I finally got internet hooked up at home so I’ve been taking my PS3 and Wii online like crazy (god the Wii is finicky with its internet, isn’t it? It always seems to be a crapshoot as to weather or not it decides to cooperate with my router). I started playing Call of Duty 4 online and really enjoyed it. It is so much harder playing with real live people who know the game inside out. I pretty much died my way through the first few experience levels. Once I play for a while I start to do the “just one more match” thing. I tend to have more fun with the first couple hours of a session though. After a while, usually late at night, I start getting matched up with people of a much higher level and they just wipe the floor with me, causing me to turn the game off in a stream of curses. Burnout however, I am continuing to play regularly since Cagney came out. I have fallen in love with that game all over again, completing all of the new 2 and 3 player challenges and all of the old 2 player challenges. I have made a bunch of friends playing Paradise and am working towards completing my second set of old challenges so I can unlock the last car. I even played with one of the developers the other day!  I sent him a friend request but I don’t know if he accepts them from random fools he meets online like me.  I am up to about 112 hours with that game. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever played one game this much. With the Davis update, Eastwood update, and trophies coming to Burnout, I have a feeling I will still be playing it when they finish their “Year of Paradise.” Bring it on, I say!!! I like the new car too, the Rai-Jin Turbo. Its really hard to drive though. Its fast as hell so it doesn’t have boost, but its acceleration isn’t great so if you have to make a jump and don’t have a lot of room to build up speed (like jumping off the roof of a parking lot onto the roof of another), you need to use a different car. Most importantly though, it turns like a freakin truck. Between the insane speed and heavy turning, it’s a big challenge to race in, but it looks awesome and is very fun. I can’t wait to win the Hunter Olympus next weekend!

So, yeah. PlayStation finally has a reward system now in the form of trophies. Whooooo!!! It’s about time, I say. Sony is finally starting to get to a point where their online offerings are able to compete with Microsoft’s. The games are looking great and we will soon have a reason to play them beyond the end credits. I’m not sure yet if I agree with the way the experience level system was implemented (seems needlessly more complicated and confusing than Xbox’s simple point structure), but I can already tell that I am going to get addicted to earning trophies. I bought Super Stardust HD strictly to start my collection. It’s actually a pretty great game in its own right, I may even like it better than Geometry Wars. I like the three-weapon system and the fact that you can go anywhere along the surface of a sphere. However, I think the trophies for it were a bit slapped together just so they could have a game playable with trophies from the start. Some of the Bronze ones are way harder to get than the Silver or Golds. That small gripe aside, I already have 12 of them and am anxious for them to start showing up in new games. I’m totally stoked that they are coming to Burnout Paradise and Uncharted. Even better that the Burnout ones will be retroactive (those guys at Criterion are some of the smartest and most customer focused people I’ve ever seen in this industry)! I decided that I won’t start playing Uncharted again until the patch for trophies comes out. Should be sometime in august, so that will give me time to finish MGS4.

I've also been downloading all kinds of free demos, trailers, and even a few games. Echochrome on the PS3 was my very first online game download. I like the game, really love and appreciate the concept, but I don’t think I’m smart enough to play it. Every time I play it I get about 3-4 levels in before I’m left staring at the screen and moving the camera around with a blank look on my face for about 30 mins straight. I can just tell the more difficult stages would only succeed in splitting my brain in half and give me an anyeurism in the process. Oh well, at the very least I voted with my dollars and supported the game and the people who made it. That’s what its about, right?