Since my last post I've played kind of a lot of stuff. I finished Resistance 2, got a whole bunch of trophies, and had a lot of fun with it. I tried going back and playing it on hard, but started getting frustrated when I couldn't beat the huge spinner boss, so I don't think I'm going to commit to it, just like what happened with BioShock. I don't know how the hell I managed to get up the motivation and drive to beat Uncharted on the hardest difficulty setting. Maybe I was just excited that it was the 2nd game I played for trophies. Anyway, I started playing online, but didn't really get into it like I thought I would. Granted, all I've played so far is competitive multiplayer so I haven't even tried co-op yet. I may really enjoy co-op, so we'll see. So far its just confirmed that I'm really not very good at multiplayer deathmatch type of gameplay. I still really enjoy playing Call of Duty 4 multiplayer, but I don't think I would have as much fun with R2, which disappoints me a bit. I guess I'll find out for sure once I get around to playing co-op.

Also, I've been playing a lot of PSN games. The most significant of which is Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix. It looks amazing and plays nice, but like R2 its only cemented the fact that I'm really not very good at fighting games anymore. This saddens me too, because I really really want to play and be good at fighting games and online shooters. I loved playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo back in the day and was disappointed to find out that I had serious trouble doing well when playing the computer AI on medium difficulty. Even after I switched to easy, I was still using up continues on almost every character I fought. If I can't even beat the computer, I won't be able to even phase a live opponent. Its to the point where I don't even known if I should play Street Fighter IV because I won't be able to do it. I'll spend more time with HD Remix but I fear I will never be very good at it.

The rest of the stuff I'm playing can be listed quickly:

Super Stardust Portable - This turned out better than I thought it would! The lack of another analog stick forced the developers to use the four face buttons in a pretty creative way. You can basically move your finger over the buttons like it was a joystick and the game can interpret the movements into a relatively decent facsimile of the smooth aiming movement. And if you tap the buttons quickly in a specific direction, it automatically sprays your shots. Its still no match for an actual analog stick, but it works better than I thought it would. Also, the PSP could not handle showing the full 3D world, so they flattened out the playfield somewhat and made it loop around on itself so you still get the freedom of movement and layout of a 3D globe to fly around. Its nice that they took the time to think about and address some of the limitations of the system, and it seems like their effort has paid off.

Age of Booty - Downloaded this when it came out but haven't started it yet. Want to though. It sounds fun.

Blast Factor - I was enticed to try the demo once I found out it had been patched for trophies. Its really awesome! Its wierd playing a dual joystick shooter in a confined space after playing so much Super Stardust, but I really like the variety of the enemies and the presentation. It gets really hard though. Although, any dual stick shooter worth their salt gets insane after a while, so I guess its ok.

Soldner-X - This is a pretty cool side scrooling shooter. Way hard, but cool music and cool weapons. It reminds me a lot of Einhander, which is not a bad thing at all. Einhander was awesome.

Prince of Persia Classic - I like this game but its way harder than I expected. Probably won't play it too often, but its fun for when I feel like playing that kind of game.

I also downloaded The Last Guy and Commando 3, because of Sony's $5 sale. Cool games, but not a lot of substance to either one. $5 is just the right price for them.

Oh, and I checked out the latest issue of Qore due to it being free, and I gotta say I'm not that impressed. I've been wanting to check it out but have not been willing to pay for it. Its ok, but there's nothing in an issue of Qore that can't be gotten for free online. I'm not willing to pay for it just for slightly different interviews and a few free demos and themes.

So far the only new retail games (this holiday season mind you) I have but haven't gotten to yet are LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, and Valkyria Chronicles, so I'm pretty proud of myself. Next up is Age of Booty and Dead Space. Plus I figure I'll try R2 co-op. I have to give it a chance. Maybe it'll blow me away?

So I beat BioShock over the weekend. And while the game, story, and the immersiveness of Rapture were all amazing, I was slightly disappointed to find out that I was greatly overthinking the supposed spoiler I read a while back. I saw the trophy for "Become a Big Daddy" and my mind was racing with possibilities about the implications of this. Unfortunately, the only reason you put on the Big Daddy suit is to get through a few doors in the last stage of the game. I was both happy that the plot wasn't spoiled, and disappointed by the simplicity of it. Imagine how awesome it would be if your character met some horrible fate at the end of the game and you were destined to spend the rest of your life trapped in a Big Daddy suit, protecting little sisters and living with the degredation of the city and its tortured former citizens?!

Still, it was a great game, even if the ending wasn't quite as tragic as my mind was conjuring up. I went back and harvested a couple of little sisters at the end to see the bad ending. I am trying to go back through the game on Hard to get a few more trophies but am having a hard time with it. I foresee either giving up or it taking a really long time. We'll see if I'm able to stick with it. Especially considering the fact that I started playing Resistance 2 the very next day.

I am having a lot of fun with Resistance 2. However, I agree with some of the comments out there that it seems as if Insomniac made the multiplayer modes the main focus and the single player campaign suffered a little bit as a result. It is still really fun, but I am having a hard time getting into the story in the single player campaign. Its super fun to play through the levels, but it seems to me that the bosses are easier than the stages themselves a lot of the time. Also, the 1Up Yours Podcast was right, they give you a specific weapon right before you need to use it. The only thing is, I sometimes don't find it until after I've already defeated the enemies that the weapon was put there to dispose of. Lastly, it definately seems shorter than the first Resistance. I'm already on the last stage and should be able to beat it soon. Oh well, I am still enjoying it quite a bit and can't wait to start playing multiplayer. Everything I'm hearing about multiplayer sounds really cool. This is a game where I might be able to get a platinum trophy! We'll see how it goes. Once this game is beaten I can finally start playing Dead Space.

So I just realized that I could use my Guitar Hero 3 guitar to play Rock Band now! Whoooo! I bought the disc-only version of Rock Band 2 and rented a copy of Rock Band 1 so I could import the songs to my hard drive. I am finally able to experience what everybody else has been playing for almost a year now. I love it! All I need to do now is buy a drum set. And get Guitar Hero: World Tour.

One thing I've noticed is that Rock Band has a much more gradual learning curve than Guitar Hero. That's awesome. I am finding that I can actually play pretty well on Hard difficulty, something that I never was able to do in GH. I am getting better and better with using all five notes and think that once I get good maybe I can actually go back to GH and play on Hard. We'll see. Now I'm probably just going to buy a bunch of music. I want to play some of the Smashing Pumpkins and Motley Crue stuff.

I am also making my way through BioShock and am really enjoying it. The Big Daddies are really hard though. I am kind of pissed that one of the big surprises has kind of been spoiled for me. It was my own damn fault, but I was looking at the list of trophies and saw the one marked "Become a Big Daddy." Wha wha whattt!!!??? Holy crap! After all the trouble I went to to avoid all spoilers too...it makes sense since an outcome like that would fit the tragic outcome of the rest of Rapture. I am trying to forget I saw it, but I guess writing about it doesn't really help does it? The game is still pretty fascinating.

I also need to get to Dead Space, LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2, and Valkyria Chronicles. I feel kind of bad that I never finished Condemned 2, it really was a cool game. I plan on going back to it eventually, but so many good games came out at one time that I just kind of put it on the back burner.

BTW, Burnout is putting in a DeLorean time machine!!! Effin A!!! That's so awesome, is there no end to Criterion's greatness? I would so pay for cool additional cars. Don't know how exited I am for Burnout Paradise Party though. I don't have any friends...at least none that play games. I guess I could play it by myself and pretend to pass the controller around just to get the trophies. We'll see, it depends on how much they charge for it.