At a friend's just yesterday, I got the opportunity to play God of War. My impressions are as follows:

The game started out with a man who appeared to have grey skin and red paint on him. This is Kratos. A narration runs in thebackground, and then he jumps.

The game flashes back to several weeks ago after pulling a Quentin Tarantino, aboard a ship upon stormy seas. Kratos is attacked by several creatures. It turns out that Kratos is very far from helpless as he easily and brutally rips through the enemies. The first thing one may notice is the controls: they're set up well. Not being able to control the camera angle is frustrating (and even makes some parts such as the balancing acts more difficult) at first, but you get used to it. The controls didn't feel quite so smooth to me, but that could be because I'm accustomed to a Gamecube controller.

After destroying (literally) the enemies, Kratos finds himself facing a serpent-like creature called the Hydra inside the ship. This isn't too difficult and the Hydra is taken down without mercy. Eventually, as Kratos fights his way from ship to ship, he comes to a door. It seems several women are inside, shouting to be let out; the door is locked. On another ship, Kratos witnesses the killing of several men by Hydras (three, to be exact, and one of them appears to be the leader since it's the largest), one of which has a key. Strangely, no blood when he's eaten. Hmmm.

Anyway, the two smaller Hydras are taken care of by driving spikes into their necks and Kratos climbs to the ship's mast to face off against the larger Hydra. This fight heavily relies upon context-sensitive moments, which I gather are used throughout the game. To me, they felt a bit overused. But I finished off the Hydra and climbed down its gullet. Somehow, the man who had the key is still there, hanging on. Kratos pulls him up, takes the key, and drops him back down the creature's throat. As you may have guessed by now, Kratos is one bad dude.

A bloody cutscene and two topless women later, Kratos is in Athens. And that's where I stopped. Overall, it was fun. I don't think it was as great as people were telling me it was, but it was pretty good.

I've decided to take up jogging. It's not that I'm a slow runner; I'm one of the faster runners on my team. It's downright ridiculous howlittle stamina I have, however. So I've decided to start jogging in order to work on this problem to prepare for the next season.

I receieved free tickets to go to Dew Tour 2007 (I know someone who works there.) The Dew Tour is basically an extreme sports-themed event with mounds of free stuff and giveaways.

My first stop was the House of Dew, a house devoted entirely to Mountain Dew (I was in heaven.) Upstairs were skateboarding games, which was a pity considering I really don't like that type of game too much, probably because I'm not good at it.

Later, I put a penny into one of those machines that imprints a design on the coin. I chose a SKATE one. I also won a free DVD player, one of the three that were being given away (lucky me.) There was also a band behind the House of Dew which was ridiculously awful (ugh.)

The Dew Tour had many sponsors, such as MAD Magazine and Sony. Because of these two, I received a free MAD on my way in (I read that sort of thing, just so you know.)

There was a large area devoted to all things PlayStation as well. There were many PS3s and PSPs, and a few PS2s, most of which had either a baseballl game in them, but one had God of War II in it. The PSPs had Daxter, Symphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, Ratchet and Clank:Size Matters, and several others I'm not familiar with. I'm not particularly fond of PSPs because I don't like the controls. The PS3s had Gran Turismo HD, Motorstorm, Tony Hawk's Project 8 (of course), Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and Resistance: Fall of Man. I played NGS and Resistance. I have never played a PS3 before since I don't know anybody who owns one and the places where I can find one set up have a sports game in them. Resistance and Ninja Gaiden are fantastic games, but I already knew this for NG, since I played it on the Xbox at a friend's. I was only able to finish the first level of NGS, considering it was a demo. Resistance was the full game and I played quite a bit of it. I didn't realy like the TVs the games were on, because it all looked so darn shiny and, because of this, not that good in my opinion. Maybe it was because of the shininess and because it made the flaws stand out more. Oh well.

But anyway, I had a pretty good time. I got to play a PS3, watch the final event of the day, and walked home with a free MAD magazine and a DVD player along with other assorted things I wasn't too fond of.

Maybe this is just me, but that really bothers me. I'm a guy. Guys don't like clothes. Your parents bought you a Game Boy along with Super Mario Land, Uncle Rico got you a basketball, and Aunt May got you that cassette you wanted. Grandma and Grandpa got you a sweater and a pair of socks.

That means something, right there. It means simply that they don't know what to get you other than a pair of socks. I have nothing against the people who buy you clothes, but they need to realize guys don't usually enjoy getting clothes for Christmas. For women, it's fine. They enjoy getting new clothes. Buying clothes for a man is the equivalent of telling them "Sorry, norfair_dweller, I didn't know what else to get you." Some of the time they actually did just want to get you clothes, but most of the time it's the former. And that really ticks me off.

I don't want a sweater, I want a new videogame.

I've decided to change. Now I'm going to be much more critical with my reviews. I did this before as -The-G-Man- but decided to drop it and now I'm picking it up again. I'll keep my ratings the same for now (I'll probably change those later), but here's a list of the changed scores and why:

Medal of Honor: Frontline- 7.4(Previously 8.2; I really got on this game for not being original. That's really the only change, but I reworded it. I criticized the save system and AI much more in this version.)

