On games

It had been in my mind for some time to pick up an Xbox 360. Well, last week I did just that; one of the new 150 watt versions that don't Red Ring of Death. This last was purely by accident - I had asked around about them, no-one seemed to know anything, so I threw up my hands and said "screw it!" and was promptly pleasantly surprised.

So far I have Gears of War, Halo 3 and Halo Wars (the latter came bundled with the console). A little bit about each:

Gears: ultra-violent "save the earth" chainsawing simulator with super-hard protagonists, a neat cover system and the ability to shoot dudes with orbital lasers. I'd never played through it properly, start to finish, so it was most gratifying doing so with Mallen.
It's a highly visceral game, and not just because of the vats of gore and body parts spilled. It's the chainsaw option that really makes it. Rev your chain bayonet, run up to a Locust and carve him in twain. There's even a sort of mini cutscene when you do it, complete with blood splattering all over the camera.
It is an action for which you are rewarded in the most fundamental way possible: your body dumps all kinds of delicious chemicals into your heart and brain and you receive a primal pat on the back for vanquishing your foe so conclusively. The hit is especially potent if the game has been frustrating you; it's like an orgasm for your heart and limbs.

Do researchers into video game violence include this kind of biochemical factor in their reasoning? I kill a guy and my body rewards me for it. How is that not intoxicating on some level? (I should note that I'm carving up actual monsters here. Games where humans get a similar treatment repel me.)
I felt a similar way playing World of Warcraft. I became frustrated after a run of bad luck, and required vengeance, something my warlock's drain-life-over-time spells were simply not capable of giving properly. I couldn't kill that orc any harder than I already was. So I switched to my warrior, getting up close and hearing the meaty thwacks and thumps of the critical hits, watching the numbers fill my screen, and it was much, much more satisfying.
I'd love for someone to tell me conclusively why this might be.

Anyway, back on topic.

Halo Wars: A neat, compact little Real Time Strategy game, doing its simple console RTS thing. It's fairly basic, but it contains little bonuses for players of the Halo series - the marines (including Australian Guy) chatter amongst themselves amusingly, there's lots of unit back and forth about combat ("Aw man, there's Grunt bits all over the grille!"), and when you first see Spartans...oh boy did I get a shiver down my spine. I'm not even especially invested in the setting. There's just something about them, some aura of badassery that bleeds out and infects you. And that was even before they'd shown up in-mission and started doing their thing...
Oh, and there are really neat little cinematics after pretty much every mission. It's a polished if somewhat shallow product.

Halo 3: I'm saving this one. I want to play through Halo 2 again and it hasn't arrived in the shop yet.
Halo was a seminal title, innovative and compulsive despite its abominably designed levels (publish a level like The Library today and you'd get lynched). The second game was a big improvement that resonated with me emotionally, for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was the apocalyptic feel the game's last chapters summoned (something I really like in media); maybe it was the tug of destiny felt throughout the game, combined with that sense of unknowable and ancient mystery.
I'm really looking forward beginning the third game. I've played a bit but not enough to adequately appreciate its full breadth.

One more thing: while in Wellington recently I played Flower on the PS3 ("flower" as in bloom, rather than one who flows), and it is about as close to magic as I've ever experienced in a game. You control a flower petal that floats about on the breeze, causing other flowers to bloom and thereby making the dry grass green again. When you hit that last flower and the green spreads out across the hillocks like a ripple, fresh flowers blooming in its wake...well, that's something special right there.
It hits all my buttons - open, sunlit landscapes; ancient standing stones; artifacts in the middle of nowhere (wind turbines in this case) - presented in an enchanting visual and audio style that really just knocked my socks off.
If you have a PS3, there's no excuse for not snagging this off PSN right now.

Take two.

I've done my best (or at least what I perceive as my best) to trundle through my profiles and such, anonymising as much as possible. Because having names in my last recordatory foray went down SO WELL. Ugh. If you were there you'll know what I'm talking about.

Same deal as before, absence of "lettuce tastes nice" posts and yadda yadda yadda, except you get to look at a nice angry wendigo instead of my silhouetted and half-frozen mug (North Pacific + Winter = "Why the hell am I out here again?")

Expect the guest list to be shorter, too, instead of the ENTIRE GODDAMN INTERNET.