The release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution seems to have signalled the long-winded onslaught of awesome fall releases, and so far with the games I have played have all either met or exceeded my expectations, keeping in mind that two of them were on my top 5 most anticipated games of the year list. Things seemingly won't slow down on the game release front for months, and given that I am a full time student and working I will have to be selective about which games I can play on release.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The experience of the original Deus Ex was fresh in my mind when the Human Revolution was revealed since I first played the original game only three years ago. While the initial trailers were impressive my dislike of Ridley Scott's Bladerunner contributed largely to my initial scepticism. I remained unenthusiastic until a early build of the game leaked a couple months before launch, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from those who played it persuaded me to pre-order the game on GMG for 30 dollars, making it the first game I have ever pre-ordered.

The game itself is excellent. The breadth of options for completing each mission isn't quite as impressive as it was with the original game, but the prequel is on par or better than the original in most other ways. I chose to go stealthy the first go through with a combination of lethal and non-lethal weapons (tranq. rifle, silenced pistol and stun-gun being my weapons of choice), and I found the gameplay to be excellent and fun throughout, largely thanks to the old-school level design.

What impressed more than the game play was the setting and world the game took place in. It was incredibly well thought out and subsequently thought provoking. Very intelligent stuff, and the story itself was pretty good as well. The conversation system was interesting and enjoyable, and the characters and voice acting were quite good as well.

My only gripes with the game were the wonky energy system (you need to eat to restore energy past 1 bar, essentially making upgrading this component worthless) and the fact that you basically need to specialize in hacking if you want to go the stealthy route. I was initially planning on pouring points into other things that would allow me to find alternative routes, but in the end I had to miss a bunch of side quests and pour points into hacking down the road anyways.

Despite these minor gripes I would say that it is one of the best game so far this year.

Space Marine

While I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Warhammer 40k - I'm not saying I dislike it, I just don't know much about it - the Dawn of War and Relic fanboy in me was incredibly excited at the prospect of a third person shooter made by the same people as the Dawn of War games.

In short, I think it's a really enjoyable third person shooter/hack and slash that I personally thought was a lot more fun than the first Gears of War. I'll take balls-to-the-wall action over back-to-the-wall action any day. The blend of ranged and melee combat is literally the best I've ever seen, both work incredibly well and for the most part you get to choose if you want to dispatch your foes in ranged or melee combat. Awesome stuff.

The downsides are that the campaign is fairly short and the multiplayer is imbalanced and laggy. Still, Relic is promising free post-launch DLC, specifically a co-op mode of some kind, so I don't regret paying full price for it.

Check out my review of the game at NGN

Trackmania 2: Canyon

A couple days ago the sequel to my favourite racing game of all time came out: Trackmania 2: Canyons. I've only played a few hours so far, but I can tell this is a game I will be spending a lot of time on and playing for a long time. I probably put 150 hours, if not more, into Trackmania Nations: Forever; trying to get all the medals on the Nadeo tracks, racing on maps people made online (I played on one awesome server a lot which often had the same people), and even making my own tracks, some of which I thought were pretty damn good. People who think the TM games are shallow are doing it wrong.

TM 2: Canyon has all of the things that made me spend so much time on Nations Forever, but it has better graphics, seriously the game looks incredible, better handling and lots of new tracks. It is essentially the same as the previous games, and because of this I might not spend as much time on is as with Nations Forever, but still I can see myself spending a good deal of time with it.

I'm curious to see how Shootmania turns out.

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In other news, I bought a PS3 and both Uncharted games a couple weeks ago. But teeth, isn't that really big news that requires a blog of its own? Well, due to my stupidity, I didn't check to make sure my monitor has a HDMI port that would allow me to hook up the console. Fail. DVI and VGA only. So until I get a new monitor (don't need one at all) or a TV I won't be able to use it. It's at a friend's house for the time being since he has a TV, and I've used it there to play a couple games that he bought (CoD: World at War and Army of Two which is awful), but until I figure out a way to use it it'll be staying at his place. I might look into getting a cheap second hand TV, but I'm currently saving all of my pennies for some much needed computer upgrades.

The upside is that the longer I wait, the cheaper the various PS3 games I'm interested in will get. Besides, I wouldn't have had time to play the games anyways with all of the new releases.

The reason we post on forums such as GS is no secret: we care enough about our special interest to find like-minded people who we can discuss our hobbies with in depth. It isn't always easy to find other people who are as passionate about something like gaming as you are, so moving to an online special-interest community makes a lot of sense in many cases.

However, I have often wondered if posting on forums has the positive side affect of improving one's ability to convey ideas and arguments through text. When I first started posting on Gamespot my writing was pretty rough, and often when I found myself on the losing side of an argument I would revert to slandering those who disagreed with me. My 2 page moderation history is evidence of this. yet because we care enough about our hobbies to sign up on a website and discuss it with strangers, we probably care about how other people perceive the ideas and opinions we post about. We want others to validate our opinions, and even to change the minds of those who disagree with us. Doing this is no easy task, especially when trying to persuade someone or argue a side though text alone.

