Dammit. The Xbox release of Sacred 2 has been bumped again, now to March 24. It was originally supposed to come out in November with the PC version, then it got bumped to February, and now March. C'mon, Ascaron! Your fans are waiting here! Where else am I going to get a good hack and/or slash loot-fest these days? There's very few games keeping the genre alive, and I can't very well pin my hopes on Diablo III, considering how Diablo II turned out, can I? Particularly since it's not even slated for the Xbox. Bah!

Sacred 2 coming out in February for the Xbox...finally. Bioshock 2 in November-ish, if they keep their schedule. Fallout 3 DLC of course, probably play that sometime in April when it's all out. Everything else is a clean slate, unless they want to actually release Diablo III on the Xbox.

The worst game I played in 2008 was probably Saints Row 2, but it wasn't a bad game per se. It was just more of the same. I like that they've taken a different path than the GTA series, particularly since they've focused on the activities of the urban predator genre, like the hitman and chop shop missions. But the new activities (like the septic truck) were just lame (although throwing people into walls was pretty fun). Ultimately, it just became an extension of the first game, which had already grown tired. They're going to have to innovate and find more interesting activities if they are going to be a viable franchise IMO.

I've been a PC gamer nearly as long as there have been PC games (yes, I'm old), and while I've never had a problem with gaming consoles, I've never really cared much for what I've called "console-y" games. You know they type -- very linear, lots of mini-bosses, and a finally big boss at the end, usually with some trick you have to figure out to defeat. And of course, the "feature" of only being able to save at a specific savepoint, forcing you to play large sections of the game over and over and over and over again until you get it just right. Forced replayability by game mechanics is the cheap way out, and not at all fun in the least for me. I do realize that early on much of this was forced by the limited power of the console, but as they've grown in power to rival and even surpass the PC in some aspects, some game developers seem to still be stuck in the mindset. I'm just not interested in that type of game. Fortunately, there are numerous games on the console these days that are basically PC games in concept and playability, like Fallout 3.

I've pretty much given up PC gaming finally, now that I have an Xbox 360 and a large TV, but I still have concerns about playing first person shooters on a console. I've yet to see a console controller configuration that rivals mouselook for fast-paced action. Some first person games have avoided it by having either target locking (GTA IV) or their own specific mechanism (VATS in Fallout 3). Now that I'm in a gaming lull, having finished Fable II and waiting for Sacred 2, I've been entertaining the idea of playing Half-Life 2 again (actually, Orange Box) and maybe actually finishing it this time. But the FPS/console thing has me concerned. I wasn't particularly good at what little first person shooting I did in Fallout 3, but I was pretty reliant on VATS. I don't really want to dish out money for a game I don't want to play, so I borrowed effjay's copy of Bioshock to give it a spin on the console. I finished it on the PC, so this will be a good test of PC vs console for FPS controls. So far it hasn't been bad at all. I'm just as bad at aiming as on the PC -- but no worse. The truth will come when I need headshots.

If I can get over this last hurdle, I can get out of the PC video card arms race and stop spending the equivalent of a new console system just to play a game every year. I really hope so.

Well, I played the Sacred 2 demo on the PC while waiting for Fallout 3 to come out, and it was as good as I had hoped. My video card is starting to show its age however, so the end of my PC gaming days are apparently at hand. After dropping some serious change on a new LCD TV, and after a massive amount of time exploring the Capital Wasteland on it, I can't see going back to PC gaming, even on my 25" monitor. The only problem, other than games potentially not even coming out for the XBox -- I'm looking at you, Diablo III -- is the wait. Sacred 2 has been out for a month on the PC, but isn't slated until February for XBox. Now what am I supposed to do? Granted, this isn't as bad as the week leading up to Fallout 3 in which I was ready to sacrifice puppies if it would get me the game sooner -- I mean, how many more times could I watch the Big 5 gameplay demos? -- but, being rather picky in my games, I have nothing else to play in the interim. After all the wasteland wandering, I need some good hack and slash!