Warning: This review will most likely contain a few spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Status: Completed in 29 days (minus glitched quests), reached Level 62, 179hrs 17mins 37secs
Achievements: 47 of 50
Gamerscore: 940/1000
DLC Purchased: None

The fifth installment in Bethesda Game Studios’ epic role playing franchise, Skyrim offers players an exceptional adventure in the northern most province of Tamriel. Home to the Nords, Skyrim is in the midst of a civil war, a war in which you are unintentionally dragged into. Imperial guards believe you to be a member of the Stormcloak uprising, and bring you to Helgen for your execution. As your head rests on the chopping block, you witness a terrifying dragon land on one of the battlements, sending everyone into a panic and giving you the chance to escape.

Voices few can hear call out to you and name you “Dovahkiin”, thus leading you to a group of hermits known as the Greybeards. In their home on the highest mountain peak in Skyrim, this handful of men reveal to you your true nature and offer to assist you in learning the Way of the Voice, the tongue of the Dragons. It is no coincidence to them that you should arrive at their doorstep at the same time dragons reappear.

And so begins your journey to discover the truth behind the resurgence of the dragons. An epic task that will take you all over the beautiful northern province and beyond, literally.

Along the way you can stop and pick the flowers (literally, you can pick flowers, nirnroot, and other local herbs for alchemy purposes), spend time searching for bandit or necromancer infested caves to loot, or join one of the many groups looking for a lackey. Skyrim follows in the tradition of other Western RPGs, giving the player all sorts of freedom to play the game however he or she so chooses.

I chose to focus on discovery and guild quests in the beginning, making trips here and there to the main story as they intersected with whatever other goals I was pursuing at the time. I have this thing about trying to get all of the extra bits of games tidied up before sinking my teeth into the main focus of the story, although it can be contested that in Skyrim the extra bits are just as meaty and delicious as the main course. And because there are so many ways to play the game, outcomes may vary depending on what actions you’ve previously done. Killing the brother of a townsperson  who has a quest for you before taking the job can mean different dialogue options, and so forth.

By far my favourite change up from Oblivion to Skyrim was the elimination of structured classes and the introduction of the Perk system. Instead of forcing the player to select a class type (Warrior, Mage, Thief) when creating their character, you evolve your hero the way you want them to as you play by using the skills you wish to increase often. When your character gains enough overall experience and goes up a level, you are granted a Perk point that you can use to unlock any bonus you wish from the Perk map. This allows for a more natural type of development, as it is truer to real life circumstances. It also means you can start out as a mage, duel-wielding powerful spells and increasing the potency of your magic, and switch to more warrior-like skills with some pickpocketing and haggling on the side.

Increasing your skills comes from practice, practice and more practice. Example: You notice on the Perk map that if you get your Smithing up to Level 100, you’ll be able to make armour from the dragon scales and bones you collect from killing the beasts. You have a lot of leather in your inventory and that’s the only sort of armor you can currently make, but it’s low level stuff and you’re wearing much better stuff. Don’t just sell that leather. Make as many types of leather pieces as you can at the forge until you’ve exhausted your materials. Every time you hammer out a new chestplate or boots you’re increasing that Smith stat. Next, sell those to the nearest vendor with money but sell each one of them one piece at a time. That will bump up your Speech which will help you get better prices as you level it up. It’s thinking like this that will help you power level early on, making battles and other sections of the story easier to get through.

You can also collect Companions who will help you if you so wish to drag them along. Some are acquired by helping with personal quests, while others come bundled with the purchase of one of the several fine homes you can purchase. The companion I dragged around with me when I wasn’t trying to sneak into someone’s home for a Thieves Guild quest was Lydia. She was the housecarl that came with my first home, a cozy two floor home in Whiterun next door to the armor shop. Lydia prefers heavy armor and ranged weapons, and if you make the mistake of giving her magical staffs, you should fear for your life and the lives of any people you might have to rescue from dungeons. She wasn’t always the smartest person to work with, stepping on traps that I clearly went around and then getting stuck on them, which led me to believe the AI needed a touch more time and attention. Lydia made up for it by being a great pack mule. I would load her up with all sorts of ore, materials and random items I wanted to sell and fast travel to the nearest shop just as soon as she stopped trying to kill my magical horse.

Even in video games, I hate spiders.

But as with every other Bethsoft game of this magnitude, there are just too many unacceptable issues that can potentially ruin the experience for you – especially if you are short on patience.

The biggest problem for me was the amount of glitches that happened in my game, making certain quests and side missions impossible to either continue or perpetually stuck in my queue. Most disheartening of these was when the last Daedric Quest I needed to complete for the corresponding achievement (or trophy if you’re a PS3 gamer) suffered from a massive bug making it so that I could not talk with the target and progress to the end of the quest. Here we are two months and three patches later and there is still no fix for this problem. With all of the time I dedicated to that character and only missing a few achievements, I just can’t bring myself to start a second character, so I am impatiently waiting for the 1.4 patch and hoping my quest line will be fixed.

Definitely not as problematic but just as irritating is the freezing. I will admit that for me personally, it has improved since Oblivion, but that could be due to the fact that I’ve had to cut down on how many save files I’m now using. It also doesn’t hurt that since Oblivion I’ve learned to save a lot more frequently in Bethesda games. I’ve also since learned that I really shouldn’t put every item I want to keep in the same chest or dresser. Now I split everything up and store like items in different drawers in my house. And how to not be a hoarder, which is hard in these games as you want to keep everything that has a cool name and you think might be worth something. Ideally, I have no more than thirty or so different types of item in one place at a time, which meant a lot of over-encumbered trips around Whiterun to sell off various swords, junk armour and potions I’d crafted to level up my skills.

