This is the first in a new series of posts I'm going to be doing.

As I've mentioned in other posts, my second kid came along last December. Having two kids, on its own, is pretty demanding. However, my son also came early, requiring three weeks in the NICU and was born with a heart defect that required open-heart surgery a couple weeks ago. So, I've had even less time and money for games.

Therefore, in order to curb my spending on games I don't really have time to play (or the budget for), I've decided to try and make substitutions for new games with ones from my backlog. I have hundreds of games in my backlog, so it shouldn't be too hard to do... ;)

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Despite the bad reviews of Battlefield Hardline, I enjoyed the multiplayer beta, and I was intrigued once hearing the single-player involved a lot of stealth gameplay, as I am a stealth fan.

However, instead of buying Hardline, I've decided to finally play the copy of Bad Company I own for Playstation 3 (I will then move onto 2 on PC).

I'm halfway through Bad Company, and I am enjoying it. However, I don't find the story very intriguing at all, and the characters don't speak to me, even in a humorous context.

I'm also not used to playing first-person shooters with a controller, sitting further away from the screen, since I tend to play all FPS's on my computer, with my mouse and keyboard. So, I'm only now getting better at the combat.

Nothing about the gameplay has really blown me away. I knew going into the game that it is not Modern Warfare in its bombast, but I thought it would be more than it is. Instead, I feel like I'm just running through fields, killing people, running through another field, killing more people, et cetera...

I also find no compulsion to search for the gold bars. I think that mostly has to do with the fact that I feel so disconnected from the characters, even my own character. I feel it would be better if I was sitting closer to the screen and feeling more in control of my movements (i.e. using a mouse and keyboard). I'm interested to see if playing Bad Company 2 will address this, for me.

I'm going to finish this game and move onto the second game later this year, but I'm already more looking forward to finally playing through the Modern Warfare games.

As for multiplayer, I have been meaning to play Payday 2, as I played a couple sessions of the first game and heard this second game improves a lot on the gameplay. So, I'll report back once I put in a little time with Payday 2.

I'll also try to follow-up on Bad Company once I finish it.