Dark Souls - This is an amazing amazing game, I hope everyone got it. I already had it digitally. Can't recommend highly enough.

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade - So, that saved me 15 bucks. It's still really cool, and I still really suck at it. Still no single player to speak of. I played Evil Ryu through the arcade mode on easy, and that was enough. No need for Ultra for me.

Charlie Murder. Another beat-em up. Not terrible, but the art style wasn't doing much for me. Somehow my progress through the first couple chapters was lost, and that was enough to pass.

So my new PC arrived. I have a whole bunch of steam games on it plus the MMO's I dabble in. So far it's working out wonderfully. So I'm not sure if I'll be keeping up on the Games with Gold on the 360.

Hitman Absolution: Haven't tried. Not really into assassinating people, but Assassin's Creed 2 did change my mind on that at least in service of a good story.

Deadlight: Tried, didn't like. Just seemed clunky and a tired use of the zombie genre.

Dust: An Elysian Tale - Totally surprised by this one, really like it. Very metroidvania in all the good ways. Art design is beautiful, voice acting surprisingly competent. Decent chance I'll finish this one (I figure I'm about halfway through).

Saint's Row the Third - As I've mentioned before I'm not into the open world crime genre, at all. The closest I've come is Crackdown which I loved. But the game got a lot of love on the site so I thought I'd try it out. Man, I do not like this game! Everything there is to do is dull. Looks dull too. The occasional funny / wacky bits aren't enough incentive to keep playing. But it did get me thinking though...

Sleeping Dogs surprise comeback: I re-download this even though it sat untouched on my hard drive for weeks before I deleted it. I was just curious, now that I had a taste of the 'open world urban crime' genre, what another example would be like. Boy this game is much better. Like in every way much better than Saint's. A character I can care about, an decent plot, an interesting environment, a cool martial arts combat system. The missions are fun and varied. Wow, I can't say enough about what a good impression this game makes side by side with Saint's Row. Only a couple nights in, but definitely much more likely to finish this one.

Magic 2013 - I liked Magic 2012 quite a bit so I might get around to this. It's a very accurate representation of the game, and the card game is great, but the interface isn't the best. It just plays a lot slower than a face to face game would.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas - Not for me. I played the first level, and it seems well made. Just not into military shooters.

Might Magic: Clash of Heroes - This is a pretty great game. I have it for the DS, and I'm not too keen on starting it over, but it's nice to have just the same.

Halo 3 - Great game, I have it, nice to add to my digital collection. Will probably never play it again.

A World of Keflings - This is a charming, simple strategy game that I enjoy playing with my 7 year old. Would get dull on it's own. But for some reason I get a kick out of playing these "Avatar Famestar(?)" games with my kids.

Iron Brigade - Fun and interesting, but didn't get too far into it. I think my tolerance for these tower defense games may just be low, we'll see what happens with Dungeon Defenders.

Gears of War - Same as Halo 3, loved it, probably never play it.

Shoot Many Robots - Didn't look good, didn't touch.

Sleeping Dogs - Didn't touch, have heard good things about it, but again not my genre.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - Haven't touched, but the demo did interest me. Maybe I can get my wife to play.

Dead Island - Didn't touch.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War - Haven't played but interested. Probably falls into the action / tower defense genre now?

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution - Played two awesome games of this, confirming Civ is great and this is a decent version (if somewhat stripped down). Probably don't need to play anymore. I have Civ V sitting unplayed on my PC.

Dungeon Defenders - I got pretty hooked on this over the weekend. Seemed pretty tough to solo, so I'm looking forward to playing multiplayer with the family.

I should also mention some free to play games that came out on the 360 recently.

Ascend: Hand of Kul - I really liked this. I played though the story and still dip in occasionally to see what's up. It's quite stripped down, but I find what's there to be appealing. I think maybe the grind is starting to kick in as I've gotten up in level, so I don't think I'll be playing this as my main entertainment, but as an occasional distraction I do like it. It's earned it's place in my 120 gig hard drive.

World of Tanks - This reminds me so much of Mech Warrior Online. I really prefer this more slow paced, one life, counter strike style multiplayer game. I'm not super into tanks though. I'll probably keep it around.

So, I'm still pleased with Games with Gold. More hits and misses still, or at least entertaining distractions.

Kudos to Microsoft then, for keeping me so engaged with my 360. Not really feeling any desire to upgrade to the Xbox One.

Wait...

Here are my opinions of the games with gold games released so far.

• Fable 3 - Very well polished game. So, so very boring. Some games just aren't my thing. Some games are too difficult, or frustrating in other ways, buggy maybe. This is right up my ally, fantasy roleplay, and seems well put together. It's sheer blandness is why does it in. It's too streamlined, I guess? Got maybe 10 hours in before giving up.
• Defense Grid - Played a few levels, not really feeling it. I think I peaked with tower defense with Desktop Tower Defense. Nothing really wrong with this one though.
• Assassin’s Creed 2 - One of my favorite games this generation. The only Assassin's title I've completed. Loaded it up, found a few feathers, did one of the Assassin's seal missions. Still amazed at how great this game is. I probably won't play that much more, as I have Brotherhood sitting on the same hard drive. It's nice to have a digital copy though. At this point in the generation I'm sort of aggravated by having to find a disc to play a game.
• Crackdown - I'm not the only one who really likes this game am I? I've seen a lot of snark about it. I think this is a really great game and, like AC2, was happy to fire it back up and find some agility orbs. My agent is leveled all the way up so there isn't a lot to do without resetting all the bad guys. Still it was nice to bounce around the city again.
• Dead Rising 2 - Didn't really have much interest in this, as the frustrations I've heard mentioned with the series are exactly the kind of thing I don't want in my video games. But I fired up Case Zero just to check it out. I went through multiple cycles of hating it, being hooked, and hating it again, but ultimately I think I will try to finish it up. Probably won't touch the main game.

