Well, I am back. 550 miles at just about exactly 8 hours. I did wind up finishing Soldier of Fortune II, and got a couple of hours in on Company of Heroes. It's amazing to see the small level of controversy about this game. Some people think it's a shoe-in for game of the year, others think it is nothing new and that it has a lot of wash-rinse-repeat to it once you're passed the halfway mark. I'm at about 5.5 hours into the game, and despite the fact that I agree with the latter sentiment, that the game has not shown the old dog a whole lot of new tricks, it is exilirating to play. The missions do a pretty good job of keeping you busy on multiple fronts without overloading you. The AI is somewhat above par, as when I am occupied with a northern offensive, I am confident that my sourthern forces guarding the base will engage and handily deal with most inbound threats.

That being said, I do get somewhat perturbed by the path-following, as I do not understand why my airborne units close to within rock-throwing distance to engage Nazi's with their assault rifles. But at least on defense the AI handles itself amicably.

I'm switching off of my gaming laptop to my main desktop and the name of the game for the afternoon will be Prey. Tonight I'll hop onto XBL since I have not gamed with any of my Live friends in over a week. It will be interesting to see what those guys are up to. I'll also watch about an hour of The Two Towers today while I'm chowing down.