New - Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

It was a big day for releases on Friday. There were three games I would have happily bought out on the same day; Soul Calibur V, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.

After reading reviews, I decided against Soul Calibur V. The single-player content has apparently been reduced to very little. I have no desire to play a Soul Calibur where my only offline options are a single Story mode and arcade battles. Where's weapon master mode? Individual stories? Challenge tower? Hell, even that sort-of strategy mode from the third one would have done. I have little to no desire to play against others, especially using my spotty internet, so I gave it a pass.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on the other hand was always going to be a must-buy. It came out elsewhere back in November and I have no idea why it took them so long to bring it out here, but hey, at least I didn't have to split my time between Skyrim and Metal Gear. I've only played it a little bit but how GOOD is Metal Gear Solid 3? I played it back on the PS2 way back when it came out and it was actually top of my favourite games ever but I forgot how awesome it was. There are bits I didn't even catch back then - like Snake making dick jokes. It's going to be great going back.

Finally, there's Final Fantasy XIII-2. There were a lot of things I hated about XIII. I could go on at length about boring environments, too-lengthy battles, little party customisation and the enormous amounts of exposition that explained nothing. I got halfway through Chapter 7 (about 14 hours) before giving up and trading the original in, and have no regrets about doing so before reaching the end of the 'tutorial'. However, after reading the reviews for XIII-2 and playing the demo, I felt confident that not only had they fixed most everything I hated about the first, and in the process made what was probably going to be everything I like about JRPGs in one game.

And out of what I've played so far, I don't think I'm far wrong. At this early stage of 8 hours in, I'd happily recommend it for full price.