Metroid Prime by Retro Studios.

I really like Samus Aran; she's my homegirl. This game was fun; like many, when I first tried it out (as one of those consoles built into video game stores) I was a little thrown by the fact that it was a first person shooter, but it didn't really bother me. This game is fun! But also very frustrating. There are some fun maps-- but you have to trek all the way across the maps over & over again...it gets to be a bit of a chore. I have a few other minor complaints-- the palate swap of the thermal & x-ray visors was...well they both basically work the same? Frustrating-- the functionality was just identical? I only finished with 70%; I would have liked maybe a power up that helped locate missing items, like a map upload? Something like that. Still, I'm just complaining. I had fun. Some of the bosses are too hard to kill when drunk, something to keep in mind. Woo hoo!

Another sweet little game. That I shouldn't be playing since I'm lagging on my NaNoWriMo.

By David Shute, music by Kevin MacLeod.

Back at work! Dear old Metropolis fetish, dear dear flat, iron icon. After Freya's Day's date the romance continued. Jenny & I went to Ghenet, the new Ethiopian place in Park Slope-- "where angels eat"-- which is I guess owned by the same people as the now defunct Mekerem, which is no longer around, or so the gossip goes? Anyhow, there is an Ethiopian restaurant in my neighborhood, which cheers me to no end; I like it. We went there & smashed a bottle of wine with dinner-- oh, & had some steak tartar appetizer that was pretty good & had green peppers. That is the closest I've come to tolerating green peppers ever. Afterward back home for some more Angel-- we're making steady progress; we've moved into Season Four I think? Then she fell asleep on my lap, then she fell asleep on top of the covers! Which JUST WON'T DO so I worked my wiles on her & woke her up. It might have something to do with the second bottle of wine we hammered out. Or the cocktails. Or the beer.

Sunday was some video games & some chilling out. I grabbed breakfast from a diner (that I used to hate but now like?) & beat Life Force, that old Konami game where you are a space ship inside like a demon-alien-planet? & you have to fight white blood cells & robots & such. I like the Wii's ability to download old console games. Plus some MarioKart, & then off to the gym. This last week has been better at getting me on track-- a reliable every-other-day. Then ran into Adam & Tania picking up lunch supplies-- salad, & then over to Royal Oak for play rehearsal. Things are coming along; I didn't choke on anything, which is fine by me. I can really only be responsible for knowing my own shit, right? Which I do, or I'm getting there. Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth is creeping up, man.

Super Smash Bros Brawl by Nintendo.

I've beaten the "Subspace" storyline, & the classic battle mode, & some of the events, stadiums, & times minigames. I've shot coins to unlock new trophies (Japan, your minigames are so weird) & so I think I've played it enough to have an opinion. Part of the great genius of this game is its replayability-- it isn't like you can ever be finished with it. I played the N64 version pretty often-- I never had one, but dudes were obsessed that that game, right? This continues that tradition; it isn't like the old school fighting game scene. I had a lot of fun, there are a ton of dudes to play (I like Samus & Meta Knight) & in general plenty of nooks & cranies to explore. Oh, & they've branched out! More than just Nintendo character-- Metal Gear's Snake & Sonic the Hedgehog, too. My only complaint is that I'd like a tutorial level? I had to go to the internet to figure out how Final Smashes work, & it took me forever to figure out that 1+2 was the Smash attack. Oh, & translating the Latin song lyrics during the credits? Nice touch.

Spider-Man 3 by Activision.

Okay, Webhead! So, most of this game is actually comprised of web-swinging around Manhattan. First off-- this is weird to me for a couple of reasons-- those reasons being my life & Spider-Man's life are kind of the same? Like, I have to get him to work! So I swing him to the Flatiron building. I have to go visit my girlfriend! So I swing him to Chinatown. I gotta get to Roosevelt Island, or whatever. Basically the Wallcrawler's stomping grounds are my own. & have you ever seen me & Spider-Man in the room together? I'm just saying...

So the voice actors are all the people from the film. The narrator is Bruce Campbell. Can't go wrong there. There is...a lot of quipping. An annoying amount of quipping. From the villains, the gangbangers, Spidey, Jonah, everyone, all the time. Which is fine, but there should have been a larger corpus of sayings, is all. The controls are pretty nice, though some of them are stupidly intricate & impossible. By which I mean-- webslinging is pretty intuitive, the fighting controls come naturally, all that-- but if you want to "earn adrenaline by parachuting!" or whatever, even though it is just Z-Z-Z, it is tricky. Or some of the advanced fighting moves are all like-- what, why, Attach a Web then Pull the Numchuck up? I can just attach a web & punch him. Easier. There is a leveling up mechanism, where you can buy the weirder moves-- I concentrated on harder punches, more health, higher jumps, instead. Oh, & you can put on the black suit-- which makes you stronger, but you have to fight it to get it off.

