First off, I beat Prince of Persia last week. I really liked that game. It did have some flaws, and I wasn't crazy about the ending, but it was very solid, well polished and enjoyable. Dunno how long I spent playing but I got the 12 hours achievement, so it must have been under that.

So now once again I don't have a story based game to really immersed in, so I'm jumping around from random game to random game. I'm still loving FIFA 09, and started a new manager season with Notts County to see how long it would take to get to the Premiership. I've also been enjoying Ticket to Ride recently, although I think that maybe I'm getting a little bored of it now.

There have also been more attempts to get good at Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and there have been a few revelations. First, I decided to lay my controller flat and hold it like an arcade stick, and I think it's a slightly more effective way of playing the game. However, the more time I spend with fighting games like Street Fighter, the more I'm convincing to lay down some seriously money for one of the new SF sticks. Secondly, I discovered that I can get some stuff done when playing as Fei-Long. After trying to play the game with all non-charge characters, I eventually settled on Fei-Long as my guy, as I like his style, his special moves are relatively simple to pull off, and because he's Bruce Lee. I beat arcade mode for the second time with him (Chun-Li was the fighter I first beat the game with). Then I tried to play through as Ken, and finally nailed my first Shoryuken in the heat of battle, but then got my ass destroyed by Blanka. I find that in arcade mode I can win a few fights and things can be going nicely, then I come up against an opponent that I just can't get past. This happened with my Fei-Long playthrough, and it took multiple attempts to beat Blanka, Honda and Zangief. Strangely though it only took one attempt to beat Balrog. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

In light of my recent interest in the Street Fighter series, I have also fallen back into my old fighting game favourite, Soulcalibur, more specifically the 4th game in the series, including my first few successful fights online. I'm really not a man who plays a lot of online games or who likes to, but playing online

Then there's been a semi-regular dose of real-time strategy games. I recently bought Age of Booty for XBLA, and I love that game. It's got a ton of character and humour, but it's also a really solid and addictive strategy game. So far I've only really beaten all the easy challenges, but I intend to spend a lot more time with it. There's also been more time dedicated to Age of Empires II, and that game is still amazing. 10 years after it first came out and it's still fantastic. What's strange that in all the time I've spent playing it in the last month or so, I haven't once played any of the campaigns. I've been all about playing random map games and designing and building my own maps. In the light of my recent love of Age of Booty, I've been playing a lot of Islands recently, and lots of games with naval combat, which is a total blast. Just can't say enough good things about this game.

In terms of my future gaming prospects, I suspect that much more Age of Booty and Street Fighter will follow, and I really feel like I may pick up a fight stick and a copy of SFIV. I've also had my eye on a couple of other fighting games, including wanting to spend more time with Dead or Alive 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. I also have some interest in checking out MKvsDC. I think I really am becoming a fighting game fan. I'm also awaiting my recently ordered copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, a game I've wanted to play for months. There are a few other games I've had my eye on; Halo Wars comes to mind. There's also a chance I'll drop back into Fallout 3 at some point, or maybe even spend some more time with Oblivion.