This week I was joined by Bzilla56 (yet again) and newcomer Gohansephiroth for some discussion about... Well many things. We discussed a bit of Journey, learnt each others Street Fighter preferences, mused on the achievements of Snake Eater 3D and even talked about Resident Evil. It wasn't a big news week for games, but we soldiered through!

Hope you guys enjoy it!

EPISODE 3!

Should have one later this week, where Diego finally gets to talk about Mortal Kombat (which he now realises is awesome) and anybody is welcome to join. Preferably some newcomers!

So Mass Effect 3 came out, so we thought we should talk about it. Who is we? So join Commander Stephenage, Bzilla56 Vakarian and Urdnot Dapman418 as we take back Earth in our lengthy Mass Effect 3 podcast. There are 45 minutes of spoiler free discussion, and then about an hour and 45 minutes of myself and Bzilla explicitly spoiling the hell out of ME3. Now many of you will not want to listen to that bit, but if you play the game it would be great if you could go back and check that bit out. Even if you don't check that out, 45 minutes of Mass Effect goodness is... Well 45 minutes of Mass Effect goodness, and that's some goodness worth having!

EPISODE 2

So another podcast ASAP, we want you guys to be on it. Seriously, Bzilla was a newcomer and he was great (as I'm sure you will agree upon listening) so we want more new people to talk about games with. Volunteers are more than welcome, otherwise kidnapping may happen.

I've wanted to do this for a while, and seeing as some people actually listened to the last podcast I was in (much to my surprise) I thought this might actually work. Welcome to the Gamespot Community Podcast, a podcast where I hope to get a bunch of you guys one to discuss video games. So before I present episode one to you I would like to know who is interested in joining in future episodes, so comment away if you are interested. Specifically I want a person (or two, I already have one person down for sure but two more would be good) to join us this weekend to talk about Mass Effect 3 for episode 2. So people (and I'm sure this will be many of you) who are picking up Mass Effect 3 this week, would be grearto have you on the cast!

So episode 1, episode 1 is the usual crew of myself, Dapman418 and Nintendo_Warrio, in which we discuss Oedipus complexes, learn a bit too much about Nintendo_Warrio, badmouth AC3, try to decipher the controls of Noby Noby Boy, search for superior sequels and discuss Batman's parentage (or lack there of). All this and more, and only an hour long (well an hour and 1 minute). Enjoy.

EPISODE 1

I said this was going to happen, and I was hoping it was going to be up a good deal earlier than this. Sadly that didn't happen, due to scheduling problems, but here it is and now you can listen to it if you interested. It's super long, but I think it's pretty entertaining and worth listening to (of course I would say that, but listen for yourself and find out).

Before I get ahead of myself I should probably explain a little bit, last year myself, Nintendo_Warrio and Shy_Guy_Red recorded a podcast of sorts in which we gave out arbitrary awards to our favourite games of the year. The format is simple, we have awards and nominees prepared, and then we argue with each other until an agreement is made. This year the line up is different, but the format is the same.

The 2011 awards star myself in the host's chair joined by my fantastic guests Nintendo_Warrio and newcomer Dapman418. Thrubeingcool13 was going to be on, but then his computer broke. Which sucked. I'm sure he will criticise it for being terrible in his absence and how he was needed (he may even be right :P), but that shouldn't stop you guys from having a listen.

Again... It's super long. Like crazy long, but we would love it if you could take some time out of your busy schedule to listen to some of it at least!

PODCAST! (this link seems temperamental so if it doesn't let you play or download try THIS ONE)

So I had a lot of fun recording this thing and would love to do more in the future. Now what I would really like to do is a gamespot community podcast of sorts, so if any of you are interested in participating then say so in the comments, would love to have you all.

And one last thing, two new reviews up:

Syndicate

Gangstas in Space

This is it, the big one, the 5-1. Prepare for a list of what are factually and objectively the 5 best games of 2011... Ok this is completely subjective and I don't expect you all to agree, but hey it's what I think. No matter what though, these are 5 excellent games that you should al try out, I have pure fun covered, I have story and emotion covered, I have gameplay perfection covered, joyful exploration, true sandbox, choice, humour and more all in 5 brilliant games. However let's not get ahead of ourselves; first things first, remember I mentioned I beat 60 (that I hadn't completed before) in 2011. Well here is the catchily named:

Top 10 Games I completed (for the first time) in 2011 that didn't come out in 2011:

1. Shadow of the Colossus- This game has camera and control issues, but the overall experience and unique nature of this journey makes it excel over most games.