I remember a couple of years ago there were a number of topics on the GS PC games forum suggesting that Oblivion was a highly overrated game. At the time I believed this title to be the holy grail of video games, so I created a new topic posing the question of why Oblivion was receiving so much hate. I was greeted with a series of hostile text-walls talking about how the world was dead, or that it was a terrible RPG. Yet I had enjoyed the game immensely so I simply refuted their arguments outright. Then another poster came along, mfsa (widely known as antisocialfatman), one of my favourite GS posters who is now sadly banned, and explained in a concise and clear post why some people thought Oblivion was a disappointing title. Yet he acknowledged that the game did have some redeeming qualities, and just because it wasn't a true RPG it wasn't necessarily bad. By validating my opinion and then explaining the reasoning of others, he had allowed me to see the game in a new light and from then on I understood why some people were not impressed by the game.

This is just an example of a poster who wrote with such conviction and clarity that he was able to open my stubborn mind to new possibilities. Isn't this the reason we post on these forums in the first place? If everyone simply agreed with everyone else there would be nothing to discuss. Yet changing someone's mind, allowing them to see a game in the same way that you see it, is a rewarding thing to do. Yet to do this we need to pose our argument in a clear and concise way, acknowledging possible counters and explaining why they aren't as relevant or as prevalent as they might seem. Because we are so invested in these arguments, we will push ourselves to write with more clarity and sound arguments than we might in a school project where we simply aren't as invested emotionally.

I am inclined to say that posting regularly on forums year-round has improved my writing immensely. The formulation of sentences and paragraphs comes easily to me now, so I can focus more on the argument itself. I would like to attribute this in part to regular posting on forums. Because I was so invested in changing people's minds about a game, I was able to really commit to writing more coherent posts, and using reasoning and logic to counter other's arguments. Once I became used to doing this, my ability to write arguments in a clear and concise way has lead to significant success in writing post-secondary papers, especially those in subjects as History where you are required to pick and argue a side.

So perhaps the hours we spend on GS pouring over a topic, shaking your head at the ignorant jibes of other posters and scheming up ways to change their minds and allow them to see the light, aren't a waste of time at all. By writing about something we really care about, we force ourselves to improve upon our writing so that others will go "oh, I see what you mean." So those victories where you convince someone to go back and try a game for a second time, or explain why you think a certain game isn't as important as some make it out to be, aren't only successes for your ego, they are also successes indicating that you are improving as a writer.

A few weeks ago my 4-year old Dell Inspiron 125's hard drive died, and given that I hated the laptop since it overheated like crazy and had a horrible integrated GPU I decided to buy a new notebook instead of spending the 60 dollars on a new hard drive.

I ended up getting the Asus K53S, which seemed like it had the best parts for my budget of 800-900 dollars (and I wanted to go with Asus).

So far I am extremely happy with it, I'm going to be using it for school, work (Arcmap), movies and maybe some light gaming. So far I've installed Team Fortress 2 and Call of Cthuhlu (which I'll talk about later) and both run great, the former on high settings with 2xAA and Cthuhlu with 4xAA since it doesn't have any graphics options besides resolution and AA. This is about the performance I expected, and given that my old laptop couldn't even run games from 2002 smoothely this is a huge improvement. The keyboard is great, which is a really big plus since I know some new laptop keyboards have really strange layouts.

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I was recently playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent with some friends and enjoyed it so immensely that I decided to get the game that everyone says is the most similar (apart from the Penumbra series): Call of Cthuhlu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I've come close to buying this game on many occassions but people's opinions have always been so mixed that I have never ended up getting it.

I finally went ahead and bought the game for $10 dollars on steam, and so far I am enjoying it immensely. The storytelling in the game is some of the best I have ever encountered in a video game, and the sense of intrigue and creepiness that has been so prevelent so far is really making it an enjoyable experience. The first few hours are very reminiscient of Amnesia since you don't have a gun and spend your time sneaking around, but once you get a gun it turns into a game not unlike Dues Ex or Thief 2 in terms of actual gameplay. It is clunkier than both titles, but the old-school design from that era shines through, which makes sense given that the title started development in the late 90's.

The downsides are that it looks very dated, even for a 2006 release. The visuals look more like a game that came out in 2003 or so. There is also a fairly backward save system, a relic of the game's console origins (that and the lack of graphics options mentioned earlier) with involves finding places to save scattered throughout each level. Some stealth sections can be a bit trial-and-errorish, but if you have the patience to get through these parts the payoff from the story progression and fantastic scripted events more than makes up for the frustration.

