Casual games, the bane of many a serious gamer's existence, include classics like Bejeweled and Diner Dash, has a growing market size of $2.2 bn that is an increasingly strong force in the gaming industry today.



While these game typically provide a 5-10 hr average gameplay, they have successfully tapped into the non-gamer market of older women and have a wider appeal to the general public, and are easy to learn and easy to play.

What's even more interesting in that these games retail at $19.99 (meaning that the pure number of units sold to make that $2.2 bn is larger than typical games), though many casual game distributors, like Big Fish Games, have started providing discounted membership prices by locking customers in for a preset number of games per month at the discounted price.

Even better though, is that Gamehouse now offers a free, full-version casual game everyday, that runs with ad sponsorship! The president of the company said Gamehouse's daily free game is intended to get people playing the games, given today's weak economy, which they hope will eventually lead to more sales (or in my case, more gaming for none of the cost). Let's hope it works the way they want!! :)

Either way, it's worth checking out, and I'll try and review the best ones on the day they are released to entice everyone to go over and download them.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Nintendo EAD
Nintendo
Action-Adventure
Nintendo Wii
19 November 2006




Following in the footsteps of past Zelda’s, Twilight Princess focuses on exploring and collecting items along the way to help you solve puzzles and advance yourself in the game. Link, armed with his trusty sword and shield along with many other tools and weapons, is on a mission to save Princess Midna (and Zelda obviously) but more importantly Hyrules realm of existence along with the Twilights Realm. Transporting, involuntarily at first, between the two realms, Link, either as himself or a wolf must fight the many enemies of Hyrule and Twilight to stop Zant from changing Hyrule and Twilight into is kingdom of darkness. Zant is not the only enemy posing a threat to destroy Hyrule as we know it. Ganondorf, though banished to the Twilight realm, is still planning to conquer Hyrule.



I was thoroughly impressed by the graphics and sound of Twilight Princess. To all the naysayers of the Wii’s processing ability you obviously have not layed your eyes on this beautiful gem. I used my entertainment center’s ability to give me 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound to navigate my way through many dark caves, foggy bottoms and enemy ambushes. The one added bonus of playing Twilight Princess on the Wii, for sound, is the feed back that you get from the Wiimote when engaging in battle with weapons from swords to bows. The control of this game, once you become oriented with the Wiimote and Nun chuck, is phenomenal. Whether you are slashing with your sword, shooting your bow or even fishing you are actually mimicking moves you would execute in real life. These techniques are then perfectly blended with movement and camera angles to give you a clean smooth controllability of Link through out the game.



The good; fun yet challenging, graphics, sound, control, game length
The bad; defeating bosses could have been more diverse, game length, game ends

I feel I have to make a special comment about the game length here. For those of you whom are not familiar with The Legend of Zelda series these are not games for the casual gamer. I easily spent 100+ hours playing Twilight Princess but this was not necessary, I spent A LOT of time exploring and just having plain old fun killing orcs and fishing. I would estimate if you cut straight to the chase and did the absolute minimal to beat the game you could fly through at the break neck speed of about 25-30 hours.



I give The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 5 out of 5 Master Swords!

With New Year's Eve, just right around the corner, I think it's fitting for me to tell you all what I'm looking forward to in year 2009... So here's 5 video games coming out next year (in some cases, hopefully):

1. Street Fighters 4 (Feb. 17, 2009)
Recently, I did a quick survey of my PS3 games arsenal and noticed that I am still missing a fighting game. So it's a no-brainer that I have to buy this game (unless someone's making a Kung-fu Panda fighter game). I was a huge fan of Street Fighters as a kid, and the ramped up current-gen look is just A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!! Just look at this picture:

maybe another less embarrassing picture for bla...

... ugh... okay, I give up.

2. Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. (March 3, 2009)
I was a fan of fighter jet simulators when I was a kid and am hoping this game would reintroduce me to that genre. The game looks great; your jets will be flying over some nice scenic landscape (Check out Brazil in this gameplay video). You will also have the option of flying OVER 50 jet fighters!!!

3. God of War III (TBA 2009)
Check out Steve's video post below... like the wise man said "get educated!"

4. Ghostbusters the Video Game (June 16, 2009)
Another throwback to childhood here --- this game is made to be the next "movie" and, as the marshmallow topping on the already-sweet cake, the original casts are involved (Aykroyd, Murray, Ramis, and Hudson --- they're writing it too!!!). I can't decide whether to go with the PS3 version (sweet graphics) or the Wii version. Wielding the proton pack with your Wii-mote is just waaaayy too awesome.


5. Final Fantasy XIII and Versus XIII (December 18, 2009)
I am an FF-fan, and thought it would be wise to pre-order the 13th game on the franchise back in September, thinking it would come out this December. I recently went back to check on my Amazon order... lo' and behold, the game is not out yet. In fact, it's delayed for ONE WHOLE YEAR. I should be mad as all hell with at this game but here it is making it to my list of games that I'm looking forward to. It's official: I am Square-Enix's bitch.

