The act of playing the game is totally fun to me.  The mechanics feel good and the designers change them up a bit as you play.  Not only does each world have its own signature time mechanic, the puzzles in which they are used seemingly become more impossible as the game wears on.  But, these puzzles are always simple and organic to solve.  For instance, through observation and simple tinkering, one can solve any puzzle in the game.  The game never requires ludacris luck or guessing to solve the puzzles albeit probably seems to.

I think it's been popular on the internet for the past year or so to hate on Too Human.  If the game is bad, then it is bad.  But something must be said about how many of the internet crazies jumped on the Too Human hate wagon before giving the game a fair shake.

Recently, more and more people are having a problem with idea of paying 50 bucks to play online games.  They have "xbox live shoud be free" in there gamertag motos.  They point to comparable services that are free such as the playstation network (hmm ok) and wii connect (really?)  But are these people justified in their complaints?  Maybe.  First off, xbox live is hands down the best console based online service.  Thats one point in posititve.  But then you must ask the question.  Why am I paying for this when I see a bunch of advertisements?  To my knowledge, the psn has no advertisements and is free!  Im totally fine with paying 50 bucks for xbox live in order to cover the backend, structure maintenece, bandwidth costs, and persistent features.  But please do so without the ads. 

So in short, xbox live is worth the money. Get rid of the ads.

Why do some games have such a polarizing affect on the people that play them? Take Metal Gear Solid 4 for instance. Do you know anybody that is having an "average" time with the game? No. Everyone either hates it or loves it. But is that such a bad thing when people are always searching for gaming's next entry into the "games are art" argument. Isn't it good that one piece of work can have such a varied set of opinions? Doesn't that mean that the game has made people think about it different ways? Or does it just mean that Konami did absolutely no focus testing?

Personally I just think that MGS4 asks more from the user than most other experiences.  But when you give that to the game, it will offer up more reward to you than said experiences.  That is a good and bad.  Most games fall within a set range of this freshly termed "input-reward" balance.  Give a little, get a little.  Give more, get more.  MGS4 however, grossly compounds this balance with massive amounts of give required to receive a huge amount of reward.

Whatever the case may be, I am enjoying the game. I see them flaws and I raise you Rey vs. Rex battle. Oops spoilars!

The big 3, the big shmee.  Yeah I know that was lame.  I DON'T CARE.  Everybody is so caught up in who is winning the console wars or which console is the best.  It's not my place to say either, but I am intrigued by what these companies are doing right and wrong. 

Sony on the one hand is preparing itself for the future by settling down and announcing a bunch interesting new games set to launch in the next 9 months or so.  Not to mention the strong hints at even more to come. Also, Sony isn't wasting time going after the non-gamer market.  Their business is hardcore games and they are focusing on that. Things however, aren't all peachy.  The PSN, despite update 2.41, is still in the dark age compared to the competitor.  Extra offerings like the Sony movie store are playing second fiddle along with the multiplatform games.  The system is too expensive and needs to do a bit more to attract new purchasers.

Over in the land of mushrooms, the time is now. Nintendo is cashing in on a product that is not made for you and me.  Thats not to say that the product is of good quality but whatev.  Regardless of what Reggie and crew say, there will be at least 2 or 3 big Nintendo franchise games to come including Mario, Zelda, and probably Kid Icarus.  Besides those games, the future is looking so dim that Iwata is gonna need Sam Fischer esque night goggles.  Nintendo spends no time cultivating an environment for 3rd parties to thrive.  The majority of the user base plays 1 maybe 2 games.  So the promises of sales can't attract.  And Nintendo so heavily pushes "new experiences that are aimed at new audiences" that it makes no sense to create a hardcore game for that system.  Get a hard drive and buy off some 3rd party exclusive games ala Microsoft and they'll be fine.

Microsoft rounds out the pack with maybe the hardest platform to put a finger on.  The current software library is unmatched with more quality coming down the pipeline.  Xbox live is the hands down leader in online console gaming.  And lastly, the multimedia possibilities are becoming endless with the success of the marketplace video store and the recent announcement that Netflix would be coming into the fold.  Where does the uncertainty lie? Well it starts with Microsoft's stubbornness to steal away the wii market.  They run the risk of forgeting who got them in the place they are.  The hardcore gamer.  Consoles say might not ever be as impressive as the wii because of this, but they can more than make up for it with the insane software sales.  Not to mention that they get 50 buck a year from us all to play online and 5 bucks a pop for a video download.  Most disturbing however, is the fear that we could be ponying up 500 bucks in the near future to play the next xbox cause Microsoft could potentially drop the 360 like a bad habit and force the new system onto the market.  If they avoid this and get their heads right on what type of consumer is buying the system, then things should be nice in ole Redmon.