It seems like I’ve let this blog fall by the wayside lately. I have plenty of things I want to talk about, but I just haven’t had the time. I turned in my Master’s thesis a couple of days ago. It’s called “Building a Species: Evolutionary Development Biology as the Basis for Novel Morphology.” It’s extremely dry reading for anyone not interested in developmental biology (including myself). I love evolution, but I’m not a huge fan of development. Basically, the paper is about how new morphological structures like the hand, jaw, and eyes allowed for life to move out of the oceans and onto land. My defense is scheduled for May 15, at which point I’ll have infinitely more spare time for games. In the meantime, I’m stuck writing my final term paper for a human evolution seminar. It’s about Homo floresiensis, a hobbit-like specimen found in Indonesia, and whether or not the find constitutes an entirely new species or just a pathologic human.
I finished up my GameSpot review of WWII Aces on the Wii and will link to it when it gets published next week. It’s a WWII flight combat game with abysmal controls, terrible visuals, and frustrating difficulty. There are plenty of games you should be playing right now. This is not one of them.
Speaking of games that you should be playing, I encourage everyone to check out echochrome on the PS3 or PSP. While they’re essentially the same game, the PS3 version is superior because of the ability to download and exchange new levels over PlayStation Network. The PSP version is a good choice if you want a portable puzzle game, but you can only trade levels over a local Wi-Fi connection. I have a couple of issues with the game that I’ll save for a later post, but for $10, you’d be hard-pressed to find better. Especially with the glut of mediocre games that have been coming out each week on Xbox Live Marketplace.
I’ve also been playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I bought the 360 special edition, and I think this will be the first GTA game that I play extensively. Again, I have a few minor gripes so far, but nothing to stop me from playing. I have yet to decide whether I agree with the glowing reviews this game has been getting. A few 10/10s are all fine and good, but I think it’ll take a lot more than I’ve seen so far to dethrone Ocarina of Time as the best game ever created (according to Metacritic).
Posted by brianfishman 
