Giving it another chance

I've never really liked Grand Theft Auto, but like I mentioned to a couple friends earlier, I am highly susceptible to hype. This combined with my impulse-shopping habit led me to Gamestop with a few of my coworkers for a midnight launch of GTAIV last night.

Of course, I had to pick up the special edition. Strangely enough, I hadn't preordered but got one anyway. Take that, Gamestop!

I played it for about an hour last night, and I'm mildly impressed. The opening sequence is very flashy and cinematic, but I seem to be running into little bugs and glitches left and right. Niko's head will start to vibrate when I sit down to watch TV. While dropping Roman off at his apartment, the entire car we're in can't decide whether it's on the curb or on the street. The camera... well the camera just doesn't seem to be very good. Is this the norm for the series? Am I just getting unlucky with the way I'm playing? Are the other reviewers of the game ignoring this in favor of a perfect "10" score? Does the game just get so good that these annoyances don't matter? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Review of Mario Kart Preview

Here is a link. Clicking on it will direct you to my write-up of the big Mario Kart truck-parked-on-the-sidewalk event that took place here in Vegas last weekend.

I'll tell you, I'm definitely looking forward to this game now, but I'm also realizing how little time I'm actually going to have to play it. It's that paradox everybody in the gaming industry talks about: By the time you can afford all the games you want to play, you don't have any time to play them.

Not only this, but I've purchased a cello recently and I'm trying to dedicate some practice time to that each day. I love video games, but I need to start doing something more productive.

A friend of mine had what he called a "quarter-life crisis" sometime last year, and I think I'm almost due for mine.

Mario Kart Wii to be previewed this weekend

I got a quick little preview of Mario Kart Wii published in The Rebel Yell today, here's a link.

I wasn't too excited about this game before, to be honest, but it seems that lately I've been one to get on the bandwagon way too late anyway. I'm looking forward to checking it out this weekend.

EDIT: DISCLAIMER: If you go to The Rebel Yell's website and start looking through stories I've written, let it be known that most of those headlines were coined by the editor at the time, not me. Also, a lot of times the editors over the years have made changes to the stories before publication that really do more harm than good. So don't judge me by the stuff on that site. :3