2. Okami- I must mandatorily namedrop Dapman418 every time I mention this game, it is his favourite after all and it is mostly due to him I played it. While it is not my favourite game, it would rank among a list of them; it's a beautiful Zelda like game which excels any Zelda game I have played.

3. Super Mario Galaxy- I really should have beaten this already, while it has been surpassed by its big brother, this modern Mario classic is still one of the best examples of 3D platforming out there. My one complaint, I'm bad at platformers and found this game pretty easy... So for you experts out there this must have been even more apparent. But this game is such a pure joy to play and had me smiling all the time

4. Gears of War 1- From completely colourful to completely grey and dull... But awesome. I've said before that I'm not the biggest Gears fan, but that is only because of Gears 2, I love this game and I love 3.

5. LIMBO- I've spoken at length about this one before, it's just awesome, read that review I wrote about it, I'm not going to repeat myself.

6. Fallout: New Vegas- I'm not going to make many friends here when I say, I don't really like Fallout 3. I may get some of those people back though when I say that I love Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian just brought personality to the wasteland formula (that was really missing in 3, in my opinion) and gave me much more freedom as far as role-playing went, talking was better and I found myself shooting and fighting less often. This was good because I hate the combat in these games, also the changes to companions (who are now really useful) made combat less of a chore. Awesome game.

7. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix- This game is hard as hell, but man is it satisfying, this is probably the best Street Fighter out there but the online isn't great and that held it back for me. I still prefer SSF4 (because I like big flashy things) but this was a great show of how an old game can endure when its gameplay is this good.

8. Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves- The best Sucker Punch game I played in 2011 by some margin (and I played inFAMOUS 2... Take that inFAMOUS 2). A great choice for a HD remake and a joyful game from start to finish.

9. Vanquish- Turns out Mikami can make a game that plays perfectly... Well Shadows of the Damned what is your excuse? I think I know, Mikami is great but it seems it is Platinum that are the real geniuses, one man alone can't make a game and perhaps it was silly to think just Mikami could sort Suda out... Suda should go work for platinum.

10. Brutal Legend- This is the most flawed game on this list by far, however it resonated with me so much. It reminded me of the music I used to really love (and still do, just not to that extent) and made me feel pretty nostalgic. The story was brilliant and I adored the characters, the gameplay lacked focus but in the end it turned out there is a pretty cool RTS there.

Now to the big guns, forget old games, we are all about NEW GAMES. Well last year's games, so not that new, I mean should we even talk about these anymore it's 2012 people! We should be talking about all those big 2012 games like...

Ok we have nothing so far, so the best 5 games of 2011 will have to do!

5. To the Moon

If you follow my blog, which would be an odd thing to do, then you will know I love this game. Now some of you out there (Adam1808) may be dismayed that this supposed 'non-game' ranked so highly. Well yes it lacks in gameplay to a certain extent, but the story is just exceptional and I will argue as long as you like that the interactivity makes the story more impactful than it would otherwise be. So it is because it is a game that the story is so good. Now I don't like repeating myself, but I'm going to echo my recent To the Moon blog, I don't want to go into detail about this game because I don't want to ruin anything (and when a games appeal is just story it would be a crime to ruin any of that), just go out and buy this game and play it. I'm super happy that some of you have and I'm glad, so glad, to have seen it pop up on one or two top 10s of GS friends (even happier to see myself being namedropped as the nagging reason for them trying this game out :P).

4. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Let's get two things out the way straight away:

1. I'm not a huge fan of Deus Ex 1

2. The boss fights in this game are TERRIBLE, and they let the game down

Now we are not talking about those things again, this is a blog about why these games are awesome so I'm going to concentrate on that. Now when I first saw this game I thought it looked amazing, however then when trailers kept being CG and I remembered my feelings about Deus Ex 1 (damn, I said I wouldn't talk about that again)... Oh I have another reason; it looked a bit like a subpar shooter with not that great stealth. But then because I just buy games willy-nilly, I just bought this game and was BLOWN AWAY. The shooting isn't great but the sandbox nature of this game just completely appealed to me, I love choice in this games but I am very particular about it, and this game (apart from the boss fights... Damn I promised I wouldn't mention them) handled choice superbly. So many games see choice as just a binary thing that pretty much purely affects a final cutscene, in this game choice is everywhere. While it's not the MGS4 level of you can just shoot or you can stealth, it still made both pretty viable (though this was let down by not great shooting) and the story and atmosphere was just exceptional. Part of the reason it is so high up is because it smashed my expectations and it immersed me totally in a way so few games do.

