Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now a qualified explorer and fighter. I got through all of their respective tutorial missions and only have one left of industry, which will be over in an hour when the damn ship finishes building. 
 
So I began the day with the last few exploration missions, which were far easier since getting some sleep and having the experience of yesterday to work with. There were Radar, Ladar, and something else types of signatures which were all very similar in the tracking down, just using different methods of salvaging. After getting to grips with using probes last night, these missions were a doddle and took hardly any time at all. 
 
Next came the military career path tutorials, which were fairly standard fighting missions. Ten times. I don't actually think I learned anything new between the first mission and the last, but I got some new equipment. That's something. Combat in this game seems initially simple; lock-on, orbit, attack. No doubt it will mix things up with some rock-paper-scissors mechanics, but I'll worry about that when I get to it. Toward the end of the career path there was a horrible mission where I had to go find a hotel, but everyone was dead and there were thick radioactive clouds everywhere. This gave me a sadface.
 
Then there were the industry career missions, which seemed to be a mix of mining and courier missions. Nothing to difficult here, though toward the end I was forced to equip my ship with both mining lasers and weaponry as there were people to kill before mining. I'm not really sure how courier missions fit into industry, but whatever. There were also a few missions that taught me about refining the ore that I mined and using it to build new equipment, and even ships. That seemed fun. 
 
So far I think I'm going to keep a seperate ship for each career and just use them when necessary, probably leaning more toward the exploration side of things. Heading out to ruins of old space stations just appeals to me a lot more than "BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD" or the repetitive nature of mining. I'm also looking forward to seeing how the actual game works, as I get the feeling the tutorials do not reflect it at all. The idea of assembling a ragtag group of ships to head out into the black, some mining and exploring while the soldiers keep other players off their backs is kind of amazing. Can't wait to get through the two remaining tutorials and get my teeth into it. 
 
To-Do List: 
-Find more music for the jukebox, three hours of Firefly soundtrack was awesome, but I could do with more variety. 
-Stop getting distracted from the game by the draw of logging in to other people's facebook accounts. 
-Still not watched Star Trek yet. Remedy this post-haste.

And so my journey into the cold, dark depths of outer space has begun with my entrance into the world of EVE Online; CCP's sci-fi MMO. 
 
My story begins with the character creation, which already has far more depth than I am used to in my videogames. There were four "races" to choose from, of which I chose the Minmatar. Their history of slavery interested me, as did their already well establish rivalry with the religious madmen, the Ammar. After choosing this race, I was then prompted to choose an even more in-depth background... which I have completely forgotten. This background then gave me three options to choose from which were kind of like a class, or perhaps more of a personality for my character. I selected Drifter as this seemed to suit me the most. I want my journey into space to be one of exploration and perhaps a little piracy (mostly at the expense of the gross Ammar) so it seemed like my best choice. 
 
There was also some video, but I skipped it on account of how bloody jittery it was. Odd, considering this beast of a machine runs the actual game on the highest settings, but whatever. 
 
Upon choosing all this, I got to give my dude a face. Apparently, Minmatar is just Space China. I selected a mohawk, a dirty gas mask, and a slight tan. I then selected the name of Tseng Deschain, a combination of a stereotypically Asian sounding name (which also happens to be the name of a dude in FFVII) and the surname of everybody's favourite cowboy, Roland Deschain. 
 
Thus, with bright eyes and a vow against the Ammar zealots, Tseng set out on his adventure. 
 
The beginning of the game seems a lot like most MMOs: tutorial levels out the wazoo, but a lot of tutorials. Some pop-up box with a robot woman's face kept popping up teaching me how to play the game, which I was very grateful for, while I went about doing my first mission for "Some Guy" at the Pater Tech School. It was a simple courier mission involving moving one thing between stations, which only took about five minutes. No rat genocide here, friends. Not until some red dot appeared in my overview that needed to be shot down. 
 
Space is a beautiful place. On my short journey so far I have seen clouds of some kind of space precipitation (I'm no scientist) and a few wreckages that give the world an old, lived in feel. There are also freaking Space Video Billboards! Fantastic. Travelling through space also has a kind of indescribable feel to it, particularly when stopping your ship in the middle of nowhere and seeing how very still everything out here is. Also, for such a well-populated world, I have seen amazingly few ships. This isn't your crowded WoW beginner village, for sure. 
 
