Because you care

Other than a kidney stone, looking for an apartment and a busy time at work, I’ve been playing through games, as usual. I’ve recently played Halo 3 (X360) and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (NDS).

Not much can be said about Halo 3 that hasn’t been said elsewhere. Put simply, if you enjoy, even remotely, FPS games, pick this up now… assuming you own an Xbox 360. The game is OK to play solo, but the real fun comes from all that online modes (Xbox Live Gold required) offers. Play through the campaign with others on Legendary difficulty then play back and save clips using the theater mode, then send those clips to players you’ll meet while playing some capture the flag with 15 others on a level you helped create using the forge level editor.

Phantom Hourglass is Link’s foray into adventure on the Nintendo DS. The game uses the graphic style of Wind Waker (GameCube), but it looks amazing on the DS. Puzzles and other activities greatly utilize the DS’s microphone, touchscreen, dual-screen and more. However, the inability to use the D-pad for movement is eternally annoying.

After an hour or so of play, it becomes less apparent, but after putting in more than eight hours in the game, I still wonder why Nintendo chose not to allow D-pad for basic movement, or even one of the action buttons for basic sword control. I can’t count the number of times when I accidentally walked/rolled off a cliff or struck my sword against the wall and alerted nearby enemies.

Overall, it’s a typical Zelda game. Go through a dungeon, collect an item, use it against the boss, use said item to get to the next area. Lather, rinse, repeat. And the game wasn’t really difficult at all. It oftentimes seemed to hold my hand and baby me as I played through it.

If possible, I’d rent the game and play through it on a weekend. Shouldn’t take more than 15 hours probably to breeze through it.

The next game I get a chance to play is looking to be Sega Rally Revo for the PSP.

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