I actually work with a lot of gamers. Some a lot more hardcore than me. I started eating at the break room instead of working at my desk. I was amazing to hear their thoughts on things. Some have a WoW addiction. Others play whatever was just released because they only like to talk about games, not necessarily play them beyond the chat. One is a COD junkie. Some are PC gamers, others strictly X360 people. Funny thing is we each have a point of view and it is more fun to talk about games that worry about the differences. Recent talk around the table has been about Dues Ex. A game I probably won't ever play simply because the discussions have given me enough of what I find interesting about the game and enough reason to not worry about the 'game' that gets in the way of that interest. That is a complicated way of saying someone already figured out how to 'game' the game and explained it to us. It didn't sound like fun anymore. I have tried to interject what I have been playing. Other than Oblivion, no one really has anything to say about the games I'm playing. Even bringing up a DS game is instantly mocked - I won't bring them up again. But this is what I am playing: Oblivion (PC). I really like it, but I have decided I don't like the leveling up system. It is a game I have to play to have the maximum character possible. I'm only level 12 and I have maxed two parts of my character stats (endurance and strength). I find myself doing stupid things in the game simply to make sure I get a +5 level bonus when I sleep. Yeah, that is stupid. At first the level system makes sense. You level up the stuff you use. Totally logical. Yet in the game world, so stupid. It means I continue to focus doing the same stuff, to get the same result, and when I level up I will continue to use it because that is what I feel the most awesome using. "Gaming" the game... or "maxing the build" as most people would call it. One of the people constantly says, "if you find yourself punching a horse to make sure your stats level right, something is wrong." Indeed. Yet like the WoW addict or COD gamer, there I am, hand to hand fighting someone with a sword to make sure I got +5 to Strength the next time I leveled. Yep, doing stupid stuff because I'm a gamer. Next up: Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii). My wife joined the SNES generation when that was THE platformer. She has a love of the series, despite how bad she is at it. We play together, but it is a constant frustration. It is too hard for her, and personally I think DK controls like ass. I hate the game. Take mario, make the controls suck, make it hard to double jump, take away all the extra lives at every corner, and put bananas in stupid locations to see how often we die to get them - That sums up DKC Returns. I play it because she wants to. I would never inflict the game upon myself without her. On the X360, I put in Forza 2 last night. I played 4 races. I repeated a track... How lame is that. It wasn't even me looking for it. It was a professional series, finished it up, started the next series - I was already duping races in a different car. I guess that is the game really. How many different cars can you race on the same 7 tracks. At least the first two were the only ones in a '66 muscle car that suck. The next races were in a nice fast car that controlled well. When I race I like cars that control well. I drive with the dash cam (or bumper cam in this case) because it feels more real to me. However, if you race with that camera you will quickly find Forza is a repeat of the same tracks with the controls being great sometimes, and other times sucking hard - sometimes the races are fast, other times slow as mud; Same tracks though over and over.

