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Finally I'm going to ramble a bit about time and how one should spend their time before giving a brief review of the last 2 games on my list.

One thing that has struck me during both the 2009 and 2010 staycations is just how truely long these video games are. Its almost discouraging to think that I spent 5 whole days playing about 6 different games and I didn't 'finish' any of them. If you start to break this out it gets even worse. Each day, I played games between 9-10 hours. Over 5 days this is 45 hours. During the rest of the year I probably will play games a little less than that over 3 months. So I was able to make about 3 months worth of headway into these games in 5 days. If (big if) I got halfway through all 6, that means that I need to be playing only these games over the next 3 months to 'finish' them. Thats pretty staggering in my opinion. I mean how is a person with a job expected to get through these games? The games industry acts like we need to be playing a new release every 2 weeks, I mean how do people do it? Even if I had no job, It would still take tons of time to keep pace with the exhausting release schedule of only the games I actually want to play . . .

In my mind this whole discussion begs the question "What else could I be doing with that 45 hours." I usually come up with a few good ideas, but in the end I decide that I like playing games and that I should spend time doing what I like. Sure, I'd like for the house to be tidier and the cars to be washed, but I also want to sit on the couch for 2 hours and play games.

When it comes to my free time, I think I've gotten to a point where I can easily say "NO" to the sense of duty inside me that constantly insists I should be doing chores or work or learning something. I believe that most of the time that voice is wrong and doing what it tells me will probably make me unhappy. Free time is free, and we live in an era with more of it than at any other point in human history. We also probably do more work for people other than our own families than at any other point in human history. I'd say that makes us a bit more selfish about our free time than our ancestors. At least thats how I feel about it, and right now I'm choosing to play games with my time.

Now on to the rest of my list:
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - I played this on the 360. The Wii version of the game actually gets slightly higher ratings and the 360 version feels like its been squeezed down a bit to accomodate the Wii's less powerful hardware. The cinematics are abrubtly stopped at points, there are long load times to get through the menus, and the controls seem a bit simplified. BTW the menus thing doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize that you keep having to check them to see what moves you can do with your lightsabler "Do I push x+y or x+b?" You have to wait like 7-10 seconds EVERY TIME you enter the menu to check this and because you are constantly unlocking new moves you have to check A LOT. These are just little knocks against the game however, but they do tend to reduce my enjoyment of it overall. I'd say my biggest complaint about this game is the way they implemented the "Force Throw" power. Again this doesn't seem like a big deal, but I want to be able to effortlessly throw rocks at jawas and instead I can't seem to pick up the one that I want, and when I do it goes off in some wierd direction where I didn't intend to throw it. To make matters worse, Its almost like the game encourages you to use this power and then laughs at you as you miss your target like 80% of the time. GAME - "Haha, you'll never get that rock back cause its off the screen. Also, it was the only thing big enough to take out the AT-AT. . . . . Haha!" Its only after you clear those obstacles that you get to enjoy this game. I gradually developed a style of play that minimized the loading and the force throw, and I was able to get into a really well done and engaging Star Wars story. It takes place between Ep3 and Ep4 and tells the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice. They used motion capture on the actors' faces and it ends up looking really good. (The lead is played by Crashdown from BSG). This might have been the "worst" game I played on the staycation, but it is still a good one. It actually made me want to go back and play the Ep3 game for PS2 because I was a big fan of that one.

Dead Space - This game borrows from a lot of current gen titles and it does it very well. I don't remember the last time that I played a game that was this effortlessly fun. It doesn't really shock you with innovation or surprise you with new styles of gameplay, but everything it does seems so easy to interact with that you don't end up minding at all. The best way I can describe this game is if Bioshock and Resident Evil 4 had a baby in space it would be Dead Space. 3rd person action with spooky space aliens and an interactive mystery story that you uncover as you explore the abandoned SS Ishimura. Its great! One thing to note about this title is that it seems just as long as any other action/adventure game, but the pacing of the game seems really geared toward an adult with a job. You can finish one of the game's chapters in about 60-90 minutes. Thats perfect for someone who just put the kids to bed and wants to play something great in a short period of time. Or someone like me who is probably going to fall asleep at 11:30 whether he likes it or not and can't get into something that takes 79 hours.