Brad's short term October goals.

October 9th is the release of my Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. This IS the greastest strategy/rpg ever released. This is also my favorite game of all time. To see it finally get an appropriate translation, albeit a Shakespeareanish one, is what I am truly most excited about. New battles, cameos, weapons and armor, job classes, and multiplayer also doesn't hurt. There are some annoying port issues, but they are easily overlooked by me and should be overlooked anyone who has yet to try this game.

October 10th is the release of Half Life 2: The Orange Box. Half Life 2 is my favorite single player FPS to date and an outstanding game altogether. I played the crappy xbox1 port and the game still had a huge impact on me. To be able to play the updated PC port of HL2 means a lot to me. Half Life 2 Episode 1 and 2 are also included and essentially double the amount of game in both time and story. I can't wait. The fact that Portal and Team Fortress 2 are included in the packable is really all too generous of Valve. Team Fortress 2 will most likely be the multiplayer game I choose to stay with and get good at. I've been addicted to watching beta footage of this game and can't explain how much I love the games style and class based content. Portal is another beast in itself. This puzzle game isn't extremely long (4-6 hours I hear), but he creativity and innovation potential I see in this IP is amazing. Early impressions of the final build have been quite stunning. I hear that not only does the game tie into the HL2 world, but it is infact very funny. I'm not going to spoil the details, but I think people will be getting more of an "experience" than what was seen in early trailers.


Ok... so basically these are two very big releases for me coming out very soon and far from the end of fantastic games coming out this fall. In order to not get overwhelmed and swamped in AAA titles, I plan (much like my colleagues on this site) to take a more organized approach to playing what I have recently started.

This is where I am:

Jeanne D'Arc - I've spent at least 14 hours playing so far. I'd say I'm about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the game.

Lumines 2 - I've unlocked about 60 skins with still a ton more to go.

Halo 3 - I actually started the Campaign with some friends and then some solo. About 4 missions in.

Bioshock - A couple of hours from the end I predict.

Phantom Hourglass - Barely started. First Island.

Persona 3 - 10 hours in?

Oblivion - 20 hours in?

It will be a heavy week but I plan to beat Jeanne D'Arc, Halo 3 Campaign (hopefully with Nick and David), beat Bioshock, and yes beat Phantom Hourglass. I also plan to put down Lumines for the time being. I've become pretty good at the game now and can play for an hour in one session. I'm so friggen addicted to this game that it has been taking up a lot of the time I could be using playing other single player games. For Persona 3 I plan to play another few hours in order to keep the game fresh in my mind. I don't want it getting lost under the shuffle. Oblivion will be put on the shelf for now. Reason being I know I will never have a problem getting back into it later and I haven't really done much of the main quest.

These are not my goals for the month but actually my goals before October 10th. I haven't done a gaming binge this crazy in a long time but it's going to be cool. You can start expecting reviews for some of these games toward the end of the month when I find the time to write them. Also expect daily updates for my progress in each of these games.

Now time to watch some Full Metal Panic (sigh... forgot about my movie/tvshow/anime hobby).