That bit where... Dead Space 2

Haven't blogged in a while, partly because it's still January and as such there are no new games to talk about, but mostly because I haven't had time. I've still been writing though, and if you haven't seen them already you should go and check out my articles on Hooked Gamers, who I now work as a volunteer writer for!

Borderlands 2 Preview: http://www.hookedgamers.com/pc/borderlands_2/preview/article-988.html

How biased are gamers? (Feature): http://www.hookedgamers.com/features/2012/01/24/how_biased_are_gamers.html

Back to blogging business then, with the latest part in my 'That bit where' series.

I'm not usually much of a horror game player, but Dead Space 2 tickled my fancy last year so I decided to give it a try. After a play through with many spills and multiple thrills, it became one of my favourite games of last year. There are several stand out moments (most of them horrifically gory), but the one I'm going to write about here is one of the most exhilarating sequences in the game.

Dead Space 2 - The Train


For the most part, Dead Space 2 is a game which gleefully allows nothing to happen for five minutes while you wander around checking every corner, and then when you least expect it: BAM, a monster jumps out of a wall and impales you on razor sharp spikes. You do well to hold onto your controller when this happens, and if you do you are hammering on the fire button until whatever the thing is falls over, and sometimes even then it isn't dead. The game is very good at this, and so does it at nearly every opportunity, and it never gets any less terrifying. In a game where ammo can sometimes be fairly hard to come by, wasting multiple bullets in these situations isn't advisable.

I'm emphasising the amount of times you're slowly tip-toeing around, waiting for the next monster to appear, because the train sequence in Dead Space 2 is pretty much the exact opposite. It breaks any of the tension that has been created up to that point in the game in about a three minute long action packed roller-coaster(train) ride.

So you start up the train, which clearly the undead inhabitants of Dead Space 2 don't like, as they start swarming to your location. Even as the train hurtles along, they're jumping onto it and breaking through the windows left and right. After defending yourself for a bit, suddenly the carriage you are in breaks off from the rest of the train, so you have to make a death defying leap towards the next carriage, using your handy foot-mounted rocket boosters. After dodging the doors which are wrenched off and sent flying towards you, you roll into the next carriage, with yet more monsters waiting for you.

But it's not over there. Not long after this, the train starts to go into a nose-dive (by the way it's like a floating space train, should've mentioned that earlier). Unable to stand up properly, you slide on your back through the rest of the carriages, shooting and dodging flailing zombies as you go. The train crashes into what seems to be a large storage hangar, and you are caught in a wire, hanging upside down from the wrecked train just above the ground. And there are more monsters coming.

This moment probably stayed with me as it was so different from most of the rest of the game. The game is filled with edge-of-your-seat moments, and this one is exciting in a completely different way from the traditional horror moments of other levels. I would definitely recommend playing this game, you can probably pick it up fairly cheap these days too.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Back in 2007, we were bored of first person shooters. It seemed like every month, a new game came out that was set in bloody World War II. By that time it had been done to death, we all knew the scenarios, the weapons and the outcome of every battle (the Nazis lose, spoilers).

But then, rising out of the swamp of FPS mediocrity came Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Wait a second, this is set, like, today? That's so real! It gave us a new enemy, instead of fighting Nazis, we were now fighting anyone who wasn't American or British, and in doing so the developers were staying as close to current affairs as possible...

Along with that, there were new weapons to enjoy, the guns that every nine year old can talk about at length today were largely unknown before this game came out. They also highlighted how much guns from the 40s sucked...you mean I don't have to load a new bullet into the chamber after firing every shot? War is awesome!

Five years later, we're praying for something different from FPS developers, but oh well, it was good for a while.

