A month of news

Well kind of - it is hard to keep track of all the things you get up to over the course of a whole month, especially one as hectic as December. Still there was a good bit of gaming done and plenty more reviews added up so it wasn't all bad.

The annual cash drain that was Christmas came and went, it doesn't help that I also have to contend with both of my parents and my sister having a birthday in the festive month - thanks for that (ya bastards). But I did manage to get people some fun stuff and I always seem to enjoy buying people things rather than receiving stuff. Though presents are always welcome, ha ha!

I did manage to acquire ten games from various people though, before you all assume my family is amazingly wealthy, I would like to point out that they are all either older games or ones that I saw for a ridiculously cheap price. The majority were under a tenner, and one or two even went as high as £15 - shock, horror.

Amongst that bunch were things like Star Ocean, Tales of Vesperia and Naruto - games I actually want to play - plus tat like Inferna and Kameo which I'll play when I can be bothered.

I also got GRAW again, as at some point I MAY attempt to clean up my evil odd number issue. To do so I will need to host 1,000 matches and get 10,000 kills on GRAW, netting me 48 points. I would then need one of the easier 15 point achievements to get me to a nice round 800 in that game. Yay! My only issue is that I need to avoid getting 500 headshots in the process, fun times indeed. Whether I actually bother doing that or not is another matter.

Over the festive period I did get some gaming in too, mainly on tat due to the fact I got sent a lot of rubbish from Lovefilm one after the other. I also reviewed a fair few games too so that helped matters.

First of all I completed Dragon Age Origins which I absolutely loved from start to finish, it was very much in the vein of Baldurs Gate (more classic Bioware) which I absolutely adored on the PC. It was a superb RPG with a top notch story and plenty of random little touches that brought a smile to my face. Good times.

Next up was Tropico 3, a strategy/God simulator that was an absolute blast. While my final score may seem harsh to some - the game does have a few niggles that hold it back from greatness. Namely a very glitchy save system (unforgivable considering the hours you can put into a level) and the fact you can approach every single mission in the exact same way. Still it hooked me for a good couple of weeks and I would heartily recommend it.

After that I was lulled into playing some tat - in the form of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs closely followed by Up. Both of these games are pretty bog standard kids games, which thankfully only last a few hours so do not really have the chance to outstay their welcome. A couple of thousand easy points I guess but not much to write home about. On that topic - it seems odd to me that some people get totally slated for playing such games. I mean what difference does it make to anyone else? Sure I may not have played them before achievements came along but I have actually found some gems in there - I love the LEGO games and actually buy each one so I can play them co-op with my better half. I also enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, Viva Pinata, Beautiful Katamari and any number of gamers that so called 'serious' gamers look down upon. But anyway.........

CSI: Deadly Intent was a horror show. How such a shoddy piece of programming can be called a game in the first place is beyond me. Just having to click around the screen and engage in drab conversations does not make a game. At least classic point and click games like Monkey Island actually make you think and are chock full of amazing dialogue - this game had none of that and was just a drawn out bore fest that should soon be forgotten (please Lord....).

On the flipside was a nice surprise in Sherlock Holmes. I thought this would fall down the same route as CSI but the story was actually top notch and the puzzles wonderfully varied. Sure the graphics are butt ugly and some of the voices comically amusing, but as a slice of Holmes style storytelling it was perfect. Though my attempts to play it were not helped by my order being lost resulting in me having to reorder it. I will name no names.

I also completed Lego Indy 2 and Where the Wild Things Are, one of which was plenty of fun and the other one was immensely pants. Indy was obviously the former in case you cannot work it out, ha ha!

Despite this apparent glut of gaming (some of which actually happened in November) I did not actually play that much over Christmas, due to being out and about seeing family most days. So it was a kind of chilled out approach to playing games as and when I found time. Which makes a pleasant change.

Since then I have started, foolishly, playing Gears of War online with some friends. At the moment I have suceeded in knocking off all of the online achievemnts barring the obvious one - along with all the annex crap too. I really want to finish that bad boy off as it would mean I have a nice string of tough shooters done with (if you include Army of Two, Rainbow Six Vegas, and COD 3). No plans to tackle the sequel before you ask. Screw that noise.

I also plan on playing the first Assassins Creed game soon and then moving onto the sequel. Plus a bit of Mass Effect as well. All in a bid to clear out some old games. A recent head count of my collection puts me at 128 titles owned, which is ridiculous really. So I aim to do something about it and hopefully complete and trade at least 50 of those bad boys by the end of the year. Can I do it? Doubtful, but at least it will give me something to aim at.

I plan on chucking up a list soon - along with relevant times for completions. Bring on the noise.

Well I trust that everyone had a grand old Xmas and a fun New Year. Looks like being a good one for games.