As the summer dry spell of games came to a close, I suddenly found myself with more games than I had time for. After finishing the excellent Darksiders II, I picked up Dark Souls and Sleeping Dogs to help make the wait for Borderlands 2 a bit easier. Then I also ended up pre-ordering Torchlight 2, which also came with Torchlight for free. Thanks to Green Man Gaming sales and the cheap price of Torchlight 2, I got all of those games (Borderlands 2, Sleeping dogs, Torchlight 1/2 and Dark Souls) for about 120 bucks. Who says PC gaming is expensive?

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Dark Souls

I'll start with Dark Souls, which was a game I was very much looking forwards to on PC. I was really annoyed at the developers for dropping the ball on a proper PC port, especially the lack of proper mouse and keyboard controls. As a result, I didn't even want to buy it since I didn't want to spend money on a gamepad just for one game. However I eventually I figured out a way to use my PS3 controller with my PC, and some of the other issues with the PC version were resolved by modders, so I ended up grabbing it anyways.

Sadly I can't say it is a game I enjoy. I find the whole bonfire/souls system makes it feel drawn out since you have to do so much backtracking, and the camera/lock-on system causes some real issues. I love some aspects of it; the weighty feel of the combat, the cool enemy designs and the organic level design, but I just find it frustrating and clunky mostly due to the imprecision brought about by a controller, and the small areas the early bosses are fought in (although the bosses after Capra showed signs of improvement). Such a shame the game doesn't have proper keyboard and mouse support. I made it a good ways into the game, I just killed Quelaag and have escaped from Blighttown, but my desire to continue is limited. I wrote a angry review and posted it on Gamespot, but due to GS's broken HTML I was unable to use paragraphs and as a result the review is just a great big angry wall of text.

Read at your own risk.

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Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs was a game that I wasn't too enthusiastic about since it looked a bit too much like Saints Row the Third in terms of structure, and I'm not a big fan of John Woo type movies, so the setting and story didn't do much for me. After a lot of praise from both critics and fans I decided to pick it up on a GMG sale and ended up enjoying it. I thought the controls felt a bit weird using a keyboard, but I appreciated the good hand-to-hand combat system, solid plot, and varied quests. It didn't light my world on fire but I'm glad I ended up playing it, although I still need to finish the story line.

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Torchlight series

I bought Torchlight 2 on pre-order at the last minute since I noticed I would get the first game for free as well since I missed it when it first came out. I didn't play Torchlight 1 much because I quickly got distracted by other games, but I did enjoy what I played. I've put about 4 hours into the sequel, and although I didn't think too much of it at first, it has been growing on me and I'm starting to look forward to playing it more. I haven't had a chance to try the co-op yet, but I will in the future, and I can see that being a ton of fun. I'll give credit to the developers, this game is superbly optimized, I think it looks quite good and I'm able to run it on my laptop which has relatively low end hardware with all of the settings turned up totally smoothly, which is more than can be said for Diablo 3.

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Borderlands 2

Last up is Borderlands 2, which was one of my most anticipated games of 2012 since I got a ton of playtime out of the first game. In short, the sequel while a bit conservative is very good. It takes everything that made the first game fun and improves on it. The dialogue is incredibly funny and the narrative is much more interesting. Enemy and level variety is also much improved. It won't do much to earn new fans, but for those who liked the first game this is a great sequel. I've already dumped about 35 hours into it across two characters and still play it regularly.

For my detailed thoughts check out my review.

I'll be busy in October so I won't have quite as much time to play new games, and right now it looks like I'll only be getting Dishonored, although November and December look to be packed with big releases so I'm kind of glad to have the chance to play all of the games I got in september a bit more.

A while back I mentioned I was considering upgrading my aging but still potent ati HD5850 to something with a bit more punch for upcoming games such as Metro: Last Light, Crysis 3 and Company of Heroes 2. Wise people dissuaded me, and I left it for the time being. However, one day while bored at work I was checking the NCIX website (where I buy my PC parts in Canada land) and noticed the Evga GTX 670 FTW edition was on sale for $409 (down from about $480). I remembered that when I was doing research on GPU's a couple months before hand that this card was branded as one of the best for price/performance, given that it performed equal to, or even better than, a GTX680 in most games. I found a website comparing performance of different cards, and found that the normal GTX670 would give me roughly double the frame rate in most games, a pretty massive improvement. The deal was on for the entire month, and after some deliberation and going over of finances I decided to jump.

It took nearly a month to arrive, but the new GPU is finally here. I was surprised to find that it was actually about 1cm shorter than my current card, which is especially surprising given that the FTW edition of the GTX 670 is on a 680PCB with a 680 cooler. Fortunately size isn't everything, and this new card has proven to be a real beast in games. I tested it on the three most demanding games installed on my PC, Crysis 2 (with the high res texture/dx11 patches installed), The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3, all maxed to the max running at 1600x900 ( I also sometimes game on my TV which is 1080p).

