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In my world you're only good as you're last sale. In American TV you're only as good as you're last episodes ratings.. In games it's not much different. Still it's a sad day when Bizarre Creations are canned after lacklustre sales and reviewer reception of James Bond: Bloodstone

Of course the writing was kind of on the wall when Blur bombed at retail despite me having a lot of love for it.

It's difficult to pin down where it all went wrong. Leaving Microsoft? Diminishing returns with the Project Gotham franchise.. Or was it even The Club?

Personally I despair a little for my fellow gamers when Activision can have the biggest opening day of sales with Call of Duty: Black Ops and yet people wont buy something as intensely good online as Blur.

Of course as Michael Jackson once sang I should probably start with the man in the mirror. I had sworn to buy James Bond:Bloodstone to support my favourite developer but a combination of New Vegas and poor length of the campaign put me off.. so I guess I should've supported them. I did buy Blur on launch and it's still my go to game for some knock about online fun.

A sad day,

Purchase Power: Quarter IV 2010

A combination of a huge amount of time being spent on Fallout: New Vegas (over 40 hours so far fact fans) and perhaps one or two big titles being out slightly earlier than normal has meant that there hasn't been such a glut of huge games coming out this time of year as normal.

Having said that we are starring down the barrel of the christmas now. I've decided to give CoD: Black Ops a miss for the moment. I don't enjoy the multiplayer component of it so much and so for that reason I'll see if it gets any cheaper. Fable III is also going to have to wait a bit. I'll definitely pick it up at some point but again it'll need to be cheaper.

So where does that leave us? Gran Turismo 5 will finally launch this month after the mammoth wait and seeing as my PS3 only gets used for these kind of genuinely exciting PS3 exclusives I expect I'll be picking it up.

Otherwise I've narrowed it down to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. I really enjoyed the second game and as this is a direct sequel I'm looking forward to more of the same and seeing how the story of Ezio pans out.

That just leaves Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on pre-order. I have utmost faith in Criterions ability to deliver a fun action packed racer. I'm also intrigued by the Autolog feature that brings to the forefront was has in the past been the secret pleasure of online friends list leaderboards.

Currently Playing: Fallout - New Vegas.

Fresh from completing Enslaved on Normal difficulty and with a new found wealth of RPG experience I decided to man up and play this on Normal difficulty (rather than the easy mode that I seem to remember completing Fallout 3 on).

Suffice to say it's making for a far more challenging experience. I'm going through stimpacks like water. I've managed to get full on near death radiation sickness twice (Don't think I ever got it bad enough to warrant visiting a doctor in 3.) and weapons and armour break like they're sponsored by Primark.

Part of this might be due to it being simply a more hardcore game not just the difficulty. Also this time I've focused my levelling up on Speech, Lock Picking and Stealth rather than just full on attacking skills as before. I got fed up with not being able to open doors or unlock speech options during the campaign on Fallout 3.

Still despite the game's engine starting to creak a bit these games are all about the atmosphere and in this respect New Vegas delivers in spades. It's nice to be wandering the wastelands again.

The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer
Red Dead Redemption
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Sweet
Everybody's Golf 2 - PSP
The Saboteur - 360
Dark Void - 360
Limbo
Wolfenstein - Easy - 360
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 - 360
GTA IV - Episodes from Liberty CIty - 360
Halo: Reach - Normal (Solo) / Legendary (Co-op)
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - 360
Mafia II - 360
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - 360

The eagle eyed Blog reader will notice that I completed this on Normal difficulty. A step up from my normal level of challenge to be sure. Regular readers will also remember that I pretty much hated the demo.

It's like Ninja Theory decided to make a game just for me. Yes it's a bit slow to get going but once it does get going it's really good. It helps of course that it's a very pretty game. Obviously the all star input in acting and script writing helps draw you in. Then the solid action kicks in. The combat is solid and chunky and doesn't require the memory of a million strings of combos but it isn't button mashy either.

The platforming is reminiscent of the Prince of Persia reboot, Anything that Monkey can jump too is highlighted so there's not much in the way of frustration. Your AI companion Trip soon stops being annoying and the relationship between the too is genuinely interesting.

For me there's definite hints of Jak & Daxter too and seeing as that's my favourite 3D platformer of all time that's got to be a good thing.

I even enjoyed the frankly bizarre final, gameplay free, chapter. Looking forward to the sequel.