Resident Evil 5

Date played: October 29th and 30th
Platform: PC
Time played: 260 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played a LOT of Resident Evil 5 in the last two days. I fought through some ruins where some bad guys were using some sort of lens to create beams of fire and block my path. It was cool, but it was nothing compared to the discovery that Umbrella was involved with TriCell. I knew they would find a way to get Umbrella in there!

Jill and Wesker, chillin'.

I found zombie flowers, lickers (the best RE enemy if you ask me) and a whole underground lab full of spooky things and weird experiments. There was a lot of walking down a corridor, shooting dudes, then moving on to a little puzzle. There was also a few boss fights. One of them had me fight a huge creature on a rotating platform. I had to shoot it's legs to make it fall down then shoot it in the mouth with a shotgun.

The second boss was more interesting. It was Orobouros or something and I had to shoot it's limbs then grab a flame thrower from a wall to butn it down when it's limbs were regenerating. It was pretty difficult, I died twice but then I kind of got into the groove and beat it.

Then I finally hit a major plot point. Wesker is there AND he's been working with Jill Valentine! What the fuck? Either way, I stopped playing at that point but next time I play, I have to fight them.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Date played: October 26th
Platform: PC
Time played: 60 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and what a great finish it was!  I played the last real level where I had to explore a fiery area and fight three gigantic monsters with shields, even bigger than the ones before.  It was actually a bit of a challenge but my rocket launcher, minigun and bombs made short work of them.  The only part that sucked is that for the first time, my PC chugged just a little bit in that level.  I think it was because of the massive amounts of fire, lava and embers all around the place.

Then I fought the last boss, a weirdo with a tiki mask, a skirt and a green aura.  It was actually a really cool fight.  He would attack me from afar while I was stuck in a few different death trap areas, fending off smaller enemies and attacking him whenever I could.  In the last level, I unlocked the Golden Shotgun and boy, does that bitch hurt!  It killed any enemy I saw in one shot up close and took off more than half the bosses health per round.  I did switch to the minigun with smaller enemies since it's faster but the shotgun was a life saver.  I avoided spikes, spiders, explosive eggs, balls of lava and killed the big fuck.

Now that bitch is dead and the stupid mirror is back in it's place.

Surprisingly, the plot involved returning a mirror to a pedestal, something I had forgotten long ago.  Either way, great game that was overlooked by most.  I truly enjoyed it and hope to see more games like it, Lara Croft or not. 

Ghost Recon Shadow Wars

Date played: October 25th
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 70 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

I played a mission where I had to blow up a drone birthing train and defeat the incoming enemies.  While that doesn't sound that hard, there are things I didn't know the first TWO times I played it.  First, I put my team out and sent the engineer to set the three charges required to blow up the train.  That went well except that I didn't know that all my characters had to be at least one square away from the train for it to blow.  Now that would not have been a problem except that I set down a turret on a space adjacent to the train and thus, could not blow it up until I picked up the turret.  Since my engineer was so far away, I was overrun by robotic drones that spawn from the train every few turns.

The second attempt was better.  I didn't set down a turret and I was a bit more meticulous but when I blew up the train, a horde of enemies spawned near my sniper and killed him very quickly, failing the mission once more.

Maybe The Escapist was right all along

The third time, I had this shit down.  I knew exactly what to do and where to put my troops.  As I was clearly about to win the match, the fucking battery died on my damned 3DS.  I thought, hey no problem, I'll just plug it in right?  The thing is, I'm in a foreign country right now and I had not tested my power converter yet.  Guess what?  It doesn't fucking work.  So here I am, about to finish the mission and I can't charge my console and I won't be able to play it for the rest of the trip.

Long live PC gaming?

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Date played: October 23rd
Platform: PC
Time played: 120 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10

It feels good to play a video game after a pretty long break (for me anyway).  Due to circumstances involving my work, I now only have access to my PC and my 3DS for about a month.  I decided that this would be a good time to play some of the games I have sitting on Steam that I haven't completed yet.

