Get another opinion on what is set to be the most controversial Nintendo release since the Wii launched with Wii Sports.

Also: Gearbox Software vs. Duke Nukem, Bill Murray vs. Ghostbusters 3, and Tycho vs. Sam vs. Strong Bad vs. The Heavy!

Sometimes I confuse the things I did in real life with things I did in video games. Like that one time I discovered a giant Duracell battery in my backyard and had to carry it all the way back to my ship… errr. Anyway, what would it be like if video game characters were real? And they were all up on that Facebook shiz? This might be what it would look like.

Like it? Sweet! You can totally join us on facebook now that we’re talking about it.

Summer is gone, but we played it out in style, rocking everything from the latest releases to the oldies but goldies. Read on to find out the details of how we here at 4cr spent our game-time in August, and be sure to chime in and let us know what kept you entertained, as well!

Edgar This past month has seen me mainly focused on my Xbox. I took advantage of the summer Arcade titles, getting Hydro Thunder, Monday Night Combat, Tomb Raider. Hydro Thunder as been getting a lot of my attention, still haven’t finished the game, and only played once in multiplayer. But the online leaderboards, where you can see all your friends’ different times on the tracks, is just awesome, and it adds to the replay value of the title. I’m always trying to beat my friends’ time and trashing them over live. Monday Night Combat is another one that shines, I compare it to TF2 meets tower defense. It’s such an awesome team-based game and I’m glad the the devs are backing it with frequent tweaks based on player feedback. The only reason I bought Tomb Raider was to get the 400 pts from the summer deal; I’m not playing it until the online coop patch is out at the end of September (I think).

I also started Dragon Age: Origins again, the recent DLC sale got me to get back into the game after two months away. I was stuck in the deep roads, finding it too hard and always dying, so by dropping the difficulty, I can now enjoy the game and its story. I have all the DLC released to date, and still haven’t finished the original content after 53 hours of play. I’ll continue playing this throughout September.

I thought I was cured, but I guess not — peer pressure got me back into MMOs, and I’ve started playing Lord of the rings Online again with two friends. I decided to start back from the beginning. Fun times, playing it casually twice a week.

Greg I’ve spent a ton of time over the last month playing Geometry Wars 2. I don’t quite know why. I was addicted to the game back when it came out, and started toying with it again a few weeks ago when I was tired of complex, story-based games. It is still super-addictive. I just love how it tells you which friend to beat next (and their score). It adds a weirdly-compelling competitiveness to the whole thing.

I have also been putting more time into StarCraft 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Both are utterly amazing games, but I can’t seem to marathon them. I have to enjoy them one small morsel at a time. It is kind of a nice break from the typical overdose-and-finish style of play that I typically follow.

Last week, I also grabbed Red Dead Redemption while it was on sale at K-Mart. I’m digging it so far, though I kind of wish that the story wasn’t a meager collection of annoying stereotypes. It is, however, a fun iteration on the standard Grand Theft Auto formula, and a great release for fans of Westerns.

Jody After preordering Metroid: Other M, I realized that while I have just about every Metroid game, I have never actually beaten any of them other than Super Metroid, and even that was just in the past year. So during August I started playing Metroid Prime Trilogy. With having a baby and all that, it’s hard to squeeze in game time, but I was able to put in enough to finish up Prime 1 at exactly 16 hours, plus put about 6 hours into Echoes. Why didn’t anyone tell me Metroid Prime was so fantastic? Not only is it great fun to play, but it looks fantastic (especially in 16×9), and reading through all the scans was really interesting. Plus the music! Prime is amazing. I’m really looking forward to Other M, but truth be told, I’m going to have a hard time tearing myself away from the Prime games.

Toby I’ve spent much of this console generation avoiding first-person shooters in lieu of more “interesting” games, but recently became overtaken with nostalgia about my high school weekends playing the first Halo with three friends. I decided to pick up Halo 3, and it’s the main thing I’ve been playing this month. Playing online is pretty fun and the maps are excellent, but I don’t know if anything can compare in my mind to sitting on the couch with my chums and enjoying game after game of Sidewinder with snipers and sticky grenades. Couch trumps online, every time.

