So I'm home ... I'm trying to be optimistic about it, but it's so hard. It feels so lonely to be in a small house with just two family members instead of a big house with five or six. At least I finally get peace... but that's just a way to look on the bright side. :) I won't depress you all with any further details, and I'll get down to blogging...

First off, I have a whole HEAP of games to play. HEAPS, I tell you. I kind of missed my computer... :P just kidding, but it is great to do some high-end gaming for once and I finally get to test out that Star Wars boxset I bought, while also getting back into Diablo II, StarCraft and Battlefield 2142. I've got my hands full.

So anyway, this is going to be a Now Playing blog of sorts, seeing as I don't have anything else real to say! Don't worry, I'll keep it quite short.

StarCraft: yeah, still having a lot of fun with this one. I finally ventured online with it today and played some co-operative with nodham against a computer player who was too busy stretching his army out across wide distances to have any real focus point, and so nodham's massive fleets of Guardians quickly mopped up about five bases of the enemy in little to no time. Needless to say, the AI was still pretty difficult - my attempts at wiping out a fortress near to my main command center and installation were quickly destroyed by a Goliath and a few Siege Tanks.

We still won in the end, though. I can't really say it is down to teamwork, as nodham admittedly did most of the work, but we still both did varying degrees of destruction, even if some of it ended in crisis. We won, though I still managed to get the lowest score. Eat my l33tness. :D

Diablo II: again, nodham and I had a few rounds of Diablo before. I was quite frantic at first as all the Starcraft had me right-clicking to move around instead of left-clicking, but I got there in the end. We didn't do a lot, though, just mainly messed around in the foothills of Act 5 and got a few goodies. It feels good to be back into this game. :P Even better, houtx doesn't have to wait for me anymore... :P

Star Wars Battlefront: just installed it, and I'm mighty impressed. The graphics for one - I was not expecting it to look this nice. I didn't think that my graphics card actually worked this well. This is going to sound stupid, but Battlefront has some incredible visuals that probably beat out Unreal Tournament, Half-Life 2, and just about everything else in terms of appearance. It just looks new, shiny... and it's a pretty old game too, so it isn't meant to look this damn good. Anyway, the gameplay is still pretty freaking awesome too - I'm a Star Wars fan of course, so I guess that helps, but it's also a whole lot of fun in the way that the battles are freeform beyond belief.

The game strikes a perfect balance in the sense that you can approach situations methodically and tactically or just all-out blasting, and I like to alternate between both with equal efficiency. Go anywhere you want and conquer the command posts, while simultaneously shooting the hell out of some of the most recognisable Star Wars characters - this is definitely a great first impression and I can see myself spending a lot of time with this game ...

Battlefield 2142: ... but alas, there is another battlefield-based game craving for my undivided attention. And which one to choose? It's impossible, so I choose both. Battlefield 2142 is definitely a tactical shooter, through and through - not as restrictive as Rainbow Six and not as unrestrictive as CounterStrike, but somewhere in the middle in terms of how much tactics you have to use. You CAN run-and-gun, but there are slim chances of survival, and you don't necessarily have to use cover, but it is a strong recommendation. Of course, both of these are a must when playing online, and there is quite a steep curve online because everybody seems to be intimidatingly better than you.

Nevertheless, after a few games you'll be having a lot of fun - and it's undoubtedly one of the finest warzone games I have ever played and this is a fixture for weeks and possibly months to come, just to hold me out until the awesome wave of PC games hits later in 2007.

 All the other Star Wars games: these are not yet installed. Empire At War I have already played, and I don't like it. It's overly complex, and it's a jack of all trades and a master of none, so I'll stick to Starcraft.

Knights of the Old Republic is a game that I have actually never played extensively, mainly because when I started it (or its sequel, I can't remember) I just couldn't get into it. It was back in the days when I had no tolerance for roleplaying games, so maybe another try is in order.

Republic Commando is an awesome game, I have it for Xbox and it actually changed my life a little bit in the way that the theme tune was done by a band called Ash, and without Ash I wouldn't have started listening to half the music I do now. Put simply, Republic Commando made me discover alternative rock or whatever you like to call my music taste.

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast looks quite quite awesome, I just don't really have the patience for it right now. I will play it in due course, rest assured, but it's gonna wait for now. :)

And then there's that Galaxies free trial that I don't even know if I'll use... meh, it was 40 dollars for the whole pack, so it was definitely a great buy.

Elite Beat Agents: that's right. I bought this crazy music rhythm game just before I left, just as a way to somehow revive my DS. It's actually quite a fun game - it's got some random humour and wonderfully over the top presentation and comicbook scenes. Simply, it oozes charm. It's just got a few imperfections in the gameplay that can sometimes snag on the experience... still, I'm well into the second difficulty setting, and I'm being challenged. Not a bad thing.

Anyway, thats it for today's random disjointed ramblings - but one last thing... profile views are now public. I don't really care about it... but meh, it's just a way to close this blog and I guess it's kinda fun to see who has the highest profile views on gamespot. It's either GregK or Jeff so far.