Finished Splinter Cell Conviction, and will say the last half of the game got better and often felt a little like the old SC. Still, the biggest problem was that the easiest solution was often just blasting away, and not stealth. Achievement points suck ass. 330 for completing the game plus doing some extra work too. On the fence with a B-/C+ for it.

Now I'm trying to actually play Half Life 2 again. I tried to play this on the Original Xbox, but was so bored that I quit right after I got the grav gun. I'm getting close to that point again, and my opinion hasn't changed... this is one of the most overrated games. I'm gonna try to stick it out this time. Perhaps the achievements will keep me going? Anyhow, my major sticking point is still the slow progression and terrible (boring) level design.

Transformers: War for Cybertron. This is a pretty excellent game. Its a 3rd person shooter featuring Transformers, but it is not a movie tie-in game (though the bots have the look of their movie versions). Single player has some of the best, and most challenging, boss fights I have played in a very long time. Co-Op is good too because the characters are class based and thus complement each other. Good multi-player levels.

Good:

Boss fights
Co-op
Good length (about 10 hours which is about what I like for a shooter).
Achievements: You can get about 400 just beating the game and lots of other to go back and get. Minimal "collecting" achievements and not a lot of extremely difficult and tedious achievements.
Character interactions: Megatron is actually pretty funny and bossy while Optimis has his awesome Peter Cullen voice.

8.8/10

Not as Good (but not "bad"):

Levels: all kind of look the same. Industrial and dark.
Multiplayer Menu System: This requires you go through about 3 load screen just to get into a match or co-op match. Also, it cannot distinguish between levels you have and levels you did not pay to download. Ex, it will go through the 3 load screens and then put you into a game where you do not have the available new levels and thus kick you back to the menu This can happen 3-4 times in a row and is very annoying.

8+ levels into Half Life 2 and for the life of me can't figure how this is considered to be a great game. It's often painful to play. Far too many "lever" puzzles that block progress, and some damn confusing level design.

Playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum finally, and it's pretty great so far.

Split Second - Actually pretty fun so far. Too bad it didn't sell more. Definitely a lot better than Blur. Perhaps a little too Burnout 3 copycat-ish (without the crash mode), but if you're going to copy a game, that's a good one to do.

While my friend was still here vacationing we finished Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy and Lego Batman. I still think Indiana Jones is the best out of the Lego series.

Split/Second is getting a little more grinding as it goes on. The difficulty is getting stupid, and most race wins feel more like luck then skill, and the tracks are starting to repeat too much. Still a good game, but the early magic is fading.

Just Cause 2 - Having trouble getting into this one. The grappling gun has some fun uses, but it's missing that certain something that sucks me into a game.

Backbreaker Football - An original feeling football game, with some nice physics and ideas that are different from Madden. But, it needs a lot of polish still - running game is difficult and passing is awkward.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero - So far I like what I see and it's got me psyched for DR2. They walked that fine line of making just the right amount of tweaks without changing the way the game plays or feels. Mowing down hoardes of zombies with a variety of weapons is still as fun as it ever was.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say I'd like to have seen the game use more actual voice dialogue and less of the text dialogue.

Going To Buy Metroid Other M tomorrow, expecting to be enjoyable as the Prime series

Achievement whoring time!!!! I've slipped recently and am 3000 points behind my bro, and since Facebook got stupid games, my wife won't play any of these anymore.

Madagascar Kart Racing - Kinda hard for a kids game. 600 easy-ish points before I couldn't take anymore.

Sonic Kart Racing - Actually a halfway decent-ish game.

On Deck: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Toy Story 3. Hopefully that'll cover the 3k points I'm down... I can't play much more of these.

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4

Best Lego game in the series and it also looks the best. Very detailed backgrounds, especially in Hogwarts, which is everyone's favorite HP place. Tons of characters. The game mechanics are similar to all Lego games except this time the players have a lot of different attacks due to the magic system. It also has high replay value and is not at all difficult, though it can be time consuming.

