Gamers with jobs and families need to manage their time carefully in order to find time to engage in our past time - and with little time and lots to do, I have placed the difficult yet enjoyable Demon's Soul on my permanent backburner of "games that I intend to get to... some day", along with Persona 3 and 4, Grandia III and Chrono Cross. This is a long and deep backburner.

A few weeks ago I realized that the Overlord DLC for Mass Effect 2 was released and available for download. I played the story through to completion in a few hours and it was clear that Bioware decided to show off after some decidedly bland DLC packages that came across as afterthoughts or quick cash grabs. Overlord takes place on a lush and living planet that features the best visuals in the series to date. The story tracks a set of virtual intelligence experiments conducted by Cerberus that appear to have gone awry and now threaten the galaxy as they spin out of control. Following a trail of clues and lies, the player as Commander Shephard needs to come to assess the situation, find those responsible, and determine a course of action. This story may be linked to the recent novel Mass Effect Retribution which also follows the path of similar experiments by Cerberus on different characters. If you are a fan of Mass Effect, this download is well worth the time. I played the story through as the "good" Shephard - I'll try to get back to it eventually to play it as a "badass" Shephard over the next few months.

I also had occasion to fly across the continent on a business trip in the last week and decided to take out the DSi and take Dragon Quest IX out for a spin. The game starts slowly but it is instantly recognizable as a throw back to the days of old when games were turn based and enemies consisted of giant evil cucumbers. It's a delightful game though I'm likely only a few hours in to what is likely a thirty hour game so I'll reserve any judgement until I'm further in. I'll be flying to Europe later this month, which should give me ample time to make some deeper inroads into this story based game.