Last year's Cheapo Game Shootout went on for far too long. So this year I'm doing it in three, four posts tops. There was math last year, and that was icky.
Here's the ground rules. In order to be eligible, the game must have been purchased at a discount from the original MSRP. I'm not including temporary deals, like when Toys R Us offers Buy Two Get One Free. I'm also disqualifying the Old Navy Black Friday deal for a free LEGO Rock Band, because that was a special event. And anyway, getting a brand new release for free is so great that including it in this competition would have thrown off the entire curve.
Entrants will be assessed according to Discount Value, Gameplay, and Presentation, and issued a final number for each category on a ten point scale. There are fifteen names in the running this year. Here's the first five.
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, PS3
We were really into LEGO Batman, and Clark missed out on the two older LEGO Star Wars by virtue of not existing at the time. So when I saw that the PS3 compilation was bumped down to $20, I bought it rather than locating the two PS2 originals that have been on my shelf for five years.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $20, compared to an original price of, I believe, $40.
GAMEPLAY: As remembered. Same classic issues on co-op. Nice idea to combine both games (thus making characters playable in either trilogy). Lack of PS3 Trophies is pretty hard to swallow.
PRESENTATION: I'm still not tired of LEGO dude visuals, perhaps unbelievably so. Not as good looking as current LEGO games, since this is just a slightly smartened PS2 game.
Speed Racer: The Videogame, Wii
It's been well-established that we're huge suckers for that Speed Racer movie. So how bad could the Wii game be, right? Pretty bad.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $20, compared to $50. Good sale, but clearly was not ever worth that original price.
GAMEPLAY: Very messy. There's very few tracks, the usual Wii-cursing motion controls, and an almost complete lack of understanding of how to do a kart racer even though Mario Kart Wii is, like, the world's oldest video game.
PRESENTATION: There's actual voice actors from the movie, which is nice. Some good game-specific art of the characters. Box art is lame.
Nerf NStrike, Wii
You've seen this one... the game that comes with a Nerf gun that holsters the Wii Remote. Well, it sucks. It looks like ass. The interface sucks. You wouldn't think people could screw up a shooting gallery game, but these guys did.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $40, was originally $60
GAMEPLAY: There's a bunch of modes that really suck, and everything goes on for way too long.
PRESENTATION: Ugly. Storyline rips off Last Starfighter, despite federal mandate banning such.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, PS3
I was initially not that interested in this title, being more or less burned out on the Tomb Raider concept. The demo was OK. Then the stars aligned and they patched in PS3 Trophies, plus Target put it on clearance. Two very good reasons to get this game.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $30, red-tagged at Target from $60
GAMEPLAY: Pretty darn amazing, although I could do without the super-linear path. Great character animation, but the plot takes a stupid turn at the end.
PRESENTATION: Looks great, nice menus. Loses a point for the off-the-rack font choice in the logo.
Eco-Creatures, DS
I had hoped this would be a cool RTS, but it was nigh-unplayable. I forget exactly why it sucked, but it was so bad I actually traded it in for $2. I can't even be bothered to recall the game's subtitle.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $20, was originally $30
GAMEPLAY: Knowing how I react to frustration in gaming, I must have run into some level that was impossible even after a million tries.
PRESENTATION: Nothing special. Sort of cute.
So far, Uncharted has a sizable lead... but there are ten more challengers to consider! Just as last year, the top three points-getters will head to the judge's table for the final decision.
Continuing the competition from here, witness the second (of three) list of Cheapo Game Shootoutists!
Doki Doki Majo Shinpan 2 Duo, DS
Yes yes, the witch-touching game. Settle down. $20 for an imported Japanese DS game is pretty sweet, especially when it's a game as notorious as Doki Doki Majo Shinpan 2 Duo. Turns out, the game is pretty boring. I'm not sure knowing how to read Japanese would help.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $20, normal import price was $48
GAMEPLAY: Lots of clicking across maps and through conversations. Eventually you get to touch a witch, which involves some simple animations of slightly risque artwork.
PRESENTATION: The anime art is solid. Came with a heat-sensitive trading card.
Warioland: Shake It!, Wii
Everybody glorying in the 2D old school style of New Super Mario Bros Wii should go back and pick up this forgotten gem. It doesn't have multiplayer and it doesn't have the pre-fabricated nostalgia cannon, but it has about ten times the charm.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $35, which was an Amazon Gold Box deal (normally $50)
GAMEPLAY: This is like New Super Mario Bros Wii with non-sucky motion controls. Also: has personality.
PRESENTATION: The hand-drawn animation oozes style, attention and care. It's a shame that nobody really likes Wario games.
Burnout Paradise, PS3
I don't like car games. But I'll make an exception for the Burnout series. Paradise is noteworthy for handing out a ton of free DLC upgrades, as well as for a steady stream of pay DLC. The multiplayer was the first time I can recall a game deciding to make online play easy.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $30, a Target red-tag marked down from $60
GAMEPLAY: So many options and modes, all cleverly tucked across a gigantic map. This was my first Platinum Trophy, and at the time I didn't think I could do it.
PRESENTATION: Great design and menu work. Initially, the game's menus carried a strong We Ripped This From Apple motif. Later on they opted for an in-game web browser, which kind of sucked.
