Collections.

Ryan's young son has a MegaMan Xbox collection (ten games on one disc!) and a Sonic Xbox Collection (All the Genesis Sonics!) Outside of playing Battlefield 2, which is an amazing game, I've been on sort of a retro kick. I can't really stand to play a lot of modern games lately and outside of my crushing desire to play God of War not much interests me. I gave Final Fantasy 1 a spin on GBA the other day for a good two hours and was very entertained. Combat and such is so much more smooth now that you don't get those damned "ineffective!" messages everytime you try to hit an enemy that's already dead. The game just moves the attack over to another enemy.

I whipped through the first 4 zones in Sonic The Hedgehog 3 earlier today and was reminded why I like it more that Sonic 2 but less than Sonic 1. First of all the, boss fights are actually very creative (Marble Hill Zone, I'm looking your way!) and the music is top-notch. The force field techs you can pick up are actually very useful and complement Sonic's other abilities quite well. Overall, it's a very tightly made game with almost nothing just tacked on. I wish I could say the same thing about Sonic 2 because even when I was in fifth grade I always felt that Sonic 1 just felt more complete. Granted, Sonic 1 is nowhere near as fastly paced as 2, but Sonic 2 doesn't even really bring anything new to the table. Outside of the spin-in place ability, what the hell else is there? Tails is basically useless unlike in 3 so what's the damn point of having him in there?

As for Battlefield 2(PC in case you didn't know), this game is amazing. Basically, it's a FPS featuring modern combat. Jets drop bombs on tanks, while helicopters circle overheard unloading fire on anything that moves. The game starts you with several "kits", which is basically your class. You can be a Spec Ops with c4 (more on this in a bit), a medic, Anti-Tank, and of course a Sniper. Out of the 6 or 7 kits, Spec Ops is definitely my most chosen. Last night, I leapt from an overpass on to a tank and smacked two c4 packs on to it. The driver had NO idea I was doing this, either! After I was done setting up my explosives, I hopped off, layed down behind a burnt out car, and then set off the c4. BAM! Took out the tank and the driver in spectacular fashion. During that same match I snuck in to an enemy check point and set up c4 all around thier vehicles. When several people spawned back in at that place they all hopped in the tanks, the jeeps, and an APC. As soon as they started driving I set EVERYTHING off and it was the most awesome thing I have ever witnessed in an FPS. Bodies went flying everywhere, my sound was ringing and muffled from the sound of the blast, and dust and debris rushed over to where I was hiding. So excellent. So damned excellent. I hopped in my little jeep and sped off to go kick more American ass.

I'm going to go play MegaMan 1.