However, the pros and fun I’ve had playing Skyrim far weighs the disappointment I’ve suffered from the game. I wouldn’t call it my Game of the Year for 2011, because in my eyes any game that requires three patches within a month of release and still has major issues does not deserve those accolades. Obviously, Skyrim needed more time in QA before being rushed to store shelves for Holiday sales and I still hold that with digital distribution at their fingertips, gaming companies are using it more and more as a crutch so they can hit deadlines and leave the gamer to suffer the consequences. But enough of that for now.

Overall Opinion

I had an absolute blast playing Skyrim on a near daily basis from the midnight it came out until I discovered there was no way I could tidy up that last Daedric Quest. Just ask my husband, as he watched my play it until 3 or 4 am every single night and all day on the weekends. I yelled at my housecarl Lydia on a regular basis that you would have thought I renamed her idiot for all the times she stepped on traps I clearly went around or for using the staffs I gave her and nearly killing herself. Hunting dragons and searching for their Words of Power could at times be aggravating, but the rewards were worth every potion sucked down to keep going. My favourite thing to do has always been looting caverns, and Skyrim did not disappoint me, giving me some great ones early on that helped me buy my first home.

Odds are high that I will eventually replay the game with a new character; I really did love the game, despite the issues with quest lines buggering up. Or I may just wait until they announce DLC for the game and take my Hero and her moronic companion Lydia on new adventures. Either way, Skyrim has rooted itself in my list of favourite RPGs, and is one title I would gladly recommend to anyone looking to drop off the face of the earth for a good month or two.

But video games of this magnitude cannot rely on game play alone. There needs to be a strong and compelling story to bring a player back time and time again. Sure you can slap multiplayer into any game nowadays, but for someone like myself – someone who appreciates solid storytelling – that is not what is going to keep your game in my console for long. This, unfortunately, is where the first two installments in Gears of War fell short for me. More so Gears 2 than the original.

Gears of War has taken a lot of heat from gamers for the weak and under-developed plot that strung together the first two titles. Rightfully so. The first title in any trilogy lays the groundwork for what is to come, and they did an okay job. We were thrown into a fight for survival against an enemy that wanted control of our planet’s surface. We worked with what little information we had and, like any regular gamer, expected to have the blanks filled in for us as we progressed.

Gears of War 2 disappointed everyone. Fans only gained a couple of snippets of important information: what happened to Dom’s wife and the reason why the Locust headed for the surface.

At this point, I had pretty much given up hope for a decent ending to the story.

Then I picked up Aspho Fields, the first of the Gears of War tie-in novels. I’ve never been a huge fan of tie-ins in the past as most of them rehash actual game story or bring it up over and over again, adding little new information or background to the characters. They are nice side stories for sure. Aspho Fields started out a bit too dry for me, but as the author found her footing I found myself devouring the story. Here was what I was missing from Gears 1 and 2. Here was the story the game was so desperately lacking.

With each book, author Karen Traviss gave us more and more back story on the Gears universe. We found out the events Emergence Day, learned about the Pendulum Wars and the toll that decades long battle had on the people of Sera. Every bit of important detail that was missing from the video games could be found in these books as they bridged the gap between the ending of Gears of War 2 and lead us to the beginning of the end.

However, this is not where the bulk of your story should be. All of this development should be contained within the original form of media. Not shoved off into tie-in novels that only the most die hard of your fans will read. It is one thing to put out a couple of books or a one-shot comic for your franchise; it’s another to abuse your fans by forcing them to buy all kinds of additional content to get the full story of your universe. When you build a world for a particular audience, you need to cater to them. Don’t make them feel as though all you want is more money, which is kind of how I feel at this point with Gears of War.

I love the books. I have all four of the books written by Ms. Traviss. There is a ninety-nine percent chance I will even pick up the next (and hopefully, final) Gears of War novel, purely because I love well-written books and want to see this whole story surrounding Marcus Fenix wrapped up. And I am excited for the final Gears video game because they smartened up and brought her in as the lead writer for this last game. Reading her books and knowing Gears the way that I do, from it’s mediocre beginnings on the 360 to what it has become for me thanks to the novels, I am going into the final battle knowing that finally we are going to have a Gears game with a real story to bring it all together.

At the end of the day, I know that I will have enjoyed my experience with the Gears series because I’ve made the choice to invest in the story. The same cannot be said for so many others – others like friends who’ve given up on the games because they were let down, or others who will play the third game without knowing everything I know because they just want to see the ending and hope all those hours will count for something. And you can’t fault those people for not wanting to have to buy books or comics that form the backbone of the story.

In a perfect world, Epic would have hired the author of the novels from the beginning and relied on the games to tell the story of Sera’s demise. If there ever was a video game franchise that could use a retelling in the same vein as all the comic book hero re-imaginings we get every other year, it would be Gears of War. Three solid games using everything that’s been published would undoubtedly have improved this series and with some game play tweaks, made it one of the best and well-rounded series of this generation. I really hope that Gears has been a learning experience for the team at Epic, and that they will consider the importance of story development in future titles.

