Just finished Genji: Dawn of the Samurai.That twas a very short game. Good story, good graphics, nice music, fun battle system, and happily supplied with the original Japanese audio. But yep, very short, and also relatively easy. Once I got the hang of the controls, I died all of once and even then it was a pseudo death as I was immediately resurrected by a talisman. I never even used all my Essence of Amahagane pieces for enhancing Y (his full name is censored because it technically contains a bad word) and Benkai and never bothered doing any special weapon orders. Final game play time: 9 hours, 24 minutes. Y was at level 23, and I had 36,304 gold on hand at the end.

No idea what I'll play next. My only unplayed games now are the first three Devil May Cry, and I'm not really wanting to try the first one again.

I just finished Tomb Raider: Legend. Like most Tomb Raider games, it was short but fun. Total game play time was 9 hours, 26 minutes, 14 seconds and I got 96% completion (mostly missed one or two medals after dying and getting put back at a check point). Despite its short length, it drew its usual string of profanity laden tirades when a jump failed, and when "fighting" that stupid sea monster. Supposedly its sequel will be out around Christmas of this year. I rather hope so, since this one pretty much leaves off right when the story gets really interesting!

I started Tales of the Abyss around April 30th. Talk about a long game! Unlike Final Fantasy XII of last year's misery, however, Tales of the Abyss had a great cast of characters with interesting backgrounds and personalities. Jade had to be my favorite though, with all the fun lines he throws out. The game also as a terrific story line from beginning to end, and the side quest stories tied in perfectly. Of course, their doing so meant it was almost a requirement to finish them to get all of the story, and the Nebilim side boss easily added a good 20 hours to my game as I kept having to level up, go to get the best weapons.

Even with that, it still took four or five tries before I beat that heifer earlier this evening. With that done, I finished the last few side quest trips that required it to be done to do, then headed to Eldrant to beat Van. Compared to Nebilim, it was almost too easy (as usual). My only complaint is that so many scenes were done as regular scenes rather than using the anime sequences. The few anime sequences were great, though, and I was glad that the ending scenes, at least, used them. Speaking of the ending, the first part was sad, yet fitting and hopeful. After the credits (gotta love those teasers), was kinda good and made me tear up, but also left me a little confused (was that Luke? was that Asch? was it both in one?)

Final stats:

• Total game play time: 111 hours, 15 minutes, 26 seconds
• Character levels: Luke - 76, Natalia, Tear, Jade - 75, Guy - 72, Anise - 71
• Encounters: 1066
• Skits viewed: 415/489
• Number of saves: 187
• Average battle time: 32 seconds
• Max number of hits: 53
• Max damage: 43,503
• Character use: Luke - 92%, Tear - 83%, Jade - 82%, Anise - 10%, Guy - 22%, Natalia - 68%, Asch - 2%

I may take a mental break for a day or two, then I think I'll start Tomb Raider: Legend for something shorter.

Last night I spent two freaking hours climbing up the last Colossi, falling down again, up again, down again, etc. Tonight, first time beat him in like 7 minutes. Go figure. People told me to keep at it after my initial complaints about the controls saying the ending was worth it. Uh, not even. Best I just found the whole thing to be rather blah and, storywise, it wasn't worth the frustration of the controls or the build up at all. Never find out who the girl is but I guess we're supposed to be glad she's alive again and all safe in her happy place with the horse (yay for the horse living), and the boy whoever the hell he was now a baby. But...why should we really care? Who the heck were they that the boy would bother? Who were the guys trying to kill them. Not gonna find out in this game. :-(

Total game play time, 7 hours, 54 minutes, 20 seconds.

Last night I stated my next video game, Shadow of the Colossus. The graphics are nice. The story so far is, odd, in that we have this unnamed hero trying to bring some unnamed girl back to life for unknown reasons. No random enemies, here, you just need to go from Colossi to Colossi and destroy it, performing a few bits of climbing, jumping, and/or swimming to reach them. Not a very complex set up and seems like it would be a relatively quick game except the controls suck monkey balls. Controlling the characters horse (which is only character with a name at the moment BTW) is a royal pain, especially because the camera does not auto-follow or anything. So you're having to steer with the left control stick while trying to manipulate the badly tuned camera with the right. It makes fighting a nightmare because you can't get the camera in position to see where the heck the Colossi is until, oh, he's stepping on you. *ugh* It took three tries to bring the first Colossi down. I got lost looking for the second, so gave up after awhile and will try again later today.

Tonight, I finished up Tomb Raider: Anniversary! 100% completion in 21 hours, 15 minutes, 1 second. On the whole, I enjoyed it. Just like the original, some of the jumping sequences made me cuss up a storm and want to fling my controller in disgust, but I still enjoyed it. The story was good, though I can't remember just how different/similar it is the original. Not as many enemies, which was both good and bad. I missed picking off more alligators in the water :-P

As for what to play next...I'm undecided. I have Tomb Raider: Legend, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, Shadows of Colossus, Tales of the Abyss, and the first three Devil May Cry games in my queue. Hmmm...