PM:CE:DX:OM:GW:TF:BB:QN:IC

So, if I were to describe Pac-Man I would do so thusly [sic] (this is not a quote). You play as a large yellow ball traveling through a maze eating small yellow balls while ghosts chase you. If you eat a medium yellow ball you can then eat the ghosts (Pac-Man is weird). Pac-Man Championship Edition Deluxe is exactly that and yet is still very new and different from the old games.

If you played the original Pac-Man Championship Edition then you'll recognize a few things that came over from that game. When you eat a piece of fruit the half of the maze on the opposite side resets and changes configuration. You also spark when turning early.

New to this game are the bombs and ghost trains. Bombs save you when you are in a pinch. Sleeping ghosts will be sitting strategically throughout the level when you get near one they will be angered. If no other ghosts are following you they will start following you. If there are ghosts following you the angered will wait for the other ghosts to come near it and the join the ghost train. Eating a power pellet will allow you to eat the train of ghosts. Ghosts in the ghost train will still pursue you when they turn blue. Sleeping ghosts do not get angered while they are blue. Sleeping ghosts can also sometimes carry power pellets. Ghosts with power pellets that are in your train allow you to keep your power meter up longer. You have nine courses and a free mode. you can change the visuals on the maze and the characters individually.

There are several modes:
Score Attack (5 min.) - This is your basic mode. It's similar to championship mode from Pac-Man CE.
Score Attack (10 min.) - Like Score Attack (5 min.) but twice as long.
Ghost Combo - Eat as many ghosts as you can before your power meter depletes. It's 10 min. long and you can stop whenever you want.
Time Trial - You have to eat a certain amount of fruit as fast as possible.
Time Trial (Short) - Like Time Trial but broken up into ten shorter challenges.

12/12a
200/200g

mygamercard.net shut down so no gamerscore pics for now.

Past Affect 2.5 - The DLCening

If you've read many of my posts you know that I have a particular hatred for DLC, most of the time. My recent tweet, however, may lead you to believe the opposite. I did indeed buy all of the DLC (to date) for Mass Effect 2. They were selling at a one day only price of 200 msp each. Combine that's cheaper than Lair of the Shadow Broker sells by itself: 800 msp. So the penny pincher in me caved and I bought them. I hurried to put Mass Effect 2 at the top of my GameQ and surprisingly it was the next to arrive.

Risky Actions

Risk is probably my favorite board game, with Monopoly being a close second. So when I found out they were making a version of Risk for the 360 I rushed to...wait for it to go on sale. And then I decided not to get it because I was out of money. But when it went on sale again I scooped it up. As with all good game updates it has classic Risk hidden in there somewhere. I played it and it's just as good and excruciatingly long, but without all the tiny and sharp army men embedded in your carpet. The campaign is short and is more of an introduction to the characters than a real game. It is pretty funny and very well animated. I was actually surprised that Penny Arcade wasn't involved because the art style reminded me of them.

Update 1: If there was an achievement for 100 dice losses in a row I think I'd have it by now. The computer cheats so much. I have 10 guys you have one guy. Why can't I take your country over?

Get Over Here

Seriously, a man with a hook on a rope that he can use to pull people towards him and he's called Scorpio? It would have been less obvious to call him link.

This happens to be another third person game that gives me motion sickness. The first I ever encountered was Tomb Raider. First-person games don't make me sick. Although many people did I didn't get sick watching Cloverfield. Not all third person games make me sick. I was fine playing Assassins Creed, GTA IV, and Prototype. It's only certain games. Crackdown, for example, made me nauseous. I tried sitting far away, after resting for a day, and it seemed to make me feel worse.

Due to this affliction I'm probably not going to 100% this game. The races, which I was dreading anyway, seem out of reach.

Doritos Crunch Coarse / Frito Way

Doritos Crash Course is miles ahead of the last Doritos "game" we were given. First off this game is actually fun. It is similar to Japanese Game Shows like Sasuke (Ninja Warrior in America) (Example). They animate your avatar and it looks pretty good. When you accidentally run off a ledge your avatar pulls out an umbrella to try and slow the descent. The hammers either knock you backwards into the bars holding them or knock you forward into the TV screen.
Secondly, this game is hard. I blew through Doritos Dash of Destruction in about half an hour. Crash Course ramps up in difficulty. It starts off pretty easily but then gets progressively harder as you go through the countries.

Harms Way by Doritos is an interesting game. I'm not a big fan of racing games, Burnout excluded. And I'm definitely not a fan of xbla racing games but this one has a little twist. You can be one of 4 cars in the race (yawn), or you can control one of the turrets around the outside of the track and shoot at one of the cars. The achievements in this game are a little easier than Crash Course. I would have 200/200 but online seems to be broken in both games.