Anyway, there were two highlights of the game for me, one of them being the Ghillie mission, simply because it was something different. Instead of shooting everything that moved, you had to stealth your way through, picking your shots and trying not to get detected. Then there was that bit after you assassinated the guy with the helicopter which oh so nearly crashes into you! But then it stops, phew! My favourite part of the game though, was a moment of extreme poignancy that seemed so out of place and yet fitted in so perfectly.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Shock and Awe


"All U.S. forces, be advised, we have a confirmed nuclear threat in the city. NEST teams are on site and attempting to disarm. I repeat we're..."

In the mission entitled 'Shock and Awe', you are tasked with attacking Al-Asad's (the villain of the piece) rumoured position in his capital city. However, half way through the mission a retreat is called after a nuclear threat in the city is detected. During the retreat, you stop off to rescue a downed helicopter pilot who is under fire.

Everyone bundles into an evac helicopter and as you take off you see several other helicopters making their escape from the city, phew, everyone's going to make it.

And then the nuclear device detonates.

You watch as the mushroom cloud billows skywards and the shockwave makes it way towards you, destroying everything in it's path. We're far enough away, right? We're still going to make it. But the shockwave keeps coming, enveloping the other helicopters in a cloud of dust and rubble, and then it hits you. Your helicopter spirals out of control, crashes into the ground and then everything fades to black.

Did I fail the mission? That's not supposed to happen is it?

You wake up, manage to crawl your way out of the wreckage and drag yourself onto your feet. The sun has disappeared behind the smoke, and everything around you is just a shell of what it once was. At least you're alive though, someone will come soon to save you. You fall back to the ground and close your eyes.

Someone will be there soon.

It is later revealed that 30,000 people died in the blast, Marines, OpFor and civilians all wiped out. I had never played a game where such a catastrophic event occurred right before my eyes. Nor can I remember playing a game in which I had completed a mission, and several of the game's main characters died, all in one moment.

I congratulate you, CoD4:MW, not only for having an acronym longer than most game titles, but for putting this incredible sequence into a game, allowing a slight insight, just for a moment, into what it would actually be like to be in that situation. Maybe war isn't so awesome after all.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Warcraft 3 (plus announcement)

If you haven't heard, yesterday I got a job as a volunteer writer for http://www.hookedgamers.com/! It's pretty exciting for me, as I'll be getting a taste of what it's like to be a professional writer - sticking to deadlines and whatnot- while still maintaining a bit of freedom over what I write about.

If all goes to plan, my first article on the site will be a preview of Borderlands 2, which I am currently taking a break from researching while I write this, so that's something to look forward to.

I shan't be falling behind on my blogging duties though, so today I'll continue my 'That Bit Where...' series by talking about one of my favourite games from when I was twelve and into my early teens, Warcraft 3.

Warcraft 3 - The Cutscenes


My favourite cutscenes in video games have always come from Blizzard, simply because of how long and how much time it seems has been put into each one. (I'm talking about the pre-rendered cinematic cutscenes here, not the in-engine ones)

It may sound strange that my favourite parts of the game were parts that weren't actually playable, and I don't mean to detract from the quality of the game itself, because it still remains one of my favourite RTS games to actually play. After seeing the first cutscene or two however, I found myself playing through the game just to get to that next epic piece of eye candy, forever hoping that the next one wasn't the last one.

It's quite hard to talk about them as they are just videos, so I'll let you watch them yourselves, if you haven't seen them before, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I'll link the two that I remember the most fondly here, but if you want to see them all (around 10 or so) you can find them on YouTube.

This first one depicts Archimonde, (a Champion of the Burning Legion, you don't need me to tell you with that name that they're pretty bad dudes) destroying the city of Dalaran pretty much with his mind, so you know, he's pretty badass.

The second, and probably the most iconic of all the cutscenes from the game, shows Prince Arthas betraying his father by killing him and taking the throne for himself. This is a huge moment in the series, as Arthas begins his descent from loyal Paladin, filled with honour, to twisted and evil Death Knight. Arthas' story is followed throughout the series, culminating with him being the main boss of Wrath of the Lich King, one of World of Warcraft's expansions.

