Gears of War 2 does everything the first one did, only bigger, louder and better.

DO: Shoot, run, drive, fly and chainsaw your way through hundreds of the Locust Horde across a variety of awesome set piece battles.

TYPE: 3rd Person Cover-Based Shooter

PLATFORM: Xbox 360

MEAT: Gears of War 2 is the leaner, sleeker version of Gears of War.  The cover system that defined the original game has been tweaked so that Marcus will stick to things he should stick to and jump/run/dive when the situation calls for it.   The story has also been beefed up significantly in this installment.  It won’t win any awards but it has enough meat to give a somewhat plausible justification as to why Marcus and his crew of thick-necked soldiers keep getting into the crazy situations they find themselves in.  Gears 2 is the epitome of a summer action movie distilled into a game.  Explosions abound, the stakes are high and only the hero and his giant chainsaw/gun can save the day.  It works great as a way to relax your brain if you’re playing headier fare like Valkyria Chronicles or Fallout 3.  Just point and shoot and wait for something to go BOOM.

PERKS: Chainsaw duels; riding a variety of ‘vehicles’; giant boss fights; a variety of multiplayer modes, including the awesome 5-man Horde co-op mode.

SCREAMS: For more chainsaw duels in the story campaign; a few less underground segments.

Verdict: Buy (esp. if you want the 5 classic Gears maps).  As someone who got bored of Gears 1 about 2/3rds of the way through the singleplayer campaign, I went into Gears 2 with some trepidation.  Suffice it to say, Gears 2 had me hooked from start to finish and wishing it wouldn’t end.  The fantastic Horde mode helps to extend the life of the game significantly and the classic multiplayer modes are all fairly fun, at least for this gamer who doesn’t play a tonne of multiplayer things.  Now hurry up and get Gears 3 out so we can see where the story goes from here!

My education in the Science Fiction and Fantasy “classics” continues, but I took a break to read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trailby Bill Bryson. A very hilarious and thoughtful travelogue of a couple guys ill-fitted for the task of tackling the Appalachian Trail. Hysterical. Another side track I took was to read the classic The Richest Man in Babylon,the gold standard for teaching hard work and personal finance. I think everyone needs to read this book. I’m working on a list of books my kids will read as they grow up and this one will be at the top of that list.

Finally, I got back to the classic. I’m embarassed to say I had never previously read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.I recognize that HHGTTG has a place in the pantheon of Sci Fi classics, but I felt it was a tad overrated. Just a tad. It was good and had laugh-out-loud moments, but it wasn’t great. I then moved on to The Mote in God’s Eyeby Niven and Pournelle. I know I’m drawing from a shallow well at this point, but Mote is probably the best Sci Fi novel I’ve read. A story of the first contact of humans with aliens, it starts slow but finds a comfortable pace and is an excellent read. It strikes the balance between story and science that I like. It also had a “goose bump” moment that I had to go back a read multiple times. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about, a moment that takes a great book and elevates into rarefied air. (One of my favorite “goose bump moments” was in Crichton’s Timeline, when the students find the professor’s note, “Help me,” written 400 years in the past. I loved that moment.) I’m recommending The Mote is God’s Eye to anyone who’ll listen.

Having finished Mote, I’m now moving on to another couple of classics. I have both 1984 and Brave New Worldin the queue. Another book I’m ashamed to say I never read, 1984,was riveting (I just finished it) but a tad depressing. I’ve moved on to Brave New World and then it’s on to the stack of graphic novels Nat provided me with.

Not a whole lot new on the TV consumption. I’m still watching Prison Break and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox, and the trifecta of Earl/Office/30 Rock on Thursdays. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: 30 Rock is my favorite show on TV. We got hooked on Dexter earlier this year and we’re anxiously awaiting the next season (we’re catching it on CBS, as we don’t have Showtime).

On the music front, I haven’t been listening to much new stuff. The newest couple of groups I’ve been listening to have been Bodies Without Organs, a swedish Europop group I came across on last.fm. I can’t find much of their stuff on iTunes or Amazon, but YouTube has a lot of their stuff (my favorite being “Chariots of Fire“). Another group I recently start listening to is Clutch. I love the lead singer’s voice, and any band that performs a song called “What Would a Wookies Do?” is hard to pass up.

