games for a change, too?

There seems little genuinely exciting at the games front, currently. Recently I have been testing out mainly Xbox games (with an idea that the fixed system might offer starting points for game studies use, too), but not really so much has come across my path that would seem to have lasting value. There were in an Official Xbox Magazine cover disc (#40) these samples: Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (Xbox Live multiplayer mayhem), Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (this actually appeared rather interesting spy-action, but I got stuck to the seashore), Area 51 (were they serious? no…), TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (actually I did find this rather fun, even if the in-out-phasing alien FPS does not deliver so much originality after a while), Constantine (I love demonic gothic, cannot help it, but the screen was too dark to play-test this during daylight hours), SNK Vs Capcom: SVC Chaos (oh boy does this arcade translation seem old – nostalgia value for some, no doubt), Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (the colourful graphics really made you want to explore the world, but the little gaming skills I have are from mouse & keyboard era, kids’ games are just too damned hard) and Star Wars: Republic Commando (original Halo somehow succeeded in making Sci-Fi action more interesting). After some hours with these, I was left with lots of pretty images, but feeling that I have seen these games, albeit in slightly different guises, many times before.

Actually, some of the Nintendo DS games might be offering fresh touches: I am looking forward to at least the DS version of Animal Crossing and “NintenDogs”, whatever will finally come out of it.

Took a nice walk in the sun during Sunday afternoon; then went for dip into avanto (hole in the ice) at the Kauppi winterswimmers’ sauna. Took also some pictures, but the limitations of Ixus are more clear than ever, as compared to the cameras and lenses I have been considering lately. Doh.