Heya, folks! Welcome to the first Sparky's Update of the site redesign. How's the website treating you? Will you actually find this blog? When's lunch?

It was a long week for me personally, so I didn't get a lot of gaming done. I did find time to beat Ni no Kuni's last boss, which was appropriately difficult without being too ridiculous. It was certainly not a boss battle on the level of Vagrant Story, which had some fights that required a tremendous amount of preperation (and/or a handy online guide, not that I'd ever use anything like that - wink wink, nudge nudge). I made some mild complaints about a lack of content in the game's latter third last week, which still stand, but you should know that tne post-game content is fantastic. There's an entirely new dungeon and some side quests to go on. I feel a little guilty for not having explored it overly much for this blog, but like I say, personal matters really kept me from gaming as much as I'd like.

I also started finished up Super 3D Mario Land Adenture Happy Fun Times, or whatever it's called. Seriously, Nintendo, let's get some easier naming conventions for the Mario games. Super Mario Galaxy? Easy to remember. New Super Mario Bros. Wii U vs. New Super Mario Bros. 2? Not so much. Anyways, as most of you know, beating 3D Mario Land Super Bros. really opens up the game with more levels and stuff to do. I'm having fun with that, though I do have a tendency to get a little frustrated with sticking the landing on a lot of platforming. That might just be my vision - I haven't heard of many people complaining about it. Also, that last regular story boss battle? Super easy to cheese. Where was his butt stomp? Where was the triple fireballs? Seemed like the game just sorta pooped out on that level. But in any case, it's a superb platformer, and I can't believe it took me three months to finally get around to beating the last five stages.

Enough of the preamble. Let's get on to Halo 4, this week's big topic.

Master Chief Has Reservations

Get it? He's a chief? And he has... reservations? That's comedy gold, baby. A gift from me to your funny bone. Treasure it. TREASURE IT!

You know what's pretty weird about Halo 4? I should have issues with the story and its lack of imagination. I should come in here, all pissy about the new team having an entire freakin' universe to play with, to create new aliens and vehicles. I should get pissy about the Covenant being (kinda sorta) front and center again. And you know what? A few hours into Halo 4, and I don't really care about any of that.

This game, at its core, is a reassurance to long-time fans that the series is in good hands, that it's not suddenly going to become Military Shooter 5: Future Warfare Devolved. Think of it as a ridiculously good-looking and highly polished of the Halo series you've come to know and love, and you'll know right away if you're in or not. It's that simple. Yes, they don't take a lot of creative risks. Yes, the new guns are essentially revamped (but ridiculously cool-looking) versions of already familiar Halo technology. Yes, you're still inexplicably piloting Warthogs and Banshees. But all of that is done with such precision, such refinement, that it's actually a hell of a lot of fun. The new Halo team has gone through this game with a fine-toothed comb. They have groomed it and sculpted it into something really fantastic.

And hey, there are some new elements. Without getting into too many spoilers, the new villain, the Didact, is easily Halo's best villain to date. That's not saying much, but it still doesn't make him pretty darned menacing. Cortana's maybe a little oversexualized, but she's given a lot more room for characterization in this one, as is Master Chief. In a funny way, the story's more intimate nature is a welcome change-up to the hugely, delightfully chaotic nature of Halo 2, 3, and Reach. I'm really feeling more for Master Chief and Cortana than I did in the entire series, which is pretty cool.

Sadly, I won't have a chance to really dig into the multiplayer aspects until my Internet speeds improve sometime this year (I hope). I popped in for a couple of matches tonight, and managed to play two or so before my lag became too detrimental to the team. I did play long enough to make sure that my Warthog driving skills are still the best in the world. They are, FYI. I will make a Warthog dance on the head of a pin. I'll make that sumbitch do the macarena. Topical!

So yeah, I completely get why this new team did what they did. The Halo franchise is in really good hands, me thinks. I can't wait to see what they do with the next one, when they can hopefully unleash more of their own flavor into the series. I'll hopefully have more thoughts next week.

The iPad Corner

-Galaxy on Fire 2 takes a few missions to really get good, but stick with it. It's essentially a space sim, a stripped down Freespace 2, if you will. There are a string of ho-hum single player missions, or you can go off the rails and do whatever the hell you feel like. And that, my friends, is the genius of Galaxy on Fire 2 (and just about every open world-ish space sim). You can mine asteroids, trade freely between safe planets, hunt down pirates (or become one yourself, which unfortunately is a little difficult, as you piss off almost everyone doing it), buy new equipment for your ship, or purchase entirely new ones. There are some issues with the game, most notably with the annoyingly small "joystick" you use to fly your fighter. It could have used an option to increase the size of that joystick, to make it easier for those of us with big ol' sausage fingers. Telling the difference between friendlies and enemies can be sporadically difficult too. But for the moeny, it's an absurdly deep, fun game for the iPad. Oh, and it's easily the best looking game I've seen on the iPad. That might not sound like much, but it's pretty snazzy.

The Rest

-I'm getting into the first season of Boardwalk Empire. It's pretty rad so far, with a lot of great performances. It also makes me really want to play Omerta, which I know would be a terrible mistake.

-I also watched the newest Resident Evil movie. It redefines stupid and requires you, like every other Resident Evil movie, to just forget everything that's already transpired. I wasn't expecting anything of this movie, but even so, I was left wondering why I punished myself like that for an hour and a half. It does give some hope that if there's another one, it might be the very last in the series. Good gravy, I hope so.

And that's really about it. Hope you're all adjusting to the new website pretty well. I'm hoping we get some more user focused features back up, like the easily visible status and blog updates. No idea if or when that'll happen, but fingers crossed.