10 days and counting

As I write this, in exactly 10 days I will be enjoying wedded bliss with my new wife.  It feels like just a week ago that I looked at the calender and thought "shit, 100 more days to lose 10-20 pounds" and now the time is upon me.
I'm going to assume that it's nerves that have caused me to gain a few pounds in the past couple of weeks but whatever, Life is good and I am happy.

I'm not going to edit or re-read this to make sure everything makes sense.  With that I will warn you that I am half way through my second Dead Guy while typing as some nights require booze to end the evening and fall asleep properly.

Before I get into the vague info I plan on giving to follow up that sentence I want to point out that this month I have beaten Mega Man Powered up for the Playstation Portable, or the PSP as most people know it.
I am quite happy with the game and plan on putting a few more hours into it but I in no way plan on completing it.  In order to complete it you have to beat it with Megaman on every single difficulty.  You also have to beat it with every other unlockable character on every single difficulty.  This means Cut-man and Guts-man and all the rest.  Liking Mega-Man and keeping him fondly in my heart over the years (but nothing like my brother in gaming Mike Hall) I really enjoyed this version of the game and the two new bosses.  However, I have better things to do with my time than beat the game another 30 times or so.

After that I re-started and beat Batman: Arkham City which I'm going to proclaim is probably one of the 5 best games I have ever played.  I haven't done all the side missions and I'll never get around to doing all the Riddler stuff, but I did have the Catwoman levels installed.  And, when it goes on sale for $5 or less I plan on getting the Harley DLC and playing through that.   The game play was great, all the improvements from Asylum were actual improvements.  The size of the map was pretty much perfect for the game as well.  The thing that makes this game so amazing was the ending.
That hit jumped out at you and hit you like the Klan throwing a sock party.  While it was hinted at I honestly never saw it coming.  This is a game that I will play again, on New Game Plus, because it was so amazing.
And even though I loved the game so much, the thing that tugged at my heart strings the most was the "voice mail" during the ending credits.
Damn.
The whole reason I ended up deciding to play Arkham City as because this year Arkham Knight comes out and it is supposed to end the trilogy (Asylum, City and Knight).  So, I thought that I should beat City and Origins (a prequel from a different developer) before Knight came out so I could play it at release instead of 3 years later as seems to be my current Modis Operandi (SP????).

I've been playing a little bit of Diablo 3 trying to eek my way towards that last achievement as I'd like to have it done before The Ultimate Evil Edition comes out for the PS4 later this year.

For the PS3 I've still got to work on and beat South Park - but most of my gaming has been while kids are around so this game is totally a back burner game.
I think the next one I'm going to start is God of War Ascension and I plan on getting all of the NON multiplayer Trophies.  I might consider the MP ones just so that I can get the Platinum's on all of the games but I personally hate Multi-player in single player type games.
I'd also like to complete Dead Space so that I can move on to Dead Space 2.

Now, back to my pre-ramble.
Parenting is a bitch as I am finding out.
Step-Parenting is a bigger bitch.
I feel this might be the hardest job in the world.
It's great when everything is going good but there are these times and situations where it's like getting your balls caught in a vice.  There is no possible way to do the right thing.
Having to choose between getting fucked by the big dicked black dude or masturbating with razor wire.
Pretty much lose-lose.
Luckily I haven't had a whole lot of that over the past couple of years but tonight was one of those nights and I feel like absolute shit because of it.
This is why I have just downed my 2nd Dead Guy and am moving on to the third.

See y'all on the flip side.
10 days from now will be the happiest day of my life.

Video Game Cataloging Part 1 - Games I want to Beat Again

I'm going to start off with a list of Video Games that I want to run through again for various reasons.

Dead Space - PS3

I really just loved playing this game and think I have beaten it twice.  I've still got to finish off a couple of trophies before making a run through the game on the hardest mode. There are a few tricky trophies (for me at least) that I know I was working on last time I was playing the game but I got stuck and decided to let it sit for a while so I could move on to something else before returning.

Heavy Rain - PS3

This game I thought was very well done and held my attention the entire 8-12 hours I put into it.  I played through this game knowing nothing about the story line and ended up getting a pretty shitty ending.  I've been meaning to go back to the game so that I can work on getting a better ending and finishing off the trophies as well.  I know it really wouldn't take a whole lot of time to run through the game again and then finish off a trophy or two to Platinum the game. Maybe 20 hours now that I've gone through it once and know what to expect.

