Ikaruga made me buy a GameCube.

Gradius V made me buy a PlayStation 2.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma made me buy a PlayStation 3.

I may soon find myself pulled into another killer-app-driven hardware purchase. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is alluring, particularly because of the ridiculous amount of fun I had back in the day with Battlefield 1942. I did indeed skip the Battlefield games in between (with the exception of Battlefield 2, which I played very briefly) but for some reason the latest installation in the series is making me want to play. I refuse to play it on a console and so I must look into the PC version. However, to quote Weird Al Yankovic, "my PC is obsolete; it takes an hour just to bring up the screen!" so I would have to invest a large amount of capital into upgrading the PC before being able to enjoy it. Of course, I would be able to do many more things than just the game with a modern PC, but I'll have to convince myself that this sizable investment will balance that equation. It also doesn't help that I (gasp) haven't had the same amount of time for games lately that I have had in the past.

I find it as humorously ironic as anyone else that I, the kid who was always buying the latest and greatest gear and upgrading and rebuilding his PC every year in high school is now finding it hard to rationalize upgrading his woefully outdated PC that hasn't been upgraded in years.

The shortest month of the year is behind us, but not without causing a bit of electronic drama as the first three generations of PlayStation 3's pooped themselves on Monday. My second generation unit had no problems since I didn't even turn it on on Monday, but the problems others were having resolved themselves when the clock rolled into Tuesday. Interesting!

So, Demon's Souls is on the shelf now, sadly. I will return to it later, but I have pressed on into the next game in the queue, Valkyria Chronicles.

Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical combat game. Each level consists of a mission for your squad of militiamen fighting a defensive war against the invading East Europan (sic) Imperial Alliance, which also goes by the eternal antagonistic collective term, "the Empire." The game puts you in the role of Welkin Gunther, shown in the picture above on the right, as he leads a small team to oppose the invasion.

I've completed about four or five levels now, and the game is indeed cool. The turn-based combat throws me back to playing XCOM. There is depth under the surface when you realize you need to hand pick your squad for each mission, where each soldier has unique traits and abilities that will change the squad's effectiveness just by his or presence or absence. Furthermore, certain soldiers will work well (or not so well) with others, so finding synergies and avoiding intrasquad friction is another challenge. I freely admit I have not mastered the system yet but I also luckily have yet to be kneecapped by a poorly chosen roster.

The game is presented in a cel-shaded Japanimation/anime/call-it-what-you-will style and has all the introspective, soliloquitastic dialogue one would expect from a tactical JRPG. I don't think I've ever actually used that term before--JRPG, not "soliloquitastic." For example, in the image to the left, racial drama unfolds as Rosie (left) verbally accosts Isara (far right) about her heritage. Welkin (center) stares longingly and then offers up some speech about how everything would be better if people were more in tune with nature and tells a story (to no one in particular) about planting a tree as a child. It is also only in such a characteristically Japanese game world that one would find miniskirts and thigh-high boots to be the standard battle dress (no pun intended) for female foot soldiers. Despite the quirks, I am very much enjoying the game and I am looking forward to playing through it. I've heard horror stories about an upcoming mission, but I will endure. After all, I also heard horror stories about the final motorcycle jump in Grand Theft Auto IV, and that turned out the be the least of my problems in that mission.

This weekend, I also had a chance to play the demo for God of War III. I haven't played a God of War game in years, but as soon as the characteristic Blades of Athena started whipping across the screen, I was sucked right back into mythological combat. The feel of the previous two games is there, as is the sheer brutality. As scary as it is, Kratos is even more dangerous now. I'm looking forward to playing the real deal when it comes out.

Ugh, this snow thing is getting a little old. We got more yesterday. Not nearly as much as last weekend, but close to another foot. On top of that, the winds were off the hook, yo! That snow was drifting old school and making a chump out of my attempts to shovel the drivewizzle.

I have no idea why I waxed street for a moment there, but you can bet it won't happen again.

