A quick ‘currently playing’ update as I take a break from digesting the news from Microsoft’s E3 press conference (will get to that later).

Only two games have made the list this week – and those are Secret Agent Clank on the PSP and Gears of War on the 360.
I am mostly enjoying Secret Agent Clank so far. It’s got a lot of humor and character like the previous Ratchet & Clank PSP game, but somethings just are not quite right this time around. Its tough to really nail down what, but it feels as if Secret Agent Clank could have existed BEFORE Size Matters.

The reason I say this, is the game seems to introduce problems that were not present in Size Matters. Its as if the developers went back in time to make this game, not taking advantage of what they had learned with the previous PSP title.

While the cut scenes are still top notch, some of the gameplay variety is extremely poor. For instance, the rhythm mini-games, while tolerable in small doses appear way too often in the game. They are no even remotely enjoyable as there is hardly a discernible rhythm to follow. It’s more like just a string of ‘input this combo now’ sequences that often have me turning off the game if I fail them.

Speaking of turning off the game, every time I resume my PSP from sleep mode the game displays an error message about the memory stick. It doesn’t cause any problems aside from being a nuisance, but its just another one of those things that I don’t recall seeing in Size Matters (weird, huh?).

Regardless, I’m a few hours into the game now and at this point I’m pretty confident I’ll make it through to the end. The game does have it’s moments, but if I had paid full price for Secret Agent Clank I would be sorely disappointed.
Next up is Gears of War, and I’m happy to say I’ve finally gotten the ‘Money Shot’ (100 headshots in ranked matches) achievement. I am however very skeptical that I can pull off ‘Seriously’ before Gears of War 2 releases on Nov 7th.

I’m at just under 2,000 kills right now, and while I’ve been putting forth an honest effort, another 8,000 kills in 115 days is highly unlikely (thats 70 kills per day). I’m not giving up, I’m just no so sure it’s going to happen before Gears of War 2 makes the original obsolete on Xbox Live.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.