God knows they need some major help in that department.

Status: Finished both The Signal & The Writer DLC
Achievements: 41 of 67
Gamerscore: 740/1500

Months after finishing Alan Wake’s original content and downloading both DLC add-ons, I still hadn’t gotten around to actually playing the new episodes.  I’d see the box for the game sitting on the top of my 360 shelving unit and think “Maybe this week”, but kept passing it over for something else. A couple of weeks ago, I finally sat myself down and played through the DLC thanks to stressing out over Catherine and wanting a change of pace.

My delay in finishing this extra content for Alan Wake was not because of the game itself. I loved the game (my original thoughts on it can be read here) and at the time was itching to get my hands on more. If anything, it was my gut feeling that these two episodes should have been part of the retail release, but due to having to make a release date, they were excluded and held back for polishing and rebranded as DLC. I was really hoping that I would be wrong, that these were just extra parts to the story.

Waking up to find himself locked inside his own nightmare, Wake makes his way through twisted versions of familiar locations, hoping to reconnect with Thomas Zane’s “presence”. According to Zane, Wake has left himself clues and assistance so that he can escape, which explains the phantom-like words and occasional pages of draft that flutter down to the author’s feet through out these two pieces of content. You’ll need to shine your light on the text if you want to replenish your depleting battery and ammo stashes, as well as opening up paths in order to progress. Plausible actions seeing as you are inside Alan’s imagination.

As I ran around this nightmare version revisiting old haunts with Barry’s “ghost” following me around, that feeling I had before I’d even begun started to nag at me. Here I was, searching for pointless collectibles and dealing with the evil and twisted side of Alan’s psyche, and I was right. Everything I was doing felt like it was always meant to be with the rest of the game from the start. And by the time I reached my destination, I was ready to throw my controller at something in anger of being right. I felt cheated and wronged, lied to by people I trusted to give me the best experience possible from the beginning.

But should I really be mad at Remedy for sacrificing those final two episodes in order to just get the game out? Or should I be angry with Microsoft, because we know they love to make calls favouring marketing schedules rather than just letting a studio get everything right the first time? It should have been clear to me when I saw the voucher for The Signal inside my limited edition box that someone from Microsoft was itching to see some profits from a game so long in development. Part of me knew – and it just did not want to accept the truth at the time. But now I can no longer deny that I was played.

Status: Can you really ever finish this game?
Achievements: 12 of 12
Gamerscore: 200/200
DLC Purchased: None

The Xbox Deal of the Week is always hit or miss for me. Too often it’s just a bunch of maps for shooter games that don’t interest me. That changed a couple of weeks back when I noticed that Torchlight was on sale for 800 points. I’d heard great things about the PC version of the game, and when I asked my friends for their advice on the XBL port their comments swayed me into taking the plunge.

Deep below the town of Torchlight lay mines and caverns filled with Ember, a material sought by the greatest adventurers for it’s unique enchanting element. Miners risk life and limb to bring Ember to the surface. What they do not realize is that an ancient evil lays in wait for someone to release him, as civilizations before this one have done. It is up to you to traverse the dungeons and defeat it before it claims Torchlight.

There are three basic adventurers you can choose from (ranged, magic, and melee), as well as three types of pets. The lone female hero favours ranged attacks, which worked to my advantage, as that was what I wanted my character to be in the first place. I chose the Cat as her pet and began gathering quests from the Torchlight inhabitants.

You won’t find yourself playing Torchlight for a riveting, on the edge of your seat story. It’s pretty thin, and really only a delivery system for the fun part: dungeon crawling and looting to your heart’s content. Gain a task, complete the objective, collect goodies, and then do it all over again.

Ranged weapons and magic are great for avoiding traps

If there is one thing I love about RPGs of any kind, it’s slaughtering enemies in order to pick up loot. There is something satisfying about loading up your character’s inventory with brand new gear and trinkets. Torchlight provides players with a seemingly endless underground world chalk full of Ember-imbued baddies hoarding all sorts of unique items for you to weed through. You will constantly find better equipment to arm and protect yourself with, and there are bonuses for equipping sets of armor should you find all of the pieces. Identified armor that is better than what you are wearing and you have reached the required level for will auto-equip, which is handy for the beginner. Some armor and weapons also have sockets for you to insert pieces of Ember that you will find throughout the mines.

Having a pet is super handy for the looter. Both you and your furry friend can carry 50 items a piece, which means you can stay below ground and stock up longer. I love to load mine up with all of the weapons and armor that won’t improve my stats, as well as my cheaper accessories. Once I’ve decided on what I don’t need to carry, I can send my pet to town to sell everything they are carrying. The only time I can’t do this is when I am inside a Phase Portal within the caverns. When my pet returns, anything new I’ve gathered and doesn’t suit my needs is sloughed off again. It’s a perfect system for accumulating copious amounts of money.

Regardless of what type of adventurer you choose to play as, certain spells can be purchased and learned for both yourself and your pet. There are healing spells, elemental attacks and summoning spells you can find or purchase, all of which can be hot-keyed on your controller. I made sure to equip my pet with high level Heal All and Heal Self spells since I set him to be aggressive in the field. This saved me from having to worry about him fleeing from battle too often and made sure that I was keeping myself healed without eating through my reserves of healing potions. I made sure to have ice attacks in my arsenal for when I ran into dragonkin and hordes of shamblers, as it would slow them down a bit and eat away at their HP over time.

