Hindsight

Considering how well Gears of War sold, it came as no surprise that Gears of War 2 was announced at the Game Developers’ Conference a few weeks ago. That’s lead designer Cliff Bleszinski as he tore a paper wall to make the announcement.

Gears was more than just a game for me. It was a gathering of friends and a social experience. This was a dinner in Koreatown, Los Angeles organized by Jennie and Tom.

Granted, Gears 2 will come out in November. It’s a ways off and I will definitely be quite busy then, but I’ll be sure to have a copy and join them again… if everyone’s playing it :)

I’ve been playing N+ on Xbox Live Arcade. I wasn’t aware of the PC/Mac versions at all, and even though they are free I opted to play the console version.

N+ is an addictive platformer. It’s simple presentation is the draw- a stick-figured Ninja, shades of grey and bits of gold strewn throughout each level.

The game has 50 single-player episodes, each one comprising of five stages. It starts off easy enough to familiarize players with controls, jumping, wall-sliding and so on.

All is not fun though, I will admit. Maybe I should say the game gets pretty challenging, enough to have me cuss quite a few times. Oops.

If you guys are wondering what the secret Achievement is in N+, die 1000 times and get 15 gamerscore points. This is an awesome achievement, simply because it popped up as I was naturally progressing (and dying) during play. It’s nice to know that even when sucking at the game so badly, the developers still had the persistent in mind…

Rez HD was released on Xbox Live Arcade a few Wednesdays ago. Although I own the PlayStation2 version, I was still excited to try (then buy) the latest

I’ve tried Lumines a little on PSP and own Every Extend Extra Extreme/E4, also from XBLA. I think that Rez still is Mizuguchi’s opus… it’s visceral… You just wanna push the button even if you aren’t targeting or shooting an enemy down. You just want to hear those sounds you’re making as the beat moves along.

I used to contribute some writing at GameCritics and I wrote a review for Rez on PS2. Warning: It’s very wordy.

Rez is still as fun as it was back then. You can play one area if you feel like running through a session for ten minutes, or spend a few hours playing the entire game. It’s a short but enjoyable shooter that anyone can enjoy for ten minutes or two hours. If you’ve never played Rez and you own an Xbox360, get online and download the trial. You’ll enjoy the ride.