This has been another awesome Christmas. No stress, no fuss, just good eating, great company, and a crazy amount of presents.
First, the presents. I wont enumerate them completely but the items relevant to what I talk about here include three video games (Super Mario Galaxy, Assassins Creed, and Folklore), Wii remotes and Sixaxis controllers (shared), and a Hello Kitty Stratocaster with practice amp and numerous Hello Kitty branded accessories(!).
First, the games.
After about 3-4 hours of playtime I feel the negative reviews of Assassins Creed are unfair. It’s not the second coming of video games but I find it quite enjoyable, particularly jumping from rooftop to rooftop like a medieval Batman. For nothing else I’d stick with it just to experience the story, which in my opinion, is probably the freshest new game IP in years.
In the past three days Lexy and I have put in about 21 hours of Mario Galaxy. It’s my opinion that this is indeed the best game ever made. Despite being on the Wii I have to say it’s probably the prettiest game on the current generation of consoles (not accounting pixels of course - but design). It is a bit on the easy side, but I do not consider this a fault. I’ve yet to think to myself “this game isn’t fair.” When it does become difficult you feel that with just a few more tries you can accomplish what’s vexing you. This is SO unlike Mario Sunshine. If I had one complaint it would be that the hub area (the Starship) isn’t as rich as Delfino Plaza in Sunshine. You could spend hours just tooling around Delfino sniffing out secrets. The secrets that are in the Starship, such as they are, are quite shallow in comparison.
I can’t yet comment on Folklore - I haven’t had time to put it in yet. But from the demos I’ve played I’m going to enjoy it quite a bit.
Now, the guitar. I’ve been keen to take up an instrument again lately. My last foray into music (despite being limited) was great if only for one thing - it really helped boost the self esteem. On a lark I suggested that I might want a Hello Kitty instrument and lo - there it was on Christmas morning! I haven’t managed to learn a thing so far but I suppose it’s early yet.
