Back From Long Absence

I guess once the semester was coming to an end and winter break started I adjusted primarily to getting work done, sleep, and playing the occasional game. You know, the basic life necessities. This did not prove very beneficial for my contributions to this blog so for that I apologize, if it really mattered or anyone was disappointed (probably not).

In the last weeks of school I borrowed Mirror's Edge from a friend who had it checked out from GameFly. I forget the exact amount of time needed, but it was somewhere between 6-9 hours of play time. I did not spend a good deal of time in the time trial mode of the game, it was a feature that I found interesting but it didn't tickle my fancy. The first point to lay down is that I don't really consider the length of a game a major factor BUT I feel that the price of a game should possibly factor in game length or amount of time one can spend with a game. My first criticism of the game would be that $60 for a game that is so short and the time trial mode is composed of the campaign levels (if there were additional levels not featured in the campaign I may have missed them). The online/multi-player angle the game features are leaderboards which feature the fastest player times and the ability to race against these player's ghosts. I personally felt that these features were not enough to warrant a $60 price tag and am very thankful that my friend had it rented so I wasn't duped into immediately buying it.

The major points to get out of the way which has been highlighted by any other reviews has been that the cut-scenes in the game are absolutely ridiculous. The in game graphics are so fantastic you wonder why they decided on e-surance commercial style interludes to convey a story. I found the story to be pretty 'meh' and boring. I have heard some found the game to be very unforgiving due to bad level design. I did not find the occasional death due to a jump in the wrong direction due to being chased to be a big hang-up for me. To sum up Mirror's Edge it is a great concept and worth a rent. While it is an incredibly cool concept (especially since parkour is super rad) the game itself feels overpriced for what it provides, a half-baked and rushed attempt (e-surance cut scenes and story).

I have been playing a large amount of Rock Band 2. DLC for that game is my best friend. The standout DLC songs that I have gotten have been the Metallica 3 pack, both NIN packs (I passed on Capital G though), All that Remains track pack, Pixies Doolittle album, Peace Sells... but Who's Buying album (and Megadeth's newer single), and finally The Colour and the Shape (My favorite Foo album). In my time playing Rock Band I have found I end up having the most joy when playing these ridiculous metal songs, the speed and intensity is awesome. While I have dabbled in metal before, it has made me have a new appreciation for it. I am unfortunately not a ridiculous shredder of the guitar controller or drums for that matter (I can manage to get by on hard guitar for most things, expert bass on most things, and only medium drums) but I love me some singing and can manage expert singing on most songs. Being at college the absolute joy of easily being able to play with 4+ people on short notice adds to the addictive nature of the game and the incorporation of the game as a mainstay in weekly entertainment activities.

Coming home after finals I was greeted with Persona 4 and the other Persona 4 swag that I had pre-ordered. I have been playing it religiously while at home, I am about 80 hours in and at the end of October in the game. Social Links seem easier to manage than Persona 3 and overall they have improved and tweaked so much of the previous iteration. They got rid of Evokers (I thought they were stupid in the first place) and have gone back to the previous Persona style of summoning animation. Now that I am probably about halfway, maybe a little more, I personally feel like there is less of an emphasis on the fighting/dungeon crawling than the third one and more events and dialogue. I am digging it and will have a more complete impression of it once I finish it.

Lastly I have been trying out Every Extend Extra Extreme and Castle Crashers on XBLA. They are both addictive and fantastic, I look forward to playing Castle Crashers more when I get back to campus after break as it really is best when played multiplayer.

While playing these games this break I have discovered podcasts! While being a little late to the party I am absolutely loving listening to Destructoid's various podcasts. RetroforceGO! is shaping up to be my new favorite addiction, and I was enthused when I saw Topher and Colette's names in the credits for Castle Crashers. Also listening to them with Chad (I love Chad so much haha) and Dyson discuss game related topics is AMAAAAAAZING and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in listening to pure awesome. That's all for now... I feel like I should put forth more effort into making some updates more frequently. It will probably happen.