3. Saints Row the Third

I don't care for GTA4 at all and got bored of Saints Row 2 pretty quickly, for some reason I bought this game anyway. Have I mentioned that I just buy games? Well man am (funny anecdote, word wanted me to change am to is, apparently word realises how gangster this game is and wants me to use the appropriate 'is I' sentence structure) glad I did buy this game, it is just the most fun I've had in any game all year, and just one of the most fun games out there. You may think I'm crazy for having this game above so much, but in the words of Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis (and later Vinny Caravella) 'you need to play Saints Row'. This game is so beautifully insane, but so well written that it makes being really stupid, kinda smart. In a year where Duke Nukem made us think juvenile humour was perhaps not as good as we thought it was, this game showed that good writing can make even the basest things so damn funny. The campaign in this game is just superb, and I had such a blast playing co-op with Nintendo-Warrio as well. In fact I played this game so much I did get every achievement (a feat I achieved in all three of my top three games)

2. Portal 2

Pretty great that Saint's Row the Third was third and that Portal 2 was 2 eh? Well that's just how things turned out it seems.

So, Portal 2, where to start? This game is truly exceptional and so close to the perfect video game, it is impossible not to sound hyperbolic when talking about this game but it really is as good as it sounds. Now I'm going to presume most of you have played this game, if you haven't well you should stop reading this and play it. Saints Row was funny, To the Moon was funny, but this game took humour to an art form and just excelled in ways that the previous two games could never dream of. Now this comes with the caveat of such a focused game will of course be better in many ways, but one doesn't expect it to be this much better. The puzzles were spot on, the pacing was excellent and, well everything was amazing. How was this game not number 1? Well I'm not quite sure, number 1 and 2 are so close that they are almost interchangeable but when it came down to it, though I love Portal 2 more than most things there was another game that came out that just pipped it...

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

If we are going to go by majority logic then 106 hours of playtime (in which I nabbed myself every achievement) can't be wrong. Skyrim just destroyed my life and immersed me in a way no other game has since my Guild Wars addiction a few years ago. This giant of the RPG genre was the reason for my pretty much total absence in November, I barely even went on the computer, when I wasn't in uni doing boring things like lectures and tutorials I was at home playing Skyrim or asleep dreaming about playing Skyrim. Me and a housemate got totally absorbed in this game (though sadly he got it on PS3, please not that Portal 2 is my PS3 game of the year because Skyrim be broken on PS3) and even other housemates got absorbed in watching it... Apart from one housemate who wished we would shut up about that Skyrim game. I'm more than willing to admit I may be falling foul to the 'most game' of the year apart from 'best game' of the year issue but Skyrim is also pretty fantastic. It is just such an immersive world that feels completely alive, it came to the point where I just had to put it as game of the year. Yes I know that everybody did this and I usually like to be a bit different, but this time the people were right. Skyrim is just an exceptional game that I will never forget my time with; it improved on its predecessor s and showed that some streamlining isn't always a bad thing in a year where Dragon Age 2 showed us the dangers of simplification.

It's 2012 so that means it is time to look back on 2011 and my favourite games of it. 2011 was a big gaming year for me, I finally picked up a 360 to compliment my PS3 and Wii and I put a lot of time into PC gaming also. I managed to complete 60 games that I hadn't already completed and this is not a feat I am going to replicate, I need to spend more time with games and get the most out of them, though saying that I still put a lot of hours in some games. So before I start with the top 10 I will quickly touch on the games that almost made it.

Shadows of the Damned: Great game, but I hated the gameplay; I thought the controls were pretty busted and though there was some great variety there was a lot of things that out stayed their welcome. I love Suda a lot, but I feel Mikami let the side down on this, I thought Suda and Mikami would mean great humour and creativity now combined with great gameplay, sadly this wasn't the case.

L.A Noire: This was so close to getting on the list, I think it's a fantastic game but I can't help but feel disappointed by its slavish adherence to Rockstar conventions which felt out of place. The action sequences were very Rockstar and just didn't belong; they made for the worst bits and dragged the game down considerably. It's annoying that games feel the need to always shove shooting in when sometimes it just doesn't belong.

The Witcher 2: I have played only the first few hours of this game and (apart from the awful stealth section) it is really rather wonderful and I'm sure that if I could play more of it, and finish it, it would have easily made my top 10, probably top 5 also. Sorry Witcher, I hope the 360 port happens...

Terraria: I put 50 hours into this downloadable gem, but alas my odd love for giant triple A games meant that this delight didn't quite make the cut. You should all totally get it though.

