I've been a bit remiss in posting on GS, but I'm not quite a ghost yet.

I came back from 29 Palms a bit earlier in the month, only to find out that I had a week-long field op the following week. Totally burned out from back to back fieldings, I just became kind of a recluse, so I'd like to apologize once again to those I'd shunned on XBox Live. It's the nature of the profilic beast that when I'm signed in, I'm also online, and I just wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody. (Trust me, my wife says I was quite the bear when I first came back from Cali.)

At any rate, I'm once again between field ops, since October promises another trip to Fort Bragg for a month (20 or so days) of pure military goofiness. Ah, who cares about that?!? You guys are here about the games!

One of my buddies heading out to Afghanistan hooked me up with a bunch of games to bolster me between GameFly titles, so I'll be playing quite a few. While I finally got rid of my copy of Halo 3, I can probably be enticed to play online with Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4, or GTA IV if you can handle a bit of n00bishness in the mix.

I finished my first playthrough of Inifinite Undiscovery, putting a final touch to 26 hours worth of game. It doesn't sound like a lot for an RPG, but I'll admit to blazing through the latter parts once I realized that a lot of content simply wasn't available on the initial playthrough. It'll be a while before I tackle the next difficulty and the secret dungeon. I know there's a lot of content I missed out on, and I have quite a few achievements waiting to be picked up here.

I also played Ghostbusters recently. Fun game, filled with the same wit and mayhem from the two movies and the cartoon series. Worth picking up if you're a fan, and the online content is really interesting. Along with teaming up with fellow Ghostbusters to bust ghosts, there are certain type of ghosts (Most Wanted Ghosts) that appear only after you've captured other ghosts from other levels. It's a nice bit of flagging that's not available in other games, and is a bit more exciting than what can be found in other titles. Plus, you can earn money to buy other costumes and whatnot. Really fun!

Also put to rest was Batman: Arkham Asylum, hands down the best Batman game to date. And while that's not saying much in regards to the Batman series, this game is definitely getting my game of the year vote. Fluid combat, dark atmosphere and visuals, killer soundtrack and voicework, plus penned by the master himself: Paul Dini of DC Comics and Batman: The Animated Series fame, this game has it all! If you haven't played it yet, you owe it to yourself to rent this game. (Because of the length, I wouldn't recommend dropping $60 on it!!)

Finally, I am plodding through Resident Evil 5, not because it's a poor game, but because it's M rating means that I only play it when my daughter's not around to get freaked out by the non-zombies and epic violence. Still not crazy about the controls, but Capcom has yet to make a game that I'm completely impressed by. Is it just me, or is Chris just hard to control? I feel like I'm slightly retarded every time I aim in on a non-zombie.

Anyway, that's me for now. I'll update soon! Thanks for stopping by!

I'll be absent for a bit from GS, as I'm heading out to sunny 29 Palms, California for a month-long field op. It's a welcome break from my job here in North Carolina, but it's kind of annoying being away from my wife and daughter for that long. Oh well, at least I won't be heading to Afghanistan!

Have fun, everyone, and I'll catch up with you all in September!

Some games just aren't meant to be played on the hardest difficulty. I remember grinning when I read fellow GameSpotter jekyll's blog about Halo, and how Legendary had been a bit too intimidating. Well, some games have just some obsecenly difficult setting, such as Nightmare on Doom, where the enemies just respawn almost as soon as you kill them. It's a setting to challenge the game pro, but there comes a point where the impossible makes the game less fun.

I started playing The Bourne Conspiracy last night, Sierra's attempt to go beyond the trilogy of movies and explore some of the scenarios contained in Robert Ludlum's novels (gasp! reading!!). I started it on the "Assassin" difficulty, the hardest of the three and managed to get through the tutorial level fairly easily. In the first real level, however, I started facing some serious difficulty. Today, after struggling to make progress through the second level, I finally threw in the towel and decided to downgrade to Medium, or risk not enjoying the game anymore. After struggling through Hard, though, the Medium mode is definitely a lot easier than expected.

For one thing, health recharges a lot faster and the adrenaline bar (used to do some sweet takedown maneuvers) charges up a lot faster as well. During combat, when you have to hit a button to prevent an attack or do one of your own Bourne moves, instead of just popping up, it appears within a keypad overlay. Not too shabby!

Whew, at least I'll finally be able to make some real progress in the game now!