While this is on the front page...

The EDF sequel is indeed great. Much the same as before, but you get to choose an armour type which gives you access to different weapons and abilities. That said, I've only played with the heaviest armour type.

The Summer of Arcade on Xbox is shaping up amazingly. The first game, Bastion, is an awesome light action RPG with a surprisingly good narrative. Highly recommended. The second one, which came out today, is From Dust. It's basically a Lemmings style puzzle game with Populous game mechanics, and an incredibly good fluid dynamics system. If nothing else, it's a technical marvel, but it seems to be a pretty good game too.

This weeks' bargain was found in HMV, and comprises 2 games for which I either:

a) Didn't have an Xbox for at the time of release or
b) Never got around to playing despite the whole world and his dog telling me how amazing it was

Those games? Crackdown and Mass Effect, purchased as a double pack for £10. A straight fiver each then, and I must have already had my money's worth out of Crackdown. Some parts have had me giggling out loud at the sheer glee of it all.

I'll start Mass Effect when I've got a spare week.

So, the 3DS clusterfuck then.

To sum up:

Nintendo follows up the most successful handheld of all time, with a gimmick that turns out to be surprisingly effective, with the best part of a year head start on its ostensible main competitor. And yet, the thing is such a flop that they've had to slash the price by a third less six months after launch (in Europe anyway). And now it's confirmed that they'll be releasing an add-on to provide a second analogue controller, basically admitting they screwed up with the original design.

How did they get it so wrong? On the analogue thing, did they not notice how PSP ports suffered from the lack of twin analogue controls? For Christ's sake, the thing is called a 3Ds, and on a console you need twin analogue for effective 3D movement and control?

Why did they think it was acceptable, years after XBLA and PSN and iTunes and Android market, for the device to ship without an online store?

On the sales front, what made them think they could go a year from launch with the only standout game being a remake of a ten year old title? Which is sold at 40 times the price of an iOS game? Why are they charging £4 for Gameboy games, of which there are only a handful available in the store? Did they think people wouldn't notice that the 3DS has less than a quarter of the battery life of a DSi?

My excitement knows no bounds.

Both of these little beauties are out in time for my birthday. That's my whole years' gaming sorted out then.

Is Child of Eden not out yet on PS3?

I'm tempted by "Dead Island" out this week. Anyone heard much about it?

Good concept marred by some terrible design choices and execution issues, it seems. Not to mention a completely screwed up PC launch where they released a dev build on Steam rather than the gold version.

Tom Chick is probably the most positive reviewer of the game. He's been doing a series of posts on it over at Quarter to Three. See also John Walker at RPS, who's not quite so keen on it.

Cripes! I am still playing 'Pinch Hitter 3' online and seeing sod all wrong with it!

I bought MLB 11, and a controller, and I have a superduper PC, but the fucker still wont work. (Too many choices... I am getting old)

I got "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" for my Xbox (yes, not a 360) the other ady and I've really enjoyed the little time I've spent on it so far - properly atmospheric.

Cheers GY. May wait a bit and see what the post-release reviews say.

I bought MLB 11, and a controller, and I have a superduper PC, but the fucker still wont work.

Possibly because it's a PS3 game.

Is Child of Eden not out yet on PS3?

Nah. 30th September.

I went out and bought GOW3 yesterday. As you do.

Couple of hours in to the campaign, and it's enjoyable despite being a totally predictable re-hash of the first two. Combat seems a lot easier this time round, however - occasionally distressingly so when you come up against a screen-filling enemy who seems oddly susceptible to a few rounds of lancer fire to the eyes.

I'll have a bash at multiplayer later.

I've been playing a fair bit of Dead Island. It's a lot of fun, and I haven't run into any terrible bugs beyond the occasional video card reset, but it does have some really serious UI and design problems.If you like the idea of Borderlands with zombies and melee combat, it's definitely worth playing.

I've been ploughing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution. For something with fairly uninspiring graphics (and I'm a bit over the black-and-orange Blade Runner look) and a very linear plot it's really very good. It's easy to go in thinking that playing it as a shooter is the best way to go, but hacking skills are great for earning experience, and stealth kills (particularly after a long mazey sneak to get into position) are a lot of fun. It's deserved a second playthrough.