The Binding of Isaac: One day I will finish you and you can sit on my top 10! This game is a real blast and super messed up, I recommend it highly.

The Old Republic: While I love this game a hell of a lot, three days worth of playtime still isn't enough to truly have a solid opinion on this game, alas it was not possible for me to play enough of this in time for my top 10.

So those are my six runners up I guess, now onto the real deal, the 10 best games of 2010. Now remember this isn't an objective truth this is just personal preference.

10. Gears of War 3

I like the Gears series; I do not love the Gears series though. This is due to Gears 2 mostly and the awful attempts at plot and emotion. I was really looking forward to Gears 3, but kind of on an ironic level, I thought the game was going to be super fun but then I also thought the story was going to be terrible. I was pleasantly surprised though. While I do not think this game has a fantastic story, I think it has a good one and one that got emotion better than I thought Epic could. I'm not saying the emotional moments were perfect, in fact they felt a tiny bit cheap and not quite deserved, but they were well done. Add that to some of the best shooting out there and you have one great fun game. My biggest complaint, the ending, too many things left unexplained.

9. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was my game of the year for 2009 and is just one of my favourite games of all time. This did not reach the same level, I had story issues and some gameplay issues but it is still a solid Uncharted game. It's an excellent title; it's just a bit of a disappointment compared to Uncharted 2 which was simply exceptional. I really had a great time with this game and that's why it made it to number 9. I just wish they could have made a game that would have impressed me more.

8. Mortal Kombat

I really love fighting games and that is mostly due to the social nature of them, I have a few friends who are as into this genre as me and we play against each other as much as we can. This was the game that took our fancy this year though, the fighting is super solid and the local competitive play that we sunk hours into (mostly my Kitana against my friends Scorpion) was a complete blast. It's brutal and I got pretty good at it, really fun game! Test your Luck mode is a particular stand out but the real reason it made this list I haven't even touched upon yet. So fighting games, they are multiplayer games right? There's never any single player worth a damn in there, arcade modes are a joke. Well MvC3 proved that this year and then Mortal Kombat completely disproved it. While the story mode has a brutally cheap final boss it more than makes up for this with good story telling and hours of content. It's full game length and full of decent fights and a story I really liked. It is the new standard for fighting games and I can't wait for the teased sequel!

7. Batman: Arkham City

Like everybody in the free world, I really liked Arkham Asylum. However it didn't grab me as much as it did most people, purely because I played it on a laptop that it forced it down to low settings (with a tiny bit of frame rate issues) and played the game using mouse and keyboard. That game was not great on mouse and keyboard... Now with Arkham City I got the 360 version and I feel like I truly get it now, Arkham City may have been blacklisted by some as inferior to its precursor, but to me it was superior. I finally got what made people love Asylum so much (as opposed to like it a hell of a lot) and this game stole me for a weekend. I felt like Batman and it felt awesome, the story was not superb but it was pitch perfect Batman, the gameplay was awesome and the setting (though arguably a bit empty) was a great one. The complaints I do have, the sidequests are a bit locked away, there is too much in the way of collectable and the bosses aren't very good. Apart from that it was just an exceptional game that I loved from beginning to end... I really need to get back to the new game plus on this one; thinking about it is making me want to punch goons in the face all over again.

6. Bastion

There are some people out there who will be disappointed to see this game so 'low' on this list, some people will be amazed that I have managed to find 5 supposedly better games than this superb title. Well let me remind you, while this game may be objectively better than some about to come, it didn't resonate with me as much as those games did. Now I still adore this game, number 6 is pretty amazing, so let's talk about Bastion a bit.

As a fan of Greg Kasavin as a human being I'm super happy that the game he and his co-workers made is pretty amazing. It is everything you could want from a downloadable title; it has an amazing story, sublime music and gameplay so solid you could carve ex-President's faces into it... Oh and it is super pretty. It's complete package and a game you should all play, so go and play it. What's really impressive about it is how cohesive it is, much like Braid before it, it manages to do that rare thing of making everything just work together and feed into everything else, you cannot separate the story from the overall experience and that is a real treat. Also, I wish my life was narrated by Rucks.

Come back soon for 5-1!

I made a lot of progress yesterday (I played to much of this game) so I will have to skip out some of the awesomeness I got up to. Just know readers that I got up to a large amount of awesomeness! So without further ado we return to...

Stephenage's Story!

