Games this week:

• Xbox 360 -Mass Effect 3
• Gameboy -Pokemon: Silver Version,Pokemon: Blue Version

Hello all! So, let's get the short one out of the way first here, I had a hankering for some old-school Pokemon, so, I broke out my copy ofPokemon: Silverand my Gameboy Color. Played it for about twenty minutes and saved it. Turned it back on a little later, and my save was no longer there. I'm pretty sure the battery in the cartridge is dead. Sad times. So, I played my copy ofPokemon: Blueinstead! Battery still works in that! Figure that one out. Anyway, I named my avatar Sixxle, I named my rival Cubert, and I named my Bulbasaur Fluffy. It's shaping up to be awesome.

Now...Mass Effect 3. I have put about thirty and a half hours into it, and I'm loving it. Even if they do keep killing off all of my favorite characters fromMass Effect 2in the saddest ways. There were actually several things I really wanted to talk about this week, but, I can't seem to remember any of them. I'll have to start making notes while I'm playing. Still hating the scanning. And, on a related note, the quest log is kind o' jacked. Like, all this scanning I'm doing, just tell me if I have the item that random person I walked past and overheard their conversation wanted.

But! More next week! Right now, I'm going to go play more Mass Effect 3. Or get ready for work. We'll see which one happens.

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Mass Effect 3

Surprise! All I've been playing is Mass Effect 3. In fact, I was too busy playing this morning to type anything up. It's actually sitting on the start screen in the other room right now, because I happened to remember it was Monday as I was starting it up.

I am enjoying myself quite a bit! There are aspects I miss from Mass Effect 2 a great deal that just seem to be gone with either something not as good, such as the planet scanning, or just nothing equitable. And the scanning is so damned annoying. The Reapers coming after you if you scan too much all at one time? With no real consequence if you're caught. And, that aside, it's super easy to jump in, grab the thing you scanned, and bail. Frankly, it kind of deflates the Reapers a little bit. But, anyway, I don't want this to turn into a negative entry. I'm enjoying the cameos of beloved characters from Mass Effect 2, all the little nods to Mass Effect, and the story that's shaping up.

There are things outside of the game, though, that's kind of concerning. For instance, tying up Javik, the Prothean character, in DLC seems completely absurd. They're basically taking a really important part of, and an entirely new perspective on, the story and you have to pay extra for it. I find it worrisome. And all of this controversy over the ending is completely stupid, I can guarantee it without even finishing the game. Because even if I hate the way it's ended, the reaction has been ridiculous. I'll save my anger for if they put out some sort of Epilogue DLC that ties up loose ends instead of, y'know, finishing the game before shipping it.

But, to reiterate, I'm loving it and I can't wait to keep playing it. Wrex is fucking awesome, Grunt is the shit, Thane is the man, and Javik is pretty stone-cold. See you next week!

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands

I know, I know, it's Wednesday. I forgot about it Monday morning, and then I was gone all day Monday and Tuesday, until about 9:30 last night, in NYC for a Hep-C conference, so, y'know, busy busy busy. It's kind of okay, though, because I barely played any video games last week. Normal busy week and then Tebo and her ladyfriend came to visit for the weekend, and instead of playing video games we went out and about and played a tabletop game called Zombies!!! and then we went out and he bought a game from the same company called Humans!!! which flips the script and roles, and then we combined the two games and played a big version of it.

Between all of that and then several varieties of car trouble throughout the week, all I really played was a tiny bit of Borderlands last Tuesday. Like, a tiny bit. As in I started playing it, decided I really didn't care enough to play the remaining missions in T-Bone Junction and went to start Claptrap's New Robot Revolution. Watched the amusing opening video, then, had to get back to life.

And this has been killing me, because I've been sitting on Mass Effect 3. I've installed both discs, downloaded all of the DLC stuff with the Collector's Edition, and checked whether or not I had edited my Shepard in Mass Effect 2. For anyone curious, I had not, meaning I have to either try to recreate her from memory or use the not-mine default Shepard, which is really irritating me. If only I had just moved ONE slider to the left or right! So damned weird, I wish I knew what exactly the technical limitation is there. But, anyway, gods willing, I'll be playing that some time this week! You'll find out next week!

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands
• Nintendo Wii - Animal Crossing: City Folk

Hello again! Spent most of this past week killing time while I wait for Mass Effect 3. So excited! Should be here today or tomorrow. GAH!