The results:

Crysis 2: bridge earthquake level (can't remember the proper name) I was getting 60-80fps consistently, spiking to 100 when the action slowed.

The Witcher 2 (ubersampling off): Battle for Vergen level, 70-80fps, very consistent for the 10 minutes that I played, which saw a lot of rain and particle effects on screen.

Battlefield 3: Caspian border - was only in the game for a few minutes at the base before the match ended, was getting 100-110fps. The map then switched to Operation Firestorm, I grabbed a anti-air vehicle and drove around getting into firefights, the lowest I saw the frame rate go was 75, usually it stayed well above 80.

So pretty staggering performance in all of these games. I got a new 620 watt Antec PSU since I wasn't secure in using my 500w one with the new GPU, and I used the new power to overclock my i5-2500k to 3.7ghz.

To Metro Last Light, Crysis 3, and whatever other demanding games are coming out in the next year I say this: come at me bro.

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Since there were very few game releases during the summer, I continued to pour time into Dayz. I have well over 100 hours logged on the mod, much of this time being spent with Nickprovs and some other Swedish fellows we met in game. I've had some great times in the mod, some of the most intense and memorable gaming moments I've ever had have been in Dayz (Nickprovs made a video of some of our shenanigans), but as with all games I am starting to losing interest.

The most compelling part of the game has always been finding new loot, but I have simply played the game so much that I know low-risk places that I can readily find the best loot in. Finding/repairing vehicles is fun, but I feel I have done pretty much everything there is to do in the game, and right now playing on high-population servers that usually have more exciting encounters will also involve playing with hackers who might decide to just kill everyone on the server. I still look forward to the stand alone, but after having my personal best 48-day survival run ended, I think I'm pretty much done with the current build of Dayz.

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The one game I did pick up in August is Darksiders II. The first game was solid, but didn't do any one thing well enough to really stand out. The sequel improves on the predecessor in pretty much every imaginable way, despite being a pretty bare-bones port on the PC. The gameplay is just a ton of fun, with fast and fluid combat, clever puzzles and great platforming segments. The amount of content is pretty staggering, it took me over 20 hours to finish on my first playthrough which is a really impressive length for a linear game with pacing as good as this. I had so much fun with it that I might even go back to it eventually for the New Game+ option so I can try some more skills and better look.

Read my excessively long review here.

Take my word for it folks, this is one of the best games of 2012 so far, don't let the lack of graphics options stop you from picking this up for the PC, you will be missing a really great game.

Today I picked up the Walking Dead games, having heard that they are great, even though I dislike the TV show I figure I'd give them a shot since steam was selling season passes for 15 bucks.

On a side note, I am quite upset that Dark Souls, a game I had a ton of interest in, is apparently unplayable on the PC with a mouse and keyboard. Can anyone confirm this? How about frame rate cap - does the game feel sluggish at 30fps?

There has been a lot of buzz lately surrounding this mod for Arma II, similar to the hype surrounding Minecraft in its early stages of development. Unlike minecraft, this has been a game I've really been able to sink my teeth into, even though I hated Arma II.

Basically its a highly realistic, persistent-world, multiplayer zombie survival horror sandbox game. You and 50-100 other players are randomly spawned along the coast of the massive Arma II continent Chernabus (or something); there are no pre-made teams, you must decide if you will help/ignore/actively kill other players. You scavenge for supplies; you must periodically eat and drink, if you are bleeding you must bandage yourself, and if you loose too much blood you eventually start passing out and finally die. Blood can be restored slowly by eating food, or with blood-transfusions, although these can only be administered by other players.

If you die, you lose everything, and start with a fresh character. If you leave a server and come back, your character will be in the same place and have the same equipment. Zombies are best avoided; if you sneak around they won't notice you, they are attracted to loud noises, so if you fire one shot all nearby zombies will come running. You also need to be wary of other players who will try and kill you to take your goods.

I had the chance tonight to play this mod with a few other people. First we had to find each other, and since you don't start with any navigational equipment we had to use landmarks to find each other. Two of the other players using old characters already had maps, and eventually I found a map and we were able to meet up. Two of the other players who had characters already geared out with sniper rifles waited on a hill as I made my way through a town towards them. They watched me through their sights as I tried to sneak around the zombies. The day/night cycle in the game is real time and linked to where the server is located; I was playing in the evening, and the sun was going down as I crept through the town. Eventually a Zombie noticed me and gave chase; I broke into a sprint attracting maybe 6 more zombies. I had nothing but the rubbish pistol you start with, so I ran for my life as the two players on the hill picked off the zombies with their sniper rifles. We then covered the fourth player in our group as he made his way toward the hill through a field beside the town that was full of zombies. We could see him crawling through the grass as the zombies shuffled around him; he never was detected.

