Mercenaries:  Playground of destruction

M:PoD (Wikipedia) came out a couple of years ago for both the PS2 and the original flavor Xbox.  It had been on my 'oh, that looks interesting' list for a while, but I never really found the need to pick it up.  Even when it dropped to the $20 price point it just wasn't that compelling.  It wasn't until I found it on the clearance shelf of a Comp USA that was closing for $8 that M:PoD finally found its way into my libarry.  Eight bucks barely gets you a martini in this town anymore (well maybe a Smir martini, but that shit is headache in a bottle...), so I figured even if the game turns out to be completely worthless I'd only be out the equivalent of a mediocre cocktail.

Then it sat on my shelf in all of its shrinkwrapped glory for a good seven months.  Seven months spent blissfully gaming with my 360.

Then my 360 gave me the middle finger known as the 'red ring of death'.  Like a bear awaking from a long hibernation, the old Xbox was pulled from the closet.  A couple of quick blows to the a/v contacts (ala the NES cart slot technique) and the Xbox was slotted into the 360's former place of glory in the entertainment center.  I pulled the supposedly lost Rainbow 6 disc out of the tray and popped in M:PoD and sat through the load screens.  Lots and lots of load screens.  What's beyond those load screens?  A stripped down Grand Theft Auto clone.  Well, maybe an homage.  No.  No... definitely a clone.  Let's see:  Grab people out of cars to steal them?  Check.  Shitty targeting system?  Check?  Open ended sandbox gameplay with only minor 'suggested' direction?  Double check.  Water kills you instantly?  Dear god check.

Ok, it's not all bad.  Once you get through the first four or so missions gameplay starts to smooth out.  Still, I've got about 10 hours into this game so far and it appears that I'm only about 12% or so done.  That's the problem with the sandbox free roaming genre.  There's just too much time spent driving in between places or looking around for shit and not enough time spent on core gameplay.   Something tells me that I won't be playing this one much after my 360 gets back from MSFT's repair service.

Castlevania:  Portrait of Ruin

C:PoR (Wikipedia) is the second game in the Castlevania series from Konami for the Nintendo DS.

It kicks ass.

C:PoR is one of the reasons I'm having a hard time getting into M:PoD.  The game is so good that I can't just play it during my commute or at The Girl's house.  When I first got my DS I thought it was kind of a toy.  It is not.  That I haven't charged my PSP in months is a testament to that.