I thought I'd crap out my thoughts on this game while they are still somewhat fresh. I hope that Journey lovers don't take this as a personal attack, because it's not.

I understand that my personal aesthetic may make me a poor candidate for appreciating games like Journey; indeed, I am so bored by this kind of stuff that I can't get far enough in the game to warrant writing a proper review.

But I have to ask to nobody in particular... what's the appeal? Bear in mind that I am the same hater of all things beautiful and stripped down who doesn't have much love for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus either.

But getting back to Journey: it's a very simplistic game. I may be wrong (again, I only passed 3 or 4 'levels') but here is a title where you can really make do with one button.

The good old Sonic the Hedgehog games only made use of one button function too. But those games offered some semblance of challenge and there was lots to see and do.

Not Journey though. This 'game' is a bland beige tour through a wasteland with cyclopean structures jutting out here and there, involving hopping about and riding carpets to no worthwhile end.

On some occasions, I can pierce the heavy veil of pretentious praise from supporters and see that they love the game because it offers something 'different and beautiful in its simplicity.'

I think back to Out of This World, which was a game that was different and offered a simple, yet beautifully told story of friendship. But that game also had sick puzzles and hard as hell shooting elements. That game killed you a lot.

I imagine OoTW in an alternate universe, where Lester and the big alien just hold hands and run and jump to the end. That would have been something else.

I hope it all works out for you, Joe. It would be unfortunate to see less of your stuff on HG and wherever else... but real life beckons -- I get that.

I'm playing Killzone 3, and man is it ridiculous. I mean, clearly all FPS games have ridiculous plots and ideas, but this game made me laugh openly while playing. Perhaps they're doing it on purpose so as not to take themselves so seriously? That's gotta be it. The main character, Zev, and his loud mouthed buddy Rico are gunners on some sort of high altitude craft and where do they sit to operate the guns? ON TOP OF THE CRAFT. Like, right on top. No oxygen mask. There's no canopy, no nothing. They're not even strapped in. They stay on because they each have one foot hooked around a metal rail.

Just before the sequence with them riding on the open concept craft, Zev is flying a jetpack. It malfunctions and is doomed to crash. He extricates himself, and falls some twenty feet directly onto his left shoulder. Hard. He sits up to recover, and a huge wave caused by an explosion in the water nearly drowns him. His response is priceless: he calmly gets up, LITERALLY BRUSHES HIS SHOULDER OFF, and radios for a pick up from his indestructible hands-free device which is still attached to his ear and still functioning.

Someone is having a lot of fun with this.

Judging from this and the abysmal storytelling in Black Ops, I expect wonderful things from Modern Warfare 3.

I'm playing Killzone 3, and man is it ridiculous. I mean, clearly all FPS games have ridiculous plots and ideas, but this game made me laugh openly while playing. Perhaps they're doing it on purpose so as not to take themselves so seriously? That's gotta be it. The main character, Zev, and his loud mouthed buddy Rico are gunners on some sort of high altitude craft and where do they sit to operate the guns? ON TOP OF THE CRAFT. Like, right on top. No oxygen mask. There's no canopy, no nothing. They're not even strapped in. They stay on because they each have one foot hooked around a metal rail.

Just before the sequence with them riding on the open concept craft, Zev is flying a jetpack. It malfunctions and is doomed to crash. He extricates himself, and falls some twenty feet directly onto his left shoulder. Hard. He sits up to recover, and a huge wave caused by an explosion in the water nearly drowns him. His response is priceless: he calmly gets up, LITERALLY BRUSHES HIS SHOULDER OFF, and radios for a pick up from his indestructible hands-free device which is still attached to his ear and still functioning.

Someone is having a lot of fun with this.

Judging from this and the abysmal storytelling in Black Ops, I expect wonderful things from Modern Warfare 3.

I was so stoked when I checked it out this morning. There was a good amount of new stuff on offer too, but the free shit we anticipated is not available yet--boo.

Highlights for me: Bonk's Adventure and Bomberman '94!! This follows the Neutopia release of a few months ago.

I've got all these games already, but the idea is I can download them on my PSP and play them on the go now. And that's better than spending $300 for a used TurboExpress with dead pixels.

I loaded up Homefront for the first time last night. I haven't tried the single player campaign yet, but I spent some time with the multiplayer team deathmatch mode.

It looks bad. The font used throughout looks like something you might see in an Intellivision game. Worse than simply an aesthetic issue, you can't actually read shit that's on the screen because of it.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The graphics are hella weak, and the weapons lack punch. The best gun is the submachine gun because it uses a red dot by default, which makes it easier to hit your targets--the difficult to see, seemingly pixelated other players.

The sniper rifle seemed like a good idea at first, since the game rewards camping; then I realized that it's slow to fire and more often than not does not give you a one-shot kill.

There are also precious few options on offer. Button layout, for example, is limited to default and southpaw. No tactical, no legacy, nothing. I found this particularly troubling since I like to use the right analog stick not for melee attacks, but for crouching. No can do.

Modes are even more limited. You've got two multiplayer modes. Two! Team Deathmatch, and some sort of holding action mode. Each of the two modes can be 'enhanced' if you choose the Battle Commander versions, which allow a AI-controlled General to place bounties on the heads of whoever is on the most impressive killing streak.

Killing streaks unlock remote controlled drones and airstrikes -- the usual fare, but decidedly less compelling this time 'round.

Really, I'm surprised by how poor the graphics are. The game looks worse than Modern Warfare -- yes, the FIRST Modern Warfare. You know, the one released in 2007? That one.

The trailers led me to believe that we were in for a treat with Homefront, and they certainly did their job. But once the disc started spinning, it was all downhill. Without touching on the (im)plausibility of the bad guy's empire-building -- even the heavy-handed intro, highlighting the Korean occupation of The United States was done poorly.

For the high ticket price on this thing, Homefront is most certainly a terrible value. You might feel ripped off paying the price of a rental alone.

I will save my final word for after I spend some time with the campaign, but I'm not optimistic.

In the last two months or so, I have played over twenty games, easy. Sadly, none of them have really held my interest, and I've been left feeling fairly blase about gaming in general despite or perhaps because of my recent (over?)exposure to so many games. Here's the list, so far as I can recall:

Bulletstorm, Vanquish, Killzone 3, Modern Combat, Ninja Chop, Super Meat Boy, Altered Beast, Mass Effect, Perfect Dark Zero, Tomb Raider Legend, Modern Warfare 2, Alan Wake, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill, Portal, Half-Life 2, Kinect Adventures, Hard Corps Uprising, Deadly Premonition, Raiden Fighters, Tetris, Tetris Splash, COD: Black Ops, Call of Duty 3, Halo Reach, Super Contra, Tenchu Z, and Frogger.


Modern Warfare 2 is the only one I came back to with any regularity. Reach multiplayer seems somewhat promising.

So, I'm either bored of the hobby in general, or I'm playing the wrong games.

In either case: profound sadness.

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