Ahh, even though I had a vacation in June, this one is much better. I have all next week off with my birthday coming in the middle of the week and a party at the end. Not to mention it looks like good weather for golf, plus, finally, the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which has been getting great reviews so far. Despite having Monkey Island to play, which reminds me I need to download Tales of Monkey Island Chapter Two, I haven't had a disc game to play since finishing the Simpsons Game. Hopefully Batman is a great as I'm expecting it to be, and from what the reviews are saying.
In the meantime, Secret of Monkey Island is fantastic. I finished the pirate trials opening, and now I need to get a ship and crew together. I'll have to make sure not to overlook this and Tales of MI with Batman on the horizon. But that's not the only thing. I've been thinking of popping in my copy of Mass Effect to either replay or ensure I have a good save file for next year when Mass Effect 2 comes out. There's also the latest Live Arcade game release to consider, Shadow Complex. In Gamespot's review of it, they compared it in a modern day sense to Super Metroid. This piques my interest for a couple reasons. First I never played Super Metroid, even though its widely regarded as one of the top SNES games. Second, one of the guys I worked with played thru it on an emulater recently and I got the chance to see Super Metroid in action. Combine those two factors and I may give Shadow Complex a try. Last night I played thru the trial and it was promising. We shall see.
Thursday night was one of the best nights I've had in a long time. Despite the fact I had to work, at least I got out early because I went to see Our Lady Peace play at the House of Blues, and to make the night even better, met up with two guys from work afterwards to see a midnight showing of Quentin Tarantino's new movie, Inglourious Basterds. Both were worth it, especially OLP. I've been a fan of Our Lady Peace for most of this decade, so along with finally getting to see Flogging Molly last year, they were both well worth the wait. OLP is great live, and they put on a very good show, highlights including vocalist Raine watching the guitarist play the solo for "Monkey Brains" off the new CD; during "Innocent", turning the mic around to let the crowd take over; disappearing and walking around the balcony during "All You Did was Save My Life", then continuing the song from the balcony and climbing down to the stage to finish it; asking security to not kick a guy out that climbed onstage, pushed him away, and belted out Starseed at the end of the night. Very good show, would love to see them again.
Inglourious Basterds was pretty good. Its less of a comedy than the commercials make it look like. It does have a lot of funny moments, lots of it coming from Brad Pitt. The movie is lengthy, and while a couple parts seem to last awhile, it rarely drags the movie down. Plus the dialogue is well written as it is in all Tarantino movies and the actors are well cast for their parts and all did a very nice job. I really can't think of anyone that was bad to be honest. Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt shine, Waltz as a German colonel, and Pitt as the Lieutenant in charge of the Basterds. Worth seeing especially if you are a Tarantino fan.
And now I need to clean up and get some lunch.
