After a couple of months of non-gaming activities (i.e. working hard to meet deadline after deadline at the office) I finally managed to clock a few hours of gaming in the past 5 days or so.
Last Wednesday I played an hour or so of GTA IV on a friend’s console and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Although an hour is not enough to make a judgement on a game like GTA IV I have to day that what I loved most about the game was the convenience of it all. The use of GPS to always direct you to your target, even when missing a turn, the use of the mobile phone to call contacts, get ambulances and also arrange missions and finally the ease of how one can replay missions. Rockstar have greatly reduced the choreload of previous GTAs and instead allow the player to just enjoy game. So it’s a positive start to the game and I hope I play some more this week.
I also made a return to Settlers of Catan on XBLA combined with finally playing the actual board game with friends twice over the weekend. This game is truly exceptional. Probably the finest board game I have ever played. There are many kinds of strategy you can use, one game is almost always different than the others and it allows great comebacks. Superb board game and I really recommend both the excellent XBLA version and of course the physical board game. One thing I should stress about the XBLA game is that I always managed to find people to play against online. It seems that there is a dedicated fanbase for this game.
Last but not least I continued playing Panzer Tactics on the DS. It’s an obscure turn based strategy game during WWII. It is a shame that while Advance Wars is getting all the fame and sales this is a little gem just waiting for DS strategy fans to discover it. I have been playing the single player campaign which has three levels. In the first level, the easiest, you take control of the Axis and start invading Poland, Norway, Belgium and France and so on. Then these are followed by more difficult stages with you leading the Soviets and Allies against the Axis. There is only a US release so anyone interested will have to look in stores on ebay or something. A highly recommended turn based strategy game.
Although I am swamped at work I hope I will able to keep gaming a bit as well. I would be interested in playing cops n crooks with some of you guys on GTA IV.
