PnP) game called DSA (Das Schwarze Auge … or The Dark Eye, typically abbreviated DSA or TDE depending on language), which immediately differentiates it from the host of D20-based D&D ruleset games that are popular (i.e. Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, etc). This should immediately tell you that there are numbers and rules and statistics going on behind the scenes all the time, with tons of skill checks and bonuses and penalties based on whatever is going on. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preference – I’m a math geek (statistician by current profession) but also a gamer, so I love to be able to see the math, but also to ignore it without consequence.

Drakensang has a number of things that make it an excellent game: choices with consequences, a fun turn-based combat system, plenty of great role-playing opportunities, a wonderful character development system, and a massive 80-hour epic story.

It is not the sort of game that ten years from now people will be touting as ‘one of the best’ the way they will with ‘The Witcher’, but it is a very good game that is one of the best RPG’s of the last several years. It has everything that fans of the genre seek – role-playing, choices with consequences, party-based adventuring, turn-based combat, an epic story that allows you to influence the outcome in many ways, and so on. But for those who are not enamored with fantasy games, or don’t like turn-based games, and gravitate to fast-paced action games, there isn’t anything here to draw you in. This is not a ‘genre broadening’ game like Fallout 3 that bridges shooter and RPG elements – Drakensang is pure RPG through and through.

Drakensang: The Dark Eye is available for the PC through retail outlets such as Amazon, or on digital download sites like GamersGate and Direct2Drive.

What I’m Currently Playing:

• Mac: The Sims 3 – I have had some fun creating my character, having him roam around and enjoy all the stuff there is to offer … I just don’t see this as something I will connect with long-term.
• Mac: Neverwinter Nights – I started new games in all *9* modules (main game, two expansions and six ‘premium modules’), and am about halfway through Chapter 1 of the main game.
• PSP: Crimson Gem Saga – I thought Astonishia Story was crap … and since this is called ‘Astonishia Story 2’ in other parts of the world, my expectations were very low. Fortunately this game is pretty solid fun so far, with a reasonable (if cliched) story and charming (if even more cliched) characters.
• DS: Naruto Shippuden Ninja Council 4 – bland game in just about every way. They have really milked this franchise … Believe It!
• iPod Touch: TradeWinds 2 – really cool strategy / adventure / naval combat game. It is fun just going from port to port making loads of money trading goods!
• iPod Touch: Mass Effect Galaxy – reasonably fun so far – cartoon styles interactive cutscenes with plenty of top-down shooter combat action in between.

So this is it … my last This Week In Games, and as such, very likely my last contribution to GamerDad. I am reflective at this moment, yet know it is the best for everyone involved. Andrew has always supported and encouraged me and even been amazed by some of the tremendously obscure Euro-RPG’s I would get so passionate over. Since he started the GamingWithChildren blog, I have continued doing some reviews, some retrospectives, stuff about handheld RPG’s and American Idol and other stuff as well as This Week in Games.

When we were at the original GamerDad, game reviews were part of the equation, and we had a diverse enough staff that an oddball like my hardcore stuff wasn’t such a bad thing – even if perhaps 25% of my reviews and even fewer of my articles reflected GamerDad’s core message. The flow of content kept us visible, and in the minds of readers and publishers.

As an aside, does anyone remember the This Week In Games that I used to do back at GamerDad? Whew! That was a lot of work! Each week I would have a ‘featured game’, a ‘dubious distinction’, and then I would give a quick description of the ‘early buzz’ for stuff released the previous week, as well as highlights of the upcoming week and a bargain basement area and a spot to catch up with reviews on games that hadn’t gotten any reviews in their first week. That used to take *hours*!

As time has passed, Andrew has been able to find new ways to get his voice heard – and that is great! I was really worried for quite a while that this great champion of family gaming and responsible parenting would have his ideas stolen and be left beaten and bruised by the roadside with his wonderful wife and kids to take care of him. So I am thrilled that he has made such inroads, and that he has also kept GamingWithChildren going all the while. His basic thoughts – that gaming isn’t inherently bad for you and that concerned parenting is good parenting – are things that really need to be heard in an era of constantly looking for something to blame for our problems and of too many parents using TV and video games as a sort of virtual babysitter.

The shift to the blog has coincided with many of the GamerDad staff contributing less to the site as folks headed in different directions and real life butted in here or there. That is a natural matter of course, but also made my particular articles stand out more and rarely flowed in harmony with the overarching message of the site. We have always know this – but personally I had always hoped that my own kids would start writing stuff or that I would come upon more articles like our whole family playing ToonTown to add to the site. That never happened … and so a couple of months ago Andrew and I decided that I’d pare back to only doing This Week In Games.

Just before that, I had the opportunity to join a site and pursue one of my other great loves – electronic gadgets! Buying handheld gaming systems on launch day is only the latest in a long line of electronics that take me well before buying the HP200LX right as it was released nearly 20 years ago. I have been trying to trim back my video game playing and writing anyway, and this new opportunity has helped push me in that direction. But to do so has meant making some hard choices. During this year I have contributed game reviews to EIGHT different web sites! I had already gotten rid of half of those obligations, pared back on another, and put a deadline of mid-year to get to a bare minimum with another. That left only two – RPGWatch and GamingWithChildren. The games I love to play are RPG’s – handheld and PC – so sticking with the 7 or 8 articles I write for RPGWatch (including 4-5 specifically about handheld RPG’s) is not a big deal. So for the future you’ll find me at GearDiary.com and RPGWatch.

I have really enjoyed working with such great people. From the start there was Andrew and Dave Long, who I still keep in touch with. Quickly I got to know some really great folks such as Colleen (MomGamer), Cary, Simon, Matt, Wayne Belton, and more. I want to thank all of you guys for being so great! There is also a nice little community on the forums and I hope to keep in touch there.

So thanks again to everyone, but particularly to Andrew for hosting and supporting us at such a great site!

Enjoy gaming!

Tags: This Week In Games