Regardless, I hate to have to 'watch my car' as I drive, so Forza, and car collecting games in general, don't really cut it for me. Instead of making a lot of useless cars, I would prefer tracks - lots of tracks. And a game around why I'm driving those tracks. I don't care to get yet another car that I won't drive unless the game forces me to use it. Someone should take all the elements of Forza and make a fun racer out of them. Also on the X360, I have actually started playing Enslaved again. It isn't a bad game, but it isn't a good one either. Once again you control a guy that controls like Donkey Kong, only this time in 3D space (so you get a crappy camera to go with it). 3rd person = crappy camera. Yep I said it. Everyone that started on the Playstation probably just doesn't get it. All they know is crappy camera... And they are use to it. I'm sure they say the same thing about me and my requirement to be in first person mode or 2D side view. meh, whatever. My iPhone game of the moment is Stratergy again. A "Risk like" only simpler and more fun. I also have been playing Tichu. It is a Chinese card game. #1 card game on boardgamegeek.com. Yeah, I don't expect too many people to be interested in that either. At work, we all bought copies of COD4 and are playing LAN again. We would have bought Borderlands, but we had too many people (that and the company blocks the ports to register the game and play), we would have bought COD5, or 6, but it requires us to register with an Activision server and my company blocks the ports. Someone thought Starcraft 2... but yep, company blocks the ports and no LAN. There are a lot of people that want to play Diablo 3 when it comes out... oh yeah, ports blocked. Really, we had a lot of people that want to buy some games and start playing, but yep, back to COD4. Thanks gaming industry for making sure the pirates win. Sure you might be stopping pirates, but you are stopping legitimate customers at every turn. And lastly, on the DS. I have been playing Devil Survivor. I would say the other part of the name, but they left it in Japanese and I don't know how to say it and I won't bother to look it up. Good localization there... Want to quickly alienate a group of potential customers from buying your game? Yep, forget to localize the name so no one knows how to say it. Regardless, I'm playing it. I really like it. The battles are like Fire Emblem, only with teams of Demons and Demon Tamers. The fights are like Pokemon where certain elements toast other beasts that use the other elements. You can merge demons, teach demons new skills, level up. It is actually really fun. It is kind of dragging right now though and I think I'm only on day 3, but still. My DS is a right before bed experience anyhow, so I don't get very far before the text sections put me to sleep or I realize if I do another battle I might be up for 45 minutes or longer so I just have to close it. I really like the game though. Anyone that likes TBS games with actual ok'ish dialog should play it. I hear there are 100 different rereleases of the game these days, so I can't image anyone that is interested in TBS that hasn't played it, but I guess I was one of them so I figure I might as well put a shout out for it. Which version is best? the one you can find. I'm playing the original and it is good enough for me. It is also long enough for me. I couldn't image playing through it more than once... games with replay value need to be shorter, so I can replay them. There is no point putting in 6 different endings when it takes you 40 hours to get to each one. That is why youtube was invented (broad generalization there). Regardless, fun game. Everyone seems to be talking about what big game they are getting during the holidays and such, so I guess I better give a shout out to Ace Combat. That is the only game that I'll buy near release. The jury is still out on Skyrim. I will buy the game, I just don't know if I'll get it before all the DLC comes out and gets disc'ed up and rereleased for $30. I need to play the demo of Ace Combat. I really like fighter games like that, but I am worried they will put in a really stupid story like the last one. I still roll my eyes every time someone says "Angels". What's up with everyone else?

Well, I found the first game on the 3DS I would want to buy... Will it even get localized? Here's hoping. Regardless who still plays a TBS game like Fire emblem with all that eye candy on? I don't want to watch an animation over and over to see a number pop up above someones head... I turn off the animation and play the game. It takes them so long to release a new one because they have to sink all that time into soon to be skipped animations. Why don't they increase the production values on the talk and dialog animations instead of the fighting scenes that just duplicate over and over... Anyhow. It will still take a while for me to feel the 3DS is worth investing in with just one game I'm interested in. What else is even out there for this thing? EDIT: Just for fun I looked up all the metacritic games for it. only 7 games have over a 74... #1, 2, 3, 4 are all remakes. (OoT, SF IV, Star Fox 64, Devil Survivor)

#5 is a boob simulator and yet another fighting game (Dead or Alive) - I'm not a tween anymore. #6 is Ghost Recon... and until this point I put it off as a Shooter. (it does have a guy with a gun on the front and come from the 'Ghost Recon' product line), but as I read into this it is a TBS? is that true? This is my first maybe. More research required. #7 Ridge Racer 3D. - Oh this is a port. further down the list are the games I have looked into and have an opinion with it: A) Pilotwings resort - I wanted a new pilotwings. If it wasn't Mii's and what appeared to be the same Resort as the Wii game I might have given this more of a chance... That's it... :(

Happenings: I'll go over a few things here: 1) My gaming 2) The 3DS analog 3) the 3DS lite Feel free to jump sections.

