Best Exclusive PS3 Game:  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – I’m still working on the review for this game, but this has to be a standard by which all action games are judged in the future.  So far, it has been an excellent game.

Best Exclusive Xbox 360 Game:  Halo 3 ODST – Another game that I’m still working on the review for but it brings something desperately needed to the Halo universe.  Some resemblance of a storyline.

Best Exclusive Nintendo Wii Game:  Metroid Prime Triology – Three great games in one package plus adding Wii Motion to the first two games.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  Another game with a review incoming.

Best Exclusive PC Game:  World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: Fall of the Lich King (Patch 3.3) – Expands the great game of World of Warcraft to finish out the story of Arthas, the Lich King and is a fitting hold over until Cataclysm.

Best Multiplatform Game:  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – See review of this game, but this game has everything that made the first Modern Warfare great, then expands it to even greater heights.

Best Music Game:  The Beatles Rock Band – See review of this game, but it brings the music of the Beatles to the best music game on the market.  Also, you have to respect how the subject material was handled, which is something the Guitar Hero series is struggling with specific bands.  Guitar Hero 5, another game I’m working on a review for, came incredibly close to winning this.  The Beatles basically gave this game the upper hand.

Best Fighting Game:  Street Fighter 4 – A game that I need to go back and review, but it is everything you love about the Street Fighter series.  If you spent time around an arcade cabinet waiting for your turn for Street Fighter 2, you will love this game.

Best First Person Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – With an expanding multiplayer and a gripping story (something which is difficult in first person shooters), this game makes even non-first person shooter fans enjoy this genre.

Best Action/Plaformer Game:  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Sorry Mario, but this combination of story, shooting, puzzles, and platforming make this the best action/platformer of the year.

Best RPG:  World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: Fall of the Lich King (Patch 3.3) – In a year where at least 4 major MMORPGs released and many other RPGs, this still stands head and shoulders above the competition.

Worst Game of the Year:  Family Feud 2010 Edition for the Nintendo Wii – The console for the worst game is not a suprise.  However, this game is so terrible there are not enough adjectives to describe its crappiness.

Game of the Year:  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – This game deserves nothing less than the highest honor of the year.  It is the standard by which all first person shooters will be judged until the next Modern Warfare comes out.

A little background on where I’m coming from.  I play a level 80 Tauren Druid, Redhawk, on the Executus server and am a member of “The Knights of Classic Lore” (who for your information is recruiting).  My main spec is hybrid feral (DPS/Tank) and my offspec is balance (boomkin, crit chicken, etc).  I am also primary offtank for my guild as well.  I also have several level 60 alts that I’m working on.   The reason I give you this information is it will give some insight into my opinions on the patch.

Let me start with the three new Icecrown 5 mans, the Forge of Souls, the Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection.  I LOVE these new 5 mans.  In my opinion, most of the 5 mans in Wrath have been really easy.  And while I would say that Forge of Souls is still pretty easy, it is harder than most of the 5 mans in Wrath.  Pit of Saron ups the difficulty a little although a resto shaman and I were able to two man farm the trash in the Pit for a Battered Hilt, which we had not been able to get.  Halls of Reflection is by the hardest 5 man I have ever done.  The closest thing I could say to it was Magister’s Terrace and even Halls of Reflection is much harder than that.  It is waves of trash followed by what is essentially a timed run from the Lich King himself.  The 5 mans up the difficulty, but it is worth it for 232 gear plus the chance for a Battered Hilt, which unlocks an epic quest chain for a very nice epic weapon.

Which brings me to the biggest thing in this expansion, Icecrown Citadel.  For regular 10 man, the first four bosses are not terribly difficult but takes a smart raid and coordination.  My guild is currently 3 for 4 in Icecrown and will down Saurfang this week.  The airship battle is one of the best battles in the game.  Plus you can get the rocket packs and have some fun before hand.  And while I’m not wild about the fact that all 12 bosses aren’t open up at this time, I can understand it to help hold time over until Cataclysm, the next expansion.  I just hope the bosses get a little harder as it goes along.

I also like the fact that Emblems of Triumph also drop for everything.  There is no excuse for anybody not to at least have Tier 9 now for their gear.  Also, Emblems of Frost are pretty easy to come across as well.  The new weekly raid quest gives you 5 of each and a very good amount of gold.  So far on Executus, we have only had one raid quest that has been a boss in Icecrown Citadel, so it gives you a reason to go back and do old raids.  Also, the new Looking for Group system is great.  Thankfully, I play a tank.  This means that when I join the new random Looking for Group, I get picked immediately which is helpful for chaining heroics.  Even when I just do DPS, I get in pretty quick.

So far, everything in this patch is exactly what I want from the conclusion of the Wrath of the Lich King, great instances, great raids, and a reason to keep playing.  Not that it would have been too dificult to keep me playing in the first place.

