Already November?

Man oh man. I had not planned on missing my weekly posts for a month. But life distracted me. That's what happens when you try to do to many things at once. So it started off by cleaning up the practice area (my kitchen table). We needed some more space to put my girlfriends sisters and mothers stuff while they visited. Then I washed my practice pad. Moved the cards and books to the Computer room. Sometimes that's the worst thing I can do, put it "out of site, out of mind". After that we had D&D and I had both Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2: Among thieves to play. We cleaned up the last couple rooms of the top level in Shadowfell Keep. Then I played uncharted 2 every night till I absolutely had to go to sleep. After that The D&D group headed back to town to get armor re sized, restock, and get ambushed by a Elf archer with undead minions in a graveyard. Still I managed to not loose sight and finish Uncharted 2 on normal difficulty. Then My Zune player died and our Xbox. So both of those are in Texas getting repairs. The big important distraction was work itself though. Its fine and all, just time consuming. Seriously 40 hours a week. That's a lot of time. OK on to a better description of games my girlfriend and I have been playing.

Lets start with Brutal Legend. It has been best described as a love song to heavy metal and gamers. I had a blast with it and I plan to replay it after I get through some other games. I have yet to play the multi player online though. The games environments look like old heavy metal covers and the characters are caricatures of heavy metal fans. The story is pretty minimal but I did not mind it at all. I just had a lot of fun finding new songs for the Druid Plow (also called the Deuce) and seeing every viewpoint. I tend to wander in video games so I can see the scenery and find side quests. It had great scenery and lots of side quests so I was happy. You fight what basically amounts to three different factions. Each themed after fans of a particular style of music, with the exception of the demons who just look like crazy bondage monsters. The other two would be best described as "Glam Rock" fans and "Goth" fans. In the end you save the girl you like and help unite the people before stepping into the shadows to disappear like the Rodie you are. That's kinda good too. Because I had Uncharted 2 waiting.

Uncharted 2 is one of the best games I have ever played. The story is great. The characters are interesting and the voice actors make them seem real. It plays, sounds, looks and feels like a great movie. It constantly kept me playing till 1 am and I get up at 5am. My eyes burned, my fingers were sore, and I did not want to stop playing. I even played the multi player online a lot. Normally I like playing online but I don't do it often without friends to play with. But I found myself playing for hours in random groups. My only frustration came when I was grouped up with batch of more experienced players. All of them were level 20 or better and I was level 5.
I died a lot in that game. But I did get to level 6 and that was my goal for the day. Even then after that round I played a couple more just to see a few more maps and game types. I am still a bit confused by the Territories Captured game. But even that was fun. After I finished the game I restarted it on hard so I can open up the crushing difficulty. I know I will finish this game at least once more if not twice more. I still jump during the opening scene with the train even after I have played through that scene 4 times now. This game will get played a lot. Even with Assassin's Creed 2 coming out next week and that's why I have been putting in time on the first Assassin's creed.

I will write about both Assassin's Creed and Modern Warfare 2 next week after I finish them both. Real quick opinions on both first. Assassin's Creed is so amazing looking and the game play is pretty damn good. It makes me exited to see how they improve on it for the sequel. I never played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare so I cant say they improved it. But I will say the story is exciting. Every Scene is a different military operation and they play out individually like fast paced TV shows. If it wasn't for the guy in between scenes narrating the story you would never know they are connected. I was a little frustrated by not having a cover system. But that's easy to get over and its no different than Socom. Since I can play Socom all day I don't see why I couldn't spend a day playing the MW2 multi player. I spent a couple hours on the single player campaign and I think I am about half way through it. It makes me wonder why they didn't just use that as a tutorial for the multi player since that seems to be the games real focus. On that note I am done for the night. Before I loose focus and stay up to late trying to get my girlfriend to stop playing Harvest Moon. So I can get some time in killing Templar's during the crusades. Hopefully I will remember to talk about the games she has been playing also and the D&D group.