I find myself going through cycles with my Xbox 360: when I got Halo 3, I played it every morning for an hour or two until a few weeks later, I had beaten the game (and I still get trashed in online play - go figure). Then I didn’t touch my Xbox for a while, until firing up Mass Effect not too long ago. But just as I was starting to get into Mass Effect, I downloaded, played, and immediately purchased an incredibly fun Xbox Live arcade game: Arkadian Warriors.

The game is immensely fun to play, reminding me a bit of a cross between a Zelda Game and Diablo. It’s fast to get up and running with, easy to learn, and doesn’t bore you with complexities. The RPG element is very “light”, with three choices for characters, and fixed skills that unlock at certain levels. It’s great for local co-op play, with two players sharing the screen at the same time (we need more games like that), and I imagine it’s equally fun over Xbox Live co-op play. Definitely one of the best 800 point purchases I’ve ever made on Xbox Live! <does the Google> Ah, I see that the developer of this game is the same company (Wanako Games) that created my other favourite Xbox Live Arcade game, Assault Heroes. No wonder I like it so much.

I rarely talk about anything as mundane as the weather on this blog, but it’s so cold right now in Calgary I thought it was worth mentioning. Almost everyone in the city is trying to figure out how they can avoid leaving their house! The screen shot to the left there shows the current temperature at 6:00 am: -31 degrees Celsius for my American readers is -23.8 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s supposed to go down to -37 degrees Celsius today, which is -34.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s not the worse of it: when you factor in the wind chill from the 18 km/h wind, it’s effectively -45 degrees Celsius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit). I don’t tend to mind cooler weather, but this is just ridiculous…we’re even colder than Winnipeg (affectionately called Winterpig by some) today! At least it’s a dry cold.