Gaming

Well, I picked up Oblivion again. Yep. The best part about that game is I can pick it up and put it down whenever I want. I have had to monitor work computers and builds from home all week and it was nice to kick one of those off and then tab into Oblivion and play a bit... tab out and tweak some things and tab back in. I know exactly where I left off, I know what quests I can go do. Every free-roam RPG should be like this. I also happened to get the itch to go play StarCraft 2 again. I had an hour or so, so I figured I would jump in and maybe play something quick. Well, I hadn't logged in in almost a full year. So I had to find my password... then I finally got in and it wouldn't let me play because I had to update to a newer version of the game. Then once it was loaded, it wouldn't let me continue the campaign because it hadn't pulled all of my 'real progress' from their cloud. Round trip? 35 minutes... Once my campaign options finally showed up again, I loaded the newest one and I couldn't remember what I was doing or why. I could talk to all the people on my ship, angry Jamacian guy, Tough guy space marine, etc... I remember why I stopped playing this now. By the time I got my bearings again I was done "playing". Ah, oh well, it ends in an expansion pack anyhow why bother to keep playing. I've also been trying to finish, every level complete, New Super Mario Bros DS. I have attempted it 3 times only to have my kids lose the cart somewhere in the middle. Well, I'm back. I only play it in short bursts before I go to bed. I beat the game in quick fashion (one or two plays) simply so I can get the option to save whenever. I really don't see the reason games don't have quick saves by now. I know there are people out there that think doing something like this would hurt the game. I use to be one of those people. Now that I'm very much a 'have to get in and get out quick' player I wish more games had a 'save state' option on them.

1. Nintendo adds a second analog to the 3DS.

This has almost been rehashed to death already so I'll be brief. I agree that those that defend it as "no peripheral ever becomes standard if it wasn't a pack in" are somewhat in the right. Did Wii speak do anything? No. Did Motion Plus? (we still get hit or miss if games even support it), has Kinect? Has Move? Did the 64 rumble pack? etc. The list goes on an on. Peripherals = Cash-in for one or two games and then it disappears. Then again, this is a peripheral that is released only 6 months after the hardware release. It is for one of the 'big seller' games if it happens. Sales haven't been amazing so far... if 3rd parties start expecting this I'm expecting it to go standard that people will assume you have one - "Everyone has Monster Hunter, as such they have the analog... as such the demographic that plays that will play ours". But that is a BIG IF. I think if it becomes part of the 3DS Lite (more on that in a second) then devs will actually take the peripheral seriously. But that is still an IF.

2. The 3DS Lite

OK, this is clearly vaporware at this point. No announcement, no hint from Nintendo. No news what-so-ever! Yet it keeps coming up. Why? Nintendo have trained us this way. GBA - GBA Lite DS - DS Lite DS Lite - DS Lite with more colors DS Lite - DSi DSi - DS XL Wii - Wii Motion+ etc. Nintendo has clearly told us - "Our fans matter to us. So much so we want them to have the latest and greatest we can offer while we finish building what we really want to release. We need to fund it though, so thanks fans for backing us up while we design it better for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th iterations." Here is what happened with the 3DS. It got announced. Some thought it was cool, some thought 3D get lost. The market was split into camps - 1) buy now, 2) buy later, 3) buy never. We then found out the price of the 3DS. more people moved from camp 1 to camp 2. So many in fact their numbers were so low they had to drop the price to what they really wanted to do before they got greedy. To make up for it they called all the people in camp 1 'ambassadors' to make them feel better and gave them some free ROM's they found on the internet. Don't worry, ambassadors are still special, some of the ROM's will be 'exclusive' to just them. So, the market is picking back up as people move from camp 2 to camp 1 due to the price drop. Eventually those numbers will start to slide again and Nintendo is going to need to move people from camps. A lot of camp 2 are there for two reasons at this point. 1) Where are the games? and 2) Where is the remodel? (I would put a third, cost, but seeing it drop $80 in just 6 months moved most of that camp already) "Where are the games?" will go away as they release more first party games or developers make great 3rd party games people want to play. but the second half of that group have been trained to just wait for the remodel. The remodel that IS coming. No it isn't announced. No it isn't even 'planned' right now from the public's perspective but it doesn't matter to us. Lots of people in camp 2 are waiting for the remodel. And guess what Nintendo knows that not only will they get people in camp 2 to finally join in with a remodel, but they know a lot of people from camp 1 will be ready to give them more money and 'upgrade'. They just need to time it right to no offend their 'ambassadors'. To Nintendo that is a Win / Win. The remodel is coming. And unless something unseen convinces camp 2 to move to camp 1 earlier, that is just what is going to happen. I'm fine with waiting. I have a feeling camp 2 is a lot bigger than it use to be because of the DS fiasco... I mean cash-ins, I mean 'remodels'. This is the market Mario built after-all. They reap what they sow.