In the end, I shoveled the driveway, again, and connected us to civilization, again. The driveway is a sheet of ice, mind you, but that's because there is currently a wait list a mile long in order to get one's hands a steel snow shovel in the DC Metro area. The best part is that they are calling for another "inch or so" on Tuesday and I am sure that an unpleasant number of people are so snow-paranoid by now that it will force them to panic and clear out the supermarkets again.

Also up in the next week: the rescheduled Super Bowl party (now just a friendly gettogether with a bunch of friends), income taxes (cha-ching!), still (believe it or not) playing Demon's Souls, perhaps the beginning of Valkyria Chronicles, and likely a customer demo of what I've been working on for the past few months.

A game that has been flying under my RADAR that comes out next month is Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy XII is on my to-play list right after Valkyria Chronicles. I hadn't been thinking to much about XIII, but then saw it comes out soon and quickly said, "hell, I'll play that." Then I read a little bit about it and it sounds like the game is ridiculously linear and does away with some tried, tested, true, and trusted Final Fantasy game mechanics. Now I don't know what to think. I just feel lost. What am I supposed to do now?

Oh, I'm supposed to listen to my officemate's obnoxious ringtone and then hear him have a loud personal conversation for the next ten minutes. Of course, it makes so much sense.

I did it, last night. I finished Demon's Souls.

I really, really liked this game. It did so many things that felt right to me. From the duality of staying in body form and risking black phantom invasion in order to have higher health and better stats versus staying in soul form and being forced to have lower strength and hoping to find cooperative players instead of being able to actively bring them into the game. Then there is the way the levels are all available to you to play in any order, so that your play style and technique can guide you, letting you explore what you want when you want. Finally, there's the community aspects where you can leave messages for other players to guide them around (or into) traps and you can see (on occasion) what other players are doing and (frequently) how other players meet their fates so you can avoid those same mistakes. It's an odd quality, but Demon's Souls is a single player game but if you take away the community, it loses a significant amount of its charm.

I don't usually play through a game more than once but I've already started a new character to play through the game using a different strategy. I may finish the game a second time or I may take a break and come back to it later--actually I plan on coming back to this game again later no matter what, I just worry that the online community will shrink by that point and make the game much more solitary.

Demon's Souls. It is so good.

Whenever I do shelve the game, the next one I'll be playing through is Valkyria Chronicles. We'll see how well I handle the transition from awesome RPG to turn-based squad combat when that comes around.

So, the little project I alluded to earlier was a time lapse video of the blizzard we had. I set up my DSLR in the window of my office to take photos of the world below at 30 seconds intervals. 3800 pictures later, I edited the images together with VirtualDub and made a video of the storm.

So, here you go: the Infamous Blizzard of 2010, not to be confused with the Infamous Blizzard of 2009. There's one gap where the battery died, oops. (I'm still waiting for that AC adapter to show up!)

This is officially the harshest winter I've taken part of in 28 years of life on this little blue planet. Four feet of snow in two months, now that is serious business. I spent Friday evening and the better part of Saturday going out every three to four hours and shoveling the driveway just to have a chance of staying ahead of the storm. The only hard part was waking up on Saturday morning to find that drifts had left over a foot of snow over the entire driveway. The rest was fairly mechanical. I did a pretty cool little project over the weekend and it turned out really well. I look forward to sharing it with the internet this week.

During the blizzard, it's obvious where I was: inside. And during much of that time, specifically when we were not watching television or staring out the window at Mother Nature throwing a hissy fit, I did play alot of video games. You know the name. Demon's Souls. As of last night I am on the last level of the game and I'll probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. I am torn, however, on whether I want to play through it again right after that, or whether I will come back to it later, after pushing the next game through the pipeline. These are the decisions that tear men apart on the inside. Do I play my favorite game from the past year again or do I play another game first? I have no idea how men of power make decisions of this magnitude on a daily basis.

