You are currently browsing the daily archive for March 20, 2009.
Henry Hatsworth is an innovative and charming platform/puzzle game that should appeal to all types of gamers.
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS) – I know someone that worked on this game, and he’s been pretty excited about its release this week. He’s so excited that he’s been visiting various Gamestops and retail stores the last couple of days to see how many copies are coming in and who is buying them. Thus, you can understand his dismay when he discovers that most Gamestop employees never heard of it, and instead ask him if he’s interested in buying GTA: Chinatown Wars instead. Of the Gamestops that did get the game in, they only get 1-2 copies. (I guess there’s always Amazon.) It’s unfortunate that it may get lost in the flood of big name titles this month on the DS, but I’ve played through it and it’s a solid game. It’s basically Mega Man + Tetris Attack, but my only real issue with it is that the difficulty *really* ramps up in the latter half of the game. If this is your cup of tea – start looking for it! With a tiny number of copies hitting retail stores around the country, it may prove difficult to find once word gets out. For more on it check out the IGN review, which gave it a 9.0, and how much hardcore gamers are loving it over at NeoGAF.
Street Fighter IV – So begins my downward spiral. I hit 2000 Battle Points last week and was pretty happy with it, but when I tried playing some this week, I must have lost nearly all of my 20 or so matches I played, dropping me all the way back down to 1200 or so. The competition this week has been ridiculously tougher than before, and I’m seeing far less of the “Ken players” that I saw when the game first released. It’s almost like the people that weren’t that good with the game have already moved on, so now it’s only hardcore players left. I’m playing against all sorts of characters I have no idea how to fight against since I didn’t see them before, and I’m also seeing more 4000+ BP players who are just nuts. I fought one Cammy player who would just rush at me and constantly spam light attacks as well as a light jump into the air and Cannon Striking me over and over. Before I knew it, it was already over. “What just happened?!” I asked myself.
Resident Evil 5 – I grabbed this over the weekend at Toys R’ Us since it came with the free $20 gift card, but I honestly can’t figure out how to spend it. Last week they had the “any 2 $20 games for $30”, but the selection was terrible at the Times Square Toys R Us, and now this week they have “$20 off any 2 $40+ titles”. But what the heck is left for me to get considering my huge backlog? There’s some games I kind of want, but not for $10 off their $60 retail price. So yeah, that’s my conundrum over the $20 gift card. They didn’t have 1600 point cards either, but hopefully they stock them at some point since I decided I’d end up just doing that if it came down to it.
Oh as for the game itself? Decent so far. It honestly has gameplay mechanics similar to Resident Evil 4, but for some reason I’m just not that into it. I see that half of my friends list is playing the game, but for some reason I’m just not that excited to play it after having beaten the first few levels. It’s not seeming as short as I thought, but it’s not giving me an “awesome vibe” like I had when playing Resident Evil 4. Consequently, I’ve been spending more of this week playing Halo Wars and Street Fighter IV instead. Expect some impressions on the game from me next week though.
Halo Wars – Picked this up this past weekend and I’m actually enjoying it more than I thought. While it’s simpler than Red Alert 3, I’ve actually grown pretty used to the controls and it’s quite doable with the d-pad jumping between my armies and bases, hitting the R trigger to switch between unit types in my groups, etc. I think I’m at mission 9 or so, and for the most part, Legendary difficulty hasn’t been too tough although I had to restart a few times in missions 6 and 7. I haven’t had a chance to play online yet, but I’ll probably try to get some games in if I can finish up the single player campaign this weekend.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Ended up picking the PC version of this game at Best Buy this past weekend since it was $10. Ironically, it was pretty much right after I traded in the 360 version of the game across the street at Gamestop for like $15. I figured the game was pretty enjoyable and patches keep coming out for the PC version so maybe I’ll see what it’s like – plus, it has the new expansion with Ric Flair. I was shocked though to discover how zoomed in the PC version of the game was. I tried to zoom out as much as I could but it’s still probably zoomed in at least twice as much as the 360 version. Crazy stuff.
US Software in February 2009
Rank | Platform | Title | Units Sold | Last Month | Lifetime to Date
01 Wii Wii Fit 644,000 777,000 5,946,900
02 360 Street Fighter IV 446,000 n/a 446,000
03 PS3 Street Fighter IV 403,000 n/a 403,000
04 Wii Wii Play 386,000 415,000 10,188,396
05 PS3 Killzone 2 323,000 n/a 323,000
06 Wii Mario Kart 263,000 292,000 5,446,000
07 360 Call of Duty: World at War 193,000 235,000 3,168,000
08 NDS Mario Kart DS 145,000 132,000 5,437,000
09 NDS New Super Mario Bros 144,000 135,000 6,414,000
10 Wii Guitar Hero World Tour 136,000 155,000 1,807,845
US Hardware in February 2009
Rank | Platform | Units Sold | Last Month | Lifetime to Date
01 Nintendo Wii 753,000 679,200 19,084,900
02 Nintendo DS 588,000 510,800 28,638,900
03 Xbox 360 391,000 309,000 14,556,400
04 Playstation 3 276,000 203,200 7,270,100
05 Playstation Portable 199,000 172,300 14,710,900
06 Playstation 2 131,000 101,200 46,000,000+
Wii Fit continues to be the number one seller last month, as it looks like practically all those casual parents that bought a Wii last month bought Wii Fit as well. Street Fighter IV debuted pretty strongly, and surprisingly, even though the 360 userbase is double that of the PS3, the sales numbers are quite close. That 360 controller just isn’t good for fighting games apparently. Killzone 2 also makes its debut at the number 5 spot. I would have expected it to sell more, considering it’s an exclusive PS3 title but I honestly don’t know even what the userbase is even made up of for PS3 owners – maybe half casuals and half hardcore? Mario Kart & Super Mario Bros for DS continue to sell strongly as the DS keeps selling like hotcakes, and wow Guitar Hero World Tour still up there in sales for the Wii. I guess it was off to a slow start but it’s probably what’s saving the Guitar Hero World Tour games right now.
NPD Sales Results for February 2009 [NeoGAF]
Leveling Down 
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