Breaking the Dry Spell

My beautiful wife has inspired me by starting a blog and so, I shall once again pick up the pencil (or in my case, dust off the keyboard) and write. But first, a few loose ends:

• Gears of War 2 - Great graphics, cool premise, sweet multiplayer, strange story.
  
• Dead Space - AWESOME game. Love the cheap scares and the interesting weapons.
  
• Mirror's Edge - My personal game of the year. Ending sucked, but it has a lot of potential for the future.
  
• Fable 2 - Fun, clever, but it has a horrible multiplayer and zero after-play value.
  
• Braid - Confusing story, great use of time manipulation. Very addictive.
  
• Crysis -Didn't finish it, but loved where the story was going. Gorgeous level design and huge environments.
  
• Burnout Paradise -As someone who isn't a racing fan, this has to be the best car game I've ever played. Loads of replay value, online play is solid, and plenty of DLC.
  

Whew! There we go. I think I'll take a break from old games and focus on new ones. About 3 months ago I got GameFly and I've had the chance to play a lot of newer releases. Hopefully soon I'll get the next game in my queue: Mass Effect 2.

Pants on the ground, pants on the ground

Purity and Faith

If we lived in a bizarre universe where reviewers measured the "value" of a game by its immersiveness, Fallout 3 would slay armies of lesser games and crunch the backs of most FPS's in 'twain.

Upon completing the game, I found a sort of warm comfort when the credits rolled and my quest was complete, freeing me of my virtual imprisonment. Shortly there after the warmth of success chilled to a void of loneliness. No game lasts forever, but Fallout really felt like it could. The main campaign inevitably felt shallow and short, an epic ultimately unfulfilled. Last night I picked it up again, determined to harvest the remnants of hope from the other 50% of the Wasteland I left unexplored. Surprisingly this was not disappointing. With the main quest put aside the gameplay was still very enjoyable. I believe this is because at its heart Fallout is about the Wasteland and not a single quest. The true experience is this crossroads of destruction and insanity and the inhabitants who hold on by a few crooked fingers. Good deeds to be done and bad ones to execute were still abound and Three Dog even sings of them (if you choose to listen). I believe this game will not go quietly into the night and with DLC promised, that can almost be guaranteed.

I will now compare playing the Mirror's Edge demo to eating a powdered, vanilla-creme donut. Your first bite is stale bread and powder up your nose when the unimaginative tutorial starts. Limited paths and move execution to continue? Tsk, tsk, tsk. In a game aiming to break new ground, this was incredibly rudimentary and boring. Then you bite into a small nip of creme after doing your first jump. The realistic vaults and rolls tease your tingling taste buds as you are still forced upon a rigid path. THEN CHOMP! You complete the tutorial to find the soft sugary payload of creme filling called the first free-running mission. This was incredibly fun and thrilling with the only exception being a limited environment in which to run. Although you quickly find yourself crunching on your fingers as the demo concludes with an invigorating chase. Like every good donut.. err.. game demo, you can only imagine what the rest is like. Until then.... Portal 1.5: Mirror's Edge!

And if you didn't shoot Celeste, you aren't a real gamer =P