I normally find myself responding to the release of a new Halo game in the same fashion, with a resounding "Ughhhhhhh...", then remembering that I should not be surprised at the fact that people who like their games as bland and unoriginal as a cinder block exist, and exist in force. Since 2001, we have all been drowned in the mediocrity of Halo and it's crowd of middle schoolers corpse-humping people between shots of Ritalin pills administered by parents too lazy to notice that their son, whose balls have not dropped yet is thoroughly telling a grown man off who just wanted to unwind after a day of work, and instead has to listen to some little pissant go on about fucking his mom in all the octaves that Justin Beiber will no longer be able to reach once the hormones for his gender reassignment surgery take over and he will finally be a real boy. Ten fucking years and that boy still has somehow not grown up, or he has cloned himself ad nauseum into some sort of barely pubescent army that has infected the world of online gameplay. Honestly this type has been around since before Halo. But somehow the union of console online gameplay and the console first person shooter have made some sort of scary singularity that pulls in all the dickheads with a headset and brings them directly into the realm where a normal sane person just wants some time to face other players in a competitive game. Fuck, nowadays it is a risk playing Uno on XBL. Uno...really?

So I got a PS3 for Christmas. And since I got a PS3, this opened me to a whole world of exclusive games that I have always wanted to play, but haven't had the chance to. My current plan is to still use the Xbox for games that go on all platforms, for a very petty reason. I am invested in achievements as opposed to trophies. Switching now would be like switching my main in WoW. All that work down the toilet, no thank you. So yes, my PS3 will be seeing a lot of play, just not exactly as much as my Xbox. But anyway, I have started a few games on the new system, most notably God of War. The first one, yes I have dabbled in the game, but never really plowed through it, so I am hoping to change that, and when I do, I will review the trilogy as a whole. For right now however, I am going to talk about one of the games I was most excited for, one of the reasons I really wanted this system. Hit the jump to see me babble about Katamari Forever.

My friend Steve made a short Facebook (It's a little weird that word is still considered misspelled.) post the other day about the games he has played, rating them and then saying what his favorite game of the year is. I meant to copy him, doing the same thing with the games I have played this year, but then I realized why don't I just take this chance and return to my blog with some game of the year talk. So I am gonna do something I am not always fond of doing. I am going to apply number grades to the games I talk about. Everything will also get a brief review, colored through the lenses of hindsight, as I am not gonna sit down and play these games again simply for this article. Alright, let's get started, well we'll get started after the break.

Last week I broke my hand and I have a hard time typing quickly.  I wanted to write a long blog post about the new Assassin's Creed, but really, while I can type with my left hand, it is only one finger at a time, and the way I have to hold my arm weighs on me, on account of the cast. And well I still plan on talking about Assassin's Creed tomorrow, because well I was gonna do it tonight, but I ended up getting my Kingslayer title instead. That's right mutha fucker! Turthias the Kingslayer, woooooo. Anyhoo, see ya tomorrow.

Been a few weeks, yes I noticed. I do actually have something of an excuse though, in that I have been working at a new job, with hours completely different from that I was used to. To that end my body has been in something of a weird  shut down mode lately. I barely go out, all I really do lately is work, come home, then play WoW. Ill pop off for dinner somewhere in there, but that is the basic itinerary lately. As a result of this, I really haven't had much to write about lately. Sure I have been playing tons of Warcraft, but really it's more of the same for now until Cataclysm. Luckily it seems like I am getting some spring in my step back, and just in time for the new Assassin's Creed game, for which I am very excited. I guess I can talk briefly about what I have been doing, and maybe write something more substantial tomorrow, get back into the groove of things.

WoW- Well at least one good thing has happened lately to me in the Warcraft universe. I found a guild that I seem to gel with a bit. The last two were not good for me at all, and I was starting to get worried I wouldn't be able to find people I liked playing with again. I had a good, tight group once upon a time, but they have, for the most part decided to stop playing WoW, or they moved servers. The guild is ran by the boyfriend of a WoW buddy I lost contact with for a while, and it seems they have a good group of people around them. Went raiding on Thursday and for the first time in my WoW-ing, got up to Sindragosa in 10 man ICC. We're going again on Sunday it seems, and I am looking forward to the chance of maybe, just maybe getting my Kingslayer title on Turthias. Other than that, not much has been going on my WoW world, got swift flying on my priest, and been leveling a human Warlock somewhat quickly. He is level 42 now. With WoW I am really just waiting for the expansion to come, so I can have an experience bar back on my Paladin and eventually throw him headlong into some new content. Till then though, I have been actually having a good time with this new bunch of people, let's just hope this one sticks.

I have been playing other games too, just not as much. Oddly enough these games are for the most part, throwback games I have not touched in a long time. Beautiful Katamari is one such game. I haven't touched it in a long long time, but lately I find myself picking it up every other day or so. Actually got a bunch of achievements I was missing too, which is really a good thing. It's been a while since I hit the 10k Gamerscore mark, but since then I have remained stagnant it seems. Mainly due to the lack of new games I guess.

Soul Calibur 4 is another game that is worming its way back into my life. I had the game, but I had to re-download it since my physical copy of the game was stolen a long time ago. I am terribly out of practice with this game though, and it shows. Floor 17 of the Tower of Souls is kicking my ass like no other, and it is at best, frustrating. At worst, I may throw my controller at my TV, but usually I am able to recognize such rage coming, and turn off the game before it actually happens.

With my new job, it seems my appetite for hand-held gaming has fallen to the wayside, though that is not surprising, don't have the dick-around time I used to. Alrighty, time to go about my day, expect something tomorrow about the new WoW book, which I read, and shall subsequently speak of.

-Kesith

I have been busy...and sick. So no update this week. Let's see how gaming jives with my new lifestyle.

I found out this week that my laptop is a useless piece of crap when it no longer had the space to contain the MMO juggernaut that is World of Warcraft. The new patch came out this week, breaking down and rebuilding the core concepts of so many classes. On top of that, established game systems were turned all upside down and changed. What does that mean for me though, a Paladin who likes getting punched squarely in the face and sometimes smacking things with a huge weapon? I just wanna talk about what this patch did for me today, I am not gonna go over this whole change to the game, because frankly, it's too much, I haven't played around with all the changes, and there are far better places to get that kind of information. So fuck it, let's get a move on. Cut goes here, so ya know, click on the title to read more.