Enemies with gold lettered names mean special loot and lots of Fame

Overall Opinion

In less than a week, I managed to play through the quests that you would consider the main storyline, and also ran around collecting items for some of the locals. Looting and grinding for experience is fun, but after a while with nothing more than side quests to complete, the game starts to lose a bit of shine. It is an amazing game and I loved it for what it is, which is why I really hope that Torchlight 2 expands and gives more depth to the story and characters involved and becomes even better.

Status: Finished everything but the Mages’ Guild quests
Achievements: 54 of 60
Gamerscore: 1150/1250
DLC Purchased: Every last bit of DLC, including that ridiculous Horse Armor (only because it was on the GOTY disc)

Somehow I find it very fitting that the first game from Project Backlog that I am crossing off the list is actually the first Xbox 360 game I ever finished. Let me clarify that – the first game I finished before I had an Xbox Live gamertag.A long, long time ago in a far away land, I lived another life. In this life, the person I lived with had very strict rules about the internet. It could only be used for research and occasional emails, no “chatting”, which included a kibosh on online gaming. At the time it didn’t affect me all that much since I wasn’t really into shooters or MMOs. I’ve always preferred a single player experience for role playing games. Anyway, cutting to the chase, Oblivion was the first game I powered through and collected all achievements in.

I devoted hours to leveling up my character and completing as many side quests as I could. I started with the Thieves’ Guild, as I seem to do in most games that offer thievery as a lifestyle choice, and slowly but surely tied up all loose ends with the guilds before taking on the final quest. All told, I believe some 120 hours or so was spent traipsing all over the map, running from one end to the other. It was a great escape from the world I was living in at the time, and therefore has a special place in my heart.

Finally, I was on my own. I bought myself an Xbox 360 and with it a Game of the Year version of Oblivion. I had only ever played the main game content before, and now I could sink even more time into a character. Having to replay the game again knowing what the outcome would be didn’t dull the excitement of finally collecting gamerscore I could share with people. Oblivion and I were on our second honeymoon.

The beginning was great. I’d get home from work, raring to boot up the 360 (affectionately known as Betty) and loot dungeons for shiny new trinkets. This went on for about a month or so. There were new games in between, of course, but I really wanted to devour Oblivion. If I had done it once before, it surely would be a breeze the second time around. But I was wrong. Soon enough, I found I didn’t really want to play it anymore. I’d already done all of this once before and there was a growing pile of new games to give attention to.

So here I am a few years later clearing up loose ends. When I got right down to it, it only took about a week for me to collect the achievements I knew were possible with this character. A glitch in the Mages’ Guild storyline handicapped me from making it a perfect run through with my Champion, but nothing to keep me from crossing this one off of my list. Sure, I’ll go back at some point, make a new character and hope I can take care of those achievements for a 100% completion on my gamer card. Maybe next summer when the next lull in releases hits.

But now it is on to other things. Like Torchlight, probably the most awesome time-suck I have played in years.

Purchase Elder Scrolls: Oblivion 5th Anniversary from Amazon

Status: Finished once on Normal, started New Game+ on Nightmare
Achievements: 31 of 50
Gamerscore: 415/1000
DLC Purchased: Original American McGee’s Alice (Online Pass Content)

I love the dark and macabre, things that make me jump out of my seat or emit a small scream. Horror movies and games filled with puzzles are right up there in my books and I will go out of my way to watch and play what others consider “bad”. Ages ago, when you could rent PC games and not have to worry about DRM, I seem to recall trying to get my hands on the original American McGee’s Alice and it almost always being out. A dark and twisted retelling of the classic story appealed to me but I honestly don’t recall playing more than a few minutes of the original. Alice: Madness Returns seemed like the perfect opportunity to visit both the new and old versions of the young girl’s Wonderland, thanks to the Online Pass offering the first game for free.

Our young Heroine is struggling with the memories of her family’s unfortunate demise from a fire that engulfed their home. Alice believes she is somehow responsible, and after a long stint in an asylum, she has been released into the care of psychologist Bumby. Because Alice is prone to sudden outbursts, he is encouraging her to forget about what happened so she can move on with her life. After one of their sessions, she sets off to pick up medicine from the chemist, stumbling across a white cat she just can’t help but follow. After a run-in with her old nurse, Alice finds herself falling into Wonderland.

But it’s no longer the Wonderland she remembers. Something sinister is destroying Wonderland, infecting everything it touches. As Alice chases after the cause of the corruption, she realizes that in order for her to truly move on and regain control of herself, she needs to find those memories she’s been trying so hard to forget.

The sinister train running amok in Wonderland has corrupted nearly everything, leaving enemies of all kinds behind to stop Alice from reaching her destination. Varying types of Ruin, Card Guards, and other unique enemies are littered about, waiting to taste the cold, bloody steel of Alice’s trusty Vorpal Blade. You’ll also find a couple of ranged weapons to help deal with the flying pests, a parasol for defense, the Clockwork Bomb, and my favourite, the Hobby Horse. It’s great for smashing things and the horse head changes as you upgrade it, which can be done to your four major weapons by spending your collected Teeth (ewwww!).

