It's a love it or hate it game. I'm having a blast with it personally, but I could see how someone could be turned off by it.

Super Street Fighter Two Turbo High Definition Remix. I renewed my XBLA subscription and played a fighting game for the first time in, well, since yesterday. But that was just a 10 minute play through of X-men vs Street Fighter on the Saturn and hardly counts. Before that it was, December maybe? It's been a while. First rage quitter of the new year and it was an Akuma of all people. RH Flash beats air fireball. Punt!

What I've found out about TvC is that with 4.1 firmare I'd be able to play it, but not go online. There might be workarounds, but I tried messing with that stuff when I got NSMB and ended up getting so frustrated I just installed the firmware from the disc and got lucky that I didn't turn the system into a paper weight. At this point it hardly seems worth it, don't really want to get a console only fighter that I can't go online with.

I saw you had been playing Mass Effect 2. I think my girlfriend has beaten that a dozen times since it came out already. I've watched her play the first one and that was always a good excuse to take a nap.

ME2 may be the best single player game I have played, yet. It is fantastic.

I might have to give the first one a try. Just watching it being played, I didn't see the appeal.

Is there something ME is easily comparable with as a frame of reference? As in, if you like ____, you'll probably like ME?

Also, just noticed, ME2 has the best abbreviation this side of GOD (Gungrave Overdose).

ME2 is a true hybrid genre of traditional Bioware--deep Western RPG storytelling--and the current evolution of the third person shooter mechanics started by RE4 but best compared to Gears, Dark Sector, Army of Two, Dead Space, Dark Void, and on...

I didn't like ME1. I'm not a fan of the Space Opera, and it was too story driven for me not to be interested in the narrative and continue playing.

ME2 is heaps better (almost Zone of the Enders level) in that it essentially boils down to Bioware's version of Gears of War. The RPG elements are supper stripped drown, but unlike Oblivion, it was streamlined; only the shit I want is there. Not only that, but even with all the stroy elements removed, the combat is easily on the level of any of the previously mentioned shooters. ME1's combat was not.

The story is a bit more interesting, but 5 hours in I'm finding myself starting to skip the admittedly cool dialog trees just to get back into the action...

Strongly disagree. The combat is fun(and 1 million x better than ME1), but not really deep or challenging. I like the combat missions as well, but I would never put this on the level of a pure shooter.

Also - I LOVE the space opera about it, and the deep story. I am actually on a short hiatus from it (after about 25 hours of gameplay) just to extend the experience. It is great!

The A.I. is kind of clingy. In R6: Vegas, I could put my squad members at a certain point, go across a courtyard, up a flight of stairs and park my happy ass in a good sniping spot while my teammates stayed put. In ME2 I can't go twenty feet without my squad running after me like a child afraid to be left alone in Neverland Ranch (...too soon?).

The game is amazing, though. The multiple powers simultaniously is a wonderful addition to the greatly inproved combat. BioWare didn't seem like they knew what to do with the first one; the combat didn't really fit with the leveling system. The leveling was more complex and customizable, yet the combat didn't seem to fit. Not that they didn't do it right, but it really doesn't seem like it could work. With ME2's streamlined leveling works perfectly with what the combat is: fast paced and tactical. You're not going through everybody's inventory after every battle to see if picked up better guns and armor, or going to the squad screen to put one measily point on one (of many) attributes just to give it a slight boost. Now you don't pick up drop items, upgrades are done on the ship, you don't level up until after a mission ("Close report". I love it. ), and the thermal clip feature keeps you from sitting there with your thumb up your ass while your damn gun cools down. Also, Miranda's camel toe in the opening cut scene was awesome.

Oh, yeah. One more thing:

I FUCKING HATE JACK!!!!!!!

I'd let that cunt die if it wasn't for the "Everybody Survives" achievement.

Army of Two- I had played a little bit of the sequel, but played through a good couple of hours of this in co-op last night. It's the first game on that "kind of like ME" list that I've put any time into. I like it, but can't see playing this by myself. Controlling AI is too cumbersome (in general) and co-op just makes anything better. I'm also a little disapointed that this game isn't as full of steroids and testosterone as the sequel. Protein! Whey! Snap into a slim jim!

Is the AI as bad as Sheva?

Wouldn't know, just did co-op. (What's Sheva anyway?) I've never liked having to give teammates directions in games, from Guardian Heroes to Rainbox Six. It's just easier to tell the person sitting next to you to cover you (i.e. bail my dumb ass out) while you go all John Rambo. So I was just making the assumption that doing that is better than whatever interface they came up with, and I assume the way the game was really meant to be played.

I kind of want to try that game out, but can't find anyone to bro through that game with me. I hate AI enforced co-cop.

Yeah, it's probably not worth it as a single player game. I don't play enough shooters to put this in any sort of context, but it seems pretty much designed from the ground up around co-op, with the way the cover system and ability to draw fire work. I'm a little surprised I liked the game, but it's just about the only game outside of NSMB and Bubble Bobble that my girlfriend and I can play together. And truth be told, she's the one pulling most of the weight.

Oh, sorry. I was referring to you're partner from RE5. I've heard that she basically wastes ammo and med items, and that the game is pretty much made for co-op only because her AI is so horrendous.

Finished Army of Two. The end was so anticlimactic that I didn't know the game was over until the credits started rolling. I know I exaggerate things a lot, but I'm completely serious. Fun game in general, but being as how there's no real plot progression, and any boss characters are humanoid and therefore not really much different from your cannon fodder enemies, it was sort of hard to see that the end was coming.

