Last week my Xbox 360 decided to die in the middle of a heated session of Brutal Legend so instead of sitting around waiting for it to get repaired I decided to dig out my PS2. I know it's crazy but up until last week I had never played Metal Gear Solid 3. Having beat the original PSX game and MGS2 for review in the early 2000s, I never really felt the need to see the series through. Last year I decided to fix that when I purchased the Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection for the PS2.

In 2009 I revisited the original PSX title (which is still an amazing game) and MGS2 (I don't care what anyone says, it's a great game) but got a little burnt out and decided to take a break after close to 25 hours of tactical espionage action. Feeling the need to see what all the fuss was about I booted up MGS3 for the first time last week and a few nights later I found myself watching the credits roll. My only thought? What a great game.

MGS3 did so many different things and while I don't think any elements of it were executed perfectly, I would say that it's one of the most enjoyable games on the PS2. It's strange how Kojima can create a game that isn't a ton of fun to actually control and play but when you get to an end of a sequence you feel the need to continue moving forward. Like something is pulling you to see these characters through to the conclusion even if it means setting off a hundred "alerts" and getting killed over 4 dozen times.

I'm definitely going to play through Metal Gear Solid 3 again at some point in the future. I don't really feel that my initial play through was how the game was supposed to be experienced and my next time through I'd like to try my best to be stealthy. Also, I really have a thing for EVA and her.... umm... b... bike.

[I actually also played and finished MGS4: Guns of the Patriots this week but I'm going to take a couple of days to really let everything set in before I write about it.]

Faxanadu on the NES was one of the first games that I actually sat down with and made myself play from beginning to end. If you look at it now it looks like a complete rip-off of Zelda 2 but at the time it was so much more. The story was great (for the time), the monsters were interesting, and most of all the music was some of the best of the era. Check out this video that I came across on YouTube this morning. If you played the game it'll bring you right back to the days that you were slaying eyeballs with legs and talking to the local butcher.

I just finished Ninja Blade about 5 minutes ago and I still have no clue what I just played.

I actually went into Ninja Blade expecting exactly what I got out of it. It was an ok third-person action game with QTEs and a ton of weird shit. Knowing that, I can actually admit that I had a great time with it. It's not the type of game that would be worth anywhere near full price (I got my copy used for $14.99) but it's worth checking out if only for how completely stupid and crazy it is.

After spending nearly 8 hours with it, I still don't really know what was going on. All I know is that you're a ninja and a bunch of monsters with open sores are trying to kill you with their tentacle arms. Throw in a surprisingly fun combat system and a QTE segment every 5 minutes that results in you looking like a complete bad ass and you have a pretty solid game.

The only thing that pissed me off about Ninja Blade was the final boss. I have no clue who was in charge of designing the final battle but I'm almost positive they were 5 years old and a little retarded. I literally spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what to do, eventually caving into YouTube where some girl with a British voice showed me how to even make a dent in it. I subscribed to her feed. I have a thing for British girls who like ninjas. I think she'll date me.

Until then I'll keep chipping away at this backlog of games I have stacked up. Next up - Brutal Legend.

PS: I just noticed that the achievement for beating Ninja Blade didn't unlock. What a piece of shit this game is.

A wise man once said that the first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Actually I don't know if the person that said that was wise or just some guy who pretended to be smart and made a ton money because he had a really well kept beard and a lakeside cabin with a border collie. Either way, I have a problem.

While some people struggle with the drugs and the drink, I have an issue with video games. I buy them. A lot of them. Enough of the damn things that I could never ever find time to actually finish all of them. I suppose that's not really a bad thing but it can become quite the headache when you have a personality like mine. I'm one of those people that cannot put a game down just because I'm not enjoying it. If it enters my console I will more than likely beat my head against the thing until I finish it and when I actually play it to completion I always feel like I didn't really see everything. Couple that with the fact that I add about 3 games to my collection every single week and you've got yourself a person that feels suffocated by my hobby of choice.

Like crack addicts love smoking crack and sex addicts enjoy fucking, I have many of the same problems. The need to always be adding a new game to my collection and the guilt of buying shit I don't need when I do. Rinse. Repeat. Play Brutal Legend. Rinse. Repeat. Play Just Cause 2 (which happens to be fucking brilliant). Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. I have no clue if I should go to great measures to remedy this problem but with this blog I'm going to document it. Actually attempt to conquer my over 200 games (nearly half are still sealed) while not buying new ones to take their place.

Can I do it? Probably not but at least when I look back at this in a few years I can look over to my sealed copy of games and say "remember that time you were actually going to finish those games" and then I'll more than likely reply with "no, I'm going to Gamestop to buy a used copy of Sacred 2." So stupid, like I really need another fucking RPG.