This was one of the coolest gaming experiences I've had in the last couple of years. Simply staying alive is thrilling, and encounters with zombies and other players are incredibly tense since death is so final in this game. It is currently in alpha and is very buggy as a result (the bugginess of the Arma II engine doesn't help), but it offers an experience unlike any other, in gaming or otherwise. The atmosphere and overall feel is a somewhat simila to Stalker, but with the world being much bigger and more open.

If you own Arma II: Combined Operations you can download the modhere

The games can also be bought for 30 bucks on steam, but I would wait until they go on sale during the steam summer sale; the game will be more polished by then anyways.

I said in my last blog I'd stop using the word Uncharted as a pun in blog titles. I lied.

I ended up finishing Uncharted 2 after discovering a 'very easy' difficulty below easy. I just wanted to finish the game to get the story, but I ended up really enjoying the last few levels. I enjoyed them so much that I went out and got Uncharted 3 right away. I'd heard a lot of mixed things about UC 3; it seems widely accepted that it wasn't as good as 2. Because of this, I went into the game with tempered expectations. I ended up enjoying it much more than 2; I liked the story much more, with the whole Lawrence of Arabia vibe resonating with me more than the Indiana Jones vibe of UC 2. I thought the locations were more varied and had a better sense of place, and the scripted sequences were more enjoyable. I still thought the combat was by far the weakest component of the game, and brought down the whole experience much like it did UC 2. Still, it had less BS moments than its predecessor and I'm glad I ended up playing it.

I also had the good fortune of reviewing Risen 2 for New Game Network. Like its predecessor, It's a flawed but extremely colourful and immersive RPG with a good amount of wit and a great sense of character progression. I thought it had some of the best quest variety and the most rewarding exploration of any RPG in recent memory. Both CD Project Red and Bethesda could learn a lot from Piranha Bytes when it comes to quest structure, a balanced economy and world design. If you enjoyed the Witcher games, I very highly recommend Risen 2 as it offers a similar brand of role-playing albeit with a less rich story and one dimensional characters.

I've also picked up the first Infamous, but haven't had much time to play it due to business with work and other games and my inherent need to drink myself into a stupor a couple times a week. I played a couple hours of it and did enjoy it; I hope to find the time to play through it in the near future. I also picked up Diablo 3 today and have enjoyed it thus far, although was booted with a server error which I find a bit disconcerting given that I was playing solo. I know Diablo 3 is a co-op game and I'd love to find people to play with, so if you are in the same boat let me know your battle.net ID or whatever you use to add friends. I believe mine is withteeth26.

All these games should keep me very busy in the near future, although I'm looking to get Max Payne 3 when it comes out for PC. I'm also deliberating whether or not I should replace my HD5850 with a GTX680. I have no pressing need to, but the announcement of Company of Heroes 2 has me wondering if my current GPU will hold up against some of the more demanding titles coming out in the next year or so.

I promise, after this blog, that I will stop using puns with the word 'uncharted'

So I played through most of UC 2. I'm on Chapter 23, stuck on a bit of combat that I have no intention of completing in the near future. Several guys are shooting acid-grenades at me and I've died enough times that I don't think it's worth my while to finish right now. I'm not really invested in the story or characters enough to put myself through that hell again right now when I'm so busy and stressed with school, so I'll give my thoughts on the bulk of the game while they are fresh in my memory (also to give myself a break from staring at Exel spreadsheets).

Anyways, despite the negative introduction to this blog, I overall enjoyed the game. The platforming focused levels were all excellent, especially the bit where you adjust the mirrors in that one big room. Chapters 8-11 were probably the best for me. I also enjoyed the whole train sequence, and the mountaineering levels. These sections allow you to enjoy the great visual quality of the game; I'm sure people must have had their minds blown back in 2009 when it first came out. The action, however, I wasn't so keen on. Its solid and well balanced and all that, but I found the straight action pretty boring and tedious, as with most straight cover-based third-person shooters.

I'll pose a question to those who have finished the game; are the last few levels all action? Or are there some platforming heavy levels as well. If there are some more platforming levels I'll be more motivated to play through to the end.

Anyways, the story I found to be a bit trashy, but it served its purpose to give context to the awesome set pieces. The characters felt 'real' at least, and some of the banter between them was quite clever. I might have gotten more out of the story had I played the first game, but by all accounts it has even worse action, and this really turns me off playing it. I've heard really mixed things about the third game in the series, is it worth playing?

