(Read journals 1 and 2 here first)

This is the furthest out I’ve ever done a journal entry from the initial purchase of a game, but considering the fact that Starcraft 2 will most likely be a PC staple for the better part of a decade, I figured it was appropriate.

SC2 has been my game of choice for the last two months or so almost exclusively, as I just haven’t been curious to play anything else, but now that Halo: Reach is arriving at last, I’ll be likely shelving my mouse and keyboard for at least a little while.

In the interim since my last journal, a lot has changed. I’ve almost been exclusively playing multiplayer, as I’ve exhausted pretty much all there is to do in the campaign, outside of a handful of super hard achievement I neither have the time or the patience for.

I’m currently  a mid-level platinum player in both 1v1 and 2v2, and in my lesser played categories of 3v3 and 4v4 I’m gold league. What that essentially means is that I know my shit, but am far from a pro. It’s been a mix of joy and frustration, though I will say I’m not sure if the satisfaction of winning outweighs the despair of losing in this game. After a hard fought battle, you’re usually too mentally exhausted to celebrate.

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Read Journal #1 here first

Alright, I figured it was about time to check in with another Starcraft journal, as I’ve had the game for about a week now, and I’ve got a decent amount more to report on. Last time, I spent awhile griping about my PC issues, where my work laptop doesn’t have anywhere near the musclepower it needs to play the game with reasonable graphics.

I’ve decided just to ignore the blocky polygons for the time being while I contemplate whether or not a new $800 system is worth it just for Starcraft. Thanks to all of you who have written in with suggestions, but no matter the scenario, it seems I have to spend a lot of cash to get the game working right.

But anyway, no more graphical moaning, onto the content! I’ve done a huge number of campaign missions since I last wrote, I think I’m currently at 20/26. It does now ring a bell that once upon a time Blizzard announced they were splitting the game into thirds, with one race’s full campaign accompanying each new expansion. I would complain about this, but as I get further into the campaign I realize just how expansive it is, and they’re right, it is about as long as the original storyline in SC1.

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Alright, well it’s going to be a pretty monumental task to review Starcraft 2, as I might have mentioned before that I’ve been waiting over ten years for this game, and now that the beta is over and I’ve got an official copy on my computer, it’s time to dig in.

I’ve spent the better part of the day throwing myself into the campaign, as well as playing a few multiplayer matches as well to see if the crowd has changed since beta. This will be the first in a series of journal reviews I post as I go, and they’ll probably last past my usual three-ish week limit that occurs with most console games.

And speaking of console games, this is a PC game, and I’m actually quite bummed out about that. Why? Well, up until today, I thought that my Sony VAIO that I paid well over a grand for a year and a half ago was a perfectly nice computing machine. But trying to play Starcraft on it has been an immensely frustrating experience.

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Read Journal # 2 HERE and Journal #1 HERE first.

After a very substantial 20+ hours of gameplay, I’ve finally completed Darksiders.  Sure, I probably could have blazed through the game in two or three fewer hours, but even then I’d have experienced more than my money’s worth of actual playing time.  All in all, Darksiders wasn’t revolutionary or anything special – in fact, as I’ve explained before, the game is almost wholly derivative save for the character design – but it did enough things right that I’m glad I spent the time playing it.

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If you haven’t yet experienced Chat Roulette, you’re either missing out or incredibly lucky.  Allow me to explain.  Chat Roulette is, as you’d probably expect, well, chat roulette.  Simply by going to the website (you can access it by clicking HERE), you’re paired up in a video chat room with a total stranger.  If the person has a webcam (and really, it’s not much fun to chat with someone who doesn’t), you’ll see the results of your roulette “spin.”  It could be a cute girl from Brazil, it could be a man dressed as a cat, or it could be much, much worse.  I decided to spend some time on Chat Roulette and for the most part, it was pretty interesting.