So mercenary bounty Stephenage is trying to make a name for himself by winning the great hunt. Now in order to do that I need a sponsorship and... Well my previous sponsors are indisposed so to speak. This meant I had to prove myself to a shadey Hutt, this meant I did a lot of fun missions. It entailed a lot of betrayal, and killing (the odd atrocity) and lots of 'kill x of x' and 'go to area x to collect x'. This sounds bad, but they are pretty well designed quests, and the writing and voice acting (and the choices) more than make sup for the MMO nature of the starter stuff. Now my role playing has come to an unexpected conclusion... I seem to be doing more good than bad. Which is shocking. It seems that people that hire bounty hunters are usually suspect characters who want evil work, surprise huh? It also seems that if you are sent to kill somebody that person will want to stay alive if possible, again, surprise huh? Now these people are pretty desperate to stay alive and will offer you money, now they are so desperate they will almost always offer you more money than you were originally offered to kill them. Now Stephenage only cares about the money, so he takes it, and this is making him good on a few occasions. He still does a lot of bad, but I'm surprised by the amount of good I have found myself doing. But hey, money is money right?

Now before I go on to talk about various exploits let me divulge why it's so cool to be in at the start of an MMO. One reason is everybody is in the same boat as you, the general chat is not creepy yet (like it becomes in MMOs) or overly invasive, in fact it's super helpful. People ask questions, people answer, and because people are similar levels there is a lot of people wanting to do the 'co-op' missions that you want to do. Another great feature is the names you see, now if anybody has ever signed up to any long running service on the internet they will realise that pretty much every name in the world has been taken. It's reminiscent of the joke in Futurama where there are only two non-patented names available to name a foodstuff that Fry and crew discovered, if memory serves me correctly they called them popplers. In later stages you see names like stephenage117 and names full of awful 'leet' terribleness and obviously unwanted kaveats. Right now though you see some awesome things. I genuinely ran into a dude named 'Shepard' on two occasions, and on the first occasion he was filling up the general chat with doting on Mass Effect. On top of this I ran past a dude named Garrus, who I complimented on his fine name, but in true Garrus nature he didn't care for my pointless flattery and carried on doing his damn job! On top of this I met an Inara, which I hope was a Firefly reference, and I was amused to see that the character was playing with a buddy named with the Inara acronym, Niara. Seemed fitting, what is the betting that they fought to be called Inara and the loser got the obvious acronym? On top of this, I also saw a Missingno, which was kinda cool, if very strange. The usual affair though is just people named with millions of apostrophes, you know because if sci-fi has taught us anything it's that aliens don't care for letters and are more than happy to replace them wherever possible. Maybe I should rename myself St'ph'n'g'. Seems pretty dumb, but fitting.

Now onto other awesome discoveries and the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THIS BLOG I think I spotted Nolan North. Yes, it is a game with audio so if we follow the laws of Descartes cogito then we have the game logic of 'I am a game with voice acting therefore I have Nolan North'. Now I'm a Nolan North fan, so take this not as criticism but adoration. I was wondering when I would first interact with him, and I'm pretty sure I met him twice! The first time was when a very Northie sounding kinda dude popped up and offered me money to not do what I was sent to do. That happens a lot, but such is the life of a bounty hunter. Now this character was a very Han Solo/ Malcolm Reynolds kinda smuggler/space cowboy guy. Seeing as North can sound a lot like Nathan Fillion he seemed like the perfect fit, and either it was a North imitator (a good one) or the true North himself. Now I cannot be wholly sure because I was listening to him through a holocrom, so his voice was a tad distorted. I did meet him in person later, but not for long. I'm pretty sure it was Nolan. On top of that, a quest dealer sounded like somebody doing an accent that had underlying bits of Nolan that a true North expert could notice. So that was awesome. If I ever rate this game, that's a plus .5 there, great and frequent use of North.

So now to things I have played. Wait, first of all I wanna talk about cool stuff my bounty hunter can do. I now have a flame thrower, an attack where I jet pack up and missile the hell out of an area, stun darts, explosive darts, missiles, fire damage blasters and a cool rail shot to just name a few of the fun things I've been doing this. But, as well as these, something I horrendously forgot to mention yesterday, I have a Shoryuken. I have an attack where, I guess I use my jet pack, to do a flying spinning upercut reminiscent of a heavy shoryuken. In fact, everytime I do it, I shout SHORYUUUUKEN. I totally like to finish quests demanding me to kill ferocious enemies by runnign up to them and shoryukenining them (I'm primarlily a ranged class so this looks kinda awesome, just imagine a badass bounty hunter raining down gadgeted awesomeness on you until you are about to die, then suddenly running straight at you crazily, whilst being shot to hell, just so he can punch you in the face).

