I don't know where the time goes. Every time I vow to spend a little more time on the site, circumstances come up that keep me away.

It's been almost two weeks since I posted a blog, so let's catch up on what's been going on.

1) Fallout: New Vegas

Finally finished Fallout: New Vegas at the end of last week. After 65 hours of playing it, it had become a bit of a chore. As I said in part one of the GIO Community podcast I appeared on (the one that disappeared somehow, so I appear in Part 2 unintroduced, so I'm glad people figured out which one I was!), I was starting to get bored with the game. It just wasn't as interesting as Fallout 3 was, and I found that I was going through the motions a lot more than I really wanted to. I wanted to do as many of the missions as I could, within the constraints of the fact that you have to pick a path to follow. So I was exploring the Wasteland, finding places and seeing if there was anything there, before I finally started the end game scenario last week.

(I hate those F-ing geckos)

There are three endings, and I ended up siding with neither faction in the end. It just felt like the right thing to do. However, that doesn't hide the fact that it started getting dull around hour 50 or so. It was only my completionist mindset that kept me going.

2) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Once New Vegas was done, I had a choice. I had just bought Dragon Age 2, but a friend had loaned me Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as well. Plus, I played the trial version of Torchlight. Since March has been a really heavy month as far as money goes, I didn't want to spend any more money, so I decided not to get Torchlight yet. Between the other two, I knew that I could finish Brotherhood a lot faster, so I popped that one into the Xbox and took off!

I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. The gameplay is very similar to the other two (see my much-neglected review of Assassin's Creed 2 here), but I really enjoyed it then, so I don't mind that. They've added a bunch of stuff, though.

First, I love the "execution kills", which you can string together and often take out a bunch of enemies at one time. Sometimes you can even take out one of the more difficult guys in one of these strings, though if you get hit, it will break the string. I earned the "Serial Killer" achievement last night for stringing 10 in a row.

(Whoops! Sorry. It just slipped)

Secondly, the combat just seems a bit more fluid. I still kind of suck, so I find myself occasionally jumping away when I meant to strike at somebody, but I'm slowly learning.

I find myself doing a lot of the side missions first, so some funny circumstances pop up at times.

For instance, I had bought and renovated a large part of the city of Rome, making a fair bit of money. I then get to a mission where it tells you that "hey, you can buy and renovate a bunch of stuff in the city of Rome and make a fair bit of money!" The fact that Ezio seems to find this interesting and new when I've been having him do this for a long time already just makes it funnier.

I have dabbled in the "Wanted" multiplayer game, where you get an assassination contract on one of the other players, but somebody's also got a contract on you. You have to stalk your prey as well as look out for your stalker too. It is definitely a blast to play, one of the rare non-CoD multiplayer games that I will probably keep playing for a while.

I still hate those F-ing slide wheel puzzles in the various "The Truth" segments, though.

3) Blogging

I was pleased to see that my blog on "How Important is Game Length to You?" was herded last week. Because of that, it's only my second blog over 1000 views, and it's my most commented-on blog ever (40, and only two of them are mine!). That pleases me immensely, and has made me want to get back blogging on here before now.

Somehow, I don't think this one will be Herded. But that's ok.

4) What's Coming Up?

I expect to finish Brotherhood in the next week or two. I will then move on to Dragon Age 2, despite JourneyMan's warning to me on Twitter (hell, I already bought it! I might as well play it). Plan to sink some serious time into that, though that can always change if the game truly sucks.

Will also be picking up Torchlight, I think, as I did enjoy the trial.

Another game I might pick up, though, is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I played a demo of it last night, and it was kind of fun. I know that story's supposed to be awesome and the gameplay....ummmm....not so much. But I thought the demo was fun enough for the $20-30 that it should cost right about now.

Though that could still be a couple months away.

And, Life willing, maybe I'll actually be back here blogging more often. And reading. And commenting.

Somebody's got to keep that troublemaker Saint in line. :)