I am glad I'm actually able to finish the game, because my save game got bugged out. Demon's Souls is many things, but unfortunately perfect is not one of them. There are some known bugs and issues, including one that struck me, which makes NPCs from the game vanish without a trace. Luckily, the guy that vanished, although very useful, was not critical to the plot and I was able to press on without him. Now I love this game, and I look forward to playing through it again... but I wanted to finish it first! And I shall.

Finally, last night was the game of games for the NFL. My pick was way wrong, but I think alot of people's picks were wrong. The Saints managed to put it all together in just the right way to defeat this season's near-perfect team. I find it hard to think of Peyton Manning as "the bad guy" in an NFL match, but he looked downright frustrated and angry last night. If you ever seem Tom Brady losing a game, you'll notice he looks like he gets really pissy and impatient and angry. I saw that in Peyton Manning last night and it was weird, since he always seems like such a wholesome football hero. Oh well, Peyton, you can't win them all, and you got shut down by Drew Brees and the first timers from New Orleans. At least it was a pretty good game, and between balls crossing the plane of the endzone while the receiver was upside down, and passes deflecting off of uprights, there was some crazy awesome stuff going on down there. Bravo, Superbowl teams, but mostly the Saints.

Now, for a real challenge, I'm going to see what work I can do today with nobody else in the office.

Based on the predictions of the weather folk and the way people are stockpiling groceries--and the terrifying thing is that this being the south, people are probably stockpiling ammunition too--you'd think the end of days was upon us.

But, seriously, people. What the hell are you going to do with 6 gallons of milk, 27 loaves of bread, and 9 dozen eggs? It is snow, not a nuclear holocaust. Even IF you were snowbound for a month--which is how long those supplies should last--everything would spoil long before the time were up so... what is the point, other than to piss everyone else off and contribute to hysteria?

Bring it on, Mother Nature. I have two furnaces, a snow shovel and all the time in the world. What do you got? You got nothin'.

Curiously, the little bit of snow we got yesterday all stuck to the trees and powerlines, which means what is outside right now reflects the stereotypical image of a "winter wonderland." I wish I had had my camera with me on the way to work this morning because the tree-lined roads actually presented some pretty nice views. It sounds like I'm going soft.

The brokerage approved my API application which means it's now time to play around with it and see just how fast I can ruin myself. This is a grand experiment.

Speaking of grand, I am pretty much at the three-quarters mark in Demon's Souls. Considering how many hours I have racked up in the game, and how I have yet to get bored or frustrated with it, this is easily among the best games I've played. The only issue I have with it is occasional multiplayer instability, and it's bit disappointing that the developer seems less than eager to address that, but the problem usually fixes itself so I will not hold that against the game. Demon's Souls. It is so good.

Over the weekend, they called for an inch or two, and we got six inches. They're calling for another "inch or two" tonight, so God have mercy on us all.

Remember the pictures I promised of that hockey game I said we went to on Sunday? Boom.

Holy crap, it's February. Where does the time go?

The weekend was a bit of a free-for-all. On Saturday, we were originally going to go to the auto show, but upon closer inspection of the list of displays, it was apparent there would be nothing too exciting there so I decided we should skip it and maybe check out the next one. Also, the "dusting" of snow we were supposed to get turned into about four to six inches of snow, which not surprisingly caused the entire state to shut down both professionally and mentally. To that end, we decided to put our feet up and spend the day at home with two of our respective hobbies. The young miss spent the day working productively and creatively in the workshop I built for her in the basement, churning out brilliant crafts and designs. I spent the day working destructively and violently in the world of Demon's Souls, spending a large amount of time hunting people down as a black phantom and during the spans of time I was still alive, being hunted by black phantoms. Together, it was a fun day at home. Later, taking the trusty off-road-ready sport ute out on Saturday night, we passed at least two cars that had spun off the road (both, interestingly, rear-wheel drive cars that a dose of common sense would have never allowed on the road in those conditions) and were pretty appalled at how poorly the major roads had been cleaned, especially in comparison to how the heavy snowfall of last month had been pretty effectively managed.

