Well, it’s great to be back, and thanks to everyone for the cards and gifts and generally supportive emails (note to TYGRR: not THIS time, bro). Yes, the operation went well…they may call it “minor surgery,” but when you see the size of the frickin’ knife and they’re telling you to count backwards from 10…well, it doesn’t seem so minor then, does it? So, except for the tingling and the rash, things are pretty good. Oh, and apologies to the Make a Wish Foundation…I guess you didn’t get the email, and I’m sorry you flew Adrian Grenier all the way out here for nothing. He did seem pretty pissed off.

Anyway. This being one of the driest summers on record for major PC titles (Titan Quest? City Life? CivCity:Dubuque?) I turned to the PC’s bellicose little half-sibling, the xBox 360, where a plethora of high-profile games have been released, many in the past month. (Also, Jeff “suggested” I address these games, and his knees-in-the-ribs manner can be very persuasive) While it’s generally true that I think console gaming is to PC gaming as tofu is to turkey (turkey, in this case, chosen for its alliterative value more than its desireability as a meat)–i.e., a pale, oddly textured imitation–it is also true that, in the words of Paul Simon, I “took some comfort there.” With the console games, I mean.

DEAD RISING (Capcom) is the much anticipated zombie-killing-in-a-mall game that states in no less than four places that it has no relationship whatsoever to George Romero’s classic zombie-killing-in-a-mall movie “Dawn of the Dead.” Other than the fact that it involves zombie-killing. In a mall. This no-doubt unintentional syncronicity aside, DEAD RISING is an enjoyable game, with interesting characters, a wonderfully rendered environment that has been lovingly crafted to make zombie killing an endlessly inventive exercise, a well-managed main quest/storyline and a number of somewhat repetetive side-missions. It controls well, the sound effects are juicy, and the main characters are subtly and realistically expressive in cutscenes. Of course, the elephant in the room, the big stinking mess that you have to pretend not to notice, the big weepy zit in the middle of the forehead is the single-slot save system. It doesn’t ruin the game but it does create a huge element of frustration. In summary, it’s a good game but don’t expect it to resemble “Dawn of the Dead.” It doesn’t. (Also, I’ve been teaching high school for over 25 years…a horde of slack-jawed, lurching, brain-dead zombies? Welcome to my world.)

Note for those readers “into” classification: the zombies in DEAD RISING most closely resemble those of the original Romero films in temperament and conformation, rather than being the edgier, post-modern zombies of LAND OF THE DEAD, or the ironic zombies of SHAUN OF THE DEAD or STUBBS THE ZOMBIE, or the fast moving, greyhound-like zombies of 28 DAYS LATER.

SAINTS ROW (Volition/THQ) is another game that pretends it’s nothing like its progenitor, in this case Rockstar’s GRAND THEFT AUTO series. Punctuation quibbles aside (ok, is it POSSESSIVE? PLURAL? Goddamn…get a copy of Strunk and White), SAINTS ROW looks and acts much like GTA, with a few welcome refinements to the interface and mission system. While I appreciated the wealth of material in the GTA games (San Andreas, in particular) and the excellence of the writing, voice work, and music, I never played very far into the games. I thought the graphics were kinda fugly, and the absurd anything-goes physics of the driving game and general lawlessness of the environment took me out of the story bigtime. I gotta say, I’m liking SAINTS ROW (SAINT’S ROW? SAINTS’ ROW???) much more…main thing is, when you create your own avatar/character, you tend to care a little more about the dude than when you play a pre-made hero. Graphics are not purely next-gen (more like, the gen if your older parents had a “surprise baby” late in life), but explosions are pretty and impressive. Admittedly I’m only a few hours into what is–like GTA–a long and rich storyline, but I may actually see this one through.