(Little known fact: The petals that fall around Arthas at the beginning of the video are in fact called Arthas' Tears, and can be picked using herbalism in WoW)

I absolutely adore the story and lore behind the Warcraft series, and to have that reinforced by such beautifully created videos is the icing on the cake.

Hope you've enjoyed the videos... I have, I'm going to watch the rest of them now.

Thanks for reading.

That Bit Where... Saints Row: The Third

Back to my favourite moments in video games series, and today I'm looking at Saints Row: The Third, my second favourite game of last year. I've written about it in my review, but without going into too many specifics, so here I'm going to talk to you about one of my favourite missions in the game.


Saints Row: The Third - http://deckers.die


In a game filled with ridiculous situations, this is probably the most ridiculous of all.

The Deckers are one of the many opposing gangs to your Third Street Saints, and the gang is mainly composed of computer genii led by Matt Miller. They cause many problems for the Saints, not limited to your character failing to withdraw $1,000,000 from an ATM and consequently punching it. Anyway, eventually the camel's back is broken and it's time for you to enter Cyberspace and face off against Miller, seriously.

You're transported to this Tron-esque environment, all neon and straight lines, with Kinzie, your own computer specialist, watching over you. Except that she got your character model wrong and you're a toilet... and then a sex doll... Eventually you settle for a wire-frame character, simply because "at least it has a gun".

Decker grunts start warping in, and you swiftly dispatch of them while making your way to "the firewall". Staying true to the rest of the game, there is some hilarious dialogue, with random technological buzzwords being thrown around as if anyone knows what they're really talking about.

Eventually Miller notices the ease with which you're defeating your enemies and starts altering the world. He slows you down, reverses your controls, and -my personal favourite- starts to create artificial lag. This is the first time lag has ever been fun in a game, and you marvel at how close it feels to the real thing. You have to imagine it was actually pretty hard to do, the meeting must've gone something like "Okay, we need the frame rate to go to hell, and for enemies to jump around the screen". I mean it's nothing less ridiculous than what the developers had been asked to do prior to this point, so I doubt there was any argument.

So then you complete the text adventure and move on...

Yup, they threw in a text adventure style mini game for you to complete. Why? Because they did, just accept it. It's hard to explain if you haven't played the game, but by this point you just take whatever it starts throwing at you. It contains swords, magic and unicorns, and comes with amusing lines from your character for each of the many ways you can "die".

After you complete that, you're back in cyberspace (as a toilet with a gun for a while), kill a few more Deckers and close in on the firewall. But not before playing a bit of 1974 Atari classic Tank!. Honestly, just go with it.

Back in Cyberspace, killing a few more guys, and then the game crashes. Not your game. Cyberspace. You have to "press any key to continue". I love this game.

Finally you reach Miller and the firewall. It turns out his avatar is a 20 foot tall winged warrior with a Final Fantasy style comically oversized sword. You exchange blows, fight off a few more Deckers, and eventually Kinzie manages to turn you into a replica of Miller's Avatar. A few attacks later and you defeat him, and are the new lord of cyberspace!

I think I'll have to write a bit more about Saints Row: The Third in the future, as there are several other awesome moments I haven't even touched on.

Thanks for reading.

CES, IGF and OMG

...and plenty of other acronyms too.

Independent Games Festival

The finalists for 2012's Indie Games Festival have been announced, and there are many games, so I'll link you to the news article so you can check them out for yourselves:

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/these-are-2012s-independent-games-festival-finalists/3901/

There are a lot of cool looking games on there, and a few I remember playing last year and maybe before that when they were just in their infancy. I have a feeling FEZ may win the Grand Prize, but all of those games are in with a shot.

Winners of various categories in previous years have included big names such as Minecraft, BIT.TRIP RUNNER, Limbo, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Machinarium, World of Goo, Audiosurf and more, so it's exciting to see the big indie names of tomorrow competing for the prize today.

