It’s been a while since I’ve really chimed in about gaming, and I’m starting to feel a little guilty about it, but I can tell you I’ve got a good reason (..ok you got me, I don’t). Truth is I couldn’t tear myself away from World of Warcraft long enough to write, I’ll get to that later. It’s not the only game I’ve been playing though, without further ado here I go!

Call of Duty: Black Ops

I like everyone else on the planet have been playing Black Ops, I got through the single player quickly (it felt a little longer than MW2 thankfully), and while from a story perspective it was one of the most interesting of all of the COD games it’s not without it’s flaws. The issues with the barrel level went fairly well documented, but I too got stuck here, and the areas where you encounter non-stop enemies is just annoying. I played a lot of multiplayer the first couple weeks but that has tapered off for me now too. It’s pretty fun, I wouldn’t say it’s better than MW2, but it was fun because people hadn’t unlocked or figured out all the load out exploits yet (although it seems that they’ve started showing up).

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

I’m not gonna lie, this is a Burnout game (this is not a bad thing at all), except you’re driving cars that feel like they actually have some weight which was my biggest complaint about the Burnout series. The result is a fast paced arcade racer, that requires a bit of finesse to really eke out every last millisecond on your time, and you want to because of Autolog, basically an internal social network feature that compares your times versus the times of your friends lists. Depending on the commitment of your friends, this can create some truly frustrating, and rewarding competition, meaning a lot of replayability and tons of value to this game. They were lucky to get this out before Gran Turismo 5 and the lack of a cockpit cam is disappointing, but I can honestly say that both of these games can coexist on your shelf. If you can get your friends to pick it up, you would be wise to get this game.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

I haven’t played much of it, actually I did the first 4 objectives or so and they were so mundane that it made me want to turn it off, I haven’t turned it on since, but I’m sure I’ll be back to it. I don’t know why I keep buying these, I was not a fan of the last one despite it being one of the two games I’ve platinumed.

Donkey Kong Country

It looks and more importantly sounds like Donkey Kong Country, I haven’t played it yet, but I watched the gf play for a while, so I will defer to her for comment. “It’s cool! It’s like (punching motions) BOOM! BOOM! BANANAS!”… couldn’t have put it better myself. Looking forward to some quality time with it later.

World of Warcraft

This has been the biggest time sink for obvious reasons. I got back into it because the events and changes for Cataclysm have started and I wanted to give the “old” leveling experience another go so I can look at it comparatively post Cataclysm. I was able to get to level 71 in 7 days (real life time, not played), and I had a pretty good time doing it. The map changes go live today, so I can’t wait for the realms to get back online so I can check it out.

Dance Central

This is the only reason to own a Kinect, it’s still getting a lot of play around here, and it’s fun… moving up to medium routines and the extra challenges are making it more fun for sure. it would appear that it has legs and Harmonix spit out a new set of DLC today including Cameo’s “Word Up!”… oh yea, that’s gonna have to happen.

My apologies for the lack of content lately, but no wonder I haven’t had time to write my Blops and NFS reviews, that’s a lot of games to play. Also, Gran Turismo 5 is out tomorrow, and today the Wheel Stand for my logitech G27 arrived, I’m STOKED, I will be spending some time in the driver seat this evening and tomorrow.

The past couple weeks

With the console season officially over (there is only 1 console game to come out that I’m dying to play, darksiders), and only 1 console game here for me to give a fair shake too (Saboteur), gaming this week has been a little dry.

Back to a guilty pleasure:
Over the last week or so I’ve been getting back into World of Warcraft (don’t worry I have no intention of turning this into a WoW blog). With the release of The Fall of the Lich King patch 3.3 introducing a new raid my interest was piqued. The Lich King story line is one of the most compelling in video games to me. It caught me at a young age and I feel almost I owe it to myself to see it through. I won’t get too deep into it, but Dungeon Finder is awesome, and it works… sure you get the occasional bad pug group be for the most part its a good time, and an easy way to get you geared up for the new content.

Saboteur:
I played for about an hour, and I had an OK time, I agree with most of what has been said so far in the popular media, the controls aren’t as tight as I would like, and climbing is significantly more cumbersome than I am used to from playing Assassin’s Creed 2. Driving is pretty good though, and blowing stuff up is always good even though I haven’t done much of that yet.

Borderlands: Island of Dr. Ned (DLC):
This finally came out for PC, but I haven’t spent much time in there at all, maybe 20 min or so and I could barely keep my eyes open at the time, so I’m not going to comment on it yet, but wanted to give it an honorable mention because I am excited to get some time in.

PixelJunk: Shooter:
I forgot to mention this one in my interesting releases post, I’ve been looking forward to this one! there is a lot to be said for new classic arcade style games… there is definitely a place in my life for games that I can enjoy in 10-15 minute chunks.

The Next Couple Weeks

I like a lot people will be travelling around to see family over the holiday… So I definitely see this as an opportunity to catch up on my mobile gaming!

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks:
It’s still in the wrapper… been saving it up just for this! I’ve read some positive reviews so far and my expectations are high!.. Don’t let me down Link.

I’ll be posting from the road, but probably nothing at great length, I’ll likely pick up some iPhone games while I’m out there when I get bored if I find any good ones I’ll be sure to share! If you’ve got any good ones I should be checking out do share…