Yesterday, after an event-filled morning, we went to the Capitals/Lightning game at the Verizon Center. It should have been an easy victory for the men in red, and though it was a victory, it was not easy and hung in the balance until the closing minutes. However, the game was very exciting, particularly because we had terrific seats right behind the net on the lowest level, meaning only about a dozen rows stood between us and plexiglass. Awesome. Of course, I got some pictures and once I adjust the contrast for your protection, they should be available for consumption.

Oops!

It's been one of those weeks. You know the kind. Walking in at the latest hours of the night, wrecking up the place. The good news is that it's almost over, although the bad news is that I have it on good authority that there will be another week just around the corner. Maybe it won't happen? A gal can dream, can't she?

On a terrifying note, I recently discovered my brokerage documents an API with which you can interface with your account and do trades and whatnot. I give it three months before I bankrupt myself with an infinite loop and find myself sitting on 5000 shares of some mom and pop enterprise. Of course, more likely they will send me an email saying, "look, we really only publish the API to people who matter and who make us money. Your account balance doesn't have enough zeroes, and you hold stocks too long, so you don't matter."

My character in Demon's Souls is doing well. Did I talk about the sword here? No, I don't think so. I found a magic sword that does terrific damage and it sets people on fire. Oh hell yeah. I've completed many more levels, including the entire second and third worlds, putting me at over the halfway mark from a level completion standpoint. I still haven't even touched the fifth world. I did try to gank someone last night but even my fire-setting dragon sword was no match for his ability to turn invisible and his Cloud Strife-sized sword. In comical fashion, he swing and smashed me into the ground like a tent peg, ending my aspirations of killing another player. Oh well, no skin off my phantom nose.

The Superbowl party is coming up! Saints vs Colts! Holy men verses horses! It's gonna be awesome, we're expecting a big crowd. I wonder if Peyton will take home a second victory, or will Drew make the Saints' first visit to the big game one for the history books? My early take: the Colts're gonna win it by at least 10 points, but it'll be a grudge match.

Ok I am freezing my butt off in here. I'm going to find my jacket and then hope someone else in the building is open minded about sharing body warmth in the event hypothermia draws near.

Ugh, weekends are like hot dogs. They're much better when they're longer.

We had a small dinner party with friends on Saturday, which was fun. It was another chance to show off the house and the improvements we've already made to it. I've become such an old man, though. Our house was the first to be built on our block and we were the first ones to move in so as more buildings are going up and more people move in, I find myself thinking, "ah crap, there goes the neighborhood." I can see it's only a matter of time before I start yelling at miscreants to get off my lawn. When did this happen?

The playoffs are starting to wind down, and only four teams remain. That means preparations are going to start soon for our big Super Bowl party. To quote the WWII leaflets dropped on Hiroshima, "it's gonna be huge!" Although I don't have a stake in any of the remaining teams (although the Colts are always fun to watch, and the Saints seem unstoppable) it should be loads of fun for all involved, except the midgets I'm going to hire to fight each other for my guests' amusement during timeouts. They are the noblest spirits of all.

Speaking of spirits, I obviously cannot make a post on this ancient website (hey, at least it's probably AOL friendly!) without mentioning Demon's Souls. I put another few hours into it this weekend. Although late last week I did manage to defeat the second boss as part of a three man team, I was only there helping out as a blue phantom and not the team leader, which means I did not receive credit for finishing the level. However, I later went back solo and defeated the terrifying giant spider of a second boss all by my lonesome. Holy crap though, it's a giant spider that shoots meteors at you. This means I have successfully completed the first part of the first level (remember, there are five levels and four parts to each level) and the first part of the second level, henceforth referred to as 1-1 and 2-1. I've been to the end of the second part of the first level (AKA 1-2), but that boss is a real dickhead. I have also played a bit on the second part of the second level (2-2) and the first parts of the third and fourth levels (3-1, and 4-1, I think you're picking up on it now). 3-1 is terrifying and I never want to go back and 4-1 is brutal in two words: ninja skeletons.

