Mario is back in the INKling household in the form of my brand spanking new Nintendo Wii. I have been thinking about getting one for ages and now that I have paid off my San Francisco holiday (God, that was back in April!) and got a bit of overtime money I thought I would treat myself to an early Christmas present (the ones you buy yourself are always the best).

Amazon have a pretty good deal on at the moment so I now have Mario Kart Wii and Mario Galaxy jostling for attention with Far Cry 2 and Dead Space. It really is a light and dark approach to gaming. Turn on the 360 and I can expect dark menacing corridors and violent landscapes whereas the Wii is all bright charming colours and harmless puffs of jaunty fire. It's all good. The sad thing is that there aren't enough hours in the day what with this pesky job taking up all my time!

I am really in two minds about Far Cry 2 at the moment. From a technical perspective the game is great. Vegetation sways in the wind and the various scruffy towns and outposts look and feel suitably windswept. The problem is getting around. Every guardpost will attack you on sight and even guys randomly tearing around the countryside are from the "shoot first ask questions later" school of militia. This means approaching each mission as a series of stages but there are plenty of save spots around the place and my best bud Josip is always ready to bail me out.

However, even with all these games I still want more! No More Heroes, Warioware, Gears 2, Mirrors Edge and Ace Combat 6 are all on the inevitable list. Am I a victim of media pressure or just a greedy gamer? Probably the latter....

It's scary, just plain scary and I'm loving every minute of it.

Yesterday was a bit of a cracker for top releases with quality titles like Fable II and Far Cry 2 jostling for my hard earned beer tokens but for me Dead Space was the outside winner. I almost went for Far Cry but my enthusiasm was tarnished when my girlfriend noted that "it looks like every other game." She had a point.

Shooters are often guilty of being generic and even though I will definitely be getting Far Cry 2 at some point I realised I was crying out for something a little different as all those miles of desert made me feel a little, well, tired. Braid filled a little hole but it was like eating a fun-sized Mars Bar as slowly as possible. Dead Space is a bloody steak that you can tear into. The USG Ishimura is a giant haunted house with monsters lying around every corner. Leaping around in zero-g or stomping around in a silent vacuum is really atmospheric and if anyone has an interest in horror then I say go for it.

My opting for Dead Space seems to be a little symptomatic of my game choices at the moment. Whether it's because I feel I have less time or I am more impatient, I am just not inspired by the idea of working as an Albion blacksmith for a couple of hours. After finishing the story in GTAIV I have hardly touched it whereas a couple of years ago I scoured the whole of Vice City looking for hidden packages. Crackdown seemed to be an exercise in repetition and although you could say that almost every action game boils down to "fight monster, get object, fight monster, use object" at least Dead Space does it in bone-chilling styIe

Currently there seems to be a greater emphasis towards larger and larger environments as if bigger is always better but to me that can harm a good narrative. Although the idea of a linear experience seems a bit unfashionable at the moment, surely (if done right) it's much better than just chucking in a load of extra land. If I was being really controversial I would say that the sandbox is the greatest illusion in modern gaming - that's right, I went there

RAGDOLL PHYSICS

This used to the buzz word that we couldn't get enough. According to pedants friend Wikipedia, it was first used in Jurassic Park: Trespasser and now giants like GTA, Halo and Gears of War are flinging limp corpses around with abandon. When bodies were flailing all over the place in Psi-Ops, I couldn't believe my eyes. "Wow, that dead guy looks so real!" Well, I don't know about you but even though i have never seen a dead body I am pretty sure it wouldn't collapse like a tea towel. It's hard to see why we fixated on something as morbid as cadaver physics, I am sure that there is some macabre psychology behind it and on a purely technical level it is impressive. However, in a quest for realistic body physics we have got a more unrealistic looking result.
Limp: Halo, Rainbow Six: Vegas
Limber: Perfect Dark, Mortal Kombat


GOOD VS EVIL

Peter Molyneux has a lot to answer for. In Black & White a subtle change of appearance indicated your familiars personality, no scale and no good or bad-ometer. Then came Fable and we got the sliding scale that made measuring morals a cinch. I must be one of the few players out there that does actually spend a few minutes over the moral choices that some games pose. The last decision in GTAIV had me tied up in knots and I even approached my girlfriend with a 'What would you do?' Introducing a quantifiable scale encourages a lot of my gaming peers to see how far they can push the indicator into the black because we all want to be the cool bad boy, it just doesn't work. Let's have some shades of grey.
Sinner: Fable, KOTOR
Saint: GTAIV, Mass Effect


