In between writing two reviews for Machinima.com, I drove down to Irvine, CA to test out a pair of games from Square Enix, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dungeon Siege III. This two day-event marked my third time seeing the highly anticipated Deus Ex game in action — I saw it in Montreal last fall and debut at E3 2010 that summer — but my first chance to go hands-on with the gameplay. Besides a few Xbox 360 debut unit issues (video game industry vets will instantly recognize this common reset screen), this preview build offered a distinct sense of choice and a strong sci-fi narrative.

Dungeon Siege III, on the other hand, didn’t strike me as anything special. I did, however, appreciate taking a tour of developer Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas. They’re a pretty big name in this area, second only to nearby World of Warcraft-developer Blizzard Entertainment.

I could retire from my hotel room after demo sessions, but I couldn’t stop playing games altogether. I’m also reviewing Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll for Machinima.com, which requires at least 40 hours of dull gameplay! I brought my PS3 console, a controller and the game with me in the car (and a monitor just in case the TV wasn’t HD in the hotel room–it was) just to stay on top of deadlines. Weird looks from the hotel staff on my multiple trips back-and-forth from the car with so much technology? You bet.

I drove to Hollywood this week to review a game for the YouTube’s leading video game trailers channel, Machinima.com. They had an Xbox 360 debug unit set up at their offices so that I could start playing this game ahead of its release. However, I finished the game in its entirety on PS3 at home this week, as it required more than one sitting to complete and it was out the very next day. Oh well, the tricks I learned on the Xbox 360 debug version let me breeze through the first half on PS3. Plus, there was no use commuting for a second day when the game download was an Internet click away. My review turned out great and is available on Machinima’s site right here.

On the way back from visiting the Machinima offices, I took a photo of the Hollywood sign in my car’s side mirror. As an east coast native, it’s not every day that I see something like this in my car’s mirror.