The Cat Came Back, He Just Couldn't Stay Away (Oops! Wrong Cat)

Another handy tool in Alice’s arsenal is her Shrink Sense ability. If you are stuck and not sure where to go, Shrink Sense will often help by revealing hidden drawings on the walls and floors with directions or other useful information. You also use this ability to find hidden pathways and heal yourself using the violets you’ll spot throughout each area of Wonderland. Always be on the lookout for these violets and use your Shrink Sense often to find and fit through Key Holes leading to memories, other collectibles, or just setting you back on the right path.

In addition to the memories scattered about each area of Wonderland, you’ll also want to keep an eye out for purely collectible, perk-free Bottles, Snouts to pepper for the Duchess which will open up new pathways or bestow upon you a picnic basket of health and Teeth. There are bonus challenge rooms called Radula Rooms where you will have to perform a task (surviving or killing all enemies, answering riddles, etc) and will acquire red paint used to increase the amount of Roses in your health meter.

When Alice is down and almost out, she can active Hysteria Mode, becoming an invincible slaughtering machine. Her attacks pack a stronger punch and she won’t take any damage while Hysteria is active, but make sure you keep a good eye on the meter. You don’t want to be in the path of a ranged attack with little health remaining in your meter. Dodge often and look for any Roses left behind before Hysteria Mode runs out.

Finish the game using Hysteria only once for an achievement/trophy

So far, everything sounds purrfectly wonderful. (See what I did there?)

I need to start off the critical part of this review by saying that I really feel as though Spicy Horse was rushed to make a deadline without delays. This really comes through in the game at pretty much every turn. Graphically, what should be a vibrant yet sometimes dismal and dreary world is flat and often underwhelming. There is very little texture happening in the environments, which is a real shame considering the potential there is for mind blowing colour, detail and ultra-realism. This game screams for Tim Burton’s touch, but just never gets to that level.

My next major issue with the game is the collision detection. You’ll be walking normally along the predetermined path when suddenly, as the tiles below your feet change from one type to another, you are stuck. Pushing forward on the control stick does no go because it’s as though your walking into an invisible wall. Oftentimes, you’ll need to jump or back up and jump over the seam to proceed forward. Or you’ll be walking along a hidden path using Alice’s Shrink Sense ability when the game doesn’t recognize that the two tiles are supposed to be connected, causing you to fall to your death. And don’t get me started on the steam valves. Okay, do. Throughout the game there are steam valves you will use to float around or help you reach new heights. When they work properly, they are a fun challenge. When they don’t, you’ll find them turning you around after you’ve lined up your jump point or glitching you in the middle of the steam which keeps it from pushing you up towards the top of the mist as it should. I’ve found that the times when I get the most frustrated with the game happen when steam valves are involved.

The story in Alice: Madness Returns takes a while to really get moving. The first couple of chapters, your really trying to piece together the cut-scene information and data gathered from whatever memories you’ve been able to locate. The chapters are rather long, and you can play 45 minutes to an hour at some points without learning any new details. Once it does pick up, you are quickly able to see how certain memories fill in the gaps of Alice’s forgotten past. Friends have become foes, foes have become friends. I really am enjoying the story of Alice’s decent into madness and watching how she grows as she tries to save Wonderland.

My last big gripe with the game is the abuse of the “Rule of Three”. Yes, it’s been an industry staple since forever, but I think we’ve come far enough since then to evolve a bit and not have to rely so heavily on forcing people to do the same thing three times in a row. In the case of Alice, it is truly maddening. Three tasks to help the Hatter, three tasks to help Carpenter, wash, rinse, repeat. It’s not a very compelling reason to keep the player coming back for more. It’s as though the level designer just ran out of ideas for things to do and wanted to drag out each chapter for as long as possible.

When the Steam Valves work, they are fun to float around in.

Overall Opinion

So, I’m sure by this point you are scratching your head wondering why the hell I kept playing if I was running into so many near disc snapping situations. Well, simply put, when the game works, it is fun. It has challenging moments that don’t want to make you throw your controller through a window, tough but entertaining enemies (tee hee hee “Bitch Babies”!), and I am a fan of the dark and twisted.

Like I mentioned several times on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, the game is not a bad game – just rushed. Given more development time and resources, I’m sure several of the issues I had would have been dealt with. And with what little marketing EA has done for the title, it seems they just want to get their investment back as soon as possible, pay the last of the bills and pretend this game never happened. A real shame considering all that Alice: Madness Returns could have, and should have, been.

Purchase Alice: Madness Returns from Amazon

Status: Starting 3rd movie Coop, playing 2nd movie single player
Achievements: 15 of 40
Gamerscore: 252/1000
DLC Purchased: None

There is just something so perfectly nostalgic about LEGO. You never really grow out of playing with them, building castles, ships, or giant dinosaurs. When LEGO first gave us LEGO Star Wars, I wonder if they thought it would become this successful and lead to such a library of titles. Now here we are, playing LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean barely a week before the fourth movie hits theatres, doing my best to avoid playing On Stranger Tides so as not to spoil the movie for myself or my husband.

For anyone unfamiliar with the LEGO video game library, these games take family friendly movie franchises and LEGO-fy them. All characters are created using the standard LEGO body shapes, while piles of blocks can be destroyed and/or rebuilt to make items that will help you in your environment. There is no voice over work, just grunts, shouts, sighs and other generic audio clips to convey the story alongside cut-scenes and key in-game moments.

