Chainsaw battles!

I got a noticeable twinge of excitement at the announcement for Gears of War 2 at the GDC conference held last week. You won't get what I mean if you don't play games to any degree of seriousness. You won't get what I mean if your idea of gaming is sitting with Grandma swinging your Wii wand around like the Elephant Man in zero gravity. Despite it's criticisms I really enjoyed the spectacle of Gears of War. The macho future war theme and insane visuals had me hooked and the multiplayer was the first decent Live game I had really persisted with. Though you had to keep your fingers crossed that you'd get a good group of players and not the Yankee pre-schooler obsessed with mothers and criminal acts associated with said mothers. That aside, roll on November!
World's Greatest RPG?
Probably not but Lost Odyssey is right up there with some of the best and I've played a fair few. What's so good about it? For me the key feature that really stands out is the 'acting'. Sounds odd but there is a level of drama between the characters that I really haven't seen before in a JRPG. There are so many standout moments that switch from hilarious banter involving Jansen, a lecharous magic user who tries to score with every woman he lays eyes upon, to some powerful emotional moments as the hero Kiam struggles to regain his memory and find out what happened to his family. Brilliant stuff. Every other aspect of the game is top notch quality though Mistwalker have played safe with a familiar feel to game mechanics, battles etc. Still, it's got me hooked and comes highly recommended if RPGs are your 'bag'.
As simple as ABC
All the usual suspects posted their circulation figures last week. It made for amusing reading as one would expect. The clown princes of publishing, namely Price and Butt, did the expected showboating despite the fact that everyone else can see the actual figures are a shambles. Anyone can who can make a song and dance over mags that sell under 20k would have given Day-Lewis a run for his money. To top it all off was the debut ABC for the latest incarnation of the Official PlayStation rag. Oh dear…