Buy Adam

Wow.

You play Kratos, hired gun of the ancient Greek gods, trying to get the horrid dreams of your tortured past to go away. By doing in Ares. Okay. The plot doesn’t really make much sense to me yet, but that’s really not the point.

While it’s very similar to Prince of Persia in many ways, the game mechanics are subtly different. I’ve only been playing for a few hours, and already I’m addicted. The action is fast. Blazingly fast, but still easy to control. The weapons are beautiful and natural. I suppose I should not be surprised to find that it’s fun to fight with whirling flaming blades on chains. The fight system is reasonably complex. There are a LOT of combos and powerups, and several types of enemies (including bosses) have their own kinds of finishing moves, which breaks up the button mashing monotony a LOT. There are several different views as well, which blend seamlessly - sometimes you’re up close, sometimes in a wide landscape, and wall climbing and ropes have different move sets.

It lacks the sense of desperation that defined Prince of Persia - it’s more about sheer carnage and revenge.

It is the most violent game I have ever played, and it seems right at home. It is common to grab enemies and just rip them in half. Unlike most games, there’s also nudity, which does seem appropriate - topless slave girls, medusas, and probably more.

Really, it’s just a ton of fun.

Buy God of War from DVD Empire.

God of War is being released today, so this seems like it might be my last chance to link to this and honestly say “This is the best platform action puzzle game I’ve played in a long time”.

Building on the liquid gold game mechanics of the first Prince of Persia game (The Sands of Time), this game is faster, harder, smoother, bigger, better, and bloodier.

It’s all good.

They did one thing exactly right that I’ve never seen done to this extreme in any other game. Because of the nature of the game, you’ll find yourself exploring huge spaces with a lot of backtracking over the same area (but it’s new each time - you’ll see). I frequently found myself completely lost when trying to consciously figure out where to go, yet I almost always just had a “sense” of where I was supposed to go that lay right beneath the surface - which turned out to be the right way. The environments are lushly designed, and they use subtle visual cues to nudge you in the right direction. “This seems like the right way to go” - and it is.

Buy Prince of Persia: Warrior Within from DVD Empire.

Every Friday, Amazon has a Friday Sale, in which they mark down 120 or so items.

I usually browse the sale to see if there’s anything interesting. If I find something that’s similar to something I’ve used before, or that I’d consider buying, or that’s just a really great deal, I’ll list it here.

Today, it’s the Camelbak. I have a few of these, but not this model. They’re great for any sort of outdoor exercise (it’s almost warm enough here to start biking again), or just for walking around. This one has a few pockets, but not a lot of storage space, so it’ll encourage you to stay light. It holds 2 liters of water - their newest design is very easy to fill.

Buy the Camelbak Rogue Pack from Amazon Friday Sale.