I’ve been distinctly lacking in inspiration lately. Various things have come up in my personal life that’s made things a bit difficult of late, meaning that I guess my brain just hasn’t really bothered with thinking creatively. So for now, and to show you readers that I do still exist, you can have a fairly predictable games update to see what I’ve been playing lately!

I went on a bit of a points spending spree not long ago, acquiring Peggle, both Fable 2 DLCs, the newest Tomb Raider Underworld DLC: Lara’s Shadow and the Fallout 3 DLC: Broken Steel.

Peggle is horribly addictive just as people warned me. It’s the kind of game that I play for five minutes and then an hour has passed without me even blinking. However, now that I just have the challenges to complete, it is annoyingly tough too! I wouldn’t be surprised if I purchase it on the App Store for my iPhone too despite it being the exact same game.

I’ve purchased Broken Steel for Fallout 3 but I haven’t played it yet. I’m saving it for when I’ve got plenty of time to get absorbed into it. However I did have a brief go of Knothole Island for Fable 2 earlier and it didn’t go as planned. I felt no urge to really play it and ended up playing something else as it just wasn’t interesting me. I found it quite shocking. At launch, I adored Fable 2. It was hugely flawed but I still loved it, more so than Fallout 3 in fact. But this just felt wrong. Maybe it was the extended break, or maybe it was Knothole Island being a bit rubbish. I’m not sure. I will go back to it and figure it out though, hopefully things will improve. I don’t want my fond memories being tarnished by this dull return trip.

I’ve not played Lara’s Shadow for Tomb Raider Underworld yet, been busy completing the game. Underworld was good fun, it was very predictable and essentially the same gameplay that the original Tomb Raider introduced but that’s no bad thing for me. I enjoyed it enough that I think I’ll return to Tomb Raider Legend sometime and possibly pick up Tomb Raider Anniversary too. Underworld has also been quite generous with the achievement points, meaning I’ve nearly reached 81k despite not really playing the game for the points. In fact I’ve lost my achievement whoring urge at the moment. I had both Paintball 2009 and Disney’s Bolt to play for that and I just couldn’t be bothered. Paintball 2009 just wasn’t my kind of thing and I didn’t want to waste my time, and Disney’s Bolt was initially ok but quickly became very dull. I’m sure my achievement whoring days aren’t over forever, but for now there’s just too many good games to play, to bother with average ones.

Unfortunately there are still times where I’m forced to play average games, namely when I’m reviewing them, as is the case with Afro Samurai. The game’s not great. It is stylistically fantastic, however the camera is iffy to say the least and the action is mediocre, your typical hack n slasher. I’ve no doubt that fans of the anime series will like it, however I very much doubt gamers will. Certainly not when there are better games such as Ninja Gaiden 2 or Devil May Cry 4 are available.

On the reviewing front, I’m also busy with Ninja Bee’s Kaloki Adventure for the iPhone which is great fun. The review should be up shortly, along with other iPhone reviews as I haven’t got round to posting them on here yet. I’m also reviewing Grand Ages Rome on the PC, it’s not bad but nor is it particularly special either. Again, expect a review of it over the coming days.

And finally, I’m loving Rock Band 2. I’m so glad I found the Rock Band Band in a Box reduced, it really was worth the initial outlay. It’s just pure and simple good fun. Plus the drums are ideal stress relief! All I can request is I’d love to have more Muse and Killers tracks but I’ll live. Plenty of The Who tracks which is good!

Oh and in case you’ve got to the end of this and you’re still wondering ‘what’s with the pigeon picture?’, I received a new camera today and I’ve been out taking pictures I really liked this one and didn’t know what to use for an image for this entry anyway, so it made sense! If I get a chance, I might set up a gallery or extra category for ‘proper’ photos now that I’m not restricted to my iPhone camera!

Having had a small clearout of games earlier today, I’ve picked out a few games in my collection that I want to concentrate on for a while. Knowing me, I’ll change my mind within the week but you never know, writing it here is good motivation It’s in no way because the games are bad (they’re all pretty good really!), it’s just that my attention span is pretty poor at the best of times. Anyway, on with the list!

Call of Duty 2
I’ve recently got this back after lending it to a friend for a while. It’s one of my favourite 360 games and also one of the first I bought for the system. I started playing it on Veteran back in 2007 and never really progressed very far. It was part down to lack of patience, and mostly down to my crap attention span. However I fancy going back to it so I’m determined I will now. My Dad used to love watching me play it so it makes sense to finally do it on Veteran!

Condemned
I’m roughly halfway through this now so I’d like to get it done. It’s a good game that holds up well despite its age (both it and CoD2 were launch titles at the end of 2006) that deserves my time, especially as I’ve owned it for about 2 years now!

Dead Space
I’ve only owned this a couple of days thanks to trading a few games in. Initial impressions were very good. The graphics are very impressive, the HUD is an interesting concept and I love the audio logs. However now I’ve reached the fourth chapter I’m starting to realise its flaws. It all seems a little repetitive without really mixing anything up. It’s also only made me jump once which is surprising!

Fallout 3
I want to finish off the last of the achievements before Broken Steel. There’s not much left to do but I feel a bit burned out after obsessively playing it the last couple of weeks, so I’m leaving it a little while first. I have points waiting for Broken Steel’s release.

Grand Theft Auto IV
Yes I’m rather behind! Some very good friends of mine got me this at launch last year but my life was a total mess at the time and despite playing it a fair bit back then, it somehow got left behind a little, and I’d really like to return to it now. Plus I might get The Lost and The Damned once I’ve completed the main game.

