Also I am playing Bioshock, which is very nice with it’s graphics and interesting story but the battles are a bit too run and gun for me, but I’ll probably force myself to finish it. I remember Dark Forces, it was a great game and I finished it in a weekend the first time I played it. It was way too short, I still remember walking on the cliffs and the winds blowing, it was very cool. I am not sure my game experience would be the same if I play it again, as far as I remember it still used sprites.

I recently installed No one lives forever for my kids to play across my home LAN. They enjoy it put think out games like hide and seek etc because they get tired of shooting at each other. You also unfortunately can’t add bots. I am really looking for nice multiplayer games for them but I find it very difficult as I don’t want to give them something too realistic and bloody like Unreal. I have also given them the old Serious Sam (Second Encounter to play with but it does raise a frown for me as it already gets pretty violent. I tried World of Padman as well, but my one son doesn’t like it so my other son can’t get anyone to play with him (I also don’t enjoy it too much).

The Jedi Academy game had a much tighter story round the gameplay, which unfortunately means shorter gameplay than Half Life 2. But does make it abetter game for me. half Life 2 dragged too much. The Episodes are a bit better with more story concentration – I am commited to finish it unfortuantely. I loved Revenant even for it’s action orientated battles. Dungeon Lords and The Witcher both uses this technique of more action orientated battles, but I remember Revenant as the most interesting. Interestingly enough I am currently also in the process of playing through Rune and I am actually surprised about how involved and long the game is. The graphics are actually quite good and must have been awesome when it was released.

Number 4 – Power : is a big thing for me and one that most MMORPG’s exploit, but as soon as you realise (in MMORPG’s) you are just a run of the mill of another 100,000 guys and gals it takes away the fun factor.Lord of the Rings Online at least made it more interesting with story elements but you get lesss of them the higher you climb in level – obviously to drag out play time.

If I think of fun then automatically games like Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle comes to mind. Not being a huge adventure fan those 2 stood out for me as real fun games and my wife who never play games actually played through them as well.

I find myself playing more Wii games these days. Me and the boys like to sit and play through Zelda : Twighlight Princess at the moment that is a mix of lite RPG and Adventure and then I play Metroid Prime 3 in the evenings. Probably the best first person shooter I have ever played – the puzzles are definitely better than eany other I have seen in a FPS. My eldest son (9) also enjoys it when we play Fire Emblem which is basically RPG with tactical battles. He loves it when they level up. He likes to envision himself as one of the characters. But note they don’tt play these games themselves as they are a bit too complex, they prefer stuff like Lego Star Wars, Boom Blox, Super Mario Galaxy. But if I give them a choice now they want to play Serious Sam across the LAN in Cooperative mode.

On the gifting side, I usually ask rather for cash as that eases the whole issue and I can rather get what I want. The last time I got games my Sister’s son got himself the games he wanted.

2) The game must entertain me. It must be fun. We can break that down into plot and personality and such, but sometimes a game can be entertaining without those things. That’s why I’m enjoying Super Mario Galaxy right now. I don’t care about the plot or the characters, but it’s just fun to play.

3) I’ve discovered I don’t like playing the “anti-hero” type or being the bad guy. I want to play games where my character can be virtuous and noble and all the other things I wish I could be in real life.

4) Voice acting, if the game has it, must be good. Nothing destroys an otherwise good game faster than awful voice overs.

5) Mostly bug free. I don’t give games like DL a pass because they have some good things hidden under the bugs. I’ll forgive the occasional hiccup (especially in a PC game); but, nothing major and small in number.

6) Good UI. Nothing frustrates me faster than a poor control scheme or badly implemented HUD/menu system. There’s loads of research and books on the subject of usability, USE IT!

When all is said and done, my tastes can be pretty eclectic. So I just tell people to get me a gift card to Gamestop or Target.