Ok, actually on to things I have played this time, now I did some Star Warsey quests. Which was awesome. One of them involved stealing a Rancor egg and another highlight was fighting in an arena, reminiscent of the Rancor pit from RotJ (complete with a Hutt laughing over me from the top) where I had to defeat beasties. I then dispatched the beast master with a SHOOOOOORYUUUUUUKEN. It was rad. As well as this, the most star warsey thing I have done was rescuing a guy from carbonite, in which Stephenage legitimately said the line 'You have hibernation sickness. Your eyesight will return in time'. Very in your face with the fan service, but hey I'm a fan who likes being serviced.

Another stand out of yesterdays play was a foray into co-op. The first foray was cut short by me having to eat... So I abandoned my party members. Sorry dudes. I then went back later and completed these 'heroic quests' that advise you to do them 'co-op', by myself. And after I had finally got myself a sponsorship, I LEFT THE STARTING AREA :D, a mere level 11 making his way into the big world of the imperial fleet. Here I first jumped to my death in the middle of a social area, I wanted to see what would happen... I died is what happened. Then I did my first true co-op mission, what the game calls flashpoints, which are instanced storylined missions which are basically like set pieces. They are super cool and this one was really fun. I teamed up with some friendly people, who are now on my friends list, and we made our way through. Co-op is handled excellently, and rolling for dialogue choices works out surprisingly well. Luckily you are not subjected to the tyranny of the majority (to quote a famous philosopher) and if you pick the evil option when the highest roller actually picks good, even though you do the good you still get the prized evil points. It's a neat system.

So after that mission, which was great. I made my way to a new planet, where the real game begins... Oh and I almost forgot, I have my first NPC companion and she's called Mako. Classy Bioware... Classy. I will say though, she's a healer and more useful than the Mass Effect Mako for sure. She also called me disgusting in a cutscene because I totally smoked some woman who had helped us out because I remembered there was a bounty on her head. Hey, you know recession and all, I need money somehow.

Come back next time for my travels on Dromund Kaas!

I've put a few hours into Bioware's mammoth Star Wars RPG and it's safe to say that I am really enjoying it. I've taken my first virtual steps into an impressive and immersive world and I can conclusively say that this is definitely an MMO. For those of you out there who were hoping that this would break the Warcraft mold of collection quests, grinding and combat that burns down to hitting numbers on your keypad, prepare to be disappointed. Though it makes strides away from this formula in the areas of storytelling, and it's writing is far superior to anything you would see in Warcraft, this is one traditional feeling MMO. All in all, in gameplay terms it feels a little World of Starcraft... Wait that doesn't work at all... World of Warscraft? That's even worse, seems the Star and the War have already been taken by blizzard, I guess we will have to stick to the far less catchy World of StarWarscraft; though to be honest it's more like Galaxy of StarWarscraft due to it being...In a galaxy, but one you can allegedly explore.

All this being said I still think this game is awesome so far, WoW is a great MMO and this takes things that I enjoy about MMOs and has enough interesting stuff mixed in with the traditional to make it worthy of giving your life to. So even though I've had to complete such delightfully MMOey quests as 'kill X of X' and 'collect X of X', this is still fun enough and there is enough cool Star Wars stuff to make my little Star Wars fanboy heart ever so excited.

So now that stuff is out of the way, time to talk about my own personal experience, let us commence Stephenage's tale.

This is Stephenage:

He's not much to look at yet, but this emotionless Chiss contract killer will soon be the greatest Bounty Hunter ever. So yes, I went for bounty hunter, why? Let me explain. I've been following this game for a long time now, and my dream was to make a Nautolan Jedi, because Kit Fisto is super cool and I think Nautolan's look awesome. Alas, this wasn't possible, cue first complaint with the game. The choice of races is kind of disappointing, they are all the more humanoid shaped races and a lot of the cool stuff that players will want to be isn't there. It seems like they are saving this for expansions because there are several other races in the world (I even saw a Nautolan) so it's a shame the options are so limited. The character creation itself is fine, not hugely deep but not overly shallow, and the character models really look nice. In fact the game really looks nice, even with my PC being forced to play it on horrendously low settings. After being forbidden from my Nautolan dreams I felt dissatisfied with the Republic and felt the need to rebel! I joined the Empire, as a form of strange ineffective protest. I looked through the ****s and thought bounty hunter looked pretty badass (I can now whole heartedly say it's a great ****) so I chose that.

