Rez HD and more Burnout
Rez HD is marvelous in every way. It's a port that's gotten better with age. I noticed in my playthrough last night that it draws a line between enemy and background by having the enemies never pulsate to the music. The game world draws a line between what is good (the player and the world) and what is bad (things you can shoot) by how things react to music, which is pretty subtle but a really cool effect. It's most apparent in the boss in area 2 that you get wrapped up in. In other news, you can use extra controllers as extra vibration feedback, which is awesome.
Other than that, it really sucks when you play Burnout with someone who can't do a challenge, but you don't want to cancel the challenge and be like, yeah you suck let's do another one, but if you try to tell them how to do the challenge you just come off as a condescending douchebag.
Travis Touchdown and the Fire Hell
No More Heroes is fucking nuts. Think Metal Gear Solid, but on meth. You're a video game nerd who buys a lightsaber on eBay, and is trying to become the number one assassin in the world. You save the game by taking a dump in your shithole apartment. There is a pixelated tiger in the corner of the screen that seems to serve no purpose at all. When you kill a guy, blood and money spurt out of his or her dismembered body. You have to recharge your lightsaber by making masturbatory motions with the Wiimote. Should I go on?
The demo for Devil May Cry 4 is... dumb. It might know it's dumb, but it's still written for what seems to be 12 year olds. The giant demon boss at the end assures you that he has conquered fire hell. The combat feels exactly like it did in the last three games, stilted controls and all. Perhaps I've just had enough of throwing guys into the air and juggling them with pistols. Considering I never even finished the first one, skipped the second and only rented the third, that's probably not the reaction Capcom wanted to elicit.
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, Axl, you're such a poet.
Burnout Paradise has proven me wrong and is totally fantastic. Almost all the misgivings I had about the demo are still valid, but the core design and philosophy behind the final product is so focused and perfect that they don't matter. You can't pick events from a menu, but that's okay because the city is small enough that it's not too difficult to get around, and interesting enough that you want to explore it between events. This also helps you learn your way around the city.
It's also a new standard for online integration, as well as the perfect system for online in an open world title. I'm going to be disappoint when GTA IV doesn't work like this. You can invite a friend or be invited from an easy-to-use D-pad menu, and then the world you are in becomes the online world seamlessly. The host can then decide to make a race event and can set the start and end points anywhere on the map. There's also challenges, which are just little goals like "boost 400 yards on this street" or "do three barrel rolls on that jump" but when four or five people are all trying to do that, hilarious things occur. This also forces you to learn the nooks and crannies of the city. The design is all-encompassing in its scope, and it's far more than the sum of its parts. It actually feels astonishingly new - the series has totally reinvented itself for the second time. That said, it's not perfect. The crash mode replacement sucks really bad and the soundtrack thankfully allows you to toggle off individual tracks. Still, it's great.
Other than that, I got alien laid in Mass Effect. It's starting to wear thin; I'm glad I'm near the endgame. I also played Pokemon Pearl a bit on a car trip.
RE4Wii
I played Resident Evil 4 for 15 minutes. At first I thought it made the game easier, since the Wiimote is so accurate, but then the first chainsaw guy killed me anyway.
That is all.