So that’s quite a bit. Hopefully I can do these more regularly so I don’t have so much to catch up on. I’ll let the other guys chime in, as well.

I’d like to know what have you been consuming?

(Image Credit: Stacks from Patrick Gray Illustration’s photostream)

Of course, I also needed something to play on my laptop when I can’t use the TV besides Peggle.

The fine folks behind Steam are selling it this weekend for $9.99. I deem this price to be Good^TM.

…or if you prefer, get every game released (and soon to be) by Valve for $100.

Mix a little Diablo II, a little Dwarf Fortress, and a little Sim City and what do you get?

Hinterland—a surprisingly fun game, even without the professional polish.

DO: Build a little village all the while terrorizing the “hinterlands” with your villagers cum warriors at your side. Essentially make your tyrant of a king happy.

TYPE: clickfest hack and slash with a dose of micromanagement on top

PLATFORM: PC (Steam version reviewed here)

PRICE: $20 (via many different digital download vendors)

MEAT: You play a character (one of many typical fantasy classes with a few tongue in cheek classes as well) that’s been called by the king to establish a village and conquer the region for your liege. Travelers come to your village and you get them to stay and perform their special skill while possibly using and training them to raid the countryside with you. One caveat: when they are with you they don’t perform their skills in the village. Your village is raided as well and you can minimally defend it. The game session ends once you’ve conquered all the regions. The replay-ability comes from all the character classes and villager skill classes. Essentially, you play for high scores—and  a dragon or two.

PERKS: easy to learn, lifetime to master; humorous; variable game sessions; excellent developer support; dragons; huge replay-ability; casual or hardcore; cheap;

SCREAMS: to be less ambiguous in some parts; online leaderboards; to have specific quests (the king’s requests can go to…); to have random map encounters; to have major weapons and characters (ie dragons) not be always so close to the endgame; to be able to reuse your characters; to have a little more polish; to have a screen zoom function; to be a little more reliable on some machines

VERDICT: Buy. The next game by TiltedMill—with a little more money put into by you owning this one—will be stellar. This is an excellent independent developer effort.

That’s what I thought to myself after I saw this thing.

Wow. That was a really great trailer. It made me think of Braveheart and The Lord of The Rings movies all at once. Game wise it resembles Viking: Battle for Asgard which is a good game, but the trailer makes this look way better. I would hope that more and more game trailers can be of the same caliber as a movie trailer. Some are already and have been for a while, take any of the clips from any of the Blizzard games. That huge monster at the end gave me goosebumps! It will be interesting to see how the the game actually plays.

I bought the first game of the series that came out on the 360, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom

And the graphics were sweet and the gameplay was sufficient for a 20$ bargain bin game. I just hope that they take the gameplay to a new level and improve on what they had. That would make this game one of the great ones.

(as a side note for those of you who have played KUF before: I wonder if the corn rows haired guy is Kendal’s son or something? If anyone who has KUF wants to tear up some monsters on LIVE let me know.)

The peripheral can also be used without “Animal Crossing,” just for game-free voice chat, but that requires used of the Wii Speak Channel, which will be released in December.

But there’s a catch, a fine print surprise. There is a pamphlet packaged with the peripheral that includes a 16-character code, a “Wii Download Ticket Number,” to be used for downloading the Wii Speak Channel. According to the pamphlet, this code “cannot be replaced by Nintendo or your retailer if it is lost or stolen.”

A Nintendo rep further clarified to me that the channel won’t be able to be downloaded through any other means. You won’t be able to get it off the Wii Shopping Channel manually, nor would you be able to buy it. Essentially, the Wii Speak Channel will be available to new purchasers of the Wii Speak mic and that’s it.

Gimped games being sold at a premium is coming. It’s for certain publishers are thinking about it. My guess is you’ll buy a disc and have to enter a code or a one-time use key to get a level, ending, weapon, or character. Of course, you’ll need internet access, and I can see companies like Microsoft making it so you have to be a Live Gold subscriber.