Okay, my last blog had some comments about race representation in it. Not 24 hours goes by and I found this gamasutra article.

To sum up, Dues Ex (the new one), has a garbage diving heavy accented character in it... the character also happens to be black and female. Yeah, you can see where all the fireworks went off with this one.

The comments quickly get summed up as either

1) The character is in bad taste

2) This is the most offending racist character since black people in RE5!

3) Racism doesn't exists - I don't see anything wrong.

I would like to add a 4th. When I watched the video I saw a person that was struggling for life, that was extemely helpful to me as an 'ex captain' and very nice to talk to. She also was smart in that she gave out clues to get around the city and find new ways to 'play the game'. I even felt sorry for her in some regard because of her circumstances, but if I potrayed her further (beyond the game mechanics) she would be a character that would be humble enough to try to keep at it on her own.

I also found the voice acting for both characters took a bit to ignore, but especially the White guy. No really I did. I really think the only crime with this whole scene is there are people that can't see the good in people and are looking to be offended.

Anyhow, what are your thoughts. Keep it civil please, we are all humans.

The self-made irrelevance of the RPG by Eric Schwarz. Let me just start out by saying you should go read it. It talks about where "RPG's" have evolved from, in a simplified fashion, but to the point. I just want to add my thoughts that I believe this is the very reason I struggle with RPG's in general now. I remember reading the instruction manuals to figure out every last piece of the RPG I was playing. I would learn the gears and dials that made up the game and know how each one hopefully helped me out along the way. I enjoyed that aspect. Some are more complex than others, and some slowly ease the users into the mechanics of the RPG. Take FF VI for example, you learned to play the game before Espers ever showed up. Or FF VII, you didn't get materia until later. This is what I really struggle with RPG's now-a-days. Narrative is great and all, but it is just filler once you have seen it once. And it rarely affects the full gameplay. Whereas mechanics always do - unless they are broken. One of the most frustrating parts of new RPG's to me are the inherent lack of requiring I know what is going on. "They will ease me into it." (see FF XIII). I didn't play it very long. Why? because I never felt like I was playing the game. The mechanics changed - which meant new rulesets, which meant a different game.

On the flip side, there are RPG's that drop you into the deepest hardest to understand ruleset ever in one fell swoop. Surprise! RPG's have evolved over time and what is now viewed as 'the norm' has a HUGE barrier of entry for those that didn't grow up with it. So people will put it down. It is no wonder traditional ruleset RPG's struggle these days... as the number of people that grew up with them dwindles (moving on, lack of interest, not enough time to play a 100 hour epic, etc) and no one took their place, making the market smaller. Yet, new players that pick up RPGs find them complex and move onto something else. If you produce a game to fit one side of the market, the other side can't play it at all or finds it either lacking or to complex. Another thing with 'ruleset' games are I like to study the rules. I like to know how all the little gears affect me. But the only time to do that now-a-days is via an in-game tutorial (at best) seeming the manual has nothing but epileptic seizure warnings, game credits, and maybe a brief description of the starting characters... how useless! - I learned my rulesets when I couldn't play the game or had to go to the John. I can't do that now, so instead my gaming session has to turn into a 'rules learning' session and I wonder why I never make any progress in the game and eventually put it down. That or the interface never explains what all the dials do.. or they appear useless seeming as you tweak them, nothing different really happens. That is the joy of picking the right weapon for the job, or the right stat point, you see visibly that you are doing tons more damage. I think this is what hooked me on the ruleset of Borderlands (despite it not even being an 'rpg' right...) - pick up flame weapon, shoot flesh, it lights on fire, big fiery numbers pop above their heads... Brilliant! Anyhow, I feel like I have rambled off topic, but the important thing is the article had me thinking of RPG's as something easier to define, instead of the conglomerate mess of "you play a role". That is why I thought it was worth reading. What do you think?

