MagnaCarta II was the first JRPG that I've played in three years and only the second that I've finished. A few things came together that made it happen. The first was probably the most important and that was that I was in the mood for it. The second was that the gameplay was pretty quick for a JRPG and that I could avoid fights whenever I wanted. I clocked in around 35 hours and that was doing every sidequest. I don't think I could of done 45 hours and I know some JRPGs can be even longer then that. Compared to most, the achievements in MC2 were actually decent and I was able to get 1000/1000. True, you have to save up your skill points but I really didn't have a issue with that. I eventually started to skip all the chat as it wasn't anything exciting. I was sad to see that the need for a second disc wasn't for video but for all the audio for those chats. Shame. Anyway, game was fun and it was a nice change of pace.

I fired up GRID 2 next and having a blast. Visuals are great and the controls are solid. Seems a bit easy to drift but maybe that will tighten up with better cars later on. I'm not thrilled with the way they are doing the menus but it gets the job done. The sound is nice and deep and I find myself turning up the volume. They do reuse the same sections and locations, a lot. I'm still in the first season and its like there is only 2-3 locations. I'm not sure if I had mentioned this before but I do want a kinect. I just don't want it at $100. It appears that gamestop sells used ones for $70 which is better but my goal is $50. I've casually browsed craigslist and seen one for $40 but it was a old posting. More recent ones bounce around $60-90. I'm not keen on getting a used one at that price. I'm hoping there is a good black friday deal or a simple price reduction would be great after the X1 comes out.

Looking at the kinect games, I believe there are 124 games that have come out in North America that either requires or has some function for the kinect. 96 games require the kinect. Of those 96 games, there are some winners and sadly more losers. I think there is enough playable games to justify the cost. At $50 for sure, $75 alright, and $100 be pushing it. I'll get more in-depth at another time. MS did the right thing. It sucks that they made a bad decision but in the long run they did the right thing. They did something that Sony can't, acknowledge a mistake and quickly fix it. In a week were Sony is bricking consoles yet again, MS comes out and saves the morale of their fans.

Quick hits:

1) Bought Renegade Ops for 320 points, finally a good discount for us silver folks.

2) Last game of the NBA Finals tonight, I hope the refs let the players decide the outcome.

3) Glad to see Tiger Woods suck yet again at a major event.

4) Added some older games to my backlog and I wasn't even trying to find stuff.

5) IGN's Xbox podcast is by far the best I've found. Funny and informative.

6) The Gamerscore podcast can be good but too much off-topic bs.

7) Sprint has started updates in my area with projected completion Jan 2014.

8) Taco Johns rule, meat and potato burrito is king.