I have never been a fan of flamethrowers in games

First at bat is Lara Croft.  I played three levels and am now only two levels away from finishing it.  I solved a multitude of puzzles that involved levers, platforms, flames, giant balls, deadly spikes and buttons.  I shot a bunch of dudes that conjure fire, some giants with big metal shields and even little dinosaurs.

Oh yeah, I also fought a giant t-rex who's on fire.  That's right.  A giant, fiery t-rex.  I killed him with a bazooka.  One of my favorite weapons so far is the new minigun I picked up.  It doesn't use that much ammo, shoots fast and can keep enemies at bay very well.

I look forward to the last two levels of the game, I hope they don't disappoint.  

Dead or Alive Dimensions

Lei Fang rocks

Date played: October 17th
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 15 minutes
Session fun rating: 5/10

I tried out the arcade mode for a short time, I wanted to see what it's all about.  It's pretty simple really, it's a series of fights against the AI.  Once completed, another "level" of arcade mode was unlocked, which presumably has a higher difficulty.

I beat the first three levels of arcade mode with button mashing and a chick with big tits.  It was nice.  I really should mention that the titty physics are quite good.

Gran Turismo 5

The Dome Zero Concept handles like an old truck

Date played: October 17th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 40 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played a few events, one with the weird looking Dome Zero Concept and the other with my cute Volvo C30.

Dead or Alive Dimensions

Date played: October 16th
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 70 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

I'm going on a month long trip at the end of the week and thought it would be a great time to get a new handheld game.  I went with Dead or Alive Dimensions.  I like DOA, I like my 3DS and there aren't a lot of good games for it so this seemed like a natural choice.

I started playing Chronicle mode which seems to be the main single player mode.  I was expecting a regular arcade mode of some sort but what I received shocked me.  This is a full on story mode that incorporates tutorials.  It won't even let me choose a character to play since this is all story based.  The mode is VERY Japanese to say the least.  Too much exposition, lots of panty shots and many overly dramatic conversations. I played less than I watched...

The graphics prove that the 3DS has a lot of untapped power

The actual combat is really good though.  The controls are responsive, the frame rate is tight and it's still as fun as ever.  What I like about DOA is that it's very fast paced but still easily approachable.  I even tried an online match and won it!  That was a lot of fun but there was noticeable lag, I hope it's not a problem with all matches.  I think DOA Dimensions will make a good travel partner!

NBA Jam On Fire Edition

Date played: October 16th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 20 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

I didn't play the disc based version of NBA Jam that came out last year so I didn't really know what to expect.  I did play a lot of NBA Jam when I was a child, I must have been about 10 or 11 years old at the time.  To me, NBA Jam is all about fast action, funny looking characters, a dumb commentator, choppy postage stamp sized FMV and amazing dunks.

As usual, Lebron is a BEAST

2011's NBA Jam is all of that, minus the FMV.  I played two matches against my brother and I won the first one, he won the second.  Then, to my surprise, my girlfriend joined us and we did three more matches.  Me and her against my brother, me against them and lastly, her against me and my brother.  Every time, the team that lost was the team with two players.  It makes sense right?  When there is an AI playing, it's easier to coordinate as it seems the AI always knows where to be.  When it's a human, we welcome human error to the equation.

I like this game, it's silly, simple and fun.  I just wouldn't want to play it alone.

NHL 12

On the bright side, I wore this!

Date played: October 16th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 35 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10

Nothing special to report here.  I played two matches against one of my brothers who came over to visit.  He won the first game between Montreal and Ottawa.  I had good chances but couldn't really score enough.  The next game we picked random teams and I got the Dallas Stars, he got the St-Louis Blues.  I don't know if it was my brother's fault or the Blues's fault, but their team was very disorganized.

This game ended in a shootout with my brother winning easily, I still can't aim my shots well enough.