If you haven't looked into this title and think a hybrid of Thief 2, Amnesia and Deus Ex sounds interesting you should most certainly check it out. The lack of polish and difficulty spikes will surely turn some people off, but if you can tolerate these aspects this game is a real hidden gem based on the first 6 hours or so.

There is a weird lull in games right now and instead of buying some of the games I missed in March I'm getting back into some titles I played a lot last year. Fallout: New Vegas and Left 4 Dead 2 have been taking up most of my time, with versus being more fun than ever despite woes of ragers; around the time I stopped playing l4d2 I finally picked up a mic and have found that using them in the game is very helpful for co-ordinating attacks. At first it felt really weird using it, but after a while it became second nature and I've found using them can help a team keep playing rather than disintegrating due to minor losses or failures.

With New Vegas I'm starting a new playthrough playing the role of an insane prospector; I'm pouring points into explosives and sneaking so I can creep up behind people and throw dynamite and their feet. I'm planning on siding with Ceasars legion this time, and already I'm amazed at how different my second playthrough is from my first. I also forgot how immersive it is, I think the excellent soundtrack plays no small part of this. Ever since Mass Effect 1 I've been growing more and more aware of the massive impact a games score can have on how its 'feel,' and the soundtrack of New Vegas just fits perfectly with the content.

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Portal 2

I powered through Portal 2 during me week off and it was a great time. Cave Johnson is awesome. The gels were awesome. My biggest complaint initially was the lack of content for 50 dollars, but it sounds like Valve is going to remedy this with free content in the coming months. So I guess the games only real flaw is that there is no replay value for the content that is there. It was great, but It left me wanting more.

Check out my review of the game at NGN

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Crysis 2

I was initially going to wait until I upgraded my computer to buy this game, but decided to get it sooner after hearing reports of the game running well on dual core CPU's. It ran acceptably well once I had fiddled with the settings using the advanced graphics options application, and overall I think it is a good game but nowhere near the greatness achieved by the original. I simply didn't enjoy the combat, or the suit, as much as I did in the first game. I thought it had a good story, and some damn good levels later on, but I simply didn't enjoy the segments where the aliens respawned infinitely. I missed the destructible environments and sprawling levels of the first game. It wasn't a terrible sequel, but I think they could have done more with the setting and the enemies, especially the Aliens.

Also for some reason the game runs poorly in Multiplayer, and the graphical tweaks don't seem to apply there, and for these reasons I haven't been able to get into it at all. I can see that there is fun to be had in this mode with the tight gameplay and suit functions, but I just cant enjoy it due to the inconsistent frame rate and blurry visuals. I'll come back to it when I've completed upgrading. I also plan on doing a second playthrough on a harder difficulty setting with an increased emphasis on stealth.

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I was right about my not finishing Assassins Creed Brotherhood, after about 20 hours of playing, much of this time spent on side quests, I got to the segment where

[spoiler] you use the Apple of Eden as your only weapon. This segment is terrible and broken. When you use this weapon the enemies either fight each other, die, or cower in fear. If an enemy is cowering in fear, he cannot be killed. When you are told to kill a number of specific targets, one will inevitably cower in fear and you will have to start over. It's so damn stupid, standing right in front of your target with a whole arsenal of weapons strapped to your back being told you can't use any of them because you are holding something in one of your hands. Why on earth can't you just kill him, or even highlight him so that your recruited assassins can kill him. This whole sequence feels out of place and caused me to stop playing the game. [/spoiler]

Other than this I enjoyed the game quite a bit and thought it was probably the best in the series, and I may or may not attempt to progress further or go back and play more side quests.

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As per my upgrades, I've decided to wait for AMD to release their new line of CPU's in June. Money won't be an issue, and this way I will be able to avoid further upgrades for a longer period of time.

Also, Witcher 2 in just a few weeks. Huzzah!

School is almost done for the semester, finals next week then I'm done edumacating myself until next fall. I have a nice 12 day break between my last exam and when I start work for the summer, which coincides nicely with the release of Portal 2. I got lucky with a summer job, and will be working for a professor at the university I will be attending next fall (University of British Columbia). I will be working in the crazy sounding field of Fluvialgeomorphology, which is essentially looking at river processes; capturing and analysing sediment, measuring discharge, velocity, the course of the river etc. I get to spend some time working outdoors doing surveying and sediment collection, which is really awesome, and the rest of the time working on a computer doing excel spreadsheets and GIS, which I don't mind either. It's nice to see my coursework already paying off in a job where I get to apply what I have been learning.

