MGS4

I was the third out of four foolish/lucky people who stayed at Wal-Mart all night long on June 11 (until 12:01 a.m. on June 12) and got/bought the limited-issuance 80GB Sony Playstation 3 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots bundle with the $100 Wal-Mart gift card (the real incentive).

I bought the PS3 primarily to play Blu-Ray discs, and also because our DVD player was, after 6 years, starting to have occasional problems reading some DVDs. The PS3 has the latest Blu-Ray Profile (2.0, a rarity among current Blu-Ray players), with regular firmware updates/enhancements, and it receives high marks for how well it upscales regular DVDs. Thanks to Netflix we've been able to enjoy Blu-Ray's visible superiority to standard DVDs.

I've been playing MGS4 off and on, and am somewhere about halfway through it, I think - or maybe I've just barely begun! I'm in South America; last night I killed the Laughing Octopus and rescued Naomi, and tonight I met up with Raiden, who killed a bunch of gecko mechanical robots for me. I'm basically running and blasting my way through the game in the direction of the target on each level/mission, without really experimenting with all the weapons and items or exploring all the trails and ways one could go. It's a very complex game, and potentially quite addictive. ;-)