But, what time I spent not being seeing friends or finally getting back to the gym (YAY!), I spent shooting dudes in Borderlands. I finished the storyline in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, which was extremely tedious by the end of it. T-Bone Junction desperately needed the fast travel that's present in the main game but missing for this DLC. Always starting in the T-Bone Junction and then driving to the mission was really boring and sucked a certain amount of the fun out of it by the time I did get there. Hearing General Knoxx talk over the ECHO was pretty good, though, so at least the writing is still quite amusing. But now it' just a couple of side missions left and it's on to Claptrap's New Robot Revolution! I'm looking forward to that one. So far the zombie one has been the most entertaining, as a whole.

And I played some more of Animal Crossing: City Folk here and there throughout the week. I'm thinking more and more that I'm not going to play much of this game. I read somewhere that if you're not checking in daily the game gets mad at you, your city gets overrun with weeds, and your house can become infested with cockroaches. But it's wicked fun filling out the museum, so, I dunno. I think I'm going to keep playing it here and there, but, I don't think I want to scour the town looking for weeds to pull and flowers to water so that the lazy-ass townsanimals are happy. Water your own damned flowers, Bisket! And, the game shuts down after 10 o'clock, basically. At least, the shop does, making it difficult for me to sell my odds and ends so I can pay off my house mortgage. I don't think the game works with my schedule, frankly. Maybe I'll set the game's clock back by several hours so it's, like, five o'clock when it's actually ten. That could work. Anyway! I'm not sure I like it, but clearly I'm having a difficult time just walking away from it. So... we'll see how it turns out.

All of this doesn't even matter, though, because Mass Effect 3. Fuck, I can't wait!!

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands
• Nintendo Wii - Animal Crossing: City Folk
• PS2 - Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Mega Man X Collection

It's still Monday! Traffic kept me from typing it up before work this morning. Took me seventy minutes to get three miles. Ridiculous.

Anyway, some more Borderlands! Played some of Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot with a couple friends. It's pretty good. I dunno, the game's fun but there's none of the amusing story. It's just gameplay, which is still fun, but, it's not what I was looking forward to. It's also a big time sink, which is hard for me to do. When Tebo tells me he spent several hours doing, like, 20 waves, which you can't stop in the middle of... I just don't know if I can make that kind of a solid block of time commitment. I need to be able to break it up into smaller chunks. But, it's cool, 'cause I played some more of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and that was cool. That's got more of that amusing dialogue I wanted. From Scooter, no less! My second favorite redneck on Pandora.

Played a bit more of Animal Crossing: City Folk. I'm having a hard time figuring out what the end goal of the game is, or what I'm striving for, but it's kind of fun just playing it. Collecting fossils and fish and bugs for the museum may be my favorite part so far. Ohhh, Blathers the owl, how adorable you are in your fear of bugs. You're an owl! I do kind of wish the Wii controls weren't just stuffed in there. I would much rather just play the entire game with an analog stick instead of every now and again pointing the remote at the screen to choose an inventory item. But, that's Wii development for you. Still, it's fun and a cute little diversion.

And, for whatever reason, I played some old school Mega Man 3 on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. Woot! I beat all eight Robot Masters and then remembered how annoying the final stages get in old Mega Man games. Geez, I don't want to play the level over and over again every single time I die. Checkpoints. It's really only frustrating because the bosses are trial and error. Figuring out a weakness, y'know? I'm less inclined to trial and error my way through it when I have to replay the entire level over and over again.

And, less old school but still over a decade old, I played a little Mega Man X 6. 'Cause, I've never played the sixth one. And, oh, man, the translation in that is so bad. Broken English all over the place. But, the game's better than Mega Man X 5 so far, which is where I fell off. Much quicker, I remember thinking X 5 felt so sluggish. X 6 gets back to being fun to play and it seems to have some RPG elements splashed in there. I'm not too far into it, so, I don't know what that's about yet but it sounds promising.

And that's it for this past week. None of which may matter come next Monday, 'cause, y'know, Mass Effect 3 comes out tomorrow. It was nice knowing y'all!

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands, Portal
• PS2 - Persona 3 FES
• PC - The Sims 3

So! Another week, another several hours of Borderlands. I played through the entire The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC, that was fun as hell. It's really more of the same, just with zombified enemy types. And a couple little monster surprises that are cool. I definitely liked the return of T.K. Baha, I felt like he didn't have enough time to shine in the main game. I also attempted to start Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, but, that's really not any fun solo. I'll have to hook up with Tebo and give that a go. But until then, I've gone a few missions into The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. Not as cool, yet, as the Zombie Island content, but, these ninja ladies are an interesting addition. Not far into yet, though.

Did a little gaming with Rebekah over the weekend. Finally finished Portal, at the end of which she had a slew of questions. What with the amount of unspoken story that I have gleaned from multiple playthroughs and reading about it on the internet, I forget that watching the game being played just once isn't enough to really answer all of the questions you have. And then some of them just never had answers until the second game. So, clearly I need to purchase another copy ofPortal 2 so that we can play that next.

