Skate still rules but now Halo 3 is out and Gamefly finally got Eternal Sonata to me. So now I have more to play than I have hours in the day. At least they’re all very different games so I have something to play for whatever mood I’m in.

Positive impressions for every game btw, the 360 is on a a ridiculous roll.

Move over Tony Hawk, the new kid has rolled into town. Tony Hawk Pro Skater has dominated the skateboard genre for nearly 10 years. I don’t think you can even call it a genre because the Tony Hawk series is pretty much the only skating game made. Only thing I can think of that comes close is Agressive Inline and that was years ago.

For me (and many people) the TH series is stale and boring. The 9th console game is coming out very soon and even though they have managed to add more stuff to do (there is a mindboggling amount of tricks you can do, they expanded the “Nail the Trick” mechanic that was introduced in Project 8 ) it feels like more of the same. Grind for 700 feet, jump over a helicopter and then grind for another mile and a half.

So skate finally comes out (I think I first saw it in early 2006) and has pretty much reinvented the skate game. It’s more the compeition for Tony Hawk, it’s the champion. The control scheme is totally different (use the control sticks to do just about everything) and the skating is much more reality based. The learning curve is steep, but once you understand it you’re in for a great experience. The flow and feel of skating is truly amazing (it helps that the game looks and animates so well). Landing some crazy line is an accomplishment and a true reward. You can edit replays which is really cool and then share them with people on the internet. The community should be huge for this one and it looks like it’s going to be a smash because I had to go to 3 stores to find it.

It’s a bit more limiting than Tony Hawk (can’t leave your board to run up to a spot, there are no flatland or lip tricks) but it’s definitely the better game. Highly recommended.

It hit Live last night and now everyone with a 360 is freaking out. It went from a wait and see to an absolute buy when it comes out next week. I need to go pre-order it tomorrow (it’s that good).

Thursday night, after playing some Dreamfall, my 360 gave me the ring of death after shutting it off. With no warning, no other errors my box just went up and died on me. Bought it on April 18, 2006 (MFR date was 3-3-06) and thankfully I was smart enough to get a waranty from Best Buy when I bought it.

Good news is, I was able to make a quick swap at best buy for a new one. Bad news was I had to go way the fuck to Secaucus to get to a BB that had one. With the new content for Crackdown hitting the next day and the Halo 3 beta less than a week to go, it was shitty timing. Microsoft says the failure rate is 3-5% but it seriously looks like it’s at 50%. There are stories all over the place a dead 360’s some on their 3rd or 4th one! How you could make something with such a fatal flaw is beyond me. Really sucks because besides that it’s a fantastic machine.

Crackdown is the type of game that you sit down to play and the next time you look at the clock, you can’t believe that that much time has passed.

It’s a very simple game that has been designed incredibly well. This is it: Pacific City has gone to hell and the Agency (“The Man”) has resorted to making super cops to crackdown on crime. At the start you have better abilities than your average human, when you max your stats, you can make cars transform, you shoot guns like you were born with guns instead of hands, you can throw trucks 200 feet and your vertical leap is 30ft. Basically, you’re the Hulk. I think I’ve put in around 5 hours and the game just gets better and better. The game constantly rewards you by letting you do cooler and cooler shit as you go. The area design just gets better and better. The city (13 miles of land, 1 mile high ceiling) is broken up into 3 islands, with a crime family on each one. 3 mob bosses, with 6 underlings below him. Take out the mini bosses (so to speak) and the thugs lose power, the get weaker, their guns get worse, that sort of thing.

So you basically run around and lay out justice anyway you see fit. The game looks fantastic, basically a comic book GTA that doesn’t look like ass and the sound design is phenominal. And it has online 2 player co-op which just makes the game better.

Another amazing game on the XBOX 360.

The demo (single and co-op) for Crackdown hit Live yesterday and it’s awesome. As good as I was hoping. Take the “I want to screw around” gameplay of GTA and mash it with The Incredible Hulk game and you pretty much have Crackdown. You’re a super cop in a city gone south from 3 crime mobs, it’s your job to clean up the city. You start out weak, but as you progress you gain levels in agility, driving, strength, fire arms, and explosives. You’re weak to begin with but once you get going you’ll be jumping over buildings, throwing trucks down streets and cracking skulls left and right with wreckless abandon.

The game looks like a comic book, a mild cell shaded look is in effect. The game pops with color, the physics are great (you can make massive chain explosions sending all sorts of shit flying) and the sound is equally impressive. Take the cool shit you thought was great to do in GTA and make it look awesome and play smooth as silk. The draw distance is insane, there is no fog hiding shit, cars don’t pop in and out of view 200 feet away from you. You can look down entire city blocks and see shit moving around, lights changing. The day/night cycle looks terrific and the game is huge, the demo gives you a 1/3 of the map to run around in. It’s huge. There are sky scrapers that you can climb and jump over, it’s just not just a wide city, it’s vertically huge as well.

Plus, online co-op. You can work together or do shit in completely different parts of the world. It’s the new game to check out, comes out in the middle of February.

I’ve talked myself into a frenzy, I’m going to go play it right now.