Its lunchtime and I have opinions!

** Started playing inFamous last weekend. Its pretty enjoyable so far, having gotten to the first island for a couple missions already. The evil options are a little ridiculous at times, but overall, its doing a much better job of using perception as a tool to drop you in evil situations that, if they were a bit more nuanced, could be turned around with tact and diplomacy. I dunno, I'm playing it as an evil jerk, but they're allowing me to feel at least a little justified in that route.

** Scribblenauts. I'm still enjoying it in small doses by necessity (busy busy busy). I'm still enjoying finding new ways to go about doing things. Sometimes, you've got to let yourself STFU about imperfect controls, learn how they work, and adapt. Did they mean for figuring out that "lift bridge" is the longer bridge you always wanted? Probably not. But I was pretty jazzed when i found it myself though! But certainly, I could see this being indeed frustrating on a more complex puzzle, much further than I am now (about 4 "worlds" in)



** Played the Brutal Legend demo. I'm prettty much sold, aside from holding back on most purchases this fall. Way of the Samurai 3 still wins October 13th. But that game does the most startling things with expressiveness and characterization. More than any other game, even Metal Gear Solid 4, the human-ish characters in Brutal Legend completely sell their humanity to me. Eddie Riggs, his roadie buddy and that random rocker chick are completely believable real entities. Hyperbole incoming, but I have to strain to NOT feel like these characters are genuine, complex people. Even without being ultra realistic looking, they all feel more alive to me than anybody I've seen in previews of Heavy Rain. If you're going for real, games industry, you're going in the wrong direction.

** Zynga. Casual games are crazy hot, aren't they? So many people sinking so much play into facebook games like Mafia Wars and Farmville! Its even got me thinking about scaling down my crazy space game idea into a much simpler form. But what I think would be really interesting: taking all that activity, and harnessing it for interaction with a more traditional MMO or other online game. Its like Demon Souls. What if we started doing online "co-op" and "multiplayer" in different ways?