Gran Turismo 5

Date played: Ocotber 15th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 45 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

The Ferrari 512BB has been my work horse.  Whenever I can use it in an event, I do.  It's fast, fun to drive and it takes great photos, as seen below.

Cheap, fast, easy to drive and gorgeous!

Gran Turismo 5

The ugliest car in Gran Turismo

Date played: October 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 240 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

Before

After

I started playing GT5 again after I heard they put out a big patch.  The patch makes the loading faster and adds a lot of little improvements, all of them welcome.  Since there isn't much to say about racing in GT5, I'll turn these GT5 posts into photo galleries, my favorite part of the game.

Outland

Date played: October 10th
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 60 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

Outland went on sale for 5$ on XBLA a few weeks ago and because I had enjoyed the demo, I bought it but didn't play it until yesterday.  While the first 15 minutes were quite boring since I had already played them in the demo, everything else was interesting.  The game is simple to play, it's a 2D side scrolling game in the vein of Super Metroid or Castlevania Symphony of the Night, but a bit more streamlined than those two epics.

There is also an Ikaruga vibe as the main character can change between light and dark polarity.  When light, he is immune to light damage and can damage dark creatures and when dark, he is immune to dark damage and can damage light creatures.  It makes for some interesting platforming and fighting, changing polarity on the fly and even mid jump.

Of what I played, nothing really stood out except the boss battle.  I fought little ants, big ants, flying jelly fish, burrowing rodents and explosive beasts that stick close to the ground.  I activated lifts, completed dangerous jumps and avoided "bullets".  There is an upgrade mechanic also.  It's simple and it works, at least so far.

The golem is a great first boss

Then I got to the boss.  He is an amazing looking golem that shook the ground with deadly shock waves and launched cocoons to a tree who would spawn beetle like creatures.  It was a simple fight and I beat him on my first try but it was fun and pretty.  I will definitely keep playing this game.

NHL 11

You can't do THAT in NHL 11

Date played: October 10th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 40 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

Man, it's crazy how many improvements have been made to NHL 12 without me ever noticing.... I played two online matches and lost both but again, dominated in shots on goal.  I just can't seem to put the damn puck in the net.  I actually only had one goal and boy, it was a beauty, a cross-crease pass followed by a top wrist shot.

The physics system is probably the biggest change that I overlooked.  The collisions, checks and board play is very different simply because the players react in a more natural way.  The animations are better in 12 too.  As are the commentators and even the music.  I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy NHL 12, 11 just feels so outdated already...

Eufloria demo

Those orange leaves?  They're spaceships.

Date played: October 10th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 20 minutes
Session fun rating: 4/10

The concept is kind of cool, the graphics are interesting, the music fits but I just couldn't get into Eufloria.  The game is about controlling little seedlings that are born out of trees that grow on asteroids.  You then take those seedlings to the next asteroid to make them plan trees to spawn more seedlings.  It actually felt like an RTS without the micro management.

The first two or three missions are just tutorials but the last two missions of the demo are real missions and involve combat.  Essentially, "Greys" are the enemy and the objective of the game is to balance your seedlings around different asteroids to both defend your colonies and attack the enemy's.  It works pretty well and it's a nice concept but in the end, it was just boring if you ask me.  The other little problem is that while the game has really cool simple graphics, I ended up playing the game with a zoomed out view all the time because it was more efficient so I didn't really get to see all the great details and animation.  This would work better as a portable game I think, I would play this for a few minutes on my phone or 3DS but I'm never going to play it from my couch.

NES extravaganza 2!

Date played: October 9th
Platform: Dreamcast
Time played: 60 minutes
Session fun rating: 10/10

Me and my brothers were asked (politely) to vacate the living room so that my girlfriend and my mom could watch some reality shows and since we are such nice guys, we obliged.  I have this great setup in my basement with a bunch of old consoles, including a Dreamcast with a bunch of home brew software.  One of these is a huge collection of NES games.

This is where the magic happens

We made a number of interesting discoveries and had a huge dose of nostalgia.

