Good to be a gamer right now

Since I let my LOTRO subscription expire last month I have been relishing in the variety gaming has to offer right now.

Trials HD continues to entertain. Although the first couple of hours can seem frustrating perseverance really pays off as you find yourself improving organically rather than by trial and error. Modern gaming has taken a worrying trend towards more casual progress. Most games these days involve simply plodding through the content rather than having to develop skills in order to progress, so Trials HD really is worth championing to us more old-skool gamers.

Which brings me on to Shadow Complex. This game represents the future of gaming as far as I can see. Of the new breed of premium arcade games, this is a highly polished mass-appeal exciting adventure romp all for the budget price of £10. The difficulty is also relaxed depending on which setting you choose aligning itself with modern gaming habits.

I personally do not find this game as addictive as Trials but Shadow Complex seems much more significant in terms of the direction in which gaming is heading.

The Beatles Rock-Band was one of the big E3 games I did not want to miss out on. After being disappointed with my first guitar game Guitar Hero World Tour last Christmas I decided The Beatles might suit my more specific tastes and help improve on my musical knowledge. I have never actually owned any music from The Beatles I am ashamed to say and as I already had a compatible controller it seemed like a no-brainer. And it is a very nice package. Rather than a quick reskin, this is a perfect treasure trove for any Beatles fan with top notch presentation throughout including never before heard studio chatter during loading screens. Like a good music album, this game is best savoured occasionally rather than being played daily.

Gran Turismo on the PSP finally landed last week and whilst I would not say it was worth the many years of waiting for it, it is the first game for a few years that I actually wanted to buy and play on it! My PSP can consider itself a gaming machine again rather than an expensive door-stop. It is technically very impressive running in a silky smooth 60fps (!) although the number of on-track cars has been reduced to a stingey four to compensate for this.  The last GT I owned was number 2, so the tracks seem very varied to me offering much more colourful Sega-like vistas rather than the more mundane realistic raceways. No internet multiplayer is a big disappointment though.

The game also prompted me to upgrade my PSP to an official firmware, something I hesitated in doing - for a few seconds. When I consider how many hours I wasted on my cracked PSP trying to get shit to work and in the end all I really got was a few hours worth of the few MAME games that actually worked. Ok, the PS1 emulator was cool, but I've been there and done that now. As a passionate and somewhat older gamer I can only be bothered with games I know are great or I'm personally excited about and so would rather spend the money on them than download them illegally. It's just great to have a PSP game that I want to play again!

Next on the agenda is Operation Flashpoint 2, a name that gets me excited seeing how much I enjoyed the openness and realism of the original. So much so I have actually pre-ordered it to play for this weekend, not something I have done for many years (excluding GTA4 which I had to end up cancelling anyway). I'm not a huge fan of normal linear path FPSes so I really hope the sandbox structured OF2 Dragon Rising is a commercial success.


Becoming active on the Edge Forum was also a great move - dozens of 360/PS3 friends on tap to play the latest games!

On the horizon at the end of the month beckons the mighty Forza 3 threatening to squash GT5 with it's seemingly superior racing gameplay - if slightly inferior visuals.

And that's not counting Batman Arkham Asylum and the New Episodes of GTA4 that will have to just wait in the queue!