Month in Review: December 2009

First things first: Happy New Year to all of you. Hopefully 2010 will bring all manner of good things your way. I've got a couple of blogs planned to usher in the new year, but firstly I'll get my final monthly blog of the noughties (is that what we finally decided they were called?) out of the way. December 2009, in review.

New Acquisitions

Well, nothing spectacular to see here. I picked up the third Scene It because I really liked the first two games in the series and because I'm a total film geek. Simple movie trivia, good for a relax and great to play with friends, though it does feel more like a cheap add-on (read: cash-in) than a fully-fledged game. I've not played the CSI game yet, I only really got it because it was unbelievably cheap (possibly a pricing goof). If it's anything like Hard Evidence though, I'll probably play it through solely for the points...

Christmas pressies! Turns out three of those suspiciously game-shaped packages were actual games, and what a bunch of crackers they turned out to be! I've wanted Borderlands since I saw the first screenshots of it's visual styIe Totally unique look and feel, plays like a cross between Fallout 3 and a first-person Diablo. Utterly addictive. More zombie-splattering action for the Wii and one of my most anticipated DS games round off Christmas Day. Being a fan of both Final Fantasy and traditional Disney characters, I really liked Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 and I reckon 358/2 Days (what a mouthful...) will be no different.

Having Boxing Day fall on a Saturday meant I got the day off work this year, so I took the opportunity to hit the sales hard. Got myself a ton of DVDs and Blu-rays and a nice handful of games. Mirror's Edge was a fiver, the others were all between ten and twenty quid. All brand new, of course! Having said that, I didn't indulge in the best deal of the sales: HMV selling the Beatles Rock Band set for £40! Didn't really want it myself, but a bloomin' bargain for some!

Games Played

Borderlands (PC)

This game is bloody fantastic. I love the whole graphic novel styIe look of the game, I can't think of any other game that looks even remotely similar (feel free to enlighten me, of course). Kudos to whoever decided to change the visuals from their original realistic look. It plays great too, like I said above it's a real melting pot of genres: a first-person shooter, a loot-and-experience-driven RPG, a sci-fi adventure... it's really funny too. I love the weapons, the enemies and the characters. I have no idea why people seem to see this as a game that can only be enjoyed in multi-player: I haven't tried the multi-player or co-op yet, but as far as I am concerned the single-player game has more than enough entertainment value! I'm currently playing as Lilith, the Siren and I've just hit level 25. I'm in and around New Haven right now, after about 18 hours of gameplay.

Dead Space (X360)

Modern survival horror at it's best. System Shock meets Solaris meets rage-infected monkeys, an excellent thinking man's shooter that features some truly trouser-destroying moments of terror. I'm finding it pretty challenging too and I'm only up to Chapter 5! It only makes it all the more rewarding though. I've dinged 9 achievements too, for 130 points.

Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

Damn, I finished it already. Roughly 60 hours, start to finish, and that's just for the main quest and probably 50% of the side-quests. An epic work of fantasy, one of the best games I've played in a long, long time and a real nostalgic throwback for me, bringing to mind old-school CRPGs and even fantasy novels such as those by the late, great David Gemmell (if you haven't read anything of his, you're truly missing out). Having completed one play-though, I'm going to give it a little rest for a while (maybe until after I've devoured Mass Effect 2) before trying again with another character.

Fallout 3 (PC)

I went back to Fallout 3 after finishing Dragon Age, ran through the remainder of the main storyline again and then took my time savouring the DLC. I've got all the packs except for Mothership Zeta and was bummed the PC version of that wasn't included in the half-price deal on the 27th, kinda unfair if you ask me. Anyway, I enjoyed all the packs, Operation Anchorage and Broken Steel the most. I timed it all pretty well too, hitting level 30 part-way through the last quest I played. So, over two complete (and very thorough!) play-throughs with wildly different characters, plus playing through 80% of the available DLC I'm pretty confidence I've exhausted Fallout 3. For now. I've ticked off 20 more achievements too for an extra 500 points.

Scene It? Box Office Smash (X360)

Playing this again with a couple of friends was the catalyst for getting the new edition (see below). I played a few games of this one evening, trouncing the competition and scoring 7 extra achievements (115 points) as a nice surprise.

Scene It? Bright Lights, Big Screen (X360)

Troucing the competition with new and updated questions. Yeah, it's smelling a bit like a cash-in and it's hardly high-octane pulse-pounding gaming, but sometimes it's fun to just kick back with something simple. Plus, I can play with people that don't like games! 13 new achievements for 220 points, too.

Space Siege (PC)

A disappointment all round. I fired this one up for a breather right before Christmas, I didn't want to start playing something huge in case I got something awesome for Christmas that would drag me away from it! Borderlands, I'm looking at you! Anyway, I ran through Space Siege in under ten hours, which is really the main source of my disappointment. Both Dungeon Siege games, while never great, were huge, sprawling hack-n-slashers with multiple and vastly differing environments to explore and interesting enemies to kill, plus tons of loot to gather, companions to recruit and skills to learn. Space Siege is short, painfully linear, with practically zero variation in either levels or enemies. There's no real inventory system; you can collect a handful of weapons, but rather than searching out better ones, you just upgrade the ones you have using spare points that seem to pour from every crate and corpse you encounter. Those parts upgrade you, too. Having said all that, I stuck it out till the very end, so it must have something going for it. Oh yeah: it's acceptable mindless shooting for when you really have nothing better to do.

In Conclusion...

2009 is over. Some great games were released and it's a shame that I haven't had a chance to play all that I wanted to. I'll be doing a blog shortly on the year in review and hopefully I'll be able to catch up with some of the games I missed soon enough too.