By the time you have read this column, I will have left Gainesville, curled up on my couch back home and put myself into a video game coma. Instead of catching up on new releases during my time off, as I assume many will do, I like playing my favorite games during breaks. I feel as if I’m returning to a time of innocence before papers, projects and deadlines consumed my life. In my opinion, new releases — even the ones your friends rave about — are way too expensive to risk buying. However, if you do happen to have $60 burning a hole in your wallet and want to try something new, here are two new games you should play during your week of freedom.
“Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds”
Console: PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Price: $60
Before “Super Smash Bros.” upped the ante for chaotic fighting games with “Melee” and “Brawl,” the MvC franchise offered the preeminent chance to play wacky characters fighting other wacky characters amidst random explosions.
After several years on hiatus, Capcom has revived the franchise and included a new group of characters that have appeared, such as Viewtiful Joe, Dante, Amaterasu and that guy from “Bionic Commando.”
On the Marvel side, Deadpool makes his first franchise appearance, along with some of Marvel’s weirder characters, such as M.O.D.O.K. and Dormammu. In all, it has 36 characters available, and developers are working on making more characters in the future.
The three-on-three fighting system — the series’ staple — hasn’t changed much, but the controls have been simplified, making it easier for beginners to set up combos and engage screen-filling laser explosions.
Beginners to the genre also will find an easy and fun way to beat a Sentinel to death with a wolf-god, but hardcore fans should learn to accept the less complex gameplay.
“Bulletstorm”
Console: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Price: $60
If after a yearlong bender of playing nothing but “Call of Duty” and “Halo: Reach” your taste for first-person shooters has soured, Epic Games might have the perfect palate-cleansing product.
“Bulletstorm” is similar to its big brother, “Gears of War,” in that most battles are fought with the always-great combo of hyperviolence and foul language. But “Bulletstorm” goes the extra mile.
The storyline is like a grindhouse movie on meth, with drunk rocket crashes, a backtalking cyborg and Mechagodzilla. The gameplay also ditches cover tactics in favor of racking up points based on how awesome and depraved your kills are. Killing an enemy in midair nets you some points, but shooting that enemy in the balls racks up even more.
The game also features Anarchy mode, in which up to four players mow down waves of enemies racking up as many points as possible, similar to “Gears of War”’s Horde mode.
For the first-person gearheads and the adrenaline junkies, “Bulletstorm” is like Christmas wrapped in the X Games delivered by Robert Rodriguez.
