Well I said I'd have this and the new Community Spotlight done by Wednesday but I had my Modem crap out on me. So now I have a new one, I'm waiting for the person I'm interviewing to get online... Hoping these wasn't a miscommunication but I think I may have spelled her screen name wrong. Anyways Here's my Big Gaming Update.

REVIEWS

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn: I finally got this giant of an RPG off my backlog after devoting hours of time at work into playing though it. I actually just wanted to speed run through the main story and call it a day but I got sucked in to all the sidequests during the second chapter and decided to spend some time with it. I know I still missed a lot but that's the beauty of the depth this game has. Anyways I gave this ****c a 9.5 and the review is Nyeah.

Too Human: With the 6.5 rating I gave it and the review over Nyeah, Pretty much anyone that paid attention to this game knows what is wrong with it. Don't get me wrong, despite its shortcomings it still has an addiction factor to it but this game could and should have been so much more. I'm looking forward to the sequel but I'll be a little wary about it until reviews come out.

Fable II Pub Games: This semi interesting little game landed a 6.0 from me. It's not much of what I would consider an actual game but it is a nice companion to what should be a great game. It also reinforces in my mind why I never gamble. I suck at the dice game and I find the card game not rewarding enough in the beginning, the slot game is just plain old boring. Anyways my full review of it is right Nyeah.

Bionic Commando Rearmed: To say it bluntly, if you want to know how to remake a 8-bit game, this is it. A terrific reimagining of a ****c. The review is Nyeah and this one scored a 9.0 from me.

Impressions

Red Faction Guerrilla (360): There was a free MP beta for this game not too far back and I filled out an application for it and played it for a night. It left me with that same unexcited feeling that Lost Planet did way back when. My feelings about Red Faction's MP has always been that it was a tacked on feature. In my mind I pictured levels where you're setting traps and dropping buildings down on foes or tunneling though levels to get behind the enemy lines, when in actuallity it was an open environment with very little destruction going on. There was only one playable environ, and the MP part in no way tells how the SP portion is going to play out but I can say I won't be buying this game to frag people.

Chances I'll be buying: Good but not because of the MP portion shown here.

Facebreaker: I was hoping to find a Punch Out type game but was instead treated to a Ready 2 Rumble arcade boxing game. Since I'm not really a fan of Ready 2 Rumble I really did have any fun with this game and I also have no interest in it. The game seems like an average over the top boxinb game with strange characters and a few B list stars thrown in the mix. Meh.

Chances I'll be buying: None

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Okay. I'm not even a Star Wars fan and this game has me wanting to run around as Darth Vader's pupil and electrify and crush everything in my way. I played through the demo as a cold, calculating force of nature destroying everything in my path and had a really good time doing it. I probably should have went back in and tested out the speed and agility but I don't like playing demos too much. This is a definite buy for me and the demo gives a nice hint of things to expect.

Chances I'll be buying: Definite

Books

I read through both Mass Effect Novels, Revelation and Ascension in four days while at work and pretty much enjoyed them. The author has a simple way with words, maybe a little too simple for my taste. It simply fails to capture a futuristic feel to it. Take out the mentioning of different planets, and races and these stories could easily be modern day tales.

Revelation is a prequel to the Mass Effect game and I think it's a must read for any fan of the series. You find out exactly went on between Saren and Captain Anderson and how Saren actually came across the Reaper vessel.

Ascension, I believe, gives a quick preview of how Biotics might be improved in the next Mass Effect game but the story mostly delves into the Cerberus Organization. This terrorist organization was talked about briefly in Mass Effect and even had a few side quests dealing with them but the size and scope of their research and influence is fully realized in this book.

These are my first experiences with gaming novels and I can say I'm surprised on how good they are. Easy to read and great tie ins to the games themselves. IF I can find novels on some other games I enjoyed, I'll be sure to pick them up.

I've been back from my trip to California for a few days now. I had a great time just sitting around, relaxing, eating, drinking and being merry. I had a great time with my friend while I was up there but missed out seeing another friend due to a bunch of circumstances.

The best part is that on the way home I had the chance to give up my seat on the flight home in exchange for a room in the Hyatt in Washington D.C. and a free roundtrip airline ticket to anywhere in the US. So I have next years vacation already paid for with a great buy one get one free airline ticket deal. Can't complain about that.

However I can complain about getting sick 1/2 through my vacation. What started as a little lung irritation has grown into a fullout chest and head cold. In the morning I feel as if someone poured cement in ears and lung and I wake up feeling like crap. I've continued just to relax, try to sleep as much as I can and continue going to work. I'm on an inhaler and some antibiotics but they don't seem to be doing anything yet. I may just have to suck it up and sit through this one.

Which leads to the delay in the Community Spotlight. I'm just not up to doing the new interview yet but I do have most of the questions and everything lined up and ready to go. I'm thinking about doing it Tuesday night of Wednesday sometime if it's good for the person I'm interviewing.

Before that I should have a huge gaming update with my impressions of the Facebreaker and Star Wars Force Unleashed demos, first impressions of Too Human, Reviews of Baldur's Gate II, Fable 2 Pub Games and Bionic Commando Rearmed and even a blurb or two about the Mass Effect Novels; Ascension and the prequel one whose names slips my mind.

