Words CANNOT express how happy I am that I held off on playing Uncharted 3 until the aiming patch released. It’s a night and day difference. I can make headshots now with relative ease!

In addition, I’ve gotten through some areas that I was warned would be extremely difficult with minimal Drake deaths. And for the record for my jackass friends, I am still playing on Normal mode.

So I’m incredibly thrilled with this turn of events with Uncharted 3. It’s gone from being dreaded to play to being fun as an Uncharted game should be. The story has me in its grasp, I love seeing what weird jumps he can make that would rip a normal person’s arm out of his socket, and his sarcastic quips keep me laughing.

However, I really don’t want another level with those bugs again. I’m already terrified of spiders as it is, as well as hordes of insects that will devour a human body. I hated the giant army ant scene in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, and the scarab beetles scenes from The Mummy actually haunted me for some time. Kudos to the developers for making those scenes feel so realistic that I get ungodly tense during them, and at the same time, I hate you, you rat bastards.

If you already finished the game sans patch and the aiming left a bad taste in your mouth, I highly suggest playing at least one level with the alternate aiming scheme (this is what it is called in the Options menu) and see if you feel differently.

I pretty much started Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary as soon as it landed in my hands and then played it nonstop. My review is still in the works for Gaming Angels because I am a slacker, so I can’t divulge too much into my thoughts, but I will admit that I liked it far more than I thought I would. Despite how bad the level design was–not to mention boring–I still had a blast. So much so, I started looking into picking up the other Halo games.

And then my friend and fellow EvilCast cohort, Blake, surprised me with Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST as Christmas gifts. He said I had to get Reach on my own, but I was so blown away he sent me the others that I didn’t even notice that Reach wasn’t in the mix. I had a girl moment and teared up a little bit, and then I thought about being nicer to him on the podcast, but the girly moment passed and I realized being nice to him on the podcast was a terrible idea.

I can’t wait to start on the rest of the Halo games, but I need to focus on other games I need to review for GA and guides I need to review here. I got word that the Uncharted 3 patch for gunplay is out, so I will go back to that this week.

But over the weekend, when I wasn’t doing tons of wedding stuff and cooking food, I returned to the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This is one game I don’t want to slip through my fingers in 2011. I really want to finish it, and I made great progress over the weekend. All sidequests are done, and last night, I landed in the last area of the game. I’m looking forward to seeing what gets explained and what doesn’t, as well as seeing if I have the need to play it again to see a different ending. At this point, it’s a distinct possibility, but that will have to wait for others. My stack of shame has doubled in just a week thanks to Blake and the November releases.

At least I can safely say that I will not be bored any time soon.

I’m currently reviewing Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for Gaming Angels, and I have been half-looking forward to it and half-dreading it. I’ve been looking forward to it because I wanted to see what everyone was so hyped up on. I was dreading it because everyone was so hyped up on it. I was sure I was going to hate it, just because I have a tendency to hate what’s popular, but I was hooked before the first level was over.

The gameplay is a ton of fun, and I really like the story. I have to admit that the appearance of the Flood disappointed me as I’ve played numerous games with a similar plot mechanic. Of course, then I had to get over that disappointment and remind myself repeatedly that Halo came way before any of these other games. That led to me getting disappointed in a lot of games, like Gears of War 3, so I had to stop that road of thought.

My biggest complaint about Halo is that all of the indoor levels are exactly the same. Sometimes, it’s literally exactly the same, like in the Two Betrayals level. Master Chief does nothing but run around in circles. Sometimes the circles go up, and sometimes they go down. But they’re still circles. And they look the same. Thank God the gameplay is so fun, because otherwise the levels would bore me to tears.

The boys at Penny Arcade really said it best:

Let me emphasize once again: I like Halo. I’m having a lot of fun with it. I’m looking forward to playing the next few games. It’s just that the original Halo was not perfect by any means, and I do have some criticisms…like I do with other games. Believe it or not, I have some gripes about the Mass Effect games.

Now if you’re looking for some entertainment about my criticisms with Halo, then I recommend that you all download and listen to the latest episode of the EvilCast, where I make my EIC fanboy so mad, you can hear him choking on his anger.