Now Playing: What I've been up to

I've been M.I.A for a month plus. Why?!?! WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!? WHAT'S IN THE BOX!?!

Click below to find out.

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Hello everybody. It's been awhile. And suddenly out of the blue, I pop a review of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on. Anyway, that particular post has been sitting in my Drafts for ages, it's just I decided to take a break from games writing.

I've been thinking why I do it. Why do I write? Why do I game? Why do I produce all this content, why do I consume so much content? For what end? And most importantly, if I am producing content, is it of the best quality that it can be?

So I've been reading a lot of game blogs of late, or rather, as I have always done it's just that this time with an eye to see how they do things. To see how I can improve my own, and I've decided the thing I'm going to do differently from now on is to add a more personal voice. Include personal anecdotes. How that's going to be relevant to the games, I don't know just yet, but heck this is my personal blog too.

I used to rant endlessly on previous incarnations of this blog, with little structure to my reviews or commentary. But now I see that even so, I had more fun with the stream of consciousness than I did with a planned style. Not that I'm going to stop producing quality, well-edited posts. I'll keep doing what I've been doing, just now with a more personal mark on them. And I hope you as the readers can see this come through.

And I've answered the all important question. Why do I write about games? Because I just love to share my thoughts on them. In fact, playing the games themselves is only half the fun. That is all.

NEXT.

So, in my month or so missing, what have I been up to? I have been playing lots of games, that's what.

Metro 2033


Atmospheric, tense, immersive, scary. Those are the words I'd use to describe this Russian heavyweight. It's like Stalker, Fallout, and all those other post-apocalyptic games rolled into a highly focused, robust train ride of doom. It's the first Russian game I've played that's less buggy, less clunky than most of the stuff to come out of that country. For the most part, the game is compelling and worth a try. The writing is top notch thanks to the fact that it was originally a huge best-selling novel, and honestly, Russian apocalypses are bleaker and less bullshit than American ones.

Just Cause 2


What game lets you hijack helicopters in mid-air, jump between cars with such ease, grapple-climb tall mountains, free fall from amazingly great heights and cause utter mayhem on a South East Asian island?

I've never had such fun with a sandbox game in a long time. In GTA, you have to find the right building to jump off from, and find a parachute. In Just Cause 2, you can do it anytime anywhere. INFINITE PARACHUTES! This is the first sandbox game where it's really up to you what hell you want to raise, and how you want to do it. I feel like Mercenaries should give the title Playground of Destruction to Just Cause 2 because it really is just that. And the island is friggin' pretty.

Must play. Also to hear the offensively camp Singaporean accents.

Bioware stuff


Dragon Age's Awakening expansion and Mass Effect 2's Katsumi Goto DLC.

First one, fun stuff for continuing the Dragon Age adventure. But when will the stupid Blight and Darkspawn shit ever end?

Second one, interesting new mission but really too short, and nothing spectacular to add to the experience. Don't get your hopes up for Katsumi as a new potential love interest either. Cause she isn't one.

AND THAT'S IT. It feels good to be back. Till next time.