What are we playing?  GamerMom has been too busy to “play” with anything besides the Epicurious App. GamerGirl (10) is still busy making new families and new fashions in The Sims 3 and outfitting her penguin in Club Penguin.  One day she’ll figure out that there’s a game there, but for now it’s just a dollhouse and that’s good enough for her! She’s also had a go recently with that slice of super-Japanese weirdness Katamari Damacy and a bit of Peggle on top of that. GamerBoy has been busy, a little Mario Kart or New Super Mario and Mario Galaxy here, a little Mario Baseball there, and a LOT of Toy Story 3, DS and Xbox 360 versions played about equally. Me? Well….

As I mentioned before Red Dead Redemption ranks as one of the finest video game experiences of my life – and that’s saying a lot really. I love Westerns and playing Red Dead Redemption reminded me that nobody, not Gun, Call of Juarez and it’s sequel, nor Dead Man’s Hand and not even Rockstar’s Red Dead Revolver  has ever captured how the West should feel. The only game that comes close was Outlaws from LucasArts a long, long time ago.

I finished Alan Wake a while ago.  The fact that I got 2/3rds of the way through without becoming bored is an achievement. It’s a good game but the writing dooms it from start to finish. I don’t know why these guys at Remedy think they can write. They can’t. They proved it with Max Payne and cemented it here. But that’s okay, because the gameplay is typically top notch.  Anyway, I finished it and then realized that I don’t care how many add-ons they add, I’m not interested in hanging with Mr. Wake any more.

Contrast that with Red Dead Redemption, where I’m literally chomping at the bit for another story in New Austin.

I’ve also gotten back in the WWI cockpit with Rise of Flight, a super-realistic air combat sim from the era when planes were little more that crates, covered in canvas, with machine guns, and engines that rival what we now put into riding lawn mowers. It’s amazing how exciting it is when you’re not only fighting your enemy but also fighting speed, altitude, inertia, wind sheer, machine guns that jam and more. It’s not like WWII or modern flight in that you must fight your enemy and the laws of physics to survive.

After doing some spring cleaning I found a copy of Sid Meier’s Trains, which doubles as a “crazy dad in the basement” playing with model trains and a robust economic and trading simulation.  It’s addictive stuff.

You might say that I’m destroying trains in a WWI sim and optimizing train routes in Trains. Too bad I can’t send biplanes against the train moguls once we hit 1916 or so….

The iPad still dominates my time, mainly because it’s a cheap platform (the games are cheap, I mean) and also because of it’s easy pick up and play convenience. I’ve been playing an excellent war strategy game called Modern Combat (no relation to Call of Duty) and an excellent fighting game based on Bruce Lee. Oh and… Tap Tap Radiation (which is excellent and very trippy) where I get to enjoy … ahem… Lady Gaga.  Sue me.

Soon I’ll be tapping into a new shooter from Raven called Singularity, we’ll see how that goes.

That’s about it for now. Feel free to talk about what you’ve been playing if you like.

Tags: Misc