Alan Wake - Xbox 360

This is a game that I heard great things about and never played.  Then one day I found the Collectors Edition on Amazon for $19.99 and decided to just finally pick it up.  It managed to sit on my shelf for a long time after that still.  Then one day Carmel decided to ask if she could open it and play through it and I didn't object.  I mainly did other things while she was playing, until she got to a hard part and then she begged me to pass it for her.  Me telling her that I haven't seen any of the game nor do I actually know what the controls are did not deter her so eventually I had to give in and pass the hard parts.  This, being one of my most important jobs, I did.  After the 2nd or 3rd hard part I kinda started to dig the game play and next thing you know I'm watching her play through the game.  A day or two later I'm starting my own save and playing when she isn't around and just really loved the game and the atmosphere.  This is an amazingly well done game for the Horror Genre.  I've been meaning to go back and play this game on it's hardest difficulty and finish off the collectibles so that I can have my 1000 gamer score on it but just haven't gotten around to it.  However, Alan Wake: American Nightmare is out as a downloadable game on Xbox Live and before I pick that up I really want to run through the Original One More Time first!

Too Human - Xbox 360

Listen, I've heard it all before.  The controls suck. The game blows.  This is one of the worst 360 games to come out.  Don't buy this game.  This game was designed to be a trilogy and the ending shows that as instead of at least wrapping up the 1st game in a nice little package with a teaser it just flat out gave a cut scene that said "To Be Continued." And yes, this game did so poorly in sales and the company has had so many issues that there will NEVER be a 2nd or 3rd game to complete the story (same with Clive Barkers Jericho which was also panned as universally shit and I still think it's a great game).

You can give me all the negatives about this game but I just love the shit out of it.  This was my 1st 1000/1000 Gamer Score and I put in over 80 hours to get there.  The only reason I even owned this game in the first place was because Microsoft gave it to me for free at a Store Manager Meeting when I worked for Game Crazy.  And despite all of the negatives surrounding this game I still make it a point to beat it once a year no matter what.  I've even thought about making a new profile so that I could get all of the achievements again.  Yes, that is stupid and NO, I don't care.

Fable II - Xbox 360

For your typical Hack and Slash Action RPG I dug this game enough to go through and beat the entire thing.  For the 20+ hours I spent with it almost all of it was enjoyable because the game play was simple but enjoyable and the narrative really drove it all with it's fun and humor.  I am probably 2 or 3 achievements away from hitting the 1000 GS on this thing but I really got bored and disappointed with the game after the final boss battle and I put the game away to never be seen again.  Enough time has passed that I'm no longer angry at the way the ending played out so I could probably go back and put some more hours into it trying to get that elusive 1000 GS.  However, it is probably more likely that I will just finally get around to playing Fable III instead.

God Of War - PS3

This really includes the whole series instead of just God of War.  Currently this is my favorite action series ever released and that is topping a lot of amazing franchises out there.  I got into the series a bit late as I was told how good they were but never bothered.  Then I finally started playing them right before moving to Vegas and have been hooked ever since.  There are now six God of War games released and all are available for the PS3.  Of those six I have two Platinum Trophy's and need to work through getting them on the remaining 4.  I'll probably start with Ghost of Sparta as that is probably the easiest of the remaining and then work on GoW 1,2 and Ascension.  All Hail Kratos, God Slayer!

Bioshock - Xbox 360

Finally, Bioshock.  This is the game that actually got me to start digging First Person Shooters.

I used to hate them and mostly I attribute that to playing Golden Eye in college.

However, Bioshock got me to enjoy the genre and this is a game I am destined to get 1000 GS on. I will probably, at some point, also get the Platinum Trophy on the PS3 as I do own the game for both systems.  I went out and bought the Collector's Edition well after the game came out.  It was, sadly, the PC version and when it arrived my Big Daddy's arm had broken off but whatever.  I also have two little sister figurines to go with Big Daddy should I ever open that package and glue his arm back on. 

That about covers the ones I think think of off the top of my head.

Looking at this list (and thinking about a few other games) makes me realize how much I actually like the Horror/Action Genre of video games.  Bioshock, Jericho, Alan Wake and Dead Space.  Oh creepy games you make me smile.

Next entry will be about games that I have started but never got around to beating for whatever reason.  I, of course, will only be covering the games that I actually want to beat and not games that I have no intention of beating.