Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Bastion, Mass Effect
• Nintendo Wii - Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
• Game Boy Color - Pokémon: Blue Version

Hello again!

So, this previous week saw plenty of Mass Effect. Enough that I finished it! It was so weird seeing a different Commander Shepard crest over the wreckage in the exact same way with the exact movement as I clearly remember from a few years ago when I first completed Mass Effect with my Commander Shepard. Good old Rose. Anyway, that's done, and I'll be jumping in to Mass Effect 2 as soon as I can afford to pick up all the DLC I never played the first time around.

But, in its place, I finally started playing Bastion, a game that's been sitting on my 360 hard drive for months now untouched. And it's fantastic! The Stranger is damned funny, I love the sort of context sensitive narration and I actively try to find new things for him to say. His voice is just perfect. The story's terribly intriguing, I want to know what the hell is going on (what the hell was the Calamity and why didn't it claim the sleeping Kid?), and it's told in a very interesting second-person point-of-view sort of way.

The combat is a hell of a lot of fun, mixing up two different weapons with the X and B buttons. I'm personally in love with the rifle and hammer combination. Some of the mechanics are a little annoying, such as falling off the world when you don't even see the hole in the middle of the playfield, but, it's not nearly bad enough to keep the game from being enjoyable. Some of the enemy types, like the stinkweeds, are downright frustrating, but again, minor complaints in the grand scheme.

I think I'm halfway through the game, without giving too much away the items I'm collecting have switched, and I'll probably play a bit more of it today.

And after taking a break from Bastion I tried a little Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. And I don't like it. I was enjoying it briefly because it was absurd and had that level of quality from which one could derive a sort of mocking pleasure. But the game itself makes no sense. I know this is a sequel to a Nintendo 64 game and I'm assuming that's why the story is so very confusing. Who is this girl? Why are they after her? Are these things direct carryovers from the first game? And the gameplay itself is just too confusing and frustrating for me. I got up to this giant lava turtle boss fight and died repeatedly, enough to turn off the game and put it back on the shelf. The whole thing is confusing and frustrating and I don't think I'm going to continue with it, but, we'll see. Never say never, ja?

And the ubiquitous Pokémon! So, I'm up to the Seafoam Islands. And lost as all hell, I can't seem to remember how to get through and I just keep walking in circles. I caught Articuno, though. And previous to going to the islands I wandered over to the Power Plant and scooped up Zapdos. My team currently consists of Momma (Marowak), Shazam (Kadabra), Fluffy (Ivysaur), Train (Pikachu), though I may switch to Zapdos, I haven't decided yet, Asura (Poliwhirl), and Clifford (Flareon). I'll figure my way through the Islands at some point and then press on!

And there we have it, folks. It's Memorial Day today, meaning a day off from work, so, we'll see what gaming I can start my week off with!