This job is going to pay fairly well, so I'll have enough money for some much needed computer upgrades. I'm still debating whether I should grab a Phenom II (looking at the 965 BE) along with a new mobo and ram in time for The Witcher 2, or wait until the Bulldozers come out in a couple months. I know AMD is pretty good about making their CPU's backwards compatible with older motherboards, so if this is the case with the Bulldozers I might get the Phenom II now (well, soon, when I get my first paycheque) then upgrade to a Bulldozer in a year or so. Decisions decisions. If anyone knows anything about AMD backwards compatibility and the bulldozer CPU's (pertaining to this AM3 mobo) please let me know. Also, I've decided to switch to AMD for a number of reasons, so don't try and talk me into getting an i5!

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Shogun 2

I dove head first into the Total War series a couple weeks ago with the newest game in the series, Shogun 2. I can safely say that this is the best game to have come out so far this year if you are a fan of strategy games. I also think, personally, that this is the best strategy game to have come out since World in Conflict (although they are incredibly different). After I got past the initially steep learning curve I found so much to like in this title. The turn-based campaign map and real-time battles complement each other fantastically. I've had some really epic battles with maxed out armies on both sides, as well as some really tactical skirmishes involving only a handful of units on each side. Plotting wars against other powerful clans is very fun, and declining their desperate pleas for peace treaties right before you wipe out their last province is incredibly satisfying in an evil-bastard kind of way. I haven't spent much time with the multiplayer, but I enjoyed the few skirmishes I played, and will likely come back to it when I have more time. The fact that it looks absolutely incredible and has a great art stIe also helps.

Here is my rather lengthy review of the game

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Assassins Creed: Brotherhood

I've always been conflicted about the Assassins Creed games, and Brotherhood continues this trend. Overall I think it's probably the best Assassins Creed yet on the PC, since the combat is much better (counter attacks aren't the insta-win button anymore) and the odd symbols have been replaced with the actual buttons which greatly reduces confusion. Yet some of the missions are bloody awful, especially the stealth missions, and the platforming controls still cause me to scream profanities at my monitor from time to time. The missions where you have to destroy machines for Leonardo can be particularly appalling, since the vehicle controls are TERRIBLE, especially for the flying machine, and the stealth bits where you fail if detected are very, very annoying.

The platforming controls are fine for the most part, but during some sections the camera will move to the side and you will be required to jump in a different direction to grab onto a ledge. These can be absolutely enraging since it seems the controls have no correlation to where Etzio jumps. Ok, I'm facing a wall, I want to jump backwards, so I'll press S, right click and space. Etzio flies off to his right, and plummets to his death. Ok, I'll try again, this time since his back is facing to the left on the screen, I'll press A, right click and space. Etzio flings himself to the left, and plummets to his death. Further attempts seem him fling himself straight up into the air and then plummet to his death, or simply let go and fall. Cue string of child-damaging profanities. The platforming can also feel extremely contrived, with Etzio failing to grab onto what are very obvious ledges well within his reach, yet being fully capable of climbing up a statue by grasping on to the worn-down nose of the sculpted character. This can lead to temporary confusion in some of the Lair of Romulus sections, but is a fairly minor complaint.

When I'm not in one of these fairly rare platforming scenarios, when I'm not in a stealth mission where you fail with detection, and when I'm not crazily swooping about in a gimped flying machine, Assassins Creed Brotherhood is consistently excellent. I probably won't finish it because of the flaws though, as with AC 1 and 2. It's still the best AC yet, at least on the PC, so I have no idea how long it will be before the annoyances become more prevalent than the escapism.

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Next up is Cryisis 2 which I missed out on, I was going to wait until I got my upgrades to get it but I hear it runs well on Core 2 Duo's so I think I'll give it a try. Portal 2 on the 19th as well. Not a lot of new games coming out, but those coming are good ones (Witcher 2 in just over a month, cant wait!)

The many releases of 2011 have begun to pour in, and I'm doing my best to keep up with those that interest me. The most recent games I've played are Dawn of War II Retribution and Bulletstorm, although I spent a bit of time on the controversial Crysis 2 demo so I'll share my thoughts on that as well.

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Crysis 2 demo:

I'm massively conflicted about this game. On one hand the gameplay seems pretty good, the gunplay is tight, the suit functions separate its gameplay from other online shooters, and the weapon balance seemed decent (from what I played).

On the other hand, the game looks blurry, controls sluggishly and otherwise doesn't feel like the great PC version that Crytek promised. I wouldn't mind these problems as much if Crytek hadn't adamantly defended the PC version as being unaffected by the multiplat development. Then they give us this crap. Virtually no graphics options. Direct X 9 only. It's like the high quality gameplay is hidden behind multiple layers of failure. I'm still open to getting the game eventually, but the day 1 purchase I had planned isn't going to happen.