And we also played a little more of Persona 3 FES. The first couple hours are quite slow, though, and take a bit of getting into. But we're getting there. It's difficult to judge her level of interest yet, but, she hasn't straight told me "No!" yet when I suggest playing it. Must mean something.

And then I played a little bit more of The Sims 3 last night. This time with Rebekah giving me pointers on how to keep my Sim happy, like what activities work well for a huge boost in a short time even though they're not necessarily in line with my Sim's traits and may cost a little bit. And apparently I picked a poor job for my Sim and she absolutely hates it. Who knew? So, that'll keep happening I'm sure. Apparently the skills and interests I chose for Jamie means she would do well at and enjoy being a hacker. Woot.

And there we go! More to come next week. Pretty soon Mass Effect 3 will be on the market and I am absolutely picking up a copy of that as soon as physically possible. I've been running the gamut trying to procure the Collector's Edition, but of course everywhere I look the Xbox 360 version is sold out. Fuckers. And the local shop I tried to preorder from fell through and won't actually be getting any copies of it. Sad times. But, that's at least a week away. See y'all next time!

So, I forgot to mention a game I played earlier last week called The Sims 3 on the PC. I'd never played a Sims game before, never really had an interest in the simulated lives of people, I preferred my SimCity and my Roller Coaster Tycoon. My simulated businesses.

But, at Rebekah's apartment with nothing better to do, I loaded up The Sims 3 and set about making a character. And after five minutes of looking at the various sliders in the Advanced options, I closed it. That was two weeks ago. Cut to a week later, last week, and I loaded it again and steered clear of the Advanced options and made a young woman named Jamie McKenzie and her gray Scottish Fold cat named Fox. And then spent several hours playing.

I can't honestly say that I actively enjoyed it, but, I'll be damned if I didn't keep playing. And still want to play it. So, that says something, right? I was content; I think that's the most accurate way to describe my emotion playing the game. It's odd, to say the least. I don't think I yet understand the fascination with it, but, it's definitely an excellent time-waster. I don't know what else to say yet, I've only put in maybe five hours into what is clearly a game designed to take quite a bit more time. More to come? Probably eventually.

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands
• Nintendo Wii - Kirby's Epic Yarn, Animal Crossing: City Folk

So, I was getting over being ill yesterday. Forgot all about my Weekly Rundown. Sorry, y'all! But anyway, let's get on with it!

Played a little more Borderlands, of course. Started my second playthrough, hit level 41. Good times! And now, it's time to hit the DLC. BOOM!

Finished up Kirby's Epic Yarn. At least, the story. There are still levels to unlock, and milestones to hit, but, I just don't care. There is absolutely no challenge to the game, even with the jewels to collect. The story was cute and I liked going through it and seeing the different worlds, but, now that the story's complete... I'm done.

And then after I finished that, I started Animal Crossing: City Folk. So far, I've named my character and city and I've bought a house. And thank all of the gods, I found a way to make them shut up. That Animalese thing is kind of irritating. Silence while the text scrolls, ahhhhh. Bliss. But that's all I've done. More on that next week, assuming Borderlands DLC doesn't eat up all of my time.

And that's it! See y'all next week.

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands

Hello again! Just Borderlands this past week. Completed the main game! Destroyer the Destroyer, as it were. Time to tackle the DLC, though I may do some leveling first. I think I want to tackle the DLC with my friend, but he is currently level 41 and I'm level 37. Maybe a little bit of leveling first. But, the ending was kind of a let-down. The Destroyer was basically just a big sponge to soak up my bullets. There was no challenge to it whatsoever. And it's kind of a weird non-ending, but, the story's light throughout the whole game.

And then that's it! I'm gonna have to start playing anything else at this point to break up all the Borderlands that's going to keep happening. Until then!

Games this week:

• Xbox 360 - Borderlands
• Nintendo Wii - Kirby's Epic Yarn

Gaming this week has been tempered by a sudden illness that struck Friday night/Saturday morning and being busy-busy during the week. BUT, I still played some Borderlands, because not even Death's doormat could keep me from that game at this point. So much fun. Same ol' same ol', though, nothing else to be said yet.

Played about 20-30 minutes of Kirby's Epic Yarn. Beat Hot Wings, a big Phoenix creature and then I opened up TREAT LAND. It's a fabric-land of cakes, sweets, and children's toys, holy crow! This game is so absurdly cute. I just wish it had a little bit more meat to it. Still, it's fun stuff to share with the ladyfriend when she's over.

And that's it! Health and recovery today, and hopefully just today, and then back to life!