If I’m looking to vent some pent-up energy or frustration I usually pull out the Rock Band 2 (and the headphones, we live in an apartment) and whale on those for a while, but yesterday, I pulled out the Wii Sports and whaled on some bowling pins instead. Less setup time, and just as satisfying. I bowled a 241 and I can’t play most songs on Hard drums in Rock Band, so perhaps the self-reinforcement is also a factor.
I’m in a bit of a dead area right now in terms of new games. I played an assortment of demos recently, with nothing really feeling worth a hot $60. I’m waiting for Red Faction to drop a little; it definitely feels worth $40. This is not an interesting paragraph.
More Fallout. Finished up Point Lookout; final verdict: essential. I would recommend that any Fallout purchaser buy Broken Steel (the Whoops-Here’s-The-Real-Ending Patch) and Point Lookout, Skip The Pitt and Anchorage until you can find that 2-in-1 expansion disc used for $8 or so.
The main quest isn’t terribly long, but there are 2 other quests that rival the main one in length — one of which is downright Lovecraftian, and requires the player to do my least favorite activity — crawling through levels of sub-sub-sub-basements, fighting countless ghouls. My grizzled rifleman is much more at home on the range than the dank cavern. This was the first expansion that has actually hindered my sleeping on a couple of nights. Hard on the ol’ nerves.
Also hard on the nerves: Half-Life 2. I busted out The Orange Box in a third or fourth attempt to get going on it again (played it a few years ago on PC). The overwhelming emotion: dread. Dread for the nonstop chase sequences. Dread for the helicopters. Dread for that one last-stand scene with the turrets. Dread (with extra dread sauce) for the night-time village sequence with the sprinting headcrab zombies. That game is somehow far more intense when you know what obstacles await you. In the day and age of play-at-your-own-pace open-world games, the nonstop action-chute of Half-Life is downright rattling.