After seeing JonnyAvacado mention the apparent lack of activity around here (apparently I'm not the only one going through a blogging slump), I decided to give you this - another bullet-point filled blog updating my status on a handful of games, if anyone cares about the progress of little-ole-me.

• Beat the main story mode in GTA: Chinatown Wars, actually by accident, since I was apparently too oblivious to the clues that the story was about to end. Of course I noticed the plot twists and whatnot, but the whole story felt pretty anticlimactic after finishing it, hence my NOT thinking that the last mission actually would be... well, the last. That being said, I'm still having one hell of a good time doing the side-missions (I "finished" the game at a little over 50% completion), and have completed all of the rampages, riding shotgun missions, firefighter, taxi, and vigilante side-quests. All of that combined now puts me at 68 or 69% completion, along with rewarding me with stronger armor, bullet-proof taxis, being immune to fire, and having infinite sprinting abilities. Good stuff. I still have a few dealers and safe houses to find, so I won't be putting the game down for good anytime soon, especially not since the Laundromat flash mini-game was released today on Rockstar Social Club that lets you earn money for your game while on the internet - even more good stuff!
• I've also been playing a lot more Beautiful Katamari, in an effort to get all of the achievements. If memory serves, I need less than ten more to have all of the points, with most coming from the "play the game for a certain amount of hours" or "complete a certain number of requests" sides of the game, rather than anything skill based. I spent three or four days tracking down the missing pieces of the item collection, and was surprisingly able to find one of each of the game's 3000+ items with the help of Google and a few message boards. I have yet to download the extra levels for the game (which will allow me to get a few more achievements), but that'll come eventually. I also need the "play online 50 times" achievement, so if anyone also needs that and wants to game together, let me know. My tag's "Andaley".
  
• Bought Prey with some trade-in credit at GameStop. Beat the game on normal difficulty, and am now about halfway through on the harder difficulty setting (playing that one for the points - what can I say? I've become an achievement whore). It was an alright game - I'm still not as addicted to FPS's as most people are, but I'm definitely not as opposed to them as I once was either (thank this one, along with Mirror's Edge - ok, not a shooter, but it fits - and Killzone 2 for that). Doubt I'll try for any of the multiplayer achievements here though, unless I find a willing friend (hint, hint) that will just walk away from the controller while I pummel them into oblivion. Since that is a very unlikely outcome however, I'm fine sticking with the single-player achievements for now.
• Went back to GHIII on HARD for the first time in quite a few weeks. Had gotten stuck those weeks back on the Smashing Pumpkins song (those triple note deals killed me), but decided to give it another go. Surprisingly enough, I beat it my first try back into the game. I then excitedly beat the encore for that song set. Then, thinking I was finally going to get on a roll, I jump into the next set and hit a brick wall all over again. Only tried each song once, so I can't say definitively that I'll never pass them, but dammit they don't call it "HARD" mode for nothing. Actually, now that I'm typing this, I have a question (forgive me if it has an obvious answer). How in the hell do you hit those note strings where it's like 20 red, green or whatever colored notes right on top of one another? I thought I was doing it correctly in the past, but once I saw my performance meter plummit yesterday, I realized I was obviously mistaken.
• Haven't touched Mass Effect since my last blog. Think I hit a bit of a "meh" wall with that one, since I had played SO many hours of it in such a short span of time. Basically what happens every other time I pick up an RPG or RPG-like game. I play for hours upon hours and then suddenly drop it, only to come back a few weeks or months later and start the cycle all over again.
• Finally, in shopping news, I picked up Sega SuperStars Tennis for the Wii for $3.74 on clearance at Target (haven't played yet), and a 360 Charge and Play cable for $1 at the local mom-and-pop gaming store after trading in five REALLY worthless (I'm talking sports stuff from the turn of the century) games for some credit. Yays all around.

If you're still with me, thanks for reading.