I got a couple mission further in Giants, but it was still really just tutorial stuff about hatching and controlling Kabuto’s minions. Instead, I wound up playing on the PS3 for a while, since I had just remembered that a couple new games were coming out today: Wipeout HD, and Mega Man 9.

Mega Man 9 is actually coming out for nearly every platform under the sun, but the 360’s controller is just terrible for it, and I didn’t want to waste space on the Wii, so the PS3 it was for it. And damn, is it hard. It really is in the spirit of the original Mega Man games, which were also hard as nails. I tried three or four different stages, but couldn’t even beat or get to the mid-boss in any of them. It’ll take some practice, since the difficulty in these games comes from knowing what’s coming up (gotta keep to the side when falling at one point in Splash Woman’s stage or you’ll hit spikes on the next screen), watching enemy behaviours, and getting the timing right.

And Wipeout HD so far is…disappointing me. Not because of the game itself though, but just because the graphics really drive home that I need to upgrade my TV, as things are tiny and blurry and I know it would look so much better on a proper 1080p set. It’s also one that’s going to take a lot of practice; in the first couple events, I only placed 5th in the first and only got bronze in the second’s time trial. You really have to know the tracks well enough to know where the boost pads are and be in the right place to hit every one. This is the first time I’ve played this series too, so it’ll take some time to get used to the style, though I did play F-Zero GX a bit. Albeit poorly…