I’ve been neglecting The Social Gamer. This past weekend I was able to play an Xbox Live Arcade title called 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and thought it would be good to write up a quick review about it.

On Saturday night I popped my cherry with my first Xbox 360 system link “LAN” party. We kicked off the party with some Gears of War 2 Horde Mode, but when the 5th member’s wife came to pick him up for beddy time, the rest of us congregated on one TV and played 3 on 3 NHL Arcade.

I know it’s been out since February, and I did play the demo a few times but hadn’t thought of the game since. If you’ve ever played an EA Sports NHL 0X game the menus and controls will be familiar to you but what you will immediately notice is the menu sounds; “blorp”s and “woooooosh”es amusingly help you make your menu choices.

The teams can be made up of players from either conference and features a few select stars from each team. You’ll want a well-rounded team but bigger guys deliver more punishing hits. From there the game is a no rules, power-up riddled, game of shinny hockey. There are no face-offs other than at the beginning of each period and after each goal the puck is put back into play behind the net of the team that was scored on. That, however, does NOT mean the team that was scored on will always get the puck as I was able to easily grab the puck for a quick wrap-around goal multiple times.

You can read the rest of the article over at The Social Gamer.

It’s sad that when I look at my video game collection and see how much money I’ve sunk into it (admittedly not a lot compared to some people, but at $60/game it adds up quickly) I can honestly say I’ve only completed 3 of the games’ campaigns. That means I still have 13 games of which I’m only partway through.

This seems to be a common theme among gamers. You’ll end up buying a game that had a lot of hype, start playing it and find that you’re just not as into it as you are with other games and it will get neglected. You might find that you’re stuck on one particular spot early in the game and after repeated attempts to get past it you get frustrated and give up. This is the case with me and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I just can’t seem to get past the end of the third level in the junkyard.
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I’ve found that ever since I bought my Xbox 360 last year I’ve been drawn to games with a co-op component. Games like Halo 3, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War, etc. I’m an FPS guy. I’ve never been into the RPG so I should get that disclaimer out there early. I find that the ability to play either locally or online with a friend working as a team is an entirely more satisfactory experience than either going solo or battling each other in a Free-for-all. It’s never fun to go online and get schooled by the hardcore gamers so playing co-op has a certain safety factor to it.

Co-op is the new multiplayer will be an ongoing column talking about my points of view on the latest co-op games I’m playing. These articles are the opinions of a casual gamer and are in no way an official review of the game itself. I don’t have nearly enough experience to call myself a reviewer, however I will render a verdict at the end of each article.

Today I’m going over Gears of War 2.
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You can’t even tell me that the Ghostbusters movies weren’t two of the greatest things to come out of the 80′s, at least in terms of movies. The videogame, which has apparently been long talked about, is finally coming out this year. And it looks gorgeous. Here’s proof:

Yeah, that’s right. The original actors are reprising their roles, well at least in voice, and if I’m not mistaken, I believe I heard the voice of Brian Doyle-Murray playing the mayor.

Ecto-1, the hearse for ghosts

It’s time to break out the old Ecto-1 and Slimer toys and terrorize your old Hot Wheels map!