Speaking of couches, the other game I’ve been playing is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. I know it’s seen as lazy that it doesn’t offer online multiplayer, but I don’t mind this at all. With so many games offering frustratingly truncated local options that are dwarfed by their online services, I can appreciate a game that requires me to play with a person next to me. It’s absolutely amazing to look at and listen to, but it pains me to say that I don’t enjoy the gameplay all that much. Perhaps beat-em-ups of that sort just aren’t for me? Regardless, I’m glad I paid for it and I hope to see Paul Robertson design for a million more games in the future.

Kyatt Considering how much the price has fallen over this past month, I had no choice but to finally get DJ Hero. Having not played one of the “Hero” games since GH: Aerosmith, I was surprised that it was actually pretty good, and somewhat hilarious in how they incorporate censorship into the gameplay.

I started playing Soul Calibur IV recently, but I only managed to get through arcade mode a few times before getting distracted by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which isn’t quite the interactive Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 that I hoped it would be, but it’s still great.

I’ve also been playing Team Fortress 2 a lot, but that’s a given at this point.

Dave I’ve been playing Castlevania HD, Monday Night Combat, Shank, and Red Dead Redemption. Two games I need to finish but haven’t been playing as much of are Dragon Quest Origins and Final Fantasy. Also, DJ hero is pretty excellent. I recommend it.

Carl I am about forty-five hours into Dragon Quest IX and slowly approaching the end game scenario, but I don’t really want to watch the game end, so lately I usually end up finding an excuse to go off and grind or look for treasure elsewhere instead of just charging ahead towards the final set of bosses. I sometimes have the same feeling of not wanting it to end about good books, but the neat difference between DQIX and books or even other more linear games is that you never have to do anything you don’t want to.

Besides that, I beat The Incident on my iPhone and I’m now exploring the mysterious “beard mode” after game scenario. I also tried the iPad version and got pretty far into it, but I think
it’s not quite as easy to control as on the iPhone, since it’s a tilt-based game.

And of course my never ending affair with Touch Solitaire for the DSi continues. It’s not very hardcore, but there’s no better way to zone out, or at least not until they release Tetris for DSiWare.

Calen I’m playing through the second expansion for Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers because it just came out and I LOVE Magic, despite having recently given all my cards to my brother. I’ve been muddling through the Starcraft II multiplayer and realizing that I’m horrifyingly inept at it. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has become my go-to online shooter, so there’s some of that and I’m working my way through Need for Speed Shift and Bioshock 2. These are all for PC as that is how I roll.

Rumas For me, August was all about getting reacquainted with two of my favorite games of all time: Excite Truck and Super Mario Sunshine.

During the summer of 2007, I spent an entire month with ET, achieving 100% completion, and had nothing but pure, utter fun the whole time. This past month, I revisited it for the first time in ages, starting from scratch, and I’m once again having a blast. To this day, the game is so much fun that it leaves me speechless.

Mario Sunshine is without a doubt my favorite Mario game ever, and a strong contender for my favorite video game of all time. Every time I play it, I feel myself instantly transported to Isle Delfino, and that’s a place I want to be. It’s the title with which I introduced my wife to video games, and she loves it just as much as I do, if not moreso. To both of us, the game is pure magic.

Years ago, I beat it with 111 ‘Shines’, and had never come back to find the remaining nine until this past month. As a result of the game’s bare-bones records system, finding out what I’ve needed to obtain has been a major undertaking, but I’ve been having fun the whole time. I’m on the very last Shine right now, and I don’t want it to end!

Side note: As far as I’m concerned, no 3D platforming has *ever* topped the ’secret’ levels in Sunshine. They’re so nerve-wracking I almost fear for my health when playing them.

The ++Good team talks Halo and welcomes Microsoft Game Studio’s Senior Product Manager to talk about the imminent launch of Halo: Reach.

If you are like me and have no interest in MMOs because of their slow combat, this just might change your mind.

$20 for King’s Quest Collection, The Whispered World, Jack Keane and Penny Arcade Adventures. Two more unlock if enough bundles are sold.

A new game from Nintendo (Wiiware it would seem) that has you controlling water in a tilt+physics based game. So far it looks very fun.

One of the best selling iPhone game is finally making its way on the Android platform. You can try the beta right now!

Awesome old technical drawings of possibly Atari designs. So sleek.