Friday Game Update (2nd Nov)

Unfortunately I've not had much chance to play lots of games over the last week or so, but I'm still progressing with both Half Life 2 and Puzzle Quest when time allows.

I hope I'm now into the latter stages of Puzzle Quest as I've just defeated another one of the boss characters and I'm now making my way through the quests found in the "lands of war" with my level 33 druid character. Although initially I didn't really like this class it has grown on me as the character has become more powerful and gained access to the more powerful spells.

Generally the druid doesn't have a good selection of direct damage spells but what the class does seem to excel at is "board manipulation". For example "Earthpower" allows you to destroy (and gain the effects of) all green mana tiles or "Evaporate" converts all blue mana tiles to yellow. Thus with careful use you can deny an opponent vitally needed mana whilst boosting your own supplies. I also found that if the board becomes too cluttered with "Skulls" you can use "Call Lightning" or "Lightning Storm" to remove them and damage your opponent if it looks like they'll be used against you before you have chance to use them yourself.

Half Life 2 is progressing well, with my only complaint thus far being the loading times when moving between areas. Unfortunately they do interfere slightly with the game and although they're strategically placed to not occur during pivotal sections of the game it is a bit off-putting when your hurtling along in a vehicle and the game freezes in its tracks for 20 odd seconds while the next section is loaded. Apart from that, the game is top class, hugely enjoyable and packed full of atmosphere.

Hopefully I'll have more time in the upcoming weeks and will be able to work my way through a number of demos and arcade titles that have been released for the Xbox 360. And of course there's also plenty of demos for me to try out on the PS3 that I'll report on in future posts.