Consumer Electronics Show


It's that time of year when the big names in consumer electronics head over to Las Vegas for CES, one of the biggest trade shows around.

This year, the main focus is on televisions, and smart devices (phones, tablets and the like). Early this week we got the announcement that USB 3.0 would be in phones and tablets by the end of 2012, meaning faster data transfer for all, hurrah!

Not long after, Samsung unveiled their new "Super OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TV", which will introduce "Smart Evolution", whereby consumers can upgrade both the hardware and software, using a small chip that fits into the back of the set. Samsung say that you will be able to keep up with television advancements, without having to fork out the extra cash for a new TV each year. They also showed off "Smart Interaction", where the user can navigate channels using gestures or be speaking to the device, much like the recent developments with the Xbox 360.

Ever competing with Samsung are Sony, and they got set to show their new "Crystal LED" TV, which boasts 6 million LEDs making up the screen, offering a self emitting HD display. They say that the device is comparable to current OLEDs, so it will be interesting to see who wins this war.

HP unveiled their new Notebook range, "Envy", which seems to be focussed more on style than function (are Notebooks really relevant these days?). Everything from the lid, to the palm rest to the trackpad is made of glass, and damn, they look nice. And then you see that the 14" "ultrabook" version is $1400 and you back off immediately, "I'm just gonna buy an iPad".

Beyond that, there were thin tablets, huge smartphones and everything in between flying all over the place, and everything looks very shiny and pretty, but at the time of writing, nothing hugely exciting catches my attention. I'll be sure to let you know if anything does.

That bit where... Portal 2

CES starts tomorrow, which should be interesting. I may write about some of it if I find anything cool that's worth talking about. That would be going against the idea that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas though, it must be a nightmare for press every year...

Back to games though, and as nothing is happening still in the industry, I'll continue my 'That bit where...' series where I talk you through some of my favourite moments in games.



SPOILER ALERT

Alright, seriously now, if you intend to play this game, don't read this as it is literally the ending to the game.

And what a splendid game it is, one of the funniest games of the year, and it has the gameplay to back it up. As I've said before, it's a shame that it is the follow up to a near perfect game, and as such loses some of the magic that the original Portal had. Regardless, as it made it on to my Top Ten of 2011 list, it's still a fantastic game that I'd urge anyone to play.

Remember, if you don't want to know the scores, look away now.

Portal 2 - The Moon


This was my favourite ending to a game of last year. It was really disappointing that I had seen the ending already before I got to do it myself. I was watching a friend play, and decided to keep watching even though it was clearly coming to the end. Oh well, it was still cool, and it's still fun to watch other people play the end and look awkwardly around the screen as they try and figure out what they're supposed to do.


As a little back story, one of the new mechanics in the game is that there is this white gel, which you learn is made from moon dust, which makes any surface it touches Portalable (this is now a word). This brought a whole new dimension to a game in which you used to only be able to place portals on specific surfaces. Anyway, back to the ending.

Much like the first Portal, the last section of the game is you against the main robotic antagonist, this time your friendly-robot-turned-evil, Wheatley. You do this by attaching corrupt personality cores to his body in order to initiate a core transfer, putting GLaDOS back in control of the facility (probably not the best idea either). As you think you've done it, it turns out clumsy Wheatley wasn't so clueless after all, as he has booby trapped the process. The facility begins to self destruct and the ceiling falls in around you, revealing a clear night sky, the first time you have seen outside during the game. You are catapulted across the room and roll over onto your back.

Then, you're given back control. You can't move and the sprinkler system has washed away all of the white gel apart from the patch underneath Wheatley where there is one of your portals. There's nothing to do except wait for the facility to explode. Perhaps this is one of those video game moments where you just have to accept your fate (like the nuclear explosion in the first Modern Warfare).

Wait a second... moon dust...

Surely not...

