First off, no podcast this week. Schedules got all jumbled up -- it was Tony's birthday and anniversary (wish him happy birthday and anniversary via the mailbag - mailbag AT trigames DOT net) and both Al and I had some last-minute stuff come up. Which, frankly, is actually fine by me for the moment as I need to just take it easy this week after work instead of doing hardcore podcast-editing. My GMATs didn't go so well; I did even worse than last time (690 dropped to a 680, meanwhile my goal is to get 700 or over) and I'm a little pissed. Whatever. I'll just have to re-take it -- AGAIN.

In the meantime, I've been blowing off a little steam playing Tenchu: Shadow Assault for review for Gamespot. I finished the single-player, and now I'm just trying to get some more multiplayer time in. Unfortunately that'll have to wait until later this week since I can't lug my 360 with me to work. This one is an odd duck, as far as single player's concerned. All I'll really say is that you've got to suspend A LOT of disblief in order to appreciate this game. It's almost entirely trap-based, where you have to lay down some NINJA TRAPS in a Rube-Goldberg / domino-effect / chain reaction fashion in order to kill enemies by sending them into spiked pits all around the map, and it's actually pretty funny watching some ninja thug get bounced around a bed of spikes as if he were a pinball.

The final verdict, of course, will have to wait for the full review. All I can suggest is to download the demo first -- it's definitely interesting, to say the least, but from what I've seen up 'til now, it's far from a home run. I'll have to see what else Multiplayer has to offer.