Tomb Raider Underworld
I recently won a DLC code for Beneath the Ashes thanks to NowGamer, primarily the Twitter feed of one of its journalists. So this seems a perfect excuse to go back to Tomb Raider and try out the DLC and go back to the main story.

So yes, I have plenty to get on with! And that’s even before I mention the rental copy of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars on the Wii, GTA:Chinatown on the DS and my forthcoming copy of Resident Evil 5 that I’m reviewing next!

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks on this blog, for which I apologise for. I’ve been quite busy as well as lacking in motivation which isn’t a great combination for this blog, nor for a budding writer such as myself! Writing wise, I’ve just finshed up a review of Codename Panzers Cold War, the white sliced bread of the PC RTS world. It’s my first paid review and my first review to soon be featured on playboy.co.uk so I’m rather happy with that. Pity it was such a mediocre game and so terrible to review. Terrible, not because it was a bad game, but because it felt like there was so little to say. It was a real challenge as it was just so middle of the road, nothing positive or negative stood out! I’ve just finished writing up the review for Lord of the Rings:Conquest which I was rather disappointed with. I generally love a good hack n slasher. Despite their repetive nature, they are my guilty pleasure. However LoTR:Conquest just doesn’t cut it for me, it’s just too slow compared to the likes of Dynasty Warriors amongst many other things. Review will be up here in the next few days as well as a link for Codename Panzers.

Back to gaming for fun, I’ve been busy with a few games.

I finished off Prince of Persia at last. I never did figure out if I enjoyed it or not. I assume I must have as I played it to the end but it had a lot wrong with it. A lot of the time it felt like an on the rails platformer, if such a thing could exist, where I just had to press a, b or y from time to time to progress further. I didn’t particularly like the two main characters, and certainly didn’t like having to stop every few minutes to listen to a conversation that I couldn’t skip. As well as that, the combat was very tedious. Yet I still played it, and I’m still not 100% sure why. I guess it was because it was easy so it was a nice stressfree simple game. So yeah I guess I enjoyed it. Wouldn’t recommend it to anyone though.

Next up in the pile was Sega Mega Drive Collection, otherwise known as a nice walk down memory lane. I know Nintendo never will, but I would kill for a similar collection of Super Nintendo games rather than be restricted to the Wii’s Virtual Console. Anyway, back to the Mega Drive. I’ve enjoyed replaying the various Streets of Rages, especially 3 as I never played that originally. Also enjoyed playing the Sonics again. When I have some time I’m going to play through the Phantasy Stars and Shining Forces as I also missed those when they first came along. I guess that’s the problem with being a kid in those days, I couldn’t afford many games so I missed out on so many classics! I used to love playing The Story of Thor but I never actually owned it. Instead I rented it as often as I could in my local Blockbuster. Of course the problem there was it had a battery back up save system on its cartridge. There were two copies of The Story of Thor in the store so it all depended on if I got the right copy as to whether I could progress much further in my game. Plus on a few occassions some git had deleted or overwritten the save anyhow. As you can guess, I played through the opening stages of the game a lot, and never actually completed it! One day I started it the other day and was surprised how much harder it was than I remember. Maybe I’ve actually got worse at games with age?! That’d suck. It certainly reminded me of how much easier games are now, and so did a few other Mega Drive games. I don’t know what I’d do without a save function now.

I’m finally starting to get into Fallout 3 after erm about 3 months of just not getting into it. I’m about 15hrs in and I’m finally starting to enjoy it. I still don’t think it’ll be in my Top 10 games of all time or anything like that but it’s certainly gone up the list of all games I’ve ever played. I love it sometimes, then sometimes I hate it. It is immensely satisfying to headshot a raider with the very nice VATS system, and then it goes and pisses me off. Usually by my getting lost in a tunnel because it all looks too samey, or when an NPC gets stuck walking to somewhere that I have to follow them to. I have no doubt that I’m probably being excessively critical (there are more irritants, I’ve just managed to have a blank moment and forgotten them all!) and yes it is the definitive first person RPG, but you have to remember: I don’t tend to like Western RPGs, I much prefer JRPGs. I really enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic, but I found Mass Effect disappointing and lacking soul, and Oblivion was alright but not the be all and end all that others found it to be at the time. On the other hand, I loved Enchanted Arms and Eternal Sonata both of which suffered a few mixed reviews. So ultimately, I guess, like everything else, it all comes down to personal opinion! Mind you if everyone accepted that, I’d be out of an aspiring career so don’t listen to me

Finally, I picked up Tomb Raider:Underworld for £10 (after using a voucher from Christmas). Only played the prologue and the start of the first level. First impressions were not as I hoped. I found the first proper level a bit vague and open for my liking. I like being in a Tomb, I don’t want to be in the middle of an ocean. But ah well, I’ll crack on with it when I have the time.

As my final comment tonight, my iPhone is unfortunately a bit unwell and off for repair at the moment. I had no idea how useful I found it to be until now that I’m without it. When I bought it last year I was worried I’d be lured into the ‘ooh shiny gimmicky gadget’ bug, which I had been. However it’s very useful too. The mp3 facilities, the video playback facilities, being able to twitter on the move, facebook on the move, email, wi-fi, train times etc. I miss it. I hope it comes back soon It’s been about 10 days now.

On that note, feel free to add me on Twitter if you like my random musings: JenjeaHaly is the name on there