Whatcha Been Playing?

I've been pretty busy playing a variety of things these past few weeks. I'd say the majority of my free time was spent on completing Zelda Twilight Princess for the Wii. Clocking in at just over 45 hours, Twilight Princess is by far the longest Zelda experience I've ever had. Not that I'm complaining -- on the contrary -- the game was top notch. I'll admit though, those last 3 dungeons were a little unncessary. IMHO, I would have liked it better if the other dungeons were better and more developed. I'm guessing that the delay to Wii launch actually afforded the developers more time to add the last few and make it a longer game, but longer is not always better. Nine times out of Ten, quality beats quantity. Overall though, the game definetely lives up the Zelda legacy. Here's to hoping the next iteration breaks the mold, and does for the Zelda series what Resident Evil 4 did for that series. Some more Zelda II-style RPG elements would be nice!

I also just started Super Paper Mario. I'm on Chapter 2-1, and so far, it's pretty fun. I'm curious what other interesting gameplay mechanics this game has to offer, but at the very least, the 2D/3D switching is very clever.

Over on the 360, the new (and free) Gears of War DLC (downloadable content) was released last week. Most notably, this added the much awaited new multiplayer game mode "Annex." More Unreal Tournament 2004 than Counter-Strike now, the new mode allows infinite respwans (every 15 seconds) and a capture point system that makes it more strategic and much faster paced. I played online and was immediately reminded how rusty I've become at the whole "stop and pop" gameplay of Gears. The good news is that a few kind souls bumped my 3 star Xbox Live rep status up a bit. Now if only the free Crackdown DLC would arrive already, I could dust off that game and get back to lunging 50 feet in the air again.

I got to try out the new Boom Boom Rocket Live Arcade game demo, but I'm pretty disappointed with how that game turned out. I think those Geometry Wars guys should go back to the drawing board and give us what we really want... a Geometry Wars sequel w/ onlnie co-op. I did enjoy the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles Arcade xbox live arcade port though. The infinite lives feature sorta limits the game's replay value, but it's hard to beat 4-player ninja turles nostalgia (...and Donatello still kicks ass!!!)

Next month should be pretty crazy. Forza Motorsport 2 is coming out for the 360, but I'll probably wait on that one (the first game was pretty good actually). But the big thing in May would have to be the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, coming May 16th. It's only gonna be 3 weeks long, but let's be honest here.. any amount of face time with the as of now unreleased Halo game is something to get excited about. And with Mass Effect just around the corner and Ouendan 2 lined up for a DS release, my spring and summer are basically set.