Current Games

Right now I'm knee deep in Metroid Prime 2. Just at 30% and I've completed two of the three primary objectives and just started on the third. I imagine that there isn't much more after the last objective other than some final bring-things-to-a-close boss fights and errands.

And that's sort of sad that I'm looking at it that way. I'm interested in playing the game, but I'm really lacking the excitement in it. It is just a sequel. No new game play mechanics. Just the same go and go and go and figure out how to beat the boss. There is a story, but the interface of the menus just get in the way. Prime was smooth and flowing. Echoes is really just more bang for the programming.

Myst IV is also on my plate again as of today. A player's guide caught my eye at the gamestore today and it made me want to try to continue to figure out the first minor puzzle. It too has a clunky design. Too much graphics for my 20" iMac, on which it's predessors had run perfectly fine. I wanted to finish the last two games in the series, ending with Myst V, but I wondering if I'll just wait for a better computer to come along and aid this terrible slowness. Myst games are good games no matter how good games get.

Advance Wars 2 is the nighttime ritual still. I tend to beat a map in this strategy game about once a week. One try a night is about all I can muster in bed (har har). All of the current maps I have available to me are 4-star in difficulty, so it's pretty challenging and engaging, I just remember each time I fail why I didn't finish the first game.

Bored? Not quite. Metroid is still the major push for me to play games. I haven't touched my Xbox since I got the HDTV setup. The games were already played out whether or not I finished them (and most of them aren't) months ago. It's an argument for shorter games more than anything, but it would be nice to see some fresh content or game play techniques.

I've still got a couple months before my wanted list starts making it into my library, so I hope I don't do anything stupid, like purchase a 360, just for the heck of it.