Wow, I played almost no games through the end of last week. I think I turned on Crackdown on Thursday or Friday, and Corey and I played for a few minutes, but that’s it.

Over the weekend, however, I played a decent amount of stuff. Friday I installed Diablo II and have already finished the first act. Until I started playing it again, I didn’t realize how much I really did play this game back in the day. Grinding through the first few areas took me back: killing Blood Raven, rescuing Deckard Cain, plowing through some catacombs owning skeletons. Aside from the old-school isometric view and spritish graphics, it still holds up amazingly well. Totally worth getting back into, or getting into for the first time if you’ve never played it before.

I’ve now completed 35 of the puzzles in Layton as of last night. I’m lovin’ puzzle after puzzle, with the exception of a handful I’ve run across. I think I’ve determined that my real beef with some of the puzzles is the way that the logic questions are worded. In several of the 40 or so puzzles I’ve discovered, the wording of the question doesn’t describe in enough detail the boundaries inside which you must search for an answer… that is, the rules aren’t well enough defined. I don’t know if this is just poor design, poor translation, or maybe both, but there have been a couple puzzles with appallingly bad questions, forcing me to waste my hint dollars hunting for answers.

I have a tendency to be late to the party with lots of games, too. I finally picked up both Burnout Paradise and Mass Effect from my brother to check out. I popped in Burnout and played for about half an hour yesterday. I’ve read plenty of contentious articles online regarding the open-world format of Paradise. Some folks knocked the openness, claiming they didn’t like not being able to instantly jump back to the start of an event. I can get behind this opinion in certain cases, like someone who’s got 1 event left to complete and has to constantly drive back to the beginning to retry. That would be Frustration City. The omission of the proper Crash mode from previous titles is another divisive issue. Though Criterion replaced it with “Showtime” mode, which I also enjoy, the removal of full-blown puzzley Crash mode is something of a disappointment. On the other side of the fence, these changes to the series (the openness and the new modes) can be an innovative and interesting addition. For instance, I love the ability to define my own route to the finish line of a race. As someone who loves maps (and, by extension, memorizing open-world, in-game maps), taking my own route to the end is exciting and fun. It would add a whole other level of excitement if done during online play. And when you factor in your eventual knowledge of the numerous shortcuts, racing would become even more fun. I also think Road Rage mode is much better suited for the open environment. Returning to the garage for a repair allowed me to rack up 85 takedowns in a single Road Rage event.

I’m looking forward to spending more time in Paradise City, but Mass Effect may call me away later in the week for my epic space journey.