Recently I purchased my very own Xbox 360 along with six games. Mass Effect, BioShock, Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, and Rock Band. It wasn't cheap, but it was totally worth it. I also picked up a rental of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements as I had never played the game for the computer and it's a fairly new game for the Xbox 360.

So, I've had my 360 and six games, or seven if you count the five day rental game, for less than 24 hours. So far I've only played about three hours of Mass Effect and about an hour and a half of Elements. At the moment I am enjoying both games very much and I plan to discuss more of Elements shortly for those who haven't played it yet. I'm just going to assume everyone has had a chance to play Mass Effect.

Before I going dive into the wonders that is Elements I would like to briefly discuss a MMORPG that I am greatly looking forward too, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures developed by Funcom. AOC is set to be released May 20 for the PC and later this year for the 360. The story, for those who aren't up-to-date with the game, will take place a year after the events of Robert E. Howard's, The Hour of the Dragon.

One of the features I am looking forward to is the Real Combat system. Instead of the traditonal "turn-based" combat, player must choose to attack one of three areas of a monster where a weapon of their choice. Then, to perform a technique, players must string together various attacks. Finally! A MMORPG that takes more skill than pressing your hotkeys the fastest! Along with mounted combat using the same Real Combat system, this most be one of my most anticipated MMORPGs of... Well, forever.

The combat is truly amazing but other features such as the creation of player cities sounds quite fun too. Player cities allow player-owned taverns and markets and a whole new battleground. Yes, players will even be able to participate in city sieges. Can you imagine how much fun city sieges will be with the Real Combat system? Don't screw it up Funcom.

So, I've been playing a good bit of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements just this day, along with of course Mass Effect. Elements is a truly amazing experience that all fans of the action genres and possibly RPG genre should not miss out. Elements is more or less a repetitive beat 'em up game with experience, level ups, spells, and fantasy creatures. The story isn't anything to brag about, but it fit perfectly with the sort of game it is.

I've only played a pathetic hour or so, but so far the action has been practically non stop with occasional cutscenes to progress the story forward. The game includes the use of the environment to kill your enemies such as kicking a guy off a cliff or into a wall of spikes, destroying support beams so that it collapses a structure and comes crashing to the ground to kill your enemy, and a whole bunch of other things.

The game looks beautiful. Well, it is beautiful because it's created using the Source engine. It's the small things that really bring the game to life like the wildlife and other various features the environment has to offer or even the way enemies wander dazed and confused after taking a beating. The same goes for the sound which in my opinion is wonderfully done. It feels great to hear the shriek of an enemy after the final blow which graphically look pretty darn cool.

So, upon the creation of a new game you get to select one of four classes to play as. The sturdy warrior, the quick archer, the intelligent mage, or the sinister assassin. That's about it for character customization. You the player control Sareth, the sudent of a wizard named Phenrig. During the course of the prologue which is basically a tutorial, you retrieve the Shantiri Crystal and then are instructed by Phenrig to take it to the wizard Lord Menelag who resides in his manor in Stonehelm. I wont go on as I don't wish to spoil any of the good stuff.

As I will all ways say when it comes down to recommending a game, in this case Elements, rent it. If you like it, buy it, if you don't, you only wasted $7.00. Personally though, I'm having a blast.

In other news for those who haven't heard, Marvel Universe Online, developed by Cryptic Studios, was offically canceled last week by Microsoft's Shane Kim. I am a big fan of the Marvel universe and all things X-Men and Spiderman so this news was quite devestating. Yes, the news was definitely quite shocking and didn't really help start the week off. That's life I guess... Painful and full of terrible surprises.

EA has finally, finally, finally announced the offical release date of Spore. In fact, it's not too far off from now, only... what? Six months and some days? Not too bad... Oh, who am I kidding! All of these delays have better pay off or I'm going to be angry... Really angry.

That's it for this week! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I'm actually quite new to blogging so I really, really appreciate constructive criticism. Next week I'll try to get my hands on Lost Odyssey for sure, go over the joys of being a 360 owner, and more news.