Once again I was a tad disappointed, no Mandelorian option? Really? Maybe I should have done a bit more of research into the races, seems my coverage of this game was too focused on pretty CG trailers and them talking about story and voice acting. Incidentally all that stuff seems awesome, the CG trailers have even made their way in as opening cutscenes. Now I didn't want to be a lame human, because humans are lame, so I went for Chiss. Purely because I recognise Thrawn as being super awesome and they look pretty cool and intimidating. So thus the role playing begins!

Before I was ready to play I had to think about my character and what he would stand for, this is a game of choices after all, and I was determined to make a consistent character. So Stephenage (the bounty hunter, not the GS user who is a true paragon of virtue) is a pretty cold emotionless dude, it's not that he is evil, it's that he only cares about what job can get him the most money. He won't go out of his way to just kill people, but if that is the quickest way to big cash, he will willingly take it with no regrets. This mercenary attitude was showcased in quests where he chose to betray the original quest giver when a target would offer him more money, Stephenage just wants the cash. He doesn't care about others, he likes to work alone and he likes to get a full reward for his services. If there are monetary benefits to working with another then he will do that... You get the point, dude likes his cash.

However dude also likes a bit of relaxation, as you can see from this picture where I visited a cantina and had a little dance on stage with the band:

That was a lot of fun, great MMO moment. So, so far I have quested a bit and have set myself what kind of guy I'm going to be in this ancient Republic. At the moment I'm in the bounty hunter starting area on Hutta and am eventually going to win the great hunt and get a lot of cash. You know, because I'm the protagonist and that is what story protagonists do. So prepare for more info in the future!

I'm not the type to post update blogs, so this could be a bit weird, but for some reason I felt the need. Now I'm a person who intends to blog often but never gets round to it, if all goes to plan, that may change in the next week or so. I'm working on my lovely top 10 of 2011, which will arrive shortly, a podcast and potentially an Old Republic diary of sorts.

So let's start with the top 10 info, it's still in its development stage. I have a few games left that I will hopefully pick up for Christmas or just buy myself, AC:R, inFAMOUS 2, Shadows of the Damned and the Old Republic. Now I won't get enough Old Republic in for it to make the list anyway, and who knows if it is good enough, so that's low priority (or at least should be). I don't expect AC:R and inFAMOUS 2 to crack the top 10, because I've already had to shove out some games I love, and these don't look as special as ones that have already been lost. But I remain open to them, they could blow me away; here's hoping anyway. I really want to play Catherine also, but this backwater English thing I live in refuses to release it. I was going to import it, but then loads of games started coming out... That was crazy. Then I saw it (an import copy) in a local game shop, but had just bought Uncharted 3, Skyrim and Saint's Row the Third in the same month (and Crysis 2 and Tekken 6), so cash was relatively low. Well, more I couldn't justify another £40 and had more Saints Row and Skyrim to play. Well I finished all those games, and got all 1000 achievement points in Saints Row and Skyrim, so I guess now I could pick it up but... I'm back at my parent's house for Christmas and the local game shop is at the other end of the country... Damn. Also I plan to buy the Old Republic this week due to my crippling addiction to buy new shiny things, Star Wars things, Bioware things and games that look interesting (yes, interesting not good, it looks like an important game, I'm not sure of quality yet, but seems like a must play for me anyway).

So now onto the Old Republic diary thing, this links in to my comment on it being interesting, but first I have to share an annoyance with you all. I just tried to buy this game and I couldn't. Which is super irritating, I don't know if anybody knows this but, EA are not VALVE. Shocker right? At the moment I totally wish they were, not because VALVE make better games (they do, but that's irrelevant at the moment), because VAVLE understand digital distribution. EA don't seem to, well either they don't or I don't, and if I don't then VALVE are just doing an even more amazing job. The way I see it is that if I want to buy a game on release date it could be sold out in a shop, luckily Steam and the like exist then so I can just get my guaranteed digital copy. Of course the Old Republic isn't on Steam because EA want people to use Origin, which I had no issue with; until it told me that the Old Republic is currently unavailable. It's listed in new releases, it's out, it exists, people are playing it... But you cannot buy it from EA. This seems insane to me, I don't quite understand how they can sell out of a digital thing, maybe there's super high demand, but it's an MMO. MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, if you want to beat WoW, you need to let a massive amount of people buy the game, I doubt 10 million people have bought it within 24hours, so why can I not play a digital version of the game which is not limited by shipping to retail. I just don't get it, it seems insane to me, their servers should be able to handle a fair few million, somewhere somebody has messed up bad.