Assuming the last 3 chapters don't wildly alter my opinion, I'm inclined to say that UC 2 was very good, thanks to its polish, careful pacing, outstanding visuals and carefully designed set pieces. However, it didn't really do much to make itself stand out apart from the visuals. As a third-person shooter with crazy setpieces and some light platforming/puzzles, I thought Dead Space 2 was much more impressive from a story, atmosphere and gameplay perspective, but that of course is partly due to my preference for the subject matter of that game.

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I also finished Red Dead Redemption recently. While UC 2 didn't quite live up to the hype, RDR more than did. The gameplay was again fairly basic, but it more than made up for it with an awesome story and atmosphere with some really great writing and characters. Very few games I can think of have a story with such gravity. I love how it captured the feel of the time period, with the transition from the 'old wild west' to the increasing role of the federal Government and impeding technologies. I love how it dealt with people's ignorance of natives in the United States at this time, the Mexican Revolution, and the corruption of the government. It was widely seen as the best game of 2010, although for me I'm not sure if it knocks Fallout: New Vegas from the top spot, although it certainly comes close.

RDR is easily my favourite Rockstar game. I really hope the developers take some of the elements from RDR - especially checkpoints and regenerating health - and put them into Grand Theft Auto V.

Just a quick blog to vent my frustration and disappointment with one of the most universally acclaimed exclusives of the last few years: Uncharted 2. I was initially hoping to play UC 1 before the second game, but I was unable to find a copy of the game, and decided to go ahead and start the second. After hearing nothing but praise for the game, I went in expecting to be impressed. I guess this was my mistake, because, so far, I've found the game not only to be unremarkable, but to be rather lacking in several areas.

I've played about 45 minutes so far, which has got me to the end of the second chapter. Why, that's not long enough to form a proper opinion! I'll get to why I haven't played any more shortly. The first chapter was decent enough, although I instantly grew to dislike the platforming controls, which remind me of Assassins Creed but with worse animations and less options. The set up for the plot seems fine, if not a little generic; I found the writing to be a little hammy, especially in comparison to the excellently written Red Dead Redemption which I have been playing recently.

My real concerns started cropping up during the second chapter. The cover system is clunky as all hell, and the stealthing is just atrocious. I think I'm in one of the last rooms of the chapter, where there are maybe 5 or 6 enemies. When you enter the room, the bloke you are with says something about you taking care of all the guys, and you say something about heading to the fountain. So I take out one guy, and go to the fountain. There are two guys near me, and a few others farther away at this point. I have no idea where I am supposed to go in the room, the game doesn't tell me, and I can't find any visual cues to help. I decide to take out the two guys near me and proceed. One of them is leaning against the fountain, so I get into the fountain and walk up behind him. Even though his back is about 2 feet away from Nathans chest, pressing the take down button results in Drake swatting the air right behind the guards head, and a mission failure.

A second attempt at sneaking up beside the guard yields similar results. Ok, I'll just sneak past the bastard. I see a staircase that looks like it might be the way to go, but a guard at the top is looking straight at it. His back is to a ledge with a flower pot below it. Ok, I'll get on the flower pot and do a ledge takedown, clearly that is what I'm supposed to do. I climb onto the flower pot, press the take down button, and proceed to punch the wall right below the guard. This results in mission failure. Irritated, I try a completely different route the next time. I bypass several of the guards - apparently I can walk right in front of the guy leaning against the fountain and he doesn't see me - and go to what I think is the exit to the room. No apparently it's not. I try and backtrack, but apparently a guard saw me and I failed the mission. I quit the game at this point.

Given that I have been playing games a very long time, including many stealth games, and could not get passed a introductory stealth sequence in the second chapter of the game in 5 or so attempts, I am lead to the conclusion that this game has bad controls and bad level design given that I still don't know where I am supposed to go. This is on the easy difficulty level. One might assume that my failure is due to inexperience with the PS3 controller. Well, I did own a PS2, and played all of the Splincercell games on that platform (from 1 to double agent). I also had very few issues with the controls in RDR. Colour me very, very unimpressed. While the scripted events appear to be very entertaining and grandiose, they don't excuse the underlying problems the game appears to have.

I hope to god it gets better ( assuming I can get passed this ****ing room).

Since there weren't many releases in January and early February that interested me much, I took the time to go back and play some of the games I missed in 2011. I had the chance to play Hard Reset, La Noire, and Red Orchestra 2. I also made the mistake of buying Duke Nukem Forever on sale, but after playing for close to 2 hours I uninstalled it and regret the waste of time, money and bandwidth.