Overall I'm pleased with the Games with Gold program. These games are better than nothing. Even the ones I own provide the benefit of being digital.

Ironically, the program increases the value of my 360, and without backwards compatibility, decreases the likelihood of my getting an Xbox One at launch. (A small prospect anyway.)

Thursday Night: Walmart: LA Noir - $10

Playing LA Noir now, not quite as good as I'd hoped, but still enjoying it. Between 3-4 stars right now.

I am somewhere in the homicide cases, and I put it down. The story has gotten interesting. But the sheen on the gameplay has really worn off. It seems pretty shallow now. The open world driving seems pretty pointless.

Cyber Monday: XBox.com: Forza Horizon - $15, Rage $10, Gears 3 $10

Rage: I kept going back to this. I understand in theory why this game should be generic and dumb. But in practice it's just super fun. The vehicle stuff is just super fun. The shooting levels are a bit too long, but they are still really enjoyable. I will finish this game. After last Friday I really didn't want to be looking down the barrel of a gun. But I'll get back to it eventually.

Forza Horizon: played a good bit of this and sorry, Jeff, not a 5. It's Forza, and I really like Forza. But the whole setting is just bland. No crashing or even damage is unfortunate. Will play in spurts.

Haven't cracked open Gears 3 yet.

Just not sure yet, which is very disappointing. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not even saying I won't buy it and love it. But what I am feeling is that it is not SSX 3, and I'm going to have to get over that.

There is no SSX in SSX. That is, no snowboard cross. No actual racing. You know, racers slotted in to starting gates, 3, 2, 1, GO! Jostling for position, pushing people down. Groomed courses with banked turns. Crowds. Fireworks.

No trick courses? Not sure, it looked like the trick event was just down the same mountain you race down. No half pipes, no big air events. No rival events. No free roaming. No running all the way down from the top of the 3rd peak to the bottom of the 1st.

So what we do have is time trials on a whole bunch of mountains. No way to know yet what the variety is like. And the deadly descents, which look cool, but I don't know how they play.

No DJ Atomica in the demo. But why would he be there? You aren't hanging out a some awesome ski resort, you are flying around the world jumping out of helicopters. The only person around is your (based on the demo) annoying helicopter pilot.

It plays like SSX, it just doesn't feel like it. Yet. I'm going to have to follow this closely, and play the demo some more.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

Pinball FX2

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Forza Motorsport 3

Game Room

Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Age of Empires Online

Lips

Rez HD

Gears of War 2

Super Street Fighter IV

Mass Effect 2

Doom II: Hell on Earth

Pac-Man: Championship Edition

Final Fantasy XIII

Panzer General: Allied Assault

Assassin's Creed II

I was going to write up F-Zero and Mario Cart first, as they are the first games I fired up, and it makes for a good compare and contrast. However, I never went back to them after my inital looksie because OH MY GOD WARIOWARE, INC. Genius game of the (previous) decade. Seriously whoever came up with the idea of 3 second microgames should have secured himself a place in video game design history.

Perfect mobile game. Perfect have on hand at all times downloadable game.

Also it has a perfectly playable Dr. Mario clone embedded in it. Who knows what other wonders it has hidden inside. (Yes the internet, but I prefer to be surprised.

This game is everything good about Japanese game design. Perfect design, incomprehensibly delightful 'story'. I could write more, but then I wouldn't be playing more WarioWare.

So apparently the GBA ambassador games are available today. I love GBA so I'm pretty stoked. I'm going to write a mini-review of each game. Here's a summary of what I know about these games.

Fire Emblem: the Sacred Stones - I don't know what this is. An rpg? Will take a look, but I'm sorta full up on rpg's with Skyrim.

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity - Liked F-Zero on the Gamecube, so I'm interested in trying this.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror - Never played a Kirby game. Is this a platformer.

The Legend of Zelda: the Minish Cap - I own this on GBA but didn't get very far. My wife did finish it. I'm very Zelda'd out this year, but I'll give it a look.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Own it. This was my second Mario Kart after the SNES. I remember liking it.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong - I don't know what this is, a puzzle game.

Metroid Fusion - I love Metroid Prime, and I love Metroidvania style games, so hopefully I'm going to love this.

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island - Own it on GBA. Love this game. Maybe the best 2-D platformer of all time. Didn't finish it though, got hard. I'm ready to give it another shot.

Wario Land 4 - No idea, never played a Wario anything.

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ - Very excited for this though! I recall playing it in the store and thinking it was crazy fun.

This weekend's play sessions started inauspiciously with my son erasing our save game. Then his brother hid Spyro under his bed. So I had to play back through the first 6 levels. Ended up getting through level 10. Feels like about halfway through.

I have to say the boss fights with Kaos are both exciting and hilarious. They consist of alternate battles with 'dark' Skylanders and surviving a sort of magic bullet hell from one of Kaos' spells.

I'm still enjoying this game greatly. Playing with just the 3 starter figures is fine, it still feels like a whole game. I'm guessing I'll max out the guys levels and abilities before I reach the end, we'll see how I feel then.