New - Rayman Origins

Reasons I bought Rayman Origins instead of just ignoring it in favour of Skyrim:

• Quality 2D platforming games are incredibly rare these days.
• The art is incredible and I have no doubt the sound will be too.
• It's Rayman returning to it's best - the 3D versions didn't have the same oomph the first did.
• Ubisoft is completely idiotic for releasing it at the tail-end of the most packed videogame season we've seen in years, perhaps ever, and giving it next to no advertising.
• The dickheads at Ubisoft will be taking Origins' success into account when deciding whether to let Michael Ancel continue to make Beyond Good & Evil 2.

My reasons can be simplified as thus; games that are crafted so thoughtfully like Rayman should be bought by the million instead of left to languish on the shelf because their publisher is inept.

Despite making an effort to not buy any new games, I had to make an exception to support a vision of what the games industry should be.

New - Skyrim

I've been meaning to post this since Tuesday, but pretty much my entire free time has been taken up by this game.

Skyrim came out last Friday, and upsettingly, I had a trip to London booked for that weekend, so I couldn't pick it up until Tuesday. I did have Tuesday off, but due to various circumstances, including dentists, family members and Significant Others, I only got to play it for a couple of hours.

Having played for roughly 12 hours in the past two days, I can wholeheartedly say that it's fucking fantastic and I'm having so much fun. I love how there's seemingly an endless supply of quests to keep me occupied. Yes, yes, radiant engine blah blah, but these aren't miscellaneous quests I'm talking about. I have to scroll down to see all of the quests I have and I know for a fact I've barely scraped the surface. I'm so excited to spend time in this world, I think I'm going to have to go back and play now even though I quit 30 minutes ago because I'd gotten pasted by some mages. Ta-ra!

:C: - Fallout: New Vegas

After many hours and almost as many crashes, I've done everything significant in Fallout: New Vegas, and am comfortable with checking it off as completed. By no means does this mean I've finished all the quests or collected all the unique items, but given everything that's in the games I think it's fair to have just finished all the DLCs, seen all of the endings and done most of the sidequests.

I played the DLC out of order, which was a mistake. I played Old World Blues first, followed by Dead Money, Honest Hearts and finished with Lonesome Road. I would have got more out of them storywise if I had played them in release order, but what I really should have done was played them in quality order, building up to the best. I definitely shouldn't have played Dead Money after Old World Blues, as playing the worst DLC after the best can only reflect poorly on the poor one. Reflecting on it, Dead Money probably wasn't as awful as it felt at the time.

Having finished Lonesome Road, I'm not sure why everyone's got a hate-on for it. Alright, it wasn't as epic as the trailer made itself out to be, and it was a touch linear, but it was fun and it was nice to find out some of the Courier's backstory, and the equipment I got out of it was pretty bloody awesome.

Soon I'll be moving onto the Capital Wasteland. I have the Requiem for a Capital Wasteland mod installed so I can go there, and I'll be putting my playtime onto the Steam version of Fallout 3. I'm looking forward to it as Fallout 3 was special to me, but first I need to figure out why my level cap mod isn't working.

Sometime soon I'll put up a list of the mods I have installed, so you can play New Vegas the real way.

New - Dark Souls

I bought Dark Souls. I'm so ashamed. It goes against my commitment to myself, and I can't even complain that I have no self control and that it was an impulse buy. I was always interested in Demon's Souls, but I still don't have regular access to a PS3, so it's a no-go until such times.

Dark Souls came out the week before Forza 4. I was interested in it, but Forza was coming out and I had no room in my head to get invested in such a game then. But the weeks have gone by, Forza has faded from my brain a little, and I keep seeing Dark Souls articles linked everywhere, and everyone I speak to speaks really highly of it.

So I set out to town today in pursuit of two things: new shoes and Dark Souls. I don't regret it, not one bit.

I haven't even taken my shoes out of the box yet.

:B: - 1000 Heroes

1000 Heroes is an iOS game where you run time trials in a platformer style. The hook is that there is a different one each day, for 1000 days. I've enjoyed playing it while waiting for the bus home after work for the past few months and I finally reached 5 hours play on it. It takes a long time to get to when you only play for 5 minutes a day max.

