Getting ready for Q4....

After a severe gaming drought this summer, Q4 is almost upon us. Like most gamers across the globe I've been clearing out my game collection, going back to and finishing old titles in preparation for the onslaught that is shortly to come. Deus Ex dropped last week, but I've held off on purchasing that as I still needed to finish Dragon Age 2 and some of my Kinect games, as well as attempting to get the new Rezurrection achievements on COD: Black Ops.

Dragon Age 2 was just one of those titles that kind of falls by the wayside. My partner played it through first, which is always a surefire way to put me off playing something until the last minute, and it does tend to happen a great deal on RPGs (which she tends to favour). Since erasing my save and restarting the game I've actually enjoyed it a great deal, especially the improvements to combat and the rivalry/friendship system. However I do totally understand the criticisms that were levelled at the game, especially the limitations to party inventory and the limited scope of the story and playable locations. It certainly does feel on a much smaller scale that the first, but the storytelling and dialogue woven into the game does a great job of making you overlook the shortcomings. Maybe for Dragon Age 3 they'll find the balance.

As for playing my Kinect games, I forgot how much effort they took. As someone who will do pretty much anything for achievements I'm not used to being put off easy gamerscore, but my physical shortcomings were all too apparent in my quest for the achievements on Kinect Adventures, leading to much cursing and a much-needed shower. I'm not looking forward to attacking Kinect Sports later on this week.

Lastly I've been playing a fair amount of Black Ops, I need to tackle the new 'Moon' achievements at some point but mostly I've just been taking advantage of the Double XP period in order to boost myself through another couple of prestige levels. It's funny to think that just a few years ago the idea of XP and unlocks in console FPS titles was a fairytale fantasy, we have much to thank the original Modern Warfare for I guess.

So, I hope everyone else is having as much success as me in clearing through old titles, not long to go now!