Wii Music, Wii
Nintendo's big Holiday Flop of 2008. I read a few respected webloggers who swore by it, so when Amazon knocked it down to $20, I jumped just for the experience. Unfortunately, it's a boring muddle of a non-game... but prettied up with some seriously clever Nintendo charm.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $20, another Amazon Gold Box deal. Amazon usually sells Wii Music for $30, but the game is still $50 retail! Jesus!
GAMEPLAY: It's not a game. It's work. The musical jam options are difficult to understand (the tutorials are murder!), but when you do finally make your own song - sort of - it is pretty cool.
PRESENTATION: I think this is the Miis' shining moment. It is great to make music videos and album covers with your Miis.
Savage Moon, PSN
A tower defense game that, when viewed from above, looks like swarms of bugs marching through poo. There's a science fiction pretentiousness pervading the game that makes the entire thing unappealing.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $5, during a half-off sale
GAMEPLAY: Pretty complicated for a tower defense game, which is cool. I like having full control over a 3D camera, but the tradeoff is that you'll often get screwed by the cam being in the wrong place or angle.
PRESENTATION: Purposefully ugly.
We had one, we had two, now the inevitable Part Three.
Metal Gear Solid Touch, iPhone
I had an iPhone for, like, a week when I bought this. It is a strange little shooting gallery game, but wonderfully themed to Metal Gear Solid (specifically #4, Guns of the Patriots). Merely OK, but you'd probably have to be a huge MGS fan to even travel that far. I bet it's down to $1 by now.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $3 on sale. Was it $8 originally? I forget. I'm bad at this.
GAMEPLAY: The pinch gesture for using the sniper score is difficult to pull off. There's a bunch of nice unlockable wallpapers, but you have to play for days to accrue enough in-game points to buy any of them.
PRESENTATION: A solid match with the franchise's look and feel across years of PlayStation games.
World of Goo, Mac
I am a total cad. I picked this up during 2D Boy's big pay-what-you-want sale. I elected to pay a quarter. And you know what? I didn't think it was that great. Certainly not worthy of all the OMG WII DOWNLOAD INCREDIBLE WOOT chatter that it received upon the WiiWare release.
DISCOUNT VALUE: 25 cents! Embarrassing!
GAMEPLAY: Too imprecise for me. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of a rigid puzzler. Seems like you can very easily get to a point where it is impossible to clear the board, thanks to the overly sensitive gravity and limited pool of goo. Not for me.
PRESENTATION: Great art direction, though.
Bomberman Ultra, PSN
I've never actually owned a Bomberman title, so I figured a PSN sale was good enough reason to bite. Turns out, Bomberman just isn't that much fun.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $5, I think during a PSN half-off sale.
GAMEPLAY: I think the core multiplayer model is flawed. With all the power-ups turned on, the game has no balance to allow trailing players the chance to catch up. We sort of like the floor-painting "zombie" variant (WARNING: NO ACTUAL ZOMBIES) where you have infinite lives, but even that one ends up sucking because only the last ten seconds count.
PRESENTATION: Amateurish menus, screechy sound samples and lots of overdone design. It's easy to tell when a company craps out a DLC game. The only real shining moment is that the game doesn't ruin the XMB menu with audio/images... but that's probably due to the bargain basement dev, not any altruistic respect for my PS3 menu screen.
Assassin's Creed II, PS3
I had no interest in this franchise until the E3 2009 PS3 demo video. That looked pretty cool. So when Amazon put it on a Gold Box deal, I grabbed it.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $40 on Amazon. Not bad for a $60 that just came out.
GAMEPLAY: It's parts of GTA combined with parts of MGS. And even a little Professor Layton. Win win win. Now, it's not as uniformly excellent as those three franchises would lead you to believe, but it is definitely a name to watch. And I sure had a blast playing it. My fourth Platinum Trophy.
PRESENTATION: Some very clever ideas, using a modern sci-fi overlay on a historical setting... all intended to mask and immerse basic video game elements. I can't help but feel that the franchise will lose something special once they finally resolve the plotline and end up in a dull Logan's Run near-future setting.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, PS3
You know, I've often complained about not having enough Wild West games, but there's probably enough of them. I must be a sucker for the genre, since I've liked all of them. Bound in Blood is a sequel/prequel with two playable characters, each with different skills/weapons. Kind of melodramatic, and the voice acting is poorly edited.
DISCOUNT VALUE: $27, a Target red-tag. The game would originally been $60, and I'm sure I saw it down to $40 before this red-tagging.
GAMEPLAY: Not bad at all. Been a while since I did an FPS (I didn't even know it was an FPS when I bought it), and it seemed a tad clumsy. Great environments.
PRESENTATION: Little rough around the edges, but not in a good Old West way (although the overall menu design is). The same character models show up over and over again as different people, sort of like watching a Monty Python movie. AND NO MORE STILL ARTWORK CUTSCENES, PLEASE.
The 2009 Cheapo Game Shootout ends with the four finalists facing Ultimate Judgment... who will Clark choose as the winner?
Assassin's Creed II? Warioland: Shake It? Burnout Paradise? Uncharted: Drake's Fortune? Last year's winner was Harvey Birdman (Wii), but Academy history is no accurate predictor in this horse race... where box art and the dim memories of a four-year-old reign supreme.
Congratulations to all of this year's entries, except Eco-Creatures and Nerf NStrike, both of which sucked.