-Indy Heat is still amazing fun and that Off Road racing is vastly inferior to it.
-We still remember most of the track designs in Micro Machines.
-Adventure Island is tougher than we remembered and the music still rocks.
-Star Tropics still holds up.
-Jurassic Park sucks balls.
-California Games doesn't make any sense.

We also confirmed that we can still have a shit load of fun together, no matter how old a game is.

LittleBigPlanet 2

Play the Breakout arcade game, it gives you a reward!

Date played: October 9th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 20 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

Me and my brothers also got some three player LBP 2 going.  We simply played a few story missions and us being the idiots we are, we spent more time trying to make each other fail that we didn't actually get much done.  We did reach the space themed world and enjoyed a level that made gravity very light.

We also messed around with some mini games such as the rocket arena battle.  This game is always fun, I don't know why I don't play it more often.

NHL 12

That's me in NHL 12

Date played: October 9th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 40 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played a few matches with two of my brothers who were visiting.  I always have the same problem, I can set up beautiful plays, I can make great passes, I can play good defense and I get plenty of shots on goal.  However, it seems like the puck never fucking goes in the net!  I really think I need to work on aiming my shots properly.

We played as random teams so I ended up with the Ducks and the Canucks.  I lost both my games regardless of if I was teamed up with a bro or not.

Deus Ex Human Revolution

Date played: October 8th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 30 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

I completed the mission where I had to go stun a gun and plant drugs in his house.  I just shot him with the stun gun.  Then I was headed to the next story mission.  I hacked a computer and was redirected to another area.  When I got there though, there was a bunch of enemies and I tried multiple ways to approach it and got killed every time.  I was really tired though and was aiming too well, I should play when I'm more lucid honestly.

Oh yeah and I picked up a fun novelty weapon, a kinetic shotgun that knocks down enemies with a giant pulse of energy.  It's super awesome to use but it takes up a lot of inventory space and I haven't really seen ammo for it so I won't be using it unfortunately.

EVE Online

The Zephyr is an exploration ship

Date played: October 8th
Platform: PC
Time played: 120 minutes
Session fun rating: 4/10

It's official, I fucking hate scanning in EVE Online.

While I enjoyed my time doing regular missions (courrier, recovering files from scrapped ships, etc), I never thought scanning would be that frustrating.  On the bright side, I won an Iteron from a mission.  On the other hand, I can't use it until I'm out of my trial account.

NHL 12

It's cool to have the junior teams in NHL 12

Date played: October 7th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 90 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

A good friend came over to visit on Friday so we played some NHL 12 for a good part of the evening.  There are a lot of little improvements I hadn't noticed the other times I've played.  The animations are better, the cut scenes are less choppy, there are goalie interference calls, delay of game calls and you can even check a player into the bench area!

It's all in the little things for a game like this.  We played a lot of games with different teams, random teams and even played on that had the Ottawa 67's and the Gatineau Olympiques going at it!  We traded wins for a while but the last few games, he beat me more than I beat him.

Dirt 3

I unlocked the Monster liveries!

Date played: October 6th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 60 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10

I felt the need.  The need for speed!  So instead of putting in Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, I put in Dirt 3 and played through about five or six events.  There was a good rally event in the snow that had four different legs, a Land Rush that gave me the option of using trucks of buggies (I picked trucks of course), a dumb DC event where I had to smash the robots, a fun Rally Cross event and a Head 2 Head event in snow.

The best of the bunch was the Rally Cross where I sported my new Oakley livery in a Peugeot 205.  The most exciting moment was a sweet overtake at the start of the race.  I love this game.  Screw Gran Turismo.

Gears of War 3

Date played: October 4th
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 90 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished Gears of War 3.  I think this was the best third person shooter I've ever played honestly...  Everything came together perfectly, my only gripe being the part with zombie enemies which was thankfully pretty short.

