Gushes of War

Not exactly an original thought here, but I figured I'd chime in as well with my lavish praise of Gears 3. I just finished the campaign, and I think the fact that this is the first Gears campaign I finished of the 3 games says a lot about the game overall. I played most of it co-op and it was pretty seamless and solid, lots of fun with some high intensity moments that resulted in some laughs from the game dialogue as well as laughs from some dumb moves that resulted in player deaths. Usually mine, of course. But dammit the melee kill on that retro lancer is just too fun to not take a chance on! I just gotta remember to identify the baddies carrying torque bows before running towards them...

I'm looking forward to going back in and hunting down more collectibles as well. First time through I collected 64% of them. Not sure if thats good or not, but to be honest I was a little disappointed I didn't get more (especially in act 5) because I felt I was pretty thorough in my searching off the beaten path. Its the RPG player in me, I guess. Reaper and I were joking about that the other night when playing co-op, how our RPG backgrounds probably helped with stuff like this. Also looking forward to some arcade mode as well as trying out Beast and some more Horde. I might even get brave enough to venture out into the versus modes.

Anyway, great game and definitely lived up to the hype and expectations. Minor annoyances here and there but overall its just nitpicky things. Kudos to Epic for a 3 years well spent developing this title. Its quite the complete package and I'd say a good value at $60, something that can't be said for many games anymore.

Also had an opportunity this morning to meet up with an old friend of mine from high school. We were pretty good friends through junior year, then his family moved to California and I hadn't seen him since. We tracked each other down on Facebook a few years ago and it wound up he was going to be in town this week, so we got together for a meal and had a good time catching up. Its funny how you can not see someone for almost 30 years and still remain friends. And re-reading that last sentence...damn! 30 years!

Oh well, overall a good day. Still kinda sick but still getting the workouts in. I'm down a few more pounds this week, overall the weight loss since joining the gym mid-July is at 33 pounds. Being pretty sick the last week probably added to that total but my lifts are still strong so I'm not complaining. Better get to bed though, its way past my bedtime and I have to get up in just over 5 hours.