News on Halloween + Dragon Age II DLC

Hail to ye!

This month's edition of the Monster Mash has been quicker than I expected, so I will slow down a little before unleashing the main dish, which was not supposed to be out before Halloween week. In my last rant, I mentioned the Dragon Age II DLC Guide, and it is one step closer to completion as I now have, and have completed, all the DLC released for the game... thus far. We all know for certain there is at least one more DLC pack coming, most likely based on the character of Fenris and his vague past as a slave, so I think what I'm gonna do is write the DLC Guide on the go, in my own peace, and the moment the last (?) DLC pack arrives, I'll present the Guide to you.

"Aw, schitt. It's schtill not ovarr."

To answer a question by "michi89", thrown to me some days ago about the sudden appearance of the Predator reviews, as to why I did them since I never did anything related to Predator in the past: that's right, I didn't, but I reviewed two versions of Alien 3 back in January, and thought I'd review a few Predator games to bring the Alien franchise to a (temporary) conclusion with Alien vs Predator, just like I did when I reviewed the bulk of the RoboCop and Terminator franchises back to back. Speaking of the Terminator franchise, I missed one game, and a review of that game is coming soon(er than it should).

Some seem to have the misconception of loose ends in the Castlevania series being the Halloween special, but that's not the case at all. These people have asked me if those two games I did reviews of last week would be the last Castlevania reviews they should expect from me. The answer: I sincerely don't know. The Castlevania franchise is like a persistent tumor - it just keeps popping up and never goes away. I sincerely thought about stopping at Legacy of Darkness, since I thought I'd have no access to further games. Then it turns out my friend has Lament of Innocence - one of the worst games in the series which I would not be ready to replay right now, but would love to write about in the future. Then I logged into the PlayStation Network to do some further research. Up there we have the two Lords of Shadow add-ons, Castlevania Chronicles and Harmony of Despair, which I can never promise not to download. To push it just a little bit more, my friend has a DS as well as a Wii, which have Dawn of Sorrow (the direct sequel to the amazing Aria of Sorrow), Order of Ecclesia, Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania Judgment, and as a die-hard Castlevania fan, he just might force these games on me. It's hard to wrap up a franchise this big, especially when you've got a friend who is both a Castlevania fan and a serious video game collector.

Hacking through the first game of my Halloween sub-marathon begins tonight, and let me just say that if the first half of the month was filled with moderate to poor ratings, I think - no, I know - we're going to see games that go well over the fabled mark of nine towards the end of it. No, I'm not pickier and nastier with age - I've just happened to stumble on bad shit all month, that's all. Time to play and review something with "satisfaction guaranteed" written all over it for a change.

One last note: be sure to pick up Batman: Arkham City this weekend, I hear it rocks!