The camera angles are totally fine, & though the control for the camera (press C & then rotate the Numchuck) isn't really effective, the camera tracking is good enough that you never really have to. The "hot spots" are pretty wide-- so if I need to get into that flashing circle, it isn't a pain in my neck-- I don't have to be lined up perfect or whatever. The boss fights? Are all actually different & all interactive with the environment-- pull down the boarded up windows to hit Morbius the Living Vampire with sunlight, or web up those leaking gas mains or swing a bomb into Sandman or play one of those "swing the Wii Remote up-- oh, video clip!-- now swing the Numchuck to the side-- video clip!-- now press A--" sequences or whatver. Oh, yeah, Morbius, I said it-- also the Lizard &...Shriek? Okay? Anyhow yeah-- a fun little game, & probably worth replay-- besides the plot there are gangs to fight, cops to help. While you swing around you'll hear about crime waves & kidnappings or whatever, plenty of stuff to do on the side.

Transformers by Activision.

This would have been a really fun game were it not for some pretty fatal flaws. The first & most damning is the camera work. I can't tell you how frustrating the camera is. The main function of it is tied to where you Wii remote is pointing. This sucks for a few reasons-- one, pointing your remote to look around corners comes up with the cornering problem a lot of old fps had. Two, one of the major controls for melee fighting is to SWING YOUR REMOTE. Two is really the killer here. Sure, you can "lock on" but when you are being swarmed by a bunch of little Autobots or wee Decepticons, you end up basically just doing the Wii equivalent of button smashing.

The other problem is that the land vehicles...well, they suck. They have different controls from the air vehicles (or the air vehicles have different controls-- I played the Decepticon side first because I'm bad at heart). This is just an "acceleration" button but it is key to the biggest frustration of the game. See, a lot of levels have "race" segments. That is, you fight (lets say Iron Hide fights Starscream) & then when you win (You smash Chris Latta's imposter's face in) & the bad guy takes off (Starscream transforms & flees). Now you have a race to get to the next action point (Starscream is tearing up the police station, Ironhide, stop him!). These "races" are the most difficult part of the game, which is no fun at all. While you are trying to work between the accelerate & the turns & all that, you miss the timer by, lets say a few seconds (Ironhide got turned around in the 7-11 parking lot). Sorry buddy, back to the begining with you. Since this formula is repeated around three times (Starscream flees to the police station, chase him, beat him, Starscream flees to the high school, chase him, beat him...) if you fail the final race it can really get your goat. Oh, & one last word on the controls: you need to throw cars at a lot of bad guys. Fine, but the "pick up a car" button is A) on the same hand as the "lock on target" button & B) over sensitive; you will "miss" picking up things at your feet all too often. Most of the time, even.

So I have some fairly major complaints, but I still enjoyed myself. It is viscerally satisfying to play Scorponok & chase down APCs, to play Megatron & murder dozens of Autobots, to play Optimus Prime & beat the stuffing out of Megatron. The humans too are weirdly well balanced-- it can bug you when you are playing but it is smart-- You can pretty much shrug off cop fire, but tanks & helicopters will actually do some hurt, & so will the little jeeps (they have rocket launchers!) Climbing buildings is weirdly slow, but also fun, & oh! There are a couple of missions where you are Blackout or Megatron or Starscream where your job is just to wreck someplace; you can do a darn good job of that. Some levels are way too easy, some levels are way too hard (mostly due to a timer on a portion of the game that didn't need to be timed), & some levels are just right. There were extras left to collect-- energon cubes-- but the extras I was unlocking were like-- gallery images? Trailers? So I didn't bother. Oh & after you win as either the Decepticons or the Autobots, you get a "Cybertron" level where you just kill & kill & kill. Hooray!

lego star wars: the complete saga.

well this is just a barrel of ewoks worth of fun. or a barrel of whatever-the-heck-salicious-crumb-is, even. i'm still plucking away at the extras on this thing: according to the game itself, i'm only about 70% complete, & i have something like 116 out of 160 of the "golden bricks." in otherwords, even though i've beaten the game, & replayed many levels, i still have a darn sight more to go. see, how it works is that after you beat a level, you can "free play" the level, allowing you to access the bounty hunter only sections, or the imperial only parts, or to activate pieces you need to be a jedi or a sith for. along the way you collect coins-- excuse me, studs-- that you spend to unlock characters, special options, whatever.

the game is fun. it is pretty loose in the interpretation of the events of the movies, which works to its advantage. there are a lot of clutz jokes & other sort of harmless hijinks. there are two kinds of levels-- ones where you play as lego-people, & ones that you play as lego-ships. they range in difficulty from cake walk to aggravating, but a death only looses you coins-- sorry, studs-- so you can keep going at it. again, the word here is fun; you go around cuting dudes up with lightsabers or throwing thermal detonators & trying to find all the hidden chambers & all that. even when (if) i beat it, i'll probably still go back in for replay. there is a two-player option, which i haven't tried before. well, i have. drunkenly, at ravenface's a while back. then we watched a video of one of the lion pinball plays, & i had to run out when i came on.

guitar hero iii.

