First off, I'll start with Mass Effect 3. Having played and liked the first two games, I pretty much knew exactly what to expect from the third game's single player portion. I mean, it's still mainly about Shepard traversing across planets and killing bad aliens. The choices made in ME3 felt like they had more weight in previous games though, which I think will leave me with quite the impression looking back. I was satisfied with the end of the trilogy, even though this is likely not truely the end.

Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City is certainly a game about shooting people, and I guess I was expecting a bit more out of this one. Not that it's bad or anything (at times I thought it was actually pretty good) but it could have used probably another year or so in the oven. The game has some strange graphical glitches, and it just overall has a strange, unfinished feel. The tie-in story to RE2 and 3 has some nice throwbacks (romping through the RPD was neat) but in the same vein, the interactions with Leon and Jill are entirely forgettable and mostly non-canon. Still, a fun game that is best played in co-op and in short bursts.

Moving on, Battlefield 3 was a game I should not have liked. I hated the beta, and felt that it was probably representative of what the final product would be like. I was wrong, and I'm not sure why I was so hesitant in the first place. My favorite Battlefield game up until this point was Battlefield 1943, mainly because of its tight vehicle integration (Note: Yes, that's usually all it takes). Battlefield 3 is a blast, and so much more fun than 1943 in so many ways but I love it because of the class system (harkens back to my Wolfenstein pedigree) and the vehicles that control as smoothly as possible. Doesn't hurt that I also have a lot of friends playing it, too.

For the last part of this blog post, I just want to mention Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. I have played a good couple of hours of the original Dead Rising 2, and found it to be a bit fun but also feeling that it didn't do enough to distance itself from the first game's shortcomings. Mainly, its save system and lack of sandbox mode. Off the Record fixes one of those things and brought in Sandbox mode, with online co-op. That I was not expecting but it is welcome now more than ever. Mowing down zombies with whatever contraptions you can think of is pure bliss, and I can hardly wait to see what happens next. Controlled chaos is probably one of my favorite things about video games. Oh, and the save system is exactly the same as in previous games but with a comforting twist: if you die, you don't have to start over or lose progress, you're simply brought back to your latest checkpoint (usually only a few minutes apart). I'll say this: it's about time.

This isn't even the half of everything I've played, so consider this to be more of a 'highlight reel' of sorts. I'll be back soon enough with more.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

I don't really think I need to have an explanation listed here, but I am really intrigued by this game. Even if this game turns out to be a turd, I'll probably still enjoy most of it just for the fan service. I like it when companies are willing to take chances with their franchises, so I applaud Capcpom for that at least.

Silent Hill HD Collection

Another no-brainer really. I've loved the Silent Hill franchise, and even played a good bit of Silent Hill 2 on Xbox way back when. I've heard very good things about Silent Hill 3, so I'm thinking this collection is probably be the definitive way to play these games. Oh, and it comes out the same day as Operation Raccoon City. Weird.

Max Payne 3

I loved the previous games, and it's been almost 10 years since we've seen what Max has been up to. Looks to be in a rather different setting, which should prove the series isn't just about abandoned warehouses and city subways.

Diablo 3

Haven't played much of the first two games, but I am interested in this one mainly for possible co-op goodness. That, and it does look really good.

Far Cry 3

Talk about a series I can't stay away from (even though I probably should). My interest in this one is mainly linked to my liking of Far Cry 2, but also thinking it could use a lot of work. Let's just say I really don't want to get my hopes up for nothing here.

Bioshock Infinite

Uh, duh? Bioshock 1 and 2 were fantastic games, but I'm ready to come up for a breath of fresh air with Infinite. Gameplay looks very cool, and the setting sounds just awesome. What more could you ask for?

Assassin's Creed III

Having loved every entry (minus portables) since the original, I am frothing at the mouth just at the thought of digging into this one. Luckily, it seems none of the Revelations changes stuck. The American Revolution is also one of my favorite points in history, so being able to live it out (albeit with a lot of creative liberty) should be great.

Resident Evil 6

If I was to pick just one game for the rest of the year, this would surely be it. Looks like the crew is back, and they just can't stay out of trouble. Gameplay looks a lot like Resident Evil 5 (which I loved), so I am on-board with this one all the way.

Halo 4

Can Halo still be great without Bungie? I'm really hoping it will. The return of the Chief makes me optimistic. 

Luigi's Mansion 2

The original game left a lot of sour tastes in many people's mouths when it came out on the GameCube, just because it wasn't a Mario game. On its own merits, it was a short. but fun game. I'm glad to see Nintendo take a chance by putting this one on the 3DS. 