Hard Reset

Not much to say here, it's a fast, fun and very pretty shooter where you have to move around quickly to stay alive rather than hide in cover. The visuals are very impressive and it runs great, and the weapons feel good to use. It was quite challenging at times, but overall it was an intense but worthwhile use of a few dollars.

La Noire

I was initially going to buy a console for the purpose of playing this game before it came out or was announced for the PC, but in the end I picked it up for 7 dollars on a steam sale over the holidays. While it certainly has some problems with repetition and providing evidence when you accuse someone of lying (sometimes more than one piece should work, but the game only accepts one) I rather enjoyed it overall. The atmosphere was great, as was the writing, and the facial animations were indeed impressive despite blurry textures. I feel like the climax of the game came part way through, at the end of Homicide, and because of this I still haven't finished the game because the Vice levels really drag in comparison to the later Homicide levels. Still, it took me 15 hours to finish Homicide, and I feel I got my monies worth. I hope to return and finish the game eventually.

Red Orchestra 2

I grappled with the idea of getting this game for a long time, but every time It went on sale I held off because I thought it would be like a counter-strike set in WW II in that you die quick and have to wait for a round to finish for a resapwn. Over the winter break, someone gifted me the game, and I regret not getting it sooner, because its kinda amazing. The main mode, territory assault, lets you respawn every 15-20 seconds after death, so my initial fears were totally unfounded.

RO 2 is actually a super atmospheric and very authentic feeling game that really conveys the horror of war on the Eastern front during WW II. The emphasis isn't on getting the most kills, or even winning the game, but rather surviving and immersing yourself in the incredible atmosphere. Weapons feel excellent but unreliable, and the anguished cries of soldiers really draws you in. The maps are also fantastic; large, complex and very organic. Sadly, the game has a very small population of players, and it can be hard to find a populated server, especially one with good ping. Empty slots are filled with bots, but the AI is terrible; they run into the open and get stuck trying to climb over low walls or through windows. If you are as angry with BF 3 as I was when I rage-uninstalled it a couple weeks ago (I'm free!), you might want to check this game out.

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The one game I have played that came out in 2012 is King Arthur II, which I reviewed for New Game Network.

In short, the game has some neat ideas, but ultimately fails as the strategy is shallow and too easy. It also has bad performance issues, and some bugs that resulted in me getting more money early on than I could possibly spend.

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In early January, I figured I could use the PS3 I got last fall with my current monitor by purchasing a HDMI-->DVI cable. However, I then realized I would have no audio, and was again stumped as to how to get the thing working without spending a lot of money.

In the end, I put my cheapness aside and bought a 40" Sony Bravia LCD TV on sale at Futureshop for 450 dollars. I've only had a good job since last spring so I'm not used to having enough disposable income to do this kind of thing, but I dun it. First on my list was the Uncharted series, and I picked up Uncharted 2, but I haven't been able to locate a copy of Uncharted 1 just yet. In the mean time, I'm playing Red Dead Redemption, which is quite awesome, although the horse handling is a bit wonky at times. I love the atmosphere, and Rockstar finally fixed the stupid checkpoint and health system they clung to in GTA IV. I hope these make it into the GTA V.

If you have some recommendations for PS3 exclusive games or multiplats that aren't on PC, I'd love to hear them. On my radar are the Infamous games, dark/demons souls, and Killzone 2 and 2. I may or may not get any of these games.

2011 was a excellent year for PC gamers, easily the best since the landmark 2007. While a few titles failed to live up to their potential and hype, many others did, meaning there were so many great games this year I still haven't caught up with all the major releases in the November landslide (I finally bought LA Noire today).

Here are my top five games of 2011:

5. Tie: Portal 2/Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Portal 2 was a superbly written and well made game. My first playthrough of the Campaign and Co-op campaign in Portal 2 were some of the best times I've had with gaming this year. The puzzles were clever and the humour was very sharp. However, the game lacks any real replay value. What you get here is excellent though, which is why it makes my list.

Deus Ex: HR is a worthy prequel to cult classic original. I had a few problems with the game, such as the wonky energy bar and the necessity of a high hacking skill, but regardless the gameplay was great, as was the story and world the game took place in. I hope we get more games like this in the future with well thought out stories and settings.

4. Saints Row: The Third

While I loved Saints Row 2, the PC version was a very shoddy port indeed and this made it less enjoyable. Saints Row: The Third has none of these issues. Its great on the PC, running well and looking sharp. However, it is the gameplay design and gonzo humour that made this game stand out for me. The story missions are a ton of fun and are highly varied. The game also does very little to bar the player from anything they want to do, providing access to weapons and vehicles usually reserved for cheat codes. Pair this philosophy with great underlying game mechanics and epic customization options and you have a real winner of a sandbox game.