Many players will not touch the single player campaign, which is very disappointing.  The single player story is one of the most captivating tales ever told in a game with more twist and turns than any season of 24, but a lot better written.  And just like 24, no story character is safe.  And when story characters do get killed, you feel connected enough to them to care.  Which brings up to the biggest emotional moment ever in a video game, the scene in the airport where you take place in what is essentially a terrorist act.   While it is skippable, I would not recommend  it.  It is one of the most intense moments in a  game where you are realizing that as sad as the moment is, you are having to do it for the greater good of humanity.  Overall, the single player story could be on of the greatest stories of all time.

In terms of the multiplayer, it is everything from the first one plus more.   You level faster and get rewards quicker.  Also, the options in competitive multiplayer have expanded.  In addition, the game boast the new Spec Ops mode, which is a Co-Op multiplayer experience that goes beside the single player experience.  I’m terrible at multiplayer first person shooters, but I have found that it is an enjoyable experience.  However, my one biggest complaint is a complaint that follows the biggest complaint from the first game.  If you do play through the single player experience first, you will find that you are likely behind on the multiplayer experience.  If you are terrible at first person shooters, you will also lag behind the person.  This means that you have to deal with the double shotgun dude from hell.  It makes for a very tough experience but if you can struggle through it, you can get up to those higher levels much more easily.

Overall, Modern Warfare 2 exceeds the bar set by the first game and makes for a game that will certainly be in the discussion for the game of the year conversation.  I would highly recommend this game for any gamer.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village tells the story of Professor Layton, a Sherlock Holmesesqe character and his assistant Luke as they try to solve the mystery of the Golden Apple and the unusual town of St. Mystere.  The story is told through incredibly beautiful animated cutscenes, probably the best I have seen on the DS.  Even the gameplay graphics are incredibly stylized and look absolutely amazing.  The story is also a wonderful tale that takes multiple twist throughout the story.  The sound design is also incredible for this game and the voiceover work is suprisingly good for a DS title.

However, the reason everybody should pick up Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the puzzles.  This game has a huge collection of brain teasers.  None of the brain teasers are incredibly difficult, but all require some thought to be able to answer them.  For the most part, the DS is excellant in using the touch screen to be able to solve the puzzles although some of the puzzles are frustrating when exact movements are required. (e.g. moving matchsticks, putting a painting back together).  Also, some of the puzzles require you to input letters or numbers as answers by writing.  While this likely won’t be a problem for most gamers, I found myself erasing answers due to my sloppy handwriting.  Even with these few small criticisms of the game, this game is as an absolutely incredible puzzle solver.

You find these puzzles and play through the story in what is essentially a point and click adventure.  You usually either find the puzzle or hint coins.  However, this also means that you spend a good amount of game time clicking on screen trying to find that one thing you can interact with.  This is especially frustrating if you are trying to solve all the puzzles in the game, 120 in the story plus an additional 15 in the bonuses, since you will spend a good part of the time walking around and clicking trying to find the hidden puzzles unless you refer to a FAQ for the game.  I got to 116 in the story without a FAQ before I decided not to worry about the last 4 and just finish the game. 

Overall, I would highly recommend this game.  It is charming, fun, and challenging, a combination that you do not see a lot of in modern videogames.  I’m glad to see the sequel is already out and am looking forward to playing that one as well.

How was this possible?  Well, let me start with Gamestop.  I love it when Gamestop runs the buy 2 used games and get 1 free.  Now a little economic hint with this.  Yes, you could get two $10 games and get a third $10 game for free.  But when you look at it,  you paid $20 for three games or $6.67 per game.  You only saved $3 per game or $9 total.  However, let me show you my example for an example on how to handle the buy 2 get 1 free deal.  At the Gamestop this weekend, they had Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for $55 and they had Assassin’s Creed 2 for $55 and they had Brütal Legend for $55.  This would normally be a total of $165 normally.  However, I had my handy Edge card which took  10% of each game, reducing the price to $50 a piece.  Now include the buy 2 get 1 free discount and I got three games for $100 total which comes to $33.33 per game.  Considering these games would normally be bought new for $60 per game, it is a savings of almost $80 over normal price and still a saving of $65 over the normal used price.  Per game, it comes up to a saving of approximately $22 per game.  That is how you handle a deal.  They have this deal all throughout the year so I would recommend catching it the next time you see it.

My second Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal was via Amazon.  They had their lightening deals on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.  They had a half price off of Guitar Hero 5 for Xbox 360.  Even with next day shipping, it was over half the price off for a brand new game, which is an incredible deal.

There were also deals all over Steam this weekend.  I was not able to land on any those since I’m mainly a WoW player on my computer but some of the deals looked absolutely incredible.

So I hope everybody had a very successful weekend shopping for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and you got everything you wanted.

