If there is a way to remove specific sounds from Duke Nukem Forever, I would love to hear it. The level after you defeat the Octoking requires gratuitous amounts of the Duke Vision (night vision) accompanied by the most painful sound I've ever heard in my life. Duke Nukem's night vision emits a rather painful squeal that doesn't play when the device is turned on or off, but constantly whenever it is on. I've played more games than I can count with night vision, but they've all been tolerable.

I hate to have to mute the game during those sequences to get rid of the effect, but it looks like I'll have to. Although it is on par with the rest of Duke Nukem Forever.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the greatest stories told in any game I have played to date. At some points, self-awareness leaves me behind and I feel like I'm playing through an engaging science fiction movie right out of a scene in Fahrenheit 451 where Guy Montag's television allows the viewer to take part in the story. As any effective trilogy, the enemy we face in part one pales in comparison to the enemy in part two, who in turn is simply working for yet another higher being. In Mass Effect 2, however, the stakes were raised. You weren't fighting a dormant enemy waiting to spring forward at the right time, the Collectors were actively destroying entire colonies, and you had to assemble a team or face losing even more.  
 

 
After finishing Mass Effect 2, I looked back on my experience with the gameplay, and the review I gave the game. I stand by my 4.5/5, but owing to the idea that the score would have been far lower if Mass Effect 2 hadn't been able to draw me in emotionally between the characters, the soundtrack, and the story. For what the game has managed to make strides in in storytelling, Bioware has once again faltered in simple AI and pathfinding. On numerous occasions I had to reload a saved game because Shephard became stuck, either teleporting on top of a barrier I shouldn't be able to get on, or simply getting stuck. There is no way to unstick yourself should this situation arise.  
 
In addition, although Shephard's companions have become a bit smarter than the previous batch, they still make rookie mistakes like jumping over a barrier, right into enemy fire. Such a mistake breaks the story for me, because I'm supposed to believe that Zaeed is a trained killer whose skills cannot be matched, yet he apparently refuses to acknowledge basic tactics like taking cover. Not standing still while being shot.  
 
I wouldn't mind if resource mining returned in Mass Effect 3, but I'd like to see less weapon/armor upgrades dependent on me finding random spots in the game.
 
I feel that Bioware is almost let off too much with their games, considering the really basic design flaws that would have killed any other game's ratings. But still, ME2 comes in a beautiful package, and these flaws are easily overlooked when you get into the Shephard moments. My favorite Shephard moment was on the Citadel, helping a Quarian that was accused of theft by a C-sec officer and a Volus. Upon finding the credit chit, the C-sec officer threatens the Quarian and the Volus' only apology is "well she could have stolen it."  Using the Paragon interrupt, Shephard goes in a tirade against the Volus and officer, calling them out for refusing to apologize and threatening to arrest her respectively. The officer rebukes with "how about I run you in for obstruction of justice?" Shephard simply walks a few steps away, turns around and says "you think you're going to run in a spectre?" 
 
Like I said, the flaws become quickly forgotten when matched up against Shephard moments, ie: being a bad ass. Whether you lean towards Paragon (as I did) or Renegade, there are just as many moments that scream "why? Because I'm Commander Shephard, mo'fugga, I do what I want." I did try out a few Renegade moments, and one memorable event was when a guy you're supposed to kill is going on a rant, and Shephard just says "I'm sick of you talking" and shoots him in the face. Taking Paragon does make some bigger fights (I refuse to call them boss fights) more difficult, however, as the Renegade option generally causes a few of the enemies to be killed before the fight even begins. 
 
Mass Effect 3 will be one of those games I buy the day it comes out. I just hope that the opening sequence from ME3 can live up to the reconstruction sequence in ME2.

I try to experience all a game has to offer before I review it, which in the case of Medal of Honor Heroes meant cutting the multiplayer to what I read on Gamespy (My PSP refuses to connect online in my house, so multiplayer games are out). As far as the single player went, I mentioned that the game consists of three campaigns, each sporting five sub-missions. When I had written the review, I had completed two of the three campaigns, and three of the five missions in the final campaign. 
 
I'm kicking myself for not noting this in the review, but Heroes' most impressive visual effect is in the grenade-daze that shoots up when a grenade goes off right next to your character. Your vision is hazed and blurred, and in the heat of a firefight can cause a quick game-over. As the final levels progressed, I managed to find myself in quite a sizable firefight, during which the game suffered no loss in frames per second.  The final two levels did disappoint me, however. The penultimate level had me tasked with assassinating high ranking Nazi members, who were actually weaker than their lower
 
I did, however, find it odd that either my guns are incredibly versatile, or despite the German depot consisting of MP40's (9x19mm Parbellum), StG44's (  7.92X33 Kurz) and Karbiners (7.92x57mm IS), the Germans seem to carry a lot of Thompson (.45ACP), M1918A2 Browning (.30-6 Springfield 7.62x63mm), M1 Garand (same as Browning) rounds. This is just me nitpicking, but I do remember in Medal of Honor titles of the past, being forced to relinquish my own weapons when ammo and dead allies became sparse, in favor of the German weapons that came with the power of refilling my ammunition. Sure, it felt unpatriotic to not just go in fists-a-blazing, but what can you expect from a Private?  
 
The biggest issue that really turned me off of the game was the frequency, in the last campaign at least, that enemies had of spawning two feet in front of me. Literally, as I was looking in their direction, and in one case the guy spawned on top of me as I was passing by. Forget the fact that the game was spawning enemies in dead-end rooms I had already cleared out, I'd be fine if they just didn't spawn while I was in the room.  
 
I also had a chance to try out the game's skirmish mode, which is similar to a faux-multiplayer. The game lets you go up to 15 bots, but I would not recommend this as, with the AI's unique tactic commonly called "standing in the open and firing wildly," the bots tend to spawn inside of one another. They do offer a better challenge than the AI in the single player game, however, and if you don't have access to the online multiplayer, at least extend the life of the game. In addition, you are scored with a similar ranking system based on your score.  
 
For what it's worth, Medal of Honor Heroes was enjoyable taken as-is. Not the greatest game on the PSP, but something I can feel comfortable displaying on my shelf with my other games.  And yes, I do intend on buying Heroes 2 to review, I have a few other PSP and PC titles that are asking for my attention at the moment.

I've been trying to find a word that describes just how much of a tool for Nintendo I am, and I just can't put my finger on a word.