come ye masters of war

The Gears of War hype is kicking into full swing. I'd say the decision the release the best game for the Xbox 360 around the same time as the Wii and PS3 was a pretty smart decision. GoW is going to be the Halo of the 360, at least until Halo 3 comes out. It's the first game released for the 360 that makes me want to own it. Madden 2007 seems to have been the only big draw to the 360 until now, and my boycott of that game and most things Electronic Arts isn't going away, no matter how pretty you make the field turf look.

Company of Heroes, a real-time strategy game centered around the Allied invasion of France in World War II, is one of the top computer games I've played this year. I used to love RTS games like Starcraft, Red Alert, and Total Annihilation but over the past few years there have been few games in the genre that piqued my interest. The WWII setting has been beaten to death in first-person shooter games but is less cliched in RTS games. CoH combines the right amount of RTS-style action with tactical and strategy elements from typically more realistic turn-based WWII games. Take all the historically accurate units and thrown in a great physics engine with fully-destructable environments, and the game delivers gritty combat straight out of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. The single player campaign comprises 15 extremely challenging missions and also allows skirmishes against the computer for extended play. Multiplayer consists of skirmishes either against human opponents or team games against the computer AI. Doug and I have had a couple good battles teamed up against the computer.

Heading up to Cleveland tomorrow to catch Alice in Chains with Dougie and Justin. Throw in Navs Fall Conference this weekend, and it's going to be a good weekend.