I got my copy of the Darkness in the mail from Gamefly today.

...it's OK.

Your character moves a little slow but all in all it works, and the Darkness powers are hella' fun. I've gotten a bit worn out on it though, considering I just played it for around 3 hours straight. I found myself getting lost everyonce in a while because there aren't any waypoints or anything- just locations and a map. The story is great and the voice acting fantastic, with cool cutscenes and all. There are some slow points, which is sort of strange for a video game. Oh yeah, and the multiplayer is broken- lag.

The game is almost too cinematic in that there's an achievement which awards you for sitting on a couch while your girlfriend watches the television...

...what the hell?

Besides that, I figure I'm almost half through considering I've gotten all of the Darkness powers except Black Hole. I'll continue playing that for a few more days until I get bored with it or beat it.

I want Overlord.

Been really excited about this game from when they announced it, but Gamefly reshipped DiRT accidentally so that'll be a while.

Speaking of DiRT:

Got most of the achievements in it and sent it back because I've played too many racing games lately.

Eh... I think that's about all I have to talk about for now. Just been playing games. Eating... sleeping... Oh yeah!

Yesterday I finished watching all 131 episodes of Bleach at a website I found (>.>) and it was an awesome experience. Waiting for episode 132 to come out whenever.

Meh.

So recently I've jacked up my sleep schedule. I go to bed when my mom is getting up, and she goes to bed when I'm getting up. That's all I have to say about the subject actually so... yeah!

Been playing lots of games recently, none of them particularly good ones, but lots of games nonetheless.

TMNT: You should know by now that this game sucks. Don't play it unless you're a points whore like me. (kind of)

Chromehounds: I still get this one out every once in a while if I have friends who want to play it, but besides that, it's been pretty slow.

Battlestations Midway: Stopped playing it.

Forza Motorsports 2: Sent it back to Gamefly because I couldn't get anymore points out of it without spending too much time on it... so I sent it back. Run together sentence? Who cares...?

Shadowrun: I actually had alot of fun with the game and since I rented it for two days and two days only from my local video store, the game still felt fresh after playing it nonstop for those two days. I'm going to rerent it in order to get more points and just to have some more fun with it. It reminded me of my old Halo 2 days in a way.

Tenchu Z: Played the crap out of it and got as many points as I could stand to get out of it. Wouldn't recommend buying it, but it's a mildly entertaining game if you can get past the many flaws and faulty AI bugs.

DiRT: Hasn't gotten here from Gamefly yet, but I imagine that I'll have a good bit of fun with it. I don't quite know though, because of the overdose from Forza 2. Too... much... racing...

Besides that I've been bassing frequently, and I downloaded Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Flash, and Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. Mainly just for fun.

Oh yeah, I saw Ocean's 13, and it was awesome.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to watch some movies and see if I can crawl through the last several missions in TMNT. It's not that bad, but the camera is just so God-awful that... I'll stop.

Sorry if my post was in short paragraphs, but my thoughts were kind of everywhere and this post was a spontaneous click, so yeah... later.

EDIT: I rented Superman Returns: The Official Movie GAME! and it's hard. Very hard. I can't get past the 1st level. (not the tutorial) Maybe I just suck at that kind of game though. I got 30 points out of it though!

EDIT: Got past the first "level" and got a few hundred points. Yay.

I've noticed lately that there are certain smells and tastes that remind me of good and/or bad games. For instance, I'm currently eating Cracked Pepper & Olive Oil Triscuits. I ate these during the marathon of Super Paper Mario, and now when I think about the game or see it being played, I get an urge for them. Another example would be my sampling of Sour Jelly Beans while playing an old game called Operation: Flashpoint for the PC. Now when I eat those it takes me back to my days of PC gaming. It works for smells aswell. Many vanilla scented Bath and Body Works hand soaps give me a vivid reminder of why I stopped playing Command and Conquer Red Alert 2, or the smell of pizza making me want to own some people in Soldier of Fortune 2: Double of Helix Multiplayer again.

But could this be a bad thing? Another thing I've found about this taste/smell/memory circlej*rk is that it can also make me not want to play games. When I play a game reminding me of a food or drink that I don't like anymore it makes me stop playing it just because I hate being reminded of that taste. It's almost similar to getting sh*tfaced and then not being able to stand the thought of the drink that did it to you.

Anyways, I just figured that I could share my experiences with you.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

Some games I've been playing recently are:

Forza Motorsport 2: I like this game but it's still a racing game; they are repetitive. No matter how many cars I obtain and races I win, it still doesn't seem like I'm getting anywhere. Oh well, I'm just glad I didn't buy it.

Chromehounds: I rented it from a local video store and fell in love with it again. I rented it when it came out and got bored with it but now I've gotten into a good clan and all and I even bought it from Gamefly for 20 bucks so I guess I'll be adding that to my collection soon.

Battlestations Midway: I've always loved this game but got a little bored with it. Now that I've bought the Iowa Map Pack and a few of my friends play it, It's reenergized this game for me. Yay for stuffs.

Besides that I've been attempting to raise my Gamerscore a bit- at least to 14,000. I'll be playing a few more bad games later on this week and I'm really not looking forward to that but hey, it comes with the territory.

