Next time, don't be so fucking eager.

Star stickers to anyone who can 'name that flick' in regards to my title.

It is an appropriate title, though, I assure you.

Here are all the games I've purchased in 2010.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins - Return to Ostagar, Star Trek Online, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, BioShock 2, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Aliens versus Predator, Heavy Rain, and MLB 10: the Show.

WOW.

I booted Silent Hill, only to never touch it again because of how shockingly ugly the game is. Really, though, that series has gone from the greatest interactive horror franchise ever to unintentionally funny in how fucking bad it is. I'll let you know if that changes.

I played through and enjoyed Mass Effect 2, even if it wasn't quite what I was looking for in the title.

The Dragon Age DLC was okay.

I haven't even activated Star Trek Online. I love Star Trek more than anyone I know, but the beta didn't leave me with a taste of Star Trek in my mouth. Lame.

I installed STALKER and played my usual 'make it run at all' meta-game that I play each time I install a STALKER game. I booted it, tweaked settings, looked around a little, then shut it down, since I haven't even finished Clear Sky yet.

I installed BioShock 2, and have played a fair amount of it, but it just hasn't grabbed me yet. I've played a fair amount of it, and it's...okay. The mutliplayer was a HUGE waste of money on the part of the publisher, BTW.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is awesome. I'm taking my time playing it, savoring each scene. To be required to think instead of twitch in a game is absolutely sensational. You are an idiotic jackass if you're not playing this series.

Aliens vs. Predator was a mistake purchase on my part. It is gorgeous on PC, but just not very good, and way too hard.

I think I really, really like Heavy Rain. I'll let you know in the next few days.

MLB 10 feels good so far, but I still don't understand why they make the game SO FUCKING HARD. Madden is easy to play. MLB should be, also.

Oh, and Sony, please stop shipping broken DLC as a preorder bonus, as you have now in back-to-back weeks with Heavy Rain & MLB 10. NOT COOL. Also, by refusing to fix them, you look dishonest. Please get these working.

Also, next week, I'm starting on Final Fantasy XIII, and a week later, I'll be jumping back into Dragon Age w/ the Awakening expansion while also starting to get a taste of Metro 2033, and then I'm done buying games until June, when Alpha Protocol is finally releasing (believe it when I see it). I wish that 50-75% of my game purchases for 2010 hadn't come out in the first three months, but that's the way the industry let it fall.

Going forward, I'm considering unloading my entire Call of Duty set. I think I'm just done with the series. I dunno. MW2 was a letdown on a few fronts, and I just think that maybe I've gotten everything out of the series that I care to.

Also, I'll be wrapping up Heavy Rain before the weekend, while getting warmed up with MLB 10 while playing BioShock 2 here and there while still continuing the game I have fallen madly in love with, which is The Witcher! This is one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and if things continue as they have in the game, it's easily in my top 5 RPGs of all time.

So, yeah, as usual, my life is all about excess. GAH!

What about you? Has "Christmas 2" been crazy for you, as well?

-Blaine

Calm after the storm...

Now that Heavy Rain has been completed, it looks like I have a week before I start getting hit with the Final Fantasy, God of War, Dawn of War platter. To be honest I still don't know what to think of my experience playing through the game, made even harder to convey without spoiling anything. I will say this - I turned the difficulty to Easy around the doctor sequence. I wanted my choices to dictate the story, not a missed press of the X button.

If I am to look at Heavy Rain as a movie, I think it would not be believable at all, mainly due to how elaborate things are set up throughout the game. I did enjoy 'playing' through it, but the desire to play through again to see different paths just isn't there for me. I also think that the story, while having a few points that you can heavily influence, still is focused enough that I can easily imagine what would happen if I made X decision instead of Y.

Even though I am really not a fan of quicktime events, I would say that overall the game was a success. While it was cumbersome at points (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not) it was rarely a mystery as to what was needing to be done. It also refrained from the 'you missed one press and now you lose' for the most part, at least giving you 2-3 fails in a scene before you are screwed. I did get my slip for the free download of the first add-on story, so hopefully they keep building onto the foundation with some good additional content.

Latest & Greatest Untitled Podcast

I'm always loathe to do these posts the day after the recording, as it's sometimes hard to recapture a sense of 'what the fuck were we thinking?'

That being said, this was a truly great episode. We had a ton of games to get through, and just really kicked back, had a great time, laughed our asses off, all in the name of bringing you the most correct opinions in gaming.

Also, be sure to listen closely for your chance to win a free copy of Saint's Row 2!


GRAB IT HERE!

We talk about:

Star Trek: Online
Dragon Age: Origins - Return to Ostagar (review)
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
BioShock 2 (review)
Aliens vs. Predator
Heavy Rain (demo)
Resident Evil 5 - Lost in Nightmares
Killing Floor
Forza MotorSport 3 - Nurburgring
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Mass Effect 2 (final review)

All that, plus our usual bullshit, and you have one of our greatest podcasts ever. Seriously.

Don't forget to try and win your free Saint's Row 2! Also, we'll be giving away another game soon, as well!

-Blaine

On the horizon! Look! It's a podcast!

OKAY. Real quick. I'm getting up in five and a half hours, and I promised I'd post this tonight, though it's now AM, so whatever. It was my first down time after 38 consecutive need-to-do-something hours, so...there.

Anyway, I snagged both Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Aliens vs. Predator today, which is awesome. AvP took over 8 hours to download, and that sucked, but it forced me to remember why I'm so in love with the Ace Attorney series. Having to really push my brain in a game is awesome, and getting to be with these characters again is like reuniting with old friends. I really dig the more investigative angle, and can't wait to play more.

I did spend about ten minutes with AvP, which I sat up and waited for, and gotta say...it's the best looking game I own. Crank that sucker up to 1920x1080 w/ DirectX11 and BLAMMO, it was surprising how great it looked.

Since it is a PC game, I still need to do some tweaking. It hung horribly on the cut scenes, but the in-game was perfect. I also had a ton of shit (iTunes, Firefox, Visual Studio 2010) running in the background, and I hadn't rebooted in over a day, so that may have hindered the cut scenes.

Anyway, aside from the gorgeous visuals, I was really struck by how good the sound design was. I paid particular attention to the control, since so many reviewers had been crying over their 360 controllers about how bad the control is in the console ports, and in very limited play time, the PC version seemed great. No, I didn't try the titular Alien yet, but I heard that was the worst offender in terms of control. Will grab more stick-time tomorrow.

Okay. Not so brief.

Tony and I are back behind the mic again this weekend, and we'll be talking about:

Ace Attorney & AvP
BioShock 2 review
new Resident Evil 5 DLC
new Forza 3 DLC
Heavy Rain demo
(insert random old shit that Tony's been playing)
final thoughts on Mass Effect 2
and pretty much whatever else you're willing to sit through

So, drop us a comment on anything above or whatever else you want us to read on 'the air.' Thanks!

-Blaine