Haunted house of cards

So last week after playing some "Halo Wars", I decided to finally start playing "Grand Theft Auto 4".  I had bought the game a few weeks ago, a few days before jumping feet first into the"Halo" universe.  I really enjoyed "Grand Theft Auto 3" on the PS2, and had heard and read a lot about "GTA 4", and everything pointed to this being another great addition to the "GTA" universe.  After playing it for a few days, and enjoying it, I decided to download demos of two games that some friends of mine turned me on to. 

The first game I tried was called "Carcassone".  It's a strategy game based on an old board game.  My friend Leo told me about this game, and the demo was fun.  It took me a couple tries to get the hang of the game, and unfortunately the demo was kind of limited.  At some point I think I'm gonna have to buy it.  The other game I tried out, eventually downloaded, and bought the full version of, and have been playing virtually all this week is "Magic: the Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers".  Before I talk about the game, I feel I should give a little background info.  I used to play the card game a lot.  There used to be a HobbyTown USA store in my area, and me and a bunch of friends of mine used to go and play every week for a few hours, and many times would even go to each others houses to play.  In fact, my friend Brian is the one who told me about this game, and he was pretty much the one who taught me how to be a better M:tG player.

So fast forward to me and my 360.  This game is a lot of fun, and they did a really good job recreating the card playing experience.  They even gave you access to a few really good decks, along with unlocking more cards for each deck as you win matches against the AI player.  One thing about the AI players is that the ones later on in the single player game can pose a pretty decent challenge.  I was actually pretty impressed by this.  But there is one huge drawback to this game.  In the actual card game, decks are usually constructed using a total of 60 cards.  In the 360 game,  you are very limited to how you can construct a deck.  A lot of the matches I am playing with a deck totaling 70 cards or more.  Not only that, the only cards you can add or remove from a given deck, are the ones you unlock, even if some of the cards in the decks they give you kind of suck.  And the bad part about this, is that a lot of the cards you unlock are actually quite good, so you really don't want to play without them.  But other then that rather major drawback, I really enjoy this game so far, and not even close yet to unlocking all the cards for every available deck.

Earlier today, my wife and I went to see "Paranormal Activity".  I was very surprised that this movie came to my area, seeing as how I live in a smaller area.  When I first heard about this movie, and the strategy they were using to release it, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to wait for it to come on DVD.  But word of mouth for this movie was so strong that it pushed itself into a nationwide release.  This was a really good movie, filmed in much the same style as "Blair Witch Project", "Cloverfield" and "Quarrentine".  Very fitting that they release such a good ghost story the night before Halloween.  I highly recommend that if you want to have a few moments that make you jump, go see this movie.