One Month in the Blog-less Wilderness: Part II

The accuracy of this round-up's title is questionable (must be closer to two months by now), but I'm steaming on with it anyway, largely because it seems wrong to miss out the thing I've spent most of the summer involved with - video games.

Picked up Dead Rising again and, armed with Gamefaqs, stormed through a huge chunk of it. It's a game that infuriatingly straddles the border between compelling and infuriating - the latter due to the game strongarming you into dashing from objective to objective without time to savour the zombie slaughter. I found what little respite there was between missions was spent dashing to and fro between gun shop (to rearm) and the security room. The ticking clock vibe adds tension but - along with the deliberately alienating save-game mechanic - goes a little way to stripping some of the fun from the experience. Anyway, maintenance tunnels beckon, though it's been a good month to six weeks since I touched it last.

Also on Xbox had an abortive stab at The Darkness, a game which initially sucked me in thanks to positive reviews and some superficially fun controls (as well as one really good twist) but quickly became dull and plodding especially with the addition of a power which amounted to a "win button".

Bit more potential in Saints Row, especially in light of the delay to GTA IV. Basically it's a game about character customisation, building on the clothes and appearence ethos of San Andreas. The car controls are slick and the running-and-shooting a huge improvement on Rockstar's mechanic. It's fun but without depth, which is probably why attention has wandered.

Bully was also a passing diversion. Essentially it's a competent batch of minigames tied together with a decent narrative. Fun enough, but a bit meh in the medium to long term.

Finally have been loving the pokemon and - more surprisingly - the PSP, largely due to the port of Sid Meier's Pirates. This was one of my earliest favourite games (way back on the Amiga) and the version for Xbox that came out a couple of years ago kept me busy for ages. The move to PSP was perfectly judged due to the small scale of the game itself, and its episodic nature - turns out the PSP can last for a good long while in standby mode.