Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. It’s a new year and therefore it must be time for the triumphant return of What Am I Playing?, this week starring our old favourite GHII, the crazy Japanesey Beautiful Katamari, and the XBLA rebirth of the decidedly old-skool Rez. Read on for my impressions of these games what I has been mostly playing this week.
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Guitar Hero II

Oh, GHII, what could be better than you? Sure, I have played a lot of this game’s successor, known as GHIII (oddly enough), but the soundtrack, the achievements, and the determination to completely pwn this game keep bringing me back again and again. Yes, I have been trying to beat Hangar 18 on Expert since before Christmas, and yes, I do swear a lot every time I get to 90% and fail miserably.
Still, I like to think I’m slowly mastering it. Also, I’m well on my way to getting 5 stars on every song on Hard, and I’m frequently getting about 2/3 of the way through Jordan on Expert.
Oh dearest achievements, why must thou tempt me?
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Beautiful Katamari

This is officially the second craziest Japanese game I’ve ever played. It involves making a big ball of junk in a certain time limit by rolling a ball, known as a Katamari, around town to pick things up. It’s so simple and yet so addictive. This is a great game to play on your own to try to beat your own scores and an even better game to play with friends.
I only have two complaints about Katamari – the first being that there is never anyone online when I try to play on XBL, and the second being that you can’t actually complete it without forking another fiver for downloadable content. This may be a budget title, but that’s just not cool.
The aforementioned DLC won’t be out until the game is unleashed on our green and pleasant land later this month, and hopefully that’ll mean I actually have some people to play with, too.
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Rez HD

Okay, so I’ll just come out and say it: what a shitty game. I guess I just don’t “get it”, but this seems like some kind of rhythm-game-slash-shooter, where you fly a wireframe man through various wireframe landscapes shooting enemies in time with a beat. Might I add that this man appears to be naked, which I am sure will upset the likes of Jack Thompson and Daily Mail readers.
At least this release brings us the enhanced “Rez HD” mode which seems to add, er, widescreen support, and, erm…. not a lot else. Other than that, it’s exactly the same game we saw on the Dreamcast back in 2001.
I’m just glad I played the demo thoroughly instead of falling for the hype and spending 800 points outright. I understand that millions of people all over the world remember this game fondly, but I never understood what all the fuss was all about. I guess I’ll just stick to Space Giraffe.
That said, I get the impression that Rez may be a lot more interesting following the ingestion of certain types of fungus.
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…And yes, I do appreciate the irony of criticising Rez in the same post as praising the equally esoteric (and pointless) Space Giraffe and Beautiful Katamari. That’s just how I roll, baby.
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