If more than a month of silence doesn't say it, things didn't get any less busy. Stressing over work and home has meant little desire write about stuff. Hopefully that changes...

I have waded through almost a half-dozen Gamefly rentals since my last entry. Which is actually a bad thing... the turn-around was so fast because they sucked so bad. Seriously, what I needed was to relax and really crappy games just don't allow that.

I started the trend with Condemned 2: Bloodshot. I'll admit it, I didn't play it for very long. While the ability to grab nearly anything from the environment and beat the snot out of my foes was awesome at first, it quickly lost its appeal. I didn't think it handled well and though it certainly wasn't sub-par in the graphics or sound categories, it didn't really shine either. It felt like the design rested too heavily on the shock factor, which seemed rather lame to me.

The disappointment stumbled downhill from there.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty intrigued me, despite the poor GS score and review, and after playing the demo, I really wanted to know more. I forced myself to play it through and while there were fun moments (usually the environmental kills), these were few and far between. Everything else about the game was lacking, from the graphics and sound to gameplay. The design team really dropped the ball, wasting the potential their alternate history gave them and delivering an unexciting story.

I had really thought a Turning Point series, where similar alternate stories could be told would be a great, fun idea... but any possibility of that being well received is probably ruined now.

Next was Wartech: Senko Ronde. Yeah, I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I mean, I saw it at local resellers for $10... that should have told me something. But it just called to me and I was doomed to experience it. There's nothing here. At all. It's a very bad arcade-like fighting shooter kinda mess with the implication of a story and depth but no delivery. I returned it the very next day, a new record.

Remaining masochistic, I popped in Vampire Rain next. Again, with all of the negative surrounding the game, I should have known better than to invest any hope in it. I may as well have gotten a bikini wax for all of the fun I had. Another game that wastes such awesome potential. Why the hell even give the character guns in this game, honestly. I never reached a point where I could use them to do anything but startle the birds. The entire premise of the game leaks like a siv whenever it takes combined assault rifle fire from a four-man spec ops team to take down even a single vampire and yet their preferred tactic is to split up individually. It is really more of a puzzle game, where you must figure out the single path through the obstacles to your objective and then follow that line.

Thankfully, Timeshift began a salvage operation. It was another game that intrigued me and I wanted to see what it had going for it. This time, I was not so terribly let down. The graphics and sound were great, the controls were generally efficient, the engine handled wonderfully, and the story fairly good. The time controls were a bit clunky, making for difficulty in some tight moments and preventing some truly devious tactics. Add to it that the handful of time-based tricks to progress changed very little in application, using them felt stale after a while.

Come to think of it, it actually reminded me of playing Assassin's Creed in many ways, including the annoying cliffhanger of an ending blatantly leading to a sequel.

We hadn't gotten a game that Kim wanted in a while, so she bumped Tomb Raider: Legend up the list since she never had a chance to play it before and was nearing the end of Tomb Raider: Anniversary (she actually just beat it as I was typing this).

Anyway, there's a buckshot of mini-reviews that I doubt I will have the energy to do full write-ups for. Just don't have the time lately...