Flashback: Party however you want in Dragon Quest IX

For uninitiated readers, the Dragon Quest series is by far the most popular series of RPGs in Japan. It's not uncommon for Japanese businesses to shut down when a new Dragon Quest is released because so many employees have skipped work to pick up the next installment. The fact that the newest one is exclusive to the DS is a great asset to Nintendo. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies has some big shoes to fill, and it does not disappoint.

Flashback: Crackdown 2 is astoundingly mediocre

Crackdown 2 is finally out and gamers have greeted it with a well-deserved cry of "meh." The first Crackdown had more going for it: it included the Halo 3 beta.

Flashback: Transformers: War for Cybertron breeds Halo and Twisted Metal

The game industry is a lot like the film industry. More an more often, the fomula seems to boil down to taking existing intellectual property, adapting it to the medium and then cranking out as many sequels as possible. This has been done in video games for years, especially with superhero games, and thinking about these poorly-made, unoriginal disappointments gives the whole genre an overwhelming sense of dread. That's the feeling that comes when hearing that there's a new Tranformers game, but it will quickly dissipate this time around.

100 posts!

Hard to believe it, but this is post number 100 for Deranged Gamer. I hope everyone reading has enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. Thanks for everything, Internet! 

Flashback: Split/Second delivers explosive action

You know how some people only watch car races on TV in the hopes of seeing a wicked crash? Split/Second was undoubtedly made by those people. They've packed so many huge explosions and crashes into this game that you'd think Michael Bay had a hand in it. If there isn't something over-the-top happening every 30 seconds or so, you're playing a different racing game.