Wow. So I finally installed Dues Ex GOTY edition that I bought off steam for ... I can't even remember but it was cheap. I just finished the first level, er um well, mission. I want to keep playing it, but it is 2:00 AM. I made the mistake of telling myself I would stop and then seeing I could install high res graphics over the old graphics using a Mod. So I did. Then of course I had to see how they looked, so I played some more. I'm almost ready to go to the next mission... I've been playing it like and RPG - try to get it all at once and do everything I can before moving on. I just got chewed out for being unprofessional and going into the women's bathroom. Opps, maybe I'm playing it a little TOO rpg like. No toilet left unturned I say! Of course I didn't find anything in there so I probably won't go in there again... The game is great right now though. I was all stealthy for a while, but then I felt like mixing it up and got in a shoot-out. Then I went to a 'in between' kind of play style. I like games that conform like that on the fly. In other news, anyone use ESPN on their X360? It is almost football season; I'm once again in my company fantasy league; and I want to watch ESPN again to go with it. But if I upgrade my cable beyond basic I'm going to throw away $30+ a month. Could just pay for Live and watch it there? anyone have experience with this? just wondering.

The game Catherine really got me thinking more about the ESRB ratings on video games. There is talk about how this should have been an AO game instead of M. How Atlus had to tone it back to make it an 'M' game. From the consumer stantpoint, I still think people are confused with 'M' in general. Parents let kids play 'M' all the time because it is just violence and minor swears anyhow. 'M' also says 'Mature' on it, giving people the false feeling that Maturity and the game content somehow coincide. To be fair with the ESRB they also put labels next to 'M' or 'T' explaining what sort of content is really there. But there is not indication of how much of that content is present. Lets compare to the industry non-gamers are familiar with. Everyone knows how Movie ratings work - everyone. G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. They have recently slapped on 'NA' to mean whatever it was originally released as this is a little bit more towards the NC-17 side of the scale. (not NC-17, just closer). If it was 'PG-13' it could be almost 'R' now or 'R'... etc. Every parent knows 'R' means swearing, lots of 'F-bombs', lots of violence (possibly) and gory at that, nudity and confined to certain 'parts'. Parents also know when kids shouldn't be watching 'R' movies. PG-13 means you get two F-bombs max, tons of vulgarity and off color jokes though. No nudity, except maybe a butt or two but never in sexual context. Now where do games sit in terms of these ratings? What rating is 'R' and which is 'PG-13'? Does gaming have an 'NC-17'? This is where I think the ESRB needs to fix their ratings. As of right now the 'AO' rating doesn't exist. Consoles won't even allow a release of said material on the console - for whatever reason. However, 'M' games are perfectly fine - and most 12 year olds are 'mature' right (every parent wants to think their kids are). What does 'M' even mean? Is it 'R'? and if so why didn't Catherine have any real nudity? Not saying I wanted it, but still. The verbal content is very much in line with 'R', but the rest of the content couldn't be. What does 'T' mean? Contrast it with 'M'. There is a HUGE gap not being covered very well by these two ratings. Star Wars, the force unleashed, had to go for a 'T' rating. In doing so they had to leave out a LOT of the violence they wanted to put into it just to maintain 'T'. Where is the gap of PG-13? It clearly isn't 'T' and it isn't 'M' either. Quick comparison. Mass Effect 2. "M". Why? Blood, Drug Reference, Sexual content, Strong language, violence. I think there were 2 F-bombs in it. One avoidable sex scene chance, which didn't actually show anything and a lap dance girl (again avoidable). Compare this with GTA, same rating "M"... is it? really? The language is on a constant loop, the chances for sex scenes pretty much infinite, and some of them are part of the storyline - no way around it (someone feel free to correct me on that)... etc. However, as a parent, ME2 "M" is really a PG-13 to me - borderline 'R' but probably not. GTA - definitely "R". How about Gears of War? Lots of language, insane amount of gore, also "M", a "R" 'slasher' type game - Devil May Cry 4 - "M" - Blood Language (no f-ombs), sexual themes (they have a skanky girl in it), violence has minor splats of blood - really 'M'? How are these games all the same rating?! It gets better. If