This week was my first week back at work after my 17 day vacation time. On Wednesday morning I really couldn’t be arsed, back up at 6.30 in the morning to do a long ass tiring days work. Did I enjoy being back at work? Lets just say, I want another holiday already. I really put some weight on during my holiday too I realised that when I tried to squeeze into my work trousers and they were tight as fuck, looks like its time to make more of an effort at the gym. This week bought on the steam sale . I happened to miss 3 days of it while I was on holiday but I have still made a few good purchases. Saying that the sale seemed to rack truly interesting deals this year. I didn’t go as mad as I thought I would. Being back from holiday did mean more gaming time so...

What Have I Been Playing?

I bought Payday: The Heist in the Steam summer sale. In fact I bought it about 5 seconds after stepping off of the plane home using the Steam App on my iPhone. After putting a good hour or so into it I really like it. Its a really original take on the Left 4 Dead style of first person shooter and although it maybe doesn't feel as good as Left 4 Dead. The heist aspect of the game is really intriguing to me as a fan of films like Oceans 11 and Heat.

I also bought Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD on release day, wednesday. This Xbox live game is a new game in the pro skater series that sees the Tony Hawk’s games going back to its roots. It really brings back memories of the early Playstation 1 games. I personally loved the original Pro Skater games with the second being my favourite. The game takes levels, music and characters from the first two THPS games (but also adds a few new ones in for good measure). Because the game riffs mainly on the first two games a lot of technical aspects you may have become used to in the Underground games or Project 8 are no longer possible. Such things as reverts not counting towards your combo, spine transfers being non existent and not being able to level out your skater if you fuck up a jump. I really did miss that stuff and hope at least some of it will be used in a sequel or in the Pro Skater 3 patch that is incoming soon. The career mode is pretty short in total, on the first night after downloading the game I had opened up every level and now after 4 sessions on the game have 100% of the objectives on 5 or 6 of the levels. The objectives mentioned above are your regular THPS objectives of collecting skate, high score, pro score, sick score and getting the secret tape (well DVD in this). Even though the game does lack many aspects of Tony Hawks that I came to love, and to be totally honest some of the levels are total bull shit (mainly the downhill ones) I fucking love this game and I would recommend it to anyone that loves skating, Tony Hawks games or just skating games in general.

That is basically all I have been playing even though I have bought a fair few games from the Steam sale. I may try S.T.A.L.K.E.R some time next week. I have never played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R game before and they always seemed interesting to me. I also want to play a litte more Skyrim here and there. Do some quests I missed and play through the DLC. Anyway enough of games what about,

What Have I Been Watching?

Breaking Bad started its new season this week and may I say it started with a fucking bang. Breaking Bad is my favourite TV show period. I think Bryan Cranston is amazing as Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin. His Character has become so dark and evil and I think he pulls it off perfectly. I really can not wait for the rest of the season and I am really sad that the show is coming to an end after this year.

I also went to the cinema on friday, and even though my girlfriend fell asleep during the film (she came off a 13 hour night shift) The Dark Knight Rises was fucking amazing, a perfect end to the trilogy of films. I really wish I could talk in detail about the film but it is so good that I do not want to spoil it for anyone. Bale plays batman perfectly and I think that Tom Hardy’s bane was scary as hell. I have to say though that for me Michael Caine stole the film in terms of acting. In one scene he has a monologue that even made me well up ever so slightly (I didn’t cry though damn it I am a man). I really won't talk too much about the film because everything I say could spoil it. I would love to start a thread on the NooBTooB forums, maybe where us that have seen the film could talk in detail without the risk of spoiling the film for others. Maybe I will do that tomorrow, if I get the time.

Well that was my week, I can not stress enough how amazing The Dark Knight Rises is, go watch it as soon as you can.

Next week, I don’t really have too much planned. I wanna go into Nottingham at some point.... I proper fancy a burger from TGI Fridays but I can't think of much else I have planned. Maybe I will pick up the Amazing Spider Man game if I can find it on sale somewhere. I am not paying full price though.