A few things in my small world of gaming, as of late:

1.  I did a match of MK vs. DC on the recent TNT here on Giant Bomb.  I think I was the third or fourth fight Jeff did.  He picked Liu Kang, and I chose Captain Marvel.  I won the match, but I cheesed it pretty bad.  Marvel is a bit of a cheap character, plus Jeff was not at the top of his game, remarking out loud that he didn't know how to throw Liu's fireball (it's changed in this game).  But, it was a complete honor, and highlight to have a match with Jeff.

2.  Ok, so I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins, and I'm really struggling with enjoying it.  I just don't see the big appeal of it, other than it being a neo-classical take on an RPG formula.  I'm not saying the game is bad, it's just very hard for me to get into.  I don't like how I can't (or don't know how) skip conversations.  Or that I have to drag healing items to each party member to use.  It may be, because I'm just starting out (level 7, just got to the camp), but some things are just bugging me.  I'm going to soldier on though, for at least a few more hours, and hope it captures me.

3.  Also playing Splinter Cell: Conviction.  Uh...yeah, it's a Splinter Cell game.  That's about my only thought on it.

4.  I really need to get back to playing Darksiders.  I stopped playing RIGHT after I got Ruin, and beat the worm boss.  I just need to sit with it, and bang it out.  I think the problem is, that game is challenging (at least to me), not in the combat sense, but in the puzzle sense.  And I'm not a patient guy for that type of stuff, preferring just to read a FAQ and blow through it.

5.  Playing a bit of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer.  It's a lot of fun to kill guys, but the gigantic task of leveling up to 70 and unlocking everything is overwhelming.

6.  Also toying with TF2 a bit.  I don't like how you can't Alt/Tab out of that game quickly.  But I do like playing a Pyro and burning people to death.

Ah well, that's enough for now. 

Just a couple thoughts on Dawn of War 2: Retribution, so far.  I'm fairly deep (I think) in the Space Marine campaign.  That's about it:
 
1.  The DLC/collector's editions stuff really breaks the game in a fun way.  My Diomedes was WAY over-powered compared to my other guys.  It's a lot of fun really.
2.  "The Ancient One" (Spoiler:  It's Tarkus) is badass!  Seriously, the plasma-shot thing is great.  What's more fun is equipping him with a plasma rifle, and his plasma-shot just takes out anyone.
3.  Escaping Typhon was a pain in the ass, but a lot of fun.  I don't like missions with timer's on them at all, but a few times it's effective.
4.  No sign of the Flame Avatar yet.  Thank god!
5.  I'm curious who t he betrayer was in Chaos Rising.  In my playthrough of that game, my squads were pure, so it was Martellus.  Obviously this isn't cannon (since he's alive in this game).  It's not Cyrus, or Tarkus either.  So, it's either Avitus, or the Force Commander.  I'm betting the Commander, personally, because it's easier to write him out, than an already established character.
6.  Speaking of Chaos Rising, it's weird how they completely removed the corruption mechanic from the game.  Although if the game had it, it'd probably be too over-burdened as it is.
7.  Switching from item drops (like the medical packs/grenades) to all energy-based stuff is great.  No more running out of the medic pack, at a key moment.  Plus it makes the game feel quicker.
8.  The "summon units" thing is kind of fun.  I usually try and spawn a Devastator squad, a Terminator squad, the battle-tank, and then call down th Venerable Dreadnought (with Martellus doing it)  I give the tank and the Devastator's lascannon's, and let them go.  But with Tarkus's plasma gun it's almost over-kill.
 
Ah well, it's a fun game (as the other two were).  It's a little easier with the DLC, but that's not so bad.  Some of the missions in the earlier games were hard as fuck at times (fuck you Flame Avatar).  I really hope Dave, Vinny, and someone else do a Quick Look of the game soon, as I'd be curious to see their thoughts on it.  Plus I really dug the Chaos Rising QL they did earlier.

I like Torchlight, quite a bit.  I have it for the PC, and played the mage guy, beating that game at least twice, and enjoying it.  I'm interested in the Xbox 360 port also, since the Diablo PS1 port failed on an epic level.
 
One thing though:  Torchlight is NOT a super-unique thing on the Xbox 360.  It's a Diablo-style, hack & slash, RPG, to be sure.  But a few of those already existed on the 360, namely with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2.  True, both those games didn't have "loot" (in a traditional sense), or randomly-generated dungeons, but seriously, those 3 games are basically the same.
 
It's NOT a bad genre either, as it's classical, and works, and is fun.  But for everyone saying how Torchlight is SO unique, and fresh on the 360, wake the fuck up.