Upon completing Some Guy's tutorial mission, I was given a few more explanations by robot face lady until finally being given the chance to choose a career path: Military, Industry, Exploration, Business, and Advanced Military. I was a little disappointed with the lack of "Space Cowboy," or "Space Pirate" options, so I went with exploration. I was then given a contact on another space station to go see who would set me on my path of archaeology and discovery. After a short trip I met him and got my first exploring mission. 
 
The first mission was easy: All I had to do was go somewhere, use my scanner to find a space anomaly, pick up a Proof of Discovery and head back. The second mission, however, did my head in. 
 
I was tasked with finding a Gravimetric space anomaly this time, which required the use of probes. The whole use of probes was either very poorly explained, or I shouldn't play these kinds of games at 2AM. Sending probes out did indeed find these Gravimetric anomalies, but I couldn't travel to them. After playing around a bit though, I managed to kind of "shrink" the anomaly until it was a small dot by using four or so probes and pushing them together. Then I was able to warp to it and find the acceleration gate... 
 
Which I couldn't use. It said I needed to Proof of Discovery. The one I was looking for. Eh? However, upon opening my journal and squinting really really hard to read the red text, I discovered that the man who gave me the mission had also given me this thing, and it was sat in my storage at the space station I had just left. 
 
Again; 2AM. 
 
So now that I had my head on straight, the mission was easy. It only took an hour or two, as well. Sadpanda. On completion of the mission and acceptance of the payment, I docked up and got some sleep, dreaming of the relics and ruins I would discover in my new career. 
 
To-Do List: 
-Find a Firefly soundtrack and import that shit. 
-Not play till 2AM when I've had a busy day in order to minimize fucktardery. 
-Consider taking an additional career path in parallel to exploration, or whether I just want to get through this one first. 
-Finally get around to watching the new Star Trek movie. God, I love Star Trek. I hope there are Firengis.

So in the last week/week and a half, I've started to play through the games I got in the steam sales, beginning with Darksiders and Alpha Protocol. How did I manage to not play these last year!? They're both utterly fantastic, though admittedly flawed. 
 
Darksiders was a new take on one of my favourite games: Zelda. Let's not beat around the bush, it's a Zelda clone. But that's why we love it. It also manages to mix that great classic gameplay with a setting I had no idea interested me so much; a kind of fantasy demonic apocalypse. The great visuals and overall art style didn't hurt much, either. Nor did the absolutely incredible voice acting and great characters (Vulgrim is my God). And oh god that cliffhanger ending has me so pumped for a sequel. 
 
Sure it had it's problems like repetitive combat, a dungeon that seemed to have just been removed - seriously, there was no third dungeon, you just get the third heart on the way to the fourth heart? wha? - and other things that felt like they'd been removed to keep development time/costs down, but I felt it was an overall great package that I felt pretty passionate about, and that's a rarity nowadays. 
 
And then there was Alpha Protocol, which I just finished up. I honestly cannot fathom why this game gets the hatred it does, unless it all comes entirely from the kind of idiots that enjoys CoD or thinks ME2 is still an RPG. This game has some of the best characters I've seen in a videogame, particularly due to the character designs (Sis and Ong Dem? if that's his name, in particular) but also due to some great character development and some twists that I simply did not see coming, but still make sense (Scarlet, whatabitch) 
 
Sure I got frustrated occasionally, like when I stopped being able to hack computers, pick locks, or do any of that stuff, but then I remembered that I didn't have the skills for that anyway, so that was my fault and not the game's at all. In fact, I'm surprised I was able to do all that for as long as I did. There was also a lot of bugs that were irritating, but it never put me off the game. I also felt that the conversation thing could have used some tweaking as it often felt like I was rushed to make a decision and ended up not clicking the response I wanted in time. Overall though, this is more ME1 than ME2 and that is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I can see this being my most played game this year while trying to get all the endings. It's a shame that stuff isn't tracked.
 