you go back in time across the Devil May Cry games, they were ALL "M" - No wonder no one takes the "M" rating seriously. "M" use to mean PG-13 and in a lot of cases still does. To digress a little bit, "M" is a problem. In todays gaming "M" is too vague and covers too much spectrum. Parents are confused at what "M" stands for. If people really saw it as "R" that would probably change parents buying habits. The second problem is the fact "AO" doesn't exist to absorb the 'R' games that are beyond "M". Would a parent really pick up GTA for their 12 year old if it said "ADULTS ONLY" on it. Right now it just says "Mature" - "yeah, my kids mature. It's ok". Take the media. "This game has a sex scene in it!" - "Um it is no worse than a PG-13 movie...", "But you are selling this to kids!" - "No, we are selling it to 'mature' gamers" - "well this other game you can have sex as much as you want in it and it is the same rating!" As such developers can't put any nudity in games for fear of the media. Reorganize the ratings though to match movie industry guidelines and now the whole dialog dies. GTA = "AO" = "R". Mass Effect = "M" = "PG-13"... "T" is "PG" (we all know it is already). and just get rid of 'E10' what is that anyhow? And get rid of the ESRB labels. Just use the rating system people are familiar with like Movies. Then the comparison is easy and acceptable. It is amazing the industry hasn't figured out the easiest way to get consumers and the media off their backs to just match the labeling system everyone is already familiar with... I already know most people that see this probably think what we have is good enough. That is because we are familiar with it. Most parents are clueless though - it is too much effort to learn yet another rating system and one where it seems like all the games kids want are lumped into the glob of "M" rating anyhow. One side comment - I can't figure out that the ESRB hasn't found a way to make 'prevalent' part of their description. If every time I shoot someone they scream "F*" that seems pretty easy to put on the box as "Prevelant Strong Language". Mass Effect 2 on the other hand, one or two F* - "Strong Language". Another example: Borderlands supposidly contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, and Strong Language. Ok, how is this any worse or better than any of the other "M" games? So I read the description and it says it contains "F*, S*t, p*ssy, d*ckbag" - I can't recall a single one of these! They must be one time occurances again... Thoughts?

Well, I finished it. I also had it on ebay for 3 hours before it sold for $50. So why am I selling it? Basically it has too much swearing in it. That and the story was a little off with the ending I went for (True Catherine ending). I still enjoyed the game, but the content just wasn't for me. I'm sure someone else might like it though. There were parts that were hard, there were parts that were just plain easy. There was a lot of story in it, funny parts, interesting parts, stupid parts. Overall it was an ok gaming experience. Everyone complained about the puzzles. There were only one or two places that I got stuck for a while on. The frustrating part of the game though was if you died on these puzzle spots it took took long to get to the retry screen. For a game where 'retry' was the norm, I couldn't figure out how they let this fly. The 'oh, I died' to the 'restart' should have been less than one second. And boss fights were basically the same thing with random death when the boss would want to kill you. You could fly up the blocks, with a huge safety under you, but if you ever got stuck in an area too long it usually mean instant death from the boss. The story was good, despite the dialog. I'm pretty sure I saw the worst path in the game in terms of endings. The whole game Vincent debates fixing things up with Katherine (his girlfriend for the last 5 years), but in my playthrough I was a complete jerk to Katherine at every turn. So it just didn't make sense to me to watch me in cutscene after cutscene trying to patch or cover things up with her. But the ending cleared that up and it was a pretty funny ending to watch. Everyone pointed out that Catherine (the 22 year old hotty) was crazy... Well, without giving it away or anything, people that say this must have missed the storyline. Anyhow, I wouldn't play a sequel to the game or another game like it. If they find a way to make a 'T' rating or at least clean it up a bit I would though. I'm sure people will say all that stuff was necessary, I disagree. - "or that is how life really is", Well maybe yours, but mine rolls a different way and I just doesn't feel good to be a part of a 'life' that is like this. To each their own though.