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Bulletstorm

I didn't get this on launch because, well, I can't remember actually, I think I was waiting for the PC demo but it got cancelled. I heard from various people that it was a lot of fun, and I had some money freed up from not getting Crysis 2 right away so I decided to grab this game instead. I'm really glad I did. I'm just about finished the singleplayer campaign and it was just a ton of fun. Such excellent pacing, and such entertaining combat. I think I'm going to have to play through the game again since it was just so much fun, and I want to specialize with different weapons this time. As others have said, the plot is actually pretty good and it's presented well, I never felt confused as to my motive or objective in the game. I even had fun playing the echoes with a couple friends, trying to get the highest score. I still don't think that the 60 dollar price tag was justified, but I don't feel ripped off.

What I find ironic is that compared to Crytek's marketing of Crysis 2, this game sounded like the PC version would be a disaster. In reality, it's excellent. It looks fantastic, probably the best looking Unreal Engine 3 game ever (alongside Mirrors Edge), it also controls perfectly and runs great. I did experience one bug where you get onto a glass gondola/tram, and the tram went along its track while I remained behind floating in mid air, but reloading the last save (which was right before) remedied this issue. Given the amazing pacing of the game I don't have any complaints about the length, especially since there is some replay value that I think I will take advantage of. We need more creative shooters like this.

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Dawn of War II: Retribution

I knew from the Beta that this game would be great, and it is. No surprises there. The campaign was actually better than I expected it to be, the story wasn't amazing but the missions themselves were extremely well designed. It also had one of the best cutscenes I've seen in ages. It reminded me of the cutscenes in Homeworld.

If you have no intention of playing the game, check out the cutscene here.

I also reviewed the game at New Game Network.

I don't consider myself to be very good at most of the games I play, but during the first two weeks of playing the games competitive multiplayer, I had a brief adventure into the top of the leaderboard thanks to a matchmaking bug. The guy I usually play with in 2v2 crashed out of his first game, and his skill rating remained at 100 (which is very very low) until he was through his placement matches. For reference, I came out of placement with a skill rating of 1315. Once you are through placement, your skill rating rises very slowly. So when I played with him in 2v2 we were being placed against opponents that were around the skill level of our average rating which was about 6-700 at the beginning, it has risen to maybe 1100 as our skill ratings continue to rise. So even though the matches were favoured against us, we were by far the better players so we almost always won. My skill rating continued to rise, even though I hadn't played anyone equal to my actual skill rating. So after about 20 games, of which I had lost 3 or 4, my skill rating had risen to about 1500, high enough to place me in the top 25 players on the leaderboard even though I had never faced a decent team. The highest I ever got was rank 23. My skill rating is still slowly rising but I've been passed by other players so I'm sitting around rank 64 with a skill rating of about 1600. I wonder when all of this will end.

I thought that was awesome, since I got friend invites from a few high level players as a result of my being that high on the leaderboard. I also got to play team after team of players that we easily beat. I think that was the height of my pro-gaming career right there. Time to retire.

Next up is Assassins Creed Brotherhood and possibly Homefront, the multiplayer looks interesting although I've heard reports of overpowered sniper rifles which gives me pause. Apart from that the multiplayer looks quite good.

It's been a while since my last blog, in the mean time I've been busy playing lots of different games, incredibly all of which are sequels.

Two Worlds II

This game has probably been taking up the most of my time, I knew it would be decent based on the reception of the European version and that is exactly what it is: Decent. The only real sore point is the story, the rest is really solid. After playing Risen and Gothic 4 which had horrible frame rate issues, the smooth performance of Two Worlds II makes it really playable and a lot of fun. You can check out my review of the game here.

Dead Space 2

I never finished Dead Space 1; I was playing through the game on normal, but at around chapter 6 the game decided it didn't like me and the difficulty was changed to hard for no reason. The game lacked an option to change it back, so I struggled forth until chapter 10 where I finally gave up.

Luckily the "previously on Dead Space" video at the start of the sequel brought me up to speed, a feature which all sequels should include to remind tired minds of past events (well, unless it's a series like Mass Effect where your saves and decisions carry over). Dead Space 2 I did finish, I found the difficulty to be much more consistent and didn't really have much trouble getting through the game on normal, although the last two chapters were challenging. The singleplayer portion of the game was brilliant, the pacing was improved over the first game and the scripted events were really thrilling. My only gripe is the length. I finished the game in a little over 7 hours, which is pretty poor. The last two chapters in particular felt kind of rushed, I felt the ending segment could have been fleshed out further. Multiplayer is practically deserted, but the few games I have had were reasonably fun. I look forwards to future Dead Space games in the future.

Dawn of War II: Retribution

I've been getting back into Dawn of War II's multiplayer thanks to the beta for the latest expansion. The new matchmaking system is excellent, its faster and produces many more even matches. I've played Dawn of War II's multiplayer quite a bit, having put in close to 300 hours in the games competitive multiplayer alone. I have played the Orks mostly and have yet to try the new Imperial Guard, although I intend to try them eventually. My proficiency with the Orks led to a 10-game winning streak right off the bat; I'm still undefeated in 2v2. In team games (3v3) which I play most often I'm getting into some fairly high level matches which are just nuts, I feel like I'm scrambling to stay on top of everything going on and doubt I will maintain such a high skill rating (around 1400 after 24 3v3 games for those of you who know anything about it). I look forward to delving further into the game when it comes out on March 1st. This should be my main multiplayer game for some time to come.