The last chapters of the game has the Gears rushing the Locust that occupy Azura, complete with air support, Silverbacks and lots and lots of big dudes with giant guns and chainsaws.  There was a cool scene where the Gears had to defend an area while Jack (He's back, fixed and helpful!) opened the door to some elevators.  Then, the Queen.

While trying to reach the top of a very luxurious building, the Locust Queen decided to crash the party with her giant beetle mount.  To my surprise, I didn't have to shoot her, at least not yet.  All we had to do was run away from her while climbing stairs.  The kicker is that her mount has a destructive and amazing looking attack where it basically screams fiery light and burns everything in it's path.  I had to take cover while running away.  Needless to say, it was fucking awesome.  We then cut down some support cables and dropped a giant ornament on her and the mount.  She was gone for now but would come back.

The Gears then rescued Adam Fenix, killing dozens of Locust along the way.  I won't spoil any details but let's just say that Adam has been hiding some very important details....  We then headed out to activate a weapon Fenix senior had built that would destroy all Lambent and hurt the Locust very badly.

Queen Myrrah was a worthy and formidable opponent

This was the scene of the last fight of the game where the Queen comes back and tries to stop Adam from using the weapon.  We had to shoot the mount in the face, then shoot it multiple times with the Hammer of Dawn while hiding from the fire screaming, protecting the weapon and fighting off more motherfucking Locust!  It was awesome, it was kind of difficult and most importantly, it was fun.

Adam manages to fire the weapon after we killed the Queen and wiped out all Lambent and many Locust.  Without spoiling everything, Marcus ends up with the rest of the Gears on a beach where there is a heartfelt scene with Anya.  The best part of the ending?  Marcus took off his doo-rag and I saw his cute little fluffy black hair.

Battlefield 3 beta

Courage Wolf says so

Date played: October 4th
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 30 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played two matches last night.  The first was a complete shit show.  My team was composed of complete idiots who camped an sniped while on attack.  I managed to blow up one of the objectives by myself but without the support of my team, we weren't able to blow up the second so the game was over in less than 10 minutes.

The second game was much better.  The team was better this time and we defended the second set of objectives until we won.  I should mention, I've been falling in love with C4, one of the new abilities I unlocked for the support class.  There was a moment while defending the second set of objectives where I heard the enemy had planted the bomb at the site that is right in the middle of the train tracks.  I first threw a grenade in there, got one kill, then got closer and threw some C4 through the door.  I blew that bitch up and scored a fucking amazing triple kill!  Those things are way stronger than they are in other games.  When you set up C4 in BF3, shit blows to bits.  Satisfying to say the least.

EVE Online

Date played: October 3rd
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 140 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

Me and my buddy tried something new last night!  I grabbed my Tristan, he grabbed his new cruiser and we headed out to 0.5 space to explore asteroid belts.  We didn't really know what we were looking for but we found things, that's for sure.  He was equipped with mining lasers, a salvaging unit and scanners.  I had two rail guns, two rocket launchers, my probe and some defenses.

That little speck in the middle?  That's me.  I might be small but I'm agile and have decent firepower...I think.

There was a lot of empty asteroid belt roaming but we found quite a few pirates.  I shot them and didn't really have any problems.  I then looted them and my friend salvaged them.  It was cool moving around together and exploring!  In one sector, we hit the jackpot.  We found a bunch of blue wrecks which meant we were able to loot them.  I think one guy was mining and decided to leave his loot.

Honestly, just going out and doing stuff was really fun and motivating.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

Date played: October 2nd
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 35 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10

The price is right!  Nintendo celebrates Zelda's 25th anniversary with a free Zelda game for 3DS and DSi.  Thankfully, I have both a 3DS and a DSi XL so me and my girlfriend were able to download it and play for a little while.

Aren't they adorable?

The concept is great, a co-op Zelda game.  Honestly, I don't understand why Nintendo didn't add an online mode like that for Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, it's a lot of fun!  We went through a lot of tutorial stuff like activating switches, using sword and shield, navigating player specific paths, use a shrinking cap and even a super cool magnet.  The puzzles have been fairly simple so far but it's really just teaching us the mechanics.

