I loaded my phone with a selection of games that I based primarily on the suggestions of reporter-friend's Patrick Klepek

Last Saturday, on a train from New York to Philadelphia to go see this (yes, that), I decided I'd try a bunch of iPhone games.I loaded my phone with a selection of games that I based primarily on the suggestions of reporter-friend's Patrick Klepek and John replica Omega 1552.40 watch Davison as well as from Davison's superb list of top iPhone games.(Looks like he just did another!) I feel like it'd be old hat to ask for suggestions or to run through everything I tried in a standalone post.

But if you're interested, I sampled: Drop 7 (fun), Fieldrunners (too easy), Flight Control (fun but blocked by my fingers), Galcon (fun, but I prefer similar PC game Dyson — try it!), geoDefense Lite (didn't grab me), Trixel (good, but not my thing), Crystal Defenders Vanguard Storm (surprisingly cool), and Zenonia (ruined by its need for a replica Omega 300m 2265.80 watch virtual d-pad).Still need to try a bunch of others.I was excited to try what I understood to be the best games of an existing platform.I haven't had the opportunity to be late to a platform since I got a PS2 in early 2002.How this will affect what I cover, I cannot say.

And that's enough notebook-dumping for the week.Next week should be fun.

But right now the weekend beckons.As does the Final Fantasy WiiWare tower defense game, My Life As A Darklord, that I was supposed to review for today.I'm late.Don't tell anyone!(I snapped the photo for this post in the elevator of the building replica Omega 2910.50.81 watch where Sony was having their NYC event.)Adventuring within the guts of Mario and Luigi's arch nemesis Bowser may not be what you were expecting of the newest Mario & Luigi RPG, but Bowser's Inside Story has the intestinal fortitude to go there.

the demo covered the same content from the Xbox 360 presentation I received of the game a couple of weeks ago

And I skipped Brutal Legend on PlayStation 3, because the demo covered the same content from the Xbox 360 presentation I received of the game a couple of weeks ago.At Ubi I skipped their DS games, including Cop: The Recruit.Just didn't have the time or the expectation that it'd be worth it.I always worry that I guess wrong, but I have to replica Omega 4870.52.01 watch guess nonetheless.Games I Can't Preview: There were even games that I did play at the aforementioned events that I won't be previewing.Sometimes, I just don't think I get enough info on them or have sufficient expertise in them to write an informative post.

All I could say about the new Ubisoft Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, for example, is that it can be mistaken for a Smash Bros.clone (some of its creators worked on that last Nintendo brawler), that the Ubi rep showing me the game said its combat is more complex than Smash and that both the Ubi rep and ex-Newsweek reporter N'Gai replica Omega 413.25.37.20.58.001 watch Croal beat me in the game.At the Sony event I had a good time fighting as God of War's Kratos against a computer-controlled Kratos on the new PSP version of Soul Calibur, but, again, I don't have much more to write about it.

The game, which is called Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, had the best graphics I've seen on the PSP, but it also only had to render two characters on the machine's screen.These observations do not a post make.There are other games I tried that I won't be covering, but some of them don't even make this Notebook Dump.(There are also games I played that I'm saving my coverage of until next week.I'll let you be surprised as to which those are.)Late To replica Omega 321.10.42.50.02.001 watch The iPhone: The other thing I didn't address in my posts this week — because I didn't know how to write something fresh about it — was the beginning of my experimentation with iPhone gaming.

This makes you suspect nearly every non-playable character you meet (though there aren't very many of them) and at one point something so terrible was

This makes you suspect nearly every non-playable character you meet (though there aren't very many of them) and at one point something so terrible was revealed that I started to wonder if my character's brother was even worth saving.High Anxiety: Fans of the horror genre know that there are different kinds of scary.There's jump-out-at-you scary, replica Omega 3835.73.31 watch psychologically disturbing scary, sad-and-eerie scary and OMG-so-violent scary.Cursed Mountain relies on the first kind of scary at the beginning of the game, but eventually, it starts to incorporate a lot of the second.

By the third level, Cursed Mountain wasme downright anxious both with its setting (being alone on top of a mountain where the sky stretches out around you for miles) and with its plot (why did my brother do that?!).Final ThoughtsBased on the reaction I got to my first impressions of Cursed Mountain with respect to religion, I'll leave it to actual Buddhists to weigh in on how respectful the game is of Buddhism.The developer claims to have consulted replica Omega 4848.40.31 watch several Buddhist authorities during development and I certainly didn't see anything that raised any red flags.But I won't go so far as to say it was a deep and thoughtful portrayal of an ancient religion.

Cursed Mountain is a survival horror game, after all, not a step on the path to Enlightenment.There comes a time in the week to reflect on what got into my reporter's notebook but didn't turn into Kotaku blog posts.Shall we? Games I Didn't Touch: I saw the fall line-ups for a trio of publishers in New York this past week.Majesco, Sony and Ubisoft were showing more than 30 games between them.Maybe even 50.I didn't count.There replica Omega 2373.70 Ladie's watch were a lot.I'm still in the process of getting at least 10 posts out of them.When you go to these events, you size them up and decide what you think you can afford to skip.At Sony, for example, I skipped the new Buzz games in the interest of time.

I wouldn't call this game a waggle fest because the combat requires rigid motions to perform the Buddhist rituals

What Needs Improvement?Game Should Come With a Wrist Brace: I wouldn't call this game a waggle fest because the combat requires rigid motions to perform the Buddhist rituals that banish attacking ghosts.However, my wrist still hurt after one replica Omega 1513.30 watch particularly ghost-filled level.Part of it was probably due to the sheer number of ghosts that need banishing and part of it was from aiming at the ghosts while in the Bardo state.You go into Bardo by pressing C and have to point with the Wii Remote both to aim at ghosts and to turn Eric, since his feet are rooted to the spot while in Bardo.

Eric Can't Take Corners: Most of the game takes place in wide open, agoraphobia-inducing spaces; however some of the early levels force Eric to go through houses with far too many doorways and corners.I realize that mountaineering gear weighs the body replica Omega 1475.51 watch down, but even in a space suit, it shouldn't be that hard to move between rooms in a house – especially when there's a ghost after you.The Writing: I dig the plot, but the dialogue script and a lot of the text in documents you find throughout the game could use a Stephen King treatment.It's the least scary part of the game.

What Should Stay The Same?Creepy Music: The music in Cursed Mountain is subtle and eerie, just as it should be.The developer says the US-exclusive Steel Box version of the game will come with the soundtrack.You Don't Have To Use The Buddhist-kill: You can get rid of ghosts by melee-attacking them until they're weak and then finishing them off with one blast from your enchanted pickaxe in the Bardo state.No motion controls replica Omega 1398.75 watch necessary, except the aiming portion in Bardoplex Plot: The story in Cursed Mountain is not soas "there's the bad guy, go get him." Even if you can tell who's to blame for the mountain being cursed right from the beginning, you can't quite fathom all of the events that happened leading up to it.