3. Batman: Arkham City

Everything about Arkham City screams quality. The level design, controls, combat, pacing and voice acting are all top notch. Intelligent puzzles; fast, exciting melee combat and deliberate stealth segments are all equally enjoyable in Arkham City, and it looks great to boot. The game piles on new gadgets and mechanics while still giving you uses for the old ones. It also gently reminds you of controls when you forget, since it seems to be aware of the huge amount of content it throws at you. Arkham City is simply a superbly made game that should be played by fans of batman and those like myself who just appreciate quality game design.

2. Shogun 2: Total War

Shogun 2 was my first total war game, and while the learning curve was a tad steep at first, once I understood how everything worked I found myself enthralled. The music and visuals come together so amazingly well, and both the real time and turn based components are fun and require a lot of thought. Slowly conquering Japan with a series of incredibly epic battles between thousands of troops was one of the most gratifying experiences I had this year in gaming. The atmosphere in many of the real time battles is like something out of a Akira Kurosawa film. Truly great stuff.

1. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Going into 2011, this was on the top of my most anticipated list. CD Project Red provides something intangible with their games that simply isn't found anywhere else. Perhaps it is the game's refusal to back down from mature content and issues that makes it stand out. I played through this game twice during the year, and was astounded at how different the two playthroughs were. As a result of this, I enjoyed the second playthrough just as much as the first, and this I think is the true test of a good RPG. I also found the characters in both games to be far more grounded than in most, making them much more memorable, and the game much more memorable.

Add to this the truly stunning visuals and the excellent story, Witcher 2 was the game that Impressed me the most in 2011. The uneven difficulty and general clunkyness that was present at launch has largely been resolved, with the current version of the game being more balanced and stable. I'll likely go back and play it again right before The Witcher 3, but I'm content to be left with my fond memories of the game for the time being.

Honourable Mentions:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While this game may not have grabbed my attention like it did others, I still have been enjoying it greatly. Bethesda really nailed the cold, snowy feel of a Northern region, and it's a lot of fun to explore and do side quests. Sadly, I've encountered some very serious bugs that impacted the main story line, and I don't think the story or writing is particularly good. I might write a review on GS or do a blog where I go into more depth on my experience with Skyrim.

Dead Space 2

This would be #6 on my list if I was going to 10. While the amazing atmosphere and feeling of dread from the first Dead Space returns, the combat has been much improved. I also loved the scripted events that occurred from time to time. If Dead Space 2 was longer than the 7 hours it took me to finish, It would likely have been higher on my list.

Bulletstorm

My favourite First Person Shooter of 2011. Awesome pacing and weapons combined with the highly entertaining 'skillshot' system made Bulletstorm a real joy to play. The game also looked great and had surprising replay value. I hope we see another Bulletstorm in the future.

Trackmania 2: Canyon

My pick for best driving game and best multiplayer this year. Problems I had with the car handling at first melted away as I better learned the driving mechanics and better tracks were made. I also had a blast making my own tracks. check out my review of the game at NGN.

Dawn of War II: Retribution

Possibly the best bang for buck expansion pack ever made. Another full campaign lasts you about 8 hours and can be played with any of 6 races giving it amazing replay value. You also get all races for multiplayer and all characters for last stand. This is because, thankfully, Retribution ditches Games for Windows Live in favour of Steam for a matchmaking system. Again this proved to be one of my staple multiplayer games this year, and I still jump in for a multiplayer match now and then.

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These are the games I enjoyed most this past year. There were lots of other great games I enjoyed, but they also had serious enough issues. I'll give a shout out to BF 3, Crysis 2, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine and Two Worlds II as other games I got a lot of enjoyment out of, but also had either serious problems or didn't do enough to really stand out.

It's also worth noting that I haven't played LA Noire yet, which I may end up loving.

November has proved to be a crazed time for game released, an inordinate number of them having 3's on the end. I've opted to hold out on La Noire on the PC and Skyrim due to time limitations, while I ended up getting Battlefield 3 (ok it's a November release), Modern Warfare 3 and Saints Row 3. Here is the rundown on my opinion of the FPS giants and the latest sandbox offering from Volition

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Battlefield 3

Outside of The Witcher 2, this was my most anticipated game of the year. I even upgraded my PC with it in mind. The upgrades proved very helpful, since the game runs great for me. I played the Single player on Ultra settings to get the best visual experience, while I play the Multiplayer on high settings to ensure a stable frame rate, even though it remains above 40fps on Ultra, It feels a tad sluggish give the pace of the action.