I have come to the realization that one of the reasons I like this game so much is because it is so rough and that it requires a serious gametime investment. In most RPG-like games, you need to level up, but you level up as you go from place to place and generally keep up with the challenges. In Demon's Souls, you need to spend extra time "grinding" and building up your soul bank to upgrade your character. I have spent more time repeating levels I've already finished then I have advancing the game, and frankly, badadadadaaaa, I'm loving it. It's the oldschool gamer in me that enjoys spending lots of time just trying to get up to snuff for the next challenge instead of lovingly being guided through the motions or placated with lifeless eye candy. I have no idea when my character will be powerful enough to tackle the next few levels, but that doesn't dissuade me. Bring on the pain!

I'll be taking a road trip this weekend while the little lady spends some time with her sister at our house working on their shared hobby in the nifty little work center I built for her in the basement. Once I get back, it's time to get ready for the football showdown that will be two weeks away when I return. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. I can worry about the Super Bowl in two weeks. Right now I should probably worry about the next few hours.

Maybe it's the oldschool dungeon-crawl fan in me, but I am still rabid about Demon's Souls.

Last night I pushed through the first level again, saving up souls and recovering some very valuable items I couldn't get the first time. I have a good excuse. There was a damn dragon sitting right there watching over the items! If I had tried to take them, I would have been a goner. After I went back to the level with the boss defeated, however, the dragon was gone so I raided the treasure. There were tons of "people died here" bloodstains on the ground, indicating to me that some people had been impatient and tried to grab the items with the dragon watching.

I upgraded my character several times (which requires large numbers of souls) and my equipment. I tried the second part of the first level (the game has five levels, each of which is divided into four parts. You can play any of the five levels, but within each level you must play through the four parts in order) and the first part of the second level, both of which were tougher than the first.

In other news, we've got a big Superbowl party coming up. It will be awesome!

Oh man, this was so worth the wait. Demon's Souls is so good. It's a lose-track-of-time game. The remainder of this post is a summary of how the game is played and why it is so awesome and why I want to play it more right now.

The game is infamous for its difficulty level, which I have so far been able to deal with. Last night before quitting I had killed the first boss and cleared the first level. There are traps and enemies that will kill you very quickly. In combat, you have to be on your toes at all times. If you button mash or expect to get lots of easy monster kills, you will get you stuff kicked in. If you go blindly running into a room or around a corner without some defense or some looking around, you stand a good chance of getting clobbered. The game forces you to constantly be worrying about what is next. You can't veg out and just press onward.

The fact that you never know what is coming up is balanced by the fact that the game is always played online. You don't play with the other players so much as you are just all playing at the same time. While playing you will see ghostly figures running around the level, moving, attacking, dodging, going through basically the same actions as you--because that's the image of another player playing his game. You're watching him deal with the same dangers you are, and perhaps by watching him you'll learn something about the environment you didn't know. Additionally, if a player dies, a stain of blood appears on the ground in your game. If you approach the bloodstain and press a button, his image appears and pantomimes the last few seconds of his life, showing his final actions and the exact spot at which he met his untimely fate. Some of them are hilarious--such as people trying to somersault out of danger and ending up falling off a cliff--and some of them are ominous--a person running around the corner you are approaching, then coming back in a full sprint before dying instantly from what looks like a powerful blow to the back. Although he had died, everyone else who would go through that area of the level learned something from his loss.

Dying is not the only way to help (or amuse) other players, though. You can also write messages and leave them on the ground. Future players to walk through that space will be able to read your message. You can leave hints such as, "Beware the strong enemy ahead," hinting that future players might want to slow down a bit if they are rushing or, "Watch out for a trap," indicating that things are not quite what they seem. My skin was saved at least twice last night thanks to some especially helpful messages, and I left several of my own based on things that I saw. It's a brilliant and fun system.