Well, at the moment I'm feeling better, but I'm not 100%.  For the past few days I've been sick with the Flu, or a stomach bug, or something.  Considering I'm 
immunosuppressed , this isn't exactly a good thing.  I actually called up both my oncologist's yesterday to ask if I should go into the hospital, because of how dire I was feeling.  Luckily I seem to be over the brunt of it, and except for a case of nausea, I'm doing better.  A few things going on:
 
1.  I start radiation treatment on Monday, which should be interesting.  I was actually supposed to start on Friday, but my transportation company screwed up, and no one was available.  So, Monday through Friday I go in for treatment, for 5 weeks.  It'll be hard (especially on my ankle), but if it means clearing away more of the cancer, and being able to walk again, it'll be worth it.  The good news is, it's warming up here slightly, so I won't be outside freezing as much.
2.  I started playing the Saboteur on PC.  I bought it during Christmas on Amazon's download service, but forgot I had it, till recently.  I wish it had come to Steam, as I like having all my games on that specific platform.  It's a decent game, but (as everyone says) has some issues.
3.  I'm going to try and replay Mass Effect 2 again.  I found a decent site for PC game saves for Mass Effect 1, and loaded it up.  Sometime soon I'm just going to grab ME 1 and 2 for the 360, and play it the way it's meant to be played (I.E. with a controller)
4.  I beat Reccetear, at least one playthrough of it.  I liked it, but there was a LOT of stuff I missed.
5.  The system for unlocking the DLC in Dragon Age Ultimate Edition on Steam is insane.  It's one of the most poorly designed systems I've seen.
6.  Just got sick again, while writing this post.
7.  Re-installed Saints Row 2, because a friend of mine has it, and I still don't like it.  I really like the idea, and characters, but the game feels poorly executed.
 8.  My copy of MvsC3 should be here soon.  I pre-ordered it from Best Buy, since Gamestop and Amazon were out of the collector's versions.  I'm looking for to it.
 
Also, here's a quick run-down of what I intend to get next month:
 
1.  Dawn of War 2: Retribution collector's version.  It's only on THQ's website, but I still wants it.
2.  Reboot: Mainframe Edition dvd.  All of Reboot for 60?  Sold.
3.  I may pick up Homefront on the PC.  You can get a copy of Metro 2033 with it, which is decent.  And I'm kind of looking forward to it, and it supporting a Xbox 360 controller.
4.  Might buy The X-Files complete series dvd.
 
Ah well, that's it for now, I'll try blog more sometime, but I usually just do the Twitter thing.  
 
Special note:  The guys who do the "This year of the Hotspot", and "Best of Bombcast" podcasts are great.  Seriously, some of the best work around.

Was able to get the game Magicka last night.  An interesting game, so I had a few thoughts on it;
 
1.  Combining spells/elements is a lot of fun.  Creating some arcane/lightning/fire death-ray is cool.  All the beam stuff works fairly well.
2.  The beam stuff works well, but it'd be VERY helpful if you could aim better.   If I create an ice beam, I want to be able to aim it down on the lake, to freeze it, not just have it go on till it hits something.
3.  Online is fucked.   There's no way to really filter games.  Inviting (via Steam) doesn't work, no private games, etc.  What a mess.
4.  The game runs weird.  On my laptop (2.53 dual core, GTX 260M, 6gb of ram), it ran perfectly fine.   On my desktop (2.0 dual core, GTX 210, 2GB of ram), no mas.  The minimum is 2gb....so....yeah.
5.  I'm really not sure where the CD key is supposed to go.
6.  Also not sure where the Steam DLC is.
 
So, at the moment, the game is a bit fried, but I hope eventually, they can iron out the big bugs, and get it working better.  It's an interesting concept at least.
 
EDIT:  Forgot one thing, how do you save in the game?  I left the starting area, got outside, walked around, and had to stop playing.  But there's no option to save mid-game, or anything like that.  So, when I reloaded the game, it was back at the beginning.  Kind of odd.

Well, got my PSP in the mail yesterday.  It came in a small box, and just had the unit (so pretty), and charger.  Well, now that I have the thing, here's my current shopping list:
 
1.  Logitech PSP PlayGear Pocket - Slim -- of all the cases, this looks to be the most durable.  Also will fit the extended battery.  The only problem is, it looks to be discontinued, so it's a challenge to try and find it with a reputable online store.
2.  Extended Battery -- naturally, really.  It comes with the Silver cover, which is very nice.
3.  32GB memory stick -- I like having a bunch of space.
4.  Screen protector -- my previous PSP had a nasty scratch in it, so I'm protecting it this time.
5.  Pandora Battery/Magic Memory card combo -- in case the mods I put on ever get screwed up, I want a hard reset option
6.  Crisis Core -- best PSP game around.
7.  Persona 3 Portable -- I'm very interested in trying out the female character.  Plus, it's still a great game. 
8.  USB to mini-USB cord.  I probably have one somewhere, but I don't want to leave it to chance.
 