I'll start off by saying that the Single player isn't nearly as disastrous as everyone seems to think it is. They hyper linearity and scripting aren't ideal, but the pacing is good, and the game looks and sounds so incredibly amazing that I still had fun for the duration of the campaign. I definitely had a better time with BF 3's campaign than with BC 2's, which I found to be rather boring.

But who plays a Battlefield game for the singleplayer? After a few days of playing BF 3's multiplayer, I got really frustrated with it. I hated how much I died right after spawning, I hated how much I died instantly without having a chance to run for cover, and I hated how the teams always became really imbalanced. I also disliked some of the maps (and still do), especially Demavand peak on conquest, and Operation Metro in Conquest. I almost stopped playing the game at this point. Almost. I pushed through, and now love the game. I've discovered that getting spawn killed can be avoided, or at least expected, by not spawning on a squad mate way behind enemy lines, or spawning on a point that the enemy is capping. The instant deaths still occur from time to time, but not as frequently, perhaps because the low ping servers that were initially always full now often have available spots on them. This also resolves issues with hit detection I had at first. I've put about 16 hours into the multiplayer so far, and can see myself playing this for a long time. There is a patch coming next week to deal with some issues, and Back to Karkand isn't too far off either. I got over 100 hours out of BC 2's multiplayer, and expect to get at least that out of BF 3.

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Modern Warfare 3

MW 3's biggest problem is that it builds off MW 2 rather than Black Ops. The end result is that last year's Call of Duty is simply all around better, technical issues aside. MW 3's campaign is good, better than MW 2's, but not as compelling and cohesive as Black Op's campaign. The only advantage MW 3 has over Black Ops is Spec Ops, which is a worthwhile mode in MW 3. The levels are more interesting and more intense than he co-op levels in MW 2, and survival mode is a good addition.

I have, however, developed a rather profound hate for Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer. Not only does it not stand up against BF 3, it doesn't stand up against other Call of Duty games. At first I thought it was just getting used to the COD formula after playing BF 3 that was giving me troubles, but going back to Black Ops right after BF 3 saw me having fun. Not so for MW 3. I hate everything about the game's multiplayer. The feel of the weapons (no recoil, weak sound effects), the maps, the changes to weapon leveling, weapon perks, and the new modes that even further promote rushing around aimlessly. I HATE IT. Everything that bugged me about the Multiplayer in MW 2 and to a lesser extent Black Ops is now at the forefront of the game. The maps are cluttered and cramped, the perks seems to support increased movement speed, and the weapons perks aren't balanced. The game is now about leveling up and unlocking stuff rather than actual gameplay. In my humble opinion, the Multiplayer in MW 3 is the worst of any Call of Duty game on the PC, including the pre-MW 1 titles. I know that, right now, if I went back to Call of Duty 1's multiplayer, I would have more fun than if I continued with MW 3's.

I hate the gameplay, I hate It's popularity, and I hate what it represents. I get worked up just thinking about it. Overall, MW 3 isn't a bad game thanks to the solid campaign and Spec Ops mode, but given that many see the Multiplayer as the 'primary' mode of the CoD game's, this title should be avoided.

I go more in depth with what I think of the game in my review at NGN.

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Saints Row 3

I was dissapointed with Red Faction: Armageddon earlier this year, which gave me some doubts about Saints Row 3. Thankfully, my worries proved unfounded as this game is amazing. I love Volition's game design philosophy, that fun should be placed above everything else. And that's just what SR 3 is: fun. Volition also did an excellent job with the PC version, as it looks and runs great. The missions are extremely entertaining, the side activities are hilarious and really enjoyable, and the customization is great. If you want a good sandbox game, Saints Row 3 is it. To be honest, I'm having a hard time finding faults with the game after playing for five hours. The vehicle controls aren't ideal; handling is super responsive and cars have no weight to them, but given that SR 3 is supposed to be about fun, they work well enough.

This is kinda like three blogs in one, just a warning!

Back in early May before the Witcher 2 launched, I decided it was time to upgrade from my Core 2 Duo system. I started looking at getting a Phenom II CPU, but people started talking about Bulldozer and how it was coming out in June. I decided I wanted my new build to last as long as possible, and the idea of getting into a new generation of CPU's right at the start seemed like a good one. June turned into August, and August October. After the Witcher 2 there weren't really any demanding games until Battlefield 3, so I didn't mind waiting (despite getting poor performance in The Witcher 2). Early signs looked concerning, and when the reviews rolled in last Tuesday us patient waiters worst fears were brought to life: Bulldozer flopped hard. They single-core performance is sad, and given that most games support 4 cores or less, the advantages of having an 8-core CPU were minimal. In games, the Bulldozer CPU's often fell behind the Phenom II's.

