Console-ation Prizes

Video Games I'm Looking Forward To And Don't Want To Forget:

1) Castle Crashers



Originally a game on Newgrounds.com, this Ninja-Turtles-like side-scroller may very well make me weep with joy every time I beat a boss battle and then have to fight my fellow knights for the right to save the one damsel-in-distress.

2) Patapon



Quirky, two-button music-centric game starring little monochromatic blobs? Didn't I already love this game once before? Oh wait, no, that was...



3) God of War: Chains of Olympus



Yes, I did, in fact, "not" buy a PS2 specifically so I could own the first two games in the series. Yes, I did, in fact, buy a PSP so that I (and my friend Ted) could play this game. Yes, I do, in fact, consider the God of War series some of the, if not The, best video games of all time. Greek mythology, badass boss battles, enormous landscapes, brilliant plot twists, death scenes to die for...stop. You had me at "mythology."

4) Jason and the Argonauts



Have I mentioned I like Greek mythology? What about how much I enjoy video games with mechanics like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (switch characters midlevel, up stats in character-specific skill trees)? Yeah, this game is supposedly the lovechild of God of War and M:UA, and that kind of offspring is the sort wars are started over. But, you know, fun wars where you probably get to sleep with a sorceress who'll some day kill your kids and gift your wife with a poisonous wedding gown before being deus-ex-machina'ed out of your attack radius. Oh yeah, before I forget to mention it: I really like Greek mythology.

5) Brutal Legend



I am playing Psychonauts right now and am loving it to death. Yes, the difficulty curve fluctuates wildly. Yes, the collectibles are insanely difficult to finish collecting. Yes, the character models seem to be based on caricatures of childhood deformities.

But, god, I just killed a pyrokinetic cougar, then jumped into a madman's brain where the landscape was a 1950s neighborhood where Dali had gotten to design the sidewalks. With all that in mind, it was made by Tim Schafer, the guy behind Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and now: Brutal Legend, in which Jack Black is a roadie with an ax for attacks (chopper) and an ax for magicks (guitar) who must quest across a world of heavy metal homages to rescue his girlfriend from My Chemical Romance fans.

...Now if only there were a hydra in it.