Illin'

There's nothing worse than spending valuable free time being ill. But watcha gonna do? I've been nursing a headache and sinus congestion for a couple days now. Since gaming generally makes my head hurt, I've only spent some time with Overlord and a couple GameTap puzzle games that weren't too taxing. Since I would never buy puzzle games unless they were super highly recommended, it's one of the nice things of having GameTap that I can play them without scrounging for ten minute demos online.

I liked Wario's Woods, back in the day. I guess I should play Mr. Driller and see if it's similar enough to be fun. For the most part though, I get the gist of a puzzle game then get bored with it. Sure. I could spend a lot of time developing new strategies, but if I'm going to work that hard, I want to have built something I can use at the end of it. It's the same reason I don't play Guitar Hero on expert, or most super involved strategy games or RPGs. (Final Fantasy Tactics, I'm looking sternly at you.)

The reviews are out on DMC4. It's good. It's not universally beloved, but it's good. I'm so looking forward to the eventual hardware price drops that will allow me to buy it. Supposedly the 360 hard drive will be going down in price before the month is out. That leads me to believe that versions of the 360 will also drop in price. Otherwise everyone will buy "Core Arcade" packs and upgrade manually to save $20. I'm pretty bummed that even the bottom end 360 has a wireless controller. If I'm playing a game like DMC4, my deaths to "lag" should be exactly zero... ever. That and having the controller tethered to the device makes me less likely to lose it. :)

There's some other news coming out from the Game Developers Conference. Sony and Microsoft are blathering on about dedication to indie games, which is crap. They'll do what they've always done and cherry pick maybe a game or two a month to put on their respective services. This is simply an area where consoles will always lose. There are too many concerns about obscenity and controlling the money for big companies to really let companies and players share games and content freely. None of the new Team Fortress 2 or Unreal Tournament 3 content is available on Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, to my knowledge, and when it is, chances are it'll cost you, at least for the first six months. Well maybe it'll be free on PSN, but not Live. Bleh.