As soon as these devastating reviews were brought to light, I swallowed my pride and planned out a Sandy Bridge build despite my unfounded rebellion against Intel with my previous upgrade-based blog. On Friday I went down to NCIX and bought the various parts. I love living in the same town as one of these stores since I can order and pick up parts at the same time.

Here is what I ended up getting:

Intel i5-2500k:

Gigabyte P67X LGA1155 ATX mobo

2x4 gig 1600mhz Mushkin DDR3 ram.

1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue HDD

and a generic LG SATA DVD drive (finally time to retire the O'le IDE Optical drives).

I'm going to keep my AMD 5850 PSC+ for the time being since it's still a good card. It has a really beefy aftermarket heatsink, and I saw one review of the card where they got a 20% performance increase from overclocking. After seeing this, I've pushed the Engine clock speed from 760mhz (factory OC'd up from 725) to 850, and the memory clock speed from 1050mhz (up from 1000) to 1150mhz. I didn't have any comparison because I did the overclocking right off the bat in my new build, and I was getting a terrible CPU bottleneck with my old CPU, but it's still running stable and cool thanks to the fantastic heatsink.

The first two game's I tried are the two that gave me the most trouble due to my CPU: Bad Company 2 and The Witcher 2.

Both games saw massive performance gains with the new hardware.

BC 2 went from 30-40fps on med-high settings with 2xAA and HBAO off to 70-90 FPS on max settings with 4xAA and HBAO on. Since I was used to playing with lower frame rates and lag spikes, I did so well in my first match that people thought I was hacking and I was kicked.

The Witcher 2 went from 20-40fps (depending on the location) on a mix of medium and high settings with most features turned off to 40-60fps on high settings with most features turned on. I enjoyed playing The Witcher 2 with the high graphics settings, good frame rates and of course with the 2.0 patch so much that I'm going to start another playthrough. It's probably the best game to have come out so far this year.

I also tried out Crysis 2 with the v1.9 dx11 patch and high res textures. I could run the game fairly well before, but the frame rate would drop to around 30 or lower in some areas (when the game first released). I believe I was running on the second highest settings using wasdie's advanced graphics thingy. Now, I get 40+fps constantly on Ultra settings regardless of the area.

Driver SF: From 30-60fps on high settings with AA on to 120 fps on the same settings.

Huge gains overall, Oof course, the real test will come next week with Battlefield 3. The beta ran well for me on Operation Metro, but Caspian Border gave me about 20fps regardless of the graphics settings. I'm hoping the new CPU will resolve that issue.

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RAGE

I was really excited for this game a little over a year ago when they first started releasing gameplay footage, but my hype levels have died down since. The end result is rather underwhelming.

First off, I was among the worst affected by technical issues. No matter what, I get horrible freezing and choppy frame rats with my ATI card installed. Even the driver updates, cfg. tweaks and patch didn't fix it. Luckily, my laptop was able to run the game very well.

Some aspects of RAGE are really impressive, such as the enemy AI and character animations, but the driving is bad, the side quests are bad, the story is bad and the mini-games are redundant because I already had so much money that I could buy more ammo than I could possibly use and all of the upgrades for weapons and armour.

The linear story levels that were based around shooting were quite good, but these only accounted for about 6 hours of the campaign. Everything else felt like filler, which is pretty unacceptable for a 60-dollar game.

I'd put it behind Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Homefront and Space Marine as far as shooters this year are concerned.

Check out my full review at NGN.

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Driver San Francisco

I picked this game up about a week ago, and have only had the chance to play it for a couple hours. I like the car handling and the pulp-fiction vibe, appropriate music is imperative to how good a driving game such as this is , and Driver: SF seems to have nailed this. However, I'm not enjoying the missions where you have to escape the cops. These conjure up ugly memories of the worst parts of GTA IV. They seems really difficult to lose, even pulling sharp u-turns and going down allies doesn't seem to shake them most times. You need to find an area with a bunch of side streets and make a series of fast, abrupt turns, and this can be really challenging, often frustratingly so. However, I'm enjoying the rest of the game quite a bit. I just hope there aren't too many of these cop chases, otherwise I could give up on the game.

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Trackmania 2

Even though I think Trackmania 2 is not as good as previous games in the series, I've been spending a lot of time with it. I've gotten up to a rank of around 6500 in multiplayer, and have been spending most of my time on the Cos-Fullspeed server since it has some great tracks.

My gripes with the game mostly revolve around the fact that wall-riding and looping control has been drastically reduced, and this means that there aren't many good wallride tracks which were my favourites to build and play with TMNF. I also think the track editor isn't great, but I still put in a some time with it.

I even made a few tracks myself which I uploaded to Mania Exchange, I like to think they are pretty good (at least the first two), if you own the game you can check them out:

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3