LEGO Pirates can be enjoyed as a single player or by playing cooperatively on the same console. I’ve always wished that LEGO titles could be played via Xbox Live or PSN, but they like to stick with single console play. All four movies (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides) are included in the game, each one broken into five chapters. When you begin a new game, you will automatically start with the original movie adaptation. Once a chapter has been completed in Story Mode, it will open up Free Play and allow you to take whichever characters you have unlocked with you to scour the level for items you may have missed (or had been unavailable).

For the most part, LEGO Pirates is straightforward. Smash stuff, build with loose LEGO bricks, fight off the bad guys, look for hidden areas, recruit new characters. Each level also contains hidden Mini-Kits (10 in each) which, once all 10 pieces have been collected, you can set afloat in the Port area. Some of these Mini-Kits will require you build or destroy X amount of a certain item in a chapter, so always be on the lookout for jumping bricks or unique destructibles. As Jack, you can search for 8 unique items in each level, some of which you will have to locate to progress the game, others which are just there for fun. To do so, pull out Jack’s Compass and follow the trail to discover these goodies. And of course, there is the title of True Pirate, which is earned once you reach varying Stud totals in each level. Finding all Compass Items, earning True Pirate, finding all Mini-Kit pieces and completing a chapter in Story Mode add to your Gold Brick pile, enabling you to build gadgets around the Port, and open up new areas for you to explore.

You will want to collect as many of those Gold Bricks as possible, as there are Red Hats littered all over the Port for you to discover. These Red Hats offer in-game perks that you’ll need to remember to turn on at the start of every gaming session you play. From multiplier Hats (I currently have a 768 times multiplier in my coop game), to Invincibility and Water Breathing, switching on the right Red Hats can be the extra bit of help you need in finding that last Compass item or opening a secret area filled with treasure.

Playing with Will and Bootstrap Bill Turner (Dead Man's Chest)

Almost every character you collect in LEGO Pirates comes with his or her own special ability. Jack can use the Compass, Will can throw axes, Bootstrap Bill and Clanker can ooze through green barnacles. Some can walk underwater without fear of oxygen loss, some have big guns and others can shatter glass with their “singing”. Knowing who has what special ability is crucial for unlocking some of the secrets contained within this game. And make sure you’re collecting those Gold Bricks so you can gain access to the Custom Editor.

LEGO Pirates is definitely not without flaws. Other than the fact that Xbox Live/PSN multiplayer is still not supported, there are a couple other problems I have with the game. First of all, the split-screen gets down right ridiculous at times. Depending on where you are on the map in relation to your partner, the screen will divide in half either horizontally or vertically (normal enough) or on a weird diagonal, making it almost impossible to figure out where you are. Not only is this awkward to look at, but if one player is aiming at a target on one side and the other player moves even a tad, the first player’s aim is lost. There have been many occasions in which my husband and I are yelling at the other not to move so we can target something.

Another big point of contention is having too many playable characters on the screen at once. This became a huge issue in Chapter 2 of Dead Man’s Chest and navigating Calypso’s swamp. With five characters on the screen all trying to do the same thing at the same time, it becomes super frustrating to move. As an example, there is a narrow walkway that you create at one point and everyone jumps onto it at the same time. If one character gets stuck at a junction and is at the front of the line, everything comes to a halt and you need to force others off the walkway or try to jump over them. This can lead to a lot of “dying” in the marsh and is just poorly done. Another spot you need to jump across to perform a task, which would be easy enough if the AI wasn’t trying to force every other character to go with you and push you off the extremely narrow floating debris you are using to cross the gap.

And then there is the camera angle. It’s fixed, meaning you can’t control what you see on the screen. So if you can’t quite make out how far you need to jump to land on the next floating chunk of wood, get used to “dying” until you get it right. Frustrating for sure, but once you get used to the fact that there is nothing you can do about it (and enable the Invincibility and Fall Rescue Red Hats), you can stop threatening to throw your controller at the wall and just do your best to figure out how to finish the level.

Jumping With Jack (Curse of the Black Pearl - Chapter One)

Overall Opinion

While it hasn’t really done anything new for the LEGO game series, LEGO Pirates has been a great coop game for my husband and I to play together. We’re fans of the movies, so replaying them in this fashion together is an enjoyable experience. I feel more compelled to pop this game back into my system than I do LEGO Batman, and I was really pumped for that one when it first came out. There have been some rough patches in figuring out what to do next and trying not to hit up a strategy guide for help, for sure. But I know that once my husband gets home from work the first thing he talks about isn’t what’s for dinner but when are we going to play some LEGO Pirates.

Purchase LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean for your favourite system from Amazon

Nine out of ten gamers have one. We don’t mean for it to happen, but new and shinier things always seem to come our way, leading to last week’s new release finding its way to the stack of games we promise ourselves we will get back to just as soon as the summer lull comes around.