At one point though, we ran into a little problem .  There was a platform that my girlfriend had to reach and she needed to throw me a jumping pad thing.  The problem is, she brought the platform too close to a fire and it burned down, leaving me stranded with no possible solution.  We couldn't find a retry option unfortunately and the only thing we could do was exit to the map screen and we lost our progress....  I think I missed something.

Gears of War 3

Date played: October 2nd
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 130 minutes
Session fun rating: 9/10

The Queen crashed the party in Char and attacked the residents while we were bringing the fuel back in the cable car.  We had to go help Dizzy and Griffin that were pinned down.  Once we saved them, Griffin was an ass, didn't give us fuel and flipped Marcus the bird.  That's Ice-T all right!

We then headed to the ship yards to find us a submarine.  We had to find a rotor which I moved with another one of those mechanical exoskeletons.  Then we found fuel nearby and moved it to the submarine.  There was a lot of fighting and two new enemy types.  One is a giant worm that crawls on the ground and has a weak point in it's tail.  It's cool fighting them because it looses "parts" of it's tail as we shot it.  Then the other enemy is an armored type that requires explosives to kill.  At first, I was shooting them with the boomshot and the torque bow but I soon figured out the best way to beat them was to wait for an opening, run up to them and stick a frag grenade on them.  It's risky but it saves a lot of ammo.

The submarine was now functional and ready to go!  I was surprised to see I would man a turret on the submarine on our way to Azura, the super secret facility where Adam Fenix was holed up.  The sub ride was one of the most awe-inspiring scenes I've played in a video game, simply because of the beautiful graphics.  Really, the 360 seems to pull power out of it's ass, at 6 years old, it shouldn't be able to do this!  The lighting effects were simply stunning.  Oh yeah, I also shot a bunch of sea creatures and we fled from a gigantic Leviathan type creature.

Azura brings back some of the doom and gloom atmosphere from the first two games

At last, we reached Azura!  We talked to Marcus's dad on the radio and he helped us by opening doors and giving us directions.  Our objective was to disable the Maelstrom, a huge electromagnetic field, to allow the other Gears to join us with their helicopters and boats and such.  We fought hordes of Locust, sometimes using a Silverback.  We then found the generator for the Maelstrom and disabled it.  It caused a massive explosion and turned the sky from gloomy to "sunny beachy".  The other Gears joined us and we are ready to storm the complex and rescue Adam Fenix!

I'm close to the ending, I can't wait to see how this story wraps up!

EVE Online

Date played: October 1st
Platform: PC
Time played: 90 minutes
Session fun rating: 5/10

I had a problem when playing EVE last night...  One of the missions I was given by the tutorial agent requires that I deliver a shuttle somewhere but the problem is that I don't have a ship with enough cargo to carry it.  I thought, no problem, I'll just buy an industrial ship like the Iteron.  I buy the skill from the market and SURPRISE, that skill can't be trained by trial accounts.  Well, good thing I didn't buy the ship itself...

My Caldari shuttle in all it's speedy glory!

Then my friend came over to visit and gave me a bunch of ammo he made and two ships, a weird exploration ship and a shuttle.  The shuttle came in very handy as it travels very quickly and is good to just get from one place to another.  I then started the business tutorial missions and they were all about things I had already learned so it went pretty quickly.  I'm 7 missions in with only 3 to go.  Oh yes, I also think Salvaging will be quite useful, even as a very secondary ability, it allows me to get materials and such from wrecks.  It's cool because I can have a salvaging turret on my Tristan without sacrificing fire power.

Dirt 3

Snow racing rocks!

Date played: October 1st
Platform: Playstation 3
Time played: 40 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

Racing games are not violent, hence, I can play them when my daughter is playing in the living room.  I did a fun race in Monte Carlo where I overtook three cars in rally mode!  The BMW M5 was also lots of fun to drive and has a nice dashboard.