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Well, my time with Mass Effect 2 has drawn to a close (at least until substantive DLC comes out) as I’ve now beaten the game twice over and sunk over forty hours into the thing in less than two weeks. What have I found? Bioware listened to nearly everything I said, and only through my mistrust of their ability to right their own wrongs were certain aspects of gameplay screwed up for me.

This article is going to contain some obvious spoilers, but I feel it’s pretty important to discuss the ending of the game. If you have not been able to crank out a completion or two of the game in the past two weeks, I suggest you turn back now and revisit this post later.

In a way, Mass Effect 2’s success relied entirely on the end for me. I was deathly afraid of another “hard” ending, and the promise of a “second playthrough” seemed to only reinforce my suspicions that this would be the case. Therefore, before I headed into the Omega relay, I took some time and explored every single system and did every single side-mission in preparation for the fact that I wouldn’t be able to do it later.

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(Read journal #1 here first)

Alright folks, it’s time for another Mass Effect 2 journal update, as I believe I’ve crammed in enough playing time to put together another installment.

Last time, I was about seven hours in, getting used to the new combat system and recruiting my team to go fight some bitch ass Collectors and Reapers. Now? I’m just about thirty hours in (I never skip through ANY dialogue), and I’ve just now finished recruiting my team, which seems pretty unbelievable. I’m now about to head into the dreaded Omega relay, and honestly I can’t quite figure out if I’m at the end of the game or not.

I kind of find it hard to believe that the entirety of the game consists of assembling nine, count ‘em NINE team members, doing their various loyalty missions, and then heading off to fight the big boss. There have only been two or three real “story” mission pertaining to the main plotline, which doesn’t seem like very many, although I AM about thirty hours into the game, so I would expect the end to be nigh.

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Read journal #1 HERE first.

Although this is day 18 of my Darksiders journal, it’s really more like day 2 or 3.  But it’s been 18 days since my first journal entry, so here’s to consistency.  I haven’t finished the game yet – not even close – but that’s because I just recently put down Bayonetta to really dive into Darksiders.  I like Darksiders more and more each time I play it, and I feel like I’m really into the meat of the game currently.  The game has seemed to really expand, the world becoming gigantic and, dare I say, epic.

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Words can’t really describe just how excited I was for this day. Outside of the infinite replay value of Super Smash Bros. and Halo, the original Mass Effect is one of my favorite games of all time, and I didn’t even really like playing it.

What I mean is, I love Mass Effect in SPITE of the fact it’s a video game, as I mostly felt like I was playing an exceptionally well-written twenty hour long movie. To me, the game controls were clunky, the leveling and equipment systems were a mess, but it was all taking place within such a rich, beautiful and fascinating universe, that I didn’t care one bit.

Like many big franchises churning out sequels, Mass Effect 2 had a big long checklist of improvements to be made over the first game, and seven hours in, I can already see how many lingering issues have been fixed, though the “game” aspect of things still does need work in areas.

But first, we have to set up where we are. After saving the galaxy from the apocalyptic Reaper threat, Commander Shepard finds the Normandy blown out of the sky by an unknown vessel. Before things completely break apart, he’s able to rush his crew to the lifeboats, but he doesn’t get out in time.

He wakes up and is told that he has been dead, for two years, and a mysterious corporation has exhausted all of their resources to literally bring him back to life via the “Lazarus Project.” The reason? The Reapers are still out there, and the Alliance doesn’t care, so Shepard is the only man that can stop them. However, the corporation he now works for is likely to have some ulterior motives along the way.

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After getting through normal mode and getting a little taste of hard mode in Bayonetta, I finally found some to time to give Darksiders a whirl.  Unlike Bayonetta – which is straight up, intense action throughout – Darksiders features exploration and a non-linear style of play. The game drew a lot of early comparisons to God of War, and although there are certainly some similarities, the game that Darksiders reminds me of most is actually Ocarina of Time, one of my favorite games of all time.  So, as you would suspect, I’ve really been enjoying Darksiders so far.

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