I finished Puzzle Quest and dropped NHL 06 because every game feels sickenly similar. Neverwinter Nights Platinum then found its way on to my harddrive, but after about 6 hours of that I got horribly bored with the pacing of combat. I also loaded up CoH and patched it up to make it work nicely with my SLI Nvidia, which is a game that I will finish this time, albeit slowly. So, now I'm going to play through DS2 again, but this time I'm going to mod in that change I have always wanted, to be able to have my full party right from the start. I hate the pick-up characters they have in the default game, because their personalities annoy me and some of their points are pre-distributed.

So, this brings me to the two things I want to see in a long overdue party based CRPG. The ability to have your entire party right from the start and to have defensive and offensive coordinated animations. After playing NWN, despite being frustratingly slow, the combat sequences are well animated. If a character misses a swing, the other character visibly dodges or parries. I'm sick of the offense only animations and having to go find the better half of your party.

Any other things that should be added to this list for the next CRPG?

So, I tried to engage myself in another round of BioShock, but I simply couldn't do it. I now remember the only negative reason for being happy to finish that game the first time around. First person controls on console controllers just don't feel right to me. Sure, I could play Perfect Dark and not blink about the feel, but after so many hours with Counter Strike, Team Fortress and a billion other shooters on my PC, my standards have changed.

The way a character swings when using analog sticks to look around makes me feel like I'm playing a PC shooter in an underwater level (like actually underwater, not...nevermind). The accurcy and precision provided by a mouse is simply superior. You can do an about turn with a wrist snap and naturally keep your FOV moving to all threatening corners. The speed of the analog stick is often too picky, moving too much on distant targets and too slow on melee opponents. Leading with a mouse for sniper shots and bullet sprays also comes more naturally than thumb tracing. Following a moving head with a mouse requires much less effort than with a stick. The constant motions required for looking around and aiming feel burdened.

Not to say the PC combination is perfect, I would actually prefer an analog stick over WASD. If a company could fit a litte control between the WESD keys or below the spacebar, I'd buy it. Although games would probably have to support it, but since so many are ports now, why not?

Anyhow, I abondoned both BioShock and Pefect Dark: Zero and instead chose Dead Rising and had a wicked time smashing, slashing, disemboyling and humiliating zombies.

Any games that you can't play on one platform due to the controls being superior on another?

I finished as much of FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage as I plan to for the time being. So now I need to look at my collection and figure out which Xbox game needs my attention. I say Xbox, because currently my fingers and wrist are a bit messed up and using a mouse for prolonged periods is not comfortable. The decision is proving difficult.

The factors in game choice are fun, story completion, remaining achievements and likeness to FlatOut. Fun is obvious...if I'm not going to enjoy playing the game, I'm not going to play it. I actually have left a lot of games without completing the story and would like to finish them off. While I don't care so much about the points of the achievements, I do enjoy the challenges the achievements present. And finally, I don't want to play a game too similar to FlatOut, just to shake things up. I've narrowed my choice down to the following games:

Perfect Dark: Zero
When I first played this game, I was disappointed for various reasons. However, I really want to give the game it's fair play time and finish that story!

Bioshock
I've beaten this game before, but there are a wealth of achievements I missed and the fixed the widescreen view since my last play through. One achievement in particular is to play the hardest difficult without dying...I want to try! I also want to experience the story again.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted
I have this urge to customize cars and actually beat the last 75% of it.

Dead Rising
I got to the final boss and then put the game down!!!

I'm scratching NFS:MW as it is too much like FlatOut. Dead Rising warrants a more sit down for a long time and play, where I'm actually looking for short bursts of play time, so I'm scratching that one off for now. So, it's either Bioshock or PD.

Anyhow, I'm curious as to how you choose your next game? Just happens? Need to fill an itch? Buy a new game?