October...  

Normally, I like shooters. I’m not too fussy about the story or why exactly I should care about these Alien MonstrositiesTM (Gears of War, I’m looking at you). This stems from a history of playing Duke Nukem (which I regularly confused with Doom) and just loving the running about blowing stuff up. Flash forward to Halo, which was the first proper shooter I played. I dunno how, but somehow I skipped right past the Quake and Unreal Tournament phases. So yeah, while my gaming pedigree might not be as extensive as some, I know what I like and what I like is guns. Big guns, little guns, laser (pew pew!) rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols... yeah. Mario is all well and good but I always figured the guy needed to be packing some serious heat. He was fighting dragons, y’know? Even in Age of Empires, I found a cheat that gave you a supercar armed with a rocket launcher. Considering that the most advanced units in the game were Hoplites for the infantry and Cataphracts for the calvary, you can guess the results yourself.

Except, these days I’m starting to like RPGs. It started with Fable on the Xbox, and progressed with Mass Effect. I really like the idea of making a character your own; customising everything from clothing to behaviour. Fable was a pretty good intro to this sort of thing. A lot of people found it to be limited, and not as expansive as was promised. Me, I just loved it for what it was because I never believe the hype. Now Fable 2’s coming out, along with Fallout 3, and I’m actually looking forward to playing those games. I recently started playing Mass Effect again, just to remember what RPGs usually involve: Lots of dialogue, lots of exploration, lots of patience. I’m particularly looking forward to Fallout, because it manages to combine my predilection for shooting stuff, with lots of stuff to uncover, and a character you can make unique. This is part of why I like Mass Effect, despite the slightly predictable story and extremely tedious gameplay. It’s not just that I get to shoot all my baddies the attraction is that despite there being a colossal amount of ways to dispatch them, I’m doing it MY way.

Fable 2: October 21 2008

Fallout 3: October 28 2008

Gears Of War 2: November 7 2008