The wait for Bioshock was just made a lot easier by the delivery of Phoenix Wright 3.
Playing it is like eating a delicious cake. The enjoyment is always tinged with sadness because you know it'll have to end eventually. Each bite takes you closer to having no cake 
Already finished the first (introductory) chapter.
been playing Saint's Row and Viva Pinata. Both good. Pinata is especially beautiful, Saint's Row is despressingly satisfying. I didn't want to like Saint's Row, and I almost don't, but I can't get enough of driving around, listening to hip hop, and then getting out my car to take people down with a pistol. The whole shooting thing feels better than GTA. The way your victims move about while being shot is enhanced by Havoc physics (a la Max Payne, without the rubberiness). It's gratifying in Saint's Row to, for example, chase down a hooker, pop her in the back and then get into a van and drive over her head, thanks to the way the bodies behave. It's not got the humour or the immersion or the city design of GTA, but it's still addictive.
Viva Pinata is obviously quite different, being a game where you tend a garden. My only problem is that you don't get many pointers about what to do, and there seemingly isn't any narrative goal. You have to configure your garden in specfic ways to attract creatures, which you can then breed until you've got enough to attract their predators, which you can then breed, etc, but there aren't many clues as to what exactly you have to do to attract the creatures in the first place, and there's just a vague aim of 'catching them all', simply for the purposes of collection. I suppose that it's a sandbox game, but the frikkin achievement points are mostly secret, so it's not like you can easily just try and rack up the 1000 points. I seem to be stuck with the same stable of species, and I'm having to turn to the net for ideas, which kind of takes some of the fun out. Not all of it though - it's still pleasing just to do your garden, watch the creatures interact, and try and make money.
Still playing Forza 2, but that's now getting well difficult. I've taken off all the help things apart from traction control, and now find that I can spend hours and hours trying to finish a seven lap race round Leguna Seca, simply because on the higher levels (I'm at around 30 now) it demands absolutely precise driving. Sometimes you can still get away with maxing your machine out and tearing round without worrying about your competitors like at the beginning of the game, but often I find that my car is just slightly underpowered compared to the others on the track, so every corner has to be dead on. Also, all it takes is one nudge and you can be out the race, which say after 7 of 8 perfect laps is super frustrating. But then, when you do it, the money and new cars and that are a worthy reward. I'm going to do some designing soon. There's that lamborghini that was donated to the italian police, and I might try and paint up such a car to try and start really rackin the cash in online.
I haven't yet raced online yet, because I still don't think I'm good enough. I've taken off traction control a few times, and always find it difficult to get a lead. I know I need to really persist and concentrate to be able to properly et it so I can feel confident on line, but I just haven't had the time.
Still - it looks **** sweet at 1080i.
eta: Also - Castlevania on the Xbox looks gorgeous as well. I love love love that game. I've got Mario strikers, but can't get into it. On the training mode, I couldn't seem to score any goals while I was super mario, and I thought, if I can't even do a simple training exercise, what are my chances of competing against real people. Also thw wii looked like **** on the TV with Scart. I've got component now but haven't yet tried it.
I recently had a minor disaster in that I lost 3 games for the DS - the new Castlevania, the new Phoenix Wright, and the recent Yoshi game. I must have turned my room upside town a dozen times. I still keep checking in the same bag, just in case. But they've gone. I finished Wright (sadly, my girlfriend was on the last case), I got to the last boss of Castlevania, and I was about half way through Yoshi. Losing those suckers hurt - I still can't believe that they've actually gone. Anyway, it meant that I went and bought a couple of new games. Hotel Dusk and Final Fantasy III.
The weird thing is that I've got a Wii and a 360 sitting there under my TV, not being used right now. I got to the end level on Zelda and got bored, so that remains unfinished. I picked up GRAW recently for the 360, but it didn't seem like fun on my 4:3 CRT. Warioware was fun for a couple of nights, but after a day at work, last thing I want to do is play party games. I just want to kick back with a beer or two and zone out. Listen to music, forget about everybody else. Which is why Hotel Dusk and Final Fantasy have been perfect.
I reviewed Hotel Dusk when I was maybe 3/4 way through, and now I realise that the review was unfair. The game sags in the middle, and leads you down a couple of paths that don't add to the overall story. At that point I put it down and picked up FFIII. That game is like chewing gum for the mind. The battle decisions of when to cure, when to attack, or when to using magic instead of an item seem almost instinctive. There's no higher thought required. Unlike the other games I've played in the series on the PS1 (7,8,9), this one cuts out character, story and personality, skinning the gameplay down to the bone. There are no puzzles, and there is no drama. Just enemy after enemy. Dungeon after dungeon. I should hate it, and it did take me a while to sink in. But now, the mind numbing repetition is a solace. It feels like sped up movie footage of time flowing by - the pages of a calender flying off the wall. The levels clock up, the hit point increases, but at no point does the game feel like it's progessing. But that doesn't matter. It's frightening how I can spend hours attacking the same enemies, racking up the XP, for no purpose other than the satisfaction of watching the process of accumulation. Glassy eyed, ipod plugged into my head, a million miles from thought. Buhhhhhhhhhh.
Still though, the 360 sits there. A friend brought over Oblivion, but it's a US copy that doesn't work on my machine. I want to play more games on it, but I don't know what to go for. Viva Pinata seems interesting, and I was kind of looking forward to Crackdown, but now...not so much. I've not played any Burnout apart from half an hour on a PSP, so maybe I should go for that. I enjoyed the Need for Speed Underground games on the PC, and while I realise they're different, perhaps a bit of adrenaline is what I need to get me out of a world of post-rock soundscapes and endless levelling up. I might get Gears of War again, after that got taken back to the States by the same friend. But right now, the machine is just a noisy DVD player. I've been trying to find the paperboy music on mp3 after Jeff waxed about it, so maybe I should download that and give it a go. I sucked at it in the 80s though, so I'll probably suck at it now.
