PixlBit

Great points. I haven't fiddled with the menu system that much yet. I guess what I meant was that there wasn't any screen clutter from menu options as you played.

I see what you mean about it taking some control away from you for the sake of presentation at the beginning. Morrowind just drops you off from a boat and Oblivion dumped you in a prison. I didn't really have total control in Skyrim until I got to that first town.

I was just mentally going over all the events I experienced in the first ten hours of GTA V the other night. It amazes me how vividly real they seem to me: little things like the way a guard reacts to seeing a downed comrade in the sniper mission with Trevor; the father-son interaction between Michael and Jimmy; and on and on. Every relationship and event in the game is handled with great detail and realism. GTA V is really knocking me out.

The first time I played it was with my friend Mark in '06. We switched on and off, if I remember right, and pretty quickly we turned it to "easy". On that setting it was just fine and we ran through the game pretty quickly. This time, in a way, I like the difficulty because I have to go slower and try and use stealth, which doesn't work very well in this game btw. The slower pace makes me take in the environments a little more and really pay attention to level design and cover spots.

"Movie-like" quality indeed. I remember this game was heralded as the begining of the cross-over between games and film. After playing GTA V, the cut scenes in Uncharted seem a little jarring as they switch from gameplay, but they are still in the same graphical style and so blend well. GTA V does it just a touch better as many times you aren't even sure you've transitioned to a noninteractive moment it's so seemless.

Getting issues was so much fun. I so looked forward to every Wednesday and getting stuff, but after a while my list got too large. There's just too much there I wanted to read and if I continued, I'd go broke. I think when I got to nine issues one week, I called it quits.

It definitely breaks the illusion of reality in the game. When I see a ripped shirt pirate take about four bursts to the chest from my assault rifle and dance it off, I wonder what strange laws of nature are at work. The Magnum though. One shot kill at almost any range, but very little ammo to be found. Same with the grenade launcher and sniper rifle. What's the point having these weapons if you can barely use them.

I have all three now too. I'm tempted to just run the whole series now that I've started 1 and will be playing 2 soon thereafter.

I'm making comparison listens between CD and vinyl rips. I know objectively what the difference is, but I really want to hear it. I need more reasons to spend money on a turntable.

Btw. My roomate in college had these Boston Accoustics speakers. They were small, but boy could they crank out the sound. LOUD!

No, but I will. It might make it into my next list when I finish the one I'm on.

Yea, the levels are incredibly beautiful and interesting to explore. I saw a toucan on a log and just watched it fly past my head. Cool! The platforming works just great too. No problems there.

I played the demo, which I still have on my 3DS. I liked that mini-game where you manage a village or something like that. The art style didn't appeal to me much. I guess that's why I didn't get it, but the more I hear about the gameplay, the more I get interested again.

I hate when that happens.