Counter-Strike: Source

I've been probing my way around the edges of one of the most daunting online shooter communities around since the cIassic was gifted to me by a kind gentleman (well I'm not sure about the gentle part, but I'm fairly certain he is a man). My experience so far can be summed up with this image:

It took me about 15 minutes to get those images in game

Yet I can't seem to stop playing it, even after I've died for the 10th time without killing anyone, the possibility of having one of those amazing rounds where you flank the other team and take several enemies out without them even noticing. I am gradually getting better, but still suck horribly and am not sure whether or not I'll lose interest before I become at least marginally proficient.

Left 4 Dead 2

After about 150 hours and 115 odd Versus matches I'm starting to slow down on this game, not because I'm bored of it but because I'm fed up with the community. Rage quitters and pub stompers; elitists and retards seem to dominate the highly segregated community of this game. I still drop in for a game every now and then but after each bad game I come back less and less. I'm guessing i'll get a second wind when the new DLC arrives, I never played L4D 1 so this new pack is really going to breath new life into the game.

Killing Floor

Ok this isn't a sequel but I recently purchased the game with a few friends. There is loads of content now after the game having been out for a couple years, and the gameplay is simple yet fun thanks to the great gunplay and perk levelling system. If you want to join a low level player with no hope of surviving a long normal game, my steam ID is With_Teeth26.

The next couple of months are full of fantastic looking releases, so I'm sure I'll be busy playing them rather than writing about them. I might do another blog eventually where I blather nerdily about Dawn of War II: Retribution.

With 2010 ending on a very weak Q4, the titles should start to flow again by the end of January and will, it seems, continue for the entire year. Some huge sequels and big-name PC exclusives will be accompanied by some smaller but good looking games in most genres.

These are the top five games I'm looking forward to the most in 2011

5. Crysis 2 – The original Crysis was a fantastic game, and not only because of its stellar graphics. It featured excellent combat with good enemy AI, sprawling levels and destructible environments. Crysis 2 is looking very good, and I'm interested to see what jungle-veterans Crytek do with New York City. The multiplayer might also be good; it looks like it will copy some aspects of Call of Duties MP but with the suit powers thrown in.

4. Warhammer 40k: Space Marine – I love Relic for their RTS games, and lately they have been shrinking in scale to extremely micro-management intensive titles, which are my favourites when it comes to RTS action. Dawn of War II had combat more satisfying than a lot of shooters, and its expansion had some surprisingly decent role-playing elements thrown in. A third-person shooter/role playing game from these developers might prove to be very good; I'm very excited at the prospect of manning a heavy bolter and tearing through Ork hordes. I'm really interested to see what they do with the multitude of great weapons from the Dawn of War games, the prospect of wielding a huge electrified hammer and squashing foes with it makes me very excited.

3. Dues Ex: Human Revolution – Dues Ex 1 is one of my favourite games ever, although I don't expect this game to have anything to do with it. The trailers and gameplay videos have been extremely impressive, but I have my doubts about whether or not the game will live up to its massive potential. This could very well end up being one of the best games of the year; the gameplay looks really exciting and the visual style is really impressive. This is a game I'm holding my breath for, there is a good chance it will be buggy and unimpressive, but it might just be amazing.

2. Mass Effect 3 – Ok I'm half expecting this game to get delayed into 2012, but still the announcement trailer for the game was amazing. I have no hopes for this game being a good RPG, but Bioware will probably refine the style of gameplay introduced in Mass Effect 2 (please, for the love of god no more planet scanning!). I'm also guessing that the story will be way better and won't revolve around recruiting team mates like the last game rather lazily did. It's hard to imagine this game being anything less than great given Biowares track record, so it claims the #2 spot on my list.

1. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – TW 1 is one of my favourite RPG's ever, and its sequel is looking to have the makings of one of the best games in years. An absolutely stunning new engine made just for the game, higher production values linked to the higher budget, and what will likely be a fantastic, twisting story with loads of choices and consequences. Some of the gameplay videos are just mind-blowing, the stiffness of the character models in TW 1 seem to have been replaced by incredibly fluid animations. Assuming the series trademark humour and personality returns, I can't see this game being anything less than amazing, even if Geralt's face has strangely transformed over the development period of the game.

