Juggling Mike

It has been a while since my last post. I try to post regularly, but sometimes days pass by way too fast and next thing you know a month has passed since your last entry. For shame Mike.. for shame. I guess I’ll end this stagnation with a summary of my month of October. For starters, I’m house hunting, although that hasn’t kicked into full swing yet. I have also spent a lot of time with Dharti (not enough time, but the house should help fix that). I have been spending some time with friends and vacation plans have been made. I practiced my unicycle and I am finally starting to “get” what it is supposed to feel like. If I can ride it properly by Spring, I may have to invest into a 24 incher. Wow, that can be totally misinterpreted…

Besides that, I have also been playing games. I didn’t touch much of my consoles over the summer, but lately I have been giving them much attention. I bought three games this month, which is a lot more than I would normally buy/play. I started by playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune which a friend lent me. Awesome game, but that playtime has been interrupted by the arrival of Brutal Legend.

Brutal Legend is the newest game from Tim Schafer, one of my favourite game designers. I own every one of his games, and have played pretty much all of them at least twice. His days at Lucasarts produced some of the finest adventure games, and his first platformer Psychonauts remains one of my favourite games ever. If you’ve ever played Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, or Full Throttle.. you have this man to thank. Brutal Legend takes place in the world of metal music. It is a universe imagined based from covers of old heavy metal albums, and a lot of music love went into the game. You play Eddie (voiced by Jack Black) who can slice enemies with his axe, electrocute and burn people with his guitar, or drive through them with his Druid Plow. It is a mix of all sorts of genres such as action, racing, and RTS, and it is all blended well. The humour is excellent and the pacing is well done. My only gripe with the game is that I’m not a huge RTS fan, so a good portion of the game loses some interest over the other sections. Still, overall it is a lot of fun and I recommend it. I am not finished the single player yet, but I hope to get through it soon.

The next game I bought was Borderlands. I originally knew nothing about this game, but when Wal-mart announced that they were selling it at a reduced price, it peaked my interest. I bought it along a couple of friends and we started playing together. I like to think of it as a Fallout 3 - Lite. It is a FPS with RPG elements. It has a very original art style and is quite addictive. The coop play is a lot of fun and well implemented. I keep wanting to play to reach just one more level. If you like shooters and want something different, you should check Borderlands out.

The last game I got was a bit of a guilty pleasure. I had posted about it before and then said I would not buy it, but I caved today and picked it up. I’m talking about DJ Hero. I never bought Rock Band because I would always be playing it alone, and I can’t start banging on the drums in my apartment. I was pretty excited when DJ Hero was announced since it is a relatively quiet game (regarding the instrument) and is mostly solo. Also, it is my kind of music. I love this stuff. I wish they would release a soundtrack, since a lot of the tracks in this game are just simply awesome. My biggest gripe about the game is the price. It costs over a hundred dollars which does not make it easily accessible to everyone. It has a new plastic peripheral, but compared to a plastic guitar, this is the kind of toy I wouldn’t mind having on my living room table. The turntable controller works really well and feels great. I haven’t played too much so far, but from what I’ve seen, I love it. Hearing Queen mashed with Daft Punk is simply (excuse the pun) music to my ears. If I didn’t work tomorrow, I would probably end up pressing plastic buttons and scratching plastic records for a good portion of the night. If you like music games, and you like the sounds DJs produce.. you need this game.

Anyways, I need to get to bed. Till the next post!