It looks like three Guitar Hero II song packs went up on Marketplace today. You get 3 songs for 500 points. It seems like a lot of people over on MajorNelson.com are miffed about the pricing. At $2/song, I agree that it's a bit much. Although, that's not what's stopping me from buying them. If they really were $2/song, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But they're 500 points for a pack of 3. You can't buy them individually, and there are no added achievements (which, thanks to Microsoft's new rules, there could have been). So there's really no incentive for me to buy them over just popping in my PS2 version of the original Guitar Hero. A bit disappointing.

I was also disappointed with Super Paper Mario. The game itself is great. I played it last night and was having a blast - right up until I walked through a door in level 1-4 and was treated to a white screen of death. It was almost like those annoying blue screens you got when trying to play an NES game that had passed its expiration date. The screen went completely white and there was a shrieking noise coming from my speakers that made me think my fire alarm was going off. I couldn't even turn off the console (holding down the power button just ejects the disk, which didn't stop the shrieking). I ended up having to unplug the system. I powered everything back on and popped the disk in again, and everything seemed fine. I really don't expect this kind of malfunction from a Nintendo system. A friend of mine suggested that it may have simply overheated because I rarely turn the system off completely (WiiConnect24 makes the system run a bit hot). So maybe it was just a one-time thing.

I finally managed to find a copy of Puzzle Quest on the PSP. I tried it out after the Mario fiasco and couldn't put it down. I ended up playing until my PSP battery ran down completely. I swear - if you add a leveling up system to any game, it makes it addicting and impossible to put down. I've heard that the game can lock up at times, but the only thing I noticed was a couple-second delay after each battle while the game loads the victory screen. Nothing important. Puzzle Quest is the ideal game to play for a few minutes before going to sleep (which is when I get most of my portable game fix). And even when you get your ass handed to you in an incredibly unfair match, you still feel like you're making progress because you get to keep money and experience you've earned. Definitely a must-have game for any RPG or puzzle fan, which is a bit weird. But not as weird as my new game idea for a first-person fighting puzzle sports board game. I'll call it Halumines Kombat Maddenopoly '08. Look for it in stores. I'm gonna be a zillionaire.