You begin the game in typical video game fashion, as a lone warrior setting out to drive back the evil that has gripped the world and threatens to conquer it. You begin your quest in a tutorial level where you learn how to move, attack, and play the game. At the end of the tutorial, the game rewards you by killing you. Upon dying, your body is gone and you resume play in "soul form" in which you can perform all of the actions you could while alive, but your maximum health level is cut in half. That's right, if you die, the game rewards you by making your maximum health lower. There are a few ways in which you can regain your body and leave "soul form" for the realm of the living again. First, you can clear a level and defeat the boss demon--with only half health available, remember. Second, you can find and use a rare item. Thirdly, you can assist or take advantage of other players.

You can more directly intervene in other players' games than leaving messages or bloody reminders of your own fate. Using one of two special items, you can either join another player's game as an ally and help him clear a tough area or invade his game and hunt him down for a fight to the death. If you are victorious, your body is restored and you return to your own parallel game refreshed. So far, the only method I have successfully applied is the first, by killing a boss demon.

By killing monsters, you collect souls, which act as the currency in the game. You need large numbers of souls in order to buy or upgrade weapons or magic spells. While in soul form, dying will send you back to the beginning of the area in which you were playing. It will also strip you of all of your souls, leaving you broken and broke. There is no bank or place to store souls--if you have alot or are saving, you have to risk losing them to advance. Also, all enemies that you had slain in the level will come back to life and be ready to attack you again. You practically have to start the whole level over again, this time with empty pockets. Your one hope at this point is to go back to the place that you died--which was likely a dangerous spot in the first place--and find the characteristic bloodstain which you created. If you can reach it and not die again in the process, you will be rewarded by reacquiring the souls you had lost. There's one sticky bit though: if you die at the hands of a player that has invaded your game, all of your souls are stolen by the other player. So you're broke. And you're dead. And now you're a soul. Tough break, champ.

Some of the rules and mechanics seem convoluted, but if you experience the game in person, things start to work really well. The difficulty is not for everyone but as a fan of hard games (HARD GAME CLUB) I really like this game so far.

Yeee-hah! I finished GTA4 last night. The last level was an involved affair, but a fitting climax to the game at hand. I must warn that this headline will contain multiple spoilers, so read on at your own risk if you're antsy about that sort of thing. To set the stage, during the game, I was presented (as you would be if you played it) with many choices that affected the game, and one that would affect the end. The first such choice I encountered was when drug dealer Playboy X and old-school kingpin Dwayne Forge had a falling out and each one frantically tried to hire Niko Bellic to kill the other. Not liking Playboy X's cocky attitude and dismissal of his mentor too much, I decided to take him out. Thanks to this, I was able to call Dwayne later and use some of his old gang buddies as backup on a tough job. Later, a falling out between two of the McReary brothers, Francis and Derrick, led them both to suspect the other of betrayal, and Francis nonchalantly asked Niko to assassinate his brother while the two had a peaceful meeting in the park. Francis had been a thorn in my side for most of the game, and although his connections to the LCPD might have been useful, he was one of the most corrupt officials in Liberty City and was at best a jerk to deal with. Derrick, on the other hand, had been at my side during one of the most combat-heavy levels of the game, and was just trying to keep his head above water. The choice was easy for me: Francis was out, and Derrick was free to go. Finally, the big plot-changing choice of the game: just prior to the final level, Niko is ordered by his current boss, mafioso Jimmy Pegorino, to take part in a heroin deal in which he will sell a large amount of the drug to Russian gangster Dimitri Rascalov, a deal from which both Pegorino and Niko Bellic will profit handsomely. However, Dimitri had previously betrayed Niko and tried to kill him several times, and at one point had kidnapped Niko's cousin Roman. So, I had to choose between doing the deal (and working with the snake Dimitri one last time) or complete the revenge and assassinate Dimitri. This was a no brainer: Dimitri had to die for what he did to the Bellics. As a result of Niko's action, the drug deal between the Russians and the Pegorinos fell through, and without that injection of cash, the Pegorino family collapsed. Pegorino sought revenge on Niko by attempting to kill him at Roman's wedding, but Pegorino botched the hit, killing Niko's new girlfriend, Kate McReary, in the process. This set the stage for the final level of the game: Niko's friend Little Jacob identified one of Pegorino's agents and Niko and Jacob, along with Roman, chased the man back to Pegorino's hideout, an abandoned Casino on the northwest shore of Alderney.

