....and something about L.A. Noire

 Was planning to make lengthy rant about gaming on a Linux machine since I recently got a new work laptop and picked RHEL as the OS for it. My company's policy has recently changed a bit and we can't run dual-boot any more. Meaning “my” strongest PC with the RHEL is rubbish on gaming. Anyway will return to this later on. Not sure how much I get to follow or be involved with Giantbomb for this month since I am flying to Mumbai this weekend. Will be packing my trusty GBA and DS with me and plan is to dust of some RPG's. It is going to be monsoon and all. Before that, here is list of games I've played recently. As usual apologies missing articles and spelling

L.A. Noire

Yes a new game for me, for a change. Can't say no to a Rockstar game. Anyway, just finished this and bought the Rockstar Pass for the extra content. Will be continuing with DLC cases when I come back. And maybe go for an S-Rank. Then again probably have said this for every game I enjoyed a lot. My take on the game is no different to majority. Simply, this one very good game. Probably the most interesting story and best character build-up in a long time. Still, by no means perfect game. Some open world jank and unfortunate checkpoints placement where a minor annoyance for me. Also there are bit of similar clue logic issues that Phoenix Wright games have where it is really hard to determine what is the correct clue, especially if there are multiple choices that match. Anyway haven't played many 2011 games and this will no doubt be high on the GOTY list. Really looking forward to see how the characters evolve in form of DLCs or sequels

Bad Company 2

Finished the single-player campaign in one sitting (~6h) few weeks back. It was good, maybe not as good as the first one. Been playing lot of multi-player still. Especially on the weekends when my brother is available. This is his first console FPS and he has been doing really well. Most times even better than I am. What bugs him is that I have

higher score/per min figure. I had already a full day in multi-player when he started. He has now passed 100h where I am just past 80h. I assume this will be my go-to-multi-player until BF3 comes out.   

Went back to Forza because of a car pack that I bought from a recent sale. The one with El Camino, Sierra Cosworth and Saab 99 Turbo. I really like to drive with not the most ordinary cars and tune them out. Like my pimped El Camino. It couldn't quite keep up with A-class cars but it was still fun. Getting closer to level 45 now and end of season 5. Still one dreadful season to go and quite many gold medals to acquire. This is really solid racing game like I wrote in my review. It is just

so freaking boring with these R-class cars. Just end up using Hired Driver on those. Quite a fun experience when you need to use to AI to finish up the races. The more I play this the more I miss PGR games. Those had at least goal and purpose.

Numen: Contest of Heroes

This actually pretty decent. I think I paid £2 for this. Game is action RPG in a ancient Greek setting. Wrote a review here.

Sonic 4 Episode 1

I guess you could call me a Sonic fan boy. Or Sega fan boy rather. Anyway purchased this on the recent XBLA sales. Have already played it on Wiiware and did a review while back. I actually really like this game. Sure Sonic handles differently and the music is strange but it is one good looking Sonic game. Especially on HD, which is why bought it again. Maybe go back and do the emeralds...?

Guitar Hero 5

Got this strange obsession to get hold off all these plastic guitar games and play them through. And this is no doubt the worst I've played so far. Even worse than RB: Beatles or GH: Van Halen. Whoever idiot that decided to put Coldplay in here should be shot. That has nothing to do with rock music. Or music for that matter. Sorry I just can handle that whining at all. OK fair enough they were dishing these games out so often that couldn't contain to rock genre any more. Or music. The UI and the party play mechanism are surely updated here, but I always rate these based on how I enjoy the track list. And this is utterly shit, except for few odd songs. Not even the two last (excellent) prog songs could save this.

Prototype

Tjaah. Reminds me slightly of DC Universe Online and Urban Chaos. The latter was one the first open world games where player could freely roam on top of buildings

as well. On few instances Prototype had a same sense of thread where the monster would follow you no matter how high you climbed. Which is kind of awesome. Urban Chaos was one great game, which not many played. Other similarities where the messed up end. Kind of similar to Protype tentacle action. Remembering Urban Chaos made me just Ebay the PS2 sequel, which I've never played. It Is developed by Rocksteady \m/.

Haven't played Infamous yet which was of course released same time as this, but that game just looks so much better. This is just so generic and absolutely mindless killing with somewhat awkward controls. Especially when running on the walls. After getting L.A. Noire lost completely interest in this, but still want to finish this. 

Puzzle Agent

Really nice and cute little puzzle adventure game. Charming art style and music. Some of the puzzles were bit meh, but at least decent fake-Swedish accent. Looking forward to the sequel.

Plants vs Zombies GOTY

I must be the last person to buy and play this. This went for some pennies on Steam just recently so had to get it. Tower defence at its best no doubt. This sure is one

polished game. This GOTY addition, I assume, adds all the mini-games and other add-ons. Not that those really interest me after playing through the story. Only tower defence, but one darn good such 

Picross 3D

Only non PC/Xbox game in this list this time. Finally managed to get all the puzzles solved. With the bestest score you can get here. Played only few hours a week so you can imagine it took a long time. 

Random Youtube song is something from Dio era Sabbath. Been listening to a lot of Dio since his demise. And recently re-discovered this amazing song.