Games this week:

• Playstation 3 - Dragon Age: Origins, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet
  
• PSP             - ModNation Racers PSP
• Xbox 360      - The Darkness

For the PS3 games, mostly the same. Slowly progressing through Dragon Age, continuing to play Infamous evilly while attempting to cleanup all of the Trophies while dealing with the occasional bug and glitch, and collecting more shit in LittleBigPlanet.  Same ol', same ol'.

Finally started The Darkness.  Immediately after starting I was reminded why I never played it to begin with, but, it was, like, five bucks, so what the hell?  The controls are just so sluggish.  The movement, specifically.  I can adjust the camera speed, but, ugh.  The walking.

And at first the combat is an unfortunate hindrance, also.  I had trouble with ammunition and the whole dying thing.  I was using all of my bullets to take out the damned lights!  Because they're useless against actual people.  I think the problem is there's no finesse.  You basically have to hope the auto-aim, which is prolific, stays on them long enough and that you're ammunition holds out until they're dead.  Which is unlikely.  So, you're better off holding on to your ammunition for the lightbulbs, then hang out in the shadows and use the creeping darkness.  Later on you get, like, a tentacle whip thing you can take out lights with and a set of Darkness fueled guns, but, your best friend is the Creeping Darkness power.

But what kept me playing was the unique and terribly interesting method of story-telling.  I don't know that the story itself is super interesting, as of yet, but the method of conveyance is supremely intriguing.  They're committed to the first-person perspective, and it is at its finest.  The televisions are the best thing, to me.  I always like when the televisions work and there are a variety of channels.  A little quirk of mine, I suppose.  And the Mike Patton voice work is also pretty great.  In fact, all of the voice work so far has been pretty good.  And the little darklings are pretty amusing, although there aren't that many lines so you'll hear them repeated a lot, which is unfortunate.

Final note on The Darkness, for now: I love the collectibles.  The phone calls to secure the collectibles, specifically.  Doing the small side missions for the random people on the subway platforms, mailing the long lost letters home from WWII vets... it's all the little touches in The Darkness that intrigue me and made me push onward through the combat.

Okay, enough about that.  I also played ModNation Racers PSP. Thank you Welcome Back program.  I just started it yesterday while I was doing laundry, so, not far into it at all.  But it's an okay little handheld cart racer.  I dunno, it's not too special as of yet.  I feel like I would probably like the console version better.  More on that as I play it.

And, no Dirge of Cerberus.  I haven't given up on it yet, I just... didn't want to play it at all this week.  We'll see if that one ends up on the shelf unfinished as well.

Games this week:

• Playstation 3 - Dragon Age: Origins, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet
  
• PSP             - ModNation Racers PSP
• Xbox 360      - The Darkness

For the PS3 games, mostly the same. Slowly progressing through Dragon Age, continuing to play Infamous evilly while attempting to cleanup all of the Trophies while dealing with the occasional bug and glitch, and collecting more shit in LittleBigPlanet.  Same ol', same ol'.

Finally started The Darkness.  Immediately after starting I was reminded why I never played it to begin with, but, it was, like, five bucks, so what the hell?  The controls are just so sluggish.  The movement, specifically.  I can adjust the camera speed, but, ugh.  The walking.

And at first the combat is an unfortunate hindrance, also.  I had trouble with ammunition and the whole dying thing.  I was using all of my bullets to take out the damned lights!  Because they're useless against actual people.  I think the problem is there's no finesse.  You basically have to hope the auto-aim, which is prolific, stays on them long enough and that you're ammunition holds out until they're dead.  Which is unlikely.  So, you're better off holding on to your ammunition for the lightbulbs, then hang out in the shadows and use the creeping darkness.  Later on you get, like, a tentacle whip thing you can take out lights with and a set of Darkness fueled guns, but, your best friend is the Creeping Darkness power.

But what kept me playing was the unique and terribly interesting method of story-telling.  I don't know that the story itself is super interesting, as of yet, but the method of conveyance is supremely intriguing.  They're committed to the first-person perspective, and it is at its finest.  The televisions are the best thing, to me.  I always like when the televisions work and there are a variety of channels.  A little quirk of mine, I suppose.  And the Mike Patton voice work is also pretty great.  In fact, all of the voice work so far has been pretty good.  And the little darklings are pretty amusing, although there aren't that many lines so you'll hear them repeated a lot, which is unfortunate.

Final note on The Darkness, for now: I love the collectibles.  The phone calls to secure the collectibles, specifically.  Doing the small side missions for the random people on the subway platforms, mailing the long lost letters home from WWII vets... it's all the little touches in The Darkness that intrigue me and made me push onward through the combat.

Okay, enough about that.  I also played ModNation Racers PSP. Thank you Welcome Back program.  I just started it yesterday while I was doing laundry, so, not far into it at all.  But it's an okay little handheld cart racer.  I dunno, it's not too special as of yet.  I feel like I would probably like the console version better.  More on that as I play it.

And, no Dirge of Cerberus.  I haven't given up on it yet, I just... didn't want to play it at all this week.  We'll see if that one ends up on the shelf unfinished as well.