You fire a speculative portal towards the moon, and then a cutscene fires. Suddenly, everything gets sucked out through the portal under Wheatley and out into space, including you! Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all... but then GLaDOS, your mortal enemy throughout the first game and half of this one, reaches through the portal and saves you, closing the portal behind you... and then you black out.

The game ends with you waking up, and GLaDOS letting you leave the facility. She says she's tired of trying to kill you, and that she'd rather never see you again. However, as you take the lift up to the surface, she seems strangely sad to see you go. As you'd imagine, a fantastic song plays over the credits, equal parts touching and hilarious, and lastly, some final thoughts from Wheatley, floating aimlessly through space, with only some of the corrupt personality cores (voiced by the ever-brilliant Nolan North) for company.

What a great ending to a great game.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Bioshock

"A man chooses...a slave obeys."

Bioshock would most likely be in my top ten games ever, were I to compile one. It contained new and interesting gameplay, a compelling story and a dazzling world that was a real treat to explore. You play as Jack, and at the very start of the game your plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. As you surface, surrounded by burning wreckage, you notice a lighthouse nearby, so you swim over to it, and find a bathysphere which takes you down beneath the waves. Suddenly, a sprawling city stretches out before you, which in itself is one of the best moments of the game. However, all is not well within Rapture, as it is overrun with Splicers, inhabitants driven insane by addiction to Plasmids - genetic modification.

You are helped out by Atlas, who leads you to safety via radio, and he asks you to help him against Andrew Ryan, who has his family locked away. As the game progresses, you are lead around by Atlas over the radio, with the promise of escape from Rapture and back to civilisation. You begin to learn the history of Rapture, and the war between Ryan and Frank Fontaine, who helped develop Plasmids. Eventually, you come face to face with Ryan himself.

Bioshock - The Death of Andrew Ryan

With Atlas urging me on, I came close to the office of Andrew Ryan. In the adjoining corridor, I saw the words 'Would You Kindly...?" written in blood on the wall. Something stirred within me then, and I had the funny feeling something wasn't right. I mean, I had seen plenty of blood on the wall in this city, but this had something more personal about it. Anyway, I shook it off and continued to Ryan's office, soon this would all be over...

I arrive, and Ryan is nonchalantly playing golf, doesn't he realise I'm here to kill him? I'll let you watch what happens next.

I came out of that cutscene deflated. It turns out that Jack was the illegitimate child of Ryan, and was taken away by Fontaine when he was born, sent to the surface and genetically modified to age rapidly. He was conditioned to accept the code phrase "Would you kindly?", meaning that whenever he heard those words, he would obey whatever the command. It suddenly dawned on me that Atlas (who then reveals himself to actually be Fontaine) had simply been commanding me to do his bidding throughout the whole game. He had even commanded Jack to hijack the plane he was on and cause it to crash near the lighthouse. Fontaine had planned to use Jack against Ryan, as he would be able to use his father's DNA to bypass Ryan's security systems.

It was rare for a video game to have such an incredible setting and story, and even rarer for it to contain a twist such as that towards the end. It was that moment that caused this game to gravitate beyond just being a great game, up to becoming a timeless classic.

"Obey."

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Crysis

I've been looking through my collection for the "That bit where..." feature, and seeing if a particular moment jumps out at me for each game. If nothing immediately pops into my head, I disregard it and move onto the next one. It also made me realise that I should really organise my game collection in alphabetical order (I'm talking about my physical game collection, remember those weird discs you got in plastic cases?). The first stand out moment that came up while I was looking through was a bit in Crysis.

Crysis - The Mountain

A monumental deal was made of the tech on show in that game, about how pretty it looked, and how you could chop down the trees, and that even the current top of the range gaming PCs couldn't run it on it's highest graphical setting (which was really dumb, by the way). It's a good job that the game itself was pretty good for the most part, I mean it wasn't perfect, it became a pretty run of the mill shooter by the end where it turned into basically a corridor shooter, but the early parts played really well.

