Happy New Year everyone! Hope it’s going well so far!

The Christmas/New Year week is not typically a big gaming week for me (unless you count hundreds if not thousands of board game sessions), but I did get a bit of gaming done. The new Trivial Pursuit where you can place bets on other players getting their answers right or wrong is particularly good by the way.

Videogame-wise, the main staples for me were Rock Band (yes, I did cart all my instruments on the train down to Lincolnshire in the name of entertainment) and, perhaps surprisingly, definitely embarrassingly, Just Dance 2. My sister brought it with her. For Christmas, I also got Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Super Mario Galaxy 2 but didn’t play either (I thought I’d wait to get home first). My brother got The Michael Jackson Experience from (you guessed it) my sister!

Just Dance 2 - It scares me that I know which track this is...

Here’s something I never thought I’d say; Just Dance 2 is surprisingly good. OK, so it’s not nearly as accurate or good-looking as Dance Central and the dances are incredibly camp and silly rather than “proper” choreographed routines, but damn it’s good fun. And exhausting. It’s a genuine workout if you put the effort in! The Michael Jackson Experience is also really well made, but it’s considerably tougher than Just Dance 2, with faster, more difficult moves (that impressively go some way towards mimicking the actual music videos) and less in the way of on-screen assistance.

Rock Band 3 and The Beatles: Rock Band went down very well with the family and even my dad, who does like a bit of singing but hasn’t played anything other than Wii Sports since the Mega Drive era, got involved and tried out all the instruments. M bought me the new Pro Drums for Christmas (alas, they are still stuck in Edinburgh, awaiting my return) so I’ve left my old RB1 drum set to my sister’s boyfriend. I’m drumless!

The rest of my gaming activity was limited to trying to find stuff in the Steam sale that would actually run on my netbook. There’s really not a lot on offer!

RUSH - Very playable on my netbook!

RUSH is a fun little puzzle game where you direct different coloured blocks to their respective goals using instructional tiles that you can place as you see fit. It starts off very simply, but gets pretty taxing as you have to deal with and consider the consequences of many blocks that aren’t allowed to crash into each other! The hint system is also very nicely done, offering two different levels of help according to how stuck you are. It’s worth mentioning that it runs reasonably well too on the lowest setting despite the NF210 not meeting the minimum requirements.

Osmos - Out of this world!

Osmos is a difficult one to try and describe; it reminds me quite a lot of fl0w. As a circular, floaty object (cosmic entity or amoeba-style life form?), you spend your time absorbing smaller particles and avoiding the bigger ones. As you absorb the smaller particles you increase in size, enabling you to swallow up bigger “enemies”. You propel yourself with mouse clicks, the trade-off being that you jettison some of your body’s matter as you go. Enemy particles with different properties (attractions, repulsion, survival AI) provide each level type with an alternate spin on the formula, requiring a change-up of tactics to complete. It’s very soothing game with a great soundtrack and a “just one more go” style of play.

Outside of Steam, I grabbed the free-to-download GTA and GTA2 installers from the Rockstar Classics website which are both as good as they always were! Again, they run perfectly on a netbook.

I also completed VVVVVV this week but I shall wait to talk about it as it features somewhere in my Top Ten of 2010!

It was sent out from Shopto on Tuesday and as such, should have been with me on Wednesday. Without going into a whole load of detail, there were some issues about where it was meant to be delivered. After calling just about every UKMail depot in the area and talking to Shopto numerous times to get them to chase up the issue as well, it eventually transpired that the package had gone missing. Pain. In. The. Ass.

Anyway, I got a refund and dragged myself down to a bricks and mortar shop to pay over the odds for it 8)

Still, it is now in my possession and man, it is nice:

Now, you might argue that I’m incredibly sad for taking some photos of a beautifully packaged game, but screw you asshole! I can’t help it if I really appreciate well-constructed cardboard!

/geekout

Just click the images for the higher res versions over at Flickr. And yes, I’m aware there was a spelling mistake which I did fix (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you didn’t read this)!

The painting/artwork stuff really interested me but it was rather time-consuming and pretty troublesome given that you had to find a car with a big, flat surface to work on when designing stuff, then save it out and position where you actually wanted it. Forza 3 promises to make that easier by allowing you to design decals in 2D completely away from the car and then save out the decal group. From there you can apply it to the car or even stick it on the FM3 Storefront and sell it for in-game credits!

Can’t wait to try out the new editor! I really must get round to finishing this design as well: