A True First-World Crisis

Update 13-Aug-07:

Dear readers;

My apologies for the early onset of Alzheimer's that caused me to write and forget to post this. In the week since I wrote it, I actually chose to start RE4, which I've since finished on normal difficulty, as well as bonus material Assignment Ada and Separate Ways. I can't say enough about how much fun this game is, and despite playing it through 3 or 4 full times now, I still can't play it at night alone without getting seriously uptight. I could say that I'm just a wimp or that the game is that good. For reasons both obvious and shallow I'm going with the game is that good.

Also, Lunar Knights finally arrived in the mail today, so as soon as I manage to get the Chicago Typewriter in RE4 (one of the greatest weapons evar, IMO) in my second run-through, I'm going to start Lunar Knights.

Ah, the joy of seamless gaming addiction.
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Original post, 7-Aug-07:

With my wife on vacation in Ontario I've found myself availed of a great deal of free time lately, and so I decided to finally play through some of the video game backlog that I've been accumulating over the past year or so.

Thus begins my First-World Crisis. Which game to choose? Empires have no doubt been built and ruined by such decisions.

In no particular order:

Title: Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.
-The GC version was the best console game I'd ever played. Keep in mind that I've only been a console gamer for about 3-4 years now, so don't fill my comments with crap like "8-bit gaming should be worshiped and is better than anything these days and I need some prune juice and get off my lawn, you punks!".

I also love making comments berating my non-existent readership.

-I've actually only borrowed the game from a friend of mine, so politeness would dictate that I get around to playing it some time before the next console generation comes out.

Title: Wii Madden.
-I am a football addict. I watched the entire Hall of Fame Game this previous Sunday, and if you've ever seen one, you know how much of a vein-tapper you need to be to get past the first quarter of the broadcast. If you haven't seen one, let me describe the quality of play for you with a drinking game analogy. I invited a couple of people to play a Hall of Fame Game drinking game, where every time the announcers had to give some polite euphemism for how bad or disorganized a play was (without disparaging the sport, of course), you take a drink. They both declined and said that game would make them die of alcohol poisoning.
-I have no interest in playing sports games by myself, however, so I'm going to respectfully leave that one on the shelf until another gaming football fan comes along.

Title: Elebits (Wii)
-I have to confess, this game looked a lot cooler than it turned out to be, and I bought into the positive reviews that I read because I wanted it to be a really good new franchise. Unfortunately it's not.

In short, Elebits is the video game version of frantically looking for a your car keys when you're late for a job interview. Interesting idea, I think Nintendo was hoping it'd catch on in the same way that Katamari Damacy did for Sony.

Title: Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS)
-For some reason I have a hard time maintaining interest in this game for a sustained period. I think it's like the movie The Fugitive with Tommy Lee-Jones and Harrison Ford. It's a very good movie; if you start watching it you'll enjoy it, but nobody seems to want to watch it enough to plan to watch it ahead of time. I like MP:H, I think the interface is very well done for an FPS on the DS, but I never feel enthusiastic enough about it to make time to play it.

Title: Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! (DS)
-It's the game that Elite Beat Agents was based on, and EBA is the only DS game I've played start to finish more than once. I'm pretty sure I'd get into it, but I have circular burn marks in my touch screen from EBA, so I'm hesitant to start this one. The old-school police whistle that seems to be in every song is not something I am looking forward to, either. If I do give it a legit shot I'm likely get hooked and finish it (OCD is a terrible thing), but I wanna want to play a game.

Title: Clubhouse Games (DS)
-Every review I read said "I know that it's a bunch of simple games all shoehorned together, but it's still done really well on the DS!" They must have meant playing with friends, because playing the simple games I enjoyed as a kid loses its lustre quickly when it's just you and an occasionally benevolent AI. I think I'll leave it on the shelf until company is over.

Title: Lunar Knights (DS)
-It got very good ratings just about everywhere I looked, I'm a sucker for a halfway decent RPG, and I managed to get a copy for $24 US, shipped. I think this is the next DS obsession for me.

Title: Guitar Hero II (360)
-I don't own a 360, am not likely to get one any time soon, and yet if there was a game that would get me to buy one, this is it. Perhaps because it's the most like a Wii game with the non-standard controller and compelling gameplay without needing the very height of graphics. In order to spend my time playing this I'd need a key to the Blais residence. I'm not holding my breath for this to happen. Fun game, though, looking forward to GH3 when it comes out for the Wii.