Culture Surfing

I mean no disrespect to Buck Fever or the inimitable Style Lab series, but two games stand astride this week’s list of releases like the bronze colossus Helios overlooking the mouth of Rhodes. If you believe the internet (and Lord knows you should) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be the greatest and best selling game of all time. It will also teach you Spanish, give you a makeover, and help you realize you’ve always been a strong, beautiful, confident person deep down inside. It’ll also probably lap the field in Fox News opprobrium. Many are wondering if the GTA “hot coffee” controversy of 2005 was just foreplay for the likely eruption of media outrage over Modern Warfare 2 and its cavalier attitude towards civilians. Either way it’s guaranteed to be the most popular game among “hardcore” gamers, both the poorly parented 12-year-old racist homophobes who self-identify as such, and everybody else who likes video games but find the “hardcore” tag as appetizing as a Monster Thickburger after reading Fast Food Nation.

If you don’t feel like slaughtering innocents in an airport, then maybe you should pick up New Super Mario Brothers Wii. This sequel to the 2006 DS game New Super Mario Brothers adds four-player simultaneous co-op to the classic side-scrolling gameplay of the original Super Mario Brothers. You can help your friends out or pick them up by their heads and throw them into a bottomless pit. And if the game gets too hard, you can let it play itself; NSMBWii is the first title to ship with Nintendo’s new “Super Guide” feature, where novice gamers can send the game into auto-pilot during especially difficult moments.

Full list after the fold.

Continue reading “Player’s Club: Video game releases for the week of Nov. 9″ »

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This week’s new video games are a good mix of the old and new. Oh, wait, no they’re not. It’s another round of sequels and licensed games. Not that game sequels are inherently problematic (technology tends to keep getting better, y’see), but it’s hard to get excited over the sixth Tekken if you’re not a huge fan of fighting games. Even if you like racing games, Forza Motorsports 3 will only be interesting if you really liked the first two.

There is one new and original title launching this week, and that’s DJ Hero. Activision might deck it out in Guitar Hero dress, but DJ Hero’s gameplay bears little resemblance to its big cousin or Rock Band. Sure, you still hit colored buttons at the right time, but scratching, crossfading, and rewinding have no analogue in either of the two big music games. DJ Hero isn’t just fresh and exciting, though; it’s also shockingly fun.

Find the full list of new releases after the jump.

Continue reading “Player’s Club: Video game releases for the week of Oct. 26″ »

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