Welcome to the Loadout. Our philosophy is that the working week is a recurring boss battle that you’ll need the proper weapons to take down. The supplies at hand won’t always be pretty but you might just be able to hold out until the weekend. Green means add it to your arsenal, yellow leaves it up to your discretion and red means back away slowly. With that, let’s see what we’ve got this week:
The Game: Super Meat Boy
Specifications: You play as a squishy, skinless cube-shaped lad who must rescue his girlfiend (whose made entirely of bandages) from the angry Dr. Fetus, an embryo who wears a tuxedo exoskeleton. Yeah, let all that sink in. Team Meat–the scrappy indie studio behind this Xbox Live game–won loads of awards and acclaim on its way to release, and deservedly so.
Ideal Usage Scenario: With challenging difficulty and super-simple controls, SMB‘s geared towards fans of old-school platforming action. The game’s super-polished and packs in visual and stylistic references to scabs scads of NES-era classics. Can you say no to a little dude who gushes blood every time he moves across the screen? We didn’t think so.
(More on Techland: Shadow Play: Limbo Review)
The Game: Fallout: New Vegas
Specifications: The latest of Bethesda’s radioactive action/RPG titles sets its sights on Sin City, where you play as an amnesiac courier trying to figure out who shot him and left him for dead in the Mojave Wasteland. Developer Obsidian Entertainment sports a few vets from the classic CRPG Fallout series, so expect callbacks to those brilliantly twisted titles.
Ideal Usage Scenario: You’ve been reading the sage scribblings of FNV senior producer Jason Bergman but, in case you need actual convincing, know this: New Vegas’ characters and quests get deeply involving and its new weapons–like the grenade machinegun–are devilishly ingenious. You’ll be playing this one for probably more than 100 hours and will enjoy every second of it.
(More on Techland: The Bergman Files: Five Funny Bugs Eradicated from Fallout: New Vegas)
The Game: DJ Hero 2
Specifications: The dance-centric music game lets you get twice the turntablist action with all new co-op modes. The track list features tunes by Common, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, making it the perfect party starter.
Ideal Usage Scenario: If you want to croon over “Bad Romance,” DJH2’s singing modes will scratch your itch. The songlist is 105 songs deep and the new battle modes pit make-believe wax-spinners against each other in a fun, visually arresting showdown. All in all, DJ Hero 2’s a great upgrade to the first game’s innovations.
(More on Techland: Jam On It: First Look at DJ Hero 2 and Its Complete Artist Listing)