For some of us, it’s not so bad. Less than a baker’s dozen of past releases remain sealed or still have that fresh from the factory smell. And we will get to those, just as soon as we finish up a season of whatever EA Sports title or in-depth RPG is causing the hold up. For others (primarily those working in the industry, whether it be as developer or journalist), that stack of games is more likely triple what a normal gamer has waiting.  It’s not that you don’t want to play them, because you most definitely do, but in between playing or making games for work, plowing through weekly review copies and picking up the ones you aren’t comped, it doesn’t take long to watch your backlog develop into a monster. Right now I have 69 uncompleted (by my standard) titles in my backlog as I am writing this. That is including Dragon Age 2 which I know I won’t have finished (read-unlocked all achievements) before I get my hands on 3rd Birthday. This is how they break down:

Wii – 1, DS – 8, GameCube – 5, PS2 – 8, PS3 – 7, PSP – 9, 360 – 31

Most of these are games I bought with the intent of playing them right away. Like Metal Gear Solid 4 which I did play right away, the night it came out. We had a midnight launch at the store and when I got home at 2am, slightly damp from the automatic sprinklers on my short walk back, I played until I hit the section I’d run through in a demo at the very first E4All Expo. Went to bed and honestly haven’t touched it since. Why? Really, I’m not sure. I haven’t been in the mood to go back to it and I don’t feel that same draw toward my PS3 as I do to my 360. I know I want to play it and the other games in my PS3 backlog. And I will. Just as soon as I finish Tools of Destruction.

When tackling the beast I’ve let my backlog become I try to focus on one game per system at a time. I may have four games on the go, but as long as each system is only working on one title, I feel like I have a bit more control. Husband has the TV for the night and is playing something of his own? Great! That means I’ll sit down and work on something from my handheld stack. During the week I’ll work on my console games in-between writing and the other nonsense I accomplish. If I’m lucky I might knock out two to three games in a month – only to have them replaced with something else right away. I like to buy more games as a treat whenever I successfully remove one or two from my stack. I keep an eye on Amazon sales and check out Fry’s every week or so, looking for some great deal I can convince my husband to buy for me with puppy dog eyes and “I finished X, X and X!”

So just how do I determine when I am finished with a game? When I unlock all achievements/trophies in a game? Or maybe when I’ve completed the main storyline?

Honestly, each game is different. I know what kinds of games are my strongest and which are my weakest. Getting through the story mode in an FPS is just as great an accomplishment for me as getting every last side quest in an RPG. Take Modern Warfare as an example. I bought that game knowing full well that I suck at FPS games. I enjoy them immensely, but I know I am not likely to fare well online with more dedicated players (even amongst friends). No clan is going to want me on their squad, and I have no silly aspirations of thinking I could compete with the more serious MLG players. I made it through the story on a fairly easy mode and gave it another shot the next level up. When I hit a wall, I knew it was time to retire the game. Because I had at least finished the story, I count it as a completed title, no longer part of my backlog.

The same cannot be said for adventure and role playing games. With those, I need to explore and complete as many side quests/hidden missions/treasure hunts as possible. Even if they have no achievement or trophy attached to them. I did indeed complete that 100 level grindfest in Final Fantasy X-2…. twice. I will finish every meaningless fetch quest in Oblivion for armour that is inferior to what I have now just so I can see them in the completed quests log. I will spend 90 minutes with that blasted bomber in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood so I can say I destroyed DaVinci’s war machines. I will push myself to finish Alan Wake on Nightmare mode. These are the games where that 100% completion rate matters to me.

