Gaming Overload. Again.

I've enjoyed the first two of my three days off playing a good amount of video games. In fact, I so over-indulged the last few days that today is the day I now have to get all that "responsible adult" stuff knocked out of the way, unfortunately. On the bright side, it's given me plenty of material for a long-overdue update.

Work has progressed on my gaming site, thegaminglife.org. While it's not a beauty to look at yet, the site is fully functional and has some content on it, at least. If you haven't already seen the review for Battle: Los Angeles, check it out. I also got the forum set up, at tglforum.org. No site gets large (or even medium-sized) overnight, but these moves are steps in the right direction. Bishop has posting access, so future content will be coming from him, as well. Besides cranking out reviews for the games I play, and periodic new pieces, my next major project is to get the Podcast up and running. On the content front, I can't promise new content daily yet, as it's still 99.5% a one-man operation right now.

I've acquired so many games post-tax return, that I could forgo any further purchases for quite a while and still be entertained. For the PS3 I have Killzone 3, Demons's Souls, Cross Edge, Ratchet and Clank, and Resistance. I've recently picked up Mafia II, Torchlight, and Beyond Good and Evil for the 360. Add to this I'm still working Divinity II towards my first RPG completion of 2011, and Bulletstorm, and I have plenty of options to choose from, without dipping into the back-catalouge,which is as large as ever.

Progress is great in Divinity II, but I have to advise anyone playing the game to SAVE OFTEN. I lost 40 minutes of progress yesterday when I got over-confident and then the game surprised me with a tough confrontation. I've logged close to 20 hours in the game thus far, and I earned the "You're Going to Die, Charlie" achievement that's worth a whopping 1 point. It's nice to have a gamerscore that ends in a "normal" 5 or 0 again, so I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. Once I complete the game, my numbers will be broken again. I blame Infinite Undiscovery...

Divinity II's character system is pretty nice. You can pick any ability you want from four different trees (priest, mage, ranger, and warrior), with the only requirement being that you have to meet the base level requirement for an ability to pick it up. My character is primarily a ranger, relying on bow and arrow to take out enemies. I have an explosive arrow ability that can significantly damage or kill whole groups of enemies. From the Warrior tree, I have Reflect, and ability that at is current level reflects back 44% of damage dealt to me back at the enemy, too. From the Mage line I took a powerful fireball spell, and the ability to charm enemies I got from the priest line. I love being able to mix elements from each class archetype.

After breezing through Battle: LA in one afternoon, the supreme easy of that 200 gamerscore awakened in me a need to bust out some easy points. I found a used copy of Backyard Football '10. I completed it in 40 minutes, which I hear is pretty slow on my part. Now I plan to return the game later today. I realize I just "wasted" an acheivement gem for score contests, but I'm pretty retired from that scene. I play the game I want to play now, and go for all the points I can, except for my periodic dips into "easy score land." With those two completions done, I stand at a whopping 2 points thus far in my annual completion challenge. Hardly impressive, but at least they're points on the board.

With all the stuff I have to do today, I probably won't get to working on my overdue Bulletstorm review, so that's likely a project for Thursday. Reviews are also plannet for Torchlight, Beyond Good and Evil, Killzone 3, and Homefront, so content is coming... I just need to sit down and write it all. Can't announce what Bishop's working on yet... mostly cause I don't know. Bishop, join the forum, and I can give you access to the staff board so we can talk shop =)

Okay, enough rambling for one day. Going to watch Netflix for a bit, then dive into the day's work. I really shouldn't save it all for my last day off...