OK, this has gone on long enough. The internet is busy with talk about Blizzard and the recent Diablo 3 announcements. Most of it just can't figure out what has really happened... People think:

"Blizzard is making an 'online always' requirement DRM scheme!" OR "Blizzard is making a pay to win game with the auction house!" Time to clear things up a bit. Diablo 3, unlike its predecessors is an MMORPG. It also has a heavy single player experience for those that want to play it without a bunch of friends, but I'll say it again: Diablo 3 is an MMO. This means: 1. Internet connection required, seeming you are playing on shared servers in the first place. 2. There should be interaction between players - you can ignore it if you want but regardless it can play a huge part if you want it to. Similar to how The Old Republic is playing out this is a single player franchise now morphing into a MMO. We shouldn't be whining about the DRM. We shouldn't be complaining about micro-transactions. We should be complaining that Diablo 3 is an MMO. Unless of course you like MMO's... and if you do, they just made you a really fun game to play probably.

Honestly this already fits the bill better for Blizzard type games anyhow that are heavy grinding, low content. Really Diablo 2 was a MMO with offline mode if you really look at it. I don't see why it is so hard to see Diablo 3 as an MMO. So if you are going to complain about Diablo 3, at least make sure you complain about the right thing. As for me and my house, we don't play MMO's, so I can cross this right off my list.

Games getting played: 1. Well, I'm still pushing through Advance Wars Dual Strike again. I've been working on this for over a few months now. I have finished the campaign and many of the additional levels. I'm working on leveling everyone up and getting 300 stars. Who knows when I'll finish. This is my 'play right before going to sleep' game. 2. I tried out Bastion - not long enough to determine one way or the other. It was a brief 5 minute play before I played... 3. Catherine. OK, the dating sim / puzzle game has been on my radar. I already knew the content was on the edge for me. I'm not one for swears in games, my wife probably less, but it was different - a different I don't have in any other games in my library. That is why I got it. We played through the first set of puzzles, 3 levels or so - on easy. I don't know if I could recommend it to anyone yet and I don't know if I like it yet either. It can be summed up by: Catherine is Hot; Katherine is controlling; and You are a loser 32 year old male. That is how far I've got so far. I just barely turned 32 this year and I'm having a hard time relating to anything in the game. I also have a hard time having any empthy for him. Heck, don't want the problems keep your thing in your pants and quit wasting all your time and money on alcohol. The puzzles are fun enough though. 4. Borderlands - This is my FPS of choice when I just want to shoot stuff. I'm working through the Zombie expansion. As of right now, I'm really happy I have a class mod that regenerates my SMG bullets. 5. Defense Grid - A pretty fun tower defense game. Still working through the original Story. The story sucks.

6. Metroid: Other M - This would be my second official playthrough. I played it once the day it came out. I watched the theater edition with my wife that doesn't have the tolerance for the shooting and running around. And now I'm playing through it again. Without having the media bashing it at every angle I would have to admit it is more enjoyable than the last time. The annoying 'where's waldo' sections are gone because I still remember what I'm looking for and this time I must be more open to how Samus is portrayed. Samus isn't a complete loser. She has just had the most tramatic experiences ever happen all in a row. From getting an attached metroid baby to watching it completely save her life and then get the stuffing blasted out of it and splashed on her, to having to deal with her 'father figure', and the whole nightmare being recreated on the bottleship again - yeah, it is believable that even the most hardened bounty hunter could get a little messed up with all of this. It is called being humbled and it usually happens to everyone at some point. I don't expect anyone to agree, but I'm enjoying the game. I'm messing around with a few other games here and there... but that pretty much sums up the big stuff happening. Thoughts? What are you up to?