Smoke? Drinking? Drugs? What’s BlindMan talking about now?

Puzzle Quest. That’s right, the simple looking but insanely addictive game. Did you enjoy Bejeweled? Would you like it to have gone a step-further and incorporate story-line, spells, and direct damage? What if you could combine and RPG with Bejeweled? THAT IS PUZZLE QUEST!

My roomate and I have been playing it non-stop. We’re having so much fun that we keep starting over with new characters just to see what happens if we change our mind on some of the decisions the game forces you to make, ie: If I don’t take the evil sorceror to the tower, what happens? 

The best part is, you can play it on a variety of consoles, I personally downloaded it for PS3 and PSP, I know it’s also available for Wii. In the words of Disturbed, SAVOR THE ADDICTION!

I’m thankful for… Mirror’s Edge. Here is an awesome fast-paced graphically awesome addition to the PS3 arsenal. EA put together a great engine with superior graphics and great gameplay feel. As you’re running the edges of your vision blur and if you have vertigo I don’t recommend looking down; you play it in a first person view. 

The combat is all about timing or fleeing. There’s a bit of fun in being able to disarm a shotty off of a cop and then blast his buddy in the chest to send him flying. The game can be a little frustrating as often its tricky to figure out where to go, even though pathways are often lit up in red. When you’re running from a Helo, you don’t have a lot of time to figure out which building to vault off of next. 

The story line is decent. Set in a future world where Fascism has won you’re struggling to uncover a murder plot while your sister is set-up for the fall. The game has a prince of persia feel to it, only on Speed.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, I’m going to go attempt to complete the fifth chapter.

Ok so I decided to try go back to my very old ways and try out a football game for my new PS3. I stopped at the local video rental store and brought home Madden ‘09.

Meow, being somewhat disconnected from the console scene for a while, I haven’t had much exposure to the Madden games for a while, my last 2 were Madden ‘03 on the Gamecube (which I loved) and Madden ‘07 on the Wii (which I hated).

Game play wise, its very fun, quite realistic and almost too realistic. I found the control scheme a bit hard to get used to at first, mostly due to the combination of the right analog stick and the buttons becoming a bit overwhelming (for an older gamer like me). Offense is pretty easy to get a handle on, just x to hike the ball and look for the open receiver and hit the button.

Defense on the other hand is terribly annoying. Choosing the correct play makes all the difference as it seems terribly hard to actually chose the correct defensive player in the middle of a play. The PC seems to evade just about every tackle I throw at it so I have had to play pretty much “hands-off” while on Defense and just hope for the best. The one thing I have managed to do quite well is pick off passes with the corners, they seem to have super human jumping abilities… unfortunately they have bricks for hands for the most part.

Overall impressions are great, the gfx are amazing as expected, sounds are accurate the constant repetitive commentary from the announcers is annoying as hell and I haven’t figured out a way to turn it off which is really the only complaint I have. I may end up buying the game yet… we will have to see if my skill improves.

I picked up a copy of Fallout 3 yesterday on the way home from the gym and only had a short while to play before it was time for True Blood and Dexter to come on (HD-DVR ftw!).  Hence, why I only had a little while to try out the game.  Anywhoo… first impressions are excellent.  The graphics are INSANE and the beginning sequence definitely sets the tone for a spectacular game.

I unlike the majority of gamers, I have NOT… I repeat NOT played the other two Fallout games so I am going into this game with a clear mind and not comparing it to the previous games.

More to follow!

So I managed to rack up another night of playing GH:WT till 1am again, not the best idea when you have to wake up at 630 the next morning.  Complaining aside… I am really enjoying the game.  Last night I decided to give the guitar a go (due to the wife getting tired of my “thwacking” on the drums).   As I am and have always been… horrible at GH, I kept difficulty to Medium (I know… lol) and definitely enjoyed it.  

The track list shines well in this version of GH and the Online Play portion is much better than I had originally though.  The Matchmaking ability turned out to work fairly well as it placed me with a full band about 3 times in a row.  I still think the online portion could use some polish, but we will have to wait on that.

The guitar is so nice, a whammy bar that mimics the real deal and the touch pad for those tricky tapping (think Eddie Van Halen) riffs work quite well.  

Almost forgot to mention: I tried the tape trick with my orange cymbal and had great results.  It almost got a bit too sensitive though, so I had to take a bit of tape off.  All in all I am quite satisfied with the drum set and the game as a whole.

I can’t wait to get some people over so we can have some full band rock outs!

Like many other people who like things a little of the beaten path, I reserved Little Big Planet as soon as I saw the first trailer for it. Unlike my more enthusiastic gaming cousins I didn’t look into what the game was about, opting instead for surprise. I must admit shocked is probably a bit more apt. The game astounds on many levels, but I’ll break it down into a top five:

1. Graphics Graphics Graphics- At 720p it’s not the most graphically amazing game on the market, but the artists did a phenomenal job of bringing to life the textures of the crazy world that is little big planet.
2. Co-Op to the extreme- Got a friend you want to play with? How about two or three friends? With LBP you can play with 1-4 people online or offline. The game even has special missions for the co-op gamers.
3. Recidivism- The levels have enough going on that the odds of you finding all the goodies in one shot are pretty slim. This means lots of re-playability.
4. Ageless- This game has a little bit for everyone. Rated 7+ it’s great for kids but the parents can find bits and pieces of grown-up entertainment in there as well -such as a sign that says kinky.
5. Customization- Between stickers (and who doesn’t love stickers?!) outfits, objects, and materials this game is infinitely customizable. Feeling glum with day to day life? How about making your own world? Sure it’ll probably enable your already failing socialization skills, but at least I’ll have fun playing it.

So, last night at around 1am, I finished the game.  Playing on “Sith Lord” difficulty I found the game quite challenging.  A few thoughts:

The game definitely needed more unique boss encounters.  I found the boss battles to be entertaining, but they were all quite similar when it came down to the actual execution, i.e. Block/Dodge at the right time, jump to avoid the big knock back, attack from behind when the boss is tired and when the boss gets really low…. hit the button sequence that pops up on the screen “A la God Of War” and watch the cool cinematic killing blow.

The storyline was fantastic…. the way it spanned the end of the clone wars all the way to the beginning of the Rebel Alliance really kept me interested.  The scenery and backdrops are amazing, the music score, sound effects and visuals were top notch.  I couldn’t imagine playing it on anything other than a PS3 or high end gaming PC.  The entire reason I chose not to get it for the Wii is the lackluster graphics performance I was expecting out of it.

On a side note….I have been amazed at how much I was missing with the Wii and with my PS2 in regards to surround sound in gaming.  Playing GTA4, The Force Unleashed, Deadspace and Midnight Club: Los Angeles has really shown me how powerful 5.1 can be in a game.  It had me looking at new 7.1 receivers in REX the other day.  I especially liked how “Unleashed” was encoded in DTS instead of Dolby Digital as I prefer DTS over Dolby in movies.  

Well… on to Deadspace… I hear it’s a much longer game, we will see how it pans out.