The last month of the year I really turned up the heat to try and catch up on the last few games I wanted to. The month began with finally beating Alan Wake which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I still want to play through it again, get all the collectibles and play through the DLC. Definitely a very trippy and dark game and it had me jump a few times when the game uses the darkness and sense of feeling alone well, especially when you're in the forested areas. One thing that can be annoying or kind of funny is all the product placement around the game and how random it can be but I suppose if you think about it, advertising is everywhere in real life. Go pick it up and play it if you haven't already!

While playing Alan Wake I was switching back and forth from my Xbox to my Wii and playing Goldeneye 007. It's a great game that reinvents Goldeneye that we all grew up to love on the N64. I definitely recommend playing with a c.lassic controller or the Gamecube controller because pointing at the screen to play is near impossible. The controls for the controller play is great and the ability to use stealth take downs let any Bond fan be more stealthy than guns blazing at all times. I don't know what to think about the singleplayer in the sense of the story because I thought it would follow the movie a little more like the N64 version. It follows it well in some areas but in others there's a couple differences that may make you double take, think back to the movie and say, "I don't remember that..." but if you look at it as a whole new game and not trying to be a remake it's an enjoyable game. Of course the multiplayer doesn't disappoint either. The ability to play split screen with your friends or online with a level up system definitely makes it a very enjoyable experience with high replay value.

Thanks to the Gamestop holiday, "buy two get one free" deal I got Gears of War 1 and 2 since I never got around to them andResident Evil 5. I was able to beat Gears 1 and 2 pretty quickly playing cooperatively with a friend and now I'm ready for 3 finally. At the end of the year my last rental was Call of Duty Black Ops. I started off playing more multiplayer than singleplayer and I really like the changes that were made that I think vastly improve the experience over Modern Warfare 2. The singleplayer was pretty interesting as well and had a good twist at the end that really threw me off, I was pretty impressed.

So now that I think I've played through a lot of games that I wanted I can go back and replay some games and DLCs like Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption and even get back to some Borderlands with the claptrap DLC. Good year for gaming!