Driving

So I finally got around to playing half an hour of Halo 3: ODST last night, and while I'm not planning to write a review of it any time soon, I wanted to comment on the weird experience I had with the game.

I was playing a friend's game, so I just sort of dropped in medias res, and had no idea what was going on plot-wise, so I'm not going to bother commenting on that aspect. What I will say is that for the first fifteen minutes of my playtime I had a blast. So much fun that I couldn't remember why I'd hated Halo 3 as much as I did (by which I mean "not really that much at all").

If you're tired of shooting zombies in the head and dismembering them with various gardening implements, then perhaps Exor Studios' newest PC title will re-ignite your love of annihilating the undead. The indie Polish developer is hard at work on their first commercial PC release, a game called Zombie Driver. While the title is slightly misleading (the zombies aren't driving), it does promise a great deal of vehicular undead-slaughter. I think that's something we can all get behind.

I had originally intended to write about Avalon Code tonight, but before I get to that I have to discuss Trials HD.

Anyway, never in a million years would I have predicted that I would have become as obsessed with this game as I have, but it's been dominating my life for the last few days.

Reminding me a lot of an updated Excitebike early on, I knocked out the first few clusters of levels pretty quickly. I didn't get gold medals on all of them, but I did well enough to satisfy my own personal sense of achievement. Moving up, the Hard level was indeed hard. When I got to Extreme, I couldn't believe it.

The best Excitebike since Excitebike

HIGH Nailing a tricky series of jumps after trying a few hundred times.

LOW The Extreme level of difficulty is heartlessly punishing.

WTF Why limit the number of attempts or length of play on the hardest levels?

It's like a profane version of Triad Election on the Nintendo DS

HIGH Losing a maxxed out wanted level by smashing cops into every bridge abutment in sight is surprisingly entertaining.

LOW The end of the story feels rushed and isn't even remotely satisfying.

WTF The bisexual stepson of the triad boss keeps trying to get me to have a threesome with him—and another dude.

Another Sunday Drive through Los Angeles

HIGH Using one of the nonsensical (but fun) super-powers to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

LOW Losing a car in a pink slip race because of the A.I.'s insane ability to rubber band back into the race even when they're off the map.

WTF Why do these games even bother trying to tell a story?

Keeping kids busy for hours

HIGH Lots of content for those who want it.

LOW The track creator needs a lot more work on the interface.

WTF There's no "real" racing in any of the modes.