This concludes the list as of now. Probably going to change after E3 and other points throughout the year, but these will be solid locks for sure. Bring 'em on!

A Mario game is my favorite game of the year? Sure, why not. I mean, Skyrim was fantastic with all of its quests and all but it did feel like a chore after a good while of playing. Super Mario 3D Land excels at something that can be overlooked despite its general importance when it comes to interactive entertainment: fun.

Upon immediate bootup of the game, I was sucked into the charms of the game. Taking in all of the classic enemies, power-ups and scenery I knew from all of the classic games and seeing them brought back to life and made into something that feels fresh and new. Other storied franchises have attempted to do this very same thing but tend to rely a bit too much on classic elements, and are too scared to try some new stuff. A good mix of both is what's best, to bring in old and new fans alike. I don't know what gold blender Nintendo mixed the two in this time but the results are marvelous.

I'm convinced it's pretty much impossible for Nintendo to make a bad Mario game at this point. I know some agree or disagree on what's the best one, but isn't that like arguing which car is the best mercedes or which flavor of ice cream is best? I'll stop with the stupid analogies and just say this: There doesn't exist a bad Mario game, and Super Mario 3D Land is absolutely no exception to that.

If you had asked me back in November what my biggest gaming surprise was for the whole year? I'd have laughed and said Skyrim with a smile. I can't say that anymore thanks to Super Mario 3D Land and I don't think I'd have it any other way. If you have a 3DS, you owe it to yourself to own what I consider to be my favorite game of 2011.

Other categories should be coming up soon, so stay tuned! (If you want to, I guess)

I do have a somewhat storied history with the Elder Scrolls series. I played Morrowind and Oblivion both for probably a few hours each, and just found them to be incredibly bland experiences with weak combat gameplay. After Oblivion, I had sworn off the series because I had realized that they just weren't my style. 

Come E3 2011, I noticed that they would be having gameplay demos at the show. After watching that demo, I still had the sense that the game would play the same as Oblivion, but with new environments and enemies. Being unable to play it myself, I had no idea that I was wrong. 

After the game came out, I still had little interest until I saw that Redbox was offering it for rental for just a few bucks. I figured it couldn't hurt to just try it. If only I knew that a sampling would be my weakness, and that I'd be hooked on the game for a few weeks, much to my surprise.

The thing of it is, I can't really say what it is that I liked so much about Skyrim. I just loved it, and that's about all I can think of to say. The combat was definitely improved, but it wasn't what kept me hooked on it. I mean, yes, dragons are also very fun to kill, but that was also not what kept me hooked. 

I guess you could say Skyrim is greater than the sum of its parts, and just delivered an unmatched RPG experience last year. An RPG so good I'd play it twice? Possibly, and that's the true testament here. I'd call it 2011's biggest surprise if it weren't for my final pick.

My next post will contain my absolute favorite game of the year. After that, I may do some small category stuff if I feel like, but this feature is definitely winding down.

Having loved Batman Arkham Asylum for its close quarters combat that was very tightly woven, along with villains that sent chills down my spine just listening to them speak. After hearing initially that Arkham City would be an open world game, instead of the tight corridor style in Arkham Asylum, I put off the game as more of a game that I would pick up 'on the cheap'. I am glad to say I didn't wait, and it was definitely worth it.

The open world aspects are more of an addition to what Arkham Asylum did, as you do travel from location to location but inside of these locales are the tight-nit spaces that made the first game fun. The superb combat is back with new abilities, and it's just overall a more entertaining experience.

A few of the villains I wasn't too excited about, and I felt Arkham Asylum did a better job at making the villains seem interesting, but the Joker in particular was even more sinister than usual. Ra's al ghul was a great addition with his supernatural powers that made for some very intense moments as well.

Catwoman was also fun to play as, with her whipping abilities anyway. While I didn't find her side story with Two-Face all that interesting, she was at least a nice change of pace from Bats.

Even after the game deleted my save (a known bug), I can still put this one near the top of my favorites list because everything else was done so well.

A mobile game is on my favorite games list? My 2007 self would have definitely laughed his ass off at hearing this one, but I can honestly say that I love Where's My Water? I have completely done 100% of everything there is to do in the game, and am thirsty for more. 

Sure, it's a simple game with a simple concept but I think that's what I look for in those types of games. Swampy is an alligator who wants to take a shower, and he has no water to do it with. By manipulating the environment using your finger, you are able to get enough water to Swampy so that he may bathe. Each level set brought a new challenge to the table, and I was always eager to tackle the next set.

Fortunately, Disney says that they are bringing out additional updates to the game with even more levels, and I can't wait. If I had decided on an iOS game of the year, this one would definitely take it, hands down.

