I qoute:
"start writing them more regularly"
That was a lie.
The longer I put off writing these, the more daunting a prospect it becomes. I'm going to have to craft this in such a way that I can eliminate the various games I've played from my mind before it self-destructs. Here goes:
Before Christmas (BC if you will):
Shortly after lamenting the difficulty of a boss fight close to the end of Final Fantasy X, I finished the game. Apparently Aeons were the answer. I also played through Mass Effect again, getting some more achievements and enjoying the dialogue all over again. I almost certainly played several others before Christmas but I'll be damned if I can remember them.
After annual gift day...
I played many games. Underlined (or not) text shall represent them:
Dead Space
While I'm not generally a fan of horror games, Dead Space garnered enough praise and looked promising enough for me to give it a try. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be one of my favourite games this year. The game appealed to me in similar ways to Bioshock, it has an amazing atmosphere, an interesting setting and audio logs to listen to. The game's story isn't as compelling or original as it might have been but it's enough to keep you moving along. Derivative as it is, Dead Space in sublimely crafted game. Play it.
Fable 2
As a fantasy RPG, Fable 2 is a game my various interests won't allow me not to buy. The stand out feature of the game is its world, Albion. The land is full of interesting and genuinely funny, well voiced and well written characters, a rarity in video games. The game's story is entirely forgettable but does take you to several interesting places for long enough periods of time for your various morally charged choices to take effect and shape the world. The combat in the game is fine and stays relatively interesting for the entirety of the experience.
Gears of War 2
I wasn't particularly excited about playing Gears 2 until I had actually played a good chunk of it and remembered how awesome the original was. So much so that I played through the single player campaign in one sitting. Gears 2 improves on the original in enough ways to make the concept of shooting aliens from behind cover interesting all over again. One of the main improvements was the addition of an actual story to the series, which makes moving from one showdown with monsters to the next far more meaningful than it was in the first game. As far as multiplayer goes, my indifference knows no bounds.
Expect Act 2 in 6-8 weeks.