1 and a 2 and a 3

Darkwatch surfaces in stores next week, hopefully the first entry in an awesome new shooter franchise. I've been very excited about this game, as it stars a vampire cowboy who shoots zombies. When I played the game at E3, I found the controls quite clunky, but from what I've read the game has really shaped up. Even though my E3 experience was disappointing, I was psyched about the melee options for the weapons. For instance, your default handguns have blades on the handles, which you can use to slash your enemies when they come in close. The game has a cool premise, a great sense of style, and boobies. I just hope the sequel has pirates in it. Ninja pirates.

Speaking of sequels, I finally finished Halo 2's single-player campaign. (OK, I know I'm way on the outside scoop.) All I can say is, WHAT THE HEY NOW--?! The "ending" isn't an ending at all; it's like the tape in the camera ran out. But that's not the biggest disappointment of the game, IMHO. What really sucks is that you only get to play as Master Chief for half the game. And when you do get to play as Master Chief, you're usually handling the sucky Covenant weapons. And when you play as the Arbiter, you generally use Earth weapons. I found this feature very annoying. Granted, the game has incredible polish, solid control and fantastic visuals. But by the end I found the combat and levels very repetitive, the weapons samey and the story incomprehensible. Not to mention the fact that you only get occasional use of explosive weaponry, which are my favorites! The action setpieces and scenarios were occasionally edge-of-your-seat fun, but overall I was very glad for the game to be over when it "ended". I guess it really is just for multiplayer, after all.

Now on to Midnight Club 3, an awesome racing game that I just tried out for the first time last night. (Thank you, GameFly, for taking a month to send me the damn thing in the mail.) Fun! I love racing games, but I'm not much for tuner fetishism. That said, tooling around with the details of your cars is surprisingly fun. The gameplay is a great mix of arcadey realism, which is just my style. The soundtrack rocks and you get to race in Atlanta! The difficulty feels just about right, too. I haven't had much interest in "street racing" games before, but now I'm hooked, esse!