It helps that 4J Studios has seen fit to acquire and implement higher-resolution textures and character models than what could be afforded a decade ago. I wish they had done something about the sound quality, too. But regardless - this game is still good. I flailed around for a while because the controls are a bit different, but a couple missions later it all started coming back to me, and I felt just like I was holding an N64 controller (aside from, you know, the retarded shape of it).

The biggest failing of PD for XBLA, and this is a big one, is that there is an auto-aim setting, which is

1) on by default,
2) hideously effective, and
3) valid in online multiplayer.

Time was, if your opponents had auto-aim on, you could reach over a few feet and smack 'em upside the head. But with the advent of The Internet, this is significantly harder.

So, until/unless someone fixes this, random online multiplayer can't really be taken seriously. But it still does split-screen, and you can do private games with your Xbox Live buddies - not to mention keep a steady framerate - so overall it's a better experience than the original was. Hell, in many ways, it's better than modern shooter games. Three words: Laptop sentry gun.

Progress: Chicago streets - worst mission ever!

The final mission pissed me off a little - in part six (of seven), the game told me to fly my helicopter low and shoot at the target, which only got me killed. In fact, I just had to stay alive long enough for the next part of the mission to start. But whereas this kind of shit was commonplace in earlier GTAs, it's the exception, here. So I'm not terribly put out by it.

It's been a while since a game kept me up all night playing, and GTA4 did it twice. Of my 30 hours with this guy's story missions, I'd say at least 28 of them were an absolute blast.

This is the engine - and caliber of storytelling - that GTA3 deserved.

Better than: all previous Grand Theft Auto games
Not as good as: in some ways, Red Faction: Guerrilla, but mostly it's better
I'm more curious than ever about: GTA4 on a horse

Progress: Finished with 67.58% completion

Vice City Stories tickled my GTA itch, and GTA4 has been scratching it thoroughly. While my previous forays with the game have been mostly limited to dicking around and blowing up police cruisers, this time I'm actually doing the missions, and I'm surprised at how fun they are. Where many previous GTA missions felt like they were fighting the engine the whole way, this time they're harmoniously integrated. Read: I'm not dying all the fucking time. (And when I do die, I keep all my weapons and ammo! Nice.)

I landed in Hove Beach last weekend, and have been playing it at every opportunity since - finally, I'm pleased with Rockstar's delivery on the GTA adventure formula. It may not do much for the little things like earlier installments did, but GTA4 gets it right where it counts. And would you believe that Niko actually has a compelling story on him? Neat, right?

So far my three biggest complaints are:

• Cell phone conversations are easily interrupted, and they usually don't call back (thank you, game script!)
• No trip skip (mission retries are easy, but some trips are still really long)
• I cannot understand what the fuck Little Jacob is talking about

Which are not super-huge complaints, really. I'd complain about the targeting system being a little wonky, but for once, it's actually good enough to convince me that dying is my own damn fault. And a lot of the little extras, like in-game TV and bowling, are a total waste of time and/or pain in the ass - but they're always fully skippable.

This engine and storytelling, in Vice City? Yeah, I could dig that.

Progress: Robbed a bank! Yes!

Once I got to the East island, and the Lance storyline picked up, Vice City Stories became just as much fun as I expected. I guess that's really my problem with the game: I already know what to expect. Hell, I already know the ending.

My feelings on empire building are mixed. It's much less frustrating than the gang warfare in San Andreas, and less of a pain in the ass than asset ownership in Vice City - there's no pointless running around town just to walk through a money-collection icon. And it's actually easy enough that I took over the entire city in a single night, turning all 30 ownable locations into high-rolling whorehouses. But that's pretty much the end of it. Now I get $72,000 deposited into my wallet every evening.

It's certainly more rewarding than previous GTAs' side-mission components - both financially, and because it's easy to make progress - but by the time you realize how little there is to it, you've seen it all.

As I've said, there's no doubt in my mind that Vice City Stories is the best of the PS2-era GTAs. But that isn't good enough to keep me going anymore. I'm tired of RenderWare engine bugs, I'm tired of unfair balancing (getting perforated at the end of a 10-minute mission is never fun!), and I'm tired of the dated pay-n-spray wanted system. It's time for me to move on.

