Here's what I'm playing at the moment and what I think I'll be playing in the near future.
Since finishing Chulip, the PS2 has reverted back into the DVD player. More accurately, "the machine that Clark uses to play They Might Be Giants' Here Come The ABCs over and over again." He's really glommed onto that in the last few weeks. We've had the DVD since before he was born - and we gave out copies to everyone we knew who had kids or had kids on the way - but only since he turned two has he fully embraced it. He's at the point where he just requests "Puppets!" and it now means TMBG, whereas before it meant the Wiggle Puppets.
His review of the DVD would go something like "Puppets. D. Robot. Funny."
So anyway, that's the PS2 these days. OMG PS2 DROUGHT! I keep forgetting I have to start Okami.
The Wii has mainly been serving up more Baten Kaitos. I just finished the Children of Duhr bit, where the vaunted evil god Malpercio shows up and wrecks the entire continent without actually killing anybody. Weird, that. I still have no idea how to find the 150 "hidden" card combos, and I'm not sure that it is even worthwhile to figure it out. My save file shows 36 hours, but it feels like the end is coming up. "Malpercio" is such a great name.
Bought Cooking Mama: Cook Off and have not done much with it. The controls have some hurdles, since you're not actually touching anything with your remote there's a palpable disconnect between your remote swinging and the onscreen actions... a disadvantage compared to the DS original. The actions are therefore uneven; peeling a potato is absolutely atrocious, but holding the remote like a can opener - for opening cans - is pleasantly perfect. Turning the water tap off and on is simplistically hilarious. I was super stoked to see that the Wii version adds something that was much-needed back when the game only cost $20: a "challenge" mode where you have to prepare the recipe WITHOUT the boring instruction screens interrupting the action. That will be the true test of the Cooking Mama chef.
This game has the ugliest menu screens in the world, though. It's like Nick Jr. with Tourette's.
Considering buying Starfox64 on the Virtual Console. More than considering it; just haven't yet because I can never get into the damn Shop Channel on Mondays.
Slogging through the first Phoenix Wright game on my DS. As much as I wanted to like the game, it's terribly slow and often doesn't make much sense. If, like me, you're curious as to how a video game based on lawyering works, it goes like this: you spend a lot of time wandering around crime scenes looking for evidence, which comes either from talking to witnesses or by inspecting the locations. When the witnesses give their testimony, you're expected to confront them with the evidence you have that contradicts their testimony. Sometimes you can get the contradiction rather easily, and other times you have to press the witness on every key point to get them to say the wrong thing.
If the contradictory evidence was more consistently laid out, the game might be more fun, but many times you're just guessing to see which evidence will expose the lie and move the story along to the next development. If you do not present the correct piece of evidence (you have five or so chances to screw it up before Game Over), the testimony simply repeats so you can try to catch the weak point again. It can get really disjointed. This is another one of those games where the idea is fantastically unique but the execution is lacking.
I also have Drill Dozer hanging out in the backup backup position. Not really persuing it hardcore since I have plenty else to keep busy.
For example, the Coming Soon list: Super Paper Mario, which just looks as clever as all hell. And Pokemon Pearl not long after that, which I'm really looking forward too because I've long since forgotten what a disappointment it was to play Pokemon LeafGreen. Fool!
