What games have you played recently?

I just beat that table tennis champion bitch in Wii Sports Resort, after a zillion times trying. Will uncork some champagne.

That game is CLASSIC. PURE CLASSIC!

*poof* !

I'm hooked on 3 games at the moment: DIRT 2 (on xbox360), Modern Warfare 2 (on pc), and afters years still Audiosurf (yes, still).

When is that DIRT 2 thingy coming onto the pc?

Car racing games are the only ones i stick to more than one level (which is the case with everything else, even MODERN WARFARE 2 which bored me after the initial level).

Well you must miss a lot of good games then, because initial levels are supposed to be boring: simplified tutorial missions that prepare you for the real action later on.

Case in point: Killzone 2, the game only ramps up after the first level and improves gradually until it becomes the best goddamn FPS on console. It's singleplayer is second to none, and the multiplayer continues to impress. I'm not ashamed to say I've become quite good at it. And it's a graphic marvel too.

I know i know, but i am a sucker for cars, i only play car games and the simulator, nothing else seems to hold my interest for more than half an hour.

Ha! Then Demon's Souls is for you, because its much more difficult than the first Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Its a brutal unforgiving game, that want to hurt you, seriously. So much the better, because this will push you to try again and again to beat it! Its a fair game, meaning that there are no lame tricks from the AI to kill you. Its purely skill based, no button smashing here. (impossible, because after two swings you stamina has to recover) So its attack, dodge, roll, run, heal, attack etc etc. In order words play smart and safe, just pretend its really you, and not same character that can respawn and respawn ad nauseum at the same point you died. When you die in this game, you have to start the whole level over again. Strange as it sounds, makes this game addicting, because you basically have to play perfectly (without dying) to complete a level. So its perfection based. It pushes you to become better, which is great. Its no game for lamers or casual players... so this game is for you. Old skooler!

Here is a quote from some guy who played Ninja Gaiden (I didn't):

"Demon's Souls is easily the most satisfying PS3 game I have ever played. Yet I know that many will never get over that initial hump, and they'll end up selling the game for store credit to buy Ninja Gaiden Sigma used. Tecmo gives you save points every ten meters and super powerful ninja magic to clear rooms full of enemies if you get stressed. Demon's Souls gives you an ultimatum; get good, or die."

Yeah! Get good, or DIE!!!

Here is a nice review I agree with:

"Pretty games with intriguing stories are a dime a dozen these days, so what makes Demon's Souls stand out in the overcrowded 2009 holiday season? In this RPG, gameplay is EVERYTHING. A word of warning before I get into it - Demon's Souls is possibly the most difficult game to come out in the past five years, maybe longer. This game is simply not for the weak of heart. Even the most routine of battles will push you to your limit, and you are going to die hundreds of times before you finish the game… if you finish the game at all. That's right - you may never finish Demon's Souls. It's just that difficult. To understand why this game can reduce even the most jaded of players (myself included) to controller-hurling, teary-eyed rage-aholics, you need to have a little background on how the game is played.

Your goal in Demon's Souls is to clear out various locales in Boletaria while collecting the souls of fallen enemies, which can, in turn, be used as currency for purchasing new weapons, repairing old ones and upgrading your characters stats. You'll need to do all three if you expect to battle through to the game's bosses, all of which are brutally powerful and remorseless about killing you. Over and over. Here's where it gets tough; if you die, you lose ALL the souls you have acquired, all the enemies you've bested respawn and restoring yourself to the world of the living requires either beating a boss or using one very hard to find and extremely valuable item. See, after you die, you can continue adventuring in spirit form, where you have less HP and slightly more powerful attacks, but your goal becomes regaining your body - another headache to add to the already substantial list of tasks before you. And dying is always a very real possibility; even the lowliest of enemies can kill you with only one or two hits. Even worse, if you keep dying, your enemies actually grow stronger and get more deadly. Yikes.

When it's written out like this, Demon's Souls doesn't sound like much fun. Losing tons of hard fought progress with a single miscalculation? Screw that! Trust me, though; it is fun. I found myself compulsively trying and trying and trying again to best the game's first real level, with repeated deaths only making my will to win stronger. In most games, losing 45 minutes of progress to one sword swing would drive me to quit altogether, but this game refuses to be shaken, making your eventual triumph even sweeter. The enemies aren't cheap, and dying never feels like an occurrence you couldn't have avoided. It is hard to explain, but the game's challenge never feels unfair; more like a stern master that forces you to get better, come hell or high water. And you will get better. The enemies around the next corner will always be a little stronger, and when you finally do manage to take them out, you'll feel like your truly accomplished something. The thrill of victory is almost tangible and I can't think of any game I've played recently that I felt so damn good about beating.

