This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.

Bit of an impromptu hiatus as of late, as I was watching all of the new Doctor Who season 4 in as much of a marathon as could be mustered, around work and what have you. Great season, all in all, though I think seasons two and three were both stronger. A great way for Russell T. Davies to finish his run on the show, and they did a nice job of tying in the spinoff shows, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures (which I need to catch up with now). Definitely a recommend if you're into campy sci-fi. Sorry for being vague, but I don't want to spoil anything.

I think the first GV movie review will be popping up soon, as well; some OB people recently helped me track down (inadvertently) this old animated film I saw as a kid and have been trying to find for years. Gandahar (or as it was released here in the US, Light Years) is this weird piece by Rene Laloux where robots from the future are invading the planet Gandahar, and this guy and his companion and her dope alien titties are called upon to make it stop. It's been so long that I can't really remember more to synopsize with, so details and spoilage will come once I've watched it.

Anyway, on with the main matter at hand, some game catchup.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Achievements: 37 (all offline, 1000 gs)
I am a (few) big m(a,e)n yes I am, and I've got a big gun.

Wow. Just... wow. Lives up to the hype. Yet another game where I really don't need to tell you it's awesome, because anyone who's anyone who can even mildly put up with FPS games has been urged into picking this up and been playing it for months.

In short, Infinity Ward's taken the fairly solid Call Of Duty series and finally managed to pull it out of the quagmire known as A Shit-Ton Of WWII Games, taking us to MODERN DAY instead. Despite the time transplant and the completely original scenario in this one, you still play the game from multiple fronts and for multiple nations, all stocked by people just as stereotypically whatever-ish as was common in the previous games. Don't get me wrong, I love that, in a sort of "hoo man, this is over the top," sort of way.

Honestly, I was expecting to just get dropped into the Iraq war, so the original story was a bit of a surprise, but it made sense pretty soon as I realized, "Oh yeah, the war in Iraq had no resolution," and would thus make for a pretty poor game, what with no end.

Achievement spread is typical for the FPS genre. Beat the chapters, beat 'em on hard, do specific events well. What surprised me is that none of them were for online play, despite that aspect being so rich. Ah well, makes getting 1000 a lot easier, so I'm not complaining.

Personally, I blew the whole minimum two hours' play time just trying to ace the "ship simulation" in the first level, out of perfectionism, but you know what? I enjoyed the entire time. A couple of bits where I was yelling at the screen, sure, but no controller throwing. It was still fun every time. That's why I sent it back relatively early; I know I need to buy this game and sit down with it to give it all the respect and time it deserves, which would totally bog down the process here.



Unless there's something horribly wrong with you, like there is with me, you need to own this game. Moving along, now.

Golf: Tee It Up!
Achievements: 12 (10 offline for 160gs, 2 online for 40gs)
And you thought today's post title might imply a bowling game.

Activision, I'm not happy with you, given the current state of Guitar Hero. However, this little golf game of yours ain't so bad. With character models reminiscent of games like Hot Shots and a generally cute, fun atmosphere, it's nice to see 3D Ultra Minigolf get a "real" golf counterpart on Live Arcade.

There's not too much in the way of innovation in the world of golf games, to be honest. There are several realistic course runs, with future ones downloadable I imagine, some customizability for your avatar with unlockable outfit accessories, a click-click swing mechanic, and for whatever reason, bunnies. Mmmkay. Play is solid, things look nice, and the music is unobtrusive.

Your achievements are all for successful scoring/doing well on the various courses, save for a couple you get for just playing online, one for playing at all (1,000 swings), and a couple gimmick ones. Easy-ish 1,000, and if you've been waiting for a truer golf game, here you go.

Schizoid
Achievements: 12 (10 offline for 165gs, 2 online for 35gs)
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

...I never would've expected to describe something as "Ikaruga meets Burnout."

That says it all, even though it makes no sense at first glance. If you're not familiar with Ikaruga, it's a shmup by Treasure (WOO!) where your ship switches between white and black to deal differently with similarly colored enemies onscreen. Well, in this little game, you're both colors. That is, you're red and blue, at the same time because you (or you and a friend) are two different ships.

The Burnout bit comes in given that you're not shooting anything; rather, you're just flying through enemies the same color as you and avoiding those of the opposite color. Stages are one-screen and strewn with obstacles like walls and whatnot, like many a classic-styled arcade game, which means things can get fairly crowded as the level number gets higher. All in all, the key is that you have to play with someone else to get very far, be it offline or online, or else develop some sort of dissocation between your two hands so your attention span can actually control two ships at once.

Your achievements come mostly from beating X number of levels, clearing certain things without dying, and exploring all the game modes. I always like promotion of all the game modes, as it shows a developer is proud of its work and wants you to try everything.

Worth a buy if you're into true arcade-y stuff or solid co-op gaming.

Next up in the queue are Bully: Scholarship Edition and Cabela's Big Game Hunter '08. I might be able to get to at least one of these, maybe both, by tonight, but probably won't do any writing up until tomorrow. Hopefully this copy of Bully works.

.hack//GU 3 is still amazing, even if story-wise, it's kind of dragging early on. I'm on the cusp of hitting up the PK tournament, but I've already taken champion rank and gotten most of the cards in the Crimson VS side game, if that's any indicator as to how much I've played. A little voice inside my head is whispering "Matsu. Cosplay," over and over since I've been getting in shape as of late, and I may stop ignoring it if he gets a little more interesting as a character. But yeah, this game, man. This game.

Another element of note is that the PS3 finally implemented its ripoff version of Achievements, called Trophies, and they're actually going to apply some to previously-released games. I have this bad feeling I might be extending the GV project to PS3 once I get through the alphabet of 360 games sometime early next year. Uh oh.

I really need to get an icon for that gs thing so I stop typing "gs." It would look so much better.