i think everyone will acknowledge the awesome-ness that guitar games are. i'm not shocking anyone by pointing out that rhythm games are neat. victoria left her guitars over my apartment though, so i've gotten a chance to get in on the scene in a more personal way than playing it at someone elses. i've beaten it on medium, but i don't have the guts to start on hard, yet. my bigest coup is beating "knights of cydonia," which is my joint man! i guess some people like to play at the chubby kiss guy, or as the feather boa guy, but for me, i can only see being the sexy girl. i played as casey lynch, then as casey lynch in all black with lou's guitar, & now as casey in all white with the st. george axe. games like rock band have drum & vocal options, which are a lot of fun to jam with, but those are more intensive systems, too. i wish i had a second controller for this game, too, to do more bass/guitar duets.

beat resident evil four (4) tonight. oh, i sure had my grudges with it at the beginning, but as i suspected, i just needed to learn the game's logic (like, running in a circle will befuddle all enemies, always) & come to terms with it. by the end i was a stone cold killer. go on! i'll shoot out your knees, then shoot you in the back of the head. execution style for you, filthy european monsters! because that is the plot of the game: kill the dirty, infected, horrific spanish people. sometimes, if you blow off their heads, tentacles come out, & the tentacles are holding knives. aw! like my head.

hold on, wait a minute, emergency. i lost my wedding ring. fuck. i knew i'd left it in the apartment before going to the gym, but now i can't find it! i had to look for it for like an hour, tearing the apartment apart from head to toe. jenny helped me look & even bit her tongue to keep from i-told-you-so-ing me about taking my ring off all the time. it had just snuck into the black fibers of the carpet to sulk & hide. fucking talisman! okay. now i'm going to have this cocktail, cool off, & go back to video game zen. i've been staring at the abyss too long, or it was staring into me.

so i beat the game, & i got all the bottlecaps at the shooting range. the wii remote? is freaking built for this kind of thing. being able to point & shoot is just a luxury? worth having. screw your heads! screw your kneecaps! die, die die! also i killed all the monsters. because i don't care how big & ugly you are, guy? you are just a cave troll. & you might have tentacles & claws but you have eyes too, & i can stab them, & also i bought this rocket launcher. thanks, awesome, totally sweet merchant! i wish the merchant with the blue fires had a backstory, i wish he was sneaking around helping me like ada.

oh & as to the ladies. well, okay? we've got the president's daughter, whom i rescued & escorted around. she's no yorda from ico, but then, yorda is something special. note to self: run "yorda" by jenny as a name for a daughter. she isn't helpless-- she isn't a trained murderer like leon, but she has a sequence where she holds her own. still-- damsel. & there is a spy lady? she's all femme fatale, but i don't know, i give a little allowance for genre tropes. she certainly is capable. otherwise the only ladies are a girl on the telephone that i flirt with (what up, japan?) & the messed up village ladies that i assassinate. there isn't a sacrifice of women to provide emotional energy; rather, comrades in arms die. sorry dudes! you were helpful!

halo 3 by bungie.

i never played much of the first one, not owning the requisite system. what i did play, i really, really liked. you're "master chief." what that means is that you are basically captain america. you've been genetically modified, chemically enhanced, cybernetically augmented, & shoved in power armor to boot. then you get guns. really big guns. the space ship you are on keeps you in cryogenic storage for extraordinary circumstances. when you find regular marines? you're usually rescuing them, & the ai of the game is very appreciative. "look, it's master chief!" "we're saved!" that sort of thing. awfully heroic. this game also includes you buddying around with the alien's bad-ass. i guess people complained that it was short, or whatever? i had fun, but then again, i am a novice who beat it on normal difficulty in three days. & some people thought the cortana interludes slowed the game down? those people are idiots. cortana + 117 for eva.

the best thing about it is that it teaches values i can respect. competency, above all. master chief is hyper competent & the people around him range from very competent to super-competent. hey, thanks for the good advice, a.i.! thanks for the flanking cover, arbiter! which segues nicely into unity: you do what you are supposed to be doing. if you need to be driving the tank, don't worry about shooting down air units; the frigate has it covered. which goes nicely with merciless destruction of your foes. shoot them in the head. stab them in the back. throw grenades into them. ruin them. which turns on its head into diversity: when the aliens come to their senses, pick them off their feet & put them in your ranks. they won't hold any grudges: sure, you tried to mercilessly slaughter them, but you were enemies. that was then!

bioshock by 2k.

fuck this fucking game. now, i might come back & have to review my statements; i haven't gotten very far. still, i kind of hate it. i really wanted to like it. the commercials were mystifying, the premise is alluringly weird, the ambiance is all-encompassing. here in the thing though: STOP FUCKING ATTACKING ME! do those splicer fuckers respawn? am i just not clearing areas out behind me thoroughly enough? see, i want to wander through your dystopian city! i want to have objectivist slogans shouted at me by mutants! but i don't want them to constantly be fucking shooting me! fuck, halo 3 is a shooter & i get more breathing room than i do from you assholes! i seriously hate all of the people in the game, screaming at me & shooting me with pistols. by the way, guns? fucking useless. you can cap a guy six or seven times without him giving much of a damn. robert suggests just using my electrical genetic modification to shock them, then just clubbing them over the head. oh, also? ADAM & EVE & the plasmids? kind of drab, dull, boring. just...different guns? yeah, that isn't as innovative as reviewers made it seem.