Perhaps still a little sore however.
1 Aug 05

I think I'm back to normal now. My stomach is still a touch delicate, but otherwise my strength has returned. It's been a long time since I've gotten that much sleep (certainly it was before David was born). I have to thank my wife. She was feeling better by the time I crashed hard. I'm beginning to appreciate what a great kid David is. With all the chaos going on around, he didn't seem bothered by it at all. Maybe he remembers a little of his time at the hospital.

I tried to find out what I missed, but it didn't seem to be much. Drop me a line if I missed anything important. I put some news up in the news section. I must admit that I like the title Bang! Howdy much better than Puzzle Pirates. I should also point out that the Designer Diary isn't an exclusive, but it's still neat to be one of the sites they sent it to. If anyone wants to beat me up in Dawn of War to get ready for the expansion, let me know. I'm sure I'm pretty rusty, but that's ok. I'm not a sore loser.

Let's see. I'm also trying to finish up SWAT 4, Nexus and Darwinia. The problem is I got hooked on Disgaea again while anticipating Makai Kingdom. That game is just wacky fun. There are so many neat ideas in there. You can power up any item by fighting your way through its item world. If you conquer certain residents there, then they work for you. You can power them up as well. You can move residents between item to give the bonuses you want to the item you want. Then there's the whole Dark Senate where you can accomplish your goals through influence, bribery or force. All this wrapped around a sweet, strategy RPG battle system.

Since Disgaea's already been a game of the week, we'll thank Relic and THQ for supporting the site. This week's game is the Winter Assault expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (official site) from Relic Entertainment. Winter Assault gives you more visceral action and strategy. The core of the game remains the same while adding new units to each side, a new faction (the Imperial Guard), and a couple of single player campaigns (rumored to be one good and one evil). The Imperial Guard is made up of common soldiers on an uncommon battlefield. They tend to be more defensive requiring mass to win battles. The Guard also sport a good deal of tanks to level the playing field with the creatures of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Winter Assault will be out this fall.

Jason