Now that the Skyrims and AssRevs have seen release, we're entering that period of the year where we do either one of two things: play a fuckload of Skyrim (as you should) or play a bunch of games that we never got around to earlier this year.

For me, it's the latter...and I'm justifying it by saying "I'm waiting for the Skyrim patch". What? Don't judge me, fucker!

For Black Friday, I went to Gamestop and took advantage of their B2G1 free sale. In turn, this put three games I really wanted to try into my possession finally:

1. Shadows of the Damned
2. Alice: Madness Returns
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Later that day, I went by Hasting's and picked up a fourth used game on sale - Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga.

Here's some initial impressions.

Shadows of the Damned

For anyone who knows my love of Bayonetta and other insanely over-the-top games with that massive "Japanese weirdness", you should already know how much I'm in love with Shadows of the Damned. Yeah, the shooting feels a bit loose, but so does your mom. ZING! Any game where the main character is a guy named Garcia Fucking Hotspur trying to get his girlfriend Paula (who he found in a dumpster and took home) from a phallic-headed six-eyed demon named Fleming (who plans to torture and possibly rape Paula repeatedly in Hell) with the help of his former demon buddy Johnson (who turns into his different weapons including the Boner, Teether, Hot Boner, and Big Boner) and a half-human/half-demon named Christopher (with a giraffe neck, Southern accent and hospitality, and a hunger for white gems)... Goddamn, I need to play more Shadows of the Damned. Also, I want a replica of every single poster that they have in that game. They are all magnificent nods and references to different movies/games (the Portal one is fucking hilarious).

Alice: Madness Returns

As someone who was a big fan of the first game, this was something I always wanted to see happen. As someone who talked to American on a pretty regular and personal basis about his frustrations with the gaming and movie industry (namely about the defunct Oz project he was working on as well as the production hell of the Alice movie), this was something I never expected to happen. The little bit that I played last night (I just found the Mad Hatter) has been fucking excellent. Really looking forward to playing more of that, and I'm definitely buying the original from XBLA at some point this week.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Is it okay to say that I'm not digging it so far? Sure, I haven't made a ton of progress in the game yet (still on the first mission). However, there's...well...there's all this talk of "choice in gameplay", but I feel like my "choice" is "sneak around like a bitch and stay behind cover because you're going to get fucked up otherwise". I mean, this isn't "Deus Ex: Espionage Revolution", and I know that the original (which I loved) had some stealthiness about the game. I just don't remember it being so clear-cut in that part of the gameplay department. Oh well. I'm going to stick it out and play some more.

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga

I haven't plugged this in yet, but my friend Pip said "buy it, it's what you wanted Divinity II to be". He and I see eye-to-eye on many things, and for $20, I figured it was worth some of my time. Ego Draconis was fucking wretched, so anything that improves upon that works for me at this point. I'm sure I'll have something to say about that eventually.

Beyond that, we've got a copy of Assassin's Creed: Revelations at the store that I still haven't touched yet. I might get around to that at some point, as I need to start rounding out my Top 25 for the year (which pretty much seems about complete so far). I figure that'll be on there somewhere.

WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS?What games are you catching up on before the end of the year? What did you pick up for Black Friday? What are you picking up for Cyber Monday?

Until next time, piece.

(P.S. - Super 8 was pretty alright, but I could've done without so much sappy drama bullshit).

When I want to play a game, I boot up Skyrim. I have a feeling this game will keep me enthralled until I get Skyward Sword at Christmas.

Divinity II is still pretty bad. From what I understand, the game is not dramatically different from Ego Draconis, and I felt like my time with it could have been spent better elsewhere, as the general thrill/hour ratio is quite low. As someone who is into the old games, I'd say that even the original Divine Divinity is worth a look, basically being an open-worldish Diablo clone with a really good soundtrack and a somewhat cruel difficulty curve.

As for myself, I bought King of Fighters XIII. Not black friday, but that game is pretty great nonetheless. And I borrowed my friend's copy of Dark Souls, which is the best deal of all because it's free and he can't ask for it back because I'll be at school until Christmas break.

Divinity 2 is on sale on steam for 10 bucks btw.

@ArbitraryWater: That's a bit disheartening to hear. Nonetheless, it was only $20 after tax, so I'm sure I can find $20 worth of something in it. Hell, I was able to find $20 worth of something in Spectral Force 3. I'm still just a wishful thinker that Divinity II can be a good game. I don't know.;

@Claude: I'm sure I'll be playing Skyrim a ton for the next year as well, but at the same time, it's tough for most games to keep my attention for very long because of how many games I generally play in a year. The new Zelda seems pretty rad, so you'll have to let us know what you think of it when you play it. Honestly, though...you should really play Shadows of the Damned. That game is fucking incredible.

Thinking about picking up Shadows of the Damned when I get my account back. As for Alice: Madness Returns I've only seen my girlfriend play it but its like a crazy acid-trip mixed with steam-punk and goth stuff, seems like a decent enough platformer though.