The last mission was a challenge, and I noticed that it included tests in almost every skill the game had presented up until that point: there was high speed driving in the chase sequence, including driving into oncoming traffic on the highway. I did not like that this part of the mission had to be played in a sluggish sedan rather than allowing me to use one of the many sportscars I had amassed, but I was glad I did not have to drive Roman's crummy car again. After the car chase, there was an extended (and heavy) gun battle behind the casino. I found the easiest way to deal with this part of the level was to use rockets to destroy all of the cars which served as cover for the enemies, conveniently taking out the enemies as well. Then, there was another gun battle inside the casino, which was a bit tough because there were no good vantage points or safe spots to find cover on the inside. I discovered an easy way around this: there are several holes in the roof of the casino through which light pours, with dramatic effect. If, instead of running in the front door, you run around behind the casino, there is a ladder to get on the roof and you can then shoot down through the holes at the mobsters below, with dramatic effect. This makes the inside gunfight much, much easier, since it can almost completely eliminate the chance for further injury. Finally, there is the showdown between Niko and Jimmy Pegorino. Pegorino makes a run for safety as Niko chases, involving some final gunfights on the water front. At the end of the chase, Jimmy jumps into a speedboat and tries to escape, while Niko comandeers a nearby dirtbike and chases Jimmy down the shore--where the game gives you a final test on your motorcycle skills. With the speedboat escaping, Roman and Jacob swoop in on a Deus-Ex-Machina model helicopter gunship and give chase while Niko catches up on the bike. The bike sequence culminates with a notoriously frustrating ramp jump. I only missed the jump once and realized the easiest way to do it was to take it easy on the throttle up until that point, to avoid wiping out on the bike and failing the mission on the beach, but then floor it onto the ramp and let go of the handlebars at the last second to ensure the launch was perfectly straight. Niko jumps off the bike and boards the helicopter in true action movie style. The game then throws you at the controls of the helicopter, testing your ability to fly low enough to dodge the rockets that Pegorino conveniently starts firing from his boat, but not too low as to crash into the river. The latter is what happened the first time I made it to this point, as I did not realize until the helicopter was hitting the waves that I was actually supposed to drive; in retrospect this was foolish of me, as there is no point in the game except for riding in taxis at which you are not the wheelman. The helicopter is then hit with a missile and spirals out of control--at which point I was angry, believing I had been shot down again--but as part of a scripted sequence, lands safely on Happiness Island (AKA Liberty Island in real life) where Pegorino has ditched his boat and is making a mad dash for safety. In the final moments of the game, there is one last foot race, and then the last duty is to find Pegorino hiding somewhere on the island. I discovered him as he jumped out of a bush yelling obscenities and shooting me in the head, bringing me dangerously close to death. I responded by spraying him with a barrage from my submachine gun, finishing the defeated mob boss, and securing revenge for Kate's murder.

The game would have finished differently if I had worked with Dimitri instead of killing him, but I think the general structure remains the same. I have read that Dimitri flies the helicopter in that scenario.

If that long-winded, descriptive summary does not betray it, I will say it now: I really, really liked this game. It was not without frustration (especially with the cover system and many of the controls) but in the end I think Grand Theft Auto IV was an awesome game and I am really looking forward to hearing more about and seeing what Grand Theft Auto V will offer.

So, with GTA4 under my belt, it is time to start that game of games that I have been yearning for months now: Demon's Souls. I can already predict it will be a brutal fight, but I plan to see it through. You should expect to see me crying here tomorrow when it beats me up mercilessly on my first attempt tonight.