Other Games I'm looking forward to in 2011 (no particular order)

Two Worlds II

Dead Space 2

Bulletstorm

Rage (this would be #6 on my list)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Dawn of War II: Retribution

Portal 2

Homefront

Red Faction: Armageddon

Dragon Age 2

Batman Arkham City

Duke Nukem Forever

And probably a bunch of other games I'm forgetting. 2010 was a solid year for gaming, and 2011 is looking to blow it out of the water

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Over the Christmas break I've been catching up on some titles I missed last year. The two I got so far are Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Super meat boy. I've enjoyed both, NFS has some performance issues apparently caused by my processor, but it's still totally playable. The car handling kind of sucks, but the crazy action and car wrecks make up for that. Causing a chain-reaction car wreck is extremely satisfying, and the weapons you get to use as both cops and racers are great.

Super Meat Boy has lived up to its name of being brutally difficult; I have managed to struggle my way to the last world and have slowly been beating the levels. As for completion, I have about 70% for light world and 20% for dark. I only have 10 bandages so far. I might play the game a bit more, but I've already got quite a few hours out of it. Overall it was a very enjoyable platformer, even though it made me rage sometimes.

I've also been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead 2 over the last week or so, I've become rather addicted to versus and have been playing almost obsessively. I won't have much time after my break ends next Monday to play the game so I'm taking advantage of my current free time. (My college for whatever reason has an extra week of holidays, so classes don't start for me until next Monday)

Overall it was a great year for games, probably the best since 2007 in my opinion. There were loads of good games and a few real gems that stood out from the rest. These are the top five games that stood out for me this year

5. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

This is the game I spent the most time on this year with probably over 100 hours including the singleplayer and multiplayer (with the vast majority of that being in the multiplayer). While the game had, and has, some problems like latency/lag issues and team stacking, when you get on a good server with even teams this game can be a joy to play. You really need to use teamwork, especially in rush mode, and the destructible environments really add another layer of strategy and tactics to the gameplay. The sound design is absolutely incredible as well, in my opinion sound is one of the most important factors in getting immersed in a game, and Bad Company 2 absolutely nails this aspect of its presentation.

4. Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Short but oh so sweet, Amnesia was so incredibly scary that I had to take a 3 week break from playing it part way through. No other game except for perhaps Penumbra: Black Plague has been able to induce this level of sheer terror in the player. The game starts off creepy and gets absolutely hellish as you advance further and further into the dark and foreboding castle. The story is in my opinion one of the best of the year, and the way it is told is sheer brilliance, making you realize that you might just deserve the terrible fate bestowed on you in this increasingly horrifying castle.

3. Stalker: Call of Pripyat

I'm a huge Stalker fan, with Shadow of Chernobyl being one of my favourite games of all time. In a lot of ways CoP is a better game that Shadow of Chernobyl – it is less buggy, the quest and loot system is more refined, and the areas are larger and more open. Yet since this is the third game in the series and not a lot about the core gameplay has changed, I wasn't quite as wowed as I was with the original game. It didn't have as many set piece missions or dark and interesting locations as Shadow of Chernobyl; the feeling of just barely being able to survive and get through your next fight that was so dominant in the first half of SoC is for the most part missing from Cop. It is still a fantastic game and shows that the developers are learning how to put out a more polished product, and it keeps the great, creepy atmosphere that the series is so famous for. The game also had some very interesting mechanics like the strange radioactive storms that would occasionally sweep across the zone, forcing you to find cover. Easily oneof the best games of the year, I just hope that even more changes with Stalker 2.

2. Mass Effect 2 + DLC

While I have some problems with Mass Effect 2, including its overly rigid structure (recruit team mate, complete teammate loyalty quest, repeat 10x with occasional story mission) it was still an extremely high quality game that made a lot of meaningful changes from the original. The combat is significantly better, the mechanics more refined, and the missions are incredibly varied. I played through the game twice with totally different characters, one time with my renegade Sheppard from ME 1 and once with my paragon Sheppard, and I was disappointed with how little changed between the two playthroughs. A few different lines of dialogue and characters interactions, but all of the same missions and most of the same weapons. I honestly struggled to get through my second playthrough, I found myself getting bored with the game. The DLC, however, showed signs of life and gives me great hope for the third instalment in the series. Operation Overlord, and even more so Lair of the Shadow Broker, showed that Bioware is still capable of crafting genuinely cool missions and settings. Mass Effect 3 should be good.

1. Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout 3 was a good game, but it relied too heavily on its loot and combat mechanics. Once you got tired of them, there wasn't much left to do in the game. New Vegas, on the other hand, has the looting and combat as a side attraction to some of the best core RPG mechanics I have ever seen. There is so much choice within missions and in the overall story line, and the way you build your character really does make a big difference. I spent 33 hours on my first playthrough compared to 20 with Fallout 3, and I plan to return for at least one more playthrough. Near the end of the game I got the perk that shows every location on the map, which made me realize I had barely scratched the surface of this game. I had maybe discovered 40% of the locations by the end of my first playthrough, and even then I was well aware of the number of quests I had missed because of the brilliant faction system. Despite its minor bugs, Fallout: New Vegas was easily the most impressive and enjoyable game to come out in 2010. I wrote a short review of the game here where I try to explain why I think New Vegas is such a good RPG and such a big improvement over Fallout 3.

