Xmas gaming: Looking both fwd and rwd

It´s inevitable. With all the free time and lack of other entertainment a lot of us (at least myself) have during the christmas holidays having a game console available is a surefire way to keep yourself busy even if the TV sends nothing but shit and the weather is bad (and from where I´m writing now it is truly monstrous, almost storm-type wind strength plus cats & dogs). So what if you haven´t brought one to where you´re spending the holidays (which happens to be my predicament)? Three options present themselves: buy one (not smart, never buy stuff right before xmas), go to a friends place for some social gaming action or borrow one.

I´ve gone for the two latter options. The other day me and two friends had a go on my mate´s Wii (ha-fucking-ha), further sementing existing opinions of Sports Tennis and Golf being the most fun more than one person can have without plastic explosives and a dead badger and also confirming my suspicions that Zelda is in fact entertaining to watch as well as play. But seeing as weather is a major factor in available activities and seeing as I have to adjust to other people´s schedules to play socially I asked a friend if he ha a spare console. Turns out he had an old Xbox lying around that wasn´t being used much so I jumped at the chance.

So far I´ve been sampling Dreamfall and replaying Jade Empire. The former has so far been a bit disappointing. I quite enjoyed The Longest Journey back in the day (being an old adventure game veteran) so the slightly boxy graphics here and there plus the clunky control system were unsurprising but diminishing factors. The story unfolded in a fairly appealing way and only parts of the voiceacting were truly attrocious but the sheer feel of the game was not very tight at all. I know 3-D adventure games rarely have very smooth control schemes but this is no real excuse, it made the game feel a lot less fun after a short while and the fighting system they implemented for no sound reason I can concieve of is utter rubbish. I have yet to decide whether to continue playing it since I did find the story somewhat compelling (and this is of course the most important part of the experience next to puzzles and problem solving), but for now I´ll let it cool off.

My revisit to Jade Empire is a much more pleasant experience. I never got around to finishing much of i before but found it to be quite engaging. The main reason it started collecting dust before completion was that last time I had been playing a fair amount of KotOR (which I loved to bits.. but sometimes the same engine can make games feel samey, like with Thief III vs Deus Ex 2) prior to getting JE. Now it´s been a good long while since last I played a Bioware style RPG and upon encountering one again I still feel they are masters of their craft. The game still feels engaging both in terms of story, character building and combat. Whereas I prefer the tighter tactical fights of KotOR the realtime system here is clearly more suited to the theme, and in many ways I´m more in the mood for a deep character system now than the stripped down one in JE but it doesn´t make an enormous difference. It is still a surprisingly pretty game and hours pass by effortlessly while playing it. Unless I grow bored I think I might go for a completion by the end of the holiday.. That is unless social activities (hopefully) "interfere".

I have other titles available but they are somewhat uninteresting. Sure, Burnout Revenge is bound to pop up now and then (especially two-player mode) but titles like Sudeki and Fuzion Frenzy do little to draw my attention away from the games currently in progress. I also imagine there could be some DS multiplayer action since a large number of people I will meet up here own one so I guess busting out Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS might be in order.