Guess who's back?

No, I'm not back. I'm just taking off-time to deliberate on our choice for GOTY 2010 (yet!). But SuperViv is back from Australia! We hope she'll resume playing where she left one year ago so we can keep chatting about games.

And big bad EA is also back as a major villain. Last week I played lots and lots of Mirror's Edge and Dead Space (both amazing games) and I was thinking "I definitely liked where EA was going a couple of years ago". Now, I'm not so sure I even like them anymore, after the evident watering-down of Bioware's games (just look at the recycled rush job they did with Dragon Age II), the Call-of-Dutization of their shooters, etc. With Activision completely out of control and Ubisoft acting crazy like a videogame-world Charlie Sheen (why would you want to sell a sexless sex game?), I don't know who can deliver us from video-game evil now. Valve? The indie developers? We will see.

Was I the only one waiting for This is Vegas?

It looks like This is Vegas has been canned.

This was going to be the next game created by Surreal Software, the studio behind the underrated horror classic The Suffering and its inferior (but still pretty good) sequel, and I have to admit that I was hoping they would create another great game. But something was not right. The colossal Midway was sinking, and it looked like this game could be a victim of it. Also, to our eyes the game seemed a bit pointless. What is it exactly? A mere GTA clone? A playboy simulator? Is there anything else to do other than just go from one place to another and "party"? With no interesting story or characters sticking out, it looked like they were taking too long for just a glorified HD mini-game collection.

Maybe we were wrong. Maybe there was a great game underneath. But then again, why did they choose to show only those parts of the game? Were they really building up a whole game based on the secondary, throwaway elements that filled up GTA's world for those moments when you wanted a break from the main story?

They've been working on this game for years and they've already spend $50 million. Are they really throwing all that work away? Even 3D Realms allegedly handed Duke Nukem Forever to another developer to finish it. Can't they just release what they have as a budget title, or as a downloadable game? Maybe they won't be able to sell it spectacularly for $60, but why not for $20? I would definitely buy it.

Will Avatar (the game) end in Oblivion?

Hi Danda!

Happy new year!

I'm happy to report that in the last week or so, I have finally had a lot of time to just sit in front of my PC and play games. I mostly played Oblivion all day and it was great fun and I have now finished the main quest. It's good that you can keep on playing after you finish, but it kind of made me lose my motivation to finish any more quests. Which is good for a casual core gamer, as this way I have finished a game and don't have to spend any more time on it. ;)
At any rate, it's a great game, it looks great and the game world is great.

Now the new year started and I have another week before I have to go back to work. I'm not sure if I should spend it playing games or maybe rather shift my attention to reading more. Then again, maybe I should try to finish GTA IV finally. We'll see.

Since Christmas, I have a brand new Eee PC which will be a big help for staying in touch when I'm Down Under. I have already started looking for some games that might work on it (for the times spent on airports or traveling from city to city) and I'm glad to report that The Longest Journey works well on it. Gamespot.com lists this as the best adventure game of all time, so it's about time I played it. This was another game that I bought for a few Euros when it was on a magazine DVD but then got too busy to play it (or preferred other games).

Last but not least I want to tell you that I watched Avatar in 3D a few days ago and I thought it was really awesome. The 3D effect was great, and I felt that it worked really well even in quieter scenes that didn't have a lot of action. I think that's the first new 3D movie I've seen with real actors and not just animation. (Remember when they had 3D shows maybe 15 years ago where the camera had to be in constant motion?) While the plot was quite predictable at times, I think the beautiful world they created for the movie entirely made up for it. I for one at least thought it was quite epic.
To stay on topic, though, I read about the Avatar game they made while making the movie, and while I think it looks rather cool in gameplay videos, apparently it's rather boring and disappointing. If you have the correct type of TV, you can play it in 3D, though. Now that's a technology I look forward to becoming ubiquitous (and therefore affordable).

Game on,
-- SuperViv