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Other games I enjoyed in 2010:

Assassins Creed 2 – A huge improvement over Assassins Creed 1, although I still found the climbing controls a bit frustrating at times – too often I would be climbing up a wall and then Etzio would simply jump off and kill himself. The combat also had some issues, but overall the game was excellent.

Mafia II – the game didn't quite live up to its potential, but it was still a very good sequel to the original and stayed true to its formula. The story wasn't nearly as good as the original game, the ending sucked, and it was too short considering the amount of driving that was done. Still, it was a great game with some really memorable missions.

Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising – a great expansion to Dawn of War II that I spent about 95 hours on. The campaign was fantastic and fixed the problems that the original game's campaign had. The only problem was that the new race was a bit over powered at launch and everyone's stats go re-set when the expansion game out so matchmaking broke and horribly uneven matches seemed commonplace for a while.

Starcraft II – The campaign was really good but I couldn't figure out why everyone liked the multiplayer so much. Still, SC 2 was one of the best 'cIassic' RTS games to come out in a long time. Looking forward to the next two instalments in the series.

Darksiders – A fun and fast paced action adventure type game the likes of which are not often seen on the PC. Huge mission variety and an interesting albeit poorly told story made Darksiders a very fun and worthwhile experience, despite it being pretty unoriginal.

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There were lots of other games I enjoyed this year but those are the ones I think I enjoyed the most. Next year is looking excellent and eventually I'll do most anticipated games of 2011 blog.

Have a merry Christmas everyone!

Ok I got Call of Duty: Black Ops working, and it turns out the problem was partly on my end. Still mostly on Treyarch's end, but partly on my end as well. Turns out my CPU, which I have had at a moderately overclocked speed of 3.16 ghz (up from 2.53) was becoming unstable and causing the game to crash (maybe the game caused this to happen since the problems coincided with me getting the game). I started getting concerned when Bad Company 2 started crashing, L4D 2 started freezing for 3-5 seconds in game, and eventually I had a crazy lock up where my entire computer froze and my screen displayed a brown, striped artifact.

I went into the BIOS settings and lowered the clock of the FSB on my CPU down from 325 from 333, and low and behold, all of the crashing and freezing from all mentioned games has disappeared. I also managed to find a tweak that makes BLOPS playable with Vsync off, so I have had a chance to play a good chunk of the multiplayer, enough to get to level 30.

Singleplayer:

Great, a huge improvement over MW 2, the story was quite good, and the missions were very fun. I haven't had this much fun with a Call of Duty SP campaign since Call of Duty 2. I'm planning on playing through the game again on Veteran, which I used to do with CoD games but haven't done since CoD 4. The mission where you drive up a river in a boat with Sympathy for the Devil playing was a highlight; I also really liked some of the characters, and the twist at the end was very well done.

Multiplayer:

About the same as MW 2, which is disappointing. Dedicated servers returning is good, but the maps are still too small, and the pace too frantic, which means for me the two games are nowhere near as good as CoD 4 or WaW online. The depth in the game is in the wrong place – instead of customizing your gear to enjoy the game, you play the game in order to customize your gear. You continually cycle around playing and upgrading and unlocking, it always feels like there is something important missing. The actual gameplay is extremely shallow and simple, and after the fantastic BC 2 this simply isn't going to cut it. I was originally planning to play this game a lot, but honestly I'm already losing interest after 15 hours online, and doubt I'll play more than 30 overall. The novelty of kill or be killed with unlockable guns has totally worn off since this new model has become standard, and the economy system isn't enough to make it feel new and exciting. While the customization has seen major changes, the gameplay has not, which for me is problematic. Wager matches are great, but the rewards are fairly small and they are also very difficult to get into (AKA no players).

I've been playing this game in conjunction with BC 2 over the last few days, and honestly going back and forth between the two games makes Black Ops seem very bland. Rolling in with tanks and heli's overhead on the new map Heavy Metal is simply more exciting than anything Black Ops has to offer. I remember when I got to the 20 hour mark in MW 2 whenever I played the game I simply felt like I'd rather be playing BC 2, then when I went back to that game I'd remember why I stopped playing (weapon imbalances, chokepoints on maps), but the new maps and patches have really brought the game into a very balanced and enjoyable state. I'll keep playing Black Ops, maybe I should try some different modes other than TDM and Domination, but honestly the core gameplay is way too similar across the different game types. After MW 2 the series MP has gone in a direction that simply doesn't interest me.

Overall I'd give the game an 8.2/10 (8.0 on GS), overall better than MW 2, but still not as good as the best games in the series.