Started playing Resident Evil 5 in local coop. I was having a really good time, but due to some glitch or oversight, it didn't save Sheeva's items/inventory. So my girlfriend and I got halfway through, saved and quit, and cameback later and all Sheeva had was a handgun and a first aid spray. That kind of sucks. And you can't even swap guns. The game itself is fun, though. I haven't played RE4 in years, so I was kind of taken aback by the "we're going to make the controls cumbersome on purpose" approach to combat, but after a level or two I was fine.

Picked up my own copy of Resident Evil 5, but I'm going to have to start over because Microsoft won't let you transfer an 80kb save file unless you buy a $30 memory card, irrespective of the fact that you're subscribing to a $50 a year service. Thanks, guys.

I've actually been playing RE4 Wii instead though, when just playing single player. I tried to play RE5 with the Sheeva AI and it kind of sucked. Think I'm going to stick to co-op. The motion aiming is awesome in RE4, though.

Okay, so I'm pretty much caught up to where I was on my gf's hard drive in RE5. I didn't really mind playing through the game again. It's just a really satisfying combat engine, and with a good partner the co-op campaign is amazing. You can be all like, "take out their knees!" to your partner while you run up and feed everyone Tiger Uppercuts and head stomps. And then bounce a grenade off some guy's tribal shield, blow up your partner, and have to apologize profusely. If anyone has RE5 and isn't completely sick of it, hit me up sometime on Live for a round or two.

Anyway, I had to turn my TV all normal like to play Resident Evil, so I took advantage to try out something other than a shmup with my new stick. So I played Strider 2. Anybody vaguely remember that game?

All these years later, I still love the hell out of that thing. I attempted the patended, Ryan "start with level 2 and end on Level 1" route, but only beat stages 2 and 3 before I lost my credit on a midboss on 4. It's strange. For a game that meant so much in the grand scheme of things, I've never really made an attempt to completely learn the game. Maybe someday. The score I ended up with was 4183600, if this inspires anyone to pick it up again.

Edit: Gave it another go tonight. Mixed up the stage order and went 1, 4, 2, 3. Ended up dying on Chapter 5 because I almost ran out of time on the first subsection because I was being so cautious and ended up having to rush through to my death. 8131300 was the final.

Starcraft II beta- Unfortunately my laptop doesn't meet the minimum system requirments for Ram. It runs, but it chugs horribly. I did get to play it on my friends (less rickety) setup, though, and I was both relieved and underwhelmed at how similar the core game feels compared to the original. Obviously there are a ton of new units and the changes are primarily in all the new wrinkles they provide. Broodwar was vastly different from vanilla SC, for instance, and didn't add nearly as much. I was surprised at my ability to just jump in and play at the first go, though. I'm curious to see this run on a system with max settings. On minimum, the game looks worse than the original, IMO, and kind of Dreamcast era in general.

Downloaded the demo for Bayonetta. The character designs in this game really turned me off to the point where I wasn't expecting myself to like it. But I'll be damned, I really did. Kind of felt like a cross between Nightshade and Otogi, asthetically, and the gameplay was frantic to the point where I didn't really know what the hell was going on, but I was doing crazy shit. Which was cool. Bonus points for the gungrave inspired "360 shot".

Yeah, Bayonetta's awesome (I just tried the demo a few days ago, played through it like five times already), but it's also the first stylish action game (Devil May Cry coined the phrase, not me!) where I actually have trouble keeping up with the action because it's just that over-the-top. Nearly very special move in Bayonetta's disposal is this flashy, devastating finishing move that litters the screen with all sorts of crazy shit like giant heels and monsters formed out of your own hair. Add in some relentless enemies and special effects that go on for days, and it gets really overwhelming and disorienting, which is a first for me in this genre. I'll definitely get around to buying Bayonetta eventually, though. It's just too much fun to pass up.

Bioshock. I finally got around to picking this up, and must say - I really like the world/mood, but I don't think it is the end-all-be-all of video gaming that it was made out to be.

I am going for 1100/1100 on this one, wish me luck.

Good luck. I haven't had the patience to get all the achievements in anything but a handful of arcade games. What's the extra 100 for, DLC?

So I see you finished already. Jesus, that was fast.

Last night I couldn't sleep well so I ended up hooking up my Genesis and playing a little Sonic the Hedgehog. Then today I started playing Sonic CD on the PS2 Gems collection. I played Ryan's copy once for maybe 10 minutes, so this is really the first time I've ever played it. I like it a lot. Maybe it's the port, but the colors seem extremely vibrant. It's easily the first thing that stands out about the game, visually it's absolutely saturated, even for Sonic. I like the bonus stages a lot, and the past/future thing is cool simply because it lends a branching path sort of feel, even if nothing really changes.

It's funny, it's the Japanese version, but since I'm playing on a modded American console, everything from the Sonic CD soundtrack to the packaging scans are entirely of the American versions. Apparently both regions are on the disc already and you could actually change the region with a hex editor and get the JPN versions if you wanted. That's a big pain in the ass though. Really the only way you know it's not a domestic release is because X cancels and O confirms in the menus.

Edit: Okay so I finished the game. I'll admit, by the end, I was so furious with some of the level design that I was glad it was over. Overall though, I loved the game, and I'm playing through it again. I just have to figure out how to get through some of the maze levels near the end. You should never time out on a Sonic game.

Hockey. I haven't been on skates since I was 15. Everything hurts.

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