Better than: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Not as good as: Grand Theft Auto IV
I wish I could cycle backwards on the radio: because V Rock and Flash FM are the only good stations

Progress: Gave Up -- Didn't finish "Turn on, Tune in, Bug out"

Back when it was known as Darksiders: Wrath of War, and appeared to be a badass Shadow of the Colossus with a chaingun, I was really looking forward to it. Fast forward a few years, the thing actually comes out, and apparently it's a Diablo-inspired Zelda. Which sounds less exciting, since Zelda clones tend to be pretty shitty; but actually, as far as I saw in the demo, Darksiders is quite good.

It does a lot of things - button-mashy combat, dungeon puzzles, Zelda items - but it does all of them well. And it looks consistently gorgeous, too. I was a little worried that the game would be too "edgy" for me, but the theme and story (again, as far as I saw in the demo) take a back-seat to the compelling gameplay.

Definitely going to pick this up at some point.

Progress: Finished the demo

The Logic gameplay device is genuinely engaging, and, to my surprise, Miles ended up having some pretty interesting character development (who knew that he was such a big fan of the Steel Samurai?). But much like Apollo Justice, I feel that this installment has diminished its storytelling quality, in the pursuit of ever-more-complicated scenarios.

All five of the game's cases are intimately inter-related, although I don't feel like they're told in the right order; and the segues inbetween them are shaky at best. Somewhere around the third case, I started noticing a dip in the game's polish: more frequent typos, evidence presentations that didn't really fit, bizarre plot devices, and meaningless character cameos. By case four, I felt like I was just going through the motions. The fifth and final case was laboriously long, told in three separate parts - and while the last part really impressed me as an authentic Ace Attorney case, the rest of it seemed very sloppy and over-complicated.

Since Ace Attorney's gameplay and story are inextricably linked to one another, the Logic mechanics, regrettably, suffered for these writing weaknesses. Logic was largely neglected through most of the fifth case, and where it was used, there tended to be very few leads, making it more a game of connect-the-dots than a genuine mental challenge.

With some significant tightening up, Ace Attorney Investigations could have easily been my favorite in the series: the case premises are great, and the new gameplay is right up my alley. But the progressively slapdash writing, and subsequent sacrifices in the Logic mechanic, put it firmly at the bottom of my list.

Weird note: for a game that so heartily dives into series fanservice, Phoenix Wright is nowhere to be seen. His absence is downright conspicuous, with frequent dialog allusions to him as "that man," and one particularly impactful moment in case 5 where Miles channels the spirit of by-the-skin-of-your-teeth cross-examination. Not that that's necessarily a "bad" thing - this game's characters are, in general, capable enough - but considering he was even built into Apollo Justice's plot, it just seems, well, odd.

Better than: Touch Detective
Not as good as: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Twelve-year-old Franziska in a flashback: is simultaneously adorable and intimidating

Progress: Complete

Edgeworth is very much an Ace Attorney game. If you've liked the series, you will like this. If you haven't, then you probably won't.

There are three notable differences between this game and the rest of the franchise:

1) It stars Miles Edgeworth. No kidding. Since Miles already became a likable hardass in earlier Ace Attorney games, he doesn't possess the development arc that made Phoenix Wright an interesting character. But, he does have his own charms, e.g. his inner-voice's superiority complex.

2) It's about investigating (whoa!). In two chapters, I haven't set foot in a courtroom once. AAI instead places a heavy emphasis on crime scene action: the Logic system (comparable to the psyche-lock system) allows Miles to connect observations and thoughts, forming leads to follow-up on. You'll still interview people and scrutinize in-the-field testimony, pointing out contradictions and presenting evidence, but - at least so far - there are no gavels.

3) You can walk around. This is the most visible new feature of the game, but really, the least consequential. Static portraits and navigation menus have become isometric fields and connected entrances/exits (although it should be said, most of the game does the scene-to-scene navigation for you). Instead of tapping to investigate, you walk to it and Examine. This can lead to some awkwardness in positioning Edgeworth properly to examine particular objects, but the maps are designed well enough that it's almost never an issue.

If there's any meaningful difference between this game and its predecessors, it's that there's less of an emphasis on the diverse Ace Attorney cast, and more on the crime scene. But it's no deal-breaker - if you're interested in keeping up with Gumshoe and Franziska, Ace Attorney Investigations does not disappoint.

