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Wow, I glanced underneath my A/V Console at this pile of sheer Consumer Spending that has accumulated like driftwood from the Fall Game Flood and thought to myself, you know, that's somewhat disgusting. Some dude working the line at GM just lost his job and his family is probably going to dwell in the depths of poverty for years to come, but here I sit, fat and happy, buying my little plastic $60 discs. But then I remember, wait, that is the reason I buy $60 plastic discs is so I can forget about the world outside, the dude at GM who just lost his job, and live in my ever increasing plastic Happy Bubble.

I picked up Mirror's Edge this Wednesday from a nearly vacant Best Buy. It's good -- Mirror's Edge, I mean; the Best Buy, not so much -- and I'll have some longer thoughts on Mirror's Edge by the weekend. Short-hand: DICE did good and the Enthusiast Critics (outside of 1Up's Nick Sutner) are moaning a bit too loudly over the flaws.

Last weekend I plowed through the Homoerotic Adventures of Marcus and Dom in "Gears of War 2", and now that the matchmaking is sort of working now the multiplayer is going into my weekly rotation of online entertainment. Soon to be followed by "Left 4 Dead". I played the demo a bit, and, yes, this is exactly how I envisioned my own Zombie Apocalypse fantasy playing out... Over and Over and Over again. I fear for the Xbox 360 version of this game. Too many people in the demo ... just don't seem to "Get It". I have this theory (which I will be expounding upon later) that with Halo Bungie and Microsoft have effectively retarded a generation of console gamers to the greater possibilities of online play.

And then there is "Little Big Planet" ... Sitting there, mocking me. "Little Big Planet" feels like the out of place Educational Toy a distant relative in a obscure section of the Northwest U.S. of A sent you for Christmas. I'm not entirely sure what I am supposed to do with it. No matter what I do do with it I'm not all that amused or entertained, but I know it's a game, so therefore there must be fun in there somewhere. Right?

Gears of War 2 Multiplayer: Screwed or Extra Screwed?

So far I haven't seen much made of this on other gaming sites or blogs, but the multiplayer in Gears of War 2 seems ... well, screwed up, and screwed up bad enough to not even be playable.

Epic's Official Gears of War 2 forum is flooded with complaints about Gears of War 2's matchmaking system. The big one being that its slow verging on unusable -- with people waiting in the in-game lobby for up to an hour searching for players. Personally speaking I've waited as long as thirty minutes for a multiplayer game since launch on Friday. The shortest wait I've experienced is 5 minutes between games.

Along with bigger and more bad-ass, Cliffy B. can now add "broken" to the list of things Gears of War 2 is going to be. Hopefully Epic will sort out the problem soon, or at least patch in some snappy hold music.

UPDATE: Yes, Virginia, Epic admits Houston has a problem.