My Ending: 
Fucked Madison, Mina, and Scarlet. Albatross died. Chose Madison over the museum tourists, then the bitch walked out on me. In Taipei I chose to stop the assassination rather than the riots. Chose Heck as my handler for the final mission as 1. Albatross was dead and I'd seen Sie like once maybe? and 2. Heck is MOTHER FUCKING AWESOME. Rejected Leland's job offer, chose to go after him instead of Mina so she died boohoo, killed Leland. Never even saw Westbridge, oddly enough. Never saw Scarlet in the graybox either, only found out she was HALBEC through Omen Deng. 
 
I can't think of a single game that I did play in 2010 that left me on the same high as both of these have, so wtf happened? Alan Wake and Bayonetta came closest, but even though didn't grip me to the same extent.

I'm doing one of these. In no particular order:
 

1. Alan Wake	A simply stunning game that melds the story telling of personal favourite Stephen King with the gameplay mechanics of survival horror games such as Silent Hill and Alone In The Dark. One of my favourite games of this year.   A must for any Stephen King fan.
2. Bayonetta	A baffling piece of genius and tongue in cheek campiness, Bayonetta is a wonderful foray into the madness that is Japan. With great and intuitive gameplay built up from the likes of Devil May Cry, this is the only game I've gone back to this year.   Fans of Capcom and Devil May Cry need this game.
3. Red Dead Redemption	Rockstar takes it's well-honed open world gameplay from GTA and combines it with a classic Western setting, and it pays off in spades. I've yet to find immersion on the level of riding through the desert on horseback hunting for cougars as the sun sets, or playing cards with the locals as the sky explodes with colour at dawn.   A dream come true for fans of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. GTA fans may also enjoy it.
4. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep	After several disappointing instalments to the franchise since the original, Nomura and co. once again surprise us all with an excellent journey into the KH Universe's history. Filled with the best cast the series has yet to see and with a plot that actually feels steady and connected, this is probably the best Kingdom Hearts game yet.   Fans of the original will be overjoyed with this game.
5. Super Meat Boy	Filled with nods to videogames from every corner of the world and gameplay that knows no competition in levels of both frustration and satisfaction, this game is already brilliant. Combined with the addictive unlockables and secret levels, this horrible, glorious game is easily one of my favourites of the year.   For fans of any videogame, ever.

Where do I begin with this cliche-riddled story with little understanding of perspective?
 
The Left Hand Of God is the tale of Thomas Cale, a boy who somehow manages to have amazing skills and be at the centre of some prophecy involving the end of the world. Yes, friends, we've stumbled into generic fantasy land. To be more specific, this is the story of Thomas Cale's escape from his sheltered life of abuse at the hand of The Redeemers, our Generic Fantasy Church Allegory, to his rise through the ranks in the city of Memphis. Not that Memphis, apparently.
 
Some of the characters are really good, but they're all background characters. IdrisPukke serves as the criminal with a heart, providing comic relief in spots, who naturally becomes a loveable rogue. Unfortunately by the end of the book it felt a bit like he was pushed to the side. Riba, the fat girl, is our fish out of water who goes from being pampered and waited on hand and foot, to pampering the highest citizens of Memphis. While Kitty the Hare is... well, Kitty the Hare. It is unfortunate, then, that the main characters of the story are stale cliche's with all the personality of wood shavings.
 
There are a handful of standout scenes that really stand out, including the rather tongue-in-cheek explanation for Cale's extraordinary combat abilities that almost pokes fun at how very cliche and overused it is, and a rather heartwarming scene in which Cale and his friends begin to befriend a deaf-dumb boy, culminating in the invention of sign language.
 
This highlights another problem I had with the book, though. Hoffman seems unable to decide who he wants Cale to be: one minute he's a crazy killer with no emotion, while the next he is helping disabled kids and falling in love. To be honest though, there is very little characterisation or character development in this book at all, and even less of it which is good.
 
The world in which the story takes place is oddly fascinating. I found myself wondering many times just what kind of world this was. A crazy almost-Christian cult that worships someone strikingly similar to Jesus, but not quite; the addition of a city called Memphis, but with typical English slang and the nearby town of York (an english city), all form a picture of a world that is almost-but-not-quite our own. The Redeemers are also stunningly realised, as is the social structure of Memphis itself.
 
