Penny for your thoughts anyone?

http://bloggingsam.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/science-blog.html

Whilst everybody is bringing out their list of their top ten games of 2011, I don't even reckon I have played 10 games of 2011. Which was all down to my xbox breaking and me being only able to replace it last month. However I have managed to play a few games from 2011 including Gears of War 3, Skyrim, Rage, Bastion, Halo CE & I have Battlefield 3 on the way.

If I had to put them in any kind of order though It would most likely Skyrim, then GOW3, Halo, Bastion then Rage, something along them lines.

Hopefully next year will be a different story with me being able to play many many games without the breaking down of my xbox (touch wood).

Christmas is about finished around my house already and it will be officially over once I receive my Amazon parcel in the post. I say that because I received a £30 voucher for that particular shop so decided to spend it all in one day by purchasing The Social Network (great film) and a few books as well as Battlefield 3 after a lot of contemplating.

I was a bit sceptical about ordering Battlefield 3 since I wasn't really convinced about the single player even though I am a Xbox live gold member. I still love to play a good single player therefore I wanted a decent experience that just was not Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 3 was my second choice due to my love of shooters but after watching the videos of seeing the same online multiplayer again I decided against it, it annoyed me just watching the thing so I'm not what playing it would do. Anyway I puchased Battlefield mainly due to the great reviews about the online and a bit of change of pace in the single player even though I'm not really expecting anything large in terms of difference between B3 and MW3.

I'm also pondering over purchasing my first ever XBLA game so I've being downloading a few trials such as Splosion man, Bastion and Shadow Complex which seems like an odd collection of games but I've heard decent things about them. I'm not totally sure which to get yet but I'm edging towards Bastion because of that cool narractive voice and due to the game play style. Anyway, hope you all had a good christmas.

After watching the on stage demos and various interviews on quite a few games during this E3 convention. I just thought I would share my own thoughts on War in the North, Halo combat evolved and Modern warfare 3.

To start off, after watching the Lord of the Rings War in the North stage demo I've got to say that I was a little disappointed. I was pretty excited for it as it did look like a game that would be a bit different from other Lord of the rings titles, yet after watching the demonstration it really did remind me of Third Age just without the tactical pokemon style battles every 5 minutes. The idea of finding loot and other items was present in the Lord of the Rings Third Age game that came out on the original Xbox, so there doesn't seem anything new there. It also seemed the game was more centered around multi-player game play instead of single player, which is understandable yet there was nothing said at all about the single player campaign throughout the demo. I'm guessing it will just be the same as what was shown but with companions being AI based, which hopefully won't mean them running around like headless chickens. I did quite like the idea of an action role playing Lord of the rings game, yet after watching that I don't think I will be in any rush to purchase the game which is a shame really because I was looking forward to playing it.

Now onto the recently announced Halo Combat evolved game, I wasn't really that bothered about this game when all the rumours were flying around for the game. However I seemed to have changed my stance on the game, being a lover of all the Halo games (apart from Halo wars) I will probably go out and buy this game even if it does look a bit like Halo Reach but with the combat evolved campaign instead. It does look impressive compared back to the original game but that is expected of course, the multi-player won't make any difference to me until I renew my live membership however there is no rush for that quite yet.

The showing of the Halo 4 trailer was big news of course and I couldn't leave it out. It looked impressive and it was good to see the Master Chief again, I just hope that it will live up to the rest of the Halo games.

Right, now onto Modern warfare 3. I started to watch the demo and after 3 minutes in I had to turn it off. It's just the same old stuff over and over again. The same stuff but just in a different setting, so I think the least said about it the better.

I am back after a long time out and I've even had chance to play some games this time around, as well as watch some E3 action.

