Recently I bought the nifty little arcade title, From Dust. A god-game come puzzle title, Ubisoft and Eric Chahi have produced a finely crafted and enjoyable game that has you lead a group of nomadic peoples through different scenarios by moving from different "totems", which allow you to construct both villages and utilise special abilities that prevent natural disasters (such as tsunamis and volcanic eruptions) from killing your otherwise helpless followers, until you reach the end of each level. Upon writing this blog I find myself about 2/3 of the way through the main campaign, and although there isn't much in the way of a storyline it seems like a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable 1200msp spent.

Other than my escapades in From Dust, I also recently acquired Dragon Age 2. I know it has come under considerable criticism from lovers of Origins, but I did really enjoy the demo and after just starting the campaign, I am enjoying it as much as I thought. I was never a huge fan of the original Dragon Age myself though, it seemed contrived in what was clearly a PC-oriented game. I found the radial menus and hotkeys a bit cumbersome - but it was enjoyable nontetheless. The combat in the second outing from BioWare seems a lot smoother, action-based and generally pleasing to watch. Here's hoping that the rest of the game can live up to the love I seem to be giving it.

Deus Ex is also on the horizon, both in terms of the actual release date and also on my "to buy" radar. I've watched a great many gameplay vids from both E3 and otherwise, and I can officially say that I am suitably impressed. I didn't really play either of the first two games (in fact I only ever got round to playing Invisible War about 3/4 months ago) but the choice between social, stealth and all-out warfare to meet your objectives seems like an interesting concept and one I would love to try out. Clearly if the game doesn't live up to the hype, it will be one of the biggest let downs of 2011.

The next couple of weeks are going to be really interesting for me, just got the new Xbox and finally a release date to Section 8: Prejudice (April 20th for anyone who didn't know on Xbox Live, May 4th PC and Summer for PSN). Although I'm not a massive shooter fan the original Section 8 was different - it has a distinct free feel about it; the deployables, the vehicles, the big maps, it was just something about that I loved and the downloadable sequel looks even better and at a lower price point. That to me seems like a no-brainer to buy.

My only concern is that other, easily argued bigger titles are releasing around the same (ala Mortal Kombat) and it comes less than a month after the release of Crysis 2 which I've also got to complete. The chance of a sizeable community growing for Prejudice may seem slim, it ended up being a big flaw for the longevity of the first Section 8, but the lower price should attract quite a few people (e.g. I've already persuaded a few friends with my high speech skill) - just hoping the review scores here on GS and other sites live up to what I am certainly expecting from them!

So tomorrow does arrive that Crysis 2. I'm sincerely hoping it lives up to the hype and from what I've been hearing from reviews it should be a blast to play both in campaign (albeit dodgy AI) and multiplayer. But what I'm looking most forward to though are the visuals - the jungles of the original looked awesome so an overgrown NYC sounds like the perfect setting for an exhilerating sci-fi first-person shooter to me!

With that I live in hope a sizeable community starts up for the multiplayer. There simply isn't anything worse than throwing in a game you love to play online... and well, there isn't anyone on. That's what dissapointed me about Singularity. The campaign started slow, fair enough. But toward the end it became a surprisingly enjoyable experience and I was more than tempted to give the multiplayer a blast. I found one person. That's right, one. To contrast that you could go on, say, Cod 4 and still find a thriving community although there've been several releases since i.e. Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops etc.

Ah well. Be rate some would say.

It's fair to say that Dragon Age 2 has suffered a beating from PC players since it's release earlier in the week. Unfortunately, it's not hard to see why either. The PC has survived the test of time, with players managing to get their mittens on some of gaming's finest role playing titles of which DA2 developer BioWare has contributed to itself in no small sense.

So for all the promise, all the hype of Dragon Age 2, things didn't go to plan. Streamlined, or simplified as some would argue the game doesn't live up to its predecessor. That's a shame, but for the console world who more or less got a port of DA: Origins its certainly a comparative win. Better looking, faster, sharper and more action-based the game will appeal to a much larger audience away from the PC, but at the expense of the latter. More time would have done the game's development no harm, but the main cause is likely to be naivity on EA's (maybe even BioWare's) behalf. Simply looking at what made Mass Effect 2, a space opera, great over it's predecessor, taking that and slapping it onto (or slashing it away from in most cases) a fantasy RPG is simply a sign of a game being rushed. It doesn't do the IP justice, and certainly not players either.