The Path of Light

I've been continuing to play Culdcept SAGA every morning while I have my coffee and although each game takes almost 2 hours, I'm really enjoying it. I'm up to 407 cards (total, not individual types) and just won the match at the Altar of Light. That was a really fun map with four distinct areas. I lead that match wire-to-wire by a wide margin so it didn't pack the drama of yesterday's match. I was about to turn the game off yesterday (something I've never done when losing) as I was down in score like 7,800 to 2,900 with the match being to 12,000 but would you believe I came back and won? I notice the AI is a lot more aggressive with symbol-purchases in this game than in the previous game so you really have to watch what colors they buy and level up territories appropriately. I've played 35 total matches now and am still enjoying it. Best of all, Kristin even likes to play against me on the weekends and then we get to trade duplicate cards to one another afterwards. Great fun.

I still have an unopened copy of Assassin's Creed in the drawer that I really do want to play, but I just can't take myself away from Culdcept SAGA to do so. In fact, the only other games I've been playing outside of work are Fairway Solitaire (a golf-themed version of Solitaire recommended by Bill Harris, and for good reason. The game is brilliant!) and the casual-game, Breakout-esque masterpiece Peggle. And a few XBLA games, but not with any real frequency. I was probably the last person to have ever hear of Peggle but when Yahtzee did his video-review (excellent commentary, but probably NSFW) of the game I became intrigued. Then a few weeks later I was in Indianapolis visiting the folks at BradyGames and one of my editors was playing it. And I was jealous. So I came home and downloaded it and was instantly hooked. I would love to see an XBLA version of that game just for the Friends Leaderboards and Achievements and to not have to play it at my desk.

Memo to self: download Peggle onto laptop!

As for work, naturally I can't mention what I'm working on, but I can say that I will be having another guidebook giveaway and this time it's for a 272-page guide to
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core for the PSP. That's right, this was the game I was cranking away on throughout the month of February and yes, it is the very book that I sent in over 400 pages of manuscript for. And my co-author sent in nearly as many pages of various items, weapons, and enemy data. Amazing how that all shrinks down, eh? Anyway, anyone who has ever played Final Fantasy VII (which I'm guessing is every gamer reading this blog) should really play this game. It serves as the prequel to the main game and not only shines a big bright light on the backstory for FFVII, but plays very well on the PSP. And the cinematics are top-notch. I'll write more about it next week when I post the Guidebook Giveaway.