For what it's worth, I was more impressed by the first case than the second. They were both enjoyable, but the second case involved a few slightly-dubious leaps of logic.

Progress: Starting the third case

Jesus Christ. This game is terrible. There is really no redeeming value in it.

The characters are un-likable, poorly acted, and poorly written. The story is a mess - whole chapters of the plot are clearly and blatantly missing, so by the end, it doesn't even make sense anymore. The controls, as I've explained, are absolute shit. And the game is wont to throw challenges at you that are complicated by the difficult aiming, along with the complete failure of all AI: enemy forces become stronger with numbers, not intelligence, and friendlies are just as likely of running into your line of fire, as they are of shooting you because you're standing between them and an enemy.

Getting caught in the environment, audio glitches, nonsensical fight scenes - the whole thing is a shambles. There is nothing to like in this game. Period.

Better than: uhh...
Not as good as: basically, anything
How IO Interactive continues to work: is totally beyond me

Progress: Finished in co-op (escaped in the chopper)

Umbrella Chronicles succeeded for a few reasons: it was based on memorable moments from the Resident Evil franchise; it came out when Wii rail-shooters weren't an epidemic; and it kept its content simple, and easily digestible. Darkside Chronicles, while mechanically superior to its predecessor, thoroughly ruins those advantages to the point of being more annoyance than video game.

It falls victim to its own tropes with depressing regularity: every five minutes, if not more often, you will see bodies on the ground - obviously about to turn into zombies - but unloading ammo into them does nothing. The game proceeds past them, then the camera turns around, and they rise up to attack you. It's a moronic gimmick that the game delights in repeating, and is downright insulting in its frequency.

Similarly, in boss fights, you will deplete the screen-filling health meter long before the boss dies. Each one has more phases than you expect, and in every case, the amount of time you spend fighting a boss after "killing" it is ludicrous.

For that matter, the amount of time you spend in the game, period, is outlandish. Of its three scenarios, the wrapper story, Operation Javier, is not terrible (if somewhat retarded); and the Resident Evil 2 flashback is fine, though a bit long in the tooth; but the Code: Veronica section is absolute garbage, and frustrating in its refusal to end. It is ridiculous.

Lengthening the Umbrella Chronicles experience might sound like an obvious goal for a sequel, but Darkside Chronicles is really too long for its own good. My cohort and I found ourselves wishing for characters to die, and for the game to end, more than anything else. That it's been a month and a half since my last post on the game - which syncs up with the last I played it - should speak for itself.

And of course, it doesn't help that inbetween Umbrella and Darkside, Dead Space: Extraction has shamed it and set a new bar for the rail shooter genre. Frankly, Dead Space makes this Resident Evil shit look like cheap parlor tricks.

Darkside Chronicles isn't all bad: with the exception of the endless Code Veronica segments, and the kind of insipid plot you've come to expect from Resident Evil, it's fun to sit down with a friend and shoot up some zombies. But, in this post-DSE era, that's far from enough.

Better than: until the Code Veronica part, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
Not as good as: after the Code Veronica part, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
Really not as good as: Dead Space: Extraction

Progress: Finished in co-op

They say that familiarity breeds contempt. Vice City Stories being my fourth excursion into the PS2 GTAs, ... well, "contempt" isn't really the right term. Maybe "lack of excitement?" Not that I dislike it, but I'm just not that motivated to turn the game on.

Vice City is still, easily, my favorite GTA setting (although the game so far has taken place mostly in the shitty side-streets of the West island). Miniature, built-for-PSP missions are just as pleasant here as they were in Chinatown Wars. And the PS2 GTA engine in Vice City Stories is its finest incarnation, full-stop. But it still feels dreadfully inadequate in several ways, and exceedingly, well, familiar.

The biggest disappointment of Vice City Stories is how weak the narrative is. This may be changing - I've only just begun dealing with Vice City personality Lance Vance - but thus far, there's no real consistency to the plot, and the characters are mediocre at best. With the exception of protagonist Vic Vance, who possesses a surprisingly "Niko Bellic" vibe. But that's why I'm disappointed: the rest of the cast doesn't measure up to him at all.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Aside from the story elements, and given that I haven't bothered with Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories is undoubtedly the best PS2 GTA. Which is good! But not great.

Progress: Lance is a real prick