Bayonetta

It seems like blogging has come back into vogue these past few months. Either that or I've just been paying more attention to those around me who blog.

I've been experimenting with using my phone as a video and voice recorder in the car. It turns out that the car dock for the Nexus 1 allows me to use the phone as a pretty decent dash camera and, so long as I promise not to sing, I could make some decent "watch me drive and talk about things" video blogs. I'm not sure the idea would go over well with all three faithful readers. Nobody really wants to watch 20 minutes a day of me shouting at cars. Editing it down would be time-consuming. Still, it's an interesting proof-of-concept.

I've been playing Bayonetta for the past few weeks. It is one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. Sure, it was wacky and occasionally confusing and full of fan service, but it was a blast to play. After I realized that the game didn't really care so much if I died the stress melted away. Bayonetta's designers are - among other things - incredibly skilled at placing quicksave points in long fights. I never once got even close to tossing my controller across the room despite not being very good at the game. Even though it may not be frustrating, don't underestimate the difficulty. I started playing on 'normal' and after 6 stages I realized that dying at least once for every battle was a bit wasteful, so I dropped down to 'easy'. Bayonetta has an interesting feature on the easy and very easy difficulties - an item that turns the game into several hours of "press x to win." Automatic mode sucked all the fun out of the game for me, but I was able to play on easy without automatic and it suited me just fine. It wasn't until after I finished my playthrough that I learned it was possible to replay levels and rack up more halos. I imagine I'll continue to play it from time to time, as the levels are quite entertaining and I wouldn't mind upgrading some of my stone trophies.

I paused mid-review to eat lunch, so forgive the sudden change of tone.

I've been playing a lot more video games that aren't shooters or RPGs now that I'm not locked to the PC. Honestly, the PS3 just seems lower stress than my desktop. Maybe it has something to do with spending the whole day in front of a computer. Who knows