Bideo Geemus

Well, it's been about 500 years since my last update. What have I been playing since then?

- Trackmania Nations Forever

My initial feverish period of being incredibly addicted to this game wore off after a couple of weeks, but I still go back about once a week to have a few races. It really is a brilliant game.

- Mass Effect

As I don't have an Xbox 360, I eagerly awaited the release of this game on the PC. It was worth the wait. This is an amazing game. So engrossing, and incredibly well made. There is so much gameplay to be had here. The main quest is pretty massive just by itself, but there are also a huge range of side quests. Being the completist that I am, I had to do most of these quests, meaning that I eventually clocked up almost 40 hours game time before I finally clocked it. 40 hours well spent, in my opinion. I can't wait for the sequel.

- S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky

I just started playing this about a week ago. The first S.T.A.L.K.E.R is pretty high on the list of my all-time favourite games, so I was definitely looking forward to this one. I pre-ordered it on Steam, and while I was waiting for it to be released I read some posts on the Steam forums about the game. It was supposed to be a real system killer, due to some fancy DirectX 10 bells and whistles. Well....I had some spare cash, so what better reason to go out and buy myself a new graphics card? So, on the day it was released, I bought myself a shiny new Asus GTX 260 Nvidia card. It's fucking huge! I actually had to get the pliers out and compact the innards of my case to make room for this beast. It was worth the effort, however, as my rig runs like a dream now. Not that it wasn't already pretty poweful before ( I previously had a 8800GTS installed ), but now it's ludicrously powerful!

Anyway, back to the game. I've played it for about 10 hours so far, and it's pretty damned good. I've read horror stories of some people encountering game breaking bugs while playing, but apart from some minor errors it seems to be running fine for me. I've got all the visual effects turned up, and it really is beautiful. The day/night cycle is the most impressive of any game ever made, period. I look forward to exploring The Zone further over the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and I also dabbled briefly in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, but it was a bit crap. Didn't really hold my attention for more than a week or two. Next on my MMORPG list? Probably Age of Conan, but I think I'll wait for it to go on sale in a few months time.