Now thats that's out of the way I've been playing darksiders. It is fun, and since I only played the first god of war and no zelda the derrivative problems don't bother me. Killing angels still do, but they're really more rogue angels if they aren't allowed into minas tirath (erm, heaven: the 'white city'). I played chime and got bored with it in less than an hours time. It's sorta like an easy tetris with elevator music playing every time you make a connection. I bought poker night, which is the second most frustrating game I've played after x-com and almost as fun as x-com. Texas hold em isn't easy, I'm $10k in the red in game. Know when to hold em, and when to fold em.
Despite having a plethora of new games I'm still starved for genuine entertainment. Killzone 2, darksiders and sould calibur all had the same detriment; they are fun but devoid of real meaning. The same could be said for poker night, you play games( or a game) with characters you know and love, but save for the occasional quirk you are basically gambling with bots, bots who always go all in when they have something and fold when they don't.
A few weeks ago I dug out a copy of age of empires 3 to entertain a curiosity that had been brewing for years. The game I expected was not there, there was barely a game there. I expected some semblence of the awesome strategy game that I once played, but AOE 3 was so dissapointing from the get go that I had to resiste the urge to shatter the discs. AOE and Empire Earth both had the same formulas at their core, and both failed to adapt to an very overlooked yet still ever changing genre of games. There comes a point (bomber man, AOE, Sonic, tomb raider, ect.) where the formula people used to love can no longer exist in the market because it was only good due to the limitations of gaming.Crazy taxi may have been fun years ago, but now it would be head-bangingly annoying. Simply put, people demand more. This may be the problem with survival horror games, they simply can't adapt to a market flooded with shooters and action games. God knows recent attempts at reviving the survival horror genre have failed (people don't want to take the chance that limiting characters for dramatic effect might also frustrate players). Hopefully the new tombraider will be great and prove me wrong twice.
In case I don't blog again till after Christmas (which I probably won't) Merry Christmas all 3 people who will read this.