There are some negatives. The game freezes a lot. I rented it and counted 5 freezes. There are also a lot of glitches. One such glitch caused me to be stuck at 98.7% and thus miss out on 180 achievements. Stupid auto save system. Apparently the glitches are known to Travelers Tales but they have not released a patch. If you plan on getting it, I suggest googling the glitches so that you can avoid them and get 100% completion.

B. Slightly ahead of Lego Star Wars (Original Series) and a lot better than Indiana Jones.

Played a little of NBA 2K11... this year's game looks utterly amazing.

Def Jam Rapstar: Never even played a Karoke style game before but with that said it's hard to believe if there is another game in this genre that is better at letting you try to live out your virtual music dreams. This is also the first music game I know all the tracks too. Too bad they are all Radio Edits but they probably had to censor the game to make the accountants happy.

NBA Jam: Boom Shaka Laka!! One of the best games of the year hands down, still as much fun as Playing it in the arcade 15 years ago, and the Wii motion controls to dunk and block are very intuitive.

Kirby's Epic Yarn: Very cute game that hardcore gamers just will not get as it is just to easy to play through but the challenge comes from unlocking all the levels and secrets. The level design is good and the new way Kirby interacts with enemies is refreshing. I don't really like the narration so i skip the inrto's. I'm really impressed with the Wii's game releases over the past month and it looks like we'll be getting several other quality games over the next six weeks.

Still playing Fallout: New Vegas. enjoying it, but it seems too easy compared to the last Fallout. I seem to be zooming up in levels and I have hardly even dealt with the main quest.

FIFA 2011 and KIRBY Epic Yarn, a very colorful, original and great plattform game, still playing, right now at Space World (or something like that)

yeah, narration sucks,,,it is horrible,,,, hoping Donkey Kong and Diddy don't speak,,,nintendo has been doing this in the last couple of games like Metroid and Kirby

please GOD, NEVER give voice to Link

COD: BLOPS: I can't say it is a bad game so far, but holy hell is this overrated. At least in terms of the single player. Seems pretty standard war shooter. Tries too hard to be full of action. Far too much going on at any given time. Takes away from forming any type of strategy.

NFS: Hot Pursuit: The best NFS series. I've always liked the Most Wanted/Hot Pursuit ones. Graphics aren't anything special, and the rubber band AI is crazy - basically you can't really win a race until the other cars mysteriously quit trying so hard in the last mile. Still... it's a fun racer.

Oh, and I think the believability factor in NFS is low.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

A+

Almost done with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. A+ one of the best games ever. Naughty Dog has delivered one of my favorite franchises on each generation of playstation. Starting with Crash Bandicoot, then Jack and Daxter, now Uncharted. Rock on.

I wish they would do another Crash game. Warped was the last great Crash game...

I played through Crash 2 again over the summer. So much fun. Even if it's just a DLC game they need to make atleast one more.

Sims 3 - Forgot how addictive the Sims can be. It's definitely a game that works on the PC better (like most strategy games), but the gap is getting closer. It really hasn't changed much since Sims 1, and the console feels limited (no mods), but it still can be fun and addictive. B+

Truth or Lies - One of the worst games I have played. Should have been an arcade game. Basically it is text screens asking questions. You speak into the mic and the game determines if you are lying or telling the truth. It is completely broken, though and is just random. A very easy 1000 points (about 1 hour of play), but a terrible game. F

Strategy and virtual life games always works better with the pc because of the mods and customized content like you said. I would even say vs the console, its usually 1 or 2 grades higher too.

Anyhow keeping to the last game played subject

DC Universe Online (PS3)

I havent played a MMO in over 7 years so it was quite refreshing to play one that isnt about grinding levels by killing the same things over. Its more of an action rpg and the world is breath taking. Then after I hit the level cap, there isnt much to do with the game so I cant see myself paying for another month especially when its quite hard to set up a group. Maybe the game would be more enjoyable to the DC fanatics
pre-level 30 A-
Post level 30 C-