Chromehounds (2006) - Initial thoughts.

I am only a couple of hours into Chromehounds and already I am hooked. It wasn't really all that great until I linked up four assault machine guns to fire at once. In the immortal words of Clarence Boddicker, "GUNS! GUNS! GUNS!". Then I started really tinkering with constructing - with what limited resources I have - a mech or 'Hound as they are known in this game(sidenote: If you're not familiar with the term mech then just think about big fucking robots with big fucking guns).

I really dig this game and look forward to seriously putting some time into it. Basically the whole premise is "Blah, blah, blah, war. Blah, blah, blah, mercenaries. Join a squad, train, get better gear, blast the living hell out of other squads. Attempt to win war. It's the customization and squad combat on Live that I'm looking forward to. I just have to keep building my funds and supplies so my 'Hound is the equivalent of a soapbox racer at the Indy 500.

If I can get a screen capture I'll put it on here.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, assorted news & notes.

Hope you folks had a good weekend. We laid low and since chores were done last weekend there wasn't anything pressing that needed doing. I jumped back into Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and polished off the main story line of Shivering Isles and the Knights of the Nine quest. I still have a pretty ridiculous amount of gameplay left in it if I really wanted to get my money's worth but really - do I really care that much about closing all sixty Oblivion Gates? What sucks is I'd like to create a new character but I don't want to have to go through all the work - to the tune of 230+ hours of gaming.

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Picked up Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS Lite - basically a point & click puzzle game. I really enjoy it but occasionally the puzzles make me feel like this Penny Arcade comic. I really do enjoy the puzzles. They range from "move the matchstick..." to optical illusions to word problems to "How the fuck was I supposed to know that !?!". I kind of like the fact that it's as challenging as it is but there's often a straight forward solution if you don't get frazzled. The game also has a really unique look to it - almost as if it were in Triplets of Belville-verse. I can only play the game for brief periods of time before getting frustrated because I am lunkhead who can't remember the Pythagorean Theorem.

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I have been hankering for a mech game but as far as I can tell there are only two for the 360: Chromehounds & Armored Core 4 - neither of which really sound all that awesome. Chromehounds does sound better - it focuses on online mech squad play. I often wonder why there's such a serious lack in the mech department. Who wouldn't want to play a game with giant robots bashing the shit out of things?

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That's it in a nutshell. Started taking medication so we'll see how that works out. Hope all of you are well and have a good week.