One thing I will say that FFXIII-2 does better than its predecessor is how it opens up sidequesting from the get-go. I’m not a fan of level grinding, something I’ve made perfectly clear numerous times, but I don’t mind it when it’s veiled with a sidequest. In FFXIII, you didn’t get any sidequests until you hit Pulse, so if you needed to grind your levels on Cocoon, it meant running through rooms over and over again. Know what that’s called? A boring pain in the ass. It’s one reason why I hate early FF games, like FFIII. I play games to have fun, not do the same thing over and over and over just to gain levels. Ignore the fact that I play shooter games and move on.

With FFXIII-2, you are almost inundated with sidequests. As you open up more time gates, you can find a gazillion more. Since you only need to travel through about a third of the time gates you can actually open for the storyline, you can spend numerous hours doing anything but the main plot. And that’s what I did all weekend long. I am bound and determined to find all 160 fragments, and you can’t do that by just following the story. And the best part about taking time out to doing all of this sidequesting? I have Noel and Serah maxed out for both of their Commando and Ravager roles, Serah is maxed out as a medic, and Noel is almost maxed as a synergist. When I get back to the story, my levels will be above and beyond what the guide suggests for minimal. That’s what I like to see.

The story to FFXIII-2 still has not grabbed me. Not sure it ever will, to be honest. I’m not a huge fan of alternate timeline stories and parallel universes and all that, so it’s doubtful I’ll ever really like it. However, I do like the mechanics that the time traveling story aspects provides in terms of completing sidequests by traveling to a different time to retrieve something before it was destroyed or to pick up something that only appears in a certain time or season. I am really, really digging that, kupo!

In other news, my gaming cave is complete! We moved both PS2s, the GameCube, the Xbox 360, PS3, all my strategy guides, the PSP, DS, 3DS, PSPgo, charging stations, and corresponding games in their this weekend. Playing FFXIII-2 in a private room with my headset was an amazing experience. If I didn’t have to work or be a mom, I’d live in that room and be another statistic.

I’ve been kind of all over the place this past week. I played some more Skyrim on Monday, but then I fell into a complete non-gaming lapse as I had to be a single parent all week. Translation: I was too effing tired at night to do anything but sleep. But my in-laws took pity on me over the weekend, so in between working and watching football playoffs, I picked up a controller a time or two.

Skyrim is going to be nothing but trouble for me. I played for a total of 3 hours on Monday and never once touched on the main quest. I had to force myself to save and quit and go to bed after midnight. I bet I play another 100 hours before I get back to the main quest. I always have a fever and the only cure is more side quests. That’s one reason why it takes me so long to play a DeathSpank game; I didn’t move to the final area until everything was done. In other words, I may still be playing Skyrim in 2013. So much trouble.

I tried to make myself work on Assassin’s Creed Revelations, but when it came down to it, I flat out didn’t want to. It was the fact that AC2 took place in Italy that intrigued me about the AC games in the first place. I got excited about Brotherhood because it was in Rome. I’m having a hard time caring about Constantinople. I’m also a little tired of Ezio. I’m not saying that I will never play it, because I do like that overarching story a bit, but for right now, my stack of shame is a little more enticing. Sorry Ezio; you’ll have to sit on the shelf for a bit longer.

So what came off my shelf was the first Resistance game. The game’s premise always intrigued me, and since I now like FPS games, I figured it was time to give this one a whirl before I play the third game that I got for Christmas. I’m only three hours in, and I’m a little disappointed in that it feels like two other games I’ve already played in 2011: Gears of War 3 and Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary. All involve fighting a war that was thrust upon them, fighting monsters for humanity’s survival, and fighting infected beings. The main difference is that this takes place on Earth, in a real country on Earth, and in the past. I kind of like the idea of needing World War II gun tech to fight monsters, but then…yeah that’s not what I have. At least the story is still interesting.

And speaking of Halo, I played co-op with a friend last night, which was so much fun. I’ve already harassed another friend and Halo-fanboy that we need to play the whole game on co-op on Legendary. It may take us a whole year and we may not be friends afterward, but we’re still going to do it or die trying.

While waiting for my friend to get on Xbox Live, I tried out the trial version of Shadow Complex. I’ve been recommended it repeatedly, but it was one of many things I just never got around to. I’m ashamed I never did sooner. After 30 minutes, I purchased the full game. It reminds me a bit of Contra without being so stupidly hard (there’s a reason why there was the Konami code) and even Double Dragon II. I may now have to check out Limbo and Torchlight since they were just as heavily recommended to me by the same people. And then I’ll really need that cloning machine so I can play all of this.