Hokay, I have some ‘splainin’ to do here:

I’ve played both Kane & Lynch Dead Men and Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, but I’ve never actually owned the first game until a few weeks back when I saw this in a stack of games some guy was selling at a sidewalk sale. Two bucks? No problem. As for the much maligned Aliens: Colonial Marines? I never played the demo and didn’t see that footage everyone says was mocked up and not representative of the final product, so the whole controversy went over my scalp. That said, I nabbed this sealed with ALMOST all the collector’s edition goodies (no Power Loader) for ten bucks, which may seem like too much based on the acid spewed upon the game worldwide. I’ve only played about an hour and while it’s far from great, as a FPS, it’s got some fun bits here and there. My money is on Alien Isolation being a more compelling experience and provided the dopes lurking and jerking on message boards REALIZE that the new game is from a C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y different development team known for all of their games being solid experiences through and through.

Remember Me? Yes, Nilin… I do, my dear. I played the PC version (thanks, Capcom!) and loved it for the most part. Capcom also kindly sent me the Xbox 360 version, but I couldn’t play it when I got it thanks to my two busted 360’s collecting dust here. So, I gifted it to a friend so he’d crack it open (and let me review it at his place, of course) and ended up picking up the PS3 version recently for about five times less than what it retailed for last year. As for Silent Hill: Book of Memories? I love Wayforward’s games and the demo of this Vita exclusive was interesting in a “Hey, it’s like Diablo, but NOT!” manner. A few levels in, and I read that the game is pretty much the same thing from beginning to end, but has a level cap and some other stuff that makes it a bit tedious. I haven’t reached that point yet, but thanks for the forewarning, Internet…

On the import front, I love D3Publiser’s dopey Onechanbara games on the PS2 and Xbox 360, but I still need the Wii game and PS3 reworking of Onechanbara Z Kagura that has the bonus character NoNoNo! on the disc in order to feel as if I’ve played everything in the series to date. In the meantime, I picked up a used copy of the PSP-only (and Japan-only) Onechanbara Special, which is really disappointing on a few fronts. While the game looks decent enough (well, it looks like an Onechanbara game, frankly speaking), it seems weirdly multiplayer focused with bite-sized missions hampered by some truly wretched controls. With all the buttons on the PSP (less than on a PS2 controller, but still), the game doesn’t use them effectively enough at all and playing this becomes a camera wrangling affair that’s barely enjoyable. On the bright side, there seem to be loads of things to unlock, from new heroines to play as, weapons to use and a few sassy/sexy costumes. That said, I’d love to see this fixed up, localized and maybe given a budget US release via PSN at some point. Or heck, a flat out remake that fixes the issues while adding more of a story mode.

And finally… Metal Slug! Nope, this isn’t the original 1996 arcade game on a single disc at all, but the 3D game SNK produced for the 10th anniversary of the franchise. I’d last heard about this one back around 2005, but forgot about it for a while until I started seeing copies pop up in a few places at wildly varying prices (about $20 up to $80). After checking out a few reviews that said the game wasn’t bad at all, I decided to keep an eye peeled for a cheap copy. Given that the game was reprinted, I expected to end up with one of those cheaper reissues and not an original pressing. Nope, I scored the original 2006 version for a decent $25 shipped, which is more than I wanted to pay, but less than any other copy I saw sold in a few spots. I haven’t played this one yet, but I’m thinking the weekend may be the right time to do so, as I’ll have a little free time to dink around with what’s here…