30 Minutes Before Bed

On Thursday, April 21, 2011 something tragic happened — my PS3 didn’t work. It would say, “Error you have been signed out of PlayStation Network.” Then my friend told me someone hacked it the night before. All credit card information was found by this dude who hacked the PSN.

This incident has now been going on for 11 days. The head of Sony, Kaz Harai, has ordered a press conference for what I think will be a huge announcement on the security of the PSN and to tell us when the network will be turned back on. This has affected me greatly because I couldn’t play games online during this period of time. Now whenever anyone tries to log on it says PSN is undergoing maintenance.

This is driving me crazy because I just went on spring break. This hacker ruined my vacation. Why do people do that? Well, everyone else at my school was driven crazy by this, and I bet you were too.

As I grow up my family lets me play different games including Call of Duty. The only reason I could play this was because there was a gore button. Black Ops has many modes like online play and zombies.

Zombies: Zombie mode has many levels including Kino Der Toten, Five, Dead ops arcade, and Ascension. I am not really good at zombies but I do now that this mode also has a lot of guns Ill talk about that later.

Kino Der Toten: You play as these people in Kino, Marine Raiders (Tank Dempsey), Red Army (Nikolai Belinski), Imperial Army (Takeo Masaki), Wehrmacht (Doctor Richtofen). In Kino Der Toten there are many guns I will name 3. Ray Gun, Thunder gun, and Commando.

Five: Funny with five you play as John F Kennedy and others in the pentagon. In the beginning John F Kennedy says a speech.
“For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who only look to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. I said ‘are certain to miss the future.’”
— During the “Five” cutscene
“As I always say, forgive your enemies, but remember their names.”
— During the “Five” cutscene.
“Zombies… Gentlemen, at times like these our capacity to retaliate must be and has to be massive, to deter all forms of aggression.”
— During the “Five” cutscene.
Then it is just the same as Kino.

Dead Ops: Dead Ops is cartoon I’ve never played this because it’s a little complicated.

Ascension: Ascension comes in a map pack it is easier to buy at a store then online. Ascension you play as scientists in a lab. This map is more spread out and strategic then the others.

Online Play: Online play includes Wager matches, Private play, or Online.

Wager Match: This is were you bet money and play games like Gun game and Sticks and Stones. Usually Wager matches frustrate me if I lose but its still fun.

Private: Private match is where you play with your friends.

Public: Public match is where you pick a mode like Team Death Match and play with random people to win experience and earn money to get new guns or to use on your player card.

Player Card: A player card is where you can customize a picture. Some are creative some are stupid. This feature costs a lot of Cod points which is your money.

Over all Treyarch did a very good job some people don’t like this but if its Cod I like it.

• Will's Rating 4.5

The protaginists from Guilty Party.

We like a good mystery. We love to look for clues and find the missing item, or figure out whodunnit. In fact, every morning we participate in a mystery as we hunt for Will’s missing shoes. So when we found out that there was a game where you could solve mysteries on you own, we decided to try it out. Disney’s new game for the Wii, Guilty Party, is a fun attempt at trying to bring the solving of a whodunnit to video games.

The game let’s you take on the character of burgeoning sleuth as you try and figure out who the guilty party is for various crimes. You earn clues by playing a bunch of different mini-games, and keep track of all of the clues in a notebook, just like a real detective. Of course, the master bad guy, Mr. Valentine, puts out traps throughout the game and you have to thwart his traps to make sure you can find all the right clues.

The graphics are really cute, and kind of reminded us of the cartoon Total Drama Island. Some of the videos are quite entertaining, and turned out to be Will’s favorite part of the game.

Will thought the game was fun and challenging. Nathan also thought the game was fun, but didn’t find it challenging after the first few levels. Nathan got almost all of the mini-games on his first try.

One of the upsides to this game is that you can replay any of the levels with a new mystery. This provides for many more hours of additional playtime. If that is what you want.

Both of us found the game to be a bit repetitive after a while. Each level seemed to be very similar to the next, and the mini-games started to repeat themselves way too often.

As the game went on, Will found the game to get kind of frustrating as the suspects would just run away from our characters rather than answer our questions. This became pretty annoying.

Overall, we thought the game was fun to play for an evening, but not something we would play every day of the week. In fact, we agreed that we wouldn’t play the game more than one night a week. That said it made for a good family game which is expected out of the Disney brand.

• Will's Rating 3.5
• Nathan's Rating 2.5
• Average Rating 3

by Nathan

So I just finished playing Angry Birds.  I played the whole game on my iPhone and was shocked how addicted I was to the game.  I am actually sad that it is now over, and can’t wait until the new levels are downloadable.

If you haven’t played Angry Birds, it’s a mobile game from Robio with a fairly simple concept.  There are green pigs.  There are angry birds.  Use a sling shot to fling the angry birds at the pigs.  Try and kill all the pigs to move to the next level.  Repeat.

Angry birds attempt to topple the pigs' fortress.

It is a basic puzzle game, but the simplicity of the game is also what makes it so addictive.  You use your finger to launch the bird on the slingshot. You really only control the strength of the shot, and the direction of the bird.