LEVELLING UP AND GRINDING DOWN

A controversial one but to my mind, completely redundant. To clarify, I am not talking about the unlocking of abilities or items here but the gradual and tedious grind to get that magic number up by a point or two. In an extreme case you could argue that a level boils down to difficulty setting that can only be adjusted by hours of tedious repetition. Any concept of skill is stripped away and the game becomes work for works sake. Having trouble with a boss? Just run around fighting grubs for a couple of hours and you'll have no problem. There are so many more sophisticated ways of giving games a balanced difficulty curve like new enemies, more enemies, newer weapons, increased AI, more complex locations and so on. Personally, I think the grind has had it's day.
Grinds my gears: FFXII, Pokemon
Grinds my booty: Ninja Gaiden, Psi-Ops


THE (SO-CALLED) DEATH OF THE SINGLE PLAYER GAME

Playing online is excellent and as a recent subscriber to XBox Live I have enjoyed some great moments playing Sharpshooter on Rainbow Six: Vegas. Hopefully I will overcome my reservations about communicating with scary strangers and have a go at the various team modes on offer as well. However, for me gaming is mostly about the single player as being a part of a story arc adds to the whole experience. Those that claim that the single player experience is a thing of the past have obviously missed out on the delights of Mass Effect and Half Life 2. In fact, the whole tone of games like Silent Hill or Bioshock totally lend themselves to the solitary experience. I believe that for the most part, a strong emotional connection to a game (or character within it) can only be achieved in it's story element - primarily a one-person pursuit. In the past, games would have a lacklustre multiplayer mode crammed in as an afterthought to the main adventure, I hope that things don't go too far the other way.
Tonto: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Halo 2
Lone Ranger: Portal, Resident Evil


Anybody else got any tired old gaming traditions that should be consigned to the archives of gaming history? I am sure there are plenty out there. Just don't say exploding barrels, I still love the exploding barrels......

I finally connected to Live the other day and have been punishing my poor hard drive with as many demos as it will take. In fact, I am going for it so much that the other night I dreamt that my broadband supplier contacted me to say that I had exceeded my download limit and would have to wait another month to download any more!

I feel a bit weird about the idea of being involved in a game with complete strangers that I can't see but who may want to speak to me over a flimsy headset. I want to try some Rainbow Six: Vegas but have a feeling that I will be completely battered by Rainbow veterans who will punish every mistake I make and then scream how crap I am. Could a grown man be reduced to tears by jibes on his joypad skills? If you see the username in the title running about like a headless chicken you may find out.

The main reason that I decided to take the plunge was because I completed the story in GTAIV and the remaining side missions just don't have the impact that the story had. The last mission was an absolute killer - extremely long and with the potential of an instant fail during a tricky motorbike section which led to a couple of child-like tantrums (I actually stamped my feet at one point). However, it was all worth it in the end as once the titles rolled the whole experience came into focus from the seemingly underwhelming start to the bittersweet finale.

With hindsight the other GTA games seem empty compared with the next-gen Liberty City experience. As Tommy Vercetti you felt that you were the only person in the city and pretty much dictated the entire pace of the game but with GTAIV trouble can come to you and the phone can ring at any time. Put aside any notions that you will be ruling the city, this game is all about starting at the bottom and trying not to sink another 6 feet. Great stuff.

I have decided to give into this tagging craze. I was going to make a really clever point about the state of games and gaming and then postscript it with a reluctant "for all you fans out there" comment before giving my five gems, under duress of course because, you know, I'm too cool for all that stuff. However, I can't think of anything clever or cool to say so here are my five things for all you fans out there.

1 - I have a cat called Marmite (although technically it's my girlfriends cat)

2 - Even though I am 28 I still can't drive

3 - I lived in Tokyo for two years and attended two Tokyo Game Shows

4 - I don't own a mobile phone

5 - I am the only British male who doesn't find Monty Python at all funny, including The Holy Grail

Thanks for the tag Big_Bad_Sad. I am not going to tag anyone else as they might get angry with me.

Lee

After almost 5 years of loyal service I have finally put my PS2 to bed. The last hurrah started a few months ago with the easy-going charm of Canis Canem Edit and finished just days ago with the savage thrills of God of War II and visceral gunplay of Black. All solid titles with a special nod to God of War II which must represent some pinnacle in the PS2's life and a game that I played through far quicker than I should have.

My original plan was to have bought an X360 by now and but I recently discovered Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door for the GC and Call of Cthulu, Jet Set Radio Future and Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for XBox going cheap in local gameshops and all for bargain prices as well, for example Jet Set Radio only set me back 4 quid. Hopefully these titles should keep me entertained for a while but after seeing them through I am definitely going to make the leap to the new generation.

I have wanted a 360 for a while but it seems to be lacking the more diverse titles that I like to try. I love shooters but the 360 seems to be flooded with them and I have heard grumblings that Assassins Creed isn't quite as exciting as I was hoping. On the flipside the Wii offers my only must have next-gen experience (Super Mario Galaxy) but little else that really appeals to me. Do I go for the safe bet I know I will like or the risky choice that I just might love?

Help....