MadWorld

Still working my way slowly through MadWorld. Not that it's really difficult or long, it's just that I get bored of it and have to move onto something else after two or three stages. Thankfully, it looks to me as though I'm getting close to the home stretch.

I have to say, I'm a little confused as to where all the over-the-top praise is coming from. Every review starts off by saying "I'm not giving this game a high score just because it's on the Wii" and yet, I can't help but feel that's a big factor. The game's formula is quite simplistic, the action gets repetitive, and to be perfectly frank, I don't think that the black-and-white color scheme really serves the game well. It's definitely distinct, but it can be hard to navigate the levels at times. When you're surrounded by a group of enemies, it's next to impossible to tell where you saw that last life-up dropped.

Picked up Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS a couple of days ago. Tim Spaeth from the podcast was raving about it, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe the words "game of the year" were in there somewhere. I hadn't originally intended on picking it up, but after hearing his praise I decided to take the plunge since I had a little extra trade credit on hand. In terms of production it's certainly got everything nailed down tight and I am impressed by the ability of programmers to pack so much onto the DS, but in all honesty, I got quite bored of it almost immediately.