Each level has the pigs holed up in different types of fortress-type-settings, so you need to figure out the best way to knock down the fortress.  As you try different angles to launch the birds, it results in different types of destruction.  I wanted to keep getting to the next level if only just to see what the next challenge would be.

The different color birds also have different skill sets.  For instance the white birds can drop eggs from the sky like a bomber.  While the blue birds can actually split into three birds mid-flight to wreak more havoc.  And as the game progresses you can unlock the new birds.

The birds and pigs are very cartoon-like, and over all the graphics made it entertaining to play.

With over 126 levels, the game has kept Will and myself  occupied many times.  It was easy to play whenever one of us were bored because we could pick up exactly where we left off from the last time.  And if one of us got through a level, of course the other one would want to do it too, so we would just go back and do the level again. 

For only $.99, it was well worth the price of keeping us both entertained for hours.  It also led to some great competition between the two of us to see who could do better level by level.

• Nathan's Rating 5
• Average Rating 5

by Will

Angry Birds is a game within the I Phone and I Pad. I believe Angry Birds is a game to all ages 3-100. You shoot birds at the target pigs. You have many different birds. High scores are also in the game to the competitive players. You can challenge friends by telling them the high score. Angry Birds toys are coming out. I enjoy this game when I’m bored shopping.

• Will's Rating 5

by Will

Wizard101 is a family game of course about wizards. You cast spells fight world bosses like Krokapatra who I just beat. Im in Marleybone now level27 balance school finding his way through the spiral. William Death Singer is my name if you see me say “hi”. There will be a new world of Celistia. Other worlds include Wizard City, Krokotopia, Marleybone, Mooshu, and Dragonspire. The schools are Life, Balance, Fire, Ice, Storm, Myth, and  Death.

I like this game because I can play it with school friends. I also in joy collecting interesting pets in the game.

• Will's Rating 4.5
• Average Rating 4.25

by Nathan

A spellcasting duel means playing your cards right.

Will likes to play Wizard 101.  He not only plays Wizard 101 for 30 minutes before bed, but he even plays it 30 minutes before breakfast.  And after breakfast.  And lunch.  And dinner.  In fact, Will seems to play Wizard 101 almost every day.  And why not?  He gets to play with his friends, go on quests, cast spells and fight with evil enemies whenever he wants.

Wizard 101 is an MMO created for kids by Kingsile Entertainment.  You get to play as a young wizard “studying” at a school for wizards.  And yes, it feels a bit Harry Pottery, complete with the schools headmaster being an old guy with a long beard and an owl, and I think his name is Albus Dumbledon’t.

So to surprise Will, I decided to play the game myself for a bit and level up to a point where I might be able to play alongside him and he wouldn’t be too embarrassed to have a Level 2 novice tagging along.  I have actually been playing enough to be up to a Level 5 Remedial Spell-casting Newbie Junior Apprentice.  Or something. However, with all of his playing time, I think that Will may now be a tenured professor at the wizarding school, teaching advanced potions to grad students.

One of the great things about the game is that it is free.  I have done several missions, quests and adventures and have yet to pay a dime, or a piece of gold.  I have learned that there are certain sections of the game that can only be accessed through paying for subscription or by buying access to that particular content, but I have yet to find a need for it with so much free content.

Also, the game control is easy.  Standard arrow keys get you around and there is teleporting to certain places, which is a huge time saver when you can use it.

Of course one of the most interesting aspects of the game is combat.  Combat is not accomplished through any sort of fighting wizards with lightning bolts shooting from wands or anything.  No, combat is actually a card game.  You have a deck of cards, each card being a spell, and you play your cards (cast your spells) against your enemies.  Of course different cards mean different levels of spells.  Some cards summon other characters to attack your enemies.  To me this one of the most entertaining parts of the game as everything from beetles to ice-snakes to ninja pigs might be summoned.  (Yep, ninja pigs.)  This is the best animation of the game by far.

One other aspect of the game I really enjoy is the fairgrounds in Wizard City.  The fairgrounds are actually a game area full of minigames that allow you to score some gold.  I have seen Will playing one of these minigames that looks an awful lot like Dig-Dug from my youth.  When I mentioned this to Will he kind of rolled his eyes and looks at me like I was born before cars were invented.  But sure enough, when I play it, it feels a lot like Dig-Dug with wizard-like overtones.  It is pretty addictive too as the better you do, the more gold you score.  Gotta have your loot!

Although the game play feels repetitive at times, I have found myself quite sucked in to this “kids’ game”.  I don’t yet have the need to play for hours on end, like Will, but it is pretty entertaining and I do keep coming back to it.  Every quest brings me closer to leveling up.  I find myself sneaking in a quest or card-game-spell-battle at lunch or between phone calls.  The graphics aren’t going to blow you away, but they are fairly good and remind me of any cartoon you might find will watching on the Disney Channel (Phineas and Ferb anyone?).

The point of this website is to find games that are great for a parent and child to play together, and up to now, Will and I have not played together.  Yet.  We will see if Will accepts me when he finds his step-dad in the middle of one of his wizarding battles.  That will be the true quest.

In the meantime back to the Dig-Dug knock off.  I need more gold!

• Nathan's Rating 4