On another note it's Summer.

I don't really have alot to say about the subject now but I guess the excitement will set in eventually- this week maybe?

My sleep schedule is being rearranged as I type and it feels like 6:00 PM while it's 9:41 PM here. Can I get a booyah for jacked up sleep schedules!?!

Booyah,

EDIT: WHY DO I FIND HER UNNATURALLY ATTRACTIVE?

It's almost scary... I usually can't even tell whether Square Enix's characters are of the right gender.

EDIT 2: And what is she holding?

Is Halo 3 going to go above and beyond our expectations?

That's a question I've been asking myself lately and to be frank, I don't and can't understand how Bungie will be able to keep the fans happy with the next installment of Halo. Halo: Combat Evolved was a great game and gave birth to Microsoft's goldmine in the gaming industry. Halo 2 was an average First Person Shooter but we still just ate it up. Will Halo 3 live up to the name put in place by it's older siblings?

Hype is a sickness not unlike the common cold. It attacks the central nervous system and therefore dulls the receptors responsible for keeping the bad game restriction sensors from being ineffective. When you begin playing a bad game, you get that feeling and immediately stop playing the game (unless you're trying to get achivement points). When sick with hype, you fail to recognize the overall crappiness of the aforementioned game and continue playing it. After getting over the hype it's impossible to see why you paid for such a game.

This brings me to my topic questions: Overhype. The Beta. September.

Overhype

Honestly, is it necessary to have ads for a game 6 months before the game is released? What about delays? There are so many factors that come into play when releasing a game that it's impossible to foresee when it will be released. Duke Nukem Forever is a great example- the game has been in development for a decade and scheduled for release too many times. What's keeping Halo 3 from being delayed?

The Beta

It's HALO! Exactly. Those two words are the embodiment of what is the Beta. It's still Halo, it's still entertaining, it's still good. I just find it difficult to play for more than 30 minutes at a time. Then again, I wasn't impressed with Halo 2- another case of hype. I think what I'm trying to say here is that it's still Halo, but is that all? Will this game be enough to quench the thirst of the non-fanboy populus?

September

September 25th to be exact. This is the scheduled release date of Halo 3. If this is true, why are there ads floating around IGN and GameSpot? Other sites have jumped on the bandwagon aswell. Just look at this one all around GameSpot:

September 25 is 4 months from today, give or take a few days. Isn't that a steep gradient from ad/game release? Yes, I do know that the ads are geared toward the Beta and Crackdown, but it's still advertisement for a game that is 4 months away.

I'm as excited as anyone about the new Halo, but I'm concerned that the state of mind that most of the gamers have gotten through playing the Beta will lead them to dissapointment in the end. I'm hoping that Halo 3 will be as good as they make it out to be, will be as fun as they claim, and will be the Halo 2 killer (I made a funny). I don't think there's a problem with hype, but overhype should be stomped out.

The Halo 3 Beta has arrived...

In case you hadn't noticed, the BETA is here!

Yay.

It's pretty entertaining. New guns, (yay) new controls, (moderately yay) and the Mongoose! (YAY!) I've played for a couple of hours now and it's still fun-unlike Halo 2. Caught in the hype I am and I will admit that, but if you weren't invited or you don't have a copy of Crackdown, find someone who does. It's worth it just for checking-out purposes. (Barrel-rolling Warthogs through the Mancannon is so unbelievably satisfying) Not next-gen, but what is nowadays?

Besides that I've gotten back into PC gaming. My brother traded graphics cards with me and I can play pretty much any game that doesn't require a gig of RAM. (Yeah, I know) Black and White 2 is good for a relatively short amount of time, and demos are now opened to me since I have a better card.

I've found a creature unlike anything you've ever seen. Remember that short post about Far Cry for the Wii? That game is Halo 3 compared to this. (Not that I'm saying Halo 3 is the best game ever, it's just a comparison)

Yeah. I rented it OK? Civil War is just such a bad game that I'm having second thoughts spending the time telling you how bad it is. I don't think I will. Just don't play it.

I've been playing some other games lately including Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (unbelievably hard single player in some parts) and some crappy little flash games. I rented Spiderman 3 from the video store (No Gamefly at the time) and It was appropriately fun. Easy enough until you get to Craven. (Da*n you CRAVEN!!!)

An overwhelming amount of convolutedly awesome is overflowing from my 360 as of right now so I must oblige. Another post will follow eventually-a week maybe?

PEACE!

Back in the day, when I bought Crackdown on launch, I suspected the clerk to be less lenient on sales of M rated games. I was pretty excited about the game and was hoping that they would just let me buy it. They did. Here's how the conversation went:

"Hi, welcome to GameStop."

"Hi, How's it going, let me get a copy of Crackdown,"

"Can I see an ID?"

"Ugh, I left it in my other pants."

"Are you 17?"

"Yep."

"Here you go, make sure to bring it next time."

Considering I just used the oldest trick in the book to get a copy of a game that can't be compared to Gears of War (a game that I bought myself aswell), perhaps GameStop should keep Mature games a little more securely, no matter how convenient it is for me.