What stuck with me the most in Crysis, was the tank mission. The gameplay part of that sequence was most definitely not the best part of the game, but I do remember trundling along, checking out the scenery, firing off a few shells and then THAT MOUNTAIN IS COLLAPSING.

I hadn't really seen something happen of this magnitude before in a game, which I guess makes all the hype about the new CryEngine stuff seem worthwhile now. I'm trying to think back now to where exactly in the storyline this took place, but I do believe it was before you knew that there were aliens on the island (don't quote me on that). This made it all the more cool simply because THE MOUNTAIN IS COLLAPSING and THERE IS AN ALIEN SHIP INSIDE THE MOUNTAIN.

Obviously this was a scripted set piece, but sometimes they are the most magical moments in games when you don't know what to expect. If I think about it, I do remember this cool bit that wasn't scripted at all. It happened in the big sort of bay area, and I believe you had to destroy some AA guns... Anyway, at one point this helicopter started coming after me, so obviously, I ran. The chase took me over the beach, under water, through trees and over bridges as I desperately searched for something to take out this thing. As I was swimming underwater, trying to evade bullets I suddenly heard a muffled explosion. When I came up for air, I saw that the helicopter had accidentally crashed into a cliff, destroying itself and everyone inside it. Again, this was something I had never really seen in a game before, sure, I'd seen my share of exploding helicopters, but they usually came along at a scripted moment and followed a set path until you shot them enough times with your rocket launcher that was handily placed nearby. The fact that I could've gone anywhere I liked, and that the helicopter was just as prone to error as I was, was just really cool to me at the time, and still is.

So there are my favourite moments from Crysis. I've got a list of future ones lined up, but I think my next one will be Bioshock... can you guess what moment I'm going to talk about?

Thanks for reading.

That bit where...

While things are a bit slow, I'm gonna do a little mini feature called "That bit where...". It'll be me explaining some of my favourite moments in video games, both past and present. I'd like a little reader participation here too, so leave a comment if you've got a better moment from the same game, or suggestions for moments from other games. Also let me know if there's something you'd like me to write about or review, and I'll see what I can do.

LOOK OUT: SPOILERS

Obviously since I'm talking about specific moments within video games, I won't be avoiding any spoilers, so steer clear if you don't want to know what happens in the game.



The first game I'll do this for is one of my favourite games of last year, and you've heard me talk about it loads before, but it won't stop me keep writing about:

Bastion
"Then The Kid hears something he ain't heard in a long time...how's it go again? ...yeah, that's the one."

For me, the outstanding moment in Bastion, a game filled with outstanding moments, was when you visit Prosper Bluff.

"Some people just yearn to see the things they're told they can't...and that's why you go to Prosper Bluff."

You're there to try and find a piece of the core of the Bastion, a place where people can come in times of trouble, in order to make it whole again after The Calamity shook apart the world.

You follow what appears to be an old mining cart rail track, fighting off swarming, vulture-like birds, all just waiting to peck apart your body. Among them are much larger birds, who pick their moment and then swoop down on you. There are buttons to open the gates closing off your route, but pressing them causes parts of the world to collapse into nothingness. Things are bad, but all the while, just off in the distance you can hear this old, hypnotic wartime song, being sung by an unseen girl with an enchanting voice.

When you reach the girl, Zia, you may not have found a piece of the core, but you've found something just as precious: another survivor of The Calamity.

The song, combined with the setting and atmosphere sent shivers down my spine the first time I played it. If you haven't played the game before, I'd highly advise you buying the soundtrack edition if you're into music at all, because it is phenomenal. The soundtrack is also available for download here (the song from Prosper Bluff is 'Build That Wall (Zia's theme)', and you can get the game either on Steam or XBLA. Finally, you can find my review here.

Thanks for reading, and again, leave a comment if you like.

