T-Minus 5 days

Next Monday Jenny and I are stepping into the realm of home-ownership, and I think we're both partly excited and partly freaked out. The drive to work is going to be long, as I've explained to everyone that I've talked to about the move, but I don't mind. I'll find a way that isn't too frustrating and just listen to my podcasts. The house is gorgeous, the previous owners really did a good job updating and modernizing the place, with several key touches we both love. I'm not a huge outdoors guy, but even I can't help but love the screened in porch off the kitchen. I can't wait to see what Betty makes of it, either. This will be her first move, besides coming home with us, so we'll have to see what kind of trouble she can find in the new place.
In gaming news, I'm still playing Red Faction, and still loving it. There's just something so entertaining about blowing things up, or driving large vehicles through things until they blow up. I still load up Plants vs Zombies occasionally as well, which I found great fun. I've never really gotten into the tower defense genre, but PvZ isn't quite the same, it has that Popcap magic that turns it into digital crack. Crack that I can't seem to quit.

Get your ass to Mars

So I've put a couple of hours into Red Faction: Guerrilla, and I'm really enjoying it. It's basically an open world game with varied missions and and lots of vehicles, except you're on Mars. Grand Theft Auto: Cydonia Stories, if you like. The game also doesn't require you to have played previous RF games, although there are some returning characters, if you count the savior-turned-corrupt corporation Earth Defence Force as a character. Yep, the bad guys in Guerrilla are the good guys from the first game, now a fascist state with the standard laundry list of human rights violations, torture, and death squads.
You play Alec Mason, a miner who takes a personal interest in joining the titular rebellion, due to events in an opening cutscene that any video gamer or even movie fan will see coming a mile away. From then on, the destruction starts, and what glorious destruction it is. The best way to take back the planet from the EDF is to destroy their facilities and buildings, and you use all manner of tools to do so. The structures come down as you'd expect, take out a few supports, and the whole thing will usually collapse under its own weight. You start with a sledgehammer and some remote charges, and I honestly haven't found a better way to cause havoc, even though the rocket launcher provides some thrills. You may also drive one of several vehicles into buildings, which cause massive structural damage in their own right.
I could go on about the missions, or the fun I've been having just driving around the various areas, but I should get this posted for now. Maybe I'll go into more detail in another post, if I ever get back to a regular schedule.

So MadWorld got sent back after about 4 days, and Red Faction: Guerilla is on its way to me. MadWorld just didn't really do anything for me, I tried to lose myself in the brainless violence and art style, but it just became too repetitive after a few levels. Who knew jamming a street sign through someone's neck could get repetitive? Well I guess we can thank MadWorld for that, at least. Mass Effect completely dominated my time during the break between Gamefly shipments, and now I have a save game with my Paragon character that doesn't have the mistakes I made the first time through. (I'm making this spoiler-free, since I know at least one person who reads this hasn't seen that part of the game yet). I have another character started, but I don't know how far I'll take that, and now I've got a ton of Fallout 3 DLC to play.

With the new Broken Steel add-on, the game can continue after the "ending", and corrects a simple mistake that made the choice at the end seem arbitrary and stupid. Why go into a deadly irradiated room and die for the good of all, when you can send your hulking super-mutant follower in for you, considering he's completely resistant to radiation? Anyway, I started that yesterday and am now plowing through Operation Anchorage as well. It's nice to be back using my main character in Fallout, I wasn't that big of a fan of the new one I had started a while back. I am such a chronic restarter, I swear.

Also in gaming news, Machinarium is now up for pre-order. I'll have to consider it, the screens and video look excellent.

Hopefully more updates soon, I want to get back to writing here!