maxfenig.com » Video Game Reviews

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

ray — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:27:39 +0000

Professor Layton and the Curious Village Forum is a very good game. It is full of logic puzzles of all sorts there are word puzzles and picture puzzles. It provides hours of entertainment. If the puzzles are to hard you can buy hints with picarats you earn throught the game. I would recommend if for 4th or 5th grade and up. Of course it is very fun for adults. I myself have put lots of hours into it. I would give this game a 9 of 10. The replay value is very low because the puzzles aren’t very much fun if you know the answer, but still very worth the investment.

Halo Reach Beta Ranks

ray — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:48:38 +0000

Here’s what I’ve seen so far, for ranks on Halo Reach Beta

Private
Private Grade 1
Corporal
Corporal Grade 1
Sergeant
Sergeant Grade 1
Sergeant Grade 2
Warrant Officer
Warrant Officer Grade 1
Warrant Officer Grade 2
Warrant Officer Grade 3

What Can Mario Teach Us About Life

ray — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:31:15 +0000

I have been playing through New Super Mario Brothers Wii with my boys. This can be both a fun and frustrating experience depending on how you play the game. I will share with you a few tips to make New Super Mario Brothers Wii fun that also apply to life as well.

Don’t Steal – In Mario share mushrooms, flowers, stars, etc. You might be able to get them all this time, but the next time they appear, you can be sure, no one is gonna share them with you. In life pretty much everyone is guilty of this in one way or another.
Don’t Kill – In Mario don’t pick your friend up and throw them in a hole, if you do you better believe you will be thrown in a hole soon enough as well. In life this kinda goes without saying, although some people do need to be reminded.
Work as a Team – In Mario don’t run ahead, trying to blaze through the level as your teammates many times die from this. Many star coins are much easier to acquire if you jump on each others heads. It also helps to attack enemies as a team. Or in a ghost house to have one player face each way so the ghosts don’t come at you, until you need them to move out of the way. In life almost everything we do can be accomplished quicker and with better outcome if you work together with others.
It’s the Journey not the Destination – In Mario you can use warp tunnels to get to the end, but then you miss all the interesting worlds along the way. In life, death is the destination, that’s no fun life is the journey. Always remember Rule #32: Enjoy the little things. When you are going on a road trip somewhere, don’t forget to make fun stops along the way, this makes the whole experience much more enjoyable for everyone.
There is More than one Way – In Mario there many levels have more than one exit. In the worlds there are many paths you can choose. In life this is abundantly clear. Think about making something as simple as a hot dog. Easily 4 ways to cook it: microwave, pan fry, boil, grill. And the toppings, there is just a never ending list of what to serve a hot dog with. Someone else might do something differently than you, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong about it.
Perseverance is Rewarding – In Mario getting all the star coins takes time, but it also opens up a new world to explore. In life many things take time, cooking a nice meal, teaching your son to play catch, learning how to ride a bike, but the payoff is worth it and then some.

The Beatles Rock Band

ray — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:36:55 +0000

I’ve been playing through The Beatles Rock Band this week. I am enjoying getting to play a bunch of new songs. I played Rock Band 2 last week, and it didn’t hold my interest nearly as much, I think mainly just because I have played Rock Band way too much. I have downloaded lots of songs for Rock Band & Rock Band 2, but I think there comes a point where you can’t just keep playing the same songs. I am somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 songs between Rock Band 1&2 and the DLC. Playing through the first four venues of story mode in The Beatles Rock Band is definitely a treat. But then you get into Abbey Road which is definitely a shift in the music. Mostly trippy weirdness “I Am the Walrus” & “Octopus’s Garden” come to mind. There are some high points “With a Little Help from My Friends” & “Revolution” are very good. By the time “Here Comes the Sun” comes around in it such a welcome breath of fresh air and thankfully the end of Abbey Road Studios. Next along comes Rooftop Concert, ending with “Get Back”, which I think actually means get back to the first four venues because they are much better than the last four venues. The Beatles Rock Band is also a bright (literally) change from Rock Band 1 & 2, with lots of colors that you would expect from the 60′s, since The Beatles arrived just before color television started exploding.

I give this game a 7 out of 10. If you are a Beatles fan to begin with, you can probably add a point. If the game allowed you to import all your DLC into it, I would add 1.5 points. Really nothing would be better than playing Nirvana’s “In Bloom” as The Beatles in the Ed Sullivan Theater. I know “In Bloom” is not available as DLC, but if The Beatles Rock Band allowed other DLC, I am sure it would be the first song Harmonix released.

Games for boys

ray — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:52:30 +0000

A friend of mine ask me if I could recommend some Xbox games for her 5 year old son, since I myself have a 5 & 7 year old (2 as well, but he doesn’t play so much yet). I will share with you what I told her.

The boys really enjoy Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga & Lego Batman. There is fighting in the games not sure how you feel about it, but instead of people dying they break apart like Lego pieces. There is also and Indiana Jones one, but it is not as good.

Beautiful Katamari is another good game, it is a bit odd though, you either love it or hate it. You basically have a sticky ball and you roll things up (tires, trees, people, animals, food, buildings) to make a bigger ball.

Rock Band 2 this is more for you and your hubby, but my boys enjoy playing as well. I have never meet anyone that didn’t enjoy this game after playing it just once, and we have probably had at least 50 different people play at our house. Make sure you get #2, it has a no fail mode so you can play with your son and don’t have to keep starting over.

I think every Pixar (Wall-E, Ratatouille) movie ever made has a game that goes along with it. I don’t care for them personally, but the boys enjoy them.

A really good arcade game is Cloning Clyde you beat up robots, but it is really fun.

Another arcade game is Feeding Frenzy. You have to eat smaller fish and avoid bigger ones.

For most of the games you buy in the store, you can go onto Xbox Marketplace and download a demo. And for all the arcade games you can as well. I highly recommend this, because we have tried out a lot of games and actually just let the boys play the demo over and over and saved money by not having to buy the real one, becuase inevitably a game will come out in a month or two, that they really really want. Also it is a good test to see if you think a game is too violent, or if a game is too hard for him to actually play.