The Games of 2012

January is traditionally pretty slow for games, making new posts on a blog about video games fairly hard to come by. If I find the time, I'll be reviewing some lesser known games from last year that I enjoyed (here's hoping that my timetable for the next few months isn't as overwhelming as I feel like it's going to be).

Really, the next game that I'm kind of at all excited about coming out is Mass Effect 3, and that's not until March. I didn't much care for the first game, and barely played any of it, but the second one really grabbed my attention and I started to care about what was going on. This was mostly due to the improved gameplay...I'm told the story in the first game may have been better, but the story in 2 kept me going just fine.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning seems like it could be quite interesting, but I'm going to need more convincing before I buy it for myself. I'm really not a fan of that 'Reckoning' after the colon, it's the first game bearing the Kingdoms of Amalur name, so why does it need a subtitle? Also 'Reckoning' is just the least exciting subtitle to add randomly onto a game isn't it? I guess they just went through the list of possible subtitles beginning with 're'...Revenge, Redemption, Restructured, Rearmed, Remastered, Really...?

It seems that, like last year, most of the blockbuster games will be coming out in the second half of the year. It's possible we might see GTA5 around May/June given Rockstar's recent release schedule, but that's just guessing on my part.

Speaking of Rockstar, Rockstar Vancouver have been making Max Payne 3 fairly quietly in terms of press coverage. What's exciting about that is that the studio's previous game was Bully, which turned out to be rather a surprisingly good game given the setting and subject matter. I'm not sure how much of that experience they'll be able to bring from that game into Max Payne's gritty, film noir world, but if you make good games, you can make good games, right? The release date for that is March, allegedly, so that could be interesting.

I suppose the main games coming out (supposedly) this year are Bioshock: Infinite, Halo 4, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Guild Wars 2, and Nickelodeon Dance. If all those games do come out this year (barring maybe one of them), then what a colossal year it will be for video games. That's also leaving out the inevitable Call of Duty game, and maybe even an Assassin's Creed game (although I hope not, I'd rather they take another year with that). Perhaps there's a possibility of a Skyrim expansion before the end of the year too? That would be cool, as I think I'm close to finishing all I really want to do in that game now.

 I've probably even missed some off the list...there are quite a few big games to remember... Until I get to play all of them though, I'll go back to NBA, Madden and FIFA (I've been spending an unusual amount of time playing sports games recently), and continue playing LA Noire on the PC (yeah I bought it).

Thanks for reading, enjoy your week.

Daily Steam Deals - Jan 1st

Today, the deals are pretty much taken from my Top Ten Games of 2011. Both Portal 2 and Bastion are under a fiver, LA Noire's under a tenner, and my top three are all heavily reduced. If you've got any leftover money from the Christmas period, feel free to splash the cash today if you haven't played any of the games on today's daily deals list.

I've talked about most of the games before in previous blog posts, and you don't need me to keep going on about them, so I'll tell you about Terraria, a game I've spent a lot of time playing, but no time writing about.

For a mere £1.49, you can grab a small, unassuming game, that I happen to have played 60 hours of since purchasing it. In the most basic terms, Terraria is a two-dimensional Minecraft (beta), but with a bit more game packed in. You start out with nothing, craft some basic tools, and then build your little house to survive the night. From there, you can explore left, right, up and down, mining everything in sight and upgrading your equipment. Then, you can build extensions onto your house, and eventually, people will start moving in! These people range from a nurse to heal your injuries, to a demolitionist to sell you dynamite. There's a huge range of loot ranging from weapons, to armour, to trinkets, but the way to get the best stuff is to kill one of Terraria's many bosses. When I say that the first boss you'll meet is the Eye of Cthulu, and the bosses only get stranger from there, you'll know what kind of experience you're in for. And the best part about it all? You can bring friends along for the ride!

Anyway, welcome to 2012 everyone, hope you all enjoyed your evenings.


Oh, by the way, buy Bastion today.