The next race was an 8 lap Rally X event in the snow.  At night.  I won that without too many problems.  I then got pissed off at a Gymkhana event.  I was using a WRX at first and I think that was the problem, that car is too powerful for controlled donuts, spins and drifts.  After three failed attempts, I switched to the Ford Fiesta and won it on the first try.  I think Gymkhana is kind of a neat idea but it shouldn't have been mandatory for the career mode.

Gears of War 3

Date played: September 30th and October 1st
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 100 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10

This game keeps impressing me.  I rode through a vehicle sequence, manning a giant machine gun and reached Dom's wife's home town where there is supposed to be fuel.  The section was different than the rest of the game, there was a lot of walking around with nothing happening for a while, mostly to set the mood for the revelation that unfortunately, there are lambent humans.

So we fought them when they attacked us.  It's too bad though, they are pretty boring to fight.  They are the stupid gaming trope of "dumb enemy that rushes you in groups without thinking or strategizing".  BORING!  Either way, we fought our way to a church where Dom found Maria's grave.  We figured out that the immulsion fuel was causing humans to turn lambent.

Then it happened.  I won't spoil the details but this was one of the best cinematic moments in video game history.  Music, visuals, characters and cinematic camera angles all came together gracefully to convey emotion and sadness.  Every gamer should see this, really.

Ice-T even has gold guns yo!

Moving on, we couldn't get the fuel we needed so we headed to the next city, Char.  This one of the places where the Hammer of Dawn hit when humanity was trying to rid the world of the Locust.  We explored the city and found a group of people, including their leader, Griffin, which is played by Ice-T.  He really does a good job of playing, well...  himself.

He captured Dizzy and says he will give us some fuel if we repair one of his cable cars.  We then headed out, fought plenty of Lambent and reached his cable car.

Battlefield 3 beta

Date played: September 30th and October 1st
Platform: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Time played: 120 minutes
Session fun rating: 10/10

I tried out the Battlefield 3 beta on my Xbox just to see if there were any big differences.  Turns out, it was pretty much the exact same thing so I went back to my PS3 because I prefer the controller.  My brother came over and we took turns playing a round each.  I unlocked a new gun, I think it's M249 or something?  Anyway, it really fits my style and I've been able to have a few rampaging moments with it.  I even took out an entire squad by flanking them, it was pretty amazing!

Operation Métro is a good map

My brother seemed to gravitate towards sniping and he's good at it too!  He made some fantastic headshots at long distances.  He seems to like it a lot and we were both COD heads for years.  I think we'll be switching over to Battlefield this year though.  Modern Warfare 3 doesn't seem to have anything new and well...we've played that game together since World At War so we're kind of done with it, I think.

The next day, we played together from our own houses and while it was quite fun, there was one unforgivable flaw which, thankfully, should be fixed in the full release.  We couldn't talk to each other.  That is a cardinal sin of online gaming.

We still had fun playing together but we couldn't really coordinate our efforts too well.  We also played one match against each other!  I was a fucking mass murderer in that match.  I got off to a good start, getting 7 kills before dying.  I killed my brother a few times after that, usually from mid range where he was trying to snipe me but I was able to spot him and peck at him with my LMG.  He redeemed himself by humiliating me, all it took was a knifing from behind.   Cocksucker.  :-)

I cannot wait for this game to come out, the more I play it the more I like it.

Geometry Wars 2

Date played: September 30th
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 15 minutes
Session fun rating: 8/10


I had a few minutes to kill and my Xbox was still on so I played three or four rounds of Geometry Wars 2.  I'm obviously out of practice.  I sucked.  Hard.

I didn't even reach half of my high score.  I still love this game though and it really is a shame that Bizarre Creations, the team who made it, doesn't exist anymore.  Fucking Activision....

Bastion

Allergic to shotguns

Date played: September 30th
Platform: Xbox 360
Time played: 15 minutes
Session fun rating: 6/10

I just played one quick level.  I got a shotgun.  I like it but I prefer my repeater.

That is all.