Seeing as I can no longer justify making direct news articles about gaming sweepstakes (with a little help from Travis), I’ve decided to post them here on GotSpace. The latest one comes from Konami who are celebrating Frogger’s 25th anniversary. Sorry, this entry isn’t calling out high-score junkies or artists in particular, merely people that can show off their “inner Frog”. O_o

Sup cosplay. I kid. All you have to do is send off a photo of yourself wearing (or doing) something that represents Frogger… all qualified entries will be entered in a drawing to win a Frogger scooter and a helmet. The contest kicks off on Sept. 11. Weekly winners will face off against each other in a final vote to determine who will win the Grand Prize package.

Click here for contest rules and details.

Never has a game made me feel such an extreme variety of emotions. Dead Rising is the greatest and most frustrating zombie game I have ever played. It is a realization of every idea I have ever thought would be awesome in a game about zombies. Zombies are by far my favorite type of monster and I boast a pretty impressive collection of zombie paraphernalia. Dead Rising is a worthy addition.

The story is basic, Frank, an intrepid reporter, goes to a small town to get the scoop of his life. Flying in by helicopter he sees a town gone mad with crazies attacking and eating people. He lands on the roof of a mall and tells the helicopter pilot to come back in 72 hours. This is where the game starts. Time goes faster in this game, so 72 game hours equals about 8 hours (give or take) of real time. Time is more your enemy than the zombies.

This is where the game might piss off some people. The main story is divided into “cases” and you only have a certain amount of time to complete each case. If you miss a case then you will miss out on the rest of the story. On top of cases you get “scoops” which is information about survivors trapped in various parts of the mall. That’s right, every bodies favorite game play mechanic ESCORT MISSIONS rears its ugly head. I personally hate them and in this game it is frustrating as hell. The A.I. is just terrible; your escorts get caught in holes, around corners and they usually just let the zombies eat their tasty innards. It isn’t the worst ever, but it could have been implemented much better.

Luckily, if you want you can ignore the survivors on your first play through and just do cases. There are also boss fights against people aptly named “Psychopaths”, which are regular people gone crazy. These can be really fun and all of them have awesome intros. However, this game has THE most frustrating boss battle I have played in a long time. I won’t spoil it for you, but you will know when you get to it.

There are light RPG elements in this game, Frank can level up to 50 and each level nets him more health, new moves, etc. If you die during the game you can choose to start over again from the beginning with all your stats intact. I actually did this a few times and it made the game a lot more bearable.

Being that the game takes place in a mall, you have many weapons at your disposal. If you can see it, you can bash a zombie’s head in with it. You can also dine on many gourmet foods (to replenish your health), and change into tons of stylish outfits to suit your fancy. Want to prance around in a sundress smashing brains in with a broom? Be my guest. This by far is where the game shines. The graphics allow for hundreds of zombies to be on screen at a time with almost no slowdown. Make no mistake, this game is HARD. There is no difficulty slider, you can and will be killed at anytime. The save system completes the tag team of pain by only allowing you to save in the Security Room or bathrooms scattered throughout the mall. You will be redoing portions of the game.

There is tons of replay value with multiple endings. In fact, I think it is impossible to do everything in one play through, much to the chagrin of completists. This game begs to be played multiple times and is never boring. The 360 finally has its killer app.

So the most fun I’ve been having lately, besides with Disgaea 2 (which if you are an SRPG fan, is a must own), is with my GBA. A little title published by Atlus recently called Summon Knight is a wonderful bit of old school RPG goodness. I wouldn’t have even considered the game had I not read about how good it is on another forum, cause I have seen only a few reviews for this one and they’ve all been average.

Why is it so fun? Well first off, it’s a short, 15-20 hours, goofy adventure. The characters all have funny little asides they say that have nothing to do with the story sometimes. The dungeon crawling is fast and the side-view 2D real-time action is simple and exciting. You spend most of the time crawling a huge dungeon: leveling up and collecting materials that you can use to make weapons in a bunch of different categories such as swords, axes, drills, etc. In combat, you can also switch between 1 of 3 weapons on the fly.

You are also aided by a guardian who can cast spells, use support magic etc. The overall storyline involves preparing for a competition that will make you the ultimate CraftLord. So besides dungeon battles, you’ll have boss battles and also mini-boss battles in the dungeons.

The interface is simple, the game is fun and funny, and it’s the best time I’ve spent on any handheld so far this summer. I doubt this game will be around too long and the sequel comes out this fall, so give it a chance if a simple RPG sounds good.

Surviving the worst gaming summer in recent memory with one’s gaming heart intact has been less than easy, but I can officially say that my doldrums are over.

I have actually purchased three – count ‘em! – games in August. I picked up two Maddens (one for the 360 and one for the PSP) and today I am headed to the store to grab a copy of Saints Row. Between these three games, I should actually have something to occupy my weeknights once I get home for good on September 2nd.

Weekends, of course, will be occupied by watching college football on Saturdays and pro football on Sundays, with baseball on both. During the week, though, it’ll be all about PSP Madden franchise on the train, 360 Madden franchise at home, and Saints Row online killing sprees with my old Xbox Live friends who haven’t seen me for months.

Finally – a couple of game-related things to be happy about.

Did I mention that there are two NHL games coming out on 9/12 for the 360?

Oh, happy day!

The new vB upgrade turned out to offer much more than I expected. Right now I’m just trying to get a few loose-ends taken care of. Later today, Lhadatt plans to tweak one of the default pages a bit more. This post actually is just some filler to see if the RSS External Provider is working ok.