My wife wants Animal Crossing. We’re not getting it if we don’t find it without the mic. Who is there going to be to talk to on the Wii anyway? Like I want to share a friend code to talk, and I’d rather take a bat to Tom Nook’s knees, not leave him a message.

Fallout 3

This goes beyond the regular first impressions, I’ve logged almost 20 hours. First things first, Fallout 3 is a GREAT game. I’m not going to go through the superlatives. It’s good. It is not without hiccups, but overall it is excellent.

The game is an explorer’s heaven. If you’re like me, you have to open every door and open every container and look in every corner. If your front door is left unlocked (or not), I’m coming in. Some people refer to this as kleptomania. So be it. In Fallout 3, it’s survival. The explorer itch is scratched over and over. In fact, it’s starting to hurt and get red. There is just so much to see. You could be heading to a specific location and take two hours to get there as you look around, take on new missions and find boxes to open. I can’t miss a thing.

The story starts off slowly and I really didn’t care much for the characters at first but things are getting interesting. The world they have crafted feels real without being realistic, if that makes sense. Seeing the dilapidated Washington Monument was jarring. There’s something about seeing a familiar sight and something not being right. Well done, Bethesda.

There are problems, things that aren’t deal breakers, but issues nontheless. My biggest issue is with the NPCs. I believe Oblivion suffered from some of these issues. First off, most are terrifying to look at. Character models are not this game’s strong suit. Their interactions with me, the Vault 101 guy, also leave something to be desired. One minute they’re rushing up to me in town, telling how happy they are for what I’ve done, and giving me the goods. Two seconds later they hate me. What gives?

I mentioned the game looks good, but whatever you do, DO NOT go third person. The game suddenly looks markedly worse. Game-play is mostly on the level. Character progression is well paced and the variety of skills are expansive. Combat isn’t terrible, either. This isn’t a shooter,. I love the VATS targeting system. Unloading my minigun on some Super Mutant’s head is very satisfying.

If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve made moderate progress in the “actual story”. That might not seem much, having played so much already, but I’m okay with that. I’m in no hurry for this game to end.

Gears of War 2

I enjoyed the first Gears. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was a fun game and didn’t take itself too seriously. The sequel (or as Nat calls it, expansion) takes what was fun in the first one and makes everything better and tighter. The core game hasn’t changed. Gears of War 2 lives up to its expectations.

Thing is, it’s almost too polished. Gears of War 2 is the video game equivalent of Pop Music. It is expertly produced, aimed directly at it’s core market (18-34 y/o males), glamorizes a particular lifestyle, and is narrowly focused. It doesn’t take a lot of risks. I guess it really doesn’t need to.

In the end, I’m enjoying quite a bit what I’ve played so far. most of my time has been spent playing the main story. Everything I’ve read about the multiplayer games has me really excited to dip into those waters. I gave Horde Mode (survival mode) a try with split-screen co-op, and this mode resonates strongly with me. I can see this be the beginning of a long relationship.

Disgaea DS

Let me be brief here. Here is a game where the level cap is 9,999. My main character is level 8. It is a strategy RPG (read: portable crack). It may or may not have a story. It has exploding penguins.

I will be playing this for a long time.

Boom Blox

I grabbed this one on a whim, needing to justify ownership of my Wii. The idea is simple — there’s a stack of blox, knock them over with a ball. Simple. I figured the kids would dig on it pretty good. Turns out both kids really like the game. In fact, my little 3 year-old is quite the Boom Bloxer. Not sure if this is a keeper, but it will provide plenty of Wii gaming.

Phew. There’s quite a bit on my plate right now, with more to come.

I can not stop laughing trying to figure this game out.

Get over it, whiners. Create something unique and original. I’ve specifically avoided anything to do with other IP and game level copying. 99% of it is crap anyway. If I want to play Super Mario Bros., uh, I’ll play SMB.

I’ll be nice now. Mean mode is off.