The writing itself ranges from average to poor, with shifts in perspective mid-chapter, or even mid-paragraph, feeling incredibly jarring. There are also a handful of sentences that are nigh-unreadable, whether they seem choppy or otherwise.  There is also a sequence toward the end of the book which is absolutely horrible to read, in which Hoffman just lists things that happened in a battle. Really.
 
All in all, this is a averagely average fantasy story with both highs and lows. 5/10
 
Next Up: The Wheel Of Time: The Eye Of The World. I've heard this series is good, so I'm giving it a go despite my hatred of fantasy cliches.

I can't understand the popularity of this series, I'm incapable of doing so.
 
So I played Modern Warfare, thought it had a middling campaign and moved on. The other day I played some MW2 at a buddy's house and found it was even worse! The multiplayer is complete and utter garbage! There is no skill, strategy, or teamwork to it. It's just whoever's finger manages to move quickest, wins.
 
Where is the fun in this!?
 
This is mind-boggling to me how this game manages to get so popular when it's frustratingly bad. I hated every second I was playing it; it's dull, drab, skill-less, and requires all the brainpower of a 5-year-old.
 
I'm so angry right now!
 
There are some amazing games out there, and this trash gets all the attention!? I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I'M SO ANGRY! I wish I was just trolling, but seriously, this makes me legitimately angry.
 
OHJESUS, this got better reviews than Okami. I fucking hate this world sometimes.

blarghalarg

So, I see all the love the last 1/4 or 1/5 of the game that Red Dead Redemption gets... it was dull. DULL.
 
"Hey, you know thirty hours ago when we made you do all this mundane shit like herding cattle to get you to grips with the controls? Well, you're gonna spend the next 3ish hours doing that again!"
 
No thank you, Rockstar. It was boring the first time around, I do not want to do it again. So why does this part of the game get so much love? I find it abysmal game design, to be completely honest. Is it because some people get a feeling of connection to John's wife and kid? I felt no connection as I was just so pissed off at having to do these boring jobs again. Or maybe (and this is total guesswork) they like seeing John the family man, working to support the family he's about to be seperated from? I didn't get a sense of that either. All I got a sense of was repetitive tedium.
 
The very last half hour was kind of cool, though; protecting the farm as John before getting shot up, then getting revenge with Jack. But even that made ZERO sense. If the government just planned on killing Jack anyway, why send him back to his farm at all? Should have just shot him when he'd done his job. Probably would have been a more emotional moment, in fact; he'd worked tirelessly to be reunited with his family, only to never see them again. Still could have run with the whole revenge thing with Jack, too.
 
It just shocks me that people are using this as an example of good storytelling in videogames when it's anything but. I get the impression that all those people know is videogames and have never watched a truly great movie or read a novel since school.
 
The phrase "All the subtlety of a sledgehammer" comes to mind.
 
P.S. This totally isn't a troll: If you love it, great. Fuck my opinion. Just wanted to open up some discussion on it.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger! Unfortunately, Continuum Shift isn't out here yet, but I've got it on pre-order.
 
I think my favourite is Taokaka. She's a spunky catgirl with dangerously large claws, and I like her down>down+C attack. Noel was quite fun, too. And those are the only two characters I've played with.
 
So, there's a story mode, and it's hella confusing. First of all it seems like there's just a shit ton of clones running around (Noel goes all cloney, and Hakumen spoke to Taokaka as though she were a clone) and secondly, there seems to be a whole bunch of branches depending on the choices you make/winning or losing. I did all the ones I could find yet somehow I'm only at like 80% with Noel and 90something% with Taokaka. Confuzzling.
 
Also just got DQIX, which is awesome.

Sooo, I've just started playing the origial Disgaea.
 
Yep. Now I'm addicted to it. I've tried Strategy RPGs before and hated them, but this one is ridiculous, like a fountain of chocolately goodness laced with nicotine. I love going back to old levels to grind some more money for better equipment, or some more exp to gain higher levels and more advanced classes. It takes forever, but that's ok.
 
I also love the structure of it, having the hub world that you go back to after each level to buy equipment/create characters and go back to use the shit you just got. This is kinda how I played the Dragon Age expansion, but it lacked depth. In Disgaea, I have found that depth.
 
I am only 4:45 in though, so I've got a looooong way to go before the endgame.