Currently Playing

Good morning/afternoon/evening all!  Thought I'd pop by and chat about what I'm currently hacking and slashing and puzzling my way through on my systems and PC these days, just to whet everyone's appetite for what's to come.  How about I start off with the PC, just to get that out of the way and then we can settle down to the meat of the meal, hmm?

Right now, I have a lot of time and energy invested in one particular website online.  I'm talking about Big Fish Games here, and I am extremely happy with their site.  Take note, I get nothing from them if you sign up; they don't even have a referral plan in place.  For the price of $6.99 US (keep in mind, Canadian cash is at par or greater at the moment) you get a game per month, with Daily Deals as low as $3 a game, weekly deals of $3.49, and a usual $7.49 for regular titles (down from $10.49 for non-members) and $14.99 for collector's editions (down from $20.99 for non-members) which always include bonus content, most also having an in-game walkthrough for the niggly bits.  Big Fish has a wide variety to choose from, from hidden object games (which is what my wife Andi was looking at the site on my behalf for) to match three games, to puzzle games, bubble popping games, adventure games, word, card, board...you name it, BFG has something for everyone!  There are certain titles I myself have purchased and recommend highly, and I will get into those on a BFG-centric post in the future.  Right now, I want to stick with what I'm looking at presently.

Also on PC, I am giving Starcraft II a spin.  As mentioned yesterday, I have been (and will sometime in the future again be) an avid WoW player (that's World of Warcraft, for all you virgins), but for now I am still taking a break.  I think about WoW a lot, but I'm not quite ready to jump back in the pool just yet.  The rest of my PC game playing is older titles, of the Doom, Quake, Blood variety, and again I shall cover those in another post.

That takes care of the PC side of things, let's get to the consoles.  As stated, I have all three major players, so we'll start with the one I use least and make our way to the powerhouse that gets daily play.

Now, this is going to surprise some, and be expected by others:  The system that gets used least often in this household is Nintendo's Wii.  Simply put, Nintendo has put out a gimmicky system, and they know it.  Why else would you be able to play one of the most highly anticipated and most recently released titles by using their famous 'nunchuk' controller as though it was an old-school controller?  I'm referring directly to Donkey Kong Country Returns.  Here we have a HUGE holiday release, 2010, November 21st, and it can be played without the gimmick that sells the system, that in fact the whole system is based around.  What does that say?  Well, it tells me that Nintendo knows they judged older players wrong.  Anyway, I have quite a few gripes with the Wii, but that's another post which WILL happen.  For now, let's look through the library here...Super Mario Galaxy, both one and two...New Super Mario Bros. Wii...Metroid Prime Trilogy...Metroid Other M...I think I see a pattern here!  These are all remakes and updates of older titles!  In fact, my Wii library consists of only one really unique title, and that's Disney's Epic Mickey.  That's why I don't play the Wii much - the best titles for the first real generation of gamers are all retro remakes.  We've been there, we've done that, why not give us something new that doesn't only appeal to new, young gamers.  We count too, you know!

Second most active system in the house is the PS3.  It actually gets more use as a Blu-Ray player, but that's a different blog entirely.  Here, again, I'm playing some retro stuff - the current game in the player is the Sly Cooper Collection!  By the way, Sucker Punch screwed up in their update of this title, and anyone who has played the new version of the first game through to the end of the swamp level will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.  Moving on...love the Resistance titles, looking forward to inFamous 2, Uncharted series isn't bad...but when it comes right down to it, the focus of Sony's system has been pretty over quality.  The games look great, but play like crap.  Where's the depth?  Where's the character development?  Ah, well, future posts will take that subject head on.  For now, however, we'll just add that the Playstation Plus membership is worth its weight in gold to anyone who has been gaming for over a decade, and their Home service is slowly getting to the point where it is really worth digging in to...maybe sometime after the third year they'll decide it is no longer a beta test.

Also, the PS3 has some REALLY hot chicks in their premium wallpapers, and I hope they get more A.S.A.P..

Now, since those of you following closely are probably pretty good at deducing the process of elimination, it will be absolutely no surprise to note that the big daddy console in this household is the X-Box 360.  From here on in, it'll be the 360, no other form of address needed.  The only game system of the current generation that I purchased day-and-date (due to a shipping screw-up on EB's part with the Wii, and a total and utter disinterest in the PS3 until the price dropped considerably), the 360 has been my gaming workhorse for many a moon.  Not that there haven't been HUGE problems with the hardware, I admit it.  However, even through all of the red-light issues (and trust me, I'll try to keep that particular subject down to only one future post), this system has been the one to which the other two should be aiming their sights.  Larger library, deeper gameplay, solid graphics, DVD compatible out of the box (yes, the PS3 was Blu-Ray compatible out of the box, but when it came out exactly how many Blu-Ray titles were on the market?), and hands-free peripherals that actually change gaming (yes, I am in fact considering the Playstation Move...which, if you are honest, is a wireless version of the Wii's hardware.  The 360's Kinect is totally controller-free gaming, and it is going to change everything, wait and see).  Also, and this is a big one, they have done the online aspect right, from day one.  Yeah, I get tired of doing the conversion from money to Microsoft Points constantly, but I was grabbing stuff online the same day the console was released.  Bought my first Arcade titles that day too, and I still play them.

Currently getting play in my 360 are a wide variety, some old, some new.  We have a bunch of Kinect titles, almost every one released so far, so I'll get into more detail with them another time.  I'm hardcore into Call Of Duty - Black Ops multiplayer, fooling around with Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare, kicking it (kinda) old school with The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion (and how much do all RPG players wish it was November 1st already?), and still noodling with Red Faction: Guerrilla.  There are others getting regular play, like The Sims 3, Civilization: Revolution, Fable III and Fallout: New Vegas.

All of the titles I have mentioned throughout this post can be purchased by following the links to Amazon that I have provided.  I'll be digging deeper into my libraries of titles for all the systems I play in the near future, but this should hold you all for now.  Oh, almost forgot - if you are looknig for me online, for any of the three systems, your best bet is to check for me under the gamertag of Timbuctu.

I'll be back in the near future with more about what I play, and I'll even give a bit of history as to how I got to be the achievement whore that I have become.  If any of you have topics you'd like me to cover, just let me know either by commenting or following the links in the previous post to get to me.  Otherwise, it's time for me to go grab some more achievements!  Gamerscore, ho!