I think that's it.

Community Spotlight Update

I'm delaying the Community Spotlight thing until I get back from my vacation. Doing a new one every week is a schedule I would never live up to because...well I'm pretty damn lazy. The person I'm interviewing agreed and so there should be another Spotlight up around Saturday or Sunday of next week.

Bionic Commando

This game and I go way back. Back to the NES days where the first time I got up to the final boss after hours of play and the power went out, the second time I got up to the boss after hours of play my NES froze. So it wasn't until weeks later during the third time I dedicated enough time to this game where I actually beat it.

Now I don't really have much time to play it because I'm getting ready for my trip but the game brings back memories and adds enough things to make it very different than the original. Plain and simple this is the way a remake should be done. I look forward to coming back from vacation and kicking this game's ass, unless Too Human sidetracks me.

Fable II Pub Games

Wow....I totally suck at these games. I seem to have the worst luck ever. I play the card game and at most I win about 22 gold after betting 15. In the dice game it seems that I roll anything that I don't wager on and on the slots, just to test how crappy my luck it, I pulled out 500 gold at 10 gold a wager and didn't win once. That's 50 spins without matching a damn thing.

I says if you rack up enough debt in this game it will have an effect when Fable II actually comes out... Looks like some people will be trying to break my character's legs.

Californyuh-nyuh is nice to the homeless...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMsr0cLnQPI

Just off watching South Park Season 11 and the homeless episode and preparing for my trip to California myself. Haven't been out that way in about two years so I'm a bit over due. See you guys later...

I've recently gone through four games that were in my backlog and I'm hoping that I get more done so that this coming holiday season I'll be playing through all new games and not just old ones that I'm trying to beat. Here's my four latest reviews and I hope that you enjoy them.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Weapons of Destruction: I bought this game because of a recommendation from someone on this board and I had a great time with it. I would have played it even more after beating it to fully pimp out my weapons but I have a bunch of games on my plate that I have to get rid of. I gave the game an 8.5 and my review is right Nyeah.

City of Heroes/City of Villains: Combined Edition: I don't feel that this is a good review simply because it's an MMORPG and the main draw from these games are usually interaction with others and the grinding. CoH/Cov doesn't do too much different than the other MMORPG's I've played but since I'm still a 13 year old comic book fan at heart, and this is the closest one can get to playing an ever changing comic RPG, it wins by default. I rated it a 7.5 and this review is Nyeah.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: Out of KOTOR 2, NWN 2 and this expansion, I think the first two titles are responsible for the last one's goodness. I might have talked bad about Obsidian in the past about their buggy games and BioWare riding coat tails but this expansion proves that they can change the game and improve on a foundation with a semi polished game. There are still bugs and a design decision I don't like but the Spirit Meter adds such a sense of urgency to this game that it was actually exciting to be racing against a clock. It is just an expansion though so I rated it an 8.0 and the review is Nyeah.

Alone in the Dark: DAMMIT! is the first word that comes to mind when playing this game. It's a title that tries so hard to be innovative and it's easy to see that the game would have been if the things on paper translated well into the digital medium. There's a bunch of things to like about this game but there's just a few more things not to like. Troubles are found in almost every element of the game but don't let that deter you from a cheap rental of something. The game's not broken it's just a bit shoddy. I gave the game a 6.5 and the review can be found by clicking Nyeah.

Recently I wrote a small list on one of my Gamespot friend's blogs of blog posts I don't respond to which included things like, music I don't listen to, videos, games I'm not interested in and things of that nature. It seems I have to append that list and add to it this Giant Bomb crap. In fact I'm I'm putting out a general order along with it and here's why...

For the most part I don't care if you plan on moving to another website and in fact, those of you outside of the ROF (coincidentally if you don't know what the ROF is, it's an easy way to tell you're on the outside) really won't bug me if you decide to leave.

You guys forget that this is a community and if you don't like things around here then it's partially up to you to change them. If you don't like the people that flood the General Game Discussion topics with 500 posts about "Sephiroth is the coolest vilian ever and he can cook a mean falafel too" start reporting them and they'll be taken care of. If you feel like you have a good group of friends with similar interests create your own board or union, don't like Gamespot's reviewers than find user reviewers you agree with... or if you want to bounce around from site to site because they're newer well I guess that's well within your rights too.

But I don't care if you leave and don't be offended if I remove your name from my list so that I can keep track of blogs of people that are staying around a bit easier.

And now for something a little bit different.

~The Creative Writing Union~

I started this union or just a bunch of posters from here that want to get people to preview their writing whether it's for reviews and editorials for this site or Fan-fic, short stories... anything in words you'd like people to look at and tell you how you're doing. There's a small amount of us so far and it's off to a slow start so I'm extending the invites to anyone on my friend's list that would be interested in such a thing. It's pretty much a free flowing union and any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

We already have a few stories up, a script for a tv show, some poetry and an editorial. I don't believe in just mass inviting people because I know how annoying that can be so if you're interested you can just leave me a comment or PM me.