First order of business. As promised, Episode 76 went up just before 2008 settled in. If you missed it, it be hurr.

Now for some more game talk.

Manhunt 2

Today I spent a few more hours with it and completed stages two and three: Ghosts and Sexual Deviants. Ghosts takes you through Daniel's old childhood home, and it actually gets interesting with baddies snooping around on multiple floors. Managing this - making sure you're not right at the door to the basement when a Hunter climbs the stairs - gets a little hairy, and definitely provides some fun moments. Sexual Deviants takes you through what supposes to be a strip club, though to be quite frank, there's nothing at all "sexy" about the way the "stripper" dances. You can see her comical flailing of her limbs at the end of Kevin Van Ord's Manhunt 2 video review. There are some genuinely tense moments during the beginning of this stage, but of course the presentation overdoes it with exaggerated voice work of the club's male denizens that serves to parody what most consider the stereotypical lisp of a - well, there's no way to be PC about this, so I'll let you figure it out for yourself.

Sexual Deviants in particular reminds me of something edubuccaneer said in my last Manhunt 2 post - that Rockstar is really just trying to call attention to itself, and that he didn't see the appeal of these games. There's appeal there, yes, but I'm with him in his general tone in that it's not very deep. The appeal, as I see it, lies in exactly that attention-grabbing aspect: what will Rockstar do to break boundaries? How far will it go? There are always people interested in seeing how far the limits will be pushed. In this case, you also take all of the controversy that went into this specific release into account. Then there's also the subset of us that thrives on the cathartic explosion of blood and guts that comes with this type of game. To be completely honest, while it does entertain, the game really leans on it way too much. There could be more interesting level layouts and more flexible stealth mechanics - but it's almost all hide here, wait for dude to pass, hold down A, swing remote violently, watch censored gory execution. I'll say it again: the original Manhunt serves to be more entertaining. Brian Cox, man. Brian Cox. Can't go wrong with that guy.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2

I've figured out specifically what it is that bugs me about this game's checkpointing, and I don't know if this has become the norm in recent shooters. You have specific goals strewn throughout each stage: detonate an explosive aboard a German U-boat; take down anti-aircraft gun encampments with artillery weaponry; snipe and thus secure a key area. What makes the checkpointing feel so uneven is that you won't necessarily get a checkpoint after you complete a goal. This means that while you may have your progress quick-saved en route to a goal area, you may still have to complete said goal again if you get killed after you complete it. This is particularly maddening when a goal area is teeming with enemies. That part where you take down anti-aircraft encampments with the artillery weapon? Well, you might be in that one little area where it takes place for over 10 minutes straight, warding off Nazi soldiers as you fiddle with the artillery aiming mechanism. Your squadmates do only a passable job at protecting you. Die before reaching the next checkpoint, and guess what - you do it again. I don't know - it just makes sense to me that after you complete one of a few primary goals in a level that you'd get a checkpoint out of it. You've accomplished something - now you're supposed to get some sort of reward. Al, though, made a good point in the podcast that I'm just really short on time and that otherwise the checkpoints wouldn't bother me.

Random thought. The pump-action shotgun is loads of fun to use, though it'll take getting used to. The fact that you actually have to pump the shotgun to fire another round - an act that is not the same as reloading, which takes longer - is easily forgotten as you try to pull that B trigger in a panic while thinking your gun jammed. But it's a really satisfying feeling - boom, shick-click, boom, shick-click, boom.

Breath of Fire 2

I'm at the 23 hour mark and battling through the last quarter of the game. Happily, the game has gotten better from its undesireable beginnings. The locales I visit continue to be interesting and as my characters are becoming more powerful, battles have at least gotten a bit more interesting from a "strategizing" standpoint. The Shaman system is a bit crudely implemented, but it has afforded a pleasantly surprising "transformation" for one of my once-boring characters.

Those localization issues that plague the game sometimes wash away, but sometimes an extremely annoying gaffe comes back to remind me that this translation is completely borked. "It is the weapon" for a sword's description is just atrocious. The options for purchasing a carnival ticket being "Buy" and "Not Buy" is too comical to be taken seriously. The similar goofiness in the overall dialog really, really destroys any sense of gravitas that the plot has, and that's a shame because it's getting more and more interesting. Another gripe about the story is simply that it took so long to get going for real, and that story and world exploration progress is really hampered by fetch quests that send you back to previous locations that you just came from.

In any event, the basic gist is this: if you don't mind waiting to wade through half of the game before it gets interesting, this is your best bet for old-school 16-bit RPGs. Oh, but how awesome it would be for Phantasy Star IV to come out on Virtual Console... one can dream.

With any luck, I'll have a review for this by the end of the week.

New York Times Crosswords

Who knew that I knew so little about words? This game is consistenly making me feel like a totally illiterate moron. It takes me on average 40 minutes and 3 hints to finish a Monday puzzle. Let's not speak of the awful 60-minute-20-hint performance on a Wednesday puzzle. It's definitely mentally stimulating, though, and it's much more convenient than dragging every day's paper around with me.

Rock Band

My guitar's strummer finally went bonkers. I fixed it. Thanks to that forum post, I don't need to wait for my delayed EA Customer Support shipment. I just hope the fix lasts until it comes.

Rolling Thunder 2

Ugh. This game just feels so... primitive. It's just old - and not that good kind of "Super Mario Bros." or "Sonic the Hedghog" old - it's completely clunky. Kinda plays like an irritating version of the old-school Shinobi, with you jumping between upper and lower play areas, and I'd really, really rather be playing the smoother-feeling Shinobi.