Can anyone think of any other crap I'm going to need?

So, I ordered a copy of Prey (new, PC version) off Ebay a few days ago for about 6 bucks.  You might ask "What the fuck?"  Well, the reason is because Steam decided to delete the game from their service (to buy, specifically), since they ran out of CD Keys during their Christmas sale from 2009.  Since then the title has been unavailable for purchase from Steam, with them later quietly removing the store page altogether.
 
However, you could previously buy the game from GamersGate, get the cd key, plug it into Steam, and add the cd key into your Steam games list.  But, GG took the game down also.  There's a few other sites that let you buy a digital copy (Gamestop has it for 20$, and some British site had it for 10 pounds), but it's still kind of insane.
 
So, I bought a new (hopefully) copy of the 2 CD version of Prey off Ebay, JUST to get it's cd key to plug it into Steam, so it's added to my games list.  That is officially going off the deep end, I imagine, for the sake of my Steam account.  Especially since the game is 4$ from Gamestop, for the 360.
 
The final thing is, I like Prey's idea's, some of the weapons/ship is cool, and I think the beginning 10 minutes are amazing, but that's about it.

Well, finally beat Alpha Protocol tonight (or this morning, at this point).  I'd played a lot of it when it first came out, then lost interest, but I bought it when Steam put it up on sale, so I finally completed it.  Here are a few thoughts:
 
1.  I cheated (used a trainer) pretty much all during the game.  Ironically, not for infinite health, but just to fully max out the skill points, give infinite cash, and infinite time for the hacking mini-game.  The RPG elements felt very weird in this game, and not super intuitive like other action rpg's (Mass Effect being a comparison)
2.  The store felt kinda busted.  I was playing on PC, and it amused me to whenever I select a new weapon to wait 4-7 seconds for the texture to pop in.  Way to go Unreal Engine 3!
3.  On that front  also, on the last mission, when you kill Darcy, chase the baddie around, etc (at least I did), the ground texture's weren't popping in right.  It took about 20 seconds of me standing there waiting for the ground to load in from a pixelated surface, to an actual ground texture.  And it's not like my computer's a huge slouch.  It's a 2.5ghz dual core, with 6gb of ram, and a Nvidia GTX 260M card.  So it's not the best, but it can certainly play most games fine.
4.  I liked some of the characters a lot, especially Heck, and Scarlet.  Wouldn't mind seeing Heck pop up in more games, just at random times.
5.  For as much as people bitch about the shooting, I didn't mind it at all.  This might've been because my character had all  the skills maxed, but I found the combat to be kind of fun.  Especially just running up on a guy and beating the shit out of him.
6.  Contrary to most other people, I really didn't enjoy the dialog stuff.  Well, I did and didn't.  I liked that it forced you to choose an option (the timer), that was fine.  I didn't like that it took FOREVER to get to an option.   Most times, I would skip the conversation so much, and then get to an option, and have no idea what they person just said.  In other games like this, written dialog shows up much quicker, and I can read fast.  Not with this game, and I was continuously out of the loop when it came to the story, because I skipped a lot of the voice acting.
7.  Nice to see Matthew Rorie's name in a game credits.
8.  I liked the radar power, that put triangles over guy's heads telling you their status.  Nice throw-back to MGS, and it's why I don't like Splinter Cell, or most other stealth games.
9.  I mainly used Pistols/Assault Rifles for my guy.  The Pistol power-up "Chain Shot" felt very over-powered.  It was a lot of fun actually.
 
It's kind of funny, because I would've given Alpha Protocol probably a 3 out of 5, like Jeff did, but for completely different reasons.  I enjoyed the combat a lot, and dug the charaacters, but I really wasn't super into the conversation trees, or the story.  I'm gonna go play it again probably, just to explore some of the other character paths, and see where it goes.

I was thinking about it, and as a plumber, Mario kind of sucks.  He doesn't do a LOT of plumbing in any of the Mario games at all, except by exploring the underbelly of pipes.  At least in Donkey Kong, when Mario was a carpenter, he used his hammer to bust barrels apart.  I've never seen Mario (as a plumber) fixing the Kingdom's water pressure, or unclogging a toilet with a snake.  Perhaps that's Bowser's big issue, he kidnaps Peach to get Mario's attention, but because Mario sucks as a plumber, Bowser's Keep/Castle can never get fixed and just has endlessly shitty plumbing.
 
All I'm saying is, Nintendo should make a new Mario game where Mario is a carpenter.  It'd be enjoyable just to install a door frame, or replace kitchen title, or carpenter things like that.
 
And I know Mario does use a hammer occasionally in his games, but honestly, if you're a plumber using a hammer the same size as you (Super Smash Bros.) then that's a sign of a terrible plumber.
 
And yes,  Ana Hurka-Robles (from Tested) said it best, Mario = Jesus Christ.