I have only watched the Microsoft Conference due to me being an xbox 360 owner and was quite impressed with some of the stuff that they were showing off. It was a bit Kinect obsessed but who wouldn't be when they have got all that gaming wonderness down to a tee ?. The Mass Effect 3 voice commands looked spot on and so did the Ghost Recon Future soldier weapon black smith demonstration, yet even though my family do own a Kinect, I will just keep it real and use the good old controller.

Before the conference I wasn't as excited for Mass Effect 3 or for Gears of War 3 as I am now, the graphics on both just looked simply amazing and I'm sure the game play will match up to its already high standards.

The other things that where being shown off for the Xbox didn't really have any interest for me, I don't really care if youtube is on the xbox or if Bing is on there. I wouldn't use it as I would be too busy to search for videos about cute cats or whatever. The Bing feature wouldn't be that useful either to me as I only use my xbox primarily for gaming and not for watching films or tv, so I don't have a large catalogue of media to get through until I come to film that I want to watch.

The news of the Halo combat evolved remake and the making of Halo 4 is pretty exciting too. For someone who bought the original xbox just so they could play Halo, I think I will be definitely be getting the remade version. The visuals did look very impressive on screen (as you would expect) and the game play will hopefully match up to what we have all come to like and love in the halo franchise.

The Halo 4 news did not really come as a surprise to me as neither did the remake, due to a large amount of rumours going around as well as a slip up by Xbox. I watched the trailer for Halo 4 and was quite impressed, it continues from exactly where Halo 3 left off and looks amazing. It's also very good to have the Master Chief and Cortana back, guys which I have missed over the past few years. I just hope that this game gets the time deserved and isn't rushed out as soon as it looks like its nearly completion, because that would just ruin a perfectly good franchise that has got quite a large legacy in the Xbox world.

One thing that I will moan about though is the news of another Assassin's creed game. I shouldn't moan because they are a great line of games, yet having played the first 2 in series I have become very bored of the Brotherhood game after not really playing it for that long as it just feels samey in many ways. The news of yet another Creed game and year on is making it look like a Call of Duty type and that is not a good thing, even if the guys behind COD are rolling around in money.

I have started the a to z blogging challenge on my other blogwhich last throughouts April and I have to write a blog each day corresponding with the letter i.e. 1st april was A. Unless its Sunday then we get a day off.

I haven't played any games at all in a while which really does suck, due to the amount of work that I have to do and revision that needs doing for exams. I have seen the film Limitless which was ace, also went to see Battle Los Angeles that was a bit of a let down I thought. I'm off to see Sucker Punch this Wednesday which looks quite good, mainly due to the girls in the film as I am a boy who is at that age where you start to become interested in the opposite sex. Apart from that I haven't being up to anything dangerous or game related at all, which is quite sad.

Happy gaming guys !

All the recent hype about the nintendo 3ds has got me to consider the purchase of one of these machines whenever I save up to get the money or if possible to receive it as a gift. I'm not sure what makes me want to get one, maybe the novelty ? so if it is that I probably won't get one or just to try it out maybe ?. If I do ever have the right amount of pennies, then I will have to look out for some decent games that will actually interest me before hand or getting it will be pointless. But the "street pass" game has rather interested me a bit so if I got one I guess I could just play that all the time until I started to cry with boredom.

As some of you will know one of my friends lent me Assassin's creed brotherhood about 2 weeks ago, I haven't had that much time to play it but what I have played it is rather good, as he had lent me that I lent him Black ops yesterday. Anyway he turned up today and said shall we do a swap deal so he can keep black ops and I keep brotherhood, so I said yes of course, as I don't play black ops anymore and I think Brotherhood is maybe worth more then Black ops is, so I'm thinking fair deal really. I haven't lost any money but haven't gained any money yet my game collection does keep building upon itself so its all good I guess.

I wrote a blog post about the meaning of life, if anyone reads it please leave your thoughts. Much appreciated.

Here you go.

Just listening to the gamespot uk podcast and got mentioned because of one of my tweets to the team. Should give it a listen, well worth it. Got a laugh from it too.