I've been lucky with my recent selection of games. I'm playing Siren 3 and Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3 and Prince of Persian: Warrior Within on the PC. I'm really enjoying all 3 of them, despite the fact they're have very distinct $tyles and are from 3 different genres.

I bought the Japanese version of Siren. The game is in English but I've chosen to buy the blu-ray version instead of downloading the chapters.

I'm still on chapter 6 but so far I think it's an easier and more streamlined version of the first game. I haven't been required to find hidden items or complete obscure actions in order to unlock a second or third version of a chapter. Also, the story is being told in chronological order, or at least it appears to be. It's a big change from the original concept but the feeling of being in a movie has improved due to the episodic nature of the game, not to mention that there are a lot of scripted deaths that really do add spice to the story.

Leaving the other 2 games for another post, I'd like to jump to the bad choices part.

Though I do make a lot of bad choices myself, I honestly did not expect Activision Blizzard to do such a series of mistakes about an important game like Starcraft. First, they've decided to sell the game in 3 packages. It seems they're too good for the $50-$60 price range and came to the conclusion that their products are worth $100-$150. There's no official prices yet but there would be no reason to release 3 $20 games instead of a full $60 experience. So, it's fair to expect 3 $40~$60 products. One game for each campaign.

Am I the only one that thinks that this is bad? I mean, the standard RTS package is a campaign for each race and then an expansion (or more) with additional material / level for each race on the following years. So, the game provides something for each race, a starting point to get the hang of the game and start playing. Now, what was once considered a full product was divided into 3 pieces and only Activision Blizzard would know how many expansions.

As if that wasn't enough, the giant company has decided not to include support to LAN. Such a decision can only have one reason, to fight piracy, even though Act Bliz claims that it has worked hard on the new Battle.net and want players to enjoy the game to the fullest.

First, they do not want gamers to enjoy, they're forcing gamers to enjoy the game to the fullest if they decide to go multiplayer. Hey, sure no one has to buy the game and I'll talk about that in a few but once you purchase, you're limited to a multiplayer on Act Bliz servers, even though you might be at a LAN house with 3 other friends at your arm's reach.

It's a personal experience but I've only played on Battle.Net a couple of times and very much prefered to go to a LAN house and play the game with 3 or 7 other players on a local game.

What's worse, removing LAN support will only hurt the ones that actually bought the game since hackers will most definitely allow a pirate copy to connect to a non Battle.Net server, where you'll be able to set up the game and tune it to your taste. Just like DRM, it's a limitation imposed on a legit copy. There are hundreds of private wow servers to prove that redirecting a connection to another server is easy and will most certainly be done to Starcraft shortly after its release.

I have been following the development of those games (no longer a game) and those news really let me down. If Act Bliz does decide to release a game for $ 150 and to deny LAN support, I'll refrain from buying the game.

I've finished playing Mortal Kombat vs DC Heroes and Resident Evil 5 this week and written a review for both games, click here (MK) or here (RE5) if you're interested.

Funny thing is that Cousin Eddie and I seem to be the only ones in ESHU to have enjoyed RE5. I do understand that it's a degeneration of its survival horror roots but I can't find flaws to fuel my hate. If this game was called The Adventures of Chris in Africa then I'd probably have given it 9 or 9.5.

It all boils down to taste I guess. I simply loved the in game movies and quick time events. I mean, I find it way better than watching a 30 minute footage of Metal Gear 4. Some say QTE take away the player control as if one had any sort of control during the time Eva slowly and painfully tries to ties the lose ends on MGS4 plot. I wish I had a QTE to strangle her and go back to the action. It's not that I do not like plots and all, I just prefer no plot over a bad one. To me, RE5 and God of War did a perfect job with QTE.

MK vs DC and RE5 were my first games with trophies! Addictive little shiny things those are. They do add re-playability to a title when they're interesting like Go to The Light (kill 2 infected with a flash grenade), Lead Aspirin (kill an infected with a headshot while its jumping), Who do you Trust? (build a certain level of trust between partners) but others simply require a given amount of replays to fulfill and aren't really interesting like Stockpile (obtain all weapons) or Take it to the Max (fully upgrade all weapons). I think devs should play close attention to this feature as it's really a tool to make people care for or hate your game.

I've given up on The Longest Journey and Final Fantasy XII this week as well. The first seemed to have a nice story and plot but the items were used in puzzles with no common sense and that required a lot of pixel hunting. I'd prefer if it were more of an interactive story and less a try all your items in every part of the screen that highlights your mouse cursor thing. It seems the sequel is more to my taste so I'll be sure to give it a try. Final Fantasy XII has a solid combat system, awesome graphics and music but I found impossible to remotely like the characters or ignore the Star Wars rip offs, which is a series I stopped caring a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

Well, enough rant about games everyone loves and love for games everyone rant about. Tell me your thoughts on those games, QTE or whatever you feel like.

And can't let go. I've spent 10 hours playing the game this very weekend. Honestly, I had trouble letting the controller down and if I were not married, I'd probably be playing it right now.

It's silly, I know, but it's also true, it's action you can't forget.

It's a bit early to rate it but it's an amazing co-op game. I haven't played a single scenario alone so I can't talk about AI but having a partner on VoIP just feels right. It's been designed for two players in mind and it's really satisfying to be able to plan a situation as a team or to improvise during combat when things get hairy fast.

There are no puzzles, no dark corridors and no secret labs but plenty of aborigines, infected dogs, crocodiles, hulking giants, instant death scenes and quick time events.

Survival horror? Not really, RE5 doesn't even try it. It's non stop action from the very start. I'll try to put the pad down and update my impressions as I play the game.