I have a ridiculous stack of shame that includes PS2 and GameCube games. I have the Zelda Experiment. Deus Ex won’t be out until tomorrow. So last week would have been the perfect time to polish off a quickie like Gears of War 2 or start my Zelda Experiment, right?

Well, I did start my Zelda Experiment over the weekend, but during the week, I restarted Dungeon Siege III to play as a different character–Anjali. Part of me is doing it because I want to alter my decisions and see how it changes the ending, but another part of me is doing it for the Achievement Hunt. I’m such a sucker for those stupid points that don’t matter.

This time around, I’m playing on the Easy difficulty setting, and wow, is it easy. I’m almost finished, and I haven’t died once. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve still died, but my partner managed to stay alive each time to heal me, so I’ve never gotten the “Game Over” screen. Playing as a different character has made a huge difference as well. I played as Lucas the first time around, and while he is a heavy hitter–typical sword-and-shield warrior–he is SLOW and he has very few long-range attacks. For several enemies, especially bosses with status-affecting auras, this makes things really difficult. Lucas may be able to knock out some serious damage with one of his attacks, but the chances of him living for the next shot are super slim. Anjali has a nice split between close-range and long-range attacks, so she stays alive for so much longer. My partner this time is Katarina, and team girl squad really knows how to kick ass and take names. At this rate, I’ll most likely finish my second playthrough before I get the guide for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I did start my Zelda Experiment with A Link to the Past over the weekend, but I’m not very far in it to make comments other than the following: “Wow. This game released back in the SNES days and has pretty much identical elements in current Zelda games. This franchise has not really evolved at all.”

I think I have diatribe fodder brewing about Nintendo’s lack of gameplay innovation…

After beating two games in one day the other weekend, I did take a few days off, away from the consoles and handhelds. But the call of Ocarina of Time 3D was too great for me to ignore forever. And then…my 3DS was almost hurled out the window.

I ran into two problems during a boss fight; one involved the frustration in trying to get Link to aim while moving and the other involved the lack of recovery hearts in the jars scattered across the room. I’m sure that was a game glitch, but the combination of the two was enough to make me rage quit. I’m sure that if I calmed down, bought some red potion, and tried again I would be fine. However, the thought of trying once again to manipulate where the hell Link is facing, while running and dodging, and while trying to get a correct target lock onto the boss makes me want to curl up into a fetal position and weep softly.

I ranted about this on Twitter, on the EvilCast, and in person to anyone who would listen to me whine. Numerous people told me that since I did not play Ocarina on the N64, I would not have the nostalgia to overlook the horrendous controls. While I can see some truth to this, I have to wonder if it also has something to do with the fact that I’m playing a console game on a handheld, and as such, that could be contributing to the difficulty. The handheld is not the most comfortable thing to hold during extended periods of gameplay, and I can’t help but wonder if the Z-targeting system is better than the L-targeting system, especially when it comes to camera controls.

The thought continued to eat at me, so I started to wonder about how well Zelda games have aged as a whole. Graphics-wise, games like Final Fantasy VII and even Final Fantasy VI have not aged well, but the gameplay is still tolerable, even to someone like me who didn’t play those at release either. So, I’ve decided to take on a Zelda Experiment, where I play all of the major/popular Zelda games that I never played and see if Zelda is an outdated concept. I mean, let’s face it: the ideas behind every Zelda game have not moved forward at all and all have about the same formula. Is nostalgia the only thing keeping this franchise alive?

Even though I’ve never beaten a Zelda game other than DS games–and I’ve been told those don’t count–I actually own all of the games (but not in their original platform formats, sad to say). So here is what is on the Zelda Experiment list: A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Link’s Awakening. I shall play each of them to completion or to rage quitting.

This will most likely take a better portion of a year, if not a year, as this will not get in the way of strategy guide reviews. And this is probably a major waste of time, as it will shatter my nostalgic pedestal of what these games represent to me from my childhood. But for science, this is a risk I’m willing to take.

Now that I have played a considerable amount of Dungeon Siege III, I have to say that it is unbelievably awesome. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve played an action-JRPG that wasn’t a button masher. Instead, it’s a bit of a cross between the typical action-JRPG and Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe a little like White Knight Chronicles. However you want to look at it, you won’t get very far by simply pressing the A button.

The story isn’t earth shattering, but it’s intriguing enough to keep me interested. I know there’s a plot twist coming, and I have an idea of what this twist might be, and I really, really hope I’m wrong. If I am right, then ugh, DS3 will fall by the typical JRPG wayside when it comes to story. That would make me a sad panda indeed.

As much as I wanted to play DS3 through the weekend, the reminder that Gears 3 is releasing in about a month forced my head to turn back to Gears of War. I only have one act left, so I should be able to finish it this weekend before I go on my beach vacation. Sad to say, I’m a little disappointed in the game.

The gameplay is fun, so don’t get me wrong there. I wish my hubby and I could cooperate and play this game together, as I see the beauty in how much more fun this game could be to play with another soul.

However, I’m a story-driven gamer, and the fact that I have no idea what is going on in this story other than I need to kill all these nasty things that are killing all of us is not doing it for me. Maybe I’m not catching all the hints toward the back story because I’m so busy trying to stay alive. Or maybe the game really does a poor job of narration. If it wasn’t for the guide, I would never have known exactly why Marcus was in prison, why we’re planting the resonator in the factory, or why I need to hijack this train.

None of this would really bother me so much if I hadn’t bought this game strictly for the purpose of learning the background story for Gears 2, a game I like far more. I was hoping to learn where the Locust came from–outside of under the ground–and more about the state of the world since the Locust arrived. So far, none of what I’ve learned from Gears seems that important other than how Marcus and Dom met Cole and Baird.

I know I probably shouldn’t have been expecting much, especially since this seems to be such a stereotypical meathead game, but I still had hope. I’ve been told that the story develops better in the second game, so I’m definitely ready to get back to that. And hopefully the husband and I can play the sequel together again. We seemed to do well with it the last time we played.

This past weekend was my birthday weekend, and I kickstarted things on Friday by stopping work at noon and playing inFamous 2. My goal was to finish the game before I had to do a jewelry party (another job) Friday night, but instead of finishing it then, I completed all of the side missions and found every single blast shard. I really, really wanted that gold trophy as I know I’m not going to get the other gold or the platinum. But after I got home, I started up inFamous 2 and beat it. I was very, very surprised with the good ending.

I won’t spoil it here, but it made me very sad. My husband snatched my strategy guide away from me and read ahead to the evil ending. He then said, and I quote, “You HAVE to do this.”

So, after the credits finished rolling and I was awarded the appropriate trophy, I started a new game and imported over my evil save from the first game. My plan is to burn through this game. I’m doing evil side missions and side missions I know will only take me a few minutes and that’s it. As a result, I’m over halfway through the game already. Despite what my colleague Blake Grundman thinks, I’m having a hard time playing as evil. It’s weird for me to not care for other people’s safety. On the flip side, it’s very easy to get through missions in a hurry, especially boss fights, and certain trophies are also incredibly easy to obtain.

I’m going to make inFamous 2 my gaming over lunch session this week so I can hopefully wrap up the evil ending by the end of the week.

However, now that that is out of the way, it’s time to focus on my next big strategy guide review: Dungeon Siege III. It’s going to be weird to play an RPG after playing a high-action shooter game, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.