The Gamebits message boards are now accessible via the Web. Use the navbar links to get there. If you need to sign up for an account, use signup code GAME and buddy code KGAGNE. That'll get you a free month, as will signing up with a credit card. Add it all up and membership is ridiculously cheap.
After some editing, I'll be placing reviews of Devil May Cry and Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro here. Enix has a pre-production copy of Dragon Warrior VII en-route so that I can get a review done before the amazing month of November rolls around, with its GameCubes, Xboxes, and Solid Snakes.
Don't forget that Daylight Saving Time ends tonight; turn back your clock!
While working my way through a game this week, I decided to avail myself of a free game hint service offered to the press by Prima Games. I emailed a help request to their help line at midnight EDT Thursday morning, and had not received a reply as of 10:00 AM Friday morning, falling outside the advertised "2 hours or less". There was no live support at the phone number given. I informed their public relations person of this lapse.
Within a few hours she returned my call. Apparently, my help request was the first one not answered in the two weeks since the service started, and she was going to find out why. Shortly thereafter I also received an email from Prima, informing me my email had been forwarded to the wrong person. This email had the information I needed (still past deadline) as well as a promise for future strategy guides.
So here's the score. Thumbs up for offering a great service to the press community; thumbs down for poor execution; thumbs up for feeling really bad about the poor execution.
Two new reviews today. Spy Hunter was much too short. Granted, I played it for a few hours each day, Monday through Friday (maybe 8-10 hours total), but I finished all 14 missions and 65 objectives and unlocked all 16 cheats. It's rare for me to play a game that completely, and rarer for it to leave me wanting more. More!
In other news, Gamebits is temporarily serving as owner of the Singles Community on Syndicomm. Singles joins the Gamebits video gaming forum, and the Prolific Quill writing forum as areas we manage on Syndicomm. We hope to have the message boards accessible from the Web within a month or two. If anyone is interested in developing web sites for these communities, please contact me.
Reasons to own a PS2:
- Silent Hill 2 - review up today.
- Spy Hunter - review soon.
Anyone heard of, much less played, One Piece Mansion, a PSOne puzzler from Capcom? It's an odd sim-type title in which you're an apartment building owner who needs to manage the placement of tenants in relation to each other. Some make their neighbors cranky, while others have soothing effects. It's a genuinely odd game that I honestly didn't find very entertaining at all, even at an MSRP of $19.95. But nice try, Capcom!
Latest review is of Portal Runner, a PS2 game from 3DO. I enjoyed this title about as much as I did Army Men World War: Land, Sea, Air. Which reminds me, Silent Hill 2 (review coming Tuesday) was the first PS2 game I've liked. Huh.
I just finished playing Silent Hill 2 - a fantastic and very disturbing game, though not quite as satisfying as the original. You'll see from my review, posted next week, that I still highly recommend it.
The delay of several high-profile games into October has, of course, thrown my intended review schedule into chaos. Neither Spider-Man 2 nor Soul Reaver 2 has yet hit the shelves, as originally expected, leaving them to compete with Castlevania Chronicles, Devil May Cry, and possibly Dragon Warrior VII and Spy Hunter for space on Gamebits. I've noticed PR firms tend to be falling behind in shipping review copies, so that we don't get our hands on games until a week or two after their consumer release, which does us little good. It'll be interesting to see if this trend continues into the all-important holiday season.
