Okay, well, I WISH that were true. I haven’t played it as much as I wanted or should have, which is something I hope to correct this week. But I can say that what I have played has been greatness. I’m not sold on the story yet, but I’m digging the improved gameplay. And that’s all I can really say at this point since I’m reviewing the game for Gaming Angels.

I can also say that I’m LOVING the strategy guide so far. But more on that another time.

So what else can I talk about? Well, how about the gaming cave I’m constructing? My son has been in the smallest bedroom in the house since he was born, and it’s definitely time he moved into one of the larger bedrooms, especially since the closet in that room is a complete joke. The room was originally our office, but I didn’t want to turn it back into the office. I’ve taken over the front dining room as my office over the last year or so, so I just moved all of my bookshelves from the current office into this one. However, there isn’t enough room for my other computer desk and my PC in here, so that will return to its original home in the tiny bedroom. It will be joined by the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the near future, which will be the dedicated gaming room. Now my husband and I won’t have to fight for rights to the giant TV at night. He can watch TV, and I can game.

Also, with this new, minimal setup, I can use my new awesome headset that will allow for piping in the TV sound through my headset. The way our main TV is set up now, there is no way I can hook up the headset without crawling back behind our TV and navigating through the millions of wires. So why does that matter to me? It matters because now my gaming won’t alert our son that someone is still awake. I never had the TV loud when he was in bed, but it’s loud enough to let him know that he’s the only one in bed. Plus, now my husband won’t have to be tortured by repetitive music when he’s home. It’s a win-win in so many ways.

However, I am still incredibly sore from switching all of the rooms. I moved virtually all the furniture by myself, so plenty of muscles have been exerted that haven’t been used since the rugby days.

Now I need to go look at TVs worthy of the gaming cave.

I apologize for the complete lack of posts last week. Streptococcus decided it would choose Monday to invade my throat and I was left fairly comatose to the world for about four days. I wasn’t entirely unproductive, though. I read the first two Hunger Games books in two days and played lots of Final Fantasy Origins on my PSPgo.

Final Fantasy Origins is a bit different from what I’ve played of the original Final Fantasy on my iPad. The iPad version only offers one difficulty level, and it sits somewhere between the Normal and Easy modes on Origins. Hardly any of the item locations contain the same items as Origins, and of course, nothing costs the same. I probably would have continued playing on my iPad if I didn’t hate the controls so much. The placement of the virtual d-pad is just flat awkward and there are no options to move it. So to Origins I go.

I started two games, one on Normal and one on Easy so I could feel the differences. Holy cow, Normal mode is unbelievably punishing. I love barely surviving a boss fight just to die on my way out of the dungeon. I would heal myself if I had any frickin’ magic. Oh and Red Mage is so dang useless. He couldn’t hit the broadside of a Buick with his attacks. And then there’s his weak spell casting. Useless dude, absolutely useless. Sadly though, Easy mode is a complete polar opposite. It should be called “Win” mode instead of Easy, because unless you’re a complete idiot, you can win every fight the first time. You can still die if you try to be invincible and never heal yourself, but the amount of magic the mages get is insane, so you never run out of spells to cast. I’ve stopped needing to buy potions a long time ago, and I still haven’t gotten the first Crystal. Middle ground, people. Middle ground.

In stack of shame news, I’m still plugging away at Resistance. This has taken me far longer than planned, thanks to distractions like Final Fantasy Origins and the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. According to the IGN Wiki that I use to monitor my progress–the game has no Trophies, so I could care less about using a guide for completionist purposes–I have two chapters left, and thank God. I find the overall story to be intriguing, but damn the game feels unnecessarily drawn out. I thought it was over twice already just to be sent out somewhere else. I have to, HAVE TO beat it tonight, because tomorrow is Final Fantasy XIII-2 day, and the start of a fresh season of strategy guide reviews.

Can you smell the excitement? It smells like beautiful, beautiful collector’s editions of guides.

I know I have Skyrim to play. I know I have Assassin’s Creed Revelations to play. I know I have four other games I got for Christmas to play. But I can’t help it when it comes to Mass Effect. It was the end of the year, I had no motivation to work on anything to do with deadlines, and I still hadn’t finished my Renegade playthrough of Mass Effect 2. So yeah, you can see what I chose to do.

Like the game before it, I had a very hard time with some of the decisions I had to make as a Renegade. Sometimes, I just couldn’t bring myself to select the Renegade response to something. As a result, I didn’t max out my Renegade meter, and during the confrontation between Legion and Tali, I wasn’t able to select the intimidation dialogue. I had to yell at Legion instead, which I know weakened the loyalty a little. And that’s probably why he died in the suicide mission, which greatly surprised me. I hadn’t seen anything in any online guide about a character dying at this certain part, and I was so surprised that it was Legion. I had heard of people losing Miranda, Tali, and Mordin, but not Legion. I thought that if anyone would die, it would be Thane, because I didn’t complete his loyalty mission. I remembered that mission being a giant pain in the ass the first time around, so I ignored it. He’s dying of some disease anyway, so whatever.

Also like the game before it, I had a hard time with the Renegade ending as well. I just know that’s going to bite me in the ass come March. But I guess that’s part of the fun of doing these playthroughs–seeing which decisions help you save the world. I know I’ll be playing all three other times to see what different choices affect what. Like maybe go a neutral route to see how a mixture of Paragon and Renegade affect things. The answer is probably not much, but I don’t care. I HEART MASS EFFECT!

But now that that is done, it’s time to buckle down and work on Skyrim and ACR. I have guides to review! I’ve even made some New Year’s Resolutions in regards to my pathetic stack of shame. Bastion is in that stack in spirit, as it doesn’t have a case.

By the way, could I ask everyone for some prayers for my Xbox? It’s not sounding happy as of late, and yesterday, it had a VERY hard time booting up. I just know I’ll see the Red Ring of Death any day now, and my Xbox is years past warranty. I should be more than glad that I’ve had it since 2008 and it hasn’t red-ringed once. And I am, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy if it dies now. I guess that means I will be finishing several of my PS3 games while I save up to replace it…but that doesn’t give you permission to die, you Windows machine! Please don’t die! I have Mass Effect 3 to play in two months!