I'm just at the end of the (first?) trip to Hengsha. I've been going stealth/non-lethal, but from what I gather this very soon gets frustrating - I'm already doing an ungodly amount of save-and-reloads. I think after I finish up this chapter I'm going to build out my combat abilities and drop the non-lethal approach.

I had the opposite experience, to be honest, but it's a real wrench to try and avoid/circumvent the bad guys. I started out with rifles and pistols, but much prefer the stun gun (and occasionally tranquiliser rifle) now. It's so much more satisfying to pick off the opposition one by one without them noticing.

Mind you, the game's single biggest flaw is that it forces you into boss battles where you have to fight one-on-one, and it's all about dealing and taking damage. It's a ridiculous approach in a game that otherwise rewards stealth and avoiding confrontation.

Anyway, am having a slight diversion via the last DLC for "Fallout New Vegas", "Lonesome Road". Seems excessively lowest common denominator give-them-what-they-want; a linear path in a military base chock full of enormous amounts of heavy weapons and ammo, littered with nuclear warheads that you can detonate to blast paths through the area.

hobbes, you are in for a right treat with Child Of Eden. Very reminiscent of Starwing for some reason, impressively with more immersive music.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a great game, just a pity about the boss fights and the fact that the cloaking aug is a nailed-on necessity. In the first one, I never-ever used the cloak. Just give me my x-ray eyes, autohealing, and recirculator. And you just start with the latter two now.

GOW3 is great fun. The multiplayer is much-improved, with Horde 2.0 and Beast modes being real gems in particular. Horde also features Brumaks (the Cloverfield-sized monsters with rocket launchers and chainguns) now, and the lancer is still the most satisfying weapon in gaming history.

In completely irrelevant news, I ordered 4 bargain games off of play.com two weeks ago, hoping to play one or two of them before GOW3 came out, but they've still not arrived.

Gah. Deus Ex. Brilliant in some ways, totally frustrating in others. Mainly boss fights. Jesus, boss fights. Total freedom of augmentation as long as you don't mind having the floor wiped with your stealth augmented super-spy as soon as the first boss appears. I knew l33t hax0ring was never much help in a pub fight, but really. A slightly dispiriting experience in a fantastically immersive and atmospheric game. Any reason the cloaking mod was necessary notRuairi? Didn't miss it myself. Hacking though. That's a different matter.

Also recently finished LA Noire, DragonAge 2 and Fallout New Vegas. LA Noire was enjoyable but nowhere near as groundbreaking as the hype suggested. The facial animations were amazing but slightly wooden characters, a strangely developed plotline and controls that felt like wading through treacle meant I couldn't quite connect with it.

DragonAge 2 was a pretty good blast, simple battle mechanics notwithstanding. Not sure why it attracted so much hate online. Personally I found it a much more memorable experience than the first.

I haven't played any of the New Vegas DLC. Any worth getting? I got a bit disillusioned having played through the entire game in hardcore mode for my entirely underwhelming 'special' reward. Good game otherwise though. Oh, apart from the Cazadors and the now-almost-indestructible Deathclaws.

Currently clearing the decks, my calendar and any hope of going outside before 2012 for Skyrim. Loved Morrowind, enjoyed Oblivion. Not sure which way this is going to go but I'm cautiously optimistic.

I've been dying a lot on the Eastern Front, in Red Orchestra 2. I thought it would keep me going until Battlefield 3 comes out at the end of October (gimme gimme!!) but it's better than that - I'll be playing it all year.

I love the balance they've struck between realism and fun - ironsights mixed with accurate weapons, almost alll the noise in the game is actually important (it's not as immersive or as jack-hammering as the incredible sound-platter of recent Battlefeld games, but the noises actually mean something, rather than being 'off-map') that sort of thing.

Immense satisfaction in kills made over 150m with nothing more than ironsights, and the fact that you won't get another shot, someone'll snipe you if you don't relocate.

Lovely-looking, brutal but well-designed maps.