It seems that as of late the majority of my gaming time has been focused solely on XBLA arcade games. Despite the slew of games I have yet to finish in my backlog (Bioshock and Viva Piñata being my main focus at the moment), I haven't really been playing anything else other than my XBLA titles. The titles in question being Geometry Wars 2, Braid and strangely enough Time Pilot.

Im sure you are all sick of reading blogs about it by now, but Braid is a really, really special game. It's so well made, so beautiful and so rewarding. But perhaps the best thing about it, is that you cant take it as seriously as you want. You can play it as a straight up puzzler/plat former hybrid with homages a plenty to Jumpman and all the crew. However, you can also play it purely for the story with is also really well thought out. I have read numerous blogs/articles/reviews on the seemingly simple love story of some dude called tim trying to rescue the unattainable princess. However much more can be taken from such a simple premise, with some people making connections to the creation of the atomic bomb (the Oppenheimer theory), a theory which stipulates that Tim is Robert Oppenheimer and the princess the atomic bomb itself. This is probably reading way too far into it, but such stipulations show you how diversely this game can be played. At this point I am going to stop talking about the game as by now I am probably starting to sound like one of those "Games are art" fellas desperately searching for a hidden meaning that just isn't there.

Geometry wars 2 on the other hand is unadulterated gaming fun in it's purest form. This game is really, really awesome. I would even go as far as to say that it is about as pure and as fun as gaming can get. It's so anarchic and fast paced to the point that I can only play it for about 20 minutes or so before I have to take a break. Maybe the tv I'm playing on isnt ideal, but I very often find myself getting completely lost amidst all the pixelated destruction. I have also found out that I really suck at this game, with the majority of my high-scores barely creeping past 1.5 million.

The third xbla title that has been sapping the rest of my gaming time is "Time Pilot". I have no idea why I got this one, but I found an old 500 point card I got for free when I bought GTA on launch day. Something I had forgotten about a long time ago. In fact, I almost threw it out mistaking it for a 48 hour xbl subscription card. This game is pretty awesome. Very retro, and very easy on the achievement points (you can pretty  much get the majority of them in about 15 minutes). And for a mere 400 points I couldn't resist it's arcadey charm.

Other than that, I haven't been playing much else apart from intermittent Bio-shock sessions (epic game is epic) and late night liaisons with Puzzle Quest ds.
On another note, I handed in my one months notice in work today, which means that I have notified my employers that I longer wish to work for them anymore and In a month will be leaving them. After a year of working there I'm pretty glad to see the back of it. I really need to concentrate more on school this year which is why I'm giving up working for the next 10 months or so. That also means I am going to start having to budget my  gaming expenditure for the next year, which wont be pleasant.
Thats enough blog-age for now as I need me some puzzle-quest!