My story with Deus Ex begins much the same way LA Noire did. The difference here is that Deus Ex was an established franchise with two previous main entries. I did not, however, really know how Deus Ex played. I saw a few trailers at E3, and assumed it was a run-of-the-mill action game. 

After the game came out, I saw that Toys R Us was having a sale on it for $34.99. At this point, Deus Ex: HR had been out for maybe 2 weeks and had been getting a lot of praise in reviews. While my girlfriend and I were out and about one day, I decided we should buy it and we did.

Taking it home and playing it, I remember not enjoying the beginning few parts much at all. Seeing as how I had just dropped some cash on it though, I decided to keep pressing on. About an hour or so in, it hit me that I was in for not just another action game, but a stealth game. In that first hour, I was stuck trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Once I started playing the game more like I should (taking it slow, spotting enemies from afar and watching patterns), I started to really enjoy the way the game forced you to be smart about things. In other stealth games, stealth tends to be optional but in Deus Ex it seemed to implant the notion that you either played with stealth or faced death at every corner.

The over-arching story in the game was a bit confusing but I always knew what was going on without much trouble. There is a lot of different characters to keep track of though, and I kept feeling for Adam as he went through all the trials he had to just to get back some normalcy in his life.

Unanimously, I found Deus Ex: Human Revolution to be one of the best games I played this year. Was it my absolute favorite? Hardly, but I would say it probably is the reason I was able to get back into my gaming mood after my slump over the summer.

LA Noire

LA Noire was one of those games I really didn't know much about until it was just getting ready to come out. Just reading the title wasn't enough to get me excited but hearing who was publishing it was. Rockstar was releasing another open world style game set in 1940's LA, and this time you play as a cop looking to move through the ranks? My interest was definitely piqued from hearing that description.

Were things a bit different than what that description claimed to be? Yes, most definitely. So, I wasn't one of those renegade cops out for destruction or vengeance. I was acting like a real cop would, asking questions and arresting the guilty.

The facial animations contained in LA Noire were definitely striking from a visual standpoint, even if they didn't do a whole lot from a gameplay standpoint. Sure, they made it easier to tell when a witness was lying but the result was always obvious.

Perhaps the most striking part of LA Noire was its reception from gamers. As of late, all I've seen from several players is a lot of disgust for it, and even some are referring to it as the worst game this year. I dare say these people have probably not played Minute to Win It for Kinect and are therefore disqualified from judgement.

Was LA Noire a great game? I certainly found it to be, despite its lackluster ending that left much to be desired. Was it perhaps my favorite game of the year? No, not even close. Great games don't have to be perfect, and LA Noire is a good example of that.

Not my exact car but same model and color.

My car is a 2001 Ford Focus SE. No idea what the SE stands for, but I have a few choice phrases for what that could stand for (shitty edition, for one). I bought the car in December 2004 and have since paid it off many moons ago. For the most part, it has run fine until very recently. Well, actually, that's not exactly 100% true either. 

About a year into ownership, I noticed an issue or two regarding the car. One, the AC pretty much stopped functioning altogether, and the other is that there was a sudden loss of power. Without having really any idea about how these things work, I took it to a mechanic who was able to diagnose the AC problems without much trouble and fix them up. All was good, all was well seemingly. I passed off the small loss of power as an issue that would go away, or as something that just comes with a car's age. I know these things are not meant to last more than 15-20 years, so it made sense at the time. However, if only I had known that having this looked at would have saved me a lot of trouble in the future.

2006, 2007 pass mostly without a hitch. However, sometime in there I did notice a few more problems with the car, mainly that of a stalling problem that seemed to occur when the car would get very hot. I passed it off as a small issue. After all, I live in a moderate climate where there tends to be snow 9 months out of the year. Not a big deal.

However, as the time passed, I noticed the problems only seemed to get worse. The car was getting to the point where it would completely die out and I'd have to wait a few minutes until starting it again and it would be fine again for a while. An intermittent, weird issue but nothing to be too concerned about I thought. Besides, at the time, I didn't have much of an option when it came to being without a car for even a few days. Repair shops are costly as they'll often charge you upwards of $50-100 to even look at the car. 

Fast forward to this past February, my car is suddenly having overheating issues. Overheating issues... in February? Yes, and that's when I knew things couldn't be good. Took it into the repair shop and had to pay $450 to have the thermostat replaced along with a few other things. As usual, things seemed fine after and I legitimately assumed that the problem had been rectified. 