RollerCoaster Tycoon- 8.1 (Previously 8.5; I really only changed the scoring of this game and left the words as they were. 8.5 was a little too generous considering my criticisms.)

Wii Sports- 7.3 (Previously 8.0; the biggest change by far. I criticized Wii Sports for its severe lack of depth and was less forgiving about the graphics.)

In other news, I just learned how very difficult H itman 2 is. :evil: And my 3rd party controller is acting up. It could be just the game, though, because it only happens when I play H itman 2. Mr. 47 will walk left sometimes when I'm not touching the analog stick and will lean more to the left when I'm walking. I've also started up Viewtiful Joe, and I forgot how fun this game was and the pure awesomeness of Hulk Davidson (the second boss of the game- the one with the really big axe.) I'm also trying to figure out how to get the tag system to work on games. I'm also going to edit the tagline of the RollerCoaster Tycoon review once GameSpot gets it through its computerized head that I editted the review and some of the text no longer says that.

For the connoisseur of fine games.
Those with good taste are judicious about what games they add to their impressive collections, and would be reluctant to pollute their rows and rows of c lassics with anything approaching average quality. Ask these fine individuals for advice on what to buy next, because chances are, you won't go wrong by following their guidance.

^^ I have just received this emblem. Apparently, I have good taste in games. And being such a fine individual, you can ask me for guidance on buying games because with my exceptional advice you cannot go wrong (yeah, right.)

In other news, I reworked my Medal of Honor: Frontline review to be more detailed. I have started playing H itman 2, and I am greatly enjoying it. I have achieved a Silent Assassin (the highest rating) on the first mission, and Professional (I think this is the second-highest rating) on the other two missions. I've also played a bit of the other games, but I've decided to focus the bulk of my gaming time on H itman 2. I may also return Tony Hawk's Underground. I will move over my Wind Waker and Metroid Fusion reviews to this account maybe by Wednesday and rewrite them a little bit. I'll also archive my RollerCoaster Tycoon and Medal of Honor reviews. Expect a H itman 2 review once I finish the game. Oh, and I'm in the process of writing an FAQ for GameFAQs about Windfall Island in Wind Waker.

I went around to a couple game stores and bought six games for a total of 49 dollars and 87 cents. Here's my purchases:

Gladius
H itman 2: Silent Assassin
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Tony Hawk's Underground
Viewtiful Joe

All of my purchases were for my Wii, which I play my Gamecube games on. Gladius looked unique and fun, so I bought it. I'm a fan of stealth games, so I bought Hitman 2. I originally had and beat Metroid Prime and traded it in, but I've decided to start keeping all the games I own and not trade them in. Metroid Prime 2 I originally had but never beat. Tony Hawk's Underground I bought because, although I'm not usually into sports games, I played it at a party and liked it very much. And I used to also own Viewtiful Joe.

So, what do you think? Good deal? Rip-off? Good or bad games?

Oh, and I reworked my Medal of Honor: Frontline review to be more detailed. I'll also post my Wind Waker and Metroid Fusion reviews from my other account shortly, so check those out.

I got up to the point in The Wind Waker where you must go into the Savage Labyrinth in order to search for a Triforce chart. The Labyrinth is many, many floors of nothing but enemies. The first few levels weren't too difficult and I eventually got the chart. But you had the option to keep going, which I did.

That didn't turn out to be such a good idea. In the later levels, you get MOBBED by enemies, literally. One time youbecome surounded by a circle of ChuChus or Miniblins and another you're tasked with defeating I think five Darknuts at once! The later part of the Labyrinth cost me my remaining two fairies (I had three to beging with) and almost all my hearts; by the time I was at the final level I had one heart left!

In Nintendo games, there's something in common with all boss battles: the number three. Why three? Well, it's quite simple. Ever notice how in Zelda you have to do something to the boss three times? Same with Mario?

For some reason, three is Nintendo's magic number. In most of their games in boss battles, you have to do something three times in order to win the fight. Just thought I'd share this observation with you.

Nintendo had their E3 conference recently. And I was slightly disappointed. But we'll start out on a high note:

They showed footage of some of the games I wanted and announced Mario Kart Wii, with online battle! And they also announced Wii Fit, a fitness game which Miyamoto demonstrated by losing to Reggie in a Soccer-like game. They also announced many add-ons, too, and release dates for my most-wanted Wii games!

Now to the bad news. The beginning was a bore-fest; Reggie went on about the sales. And after the footage of the games I wanted was shown, that was it. Then they moved on to casual games, which took up most of the show. The balance was very off; the majority of the show involved Wii casual games and almost no DS games. What about us hardcore gamers, Nintendo? And then you have far too many add-ons; they're adding on two that hold the Wii remote in some way and the Wii balance board which will be used for Wii Fit. The good part of this is none but the balance board will be required for any game and they are supposedly packaged with certain games. And Mario Kart Wii didn't look that good, either, graphically; it looked almost identical to Double Dash!! for the Gamecube.

It was a good, professional conference. I just HATE how unbalanced it was, however.