E3 was a great trip, but jeez did that plane ride suck! Sure, I met a cool girl on the way to LA from Cleveland and talking with her was a blast plus it helped to pass the time, but getting to Cleveland and my entire trip back was one long snooze fest (and there was no sleep involved anywhere). I had to watch Casanova so I wasn't bored out of my mind! The plan was to get a Nintendo DS before I left for E3, because I could've played it on the plane, but a little birdy in my ear kept telling me to hold off till the DS Lite, because otherwise I'd be regretting my purchase. So was the DS Lite worth a few boring waits on a plane?

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In a rare moment when I find myself with time to play games, I usually pick up my Nintendo DS and get a quick fix in with various games I have in my library. Included among them are Super Princess Peach, Brain Age, Animal Crossing: Wild World, and my newest acquisition, Trauma Center: Under the Knife.

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Five Minutes a Day! is the first stateside release of the Touch Generation brain training games Nintendo is pushing. This one is quite entertaining. The only criticism I have of it is that it really lives up to its name. I have no desire to sink more than 5 minutes a day into it. I play the few brain training games they have, that include doing simple mathematics, testing memory, and counting syllables. After that, I take the Brain Age test. I've gotten to the point where I pretty regularly score around 20, unless I try my hand at the voice recognition training games. It has a really hard time recognizing me saying blue, so my age really takes a hit as a result. Otherwise, it makes me feel smart. Interestingly enough, my son does really well at the color game. He's 3 1/2 and can't read yet. The game requires you to say the color of the word, not read the word. So, if the word is red but its color is blue, you say blue. He knows his colors very well -- so you can imagine he doesn't have to stress his brain much to do well at the one and he loves it. Brain Age is worth a pick-up, it is a bargain price of $20, so go get it.

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We put up our review of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the Xbox 360 today. Along with that review by Jason, I have some things I want to get off my chest about this super fun title.

First, I generally dislike shooters. I have played a lot of them and found very few of them that retained my interest for any length of time. I'm not one of those people who liked Halo. I also played some Ghost Recon on the Xbox and didn't care for it much. Rainbow Six 3 I enjoyed more. Chronicles of Riddick is my favorite stealth/shooter to date. I didn't expect to like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, but gave it a chance anyway. Am I glad I did! I am really enjoying this game on so many levels.

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It's official. My thumb and hand are suffering from playing far to many turn based fighting games. Now I have switched to playing Kingdom Hearts 2 and my thumb can't hack it. I am simultaneously thanking and cursing the game. Thanking it for the ability to hit continue after you die rather than start way back from the save point, and cursing it cause my thumb can't move fast enough to keep up with some of the tougher enemies. For example, the little heartless guys that look like ants, no problem. Big guy in the Ballroom of Beast's Castle, AHHHH.

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Journey with me for a spell as we investigate the world of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and give you some early first impressions of the initial opening hours before our complete review of the game next week.

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