Something big has happened in my life which will no doubt have impact on my gaming in the future. Will write about it more later on. The last weeks have been crazy with the new game releases. Even me who normally plays just older games have made multiple AAA-title purchases. Three in fact: Fifa 12, which I haven't touched in weeks. Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3. Uncharted 3 and Dark Souls were other games that I really want to play (and will so one day). Just the idea of paying so much money for a game is not tempting, even when I can afford it. Wait few months and the price halves. Not like my backlog lacks titles. Here are few that I've managed to brush of since last blog.

Tesla - Weather Man

Interesting puzzle/platformer indie game. Available on Gamersgate or directly from the developers. Costs only few pounds and it is worth it. My review here

Batman: Arkham City

You know what, I don't like Arkham City. At least not as much as I liked Arkham Asylum. The button smashing battle mechanism and all the content recycled from the first game was bit too much. Story was slightly thin as well. Although the end was pretty good, especially "the song". Ending redeemed the game for me no doubt. As much as I like Batman I hope that they won't do another one of these. Of course they will. Slightly disappointed with this, not too interested in doing more side missions or riddler stuff. Which is slightly odd since I did that all on the Arkham Asylum, maybe this is just too much.

Arcadia

Arcadia is a twin stick shooter, not too different from Geometry Wars actually. Art style is simple two color grid. It is the similarity to Sega Master System games cover art-style (which I like) that drew me to this game. Can't change the colors quite blue and white though. Nothing special, same time nothing terrible wrong about this game. Music is really good, shame that there isn't more tracks. This game often is on sale for one pound, which I'd say its almost worth it. Although there equally good free flash games, such as the next game:

Pixel Purge

And more of that now. OK this 100% Flash game played through your browser, so free. Can be played via Kongregate or Armor Games. I played this back when it got the praises on some sites few months ago. Just wanted to go back to this after Arcadia. And you know what, this way superior to that game and this is even free(did I say that already?). Don't remember the gaming having trophy's back when I played this (might be wrong) before which is additional hook. If you like Geometry Wars or twin stick shooters you can't get much better than this. The dev is working on a sequel, which IMO would work as more fully fledged version. Stand-alone Flash game like VVVVVV or The Binding of Isaac.

Fortix

It's Qix. Not much else to it. Finished in less than 2h. Review coming out soon.

Advance Wars Dual Strike

Got an love/hate sort of relationship with AW games. These can really get frustrating at times. Especially the maps with fog-of-war. I've finished both GBA so should stick to this and finish it as well. Not really lot's of changes from the GBA naturally. At least not just Neotank. The additions with the upper screen action seems pointless. Not done with this yet, about 1/3 I'd say.

Battlefield 3

Hell yeah. Although playing the 360 version, so it could have been better. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with this. Of course there is no doubt that the PC version is superior with its 64 players and way better visuals. Not touched the SP or the Co-op. Doing somewhat well on the MP part. Sticking with Support class now. Thanks to combination of LMG and the C4's. Although should probably change to Engineer since I spend so much time on vehicles. Really enjoy the addition of the extra skills for the vehicles. Also on infantry front the addition of tactic light, laser sight and bi-stand are great as well. The other toys such as the mortar is nice addition. Not played with other classes toys yet. The suppressing fire and going prone feel also like good addition. BF3 most likely will be the FPS for me that will last next couple of years. I joined the GB platoon, but will most likely spending all my time with Konsolfin dudes. And with my brother once he buys the game.

Osmos

Ok this probably just me, but oh boy what horrible shitty game. I know that this is brutally difficult. I haven't even gotten so far yet! The gameplay is just the worst here. There is no persistence, well of anything here. You start each similar looking level the same way with the same brain-dead idea. Become biggest. Control a planet of some sort while costuming smaller planets. There is not one single compelling thing here. I hate games with random physics like this. Might I even add the nasty P-word here as well. Pretentious. Title that implies some relevant to Cosmos. And game trying to have a sort of law's of motion. What's the with the walls then? Or random moving. Just as random as say peggle, only that Peggle is somewhat fun.

Revenge of the Titans

Another game from the same Humble Indie Bundle, that is the 2nd HIB. This is better than Osmos no doubt. Although not the most exciting game either. Tower Defense is the idea here. What differs this from other TD games is that there is a slight aspect of RTS as well. Or at least somewhat deep upgrade system and resource gathering part. Same time the developers have forgotten the most compelling aspect of TD games. That is if there is one. What makes this (at-times) addicting is the fact that the enemies follow the same paths. If you have to play submissive, IE defend, defend and defend. At least you know where the enemies come from. But not on Revenge of the Titans. Someone thought that it might be smart to allow enemies to come from every direction. How is that fun? Was really struggling to keep on playing this. Lucky for me the game decided to screw my save file. Would have needed to start from the beginning. Not. Going. To. Happen. Life is too short to be wasted on playing freaking Tower Defense games.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

No doubt the best Guitar Hero game. Simply because of Rush and 2112. The boss setting for this worked really well. Any game with Rush gets an approval from me. The other songs were not bad either. Although still quite a lot of annoying songs but less than in previous games. These moronic emo songs always make me turn of the volume, which makes way harder. There is just no way to "beat" the game without playing through most of the songs thanks to the daft story. Which was idiotic and the power-ups pointless. Especially when you need to play through the songs again with all the power-ups after beating the end boss. Seems that I beginning to handle the hard difficulty level now. Still some faster sweep solos give trouble, would become better if I played more I suppose. Few more Rock Band games to go and I've played all of these. Maybe by the time they've resurrect the genre. I am also kind of interested in Rocksmith, although I only got an acoustic guitar at the moment.

Cortex Command

Again from the Humble Indie Bundle 2. For a long time this game was on alpha stage and it didn't look like much was happening with it. Few months ago (September '11) the devs released a new build. Build version 26. Which is quite a difference from the one in HIB2. And apparently game is on Beta now. Owners of HIB2 can download the latest version from that same link still. I was surprised by the gameplay and how deep it is. At least on the campaign mode. I guess this would be some sort combination of Worms and Terraria. Campaign consist of scanning various location in a map/planet view. You need decide a budget and send robot team there. From there you can build base and defense structure in case enemy wants to land on same location. Building happens in pixelated environment not too different to Terraria. Which is not fair comparison since Cortex Command is way older game. Here play can mine for gold which gives player more gold to upgrade bases and buy robots. The actual battle which the game has good focus is more Worms style although this is not turn based. Game supports 4 player local co-op, which I don't see myself never playing. Art style and the environment mechanism makes this quite pretty and interesting game.

Youtube link of the week, some Finnish Doom metal from the 90's