This has been tearing up the PSN sales charts for the past few days. Gets kind of repetitive after a while.
Moon Diver (Xbox Live Arcade)
I actually own the PlayStation 3 version of this, which- much like a young Kal-El launched from a dying Krypton, or Keanu Reaves refusing to appear in Speed 2: Cruise Control- was released shortly before PlayStation Network was snuffed out. It's a side-scrolling action game, and it's quite good; it feels sort of like a suped-up version of classic 16-bit action games, and it pulls that off quite well. If you enjoy action games and own a console with an online service that isn't a nonfunctional bag of ass, I recommend it.
Been playing quite a bit of this in the last few days. Not as engaging as the gritty, aggressive-sounding name might lead you to believe.
Darkspore(PC)
A spinoff of the 2008 Electronic Arts/Maxis 2008 game Spore. Sadly, however, Darkspore is not some sort of evil mirror-universe counterpart of the original Spore, developed by an evil bearded mirror universe Will Wright. Instead, it's an action RPG in a science fiction setting that incorporates a character editor based on the Creature Creator from the original Spore.
It does, however, come equipped with evil bearded mirror universe digital rights management software intended to improve upon the controversial DRM of its predecessor. It works much like the SecuROM DRM in Spore, requiring online authentication when the game is installed and limiting a copy to a maximum of five installations. The chief difference difference is that, in this version, attempting to install the game a sixth time will awaken the pitiless machine intelligence governing the game's patented AgnonizeROM anti-piracy program, which will neutralize the potential threat to EA's intellectual property by killing you and anyone else in the vicinity with a series of increasingly painful electrical shocks. It also eliminates most of the compatibility problems SecuROM sometimes ran into with Windows Vista, which is a plus.
Today marks the debut of Sony's new reality series on PlayStation Network, The Tester. The Tester will feature, in the words of the show's official site, “11 avid gamers competing in a series of physical and mental elimination challenges to win an actual job as an official PlayStation game tester along with a $5000 signing bonus.” If you have any knowledge of what being a game tester actually entails, the problem with this premise is obvious.
A tedious, poorly-paid, mind-numbingly repetitive job is not a prize. It is an anti-prize. If it ever made direct contact with an actual prize, both would be utterly annihilated in a cataclysmic burst of gamma radiation that would reduce everything within a five-mile radius to molten slag. Hell, just having it within proximity of that $5,000 dollars is risking disaster. The word "prize" implies something of value. This is why game shows and reality usually offer the chance to win things like new cars and large sums of money. This is why the Showcases on The Price Is Right usually involve things like luxurious home furnishings or exciting vacations, rather than 10-year prison term in a Federal Supermax facility or home foreclosures or syphilis. This is why there was never a smash hit game show called Who Wants Regis Philbin to Beat the Shit of Them With a Rattan Cane. (Rege's terrifying prowess in the deadly art of eskrima is one of the best-kept secrets in show business.)
The show itself didn't really catch my interest, though your mileage may vary depending on how much you enjoy American Gladiators-esque sporting events with people in giant plastic spheres, people using cliched game terminology to express their anguish during personal crises, and watching the producer of PlayStation Home berating someone until they cry. If that's your thing, the first episode is available for free download on PSN.