That's my list! Yay to list!

For something more in the immediate future, LittleBigPlanet add-on: METAL GEAR SOLID 4 will be available for download this week. Check out this video! Get ready to paint-gun LBP levels!!!

Let me know what you think, dear reader! Post your top 5! Happy Holidays!

I'm not gonna lie --- I am a sucker for the reimagined/redesigned old school games. I was (and still am, I guess) a huge fan of the side-scroller shooter games. Either vertical or horizontal scrollers, I am there! With that in mind, I bought Soldner-X a few weeks ago in hopes that I can have the simple fun of side-scrollers plus some sweet graphics (fitting for a PS3 system) and some bombastic weaponaries.



So, what do I get, you ask? A horribly difficult (is it just me?!?!) side-scroller that makes me think that I've wasted $10. The second levels are way too hard to survive. I wasn't able to try out the full extent of the weapons --- I was able to try out three of them (regular laser, electric thingie-majig, and some lame boomerangs). The game also has this chain shot count going --- but it doesn't add to the fun factor.

But it's not all bad: the graphics are nice to look at, and it supports the PS3 trophy system (good luck attaining them though) so it speaks to all you competitive gamers.

If you are a fan of side-scrollers, I highly recommend the redesigned 1942 (awesome dual system, if you have 2 players going) and Super Stardust HD (simply awesome).

Pro: awesome graphics, trophy system
Con: high difficulty, weapons are waaaaay too simple, stupid chain-shot count
Final rating: 2 BOO-merangs out of 5

-----
Albert is currently saving DC Metro at Fallout 3, and planning to get into MGS 4 this holiday season. MMMmmm nothing says the Holidays like Metal Gear.

If you don't know about this...get educated 


 
david jaffe says this game looks 25-30% BETTER than this trailer...

First, I would like to establish why I would volunteer to take part in a blog about video games. Let’s just say I grew up in a remote area where I would consider a neighbor anyone who was within a 2 mile radius. So, when I was tired of exploring the outdoors with my siblings or it was too dark or to cold outside, video games were really the only other option. Oh and no, we didn’t have cable.

I first started gaming in 1988 on an Atari 2600 enjoying the typical classics like “Tanks” and “Pac-Man”. A few years later I discovered the NES overdosing on “Super Mario/Duck Hunt” and many others along the way.

Now we are somewhere between the years ’92 and ’94. I have been playing “Sonic the Hedgehog” on the Sega Genesis but will be quickly sidetracked by the discovery of arguably the best FPS of all time “Wolfenstein 3D”. Wolfenstein 3D would set the pace for games from “Doom” to “Duke Nuke’em” with it’s first person view, 3D’esq environment and endless carnage. I now confess to you that I spent hours a day, days a week and probably weeks out of a year glued to a little 32-bit box monitor hooked up to a ’93 IBM killing Nazi’s. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t die from the copious amounts of caffeine and sugar I consumed from drinking gallons of Mountain Dew and being in a constant immobile state.

The Genesis would get its fair share of usage always staying in my interest by releasing a decent game here and their like Aladdin and Castlevania and then big hits like the Mortal Kombat and Sonic sequels. But as the years progressed I became more and more interested in PC games.

In 1995 my parents would again pony up the cash to feed my growing addiction by upgrading the current video card in our already brand new computer so that I could play the game “Bioforge”. Bioforge was a first of its kind 3rd person action/adventure, puzzle solving and moral testing onslaught. I would then move on to games like Warcraft, Starcraft, Half-Life, Max Payne and Hitman.

Along with my progression of PC game play we also were lucky enough to get one of the coveted N64’s for Christmas of ’96. I think everyone remembers the success of “Mario 64”. By 2001 I was a weathered video game veteran and was in complete control of my domain when the GameCube was released. Now, I had fallen into a set routine of divvying up my time between PC and Console gaming. I was in my element, no one could touch me, friends and family alike would fall under my deadly accuracy in “Goldeneye” and be bashed into oblivion by Link in “Super Smash Bros.” and “Super Smash Bros. Melee”.

Then quite abruptly it all ended. Cold Turkey, no Consoles, no PC. At best I played on my console sporadically from ’02 to ‘06 and it would be years before I would lay my fingers on another keyboard for the pleasure of gaming. I am now back on the wagon and going strong. A lot has changed since ’02 and I have been taking full advantage of that. I am not nearly as heavy a user as I used to be but with my age and experience I have gained patience and the ability to find only the really good games. That, reader, is what I plan to share with you here. I won’t waste your time with reviews of bad games unless I feel they need an honorable mention. The blogs that I will be writing will be of games that I feel are the cream of the crop. IF you are still reading thank you for your time and enjoy.

Best,
neoeon