So the diary thing. Well I used to be an MMO gamer, I played 970 hours of Guild Wars and haven't touched an MMO (seriously at least, I played WoW for under a month, but got bored and I played LOTRO for under a month, and Champions Online for under a month... I hope this trend doesn't follow into the Old Republic). Now I like Star Wars a lot but Bioware have let me down a bit recently and EA are not in my best books I don't have huge expectations for the Old Republic. Then I came up with the idea to write about it, post a weekly update (I would do daily but nobody would want to read that) and try and be entertaining and write about a game that a lot of people are interested in. So yeah, I'm going to have to go to a store tomorrow, and buy that game then I will write about it, should be cool!

Finally the podcast, now last year me and some GS users did a podcast that nobody listened to, so we are going to do it again!!! Game of the year awards people, we have selected the categories and the nominees, all is left is to debate in audio form (and if the debate is anywhere near as heated as it was to narrow down the nominees, it should be quality entertainment). Now this will star me in the host seat and then Dapman418, Nintendo_Warrio, hopefully Thrubeingcool13 and hopefully, the peoples favourite, Shy_Guy_Red. So tune in if you want to hear what we think is the best game set in an Age of Dragons, the best use of science in a game, the game that made me angry the most... And other more serious awards.

So that is my update, should be some fun on the horizon in this blog space, but it could be abysmal, I will keep you posted!

Stephenage!

When it comes to games storytelling is something I prize above almost everything else. A good number of games have made their way into my heart just because of a good story, even some that have had admittedly bad gameplay. A recent example of this was Deadly Premonition, which is hell to play and can be hell to look at, but it tells a story that had an emotional impact on me and a game that can impact me like that is good in my book. To the Moon is another game which has managed to become a favourite of mine in spite of its gameplay, purely because of its story. Don't let the Deadly Premonition comparison mislead you here, To the Moon is not hell to play (nor to look at, in fact it's quite pleasing on the eye), it just isn't about the gameplay. The gameplay in To the Moon is completely unobjectionable; there just isn't much of it. I'm not saying this because the game is short, which it is (though as a cheap downloadable indie game it's the length it needs to be and is worth the money), it's just that the gameplay is incredibly simple and is just there to tell a story.

To the Moon advertises itself as an RPG/Adventure game, I wouldn't call it an RPG, in fact calling it that is misleading somewhat. Do not go on expecting an RPG, but do go in with adventure game in mind (and please just do go in). As far as gameplay goes the structure of To the Moon is about as simplistic as it gets, there are some incredibly easy puzzles (they are no flaw though, merely slight diversions that at best offer a nice change of pace, and are so infrequent that they don't detract at all), but really you just walk around and converse, interact with the environment, you know... Interactive stuff. Now the lack of focus on gameplay does not mean this is the ****c, it's great that you have a nice story but shouldn't you be a film, this game (yes it's a game) really does benefit from interactivity and uses its gameplay structure in its storytelling. The narrative structure fits gameplay perfectly, and though it won't win any prizes as far as gameplay is concerned, it plays well enough for you to get lost in its story.

I will say now, if you are a gameplay guy, this game isn't for you. However, if you have even a slight interest in story in games you owe it to yourself to go and buy this now. I play a lot of video games, and I say this with no exaggeration To the Moon has one of (potentially the) best stories I have experienced in games. It is truly hilarious (I laughed out loud on multiple occasions, and heavily also) and is also completely heart breaking, truly emotional and just an affecting experience (I admit I got misty eyed at two particular parts of the game, and though no tears were shed I felt like they should have been or at least could have been). The writing is just amazing and the plot is so perfectly paced and each revelation is just as impactful as the last. If you are looking for a truly emotional experience look no further.

So why am I blogging about this game? Well it's obvious really; I think this is one of the best games of this year, and one of the better games I have played in a good while. The horror of this is, so few people will play it; it's just some random PC indie game only available on a developers website. There are so many of games like that out there, and I'm sure of them just aren't worth a damn, but this one is and it kills me that so many people won't play it. So I put out a plea, buy this game, it's exceptional. It's only about 4 hours long, it benefits from being played in one sitting and it has outstanding music to compliment the aforementioned outstanding story. I even bought the OST after beating the game and am listening to it whilst writing this. If you have a serious interest in games and consider them an art form then go to this website:

http://www.freebirdgames.com/

Play it, love it and spread the word. Once you've played it, then I would love to talk about it with you, any of you. Even if you don't like it, it's still an interesting experience and I would hope you will at least appreciate what its doing even if it doesn't resonate with you. So once again, go buy this game, beat it, and then we can talk about it and hopefully spread the word to more people who will love the game as well.