Other than GTAIV, which I think we've all been playing, I've been playing The World Ends With You by Square Enix and Jupiter on the Nintendo DS. It's the same development house that did the GBA Kingdom Hearts, and indeed the same designer, the much maligned Tetsuya Nomura, but somehow it all comes together despite indulging in Nomura's pet subjects; whiny teenagers, improbable fashions, and FFVII callbacks.

The whiny teenager is the main character, who is forced to partner with an upbeat budding fashion designer to take part in an ARG-style Game in Shibuya. Unlike most ARGs, though, all the players are in the alternate reality as well - and if they're erased from the game, they're gone for good. The game does a terrible job of selling its plot, but it's pretty straightforward and doesn't fall into Kingdom Hearts' incomprehensibility. Everyone gets sick of the main character Neku pretty quickly, so he's forced to take stock of his attitude, going through an honest-to-god character arc. It helps that S-E's English localisation is as on form as it has been for the past few years, and there's a lot of little hip touches (again, like in some of S-E's other recent games, like Rocket Slime.)

The battle system borrows FFVII's Materia system for attacks - you equip 'pins' for each attack in battle, or for special abilities, and each pin levels up independently. It works better here than where it came from because you've only got one character using the pins, so it helps to differentiate him instead of making each character functionally the same. Each pin has a brand, too (as does your equippable clothing) - each screen of Shibuya has its own trends, and being fashionable nets you an attack bonus. You can even influence the trends by wearing unfashionable clothing and winning.

The battle system takes a long while to get used to - it's frantic, and it takes place on both screens simultaneously, but the game lets you drop the difficulty down while you get your bearings, lets you hand over the second character to the computer after some inactivity, and even lets you battle at a lower level to up drop rates (a feature I hope other developers steal mercilessly). The entire game's surprisingly well-thought out and compelling, and really progressive, especially for Square-Enix who do tend to coast a little or shoehorn mechanics that really don't work that well.

What else... I'm also trying to finish up Super Mario Galaxy, mostly purple coins and other unreasonable challenges, and there will likely be some Persona 3: Fes in my future, which I've had to import specially. Such is gaming in Europe, I guess.

I've been slowly chipping away at Metal Gear Acid for a few weeks, every now and then knocking out a map or so in the evening before bed. Once I got the hang of the card system, I really warmed up to it. Not much to write home about with regard to the storyline, but it's otherwise a snazzy little title. Heard the sequel improved the gameplay quite a bit.

Yesterday I started cracking away at Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood some more after having left off on the 4th mission a week or two back. It really lacks a lot of the polish and cohesion of the first game and the technical quirks totally drag it down. Having to wait for a level to reload every time you die adds up pretty quickly (...and you WILL die, because EiB is a hell of a lot more frustrating than Road to Hill 30...) while the control suffers from the haphazard framerate that jumps all over the place. Hope you're not looking to drop Germans on the run and such. Maybe I'd have more fun if I were playing it on PC rather than Xbox? Either way, thank god I'm not playing it on PS2.

Both games probably would have been done long ago if I hadn't become so damn addicted to Trackmania Nations Forever. Between struggling to get author medals on the A and B circuits, trying to get all golds on C and D, and just having a ball racing with my friends, I haven't been able to devote nearly enough time to anything else game-wise. Those D and E level courses (Red and Black, respectively) are downright devilish. For a while I was number #1 in my state, but I've since plummeted to #6. Hopefully this week I'll be able to reclaim the top spot after shaking a few hundredths of a second off on a couple of courses. :)

I just got a new PC, and since my last upgrade was nearly seven years ago, I've been catching up on Half-Life 2 and replaying Portal. My entirely belated impressions of HL2 are that it's solidly entertaining and I like the individual set pieces (there's always something new to do around the corner), but it doesn't seem to have the focus and desperation of the setup for Half-Life 1. HL1's concept (Oh God Everything Is Falling Apart) was brilliantly immersive, while HL2 just sort of plunks you down in this cartoonishly Orwellian city and says "Hey, would you like to join the rebels and get shot at haha just kidding you don't get a choice." Gordon's no longer an everyman who happens to be wearing a fancy hazard suit when things go wrong, he's some kind of mythic supergeek now. It's a bit like the difference between Die Hard and Die Hard 4.

I'm also itching to try Aquaria (just waiting for the widescreen patch), No One Lives Forever 2, and Dark Corners of the Earth.