With the craziness that was GDC last week, I was able not only to write a preview, but also to get in a couple of reviews. Monday should see my review of N+ go up, while many have already checked out the review for Commanders: Attack of the Genos! Doing all of this writing in addition to my regular responsibilities has been very exciting and a welcome challenge. I don't have many opportunities to write like I did when I was an advertising agency copywriter. The writing of reviews and previews is a lot more fun than technical documents and MBA papers.

The plus side is I've been able to play some games I would ordinarily have passed on out of persenal preference. What the developers did with Commanders was really quite impressive. The game was a pretty hefty (larger than 50 MB; larger than 100 MB?) download. Due to the size, the final product had a lot of great audio. While my wife grew weary of the music quickly, I really found the explosions, gun fire, and general audio chaos to be quite impressive. Maybe one of these days I'll pull the game out and play it some more. While I don't want to spoil the surprise, I have to say N+ was an unexpectedly great time . . . even with the problems.

Finally, I unlocked the last achievement in Xevious. Doing so made me feel very Xevious. Some have balked at the amount of Xevious in the game, but I assure you it is overflowing with Xevious . . . ness. I remember Jeff heckling me a bit for not having downloaded the game. Ah, good times. Now I have harvested all 200 points and am debating whether to just uninstall it to make room for other games on my hard drive. It is a real debate because Xevious was one of the best arcade shooters of its time and it really hasn't gotten any worse in comparison to other games out ther. Yeah, you read that right.

This week should be things back to normal . . . of sorts.