First Impressions

Super Mario Galaxy 2 and The Passage are two things that were recently released with unbelievable unanimous positive praise.  I picked up both about a month ago, but have unfortunately been way too busy to really put a dent in either of them.  However, I figured I'd post early reviews while it would still be relevant, mostly because I feel very early on that both items live up to the hype.

I'm on the third world in Galaxy 2, and I can say that it is already much better than it's predecessor (which I loved and thought had the most imaginative use of 3-D in any video game I've played).  The game play is a bit smoother.  The power-ups are cooler.  It's more challenging.  The objectives are clearer.  All in all, its a lot like the original, but with improvements where you didn't realize that they were necessary.

I'm only a little over 100 pages into Justin Cronin's The Passage, and early on, I'm really liking this book.  I was sucked in right from the first chapter.  The characters are great, and the story (which is still being set-up at this point) is really interesting.

Really, both are way better than my progress suggests.  I might get up actual reviews when I'm done.  As of right now, I give strong approval.