Finished Batman: Arkham Asylum

Terrific game, first class all the way. Compelling story, tremendous production values and very easy to pick up and play. As I said earlier, this will be a Game Of The Year finalist for me. One thing, and this may be because I have been in Beatles: Rock Band countdown mode for nearly 9 months, is that I am not compelled to go back and play it again. At least not right now. Usually a game as good as this has me wanting to dive right back in, but not this game at this moment. That is not a knock on this game in the least, just a feeling I have about it as of now.

IGN reviews The Beatles: Rock Band

The Beatles: Rock Band at IGN.com

Big night tonight!

Tonight is Laurel's first dance class! We are so psyched and she is really excited. She has been counting down the days for a loooong time. I have the video camera charged up and I need to get some blank tapes and we should be all set. She and Barb got her outfit and shoes (ballet and tap) a little while back so we are good to go. I'll give a report on how things go, but I think she may be a natural!

Finished Uncharted

Great game, almost like a real interactive movie. The story is terrific; I'd pay to see it on the silver screen. The characters are all well fleshed out, especially the main 3: Drake, Elena and Sully. I am hearing Elena has a reduce role in the sequel (there's another gal that teams up with Drake) and I find that to be a bummer. I really liked her intelligent girl-next-door character and it looks the new gal is made up to just be sexier. But Elena and Drake had real chemistry going and I hope to see them continue on in future installments.

Now it's back to Batman, IL-2 and The Beatles: Rock Band, which is released on Wednesday.

Revisiting "Uncharted"

In the course of showing my buddy Pete some games he might be interested in, I played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for about an hour or so. I was instantly hooked again. I am in the midst of playing a couple of high quality games, Batman: Arkham Asylum and IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey. Yet the first game I returned to when I got some free time was Uncharted. I am about 75% of the way through and I am having a blast. The exploring was always a highlight for me but this time the combat feels a lot nicer as well. My first time through I thought there was too much combat and that the enemies took too many shots to go down. Now I think it feels just right. Uncharted 2 is set to come out in October and now I am really stoked for that one. I'll have to find time to finish the first Uncharted again, then Batman, IL-2 and get in plenty of time with The Beatles: Rock Band and NHL '10 before then. Don't know how on earth that will happen, but you never know.

Vacation is over...

Our dear friends Pete and Joyce are on their way back to Canada after a wonderful week spent here in St. Louis. We had a great time and now the house seems totally empty. It's quite a jolt. Barb and I are gonna settle in and get back into our routine but we are sure gonna miss our friends from up North.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey released today after all

GameStop was still confused on the actual release date for the game but decided that it was okay to sell it. They only got 2 copies in, 1 for the 360 and one for the PS3. I got the 360 version and my buddy Pete promptly snapped up the PS3 version. He's not really into flight games but he was mighty impressed by the demo. I installed the game to my hard drive buy have not had a chance to play it yet - we played Rock Band with our visitors and had a blast. Pete really dug playing the drums but he struggled with the guitar; ironic, since he is a fine player on the real thing. I think he and Joyce will definitely be picking up Rock Band in the near future.