Fast forward to this July 1st. My girlfriend and I have geared up and are headed out to my parent's cabin which is about 70 or so miles from home. All seemed mildly okay until we got up to a hill climb. Now, the hill isn't that steep but enough to make the car nearly have a fit trying to climb it. Car stalled out on the side of the road and I was stunned. Opened the hood to find the coolant boiling over. That can't be good but we just wanted to make the 20 or so more miles to the cabin, so we pushed on and after a few more stops, made it just fine.

Once we returned home from our trip, we took it as soon as we could to the repair shop. As we had previously been here for our overheating problems in the past, they promised us they would look at it for free. The car was returned to us a day later with a fixed radiator cap. Cheap fix, so we were happy. Oh, except for the part where that didn't fix the problem. Okay, so maybe the overheating problem was fixed but there was still obviously an underlying problem and it was getting worse by the day. We couldn't even drive around town any longer without the car stalling out and causing all sorts of problems.

Took it back into the repair shop and had them diagnose the car again and they came back with the idea of a EGR sensor going bad (Something about how the car handles emissions and stuff). It didn't sound like it could be causing the issue really, but online research led me to believe this was likely the case. Once again, the car was back in my hands, and once again I had to take it for another test drive to make sure everything was fixed.

Drove around town afterword and eventually found out that the problem was still not fixed. At this point, I did not know what to think. How much could be wrong with one car? Apparently a lot, and my mind and wallet were at the breaking point. Hesitantly, I called the repair shop and they were stunned that we were still having the issue. 

This brings me today, where we are now about to pay another $550 to have the car fixed again. This is it, this is the last straw. If the car is not fixed this time, we are likely just going to throw our arms in the air and buy another one. After all, how much money are we supposed to throw at this one until the problem is fixed? 

Oh, to make things even worse, we found out today that there was a recall on the fuel pump for the car. The recall is good for 10 years after the initial purchase, and ours just happened to expire in March. That $550 would have been a free fix if we had known that Ford was offering the recall. We received no notification, nothing on it. Hopefully, we can work something out with their customer service about this because knowing about this recall greatly effects how I feel about buying their cars in the future. I'll keep you updated on how this goes and whether or not the never-ending saga of the shitty car is finally done.

Ford got back in touch with me about what they could do. Instead of simply telling you what Ford said they would do for me, I'll allow the following blank space do the talking:

Also, picked up the car today and drove it for a good 60+ miles. Everything is checking out so far but I am in no way considering this saga over. Not on the first day.

Saw a lot of games at E3, but I haven't exactly set out my impressions for games one by one yet. I figured I'd make a little bulleted list showing a few impressions for each game I saw or played. Keep in mind that a lot of games are not playable at E3 with just a short demo usually being played in front of you so I can't go into extreme detail for some of these.

Prime World (Nival) - This was my first appointment of E3, and a hell of a way to kick it off. Prime World is a free-to-play MMORPG that has you teaming up with several buddies and tackling different worlds one by one. While a bit Diablo-esque, the game also takes elements from Starcraft where-in you can build castles that will make your army stronger in the long run. I am not quite sure when the beta begins but I call dibs on a spot.

Duke Nukem Forever (2K & Gearbox) - For a game that comes out this week, I expected this to be one of the most polished demos at the show. Unfortunately, the multiplayer demo that I played did not impress too much. You know how multiplayer worked in games 10 years ago? That's Duke Nukem Forever.

The Darkness II (2K) - While I have attempted several times to finish the first game, I still had a bit of interest in the sequel (in hopes it fixes a lot of the issues present in the first) and it looks to have done a bit of that. Shooting looks improved and the darkness powers look improved but I am still not sold on this sequel.

Sonic Generations (SEGA) - I both watched a behind-close-doors demonstration of the City Escape level (from Sonic Adventure 2) and played Green Hill Zone on the show floor. Watching Sonic being played for you by a developer is certainly a different experience than playing it for yourself, and that shines even more in Sonic Generations. The 'classic' Sonic gameplay portion did not lend itself as well as I'd hoped while the 'modern' Sonic portion played about as well as I expected. Here's hoping the few issues I experienced are fixed before the release.

Anarchy Reigns (Platinum) - Only saw a demonstration of this one, and it looked to borrow a lot from other action games and appears to need a lot of work in the polish department. I want to like this one but the E3 demo left me with a rather sour taste.

The Sims 3 Pets (EA) - The demo shown was of the Xbox 360 version with Kinect. Essentially, this is an expansion on the game released last year but with pets of various types. Kitties are cute and the new kharma powers look neat but $60 for an add-on? Wow.

Fruit Ninja Kinect (Halfbrick) - Releasing during the Summer of Arcade, this one played exactly as one would expect. Wave your arms around slashing fruit and trying to get combos. Works well enough, but not exactly precise enough as I would have liked.

More in part 2 soon.