I have to start off this review by saying that I love my sister.  Anytime I can get her interested in playing a video game, I love it.  She said that she wanted to try the new Family Feud 2010 Edition for the Wii when we passed by a Gamestop. I thought what could be the harm in picking it up.  Was I expecting alot from this game? No.  My expectations were kind of low.  I was expecting to be able to at least use my Miis in game.  I was expecting a lot of different answer combinations and questions that made sense.  What I didn’t expect was both of our responses from playing this horrific game.

As expected, the graphics are nothing great.  It looks like it could be done on a Nintendo 64.   The classic Family Feud theme songs and sounds were present, but none of the actual host were present.  It was just a voiceover guy who recorded 5 lines of dialogue besides the specific questions.  And it was buggy as hell.  I had picked the number 1 question and the host asked me, “Survey says would you like to play or pass.”  What does the survey have to do with me deciding whether to play or pass?  The only use of the Wii Remote was buzzing in for the Face Off and that was just for moving the Wii Remote down.  But all of these crappy features were almost expected.  However, it is completely unacceptable  to not be able to use Mii’s as contestants in this game.    It is the Wii.  Have they forgotten that?  Obviously they did because the very first thing you do in the game is create an avatar.

As bad as everything up to this point was, I was kind of expecting that.  However, what was absolutely horrific that had both me and my sister, who doesn’t even review games, screaming and cursing at the screen was the idiotic questions.  Almost all of the questions were insane and stupid.  And the answers were even worse.   For example, one of the questions was, “What is the least private room in your house?”  with the top 4 answers on the board.  Now of course the first two were easy, which were living room and kitchen.  But for the last two to be bathroom and bedroom.  Really.  Who in the world did they interview that said the bathroom was one of their least private places?  Another was what do you view through a telescope.  Again, some common answers were on there like stars and planets, but your neighbors.  Who did they interview, convicted rapist and murderers?  They also put in a very short time for responses and make you type out your answers.  And while the in game dictionary is pretty good at looking at the question and determining what you are spelling, there are times where it is just terrible.  For example with the telescope question, I tried typing in constellation, which was not even in there.  The only thing dumber than the questions is the computer competition in the single player.  They even answered one of the responses I gave earlier when they were trying to steal the points for the question.

The most telling thing about this game is my sister thought it was terrible and she is a casual video game player.  And I’m a hardcore gamer who was not satisfied with the game either.  So since it has no viable audience, I can only determine that this game is an utter failure with somebody trying to make money off of a classic game show.  The only way they could have saved this game was to include a Richard Dawson kissing and groping mini-game, but we know they couldn’t include that in this terrible game.

The formula is the same, you have two guitars, one drum, and singing.  In terms of playing guitar/bass, the note paths are not difficult, but feels exactly right.  It feels like there are not any extra notes placed in there for difficulties sake.  Drumming is surprisingly difficult especially on some of the later songs.  However, the thing you will want to pick up this game for is singing the iconic songs of the Beatles.  Not every song is here (Thank you DLC), but some of the most popular songs are here.  In addition, one of the newest editions to this game is harmony singing.  You have the lead singer, but you also have the option to add two additional microphones to allow for the harmony parts to be sung.  It is not required, but it does add an added depth to the Rock Band experience and is something that I hope that add to Rock Band 3 in the future.

In terms of song selection, you cannot get any better than the Beatles.  Even if it seems like you haven’t heard the song, you have likely heard it or have heard somebody else cover it.  Thankfully, they are also original tracks so you can turn the Beatles up while you try to drown out your singing.  They also work the song selection beautifully into the story mode that goes through the major points in the career of the Beatles.  You can tell through the presentation of the story of the Beatles that it was handled with the up most of care.  In times where the story was going through exact locations, like the Ed Sullivan Show, it beautifully recreates those moments.  In other times where the story was going through moments that would typically be boring in a music game, like the Abbey Road sessions, they create some of the most visually stimulating graphics to tell the story of the songs.

This game, like all of the Rock Band games, can still use the instruments from Rock Band or Guitar Hero.  The game is also available with the special instruments for The Beatles: Rock Band, but I do not feel that it is worth picking these up since it will be a lot cheaper to use your current plastic instruments.  If this is your first time playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, pick up Rock Band 2 bundle and pick up The Beatles:  Rock Band.

One of the other inexcusable things with this game is it is not transferable to Rock Band 2.  While I understand it is the Beatles, this is coming dangerously close to other music games that do not allow the transfer of songs between games.  I would honestly pay $15 to transfer these songs to regular Rock Band 2 just to prevent myself from changing disks during parties, etc.

Overall, I would say this game is a no question purchase for people who are fans of the Beatles.  This is a collection of some of the greatest music around.  Plus it has enough extras with pictures and videos of the Beatles to make it worth your while.  If your not a fan of the Beatles, you may be asking whether this is a necessary purchase.  However, even if you are not a fan of the Beatles, this game has enough new additions to still make it worth picking up this game.