That said, it's getting a little samey. Every so often the age changes, but not nearly often enough for the game to stay fresh. It's day 145, which is a little over 3 months, and I've played it for a lot of those days and it's felt a little like a chore for a few weeks. The developers have painted themselves into a corner with setting out all the ages on the app for everyone to see, which means it's difficult to swap things up to keep it fresh. I really, really can't see myself playing for the 855 days left.

1000 Heroes is a really neat idea that suffers from the format it picked for itself. I'd like to see more developers use it. A bite-sized dungeon crawler that gives you a new character every day to try the dungeon with? A racing game that gives you a new track every day, similar to Trackmania (free, by the way)? Maybe a mix of Timesplitters and Borderlands - switch up giving you new characters and new weapons? There's a lot that can be done with drip-feeding content to mobile gamers - if I can come up with these ideas, surely some talented developers can come up with better.

1000 Heroes gets 3/5 stars.

(Oh, and someone PLEASE PLEASE make that dungeon crawler. I would sell my firstborn for that shit.)

:B: - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Explorers of Time

The Mystery Dungeon series is part of the roguelike genre. This particular entry is half of the second entry of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spinoff. The other half being Explorers of Darkness, and there being a third entry, released later, Explorers of Sky, as is customary for the handheld Pokemon games. Some things never change.

Part of what defines roguelikes is a very high difficulty, random dungeons, and perma-death. Pokemon reduces the stakes a little by giving you a persistent character, and reduces the difficulty. There are still parts that are very challenging, and death causes you to lose all money and most items on your person. The question is less 'do I use this unknown item that might kill me' and more 'do I take my useful rare items to this difficult dungeon and risk losing it if I die'.

I've been playing it on and off for a few months, more off lately admittedly, but I recently picked it up with an aim to complete the story and 7 hours of item gathering and leveling up gave me the strength I needed to get through the last two dungeons. The last boss gave me some trouble, and I only brought barely enough revival seeds to keep me and my partner alive. But I got through, teared up at the ending, sat through the excruciatingly long credits, and started the post-story game.

It's here that the game gets a lot more difficult, and my first mission is to restore the ability to evolve Pokemon, which should help. I'm going to continue playing to try for a :C:, however unlikely, because I'm a obsessive masochist and I loved the hell out of it. 5/5 stars.

Forza Motorsport 4 - Beginnings

If you're aware of racing games, you'll probably be aware of the Forza series. It's often considered to be Gran Turismo's direct competitor, although this is primarily thought by console fanboys.

Forza leans towards the simulation side of the sliding scale of racing games, but there's a lot of customization towards how sim-y. You can have ABS & TCS on, with a full racing line, damage off and automatic shifting on and have a fairly arcadey experience, or you can turn everything off and put manual shift on - which, which a good quality steering wheel, is almost unparalleled as to realism.

I'm somewhere in the middle of that sliding scale. I have ABS and TCS on, with automatic shifting, but with damage and fuel consumption on simulation and the difficulty up to full. I'm not the fastest by any means, but I'm usually in the top 20% times when putting the effort in. To improve much further would require getting to grips with all the intricate systems, and I just can't deal with that kind of commitment.

I also use the new Microsoft Wireless Speed Wheel from time to time. The game is significantly harder with it, but it's also incredibly satisfying. The wheel is far comfier than I ever thought it would be. It's very responsive too - you can turn the wheel a little and the car will turn just the right amount. And I do mean a little - the wheel is super sensitive. It feels great to drive with, even if it means giving up competitiveness. Although that might just be because I suck with it!

I'd like to mention Rivals mode. I'm not a particularly competitive person. I don't like to play against other people (indeed, even co-operative modes are a push). I feel like organizing matches or having to wait in a lobby to get into a race is a waste of time; it's too much of an obligation. Enter Rivals mode. What this is, is an expanded time trial mode. It gives you a track and a restriction, and the time of the person above you on the leaderboard. Beating that time gives you experience and money that is linked to your career profile. It's genius. More than once I've loaded the game intending to play the World Tour, but gotten sidetracked into Rivals by a message from the game that a club member has beaten my time on a track.

I haven't played it particularly long, but from the getgo I knew Forza 4 was something special. It's shed the tedium of Forza 3's career, linked everything together so everything you do is working towards something, streamlined car experience and thrown a shitload of content in there. It's fantastic, and I can envision myself playing it for a long time to come.