Gaming For 2013

I wrote early last year about the pile of games I had to work through – having bought a bunch in the January sales.  I managed to play a some, a few I never got to.
There’s no shopping spree for me this year.  I got three major games for Christmas that should have a play time of at least 30+ hours each.  I also already have a pile sitting at home from previous shopping excursions, notably during the time Game and Gamestation couldn't make their mind up on who was closing down...
Here’s a brief run down of what I managed to play from last years pile:

• Child Of Eden  - Love this, but it’s complete filler.  Something to play when I only have a little time.  It’s Rez with shinier graphics but doesn’t pretend to be anything more.
• Rage – For a fiver this gave me plenty of game play but it was mediocre at best.  Even on hard the game struggled to be anything more then a pretty Fallout-esque landscape with elements of Borderlands thrown in.  Something of a swansong for Id during their acquisition by Bethesda.
• Dead Rising 2 – Not touched beyond five minutes, one bought for the missus.  I’ll get there at some point
• Far Cry 2 – Not touched… somehow there always seemed to be something else to play!
• Crysis 2 – Great, short, zero replay-ability for me.  I ran through the game on Super-Soldier after completing once and being fully levelled up made things rather simple.  The initial run through was a lot of fun and set things up for Crysis 3 quite well.  Which is definitely one to pick up. 
• Metro 2033 – This was quite a surprise.  In some places it felt quite like Half-Life.  Others, the story line is engaging enough to keep you interested but often forgotten once in an action set-piece.  Generally there was nothing to place it above any other story driven FPS.  The sequel does look to be quite interesting though.
• Ninety Nine Nights – This is one of those games I’ve wanted to play forever, yet again I’ve barely scratched it.
• Dark Souls – Wow.  I played this for just a few hours but for some reason just haven’t found the time to dedicate to it.  This isn’t a game to take lightly, I really like long gaming sessions and this game deserves to have a few days off work to play!
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent – This was everything you’d expect from the series and nothing more.  Worthy of attention if in the bargain basement, otherwise ignore.
• Skyrim – I’m not going to write longwinded on this, there’s enough of that on the internet already.  It’s everything that you’d expect from the Elder Scrolls series and then some.  I reached level 53 and all achievements in 110 hours but the world is so expansive that it still feels like you can adventure off in one direction and not know what you will find.  The DLC is yet to be played.
• Fable 2 – After two hours this just wasn’t working for me.  It felt slow and after playing Skyrim, a shade of what games on this scale can be.
• Halo 3 – I had a lot of fun playing through Legendary with a mate, but single-player I’ve no care for.
• Left For Dead – This has now become a party game only
• Left For Dead 2 – as above
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed  - Still not restarted, still not traded as the missus wants to play!

By my count, that’s still 5 games from that pile to play.  Plus the following…(in no particular order)

• Borderlands 2
• Mass Effect 3
• Assassins Creed 3 (now playing!)
• Dead Island
• Dead to Rights: Retribution
• Duke Nukem
• Brink
• Deadly Premonition (on loan)
• Just Cause
• Goldeneye Reloaded
• The Darkness 2
• Inversion
• Dodonpachi Resurrection (this will just be filler)
• Darksiders 2 – Apocalpytic run through (I’ve completed once already)
• Dead Space 3 (on pre-order)

I’ll undoubtedly buy and play other games not in this list already.  I’m looking to keep track of what I’ve played to see just how much time I’m really spending on the console.  It’s going to be a busy year!