We have an 360, what have we been playing? Good question. The first game I bought was Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas for $20 at Future Shop. It rates in at a solid 89 on MetaCritic. I bought this without playing the demo because it was supposed to have fun split-screen multiplayer. But it didn’t work as well when we tried to play it. I think the problem is that this FPS is very strategic, you have to stay under cover and eliminate the terrorists by flanking them or through teamwork. And by that I mean sending your AI allies into the line of fire so I can snipe from the back. That’s my method of playing this game because the game is realistic in the sense that there’s no health bar and after you take a few shots, you’re dead. The second aspect to this game is that it requires you to know/remember where the terrorists are coming from, and the repeated plays required doesn’t make it accessible or as fun. On the other hand, the graphics in this game are really good and makes me appreciate HD.

We also downloaded the NHL09 demo and tried it out. That was fun, since it was multiplayer and we’re Canadian. But being cheap, I picked up NHL2K6 for $2 at Blockbuster for a “full” hockey game. I then saw it for $15 at EBGames later, and boy was I glad I didn’t pay that much for it because it sucks (although 75 on MetaCritic)! Being released in 2005, it almost qualifies for a launch title, except they just ported the existing PS2 versions up. It doesn’t seem to take advantage of HD nor does the game appear polished. Having experienced NHL09, it almost makes me want to spend the $60 for NHL09 instead. NHL2K6 plays a lot like the classic NHL games, notably without the using the 2^nd analog stick; in that sense it’s not that bad. But I might as well just play an old NHL no my computer. What this game is great for is racking up the Gamerscore. This game has really easy achievements; there are only 5 achievements and I got 750/1000 points in one hour of targeted achievement um achieving! So if you want to boost your Gamerscore, borrow my NHL2K6 for an afternoon.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: games, hockey, xbox