Each gamer is different when it comes to defining when they have completed a game. Some gamers play for high gamerscore and trophy counts while others, such as myself, play the games we want to play on the systems we want to use purely for the love of gaming. I know I will never have a 100K gamerscore on Xbox Live or have a platinum collection on PSN to rival those of my friends. And I’m OK with that. Right now, all I want to focus on is enjoying the games I haven’t yet, one to four games at a time while I keep feeding the monster.

~~~~~

Before I go, I just wanted to share some link-love for the Gamer Banter blog exchange series initiated by GameCouch. This month we’re all discussing how we define “completing” a video game.

Zath: When Do You Know That You’ve Completed A Game?

Gunthera1-gamer: I have never completed a current generation game

Silvercublogger: What Do You Mean By Gamer Banter

The Game Fanatics: Gamer Banter: To Beat a Game

SnipingMizzy: Is it over yet?

Game Couch: The End?

OXCGN: When Is A Game Truly ‘Finished’ For You?

Gamer Banter is a monthly video game discussion series coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email Terry for details.

Status: Working through the last rounds
Achievements: 20 of 50
Gamerscore: 430/1250
DLC Purchased: None (yet!)

You Don’t Know Jack is the perfect trivia video game. No silly jumping around in front of a camera when all you want to do is veg out on the couch. Just crazy button mashing, yelling, and Screwing (no, not that kind of screwing!!) all in the name of winning. And collecting awesome prizes (but more on that in a bit). An updated version of the long running YDKJ computer game series and short-lived TV game show, Jellyvision brought this fun and addictive trivia game to consoles everywhere, and gamers are the better for it. Right down to host Cookie Masterson, YDKJ is full of laughter, even if some of the laughter is of the groaning variety. Two five question rounds and the famous Jack Attack constitute each episode, Round Two’s answers being worth double that of the first and correct Jack Attack guesses ringing up at $4000 a pop.

YDKJ brought back the Dis or Dat question in Round One to help the player in last place try to bump up their score. Here you are given two choices, for example is the clue a Britney Spears song or the name of a Pope, and you must quickly select the right one (there are 7 clues in each Dis or Dat) before the 30 seconds runs out. Each correct answer is worth $300 and you’ll lose that if you get it wrong. Other players can also attempt a steal by buzzing in with the correct answer before you make the incorrect choice. There are also new themed questions you will randomly come across as you play through the 73 episodes on the retail disc. These theme questions have special introductions distinguishing them from regular ones. Funky Trash, Who’s the Dummy and Nocturnal Admissions (where you try to guess what movie Cookie was watching when he fell asleep) are my personal favourites.

Dis or Dat

But Wrong Answer of the Game is the one I am currently obsessed with and when I miss that answer I give myself a mental slap. Each episode has a sponsor with some silly name like Lawn Wax and hidden within one of the nine questions (never the Dis or Dat) is a wrong answer to a question that has to do with that game’s sponsor. It’s the only time you want to get a wrong answer, as it comes with a $4000 bonus (double that if it happens in Round Two) and a special prize from the sponsor. There is, of course, an achievement/trophy for collecting all of the prizes from the episodes included on the disc.

Screwing is another way to try to get ahead in YDKJ. Each player is given one screw to use per episode. When you use a screw on a player, they have 5 seconds to choose the correct answer instead of the normal 15 seconds. If the player you screwed gets the answer wrong, you get the money. But if they get it right, they get some of your money as well as the money for picking the right answer. I have yet to find time to see how this works with more than two players, which I really need to fix soon.

I also love the little twists thrown in during the numbered intros. For instance, at one point in the game during the Question 4 intro, one of the four 4s is shot and another one runs away. The next episode there was a funeral for the fallen 4 and the episode after that an “f” replaces the slain digit. I’m personally hoping that I come across another episode in which the dead 4 comes back as a zombie and eats the “f”. On St. Patrick’s Day, the yodeling 2 slipped and fell off the “wo” mountain he climbs and the 1 and 0 from Question 10 produce some pretty odd “n”s on rare occasions. Waiting to see what will happen next and seeing something new just gives the game that much more character.

Wrong Answer of the Day Prize

YDKJ can be played with up to four players, either on one console or online. The biggest downfall with this (at least on XBL) is that each person needs to be on their own console. My husband and I have attempted to play on his console with his father via Live and it will not allow both of us to play. I can understand this with other games, but with a trivia game? It’s very disappointing that the game has this limitation, and I wonder if it is the fault of the game or that of Xbox Live.

Overall Opinion

This game should be in every single gamer’s home. Not for the younger kids (it does have a T for Teen rating), YDKJ has a wonderful variety of questions to make you dig into the furthest recesses of your brain, quite often making you feel like an idiot when you make the wrong choice. It’s perfect for pick up and play when you are looking for something to fill a half hour or you can marathon through for hours at a time. Jack Pack 1 DLC is available for the game, with at least two more packs planned. Once we finish up the original 73 episodes, we are definitely picking up the additional DLC. Best $30-40 you will probably spend this year.

Purchase You Don’t Know Jack for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS or PC from Amazon

Hi, my name is Annette and I am an addict. My addiction: Plants vs Zombies.

If you had told me a couple years back that I would start playing games that fall under the “casual” umbrella, I would have scoffed, laughed in your face and told you you had me pegged all wrong. Games in this category just never showed up on my radar. If it wasn’t an RPG, a fun 3rd person shooter or an action-adventure style game, I didn’t feel it was worth my time.

Just before Plants vs Zombies was announced I had been approached to be a community manager for a new website featuring titles from the big “casual” players – PopCap, BigFish, Sandlot. Part of my research was getting familiar with how these games work, learning about all the different types out there and making sure I knew about the most popular ones. During the course of my investigations I stumbled on news from PopCap of a tower defense game featuring zombies. Zombies being another weakness of mine, I started following them on Twitter and reading press releases for more news. PopCap promised me something challenging yet fun and charming, and gave me exactly that.

Team up with a friend to stop an unwanted pool party

In Plants vs Zombies (for the five of you who have no idea what it is about), you defend your house by planting various greenery on your lawn. You collect sunshine from sunflowers to help you plant offensive and defensive lines to keep the horde from eating your brains. New seed packets can be collected when you complete a level or by visiting Crazy Dave’s Shop when you have some coin to spend. There are different challenges during the day as opposed to evening, yard as opposed to roof. A completely wonderful gaming experience that delivers again and again.

With success on PC/Mac, iPhone and the iPad, it was only a matter of time before the game would find it’s way to the Xbox Live Arcade. PopCap was no stranger to the console with two Arcade collection discs as well as a slew of games available in the Marketplace. Their team did an outstanding job converting the point and click mouse controls to work with the 360 controller. I think that I can honestly plant a lot faster using the analog stick/bumper/A configuration. If only I could speed up how fast my sunflowers produce sunshine!

Go head to plant in Versus Mode

The Xbox 360 version also features extra content I never had in my PC version. In addition to the Zen Garden, Mini-Games and Survival Mode, I can also play local coop or versus mode with my husband. It would have been great if PvZ supported online multiplayer like Peggle does, but while I wait for them to patch that (fingers crossed) I am grateful I can play with others in my own home. And for gamers who decide to pick up the non-digital format of Plants vs Zombies, PopCap has also provided you with full versions of Peggle and Zuma.

Overall Opinion

Plants vs Zombies is one of those instant classics that every type of gamer can enjoy and should have at least one version of in their library. It is a great pick up and play title when you just want to pass some time but can also be enjoyed for an extended period, too. Earning money to purchase new seed packets and items for your Zen Garden encourage playing Adventure mode again and again, making each play through a different experience.

Plants vs Zombies will also be coming to the Nintendo DS in January 2011.

Purchase Plants Vs. Zombies Xbox 360 from Amazon