Brooks Brown's Lifestream

Today I probably spent more money then I should have. The check for 6 months of royalties on the my book came in, and the $312 bucks was burning a hole in my pocket. After some deliberation, I purchased the Settlers of Catan collectors edition. It’s beautiful, and Megs and I have already played it through. The 3D characters, cities, roads, and lands masses are amazing visually, and definitely help with the game.

On the digital front, however, my purchase was meant to replace a broken set of headphones. So I bought the Logitech G35′s. They’re amazing headphones, and the 7.1 really changes how you play the games you’re in. Not to mention the customizable buttons and on the fly gain adjustments. It’s great.

Beautifully rendered

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Now I’m a few weeks into the holiday season, and I’ve been slammed by work. Coupled with going off of my anti-smoking meds (Chantix was great but I’ve had the weirdest withdrawals from it), my days have been tied up with odd-sleepiness, work, and sadly litle gaming. An hour a night simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

But, in that time I’ve gotten a great deal of variety in, and my picks of the year have finally released, and I’ve gotten my hands on them. And I’m ecstatic about each pic. Here they are, in no specific order.

1. Fallout 3
2. LittleBigPlanet
3. Resistance 2
4. Ninjatown
5. Clone Wars DS

These are my five pics. I won’t say why I left other games off the list – that will be for another rant. But these games all take advantage of specific qualities that I love in games.

Fallout take the open-world game to a new level with an amazingly creepy atmosphere, brilliant story line, and truly user-generated characters. Well done in every aspect, if you enjoy RPG’s, this game is a must-play.

LittleBigPlanet amazes me around every turn. Sure, it’s fun to make your own levels, and the fact that the game is freakishly customizable is good. Those things are great. What really amazes me is the human mind finding ways to invent technologies within the game utilizing the pre-defined parts. How the hell does the brain do these things?

Resistance 2 is the game for the FPS fan who can’t stand another grey and brown generic shooter. With massive enemies, 8 player co-op, and 60 man online multiplayer, it’s different enough to be worth your time. I won’t play another console shooter until this one gets old, and that won’t be for a while.

Ninjatown for the Nintendo DS is one of two DS games I’ve been playing to death. Tower Defense games generally do steal my attention and free time when I’m on the PC, and since they usually don’t include adorable ninjas and meme-filled humor (over 9000 attackers? Please!), Shawnimals are brought to the small screen with a touch of brilliance and I’m adoring another game I can play while eating cereal. Not enough of those.

While I’m hesitant to mention the latest Clone Wars game for the Nintendo DS due to my obvious conflict of interest (I’m paid to talk about it on the net), but it’s actually a really great game. With a fighting mechanic that is furious and fast, and quicktime events that are implemented seamlessly, it’s easily a worthwhile purchase for the portable system we all love.

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