Though not really integral to the gameplay, Demon's Souls online "play" is innovative, original and totally unlike anything you've ever seen before. Instead of the lame deathmatches that permeate every other game out there (whether or not they make any sense doesn't seem to matter to developers these days), the online here is actually helpful in the single player game. While playing through the adventure, you can see "ghosts" of other players scattered everywhere, running by before evaporating into thin air. These are wireframe representations of other online players adventuring through the exact single player campaign you are. You can also see how other players have died, which can save you some serious trouble in the right circumstances. Even cooler is the fact that you can actually leave messages for other players to discover. It doesn't sound like much, but it is such a cool addition that I found myself planting these little notes everywhere for others to find. Little hints, as simple as "Behind you!" or "Beware dangerous enemy ahead," can really help, and leaving them for others almost becomes a compulsion. Finally! A game with an online mode that makes sense and doesn't cheapen the single player experience is upon us! That alone puts this game above the other high profile contenders for game of the year.

An important tip: After the first boss fight, you are tasked with speaking to something called The Monumental in the game's hub world, and the scene that follows leads you to believe that The Monumental is a statue. It isn't; it's an inconspicuous and very difficult to locate character. (its a nun, with a candle in front, among a row of sitting monks)

What else can I really say? Demon's Souls can do no wrong in my eyes. It reinvigorated my love of RPGs and video games as a hobby, not just a job. Its punishing difficulty is a throwback to the brutally unforgiving games of my childhood, and the feeling of accomplishment in the face of innumerable odds is truly unlike anything I've experienced with a controller in my hands. The world of Boletaria is so stunningly realistic you feel like you are actually there, and the overwhelming sadness that permeates the land actually extended to my real life, prompting me to question if my presence at work really mattered when there were so many poor souls out there suffering under a gray fog of evil. I'm just kidding… not really. I only wish I was kidding. That really says it all - even when I wasn't playing Demon's Souls, it was constantly on my mind and beckoning me to come back and play as soon as my schedule would allow. And even when it didn't. Bottom line - if you have a PS3 and have ever even marginally enjoyed a RPG, Demon's Souls needs to be in your collection like, right this second."

wow.........a treatise!

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood on PC

Western-based first-person shooter about two gun-toting fugitive brothers and their younger innocent brother that is trying everything to turn the two to the side of good. Having loved the first one, I was expecting a lot. And the sequel delivers, but I don't think it's better. I miss the variety and switching back and forth between the main characters which made the story so involving. So the good points of Bound in Blood are: the great level design, the stunning graphics that make you feel you're in the far west shooting cowboys and indians. The environments are just staggeringly detailed, with dust-ridden plains, rocky cliffs, deserted towns and dangerous indian territories. The story is very well written and would translate into a hell of a kickass western movie. Seriously, the three brothers personal stories and how their characters evolve over the course of the game is very emotional and their dialogue is brilliantly delivered by the voice actors. The enemies are plenty and not all people that are on your side stay that way. There are a lot of twists and surprises waiting in the 10-hour game. The main problem I have with this sequel is the game does have a tendency to become repetitive because of all the dumbed-down shooting, unlike the first game which nicely blended a lot of gameplay styles. But it's a very good game and one of the few western bases shooters out there worth talking about.

My Xbox got the stupid red ring of death today. I'm sort of relieved as the past couple of days it's been freezing on me after being on for about 5-10 mins. At least the RROD confirms it's royally fucked and I can apply for a free repair.

the sniper mission is indeed one of the coolest missions of the game, it shows action and suspense that would have definitely suited the Enemy at the Gates film (especially to replace the stupid end)

but there are other cool missions as well, you'll love this game until the end

Join the club... Mine has already RRODed on me two times mate. I have it for 2 years, and basically the console lived for less than 1 year, then died because of overheating. M$ really screwed up when wanting to get the 360 out before the other consoles, at least we have 3 years of warranty for such a failure. I expect it to die on me a third time sometime before the summer...

First time around I unknowingly set it enclosed and unventilated, some 6-7 months later DEAD, then I put it somewhere upright in the open, with enough ventilation, DEAD a good year later. I'm now about halfway the third time (hopefully not). It is the worst console out there in terms of how it was built.

It took about one week to repair it, it was sent to Germany on the two occasions, and I expect they just replace the motherboard, that's the part that gets damaged due to the heat. Luckily their repair service works better than their console.