Birthday!

Sorry for the delay; been busy. I had a birthday last Friday, and there were related and unrelated festivities throughout the long weekend.

In recent news, I finished Prey. It was short. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and even a little nausea-inducing with it's blatant disregard for everyday expectations of space and gravity, but there isn't much to rant about. The graphics were slick, the presentation and voice acting were both solid, the weapons were effective (though interchangeable in most situations), and the plot was interesting enough. Most notably, the way the developers played with gravity and portals was quite effective, and the native American spiritual subtext was pretty interesting. These aspects really set Prey apart from most FPS games, which is why it's sad that they seem to have run out of time while making it. There are two very convenient events later in the game that effectively skip over what promise to be long and varied explorations of both an alien ship and a spiritual plane. *sigh*

In other news, I'm almost finished Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. The final battle, however, is proving to be quite maddeningly frustrating. I dunno, maybe I need to level-up some (my guys are both at 38). Fantastic, albeit short, game though. Definitely pick it up if you have a GBA, DS, or even get it for an emulator. You won't be disappointed, especially since it's now one of those discounted "Player's Choice" titles.

Since the end of last week, I've picked-up Guitar Hero (PS2), Burnout Revenge (XBOX), Sonic Mega Collection Plus (XBOX), Unreal II (PC), Need For Speed Most Wanted Black Edition (PC), and Peter Jackson's King Kong (PC). Guitar Hero was a birthday present from the family, and I love it so ;) Within a day or three of casual play, I'd already finished all of the regular songs on medium difficulty as well as unlocked all of the bonus songs and the Grim Ripper. I'm so happy to see "No One Knows" by Queens Of The Stone Age on there :) Burnout Revenge was marked-down to ~$20, so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. It's very pretty and pretty fun, so it's definitely worth what I paid for it thus far. Unreal II, NFS, and Kong were impulse buys while I was out shopping for a new computer desk. Staples had them marked-down to the ridiculously cheap prices of $0.97, $9.97, and $9.97, respectively. Kong presents me with an unfortunate situation though; I now have three StarForce-protected games on my computer (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Trackmania: Sunrise, and King Kong). Fortunately, there is a free tool that removes the offending software when I'm not playing the games. Unfortunately, I have to restart my computer before and after each StarForce-protected gaming session.

You may have noticed that I skipped over that Sonic collection I mentioned in the last paragraph... Here's why: It's mostly fantastic, and deserves a paragraph all to itself. You can find it brand-new for under $20 CDN these days, and it includes four of the best reasons to own a SEGA Genesis: Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Ristar, and Comix Zone. That's right, not only does it include the Sonic games (including the "lock-on" games, Spinball and 3D Blast), but it also has some real classics in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (a.k.a. Puyo Puyo ;) ), Flicky, The Ooze, Ristar, and Comix Zone. This "Mega Collection" also includes a spotty collection of Sonic's Game Gear adventures that strangely omits some of the better ones (Sonic 2, Triple Trouble) while including lacklustre titles like Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic Drift, and the painful Sonic Blast. Unlocking the locked games in Sonic Mega Collection Plus can be mind-numbing (playing certain combinations of unlocked games 20 to 50 times each), but it's still a great value for $20; you really can't go wrong when you consider what you get. Oh, and I should mention that you can save at any point in any game. Now I just hope we see the Sonic Gems Collection (it includes nearly every Sonic game that this collection doesn't, including the venerable Sonic CD) on something other than the Game Cube here in North America.

And finally, I've just played through the demos for Call Of Juarez and Lego Star Wars 2. The former is very pretty if your computer can handle it, has some really promising gameplay dynamics, and takes absoloutely forever to load each level. The latter is just like the first one in the series, but with even more detail (building an AT-ST walker and then driving it around is great fun) and more freedom (designing your own character can get pretty funny).

Alright, that was long. I'm going to bed. 'til next time, kids, be well!